that's mrs. mediocrity to you

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being in the right place

at the right time

to capture

a perfect landing

.

So many books, so little time. Recently a friend on twitter, the lovely uncletypewriter, threw out a question asking us to name our three all-time favorite books.

After much discussion, we decided it was too hard to pick just three, and we came up with the idea of listing 50. Which kind of ties in to this being the year that I am 50. So we decided to start a little blog meme, she went first, and now here I am. I have to say, even choosing 50 was hard, and meant that I left out some really great books.

Many of these made me weep. Some of them made me laugh. Still others struck me with their originality. All of them touched me deeply in one way or another. And I wouldn’t say they are in any particular order. I loved them all equally, like children.

1. The Moon and Sixpence ~ W. Somerset Maugham
2. The Book Thief ~ Markus Zusak
3. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle ~ David Wroblewski
4. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant ~ Anne Tyler
5. Of Human Bondage ~ W. Somerset Maugham
6. The Lovely Bones ~ Alice Sebold
7. Landscape Painted with Tea ~ Milorad Pavic
8. She’s Come Undone ~ Wally Lamb
9. The Sheltering Sky ~ Paul Bowles
10. Love Warps the Mind a Little ~ John Defresne
11. A Thousand Acres ~ Jane Smiley
12. See Under: Love ~ David Grossman
13. House of Leaves ~ Mark Z. Danielewski
14. Winter’s Tale ~ Mark Helprin
15. The Secret Garden ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett
16. Ethan Frome ~ Edith Wharton
17. Bag of Bones ~ Stephen King
18. Close Quarters ~ Larry Heinemann
19. The Fault in Our Stars ~ John Greene
20. Dictionary of the Khazars ~ Milorad Pavic
21. Their Eyes Were Watching God ~ Zora Neale Hurston
22. The Last Temptation of Christ ~ Nikos Kazantzakis
23. The Shipping News ~ Annie Proulx
24. Kitchen ~ Banana Yoshimoto
25. The Mermaid’s Chair ~ Sue Monk Kidd
26. The Night Circus ~ Erin Morgenstern
27. A Dog’s Purpose ~ W. Bruce Cameron
28. The Art of Racing in the Rain ~ Garth Stein
29. Love in the Time of Cholera ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
30. Nickel Mountain ~ John Gardner
31. Song of Solomon ~ Toni Morrison
32. Of Mice and Men ~ John Steinbeck
33. The Sound and the Fury ~ William Faulkner
34. The World I Made for Her ~ Thomas Moran
35. Affliction ~ Russell Banks
36. Stones from the River ~ Ursula Hegi
37. Little House in the Big Woods ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder
38. September ~ Rosamunde Pilcher
39. The Catcher in the Rye ~ J. D. Salinger
40. Mother Night ~ Kurt Vonnegut
41. Anywhere But Here ~ Mona Simpson
42. The Hours ~ Michael Cunningham
43. Mists of Avalon ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley
44. Like Water for Chocolate ~ Laura Esquivel
45. Madame Bovary ~ Gustave Flaubert
46. Anna Karenina ~ Leo Tolstoy
47. Ironweed William Kennedy
48. Atonement ~ Ian McEwan
49. The Corrections ~ Jonathan Franzen
50. The Temple of My Familiar ~ Alice Walker

So there you have it.

A few others I read recently that could have made it onto this list: Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman, Nightwoods by Charles Frazier, Sea Change by Jeremy Page. Only time will tell if they will bump any of those above off this list.

Okay, so now it’s your turn. Would love to see your list if you feel so inclined… come back and leave me a link to your post if you do!

and what i want

is to tell you to run

the life of a poet

is filled with blood

and you will never be safe

you will always be sorry

your heart will always

fall from your sleeve

to be trampled

but we both know

it was never a choice

so i bite my tongue

purse my lips

squeeze hard

to hold the words in

just like so many other

long quiet nights

when i watched you

sleeping

and the only one

that escapes is

write

.

.

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Linking up today with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night

i’ve spent much of my life
seeking out the illusion
of peace and quiet

hiding in corners and
pasting wallflower smiles
onto ruby red lips

curling inward and
protecting a tiny kernel
called heart {hope}

listening to silence
even as the music
blared boomed sizzled

looking up at sky
while a rainbow
had its arms around me

making wishes on stars
burning brighter
than ancient ceremony

and all this time

all these years

all i really had to do
was open my arms wide
and dance

.

..

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Linking up today with dVerse poets for Poetics on peace

It just keeps snowing.

We shovel and plow, dig out the woodpile, the mailbox, the bird feeders, paths for the dog and the naughty kitten.

