Category Archives: Transitions

Nightmare on Reading Street

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“Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.”     Stephen Fry

It is easier to open a fridge than a book in this technology era.                                      Once upon a time, the library card gave access to a whole building of books. Now it opens a universe of libraries. A year ago I purchased an iPad, with hopes to download books, to avoid the extra weight caused by my book choice indecision while traveling. I often carry four books. I also like to underline favourite passages, I like to turn pages, and leave a dozen bookmarks, so I can go back to those pages. How was this digital book transition going to work for someone like me, with an ongoing love/hate relationship with technology.images

A friend helped me download Overdrive, a gateway to the public library. We downloaded the app, but were stumped with my out of date card. Next day, I renewed my physical card, and with bravado let the librarian know I planned to download books, and read them on my device. She handed me four instruction sheets to assist. I also booked an iPad session held at the Apple Cathedral, in Marketplace Mall.

At home, after ninety minutes of followed instructions, repeated log ins and passwords, two ebooks loaded. I was elated. With a sense of accomplishment I proceed to the next phase of my plan.

At the Apple Main station, Matt the minister announces that this is a Basic iPad workshop. (He was not interested in ebooks.) To cover all the bases, I book a genius bar appointment as well, to clarify issues sure to surface in the one hour service. All my technology products are the Apple denomination. Are androids the Baptists I wonder?

Matt explains, that with bluetooth, I could get a meat thermometer app, that will signal my phone when the steak on the BBQ is done. (Could I not look at the steak/cut it?)  I could also ask Siri to book an appointment, or cancel one. I want to ask if Syri will cook dinner for me, I’m hungry. My phone dings, and I hope Siri reads minds, and ordered pizza for me, but no, the genius bar tells me that they will be ready for me soon. Craig-Mod-quote-540x540I respond with a text message. While Matt is praising Siri, my phone dings again to say I should make my way to the front, the genius is ready for me. I respond again, that I am still in workshop. Shortly after they tell me, they are passing up on me and I will need to rebook. I excuse myself from the workshop, and walk ten paces to the young usher I first spoke with on arrival. “Something is wrong with the system,” I say, I had let him know that I was at this workshop, and had responded to the messages … “How can this communication be so one-way?” He apologized, put my name back on the list, but I don’t want to wait another hour … He inquires as to my issue. I want to know if I can move pictures from my iPhone to my iPad. He tells me it does not need a genius to figure that out … The answer is No, I cannot do it. Thank you.

I return to a frustrated Matt, his connection was severed. I suggest, that this is precisely what us mere mortals, of the greying crowd deal with regularly and rather than sell me a meat thermometer app, I want to know how to reconnect without messing my settings.

How did I ever grow up without computers? When I got home, with my iPad updated, I discovered that one of my books had disappeared. (It has since reappeared and I am happily reading.)

Technology, it’s everywhere … helpful and daunting at the same time, almost like God.

“If you drop a book into the toilet, you can fish it out, dry it off and read that book. But if you drop your Kindle in the toilet, you’re pretty well done.” ― Stephen King

Jocelyn is the author of Who is Talking Out of My Head, Grief as an Out of Body Experience

Time to act my Age

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On the cusp of Sixty

I’ve been told that sixty is the new fifty. People also tried to convince me that brown was the new black. It is what it is, as the next decade approaches with warp speed. The rounded numbers remind me that
time, even heart-breaking time passes. I have come through what I expect will be the most difficult decade of my life. (The aftermath of a tragedy that took three young lives.) Though heart-scarred, the calling on my life to a greater beauty, gives me an optimistic caution to proceed with a keep-on-walking hope, and a smile.

“ It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
― Rose Kennedy

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My grand-daughter (age 8) sent a lovely poem by snail mail that arrived on time, the first verse gives her summation of her view. Simply stated:

Here comes your birthday, you’re getting old,                                                                                            You’re also getting very bold                                                                                                                What a great gramma you’ve become                                                                                                                  How I wish I could stick up my thumb!

I take that last line as a thumbs up. She states my desire to face the future with a boldness, with an expectancy that there is still much beauty in this world, and I want to participate, not spectate.

