1.25.17 Let us feed each other and love each other and stand for each other

Sometimes, in the face of grave actions, the best we can do is care for and stabilize ourselves. So we are as well as possible, and as well slept and well fed and well loved as possible. 
So that any way we can go out into this difficult time, and make a difference, we can. With strength and clarity and purpose. 
So , let us feed each other and love each other and stand for each other in that strength, in that clarity.

Little Wing

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1.23.17 Little MOOn

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1.22.17 All my life

 I have loved people's stories. 

Their photo albums. Their grade school art and notes and diaries and dreams and utter nightmare failure stories. 

I love slideshows and songs and photos of everyday moments, knowing that right then , I was doing this, while you were doing that. 

If I was Forest Gump, I'd be hanging at that bus stop bench, waiting for people to come on by ,and fumble empty their wallet of their old torn snapshots, and open their phones to show me their photos. 

And I'd sit and wait while they ran home to get that big clunker photo album. It's just like that.

1.22.17 We said goodnight to the darkening skies

It was a dark and weirdly warm day, down by the farmers fields. By late afternoon I had some juice, so we drove down the muddy road and then I stood outside in the mild breeze and threw his ball to make him run and smile and leap and stretch. 

Then we said goodnight to the darkening skies and the distant headlights and the Goshawk, flown into the oasis trees ,and gone to bed.

I stuck the Shepherd back in the car, grateful for him and the car and the day and tennis balls and standing outside and fresh air . 

And we both smiled all the way home and then crashed out together, muddy, on the broad waiting bed.

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1.22.17 It's all about

Love is growing up is closeness is love.

The loveliness of the slumbering together 

beneath the half moon sky

I love when toddlers become proficient enough to dance around

1.22.17 Not simple, not easy, but worthwhile

Not everything in life is simple, or easy, except underestimating how challenging it might be to be someone else. So what we discover as we mature is that we have it tougher than some, and far easier than most. 

Here, it was a quiet day and an immensely grateful day, watching online as millions of our brethren found the money and time and energy to make their arrangements in their lives and travel near or far, and show up for The Women's March on Washington, and sister marches. 

So many of us unable to go were over the top with solidarity and commonality of outrage and making our voices known. 

I myself was just so pleased and proud that so many could go.

So on this remarkable worldwide day, I rested and then drove to the farmers fields, drove the boy down the road , and stood in the vast fields and deep silence and rushing wind and melting mud and warm sun and was so grateful to throw this dog's ball and breathe fresh air and have silence and safety and hope for all these things for us all.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1199611940075588/

1.21.17 Oh Baby

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1199065826796866/

1.20.17 Peach to me

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1.13.17 Our small tidal pools

      Some of us are born with certain circumstances or color of skin or ethnic backgrounds or size of feet or quality of hair or color of eyes or tone of voice or mineralization of teeth enamel or safety of neighborhood or articulation of vocabulary or capacity to understand mathematics or crabbiness of personality or enormous impatience and irritability.
     And so we each go forth, into our small tidal pools, with ice cream truck ringing or gunshots punctuating the night or reams of traffic polluting our air or coal dust landing indiscriminately upon all things or pesticided fine-tuned lawns or vast elegant country clubs or great opportunities or elementary schools with not enough paper or pencils or chairs.
     We are all here. It all happens this way.
     And from the beginning of time, some people opportunistically benefit from the misfortune of others. While others work tirelessly to share and ensure that there is parity. That there are the most equal rights and justice for all.
     And far within this woven tapestry of life here on this planet earth, so many things happen.
     And so eventually, sooner or later, in each of our lives, be we an ant or bear, or oak tree, or human, eventually we learn two things.
     We learn to deal with what we are given, the very best we are able; to grow and prosper best we can, where we are planted.
     And we learn to give thanks. In any fashion that comes deep into us, and speaks to us, in life's sonorous tones.
    Sooner or later, like the amoeba, we might evolve enough to feel the pull and the call, to give thanks, every day, with our whole heart and soul, for whatever it is that we have been given.

1.13.17 Puff daddy clouds

Out back this morning,it was comfortably chilly, the light show 

flashing changes faster than I could keep up. 

Dazzling puff-daddy grey clouds, then pink stripes 

stretching across the horizon, 

then the salmon and pink horizon stark against 

the far overhead midnight blue .

