Monday evening I received this lovely bluebird in the mail. The bluebird from a gift from Zazzy, a blogging friend I’ve never met and only recently became acquainted with.
I was quite moved to receive a gift and moved to tears that it was a bluebird. As many of you know, bluebirds are special to me as they remind me of people I’ve love and lost, like my stepdad, his son, and my sister.
This little guy is staying indoors, but I thought he would photograph nicely in natural light.
Thank you, Zazzy, for warming my heart.
Writing
Just over a week ago I took a major leap and signed up for A Year of Writing Dangerously, hosted by Summer Brennan on Substack. I’ve been reading Summer’s work for a couple of years now and have taken her Essay Camps a couple of times. Before I signed up, I hadn’t been writing for a couple of months, at least not writing much of substance and it was starting to grate on me. But I was also depressed. Yup, that dark demon just won’t leave me alone. He likes to show up just when I’m starting to feel good about life.
So it might seem contraindicated for me to join an intensive writing practice for a whole year. But I’ve been paying attention to Summer and the community building up around her, because of her. I know I’ll be in a safe place for writing. For one thing, I don’t have to share anything I write, ever. The focus is on developing a practice, finding those gems buried deep in the mounds of seemingly nonessential words, and then making them shine and sparkle. On our own. Summer will guide us through example and recommended readings. On Substack, we have something like a chat room where we can account for ourselves in whatever way we want. But we don’t have to share our writing, and I like that.
For now, I want my writing to be for my eyes only. The writing I struggle with, that is. Book reviews, photo essays, things like that, can go out into the public sphere. That’s the whole reason for writing those. But right now, I need to just be writing and not worrying about whether my writing is boring or interesting.
Today is Day 7, and I have written for seven days, writing about what I see and hear and remember. Ranting, which I still do a lot of, is not part of my daily writing assignment. It doesn’t count except to clear my head so I can write intentionally.
So here I am. Zazzy’s bluebird couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
Look closely and you’ll see my reflection on the bluebird’s breast.
This week’s Lens-Artists challenge is hosted by Patti at https://pilotfishblog.com. She asks us to consider: ”what makes a photo dramatic? Maybe it is processed in black and white, or it has vivid colors. Maybe a person, place, or object is captured from a unique perspective or it is a macro shot. This week, we’ll explore some characteristics of dramatic images and some ways to add drama to photos.”
Whenever I want to see something dramatic, all I have to do is look up.
A crescent moon high in a night sky has a sense of the dramatic.
Then there are sunsets as viewed from our patio.
Clouds don’t need color to be dramatic. Do you see an angel in one of these photos?
The open sky of St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge is often dramatic.
The evening sky at Elinor Klapp-Phipps Park, a once-favorite place to hike, could be dramatic at times.
(These photos were taken about 10 years ago. That’s the back of my head in the first one.)
Finally, no drama here. Just a warm memory of Raji getting cozy with “uncle” Junior (RIP).
Next week’s challenge will be led by Ann-Christine/Leya, so be sure to visit her site next Saturday for some inspiration.
I always like to save the best (or good) for last hence my list is in reverse order.
The Ugly (1 thing)
Shortly after my mother died, my brother–my last remaining sibling–cut ties with me. His choice. In fact, his last words to me were “We’re done here. Don’t bother to contact me for anything further.”
Before my sister Shirley’s death, I had not spoken to or seen my brother in roughly ten years. I admit that I didn’t make an effort to see him when I visited home, nor did he make an effort to see me. After our sisters died, we started communicating, mainly about our mother since he was now her primary caretaker. We talked or texted daily after she fell and was in hospital and then after she died. He seemed to want my opinion about things. There were moments when I thought we might have a normal brother-sister relationship again.
Silly me.
All I needed to do to piss him off was question how he was (or was not) executing our mother’s will.
The Bad (1 thing)
The bad was learning a lesson the hard way. When someone tells you, “it’s not about the money,” you can be sure that it’s always about the money.
