just 3 lines: December 2021

448. new year’s eve

with gratitude

looking back on the year

like an old friend

(Standing at a crossroads: looking back at downtimes and up, laughter and tears, losses and wins, delights and disappointments, fears and faithfulness, sunny days and rain. Without the dark days we could never see the light; darkness gives meaning to light. The colors and complexities of life, day by day, help us to grow and learn what it is to be human.)

447. red door

old woman

standing at the gate

going inside

(Many churches are recognized by their distinctive red doors symbolizing places of sanctuary, safety, and protection.)

446. offering

sipping tea

looking back on things

as the year ends

(Hindsight helps bring things into perspective, offering a broader view of the big picture.)

445. coming and going

2021 leaving

nothing left in the garden

only these marks

emerging

marks on a sheet of paper

2022 rising

(Reflecting on the old year gone by and the prospects for the new year to come.)

444. a few more days

a few more days,

another year passing by….

moment by moment

(Everything comes to an end. Doing my best to make the most of each day.)

443. a quiet time

take time out

a quiet time to sit down

and reflect

(It’s a good practice, now and then, to take time to sit down and reflect on the quiet.)

442. christmas morning

oh, joy

here comes the son—

meow!

(Peace to The World!)

441. no snow

fallen leaves

no snow in sight—

christmas eve

(I remember last winter just about this time and no predictions of snow, I wondered….will we ever see snow around here again. Then not long after Christmas, we had piles of snow here! Hmm.)

440. together

the two of them

piddling and paddling along

all day long

(Wintering ducks. I love how they glide in the water with softness and ease, even in the cold. Taking time out to observe them together brings me to a peaceful place.

Mallard ducks, unlike swans and geese, do not mate for life but come together in Winter for the breeding season, then go their separate ways in Spring.)

439. no....yes

first day of winter

even the sun looks cold

….freezing my fingers

(Yesterday was winter solstice, which is celebrated around the world as the seasonal change into winter. In some traditions this is known as the day of the “death and birth of the sun.”

Out early, I had an hour and a half to kill waiting for my car to be serviced. The cold had me shivering in temps below freezing, as I walked around hoping for a good picture or two. And then there was the sun. I pulled off my gloves, pulled out my phone, and tried to focus. My fingers were shaking and begged “no!” but my mind said “yes” and persisted. The mind is a stubborn fellow😆.)

438. friend or foe?

hanging together

despite their differences—

two fishes

green leaves

in the fishbowl, big red

and little silver

(Hannibal is a Siamese Betta, who lunges and attacks his food with great gusto! He’s a top-feeder and a loner. Squirt is a Swordtail Guppy, who pecks and nibbles everywhere along the bowl. He’s a friendly fish who enjoys companionship.

Most authorities say that betta fish are too aggressive and territorial to be kept in close quarters with fishes. Just goes to show you….you can’t always believe what you read or what you hear.)

437. life on a swing

turn it around

when things get you down

make it no big deal

feeling off-center?

it’s okay to wobble

make it no big deal

when we were kids

life was no big deal—

turn it around

436. into the grey

state by state

going their separate ways

feeling the chill

how could it be

falling apart at the seams

these 50 states

one by one

the red-white-and-blue

into the grey

(What’s going on? Where are we headed? Whatever happened to the United States of America.)

435. the model….

she posed

with a slice of tomato—

little ingrid

(Scrolling through old photos, I found this picture of a pastel painting I made some time ago. I painted this picture from a photo of Ingrid, who lived in a little trailer at the edge of the salt marshes just outside of Wildwood. She was sitting on the kitchen table next to a white plate with a slice of red tomato. There’s more to the story but I’ll end it here.

Isn’t it wonderful where the mind can take you?)

434. breaking free

what a surprise

taking out this week‘s trash—

a full moon

(Friday is trash day. My habit is to take the trash out early in the morning but for some reason I chose to take it out last night and, again for some reason, looked up at the sky. There she was, the full moon, peeking out from a sky full of clouds.

I suppose here I might say, it pays to break away from habits from time to time. When you don’t think about and don’t even try, and just do it, breaking a habit is easy.)

433. like old lovers

fading faintly

nestled inside this leaf….

another leaf

(This time of year with so many leaves under foot covering over tree roots and rocks on the trail, I find myself looking down quite a bit when hiking. I don’t want to trip and fall. The other day, my eye caught sight of something that made me stop for a closer look. It appeared to be fossil of a tiny leaf nestled inside another leaf. The image brought to mind “the secret lives of trees”….and leaves. It charmed me….so I took this picture.)

431. time out

away from the fray

a corner of one’s own

will do just fine

430. transformation

ghost of itself

on a wheel turning around

and round

(Life goes on and on, always transforming itself.)

429. sanctuary

weary….

looking for a place to stay

just one night

(The sign read, Sanctuary….and I thought to myself, ahh, yes. Sometimes, just one night away will do.)

428. somewhere in the middle

munching, rustling—

it’s a beautiful thing

being born a deer

the two of us

looking up….looking down

seeing eye to eye

(High above, from a 30-foot stone wall, I looked down as he munched the spare autumn leaves then slowly settled down. He glanced around, then looked up at me a while. A little distance and some time can go a long way to reaching a safe middle ground.)

427. time standing still

sight seeing:

a bazillion blinks of the eye,

stopping time

(Mindful of the moment. Whoever said meditation is boring! Every moment holds its own eternity. Zoom in on it.)

426. why

end of autumn

pushing up against the cold

oak leaves fading

“here we are

in the amber of the moment

there is no why”

The first verse is mine, the second by Kurt Vonnegut.

(The other day while walking outside, something caught my eye—it may have been the rosey color behind the black iron fence. Pausing in the moment, something said take the picture. So I pulled out my camera and took two quick shots, though I didn’t know why. I’m learning more and more to listen and not question that soft, still inner voice.)

425. steps

step….step….step

a walking meditation

red….yellow….blue

424. street art

stopping traffic

everyone having their say

what’s art anyway?

(In abstract class yesterday, we were sharing thoughts about art and Karl posed a question wondering whether or not his own work was “art.” This thought echoed in my mind and led me to wonder….what is art anyway, and how many forms of art are there? Then I remembered a picture I’d taken just the other day outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Zooming in on this one brought me to a halt. Isn’t it great, people are people, I suppose, and they create endless ways to have their say.)

In 2018, the Museum of Culture and Environment hosted an exhibition of street stickers from around the world. Here’s a link to a news item.

https://www.cwu.edu/international-political-and-social-street-stickers-subject-next-cwu-exhibit

423. paying homage to

the good old days:

penny candy….penny stamps,

my father’s hands

(My father was a traveler….he collected stamps and saved them in a book to keep alive the memories of his journeys. As a young girl, I had a stamp collection too, even though I never traveled far away from home….I simply liked looking at pictures of far away places. I suppose it satisfied the gypsy in my soul.)

422. looking up

keep moving forward

no matter what happens—

and keep looking up

(When things get you down, keep looking up. Things look different in the morning.)

421. best seats in town

sitting tight

watching the moon on the rise

the village pigeons

(Used to be you had to go to the seashore to see seagulls; now they’re in the cities. And pigeons could only be found in cities and now they’ve arrived in towns and villages. Just goes to show you that birds, just like people, have their own way of branching out. I suppose life is all about moving on and out.)