Walk With Me - Fly For Me!

Walk With Me - Fly For Me!

As I walked, or should I say flew, down Sophia Street towards the river yesterday afternoon, the sun was shining brilliantly, and the wind was flexing its powerful muscles as it literally pushed and pulled me along.  A seagull, also heading towards that magnetic river, was flying along at a standstill, just above my head.  Not to be outdone, I lifted my arms and leaned into the wind, letting it fill the sleeves of my red windbreaker – an interesting name for the little red jacket that I was inviting that wind into!  I could hear my seagull pal’s high-pitched  ‘Cree edie’ cheering me on!

As I continued my walk, up on my tiptoes, arms outstretched, I felt exhilarated. The little child in me jumped up and cried out once more:  ‘Red Rover, Red Rover, I call Edie over!’ A few of the neighbours that I passed laughed and waved me on - encouragingly?  That only added to my fun; it was amazing what uplifting (literally) ripples that gusty warm wind was making as I tried to break through its arms!

Then, thoughts of my mom, laying in the Care Centre came into my heart and mind – I wished that I could invite her to come along with me on one more walk; let her feel those wonderful healing gusts of fresh air.  Mom is traveling towards her own magnetic river but her journey is a very different one: Her arms cannot lift to catch soft breezes; she is walking that difficult path that we all must eventually take, and she is doing it with graceful submission to powerful headwinds that are pinning her down.

As I let the wind continue to fill my hair, my lungs, and my jacket, I felt all of my tensions and sad thoughts just up and take flight.  At some point, a mighty wind will fill Mom’s being and lift her towards a landscape of light, with its own sparkling river, and she will answer the voice of the beautiful little child within her, who is calling out: Red Rover, Red Rover, I call Dolores over!

In the meantime, I will continue my own journey; hopefully with some inherited grace, and with a few pointers from Jonathan Livingston Seagull!     

If I Were Twenty Years Younger!

If I Were Twenty Years Younger!

Wait a minute!   I am twenty years younger - than I’ll be in twenty years!  And what was I doing twenty years ago that I can’t do today?  At 44 years of age, I was the mother of three beautiful, active teenagers, was into extreme gardening (about 3 acres worth!), was helping to raise and sell chickens and turkeys, had an active social life which included being part of an amateur theatre company with a group of wonderful friends; was involved in church activities, and danced with my husband at many weddings and parties.  I was even able to work in some artistic endeavors in between the above.  It was a hectic life, but ultimately, very rewarding – Ok, I’m losing my own argument here. 

Fast forward to today:  I am now walking and going to exercise classes to replace the gardening lifestyle, so that I can continue the dance, and I have moved on to planting seeds of a different sort – poetry and artwork that I hope will inspire hope and warm smiles for this world so much in need of those ‘plants’.

I have definitely slowed my pace, but I am still learning new steps:

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to begin playing my guitar again – It was my dad’s guitar, and every time I pick it up, it smiles back at me, adorned with its colourful stickers - shamrocks and musical notes.  I find myself inviting Dad to jump in and to use my fingers to have one more go at it.  At this point, I wonder if he is the one with the time advantage – living past the veil where time has a completely different role, enabling him to contribute to the pattern of life in unknown and amazing ways.

I figure, in another twenty years or so, I will be able to play well enough to join him in one more duet, and I’ll wonder why I ever worried so much about ageing.  Time is a wondrous journey, and our steps in time should leave sparkling gems for others to enjoy, twenty years down the road and beyond.  Onwards!

Where The Wind Blows!

Where The Wind Blows!

I just had a wind-blown epiphany!  I figure that today, the fourth day of Spring, will be a great day to do it:  open my window, grab my worries by the scruff of the neck and toss them out as hard as I can!  Some of the ones I’d been holding onto were gaining weight to the point that they were getting awfully hard to lift - I had to drag them kicking and screaming across my mind.  There!  I shall welcome in the new season of growth with some smiling seedlings of relief and hope. Ahhh…Peace…Ommmm.   In the process of clearing that nasty clutter, I suddenly felt the urge to giggle, and then to laugh – a lot!   Luckily, no one was here to notice – except that wind?  It seemed to suddenly pick up speed as it passed by my window!   Wait, hold on - I feel another purge coming on:  little gusts of guilt are starting to slip back in, bringing their baggage with them – sneaky little seeds of  ‘bad attitude’ – Out they go!

Attitude is like an amazing home that we all are given, to build, renovate, and decorate with whatever colours and inputs we choose.   Filling it up with ill-fitting, imagined fears and old grey grievances is such a waste of a fantastic space, and ultimately, it is within that space that we will live out our lives, and invite others in.  

 The wind is blowing past my window right now, picking up the birdseed and blowing it across the lawn, then picking up the wings of the little birds and giving them a ride – a neat game of let’s catch our dinner on the fly!   Picking up my recycle bin of worries should be a snap for it!   I’ll make sure to put it out every recycle day and to keep my home bright enough to see the colours.  The wind may pick up speed at times; at other times it seems to disappear, but it will always return, stirred by little butterfly wings of hope – Wait for it, and get those recycle bins ready!

