Into the Void

It’s easy to let hope 

drain drop by drop

while deep inside

healing fills spaces

that hope has abandoned

~ spaces designed to

hold light or dark,

sadness or willingness.

It can be difficult to 

decide which to choose.

“We are our choices.”

~ Jean-Paul Sartre

With Caution

Re-doing everything………..

filling unfamiliar wide spaces 

plugged with 

reading, making things, 

baking, sleeping, games, 

puzzles,walking, exercises

Zooming, wondering … 

is almost frightening

With caution, relief

and unfamiliar excitement

we take up old interests,

face to face visits and fun ~

not shiny screen people, yet

an invisible threat still hovers ~

a tiny quiver deep inside

has yet to find peace.

“Misery don’t call ahead. That’s why you have to stay awake 

- otherwise it just walks on in your door.”

~ Toni Morrison, Home

Remembering.... ~ 2

Remembering

to describe each moment impossible.  

childhood moments

teen years

today only

gaps of gray, pea-soup fog 

holes with no borders. 

fog creeping close to cherished snapshot memories.

pushed away by a mirage of feelings until……

Remembering joyful freedom

warm prairie sun on young skin  

rushing wind holding me up

balancing on wide spread – and very skinny – legs

in the back of the big grain truck headed west to Milestone

for one more load of furniture to fill the spaces around me.

Remembering sleepy hunger

sizzling bacon smell  

mingling with coffee’s delicious aroma 

meeting early morning, melting sleep ~

I hated coffee’s taste back then.  

Remembering breathless awe.

watery, waving mirage that was Lang

rising up in the east as if by magic at 6 o‘clock on a summer’s morn

gigantic blue dome sparkling from horizon to horizon. 

little hill, insignificant in days light,

hiding the prairie town as morning passes

Remembering restrained excitement

crisp popcorn smell on Saturday night

from Blaney’s popcorn stand across from the old brick Town Hall.   

delicious and buttery 

aroma wafting through the summer evening air.  

Remembering shivering fun

winter time cold.  

freezing breath to nose hairs and eyelashes. 

crunch of snow packed by boots, cars and trucks

plumped up slowly with a thick fresh layer drifting down.  

falling flakes sifting onto my toque, tip of my nose and warm coat 

on a short trip to the rink

white leather skates laced on 

cutting shiny crystal ice with sharp blades and picks.

Remembering….

this past year?

today?

What will it be?

"Memory is the scribe of the soul."

 ~  Aristotle 
(384BC - 322 BC) Greek Philosopher

 **Author's note:  I wrote and posted the original July 11, 2012. For tonight I've updated it with some revision including a prairie photo from last fall.

Flight and Flutter

As I journaled this morning, 

I was challenged by

the many thoughts in my head

that flit and fly so fast 

I barely know I think them!

Like post-it notes, 

fluttering from 

fridge doors or walls

mirrors, cupboards or computer monitors

colourful reminders of things 

that, over time, leave me wondering 

“Now what was that note for?” or 

“I already took care of that ~

why is that note still there?”

and so it goes

from morning til night

in the spaces of quiet that fill my days

I see them in the front of my mind ~

some of them waiting for a message

others I can’t read.

I don’t put real ones up very often ~ too much clutter!

So does that mean my mind is cluttered?

Probably, sometimes a definite ‘yes’.

But they are all just thoughts.

Hmmm….I used sticky notes at work effectively…….

“Paper is brain interface.”

~ *David Gibbet

*Author of Visual Meetings: How Graphics Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can transform group Productivity

Frosting

 

When there are 

vast frosted spaces

between words

and ideas

it feels empty

until stillness

fills me up.

“Frost kills the flowers that bloom out of season….”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Michael Angelo

Meal Prep

Spaces of time hover idly,

revved by untended energy.

Creative kitchen longings are

granted opportunity to slip into place 

for shopping and chopping

blanching and freezing 

delicious packaged goodness.

Colourful and flavourful ~ accompaniments for many a meal.

“If the divine creator has taken pains to give us 

delicious and exquisite things to eat, the least we can do is 

prepare them well and serve them with ceremony.”

~ Fernand Point, French chef and restaurateur (1890-1955)

Sacred Spaces

Sacred spaces

Carved from footsteps

in Mother Earth

Shaped with intention

and the silence of a still pond

Moulded from hands

warm with life’s glow

Sculpted with kindness

directly from the soul.

