Change of Heart

Drops of red against the green

A sad reminder 

of the horrors of war

Soft green backdrop of growth

 ~ A hope filled example 

of the blessings of peace.

“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”

~ Aristotle

On a Park Stroll ~ Not Big Enough

What was it that attracted me to this rock not big enough to be a boulder? 

nestled in the bush, 

crumbled leaves clustered close, 

yellowed leaves draping its sloping top ~ hoping it would be noticed by passersby?

This passerby’s gaze fell on the white lines that traced a natural history now lost in time……

“They always say time changes things, 

but you actually have to change them yourself.”

~ Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

From my Morning Window

August 2020 ~ 
From a different morning window

Pale sky pinks roof eaves ~

gauzy pink clouds drift away

trees wave in a busy wind 

a scattered flock of birds fly to the north ~ the wind stills for a moment before taking up a gust to wake any trees still sleeping ~

a wisp of smoke escapes its tall chimney to dance a slow dance in the cool air

Movement on the ground 

distracts me ~ across the street 

a husky orange cat patrols his territory.

“Set side the window. Let me drink the day.”

~ Edith Wharton, Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses

 

In Turn

Bold and glossy green leaves on 

stems once laden with berries 

stripped by birds readying 

for turn of seasons.

“Delicious autumn! If I were a bird I would fly 

about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

~ George Eliot

Toward Normal

Coffee shop chatter

swirls around me

distant and hopeful ~

students in the far corner

with laptops open.

learning to be ~

father and son

laughing and munching

on sweet crullers with coffee.

“I didn’t want normal until I didn’t have it anymore.”

~ Maggie Stiefvater, Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception

Empty Nest

 Photo taken June 7th, just 8 days ago.

Just a few egg shells and surrounded by green grass. No stray feathers. No evidence of what happened to the goose I had named Gertrude. She had been nesting between a sidewalk and parking lot with no shelter for well over the usual nesting time of 28 days. She had no obvious mate in sight, but she couldn’t have lasted that long without relief. My fear is that she did not survive. My hope is that our heat and rain storms did not melt or dampen her commitment. Did she manage to take one, or maybe more, goslings to safety? We'll never know.

“You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear.”

~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Retirement Blues

A summer time shot from a couple of years ago - my goal,

Fourteen days into official retirement Twenty-six days from my last shift,

stepping forward was my choice ~
excited and open hearted until spaces of time when groceries bought for lunches magically appeared;
when the alarm clock no longer goes off
but I awaken on time and early anyway.
To these open spaces that drift past
left unfilled until I learn to stop rushing in my head and 

become comfortable with the tap tap and sway of new
rhythms in life and learning about
  Yesterday’s beliefs
      Today’s activities and
          Tomorrow’s hopes and dreams.

“Sooner or later I’m going to die,

but I’m not going to retire.”

~ Margaret Mead

Cloaked

Years ahead in time

there is never a clear view

when today’s heavy fog of emotion 

cloaks what could be

in fear and bleakness.

Years ahead in time

there are rainbows 

hidden beneath those cloaks

ready to burst forth in bright colours.

Years ahead in time

are assured of doom and gloom,

but curiosity about life

infuses our imagination and actions

with the hope of what could be.

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

~ Desmond Tutu

Shifting Life's Gears

In the bus on the ferry October, 2017

My thoughts are scattered

tamping them down

trying to see a pattern

that shows direction

without success

it seemed that

only for a moment 

there was purpose

before me that drove me forward

each day with hope and excitement.

My mind reviews

all the misdirection

all of the lacks I failed to recognize

all of the needs that were needed

all that I have gained and maintained

and yet

there is more to come

that has no shape or pattern

to the direction in tomorrow

the hope and excitement to come

while I feel

like I am forever shifting gears.

“You should always know when you’re shifting gears in life. 

You should leave your era; it should  never leave you.”

~ Leontyne Price

That Same Girl

Who was I then?

I remember a girl

Of many ages

Quiet and shy

Wanting to understand

Directed to be

Alive and useful

Who am I now?

That same girl

Many ages past

Still quiet and shy

Wanting to learn

The depth of purpose

Alive and hopeful.

“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed

 to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.”

~ Madeleine L’Engle,  A Circle of Quiet

Book Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Dystopic. Hopeful. Alive. Three words that come to mind when I sit down to write this review. When a flu pandemic decimates a majority of the world’s population, only a few survive. They survive in bands, communities or on their own, travelling through an unfamiliar world with no internet, no telephones, no vehicles, and most importantly no electricity. Every convenience we enjoy today, grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, are no longer active.

Parallels run through this story set in the Great Lakes area of North America. In the opening, Arthur Leander, a famed Shakespearean actor playing King Lear, dies of a heart attack on stage in mid sentence. Jeevan Chaudhary, an ordinary man training to be a Paramedic, rushes to try to save his life. This pivotal moment, with characters that will be followed throughout the story, is minimized by the massive pandemic that collapses civilization as we know it. Also on stage at the time of Leander’s death, is an eight year old actress, Kirsten Raymonde, who grows through Year Twenty in the post-apocalyptic time, her own surviving family an older brother, learns by experience. A brother who dies, leaving her on her own. She carries with her two graphic novels, never published, written by Arthur’s first wife, Miranda. The story is of an alternate life on earth and those people sketched are from her personal life. 

