Missing You

Tags

answers, binding, communication, conversations, courage, failure, hope, missed opportunities, mother, questions, reflection, relationships, sadness, ties

It was never the right time to speak of things that really mattered, and yet we spoke, you and I in a language that we both understood. We had learned that it was never going to be the right time for us early on and so we lived side by side in a world where dialogue was only necessary for the inconsequential issues of the day. At least to you, they were inconsequential but to me they weighed heavily on my heart: because I ached and longed to know you in a way that would bind us together and satisfy those deep desires, release the pain of unspoken feelings, construct ethereal edifices eagerly in which we both could meet and greet ourselves, linking us eternally and tethering us to our truth.

I learned from bitter experience that our truth was a lie. You and I were never meant to seize the day, smile unfettered by the sadness that came our way from time to time, engage in conversation, cleverly constructed, clearing the way for an understanding far removed from the murky maelstrom our lives seemed bent on taking – a direction in which we were both passengers and yet neither of us knew the way.

Now separated by death, not by choice, but because that is the way of life: I linger longingly in the empty space that has been left with all the questions I didn’t ask, all the answers I might have been given, all the different ways you made me feel, but mostly all the missed opportunities that presented themselves but I was never brave enough to grasp, grateful though that I experienced your greatness in all its flawed guises.

Marie Williams – May 2017

The Community Associations’ Winter Carnival 2016

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awareness, Cheryle. Lightwalker's Blog, children, comfort zone., communication, creativity, friendship, harmony, In light and love, inspiration, reflections, relationships

Sometimes, Cheryle, experiences outside of our ‘comfort zone’ can be the most inspiring experiences. It’s taken me many years to learn this as I’m shy, reserved, quiet and a little bit unsociable :))), but I find when I make the effort to do something which is unsettling, I derive great pleasure and a sense of achievement which (sometimes) spurs me on to get involved in other uncomfortable places. Thank you for sharing.

Lightwalkers Blog

Today was a day filled with children and activities definitely outside my comfort zone.  Today the Community Association held its Winter Carnival.  Today I played with children of all ages. Some were three and some were eleven and the others were all the ages in-between.

Yes, I helped out at the colouring contest table sponsored by the Ogden Seniors 50+ Activity Club.  We had a multitude of Christmas pictures to colour, crayons, and prizes to be won.  The kids lined up at our table excited to spend a few minutes shading stockings, wreaths, and Christmas trees with the waxy crayons. A chance to win a five dollar McDonalds gift card was an easy enticement for many of the young people tagging along behind their Mom or Dad as they wandered from booth to booth.  Alone in their zone, they chatted quietly about their schools, their ages, their siblings and in some…

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(March 19/17) “Come As You Are…You Can’t Help But Be Beautiful”

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come as you are, communication, esoteric, gifts, inspiration, layers, listening, Neal, party, plain and simple!, puns, spinach, trulyunplugged, wrapping. acceptance

WOW!!!!!!!!!!! What an amazing post! I LOVE IT!!! Seriously Truly, I love this post on so many levels:
Level 1 – I was the inspiration
Level2 – You my dear are one helluva writer
Level3 – I didn’t need to keep reading and re-reading (but I’m lazy like that lol) (Give me easy over hard anytime!)
Level 4 – the content was just brilliant: sharing, explaining, revealing a ‘deeper and more meaningful’ character – not to say that you are not already!
Level 5 – your versatility!
Level 6 – being so accommodating and respectful of my lone voice – so sweet!
Level 7 – I’m going to stop here, because I realise I need the rest of the day to write all the other levels and I don’t want to be the ‘bore’ at the party.
Thank you Neal for ‘spinach’. Thank you Truly for listening to Neal. Thank me for my audacity! And most of all Thank you for being ‘Truly’.

I Will Wry-se Up

Hi, Wonderfuls,

Just now, Marie and I were exchanging comments; and when I thanked her for taking the time to read/re-read…and re-read my posts (in order to wrap her head around my messages) she wrote….

“No trouble at all, Truly. I just wish that the real world would emulate the blogging world in the respect that we try to understand each other better.  Sometimes the “gift” is wrapped so well you need to take the time to remove the layers to truly(!) appreciate what others give. <3”

What a beautiful perspective…how generous.  This is evidence of a true desire for connection–this willingness to meet people where they are.  And, it is in that spirit that I share what follows.

