Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 182

That second thought: Underwater Recovery Unit

I promised two additional thoughts, last entry, but the second thought spilled over to here. It's about the Massachusetts State Police Underwater Recovery Unit:



I did not know that the Massachusetts State Police had an underwater recovery unit. Now, I know I can probably find out exactly what it does with a quick Google search, but before I do that, I'll just speculate. Is it for retrieving pirate treasure from offshore? Or evidence in a drowning?

But why is it here in the Quabbin? What can nee...

a tea party, a pumpkin shell, and the moon

Earlier this summer, Little Springtime visited her grandparents in England, and when she came home, she brought along a coffee service of her grandmother's. It's very pretty.

Here are a few cups. See the flowers on the inside of each one, too?


Today we decided to have a tea party with it. Why tea and not coffee? I don't know. I think the ninja girl said it was a tea sort of day. Or maybe we're waiting to do coffee until wakanomori gets back--he is a coffee aficionado. Anyway, we made lemon bars...

The land of Golden Mist

Today I can show it to you, the mist pouring over the dam and flooding the valley on the other side:

The mist rising


and spilling


streaming down the other side


where it catches the gold of sunrise

on the other hand

The Milky Way is very milky and bright tonight, and the air smells inexplicably of hyacinths, and the katydids are discoursing.

notes scrawled while driving

I was mentioning on queenoftheskies ' journal that sometimes the only writing I do all day is scrawling down some notes. The past two days have been like that--I feel like I've seen so much and thought so much, but there hasn't been more than a moment to dash off a note or two.

Yesterday morning, very early, I dropped wakanomori at the bus station in Springfield, and then drove back out of the city on Worthington Street, one of its most depressing streets (very near where I used to work), and t...

Young Man in America

Young Man in America, by Anaïs Mitchell


I knew from Hadestown that Anaïs Mitchell was a woman of equal parts poetry and music, and furthermore that she knew how to reach into a body of myth and come out with the heart, lungs, and liver in her fists. That's what Hadestown was like.

Young Man in America isn't Hadestown. It's its own thing: rangy, raw, demanding:

My mother gave a mighty shout / Opened her legs and let me out …
I come out like a cannonball / Come of age of alcohol
Raven in a field...

the return of the skateboarders

They came back to the church parking lot. I didn't have a camera, so I couldn't film their slalom course from the top of the parking lot to the bottom, but I did go over and tell them how happy I was to see them again and how they had inspired me--to which they replied, "We thought you were coming over to yell at us!"

I knew they thought that. I was afraid they were going to jump into their communal car and drive off when they saw me approaching. But they didn't, and so we got to talk. It was...

some things were extreme today (others less so)

The skateboarding was only mediumly extreme. In fact, not so extreme--but good. Good! The seers looked at me quizzically as I went past.


This beautiful spot was where I turned around:



The story writing! It was extreme. You guys know what it's like: your fists end up clenched and your heart is pounding, because of the stuff that's going on--but only in your head. Oh, and vaguely tangentially related: you can download and listen to Cherokee-language radio podcasts here. There are actually portion...

Post 2 of 2: Someone lives leisurely, they say

The mugwort is in bloom all through the abandoned farm:



But today I come, this year as in years past, for the wild grapes that grow over the abandoned crates of greenhouse glass:



When my bag is full, I bike home through the green countryside, beneath the wide sky and towering clouds. A good day.



And sovay , if you see this. "Dyin Day." Just. Wow. Just wow.
(Everybody, it's from Anais Mitchell's new album, "Young Man in America," which sovay recommended. Powerful stuff.)

Post 1 of 2: farmers market

After getting some work done on the pen pal novel and talking with the new GED teacher at the jail (*such* a nice woman. *such* a good change--but I'm nervous about my new, more empowered volunteering role), I went to the farmer's market.

The farmers market is on the town common, on the other side of the Civil War memorial.





This family are schoolteachers. Two of my children had the woman in the photo for eighth grade (she teaches geography). One of my children had her sister (in the foreground...