I ran away from home when I was just a kid…I mean, a LONG way from home.
Left my beaches and my ocean in San Diego, and headed east in search of peace.
Ended up in Natchez, Mississippi, and lived with relatives I thought could save me.
I guess they did, but not how I had hoped they would.
I lived in Natchez throughout high school, learned very hard lessons about education, religion, music, politics, and friends.
Left there in search of my adult home, and for people less confusing. In the deep South, they were, and still can be, the most warm, open, loving, giving people you will ever meet…and some are also historically and genetically predisposed to be filled with hate and prejudices. Dual Realities.
But that river. She really gets under your skin and draws you back and back and back again. And I’m glad she does because without her pull, I never would have ended up with the love of my life, James. Natchez was his San Diego.
So we go to visit as often as we can. Ol Black Water, indeed. (sound track for your visit to THERiver.
I know I can’t be the first person to post this when I could not think of a good song for the week’s theme….can I???
Kind of a fun version of the song, though a lousy video.
You Can Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac
Lyrics
Loving you
Isn’t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel
If I could
Maybe I’d give you my world
How can I
When you won’t take it from me
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up
Shacking up is all you want to do
If I could
Baby I’d give you my world
Open up
Everything’s waiting for you
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
I met a tree yesterday…a real old-timer, in the front yard of the new home of some dear friends. I spoke to it as I entered the house, asked if I could photograph it, and then left it to contemplate its answer.
When my visit with my friends was finished, I walked back out to visit the tree. I told it that while I was inside, I had checked on my phone for the daily photo challenge and discovered, coincidentally, the word for the day was branches and I wondered if it would be OK to take a few pictures of its glorious examples for my daily post.
It told me yes but only if I passed on this statement.
“I am a very old tree, even for my species, and I have sheltered this home, and its people since 1938.
I was here first.
I could live a lot, longer if I am allowed to.
Elderly trees like me are just like the elderly of your species. We are living, and breathing beings, and sentient, in our own way. As we age, we may need extra care, but…
We can tell you such stories……”
I grew up with a giant tree in my childhood front yard. I climbed way up in it to hide. Its branches held me safe and kept me invisible while the pain down in my house was happening.
I believe this tree has also held many children, but in joy and play.
I told the tree “Thank you for posing for my photos of Branches.”
I think this might be cheating (or maybe just a shortcut) but I cannot get WordPress to cooperate this morning. It is refusing to give me access to my own photos.
But I remembered this post I did about my house, quite a while back and thought maybe it would qualify.
Here’s a quote from it. I hope you’ll want to read the rest and see my favorite windows.
She has 32 windows. From 20 of those, you can see right into other windows in the house.
A friend of mine she cries at night
And she calls me on the phone
Sees babies everywhere she goes
And she wants one of her own
She’s waited long enough she says
And still she can’t decide
Pretty soon she’ll have to choose and it tears her up inside
She’s scared, scared she’ll run out of time
I see my folks, they’re getting old
And I watch their bodies change
I know they see the same in me
And it makes us both feel strange
No matter how you tell yourself
It’s what we all go through
Those eyes are pretty hard to take
When they’re staring’ back at you
Scared to run out of time
When did the choices get so hard?
With so much more at stake
Life gets mighty precious
When there’s less of it to waste
Scared to run out of time
Just when I thought I’d had enough
And all my tears were shed
No promise left unbroken
There were no painful words unsaid
You came along and showed me
How to leave it all behind
You opened up my heart again
And then much to my surprise
Oh boy, I accidentally did a whopper piece of personal therapy this morning, searching for a song about Search.
I immediately thought of all my life long searches!
First, my youth, I searched for my biological father who left before I was born. I know, in this day and age, it should be easy right? Well, his name was Michael John Kelly. (Might as well have been John Smith!) I started at 13 years old, looking up that name in local libraries. They used to carry phone books from all over the United States, so, using my babysitting money, I would write post cards to as many addresses as I could afford postage for.
Then, in my twenties, I started searching for my daughter, who I had to give up for someone else to raise.
I’ve written about her several times. One example:
In thinking about a song for today’s theme, I realized even though I had the best (step) Dad in the world, and have found, and dearly love, my relationship with my daughter, I am still searching. Sometimes quietly, in the back ground, but sometimes, frantically, like my life depends on finding…what?? I don’t really know. (Well, I do, but that’s another post…)
At 70 years old, there are so many other things I still and always searched for that are unlikely now. That’s not me giving up. That’s the healthiest part of me, gently and lovingly, coercing me back into the present moment.
I guess that pushy voice, my “Guardian”, has always been there, Sometimes it’s audible and sometimes it is blocked by unfinished grief…but it’s constant and reliable when I am willing and able to listen, to hear.
