Running. Day 1, 2017.

January 2, 2017January 2, 2017 ~ Live & Learn ~ 44 Comments

bird-focus-look-down

Day 1, 2017.

A morning for reflection, lallygagging, and awe of a poem written by Stanley Kunitz: “still-wet words…scribbled on the blotted page: ‘Light splashed …’

Still-wet words. Light splashed. Wow.

Sun beams pour in through the window, light splashes but does not lift this load…God, it’s so warm under these covers. How about reading, watching movies, and remaining horizontal?

10am. I need to exercise. Now! Sigh. What a state of mind on Day 1.

Mile 1

How about New Year’s resolutions? How about Not? You’ve long since given up on Resolutions. You know the loop. Commit. Attempt. Renege in less than 30 days. Then self-flagellate for the remaining 11 months. Who needs it? Really?

Mile 2

I appreciated the punch line of Try a New Year’s Revolution: “I will work toward better days for myself…May Januarys be about self-acceptance, not self-improvement.” LOVE THAT.

Mile 3

“May Januarys be about self-acceptance, not self improvement.” I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can “do” self acceptance. OMG. I’m on another doom loop. This could be harder than setting New Year’s Resolutions. Continue reading “Running. Day 1, 2017.” →

Saturday Morning: Standing in front of another new year

January 2, 2016January 2, 2016 ~ Live & Learn ~ 17 Comments

[…]
Ocean, alive.
Earth, alive.
Sky, alive.
Air, alive.
Love, alive.
and here I was standing in front of another new year,
very much, alive.
And for the first time ever,
I could actually sense it,
in each one of my bones there was a whispering,
‘it’s going to be a good one,
dear.’

~ Sarah Norrad, A Poem to the New Year

Credits:

“Sarah Norrad was born a Wild Woman in the rural and rugged forests of the Nimpkish Valley, on Vancouver Island, BC, a place where the mountains, forests and rivers speak louder than the People. She uses her body to teach Yoga, her mind to study Social Work, her soul to offer Community Counseling and her heart to write as a columnist for elephant journal.” Find her bio here: Elephant Journal
Poem Source: Thank you Make Believe Boutique.
Art: Gloria Petyarre “Bush Medicine” via Aboriginal Art World. Petyarre is one of Australia’s foremost indigenous painters.
Don’t miss this painting in Blue.

13 days in. New Year. New Me.

January 13, 2015January 12, 2015 ~ Live & Learn ~ 12 Comments

Source: themetapicture.com

So fill your glass. Here’s tae us.

January 1, 2015January 1, 2015 ~ Live & Learn ~ 16 Comments

Remember, the time of year
when the future appears
like a blank sheet of paper
a clean calendar, a new chance.
On thick white snow

you vow fresh footprints
then watch them go
with the wind’s hearty gust.
So fill your glass. Here’s tae us.
Promises
made to be broken, made to last.

– Jackie Kay, “Promise”

Notes:

About Jackie Kay: Jackie Kay (b. 1961) is an award-winning writer of fiction, poetry and plays, whose subtle investigation into the complexities of identity have been informed by her own life. Born in Edinburgh to a Scottish mother and Nigerian father, she was adopted as a baby by a white couple. Kay’s awareness of her different heritages inspired her first book of poetry, The Adoption Papers, which dramatises her experience through the creation of three contrasting narrators: an adoptive mother, a birth mother and a daughter.
Photographer: Matt Wyles. Poem Source: litverve
Find this poem in Jackie Kay’s Book: Life Mask or in Poems on the Underground by Judith Chernaik