A Crack in the Sidewalk

A crack in the sidewalk, 

jagged and out of place 

and I asked myself why 

it wasn’t neat and orderly. 

The answer rose beside 

the question: because the 

earth moves. But it doesn’t 

stop me from stepping over it 

or for children to draw with 

chalk for a game of hopscotch

A crack in the sidewalk, jagged 

and in the place it was given.

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”

~ Dr. Seuss

A Yellow Fire Hydrant

I didn’t notice the exact date or year that fire hydrants turned 

yellow from red. 

Nothing that drew my attention when 

kids needed to get to baseball, 

or the groceries needed putting away, 

or bills were stacking up or work schedules interfered with street life.

One evening, 

I sat across from this stolid guy, 

his paint crumbling, 

marked up around the top.

Time to ponder this deep question.

It’s been since the 1950’s! 

At home, I looked it up.

Why? 

A perennial question for a child; 

a question I keep for such occasions

No answer was forthcoming, 

it just squatted there, 

little arms awaiting fire hoses.

Again, at home I looked it up.

Yellow is more visible to fire fighters than red!

Simple, logical and now I can rest my tired brain. 

“A fire hydrant is not something you 

want to lose, especially in an emergency.”

~ Shannon Wiersbitzky, What Flowers Remember

Whatever the Answer

It confuses me when the order of things goes awry. Today sluggishness changed things 

without asking me. 

Not even a notification, 

a whistle or a beep ~ 

no manners whatsoever.

..the strange work of epilepsy, 

or is it long term medication, 

or could it be the effects of age, or…. already exhausted, 

I slip back into a snooze 

all my good intentions for this day 

pushed aside by whatever the answer is. 

“There is always the question why 

and there is always life, 

which doesn’t need an answer.”

~ Dejan Stojanović,

  poet, essayist, philosopher

Comes a Time

There comes a time 

when bravery and courage 

are the supports for that 

magical spark of self advocacy. 

     And then we ask: 

Can I be brave enough?, 

Can I ask the right questions? 

without knees softening to jelly, 

without hearts beating in triple time.  

Maybe ~ there will be a time

when we know that our hearts 

are strong enough for all 

the questions and answers.

“When you give doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.
~ Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and playwright

((May 1799 ~ August 1850)

Too Much Noise

Inside questions, in a child’s voice, have no answers unless I look them up on some electronic encyclopedia. 

Books of Knowledge are no longer in existence, their gold lettered spines all in a row. And anyway, inside questions

only come to me as bedtime comes. Brushing the sticky cobweb questions aside is seldom possible. Counting 

sheep has never helped, so I try to ignore those inside questions 

about the purpose of life, what will 

come in the mail, how will the 

weather change tomorrow or is the 

forecast right, why did the see-through 

cloud scatter raindrops on my nightly walk?

If the answers are important they may 

inhabit my dreams, but if too bizarre, 

they may show up in the morning.

“Put my head under my pillow, and let 

the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.”

~ Stephen Chbosky, American film director

Look

Depth was a quality 

hidden within reflection, 

to answer questions

and pose new ones ~

sharing life’s meaning.

“It is not the length of life, but the depth of life.”

~ RalphWaldo Emerson

Answered

He paced and paced

  one fist slamming into

the palm of the other

The stubborn question

  persistently unanswered

’til ‘Eureka!’

A smile wreathed his face

  frustration vanished 

as leaves on the wind.

“Isn’t life a collection of weird quizzes with 

no answers to half the questions?”

~ Pawan Mishra, Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy

Only a Theory

Theory: ‘if anything can go wrong, it will’

Murphy’s Law of uncertainty?

Cliché, truism or possibility? 

Universe has paid little 

attention to my plans ~

in a perverse sense of humour. 

I'll have to figure it out, 

make it fit with my plans 

or crash and burn. 

No individual on high

does such a disservice

just to test me?

A simple answer ~ 

every eventuality has been missed!

When my plans go awry, 

when things don’t go to plan, 

can I adjust? 

Stop. 

take a breath ~

where is the kink in my plan?

Will I just give up, 

crawl in a hole and 

leave the world behind?

Once upon a time that was the only option ~

and not a good one at that ~ but now

options and possibilities are a buffet. 

Whatever ‘went wrong’ ?

It's merely a stop sign, 

the golden hand held up at a cross walk. 

A pause before moving forward.  

My choice.

“All theories are legitimate, no matter. 

What matters is what you do with them.”

~ Jorge Luis Borges

Chapter One, Episode 115 - From Below - Situationally Theirs

Review, Revision, Edit and Update

I've often mentioned the writing exercise nature of these episodes.  Character development is an important part of learning to write story. Writing a vignette, when the character is on her own, gives the writer an opportunity to really listen to and watch that character.

The most important revision was the addition of a sentence in the third paragraph (second sentence). Others were grammatical improvements to two different sentences.

From Below

There was no reason for it. Here she was in the middle of the lake in her kayak, her parents cabin in the distance. Her thoughts drifted just as she was drifting, while her paddle rested, barely dipped in the water. Personal Assistant.    Lady’s Maid. Those two titles, if they could be called titles, seemed barely close in meaning. But she was both of them for the same person. 

29 year old Brigitte Smithson, a young woman who, before working for Miss Em, drifted from job to job, had little interest in what her parents called ‘higher education’. In her circle of friends, the education may be higher, but when it was time to get a job, it didn’t seem to have made much of a difference. Brigitte dipped her paddle in the still water and set her kayak in motion, drifting a little further away from shore. She had just been to a four day orientation for a Lady’s Maid. The last component was introduction to the possibility that the job description may develop into more of a Personal Assistant or Secretary or Companion. Developing the ability to transition would be key to continuing in a preferred employment.  

