Helloooo Portland & Eugene end of year.
 

December 6

MOSAIC


I couldn’t prevent this plate from shattering, so I saved all the pieces, losing none. I laid them edge-to-edge and made a design, secured it with thin-set. Pieces of pattern framed with grout are seen, as they never could be when this dish was whole. I am part of this construction more than just handing china onto the table. Integrity has been lost but replaced with fractured openness. The plate has lost personal unity to become an ingrained part of my personal archeology.


Fly your kite in the wind.

December 7

ORIGINS


Pain-filled interactions with people better suited to be left alone changed me in the way of acceptance. Wretched relationships with people made it difficult for me to have a loving relationship with the world. I had imprinted as a fledgling on sarcasm and ridicule, bitter milk that starved my expectations of kind response. I could not greet the world eagerly. Having never embraced the world; I failed to hang on as it turned. I slid on my face and hands. Mud covered, I try to keep an open mind and attempt a connection with this spinning orb.


Color your emotions.

December 8

THE WAY I DO IT



Cooking by smell, parking by ear, recovering by touch. The latter has to be done this way; I cannot see into the black-box technology, which keeps me sober. Feel through the resentments, pain, sadness, joy; find myself under a pile of rags with a match in my hand. The many times the steps have saved me from becoming a human torch are balanced by the weight of the rope, woven from these same rags, that together we use to drag one another to safety. The savory scent of a meal, or the glee of front row parking can’t compare with the tender sense of a sober heart.


Write bad advice on tissue and wipe with it.

I am really proud of you all for posting and sharing days of inspiration. Though I am not a friend of Bill's I am a friend of his wife Lois. Together anything is possible and no matter what dark or uncomfortable days lie ahead, there are always people with inspiring thoughts and compassion that will help the "you" inside return to the surface to face that adversity.

I am proud of all of you.

Love and Smiles :frog:

HP aka katrinka82

December 9

CLIMBING ON THE ARC


If time swings and the seasons swirl and I pulse out my existence, why does the bird's wing flap and the rain fall down? If the song comes from my mother’s lips and my father tells his tales and I dance my heritage with each step I take, then why does the flower open to the bee and the swan trumpet her way home? If everything pulls from the ground and reaches for the light, then how can I duck my head, hide my heart and pass this all off as a coincidence? Am I less than the rain or greater than the swan? Why can’t I just climb on the arc and let the continuum spin its web around me? Well, you see I can, but will I?


Let little birdies speak.

December 10

ELECTRIC CONNECTIONS



I step into a room and take its currency. Is the flow good? Steady? The pulse even and strong? Where are the power brokers and are they sharing the time or using their magnetic personalities to draw the current off others? I check the complement of resisters, examine their stripes and access the possibilities. I pump in energy when I can and take when it is available. I keep in mind we are all transformers and change is possible for everyone as long as we make the connections.


Rich mistakes make good batter.

December 11

TAPERS



I wax poetic and burn the candle at both ends. I borrow from the beginning, I steal from the end, coming up short and feeling deeply cheated. I pass myself off as the time-keeper but am the time-pleaser, arch-traitor selling short the days and hours for approval, not fulfillment. I put away my true identity: mammal, human, the love of; I have exchanged it for the mask and cape of the Do-do-doer, a tragic figure of myth and legend who breaks the spirit of everyone who attempts the portrayal. In spite of this the roads teem with actors becoming caricatures of a life less lived. The world is more than a stage, and I must free powers greater than I to be more than an audience.



Laugh at old jokes and tell new ones.

December 12

BLEATING FORMALITY


Stupidity stalks me when I am tired, hijacking my mouth. I can put this off to pilot error or interruption of service on my neurologic pipeline, but truly I have been captured by senseless, irrational muttonness. I would love to say it was pigheadedness but, alas, I am not self-determined, I am a sheep. I open my lips and out pours the same plaintive cry as the surrounding herd. In addition, once begun, the wail is unending; it’s as if the bellows works on its own carrying a tune which blends with the entire wool-coated world. I shift and run with my position according to the movements at large. I am following the reactionary breed, dropping the specifics of my personality as one of the crowd; my brain is switched off and a quick veneer grows over my eyes. I can’t see, think, or speak for myself and yet it doesn’t occur to me to hit the hay. When as a petulant three year old I do fall to sleep in my tracks, I wake as myself with many bleating apologies to be made.

Put morbidity on a leash and never walk it alone.

December 13

WHAT IS MINE


The cloud of snow slept in the tree overnight and poured from the branches with the morning breezes. Showers of crystal, dropping from a clear daylight sky, are telltales of intentions delayed. What was meant for moon time has been kept till sunshine, a treat for bright eyes and young hearts. How can I weep over altered destinations? Arrivals and departures are truly within the province of poetry and postcards, not things for worry or fretting. Putty is for forming into an image of my desire not the world. Time is a liquid substance I cannot decant at my will. Shoulds and oughts are parlor games for the bored and senseless. If I waste my life playing a game I can’t win I will fail to see what I can’t lose.


