First Day of the New Year

I've traveled to Tobago, the sister Island to Trinidad, to spend ten days with my Honey and the grands to give my daughter and her husband a rare break from parenting. We're staying in a lovely house with a pool and next to a beach.

It's 4:00 in the afternoon, the day is sunny and fine with a breeze off the sea. Our house sits on a promontory of land that juts into the Caribbean and feels like the end of the world since no other houses are within sight. My Honey is swimming in the pool overlooking the beach with the grands and their friend. I sit in the blue Adirondack chair with my feet on the brick colored tiles still warm from the sun that is just leaving this section of deck. Sounds of Marco.....Polo, Marco.....Polo fill the air, broken by squeals as one or another is caught or becomes the fish out of water and is caught. My Honey is laughing: "You went right under me and I didn't even know it!" The child culprit is thrilled. The wind feels soft against my skin.

Last night we had a little ceremony with the kids to mark the New Year. They lit some fireworks that flew up and made a loud crack at the top of their flight. We had sparkling peach drink to welcome 2013 and talked of what we want to do in the coming year. My six year old granddaughter immediately said: "I want to make a potholder with my new loom." I smiled at the concrete nature of her goal. My ten year old grandson wants to make a bomb. His friend was impressed and murmured assent to this worthy goal adding it should be purple. I only raised a daughter so this is new territory for me but will pursue it later to understand more.

My granddaughter comes to me to beg me to come swimming and since she's the only girl in this group I comply although the wind is picking up enough to keep the swim short. One of the boys is on the autistic spectrum and circles the pool with a smile but not venturing in. Soon he starts to dig in the dirt around a palm tree and seems content. The others call to him but accept his need to be on his own while in their orbit. Sharks and minnows is the next game called, rules explained and new strategies devised with new squeals engendered. Is there any sound more delightful or sight more instructive than children throwing themselves into a game wholeheartedly?

The sun is down now, setting early at 6:00 on this island close to the equator. Even as the days lengthen, sunset is only one half hour later in this land of 12 hour days and nights. The children find quieter games to play and I come back to my writing to post my first blog entry for the new year. Even as my heart feels full I acknowledge the niggling need around the edges of the present to set my own goals based on my heart's reassessment of where I am and where I wish to go. The stirrings are there, the time is right, the year is new.

Blessings of growth, discovery and love be yours in this New Year.

Holiday Travel

Tomorrow I leave with my Honey for Trinidad's Rain Forest where my daughter, her husband and our two grands live. I'll be there for Christmas, New Years and the worst part of the winter. I know, I'm spoiled.  I'm yearning to be with family, have time to play and hike to beautiful places, celebrate my birthday, go to the grands' gymnastic classes, see movies in English, play scrabble with my daughter, maybe even do some art with my friend, Bunty, and enjoy life. Oh, and train for a relay race (my section is 6 1/2 miles) with other family members as part of the National Marathon to End Breast Cancer in Jacksonville, FL in February. I've run the marathon, two half- marathons and now the relay  to celebrate my niece's wedding that weekend. It's "our" event as a family since losing my Honey's sister, Peg, to breast cancer in 2007. Her loss and my desire to do something about it sparked my running.

A downside is having only dial up access to the internet which makes blogging difficult (at best). Remember the days of dial up? UGH! There will be occasional visits to high speed land, so I'll keep in touch and share what I can as I'm able.

In the meanwhile, Happy Holidays to all. Enjoy your family, your spouse, and your life to the fullest. Let each person you love know it. Grandmothers, keep your eyes open for the depressed, angry young adolescents and see that they get help. They have a hard time asking for it or admitting to depression and if they don't get it they can distort reality to be something worth destroying. In these days of mental health cutbacks we must acknowledge that people who need help and don't get it can take it out on themselves or others. Both are too costly. Treatment saves lives. Let's do this.

