The year that went by in what feels like a month
2 CommentsA 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
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
8 Comments
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.
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
2 CommentsThere 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.
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
13 CommentsI 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.
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…..
13 CommentsI’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.
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
14 CommentsAs 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.
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!
Things are not always what they seem
1 CommentAs the nights began to get colder and the days grew shorter, a non-conforming sparrow decided not to fly South for the winter. The winds shifted, the snow began to fly and the mercury dropped to frigid levels. Realizing the decision not to go South was horribly wrong, the sparrow reluctantly began its journey to a warmer climate.
The elements exploded from the winter sky and battered the poor bird. Soon ice began to form on its tiny wings and the sparrow could no longer remain in flight. The wind and snow volleyed the bird in mid-air and the sparrow fell to the Earth, landing in a barnyard. Its heartbeat was weak and the sparrow faced the inevitability of freezing to death in the vast expanse of farm land.
No sooner had the bird given in to its undeniable fate, when a cow wandered dangerously close to the dying bird, lifted its tail and crapped on the sparrow. Stunned by the irony of being shit on while it slowly died, the bird began to feel warm. The heat from the cow patty was melting the frost and the bird began to feel its heart pounding stronger and stronger with each beat.
With growing warmth and a sudden optimism, the bird began to sing. It celebrated its narrow escape of impending death. It basked in the glory of being to continue its journey South and it laughed in the face of fate itself.
The sparrow’s song grew so loud that the bird did not hear the approach of the feral barn cat. Investigating the sounds, the cat circled the bird and pounced, clearing the cow patty and carrying the now deceased bird back to its lair for a late supper.
There are lessons to be learned from every story. Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy. Everyone who gets you out of shit is not necessarily your friend and if you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.
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This was a joke I remember hearing when I was in high school. I embellished a bit (no surprise there) but I think the lessons are still worthy of sharing.
Uncovering the wrong letter in the word team
5 CommentsWhen you work with people for a significant amount of time, you not only become a real team but, you become friends. You get to know the nuances of each team members character and you learn to blend your strengths with theirs. They help to balance your weakness and you do the same for them. It becomes an unspoken rule that you have each others’ back and treat each other with the utmost respect because you have developed a real bond at your job.
But, unfortunately, teams change. Members of the group that you have come to know and admire often move on causing the dynamic in the team to become drastically altered. People tend to cling to the familiar faces expecting them to be their closest allies but that is not always the case. The feeling of working together suddenly changes and it now feels like you are working for the team and not with the team.
When the faces of the group are substantially different, there is usually a member of the original group that will try to use that reality to their advantage. Any allegiance that existed has been replaced by their valiant effort to get ahead and shine brighter than the other employees. They insinuate themselves into the role of the “a-hole” and become the only “i” in the word team.
I have met many of these “i” people. Usually the ones who had assumed this new identity shocked and disappointed me. We had worked well together but when the opportunity of advancement presented itself they didn’t think twice about using me as a wrung on the ladder of their ultimate success.
I’m happy I was able to move beyond those people. I didn’t dwell on their negative traits but focused solely on my positive traits and moved forward. I chose to enjoy the hours I spend at work with a new team that appreciated my contributions. I chose to be a part of a group where I could thrive and where my efforts would not be a stepping stone for that one person who didn’t know how to properly define or spell the word team.
Hearing the most important voice
14 CommentsI did something yesterday that I sincerely hope I remember to never do again – I bought a fully processed and synthetic lunch because I had failed to prepare my own. What seemed like a good idea at the time came back to haunt me a few hours later when every part of my body screamed in disgust.
Recently I have been very smart about my food choices. With only the occasional “treat”, I have been preparing all of my own meals so I know exactly what my body is ingesting and I have really enjoyed cooking again and experimenting in the kitchen. The only processed items that have passed my lips are the ones that I have processed myself so I know what kind of food is in my food. My body made it abundantly clear today that it will no longer put up with my bad choices and laziness when it comes to preparing my own meals.
It is simple to adhere to a proper diet when you take a few moments to prepare in advance. I love when I have a full day in the kitchen and am able to think ahead about what I want to use to fuel my body for the coming week. I make all of my own soups and freeze them so I am not overwhelmed by the hidden sodium and preservatives in canned soups. I make ‘Salad-in-a-Jar’ for each day of the week and sometimes even prepare sectioned grapefruit or ‘Refrigerator Oatmeal’ for breakfasts. It takes the guess-work and stress out of having to prepare meals each morning for the work day ahead and it can prevent those bad choices when you are hungry and pressed for time.
Salad in a jar was an amazing discovery for me. I bought a case of Mason Jars and made a week’s worth of salads for lunch. Each day I opened a jar onto a plate, the lettuce was still crisp and it was a quick way to have a healthy lunch. For those of you who may have heard of these but never tried them, I urge you to buy some jars and spend and hour on the weekend making your lunches for a week. Knowing those go-to lunches are always there during your work week will alleviate the stress of wondering what you will eat at the office and you can add any ingredients you like to your salad.
I listened to my body today and got the message loud and clear. I’m not 25 anymore. I can’t just eat what is available and go about my day without ever giving it a second thought.
Your body’s voice is the most important voice you will ever hear and you should heed its advice. It will be more honest with you than any of your friends or your family and only has its best interest at heart.
polysyllabic profundities 