When adults are not in sight

Close my eyes and wish

Childhood laughter, much glee
Lightness of being.

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

Visiting my family in the past

Family visits
Tired from all the listening
Living room drama.

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

Shouting from the rooftop

I am Spartacus. Audacious. Wild. Brutal.
I am Mother Nature. Wild. Wonderous. Bountiful.
I am Destiny. Wonderous. Mysterious. Unrelenting.
I am Me. Mysterious. Wonderous. Wild.

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

It hasn't hit me yet

So, I am officially retired. Unofficially, I will continue working for a few years more. To have some fun. To continue earning money. To continue learning. 

I will quit quickly if I stop having fun. Promise to myself. There is too much to explore to waste on work that does not bring joy and satisfaction. Let's see how life develops. Long and slow is my deepest desire. 

Staying connected to friends and family. Helping others through coaching. As long as the work stays interesting, it means that the person taking the coaching is truly able to do the work. At the moment, those who I am coaching are either doing career coaching or financial literacy coaching. Topics that are dear to my heart. 

My greatest desire I have though is to explore and become an artist not only through action but as a fact. This is the scary part. This is also fire, earth, water and air unleashed.

Photo by Tom Podmore on Unsplash

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

August buzzing and botherings

The army of wasps
Are now everywhere around
Anxieties rules.

June in Chios, Greece

Caroline, my writing buddy this week, and I wrote something to the prompt "swimming".  Here is Caroline's. This below is mine...

She steals away from the busy conference room filled with the cacophony of business folks hammering away at the day's agenda. Rushing upstairs to her hotel room, she strips away her business attire and rushes into her old black bathing suit. She wraps a big white hotel towel around her body and slips into her bright yellow flip-flops.

Down the staircase and out the back door, she walks through the alleys until she finds the footpath that runs along the rocky coast. To her left, the brilliant blues of the Meditteranean Sea are calling her. 

Another 10 minutes and she arrives at a small beach. It has little sand, mainly rocks and pebbles. Which makes it a beach for the locals rather than tourists. A few half-naked bodies are changing back into their clothes before returning to work or their homes. A few heads are bobbing on top of the water far in the distance.

Awkwardly, she slides, slips, and stumbles into the warm water. She rushes forward and dives into the deep, dark, delicious salty water.

She comes up for air, and a wave slaps her sharply on her face. Then another a few seconds later. "Where have you been?" the waves say. "I've so so missed you", she responds and dives down deeply again.

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

It's far away

Written by my writing buddy, Caroline. This week's prompt was "swimming". 

It had been an exhausting but inspiring day and the sea was beckoning. A hazy sky could not dampen the warmth of the summer.

 
Walk into the water, frigid, bracing. Just a short swim to get the body tingling again.
The pier at the opposite end of the bay, always a nice touch to the beaches here.
 
Swimming, a little nugget of a thought: Swim to the pier.
 
“It’s far.”
“Yes, it’s far, but you can take your time. The water is shallow. If you get tired, you can walk.”
 
Swim. Landmarks pass by. Slowly. The pier doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. Feeling tired.
 
“Take your time.”
Written by my writing buddy, Caroline. This week's prompt was "swimming".
The pier is just there. No. Again, it seems to have stopped coming closer. Frozen moment in time.
 
“It’s okay, almost there.”
 
Made it. Stand and look around. The other side of the bay, far away.
 
“You could swim back.”
“But it’s far.”
“Yes, it’s far, but you can take your time. The water is shallow. If you get tired, you can walk.”
 
Slow return.
 
Leave the water. Electrified body. Burst of laughter as a seagull tries to steal her sandal.

Photo by Georg Arthur Pflueger on Unsplash

Story waiting to be told

Genre: true story

Place and time: suburb of Berlin, last week

Tina, who lives alone in a large house with her cat, receives a telephone call from her neighbour. The neighbour wants to know if Tina knows her cat rides the city buses daily.

The cat gets on the bus with other passengers and then rides the bus for a while and starts meowing really loudly when it wants to be let off. Apparently, the bus drivers know her cat well and allow her on and off their buses regularly.

Childhood summers

Sharp cries of seagulls
Echoing across the skies
Running quickly home.

The grandfather clock

(part 1)

She wipes down the kitchen counter until it shines. It's a point of pride that her kitchen is spotless. She takes the orange sponge to clean the counters whenever she enters the kitchen. Even if she's just getting a glass of water. Even if the counters are already clean. She glances over her shoulder on the way out, and her heart briefly smiles.

As she passes the entrance area, she notices the mess. Her daughter has kicked her shoes off, and thrown her coat down, making it impossible for someone to open the front door. This makes her mad. 

Every day, all day, her daughter and her husband treat their home as if there is an invisible army of servants to pick up after them. Someone who follows them around, bringing everything they throw into the corner or leave behind back to where they belong. Cleaning the bathroom mirrors spattered with toothpaste. Scrubbing the toilets. Changing the sheets. Washing their clothes. Cooking their meals. Always. Always. Over and over. Endlessly.

They treat their home like it is nothing to treasure. Her home. 
She goes over to the grandfather clock. Takes out the brass keg from the bottom right corner and slowly, delicately winds the spring clog. Another 24 hours.

Time to start making dinner. She stands outside her daughter's bedroom door and tells her she must empty out the dishwasher. She smiles; quality time with a teenager.

