Where do titles for blogs and posts come from? A daughter did an interesting exercise about this, and a hundred or more people were eager to tell her. It began with a thought, an idea given freedom to become a picture in someone's head. The results are beautiful.

Another daughter and I were discussing weather and the seasons, especially Autumn. She said the reason it's the most majestic and colorful is because God knew that after every Autumn, a long winter would follow. So he gave us enough beauty to get through more dreary days.

Scientists explain sap flowing from trees, and the intricate process that causes autumn grandeur, but I'm not a scientist, leave that to those who are.
Even after I flew back To Colorado the word pictures wouldn't leave my head. So I sat down and wrote this out.


I call it TAPESTRY.



Oh Autumn, with relatives not at all like your
Fiery hair, sun bronzed skin, brushed with gold
And burnished copper hues

Briefly shining, effervescently
Floating like escaped balloons
Spreading up above anemic land,
Respite from old Summer's hail and heat

After April, in her trickery,
Promising a time of some relief
Squelches all the little daffodils,
And sends instead more freezing snow and sleet

Are you from God Who held you in His Hand
And sprinkled you across each silent vale
Water coloring all the faded trees,
Tossing you upon my favored trail

Or did He weave you, on some mystic loom,
Mosaic motifs only He could spin
To strengthen us from your capricious kin's
Sunless days and solitary gloom.

To find a writing topic this morning, I didn't have to look far. I saw it outside when I opened the patio door. Up here from the third floor I see stretches of trees and roads on a flat top mountain, the Grand Mesa.


I'm too far away to see its hundreds of lakes. I pour another cup of coffee and look out the window again.

Closer than the Mesa, a gentle breeze ruffles leaves clinging to a grove of Aspens. Their white trunks remind me of leathery skin. The least air movement makes them tremble. Soon they will drape themselves in beauty and pour out their last breaths of life. I shudder a little too, not eager for winter winds, but ready for Autumn.

Someone said "a promise is a promise, and a deal is a deal". and mine was that I would write something every day, so I can get better at it.

I could try to cop out this morning, and say my comment to Tammy on her brave new blog was long enough to count as a piece of writing, but I would still know I didn't keep that promise.

What I'd rather be doing is already bathed and out the door, and on my way to
"A Chelsea Morning" daughter, Barb's.

We're hoping to spend some time together. She's offered to teach me more stuff about computers and blogging. It really is pitiful that I don't yet know what a URL or some of those other abbreviations mean. Maybe before the day is over, I will. So here I go, with a clean conscious, (I kept my promise) and now I can enjoy one-on one time with my firstborn. Moms never get enough of that.

If I could explain somewhat, I work a crazy schedule, sometimes many hours, then off more than a few days. This isn't a bad thing. I'm sure you moms with little ones would love having breaks like that.

I'm off a few days now, and can't stand not sending posts your way. So here are more.

These three writing efforts go back to the Seventies.

Agreement......

We had an understanding
And made it all quite clear,

So each of us knew how it was
Right from the very start;

We might have been so light, so gay,
So free of acrimony

But I, I gave my heart away
And yours turned out so stony.



Solitude......


He called today, to thank me for last night,
Politeness in a new tradition;

Lightly I kept it, the way that we talked,
Not giving or taking remission;

For a hungry lover's evening,
The wine, the warmth was good,

Better than I expected
From a one night meditation
Of two lonely souls;

"Thank you", I said,
"It's nice you called"
And wondered

Will I ever see you again,
Or the solitude
That brought us together
Keep us at distances now?



The Waltz

Soft music sings within my soul
Old lyrics' fantasy,
As orchestras with saxaphones
Pied pipe their songs to me,

"Come dance", the gleaming brass calls out,
"in taffeta and lace",
"Recall the flowing swirling gowns",
"And friendly Frenchman's face",

"Remember flesh that warmed to mine
In hours before the dawn",
"Such love, such lust, such ecstasy"
Until the music paused;

Before the last waltz guided me
To corners where I cried,
And held my own sweet fantasy
Reality denied;

Without the glitter ballrooms fade
But memories dance on,
And I, I choose to not erase
The music I have known.

Saturday, August 26, I promised myself I would write something, anything, as we say down South, even a little bit, every day. This serious intention came about after a trip to Barnes & Noble, where I bought several books on how to write.