The Good (3 things)
My mother is at peace. I remind myself of this as often as I can because I feel selfish in my sadness that she’s no longer with us. I hadn’t been with her at Christmas for many years, but I always looked forward to calling her. The reality of not calling her this year, and of not sending her the wreath I would normally send, hit hard. I took myself offline so I wouldn’t have to pretend to be jolly. But now that Christmas has past, I feel a bit stronger, more able to embrace the fact that my mother is at peace.
I am at peace with my mother. She had made certain stipulations in her will that were not being honored by her will’s executor. So I made it right in my own way. I honored her wishes and, in that way, eased some of my grief.
We have a butterfly nursery. In early December, when nighttime temperatures threatened to dip into the low 30s, my husband brought in a couple of passionvine stems that had a couple of larvae (caterpillars) on them. He wanted to try and save them. Little did he know that there were also eggs on those stems. Over the next few weeks, I counted at least 20 chrysalis in our little tent nursery. The first emergence of a Zebra Longwing butterfly seemed like a miracle. And then two emerged. And then three. We’ve released seven to our backyard, near their favorite plants. And now we’re waiting. Either we’ll have more butterflies emerge or the remaining chrysalis will die. We do our part; Nature does the rest.
A lonely (but not for long) chrysalis.Zebra Longwing butterfly larvae.Two butterflies almost ready to be released.My husband giving one butterfly a helping hand out of the nursery.
Here’s goodbye to 2023. Hello, 2024! I hope the New Year brings you as much peace and contentment as brushing Raji brings to him.
For this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Ann-Christine encourages us to find the magical in our lives: According to Wikipedia, Magical can mean: ”…beautiful or delightful in a way that seems removed from everyday life.” She notes there may be other meanings, as you might guess with my selection of photos. Some photos are magical in their whimsy. Others are flat representations of awe-inspiring moments. One is a calm before the storm. They are all magical to me.
The Total Lunar Eclipse, or Blood Moon rising on Election Day 2022.
While not an award-winning photo of a Total Lunar Eclipse, I still feel a thrill when I see this photo, taken as it was with my (then) iPhone 8 Plus and a pair of binoculars. The moon is a force of magic and wonder, messing with the tides on our planet and in our bodies.
My iPhone was almost flat on the ground in order to get this photo.
Fungi always makes me think of fairies and folklore, and these pleated inkcaps entice me to image myself an inch tall running through a land where the mushrooms are as tall as redwoods.
The space between. Shot taken from airplane window on our return to Tallahassee from visiting family in New York, 2022.
I think of this photo as the calm before the storm, a magical space where, for a little while, my world was cushioned by soft clouds and endless blue. We were on our way back home after visiting my sister and family in New York. I didn’t know, at this peaceful moment, that the trip would be the last time I’d see my sister alive.
The horrible thistle is magical to me.
Anyone who has been following my blog for any length of time must know that I love the thistle. I know it’s called a “horrible thistle” because of the thick, sharp spines along the edges of its leaves. So, one looks but doesn’t touch. It’s still magical to me.
If we live here long enough, Raji might get to enjoy a blue bayou right outside our door.
Finally, a little magical whimsy: a photo of Raji superimposed on a photo taken at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. To stretch the idea of magic a little further, this kitty is himself magical. Although he still prefers not to be picked up, he is tolerating it more and has even developed a habit of curling up next to me on the loveseat when I’m reading, within arm’s reach of frequent pets and head scratches.
Now, what is Magical to you? Anything–people, places, and things, memories and feelings–are fair game. If you want to join in, please link to Ann-Christine’s original post and use the Lens-Artists tag so we can find you in the reader.
I am continuing with my daily record of five things and decided to share today’s effort on WordPress. (For more about this prompt, read Summer’s description of the Five Things Essay here: The Five Things Essay.) For this post, the five things are about one place: St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (aka the refuge). The refuge is located about 30 miles south of Tallahassee near the coast. It’s our favorite place to ride our bicycles (which, by the way, are getting long in years just like us). Here are five things about the refuge that we enjoyed when we went there for Thanksgiving.
