in the garden

whisper right here, originally uploaded by McBeth.

While discussing some subject matter
that may have been relevant, timely
or possibly important,

The center of my left pupil connected to the center of her right pupil.
They locked.
I was fully aware that it was happening, as it happened.
This event lasted approximately four point two seconds.

Moments later I recognized the tremble of my exhilarated finger tip nerves,
and realized my life will never be the same.

up in the air

boiiiiing, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Think off-center.

-- George Carlin

numbers

how high can you get?, originally uploaded by McBeth.

It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.

-- George W. Bush

culinary lesson

lunch date with KD, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Caste System

1. Brahmans: priests
2. Kshatriyas: royals or warriors
3. Vaisyas: merchants or professionals
4. Sudras: workers
5. Untouchables: beggars or diseased

inheritance

sideways glance, originally uploaded by McBeth.

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors,
we borrow it from our children.

-- Native American proverb

begin here

so easy to open up to you, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest.The blessing is in the seed.

-- Muriel Rukeyser

have a heart

drop by drop, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Talk on, talk on, but love is what you need.
And sooner or later that love is gonna make you bleed.

-- Bonnie Raitt

human being

dried up, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Focus your attention not on what you are doing but rather, who you are being.

barely blushing

her lips were so soft, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

okay

a body at rest, originally uploaded by McBeth.

“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.

-- Virginia Satir

mother's day

there'll be no 'smile pretty and say cheese' here, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Oh, what a complicated blend of frustration, envy, anger, hopelessness, commitment and deep deep love I have with my mother.

I admire her for so so so many of her fine qualities. She is gentle, especially with the children she works with in the public schools, kids who don't have anything near that kind of compassion and patience with their own parents.

I was angry for a long time, probably too long, when my son was young, when my mom would let other people's kids call her 'gramma' because they either didn't know their own grandparents, or the kids' grandparents lived across the country, making relationship difficult. That's how she is though, giving out so much to others, sometimes more than I personally think she ought.

I'm sure I did things that embarrassed my mother along the years. I sometimes used my smart mouth to my own disadvantage, I have a vigorous stubborn streak (still).

I'd like to say to you today mom, I think we've done alright despite our imperfections. I continue to love you beyond measure. And I hope I am shaping up to be the person you hoped I'd grow up to be.

xo

sustenance

pork and salsa, originally uploaded by McBeth.

The cliché that women, more consistently than men, turn inward for sustenance seems to mean, in practice, that women have richly defined the ways in which imagination creates possibility; possibility that society denies.

-- Patricia Meyer Spacks

teach him what he is

presently his horse is being watered, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.

-- Pablo Picasso

soupy politics

chicken pole, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

-- John W. Gardner

keep trying

nueva cancion's mini musicians, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

-- Samuel Beckett

dying wish

fallen, originally uploaded by McBeth.

If you can't go around it, over it, or through it, you had better negotiate with it.

-- Ashleigh Brilliant

finished business

UMD, originally uploaded by McBeth.

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming with a goal in front and not behind.

-- George Bernard Shaw

signing up

hyacinthththths, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Some people plant in the spring and leave in the summer. If you're signed up for a season, see it through. You don't have to stay forever, but at least stay until you see it through.

-- Jim Rohn

awol

If you happen to find a wayward keychain wallet-y looking thing that looks sad and lost, will you please give it directions back to my house? It somehow managed to meander away while I was at work tonight and I am already missing it terribly.

You can check all the stuff inside. If my drivers license, social security card, medicare card, foodstamps card and debit card don't provide you enough clues to who I am or where I live, you can try the car and house keys to see if they'll work in my locks.

Feel free to help yourself to whatever is in the fridge. I only ask that you clean up after yourself.

Thank you.

move on

go ahead with your own life, originally uploaded by McBeth.

Seven pounds and eleven ounces of holy cow,
Bald for the first year or so,
Blond ringlets the following few

A meteorological worrier those first five years,
keeping a close eye on dew points and scary lightning,
Managing his world by understanding it

The year or two of getting dragged to Saturday morning rec activities
Because its good for you, that's why.

The odds have regularly been stacked against this one.
Well-behaved. Quiet. Slightly introverted.
Single child in single parent household.
One hundred seventy five percent of fed. poverty level.
Occasionally unstable parent. The other one too.

But loved? Oh my. Yes.
Unto embarrassment, probably, but
what is the point of loving if it cannot be demonstrated?

And now.
Now.
He's moving on, as each kid should do.
First apartment.
This is what provides stomach acids their due process:
the eager sense of no more rules,
churning along with a nervous realization of no more rules.
It's part of the Constitution, the Liturgy,
the ecumenical sense of rightness and order.
The child shall leave the home and cleave to something or another,
but neither mom nor dad nor any others of the loudmouth huggers
can adequately fill this next thing, it has to be the uniquely personal real deal.

On my early morning trek to the bathroom
I paused at his bedroom door this morning.
I don't know what I expected to have happen in that emptying room.
Tap dancing frogs in top hats? A banner reading 'You did everything perfectly, Mom'.
Maybe I didn't expect anything;
maybe I'm trying to make connections the same way he used to with hail and tornadoes.

Outside the window, the sky lumbered under weighty rain clouds.
Cry cry cry, sky.
Go ahead. you know you want to.
Here, let me help you get things started.

My responsibility is officially becoming less a responsibility than an equal.
This is not what I expected.
My empty nest will be far from empty, it is true.

Even so,
This quiet dull morning makes me feel, acutely,
the rending of space and time,
a near-miss narrowly avoided accident that doesn't happen at
the intersection of memory lane and futurama boulevard.
How the fuck did that happen? Was I really that unaware?

Please world, I ask only a few things of you.
In return for this child's full entrance into your Big Club
I ask only that you watch over him.
Treat him gently.
Encourage his curiosity. Engage him.
Keep him thinking.

Show him challenges and give him the tools to accomplish them.
Show him bitterness in doses just small enough to taste on the back of his tongue.
Teach him how to earn others' faith and trust. And their respect.
Demonstrate to others how he has earned theirs.
Show him hard times, but no so hard that he can't get back up.
And give him as much love as you can possibly gather up.
I raised him up to this point.
Now he's yours.