scent

for the first time i put on grandma's robe that mom carried all the way from florida for me. it smells of her, whatever that combination is: laundry detergent, the soft sarasota water, her soap, the clean body smell that's hers alone. instantly i felt security, followed by great heaving pain. i miss her quite excruciatingly. and this lovely, warm scent i'm literally wrapped in maddeningly both makes me feel better and so much worse.

fault lines

by the Reverend Robert Walsh

Did you ever think there might be a fault line
Passing underneath your living room:
A place in which your life is lived
In meeting and in separating, wondering and telling,
Unaware that just beneath you
Is the unseen seam of great plates that strain through time?
And that your life, already spilling over the brim,
Could be invaded, sent off in a new direction,
Turned aside by forces that you were warned about but never prepared for?
Shelves could be spilled out,
The level floor set at an angle in some seconds' shaking.
You would have to take your losses, do whatever must be done next.
When the great plates slip and the earth shivers
And the flaw is seen to lie in what you trusted most,
Look not to more solidity, to weighty slabs of concrete poured
Or strength of cantilevered beam to save the fractured order.
Trust more the tensile strands of love that bend and stretch
To hold you in the web of life that's often torn but always healing.
There's your strength.
The shifting plates, the restive earth, your room, your precious life,
They all proceed from love, the ground on which we walk together.

new e-digs

this summer i painted my apartment after living nearly two years with Institution White walls. more recently i decided to let goodwill have a good portion of the needless effluvia i've carried from house to house since moving to the boston area in 2000. in keeping with the theme of change, and in line with my love of overhauls and do-overs, i have decided to shift my little section of the world wide web.

my old online space at diaryland no longer feels right - it's haunted by years and years of the ghosts of sarah jo past. although not a private space, i hadn't intended to share those thoughts with anyone i knew personally. i'm just starting and about to tell a lot of people about this place. this is a whole new kettle of fish.