Old Love Letters

C.S. Lewis said: "We read to know we are not alone."
What about all the digital blogs and Facebook, Twitter and MySpace pages? Won't it be strange when the people that are writing them are all gone from this Earth? Like so many of the books now left to us? it's all so new now, so recent...but it won't always be so. It will be part of the Earth's heritage, and those that are left will be able to piece together all the parts, creating some kind of cohesive picture of what was, cross referencing it all...it will blow their minds, or maybe it will be common place to them by then...who was writing what when about the same things, how many were affected by events, stories and books. Cyberspace is it's own huge world, blossoming outward from our inner thoughts, leaving traces that will never be forgotten.

I have a large shoe box of hand written letters Mom gave to me, still with the original tie she placed around the box (I replaced the box tastefully as the old one had fallen apart), inside an old dried corsage, bits and pieces of sweet memories, folded brittle pages of love's dearest thoughts carefully placed in envelopes that traveled thousands of miles over war torn seas, sent between my parents when Dad was on the first Enterprise in WWII, obsolete communications, no digital traces there. Where should they be? Where will they find their home? Cherished written words in real ink on paper...no digital life. Writing words is trans formative...as I write my feelings grow fonder of them, and I forget why I am mad, my sad feelings fall away, like dust brushed from a shiny surface waiting to be released into the sun's reflections once again.

Memories like jealous children

I was just writing to a long lost friend and lover, who has found me through Facebook, of all the places and experiences I want to write about...and here it is in a rough form, taken from that email. I may revise this post as time goes on and will use it as a sort of outline for future writing:

My travels inspired by an innate need to eat up life as fast as I could, plus the added bonus of being my own rep, selling my hand crafted jewelry to galleries and at juried shows allowed me long periods of time in Minneapolis, Rochester(born and raised there), Gaylord on the flat desolate plains and many other places in Minnesota, Fargo, ND, the Badlands in South Dakota, Wyoming (the desert and the great rolling hills with their herds of free running antelope, the Detroit ghettos, NYC, Boston, Portland and Gloucester in Maine and the Maine coast..... Lakeland, Denver, Boulder, Vail, camped in the Rockies at Aspen, all in Colorado....Pittsburgh, Rochester and Ithaca, NY, Chicago, St. Louise, New Orleans French Quarter and the gulf coast, Peoria....Key West, Sanibel Island, Orlando, and so many other fun places in Florida, like the Everglades.....lived outside of River Falls, Wisc on a farm with no phone, heating with only the wood we hand cut and chopped, Sarasota and extreme Miami (hanging in the glamorous city, Coconut Grove, Little Cuba, and the black ghetto), Ptown and Wellfleet on Cape Cod (when the Aids Epidemic was just starting and had no name yet), Northampton, Ma. (where I am now), Fayetteville, NC and on a commune in Northern Mn. and in bizarre Bemidgi, hung with the Kingbird family on the Red Lake Indian Reservation and shared Powwow drum times with them while living there, visited family on the Cherokee Res in NC ....so many artists and intense folks living full Bohemian, quirky lives in many of those places, so rich and amazing. Funny how one runs into old weird friends who travel between some of those towns/cities, enclaves of rapid moving thoughts and artists. My kids are steeped in it...through me and/or on their own (Ari has traveled overseas extensively), being exposed to all kinds of people and thoughts from all over the world, though I haven't been out of the states. A friend once told me that I have covered more ground than most Europeans do in a lifetime..but I still hope to travel over seas! I have so much to write about...A life unwritten is lost and unshared. I know how I treasure books. I always am reading and my life is so much the richer for experiencing what others have been though and their thoughts on it all...if I keep writing just maybe I can cover most of it. Funny thing though, as one writes, more memories come to mind, bubbling to the surface, waiting to be acknowledged and attended to, like jealous children. "Do me now!" "No, me!" How does one work them all in?

Bear Visitor!

Yesterday I had a visitor! I always feel blessed when these things happen. :O)

Apology

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I used to be scared of being found,
so many spooky memories around,
will he or she find me,
and rub my nose in it,
all the things I did,
that were not so nice?
I never meant to hurt anyone,
but stepped on others while having fun,
thoughtless acts,
indifference,
making others insignificant,
feeling forgotten,
and maybe used by me,
as I rushed free.
I am sorry for all of this,
so if you find your way,
to these words,
please accept my apology,
I am truly sorry.