Wildlife
There is wildlife in this photo, a young deer grazing. It’s almost smack dab in the middle of the scene. While I was disappointed that I didn’t get a better photo, it was exciting to have a deer nonchalantly grazing among the grasses, curious about me but not fearful. There’s no hunting allowed in the refuge although there is in the wildlife management area that borders it. We wear bright colors during hunting season since bullets don’t respect borders.
The Bayou Stony Trail
This is really my favorite part of the loop that we ride. The photo on the top shows the view as we approach the stony trail, and the next photo shows the (very much) stony trail (plus part of the front wheel of my husband’s bike). Both of these were shot with a wide-angle lens, skewing the clouds a bit. And, yes, that big bright spot in the bottom photo is the sun. The roughness of this part of the loop makes for a bumpy ride, but on this trip, we had the added disadvantage of riding into clouds of (possibly) midges (very tiny insects). Yuck. I never pedaled so hard and so relentlessly on this stretch as I did on Thanksgiving. I kept my mouth close but I was also afraid of the midges flying up my nose. Yuck again.
Ring Dike
We survived the midge swarms and made it safely to a favorite rest stop: Ring Dike. An overgrown semicircular trail takes you from the main trail to a spot with two sturdy benches by the bayou. The first photo is the view from where I was sitting. The second photo is a panaromic. You can see how lovely the day was. Interesting clouds but mostly blue sky. At Ring Dike, we always drink hot tea and munch on homemade banana bread, nuts and raisins, and Lindt dark chocolate truffles.
Buzzards
We always see a buzzard or two on our trips, but this time we saw a “wake” of buzzards. (Seriously, why the word “wake”? See Collective Nouns for Birds. Of course, there is something a bit ominous about seeing several buzzards at once). They flew in and roosted on a bare-branched tree. I thought about getting off my bike to take some pictures, but I didn’t want to spook them into flying off. Of course, riding by the tree was enough to spook them anyway, so I stopped and got a few so-so photos. Below is the best one.
Alligators
A trip to the refuge isn’t complete if we don’t see at least one alligator. Given that temperatures were on the chilly side, most alligators we saw were in the water. Riding along, I saw an ahinga (also known as a snake-bird or water turkey) drying its wings on a log. It seemed like a good photo opportunity. Then I saw the alligator off to the right.
This is perhaps the largest living alligator I have ever seen, at least in recent memory. Greg estimates it was about eight feet long. EIGHT FEET LONG! Fortunately, there was a body of water between us and it so I didn’t have to be shy about taking photos. Still, the one photo I didn’t get was when the gator decided to turn around and I saw all its teeth. I was standing yards away but I saw ALL ITS TEETH. Then it slipped into the water, leaving a few inches of its tail exposed on the land. Kind of like when our cat Wendy wraps herself up in her fleecy blanket but leaves her feet sticking out. Kind of … but not quite.
So, now I can say I completed my five things prompt (or essay or draft or whatever you want to call it). I hope you enjoyed the photos. We’re planning another bike trip this week, and it will be colder than last week. I’ll be looking for alligators, but unless there’s a sunny spot on land (preferably not on the trail), they’ll likely be in the water. Stay tuned, and thank you for reading.
I’ve only missed one day of writing in the last 24 days, a streak I haven’t had in a very long time. My writing has been quite inconsistent, though. At first, I firmly adhered to writing per the five-things essay promoted by Summer Brennan as such:
It does not have to have five paragraphs or five topics. The number five functions more like five little shoves to keep you thinking, to keep your pen moving across the page or your fingers on the keyboard.
(For more on this, read Summer’s description of the Five Things Essay here: The Five Things Essay.)
Initially, I wrote about five distinct things (writing, walking, friendship, family, weaving). Then, occasionally, I’d start with one thing and let it flow into another thing (for example, reflecting about friendships could lead me to also write about loneliness). More recently, my writing turned into talk therapy as I used it to vent and analyze. Even more recently, I started “cheating,” using the five things prompt to read and comment on blog posts, with my comments being the “five things.” This way I can keep up (more or less) with reading blogs as well as fulfill my daily writing assignment.
