How High

Ambition to live the life 

we were given 

put on the wayside 

when confronted with style, 

images and must do’s. 

If we do not measure up 

then we chance to

forget our own courage 

and desire for independence. 

Independence of thought, 

 of action 

    of belief 

in life as we see it.

And so we climb 

into that suit of armour 

that fits us best and 

take the direction of our choice 

despite pitfalls that may be in our path. 

“We never know how high we are 

Till we are called rise; 

And then, if we are true to plan,

 Our statures touch the skies.”

~ Emily Dickinson, Aspiration

Light it Up!

Enthusiasm about being able

to do things by myself 

and for myself wanes

when I just don’t know how. 

“Call for help”

“Don’t be so stubborn.”

“Did you read the package directions?”

“Why didn’t you check out the web?” 

all things I say to myself, 

in the voice of someone from my past

    like my dad, 

       or mom, 

          or a neighbour,   

       or just in casual conversation. 

But that child from my distant past,

that determined little girl 

who insists that ‘I can so do it!’, 

reminds me to give it one more try

I looked on the package for directions (nothing) 

and looked on a diy website for answers: it’s easy! 

(Calling for help is a tough one for me). 

Then:  Success!! 

my enthusiasm about being able 

to do things for myself surges

and a smile lights up my heart and my face!

(It was a very odd GU10 light bulb)

“I got my own back.”

~ Maya Angelou

 

Maturity? ~ WISDOM ~ Theme for November 2022

This theme could either be a real downer or hilarious. I try to avoid getting too close to either of those. Don’t like downers and my sense of humour is sadly lacking sometimes. For the next six days, each post will begin with one consecutive stem. So here goes:

When we grow old and…….

Independence has its drawbacks……..

Settled into…….

Demanding that life……

Opening doors we didn’t know……

Maturity ~ questionable……..

“The two most important days in your life are 

the day you are born and the day you find out why.”

~ Mark Twain

Focus!

Eyeing the possibilities around me this last two years has challenged me. Returning to Regina after living away for over thirty years has taxed my heart, brain and body. The prairies of Saskatchewan, my home for longer than I was away, never left my soul. When I left, I drove my own car, had a nursing career and several goals. Encountering life’s unexpected twists and turns along the way, I was away far longer than my original idea. And that’s all it was ~ an idea ~ without much of a plan at all. 

Returning to the prairies without a car and retired, my goal was to be closer to family. Rebuilding those relationships stretched by time and distance is an ongoing and very precious challenge. This brings me to possibility. There have been bleak days - kind of like the winter we just passed through! But there have been more days with tiny hints of possibility. Like two brand new great granddaughters! Like learning to snowshoe at 74! Bus passes and taxis. Learning independence in this broad, spread out city. Enjoying life as it arrives each morning when I awaken.

All the while, I have wanted and needed more, but didn’t know what or how to get it ~ whatever ‘it’ has been. Possibilities as scattered as clouds across the broad blue prairie sky. Asking the question ‘What if?’, wondering if it made good sense, taking a lot of deep breaths and many steps forward, I have eyed each possibility and chosen one………to be continued…… 

“If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, 

we would literally astound ourselves.”

~ Thomas A. Edison

Ownership ~AUTONOMY ~Theme for March 2019

Actively seeking…..

Understanding my…….

Treating each day……

Opening doors……..

Nodding ‘hello’ to opportunity….

Outside for a breath…….

Magic happens today……

Yoda knows the questions……..

“If you just set people in motion they’ll heal themselves.”

~ Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy

Feeling Faded

Feeling Faded

With her faded dress and worn shoes she was certain she couldn’t go on. The streets were long and hard. Her morning began in great confidence. She knew before she left the shelter that she wasn’t the best dressed, but she was clean and one of the other girls had fixed her hair. She felt she looked quite professional. Tricia expected some rejections, but as the morning wore on, she began to feel something hardening in her soul. 

Tricia had enough in her wallet for lunch. Lunch would fix her flagging feelings. The warmth of the small diner felt good. She ordered soup and sandwich - the cheapest on the menu. The ginger carrot soup was smooth and delicious. Just enough of a bite to get her attention. Tricia closed her eyes and sat back in the chair. Easing her feet from her shoes without taking them off, she curled and uncurled her toes. Sitting forward again, she carefully ate lettuce and roast beef sandwich. It might be the last she ate for the day, so savoured every bite. Once her lunch was finished, making sure to drink an extra glass of water, the Ladies room was her next stop. 

