What does freedom mean to you?

Daily writing prompt
What does freedom mean to you?
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What does freedom mean to you?

When I look at that one word, alone on the page, I think, above all, of the multiple meanings attached to such a word, then I think of how it can be twisted in so many ways to make it mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean. So, let me begin by asking, what does freedom mean, in general, not in my own specific case.

Freedom – “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.” Interesting – no mention here of right or wrong, of truth or lies, of harassment or of perjury. Freedom – speech with no hindrance or restraint.

Freedom – the “absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.” Wow! The first is very interesting but the second is extremely problematic. We need a definition of despotic and of government. We also need further clarification as to who decides what governmental despotism means. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if there is no arguing about taste, is the definition of despotism purely subjective? Who shall guard the guards? Does a despot consider himself or herself to be despotic? Do his or her followers? Or is it only the people who suffer and become victims of the despot’s hands, feet, orders, laws, commands, bullies, or general conduct?

Freedom – “the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.” This is certainly much clearer. Thank you.

But consider where this very brief analysis has led us. And we haven’t even started on the Biblical meanings of freedom – “freedom from sin” – “and the truth shall set you free” – and here we are only scratching the surface of the possible religious and philosophical meanings of what the Spaniards call libre albedri’o, or free will.

What does freedom mean to you?

And now we move into the personal and the personal circumstances will change for each one of us. In my own case, freedom is my new Nexus 3 Rollator. It allows me to put aside my canes and walk around the block, something I have been unable to do for several years now. Wow – freedom to walk on my own, just leaning on my wheeled walker. Freedom to talk to my old friends, many of whom I have not seen or spoken to for a long time. Freedom to meet and talk to new neighbors, many with their lovely children and wonderful dogs. Freedom to breathe in the fresh air of early spring and to visit the flowers as they start to grow. Freedom, for me, is also the ability to see with my own eyes. Last month, I had my lenses laser-polished and now I can see again with 20/20 vision. Wow – that is really freedom, to to be able to read all but the tiniest print, without needing to use glasses. Freedom, for me, is also the ability to be able to cook, shop, move, live, without excessive pain. My new powers of walking have helped me with that. Long may it continue. It is also the good fortune to have enough money and strength to live in my own house and not to need a care home or regular home help.

Freedom – Such a magic word – such a powerful word – such a personal word. The freedom to choose to be myself, dependent on nobody else – and long may that freedom continue.

What public figure do you disagree with the most?

Daily writing prompt
What public figure do you disagree with the most?
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What public figure do you disagree with the most?

Some definitions please. What is a public figure? There are several statues in my local park. Are these public figures? If they are, how do you, or I, disagree with them when they can’t reply to our questions? Their mere presence, is that enough? Their historical past? Their figures now cast in bronze or stone? The crimes they committed (in our current opinion) from a time in which they did good (their society’s position)? “Judge not lest ye be judged!” We are all walking on thin ice and I do not wish to be the one who casts the first stone.

What is a public figure? A politician – provincial, regional, national, international? A TV personality? A film star? A rapper? A musician? A teacher? A preacher? A newscaster? A hockey player? A baseball star?

And how do you define disagreement? How do you disagree, and in what ways, with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the Song of Joy, even if you are a Beatle and can sing “Roll over Beethoven” or mimic it on a Tuesday night in the local bar at a Karaoke show?

How do you define the most without defining the category and nature of disagreement? Mozart vs Bach vs Beethoven vs Vaughan Williams? Wordsworth vs Byron vs Donne vs Dylan Thomas? So let us go back to the beginning, and ask again “What is a public figure?” “How do you define disagreement? And how do you categorize “the most”?

Goya vs Velasquez vs Turner vs Dali vs Picasso?

“What’s the definition of Baroque?” “When you’re out of Monet.” Come on, you’re joking, aren’t you. “You’re having me on, aren’t you? You’re having me on.” “Pull the other leg. It’s got bells on.”

And I offer a nod of gratitude to The Two Ronnies and my good friend, Moo, who painted the painting that leads into this blog. He called it “In search of enlightenment.”

And no, I don’t disagree with him. But is he a public figure? Or just a figment of my imagination? And if he is a figment of my imagination, what, dear reader, are you?

