Beaumont: So…. are we finally back to regular programming, Louise?
Me: Yes Beau.
Beau: Good. So can we please get rid of the ‘artsy’ photo too?
Me: What do you mean? I like it!
Beau: But it doesn’t really do me justice now does it?
Me: I think it does.
Beau: Well… we all know where your taste lives don’t we.
Me: Dare I say it… On my tongue?
Beau: There you go being all obtuse again.
Me: And there you go being difficult. Again.
To read the rest (his birthday is Tuesday and he has something to say about that!) please join Beau on his blog — Sundays with Beaumont — he loves to see you!
The painting I’ve used to illustrate this poem is from my She Persisted Series. When I wrote this poem yesterday, I considered going into the studio and creating a painting to go with the words (but after six hours of cleaning the garage, I was too tired! – Not sure why I thought it would only take a couple of hours but hey! I’m always the optimist.). I still may do that but this painting, which is No. 37 in the series, felt ‘right’.
I AM NOT BROKENby Louise Gallagher
I am not broken
though I do have cracks
I am not cracked
though I do have wounds
I am not wounded
though I do have scars
I am not scarred
though I do have cuts
I am not
My breaks
Or cracks
Or wounds
Or scars
I am not my cuts.
I am beautiful.
Whole.
Full
of incomparable
broken places
revealing
cracks
healing
wounds
bursting
into wisdom
scars strengthening
cuts that cut deep
to forge
beauty from
the ashes
of the places
that have shaped
me.
I am not broken.
I am.
Beautiful.
Brave.
Bold.
I am woman.
I am me.
I hadn’t intended to write two poems yesterday morning but… having spent much of my life learning to heed the muse’s urgings, I could not ignore her call to write this one out.
Late spring snow melts velvet purple petals preen eager green grasses shoot out of winter moist soil
And the seasons turn and the sun shines warm and Mother Nature dances as my heart expands to embrace brave beauty budding up out of the ground.
As I sit at my desk this morning I watch two robins chase each other through the trees. An opportunistic squirrel, taking advantage of what I assume to be their amorous intentions, raids the birdfeeder while chickadees hop along the fence, tweeting and twittering. I think they’re telling the squirrel to get lost.
A man in an inflatable raft drifts into view on the river. He drifts with the current, a fishing line trailing behind him as he uses one oar to gently guide him along. He passes in front of my window, under the bridge and out of sight. I imagine him full of hope.
And the trees stand still. Yesterday’s breezes gone. Buds are appearing along their branches, tiny shoots of hope leafing out in possibility.
High above, the blue sky is dotted with islands of fluffy white clouds that lay seemingly motionless, like a warm woolly blanket covering the earth below.
And I awaken.
There is much to be done today. I am in spring cleaning mode.
The deck. The storage area in the back of our basement. Both done.
Today, after my prerequisite morning walk with Beaumont the Sheepadoodle, I tackle the granddaddy of all cleaning chores. The garage. There are closets and cupboards that also need my ministrations but they can wait for a rainy day. The weather folk have promised a warm, almost hot for this time of year in this northern clime, day. It’s a good day to clean the garage.
Later, after I’ve soaked off the dust and grime from the garage in a leisurely bath, I shall venture into my studio and keep working on pieces for an art show I’m in this June.
I have a lot to do. My body of ‘saleable’ work not yet big enough.
I used to joke that you could always tell when I was writing. My toilet was sparkling!
It was my avoidance tactic.
And I wonder…
Is cleaning out the garage (or scrubbing the toilet for that matter) avoidance or preparation?
I’m choosing to reframe it as ‘brave preparation’.
Creative expression requires presence.
Presence requires full embodiment in the moment.
Embodiment calls for ridding my thinking mind of clutter.
So… I clean and clear and declutter.
It is a brave thing to do.
To create I must dare to release myself from thinking mind directives and allow myself to flow, unguided, along the river of creativity that courses through my veins and the air around me. I must allow myself to be carried on the current, like the fisherman in his raft. Trolling for nothing but a little nibble of an idea to seed itself in the fertile soils of my imagination.
I am cleaning out the garage this morning.
I am stepping into the beauty of brave creativity.
