One Year Ago

One year ago we were in shock

numb from the news

One year ago right now 

were standing, sitting, pacing

Our faces tear stained

Our hearts broken

One year ago 

our voices were shaky, quiet

and riddled with anguish

One year ago

we could not imagine today

we could not imagine how to go on

One year ago, this minute

there was a hole in our hearts

forming, deepening

 One year ago today

One year ago today

One year ago today

 Today, I honor one year ago today

I remember the man we lost, taken in the wee hours when we were not expecting it

Today, as we have moved past the well-known markers of the 'firsts'...

today I remember and look both backwards and forwards at the same time

 Today, one year later

I know what was and believe in what could be

Today I honor not only my brother-in-law, Gary,

but his family as they move through their own "one year ago..."

feelings.

I believe in what could be, because I believe in my loved ones.

Hold your own loved ones close as you move through your todays

One never does know what tomorrow may bring. 

With Love, Nancy

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2017

Before & After #7

BEFORE

AFTER

I cleaned off the arm of the couch.
I've been using these bits while mending sheets. 

Thank you to all of my wonderful readers who come back time and again to read and look and comment.  

Each one of you is much appreciated!

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2013

Before & After #6

I love these little treats

So juicy and so sweet

When I get my hands on them

I eat and eat and eat!

BEFORE

 AFTER

I've become quite skilled at the single peel,

but I've had lots of practice!

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2013

Before & After #5

Before & After #5...AKA 2 Days...AKA Day/Night:

Thursday's moon follows me home and greets me broadly as I exit my car.

Mid-day work walks on my lunch break offer a time to contemplate or communicate with loved ones.

Today I notice new growth.

I head over to the street were I know a Jacaranda tree is in bloom.

There are many of these beautiful trees along my commute or daily walk.

There she is!  So pretty and I know she has left many many flowers 

on the ground for me to collect.   I think I will try dying with them.

I gather up a small collection to experiment with.

Aren't they a beautiful color?

Friday's moon welcomes me...sitting on the wire.

"Seek Balance" I always say!

Friday night, I get out my small pot.  The one you met here.

A piece of white cotton and a piece of gorgeous velvet from Deanna.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

What a beautiful golden color!

Each night when I get home, the new geraniums greet me.

Purchased near the beach on Mother's Day, they are a happy addition to my homecomings.

I love returning home.

One day he notices the cement around them and shows me, 

knowing my mind will go to dying!!

Maybe that's next!

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2013

Before & After #4

Before & After #4: Story in Words

BEFORE-BEFORE:
My commute each day, one hour each way, covers a few neighborhood streets by my house and 5 main roads.  Each of the main roads is a major thoroughfare through distinct areas.  Each right or Left turn places me in a totally different type of neighbor hood.

I have written dozens of essays (posts) in my head as I cruise along.  The words are deep and pondering, witty and strung together like poetry.  But, by the time I arrive back home at night they've escaped my sieve of a brain, until I'm back in the car once again.

I am planning on writing some of these stories down, eventually.  I have an idea list.

BEFORE
The story I'm starting with today is an image that has stayed with me for almost two weeks now.  I take a lot of pictures, but this particular corner does not lend itself to a Safe - click without really looking through the camera shot.

So, I will attempt to paint the picture with my words.


After I leave my little semi-rural-residential neighborhood, I merge onto the first main road, traveling south(ish).  Then it is a right onto a fairly busy main street, which runs the length of my valley.  I turn right onto the road that faintly twists through a mountain pass, major freeway, running parallel to my left.  This road is usually empty, except for maybe one or two cars.  I only zip along for a few minutes before I land at the intersection near the overpass for another major freeway (remember this is SoCal...the land of freeways! Ha!)  I make a left onto the next main road.  This is the one that wraps around the mountain and ejects me into the next valley.  This is 'The Valley', if you're from around here.  It's been depicted in movies, television shows, popular songs and even birthed it's own language/accent!  I'm sure you heard of Valley Girls before!  I briefly continue along this road until I get to my next turn...a right, which points me down the length of the Valley.  I remain on this street the longest and it gives me the most to ponder.  11 miles or so later, a right turn onto the last main road of the route.  This street marks a big difference in the look of my drive and inspires completely different ponderings.

