Changing the Rules

Don’t talk

But when you do, speak your truth.

Don’t trust
But when you do, trust your heart.

Don’t feel
But when you do, feel joy, love and sorrow.

Don’t think
But when you do, think kindly and with wisdom.

Don’t dream
But when you do, dream grand visions of depth and worth.

“Forget about being impressive and 

commit to being real. Being real is impressive.”

~ Jonathan Harnisch,  Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography

Gone!

OK..so what did I do with it?! 
You know….that thought ~
the brilliant one ~ 
with an amazing intuitive vision of ……
Gone!

“My brain tends to take the scenic route. Things come to 

the forefront of my mind sooner or later, it just takes time.”

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Birthday Thoughts

Birthdays have always been special days to me. Has not mattered if it was mine or someone else’s. My grandma made it so. With the first ring of the phone on a ‘birthday day’, we kids would call out ‘It’s for you!’ The birthday girl or boy was sent racing to the phone…..was it always exciting or, as teenagers, did it get old for some?

Phone calls still come, always from sons and siblings and now, tons of Facebook messages. Every one makes me smile. It is the excitement of the day. Almost as exciting as waking up on Christmas morning when I was six or seven! The tiny spark inside me has not been snuffed out by the status quo of adulthood. It still sparkles and shines. A big grin spreads when the phone rings, when messages show up with the energy of best wishes. Each birthday brings a vision of a time past zipping through the years. From the distance of party lines and telephone operators to dial phones, cell phones and now computer, smart phones and electronic messaging.

But, birthdays for me are bigger than presents. There was a time, many years ago, when I had just about forgotten that life is worth living, that dreams still exist and that I had the ability to make even the hardest of choices. Thankfully, that time is long past. Low days are just that ~ low, but not slippery and scary. So my birthday is really all about me, awareness of my life and gratitude to everyone who has shared pieces of my journey with me. 

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, 

and see yourself running with them.”

~ Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations

Author's note: Edited January 13, 2024

Momentum

One question

borne of curiosity or maybe frustration that something could work better

More questions  

brought to light suggests answers from 

bits and pieces gathered over years.

Answers splay out from

strings of thoughts, wondering and ideas

connected but disjointed, knotted and tangled.

Momentum gathers

when ideas, frustration and curiosity

expand into a vision for what seems impossible.

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity,”

~ Emelia Earhart

A Writing Lesson

When words jam up

Bunch up

Bottle neck

And yet the love of writing,

visions of word pictures,

showing not telling still burns……

It’s time for coffee with friends,

sketching flowers and trees,

a walk in the rain and a movie.

“Writing starts with living.”

~ L.L.Barkat, 

Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing

Movie Review: Suffragette directed by Sarah Gavron

It is not often that a movie engenders such separate, clear and disparate emotions in me. Suffragette, starring Cary Mulligan in the role of Maud Watts, is such a movie. Intense anger - when I saw women beaten and kicked by police officers. Inmmense gratitude - that I, and most women today, can think, act and feel independent of men because of those women that were beaten and kicked. And great sadness, when I saw the conditions that whole families lived in while mothers, sisters, aunts and cousins supported their men’s lives with manual labour at home and outside of home.

The character of Maud Watts, was inspired by the real life suffragette, Hannah Webster Mitchell. Maud Watts was a representation of the working class woman of the early 1900’s. Married, with one child she worked in a large laundry. She, like other women, had begun work in the laundry as a child along side mothers and sisters. Emmeline Pankhurst, played by Meryl Streep, established The Women’s Social and Political Union as an embodiment of her vision for freedom for women. Maud Watts did not come to Emmeline Pankhurst’s movement easily, however a series of events, as well as the drudgery that was her life, slowly moved her into the ranks of ‘the Pankies’ .  

Although there were men that supported their wives, family estrangements, social rejections and cruel imprisonments were the fate of many of the suffragettes that fought for women’s right to vote. A right that has given us all of our other rights in this life. Suffragette is a ‘close-hand view of the misery and unhappiness’ that was the lot of women. This is a view of our past that men, women, young and old, should see.

“I had to get a close-hand view of the misery and unhappiness 

of a man made world, before I reached the point where 

I could successfully revolt against it.”

~ Emmeline Pankhurst, Suffragette, My Own Story

Director: Sarah Gavron

Written by: Abi Morgan

Partial Cast of Suffragette
Carey Mulligan - Maud Watts
Anne-Marie Duff - Violet Miller
Adam Michael Dodd - George Watts, Maud Watt’s son
Ben Whishaw - Sonny Watts, Maud Watt’s husband
Helen Bonham Carter - Edith Ellyn
Finbar Lynch - Hugh Ellyn, Edith Ellyn’s husband
Brendon Gleeson - Inspector Arthur Steed
Natalie Press - Emily Wilding Davisone
Meryl Streep - Emmeline Pankhurst

www.biography.com/news/suffragette-movie-history provides a more detailed history in relationship between history and cast.

Another Blank Page

Another blank page
crept up
settled quietly
without vision or design.

Another blank page
like a blue sky 
waiting for puffs of white
stood still and waited
for words that wished to remain hidden

Another blank page
is all that is left tonight
patient and knowing
that in the morrow, the blank page will be filled.

“Writing is a struggle against silence.”

~ Carlos Fuentes