Inhale. Exhale.

Don't think about it too much. When I was younger this advice would have fallen on deaf ears. I lived in my head, and to me "thinking about it" was the only way to solve a problem or come to a conclusion.

 

Now, older but wiser, I love this advice. I hand it out freely. Just sit. Breathe. (If one more person tells me to "breathe", I may throw up—or throw something at the adviser.) Nonetheless, that's it. Difficult decision? Stop thinking about it. Set yourself a modest regime of five or ten minutes a day of sitting and breathing. Notice the in-breath pushing down the diaphragm, expanding the ribs to the sides, expanding the ribs at the top of the chest. I promise you that if you do this, you won't have space to think about your problem. Just expand and contract. Pretty soon you won't want to do anything else.

 

Follow this little routine for several days. Several weeks. The rest of your life. The problem will dissolve and the solution will pop into your mind when you least expect it to.

 

So, though I hate like the dickens to say it to you, just breathe.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Light in Winter

On these winter mornings I come downstairs before seven to turn on the heat, having already washed and dressed in the frigid upstairs. Besides the main furnace I also light the gas heater in the living room.

 

The house is dark and cold, dark even after I turn on the kitchen light. In the centre of the coffee table in the living room is our little German heat-propelled merry-go-round, a gift from a friend several Christmases ago. It's a Christmas decoration, though its figures aren't explicitly about Christmas. Some of these wooden candle-powered objects have crèche scenes, with baby Jesus lying in a manger surrounded by Mary and Joseph and a few sheep. Mine has a standing lady as the focal point, and the other figures on the platform look like the seven dwarves dressed as hooded monks, plus some rudimentary sheep. The lady is situated so that when the platform turns she moves backward while the dwarfs and sheep go forward toward her.

 

But none of this is important. What counts is the light. It is candle-power that turns the fan at the top that makes the figures go around. There are four niches for votive candles, though it takes more than four to activate our fan, probably because the house is so cold (don't ask me about the physics of this). So we use two extra non-votive candles, making six points of light (and heat) on the coffee table, plus, on the piano across the room, a tall candle and a votive candle in a little angel holder.

 

Dark house. Living room lit by the little fireplace plus six plus two candles. Dim light from the street gives the alcove a bit of shape.

 

I sit on my straight chair, cold as blue blazes, wrapped in an afghan, and I close my eyes knowing that any time I open them I will see the propeller turning, the candles burning, the tall virgin whirling ever backward pursued by tiny hooded figures.

 

Although every year I eagerly await the return of the light as our days lengthen, this year, having found a way to bring warmth and light to this early-morning time, I'm in no hurry. The dark can still be overcome by a few candles.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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On the rock of no I founded my life.

Investigating options was not an option;

"no" was the universal response.

I needed no brick wall or moated castle.

I simply surrounded myself with nettles,

thickets of thistles,

and spiny shrubs,  

which flourished in the fertile soil of my fear.

 

It was not Spring that saved me—

not as such.

But Spring in the form of a Northern Knight

who braved the thorns and carried me

to the land of the short Spring—

short but splendid in its spare

and brief appearance:

The yellows!

The greens!

The brightness of pink-tinged blooms

that over the years

have softened the rock of no

to a definite maybe.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Writing with the Wrong Hand

The left hand takes the pen as if it has a plan.

Its fingers close firmly around the black pen,

   ready to respond

and to release what will flow

from the heart.

 

And so far?

Nothing.

So far the fear still stands in the way.

So far the words—no, the feelings—

are blocked

like the mouth of a cave stopped by the boulder

    of "what if?"

 

Write the words as far as you can:

I'm not afraid to, to be . . .

Did the fingers take over to finish the thought?

Not yet. Not this time.

Again:

I'm not afraid to, to . . .

not afraid to be naked before all.

Not afraid to be revealed.

But this is only lip service,

    for nothing further arrives.

 

And what do I learn from this?

I think it's clear that even the beloved,

often-admired left hand,

child of the heart and the right brain—

even this paragon of all the honest virtues—

can lie through her teeth.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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