I’m not sure where this is going to lead me. I firmly believe that any writing is writing that counts, whether the words are for a novel, a blog post, a poem, or a list. Comments on blog posts counts, at least to me, because I always reread what I wrote before I hit send and often edit as well. I don’t want to be misunderstood.
Today, I am going to write my five things here.
Weaving
I recently finished weaving and sewing together 16 potholders to make a tripod mat for my husband. He wants to be able to view the night sky with his telescope out on our patio, but was worried about slippery fingers and dropping lenses down to the hard stones. Hence, this thick cotton mat which fits neatly under the tripod.
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For the four center pieces, I used the pattern Shadow Fern by Deborah Jean Cohen (from her book In the Loop: Radical Potholder Patterns & Techniques, p. 100). The rest of the squares were simple stripes or plain weave. Loops are flax, leaf and autumn from Friendly Looms. In the photo of the full mat, you can see a mistake I made when sewing the squares together. One of the corner squares has its stripes going horizontally instead of vertically. My husband, ever resourceful, said that square will represent North.
Sunsets
Before we set the clocks back an hour, my husband and I enjoyed long evenings on our patio, watching the light turn golden before heading back into our house for dinner. Now it’s a bit of a scramble as I like to prep for dinner ahead of time, before we relax on the patio. One evening I was running late. I was in the middle of prepping for dinner when my husband remarked that it looked like we might have a nice sunset. I thought I would shrug it off (surely, there’ll be more sunsets to enjoy) until he said, “Honey, you have to see this!” As quickly as possible, I put everything in the frig or the microwave for safe keeping (i.e., away from Wendy and Raji) and hurried outside only to have to run back inside to get my phone. He was right. I had to see this.
Sunset over our neighbor’s roof.
Life
One of the joys of having a garden is seeing life bloom. We’ve had some warm days, and the long-winged zebra butterflies have been busy laying eggs. Now we have larvae on our passion vine which will eventually yield more butterflies.
You have to look closely for the larvae. They are there.
Flowers
Actually this could fit under Life, but I’m trying to write five things so … This lovely red Gerbera flower is from a plant that I bought a few years ago. I used to keep it on our deck but everytime it bloomed, a squirrel would decapitate the flower. I was going to give up on it when my husband suggested putting it on the patio. After several months there, it has started to bloom again. And, so far, no squirrels have attempted to make off with the flower.
Red Gerbera daisy
Cats
A few weeks ago, our neighbors had a guest who liked to park their car directly across from our driveway. So it didn’t take long before I noticed some unusual but delightful stencils on the passenger and driver-side windows.
Who are you looking at?
Peeky boo!
I’d love to get these for my car!
Thank you for reading. To those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a wonderful holiday. To the rest of you, I hope you had a wonderful Thursday.
One of my most favorite bloggers, Ally of The Spectacled Bean, happens to like zinnias. Actually, I believe she likes them a lot. A couple of months ago, I bought a pair of zinnias from a local nursery. They were in the same pot, a mix of yellow and pink. Sadly, the yellow zinnia did not survive, but the pink one has and it is quite a showy flower.
I would argue that the above photo doesn’t do the flower justice, but I do like how you can see the various stages of life on this plant. The following photos are more to my liking.
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They are such a delight when the sun is shining directly on them! The challenge for me is whether I should transplant them to a sunnier venue, which would likely be off my deck and outside my range of vision when I’m sitting at my computer, OR keep them on the deck and repot them as necessary with hopes that they will survive the winter.
I believe zinnias are annuals, but in my climate, I’m hoping these might become perennials.
Wendy
Wendy is doing quite well after our (not hers) brief scare. She’s doing all her cat things normally, including swatting at Raji now and then. [One night, when they were both gathering around my legs while I was reclined, watching TV, she swatted at Raji when he got too close. He punched her back. Seriously, he punched her. Chaos ensued.]
