Monthly Archives: January 2013

Sir Isaac Newton: The Universal Law of Gravitation

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AppleGravity…and other Laws of Nature.

  •  What goes up must come down.
  • The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Sextant (source-Wickimedia.org)

Sextant (source-Wickimedia.org)

  • The earth revolves around the sun, which might be true for you and me, however, in my husband’s world of celestial navigation, the SUN revolves around the EARTH. 

That’s right! A paradigm shift! Just for you!

With regard to celestial nav, you would take the opposite view–you see the sun move from left to right–or right to left–depending on one’s perspective.

In order to properly take a celestial sight of the sun, you need to treat the sun as if it were revolving around the earth! (The captain used to teach celestial nav, so if he says it–it’s true.)

My World

And in MY world–as you’ve prolly realized–in this world that revolves around ME,  there are my very own Laws of Nature.

  • Just like the tides ebb and flow, my tugboat man will come and go.
  • As Archimedes‘ Buoyancy Principle is true for water and solids, it’s also a truism that a tugboat man who comes home must go out to sea again.

All the things that were new are now done in reverse.

The welcome home becomes the farewell.

That first apple pie becomes the last apple pie.

veuve clicquotThe first flute of Veuve Clicquot to toast the end of a journey becomes the last glass raised of leave-taking and hopes for a safe voyage.

The hello kiss becomes the goodbye hug, holding tight as long as possible.

It’s that time once again–being the wife of a tugboat captain–one half of a married couple who are apart as often as they’re at the same latitude and longitude.

Sigh…

Ten Reasons Why Seashells Are Enchanted

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I’m still in the throes of harnessing my inner beeyotch (the lady who slammed on her brakes and made a u-turn in front of me got a taste of that new me) but I took a teensy break to ponder the oft-asked question: Why do I love seashells?

1. Just like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike. Some are almost perfect twins, but there’s always an individual characteristic if you look close enough.

2. Unlike a snowflake, they don’t disappear.

3. They are all beautiful in color and shape and size.What a treasure!

4. Shells can be worn as jewelry.Abalone necklace with rope work, earrings, pearl bracelet, necklace of polished shell pieces

4. There is appeal in their symmetry and asymmetry.fairshells

5. For me, seashells impart a tangible tactile and visual state of bliss.

6. Shells give birth to episodes of intense creative passions. This is my most recent seashell bouquet; an organic interpretation inspired by a froggy vase acquired at a local thrift shop that helps victims of domestic abuse.newfrogvase

7. Once upon a time, a seashell housed a living creature.

8. Cowry shells were used as currency in China.cowry shell

9. If you love to collect dust, start collecting seashells! They are a dust magnet, prolly their only negative trait.

10. A small grain of sand–a foreign body–inside a seashell grows into a magnificent pearl.  A pearl is an annoyance to the shell,  just exactly like the way I am oftentimes an annoyance to my son!white-pearl-in-oyster     

The Boy Who Is My Heart. So Much Depends On A Yellow Steamroller

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An homage to William Carlos Williams
The Yellow Steamroller

So much depends
upon

a yellow
steamroller

buried
in the dirt 
behind the shed
On a bitterly cold afternoon, I embarked on an annual yard cleanup project. I raked all the pine needles shaken loose during the fury of Alaska-borne winds that roared down the coast to Southern California while he trimmed the eucalyptus and mulberry trees.
Metal rake clanged against metal.
I saw bright yellow igniting the dirt and pine needles suffused it with a gleaming radiance through the brown. steamroller1
I threw down the rake, crouched on all fours, and with bare fingers dug through the wet fecund soil to uncover an abandoned yellow Matchbox toy from the spot where there once was a sandbox that my son’s dad  built for him when we first moved to this house in 1985.
I discover in situ a three-inch wide artifact imbued with all the wonder of my perfect child.
I gently brushed away twenty-five years of encrusted soil and sand.steamroller2
sandboxI was engulfed in a wave of memory.
I was there. I saw him–my four-year-old angel boy in this beautiful huge sandbox filled with fresh, clean sand.
 I saw him as I often watched him from the bay window in the kitchen overlooking the backyard where I would wash dishes and keep an eye on him, keeping him safe–always keeping him safe–as he played in the sand with his dump trucks and cherry pickers and this steam roller and his buckets and plastic cups and forks and sticks with his cats and dog always near, and the loveliness of the memory set me on my heels and I cried.
Happy tears for the exquisite soft rosy glow of healthy well-fed cheeks, the deep Imperial jade green eyes, the curls that were my curls, my boy, my angel love.
The boy whose every breath contains a whisper of the intangible all encompassing LOVE I possess for this being who was a part of me before he was a part of the earth and sun and sky and sand.
The boy who is my heart.
I shut my eyes tight to keep the pictures from disappearing, but the ephemeral/evanescent impressions floated away with the tears that spilled out for the remembering of the beauty of a luminous child playing in a sandbox, singing to himself and constructing sand sculptures of the future, or, in his case, building words and spinning thoughts and erratica.
Those grains of sand that between his fingers mashed and smashed into forts and tunnels were the detritus of the granite from whence his brain reformed them grain by grain into skyscrapers of words and sentences that flow like a path from the back door to the sandbox.looking down from the hill
The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.