Friday, September 08, 2006

Full moon last night. Even though it's still summer, that harvest moon gives it away: change is around the corner. This had to be the fastest summer of my life; I ran the entire way.

I really, really like living in The 'Kan. I love adventure and I love travel and it's the best day of the week when I can find out something new and learn a whole lot more. And therein lies the conundrum of each and every day as I pull the soft, smooth sheets away and slip out of bed to survey the morning sky, panoramic in my bedroom window. That horizon bids me ever onward and succumbing to the call of the Sirens, much as Odysseus, I find to my dismay that when I come home to The 'Kan, the roses have bloomed and gone.

I planted the roses and made a garden in memory of my mother, in honor of my friends, in hopes for my children. I lined the paths of the garden with the most used of bricks and filled them with the tiny rainbow pebbles of the Mission Valley. Along the way, I culled and collected birdhouses and benches and feeders and fountains and my most favorite of rocks from everywhere and poked and placed them along the path, for respite and reflection. It's a wonderful garden, built by me.

It's been alone much of the summer and as a result, my eye is clouded and corroded and weary. I sit in my office and watch the planes fly east to Chicago and south to Denver. The little ones head straight for Seattle. The American flag waves languidly off a crane of the big project down the street and the sky sits a pale gray, still in the September summer. I can't see and understand how the gray of the morning air makes me feel and so I know again, that the benches in my garden have sat too long in the summer sun without me.

I need a mast made of the finest hardwood and the strongest of rope; to lash me, to hold me, to protect me from the seductive call of the Sirens, ever singing a beautiful, mysterious melody of odyssey. I will plant this mast deep in my garden in the cool shade among the tall ferns and in the thickest of the mosses, and hold dear to its ropes that bind me--and keep me near the roses, who bloom fragrant and spicy each and every day of the year, just for me.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Memories travel with us; memorials are built in our hearts. Your sirens are merely calling you to satisfy your natural curiosity of what is "out there," not pulling you from what is important. It is wonderful that you have a place to center your expression of love for those who have gone before and who linger, perhaps distant, but no less important. A place to which you can return, re-center yourself as you prepare for the next adventure, only to return to it again (and again and again ad infintitum). You are blessed with the talent to plant and nurture, then enjoy what comes of your labors. The rock garden that my mother planted fifty years ago as a memorial to my grandparents is bedcoming overgrown because I cannot sustain it. But, the roses I planted from shoots given to me by my uncle (the original plant came with the great-grandparents from Iowa in the 1870s) have flourished without my help. Yes, their blooming is short, but they bloom. Mayhaps you could plant some things that bloom or flourish in each of the four seasons, giving you a new view for when you return from your quests. I hate to think of you lashed to anything. Fly on silver girl....

Leon's current assignment said...

Hmm...masts I have recently encountered...

"All that I keep thinking throughout this whole flight
Is it could take my whole damn life to make this right
This splintered mast I'm holding on won't save me long
Because I know fine well that what I did was wrong"

excerpt from "Make This Go On Forever" by Snow Patrol

Be-u-ti-ful descriptives J.
I can feel it all.

JBelle said...

I find your words and know again that I am rich, rich, rich. I am humbled.

Anonymous said...

Hi, was it you who had the105/58 blood pressure? I am 40 years old and my friend did my blood pressure. It was 105/58 is that normal? I liked what you said about Blair.
I searched the web for blood pr. but you were the second one that made sense.
Thanks from Andrew in Australia.