sky of mottled grey
snow flakes flying through the air
wind that hurts my face
Category Archives: perspective
Time is not linear
7 CommentsI remember the phone call like it was yesterday. My brother called from Vancouver in the wee hours of the morning to tell me that I was an aunt and my nephew had safely entered the world. I was living in Ontario and felt like I was a world away but somehow felt like I was in the room with him at the same time. That phone call came 16 years ago.
Tonight our family gathered at my nephew’s restaurant of choice to not only celebrate the auspicious occasion of his 16th birthday but also the successful completion of level one of our graduated licensing system for new drivers. Yes, local friends stay off the sidewalks, my nephew is behind the wheel.
It was a numbing experience watching their familiar vehicle turn onto the road that led to the restaurant and not see my sister-in-law behind the wheel. TJ held the very proper pose of hands at 10 and 2 and didn’t even flinch when his dad lobbed a snowball at the car and hit it squarely in the middle of the driver’s door. You could feel the pride, and some relief, radiating from his 16-year-old face as he crossed the parking lot.
As I write this post, their family has returned home and, at his request, TJ is out driving around our small town taking his dog “Zoey Hot Wheels” for a car ride. I’m sure it is the first of many trips they will share with him behind the wheel and I couldn’t feel more proud of his smooth transition into the next phase of his life. Happy birthday Buddy!!
The mosaic of a life
4 CommentsMy drive to work each day is relatively stress-free compared to most commuters. I have a 10-minute journey through a small, quaint little town and the traffic in the winter is minimal at best barring any unforeseen wildlife charging through an invisible cross-walk.
This relaxing drive affords me the time to look around and absorb the nuances that make me appreciate the fact that this town is my home. Like all towns, Port Carling is steeped in rich history and tradition and we are proud to boast those memories in our Museum as well as through unique artist renderings. In 2005, “The Wall” was unveiled and, at the time, it was the largest historic photo mosaic mural in the world.
(image credit: muskokalakes.ca)
This tribute to history contains 9,028 individual photos that bring to life the 1922 RMS Sagamo going through the locks in Port Carling. These photos span a century from 1860 to 1960 and yesterday, for some reason, this mosaic really struck a chord deep within me. I have passed it every day on my way to work and never took the time to truly comprehend how snapshots of occurrences in our lives can create such a grand picture of our past.
So many little pieces of our history are used to make up our most significant memories. Stopping to look at this wall made me think of all the snippets that have etched themselves into my brain and have begun to create the mosaic of my life. Some of those fragments in time are dripping with vibrant colors of happiness and others are mottled with the greys of anguish and grief, but all of those hues combine to create the spectral portrait of my life.
If you were to create an emblematic picture of your journey, what would your mosaic look like?
One voice above the crowd
4 Comments
I was in a funk, a genuine textbook-defined funk, and I had given myself permission to wallow in it. I disregarded my routinely sage advice to take it one breath at a time. I blatantly ignored my history of dealing with things head on and I became a turtle, pulling my head into my shell and hoping the scenery would somehow look different the next time my face emerged from that shell.
But each time I gave myself the slightest courage to see if the landscape of my reality had changed, my eyes blurred and my vision became marred by a new set of tears. I promptly pulled myself back in to my shell.
Friends and family picked up on the noticeable difference in the cadence of my voice. I became lost in a miserable state of unhappiness and my writing began to reflect my mood. Fellow bloggers also left encouraging messages in the comments of my blogs but, although I knew I was being irrational, I couldn’t stop crying.
Life has a funny way of interjecting when it needs to bring something to your attention. My funk may have been based on something that could be defined as trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it really affected me to the point of becoming consumed with pessimistic thoughts that I can usually push aside with ease.
I knew I couldn’t change the cards I had been dealt, but one particular comment from a fellow blogger really made me rethink how my hand could play out. I read it a few times until I was able to fully process the message and understand its true significance.
In my melancholy, I had forgotten to give equal value to the potential of a positive outcome as opposed to focusing solely on the negative. I had all but conceded to the loss without allowing myself a chance for a win.
One comment, from someone I have never met in person, changed my outlook. I am no longer dwelling on what could be an unfavorable outcome but giving every hope that something fantastic may be just around the corner. Since I cannot predict the future, I can only wait to see what the outcome will be but at least, now, I wait with much more hope than I had before.
A single wish
21 CommentsThe glow burned my eyes but I couldn’t take my gaze from its mesmerizing emanation. It stood like a sentinel, guarding my emotion. Although it was a single flame, that lone candle represented the one person I wished was here with me.
Felonious felines
5 CommentsIf the pungent stench hadn’t first assaulted my senses, the tiny footprints in the remnants of snow on my deck would have led me to believe that a small feline intruder had been in my entrance way and left its fluidic calling card.
I am no stranger to the repugnant smell of cat pee. I have suffered before and was doing it again as the essence of the foul beast breached the sanctity of my nasal passages and made its way into my throat. Before my morning vision had even the slightest chance of coming into focus the very solemnity of my home, as well as my olfactory nerves, had been violated by my neighbor’s cat.