Work with someone who works.

December 15

GOOSE



I round this corner nearly everyday. There in the field stands a flock of problems pecking the ground and flapping their wings. Uniform and regular, the honking and squawking is undistinguishable from yesterday. I ponder and squint; are these the same or yet another gaggle making their way along a migratory path? Trouble is feral, skulking the edges of the field but never sheltering in the yard. I must leave my hands off, knowing these are not mine. The feathers fly and I gather the strays acutely aware of the ticklish nature of this. Awkwardly I face the truth; no matter how much of a perplexity this is to me or to others, it is only geese.

Run because you want to and the starter’s whistle won’t bother you.

December 16

GOOD SAMARITAN PIE


The meal prepared from my cognition, the bread and jam of humility, salad of expectation, roast of determination and Good Samaritan pie, wait on the table to be devoured. The courses pass and come dessert my kindly intentions are cut to wedges and pushed from setting to setting. I can, with dollop after dollop, cover the requisite desires of this tart in an attempt to deny my addiction to fixing or I can serve up the plain truth. I help and help and wander down roads looking for lost puppies to return to their homes. I must admit my longing to lend support is sometimes half-baked, and if kept to home and hearth it might serve me better and make a sweeter dish. Assistance is best in proportion to the meal. I must live my life and save my pie till last.


Hold each other's hands but explore.

December 17

POPCORN FLAVORED LOLLIPOP


I can’t know it. I can’t believe it. The world of popcorn flavored lollipops is now being visited upon me. Both a surprise and a comfort, a popcorn flavored lollipop is given to me by the gas station attendant. A blast of sugar and salt waken my tongue. What can a mind do in the face of a buttered, salted bonbon on a stick? I wouldn’t have thought of it, not in a million years. This is somehow a source of hope to me. There are open-minded people living in the world around me. I often pray for creative thinking on the part of my Higher Power; I inadvertently dismiss the populace who is producing prodigies of ingenious originality and cunning. I want the world to be gifted with what sobriety has given me. Candy is not world peace but many great things start with a little sweetness.


Real rules can’t be broken.

December 18

WATER PROOF



What could water prove anyway? I get in the water and I get wet. I’m sure there is a theorem but a proof is highly doubtful. Naiads dance with tridents in their hands illustrating the beauty and danger of the waves but this certifies nothing. Juiceless arid dirt can make no claims either. I see the ducks take flight pushing the air with their wings and the rivulets trailing from webs. This is the thing to scoot beneath at the surface, take sustenance and pleasure, but never to become so saturated that the air is lost. Waterproof… is the way to go.


Give preconceived notions a place on the shelf or in the can but no place in your life.

Hi Sherrie (and Tommi)

I'm having a rough day today and I'm so glad to know that you are always here, keeping the light on for me.

Thank you. :bouquet:

I'm grateful to be experiencing today with a sober mind and an open heart. Really facing the pain of a difficult situation can be so cleansing. And exhausting, I think I need a nap!

Thanks for taking the time to come here and read and share! I wish you the best as you face your difficult situation.

Sherrie

December 19

ALMOST TWINS



You and I are more alike than different yet we cannot get along, though I ponder why this surprises me so. A cloud and a watermelon are 98% the same and no one would mistake them in a crowd or expect them to be companionable except in the way of two things existing in the universe. My expectation of liking you for our similarities is set up by my fear that I don’t like myself, but the joke is on me. My dislike of you is not a reflection of anything but time and space. My friends are the people who like me, not necessarily the ones who are like me. The president didn’t like broccoli without slurring its good name and I can dislike you without inferring you are a vegetable.

Enjoy the approach as well as the work.

Hoping Saturday is a day of good music :listening: and dancing purepisces (even if it's all by yourself, no one is watching ) . :bellydancer: :hiding:

Wishing you well, and it is good to have the light on. :moonstars:

and sherrie, thank you for today's one liner ~ inspiration. "Enjoy the approach as well as the work". I will apply it today as I dust :p

December 20

COOCOO’S NEST


I ran away to join the zoo hoping a life contained would calm me. The segregation hit me first; isolated exclusively with those of my stripe drove my thirst for diverse scents and opinion. Next, the monotony of the landscape bore into my brain. The well-meaning effort of the keepers bears the mark of folks who go home at night. The blandness of the food and music lent nothing to the experience, and antiseptic could drive anyone wild. The final blow, the one that struck constantly and coldly, was the stream of observers waiting to be entertained.

Embrace plain tools and fine minds.