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

Late afternoon in suburbia

She lives in fear of her mother's x-ray visions of her being. It is uncanny how often her mother comes into her room when she is, at that very moment, contemplating sneaking out to visit her friends. She so wants to go out with them and hang around the shopping mall, flirting with the boys. Or when she reads a "silly romance" (her mother's words) instead of doing her homework.

When she is with her mom in a room, her mom always gives her accusatory looks as if she knows what she is thinking. Not only knows them, but it is as if they are being televised directly, loudly into her mother's brain.

 
Her mom's "stop lazing around" reprimands sting. Those words can incinerate any rebellious, free-loving, adventurous thoughts like a lit match to a dry Christmas tree. She craves the power to shield her being with an impenetrable barrier to all her mom's criticisms and maligning commentary. She wants to unleash the jungle of yearnings and musing growing wild in her heart.

 
From outside her door, her mom yells for her to come and empty the dishwasher. Sighing slumped-shouldered, she leaves her gets off her bed.

(part 2)

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

Off again

Off again, but this time around with my team to participate in a four-day workshop. Everyone is facilitating their own mini-workshop. 

Lots of time to explore all the changes that have happened, those that are rendering our day-to-day business a tad difficult, and what we can do in the next while to cope better and feel rejuvenated and not drained.

We are truly blessed to be up north with the long long summer days and sunsets that take hours to unfold.

Photo by Philipp on Unsplash

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

Walking buddies

We have walking buddies that populate our daily walks. Since we go for walks nearly always at the same time and usually take one of three routes, these people have become a part of our walks.

In particular, two older men take their small dogs out for their walk, holding them in their arms like babies.

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

Being here, but not

I am back home now,
My wanderlust still alive
Hmmm, where to go next? 

Last hurrah!

My dear colleague and I are off to Chios to give a two-day workshop. It is the last global event that I will facilitate for the company and my career. Over 40 years of working in various fields of industry and in a diverse number of jobs. This trip is going to be the last hurrah.

I will continue to work eight days a month but will no longer be involved in the day-to-day. Instead, I can focus on project work. What a luxury to be able to do this. May my health and spirits continue to shine. 

  

Photo by Vasiliki Mastropetrou on Unsplash

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

Wednesday writing gals

There are five of us in this writing coven
We wandered the earth to meet online:
One from Slovakia, now living in Denmark
One once in Denmark, now living in Switzerland
One from Lithuania, now living in Norway
One from the States, now living in Germany
One from "wherever", now living in Germany

We meet every Wednesday morning,

When we can, and let our imaginations wander

We write stories that we so delight in and 

Share our pasts and our love of writing

And laughter, and occasionally... tears

Pure delight, deep curiosity, and above all, 

We are always filled with joy by the end. 

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

Back from weeks of travel

 

Finally, summer
Now back from Copenhagen
Changing to sandals.

Photo by Nina Steffens on Unsplash

Upcycling

 A few months ago, we did some sorting out in our apartment. We gathered nearly three full moving cartons of books, DVDs and CDs. Usually, I would have brought these things to our local Oxfam.

Since we were dorting throughout the weekend when stores were closed,  I decided to see whether there was any space in the community book closet down the street from where we live. I went there with one bag full and was delighted to see there was enough space, but not a lot. Enough though, to put in what was in my bag. 

The next day I passed by the book closet, I noticed again, there was quite a bit of empty space. I came back with two bags of books this time. These also disappeared over night. Then I stepped it up a bit, and put some of the DVDs and CDs there. They also disappeared. 

I began to suspect that it wasn't the avid readers in our neighbourhood who were taking the stuff but perhaps someone who was selling them to supplement their income. It cheered me to think of this new upcycling scheme. Since that time, I have brought a bag or two more of stuff and placed it there. 

Today as my partner and I were walking through the pedestrian zone, we passed a houseless person sitting at "their" corner. Instead of an empty cup placed next to the sign asking for money, they had set up an area where they could display a selection of books, DVDs and CDs beside their empty cup. And voila, they were our stuff. The sign now says, "Please pay whatever you want!" I was so chuffed that I could help someone without having to go to Oxfam.

What I wonder is if they are getting more money selling stuff to passer-byes than they were before. I hope so.

Strange occurrences

Last weekend...

I am staying in a lovely hotel in London. I go down early every morning at 7 am to drink ginger and lemon tea and work on my Talkshow Rivals project. Then around 10 am, my colleague comes down, and we eat breakfast together. 

Yesterday's early morning work session was accompanied by an American couple eating breakfast and then getting into a furious fight. They thought they were whispering, but I could hear everything they said. Ultimately, their argument ended in a declaration of divorce and the wife stamping out of the room, and the red-faced husband loitering a time in the restaurant, presumably to give his wife enough time to pack her bags. Since I was the only one in the restaurant with them, I felt like a witness to a crime. Really weird experience. 

This morning, there was a British couple right behind where I was sitting, obviously very much in lust with each other. They spent a good hour or more finding everything the other person says hysterically, giddily funny. They giggled and laughed their way through a large breakfast meal. I wanted to turn to them and say, "Get a hotel room" to them, but hey, that is precisely what they were doing. I had forgotten the lightheadedness they were experiencing at the first flush of passion. At my age, I just find it highly irritating.

Can't wait to see what strange occurrence happens tomorrow morning.  

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

Back from London

(from my travel diary)

Work has gotten busy again. Amongst other things, I am travelling quite a bit. I'll still try to write a post or two.

Spring has come, and I am happy. The greens are healing salves to my soul. 

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