Poetry.
Park.
Peaceful.

Eye Mask by Denise Levertov

In this dark I rest,
unready for the light which dawns
day after day,
eager to be shared.
Black silk, shelter me.
I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination. I must still
grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all.

~~~~~~

Foundations by Leopold Staff

I built on the sand
And it tumbled down,
I built on a rock
And it tumbled down.
Now when I build, I shall begin
With the smoke from the chimney.

Totally geeking out at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden ... just saw the most amazing butterfly in these blooms but couldn't capture it on film - so many colors! My senses are kicking into overdrive - as they should in a place like this ... very perfect - nice work God! Gold star!

In the dew of little things, the heart finds it's morning and is refreshed.
~ Kahlil Gibran

Hmmm, little things such as my good coffee whilst reading, an open window with a slight cooling breeze, pretty little fun things bought yesterday as I wandered about after getting out of work early, feeling like my week was ever so hectic & yet I did a good job of keeping myself balanced (for once) and present in the moment which makes me feel capable, which makes me feel like a real adult, not some child playing dress up which is usually how I feel! I'm okay with that by the way, I have an idea that it will prevent aging oh if I can just stay young at heart! Wrinkles may come, but heart & soul, may you stay smooth as a baby...

SOOOOO tired lately - maybe I'm still run down from being sick last week, from running nonstop all around Philadelphia last weekend - my aching legs just stopped hurting today which shows you I've been hibernating all winter because usually, I can walk and walk and walk - fast too - and feel nothing but oooooo was I feeling like the Little Mermaid when she came on land. I need to find a way to balance things out more, less feeling like go go go during the week, wearing myself out to the point that the weekend rolls around and I feel like I could just curl up like a roly-poly bug and not move until it was required of me - you know, for food and bathing and such. Even that proves difficult. Bottom line is, I feel slothful. And that is despicable. A deadly sin.

Must repent. Must become virtuous. Move move MORE, eat BETTER, sleep LONGER, etc etc etc...you know the drill. Live,not just exist. That kind of thing.

Candlelit ghost tour in Philadelphia- why do I find it funny that it's always me and the nine year olds up at the front, hanging on the guide's every spooky word? Think I found my age group ...

She's made it to the City Of Brotherly Love and she is awake now, yes it's finally morning, 7:34, and I purposely left the drapes open last night so that the sun would greet me. Except there isnt much sun - mostly gray out there & I didn't know that I would have such a choppy night of sleep & maybe wouldn't want that light creeping in to bother me - weird dreams, kept feeling I was awake but the would wake up so I must have been sleeping,right? Disorienting.

I realized last night this is the first time I've been in a hotel room by myself (it seemed oh TOO quiet at first) since ten years ago when I had to come here for work a couple of times a year and it brought back memories - all good ones actually - of catching the train (Amtrak because we didn't have to pay for it), working all sorts of crazy hours because we'd have a deadline to meet & never being able to see much except the few blocks around the office which was right across
from City Hall so this is my second trip back to see more "stuff" and really enjoy it - even last time I came only for a day and it was rush rush - fun but too quick. So this mini trip, I hope we can stroll a bit more, not run place to place.

Onto the stuff then!! But first - COFFEE...

For all that has been, thanks; to all that will be, yes.
~ Dag Hammarskjold

Ah bliss bliss sip sip ... yes, still in pjs, still laying in bed (on top of it), still drinking my good coffee, reading & jotting things down - notes to self - breeze blowing my curtains gently, slightly cool still, sun shining and so yes bliss bliss sip sip ... just enjoying a peaceful morning home from work because soon it will be vroom vroom go go as I pack and train it to Philadelphia for the weekend so I am gathering my energy now so I can walk my socks off and have a mini historically inclined adventure - most needed by me at the moment. But for now, let me return to bliss bliss sip sip..

Oh, The Lovely Poem du Jour

The Secret of Life ~ Ellen Goldsmith

I grabbed the streetcar from Fisherman's Wharf
to the Ferry Building to save my feet for later.
My dollar bill, wrinkled and worn, resisted disappearing
into the slot. I stuffed the transfer
in my pocket without looking.

As the streetcar rounded the Embarcadero,
I called my mother-in-law with mother's day wishes,
imagined the conversation
I'd have with mine, were she alive.
On exiting, I asked the conductor
how long the transfer would last.
I gave you extra time, he said.
Just show it. Hardly anyone looks.
It's good until it's taken away.

Just finished reading Little Altars Everywhere - awesomely beautifully sad funny all at once - SO my sort of book. But favorite line?

"...we all get Cokes too, even though Daddy says that having a cold drink before twelve noon is 'a whore's breakfast.'"

Sip on that, all you people out there buying iced lattes from the coffee cart tomorrow morning ... I see you!!!

Now I'm dying to get/read the other 3 books by Rebecca Wells but for now, to sleep because, yes, she's down with a cold yet again - I swear, if this were the olden days, (the days of yore) they'd send me off to the sanitarium to recover my health. Or if I had been wealthy in ye olde tymes, take the waters at Baden-Baden. I do know that I'm quite tired of getting a bug or a cold every 6 weeks & it always seems to hit at a bad time - in this case going to Philly with some friends this weekend while dealing with extra special work stress.

So to bed to sleep then where I wish myself sweet dreams and an unstuffy nose and a head that doesn't feel like lead...

"Nobody can be exactly like me.

Sometimes even I have trouble doing it."
~Tallulah Bankhead (1903 – 1968)

(I know exactly what you mean Tallulah...)

And lookee here - if I had a garden, it would be filled with gnomes - real and otherwise!

Buddha-like meditating gnomes!! Luuuuve these! But I actually don't like it when they portray gnomes to look like this - these are more dwarvian. EVERYONE knows that gnomes look like this: