ferry door

This is for Norm2.0’s Thursday doors.

Norm’s photographs today are of 11th century doors, well, I am so jealous. My local door pictures are feeling unsatisfying. I like this door to the ferry though, more of a virtual door, with the ramp up and waiting. I went out this morning and with the cloud cover everything was shades of blues and silvers and greys, except for the wind sock.

I like all the cormorants on the pilings too, waiting to warm up.

tracery

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tracery.

This is the dream that wakes me this morning. Before I went to sleep last night I asked for a dream. It’s when I am writing the dream out this morning that I realize that it’s my sister’s birthday. She died of cancer in 2012. Memory and dreams as tracery.

I am in a group of people on a platform. It is dark around us. It reminds me of a platform from a ropes course. In the ropes course we had to balance it. A rectangular platform on a log roller, held somewhat at the corners to keep it from dumping us entirely. A group version of a balance board. The trick is really that everyone has to stand still and only one person moves, very small amounts, until it is balanced.

But we are dancing in the dream. We are dancing, but people are uncomfortable. I am not sure why. Perhaps because we were dancing all together but individually and now there is a couple dancing. I realize that people are halting, worried.

I want them to be comfortable. I gesture to an older man. He comes towards me. His wife is there. He and I start dancing but I realize right away that this doesn’t make people more comfortable. They are less comfortable and even the other couple dancing stops. We are lit from above with darkness all around. No spot light follows us, so we move in and out of the light.

As soon as I realize that nearly everyone is uncomfortable, I stop my partner. He is an excellent dancer but that is not what is important here. I move with him back towards his wife and I sit on the platform. They sit as well. The other people around us relax. That is what they want, to sit, to talk quietly, to listen. That is what will make everyone comfortable. The others are settling around us, relieved.

I wake up.

Mundane Monday #200: crop.

For Mundane Monday #200, my prompt is crop.

My subject, this hummingbird, has a crop. But I also cropped the photograph. And are we planning crops for the spring? There are other sorts of crops.

Tell us and show us a photograph that uses crop. I will list them next week.

____________________________

Last week’s prompt was portal.

A new contributor bushboy adds a beautiful portal.

The Photo Junkie also joins with a portal in stone.

KLAllendorfer has photographs that are an Edinburgh portal.

I wondered last week if I should end this version of Mundane Monday with number 200. But I had not given warning, nor asked if someone wants to take over and anyhow, I thought, it gives me joy on Monday. Maybe it does for others too and isn’t one enough? So many thanks to the people reading and the old and new entries.

PETS

Not pets, right? PETS here stands for President Elect Training Seminar. We are gathered to meet each other, exchange ideas and prepare for a year as president of our local club. Yesterday the president elect for Rotary International spoke to us, amazing. We also had a flag ceremony with the flags you see, from nearly 200 countries. How amazing!

places in the world

I am thinking of the phrase “Places in the world a woman would walk.” I know it’s by Grace Paley. A short story? A line in a story?

Do you feel safe walking in your neighborhood? Or on a beach near you or in a forest? If you are male, do you thinks it’s safe for a woman to walk alone in your neighborhood? Do you feel differently about a male? And the same questions to woman.

And is there an age limit? Is it safe for me to walk the beach alone because my hair is mostly white? What about my son and daughter, both in their 20s?

Safety is relative. One of the unsafe things about our beaches is the warnings about an earthquake and tsunami. We have sand cliffs that will most certainly collapse. I walk the beach and eye the cliffs. There is some luck involved and I accept that.

new again

I get to start again

I have always seen the monsters under the bed
I have to
to survive

you don’t tell people about their monsters

I learn that early

they get angry hit punish send away
and anyhow they leave you even if they love you

when I am alone
we play
the monsters and I

they are so happy to be seen

they cry often
why doesn’t he love me?
why won’t she hold me?
why does he throw me out?
why?

I hold them
dry their tears
cuddle them
wrap them warmly

they cheer up
and play

they never forget
they alert
their person is near
they rush back

sometimes one rejected
returns with seven friends
hoping to storm the person

that doesn’t work

the monsters never lose hope
never

sometimes I see
a person see their monster
let it be conscious
the person is grown enough
to love

I am so used to the monsters
I work with them in clinic
visit after visit
the monsters weeping on my lap
while the person refuses refuses refuses
and sometimes a crack opens
like a portal light blinding
and the monster
is loved

that’s why I am here
what makes it worth staying
Beloved

now I think
I am new again
it’s hard to date
when the monsters are yanking at my skirt
crying howling distracting
and I am hopeful
but it is not my role
it’s not ok
it’s antisocial
to ask about the monsters

I am new again
I won’t date anyone with monsters
that I can see

they must love them first