TToT: An Epoch In My Life – Equations and Conjugations #BlackSwan #OneWorld #TogetherAtHome #10Thankful

“’The matter with human beans,’ the BFG went on, ‘is that they is absolutely refusing to believe anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles. ‘” …

—The BFG by Roald Dahl

So much going on that writing here often now slips through my fingers and gets lost in the recesses of my brain, but I have plenty to be thankful for-so let’s go.

Ten Things of Thankful #10Thankful

With the novel coronavirus, covid-45 up to his bullshit, and now the worst mass shooting in Canadian history having taken place this past weekend. I am trying to find moments of joy, ways to distract myself and my racing thoughts, and ideas to harness the creativity I have inside.

I wish, oh how I wish the world could all be on the same page with this, to work together, which seems so very simple to me. Apparently not?

We can sit around and blame China or the US or anyone else, but where does that get us?

All the finger pointing and wide gaps in the seriousness of the way this virus is being taken and all those conspiracy theories floating around. Why can’t things just be what they are? Like the quote I started this week’s TToT with, humans refuse to admit until they see with their eyes, and during times like these, not even then.

I am thankful for this song.

The Book of Love – Gavin James

I am thankful for a new online writing class I’ve started and the community of writers who are willing to open up and share.

The instructor started a WhatsApp group for all of us and we’re all leaving audio messages there, for each other, and as a place for reflection and contemplation.

She suggested we think up a name for the group and I thought of black swan because it’s a term being used to describe this pandemic and also, there are swans down at the park by my house now. I remember their white, graceful, loveliness as I watched them glide across water. Now I no longer see them, but I think a swan could be still beautiful, even a black one. Why not?

I know we’re often tempted to describe tough times like these as dark times, looking for the light, but I often get tired of these images we use to describe the bad and the good of life, but yet I know I can’t make every person stop describing life this way. It is what it is, as a writer, but I know the images that are created powerfully in words that bring to mind such metaphors.

I see it as a way to express how we are all going through an unprecedented period in history together, but also, along with all the negatives there can be beauty.

I am thankful for music to get me through hard times, like the live concert I got to see the other night.

Sarah Slean sold tickets, but for much much less than I’d pay to see a show in person, certainly less than I paid to see her live on a bitterly cold December night back in 2017.

Day One – Sarah Slean

I know Zoom has its issues, and I had to turn the voice off my iPhone while watching or else all the hundreds of people commenting would make Voiceover go berserk.

Sarah is so cheery, the kind of cheery you can hear in her voice, as her smile is audible when she speaks. Her singing voice is just brilliant and so is her piano playing.

She is excellent with a string section behind her, don’t get me wrong, but there was just something about the simplicity of a woman and her piano in her home in Toronto with 776 people listening to her performance.

I am thankful for the virtual camino walk I’m on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Ekot38tV8&feature=youtu.be

I have many places in Europe I’d like to get to, but Italy was never high on that list for some reason. I am not sure why, but now Spain is up there.

A writer who creates unique travel experiences put together something to occupy us and help us find our way through all this, starting a group on Facebook and every day she posts a file where she describes a chunk of a camino, Camino de Frances in this case. I would have trouble handling such walks in real life, with my blindness and my chronic pain issues, but this is totally doable. No blisters if I choose not to imagine them, though I know I get off easy in this case.

All these ancient routs that pilgrims went on, going back to the sixth century or the tenth. I simply can’t imagine. This music she shared told a story to perspective travellers. It puts me in that frame of mind.

I write a daily corona diary to my long since departed grandmother, but I also take her and all my ancestors along on the camino with me.

I am thankful for something called Annedemic.

Winter Green – The East Pointers

The band, The East Pointers, they’ve come up with something to help raise money for struggling musicians who have lost touring opportunities. Themselves or one of their friends or musicians they’ve played with read one chapter of Anne of Green Gables a night on Facebook live. It’s always entertaining and I forget how much I love that story. It’s just a lot of fun to distract from all that isn’t.

I am thankful I can travel even when grounded in place.

TVO Original TRIPPING the Rideau Canal

I love the Rideau Canal and especially when it freezes over in winter and becomes a long stretch of skating surface.

I experienced that back in 2015 and I wish to go back there, since skating again with family in these last five years and most recently, right before the coronavirus took centre stage.

I went to Ottawa last year, right around now, to a conference and I brought a friend with me. I stood out on our balcony and recorded a soundscape of the capital city of Canada and I still plan to write some poetry of some kind and record my voice reading it over that city backdrop.

I am thankful to be in Canada during covid.

In spite of everything, this country is handling the pandemic better than many other places. When I heard an interview with Andrew Cuomo I heard someone who knew what he was talking about and who works hard. That’s what leadership should look like, but other so-called leaders are impossible to follow.

