Look Out Your Window, What Do You See?

Snow and ice. Ice and snow. It’s January in Alberta, what do you expect? By this time the snow isn’t pretty anymore. It’s filled with rocks and sand and ice melt. The ice on the sidewalks prevents safe walking.

This is my thirty-third winter in Alberta. I’m tired.

As a kid, growing up on the southern most end of Vancouver Island, snow was magic. It came rarely, maybe once a year and lasted for a couple of days. There were only a few hours to enjoy it. And enjoy it we did. It was perfect snow. Not too cold out, the snow soft and wet enough to make snow men and snowballs. None of us had snow gear. Our boots were rain boots. Our home made mittens would get wet. Our sleds were pieces of cardboard.

But it was glorious. And I wished I lived in a place that had four seasons. My mother, coming from Thunder Bay Ontario, didn’t like the snow. I thought she was crazy. Not like snow? How could that be? But she remembers cold days where it hurt your throat to talk.

I’m on her side now. Snow here lasts forever. Our summers are so short you don’t get to see them. 

But it’s not just the snow I’m tired of. I’m tired of my rut. The one I can’t get out of no matter how hard I try.

I know I’m supposed to go back to the island. But I’m here, because my daughter's life is here and my life is not my own yet. I can’t give her the dance lessons or the studio she so loves. She has possibilities here, right now. I am merely chasing dreams.

Which will be fine to chase when there’s no one else that has to be involved.

I have the goal.

Still the waiting is hard. Especially in January, on a cold day after Christmas.

*****

Other Blogs I Have Read

Nicole Bianchi: Are You the Greatest Enemy of Your Creative Success? 

Writer In a Wheelchair: Loom Knitting

The Sky You Were Born Under

Last year I started a book called:
A Writers Book of Days: A Spiritual Companion and Lively Muse for the Writer’s Life – Judy Reeves
It's set up with a writing prompt for each day. I made it through the first month and then quit, because I'm a flake or something. 

Anyway, I thought I would start if up again in February, and in the meantime occasionally give you a taste of what it prompted me to write before I got lazy. Besides, I'm drawing a blank on what to write about today. So here's a bit of poetry. I would say enjoy but that would be arrogant.   

The Sky You Were Born Under (after Joy Harjo)

The sky you were born under,

Left you open to abuse,

And to being undervalued,

Because you are a girl.

The sky you were born under,

Told you who you had to be,

And who you had to listen to,

In order to be loved. (But not truly loved.)

The sky you were born under,

Made you wear certain clothes,

And speak a certain way,

So as not to entice men, (but still wanted you to attract them).

The sky you were born under,

Turned you into a sex object,

Yet demanded virginity,

And still expected motherhood.

The sky you were born under,

Cut off your wings,

And restricted your brain,

But, if you can ignore,

All that you were taught to hurt you,

You can grow back your wings,

And unleash your brain.

Then

The sky that you were born under,

Is the sky that you can soar into.

*****
Other Blogs that I Have Read

Busy Bethie: Precious memories revisited one month at a time
Suddenly they all died. The end.: Defeating Winter

Why Do I Hear Petula Clark When I Think of Downton Abby?

1. Petula Clark has nothing to do with Downton Abby other than they're both English.
2. First Sybil and then Matthew and yet they allow Edith to live.
3. Mothers who love their children will hide the bodies of their children's lovers.
4. Living in a house the size of Disneyland may seem cool, until you realize that with all those servants you have to have, a person can't get a bit of privacy. They know EVERYTHING. There is no dancing naked in the kitchen.
5. Servants have no privacy either. Or days off. Or families of their own.  And they need permission to own a typewriter or at least a very valid reason why they need one.
6. Beware of taking in stray children from the upper class. Just when you fall in love with a child and think of it as your own, they will take them away, leaving you bereft and suicidal. Beware of husbands who do this to you too.
7. No one cares what the fox says.  It's just there to chase.
8. Within moments of a man dying, his young widow will have several suitable suitors falling all over themselves trying to get to her. The fact that she has money through her infant son has nothing to do with this. No one notices that the men she has sex with tend to die.
9. The fashion was to wear elegant potato sacks in the twenties. 
10. Good Mommies and Daddies saw their small children for a whole 10 minutes every evening. It was bonding time and necessary for later on when one of them would need a parent to hide the dead body.
11. It takes years and years for a butler and a housekeeper to figure out that they should get married. Everyone else has figured it out, but they are too involved in their lucrative careers to notice this.
12. If old friends come to the door you must act suitably ashamed. Especially when it is revealed that you're not really a good butler at all, but a bad actor. Although you've fooled everyone so far into believing that you are a good butler so you must be a good actor too, although all actors are bad.
13. Handsome footman who look like a young Simon Baker are to be terminated. He's drawing too much attention away from everyone else even if he isn't given hardly any lines. 
14. The bad butler always gets away with stuff. 
15. If you are of the lower class, do not name your daughter Daisy. She will never be more than a dishwasher. Daisies get stomped on.
16. The more noble a man is, the more likely he will end up in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
17. The older a lady gets, the funnier she is allowed to be.

