change will come. the changes im looking for in myself. its two steps forward, one back. keep going. im flying solo, i dont have the feather-bed of close friends to buoy and buffer, cajole and correct. im a hedgewitch, a solitary. ive never yet found my niche, my place, my family. ive never yet been invited to join in a circle of hearts for any occasion, occult or mundane. im comfortable on the outside but the craving for communal fires is fierce sometimes. im okay on the outside. im acclimated to the terrain. but sometimes when the footing gets slippery id love a hand to hold, an eye to meet. honestly, im resigned to loneliness this lifetime. i used to think it was because i was broken. now i dont assume to understand. im on the outside and ive got the vast inner landscape of myself to wander and im paying some karmic price and its a sad suffering only sometimes. mostly the peace and quiet are more than welcome. but sometimes i think how interesting it would be to feel at home in the presence of man. to make connections, make friends. i dont think its toolate, i just think its doubtful. and im learning to be okay with it, okay in not-just-resigned way...nattering about self-imposed alienation...



spring. something dug deeply in my garden bower, disemboweling any hopes of early sproutlings. even the peas seemed to have rotted in their shallow graves. so we begin again. hope lies at the bottom of the box. the bleeding heart sends up its asparagus shoots, the lambs ear is rampant already. i tell myself it looked like this last year, that april breeds lilac from the bare ground. that the hyacinth is only now emerging like an alien emissary from the bulb underworld. that these things take time. in zone 5. it all needs tilling over again anyway.



nasturtium rocketing toward the light. some tomato, parsley up in droves, broccoli looking just like broccoli does out of the egg. the forms are becoming familiar. the iris returning, knifing up through the neglect. the comfrey run roughshod into early winter sod springing up like a lost dog, chipper and overall pleased, a new day. i keep mama cat fed, keep her happy hormones up and making milk for the little panteras who havent even opened their eyes to the world. names are contemplated.

“Under the philosophy that now seems to guide our destinies, nothing must get in the way of the man with the spray gun.”



field trip to the landfill. inspiring, the effort theyre making to make it better. the dogs didnt eat the kittens. the stillborn from the morning is still wrapped like a burrito on the bookshelf. i suppose i should go out in the snow and bury it next to the eggs. four other sleek squirming otter headed babies in a laundry basket in #4's room. the mother is startlingly affectionate. her ordeal seems to have softened her, motherhood has made her tame. two pure black, one tuxedo and one remarkable tortoise shell. blessed be. they are so magical and sweet.

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”



snow. just a dusting, and the air is clean and when it blows we remember november. but this wind blows change and the green shoots are not afraid. the little body wrapped in a blue bandana goes under the blackberry brambles.

“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference”



ive been inside, away. the wave comes over me and i disappear for awhile. im grateful for the meds and sleep and something to do with my days.


28 of 365:

1. kittens
2. environmental consciousness
3. crossword puzzles
4. baking soda and vinegar
5. books
6. a thermos of coffee
7. my inhaler
8. music
9. blue heelers

“Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.”



monday morning rain. up and at 'em head up and ready to go. #4 and i admiring one anothers bags and circles, badges of a wild weekend. after dinner i offer tips on perfecting the armpit fart effect. i correct the math longhand. i leave the dishes and the laundry for tomorrow. he wants to travel deeper into the once and future king. theyre predicting snow. im feeling jagged and fragmented. a blind mosaic.


“This has been a most wonderful evening. Gertrude has said things tonight it will take her 10 years to understand.”



the greencellar seedlings emerge. an incomplete list: holy basil, four types of tomato, bolivian carrot pepper, orange bell, nasturtium, parsley, hollyhock (for next year), broccoli, collards. lovely. with the snow coming im glad i didnt rake off the pea seeds entirely. but the outdoor seeds havent shown their stuff yet.

“Every one of us is sort of a figment of our own imaginations.”



mama cat enlarging, monopolizing the cat dish. the others defer. at one point i found her with her face in the wet suppy, holding the old cat at bay with a paw on her throat. the banana box is prepared.


“If you can't get out of something, get into it.”



the day was cool and damp, a gentle maritime quality i love. the feeback on this weekends fete was glowing. i comfort myself with yukon gold mashed potatoes and mint chip ice cream. well read a few chapters and early to bed. hopefully by the end of the week ill be able to think in complete sentences. blessed be.

