Today watches the Future

Amidst all the excitement and celebration of the new year and all the change I hope it brings I h e begun to feel more of the uncertainty and instability that is not only inherent but also somewhat unnerving.

I am not in control here. So that's what it feels like! And the one thing I've learned already? If others are feeling bombarded, blind-sided or blown away too it's best to acknowledge what of those feelings are, in fact, theirs and not yours. I'm working on that one...

Bombarded Blind-Sided Blown Away

Thin strips of Future

dangling fading

in and out of view.

Here I sit

stunned and gazing

as the Past

stares right through

and I do too.

No names for all the waving slivers

clear or fog

I reach for few

watching o'er weakness,

unclear distinctions floating past

witness to waking

subtle quaking

compensating

for blurry recognition of the strips I've cast.

My Future bands now sewn up tight

I pass through motionless

soft sheer of time

bombarded

blind-sided

blown away

by that, as named, Today

dressed in foreshadows

reflecting on light.

Poem by LyndiaP January 3, 2011

The Beauty of Difference (December 8)

Continuing my catching up of the Reverb10 prompts... December 8th:

Beautifully Different
Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

 Well only a few days ago it was brought to my attention that I was *ahem* beautifully different (although in another turn of phrase) due to my distinct lack of "doing what people expect" and because I wear purple, blue or red pants if the mood hits me. At first, I laughed at this because although I certainly considered the value of my vibrant wardrobe I didn't think people really noticed it and because I didn't think of myself as unpredictable. So even though this has been stated (and the more I think of it this isn't the first time for either comment) I am not convinced that it is really my "difference."

Exhibit A: orange boots on the office floor

I think my difference must also be in the way, the intention, the reason I do some of these things... I certainly don't don the red trousers to be flashy or attention grabbing - that feeling is one of the things I can say I absolutely detest. So my real reason? I guess it's just fun. If sometimes it makes someone laugh or starts a conversation that could brighten someone's moment/hour/day - all the better!

As for the unpredictability - maybe that's just the part of me that's always realized that none of us really have a great deal of control on how things are going to work out every second of the day... why? Well, the shocking part for me is that I don't feel like I do do that very often, but maybe, perhaps I did more this year. Thanks to whomever said "what you seek you already are." Maybe that's the theme of 2010.

So, I do things because they are fun and I think make for that moment of the day that's worth telling a story about. If that can help someone else find a story in their day, all the better. If it makes people smile and happy for even a little while = best. I guess that's what makes me "beautiful" but hope it's not THAT different from lots of other people!

I really didn't want to do this one...

No, that title isn't true... mostly it's my sense of humour in a phase of hilarious punch-lines equating to lame puns or weak paradoxes.

So today's #Reverb10 Prompt? Well, it sounds a bit like preventing (or analyzing) regret... in a way? Well, you decide. But my response will include a poem so I can also submit it to the Poetry Potluck at Jingle Poetry.

2010 Reflective Prompt #20
Beyond avoidance: What should you have done this year but didn't because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)

My List

There were long lines

spaces too rare

waiting and doing

avoiding a snare.

I checked off pragmatics

I conquered a fear

I completed my goals

and missed something dear

now that I'm leaving

I finally see

many bleak days of toil

were really time to be free.

Too hurried to enjoy

rather scurry than wait,

and at the end of this employ-

ment, I know now - it's been great.

a less poetic translation

of what I just said

sometimes work is more

then what was stuck in my head.

Some days I was down
on my job- it's apparent

were all just great chances for my

perspective to be transparent

not that I lost all shots

to learn something new

I know I did many times

but missed quite a few...

poem by LyndiaP December 20, 2010

Diet Drill Sargent

In completely atypical form of this blog and all it stands for (except for the fact of me making this oddly negative situation into something more hilarious) but I have a set of observations to make.

You know you've just been on a ridiculous diet when:
- you look through your cupboards and all that's left for dessert is powdered skim milk, chewing gum and the cheap decoy candy that tastes like soap.
- you smell vanilla extract and have a sugar coma.
- thinking about a three course meal gives you indigestion.
- you eat a half a tuna sandwich and think you are full.
- you look forward to taking vitamin/mineral supplements for their delicious flavour but watch the calorie content.

The Peppermint Lady from the Autumn Valley

The Peppermint Lady from the Autumn Valley is dedicated to TB:J

The Peppermint Lady. She moved in contrasts and fed no one's stereotypes. Her youthful black hair wound with spearmint strands was embraced by the antique blue expanse above, both longer than winter and smoother than nut-free peanut butter. The pace of her feet, gracefully casual - a harmonious dissonance to my nympholeptic sneakers with their deliberate unseen finish line.

The Peppermint Lady. Dark jacket hiding her knees like the mystery of the minty treat behind the cellophane. My shoulders bare. Her enigmatic solidarity with the fleeting autumn rainbow entitled her to stroll on the joggers' trail, repercussion free.

The Peppermint Lady: would speak with fresh sweetness if she had to speak at all. Her silence exuding enough delicious toothpaste-perfume to make chewing gum bland with envy. Refreshing. And all the while re-freshing unquenchable energy.

