Moved by Mom and Winneconne

I am blessed with Mom’s awesome smile lines and her thick, grey hair. 

She baked apple dumplings, never drove a car, took me out in our canoe to hunt carp and cooked up wild-grape jelly that infused our tiny boathouse-cottage with tart-sweet aromas that purpled our child-smiles. Mom was etched with her laugh-lines from loving Dad and Life with a wild joy as tender as handholding under the old willow by the lake at sunset. 

Me? After graduating from college, I lived in Hawaii for twenty years where I learned to wait tables, then to write for pay. I was barely fifty years old when Mom passed on and left our little cottage too empty. 

With Max, my preteen son, I moved back to the small-town paradise of my swim-in-the sun youth, back where women fished on ice and hunted whitetails from towering tree stands, back where Max could thrive in wild and wonderful seasons. I moved... and was, and am moved, still where my smiles now etch funny furrows around my eyes and sunsets color my soul.

 I’ve returned, at last to an abundant beauty I can savor and nurture — in family, nature, traditions, my son, my fiancé, myself... that wiggles, giggles and grows perfectly old in all that wild love that made Mom smile.

Spring Forth! But No, I'll Wait

Spring, so perfect in its liquid ramparts' chilled glare

as the

Sun in just days has grown strident-strong and full of song... 

(I want to, too.)

O, I will run and bike and stretch and dance my body for its anointed return,

Conditioning my heart, soul, sinews for the demands of this new reality, already BBQ-blazin'.

Out there in spring, I'll again turn from ghost-pale to fertile-brown; like snow to mud, I'll change.

So let me slog through those melt-topped raging ditches and slather all that warmth creamed with dreams of bursting daffodils and robins' frantic songs thickly upon my thirsty skin, too long packed dry in turtlenecks; too long bound in unyielding leather and itchy wool.

So long awaited, spring: Anoint my whole body, as I'll twist into that stark light and fall, and wrap, wrapping and shimmer, simmer until it all blisters. 

So long have we awaited the thaw, the green spiraling slivers of promise, still shy. Those songs, those tufts soon will burst into life, cacaphonistrophic in hue and tone.

So long, have we waited -- as winds, vicious ice-pricks, lashed and skewered us us onto too many too-dark too-long nights. 

Now the sun is keenly obscene in its preteen temptations and teases;  its simmering sensual promises that reek of begetting and begotten, more, more, more... and more!

But, wait!  I, squinting in this fertile spotlight, its warmth so mammary-maternal, yet somehow so syrupy sinister, its dance so crazed, 

Yes: I will wait. 

Ah, for now, I'd rather be still in my still-chilled room, 

(Yes: Draw the thick, dark curtain there; close the sash to all that is rash--)

For now, I will wait until I can unfreeze, reborn, refresh -- what ever --- to play, run like I should, until my eyes can open.

So wait, Sun-son, for now, I tarry, simply old, safe in the familiar, huddled still in the chill, cowered into the slowed dark that has enveloped me, us all, for so long.

So wait with me (just a while), for some day spring-soon, when, just as the snow today spills wildly into something else that it becomes with earth, mud, 

I also will change some.

But for now, I will wonder whether I deserve this perfect spring... 

And I wonder, squinting... shivering, if it is. 

Run, sun, cool... old is good, considering..

I completed the Shamrock 5-K Shuffle yesterday, March 15, and took 33 minutes, sigh, to run the 3 miles. Ah, It really felt good; i did fast-walk three-four times,but it felt much better than that time, which was the same as my last year's first 5-k of the year. dang. Would I love to break into to 20's. Will do. My heel hurts some today, my legs a bit sore. I went by myself, as somebody. said ...."Well, I do... and I don't... want to run..." (Snuggling back into bed.) "Yeah... well bye. Maybe next time."
Met some Winneconne friends and some senior center friends there, so was it was fine to be alone. I actually "won" first place senior women... quite unofficial, methinks. A funny little blinking shamrock. For my trophy case.
And HOW did they know, as I finished, that I was a "senior", wink, wink, wrinkle, wrinkle? Yeah, right. Looking forward to getting my run better, to my endurance.. to pushing it some, as I feel pretty good...but hmm.. time is way too slow. Question: How much can we expect "deteriorate" per year, after say, 55,. I wonder. There must be some average. So thogh we train and such, we could stay in the same place ..and yet be improving? Does that make sense?
This, the inaugural 5k run/walk S-S was held at UW-O; what an awesome recre/wellness facility. Whooo-eee! I graduated about 40-some years too early. want to find a way to get to go there. Well, next race for me is Oshkosh 5-K, April 12, 27 days away. .
That event was well done, fun and fine. Was a bit chilly...500 -plus runners. I/We rewarded self with great dinner with DSO at Hasses' Supper Club, out there on Highway D. Buttery steak, nice red wine. Oysters, even. So much for pine nuts, as spring heats up my desires and excitement levels.
Will always check my T,IK (This, I know) check list for prep for race... was nice, to get there early for a change. Then, I went on errand-spree in Oshkosh, where Barrack Obama's headquarters looked pretty quiet... as in locked up,. But it was a Saturday. Bought Leo Kottke tickets. Hurrah, and some health and Asian foods.