Monthly Archives: March 2015

The year that went by in what feels like a month

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A year ago today, my brother and I lost the most important woman in our lives.  We released butterflies at her celebration of life and we see her wings in so many places.  I wrote this poem for her.  We miss you mom.  xo

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You left us in the early hours,

so peacefully your spirit would roam.

Through a gentle wind and the rising sun,

He called to take you home.

A ladder was built for your journey to light,

each rung meant to make you content.

While bathed in the glowing light of rebirth,

you gracefully began your ascent.

Loving arms awaited you there,

curling you into their embrace.

Heaven welcomed an angel back home,

 rejoicing her love and her grace.

You leave behind your spirit and joy,

in those who loved you each day.

While our days will be saddened by the emptiness we feel,

we know we will see you someday.

We celebrate your rebirth and your newly found wings,

by releasing these spirits of transition.

And hope we can do honour to your memory

by carrying on your tradition.

Live long and prosper – fiction

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Space was not the final frontier and neither was death.  It had been weeks since he had left his physical body and yet he knew his life was far from over.  He didn’t know how to classify the realm in which he currently existed.  It wasn’t space, it wasn’t Heaven, it wasn’t Purgatory and it certainly wasn’t Hell.  It simply felt like what he imagined it would be like in the womb.  The sounds around him undulated and he felt like he was floating.

If he could not recall certain parts of his life, those memories slowly returned as if they were on a trailer reel of a film. It all seemed highly illogical but it was happening and he could not ignore the scenes as they played in his head.  Familiar faces drifted to the forefront of his mind and he knew them all by name.

The face that lingered the longest was of a man he had known well.  William.  His name was William.  As the details of William’s face became more pronounced in his memory, he became overwhelmed with emotion, something he had done his best to conceal throughout his life.

Images rushed by now, tumbling over themselves to make room for others and, as the last pieces seemed to fall into place, the movie of his life began.  He watched his childhood, he witnessed himself as a young man falling in love for the first time and he watched as he tried his first cigarette.  He turned away and the movie paused.  That moment frozen on the screen was the beginning of his end.

He focused once more on the show and watched the legacy he helped build, in his personal life and his career.  The words he uttered many times on-screen came true in more ways than one in his life and, even though this life no longer existed, he would still live long and prosper in the minds of those who loved him.

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Written for the Grammar Ghoul Challenge – In memory of Leonard Nimoy the word prompt is illogical and the visual prompt is a scene from Star Trek II – The Search for Spock.  I was extremely sad when he passed.  I spent many of my childhood years watching Star Trek and, in many ways, Leonard Nimoy reminded me of my dad.  LLAP.

 

A welcome distraction

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There have been very few times I ever doubted that the Hospitality Industry was the career path I was meant to be on, and I’m sure those few times were after a 16-hour day when I swore I would find another job.  But I never did.

Our lodge has been pretty quiet since Family Day Weekend and I have become accustomed to my 9:00 to 4:00 desk job instead of the crazy hours that hospitality affords its employees.  We had a small conference check in today and, for several days leading up to their appearance at the Front Desk, I had been dreading their arrival.  I have done this several times after a quiet period of office work.  The thought of the sudden onslaught of extra hours and becoming a jack-of-all-trades for a few days unsettles me but then something wonderful happens.  I get to be the real me again, not the paper-pushing, keyboard-punching desk worker, but the social, outgoing, charismatic person who loves to be around people.

The day truly started for me when the group began to appear at the desk around noon, although my work day started at 9:00 am.  From that moment on, I was on.  I was engaging and witty and I had long forgotten how much I had hoped the group would cancel.   There was a great deal of sarcasm and laughter and I felt like I was where I was meant to be.  After I had finished serving them dinner, one of the delegates went so far as to make the sardonic comment, “Susan, you should really learn to be more social”, to which I responded I was taking classes.

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This welcome distraction not only reminded me of why I love my job, but it took my mind off of the looming calendar date coming up on Saturday.  Being busy is good.  Being busy lets my strengths shine and being busy means I get to feel like myself again.

Learning to laugh at yourself

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I hope you will all indulge me this week.  March 7th looms and I would like to keep as many happy memories as I can at the forefront of my brain.  Since my mom can no longer comment on what I post, her ethereal embarrassment shall be something that will hopefully make us all smile a little.  Some of my best memories are of the funniest times in my life – the memories that made me laugh until I cried and that same laughter that made my mom wet herself.  This is one of the memories I love.

