Defining Change

Colourful

Heartfelt

Accepting

Natural

Grateful

Evolving

“Our only security is our ability to change.”

~ John Lilly

Kintsugi

A centuries old Japanese art coming from need
artists diving deeply into their creative spirit
reshaping and changing the everyday and ordinary 
broken bits and pieces edged with dusted lacquer
gold brightening of porcelain seams
silver linings for pottery scars
platinum sheen caressing with a softened light.

Our spirits broken and damaged by cruel twists and turns
mended and made whole when the creative spirit within,
like a joyous artist, fills our scars with precious creativity.

“One must still have chaos in oneself to

 be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Only in a Moment

tiredness pulled at moist corners of blue eyes. 
eyes dry and without expression.
polite smile considered life past and future
momentary life pushed aside
change only grows in the moment.

but would there be any colour in life ever again
had there been any before
colour and fun that hadn’t been noticed
faded into routine and doing and missing out
change is only coloured in moment.

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. 

It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

~  Albert Einstein

Talisman

Seems I was doing this two years ago! Still putting things away and not knowing which place will be their final and orderly home. I opened my kitchen drawer. Just to get a spoon. An ordinary teaspoon to spoon deep brown sugar into delicious dark coffee. The walnut coloured drawer, except for the white plastic cutlery holders, was a jumble. A colourful jumble of rolled up napkins, tea towels, kitchen hand towels with crocheted handles and anything not cutlery all nested beside the white plastic. The box of plastic bread bags fit snugly against the side, snugged into the corner. And then there was an item that really doesn’t fit anywhere but has come with me on my travels from Regina to Texas to Kelowna and then here in my various abodes. Wooden, tapered at one end with a knob, kind of flattened, at the other end. Too long for one space, too short for another space and rolling unevenly if given it’s way.

This item is completely unnecessary to my daily, monthly or even yearly life. There is no task left for it to do except to connect me to a memory. I do often write about childhood memories. I can always trust them to bring a smile to my face and warmth in my heart.  

The refrigerators of old ~ actually the refrigerators of my day ~ didn’t have ice makers. Crushed ice or ice cubes. Maybe the rich folks in the city did, but not on the farm where I was raised. My dad loved his ice tea. Having grown up in the south from age twelve, ice tea was as much a part of his life in summer as coffee or tea is to many. He also liked his glass, a metal one, filled to the brim with crushed ice. Thus this wooden pestle, used for stirring apples through an aluminum colander, was seconded to become an ice crushing hammer wielded by myself and brothers or sisters. Wrapped up carefully in an old tea towel, ice cubes were beaten into shards and crystals by this old wooden pestle. That memory comes bearing my dad, my mom, my siblings and summer time on the farm. It’s always sunny in that memory ~ after all ice tea is always best on a hot summer day.

“Every childhood has its talisman, the sacred objects that look

 innocuous enough to the outside world, but that trigger an onslaught

 of vivid memories when the grown child confronts them.”

~ Steven Johnson

Drawing from Dreams

“Draw from a dream…..” I pulled this from my deck of Fame cards this morning. I needed inspiration or at least a jump start that would take me away from listing activities from yesterday and lists for today.

What dream have I had recently that I remember? How can I trust my dreams to tell me anything? Dreams are just….well….dreams aren’t they? Some neurochemical, neuro firing between synapse things as we sleep. Painting scenes strange and bizarre. Some are down right hysterical. Like the dream that I was crawling across an abandoned railway track in the rain. Or was it abandoned?! I distinctly heard a train coming and couldn’t move any faster than cold molasses!

And then there are the frightening dreams like the one when I was sitting in my car, again at night, at a stop light. No traffic ~ definitely no traffic. I felt, from behind, a pair of arms grab me and hold me tight against my car seat. That dream dissolved in shattered pieces as the sun streamed in slices through the louvered curtains of my bedroom windows. Thank heavens!! 

