I was talking about my lifeplans with my friend Owen
Margot and I are going to have a penthouse in Paris.
After a couple of years we will split up and go to separate apartments next door and marry different boys.
Owen said “Who are you going to marry?”
I thought “I know where you’re going with this and I’m not going to answer that.”
-Inga
Filed under Uncategorized
The nighttime sky is a bed of stars, luxuriant in repose, a birthplace for beginnings
and endings
Every thing of beauty, every blooming heart, comes from there
Every thing that is meant to be, every fated ending, goes there.
Most nights, the moment comes for the moon to rise over the trees and friends and lovers find each other in the diffuse light
know each other, embrace each other,
And live happily ever after.
Filed under Uncategorized
I stumbled over this one in freshly pressed and wanted to share it. It’s haunting and brave.
Four days had passed and I still hadn’t left the flat.
I hadn’t washed or eaten and the only contact I’d had with the outside world was a 30 second phone call with my mum. I just lay under my duvet for hours at a time. No music, no TV, no fags, just my whirring thoughts and the polka dot sheets. Occasionally, I would get up to use the toilet and sip some water, but even that felt like a mountain to climb.
I was restless, something was crawling underneath my skin. I clawed at my neck and chest, leaving crimson scratches and bloody fingernails. I fell from the bed onto the bedroom floor, crying out for mercy, but no one was listening.
I couldn’t take it anymore, it was unbearable. I lay on my bed, pleading, crying out for some relief from the agonising pain that plagued my mind…
View original post 453 more words
Filed under Uncategorized
Proving that the apprehension of even the mundane is fluid – birds see color varieties that we don’t, seeking in each other the appeal of colors unknown to us.
And so the boy birds and the frogs – prey for birds – have adapted. Boys become bright to attract feminine attention, frogs to warn that they are poisonous. I once had a boyfriend like that. So shiny and colorful I knew he must be dangerous. And he was.
If the world is for each of us what we perceive, a subjective reality, then it must be an infinity of realities made sweet or sour by the tastes each of us give it, expect of it, believe to be real, and have the capacity to perceive. And so a million realities exist around us but we see and create realities unique to ourselves.
We are dreamers diving into the swirl of our days, abandoning ourselves to the past, what we’re instructed to believe, what we can accept. Endlessly dancing with these lovers, until something or someone trips us, jars us awake, rips us from the fabric of our diligently woven lives. If we are lucky.
Waking from a dream of myself or perhaps nudged by some nascent desire, I have begun to weave red into a tapestry that has before been a kind of grotto of earth colors. Here, indulged desire – oh, yes – where my careful heart would never have dared. There the fiery red of a creative flame allowed to burn. Consequences? Perhaps, but you have to live.
This love-child could become a blaze, burning away old perceptions that have outlived their power to be potent; or a long, warm summer day of lovemaking in the forest, bent over a tree. Or maybe it will become a garden, velvety flowers springing from alongside the path of my days, meandering through cool archways overgrown with trailing ivy. No telling, yet. But hopefully it will involve my share of red and an enhanced perception of color.
Filed under Uncategorized
Letting go is best accomplished with breathing.
In. Out. In. Out. And continue.
Give space, give time, to each breath. Let each breath complete itself, become full, and rejoin the sky. Smile, where possible.
It lubricates things.
Filed under Uncategorized
That morning the fog laid like a great ghost over grass and trees, shrouding the landscape with its wet breath, a kind of ageless voice faint in the air
Spiderwebs hung everywhere, between branches and railings; tiny droplets of water making them obvious, perfect in symmetry and form: waiting in a kind of glistening perfection of silence.
We walked out into the morning, the sun still asleep behind clouds, the air fragrant from night blooms, the small, pointed tracks of deer visible here and there along the path at our feet. The change in the air quietly ominous; a faint whisper of the long, cold nights ahead.
leaves float gently through moist air, the yellows and reds releasing their hold on branches that would soon be bare, naked, dark, against gray skies.
Ahead, the path stretched and disappeared into the woods, trees hanging in a canopy over the well-trodden ground, now littered with leaves like flames fallen from the sky
Tomorrow the sun will set a little earlier, and change will come to us, whether we ask for it or not.
Filed under Uncategorized
Years ago in the spring I went walking at dusk in Boston; the gray sky behind tall buildings bore hints of yellow and pink that seemed suggestive –
A full life that can somehow never be full enough looks to the sky for signs of what’s to come, visions and impressions; such feelings and thoughts are the currency of such a person … especially one who deals in the logical, rational world of computer science all day long.
That night I had a date with a Frenchman. It was April. Snow had become rain, the streets of downtown Boston seemed promising.
