Imaginary Landscape

If you cut yourself while chopping onions in the midst of dinner preparations one evening, or if you burn yourself on the oven as you remove a tasty cake, someone might see that you favor a certain finger, or she might see that you've a nasty blister on your forearm. Perhaps she might even ask, “Oh! Did you hurt yourself?” She might wish you speedy healing or remark on how nasty the injury looks. My son is a chef, and his fingers and arms are full of scars from cuts and burns. One can trace the errors of his profession on his hands and arms. I have a scar from a hysterectomy, one from the time I burned myself with the iron. It is easy to see when someone is physically hurt and, for many years, to watch the healing process. When the hurt is emotional, it’s more difficult to track and even more difficult to understand. All of us deal with disappointment and hurt on a fairly regular basis. We have arguments with loved ones, we miss out on chances and promotions we’d cou...

Baby mine I sing you this last lullaby Even though you’re too big to hold Too cold to sigh Too young to die No words of comfort for your mum No jokes, no words of advice Just that smile that beguiled me from your first breath In photos posed for patiently On your coming and going One final pose, the long sleep, tucked in For all eternity 22 February 2012

I began this on January 17, 2012. People recommend one write to help with the grief. When I write, I can never finish anything because I end up weeping. This is as finished as it gets. Anger. I  wasn't  looking forward to Christmas. I’d been downloading Christmas music, listening to it in the cabin, in the car, trying to gain some enthusiasm for the season, but after John and I had a couple phone calls, a couple emails, suddenly, we were going to spend Christmas in Atlanta, with John, and I started to get excited. Disappointment. The plan was to finish the semester, all the grading and calculating and submitting of grades, then drive to Georgia. We would leave the 21 st or so, take two days to get there, spend Christmas with John and his girlfriend, then drive home over another couple of days. Despair. They take the day off to go biking. Something – a barbecue place – takes them to Gainesville, Georgia. They enjoy their meal and get back on the road. The gir...

Not sure if this is a ‘caveat emptor’ story or what. Give a listen. Many months ago – let’s say six – Orvy and I were browsing antique stores in a little town an hour from here, which shall remain nameless, but starts with the letter Belton. We were actually picking up some furniture we’d bought for the new house, and I found an old English-made mantel clock with face and wood in good condition, a key, and the tag said “works”. Price was a bit steep, but I wound it, it chimed (Westminster chimes) – it seemed – appropriately. So I bought it and brought it home. Seems it  wouldn't  run for long unless tilted at about a 15 degree angle. We had reason to return to Belton the following week, and I complained to the proprietor. I really loved the clock and  didn't  really want to return it, but I also expected it to work, as advertised. She said there was a clock repairman a couple blocks away, and if I would take the clock there and have him phone her with the rep...

Posted on Facebook after the ash dive, celebrating my son, John Rogers, and his life: Photo by Raymond Adams When a baby is born, a mother has to let him go, after listening to one another's heartbeats for all those months. When a son grows up, a mother lets him go again, as he enters the world to become his own man. One thing a mother never expects is to have to let him go when he dies. I've done all those things, and I'm not the only one. However, today, I was able to set him free with the help of his wonderful friends, and I was able to experience a little of the joy he knew when he flew through the air with them. Thanks to all of you -- there are too many to mention -- family, friends from all parts of his life. You made it hurt little less. June 23rd 2012

"In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds." – Henry David Thoreau "...and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead reckoning of the error-abounding log?" – Herman Melville, Moby Dick, or, The Whale We reckon the times of our lives by significant and insignificant moments, before and after babies are born, after the wedding, before the divorce, before I lost my job, after the drought of 2011, after Daddy died. These moments give us a fix in time so that we can navigate our brief but busy lives on this planet. I thought most of my reckoning moments had passed me. My babies are grown up, I’ve been divorced twice, married the man of my dreams, moved to Australia, moved back fr...

