Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: Mom's cranberry relish; Mom's apple pie Sight: a golden November day, golden leaves, a roof of gold leaves, golden leaves along the creek trail Sound: "I belong here where the world ends I belong here where the world bends I belong here with the waiting With the haunted. With the never seen I belong here with the faithless We are no one we are nothing at all" — Pray for the Pain You Serve , Gary Numan  Smell:  dog urine and feces Touch: a wrinkled nose; llama whiskers, llama kisses Extra: feeling sanguine; car rides; "And it was a sunny day and my joy/didn't fit within me." — "I Had Not Seen It,"  Pablo Neruda   Book of Twilight Grateful for: everything, everyone; Mikey, Azura

Bright skies at the beginning of the year, she loves impending freedom — and then freedom itself! Starting the morning with a clean coffee pot, she bakes bread and then enters the forest. Finding vegan restaurants in out of the way places, under trees — and everywhere ethical chocolate! She marvels over the nearness of lakes and oceans, Basks in 80 degree summer days — and nights. She discovers urban wildlife in vegan magazines, and in vegan cookbooks, urban walks. In The Caribbean, ocean blues reign. In The Everglades, waterfalls rain serpentine. She discovers Discovery Park, parks for discovery, like magical tofu, a blank slate for flavor, like medical magicians, full of nutritious holidays, ending the evening, she loves being outdoors. In being outdoors, she finds a miracle in everything, — even these boots! The blossoms on Uhura, the black tulip magnolia, warm greetings and animal friendships, art, lilacs, thunderstorms, industrial music, a gentle day, a gen...

Taste: pecans Sight: the yellow leaves of the cherry tree fluttering Sound: communal singing and Michelle in a dream Smell: mulled wine Touch: keystroke depressions Extra: I love this writing den and all its green and this morning ritual of lighting the incense and the candles and of writing of emotions and utopian until the sun rises.; paths are never closed to you so long as one lives one has the capacity to change; George Eliot wrote Middlemarch at age 50 Grateful for: hope, Adeline the llama, 37,375 words and counting

Taste: five star red curry that is not at all hot; spearmint; scotch bonnet sauce; peanut butter smoothies - orange chocolate smoothie; homemade fig newtons Sight: a photograph of George Washington, the founder of Centralia, and his border collie dog; how the sky changed from broad swaths of pink and purple to one bright golden light - the color of magic - in the space of 14 minutes; pureed purple sweet potatoes Sound:  a Belgian accent, Hercule Poirot Smell: spearmint; orange zest Touch: llama sniffs; slick leaves sliding; cold feet; dry scratchy skin Extra: fickle luck; spearmint; Trooper's 14th Birthday; Burning Man dreamscape; population of the United States 323.1 million in 2016, 344 million in Make Room! Make Room! (1966) by Harry Harrison; St. Felicia Patron Saint of Farewells Slayer of Fools Grateful for:  developing interspecies relationships; the library

Taste: curry Sight: misty mornings; candled mornings - flickering candlelight; acorns; The Great Wheel at sunset on a glorious October evening; Lock, Stock & Barrel; bubbling froth; water boiling directly on the red stove in the dark Sound: pigs nibbling grass and munching hay; rustling leaves; acorns crunching underfoot; "I don't know why I am so into pirates. It's just something in my soul."; panko Smell: fermented white beans; sour white beans; Funnel of Love - Only Lovers Left Alive BPAL Touch: llama nuzzles; soft ears; shuffling through fallen leaves, raking and picking up leaves; a poofy dress and demon horns Extra: a secondary world; magical; fellow traveler - hermano caminante; fearless writing horns; World Vegan Day and NaNoWriMo kickoff on the same day; “Part of the calling of women...is to revive a spirituality of creativity that is not afraid of the strange beauty of the underwater world of the subconscious, and to help men out of the re...