Explain and Understand

Explain culture
Explain belief

Understand why
Understand how

Explain reasons
Explain violent solutions

Understand that killing is wrong.
Understand that kindness creates a better vision.

“If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.”

~ John Steinbeck

Author's Note: Edited January 13, 2024

Puzzle

Puzzling through each day
Tripping over shifting moods
Racing excitement
Slipping and sliding confusion
Banging against rocky sadness
Coming to rest bruised and scraped
Crying so hard it turns to laughter
With headaches and running mascara
Breathing past sobs and hiccups
Pushing up from the ground
Gritty gravel and dry broken grass scraped away
Standing still slowly looking all around
Certain that vision had tumbled away
Fitting the next piece of the puzzle into place

“The human heart has a way of making itself large again 

even after it’s been broken into a million pieces.”

~ Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County

How Many? Too Many.

How many names?

How many relatives and friends?

What is the centuries old vision that is war?

It does not matter whose flag is flying.

It does not matter the political policies.

It only matters that a soldier’s service be honoured.

Men and women.

Sons and daughters

Moms and dads 

As each war ends, honour must continue

Gratitude that many loved ones came home

Grief and sadness that too many were lost

“We should keep the dead before our eyes, 

and honour them as though they were still living.”

~ Confucius

Book Review: Under the Visible Life by Kim Echlin

Under the Visible Life is passion, music and love. Kim Echlin has composed twin stories about Katherine and about Mahsa. Katherine, born in Canada to a mixed race relationship. Mahsa, born in Pakistan, in a mixed race marriage. What else did they have in common? Audible visions of jazz and music, love of family and they each grew into themselves despite family tragedies. They both ultimately composed music and played piano together ~ their private and shared passions. The difficulties they both faced were social structures placed on them by personal and cultural history from their families and communities. They each loved deeply and distantly, keeping their love under their visible lives.

I so enjoyed this marvelous story, this fusion of culture and tradition that was played out in jazz and poetry. As a reader, I felt their music and their passions. The rhythm of this read was almost audible to me. Thank you Kim Echlin for this wonderful, tragic and beautiful story

“Love reaches beyond death. When we are 

all gone, the music will still be here.”

~ Mahsa ~ from 

Under the Visible Life by Kim Echlin

Title:  Under the Visible Life
Author:  Kim Echlin
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton-an imprint of Penguin Canada Books, Inc.
Publication Date: 2015
Format:  Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-0-670-06532-5 (bound)
ISBN: 978-0-14-319442-2 (eBook)
Type:  Fiction

Blinded

Story fragments cut from newsprint Word piles too damp to flame and burn.
Sentences broken in half, stacked haphazardly,
flung against a blank page
like a flutter of starlings up in the clouds.
Vision blinded by starlight, black night ~ or maybe clouds.

“We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details….”
~ Jeff Bezos

Movie Review: Spectre 007 ~ Directed by Sam Mendes

Ah, James Bond. Always impeccable despite explosions, vicious fist fights, car chases, helicopter hi-jinks or speedboat escapes. Weather changes are little challenge for this dashing superhero without a cape. Racing from country to country to save the world from Spectre, the digital organization that threatens to unite the world by computer and satellite. Q, in the persona of an adorable computer geek, does the digital saving of the world. Did I forget to mention beautiful women that dangled from Mr. Bond’s arm until the next one? They didn’t seem quite so plentiful in this movie. One women, Léa Seydoux as Dr. Swann, won Mr. Bond’s heart. The grand musical score, another variation on the James Bond theme, held the tension throughout the movie, sliding into romance gently and as dramatically back to the chase. A bit long, but fun and good to see that Mr. Bond has not lost his touch - just ask the ladies.

“Having rain on your tuxedo is a pretty good reminder 

that you’re not James Bond.

~ Joel Edgerton

Directed by: Sam Mendes

Partial Cast

Daniel Craig - James Bond

Christoph Waltz - Oberhauser

Léa Seydoux - Dr. Madelaine Swann

Ralph Fiennes - M

Ben Whishaw - Q

Naomie Harris - Moneypenny

Andrew Scott - C