When I am talking with my 10-month old granddaughter I like to pretend her baby-talk is really a conversation we’re having about… well… who knows what? Neither of us really do, but I love to pretend that she is telling me some outlandish, totally engaging story and will answer with nursery rhymes. As in, “What? You saw the cow jump over the moon? Oh my goodness. What did the moon do?” And when she replies with some indecipherable sounds, I respond. “Oh. Really? And then you heard the little dog laugh? Oh my. What did his dish do?”
As I worked on my ‘moonstruck’ spread in my Learning to Fly art journal yesterday, memories of my recent two weeks with my grandchildren kept floating through my body. My mind savoured each morsel, my hands remembered the touch of their skin, my olfactory nerves their sweet just-out-of-the-bath smell. My fingers traced the line of their chin and felt their tiny hands touching mine while my eyes savoured the memory of their beautiful faces smiling at me.
And I painted and splashed paint and drew stars and a moon as the magic and mystery of memory envelopped me.
it was one of those sublimely calming and delightful afternoons where news of still rising case counts and possible harsher restrictions faded away beneath the sounds of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” and one of my new favourites which continually urges me stand up and dance around my studio, Sam Ryder’s “Tiny Riot“.
If butterflies can use their wings to turn the wind to hurricanes
You and I can break the chains, it takes a day to
Start a tiny riot
Stop being so goddamn quiet
Got a spark in your heart so strike it
Crush your way up here
Turn the pouring rain to a tidal wave
And here’s the serendipity and pure magic of it all. This morning, I checked out Eugi’s Causerie to see what this week’s prompt was and was a little disappointed I’d already shared my art journal page with all the butterflies fluttering.
“Oh well,” I told myself. “If it’s meant to be it’s meant to be.”
And then I began writing my blog not thinking about butterflies but rather, thinking about the magic of my afternoon in the studio and the wonder and awe of time spent savouring memories of time with my two grandchildren.
When I wrote about the music I was listening to, I included “Tiny Riot” as one of the songs I was listening to because… well… I probably listened and danced to it 3 or 4 times while I painted yesterday.
But here’s the thing. I’d never focused on the lyrics before and thought it might be fun to include a few lines here. And that’s when the magical became mystical and wonder and awe enveloped me. Because, when I looked up the lyrics, butterflies ‘fluttered’ their way onto the page.
Isn’t life just the most magical, mystical, magnificent journey?
I hope your day is full of magic and mystery, wonder and awe and that serendipity catches you in the most unexpected moments of joy!
Namaste
_________________________
While I started this post not intending to have it be in response to Eugi’s prompt “FLUTTER” — it is!
It’s fun to play with a prompt – and easy to do too!
Just click on over to Eugi’s Causerie to either read what others have created or contribute your own! I do hope you do. There’s lots of wonder and awe fluttering around the many beautiful responses!
A friend and I were talking about what it means to be vain. how as children of the 50’s/60’s there was this belief that to talk about yourself in a positive way was somehow wrong.
Phrases like “don’t toot your own horn” and “don’t grandstand” proliferated the emotional landscape casting a shadow on one’s ability to shine. To grow in confidence and strength and determination to use your talents to the best of your ability and the betterment of the world around you.
“What’s in it for you to keep playing small?” I asked my friend when she mentioned how she still struggles to believe in herself. After a childhood full of admonitions to hide her light, she wants to let it all out, but fear keeps getting in her way.
She laughed and said, “Lots of aches and pains.”
And that’s the thing, the person we hurt most when we hide our light and shelter ourselves from shining bright and fierce is ourselves.
We are born to shine.
We are born to play big. To step outside our comfort zones and grab center stage of our own lives.
We must if we are to create better.
Because, when we shine bright, we light up the world around us so others can see their way through the dark. The more of us shining bright and fierce, the greater the light in the world and the greater the possibility of real and meaningful change in how we move through the darkness.
So… ask yourself today, “Who benefits most when I stop playing small and shine my light as bright as can be?”
I hope your answer is bright enough for all the world to see there’s nothing to fear in lighting up the darkness and a world of better to be gained!