Repetition, forming the habit of writing, was emphasized over and over, but I sit here three days after that self promise, feeling a little dumb or at least empty, because I haven't yet thought up a great novel. Do all aspiring writers suffer from these dry spots? The books say that they do, and the way to not stay stuck there is to write anything, just to get beyond it. So here goes.

I am in a love affair with books. I don't go to book stores often because I know I'll walk out with several, and a few days ago that's exactly what I did, but all of them weren't to teach me how to write.

My old Bible is easy to read. It has helpful extras that explain things I'm studying about. I like wide margines to write comments and notes on. But it's big and heavy, and I wanted one that isn't, to take to church.

But, just like the difficulty I had choosing the writing books, I couldn't narrow the choice of Bible to only one, and came home with two. One is a New Living Translation Touch Point Bible, a quick reference Bible, and the other is The Message, New Testament Psalms and Proverbs in Contemporary Language. My rationale for getting both is, if I'm going to buy several books on writing, isn't it allright to spend money on the most important book ever in the whole world, the one that can teach us how to deal with the blocks and the dry spots in our lives.

I knew I forgot to do something. Since last May I've dealt with two real estate closings, ended my job on the other side of the mountain, and started a new one here. Found a place to live, moved, and am finding my way around this town. I did do some shopping, but it was for furniture and a computer. Serious stuff.

The other day I was feeling out of sorts, and didn't understand why, but a trip to a shopping area clarified it.

It started with an Old Navy gift card. I had noticed how "Chelsea Morning" Barb looks great in casuals from there, and "In A Moment" Mandy looks her professional self even in their PJ's. Other grand daughter, "Missing Marbles" Krissy, always looks great. With her terrific looks, she's a knockout in anything. That left me and my outdated body coverings in need of a modern upgrade, a serious, or maybe an unserious shopping trip.

With gift card in hand and a few extra bucks I found the Old Navy store, parked the car, and headed straight toward it, then realized I might be in trouble. To get to Old Navy I had to walk right past a huge place, ROSS.

Two hours later I carried three Ross bags of new clothing, including some very pretty summer sandals back to the car, and then went directly on to Old Navy.

Shopping at Ross is pretty fundamental. Find the right sizes, pay for the merchandise and leave. But it isn't that simple at Old Navy.

Usually I'm not self conscious about being older, but most of what Old Navy sells doesn't seem especially designed for grandmas. Little tags on many items kept referring to low riders, or something like that.

I began to wonder if I had walked onto the wrong sales floor. I noticed an old looking pickup truck near the front entrance, but thought it was there to give the store a rustic touch.

In the dresing room if I let pants hang below my waistline, too much skin showed, and the pants became too long for my short legs. If I gave the waist band an extra upturn, that looked weird too. I found two pair that would do, if I got shirt tails long enough to cover what the pants didn't.

Young store clerks tried to appear sympathetic, but I'm not sure they understood, and I am not getting tatoos put on my body to fill in the uncovered places. But it was ever so fun, tossing seriousness away for a little while, and carrying my Old Navy Bag of low rider items out of the store, right along with all the younger shoppers.

Daughter, "A Chelsea Morning" Barb, suggested I join you and explain why I named my blog Flight Song.

I started to call it "Another Fork In The Road", but that expression is worn out from overuse, and I wanted the title to tell you something about me.

Long ago I wrote a poem and called it "Flight Song". In the poem a little butterfly managed to get out of its cocoon, and eventually fly. The whole process of that was the butterfly's song. What I didn't realize then was that it was me.

I think of flights I've made in life, and songs I've sung as I flew, and look forward to sharing them with you.

Last night when I did "An Exercise In Writing", I felt that I kind of left you hanging. Had just finished a twelve hour nursing shift and was tired, but wanted to write something before going to bed.

A while back Bev said that she wants to write about living a short time in the best place she remembers being while she was a little girl.

Right now her life is on so overload. It has been, for months. Before this next day ends, her next grandson should arrive. But the question remains, if not now, when!

So I've made a new intention. Every night, whether I've worked or not, no matter how tired or wrung out I feel, I will write something.

But I wonder, when or where did that notion come fron? Did it begin while I peered through store windows at fresh new school supplies, Was I at all influenced by social standards of that time. I think we always are influenced by what's around us. but we don't have to limit ourselves to others' opinions.

I can decide if music is music. I can believe if love is love, and even if it's painful, I can embrace my past so I can hope to touch tomorrow.

