My Latest YouTube offerings from a recent trip to Vermont.
Category: Photography
Random Photos From A Life
Notes from the Other Side
Sometimes sorrow turns into
irreversible regret.
We choose to live an icebox
existence.
Wallowing in misfortune’s
frosty glass.
Consorting with memories
Squabbling with dreams.
The poet too has felt life
interrupted, days that vanish
upon awakening.
I’ve known suffering and
the pull of solitary confinement.
Now looking back from a happier
vista. I’m hear to tell you,
the pitch of pain may never
be unheard, but it does gets softer,
fading into a bittersweet refrain.
The past becomes part of
your case history, to be read
by nostalgia’s light on rain
soaked nights.
In time the visible world brightens
Let it entice you with the woo of
the today and what will be.
Take refuge in the heat of
places uncharted, linger in
the sweet realism of the hour.
Walk toward the future
with unshackled feet.
The misbegotten shadows
behind you now.
Let the smudge of the sun,
and the warmth of a steadfast
hand be your guide.
-Tosha Michelle
Love Me
Love me, not just my body,
but the curvature of my being.
Take me as I am, as I’ll be.
Give me the quiet music
of your heart. Teach me
the lyrics and tune.
Love me for infinity, and not
just indefinitely. Tell me
we can work, if we work
for it as if it were our livelihood.
As if it were our art.
Love me enough to make
revisions to replenish.
Let me be the black and
blue uprooting your veins.
Love me from the inside out,
where the echos are heard everywhere.
Let me be your irreplaceable.
This body, this spirit, this future corpse.
Let me translate and soothe in a language
that’s never been anywhere but us.
Love me with substance and let our love
be a love of existence. Knowing I’m flawed,
that I’m nothing special but knowing
I’m enough for you.
Love me, like an
idea fully formed, like a love poem
filling the paper to capacity, full of hope,
written at the desk by heart light.
Love me, like yours is the hand
holding the pen.
Let the rhythm belong to you.
Love me, like I’m the
syntax of your verse,
the reason behind your rhyme.
Love me,
Tosha Michelle
The Middle
The middle years brings first a relentless restlessness, that eventually blossoms into a melancholy sweetness, a mindfulness of the passing of years. No bitterness allowed here, only a tender tendency to remind ourselves that the world brightens with grace and gratitude.
We see summer now for what it is fleeting with it’s sun soaked glory days and hazy afterglow appeal. Now we linger in autumn’s red leaves and take time to appreciate the moss under our feet, the hand holding ours, ready to go anywhere, to adventure and explore.
We know winter will come soon enough, moving like liquid lead over our lungs. For now we breathe, Now still, in this moment that is ours. For today let’s create some
unforgettable music. Music that will sustain us on future days when the world seems less possible. I’ll provide the lyrics.
You can hum the tune.
Years on my dear, we can dance under nostalgia’s moon and let our melody move over our souls, reviving and replenishing in the spaces between the here and hereafter.
-Tosha Michelle
‘We found our place
On the branch of an old oak treeOur feet would sway
To a voice in the breezeAnd birds would sing
On the banks of a narrow streamThese memories will stay with me’https://youtu.be/j6Keg3XKKjM
Bonfire Hearts
I haven’t written a proper blog in ages, this post will be no different. Ha ha. To be honest, I haven’t been writing that much. What I have been doing is reading obsessively, watching Ken Burns documentaries, and picking out paint swatches for our home office. What’s that? Did you just say I was a nerd? RUDE (but true). My latest hobby is collecting old books. You can’t have a home office without lots of books. We’ve also taken to cooking more and trying new recipes. When the pandemic is over, everyone is invited her to my house for supper. 😌
In other news, is anyone else glad 2020 is behind us? 2021 is shaping up to be a more hopeful year with a new president and the promise of inoculation against Covid. It’s just heartbreaking all the lives that have been lost. I don’t know anyone it hasn’t affected in some way. My brother got the virus last month, but has recovered. My sister-in-law is currently in the hospital battling it. Say a prayer for her. Thankfully, she is getting really good care The medical field has really made strides when it comes to treating those with Covid, it’s just sad that some hospitals are so overcrowded and people can’t get the help they need I wish that this pandemic had been handled better from the start. Our government really let us down, but let’s not get into politics.
Anyway, I just wanted to touch base with you all. I hope you are well and managing. I think that’s all any of us can do at the moment. On a random note, Jon Stewart is now on Twitter. Oh my God, my tweeting life is complete. 😜❤️
How about we end with a little music from Dashboard Confessional…
Haul Out The Holly
Christmas has begun at our house.
Scarecrows and Such.
Recently, we put our handy dandy masks on and headed downtown for a walk outside. It was a gorgeous night, perfect for a stroll. On our adventure we encountered some new friends, allow me to introduce you to them.
Happy Almost Halloween.
I Can’t Hear You.
Raise your hand if you’re tired of keeping company with anxiety, perpetuated by a relentless virus and the dwindling sanity coming out of Washington. The wind there cold and reeking of hubris and greed. Empathy becoming a supernatural thing.
Raise your hand if you’re losing your patience with narcissistic behavior and a culture more into canceling humans instead of reforming them, a society on the precipice of being nothing more than a hollow hulk.
Raise your hand if you’re done with the self absorbed and lack of regard for community. People happy to button their own coats but with no time to consider their neighbor’s thread bare wear.
Raise your hand if you’re tired of apathy, of those wrapped in a flannel sleep, Always content to let others shovel the coals.
Now instead of raising our hands, let raise our voices. Don’t wish for lungs that can sing. Sing! Step up! Be visible. Be heard. The dark blistering rain is not quite frozen yet. Prove that all the light did is far from done.
-Tosha Michelle
Parks and Recreation
Recently the family and I have been rewatching the comedy Parks and Rec. According to my daughters and better half, Leslie Knopes is my alter ego. Who knew? I see myself as more of a Ron, minus the tache. Ha! Anyway, in honor of my TV character doppelgänger and in the name of levity, (which let’s be honest, we all could use in our current Covid 19 world), here are some of my favorite quotes from the show. Y’all stay healthy and for the love of all that’s sane, wear a friggin mask!
- Everything hurts and I’m dying.” – Leslie Knope
- “There’s only one thing I hate more than lying: skim milk. Which is water that is lying about being milk.” – Ron Swanson
- “Time is money; Money is power; Power is pizza; Pizza is knowledge. Let’s go!” – April Ludgate
- “I am a Goddess, a glorious female warrior.” – Leslie Knope
- “Just remember, every time you look up at the moon, I, too, will be looking at a moon. Not the same moon, obviously, That’s impossible.” – Andy Dwyer
- “Sometimes you gotta work a little so you can ball a lot.” – Tom Haverford
- “We have to remeber what’s important in life: friends waffles and work. Or waffles, friends, work. But work has to come third.” – Leslie Knope
- “Halloween is my favorite holiday. It’s just the best. And I don’t have to work! Hey slutty teenage girls dressed as sexy kittens, pump your own stomachs this year!” – Ann Perkins
- “If I keep my body moving, and my mind occupied at all times, I will avoid falling into a bottomless pit of despair.” – Chris Traeger
- “What I hear when I’m being yelled at is people caring really loudly at me.” – Leslie Knope
Everything I Never Told You 