Sunday Scribblings. Power

Sunday Scribblings' prompt this week reads "When in your life did you feel the most powerful? Was it childhood? College? Now? What is that feeling like; what does it mean? Do you have power over your own life, or are you not feeling that so much these days? If you don't want to get serious, you might imagine superhero powers, and what you would do with them."

As a child, I believed I had power, that I was clever and pretty. An uncle crushed me of the illusion that I could sing when I was about four years old. A pair of aunts made me self-conscious about using big words when I was maybe eight. Precocity was what they saw, and that wasn't considered good. While at my core, I felt ok about myself, I became more and more unsure about where and when it was ok to actually express myself, be myself. Power unexpressed is a pretty useless power. But when power is hidden, it is still there, just waiting for its chance to emerge.

In my teen years I suffered unfair criticism from teachers without defending myself, I allowed boyfriends to treat me unkindly without challenging them. I didn't realise that I actually had power within myself. And then, in my 21st year, after I had left home, was living away and really responsible for myself for the first time in my life, I discovered feminism. I found a copy of The Female Eunuch in a second-hand bookstore, read it and began to understand the silencing I had been subject to.

My boyfriend of that time was living at the other side of the country. For a few months, we sustained a long-distance, weekends-only relationship, and then, at a certain stage, his visits slowed down, he began to make excuses as to why I shouldn't come visit. When he did arrive, he was silent, uncommunicative. I was confused. But what should I do? My previous self would have just waited. Waited for him to speak. But it seemed he felt even less powerful than I did. He couldn't name what he wanted. He didn't have the courage to say he wanted to end it. So I named it for him. His relief was obvious. Yes. He wanted to end it. "OK", I said. "Now we know that's what you want. Fine"

And then... he came out with the line I'd heard before, so many times before - at the end of every previous relationship. "But we'll still be friends?" and I found something coming out of me that really surprised me. "I don't think so" I said. "You've treated me badly. Hurt me, confused me, treated me with very little respect, and you didn't even have the courage to tell me what was going on. No. You haven't acted like a friend. I don't want friends like that."

I declined his offer of friendship! And I felt good about it. When he was gone, I sat there, absolutely amazed that my boyfriend had just broken up with me, and I felt good. I was happy. I realised that the happiness came from feeling powerful. I had defended myself, refused to be forced to be "nice". I hadn't wanted the relationship to end, but if it had to, I was glad that I had stood up for myself and spoken out.

Since then, I've had my moments. Times of power, times of powerlessness. Times of fear. Times of courage, but that moment, that emergence of myself as a woman who would claim her right to self-respect and assertively say "No" remains one of the key turning points in my life. One that I celebrate. One that I am so very glad of.

..... and a footnote to the story. Interestingly, although I had promised friendship to many previous boyfriends, there were few of them with whom I continued any form of contact, so the "We'll still be friends" proved to be a hollow promise (on both sides), but this man, a few years later, reappeared briefly in my life (when we were both married and had children), and we had a really easy, natural and friendly time together!

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There will be more tales of power over at Sunday Scribblings HERE

Going to the Ball

And Amelia's heart was heavy, and she sat at home, but when she glanced outside, just as dusk was falling, into her room fluttered a tiny butterfly, shimmering and shining. "You have forgotten that tonight is the night of the Bloglandia Ball" whispered the visitor.
"No" replied Amelia. "I have not forgotten. I would not be good company this evening. I cannot go to the ball."
"Oh, but you must", said Betty the butterfly (for that was her name). "Your friends are waiting for you, and they have told the musicians not to start playing until you arrive. If you are not there, there will be no music at the Bloglandia Ball."
"But I neglected to complete my costume. I have only some scraps of paper. I cannot go to the ball."
"Ah" said Betty. "You did not notice the work my sisters were doing this evening. Your ballgown is hanging right there..." With a flit and a flutter, she moved to the back room, and there Amelia found a gown of sunshine-colour, decorated with feathers and a single perfect yellow flower. "
Slipping into the gown, Amelia found her mood lifting. When she glanced into the mirror, she was surprised to see a smile on her face, and colour in her cheeks. Opening the door to leave for the ball, she felt a puff of evening breeze lift her hair, and heard, off in the distance, the tinkling of bells calling her to come, come, dance at the ball.






