I don’t want anything
to be ordinary
yet
ordinary feels so comfortable.
There is time in the ordinary
to check things.
Things like whispered desires
that spin around a curve
of wanting extraordinary
to ‘brighten things up’.
An extraordinary world
takes breath and energy away .
I don’t want anything
to be ordinary
yet
ordinary feels so comfortable.
“Depending on the reality one must face,
one may prefer to opt for illusion.”
~ Judith Guest, Ordinary People
 |
| Victoria Park, Regina, Saskatchewan |
The heat offered me a bench in the park,
a breeze at my back and
a lingering summer day.
Once more the calendar
had been challenged by
the shifting weather.
Two errands completed,
each with a good stroll between
with a stop for lunch and tea.
Businessmen and women, shoppers,
and teens that should have been in school
walked and strolled, laughed and talked,
read a book or just enjoyed the shaded sun
for what has become a memory of today.
“In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives,
to our memories, to the details around us.”
~ Virginia Woolf, writer
(1882 ~ 1941)
To gather strength at days end
signals a laying down
of worries, joys and hopes.
All temporary ~
for rest and sleep take
a different energy that
covers me like a warm blanket. Streets grow quiet,
The building settles with faint creaks, and simple sleep is welcomed.
“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
~Homer, The Odyssey
Purple and bright
the ornamental plum trees
release them to the sidewalk
unless a bird or squirrel
samples nature’s wares.
As I walk I am graced
above and below
with the offerings.
Not always pleased by
those little purple plums
on the sidewalk, squished
by the many passers by,
I can’t avoid contributing to
the purple nubbly carpet.
“I think of trees and how simply they let go.”
~ May Sarton,
novelist, poet and memoirist
(1912 ~ 1995)
My stomach twists
when I feel my age -
at least my body’s age;
my mind juggles all the
what if’s and want to’s
that jostle for attention.
Age just keeps aging!
Want to’s take energy.
Makes things a bit off kilter.
So I’ll just march on
even if it is a bit slower
~ some days.
“As you get older, you don’t get wiser. You get irritable.”
~ Doris Lessing, author
(1919 ~ 2013)
What attracted my glance?
The bright red against the green?
The sunlit leaves in this early autumn?
No matter.
The beauty all around in the details,
the finesse of nature’s wand
stops me for the moment
to I take it in.
On any day we pass by
the details with barely a glance.
It may be the clouds in the sky or
the woman sitting hunched on a corner.
Yes, it is hard to see the beauty
in those scenes unless we look and understand.
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
~ Marie Curie, scientist
 |
| Regina General Hospital and Nurses Residence |
Each year we gather, still standing although our Nurses Residence and Hospital are gone with the tick of the clock. Vanished into a parking lot. Our numbers have gotten smaller with the passing of time but we are still laugh, visit, reminisce, and sing. Family stories have become histories. What once was career, advanced education and travel, is now full of grandchildren and great grandchildren, nephews and nieces ~ ~ and travel. At the end of our gathering each year we sing our school song: “We Are the General Girls!” some voices not quite as strong, but all still full of the joy and hard work of our nursing years.
“Our fingerprints don’t fade from the lives we touch.”
~ Judy Blume, author
