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so, it’s July.

i don't really know what to say.    it's all different.   i know that i had intended to post lots of goat pics but that didn't happen.  temps being at least 100, and friend Jane coming from Alaska, hmmmm.

and we didn't ready the goats for the albuquerque dairy goat show.  it would have been cruel.  prepping them and then hauling them.  not.  it's just Hot.  so all those great "plans" got set aside.

so…What?, then????  Jane brought some photographs from when we were mid 20's.  but she also brought this one.  i really have no memory of it.  but i do have this very INTENSE feeling about it.

003fix
it's not really a very complimentary pic.  BUT it is somehow, a photograph of my Self that for some reason i really really love.  and i am looking, and looking, trying to understand something.  i think i was probably 19.  i know it was before my kids.  i know, i think, it was before my marriage to my kids father at 21.  Nineteen.  the look on my face has me mesmerized.  there is something very similar that i am thinking/feeling in this pic that i am thinking/feeling Now.  i remember the blouse.  funny.  but i very distinctly remember the blouse.    and this sends a link over to Boro 2…to clothing….our costumes. 

and i wasn't going to make a rectangle "robe" thing.  again, Boro 2.  but today, i began stitching pieces together into strips.  maybe i am?

003

and i will say here that i am feeling somewhat adrift.  it's the first time in going on 3  years that Jude has been Off Line.  i am feeling that.

001fix
my bangs were sticking to my forehead.  they were totally drooping and annoying.  so…i got them into a rubberband and felt a little relief.

 

 

 

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39 responses to “so, it’s July.”

  1. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Looks hot out there….! Hot here, too (Florida), but, central air and a pool and spa right outside (parents’ life so different from mine) Interesting to find old photos of oneself…. a layer of our personal archeology uncovered – revealing.

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes…personal archeology…very much. i am watching it and
    watching it. what WAS she thinking?????
    a pool.
    oh jeez. how good would that be. the great grandson, SunnyDay/Dark Night is coming in a couple weeks. i’ll have one of
    those kiddy pools for that and he and i can soak ourselves. do a
    lot of mud work then soak. not quite what you are experiencing
    now, but a pool none the less.
    love to you

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  3. Linda Avatar
    Linda

    i was just in philly.. HOT! still not really summer here. so i did enjoy it for a few days.
    while i was there i went through lots of old photos of me when i was younger. i had the same thoughts. seeing myself younger. thinking i was still that person… i’m not. still it’s a part of me that people don’t know. my kids don’t know. i am the oldest… no one knows but me.
    i remember thinking so much that was so emotional… always lot’s of drama. i’m glad to have that gone.
    glad to know we are traveling along the same path. i feel the same loss of not having jude’s touch stone. i will keep posting and know you will.
    feeling overwhelmed and sad right now. glad you are here.

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  4. Suzanna Avatar
    Suzanna

    Yes to ALL this. I can tell it’s the same you. Isn’t is odd to have photographic records of our former selves? This is so recent, relatively speaking. What was it like for my grandmother, who didn’t have that? I want so much to have more photos of her childhood self, but alas…xoxo, s.

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  5. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    Dear Grace, nothing to do in the heat but ease through it! It’s so cold here, and fresh and wet and green with great waves of southerly air blowing over us. I’ve been writing and sewing. Wonderful weather!
    I love the pictures of the goats and the warm days out your way. Hope your Alaskan visitor and you are relaxing in the sun.

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  6. jacky Avatar
    jacky

    That little pool sounds a treat Grace. When my boys were young we had a little plastic shell pool/sandpit. Boy did they have fun in that and I quite enjoyed lazing around in the lukewarm water with them while they splashed and played…and sometime their pony would come and take a drink from it (his paddock was our front garden). Good times.
    On the weekend my son bought out some photos he found tucked away in a cupboard…from when I was on holidays in New Zealand, at the beach. Bought back some great memories.
    Its been very cold and wet here again…one of the wettest winters in the 24 years I have lived in Tonimbuk. Good weather to be inside with the fire going and bit of stitching on the go.
    Take care Grace and the goats,
    Jacky xox

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  7. KaiteM. Avatar
    KaiteM.

