Word Challenge

A relatively easy task ~

Describing slinking sadness, 

gritty grief or eroding envy,

any nasty negative emotions
felt when whirling in an emotional hole with shovels, muck and nasty slime.

Another relatively easy task ~ 

Describing explosive emotions, in their ballooning brilliance, will wave magic wands, set off festive fireworks and play rippling rhythms splashed with chichi colours. 

How does one describe cheer? 

Words for calm contentment

seem so bland, so flat. 

This cherished centre on a rolling continuum

is only felt in whispered wisps and breaths  

with wandering hums and whistles .

“Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil 

to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. 

Confusing. Frustrating….but there are 

other ways to understanding.”

~ Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Counting Down

At the forefront of my mind has been an upcoming anniversary day. Anyone who knows me, probably is aware of my penchant for marking birthdays and anniversaries. This upcoming anniversary date, for me, is February 16th. One year since I worked my last nursing shift. I really didn’t know what to expect for that day. How would I respond when I admitted patients or discharged patients? Some I had cared for several times over the years were especially poignant. Learning the person buried behind the addiction really does make a difference. I do hope my sadness, as I silently said good-bye to my patients, was not visible. My many colleagues throughout have added such texture to my career and professional life. Most recently, those who were my companions and co-workers while working at VIHA have their own special place in my heart. I think of all of these people, places and things off and on as I go about my days in retirement.

The before picture of retirement was one of an alien, vast, and very dark, landscape. I have watched others slip into this phase easily. For others it was not so easy or comfortable when illness or misfortune shattered plans for these so-called ‘golden years’. I am grateful for activities established over previous years. A walking group, book group and of course my writing practice at home became trusty flashlights, helping me crack open this new book. Even so, empty spaces on my calendar, like vast tracts of space, greeted me each day. Every so often, a ‘work dream’ in my early morning hours remind me of this past that I held so tightly.

The after picture of retirement has been much like a dawning spring, gradually opening my heart. Each day different, but slowly filled with the familiar, with new life, and only a bit of turmoil. Cheers to my colleagues who saw me off with such love and respect. Cheers to my families, far and near, who have welcomed me home and into their homes. Cheers to my circles of friends, also far and near, who have patiently listened to my retirement journey. This ‘land’ I thought that would be so dark, has been filled with frivolous fun, gentle guidance and steady light from everyone.

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”

~ Robert Frost

The Word-craft Shuffle

Shuffling back and then forth again,

stacking together then

the order reworked.

Scrubbing my eyes

Raking my hair

Pausing and pacing…….

Getting just the right pen

making sure the ink flows

on the right sort of pages……

The bed is all rumpled,

laundry’s piled up,

there’s dishes in the sink…..

Then tapping and tapping

the keyboard for prose,

but maybe poetry’s best……

The outside is calling ~

it’s getting quite loud

But deep stomach growls keep me inside.

An essay?

A story?

What do I do?

On days calm and bright,

to write is a puzzle but

cheers me on none-the-less.

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see 

 and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

**Global Pandemic alert by World Health Organization declared on this date**

Book Review: Small beneath the Sky (a prairie memoir) by Lorna Crozier

Small beneath the Sky (a prairie memoir) fostered a very lively discussion at book club yesterday afternoon. Our own heavy Victoria snows did not keep anyone away. After all, most of us lived, walked and drove in prairie winters at one time. Some of us were even raised there in other corners of Saskatchewan. 

In just under two hundred pages, Lorna Crozier, a celebrated author, shows us the prairies and her growing up years. Intertwined, they can only be separated in poetry and in prose. Small beneath the Sky, a very fitting title for this slim volume, takes the reader through the generational turbulence of prairie life into her growing up years. 

Ms. Crozier certainly had ample reason for laying blame with alcoholism and poverty as much woven into her personal fabric as the effect of the prairies. She shies away from a ‘blame game’, however, telling the story of her early life, her parents and grandparents just as it was then. She speaks of her fierce love for her mother and father, despite their differences and failings. The 1950’s and 1960’s in the small southern Saskatchewan city of Swift Current were not unlike the experiences of many of us growing up in that time, whether in city neighbourhoods, farms on the prairies or any small town. 