Tricia wasn’t done with her job search. In the mirror she saw a too young and too tired woman who looked lost. Straightening up, she brushed back her hair, put a smile on her face and smoothed her skirt. For too long, she had drifted, finally living on the streets, in shelters and couch surfing. She had been angry with her parents, always wanting her to ‘have principles’. Tricia hadn’t seen her parents for…. How long? She couldn’t remember. Tricia wanted to tell them that she now had at least one principle. To become independent. To get her own place. To stop drifting.

Despite her faded dress and worn shoes, she also knew that she would go on. She would find her place in the world. By the end of the day, she had one job interview for the next day.

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”

~ Coco Chanel

Book Review: The Illegal by Lawrence Hill

I hesitated to write this review tonight because of the election in the United States. Not many will show an interest in a book review when the government of a neighbouring country is mired in the election of two figures who both have questionable popularity. 

However, Lawrence Hill’s most recent book, The Illegal does show the reader what can happen when a government disrespects individuals within their countries. The Illegal read like a political thriller, fairly perdictable and straight forward, with completely fictional countries in a completely fictional sea. The protagonist, Keita Ali, is the main ‘illegal’ amid many, many individuals that were undocumented or just the wrong social group. That is unless they were useful to someone in governmental or monetary power. Journalism and the spread of alternate ideas and exposés was brutally excised. Keita Ali is a young man whose only desire is to be a marathon runner, yet he finds his ability to run races easily challenged by needing to stay ahead of those that would control, kill or maim him. His father, an independent journalist, is killed by this government. Later in the story, his sister is imprisoned, again by the government. Keita Ali must run actual races for the money to save his sister, and run a race against time to meet the deadline he was given to get the money in.

My main take away of this story, is that when there is trouble, many very disparate people step up to help. Keita Ali comes in contact with several characters, all completely different in gender, age and ability, that ultimately aid him in his race to the finish.  Tough Viola Hill, proud, gay, and disabled, is a hard headed journalist who wants to find out the truth about government corruption and a disappeared young woman. John Falconer, a young and very gifted teenager, runs throughout the story, chasing down the players for a documentary that he is making for a school assignment. Ivernia Beech, an 85 year old woman who is at risk of losing her independence finds purpose in helping many illegals and especially Keita. These are only three, but they each find their own place in the story.

An easy read, The Illegal told a story that, globally, most are all too familiar with. Refugees that are homeless and stateless and must just survive. Lawrence Hill has made this struggle palatable for his readers. 

“Every voter knew that the Family Party had come to power promising to deport Illegals, to manage it’s borders more efficiently and to ensure that people of traditional European stock weren’t overrun in their own country.”

~ Lawrence Hill, The Illegal

Title:  The Illegal

Author:  Lawrence Hill

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Publication Date: Hardcover 2015

Format:  Pbk edition 2016

ISBN: 978-1-55468-384-0 (hc.)

Type:  Fiction

Honouring International Women's Day

Tomorrow, March 08, is International Women’s Day. I have never taken the opportunity to celebrate this anniversary initiated in 1908. I really have never paid much attention to it until, actually, last year. Don’t know why it has taken so long to draw my attention. I suppose like so many other things, I have taken my rights as a woman as normal and natural forgetting that at one time women had none of the rights that I enjoy today: personal independence, a voice, the ability to vote as I choose and to do whatever I choose given the means to do so. Today I enjoy a feeling of confidence that may have been a stranger to that woman in times gone past. I am not so naive to think that women often still have to work towards parity in many areas of life. There are many that wish to hang on to the ‘man’s world’, and this includes both men and women. There are many of us that are comfortable in our independence from that structured world and at the same time, comfortable in reciprocal relationships with partners and colleagues.

“International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.” 

“The history of all times, and of today especially, teaches that 

women will be forgotten if they forget to think about themselves.”

~ Louise Otto

Quotation from:    www.internationalwomensday.com

Happy Fourth of July!!!

I spent a lovely afternoon with friends today at Cameron Band Shell, better known as the Stage in Beacon Hill Park, listening to The O’Brien Family, originally from the U.K. have resided in Victoria since 2004. Their lively folk music was complemented by a varied repertoire of music written by O'Brien Family members and other popular artists. The most beautiful was Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.

July 4^th - Independence Day in the U.S.A. was not far from my mind even without marching bands and the Stars and Stripes waving.

We were an audience of Victoria residents, tourists from near and far composed of moms, dads, dancing running kids, grandparents, - and squabbling herons high up above. Well kept park benches were spread across gently sloping grass in front of the outdoor stage and surrounded by tall hedges and old trees. The afternoon sun moved to the west and as it did the audience moved with the shade.

July 4^th - Independence Day - U.S.A. - a statement of belief.