Brigitte dipped her paddle on the opposite side of the kayak to keep its nose pointed towards deeper water. Her thoughts swirled beneath the placid surface of her visage, so like the waving weeds below her kayak. What have I worked at? Which ones are closest to my work with Miss Em. In the distance, she heard the splash of a fish jumping out of the water. Brigitte swung her gaze toward the sound, watching for any bears. Tree planting? Not really. “Just because the apple orchard is made up of trees doesn’t mean I know anything about them.” Brigitte’s voice echoed across the silent lake. “A nanny…..how many kids? Three? No - well maybe. “Not the kids, but dealing with their parents.” She was suddenly really hungry. Checking her waterproof watch, Brigitte decided to return to the cabin for a late lunch. “Breakfast was a long time ago. I’ve been out here for three hours!” 

Brigitte put up and secured the kayak on the side of the boat house, hung up the paddle inside the boathouse and walked through the sand to the cabin. Tea kettle on to boil water for tea, she poked her head in the refrigerator. “Sandwiches.” She pulled out the loaf of rye bread, the sausage roll of salami, a jar of dill pickles, radishes and mayo. She filled her water bottle from the water pitcher in the refrigerator. Propping open the orientation book against the cookie jar her mother kept full, she set about making her sandwiches. She had opened the text towards the back: Interpersonal Relations with your Boss. The next part was a list of questions that they had gone over in the orientation, but they were to answer them more fully before the online part of the course started. Brigitte pulled a dripping pickle from the jar. With a crunch she read the questions aloud, pickle juice dripping down her arm and from her elbow. “Number One…..Do you like your employer and if so why?” She picked up one of the crisp radishes. Crunch. “Number Two…..How long have you worked with him or her?” Separating two slices of bread, she reached for the butter. “Number Three…..Has  your employer/employee relationship changed recently and if so, how?” Buttering the bread and then smearing both pieces of bread with mayo, Brigitte reached for the cutting board, the salami and a sharp knife. “Number Four…….Do you like the change and if so why? If not why not?”  Slicing a thick piece of salami off, Brigitte took a big satisfying bite. The next slices were thin. She layered them onto one slice of bread. “Number Five…..What do you want from this relationship?” She returned to the fridge and pulled out the lettuce container. “Good thing I washed it all yesterday after I got groceries.” Taking out some of the romaine, she covered the salami with the lettuce and closed up the sandwich. “These questions are tough.” Getting one of the ‘cabin’ plates down - the blue one with the chip on the edge where she had dropped it when she was ten - she set up her lunch. Salami sandwich, two more dills, three more radishes and two of her mom’s snickerdoodle cookies. “I think I’ll take this over by the fireplace and start working on them.” Sinking a tea bag of red rooibos tea into one of the ‘cabin’ mugs - a piece of pottery that her dad picked up at a garage sale - she went to the desk opposite the fireplace for a notebook and pencil. Without spilling a drop of the hot tea, Brigette tucked the notebook under her arm, held the pencil with her free hand, and returned to the fraying overstuffed easy chair. Setting her tea down by her plate, she slid the notebook from under her arm and picked up her sandwich. “Now, where am I going to put my notebook so I can start writing? Or should I just eat?

~~~~~

Two and a half hours later, there were only crumbs left on Brigitte’s plate and the light was fading. Her written answers, which started out very organized and neat, had deteriorated to sideways scribbles and scratched out answers. Crumpled pieces of paper were on the floor.  “I think I have an idea of what I want from this job now. I think.” Brigitte got up and stretched, took a trip down the hall for some relief and then went outside in the cool early evening air.

“I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these

‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.”

~ Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Dad's Old Trowel

Dad's Old Trowel

The trowel was old. Scratched and worn from years of digging deeply into hard scrabble soil, rich loamy soil or soil so filled with rocks it sharpened the edges of the blade every time it was used. Matt remembered the day his dad brought it home. It had a green painted handle and a shiny shovel end - he learned to call it by its proper name. A blade, much tinier than his dad’s big shovel that he used to dig the big holes. He had no idea why he had kept this old and rusted tool in with the rest of his garden tools. Matt often used it. The shape of its blade was not one of the many modern shapes, but wide enough to start a good sized hole for the spring time tomato plants. His dad’s trowel did have a depth gauge on the back. Matt was standing on a stool beside him on his workbench the day his dad scratched all the levels and inches on the back of it. He was curious, because it looked like he was damaging that shiny surface, and all the kids had been told never to damage any tools. To keep them as much in their new condition as possible. Here he was going against the rules he had laid down. Patiently, he explained that he wanted to measure the depth of a hole for particular plants. His dad said he could have driven back into town for one that already had neat engraving, but that would take too much time and a few more dollars. He had wanted to get planting.

Well, it wasn’t spring time and his tomatoes were ripening nicely. The old trowel had grabbed his attention. He kind of compared it to wanting to dig deeply for a work project that had been assigned to him. But how deeply, he had yet to figure out. Matt had no gauge like the one on the back of the trowel. He certainly couldn’t go out to the garden and dig out all the information he needed. Matt pushed back the wide brimmed straw hat he always wore in the sun. Like his dad, he pulled out a big red kerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. Well-worn blue jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off, his garden ‘uniform’.Taking the trowel with him, he decided that he may not be able to dig up any answers, but thick weeds choking out some of his garden needed rearranging. A big swig of water refreshed him. Hot sun, butterflies and birds beckoned. Work needed to stay at work. He needed to get outside and dig some real soil.

“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi