Thirst

Learning to write well, and growing in my poetry writing mean finding balance between asking for help and trusting my instincts.

Sometimes, I search for water before I have taken the time to know the depth of my own thirst. At those times, my longing outstrips my patience and I make mistakes. It is necessary to gauge both the depth of what I need and what I can hold, before seeking, before opening my mouth to drink.

When I do not trust my instincts, the flood gates burst open. I get in over my head and nearly drown. Tidal waves carry me away from where I really want to go.  It becomes a question of survival and adaptation ... grow gills, swim, develop another row of teeth.

It is hard to accept that it may take more years to acquire a sense of wholeness in my writing, more years than I had hoped. But I have learned this: My writing requires learning to live with the tensions of my own evolution, learning to quiet my doubts, and yet to proceed.

It requires trusting myself to know what I need to quench my thirst.


This blog post is a part of my reflections from an online retreat study I followed with The Prayer Bench offered by Janice MacLean.  You can find out more about her online retreats at:
http://www.prayerbench.ca 

Where the Fence Ends

Where the Fence Ends

Where the fence ends, a doe with her yearlings and fawns cross into my yard, over the crusted snow. Inside, I grab my camera. The doe looks at me, ears to the side, turning, listening. She stamps, huffs air and flags. Then leaping, they all disappear, leaving photos of brown blur.

I learn to be still; to wait by the window.

If they notice me now, I think they must know: I mean no harm, so they continue browsing, crab-apple, cedar, needles of yew. But, as I see their dark eyes seeing me, I feel such longing to escape this barrier of window and walls, to burst outside, breathe winter air, and run where the fence ends.


Photos and words are copyright 2011-2014 Carol Steel

Waves of Writing

 

 

It is hard to write this week.

 

My head is full of ideas and my pages full of scribbles and jottings, but nothing is coming together into poetry or story.  So, yesterday, we drove along the coast of New Brunswick to get some fresh air and different perspectives. 

 

We stopped here.  Saw this, breathed spray from the white caps.  The wind was blowing right through us and out the other side. 

 

As I watched, the waves reminded me that coming in, going out, over and over again, back and forth, over and over is one way to discover.  Sometimes it takes time.  Sometimes writing takes time.

 

And, sometimes the writing has its own rhythm.

 

Words and photo are copyright Carol Steel.

 

 

It Continues to Snow

The snow goes on and on and on...

 

 

and if it were earlier in the year,

we would think it lovely.

 

But for now,

it makes spring weather

a longer wait.

 

Patience.

 

Enjoy

the thick flakes

drifting.

Waiting for Winter to End

 

 

 

Waiting for Winter to End

 

Outside to the east,

my garden slumbers

under a mat of leaves,

still slick with the last

ice crystals of winter.

 

Not one crocus

pushes purple fingers

through a sleeve of snow,

to fling out its fist

full of robin song.

Not one.

 

And no hardy squill

splits the worn brown skin

of an old oak leaf,

to trumpet its fresh blues.

 

Inside to the west,

the sun coaxes ladybugs

out of the crevices,

away from their sleep.

 

I listen to them dancing

tap-tap-tapping

between the window panes.

 

I watch them whirling,

kicking up their heels,

clicking their red wings.

 

They are keeping time

as Spring hums her own

intoxicating tune;

this throb so ancient,

nothing can resist.

 

Words and photo are copyright ©Carol Steel.



 

 

 

 



I've Been Away

 

 

I've Been Away

I've been away from my blog and from my writing.

I am here now, yet I am not here--not fully.

My body feels like an alien creature, weary, uncooperative, aching from radiation burns.  It has turned on me, betrayed me with these cancer cells.  Still this body is mine.  I recognize myself in the mirror; my face, my fingers, my feet, my self.

Yet I am not here--not quite.  I struggle through the brain fog.  Is it Friday?  What happened to Thursday?  Will I write today?  Can I make sense?  Will I write and re-write only to quit in despair?

Depression and I have become well acquainted, more so on the days when pain and frustration are close companions.  I sleep 11 hours a night and nap during the day.  If I want to do dishes, or bake biscuits, sweep a floor or have a shower, I must do this in the morning before the energy dissipates.

It has been hard learning to be gentle and patient with myself.  Even though treatments ended last Wednesday, it will be weeks more before energy returns and the burns are healed.  I am recovering but want the process to speed up, to be done.  I want to be well...now, now, now.

This winter, I have been hibernating in the caverns of radiotherapy and sleep, caught in a haze of  depression and pain and medications.  But I am returning to myself, to clarity, to lucidity, to balance.  The "not here" times lessen as the "here" times lengthen.

I will be well again.

I am nearly there, back to "here", back to being fully present within myself.


Words and photo are copyright Carol Steel.  The photo is of the recent full moon through a haze of cloud and darkness.