(But, first, here’s where to find Marie…she is amazing!)

https://mariewilliams53.wordpress.com/

So, I love creative writing/writing creatively–it’s my equivalent of painting, or figure skating, or belting a power ballad, or rocking a…

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The Wise Woman’s Stone

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awareness, beggar, Christmas, coin, communication, compassion, gift, giving, hungry, money, precious stone, security, self-knowledge, stone, therapy, traveller, wisdom

Lately I find I having been giving a lot. I don’t know whether I am especially aware of this because it is the season for giving, or if something has triggered something deeper within me. But I think the act of giving, whether it is in recognition of a celebration, ie a birthday, charity, a good cause, Christmas or something like that is actually beneficial to the soul. I personally feel such joy and contentment when giving or sharing that I’m sure that internally, physically there is a way the body responds by removing toxins and releases feel good chemicals which flood the body and in turn makes you feel much healthier. You can probably tell that this is my own clumsily conveyed take on what giving means for me. I don’t make any claims to expert scientific knowledge.

Earlier this year, someone approached me telling me that he had to get to work and he had no money for his fare to get there. He said he had seen me, and that he had thought about it a long time, and he knew that I looked like a ‘kind lady’ and that I would help him. After much questioning, I gave him some money to get to work for the whole week. He thanked me profusely and bestowed many blessings upon me. I did wonder if he was genuine, but I thought if he is trying to con money out of me, then that is his problem and not mine. I felt better for giving and helping someone who I believed needed help. I like to think that if I had been in the same position, help would be forthcoming.

Two days ago at the train station, a beggar approached me, dirty, dirty clothing, in need of care and attention and I gave him some money. He had run up to me hand outstretched as I stood in the queue at a cake shop. I had a few bags and had to shift them around to get into my handbag to find my purse. He stood waiting patiently, hand still outstretched while I tried to get my money out. He had no idea if I was going to give him any money at all because I did not say anything, just rustled around with my bags. I eventually found my purse which had some change (lots of pennies) and one shiny £2 coin which I had been saving and did not want to spend because it was so shiny. Call it one of my foibles! I had no other change (apart from some notes), so I gave him my shiny coin which had been in my purse for months, while I broke into pound notes in order not to spend it. So you can see how much it meant to me. I gave the beggar/homeless person the coin which he eagerly took, blessed me considerably and ran off into the crowd. I felt good. I didn’t even mind about giving him that particular coin.

I discovered this story around Easter time, this year. I was actually looking for something else on the Internet, but came across this and it resonated with me. I hope it does the same for you.

The Wise Woman’s Stone

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone.

~”The Wise Woman’s Stone” ♥
Author Unknown

Approval: part 2: Paws for Thought

Tags

animals, communication, compassion, emotion, harmony, healing, journey, mental health, metaphor, rejection, seeking appeoval, thoughts

“We are good because we are loved.  We are not loved because we are good”. – Desmond Tutu

 

~ Marie Williams  2016

Guidance

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communication, compassion, emotion, fears, flowers, harmony, healing, heart, journey, metaphor, nature, poetry, prose poetry, self-knowledge, therapy

Image: Google Images

Guidance

When I’m floundering fixedly on facing fears; fully aware of my shortcomings, I find you pointing proudly in the direction that I should go. Don’t you know that if I go, I go with the knowledge that I am not enough out there on my own? My needs are not necessarily manifold, but many are they and they won’t go away without first feeding that part of me which hungers for your staunch support; stepping in line with me.

So when you point, please don’t point with those elegant finely forbidding fingers. Instead, firmly hold my hand, grasp it lovingly and lead me along the path where the bluebells grow, dancing in freshly fallen snow, in the chill wind of April’s noon-day sun.

~mew

We write to “right”, right?

Tags

birth, communication, creativity, death, emotion, expression, fears, harmony, healing, journey, life, poetry, struggle, words, Writing

When we need to feel the way we think we ought to feel, what’s the first thing we look for? We grab a pen and a sheet of paper and we mark that piece of paper with the deep stirrings of our heart. Feelings felt are emotional words which will not rest. Restless, they birth in the mind’s womb, children of (sometimes) unequal bedfellows. Having nothing in common save a lust for life and life at its best, not a life of struggle or unrest. And who does not want to live a life free from encumbrance of sadness, sickness, greed and grief? A life that meanders along a lane of lasting twists and turns and leads you lonely, lost and drowned in sorrows which forever abound.

Those children words in infancy come screaming, raw and red. They hit the paper with a bump. When washed free of literary placenta, they open their eyes and survey their surroundings: their parents if they are fortunate to have two, sigh with relief that they have all their fingers and their toes. They do not dress them in pink or blue, lemon or white they find will do. Those words, those precious longed for words, those words which never required IVF, fertilized by need, born to succeed, they speak the depths of the human heart. They utter the joy, they express delight, they sometimes quarrel noisily and fight. But each and every word that’s born to parents of their need to perform the seemingly endless tasks that life requires is always thankful their child was born.

We write to right the wrongs. We write to speak of our delight. We write to fight. We write for peace. We write to rally our battle cries. We write to herald birth. We write to make a friend of death. We write to champion life.

