Posts Tagged ‘Mowgli’
chalk. words and drawings. but that’s it.
July 26, 2010driving away
July 20, 2010
i don’t belong here, in this
Place where i Belong.
i close my eyes as the mountains fade into the horizon behind me
and think that if this were an addiction, i’d be in the tremors of withdrawal.
but though there are tears, and indeed, there is trembling, i sense that
everything remains
that separation is an illusion
that the peaks that brush the faces of stars, and
the canyons that pierce the heart of the earth, and
all the wild, natural magic—all
is within me.
and with gratitude, i learn that my longing
is essential to the experience of life,
and to my return.
rain is my BEST thing
June 7, 2010it all started like this, torrential rain in bursts, and the compulsion to fully experience it.
and then he said this, and i couldn’t not write it down.
and then she remembered how fun chalk is when the pavement is wet.
and so did he. 
and let’s just say we were deeply moved.
and then:
and then:
i “should” have said no:
June 2, 2010
but i'm glad i didn't.
Because I Keep Doing Things!
April 6, 2010
We were lagging, and as I snapped this picture, Mowgli said, “Oh no, Mom! We have to catch up! We are so far behind!”
I turned the camera off and hoisted Shortcake to my hip.
“And it’s all my fault!” he cried. “Because I keep doing things!”
“Like this!” He stabbed his walking stick into a patch of mud.
“And this!” He crouched down to pet the soft moss on a large rock.
“And this!” Exasperated, he hopped onto a fallen log and balanced along its length. Then he looked up at me, his hands upturned, with pleading and helplessness in his eyes.
“I know, babe.” I said, understanding perfectly. “I know.”
have you been half asleep?
April 5, 2010
The Four. Holga, tri-x 400. Obviously.
What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing?
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers, and me.
from The Rainbow Connection, written by Paul Williams
My Kiki is not a soft, frou-frou girl. She likes loud rock songs and music she can dance to. So, imagine my surprise when I learned that she had been listening to the Sarah McLachlan version of this song on her iPod! Whether it’s the voice or the chords or the elusive meaning, I don’t know, but it moves her. The other night, I played the youtube of Kermit rockin’ the banjo for her, and we laughed. But also, dammit, I got all choked up. What is it about this song?
She wanted to understand the meaning, and I fumbled through an explanation about journey, Mystery, self-expression, connection. Drawing from a rather entertaining fire-and-brimstone vs. Love-and-Light facebook exercise in tolerance this weekend, I told her that we can’t help but walk individual paths, as we each live and experience every moment differently. But at the same time, we are all trying our best to understand the same Thing, whatever we call It, however we respond to It. We know there is beauty and magic, and it is the collective vision of everyone’s unique Truth that . . .
I’m totally lying. This is so much better than the bullshit I gave her. I’ve gotta write this down. Or just ask her what she thinks it means, because that would all go over her head.
Anyway, is this not a fan-cussin’-tastic photo (if I do say so myself)? It is the Spring of the Holga. I’ve just decided.
(p.s. yes. i’ve heard voices.)
the big oh-five
March 23, 2010
photograph and styling by the birthday boy
Five years ago today, Mowgli was born. In the very late evening of the 22nd, I had been pissed off at this little baby who was going to be overdue. I was already upset that he had passed the Pisces/Aries cusp. He answered my complaints with a swift kick to the ribs and a gush of amniotic fluid. I walked into the ER at midnight, was wheeled (sitting rather awkwardly) into the birthing center at 12:08, and he was born at 12:17, 17 minutes overdue, caught by my co-worker and friend (not the OB).
Sure, there was screaming (mine). Sure, there was incredible power surging through my body. Sure, I was completely unable to take my own pants off. Sure, there was a double-wrapped cord around his neck. But, to tell you the truth, it was easy. Creation borrowed my body, had Her way with it, and then plopped it back on the hospital bed bloody and spent. It was great. I’m not even being sarcastic.
I’m going to take this blasphemy even farther; I’m going to break a serious mommy-rule: he is my easiest kid. Oh, don’t confuse easy for well-behaved. That he is not, I ASSURE YOU. But to me (not so much to his father), “parenting” him is easy. Because he is me. And I get it. (I mean, I’m not terribly well-behaved, either.)
When I met him, I smiled an lazy smile and said, “Oh. I like you.” We understood one another, and still do. He loves me loves me loves me, and he often shows me by kissing and snuggling all over me with this obnoxious affection. And the feeling and expression is mutual. But he quickly moves on; he’s never needed much from me. He’s got other things to do—to obsess over, to whine about, to plot, to gain complete understanding of (sound familiar?).
He’s a strange little mirror. I get to see all of my selfishness, stubbornness, screetchiness (word!) played out in plain sight. It makes me cringe a little sometimes, but usually, it’s because I’m suppressing a laugh.
Signs
March 18, 2010Now that it’s nice enough outside to go for walks . . .
. . . I’m embracing the learning opportunities presented by signs.
momentarily awakened (and then lost again)
March 8, 2010I’ve written those (first) two words into a poem—abandoned and reworked and abandoned and rediscovered and (you get the idea)—since I was sixteen. They have new meaning for me every time I write them.
Tonight, my newly-formed guitar string finger calluses tap-tap-tapped on the keyboard, as I began to love on my little-novel-that-could again. I wrote: Momentarily awakened in the moonless night . . .
And on cue, Shortcake woke up, calling to me from the bed. “Mommy?” I ran to her, snuggled up and kissed her cheek. “Mommy’s here,” I whispered. Sleepily, she put her arm on mine, and said, smiling, “Oh. There y’are.”
Then, Dimples woke up, febrile and coughing, with a sore ear. After ibuprofen and forehead kisses, he smiled and said, “Mom? My number one favorite thing is drawing.”
I wrote all of the above last night, and returned to Dimples’ side, eventually falling asleep with my ass on his floor and my head on his bed. And so I don’t actually know where I was going with this train of thought. Which reminds me. This weekend, traveling home from a blissful day alone on a snowy beach, I got lost in the boonies of Wisconsin. I ended up on a windy, hilly road in a thick forest, and completely lost my sense of direction. It was perfect. I was so far gone, and did not want to be found. Except that I really had to pee. Which reminds me. I’ve got to tell you about our lost-backpacking-in-a-blizzard-spring-break-trip sometime. Which reminds me. Of this, which I’ve posted before, maybe last spring:
I’m not lost. I’m exploring. (Jana Stanfield).
![[img024.jpg]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_y6xhGdKb01A/SUgR71OMR7I/AAAAAAAAByY/whZ522OarZA/s1600/img024.jpg)
tri-x in holga, dusty neg scan, Mowgli
particularly myself
March 5, 2010There is no escape. You can’t be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and your pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing, don’t try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen, you are not a Greek, you are not harmonious, or the master of yourself, you are a bird in the storm. Let it storm! Let it drive you! How much you have lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you have played the harmonious man, the wise man, the happy, the enlightened man. In the same way, men attacking in war have played heroes, while their bowels twitched. My God, what a poor ape, what a fencer in the mirror, man is -particularly the artist – particularly the poet – particularly myself!
Herman Hesse, from Wandering
- mowgli, appropriately wild. tri-x pushed in mamiya c330