A Portrait of a Life

If you would like to live a little dangerously, I highly recommend reading, 'Riding the Dragon' by Robert J. Wicks. There are countless gems in this easy-to-read book on riding the dragons of life and riding them well.

If you, like Mr. Duffy, live a short distance from your body (words penned by James Joyce) and would like to come home, this book has dragon lessons pointing the way. But, be warned, coming home to ourselves is not easy and not for the faint hearted. It is for the courageous. Courage is not the absence of fear but the realisation that something else is of greater importance than fear.

In the words of James Joyce:
Live all you can
it's a mistake not to.
It doesn't so much matter
what you do in particular,
So long as you have had your life.
If you haven't had that
what have you had?

I'm still practising dragon lessons on coming home, all in preparation, one day, for my ultimate home coming.

You're So Vain ... Self-Absorbed ... Inconsiderate

You're so vain you probably think this blog is about you, don't you?

You walk onto the sea bus like you don't know where to sit.
There're empty white chairs a plenty - take your pick -
but you must choose the one right behind me.
With no regard for personal space - just yourself - we sit back to back.

Your iPod strategically placed in your ears,
you turn up the volume - with no regard for anyone else.
I shift in my seat to put some distance between us, your Elvis greased hair,
And your shirt - it was blue.

If I still had my cup of tea-on-the-go I'd pour it in your lap,
Turn down your music and turn up consideration.
I live a dream of escaping on a Lear jet to anywhere far from here,
But it is clouds in my coffee as I'm where I should be.

Your music stills as you search for a song.
You find Carly Simon and I share her lament, "You're so vain ..."

The Passport Office

Buddy must you sit in top of me? I grab my purse off the chair next to me trying to vacate the seat before he deposits his derrière. It's not like you can't sit on the next one over which is just plain empty. He misjudges and sits down between the two seats. They squeak and slide - a tad.

"Oops - choose one," he says to no one in particular or is it to me? He readjusts his derrière and chooses the one, of course, right on top of me. Of two seats, one empty and one with a purse on it, why would he choose to sit on the one with the purse on it?

My neighbour stirs and clears his throat. I keep my head resolutely down. Buddy, don't talk to me. I may be in the passport office, and it might not look like much to you, but this is 'me' time. I glance across at the paperwork on his lap. He has the same first name as my father and two others beside. He was born in England before the Second World War and his last name is a chess piece. Hmm - he also made a journey across the water from the North Shore.

I wonder: did he come to Canada as a child evacuee during the war? Did he emigrate to a new life with his parents soon after the war - his dad a RAF pilot regaling the family on cold winter nights with war stories? Soon his wife joins him. From their accents I surmise they came to Canada as adults, in the sixties, as a young married couple. Chances are they started their Canadian life back east before the bitter winters drove them west and they traded their snow shovel for an umbrella.

"How long will we have to wait?" asks his wife.
"I don't know," he replies. "It's almost this lady's turn but there are still 20 numbers before it is ours."
I long to ignore him. But I respond.
"I've been here 40 minutes already - so you might wait as long as an hour."
There - he wins. He got me to talk.

Ten minutes later, the monitor pings and displays 'F354'.
"It's your turn," says my retired Anglo-Canadian fellow citizen.
"Yes, thank you," I reply, likely never to see him and his wife again.
Yet, one never knows, perhaps one day we will meet again - on the pages of a story.

Tutti Frutti

Wednesday night - a precious time of aloneness - M's at a meeting and will be back when I'm already sound asleep. I've soaked in the bath and finished my book. Dressed in my pyjamas, my body warm and cuddly from a soak in the tub, I toss around the options of reading another book in bed or writing a blog. Or a third option sneaks in - be a good wife and make M tutti frutti.

For brunch last Christmas, I made stewed fruit to be served with yoghurt. Whether our friends were that thrilled with it, I can't say, but it was a hit with M and me. I now keep a supply of it in our fridge to be added to oats or yoghurt for breakfast. It's been finished for a few days now and just this morning M asked hopefully, "Are we going to have some more tutti frutti soon?" I shelve the book and shut the door on the computer beckoning me to write - tutti frutti it is.

It is a simple process - the hardest part is chopping the dried fruit to bite size pieces. It's not as pleasing on the eye as leaving the fruit whole but it is easier to eat. I've found that dried apricots, peaches, pears and apples work well as do prunes. And cranberries add a splash of colour. Avoid dried figs - the skin doesn't soften enough. After all the chopping is done, I boil the kettle and steep two cups of rooibos tea with just a hint of sugar and a good dash of lemon juice. I pour the tea over the dried fruit and let it stew overnight on the counter. In the morning, we will have stewed fruit - or tutti frutti as M calls it - ready to be added to natural Balkan yoghurt.

Good wife - when M gets home tonight his pyjamas will be waiting for him at the front door and in the kitchen tutti frutti will be plumping up on rooibos tea. In bed, I still squeeze in a few pages before switching off the lights. And writing, well, as Morrie said, that will come.

The Freedom of Words

There - I successfully did it. I didn't write on my blog for the month of February. Not one word, not a whisper, not a whimper. I didn't have time for the first two weeks and what time I did have for writing were spent working on my short story (see Writing a Story, Simply January 2011).

I was feeling the weight of not writing until Saturday night, February 19th, when I received wise words from a good friend. I was putting the finishing touches to our Persian lamb dinner for five friends. Morrie came to join me, leaning on the counter space that separates our one-person-at-a-time kitchen from the dining area.

"So you're having trouble with your story are you?"

I looked at him a touch perplexed.

"That's what I picked up from reading between the lines, you know," he added as he used his right hand to draw a straight line in the air.

"Oh, you read my blog," I caught on; I sometimes suffer from a time delay. "Yes, I'm having some trouble with it. Mostly because I'm so busy and I'm tired."

"Yes, I read that too," Morrie said.

"I haven't written anything since that last blog about feeling like I'm burning to the ground."

"Well, don't worry about it," said Morrie, "you'll write again when it's right."

"Yeah, but I have some people who follow my blog," I smiled at him, "and I don't want them to look and find nothing new there."

"But then you've got it all wrong," Morrie replied, "because you should be writing just for you not for anyone else. If you feel the pressure to write for your readership, you're no longer writing for yourself."

"You're right, Morrie," I said as I spooned the red pepper sauce from the pan into a serving dish. "I should just be writing for myself. I've forgotten to do that."

And so, I spent the next week focusing on and finishing my short story, free of guilt and my self-inflicted perfectionism to do everything and to do it well. Thank you Morrie, your wise words of freedom found an open window into my soul.