Here we have kept the numbers of infections and dreaded dead down to a lower amount than elsewhere. We come together during hard times, like this virus and now the shooting Nova Scotia has suffered.

I am thankful I got to speak with my family members, even if we’re social distancing for now.

My niece and nephew told me all about what they got from the Easter Bunny and then my niece gave me a book report, of sorts, about the BFG.

Snozzcumbers Soph, really?

The main character’s name is Sophie – close but we call our Sophia Soph.

I really should get a copy of a book my niece is reading and read along too. We could have a little Roald Dahl book club of sorts, even from a distance. My teacher read us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and, I believe, and the Glass Elevator in fourth grade, but I hardly remember except for some truly awful alien creatures in the latter story. I could use a refresher.

I am thankful that the re-test of my blood, creatinine level, it was repeated and has gone down again.

From 70-80 for years and years, up to 110 at the end of 2019, down to 100 at my birthday, and now down to 93 – I’ll take it, for now.

And I am thankful for this poem and the journey it relays.

David Whyte: Santiago

My writing instructor recommended it. I had not heard of David Whyte before.

As Anne Shirly would say, this is sure to be an epoch in my life, this virus, for better or for worse and everything/everywhere in between.

KETCHUP ON PANCAKES: Episode 17 – Lifelong, Long Life (on location at The Potters’) #Plethora #VIPs #Podcast #Pottercast #QuadrupleL

OH BOY! OH MAN!

Lifelong, Long Life (on location at The Potters’)

Almost July, but check out our plethora of moments in time, a review of our connective quadruple L, as June is Pottercast month on
Ketchup On Pancakes
and he remembers all.

Join us…as we gather around for a conversation about and filled with family, memories, creativity, and humour…lots of humour.

After all, what really makes a family anyway?

We, the VIP’s (visually impaired persons), get together to take a walk along memory lane and we do it, live from the Potter’s reck room.

Favourite Things

Things, at the start of 2018, are changing up bit with the
FTSF crew.

My word for 2018 is “stoker,” which also means to stir things up, so I am all for this. I admit, I often have a difficult time with change of most kinds, but I am really trying. Still, though the list may have changed and has grown over my lifetime, here is my list of ten favourite things:

Favourite Thing Ten – Water

I love the roar and rush and rumble of waterfalls. It’s the trickling of a stream, brook, or creek. Or, the increasing and then the decreasing of a wave that’s coming and then going, washing in and back out again, leaving ripples in its wake. It’s the blue, green, rocky, sandy bottom of a lake or ocean. It’s my favourite metaphor for life, both the good and the bad of it, the scary and the sublime. Its power and its purity. It’s clear and clean, or heavy with mineral count. It is the refreshment in a glass or the lapping at my feet, pouring down my throat (to filter through my kidney) or threatening to wash me away.

Favourite Thing Nine – Marine Life

These are the creatures that swim, float, glide, or drift. They range from the smallest crustaceans to the largest squid/octopus, jellyfish, ray, or whale. It lives down on the sandy floor, at the deepest depths, or skimming and skidding along its sunlit surface. It is hunt or be hunted, all while storms rage, boats speed on by, nets drift and dangle, and waves carry it all along, currents deciding the course. It’s gills and blowholes and claws and fins and tentacles. It’s all the colours of rainbows in skies above. It’s camouflaging in all shades and underwater backgrounds.

Favourite Thing Eight – Space

It’s my earliest adventure, escape dream. It’s the dark, still, and the silence. It’s the circles and the rings and the orbit. It’s the blue of ice and the yellow/orange of fire from stars and swirling gases that envelop giant planets. It’s massive red spots as storms and dozens of Arctics stacked on one another, all the way out to the outer ranges of the galaxy. It’s yellow, blue and green and white, and red, and black that’s more than night is or will ever be. It’s infinite. It’s out there, somewhere.

Favourite Thing Seven – The Four Seasons

It’s the northern hemisphere and North America, central, southwestern. It is broken up into quarters of a year, here in (north more than south) of Canada. It is the smell of snow, the cold breath of it on my skin, and the feeling of invigoration. It’s the silence of the snow, the rustle of the warm breeze in the trees. It’s the intense heat and the brightness and burning from the sun, the kind to make any exposed skin surface feel like it’s on fire. It’s the birds of every temp, born to brave it or fly away from it, flocking back again. It’s the Canada geese, flying south and coming back home after long wait of months passed. It’s the early darkness, short days, green of new growth and rebirth. It’s the sprinklers and the mowers and the bikes. It’s the rustle and the crunch and the shuffle of dried out leaves. It’s the rain and the mist and the sleet and the snow, wet, soggy, heavy, and slush under boots and shoes. It’s the puddles after the rain and the icy spots before the thaw.

