Remember me

She once told me a story

Of her one true love...

Such an odd tale to tell 

A daughter about someone

Who was not her father.

Nearly eighty years later

After it was taken, I come

Across a fading photo...

A dead soldier's throne.

I wonder between the slow

Heartbeats of sadness

If he was the only love

She ever knew, yet never

Really knew other than

As a love long lost.

* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.

Comfort of my home

Grey skies tinged with pink

I relish the weekend spent here

Comfort of my home.

 

Veil of Elderhood

COVID casts a veil of elderhood over all our lives. Regardless of age, it lets us experience what it is like to be old and vulnerable. It has been a year now of working from home and coping with social isolation. How is this in any way different to how elders live who are long retired and have family far away? 

Until recently, I would tell others that this pandemic is what it feels like when coming off a long retreat. The vividness, the confusion, the sensitivity to over-stimulation, the deep stillness in my heart. Now, after a year, I still often feel this way, but it is also mixed with physical and mental fatigue. Having to daily face changes feeling powerless.

Thank heavens I am young of heart and mind. My body works without pain. If this is what it is like to be old, I better start now learning how to squeeze every drop of joy out of it, regardless.

* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.

My first exposure to Japanese culture

 

Japanese soup bowls

Matsuo Basho's living life

In a Haiku poem. 

Badge of honour

FFP2 mask

Slips over the bridge of my nose
Eyes crinkle and smile 

* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.

Hadley Story Corner: #15 Pat and her smile (Lia)

 

Pat stands in the photo on the second row to the far right. She stands with a smile. One bigger and brighter than anyone else. Why? Such a good group of Catholic girls.
 
Maybe Pat was so happy because she just heard of the scholarship she was going to get to go to college. How she craved to use her mind. She dreamed of becoming a teacher. She wanted to spend her life learning.
 
The smile in the photo eventually disappears when her father told her he forbade her to study. “Women do not need education.” He sent her to secretarial school. Something she could do before she found someone to marry. That was the day her smile changed.   
 
* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.

New neighbours

 

New window curtains

Waving a silent greeting

My tea is ready.

Ice crunches

Clear blue winter skies

Walking with a friend slowly

Ice crunches under foot.

* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.   

As far as the stars reach

 A friend of mine had children early on. That is to say 10 years before I did. She once told me that she would ask her children when they were toddlers, "Do you see what my eyes are saying?" and the children would shout back, "I love you!".

I took it a little further... when I asked my children this, they would repeat a mantra I told them every night before going to bed, "I love you as far as the stars reach, as bright as the sun shines, and million and million times more." This somehow got shortened to "as far as the stars reach" or occasionally, "million of times more". 

I am reminded of this recently while watching a lovely K-romance. In the episode, the main male character (who has loved the female character since he was a child) quotes a poem where the poet writes how he says "Isn't the moon beautiful?" whenever he wishes to say "I love you."

It is one of the things I am happy of as a mother. That my children know they are intensely loved and they are never alone no matter how far a way they live.

* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.  

Snow and Sundays

Sunday mornings and 

Snow that falls in the night

Create the best sound studio.

All traffic noise is filtered

Leaving only the slow pulse

Of the cold winter day outside. 

Magical

Friend Maria's story

Last week we had a wild snow storm that covered everything in our garden, including our garbage bin, with a few inches of snow. The winds carried the snow quickly to us and left just a quickly a day later. All week I have looked out on the trees and grass thinking how magical the snow looks.

Today I went out with our trash and discovered the snow had melted away overnight. The snow left behind a fine layer of red sand. Sahara sand. How magical. 

* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.   

Seaside and a Sunday stroll

I wish I could go to La Sagesse with Kay. Early morning. Before the sun is up. Strolling along the beach looking for lucky nuts* (donkey eyes). Walking along an empty beach early in the morning, eyes peeled on the beach flotsam, a friend quietly walking beside me... that is bliss.

*Depending on who you talk to, these good luck nuts either float down the river with the rains from Grand Etang or float up from the Orinoco River with the tides. It doesn't matter. 

* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.   

Something lost and something found

(This poem describes a wonderous experience I had while travelling on an ICE train rushing towards Berlin.)

The winter is longer then it is deep

Darker then is appropriate

Months and months of dull dense

Greys and browns. I sit in a

Second-class train compartment

Taking myself away from 

My children's constant whining

That they are bored and there is

Nothing to do... speeding towards

Berlin for a weekend alone with 

Strangers in museums and cafés.

I wipe away the condensation from 

The window with the sleeve of my

Fleece jacket. I gaze listlessly out

On to quickly passing towns and fields

In a trance, my eyes see even before

My heart, a field of thousand upon

Thousand of storks, swans, and geese

All standing still in the frozen fields

Resting, resting on their way up north

Ah, there it is, spring!

* This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.  

Sunrise

I have moved on from following tutorials about how to draw with Procreate to experimenting with the various brushes and filters. Slowly, soooo slowly, I gain both in curiosity and confidence with Procreate.

* This post is part of my Year of Freedom project. 

Satisfaction

every day another three minutes

of sunlight, which is actually more

a white grey rather than a dark one

yet, mixed with powder snow on

roof tops, it is as good as it gets