Category Archives: inspiring

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.

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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.

I left a piece of me

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I wanted to leave piece of me behind,

something so unique to me,

that you would remember me

once I had gone.

I don’t want you to doubt

whether I was ever here

in the first place.

I want my imprint

etched into your brain,

so you know that I once was,

and always will be,

a part of your existence.

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I left the ghost of me to remain

long after I had gone,

marking the place

that I once held in this world.

I may appear in several ways,

in the most unusual places,

but always know

that I have left a piece of me behind

for you to notice

just when you miss me the most.

~~

I saw this photo on Twitter (@ChicagoProblems) and immediately thought of how loved ones try to send us messages after they have passed.  They never drove a jeep but my mom and dad do send us indications that they are still with us in spirit.  And Mom and Dad, if you reading this, White Rabbit, White Rabbit, White Rabbit.

I already went through this once…

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“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~ E.E. Cummings

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It is a rite of passage and a fact of nature that, when we grow from a child to an adult, our voices change.   Perhaps I hadn’t realized when I began my blogging journey that I was a child of writing.  I was a mere toddler grabbing at words like they were all mine but contrary to a toddler’s way of thinking I wanted nothing more than to share those words.

Recently, I have been going back through the moments of my childhood.  I have not been pouring over photographs in family albums but I have been going back through the early stages of my blogging days and I am amazed at how dissimilar my writing voice is from then to now.  The nuance of my phrasing is a far cry from what it once was and my voice has changed to signify the growth in my writing.

Contrary to going through that awkward teenage phase in life, my progress as a writer has been uncomplicated and relatively steady.  I feel comfortable in my writing skin and I walk down the hallways of the writing school in my mind with great confidence.  There are no cliques to contend with, no teachers to please and the only club I wish to join already has my name on the roster of its members.

I want to write, plain and simple.  I want my voice to continue to develop and be able to show the experience I gain each day by simply writing more words on a page.  I want my voice to whisper.  I want my voice to sing.  And I want my voice to yell at the top of its lungs when it has something to say, anything to say.

Maybe this is the puberty stage in my writing.  And just maybe I have reached the cusp of adulthood and I can finally embrace the voice that will truly represent who I am as a writer.  There may a be a few breaks in the inflection and the tone but I think this voice is here to stay.

 

 

 

Being a human pinball isn’t so bad

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The Christmas Spirit has ruthlessly stalked me, once again, and dug its talons into my inner-elf.  Yesterday I spent the better part of the afternoon spending money that has been generously donated to our 3rd Annual Toy Drive at Shamrock Lodge and strategically placing those purchases around our tree in the front office.

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I have never been a big fan of Christmas shopping but the last three years of managing this toy drive have given me a reason to slightly alter my thinking.  My dad was a big fan of fighting holiday crowds to shop at the largest malls in Toronto.  My traumatic experience with that is described in this post.  But I now understand a bit of the glee he felt.

I became immersed in the spirit of giving and the outside noise of the store slowly fell into silence.  I was in a holiday bubble and the more I shopped the happier I felt.  Feeling like a pinball in an super-sized Christmas pinball game was a minuscule annoyance compared to the immense reward.  A few hours of doing something I am not fond of to make a child smile at Christmas was well worth the discomfort.

Giving myself permission to be me

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Self-doubt is a debilitating phenomenon.  Most of us have experienced some form of self-doubt throughout our lives and the worst time for me was during my formidable years in high school.  For those lucky enough to have had a firm belief in who they were during those years, my hat goes off to you.  I was not one of those lucky people.

I spent many years trying to fly under the radar and just fit in.  The image I presented was varied depending on the group of people with whom I was sharing those hallowed hallways.  If I were completely honest about my years in secondary school, I would say that the vast majority of those precious moments was spent trying to be something that I didn’t feel I honestly represented.

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But now, if I really think back, I can’t help but wonder – what if, in reality,  I was actually being something that I truly was?  Perhaps I doubted myself so much that I was unable to enjoy the different facets of my personality.  Each of us has a gift, maybe several if we’re lucky, but each of us also has to realize that sometimes we have to be our own cheerleader, our own geek, our own jock and our own stoner.

I finally gave myself permission to be proud of the person I have become.  I embrace the many parts of myself and the talents that I have.  No longer am I looking for that gratification from anyone other than myself.  Those years of self-doubt have since been stored in a box of memories and have been replaced by the belief that my opinion of myself matters the most and I can give myself permission to be every part of who I am.

Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.  I don’t know who coined that phrase but I’d like to buy them a drink!

We should give thanks every day

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Although our Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone, I came upon this post I wrote at the beginning of my blogging journey and I wanted to share it again.  May my friends south of our border feel as many thanks as I do each year during our celebration.

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My family is a collection of characters.  They are as unique as snowflakes.  No one member is remotely the same but they are all intelligent, articulate, thoroughly amusing and fun to be around.  There is never a dull moment at the cottage when the relatives are in town.

With our hectic lifestyles and spanned locations, we don’t get to see each other as often as we used to when I was a kid but that just makes holidays and get-togethers that much more special.  Since it is Thanksgiving weekend, we gathered once again to celebrate the holiday and enjoy each others company.  The stress of life and all of the troubles that we face during the day seem to melt away when the family reunites and nothing else matters except the people who embrace you when you walk over the threshold of the door to the family cottage.  The outside world ceases to exist and laughter and love wrap themselves around our family members like a warm security blanket.  The food is abundant, the conversation is easy and the feeling of love is overwhelming.  There is nothing more important than family.  We can be thankful for all of our possessions, our jobs, our wealth, but all of those things are replaceable.  Family is not.

Thanksgiving is a time to truly reflect on what is most important in our lives.   I am certainly thankful for my health, having a job that I love, co-workers that I admire and respect and possessions and a home that I truly appreciate.  But I am most thankful for the branches on my family tree that continue to envelop me and wrap themselves around me when I need them the most.

With each passing year, the trunk of our family tree grows stronger and it roots itself more firmly in the soil of our existence.  That tree has weathered many storms but still manages to endure the bad times as well as flourish in the good times.  Its bark remains tough but the core of our family tree still remains tender and nurturing.

As seasons come and go our family tree continues to thrive.   I am thankful for my ancestors who planted the original seed.  I am thankful for my family members who have passed and still hold roots in my tree.  And I am abundantly thankful for the family who continue to create branches on that ever-growing tree.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  I hope you all take a moment to give thanks for the things that are truly important in your lives.

Under a winter sky

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Dusk descends.  The deep blue of the night sky edges its way into darkness and evening begins to fall.  Stars mottle the nightscape and any heat the earth consumed during the day is slowly released back into that vast open space.  The long spindly finger of Old Man Winter begins to caress the world and the cold enters everything it touches. Trees snap and groan in their defiance of the stinging night air and animals have long since retired to the protection of their dens.

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The smallest portion of exposed skin is ambushed by the cold and is threatened by the gnawing jaws of frost bite.  It hurts to breathe but the beauty of a cold winter night is unparalleled.  The sky seems anxious to introduce every star in the milky way without the intrusion of clouds and the silence is deafening.

This is my winter.  These are the nights that I am drawn into the cold for the sole purpose of watching the stars put the sun to bed for another night.  I tilt my head back to take in the constellations and wait for a shooting star.  This is life in my Northern town.  This is the pastel portrait that saturates my brain before I go to sleep.