When I wasn't dealing with serious situations at work today, I remembered leaving daughter, Bev, (Blessed Beyond Measure) a comment last night regarding her wanting to write about her childhood. I said something like, "Bev, the only way to do it is to do it".

All of you know what a whirlwind she's dealt with, for months before Addie was born, and then the surgery, and as I write this she's on her way to be with daughter, "Somewhere In Between" Leslie, who will soon present her with another grandchild.

I don't know, maybe all this recent baby making reminds Bev she was once a very little girl, or maybe she would just like to remember places and times precious to her. Sometimes, because Moms are so busy with everyday stuff, we may miss some of that.

But I do think, no matter how tired I might feel after work tonight, if I can so easily tell Bev, "just do it", the least I can do is complete this exercise in writing myself.

I traded a home movie camera we seldom used, for an old Underwood manual typewriter, and got an even older desk. A set of High School Subjects, Self Taught, a Home Medical Guide, and my dictionary sat at the left of the typewriter. A precious ream of typing paper waited at the right. A neighbor told me about a writers' group, so I went to one of their meetings, but was disappointed. They met only once a month. If I would ever write well enough so someone might want to read it, I needed more training and experience. At the next writers' meeting someone said a man called Hemingway became an outstanding author by writing newspaper war stories. I think their saying that was a helpful nudge from God to encourage me.

A few days later I noticed an ad from something called the Newspaper Institute of America. It offered correspondence courses in, that's right, newspaper writing. If I could just do it, if I could complete twelve lessons, I would be a writer, maybe not as good as Hemingway, but I would have the chance to be. Don't ask me how I paid the two hundred something dollars it cost. We probably ate a lot of oatmeal for breakfast, and beans and potatoes for other meals. Some of my children still won't eat any of those.

I wrote about anything I could think of: the children coloring Easter eggs, the boys and their father making animal traps and catching critters in them. I wrote long letters to editors. Once I did a lengthy article about Chritmas Seals, and the spread of tuberculosis. If a regular newspaper columnist commented favorably about any tidbit I sent them, I sent more. When the church needed someone to write for the weekly newsletter I volunteered. I would have written about a neighbor's husband being on a ship that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, but an important rule about newspaper writing is you must keep your facts straight, and I didn't know why his ship didn't make it back.

Twelve lessons, only twelve, I kept thinking. Number eleven was a tear jerker I wrote, about a school bus driver running over and killing a little dog at the bus stop. Parents were ready to lynch the driver. The children just needed a proper burial for little Corkey. I am sure my children remember this. After getting bed sheets from me to wrap him in, they prayed and placed plastic flowers over his grave, and cried.

But back to the present, while considering what I might share with you here now, I noticed a recent news item, and realized even though I wrote my number twelve newspaper writing assignment 33 years ago, it is still timely for today's news. It was October, 1963. Had not decided on a subject for lesson number twelve. Turned the evening news on, and there it was. As the story unfolded Russian missiles in Cuba, only ninety miles from America beaded down on us. Castro, who today may be at the end of his life, was an oppressive dictator that Cubans gave up their homeland and risked dying, to get away from, to be free. Sounds a lot like what our servicemen and women are fighting about for us, today.

The evening news said 60 Cubans were rescued at sea, and would soon arrive at the port in my hometown, Beaumont, Texas. Some say newspaper writers can smell a story. I tasted mine. Didn't have enough money to buy lots of candy, and didn't know how many Cuban children would arrive, so I stopped at a store and got all the chewing gum I could for them, Chiclets. I still have the story, what I wrote about this back then. After it all took place I typed the story, and drove to the local newspaper, and left it for the managing editor. To have an important story printed, one can hope, one can only hope. Will try to condense it here.

I call it my "Almost" story. Inside the Red Cross shelter exhausted Cubans, even little children milled around, as if lost. Red Cross volunteers gave them blankets and packages of bath soap and other cosmetics. Other volunteers gave them food and coffee. In a quieter part of the shelter, the Cuban women waited. When someone handed them blankets or food, they took it, but it was obvious getting those things was not their big concern. A language barrier made it difficult to understand what they wanted. Finally, someone called a priest who spoke their language, and he brought what they needed, a large candle. Before they left their homeland they vowed to not sleep or eat, til they gave thanks for being in a safe place.

