Rat's Country: I know this...

I know this: I have earned what I know.

Rat's Country: Some days I feel like a carapace...

Some days I feel like a carapace with no creature inside.

Rat's Country: Thinking about the weather channel.

The  weatherwoman doesn't judge the fronts moving in and out, the currents and cross-currents, the spots of sun in the midwest or the series of storms moving down from Alaska.  She just describes as best she can.

Rat's Country: I have a great readiness to think the worst of myself...

I have a great readiness to think the worst of myself.  Maybe that is slowly becoming a virtue.  I think it means I have a strong sense of my shadow side.  I don't need you to tell me what my faults are.

Rat's Country: Good Quotes on Writing

"Art is being rid of all preaching:  things in themselves:  the sentence in itself is beautiful:  multitudinous seas; daffodils that come before the swallow dares:  whereas {D.L.} Lawrence would only say what proved something."
                                     from A Writer's Life by Virginia Woolfe

Rat's Country: What are my intentions?

What are my intentions?  To make myself into something.  To reveal who I am.  To come to no harm.  To understand myself.  To be useful.  To be treated well.

Rat's Country: Here's how doubtful I can be

Here's how doubtful I can be:  the light turns green, but I hesitate, not sure that I am really  supposed to go.

Rat's Country: I feel like Red Cross volunteer

I feel like a Red Cross volunteer, likely to get shot by either side.

Rat's Country: Sometimes my stupid issues

Sometimes my stupid “issues” make me feel like one of those annoying people who keeps humming the same tune over and over.

Rat's Country: It's so easy to be fooled...

So easy to be fooled, when you wake to sobbing rain and realize, once again, you did not recognize the calm before the storm.

Rat's Country: Forward Momentum

Forward momentum is not the same thing as speeding downhill with no brakes.

Rat's Country: I would like to have my life organized...

I would like to have my life organized and all my writings in alphabetical order in a black binder.  The bills organized, my clothes organized.  Everything filed, so I know where everything is, including my son and daughter.  I would like to have my past written down, decided on, not some stupid swirling lava lamp.  I’d like my positions on everything clarified, my thoughts organized.  And my hands.  I wish they didn’t end in hangnails and peeling, thin layers.  I wish my hands came to polished oval conclusions and that my feet weren’t rough on the bottom.

Rat's Country: Susan, the painter says...

Susan, the painter, says, "I figure that if I don't show my work in this lifetime, I'm going to be reincarnated as an art critic, come back and discover myself."

Rat's Country: Two buzzards in the sky

Worry and Fear:  Two buzzards in the sky, on the road.

Rat's Country: Winter Thoughts

Winter thoughts: Right now i must make soup, keep the home fires burning, focus on winter storms, persimmons, biscotti, Gregorian chants, basketball games. Pay attention to people who could use my presence. Let go of so much else.