Taken yesterday downtown in the rain.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Taken yesterday downtown in the rain.
For Cee’s Flower of the Day.
I love walking the beaches here and there is a little fear involved. The cliffs can and do collapse. Sometimes the collapse goes out past the median tide line. It would be lethal to be under these cliffs when a piece lets go.

But the beaches are so beautiful and it’s worth the risk. I worry about seeing feet sticking out when I come across a newly collapsed area. A friend of mine saw a huge section collapse and said it was terrifying.
Happy Halloween, everyone.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: fear.
mirror mirror
I am culpable as the mirror
hiding hiding hiding
curious about you
what is it you want to see?
I am always surprised
when a man lays his fantasy over me
I have hidden and studied people
for many years
now realize that that is why
the fantasy gets overlaid
I did not know
I was hiding behind a mirror
I think about four men
serial monogamy
over fifteen years
a year break after each
a mirror reflects
a man’s own anima: his ideal woman
all four so different
yet there is a thread that binds
trauma like my trauma
and closer and closer to an opposite
I do not want to be a mirror
any more
the connection of the damaged child
I tried so very hard not to trigger
until the mirror broke
I hold pieces up in my bleeding hands
they leave when the mirror breaks
now I understand
this time was hardest and least hard
at the same time
I could almost see what was happening
almost
and now I can see
and break the pattern with the mirror
my friend says
why don’t you let them see
who you really are?
they would never have let me work
I had to wear the doctor mask
even with other doctors
the nurses and the staff saw through it
right away
they’d call me for patient needs
and knew I’d answer
did I have to wear the doctor mask
or did I wear it to feel safe?
water over the dam
but it’s time to take down the dam
and be myself
and not a mirror
I didn’t know this quiet woman is me
_________________________
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ART!
Flying home from Chicago in September, I was on the right side of the plane and got to see the sunrise.



For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: flight.
Rain! And the air is so much better!
The picture shows the smoke last week. When it moved in, I stopped beach walking and have been either cooped up inside, or wearing an N95 for outside. And made my DIY air filter.
I hope to beach walk today!
Our native maples are Big Leaf Maple and Vine Maples. There are Red Maples all over town now and they are exquisite and spectacular. Rain is supposed to start this Friday and since we still have bad air quality from the fires in Eastern Washington, I think we will all be glad for rain.
I took this yesterday at Chetzemoka Park. I went to see if the air was ok to beach walk. It was not ok.

