Monthly Archives: December 2015

Raising my hand

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Today will be a bittersweet day for me.  I have $1,000.00 Canadian dollars to go on a shopping spree for the rest of the toys that will be given to the children in our area who may not otherwise have had a present to open on Christmas morning.  This is the third year I have been at the helm of our toy drive and it has grown significantly each year.

santa

I am sad to say I have not volunteered as much as I should have over the years.  Back in the stone ages when I was in high school, we were not required to have volunteer hours as part of the curriculum.  We studied, we tried not to fall asleep in class and, if all went well, we graduated and moved on to college or university.

But this toy drive has sparked something in me.  It has kindled a need to use my able body and mind to spend some of my free hours helping others.  I have just filled out my application and submitted it to a local cause to see if I will be approved to become a part of their volunteer team.

With luck, I hope to have a positive response.  And when they ask who is able to come and help, I will raise my hand and be one of the people at the front of the line.

Ridges and swirls

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Angels leave their fingerprints,

on morning skies while I snooze.

Reminders that, though bodies have gone,

connections to souls we never lose.

And while I sit and ponder those,

who were taken in their prime,

my heart is filled with silent sadness

and a yearning to turn back time.

But their hands gently hold my heart

mending the chronic ache,

and they leave their fingerprints upon the sky

for me to gaze upon when I wake.

Jeans and bare feet

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bare feet

Wooden walls around a big kitchen,

a man in jeans and bare feet,

dinner is cooking and the wine is poured.

This is where I want to exist.

The room is my refuge,

the food is my sustenance,

but he is my home.

His fingers slowly graze my arm

and he reaches for my hand.

We sip our wine,

the conversation dwells on nothing

but never seems to stop.

The world outside of this moment

may continue to exist,

but my world is here,

in this moment,

with a man in jeans

and bare feet.

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Second, third and fourth thoughts

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I am a thinker.  I’m not like the bronze statue perpetually perched on bent hand in a state of posthumous concentration but I am equally consumed by thought.  I never give things a second thought, I give them a third and fourth thought until I am satisfied that I can think no more. Maybe Winnie The Pooh was on to something.

poohthink

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I never do anything on a whim.   I have to examine things from many angles, deconstruct the complete picture and piece it back together while thinking of all the probabilities and possibilities of that situation.  I replay conversations in my head thinking about what words were uttered even examining the inflection in the words that were spoken.  I don’t have an eidetic memory but I can certainly recall conversations, sometimes verbatim, and I  will analyze those words until I am satisfied that what I heard was what I was supposed to hear.

My brain likes to disassemble moments or conversations, examine each piece and then slowly rebuild that moment until it is once again the sum of all of its parts.  I don’t know why I am the way I am.  There are moments that I would like to be that duck that allows the water to bead and roll from its back, just lets it go, but that is not how I am built.  I need to analyse – I need to dwell on an idea until my thinking has left me satisfied and content.

I am a thinker.  I am a re-thinker.  Potentially, I am an over-thinker.  In any case, I can rest assured that I have exhausted every angle before I’ve come to a final decision and that thought helps me sleep at night – until I think I may have missed something and spend many early morning hours thinking about what thought may have eluded me.

Where are you on the think scale?

In the wee small hours

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With no curtains for protection, the jagged streaks of moonlight spilled through the bedroom window across my duvet.  I had awoken only moments before, trying desperately to talk my body into falling back to sleep before my brain woke up but it was too late.  In the same time it took me to blink twice, my brain had formulated twelve simultaneous problems that it was determined to solve before I was allowed to return to slumber.  And, as an afterthought, those cranial neurons began formulating ideas for new blog posts and I was scrambling to record them before they evaporated into dream dust.

I have lost count of the number of times I have awoken from a deep sleep with a great idea for a post.  But between the darkness on moonless or cloud-covered nights and my inability to locate my phone to document them, those potentially great ideas vanished into thin air.

vault

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There must be a gigantic vault of lost ideas – a safe so large it contains all of the great writing ideas that were unable to come to fruition because they were never forced from our subconscious onto our keyboards.  It hides in the vacuous space of our imagination and traps wandering thoughts as they escape during those wee hours in the morning.  If only I knew how to break into that vault.

As my late-night Kathleen Turner voice gurgled out incomprehensible syllables I tried my best to recall and record the latest gem last night but, as I replayed the audible gibberish this morning, I couldn’t really comprehend where my thought process was taking me.

One day I’m going to crack that safe and I’m going to need a lot of Red Bull to keep me up long enough to record the wealth of ideas that is trapped in its metal casing.

 

It was too late to even ask

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He asked for my forgiveness

and in my continuing silence

I found an abundance of long-buried strength.

~

Daunted by the conviction of my strength,

and with no more interest in asking for my forgiveness,

he returned my stare with his silence.

~

 There was nothing golden about our silence.

But in that quiet, there was no weakness in my strength.

And because of that, never will he receive my forgiveness.

~

 Forgiveness should never be assumed.  His feeble request was met by deserved silence and fueled by my inner strength.

 

moonshine

My first ever attempt at a Tritina for YeahWrite.Me

I almost slipped away

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cropped-Hands-touching

The pull was strong.

Celestial light enveloped me,

suspending me.

But I couldn’t leave.

As much as we promised,

and wanted to be together forever,

our unborn child deserved life.

I inhaled,

my hand slipped from yours

and the light was gone.

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