Bucket List

Much gratitude to Facebook for reminding me that I wrote this 1 year ago today. It’s a perfectly timed reminder of what really matters, love and living life to the fullest as you continually use up all your paint and have to get more.

Peace and Love

This Pedestrian Life

Bucket List

To live and dream in color

Your hand in mine

To use up all of our paint

Repeatedly

And scour the earth

for more

To taste the honeysuckle sunshine of your smile

Until I depart on a zephyr

With gossamer wings

Silken ribbons of love trailing back to you

As the dragonflies whisper

“It’s time.”

CRR 9-29-15

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Night Kisses Day

Under The Break or Marry The Flow

Mid Night Discourse

She doesn’t listen. She’s impudent that way, my muse. Coming and going as she pleases seemingly without a thought of the repercussions for me. So familiar. Is she me or I her? A question for the ages, the slowly aging from lack of sleep, and the up for hours mid-night. I awake wondering what she wants, mind ricocheting from one byte of memory to another. Is she intuitive? Does she foresee? Might she simply be attuned to the body she inhabits or am I experiencing the effects of Mercury in retrograde? I’m not completely sure what that even means but we are all part of the cosmic portrait, the energy of the universe. Atoms dancing in invisible valences with ghostly attractions and all. I’ve ruled out indigestion, heartburn and physical pain. There’s no bun in the oven doing somersaults. No caffeine aftermath. Perhaps she has something of value to say. She knows how I abhor vapid discourse. I’m often mistaken for antisocial for believing that what you (or I) have to say should be more beautiful than silence. I just wish she’d get on with it as I sit here rattling on like someone with multiple personalities.
Should I invest in the URL? Buy thispedestrianlife.com before it’s gone, like the black mock turtleneck midi dress that’s now out of stock after I delayed purchasing it online last night? Is it time to identify myself by name as writer/poet as opposed to author behind a clever blog name? What am I going to do my PGP ( work-personal growth plan) on this year? Should I start going to a Yoga class instead of practicing via video? I’m out of lavender essential oil and forgot to put it on our shopping list. I need razor blades and mascara as well. And I really should tackle the rust stains on the back of the house. Should I take the hummus for lunch tomorrow? It seems I always end up forgetting it the second day and letting it go to waste. Am I ever going to have a relationship with my sister? Do I want to sponsor a Make a Difference Club at school this year? Should I change the name? I need to get my Florida Gator purse out of the closet and start carrying it tomorrow. Football season is here and I so hope the Gators make a comeback. Why isn’t the Tylenol PM working? I wonder if that black dress will be back in stock sometime? I should sign up for an alert if that’s even available. Is that even available? Maybe I should read. Or work on one of the two books I’ve started writing. Is it too early for coffee? I can’t believe I’m still awake…

Be Still and Listen

Rereading old posts in an attempt to spark a fire in my pen. The “you there” is all of us at one point or another. Writer heed thy words and heal thyself!

This Pedestrian Life

You there.

With camouflaged heart

armed sentries guarding the moat

you’ve filled with ten thousand tears.

You there.

Who seldom smile

lest the beauty of your wounded warrior soul

appear bare naked

in divining light.

You there.

Of weary spirit

driftwood memories

smoldering in desert sands

searing the soles

of one soldiering on.

You there.

Of passionless daydreams

suicide steering

into doldrums of doom.

You there.

Choking on melancholic bile

despair’s aroma

layered yet upon tufts of hopes.

You there.

Simply be still.

Take care and listen

as the cicadas hum

the soulful song of your rebirth.

Listen

as the hummingbird’s Lilliputian wings

break the silence of your dark night

into glistening shards

and harken you back

to journeys of joy.

Listen

as the rushing river

smooths the jagged edges of acerbic days.

Listen

as a choir of wolves

howl a fierce “new day” song

and devour your sorrows farewell.

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What It Means To Love Without Conditions

The very moment you become a parent your heart cracks open.

It’s not just a Lilliputian hairline crack, but a canyonesque fissure, through which your child enters, through which he/she will travel all the days of your life.