Surrounding our lives

to create safety within storms.

Fashioned by each of us

To wear with gratitude and calm.

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.”

~ Joseph Campbell

Home Building

Spaces between beams and uprights

empty, flat walls 

waiting for windows and doors.

Structured homes climbing to the sky ~ foundations settled into the ground, silent wooden skeletons waiting

Spaces waiting to be filled

chances to shelter families

welcoming them home.

”There’s something horribly lonely about a place that’s almost home.”

~ Blake Crouch, Dark Matter

Author's note: Edited February 07, 2024

Falling through Space

We all talk

about the cracks

the cracks in the sidewalks

that people fall through

the spaces with no handholds

with images of

bodies falling helplessly

disappearing into the abyss

only to emerge on top

of the sidewalk and all its cracks.

We don’t always talk

about the invisible hands

beneath the cracks in the sidewalks

that reach out

to catch fallen ones

easing their fall

helping them stand firm

supporting life changes 

giving them other chances

to walk on sidewalks with fewer cracks

In the darkness, when you cannot see the ground under your feet 

and when your fingers touch nothing but night, you are not alone. 

I will stay with you as moonlight stays on water.”

~ Nadia Hashimi, When the Moon is Low

Author's note: Edited February 07, 2024

Morning Spaces

Morning spaces
open to sunshine and calm

Creativity ~ a plan to take time for a written word now and sleeping time later

Confidence ~ creative time management in a world where shifting schedules take good care of anyone’s life

“The older you get, the faster time passes in your mind, 

so use your time according to what is most important.”

~ A.J.Darkholme,  Rise of the Morningstar

Stumbling Blocks

Stumbling blocks
Blocks that sound big and scary
Scary blocks of channels and streams
Streams dribbling over rocks
Rocks that are really only grains of sand
Sand piled and pushed together
Together, only a perception of blocks
Blocks with tiny spaces for streams
Streams of consciousness
Consciousness taking time for awakening
~ to perceptions of crumbling blocks.

“A stepping-stone can be a stumbling block if 

we can’t see it until after we have tripped over it.”

~ Cullen Hightower

Quiet Spaces

Listen to thoughts and feelings shaped with words and actions.

Trust what is heard and felt deep inside your head and heart.

Speak softly and clearly with your own voice.

Listen for nuance and timbre resonating between spaces.

“...you listen first with the ears ~ then, you wait and listen for what your 

heart feels ~ then you consider what they’ve said ~ then, you reply…..”

~ John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

In the Stacks

Pages once white, clean and blank 

Words strung carefully across each page

Review - again.

Edit - again

Thoughts so clear when first put down

Still organized but

…..not quite right

Where they should be

Too much

Too little

One page at a time

One sentence at a time

Stack up the pages

Divide them in doable time spaces

Coloured paper clips for each ‘reading’

Don’t think about good or bad

How much or how many

Just do the work.

Done…….for today.

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”

~ Jack Kerouac,  The Dharma Bums

Waiting and Wondering

Stretching through a day ~

Yawning into the long night

Minutes and hours ~

tick, tick, tick past

Sitting ~ pacing ~ huddled in bed

Jagged edges of past and future claw inside a mind

Present moments in time too raw, too real

In the too dark, too quiet night ~

Through scrabbling, scratching bright noisy day

hours and hours slow and crawl

Innocent clock sitting high on a wall

Moments tick past one after the other

Hope whispers softly in open spaces of time.

“When you have lost hope, you have lost everyting. And when you think 

all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.”

~Pittacus Lore, I Am Number Four

It's Not My Job

It’s not my job
then who’s job is it
in the space between my job and your job
between our job and someone else’s job.
When a job needs doing, 
do we wait, 
simmering with resentment,
until that nebulous someone 
comes in to do what really is only ‘their’ job?

Definitions, schedules,
guidelines, rules and regulations.
Boxes of smoky nothingness.
Expectations and outcomes suffer the outrage of blame
working with people
providing a service
building a foundation
called upon to extend ourselves
outside the box if only for the sake
of helping out that nebulous someone else
collaborating for jobs well done.

Individual recovery may not be my job.
My job to support recovery for individuals
definitely is my job.

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled

with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare,

social justice can never be attained.”

~ Helen Keller