Resorting to Exercise

Confronted by a blank page and a blank mind, I resorted to a writing exercise using the word ‘connection’:

Challenges are opportunities for networking. Nurturing engagement and curiosity, thoughtfulness initiates narration.

“Writing is its own reward.”

~ Henry Miller

A Muse about Belief

From Feb. 14, 2007
A 10 min free write

I believe. I’m not sure the form of my belief. But I do know I believe. I believe in sunshine and blue sky, birds on the wing or perched on high on a branch. I believe that there is a connection between all things on this great Earth and throughout the Universe. And when I am in such awe of everything around me I feel very humble knowing that I am a part of it all.

I believe in mankind’s innate ability to heal himself. I believe in womankind’s innate ability to heal herself. There is no greater power than to heal because you are working with the connections with each other and the Universe.

All of that being said, I also believe that in our constant seeking for new toys and technology we bypass the inner joy that is the healing. And so we race the race and dance the dances of what others have told us is truly needed.  

I believe that all will be as if none of us, despite our existence, ever was. And so, in this world, in this day and time, I believe that we must dance our own dance and race our own race making sure to have balloons brightly coloured in hand. Our dance is our own to choreograph be it a slow and graceful waltz or a jumping jitterbug. Bring your own music and dance your own dance.

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”

~ Martha Graham

Learning to Become “An Artful Arranger of Words”

In the last many years I have been teaching myself how to write. Ooh! That sounds odd. Of course, I know how to move a pen or pencil across a page forming sentences and paragraphs almost as easily as I chatter and babble in longwinded sentences and paragraphs.

But knowing how to compose those sentences and paragraphs so I could become ‘an artful arranger’ of words is a different issue. This statement by Amy Tan, author and journalist, described writing in a very understandable way. My nursing career has required writing every day - but writing that only requires legibility and relatively good spelling. Short concise and to the point ~ patient progress only. To become an ‘artful arranger of words’ I would have to practice and practice. And so I have and with your help.  

My goal? To write stories, poems and to write what I believe in about my career. And to create a life outside of my day job that is pleasing to me. I have said that I should have something to do in my retirement, however it has become much more than that. My classroom has been my home and the world outside of my day job, my books from the library or store and my teachers have been in conferences, workshops and on the Net, not to mention friends and family.  A very rich ‘school’ that has only cost me time and a few dollars for pens and paper. 

Transferable skills have been a principle all along. The skills important and effective in my career and in other parts of my life, have been transferred and sometimes modified for this writing life. I have known how to connect words, to develop them into ideas. Learning to become an arranger of words, still listening and still learning the art of writing, is a joyful challenge.

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most

undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

~ Richard P. Feynman

Summer Rain

A not so dry run for a Victorian winter arrived in the middle of a summer night, 
clouds dumped water indescriminately on streets, alleys, parks and playgrounds.
Summer heat interrupted for a respite that still steams and fogs through trees and gardens.
Rubber boots and umbrellas replaced shorts, capris and stras sunhats.
Blue skies replaced by moist thick gray blankets.

Walkers with rubber boots of blue and white scrolling, stark hunter green, snake skin patterns, like multicoloured koi flashing past in pools of splashing dark water.

A walk through downtown and meadow prepares for winter wet and gray, brightened by umbrellas and brollies of muted rose or royal blue, even a bright yellow sunflower dome, black and white graphics, broad beige and brown panels…...
Bobbing flowers of a distant winter scene where snow seldom falls.

Water......Rain......reconnecting sky and earth so that we may all continue our lives and loves.

“Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth;

without rain, there would be no life.”

~ John Updike

Summer Book Read - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

We know the history of World War II, but do we know the stories beneath the sad and violent politics of World War II? How disconnected are we from the children and families of Germany? The Book Thief is one story beneath the history, but tied inextricably to that history. The setting begins with the narrator musing about humans and moves to the poorest street of a German village beginning just before the Nazi control of the political world. Liesel Meminger is a 9 year old girl who has serious losses without and before the country’s political disruption. The narrator of the book is Death. Initially that certainly put me off, but I had made a commitment to read this book so I read on, gathering attachment and interest to Liesel and her family throughout the war. Markus Zusak has written a story that is a good solid read, with depth, humility and understanding. 

“You cannot be afraid, Read the book. Smile at it.

It’s a great book-the greatest book you’ve ever read.”

~ Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Why Did You Leave Me?

Thought?  

Where did you go?

Why did you leave me with a string of words that had meaning and intent but,

stopped midsentence as though the phone or doorbell rang to disrupt my thoughts.

But there was no little distraction, not even an itch to scratch on the end of my nose.

Merely a blank space not even asking to be filled ~

filled with words to connect and span across fuzzy grey space

but left me with questions - 

Thought? Where did you go and why?

“Do not trust your memory; it is a net full of holes;

the most beautiful prizes slip through it.”

Stepping Out ~ 2

Stepping Out ~ 2

Light seeped thinly from the kitchen under the old wooden door into the level basement. Under a faded and fringed shade yellowed light pooled around his old green reading chair. In that overstuffed chair, he buried himself in travels through fiction and non-fiction. The written word was the only thing that interested him anymore. That the wide and deep basement was not completely finished was of no matter. Richard Gladstone decided that the morning mirror he had seen himself in had lied. His  mood only supported the lies. His beliefs about the ouside world and his family were more opinions than beliefs. Richard had thought them so long that they had taken on the patina of belief. And all of it coloured his attitudes. Richard shook his head slowly as these thoughts layered themselves over the words he was reading. Laying his book aside, he shook both head and hands violently flinging heavy drops of sticky emotion away from him, leaving them on the dusty carpet at his feet.

“What are you going to do!?” his muttered whisper dissolved into the darkness outside of the pool of lights. 

His attitudes were as thin and brittle as his posture. To bend them may be dangerous. On the other hand, his choice to remain seated, reading and ‘testing’ the wines now seemed barely comfortable. Books often slipped noiselessly out of his hands to the floor by the end of any evening.

He rose stiffly and walked toward the side door leading outside. Richard had no use for A.A., any part of it. And he had no use any longer for alcohol - only that there was a malicious craving that he couldn’t explain to anyone. And if Richard tried, eyes glazed over and conversation turned to gossip, weather, politics - anything else. His cell phone rang - a fragile electronic connection to the outside world. He hesitated to answer, but courtesy got the best of him.

‘Coffee? In fifteen minutes? Good, I’ll see you at The Coffee Barn in fifteen.’ 

His decision made, Richard stepped through the door into the open night.

“Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when 

you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.”

~ Shannon L. Adler