Halloween Snicker-Snack

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Fear and Laughing In San Diego

Oh, One
I'd like to brush my yellowing teeth (thank you coffee, thank you gross smoking habit ages 15-30)without contemplating the meaning of life. Every morning. Looking at my freckles, thinking of Nie Nie and how she will never again look at a facefull of freckles. Finding my eyes filling with tears. Admitting to Mr. Curry that I worry that our children will grow old and get sick and not have the right kind of health insurance, and we won't be there to help them, hold their hands if they are sad, buggle them up if they are lonely, remind them they are precious and loved and safe, safe, safe. ( No one is safe ) ( Everyone is safe )

Yes, Two
I'm waiting for test results. I'm afraid. I want someone to tell me it is all right, Mr. Curry tells
me it's all right and I don't believe him. What I really want is not to be told that nothing bad will happen ( eventually all pessimists are proved right ) but to know that I can rise to any occasion, the worst event, and fill my spirit with courage, love, joy- an indomitable will to overcome if not the IS, the I AM ( It will never be all right ) ( It is always all right )

Sweet Three
I absorb other states of being through emotional osmosis. I was stripped of my protective barriers, the immune system of the heart that love builds in childhood was broken down in mine. Destroyed. Never underestimate the human spirit; I grew like that famous flower in the crack of the sidewalk on Main Street, and can love and be loved. The walls are thin and my heart is quick to take the rhythm of another... does not hold it's own well enough yet. Well enough to be around fear without feeling afraid. If you are afraid for me, I will be afraid. Like my children- if they fall, and I am wide eyed and downturned mouth, they cry. I am more afraid of living in fear than I am of the things I am afraid of.

I have learned and want now to plant and grow upwards. ' Maybe their craziness spoke a truth. There are lessons in these lives, but we are no longer obligated to learn them. ' - Elizabeth Wurtzel

Friend, Four
I want you to know something, my InLovers. I laugh in the face of my foes! I laugh in my breakfast cereal. I laugh at my own freckled blue-eyed ridiculousness, the bizarre fact that the same little round faced Southern girl fighting black girls in the Jackson Mississippi backyard because she was the only white girl in miles, the same snot picking wall wiping boy chasing changeling is this woman sitting properly at this desk, feeding cats, walking dogs, raising children, loving a man as a wife. I laugh in my toilet. I laugh at myself when I cry and give myself the hiccups. I may be certifiable, but I'm having fun.

' The food in this place is really terrible. Yes, and such small portions. That's essentially how I feel about life.' - Woody Allen

( Everyone is alone ) ( Noone is ever really alone )

Lock and Key, Your Eyes, Myself

Last night there was smoke and there was fire and there was my husband and I, alone in a locked room on a mattress on the floor with two candles lit like the two teenagers we were when we met, except our children ate dinner in front of the television in the next room. ' Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturdaaaaay ' and the winds blew and the moon closed her eye and the leaves skittered nervously in the California wind and all the noise and chaos and uncertainty and fear was drawn into the force of our atmosphere and thrown out into the Universe. It will take a while to come hunching back.

Sugar, ah honey honey.

Once I came home and the house was quiet. Where were the children? The bedroom door was closed. Where was my husband? I put down my purse, flung the keys, opened the bedroom door



The room was filled with a magic balloon parade, all floating and bobbing and entirely filling the room with their cheerful, sparkling faces, and each with my husband's distinctive writing across.

Beautiful one read.

Passionate another said.

My love, Classic, Feminine, Creative, Loyal,

and each colorful cloud parted for my husband's sweetest face and eyes, watching me.

I gave him something to watch.

xo
Maggie

Magpie's Nest

One of my favorite photographers, Sally Mann
These pictures echo my Jackson, Mississippi experience of childhood
And the poetry of nature, in our bodies and our landscapes.

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Thank you to Rebecca ( Radish King ) for sending me a free and signed copy of her poetry book, Cadaver Dogs. I am extremely picky about poetry. In all honesty, much modern poetry I read fails to do that which matters most- to move me. Rebecca's poetry captures mystery. Her metaphors are beautifully unique and compelling. The breaks and movement in her phrasing are satisfying and ring true for each poem. The specific words choices are masterful. What I like most about her poems is the feeling I get that I am getting a glimpse into the world of a fascinating person. I simply devoured this book and will be reading it many more times. Thank you, Rebecca

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I'm On Television as a National Outrage

House and the Hypochondriac

Mr. Curry: ' Just because you have a dot on your big toe does not mean you have
ventracalatiationary thrombosis, Maggie. In fact, I'm sure you DONT.'
* after a pause he adds firmly, ' I love you. '

Me: ' Did you hear what House said? About the twitch in that kid's leg and- '

Mr. Curry: ' Do you want me to call Hugh Laurie and have him diagnose you? Cuz you
you know what he'd say? He'd say you are a nutter. Because you are. '
* after a pause he adds with a kiss, ' I love you. '

Me: ' What about this? Feel this, come on, just feel it? ' I am gesturing
toward my neck.

