Little Ducks

Michael and I have just survived ten days straight of teenagers, lots of them! First we had our niece Hannah from Houston, TX with two of her friends, all graduating high school seniors, spend five days with us as their graduation present.  We had fun taking them to our favorite Boston spots, the MFA, The Union Oyster House, and Mike's Pastry.  Of course, we took them to our training ground Walden Pond, where they chose to shop in the gift shop rather than join us for a swim...our New England waters are a bit too cold for them, They went strawberry picking, ate ice cream  which apparently is more of a New England thing than a Texas thing...its more about frozen yogurt there, and the remaining three days we spent on the Cape Cod seashore, from Orleans to Provincetown, touring lighthouses, and beaches, teaching them to surf, and of course, more shopping...it was a treat for them to buy t-shirts from all the different areas, especially the Cape Cod black bear shirt ( highlighting the first ever known black bear to be seen on the Cape).

We dropped them off at the airport on Sunday, and on Monday we were carting ten students back to our home in Orleans, to host Art of the Sea Endersession educational/recreational/cultural week for Megan's high school.  We taught ten more eager teenagers to follow Emerson: "Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, and drink the wild air". We surfed, we ran, we clammed, we swam, we biked, we saw a fantastic play called The Hound of the Baskervilles complete with backstage tour and meeting of the performers, we talked of art and poetry by local Cape Cod artists and poets such as Charles Hawthorne, Hans Hoffman, Mary Oliver, and Stanley Kunitz, and did sun salutations at sunrise.

In these ten days, we listened and observed this upcoming generation, and were impressed at the intelligence and grace in which they are handling the growing pains and decisions facing teenagers. In light of the uncertain economy, social stressors, and shaping identities, all of the teens we "hung out" with demonstrated thoughtful and optimistic plans for their future. It is refreshing to see the hope and dreams in their eyes.

At one of our sunset reflections with the ten students we observed them from a distance.  Michael sketched them and I wrote.  Some of my thoughts for a poem:

Ten in a row, like ducks
without their mother, wondering about the world,
sitting, feathers tucked, quiet.
Three waddle to the water, stray
from the row beyond wonder and warmth
to feel the cold spray.
Four find the rocky edge hard
against their soft, white feathers.
Two more lost in the grasses
try to find their way.
And one remains, still
sitting, feathers tucked,
content with the setting sun.


They will find their way, their center, their carrot friends.

xo Bess

2012 Phlebotomy Schools

Call Me Bess

When I was in college, my best friend and I took an Introduction to Jazz class.  It was a welcomed break from the conservative sciences of Physical Therapy's core curriculum, and the diversity of students was terrifyingly more interesting, in a good way. Wild hair, nose rings, drumsticks tapping us on our shoulders.  This was how the other half of the campus lived and I loved it.

We learned to sit in a room with headphones and count the beats to Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Coltrane. Carlene was a quicker study because of her high school band days.  My high school days of soccer was no match.  I shouldn't have quit  piano when I was nine, but there I was, engrossed in the rhythm of sound...was it a trumpet or trombone?  And then there were the great ladies of jazz--Ella, Lena, Bessie.  For an entire semester we became them.  Carlene took Lena, Maureen took Ella, and I took Bessie.  We crooned our hearts out, karoke-style in our dorm rooms, studying of course.

Carlene, never stopped calling me Bessie, eventually shortened to Bess.  She even named her daughter after me...Tess ( it rhymed with Bess). When Michael heard her call me Bess, he immediately caught on...yes, Bess is your name.  He had a favorite Nana Bess, and now he had me.

Michael and Carlene are the only two that use that name...the two people that know my most intimate self, but I'm ready to share, to open the name up to the creative world.  Christine, I'm sorry to say, doesn't have a poetic sound, and being a lover and writer of poetry, it just won't do.  I've tried.  I've submitted a few pieces of poetry and exhibited under my given name, but it doesn't resonate with my emerging poetic self. Bess is singing in my ears...Love, oh love, oh careless love/ You fly through my head like wine.

The Company Kept

A canvas rests on the leg of a bench.
He bends to add another layer of landscape at dusk
to the one started months ago.
No need to rush,
it's the company kept.
Aside an artist, dear and kin
to art and love, unspoken
affinity to be amongst
still clouds, marsh silence,
the settled sea.
                       (thoughts for a poem I'm thinking of..)

I met with my mentor today. She is wonderful!  I have been meeting with her for two years now and she has helped me grow tremendously as a writer and an emerging poet, but more than that she keeps me smiling all day. She is one of those people in my life that I want to be around, that I get such a creative and energetic surge when I am.  She makes me think, and laugh. I am grateful to have a few of these people in my life.