“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.”



the first birthday sleepover. a success. blessedly self-regulating, movies, legos, pizza, sweets. up all night under one blanket in the tv room. breakfast of huge cheese omelette, bacon, buttered toast. i make cinnamon rolls from a dough of yukon gold potato and cream. theyve all called their mothers and are off to the parking lot to skate illegally. i eat an enormous cinnamon roll that far exceeds expectations alone at the kitchen table.

“The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.”



the day is brilliant and clear. i go out to the creek in my bare feet and stand on the plank bridge #4 built. spring baptism. i feel good that he has friends and that he also isnt afraid to go his own way as he sees fit. the teacher says hes an independent thinker and i think ive done my job, so far. #3 farther and farther away on the burning boat. one for you, one for me.


“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”



theres a rift in the clan, two women on one farm is never a good idea. everyone listens and no one thinks. got up after having gone to bed, drink two glasses of lovely beaujolais and wonder at how he can simultaneously defend me and deride me. i was tense and took a hot shower. im supposed to be worried about her sabotaging my job because we let her in. me, with the witch bumperstickers in the company parking lot. there are few left to surprise with the shock and awe of and did you know...

“We must be our own before we can be another's.”



i should be walking but need to man the HQ in case moms call or boys break a bone or both. theres one straggler that stays behind to watch godzilla with the cowboy. the day will go quickly, birthday dinner and a little lego shopping, get the cowboy his fishing license. the hoard disperses. cowboy and i unused to the rock-n-roll lifestyle drag through the afternoon. my peas show no sign, but there are lettuce and marigold and some tomato spirits reaching up toward the steady artificial basement light.


“If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that”

"God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through."



glorious. warm. the breeze belongs to a true spring, high blue and thin gauzy things of cloud for the eye to play with, as a kit plays with its shadow, a cat its tail. the eye wants for color and shape, unconsciously kindled by the scent of mud and new water, the eye is hungry. the eye realizes that its hungry. and everyday the colors change, the light changes, everything grows greater and more intense, it rises from within itself and is carried by time and the wind toward and into our blood, our souls. spring.

"Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious."



"The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be."

spring a pale goddess ankle deep in the creek, spread snow-angel in the brown meadow, belly to the sun. spring, singing the buds awake, they open to hear her. spring follows faun prints through the woods laced even still with sharp tats of snow. follows the song of water follows the thrust of the bud follows the longer shadows into a gentle night ever erasing at either end, the stars changing station, watching over other seasons elsewhere.



this morning made coleslaw and sauced the shoulder for the boys, came home and made sharp cheddar mac and cheese, we feasted. but the day was long and i felt as if i were treading deep water, the meds a floatie strapped around my neck by a well-meaning guardian. all that unseen effort just to breathe. creamy tang for creamy tang was a comfort, made by my hand, and i always remember when carl sagan said that if you really wanted to make an apple pie from scratch youd have to start with the big bang.


"The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect."



poodles go to groomers, i still cant find the elusive indoor watering can, the precarious alpine pile of media avalanches in fits and starts into the crevasse between the counter and the fridge. the boys have eaten well, and theres ice cream.

"Nothing retains less of desire in art, in science, than this will to industry, booty, possession."



in the dim evening bringing through the first open windows of spring the smell of rain valleys over waiting for night the radio plays tom waits singing you can never hold back spring. ani sings work your way out. some days are more difficult than others to navigate but i am never not amazed at the wending path i find myself following blind. i know theres a pony in there somewhere, the old joke goes.

"I may not believe in myself, but I believe in what I'm doing."


driving to work with #4, almost late, a tom turkey is courting in the dead grass. i turn around, pull into the circular rut in front of the empty farmhouse. hes enormous and grand. i notice for the first time the rudder feathers behind him, giving the impression of length to add to the great ruffled width. the hen is slender, a pin to his ball, an elegant apostrophe to his pregnant parenthesis. the image of them carried me through the day, that man may blunder and folly his way through the world but its spring and there will be more turkeys. more of everything that has the sense to thaw its blood and dance in a meadow on the first april morning.

