WINTER IS HERE!
When I woke up this morning there was a thin layer of puffy white sparkle dust on everything and it’s been SNOWING all morning…and it’s STICKING! Yay! FINALLY!!!
22
Jan
2007
Tagged: wonderfulworld
02
Nov
2006
WEATHERBEATEN
This work week is wringing me out like a washcloth, twisting just tight enough to make my shoulders cram up against the small bones where spine meets skull. It’s been a week of breathless galloping through projects, and then galloping back and forth over my tracks, reined in by the wishes of others. Still, I’m satisfied. I’m getting things done, although I’ve had to say no twice to people, something I hate having to do. No, I’m sorry, I can’t take your project although I know there isn’t anyone else that you can ask, there isn’t anyone else who can...
22
Oct
2006
EARTH’S CRAMMED WITH HEAVEN
Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves! —Humbert Wolfe Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. —Albert Camus Yellow, mellow, ripened days, Sheltered in a golden coating; O’er the dreamy, listless haze, White and dainty cloudlets floating; Winking at the blushing trees, And the sombre, furrowed fallow; Smiling at the airy ease, Of the southward flying swallow Sweet and smiling are thy ways, Beauteous, golden Autumn days. —Will Carleton
14
Aug
2006
THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTNING, VERY VERY FRIGHTENING
BANG! Sizzzzzz! I’ve read about the smell of ozone that comes after a lightning strike but I’ve never experienced it for myself, until today, and then it was several times in fast succession and through the windows of the car and several layers of sheeting water. When you want to find a metaphor for something that goes fast, it’s easy to say it’s fast as lightning, but when lightning is making the ground tremble and burning split-second forked pathways along your retinas, you suddenly realize that there is nothing to compare lightning TO. It’s as fast as lightning! WHAM! A...
08
Jul
2006
HOT FLASH
Much as I love the sunshine, I wish the temperatures would crank down about 15 degrees. It’s been over 90° all week, and I am not a fan of heat and humidity. When it rains in Sweden, everyone grumbles about the weather. When it’s dark and cold here, everyone bitches and moans. When it’s unexpectedly hot for an extended period of time, which is normally very, very rare, even in the south of Sweden (which, if you will recall, is on the same latitude as ANCHORAGE, ALASKA for god’s sake), everyone in Sweden is fervently wishing it would cool off...
02
Jul
2006
DON’T WISH IT AWAY, DON’T LOOK AT IT LIKE IT’S FOREVER
For the most part, penultimate summer lives only in our memories, a childhood haze of endless sunny days with no school spent poolside, our limbs sealy and brown, slick with water. Mother’s voice, calling distant, while the lightning bugs gather and flash and the streetlamps buzz and strengthen as we skip along the hedgerow, with the sun still lighting our way home despite the hour. 3 days and counting: Perfect summer in Sweden. This is when the tourist board rushes out to photograph the countryside, sunlight and warmth lighting up the red wooden houses and blue and gold crossed flags...
26
Jun
2006
MASTER RELAXER, MISSING MOM, REMINISCES
On my mother’s last day here we spent a lot of time in the car, a lot of time in the sun and a lot of time laughing and playing with things. We got up relatively early and we drove away into the sunshine. An hour north found us in the green, green woods of the Wanås castle grounds. We wandered through the old stalls and barns, now scrubbed and whitewashed and turned to gallery installations, and then out into the sunshine and the bright translucent green of the beech leaves high above us. Since 1987, Wanås has been an...
18
Jun
2006
GUEST BLOGGING BY LIZARDMOM
Today I went to Hell and back—took my daughter and grandson too! Not at all what you would expect! We had our choice of which color hell* (red, fuschia, pink, even white) we wanted to hide in, or more likely…to get lost in. It is actually a very lovely place, beautiful fragrances, colorful, cool—(since it is hidden from the sun when you’re in it), and an almost magical place. If you looked closely, with softened eyes, you could see fairies, too! It was a fanciful place, complete with an ear to the ground listening for our words and thoughts, a...
16
Jun
2006
WILD LIFE
We are rising, light-filled, toward the longest day. Morning after morning breaks clear across the wide sky and pours sunshine over us in spate. If it were possible to be filled to the brim with sunshine, I would be, but it keeps on coming and it’s never enough, here in a northern country where grey skies, rain and darkness hold so much sway. Contrails stitch comet-needles across the roof of the sky, and clouds have pasted themselves unmoving along the horizon. When the sun lowers it singes all the edges, turning everything rose-red, pink-gold, orange and lavender. Out watering in...
08
May
2006
ANYWHERE IS WALKING DISTANCE IF YOU’VE GOT THE TIME*
A brisk perambulation at sundown, of an evening, a fine and flowering evening, in Flyinge. The sun was a huge orange ball o’fire aglow in the west. Between it and me the tall trees of the crow party loomed, a giant’s spiky picket fence. I could see all the crow’s nests, way up high. As I walked down the snail trail, the air cooled off and the crows became agitated at my presence even with their secure distance up in the treetops. RAWK! they all screamed, and they flapped and fleaped** from nest to branch and back again. The white...