Now I don't know where I'm goin/ All I know is I'll hit the ground runnin'

I Am Vertical

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
... So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

Sylvia Plath

This is a picture I took in January of the helleborus already in bloom. We've had such an unusally warm winter that they burst into bloom early. I was lying down on the cool, leafy ground thinking of how beautiful the world is and thinking, too, of Sylvia Plath's poem I Am Vertical. So, I shall post it here, above this picture.

"Sunday's supposed to be the day for kicking off your shoes/so how come that's the day,I always get the blues. I don't know why. I don't know why. I can't seem to make it through Sunday."

I am so out of tune...

I found this recently and felt like posting it. It is March, the month my father fell ill in 2006. Less than 4 weeks later, he was gone. This picture was taken about one hour after he had been buried. We had all gone to lunch and then come back to visit the grave. It's quite an amazing photo, taken by my older brother. To the far left is my daughter's former boyfriend (who was very much a part of the family though they split within a year of Dad's death). My brother's fiancé is sitting on the ground. L-R standing: my daughter-in-law, my oldest son, my daughter behind me, Me, my youngest niece (at the time), my husband, and my youngest son behind his father. Whew. Hard to look at this and not feel that day all over again.

We escaped, once again

thankfully. Our little town is damaged,
but no fatalities.

Co-workers and I were in a small hallway
in the basement of our building. Eerie
to hear the wind and hail. But we are all
ok.

My sympathies to the people who lost
loved ones in IN, KY, TN, AL and any other
state that was hit yesterday.

Got power back about 11 last night.

Grateful.

So much more tornadic activity here now.

Always in alert mode.