What is your career plan?

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What is your career plan?
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What is your career plan?

“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,” as the comedian said on our old black and white TV back in the late fifties when the television shows first started. My grandfather bought that TV in 1953 in order for us to watch the Coronation of Elizabeth II. I was nine years old at the time. Now I am – hold on – “How old am I? Let me count the days” – as Shakespeare might have written, if he had actually written his own plays and poems. Or were all those glorious words written by a conspiracy of authors who then had their work claimed by some else aka Willy the Shake? Snake oil, all of it, or as they say in some parts of Wales – blydi hel.

I wonder how many of my readers know how to play Tute, a Spanish card game, slightly akin to whist? Well, in it you score by singing – Canto las veinte – o canto las cuarenta – well, I am well on my way to winning my game of Tute because Canto las ochenta!

So, at eighty years of age, after fifteen years in retirement, what sort of career plan can anyone have? Plan – is it a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something? Or might it be – an intention or decision about what one is going to do? As for career – is it an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress?

So, in my retirement, what opportunities are there for progress when I seem to be regressing most of the time? And what plans can I make when the unplanned knocks on my door at irregular, uncomfortable intervals?

And that’s the problem with prompts and life in general – one size designed to fit all and I do not fit in. Never have. I no longer have a career. I no longer have any plans. I drift with the winds and the waves “as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.”

I guess my only plan is to stay afloat for as long as possible and to avoid, if I can, that deadly dive down, down, down, into Admiral Brown, and down to Davey’s Locker.

What was the last live performance you saw?

Daily writing prompt
What was the last live performance you saw?
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What was the last live performance you saw?

Depends on how you define performance, doesn’t it? Here’s one from a couple of days ago. I left the lid of my pot of wildflower honey slightly open and, guess what? This is what I saw inside. Actually, there were fourteen of them. Some ran for it. Some were so absorbed that they just lay there, inebriated. I grabbed my cell phone and took this shot.

It could have been a video. The seven that fled, it might have been eight, looked like a broken line of can-can girls fleeing from the Moulin Rouge. But look at the color of that honey. Such a rich, warming gold. It was, quite simply, one of the best honeys I have ever tasted. And I have to say, that I cannot blame the ants for invading such a honey-trap paradise.

The live performance was the running, fleeing, burying into the honey, and wild whimpering of the ants. Then, when I squished them, it was their feeble twitching, followed by their gradual submission to a force majeur.

The Nature of Art and the Art of Nature – a live performance, followed by a still life. A nature morte, as they say in French, or a naturaleza muerta, as the Spanish say. On the bright side, I like to think that they found their land of milk and honey, their earthly paradise, before they met their tragic end.

What do you do to be involved in the community?

Daily writing prompt
What do you do to be involved in the community?
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What do you do to be involved in the community?

Covid started a long period of isolation for many people of my age. We started by washing everything that came into the house – beware of touching things, they might carry the Covid virus. Then it was wear a mask and avoid crowds. Then it was telephone calls, parcels of groceries left on door steps, groceries ordered online and then picked up by car, no visitors, avoid crowded places…. At times, it bordered on hysteria.

That was 2020. But Covid wasn’t over. I have cut my own hair since 2019 and I still avoid crowds and wear a mask. As I emerged less and less, I saw fewer and fewer people. Old friends faded away, some, the less fortunate ones, permanently. Most ceased to visit. Gradually communications ceased.

2024 – May -01 – I purchased a new Rollator – a Nexus 3. For a week now, I have been out walking with it. Thirty minutes a day. I go round the block. I also visit the local park and walk the trails. Life is still out there, waiting to be lived. When I walk round the block, neighbors come out from their houses and talk to me. I have a little seat on the Rollator and can sit and chat with them for as long as they want. Old friends have returned.

Yesterday, I met some new friends. “We haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new?” A boy and his mother. The boy took a liking to my Rollator – he was three years old. He climbed on it, sat on it, tooted a non-existent horn, rang a non-existent bell, and brum-brum-brummed a non-existent engine. What fun we had. I told his mother I was an author and asked her if she would like a copy of Teddy Bear Tales to read to her boy. She said yes and when I see her next, I will give her one.