This last turn is where the Before & After took place.
Each morning I turn right and my eyes, after checking for traffic, fall to the road ahead of me.  But each evening as I sit in the left turn lane (why do I always miss this light!?)...waiting to turn, I'm able to glance to all sides.  The corner just to my right holds a single family home.  In this spot, the homes are fading from tri-plexes or 4-plexes into single family homes and this one on the corner is pretty and nicely kept.  There are big trees.  Really big.  Taller than the ones I had out back.  Maybe 40 feet high.  I don't know...I'm not too good at guessing this.  But, suffice it to say, they are big...and old.  Nice and straight with full trunks.  Two trees sit on the parkway (that belt of grass between the street and the sidewalk/lawn of the home).  One sits on the front lawn of this home.
That's the one I notice, for it is that one that the man and boy stand under to throw a football or hit a pitched baseball.   That's the tree that they tie a rope around so the boy can practice jump-roping.  These warm spring nights, strung together like pearls on the strand of childhood's memories...these are the nights I notice the tree and the family.  And for these three nights, sitting closely together, I reflect on the magic of twilight when it's warm and you're young, or you are with someone young...playing.  I feel blessed to watch their evening fun while remembering my own play at dusk.  There was tag and tree climbing and hide & seek and well, just hanging out.  All of it was perfection because I was young and did not have to go in until it was dark and the street lights came on.  And I was trusted to do just that.  No one called to me or my sister.  We were respected to be mature enough to follow the rule...and we did (at least until we were a bit older!)  So I watch these individuals feeling a happiness for their moment in the night air and fondness for the memories of my own.
The night they jump rope was the night this really hit me, the specialness of it all.

AFTER:
The very next morning, as I hung that right turn, the jump rope memory came to me as my eyes fell on space.  Big...Open...Space.
And in the split second it takes to make a right hand turn, it registers that there is Space because the jump rope - baseball - football tree is gone!
I mean gone-gone.  There is not a branch or some leaf scraps...there is not even a stump.  Gone.  The only thing to show for that childhood magic twilight is a misshapen circle of brown earth in the middle of the green lawn.  A flat brown space where once a limitless empire stood.
In that split second of turning right, a world changed and I am forever marked by the witnessing and the noticing of it.

Before & After #3

Before & After #3: Story in cloth

BEFORE

Fabric is true White-White, bad lighting gives the yellowed tint.

This is the white fabric I mentioned.  

I found it neatly put away in a Zip-lock bag, the remnants of an earlier project with young children.  I have no recall of what that project was, nor do I recall what medium was used to paint the smaller squares.  Therefore, I have no idea what will happen to it when I wash it.

However, I could care less!

So, this white and lightly colored fabric (cotton) became an experience in just doing.  Maybe not as much What Ifing as just going!

There were 4 white blocks and a stack of small white with color applied squares.

Work with what you have Nancy.

Don't over-think it...just stitch.

AFTER

First sewn block.  Small colored one centered on larger White one.

Glue stitch, a square and an X.

Second white block sewn.  A 9 patch.

I merely cut up the smaller squares to create the 9 patch.  

I did not look at placement according to color.  I just randomly pinned them down.

No over-thinking = no stress!

Third block visits the desert!  I finished this one on our road trip.

One little square, 5 smaller squares.  Again, cut & randomly placed.

No worries about the coloration and how one square fades into another.

Just sewn.

Doesn't it blend nicely with the desert sunset?!

While waiting for the night sky, I had some fun with these three blocks.  Pinned together, they hung against the twilight sky.  They shone in the dark.  They waved in the breeze.

The next day, while visiting the Santa Ysabel General Store, I spied an amazing spool (10.5 yards) of velvet trim.  I had to have it!

There were several color choices, which were all appealing, but I chose the dusty green.  It looks more grayish in the pictures, but it's green.  It came on a beautiful wooden spool that smells like cedar!!

I was not sure what I'd do with it, but I kept the spirit of no plan-going in mind.

By the next day, block number 4 was complete.