1.13.17 Wings and tails

Today, the Sun has grown itself wings


and a tail.

1.13.17 Hope and love

I think what we inherently have always done
is equate natural beauty 
with reemergence 
with hope and love.

1.12.17 Sooner or later

The story stays the same. The story never changes.

Perhaps there are amoebas, developing in several areas on earth, long long ago. 

Some of them are near volcanoes, which erupt , decimating them. 

Others are far from volcanoes, and do fine. They slowly and surely evolve.

Some of us are born with certain circumstances or color of skin or ethnic backgrounds or size of feet or quality of hair or color of eyes or tone of voice or mineralization of teeth enamel or safety of neighborhood or articulation of vocabulary or capacity to understand mathematics or crabbiness of personality or enormous impatience and irritability.

And so we each go forth, into our small tidal pools, with ice cream truck ringing or gunshots punctuating the night or reams of traffic polluting our air or coal dust landing indiscriminately upon all things or pesticided fine-tuned lawns or vast elegant country clubs or great opportunities or elementary schools with not enough paper or pencils or chairs.

We are all here. It all happens this way.

And from the beginning of time, some people opportunistically benefit from the misfortune of others. While others work tirelessly to share and ensure that there is parity. That there are the most equal rights and justice for all.

And far within this woven tapestry of life here on this planet earth, so many things happen.

And so eventually, sooner or later, in each of our lives, be we an ant or bear, or oak tree, or human, eventually we learn two things.

We learn to deal with what we are given, the very best we are able; to grow and prosper best we can, where we are planted.

And we learn to give thanks. In any fashion that comes deep into us, and speaks to us, in life's sonorous tones.

Sooner or later, like the amoeba, we might evolve enough to feel the pull and the call, to give thanks, every day, with our whole heart and soul, for whatever it is that we have been given.

    

1.12.17 Finagling vs Philadering

     Many years ago, before my husband and I had kids, we had a good friend, who was bright and caring and yearned to travel and explore, and he was a finagler.
     There are philanderers , and then there is this fascinating sub classification of finaglers, who are philanderers who get around rules by being polite and open about their philandering.
     It's really quite clever, to be unabashedly open with friends and family and those you want to finagle with and those who are partners of who you finagle .
     It throws everyone off, and no one knows what to do or think. Or even how to be pissed off.
You are kind of like the bored bad boy at the party, only you are very polite and caring about it.
     He'd even ask me, when my then-not-husband was not around, who was his friend, if I would like to finagle with him. 
     I'd punch him in the arm, and tell him to shut up and bug off. I guess I just understood that was who he was.
     He seemed to have a part-time fascination with openly finagling partnered women , while being very nice and thoughtful with their partners.
    He ended up finally getting together with a French woman, who knew of his finagling ways, who got pregnant and constantly wore high heels , every day, to my astonishment, even on hikes.
     I think he was wandering around in China, doing photography and writing, when their first kid was born back in Paris . 
     Later, he married someone else, worked his way up to high pressure journalism jobs and fancy homes and more offspring. 
     I can't imagine he ever left off his finagling, which I guess retained some nice-bad-boy access to some exemption clause found in the Peter Pan Principles. 
      I do remember, that once he knew you were a friend and not a possible finaglee, he'd drink lots of wine and want to talk long bullshit analyticals about the origins or contributing factors to his finaglesse. Like ruminating over a trunk of precious stuff.
     Which bored me to tears, because there was nothing substantial he'd be contemplating, instead just wanting an audience as he gathered up his rationalizations, perhaps now and then wanting a pardon for anything lousy that his being oh so kind and open might not have covered sufficiently.
     In the meantime, my beloved and I had a kid first , my honey working overtime at a cooperatively owned garage, coming home exhausted and polluted by fumes, dancing a crabby baby to sleep, and then spending hours at the laundromat with the diapers purring in the washers and dryers. 
     While this guy trotted the globe and got fancy cameras and explored and had terribly in depth Lefty conversations and finagled his way here and there.
     My husband was not a finagling type, but definitely ached to travel and write and photograph.        It was a mean juxtaposition, the car mechanic with kid versus the traveler. 
     We would get postcards and letters from far off places with little tiny words describing adventures in beautiful fine print. And my beloved would of course be disconsolate for weeks after.
     In the meantime, our finagler friend would return now and then, from his vast exotic travels , and could be seen surreptitiously gazing curiously at our our delicious homespun bond ,as he did some pretty thick yearning of his own.