"If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts." --Camille Paglia


i got lonesome today, that lonesome i get when i long to be away, smelling the sky and walking away, deeper into elsewhere, watching the light and walking away. that lonesome that reeks of people. that lonesome that eats like salt or sand, when what i wish to be is most alone in the wood or on the ocean. away. this line of work, any line of work that blends one into the yogurt-smelling concoction of humanity, tests my ability to give the impression that im capable of keeping it together. i surprise myself.

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise."


i bought #4 swedish fish as a surprise. i bought milk for breakfast and a root beer for the agita and the man and i laughed about the local law enforcement and i put twenty-two cents in the take a penny leave a penny and she was sitting at her table with her one-eyed father and his huge grizzled friend sid eating port wine cheese and crackers from the sleeve wearing a blue knit hat with this huge pompom on top. sid says we met before and i cant imagine. dusty likes to drink beer and drive too fast. she grew up in this house. i remember last summer her father dead drunk on the neighbors lawn as the band played comfortably numb.

"I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction."


tonight im looking forward to wading deeper into once and future king with #4, trying to sleep without pharmaceutical assistance, and dreaming in the big ship in the dark hamlet in the cloud valley in the blue world. jerry croons country and i eat cereal for supper after everyones gone. i try to do my best but i dont think its quite good enough, or right. its a brokedown palace, listen to the river. outside the peas are sprouting. underground the broccoli sends up its two-ply seedling and the lettuce stretches up pale hands toward bars of light. evening comes.

"There was no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of pure chance."

they let me come to work again, so i have that going for me.



(this part rattled behind me all day so i deleted it).



the dogs got their stitches out, z. and i can go back to disc-ing. the afternoons thrown off from having to travel so #4 and i eat box mac-n-cheese in front of the laptop. the weeks getting warmer. im remembering to water the seedlings, to take my meds, to stretch. im working a full day and still getting it done on the farm. but im fried from trying to explain mathematical remainders to children who pick their nose and eat it. someone told me mennonites will take the kittens for their milking barns, but if one has extra toes, i might have to grant asylum. winding through the sunlight jerry and floyd, orpheus and alans psychedelic breakfast, the dog barfing on my beloved organic fair-trade mexican feedbag satchel. roll the windows down, dear, feel the wind in your hair. whiskey horses and moo-cows, i hit a squirrel and figure some cold-eyed crow will eat for a day. somedays the words dont come and its not my job to kick the straw and roust them out. you dont rush the growing by pulling on the leaves. i help with homework, do the dishes, sing along. the words rustle in the hayloft. one day theyll rise.

the cat meme...





1. frodo needs a good home.
2. frodo needs a carputer!
3. frodo needs money.
4. frodo needs Elvis Medicine!
5. frodo needs a Samwise.
6. frodo needs good people around who can help him resist the power of the ring.
7. frodo needs a diversion from his fear.
8. frodo needs cheering up.
9. frodo needs us.

“The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.”



or, there and back. secretly enjoying the mind silence that disconnection brings, but glad to be back in the fold of hearts and hands and back to the world and the words and this little place i tuck away my cloudrambles and riverdreams. hello again and most welcome.

"Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”


well. started seeds under long lights underground. started hardy seeds Out There where yesterday it was sixty and today it snowed. lettuce, spinach, chard, white radish. the cat is pregnant, the dogs were spayed. found an old schwinn breeze in mint condition on the side of the road to match the one my mom left behind, a collegiate. working steady. late march feels like november. less and less it matters whats said, who thinks what. i admit, out loud, that people exhaust me.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”


my dreams have been vivid. gobi, you were in one, had a quizzical child. another im wading over a sandbar opening boats loaded with bakery. the waves crash onto the rocky shore, the sea floor is paved in brilliant tiles and enormous silver galleons. he tried to see me, not in dreams, and my absence from the wavelength made me miss him. another spring, my brother.

"when god lets my body be/from each brave eye shall sprout a tree"


soon april, and a sleepover bonfire speedometer cake celebration. she and i stood at the edge of the playground and discussed our various psychological burdens. still so much unsaid. after rain the night clarifies into chalky horned moon and burning stars, sweet cool country air and the sound of water singing over rocks the boys bridge and bumble over after school were all back together and theres a moments peace between skirmishes, blessed be. i think about the seeds there underground, unfurling the ancient flags of information and symbiosis, knowing up from down and acting accordingly. i can already taste the joy of their first light, the surrender from the secret shell, the little green flags, breathing.

"nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands"


27 of 365:

1. the two tech guys who resurrected my laptop over the phone.
2. spring.
3. peace between the wars.
4. dogs.
5. sharing a bowl of ice cream while i catch up and he reads about left bank lesbians.
6. e.e. cummings.
7. the fierce irrational grip of jigsaw puzzles with #4.
8. the safe and happy arrival of the littlest okie.
9. the dogs got spayed (the cat, however, finds herself in the family way).
10. this.

"for sale, baby shoes, never worn."



sunlight through hoya leaves quiet afternoon.

i can breathe again, which is pretty cool. the growing light has been singing songs to my fingers. i transplanted some strangling aloes and some oxalis and ferns and a snake plant and the seeds came in so theres that, but its been arctic around here. not windy, not snowy, just cold. i went down to the lake and the feeder creeks are frozen in their beds and im angling for a shot and my boot goes through the ice but nothing soaks through and i like the little message She sends me, now dont go traipsing all cocky up the ice thinking im all about getting you a good snap. one seagull wheels about the thin ice, breaking away from shore until its blue water beyond. all good beachstones under a pane, one green beach glass on shore. she hugged me and i needed that. and im learning about myself. not all rainbows and butterflies, certainly not, but its learning and damn if it isnt as empowering as they say.

dont leave without the digital camera.



my dreams lately have all been terrible. violence, cowardice, loss. at one point in the last dream i said, "i cant believe my self-preservation instinct is kicking in," then everyone else gets killed because the woman who the man bought dinner was really a lover of a man the first man had convicted and sentenced, like a lawyer or a judge. so the lovermans posse finds the family and friends of the lawyerman sitting out at night and kills them all right after i hear the car door slam and realize something terrible is going to happen and i was supposed to bring the lawyerman his rifle and things hed left behind but knew the posse would associate me with the rifle so i scuttled away and they were all killed. and i know the lawyerman is standing by his car on the curb watching this in horror and i know hell blame me because i didnt take the hit instead of them. that was last night.

i really love and respect dogs.

happy to breathe and i can get stuff done around the house tomorrow, for days ive done nothing but sleep while the kids were at school. there was no air. i was, i guess you could say, exhausted. but massive doses of steroids buoy me up to be useful. puttering, one of my favorite things. and im scheduled for a mammo next week, the doc says its a year late. so blessed be i have the insurance to get my glands in the squish and see whats what.



labradorite, larimar, chrysoprase, danburite, yak bone.

“To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write”



ive been away. a few days of being depleted completely, not even the energy to read, to focus word to word. just space and sleep, no appetite, no sensation. then it lifts and a well of phlegm and no air. my teeth ache. everyone is sick. februarys nadir. the new bed, big enough for all of us and i move in. there are candles and roses and ferns, feathers and photos and books. its cold and colder and everythings dry and frozen hard, the stepping stones of firewood attached to the grass im out there in the afternoon glare kicking at it, nothing smells of anything, but it could be the congestion. went back to work, everyone talking about death and the boy had photos of the newborn lambs. this ones name is iris. this is the afterbirth. were in the little room, engaged in animated conversation about trapezoids and right isosceles triangles, computing at a fever pitch. its lovely. its lovely to connect to these children, these children lost in the wash of teaching to the test. its lovely sharing my love of learning and seeing it catch. the little boys uncle died and he wondered how i knew. were all connected. these stories, these ghost stories told around the campfire, the spirits, our deaths, are so close. we speak of them. we have not forgotten you, our deaths, the spirits of undissolved strangers, the rain and light that holds all the atoms of our histories. theres a tornado in me, bright and whirling. sparks and sharp stars. im skittering, bouncing around the room (the echo of whoever spoke) a seed splitting in the dark earth, a lamb rolling in the womb, ready.




“Generally speaking, everyone is more interesting doing nothing than doing anything”



26 of 365:

1. al, the polar bear
2. blue sky tibetan incense
3. the bed
3. getting to spend all vacation with #4
4. cheap french red
5. its a cold, not lymphoma
6. chocolate
7. money to get the trucks fixed
8. i done got over it
9. im experiencing an expansive block of time without free floating anxiety and
self-loathing and im GIDDY with it