The above thoughts are from a scene when Michael and a dear friend of ours were painting "plein air" in Truro, MA.  My daughter Megan and I were writing nearby. We were all absorbed in the stillness and serenity of the marsh. I was surrounded by three of my favorite people and immersed in the present moment with no distractions, except for listening to a paintbrush fall below the wooden dock.  Was it Michael's or Nancy's?

To have moments such as these is a gift. To have people in our lives such as these is an even greater gift.
I call them "my people".  The ones I feel no walls between or the need to build them. The ones I can be vulnerable with and the ones to trust when I cannot hear my own voice.  They are the greatest company kept.


In an increasingly distracting and distorted world, I find it a necessity to spend my energy wisely, to keep it centered and simple.  Michael and I often "turn off"  the never-ending information systems that overload. How and who we spend our time with is vital to our growth.  We keep rooted with each other and our carrot friends.

Which, by the way, we planted multicolored carrots. I  can't wait to see them sprout. And our peas that we planted in March our doing great!

Keep rooted!

Carrot Friends

A carrot is hard to grow

my mom used to say,

but never said why.

Feathery greens first, it finds

courage deep in the earth,

pushes upwards, unveiling,

inch-by-inch, dirt-creased, orange flesh.

I have a few, of what I call, carrot friends.

Deep-rooted, wise, they add raw color.

Not like ground-cover,

that crowds, overrides, hides.

Hold a carrot.

Feel its earth, its air.

A carrot is hard to grow,

but I’m figuring it out,

in my garden,

all grown-up.

~from Garden Series I  

Life abounds with joy to sustain us.  We need to notice.  It’s in the moon that cuts a hole-punch in a black paper-sky.  It’s in the sea with its calling tide, and sand flats that cast a spell. It’s in the sky, blue with a sun, and in the sip of air-just-right. “Joy is not meant to be a crumb,” Mary Oliver writes, and Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Scatter joy.”  It is with this spirit and it is my hope that this blog, Carrot Friends, will sow seeds of joy, like dandelion snow, land on shoulders, and tickle ears.  I wish for joy to echo within nature’s infinite nautilus. The world is filled with many sorrows and disappointments, but in keeping with life’s balance, there is an equal joy to be found.  Look and see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.

My husband Michael is a Renaissance man; a professor of law, retired judge, an elite athlete, father, son, brother, and a fine arts painter.  I am a therapist, mother, daughter, sister, a woman in love, and a poet, an emerging poet.  We found each other in this second half of our lives and now embrace Keats’s kin of truth, beauty, and love.  We collaborate and are thrilled when we can exhibit at local museums and galleries. It’s satisfying and fulfills our desire to spread joy.  Where there is art, there is hope.

Our most recent exhibit is titled Sustenance and is an expression of how we choose to live our lives finding joy in the everyday. A day well spent is one when we have been creative, active, and sensitive to the simple lines and forces of nature that surround us. We are grateful to have two places we call home.  One is near the sea where we run along its shores, swim its waters, taste its salt.  The other is in proximity to one of our most literary inspirations, Thoreau’s Walden Pond. We smell simplicity when we run and swim there. We pride ourselves as amateur gardeners and excite in the unexpected trials and tribulations that occur with New England’s unpredictable seasons. Today, a day in mid-March, we hoped to turn the soil, only to wake to a pink sky turned gray turned white with a snow squall.  We love art museums, used bookstores, thrift shops, narrow side-streets, farms, oatmeal, fresh bread, and cappuccino.  We collect old records, art, and mid-century furniture.  We have a beautiful family and dear carrot friends.  

I will blog about simple, but extraordinary, things as the moon, the clouds, baking bread, Mom’s soup, the kids, or a sprout. It is easy to take such things for granted, but I try not to, because they sustain me. One of my favorite childhood books is Frederick, by Leo Lionni, about a field mouse who gathers words and colors while the others gather nuts and berries. They think he is foolish, but when all the berries and nuts are gone, Frederick recites the colors of the sky, sun, and grass to get them through the remaining cold days of winter.  It’s an endearing story.  I will share my poetry and Michael’s art and other inspirations such as a new recipe, books, a creative product, or genuinely good news. Do you ever wonder why we don’t have a channel broadcasting life’s good news? 

If you choose to follow this blog, please pardon the simple site.  I am not only an amateur gardener, and poet, but blogger as well.  I have few skills in the ways of a computer but I know that technology can be a useful tool for connecting like-minds. Feel free to share your inspirations and insight.

Welcome to Carrot Friends!  Rich in Vitamin A and beta carotene, carrots heal and help us grow. The world is a better place with lots of carrots.