I Can't See

I can’t see what I’m seeing

from a distance too far.
When I blink visions vanish,
beginnings recede but 

vision expands, grows

gradually and steadily
passing blocks in the road
t'ward an end that I can’t see.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

~ Nelson Mandela

Author's Note: Edited January 16, 2024

My Stacks of Books

My stacks of books
Perched on chairs, tables 
Standing at attention in bookshelves
Haphazard arrangements of wordy decorations
Random themes and stories
Couched between covers hard or soft
Ticketless global travels
Time shifts in word crafts
Flights of fancy into space and beyond
Deep probes into the mysteries of human biology
My stacks of books that wait for me to read
The beginnings, the middles and the ends….

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

~  Marcus Tullius Cicero

Searching for Order

Overwhelmed

Searching for the beginning

Hidden within a tangle of disarray

Starting to find order

In each little corner until

The beginning is revealed

A foundation for creativity or more chaos.

“Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.”

~ José Saramago,  The Double

Book Review - An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

I loved this book. It will stay in my book shelves to be re-read. Rahib Alameddine has penned a masterful novel of an elderly woman in Beirut, Lebanon, who eschews much in life other than her translation of books. Aaliya, seventy-two years old, living alone and dedicating her life to her love of language shares her memories with us. Aaliya, reclusive yet feisty, would not be concerned if we, her readers, disagreed with her opinions of life. Her long relationship with the thirty-seven books she translated, provided her with much wisdom and sardonic humour. She seemed to have accepted, and even appreciated, her estranged relationship with her family, her neighbours and humanity in general, while also feeling uncomfortable with the disconnection as she grew older.

The beginning of the book, Aaliya’s life as she told it, a plodding affair, seemed to have nowhere to go. She described her own aging self in a way that transcended the mores of culture and time. Aaliya remembers life through the war years in Beirut, and purchasing an AK-47 for self protection that she slept with through that time. She has a quasi reconciliation with her mother, deep in dementia, in a tender and lovely memory of washing her mother’s feet with the help of her grandniece. The greatest tragedy for Aaliya though, was the near destruction of her cherished translations, none of them published, merely ‘created and crated’. Damaged plumbing in the apartment upstairs drained down upon the carefully packed books.  The ‘three witches’, as Aaliya called them, who kept a close eye on her, came to her rescue. The book ended on an uplifting note with Aaliya having an ‘epiphany’ about her life’s possiblities.

“I long ago abandoned myself to the blind lust 

for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it 

I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time.” 

~ Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman

Title:  An Unnecessary Woman 
Author:  Rabih Alameddine
Publisher: Grove Press
Distributed by: Publishers Group West
Copyright: 2013
Format:  Soft Cover
ISBN: -13 978-0-8021-2294-0 
eISBN: 978-0-8021-9287-5
Type:  Fiction

Thoughts on Cooking

Early education began a journey that would take me into many kitchens  

Cupboards full of spices that infuse

a house with home-smells

Bacon, coffee, roasts of beef or pork

Watching mom, grandma, and aunts in the days when cooking was 'woman's work'

Learning to measure, stir and mix

Baking cookies

Decorating cakes

Chicken dinners with mashed potatoes

Preparing a meal for family, friends or just me.

Being sous-chef for my sons

Cabbage rolls, perogies and turkey

Creativity, energy and love

with taste and substance

For sustenance, family and community

Cooking  - not a chore but a joy

Bringing us all together.

“Cooking is at once child’s play and adult joy. 

And cooking done with care is an act of love.”

~ Craig Claiborne

It's a Small World

The air was cool and barely misty
The grounds were green, trees coated with moss.
Buds beginning to grace grand old trees at
Royal Roads University anchored in Hatley Castle where students of the Masters in Leadership class were to congregate for two weeks.
I was blessed to take one of the students, niece Karla,
with bag and baggage to the on site residence.
We strolled the grounds, examined the gift shop and had lunch.
A surprise: her teacher is Beth Page!
A friend and a past member of Writer’s Ink. 

“The only separate truth is that there is nothing simple in 

this complex universe. Everything relates. Everything connects.”

~ Johnny Rich, The Human Script

A Pocketbook Memory

I keep a lot of things in my handbag
Keys, pocketbook, calendar and the ever present cell phone
Miscellaneous things that are necessary or at least I deem them so.
I’ve never been one to carry pictures
But then today any pictures are all on my cell phone.
Today was not in pictures though from beginning to days end.
Lunch out, a walk in the park and a great visit with niece Karla
An item not in my handbag but in my memory.

“You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. 

And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”

~ Walter Hagen