Go visit the other Bloglandia ladies as they dress up, dine and dance at the ball (Click the button, and your heels together, say your magic word, and you too, shall go to the ball)



(Permission granted to use this post/picture in the Bloglandia Ball Book)

200th Post

Little did I know when I said I'd like to do a creative giveaway on my 200th post that it would fall at a time when I'd be feeling like this. (Yes, I knew on one level, but I didn't want to think about it. I didn't know exactly how I'd be feeling). I'm not in a place for creating very much right now, but I do want to offer something to my friends out there, so I will have something to send to those of you who email me with your postal addresses. It may take me a little while to get it organised, but rest assured, it will happen.

Fran asked in the comments on my Sunday Scribblings post, "How are you feeling today?" Well, I'm ok. I'm sad. I'm getting on with the business of life - work and meetings. I've been cooking up a storm over the past couple of days (I do that at times of stress. Chop vegetables, stir soups. Fill the freezer). I'm carrying Trixie's collar in my pocket. My sister's bridal bouquet lies on her resting-place, but that has reached the end of its life, and will need to be taken away to the compost-bin soon.

This morning, I wrote my morning pages for the first time since last Thursday. I usually write 3 full pages, sitting on the couch, with my feet up. Last Thursday, I wrote only one page, and put them aside, as Trixie was nudging at my leg, wanting to be on my lap. She hated my writing. It kept her off my lap. That last morning, I put the notebook aside, and left her climb up, and we sat a while. I'm glad now that I did that.

Today, picking up the notebook, I felt really sad that she wouldn't be nudging at my leg, that she wouldn't be circling on the couch looking for a comfy spot, and that she wouldn't eventually settle into the crook of my knee to sleep. There's this void. This space that Trixie used to fill. This absence.
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This is such a BAD 200th post. I should be celebrating all I've gained from blogging, and thanking and celebrating all my fellow-bloggers. I should be linking to favourite places and maybe reminding you of milestones along the journey that's brought me here.

But let me say this: I am sharing with you what I haven't yet been able to share with some of my other friends. I'm finding a place here where I can process this experience, where there is understanding at a level that brings me great comfort.

The bonds of friendship forged here, in the connections between bloggers are deep, and I want to thank all of you for that. For the humour, the sharing, the being there, the accepting that sometimes we are away, and we come back; for the glimpses into your lives, for the questions you pose and the ideas you suggest; for the pointers to new writers, artists and creative paths. For all of these things I am thankful.

Namaste, my blogging friends. Blessings to you all

Sunday Scribbling: Hi. My name is...

Hi. My name is Imelda. We were offered the chance to introduce ourselves, or anyone or anything else we felt like, and part of me said "No, keep yourself out of it", but then it struck me that people drop in here to read one post at a time, and many of you haven't been with me from the beginning of my blog in January 2006. Even those who have, never got a proper introduction. They have learnt bits and pieces about me in a piecemeal fashion, and perhaps they don't know some of the things that friends IRL (in real life) learn as a matter of course.

My name is Imelda, and I avoided using it for a long time after I'd started my blog. I went by GreenishLady because I'm Irish (green... see?), and I like to do what I can to look after the environment (if you don't count driving a big petrol-thirsty car, and air travel - Hence, the "ish"), and when I began to blog, I felt totally uneducated, quite.... Green. Lately, I've realised that many online names with "lady" in them are held by people whose behaviour would be considered anything but ladylike. See... I was quite naive and green in my choice of name! And in real life, I'd rather be called a woman than a lady, but I liked the ring of GreenishLady.

At a party or social gathering, I dread that question: Tell me about yourself! What? What do you want to know? Do you want to know whether I'm gaining or losing weight? How many siblings I have? Where I'd go if I got in my car to go for a half-hour drive? An hour? A day away?

[Neither gaining nor losing. Stuck and likely to stay 40 lbs overweight unless I do something serious, systematic and sensible about it soon:

4 siblings - 2 sisters, 2 brothers, all of whom I'm on good terms with, each of whom offer something special to my life. I feel blessed in the family I've come from:

Half-hour from me is a long beach, with the bonus of a walk through woodland on the way back, so that's where I'd go within a half-hour drive (if I didn't choose to go up to Grianan of Ailleach, an ancient fort, from which the views are spectacular, and where an atmosphere of peace pervades the stones):

An hour away, I'd go to Glenveagh National Park. Mountains, lake, castle, gardens, heather, and the chance to spot a golden eagle; I might drive the back road by Muckish mountain to Falcarragh, travel back through Dunfanaghy.

