1. I just had a letter arrive by mail. A real, gorgeous little letter and I just knew, as soon as I started reading it, that I’m going to have a beautiful pen pal relationship with this gal. I am so lucky to have a handful of majestics when it comes to pen pals.
2. The winter weather we’ve had blustering through the valley for a few days now has dissolved itself in the night. The sky is still white, the air is cool, the wind is sharp but the snow seems finished. I’ll miss it. Two nights ago, I went running, and the snowflakes were falling so thick and plump that the entire front side of my body became plastered white as I cut through the wind and over Red Hill. I love springtime weather. The ups and downs of it. The way everything must stand staunchly and not be moved by the gusts and sleet. It’s the final test before the rewards of summer. Last night I went running and it was surprisingly cold out. My breath and that of the dogs formed white solid against the stars and moving over the ground felt miraculous. Spring and fall are my favorite times of year to run, the temperatures are so brisk and refreshing to be out in and moving quickly through. I have to run fast, to stay warm. I pretend I’m crossing a mountain to get to my tiny cabin where a merry wood fire is waiting for me. I pretend there are no roads. I pretend I’m running to a neighboring tribe where a friendly wigwam is waiting for me and a feather decorated woman in deer skin is smudging sage. That reminds me, I’m going to go pick sage this afternoon. I’m excited to bundle it.
3. I sometimes imagine the bodily electricity it takes for me to run. The synaptic firing and catching of information, faster than all sonic everything. My body is a glorious machine! A perfect machine, even in its subtle failures and irregularities. If I feel like blowing my mind, I sit back and imagine everything my body is doing at any given moment in time. It’s an astounding and amazing thing to attempt to fathom. I give myself the imaginary bends from diving too deep, too fast, and then rising into the wonder of it all.
4. I wonder how doctors choose to focus on any one part or function of the human body? If you were studying to be a doctor, what would you choose to focus on? Mitochondria? Ears? Rough endoplasmic reticulum? Leukocytes? Mitochondria, I’ve always loved that word. In grade four I wrote a short story for a contest. I desperately wanted to use the word mitochondria in the telling because I had been reading about them in the encyclopedia and loved the way the word rolled off my tongue but also the function of mitochondria in living things was fascinating to me. I constructed an entire story around the word and it was a very good story and I should have won that contest but I didn’t. The judges may have thought the tale was too well written for my age category. Or perhaps they didn’t know what a mitochondria was.
5. The prettiest girl I have ever seen walked by the window I was seated beside while I was out for breakfast this morning. She had on mauve tights, a long cobalt blue coat, and she had sea foam green hair. I can’t remember what her face looked like, it was pale and seemed pinched by the cold of the wind, but I thought she was so beautiful, like a lost mermaid in the Rocky Mountains. Do you ever have the urge to make best friends with perfect strangers based entirely on the colors they are wearing? Oh. I had that urge today.
6. There were the sweet international students strolling on campus, mostly delicately Asian, with their cute little keychains dangling from their little backpacks. They take such small steps when they walk. I’m from the West. When I walk my stride gobbles ground. Do you ever marvel at how much space there is here?
7. I was listening to a wonderful interview on NPR this afternoon featuring the 2012 Iditarod winner. He seems so lovely, well spoken and passionate about Alaska, Alaskan huskies and Alaskan people. Bless his heart. I could have been a musher. I could have been so many things. How do we wind up where we are? I could be a marathon runner and I suppose it’s not too late to start except I ran so many races in high school that I’m tired of the sound of pattering feet behind me, the waiting for the sound of the gun…too much regulation…now I like to run the wind into the ground and chase the mule deer through the sage brush.
8. Potato delivery. This is how Tater Tot arrived at The Gables. In a Tater sack. Naturally.
9. I was just telling a friend recently that I used to like green very much but then I started liking blue and now blue is my favorite (also, dove grey, mustard, salmon, orange and magenta). Not just any blue though. I am drawn to cobalt and navy blue. Dark bright blue and dark blue. When I wear these shades of blue I feel like I look fresh and lovely, they feel so good to be in. If I see cobalt when I’m out and about, I inhale sharply. There’s just something about it. My grandfather has piercing blue eyes. He’s rather Norwegianish looking. He is gorgeous in fisherman blue. My eyes are a uniform, dark brown but I feel as good as he looks in blue when I wear blue. I wonder if my preference for color will change throughout my life, like tastebuds?
10. Tater dug a large hole in the lawn. Rob has filled it with dirt and seeded it with new grass. I can hardly wait for the baby grass to begin growing. One of my favorite things to pet is fresh, baby grasses.
i love how you see your body
and I totally get what you say about the urge to make a friend out of a total stranger
i love those kind of connections….
love and light
I love those connections too!
One of my best friends and I became immediate friends when I followed one such urge. The day I met her, I asked her (within fifteen minutes of meeting her) if she and her husband wanted to get together with Rob and I in the evening on the Colorado River. She said yes. I still love her to death and am so glad I asked. Sometimes impulsiveness pays off! Sometimes it scares people. 🙂
I love your random tales. I will send you my mitochondria book (as soon as I find it). It is a very special organelle to fall in love with. You reminded me of my friend who had fallen in love with the word ‘soudain’ and she did not know the meaning in French, so in her French composition she named a girl ‘soudain’ and ‘soudain’ was doing all sorts of things. She got a bad grade from the nuns. We laughed hard.