So, back to the question – What do you do to be involved in the community? I walk around the block and now I carry copies of my poetry books and short stories in my little carry bag. When I meet people, I offer them gifts of poetry and prose. Sometimes they say yes – and that is how I get myself involved with the community – as the Island View Bard.

A Broken Heart

A Broken Heart

What does a broken heart look like? Good question – and I, for one, don’t know. Maybe my artist friend, Moo, does. He painted this image of a Fragmented Heart the other day. Not that his heart was broken. He told me he was interpreting the words and feelings of a close friend (who shall remain nameless) who has been having the feelings associated with a heart that was actually breaking. Tough times, eh?

Rejections get me down and annoy me, but they don’t break my heart. I submitted a short story to a magazine on January 4, 2023 and got a rejection letter yesterday, May 6, 2024. It was a form letter, 16 months after submission, just to say “no”!

Of course, the few acceptances that I actually do get make up for the many rejections, as is always the case. However, there seem to be fewer of these acceptances as my thoughts look inwards and I turn from ‘poetry of play to poetry that expresses the authenticity of being‘ (Johannes Pfeiffer). In this day and age, I fear that readers seek entertainment and distraction and prefer the light-hearted to the heavy hand of deep thought and poetic authenticity. And remember, I do not distinguish between poetry and prose, as many do. For me, poetry is writing, be it in poetry or prose.

But back to the theme of the broken heart. Here are three linked poems.

Old Wounds

“The slow wound
deepens with the years
and brings no healing.”

The Minister by R. S. Thomas

How deep time’s wounds
have cut and carved,
not just in flesh and bone,
but in the embers
of that slow-burn fire
 they call the heart.

Memory and mind
have also played their part.

Some days, those wounds
don’t ache at all.

But there’s no real healing,
and a moment of madness
or a knife-edged finger nail,
careless, in the dark,
opens them up again
to bleed afresh
and remind us
of the frailty of the flesh.

I Remember

“I remember so well how it was back then.
I was lonely, my heart so broken I couldn’t
count the pieces, nor put the puzzle together,
 although I tried so hard to make it whole again.

I still bear scars, trenches dug so deep,
lines gouged into my body. I can’t always sleep.
Nightmares pave a crooked, cobbled way to day.

Some nights, I wake up suddenly from a dream
and scream the way that stuck pigs scream
when, hot, their blood comes steaming out.
Other nights, in pain and panic, at shadows I shout.

I search for someone to care for me. I want them
to understand my grief and help me forget the thief
who stole my joy and left me this life of disbelief.”

Signs of Age

What is pain, but the knowledge
that we are alive, and relatively well,
and still on the green side of the grass.

Long may it last. For when the pain is gone,
we shall soon follow. And this is age,
and age is this pain, and the painful
knowledge that we are no longer young,
can no longer bend the way we bent,
or touch our toes, or even see our toes,
some of us. The golden arrow pierces
the heart. Fierce is the pain. But when
that arrow is withdrawn and the heart
no longer feels alive, why, how we miss
that pain, how we weep to find it gone,
perhaps never to come back again.

Pain, like rain, an essential part of the cycle
of the seasons, of the days and the weeks,
and all the months and years that walk us
around the circadian circle, in time with the earth
and its desire to open its arms, and welcome us,
and greet us, and bring us our rest, from pain.

So much wisdom sewn into the wrinkled skin,
the gap-filled grin that glows with humor,
the crow’s foot signals of old age,
or merely those we associate with ageing,
and the knowledge that, yes, many
have walked this wobbly way before,
and many more will follow in our footsteps.

Take your pick – ‘poetry of play to poetry that expresses the authenticity of being‘ – but I know which I prefer and ‘still I live in hopes to see poems of authenticity.”

Prompts and Impromptus

Prompts and Impromptus

The creative process is different for each one of us. I think of three different creative modes.

The Quarry and Treasure Trove – I write in my journal every day. I have done so for nearly forty years. For me, it is a treasure trove of creativity and I can return to it anytime I want to to revive old memories and to research old moods. I think of it as a quarry that contains valuable images and metaphors that can be used in different ways to create and recreate. I also find that, as I journal, I distinguish between that which is mere dust and ashes and can be abandoned, and that which is a genuine gemstone that can be polished and published. Writing regularly helps me to distinguish between the commonplace and that one piece of gold that emerges.