A day... Too many places to choose from. But the Giant's Causeway calls me at times of sorrow. It gives me a sense of being a small part of a large world, makes me feel that time goes on, goes on, and that everything passes, even sorrows. So today, if I didn't have other plans, that's probably where I would have gone.]

Random facts about me:
I'll be 50 in December. I'm a Sagitarrian. Or else I'm of that sign the name of which I can't remember... (is it Ophiucus?).

I'm the mother of a 21-year-old son, whose privacy I protect here by not naming him, and making only glancing references to him, although he is the most important person in my life (I am immensely proud of the man he has grown into).

After 19 and a half years of marriage, my husband and I separated 4 and a half years ago. I call him my erstwhile husband, my former husband, but as we are not divorced, not my ex-husband (I know, I know... semantics).

I weep easily and frequently. I've just, just, two days ago, lost my dear little dog, Trixie (I say lost. I had to have her put to sleep. I say put to sleep. I mean put down. I am heartbroken).

[I probably shouldn't write when I'm feeling like that. ]

I love to travel. And I've only just gotten started. I've loved Israel, France, Lanzarote, Italy, Scotland... but the surprising, the unexpected love-affair that started last year is with California.

I've done The Artist's Way (following Julia Cameron's 12-week course) twice. In 1998, and again in 2006 along with an online group, (which was how this blog came into being). It was a life-changing experience both times. I credit it with my present work (in all its forms - paid and unpaid), my writing, the publication of my poetry collection; with the broadening and deepening of my experience of the world.

I don't usually write in my blog about my spiritual / religious life. I've been a Baha'i since my teens, and still, though many people want to know what that means, I'm always concerned that they'll think I'm trying to push my beliefs on them. But this is not just an important part of my life. It is the foundation, the rock on which I stand. When everything else moves and shifts, my faith is a comfort. and a sustenance. My community (to which I seldom refer here either) are a family around me. I've been over 30 years trying to develop and maintain a daily practice of prayer, of meditation, of saying the name of God 95 times, and it's a cyclical thing, to which I return over and over again. I know when I am in the habit of doing these things, I feel centred, I know what's important, and yet, I can allow the details of life to distract me, allow me to slip, to forget, until I come back, I come back, and there I find Him, waiting for me. Constant.

I watch too much TV. I promise not to, but I get sucked into Big Brother. I watch Supernanny, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, silly comedies. I no longer watch any soap operas (which doesn't count for much, since I replaced them with cookery programs, gardening programs, househunt programs...)

After my marriage ended, I took a long time to clear my home of my erstwhile husband's belongings, to repaint and refloor, to replace old furniture. It's been done, though, gradually, painfully, to the point where there are a few small remaining tasks, and by Christmas, it will be complete.

I buy art. Not big, expensive art, but it feels like such a luxury to see a piece and decide "I am worth it. I have a right to surround myself with beautiful, soul-nourishing art", and to buy it. The day before Trixie died, I bought a piece by a local young artist, to be a comfort and a reminder. During my marriage, it would have been considered a frivolous waste of money, and I relish the freedom to do this now.

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Friends, I am afraid I've given you scattered glimpses yet again. To introduce oneself is a difficult thing. I'm Imelda, and I want to know about you. I'm looking forward to going through the Sunday Scribblings list and meeting some new friends, and getting to know something more about friends I've already encountered here. But if you have questions, feel free. I'll see if I can answer!

sad

Oh... I don't know how to begin this, or what I can say, but I need to share with you that today is a very sad day for me. I've just said goodbye to my dear little companion, Trixie, who was 15 years and 5 months old. I've known for a while that it would be necessary to give her a peaceful end, and it became really clear last week that if I wasn't going to put her through surgery that it would need to be soon. I delayed a while so that I wouldn't have to bear that news to my family when we were celebrating my sister's wedding last week, but today, with my son I brought her to the animal hospital where she had a peaceful and gentle end. She is now buried in my garden (her garden) where she spent so many days enjoying the sunshine. She will have a spindle tree to mark the spot, because at this time of year every year, it will offer a flame of remembrance.