~ MEW 2016

False Smiles, False Conversation

Tags

communication, etiquette, life-lesson, manners, poem, poetry, pretense, respect, self-knowledge, twenty four/seven, vampire

I didn’t like him and he didn’t like me.  That much we understood.  But in order to allow life to run smoothly and not to upset the apple-cart, we pretended that we did like each other.  False smiles, false conversation.  Empty words and empty laughter.  He’d been visiting for a while and I thought she could’ve done better for herself.  Where on earth had she found him?  I called him “The Vampire”.  He only appeared at night after 12.00.  What did he do during daylight hours?  He was very busy I was told.  His busy-ness left me cold.  Sounds to me like a tale of old: she wasn’t that important, but during the night when he was less busy, he could accommodate her.  Not good enough I’m afraid.

And so the story unfolds.  I liked him no better and he liked me no better but things came to a head one night when at a quarter to one he decided to visit.  “Hiyoualright?”  As he slinked upstairs and caught me in the light on the landing.  I think it was meant to be “Hi., how are you?”  But it was a quarter to one and I hadn’t set my vampire clock and was not pleased at all.  No answer came from me, caught as I was in my unsociable attire, where do you think you are going at this time of night, outraged sensibility.

Vexation all around and hurt feelings abound.  Hasty exits and another deposit in the bank of “what’s her problem?”.  And when I’ve calmed down, I try to make amends.  Try to bring it back to false smiles, false conversation, empty words and empty laughter.  The conversation does not go well.  “About the other night … I don’t really like you to visit at unsociable hours… this upset me … would prefer it if you didn’t do that”.  Back came the reply: “You’re unsociable”.  “You’ve never made me feel welcome in your home”.  “Whose fault is it that I’ve been coming here for over one year and you have never tried to get to know me better?”  Followed by: “I don’t care what you think.  You called me, I never called you, so get off the ‘phone”.  Could it have got worse?  Clearly it did.  Now, no false smiles, false conversation, empty words and empty laughter.

 

Lesson

Have respect for others.  Respect their lives and how they choose to live.  Do not presume that because you are on a 24/7 schedule, they are too and if they are not, they are unsociable and unwelcoming.  Try to meet somewhere in the middle and never ever try to justify bad behaviour by blaming the other person  for your own bad behaviour.

~MEW

 

 

 

 

The Gift

Tags

awareness, blogging, clouds, communication, compassion, feelings, healing, metaphor, nature, poem, poetry, self-knowledge, therapy, tranquility, trees

Why this feeling of sadness now?  I think I’ll sit with it a while, after all it cannot hurt to understand the feeling if it manifests itself to me.  If I ignore it and send it away will it be hurt and think that it cannot come again to remind me of something I have not yet forgotten?  Breathe deeply, stare at the yellow walls and the sunlight reflecting through the window at the foot of the stairs.  It doesn’t feel any better, but then why should it?  You’ve only been thinking about the feeling for a few seconds.  Is that all the time that you can spare for this feeling when it so urgently wants to be felt?  Don’t you owe it to yourself to sit and engage with it, have a conversation with it, listen to what it has to say?

A small knot in the pit of your stomach.  A small pressure to the right side of your head, just under your ear.  Tingling in the feet and curiosity around the base of your neck and furrowed forehead.  Lips pursed as if to kiss and greet the feeling that has chosen this moment to visit, when you really weren’t expecting visitors today.  Invite the feeling to stay and find out what it has to say.  Don’t be cold and formal, treat it like a long lost friend.  Connect with it and let it know that it is important, that it is welcome and that although you have other things to do, this feeling has priority right now.  It relaxes and reclines and something shifts within you.

You turn your head and gaze from the foot of the stairs to the open window where the breeze softly caresses your skin, notice too that the trees are waving at you, as the cool air touches their leaves.  That the clouds in the sky floating on by suggest softness, cushioning your  thoughts.  Having gazed a while, seconds, minutes – who knows, you glance away, noticing the feeling has crept away.  You smile and acknowledge the gift your visitor brought today.

~mew

 

 

 

Taboo or not Taboo

Tags

abuse, collusion, communication, conscience, falsehood, healing, injustice, poem, poetry, silence, taboo, taboo subject, therapy

“It is true that when we harm others, we harm ourselves; but it is just as true that when we help others, we also help ourselves.”
― Desmond Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World    

Taboo or not taboo, that is the question

Whether it is nobler in the mind*

To sit and do nothing

Or to stand up for what you know to be right

To listen and not be moved to action

To watch and to turn a blind eye

Does conscience or the lack of it make fools of us all?

In colluding with a wrongful action by keeping silent

In denying truth dishonestly and claiming falsehood true

What destructive forces do we unleash?

And can we ever rein them back before it is too late?

When we look but do not see

When we turn away in disgust relentless to the end

Because we cannot, dare not comprehend

What misery are we storing up for our brothers and our sisters

And ultimately ourselves?

~mew

 

 

[*Inspired by Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”]