I don’t often share a link to another person’s post without first writing about whatever is awoken within me by what another has written.
This morning. I’m changing it up. Mostly because… Brian Pearson’s lastest post, “Justice on the Journey” rings so deeply true within me, I feel compelled to offer it up for everyone else to read.
I hope you read it and come back to comment — I’d love to know how it resonates with you.
His opening paragraph grabbed me and just kept pulling me inward to the bare truth of his final statement,
"The spiritual journey requires us to be as engaged with the wounds of the world as with our own wounds. Justice, in other words, is part of the journey. And love makes it so."
About the photos — The top photo was taken when my daughters were 3 and 4ish. We were on the way to a wedding and the girls were so excited to see the bride! I share it because ultimately, it is only Love that protected and carried us through out lives to this day where my relationship with my daughters is the one I’ve always dreamed of – and as this is our anniversary week… here is one from our wedding where I was the bride and my daughters walked me down the aisle and C.C.s son and daughter did the same for him. (Photo by Ross Tabalada)
Learning to Fly art journal 2 page spread – mixed media
It is back. This need to check the data every day. To scan news headlines for what’s happening now in a world that seems hellbent on conflict and destruction.
It was gone for awhile, this need. I wanted it to stay away. Yet here it is again. Unbidden. Uninvited. Unwanted.
So I shift my approach to dealing with its presence. Instead of searching for data and world events, I read articles on post-pandemic life. I seek advice on how to step out into the world, without being riddled with anxiety and guilt, once critical mass on vaccinations is reached and restrictions can be safely lifted.
And then, I dip into one of my social media feeds and feel discouragement rising like the third-wave surge of sickness and death. How will we ever arrive at a post-pandemic world when there are those who believe wearing a mask is a sign of weakness? That following restrictions is sheep-like behaviour destined to transform one into a lemming falling over a cliff?
I turn off my social media feeds. I step back from the edge of the abyss where I feel myself getting pulled into the undertow of a debate that feeds my anxiety and drives me deeper into the data as if somehow, somewhere, some number will help make sense of it all and send this virus packing and stop this ‘us versus them’ debate.
One of my aunts, who lives in southern India, has only been out of her apartment once in over a year. She is tired. Anxious. Frustrated. Worried. When she phones, I can feel her loneliness ringing in my ears with every word she rattles off in her rapid-fire French about how limited her life has become through these months and months of Covid. “But what can I do?” she asks without waiting for an answer from me. “To stay alive I must stay at home but I am so lonely.”
Her two remaining siblings live in France as do the majority of her nieces and nephews. She cannot travel to visit any of us nor can we travel to visit her. “I have a dream to come and visit you one more time in Canada before I go,” she tells me. I tell her I want her dream to come true.
And so, together, we wait for the world to right itself. For vaccination counts to surpass the 75% mark. For sickness and death counts to plummet.
Three weeks ago my youngest daughter and her partner became statistics in the Covid case count. They are two of the over 146.8 million of the reported cases as of yesterday’s count. Fortunately, while they said they’d never felt so sick, they did not succumb to the virus as my cousin Linda did in Paris last spring. They have recovered and stayed on the life side of the ledger. Linda is one of the over 3.1 million who did not.
And here’s the thing. They are not ‘cases’ or a number on an ever-increasing count. They are my loved ones. Just as the other 146.6 million reported cases were someone else’s loved ones.
Which is why I will do whatever it takes to keep my loved ones safe. I will get vaccinated. I will wear a mask. Keep my distance. Stay sequestered with my beloved whose lungs, should he become infected, might not be able to withstand the viruses onslaught. We have only received the first vaccination and while the risk and severity are lowered, they still exist. .
And sure, there are those who would call me a sheep. Who would rally against my precautions in the name of their rights.
I get it.
Masks can be annoying. Keeping away from human contact challenging and depressing. There are still many unknowns. Still too much uncertainty and question marks and confusion over so many unknowns. And the unknown and uncertainty breeds anxiety. It feeds fear.
But certain things remain known. Masks work. Keeping safe physical distance works. Being vaccinated is a better safeguard than not being vaccinated.
