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Indigo Vales

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Indigo Vales

Tag Archives: transition

Guardians

24 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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body, death, honor, life, mantis, memory, mortal, poem?, precious, remembrance, sand, transition

When you come to collect me be careful where you step and what you touch
There’s sand on the floor,
slippery and on the couch,
kind of funny
and in the bathroom under everything, grit everywhere
in your hair and I hope it never washes away

When you come to collect me take note and be gentle
Precious cargo here:
Horseshoe crab molts, a seahorse
A green flower he found on the sidewalk and gave to me
Ribbons from gifts long enough to wrap sarcophagus
Penguins and llamas and Piglets,
Empty journals waiting for a smeared knuckle
Hoya and snake plant that thrive against the odds

A mantis, finger long, the color of bark
Who hung on the ceiling outside my door
Biding his time
Guarding my home
His mortal body now in the dish beneath my aloe.

Be careful.

Transition In The Key Of Me

05 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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friends, Iron Maiden, September, sorting, transition, work, writing

The year many of our beach dogs died. The year humans reclaimed the beach from weather, tacking on 20 feet and taking away sandbars. The year of travel. Of making friends. Reclaiming silence, peace, writing, reading. Self.

September is coming. It begins my season of change. The world celebrates New Year’s as the new, like one big, happy, unbloody period, but September always felt like the real chapter for me. I feel September coming as I sort the ingredients of last year. So many sleepless nights. So many sunrise and sunsets. Countless wave sounds to catalog with mere words. Empty shells and sea glass have become homes for hermit crabs and the sea glass is rarer now. Great herds of seaweed would beach themselves and reek on the shore until they dried out to become part of the sand, but not now.  I know the wind now. I understand the lightning a little more. I am free with the truth because I have nothing to lose.  I write. I will always write. I have a vision to build a body of work so that I can publish something with some meat on the bones, something people will like at least, or remember, at most.

I think back on those times I left home to see Iron Maiden and friends for a few days. There was a plan for a meetup. A hotel. Sightseeing for a little while. A tavern for dinner, a hole in the wall for the tribute band to play the night before. Attending the concert which was a holy thing. Hugs and love and the return home. I always felt like I needed to straighten up the house before I left. I guess I felt like if I left things in disarray while I was out having a good time it would weigh on me.  And now, as I approach September, I see I’ve done it again: my home is in top shape. I gathered books, CDs, clothes for donating. I trashed things that I was holding on to that was time to let go. Hand-washed a pile of delicate blouses. Everything in its place, keeping only those things that matter, shedding all the rest because I have to prepare for the next chapter.

My neighbor is distraught that I am seeking employment. She appreciates my presence and likes that if she asks I will go with her to grab coffee or new lawn chairs or simply listen whenever she needs. I reassured her that I’ll still be around, but I felt the seismic shift in her when I said I’m going back to work. That’s all right. She will figure things out and get used to it, just like I’ll have to get used to wearing bras and socks and shoes again.

These next two days will be interesting. I wonder what I will do with my silence, my time. All I know is that my house smells like coconut, courtesy of the wax burner. Neighbors are chatting, coffee mugs in hand, fluffy white dogs in laps in the the newly-constructed bench in the courtyard. That wasn’t there last year, m’dear. I will contemplate a wasp sting, a child’s graduating, a man’s love, another man’s spirit, books that make me breathless and books that make me wonder how did this get published, sniffing out the trail of a new tattoo, and reorganizing my energy for a new path, the next path.

Bon Voyage?

16 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Tags

ocean, transition

Indigo Vales took a rowboat and headed for the Atlantic.  The boat was filled to capsizing, just way too much stuff stuffed in there.  Without the aid of technology, she wouldn’t have made it to a marina sheltered in a little spot near Norfolk, Virginia.

Technology has been hard to track down around these parts, as in reliable WiFi connection.  What hopes I brought with me did get kicked around a little bit. I must say, my lack of good perspective and choosing to let myself get down doesn’t help anything at all but I suppose it’s to be expected. Weathering a bit of rain is normal in any transition.

I’ve had help and encouragement from expected and unexpected places. My gratitude is reawakened, a sense of purpose renewed.

I wore winter boots and walked across little dunes covered by an inch of snow. I’ve never seen snow on the sand before. I must have looked like some kind of dork, taking pictures of piddling waves touching snowflakes that rest on their sandy cousins.  It’s been so cold, thrice so, with the wind.  One assumes the sun will always be present on the beach, just like we forget you can freeze to death in the desert.

So the question I have for myself today is, “Did I bring the right tools for this job? Did I bring what it takes to thrive and create?” So far, the answer is shaky. Questionable.  But I got some light in a box, encouraging words from a friend, and I think I’m going to have better answers soon.

My new desk is a black padded card table and nicely padded wooden folding chair. There are photos of people I love, a rose my son made. It rests in the lap of an earth mother statue, a goddess, one whose arms create a circle.

Time to create a circle of love instead of driving this boat around in the same old tired circles.

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