Bathroom During and After

I am not fragile.

I've spent a lifetime feeling

As breakable as a light bulb

With no insides

As if it were the essence

Of femininity. For me.

But I look now

And see more than fragility

A heart that is broken

And still open

A spirit indomitable

A ferocious will

Able to find hope amid hopelessness

And meaning in absurdity

Produce beauty from tragedy

And light from darkness.

Have nothing in your houses

that you do not know to be useful,

or believe to be beautiful.

-William Morris

I'm sometimes amazed at the helium left in my soul.

The will to fight, to live, to pick myself back up, to go forward.

The light is coming on,

allowing my spirit to breathe, my mind to clear,

in safety, in hope, in pure air.

I experienced a moment, when out of the corner of my eye seeing it in french blue,

of total peace.

Like I used to feel more often.

Can't quite describe or convey but to say,

like being a child and having your dad smooth your hair.

Then it was gone and this was the Junction, 3 cop cars in one pass through town.

Got home and all a flurry, laid down, eyes wet.

This morning I did 4.5 walking and pathetically but heroically ran .5 that felt

like a mile.

Felt the trees souls reach out and feed mine, remembering a hundred walks being light and floating, heart racing.

But my hair came down and I looked for a bench,
and when I found one it was the same one. Could almost look up and see.

There was something about peacekeeping...so I got up quickly, thinking a saner person would never allow these things in, and heard for the thousandth time your words to me, "Sometimes you have to be hard..."

So I ponder the odds of finding something so similar, and the days ahead and all that needs to be sorted out. It's just these couple pebbles, like droplets of air I breath under water.
Only a lifetime...only a lifetime.


I'm thankful for home. For being in the vicinity of these memories--every place I look and everywhere I go...because there is comfort in it. Sometimes a torment but a comfort too. I imagine all the splintered pieces coming together...I imagine it being like a father's arms, it's a small and pleasant hope. And hope is what sustains me always. It is a light, and now it flickers, small and airless,
it flickers on sometimes.

Favorite Things

Bedroom Redo

It all started with a crack in the ceiling...

Badly cracked plaster walls...

And beat up floors.

The paneled doors were cracked.

And there were lots of deep scratches in the floor from furniture.

I started out painting the floor the same periwinkle blue.
Here's the cut in: goodbye stenciling :(

Then filled in the deep cracks, the scratches and holes.

Water damage had come from the bathroom:
I patched it with Spackle, then primed and sealed it.

And primed over it.

The blue looked dated and dark to me, so I went online and looked up pics of white painted floors and read comments from people who'd done their floors in white.

There were some warnings about them showing every bit of dirt.

But lots of encouragement.

And the pictures were breathtaking so I went for it.

I chose a urethane-fortified porch floor paint by Painter's Select.

This picture shows some of the scratches and dents needed more filler.

I didn't want it to look perfect, just not so unsightly.

After 3 coats it started to solidify:

It took 5 thin coats to finish.
I chose to paint the baseboards in an eggshell because they're pretty banged up too.

Bringing the bed in: the walls and bed look yellow against the bright white trim but they're ivory/cream.

Vanilla.

On the first night, after the rest of the house got pitch dark this room was still glowing.
I slept with the windows open to a cool breeze that made the curtains billow.

It was luminescent!

I love it!

I call it the Hope House

but it's just an old farmhouse surrounded by wind, grass, and sky.

I'd love to take some Andrew Wyeth style pictures here.

Put on a white dress, lit up by sun.