I am back and forth from my lab and office…I love spring and fall mostly and love blue to no end amongst other colors. I hope you have glorious plans for those potatoes. I almost smelled them from here. xx to you and the pup
MITOCHONDRIA BOOK!!!!!???!!!!!
And, I laugh-snorted at your “soudain” story. In French class, when I found a word I quite liked, I used it constantly as well. One semester I loved “chevre” and used it at least once in all my compositions. I know. Soudain is far more sophisticated.
You are too funny…Chevre. I think we should start doing that from now on to pretend we are sophisticated. I found the mitochondria book and it will be yours soon. : )
xx
oh, how i love love love your random particles:
#2. “I pretend I’m running to a neighboring tribe where a friendly wigwam is waiting for me and a feather decorated woman in deer skin is smudging sage.”
#3. “i give myself the imaginary bends…”
#5. “Do you ever have the urge to make best friends with perfect strangers based entirely on the colors they are wearing? ”
i love them because i understand thinking like that. it’s a lovely frolic, isn’t it?
xoxo
Thank you for understanding my brain paths.
Soul sister.
Sometime, do you maybe want to get the bends with me?
xx
oh, i’m imagining it already!!
love what you said about the letter. I’d love something like that in my mailbox.
I’d like a baby hippo in my mailbox. Can you imagine? I’d perish from the darlingness of it.
yes: to all things.
[i love your random randomnesses. really. truly.]
you make me want to study. study deep scientific matter. like mitochondria.
xo
i know, right? and like getting the bends from diving too deep, even if it is imaginary!
Janet, the imaginary bends cannot really be scientifically studied you know. But I can teach you all I have fabricated in my mind about the phenomenon.
Fox!
You should!!!
Or at least get a lichen and moss identification book.
I want one of those.
Real bad.
I just purchased a sage bundle 🙂 When I saw it on your site this evening, the scent was on the tip of my nose – like a forgotton word nearly recalled. I was actually straining, trying to remember the smell. Like I said in my little checkout note, I haven’t smelled it since I went cross country camping 18 years ago. I know that I snipped a bit and put it in a jar, and I used to open it and inhale. But, over the years, I’ve misplaced that jar.
Tonight, before bathtime, I sat my little 2 year old girl on our bedroom rocker and let her hold my perfume bottle, and sniff it over and over. She is a big sniffer – both in good and not so good ways. She loves scents, and the way she “says” bunny is to make little bunny sniffes. But she also does what we call “The Sniff of Defiance.” If she is told not to touch something, like the stove, or the heater, she will glare at us and then lean towards it and sniff it! Like, ‘Oh, yeah?! I’m gonna sniff it! So there!’
Wow…how’s that for random?? I just let my fingers follow my flittering mind tonight and tap tap tap…
:)Sweet dreams.
A defiant sniffer! I just guffawed so hard that I nearly choked! Thank you for claiming some sage. Your bundle will have extra wildness and sniffery sniffalaciousness in it. Be prepared. xx
i totally need a pen pal.
and i hear you about cobalt blue.
i have the same reaction lately.
especially when paired with golden yellow.
OH! I know. Like a canola field in Saskatchewan pressed up against dark thunderclouds.
Whenever I read in your posts about the lovely letters you get in the mail, it makes me sad that I don’t get letters in the mail anymore. Our communications seem so impermanent now. Of course, when I was younger I wasn’t a particularly good pen pal! I wonder if that changes with age and nostalgic hankering?
It could change!!! Just like tastebuds!!! 🙂
lovely randoms that made me glad!: )
xx
v
V!
xxxxxxx
I was thinking of you and your pups recently. We just adopted our little mutt from a rescue three days ago, and already she’s so dear and precious to my heart; I just wanna be with her all the time! Her name is Daphne.
Cobalt is a beautiful color. And cobalt coats are miraculous. There just aren’t enough cobalt coats in the world, I’ve decided.
Mitochondria: the powerhouses of the cell. That’s what I remember about it, mostly. Power plants. I bet you wrote a mighty fine story about mitochondria. Do you still have it? I’m so grateful that my ma kept most of my childhood doodlings and writings and scribblings. I wrote a 250 paged book when I was in fifth grade about a girl who turned into a talking cat. What was I thinking! Recently I came across it and laughed and laughed.
x
Es
Daphne!
Well I declare!
I’m smitten already.
I do still have my story. I read it from time to time and I also laugh. When you read your old stories, do you find yourself loving the child you once were?
cobalt and navy blue. yes.
I also like, cobalt and deep orange, with a tiny touch of turquoise.
Oh.
Soul sister.
🙂
Righteous combination.
I just arrived home from happy hour to find a box from you addressed to my man. I know what is in there is for me!!!!!! I’m dying to open it but have to wait till my Charlie gets home. I’m so excited!!!!!!!
Charlie is so SWEET and SNEAKY!!!!!!! 🙂 xx
One more random thought. I love how my new cairn ring sits on my dresser. All spread out in its gold and silver self. A work of art so purely simple, yet randomly right. It’s just so lovely, it takes my breath away. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Janet!
You beauty!
Thank you for saying thank you.
xx