Sputter, Sputter.

Or, false starts. I'm back off the morning pages. What I found was that they unearthed where I was stuck...and then got in the way of getting unstuck by using up time while just repeating the same thing. I quickly grew frustrated with the time it takes to write them, which is actually a very common reaction to the MPs for me. I did them diligently throughout the AW back when, and sometimes they helped and often they didn't. So now I am more of the mind to do them when I am feeling stuck or caught, then let them go for a while. Maybe I am rationalizing (okay, I am rationalizing; maybe I am also right, maybe I am not), but I think this is what I need to do. ADs are another matter. I'm trying to figure out what mine should be this week - a little late there, aren't I? Maybe I will go up to the Gardens today except I am not really in the mood. Oops.

I am doing okay. And dealing with my grief, I think. I'm not sure quite what brought that poem to the surface in April (or the dream that led to it). I know this - I know I welcome dreams of my parents, though I'd rather connect with them, not see them sitting there tired and fading.

I have been doing some swaps at http://www.swap-bot.com/ - just sent a few items in the first ones, waiting to get my items. So we'll see how that goes. But it's interesting, and it's another way of connecting to people.

Slowly starting back. And a poem.

I am beginning my morning pages again, and today I go on an artist's date. Not doing The Artist's Way, but doing Vein Of Gold. Or rather, I will be, maybe, probably. Right now I am just trying to get back into the basic tools, nothing more. I haven't started the walks yet.

And on a totally unrelated note, this is a poem that I wrote back in April. I've let it sit, and edited a bit. I'm not wholly satisfied but I'm not sure whether that is justified or just fussing for fussing's sake.

Waking

I had a dream this morning. Not like how it really happened.
In the dream, my mother outlived my father. She was sitting
in the cream brocade chair she reupholstered twice.
She wasn't healthy; her face was grey and her breath was short
and she didn't speak at all. Not that I remember, and I hope
I'd remember every word if she did. Even the ones she never said.

There were children, looking at something, on a trip -
she had invited them, I think, but I no longer recall
why they came. They were unconcerned with the woman
dying in their midst. As full of life as she was empty of it.

This is not so far from the truth, even if almost all of it
never happened anywhere but after dawn, in the hours
when sleep comes and goes, and dreams hover close enough
to waking to be remembered, to pretend they might
have happened somehow, somewhere that is not here.