Now, before you judge me on the basis of these words, I do not dislike cats. I appreciate their ability to be detached yet affectionate. I admire their commitment to their sense of self. And I applaud their propensity to be indifferent and intrigued at the same time.
That being said, I do take offence to a four-legged creature of the non-canine variety befouling a room in which it has no business being present. Cats do not, and will not, live in my home. Allergic reactions aside, I have a colored past with these anciently domesticated beings and, in putting my differences aside, I have come to the realization that we make better strangers than friends.
I have repeatedly admonished my dog for wanting to run into the neighbor’s yard when she sees this territorial interloper, but I have since rethought my initial position. My dog is merely protecting the rightful place that is her shelter. She is simply defending her home against enemies, feral or domestic. And she is attempting to preserve my nose from the offensive fragrance of future feline fearlessness.
Through the looking glass
13 CommentsI generally have a good handle on my emotions but circumstances of late have made that handle much more difficult to grasp. I feel like I have boarded a train that has sped into a murky tunnel and I have no idea what awaits me on the other side. Perhaps that is the most difficult part for me since I usually have a well thought out plan and I feel, now, like I am slightly clueless.
Alice had the benefit of being able to see beyond the glass into the world she was able to observe. Her situation gave her the advantage of knowing what awaited her on the other side and any foresight into a situation is welcomed knowledge.
It is difficult, having moved forward into that mirror, feeling gravity pulling me in the rest of the way and, blindly assuming that the other side will be as beautiful as it is in my dreams.
I can only continue through that looking glass and hope that my intuition and my gut are leading me the right way and that the fate I am wishing for awaits me on the other side.
”Alice through the Looking Glass” Sculpture located in Guildford’s Castle Grounds.
It’s not about the distance
10 Comments
You see my shoes,
and you think they might fit you.
You may even wrongly assume
that they had very little wear,
and you could walk much further than a mile.
But my treads are worn,
reduced to a thin layer of rubber,
marred by a life of experience.
Perhaps my shoes are similar to yours,
maybe even close to the same size,
but my shoes will not fit you,
as I expect yours would not feel comfortable on my feet.
This road has been mine to follow,
as your trail was carved out for you.
Conceivably, our winding paths have crossed on purpose,
but your journey is yours, as mine belongs to me.
And as much as you think my shoes will fit,
your feet were meant for your shoes
just as mine were meant for me.
I hope one day we will share a walk,
and our shoes will take many steps together.
And when that day comes,
I hope we walk much further than a mile.
Has anyone seen my patience? I seem to have lost it.
12 CommentsI used to be a very patient person. I was never fidgety while waiting in a line. I knew my turn would come eventually and I was okay with that.
As the years have passed, I now understand where my mother was coming from when she used to say “my patience is wearing thin”. Perhaps it is somehow a right of passage that we are less apt to wait today than we may have been a couple of decades ago. My patience these days resembles something like the onion-skin paper we used to trace pictures when we were in high school.
There are still moments when I am okay to wait, moments that are fleeting and that I know will pass relatively quickly. But I am currently caught in a circumstance where I feel completely helpless and have no choice but to sit back and wait for information to come to me. I feel horribly powerless and that is not a feeling I am accustomed to experiencing.
It’s hard to let go. It’s difficult to convince myself that things are going well at the other end when my imagination continues to conjure hundreds of possible scenarios. And my lack of patience only fuels the fire of anxiety as I am forced to bide my time until I get some news.
Until then, I shall consume myself with projects to try to keep myself busy enough so I can quell the even more impatient creative writers in my head. My own restlessness is hard enough to deal with….they will make this waiting period intolerable.
Wait for the feathers
12 Comments“Some days you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue.” ~ J. Andrew Taylor
Many of our days are inherently better than others. On those precious days we are the pigeon. We are free to fly, the wind lifts us and lets us soar and we feel like nothing can bring us down. We are above all of the little problems that life presents. We gain strength and power as we fly. We are able to stop when we want to and simply observe life at its best from a lofty perch, but we are also able to spread our wings and rise even higher on the warm currents of life.
Some days, however, that magical wind seems non-existent and our wings seem to fail. On those days, we are the statue. We are a solid mass under the weight of our own problems. We feel like we are stuck and there is no room to move. We feel stagnant and are rooted in our place, only able to watch life pass us by and not feel like we can participate. We are heavy with worry and cemented by fear, feeling like the world is doing nothing but looking at us and simply passing us by.
On the days we are the pigeon we have to remember to empathize with the statue. And on the days we are the statue we have to revel in the thought of what it is like to be the pigeon. To truly embrace all of life, we have to be willing to see it from the perspective of the bird and the bust. We have to understand that life is not always going to let us soar but we are never going to be stuck in one place for long if we break free of the mold we created for ourselves.
Life will ground us. It will root us in our place until it sees fit to allow us the capacity to fly once again. And in those moments that we feel fixed in a certain spot in our lives, we just need to wait for those feathers to grow large enough to carry us into our next chapter.
polysyllabic profundities 