Volunteers helped them erect an altar made of upended cardboard boxes, covered with Red Cross bankets. The priest placed the large candle on the makeshift altar, and the Cuban women knelt in thanksgiving. Their journey of faith was done. Although the newspaper didn't run my story (the regular reporter met deadline for his) the editor was kind enough to write me an enouraging note, and send the story back to me. For a long time I regretted it didn't make it, but today I realize it's better it didn't.

If my first shot at a front page scoop had made headlines, I might have become complacent or smug, and never written any better than I did then. If for no reason other than that, I treasure my number twelve newspaper writing assignment, and you can be certain I welcome the privilege to write number thirteen and beyond very well, very well.

When I checked Barb's "A Chelsea Morning" yesterday I was surprised to see myself looking out from it at me. The maternal five generation picture has fragile edges. It should. It's about fifty years old.

The detail of it that most people commented on was what looked like a gentle touch from my great grand Ma. She had reached over and put her hand on Barb's little foot.
That was significant, her many generations reaching out, to connect with a baby not yet a year old.

I am more sentimental than I sometimes admit, and tend to vist the past too often and stay there much too long, but making this recent big move and change in my life has evoked many memories, so when I saw the old picture, it was easy to dwell there again.

After I discovered Barb had posted the five of us, we were talking about family history, and she asked if I knew all the grandmas' names, and I am embarrassed, because I should have, and I didn't. But I will.

Later I looked at the picture again, and saw more than five females connected by bloodline.

The oldest is Nancy Emelia Boyett King, born 1866, died 1963. She was born only a year after the Civil War ended, but her mother could easily have been affected by that war, by losing a husband in battle, or worrying that sons would have to go and fight, all those gut clutcing fears and heartaches that women sometimes
have thrust upon them.

The next grand mother, Almedia Estelle King, who to me was just granny Perry, was born in 1886. The war was over, but the economical aftermath of it lingered for generations. As a young widowed woman, with four children, living in the back woods of Bronson, every day was a challenge, to survive.
If I feel a little deprived sometimes, I remember Granny Perry used an old side room near the tiny kitchen, soley for storing gunny sacks filled with dried peas or beans. Many times her homemade cornbread just about completed our meals.

My mother, Katherine Jewell Perry was the next generation. Her unwise choice of husband, a handsome blue eyed Irishman named McMillan, took her to a life of misery and poverty. She and my father ditched school and eloped. I imagine granny Perry was as upset about it as years later I was about Barb's elopement.

For only a few dollars my father borrowed from somebody, a willing Justice of the Peace performed Mom's and his marriage. After Mom divorced Dad, back when divorce was considered a disgrace, she made an even worse choice of mate, not because he was Indian, but because he was a drunk. Mom had six children with my father, and more with the second man, and when she was 56 years old, died. Some said it was from cancer. I think it was from the misery and poverty. She endured the leanest of years, around the depression, and dealt with the stormy years of the 2nd World war.

Though her name isn't in history books, at her death she received an ovation that honored her life. As the cars trailed toward the cemetery, I realized many more cars followed. Poor people, not in fancy shiny automobiles, but kindred souls like her, who shared her meager way of life, and loved and respected her more than it seemed life itself had.

Though Mom died more than thirty years ago her spirit is so alive,in those who followed. We'e learned livingis more important than dying, that life is about more than what's in it for us; and though we don't look for accolades, if there be any, they're for how we impacted other people's lives.


There's not much more to say about daughter Barb (A New Chelsea Morning) and other daughter, Bev (Blessed Beyond Measure). Their lives, their marriages, and the outstanding job they've both done raising their children, honors them completely.

But there's someone else not seen in this picture. It's my mother's sister, Allie.
More than anybody I've known she made the big difference, for me. She taught me sometimes we have to do whatever is needed, whether we think we're brave enough, or not, but we didn't have to have a "nobody has suffered as I've suffered" attitude. In the midst of many difficulties and heartaches this woman managed to, if not seem happy, at least present a calm peacefulness.

So Nancy Emelia Boyett King, and Almedia Estelle King Perry, I will remember your names, and the rest of you in the frayed old picture. I salute you. You've earned some glory for your battle scars, and I offer my tribute for what you've handed down to me. May the rest of my life also honor yours.

I considered calling this "Killing The Old Red Rooster", but I am certain it was a hen, a big, fat hen. I know it was, because when we cut it open, we found eggs not quite ready,......But I'm getting ahead of my story.

