A Very Quiet Day

Not a spontaneous move!
But was spontaneity involved?
Laryngitis snuck up on me
Attacked in the night - or was it the day before
Nothing but a croak
Thin and without passion or power
What’s a girl to do?
Finish reading one book and start another
Go for a walk to the post office on an awesome fall day!
Start reading another book.
Make minestrone soup 
(prepaged soup mix from a Farmer’s Market a month ago)
Eat - and then eat……..
Take a nap
Drink tea and then coffee
Eat a brownie (or two) with mango ice cream
Try to talk now and then
Good thing I can write this blog post!

“Writing is the painting of the voice.”

~ Voltaire

Oxymorons Unite!

Spontaneous spending can bring 
Sadness, grief and fear  
Or more to my preference
            Joy, Fun and Contentment

How, you say?
Managed spontaneous spending?
Sound completely oxymoronic?
Does to me, yet also completely logical.
Spontaneous spending when allowed
Free rein of funds for food and necessity
does not share well in that playground of necessity

Creating special space in the bank or in a jar
Spontaneous spending needs
  A plan
An outline
But……
No timeline
   No schedule
And most importantly 
  NO RULES!
Just a couple of ‘rights’
   Right amount of money available
     Right ability to see reality and imagination in the same place
        The rightness to ‘know thyself’.

    

Otherwise ~
Spontaneous spending spills over into
  Cupboards, closets, garages, nooks and crannies
But does not fill any holes in the heart.
(Except for books)

“Remember what Bilbo used to say: ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, 

going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, 

there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.’”

~ J.R.R.Tolkein

Stirring My Senses

Across the road from Hazeldell Orchards, Kelowna, BC

There is something about each of us that is spontaneous. Five somethings. Our five senses. 
Reading my journals from 2006, I found an unedited writing assignment. We were to write a 300 word short story about the five senses with an autumn theme. I have a few more than 300 words! Closer to 570 words! And I'm pretty sure I didn't get all five senses. Never the less, here is my creative non-fiction:

Stirring My Senses

“The road had been long. It was dusk. I was almost at my destination and in the unfamiliar terrain of low mountains. I had crossed the United States from North Texas into Western Canada and through a variety of mountain ranges. The Gaudalupes in Southwest Texas, the Eastern Rockies and now the Western Rockies crossing the United States/Canada border. I had been driving into Canada for only a few hours at the end of a long day at the end of a long trip home. I was changing homes to come my home country to the foreign province of British Columbia. My window was rolled down - the only air conditioning in my old car. Something stirred my senses. Gathering dusk had blackend the surrounding terrain although I could see a vast low forest of trees around me. I was glad the highway was wide and paved. Being used to, for the last fifty years, the open Saskatchewan prairies and LLano Estacado plains, this was one part of the trip that had been quite uncomfortable to me. Yet the air in the window was cool and fresh. Different somehow. It was not the smell of prarire dirt or highway asphalt or new mown hay. I didn’t recognize the fresh aroma wafting into the car. I felt awake and rejuvenated.

*****

And there they were. Bins of apples and pears. Wendy had asked that I help her with her fruitstand as her mother was not able to help out this year. I loved the thought of being on a farm again at harvest time. Just then the old blue Fordson tractor swung around the corner from the orchard carrying another bin of striped red apples on it’s outstretched iron arms. Once the bin  was lowered carefully into place and lined up, I set to work. Apples! Gala apples this time. Small, red and cream striped with dimpled bottoms. Picking one up to check for bruises and other anomalies, I leaned forward into the bin. Something stirred in my memory. I filled the box in front of me, culling out any barely imperfect apples leaving  only the most perfect for my box. The next step was to put the just packed box away in the big cooler at the front of the fruit stand. It was already crammed with boxes of the fresh picked fruit, I picked up the twenty pound box and followed my boss, Wendy, outside to a second larger cooler waiting to be filled. Opening the door, a rush of cold, aromatic air completely loosened the stuck memory. I was back on the highway driving through apple orchards. Orchards that stretched through the Okanagan Valley as far as the eye could see except for the chunks of land stripped and replanted with pavement and shopping malls, homes and schools. 

At that moment I knew what had been missing from my life for so long. The outside. Growing and harvesting. Friends and family living, loving and working on farms. Falling exhausted at the end of the busy day on the land. Meeting only the deadlines that the natural world sets. Each time I smell, touch, taste an apple or pear, it brings me from the mountains to my prairie home and I am glad. And so this piece of my journey back to self is a memory told by my senses. If I deny my senses, I deny myself."

“Nothing revives the past so completely 

as a smell that was once associated with it.”

~ Vladimir Nabokov

It Only Takes One

It only takes one word: ‘hello’

Only one smile to greet the world.

It only takes one kindness to suggest another

One hand up to offer some help. 

It only takes one act of genuine respect

One spontaneous welcome to open a heart.

It only takes one person to forgive

One thank you to accept such a gift.

It only takes one flower to brighten a room

One flower with many for a brilliant bouquet.

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, 

but I can do something. And I will not let what 

I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”

~ Edward Everett Hale

Tsunami

Anger exploded like barrel bombs of chlorine gas in Syria without the same destruction.
Why do humans destroy each other!
Damaging, maiming children who merely want to live life.
My anger has simmered and slowly settled
The spontaneous tsunami has crashed and ebbed away 

Don’t hold on to anger, hurt or pain. 

They steal your energy and keep you from love.”

~ Leo Buscaglia

A Gentle Morning

Morning quiet settles like a lovely light shawl
Keeping me warm and gentled, the crying and cawing of distant crows 

counterpoint to silence and peace
while morning movement unfolds spontaneously
carefully sensing purpose and desires
until the shawl is set aside in exchange for the world outside.

“Quiet is a blessed gift. In this frantic world how we must cherish 

every moment of it, and carve it our for ourselves every chance we get.

~ Anne Ortlund

An Evening Snack

I can’t show you a picture of what just vanished in front of me………
But I can tell you - 
Soft, buttery scrambled eggs
Spicy sweet chile sauce and red pepper flakes
Slightly salty with the bite of black pepper
Goat feta cheese melted and blended within
Nestled on and wrapped loosely in a crisped and warm tortilla
No fork
  No knife
Just a blue napkin and bare hands
A burst of spontaneity 
From sofa to kitchen 
With absolutely no recipe.

“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep at night.”

~ William Blake