Favourite Thing Six – String Instruments

I love playing with a bow instead of a pick or a reed. I love the melancholy and the heartbreak of such a sound. I love the feeling, the shape of my own personal violin. The wooden body and the strings, stretched by pegs. It’s the deep melody of the cello and my newness, inability to tell difference between violin and viola still. It’s the power of the bow in my right hand, my chin and chest holding up my instrument, while my left arm, hand, fingers hold the neck and both sides of my brain try to figure out how to work separate and yet together, all at once, to produce more than the sound of a tortured animal and more of the notes and the scales I struggle to get straight in my own ear.

Favourite Thing Five – Art

I loved the visual and the sculpting, with lines, shape, colour, word, image, and sound. I love how creativity flows from each of us like unique perfume, like the individuality of every snowflake that falls from the cold sky.

Favourite Thing Four – The Purring of a Cat

I gently place my two fingers on my cat’s throat as he purrs. I feel it reverberate through his whole body as he settles down against my legs. He makes my chronic pain bearable, on the most unbearable of all days.

Favourite Thing Three – Literature

I love how it can be an act of courage, of hope, of truth. I love how, in essence, it sweeps me up and away. I love how it is about all of us and none of us and each of us, individually, on a personal level, still stretching out to infinity and some far off, far flung lands.

Favourite Thing Two – Travel

I can do it on foot, by car, train, bus, boat, or plane. Or, I can do it, go there in my mind, anytime., even as my sight fades and my memory and yearning grow stronger. I love the people and the places and the things. I love how stepping foot somewhere new or old, on returning or first approaching, that I am someone new, on my own, personal journey of discovery and upon discovering.

Favourite Thing Number One – Niece/Nephew Voices and Laughter

It sounds so grown up or only days from becoming words. I love the sweetness of the high pitched and the similar giggling of siblings. I love that it can turn, from sad to joyful in a single second of exuberant speed. I love the ring of it, the jangle of it, and the shimmering, swinging, swooping crystal clarity it brings, on all sides, expanding the walls of my heart as an aunt.

So there it is, my top ten list, not affiliated with David Letterman’s old show. Sure, some things are more to-the-point than others. I can go from the highly specific to the wide expanse of a thing, perhaps giving me the chance to write fifty favourite things, condensed down into ten, abstract or less so, as I hate to choose.

Check out some of
Finding Ninee’s
favourites too.

Jolt, #JusJoJan

Caffeine doesn’t give me a jolt. That is not why I sit in a relatively newly opened cafe, on a cold January day.

It’s the chilled air of January in Canada that gives me that jolt, as I go on a downtown wallet hunt. Thankfully, I left it at a cousin’s hair salon.

I look through the lens of my writing. I visit this cafe to find a next great writing spot, a place where creativity may blossom and bloom, but I must learn my surroundings first.

Just Jot It January, #JusJoJan

Coffee, like everything else, seems to have a light and a dark. Huh. Hmm.

A bitter sip and my attention is on the super laid back atmosphere of this local joint, rather than remember the more bitter moments, those ones I am moved to write stories about.

This place doesn’t seem to live up to my deeply held expectations of what a writing spot should be. I view the rustic feel of cafes in my past, on my travels, in Ottawa and in Whitehorse and somehow Woodstock isn’t like those.

I am not in Ottawa. I’m no longer in Whitehorse. I am back in my hometown and in the middle of the cold of winter.

My writing is in freefall as I see it. I still hope to land somewhere solid.

I may land and be jolted by the rocky ground. I can’t tell at this early stage of a new year.

People just expect me to be on some kind of roll with my writing, as I ended off the previous year. I can’t say either way.

Coffee near my laptop scares me.

Maybe they won’t mind me coming in there and writing, without buying something. If they come to my table, I might request a drink or a snack.

So typical of me though, to only ask when asked, to wait to be spoken to, instead of doing the speaking on my own.

I stated my declaration: “stoker” will be my word for 2018 and that means having opinions and making them known.

Not to wait to be heard, to take a stand on what’s important. All the coffee in the world, the jolt it provides, may never be enough.

Most people can agree on coffee, if nothing else, and this prompt word is brought to us
by teleportingweena,
for the 9th day of January.

TToT: Raining Lumos and Dobby #DisabledAndCute #IAmAPreexistingCondition #10Thankful

Lord, when you send the rain

Think about it, please, a little?

Do not get carried away

by the sound of falling water,

the marvellous light

on the falling water.

I am beneath that water.

It falls with great force

and the light

Blinds

me to the light.

—James Baldwin, “Untitled”

The magnolia blooms for a short time only. True beauty doesn’t often last. It comes and it goes.

The rain kept coming, across parts of Ontario and Quebec, for most of the week.

Raining cats and dogs: Lumos and Dobby are mine.

Ten Things of Thankful

I’m thankful for delicate things in nature.

We found this cracked robin’s egg on the driveway and I thought it a sweet discovery. My mom improves on the nature and this sign of spring.

