Resilience

When I woke up this morning it was still snowing and the wind still blowing. It is still. The snow is piled up against the greenhouse door again. The two pails of snow I took in yesterday did not amount to much when melted. All is cosy inside, the roof being insulated with the cover of snow. The little heater is running. The temperature barely 6℃. Being no sun yesterday there was no residual heat built up to help the heater. As long as it’s above 0 that is good enough.

While not feeling stressed, I am not exactly ecstatic or joyful. I wonder how the plants are feeling in these times of climatic change. I will pay close attention. They might teach me the art of resilience by how they grow and perform. It will give me a sense of purpose in observing and helping them to thrive. We are all connected. We need plants as much as we need other people to survive. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

I’m deciding what to do with my #100dayproject – of a daily painting for 100 days. I’ve done up to day 58. I’m tired and not so enthused any more. I feel I’m regressing, my colours muddy. Perhaps it’s fatigue talking. I can paint simpler things. I can also take longer. I can also quit if it doesn’t bring me joy. That’s what Marie Kondo would say.

I am still surviving the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’m learning changing the time I come to the keyboard makes a difference.

MY WORD(S)

Photo by Timothy Paule II on Pexels.com

Happy New Year’s Eve. It’s another beautiful sunny afternoon – not at all our typical December 31. It looks like October or early November. Still no snow. I think there are no more typical anything or back to the normal. We have to embrace change and learn to speak and do different. We have to stop clinging to the past and old cliches. We have to be brilliant so we can be resilient.

You know it. Those are my words for the new coming year. Resilience was my first choice. But when I saw the be brilliant sign, it grabbed me, too. I like to shine once in awhile. I don’t like being dark and gloomy all the time. What better time to shine than at the brink of the new year? I have to put up signs to remind me to glow instead of glower which is my nature. I have my work cut up for me living my words.

Do you have a word and if you do, what is it?

LIGHT AND SHADOWS

IMG_2965Saturday, the sun comes and goes – light and shadows all day long.  This is how life is.  I elate with the sun.  I shiver with the darkness.  This is how I am.  I write to dispel the darkness and usher in the light. We need the light to see our shadows.  We need to acknowledge our dark side to know ourselves.  Otherwise, we have no dimensions.

IMG_2919Saturday is a good day to bake bread – to see the dough rising, spilling over the edge not quite like the sunrise spilling its light over the earth.  It delights me nonetheless. I love sinking my hands into the doughy mass, feeling its softness and springiness. This is how I would like to be – soft and resilient.  Though I may stumble and fall in the dark, I can rise again to meet another day.

 

SO MUCH FEAR

IMG_2358Yesterday I found Sheba with her hind quarters vibrating in the sun room.  I thought we were done with all that.  But apparently NOT.  Nothing to do but hug her and give her a treat.  She’s just had a checkup a couple of weeks ago and passed all the tests – heart, lungs  and bloodwork. Her cholesterol was a bit high but then it wasn’t done on fasting blood.  She’s a few pounds overweight, but who isn’t? 

Happily this time it was was just a small episode.  There was no running away, crying in fright.  She settled and ate her supper without coaxing or me having to stand on guard by her.  Progress in slow motion.  Two steps forward and only one step back.  We soldiered on – life in small increments.

jumpingToday she is her saucy self again, bouncing and strutting to her own rhythm.  Maybe she, too, is feeling the flow and ebb of the Universe, fielding the blows and strutting in the glories.  I take heart in her resilience, thinking I need to strut in her wake.  There’s so much fear in the world but there’s that much more joy and glory.  I have to believe and trust in my own strength.

IMG_2361Fine, powdery snow is blowing.  The wind has picked up.  The light is pale and cold but I’m remembering the brilliance of yesterday’s sun.  I can still feel the healing power of its warmth as it smiled and embraced me. Ahh!  I think it heard me just now.  It’s smiling and trying to make a stronger showing.  I am soothed and smoothed.

All of life is a circle.  What goes around comes around.  What goes up, must come down.  That’s all I know.  I don’t understand sometimes but I’m all right with that.  In the words of Harry Chapin:

“All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown
The moon rolls through the nighttime, till the daybreak comes around
All my life’s a circle but I can’t tell you why
The season’s spinnin’ round again the years keep rollin’ by

It seems like I’ve been here before, I can’t remember when
But I got this funny feelin’ that I’ll be back once again
There’s no straight lines make up my life and all my roads have bends
There’s no clear-cut beginnings and so far no dead-ends”

So I lift myself up, square my shoulders back, quell my fears and reach for the stars.  I will not be drowned by fears.

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