“The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming. But again and again we avoid the long thoughts….We cling to the present out of wariness of the past. And why not, after all? We get confused. We need such escape as we can find. But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.”
― Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces

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“We all have an inner voice, our personal whisper from the universe. All we have to do is listen—feel and sense it with an open heart. Sometimes it whispers of intuition or precognition. Other times, it whispers an awareness, a remembrance from another plane. Dare to listen. Dare to hear with your heart.”
― C.J. Heck, Bits and Pieces: Short Stories from a Writer’s Soul

My journey has brought me to this day, this age and I share with the sentiment found in first Samuel (7:12) to say “Thus far has the Lord helped us/me.”

May the Zippers of her Suitcase Hold

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May the zippers of your suitcase hold, she wished me …IMG_0138

Anticipation, packing, traveling light (Not even close)

Justification, rationalization, wanting to take more than I truly need, just in case. It will be cold, it will be desert, it will be … ocean, ancient cities, museums … cultural dress code versus personal preferences. It will be Family.

I know this is one of those first world problems I dare not complain too much about. I am fortunate to be able to travel to my daughter’s home. Because she resides in N Africa, I have had opportunity for some unusual travel. I have seen Luke Skywalker’s home, stayed in a troglodyte cave, stretched my hip joints on a camel.

I have also missed out on too of my grandchildren’s birthdays, too many school performances, and too many babysit moments to give their parents a break. So this trip covers my granddaughters eighth birthday, (early Nov) and Christmas (late Dec) with a side trip thrown in. Two continents, three cultures, and how do I pack?

Requests for peanut butter, Craisins, home-school supplies, gifts for family, neighbours, hostess gifts, Christmas items, books and games for grandkids, the list and desires go on. Thus far I have two full suitcases, not including my own clothing or personal items. Can I take my big camera? It’s the shoes that fill the space. What to do?

My sister calls for a final chat, gives an understanding ear to my dilemma, and the quick acknowledgement, that I am not complaining—if I could bring the world to my children I would try.

That is all good to have lofty goals and ideal, but the reality is you still do need to pack, you still need shoes and clothes to wear, she says.

And I struggle to understand the unease of my soul.

Is this the old self-imposed need to meet or exceed expectations—a left-over from the strived for Supermom days, mixed in with the desire to have it all, be it all.

This desire to live the full life, wrangles with the longing to be free from the burden of “stuff.” The hope not to be disappointed, nor to be a disappointment.

And this craving for beauty and serenity in my soul.IMG_4192

And I am reminded of Max Lucado’s book, Travelling Light that I read about half a dozen years ago and don’t remember a single thing about it, except the title. As I pack, I am thinking about traveling light, physically and spiritually.

IS this how I live my life? With only necessities …  a self-imposed frugality of spirit? What about those words, of having more than we can dream or think about? I want both the being and the doing.

As I pack I am faced with prioritizing necessities versus wants. It’s been both a challenge and delight to mull through this. After all, in the end, what matters most is how well we love. And that is an attitude I can pack in, carry on, and dispense when I land. And I know in return my own suitcases will be filled with memories unspeakable.

I send this from the airport …. the first take-off of many. The zippers are bulging …

The Inch Worm

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Downsizing of Dreams

My life moves ahead in Fits and Starts 

I am the Inch Worm

  Folding in half for each step ahead

    Vulnerable, easily squished

      But I am not the Inch Worm

        Because I have Skin

          A backbone that aches

            Pain lets me know

              That I am alive

                I taste Joy in this

                  Velvet Morning

                    Pink Skies give Way

                      To a Brand New Day

                        To Inch Ahead.