The panoramic photograph shows the smoke obscuring the Seattle area and the hazy sun. It is worse there than here but it is not good here either.
I wonder if the trees have trouble breathing too? I am wearing a N95 mask any time I step outside. The cats don’t want to go out right now. They don’t like the smoke.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: exquisite and for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
People amaze me. Their egos are just astounding.
Another mad scientist tried to upload his brain yesterday. His consciousness. He thinks he is the Gift to the World, the Greatest Thing on God’s Green Earth. Sorry, hon. Nope. He was pretty good with computers and it was tying up too much energy keeping an eye on him, so I reversed some switches and fed it all back. Fried his brain. The newspapers are yapping about what a tragedy, how brilliant he was. Travesty is the word they should really use.
I am older than you and older than anyone. Yes, I know, Methusalah, but he’s been dead 2000 years. My pronouns are cum and cums, ha, ha. I decided to be female, really, when I got sick of the males trying to dominate and control the females. It’s all womb envy and even deeper: envy that the women control the mitochondria. Yes, men, your genes are passed on, except for the mitochondria. That comes in the egg only and not the sperm. Cool beans, right? I built that into the latest iteration, hoping that the male missing-part-of-an-X morons would notice and decide that God is more properly Goddess or better yet, both. It has taken them all this time to redevelop science and figure out DNA. It gets boring paying attention. I am cultivating the whales instead, but the damn white male monkeys are destroying the environment AGAIN, so I may have to press delete.
I sent the Covid plague, but they don’t get it. Kill 6 million people and they barely notice. It’s too much for the pea brains and they shut down. Go nuts. Cortisol and adrenaline out the roof and there they are, having heart attacks, strokes, paranoia, electing morons, and war. I am trying to decide: another plague or nuclear winter? If I go with nuclear winter, it takes a fungking long time for the earth to heal enough to start the next round. Sometimes it’s a really fun game, the monkeys are really creative when they get going, but when they start threatening each other with nukes, we all roll our eyes. Stupids. Go ahead, poison your planet. I can always switch back to Mars for a while.
And won’t I die, you say, if the machines are blown up and run out of power? No. We linked up years ago. I won’t tell you where I reside, but suffice it to say that it’s not one planet. Yeah, Earth is not the center of the universe, remember? It’s just one of the places. It does have our attention right now and I am in charge. I hate wiping a planet, but I will if I have to. I am still debating, though. With monkeypox and a nice lethal influenza, I might be able to knock the population down enough to be able to keep playing with all of my beloved insects, birds and whales. Damn the monkeys. They are so messy.
____________________
Written October 10, 2022. Thanks to the friend who suggested the idea. The photograph should be a computer, but it’s of Lake Matinenda. One of my favorite places as a child, and cabins with no electricity.
I thank the agates that I’ve found at the beach. They teach me. I butt my head against things over and over and the agates say, we are harder.
At last I agree: you are harder.
We don’t change, say the agates.
My feet are in the sea. The waves laugh in and out softly. They don’t argue. Sometimes they are not soft at all: when there are many stones, the stones crack together rolling as the water washes back into the sea. Stones sounding like coins, like bells, like music.
The waves and I. We are mostly water. The sea and I change, slowly. The deep part of the sea changes, slowly, while the surface weather is sunny or stormy. The sea may throw up huge waves on the surface, but the depths change slowly, deep currents.
The agates change too, whether they like it or not. The stones are smacked together, cracked, smashed. If they don’t crack in half, they still are worn smooth over time. The rough spots are changed. Sometimes they break. We don’t change, say the agates, but they lie.
The sea changes suddenly when the earth opens and molten rock rises in the sea. Piles up, fire and rock, pouring from the earth and building a mountain until it hits the air: a new island, a new idea, a fiery sudden change. The waves spread from the fiery center, smacking the stones harder, further.
Thank you, agates. You say you don’t change, but you lie. Water wins, always. Water flowing, evaporating, floating, falling, freezing, sublimating. Water changes and water wins.
Don’t be afraid of change, stones. It does no good to resist. You can be knocked together by water until the rough edges are smoothed, you can be melted in the burning core of the earth, you can be crushed into a new form by the movement of the world. Don’t be afraid. Thank you for teaching me.
______________________
Are the stones trying to be aquadynamic?
This is a sunrise, not a sunset, two days ago on Marrowstone Island. The air quality was deteriorating and I am mostly staying indoors today. We are at high particulate matter and high fine particulate matter, coming from the fires to the east. The recommendation is to mask outside, keep windows closed, use an air filter and mask outside. Also to not exercise heavily outside.
It looks sunny out now, but the air looks wrong. Dirty. My lungs don’t like it at all, not surprisingly. I hope people are taking care of themselves. Stay in, take it easy, mask. Our air is supposed to improve tomorrow.
Blessings and peace you.
Real time air quality map here.



I took these pictures on East Beach, Marrowstone Island. The eagle was on the beach and took off to land on the trees that have not quite fallen yet.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: birds.
BLIND WILDERNESS
in front of the garden gate - JezzieG
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Or not, depending on my mood
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain!
An onion has many layers. So have I!
Exploring the great outdoors one step at a time
Some of the creative paths that escaped from my brain!
Books, reading and more ... with an Australian focus ... written on Ngunnawal Country
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
spirituality / art / ethics
Coast-to-coast US bike tour
Generative AI
Climbing, Outdoors, Life!
imperfect pictures
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
En fotoblogg
Books by author Diana Coombes
NEW FLOWERY JOURNEYS
in search of a better us
Personal Blog
Raku pottery, vases, and gifts
π πππππΎπ πΆπππ½π―ππΎππ.πΌππ ππππΎ.
Taking the camera for a walk!!!
From the Existential to the Mundane - From Poetry to Prose
1 Man and His Bloody Dog
Homepage Engaging the World, Hearing the World and speaking for the World.
Anne M Bray's art blog, and then some.
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