Magpie Tales-Yes

Summer Evening, Edward Hopper, 1947

walking home

lights of the city behind them

leaves rustle with the wind

locusts hum

her sandals clicking, clacking

as the moon plays hide and seek

with the clouds

heat lightening flashes

She jumps

He moves closer

She walks faster

Her words "It's late"

Lost in the distant rumble

Of thunder

Ozone and old spice

Follows her

The porch light a beacon

Steps

Creaking,cracking

A bedroom light flickers on

He reaches for her hand

"Could I see you again?"

His words floating loudly

Through the suddenly still air

A bedroom light flickers off

She leans into the darkness

Towards him

Feeling his smile

Whispering

As he brushes her cheek

With his lips

"Yes"

C.M. Jackson 2011

This is a Magpie Tale---sashay here for more!

Theme Thursday-Park

New Jersey has been experiencing searing heat for the last two weeks and it is starting to make me just a little crazy. Never good, because I have an ample amount of crazy already, the humidity and the too early dog days (sorry Max) of summer make me want to hibernate like I do in the winter parked in front of the tv watching a movie or slouched in chair reading a book. My rule is the couch potato 'thang' is only allowed during the winter months. After March, it is written, I must move. Given this heat, moving means sweat---I know, girls do not sweat, they perspire or mist----hello, I sweat and therefore, wish to park myself in front of a large air conditioner and herein, right now, lies the problem. It is hot, humid and just plain not conducive to my rule. That's life, sometimes rough when you want it easy. No worries, there's always a song to get you through.



That video was done is 2008. I will never have Tina's legs, but I aspire to her energy and doo doo doo doo! Don't be afraid to sweat. Put on the hiking boots and go find a park here or here or here.

It's Theme Thursday and there is a place to park here.

Magpie Tales-Sweet Jersey Waltz

Seedlings reach up
to the sky
down into the soil
all the while
the bees buzz
the peepers peep
the sun shines
the crickets chirp
rain showers
flirt and flood
until the sun's heat
warms
glorious globes
green and yellow
finally red
calling out for
picking
ripe with sun
till the crisp air
of autumn
ends the music.

C.M. Jackson 2010
For more Magpie Tales go here...Thanks to Willow for another wonderful prompt!

Flash 55-Firefly my way

Like glitter strewn

On the warm
Emerald green grass
Fireflies begin their dance
Rising and falling
Twinkling like stars
As the sun sets
Peach and rose mingling
With an azure blue sky
Night approaches
Like a lover’s kiss
A warm breeze stirs
The soul
Awakens the mind
To memories and
Possibilities
Of a summer night

Can you tell a story in 55 words?  Go see the g-man.Yeah, it is that time again--Friday Flash 55! Enjoy!

Magpie Tales-Siren Song

Long Island Sound was like a blue green mirror frosted on its edges. An azure cloudless sky the ceiling of a vast room framed by land as we sat talking and laughing. Three friends recently graduated from high school and celebrating the first day of summer and freedom.We had always been together since kindergarten.

My best friend, Gwen, who was everything I was not, tall, blond and rich, was off to Brown. Meghan, a redhead, who could curse like a sailor much to her mother's dismay, would be going to SUNY. I would be waiting tables for the crowds at Southampton working for my cousin's catering company hoping to earn enough to pay my way to county college.

We were moving at nice clip when the wind suddenly died down and Gwen noticed the clouds coming over the horizon. Life vests on, we moved into position, just as we had been taught. Meghan stood to look for the shore and I pushed her down, shouting to Gwen to point us home. We sat in the boat as it rocked, manning the sails as the sky grew dark, the hail raining down as a curious song rang in our ears. Cold and shaken, we finally docked the boat in Port Jeff. The dock felt different when our feet hit the wood this time, hands clasped and staring out into the horizon, soaked, lightning flashing and thunder rolling across the sound.

We meet each year, twenty-five and counting, but rarely talk about the song we heard that day.

This siren song is courtesy of Magpie Tales!

Theme Thursday-Yellow

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

The color yellow makes my heart skip a beat for so many reasons...

Yellow is playful, silly and makes no excuses for being.

Yellow means unequivocal faith and trust















Yellow is ageless, evocative and oh so spring and summer ...here comes the sun...do di do do ...

It is Theme Thursday and it is all about ---Yellow--take a gander here! While your at it, stop by Magpie Tales , dance with the daffodils and see where they take you!

What did you do on your summer vacation?

"The only way round is through." Robert Frost

Here's what's going on--First, on the east coast we really haven't had summer until last week. Second, with this economy I've just had to keep my head down and work. Third, the crickets,locusts,peepers are really confused 'cause there hasn't been any real warm weather and now there is. They are singing out of tune and not in unison. Bizarre. Further or is that fourth? It's August and my toes haven't felt sand on a beach or the dusty rocks of New Mexico. Fifth, I think we need to call a "do over" on this summer.

More soon-c:-)

Theme Thursday-Summer

Summer means vacation. When my nephews were in elementary school I always planned an adventure during the summer with my friend and her two children, my honorary niece and nephew.

