never touching skin to skin
pass the energy of welcome and yay!
through the air dodging
hovering viral party crashers.
“I must choose between despair and Energy - I choose the latter.”
~ John Keats, Letters of John Keats
Intimidated by a business call
I had to make about……
SC-R-E-E-C-H!
Yesterday was more fun
and tonight I’m still exhausted.
Forget intimidation!
A family Zoom gender reveal party
from my from brother in Florida
bouncing from Poland to the U.K.
to Canada….It’s a girl!
An awesome 10 K walk with
my walking buddy started out
against the wild prairie wind
masked against the dust in the air
cooked a roast that didn’t have
the taste I expected from a roast beef ~
very odd tasting gravy so tonight
it’s thin slices for sandwiches and a beef stew.
and then there was a fuse blown
shutting out my lights, fridge and TV
along with a plugged kitchen sink drain ~
one phone call to maintenance got it fixed.
“Sometimes it takes a wrong turn to get you to the right place.”
~ Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass
Light at the end of the tunnel ~
Optimism:
from news reporters, politicians
and just about anyone
Pessimism:
‘be careful - it might be a train!’
Reality:
As with any true tunnel there are,
in the narrowed lives we live,~
graffiti and beautiful drawings
rendered by unknown artists,
stories told around kitchen tables
of difficulties, joys and working things out.
hearts with arrows through them etched in trees.
initials painted on the roadways and fences with
dates, time and places letting other travellers
know someone had walked there,
loved there or sheltered there.
water slicking down rock walls,
feeding moss growing in the dark.
wind gusts blowing in roadside debris:
dusts of anxiety, impatience and hate
We are not driving quickly
through this tunnel
but we are walking ~
sometimes hand in hand
with the person in our bubble of safety.
We have time to stop,
to get that stone out of our shoe,
sit against the unforgiving walls
for a moment to catch our breath.
There is no rush to get anywhere ~
so foreign to us in our hurry up and wait world
but with a deep breath ~ even though desperate
to get out of the tunnelled darkness,
even though life has become unforgiving
we keep creating our lives.
“Tunnel vision can kill creativity.”
Ami Vitale,
photographer with National Geographic
