TToT: Narrative of a Floating Life – Jellyfish Armageddon, #10Thankful

When you’ve got nothing left, you’ve got nothing left to lose.”

Sweet Jane – Garrett Kato

This week I was reminded just how much I have to lose. That means I haven’t even come close to having nothing left.

Not everyone can say that. We here in Ontario, Canada, we experienced our own little incident with radicalism recently. He was attending a mosque just down the street from where my brother lives. They tried to help him, but unfortunately he was a very angry and disillusioned young man.

We are not immune here, in Ontario, in Canada, in North America, but that doesn’t suggest we should then turn toward hate all our own.

In a week where privileged young star athletes act poorly in Rio, when another image of war torn Syria features a small child, and where more attention is given to that athlete than to floods and fires and the suffering of children to begin with,

I search out blessings and I remember to look for the bright side of life.

That I got back to it, art I mean.

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

I’m glad I got back to it and hope to do more of it.

That a friend saw my picture on Facebook and offered her knowledge from her art school days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa

So unbelievably cool. That’s what I love about art, what I want to put into it, even if it comes out looking nothing like how I’d imagined it would.

For an empty theater to watch a sweet movie with the perfect person for the occasion.

Review found here. – Bad Moms

Touchy subject sometimes.

In spite of that, I liked this film. I hope the mother I saw this with enjoyed it as much. Motherhood, toughest job around.

For a small step in the progress of my lessons and for my violin teacher taking the time to record herself playing the two basic songs I am learning technique on.

I thought the other day about how learning the violin, for me, feels meant to be. It feels natural, or oh so close to.

It’s as if I am walking in a forest and I’ve come to a stream just a bit too wide for me to jump across. I can see the opposite side and I just need to find a bridge or even some stones to get me to the opposite bank.

The other side, where violin music comes to me, flows through me, naturally, that’s in view.

For fresh food grown in my back yard.

Of course, without the work of a couple cousins who do this sort of thing for a living, a dedicated ex boyfriend, or the gifted hand of my mother and her knowledge about all things gardening, I wouldn’t have had any of it.

It’s a nice feeling to hold a fresh cucumber in your hands and bite into it, knowing it only came from your own yard. Something rooted in the natural world so close and yet so far from myself. I owe others who care to make nature such a part of things so that I can enjoy it.

For the extra effort some are putting into me and my future.

I often feel like an extra weight or burden for others, including family, friends, and any other relationship. I guess having most kinds of relationships with me can demand certain things of people.

I hope I give back, as much as possible, in my own unique ways. I hope I bring something to each situation as it comes. I pledge to do that once more, for all who took the time out this week to help me not to give up on my future growth and progress.

This is my promise.

That I got to speak with an amazing Canadian travel writer.

Breathe Dream Go

For me though, it would likely be more like: dream, breathe, and then go. Take the deep breath and dive in. My dreams are waiting for me, out there somewhere.

We had a brief but helpful phone conversation where we spoke about solo travel as a woman and finding the confidence necessary to become comfortable traveling alone.

Our situations are quite different, but she has experience and knowledge and I was grateful she took a few moments out of her day to return my call and speak to me for a short time.

For another full moon.

I understand the science behind the moon, its phases, and the pull of the tides of our oceans. I think it’s rather magnificent.

I also understand how some feel those forces mess with their mood. I can see that.

For me however, a full moon is my best shot of actually seeing it up in the night sky. When it’s at its brightest and roundest I have a better chance at spotting it and I cherish that opportunity.

But yet, when I can’t find it in all that darkness I still know it’s out there somewhere. That’s my best lesson in faith, whatever your beliefs or religion might be.

For medical and surgical advancement and the ability of doctors to perform gall bladder surgery.

My mother had it done and so did my sister. It causes a lot of women especially a lot of trouble.

Now it is needed again and I am glad those in need this time around can receive the surgery and hopefully recover from here on out. Modern medicine in this part of the world saves lives and halts so much pain and suffering. We are lucky and blessed to have it so readily available to us around here.

That we here in Canada could come together for one night.

The World Can Learn a Thing or Two From Canada – The Planet D

I admit that The Tragically Hip aren’t my favourite band. I am, by no means, their biggest fan. Still, it was a strange feeling of oneness last night. The Rio Olympics were preempted and the CBC instead broadcast this final concert by a Canadian iconic musical group and their singer who may not have very long left to live.

What would it be like, what would any of us say or do if we knew we had so little likely time left to live?

Hmm. I wonder.

This month,

#1000Speak

focuses on

thankfuls

and

blessings,

with this final thought and the related song to go along with it.

Living On The Bright Side – Angela Saini

When a bulb burns out I see
Even in the dark, it feels sunny to me
Skipping in the shadows, every corner holds beauty
There is always light if you look closely

http://angelasaini.com/track/1039590/living-on-the-bright-side?feature_id=286532

TToT: Morning Doves and Purple April Rain, #10Thankful

Love looks not with they eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

–William Shakespeare

My laptop is incredibly slow, but still allowing me to get this done.

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

For the first sound I heard the other morning, as I awoke.

The cooing of the morning dove.

I love that sound and it was fitting, for what was to come, along with the April rain.

For different viewpoints, from a friend.

We had a nice early morning talk, when we both couldn’t sleep.

She knows me as only one of a few blind friends. She thought a site called “The Blind Writer” would get me read. She was only trying to help.

Not my thing. Had to follow my heart, but the site could turn into something, even if I don’t take on the name myself. There are lots of writers who don’t know what they are doing. That word “blind” can mean many things.

For a lot of interesting writing discussion.

The group at the library was a few short, but we still managed to have some excellent Writer’s Circle talk, even though our table was more of a square.

😉

Also, I asked them a question, to get their opinions, as I am starting to trust them.

I asked about what they think of me as “The Blind Writer.” They answered same as me. Just confirmed my thoughts already.

They are writers too. They love writing too. They know me as Kerry now and understand I want my writing to stand on its own.

For another successful violin lesson.

I drift a lot, when I lose concentration or a bit of the strength I’m building in my arm, but when I am in that little room I block out all the rest of life’s stressors.

For 80s music.

With the death of Prince, I am reminded why I love the music of that decade so much.

It is nostalgia and a flashback to my childhood, from the earliest days, as I wasn’t even born until halfway through those ten years, but my family was all younger then.

Seems now like a simpler time, even if that is simply an illusion.

For the newest Michael Moore film.

Some would say pure propaganda, but he makes excellent points, makes you laugh, and moves you throughout.

For our earth, and my favourite oceans, on this Earth Day.

For my brother’s completion of the year of his current college semester, for the most part.

When it began, back in January, he’d just had his accident. we weren’t sure what would happen, but he is almost done and has some big plans.

For William Shakespeare.

All this time, 400 years on, his work still resonates. Even if I don’t know it all. Something lasting the test of time must have something special to offer us all.

For literary children’s programs.
With it being 400 years since William Shakespeare, language is a valuable lesson, even language a child is too young to comprehend.

My nephew is three, already so curious, and on his way with the alphabet.

The word was “flustered” and my nephew was repeating it, even if he didn’t know it had meaning.

“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”

–Kate Chopin, “The Awakening”, 1899