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Sunday 31 July 2016

The Call of the Ocean

I miss the ocean. The feel of the salt spray which seems to get into your pores seems like a face mask by nature. There is no need for music when you have the crash and hiss of the waves and they hurl themselves on shore and cling with wet foamy fingers to the rocks and sand as they are dragged back to the ocean's cradle. From time time to the wind which roars in an unending crescendo is punctuated by the staccato of a seagull shriek in a measure of three beats. Everything comes in threes. In low tide there is sand , wet, glistening taupe of billions of fine grains and smelling of brine and seaweed and something primeval. In high tide there are the swaths of beach rocks in greys, russets, sandstone, blackish-grey, and white like opaque marbles shot through with silica. So many individuals in shape and size and calling to my eyes like sirens of stone. There is driftwood twisted, scoured, stripped free of bark the white grey bone fragments of trees. Their voices can be felt with the hand like the sound of the ocean in a seashell. Each line once flowed with sap blood and each knot held up a branch in salute to the sun and in supplication to the moon. The ocean which has rocked them with its berceuse, stirred them in its churning and yearning,  has tired of them and cast them shore-ward to snatch fresh fodder from the earth in the tug of war it ever plays. 
Indian Head from Stephenville Crossing, NL 


There are other refugees finding the banks of the sea. Shells; mussels with their blue and white markings like rough pottery, sea urchins like bone pincushions, fiddler crab husks intact or in part their fiddling days gone silent, shark eyes which my mother called conchiloos their spirals inside often exposed like internal staircases with their grandeur eroded, whelks with their unicorn horns, black clams paled to white, scallops as rare as angel wings in pairs. 



Tattered rope frayed in yellow, dull orange or blue- green like locks of synthetic mermaid hair.

Fragments of lobster pots spat up as if in revenge for so many death sentences. 
Broken bottle bits in green brown and white and if you are very lucky in blue. The newer the shinier, but no friend to fingers. The older sandpapered to opacity, frosted to smoothness, almost sugared for the fingers. 
Indian Head St. Georges NL


The Johnny and Jane- come- lately-es : plastic truck wheels, a doll's torso one arm reaching, a piece of CD its disco dancing days past and the pale pink and white torpedo cases of tampons lurking like unexploded detritus to startle the treasure seeker. 

I miss feet crunching over the rocks, Each step bone-jarring, Each step the rocks grabbing at your shoes then receding in small squadrons in depressions that require agility to move on. Their muttering in rock language a challenge and an exhortation to life, to perseverance. 
My Dad with dreams of past and future


I miss the moods of the ocean. Its greenness, its blueness, its green-blueness, its greyness, its inkiness, its almost silverness, A fickle fashionista of colour but always with touches of lace as if she would always be ready with handkerchiefs in times of tears, cold or fine dining. 

Shorelines change with the passage of time, wind and waves, but the ocean is timeless. It calls to us down to our inner beings, Sirens to our very cells and primeval memories. 





Sunday 17 July 2016

Midsummer, Full Moon Approaching and a World Full of Peril: Hope Holds On

      The moon holds sway over the tides and maybe over people. Lunacy is a term coined to express this. " I cannot help, but wonder at the beauty of the moon. It shines down upon us with no judgement of us. Rich, poor, in love, lonely, well, sick: it cares not who we are, but sends its silver beams as magic balm if we will but lift our eyes up, clouds willing. So Shakespeare said:  ....there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (Hamlet,2,2) Perhaps the moon, "the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb",is too maligned when we thrust upon it responsibility for our own shortcomings and lack of moral strength. (Romeo and Juliet, 2,2) 


 There has been so much violence and loss in the world lately with many shot as in Orlando and Nice and Turkey, and others with targeted shootings like the mother, Sara Baillie, and her daughter,Taliyah Marsman, in Calgary just this past week, police shootings on both sides and the "honour" murder of  model Quandeel Baloch by her brother in Pakistan. We mourn those lost and promise to not forget, but so many do forget as time passes and the next wave of violence hits somewhere else. I went looking for quotations to inspire me and found these: 


“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” 
― J.R.R. TolkienThe Fellowship of the Ring
“This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small,
large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force;
never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” 
― Winston Churchill“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” 
― Dale Carnegie“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

So I will look up at the moon tonight and think of all those I love all over the world who look upon the same moon whether it is at the same moment I gaze at it or not. The moon links us all in the coolness of its light which sets the stars off like an opal amongst diamonds. What beauty and love there is in this world. I will hold to that.  

Sunday 10 July 2016

Beginnings, endings and in between

The biggest beginning I am part of is in welcoming my grandson Remi to our lives. Though he is still just two weeks old he has already worked his way into our hearts. When I see him or hold him the feeling of love, pride and protection I have is indescribable. I have felt it twice before in this intensity with the birth of each of my daughters. My mother said upon holding her first grandchild, my daughter Samantha, that it was the same as holding your own baby. My grandbaby is a child of my heart and in his veins through my daughter flows the blood of all my ancestors, my husband's ancestors and Remi's father's ancestors. I am grateful to be so blessed with the beginning of my life as a grandmother. I look forward to the wonder of being part of his infancy and childhood and to seeing the person he will become and celebrating his successes and his wonder. He is, like all babies, a beautiful mystery to be revealed little by little. So I must thank my daughter, Samantha, and my son-in-law, Mikhail, for bringing him into this world.
Where will these feet bring him in life? 

In his mother's arms so loved.
   This, too, is the beginning of my summer holidays. I am so tired and so grateful to be on a break. There are many students I have said good-bye to-some for the summer-some maybe forever. Beginnings and endings.

As I grow older and I know more and much less. I see that there is much more of the in between in life. Beginnings and endings are not as clear cut as they once seemed. Love can be never-ending. That is when it lifts us, and holds us, maddens us, incites us, strengthens us, excites us, inspires us and ever grows and changes with the core holding us firmly anchored one to the other beyond distance earthly, in time or dimension. Love can almost end when givers grow unkind with a pain like losing limbs. At the time you do not know if you will withstand it, but you do. It leaves a scar like a knot that was once a branch of a tree. There is strength in a knothole and a beauty in its poignant ghost of a limb. At 53 I am still discovering who I am, still learning and ,hopefully, still seeing, listening, tasting, touching and feeling with the same wonder of a child. When I get overwhelmed by the suffering, the violence, the poverty, the intolerance, the injustice in the world I look for the beauty wherever it is. That takes renewed practice each day. That takes a lot of effort and determination some days. I will be old the day I stop looking and seeing and learning.   I never want to get old in the heart and mind.