It can be hard right now to think about light streaming through ribbons, flowers, and youthful hearts, but the world still contains all the beautiful things it always has. Let me take you away from the news for a moment as we dance around the May pole and celebrate the spirit of spring. Let me know if you have a favorite photo and have a wonderful day.
“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” —Rainer Maria Rilke
Mom said she wanted witchy photos in the woods. She wanted to dance in the moonlight and howl. She wanted pointy hats and dark makeup. She wanted her vision of us to be captured forever.
What she didn’t say is generational pain lives in our bones and she wants us to be free. She didn’t say mortality knocks and time moves oh so quickly. She didn’t say let’s be stronger, my dearies, and stop letting others control our happiness. She didn’t have to.
Mom said she wanted witchy photos in the woods. I gave them to her, minus the hats.
This is for you Mom, the one who gives and loves so big, who taught me to be strong, and who carries so much and still laughs. I hope you like the photos and know how much you are loved.
“You’re breaking generational curses. That’s why this doesn’t come easy for you. You’re who your bloodline has been waiting for.” —unknown
These photos are of my mom, my daughter, and me. All photos were taken with an Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW, except the last one and it’s a screenshot from a small video I took on my iPhone 13. My talented daughter took the photos I’m in.
find me where winter waters flow honey thick. where ferns weave baskets cradling colored stones. listen for songs dripping down cave walls, tiny fairy feet dancing delicately on crushed shells, soft foamy voices calling your name. follow them. do not despair as earthen gravity releases you. let go. reach through murky darkness until our fingertips merge. hold tight as our toes taste stars. I’m beside you watching our bubbly breath connect inside and outside. beautifully untethered.
When children are small you can sprinkle nutritional yeast on millet and tell them it’s fairy dust. With a word, it becomes so. Such is the power of language. What if we could do the same with our dreams? Here’s a poem and flash fiction rambling on about such things. Let me know what you think.
little shadow
perched on a purple wall staring at my sleeping child
what do you see shadow bird?
do you see. see like me?
my grandfather became cloud grandmother became butterfly.
I sit in her chair. I sing with his voice.
what will be left for her when I,transform?
maybe I become you. maybe I watch from a wall.
flying with one word. staying with another. word.
dream me alive. over and over and over. clove and nutmeg. owl spreading wings.
forest hears, nothing.
another dream
Transform
One night during a dream of chaos and war a woman gives birth to a baby with hair the color of fresh snow. The baby blinks at the woman with eyes as green as ancient ferns and coos like a dove. What if instead of forgetting the baby when she woke the woman decides to name her Mabel and she becomes as real as coffee.
The woman dresses the dream baby in clothes the color of fresh marigolds and wears her close to her chest in a carrier woven of the softest wool. She takes the baby out into the rain and her laugh becomes lightning. The world sparks around them and glows brighter.
The plants in the woman’s house grow with the baby—greener and taller, greener and taller until the woman is forced to cut through them with a large knife, like an explorer in a jungle. She and the baby laugh at the silliness of it as birds make nests in her living room and a family of rabbits discovers the perfect place to live within her closet.
They spend most days outdoors so Mabel can make the grass thicker, the trees taller, and the flowers bolder. The neighbors don’t know what’s making their gardens grow and the woman decides not to tell them. Not everyone believes as strongly as she does and she fears their disbelief will pull the child away.
When Mabel starts walking the woman takes her outside in the middle of the night and upon seeing the full moon the child begins to sing. The tiny lilting notes cause the stars to dance and the moon to move closer and closer to the Earth. The woman knows this won’t go unnoticed and will have terrible consequences, but she hesitates to act because love defies logic and gravity. Love defies most things.
Mabel however makes the choice for her, wiggling out of her grasp and floating toward the moon. The baby with hair as white as snow returns back into the dream where she was born and the woman walks home alone. Her house feels different but she smiles the same because Mabel is as real as coffee and her physical absence changes nothing. She wraps herself in wool and dream walks to visit her child.
“If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the imagination is worth a thousand pictures.” —J.E.B. Spredemann
This week’s assignment for the 52 photo challenge was to photograph something meaningful to you. As it’s Christmas Eve, I decided to share some decorations around my house that hold meaning for me and my family.
I hope you enjoy these photos and you have a wonderful holiday.
#1: Although this isn’t my grandma Kate’s tree, she had one just like it. You can’t turn it on for too long as the bulbs get nice and hot.#2: My mother-in-law Janet made this ornament for our family.#3: I’ve had this tree topper since my first Christmas away from home in 1995.#4: My parents bought this ornment their first Christmas together.#5: I’ve had this playset since before the kids were born and I have many fond memories of them playing with it under the tree.#6: These are vintage and remind me of my children.#7: Our Christmas cactus bloomed and it reminds me of my mother-in-law.#8: My mother made this when she was a kid in school and although it’s broken and chipped, it wouldn’t be Christmas without it.#9: I always put my kids in matching striped pajamas.#10: This doily belonged to my grandma Pat and it’s draped over my grandma Kate’s chair. Both of them are with me.
Photos were taken with Olympus OM-D and edited with ON1 Photo RAW
If you want to join the 52 Photo Challenge, you can find all the information at nicolesy.com
He had a picture of me on his work desk. A boa constrictor wrapped around my neck. He’d say, “She wasn’t even scared.”
His framed pride didn’t match my fear, so I pretended.
Not a snake charmer, I learned to drink venom. Walk through glass. Palms up, always. Let me prove how good I am, like sweet orange trees. Climb. Take cover beneath my limbs, I’ll take all the blame. Sorry for the storm, for freezing pomegranate hearts. Orphan without warmth—I know.
Look, watch me spin so bright. Sing to the moon. Ride through a rice field, kick dust onto the snow-white cranes. See me create starlight babies with magical breath— lean in. Smell them. Part me. Part you. Us.
Branches. You see? Beautiful are the buds bearing your blue eyes.
Maybe you had to move away. Once, no twice. You needed to be further from this mess; this me.
Further and further. I see.
Neck, boa, constrict— my words press like sap pushing through bark. Not fearless, but what will too late feel like when words sit stuck inside. No, say it all. Look, do you see? “She wasn’t even
Bridgette Tales 