My Friend, Pammie Is In Heaven

Pam, my imaginary friend who became real.

I 'met' Pam, (I called her Pammie), her sister Kelly and our friend Lynn through an old writing site, long gone, called Pearl Soup.  We then got together in a private Yahoo 'Princess' group with several other women (Sherry!) where we discussed books, men, kids, grandkids, pets and life in general.  We had a blast.  Oh, the stories we shared!!  Pammie had THE best man story ever, hands down, but it's a secret.  She was a pistol, a real Texas sweetheart.  

She loved her family (especially her beloved grandsons) and her dogs, who she called her fur kids.  Then a few years back (how the years have flown by!) me, Lynn, Pam and Kelly all met at the beautiful "Cane River Cottage" on Cane River Lake near Natchitoches, Louisiana for a long weekend.  (Below are photos from their web site).  We had so much fun...it was like we'd known each other our whole lives from the moment we met.  We talked ourselves hoarse, ate, watched movies (I remember "Steel Magnolias" and "Stardust") and talked some more.  We ate out in Natchitoches and I showed them some of the places where "Steel Magnolias" was filmed.  It was a magical time making real friends of imaginary ones.  (I used to call my Internet friends imaginary...but I've met almost ten and made them real). :-)

                                                 Cane River Cottages

      The gorgeous living room where we watched movies, talked and laughed A LOT!!! 

Sadly, our Pammie died last week from a sudden illness that hit her just before Christmas.  She will be greatly missed.  I know she's in heaven with her fur kids and parents.  And I'm so grateful for the wonderful, sweet memories I have of Pammie.  I'm glad she was my friend.

I was reading back on my blog and found this comment that Pam left under a post I'd written after my grand-dog, Olympis, died in 2009:

"As the pillow Kelly gave me from Christmas says:  

'Heaven is the place where all the dogs you've ever loved come to greet you.'

How true; how true!"

Pammie, I know you're in a much better place where there is no pain or suffering.  And I can just imagine the joyous smile on your face as your fur kids and family members who've gone before you greeted you at Heaven's gate.  I will always love you, dearest big-hearted friend.  xxoo, Marion

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.” ~Erma Bombeck

John 14:1-6

1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?

6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Sixty-One by Doug Anderson

                      Catfish is Mr. Death, sneaking up on my Monster High Doll. :-)

SIXTY-ONE

By Doug Anderson

Fifty was poignant, heavy pear 

departs the tree and the poem 

a sigh between branch and mulch. 

But no more. Another decade, 

I’m all song and scruff, 

the mind’s hot wire threading joint to joint. 

I’ll tell you straight out what I think, 

no sweetener. Nor has Aphrodite left me 

collapsed in a stairwell 

and don’t you father-flirt me, girl. 

This morning the world unbelts her robe, 

rose fleshed and randy. 

I like the rats that skitter 

under the subway’s hot rails.   

The little black dog 

who’s afraid of no one, 

not even the dope dealer’s pitbulls.   

Montaigne said sickness 

is God’s way of weaning us from life 

but I don’t think yet. I like the way 

soul clings to gristle like a newspaper 

wrapped around a light pole in a storm. 

Death’s a street away 

walking parallel and at my pace. He gets a nod.

Doug Anderson, “Sixty One” from Cry Wolf. Copyright © 2008 by Doug Anderson.

Windchime by Tony Hoagland

                    Longleaf Pines at Red Dirt, Kisatchie National Forest

WINDCHIME

By Tony Hoagland

She goes out to hang the windchime 

in her nightie and her work boots. 

It’s six-thirty in the morning 

and she’s standing on the plastic ice chest 

tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch, 

windchime in her left hand, 

hammer in her right, the nail 

gripped tight between her teeth 

but nothing happens next because 

she’s trying to figure out 

how to switch #1 with #3. 

