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Saturday, December 8, 2012

It is Only Air

Thirty-five years ago 
at the approximate time of this writing
I was in The Carvery Restaurant, in Regina, 
enjoying steak with Gary, Sharon and Danny.
It was here I had my second to last cigarette.
(My last was in 1986 ~ another story)

For thirty-five years now, 
my lungs have not been clouded by cigarette smoke (except for that one day)

Why did I even want to quit smoking?
Was it fear of cancer ~ heart disease?
Nothing so grand ~
Money ~ too darn much going up in smoke (pardon the pun).
Clear air around myself, my family, my friends for clarity and presence.
Smoke-free clothes, walls and windows for a much brighter world
Clean ashtrays ~ so stinky! (No ashtrays to clean!)
All of those things added up 
becoming more important to me 
than the pleasure from just one cigarette.

It does only take one, you know.
It was not the first time I quit smoking
nor the second
nor even the third.

It was staying stopped that was difficult
in a society where smoking was 
much more of a norm than it is today

With no intent to quit smoking forever 
when I began this little side trip,
and still no intent to quit smoking forever
I will put off having that 'just one more' cigarette for today.....

                         ***




Thirty-five years of no smoking 
has changed the very air that I breathe.

So I have an anniversary today ~
neither momentous nor earth shattering
After all, it is only air.








“All things share the same breath ~ the beast, the tree, the man..
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.”
~ Chief Seattle

Friday, December 7, 2012

Soul Tuning


I can always return to the piano.
My young sons asked “Why do you only play the piano when you’re sad?”
I didn’t know the answer then
it was merely something that I did

Today’s tunes,
favourites of memory or
tinkling up and down the ivories
where no rules apply,
beckon my soul out of sadness.

Wherever I have lived
I have had a piano 
old pianos in need of 
refinishing
tuning
with a presence solid and reliable

When I want music that 
soothes in roving rhythms
uplifts in crashing crescendoes
piano music is the sound 
most attuned to my soul.

“Its language is a language which the soul alone 
understands, but which the soul can never translate.”
~ Arnold Bennett

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Learning to Believe

When I was tiny
I learned to believe that 
I would always be too small

When I was little
I learned to believe that
I would never be good enough

When I was a teen
I learned to believe that
I would never be right enough

When I was a young adult 
I learned to believe that
I would never be fast enough

Now I am older.
I have learned to believe that
by willing to be small,
I am always
good enough
right enough
fast enough.

“The most useful piece of learning for the 
uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.”
~ Antisthenes

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Just Let it Simmer

Two wonderful days of 
cooking
baking
washing dishes
preparing lunches and suppers
reading
only two appointments,
complements to my kitchen foray

Perfect days off
my mind has wandered free and unfettered
ideas popping up in a few words
then drifting off when the timer rang

And so tonight
all of those wondrous ideas
are left to stew and simmer in the
back of my mind.

Unlike the borscht I made today ~ 
they’re not done yet.

“My ideas usually come not at my desk
writing, but in the midst of living.”
~ Anai Nin

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

A Christmas Story


 A Christmas Story

"When do you think Santa’s coming?”

My brother, Sam, and I were whispering because we weren’t supposed to be up. And we weren’t supposed to be downstairs. Santa had not even been here yet! We really had tried to go to sleep, each in our own rooms separated by a short hallway. As soon as our parents closed our doors and went downstairs, we opened our doors so we could whisper to each other. Eyes closed tight, we both lay stiff and still in our beds, even pretending to snore. We were certain that even pretend snoring would help us go to sleep, or at least make our parents think that we were asleep. All it did was make us giggle.  

“You kids be quiet! Santa can’t come if there’s giggling kids around.” We hugged our toys - well I hugged my stuffed toy -  while we cuddled under our covers, eyes shut tight again, but the giggling wouldn’t stop.

Dad called up the stairs just a bit too loudly. “Your mom and I are just going outside to take Butch for his walk. Then we’ll be in the garage for a few minutes. Now, you kids settle down and get to sleep.”

As soon as we heard that, we both popped up in bed as though someone had released a catch on a spring. Eyes wide open now, fingers in front of pursed lips we tiptoed to the edge of the stairs holding out breath. I had jingle bells on my red Christmas slippers that made too much noise and that my brother thought were dumb.  He always went barefoot, so I took my slippers off and went barefoot too. Just as we reached the top of the stairs, we heard the garage door slam shut.

Sam said “Come on. It’s safe to go downstairs.”

Our bare feet cold, we stepped carefully on the thick carpet at the top of the stairs, and listened to make sure there was no one in the house.

“Sam, aren’t you glad Butch had to go out?”

“Yeah, he would be making too much noise. He doesn’t know how to be quiet like us.”

Satisfied that there was just the two of us, we edged down the stairs, our little hearts beating fast.

“Oh, look at the lights! Aren’t they beautiful?”

“You can’t even see them yet! What are you talking about?”

‘Brothers!’ I thought and then said “Of course you can’t see them but I like how they glow and shine without seeing the actual lights.”  

Out loud, Sam said “Well then, why didn’t you say that.”

“Shhh. We have to be quiet”

“Why? There’s no one here.”

“If we talk loud we won’t hear if anyone comes in! So just be quiet...”

Our conversation carried us down the flight of four stairs to the landing and, rounding the first step after the landing, the Christmas tree came in to full view. It was glorious with all the lights reflecting off of Christmas ornaments and tinsel. The tinsel had been hung absolutely perfectly - one strand draped delicately beside the next. The sparkle and glitter was softened at the top by the lights under the cloud of angel hair. Our Christmas Angel, with the family for as long as my eight year old mind could remember, rode high atop the magical tree, her hand out in welcome, her wings set to fly.

