~Drinking, Devouring, Eating Life~

~Welcome...

 Hi world...Or at least the small part of it who reads my words. You've either come here by choice, habit or because you happened to come across the link on my facebook page.No matter how you got here I am so very grateful to have you. Along with my own desire, you give me strength to carve these very words into paper and the hope that my words will matter.

 

It's been a very busy time lately. I haven't had much time for creativity or a clear enough mind to make sense for my readers of what images have come to me. Although I am not putting pen to paper, or fingers to key board as it is now, my muse is continuously keeping my thoughts in that poetic place...One second I am dusting the house and the next I am watching a spider weave its way across the corner of my bedroom to create a web. Both of us too intent on watching the creation, we don't notice each other..I find I must stop what I am doing to watch this artist do its work and to spite my first reaction which is always to vacuum up or to move it out of the house, my mind is creating adjectives, nouns and verbs. Its trying to do what it knows to do...Catch this spider and glue it to paper with my pen but something inside of me keeps me hard -footed in my place. I watch with such an open mind and without any judgement or predisposed thoughts. I just watch. But then life comes back to me either through one of the kids asking me a question or the phone ringing and suddenly I am afraid I will forget what I saw and wish I had written it down.

Yet then it occurs to me as I look at the blank paper with the pen firmly grasped in my hand and no words worthy of what I just witnessed that not all poetry can be written in words. Not all stories are in hardcover books...With or without me capturing that spiders creation with a camera or with prose, it just is. That spider doesn't need me to tell him he did a good job to know he did. He doesn't need to see his creation captured in a snapshot on a wall to validate his work. Forget for a second the obvious reasons for why a spider wouldn't wish for applause, but pretend I am speaking of a man who created a house in the woods out of the way of all eyes...Some art just is and its not for you or me to judge, love, hate or see. While taking a picture, writing or  talking about what you are seeing at the moments its happening is wonderful, its also taking away the spontaneity and often the beauty of whats happening. In my own case, by the time I hunt down the camera to snap a picture or a pen and paper to write it down into words a poem describing a sunset descending into the cleavage of the Berkshire mountains, the magical feeling and the art is gone.  I want to capture it all, take it in with my eyes and then slowly form it on paper with my pen so that the beauty I was blessed to drink in never escapes my memory.. Yet I have learned that even when its just a thought such an experience is never "just" anything. It will stay with us as long as we continue to read the pages of our own memories. Then I can take that time to put it all into words.

My poetry is only as good as my experiences...I hope someday to travel far and wide so I can put all that I encounter into my own words. Until then I have fun "faking" it by reading about it.

There are writers who write and then there are writers who breathe words. I would like to think I am breathing them as I used to but honestly, life has taken by breath away. I won't ever be sorry that I am busy but its up to me to find time to put all the days and their special moments into words...and even better, into images, so you, the reader will see what I saw. Still, where there is no paper and pen, there are my finger tips and open air...where there is no computer to type, there are scraps of paper and crayons, even walls, to write what is blossoming inside. If nothing else, its there in my mind...And that, I must remind myself, is still poetry.

If nothing else comes of continuing this blog, I hope at least I will be able to get out what is haunting me inside. I hope that as a result of that I can inspire you, my lovely reader, to dig into life and live deeper...To take the gorgeous sunsets and the wonderment's of nature and put them in that place in your brain where only your imagination swirls. I hope you will take away my way of looking, explaining or tasting life and try it yourself. Dare to live and to read...Jump into a poem or a book and see life from another point of view. Its amazing to find out over and over that so many people see life in so many different ways while still coming back to the same place, reality and still needing what everyone needs---a reader, a viewer, a friend to walk with you through your memories and say "Wow, you see life so.....(fill in the blank)... wonderfully...dark....cartoonish....idealistic...etc. etc. " and maybe even to say "I know how you feel" or "I've never gone through that. I am thankful that you shared it with me.".
 Isn't that all what we want? To be special to people

But to feel a part of a larger self.

I dare both myself and you to live, read and to love.

Not just to do it but with deep abandon, trust and like you desperately need to taste every moment!

~Will You??~