House full of visiting kids

It is dark outside
Writing poems while others sleep
Grey dawn approaches.

Struggle to keep eating healthily

McDonald's tempting
Walking through the train station
Apple in my bag.

Cancelling a video conference call with a friend

The sun is shinning

I need to move my body

Let's talk on the phone.

The answer back a few minutes later...

A day bright and crisp

I’ll walk with you in my ear

And perhaps birdsong.

(I am envious that the answer is far more romantic.)

Introvert

My thoughts are fuzzy
Balls of lint under sofa
How am I today?

Extrovert

How am I today?
Calendar full of meetings
Just keep calm and cool.

Shortshortstori (RIP 2009 -2019... maybe)

I really dislike what has happened to twitter over the last few years. The presence of a “certain president” and the acquisition by a particular “emperor who wears no clothes” has made me wonder whether I should finally close down my two twitter accounts.

One was for a business account that I used briefly and then stopped, so I could close without any sense of loss. It is just litter I forgot to pick up and throw away.

The other is my shortshortstori account. My veryvery modest act of rebellion against the miasma of white noise in the ether of the internet. I tried to create stories/tweets as a form of modern haikus in 180 characters. Flower buds resting briefly on the mountains of trash/information.

Seems a ridiculous endeavour now. I wonder if I will close this account or let it rest peacefully in the tweetussphere.

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

Religious experience (almost)

 

I kneel down and bow my head

Fog blankets steeples

Cathedral in surrender
Graciousness abounds.

Start to my day

Husband wakes me up
Dreams still swirl around my head
Empty dishwasher.

Retrospective on solitude

She left home at 14 and wandered on her own, 20 years long, through various countries, career paths, lovers, and yearnings. She regularly climbed out of pitfalls of disappointment in the men she populated her life with. Sometimes she shared her kitchen and bathroom with one or more roommates. Often, she left the home she'd built either to escape the mundanity of day-to-day existence or to explore new strange worlds.

She would always go off on meditation retreats whenever it was possible. These times were salves for her heart and soul. If she'd been given the choice or had the courage, she would have done a permanent retreat. She loved losing herself, Her Self, in the solitude and stillness of monastic life. She wanted nothing more than to explore how to be a mystic, to be contemplative in modern times.

Then, at 33, she gave birth to her first child. Her precious, undeniably beautiful child. In one breath, she knew she would never know solitude again as she did before.

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

Blast from the past (Maid Marian tax rebate)

I am in the process of shutting down my twitter accounts. Something I have been meaning to do for a few years now... since the Turmp Era (SP intentional), but now with the Msuk Era long overdue. So, I was browsing through the shortshortstori account and randomly trip upon this tweet:

I forgot completely about this idea I came up with! I wish I knew someone in parliament who would look into this possibility.

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

Musings of an elder

Living your blueprint

Lines from the past decades fade, 
Or just drawn over?

Photo by Evgeniy Surzhan on Unsplash

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

Why isn't still Sunday!

Eyelids creak open
Dreams still making a movie
Ugh, it's now Monday.

Husband's morning ritual

Sounds of showering
Water carries sleep away
Fresh new underwear.

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

Moving out of a stupor

Through splattered raindrops
Flocks of school children huddle
Bus honks them awake. 

In the middle of the night

Crossing the ocean
Rainbow shines under full moon
Breathless in wonder.

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

In the middle of the night

Lone figure walking
Orange headlights on the bus
Piercing the darkness. 

Hemmed wanderlust

Dreaming of summer

Flowers bloom only to fall

I drink more mulled wine.

Battling with the winter darkness

Putting on my shoes
Winter greyness cloaks my heart
I seek the dawn's light. 

Across the way from us

Sleeping on the street

Suddenly he disappears

Seeking warmth somewhere.