Cheers to the Past

Three years ago, this very evening, I met a person.

Just a person.

I didn't know he would have this much impact on me, whether he intended to or not, in both the good and bad sense. We don't talk anymore; we haven't in the past year. It had so much potential and so much heartbreak, I know there was Someone out there looking out for me.

I can't exactly say he started me on my journey, I was already awakening. As he had said, I was like a butterfly just waking up and seeing that there was this whole world ahead of me. He found me in my sunrise, and tried intentionally or unintentionally, to make it set.

But each day is new, and when I think of him now, it is with much sadness but with also much joy. I hope he is happy, wherever he is. Maybe it's better this way, no friendship, nothing to show for it, except a few poems and some songs that meant something once long ago and now are just words to represent an image in my head and heart.

I have a very bad habit of not being able to let go, but as Morgan Freeman in "Evan Almighty" said, God doesn't give us answers, he gives us opportunities. Maybe this is my opportunity to learn how to let go of people in my life, let them live away from me and my love, and to know they will/can be happy without me to love them and care for them.

Lots of love,

Shani

Bounty

Make much of something small.
The pouring-out of tea,
a drying flower's shadow on the wall
from last week's sad bouquet.
A fact: it isn't summer any more.

Say that December sun
is pitiless, but crystalline
and strikes like a bell.
Say it plays colours like a glockenspiel.
It shows the dust as well,

the elemental sediment
your broom has missed,
and lights each grain of sugar spilled
upon the tabletop, beside
pistachio shells, peel of a clementine.

Slippers and morning papers on the floor,
and wafts of iron heat from rumbling radiators,
can this be all? No, look — here comes the cat,
with one ear inside out.
Make much of something small.

Robyn Sarah

Checklist for Coming Home

1. Ask me about my weight.

2. Ask how fat I've gotten.

3. Ask what I'm going to do with my future.

4. Be disappointed that I'm probably not going to be a doctor.

5. Ask about the weather in Sask.

6. Ask me how much I exercise.

7. Watch exactly what and how much I eat.

8. Call me "big butt" and other sort of nicknames.

9. Fight and insult and my intelligence.

10. Start over.

Leaning In

Sometimes, in the middle of a crowded store on a Saturday
afternoon, my husband will rest his hand
on my neck, or on the soft flesh belted at my waist,
and pull me to him. I understand

his question: Why are we so fortunate
when all around us, friends are falling prey
to divorce and illness? It seems intemperate
to celebrate in a more conspicuous way

so we just stand there, leaning in
to one another, until that moment
of sheer blessedness dissolves and our skin,
which has been touching, cools and relents,

settling back into our separate skeletons
as we head toward Housewares to resume our errands.

Sue Ellen Thompson

Home Safe Home...well Parent's House

Home safe home, turbulent flight though.

Parents didn't know I was coming, almost was stranded at the airport.

Hope everyone stays alive this day.

Bridge

Most of my life was spent
building a bridge out over the sea
but the sea was too wide and it didn't
go anyplace. I'm proud of the bridge
hanging in the pure sea air. Machado
came for a visit and we sat on the
end of the bridge which was his idea.
Now that I'm old the work goes slowly
but the material keeps coming as I hang
here in the air. Ever nearer death I like
it out here high above the sea bundled
up for the arctic storms of late fall,
the resounding crash and moan of the sea,
the hundred foot depth of the green troughs.
Sometimes the sea roars and howls like
the animal it is, a continent wide and alive.
What beauty in this the darkest music
which imitates the sky's thunder
over which you can hear the lightest music of human
behavior, the tender connection between men and galaxies.
So I sit on the edge, wagging my feet above
the abyss, the fatal plummet. Tonight the moon
will be in my lap. This is my job, to study
the universe from my bridge. I have the sky, the sea,
the faint green streak of Canadian forest on the far shore.

Jim Harrison

It is the juxtaposition of love and loss, tragedy and comedy, blessings and suffering that encompass the reality of the universe we live, now and forever.

And over it all, He watches.

Gratefulness

I know I've been whining on here. And I've been thinking about a lot of things in my past.

Yeah, I've had shitty shitty moments. But I've made it through. I have so many blessings in my life that it's overwhelming. I'm so amazingly happy right now that I can't find the words to convey that happiness, but that's okay, Tolkien did it for me.

"And when Sam heard that he laughed aloud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: 'O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!' And then he wept."

I'm a bit fearful and a lot scared, a little worried and a lot vulnerable, a little tearful and a lot joyful, a little in anger and a lot in love.

That's the nature of the work.

Thank you God, even if I turn away often.

Thank you, whomever you are.

Happy Birthday Blog!

You are exactly 2 years old.

2 years of life, love, heartbreak, grad school, fun, beer, and music - here you are.

Lots of love to the people who read this. You know who you are, even if I don't.

Shani :)

Possibly One of the Happiest Days in My Life

"All of life is an act of letting go but what hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye."- Piscine Molitor Patel

And sometimes, goodbyes don't matter :) Only hellos. Only todays.



I smiled at the snow one day
and I realised that it smiled back at me,
all sparkly and glittery
under the full moon that inhabited the dark lit satin skies.
It was the not the middle of winter,
and quite not the start,
that wonder of the end of November
when tart apple pies weren't being baked just yet,
but families would huddle around recipes
written long long ago,
when grandfathers and grandmothers were
young and wrinkle free
and huddled by the fire sneaking glances
because holding hands was not allowed.
And I wondered as I passed by them,
the houses,  not the days of auld,
whether the history in them was the same history
across the world,
whether human life was the same whether on Jupiter or on earth,
and as I walked by a couple of homeless men
sitting under the tree,
catcalling for liquor, you see they just wanted to say hi,
I didn't let them try to do what they wanted, instead
rushed away,
and forgot all about the magic of the snow
as I glimpsed his face in that dirty truck,
waiting to pick me up
so that we could go break bread together.

I'm in Your Church at Night

At the point of complete and total exhaustion, I contemplate people in my life and I realise that most make me cry rather than smile.

But those that make me cry make me remember church and exactly what I'm missing and missing out on but am too stubborn to accept.

I wish I was in the ocean letting the waves of this song wash over me underwater.

There was a blizzard and I had to shovel a foot of snow after a 13 hour day. I was angry. Then I ate two chocolate hedgehogs and realised that I am loved and that I just have to be patient.