Loose Leaf Notes

1. Like a heartbeat keeps time / and a life leaves a sign / I make note of the landmarks / and count myself alive – From my poem The Moving Target HERE.

2. I just finished watching the memorial service for my friend singer/songwriter/actor Elizabeth McCommon on youtube and a slide show of memories made by another friend, when I heard that Joe’s 95 year-old mom died (peacefully in her sleep).

3. Now we’ve been collecting photos for her memorial slide show. This is one of my favorites of her, taken last year at Christmas.

4. Do babies’ cells stay in mother’s brain? This isn’t just a saying or a metaphor; it’s biological reality. Every fetus sends some of its own cells into its mother. They cross the placenta, travel through her bloodstream, and lodge in various tissues: brain, thyroid, breast, and more. And then, they stay there.” National Geographic

5. ‘The heartbeat of Marshall’: Zuma Coffee owner Joel Friedman announces reopening date after the Helene flood: “I hold myself differently. I’m speaking differently. I’m listening so much better than I ever did before. I’m paying attention more than I ever did before. It’s changed the person I am from the inside out. What an amazing gift. I needed change in my life. I’ve got the change in my life, finally. It’s here.”  – My son Josh’s friend Joel says the plan is to open a scaled back version of the coffee shop in April. There are plans underway to open Josh’s Old Marshall Jail hotel in April too. The OMJ restaurant opening will likely take longer.

6. An old woman on her deathbed from Mr g: A Novel About Creation by Alan Lightman: “At that moment, there were 3,​147,​740,​103,​497,​276,​498,​750,​208,​327 atoms in her body. Of her total mass, 63.7 percent was oxygen, 21.0 percent carbon, 10.1 percent hydrogen, 2.6 percent nitrogen, 1.4 percent calcium, 1.1 percent phosphorous, plus a smattering of the ninety-odd other chemical elements created in stars. In the cremation, her water evaporated. Her carbon and nitrogen combined with oxygen to make gaseous carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which floated skyward and mingled with the air. Most of her calcium and phosphorous baked into a reddish brown residue and scattered in soil and in wind…

7. …Released from their temporary confinement, her atoms slowly spread out and diffused through the atmosphere. In sixty days’ time, they could be found in every handful of air on the planet. In one hundred days, some of her atoms, the vaporous water, had condensed into liquid and returned to the surface as rain, to be drunk and ingested by animals and plants. Some of her atoms were absorbed by light-utilizing organisms and transformed into tissues and tubules and leaves. Some were breathed in by oxygen creatures, incorporated into organs and bone. Pregnant women ate animals and plants made of her atoms. A year later, babies contained some of her atoms… Several years after her death, millions of children contained some of her atoms. And their children would contain some of her atoms as well. Their minds contained part of her mind.

8. A few days after Joe’s mom died, Nikki Giovanni, whose creative writing classes at VA Tech I audited in the early ’90s, died. She generously gave her time reading her poetry in Floyd and being part an honored part of Artemis Journal’s publications and launches.

9. The lighting in the first picture are of an Advent candle holder, but we use it as a wishing ceremony for birthdays. It was Joe’s on December 3rd.

10. It was a mellow celebration.  HERE’S how we celebrated last year.

11. A first light flurry of snow happened just at the end of our town parade. See HERE. 

12. The gold of age is a rich harvest / Born in darkness and brought to light / It’s a living practice with a guiding seam / and a deepening to forge… From my poem Labor of Love coming soon.

13. Over the years our Santa has become part of the family. See how he gets around in Don’t Make Me Come Down There HERE.

____Thirteen Thursday