Hidey Hole 

Hidey Hole

When I was a little girl, I used to like to drape old  blankets and quilts over the picnic table and benches in the back yard and make a sort of tent.  Then I'd crawl inside and enjoy the feeling of being safely hidden from the rest of the world.  Sometimes when my mother washed the sheets and hung them out on the clothesline to dry in the sun, I did the same thing.  I'd make a sort of nest in between the sheets.  I loved the feeling of being temporarily apart and hidden from the rest of…

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Call Me Crazy 

 

I took this photo at The Museum of Appalachia a few years back.  Doesn't this guy look like he's posing?

 

 

Walking on Outer Drive, I pluck a long white hair (mine) from the front of my black cape.  Releasing it to the wind, I watch it drift and settle among the dead leaves, a single cigarette butt and other twiggy debris next to the curb. 


As my little dog and I continue, it occurs to me that I have left a strand of  my own unique DNA back there by the curb. I guess the anonymous smoker has too: I…

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Different Dimensions and the Intersection of Moments 

 

 

In dreary December dusk, I walk on the cold, gray street. The internal clock of my brain tick tocks: just one more week til Christmas and I've still got stuff to do. 

 

Overhead, I hear a flutter like the audible ripple of a Spanish dancer's fan unfurling. I search the trees. Is it a bat? No, not a bat; gray on gray, a lone sparrow flits from branch to branch, as if following my path on rapid, beating wings.

 

She doesn't sing. Other than the rustle of flight, she moves in silence. I wonder if…

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On Trees, Dogs and Time 

 

Photo by Marcus Spiske, Unsplash

 

In dread winter cold, I walk under skeletal trees. It snowed yesterday, not much, just a dusting. Most of it's already melted and trickling into Wet Weather Creek. I didn't want to walk this morning, but I know from experience that getting started is the hardest part; once I'm warmed up, I'll be glad I got outside.


The woods have a spare beauty in winter. I love looking at the architecture of trees. I pause for a moment to study the intricate lace of bare…

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On Dreams, Magical Numbers and Music 

 


Of all the even,

odd and prime

I find 5

to be divine

I am 5; 5 is I

Circle round and round.


Dream:  I hold a white wooden slate with removable numbers in my hand.  I am arranging and re-arranging the numbers, noting the sequences in long columns.  There is, I sense, a relationship between pairs of numbers.  Four, for example, has a mysterious correspondence to one.  And the numbers themselves, properly sequenced, are the notation for an elusive melody, but I'm confused.  The numbers keep…

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Arctic Autumn: Iceland 

When I travel, I always carry a notebook and end up writing lots of music and poetry.
 


Arctic Autumn is a suite for solo piano I composed while visiting Iceland in late September, 2016. What a marvelous country Iceland is!

In Iceland, my heart felt lighter. The peacefulness and beauty of the country is, I hope, reflected in the music.



I recorded these pieces in early 2017. However, like so much of what I do, I promptly forgot about them. I was reminded of them when a friend recently went…

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Of People, Dogs and Stories 

 

My sweet friend, Chica.

 

 

Sitting under the autumn sky, I listen: to the distant voices of children at play, the steady drone of a small airplane overhead, the whistling chatter of woodland birds, and the faint rasp of oak and poplar leaves as they cling, dying, to the limbs of their mother trees.   



I watch my dog, her posture alert as, with fixed gaze, she guards her small fenced domain.  With ears erect, she sits motionless, attentive to what, I don’t know.  

“Chica, what are you thinking?” I ask…

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Long Journey 

The original matryoshka set by Zvyozdochkin and Malyutin, 1892  Source Wikipedia

 

 

At home, alone, curled like an infant in the womb, I am neither awake or asleep, but rather, floating in the liminal space between.  Resting with my cheek on the satin pillow, my face turned toward the whirring blades of the fan, I startle to the realization that I don’t know where I am.    



More puzzled than afraid, my mind instantly sends tentacles out to explore the possibilities concealed in what seems like a…

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Estate Sales - A Booming Business 

As I step out the front door, the wang of skunk hangs in the air, oddly pleasant at a distance, like the faint aroma of a musky wild perfume.  The air is blessedly cool this morning with sun light falling in the slanted rays of autumn. 


Heading down the circle, I see an estate sale in the house at the far end of the street. On a whim, I decide to check it out.  

 



Cars line the curb in front of the middle class rancher where I and a few other hundred strangers will, over the course of the weekend, sift…

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September 10 - Observations on Another Early Fall Morning 

2019

 

When I step out the front door, the sentinel stationed in the oak tree near the house alerts his friends. "Watch out," he caws. "She's back!" 

A distant and immediate reply echoes through the woods.  "Caw, caw! Message received. We'll keep an eye on her."


To the crows in the woods, I will, I suppose, always be an interloper. Still, I wonder, after all these years of watching me refresh the water in the big enamel bowl and scatter stale bread and tortilla chips in the yard, why do they…

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