1.11.17 Nightfall

 beneath the gaze of the big big moon

1.11.17 In the early morning rain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWS4eCbJ0Z8

1.11.17 Early morning light

1.11.17 Mud and gush and slush and ice and .....

Slushy mucky deep mooshy mud aside the ice

1.11.17 Inhale and close your eyes

When you stand at Kestrel Lane, and gaze down that path, darkened from 

the overhead resident trees, but bordered by fields on both sides, 

leading far far back into woods and wilderness,

 you inhale and close your eyes 

and somehow intimate 

the wild ones living all about

1.11.17 Out and about

Kestrel Lane, in it's beautiful January thaw glow





Venturing out into the blue grey morn

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Down by the river

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FB videohttps://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1190506014319514/

The early morning river

1.10.17 Good enough

So much of life involves the day to day wisdom 
of making peace with what is good enough 

1.10.17 If you don't

 try a game changer 
you're not going to have a changed game

1.9.17 Another day blooms before our eyes

1.8.17 Goodnight long lean mountain range

within which my long lean 
home is nestled

1.8.17 Bedtime at the OK Corral

1.8.17 Promises kept

What a wonderful sweet full of 

promises-kept kind of day

1.8.17 Out in the dark winter night

     It is cold cold stinging face cold out, but sometimes as the winter winds along, you get to put your compost out in the morning for the crow families, and then at night for the small coyote, who come by on frigid winter nights, perhaps with an older coyote, and as the winter wears on, most often alone, to see if there is a bit of oatmeal or beans to get by on, while learning the art of hunting for survival. 
     So just before bed, I bundle up , dreading the cold, and step out into the bright light of night, compost bucket in hand.
     The moon is now slowly growing large and powerful,casting their light through tall branches, the shadows sweeping upon the ground, in the swift winds.
      I strew the compost bits, listening to the roar of wind rushing through the forest, and find myself filled with peace and happiness and the delicious serenity of the night and the forest and moonlight.
      So off I wander ,through the newly fallen snow, out into the broad hills of the conservation field.
     Watching the glimmering lights from towns far across the river.
     Turning back to see my small home, it's warm lights stark against the mountain range. Far overhead, the moon is shining amongst so many far flung stars and galaxies and universes.
      I close my eyes, and feel the wind and the cold stinging my face, and all of the all, seeping far into me, in the dark winter night.

1.8.17 Out beneath the moon light

Out I went, into the dark quiet night
Moon shining out upon all things
casting these shadows down upon the ground
beautiful patterns of stark branches and trunks
as the small mountain range behind did sleep

1.8.17 It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood

1.7.17 It is a rare spotted day

Down by the farmers fields

1.7.17 Winter fills my heart

I love it's brazen simplicity






Snowfall on the shimmering midnight-black river

1.7.17 Solving mysteries by Dante Woo FB video

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1.6.17 The day flew by overhead

Down by the farmers fields, we might have been dragging
 but the glorious winter day flew on by overhead.

1.5.17 Bright and early FB video

This morning bright and early, it was a better day and a stronger one. So I let out the dog and fed birds and squirrels and settled cats and did half the day's set up for the guy, and then stuffed on sneakers, and slipped out into the frozen cold morning, to go by Planet Fitness. 
Which was still there, thank you very much, just as peachy and wonderfully anonymous as ever. 
I messed around with a few machines, just a bit, stretching back and feeling the deliciousness and pulling forward and remembering all of the strength.

Back home, after the long list of stuff, off he went to work, while I ignored the juicer waiting to be cleaned, and the dishes and so much more, and took myself and the pup on down to the farmers fields.
Which were windy and freezing cold to me, and it must be me and this year's changes, because the car said 31•, and yet, clearly it was frigid. 
But as always, once you get going, everything warms except finger tips, if you're nicely bundled. 

So I kept to the field where the grass gave good purchase, and inhaled the clean windswept winterland and listened as the ice floes rounded the river's oxbow and crashed along the sides as it streamed down to the sea.
And all things unsettled and difficult and tangled and uncertain slipped away; 

and slowly the lightening began.
So that, there, in that beautiful stark landscape of winter and sleep and peace and quiet, slowly I found myself coming in for a landing.

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