Mr. Curry: Sighs. Reaches over, feels. ' It feels exactly the same as it did
two years ago when you saw the doctor and he told you it was fine,
totally fine. '

Me: Not even meekly: ' Are you SURE? '

Mr. Curry: ' I'm sure. Can I unpause the show now? '

Me: ' K. '

Mr. Curry: After a brief interval. ' I think House would be perfect for you. You
think he's hot and he could diagnose all your problems. '

Me: ' I already KNOW all my problems. You diagnosed me. '

Mr. Curry: ' I did? '

Me: ' Yeah, I'm nutters. Can you be quiet so we can watch this seizure? '

Big Band Family

Listening to Big Band music, my new CD from Target. This is some of the most cheerful, humorous music ever. It makes me tap my toes and smiiile I Love It!

Last night at dinner, we all held hands to pray, which we always do, even though we aren't religious or organized in really any noticeable way ;)
Mr. Curry was finishing placing his napkin down to hold my hand so that Lola Moon of the Moon Clan ( her name is actually Lola Moon, but the rest is our licked and stamped name )
could say the prayer, and apparently he was taking too long, because Lola sighed impatiently and said

' Poppa, you don't make God wait. '

Lola is full of sound bites. She is a one man band of whistle blows, cheeky comebacks, winks, head cocks, retorts and all things humorous, silly and of good timing. She has deadpan timing. She knows instinctively that many things are funnier when you wait a beat before dropping the bomb.

Mr. Curry was helping Dakota Wolf with his homework last week in the living room. Dakota was sheepishly admitting he did not know all the months of the year in order, and Mr. Curry was mercilessly ribbing him about this. Dakota defended himself-

' Plenty of people don't know the months in order! No one ever taught me. I didn't pay attention. ' PAUSE. ' Plenty of people don't know the months! '

Mr. Curry nodded his head back and forth grinning. Dakota turned to walk out of the room, and took two steps when we hear a matter-of-fact little voice pipe up:

' January, February, March April May, June July August, September October November and December, these are the months of the year. '

We all burst out laughing as Lola looked triumphantly on. She had one upped her big brother!!! Now she randomly asks Dakota in a casual voice, ' Hey, can you tell me the months of the year? Cuz I can tell you! '

Fontanelle

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CARE AND FEEDING OF THIS BLOG POST:

Press play on the youtube of Sarah McLaughlan and her beautiful song.
Read while listening.
Go hold someone you love and use every one of your senses to fill with awareness.
Swoon.





Can anyone do this? Can a person without the natural temperment of ease, forgiveness, grace, soft souled- can a person like this who has been hurt deeply and at the most tender age, can that person just be happy?



I can't ' just be happy '; I have never had the ease of spirit and innocent kind of joy and love that I see and celebrate in some others. My happiness is always a matured, rough hewn sort. I can be happy though. Yes. I can look around me every day and work my mind open, my heart, to see and appreciate the beauty that is everywhere. On a walk with my daughter Lola, a beautiful dragonfly humming and jerking, caught in a spider's web, brings me to tears. I recognize in this the condundrum of life, that what is beautiful can also come packaged in great pain.

When I was a little girl I had an imaginary horse, based off the horse in one of my favorite children's books and series, The Black Stallion. My imaginary horse and I had a spiritual bond, and as I rode in the car with my sad family, I turned my eyes out the window and watched myself, riding my own black stallion, thundering over the hills and sides of freeways, flying over obstacles in great leaps. I was finding my own happiness. I was making something beautiful with what I knew.



The way that I knew freedom was through books and beauty. So now, as an adult, I watch others who radiate a kind of clean happiness, a kind of lucky happiness where nothing tragic occured into their childhood. I believe that when our childhoods are solid and safe and based on love, we survive our adult losses differently. I watch beautiful people whose spirits are so easily soaring and I envy them. I have never felt light without a fight. Finding happiness, spiritual freedom, freedom from fear, these goals are often made closer by the devotion of Seeing, Hearing, Feeling, Touching, Loving. If I am talking with my son and suddenly pull myself into the moment, the air is brighter. I see his bright blue eyes with an intensity that startles. I hear his voice and I am filled with a deep, eternal love so intense it takes my breath. I watch how his long thin arms move, his mouth turns up at the corners, his sensitive fingers play with the jacket. I am eclipsed.

