In a recent editorial in the New York Times, neurologist, writer and professor Oliver Sacks discusses his outlook on life and death. At 81, Dr. Sacks was recently diagnosed with incurable cancer. The short essay is well worth reading.
Archive for the ‘Reflections on the everyday’ Category
A Statement on life
Posted in Reflections on the everyday on February 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Heart of the Forest
Posted in Reflections on the everyday, tagged Valentine's Day on February 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Driving up the highway yesterday, the kind with a long stretch. Undeveloped scrub and greenbelt punctuate older strip malls, a bar, a run-on sentence between here and there.
More terrain, cars pass me due to my preference for the speed limit. An aged sign looms, “Antiques & Collectibles.” A-frame building from decades ago, an arcade of sought and unsought items, once loved, moved on. The building itself a reliquary. The energy and contents of such places interest me, for many reasons.
But today I am passing through. On the approach, I notice large cut-out hearts affixed on the tall sign. Closer still, small and large hearts stuck across the storefront. Hearts on the door, and down the length of the building. A gesture of the Valentine season I admire.
Better yet, the hearts carry on, as hearts do, into the scrub and the forest. One or two per tree stretching some ways behind the building. Unnecessary except to make a point that someone within took the job personally.
I appreciate that.
To you, yours, and the Big World, Happy Valentine’s Day.
Persistent
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged berries in snow, blowing snow, wind on January 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Red berries persist on trees standing deep in glistening, blowing snow.
Sunny wind-whipped frost could as easily be ocean spray.
Wave after wave, while we persist.
Traction
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged Snow, walking snowy streets on January 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Snowy day on Walkabout.
Snow plows push through, leaving streets that are sheets of ice. Easier for cars, harder for pedestrians.
Walking the route twice this time, I find snowfall eased the slick. Erased the bald ice and laid down enough texture to get a foothold.
Good intention sometimes makes things tough. Traction. Given the chance, Nature finds ways to get you through.
Gimme Shelter
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday, tagged New Years Eve on January 1, 2015| 1 Comment »
Eternal moments or endless hours, it is a serious understatement to say time is relative.
Time is precious though. A human-made construct to waste, or use, as we see fit.
For me, this year finally saw the end of five years of divorce and custody litigation. Muscular legal effort is the only remedy to a high conflict character. A great deal of wasted time and money to reach the obvious, and satisfactory, conclusion.
Souls were born, souls passed on, this year brought grief and joy for times had no longer.
In the meantime, the world writhed in its brutality, and its beauty.
Time. It is all we have – while we have it. Goodbye 2014.
May we find peace, health and happiness in the coming year.
Worth a thousand words?
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, The Garden, Uncategorized, tagged photographs on November 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Home movies
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged autumn colour, memory on November 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
From a window, afternoon light filters through shifting, still-clinging autumn leaves onto a laundry room wall. Dazzling, real-time projection. Viewed but unrecorded by anything other than my memory. Home movies.
Wish you were here
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged autumn, autumn colour, on grief, twilight on October 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Can you see through my eyes?
Fall leaves gold into green
Sun after clouds
Limitless blur of blue sky
Seasons slipping by me
A raucous jay, dimming light
Backlit gold into red
Rise and fall in the breathing wind
Years getting by me
I have seen too much
Nightfall
How I wish you were here
8:03
Posted in Reflections on the everyday, tagged of school buses on September 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »
8:03 AM, the big orange school bus rumbles by. Just tall enough to see out our living room window, my oldest talks about when he will ride that bus to school. My youngest is an infant.
8:03 AM, the big orange bus stops routinely now, picking up both my children for school. While we wait, we play basketball, ride scooters or throw baseballs, sometimes snowballs in the winter.
A decade later, the big orange school bus trundles by. The bus driver who piloted bus #1 for years, who knew and protected my children, retired last year. My children still ride a bus, it stops earlier, for older students. The new driver on this route has no memory of the stop in my driveway, or of those who rode into the world from here. My oldest now stands taller than me.
Working at home does not make me wealthy, but in every minute I spent helping my children on the bus and off, I became quite rich. I am grateful. Each school day morning, the rumble of the big orange school bus reminds me. 8:03.
On grief
Posted in Reflections on the everyday, tagged death, friends, grief on August 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
The commonality of sudden death leaves me wondering about those who wake, days or months after the passing of a loved one, to a stark landscape – rearranged but never restored.
I have little standing to mourn the Keeper. Never married nor lovers, not related in any way except by the stunning and lucky recognition of a common mind decades ago. Good friends are forever – except when they are not.
In a life where death is assured, grief has an odd role. It is to be dealt with, gotten through or over, and its light grey coloring of the world overcome. There are many commentators more artful than me who can describe the textures of its peculiar, forced friendship.
Grief delivers liminal space. A place where life washes over itself like water tumbling around stones in the finest mountain stream of your memory. Ever the same as you watch, but lost when attention shifts. Is anyone ever really gone? Hard to keep up with the coming, and the going.
One thing is certain. The Keeper, along with most loved ones, would likely prefer to be fondly remembered, rather than mourned.
I am just not there yet.
Shouldn't...but Do 