I don't know why my sister and I had so much idle time. Maybe it wasn't a school day. I remember that we were in the yard, and growing more bored, because there wasn't anything to do. Not only that, we were getting hungry.

Mama, who was inside taking care of the babies, told us to stay outside a while, and she would call us when dinner was ready. But that seemed like forever, so we bumbled around a little, and kicked some sand in the air. Every now and then, one of us found a rock, and kicked it too. One of them almost hit a neighbor's hen, the one that was so big.

It wasn't really my fault. My sister was always getting me into trouble, or if she got mad at me, would hit me herself. She was just enough bigger than me that if we argued, I usually got the worst of it. So when she told me her plan, about the hen, I thought I better do what she said.

We had seen Mom wring chickens' necks, so we didn't think that would be too hard to do. But when we tried to catch it, that chicken took off. We tried cornering it, but it would rush right between us, or take off a different direction every time.

After a while my sister said it would take all day to catch that old hen, and if we hoped to eat chicken before the sun went down, we'd better find another way to kill it.
That's about when she headed for the old shed, and started looking for something. Pretty soon she held it up, a piece of wire, and I figured out her plan. I just about ran my little legs off, helping her corner that hen, but I still couldn't stand that she planned to choke it to death, and begged her to just chop its head off, like I had seen our father do.

I don't know how we finally caught it. Maybe we just chased it til it got too tired to run. But now we had a bigger problem. Who was going to hold it, and who was going to use the axe. I had never been so afraid before. I squinted my eyes as much as I could, and held that poor old chicken as still as I could, but when my sister raised the axe, I just couldn't hold it any longer. So finally, she threw the axe to one side, and picked up the piece of wire, and before I knew it, that chicken didn't have a head on its shoulders anymore.

Melting slugs with salt seemed bad enough, but seeing that headless hen flop around on the ground felt like murder, first degree murder, because we meant to kill it. I wasn't sure I could ever eat chicken again.

The rest of it would be easy, we thought. Mama's wash tubs were on the wash bench, so we put water in one, and threw the hen in it. Mama still hadn't called us for dinner, but that was O.K. My belly was bothering me so much I didn't think I could eat anyway. It was hard to know if I was having hunger pangs, or just trying to not throw up.

It didn't seem to bother my sister. She decided since she did most of the work that she got both breasts, and wouldn't let me have the wish bone either. But by then I didn't much care. I thought the worst of it was over, but that was before Mama found us.

She grabbed that chicken up out of the wash tub, and held it up, then threw it back in the water. It took a lot to make her mad, but she was mad now.

I don't know for sure how she made things right with the neighbor. She may have given him two smaller hens she said would be good layers, but she got to keep the dead one. Anyway,the neighbor agreed to the deal.

Mama was good at figuring out how to make the best of things. So we figured we weren't in trouble anymore for killing it. She heated water and poured over it. Our punishment was that we had to get every last one of those feathers off that hen.
If you've never had to stand over a tub of very warm water and smell chicken fat while pulling the wet,stickey feathers out, you might not understand that at that point I almost would rather have had a spanking. But Mama would not spank us. I cannot once ever remember her doing that to us. Pulling the feathers out was punishment enough.

It was war time, around 1942. We had moved from Jasper,Texas to Houston. My father was in the Navy, helping fight the war, and Mom and me and brothers and sisters just tried to get through those years. We did what children do, explored the world around us, and looked for ways to keep from being bored.

But an eight year old can only search for so much tin foil in discarded cigarette packages, or gather newspapers to take to fire stations, where they gave you a little money for them. You could gather discarded glass soda pop bottles, and get a few cents for them, but you had to be careful they could break.

Anyone whose lived in Southeast Texas knows there are lots of things children can get into there. Not far from Louisiana, even Houston has swampy areas. I never searched for snakes, just hoped I didn't happen upon one, especially water moccasins. Often, after a rain, little slimy things would show up and crawl around on sidewalks, or the ground, like they were in a hurry to get somewhere.

I don't know how my sister and I learned we could make them disappear, like magic by pouring salt on them. Mom couldn't figure out why table salt kept disappearing, and after I helped my sister dispose of the dead slug bodies, I tried to not feel like I was a murderer, but worried more about getting that slimy stuff off my hands.


About the alligator though, or it may have been a crocodile, my sister and I also liked fishing, for bass or catfish, like grownups did, but that required more elaborate equipment than a cane and some string, and then we had to find crawfish and try to make them be still while we stabbed them with safety pins we borrowed from little brother's diapers. We needed the crawfish to not die, but squirm and do little backover flips, to attract the fish we were sure we would catch.

