it's 85 degrees today.  SUN filled.  Slight wind and Perfect.

Went for my Cat Duty.  There was slight smears of blood on the sliding glass door.  ?????  All cats, inside and outside accounted for.  Chickens chicking around as usual,  PeaCock and PeaHen, and PeaDaughter all doing PeaFowl things.  Whose blood??????  hmmmm.

Post Office because i called there and Pricilla said yes.  a package.

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it May come to pass that i will need to build an additional room for Patricia's Baskets.  This is the Walnut dyed one the one with Breathing Places for spirit to move.  I had hoped against hope that she still had it,  that she was willing to let it go.  And now here.  yes.  yes.

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here we are.  a best kind of day with a Blank Cloth.   Muslin then harem cloth then linen.  Invisible Baste.  Ready.  No clue.

and it's Saturday,  so i go to On Being,  Krista Tippet.  Listen.

Listen to Bruce Kramer talk about his experience of ALS.  I am familiar with ALS.  There was Art.  Years ago,  when i first came to New Mexico.  His family hired me.  I lived down the ditch bank from them and would walk over there.  Spend days.  Art.  he was in his 30's.  I was in my 40's then. He lived in his parents home.  Had been married.  a wife and 3 daugters before the ALS.  He rode rodeo and was a trucker.   When i came into the picture he needed to be fed with a spoon.  Bathed with the aid of a Hoyer Lift.  Had an electric wheelchair that he could still work with one finger and he and i would go on long walks on the ditch banks,  sometimes i would sit on his lap and he would take me for a ride.  We dumped a few times.  Oh well.  Art.  In the end,  he was nothing but Eyes.  No speech,  however complex and garbled,  no speech anymore.  Eyes.  But his EYES were always

SMILING.  Always Lit to see me.  We laughed.

and i listened to On Being interview and made notes

"opening to possibilities through questions.   closing creativity with answers.  Legacy is an act of ego.   a way to open to the world    the sense of Presence   Embracing vulnerability."

and thinking Yes,  yes,  this,  and then STOPPING,  thinking oh….oh,   eeeeee, grace…..is this perceived as Grim?  All this stuff you are putting on the blog,  is this just another day of grimness???  But then,  i thought…Who Cares!  Just Who Fing Cares!  It is NOT grim.  It is Real and i am,  as my most blessed granddaughter put it,  i am just doing developmentally correct work for my time in this Life thing.   And yes.  it is heightened by the shift in the needs of the OCB.  But then…GOOD!  Heighten it!!!!    Because all i am finding with All This is a Beauty Full sense of Lovingness of What it all IS.  More and more.  Everything.  Everything is speaking to that…the bee book,  Everything.  Everything in my own specific world here and in what flows in from "out there".

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Here's me.  In my Spring night shirt which i wore all day.  At first with levis this morning to go do the Cat Thing and then, the rest of the day with just the Night Shirt and then later in the early evening the Night Shirt Under the corderoy jumper…..but the face is Me.  I put the curling iron for Julie cause it makes her smile.  The blue streaks are on the mirror still from when i painted those windows,  haven't removed that yet,  so i can remember what is important to DO,  painting windows is NOT

But i am finding reason for REAL joy.  Finding reason for REAL joy.  and it's Good.

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the Lilacs have BEGUN TO BLOOM

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37 responses to “Here we Go”

  1. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    I love you grace forrest. . .tell it like it is!

    Like

  2. grace Forrest Avatar

    Jan…your words, they support me. They say that what i KNOW
    is OK. That it is real and ok. and fine. and even….Good. That it’s ok.

    Like

  3. Judith in N. CA Avatar
    Judith in N. CA

    That shirt sure looks comfy..is it good ole many times washed rayon ? And look at you…you look pretty comfy to..in your own skin. I am so happy that your smiling image is the last thing I see before I go to bed tonight (not counting Larry).

    Like

  4. grace Avatar

    it is. it’s many times washed rayon which is Perfect for this time of year. Later, as it Warms, rayon can get sweaty. But for now, it’s
    just right, like so and so and the three bears…Just right
    I AM smiling
    Goldilocks. yes. Goldilocks and the three bears

    Like

  5. judykeathley@cox.net Avatar
    judykeathley@cox.net

    amen, jan.

