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Sunday, November 29, 2020

Against Despair

If despair is one's middle name

(usually written as just D only,

so as not to give too much away)

if despair, as I say,

has been the default position for decades,

then how does one combat it?

How learn to step away

and find the inner passion ready to emerge?

 

Can we learn new tricks?

I dispute every suggestion

for overcoming despair

and yet am seduced,

at least a little,

by the idea that change is only

an action away.

Action animates creativity

(our birthright)

which can

(may)

defeat despair.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor




 

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Can Weeny Hits Be the Answer?

"Mid-80s" used to mean the decade that came after the 1970s. But to me now mid-80s means I'm getting' old. This week my friend M (who is my age, give or take a year)

and I were discussing age. The older you grow, the less clear you life's purpose becomes. The roles and activities that once animated you become physically impossible or just fade into the woodwork. Who are you now and why are you here? These questions are worth looking at.

 

As M and I talked she mentioned her jigsaw puzzle, laid out on a table. Sometimes, just glancing as she walks by, she will spy the piece with the slash of yellow on the edge that she's been looking for. And when she finds it serendipitously like that, she said she experiences a "weeny hit".

 

And there we had it. In these mid-80s days when our reason for living might be a bit hazy, all we need to do is to watch for weeny hits. You can rename them to your own taste: itty bitty hits. Tiny hits. Teeny-weeny hits. But I'll stick with weeny hits.

 

Think of it. A day can move along from weeny hit to weeny hit, each a splash or sparkle of delight. Which is, of course, life. Meaning. Enough to live for. I'm keeping my eyes open from now on for the weeny hits I might once have overlooked. Since my tendency is always to simplify and consolidate, focusing on weeny hits seems to be the ultimate answer. AN ultimate answer.

 

Now I'll move from the potential emptiness of aging to the superficial, my default playground. And with me the superficial—which could be the surface of anything at all, right?—is most often found in the kitchen.

 

I daren't bring up sourdough again. We've worked that vein of ore to extinction. I could cite yesterday's freezer search for the elusive two boxes of black beans—which turned out to be (the search was protracted and thorough) not two but three boxes. We devoured two of them that night as refried beans for a Texas nacho platter.

 

And that meal was preceded by oysters. Our Nova Scotia daughter arrived for a brief visit with a box of 50 Lucky Lime oysters, so we have been shucking a dozen and a half oysters and popping a bottle of sparkling wine to begin each meal. I must admit that oysters and bubbly every night can provide me with a very substantial weeny hit.

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor




 

Sunday, November 15, 2020

A Blueberry Story

Several nights ago DinoVino and I had to dig into the chest freezer to retrieve a pork roast from the deep depths. While we were there, I pulled out a large bag of blueberries because I wanted to split it and put a small bag of berries into the fridge freezer for easier access. I set the large bag onto the stool beside the freezer and we continue with our rearranging.

 

An hour later I went to bed to read. An hour after that I turned off the light to go to sleep. My mind goes through a lot of winding down as I drift toward sleep—what will we eat the next day? What appointments do I have? What will I wear? Do I have to wash my hair in the morning? You know: winding down. I was almost all the way down when I pictured the bag of blueberries on the stool. I tried to take the picture on beyond to the business of pouring some of the berries into another bag and then putting the two bags into their respective freezers. But I couldn't get beyond the memory of the blueberries on the stool—of course, with good reason.

 

I leapt out of bed and roused DinoVino from whatever noir film he was watching. Together we found the bag of berries on the stool, only partially thawed, and dealt with them as we had planned. I went back to bed, fully awake now, and had to find a soporific book to read for fifteen minutes before I could calm down enough to drift again toward sleep.

 

 

 
Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor




 

Sunday, November 8, 2020

Making a Deal

 

Come on down to Edith's Organ Emporium!

Come on down!

I'll make you a deal.

The devil's here and ready.

A deal with the devil's in the offing.

He'll deal.

Deal!

Deal, damn it!

I'm gonna pitch you a deal.

The devil's pitch sticks fast.

A fast deal is a done deal.

Deal me a grape.

Peel the banana until you slip on it!

Deal me a peel.

Deal me a pair, three of a kind, a royal flush.

Flush with new deals we'll make it through.

Through the Depression.

I'm depressed.

I'll make you a deal!

 

 

Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor




 

Sunday, November 1, 2020

Day of the Dead

The jack-o-lantern's teeth

are like abandoned gravestones.

The roots of the cemetery trees

blindly creep through the coffin wood

to reach the dense nutrients of bodies

committed to the ground

and arrive, these roots,

at tibia and fibula and skull and, yes,

knucklebones.

Roots and trees revel

in the oneness of all

and the unbiased way nature feeds one child

from the bones of another.

Nothing wasted.

Nothing lost.

All feeding all

and so on and on and on.

 

 
Copyright © 2020 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
Audible.Ca: go to https://www.audible.ca and search for Ann Tudor
Audible.Com: go to https://www.audible.com and search for Ann Tudor