Writing
I have been writing. For the first five days of November, I was quite earnest in my writing and found some nice support from other participants in Summer Brennan’s Essay Camp. [By the way, Summer is starting a series of essays on essays which I’m looking forward to reading. If you’re interested in learning more, she has an free introductory post here: Introducing the Essay Series.] I have been using NaNo to track my word counts, but not much else. I feel myself sliding into a rut. Unfortunately, I’m preoccupied with a family issue, and I thought writing about it would help clear my head, but family issues are the gifts that just keep giving, aren’t they?
On the bright side, refocusing on my writing has made me think about the stories I’ve already written and what (if anything) to do with them. Some have been published so rights have reverted back to me. I don’t have much enthusiasm for finding new publishers for them, but I want to share them “with the world.” One idea I’ve had is to have booklets of my short stories printed, along the lines of Creative Nonfiction Foundation’s (now defunct) True Story series, and then I can gift them to interested readers.
Does anyone reading this post have experience with printing booklets of their stories? Please share if you do.
I’d also love to have some recommendations for printing services to narrow my search. So far, it looks like it might be expensive.
Meanwhile … last night I saw an interesting contrail from my Adirondack chair … no filters on this photo.
Folks, I am so tired of feeling depressed and listless. I know I’ll continue to feel sad, at some times more than others, but I want to pick up my life again. So, of course, I’m going to start off with a bit of overdoing. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t overdo things.
Over on Substack, Summer Brennan will be hosting “Essay Camp,” five days of prompts and readings and general encouragement to write every day for five days. You can get more info from her post here: https://www.awritersnotebook.org/p/essay-camp-a-november-write-along. It’s free to join. I’ve tried participating in other essay camps that Summer has hosted, but Life would always get in the way. My fingers are crossed that this time no life-changing, trauma-inducing events will occur; that is, not within my personal life. I’ve given up on the world outside my fence.
Of course, November 1 is also the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo to those who have participated before). I won’t be writing a novel. I’ll be writing essays or maybe memoir-like bits. I plan to use NaNoWriMo to track my writing in Essay Camp and beyond. It’s not relevant or important that I write 50,000 words. I’ll be happy with whatever I have to show for myself by the end of the month.
Meanwhile …
I am so loving this plant that sits outside my window.
It’s called Cat Whiskers so you know why I had to buy it from a local nursery. (For you gardeners out there, the scientific name is Orthosiphon aristatus). At the time I bought it, I wasn’t aware that its flowers would attract hummingbirds and butterflies. In truth, I’ve only seen a hummingbird occasionally check out the flowers, but I LOVE the flowers. And, turns out that Cat Whiskers blooms in April and October. I was really surprised (and thrilled) to see so many blooms this month.
Another favorite is this Indian Blanket (Gailardia pulchella).
The first time I saw an Indian Blanket plant was at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. A small cluster was nestled alongside the trail I was riding on. When I saw this joyful plant at another local nursery, I grabbed it.
Both of these plants would probably be happier in the ground, but they lift my heart when I look out my window on my writing days. I need them where I can see them.
Meanwhile …
The Zebra butterflies are still making whoopee on our Passion Flower vine. I had the pleasure of watching one very delicately lay a few eggs on a stem while another butterfly flitted about, no doubt giving her encouragement. My hands were full of gardening tools so I couldn’t take any photos then. Later, I managed to get this macro shot of several eggs.
Looks like we might have an explosion of Zebra butterflies before too long.
Finally … remember what I said about Life not getting in the way of my writing plans? Well, Wendy went off her food for about a day this weekend. (Why do they always do things like that on weekends?) We had no clue as to what was troubling her. She had seemed fine right up until she refused to eat.
Of course, I panicked, but Greg (my husband) stayed calm. (Like, what else could he do while I was having a meltdown?) We gave her time. Didn’t force anything on her. Monday she started eating again, just a little bit here and a little bit there. This morning (Tuesday) she had the zoomies with Raji and she ate most of her breakfast so I’m thinking she’s okay now.
Old photo … taken in late 2019, but she hasn’t changed a bit.
Thank you for reading! If you want to join me at NaNoWriMo, my username is MarieAnnBailey (natch).