And most importantly, to accept that it is there for ME, not just my clients, my friends, my family, not all the other lost souls I share that voice with when I forget to listen for myself.
You go Alanis! Thanks for always sharing your “therapy” with us in your music!!
You, you who smiled when you’re in pain
You who soldiered through the profane
They were distracted and shut down
So why, why would you talk to me at all
Such words were dishonorable and in vain
Their promise as solid as a fog
And where was your watchman then
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian
I’ll be your warrior of care, your first warden
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand
The greatest honor of all as your guardian
You, you in the chaos feigning sane
You who has pushed beyond what’s humane
Them as the ghostly tumbleweed
And where was your watchman then
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian
I’ll be your warrior of care, your first warden
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand
The greatest honor of all as your guardian
Now no more smiling mid crest fall
No more managing unmanageables
No more holding still in the hailstorm
Now enter your watch woman
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian
I’ll be your warrior of care, your first warden
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand
The greatest honor of all as your guardian
Songwriters: Guy Sigsworth / Alanis Nadine Morissette
This first shot (below) I did not take (obviously, because I am in the the photo, but it is one of my most important photographs. It’s a picture of me with my very best friend, taken by my other very best friend.
We are all gathered on the beach in Port Townsend to do a Good-bye Ritual for my three pets, all gone withing two months of each other. This beach was my 16 year old purebred German Shepherd’s favorite place to run free.
This next photo I caught by accident many years ago but to your eye, the true subject matter might not be obvious. This is my very precocious 16 month old grandson, who has come upon his mother, washing her hair in the huge spa bathtub, in a beautiful mountain cabin we had rented. He is mesmerized by what he sees through the door crack and stays frozen in this position, watching, for 5 full minutes (an eternity, if you have ever been around toddlers).
These two are of our kitten Lucy. Neither really captures her essence but I thought the photos were kind of interesting.
Boy, I am realizing how poignant photographs From the Back can be…at least the ones I have taken.
The one below is of my son, his wife, and their boys, on what would turn out to be their last Family Outing…EVER.
A few weeks ago, the photo above of my family would have been one of my saddest ever, but my beloved 18 year old Heart Cat just died so this last picture, right below, has usurped that position, for a while anyway…
His reflection “From the Back” in that glass cabinet
really gets me…
**The “featured” photo at the top is my son, with his son, walking in the woods on San Juan Island.
A couple of years ago, on this date, I posted about 9/11. Maybe you’ll read it and let me know what you think.
It starts like this…
Song Lyric Sunday, 9-11-16
I couldn’t write this on Sunday. I couldn’t even think about it on Sunday. I do not understand why the anniversary THIS year would be any more difficult than all the other years but finally realized, for 13 of the last 15 years since it happened, I have done something on the anniversary with all that grief.
(I noticed, going back to find this, that the song I originally chose didn’t work so I’ll try this one here)
I went looking for photos of fences but just don’t have many. Then it occurred to me that I live in a neighborhood where there are none.
I like that.
My house is the oldest one around for many miles. It’s on a long, dead-end street. We have a neighborhood email and phone list. We keep in touch regarding unusual neighborhood activity (fake solicitors, coyote and bobcat sightings, lost or found pets, etc.) For Halloween and other holidays, the children (and now grandchildren) on the street are the priority with trick-or-treating and caroling! And next weekend is our annual cider-making party. We usually hand press about 50 gallons of juice from the apple trees my neighbor and I share!!
This is the boundary line between my closest neighbor and myself.
I mean, if there were fences, how could we wander through each other’s yards to see each other’s gardens, and to say Hi? Or to watch out for each other, or take a short cut to the next street over?
And how would we check on each other’s animals?
Henrietta, out of her protective custody…
and to photograph flowers?
or be inspired by yard art?
How would the deer get into our yards to clean up the wind fall apples?
I love my street and my neighbors. There just are not many fences on my regular, daily trails.
But I did finally find these in my files…
a house I lived in for a while many years ago…but the fence is newthis caught my eye on a drive last winterwatching sunrise from a nearby blue berry farm.
So my conclusion is apparently…Fences? For me, no thanks..
Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true
You were turning ’round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes
Now the things that I remember seem so distant and so small
Though it hasn’t really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn’t what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb
When you see through love’s illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to hide sometimes, but now you’re all right
And it’s good to see your smiling face tonight
Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the future’s there for anyone to change, still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past
I’m just one or two years and a couple of changes behind you
In my lessons at love’s pain and heartache school
Where if you feel too free and you need something to remind you
There’s this loneliness springing up from your life
Like a fountain from a pool
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to hide sometimes but now you’re all right
And it’s good to see your smiling face tonight
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to struggle, you’ve had to fight
To keep understanding and compassion in sight
You could be laughing at me, you’ve got the right
But you go on smiling so clear and so bright
