Shy Blossoms

          

          Hidden in plain sight

  Covering hedges in shade

     Shy blossoms exposed

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

~ Henri Matisse

On an Afternoon Walk - Spring Stroll

Spring Stroll Photo Op

Started out as a walk,

turned into a stroll

not in a hurry

life’s on a roll

library a wander

20 minutes away

time for a muse &

stops on the way

A sit on a bench

to soak up the sun

then on to the library

the wind having fun!

Out of my backpack

Gamache took a fall

into the book return

was his only downfall

Now do I want to stop

for coffee and a write?

I think so ~

that only seems right.

Back out on the street

I walked towards home;

stopped at the bookstore

for third Gamache tome

Groceries my last stop,

just one or two things.

Then home with my prizes

 ~ The stroll was a win.

“We are here on the planet only once, 

and might as well get a feel for the place.”

~ Annie Dillard

* “Gamache” is the main character of Louise Penny’s books. 

My book purchase today: ‘A World of Curiosities’ by Louise Penny

Illumination ~ 3

A light glowed ~

illumination from within

a space had been cleared

bright and empty

swept clean of doubts and fears

to be filled with …….?

so much room to create 

joy for heart and soul

decorations backed by music

with texture, colour and words

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

~ Desmond Tutu

Chapter Two, Episode 136 - A World Outside - Situationally Theirs

A World Outside  

Martha and James Digby had discussed retirement in the past. It wasn’t until Martha took charge and asked Miss Emelina about reducing her hours that James started think of it seriously. Neither of them felt like they were too old to keep on working. Neither of them had taken much time for themselves. They had not seen a world outside the Estate other than trips up Island or the one time they went to visit James’ brother Thom on the mainland. It was that trip that had Martha thinking of more than the idyllic setting they shared. As young people, the pair started working together at the same time. For Martha it was most of her life, James had lived on the Estate all of his life. Of course there was a brief sojourn in University as a young man. It was so long ago that it barely counted as anything but a memory. They had always had a comfortable life, but as she grew older, Martha became restless. She never wanted to be far from her daughter and her grandchildren but something niggled at her. She would find herself staring out the big living room window at the lane that led from their cottage. Always knowing where it led, to another road and into the city, along the ocean and away. Putting down her dust cloth, she went to the garage and picked up her gardening tools. Outside she started weeding and planting along the sides of the little lane extending from their driveway. She was careful not to disturb the crocus’ blooming in the grasses and beneath wild brush. To start with, that seemed enough. As long as her eyes watched her hands dig and plant and pat the soil around the low growing ground cover, she felt at peace. Straightening her stiff joints, she stood to scatter wild flower seed in the shallow ditches.

One day, when James was away in Hartley meeting with his personal accountant, Martha had taken her beautification project a little farther down the lane. Finished the section she had been working on, she had taken off her flowered garden gloves and set them with her tools. Rather than picking them up to return to their quaint cottage, she just started to walk down the lane and down the road. No plan in mind, she just wanted to walk. Stopping to pull a weed or to watch a robin pulling a worm from the soft shoulder, she loved the feeling of the lowering sun, the wind ruffling her hair.  She hummed a long forgotten childhood tune. Martha, a pragmatic woman, was not prone to wandering on her own. Even as a child, she had wanted nothing more than her family around her. Growing up the oldest of three children with two brothers, she had become a second mother to them. Her own mother worked hard. A single mother, she organized her home, entrusting Martha to keep order when she was at one of her two, sometimes three, jobs. Her mother had no pay benefits or the reliability of one steady job. Martha had vowed to make her life different. “Hmmm…..is that why I’ve never thought of traveling? Because I’m too safe here?” She turned, surprised she had walked so far from the cottage, her gardening tools a mere speck at the side of the lane. The wind had picked up, blowing her hair in complete disarray. Clouds were rolling in from the ocean, muddying what had been a clear, warm day. Pulling her sweater close, she started back. In the distance the sound of a car caught her ear. “Oh, my! I hope whoever that is doesn’t think I’m some vagrant wanting a lift!” Stepping off the road, she realized it was their car. Relieved she stood on tiptoe and waved.

James had seen someone on the road, but couldn’t make out who it was or if he knew the person. There was seldom anyone on this road to the cottage. He slowed for a moment. As he approached he realized it was his wife! “What on earth is she doing out here?’ Picking up speed, he saw her wave. “I should just drive on by as if I hadn’t seen her. I think I will.” Eyes straight ahead, he kept right on driving, but shortly pulled to the side of the road. James was not prone to levity. Control was part of him after his years of butler-ing. Breathing heavily, Martha opened the passenger door and climbed in, setting her gardening things on the floor. “James Digby! Why didn’t you stop? I know you saw me.” Martha was very glad to see her husband. The clouds were threatening a downpour and she didn’t even have an umbrella. A twinkle in his eye, he said. “ I thought you were some vagrant out wandering.” Martha frowned and grinned. “You did not. You knew perfectly well it was me!” 

~~~~~

Martha had left a chicken stew simmering in the crockpot. While she was washing up, James made dumplings and set the table. While they waited for the dumplings to cook, they shared a pot of tea and began telling each other about their day. Their curiosities and hopes for their ‘golden years’. Still hesitant to really see themselves in retirement, they reminisced about ideas almost forgotten. Rain had been short lived. Hand in hand, they took a quiet walk in the cool, humid evening air.