4 smaller squares, spaced out and stitched.

Again, no color planning.

I didn't even look too carefully at the spacing.

Just pinned and sewed.

Can you see the California Yucca plant to the left of the cloth, right under my arm?

They were blooming and expired like crazy...all over the place!

AFTER-AFTER

I cut and placed 4 snippets of the velvet trim in the middle of each smaller square.

No big meaning, just wanted to use it.

4 little dusty green rectangles.

I had wanted the stitches to hold it on to hide, by using a matching color of floss, but I didn't have one with me.  Then I thought of using an earthy color.

But...when I picked up a needle to use, it had a bit of magenta-pink on it.

It looked so nice against the green.  So spring-like.

As I stitched with it on the drive home, we passed a wildflower that was the perfect match for this pink!!  How's that for confirmation of choice?!  Ha!

I wasn't too sure if I liked the look of the trim once sewn.

It is so much darker and heavier.

But in the spirit of random doing, I'm leaving it.

I'm even adding some to the other 3 blocks.

That's the all the plans I have so far: Sew on trim.

I don't know what I will do with the 4 blocks past that.

No over-thinking allowed.

Place, pin & stitch!

That's enough.

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2013

Before & After #2 ~ UPDATE

My traveling companion went to the desert with us...

where he came a bit unraveled and abruptly split in two!

Funny how what was once his head, now looks like a whole body...arms and tall ears become arms and legs.

Awww...little, well, littler man!

Hello fella!

Now what life lesson is held in this?

Less is more?

Perhaps.

I'm not really sure either, but it's fun to ponder!

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2013

Before & After #2

BEFORE

Saw this little gem on my work walk.

I always notice bits of branches like this.

Funny how a sidewalk filled with the remains of high winds spotlights one to be noticed.

Anyway, I felt compelled to take it with me.

So, I did.

Then I did this...

 AFTER

I took it home.

Showed it the route along the way.

Daylight led to twilight.

Together.

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2013

Before and After #1

This is one of the ideas I had to possibly do for Everyday April.

But I really don't know if I could think of a Before & After for Every day of the month.

That's a lot!

Instead I decided to do Everyday Me!  It's sort of a continuation of my birthday post.  Little nothings about me.  Most not blog worthy (boring or personal), but instead little notes to my children.  I do a lot of that.

Then I thought I'd make a 'page' of the Before & Afters.  But do readers really go to the pages up there?

I don't look at my own pages very often and have taken some of them down.

So, no, I think I will just post them right on the main blog and number them.  

That will work.

This is the first one.

BEFORE

I picked these two petals up as I went out the door on my way to work.

They lay just outside my front door, dappled in the morning sunlight.

I love the smooth feel and sweet scent of rose petals.

I caressed them as I drove.

I remember now, as I type this, a friend who had over 100 rose bushes surrounding her home.

Holding it in Perfumed Beauty.

Anyway...

When I parked at work I held them up for a photo shoot.

Trying to see if the sun would make them transparent as it does cloth.

Thinking of light & dark...line & shadow...

as we've been doing in the What If? class.

Enjoying a moment.

Finding beauty as has been recently discussed at Grace's and elsewhere.

I lay them, side by side, gently on the passenger seat.  Then I went into work.

I wondered what will they look like when I return on breaks or my lunch?

I wonder if I will open my car door to a flower shop smell of roses?

 

AFTER

This is what I returned to 9 hours later.

Inside my hot car...

Dry, wrinkled...yet color so intense.  So vibrant.

So, it seems that this has been a lesson in embracing the beauty where you find it, 

where it lay.

I particularly like how the wrinkles in my hand flow with the wrinkles in the petals.

These are the details that make up a life.

Make up my life.

As my usual style, I'm not sure where I'm going with this Before & After idea.

Related ideas so far are pretty typical.

Raw food ingredients...cooked/prepared meal

or

raw cloth...sewn something.

Oh yes and I thought I could have done dirty bookcase...clean bookcase!! Ha!

None of those ideas feel as poetic and message filled as my two little rose petals!

But we'll see.

No hurry.  No rules.

Just exploring.

Thanks for stopping by and having a look.

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2013