Hammock Stone

Sun setting over hills, clouds rolling in through twilight, dark sliding over trees, earth smelling of night. 

My Etsy Shop!

Oh, Half-Assed Mama community--I am so, so happy to announce the opening (finally!) of my Etsy shop, amymorgan jewelry. Please come visit!

California Stars

Homesick all weekend. I've sat here for almost an hour now, trying to write about that, but the words won't come. I've felt in limbo since I got here, and such a non-place seems to defy description. Things aren't bad here at all--I love my job, my students, the many friends I was too far from for years. But now there are people (and dogs) on the other side of the country, and I can't really think about that distance too deeply, because I need to be able to function.
 
And there's the place itself, that other side. Maybe we only ever really find our place in the place where we find ourselves, whenever and however that happens. Maybe it would have happened here if I'd stayed. But I left before something in me was fully formed, and something about California helped me grow, expand, free myself.

All of this has been spinning around in my head. And then I heard this song tonight while I was driving, and suddenly I was on a cliff along Route 1, a damp, freezing wind blowing in hard from the Pacific, the scent of the ocean mixing with eucalyptus and coastal sage. And off to my left in the darkness there's a halo of light hovering over San Francisco, but it's nowhere near close enough to interfere with the millions and millions of stars in the perfect night sky.

Saturday Night

On the corner, a gaggle of young men and women waits for the light. In 50 degree weather, four women are dressed identically, in shorts so short and tight and Lycra-ey they may as well be underwear, button down shirts that fail to cover the underwear, four-inch platform sandals. The weirdest part: I don't think they're in costume.

Eavesdropping

Up in the air it's uncomfortably warm, and my neck and shoulders ache from craning my head upward as I cable lights. Down below me, six or seven young people are talking and laughing as they paint. Some have spent all day with us, and one bribed herself to finish a paper by telling herself she could work in the theater once it was done. My coworker, in the air with me, has been listening to them too. He turns to me, smiling and gesturing at the students, and says, "This makes me happy." I'm calculating how long each of them has until graduation. I'm already sad at the thought.

End of Day

Bare trees are silhouetted against early twilight, windows glow in the old stone; French drifts out from the family in the front apartment; cutlery sounds against china as tables are set. All around the complex, people settle back into these homes, birds returning to nests.

Everyday Travel

The majesty of every bridge. The way every city glitters like Oz as it rises in the distance.

Saturday Morning

The storybook ideal of fall: A neighborhood of large, old stone houses and vividly colored trees. All around a maple, the ground is carpeted with orange and red, and the sun slants through the tree's remaining leaves.

Late October

Cold air, dark blue sky. Stillness and the chirping and twittering of night things.

Last Light

Just before the sun sets, it bursts across the tops of things. Then the autumn trees look like Tiffany lamps, mosaics of green and gold and crimson.