V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #16: Shadows

September 17, 2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

To contemplate is to look at shadows. – Victor Hugo A child, when first encountering its shadow, might at first feel fear. Later, she will experience fascination as she discovers that shadows stretch and play at her command. Carl Jung suggests that the shadow is representative of those parts of self that are suppressed and […]

An End to Irony

September 16, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Life is full of irony, or so it feels when that is foremost on one’s mind. Here are just some of the ways that irony has played a role this week: Concerned that the hotel we were staying at was pet-friendly (and I am deadly allergic to cats), we made distancing ourselves from animals the […]

Stoic Hunter?

September 13, 2018.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Who is more stoic than the Great Blue, stealthily enduring rocks and rapids to catch the day’s meal? Appearances, however, have been known to deceive… seems this bird is no emotional void, no paragon of strength, but a closet thespian – caught him, mid rehearsal – aspiring to a phantom role – of the opera variety. (Written […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #15: Irony

September 10, 2018.Reading time 1 minute.

Is it just me, or is there irony in the idea of a museum of tolerance – as if the concept itself, now defunct, has been mummified for perusal? Life is full of ironies, and sometimes it takes an objective view to find them. As a kid, I found it ironic that my father would […]

Finishing Foundations

September 9, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

I turned to God when my foundation was shaking, only to find that God was shaking my foundation. – unknown I’ve carried this quotation with me since my early thirties, a time when the bottom fell out of my life and I fell into a deep abyss of depression and mental breakdown (or breakthrough, as […]

Photo A Week: Fruits of Labour

September 8, 2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

Finding an outlet to express myself creatively (beyond writing) has been my biggest accomplishment this year. Picking up a camera and a paint brush both happened simultaneously, as our adventures across country begged recording. Converting image to art, via watercolours, has become my passion, although to date, I’ve only had a few lessons, and each […]

What Do You See? Wings!

September 6, 2018.Reading time 1 minute.

I used to think that the relentless ache between my shoulder blades was from missing wings. We are meant to be angels on earth, I believed. And then, I forgot, so caught up in the details of life, consumed with ambition, and then facing the daily struggle of chronic illness. Until I saw this image. […]

Tapestry

Laid out, in a tapestry, I suppose the overriding message would be inconsistency – a montage of seemingly unrelated images, the blatant disconnection offending to the eye, and yet… closer inspection might reveal a thread of commonality – the presence of orange, in its many incarnations, woven into each tableau… a hint of the woman […]

Freak Show’s in Town

Come one! Come all! Step right up folks! See the amazing, one-of-a-kind, baby-juggling woman! Come see this matron turned tigress! Witness how the weaker sex transforms into a powerhouse of resourcefulness – a magnificent multi-tasker! You will not believe your eyes! These are no ordinary babies, Ladies and Gentleman! See the menacing three-year-old who looks […]

Youngest Child

The Boondocks, my sisters told me, was not a desirable place to be – ‘cool’ being the theme of our generation – the line between what was ‘in’ and what was not, seemed fragile to my imagination, mind climbing to copious possibilities constantly slammed by uptight, in-the-know older siblings Is it any wonder that I […]

One Woman's Quest II

Category: writing