Away for Awhile

Hello everyone,

I am away from the blog until the 21st of October.  I am visiting family and will return full of stories and rich with photos.

Carol

Writing Brings Me Joy

Writing Brings Me Joy

This is my 200^th blog entry.  Today I want to celebrate what writing means to me.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve explained my life in stories: stories told, stories written, stories shared.  In childhood, when I didn’t understand what was happening, I automatically turned to stories as a way of making meaning, a sort of self-created mythology.

As I grew to adulthood, I began to journal.  I kept track of joys and sorrows, looked at writing as a way of making sense of relationships with others and with myself.  My journals held the rich deposit of reflections and learning from my life: school, university, marriage, births of children, deaths, accidents, job and career changes, children growing up and leaving, divorce, travels, struggles, grandchildren arriving, relationship failures, illnesses, moves, re-marriage and myriad other events across my life span.  Events large and small, successes and failures, the dark times often taught me as much or more than the bright ones.

Lack of confidence and feelings of vulnerability prevented me from sharing what I’d discovered and written in my journals, the stories I’d created and the poems that spilled like shimmering ribbon.

Finally, as an older adult, I know that something accomplished despite fear is a thousand times better than doing nothing while fretting about being good enough.  Not writing is the worst choice!

Writing, learning, practicing, seeking help, asking for feedback, finding people who will encourage yet speak the truth, these are essential to a writing life, to my writing life.  On-line, in writing groups, among friends, I’ve found inspiration.  There are published and un-published writers everywhere, if I search.  I learn from anyone and everything, the world is my teacher, if I pay attention and write about what I see, hear, touch, taste, feel and know.

Deepak Chopra says, “What brings you joy, brings you closer to your own soul.”

Writing brings me joy.  Writing brings me closer to my own essence, my own true self, to my own soul.  I am grateful for the courage to share what I write, those stories that swirl in my head and those poems that dance in my heart.  Humble and thankful; so thankful.  This writing gift grows more profound the more proficient I become; the richer depths I plumb.

Thank you to all you who read my blog, who view my photographs, who join the site and who offer comments. This blog is 50% me the writer and 50% you the reader.  I write to touch you.  Thank you for encouragement and for support of this blog and of my other writing. 

Photo is mine.

                                                                                   

Song for Autumn

Song for Autumn

~ Mary Oliver

In the deep fall
    don't you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
    the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
    freshets of wind?

All photos are mine.

An Autumn Song




At the top of Gunningsville Boulevard looking toward Riverview, NB

 

An Autumn Song

Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

There is something in the Autumn that is native to my blood,
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.



At the top of Gunningsville Boulevard looking toward storm clouds gathering over Moncton





Light standards and trees on the boulevard



The maples planted along the bicycle path

For more information on Riverview NB, click here.

All photos are mine.

October

October

Robert Frost (1874-1963)

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.

Words in red will take you to more information on another website,

if you click on them.   All photos are mine.

Weekend Activities

Weekend Activities

Our weekend was quiet.  G. wasn’t feeling too perky after an intense work week and entertaining company twice for dinners.  With the past few days of idyllic autumnal weather, we had trimmed hedges, weeded and mowed, transplanted greenery, leaving us both tired and needing down time.

He rested, slept, watched TV and searched the Internet for cars.  Each fall, he is hit by the “I wonder if I should sell the car and purchase a newer model?” bug.  So he searched for deals on used vehicles.  He fancies a Toyota Rav4 this time; if he finds one, we’ll be selling our Matrix.  Or maybe not, he just enjoys the search, loves looking for cars.

The whole weekend was rainy and cool, great incentive for staying indoors and close to the fireplace.  I muddled around the house doing odds’n’ends of house tidying, the usual laundry, meals, catching up on paper work for volunteer commitments and knitting, plus some waiting on the husband...maid-like, as I said he wasn’t feeling well.  I don’t usually wait on him; he is extremely capable and competent around the house and is an excellent chef, but he was whiny, so what could I do?

I’ve not knit much since last winter, therefore am rusty.  I am a slow, careful knitter.  Though I enjoy it, I am not terribly proficient at it.  Knitting requires the full focus of my attention; it feels like a meditative activity of sorts.  I literally cannot carry on a conversation or watch a TV program or listen to the radio when I knit.   There is something about following instructions to the letter that throws me off.  Is my head so busy composing stories and writing that I don’t concentrate well on direction-specific tasks?

I did complete two small knitting projects.  I started the hat and unravelled it three times before I got the pattern right.  Argh!  The mittens had to be adjusted so that the pair was the “same”.  I do like the challenge of projects I’m not good at, even though they try my patience.  I used to think that I would get really proficient at knitting if I kept at it.  A delusion; hasn’t happened...doesn’t look like it will.  I am not a fantastic knitter, must restrict myself to simple projects, though I do enjoy the meditative activity…especially on a quiet weekend when the man is unwell and so whiny.  Knitting is better than strangling.

Rainy Day Quiet

Rainy Day Quiet

Listening to the rain tapping on leaves and cars swooshing on the road below, I sit with the cat at the window.   He is watching the rain trail down the window and a grey squirrel racing around the oak tree caching acorns.   Outside is damply dark and feeling chilly.  Skies are uniformly a puffy grey.  Drizzly mist hangs over the city across the river.

Inside, we have finished our Saturday tradition of sizzled bacon, scrambled eggs and marmalade toast with apple pie for breakfast dessert (hmm, a fruit serving).  The kitchen is cinnamon fragrant and warm from baking the pie.  The heat comforts us against today’s damp chills.

I’m feeling sedentary, lazy, anticipating peacefulness—reading, knitting, cozy by the fireplace on this rainy grey day.  I am content.