life between the pages

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”
Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

lawn no more

This past April, I had a similar epiphany to the one expressed by this writer:

The Lawn Racket, by Stan Cox

In the theme of keeping wildness, I neglected to do what my next-door and across-the-street neighbors were doing, namely going out every two days and running the noisy lawnmower, at times with dust flying in their wake. I wish they realized just how stupid they looked. Maybe it was in protest, maybe I just got fed up with the price of gasoline, maybe I decided it was high time I put theory into practice, but I refused to mow the lawn to shreds with a noisy, wasteful gas-powered engine. Instead, I went out and got a scythe. I go out about once a week or so and work for about 2 hours, sometimes I do it for a few days in a row, as I feel like it. I am not committed to making the lawn look manicured, just keeping the weeds at bay --and weeds, in my book, are not necessarily a bad thing if they have flowers and don't make me sneeze! Sometimes I pull out the reel mower if I'm feeling especially neat and orderly, but honestly, the yard looks happier, and I am proud to say not one molecule of gasoline exhaust has littered the air about the place this year.

Several summer months later, my upper arms are less flabby, my waist continues whittled, and I do not contribute to the unnecessary noise of the neighborhood. Much to be desired in the rural countryside, where bluebirds, warblers, and wrens flit in the trees and the sigh of the wind is music to the ears.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

a 21 year reunion....


Go to the Image Gallery



has it been 21 years... really? since i rushed home after the store closed at hancocks fabrics in tampa to see the show that was to transform everything from network tv to crime dramas as we knew them?

well don... you haven't aged a bit. tonite was the airing of the first episode of miami vice. you looked like such a ***baby***!!! so young, so fresh, so immoral!!
when i remember my innocence of the years when miami vice first hit the screen --it makes my eyes tear up a bit. i remember how gratified i was that my favorite actor from "the rebel" had actually been rewarded with the type of fame due his talent. unbelievable, yet so gratified.

it wasn't the armani suits, the deep tans, or the testarossa. i promise you. it was the green eyes.... and the doubt, the betrayals, the agony that kept us tuning in week after week. it was watching you deal with things that made our miserable lives seem human again. it was seeing you come out of it and go on... again, and again. it was like nothing we'd seen before... how lovely to see you'd aged well. my 14-year old son could not believe this was the world before cell phones, before the internet... and it looked cool, and splendid. and i wanted it back, i did.

last night i watched "hot spot," "long hot summer," AND "word of honor," just to refresh my memory. you are just as fascinating as you always were. i don't care what anyone else says.... we'll see the new re-make as it appears to be a must-see, but nothing can change the fact that you were always my muse, my hero, and the one that caused me to take up my pen to write in the first place. it's high time i finished the novel i started way back then, don't you think?

Thursday, July 13, 2006

simple gifts



it's been way too long, and i have no better excuse for not making any entries other than time, or the lack of it. here i'll share a photo made by a friend of myself and my youngest, enjoying a jaunt into an earlier, simpler time. all my life centers around my children and my work; i have little to share other than this. as it should be.

i will try to write more often.