I wondered then, where the inhabitant of the egg went. How did the egg land and not crack into even more pieces? I wondered things.

I’m thankful for leftover wine.

My sister had a wedding shower for a friend and there were leftovers. She was kind to share them with me.

I’m thankful for a writing group built around a hand sculpted wand.

One of our members of “The Elsewhere Region” brought in a birthday gift she’d received. It’s like the Harry Potter wand I bought, even the box, but made specifically for her, with love from a friend who knows her well.

The Celtic Tree Calendar

The stories we all came up with were interesting. Mine was about a teacher of the blind who started a braille club in her class and her wand accidentally fell out of her desk drawer. She almost had to reveal to all her students that she was magic, until her visually impaired student saved her.

The others used their very interesting imaginations and came up with wild tales of magic and I was once more blown away by their storytelling abilities.

I am thankful I could help spread hash tags about the disabilities many of us were, in some cases, born with.

The hash tag “I Am A Preexisting Condition” is making the rounds on Twitter since the shocking revelation that the GOP and the House voted in their horrid healthcare plan, which is making many people I know with chronic illnesses and conditions afraid for what will happen.

I felt helpless and wanted to do something. I couldn’t think of what that could be. It’s just so outlandish.

I am thankful for my nephew’s creativity, imagination, and the ideas that are all his own.

He drew an X on a piece of paper and tacked it up on the door. We saw it there when we arrived the other day and I was smiling when I heard what it’s for.

He put it up to keep the spiders out.

NO SPIDERS

I am thankful I could give my niece her bottle and put her to sleep.

My nephew was staying with his grandparents overnight and he was a bit sad as bedtime approached. My mom comforted him and I fed Mya her bottle. That girl loves to eat.

Then she fell asleep over my shoulder.

I’m thankful for echoes of a memory with a lullaby.

My mom started to sing an old lullaby that her mother, my grandmother, used to sing. This seemed to bring back memories for me, something so vague, about my grandma singing to me.

“Go to bed my little darling. Close your big blue eyes. Soon you’ll hear the sandman calling, far beyond the skies.”

It’s funny that you can sense a memory from the past, so long gone, and even start to wonder if it really happened. I remember being sung to like that, but I don’t know when or how old I might have been. I seem to remember being held, but can any of us remember back that far into our pasts?

Well, I held Mya and the entire time I tapped that song out on her back, gently, over and over again, trying to sharpen my own memories. It didn’t work, but the song is a beautiful one.

I am thankful that France did not make the same mistake the US made.

France is a totally different country than the US of course and I knew they would make the right choice with Emmanuel Macron.

Just a few weeks ago, Canada gave a giant sigh of relief, when our own (he was being called Canada’s Donald Trump) and he was running for the Conservative Party of Canada, dropped out.

Kevin O’Leary is a businessman, like 45, known for his role in Shark Tank, but he didn’t feel quite as outrageous. Maybe that was just my wishful thinking there, but he decided on his own that he couldn’t stay in the race.

I don’t know what will happen with the EU and I hope no more terrorist attacks occur in France or anywhere else, but I am sure we aren’t done with all that, sadly.

I am thankful for the sun to make its reappearance.

Even I grew weary of all that dreary weather, day after day after day. The sun does shine again, but unfortunately, some are dealing with major damage to their homes and their lives. Rain has power to mess with us. The sun revives.

And this last photo isn’t the most pleasant sight. I begin with a beautiful flowering bush and I cap off this TToT with the scene we came across in my back yard.

I have squirrels living in the top of my garage and this one came to a sad end, landing in a tree and hanging there until we noticed it. Poor thing.

Loss and endings. I just hope those affected by the flooding, in Quebec mostly, can salvage something of their homes.

Ten Things of Thankful and Then Some: Sunny San Miguel, Siempre! #TakingChances #Mexico #FTSF #10Thankful

I have missed my thankful posts for a few weeks now, but I had a good reason for that: Sunny San Miguel!

(Photo taken by my new friend from the writing workshop in Mexico. Thank you Lisa. I love your viewpoint from right where you are.)

San Miguel, I miss you.

Speaking of missing things…I also missed last week’s
Song Lyric Sunday
because I was traveling back to Canada and the frigid winter temperatures, but the theme of the sun played a big part in my week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxaAfaCln8

This song is the feeling I felt when the bright Mexican sunshine was full on my face while I sat writing up on my balcony, overlooking my small bit of the city of San Miguel de Allende. It was hard work, the writing part, but I couldn’t have asked to be doing it anywhere better.

I felt alive. This is my first thankful. I could write many more.

I am thankful that I got to discover a spot I never would have known of before. San Miguel de Allende is an interesting place and it is just one of many in such a spectacular country of Mexico, so unknown and unfamiliar to me, such a short time ago, So much more to learn about and explore, I can tell. I just barely scratched the surface.

