To Try

To try when muscle and brain 

tell another story

To ignore normal, 

to slip into cosy,

to nap, 

to let turbulent waters settle.

Reasons are of little use,

mere curiosities. 

Only knowing that 

challenges physical and mental

slow drained eagerness and energy 

until only a drop or two were left.

Challenges set by little old me

to participate in life as it is

to learn and to share. 

to develop a community of writers. 

 It is a draining, but rewarding journey. 

“When you put the hard work in…reward will come out.”

~ Johnnie Dent Jr., author

Hanging On

Nerves of steel shining and rigid are only 

waiting to snap. I suppose it’s just a 

metaphor and I’m being too picky. 

Too literal. A description of bravery in the 

face of a challenge or danger when in 

fact a person’s insides feel frozen stiff 

or have turned to jelly. When the challenge 

has passed, or the danger has been neutralized, 

those nerves of steel disappear behind a closed 

door where no one can see the puddle of jelly 

on the floor or the tears thawing all over a pillow. Perhaps those nerves could be 

succumbing to the back and forth of a rocking chair 

until sleep softens the nerves of steel

until they are needed again.

“When you’re scared, when you’re hanging on, when life is 

hurting you, then you’re going to see what you’re really made of.”

~ Sylvestor Stallone

Christmas Baking

I love watching the Christmas baking contests. They are fun and pique my creative muscles. In my kitchen, Christmas baking hasn’t seen much of such baking for a long time. I did get banana muffins baked today though. 

In most of the shows that I watch, contestants have everything they may need for their product. There’s always a twist half way through. So I decided to twist myself a challenge. There was a part of me that just didn’t want to take the time to walk to the grocery store. But my fridge has needed a good cull, starting with some rather black bananas. I also wanted to make muffins - haven’t made muffins for probably 20 years or more. My next preference was using whole wheat flour and oatmeal. With those parameters in mind, I turned my attention to Google and found the perfect recipe. Their list of ingredients required ‘3 extra ripe bananas’. So my black bananas found a home - there were only two but I had one other that was merely over ripe. Spices: I doubled the amounts of cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Nuts: the recipe asked for crushed walnuts. Don’t have any but I have cashews and almonds. Out came the food processor to chop and mix a balance of the nuts. At the last minute I threw into the batter a good handful of dried cranberries! Digging in my cupboard I found my long unused muffin tin and a little container of muffin cups. The recipe said it made a dozen muffins, but I got a dozen muffins + a little loaf.

They are delicious. True statement: I sampled a muffin and a slice from the little loaf. One never knows - a different pan may change the taste! Just doing my duty as official taster. The only thing missing would have been a cream cheese frosting with a dusting of cinnamon - or maybe some crushed candy canes. When my challenge is to use what I have, I’ll have to make sure I have those ingredients. 

All the muffins are safely and readily accessible in the freezer. So the frosting could be for another day?

“The more you know, the more you can create. 

There’s no end to imagination in the kitchen.”

~ Julia Child

It Felt Good

There are days when everything clicks along from the time eyes open, this wasn’t one of them. It was deceitful. Eyes opened, morning moved along to breakfast and then it was time for a nap…..a long one. When I thought about it, the last several days had been busy. Keeping me on my toes whether I wanted to or not. It happens to everyone. How many know when to stop and just breathe - or take a nap. Listen to body and mind. Many of us have an old message on repeat play that says ‘You’re lazy’ or ‘Get the work done and quickly!’ Even if it’s the weekend or retired. So changing the message becomes the challenge. Giving permission for time for some ‘me time’ and then taking it. Our futures just may depend on it!

“When you rest, you catch your breath 

    and it holds you up, like water wings….”

~ Anne Lamott

 

p.s. After I had rested, I finished the laundry……and some other things on my to do list.

Movie Review: Champions directed by Robert Farrelly; starring Woody Harrelson

Drunk driving, arrogance, community service and a basketball team named Friends. A charming story with deep meaning? Light, full of the joy of living and lots of laughter. Woody Harrelon is Marcus, the assistant coach with a minor league basketball team. At a regular game, in a fit of annoyance at the head coach, Marcus shoves him and is kicked off the court. Believing he has been right, he heads to a local sports bar where that scene is being replayed on the big screen TV. Drunk and grumbling to the bartender, he gets in his car, ploughs into the back of a police car and winds up in a court of law. His choice? 18 months in jail or 90 days of community service as coach of a basketball team. All members mentally challenged adults. Against his better judgment and some prejudice, he accepts the Friends. He has some learning to do about humility and the team is more than willing to teach him. 

One of the early scenes is a lovely woman leaving his bedroom after a one night stand. Turns out that she is the sister of one of the team members. Johnny, played by Kevin Iannucci, is a very central figure in the story and loves Marcus on sight. Later in the movie he gives Marcus the stink-eye for having a relationship with his sister. One of their players and the only girl on the team, is returning to the game after being out with an injury. Constantino, quite a diva, challenges Marcus as soon as she meets him. Anyone for that matter: Marcus, his assistant and the whole team if they don’t meet with her standards.

Each of the team members has their own history. Woody Harrelson, as Marcus, must mold them into a winning team. If they can beat the other local teams, they will go to Winnipeg for the Special Olympics. Getting the money for such a trip is just one more challenge for the Friends. These people have brain injuries, congenital problems, or Down’s syndrome. Darius, for instance, a good player, refuses to be coached by Marcus because his brain injury was caused by a drunk driver.

I’ll not tell you the outcome of the Special Olympics. Suffice it to say it was a satisfactory ending. Laughing out loud at the antics in the movie, our movie group loved the whole story.

