I never expected when the band slipped on my finger

that you could learn to sabotage my dream

my white picket fence

my unborn embryo

my roses climbing, the steep tumble of them thorned

but everbright with blossom

~

Even in these years I find it hard

to say I can no longer love you

maybe we were friends

maybe that was a role we assumed

or I assumed

~

I assumed you wouldn’t try and hurt me

as I wouldn’t try and hurt you

that things like love and honor and cherish

weren’t just words rolled off our tongues

~

I assumed that we might respect each other at least

given all we’ve gone through

given how I thought we were holding each other up

the 27 years we did that, wearing golden circles you picked out

~

Walking around the house

I look for evidence that you were ever even here

there are some shoes under a bed

papers, books, a pair of glasses

the inscriptions in books my mother gave you

~

I don’t want to assume the worst about you

even as my heart turns a corner

even as my heart circles back around

and I pace in rooms where we once laughed

or toasted, toasty-warm under rain.

I missed your brown hands,

so assured

a rake.

I can understand how most of America feels right now about things made overseas.  Thirty years ago everything was made here, like say towels and linens and kitchen things and tools — everything.  Now?  Nothing is.  Almost nothing.  It’s sad.  In the interest of being an American female I bought these things for $30 yesterday.  Here is a picture:

I want it to be brighter.  I really do.  These things weren’t made here except for the bottom cushion that I’m going to put on a circular rattan chair I have.

I liked the colors and the 60′s prints.

People live under the misconception that all is well.

But it’s not.

Because the consumer economy is supposed to drive this country, only?  The average American who is no longer working isn’t part of all that.

Irony.

That is what is driving America in the moment.

Anyway.

Got past the New Year, got past my BD, next is Valentine’s, yeah right.  Getting my own roses, srsly this year — I will.  Made a bouquet from white freesias and red burnished looking roses in an orange vase — they look nice, happy, flowers always make me happy, always — whether I planted them or got them.  Anyway, here are those — dreamy looking blurs and sharp realism…

Organization.  Something I was always very good at at work but no so much here — there is something fab to be said for it, tho.

Doing kitchen, doing the bath, slowly — paring down — has to regain my sense of self somehow.  I really do.  Trying to eat, will and can.

Walking.  My BoyBoy.  Helps.

He is the curliest!

A friend did a reading for me and then I did my own and got this with some other cards — the symbols mean everything when casting — so used this deck which was handy not that they are tarot by a long shot –

In the reading I got the Death card was beneath the significator and the Strength card was above — which was good — because has needed strength to get through this last decade.

So anyway, my own reading carried the Star forward as the signif just to see what would arrive and it all makes sense to me, actually in these cards — outcomes will be love and sun which should be a bit easy, hopefully once traveling again.

The crown was good.

The deer in headlights, past.

The pine and the mountains past.

The arrows of the fates and fortunes future.

I’ve been writing this memoir that contains aspects of three lives of women — my grandmother, my mother and myself — very different lives — my grandmother’s was by far the easiest.

I’m getting out of the loveless place.

Anyway, I want my life to be like my grandmother’s era was in the 20′s when it roared.  This is one of those times when you start thinking about how much time is left?  Dunno never did before?  This year yes.  Remembering relationships, choices, past loves.

This is a year of no mistakes again.

No mistakes in love.

But this is a year when I am going to find love again.

I know that.

It’s probably going to be overseas that I will.  Going to renew my passport!  Going to plan a trip for when the divorce is over.  Likes this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdJGMZDY0-8

Dunno, the life I led here is over and I am not attached to this place anymore.

This is a year where one recalls watching The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, and laughs a little, or not.

Love.

It’s always worth it, in the end.

xxoo!

13 suitcases… I love the sound of that.  At this age my grandparents were traveling the world, albeit a different world that they moved through than the one we have now.

Europe.  It has the best ring to it.

This is my self-portrait for january 2012 — it’s me!  Taken seven days ago, and colorized — Uranus is now in my 5th house, a good place for the arts… & for me…

Anyway, yesterday I went to my fav nursery and got some new gardening gloves, looked at roses, ended up getting strawberries & pinks –here they are!  This will be a year I am gardening bigly around here — has a bunch of work to do.  A bunch of work, like you can’t believe.

My BD is coming up on Sat & this is a period of “life-review” for me.

Pix!

Strawberries are very easy to grow!

I found a new source yesterday!

Scroll around and look at what they have, especially these!

As I think about peace and quiet, to me those things are found in gardens.  Yesterday I watched for birds and a mockingbird was down at the little birdbath I set up.  I set out seed for them, like St. Francis.

The bush tits come to the orange tree in the afternoons.

Anyway, there is nothing like planting new roses.

I haven’t for a very long time.  This year I shall.  My birthday is in a few days, and that is what I plan to get myself — some new bare roots.

My other favorite old source was this one…

Once I went to Watsonville and saw the gardens.

I love the Austin roses, really exquisite…

xxoo!

I think I’d be happiest just designing gardens all around myself right now.  That is maybe what is going to happen.  Planting an orchard is something I have always wanted to do.  Roses I have done forever.  It was the first thing I ever planted on my own.  Land = Quiet.  This is what I am thinking.  And poetic reveries as well.

It’s what I am writing in 2012.  I started writing that in 2009, but now in my short stories I am really going to go for that, bigtime.

Just sent Flowering off & has fingers crossed it makes it into the antho because I like that press, a lot.

Anyway, love cures most things — it does.  Falling in love.

Literary women who are my role models had many loves in their lives.

Publish, not perish.

xxoo!

Adrienne

ps: new fragrance for the New Year is Dior — it’s fantastic!

I got it for myself.

A new picture is below — for the new era of my life –!

Perfume, magnifiers & you know, Flowers galore!

I can’t.

Since August I have thought there is a way to end the stress by ending myself but, there is life someplace out there — maybe that can be happier.  God, just one day at a time right now.  Yesterday this was the sunset on New Year’s Day.

I am the simplest person.

If only I had not let my husband control everything.

I did, because I was young and dumb.

Why did I hand over the reins to 27 years of my life to someone who never really loved me first?

I don’t know.

Sitting here today, I know there are two ways out.

One is ending myself, the other ending the marriage.

In the meantime, I am trying not to have a heart attack over what he has done.

It’s getting dark and cold.

I’m going to wash the dishes and continue on the house.

I gave him 27 years of my life and I loved him.

I really did.