It isn’t a resort. It isn’t on the ocean, but I admit, logically or not, my heart skipped a beat at the thought that I was closer to blue/grey whales at that moment in time, than I’d been in a long time.

My ears popped going through mountainous terrain to get to the city, but boy was I pleased when I stepped out of that shuttle and onto that uneven sidewalk and a whole new door was opened to me, both literally and figuratively. I will never, as long as I live, forget that moment.

I am thankful for the villa we had our writing workshop in and where I got to call my lodgings for the week.

I soon learned my way around, from my room to the kitchen and meeting area and to the lovely outdoor spot. I didn’t realize the way some houses are constructed in Mexico, was totally not expecting it, but was pleasantly surprised by the indoor/outdoor set-up.

I loved my room and its cool interior and the open balcony just a step out my doors.

I am thankful for my sunny writing spot, a day bed set up outside, by the railing. I would go there to write and to listen to the sounds of San Miguel, just outside of the wall of the villa.

I am thankful for the levels of emotion I went to with my writing during the week.

I didn’t expect it to get quite so emotional. It seemed like that for everyone in the class. We all dug deep and we shared a lot in one, much too short week.

I am thankful for the garden area of the villa and the peace and tranquility I found there.

There were so many plants and nature was there, right at my fingertips, in the middle of the city of SMA.

I am thankful for soundscapes.

We had to record somewhere in San Miguel and try and write from it. This was, perhaps, not so difficult for me as for some in the group, but I found a way to make it my own. A lot came from it.

I am thankful for special and unexpected experiences while traveling.

I was serenaded by some mariachis. It was uncomfortable for me, all that attention focused in my direction, but I recognize the special experience for what it was.

I am thankful for the chance to meet my writing mentor in person.

She made it possible that I even knew of San Miguel and she gave me some added strength and determination to try traveling by myself for the first time. She offered just the right incentive and I was determined to make it happen.

She took so much time out of her life and planned for me to be as safe as possible and to have the most enriching time imaginable.

She took me out in San Miguel one night and we had a lovely dinner, talking about Mexico, travel, writing, and so much more. She gave me her time and her knowledge, having been where I have not yet found myself.

She directed me safely, letting me figure things out for myself, with my own heart, mind and white cane. She was thoughtful in her descriptions, all from her creative writer’s mind. She spent time with me, more than she needed to, and showed me so many things I may have otherwise missed out on, with all the visual elements of travel and exploring new places.

I am thankful for so many things and I could keep listing them, but I am determined to write separate, individualized pieces about all the magical moments of my trip, including the amazing people I met and what they did for me, how they affected my life, in so many ways.

I am thankful for glimpses of the culture, architecture and religious beliefs of Mexico.

I am thankful, too, for the unforeseen spiritual awakening I had, in an unexpected place of vitality and passion. It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

I am thankful for our day out, visiting makers. My writing mentor set out to show her class of writers that we too make something of value, even if it can’t be seen in as big a way or touched, like a statue or a piece of art.

I am thankful for the guide I had on our day out.

She spoke no English and I no Spanish, or very little if any. This presented a problem. But she was there, with a gentle, guiding hand and just in case, and we both got so much out of it through the silence, I can’t even express. I will never forget her and I will write about the way she affected my life too.

I am thankful for the wisdom and the inspiration and reassurances for the kind of life I can have in the years to come and for the truly fascinating stories I heard. I am thankful for a pizza night full of lively conversation and the best sharer of the villa I could have asked for. I am thankful for the radiant love freely given and the stories and the camaraderie of all. I am thankful for fruitful partnerships which fostered positive discussions I will never forget. I am thankful for those willing to listen. I am thankful for the laughs and the insightful talks and the likeminded writing companionship. I am thankful for steady arms on unfamiliar surfaces and much patient assistance with pesos and with my sparse Spanish. I am thankful for roof-top views, shared margaritas, and the invites to travel again, with new friends, in future.

I had to write about my thankfuls, but I am still processing so much of this. I am told I will have many more meaningful experiences like my week in Mexico and that more is to come, that this is the beginning of something and not the beginning and end of just one week. I hope this is true, but I will never forget this one as, in so many ways, my first, so many firsts.

I am thankful for all the help I had to travel alone and for the angel that watched over me while I went, as I was told by a kind and talented man.

I am thankful for all the food our mentor and leader of the class put out (including fruit, chocolate, tea/coffee/water) because she said she believed it helped inspire loads of creativity and the ladies who cooked for us and the flowers everywhere. The perfect environment for writing and creativity and all that needed inspiration.

I am thankful for what I came away with, the writing I did. I am working on it some more yet, but hope to publish my story at some point.

I am thankful for the last night, with the thematic musical entertainment, the fact that I vowed to try new things and ended my week of that by eating crickets, and for all the brilliant writing shared by everyone in the class. I am thankful for the support I received for my piece upon reading it aloud.