Summer means "Let's go to the beach!" One year we visited one of my favorite places, Martha's Vineyard. We packed my friend's van with four bikes, food and the endless gear four kids require for a week's stay at the beach. We survived the trip up 95 from New Jersey with frequent stops at the MickeyD's. The ferry ride was a big hit. My nephews were a bit concerned that there was no boardwalk or games awaiting them but once there, quickly fell under the spell of the Vineyard. We stayed at a lovely place in Edgartown, rode bikes and visited the beach every day. In the evening, we walked about town after dinner to the book store and ice cream parlor. The first night there, the three boys travelled the narrow sidewalk at the speed of light from our lodgings to town with ice cream and adventure on their minds. My dear friend, appalled, as they barrelled through crowds, causing people to step aside and at times, off the sidewalk, corralled them--ages ~10, 6 and 6 into a single file and began the march that would become our nightly walk-left, left... one two three! It was controlled and for the most part, blissful chaos from thereon in.



Summer means riding bikes. Our treks began as so- my friend riding with my two year old niece, her daughter, on the back of her bike, my oldest nephew, his brother and my friend's son with me in the rear. The two younger boys had varying degrees of cycling ability--younger nephew rode very well but didn't fully understand the need to stay on the right side of the path and honorary nephew wanted a 'big' bike like younger nephew so was learning to navigate and trying to understand why he had to pedal so much. Luckily, the Vineyard has a great system of bike paths so vehicular traffic was never an issue. So it would begin--my friend would start off , followed and quickly passed by my older nephew who had strict instructions not to exceed more than a half mile lead, his younger brother pedaling gleefully albeit on the wrong side of the path and honorary nephew sometimes pedaling with me following yelling, "Right! Right! The other right! to younger nephew and "Pedal, Pedal, Pedal!" to honorary nephew.



I am pleased to report, we made the trip, without injury or injuring other cyclists. A good time was had by all.



Finally, summer means popsicles and the potential for an 'all girl getaway' since the boys were now too old to hang out with us. Hence, this popsicle moment in Chicago with my honorary niece after a day of sightseeing and shopping at American Girl. A whirlwind of a weekend filled with great sights, museums, food, tea with our favorite American Girl and no boys! Priceless.

4th of July weekend is just around the corner--time flies...enjoy the summer!

Theme Thursday-Water

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

I can hear Etta James singing. "At last..." It seemed that winter would never end. We had our first really warm days this past weekend. The trees are in full bloom and the tulips are swaying with the breeze. The cherry and pear trees' pink blossoms mix with the green pollen of trees' unfolding leaves. Here in New Jersey, spring is a moment that leads into the heat of summer. Take time to witness the renewal and the beauty. Listen to the symphony.

Take a Hike

People always ask me how I started hiking.

First, I was tired of sitting on the beach covered in layers, under an umbrella and constantly worrying if my 50 SPF was wearing off. On one of those perfect early summer days, a boy laughed at me, “By the time you get any color, it will be September.”

At the pool, the sight of my lily white legs brought gasps, causing parents to grab their children and reapply their sun-block.

I was always hot, but not in a manner to which I aspired. I was literally boiling under the layers covering my ‘simonized’ body. You see, despite having a bit of Italian and American Indian heritage, the English, French and whatever else, the genetic pool gave me really pale skin. After many beaches, most of the Caribbean and Florida, the reality is, “If I am very careful, I get beige.“

Then there was the thing about sitting still for hours on end, taking a break for lunch or cocktails but understanding the main focus is being 'one' with the sand, the chaise lounge and looking cool. It’s very difficult to look cool when you are being parboiled.

Swimming, as I learned from observing the really accomplished beautiful beach people, was only necessary when one became too warm and or perhaps, to get someone’s attention you ran to the sea and emerged like a god or goddess returning home from Atlantis.

I love to swim and am known to spend hours in the water---two problems, sun-block washes off and at 5’ 4” and well, being me, the image of running along the beach like Bo Derek or Cindy Crawford or Elle MacPherson was not happening.

So, here I was working hard to go on vacation, to sit under really well made beach towels from some very nice hotels, drinking very expensive cocktails, wondering, “WTF.”

Yes, I caught up on my reading, but somehow I always went home feeling, ‘eh’.

Lastly, I work in a very stressful and competitive male-oriented environment. Hence, the idea that beaches with balmy breezes and palm trees will rest the weary bones. Given the chronology of beauties running along the beach, you can see that I wrestled with this conundrum for many years. The reality was that I needed to get away and rid myself of the hoodoos of my work place.
It took some major life lessons and the approach of my fortieth birthday, to make me think.

I had never been to Europe, so I decided that even though the Italian part of me wasn’t enough to get a tan, I would spend two weeks in Italy. Learning from my experience on the beach and knowing that I was a freak for museums, art and architecture, I decided that one week would be spent in Rome and the next hiking through Tuscany so I wouldn’t be by myself ‘on the beach’.

So that’s how it began, one small step, many stories.

Here comes the sun...

There is a wood thrush in my backyard singing a song despite the thirty something degree drizzly gray day we have going on. It is February, after all, which means one day may be glorious like yesterday –sunny, clear blue skies, with the next reminding us that it is winter. For those of you who love winter, I apologize for what I am about to write.

Enough already!

How many more below thirty bone chilling dark windy days have you got left, mama nature? I am tired of the cold air fogging up my glasses, getting my coat caught in the car door, slip sliding down the driveway on black ice and the endless cloudy gray days.





Yes, I know there is nothing like the quiet majesty of freshly fallen snow or the bare branches of trees, but it is time. So I am on the look out for signs that mama might be ready to move on. My singing buddy is certainly one sign and the buds on branches are another.

Until then, let’s think of water lilies, sunflowers, morning glories, coreopsis and lavender. Close your eyes, lift your face to the sun and feel the warmth as scents of freshly mowed grass, pinon and warm soil dance your way.