Creativity Challenge

From September, 2008 Regina - Wascana Lake.

Re-purposing is a creative endeavour. It is so very easy to toss out our packaging. When we do it ends up in a land fill. White plastic bags float over our landscape, clinging to bushes or fences until another wind comes along. Recycling depots prevent a lot of this drift and litter. So many things can be made from those things we throw away without thinking. We best not throw out our best selves.

Re-purposing a lifetime career has it’s own creativity to it. That lifetime career may have been a parent whose children have flown the nest or it may have been a long term employment. At these times we are left to decide what to do next. A feeling of empty hands and hearts weighs heavy and threatens. 

Creativity to the rescue! Stepping out into the community, when a full community life has not been part of some career lives, is a challenge. It’s like the first day of school, but no one to tell you the rules. Teachers are friends, family and neighbours, and especially those that have gotten past elementary school.

In the creative challenge of re-purposing, self development starts at home and moves in the direction of your choice. Any edges of wear or cracks in the surface from the past life are merely battle scars that enhance the experience of upcoming events.

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs 
and developing our wings on the way down.”

~ Kurt Vonnegut, 
If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? Advice for the Young

A Random Act of Kindness

Like satin ripples on deep water, kindness washes gently against harsh realities of debility and illness.

From a friend, they leaned together. One to ensure that there was no fall while guiding the other to a warm bed.

“Whenever there is a human in need, there is 

an opportunity for kindness and to make a difference.”

~ Kevin Heath

Purpose: A Slippery Fish!

Practical
Utilitarian
Robust
Phantasmagorical
Overdrive
Slippery
Effervescent

“The circumstances of the world are so variable that an irrevocable 

purpose or opinion is almost synonymous with a foolish one.”

~  William Seward

Sunny Reflections

Tulips, faces turned to the sun, have no other purpose than to be cheery and bright.

Tulips, growing in sun, shade or foggy mist, bow only briefly to wind or heavy weather.

“Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.”

~ Gail Sheehy

Bridges

Bridges have always fascinated me. Bridges that span gaps, waterways and roadways.
Their construction ~ the clangs and bangs, the growling machinery delivering pieces of these gigantic puzzles to a work site.

The men and women who design and build these marvellous structures must be creative, determined and brave. Many will just be doing a job, but making a difference anyway. Roadways and walkways elongated and open.

Bridges connect two sides of many things, bringing people together and letting people move back and forth in life.

“Bridges are perhaps the most invisible form of public architecture.”

~  Bruce Jackson

Author's Note: Edited January 06, 2024

Dinner Time on the Water

Often when I take the ferry to the mainland to see my sons, the days are misty, windswept and grey.

Yesterday, the air was clear and clean. I was treated to this sight from the car deck when returning to my car.

Although not invited to this watery buffet, this tiny part of a great stretch of feeding gulls, I was able to take a picture of dinner time on the water ~
Great flutters of gulls
Sweeping and diving
Aiming for the next tasty morsel that comes to the sun.

“We may run, walk, stumble, drive or fly, but let us never lose sight 

of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way.”

~ Gloria Gaither

Muddy Jeans and Dancing

My all too short trip to Vancouver this weekend to visit my sons and grand-dogs reminded me of two very important lessons:

1. When you go to a dog park, 

especially on a muddy spring day, you must and will come home with muddy jeans.

2. Learn The Dog Park Dance - no rhythm required.

Steps:  Wide stance

            Slightly bent knees

            Balance left to right easily - and quickly ~ back and forth as the race and tumble of dogs speeds past!

“Joyful, joyful, joyful, as only dogs know how to be happy

with only the autonomy of their shameless spirit.”

~ Pablo Neruda