My father has nine siblings. I say “has,” even though a few have passed away, including my father, because one’s siblings are always one’s siblings. Remembering their birth order was always impossible for me. When I grew up, I just had to keep track of one sibling. Not too long after my father (Herb -- #3) passed away, I asked my Aunt Doris (#9 – the oldest of twins) for their birth order and I wrote it down on a sticky note and have been using it as a bookmark, so I can see it all the time. They are: Bob, Mary, Herb, Curt, Dick, Pat (Patricia), Nancy, Bill, Donna and Doris. There is unbelievable family resemblance among them, although even the twins aren’t identical. I took my sons to a family reunion when they were in grade school, and the youngest came up to me after about an hour and whispered incredulously, “They all look alike!” It certainly wasn’t a trait he and his brother shared, nor my sister and I. Uncle Bob (#1) passed away when I was young; his was the second funeral I att...

It was a simple mission : We were headed to Bertram, TX, to adopt a burro as a companion to eight-year old Janet, which we’d adopted a year before in Belton, TX – a burro that was shy and fearful of people and that the horses generally shunned. We also had three mustangs, two ponies and a Morgan-cross filly, so we didn’t need any more horses. Just one burro. Well, we thought, if we see a mustang there we just can’t pass up, we’ll adopt just one mustang – no more. On May 29, 2008, my husband, Sherman, and I drove down to Belton early with to our third Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction. We headed for the pen of jennies, and immediately, a woolly-looking two-year old came up to the panel to sniff our hands. S he was a cute as a button, and I announced, this is our burro! We took note of her tag number and had some time to kill before the auction began, so we walked the perimeter to look at the mustangs. Because of our limitations as trainers (we’re not), we never even look at mustan...

The story, from the SpaceX /Media website began: Significant Milestone Achieved as SpaceX Prepares to Demonstrate U.S. Transport to the International Space Station HAWTHORNE, CA – November 23, 2008 – Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) successfully conducted a full mission-length firing of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle's first stage at its McGregor Test Facility in Texas, on November 22. For the static test firing, the first stage remains firmly secured to the massive vertical test stand, where it fired for 178 seconds or nearly three minutes — simulating the climb of the giant rocket from the surface of the Earth towards orbit. But let’s go back to Saturday, November 22. Imagine you are travelling in the car with us – I’m in the passenger seat, my husband driving, my stepdaughter (who had just had a grueling day at the mercy of Southwest Airlines coping valiantly with a half-day’s fog in San Diego, of all places, which delayed flights until nearly noon). We are travelling ...

I came home the other day and got out of the car to open the front gate. We live down about six miles of gravel road, on 20 acres that are home to (in addition to us) eight horses (five of which are mustangs) and two wild burros. Because we live so far from town -- and that is a very small town -- I do most of my “shopping” online. UPS, Federal Express and DHL almost always find us, and the USPS carrier will leave a parcel if we notify her that we’ll be home. There are only three or four properties past ours on a dead end road, so even if a parcel were to disappear, the list of suspects would be short. On this particular day, however, it was not a missing parcel that got my attention. It was a parcel lying on the ground, not near where any delivery person usually leaves a parcel, and the cardboard box had sizeable holes torn in it, so that parts of the merchandise, the invoice and the directions for using the merchandise lay on the ground nearby. The merchandise was unharmed, as it was...

We were in the corral, working with our newly adopted mustangs, when a shot rang out to the west. A dog yelped in pain. Another shot…then silence. My husband and I looked briefly at one another, oats in our hands, grubby with horse slobber and dirt from the recent rains. "Where's Cocoa?" I asked, referring to his Lab/Catahoula cross. "She's around here, I'm sure," was his quiet reply. "Do you think that was Cooper?" It felt wrong to ask; I was sure it was. Orvy nodded. "It was bound to happen sooner or later." We looked for him throughout the day, but three days later, he hasn't returned. ∞ It was just hours before we were supposed to be married. I was still giving a final at Baylor University and I received a text message from Orvy that his oldest daughter "got something for our wedding." How thoughtful, I thought, until he let me know that the 'something' was a dog that she had found wandering at school. We wer...

I DID IT!!! Originally uploaded by poppy smiles . © B A Saunders The Buick swims into the driveway, its fins glistening in the sun sinking behind the house across the street. His two tries for a son rush, flutter out to his feet, their mutual end: to be first. Pick me up, spin me around till I get real dizzy. Me first, dad, spin me around. I remember being dizzy, the warm breath of an expiring afternoon around my neck and shoulders in the whirl. In the fading light of an older sun you spin with me, warm breath bathing my face in an August afternoon; spin me around till I'm dizzy; and when the sun finally sets I comb my hair with my fingers. No one spins the way you do.

13 reasons why ~ I Love You ~ Originally uploaded by F . E [ Away for a while ] . ...and you know who you are!

Dear consumer: Manufactured eons ago, your puzzle, of the finest star stuff, bits of lovers, soldiers, peasants and kings, was cut with a fine diamond saw at the most strategic junctures to result in separations so sublime they may have wept or bled at the moment of separation. Spread these delicate pieces, strong and independent, upon a surface, free of adhesions, attachments, although some fine, white sand is acceptable, vaulted by a summer sky. Sort the pieces of your ruthless entertainment into matching groups, according to corners, edges, colours – hopes, dreams and fears. Find shapes that seem similar – some may resist separation from loose attachments that occurred in the shuffle of time; some may cry out from the extremes, longing for the match they once dreamed about in childhood – If you see these pieces bring them together carefully, old and recent cuts will make them cautious. Be patient, take time, join as needed. © B A Saunders All rights reserved Photo uploaded by WindeB...

I never realised how many people there are in the world until I didn’t know where you were in it So many people with your name faces that looked like you but weren’t because I knew you’d changed It is easy to love the absent for they are always the same Yet when I found you amongst the world’s billions, the millions, the dozens in my life You were your memory – strong and true and you I need to rest my walking fingers that have trudged through countless phone books in your hands and report me as a missing person in your life Poetry & photograph © B A Saunders - All rights reserved

More roadworks - but who's been working on those clouds!? Originally uploaded by WindeBabe . My last trip to Eucla (5 May 2006) for a long time, probably. We were 'escorted' by clouds -- more and more as we headed east until it finally rained, when we were then greeted by rainbow after rainbow. It was a beautiful 900 km drive. (Those streaks occurred because I actually shot this through the windscreen.)

W estern Banjo frogs (Limnodynastes dorsalis) - or Pobblebonks - the male 'hangs around' until the female lays her eggs, in a distinctive foam nest, so he can fertilise them. These do quite well at the Eucla Roadhouse where there is a beautiful garden and large water feature, although they are more common around Perth to Esperance. These frogs are so named because of their explosive call, which sounds not unlike "bonk!", or the plucking of banjo strings. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jocksinoz/70737837/

F airytales have fallen from favour…become unfashionable…because there is a belief amongst adults (and adolescents of ever-diminishing ages) that there no longer exist knights in shining armour and beautiful princesses who are strong enough to yield to the softer emotions. But I know of a fairytale that had its beginning in the not-so-distant past – depending on your perspective – that has all the elements of the sweetest classics. You see, fairytales are not impossible, just exceedingly rare. They are not the thing of the imagination, but they are elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp. Once upon a time, in an era when there was a terrible war and a time of great change, there was a beautiful princess who was searching for direction, some meaning in the midst of all the chaos of the age. Having rejected her pursuit of learning, she joined the empire’s legions to seek meaning there, for these were not the olden days when princesses were consigned to stitching tapestries and naming pets; no...

It is one of those memories that sticks in one's mind, a snapshot of a brief moment in time, meaningless in its triviality, yet it hangs about like a stranger who looks slightly suspicious, a tiny bit menacing, but who also never does anything to support those fears or allay them. So this morning, in the depths of one of my ‘episodes’, after a night of restless sleeping, it pops into consciousness once again, leaving both an unsecured longing and a spark of joy. When we were children, under the age where one could leave us safely at home, we always went shopping with Mommy. She did not drive, never drove in my recollection, except that one fateful evening when she propelled the neighbour’s car up our driveway, into my father’s Buick, our garage and any number of framed Kaiser shade window screens, leaning against the walls so their framing’s new coat of paint could dry. Oddly enough, I do not recall taking the bus to town, nor returning home on it; I recall only waiting for it af...