A source limitless and incomprehensible she: The Peppermint Lady.

Finding Things

There is a certain positive connotation with successfully 'finding' something that can't be replicated in successfully 'ignoring', 'fixing' or 'finishing' something. In the last two days I've found my favourite jacket, three dollars, a bit of underlined newspaper I could make into a poem, the perfect box to store some books under my bed and a bill that needed paying. Each of these things had drastically different outcomes but had the same sense of tangible, practical, sanity-restoring relief.

Only rarely does someone find something and think, 'curses! I finally found x!' Granted, It's probalby fair to say no one really ever says 'curses!' at all anymore in any real-life, unscripted context but nonetheless. Not being happy to find something is merely unsuccessful avoidance, a totally different undertaking. Even when it's that payment-due-tomorrow statement, boring report to submit or the email your boss needed you to forward - it is tangible success that allows your potentially panicking mind to take a deep breath and move on to something else.

So today, I hope you find something - especially if he/she/it in his/her/itself IS wonderful. Then, if you're on a roll, also take a second to be grateful that you found him/her/it - like a whole moment-of-silence style. Finding that feeling of gratitude will just be icing on the cake of un-lost stuff!

Now, I've got a bill to pay, some books to store and a jacket to wear and I'm grateful to be able to do all of it!

Urban Hiking

Okay it’s official! No one knows the difference between walking and hiking. I attended a workshop yesterday from two long-experienced hikers from a local mounteering club and it became clear that there was no distinctive, solid delineation between hiking and walking.

Don’t even bother looking on the Internet or in a Dictionary (you know, the big book that doesn’t have phone numbers it in). If you find something that looks authoritative, you’re wrong. If you have a gut feeling you know the difference… you don’t. Don’t worry, I can already tell. At BEST you are going to give your subjective personal interpretation and likely try and pull in something scientific like physical exertion rates or the gradients of the trail or path. You might think that walking is less strenuous but I have learned otherwise. Consider, this sage-like wisdom: you are only as fast as the slowest hiker. Of course, this is based on a essential arguments that you a) want to have a slowest hiker in your group and b) you want to wait for them and keep them in your group. I think the only answer to this is that, yes, OF COURSE you want a ‘slowest hiker’ in your party! It’s the only way the famished wild cat or black bear will spare you on account of YOU not being the slowest hiker of the bunch. But I digress.

Back to your feeble attempts to figure out the difference between hiking and walking. At best, all of your authoritative references are really only attempts. Yes, even for those of you with a great the up-the-side-of-a-mountain anecdote or trails with the word “hiking” in it examples. I am about to blow that all out of the water with two words: urban hiking. This is most certainly a taste of wonderful. Definitely. The premises here is that you can have all the joy and escapism of hiking with none of the costs or hassle. We all live somewhere and have to go somewhere else: so try Urban Hiking to get there. No it’s not the same as that low-culture, un-glamourous walking! I would never suggest that. This is Urban Hiking. You can discover and experience and marvel… at things you THOUGHT you saw everyday but have never really observed.

 unofficial Urban Hiking mecca: NYC

It bends your mind just a little bit and pushes you on into realms of wonderful when you move at a human pace and do so with the goal of noticing. It seems to me that if I negate everything I said up until this sentence about the non-existent definitions of walking and hiking that there is significant difference in the essence of the two activities. It is precisely our frame of mind while we are participating or anticipating them. Both walking and hiking let you move at this wonderful human-pace but only hiking instantly initiates (to the point of demanding) a heightened sense of observation and opportunities for marvelling.

Consider the last time you went on a “hike” and didn’t notice anything about the bends in the trail, how the tree roots intersected the path and whether or not there was a patch of mud or a creek blocking the path? Now try to remember the way the sidewalk looks or if there are benches or flowers between your home, say, and the grocery store. I’m not saying you can’t but there is most definitely a lack of detail or excitement, is there not? And if it’s not your walk from the market then maybe it’s some other trail. Think of all the stupid boring walks that could become treks on an average weekday! Don’t feel that you have to live in a metropolis to try Urban Hiking. You could also do Rural Hiking, Suburban Hiking or even Foreign Hiking like I alluded to earlier (for example the photo of Hikers below was taken while I was on Foreign Hike in Budapest, Hungary).

If there were rules about Urban Hiking I think there would be only two and it would be essential to follow both: 1) Observe your moments of awe and 2) No treadmills allowed. And a suggestion (but not a rule) on the pragmatic end of things (in light having both a chiropractor and massage therapist): consider your footwear options before and a light stretching routine after your Urban Hiking adventure.

Beyond that, it’s all fair game. Urban Hiking wouldn’t even need to be outdoors but I highly recommend it. Hike in your office from the board to staff meeting. Try or places in your neighbourhood, school or (dare I say it) shopping mall but do it with the same open and expectant mind that you would if you had just discovered a beautiful forest clearing in which to pitch your tent or have flown yourself to one of the Wonders of the World at great expense as if that currency was buying you wonder.