Detours

Straight forward ~ take the #40 straight to the Golden Mile Plaza. First stop: Old Fashioned Foods; around the corner to Good Earth for coffee with Louise Penny’s Kingdom of Blindness; down the sidewalk and across the parking lot to Superstore for groceries. Home. Should only take about 2 hours.

My first detour: Wasn’t that cold today, but I took the first bus that came along………….wrong bus! Got out at the next bus stop and hustled back to a correct bus stop ~ #7 saved me. Everything went as planned until I had coffee in hand. A lady was standing up, buttoning her coat… “Are you leaving?” (it was my favourite table.) “No, but you can sit down here.” We visited for an hour and a half! Great conversation - we covered all the important topics - grandkids, dogs, family, politics, money…….. No more detours! Got my groceries for making granola on Friday, got the correct bus home……….Took me about four hours! It was fun though!

“Life doesn’t always go the way you planned it to go. 

Sometimes you have detours you have to take.”

~ Andrew McCutchen

Two Good Feet

Nervous, I wait for the other shoe to drop ~ It could be a soft, light ballet slipper

But……….

It could also be a steel toed work boot!

And if the other shoe dropped ~

It would surely be the work boot!

But…..

How will I know for certain!?

I guess I’ll never really know…

My road is long. There are no signs.

But….

I certainly know how to walk!

I don’t need ballet slippers or steel toes

I just need my hands, my heart and my two good feet.

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.

……live in the question.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Sunset on 2020

A long road behind us,

rounding a bend

on our unasked for journey,

the sun edges to the horizon,

only time and distance ahead.

We will keep on walking and living.

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”

~ Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

Through the Windshield

We were driving west toward Vancouver up from Kelowna. Through the windshield we saw it. Sunrise had lightly brushed low clouds with pink and mauve tints. Heavily snow covered pines stood tall and clean. This magnificent scene greeted my son and I this morning after coming through a short piece of fairly heavy fog on the Okanagan Connector. With no traffic on the road, we slowed to get pictures of this very breathtaking scene. 

Often, after the dizzying heights of Christmas and holiday gatherings, we come away with bitter sweet memories that may be just as beautiful as those of land and sky. Some may be a bit clouded, but still part of the life of these gatherings. Returning to our daily lives, they may be diminished until we see some picture or gift from these special times. 

Our trips, both to and from Vancouver to Saskatchewan, were safe and steady, not without concerns. December weather in the mountains is not to be taken lightly! But this important holiday was specifically for strengthening of family ties, as well as ties to old friends. These scenes from our road trips become reminders of the joys experienced this last week. Personally, light or heavy snow is a big part of home and family for me, whether viewing it or shovelling it. Each of us has some memory or memories with very personal meaning of home and family to cherish. They are our very own connectors to home.

“Home is where one starts from.”

~ T.S.Eliot

One Sided

One Sided

“Rates of speed on this highway are pathetic!! Who sets them

anyway!? And the drivers! People that always trundle along at exactly….I mean exactly…..the speed limit. Not a kilometre over or under but exactly!!! I was speeding along, with that great Billy Idol driving song Blue Highway turned up full blast…..it was awesome. Turned around a bend in the highway and there it was. A poky little old station wagon that must have been 50 years old. And this driver!! She could barely see over the steering wheel! She had a nerve being on the road. A typical Speed Limit Nerd. I couldn’t pass because we were coming up to another turn on this amazing mountain road and I couldn’t see if I’d hit a semi or a deer or anything else! And then there’s the ghastly forest fires…..yah I know they were miles away but there was a lot of smoke! I wanted to get the hell out of there! So I had to slow waaaaay down to match this crazy woman's ridiculous speed……Road rage? What? You think even this sounds like road rage? The air was as blue as her blue hair!! I mean really….what if I had to get to a hospital? Or what if you had just texted me that my house was burning down!?……....................................Roxanne just hung up on me!! What did I say?”

