Laundry Line Divine

Goethe said ‘tell only a wise person or else keep silent.’ I say tell only your choir, those who believe deeply in you and fully support you in your journey. To tell anyone else anything of your heart is a waste of breath and of spirit.

Maria Sirois

Today’s post is a tribute to tributes.

Do you love the moment when you open that birthday card and there is a small ode to you, written by someone who loves you enough to find the perfect card, assemble postage, write in the perfect pen color and spread some sparkles in the envelope, just so you can feel the magnitude of love coming your way?.

I have gotten some great mail in the last weeks, from some of my dearest correspondents. And, I have received a tribute or two on friends’ websites where they so generously dollop on the sparkles to share about ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ and with a touch about me.

Here is my friend Joanne Tombrakos, a guest blogger in the ‘Out’ series.

Here is Janet, posting a hilarious photo of me with a very sweet tribute. I guarantee you if you go to her site, you will be hungry and cooking within minutes.

And here is Jennifer Gandin Le, who after posting the most hilariously perfect recipe for a green smoothie in approximately 49 steps including one in which she is fishing her husband’s watch out of the toilet, photographing it and putting a new outfit on her nearly one year old, took the time to write this sweet thing about ‘Out’ and me.

If you are new here and wondering what I am referring to in ‘Out’, read here. Next week, Friday March 2, my husband’s birthday, I am producing an event for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. It all began with the book I am writing and seeking opportunities to read my work in public. The event is blossoming and you can keep track of it here on the Laundry Line. If you subscribe to this site in the little box above and to the right, you will get demure notices with cyber sparkles in it when I post new things here.

Today would not be complete without a tribute to the next guest blogger in the ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ blog series. Maria Sirois is a walking tribute to the value and power of love. She pays attention and speaks about it in ways that catch your breath. Maria is a soul supporter of the finest sort and I am thrilled to have her here on the Laundry Line. Below is Maria offering some jet fuel for your soul via Poet Laureate, Stanley Kunitz.

I am striped with the hours today, peeling one after the other off and my list just gets longer with every passage of 60 precious and beautiful minutes. Over lunch today, most of which was made by Catherine except for the quick Mojo sauce that Janet inspired me to make, we sat here on this snowy afternoon panting like long distance runners. I am doing my best to promote and write and connect while engaging my kids, feeding them and ignoring the laundry because it is snowy and who needs to hang wash today, not me!

Thank you for all your love and support to me and of my writing. One week from today 5 authors and I will take the stage at Blodgett Hall on the campus of Simon’s Rock College of Bard to premiere ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’.

I am buoyed by your readership here, by your love notes that come in the mail or in your comments. Thank you for taking this in to your heart and letting this Laundry Line have an impact on your living.

Love,
S

from my pal Jennifer at www.jennifergandinle.com

This may startle you a bit. I have been keeping a journal since I was 14. I am 51, about to be 52 in September. That means the heavy selves of spiral bound notebooks that take up a bit of real estate here in my studio contain pages and pages of my scratchy handwriting.

I began keeping a journal steadily in Mr. Dedic’s Junior English class. He was just one of the many fine teachers I had at Escanaba Area Public High School. I have the notebook right here. We wrote on Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoonriver Anthology, he allowed us to write ‘tho’ instead of ‘though’ and assigned us to make daily entries. That was all the impetus I needed. As a jumpstart for those early pages, I started keeping lists. I was years away from encountering Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” with her perspective on journal keeping.

I just plowed through several stacks of journals to find the page you see below. This list was written in the year of my 21st birthday. I was still working at Bay Cliff in the summer and in the heart of my years at Northern Michigan University, doing theatre, dance and working with kids doing both of those activities. Judging from what I wrote, I had a sense of the world ahead.

On the facing page to this journal entry are cellophane taped-in magazine pictures of fresh fruits, pasta with basil, kefir in clear pitchers and beautifully arranged vegetables. This particular notebook is full of stuff I stuck in-poems by friends, church bulletins, newspaper clippings, notes from my college boyfriend who I was madly and a bit sadly in love with at the time, photos and letters. I wrote lots of lists- food I’d like to try, places to go, music I’d like to hear, presents I’d love to have which included things like a diamond ring, new tennies, and to swim in a river. The “we” I allude to in this list must mean me and BZ, that boyfriend. Hmm. I have long lost him, but gained so many other gifts. There are many things I have accomplished in these 30 years.

Over at my pal Jennifer Gandin Le’s website, she posted her “Mighty Life List”. You will find her in my blogroll. Jennifer’s writing is what got me thinking about the miles and miles of lists I have kept. I am going to post a new “Mighty Life” list here on the Laundry Line. But before I do that, I want to take a moment to value and offer gratitude for what I have attained.

This is what jumps off the page today:

We- and here I mean me and my husband- have a hammock that swings under tall trees, namely a linden and an oak.
I have a sewing room that is also an ironing room, yarn storage and closet for winter clothing and Jonathan’s hanging clothes.
Just this year I bought a pair of Frye boots. Nice timing.
I live in New England and don’t really hanker after brown bread anymore.
I went to a mountain spa in Steamboat Springs this winter- Strawberry Hot Springs, which is heaven.
I have sat under and sketched many palm trees in many different locations.

There are many things I have done, but mainly, I brag I do have kids- I love many kids more than the 2 who call me Mom. We do own our own home and it has a big, clean kitchen, though I share it freely with the rest of my family!

My life is filled with so many blessings. Today most of all, a year after a tumultous health passage for me and just 2 days after a smaller but traumatic moment for Jonathan, I can say we are all blessed with good health. And the finest of friends all over the world. Looking at this list reminds me of all I have lived in these 30 years. Offering gratitude for this cornucopia of blessings, experiences, challenges and joy keeps me in touch with the Sacred with every breath. Thank you Goddess, I will take more.

As I write this I got a notification from Tammy McLeod’s blog “AgriGirl”- she is writing about journalling today too. You can link to her over in my blogroll.

Jennifer posted a photo of herself as a young girl as a reminder to be gentle on herself as she scribes her desires for the future. This is a photo of me from the month I wrote that list 30 years ago. Pretty hopeful bundle of hair I had there.

In light of all the earthly events making the news this week, of losses my friends are having like dear Martha Burkes dying on Wednesday, of Haiti, of all that oil…I cannot stop living the life I have here today. I send my love to each of those hearts of need, all over the planet. And as a pledge to the Divine, I will live this one Mighty Life, right here in the shade of the Laundry Line.

I am heading out to the garden to ponder my Mighty Life List. I will fill the bird baths and sing a song of gratitude for all I have done since I wrote that list of ‘Temptations’ back in Big Bay.

How about you? Got a Mighty Life List to share?
I’d love to read it.
Yours, S