-crop-127-140-127px-Take-Care-of-Inchworms-Step-1-Version-2

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Vaclav Havel-Czech Playwright and President

Pick Me Up, I’m Falling Again

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IMG_5699Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.”
― Samuel Butler
Is it just me, or does fall come more quickly every year?
The overachiever tree along my bike path turned yellow a week ago and by now has dropped most of his leaves, unaware that the world is not quite ready for its glory. The back to school busses have increased the local traffic, but at least a few tired moms smile with the return of school structure.
Thankfully I haven’t seen the geese heading in the other direction, I might have to shoot them.
When I lived in Australia for two years, I realized that I actually missed the distinct changes of season. It was hard to complain when every day was near paradise. The Ozzie’s lame lament about their cold was spitting in the wind. The first winter proved to match temperatures with the prairie summer I had left behind. My school teacher sister had been reluctant to miss summer to visit me down under in the cold season, only to discover that an Australian winter was similar to a Canadian prairies’ summer.
I think each passing fall makes me realize I am truly more in the autumn of life than spring or summer. I have matured into foliage.IMG_5640
Having grandkids could be considered one of the qualifications. Instead of begrudging autumn’s arrival, lamenting the lost long summer days, I want to choose to embrace the season’s gifts. I enjoy the settled peace of September. Fall brings it’s own new beginnings … unlike the artificial New Year, where I feel coerced into resolutions of new direction.
Fall transitions naturally … the change in weather invites me to try something new, read a book, try a course, dust off my hobbies. I stopped at the Michael’s craft store on a cloudy day this week, and with forecasts of single digit for next week, I bought a knitting book! Not any knitting mind you, but arm knitting, it’s a loose weave, where the upper limbs turn into a kind of giant cat’s cradle game. She must be going bonkers, I was thinking of myself, as the negative voices in my head chastise me for starting something new again, that I might not finish. And I talk back, it is better to start ten things with enthusiasm, perhaps finish one of them, than not start at all. Much of the enjoyment comes from the possibilities of the dream, I could envision lovely scarves.

DSC_0962I recognize an unspoken longing that perhaps this next season will meet expectations, that desires be met, and I realize This is Life. Live it as it is, where it is, in this moment, in this season. I cannot go backwards in time … I don’t know what lies ahead, but I have this day. I choose to make the most of it.

All photos by Jocelyn

Silence & Sacred Idleness

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Work is not always required …there is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.

George MacDonald
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Silence is scary … I am left with my own thoughts. The voices in my head.
I think one of the reasons technology does well is that few people want to be alone with their thoughts. In fact it’s difficult to get the peace and quiet to be in that space. Being (Over)busy, has become the accepted hallmark of value and approval.
But when something desperate or traumatic happens in life, be it a big or small desperation, the necessity of silence and the need to address the inner voices becomes inescapable. At that time I have the power to stifle the voices, to run from them, or to ask them – what is it I really need to learn from you?
Being alone with my thoughts … I confess to not minding my own company … I value times of silence. A dear sister and I expressed the mixed fear and delight of becoming these eccentric mature ladies-didn’t want to say old. I would be vividly odd, and she would be cerebrally offbeat, and strangely enough we think it would be ok. It’s the freedom to not care what others think anymore, and the urgent desire to listen to and give voice to that too long silenced inner self. One of my favourite images comes from a U2 song line …
she is running to stand still.
Be still and know that I am God ….IMG_5687
Those were the words that came to me many years ago, in the middle of a snow storm … My daughter Kristen and I were speaking at a Mother Daughter retreat … and I was contemplating the busyness of life, a possible new career direction, or a decrease of same. Options weighed on my mind as I took a short walk in a Nov snow storm and came to a clearing in the woods … in that small magical space, snow whirled all around me and here I was …. Calm and Silent, as though I was in the eye of the storm. The silence spoke powerful peace into my soul … and the ancient words came to mind …. Be STILL and KNOW that I am God. How could I know? I’d been so busy running, flapping on the spot … the way I see the ravens in a strong wind … flapping before they soar.
At that moment I knew I could not take on one more thing, as good as it was.
I often remember what the silence of the snowstorm did for my soul.
No longer do I apologize for my time to sit by the river, to absorb the beauty, to let the chaos of mind seep out of my body.
Although it’s been a tad hard to buck the norm, I have never regretted a moment of Sacred Idleness . IMG_7562_2

Silence does not exist in our lives merely for its own sake.
It is ordered by something else. …
Silence is the strength of our interior life.
Silence enters into the very core of our moral being.