“Smile, breathe and go slowly”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The Road to El Paso

Inching forward each day, finding my way into my home. My home that I missed most Thursday and Fridays for the past several years. Oh, yes and the worked weekends that were tossed in for good measure. I still have stacks of papers, books, art supplies, writing books, books written in, boxes of photographs, clothes that have seen their best before date and some that will no longer see the inside of a nurses station. The scheduled, hurry up and get it done, side of me  - only for a second or two - wants to roll up my sleeves and dive in. Get rid of it all…..or some of it…….or…….  Overwhelmed I start taking things of the top of the nearest pile. This morning I chose from the top of the pile on my dining room table a small coil notebook that hadn’t been opened for years. The title and date at the top of the first page: Road to El Paso April/06. I recall that trip with fond memories. It was my first trip back to Lubbock, Texas since returning to Canada in the fall of 1999. My good friend from my Lubbock days, David Lusk and I were taking a road trip to El Paso, Texas. The little water colour picture is one I sketched while on that road trip using watercolour pencils, completing it when we stopped for the night. Here is my writing from April of 2006:

I still could not see the land! This time it was not the granite, tree laden cliffs that were obscuring the land and sky but highway cones, detour signs and telephone poles. Thin spikes jutting up against the sides of highways and railroad tracks; the occasional dusty windblown house of unknown residence surrounded by bushes grown up against its sides. The sky, today not startling blue outlined by a rimmed white horizon, but by gray stretching side to side. The only relief being the different shades in puffs and streaks of smaller drifts wondering where to go and what to do. Only the soil was red. Red soil that stretched ahead and around what seemed a bleak and unforgiving tunnel. Road noise reminded us that we rolled along, supported by black rubber tires to worn gray asphalt, matching the interior of this rental, Silver Grand Am. Car and land covered by nature’s gray damp blanket. Road tar was the aroma on this leg of the trip not the smell of freshly turned red spring soil. I am longing for green, blue, yellow, orange. Hot sun or cool night breeze. Deep dark sky, stars punched out of the velvet fabric in patterns of myths. Swaths of galaxies. Ah, a hint of blue breaks in the skies ahead. Closing quickly, it may only have been a mirage born of the dream I am caught in.

There is one other thing I that I’ve not yet spoken of:  Rock! Rock music! Fitting in this strange place. And, looking up, I see that roadsides bordering fields are showing green hints and hues promising that this gray, wide tunnel will open to the grandeur of the West Texas plains. And now a plowed red field preparing the tiny seedlings resting to be later born into cotton? No. The sign we just passed said: Peanuts!

I do hope you enjoy this little bit of West Texas. I know that, while writing this out, editing a wee bit here and there ~ especially when I couldn’t read my writing or understand a sentence ~ put me back on that Road to El Paso.

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

~ Martin Buber

On the Road

On the road

I’ve loved to travel with

Willie Nelson’s gravelly voice

singing to the music of my tires

my heart has filled with 

the beauty of the land seen

through the prism of my windshield

and now there is a new road to take

On the road to retirement

my mind's suitcases packed

with experience, strength and hope,

possibly wisdom in the choices made,

forks in the road to be examined,

crossroads to be met and taken

being mindful of the expectations

that retirement means slowing down.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

~ Jack Kerouac, On The Road

Just Keep Driving

A Texas Highway in much lighter skies

The road was empty, black and shiny. Wind whipped rain in thick sheets in front of my eyes challenging the strength of my windshield wipers. It was north Texas in May of 1988. I was driving to Lubbock to meet my new co-workers at St. Mary of the Plains hospital. I was driving toward a new direction in nursing. Turning back to the safety of home and family in Canada never entered my mind. Finding safe haven in this wild, black storm was definitely on my mind, but the little town of Happy was rolled up against the weather and the night. No cell phone, no radio in my little car and no knowledge that I was driving through ‘Tornado Alley’. At the edge of a tornado.