Impromptus – Some people, like the cat above, wait patiently for inspiration to come. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, they blame Writer’s Block or something similar. While you can sit and wait for inspiration, using the methods outlined in The Quarry and Treasure Trove you can ‘go out and make things happen’. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will open. Now that’s inspiration for you!

Prompts – The creative writer can also use prompts. I have used those that appear in Word Press, but only in sporadic fashion. I do not use them everyday. In fact, I have been a bit down and otherwise engaged recently, and my visits to social media have been very limited. I apologize to my friends – we few, we happy few, we band of siblings.

One of my best friends has been helping me through this rough patch. She has been putting together a book of creative prompts. She converted that into a webpage called  judyandco.com and I highly recommend her work to anyone who, like me, gives up the ghost for a little while, and then wishes to regain the creative spirit. As she wrote to me only this morning – “there’s a bunch of free stuff on there” -.

So, for those who need a kick start for their creativity, try clicking on  judyandco.com – I am sure you will find inspiration there.

In Place of Grief

In Place of Grief

A double meaning of course / wrth gwrs. (a) to be in a place of grief and (b) to do something in place of grief i.e. instead of grief. Take your pick. One of my close friends immediately called it Chains. I replied – Ray Charles – “Take these chains from my heart and set me free.” Sometimes, with a great effort, we can do that ourselves. But, if the hole we have dug for ourselves, or that has been dug for us, is too deep, then we may need help.

Creativity is always a help. Painting and poetry, for me. And sometimes the hand of friendship, reaching out from the anonymity of hyperspace – the space beyond the space in which I live and with which I hold my Bakhtinian Dialog what he calls my chronotopos – my dialog with my time and place. Alas, sometimes it is a monolog – and then, when I get not reply, either from time nor from place, I feel an existential grief.

Door

A door slammed shut
          in my heart.

That closed door
          left me outside,
shivering in the cold.

Now I no longer know
          who or what I am.

The shadow of nothingness
          wraps its black shroud
around my shoulders.

Dark night of the heart,
          and me alone,
walking an unlit road
          with no end in sight.

(a) The shadow of nothingness is Meister Eickhard’s Umbra Nihili. A reference to the medieval philosopher.

(b) The dark night of the heart is a reference to St. John of the Cross’s dark night of the soul, part of the Via Purgativa, the mysterious road walked by the Mystics.

What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” What’s in a name? And how do we name things? Perhaps, more important, why do we name them? Perhaps when we name something, we feel that we control, if not the thing itself, then perhaps our relationship to it.

The Naming of Cats – that seems to be a strange place to start. To begin with, do we think we can control our cats when we name them? Now that is a very good question. And what name should we give to a cat when, in the words of T. S. Eliot and Old Possum, only a cat knows its one and only inscrutable name.

So, is a cat inscrutable? Does a cat have the inscrutable smile of the Sphinx? I wonder what the cat, pictured above, is thinking. One, two, three, where’s my breakfast? Oh yes, that’s Rudyard Kipling, my dearly beloveds, as you well know. Or do you? So much knowledge is being lost, swallowed up by the black hole of AI that is gnawing away at our brains the same way the moon gnaws at the sun disc in a solar eclipse.

“Sitting on my back porch watching the moon
devouring the sun with a big, black spoon.”

So what would we like to call the inscrutable cat who lounges so luxuriously on the bed in the above picture? Old Deuteronomy? No. Princess Squiffy? No. Willow, as in Pussy Willow? No. That’s somebody else’s cat. Blackjack? No. Blackjack is a black dog and this cat is white. Seamus? Sorry – wrong house, wrong family, wrong set of memories. Spot? No. Sorry, that’s what my grandfather called his zebra. Smudge? No. No smudges on that beauty. Sphinx? Or Sphincter? No. Mustn’t be rude.

Control. It’s all about control. Do you really think we can control that cat merely by naming it? Or , as is all too often the truth, do you thank that a cat like that actually controls us. In that case we must move from Thy Servant a Dog to Thy Master (or Mistress) a Cat.

