In Your Bones

Acceptance is believing truth 

not the truth of someone else 

but the truth that 

lives in your bones 

that tells you 

what you don’t want 

    to believe 

that your life is of 

    your own making 

the little life that came with you 

but without instructions. 

Instructions whispered, spoken or yelled 

through each day of your life 

until all of them make sense 

but shaped with your own wisdom 

because you know the truth 

that lives in your bones.

“Knowing others is intelligence. 

Knowing yourself is true wisdom.”

~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Do You?

I come from the other side…

..the historical shameful side.

Let grief and anger roll out 

distilling into 

kindness and resolve to be 

a living amend to all the 

lost children and families. 

Do I have a right to say 

these things on this day of 

Truth and Reconciliation? 

Do you?

“I see you. I hear you. And I believe you.”

~ Marie Wilson, 

journalist, social justice activist

Branches

Intending to follow 

the direction of my heart,

I set out without a map. 

As a child, instruction from parents 

~ and any adult ~ 

composed a singular map 

Adults were all knowledgeable? 

An adult for many years, 

the truth of what I have known  

has been pared, shifted and changed 

with many maps needed and used

   Lives lived by example

     

   Instructions books

       Text books

   Advice from family and friends,

    Books of all kinds

  Noticing nature’s ways of growing

I set out with many maps in my heart. 

“Maps are way of organizing wonder.”

~ Peter Steinhart, writer and naturalist

Speaking the Truth

 

Thin ice seems dangerous. 

Helps to have a sign posted, 

but emotional thin ice 

    is different. 

The body’s signs are 

    gut feelings, or

I suppose, I should call it 

    intuition. 

Listening to our body reactions,

giving them the credence of 

a heavy post and a metal sign

    seems, well, silly…

perhaps even childish, 

but our bodies do often speak the truth.

“You don’t need proof when you have instinct.”

~ Quentin Tarantino

Be Real

Posturing against the life we are given 

can be a help or a hindrance. 

Should it be a help it will merely be to 

win ‘the game’ by a smile or bravado. 

Should it be a hindrance, it can ignore 

the truth and beauty in the world. 

“The utmost form of respect is to give sincerely of your presence.”

~ Mollie Marti, psychologist, lawyer, author

Book Review: The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

Carmen hated her job, her life and how her sister and mother must speak about her. Never good enough. Her sister, Sofia, lived in Edinburgh in a perfect house, with perfect children and a perfect husband. Carmen’s only friend, Idra, worked with her at a failing women’s wear store. Dounstons had been a popular store but was failing. Mrs. March, their overbearing boss, was one more bit of Carmen’s unhappiness. They lost their jobs and while Idra quickly found work, Carmen did not. Much to her parents concern, she had moved back home and had not found work. Her sister, who was pregnant and still working, needed help with one of her clients. Carmen was approached to help, which did not make her happy. Young Mr. McCredie was about to lose his bookshop. He had neglected it badly and had few customers. If it couldn’t turn around by Christmas, it would be sold. 

To Carmen’s surprise, she began to like her new situation in Edinburgh. Not everything, but in little steps she improved her attitude and the bookshop. Auntie Carmen had bonded with her nieces and nephew, siding with them against their nanny. A thorn in her side, Skylar, slim, blond, lovely and nanny to the children, insisted upon correctness at all times. 

As Christmas approached, Carmen brought life back to the bookshop. Cleaned and decorated for Christmas, the bookshop became a friendly place with a Children’s Hour. She learned more about Mr. McCredie’s past that explained why he had tucked himself away from everyone except for his books. Carmen also meets more than one attractive man, but I’ll not give anything away about that.

An easy and pleasant read, Jenny Colgan, takes you into the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland including the Ormiston Yew, over a 1000 years old, for part of Carmen’s new experience. Perfect with a cup of hot chocolate at Christmas time.

“I think he’s barely left the house he was born in his whole life. 

He likes books more than people.”

~ Jenny Colgan, The Christmas Bookshop

Title: The Christmas Bookshop

Author: Jenny Colgan

Copyright: 2021

Publisher: originally published in Great Britain by Sphere

Format: Novel

Type: Fiction

ISBN: 978-0-06-314167-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-06-314325-8 (hardcover library edition)

It's 9 o'clock

It’s 9 o’clock

The night air is cool

Christmas lights gradually wink off, 

fading toward the New Year. 

Each next day will open 

as in all New Years past.

But tomorrow, 

the last day of 2024, 

will be its own new beginning.

“With the new day comes 

new strength and new thoughts.”

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Random Thoughts

Once more the page is 

blank, random thoughts 

drift, falling uselessly 

into the dark. Biding 

their time, perhaps 

never to return or 

maybe to blossom. 

One never knows 

about random thoughts.

“Life is about not knowing, having to change,

 taking a moment and making the best of it.”

~ Gilda Radner

Reflected Gratitude

Only after Christmas is there time. Time for reflection about the abundance of food for family

It is easy to slide back into routines of work or play without a thought 

for those who have neither.

Ill equipped to heal society's sores, easier to pass them by, gratitude for the fullness of life is a beginning.

“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also 

pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance,”

~ Kahlil Gibran

Refreshed

Time stretched before me. 

No dinners to prepare, only 

dishes in the sink, most filling 

the dishwasher. Details of my 

life lay scattered about like 

dry leaves in the fall. A vague 

feeling niggled that someone 

should restore order, but maybe 

not right this minute. Or even 

the next. So putting on winter 

boots, my jacket, and back pack, 

I went for a walk. The streets 

were rutted with brown mushed 

up snow, pads of ice hiding beneath. 

Sidewalks were cleared. Not down 

to the cement, but shovelled and 

padded flat by many feet. Little 

brown birds ~ maybe juncos, maybe 

sparrows, maybe both ~ chitttered and 

chattered into the cool winter air. 

Refreshed and home, I lazily 

put some of my home in order. 

An aura of calm settled, brightened

by soft lights and colours of Christmas.

“Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.”

~ Paul Theroux

A Gift for All Time

My thoughts drifted as sleep beckoned. 

Stretched out on my couch, I contemplated 

these last three days of celebration ~ a gift larger than could be put in a box or bag. 

Too unwieldy to wrap in gold paper or the 

kind with snowmen on it. So the bow on it is the one in my memory. Grandchildren tearing open gifts with more toys, 

expressions of love from parents and family, playing with them for two seconds before going onto the next, while grandparents laugh, talk and admonish. Meanwhile the 

food spread on tables from this home to another, grazed on with groans of ‘I’m so full!’ 

while another bite of delicious fresh bread, pie 

or turkey disappears. Secular or religious, it is still a gift for all time.

“Each day provides its own gifts.”

~ Marcus Aurelius