I am thankful for my family’s support, even though I know how hard it was, at times, for some of them more than others. I would be nowhere near where I am now if it weren’t for them.

I am thankful for the confidence I felt and, even more so, for the fear that persisted and fuelled me. It’s still feeling me.

I am thankful for the reaction from my cat and my dog upon arriving home. My cat made a long mewing sound like I’ve never heard. He sounded excited, to me anyway.

I’m not sure what good it will do in the concrete ways that matter, but I am thankful for all the protests I’ve seen happening against the cruelty, ignorance, and arrogance in the US government, especially these last few weeks since I was away.

Those judges and lawyers working to fight against such unfair actions taken without any care to those hurting. Those fighting are likely putting their butts on the line, some maybe even risking more than we realize at this given moment.

Canada is nowhere near perfect, not hardly, but I am thankful for the total difference in feeling I notice here. I love a lot of Americans, some I’ve met oh so recently, but the country as a whole makes me very uncomfortable now, feeling vulnerable, but it’s clearly the government I have a problem with. I hope this changes one day. May seen as though I’m generalizing here, but believe me, I wish I hadn’t felt that when traveling back through the US.

Sobbing over today’s newspaper – Carrie Snyder from Canada

Just put yourself in the place of someone coming to a new country because you feel in danger in your own.

How can you not help but try to understand what that must feel like? How can any of us avoid that, just because it’s an uncomfortable thought?

I can’t imagine having to leave my home, the only place I’ve known, so I am thankful to be back in my home of Canada. May it always be a place of peace, even when threatened by hate like the rest of the world finds itself, more and more.

There is so much happening, in my world and in the world at large. I am just trying to survive the helplessness of it all, and the best thing I can think of is to write through it all, through all the pain and the confusion and the uncertainties. This must include self care, right along with care for and of other people and our planet.

This taking new chances to hopefully produce new and eye-opening perspectives is about all I can think to do to appreciate life. Things can be hard, are rough, for a lot of people. I say, take a leap and step off that ledge, metaphorically of course, or use your best judgment. Just do something.

I want to share more photos, but those can be a bit tricky for me. I asked for them, for the record of preservation, to show my family. I can’t quite keep them straight, never knowing if what I include and think is really what it is. I will do another post, once I get that straight. Most of them were posted on Facebook, but I never want to share without credit or explanation.

To be continued…

I also wanted to link up with
Finish The Sentence Friday, #FTSF
because it’s been a few weeks for that also and I love Kristi and how she finishes her sentences.

When it comes to self care, I am certain what I just did for myself, as illustrated here, definitely counts.

My Blue Period and My Decade Adrift: Water, Water Everywhere

This is my blue period.

😉

Get it?

My decade adrift.

I was curious, so I shared it on Facebook and asked people what they thought it looked like. I got responses, from such things as the ocean, a local pond near my house, to a fish tank.

This was my first real attempt at visual art since losing my colours and the amount of sight I had growing up, which allowed me to explore my love of art.

Childlike, perhaps, but I have learned that art can mean many things, all different to each individual who looks upon it.

Having children in my life these last five years has allowed me to open up to all that art and creativity can mean.

Ivy

and her blog

are hosting an August Art Challenge and I wanted to be able to contribute art that wasn’t writing.

Not that writing isn’t awesome and everything, but I missed the art of my childhood years.

The prompt she had for the other day (which today’s post will have to do to fit with) was “water, water everywhere” and I have a lot to say, in words and more, about that.

TToT: Riding the Waves of Life – Jub Jub and Jibber-Jabber, #10Thankful

“Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I’d see you again.”

Fire and Rain – James Taylor

I keep thinking I’m starting to feel better, but then I change my mind.

I haven’t been feeling all that well for a while now, for a long while now, and so when you add that to a week like the one I just had, it’s left me feeling a bit off.

This time of year is a difficult one, for family, for those I love, for several reasons.

On a week such as this, I suppose that’s when I need the 10 Things of Thankful most of all.

Because, even as I thought all this, I realized I was still able to come up with a list of ten things to be grateful for..

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

For the unpredictability of the waves.

We enjoyed a late afternoon visit to Lake Erie. The water was rougher than we were expecting. I was upset about this at first, but it’s like life.

Sure, at first it leaves you feeling nervous and the motion of the waves can cause you to feel off balance.

But you can make an effort to make the best of that. I did. We did. Sometimes, you don’t really have any other choice.

I let each wave knock me around as it might. I tried to anticipate which wave would be the biggest, by the sound it made, but it often ended up being the loud ones that produced the least amount of force when they physically washed over me.

It was the silent one that snuck up on me, the one that seemed least intimidating, and that’s the one that forcefully slammed into me, knocking me sideways and off my feet.

