I know I am. There is so much I still don’t know and, step by step, I will discovery more.
footsteps image credit
via Inchoate
discovery
More than Nostalgia
The wonderful thing about writing down memories is keeping them. Because later, like me, you will find those written words.
I wrote this 26 years ago when my son was two years old:
As grown-ups, we have learned much about life. But we learn much more by watching children experience and discover the world anew. I am about to be the grandmother of my fourth grandchild. I have much yet to learn.
Childhood and it’s atmospheric beauty!
(my daughter’s first child — my second grandchild)
I am forever grateful.
via Atmospheric
Risk anyway
It’s risky business, first learning to paint
being creative, letting go of restraint
who wouldn’t want to see two women chattin’
But maybe not Churchill
compressed in a wagon.
(a couple of my numerous early paintings)
daily word prompt: Risky
No Longer Can I Fill these Shoes
No longer can I fill these shoes.
Yet I remember a time
when the patent leather formed neatly around my feet
soft, worn, comfortable
Soles carefree and made of ease
durable for playing chase and hide and seek
or freeze tag in the dark
the lining soft enough for catching fireflies
and my parents goodnight kisses
The tips firm, protecting toes that so easily stumbled.
The heels perfectly made for scuffling
for dragging my feet when it suited
Shoes, easy to pull off for bedtime stories
and tuck-me-in time.
No longer do they fit, those shoes
Yet, it matters not.
I have merely grown into a larger size
the soul intact.
art by C. Dennis-Willingham
The View from a Gutter Isn’t Always Bad
We didn’t know it at the time. It wasn’t planned. But it happened.
On the walk home from our second grade class, my best friend, Vanita, and I took a wee bit of a detour. We walked down the creek bed and into the drainage tunnel. After an immediate right, we discovered a new way of looking at things.
The sight (and site) was pure magic! Whoever thought to build this foxhole was a pure genius!
From inside the gutter, at ants view, car tires whizzed past, feet with voices attached walked above us. Yes, we would be late coming home from school. But the newness, the discovery, the giggles, made it worthwhile.
I’m not sure how much time passed before we saw the car pull in front of us. We recognized the shoes. We definitely recognized the angry voice.
Can you imagine this mother’s horror at seeing our heads in the gutter?
A silent car ride later, Vanita’s mother pulled into my driveway, spoke a few words to my mother, and drove away with my best friend in tow.
Over fifty years later, this brief moment in my life still makes me smile. The world, I’d learned, was not mundane after all. It was filled with shared bonds no one could ever take away and discoveries waiting to be found.
As the world turned, the small heads of two young girls were filled with a new perspective on life.
Vanita and me – obviously photoshopped. Her mother wasn’t packing a Polaroid at the time.
Daily Word prompt: Genius
The “Feeling” of Flavor
Flavorful is not the chip in front of me.
It is seeing the knowledge in my great-grandmother’s eyes as she looks down
It is the power of her fingers holding up my whole arm
It is knowing that, in touching her hand, I feel a lifetime of experiences
It is the insightfulness I discover when she speaks to me
It is the feel of a tongue that speaks words of wisdom
Flavorful is the kiss from her lips that says, “I love you.”
Compared to these things, the chip has no flavor at all.
Daily word prompt: Flavorful
Are you flatlining?
Change can be hard. Change takes you out of your comfort zone, out from under your safe and warm blankie. Yes, change can sometimes be scary. But without it, how do we grow? How do we learn anything new? Without change, how can we gather a new awareness of ourselves and the world around us?
Go ahead and try something new, something different. What’s the worse that could happen?
How about going from this:
To this?
Or, would you rather be dormant?
Dormant – daily word prompt
If you squint
Sometimes, a rock is just a rock. Not this time. If you squint or close one eye, you will see a person with a face either motioning you with an arm to come inside his dwelling. Or, maybe motioning you to stop and come no closer.
Or is it just another Carolyn thing?
Hmmm….
When we forget the “magic” in our world
We must count on children to remind us.
my sweet grandson
The Lone Deserter
The lone deserter travels on, through tapestry of green, paying no attention to the land he’s never seen.
Passion pocketed for later use, the milestones tucked away, with treasures from another life he once felt sure would stay.
Trying for clear passage, his back now all that shows, struggling to seek distance, from lovers, friends and foe.
We watch him trip and stumble, yet he holds his head erect, while trying to deny and mask the sadness we detect.
The ocean tide once friendly, the setting sky so gray, he separates his vision of the past now gone astray.
His shadow barely showing, horizon on attack, reminding us as we watch him go, of the power that we lack.
When will we get him back?
by CD-W
Author Perfectly Flawed 