And then we do it all again.

We rake the roof because the spot that always leaks, the spot we had fixed again last year, is leaking again, onto the new kitchen floor that I fixed because I thought we’d finally solved the problem.

We snuggle up under this blanket of white, enjoying the hush that only comes from snow. The birds are hungry, the feeders busy hubs of red and blue, gray and gold, black and white. Yesterday, a red-bellied woodpecker joined the gang, I haven’t seen him in a while.

Life is January simple. A cycle that repeats itself over and over, driven by Mother Nature and Old Man Winter. I see them out there, working together, trying to clean things up, set things right, add some beauty to this battle-scarred world.

Never mind that one day it will all melt into sludge and mud. Never mind that your back gets sore from clearing it all away. Never mind the water dripping in the kitchen.

Put your boots on and step outside and listen.

Inhale.

You can hear a snowflake land. You can smell the clean of this comforter.

A red cardinal lands on a branch and you can see the heart of winter.

It just keeps snowing.

2013 has declared itself to be The Year of Ordinary Magic.

Because you don’t have to be a child to see the world through the eyes of one.

All you have to do is remember.

I hadn’t really chosen a word for this year, though I had thought about declaring it the Year of Simply Being. You know, no agenda, no plans to lose this or gain that, just being.

But then, just as last year declared itself the Year of Discarding, 2013 quite suddenly decided to be The Year of Ordinary Magic. Which is not just any kind of magic, but rather the simple, everyday kind. The magic in the firefly that dances outside your window. The shape of a shadow that does not reveal its source. The flower that only opens in the moonlight. The joy of falling backwards in the snow, not caring if you get some down your neck, up your sleeves, in your hair.

There is wonder all around us. But sometimes, we forget to remember to look.

It all started with a a post my friend Graciel did, about letting go and rolling in the grass, to which my response was: “It’s too cold to roll in the grass just now, but if we get enough snow, I promise to make a snow angel.”

She held me to that promise, and we made a plan to make snow angels and then post the results. And then we had to wait for the right weather, and then for me to get over the flu. And then we invited another friend, debi, who lives a magical life in Texas, to join us by making her own kind of angel, because, well, snow isn’t easy to come by in Texas.

And there it was: “We should do this periodically throughout the year.”

So yesterday morning I donned my husband’s big old gold and purple hooded puffy Vikings coat and a pair of red and black ski pants and my purple rain boots (yes, I looked like a dork) and I went out to the front lawn, (yes, the front, where everyone could see) and made a snow angel.

I can’t remember the last time I did that. Perhaps when my son was a child, twenty-some-odd years ago.

And it was fun. It was snowing big, fluffy snow-globe flakes. The snow is so deep that it caught me gently as I fell backwards, and I lay there looking up at the grey January sky, and giggled. And it was magic. One tiny moment of ordinary magic.

So here’s the thing: we want you to join us. Look for the magic, all year long. And then share it with the world.

It doesn’t matter how you choose to participate. With a photo, a blog post, a tweet or a status. It doesn’t matter how often. Once a week, once a month, regularly, sporadically, or only just once.

Because it’s magic, remember? And there are no rules in magic.

All you have to do is keep your eyes open.

And every so often, let it catch you, looking.

::

Here is an image you may download to display as a button if you so desire…
(I will try to work on making it a functional button, for now, it is just the image)

We have also started a group Pinterest board as a place to record the magic we find. If you’d like to be added, just let me know, either here in the comments or via email at mrsmediocrity{at}gmail{dot}com

none of it is pretty
but all of it is beautiful

silence is a game
we have forgotten how to play

shrapnel has become
the currency of time
…….. (as difficult to remove as ever)

sarcasm and wit spin down
from two entirely different trees

evil is the root of the flower
whose petals we eat for breakfast

sacrifice always begins to wilt
just minutes after dinner

the moon is not there
for our amusement

it’s a seed that has yet
to be sown

.

.

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Linking up today with dVerse poets for Open Link Night

snow piled on snow
white on white
grey on grey
an exclamation point
of black

silence falls from the sky
and blankets
this earth
this house
this garden

my shoulders

.

i stand

arms outstretched

palms up

gathering crystals that melt
at my touch

ice queen midas

the opposite of gold

yet somehow
i feel

so rich

.

the sun and the moon

and the stars

and all things merry and bright

to all of you

and yours

.

.

laughter

.

with family and friends

at parties and quiet moments

i laughed and laughed

.

like this day

trying to take a close up photo

and being surprised

by a naughty kitten

.

.

::

Reverb 12/Cultivate 2012:

What was the greatest gift you received in 2012?

::