As I write, I can still hardly believe it has really happened. Maybe I shouldn't write much, as I am still in the early stages of grief, and not rational at all. I'm having flashes of denial. It's natural. So why am I writing? To help myself really believe it, I suppose, and to let you know, dear friends, because so many of you have befriended Trixie through her appearances here, and for a while in her own blog, Trixie's Days. Her last words there were last December, and I resisted the impulse to post there anytime after January, because her final illness had begun, and I didn't want to name that, to speak that in her voice.

Her final days were a confirmation for me that the time was right. She was in some discomfort, but still able to eat, so she got little treats of chicken. We had a final walk around the neighbourhood at a quiet time of day on Wednesday, and she enjoyed that so much, I did start to wonder was the time right. But then I thought about the alternative - to wait until she could no longer walk, to wait until she was actually suffering a great deal, and I knew it was a better thing to release her spirit now.

She knew I was feeling sad in these last days, and comforted me, came for extra cuddles, and licked my hand. Last night, she climbed into my lap while we were sitting on the couch, and instead of turning her back to me, to lay her paws on my knees and sleep, she turned to face me, sat on my lap, sitting up, and looking straight into my face for ever such a long time, as though she was memorising me. It was the strangest thing, like she was letting me know that it was alright. Everything is alright. She was so trusting.

I am very grateful for the time I've had with Trixie, who came to us for my son's 6th birthday. She has been a constant companion, a faithful friend, and this is just the beginning of saying goodbye to her.

It's Tuesday. A Gift

I can't post today, because something's gone wong with my PC and the lette R is sticking all the time, and I am cusing because it's diving me cazy. So soy not to be witing about the big family day last week when my siste got maied.

See? Diving me cazy.

Thursday Travelling Poetry Show: Rainbow Revelation

The theme suggested for this week's Travelling Poetry Show was to Confront The Fear.

Delia said: "Is there a form that frightens you? Try it. Does the idea of submitting a piece of your writing to a publication make your heart pound? Go for it anyway and be sure to share about it. Is it time you had a creative "coming-out" with that friend of yours or the boss at work? Give them one of your poems to read, go ahead...I dare you! Is reading aloud what makes you weak in the knees? Find a group to read to and face that anxiety head-on. Are you apprehensive about reading certain poets...crack the spine on that book anyway and see what lessons might be waiting for you there..."

I would like to share with you a piece from Yoko Ono's Rainbow Revelation, which I first read in the collection of essays edited by Eddie and Debbie Shapiro called The Way Ahead - A Visionary Perspective for the New Millenium. Yoko Ono says:
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........Bless you for your fear for it is a sign of wisdom
........Do not hold yourself in fear.
........Transform the eneregy to flexibility and you will
........be free from what you fear.

When I searched for the full text online of Rainbow Revelation, I found that part of it is now song lyrics. I've never heard her perform it. Have you? In the book, there are 10 verses (1 page) of what she says was originally a 100-page document. A few other verses:

Bless you for your anger for it is a sign of rising energy.
Direct not to your family, waste not on your enemy.
Transform the energy to versatility and it will bring you
prosperity.

Bless you for your sorrow for it is a sign of vulnerability.
Share not with your family, direct not to yourself.
Transform the energy to sypathy and it will bring
you love.

Bless you for your greed for it is a sign of great capacity.
Direct not to your family. Direct not to the world.
Transform the energy to giving Give as much as you wish
to take, and you will receive satisfaction....

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Time has been more scarce than I'd have liked this week. I know now that I'm not going to get around to writing anything in a "frightening" form. I've tried villanelles, sestinas, sonnets in the past. I do very badly with them. And I know I won't do any better if it just stays at that. So sometime I will come back to formal poetry and stay with it - get through the barrier of fear of doing something really schlocky and predictable and be willing to do it anyway.

I took part in a reading to launch a big community festival this week. But that's not something new to me. It was among poets I know and respect. My work was well-received, so I can't claim to have faced any of my fears in doing that.

