Dolls and toys/freewrite # 28

one of my favorite toys were Colorforms...shiny plastic pieces that stuck to a shiny black board.  Many hours spent with that one.
i had a lot of dolls as a child...betsey wetsy, chatty kathy, thumbalina, raggedy ann and andy, patty playpal...a life sized doll...a must for an only child.
my last doll was barbie and i remember my mom sewing doll clothes from tiny scraps of fabric.  The store bought outfits were wonderful, too.  they came with accessories...shoes, a hat, a handbag.
another favorite toy was a metal gas station with a working lift and a ramp for little cars.  i was very young.
there was a ballerina doll the Christmas i was so sick.  She was jointed at the elbows, wrists, knees and ankles. dressed in an embellished leotard, her tu-tu was a soft pink as were the satin slippers.  You could pose her in all five positions.
Silly Putty, Play Dough, coloring books and drawing sets,construction paper and paste and scissors,crepe paper, chalk and blackboard, etch a sketch!!.

to this day a 64 count box of crayolas makes me smile.

freewrite #27/Mirrors

 what does a mirror reflect when there's no one there?  that was asked by a character in a erich maria remarque novel.  she was an inmate at an asylum.  funny i remembered that line.

shiny, sometimes beveled, sometimes like fun house mirrors where your images was suddenly long and narrow.

reflections, one's perception of things.

my mirrors are dirty.  i don't see too clearly anymore.  fortunately.

broken mirrors with the seven year curse.
compact mirrors like my mom had.
mirrors magnifying imperfections till you want to cry and avoid mirrors at all costs.

i love the mirrored bags from india and sri lanka.  richly embroidered and making rainbows when the light hits just right.

free write #26/ telephones

a scarcity these days, real telephones.

i had a light blue princess phone as a young girl.
first dates made over the trimline version that eventually replaced it.

getting a phone call was important in those days. i remember wanting the phone to ring so bad i would bargain with god.

no. 25/ blankets

i've had my brown toned blanket since 1973.  a gift from john horan.  its in good condition, except where the binding has frayed.  the checkerboard pattern is still rich in earth colors; bronze and rust outlined in black.

of course i think of  Navajo blankets;the designs hand woven over time

i think of new blankets in my closet...pretty but unused.

i treasure the aged yarns of my mother's afghans

and my old brown blanket.

reflections/free write #24

i love those mirror images
of trees reflected on a pond
the rippled bark shimmering.
the photograph preserving it.

reflections on glass are wonderful too.

windows collaged with refracted images.

free write # 23/movies

There was nothing like slipping into the darkness of an old movie theater. the smell of buttered popcorn and the matrons telling us to please get our feet off the seats.  someone saying shhhh  when we giggled too much.

my favorite movie of all time is The Wizard of Oz.  i love the color and the characters and the flying monkeys made me cry.

we'll always have paris.  great line from a great film.  an old man whispering rosebud, another favorite. orson wells was so appealing at that point in his life.  the Bridges of madison county. the wide open sky in thelma and louise.

there's a pattern here, i like those films that move me to tears.

a movie transports; transcends time.

glass/ free write #22

glass is another marvel to me. the entire process is fascinating.

clear and hard, solid and fragile
so many forms of glass; pink colored depression glass, cobalt blue bottles.

my mother and her mother before her collected cut glass crystal. hundreds of cuts producing rich, intricate patterns;
sharp edged and spectacular.  not to my taste tho.  i prefer sleeker more streamlined glass, like robbie's art glass pieces.

glass figurines lined up on a credenza; blown glass jars, vases,sugar bowls.

sound /free write #21

i hear the sound of traffic outside my window. an engine reeves up, a bike passes, a horn honks in the night.

my cat sam doesn't hear any sounds at all.  an occasional vibration will rouse him, but no sounds of cat food cans being opened or fresh turkey being unwrapped.

a plane passes overhead.  i hear the huge engines.  inside people are listening to music while a stewardess gives directions about flotation devices.

sound, one of the five senses we take for granted.

the camera/free write #20

I've always been intimidated by camera. set this. click here. Focus.  i have trouble with focus.
Film cameras were the scariest for me with their sets of rules i can never remember. (what does f stop mean again?  i always forget.) Digital cameras are a little more friendly.  point. shoot.  less stressful.
I've always been closest to people who are comfortable with their cameras.  tony tried repeatedly to teach me shutter speeds and finally found it easier to just take pictures of me instead of trying to teach me how to use it.
the camera captures a moment in time in an existence that is always changing.

scent / free write # 19

most people would call it an oder but i love the scent of tobacco, aged and sweet.  it makes me think of fire pits and the smell of wood burning brilliant and crackling, mixing with the cool night air. the ocean's fragrance rising up with the tide.  tobbaco is a gift to the old spirits.  i remember the smell of the pipe tobacco, woodsey and rich.
and oh the scent of fresh hung laundry, a mixture of clean air and perfumed soap. the greatest fragrance.

rocky's first birthday

no one ever thought we'd see this day, but it's rocky's first birthday. last november the vets predicted he would only live a few more weeks. Prayer, good energies and a bit of luck has combined to make this miracle.

the birthday boy enjoyed a full can of food for his birthday breakfast.  then he played.  afterwards he napped.

life is good.

free write #18/ lavender

i used to grow lavender in my garden in national city.  Long slender stalks of that wonderful blue purple color, still in the afternoon. I would cut and dry it and place it in  a vase on the glass table

la Von der, as milla would say. bunches of crushed lavender sewed into tiny pouches and placed in underwear drawers.

the fragrance of lavender makes me think of poety,penned in a fine hand script on browning calligraphy paper.

Photo courtesy of

http://www.theflowerexpert.com/content/giftflowers/flowersandfragrances/lavenders/" target="_blank">The Flower Expert.

windows/a free write

When i was a child one of my favorite things was looking in people's windows, especially in the village where i'd walk with my mother.  Those big windows in brownstone buildings were the best. You could glimpse over stuffed bookcases and paintings hanging on walls.  I knew i was home by those windows, open and inviting. it was a different world in 1960.

Later i walked alone thru various neighborhoods and glanced thru picture windows.

I love looking out windows,too.  i remember that hotel room in san diego, car lights climbing the hill.  or the french windows wide open..or the windows in the carriage house, stained glass and sealed shut.

i love the idea of being able to look in and look out the same surface of glass.

bridges

i drove over the brooklyn bridge in a dream
crossing over
connecting manhattan to brooklyn, population 4 million

slender cables cut across the sky.

free write #15/treasures

what treasures do i own?  my mom's diamond ring; my cats.  friends are treasured; memories, photographs.
those letters in boxes, some pots that judy made, my antique key collection.

i might live simply except for all my treasures; my books, my music, my boxes made of wood, porcelain, paper mache.  the unicorn box  - a gift from tony, circa 1977.

my oz stuff...those sculptures i made at 17, a bunny sewn in second grade.

treasures are the things you''ve had the longest.