leaning toward round

Wise people have said that there are no coincidences, but I beg to differ. I've been busy buttoning up the anthology manuscript so that we can get it to the printer by month's end while simultaneously ticking up in my mind the stuff I'll need to pack in a week or so to go east. It's still chilly here. What will it be like there? Dry as a bone here. Humid and rainy there? What knitting projects should I take with me? Should I start one or two before I leave? Like that. Around midnight I was looking through my collection of necklaces. I am fortunate to know a couple of beautiful women who create jewelry from ancient materials, beads and ammonites, stones. I was stopped by this clay bead. It is about an inch in diameter and the focal point of a necklace I received several years ago from one of those women. It is Indonesian and 600 years old.

Imagine! six centuries! and it's not a priceless million-dollar bead. It's considered a common bead. One that continues to move through countless centuries and possibly thousands of hands. A modest bead containing secret worlds of stories and places locked within it forever. It was on my neck this morning (moving again) when I headed out to pick up the proofed manuscript, grab some solo time and a pedicure. The last two didn't happen. When I got home I found that the friend who had made the necklace had posted on her blog some reminiscences of when she worked with ancient beads and traveled far and wide to find them. And how her interest in them is renewed. My bead was part of her collection. Now that's coincidence. The blog is called An Examined Life. Check it out.

And speaking of round things....the full moon last night? A silver poet's disc with crisp sharp edges, hovering over the mountains like an untethered balloon. I took numerous pictures with both cameras, but can anyone tell me why my eyes see it crisp and clear and the digital camera sees the atmospheric junk around it? I can't quite remember if this occurred with film - surely I took hundreds of moon pictures with my old 35mm cameras - I just can't remember. And I think I've asked this question before but haven't gotten answers yet. I guess my fate is to look at the moon. Wish upon the moon. Write poems about the moon. Even knit socks with moon-colored yarn. But I cannot own the perfect moon in my little camera and carry it with me.

smudgy moon

For a person who has the spirit, everything he sees 
becomes a flower, and everything he imagines 
turns into a moon. 
               Basho