Thomas Merton
from his book No Man is an Island

Our Daily Becoming

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The person inside struggles to get out
Eyes open … head shakes in terror … non-recognition … fear …
IMG_5790And my heart drops to my toes … this is not my friend
The next day …. I see her in those same eyes, my friend has returned
The intensity of the ICU waiting place…
The question lingers for me, Where has the she been in this time of unconsciousness? … while body fights for breath, tracheal tube blocks words from lips … but, this last evening, she responds with slight smile, the eyes are hers … lips shape words that cannot yet be voiced.
Intensive care—a reason for the name. Three other heavily monitored people share this sacred space … under heavy equipment security … machines record and alarm. The machined man diagonally across … at one point … seven staff members rush into his cubicle … curtains close to keep us out … and yet in the crack I see … syringes inject another fight for life. And the next day another body occupies the bed.
And sometimes I want to ask the nurses not just to look at the machines, but to look into my friends’s eyes … to know the person inside …. the beautiful person she is … and I cannot ask them that, as they are busy saving lives … but I myself can do that, I can look into her blue eyes and express caring.
… jazz vespers at church next to the heart hospital … as the melody begins … the minister speaks of the music’s power that transcends the cares and speaks to the soul … and it does.
And back to hospital room, back to hotel … and we discuss on patio in beautiful evening, in beautiful city, under full moon the heavies of life … over white wine … and we contemplate the recognition of who is the person … and how we have been challenged with the homeless people, the nameless faceless people, the hospital bed people, the walking on the street people… and a mouse sneaks along the edge of the patio … we are startled … no screams, but we do move back one table… and then someone else asks us “Do we have change so he can buy something at McDonald’s?” And we cannot walk by him, he has entered our space … I ask him his name, he is Keith … we ask if he has a place to stay, as my friend is looking for change … and gives him a bill … he assures us he will not buy wine … and she hands him the bill … he leaves and we look at each other and marvel at the day … so many people on this planet … our desire to be known … our desire to be cared for … our gratitude in life … being one of many walking the face of this city, this planet … from long hospital corridors, to musicians on the street, to biking the city, to our friend … the intricacies, delights and beauty of the day.
Wow, was all we could say … and God is good.

Our Daily Becoming
 
Adam Clay
Like animals moving daily
 through the same open field,
it should be easier toIMG_5734 distinguish 
light from dark, fabrications 
from memory, rain on a sliver 
of grass from dew appearing 
overnight. In these moments
of desperation, a sentence
 serves as a halo, the moon 
hidden so the stars eclipse 
our daily becoming. You think 
it should be easier to define 
one’s path, but with the clouds 
gathering around our feet,
there’s no sense in retracing 
where we’ve been or where 
your tired body will carry you.
Eventually the birds become 
confused and inevitable. Even our 
infinite knowledge of the forecast 

might make us more vulnerable
 than we would be in drawn-out
ignorance. To the sun
 all weeds eventually rise up.
 Poem from Poem-a-Day/ Poets.org by Adam Clay
  
 
 

Barefoot in Summer

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“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” ― F. Scott FitzgeraldDSCN8181

When winter hangs long in the prairies, spring blips and barefoot season is upon us. I called my usually optimistic mother, on a day of sit outside on the deck weather. She agreed, and then added, “Before you know it we’ll have snow again.” We all need a little Mennonite in us to spit rain on a bright day.
Summertime therapy for the blues … go barefoot, plant flowers, get new sandals, eat ice-cream, wade in the water, spend as much time as possible outdoors, all without apology. I want to run on greener pastures, I want to dance on higher hills … that is a line from a song I heard this past week, and it has me dancing now, as I see the hills around me turn green. There is much beauty in this world and I want to keep my eyes open … After all as my mother says–Snow is around the corner.
Thinking of barefoot I dug out this poem from a year ago:

Cement Blocks Continue reading

Serendipity

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ser·en·dip·i·ty serənˈdipitē/ noun
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. “a fortunate stroke of serendipity”

One of spring’s sure signs is this one: IMG_4692
The beauty of garage sales … one person’s junk is another’s treasure.
This past Saturday of the long weekend I thought it would be fun to drive into the country for the five miles north of town sale … I breathe deep as a hawk soars overhead, the Rocky Mountains look hazy in the west. The sunshine most welcome after being hidden for days.

