Tag Archives: life

Bliss and Inspirations

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October 2 and the second day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’ve never had a plan of how I tackle this challenge. I just sit down at the keyboard and hope my fingers will find the words. I found that there is a rhythm when I get going. It soothes and smooths me. It stirs a physical pleasure in me. I love seeing how the letters and words march across the screen. It is a meditative process, an exhalation of my soul. I sigh with my fingers as well as my breath. And life is beautiful again in the moment.

Finding bliss is a good reason to keep writing. Meeting and connecting with like minded people is a good reason for participating in these writing challenges. It helps to keep the juices flowing. It’s good to have a cheering section. Excitement at the start wanes after a few days. Writer’s block sets in pretty fast. Then it is hard work to carry me through to the next bliss. I look for inspiration everywhere.

Inspiration is all around. Sometimes I have to be wakened to see it. The other day I found it in the story of the Grand Hotel in Shaunavon. I’ve been following the journey of its restoration on Facebook for awhile and had forgotten about it till the other day. It’s been sitting vacant for over 40 years till Kent Karenmaker bought it. The project was to help his mental health and to find purpose. I find that pretty inspiring since he suffers from depresseion and was working on it by himself. It is a grand hotel with a grand history. It holds a fascination for me because the original owners were Chinese. Two members of the family were murdered in front of the hotel in 1940. It’s a story forgotten but not lost.

A New Month, A New Challenge

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October 1. Another new day, another new month. Today is the first day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It’s a month of writing a blog post a day and posting it on the Challenge page, reading 2 others or more and commenting on their posts. It’s an opportunity to meet and interact with other bloggers and supporting each other. I see many new as well as familiar names.

My main goals for this challenge is to show up each day and to enjoy and learn from the process. I do not have a business to promote. I have no products or service to sell. An online friend, Tom Fisher, introduced me to the world of blogging many years ago. I started on Blogger in 2005 and switched to WordPress in 2012. I’ve been blogging on and off since. I love how photographs and words come together. One can say a photo is worth a thousand words. In the same way a word can tigger a kaleidoscope of pictures.

I hope my keyboard will be magical this month and help me get through the challlenge with flying colours. It’s easy to get stuck. A month can be a long time. I am wishing myself and fellow challengers luck. May we see each other at the finish line.

Acedia and Me

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A sunny morning for the 30th of September. So many things to do and yet I am stuck, not knowing how to start. I couldn’t very well take a run at it, not knowing what and how. Worse of all I don’t feel like it. I’m feeling what the Greeks call acedia, the inability to care. It’s no stranger to me but it’s the first time I’ve encounter the word that describes it so well. I have to give much thanks for Kathleen Norris and her book Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life.

I do feel a wee better now that I’ve spoken out. I’ve broken the ice and can take a run at things. It’s the last day of September. It’s a agood bye to the old and hello to October tomorrow. It will be a start for another month of the Ultimate Blog Challlenge. I’m limbering up my fingers and shaking awake my brain. I tend to be a mental as well as a spiritual sloth. How can I motivate myself to wake, care and feel passion for all that is in the here and now? Perhaps that will be my theme to explore for the next month.

Starting and Staying

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At long last, I’ve made a start at digging myself out from under the many layers of clutter and dust. I can breathe a little better and see a little clearer. I wish I could rid the fruit flies that are buzzing around the kitchen. I’ve taken steps to eliminate them by setting up apple cider vinegar traps. There’s no ripe fruit or tomatoes on the counters. The counters are fairly clean. Still they persist. I wish I was as tenacious as the fruit flies at cleaning and clearing my spaces. I have not been but am working on exercising that particular muscle. Today is another first day of the rest of my life. I am good with words. Let’s see if I am good at my words.

It’s a beautiful sunny but cool Sunday. It’s warming up nicely. It’s a good day to work on things inside and out. I have trays of ceyenne peppers drying in the dehydrator. I’m sipping on tea made from last year’s dried stinging nettle. It’s not exactly delicious but I am detoxing from my caffeine and sugar addiction while making use of stinging nettle leaves I’ve gathered and dried. I’m making a strong start. Let’s see if I have staying power.

I’m good with starting and working small. I am not a super or wonder woman. I’m more of a tortoise than a hare but I can still get there wherever there is. Right now my there is not far. It is within reach. I am not reaching for fame or money. I’m reaching for the ability to feel just a little joie de vivre, to have a sense of meaning of life in this time we are in. I guess it is asking for alot. But if I don’t ask, how will I get it?

Old Habits Die Hard

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A cool, breezy but sunny September morning but it is warming up nicely. I am, too. My body is reluctant getting out of bed in the dark. It wasn’t till after 7 till I could face the day. Now it is an hour before noon. I have a pot of sour cherry syrup in the making on the stove. It’s one thing to have all the wonderful harvest of food. It’s another to make use of them. I still have last year’s haskaps, strawberries and raspberries gathering frost in the freezer. I still have last year’s apple and grape juice in the cooler. Thank goodness no apples and few grapes to juice this year.

I am a gatherer of everything but not much of a user of anything. I seem to run out of energy doing the first and nothing left to do the second. I hope to work to correct this aspect of myself this year. I ran out of energy after the first paragraph yesterday. It is hard to break out of myself. Perhaps I need to reread Joe Dispenza’s Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. Old habits die hard but I will persevere.

