lei fraser

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.- Confucius

 

No words for today… just following these wise ones…

Suddenly snow… just when you least expect it… actually it wasn’t a surprise, it is March and the weather is always unpredictable. Nature in general is. I don’t want to write much today, my thoughts are more with the people of Japan, and all people who are affected by the earthquake and tsunami. My heart is with you.

Nothing is worth more than this day.- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It’s been raining for the past 24 hours + here. The rain has been causing a bit of flooding in the fields, and Kettle Creek has overflowed its banks once again. It’s the second time this winter, in fact, that I have seen it flood onto the fields. I like the rain, though I am sad to see the snow go. The rain is washing the dirt and debris from the roads and sidewalks, and is helping to make way for the new growth set to happen. I have been thinking today about how these days feel like the land is hold its breath (along with me too it) waiting to begin. It is easy to start thinking about the future, get caught up in possibility or hung up on the past… I think the real challenge is to stay present, and as the quote suggests, appreciate today. That is where I found my inspiration… in today. In the rain, in the moment, right now – my arms are filled with raindrops.

 

I don’t dance as a general rule… I won’t go into a long explanation about why I don’t dance any more, but suffice it to say, I don’t. I very rarely feel moved by music to dance… and when it happens, I can’t help but laugh. It makes me giggly which makes me laugh even more… and I even sneak in a little dancing when no one is around because I can. This song, which I just happened to hear while out driving with my daughters… is one of those songs. I can count on one hand how many songs have moved me to dance in the past year… actually I only need two fingers. Maybe I just need to get out more, I don’t know.

So – my inspiration today comes with no words just a little toe tapping. When it happens, you can’t explain it. Sometimes you do just gotta dance.

Oh and for the record – this is the other song that got me moving not too long ago. I still dance a little in my seat when it comes on the radio.

I have been feeling kind of off and fluish for the past week and while I have been trying to listen to the nagging voice in my head and slow down… I still have managed to do some sorting of old files in the past couple of days while I was feeling marginally better. I have a red box (which I nicknamed Dorothy years ago… it’s a long story) that I keep scraps of paper in that I have written notes down on. Every once in awhile, I have the hankering to go through the box and sort out the notes. This time, in doing so – aside from finding old poetry, I also found a file on some writing prompts/ exercises that I wrote in 2002 (borrowed from somewhere probably, but I have no recollection where exactly).

I thought I would share them because I thought they were interesting little prompts to get the creative writing juices flowing…. I wrote no instructions with the list… quite honestly I don’t remember why I wrote this, but I think that I just meant for myself to write down each as a separate writing piece and in no particular order. And now to apply my adopted philosophy of writing whatever comes up, no judging or editing, just to see where the writing goes…  I think I may have to try this again tonight if I am feeling up for it.

The list:

• Listener: I am a listener when no one else will take the time to listen.
• Dreamer: I am a dreamer who will get lost in those dreams.
• Full of Expectations: I am full of expectations of who I am, who I think people want me to be and who I think people are.
• Selfish: I am selfish sometimes and need to be the center of attention, especially when I am feeling bad.
• Undecided: I cannot take decisions easily, the future is so uncertain and it leaves me undecided about what is best to do right now.
• Finding my way: I am finding my way, every moment, every day, my own way.
• Rainwater: Rain water gathers in the lowest places and I am like that puddle of rain, collecting drops, each one different and always changing.
• Lotus waiting to bloom: like a lotus waiting to bloom in a quiet pond, I am waiting too to know who I truly am.
• Tiger: The tiger in me is ferocious and strong when it needs to be, quiet now waiting. This is me.
• Sleeping: There are days when even while awake I am sleeping still; my mind is confused and upset and I cannot wake up.
• Opened: I am waiting, bit by bit, to become opened.
• Mother/ Father/ Parent: being a mother makes me whole.
• Child: I am a child and it makes me grow
• Fearful: I am fearful when I am feeling alone in darkness.
• Wounded: I have been wounded by myself, my own closed mind and long to be more open and forgiving so I can heal.
• Full of Love: I am full of love and my love is full.
• Invisible: I feel invisible to the people around me sometimes.
• Alone: I feel alone and enjoy being alone. I am a walking contradiction.
• Quiet: I am too quiet sometimes and don’t make myself heard or understood well enough.
• Still: In deep night I am still. It is the only time I can be, when the rest are fast asleep.

