Category Archives: family

by

childlike

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: persist.

Oh, children are the most brilliant of all at persisting! Think of learning to walk, learning to talk, being small in this adult world and trying to keep up! Think of figuring it out when at first you have to realize that you have hands and that the noises mean something! And they persist!

by

the virtue of the disconnect

the virtue of the disconnect
learnt early
as a child

they say we are broken
wired wrong
enduring horror

he wakes at night
sleeps lightly

what was your childhood like?
how did you sleep?

it was not safe
we had to get up
leave in the night
gunshots

you survived your childhood

yes, I did

sleeping lightly saved you

yes, it did

you could rewire that
it takes a lot of time
to change the childhood wiring

or you could just
be ok

with sleeping lightly

by

memory’s vault

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: fumble.

Up near the bunker’s is Memory’s Vault. This is the first part of the poem A Lover’s Quarrel, about the longing for home. The poems are by Sam Hamill. It is a beautiful place.

I hope that no one fumbles with our hearts during the holidays and that we feel loved and home wherever we are….

by

Mundane Monday 187: warm

The theme for Mundane Monday 187 is warm.

What photograph makes you think of warmth? Boa cat was on my lap and I had to get up. Left her wrapped in the blankets on the couch and warm and cosy.

__________________________________

Last weeks theme was cup:

klallendorger joins in with this story of a cup.

Paula Light at Light Motifs II has contemplation of a cup.

by

sing

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sing.

Sing! This photo if from my birthday, some years ago. My father is the seated guitar player. He is gone and so is Andy Makie, standing.

Andy brought music to everyone he could in his last decade. Here is an article: Why music? He talks about it here and another version here. My daughter was in a classroom that received a box of his strumsticks and lessons in second grade and for a while he lived in a trailer on my father’s land and built the strumsticks in my father’s barn.

My father, Malcolm Ottaway, loved both classical and folk music. He was one of the people who started Rainshadow Chorale and I got to sing with him in it for 13 years.

This party was like my parents’ parties: a music party. Bring an instrument. Our age range was under 2 to 70s and everyone made joyful noise at some point. My son led the high school Chamber Orchestra to play too.

  • Port Townsend High School Chamber Orchestra


Townsends
players
by

Wooden boat door

For Norm2.0’s Thursday doors: The lovely carved door for the Wooden Boat Foundation in the early morning, lit by the sun.

The Wooden Boat Foundation is now part of the Northwest Maritime Center, but it was started in 1978 along with the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival. You can read the history here. I have been in town for 18 years and my father and my children and I did the family boat building one year. We built a “nuf” light plywood canoe in three days.


by

blues too

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: brilliance. The brilliance of the sky reflecting in the water.

blues

blues, Beloved

I am so blue, Beloved
about the things I can’t heal
about the people I can’t heal
about the relationships I can’t heal

I take my own advice
and walk after clinic
and the beauty of your sky, Beloved
heals me
lifts me
sensory

I am with the trees
the sky
the dirt
the clouds
the water

water water water
blue in the evening light

we only see the surface
of the water
not what is underneath
it reflects the sky
the light
the clouds

people are like water

we only see the surface
and see ourselves reflected back

my office manager came from hotels

this is so much harder, she says

and I say yes
because we see the depths

this person is behaving badly
yelling on the phone
calling crying yelling

but we both know
how much they are suffering
how much they want help
how they won’t listen or accept help

they want what they want

these people are breaking down
in the holidays stressed

I just long for rest Beloved

blues