“Do you like Kipling?”
“Not really. I never Kipple.”

So how about Master? Mistress? Colonel Bogey? Sergeant Major? Boss? Top Cat? Prince or Princess? Queen or Queenie? Please send your answers on a postcard to the North Pole via dog sled, preferably before Christmas, and maybe Santa will send you a nice present – if you give Saucy Sue her correct name.

PS. It’s not Saucy Sue. Roll the dice and try again.

It’s A Small World

It’s A Small World

Light returns to Island View after Monday’s eclipse. Here it is post the total eclipse and daylight is being restored. It was a wonderful experience, totally unlike the last total eclipse we saw, at Skinner’s Pond, In PEI, on 10 July 1972.

That one was unexpected. Nobody talked about it. Nobody said a thing. We travelled to Skinner’s Pond, the birth place of Stompin’ Tom Connors, just to see where he was born. We parked the car, put the dog on a leash, and walked on the beach. Normal sea-side sounds – waves, sea birds, wind among the dune grass – swallows rose and fell, twittering joyfully. A world at peace. Then it happened.

A shadow moved across the sun and the world started to darken. The dog went wild, strained at the leash, started to whimper. The bank swallows began to gather, then, as the darkness deepened, they dived for their burrows and vanished from sight. We shivered and wondered. We had no glasses of any kind. We avoided looking at the sun, and just experienced the world as it darkened and became colder and more silent, save for the sound of the wind in the grass. As the light returned, the dog settled down, the swallows emerged from their tunnels and took to the skies, twittering again. Life, light, and warmth returned to normal.

Monday’s eclipse was so very different. We weren’t intending to watch it, other than on the television. While I was out shopping, early that morning, I joked with the people I met that, during the eclipse, I was going to tuck myself into bed and hide my head under the blankets, in case it was dangerous. [Yes, I have read Day of the Triffids and seen the movie. Now that does date me.] On the way home, I met one of my neighbors. Was I going to watch the eclipse? Once in a life experience. Did I have the right glasses? He told me to avoid normal sunglasses. Told me I wouldn’t get the right glasses now. All sold out. He gave me a strange look when I told him of my decision to bury my head in the blankets – just in case – so no harm would come to me.

Several news items turned up on my computer. In one of them I read that approved special glasses – true specifics and details given – had vanished from the stores in Fredericton. Only one place still stocked them – Canadian Tire, South Side. Ha! I drove back into town and there, on the door of CT-South, I saw a sign – Eclipse Glasses available at Check Outs. I joined the line up of late buyers, bought two pairs, and headed joyfully home.

When the eclipse started, I drove around the block, looking for the best place from which to view it. I parked here, there, and everywhere, tried my glasses out – a small, black line, curved, was slowly and silently invading the sun’s disc. I drove back home and discovered, after an experiment or two, that our back porch was the perfect spot for viewing. We put chairs on the deck, sat down, and watched as the blackness on the sun’s face grew larger. No beach view this. The Island in Island View is in the St. John River / Wolastoq, on the other side of the hill. No sea gulls, no swallows, in our garden. In fact very few birds at all.

As it grew darker, we could hear the soulful hooting of some mourning doves. They soon grew silent. The crows, on the other hand, rose up to defend their territory, just like they do when a hawk passes over and puts its shadow between them and the sun. What a racket of sheer defiance.

Through our glasses we could see wavy lines of light flickering around the visible parts of the sun’s circumference. Occasional red streamers, flared up and out. Then the eclipse became total. We took off our glasses and for two minutes and seven seconds (or so) we basked in celestial glory. Breathtaking. Spell binding. A mystical moment of myth and magic. We sat in silence. Then, the spell broke. The sun emerged from its moon shadow and light returned. The earth warmed. Life was as it was. Nothing had changed, except for us. Light broke where no sun shone, and suddenly we realized so many truths.

How tiny is our world. How enormous is the space around us. How mighty is the universe. How fragile are we humans. How small and insignificant is our world. How glorious is our existence, the joy of life, of witnessing, of seeing such power and such glory. The joys of knowing that we are sentient, and alive.

Two images of partial eclipse – with clouds – Kingsbrae International Residencies for Artists (KIRA, June 2021).