Loose Leaf Notes

The following year review was done by excerpting the first line or two in one post of each month from last year. You can click on the name of the month for a full accounting.

January:  Stuffy nose.  New purple robe. Warm weather repose.  I’m planted on the porch like a seed craving sun with my weekend writings, a juxtaposition between the very real possibility of uranium mining in Virginia and sustainability through local food movement in Floyd.

February: A dialogue circle is a microcosm of the larger circles of family, community and world.  In circle, we each bring a piece to the woven living art of conversation.  But is it the right piece? Is it true? How does my piece affect others?

March: I’m the kind of person who likes carrot cake more than chocolate and Motown more than rap.

 April: In my bright turquoise crocs that someone left at Joe’s sister’s beach house and my dirty green gardening shorts, I walked with my weekend houseguest down our long gravel driveway singing “in your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it,” stopping first to pull down a branch of an apple tree and sniffing the rose scented blossom.

May: Here at our Getaway in the Outer Banks of North Carolina mailboxes are shaped like whales and dolphins and oversized crabs, mermaids, and flip flops are stapled to the sides of houses.

 June: My husband Joe’s workaholic nature has taken a toll. He’s promised to change his ways and I think the fact that he bought an adjustable lounge chair and a blow-up bed over the Memorial Day weekend is a good start.

 July:  The Moon gets top billing / in a black tie night / In a star studded ballroom / it shines a high note of light

August: These days I have to chase the sun further out into the yard to warm myself in the morning. There is barely a petal of purple left on my butterfly bush and my bare feet are covered with socks. I can’t tell the difference between cricket and grasshopper song, but I wonder when did they drown out the birdsong and what sound will I hear after they are silenced.

 September:  When I woke up Sunday morning after going out dancing two nights in a row and saw the wrist band around my wrist, I thought for a split second that maybe I’d been in the hospital.

October: Sometimes I get nostalgic for my pink suede bell bottom pants and the maroon Indian print bag with the mirrors on it / or the gypsy scarf that I wore as a shawl and sold at a yard sale in Texas because we had to stuff everything we owned into one U-haul trailer when we moved to Virginia in 1985.

November: This year’s Thanksgiving season began with the traditional ‘over the river and through the woods’ drive to Zephyr Farm (1 mile) where my son Josh, my husband and I had turkey with all the fixins, including my friend Jayn’s award winning mock mince meat pie that I wait for all year long.

December: Walking on the rows of our garden like an astronaut looking for life on the moon, I discover a few volunteer kale plants that have survived the morning frost.  I transplant them into the cold frame, pick a batch of remay-covered Swiss chard and harvest what’s left of the parsnips with a shovel, soaking and scrubbing their long muddy tubers in water.___________2010 Rear View Review is HERE.