"November is beautiful as the word sounds, is gray, is bare,
Is compact of wind, of leaves blown and the thin, tall rain;
Brought back to our care are the dead in November,
and the air of these days is charged with their pain.

For these are not the free dead, not the remote, bright crowd
Of our picture-book, or our image of nebulous heaven:
These are caught, tangled in a web comfortless as a shroud—
These have not familiar place, nor flight, nor oblivion, even.

They have not escaped yet-they are close in the clouds massing
together;
At the cold first drop you will stare on the dark ground and remember.
They are the accent of autumn, they are the source of the tone of this
weather.
The heart is reached by the waiting dead, in their month, in November."

Thinking of you, Molly Bloom.

"When I grow up I want to be art."

Having a mad affair with my sisters brother-in-law and theres some raging gun waving man firing rounds into a desk. my friend crashes a flamenco demonstration and we totter down steep stairs lined with tropical plants. i explain the genetic relationship of one plant to another. the man has a big house cluttered and lonesome im walking down the road with a woman who cooperates with a man to smuggle some persecuted demographic out of the country so the oppressors cant kill them and theres an agent outside in a car listening and im waiting at the bottom of the hill and the agent is watching me waiting and when she emerges from the house she shoots the man helping the oppressed and i understand she did that so the agent couldnt torture him and the agent is waving his pistol around and im lying on the ground with my hands over my head and were back at the house and im considering a wardrobe change. all day with the wee ones and im inspired to live more mindfully and free pastry and she said there werent such things as witches and i cant find my hat.

What im knitting.

"Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise."

Dreamed we went into the baptist church with a huge white dog but the guy wasnt thirty seconds into his sermon and i had to leave. learned how to I-cord. knit some mitts for the granddaughter. thirty seems balmy, the snow melted like march, the hearth heart of the home bright and beating. the domestic storm passes leaving a quiet calm that i can breathe in. they had a benefit for her and no one came, but i knit a sock and sang along to the bar band covers of james gang, badfinger, grand funk. the cloud is clean but grey and this deep season may call for something new. flannel fitted and cotton duvet cover. setting goals and making plans to dance in the new calendar year with my Higher Self. grateful for what is. trying to raise them. raise them Up. lemon tea and local honey, wrote lunar, loner. read oz with #4 as the snow fell. remembering to breathe.

Something in me in Deep Hibernation. Something sleeping, waiting for Spring.

Sunday. a walk west for the crest of killing season the woods were quiet and peaceful and the wind blew through the branches and made a sound like water over stones. small chores and the boys back in the evening i just go blank and wait for bed. the hearths in tomorrow and a long week before we begin the holiday through long darkness into light.

Dowager cat gets huge squirrel left in the leaves by the bathtub planter. O. and L2 go to dog spa but the power goes out. i ache. to the city for dinner with sister who doesnt say much and N1 is pre-med next year doesnt like children pregnant women or old people. she drove the car into a berm but the berm works. stress and television we discuss our favorite car wrecks and the lost farm. im the laughing liberal mincing from room to room as the ignorant vitriol sloshes through the house. the menfolk watching an old black-and-white made entirely with dogs in prison outfits. everything seemed pressed through a mesh strainer, strained. the dogs ate my nation magazine.

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.”

Not much. Not even the attempting to seem useful. H1 came over with the Bts. and they played legos with #4 and we figured it was about time to get resigned. bought a dog book and an austen flick and stovepipe and called it a day. couldnt sleep, contemplated housework. slept.

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

who id like to be when i grow up.

"Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time."

To town for civic duty i show off my socks and drink a lot of water. home to a bowl of ice cream and dinner bread and stew for the boys. my vitals are excellent, she says. people take second looks at me, people fix their eyes and wonder who i am, i must seem more familiar. maybe its the vest that makes me look like everyone else. maybe its the atlantis stone, heightening the vibration. she says i gave about as much as a carton of half-n-half and im more tired than usual and started new socks in sherbet colors. to bed and book, the pack arrange themselves around us.

"Art thou pale for weariness/Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,/Wandering companionless/Among the stars that have a different birth,/And ever changing, like a Joyless eye/That finds no object worth its constancy?"

A days work the pink november morning strong coffee an extra rx these days because. moonwalk with #4 and dogs so bright the cold mist of the moon and the deer running before us in the road and the smell of a small town at night in november. atlantis stone. a tall candle and cherry amber for tomorrows civic duty and cement. so familiar the feeling of far away.

oh yeah.

