the faded tulips are being stained by the sunlight
these photos are from yesterday afternoon
and today they are a deep shade of reddish pink
making me think of sunburned skin

when I pulled back the petals last night, I found a trail of ants, going in and coming back out will little balls of yellow pollen
I am amazed that they still flowered fully formed under the matting.
They still gave what they had to give, they still completed the cycle, without sun, with little space and air.

Oh,
that's where they were.
I knew in late summer, early fall, when I matted and mulched, that there were tulips and daffys somewhere down there
I felt really bad, not remembering where, knowing the act of matting was potentially smothering them next spring.
But I hadn't known the summer would bring, bed expansion, with the ripping out of the dead juniper, and I hadn't known Bob would buy matting and mulch, so I hadn't kept track of my spring flowers, and by the time I was to matt and mulch, they were firmly tucked back into the ground leaving no trace of their place.
Today while looking for my third peony plant, I found these tulips, growing horizontally under the matting, I cut them free, releasing their delicate pale bodies to the light. I am sure they wont fair well this year, soon to be scortched by sun, but at least now they should grow well next year. I find something beautiful in their form, and how they grew anyway ever searching for a break in the matting.

These are what the tulips look like that I planted this fall and thus did not matt over. I am not a wretched horrid gardner, just sadly a bit of a forgetful one.

I need to find the song for the music box in the story.
I hadn't really concerned myself with which song it might be, I thought I would save that for story draft #2, but then yesterday while looking up something else on itunes, I clicked on a non Elivis version of Burning Love, it was an instrumental that sounded very much like music box. And I closed my eyes, thinking of this song as the song played in the music box of the story, and it was sad and funny. And I thought, I need to find that song. The One. I can go with something that was always just instrumental or something that when you hear it, you know the words, and they play on inside your head accompanying the music.
It needs to be a love song. Though given to one character from another, I want it to work for all the main characters in the story. So I want both a husband and wife, parent and child, feel to it.

The box was given in 1970. (in Japan, but I don't think I will try to find a purely Japanese song for it, as I think that will be too hard to do.)

If any ideas, any classic such songs come to you, please do share.

I am off to research. To see what songs are in the category Music box.

Greetings

My friends are coming back,
though they rise to greet the sun,
though the rise to touch the breeze,
though they rise to feel the rain,
though they rise because it is how they are made,
still
I can't help but feel
they rise to meet me.
As I bow down to greet them.

How happy I am to see them return.

Hello
hello
hello.
:)

(I will try to be back later with a photo of my rising plants. But everyone is home today, as Bob and Cheese both have off)

A song

I wanted to write A Song for Alena, in honor of the sweet 16 she would be today (16 on the 16th).
I want to celebrate her, but as I whisper those words, "I want to celebrate her" tears come instead.
I want this day, I want to see her sunny, bright, and 16.
How hard it is not to just miss what was, I always also miss what would have been.
It has been a year and several months, since her feet have walked upon the earth, and still I want to negotiate with God. I want a chance for a different story, a longer one, filled full with chapters. It is hard to let go, even as time moves on, for as it does, I keep longing to see her move along with it. Each corner I turn, I expect to see her there, as the seasons change, as the years flow in and out, I turn and expect to see her, in mittens, in flip flops, in bathing suits, in school clothes, at Thanksgiving, at Christmas, at Easter (How can it be that I will never see her in a car she is driving having just gotten her learners permit?). The years turn and I turn, but I don't see her there.

A Song for Alena. I don't know how to write such a song, those first words are the only ones I can come up with that I like, for it would have to be more beautiful than any words I know, filled with more love than any letters can hold, no matter how I arrange them. I think of images, of metaphors, of flowers floating in a gentle wind, smiles, in sunlight, flowing, releasing scent and sounds, she glows, chimes mixing with birdsong, giggling, laughter, bird wings fly by a butterfly, sings, is happy, is kindness, warmth. And anyone who hears her song would feel special, like it played just for them, they would know they were loved, and feel the connection created was important, because that is what it felt like to be with Alena.

There is no reason in trying
I can not write such a song,
and why struggle with words, there is no need for me to create any such song
a better gift to offer her is to sit still and listen more to the song already song
my memories of her are the song that plays through me today,
and there is no better song I could hear
it fills me with gratitude for the moments our souls walked side by side
It is a song without words, it is images and feelings,
a song of her, a beautiful song her life created
a song she wrote with her being
and in holding that in my mind, heart, soul
I sing for her today.
Her song,
the parts that I know,
and her sisters,
her parents,
all her family,
and friends,
think of her today, and play in their minds the different parts of her song that they know.
Through all our memories of her, and love for her, together today we all play Alena's song.
I wonder if she hears us, feels us, playing a song for Alena.
(chords of memories played through our souls)


There is a chorus, the only words in my part of the memories song (I know all the others have the same chorus)

I miss you

I miss you
is a complete poem
it is simple and vast

I miss you


I still have you,
here in my heart
(are words and feelings, that long to be included in refrain)

nowhere about today.
tucked into words
unhappy words of loss
I am so behind in my writing, I should be covering now what happens in April in story, but procrastinated writing the parts that dealt with The Letters, because writing those parts is emotionally draining. So now I must plunge in and through them, so I can realign my outside world, and inside world time line.
But it is slow going.
Is it good, bad, or irrelevant, if one is dragged into crying over writing some parts? On the one hand I think it is good, writing is connecting with an emotion, on the other I think well so what, all that means is I am connecting with myself, doesn't mean it will effect other people, and then I also think it can be sort of bad, as it (knowing it will be painful and upset me) creates a bit of a moat around my rough draft, making it harder for me to get myself to it.
So here I sit, papers beside me laptop on lap, safely on a sofa, and I tell you what, I feel like I have been through something, those words, dragging me raw, vulnerable through some hard ground.
I have to go now and get Cheese from school, I am pleased for the break, yet I worry about how long it will take me to force myself back to the draft,
but then there are two sides of it, the sooner I come back the sooner I will have to feel those feeling again, but the sooner I come back, the faster I will be through this part, and it will be both mine, and the stories past, and we can move on,
or else we will both be stuck here, and I find nothing easy in that.

*update*
Just got back, while driving I realized tomorrow would have been my cousin's 16th birthday. That wont make the writing any easier (aka it will be much much harder), but reminds me of how personally important it is for me to do it, especially the hard parts.

imagining

myself sitting on a bench, ocean in front of me, flower gardens behind me, sunlight streaming all around through the warm air visited by a cooling breeze.

A notebook, a pen, a reading book, and my ipod scattered at my feet, for I am looking straight ahead.

Just being in this place, in this space, calm,

and then collecting myself for whatever journey lies ahead.

True the picture should be much bigger, and there should be flowers all around the hillside, peony, poppy, wiseria, rose....
but then again from where I am, to such a scene, there is much distance, and I must work at making the picture larger and more real if I hope to try and attempt squeezing myself into it.
So perhaps it is right that it is small,
I must bring to it,
a lot.