55 With The Lumineers - Ho Hey

Just this -
a fun tune, a good message:
'I belong with you. You belong with me.
You're my sweetheart.'
That's all. And a catchy beat.
And a sky full of colored confetti.
Friends celebrate. Did you know confetti
comes from Italy? But here it's candy
over almonds. Sweet. Given at weddings.
Belongs there. With sweethearts.


A simple ditty for Friday Flash 55 for the G-Man.

Contact

She shuffles by lost
in the fog of mental illness,
mute, unreachable.
I make nursing rounds,
hum some old tune. She
turns, follows me, hums
the same song.
Across her chasm
of neural chaos,
contact.


The prompt from Fireblossom over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads was to write about calamities and from my 36 years as a psychiatric nurse, there is no calamity that touches my heart more than major mental illness. This is a true story of a client with schizophrenia in a state hospital in California who had been mute for years. I was humming a song my father used to sing and she hummed along. So I started singing the songs I remembered from him and she sang along. She had a beautiful voice. Eventually we learned she was a singer with Benny Goodman in the mid 30's. She loved to sing. I offer it on dVerse poets open link night as well.

Friday 55 - Ordinary Weeks

Big week- my daughter's birthday,
discovered six- word stories,
mountain snow fell and
our town lit its Christmas tree
in the main square.

Every week is like this-
ordinary things, newly
discovered, light my world.
Ordinary weeks, well lived,
bring light to our world.

Have an ordinary weekend,
live it well, bring even more light.

This is a Friday 55 for the G-Man. Check him out- join the fun.

Six-Word Stories For Kelly

"You
think your
thoughts. Me mine."

Knew
I'm outnumbered
by this one.

"Tell
me words."
Hungry for words.

Report
card reported:
a social butterfly.

Her
version: "I
know that stuff."

Small,
but tried
all sports possible.

Swam
with the
big girls. Friends.

College,
found ecology,
never looked back.

Ireland
semester, mind-
expander, life- changer.

Trinidad
rain forest,
and then Carl.

Mother,
follows deeper
rhythms, pays attention.

Two
children adore
her. Why not?


Today is my daughter's birthday. Continuing with the six-word stories, these are about her at various stages of life starting at age three when after an argument with me she announced, hands on hips: "You think your thoughts and I'll think mine." I knew I was in trouble! I enjoyed the process of trying to distil a few of her stories into their essentials. Happy Birthday, Kelly. I love and admire you. I'm glad you were born.

Six-Word Stories

Can these be responses to a prompt at dVerse Poets Pub on open link night for poetry? They're only six words each but they each tell a story.

Nurse
first, poet,
writer after retirement.


Fast
car, blind
curve took all.


66
years but
loves sexy undies.


His
sneer tells
all, leave now.



Left
behind, her
too little self.



Decades
married, she
loves him newly.


Dogs,
they're all
he relates to.

These were indeed inspired by Karin at ManicDDaily who was herself inspired by Luke at Word Salad: The Poetry of Luke Prater who has a great article on micro-fiction six-word stories. I was familiar with the six-word memoir project and wrote one a couple of years ago: Life, my ancestor-in-training course. Luke put his in the above format to be more like poems. It's fun, try it out.

Long Partnerships - Erasure Poetry

From: The Last Gift of Time by Carolyn G. Heilbrun

Long partnerships are rare, endow
inhabitants with equilibrium
otherwise unknown.
A woman, her spouse
cherished, endured.

This moment, at last, overshadows
resentments, betrayals, boredom,
disallows a sin of omission to serve
as mental magnet.

Memory and anger recede,
dissipate. Life in the moment
no longer expects what will never occur,
expects neither more nor less
than who he is.

Marrieds of many decades earn,
as reward, mutual mellowness,
find life good.


This was actually sparked by Mary's prompt on Friday: Connection over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads and a continuation of Anna's Erasure Poetry from dVerse Poets Pub. Their current prompt is from Stuart: Missing You. Since I have the good fortune to be in a marriage of 39 years with my Honey, I erased all of the last chapter in The Last Gift of Time except the above as a hymn of praise to long relationships. And on the theme of missing, it expresses why I miss my Honey when he's away.