Winter quotes

Every winter,

When the great sun has turned his face away,

The earth goes down into a vale of grief,

And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,

Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay -

Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.

~ Charles Kingsley

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.

~ Andrew Wyeth

Winter came down to our home one night

Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow,

And we, we were children once again.

~ Bill Morgan, Jr.

The color of springtime is in the flowers; the color of winter is in the imagination.

~ Terri Guillemets

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

~ William Blake

Purple ♥ Blue

So delighted. And still more to go -- borders, back, quilting, binding. Soon.

the deepest truth we know

Rewound the DVR to get it right and scribbled this in a notebook a couple years ago. The show is off the air by now. Ran across this quote, though, again this week.

“We’re not like those people that weren’t brought up with it. Clean slate – they can choose. So you and me, we’re cursed. We were brought up on fire and brimstone. And no matter how you try to read, study, talk to a holy man, you can’t get away from it. What got etched in our minds when we were six, seven years old – that’s the deepest truth we know: You don’t do the right thing, he’ll make you pay.”

Memphis Beat, Jason Lee’s character, Dwight Hendricks; Liz Garcia and Josh Harto, creators and writers; Sean Whitesell, writer

"My" tree

Turns out several other people on the train platform love this tree too. I was delighted to get a good "naked" shot of her last week when fog obscured the same-brown building behind her.

And here she is in her summer glory.

Purple Hearts Blue, a work in progress

Cannot believe how awesome my DH is: he found two half-yard cuts of a batik I first purchased in November 2010. Batiks are infamous as one-of-a-kind, can't-be-duplicated, I've heard. So, I have the fabric to forge ahead with finishing the top.

Also, I took advantage of his captured attention at my mother-in-law's this weekend -- and her impeccable eye and good taste as well -- and laid out the quilt top yet again. THIS I can live with.

Working title: Purple Hearts Blue

Itching to work on this quilt all day long, and too many things to do in the meantime. This quick post will scratch the itch long enough to let me focus on the day job! 

What mystery

What mystery
exists for me now
in ordinary life?

I have lived enough
to know no madman
in a blue box
will really come for me.

There will be
no fame or greatness.

My trajectory, predictable,
happily free from chaotic people
and their drama.

Safe, peaceful.
These are the words I use.

And sometimes, I say
dull, bored, endless.

And become inconsolable.
But remember I am loved,
and begin to climb out.

The leaves turn gold and fall
and my ache gets better.
The nights bring breathless cold
and I can breathe again.

In the street, I see it.
A miracle shows me wonder:

A perfect oak leaf, faded brown,

spine and veins shot deep,
rich with red.

And I hear…the sound of a jet?
Wind in the eaves?
The sounds of the blue box.

Above, the sky, a lighter blue
– a bubble but not a bubble –
containing all wonder I have known.

And I know I would tell him,
not without my husband.

And I realize
the wonders of the Universe
sit on my doorstep,
sleep in my bed,
crunch in the leaves beneath my feet.

(c) sfb 10.29.12

Purple hearts Blue

Kaleidoscope

Applique

Drunkard's Pinwheel

blankety-blank Lone Star

Pineapple Log Cabin

partial seam

Dutchman's Puzzle

Log Cabin

Friendship Star

12 Triangles

Sawtooth Star

Eight-Point Star

Purple Hearts Blue

Blocks for my quilt.

what a difference...

...a day can make. Not out of my grump, but feeling far less despairing. I made something beautiful yesterday. And my husband was so kind.

"Pineapple" paper-pieced quilt block

You push through

I know people with worse depression than mine, people with worse problems (by far) than I have. Despite that perspective, in the moment, it's hard to see the sun rising. 

There are times a thought rolls through my head: "This is the part where I kill myself." But I'm not suicidal. What does it mean? It's like recognition meets realization meets mantra.

I've come, after years, to believe those words note the passage, mark when little parts of me die. Small hopes, expectations, feelings of worth. Resignation of a thing I can't fight. Here is where it's broken. That is the bit that hurts. This is the part where I kill myself. Acknowledgement of the death at my own hands, while feeling it was done to me.

The safe place became small yesterday, but it was still there. Thank goodness, it's always still there. And I do not doubt it's there. And I do not doubt its permanence.

Love the questions

"When I reach for the edge of the Universe, I do so knowing that along some paths of cosmic discovery, there are times when, at least for now, one must be content to love the questions themselves." - Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Thanks to Symphony of Science for this quote and Dr. Tyson. Onward to the edge!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akek6cFRZfY&feature=relmfu

Spring encounters

More images from my parents' yard.

This daffodil is one of my favorites. My mom planted a variety pack of bulbs last year, so some of these are surprises for them too.

Sunny little face

These photos from Thursday afternoon, March 22, while the earlier blooms are from Monday morning, March 19. Amazing what a few days of heat and a rainy day will do this time of year. I think the difference is most marked in the service berries and rhubarb.

Service berries, forsythia and (maybe) redbud

Service berry blossoms

Service berry blossoms
(note the small blue flowers in the groundcover)

 

Rhubarb hill

More daffodils, and some tulips.

Dainty white daffodils,
with pink tulips about to open behind them

Double daffodil

Springtime friends: tulips and daffodils

Not sure why I'm obsessed with the liverwort. ("Or some kind of wort," my mother said.") I love the spotted leaves and the pretty little blossoms that look pinkish-purple and then blue. I feel like I'm in the springtime woods, finding them in a shady glen. And that something so pretty and delicate has such a gross, funny name helps my affection.

Liverwort

Liverwort

Liverwort

Rhododendron

Another pretty little plant with delicate blue blooms

And now... for the slugs...

I love my parents for inspiring in me a love of and fascination with the natural world and her creatures. And I appreciate my mom for not being a squeamish girly girl when it comes to bugs and slithery critters.

So, walking home from the train Friday night, I noticed slugs on the sidewalk. They had slid their way out of the rain-wet grass and were having a walk-about. Well, slide-about.

Fascinating to see slug slime paths like contrails from an airplane

Slug 1...

...and Slug 2...

...slide toward a
date with destiny...

meet...

...and slither on.

Hey, don't blame me, I'm just reporting the encounter. If it had been my story, it would have ended in the snail version of champagne and witty conversation.

My unearthly pink finger for scale with slug

Vacation, Days 5 and 6

Rhubarb hills transplanted from
grandma's garden in the '60s

Day 5

Yes, yes. I'm behind in posting. Been busy having fun. Gimme a break. First day back to work today, and vacation glow lingers. Ahhhh.

Highlights: Last root canal appointment, breakfast with my parents (zucchini bread french toast). Neither of these photographed well.

But the spring discoveries in my parents' yard -- that's another story. Flowers were dressed like spring, themselves.

Raised beds -- daffodils and heliotrope

Notice the little purple wild violets along the edge of the top bed

Heliotrope

Daffodils

Fancy daffodils

Daffodils

Mom sizes up the garden

Grecian windflower

Dad fixing edging

Great-grandpa's oak -- started as an acorn from his timber,
in a little pot on his nursing home windowsill.

Little buds

Checking out herbs that wintered over

Crocus about to bloom

Hen and chicks

Succulent

Hyacinth

Forsythia and redbud

Volunteer marigolds

Rhododendron...maybe

Pretty, green, budding

Grecian windflower that escaped the bed
-- its pale purple didn't photograph

Trillium

Trillium

Pretty little wild violets

Sweet little plant

Rosebush

Trillium, again -- love those greens

Day 6

Quilt store shopping and cut-cut-cutting out fabrics for a quilt for my mom.