V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #48: Compassion

May 13, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

“Compassion becomes real when we recognizeour shared humanity.” – Pema Chödrön. As a young woman, I braced myself against the world by adhering to black and whites – a judgmental stance that was not conducive to relationship building. More self-protective than self-righteous, this attitude only served as a wall, confining me to loneliness. Then in […]

Nature’s Balm

May 7, 2019.Reading time 4 minutes.

Questions flood in as evening sets, the initial shock of hearing the ‘c’ word now wearing off. I sleep little, spending way too much time with Dr. Google, without any satisfaction. Ric is scheduled to go into town a bit later, so I take the car early and head to a new trail in our […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #43: Rain

April 8, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

Raindrops, not tears,blur my vision –the line of trees before mea glistening blur.The pounding in my templesis just the steady rhythmof watery drip, drip, drip,not the incessant roarof my blood pounding –discordant is this day. I wrote this piece while stranded in Mississippi, with eighteen hours of driving still ahead of us, and no idea […]

Paradise Pond Take II

March 28, 2019.Reading time 3 minutes.

Warmer weather encourages us to get out. We take the short ferry ride across to Port Aransas on Mustang Island. Paradise Pond is our destination. Many others have had the same idea and gather around the opening to the boardwalk. I look for what has caught their attention and spot a bird rapidly flitting about […]

Thistle in Bloom

March 11, 2019.Reading time less than 1 minute.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #39: Unanswerable

March 11, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

“I always start with questions that I can’t answer. Otherwise you get bored halfway through if you already know the answers. If you’re asking what seem to be unanswerable questions, then you have to keep showing up.” – Barbara KingsolverFrom A Talk in the Woods, by Kevin LarimerFeatured in Poets & Writers, November/ December 2018 […]

Together a Tapestry

March 3, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

Across the miles, our wordsconvene, threads of our livesintertwining to form a tapestry. Stories of sorrow and kindness,humanity restored –of observation and empathyof inspiration through resonanceof brilliance and artistry. Each thread as colourfulas another, delicately added,thoughtful ponderings Of generations and legacies,misunderstandings contributing to tragedy,of infatuation and love’s fallacy,of childhood and noses in booksand entanglements leadingto […]

Quite the Dancer

February 27, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

The antics of the Reddish Egret, and of course its stature, distinguish this bird without further identification. As soon as we pull up to the water’s edge at Indian Point Park, I can see the bird hopping and swaying, like a giant metronome, keeping time to some unknown beat. I make my way up the […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #36: Wild Card

February 18, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

This week, I am giving you a carte blanche…well, sort of… there’s a catch. Go back over the last week’s worth of posts or so, and notice any words or phrases that repeat themselves. I’m talking adjectives, or verbs, maybe nouns. For example, when I look over my posts leading up to writing this one, […]

Restoring Balance

February 17, 2019.Reading time 4 minutes.

Fog has dissipated, as has the rain. Hallelujah. Although it is still overcast, we decide to take a drive, cameras in tow. Goose Island State Park is our planned destination. It has just the right combination of driving and walking trails. This is also where we saw the Whooping Cranes, so maybe we’ll get lucky […]

The River

There’s a river runs between us,you and I.Our thoughts, like tears, are liquidcarried effortlessly by the current. But you and I,we stand on the banks, oblivious;ignoring the connection,proudly touting our individualism. Still the river flows,and all you’ve suffered,and all I’ve suffered,or dreamed, or imagined, or hoped,flows with it. Step into the water with me,feel our […]

Flock

Blossoming

It may be foolish of me, at my age and in my current condition, but I hang on to the hope that the pain of this effort is leading somewhere: renewal, new purpose, or at the very least, a blossoming.