Meri's Musings

Relyn  recently invited us to post our  No. 5 and  No. 10 posts from our blog infancies. I'm not sure what  number this was, but it was a very early post. I've reworked it just a bit and am posting it while I'm on a more exterior journey. - meri    To me, spirals bespeak an inner journey, a heroic quest  to perfectly express our uniqueness and soul signature. "Spiral" © 2008 Meri Arnett-Kremian   All of us encounter layers of meaning, find ourselves  confronted with challenges time and again. Sometimes it's the same old stuff in new packages. Other times it's brand new stuff because we've learned some of the earlier lessons  and we're ready for bigger  (and hopefully BETTER) things.  Who hasn't circled round and round, trying to find that center  of stillness and peace? Who hasn't longed for a sure  and steady path to a blissful destination, even if it turns out to be ...

I don't know what experiences are in store for me the next two weeks, but I'm all packed and ready to go. There's a new wide-angle lens tucked in my bag, alongside the 18 - 200 mm lens that Nikon finally repaired. The photography workshop should be amazing. I've got a journal for notes, a little book called "Just Enough Italian," and a great big sense of adventure. I'll try to post from the road  and tell you what it's like to be a single woman of a certain age alone in Italy. (These are prints based on my last trip to Venice. I suspect I'll have some new material on my return.)

Don't you just love afternoons when the sun is peeking out  from behind cloud curtains  like  the watchful neighbor  who knows everyone's business and you're meeting a friend at a local unbranded coffee place for a hot cup of something, a few minutes of intelligent conversation (because she is, after all, a friend and you only have really smart friends) and to give her a stack of books you've finished reading? A vanilla chai latte, please. As skinny as you can make it. I brought my own cup.   

Pitchers. This image makes me laugh because it reminds me of my days in law school. You see, I went to law school in the days when the barriers to women in law (overt or covert) were just beginning to give way. The class two years before mine was 2-5% women. The class a year ahead was 25% women. My class had 40% women. So the makeup of the student body had changed a bit, but facilities lagged behind. There was a women's locker room on the first floor with a small "ladies room,"  which as I recall might have had two small toilet stalls and two sinks. But the second and third floors of the building had always had two mens' restrooms, no women's. Realizing that would be a problem with greater numbers of  those of the female persuasion, the powers that be decided to screw up a sign that said "Women" on one of the men's room doors on each floor. So we got our ladies' rooms, complete with functioning urinals. Now they did seem to realize tha...

This is one of those things that you're not supposed to admit, but on occasion, I've heard voices. One night many years ago, when my husband was out of town, I was awakened by a booming voice, the kind you imagine that God has. It was a man's voice, a deep baritone. And it said to me, "The ability to evoke emotion with written words is a gift. Quit squandering it." It was a little unnerving. I knew I was alone, but here was this disembodied voice giving me an emphatic directive. I told a therapist friend about it. She laughed and reassured me that I wasn't having a psychotic break. "What are you going to do about it?" she wanted to know. I lived for many years ignoring the message, not doing what I'm clearly supposed to do. Oh, it's not that I didn't write. I did. On the sly .  Hoarding the words. Keeping them to myself. but now it's time to start letting them go. So he won't scold me again.

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the Universe about us "In a Vase on My Table # 1" © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian the less taste we shall have for destruction. - Rachel Carson "In a Vase on My Table # 2" © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian I am putting my focus on wonder and breathing peace into every cell of my being. "In a Vase on My Table # 3" © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian Where do you want to place your focus on this day of remembrance?  "In a Vase on My Table # 4" © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian ps    If you're looking for my Ruby Tuesday post, click HERE .

After days of cloud cover and wet stuff falling from the sky, I need a dose of sun and warm weather. It's the end of May, for heaven's sake! I need to soak up sun-kissed colors. to gaze on warm, blue waters  to admire decorative doors and pretty ceramic plates arranged in pleasing rows. In other words, let's run away to a warm and sunny slice of heaven. p.s. My Mosaic Monday post is on my new blog Playing Along .