Personal Challenge: A New Pace

Autonomy. What has it meant to me this last month? I’ve tried to keep it very simple. Autonomy is a pretty big word. It’s meaning: very weighty and suggesting things greater than myself. But there is such a thing as personal autonomy. I’m certain most people know this but I have had to separate the definitions to be able to wrap my head around it all. The Cambridge online dictionary definition is two fold:  ‘the right of an organization, country, or region to be independent and govern itself’ and ‘the ability to make your own decisions without being controlled by anyone else.’

That brings me to my retirement, still in it’s infancy, I’m taking baby steps and enjoying every ~ well most ~ of the steps I’ve taken. It has been those times of limbo when caught in the space of time previously given to my health care employer that it became almost like holding my breath. Realizing I’ve been standing stock still wondering…..just wondering. Wondering has become a very active time of creativity for these pools of time that were growing quite stagnant, and in my case, very boring.

On a recent visit to Vancouver to spend time with my family, I had an unforeseen opportunity to walk every morning. Weather cooperated, my lodgings were only ten minutes from my son’s very full household and the street that I walked was wide and popping into spring time. Using my personal autonomy, I have since walked every morning. Today I realized that I have, in the past, not really explored Beacon Hill Park. Today, I climbed the rocks high up in the park in to the wilds of this amazing place in the city. Church bells ringing and birds singing. The sun lighting up massive rocks lined with stubby green grass, faintly green trees, and the whole park and city. Spring daffodils, purple camas and snow drops lit up tiny spaces in budding trees. I have felt my pace, my abilities and found a place in those rocks that fill me with joy, gratitude and a solid sense of personal autonomy.

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.

You must travel it by yourself.

It is not far. It is within reach.”

~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Morning Shadows

A long tall shadow 

strode up behind me

a sunny smile greeted me

as the young man passed.

Trees, fences and buildings

threw long misshapen shadows,

the sunny smiles of flowers

greeting all who passed.

Morning shadows leaned ahead

to lead me up to wild and rocky

parkland heights then down

to graceful gardens I would pass.

Morning’s sun has climbed a bit ~

shadows shorten for awhile

til afternoon’s shadows stretch way back

as the glorious sun passes to the west.

“Fancies are like shadows….you can’t cage them, 

they’re such wayward, dancing things.”

~ L.M.Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

A Natural City

The rhythm of the city

tuned to motored thrum and swish merges politely with matching thrum and swish of

fountains circling water in 

the air settling over 

squabbling ducks as 

they pair to mate.

A different distant note of the ferry’s call counters the raucous cry of Great Blue herons nesting in tall Douglas fir trees, their wide winged swoop and swish as silent as a breeze in the trees.

Listening to this symphony ~

watching this opera

as I walk beneath spring green willows

is an added balm to my grateful soul.

“But a city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time.”

~ Patrick Geddes

Winter Past

Stepping up into the park still feeling the cool of winter past ~

twittered on by tiny brown birds

that blend with bark and twigs.

greeted by new seeds,

sprinklings of daffodils

fronting the brown skeletons

of winter past,

welcomed by a cheerful blonde poodle

and her smiling owner ~

all signs of spring in Victoria.

“The deep roots never doubt 

spring will come.”

~ Marty Rubin

Transcendence

Glowing from the tips of our fingers to the soles of our feet ~ our souls imbue each task we undertake, 

each memory we share with our essence.

“Inside us there is something that has no name, 

that something is what we are.”

~ José Saramago, Blindness

Natural Lighting

Cool, clear air accompanied me on my morning walk at home, passing flowers and trees not quite shivering but opening their buds of flowers and leaves.

Some brave few in full bloom 

others still tucked against the cool.

Scant cloud suddenly parted

just as I lifted my camera ~ 

sunshine lit up beautiful pinks

as though I had requested good lighting.

Grateful, I kept my shadow out of the frame.

“In nature, light creates the colour. In the picture, colour creates the light.”

