Dream work

any time I've gotten behind
my brain tries to catch up
I write a presentation or program
while I sleep and it eludes me
I wake up tired and unsatisfied
dream work is so exhausting

My Day

A day of possibilities
So many choices to make
To work or to play
The day is mine

Change

people come and go
in our work lives
in our personal lives

we celebrate the advances
and mourn the losses
but always there is change

The Road

the road takes us
where we want to go
but onward it draws me

the calendar shows me
all the plans I've made
but the gaps entice me

this planner has goals
ones I've settled on
but blank pages excite me

each morning dawns
full of possibilities
full of joy

Saturday

figuring out what to do
today is open to possibilities
nothing already planned
a few vague ideas
so much I could do
but what I do is in my control

May

It is May
Temperatures have warmed
Trees are leafed out
Grass is getting high
The worst of the storms are passed
Mid-spring is lovely
Time to get outside

Newbie

So our new hire started today
How to bring them onboard
How do you not bore them
How do you not overwhelm them
How do I remember when I was new

Lost days

Laying in bed
For day upon day
Awake now and then
To try to eat
Drink something
Maybe a shower today
Sick and tired
Of being sick and tired

Trails

Running along a trail
In the green woods
Flowers along the way
Purple, pink, white
Springy ground pushes
Jumping little rivulets
Alone in the quiet
This is my glory
Today is forever

Rolling Stone

A schedule full of things
Work and family and running

But look here is a hole
I am not completely busy
I can see a spot I could go

Go somewhere I haven't been
Go to visit my son, my siblings, my friends
Go to see a national treasure

Fill the gap up completely
Plan a trip to somewhere
Roll along gathering no moss

The Drive

Facing sitting in an airport
On a beautiful sunny day
Cancelled my flight
Rented a one way car rental
Took about 12 hours to drive
What should have been 4 or 5
Stopping to enjoy the sun
Listening to my podcasts
Enjoying the drive

Sleep

Like a child I fight against sleep
Too many things to get done
I might miss out on something

Like a child in a moving train
I sleep the hours away
Missing the scenery but not caring

Sleep can be glorious
Sleep can be missing something
Sleep is nourishing none-the-less

Rolling along

Clickety-clack
Don't look back
Rolling along
To the new town

Today

Today is forever
Stretching endless
So full of possibilities
Young and strong
Ripe with choices

Today is joy
Playing with pebbles
Making ripples in a puddle
Dancing in the rain
With flowers in her hair

Today is love
Eyes meet
Desire rises
Together one body
Laughing together

Today is togetherness
Companions journeying
Choosing a path
Side by side
Sharing the little things

Today is sadness
And remembering
Choices past
Except just one
Saying goodbye

Past and Present

I loved to play in the woods,
by the creek, on the tracks
I played ball with the boys

I could run like the wind
When I'd hear the whistle blow
I was the first one to the tracks

I'd make up lessons
From old textbooks my father had
To learn Chinese and shorthand

I loved math and logic puzzles
And reading the kids section
Alphabetically from A to Z

Today, I run and volunteer at trail races
I plan adventures and fill the minutes

I listen to audio books and podcasts

My work is all about puzzles

Figuring out new processes and solutions

Writing complex but efficient programs

Time flows by so quickly

It changes, but its the same

My father's phrases

He'd say the same things over and over
And he'd smile such a smile
Such a twinkle in his eye

Will you go to brown and serve and get a loaf of bread?
This meant to go to 7-11 or Stop and Go convenience store

Where are you going Daddy?  To Kalamazoo.
What are you doing Daddy?  Baking a cake.

Your friend called, he said, you know, Becky Woodstock.
Daddy, she's named Beccy Mac.
Yes, that's what I said, Becky Woodstock.
And she always was, even though he claimed not to know names.

He had an obsession with the Sail Cats cartoons
Dead flat cats in the middle of the road
These are the only dead cats he would claim

But then he'd be on his hands and knees playing with kittens
Or teaching my tomcat to tap the door and meow to go outside
Look, he'd say, I taught your cat to knock and say out

My mother claimed she fell in love with him the day he fussed about
"The innate perversity of inanimate objects"

How are you today Daddy would elicit two different responses
He was either "finer than frogs hair" or "fair to middling'" depending on the day

My husband today has similar sayings that he always says too
I smile when he says the same thing in the same circumstance
Ah yes, we often marry men like our fathers

"Yogurt" he exclaims when a drawer sticks or he drops a card
And he smiles and gets that exact same twinkle in his eye

Things that make me sigh

Red rock vistas as I approach Sedona

A cat purring and rubbing against me after I've rubbed his chin

The first taste of a loose meat sandwich I've driven hours to get

The sight of yellow daffodils bringing remembrance of my mother

Reaching the top of the steep hill on a beautiful trail run or hike

The first insanely long hug at my annual Tai Chi retreat

The runners high I get after I've been out there for a long while

The New Mexico boarder as I drive West after being away

My bed when I'm tired and I've fought its beckoning too long

A warm cup of chai tea latte on a cold gray day

Seeing again my siblings, husband or son after time away from them

Figuring out the logistics of my next big adventure

Sort out a very complex puzzle and making it simple

PM Status

Today I developed an LOE
and ETA for doing the ETL
for my BOT to meet the SLA

Gifts

I can give myself love
I can give myself forgiveness
I can give myself joy
I can give myself fun
I can give myself good health

I just must make the choices

Choices

Coming out of the dark
Into the light of day

So many choices to make
My day could be anything

Today can be relaxing
I could study many things
Everything could be clean

At the end off the day
I can look back and see
What choices I made

Everything is new each day
Every moment brings choice

Cuenca Dreams

Staying here working on this house
Traveling around visiting family and friends

Saving money and working extra jobs
Spending money on fun things and good food

Suddenly the balance has shifted
Retirement is close and I'm not ready

Each decision I make
Brings thoughts of the cathedral domes
Each hour working and dollar spent
Makes me think of the tumbling river

Cuenca I dream of you with each choice I make

June's Recording

I sat at her funeral listening to a recording

A recording she made for my mother
A very young women in a new city
Singing songs she heard at the theater

Then she spoke to her little sister
The sister who was far away and that she missed
She talked about the theater and laughed

I sat with my sister among my cousins
Thinking of sisters together while cousins played
They talked about their lives and laughed

We remember those sisters today
We talked about our children and grandchildren
We talked about our lives and laughed

Where did nearly a century go by
From when they were born on an Iowa dairy farm
To today where we miss them talking and laughing

Memories of April

Standing in the sunlight entranced with the shiny silver dollar in my hand

Standing with my mother watching a small funnel cloud lower to the ground a mile east

Pretending to be Monkees in the playground at school during recess

Walking to high school singing Another Day with gray clouds hanging low

Discovering differences in humidity impacts on cookies while riding across Texas

Crying in a cemetery as they lower a tiny styrofoam container into the ground

Walking along tilting slippery pavement stones in the rain to catch the street car

Watching sea turtles come in and lay eggs in the sand in the dark and cover them over

Spending hours being made up and hair done to look like a movie star for one beautiful photo

Wearing an emerald green flowing dress with daisies in my hair marrying the right man

Clambering up the Spurgeon Wall in the green southern Indiana heat following flour trails

Invisible before my husband in a park surrounded by saguaro wearing a pink running dress

Eating kangaroo spaghetti in the apartment after visiting the red rocks of Uluru and The Olgas

Sleeping in the nose of a Dolphin and playing on the California coast

Eating dates in a camp chair working on getting energy to climb the next New Mexico hill

Camping with a kidney stone in a driveway in Arizona while he is in the inner-Andean basin

Laying here today in bed writing these memories before I begin my daily puzzle solving job

Questions

Remembering My Other Mother

I went to visit my other mother
Many years after I was grown
To listen to her stories of life

She tells me stories of civil rights
Of marching in Alabama
Of working on voter registration drives

Why is there a bullet hole in my car Marge
Gee Len, is there?
I really don't know how that got there.

Wearing a nurses uniform and a fur coat to a march
To prove she was a caring person and not poor riff raff
Back-talking a heckler and leaving him speechless

Then she says, then he told me, I shouldn't have
It was a good comeback, but you shouldn't have
Then she looks confused at not remembering

She pats her coffee table book and says
He said it, Oh, You know him,
Then she's radiant again a laughing at her story

I come to visit her again
Ah, I remember you she says
I knew you when you were a little girl

His amazing inauguration comes
And she is unaware of what it all means
And I wish my mothers knew their work mattered

Then the call comes that she has left us
We come together to celebrate her life
I wear my hair red and dress up just for her

I remember, I will always remember
The other mother who loved me
The other mother who saw the beauty in me