Category Archives: forest

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The legs go last

This if for photrablogger’s Mundane Monday #56…. his photograph is shadow and angles and stairs and pattern. This is my legs, on a run on Saturday, and yes, that is Princess Leia helping me to be brave about rebuilding my muscles…. the feet are not a horribly deformed rash but a pair of toe shoes for running. I like going barefoot, but my feet aren’t toughened enough and it’s cold in the mornings! Not real icy cold, but 50 and wet.

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O is for open

O for open.

What does feeling open mean to you?

Dictionary.com lists 42 adjective meanings, including:
34. not constipated, as the bowels.

That one made me giggle, but I am thinking of open as in open to other people and open to discussion and open to change. Walking outside and seeing birds and deer and the spring here exploding in flowers and small new leaves opens me. I get tired in clinic and by the end I am grumpy and think: no more people. Ick, people. But I love clinic and miss it when I have been off and sick. I missed hugs from my patients!

With 42 different adjective meanings, think about how amazing it is that we think we know what someone means when they use the word open…..

 

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With all of the discussion generated by the US presidential election, I am also thinking about an open society. A friend said that we have to be open to discussion but we also have to listen to each other. And listen to feelings.

I think of Sweet Honey in the Rock singing “Would you harbor me?”

Would you harbor me?
Would I harbor you?
Would you harbor a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew
a heretic, convict or spy?
Would you harbor a run away woman, or child,
a poet, a prophet, a king?

The lyrics are here.

I took the photograph yesterday. I was trying to focus on my neighbor in the background, but I am open to seeing the grasses instead….

 

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J is for joy

J is for joy.

Do you feel joy sometimes? Are you joyous? Joyful?

From Webster 1913: The passion or emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good; pleasurable feelings or emotions caused by success, good fortune, and the like, or by a rational prospect of possessing what we love or desire; gladness; exhilaration of spirits; delight.

From dictionary.com: the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation.

I took the photograph two weekends ago. My daughter was racing, category 2 mountain bike race, three laps, four miles each. I was walking the course backwards with a friend. We had to be alert and step off the path every time a rider was coming. There were around 100 riders in category 2, all ages, men and women. We stopped to take photographs and cheer for everyone and especially our team!

A rider on the first lap had an asthma attack from all the pollen, and we walked him back out. I walked the bike while he concentrated on breathing. We stopped again to take pictures and then he could ride out. I walked on, listening for bikes, and there were trillium along the path….

I don’t think I can feel joy unless I also admit grief and all of the other feelings. It’s like weather, emotions come and go and may or may not feel like they make sense. If we refuse a feeling, it just seems to get stronger and rather panicky and keep bothering us…. until we treat it like the guest in Rumi’s poem.

Grief comes, and can be sweeping our mind clean for a new joy.

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Costume 8

This is the last in this costume series and now it’s revealed. My sister was not wearing a costume but she contributed to the festivities by showing off her ballet skills. Her daughter was more interested in dinner than ballet at that particular moment, even though they performed together. My sister loved to dance and loved the costumes there too.

Taken in 2009, Lake Matinenda, Ontario, Canada. My sister died of breast cancer in 2012.