December 2020 – Page 3 – Muttering Retreats

Friday Chai Day and Other Joy Generators

Whoever said variety is the spice of life obviously wasn’t very observant. Or maybe they were just stuck in a rut and trying to validate throwing everything into the breeze and starting over from scratch. Or trying to make a few bucks with self-help advice, hustling anyone who would listen: Hey! Hey, you! You wantContinue reading “Friday Chai Day and Other Joy Generators”

Road Trip Rituals: The Shaw Festival

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about touchstone places. You know, the locations that you will go out of your way to make time and space to visit, because they do something to your brain, to your essence. They recharge you. They center you. They fulfill you. So much of my travel is finding newContinue reading “Road Trip Rituals: The Shaw Festival”

I Shot What? (NOTL, Ontario)

File this one under “Shots I Was Told Not To Take”. No, I did not actually look directly at the sun when I took this. But my smart phone did. More proof that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing behind the lens, but sometimes get an image that I like anyway. Shot onContinue reading “I Shot What? (NOTL, Ontario)”

My Closed-Captioned Life (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zoom)

It’s been awhile since I’ve done an ode to my (dis)ability, so I figured it was time to bring out my ole soapbox and do a bit of barbaric yawping a-top of it. The other day, my college-aged son confessed to me (in a weirdly excited way), “Mom, I think I have your thing. IContinue reading “My Closed-Captioned Life (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zoom)”

Ruinous

Added weight crushes like dirton my shoulders and in my headI am buried alive under the strainof your incessant love and affectionstill and cold I cannot moveI don’t dare breathe and disturb youthe thinning air – is there nothing thereafraid to turn and see you don’t see ~ Hezaasan (c) 2018

Tannhauser Gate (Pompeii, Italy)

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. Bladerunner, spoken by Roy Batty Shot on iPhone 8.

Hole in the Wall (Pompeii, Italy)

I couldn’t resist the on-the-nose title. Although “Head Like a Hole” is the actual song running through my head right now. This image is a microcosm of the ruins of Pompeii. There are walls, everywhere. Holes, everywhere. This is a place of contradiction: so much preserved, and so much destroyed. And if you look hardContinue reading “Hole in the Wall (Pompeii, Italy)”

Aspirations

I breathe in to start to speak the wordsthat will illustrate all the depthand all the reach of what I feel and seeand hope and wishof where we’ve been and where we are going And then I freezebreath heldeyes blurredwords locked Because I am breathing inall your hope and all your feelingsand your wishes AndContinue reading “Aspirations”

Jarmusch Junkies (Memphis, TN)

Bizarre things happen late at night. When you’re just walking around aimlessly, not really trying to get anywhere except away from drunken crowds. When you’ve just spent the past three days quoting from your favorite film set in Memphis, Mystery Train by Jim Jarmusch, and have forgotten to even look for the sites that wereContinue reading “Jarmusch Junkies (Memphis, TN)”

Coffins and Keyholes (Pompeii, Italy)

I wasthe girl of the chain letter,the girl full of talk of coffins and keyholes,the one of the telephone bills,the wrinkled photo and the lost connections. Anne Sexton When I was in middle school, one of my favorite things to do during breaks and the lunch hour was to walk around and ask people pseudo-psychologicalContinue reading “Coffins and Keyholes (Pompeii, Italy)”