Finding fresh ways to write timeless truth.
As I’ve been pondering blogging, what it once was, and what I imagine it returning to now, I remembered The Simple Woman’s Daybook. Months ago, when I was really struggling, I began listing things in my journal that I saw, smelled, tasted, heard, and felt as a grounding practice. It sounds simple, but it helped.
I move my morning basket from beside the wing chair in the living room where I have watched the sky in all her splendour declare the glory every morning, to the den. Now, and through the dark months ahead, I’ll greet the day there, on the leather sofa under a Sherpa blanket. Cozy. In solitude
It’s hot. Kamloops summer hot. Oh, how we love it! I head to the garden early to harvest beautiful tri-colour beans. Back home I wash, snap, blanch, and tuck them in freezer bags. I sit on the deck and read what was once my favourite book (The Velvet Room by Zilpha Keatley Snyder). I lost
A news source puts out a summary in the morning: What you need to know. Below the headline it lists bullet points and links to more detail about each of the “must know” stories. I glance at the headlines with a critical eye. Nope. Don’t need to know any of those things. I need to
Amidst the cacophony there are those sitting on the ground looking, in awe, at the wonder of growing things. And others, gazing upward at a starry sky feeling infinitesimally small beneath it. Worshiping. And in the quiet comes wisdom that can’t be comprehended where attempts to be right or stronger manifests as louder. I do
Some things hit me like a punch in the gut and the terrible seems far bigger and louder than the beautiful. Other times, I lean in, look closely at something small and quiet and easily missed and there I find wonder that washes me in peace. I don’t subscribe to the theory that if I
A thought tumbles in the deep place where thoughts toss and turn for a time before they are fully formed—before they transform from intangible to action—and I think it is the whisper of God drawing my attention to something in need of attention. That’s how it works. Sometimes. Other times the divine comes knocking in
Over the course of one twenty-four-hour period, between the two of us, five Zoom calls take place in our home. Necessary, some of them; productive, a few of them; but when I realize what has crept into this sanctuary I want to scream “Stop!” How easily busyness invades our space before we even realize it’s
I love my kitchen in the morning at this time of year. It’s dark when I pad from our bedroom to the kitchen to make the first cup of coffee. The only light comes from the AeroGarden that comes on automatically at around 4:30 am. It’s warmer in here than in the bedroom where the
Gerry returns from the sea with sufficient salmon to feed us for the coming year, and the sizzling heat of the past week gives way to a gentle rain. The silence of the past few days becomes the sound of living our ordinary days. I needed the solitude and silence and protected the boundaries I
I’d like to have something to turn to find Seven Steps To . . . get to the other side of what challenges me. Something concise, steps to take, boxes to check, and a measuring stick with which to note progress. Surely someone has crafted such a thing. But no. Of course not. Though many