She must have been standing in the kitchen, 

coffee in her hand, asleep, 

when she heard it—the wind blowing 

through the sound the windchime 

wasn’t making 

because it wasn’t there. 

No one, including me, especially anymore believes 

till death do us part, 

but I can see what I would miss in leaving— 

the way her ankles go into the work boots 

as she stands upon the ice chest; 

the problem scrunched into her forehead; 

the little kissable mouth 

with the nail in it.

“Windchime” copyright © 2003 by Tony Hoagland from What Narcissism Means to Me

Growing Old by Matthew Arnold

         ...is what we all are, ultimately, sadly.

GROWING OLD

By Matthew Arnold

What is it to grow old? 

Is it to lose the glory of the form, 

The luster of the eye? 

Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? 

—Yes, but not this alone. 

Is it to feel our strength— 

Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay? 

Is it to feel each limb 

Grow stiffer, every function less exact, 

Each nerve more loosely strung? 

Yes, this, and more; but not 

Ah, ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould be! 

’Tis not to have our life 

Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow, 

A golden day’s decline. 

’Tis not to see the world 

As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, 

And heart profoundly stirred; 

And weep, and feel the fullness of the past, 

The years that are no more. 

It is to spend long days 

And not once feel that we were ever young; 

It is to add, immured 

In the hot prison of the present, month 

To month with weary pain. 

It is to suffer this, 

And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. 

Deep in our hidden heart 

Festers the dull remembrance of a change, 

But no emotion—none. 

It is—last stage of all— 

When we are frozen up within, and quite 

The phantom of ourselves, 

To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost 

Which blamed the living man.

I am currently reading "Deepstep Come Shining" by C. D. Wright, a most excellent book.

Adult Coloring Books Are Addicting!

I haven't been around much lately.  I got some adult coloring books for Christmas and discovered that they're highly addictive.  When I get to coloring these intricate pictures or designs, I get so eager to find out how they'll turn out, I just cannot stop.  It's relaxing.  They start at about $5 and go up to near $20, depending on the quality, but there are some excellent selections at Amazon and at local craft stores.  Better than Prozac!  LOL!  xo

My favorite picture done with Prismacolor Colored Pencils

First ones I did using gel pens and Prismacolor Colored Pencils (the best, waxy and bright).

I love the dragonflies and the damsel fly.  Mostly gel pens from Wal-Mart and colored pencils.

Gel pen entirely.  I had a contest with hubby & won.

                My first moth.  I wanted it to have the colors of the Luna Moth.

A Christmas gift from my artist daughter...I'm addicted now to coloring.

                                 Another Christmas gift from artist daughter.

        After becoming addicted in December, I got these two books at Amazon in January.

                                     Hedgehog made of leaves.  Mostly gel & glitter pens.

Got this case of gel/glitter pens years ago for $10.  Almost empty now.

                 All gel/glitter pens.  I'm a bit OCD about balance.  Trying to get over that...

Christmas gift from Ray.  The Mother with ALL Prismacolors.  Heaven!

Two canvas cases that hold ALL 132 of my pencils and roll up neatly and snap. Only $10 each at Amazon.  They come in different sizes for holding varying numbers of pencils.  It makes the pencils much more accessible.  After I use a color, I reverse it so I'll know I've used it.  

Clear Night by Charles Wright

No, we didn't get any snow or ice.  But it was 70 degrees a few days ago!  Love Southern weather.  My daughter in Nashville got TWO snow days and shared some of her pics.  Wish I was there.

 This is where my younger daughter and her family live.  It's a beautiful place with a creek in back.

We surprised my son-in-law (who was so ill) with a new recliner.  His old one was 13 years old!

          Snow Angel by my granddaughter.

CLEAR NIGHT

By Charles Wright

Clear night, thumb-top of a moon, a back-lit sky. 

Moon-fingers lay down their same routine 

On the side deck and the threshold, the white keys and the black keys. 

Bird hush and bird song. A cassia flower falls. 

I want to be bruised by God. 