~~~~~

“….everything has a past. Everything - a person, an object, a word, everything. If you don’t know the past, you can’t understand 

the present and plan properly for the future.”

~ Chaim Potok, Davita’s Harp

Book Review: Glass Houses by Louise Penny

“Burn our ships” Whatever could that mean? Three words written on a napkin gleaned from a casual comment over a luncheon with a colleague Chief Superintendent Armand Gamache took that note and locked it in his desk drawer. Along with it was a notebook with his plan to do what?

The story opens in a courtroom without air conditioning. Gamache is a witness, after the fact, for the prosecution. The Chief Crown Prosecutor Barry Zalmanowitz is grilling him about the facts surrounding the murder in Three Pines. The two men intensely dislike each other. Judge Corriveau sees a tension between the men that she doesn’t understand. Gamache’s plan, that had yet to be fully revealed, would never have been approved, because it involved illegalities on the part of the Chief Superintendent. His purpose was to protect the public.

Home to his wife, Reine-Marie in Three Pines, he was content to live a quiet life. Three Pines, not even on the map and very out of the way, had few visitors. It was the night of the annual Hallowe’en party. Every one knew everyone except for the tall person all dressed in a long hooded black costume. He - or she - never spoke. When everyone went home and continued on their lives, the hooded figure reappeared in the morning in the village green to stand silently, ominously looking steadily toward the bistro. The bistro was a cozy gathering place for the residents. With each day that passed, the hooded figure never moving, tension mounted in the village. Research done by Beauvoir revealed that this figure was consistent with the Spanish history of a cobrador del frac. A frock coated collector of debts in reality, but developed by Louise Penny as a conscience. This figure was confronted once by an angry villager, but Gamache stopped him, saying that standing on the green was not illegal. The village grew nervous and afraid, not knowing what they should fear. Gamache, his second in command and son-in-law, Chief Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir kept a close eye on this spectre who was doing no harm. 

The two officers of the Sûreté were distracted by a much greater problem. The escalating problem of opiates being funnelled through Québec.Yet when Reine-Marie Gamache discovers the body of a woman in the basement of the church, the story takes on a different urgency. Viciously murdered and beaten, she was dressed in the hooded robe of the cobrador. A bloody bat was found leaned up again a basement wall by the Sûreté. Only when Reine-Marie privately tells her husband that there was no bat when she discovered the body, did Gamache become suspicious.

From the quiet scenic village to an all out drug war, Louise Penny took us slowly, almost painfully, into Gamache’s plan. What was the person in black? Who would be murdered and who was the killer? Why was Three Pines chosen as the narrow end of the funnel for drug runners?

Would Chief Superintendent Gamache jeopardize his carrier, the career of others and the lives of many addicts to achieve this goal? Would it be worth it or should he have not followed his conscience? In the courtroom, would Judge Corriveau have him arrested and jailed?

Drug cartels and the underworld, the supposed incompetence of the Sûreté and who survived. History of rum running and today’s world of running drugs. Louise Penny fit it all together quite snugly. Armand Gamache is her main character in a series of mystery novels from 2005 to the present. This is only the second of her books that I’ve read. Time to read her others!

“It wasn’t really, he knew, about less fear. It was about more courage,”

~ Louise Penny, Glass Houses

Author:Louise Penny

Copyright: 2017

Publisher: Three Pines Creations, Inc.

For information, address:

 St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

Type: Novel

Format: Hard cover

ISBN: 97801250066190

LCCN: 2017021224

ISBN (international): 978125064889

ISBN (ebook): 9781466873681

Until

Waking every morning is easy. 

Reflexively, eyes flutter open. 

Getting out of bed ~ temporary. 

Staying out of bed ~ a choice.

short term goals dictate ~
like food, coffee and schedules

glossing over living a good life.

To be. To enjoy. As days fly past 

while we breeze through life ~

to be and to enjoy gathers dust ~

Until schedules vanish and life opens

as wide as the sky: To Be. To Enjoy.

“Wake up, and all will not be for naught. Wake up, and all is not lost.”

~ Søren Sørenson

Hand and Heart

one mother births us ~

offered the opportunity 

to care, nurture and protect; 

life’s twists and turns 

gifts each of us with 

with mothers all around

for the heavy days when 

each mother needs mothering

the circle of kindness and care

passes hand to hand, heart to heart.

“Our world needs our mothers.”

~ Liya Kebede