On this day, October 25, my mother would have turned 100. She died on September 22, peacefully by all accounts, but, sadly, not in her home as she would have preferred. Up until September 3, she had been living alone in a double-wide mobile home, coveting her independence which was only possible because of my brother and our cousins who brought her food, cooked for her, cleaned up after her, and gave her company when she was in the mood for it.
My mother didn’t mind being alone. She had her phone if she wanted to talk to someone. She had the birds outside her kitchen window to entertain her. She had a front porch where she would sit on warm days and watch her neighbors come and go. She had her TV shows, and she dozed … a lot.
One could argue about how independent she truly was. The thing is, while others worried about her being alone at night, she didn’t.
Then she fell one night and wasn’t found until the next morning. From there, it’s textbook statistics. Hospital, surgery, rehab, COVID, comfort care, death. Just as with her life, her dying seemed to go on much longer than we thought possible. But, as far as anyone could tell, she was sleeping those last few days. At peace.
She missed “her girls” terribly.
My mom’s girls–Shirley and Charlotte.
First, Shirley died in July 2022, then Charlotte in November 2022. My mom might have been happy to live to 100 if my older sisters had still been alive. They had been her constants, more so than my brother or myself.
My mother married in 1942, I think. Pathetic that I don’t remember her wedding date.
My mother and father’s wedding photo.
Charlotte came around in October 1944, Shirley in August 1946. For the next eight years, it was just the four of them: Dad, Mom, Charlotte and Shirley.
Dad with Shirley and Charlotte.
My brother didn’t show up until August 1954, then me in June 1957. I once made the mistake of asking my mom if she had planned our births so that Shirley and Charlotte would be old enough to babysit me and my brother. She admitted that she hadn’t expected my brother and me. She hadn’t planned our births and, she added, something like abortion wouldn’t have occurred to her because “it just wasn’t done back then.”
My mother was sometimes too honest.
Mom.
I remember my mother as always working, inside the house and out. If she wasn’t working at a grocery store like Philbrooks’ Market or a discount store like the Big N, she was busy working inside the home. Cleaning, cooking, fixing. Even when she finally settled down for the night to watch a TV show with us, she had mending to do. I used to watch as she slipped a glass jar inside the leg of her pantyhose and stitched up the runs. I wonder if she is why I always feel like I’m wasting time when I just sit and watch TV, my hands idle.
I remember our relationship when I was growing up as mercurial. One minute we’d be laughing at some joke together, the next we’d be throwing daggers at each other with our eyes. Of course, it was worse when I was a teenager. I was the youngest, but, by no means, did she spoil me.
She once said she didn’t want to make the “same mistakes” with me that she had made with my brother. Whatever that meant. My brother was in trouble no more or less than any other kid his age. But my mom took every mistake we made as a slight on herself, as an accusation of bad mothering.
My mother wanted to let me go but without me ever leaving home. She wanted me to learn but without the benefit of experience. She wanted something other than an early marriage and babies for me, but she was afraid of what that would be. For all of her independence, she didn’t want to teach me to be independent. So we fought and eventually I left.
We fought even while I lived in California, sending angry letters back and forth. I remember reading one of her angry letters while I was soaking in the bathtub. I remember tearing it up, but I no longer remember what she wrote.
When I was growing up, I rarely felt that her love for me was unconditional. I often thought that I bored her or exasperated her. Sometimes she even scared me, her anger unexpected, her silent treatment dropping the temperature in our house to freezing. And yet when she hugged me, she hugged so tight I thought my ribs would crack.
As I developed physical and emotional distance from my mother, I started to understand. She was one of 12, born somewhere in the middle to a middling farmer and his wife who died too young. My mother did what all her six sisters did, which was to marry and have babies. I don’t know how long she and my father enjoyed their marriage. I was about 10 when I witnessed for the first time my father having a nervous breakdown and listened to the soft brushing of her palm on his back while she tried to comfort him.
But it wasn’t his first breakdown, and it wouldn’t be his last. And here was my mother who was somehow expected to keep us all afloat while my father went in and out of the state hospital, then to a halfway house, then through a divorce and finally into the care of my sister Shirley.
My mom and dad when they were so young.
