Green Is A Novice

June 9, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

I catch myself playing that soul-stripping game of comparison, and come up feeling dreadfully inadequate. My writing is lacking, my photography sucks, and it’s an embarrassment to self that I even post my art. Not actually – but this is the fallout from comparison. I need to turn this thinking around: I am blessed to […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #51: Green

June 3, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

“It’s not easy being green,” Kermit the Frog sings. I suppose not if you are green with envy. “I have to smoke,” my father would say. “I’m too green to burn.” I am in love with the multi shades of green that mark our Spring season here in Ontario, so I have decided to make […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #50: Acceptance

May 27, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

“The doctor was adamant that it’s cancer, and I’ve researched it. If it is, it’s not good.” Weeks of repressed fear gush forward, and I find myself crying, mid restaurant, my husband seated across from me. “We just don’t know yet.” he responds softly, taking my hand. “We’ll deal it with one step at a […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #49: gadget

May 20, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

The first time Ric cooked dinner for me, he pulled out a tall, slender stainless steel pot with a glass lid and a basket inside. I’d never seen anything like it. “What is that?” “An asparagus pot!” I haven’t stopped teasing him about it, being the pragmatic woman that I am. I would soon discover […]

Compassion Needed

May 19, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

Our next door neighbour confides that he has two weeks to a month to a live. “You’ll be seeing lots of my daughter around,” he says with his customary big grin. I take his frail hand in mine and offer condolences. “I’m not afraid of dying; it’s what happens leading up to that moment that […]

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 […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #47: In-Between

May 6, 2019.Reading time 5 minutes.

“Shouldn’t be long,” I tell Ric before passing through into the rows of examining rooms. The receptionist who called yesterday, saying there was a cancellation, suggested this was just a consult and preliminary examination. My health has been declining since long before we returned home. The thing about having a chronic illness is that it […]

A Triggered Response

May 5, 2019.Reading time 4 minutes.

Don’t know about you, but I read each post with a slightly different eye this week, looking for one that provoked a response. Many did, but none more than Tina Stewart’s Brakebill’s post: Already Lost. Early in my teaching career, I had a troubled student, who was assigned to three out of four classes with […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #46: Response

April 29, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

For this week’s challenge, I thought it might be interesting to create a post in response to someone else’s work. This might be a poem in response to an image, or an image in response to a poem. It might be an imagined dialogue, or a response that demonstrates how the other has inspired you. […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #45: Anniversary

April 22, 2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

“It’s been 45 years, today, since my father passed away,” Ric blurted out the other day. “He’s been gone for twice as long as I knew him.” Easter is a hard time for Ric, as it linked to the loss of many people dear to him. April 15th, for me, represents my first date with […]

Sun Certainty

Clouds bundleshift and foldcotton strata Trees huddleconfidence incommunity Emotions stackone on anotherco-mingling hues Beneath layersan eternal glowsun certainty. (First published April 2021. Image my own)

Peachy Keen

Not Everything Is Defined by Age

As a child, I knew no limits, setting out on adventures with never a fear for how I’d find my way back home. Now, nestled in my home, I limit myself to certainties, fearful of risks. Some days, I wonder about that child, and how it would feel to wander freely, and it makes me […]