"It's a lot better to hope than not to." Snow. Knitting. Stacked wood. Pie and coffee. Dinner and a book. Something tied down and put away, the tender bruise that never heals, but patience and courtesy a cup to share. I think of it as a small brown rabbit that will rest in an underwood warren until the spring and sniff the new air and eat the fresh shoot and make a go of it again, moondance and hawkshadow. but the words wont come easy for awhile, the words recede into the sleeping ground into rabbitdreams leaving charcoal sketches like the bare branches of trees.

All One.

"...bone-hard, lake-cold, moon-lonely..."

"Any human who feels that he or she is not "good enough" to cultivate peace and generosity is overlooking the wondrous gift of life. You live, therefore you are good enough."

Thanks again, #4.

Bright Idea #109: "We are the ones for whom we have been waiting."

Heavy mist lifted quickly. 3am B1 woke me up and L1 sick all over the second floor, kind enough to get off the bed to barf. after a long but stepping stone sleep im up and determined to un-crazy the house. more crazy dreadful dreams looking looking explanations negotiations lack. but a clean floor and a sunny day and fresh sheets and ill get mennonite eggs on the way to the meeting and bake those bread and honey muffins something happy and sweet. and the boys in the boiler room loved the monkey bread and it feels good, this shout-out, like sunlight after solitary. and the sec. calls to say im not allowed on the bus anymore and of course im thinking "but i stayed in my seat and didnt shout and said thank you!" but thanks to the bottomless-ukie-spirit-bike (and the equally generous spirit of my dear Louise) theres enough to get me there and back maybe a day or two. grateful i can get a little housework done and the hearth will be in soon and a bookshelf to house the yearning masses and an easy day tomorrow being someone else and making a wage at it. as the day progresses so does the sick and i ferret out some random otc capsule just to see if it heads off the rising army that ive tracked for a month now like its My Internal Weather Report, which i suppose it is. out to get mennonite eggs and positive reinforcement as to my parenting which means the world to me laughing loud at the meeting reading about dog woman vs. evil chicken and his minions. post office shout-outs she remembers #4 im buoyant down the road to home a yard full of boys and feeling good enough for dinner maybe cheese omelet and toast then bed and work and a long weekend. blessed be.

Bright Idea #108: "The only way to live is to accept each minute as an unrepeatable miracle."

Little air. Walked up the stairs of town hall a xeroxed sheet of paper on the door like Luthers theses reading "vote here today" and a little room they turn their faces toward me and they cant pronounce my name and its click click click click click tah-dah and i linger to study the displays of turtle stones and arrowheads and wampum beads and brittle newspaper articles about a country doctor that delivered the babies that became the folks that gave me a sticker and showed me the fancy new scanner theyll be using in two more years. i went home and made empanadas and monkey bread and listened to my public radio station over the internet and knitted and sang little reassuring prayers to my optimism and when i felt like it was safe went straight to bed and woke up entirely happy and relieved. blessed be.

Bright Idea #107: "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again."

Blustery warm cat-stretch under the duvet. going room to room making small adjustments, giving the green plants a good drink, dusting the dressers, avoiding the gravitational pull of sock knitting and snacks. i watched the missionary stand at the edge of the invisible fence, testing his faith. i caught his eye, and said, no. he said, no. then the dogs came inside and had biscuits. O. needs a bath, my hands are dry and covered in tiny cuts, i missed his call, and im in that awful state that is simultaneously torpid and restless. the afternoon doldrums burnt off, i made chili and finished a sock listening to npr. we sat down for supper and #4 discussed democracy, culture and lunchtime then suggested a moonwalk so the two of us and B2 and Z. ventured into the cool spiced night where the stars were many but the neighbors wet leaf smoke lay over the houses like a high cloth. he drew symbols in the dirt and i am grateful for these simple times together. i am also grateful that i have the air in my lungs to make the walk up and over and down. i am grateful i get to vote and hope it gets counted. i am grateful i get to work at a place i love. i am grateful for my family and my home. i am grateful for clean water and a safe bed. i am grateful that somehow i figured out how to knit socks and perform the amazing kitchener stitch. i am grateful that i can cook and bake for my family and they enjoy it and are nourished body and soul. i am grateful for the opportunities this world affords me to love and grow and share my Light. i am grateful for the Light.

Bright Idea #106: "Before we can become truly happy, we need to believe that we are of equal value to anyone in the world, and we need thoroughly and radically to eradicate any vestige of belief that we are less than others, or less worthy of happiness than others."