so the other day i remembered that all of my beloved jade plants were still out on my porch,

after many a night of freezing temperatures.



and now, as you can see, they are mostly dead.

here's to hoping that they come back now that i've trimmed them.

lists

playing catch-up for all the time i've wasted not blogging; here are a few list-prose-poems i've written.... some of them follow a sort of haiku-esque "full circle," while others just trail on in no particular direction.

(a recent one)
talk talk talk, listen, snow falling on leaves, bird whistle, thistle, briar patch, match, flame, name, you me and everyone we know, to love someone without ever letting go, treason, reason, season, barometer.

(some older ones from last fall &/or spring)
tentacles, dry leaves, hot toddies, leather shoes, horsetail skies, blue jeans, green eyes, southern migration.

isinglass, isinglass, topiary, cornucopia, reflective instrumentation, mistletoe, isotope, jumping rope, love note, cadaver.

andiron, darning needles, poetry notebook, warm slippers, unexpected gifts, handknit sweaters, spinning wheels, horse-drawn cart, rutabaga, kale, brussel sprouts, a farm in montana shared with friends and the sunrise.

breath, warm breeze, crashing waves, feet sunk into sand, holding hands, soft kisses, sense of place, longing, belonging, knowing truth, knowing love, knowing you.


(the following was in collaboration with matt&matt)
laundry, eggs, alabaster roof, good guy robots, rotary phone, chromosomes, megaphone, thunder drome, cyclops, miette, john cleese, rheumatoid arthritis, insulin, pump, rump, generic compliment, how are you? i'm fine thank you, goodbye.

(the following was in collaboration with one of many kates)
lemon curd, tiny bird, silver spoon, paper moon, darning egg, prosthetic leg, nancy drew, yarn & glue, paperback writer, engrossed in [apple]cider, glass onion, paul bunyon, "the day the knitted umbilical cord was attached."


(and a secret note from a matt, which spans the page of some lists that were typed together on my Remington:

my dearest Eva,

butts

u

With Love,

Your Mothee

your ink ri bon is running an e ously ow Ms. BinghamLOL@@@@@@)

finis ab origine pendet

"the end depends on the beginning" - manlius


i can't believe it's already been a week since i started my first batch(es) of home-brew kombucha... the aroma of fermentation is in the air & the new scoby's are lookin' good!

my kitten went back to my mother's to keep my dog (in failing health) company ... but i miss her pretty face so much. :(



19 days until i see the Pee-Wee Herman show on Broadway.

40 days until the end of my undergraduate career.

i need to make more time in my life for things like yoga.

good news and good weather.

no.
i'm not very good at this whole "blogging" thing, am i?
considering i have such extended absences
i can't expect anyone to be reading this crap but me,
a few months from now, when i rediscover it again.

just as i have this time!
and with glad tidings, too.

(for some reason my pictures aren't uploading,
otherwise i would have had interspersed images of my newest projects,
but, assuming you are even here reading this blog,
you will just have to visit my shop: emilouanna.etsy.com)

no, the glad tidings are not that it is 80 degrees and sunny
the first weekend of april (a record-setting event in many circumstances,
though, i have to admit, a bit concerning for those of us
who are of the environmental studies persuasion)...

the good news is that i have figured out how to graduate next december,
AND i won't even have a full semester
(busting out at the seems like this one)
as i had previously thought.

and the class i was banking on isn't even being offered in the fall.
in fact. it's not being offered during the school year at all.

it is being offered over the summer.

and although i will be missing the first week of a four-week course
due to the geology club's two week field trip to Nova Scotia,
it will be worth the catch-up stress just to make space in my fall semester.

in addition to that breathing room,
my required ecosystems ecology class will also count as an upper-level Bio class,
so i don't have to take micro biology. not that i don't want to take micro...
it's just that with Seminar and all, i want to be able to focus all of my attention in one place.

also, this means that i only have two required classes for fall semester,
but i need three in order to be registered as a full-time student...

PERFECT!

now i can fill in the gaps with some de-stress creative processing classes.
ie : photography or printmaking.

wowee!! i am starting to actually look forward to next semester!

as for now, i will stick to my countdown to diana's wedding
(four weeks)
and to the geology club's 2-week Nova Scotia trip...
(five weeks)

Snowy Solo Summit

it was thursday of last week and i had this overwhelming need to prove something to myself... or maybe at that point it was just that i was bored from sitting through eight hours of lectures that day and it was like spring outside. either way, by the end of friday i was determined not to let myself down; i felt this unremarkable urgency to do something impulsive and i knew the only way i could succeed would be by hiking mount monadnock.


by myself.
up a trail i had
never hiked.
in the snow.


so it was saturday. gorgeous. highs in the high 30s. i packed a bag full of layers [that i never ended up using] and ran to my friend kate's house to borrow her cramp-ons.

the hike was as expected. it started out well enough, with a half mile walk in ankle-deep snow from where i had to ditch my car to the base of the trailhead. the first part of the trail was equally well paced. half an hour in i reached the trail register and had i not stopped to read the notebook inside the ziplock baggy, i would never have known that the trail i was about to hike was "closed." but what was a girl to do? it was the perfect day and i wasn't about to waste it by turning around and going back to my car. and besides, it wasn't for another half hour until i hit ice and actually needed to use the cramp-ons.

after that first small patch of ice the remainder of the trail was much different. the snow was getting deeper and there were parts of the trail that invovled me pushing uphill through thigh-deep snow, cramp-ons clutching to the ice-covered rocks below me. that is, if i could even find the trail... i was hiking the marlboro which is marked only by cairns, which, at this time of year, are still completly covered in snow. later, on the way down, i would not waste my time counting the number of times i came to a spot where my tracks turned round in circles looking for the trail.

there were definately times i thought that i was lost. or that the trail i was following was only taking me farther away from the summit. but really, i figured, the worst that could happen is that if after three hours i am no further up the mountain, and exhausted, i will just follow my footprints back down.

this never ended up being the case, because after only two and a quarter hours i reached the top of the false treeline. half an hour later i was at the top, whistling with the wind.
i tried eating my peanut butter and fluff sandwich but it was too cold, and i was surprisingly not very hungry. i threw the sandwhich back into my bag and started my descent.

on my way up i had felt small and vulnerable. on my way down i felt as big as the mountain. there had been times when i had considered turning around "no one will know" i thought to myself. but that wasn't the point. the point was to prove it to myself that i could do it. and i did.

an hour later i reached my car.

on the radio driving home, speaking of faith was on npr. the guest they had was an astro- physisicst and they were talking about the universe and spirituality. that is probably one of my favorite subjects and after having just conquered the mountain it was a very nice cap to my afternoon of feeling infinite.