Tag Archives: hope

F IS FOR FED UP

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Do you get fed up sometimes? Today I feel at the maximum fed up level. February is l-o-n-g. I had set out at the start with such heart felt hope. This was suppose to be my feel good month. Not that anything is wrong or that I’ve been plagued with a truckload of disasters. None of that. I just feel such malaise even though the sky is blue and the sun is shining. I need another cup of decaf.

Perhaps it is because of my recent sinusitis of the past week and a half. Not that it was such a struggle. It was a tad tougher than my usual state for I am forever complaining a lack of energy, of joie de vivre. I’m fed up with being a wet blanket, a party pooper and being my worse enemy. It’s good to let it all out. This is my space, my confessional. It is where I come to cleanse my mind and soul.

It doesn’t help that my sleep is disturbed lately. I had nightmares a couple of nights back. I screamed and screamed in my sleep. I thought it was only in my dreams. I was stuck in an elevator with unsavory man. I was scared to death. In my dream, I had trouble getting my screams out. It wasn’t so in real life. I woke the guy and Sheba as well. Then last night, I had trouble getting to sleep. I got up and read awhile. Luckily that helped. I slept and dreamt as well. Lucky it was not a nightmare. I dreamt about little cupcakes. The cost was $15 for 15. I guess the cost is nightmarish. I wonder if it was those little unsavory Italian meatballs that triggered the dream.

It really helps to tap out my feelings, whatever they are. I was seeing the world through bleak eyes. I couldn’t see the point of anything. The world is gone to hell in a hand basket:

  • The war in Syria. Seeing the dead babies on the evening news.
  • The school shooting in Florida. Hearing a politician saying the teachers need to have guns when the students were crying for gun control

These are the two weighing heavily on top of all the others right now. What can be done to make the world and humans better? Being fed up is not the answer I know. Now the question is how do I get out of it? I bet Oprah would say, Live your best life. A good answer, I’m sure but it won’t do for me. It’s too generalized, too neat. I have to chip, tap and hack my way out bit by bit.

I’m a fan of Sue Grafton. You’ve probably deduced it by the title of this blog. Her detective series is just what I need on my not so buoyant days. Janet  Evanovich is in the same genre. I’m glad it’s women that help me get through the tough days. Their energy, humour and narrative story telling take me away from the moody blues into adventure and laughs. I have to love that.

So another day comes to an end. I’ve limped through it but I’m still standing. I’ve gotten up, dressed up and shown up. I had to work a little harder at it. It was my Olympic effort, not a Gold Medal but nothing wrong with a Bronze. My mantra was I can do this. I can do this. So it went. Now I have a few more trays seeded – 3 kinds of tomatoes and geraniums. The petunias and chili peppers have germinated. Things do look hopeful. The effort is worth it.

When I have a Sheba, I have to make an effort. She wears my moods so I had to show her that I was okay. Nothing to worry about. She is safe and cared for. She is her confident and happy self again.

 

 

KILLING ME SOFTLY

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An autumny sunny/cloudy day. I’m mostly in the clouds, feeling the pains of life. The words of Killing Me Softly play in my head. The world is a harsh place and humans can be a cruel species. I have to turn off the news. The Rohingya refugees crisis is cutting me to the quick. That a tweeting Donald Trump can be the President of the most powerful country in the world is overwhelmingly depressing. Why is it that I care anyways?

I guess the answer lies in that we are all connected. What is in one is in the whole. Throw a pebble in the water and the ripples will reach the other side of the universe. It’s like a contagion, a disease infecting all. I feel the anger of helplessness and hopelessness watching all this unfold on the national news. Would it stem the tide if I don’t watch? No, so I might as well suck it up and do whatever I can to contribute to the good of me, you and us.

It’s not much but I can sit here and tap out a few words, clear my thoughts, settle in the quiet, find peace and solace. I tap to stay alive, to find hope, ideas. I come here not to give in to the despair of not being able to scale the Wall. I don’t have to get to the other side. I can just be here in the now.

STILL SOMETHING

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Well, hello there.  It is Thursday and I have a story for Friday Fictioneers. We gather each week to tell stories of 100 words or so according to a photo prompt. We are hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields of Addicted to Purple.  Anyone can join in if so inclined.  Here’s my 100 words.

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PHOTO PROMPT © Marie Gail Stratford

It was a long ways down.  Her hair fluttered across her face. The moving traffic below made her dizzy.  She pulled back from the edge, stumbling.  Her heart caught in her throat and she had to bend over to catch her breath.

Tears streamed down her face.  She was not good for anything.  No brains.  No looks.  No money.  No courage.  How was she going to face everyone, anyone? She was such a failure.  Now what?

She stood and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.  An anger rose in her.  She had, still has something after all.  Her stubbornness.

WORDS, WONDER AND AWE

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IMG_2871It’s another hot day.  For now I can still sit here on the deck.  I am trying to tap out a few letters, words, a thought or two.  They do not come easy, but I try anyways.  That is how it is.  Life is hard.  I have never expected it to be anything else.  So you put one foot in front of the other and take a step.  You do that over and over.  You end up with a journey that is your life. I am doing likewise with my writing – one tap, another tap, and so on.