That my nephew had so much fun playing in them.

He was smart enough to realize he had his mother and grandmother right there with him, for safety, but that he could still enjoy himself.

He was nervous at first, but once he saw how much fun the waves could be, he didn’t allow a bit of water to spoil things.

His pure shrieks of bliss made me realize the importance of relaxing and letting loose so I could enjoy the experience too.

For a peaceful moment on the beach.

Once I’d started to dry off by the gradually setting sun, the other three went back in once more, but I chose to stay on shore.

I sat and listened to the waves, to my nephew’s laughter, the sounds of other families, the cries of the seagulls.

Being by the lake, by Lake Erie, is a highly tranquil and peaceful feeling, and I know I’m not the only one to feel that way.

For the fun I had with the other members of my writing group.

We told stories about the crazy things our pets do. We talked about summer and about the weather. We made tea, without the group leader who usually does it. We even managed to find everything, even with the absence of her direction.

It was another one of those days when I dreaded going, as it was the hottest day of the month so far and I was already slow and sluggish from the humidity, but once I was there I was glad I hadn’t chosen to stay at home.

For the short story I came up with at said group this week.

It was a case of already having a setting and basic character outlines picked out. Someone had put both ideas in my head. I came up with the details, the dialogue, and filled in the blanks from there.

I took this week’s mystery object, a knitted and stuffed panda and knitted panda hat to go along with it, and I incorporated both those things into the story.

The basic idea is my first person narrator, who likes to go grocery shopping in the middle of the night, but not for lack of interesting characters to share a store with while doing it.

I think it might be one of the short stories I read out loud on a future podcast episode.

Being in this writing group has really helped me with writing fiction, which is the area I’d most wanted to work on. I get ideas and inspirations from things we talk about and from listening to the creativity of the other members in the group. It’s the best thing I’ve done for my writing in a long long time.

That amongst all the violence that happened this week, like any other around the world, my family were all safe.

I was nearly rendered speechless and definitely feeling heartsick by it all, like the terrorist attacks in Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in the weeks before last.

It just keeps on happening, but I am lucky I don’t need to be in constant fear for my loved ones. I know many aren’t so lucky.

For kissing.

This week, every July 6th, it’s International Kissing Day.

For chocolate and days set aside to celebrate it.

First came kissing. Next comes chocolate.

🙂

This week was also World Chocolate Day.

Enough said. I never need a day to get me to eat chocolate.

For persistence, which I know is a family trait for many in mine.

We hit a last minute snag on releasing the podcast, which I am sure people are growing tired of hearing me talk about, as it should have been up by now.

Well, snag nearly overcome. I attribute my brother’s persistence as being the reason you can expect the first episode of Ketchup On Pancakes to be out by the next TToT. But don’t take my word for it. I wouldn’t blame you if you were growing tired of my word.

😉

I tend to give up on things, especially things involving computers and technology, which is why I am glad my brother keeps working on something, in most cases, until he figures it out.

I know that sort of strong will is a quality a lot of my family members possess, more so than me.

For brilliant Canadian female writing.

Happy Birthday to Alice Munro!!!

She won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature. She is from this province of Ontario. Her home is next to another one of the Great Lakes, Lake Huron. She has had a long career as a short story writer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYXG9rG0Jf0

link The complexity of things – the things within things – just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.

—Alice Munro

TToT: Catch and Release, Push or Pull #10Thankful #WorldOceansDay

Ever have one of those weeks?

ORdinary Day – Great Big Sea

The bad news stories keep going from bad to worse. What can I do about all that?

😦

One day everything just seems to work out and fall into place. The next, all seems to go wrong.

Figuring out new computer stuff, wanting to go back to the old, even if that can’t really be. Wanting to punch something, cry, give up on technology all together because it’s just too damn hard.

Well, it was then that it hit me, at certain moments this last week, few days, I realized I needed this TToT more than ever.

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

For the oceans of this world.

We don’t treat them right. We need them. I need them. They are peaceful, tranquil, or fierce and wild. Either way, their depths astound me. Their vast array of life boggles my mind, fills me with thrills.

June 8th was World Oceans Day.

Did you know? What do you love about the oceans?

For the chance to treat a friend to a birthday lunch.

For a lovely day of sunshine and music in the park.

I could have shared photos of this, after being unable to share any in these posts for a few months now, but the new mail program I have, coupled with the fact that I have saved far too many emails and now feel like I’m drowning in them, this prevents me from even accessing the email just sent to me with pictures of my brother and his friend playing their music in the park.

They were hired by the London Arts Council to play at various events and locations for the summer.
It was a beautiful day of sunshine and no humidity and I sat and enjoyed it. So proud of my brother for getting out there and taking these opportunities that present themselves.

Any time I happen to walk past someone playing music, in a park or on the street, in London or Toronto wherever it may be, I stop and take it all in.

