Category Archives: beach

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mother, maiden and crone

When Beth is dying in Little Women, she says that it is like the tide going out….. sometimes I miss my sister so much. I am trying to make sense of the third stage, the stage after mother. With my daughter in college, I am living alone for the first time in 28 years. And I don’t have my sister or my mother or my grandmother to accompany me.

I took the title from one of my sister’s essays: An early promotion to crone. Here: http://e2grundoon.blogspot.com/2007/08/early-promotion-to-crone.html

I want to discuss my sister’s essay with her …. I can’t, except in dreams.

mother, maiden and crone

small child in my heart
baby cuddled warm
safe and loved
small girl dancing
sing run shout

woman seen and heard
woman silenced dressed undressed
woman learning searching writing
woman held and loved
woman gravid bearing carrying
woman feeding raising nurturing

crone quiet watching
white haired dismissed old
unseen unknown ignored
laughing playing dancing
crone alone
sing run shout
dancing

music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiP9WH0zN0Y

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Pandora’s Box

I read this: Was Pandora framed? today and thought, I know I have a Pandora poem….and here it is, from 2011. And another write up, Why the number line freaks me out, that too. When I think of infinity and Pandora’s Box…. it’s worrisome…

Pandora’s Box

Oh, you’d think
It would be empty by now

But I open the box again
I say what I want

And hear “No.”

I sit in want
Old wants
Buried wants
Pressure rising

I know by now
What is happening
I let it rise in me
I do not fight it
I clean the bathroom
Scrub tile and grout
Wants claw inside me
Burst like striking oil
A geyser from within
Black sticky want
Screaming up through the air
Falling everywhere
Filthy, flooding

It will take a while to clean up
this dark matter,
pollutant to poison
or fuel to sustain?

 

I took the photograph yesterday on North Beach. It looks like a popped child’s toy, pink. But it’s not…. it is all over the beach. A seaweed? Something hatching? Nature is a Pandora’s Box as well…. infinitely creative….

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Or

For yesterday’s daily prompt: Or.

I am looking through old photographs and wanting to escape, back. Hide. This is from 2007, my daughter on the beach. Nostalgia, but also the picture is imperfect. The horizon is not level. But I love the colors and she is so happy. The water, the sky, serendipity…

…because I am afraid of polarization and anger in our country and I am afraid, very afraid, when I read that the KKK plans a victory march. And then that turns out to be false: yet my son’s friend hears people chanting “No more safe space.” on campus on the night of the election.Β  I won’t get lost in nostalgia or an idealized vision of the past. And I want my daughter to be able to run with joy….

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X is for xenophobic

X is for xenophobic.Have you ever felt xenophobic?

How would I know if I were xenophobic since it is an unreasonable fear or hatred? How do we tell the difference between a reasonable fear or hatred and an unreasonable fear or hatred? Or is it only other people that can tell?

From dictionary.com:

xenophobic

adjective
1.
unreasonably fearful of or hating anyone or anything foreign or strange.

Origin of xenophobic
1905-1915
1905-1915;xenophob(ia) + -ic

Contemporary Examples

Β Β Β  His most ardent and xenophobic political ally, Umberto Bossi, looks all but ready to bail.
Β Already Vulnerable, Berlusconi Weakened by Election Results Barbie Latza Nadeau May 30, 2011

Β Β Β  The committee should avoid foreign ownership questions which will make them sound parochial or xenophobic or both. 9 Questions for Rupert Geoffrey Robertson July 17, 2011

The article raises repeatedly reported statements by some opposition candidates that are β€œbigoted and xenophobic.”  Will Scandalous Videos Topple Georgia’s President? A Rebuttal Tedo Japaridze September 23, 2012

Β Β Β  We are almost certainly hard coded to be xenophobic, which is why hunter gatherers often have such extraordinary homicide rates. Racism Isn’t Natural. But I Suspect Xenophobia Is. Megan McArdle October 17, 2012

Β Β Β  “Unfortunately these kinds of xenophobic attacks have happened in Libya before,” says Bouckaert.Β Β  Libya’s Hysteria Over African Mercenaries Babak Dehghanpisheh March 5, 2011

Β Β Β  Oh, and their attitudes towards Arabs and promised land are even more insular and xenophobic than most settlers. How Yair Lapid’s Gambit Ends Bernard Avishai March 6, 2013

Β Β Β  I started hearing rumors about xenophobic attacks in early April. Will the World Cup Start a Riot? Gretchen L. Wilson June 9, 2010

Β Β Β  Meanwhile, politicians like Tom Tancredo led an ugly race to the bottom to see who could be most xenophobic.Β Β Β  Bush Was Right Mark McKinnon April 27, 2010

Word Origin and History for xenophobic
adj.

1912, from xenophobia + -ic.
Online Etymology Dictionary, Β© 2010 Douglas Harper

It seems that xenophobic is something we say about other people. Not very nice of us, and judgemental.

Batman at the beach. A younger child at a party, dressing as Batman, a powerful archetype.

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And he catches one of the other children.

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She escapes.

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Batman is on his own.

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He starts to enjoy the beach.

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Batman wading.

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By the end of the party, he takes off the hot costume. He was comfortable enough that he didn’t have to be Batman any more.

I took the pictures in 2006.

 

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Gleaning

This is for Ronovanwrites weekly haiku challenge #70, with prompt words crane and gold.

quick look gleaning fields
sandhill cranes glean gold near Sand
Dunes National Park

I lived in Alamosa, Colorado for three years, at 7500 feet in the San Luis Valley, land of cool sunshine. The sandhill cranes would migrate through and glean the potato fields, flocks with thousands. There were more cranes than people at the height of migration. And in the northeastern corner of the Valley, surrounded by the Sangro de Cristo Mountains and the San Juans, is the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, with dunes up to 600 feet high. We were surrounded at 7500 feet by 14,000 foot peaks and passes out the Valley in all four directions. It is an amazing place.

I took the photo in 2007 at the dunes: I chose this one to try to give an idea of the scale…..we had just climbed up to the top of the first dunes….