Maybe some of us, who are thornier than we'd like, more complicated than is necessary for depth, more neurotic than is romantic, we turn away from living in the moment because the insensity of truly seeing how beautiful love is terrifies us.




Perhaps we fear what we think we desire. Perhaps we fear love. Because in opening our arms, bodies, minds and hearts to love, we open ourselves to pain, to loss- and let us not shy from the truth: we open ourselves to a kind of loss that is simply unimaginable, unfathomable. If I lose my children before.... there is a blackness that erupts in the fabric of the Universe, directly parallel to the pain, when a person endures a loss too great to be borne.

What clears the pathway, what enlivens the weak hearted and brittle boned to become eclipsed, to love as we are meant to love? What if we do not believe in God? What if we cannot feel a God behind us, giving meaning and reason to all we do not understand?

Well then, we can ask ourselves the eternal question: Is it better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all? What does this really mean to you? If we walk through our days with those we love and never really connect, what will we feel when the losses do, inevitably occur? Will we hurt Less because we protected our hearts?

No.

We will hurt more because we will be filled with regret.

When my grandmother Elizabeth died I was aware of an emtpy room inside of me where her prescence used to be. And not being of great Faith, I could not fill it with those thoughts or beliefs. The ballast was the knowledge that I had loved her openly and cherishingly to the best of my ability. Not perfectly. But I had touched her, held her hands, clipped her toenails, massaged her feet, pressed my mouth to her velvet hanging skin, whispered I love you in her ear, cried tears of gratitude telling her the stories I remembered most fondly of her and I, let her see, hear and know that I loved her.

Our choice, the choice of the living, is nothing easy. It is nothing simplistic and only the surface skimmers mock this struggle. I choose every day. I choose in my children's skin, in their warm mouths sucking at my breast, their downy baby heads pressed against my husbands naked body as they slept in our bed, their pink fingers running over my arms as I held them, their voices screaming and laughing, breaking the great silence of Order, Plans, Structure, their lithe and beautiful bodies tumbling together in play, the smell of their hair, their ears, their necks, the pulse of their heartbeat and great vunerability there for all to see in their infancy: on the top of their heads, that great soft spot, that place given to remind us of the incredibly preciousness of life.

I forage ahead inside this enveloping, amazing, love although there are times when I cannot sleep and a great and voiceless fear courses through my veins, for all I am humbled to admit I cannot change, for the swirling great world around and inside my children that I cannot protect them from: even though I was not protected, even though I cannot breathe when I think of the unthinkable.

I choose to love.

Blue Buggers

Conversation between myself and Mr. Curry late Friday night. I am standing in the bathroom with my fingers up my nose, after vigorously sneezing. Mr. Curry is in the living room watching TV as I call out:

ME: ' Honnnnneeeeeyyy? '
MR CURRY: ' Uh yeah? '
ME: ' Do you know of any reason why my buggers would be turquoise? '
MR CURRY: *Long Pause*
ME: ' Honey? '
MR CURRY: ' You were painting the cork board with blue spray paint? '
ME: ' Ohhhhhh! '
ME IN MY HEAD: Thank God I don't have some blue bugger producing disease after all!
MR CURRY IN HIS HEAD: I know my wife and right now she is thinking thank God I don't have some blue bugger producing disease after all!

The End

Magpie's Nest

Friday is my favorite, Friday is my favorite, Friday is my favorite dayayayayay

LINKITY LINK******

For well made beautiful and charming little person clothing check out Mini Boden

For children's books that will make you lose your mind and whip out your card, check out Chinaberry



Kiss my grits!! I can say this even though I only lived in Jackson Mississippi for my first three years, then one whole year (4th grade) and then a summer in Baton Rouge, Lousiana?- Right? Whatev. I'm a Southern girl and a Cali girl. I still remember getting teased for saying Commode instead of Toilet, and Pop instead of Soda.

I'm off to sub today, in the 2 year old class. There's a little boy at the school, K, who at playtime outside once told me he had just been to Sunday school. I casually said ' Oh yeah ?' And he promptly lay down on the cross-like cracks in the concrete, spread his arms out and screamed,

' Oh why'd my people put me up here?!! Oh Lordy help me!! '

And I'm not joking. I wonder what the Baby Jesus thinks about THAT?