I only knew that Lubbock was closer than even my uncle’s in Colorado, much less Canada. Stopping on the road until the storm passed was not an option, although that thought washed through my head as fast as the rain washed across my windshield. Stopping on the road had the potential of picking me up and sending me to Kansas or Oklahoma or into a very watery ditch with no assistance in sight.

Why am I retelling this story? One I have shared more than once? I have felt in the past few weeks as though I am back in that little car in the middle of a storm. Not knowing for certain what lies front of me and seeing how far away in years I have come, puts me firmly in the seat of my own tiny life. The spot where my size eight feet are right now only takes up a small rectangle on this earth. The storm? All the what if's and could be’s and should have’s crowding around me, each one clamouring for attention. When I put myself back in my little car in May of 1988, my final decision was to just keep driving. To stop on this metaphorical road could mean being blown away by unknown forces in our society’s support systems. And this is fear. Fear that can paralyze and only lead to more clamouring thoughts. So today, I’ll just keep driving, learning and living.

“Don’t be afraid of your fears. They’re not there to scare you. 

They’re there to let you know that something is worth it.”

~ C. JoyBell C., writer, philosopher

The Crooked Castle

There once was a Crooked Castle in the midst of a crooked land of hills and dales. The only way to get to the Crooked Castle was to follow a crooked road full of potholes and boulders. At least that was the story. Mikkeljohn’s road had been long and he was tired. He had heard stories about staying away from the Crooked Castle. Stories that told of many evil people that could not be trusted because of their crooked ways. Stories that told of bodies bent and broken. People that could not and would not work.

But Mikkeljohn was tired. He could get food and water for himself and his mule at the Crooked Castle. He knew of no other place that was closer. He had no friend with him to visit with or to help finding a place to sleep. Only his faithful mule who trusted him for food and for water. So Mikkeljohn took a deep breath and, taking his mule by the rope halter. he set off.

Along the way he met many people. Farmers and ferriers. Housewives and homemakers. Some knew of the Crooked Castle but had never been because it was so far. From those that he met, Mikkeljohn heard many ideas about the truth of the stories. So he really didn’t learn much from them. Only to be cautious.

When Mikkeljohn arrived at the castle gate, he found that the castle wasn’t really all that crooked. He couldn't be in the right place! Actually it didn’t really look like a castle at all! It was a little stone cottage with a crooked chimney, a thatched roof and a porch with flowers in the window. A beautiful dog with long golden hair trotted out to meet Mikkeljohn and his mule. A young lady stopped picking beans from her abundant vegetable garden to turn and call out ‘Welcome to my little castle’. There, hanging from the thatched porch roof, was a hand carved sign: ‘The Crooked Castle’.

Mikkeljohn smiled.

“Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.”

~ Charles Darwin

I Can't See

I can’t see what I’m seeing

from a distance too far.
When I blink visions vanish,
beginnings recede but 

vision expands, grows

gradually and steadily
passing blocks in the road
t'ward an end that I can’t see.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

~ Nelson Mandela

Author's Note: Edited January 16, 2024

Bravery on Two Wheels

More bravery on the streets tonight
Some don’t agree
that cyclists riding city streets are brave
only…..(put adjective here)….
I believe those that follow rules of the road are brave
A girl riding ahead of me
Proper signalling
Attentive
Moving as fast as possible.
Her protective glasses flew off
I missed them
The car behind crushed them inadvertantly
A tiny speck on the road.

“The sound of a car door opening in front of you 

is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked.”

~ Amy Webster

Circular Thinking

Circular thinking
brings vision into focus
riding the roads of 
what could be
what was
what might be.

Over potholes and pavement
dirt road and asphalt
keeping the motor running
with thoughts, feelings and ideas until a destination is reached.

“All my life’s a circle, but I can’t tell you why;

Season’s spinnin’ round again; 

The years keep rollin’ by.”