We have always been a family with pets.  Dogs have been a strong presence in our lives and in the early 1980’s mom and I would walk the dogs down the back road that was close to our house.  On one of our walks, our Golden Retriever, Brandy, decided to take it upon himself to walk our Lhasa Apso, Misty.  He took her extra-long leash in his mouth and proudly sauntered down the road, not looking back.   Only mom and I could see the leash wrapped around Misty’s body and, when there was no slack left in the long leash, Brandy dragged Misty down the road backwards for about half a kilometer.  That moment wasn’t just funny, it was absolutely hysterical and mom and I laughed so hard she peed her pants.

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Now, in the 80’s velour was all the rage.  Mom sported many matching leisure suits.  They were comfortable, they were stylish, and they were surprisingly absorbent.  But the variation in color could not hide the fact that my mom had peed her pants.  After we collected ourselves, we made our way back to the house.  We had a crowd of friends over and, knowing that, Mom was in stealth mode, maneuvering out of anyone’s peripheral to sneak in the back door and head for the laundry room in our basement.

She quickly changed her outfit and headed back up to the living room, thinking she had averted humiliation.  What she had NOT counted on, was that her traitor of a daughter had already broadcast the episode to anyone who would listen and had even thrown in some play-by-play action in slow motion.  Not only was I laughing but everyone in the room joined in, even my mom.

That day I learned one of the greatest lessons she ever taught me, even if by accident – if you can’t laugh at yourself, you will miss a great deal of enjoyment in your life.

 

 

And then the muses slowly disappeared…..

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I’ve been dreading writing this week.  I knew it was coming and as much as I thought I could distract myself with topics that did not strike me on an extremely personal level, I was wrong.

I have been enjoying a great relationship with my muse since January 1st.  Together we have posted every day since the start of the new year, sometimes twice a day, and I have become truly immersed in the creative process.  But something drastically changed with the passing of the calendar month.  My muse has slowly retreated from the active space in my mind.  It has nothing to do with the continuing frigid temperatures or the delay of springs’ arrival.  It has everything to do with the looming date of March 7th.

That day in the calendar year of 2014 irrevocably altered my life.  It seems like only hours ago I received that horrific early morning phone call to tell me my mother had passed unexpectedly and my life spun into a tornado-like funnel cloud.  Images, hours, even days blurred.  To think it will be a year on Saturday astounds me.

It feels like I am back in the first moments of coming to terms with the news and yet there have been so many firsts since then.  Birthdays, anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas….all were celebrated to the best of our ability with her glaring and undeniable absence.  Knowing that she is no longer suffering the effects of her illness is the only comfort I have.  It should ease some of my suffering but the feeling of loss goes much deeper than that.

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At least each day I am still here gives me a chance to hold her memory as close as I would like to hold her in a childlike embrace.  The pain never goes away, we just think about it differently as time moves on.

 

Rabbits and lions and lambs….oh my

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As it is with every first day of the month I will have awoken, most likely at 3:45 am because that is a new and inescapable routine, and hopefully remembered to repeat the phrase “white rabbit” three times before I uttered any other words.  It is a long-standing family tradition and one that is meant to bring luck for the following month.

Today is not only the first of the month, but it is the first of March which brings Spring closer to reality.  After the winter we have just experienced, and still are experiencing,  Spring will be a very welcome companion.  The mercury is predicted to begin rising and the sun will have some warmth in its shine.   I have already begun preparations for my tanning session on the deck and, even if I am fully covered in snow gear, I am going to enjoy every ounce of Vitamin D I can extract from that fire-ball during the high temperature of -5C.

Tanning in the early months of February and March is a family tradition I cannot seem to part with.  When I was a child, we would spend hours in lawn chairs on the frozen lake and absorb all of the goodness from the sun.  There is no better feeling than the first real heat of a Spring day and having those rays welcomed by an eager face.

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This year, I am unsure as to whether the arrival of Spring will be classified as coming in like a lamb, or coming in like a lion.  After the harsh winter and bitter winds we have experienced, it will certainly feel like a lamb, but having March temperatures still hovering around -15 C may classify the entrance into this new month as coming in like a lion.

Groundhog’s shadow or not, Spring is coming.  I just hope it gets here before the rabbits, the lion and the lamb all freeze their asses off!