Book Review: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Openings are often disguised hidden by overgrowth full of life and vigor.

Cutting away green and lush overgrowth seems somehow wrong.

Yet deep rooted generations of family secrets, push wild growth forward then strain to keep all lush, green and healthy............

Twist and turn through a maze of manicured greenery as you read.

Hidden behind wild and winsome growth there may be a wall.....

A wall that hides a secret, interior garden with sunshine and flowers for peaceful, relaxing pruning, weeding and planting despite external turmoil.

“Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world

a door opens to allow in more light.”

~ Vera Nazarian

Riding the Bus

Riding the Bus

Alone at the bus stop, Samuel L. Jones was waiting to get on with his day. Finally an ordinary city bus, #19, came along. Samuel climbed aboard. Only the driver greeted him.

At each bus stop to pick up another passenger, a different snapshot of a neighbourhood opened to his waiting eyes. Young couples carrying groceries and supplies, young singles eyes buried in books, jouncing to tunes on colourful iPods. There were couples a bit older with growing families, older still were men or women, some stiff and moving slowly. Some were spry and active on their way to ..... somewhere. Samuel could only guess. Envy, curiosity, longing.....unasked for feelings muscled their way into his consciousness. Samuel pushed each one down. He was on a business trip and had no time for dreams and speculations.

With each view of neighbourhoods, when the doors whooshed open and closed; with each chattering and laughing of different languages when passengers visited and told their stories, Samuel stopped pushing those pesky feelings down. The bell dinged signalling another stop.  He stood up holding his briefcase carefully. Stepping carefully down from the bus, he watched it pull away past a neighbourhood he did not know.

“The world is always open,

Waiting to be discovered.”

~ Dejan Stojanovic, Circling: 1978-1987

Slowly Brighten

Openings created by holding a door open just a crack, swinging slowly wide prevent rays of sudden light,
sharp lasers pushing people back and away
chasing them to the velvet danger of shadows and darkness.

Lighting the ground beneath someone’s feet with firm kindness as they choose to follow a new and unfamiliar path allows dim awareness to brighten slowly.

“There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines,

and the glare that obsures.”

~ James Thurber

Book Review: The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

A brutal murder occurs. In a beautiful old monastery deep in Quebec. Not just any monastery, but a closed monastery with a vow of silence. Silence only broken during services when Gregorian chants were sung. It is in the music that the mystery develops. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Quebec unravel this mystery. They have come out of their usual community of Three Pines, with completely new characters to learn and to understand. The monks and their lives are completely foreign to the two officers, especially to Inspector Beauvoir.

Not all of our book group members were completely pleased with Louise Penny’s novel, missing the characters from Three Pines. A first reader of a Louise Penny Inspector Gamache novel, the concept of a murder in a monastery was fascinating to me. Openings to a solution appear and then disappear in the twist  and turns that follow the monks through the halls and rooms of the old monastery. And, although certain characters seemed unnecessary, I enjoyed this Beautiful Mystery.

“To be honest, the only thing I ever really wanted to be 

was a writer - since I read “Charlotte’s Web” as a child.”

~ Louise Penny

A Fine Line

A fine line

where choice is removed

A fine line 

built strand by strand

A fine line grows over 

days, weeks, months or years

A fine line

an invisible trip wire

A fine line

as strong as a cable

A fine line

walking too close is risky

A fine line 

a thin opening into life changes

“Life has it’s woes so learn to be on your toes, be alert.”

~ Bernard Kelvin Clive, Your Dreams Will Not Die

How Does One Respond?

How does one respond when

conversaton, merely polite

extension of limits of service,

ignores the presence of the person being served

the individual lying, still waiting to be served

No intent to hurt

to ignore

to push in a corner

the words?

‘not a good use of this service’

spoken with polite concern

one professional to another

an important message

was instant message also important

the busyness in our times push words forward

with only partial thought

how many have used such words before?

with no malice intended to the person awaiting service

yet a tiny jab opening a wound to the soul.

That tiny hurt gets pushed aside into 

the ever growing pile of wounds.

How does one respond?

“...human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds,

can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

~ William James (1842-1910), 

American psychologist, philosopher.