What frightens me? Well, here's something that makes me nervous. Some time ago, a friend suggested that a good way to market poetry might be to print it up very nicely on parchment, decorate it, and sell a "limited edition" of perhaps 25 signed copies of a single poem (ooh, my stomach is scrunching up right now thinking about it). Well, I'm going to float the idea. I'm not offering to sell these to you, my dear blog-friends, but asking your opinion of the idea. Would people want to have such a thing? If I decide to make some up ... say next week, and offer them to some of you (randomly chosen) as a gift on the occasion of my 200th post on this blog (which will, coincidentally happen sometime next week), would those whose names come out of the hat give me honest feedback on them?

Ok. I did something scary. It's out there.
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The Travelling Poetry Show has set up camp this week with Carolee, the Polkadot Witch. Pull in and sit round the fire a while. Tell us what scares you in poetry.

Writers Island: My Imaginary Life

There is a cabin in the woods - not too deep in the woods, just far enough off the path and the road to be a quiet and peaceful place, and screened from public view by oaks and flowering trees. Apple blossom scents the air in spring, and the sounds of traffic are far enough away for the song of all the birdlife to be the constant music of this place. Yes, a stream burbles nearby, and the wildlife that abounds is healthy and well-behaved. Deer come by, to eat nettles and other weeds, but not the jasmine and bougainvillea that drape my porch.

I live here, in rooms that are airy in summer and cosy in winter. I have everything here that I need for a comfortable existence. At one side of the cabin, an area of ground has been cleared and enriched with many years of home-made compost. The range of vegetables and fruit that it produces is staggering. I make use of everything that grows, cooking and freezing, cooking and freezing.

I spend days alone, happy in my own company, with my books and writing, with colours and yarn, with paper, scissors and glue. Then, visitors arrive, and we pass time together chatting, chatting. We make SoulCollage. We walk. We take trips to the sea (which isn't far away); to the town (a town of modest size, but which has all the essentials for life: a library, a theatre and cinema, an place where good music and good art can be found, a great coffee-shop, a restaurant that I want to eat at more often than I can afford). Some visitors come for rest, some for activity. Whichever it is, we time it so that their needs and mine coincide.

While I have said that I live there alone, that is not strictly true, for my constant companion here is the magically-young-again Trixie, who has not only been made young, but become a dog who enjoys travelling so much that the flight to this wonderful corner of California didn't phase her a bit. She and I live contentedly in the place where my spirit is at peace, where my flesh and bones fit together inside my skin, where I breathe, and the air says "home".

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This imaginary life comes to you courtesy of Writers Island, where the inaugural prompt was just that: My imaginary life.

Sunday Scribblings: Writing

This week, Laini and Megg offer a wide-open prompt at Sunday Scribblings - Writing. They might as well have said "write about Life". In fact, in many ways, they have. Writing is where life gets lived, really lived for some people, and there are times when that's how it feels for me.

When did I first hold a pen? My father's fountain-pen was an object of fascination. Maybe he let me hold it and gum it as I sat on his knee, in times before my memory. I remember being allowed to hold it later, but not to remove the cap, because the nib is delicate. It was wine-coloured, marbled, sleek. He carried it in his breast-pocket and it (along with his brain) was the tool of his trade. No, he was not a writer. His work was clerical. He dealt in numbers, wrote them into ledgers and books all day long. Wrote them in his looping, beautiful hand. A letter written by my father was a work of art. He and all his siblings had been taught the same graceful script in the two-teacher school they went to, and a way with words that no-one but Shakespearean actors or high-brow academics use today. His letters were elegant. We all wish that more of them were still around. The few we have found have taken our breath away, in the spare simplicity and beauty of his turn of phrase.

I have been writing since I first learnt the joining of letters into words. When school holidays would come around, and there was no need to write, I would find reason to write anyway. Something, anything. Even down to transcribing favourite passages from books. The physical meeting of pen and page was a place where I came to feel real myself. I wrote poems, a newspaper in collaboration with my siblings. As a teenager, a purloined hardback ledger was covered with ugly green plastic, inscribed on its first page with dire warnings for anyone who should chance upon it and start reading it, and filled with the very important happenings of my days. Who was on the school bus. Who wasn't on the school bus. Who glanced/smiled at me. Why they might have done so. Who didn't. Why they didn't. Its back pages began to fill with poems of the "Why did he leave me? How can I go on?" variety. The "he" was a moveable feast. The pen and page remained constant.

