Strength Post # 201

I do believe Sheridans' statement is true.
I do believe that point in time arrives 

& perhaps, in part at least, is has begun to arrive for me....

Nearly another entire year has passed 

(almost to the day)  since my last post here.

The calendar is undeniable yet it's difficult to believe.

The path and progress of time and emotion 

are perceived and marked so differently.

For those of you who still come by here from time to time

I hope whatever the past year has held for you

has left you stronger, doing well and remaining hopeful.....

What Is Surprising

Q:  WHAT IS SURPRISING ABOUT LIFE?
(one way or another)

A: EVERYTHING....

In the home stretch

Mini Daffs
Photo FDFerris

Week upon week
 Of four degrees
 Week upon week of
   Fourteen degrees
    Winds that howled
     As wolves-a-hunting

     But yesterday
      But today
        Fifty degrees
         Forty degress
         
            Sun and sky send snow on her way
              It's a short reprieve I know
]              
               

                 But it's Spring, peeking around the corner
                   Just before she enters the year
       

Paper Hopes

Today, amid an unexpected snowstorm,  slippery roads, a cranky waitress and other day to day detritus I noted I was beginning to feel just the slightest bit cranky. Nothing intense or overt. Emotional diaper rash would best describe the pathway my mood was taking. The grapes at my first grocery stop were moldy, the bank computer was sluggish. The diaper rash-ness intensified. Sigh. Several stops later, I was at the last errand of my day, Walmart. Entering the store, wobbly wheeled snow cover cart (two additional annoyances) in hand  it caught my eye. It was sad. It was forlorn. Just shy of forsaken. A tiny little artificial tree. It's branches were filled with less-than-perfectly-cut pieces of paper. Intended to be rectangles, many were versions of rectangles. Hung by ribbons. 

Cranky or not there was something about that tree. Those clumsily cut pieces of paper. It was a vision of imperfection. It struck me as I viewed that quasi tragic little tree that the heartfelt honest imperfectness - the humanity it proudly (even defiantly) exuded is what I've missed most about christmas for a long time. I couldn't walk by it....  It wouldn't let me.

I turned over the first beribboned paper to read the request.
In printed hand it said, simply, soap.
I turned over another tag and found, again, one word.  Deodorant.
I turned over another.
In beautiful scripted handwriting, just one word filled the space - toothpaste.
I turned over the next. A child had printed - a shirt. Any color. Any kind.
I couldn't stop turning and reading tags....
The next asked for a toothbrush. Underneath in smaller letters it said toothpaste too? 
I turned over the next revealing this wish - a comb.

 I think I stopped breathing for a moment.
I think my heart stopped for a second. Or two.
I know I felt embarrassed at my irritation over the falling snow
(snow falling on my heated home)
I know I felt absurdly foolish to have been annoyed with the waitress
(while eating my lunch out)
Like a shock of electric current it occurred to me how fortunate I am.
I hardly think about having all the things on those tags.
I hardly think of many other comforts in my life
I have never been cold, hungry, dirty, unclothed.
I have never longed for a comb, deodorant, toothbrush, or toothpaste too?
(as tho asking for a toothbrush AND toothpasste was an excessive request)
I have never had to contemplate how hard it would be to ask for those things, if needed

I'm a fairly no-nonsense, non-weepy person by nature.
But I found it growing difficult to read those little pieces of paper hope bleary eyed
I gathered as many of those beribboned odd shaped tags as my budget could cover
Next week I'm heading back to that tree again to gather and fill more wishes

I found a whole new meaning in the holidays today.
In a Walmart.
Hanging on the branches of a bent up fake tree.

Life is full of surprises.
And lessons.
And Paper Hopes

FDFerris copyright 2010

Perfect As It Is

No photoshop
No "paint"
No fix or crop
Or straighten....

Not one of these was needed
To improve these bytes
Sun painted..

Some moments and some images
Are perfect on their own
Unaided...
FDFerris 2010    

Novemburrrrrrrr

November
She's a tiny bit hard to get along with
She takes my orange yellow leaves
My dappled sun, no longer summer strong
But sill able to dance through
October Autumn leaves

November
She closes my windows
Stills my billowing lace sheers
That are my icon for summer daydreaming

She makes the sensible heat saving me
Go even one step further as I drop the blinds

November steals away the long long longgggg days
That have been trippingly decreasing for months
(but I blame her - she carries the designated time change date)

She's hard to befriend
This cold dark month

But she brings small gifts to win me over
(or to appease me at the very least)

In the form of crisp apples and pumpkins
In the longing for sweaters and blankets
Absent all hot steaming summer

And September-October-Fall

She gifts me with my renewed passion to bake
Breads and sweets will again fill the house

With inside aroma and coziness
Exiled in Summer

Perhaps I'll befriend her
These weeks, uncared for by me, of November
Not not for the gifts she brings
Not ignoring the loves of mine she takes

But perhaps I can befriend her

Based on the thought that she
Like me
Is, simply, who she is
Both good and bad interwoven, inseparable
The loveable (and unlikeable) parts of the whole
November
Copyright FDFerris 2010

Tis the season



 FALL IN THE NORTHEAST

I have a theory that Fall is so beautiful here as an apology from Nature for Winter
It is an astoudingly beautiful time of year. A time I hold close. The color, the fading warmth. The time of year that is (for me) the season to review the year. I know, that's supposed to occur at the end of the year. But not for me. For me amid the splash of color, the freedom of the leaves as they swoop and swirl briefly en-route to the ground
is the time of review for me....
Fall is the time I glance back over the entire year.

Each peak and valley,each loss, each gain.
I fondly remember the moments of laughter.
I gently revisit the disappointments and pains.
Each joy, each angst a significant thread
in the warp and weave
of the dwindling year.

Amid the reds and yellows set to brilliant sun
Against the reflection of soaking rain
I turn each month, each event, every random moment
over in my mind.

Winter is too harsh and cold
for enjoyable introspection.
Annual review is best back-dropped
by color and wet and wind and dappled sun.

Old friends lost, new friends found.
Doors that closed, drawbridges that were secured.
Moats  that needed to be filled (with water & alligators).
But there were windows opened and ladders extended.
Yin and Yang.

Good choices, bad choices,
looking back one or two
what was I thinking?! choices, lol
The usual mix, knowing that every decision
had reasons that made sense at the time.

One last cup of coffee on the porch
A whispered 'farewell' to the final falling leaves
Sweaters unpacked, days growing shorter
Another year reviewed with 'notes to self' made for 2011
2011... It'll be a good year
Fall in the Northeast
for me.....
Image and Text by FDFerris 10 ~ 2010   
PLEASE VISIT (click here) my benefit auction for ANDREW THORNTON



Farewell August...

Farewell August

Days of cloudless skies
Cicadas songs
Brilliant star filled nites

Late evening air so rich and dense 

it's nearly liquid

Farewell August

Days of baking sun

Tomato ripening

Watering can filling (and emptying)
In continual cycles

Farewell August

Days of peak summer green
And yellow corn

Fields of berries red and blue

(A temptation to make jam)

Farewell August
Days of summer porch
Every window open nites
Rounds of deep resounding thunder
And watermelon for two....

  Image and verse fdferris copyright 2010