Music is art. It is peace. It is passion. It is truly a gift and our society doesn’t appreciate it nearly enough for what it brings to our lives.

For music.

As I was just saying…as always, but then, I am stressed or tense or whatever, and then I listen.. I relax. I become a little less tense.

And so I post music in my thankful post, to start and also at the finish, instead of the photos I cannot see and cannot get to.

For heroes.

Karl Frederik Arndd.

LArs Peter Jonsson.

I am thankful for people like these, the Swedish P.H.D. students who stepped in and stopped a terrible crime, violation-in-progress, from even further damage done by a coward I won’t even name.

Instead, I list the names of the two decent human beings who deserve to be recognized.

That shows me, even when things seem bleak, that humans aren’t completely irredeemable.

For a transplant tape.

I have so many boxes in my basement. I went looking for a tape and, shock of shock, I found it. I just happened to place my hand on a random cassette tape, sitting free in a box full of so many different bits and pieces of my life.

Well, my brother had lost his copy, the one he made of that day, those days and weeks and months in June, 1997 and bits of those who aren’t here now, of that girl I was.

For lessons and stories.

Next we digitized a treasure of a cassette.

One afternoon my grandpa sat with my brother and he told stories of his childhood, long gone by.

He was a one-of-a-kind storyteller. My brother and I listened, more than ten years on, and we laughed, we contemplated, and I know we both took to heart the values he passed on to us.

I want to transcribe his stories and make them into a short book. I think all the world could stand to read it, to learn some of the lessons a man like my grandfather had to teach.

For a beautiful burst of creativity,.

We will make our podcast, one of these days, but it takes more planning and preparation than I really realized I guess.

But we worked together and came up with what I think is the catchiest, most kick ass intro.

It incorporates sounds of sizzling, flipping of pancakes, along with clips from our childhood, set over top us today.

My brother is a pro with his audio program, which allows him to put musical sounds and audio clips into separate folders, and then put them all together.

I don’t know how he does it, like editing in writing, but with sound.

I guess I produced it with him. I call myself producer of the segment. I gave my thoughts on what sounded good and we created something, together, that I think starts off our upcoming podcast on the perfect note.

For my ever-present, calm mother.

All wasn’t smooth sailing.

😉

When we’d feared damage to some of my brother’s recording equipment, we were both expecting the worst, but then, in comes my calm and steady mom.

I’ve often heard motherhood can be a thankless job, but I think my mother deserves to be celebrated, even if Mother’s Day is only technically once a year.

She calmed us both down and stepped in to fix the problem.

For violin teacher and lesson and instrument.

My teacher works with me. She gives me keen and clear instruction and guidance. She guides my bow, my arm, my technique.

I am learning new things about my violin, my instrument, my bow, my arm/hand, things I need to know to become a better violinist. I hope I can, one day, call myself that for real.

Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes – Paul Simon

A Little Late to the Party: Scrambling and Fumbling, #SoCS #SongLyricSunday

I hear a rumble in the distance. Is it thunder? A storm rolling in?

I stumble and I scramble and I fumble through this life.

I fumble for a foothold. I scramble for cover. I stumble with every other step I take.

I search for a semblance, any semblance of normality. I am embarrassed by all this. I am emblazoned with the residue of these mistakes I repeatedly make.

I tremble in the night. I feel dumb and numb.

I want to feel it and I don’t. I feel like I’ve lost a limb, but I count and they’re still all here.

What is it I’m missing, then?

This has been a mashup of

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, #SoCS

which I actually did start on Saturday, but it’s been one of those crazy weekends.

Lets see if the pingback worked for this. I am told it likely would not.

And with

Song Lyric Sunday

which I think my theme fits and the two prompts this weekend will tie together nicely:

90’s Music (Again with the broken pingbacks.)

Sarah McLachlan IS Canadian music during that decade. This song isn’t from my favourite album, but a few years before, in the early nineties, this beautifully written song was released.

Since “mb” was the prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week, I felt like returning to this classic from my early years. I was just a girl when this song came out, and I could hardly know much about what ecstasy was, but I guess it can mean a lot of things, describe a lot of experiences in life.

I do know there are a lot of words with “mb” in them and that made the song I chose an easy choice.

Then I went with a feeling, one that seems to resinate, and that’s fumbling, stumbling, scrambling. I know these things well. If you’re lucky, you can stumble right into any number of forms of ecstasy, after all the stumbling and fumbling and scrambling are gone.

Song lyrics for Sarah McLachlan’s “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy”

Hope I’ve managed to make some sense, somewhere in there. I did experience feeling ecstatic this weekend, when creativity produced something of such quality, stemming from several hours of hard work. I was so proud and so unbelievably ecstatic.

Fumbling Towards Ecstacy – Sarah McLachlan

Sarah says to not fear love.