And of course there are the just plain confusing dreams. Entering a house without knocking and going upstairs without asking. Stairs that went nowhere except for a bathroom with a dripping tap! Oh my goodness, the dreams about work. Sometimes chattering away with colleagues at the nurses station. Sometimes walking long, long halls filled with patients in various stages of wellness and illness. Sometimes doing a bed bath. All the while, in my dreams different people with faces and personalities, known to me, being replaced by people unknown to me but familiar.

For a very long time, between 1966 and 1996 ~ dates are not 100% certain ~ I had few dreams of any sort. It was in those years that I was prescribed Dilantin (phenytoin) and Phenobarb, both designed to control the seizure activity of epilepsy. Epilepsy had come along for the ride in my life’s journey and without my permission. Dilantin has not been a problem in the way of dreams. Gums, teeth, headaches have been problems, but phenobarb brought a different story. I didn’t know that then and it really wasn’t until many years later that I learned about the effects of certain drugs on the normal circadian rhythm, the sleep cycle we all go through: rising up into REM sleep and a dreaming phase. As phenobarbitol is not only an anticonvulsant but a sedative- hypnotic I seldom was in REM sleep. I have now been off of phenobarb since 1996 and am supremely grateful to the marvelous physician in Lubbock, Texas that walked me through that long process. My moods, my behaviour and my dreams have been, at first erratic, and then slowly steadied. As I said earlier, I did not know the effects of my prescribed medication. Phenobarb to me was merely for epilepsy management. However I learned that it did so much more to me than I knew. I have learned to live much healthier, calmer and differently since 1996. I now have dreams to draw from and appreciate, whether they make any sense or not.

“Hold fast to dreams, 

For if dreams die, 

Life is a broken-winged bird,

 That cannot fly.”

~ Langston Hughes

FAME Cards

Prompts for both sides of your writer's brain

Created by 

Connie Frey, Phd.

www.creativitycoaching.ca

Just Before 'X'

Voting: 

a privilege, 

a right, 

a responsibility…

and yet

political trust and political will
is a balance that shifts and sways
opinions left, right and center
asking to be believed, to be trusted….
debating the merits of their beliefs
while detailing their opponents’ poverty of realism

who is the best citizen incumbent for the job?
how is one to know?
and when?

Just before ‘x’ marks the box?

“Do the unexpected. Take 20 minutes out of your day, 

do what young people all over the world are dying to do: vote.”

~ Rick Mercer

Movie Review: Learning to Drive directed by Isabel Coixet

Learning to Drive with Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley was a gentle, funny movie. Instead of the usual ~ marriages falling apart, shunned partners find and fall for others ~ this movie ended differently. Although I have called it ‘gentle’ and ‘funny’, this does not mean a soft fuzzy movie. Wendy (Patricia Clarkson), a book critic, is a sudden divorceé after 21 years; Darwan, (Ben Kingsley), a cabbie/driving instructor, is to be married ~ an arranged marriage, consistent with his Sikh culture. Their lives are completely different, obviously not traveling in the same circles. That is, until Wendy decides that she needs to learn to drive. Fortuitously, they traveled in the same circle just long enough to meet. The story from that isolated crossing of paths and how it evolves into trust and caring. Laughter….yes. Tears…..maybe. It was a lovely movie for a Saturday afternoon ~ or any time.

“….read the signs.”

~ Darwan, Learning How to Drive.

Directed by Isabel Coixet

Cast:

Patricia Clarkson    - Wendy
Ben Kingsley          - Darwan
Jake Weber             - Ex-husband
Sarita Chowdhury   - Jasleen 
Grace Gummer       - Tosha, Wendy's daughter
Samantha Bee         - Wendy’s sister

Duality

The first blush of trust 
blossoms from 
  twinkling eyes, 
    laughing mouth,

glows with belief in goodness of all,

fades and pales 

waxes and wanes

while moods shift and dip

yet consistent kindness and respect

melds trust and belief together. 

“Our outer face can hide several other faces that we have inside.”

~ Munia Khan