~ Harry Chapin (1972)

Wandering Words

Alas for me, I’m at a loss.

Wandering words have waddled away ~ taken my sense of humour with them!

Wobbly words poked their faces from nooks, crannies and cramped corners of my spent brain!

Wonderful words of two, or four or maybe six have winked at 

each other and shyly held hands, only to skip away down the road before I’ve time to line them up in poem, story or song.

What shall I do when at a loss?

Put my fingers on the keys and a few wayfaring words have set themselves down to rest.

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put 

one word after another until it’s done.  It’s that easy, and that hard.”

~ Neil Gaiman

Holograms and Intuition

Stifled, boxed in,

no room to breathe or grow.

Looking for doorways or windows showing the 

next road or path to take.

Restless, 

searching for expansion,

not mere distraction, 

but deep rich soil to plow.

And the box?

What is it made of ?

Steel?

Cardboard?

Tissue paper?

My own thoughts of limitation and political correctness?

This last seems hard as steel,

thick as concrete till I reach out ~

my hand pushes through a noisy, frightening hologram of 

should's and shouldn’ts

do’s and don’ts

destroying the box completely

leaving me feeling lost and alone

no sign posts to direct or barriers to caution.

Is this a do or don’t issue?

Do I rely on my intuition for learning and practice,

stepping forward to gather gems along the way?

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.”

~ Jonas Salk

Road Block

Road Block

A young peasant woman set out gaily on a journey. Some in her family had told her to watch for a large boulder on the path she would travel. When she saw it, from a distance, the boulder did look large but certainly not unmanageable. Curiously, it also did not look that close to the road. However, continuing her upward and rocky journey the middle-aged peasant woman found that the boulder was indeed very large, and had completely blocked the road.  

Obviously, many had tried to move it off of the road. Old, rusty tools damaged by time, weather and animals, were strewn around it. Dents, cracks, and holes in the rock showed numerous attempts to make smaller this huge boulder barring the roadway wending it’s way through hills, valleys, forests and plains. Chunks and pieces of rock piled here and there were a testament to those that had taken up the task of moving an immovable object. Grass and vines grew all around and through it.

Sadly, the skeleton of the last man to try moving the chiseled and hammered rock lay against the smooth trunk of a willow tree. The willow tree, once young and slender was now old and wise and clothed in beautiful lacy branches, slender leaves draping to the ground. The unfortunate gentleman beneath its arched branches now wore only thread bare rags, grayed and dusty from age and weather. A worn, faded basket and a long empty wine bottle lay by his side, one boney hand draped over them.

The peasant woman looked with sadness upon the entire scene. The woman, once young and fair, had traveled far to be stopped so suddenly. Her journey had made her old, but she was still vigorous and strong. Shrugging her shoulders she walked slowly around the rock to see if her journey had come to it's end. Where the rock had once blocked this well traveled road, many traveler’s had gone ‘round the left and some ‘round the right, making two roads to follow.

Seeing new roads to travel around the boulder, she smiled and said "I do think it's time for lunch."

After a lunch of bread and cheese, cold water from a babbling brook, she took a short rest, her head against the boulder, the sun on her face. Then shouldering her pack and taking the left fork in the road, she continued her journey.  

"Determination gives you the resolve to keep going

in spite of the roadblocks that lay before you."

~ Denis Waitley

Off on my Own

Off on my own, I braved today in my car with my tools to write.

The GPS had her heading set,

I knew not if it ‘twere right.

A sigh of relief escaped from me when I heard ‘destination has been reached'.

Time for breakfast, 
Morning Pages done

I napped a bit in my car.

Topped off with massage!

Maintaining my routine of care

Before return to the open road

I wandered winding green treed lanes

A stop in a lovely town visited last year for

coffee and chocolate chip cookies (they are my bane.)

It’s been a good day and now 

it will be a good night!

"Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which 

once existed between man and the universe."

~ Anatole France