Not Just Papers

 

Sorting thoughts

organizing them into groups with titles, 

selecting papers that stay 

those that go, 

personal history: 

tempting to toss a grade school report card, 

the last pay stub from previous employers, 

fridge magnets that hold special meaning

souvenirs from my travels, 

photos of nieces that are grown, 

birthday cards, 

and the gigantic stack of carefully torn squared off scrap paper, 

family history, 

and of course important folders for

tax information

  mortgage documents 

    insurance papers

Unexpected finds of 

   computer cords, and cords, and cords

   obsolete computer connecters

   red paper clips

So much like going through 

photos in boxes and bags 

holding them up to the light 

remembering the road of life .

“Nothing is a waste that makes a memory.”

~  Ned Rorem, composer

On Duty

So many of the photos  

I take are lovely flowers, 

grand sky-scapes, 

ancient elms, 

Flamboyant fall colours, 

expanses of water

here and on Vancouver Island. 

Then there are squirrels:

In leafy branches

Perched in the grass

Running along fences

Scampering across roads

Racing up and around a tree trunk

And this little guy ~ on duty.

“Do your duty as you see it, and damn the consequences.”

~ George S. Patton Jr.

Each Memory

 

Slipping through photos 

each memory reaches out 

to that part of my heart 

where joy and love resides. 

“Memory is a way of telling you what’s important to you.”

~ Salman Rushdie, author

A Gentle Cascade

 

Glistening green leaves caught my eye 

as if a vining hand had reached out to me suggesting that the photo op of the day 

would be missed if I kept on walking. 

I stopped, looked at it. It was quite lovely 

but no flowers, except for perfectly shaped 

leaves in a gentle cascade down a quaint old gate. 

I did feel compelled by the vining cascade 

to take its picture and so I had this photo 

for tonight’s bit of poetry.

“Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”

~ March Riboud, French photographer

(June 24, 1923 - August 30, 2016)

An Awkward Explanation

Scrolling through my digital photo album looking for an interesting picture, I came upon this one. 

I remember tilting my head back, hoping I wouldn’t get dizzy, fall and land in an ungainly way, but would try

to look cool, and explain to some kind passerby that I merely wanted to take a photo 

of the leaves against the sky that suggested the tropics. 

Tropics that I’ve never seen except the last few days 

here on the prairies in over 30 degree 

Centigrade heat. But this photo was taken in 

June between rains that are a distant memory.

“There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

Winter Magic ~ 2

I couldn’t help myself……the frosting today was more amazing than yesterday. My only concern was that the warming we’re experiencing would strip the trees of their winter finery. It saddens me that I couldn’t get photos of the trees lining the roadways. They were magnificent. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit warmer! After that deep freeze we had, this warm weather is welcome.

 

“In a few blinks you can almost see the winter fairies moving in…”             ~ Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

On an Afternoon Walk ~ A Child’s Imagination

 It caught my eye. The snowy lining on every branch, roof and fence post. The city had gone from a deep freeze to brown slush on streets and sidewalks while the trees were celebrating their frosty beauty. But that wasn’t what was so curious. It was this branch that reminded me ~ well the child in me ~ of a reindeer’s head. Antler’s pointed to the path ahead. I can see shapes in clouds, hear train whistles in the wind, sense the magic of the seasons - but a reindeer in the trees? The adult in me just snapped the picture and walked on.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, 

we grow old because we stop playing.”

~ George Bernard Shaw

Photo Op

through verdant foliage

beached logs relax 

on a warm spring day.

“…..and then, I have nature and art and poetry, 

and if that is not enough, what is enough?”

~ Vincent Willem van Gogh

Melted

After shopping for groceries this afternoon, I could have gone right home. It was 35 degrees Centigrade! I decided to be brave - or maybe foolish. But there was ice cream involved ~ just a block away. 

So, I stopped by Elle’s Cafe again today - a different flavour this time: a salted caramel sundae.

In the minutes that it took from the ice cream window to sitting on the bench only steps away, the ice cream was already pooling in and around the salted caramel syrup. But I soldiered on and finally drank up the last drop. There was no time to take a still photo ~ and I knew I'd better eat before it was too late! 