“Freedom is the atmosphere in which humanity thrives. Breathe it in.”

~ Rachelle Goodrich

Mother's Day Essay

Mother’s Day is both satisfying and exciting for me. I remember my own mom, my very special 'second mom' and all the others that stepped in over many years in the mom role. 

Celebrating all parents ~ not just moms is so very important. The work of parenting is just that ~ work. However, never a chore, although there are days and times when it feels like it.  Only when we look at our kids from afar ~ either when they’re sleeping or when we can just watch them without them knowing it, does the 'chore' vanish as though it had never been there. There are too many times when a mom, tired and exhausted, will do that one more thing for their child ~ while they develop their independence. 

The independence that begins with the first step, the first day of school and all the other firsts that follow through the years. When they are a year older, with a year more of life experience when their brilliance shines through and they believe in themselves in a different way. Unfortunately, that belief can too easily dimmed. Our job as parents is to hold, share and support all the hurts and triumphs of the growing up, up and away. We do that job sometimes very badly, sometimes extremely well and most times just ok. 

All of that teaching, guiding, playing with and letting go while holding hearts close does not stop with adulthood, graduating from anything, moving far away or being involved in their own lives. Moms, and dad, humbled by their children’s knowledge, abilities and humanity, can more easily laugh and cry with them when the ups and downs of life roll onto their horizons.

“Your children need your presence more than your presents.”

~ Jess Jackson

Decisions for Recovery

It seems a small thing.

Having my eyes examined to see if cataract surgery is involved.

Drops, dilation, consultation. 

Decision  ~ my own.

Done and dusted, I believe is the saying.

A single detail of my life with

possibility to affect a well earned independence with

a frightening destabilized feeling.

My decision.

Recovery of an entire life 

tumbled and turmoiled by active addiction

also comes down to 

only one decision.

Whether to go forward or not.

Moment by moment 

creating ability to be independent

to affect every detail - not just one.

Decisions for recovery

not to be taken lightly

full of immediacy

extending forward into life.

“Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment 

turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives.”

~ Mary Balogh, Simply Perfect

In Thanksgiving

I feel I should be writing about gratitude this weekend of Thanksgiving. Many things have gone through my mind today ~ my home, my family, my career, my friends. All seems so trite and cliche. Doesn’t everyone say they are grateful for all of these things ~ or at least aren’t we all supposed to be grateful for all of these things?

However that may be, what I am truly grateful for is my learned ability to be independent ~ not of my family, friends, career or home, but independent despite the epilepsy that I carry with me. I carry epilepsy with me as surely as I carry the hair on my head or any other feature of my physical being.

My independence has come at a cost. The cost has been in limitations recognized and respected so that life can be and has been shaped and moulded carefully and calmly. (Well, maybe not always calmly.) The rewards I have reaped have been much greater than the cost. Relationships continually being restored, renewed and developed. A driver’s license held for 35 years. A successful career that has spanned over four decades.  

Gratitude has been a gently driving energy that has shifted many moody gears throughout these constantly moving years. When enjoying a good ‘pity party’, gratitude for what is in the present, what has gone before and horizons yet to be discovered has helped me blow out darkly burning candles and light new, bright and colourful candles.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart,

it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

~ AA.Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Growing into Nursing

Tender new growth requires

the right soil

strong support and

a good dose of sunshine

My soil was 

my family and

my community

My supports were

role models and 

early life experience

The sunshine I was exposed to was

kindness

teaching

firmness

care

from the nurses in my life

Three of my role models were

our community’s public health nurse, Mrs. Allen

our family's cousin, Maxine, and,

a favourite community member, Stella

Mrs. Allen was the Public Health nurse 

for our town’s prairie region, 

delivering care and vaccinations to us all.

I’m sure she did much more than that

however at age five, and younger, I only saw

a tall, well coifed woman in a trim navy blue uniform.

Efficient and always welcomed in our home.

Maxine, a cousin who lived with us for a time.

I remember watching her prepare for work,

donning the stiff white uniform of the day,

black banded nurses cap, and sensible shoes.

She transformed from my cousin, to a nurse who had

her own car, and travelled to Regina to work.  

Further enhancing her image, and 

showing me that nurses travel with their work, and 

can be independent, taking work in Australia 

via the Queen Mary II, a grand ship on the Canard line,

coming home a year later through Egypt.

Stella, a good and kind friend of our small town,

gave people allergy shots when needed and 

was the ‘go to’ person with health questions.

These were but three women 

who showed me 

how to be a nurse,

long before I knew 

‘what I wanted to be when I grew up’.

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream,

a dream you dream together is a reality.”

- John Lennon