Creepy Smiles to Unchill Winter

not-quite Journaling, 79

When ice threatens to shatter her limbs,

she springs fangs (and smiles creepily).

1/21/2025: Few things are as powerful as a smile that is also a promise, which blooms (or rips) out of the giver’s heart and carves itself gently (or sharply) inside the receiver’s skull. So, I always say to me (and to you too if you like): smile at the whole world, mean it with your whole self, allow them to see you and what you stand for, let them choose how your heart will affect their skulls. 

 

Sunny

art blooms

in thrift shops-- 

I’ve seen it, have

you?

1/29/2025: The not-so-Little Princess gifted me two LEGO sunflowers. I’ve waited to build them on a day when I needed an extra bit of sunshine. The last few days have been… dark (and painful). The time for building bright has come. This tiny jug, a thrift shop find, feels like the perfect home for my sunflower(ing) gift. When I first glimpsed it, I thought sun-kissed thoughts… Bright and happy! I thought. And like Laurell K. Hamilton writes, in Cerulean Sins, “You have to fight to carve little pieces of happiness out of your life, or the everyday emergencies will eat up everything.” So, I’m carving this bit of brightness for me. 

 

on the bluest sky,

naked limbs weave a poem

to unchill winter

2/7/2025: Doing my hardest to enjoy the bits of magic Nature provides. It’s either that or screaming until my throat is raw. How are you soothing all the screaming? 

 

Don’t blame the times for your crumbling,
after you built your castles on sand.

2/14/2025: I was supposed to write about love today; and since truth is a kind of love, I guess I still am. I recently discovered that someone important to me voted for The Orange Infection. After they (and everyone with a brain and heart) realized what their decision meant for them and for people like me (neurodivergent, Afro-Caribbean, chronically ill…) the apologies began. Then the justifications, “Times are hard everywhere. It’s no one’s fault.” I find their refusal to take responsibility disgusting. Apologies are nice… but they don’t mean shit, when the world is on fire. 

– for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #164: Love Is Love)

Scenting Memories

not-quite Journaling, 71

I will find me again & again & again & again & again & again & again & again & again & again & again & again & again...

6/11/2024: My seemingly interminable pain flare-up is finally waning. I’ve never had one last this long… Things aren’t great yet, but I’m able to walk 1.5 miles without feeling like my back, hip, and shoulder will explode. I’m grateful to be getting better, but the setback is always frustrating. I must spend the next few weeks helping my body recover. My flesh and bones feel tender and weak, but I’ll reclaim my strength. I always do. I always will.

 

When
every city
wails and wails,
my urban garden chants
calm.

6/14/2024: The first gloriosa daisy of the season came out to play, adding pre-summery brightness to the (HUGE) bit of green lush that is my balcony garden. The passionflowers, tomatoes, sunflowers, and dandelions are budding. The bees and butterflies and I are terribly pleased. 🪴🏵️🐝🦋🥰

 

summer is passion
flowers blooming purple curls,
scenting memories

6/21/2024: My Passiflora celebrated the arrival of Summer with a (blooming) BANG.

 

On dark days,
summer rains caress
bloom and thorn,
loving softly...
adoring sharply...
as you do me
and I you

on bright days too.

My Piano Man and I celebrated another anniversary (6/28/2024). We ate the same meal we ate on our handfasting day (minus champagne); we watched movies; we held each other extra-long; we did other things *cough*. It was perfect. Life hasn’t been easy for us, on the medical front these last few years, but we couldn’t ask for better on the loving front. The universe isn’t fair when it comes to balance, but it has been great to us (and our love). 

 – for Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #133: Summer Words)

I’ve Made Some Lists and Lost Them Thrice (at the very least)

not-quite Journaling, 63

Out of autumn’s bones, she springs
gloriosa--a warming rebellion
for the Winter Solstice.

12/21/2023: I know this gloriosa daisy will be dead rather soon, but for right now… “It’s alive!!!” I hope the Winter Solstice added a bit (or a lot) of warmth and liveliness to your day--goodness knows the whole world can use some bright.

 

When life breaks,
I stitch stories to whole
my pieces together.

12/24/2023: Do you have a piece of writing or art you go back to again and again… when life’s kicks get too brutal? Well, this is mine. I haven’t written a new story or added any chapter to my existing work in some time. I’m starting to feel the lack. I haven’t been slacking, just tired and nauseated and bleeding and growling at a headache that refuses to let me go. I will see my doctors in a couple of days, tests have been scheduled, and just thinking about all the time I might (will?) be spending at the hospital increases my exhaustion. I’m going to write myself a story to relax to; something dark and delicious sprinkled with red and black, gardens and skulls, love and defiance, books and hammers--all my favorite things. 