Shall I 'Kind Of' Compare Thee

Our daughter suprised her husband with a very special Valentine this morning - a sonnetgram:  Dressed in full formal attire, St. Lawrence Shakespeare Company's Artistic Director, Ian Farthing delivered Shakespeare's Sonnet #18 to our son-in-law while he was at work at the Post Office.  Not to be outdone, I decided to write my own version for my dear husband - my valentine!  I'll be delivering it at dinner tonight:

Shall I ‘Kind Of’ Compare Thee?

You’re kind of special,

Kind of sweet,

Kind of cute,

Kind of neat,

Kind of handsome,

Kind of fine,

Best of all,

You’re very ‘Kind’!

You’d make a perfect

Valentine,

So, would you, kind of, like

Be mine?

My Roof's Got A Hole In It

“My Roof’s Got A Hole In It!

And I might Drown!” These lyrics from a catchy old song called “The Crooked Little Man”, by the Serendipity Singers, were running through my head this morning.  Fortunately, I don’t think we’ll actually drown.  The hole I’m looking at is not in our roof, but in our living room ceiling, and it was self-induced!  It wasn’t a case of just being curious about what was under that neat white painted surface – it was done to discover what was causing the curious star shaped bulge that formed in it and then started to spit drops at us.  I thought perhaps the house was into entertaining us with a balancing act: now that we had the ‘roots in the drain’ problem temporarily solved – it called out: “Oh dear, sorry about this, I held out as long as I could, but look up!”  It seems like, once it let go, it decided to let it all hang out – “You might want to check the ceiling in your bedroom – whoops!”

  I’m now looking out at our newly-built, tightly sealed garage, and wondering where I might fit a bed!   Actually, the news is not all bad – In the process of having to re-surface the offending flat roof on one side of the house, we will go for the full renovation that we were planning to do down the road - including new flooring!  So much for our budget for the foreseeable future.   In trying to be positive, I keep thinking that we’re lucky to have a pretty nice home, despite its problems: It’s been keeping us snug and warm and deserves to be treated to a few treats – like ceilings and plumbing and drains and weather stripping and airtight windows, and…….sorry about that.  My mom would probably have taken  these problems in stride, with her large store of patience - She raised seven children in a very tiny renovated cottage on the banks of the Rideau.  When I come to think of it, I believe that the above song was a favourite at our family sing-a-longs!  And I was oblivious to the fact that, for my mom and dad, it might have been hitting a little too close to home.  Music was and is a great healer – it helps to patch the holes in our roofs.

‘Wait Training 101’

My little poem “Wait Training” came into my head yesterday, as we signed up for the ultimate ‘wait training’ course in the Brockville General Hospital Emergency room.  After checking in, and my husband being assessed by the nurse, we joined the line for the free course that was running – and filling up quickly – in the waiting area.  It’s an interesting concept – learning how to build up our ‘wait’ muscles.  Of course, not realizing how intensive and time consuming the course would be, I neglected to bring along adequate equipment – in the form of a good book.  It turns out that had I brought along ‘War And Peace’, I could have finished it and done a short presentation for everyone!  I instead had to find alternatives to sinking within myself, or a book:  I quietly observed the real problems that the other participants were enduring.  Some seemed to have a handle on their ‘wait training’ and sat very patiently; others were not doing so well.  Bit by bit, conversations began, stories were shared, common threads were woven, and in between, I offered silent prayers for all of the good people around me who were sidelined by various crises.  A mother coping with a possible dislocated bone in her shoulder was actually keeping everyone, including her two children, entertained by her interactions with them.  Others with broken bodies were making the best of their situations and trying to help her out – the Christmas Spirit was still making itself felt, even as the staff were removing the decorations from the room.  At the end of the course, when my husband had been seen and a solution prescribed for his bronchitis, we left the ‘training room’.   I returned a few minutes later with a copy of my “How To Wash A Puddle” book for that lovely mother and her two patient children.  I wish her the best of luck – she passed the course with flying colours!

Merry Christmas To All And To All A GOOD LIGHT!

When The Lights All Come Down

When Christmas is over once again, and when all of the sparkling, twinkling, winking, and welcoming lights are taken down and are sent back home to live out the rest of the year in their tidy box villages, I wonder what is left in the space that they inhabited for that one stretched-out month of celebration?  Any light contributed to this world must leave a trace of its brightness, once it is snuffed out or turned off.  Where does that brightness go; how far has it traveled, and what vehicles did it attach itself to? 

Into the eyes that looked its way, it leapt, and started the journey down to hearts crammed full of concerns and to-do lists. There it took up residence, and brought with it tiny beams of hopeful colour - sparks that made the little child within us dance with delight and anticipation.  As the ripples from those lights ventured on, they were sent back out into the world through eyes that were a little more positive from just having viewed them.   Once shared, light never really goes out – It is turned into a sparkling transformer, and adds beauty to this world that is in so much need of reassurance.  The brightest light of all shone out on the first Christmas day, so many years ago, and though we did not view that original light, we inherited the hopeful beams that traveled down the years, and revisits us again with every sparkling light that we contribute to this world.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a GOOD LIGHT!