*****

Other Blogs I Visited 

Acorn Stash: Believing in Yourself - How Does Your Outer World Affect Your Self-Esteem

Words of Encouragement: Priorities and Peace - Jan 3 Devotions

Natalie Cole: Inseperable and Unforgettable

February 6 1950 - December 31 2015

Back in 1975 while watching American Bandstand, I was introduced to Natalie Cole and the song "This Will Be" from her Inseparable album.

Loved her instantly. I didn't care if she was the daughter of a famous singer. She had a voice and style of her own. And it didn't matter to me what my friends were listening to, I could like R&B while others were getting off on Queen.

Although the official reason for her death is "congestive heart failure", it appears that this is connected to her drug use which she had quit, however, it had done permanent damage and caused her to contact hepatitis C resulting in kidney failure which I suspect may have contributed to her heart condition.

Which brings me to the question. Why?

Why do these people who have so much, throw it away with drugs and alcohol. What is so horrible and awful about life that they have to play with something so dangerous? When so many people are struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head while they battle loneliness, why do celebrities, who could have anything they desire, cause themselves so much grief and misery.

We've seen it over and over again. Elvis Presley, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and on and on and on. In Natalie's case she didn't die of a drug overdose. She had kicked it all together. But it caused her health problems for the rest of her life eventually resulting in an early death. Even her father suffered an early death due to his addiction to tobacco, but at least that was at a time when they didn't know any better. Natalie did.

In fact I heard Natalie tell of a time in her life when she didn't want anyone around her who wasn't doing drugs. At least she did go out and warn people about the dangers. She even did an inspiring performance on Touched by an Angel, about a woman who contacts AIDS through her drug use. That episode also starred the marvelous Maya Angelou and it didn't show an strung out woman. Natalie played the part of a woman from a nice home who had a place to come back to and people who loved her.

She has left behind a legacy of beautiful music, but she has also become another statistic.

Still, I will put in her music, whether it's R&B, pop, Christmas, or the standards that she sang in tribute to her father.

And I'll think of driving a Pink Cadillac with crushed velvet seats.

*****

Blogs I Visited

Pink Graffiti: Hey Girl, hey

The Compulsive Collector: I Must Be Getting Old

On the First Day of 2016

I have joined up for another...

Ultimate Blog Challange! (Say that with an echo)

Which means I have to choose to write in this blog everyday. They usually give you something to write about, but not apparently today.

The natural thing is to make look back on 2015 and pat myself on the back for all the things I accomplished.

So here it goes.







Yeah, I got nothing.

I didn't become a best selling author with the next HarryPotter/Hungergames/Divergent series.

No handsome European man swept me off my feet.

I didn't fit into the bikini that I never wore as a teenager which I could have but thought back then I was too fat for.

For some reason that sentence just looks wrong, but I'm not changing it.

I didn't move to the ocean where the weather is temperate all year round, cherry blossoms bloom in December, and you don't have to wear seven layers of clothes to stop shivering.

You would think with all my shivering the pounds would shake right off.

As I write this, I'm sitting in my basement office in my pajamas, shivering, with the nagger in my brain telling me to get off the computer and clean up my room.

But I'm fifty three years old and I have seven children (six of them grown) and six grandchildren, and I don't want to clean up my room. 

So I guess I should write resolutions goals for this year.

Except I don't want to. It's too scary. It means I either commit or look like a total loser.

Because you see, if I don't write goals, then everything that I accomplish is a surprise.

If I write goals, then they stare at me at the end of the year as testaments to how I have failed. I know this. I've done it before. Every single year.

So maybe I'll just keep them privately in my head where no one else can laugh at them.

Except, didn't I just announce a goal at the top of this post?

Aaugg!!!!

******

 As part of this challenge I'm required to read two blog posts from other bloggers in the group. I have decided out of the goodness of my heart because that is the kind of person that I am (stop rolling your eyes and gagging) that I will post the links to the two blogs I have read so that you can read them too.

Writer In a Wheelchair: Not Exactly the Start I Wanted
Amy's Adventures: Doing a New Thing