truth

"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden." Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666

woman

man

golden days..

i am having a hard time finding the christmas spirit. but twinkle lights and the moons help alittle. 

tasha

starling

love

bare feet

Witch-Wife

 

She is neither pink nor pale,

And she never will be all mine;

She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,

And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;

In the sun ’tis a woe to me!

And her voice is a string of colored beads,

Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,

And her ways to my ways resign;

But she was not made for any man,

And she never will be all mine.

                                   Edna St. Vincent Millay ,1917



pilgrim sweet potatoes



using a camera that the doctor has lent me, i finally caught those eyes.



found

the week thankful and i moved into our house. she called it the beautiful house.

i am thankful. for potato bread and oil in my oil tank, for acorns and dried corn kernels in pockets.  for my pain the ass girl dog named pilgrim, for the color of oatmeal.  for the feeling of walking through the newly cut field and coming up on this home, smoke from the chimney and books filling the windows. all of them.  for my daughter. duh. for all of the great love in my life. for avett brothers on wednesday nights, and iced tea. for my  blue bathtub car. at any point, it all could be gone. i am grateful.

halloween

went around the sweet town again this year. amazing how much i love said town. warm windows, warm porches, community.  it still exists on halloween. once, i told someone about my quest for warmth, i think they got it, i think i felt shame for saying it out loud.  tonight instead of buildng a fire outside and watching the seven sisters, i built a strong fire in the stove, wiped the make up off my growing girl, tucked her in, and made a large batch of soap. hard for my weak arm, fufilling for the heart. im changing my life. tonight we will sleep by the stove, so i can train myself again, to wake up, to fill the stove so we arent cold. i hate it. i love the warmth, i love the smell, i love having to earn it. i just hate waking up.. i cant remember my dreams.

samhain

have a blessed new year.

october

what a weekend. walk, skipping stones, a evening bike ride, dinner with friends, flannel sheets, good dreams, big bacon breakfast with cocoa smiles and coffee laughs, pumpkin patch picking with handsome green pumpkins and fresh cider to put by for summer nights, apples eaten straight from the tree,chestnuts pricking fingers, a child finally feeling safe, ten pounds of pink kaolin clay, baby powder smellin soap, designed by my joy, dog chasing, and windows open. perfect. whoop with joy kind of perfect. lucky girl.

stolen moment

thankful sage farm school

one day, i am going to have a shop. my shop will have antiques from around the world. simple ones. useful ones. it will have honey from my hives. and soaps, made from said honey. candles dipped in pairs in a big cauldron on crisp autumn days, with cider, friends and woodsmoke. it will have walls full of flower pots and plates that i designed. antique silver utensils. piles of handwoven blankets. only the best cookbooks. handmade furniture from local artisans, and old ladderbacks and windsors in various states of decay. pretty chicken feeders next to ticking pillows, next to petticoats, for me and fellow gals taking back our tough lady roles.  heirloom seeds with my name in them, ones that i harvested from an old daisy or potato that just doesn't grow anymore, something i can save for my daughters daughter. i will have classes on the long table that runs down the center of the store, on pickling, on thoughtful gardening, on pies, and community suppers at the end of each season. creaky wood floor, or maybe a painted green mexican tile. orkney chairs and a dressmakers table for the check out area. a book rack with books that i have written, about how we used to live. there, its on paper. i have to do it now.

home

thankful*

pinkies

dirty toes, sign of a midsummers walk gone good.

pilgrim sweet potatoes

our strong, way too playful girl pup. about a year old.

magic

It's the end of the summer,
When you move to another place

And I feel like the neighbor's girl who will never be the same
She walked alone all spring,
She had a boyfriend when the summer came
And he gave her flowers in a lightning storm
They disappeared at night in green fields of silver corn
And sometime in July she just forgot that he was leaving
So when the fields were dying, she held on to his sleeves
She held on to his sleeves

-end of the summer, dar williams

brown paper packages

little old wooden tables with sticks for legs and faded paint

heavy cottons, nubby linens, faded red stripes, cool summer mornings



creamy butter colored floors, rag rugs, old house smell.. these are a few of my favorite things

Scheherezade

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

- "Scheherezade", Richard Siken

i miss my constants.

petticoat junction

 "Why do women want to dress like men when they’re fortunate enough to be women? Why lose femininity, which is one of our greatest charms? We get more accomplished by being charming than we would be flaunting around in pants and smoking. I’m very fond of men. I think they are wonderful creatures. I love them dearly. But I don’t want to look like one. When women gave up their long skirts, they made a grave error…"

— Tasha Tudor

bean boots

fireworks

so. july is back. last july, i was happy, with my chair up by the pear tree. fireworks lasted for two days, one night i had company, the next, was me and a bottle of muscato d'asti. i can remember the feelings i had,  looking towards the house, warm lights from the windows. my crumbling ball and chain. joy and fear and pride. i missed my girl. this year, i will try harder. i will run to the river with my girlfriends and watch the fireworks in the town that inspires me, flushes my cheeks, where there is life. the next night, after i pull a full shift in my home, i will put on a dress, drag my chair, dog, and a bottle of handmade reisling to my pear tree and look at my home and see if things change. everything looks sweeter with fireworks and fireflies.