As I began to imagine the weight of responsibility she must have felt, I also began to be fascinated by her. I became less concerned with her as my mother and more interested in her as a woman who was once young like me, who used to watch sunsets with her sisters and wished she had clothes in those colors.
(She did eventually. At one time, after she remarried, she had a pair of polyester pants in every bright color that you might find in a box of 64 Crayola crayons. She was also quite proud of the fact that the pants only cost about $2 each. My mother was frugal from the day she was born until the day she died.)
In writing this post, trying to celebrate what would have been my mom’s 100th birthday, but, frankly, feeling tired of writing posts like this, I find myself struggling to avoid the obvious.
How could I have been a better daugther?
Let me count the ways.
[Insert list that never ends.]
My only comfort is I really believe she knew how much I loved her. That, despite all the struggles, the frequent shadow-boxing of our personalities, she made me fall in love with her by finally becoming herself, becoming something other than a wife and mother.
She became Florence, a woman who loved to watch birds, to pick berries, to play the slot machines, to eat two hot dogs with chili sauce, to gossip, to talk on the phone, to know whose birthday is when (and how old they are), to live in the moment because the past is past and the future might never be.
I’ll end this post with the verse I picked out for her prayer card:
Fill not your hearts with pain and sorrow, but remember me in every tomorrow. Remember the joy, the laughter, the smiles, I’ve only gone to rest a little while. Although my leaving causes pain and grief, my going has eased my hurt and given me relief. So dry your eyes and remember me, not as I am now, but as I used to be. Because I will remember you all and look on with a smile. Understand, in your hearts, I’ve only gone to rest a little while. As long as I have the love of each of you, I can live my life in the hearts of all of you.
It’s no longer a question for me. I’ve deactivated my formerly-known-as-Twitter account. Although it was still easy for me to share posts via the formerly-known-as-Twitter site, I’ve just become so disenchanted with the formerly-known-as-Twitter experience that I’ve decided to just dump it.
I know many of you still use the site and are happy with your community there, but I’ve been spending less and less time on social media. It’s enough for me to check into WordPress on an irregular basis. Generally, I approach most social media sites these days with a Meh.
In and of itself, that’s not a bad thing. It means I’m busy doing other things. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone keeps up with all the sharing on the formerly-known-as-Twitter site and Facebook and Instagram and wherever else people are congregating.
Then there’s Substack. I do some reading over there, but Substack is kind of like a closed loop. The platform has it’s own Twitter-like function but, as far as I know, you can only share Substack posts on it. I have not tried to share other links. I can understand why Substack chose to direct their writers and readers away from the formerly-known-as-Twitter site, but there’s something a little creepy about it. Creepy as in, “We’re special. We don’t want people outside of Substack to come and hang out with us.”
Maybe I’m being hyper-sensitive because I write on WordPress and am only a reader on Substack. I’m not interested in being a writer there even if it’s free (for now). With WordPress, I feel like I can pretty much be myself. I don’t worry about whether readers sign up for emails or even just follow me. I’m not writing to make money or become famous.
Of course I want to be read. I want to make connections. I enjoy the community I’ve found here. Too often, though, on sites such as Substack and Medium, I find writers who start off just writing and sharing and seeming to have a good time and then somehow drift into writing about their stats, their efforts to increase subscribers, etc. Meh.
As you can see, I’ve changed my blog theme/template … again. The thing is, although I don’t want to be a writer on Substack, I like the layout, the simple style of the posts there. I guess I’m just trying to minimize how crazy the world looks to me at times, an explosion of links and photos and emojis and memes.
So, let’s see if this theme sticks. Meanwhile, I have two wool potholders ready to go to a special person.
These potholders were made with Hillcreek Fiber Studio‘s Solar Eclipse bundle of wool loops. While I love the colors with this pattern, I’m already imagining how I might weave them differently.
Thank you for reading. Here’s an oldish photo of Junior (RIP) (circa December 2020). Sometimes after dinner, Junior would insist on jumping up on the dining room table and snuggling. Good times.
Looks like we might have an explosion of Zebra butterflies before too long.
Marie at 1 Write Way 