I want to be strung up in a strong light and singled out. 

I want to be stretched, like music wrung from a dropped seed.   

I want to be entered and picked clean. 

And the wind says “What?” to me. 

And the castor beans, with their little earrings of death, say “What?” to me. 

And the stars start out on their cold slide through the dark.   

And the gears notch and the engines wheel.

Charles Wright, “Clear Night” from Country Music: Selected Early Poems. 

R.I.P. Ms. C. D. Wright

   “It is a function of poetry to locate those zones inside us that would be free." C. D. Wright

EVERYTHING GOOD BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

By C. D. Wright

has been written in mud and butter 

and barbecue sauce. The walls and 

the floors used to be gorgeous. 

The socks off-white and a near match. 

The quince with fire blight 

but we get two pints of jelly 

in the end. Long walks strengthen 

the back. You with a fever blister 

and myself with a sty. Eyes 

have we and we are forever prey 

to each other’s teeth. The torrents 

go over us. Thunder has not harmed 

anyone we know. The river coursing 

through us is dirty and deep. The left 

hand protects the rhythm. Watch 

your head. No fires should be 

unattended. Especially when wind. Each 

receives a free swiss army knife. 

The first few tongues are clearly 

preparatory. The impression 

made by yours I carry to my grave. It is 

just so sad so creepy so beautiful. 

Bless it. We have so little time 

to learn, so much... The river 

courses dirty and deep. Cover the lettuce. 

Call it a night. O soul. Flow on. Instead.

C. D. Wright, “Everything Good between Men and Women” from Steal Away: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by C. D. Wright. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ms. Wright died today at age 67.  RIP, sweet Southern poet.  So little time, indeed...

Our Dust

C. D. Wright

I am your ancestor. You know next-to-nothing
about me.
There is no reason for you to imagine
the rooms I occupied or my heavy hair.
Not the faint vinegar smell of me. Or
the rubbed damp
of Forrest and I coupling on the landing
en route to our detached day.

You didn’t know my weariness, error, incapacity,
I was the poet
of shadow work and towns with quarter-inch
phone books, of failed
roadside zoos. The poet of yard eggs and
sharpening shops,
jobs at the weapons plant and the Maybelline
factory on the penitentiary road.

A poet of spiderwort and jacks-in-the-pulpit,
hollyhocks against the tool shed.
An unsmiling dark blond.
The one with the trowel in her handbag.
I dug up protected and private things.
That sort, I was.
My graves went undecorated and my churches
abandoned. This wasn’t planned, but practice.

I was the poet of short-tailed cats and yellow
line paint.
Of satellite dishes and Peterbilt trucks. Red Man
Chewing Tobacco, Black Cat Fireworks, Triple Hut
Creme Soda. Also of dirt dobbers, nightcrawlers,
martin houses, honey, and whetstones
from the Novaculite Uplift. What remained
of The Uplift.

I had registered dogs 4 sale; rocks, dung,
and straw.
I was a poet of hummingbird hives along with
redhead stepbrothers.

The poet of good walking shoes—a necessity
in vernacular parts—and push mowers.
The rumor that I was once seen sleeping
in a refrigerator box is false (he was a brother
who hated me).
Nor was I the one lunching at the Governor’s
mansion.

I didn’t work off a grid. Or prime the surface
if I could get off without it. I made
simple music
out of sticks and string. On side B of me,
experimental guitar, night repairs and suppers
such as this.
You could count on me to make a bad situation
worse like putting liquid make-up over
a passion mark.

I never raised your rent. Or anyone else’s by God.
Never said I loved you. The future gave me chills.
I used the medium to say: Arise arise and
come together.
Free your children. Come on everybody. Let’s start
with Baltimore.

Believe me I am not being modest when I
admit my life doesn’t bear repeating. I
agreed to be the poet of one life,
one death alone. I have seen myself
in the black car. I have seen the retreat
of the black car.