Kristan joins a roving and disjointed Symphony. They perform Shakespearian plays in the tiny communities that sparsely dot the land. Their motto, painted on the side of their horse drawn vehicle, is a quotation from a Star Trek episode: Survival is insufficient. One very closed community is led by ‘the prophet’, a very unpleasant character who is introduced near the beginning of the story, but the reader does not know where he has really come from until towards the end. Another character, Clark, although not a specifically a leader, establishes a ‘Museum of Civilization’ in the community that grew up within an airport. In the early days of community, a young girl frantically searches for someone who has Effexor, the antidepressant prescribed to her. This brought me up short as I have my own medications to take daily to live life - and not just survive.

Acceptance of this dramatically changed life comes with great difficulty to everyone. Emily St. John Mandel takes all of her characters through learning, not only to survive, but to live and love in the moments that followed. She showed us that hope was in babies born, in the automatic building of community, and in the belief of the travellers that art and music must and will continue. Kristen, her friends and fellow travellers walk carefully through the destruction, see beauty of nature growing up over houses, rusted cars and buildings. See the simple beauty of deer in this new world, yet always alert for dangers from other ‘feral’ survivors or their surroundings. Their survival becomes anything but insufficient.

“Survival is insufficient.”

~ StarTrek Voyager, Season Six, Episode Two

Title:  Station Eleven

Author:  Emily St.John Mandel

Publisher:  Harper Avenue, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Copyright @ 2014

Format: Soft cover

ISBN: 978-1-44343-486-7

Type:  Science Fiction

Safety Challenge - A Story

Safety Challenge - A Story

Joy stood alone on the country road. Clouds building in the west obscured the sun. Lightning flickered and danced. She wanted to run to the town she just passed. She knew the old granary, away from trees and her car, would be safer. Her old beater was not the safest place to be. No other cars would brave this storm. Slinging her back pack over her shoulder, hugging a blanket under her jacket, Joy did run. Her only hope was that she wouldn’t be sharing the granary with any critters.

“In a crisis, time was always the enemy.”

~ Stephen L. Carter, Back Channel

A Little Word

Hope

A small word

Such a radiant quality

Easily lost inside too much chatter

Renewed in silence, calm and on the next wave.

“You never really know what’s coming. A small wave, or 

maybe a big one. All you can really do is hope that when it comes, 

you can surf over it, instead of drown in it’s montrosity.”

~ Alysha Speer, author

Momentary Meaning

Enthusiastic about each moment
Hopeful for brilliant ideas
Ideas that pop and bubble
Creating the change needed in this world
Accepting that change comes in the moment
Yet everyone’s moments come together 
In the enthusiasm of protest and challenge.

“It is not a case of finding the meaning for the moments, 

but giving the moments meaning.”

~ Steven Redhead, Life is Simply a Game

Willing To Choose

   Willing to Choose

‘Perfectly willing! Mom! I am willing to clean up my room, but I’m not perfect! And besides it’s snowing so I’m just going to read.’ Sarah was so angry with her mom when she bugged her to clean up her room. She’d do it when she was ready and she just wasn’t finished reading her book yet. And besides, her room really didn’t need cleaning up. Sarah knew where everything was. It wasn’t like she was expecting company.

‘Oh, Sarah. I don’t expect you to be perfect. I would like you to get some perfection behind that willingness that you talk about. Why can’t you see the clutter in your room and clean…it…up.’

This was a normal conversation between Sarah and her mom. Not every day. Maybe about once a week when Sarah’s mom tried to run the vacuum in her daughter’s room. She really didn’t expect any perfection from her daughter. That word just slipped out in the midst of their last argument. She was starting to sound like her own mother - always wanting her to be perfect about her grades, her clothes...it had felt like everything. Sarah’s mom shook her head. ‘Being a daughter is pretty interesting. Living up to your mom’s expectations. And being a mom to that daughter also interesting.’ She smiled. Sarah’s mom hoped she could keep up to the challenge of both being a daughter and a mom.

‘Sarah.’ Her mom called up the stairs as she put on her warm coat and new holiday scarf.

‘Now what did I do?’

‘Nothing. I’m going out to supper - you coming? I’ve finished putting up the Christmas tree and decided it’s time that you and I had supper together at that new restaurant downtown. Your dad’s not going to be in until late.’

Sarah came thundering down the stairs, her ponytail flipping wildly. ‘Yay! Now that I’m perfectly willing to do!’

“And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! 

Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!”

~ Dr. Seuss

Keeping Hope Alive

Open to new directions ~

Doors and windows

letting hope shine through 

for old ideas with a new twist

and new ideas from a new generation.

“Study the past if you would define the future.”

~ Confucius

When

When anger is a blanket
Heavy and warm

When fear is a studded jacket
Protective and dangerous

When hope is a thin film
Keeping the soul cautiously open

When love is a rocky shore
Laid before an open ocean

When they are all bundled together
The long climb to recovery is the beginning…….

“When reality hurts, make sure to soar above the dream stained sky.!”

~ Maria Khan

Panic Shifts

A teeny tiny opening only sensed
a breath of air whispering against a tense cheek
Stop, step back, what was that?
the wall stacked brick by brick seemed closed tight
closed on all sides
with no air
no way to go forward
only backward down an ever narrowing alley
panic welling up from beneath
threatening to overwhelm
then a slim ray of light
riding in on such a thin breath of air
old mortar brittle and breaking
an anxious push forward
daring to lean into the wall built from panic
enlarge the opening
create a doorway to a hopeful future
(not an easy task to dismantle a brick wall unless made of paper maiche)

“Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going

over to the enemy of our imagination.”

~ Christian Nestell Bovee

There and Back

A tough transition from hope to despair and back again when illness strikes one down

Not down enough to call it quits

just down enough to cry.

to cry inside about one’s loss

unfair as it may be and yet 

proceed through days 

as though there were

no problems with too great a fee.

“Disenchantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock,

is the signal that things are moving into transition in our lives.”

~ William Bridges