The Sunday Wordle
This morning I was stalking reading some of my favorite lovely blogs. My friend Gerry wrote a brilliant flash piece as a response to Brenda Warren's Sunday whirl. I read the word list and looked at the paintings in my bedroom for inspiration. In the group is a oil painting in the school of Turner; a copy of his 1839 The Fighting Temeraire, done by a pupil, L Franks, bought at auction by my British father years and years ago.This is it:
This painting was my inspiration for this little free verse:Words:Stain , Crawl, Shadows, Corona, Nail, Vessels, Brush, Bluff, Willow, Trembled, Stones, MudThe Last VoyageYou and I sit beneath the leaves of the giant willow by the river on a sleepy summer evening. We look out into the distance, past the hills, to the bluff where the last evening corona paints dreams in shapes of yellow and orange and gold on the clouds. All sorts of vessels drift up and down the river in their sleep. We see one ship, a white and gold decaying ghost. The ship is being pulled in complete surrender by a rusty, restless tug. The tug trembles as it struggles with the weight of the knowledge of what its burden is.Our thoughts entwine like tendrils as they spiral down into the watery realm down into the depth of history and the river. Holding hands we follow them and look up from our world of hazy light to see the white ship pass above us. Reaching up we caress her hull. We brush off some snails crawling underneath the timbers seeking her shade. A nail releases and sinks down to the bottom. Our gaze follows the nail as the white ship floats past. There we find the union flag flying over the stones and mud of the riverbed. We look around our new world of floating reflections and shifting shadows leaving the other vessels to float on by in the drowsy evening light, unmindful that we were ever there.Check out the other brilliant pieces; especially my friends Margo Roby, De Jackson, Hannah Gosslin, and Jo Ann Jordan
round here
A quiet sun-shiny Saturday evening and I’ve been writing a list of things I tend to avoid at all cost until the very last possible moment. I tend not to write lists because, actually, they get way out of hand...like this one, but on the short list of things I avoid at all cost until the very last possible moment are:1) The gym2) Letting my mother know anything about:• My work• This website• My finances• My plans• My children’s plans• Anything personal actually3) Car repair4) Mowing the lawn5) Caffeine
Take mowing the lawn for example. I live in this lovely little neighbourhood which looks like something out of The Truman Show and a lawn is...well...expected. I don’t have a problem with lawns, lawns are fine, the only part of the lawn that I don’t really do is the grass part. Here, in the Pacific Northwest, it’s absolutely impossible to have a grassy lawn unless you use all sorts of chemical warfare. I walk past someone’s perfect grassy lawn and cross over to the other side of the road because I’m worried that I’ll breathe in the intense poisons radiating from those perfect 2” green spikes.I do green though.The way I see it, if it’s green and gets mowed, it’s lawn!But the neighbours drop hints of good lawn service people and every week there are companies leaving me pamphlets or knocking on the door to try to get me on their weed and feed schemes.For example, this afternoon’s convo:“Hello Mrs Homeowner, did you know you have weeds in your lawn? Look, there’s creeping buttercup and dandelions and plantain.”“Ms... Yes, actually...and gentian and violets and forget-me-nots. ”“You need to have our services and get rid of those weeds for a maximum of $45 bi-weekly, (plus tax)”“I like the weeds and I go out of my way to plant more; I actually planted those violets right there. But thanks for stopping by.”Problem solved.Not quite. Mom was here and overheard. Actually, mom was here and ran towards the front door first to make sure she had her share of the conversation.End result: problem solved but a bit more stress avoiding mom getting up in my business.This week, before I mowed the lawn, I sat down in it for a while and watched the bees getting drunk on the buttercups in the lawn and I had a little conversation with them and explained that I was very sorry but we are all living in this ‘hood and perhaps they could go visit the rhodos and irises for a while. Then I picked handfuls of buttercups and put them in vases in the house and also on the patio table so the bees could have their flowers for an extra day or two.Mom thought the buttercup vases were absolutely charming and asked for some of the flowers to take home.
