Perfectly Imperfect

 Today is Day 20.

wpid-31small.png

Thank you for joining me. You gift me with your presence. And I am grateful. 
To catch up on all the posts in this series, click the link at the top of this home page marked #write31days2014.
To receive posts in your inbox when they are, well posted, click “Subscribe” and follow the super easy instructions.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


I am determined to throw my gaze past the smudges marring the windshield, as we fly at the breakneck speed of sixty miles per hour ish down the highway. On the way to a sixtieth birthday party for a precious redheaded friend. I cannot take my eyes off the sky. I am under the spell of beauty.

Thankfully I am not driving. He can’t take his eyes off the road. I snap, click, snap, click. And darn it. The sky and the phone pic look nothing alike. He sees the dirt overtaking the glass shield, spread like a bad case of poison ivy. I see a sorbet sky on a Sunday. Signature, signed by The Sky Writer, Creator, Artist, God.  I like the view from here. I will not win any awards with my framed beauty, but the sky won me over and I am captured by color and brushstroke. Swirl and twirl. Color combinations and the use of light.

The sky is the Louvre. And I am a patron on the arts.

wpid-img_20141019_185338.jpg

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We study the floor in the kitchen. Together. My friend and I. Lovers of beauty and the restoration of old. We critique the work that was done and the decisions that were made in the loving renewal and renovation of this 114 year old home.

“I don’t like things too shiny.”

Neither do I, my friend. Neither do I. I crave, patina and rust. Chips, dings and worn and torn. Signs of love and life and age. Shiny. Ok, a little goes a long way. Rough hewn and battle weary. Comfort and soothe.

Perfectly imperfect and I are falling in love all over again.

I look past the messy residue of a well-loved windshield. He keeps his eyes on the road. But I could have sworn he saw the unveiling of the beauty before us, stretched out, paint still wet, on Highway 17. That night we went to celebrate.

The celebration happens on the way. Everything happens along the way.

An imperfect sky does not exist. Embrace imperfect and find the beauty in the broken. With me, won’t you.

wpid-img_20141019_185512.jpg

wpid-img_14659227963018.jpeg

cropped-wpid-img_20140929_170447.jpg

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Joining Laura for Playdates (Oh and you should totally check out her new book on Amazon: Playdates with God, by Laura Boggess)

wpid-20140922_190542.jpg

In Just A Moment

wpid-screen-shot-2014-10-01-at-1.48.07-pm.png

Thank you for joining me.You breathe life into this space and into this series. Your presence here is a tremendous gift.
Today is Day 4. To catch up and read the series in its enirety, click here or click the tab at the top of this home page marked #write31days2014-Postcards From Me, elizabeth w. marshall
wpid-img_20140929_154946.jpg

wpid-20141004_0932290.jpg

In Just A Moment

The earth will tilt and lean
Press her face against the foggy
Glass
Look at us
As we at her
We play a game of stare
Poker faced, straining
To not  look away and miss
The micro moments
She presents

What if every moment
That we see
Capture with our glassy pupiled lens
Was meant to savor
Fragrant earthen soil
And well-lit canvases
She lends

To gather up the
Remember when’s
In just a moment

She will tilt again
Continue
On her race around the galaxy

Each moment that she gives to me
In fractured minutes as I blink
To tuck into my memory folds
Filled with all the grainy, dull and fading
Remember whens
But
I will still say

I remember when
The sun rained down on the precipice of stone-grey rocks
Magnificent
And magnified by a gurgling
Rushing mountain stream
That perfect October day
Destined to meet
The beauty of the earth and I
For I was there
Gifted
With a front row seat

And in just a moment

We were gone
Fragile is life’s middle name
++++++++++++

wpid-img_20141002_090234.jpg

wpid-img_14659227963018.jpeg

cropped-wpid-img_20140929_170447.jpg

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Joining Sandra Heska King for Still Saturday

Joy — The Beauty Of Surprise

wpid-31large.png

Your visit breathes joy into this series. Such a pleasure to have you here. To read this series in its entirety click on the page tab on the home page entitled #Write31days2014-Postcards From Me – Elizabeth W. Marshall

Thank you for choosing to spend a moment here.

++++++++++++++++++
wpid-img_20141001_165220.jpg
 Joy – The Beauty of Surprise

wpid-img_20141003_104152.jpg

Joy, multiplier of Surprise
I cup my hands and close my eyes
For when my soul has written every
Line and verse
And ended stories,
Blinded, my own way
You step out
From behind
A dark and shadowed
Hiding place
Hidden under beds of dormant bulbs
Blanket mulch, a cover for
Your loveliness
Quilted warmth, a shield
Made of
Fallen parchment maple
Royal veiny oak

Leaves,

From gradient golden guilted shades
Paprika, hydrant red, yellow of
A yielding sign
Pantone’s infinite color wheel

The ending is no longer mine
Joy is colored
By Surprise

Wave on wave of Joy
Crashes like a tidal wave

Carves out the old
The former things
With steady surgeon’s hand

You parse and peel
Remove the dead

Redemption’s steady hand
The tool with which you operate

Mercy, signs the Artist’s work

The Beauty of Surprise
wpid-img_20140925_122133.jpg

cropped-wpid-img_20140929_170447.jpg

A Thousand Hands Have Passed By Here

wpid-img_20140823_123901.jpg

A Thousand Hands Have Passed By Here

Maybe hundreds more
But
There was no one there to count

A well-worn wooden handrail
Documents for us

But she will not give up secrets
Of all the living that has come by here
The hurried ones
Tiny pink bare feet
Scampering off to bed
To dream under a mountain quilt, tucked
Under
Crisp cool sheets
As trains go up and down
The mountain tracks
Singing them to sleep

The tired ones who will wake
Before the sun and putter down
The stairs, running wrinkled fingers
Along the smooth and weary rail
Worn by love and life and time
Holding up the aged, the weak and frail

Guardian of more than
One Hundred years of living
Well-traveled
Quiet story-keeper 
Stairwell of this
Old home

Perhaps the next hand, left
Or right from generations
Coming up and down 
Traveling through this  place
Will be a hand of healing
Offering
Sacred grace

Pray blessing and forgiveness
Over those who’ll come here too

Perhaps
There will be a thousand more
Hands traveling down the rail
Bearing witness to 
Humility and redeeming love
For generations still to come

For scores and scores of lifetimes
More
May scamper up to bed
Up, then down, down then up
Living, loving,
In this family place

A thousand hands have passed by here

So
Walk quiet now
Soft and slow and reverently
So
You may hear the tales
Echo in the halls
Wisdom from sojourners
Who came by here before
Pass on stories of
Their living
Loving strong and hard
For years and years

Within these pine-board walls

wpid-img_20140823_123141.jpg

Joining Sandra Heska King for Still Saturday