all Christmas trees

Am I the only one shocked by the fact that Christmas is only days away? Sheesh. Everything catches me by surprise these days. Everything does - and nothing does. I can't explain it any better than that. Probably an age-related thing.


Anyway. Christmas! Our first here on Moss Hill, and the house feels like it was made for this season. 

Also: Does everyone think their Christmas tree is best? (I hope so!!) I know I do...

Liberace Santa, all decked out in gold glitter

Then again, I think all Christmas trees are pretty fabulous. Show me yours!

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 The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!

 - Charles N. Barnard

http://confessionsofasineater.blogspot.com/

a tangle of mysterious prejudices

little me, age 8-ish

When I was young I had very long hair. To my ass long. 

It was the mainstay of my identity: I was the girl with the long red hair. (Also, the freckles.)

Sometime in my early 20s I cut it, and have been in an endlessly repeating cycle of cutting, growing, cutting, growing ever since. Ad fucking nauseum.  

Most recently I spent an entire year growing it out. Then I got a bug up my ass (because "a wild hair" would be too obvious here) and cut it all off. Again. I loved it for about a week. Now I'm growing it out. AGAIN. 

And the reason I want long hair at all? So I can wear it up.

I know. But there it is.

Me, on Berneray, Scotland 2010

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Hair brings one's self-image into focus; 

it is vanity's proving ground.  

Hair is terribly personal, 

a tangle of mysterious prejudices.  

~Shana Alexander

http://confessionsofasineater.blogspot.com/

the wise trees

Snow, again, and bare trees. 

I love this sparse season. 

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Winter Trees 

by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details

of the attiring and 

the disattiring are completed! 

A liquid moon 

moves gently among 

the long branches. 

Thus having prepared their buds 

against a sure winter 

the wise trees 

stand sleeping in the cold.

http://confessionsofasineater.blogspot.com/

The World Needs More Zelda

It's easy, so long removed from childhood - my own, and my now-grown children's - to forget what enormous weight our simplest words and actions might carry for the child who is watching us. 


A simple teasing remark, "She almost named you Zelda!", takes on a life of its own, dropped like a seed into the fertile imagination of a sweet shy girl with a stash of crayons and glitter, and the next thing you know, a new child is born from that verdant ground, and Zelda herself emerges upon her glittery-maned unicorn, Summer.


Welcome, little one! Bring that Fairy Princess power on. The world needs more Zelda.

"Zelda's Story"

Summer, Zelda's unicorn pony

Love (heart), Zelda

Great niece Zelda, formerly known as Morgan

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside

 over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift

 to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible

 that it would last throughout life. 

~ Rachel Carson

http://confessionsofasineater.blogspot.com/