 

a night without

quiet stillness
wrapped unwrapped
not meant for comfort
not tonight
but for opportunity
to hear
to listen
and to see
the difference in where
the two meet

and where
they meet
where do they meet?
there is no comfort
not there or here
mind responsible again for
leaving the rest awake
wandering
at times
but then focused
clear

what is done is done
what must be done
will be

life falls
through the water
like sand
falling to the ocean floor
and laying itself out
in layered piles
clumps that slump
against each other
waiting for the years
to harden them into
something beautiful

but now
malleable and shifting
with the waves and currents
no neat pieces
falling together
none
and that
that is ok.

a night without
and not knowing
what is missing

©Leigh-Anne Fraser 2007

 

I wrote this poem almost exactly four years ago. I have been going through old writing of mine for the past day or so to collect some pieces together for a new book. That is when I found the stacks of old poetry and realized something after reading this poem. There are moments when I really have no idea where the words come from. The inspiration, so to speak, comes from nothing. That nothing and not knowing is perhaps the reason I write at all.

~

 

 

You must not come lightly to the blank page. – Stephen King

 

We are surrounded by blank pages. I certainly am. I have a small collection of mirrors that I keep on the wall in my basement and one that hangs in my garden outside. I also have a large empty picture frame that hangs on the wall in the hallway upstairs. I have had the mirrors and frame for close to fifteen years. There are two reasons I have kept them all this time…. The empty frame reminds me of the blank page and the mirrors remind me to look at the world from different angles. Perspective can be a wonderful source of inspiration. I have never taken formal art classes (though sincerely wish I had) other than in high school … but one lesson I learned in that class (somewhere around grade 10) was to look at negative space when drawing. The space around an object is as important as the object itself. That has always stuck with me… and it is that negative space that inspires me today.

I feel like a tiny bird with a big song!- Jerry Van Amerongen

The simplest things can provide me deep inspiration. Today, this photograph I took of a bouquet of orchids I bought last week, is the inspiration for a new story…

 

I was inspired today by silence and how powerful sitting alone in silence can be.

 

We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us

– Joseph Campbell

 

I often am inspired by quotes that I find randomly. If I am having a particularly stuck moment (for whatever reason) flipping through a book or finding a random quote website and choosing the first three quotes I come across can sometimes become a launching pad for something creative for me. I call it book surfing. There is apparently another word for it that someone told me not so long ago, but I have since forgotten. Sometimes I can find a genuine spark in book surfing, something that makes me pause to think, to be still and let everything percolate. Sometimes, concepts or phrases continue to pop up for me – which I take as a signal to pay close attention. Living the life that I hadn’t planned for is one such concept that continues to dig at me since the first time I heard it a few months ago. The quote above by Joseph Campbell that I tripped over yesterday is just another example of a long list if ‘coincidences’ as a call to trust in instinct and perhaps even intelligence and let life unfold. That is my inspiration today – that moment when I find myself standing at the top of a waterfall, watching the water rush past my feet and fall into the deep pool below me. I am standing with questions in my head, do I leap out with the water or do I turn around and go back the way I came. Leap or go, leap or go. Then I see the rainbow in the waterfall’s mist. That is a moment so perfect and ripe. It is a moment when anything and everything can happen. Isn’t that beautiful?

~

I am sitting by the window, watching the late afternoon sun and a beautiful blue sky, and thinking about what inspired me today. My thoughts immediately turn to a group of women who have become my friends at work. I call them my Scottish ladies, though one of them is British and an honorary Scot. They come to the recreation center where I work a few times a week and sit together to have coffee and breakfast in our cafe. Every time I see them, I stop, hug and chat with them. I have known them for many years, but it is only in the last year that we’ve become quite close. They have been a source of strength and support for me after the sudden collapse of my marriage in the spring  and my mother’s death at the end of July last year.

Today, like many many other days, I chatted with them while I waited for my breakfast to be prepared. I usually just take my food up to my desk to eat, but today they insisted that I sit. I didn’t need to be asked twice. While I ate, I listened. Listening to them banter with each other, tease, share some worries and concerns and include me in their camaraderie was what inspired me today. To be cared for and included is inspiring.

Thank you ladies. You are a great gift to my life.

and now, my imagination is stirring itself awake.

I found this poem tonight, while going through some files of my mother’s. It is a poem that my brother wrote on the day that my oldest daughter was born. I do not remember ever seeing it before… and I am so grateful to have read it tonight. I read it again and again with tears in my eyes. It was the reminder that I have been looking for…

gabrielle

12.28.95

you are twelve hours old my eyes have witnessed

your miniature perfection the tufts of hair that will

grow be cut and grow again eyes now closed will

open to see to inquire

hands that will grow to shape to write to create

the potential i see years ahead but

no guarantees only one

the love of family

on this day or this whole week

a family came together

to understand the depth

of their love that though

distance does not always allow it

the soul knows the connection

that differences may spark

tempers will flare

but in the end

family is the most

important possession

anyone can own

on this day

the struggle continues

the meaning of life

life itself and all its pain

happiness sorrow passion

to carry one self

with dignity and pride

to believe in your strengths

to dream

the potential lies in

your hands for your life

keep that grip

tears fill my eyes now

i love

i care

thank you.

– Darryl Fraser