The virus will not go away on its own. But if it can’t find enough hosts to keep replicating itself, it will eventually lose its grip and fade out. (I know that’s not a scientific explanation but it makes sense to me.)
Just as doing the right thing, whether I like it or not, makes sense to me too. It’s for the sake of myself, my loved ones and for all of us.
And in my world, doing the right thing is never the wrong thing to do.
Which means, I must do the right thing for myself today. I must lovingly wean myself away from diving deep into statistics, into watching news feeds for world catastrophes and natural and manmade disasters, from scrolling social media feeds urging me to cherish my rights over the right to life of all humanity.
I cherish my right to life. I cherish the right to life of all human beings on this planet.
And so, I breathe and say a prayer for all humanity.
May we find a way to survive this latest surge without tearing our humanity apart.
May we find a way to honour one another, to show tolerance and grace in the face of adversity and differing views.
May we all remember we do not have a guidebook on how to behave during a pandemic. That we are all struggling with the knowns and unknowns. We all feel the fear and anxiety. We all feel the constraints.
And may we all remember, we all want to live in our own way.
May we all live to tell the story of our survival.
I know we’ve never met and you think I’m just some fluffed up shaggy dawg toy but seriously, I am in awe of you and I so want to be friends. It’s not like you’ll have to share your food or even your toys, but we could play together. I’d let you pull on my fur and if you wanted, you could take out my squeaky and give it a few tweaks.
…….
Beau is at it again. He hopes you come and read the rest on his blog!
Thank you for your letter. Your request has been filed in the ‘hell freezin’ over’ bin and will be considered in due course (actually once I’ve given Louise enough cold shoulder she feeds me steak and takes me to the mountains for a romp in wild flower strewn fields blowin’ in the wind. Kind of like how your letter will be if it ever thaws out.)
….
___________
Beau is at it again. He hopes you come and read the rest on his blog!
Learning to Fly Art Journal page – Creativity is the art of letting courage draw you out of fear.
What if life is a run-on sentence? What if to mark the moments you must insert commas and periods and exclamation marks and question marks that give you pause to breathe, to gather your thoughts, to treasure the moment and dance and run about and fall into life’s drift like a river flowing into the sea?
What will your life be made of? A series of words strung together with an occasional comma haphazardly inserted without thought to its significance? Will you throw in a period here and there simply because you’re out of breath and need to catch up to yourself without letting yourself go full tilt into experience every precious moment, wild and free of limiting punctuation?
Or will you festoon your journey with question marks expanding into exclamations dancing upon the lines of every story you live to tell along the way towards that point where the final mark is a joyful celebration of all the highs and lows you’ve captured upon your journey? Will your life end on a period? A sigh of dismay the end has come? Or, an exclamation of bliss you’ve sucked the meaning out of every sentence ever lived?
What if life is a run-on sentence and the only way to mark the passing moments is to insert punctuation where ever you can to give yourself time to breathe, to savour, to capture the scent of every moment, the ebb and flow of every tide, the feel of every drop of rain, the whisper of every breath of wind and leaf falling?
What if life is a run-on sentence telling the story of your life dancing towards the final period that falls into place with grace and ease as you take one last inhale and let it all go.
Would you? Could you? Live it. Over. Out. Full stop. Period.
__________________
This piece is pure ‘fun’. As I walked this morning the thought… “What if life were a run-on sentence?” kept flowing through my mind.
I decided to let it all run out and this is what appeared.
I wrote this poem as part of National Poetry Month as well as in response to this week’s prompt at Eugi’s Causerie to “Go where the prompt leads you and publish a post on your own blog that responds to the prompt. It can be any variation of the prompt and/or image. Please keep it family friendly. Prompts close 7 days from the close of my post.”
To inspire you, I’ve included the prompt “Dance” along with the photo, Eugi’s beautiful haiku and a quote from Maya Angelou below –
dance with harmony and let cosmos rid chaos stars sway in moonlight
“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” – Maya Angelou
Prompts such as this are a fun way to stretch your creative muscles and to discover other bloggers.
I do hope you check out the offerings that are linked over at Eugi’s Causerie — and maybe… just maybe… you’ll be inspired to dance with words and images too! I hope so!
Dare Boldly 