And So It Goes.

We bid goodbye to summer.

We bid goodbye to 31WriteNow, pleased that the effort to blog all 31 days of August was successful. (Yay!) We also hope that blogging everyday will become a second nature thing and not just in response to a challenge. Baby steps.

We bid goodbye to long days and long nights (yes, I’m aware that meteorological summer doesn’t end until mid-September, but work with me, people).

We bid goodbye to empty, non school-is-in session streets. No traffic was good while it lasted, huh?

We bid goodbye.

A tear for summer.

But we await you, Autumn! (See the countdown below.)

The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse

The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
and on its outer point, some miles away,
the lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.

Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides
in the white tip and tremor of the face.

And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light,
with strange, unearthly splendor in the glare!

No one alone: from each projecting cape
And perilous reef along the ocean’s verge,
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o’er the restless surge.

Like the great giant Christopher it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,
The night o’er taken mariner to save.

And the great ships sail outward and return
Bending and bowing o’er the billowy swells,
And ever joyful, as they see it burn
They wave their silent welcome and farewells.

They come forth from the darkness, and their sails
Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,
And eager faces, as the light unveils
Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.

The mariner remembers when a child,
on his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink
And when returning from adventures wild,
He saw it rise again o’er ocean’s brink.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same,
Year after year, through all the silent night
Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that inextinguishable light!

It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp
The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace:
It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,
And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.

The startled waves leap over it; the storm
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,
And steadily against its solid form
press the great shoulders of the hurricane.

The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din
of wings and winds and solitary cries,
Blinded and maddened by the light within,
Dashes himself against the glare, and dies.

A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,
Still grasping in his hand the fire of love,
it does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,
but hails the mariner with words of love.

“Sail on!” it says: “sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse.
Be yours to bring man neared unto man.
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Lighthouse at Cape Hatteras

Dear Masseuse…

Thank you for that. It was heavenly. I apologize for fidgeting a tiny bit, though, when you got to the toes. My ticklishness is out of control. But for you, I did try. Yes, I’m glad you gasped when I told you my last massage was a year ago. That somewhat melodramatic reaction was albeit a good reminder that there’s no reason for me to allow 12 months to go by without a good massage. Thanks for also working out all the kinks in my poor, sinusy head. I suppose there’s no need to go beyond the generous, well-deserved tip I gave you, but I’ll be getting started on that statue erected in your name pretty soon. Because your hands were awesome.

Yours,
A Relaxed KHM

sailing, takes me away…

A few shots of our trip to an 18th century sailboat. ‘Twas the kind of lovely day a person could eat.

En Vacances…

My view at present.

Woo hoo!

The Summer Wind.

Here’s the truth: I love summer.

You expected something deeper and scandalous, I know. Well, my summer truth is slightly scandalous because every summer, without fail, I engage in the most eternal complaints about the season. I complain about the heat, the mosquitoes, the heat, the heat, and the heat. And while those things are truly worth complaining about–seriously, I think I’m dating these mosquitoes, they’re that devoted to me–the simple truth is that I live for this time of year. (Third behind fall and spring, of course.)

A few reasons why. Here come the bullets:

•The long days. I can’t emphasize my love affair with summer’s long days. In between slapping away the efforts of my greedy mosquito boyfriends, I tend to sit outside with a dreamy smile on my face, gazing at the bright-at-9pm atmosphere.

•My inner child. Growing up, summers meant field trips to the local library with my Sissy; spending endless days lounging around the air-conditioned house reading said books; acting like fools with the rest of my crazy sibs; popsicles; more popsicles; family trips; laughter. I can’t help but return to those sweet times in my mind and memory when summer arrives.

•My grown up, adult self. Yeah, I have to drive. And there’s nothing sweeter than mostly traffic-free morning commutes without school buses and all the kiddies on the roads. Just saying. You know you love it, too.

•The beach/traveling/vacations. Enough said, huh? Summer was made for those things, and I try to take advantage of all of them this time of year.

So one wonders why I spend more time complaining about summer instead of talking about how much I love it? Consistency. I’m all about consistency.

What’s your favorite season and why?

The Big Fat Bloggy Stew. Shall we?

Long time, huh? I wanted to acknowledge that in my last post, but decided to just stick with my thoughts on that particular topic. But yeah, it’s been forever and ever and a zillion days. Why, you wonder?

• I don’t know. I suppose my current, diminished desire to write creatively (more on that later) affects my desire to visit the Marvel, as well. And it’s summer, it’s super hot, and I’m super blah. And hot. Really, really, hot.
• Uh, the above captures it all in a nutshell. Only two bullets, I know. I’m obviously losing it.

So what’s been going on with me?

On Life.