“You know the game better than anybody. 

You got to learn to build relationships.”

Coach Phil Peretti,  Champions

Directed by: Robert Farrelly

Based on: Campeones by Javier Fesser David Marqués

Writing Credits:Mark Rizzo

Abbreviated Cast: 

Woody Harrelson - Marcus (Coach of the Friends)

Kaitlin Olson - Alex

Ernie Hudson - Coach Phil Peretti

Alexandra Castillo - Judge Mary Menendez (as Alex Castillo)

Matt Cook - Sonny

Kevin Iannucci - Johnny

Madison Tevlin - Cosentino

James Day Keith - Benny

Matthew Von Der Ahe - Craig

Ashton Gunning - Cody

Casey Metcalfe - Marlon

Cheech Marin - Julio

Joshua Felder - Darius

Tom Sinclair - Blair

Alex Hintz - Arthur

Bradley Edens - Showtime

Mike Smith - Attorney McCurk

Stephanie Sy - Reporter

Monsters, Dragons and Dandelions

Entering into the garden of imagination 

is a fearsome adventure. Who knows what monsters or dragons lurk within?

Clearing a way through 

all this tangled mass to find and 

nurture poetry or story

my spirit is challenged to try again 

~ monsters become stubborn thistles 

and precious dandelions,

dragons merely songbirds, squirrels and mice

making their nests and burrows 

~ inviting me to dinner. 

“Where there is a monster, there is a miracle.”

~ Ogden Nash

A Cautionary Tale

Opening doors we didn’t know……

  could be opened ~

done with caution,

  expectations tempered ~

is a risk 

  and a challenge

at any age

  keeps us engaged

with the life

  we have been given.

“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”

~ Flora Whittemore

One Giant Step

Nailing things down 

has been a challenge ~

keeping everything straight

so that growth springs lush

prepares the way

for a giant step!

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and 

I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

Changing Places ~ Version Two

As I said in my blog last night, my story tonight is a revision, a correction if you like. From a Writer’s group last week, I wrote a story, using the last line from My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult, mistakenly as the first line of my story. That last line was “I take her with me, wherever I go.” This last line was actually to be the last line of my story. So I took my error as a challenge. The challenge? To write the same story but change the position of this ‘last line’. 

Changing Places ~ Version Two

Beliefs take time. I had believed that she was some sort of good luck charm. It was past time that I let go of this precious. That’s what I had called her then. When people asked me her name, I told them it was Molly, not wanting people to think I wasn’t grown up. Now Molly is smudged and is missing one eye. Her hair, once neon red, is now a strange shade of 60 year old dusty red. Her face still smiles at me from her perch on the bed. No wrinkles like mine. She was given to me on my tenth birthday. She still wears the beautiful mauve dress, now faded, that has a yellowed and frayed lace collar. Unless I take it to be washed, the greyness of the years makes it look dirty. At one time, she had lovely little socks. Knitted white with a frothy lace-fringed fold over top. Now, only one sock is left, but she wears it anyway. 

Cindy, my six year old granddaughter came rushing in the back door one Sunday morning. “Look Grandma! I brought Molly some new socks. They’re almost exactly the same. See. Except the lace. But there’s pretty shiny ribbon around the edge.” She had always played with Molly when she came to see her Gran. Sometimes she would help me pack when I would travel, always wanting Molly in the exact middle cuddled in one of my sweaters. One day she was very quiet as I was getting ready to go off on my travels. “Cindy. It’s time to settle Molly so we can go on our trip.” She clutched Molly to her and said “Grandma, why do you still take her with you when you go away?” Her serious six year old tone deserved an honest answer. “Well, she has been my companion and friend on my travels. And do you know what, she is a memory of another little doll I had been given, another precious doll who was destroyed by a mischievous five-year old. On that birthday so long ago, I vowed to her that she would be taken care of and that I would take her with me wherever I went. My serious little Cindy furrowed her little brow and asked “Do you think she’s getting tired of being stuffed in your suitcase when you go away? I think she is.” I smiled inside and tried to look as thoughtful as possible. “You know honey, I really think she is quite tired and really would rather stay here with you….if that’s alright.” Her little face lit up with smiles. “Really grandma?! But won’t you get lonesome?”  I hugged her to me. “No, but I will be happy that my Molly is safe with you.” She pulled away and with that precious serious little face, she nodded her head sternly and said “Now it’s my turn. I take her with me, wherever I go.”

“Even if people are still very young, 

they shouldn’t be prevented from saying what they think.”

~ Anne Frank

Survival Challenge

‘Nature always sides with the hidden flaw’

Ah, Murphy ~ another challenge laid before man ~ to play hide and seek with Mother Nature.

If we ignore any of the flaws of this world, she will not bend to our will but we to hers.

“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; 

in this century he is beginning to realize that, 

in order to survive, he must protect it.

~Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Climb

Every time uncertainty looms, 

I know the very worst

is not the only option.

Every time uncertainty looms, 

I know the very worst

is usually a phantom wraith

Every time uncertainty looms, 

I know the very worst

challenges my courage.

Every time uncertainty looms, 

I know the very worst

may already have happened.

Every time uncertainty looms, 

I know the very worst

is not the only option.

“You have as many options as you give yourself.”

~ Kasie West, The Distance Between Us

On the Porch - Summer Stalk

Ignore the heat, Grasshopper.

You must go past the broad leaves ~ climb the stalk to eat from this plenty.

“Now climb, young grasshopper, so your Kung Fu won’t be weak.”

~ Ilona Andrews, novelist