My brother raced ahead of me. “There must have been company!  Look at all the presents now!”  

The amazing eight foot tree stood in a corner. Out from its lower branches was a circle of presents that had not been there when we went to bed. Our stockings, my old brown ones that I had to wear to school every day, were limp and waiting expectantly for Santa.

Then we froze. The back door opened. Before Butch was even in the house, we raced back upstairs, closed the doors to our rooms quietly, and jumped under the covers. I was sure our parents could surely tell that we were asleep but, now that I'm a parent, I'm not so sure.

“Like snowflakes, my Christmas memories gather and dance
~ each beautiful, unique and too soon gone.”
~ Deborah Whipp

Monday, December 3, 2012

Becoming a Christmas Tree


Becoming a Christmas Tree 

All the other trees, many the same age as me, talked excitedly about becoming Christmas trees. Slowly each year, one by one or in great bunches, my forest mates had all been taken away. None of those magnificent trees had ever come back to tell me what it was really like.  Long ago deciding I was too short and stumpy, my branches were too crooked and misshapen I knew I would never be the kind of Christmas tree rumored on the forest breezes. I started to give up. But one cold, snowy winter, I finally paid attention to all the chatter around me about being a Christmas tree.  

All the stories were only rumors, you know, gathered from small families of humans that came to the forest to get their own trees. The words 'warm and dry’, with just a drink of water every now and then, certainly caught my attention.  I didn’t think I’d care for all the folderol of tinsel and lights and bright coloured balls, but maybe they were lighter than the heavy snows that I had to put up with each winter. But I did think I was just fine the way I was, thank you very much. The words, 'warm and dry', haunted me. Maybe I would be chosen the next time.  

***

“Hey Joe! What about this one? Should we leave it? Doesn’t look like much more than firewood to me.”   

“Nope, we’re supposed to take everything. They can figure out what to do with it. We just cut’em.”  

A fierce buzzing, loud creak then thunk were deafening sounds in the snowy quietness. I was next and it ended my life as I had known it for so long. Where there had been hundreds of us, evergreen trees of all shapes and sizes, a broad swath stretched through the ever dwindling forest. I was the last tree cut and then thrown, quite unceremoniously I might add, onto the top of the load of pines and spruce trees on what I know now is a flat bed truck.  

And now look at me. If you can. Down here, at the bottom of a pile of lush, soft green trees. All shapes and sizes of humans come in here pawing through us all. When human hands find me, always by accident, they think I am part of some other much handsomer tree. At first they’d pull at me and then I'd be let go in disgust when they saw how bent my branches were.

The words I’ve heard!  
The very worst? “Firewood – that’s all it’s good for.” I heard that over and over! I never wanted to even be singed! I just wanted to be warm and dry – not burned to ashes! After all I’ve gone through, I deserve a decorated life too.  

Then this: “Well that’s a charley brown Christmas tree if I ever saw one.” - not that I knew what that meant. It was the tone of voice that made me suspicious.

And: “Someone will buy him – someone with no sense and too many decorations."  

Another rudely said: “Our room is far too grand for that ugly old stump. I don’t even know why they’ve kept it in this lot.” 

The only good thing about being on the bottom of the heap was that at least I didn’t have nasty crows and filthy seagulls sitting on me when the humans were away. Occasionally some dog would have the audacity to sidle up to me, lift his leg and let go a yellow dribble on me! The best times were when a cat or another small furry creature would nestle into my thin branches. Then I did get a bit of warmth. 

Oh, I do wish these humans would just get on with it. These heaps and heaps of young trees piled on top of me are heavy! Do today’s young trees have no respect for their elders? I really don’t know why I thought it would be any different here away from the forest. After all that standing up to my branches in snow in the forest, my needles getting sopping wet in rain, and birds relieving themselves on my branches. I seem to be in the same fix here!  

****

Finally.  I’m alone in the Christmas tree lot, lights still blinking over the sign that announced in big bold letters: ‘Fresh cut Christmas trees!’  Fresh! Hmph! I’ve been lying here in this muck for a month. All the others have gone and here I am – cold and lonely, with my bare trunk exposed for all to the cold night air. Soggy branches on one side and drying up on top! My branches feel stiffer and colder with each incredibly slow day. Being fire wood is beginning to sound good.  

And the little humans - children I believe they're called. And I do wish this child would stop crying. He’s dripping salt water all over me. He’s holding my top branch so tight he’s going to take all my few remaining needles off!  

‘Get that kid away from me!’ There was no wind to make me talk, so my plea was merely a thought.

Then I heard a soft voice reminding me of a light spring breeze in the forest: “OK sweetie, he’s really not much! I don’t know what your dad’s going to think. You know what he said. He wanted a tall, bushy tree and this one is short and stumpy.” 

But I was picked up out of the muck anyway. It felt so good to at last to have the dirty half-melted snow shaken onto the ground. I could hear my branches sigh with relief as the young mother tucked me in the back of the little family’s beat up old car. My branches began to relax, and my crooked trunk lay on a soft blanket in the warmth of the old car, my topknot between the seats in front. The little child was no longer crying, thank goodness. One chubby little hand clutched the unruly twig at my very top. In old car’s warmth, I suddenly felt like a decorated Christmas tree. With this new found angel at my crown, we fell asleep together.

"Life is so constructed that an event does not, 
cannot, will not, match the expectation."
~ Charlotte Bronte