Tag Archives: Beloved

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the wrong stairs

My title sounds like an Edward Gorey book. I adore Edward Gorey’s books.

These are the wrong stairs. Don’t go down them.

DSCN3377

The stairs are on North Beach. The cliffs are sand and clay. Sections collapse.

People have stopped building stairs down to the beach for the most part. They don’t last.

I longed for a house on the bluff or the beach. But I don’t anymore. I think about collapse. When we have an earthquake, sections of the bluff will collapse. I walk the beach anyhow. I don’t feel protected, I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel lucky. I feel…. mortal.

 

 

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beach tower

Sections of the dunes collapse. I stopped climbing them when I was sitting above my children and I was hit from behind by a collapse and pushed 5 feet forward. There was no warning, just sound and hit. I was not buried, but I realized how I could have been. I took my kids down off the dune.

There are sections of stairs left where the bottom sections have been washed away. Some days as it warms up, you hear sand sliding down, tiny trickles. I have a friend who saw a huge section collapse, all the way out to the water, with trees. He and another walker missed being buried by five minutes.

We walk the beach anyhow. This will collapse eventually but was standing on Saturday.

 

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surf

Have you been on a beach with surf and small rocks? The rocks click as the surf rolls in and out.

 

surf

 

it’s hard hard to let go of the dead

harder still to let go of the living

and you say to yourself
they love me, they just don’t understand

you try and try and try to explain

“Don’t talk to us!” they say

Whispers return to you

a garbled version of your words
out of context
twisted
they twist your words

you keep hoping

hope slowly ebbs
tide going out
sand in an hourglass
no, slower
erosion of a rock
tumbled in surf
smashed on other rocks
over and over and over

water wins
the sea wins
hope erodes

let go

they do love you

and they are afraid

they cannot let you close
they cannot listen

your words are fearful

vulnerable is fearful
speaking your truth is fearful
you authentic is fearful

they shake

agony of longing

to be authentic

let them go

and maybe love
and longing
will toss them as rocks in the surf

until they too are changed

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Mundane Monday #162: blue

I am having trouble posting today, Memorial Day. My mother died May 15, and there is Mother’s Day, and her birthday is May 31: always near Memorial Day. Some years the last two weeks of May are ok, some years are hard. This year is hard. But I don’t mind thinking of her or grieving.

So blue, blue with grief. If you post, it doesn’t have to be grief or a memorial. You could just do blue.

From last weeks challenge: lighting.

K.L.Allendorfer with a light that is not mundane at all, here.

Send your links for daily things that are blue… or if you are blue…. much love on this Memorial Day.

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small bun

We walked yesterday and saw three bunnies down the road. Then we realized that there was a young one right by us on the verge. We froze, except for the cameras, and this little one munched leaves and grass. Delightful! A bird finally sounded a warning and our friend hopped into the bushes.

No one gets angry at rabbits for being scared or shy. Why do we put so much pressure on children and on people for these emotions? Why do we label some emotions as “bad”? Fear and shyness help the young bunny survive and humans have these emotions too for the same reasons.

My daughter would not talk to strangers for years. She considered everyone strangers even if I knew them. It was not enough to have me introduce her. She would not speak. At two she would observe new day care staff for two weeks before she would speak to them. And I did not try to change her, because maybe… maybe that is more sensible than we adults want to admit. Not all people are nice or kind or ethical. And children need to know that as they grow. Caution will help this small bunny survive.

 

 

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loss

For the Daily Prompt: famous.

This is not Michealangelo’s Pieta. This is from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington, DC. This is Apres la temepete (After the Storm) by Sarah Bernhardt, a sculpture of a Breton peasant woman cradling the body of her grandson who had been caught in a fisherman’s nets. This is from about 1876.

I took this visiting my son at the end of last year.

Memorial Day and we remember our lost. Much love to you and yours.