Anticipation ~ 2

Anticipation of success 
full outcome is not yet to be seen
Creeps slowly
Crawls hesitantly

The challenge is not in the outcome
Anticipation becomes the challenge
Standing still slowly
To watch what could be a sunrise

In the early morning
After days of changing weather
sunrise gilds mountain tops,
clouds crowd in, painted peach and sunflower yellow

Anticipation ~ 
Will building clouds win out ~
or will the new day be filled with sunshine?
A single hummingbird awaits whatever comes.

“And I will never again underestimate the power of anticipation. 

There is no better boost in the present than an invitation into the future.”

~ Caroline Kepnes, You

Like a Backward Echo

The quotation for this post I found first ~
It spoke to me first in a whisper, growing ever stronger of
unpleasant memories of creating unnecessary complications.
Running into guilty fears of never being fast enough.
Trying to untie the damage to relationship and calm.

Today when ordinary complications arise
time crunches and heart crunches want to send me back and back
until I remember the pressures I alone created.
Then I know it is time to breathe deeply and walk slowly.
In cool morning air, with slowed steps, the knots fall apart on their own.

“…..People tend to complicate their own lives, 

as if living weren’t complicated enough already.”

~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Shaped by the Wind

Life seems too easy for some,
for others seems way too hard.
Have challenges met been earlier on….
or are they yet to come into the yard?

Whether present or far in this great life of ours
in each moment there's only what's near.
The challenges past that seem buried and gone
shape our lives as the wind shapes deep rooted trees

When gentle breezes have blown, roots still will grow deep
Moments still will be just as they are
Any challenges to come, in a future unseen,
Will be met by any lessons taken to heart.

“Love the trees until their leaves fall off, 

then encourage them to try again next year.”

~ Chad Sugg

Timing, Technology and Trust

Trust takes time to build
Face to face feels a sense of the real
But over the phone or over the net
It’s only the voice that delivers what’s real

Referrals are made from those that are known
Phone calls and emails ensue
Trusted friend only suggests it’s ok to proceed
Yet many decisions are mine to be made.

The challenge today? Put hesitation aside
Trust that what’s been built is assured.
Timing in offices here and away
Needs more technology to deliver what’s real. 

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

~  Ernest Hemingway

Transferable Skills ~ 2

For every job we do ~
employment that pays for our lives 
activity we participate in ~
there are skills that we learn.

Skills found in 
Policy and Procedure manuals
How-to manuals
Cook Books

And then there is just experience:
Packing pears and apples is not unlike
Packing dishes and books
Empty cardboard boxes of any kind
often need the bottoms shored up.
The challenge?
Fix the bottom of the box so fruit would not fall through.

The memory of those times is wonderful and fresh and fun
Laughter and chatter
finding the biggest, the most perfect, or the oddest apple or pear
Talking about recipes and sharing stories of canning successes or disasters.
Talking with people from all across Canada.
Sending pears and apples to homes in trucks, cars and in planes
And so I’ve asked my friends to ‘help’ with my move….
Thanks Wendy and Allen, Judy, Jacquie, Brigitte, and all the others!!

“In wisdom gathered over time I have found 

that every experience is a form of exploration.”

~ Ansel Adams

Relative Ability

Of all the challenges in this past many years the biggest challenge may have been giving my first bed bath………and it was to a man ~ not elderly and not really even old. I think he was in his thirties and I was only eighteen. He was also about six feet tall, black shaggy hair and just a big guy. This first nursing experience was in the DVA wing (Department of Veterans Affairs) in the Regina General Hospital in 1966.

Actually I was confronted with two huge challenges that day
The Bedbath or
Telling my dad that I wanted to leave nursing.

I wanted to run away that day, but I only made it as far as the linen closet. In that linen closet, with the smell of clean pressed sheets, I stood frozen and crying. Afraid to go forward and afraid to go back home. The sheets, pressed and folded back then, were no help at all. Or maybe they were. When I picked up the towels, bedsheets and other linen for the gigantic task ahead of me, they were comforting. Something my hands could control and work with while my heart and mind were reeling.

The big scary guy I had to bathe, turned out to be very kind and he was also paralyzed. Vulnerable and probably more scared about his life that I was about that one bath. Almost five decades later, I am still nursing. I wonder where he is now, each day filled with challenges. In the nineteen-sixties, a disabled person had little in the future but bed and wheelchair, limited access to all plays, theatre and entertainment ~ or grocery stores, housing……. Many of these issues have been addressed but there is more to life than having a roof over your head and being entertained.

Enter the Paralympic Games. Although the first competition for wheelchair athletes, named the Stoke Mandeville Games, was in 1948, the first Paralympic Games were held in Italy in 1960. (Information compliments of Wikipedia.) These games were arranged for the many veterans that had returned injured from wars. Little has changed in that regard. But the Paralympic Games are growing and the abilities of those with ‘disabilities’ are growing as well.

“I do not have a disability, I have a gift! Others may see it 

as a disability, but I see it as a challenge. This challenge 

is a gift because I have to become stronger to get around it, 

and smarter to figure out how to use it; others should be so lucky.”

~ Shane E. Bryan

He Walked Out the Door

He walked out the door
Active addiction weighing heavily on his young shoulders
Angry, beaten and going……….where?
A new challenge met and quickly released ~ too hot, too slippery.
A desire to get well, squashed and beaten by cravings and the need for relief.
What had life been like before active addictions gripped it?
This first attempt to break free was too painful, too frightening and too awful.
His walk was almost tall.
His head held almost high.
His face set in stony silence.
He walked out the door.

“When you can stop you don’t want to, and when you want to you can’t…..”

~ Luke Davies, Candy