Top on my other list, the list of things I need at all cost, (but that’s for a different post), is “PEACE”. Just one quiet day of solitude would be fine. When was the last time? I’m not sure.Made this quiet little video to look at and remind myself that I must find more peace. It’s here for you too: round hereHope you like it. Do you have a list of things you avoid at all cost untill the last possible moment? Tell me.
Lesson learned last week:
Mom ran over a pot hole with her ridiculously expensive and altogether too-much-car-for-a-78-million-yr-old-lady 2012 E 300 Mercedes and took a chunk out of the sidewall of one of the low profile tires. She was very nervous driving it in that condition, so made an appointment at the dealership for repairs. She took it in last Friday, 9am. She was promised a call by lunch to say whether or not she would need a loaner for the weekend. No call by 3pm and mom was worrying about a weekend without a car.I called:Melvin: Hello, This is Melvin, customer service at Mercedes-Benz, Broadway dealership, how can I help you?Me: Hullo Melvin. I’d like to check on the status of my mother’s car; it’s in the repair shop.Melvin: Hold on please, I’ll transfer your call.Angela’s voice mail: Hello, you’ve reached Angela, customer service concierge. I’m away from my desk; please leave a message. Beeeeeep.../clickDialing backMelvin: Hello, this is Melvin, custom...Me: Hi Melvin. You put me thru to Angela’s voice mail; please put me thru to a service representative so I can check on my mother’s car.Melvin: I’m sorry about that, please hold...Yuki’s voice mail: Hello, you’ve reached Yuki, cus/ CLICKDialing backMelvin: Hel...Me: Melvin! Please put me thru to a real person at the service counter, not the concierge’s voice mails.Melvin: Who is servicing your mother’s car please?Me: I don’t know.Melvin: We cannot put you thru if we don’t know who to put you thru to...ma’am.Me: Look up my mother’s name in your computer then and tell me who is servicing her car please. It’s Dr. (mom's name)Melvin: That would be Lino, hold on please.Lino’s voice mail: Hello, you have reached Lino at Mercedes-Benz service. I’m away from my desk, please leave a message. Beeeeeep.../clickMe: Mom, let’s go for a walk.What I learned: Next time buy a Toyota.Oh, and have your people call my people.
Bookshelf poetry...haiku...this post has issues
This week's bookshelf poetry challenge from the imaginative Lynn is to find a haiku.Since you probably already know that I juggle image and word equally. I decided to find something book-spiney-haiku-ish to describe myself. 
The title might be something like:Artist! You call yourself a writer?it reads:The Artist's handbook:U-turn if you want to writeThis book has issues!
Herb salad for lunch straight from my garden.
Finally!Here in Vancouver we have to wait a little bit longer for our veggies.But today there is a yummy herb salad for lunch, all organically grown by me!
I gathered different lettuce leaves, (romaine, red and green curly and butter), herbs are chives (including the blossoms), Provencal thyme, lemon thyme and parsley and some radishes.You can probably see the radishes have been approved by the garden snails. Hey, if they like them, they must be good.Simple oil and balsamic and the best lunch since last year.
Yum.Thank you to my friend Gerry for the "today" photo challenge from Wordpress
What do Sylvia Plath and Steampunk have in common?
Me!This evening I wrote a slash-your-wrists-by free verse to a prompt on Rosemary Mint.My excuse is that the prompt was a wordle from Sylvia Plath...what did you expect? Ok, I’ll not post it here (sensitive souls read here) so if you really want to read it, go here.This evening I linked Media Tala to a Steampunk challenge here. It also made me feel like I want to create more and more Steampunk images! Yay...go Steampunk. Steampunk! Ok, I’ll stop saying it.All of this was Margo's fault with her brilliant Friday Freeforall. I so have to check out more!And I also laughed my head off at some images which came on my Facebook feed. I’ll show you:
I know...what am I like?I laugh at the silliest jokes. Go ahead and tell me one, you’ll see.PS. If you're not on my FB then add me. We can send each other silly jokes.
What comes from listening to a CBC discussion about happiness while painting
Sometimes I feel like finding happiness is hard. As hard as smashing into the granite rocks. I feel like I need to summon a force inside somewhere to find the happiness and that force is equal to the force it took to pile this driftwood up on this beach.
