Grass is there to be rolled on

I found a few little poems I wrote in my lecture notes over last term:

Roses are red, violets are blue, I didn't do my homework, how bout you? Lifes too short to waste in a book, so I'll make you a deal, I'll bake you a cake, we'll meet in the park, we'll stay out till dark, and not waste any more time with silly old marks!

little jonny small pox, sitting on the chop box singing to the world with glee! along came Miss ratchet, carrying a hatchet and made short work of thee!

Pictures in my coffee cup, playing through the day, clouds gathering along the edge threatening to drain, meadow cowslips lightly tapping on my knees, wooded smells and grassy dew, sip my coffee & breeze disturb my prairie scene, lattice of honey dew, my eyes move idly, murky surface shift, gulp my coffee down & head out to paved concrete slopes, wishing for my meadowy landscape back in my coffee cup.

The Hamster wheel

Having waded through the dredges of my memory to compose the previous story, I seem to have unearthed other buried childhood recollections.

This one is about a hamster we bought when I was about ten, my brothers named him Coolious (pronounced "cool" then " 'ee'-ous"). He started off in a rather small cage, I think my parents thought he wouldn't last very long. But as days turned into months us kids pooled our weekly allowances to buy him a fancy cage, with tubes going every which way, and most importantly a shiny yellow plastic running wheel attached to the side of the cage. We all agreed with high pitched enthusiasm in the pet store that a wheel would be a definite must, and where eager to get home and watch Coolious run his little hamster heart out in the shiny yellow wheel. We set up his new cage complete with shredded newspaper carpeting, fresh cotton wool for bedding and enough food for ten hamsters. With a combined extreme giddiness amounting to a perplexing silence for our young ages, us four kids watched wide eyed as my mother introduced Coolious into his new home. Coolious was much less impressed with the cage then we were. He sniffed around the edges, checked the the cotton wadding and performed a brief tour of the intricate tubes. Having found them satisfactory he then approached the wheel, we eagerly watched waiting for him to climb in and run like mad, but all Coolious did was place one timid paw on its base and having felt it shift with his weight, found the entire contraption ridiculous and went to dig into his abundant food. My mother explained to us that he would have to get use to his new cage before he started to enjoy all its benefits.

So everyday for just over a week we would all ask one another if any one had seen Coolious running in his wheel. Eventually we began to think maybe Coolious was just not the wheelie running type of hamster. Then one day our mother poked her head into my room and listened for a moment, she asked if I knew where that strange noise was coming from, I didn't hear anything. I followed her out into the hall where I could hear it, my siblings already searching for the noises origin. Then my little brother called from inside the upstairs play room that he'd found it. We all crowded around Coolious's cage, and watched as our little hamster ran like crazy, not in, but on top of his big yellow wheel. He was perched in the small area between the roof of the cage and on the outer top part of his wheel, and he was clearly having a ball.

Since no one had told Coolious that that wasn't the way to use the wheel, he simply did it his way. It didn't matter to him that the hamster on the cages assembly box ran inside the wheel, he was his own hamster, did things his own unique hamstery way. I think I learnt something that day, I'd heard expressions and teachings that went along the idea of not following the pack but using your own mind and will to be your own person, but this was the first time I'd witnessed it in a way my ten year old mind could understand. So a few days later when I decided to wear one of my long elasticized skirts as a dress and my mother told me it was a skirt and not a dress, I told her I could run on my own wheel any way I wanted, it was a small step, but it was a start.


Enough childhood mushiness now!

On a completely unrelated note I'm going to put up the pictures of what I wore yesterday, and my new pants from Bassike arrived today, so I quickly snapped a picture of them before I wriggled into their cool comfiness.

First three photos: Vanessa Bruno jacket, Vanessa Bruno shirts layered, vintage pants, Marni ballet flats, Luella handbag with See By Chloe mouse key chain attached, Tiffany long silver necklace and hippy gemstone on strip of leather, also have on a short snoopy necklace & a round Je T'aime necklace, not sure if you can see them though...

Last two photos: Bassike Pants, hanging Marc by Marc Jacobs shoes & costume pearls

Snowdrops

Snowdrops are a type of flower, with white petals surrounding a small green heart shape in their center, and they are most often one of the first to flowers to bloom at the end of winter. As such, they will often be seen poking out of stubborn snow, grappling towards the sun & end of winter days.

I was obsessed with watching for them every year when I was young, braving our extensive back yard and Canadian snow drifts in search of their tiny forms. I even got lost in the forest reserve near our house several times scrambling under dense pine trees, sure that if I looked hard enough they would have to reveal their hiding spot. Eventually, with an inane persistence only a young child could muster, I would ultimately find one. At which point I would run to tell whoever was near that the fairy's had returned, and spring would be coming soon. As with many childhood imaginings I can't really explain now, I believed snowdrops were magical flowers, somehow connected to fairy's, and I wished more than anything that these winged beings existed. Because of this intense belief, I refused to ever pick any of the snowdrops, worrying it would somehow harm the small ethereal creatures. So I would simply spend a handful of minutes as often as I could sitting near them enjoying their soft fragrance I can no longer remember and really truly hope to enjoy again.

One year, heading out just at the time when snowdrifts on the edge of the road turned to grey slush from warming temperatures, I came upon a site more exciting and joyful than my birthday, Halloween and Hanukkah combined. Along the house and all around the doorstep and path bloomed sweet little snowdrops, gently bent and gracefully swaying in their usual unimposing manner. My mother, soon appearing behind me, announced the fairy's must have given me a gift for announcing thier message of impending spring every year, now I will always have fairy's in my garden. I'm pretty sure I must have felt like the luckiest girl in the whole world right then.

Looking back now, equipped with unwanted knowledge, I know that snow drops flower from bulbs and my mother must have either bought or dug up many tiny bulbs, and meticulously planted them where they could not be missed. I did however question her about this a year or so ago, she denies any involvement, the fairy's did it she says.