“If we can fold this lounge chair back in the bag, I’ll take it” … I can envision myself at Two Jack Lake, book in hand, feet up.
The owner shows me the collapse trick while he tells me that he and his wife are197712_400273336692344_62719513_n moving to BC. He sells a young man a hammer and crowbar for $3. Throw in a $2 camp pot for me and everyone’s got a great deal.

Back in town, neighbourly kibitzing happens as three houses make this a multi-family garage sale.
At door number three, a young lady re-aquaints with the house-owner.
“Are you still at the school?” Turns out she had been the well known, long term school secretary-now would probably be called the office manager. (I am reminded of a slighter version of the iconic Ms Janzen from my high school era)
“Oh no, I retired about five years ago” I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation, but I was curious as to what I was looking at. Either a large dog bed, kids mat?

Oversized pillow shams, in a brown faux suede that had come with a bedspread she bought. Couldn’t haggle with a one dollar price, I could use them as a throw in my car for an impromptu sit along the river …
I took one, and the other bargain hunter snatched the remaining two.
Then she spotted the real treasure.
“Are you still painting?”
“Not so much.”
“I’ll take that, it’s beautiful. It’s like I have a Mrs Kelly original.”
“Oh, just hang it in your furnace room” Mrs Kelly says.
“Oh NO” … she pauses … “You see my mom died recently and she always loved IMG_3029flowers, this painting makes me think of her.” The painting was a bouquet of hydrangea flowers, in shades of pink. Mrs Kelly gets teary eyed. I feel a part of this moment, and add “That’s so nice, in a sense it’s like the sympathy flowers … I think she should sign it.” By now I discover that it is Peggy and Kari, I am talking to. Kari felt so fortunate to have found Mrs Kelly and the painting. They have a hug, and I think I’d like a hug too … and they comply. What a beautiful moment. I tell them I will mention them in my blog … Kari wants to know what the blog is about, I say it is about grieving. After unloading at my car, I return to see if I could get a picture of the painting .. and Kari was gone … “Only for a moment and the moment’s gone.”
My vehicle is full enough and it’s time to head home…
Aah, the joy of serendipitous moments. I hope my eyes can stay open to them.

(Note the painting inserted is another serendipitous moment/story, the artist is Tyrell Clark)

Hope Springs a Leak

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IMG_2833Is Hope more than wishful thinking? … more than the carrot dangled? … waiting for spring to arrive after the long winter?
The dictionary defines hope as: the state which promotes the desire of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one’s life or in the world at large.
The news on the TV screen at the Winnipeg airport, while waiting for my flight to Calgary explodes with the story of five young people stabbed to death at an end of term university party. Shock, disbelief!IMG_4352
The city of Calgary’s worst mass murder ever.
The grey clouds of mourning have hung over the news, the city and the skies. One more tragic read for the masses, but a lifetime of dashed hopes for the families and close friends of the five.
Where are the spring flowers for this situation? Delayed, due to an extension of winter.
Feeling along with the heaviness of the loss of a child, the clock radio woke me to a strange mixture of music. In the one ear I could hear the Third Day song Nothing Compares, and just below that a rap artist was going on about the strife, misery and hate that seems a frequent topic of rap. The mixture confused me, momentarily as I had not knowingly set my alarm. Then as I recognized the first song, I thought it was brilliant—the words of hope, of the greater good written/sung over top the disappointment in life. And then I realized it was a tuning problem … I was on the airwave border of two radio stations that were competing to outshout each other. What an image of what is happening every day. Listen to the news at night and we can get the overwhelming sense of despair … watch the National Geographic or Discovery channel and I sense awe as I view the incredible beauty and strength of whales breaching in the ocean, or time lapse photography of flowers unfolding.
Simone Weil has said that there are two things that pierce the heart, beauty and affliction(sorrow). Restated as moments we wish would last forever, and those we wish had never begun.

IMG_2836This is the Easter weekend, and this is the ultimate story of the resurrection of hope over the sorrow of death.
The promise of new life erupting after the long winter.
May it be so for the families in sorrow.
I am waiting for these crocuses to return.

Link to the Third Day song that played … I didn’t recognize the rap song, so cannot give you that link—you get to play it over your own selection of disappointment.