I
can’t be
all I was,
but I will reclaim
some.

12/31/2023: My goal for 2024 is to accomplish the goals I set in 2023, which I should have completed in 2022, because I made a promise in 2021, which I planned in 2020, from a list I started in 2019…

All right, the truth is that I’ve no idea what I did with any of those lists. I can’t even remember which goals got done and which didn’t. So, I’ll make it easier for myself, in 2024, and keep my goals list short and doable: I Will Reclaim Where I Can and Adapt Where I Cannot. More on this in future posts. Right now, I wish, I wish, I wish that the coming year is a bit kinder to you, to me, and to the whole wide world.

 Also, I might’ve paraphrased the whole goals bit from a meme by an unknown author.

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #108: Beginning.

Words and Feels

not-quite Journaling, 61

 There is power in pink
blooms, in scars embraced,
in mind and flesh
refusing
to give up the fight
for life.

10/18/2023: If you haven’t had a mammogram, a breast exam performed by a doctor, or your breast self-examinations aren’t particularly regular, then today is the day to correct such a serious oversight. Wear pink while you’re at it, so that others might be reminded too. ( . ) /

P.S. Someone told me that “a good soul doesn’t have time to worry about [her] individual problems, when an entire people face war and worse.” At first, I wanted to kick the speaker in the teeth. Now that my mind is calmer, I’ll just say that the world and all its big problems might not mean much if we’re dead--breast cancer doesn’t wait until we’re ready for it.

 

10/31/2023: My favorite last minute Halloween costumes, from some years ago. My Piano Man was a Chick Magnet, but I can’t remember what I was… Bloody Hammered? 🤔 I’m sure it was completely obvious at the time.

 

11/3/2023: Because, every so often, we (all right, me) can use a little reminder.

 

11/7/2023: “Every day is Halloween, isn’t it? For some of us.” Well, of course, señor Burton, even for this lily. Doesn’t she look like she’s holding on to the best of October? Or, perhaps, I’m just projecting.

 

11/11/2023: In response to the one who asked, “What terrifies you?”

 

Be love: devastating and wonderful.

 

11/17/2023: I love fairy tales and all kinds of tales, where people who are being oppressed fight as hard as they can… and get out from under their tormenter’s boot. I love them even better, when they do some kicking back. What can I say? I might be a wee bit adversarial. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #103: Life Is a Fairy Tale.

 

Blossoming Through Mud

not-quite Journaling, 52

4/22/2023: “[We’ve] got the whole world in [our] hands.” I know I’ve taken liberties with this quote, but it’s the real truth… what we must remember: our Earth depends on us, just like we completely depend on her. 

 

in April, crocus
blossoming brightly through mud—
entombing winter

4/23/2023: One of my favorite bits about April—aside from the departure of winter, the arrival of spring and my birthday—is seeing Nature burst in uplifting metaphor. I love seeing trees (that looked half-dead just days ago) budding with new life. I delight in birds, bees, butterflies and people coming out to enjoy the warming weather. And the best of all, crocuses… unburying themselves out of frigid slush, defying winter, and opening their petals to spring.

 

With work and help
damaged wings can still rise.

4/26/2023: My one-on-one physical therapy has ended. Not because all is well—the range of motion of my left shoulder is about 70%—but because it’s as much as this particular therapy can do for me. Next comes hydrotherapy. I hope it helps as much as the other one; doing my exercises six days a week, for 90 minutes, took me from 10% to 70%. If hydrotherapy takes me at least 25% closer to what my range used to be, I’ll be a happy woman. I’ll do the work, accept the help, and hope I’ll soon be able to raise my arms over my head. 

 

a wee taste
of home, tamarind
on my tongue

4/30/2023: Certain fruits (mango, guava, loquat… tamarind) take me back to warmer days, in the Dominican Republic—the tongue is a powerful conjurer of memories… Today, when NYC is rainy and gloomy, tasting something tropical feels just right.

 

May
the 4^th
be with you,
on World Naked Gardening
Day.

5/4/2023: At the moment, I’m not brave enough to celebrate World Naked Gardening Day in the flesh—the thought of certain of my bits being exposed to dirt, thorns, bees… makes me shudder (and not in a good way). Until I have a nice greenhouse, I shall join the celebration in my head. After that, there shall be naked gardening and Star Wars movie watching (to double the celebratory fun).

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #75: A Character from Myth or Fable.