~ Hans Hofmann

Water Rush

Lynn Canyon Park, Suspension Bridge

Hearing a thundering rush of water 

from a road side echoing 

through tall pines thrills my heart

but to see that very water 

crashing, frothing and roiling

through deep cuts in the canyon 

below a suspension bridge

sends the thrills deep into my soul.

Walking the swaying, bouncing suspension bridge ~

just a value-added part of the adventure.

“What makes you think what happened to you on Earth wasn’t an adventure?”

~ Lev Grossman, The Magician King

Perspective ~ 4

John Hendry Park, Vancouver, BC

Perspective ~ 4

The old gate creaked above the distant thrum of traffic. Even early nesting crows calling to each other didn’t erase the sound. Barely coming from a deep sleep, the melodic squeak seemed almost like a meditation. Awakening into consciousness, I realized it had gone on too long to be a gate. No brush or rustle of wind, no slap of a gate closing as an insistent wind would have pushed it back an forth. Only stillness. Stillness like a breath being held. Listening. Then I remembered something an old farmer told me when I was a child. ‘You hear that noise that sounds like my front gate creakin’ every time I open it? I call it my weather bird - he’s tellin’ us that there’s rain on the way. Can’t say how far away or how much but that there bird is a rain bird tellin’ us to get our boots and umbrellas ready.' I had been in the city so long that until this quiet morning time, the memory had been buried. Later, taking my early morning walk, the sounds of nature as the city awakened, took on a refreshed meaning for me. 

“Birds are a miracle because they prove to us there is 

a finer, simpler state of being which we may strive to attain.”

~ Douglas Coupland

A Second Perspective

Vancouver morning before

the curtains are drawn

the slush of cars and trucks

rumbling and pushing into

a day that feels grey through

patterned blue grey curtains

crows and gulls calling out 

‘Time to get up’

throwing back blankets,

pushing curtains open, 

I greet the new day

 - a wondrous family day

(accompanied by throngs of sightseers)

at Lynn Canyon park and Deep Cove!)

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

~ Henry Miller

Perspective ~ 3

I rode on the ferry to Vancouver while

clouds hung low over the distancing land

still waiting for sun’s warmth

to lift them high into 

sky currents carrying them

onto new skylines and adventures

with flocks of birds northbound

and singles of aircraft all directionbound

criss-crossing skies above our sight lines while cool moist air rouged my cheeks and tousled my hair.

“Being on a boat that’s moving through the water, it’s so clear.

 Everything falls into place in terms of what’s important and what’s not.”

~ James Taylor

Meal Prep

Spaces of time hover idly,

revved by untended energy.

Creative kitchen longings are

granted opportunity to slip into place 

for shopping and chopping

blanching and freezing 

delicious packaged goodness.

Colourful and flavourful ~ accompaniments for many a meal.

“If the divine creator has taken pains to give us 

delicious and exquisite things to eat, the least we can do is 

prepare them well and serve them with ceremony.”

~ Fernand Point, French chef and restaurateur (1890-1955)

Out on a Limb

Bringing back a schedule seems

rather like a step backwards

unless it is setting it by myself.

Squares on a charming wall

calendar set up chosen activities

with flexible variations depending

on the next right thing

to be done even it is laundry

or paying bills - life’s necessities.

Bringing back a scheduled life

in this seasonal change of retirement 

grants me some control in each day.

“Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, 

and no clues to where all the important bits are supposed to go.”

~ Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down

Life Full

Setting my feet gently 

on the ground I feel

like Mary Poppins

without an broad umbrella

without a magic satchel

but with a life full of experience,

full of the breadth of family, 

full of the shelter of friends

grounding me with joy in retirement.

“I like to be surrounded by harmonies and fullness and richness and vitality.”

~ Al Jardine

Jewelled Distractions

A change to routine

may only mean a 

change in positioning

from a blank wall

to a window on a world of

hummingbirds, juncos and squirrels

attempting to distract my thoughts

with charming success

until I put pen to paper once more.

“There is never a time when new distractions will not show up; 

we sow them, so several will grow from the same seed.”

~ Seneca