Contemplating the River

October 26, 2018.Reading time 1 minute.

You can’t push the river, a teacher once told me. So true. I’ve had a lifetime of trying to outrun the river, and consequently, the shattered pieces of my efforts litter life’s banks. With illness, I have come to appreciate that it is not about flowing with the river, or keeping up, but being open. The […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #17: Baseline

September 24, 2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

(Baseline Séance from Mariposaxprs) “Your results are right on the edge of normal,” the doctor told me after administering a mental competency test and adding up my score. “Really can’t tell from this whether there is a problem or not. Educated people tend to do better on these tests (masking cognitive impairment) and others not so […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #9: Home

July 30, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Likewise, I never imagined that home might be something I would miss.” – Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Home is on my brain this week, as we […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #7: Accomplishment

July 16, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Prior to […]

Relationship Wrap Up

July 1, 2018.Reading time 1 minute.

Relationship, I realized after posting my weekly challenge, is too broad of a subject. We need a lifetime to examine and appreciate our interconnections, and then, likely, we’d need to begin again – such is the nature of relationship. It slips and slides, rewards and betrays, teaches and takes away. That said, I appreciate those […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #2: Synchronicity

June 11, 2018.Reading time 1 minute.

“Synchronicity is the Universe’s way of telling you that you are on the right track.” – Delores Krieger “Coincidences connect us across time, to one another, to ourselves, and to an […]

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #1: Shift

June 4, 2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

Challenging myself to do better is an ongoing process. I am interested in personal growth and a deeper connection with others and life in general. This quest leads me to be more introspective, and to ask the big questions. I guess you could say, I am a seeker. As a teacher, I offered my students […]

Writing Class #3

March 17, 2018.Reading time 1 minute.

The prompt for this week is to consider the vulnerability of new growth and what it takes to protect it, tying it into nature. Here is the edited version, after the instructor’s suggestions. Rebirthing It came in the peak of summer that most optimistic time, when sunshine equates with health and bodies glow with exertion […]

Writing Lessons #2: Sparrows

March 1, 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

(The prompt for this week is surroundings and we were encouraged to focus on one aspect of nature as it relates to the story. I chose sparrows.) Out the back gate, across the farmer’s field and into the woods I go in search of the child, knowing that she comes here frequently, alone, despite the […]

Monday Mood: bursting

It started Thursday evening when we picked up our 10-year-old granddaughter for a dinner out. The conversation was lively and I learned so much about the world from her perspective. Then Saturday, our oldest daughter announced she was playing her first ever hockey game, so we drove to the city to watch. I didn’t even […]

Be As the Bloom

Are we awakebarely breathing? Mounting raucousshattering sensibility Hatred buildingrights withering Who will survive? I, chirps the solo bloom Timid-voicedoverlooked radiant in her fragilityconfident Breathe (Art my own)