Tag Archives: words

Posting from the Hospital

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Tim is still here in the hospital, but doing better each day.   He’s progressed from clear liquids to Rice Krispies, bananas and yogurt.  No estimated date of release yet…  He’s napping (and snoring) at the moment so I’m seeing what mischief I can get into with his laptop, between my hot flashes…  We’re supposed to get a winter storm on Friday.

This hospitalization has been easier for me to cope with than when Tim had his heart attack.  The hospital is local and smaller, making it easy for me to get myself here and back home each night.  I deeply appreciate all the healing energy being sent our way and I’m happy to report that I’ve gone two days without a migraine trying to get a hold of me.

In recent weeks we’ve discovered that we enjoy preparing food together, so today we’ve been planning what new recipes we’re going to try out when he gets back on his feet again.

I made a trip to the bookstore this morning looking for some science fiction books Tim wants to read.  They didn’t have the ones he requested, so I’m lending him my Kindle.  He can order them and read them while he’s here.  He was starting to explore on the Kindle when he fell asleep in the recliner.  This hospital has some pretty nice amenities…  :)

Do the Funky Duck

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“Do the Funky Duck” © Val Erde

Val Erde, an artist who plays with words and images at Art By Val Erde, gave her readers, including me, a lovely gift yesterday!  Permission to use one of her paintings on our blogs or computers.  I love the colors!  And I think I see two water birds and a woman swimming in a wondrous dream…

Yesterday I spent most of the day rearranging furniture in the living room.  Spring fever and inspiration from the book Living With Light: Decorating the Scandinavian Way by Gail Abbott & Mark Scott were the motivating factors.  Too many books and bookcases!  My muscles ache and I’ve got a migraine brewing (too many triggers) but I hope to finish the project today.  Paring down…  Fewer books, more open space…

Scrabble is down for maintenance on Facebook…

So, I’m off to visit a couple more blogs, pop a Zomig, roll up my sleeves, and begin again!

Winter Winds

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Last week I had the fun and wonderful privilege of writing a guest blog at my friend Kathy’s blog, Lake Superior Spirit.  I’m still “recovering” from all the excitement!  Thank you, Kathy!

From time to time in my life I’ve been called upon to write an autobiographical sketch and as I wrote this one for Kathy it occurred to me that every time I write one it comes out a little differently.  Probably because I’m always growing and changing, and each time I look back over my life my perspective has changed and some events take on new and deeper meanings.  And other events are left out entirely because even though at one time they seemed so important, they no longer seem worth mentioning.

Within our whole universe the story only has the authority to answer that cry of heart of its characters, that one cry of heart of each of them: “Who am I?”
~ Isak Dinesen
(Last Tales)

A couple of weeks ago I figured out how to write a blog and not just save it, but actually schedule a publication day and time for it!  Great!  Now I can combine quotes with art and schedule them to go out on Saturday and Sunday mornings.  Still, I was surprised Saturday morning when I saw the quote for that day published already and realized that I hadn’t written a regular post here all week.

Yikes!  Oh no, I thought, my readers will think I’m doing nothing but posting quotes from now on…  However, I’ve noticed these quote/painting combos are collecting more comments than I thought they would!  It’s been so interesting, for me anyway, seeing so many varied kinds of responses to the same words and images.

This morning Tim and I went out for breakfast – it’s been a while because he has worked at home a lot on recent weekends – and it felt very good to get out of the house together.  It snowed a little last night…  After breakfast we headed to Starbucks for a coffee treat and saw a Mumford & Sons CD there, Sigh No More, which we eagerly purchased.  We first heard them perform at the Grammys a couple of weeks ago and both of us like them a lot.

Then we drove down to Eastern Point and Avery Point and found a new sculpture on the Sculpture Path by the Sea.  It’s named “Pig Iron” by Timothy Kussow.  Looked for the sculptor online and he doesn’t seem to have a website of his own, but he lives on the same road in the same town where Tim’s family used to live.  Small world and a bit of synchronicity as well!  A little music and a little art – a very nice morning date!