Let’s see. I took a significant step in fulfilling a life goal related to my spirituality and learning a foreign language. Pretty, pretty awesome. So far, 1) all my French teachers and professors were right. I should have taken my French conversation far more seriously than I did in the past, instead of causing most of them to sigh and throw their hands up in frustration over my stubborn unwillingness to dig deeper and speak (I imagine they all got together one evening over croissants and wine to complain about me). As a result, all these years later, today, it’s a bit difficult for me to utter a complete sentence in French without throwing quite a bit English into it. But I’m giving it time. And I’m constantly learning. So it’s all good. By the way, don’t ask me why I was so stubborn back then when it came to speaking. I thrived when it came to French vocabulary, art, history, culture…but conversation? The pits. I don’t know. My attempt at school-related rebellion. Anyway… 2) I’ve met new, wonderful friends in the process. A bunch of us even traveled together. And we survived without any tales of woe or attempted murder. Good times, indeed.

What else? The fam is ok; my beloved little Bro had some health issues a few months ago (and I suppose a large part of me not posting had a lot with being worried about him and that worry taking over everything), but things have significantly improved, which is fanstastic.

On Work.

Oh, work. When things begin to run their course, you begin to look elsewhere. Actively. That is all. For now…

…Although I would like to add that–well–let’s just say that posts similar to this and this will be coming soon. Somebody help me…

On Love Shmove.

Lest you get all excited for yours truly, all is quiet on the Love Shmove front. What I do want to say, briefly, is the following (welcome back, bullets):

• Every woman deserves to be properly wooed. I mean wooed, like courted and treated well and flowered and candied and listened to and the like.
  

  Yes, indeed.

  While it’s unrealistic to want what you’ve seen in any Hollywood rendering of “love”, it’s not unrealistic to want proper wooing. And I certainly don’t think the wooing should stop once you marry, either. If anything, it should grow. Spoken by someone who intends to be wooed.

• Men are not boys. Boys are not men. There is a marked difference.
• I will never have an open mind about brussel sprouts. (Seriously, never.) But I’m starting to understand that having an open mind when it comes to Love Shmove can be a beautiful thing. You just never know what the possibilities are and from where they will come.

On Writing.

I have my creative highs, where I write like crazy and I’m thoroughly in love with the process. I have my creative lows, where tumbleweeds roll across the vast, super dusty stretches of my creative mind. Then I have what I’m currently feeling: creative laziness weirdness. The plots are there. The characters, the middle, the ending, the everything–all there. But I cannot summon the desire to write. Where is this laziness weirdness coming from?

No, no, let’s be honest, shall we? It is laziness. I have absolutely no desire to write. And I don’t want to. I just don’t.

So what are we going to do about it? Will telling myself to write something, even if it’s one sentence, be a delusion of grandeur, destined to never come to pass because I will undoubtedly break my own promise? Perhaps. But in the research I’ve done on blocks and laziness and everything writery under the sun, the key is always: write something, anything, every day. So I will, starting next week. (We are in the middle of the week, after all.) So who will keep tabs on yours truly? Who will follow up to see if I actually follow through and write something, anything, every single day starting next week? We’ll just have to go all honor systemy, won’t we? We’ll see.

Let’s end here for now. Onwards and upwards…

Welcome back, officially, Kitten Heel Marvel.

See you tomorrow?

Design Times. And Stuff.

The new design reminds me of my home in Florence, the one waiting for me, you know, when I finally get there. It’s all travel-y and awesome and I love it. Blogger finally added some new templates (I say finally like I’ve been stalking the site and waiting, which is so false, being that I update this thing as frequently as I go to the gym, which is once every leap year, apparently) and I happily took advantage of them. Yay.

Yes, time flies when you’re inundated with work and life and busy schedules and all that, which I currently am. I will no longer apologize for my once-every-leap-year writing, either. I’m taking a new laissez-faire approach to it, but I’ll carve out the time when I can. Take that, conscience and Muse. Also, and quite honestly, I haven’t have many concrete ideas lately. Time to honor my promise and get to one of the many local musems, and fast. Fast!

Summer continues to wind down. I will not complain about the heat. It’s summer. It’s hot. I get it. (Never mind that one day it was 65 degrees and the next day it was 97; never mind that the ozone layer went from calm and cool to angry and not going to take it anymore; never mind that the heat is UNBEARABLE; never mind all of those things, which are inconsequential, really, la la la). Soon, however, waiting patiently over the horizon, will come dear Autumn, which, if we look at Autumn’s past modus operandi, will last about 5 minutes here in Somewheres, VA. Sigh. The story remains the same.

New books: The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley. Awesome, awesome, awesome. It’s a series about an 11-year old girl named Flavia de Luce who solves murders. If that isn’t a childhood fantasy coming alive on paper…in fact, I finished the first book and am currently in the middle of the second book in the series, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag.

New movies: nothing. I haven’t stepped into a movie theater since some time ago; the last one I saw was clearly not memorable, being that I don’t even remember the title. But some new ones look interesting. More on that later.

Onwards…