    I’m loving that you’re looking into your own younger eyes and sharing thoughts with that person. I was also happy to see that you had posted Something, the weather and the storms etc.

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  8. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes…the photographs…i am letting that period of time, 19 or so, when i’d not made any decisions yet, not begun to try things out yet, but being Ready.
    overwhelmed and sad…well, my guess is that it is the
    only possible thing for you to feel and it will run its
    course. it’s that Stand and Face What You Know thing.
    this morning i made a copper pot and a cast iron pot of elderbery leaves. am going to see if i can find some yerba mansa blooms that have finished. this is good.

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  9. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes and i think about how it is now, with all the
    photographs inside this computer…instead of these little
    3×6 paper ones…ones you can hold in your hand…carry
    around the house, pin on cloth on the wall.
    xoxo back

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  10. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    she has flown back. and supposedly the 100 plus temps
    are gone for the new month???? just your words, fresh and wet and green feel so good to read. i’ll be over at
    Ballarat later today to see if you have that sewing there.
    i am always so happy to see you here… love,

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  11. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes…am taking care. and you too xox

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  12. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    those eyes, the expression, that very particular kind
    of energy…is somehow the self, i think, that has
    Held through all the changes so far, and i’m wondering, through all the changes yet to come. Still working with
    this one….i think it’ll be a while.
    weathering storms. yup.

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  13. judykeathley@cox.net Avatar
    judykeathley@cox.net

    yes.

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  14. saskia Avatar
    saskia

    phew hot weather and looking at your young you, and how it doesn’t get easier, it just gets…..
    whenever I look at my old (or should I say young) me I still feel I am that person, and yet, oh I don’t really know how to express it; I have an old friend I’ve known since we were eight: and when we look at eachother we haven’t grown older, we see the person we always were/are (ouch)
    I look at our boys (13 and 15) and they are growing, gradually becoming men, and I feel fulfilled and proud they are in my life, we live in hope.

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  15. Eva Ucgatwork Avatar
    Eva Ucgatwork

    Hi Grace,
    you are right..it’s strange: Jude’s homepage is the first page showing on my computer every time I’m going online. Well, I’m going to miss her posts, her pictures…but she certainly will be back with wonderful inspirations. And that’s for sure: she needs this holiday!!!
    I’m still stitching and preparing my “end of term project” for my students: “Hearts and Flowers”.

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  16. Eva Ucgatwork Avatar
    Eva Ucgatwork

    Well, I would have loved to “Bye” but the computer was faster…
    So:
    Have a great day, goodnight from me,
    eva

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  17. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    this poem today from a site I follow will speak to you I think, though you are not in range of the sea, have likely not seen a starfish in a while, and have no store in walking distance, but you are lucky in so many important ways, and you sleep beside your true self, and wake daily to find her continuing to understand, not understand, do anyway even when adrift. Remember you are loved by many.
    Starfish
    Eleanor Lerman
    This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
    the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
    stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
    your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
    down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
    the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
    is this a message, finally, or just another day?
    Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
    pond, where whole generations of biological
    processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
    speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
    they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
    enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
    There is movement beneath the water, but it
    may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.
    And then life suggests that you remember the
    years you ran around, the years you developed
    a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
    owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
    genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
    become. And then life lets you go home to think
    about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.
    Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
    who never had any conditions, the one who waited
    you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
    you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
    so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
    were born at a good time. Because you were able
    to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
    stopped when you should have and started again.
    So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
    late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
    then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
    while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
    with smiles on their starry faces as they head
    out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

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  18. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i am still staring at that face, that is so familiar to
    my interior face of today…and it’s really not the
    FACE so much, but the expression, the sense of
    comfort of that self in that self….
    so totally in the moment As Is.
    maybe it really is time to change my name again…???…

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  19. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    when will school be over????