My heart is soft, like fragile spring growth, and it doesn’t take much to crush it.
Sometimes happy thoughts are ephemeral and fleeting. Like each rose blossom. They only last the day and are gone.
Someone I love and admire occasionally reads a post like this and gives me a talking to.“You have such a negative view of yourself. The things you say about your life will become a self-fulfilling prophesy.” He’ll say.Silence.“And what about the good things in your life? Why don’t you focus on them?More silence. And then: “Maybe you’re right.”Podcast on CBC Tapestry. (Warning, do not paint paintings while listening to it.)
So the excuse for eating a huge plate of fish and chips is...
Taking a 5 km walk along the Frazer River to the restaurant and then, walking the 5 km back.Good plan, don’t you think? Especially on a lovely day like today.Really wanted to be out in Kayaks too.
Getting closer. I can see the dock in Steveston.
Everyone out enjoying the river, and, since this is a delta, the river is really calm here. Beyond that island is more river, and more islands, and even some mainland, and more river etc...
What a great day to hang the laundry out. Don’t you just love fresh sun-dried linens?
There’s the fish market pier. Fresh daily under those tarps. You can buy almost any pacific fish you want here.
And lots of ...um...non-fishy ocean thingies. I’ve no idea where these sea urchins came from but I’ve never seen them diving along the Vancouver mainland coast line. I thought they were really beautiful but couldn’t imagine who would buy them.
Here’s my answer! Look at the plastic bag. Stuffed full of sea urchins.
A bit more mooching round the dock and off for that huge plate of fish and chips. (with ketchup and vinegar...pepper, pepper, pepper salt.)
And the best part? Walked it all off!
She said - he said, two degrees of separation
Trying something different. My friend Margo wrote about her friend Joseph and the idea of a "quantum" poem. Think I got the basic idea. Here it is: Sometimes I feel that my life is in not in my hands.I think that I need to sketch a chalk line in my brain.Sometimes a dream is the reality of a life I’ve imagined.The way I imagine I see it is a vision and not the way it is at all.Life and dream are miles wide and can reduce me to tears,settle my head deep in reality and not fly on in dreams.
these are days that must happen
The thing to remember is that there are days like this and these are days that must happen.I’ve been thinking about life going on and paths taken and moments lived until...you know...there aren’t any options and you stay in one place and there you die.Yesterday I had a talk with a friend whose company just went back to their home in South Africa. They will be too old to travel out of South Africa again and they will never leave. The sad thing is that they wanted things to be different.This was a very small part of a very long and lovely conversation but that’s the small part which grabbed hold of my heart. It has me thinking of some relatives who still live in the Czech Republic and would wish to live elsewhere. It has me thinking of all the people who are stuck where they are without hope of immigration...without hope of a better life. I feel their resignation. And it’s sad.The logical part of my brain(the one I have a habit of arguing with) tells me it’s ok...that’s the way it goes...and anyway people are born in one place, it makes sense that they will die someplace too and their death will be marked in history like their birth was.It’s really hard to listen to logic sometimes.Because then, then I find myself standing in the wrong line and look longingly at the line I judge as the right line and berate myself for making the wrong judgement call. And I judge that that’s such a silly thing to be doing. And my heart begins to close up like a nautical telescope. I’d rather leave my heart open and feel this sadness and live thru this day.Isn’t it overwhelming sometimes? This living, this trying to live a full life. The duck-downy pinkness of my heart is full of a terrible sadness, an empathy and a mourning for those people, for all people (who I don’t even know), for their stuck-ness, for the end of dreams...the ending of dreams...certain dreams.I don’t want the certainty of ending up in someplace. Maybe that why I’m so unsettled, so hard to pin down. I look at the butterflies pinned to boards and framed behind glass hanging on the walls in my house. I want to breathe life into them and set them free in a green and perfect land.What I really wanted to say to you, what I keep repeating to myself today, is that it’s alright to feel like this...to have days like this and that days like this must happen.There is such a longing for calm in my heart. I wish I could hold onto that calm and know that it would be somehow lasting.