Isabella Bird Miscellany

After taking a writing hiatus this summer, it's time to be back. Just like I'm ready for a change of seasons, I'm also ready for a change in mindset and habits. Summer brings camping and picnicking, farming and kayaking. I want to be outside every possible waking moment. My journals collected a lot of dust. And my thoughts drifted over how to combat aphids with ladybugs instead of putting ink to paper. Now that I'm sitting with a long-sleeved t-shirt on, but still a pair of cut-offs, I'm ready to tap out some observations, introspections, quips, quirks and everyday stories. Thanks for reading. Thanks for listening to part of my life. Around the corner, and a few houses down, live two little boys. They like playing barefoot, no matter the weather. Curiosity is ingrained in them, and Bella always gets lots of love when we walk by. One recent morning I was told they were going to the river to climb over big gray rocks and look for crayfish and snakes. The yo...

Writing sometimes takes floaty, old-school music. Right now I'm listening to a Zombies radio mix and specifically Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" that fades into "Venus" by Shocking Blue. All these songs used to stream out of my sweet black transistor radio when I was in Jr. High, now known as middle school.  We were so cool with our stick-straight hair parted in the middle, wearing white go-go boots and micro-mini skirts. Yes, the stuff of Austin Powers' dreams was groovy reality, baby. All of this musical randomness slipped around in my thoughts as I experimented with another poetic fall piece, but Crosby starts tuning "Wooden Ships," so I pour a glass of 19 Crimes and light the candles. Curtains are drawn. It's dark and quiet outside, while music blares in the house.  The notes return the past, like Jr. High dances. How awkward we were, waiting for a slow song and the excuse to cling onto each other. Or, Strawberry Fi...

Walking past the hedge, on the edge of the broken pavement, the path constricts as branches brush past my cheek. The way is narrow and thin; a reflective pace unavoidable. There's life in the hedge - birds and bugs, spiders and the sort. Life seems well designed for creatures of nature. They exist in the hedge and dine on what comes their way; a small interactive society. In some way or another, we all live in a hedge - our town, our community, neighborhood and home. How much we participate in the movement of our hedge depends on us. Take the spider for example. She spins a lively tatted web and then waits, luring in her food. On the other hand, birds flit and flicker, seizing what have you's here and there, and then  return to their nest. Other living things fill additional elements of the hedge. All have a useful fragment of the being. I walk by this hedge most days. And, most days the phrase, "walking past the hedge on the edge" goes through my mi...

Just over four years ago, my guy and I traveled to Lakeport, California where I was born. I hadn't been there since I was 12. As we walked and drove around, I had this weird déjà vu, I-remember-this-place thing happening. I tried to find my paternal grandparents home, but where that placed used to be no longer existed. Instead, there was an empty lot with only a block retaining wall still standing. The big cedar tree was there, strong and tall. where that place used to be is now a vacant lot a crumbling retaining wall borders the edge remnants of an old barbecue, a bird bath weeds and a few scraggly shrubs an old rose with scant petals, but many hips when I closed my eyes, it all returned the white two-story house with kitchen at the back wooden screen door that slammed as kids ran in and out potato salad and chicken fried up in a big cast iron skillet laundry hung on the whirly line in the yard at noon the firehouse siren would sound we'd r...

I think in fragments. There's something curious and engaging about partial thoughts that have no punctuation or delineation. The oddments leave me wondering what's next, what's beyond the obvious. This unknown is like peering through a hole in the fence to see what’s there or opening a box of junk found in a cranny of the garage. I like to write what I call “Found Poems.” The basic idea is to take a handful of words, fragments if you will, and use them to write a poem.   The words I chose to incorporate into this Found Poem made it difficult,  but it's a good exercise for my mind to pull together disparate words to form something. Poetry should flow, yet the flow is often in fragments. words used: tower, viable, conversation, reservation, treat looking from the tower, perched on the edge beyond visible in every direction conversation viable in the great expanse no distraction, nothing obscured at the vantage above it all hesitation, ...

meet isabella bird Things toss us around, messing with our peaceful being; big stuff and small irritations. You know that unsettled or just plain angry attitude that can drape us like a wet blanket. Yeah, that one, and I was wearing it – not sure why, but I was. Most mornings I take my Bella girl for a walk before work. Today was no exception. Time is short on work days, so the pace was quick. Belle is a funny girl, all brave one moment and frozen in fear the next. There’s a grade school near us, and like most, someone comes over the loud speaker at the beginning of the day to say good morning and give a few announcements. My sweet puppy has taken to being afraid of the voice in the wind. There’s no apparent reason, really, it’s a voice. Nonetheless, she is frightened. Lesson from a brown dog: we are held securely and talked to in a soothing voice when the loud speaker is blaring When this happens, she freezes and won’t go another step, or she tries to dart...