Escape

Spring buds on the maple trees

This week’s photo challenge at WordPress is:  Escape.

Just wanted to let you know.  We’ve finally busted out of winter here in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula after almost seven months.

We’ve successfully escaped.

We can only hope someone hid the keys of that winter jailor…

Summer in Switzerland

Switzerland

I’m going to Europe–vicariously.

Our son and his wife (who married, as you may remember, last October) are flying off for their belated honeymoon in France and Italy.

I’ve packed myself in Christopher’s suitcase–never you mind that his suitcase is halfway across the country in San Diego–and I’m going to visit Paris, Florence, Nice and Rome.  I’ll be so quiet they won’t even know that the mother-in-law is ooohing and ahhhing up that Eiffel Tower.

I promise not to speak.  In fact, they won’t even know I’m there.

Do you want to talk about you, you, you or listen to me, me, me?

Talkers and Listeners

Yesterday I meandered over to Carol’s blogging back step where she revealed she just visited Cee’s back step.  Some of  you may know that Cee invites us to answer blogging questions.

These help our readers know us better.

Perhaps they even help us know ourselves better.

How would you answer the question “Are you a listener or talker?”

Would you say, “Both”?  (That’s always my standard answer.  We’re both listeners and talkers in different scenarios in our lives.  With Person A we might talk a blue streak.  With Person B we listen endlessly without interjecting.)

Yet, truly, we’re often more inclined more one way or another.  Which way is your default position?

Happy Mother’s Day to all you women & men who’ve never given birth

For all the times you’ve mothered…

Mother’s Day wishes are swirling all over the ‘Net.  Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.  Happy Mother’s Day in honor of my precious babies who are now grown up.  Happy Mother’s Day, dear Mama Earth who helped birth all of us, big and small.

I want to add another Mother’s Day wish to those of us humans who have never labored and given birth to real live squalling babies with red faces.

pain, adjustment, stream of consciousness, coffee…

perfect symmetry

so here i am at another coffee shop, another cup of steaming java, late friday afternoon, barry at a high school track meet taking pictures for his newspaper job.  me writing before he retrieves me just because it’s fun, playin’ with stream of consciousness writing, just because.

so here you are reading another blog before you high-tail into your weekend and what are your plans?

just had a fabulous chiropractic adjustment at superior family chiropractics, bless their adjusting hearts, i do love them so.  it turns out the pain i’ve been experiencing lately merely involves a twisted sacrum, swollen ligaments and a kinked-up lower back.

The myth of 1,000 blog followers

Rome wasn’t built in a day

Yes, dear readers, it’s been an auspicious day.  This very blog–Lake Superior Spirit–hath reached the lofty goal of 1,000 followers!  Why, this  happened just after lunch.  I’ve been watching with one lazy eye as the numbers soared during recent weeks.

You’d think this would be a cause to celebrate, to dance merrily, to shout to the treetops, to delight in 1,000 avid readers coming to your blog in eager anticipation of your treasured words and photos.

But, no, my friends, this is not a cause celebre.  It’s hardly even worth more than a raised eyebrow.  In fact, don’t you dare even offer congratulations!  I beg of thee!  You want to know why?

Breaking up is *not so* very hard to do

Ice breaking up on the Keweenaw Bay

Yesterday morning in town–in between errands a’plenty–I noticed that the last of the ice on the bay was breaking up into jagged concentric circles and other patterned ice floes.

It was warm, about 60 degrees (16 C) in the early morning so I paused to take some pictures to show you.

Hope you enjoy the last glimpse of winter of our Keweenaw Bay.  We hope it’s our last glimpse!

It breaks into thousands of floating icebergs

Storms never last do they baby?

Storms never pass do they baby?

Storms never last do they baby?

Bad times all pass with the winds

Your hand in mine stills the thunder

And you make the sun want to shine…

Seriously, folks, you can be enjoying a *somewhat* warm Sunday afternoon with your “baby” when suddenly the conversation turns to old songs.  (A song  which this particular blogger never knew until five minutes ago after her “baby” started rather mockingly singing this old-time classic and she Googled to discover a Jessi Colter and Waylon Jennings version and now, maybe, she’ll remember at least until tomorrow morning as she ponders “Storms never last, do they, baby?”)

What is it about a catchy tune?  A tune which has the power to jingle, jolt, jab, sing, dance you from your very ordinary day?  And what is it about old-time songs, songs from our childhood, or before our childhood, maybe our parent’s childhood, songs from long-ago, which sing us into a place where our heart throbs, who knows why?  Maybe because we remember our Mama or Papa singing it while they made Wonder Bread & peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, who the heck knows?

When a stranger returns your purse

Angel

This morning I drove north to a coffee shop in Houghton–5th and Elm (may it forever be immortalized in song and dance, as you will soon discover why) and ordered a coffee and cranberry biscotti.

Then set my big clunky red purse, covered with tiny mirrors, a gift from an Indian physical therapist earlier this year (see this story if you’ve forgotten) on the floor.  An inner voice warned me, “Now don’t you DARE forget that purse!”

I then unpacked Ms. Ellie, the laptop computer from the backpack, retrieved the mouse and waited for the Internet signal before typing a lengthy almost 900 word blog (which you may or may not eventually read) while delightedly sipping coffee and inadvertently tossing biscotti crumbs to and fro.

I even forgot who I was for maybe a half hour.  That’s how engrossed and delighted I was in the writing.

Blogging to illuminate, to reconcile

Illumination

Lately I have been enjoying writing blogs that seem to reconcile stuck, limited, or judging viewpoints within.

Something arises.  Some judgment, some feeling, some sorrow, something that’s not yet integrated.

Perhaps it has to do with a friendship.  A sense of longing.  Something deep inside which wants to be accepted, yet there’s still a pushing away, a not-allowing. Perhaps it’s an anger, a sorrow, a not-understanding.

I sit and type, letting the deepest self share its thoughts.

Then–instead of turning too quickly in the next moment–or too compulsively looking toward your comments or visits–it seems that the words in the blog are felt on a deeper level.  I feel the truth in the words, to understand, to allow.

It often feels like a big ah-ha of understanding.  It feels like it translates into true realization, into something real which can inform the next action.