Friday, April 07, 2017

I am not myself

I was not myself.
So who do you think you are then?
Think again.
Whatever it was, was trying to tell me to do things, not exactly for any reasons but just to see if such acts were possible.
Motives were not necessary.
It was only necessary to give in.
How strange.
The birds began to stir, and then to sing, as if each of them had thought of it separately, up there in the trees.  They woke far earlier than I would have thought possilbe.
People have thoughts they'd sooner not have.
It happens a lot.

All text by Alice Munro from Dear Life collection of short stories
All images from 2010 file on one of our trips to Alaska to visit the grand children. (the completed piece is here)

Just because this is how I feel today.
I am not myself.
And I just found out that Alice Munro and I have the same birth day and I am enjoying this book quite a bit and my hard drive is plugged in and it's spring. xo.

8 comments:

anna hanks said...

I have been enjoying your blog for a couple years. I love your stitching It was what brought me to your blog but as I read more and more I found I've connected with so much more. I immediately bought the book Dear Life by Alice Munro. Thank you for telling me about it.
Anna Hanks annapinkharley@aol.com

Ms. said...

Alice Munro is a long time favorite of mine too.

A friend once said "I'm not myself" and I replied
Then who am I speaking to? (((laughter ensued)))

jude said...

I'm with you.

Mo Crow said...

your post brings to mind a poem sent to me in a Dear John letter from an ex boyfriend over 40 years ago-
Too Many Names by Pablo Neruda

Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays
and the week with the whole year.
Time cannot be cut
with your weary scissors,
and all the names of the day
are washed out by the waters of night.

No one can claim the name of Pedro,
nobody is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain under rain.
They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,
of Chiles and of Paraguays;
I have no idea what they are saying.
I know only the skin of the earth
and I know it is without a name.

When I lived amongst the roots
they pleased me more than flowers did,
and when I spoke to a stone
it rang like a bell.

It is so long, the spring
which goes on all winter.
Time lost its shoes.
A year is four centuries.

When I sleep every night,
what am I called or not called?
And when I wake, who am I
if I was not while I slept?

This means to say that scarcely
have we landed into life
than we come as if new-born;
let us not fill our mouths
with so many faltering names,
with so many sad formalities,
with so many pompous letters,
with so much of yours and mine,
with so much of signing of papers.

I have a mind to confuse things,
unite them, bring them to birth,
mix them up, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the oneness of the ocean,
a generous, vast wholeness,
a crepitant fragrance.

Judy Martin said...

omg Mo, thank you for this beautiful heart wrenching poem and a hint of the story of your receiving of it.

you are correct - this is how I feel - I have a mind to confuse things, unite them, mix them up,

xoxo

Wolf K said...

I am what I tink I am.
Change my wolrd,
you change my thoughts.
Change my thoughts,
and you change me.
(WEK, 2017)

Carol Wiebe said...

Wow, wow, wow. Wonderful work, wonderful thoughts. My heart and mind feel wonder filled.

Lynn Holland said...

I'm reading this before I rise in the morning. What a thoughtful way to start the day.