You will carry your child and their heart with superhero stamina and strength, never noticing the additional weight.

As he/she grows from playgrounds to proms your roles will be altered one hundred times and somewhere between band-aids and butterfly kisses and waiting up to make sure the midnight curfew is met, that fissure in your heart becomes filled with a mighty river that floods cyclically and nourishes the surrounding valleys, a powerful river that carries your child to lands near and far, to discover grand treasures and experience necessary tribulations.

On no particular day, your child will decide to try other modes of transportation and the flood gates will be opened. And just as you have during all the other days of their lives, your river of love will carry them out into the world.

With parent’s eyes you will ache and rejoice as they grow in knowledge and courage, as they take risks you’d advise against, as they succeed and fail, as they make decisions you disagree with, as they open your eyes and heart even wider to the greatest of gifts—unconditional love.

 

Peace and Love

Because Cancer Sucks

Because my mother would die just 4 days later.

Because I’m still grieving.

Because life is fleeting.

Because there is someone that you need to call or visit and tell them that you love them.

Because cancer sucks!

https://thispedestrianlife.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/shell-be-alright/

 

Peace and Love

Her Story

Her story ended 5 years ago tomorrow. Or did it?

I can still smell it, the aroma of it, in a Sunday pot roast slow cooking on my counter and also in the domestic union of fabric meeting hot metal as I iron a favorite linen shirt.

I can still feel it, the warmth of it, in a quilt the colors of spring, lovingly sewn by arthritic hands and also in the sunshine- like memories that my heart recalls.

I can still hear it, the playlist of it, when once youthfully ignored lessons emerge in my own mother voice and also in the beckoning ocean as she welcomes me home.

I can still taste it, the flavor of it, sliding from spoon to throat, as I spread Virginia apple butter on a sandwich of cheesy grilled comfort and also in the salty air that tingles my tongue.

I can still see it, the purity of it, in my grandchildren’s eyes as they fall in love with animals and life and also in the goddess smiles of women as they birth brand new hopes.

Her benign spirit departed its malignant body 5 years ago tomorrow but her story didn’t end.

It lives on in the auspicious cells of her children, her grands, and her greats and in all of those souls touched by the goodness of her heart.

Her life here ended 5 years ago tomorrow. But her story did not.

CRR

7-1-16

In loving memory of my mother❤

Rain Prayer

This poem is an adaptation of one that I originally wrote in May of this year titled “Let It Rain”. This second version was sadly born of the recent Pulse Nightclub tragedy in Orlando, Florida, a town I grew up in and live near today. Like millions of others around the world I’ve been reeling with emotions regarding the horrifying event. To deal with those emotions I felt compelled to write and started several different essays, eventually tearing each one up, feeling my words could never say enough to do justice to or pay tribute to the 49 beautiful souls gunned down and the 53 others injured by hate. Days passed and then while sitting in my home office listening to the “pulsing”  water as it hit my roof on a rainy afternoon, these words arrived. May they be heard by our hearts. May they be of benefit. Peace and Love.

Rain Prayer

Wash away

the choking sediment of hate

transported like pollen on incendiary winds,

the invisible film of separateness

coating traitorous hearts.

Rinse out

the marrow deep prejudices

the fear of that unknown, that foreign, that strange

those centuries old perceptions sewed into consciousness

by unconscious souls.

Cleanse us

of limiting ideologies

the unholy lies we tell ourselves

our selfish denial of interdependence

our staunch proclamations of “them” and “us”.

Flood

our hearts

that we might recognize the pulse of all humanity

as our own

and save our world.

 

CRR

6-28-16

 

 

 

Advice From The Sun

Show up.

Every damn day.

Regardless of how many clouds get in your way or attempt to shadow your shine.

Ignore the thundering nay sayers who storm in noisily and proclaim their shock and awe light show to be superior.

Do what you were created to do.

Create the life that only you hold the power to.

Be of benefit to the world.

Burn bright.

Wear your colors proudly.

There is no substitute for you.

You’re one of a kind and without you

the world as we know it now

would cease to exist.

Show up.

Shine your light.

 

Peace & Love