Pondering Abstractions

December 2, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

The certainty of yesterdayhas slipped our grasplight deflecting truthtossing us into the abstract I ponder processand outcomes,will my mind to carry megliding between thermalsdissolving into vapours Some realities too hard to bear –dislodged, we tread the indeterminate. (I submit these images and poem to the challenges of Lens-Artists and Ragtag Community. While we try to […]

Friends are Blessings

November 7, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

Over brunch, my new acquaintance and I discover we have a lot in common – both former teachers, interested in art and poetry, with a love birds. She is just getting back into life after a long stint of caring for a sick husband, who died a year ago. I am finding my footing in […]

Only If I Knew…

September 25, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

“I wish I was a boy, Grandma.” “What makes you say that?” “Boys don’t get their monthly thing and they don’t have to birth babies.” I remember thinking the same thing. I also remember how unfair the world seemed, growing up in the era of Women’s Lib, recognizing the broad stroke of inequality. I didn’t […]

Blessings Plus a Year

July 25, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

Sunflowers and chocolates kick off my birthday week. Delivered by daughter and her family made it all the more special. I share my birthday month with now seven-year-old Sloane and our youngest, so July is filled with blessings. We are adjusting to the role reversals here – I now drive Ric to appointments, and do […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #57: Presence

July 15, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

“Isolation threatens to consume me,” I tell my therapist in a recent visit. “I’m not willing to disappear into the woodwork again.” The doctors say my illness is relapsing; it’s how they explain the onslaught of infections. I’ve just finished another round of even stronger antibiotics. While my immune system fights invasion, I am staving […]

Shadows Speak

July 14, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

Shadows stalk our conversations, Mother and I. It’s not so much what is said, but what hovers between the lines spoken. Fear stalks her – death so close – and I sidestep darkness. It’s an illusion, of course, this thought that we can think ourselves well, or avoid pain by focusing only on the light. […]

Sometimes Risk Is Called For

July 7, 2019.Reading time 4 minutes.

Jane Juska has been on my mind all week. At sixty-six, the divorced, mother of one, decided it was time to reclaim her sexuality, so she posted an ad in The New York Review of Books: Before I turn 67 – next March – I would like to have a lot of sex with a […]

Blessing of Serenity

July 4, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

Settling in a small town, especially a senior’s community, is not something I would have ever envisioned, and yet; here we are. Funny how life works like that, and thank goodness it does. I appreciate this place that we have landed more and more each day. It has not been without difficulty, this move away […]

Every Step a Miracle

June 27, 2019.Reading time 3 minutes.

Angel of Death. The name had started to stick. As a volunteer, working with the dying, my job was to help patients relax, ease some of their stress. “She needs you more than me,” on old Irish doctor said as we both arrived at a patient’s home simultaneously. “I can give her medication for the […]

Lessons in Acceptance

May 28, 2019.Reading time 3 minutes.

When my eldest sister was diagnosed with acute leukaemia and given a month to a year to live, I had to scramble to be there for her. You see, I was deathly afraid of hospitals, and almost fainted the day she had her spinal tap. I had to find a way to conquer my phobias […]

Over It!

One day it’s so mild that I don’t bother with a coat, the next we wake up to snow on the ground. The plants pushing up through the soil seem a little more patient than me – as if they are humouring nature’s fickleness. I’m ready for clear change. A pair of finches just flew […]

Present Distance

I’ve lived the fog of distance –life’s highway a series of hillsdestination without promise Have learned that acceptance gains perspective,that climates change, and hope sustains,and that in the stillness dreams renew. Now I travel quieter paths, appreciatespace, have surrendered to a slower pace –certain that this too will change. (image my own)