Time Passing---What Is Time?

Time Xxi - Poem by Khalil Gibran

And an astronomer said, "Master, what of Time?" 

And he answered: 

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable. 

You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons. 

Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing. 

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness, 

And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream. 

And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space. 

Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? 

And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not form love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds? 

And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless? 

But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons, 

And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My first date with my future husband (we were 14 & 15) was here at The Corner Drug Store near my old neighborhood, Cedar Grove. We had fountain Cherry Cokes, with real cherries, sitting on high stools at the bar and played the bagpipe version of Amazing Grace on the jukebox.  I'm pretty sure we got out of there for under a dollar. :-) We were the definition of innocence...The Corner Drug Store is all gone now, torn down..nothing left but memories, widened streets, big box stores, fast food crap and "progress".  No one ever wants to restore historical buildings in dirt poor neighborhoods.  

An old friend I knew from Jr. High School sent this pic to me on Facebook.  It was like a time travel object that took me right back to that point in time.  Nice.  Before everything---when life was youth and freedom:  a wide, very long, endless highway... Sigh... It's more of a dead end street at this juncture, but a nice street with a forest view.  Time:  A memory-River of things and people never again to be; floating, floating endlessly to the wild, blue sea.

New year, new prayer flags put up today. We leave the old, disintegrating flags up because the birds in Spring will take the loose strings of fabric and add it to their their nests.  I love that they 'recycle'. :-)

A jet flew by and perfectly split the cold, blue sky...

A shadow shot of the flags swaying in a tiny breeze.

                         ~~~#~~~#~~~#~~~

Books I read this week - All Five Star Reads:

~~"The Mountain Shadow" by David Gregory Roberts (Sequel to "Shantaram")

~~"M Train" by Patti Smith

~~"Lover of Unreason - Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival & Ted Hughes's Doomed Love"

               By Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev

                        ~~~#~~~#~~~#~~~

My son-in-law is back home after 14 days in the hospital for pneumonia, a lung abscess, lung surgery, biopsy, chest tubes for fluid inside & outside his lung lining and many tests.  Thank you for the prayers.  He'll be recuperating for a few months, until his lung heals from the surgery trauma.  My daughter was a pillar of strength and kept the nurses and doctors in line... She'd make an awesome patient advocate...Her hubby had never really been sick before or been in a hospital.  He was scared, but he made it through, PTL!  He's quit smoking (using the patch) and has a new appreciation for breathing!!!!!  I'm very proud of him.  I know it's not easy.  Mama was 84 when she stopped smoking after a mild stroke.  She's doing good with her fake cigarette thingy.  

Later, peeps, 

~~Marion

May Every Moment Be A New Beginning

The Spirit Is Too Blunt An Instrument By Anne Stevenson

                                                            Abandoned Bluebird Nest

THE SPIRIT IS TOO BLUNT AN INSTRUMENT By Anne Stevenson

The spirit is too blunt an instrument 

to have made this baby. 

Nothing so unskilful as human passions 

could have managed the intricate 

exacting particulars: the tiny 

blind bones with their manipulating tendons, 

the knee and the knucklebones, the resilient 

fine meshings of ganglia and vertebrae, 

the chain of the difficult spine. 

Observe the distinct eyelashes and sharp crescent 

fingernails, the shell-like complexity 

of the ear, with its firm involutions 

concentric in miniature to minute 

ossicles. Imagine the 

infinitesimal capillaries, the flawless connections 

of the lungs, the invisible neural filaments 

through which the completed body 

already answers to the brain. 

Then name any passion or sentiment 

possessed of the simplest accuracy. 

No, no desire or affection could have done 

with practice what habit 

has done perfectly, indifferently, 

through the body's ignorant precision. 

It is left to the vagaries of the mind to invent 

love and despair and anxiety 

and their pain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I appreciate you all very much and wish you a blessed and happy 2016.

xo,

Marion