    Like

  6. judykeathley@cox.net Avatar
    judykeathley@cox.net

    it is SO not grim.
    grace , please, if you do not write a book let it be because you have seriously entertained the idea & rejected it.
    you have the outline right here. more than the outline.
    please.

    Like

  7. ² Avatar
    ²

    yes i’m agree , this blog IS a book writing
    even the comments … time to time
    ” the life of WINDTHREAD Woman ”
    it IS real great TO BE LOVED
    AND to know it
    my heart and soul love you back grace
    with a smile on my face

    Like

  8. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    LOVE THAT FACE OF YOURS and the way you figured out how to hold the camera too (I always have trouble getting that right). LOVE the honesty and just saying here. Best to be true and you are. Golly, more women should be able to tell the true truth of their lives. HEY–here’s a gift: One of the sweetest films I’ve ever seen, beautifully shot in a stunning location, with quiet wisdom entirely free of contrivance. I just watched it again for the first time in twenty years when a friend, now gone, gave me the VHS tape. So happy to have found it available at NFB for free.
    “Strangers in Good Company”
    https://www.nfb.ca/film/company_of_strangers/
    “It’s obvious that director Cynthia Scott wants us to see her septet both as real people–each actress uses her own name and background for her “character”–and as a mythical gathering: a band of sisters, whose camaraderie turns a nightmarish situation into a kind of machineless, manless paradise. A very sympathetic and sensitive filmmaker, Scott doesn’t sentimentalize her cast–but she obviously adores them. They range in age from 68 (Sister Catherine Roche, a beaming music teacher, nun and mechanic) to 92 (Constance Garneau, one-time CBC political commentator).” LATimes

    Like

  9. Deb G Avatar

    No, not grimness. Not at all…To much love and hope for that. My lilacs will bloom soon. Just starting to see purple.

    Like

  10. .cynthia Avatar
    .cynthia

    well this day is starting now at 9 degrees..but there is sun and the snow sparkles and you can..finally see earth at the edges of places that i am discovering…it is a gift to learn/experience a new place ..to just watch it reveal itself…it is a gift to be here..watching ourselves doing developmentally correct work..but oh the basket finding such a perfect home…
    ok my lilacs and i will be patient..and happy that your lilacs are starting to bloom…gentleday grace

    Like

  11. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    The basket….AMAZING! Your sharing another of your life lived…AMAZING! Grace….I am falling in love with you….what you put out here everyday…your words of remembrance…your appreciation of what you have…what you don’t. The kindness shown in what you take and in what you give. That BEAUTIFUL woman in the mirror..AMAZING!

    Like

  12. julie Avatar

    And smiling I am!! Isnt it so bloody cool that this entertains me and that you remember it???
    And I for one am loving all this dying talk. I just spent a few days in Chicago, where one of my rituals is going to uthe used book store Myopic Books and walking around till a book calls. There is always a message in it to me and it was about this very subject. In fact, it was on the plane home from Chicago just today, that I read it, in an old essay by Barbara Ehrenreich who was taking on (in 1993) Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer and Helen Brown for talking about aging as a time when they were not slowing down, but applying the same spirit of Can Do as they did in their 30s.
    Here is what Ehrenreich says: ” …the 50s and 60s are not just an update of the 20s and 30s. Something different is going on, we cant help but notice, as friends and colleagues get picked off by cancer and heart attacks. This is not a phase that ends in marriage or a Nobel Prize or a promotion to bank manager. This is a phase that ends in death. Like it or not, the great psychic task of the later years is not to be busier, prettier, or more productive than anyone else, but to be prepared to die. And tnis is one task, the philosophers agree, that cannot be accomplished in a condition of terminal busyness.”

