Needing Perspecitive

Needing a nudge to take my turn 

playing Scrabble is a sign that 

visiting has overtaken game play. 

Puts ‘need’ in perspective. 

There are times when I choose 

not to buy groceries even though 

my cupboards and fridge 

have empty spaces ~ 

the milk almost gone,

only one extra pound of butter, 

broccoli is preferred 

rather than the frozen beans. 

My reason? The recipe calls for specifics!

What I need in that moment 

is a bit of creativity, courage 

~ it’s too easy to go out 

for supper or order in. 

This isn’t the old saw 

‘think of the hungry kids’, 

There is another old saw: 

“Make do with what you have”. 

Spices make all the difference, 

internet search engines and 

 ~ you remember them ~ 

recipe books, and imagination.

“Necessity is the mother of all invention”

~ Albert Einstein

My Life of Convenience

Needle and thread, 

once as necessary 

as hammer and nail. 

There was a time

when clothing, sewed by 

a seamstress or tailor, 

were sewed by hand 

needle and thread 

dipping and diving 

through fabric 

    ~ perhaps silk, 

    ~ denim

    ~ or even a flour sack. 

Those days are long gone, 

my needle and thread 

still needed for replacing 

a button, mending a hole 

in socks, or lifting a hem

in my convenient life. 

“Most of the time occupied in sewing. It seems as if 

there was no end of that branch of work in this house.”

~ Ellen Birdseye Wheaton, diary 1851

An Open Hand

Big Organizations offering help are scattered all over the place with ribbons, buttons and walks for the cure.

 

An organization, the wish of one young woman to give back to community touched my heart. 

In an empty parking lot, 

one table with boxes 

of homemade soup, 

     pudding, 

       sandwiches,

         bannock

   apples

   water

We filled bags

welcomed hungry people

    on foot

     bicycles,

      small families

in need of a meal. 

No papers to sign

   No proof of need

A small group of family and friends 

gathered round this young woman

in support of her wish to give back 

Her gift has not gone unnoticed, 

but those she aided today with 

her homemade soup will not 

know her, or her reasons why. 

Giving with an open hand and open heart was all.

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness 

and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

Activism

Over the top belief ~

Is there really such a thing?

Definitely!

A wrong to be righted

Activism born ~

Speaking out and living loud

Social norms

Reshaped to fit the need

Over the top belief ~

Is there really such a thing?

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, 

Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

~ Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

In Exchange

It was time. Time to stride out as a friend told me years ago. I had confined myself to the sound of rustling packing pager, the scratch and screech of packing tape ~ fitting things into boxes like pieces of a puzzle. But for everything there is a time. Familiar words set to music, a wisdom that shouldn’t be ignored.

It was a struggle. Getting my boots on, my jacket on, finding my key, locking the door. But then I felt the cool evening breeze ruffle my hair. As I approached the lake, gaggles of geese ~ brazen adults and skinny fuzzy teenagers ~ ranged across a lawn, foraging through the grass, drinking from puddles of rainwater by the curb. It was a fair exchange and a much needed one. 

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

In-Between

The strange push pull of

letting go and moving into the new

when both are necessary….desired…

standing….rocking… in between

looking for 

   a place of resilience

    a place of comfort

finding peace and joy in these moments

of letting go into a new beginning.

“There is something special about the beauty in the unclear, 

the ambiguity, the in-between that you can’t totally recognize.”

~ Alessandro Michele

An Old Story of Nurses

Let me tell you

a story

of the resiliency of nurses:

We care for the sick even

when the sick is a colleague 

with no other to fill their shift.

Young or old we jump into the fray

in all the many years of nurses ~

for the young, a trial by the fire of need.

It’s a story as old as nursing ~

we care for each other while

we care for sick patients all the same.

“Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.”

~ John Locke

A Long Overdue Letter to Santa Claus

Dear Santa,

I’m not sure I should be writing you this letter. It’s been over 60 years since the last time I wrote, but I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. Partly because it’s Christmas and your namesakes are all over the place. But partly because I miss Christmas morning and the brown stockings filled with nuts, candy and an orange in the toe. Did you really eat all the cookies and milk at everyone’s house? 

But that’s not what I wanted to ask about. I have everything I need and most things I want. But there is one thing that I have always wanted. It’s been a secret. I want a kitchen - a big kitchen. My own kitchen with all the gadgets I want. If I told you the truth, besides gadgets, I would like it to be a really big kitchen ~ did I mention that already? Two refrigerators - or one really big one. Two ovens, one at eye level and one an ordinary one. And a gas range. I want room for a table in the middle of my big kitchen and a pantry. With big windows facing west on one side and east on the other side.

Well that’s all I want and really I don’t expect it. Not because I don’t think you couldn’t get it here in time, but I really don’t know what I’d do with all that space. I guess I just wanted to write  one more letter to you.

Your friend, Susan

P.s. Of course, there would need to be a corner designed with a window seat with book shelves lined with cookbooks.

P.P.S. And if it’s not too much to ask, my kitchen would have to be in a little cottage complete with a writing room with a roll top desk.

P.P.P.S. Would it be lacking wisdom if I asked for a weekly maid service as well …..and a garden for vegetables and flowers? (Complete with gardener.)

Susan

“Only now have you lived long enough 

to know the child that you shall always remain.”

~ Martin I. Green, Santa: My Life and Times

An Ocean View

Driving to lunch this afternoon with friends, we took the scenic route along Dallas Road and Beach Road. The wind had cleared heavy clouds that rained all night. The ocean rolled and frothed showing the power of that immense body of water. Waves lashed the shore around Clover Point and the cliffs around Dallas Road. It was a demonstration of great power and beauty. Also showing the potential for devastation.

This morning I listened to yesterday’s episode on CBC's The Sunday Edition about the dehumanizing effect of the phrase ‘grey tsunami’ on old people. The interview was with Andrea Charise, a professor at the University of Toronto who teaches a class called “Aging and the Arts”. Andrea Charise has a PhD in English literature and has worked as a medical researcher in the fields of geriatrics and clinical epidemiology. The phrase shouts ‘Be afraid’. Society will be drowned with the great burden that is coming whether we want it or not. This phrase ‘grey tsunami’ was not intended to have this effect but to just say that huge numbers of elderly will require care. But the effect on an individual level is to enhance the age old worry of being a burden on ones family, on the community and the health care system. This phrase fails to address the beauty and wisdom of this great body of humanity. Not all of us become wise with our years and our beauty often is only in the eye of the beholder. 

So, when we are preparing for a massive potential disaster, we must also focus on ourselves and the individuals around us for strengths, wisdom and yes, need. After all, many of us are still working within the foundations of our society to support ourselves and our families. Many of us are still using the lessons of our years to create vast pools of calm and laughter. I don’t know about the rest of us, but I will challenge this dehumanization. 

“Where there is not community, trust, respect, ethical behaviour 

are difficult for the young to learn and for the old to maintain.”

~ Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant As Leader