DAYS LIKE THESE...



are flooded with light. High summer skies and an abundance of sunflowers greet me whenever I slow down enough to notice them. Things are changing for me lately. So much happening that I almost cannot get the words out to express how incredibly *different* it all feels.

Since I last shared here, my "baby" turned five. She is growing like the leggy stem of a sunflower...taller by the day and now aware, as she said, that "At five, people know some stuff." I look at her and feel the Earth shifting underfoot. A big yellow bus is going to take this girl away into elementary school in a month's time. And, if all goes as it should, I will be spending my days back in high school...this time, though, instead of being the dreamy girl scribbling poems in the back of her science notebook, it will be as a teacher--getting my students to scribble poems in the backs of theirs. But, nothing is certain yet. I've been interviewing and "putting it out there" and waiting to hear. Still, it feels like an excited variety of waiting, not laden down with anxiety about where I'll be...but curiosity, since I know I'll land somewhere! This sense of knowing is just one inner shift for me...

My "oldest" has started her emergence from childhood into adolescence, now standing just a handful of inches shorter than me. I looked back through old photos of even just a year or two ago and it is scarcely the same girl. As the mother of an almost twelve-year-old, though, what else can I expect but transformation? My boy hasn't had a haircut in ages...when I tried to encourage one he smiled that mega-watt grin of his and said, "Mom, haircuts are for school. I'll get one when summer's over." So he looks up at me through a curtain of gold hair over his blue eyes and my heart swells with admiration for his his open-minded summer l-o-v-e.

Blueberries are raining off of the bushes in the yard and the lavender is intoxicating bees and butterflies for miles around. I've started the harvesting early because there are so many blooms and the growing season ahead is long yet. With the tender flowers, I am making ribbon sachets, lavender lemonade, and bundling other clusters for drying into the homemade incense I burn all winter long--literally breathing in the summer even when the branches are bare outside and frost licks over the windowpanes.

Creatively, I am drunk like the bees are...spiraling over words and drinking them down as pleasurable gifts, not as workhorse tools. It means that nothing is flowing in a linear way. Now, whenever I read about writers discussing their "process" in nebulous and foggy ways it drives me mad. Tell me what you really do...I want to say, don't speak in circles--speak in straight lines. But I suddenly am in a creative space where inspiration comes in waves and curved edges...nary a direct "line" to be found. I cannot tell you *what* I am doing or *how* I am doing, but can only say *that* I am doing and, for me, that's good enough. I also had a deep thrill to see my work in the museum exhibit I mentioned in my last post. It was just beautiful...I also was beyond happy to be mentioned in the current issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. Admittedly, it was just an announcement of my grant win--but since I have read this magazine with the fervor of a religious novice for years and years, my name in beautiful bold print made my summer. It really did.

In one week's time, I will celebrate my birthday. I am expecting a whole year of continued metamorphosis for myself...and I plan to kickstart my wishing year by participating in this inspiring project of Jessie's:





If you are reading this and feel motivated to join in I hope you will...go ahead & Be Brave, you know you want to.