This Blog is Under Attack

Yesterday, out of the blue, for no reason I can discern, I began to receive comments on this blog from a bold, brave, stand-up for America guy called Anonymous who wants to "boycott" American women. 

His comments were filled with the hate and anger typical in men who feel emasculated by the mere presence of a woman whom they perceive to be out of their reach whether in ability, looks or achievement.   However, the most telling detail about this ant, in my opinion, is that not only is he angry, he's a coward.  

It's easy to throw rocks from behind the safety of a computer screen.  It's easy to pound your chest (or what passes as one on Anonymous) and write sweeping insults.     

And poor Anonymous isn't the only one.  There're millions just like him....scared, angry, pathetic little people of both sexes....willing to clog the public forums with the most despicable language, and yet unwilling to allow their names or faces to be known.   That's not free speech .... that's cowardice.  I don't know any women of any nationality interested in being with a coward, unless of course, she's one herself. 

So to Anonymous... What is most patently obvious about you from your comments is that you're a coward.  I'm glad you boycott American women.  I'm sure it's easy from the bottom of that pond.   

Red Sky at Morning - Waiting for Irene

Red sky at morning: sailors' warning;

Red sky at night: sailors' delight. 

The sky this morning is glowing coppery, reddish pink.  You don't grow up on a barrier island without learning how to pay attention to the weather and you don't survive something like the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 without acquiring a respect for it. 

I wasn't quite three years old when a perfect confluence of events - a big nor'easter, a spring high tide and a full moon, all conspired to create the conditions which spawned the storm to which the records books still peg.  We lived five blocks from the beach, and five blocks from the bay.  I remember kneeling perched on a dining room chair, watching out the big picture window as the ocean came swirling up the street.  I remember the water lapping at our front steps and flooding the backyard.  

I remember neighbors gathering in our house, friends of my parents from more low-lying points on the island.  One couple had a little boy, just a couple years older than me.   We were watching out the window as night fell and the waters rose and the adults babbled behind us.  Suddenly, Ashie shook me and pointed.  "The gas station's on fire!" he cried.  

Diagonally across the street from my great-grandfather's house, which stood beside ours on the corner, was a gas station.  I looked but didn't see anything.  "No it isn't," I said.  The words had no sooner left my mouth than an enormous plume of blue and orange flame exploded out of one tiny window in the secord floor of the garage, as high as the roof of my great-grandfather's house.  

The adults behind us sprung into action. 

My mother remembers the shadows of the flames dancing on the walls as she ran screaming, for my 13 month old brother.  I remember the enormous civil defense truck that trundled down the alley, and the uniformed men who scooped me up and put me on my grandmother's lap.   I remember my great-grandfather arguing as my father and the other men hustled him down the steps of his battleship of a house. 

I remember my mother spreading blankets on a desk at a building on Wesley Avenue that I forever harbored warm and fuzzy feelings for.  Years later, on a walk to church, I remember asking my grandmother what the building was.  She said it was the telephone company's building and that it was used as a shelter because it was one of the few on the island built of brick. 

I remember waking up in my own bed and wondering if it were all a dream. 

My father said what saved the neighborhood was the fact that it was March, and still cold enough that all the roofs were coated with a thin layer of ice.  Also, everything was saturated by the rain which had fallen more or less steadily for three days, and the fire could only burn to the water line, which on that night, was nearly two feet.  The gas station might've burned down anyway.  So in a way, he said, what saved our houses was the storm itself. 

The world outside my window is absolutely still.  Every now and then a crow cries or a jay calls.  Only the crickets sing.  The dogs have been acting funny since yesterday.  The color has faded and the sky is leaden gray.  It's the sort of weather that would send my grandmother scurrying to close windows and tie up awnings and bring in flower pots. 

May Irene pass gently on her way.  Blessed be. 

Today's the Day

...as in Move Libby Into College Day.  Two of Libby' siblings- her biggest sister Kate and her big brother Jamie, who fortunately has remained a big brother at least in relation to Libby - are coming to help.   The fact that a hurricane named Irene is bearing down on the state adds an extra soupcon of I'm not quite sure what. 

Students at colleges closer to the shore line are being told to evacuate once they've moved their stuff in, but Storrs, CT, just happens to be one of the most geographically safe places in the northern hemisphere.  And we already had an earthquake last week. 

But today...whatever the weekend and Irene brings...is beautiful.  The sun's rising in long golden spears of light, the mist is rising off the ponds.  The birds are calling, the roses are blooming, the world is lush and ripe and beckoning.  I'm feeling rested and strong - all that good eating and those other healthy practices are paying off in terms of energy and awareness.

And I am about to get my life back in a way I haven't had it in more than three decades.  No wonder a hurricane is roaring up the East Coast in a way one hasn't in over fifty years. 

 

Rites of Fall

I woke up cold this morning.  For the first day in months, I was reluctant to leave my snuggled nest of covers.  This morning on the driveway, I saw one fallen red maple leaf.  Fall is on its way. 

My youngest and I have been shopping for college amidst all the back-to-school frenzy.  Libby is the fourth young adult I've sent marching off, armed with sheets and wall hooks and enough Easy Mac to feed a dorm floor.  It's the last time I expect to do this and the last time for anything is always bittersweet.  

I've watched the young mothers in the stores, the ones with lists and wrinkled frowns and children slipping under foot.  They congregate in groups in the back to school aisles, comparing cart contents, nervous as their own kids about what lies ahead, so desperate to do it right.  Relax, I want to tell them.  You screw up more by being overly worried than by allowing nature to take its course. 

Blessed be.

First Harvest

A few weeks ago, on Lammas Eve, I gathered the "first" harvest of my herbs and made bundles to dry on my hearth and on the four altars outside.  The plants have been happy this year, and I had big bunches of white sage and yarrow and sweet annie and mugwort.

It's been a fruitful writing summer too.  So far I've finished the story I wrote for my brother, David.  Written at a third grade level, its a story about a young man named David who lives at home with his parents and works in a mailroom.  When he meets a red-haired girl named Sarah, he's sure he's met the girl of his dreams.  My brother, who has Downs' Syndrome, doesn't care for most books written at his reading level because he's not a child.  But he loves this one, and he's excited about reading it in a way he hasn't in years.  Others who have read have been charmed at the way the story opens up the world of a person with my brother's abilities. Titled How David Met Sarah, it's coming out in October as an ebook on Amazon... I hope you will check it out!

I  also have almost forty thousand words complete of a first draft of a new novel tentatively titled All the Missing Pieces...I'd like to complete the first draft this month and seem to be right on track to do so.  Eating the Angel Way is once again being "re-visioned".... my sense is that the book when it comes out in November, right after Thanksgiving, will offer even more insights than the previous versions.  And there's my new blog... Hecate's Gate...which seems to be off to a great start, thanks to all the wonderful women who have left me comments and offered feedback.  In addition, I've held workshops and retreats and done some mentoring and coaching this summer... all which has left me feeling very satisfied. 

So that's what I've harvested this summer... how about you, Gentle Readers? 

Look for more changes...

...coming soon!  I'm working out a publishing schedule, finishing up a new novel and editing some old stuff... can't wait to share more!