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  20. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i am outside watering now and loving these visions of starfish drifting through the channel, just loving this…thank you xoxo

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  21. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    today we were sorting through old baby toys & the memories those hold. everything holds something it seems. i wish i could talk to that self i find in old photos, to say how much i really had, but didn’t know & i wish for some of that self back, along with the time she had in front of her.
    & so sorry about the heat that most all of you have. i wish i could send you some of the sprinkling from here.

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  22. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    it’s good now. just the regular hot of 90’s which is
    fine. it’s when it goes over 100 that it seems to be
    too much. in the next weeks we should get some of
    our Monsoon rain. out watering tonight i watched Great lightning just to the north. they are getting rain.
    oh..baby toys. we gave ours away as time went, except
    for Aunt Sparkle, an odd bear. she had a little shoulder bag of pink wool with a hankie in it. it had a snap.
    i love snaps.

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  23. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    I have sprinkles to spare too. 🙂 Nineteen…nineteen was a very good year for me. But how different life is than I thought it would be at that time…not bad just different.

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  24. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    Thank you for sharing this one…

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  25. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    see next post

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  26. nance Avatar
    nance

    i’m glad i stopped in to read this.
    “And then life suggests that you remember the years you ran around, the years you developed
    a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon, owned a chilly heart.”
    thank you michelle.

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  27. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    thank you for the Starfish poem, Michelle. It’s lovely. Very emotional, and feeling.
    And here in England; we’re having the wettest June since records began. Twice the average rainfall. Quack quack! We’re all developing webbed feet.
    Definitely changes in our climates…….
    Jan, in a very wet Yorkshire, England!

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  28. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    ah Grace you have the best eyes, so blue and full of life and wonder & experience, that was what we wanted in 1967 when Jimi Hendrix sang Are you experienced? well we certainly are these days! and I feel you have a lot more stories to tell and dreams to sew into your sunny days & moonlit nights…

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  29. dee Avatar
    dee

    wow, what a piece!!!!!

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  30. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    “Upon reflection, you are
    genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
    become.”
    Thank you for this Michelle.

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  31. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Mo this is beautiful 🙂
    Grace your eyes ARE so lovely. I think your expression, to me, reads as sassy-freedom-content. Or maybe that’s me at 19! Nah!!! You are so lucky to have an old-time girlfriend. There is one old friend of mine I’d love to see again.
    We are not too hot here, for SoCal…but a big 250 acre brush fire out in the desert, Antelope Valley. Typical enough.
    Thanks for such a thoughtful post.

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  32. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Linda, I so get this feeling of ‘those who knew us when’. When my ex died, a whole chunk of my life, my youth went with him. It was/is hard.

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  33. Nancy Avatar
    Nancy

    Cindy I love what you have expressed here.

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  34. Hoola Tallulah Avatar
    Hoola Tallulah

    I am missing Jude’s posts too. You have incredible eyes, I saw them, and felt an urge to draw them, I might just do that…

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  35. Drucilla Pettibone Avatar
    Drucilla Pettibone

    i’m mesmerized by that expression. i blew up the pic to look closer. are you waving your hat in the air? i don’t know that i was ever so….

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  36. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    dru…THANK YOU so much for your comment…yes, my hat
    but not waving, i am lifting it up. i don’t know why
    there is a difference, but lifting it up…off…high.
    what does that gesture mean?????
    and i still am looking at it, which is coming in good
    stead with these last few days. it’s something, how
    things seeme to come in a sort of usefull fashion. i
    NEED to look at this pic right now….again…thank you.
    really. thank you for “not knowing”…love…

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  37. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Nancy..no, not sassy. i was understanding a little about
    life, i think. this i have realized was around the time
    of a first abortion.

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  38. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Tallulah, i am realizing that it is good for me to MISS
    Spirit Cloth. to really be able to look at how it has
    effected my life these years. to be without is a good
    thing. through the lack i will understand more the
    full impact of it, of Jude’s work.
    i used to LOVE to draw eyes. my eyes in this pic are
    my Father’s eyes.

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  39. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    Thank you for this poem; it speaks such a lot, so deeply. I hope you don’t mind, I passed it on. Responses back have been like mine; a poem that connects. Jan, Yorkshire, England.

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