Holding Water

  • Holding Water

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Holding Water

    By M.A. Dooley

    I remember the first winery I designed in the middle of a level vineyard.

    Construction began after the vines were removed and the earth was excavated for the foundation.

    A big storm hit the northern Sonoma County and lasted for days.

    At the jobsite meeting, the crew had erected a sign at the edge of a large body of captured rainwater where the future building would go. The sign read Lake Dooley, named after me, the architect. It was funny and I laughed.

    I had great capacity for everything, hard work, men and their jokes, life. My lake would evaporate, percolate, and be drained and no one would ever know of Lake Dooley.

    The spring of 2023 was too full to process. The snow and rain kept falling, the rivers were swollen, the thirsty earth saturated. The valley oaks turned sparkling emerald. Front yards were lush. Lakes filled up. My home state, region, county and backyard was amplified with aliveness.

     All this water was a promise of a future, but some absorbed the deluge and others drowned. The swollen rivers and runoff pushed over the levies and found the low spot.

    Water returned home refilling Lake Tulare, a drained body purposed into agriculture and industry with homes built on her dry bed. The rain and snow melt filled the valley of Tulare to four times the size of Lake Tahoe’s surface. That’s something I’d like to see.

     The Spring of 2023 seems to correspond with my condition. I’m too full to process it all. There’s steady snow fall of activity, but the sun comes out hot and melty and quickly my dam overflows. It’s harder to keep it all within my capacity.

    Maybe I had once been empty like Lake Tulare, purposed for my fertile ground, growing all manner of seeds for harvest. I could always take on more. More work, more play, more interests, but now, I am too full to process the present abundance of my own creation. I’m seeking a way to let the water out before I drown in Lake Dooley. 

    M.A. Dooley is a writer from Sonoma County who frequently ventures to the Sierra Nevada range. Dooley has been published in “The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings in a Pandemic Year” (2021)  and “Poems of a Modern Day Architect,” Archhive Books, (2020)

    Marlene C

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  • Winter Solstice 2021

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Winter Solstice 2021

    By M.A. Dooley

    This blessed day when the light returns,

    I stand on the mountain of my home 

    Grounded at 7:59 AM and look up. 

    The round moon wanes floating over 

    Saucer clouds docked in the west. 

    A soft haze hangs between me and my Shire,

    Layered hillocks of veiled emerald, 

    Taste wet and lush as if the drought is over. 

    The sun rises behind a filter of grey

    Cotton balls connected at fluffy centers like 

    Fat caterpillars in the sky. 

    When the time rings for a celestial split, 

    A tear in the cotton,

    A thin sliver of blue blinks open 

    And the sun sears my eyes 

    Carving the womb of awakening.

    I am the field of green softened by one ray,

    I am the strong back of the moon, 

    Light as the wind that whips my tassels

    Reverent as a child witnessing a miracle

    I welcome life and light this Solstice sunrise.

    M.A. Dooley is an architect and writer from the Santa Cruz Mountains, Sonoma County, and the Sierra Nevadas. Dooley has been published in “The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings in a Pandemic Year” and in “Poems of a Modern Day Architect,” Archhive Books, 2020.

    #amwriting #justwrite #poetry #iamawriter

    Marlene C

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  • Dinner Lines

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Dinner Lines

    By M.A. Dooley

    Empty lines without a script,

    Two old lovers sit stiff like bricks

     

    Empty lines planked blue wood top,

    Inviting ages of warmth and weight.

     

    Warmth and weight, young bricks cool,

    Purpose wanted held at bay.

     

    Warmth and weight, mason’s hands

    Stack staggered bonds, build a wall.

     

    Build a wall, the server piles

    Flowers, wine, the table splits.

     

    Build a wall to be broken down

    With drink, pleasure, taste and texture.

     

    Taste and texture laughter blooms,

    Edges soften like molten stone.

     

    Taste and texture spills red wine

    Dripping, seeping fills empty lines.

     

    Empty lines, hushed hands held,

    Old lovers’ warmth and weight meld. 

    M.A. Dooley is an architect and writer from the Santa Cruz Mountains, Sonoma County, and the Sierra Nevadas. Dooley has been published in The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings in a Pandemic Year and Poems of a Modern Day Architect, Archhive Books, 2020.

    Marlene C

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  • Know Your Colors

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Know Your Colors – An Introduction to the Plant Mood Chart

    By M.A. Dooley

    Luckily, my face turns colors when I feel emotions. Whether I am sad or happy or embarrassed, angry, jealous, afraid, confident, guilty, content, confused, giddy, flirtatious, thoughtful, nostalgic, hesitant, determined, focused, agitated, brazen –or if I feel a song coming on–I can consult the Plant Mood Chart. Rather than grasping at some external label that’s not quite accurate, I hold up the chart at the mirror, or sometimes with a friend, to make sense of the inside of me. It’s quite convenient, saving me lots of time and effort.

    Much like the little cannister with the PH and alkaline hues used to test hot tub water, but far more complex, the color chart corresponds to feelings and can even suggest a backstory as in, “What happened that brought me to this point?” 

    Although little understood by the public, there is a consistent body of work by Species Translators over hundreds of years.  They were doctors, spiritual leaders, druids, medicine women, scientists, and athletes who uncovered a correlation between emotions, humans (who change color) and plants including trees, fruits, flowers and vegetables. I just checked as I am writing this, and sure enough, I’m a white orchid, focused on explaining how the system works. Later on, I might be a pink lady – a little flushed with excitement to share my research with a broader audience – and then shrinking back in sepia, like an acacia, as some consider me a whacko, which turns me embarrassed into bright tomato.

    Yet there is a great deal of science behind the Plant Mood Chart similar to the deeply analyzed Bach’s Flower Remedies. Recent neuroscience has shown how the amygdala strengthens the part of the brain’s cellular memory reaching back to reconnect with earth’s ancients – plant beings. They are the ones that came first, offering life to all that followed. Biologists and healers alike know that plants actually feel and communicate. Plants not only have feelings but create feeling. Like us, they exist partly underground hiding their vulnerable veins, cool and safe, but also seek the sun their heads shining for all to see.

    As we breathe in their shifting colors, the more we become like plant beings. Today, we have a growing evolutionary opportunity to adapt as carbon emissions increase along with our CO2 intake. Oxygen transmuted by the sun through chlorophyll makes me turn ivy green with envy of their design to efficiently transfer and store life energy.

    With so much wind driven cross pollination, subatomic particles get into genetic codes and distribute globally. Most color changers are part wood fairy (my 24 and Me results indicated Corklorian Sprite at 1.3%). Many people are finding it natural to burrow into a soft barked redwood (sienna – comfort) or hide amongst the autumn fern (pale yellow – shyness) or wave their arms in the meadow like a big sunflower (golden – pride). Since we don’t always have a mirror and the color chart handy to verify our emotional states, listen with the ancients and their children rooted and sprouting from the earth to learn the colors of feeling. Our relationship to plant beings becomes our guide to understanding ourselves.

    M.A. Dooley is an architect, mother, skier, runner, and dancer who spent most of her life exploring the Santa Cruz Mountains, Sonoma County, the Sierra Nevadas, and the San Joaquin Delta.

    M.A. has been published in The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year, and Poems of a Modern Day Architect, Archhive Books, 2020.

    M.A.’s writing has appeared in Sunset, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Press Democrat.

    #amwriting #justwrite #creativewriting

    Marlene C

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