On my way home I chanced upon these lovely *petunias braving the heat and the tepid breeze. They became the stand-in photo for the melted ice cream.

*Authors correction: flowers are ‘petunias’. Original text stated ‘pansies’

“You can pour melted ice cream on regular ice cream. It’s like a sauce!”

~ Chris Pratt

Life's Journey

1988 St. Mary of the Plains Newsletter
Lubbock, Texas
Orientation day.

Retiring in 2019, I spent an hour or so a day culling papers and nursing journals. I’ve culled my hard copy photos before. Several times. The last time was just two years ago when I shifted my life east from Vancouver Island to my longed for prairies. I really thought I had cut up, cut out and threw out any duplicate photos. To my surprise this afternoon, I still have many.

But that’s not important. In all the photos, I’ve seen life lived in each place I have landed. I have often wondered about the value of these photographs of smiling faces and distant places. Generations of family, colleagues and many, many friends. I don’t look at them every day, or even every year! Pretty ordinary. But when I make my attempts at getting rid of these memories, it always pulls me back to moving forward from a teenager singing in the choir to a senior citizen planning her retirement. Becoming part of a next generation seeing the blossoming of new generations. The value of the photographs does not pay the rent, or buy groceries but shows us our life’s journey.

“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.”

~ Eudora Welty

 

A Crow in Fog

 I had the advantage!

Crows - and birds in general - seem to have an aversion to having their picture taken. In my experience, as soon as my hand pulls my cell phone out, before I can even turn it on, or lift it to click a photo - the avian photo op takes flight!

I first noticed the quiet of the fog, only torn by the occasional obnoxious goose discussion. But that settled into the silence. Then I noticed the crow, its ebony presence barely touched by the fog. It was intent on grooming, lifting a wing, fluffing feathers and not noticing me at all. From my second floor window ~ I had the advantage. 

“If men had wings and bore black feathers, 

few of them would be clever enough to be crows.”

~ Henry Ward Beecher

In Awe ~ 1

 Maybe just one.

New photos of rain-washed clouds today?

drifting and bringing more rain

when coming night falls quietly 

~ no desire to snap and click. 

New photos of fluffy goslings today?

little gaggles of three or six ~ 

mom and dad watching suspiciously, 

~ no desire to snap and click.

Over days, months and years, 

photos of clouds and goslings 

lose their sense of place and time ~

yet awe and wonder still inflates my soul.

“…we must never lose sight of that gaze with which we look at things.”

~ Lázló Krasznahorkani, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming

On a Morning Walk - Missed Photo Op

Really, I tried!

He posed beautifully

on the back of the bench.

I didn’t get too close…

He looked so handsome!

Carefully, I palmed my camera…

From the back of the bench,

he looked straight at me

……and flew off over the lake!

“ ‘As the crow flies,’ a popular and picturesque 

expression to denote a straight line.”

~ William Henry Maule

A Bit of Cheer

Far afield for spring flowers 

I went.

everywhere beneath the snow, 

they're bent!

Blizzards swept this land of ours ~

Covering everything for hours

So weather or no, we need some cheer ~

Through my photos, digital flowers are here.

“It is deep winter with shivering cold air, 

but heart is dancing with joy and spring flowers.”

~ Debasish Mridha, American physician, philosopher and poet

Wherever We Land

Home ~ a feeling 

surrounded by photographs and recipes

artfully posed or candid surprise shots,

wrinkled pages stained with coffee and cake batter

Home is a feeling

infused by scents and sounds of Christmas

Roasting turkey and apple pie,

Crackling fireplace and carolling.

Home is a feeling

created from our homes before now

blending family traditions

creating new traditions from belief.

“The experience is about how we get there, not the landing place.”

 ~ Bill Buxton

(Canadian computer scientist and designer)

Embrace ~ HOME ~Theme for December 2021

Home, a feeling surrounded by photographs and recipes…….

Open air, whether in deep forest, widening prairies, or bottomless ocean……..

Moving from house to house….

Exploring, in baby steps,  I welcome the ghosts…………

“Home is where one starts from.”

~ T.S.Eliot