Upside Down Kris

Where I'm at I am sitting at a heart filled tablecloth, a grayness filled with upside down hearts asking questions. They are under the cherries that are falling from the gray background of the picture   above accompanied by a green-yellow lemon and two ceramic jugs holding I know not what. The hall is to my right behind a half-closed door that finishes in a shadowy line on the wall. The shadows contain Sophie's meow asking me to make reflections on that wall. Behind me is the countertop with the kettle still hot from the water in the cup in my lap. Whiffs of the tea tease my nostrils with fennel and honey as it swishes around my mouth tasting my tastebuds. To the left are the long windows of the French doors leading to the balcony, a balcony which was my stage during Covid. This balcony became a portal with which to communicate with my neighbors in person, a way to connect through song and chatter. So, really, in the end I am sitting in the middle of my relationships. My relati...

  My Ugly What if being true to ourselves means being ugly–showing our distate for something or someone. Should we hide it? I wonder if Buddhists  (in particular the Dalai Lama) feel disgust or dislike. Are they beyond all the pettiness? Do they have a deep acceptance of the way things are so they're not disturbed by it? I imagine that at least they don't feel aversion as much as I do. It felt good to yell at my roommate the other day, so much was my frustration against him. I know I should feel guilty because it's a petty way of reacting, but I don't. I'm only sorry that I wasn't acting the way I want to see myself, not for what I said. It released what I had been holding in for months, and at least he knew how I felt. But I k now I showed my ugly. I know it's not the calm, loving person I want to be. I ask you: must we accept everything? Where does the acceptance end and the realness kick in? Is it more important to be real or to hide impatience?    Mayb...

  Steaming my Thoughts I should let my thoughts steep for a while...let them stew in the pot until the dendrite leaves become soaked and well drained. I will strain out the goodness from the nucleus and leave the rest to be discarded.  I must take care not to leave the leaves for long and throw them out as soon as possible. Why would I want discarded thoughts to stick around, staining the counter tops and coffee cups? Even worse would be to use them again and again, especially when the thought becomes old and makes tasteless tea. *** I started a tea ritual not too long ago, so much am I enamored of the soothing substance. Every morning, it goes like this: I sit cross-legged on the couch covered by my favorite cuddly blanket. Only after I am comfortable do I take the mug: a  large picture mug that I  wrap my hands around to absorb its warmth. Then, I suck in the aroma from the steam and manifest myself into it. I take a steaming sip with my eyes closed and let it slid...

Making Jacks   Flippity flap, flippity flap goes the flapjack, flopping over on its fluffy yet fortunate side. Flip flop! Oh, no–watch the top so that it doesn't burn. The flapjack must be flapped at a fortuitous moment, that exact bridge between golden brown and creamy stickiness. Flop, flop it goes down on the plate, perfect in its crispy, crisp cooked exterior but spongy interior. Smooth batter with no bubbles creates a soft middle which knows how to bend. Slice the butter again and listen to its slight sizzle on the skillet. It's time for another flapjack: flippity flop, flippity flap. And the syrup goes glub, glub on the thirsty pancake which soaks it up with a gulp, gulp. After all, it's mostly made of flour becoming flaky as it folds into a cake. And I gobble down another Jack, smooth in the middle but a bit hard on the back. And maybe we're all a bit like Jack, spreading butter to ease the knife of life when it takes form. We sweeten our existence with the sugar...

  Morning Musings 2 The sky was highlighted in gold brown accompanied by heads of lamplights. This was the scene that accompanied my wakefulness through the glass doors leading to my balcony. If I turned on the light, the sky disappeared, smeared in black.  It's strange how turning on the light changes your perception, possibly blacking our something you would normally see, or blinding you with the "light of reason" so you fail to see what's under it.  While I was pondering this, Morning creeped through the night in a gray gown and tiptoed over to me. It was too early to say hello, so I turned my back on her and crossed the dark hall to the bathroom. When I finally reached my room, Morning was already slipping through the cracks even though the blinds tried to blind her out. But her fingers showed around the door frame and through a thin line in the window shade which couldn't totally shade her. I was awake and felt that she was, too–or maybe it was the other way ...

Day "What a glorious, scrumptious day!"I thought as I stretched in the open window, the sky blushing beyond me at the compliment. Can one use "scrumptious" to describe the day? Why not? It looks so good in its unabashed pale blue pureness that I can almost savor it. Expectations of beauty are tingling through me, the song already starting in my toes. Well, the best thing to do in these cases is to look the word up. The first definition I found on google was from Oxford Languages and says that scrumptious means "extremely tasty; delicious." However, it also describes a person who is "very attractive". What would Day be like if she were a person? Well, she would obviously be female. I imagine her wispy in white, flowing skirts. She descends with a kind of toga swirling around her. Her expression is serious, yet she is light, oh so light. She is made of light and swirls of sky. She floats around, pointing a candid finger here and there to wake the f...

  Newness–Week 4 Last highlights of newness. I hope I don't forget to always look for newness in life after writing this! Day #23: New Dance Partner An elderly man with a bandaid over his nose let me be delicate and light tonight. He let me express the music as I knew how, or as I felt it to be. God, how I love dancing with senior partners. There is nothing to prove: just to be. Day #25: Spending a weekday with my companion In our weekday wanderings we found a new shop in the center that sold used books (particularly comics and mysteries). We ventured downstairs and discovered that a record store had remained seemingly untouched there since the '80s, maybe even earlier. CDs covered the walls of our new found treasure land and the center was an aisle of records. My love found a vinyl of Joan Baez singing in Spanish that he had been searching for for a while, as well as two others that were practically being given away. This was probably because they were classical: one had a co...