Month: March 2018

Light Parameters

A glowering candle highlights the shelves
Of jars
Of lethe,
Lethe so pretty and complacent,
Stitched by the spiders in a French nunnery
Out of the whitest, bleakest threads.
What lies beyond the candle’s territorial prowess?
Pearls cast before swine,
A vine of wine,
The truth artful and clandestine.

Once Bitten

Fireworks of pain in my fecund teeth
Advantageous chalkboards fill with unmoored drawings
In kid script
Of dragons and lagoons and devils.
Open red. See the wet birds waddle out cheep cheep.

Alarming threads sew me a bag for my head
In this titillating twilight.
Once I was 21 and I buried myself by a birch tree.
Then instantly I was 23 and I was born,
Having gestated under a plaid lamp.

I can barely bite but oh how I am bitten!
Hurt a cataclysmic light in my eyes.

Park, Patio, Planes

Today was a positive, busy day. We started off our day going to the museum on base. It is an aviation museum and had several planes, including one that we got to go in and explore. We also got to go into the original hangar from when this base was just a regional airport owned by Colorado Springs. There were all sorts of exhibits and it was very technical but still interesting.

 

I took Angelica to the park with my next door neighbor A and her son Matthew. This is the third time since we’ve moved in that Angelica has gotten to play with another kid. It makes me so happy to see her interacting with her peers and having fun. Where we used to live in Moyock Angelica never had anyone to play with and the neighborhood was really lacking in amenities. There were no playgrounds or parks. Here they are all over the place (we even have a neighborhood splash pad and skate park) and Angelica has so many places to play, and I have been meeting people. I hope to get involved with the base chapel and go to some Bible studies.

Learning to play is definitely a work in progress though. I noticed that today when Angelica was playing with Matthew, and I noticed that last night when Angelica was playing with R’s son. She gets upset with other kids easily and doesn’t always know how to go with the flow. In typical only child fashion she also runs off by herself a lot. She’s never really had the opportunity to be around a lot of kids. She’s never gone to preschool. She doesn’t have any siblings. She hasn’t gone to an in-home daycare in a long time and cried and begged to be kept at home when she did last go to one. Angelica always longs for other kids to play with but until we moved here it didn’t seem like she was going to have very many opportunities. Here I am working on making friends for both her and me and it seems like she will have more kids her age to play with. We met another mother today who has a daughter who is also named Angelica, and we met another neighbor with a little girl named Piper. Then I am making a couple of new friends out in town and they have kids her age. I am still trying to get us plugged in but it seems like there is so much more Community here.

While we were at the park Craig put together our new patio dining set we bought at the Exchange a few days ago. It is red, which I love, and super comfy.  It has six chairs, a glass table, and an umbrella. We have a big covered back porch here and I want our next project to be getting a patio sofa. We have room out there for both.

Prairie, Mountains, Weed Dispensaries

So much has happened since I last had time to write. We left our little yellow Cottage behind and drove across the country from the Eastern seaboard to the Rocky Mountains to start a new life in Colorado. Along the way we got beautiful views of Appalachia, got a tour of the Midwest, stayed the night in Kansas City and hung out with one of my dearest friends, and drove across the beautiful Prairie of Kansas. By the way, Kansas is not completely flat. There are some really pretty hills. The trip was very taxing and my nerves were shot by the end of it but I really got to see a lot of this beautiful country.

Now I have arrived in the most beautiful leg of the journey, the end of it. Colorado Springs is really cool because it’s right where the Prairie meets the Rocky Mountains. So if you look one direction you have gorgeous mountain vistas and if you look the other way you see the sweeping vast Prairie. Our house has both. If you look out the master bedroom window or the beautiful window over the master bath or the window from the craft room and office there is a picture perfect view of Pikes Peak, Cheyenne Mountain, and others. It’s breathtaking. Especially when you watch the mist and fog and clouds roll over the Peaks. Out the front windows at the house we can see the Airfield in the prairie between our neighbors houses and we can see for miles.

Our house has a formal living room, a formal dining room, built-in desks upstairs and downstairs, four bedrooms, several closets, and a huge laundry room with a deep sink and a counter for folding clothes. The bedrooms are smaller than they were at our little yellow cottage but they are still a good size and the house overall is pretty big. I really love our new home.

The neighborhood has playgrounds everywhere for Angelica and even has a splash pad she can play on in the summer. I really like military housing. It is nice and spacious and has a lot of amenities. I also like the sounds of revelry and taps, the music that they play in the morning and in the evening and at 10 at night. It is soul stirring to lay in bed and hear it. It is something unique to military life. It’s something I think Angelica will remember from her childhood after spending three years here. We will be here until she is 7 years old. I think it’s a unique little memory that she’ll be glad to have.

Craig and I have begun to explore Colorado Springs a little bit in between getting our stuff and moving in. We’ve only been here a couple of days so we don’t really know our way around but we’ve done some driving. And all I can say is wow. There are a lot of weed dispensaries. Like it’s ridiculous. They are all over the place. How much weed do these people buy?

The weed dispensaries are what really stand out in town. I’ve never been any place like this. I’ve never been any place it was legal to sell weed, let alone that there were so many places doing it. But beyond that there’s a quaint little area of downtown with interesting little shops that I think it would be fun to explore on a warmer weather day. We’ve only been to a few restaurant so far but it seems like there’s a lot of International Food here so Craig should like that. Personally I’m not culinarily adventurous so it’s not really my thing but I will go for Craig. Overall though, in spite of the fact the town is really spread out, I would say it looks like there’s less shopping here. Also, everything closes early here. Shops and things downtown are closed by 6 or 7 or earlier. The base exchange is way smaller than what I’m used to in Norfolk, which of course I expected since Norfolk has the biggest Exchange in the world. But still it was quite shocking to see the difference. However I can still get my makeup at this Exchange. And I got some beautiful decorative eggs for Easter.

I have more to write about these are just some initial Impressions. I’m glad to be back to blogging.