But even after all that preparation, and feeling more guilty than I had about salting the slugs, we still didn't catch even one fish. So we did the next best thing. we found stuff to throw into the pond, rocks, tiny pieces of tree limbs, whatever was there, except we didn't throw trash into the water. We may have been slug and crawfish murderers, but we were not litterbugs.

We had pretty well cleared the bank of the pond, and were about ready to find something more interesting to do, when my sister noticed something poking up out of the edge of the water.

We sidled up a little closer, and just about plopped into the water with it. It was that alligator or crocodile the family still talks about. Boredom quickly liftd as we found more things to throw, at it.

I had heard grownups talk about alligators in Florida growing as tall as grownup men. Some said they could swallow a small child in one gulp. We had to make sure it was not still alive.

After it just lay there quite a while, not moving at all, we decided it was safe to
capture it. That meant a sneaky trip back home to get clothes line, because we knew Mom would not let us take part of hers. She was upset enough about diaper pins disappearing. It was still war time, and metal things were scarce. Adults worried about things like that.

My sister and I just needed to get the line around the creature's neck, and drag it someplace we could hide it, until we figured out what to do with it.

On the way home, we came up with a plan. We pulled it along the edge of the woods because that kept dirt and sand off it, and we noticed that when someone walked by and saw what it was, they threw their arms up into the air, and ran screaming right ahead of us.

After we pulled the creature up close, then back again a few times, that wasn't much fun anymore, so we decided we would dig a big hole in the yard, and put a little water in it so the gator would slide back and forth, and charge everybody a nickel a piece to come see it. That didn't last long enough to make even a quarter between the two of us, but we had a lot of fun, until Mom saw what we were doing, and made us drag the poor critter back to where we got it. The most fun of it was when we scared people nearly to death as they walked by the side of the road and saw it wiggle.


That old pond had real fish in it. We knew that was true because once in a while we saw one flounce right up out of it into the air. But we caught something bigger, the alligator.

I've been away a while.
When I joined with you in blogging, after daughter, Barb,
a Chelsea Morning", and Bev, "Blessed Without Measure", nudged me to, I shared an old poem with you, and from it, called my blog "Flight Song".

I'd like to show it here again, and tell you more about this thing called "Becoming" that I've been dealing with lately.

So here it is again: "FLIGHT SONG"

A small and lovely butterfly
Cocooned her way to life

Shedding her fearful notions then,
Shuddered from the flight;

Free at last from nestling arms
That clutched her monarched wings,

Covers that clothed her emptiness
Where none could hear her sing,

And though she hasn't found the words
her music's no less real;

Woven into her struggling
A rhythm lingers still;

Her wings begin to flutter,
At first, a fragile beat,

But summoning an inner strength
Defeats her own defeat;

She alights at times, and with a sigh
Reflects her destiny

As music that is hers' alone
Gives flight to timid wings.


As I write this, the first thing I think is that when I wrote it many years ago, I did not realize I was writing about myself.

Back then I didn't do much introspection. I was much too busy trying to survive. My lack of education, and job skills, and maturity made this more difficult. Like the butterfly in my poem, there was no wind beneath my wings.

When I was a little girl I loved learning. Perhaps some kind hearted teachers cared that I was poor, or it may have been because I was so well behaved. I needed their approval so much that I would never displease them. Give me a new Big Chief tablet and some pencils, and I was transformed.

Years later the imprint of my early school years continued to influence my decisions. So I decided education was the answer to my problems.

I had already tried the good old Southern girl approach, which was to find a good man, and be a good helpmate. In fairness to the men in my life, I need to admit that I knew less about myself, than I did about them.

And that brings me to here and now. While making this recent change, leaving whatever my life was in Denver and heading west, once again, I was na'ive. I thought it was only about getting from there to here, but it's much, much more.

It's silently arguing with myself about buying new furniture, when I'm more than able to pay for it. It's holding on to outdated ideas about what a church should look like, and how its services should be. Someone once said: "No matter where you go, there you are". To that I would add, and my attitudes and values and standards of what I think is allright, or not, and realizing how much I have let time and place and circumstance define me, but no more.

The butterfly is shedding her cocoon. I hear the song of the flight, and in it, my own voice. There's still much becoming to do.