So I'm going to back up for a moment to give a perspective to my recent posts.  (Not garnering sympathy … I'm happy to still be here)

In 2005 I lost the vision in my right eye to repetitive detached retinas.
In 2010 I spent a year in treatment for Breast Cancer losing most of my left breast.
In 2015 I smashed my left elbow requiring extensive reconstruction.
In 2019 I had a mini stroke numbing my whole left side.

So, now I'm half blind, and have totally abused my left side.

I said that so I can say this.  I'm so thankful that I can still see, I am alive, I can use my left arm and I can walk and smile and garden with both my left and right sides.  And I am still writing.

Today I played in the dirt at 7:30 am.  It was only 92 degrees.  I'm not out there long … 100 degrees comes up pretty fast in July, but I transplanted a mulberry tree that popped up next to the house.  I moved it over to the side of the driveway next to the Chaste Tree.  I love trees.  I planted three small bushes in the shade of my Arizona Ash in the front yard, I pulled three weeds, I propped the chair rail up against the side of the house so I will remember to paint it, soon, and put it back in the living and dining rooms.  It's now 10 am and 101 degrees so I'm done outside for the day.

My plan is to rest then go to the mall and walk my 1.5 miles.  I have a birthday party to attend tonight and a screenplay to finish.  The USB for my wireless mouse and keyboard has disappeared so I can't use my downstairs computer right now, so I drug out the old Apple laptop Susie gave me and I'm using that.  The battery won't hold a charge and it's bulky and heavy but it's portable and easy to use, so I'm loving it!

With my generous watering system in the morning (hose and drips) I now have butterflies and a mocking bird living in my back yard.

Mockingbird sing
whistle a song
crooning and calling
dawn to dawn

skipping down rooftops
and skirting the trees
crooking your head
sipping with bees

you watch from the wall
as the dogs madly rush
then skip quickly away
as they jump and they thrust

soft muzzles sharp teeth
that never can find
your tail feathers flow
and they're left behind

mockingbird mockingbird
stay for a while
and sing through the leaves
that shiver through my smiles

Life is just more and more interesting.

I'm now mall walking because it's just too hot to walk outside.  After all, Las Vegas is located in the desert and it's July so the temperatures rise to about 120 during the day … hot.

Mall walking could be boring … one mile is once around the 2nd floor and once around the first floor … and the stores don't change daily … but interesting people are everywhere here and many of them love to stop and chat … maybe they find it as boring as I do.

Anyway, chatted with a woman dog sitting a chihuahua … a shop keeper for a tee shirt shop that she loved showing off … watched the woman from Cinnabun frosting cinnamon rolls … chatted with a woman in an art gallery … and a man in another art gallery … and then went home … one mile accomplished.

Tomorrow I'll look for more interesting people to talk with …

The rest of my day looked like:
  Coffee at Starbucks with the guys I used to work with
  Watered the veggies in the front and back
  Moved some pots around
  Ate breakfast and watched a murder mystery with Jerry
  Walked in the mall
  Fixed the Apple laptop so I could login (I always forget the login since it's not originally mine)
  Writing

More tomorrow …  carry on

Playing Catch up

I've had this blog since 2005 and it's been my favorite place to set my thoughts in prose and poetry.  It's been an ideal way (for me) to solidify what's going on in my life and identify it; but not niche it.  I don't like niches.  Dust ridden dead spots that hold ideas that have outlived their usefulness.  Not always accurate either, they seem anachronistic, unusable and ignoble too, somehow.

At any rate, it's 2019 and it's not even January or close to the first part of the year.  July, it says and utter silence since the previous January.  I've decided that if I'm going to write again I will return to the space that first enticed the words in my heart to jump onto the page and cavort, to dance and sing, to moan and writhe, to live.  So here I am and here they are.  They've been patient you know.  They've waited past family drama, cruises to far away lands, explorations of exotic places, then, more recently through tumultuous changes and challenges in home and heart and culminating in a tap on the shoulder reminded me of my own humanity.

It wasn't all fun and games but still it was exciting and new and frightening and somehow invigorating, and still, here I am.  I did finish my first book, yet published, and have pulled my screenplay out of dry dock, hoisted it onto a deck to check for barnacles and will soon turn it over to my editor who, with loving, devout and deviously sympathetic hands render it suitable to send out into the world of paper prose.

And yet, here I am, not searching for nouns, verb, adverbs and the like to pepper my play but instead decided to begin my continuing saga as a writer by giving my muse-driven fingers free reign.

It's good to be back.

Let's go Down to the sea

As the sand

Meets the waiting sky

As the waves tease the toes

Of the stately ice floes

As they lumber slowly by 

Let’s go up to the hills

That kiss the clouds

As they fly

Or the verdant green

From stream to stream

As the dusk 

sails where they sigh

Let’s go home to our home

Where the sea and glade

Retire

In our glen we will lie

In the sweet bye and Where the sky meets the sea

I will wait for thee

Where islands in the sky wait for time

2018 .. A new year

Thinking about the gains
and losses
from a year so recently gone
always seems to lead me back
to where I first belonged

The good .. the bad
Indifferent
feels stronger than before
I’m wanting less
but finding more
as I work ceiling to floor

I cannot please the everyone
 someone or
anyone at all
so I will try to please myself
ducking from chips that fall

My New Years resolution list
is very short this year
be kind
be loving
don’t fix what’s not mine
don’t make others happy
for me