I found God. (or God found me). My pen tried, but couldn't find words. Still can't. Silenced in the face of the un-nameable, ineffable, unsayable.

I reverted to writing of small things. To life as it is lived day to day. I wrote essays, essays, essays. I finished school, friends moved away. I moved away. I wrote letters: packets thick with musings, letters that took 3 days or more to write, written in my garden flat overlooking Lough Gill, when I had no television for distraction, and computers were huge machines filling entire rooms in the factory where I worked at accounts - filling ledgers and books with numbers, just as my father had done.

I married. I became a mother. A blue notebook was intended to be a record of my son's birth and early growing months and years. Finding myself at home, isolated, without company most of the time, the notebook took the role of friend, confidant. It was where, writing, writing of the isolation, the longing for contact, for a sense that I was still alive in the world, I devised my 3-pronged "sanity plan". - Learn to drive; take daily walks with my baby in his buggy, saying hello to everyone I met; invite anyone who responded at least 3 times to come over for coffee. My blue notebook saved my life.

I made friends. I found writers. I started to write poems. My heart found its voice. I felt my feet on the earth and my lungs filling with air. I wrote through heartbreak. I wrote through loss. When I didn't know what else to do, when I felt bereft, robbed, forsaken in discovering that I would have no more children, I wrote. I wrote what a friend said I should write:

I am sad.
I am as sad as...
I am as sad as...

until I had nothing more to write.

I saw that the world has seasons. I saw that this sadness was a season in my life. I wrote through it. I wrote my losses, and found new joys.

I am still writing. Most mornings, I write what I expect to find in the day; what I dreamt, or what fragments of dreams are with me still; what questions I have; what I cannot leave out of my mind. I write Morning pages and they ground me in my life. Most nights, before I sleep, I write ten things for which I am grateful. Sometimes it is breathing and my son, salad, a roof. Other times it is that C's surgery went well, that M isn't mad at me, that I spoke up, that I had an idea. I fill shiny-covered notebooks with ideas and jottings, starts and middles for poems, questions for a story, "what if?"s, quotes and lines, words and memories.

My pen is my companion. The page is where she and I lay down, kick up our legs and muse about life. Writing is life.

Yes. They might as well have asked us to write about Life this week. Writing is life.
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For more Sunday Scribblings go HERE

Phil Collins Gorilla Ad Cadburys Dairy Milk

This tickles me so much, I just had to share.

Poetry on Thursday.

Delia, who is hosting the Travelling Poetry Show this week, suggested that we take this week to do anything that struck our fancy, to be free. The poem I've chosen to post is appearing in part , though, because of next week's prompt. When I read the suggestion that we face our poetry fears, I decided that this week I would post a poem that I feel some trepidation about posting, and during the week, I'll write something I wouldn't have really tried before (not sure yet just what).

Ruminating about Poetry Thursday and its impact, I realised that at the beginning, I posted favourite poems by other poets, and then within a few weeks, I began to think about the copyright issue, and decided to link to other poets rather than post their poems in full. This was the shift that led to me posting so many of my own poems. I'd intended originally to alternate perhaps, between my poems and other poets, but think I have neglected to share much over the past few months, so I'm inviting any of you who would like to to pop over to Poetry Ireland's media archive, to go and watch a few video clips of some Irish poets reading from and celebrating Thomas Kinsella. What they have to say in their introductions (especially Eilean Ni Chuilleanain) says much about the imortance of poetry and connections between poets. I hope you will go and visit.

In the meantime, here is my own offering this week:

Triptych

I

My childhood kingdom
was my grandmother’s garden.
From my front-step throne,
I commanded armies,
marshalling troops of ants
and woodlice.
I wielded benevolent power,
a cherry-blossom twig sceptre,
until a horrified aunt found me,
brought me in for tea,
and suitable play
with a colouring-book.


II

I am not the goose bloodied in the fox’s mouth.
I am not the fox.
If I am not the wielder of this magic tree,
nor the tree itself,
maybe I am one of the three geese
sweeping above the lake,
winging towards a distant indigo mountain.