Meanwhile inside the house, my Roomba is whirling around the dining room and the kitchen, cleaning the floor – making life a little easier for me.  I accept help wherever I can.  It is called wisdom.  It’s taken me IMG_0515this long for me to accept that I do not have to do everything myself.  I am not Wonder Woman but a woman in wonder awe – of what life, the world and I can be.  There is magic and wonder in the trying, the struggle of each step and tap.  The tap of the keyboard is grounding.  I see with more clarity with each letter, word and thought that come.  I am doing an archeologic dig of that it means to be alive.

The heat is rising.  Our forests are still burning.  It is difficult to believe that everything is as it should be.  It is hard to be at ease and not to be with fears when so much is wrong in the world.  But it is what is before me today.  I accept what is.  I cannot change it.  Instead, I focus on what makes me feel good – the open spaces, the roses along the roads, campfires, the dog and the man.  I can choose where my mind goes.

The sun has disappeared.  The sky is grey.  The world feels eery and ominous but it is cooler.  Rain would be very welcomed but the air feels dry and empty. The forecast is for a dry, dry summer.  The forest fires will burn till winter.  The hope is for them to be controlled.  Hope is where I choose to reside.  It is where everything is possible.

I inhale and exhale, releasing stress and taking in chi.  I take comfort from Sheba at my feet and the petunias nodding in the breeze.

 

 

 

WRITING, PERSISTENCE AND THE GRIND OF EVERY DAY

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Another day begins, cloudy and overcast, but it is 4 degrees C.  Be grateful, be happy and count your blessings.  I am!  I am and I will!

Spring is around the corner.  The snow is melting.  The slush and puddles are less and less. My amaryllis  is showing its lush red promise.  Sheba is over her anxiety funk.  She can eat and piddle without someone standing guard.  She sleeps in her usual limp and boneless mode.  She is her bright-eyed, bushy-tailed self again.  How wonderful it is!  I can let go of my fears, too.  There’s no boogeymen, witches, spells or hexes.  We will go boldly forward. March!

IMG_2018Some days are harder than others but you just suck it up, get up, dress up and show up regardless.  Some days are real grinds.  You put one foot in front of the other and shuffle forward if that is all you can do. Sometimes I am surprised by how far I have travelled with my heavy footed shuffle.  I’m reminded of my mother’s words again.  Don’t put hard in your vocabulary.  Be patient.  A drop at a time may be slow and small but they will eventually fill a bucket.

My bucket is not full yet.  But it has results – enough to spur me onward.  On days when the drudgery is heavy on my shoulders, I look at those drops, those little igniters of hope.  I take one step, then another.  I put a letter, then a word onto my blank page.  And so it goes.

When I least expect it, I feel a shift within me – fear leaving my body.  I am relaxed and gliding through the waters.  I am moving forward in life.  And I go ahhh!  So this is how it is.  I am grateful and buoyed by the moment.  I store the memory drop in my bucket for prosperity.

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POSSIBILITIES

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I love the word possibilities.  It’s the hope that opens my heart’s door to let in laughter, love and forgiveness.  It holds a promise that a leaf is forthcoming and a bud will bloom. Possibilities push back discouragement, frustration and a downtrodden spirit.  They teach me patience – to hang in there.  Rome was not built in a day.  The road to Anywhere is not an easy one.

Presto! happens only in magic, an optical illusion like time-lapsed photography.  We cannot make results happen like that.  The presto and voila come  much slower.  Life doesn’t happen just pushing ENTER or DELETE. Dang, hey?  Anything worthwhile takes effort and time.  It’s the daily grind.  It always take longer than you figure and like.  But what is the hurry?  Is your life full of emergencies you have to tend to?

Be patient, my dear.  Stay calm and enjoy the moments as they come.  Everything has its time.  The leaves will emerge, the bud will burst into magnificent blooms.  You will be awed by the richness and beauty of what life can offer.  Take time to live each day to the fullest and believe in possibilities.  Be grateful to the Universe.

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BEGINNING & ENDING WITH CERTAINTY

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For Reverb14 – Day 21

IMG_1908What can I say with certainty today?  It is the shortest day with the longest night of the year.  It is winter solstice.

That was yesterday.  This morning we are still in complete darkness.  I was insistently nudged out of bed by Sheba’s wet nose.  Just as well.  I was wool weed gathering in bed, not sleeping nor tending my garden anyways.  I was having a little bit of the moody blues and the simmering of a low grade depression.

That was what I thought – until I read Anne Lamott’s post.  Then I realized I was just crazy and normal like everyone else at this time of year.  No need to talk to the therapist about it. I read another post and it gave me a little hope that there is good in the world.  I’ve been thinking about Christmas and gifting.  How can I not?  I’m not caught up with the masses and yet I am – in finding the perfect meaningful gift.  I’ve found it in the last paragraph of Anne’s post.