home

new friends

the buzz

so, this weekend, after pushing and pushing of dates, i pick up my bees. terrified and excited and proud, i look forward to the smell of propolis.  i am thinking that this is the final stretch of a really trying time, my hands are wrung to the bone, my heart has only a few strings left, but my hindsight and minds eye are strong. i have had encouragement and strong armed friends. my new (old)(but steady) blue bathtub volvo, my oh-so-close-just-waiting-for-the-mail divorce is about to be finalized, and my sad eyed girl with no front teeth is officially my responsibility, with a smattering of well deserved me time thrown in. i never got a garden in, other things needed to be tending to, which is sad, but freeing.  the night is smelling like summer again, which to me is a musky warm corn pollen scent, though the corn is only a hand high. tonight, i realize that i never let thankful stay up late enough to actually see the fireflies (she is quite disagreeable if we go to bed too late), and i let her catch a few and set them free in her room. thrilled. it really is the simple things. for her, its to collect, see, and build a fantastic story around it, so she remembers it. for me, its to take on more, to take care of something, whether i could actually care for it or not. thus, the bee fear. but i am serious when i say that i am learning. really.  i am learning to identify if i can really honestly devote my time to something, to pick my battles.  i have been forced into patience, i have had to go to grown up places and put my feelings aside. i learned that i cant change anyone and that i probably wont change either. and i am okay with that. i am learning that i can accept help, but it still feels shitty. i learned that people change, and that i never want to get divorced again. never. and i learned above all, that happiness is a choice, and its always there, i just  have to decide i am happy. soo, if you see me driving an old loud volvo down the road, with a whining five year old in the back, and all the windows are down because it has no ac, remember that i am thinking my car is hot, and i am carrying a sweet girl who is learning to express her sound opinions and our hair is blowing in the wind, like a neil young song.

puddle jumper

neshaminy creek, rock beach, sweet girl

sweet jane

go ahead, shake your head. if i ever am brave enough to put another smattering of ink on my body, jane austen it is.

london, simple, sweet.

love love love

i am a coward.  i have sweet words and strong words and hard truths. but sometimes, no words.  self preservation. i love you, i love your smell. i admire your resolve and your smile. you scare the shit out of me. i try not to think about you. i would follow you into the dark.

soft shoulder

front yard

spring 2011, before the petals fell... i swear you could hear
the tree sway her hips to drop the petals

may

lilacs

so i have lost my train of thought, i get overwhelmed and bam. nothing. not even bits of striped linen could bring me back. i even lost my garden belly fire. but tonight, i was stomping around the yard in my bare feet, hollering for the pup, and i caught a whiff of that lilac bush. and it was back. thunder road lyrics, about dancing on the porch and running off with my love, second chances, last chances, teenage lust and cold cold lemonade in moonlight. hearing people talking in the distance. deafening crickets. sunburn on my cheeks. my daughter with her hair sticking to the back of neck and a pure shit eattin grin. when i was younger, i had a business. it was called lavender dusted jazz baby, and i made soaps and lotions and i was happy. and i made lilac soap. it was a smell tonight, that brought me back to my creative productive self. before i was who i am now. i went inside, tucked my sweet(whining)growing girl into her bed, and lulled her to sleep with me, droning on and on about how my room smells like beeswax because of the frames that i will be filling with bees in just a week or two are in my room, and how i miss the smell of bread. and how i am forgetting. i talked about the tarts that were coming in the end of summer, from those fig bushes. and how just before she was born, i wandered around my yard eating fresh figs and blueberries from the bush in the evenings. and how on the very day she was born, the cotton in the field went from green to brown, i had felt it was a gift, the keep up my spirits. i chatted about hidden dresses in my closet. and how much i dislike ginger. she was snoring by that point, so i went back downstairs, marched right up to the bush, and tipped my invisible hat at it. so great. so glad no one else was there.

strange..

humble bees

torn out page

following through

today i purchased my bees for the spring and i think my heart is going to explode. i have been meaning to live the life i have in my head, but had forgotten how to in the past of couple of years. for weeks, i couldn't go to sleep, i was thinking about spring. renewal. life. i want to run outside right now and just scream. i want to grab the hand of the next person i see, and tell them that its time to do it. live. its good.. but i wont, for fear that it would scare them, or maybe its more likely that i have done it to them already. i have a problem with that. its winter, and this house is chilly, but i am warm. birdhouses that my grandfather built, going up, committing. fantastic garden with warty melons and peppers. written down and committing. hops. daisies and lavender along the old stone barn wall. heartsong, and committing. cold frames, written down, preparing the barter list for the tools, committing. brown turkey figs,can taste them already, committing. a fruit press, for those pears, committing. sap buckets tacked to trees just to hold flowers and twigs, committing. and a stone patio, in the middle of it all, to take in those sweet summer nights. i am ready. i just took my first step.

*

one year later...

nicky, january 2011: thirty, girl adventuress, mother, bookworm, eventual author, scout, stick hoarder, punctuation enthusiast, vagabond sympathiser, wildcrafter, disturber of the peace; likes banjo ballads, old books, forgiveness, bubble gum, uncommon folk, smell of pipe tobacco and earl grey, semi-colons, wire, cheese, public radio, tin ceilings, words, fairy lights, folk art, baking, forests, setting things on fire, libraries, tom waits, flip flops, contributing, mr. darcy, farmers markets, blank paper, thrift shop clothing, root cellars, the city, the idea of magic, and learning everything about everything. within reason...

i am not

jelly jars

family photo

man

mustard