But if your strife strikes at your sleep
Remember spring swaps snow for leaves
You’ll be happy and wholesome again
When the city clears and sun ascends
~ Mumford & Sons
♫ (Winter Winds)

a blue flower…

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“Anemones” by Eilif Peterssen

I held a blue flower in my hand, probably a wild aster, wondering what its name was, and then thought that human names for natural things are superfluous.  Nature herself does not name them.  The important thing is to know this flower, look at its color until the blueness becomes as real as a keynote of music.
~ Sally Carrighar
(Home to the Wilderness)

meanings in music…

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“Children’s Concert” by Georgios Jakobides

I don’t want to sound too cosmic or anything… but I think that music is a spiritual experience. …  Music is true.  An octave is a mathematical reality.  So is a 5th.  So is a major 7th cord.  And I have the feeling that these have emotional meanings to us, not only because we’re taught that a major 7th is warm and fuzzy and a diminished is sort of threatening and dark, but also because they actually do have these meanings.  It’s almost like it’s a language that’s not a matter of our choosing.  It’s a truth.  The laws of physics apply to music, and music follows that.  So it really lifts us out of this subjective, opinionated human position and drops us into the cosmic picture just like that.
~ James Taylor
(Performing Songwriter, May 2002)

Book of Events

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“The Artist’s Mother in the Little Room” by Hans Thoma

One year ago today I started writing this blog.   Changes…

…I use those little dots a lot…

I think it’s because, as the amazing Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska observes:

Every beginning is always a sequel, after all,
and the book of events is always open halfway through.

Changes keep coming along, welcome or unwelcome, keeping us on our toes, and the Japanese scholar Kakuzō Okakura reminds his readers:

The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.

I feel like I’ve fumbled around this past year, but have finally accepted that this blog has been and is going to be a hodgepodge of anything and everything I think about, dream about, or experience, although the line between “reality” and dreams in my consciousness is often pretty fuzzy.  For this blog, over the year I have tried out five WordPress themes, Coraline, Structure, Tarski, Treba, and this one, Elegant Grunge, as far as I can remember.  It’s fun playing with the widgets!  My favorite posts are the ones with pictures taken on my nature walks with Bernie, Beverly, Janet and Tim.  Making friends with my readers, reading their comments here and reading and commenting on their blogs is the best part of being in the blogosphere!

On March 14, 2010 I started another blog, called “…select and collect all the words…,” which was at first to house my collection of quotes.  Then I discovered all the art available in the public domain at Wikimedia Commons!  So I spent hours pairing quotes with paintings, and wound up neglecting this blog.  Finally on January 6, 2011, I posted my last quote there, and made the decision to merge the contents of that blog into this blog.  It will take some time, but for now I think I’ll post quotes and paintings on the weekends.  Of course, that may change, too.  :)

On March 23, 2010 I started a family history blog for our relatives, close family and distant cousins, Rodgers Family History.  (Actually we had a family history website since 2004.  I created it on our own domain using Front Page 2000.  But using WordPress has been a nice change, making presentation and navigation so much easier.)  That “blog” has been neglected, too, but new cousins have found what is already up there and generously added to my database.  Connecting with them has been so satisfying.  I hope to get more of my data up there in the near future.

“Sailboats in Le Petit-Gennevilliers” by Claude Monet

A slower and incomplete change has been The Change, a hormonal storm through which I am still trying to navigate.  The seas around my little boat are pretty choppy, and I’m never sure if I’m making the waves or being tossed around by what others are leaving in their wakes as they sail, drift, or jet-ski through their own lives.  And then there is an energy from the tides that doesn’t originate with people, but pulls from the universe through the moon.  Steady and yar…

A year ago I was asking Stevie Nick’s questions:

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I am still asking.  And sometimes answering affirmatively.  Some day I hope Carole King’s lyrics will be my most frequent answer…

My life has been a tapestry
Of rich and royal hue;
An everlasting vision
Of the ever-changing view;
A wondrous woven magic
In bits of blue and gold;
A tapestry to feel and see;
Impossible to hold.

Well, it just occurred to me that perhaps this blog isn’t a hodgepodge, but a tapestry!  And with that thought, I’m off to embrace another year of writing about the “ever-changing view.”