in with the new, embracing the old

As the year winds down to a close, like so many of us, I am reflecting on this past year as well as plotting out goals for the new one. Wonderful connections have been made which warm my heart and bring joy to my soul (ahem -you all!!).

I also feel like my writing is slowly becoming stronger, as is my photographic eye. Perhaps not the most economical or practical thing to do, but I am embracing being a creative -and with that knowledge, I am also pondering on ways to help make ends meet and which path to take there...

In November I started my own photography website: A Wondered Life. I also love, love, love writing and wish that there was a way to give it more breath and depth in this coming year (I have started writing a children's book and I so want to see it through... even if it never finds it way to a printed page, it would be lovely to follow through with the wee project this year).

As I simultaneously reflect and think forward, I can't help but ponder on this blog, and its small space on the internet. When doing this, one eventually comes to the question: why do I blog/write?  And once I strip down all the ego, the real reason I show up here is my deep longing to connect with the world, to connect with humanity, to connect with you.

So in this, and to clarify my own goals here for the upcoming year, I ask you all what do you want to see here? More of the same? More poetry? More short stories? More photography? More guest posts? New projects? Link-ups (to Tuesday's Notes or Friday's Fodder+Folly? Or something different all together?) Do I continue on with the 52 portraits, as so many others are with Jodi; and if so, in what manner (the boys, or more portraits of people in the community)?

All these questions really come down to how can we, how can I, help foster community; one that helps sustains us creatively and soulfully?

The other day I came across this post about finding your guiding word for 2014 from Mama Scout. She asks wonderful questions for the new year that I think are very worthwhile spending time journaling on over the next few days (If you find these at all helpful, give her a shout-out over on her blog or FB page I say this not because she has asked me too, but because I have found these questions so spot on for reflecting on the past, present and future).

~What do I want to create in the new year?

~What do I want to do and how do I want to spend my days?

~What do I need to moving towards?

~How do I want to feel each day?

~What is the legacy I am creating right now?

~What are the thoughts I am most afraid to think?

~What idea makes my heart beat a little faster?

~What can I give up?

~How do I want to experience time?

~What do I want to create in the new year?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Most of all I am wondering what are you pondering in your heart these days? What are you reflecting on as this year draws to a close? I would love to know! xxoo

december writing | shadows

In the days after Christmas, long shadows stretch over the house. Life is lived in rewind. We play over and over again the happenings of days past, we remember loved ones no longer with us and heave collective sighs as we watch our children unwrap their days, their gifts, their dreams.

Let us rest in these shadows. Let us find a small spring of renewal that gurgles up from the darkest part of the night, to fill our cups, to fill our hearts again with hope.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

love to you all in these long shadowed days of Christmas tide. a small response to the prompt "shadow" from Amanda and write alm. xo

december writing | quilt

My mother.

The backing to the quilted squares of my childhood. At times scratchy and uncomfortable; often times well worn, beloved and soft, like the snowy down from the underbelly of the gander. She was as traditional and as untraditional as she could be.  She was as cruel as she was kind, as aloof as she warm, as penitent as she was indifferent. She clung to her children as if they were the only raft keeping her afloat.  By the time I was in 4th grade she had 4 children, two of whom were adopted from Korea, had opened her own children's clothing store and was mis-diagnosed, then diagnosed with the one of the most advanced stages of breast cancer. I think there must have been days when she longed to crawl back under the quilted covers of her youth; to wrap herself in something else other than what the stars had scribbled out for her across the sky, or at least to discover a meaning and explanation for the long hours her waking days were made of. But the answer to her questions never came, yet somehow she moved forward anyway; sometimes without much grace and an overly bitter taste in her mouth, but she was moving. forward. anyway.

I wonder, if she was living her life now, if she was a mother among my peers, if her oldest was at school with my 4th grader, where she would be. How would the fates sew her life if she was living it through these years of pink empowerment, "leaning in" women gatherings and inspirational TED talks? Would she finally have time to stop, rest and just be? Cling a little less to her children and her desire for perfection? Would she embrace a bit better the messiness that Life is? I don't know. She was not a child of this age, but from a time before that.

I imagine her Shade walking along the playground, fetching us after school, the ghosts of my childhood. Glimpses of her in the setting sun amongst the swings and slides. Standing there, arms crossed, loving the small, scattered, laughing children ghosts so. Wishing she could scoop us back up into her arms, afraid if she held us close we would disappear, but that if she didn't she would fade into the night.

So here I am, with small traces of her life left inside my heart. I am not a cobbler. I am not a quilter. I am left with only the small tools I have, the small attempts at re-writing her story, not able to relive it.

I cannot sew, but I string together words along a thread, a quilting bee of her life.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

find more december prompts here over on write alm.