    Like

  13. Nancy Krampf Avatar
    Nancy Krampf

    i come here
    because communion
    is offered
    love is offered
    compassion is offered
    kindness is offered
    honesty is given
    and shared
    and then the lilacs…
    namaste beautiful one

    Like

  14. Liz Avatar

    Your all-day night shirt … your Mona Lisa smile … no, your Cheshire cat-that-ate-the-canary smile (I know, I’m mixing metaphors) … a more-than-satisfied-with-your-world smile … self-knowing, in the best way … I love these things.
    A book? You could, but who needs a book, an agent, a publisher, drafts, revisions, and selling? Writing, yes! This blog, where you can hear your readers think their thoughts, making something of your story, making their own stories in return. What better?
    I started reading your blog from the beginning some time back … I do it in fits and starts. Honestly, it’s too rich to read in one stretch because I read the comments, too … how much more there is in the comments. A life lived in full view and celebrated by all who encounter it.
    So glad I found my way here …
    (smiling)

    Like

  15. patriciaspangler47@gmail.com Avatar

    grim? grim? tell me you don’t even begin to think that. if your postings are grim, then, well, then i must have an affinity for grim-ness. weird stomach ache today. too pooped to say more than this. and love

    Like

  16. Mo Crow Avatar

    love the wry smile!

    Like

  17. Dana Avatar

    Nope, not grim…real and human. You are a holding point for so many of us far-flung women because you are true.

    Like

  18. ² Avatar
    ²

    hey Liz , yes you do it , turn back on the blog like you will turn back in reading in a book
    even this is better …. only we can’t take them with us ( have no lap top , or how you will call it ?)
    smiling back to you
    and all of you who comming here
    greets

    Like

  19. ² Avatar
    ²

    hey Michelle , thank you for sharing that movie
    ” Strangers in Good Compagny ”
    yes that we are “the youmeus ”
    holding eachother compagny
    the one more than the other
    but each in his own way
    greet all of you
    thanks to Grace for the space she give it

    Like

  20. grace Avatar

    judy…Love…..

    Like

  21. grace Avatar

    no time. no time for book writing…just going…..
    Only time for just going

    Like

  22. grace Avatar

    the interplay
    the interplay of the comments…so so soooooo important….
    i love

    Like

  23. grace Avatar

    i watched it this morning and
    what?.
    I watched it. and what a Thing it is, that this woman, Cynthia
    Scott did this. What was in her Mind/Heart to DO THIS?
    i watched it and like , ate it. Like ate it like the bees eat the nectar…i put my nectar thing into this film and slowly drank it
    it is extremely Beauty FULL. to say much more, i need to watch again. THANK YOU , Thank you again for sending me things that i would have never known existed

    Like

  24. grace Avatar

    it’s a Gift, isn’t it
    Can you SEE US in this????? I can

    Like

  25. grace Avatar

    Deb…thank you. you are a barometer

    Like

  26. grace Avatar

    Cynthia, every morning i first thing, think of you there in
    Vermont with your never ending winter and i say…for Cynthia,
    let it go. Let it thaw, let it WARM. Let it.

    Like

  27. grace Avatar

    it’s all a reflection of YOU, Tina

    Like

  28. grace Avatar

    “something different is going on”….well, i just HOPE. I hope
    that it is, something different, because humanity NEEDS
    something different that is KIND and Loving but
    REAL. REAL. we need REAL.

    Like

  29. grace Avatar

    Nancy…you there in your Canyon….thank you…because i
    try
    the honesty
    the honesty is the most important to me…F the anything else,
    it’s the honesty

    Like

  30. grace Avatar

    well, bless you, reading back
    and it IS. it IS
    the comments
    the CONVERSATION
    that matters to me
    the EXCHANGE
    that we have so much
    IN COMMON
    this
    THIS is what matters to me

    Like

  31. grace Avatar

    i love you, Maria

    Like

  32. grace Avatar

    am still able to be tilted by words
    grim
    but i don’t feel it that way, so keep going

    Like

  33. grace Avatar

    smiling
    i smile
    smile at self at all of it, love all of it

    Like

  34. grace Avatar

    Women
    i love women
    i love self as woman
    i love

    Like

  35. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    I can see myself for sure and you too. Oh how it moved me.

    Like

  36. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Me too, like a reallly good meal, and SO beautiful.

    Like

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