Wordy Worries

What did I say and how did I say it?
Was the inflection wrong?
Did my tone of voice change the meaning of my words?
Words and meanings set together, yet misshapen and distorted ~
Phrases tumbled from my mouth trying to find 
the right cadence, 
the right balance,
kind direction instead of stern directives.

Crossing boundaries of age and experience
where memory’s mist rises as if from a cooling lake,
bulky rememberings worried like beads on a string.

“The weight of your words is more important than the volume of your voice!”

~ Manprit Kaur

A Bit of Paper

A Bit of Paper

It floated down. A plain white paper. Virginia looked up from where she was sitting in the sun, her dark coffee iced and creamy. The sun was too bright to see where the paper may have come from. What window in the tall silver and copper high rise had been opened to send the paper on it’s floating descent? And why? It was certainly a lazy, warm day that she should even give a thought to this bit of flotsam. It may just have blown in the eddies of the city canyons with no purpose at all. She felt it was rather like herself on a day like today. No purpose, just floating and enjoying the ride. Suddenly an updraft caught the piece of paper sending it spinning it in an opposite direction, suspending it midair while the currents held sway. Virginia had felt her own such updrafts in earlier times. Not anchored in the world, she had twisted and changed with any prevailing winds. Finally tired of changing because of somone or something else, Virginia’s life slowed, but never stagnated. She had finally learned to ride the winds of sudden change, or to avoid windy corners and canyons.

One such windy noisy place was the upcoming election. Politicians strutting their stuff, otherwise solemn faces painted with smiles, words of promise and kindness filling airwaves and town halls.  Virginia had listened to some of the rhetoric without much belief in the truth of it all. Without a sound, the wayward paper settled on the warm stone surface of the cafe table. One word was scrawled in black ink across it’s surface: VOTE. Smiling, Virginia stood up, paid her check and continued on her way to the polling station ~ Virginia’s original destination.

“Every election is determined by the people who show up.”

~ Larry J. Sabato,  Pendulum Swing

Shadows

               Shadows

He was an urban legend. One of those legends that settle deep into the community, amidst all the technology and electronics, to become real but not real. He was an old man. Scruffy beard, long dirty tweed coat, boots that never laced up and hair that hung in a braid down the middle of his back. There was no colour to him, unless you were able to get close to him and see his blue, blue eyes.  Eyes that twinkled beneath his shaggy eyebrows, buried deep in his weathered face. But no one had ever really seen him. The stories about him could never be confirmed. He was like a shadow. Sometimes he was very, very old.  Sometimes he was only 60 something. There was never anyone with him. He didn’t seem to have a place, and yet his place was wherever he was - sleeping on a sidewalk, eating a meal in a diner or striding down the middle of a road. What made this man a legend is that his stories were told me when I was ten, when I was in my twenties and then I had my own stories in the decades that followed. After hearing all of the stories of his wives, his children, that he was really a millionare, that he was a spy or that he was really an alien ~ I began to see him myself and tell my stories to my children and my grandchildren.  He was not a mean man or a good man, just a man who was only a shadow of what he could be. This man, this shadow, never changed. Only the times and the stories that were told.

Stigma is like that. Painting long shadows over the men and women that are marginalized and lost. Never allowing anyone to see the twinkling blue or brown eyes. To see the legends that they have lived. To learn whether they are mean or good or just ordinary. Stigma does not allow a place but places the shadows in alleys and dark corners.

“What men call the shadow of the body is not 

the shadow of the body, but the body of the soul.”

~ Oscar Wilde,  A House of Pomegranates

Ideas

Ideas, like fire flies on warm summer night, flit and flare to only disappear in dawn’s light to return with the next evening's gloaming.

Ideas, like smoldering embers tucked away in the mind,
lie quietly, waiting for a breath of fresh air ~ to change from flit and flare to real and solid.

“Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas

 that really separates the sheep from the goats.”

~ Sue Grafton

Book Review: The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger

Missing the discussion of the novel The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger, yet reading the book while I was away left me wondering. Wondering about the rich discussion that I missed this afternoon while reading on the bus back from Vancouver. Then when I read that this story was based on a true story, I was more intrigued about discussion of the Mistress of Nothing.

The novel began with an ordinary, for the late 1800’s, trip to Egypt for the heat and the dryness for Lady Duff Gordon and her maid Sally Haldrett. Lady Duff Gordon had an illness that sounded supiciously like tuberculosis. The Lady and her lady’s maid were embarking on a trip that would turn out to be more than a trip for Lady Duff Gordon’s health.

The stark contrast between English customs, ways and ethics and those of the Egyptian communities they travelled and lived in was beautifully described. The story is the imagined life of Sally Haldrett, who had only known life as an orphan and cast-off due to the time and circumstances that befell her. It is the story of the many changes Sally under went and the cross cultural love that split apart the relationship between Sally and her Lady that had been built over  years of intimate service. Omar, a dragoman, was also in Lady Duff Gordon’s employ while she was in Egypt to serve as an interpreter, tranalator and official guide. He was Sally’s first ever lover and the father of her child.

Kate Pullinger had researched the book written by Lady Lucie Duff Gordon, Letters from Egypt that told of their life from Lady Duff Gordon’s side. Kate Pullinger told a believable story of Sally Haldrett’s side of the adventure they undertook. Betrayal, love, cultural mores, the status of women ~ these parts of discussion are what were missed today for me at book club.

“But I was not a real person to her, not a true soul 

with all the potential for grace and failure that implies,”

~ Sally Haldrett, from The Mistress of Nothing  by Kate Pullinger

Thanksgiving 2015

There are things to write about everyday. Sometimes not much, sometimes a lot. Today, little has changed with not much to say but so very much felt. This Thanksgiving, I worked with my sons in the kitchen ~ being their sous-chef. Wikipedia’s definition of a sous chef is ‘the second in command’ in a kitchen. However there were two chefs in the kitchen today ~ Jason who took charge of the turkey ~ deboned and brined by his own hand then barbecued , and Jeff who took charge of making both perogies and cabbage rolls ~ both from scratch. So I guess that made me an under sous chef or just doubling up on my duties.

No matter, the evening progressed beautifully with family, neighbours and friends arriving for visiting or for supper. Noise of chatter rose above music being played on the computer; appreciative groans as each dish was passed around and sampled. After a brief lull, time for dessert! More groans but valiant and successful efforts to taste it all.

Thanks, my sons, for a wonderful Thanksgiving!

“To watch a good cook work well on his station 

is to witness multitasking of the highest order.”

~ Michael Gibney, Sous chef: 24 Hours on the Line

Abundance

Potatoes are peeled
pot’s on to boil
cake and pies have been made
turkey all dressed for the oven 

Family and friends
gather round tomorrow eve
for a home made feast 
laughter and chatter will fill any gaps!

Over years of Thanksgivings
many changes there’ve been
but bonds of the heart
each Thanksgiving are born or renewed.

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see 

that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

Echoes ~ 2

In just one second
after a delicious meal has been eaten
the fate of the world has been solved
the election discussed and changes proposed
echoes of laughter fade in the night
trailing through streets, still rainy wet,
decorated with orange, windswept leaves
goodnights have been said
heavy eyelids beg to be put to rest for the night.
echoes fade with sleep and silence.

“It seems that laughter needs an echo.”

~  Henri Bergson