Ms. Crozier states ‘…..I am indebted to Aristotle, who hypothesized that there must be something beyond the chain of cause and effect, something that started it all. He called this force the first cause.’ Her short poetic vignettes about prairie landscape and weather, woven through her own story, shows this reader that there are many ‘first causes’. Prairie weather shaped not only the land but the lives of immigrants and their families that planted and harvested our grains on this treeless, sky domed land.

“Wherever you go, you speak with the earth on your tongue, in the accent 

passed down for generations. It’s a lengthening of vowels, 

a dusty drawl thin enough to be carried some distance by the wind.”

~ Lorna Crozier, Small beneath the Sky (a prairie memoir)

Title: Small Beneath the Sky (a prairie memoir)

Author: Lorna Crozier

Copyright: 2009 by Lorna Crozier

Publisher: Greystone Books

Type: Paperback

Format: Memoir

ISBN: 978-1-155365-343-1 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-55365-577-0 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-1926812-27-4 (ebook)

Quilted

February, 2017 but the same as today! Maybe not the ducks.

Stitched in green and black,

reds and gold,

nestled in shades of grey sky and ice mushed asphalt

Jack Frost spread his own

icy quilt over the west coast.

Decorated with snowcapped mountains, 

homes, high-rises and charmingly cold pillows 

fashioned from shrubbery and fence posts,

he breathed a chilling fog and cheered!

“Take a good look at your fabric and intuit what it is saying to you.”

~ Patricia Belyea, East-Meets-West Quilts

Mid Night

It was dark. 

with eyelids closed,

I sensed the snow

I sensed the snow.

with eyelids closed,

it was dark.

“There’s no consciousness without senses and memories.”

~ Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut.

Listening: The Human Factor

This little essay is about writing and reading, two of my favourite pastimes. When I’ve written and posted a Book Review without listening to our book club’s discussion, I find I have more difficulty with organizing my thoughts. This despite reading book reviews on line. Those reviews are very helpful, giving me different perspectives to consider. Discussion among friends is somehow different. Maybe it’s just the laughter, coffee and goodies that are marvellous accompaniments! But somehow I don’t think so. In this world of instant everything, we have access to many, many opinions, online chats, information, various forms of markets and games. What is not immediately accessible is the human contact of….you guessed it….laughter, coffee and goodies. The human dynamic that is the joy of listening and learning about books we read, the movies we go to, a shopping experience or a weekly walk with friends. As I write I see that this little essay is about more than just writing and reading, but about the human experience that touches all of our five senses, as well as our sense of spirit. 

But neither is technology a bad thing. This laptop, cold to touch, holds the photo of my great granddaughter on the screen. It  fills me with a glorious cheer, reminding me of her soft little hand touching my wrinkly old face. My pen, with black ink, and my journal, with soft cover and lined pages, are mere objects. Yet when my hand takes them up each morning, I enter a private space for exploration into my thoughts, ideas, worries, solutions and sometimes even a to do list. Then I take some bit of my writing to the electronics of my laptop and onto my blog site at Standing Still Slowly. To write in my journal or on this electronic page for even a grocery list I have had to listen. To listen to myself and the ideas and experience of others. We can allow technology to disconnect us in annoyance, or use it as the useful tool it is meant to be. Whether electronic or good old fashioned pen and paper, they are all useful tools for writing, for reading and maintaining human connections. By the way, I was introduced to my present walking group, book group and a circle of new friends from an online search many years ago.

Listening is a human factor felt through all of our senses infusing our hearts and spirits with the context of life. Our surface intellect tends to censor what has been heard, sometimes with too much evaluation. When listening is as invisible as the electronics of this computer, the details will be at our fingertips in whatever we do.

“Writing too, is 90% listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you

 that it fills you up, and when you write, it pours out of you.”

~ Natalie Goldberg,  Writing Down the Bones (pg.58)