All optimism, I gave myself to the evening.
The Silvertone was alive with a million after-work revelers. The air was dark and surprisingly cool for a basement; the air conditioning infusing fresh air over a crowd of too-close professionals, the bartender in endless motion; the room full of couples doing what couples do – coupling tentatively, determinedly, desirously, Individually.
As every good reveler knows, the party eventually ends. At least until the next one can begin … and in the morning after, who you find yourself with can be telling.
Twelve years later there is a house. And there are children. And there have been beautiful trips, small moments, shared love, pain and sorrow. We have given what we have to each other, to our children, and yet, the skies have become Autumn skies …
Beautiful as winter sets in.
Filed under Uncategorized
The evening sky, in a kind of benediction, smiles down over the moving body of people on Massachusetts Avenue; folks leaving work, rushing past me as I lean on a sign post outside a restaurant, waiting for my brother to arrive, and reading the news.
People make their way under bands of clouds shaded in pink and lavender against a cornflower sky, past the row of restaurants on the avenue, dodging others doing the same in the opposite direction, children in hand, dogs and partners in tow, bikes and books carefully maneuvered, a woman leading her blind partner, a dog tied to a sign post.
My brother arrives, tall and handsome, smiling. The sky is smiling, too.
The restaurant he has chosen is crowded with families, meeting each other or arriving together, like we are. We sit surrounded by children and couples, sharing pad thai, yellow curry, and a dotted conversation that is broken by topic changes un-introduced by the usual explanations, punctuated and broken by remarks, observations, and stories unrelated to the current of the discussion we are having. Interjections surface, are acknowledged, and the conversation’s current resumes as if they had never occurred.
We talk the way two people who have known each other their whole lives can, without ever having to pause and ask the other to repeat or explain. It’s the sort of conversation a stranger would probably think made little sense.
But it is like a news report, delivered in prioritized order, to us. Some sadness to discuss, a few stories, two accomplishments, questions and information about work and family. Candid thoughts we can share with each other, but perhaps not very many other people, serve as punctuation.
But especially we just sit together and eat like we used to as kids, and never do anymore. The hour, the news, the stories, the sunset, are spent.
I worry about him, as I always do after we part, fretting on the train back to Alewife. It’s a job of big sisters, I think as I am swept along in the crowd toward the turnstiles, to worry about little brothers, even if they are all grown up.
When I emerge alone from the station the sun has set and the dark stream of the night sky has settled over Massachusetts Avenue; the smiling sunset now gone, leaving me with a memory of it. Like the table my little brother and I shared as kids, like our evening in Porter Square, a memory, now. One in a long river of many.
Filed under Uncategorized
A silver lining illuminated a single cloud floating in the sky above my head, noticed first by my companion as we sat basking in late day August sunlight.
It appeared quietly, a visitor I failed to notice, hanging in the sky and listening to us as we felt our way toward each other across the landscapes of our lives; here describing verdant places, relating stories, there owning up to places withered by neglect or discord, each describing the sort of unexpected journey that life proffers when we try to live it fully.
He was direct, self-possessed, perhaps stronger and more mature; somewhat anxious, I thought, over where our conversation was taking us. His eyes rested on the horizon, measuring the sky.
And I was absorbed in the moment: enjoying his handsome face, the sun, the wine, his stories, the sound of his voice … indulging in the sum of the moment as the sun sunk in the west, washing the patio in heat and light.
Our afternoon drink ended in a lingering kiss sweeter than I could have imagined and a parting smile that felt like warm summer rain on my legs.
A silver lining that, credit where it is due, was all his creation on the landscape.
Filed under Uncategorized
The forecast for Charlottesville was partly cloudy, with showers at noon, when we set off for Monticello.
I’ve wanted to return to the home of Thomas Jefferson for as long as I can remember, having some magical memory of a day spent exploring the estate in my father’s company as a young girl.
And so, ever faithful that providence, together with science, would support me, I set off with my family to visit the fabled estate.
There are times in your life when you must see, when you cannot help but see, your intentions and desires are not going to be satisfied. That the fates have determined you must pursue a different course, that you must alter your plans, and accept what comes instead of what you expect or plan for.
That day, on the road to Charlottesville the sky blackened. We drove on, checking the weather again, reassured there would be partly sunny skies and warm weather. And yet, the skies opened in such a torrent that we couldn’t see the way forward, and the rain continued throughout the day. In the end, we weren’t able to tour the property, the house was shrouded in a kind of gloom, and we were so soggy we could not bear to visit the museum or shop, because of the air conditioning.
So much for the forecast.
Filed under Uncategorized
Backyard Botanics 