Today is cool, windy, grey and drizzling. Autumn is definitely in the air. However, the forecast continues to be favourable for the next week. I will leave the garden for awhile yet. No need to hurry with the clean up. Meanwhile, I am enjoying this cool windy day. It feels delicious to sip my tea and tap away on my keyboard. I’m defrosting a jar of soup for lunch in the microwave. I am making use of what I have. And I have returned to finish this post I started yesterday.

Stepping it up

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When I think about it, life is very hard. It always has been. Once you get off the treadmill, it’s hard to get back on. It’s hard but you just got to, somehow. What I’ve been trying lately is taking a run at it, at least once a day. Then I can say I haven’t given up. I’m still trying. What I’ve noticed is that the second time, the run is not quite as hard. My feet are lighter though not yet fleet. What I hope for next is endurance, a longer run and less whining. Everyone knows life is hard. I better can it. It’s getting tiresome.

So what I have to do it is remember my motto from Regina Brett’s God Never Blinks, “No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up“. The important thing is showing up. Whether I feel like it or not does not matter. Nobody else has to know how I feel. Sometimes it is better to keep that to myself and put on a cheerful face and put my best foot forward. The rest will follow. It is a surprise but this I know from past experience. This keeps me on stepping it up every day. Some days are better than others. I’m ok with that.

Reminiscing

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A beautiful cool sunny September morning. I am a little more peppy though I’m not ready to do the jig yet. I’ve taken my vitamins and made a tour of the garden and greenhouse. I’ve turned on the dehydrator on the deck. There’s 8 trays of Roma tomatoes drying, sending off their aroma into the air. The day has started and I am ready for it.

It’s 11 months since I’ve witnessed my mother taking her last breath. I’ve wondered and dreaded the moment since she was diagnosed with her heart condition in September 2001. It was a time hard to forget. She had her first CT scan on September 11, the day of the 911 attacks. I woke up listening to the news on the radio. I thought of our relatives in New York. Then we watched the news unfold in the waiting room at St. Paul Hospital.

Now it is 24 years later. I’m sitting here, sipping my tea and tapping on my keyboard. My mother is not here. She’s had a good 23 years without surgical intervention. There were ups and downs but she had done well till age caught up with her. 93 is a good age. She was alert and independent right till the last moment.We couldn’t ask for more, could we?

Though I am no stranger to death, it was traumatic. She was my mother. I was joined to her umbilically in her womb for all those months. Then we had all the years after. She was like the pebble in the sea, sending out waves near and far. And now there are no more waves. The world has changed for me without those waves. It reminds me of how powerful each of us can be and how the world changes when we depart.

Different Shades

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A sunny September morning. I’m dragging my ass around. I wonder when and if this malaise will leave me. Until things or I change, I will keep on dragging, one foot in front of the other. I wonder how many fellow draggers are out there. Surely I can’t be the only one. I’m not full of cheer but I am not filled with gloom either. Can I be just neutral or are there different shades? I’ve never been bubbly or gregarious but neither am I silent and reclusive. Sometimes I talk too much. I feel somewhat defective and lacking.

I find the world and life very heavy and challenging. I am grateful that I don’t have to go out there having to work at a ‘job’ to earn a living. I guess I’ve done my time and paid my dues. But there’s no sitting back, relaxing and enjoying it all. Now comes the hard stuff, the stuff I’ve swept under the carpet to be delt with later, the later which is now. It is true that you can run but you can’t hide. Things never go away. They catch up with you.

I find everything hard because I let them be. They are hard because I don’t deal with them in a timely fashion. I spend too much time to look for reasons and explanations of the whys of everything. Sometimes there are no rhyme or reason. If only I can just get on with things. So many if onlys. I need to stop thinking and saying that, too. Just decide. Just move. Just do it.

September Days

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The sun rises later each morning as do I. I cocoon deeper into the warmth of the quilt and darkness though I do know it is morning. I have to coax my limbs to move, to swing myself out of bed and into life. It is a very cloudy and misty morning. The colours of autumn light up the world. The world is a bit dark now. I have to focus on the light that surrounds me. I won’t let the darkness rule me.

I do not wonder about the darkness that is in our world today. How could it be otherwise? I have the right words but sometimes I cannot live up to them. I’ve been struggling for days to come out of the mist of my mind. I have not succeeded. Every morning I say to myself later. Every evening, I say tomorrow. So here I am, still mired in the cobwebs of my mind. I am still working my way through the passing of my mother. It will be a year in a month. Then there’s the tending of my aged father. He is also working through his way without my mother.

September comes with many losses. Long days with sunshine are replaced with longer darkness. The leaves are turning gold and orange and falling to the ground. The heat of summer are cooling. A dear friend have left this earth. I am sad with all these changes. I am sad but I am ok. I am sad and yet I am fascinated with my new world. There’s so much yet to see and to learn.

Some Days

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I hate the responsibility part of being an adult. Though I live by number 46 of Regina Brett’s 50 Life Lessons of No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up, I hate it, too. Some days I rather not get up, dress up or show up. Some days I would like to hibernate in a log like a bear and wait until it is over. Have you had those days?

Some days being an adult feels like such a heavy burden. I can manage getting up, dressing up and even brushing my teeth. Showing up is the difficult part. But being the adult, the top rung of the ladder, I feel the heavy load. There’s no option of not showing up, taking responsibility, making decisions and such.

It’s been a few days since I’ve started this conversation. Some days conversations are difficult to sustain. It is damn hard to pick it up again but I am trying. It is a rainy September morning. The leaves are starting to turn colour. Autumn is on its way. The garden is still thriving. My greenhouse is finally lush with growth and harvest. I have much to do but there’s no rush. Everything will and can keep. There is a time and season for everything.