A wandering way
to far away lands
leaves me breathless
watching myself
walking roads and trails.
In my imaginings,
they are full of
story and history,
friends and neighbours,
the ghosts of ancestors
to accompany this traveler
until my eyes are opened
to the comforts of home.
“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as
the dreams that dance in your imagination.”
~ Roman Payne, novelist and poet
What word floats by the window of my mind?
The view from a window
is so often the same.
Houses and trees, maybe a man walking his dog,
or a woman walking with purpose to work,
perhaps children playing hopscotch on the sidewalk.
Only the happy sounds of their play reaching my ears.
Each one of these
has their own story,
stories that
I’ll never know.
But stories that
belong to them,
stuck in
back pockets as
the man or
the woman go on
their way through
the next 24 hours.
And for the children,
their stories have just begun
with birthday cakes
and games of hopscotch.
“We do not stop playing because we grow old,
we grow old because we stop playing.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
Azure or cobalt,
sapphire or royal
Wrap around our world blue
save for errant clouds hiding
in mountains and forests
or traveling carpets of water
off to parts unknown....
Today at the bus stop I had time to look.
The clear blue sky, leafless trees reaching
into the void. Tall office buildings, straight edged,
diminished by the grandeur of the sky,
mere cutouts on the ball of dust that we stand on.
The magnitude of the morning sky
and our tiny lives was not lost on me.
We have it all arranged in roads and sidewalks,
squared off fields and plantings.
The night time sky shows only a hint
of the myriad of planets, stars and galaxies
that spin and revolve in the space past the sky
We discuss and plan, build and tear down
but in the end the beautiful sky is over us all.
“I never get tired of the blue sky.”
~ Vincent van Gogh
“What is my poem tonight, Mister?”
A nickname I’ve taken to calling him.
I speak to my big black kitty
as though he would have a
wise and profound answer for me.
Instead, he merely replies
a fullsome meow. Translated it means:
“Time for you to feed me.” I remind him
that he still has 10 minutes to wait and
wrapping himself around my legs in affection
(the bribe) will not bend this strict custodian and friend.
~ Joseph Wood Krutch, writer, critic and naturalist
(1893 - 1970)
It was easy to keep interested
in my working life,
at least in my passion
for addictions nursing care.
But when I retired,
almost 6 years ago,
I had only my own life
to be interested in.
No schedule,
no policies or protocols,
no box on the calendar to say
what I could do on what day.
I didn’t have to squeeze in
outside entertainment
or family activities
or even getting groceries.
I had a choice between crushing boredom
and some kind of interest in my life
that had nothing to do with nursing care.
~ quite an uncomfortable habit.
I could have kept writing about addictions issues.
~ The neurobiology of addiction
~ Actual protocols for withdrawal management
But the powers that be hadn’t listened to little old me
so I looked in the mirror and turned my writing to me.
I could still write about neurobiology
But about epilepsy this time.
Interest in my own life appeared
as if by magic ~ maybe out of boredom
or perhaps because I have lived with epilepsy
for more of my life than anything else.
There you have it:
To reword a stanza from the Desiderata:
~ ‘Keep interested in your own life,
however humble, for it is a real possession
in the changing fortunes of time’ ~
“Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.”
~ Max Ehrmann
(Written 1927)