III

Before I started to wait for the world to fill me up,
before I became the hollow girl,
I was the child in charge of a world,
I was the queen on the front-step,
directing the path of woodlouse and ant.
When I held out my hand I could see
in my palm the thorn-tree that one day
might grow there.
I could see colours: vivid green
and red. Bright, blood red.

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You will find more thursday poets in the comments on This Post, HERE

September Changes & Poetry Changes

September is here. I will soon be spending my days following a schedule, a structure. I will be leaving behind my days of freedom to amble about the house in pyjamas, eating orange-yogurt ricecakes and reading blogs until 5 in the afternoon. From next week, I'll be rising at an early hour, pairing the right shirt with the right trousers (or trying to), making sure my shoes aren't scuffed, and my hair is straight as I leave the house. I'll be sensible about breakfast. I'll check that I've got my paperwork in order. I'll be a grown-up, a member of the workforce again.

But only for the mornings. I'm planning to get to the gym some afternoons. And to nap in others. I'm thinking how precious my weekends are going to be; how I'll be wanting to use those days for all the things I love best, and how necessary it will be to maintain order around me if I'm not going to have to spend my weekends just restoring order. I'm reminding myself that I have good habits established in using my calender and diary, and that I just need to keep that up, so things don't get lost, so I can see what my commitments are, and not feel I'm losing touch with my life. I'm wondering what will be good coffee-times for my friends, if I'm no longer free for mornings or lunch. I'm wondering about alternatives. I'm just a little bit anxious moving into this new phase of my life (again).

And just when this change comes along, along come others. Last week saw the demise of Poetry Thursday, and now it seems that the efforts to install a replacement project aren't going ahead. There are plans for the community to take it forward by posting a poetry piece in their blogs on Thursdays, and for one person to 'host' comments linking to their post. The wonderful Delia is going to be the "Blog-Momma" for the first round tomorrow. I don't know how much blogging time I'm going to have over the coming months, but I really want to continue the connections with all the wonderful poets who appeared in my life via Poetry Thursday, so I'm committing to doing something each week. Last week, I mentioned that, along with Poetry Thursday, I'm part of two "real-world" writers' groups, and very lucky I felt to be. Well, this is changing too.

Life just IS change, isn't it? Things happen to cause people to move on. - Work, education plans, relationships shift in our lives, and so our lives have to move to accommodate the changes. In one of my groups, too many members have reached times of change all at this time. The group couldn't hold, and a graceful goodbye is being said to Glass Apple Writers. Then, at the first post-summer meeting of my other writers' group, we learnt that two members are moving away for a while, - but another, who had taken some time out, has returned. Enthusiasm for the same type of projects we've done in the past is flagging. There's a feeling that something needs to shift, a need for a new energy - for change. Yes, I can take change, but not too much. After we'd had some time discussing business, checking in, we got to the work of the evening, - sharing our writing, and oh, that was when I breathed, that was when I realised that This is what draws us together. We love to write, we love to read , we love to get inside the piece of writing, or to let it get inside us. This is what feeds my soul. This won't change. I know that this won't change.

What colour crayon am I?

Why should it surprise me?

You Are a Green Crayon

Your world is colored in harmonious, peaceful, natural colors. While some may associate green with money, you are one of the least materialistic people around. Comfort is important to you. You like to feel as relaxed as possible - and you try to make others feel at ease. You're very happy with who you are, and it certainly shows! Your color wheel opposite is red. Every time you feel grounded, a red person does their best to shake you.

What Color Crayon Are You?

Spiral

This is the silliness I've been at lately. What is it? It's a knitted spiral. No, it's not quite a cushion. It's a .... comfy. It's a grown-up stuffed toy. It's oddly comforting to hold against your tummy while you sit on the couch watching TV. It's great fun to knit, stuff and stitch together. (Basically, a tapered tube, knit for as long as you like, then tapered in again, stuffed, rolled and stitched). I'm planning to add some of these .....

as soon as I find a needle-threader. (Yes, I got new glasses, but no, they are not powerful enough for the eye of a fine needle).

Where did the idea come from? From HERE. It's knitting, but not as we know it. I'm looking forward to making twisted things, odd things, maybe even quad socks (four odd socks, so that no matter what happens, you can wear any two of the four). I'm not planning on experimenting with knitting with spaghetti, though, no matter what the book says!