“Emily Dickinson said that hope causes the Good to reveal itself. So bring it on. When I bring people hope–cups of tea, poetry and art supplies–then I’m holding hope in my hands, but I can only receive it by giving it away, to you, and to me; to us. Here, have some; it’s on me. Just don’t give up before you get the miracle.”

What I know for sure today, as in all days, is that I always have hope.  I remember saying in therapy a long time ago that I am never without hope according to the questionnaire I had to fill.  I was wondering why I was there.  Did I wandered into the wrong place?

IMG_5023I am finding myself in the same place again.  What I know for sure is, it is good to have hope.  And it is good to have help, a little guidance, small nudges in the right direction when I have wandered off the path.  I am gifting myself for the coming year.  I’m preparing myself so that I will be opened to receive more of life.  I want to feel more joy and less anger.  I want more clarity to the yes(s) and no(s) I will be uttering.  I want to be saying in December 2015, It was a very good year.  I did the best I could.

ABANDONMENT

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It is morning, another day.  I have rounded that corner.  Hope has come with the morning light and sun beams. I bask once more in its warmth coming through the windows.  Sheba will have to wait a little for her walk.

These weeks have felt like an eternity.  Yet it is still November.  There is still time.  Time to write those stories, time to chronicle my time on this earth.  I can start where I have left off.  I can start with this very moment.  There is no better time than this.  I am not behind. I am not crazy.  I am not perfect but I am not deficient.

*****

I could not resist the pull of nature after all.  The sunshine and the great outdoors drew me out.  I abandoned my words and took off to the park with my furry baby.  I was too serious and melancholy still.  I got sick listening to myself, to my words.  There was a falseness to them.  They did not ring true.  I left them in mid air, unfinished, incomplete.

It is not a bad thing.  There is a time and a season for everything under heaven.  Or so the song goes.  I do believe that if I could cuss up a blue streak, like in days of yore, it would give me great relief.  But I am bereft of anger.  Therefore I have no energy to bring forth the *#!.  I can only tap out a few symbols.  It is a sad state of affairs, I know.  The volcano has died.  The tiger lady has lost her growl.  I am still striving to do my best, of course.  The tiger is alive and lurking underneath it all.

My best today was the dog park with Sheba, followed by a nap and watching two movies in the afternoon.  There is nothing wrong with pausing awhile.  After all, today is Sunday, a day of rest.  Did you rest?

 

QUE SERA, SERA

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IMG_6748The rains did come in the night after all and continued through the morning.  There was nothing to do but to live and enjoy the goodness it brings – beauty for the eyes,   captured and saved by the camera.

We were content, in acceptance this morning.  Well, I was my lassitude self for a little while, reluctant to get up as usual – no joie de vivre in my soul.  I only felt a darkness, like a brick wall – nowhere to go.  It was that staleness of jungle mouth and unbrushed teeth.

IMG_6736What do you do then, but to get up and rinse that staleness away.  You do it with movement and feigned good cheer.  It works some how and you breathe a little easier.  The wall is not so dense .  You can almost see around it, if not through it.  And there on the other side is Sheba – waiting so prettily for me in the morning light, looking pleased and at ease with herself.  That is how I should be.

A Doris Day song played in my head.  I heard the words this morning and I paid attention.

“Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future’s not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be”

Que sera, sera.  The future is not ours to see.  The brick wall is a friend, after all.  We are not meant to live in the future but to be here and now.  No point in second guessing ourselves of what could have been and would have been – if only we….. Though I liken myself to Wonder Woman, I am not Super Woman.  I have no x-ray eyes.  I cannot see into the future.  I cannot change the past.

Good things happen.  Bad things happen.  Accidents happen.  I feel good.  I feel bad.  It is the kaleidoscope of life.  There are no free rides.  There is fire.  There is rain. James Taylor says it well.

“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.”

IMG_5289There is hope – like a rainbow after the rain.  Hold on to it.  Chase it.  Run after it.  Don’t lose it.  Treasure life.

HOPING FOR CHANGE

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I drank too much wine last night.  The intentions I set prior all went out the window and you could say that I have failed.  On top of that, I fell asleep early and woke up at 1:30 and could not get back to sleep till dawn.  But by 7, Sheba’s insistent snout in my face got me up again.  It was her breakfast time and there was no denying her.

I’m feeling a little out of sorts, not quite myself, seeing the world with slanted eyes, telling myself stories that are not quite true.  But I am not punishing myself any further.  I am going to tell myself a different set of stories , filling myself with kindness and comforting myself with a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast.  I do deserve it.

So I am making progress, one step at a time.  I have hoped and pined for changes in the past.  But I have failed over and over to realize those dreams, not recognizing till now that success is in me.  I have to be the change I want to see, as Mahatma Gandhi  wisely said.  Change is a lonely street, for no one can do it for you.  And people might not like you for it.

I am taking a deep breath.  And I tell myself another story.