Category: journal

Posted in journal

hello 2021

Posted on by J.A.B.

As I think we all are I’m reflecting on 2020 today, relaxing in my writing space sipping a coffee, the dog snoring at my feet. It was not the year that we expected it to be, was it? I was hopeful at the end of 2019 I felt like the turning of the year would magically put behind me so much turmoil. I was looking to 2020 as a new beginning after so many personal endings. I was looking to rebuild and create. I wanted a calm year, where I could rebuild and find some peace after the biggest battle of my life.

Not all of that came to fruition. A global pandemic shifted a few things around.

I did find more peace; in the lockdown that cultural idea of busy as a badge of honor was shattered for me. I am still not sure how this change will affect my life as a whole, how it will colour my perception when we move into the post pandemic landscapes. Right now, I like the new pace of my life has taken.

The last part of the year I have been posting less even though I am writing more. I made a writing goal in Feb 2020 and so far I have kept it. With this goal has come a change in my writing. The flavour of what I scribble has shifted form tear filled emotional vomit to a more processing reflective thing. It means I’m posting less, even though pages are being filled up. This blog you are reading and the Instagram account that accompanies it, were first though on in Jan 2018. It didn’t go live until that fall, but it still feels like a birthday of sorts this Jan. Into 2021 I am not sure how it will grow, it’s a bit of an unknown right now. The writing I am doing had been very healing, unlocking a new flavour of grief, personal insight, and self knowledge. It feels too personal and underdeveloped to share much of it yet…. leaving a suspended feeling around the Diary of the Phoenix. I know that the fire is out, the smoke and ashes are cleared. Maybe this is the regrowing of feathers phase. What I have descoved is that the mess of it and the not knowing is totally ok.

All in all, I am grateful for the year that was 2020. It was not what I planned or hoped for, yet somehow on the whole it managed to be very healing and re-centering for me. A bunch of things I had planned and set out to do, did not happen. The anxiety that came up for me within the illolation, the stress of my work in healthcare, and the ever changeing landscape as the world reacted, got in the way of most of my plans. I think the theme for me was one of acceptance. Acceptance of my circumstances, my states of mental health, my limits, of peoples reactions to fear. I had to embrace a new kind of unknown, things that I believed to be stable and permanant weavered, weakness in our economies and culture were exposed. Even now the impact on our word and what it will look like a year from now is blury.

In spite of it all I am ok. I found a new sence of freedom in this crazy year of restricted movement and contact. I’m still processing it all.

I have no idea what 2021 will bring me, or the world in general. How ever this unfolds I will be am almost sure that I will be ok.

Posted in journal, Water

Bitter Tea

Posted on by J.A.B.

I’ve reworked this piece and do not know which version I prefer…. so I’ve put them both here. I thought it would be fun to talk about a bit.

a cup of bitter tea

how we warm up to sadness
comforted by aching
so familiar that deep empty longing
 
uncertainty seems more risky
than heartache
so we stay with what we know
 
the familiar taste of our own sorrow

more bitter tea to drink

Funny how we can warm up to the sadness
Feel comforted by aching, Familiar with deep
empty longing
 
so fearful of leaving what we know
that uncertainty seems more terrifying, we stay
with what is know
 
the familiar taste of our own sorrow

I think the same feeling and message is captured in each version, the idea of staying in a place that causes you sorrow for fear of the unknown. I get caught in this thing where I try and condense my pieces down to micro poems. Those short word daggers that pierce right into our souls making us feel so much. I struggle with when to stop cutting out words…. where is the best place to stop trimming? I think it can be a little like when you trim your own bangs, there is like a millimeter between amazing and bad bangs 😉

So I offer it up to you dear reader…. which do you prefer?

How do you re-work your words?

Is this one of your struggles as a writer, what else do you bite your nails over?

Posted in Air, journal

Within the Pause

Posted on by J.A.B.

Within the pause… this quiet place in time where all the cars stay parked on Monday mornings. Cafes are closed, everything is closed, the whining din of the city has been hushed. Birds song fills the rainy spring air, emboldened squirrels plant their bums in the middle of our urban garden-scapes. There is a surprising sense of relief. There is no where I have to be… not really. My day to day has been paused

When I wake up each day is stretched out before me now, like a canvas awaiting the stroke of my brush. With in the pause there is time for reflection. Questions I seldom have a moment to ask come boldly forward. Why do I feel I need to do it all? Am I enjoying the picture of life I am drawing? What is it that I find necessary? Do I even miss that?  In this new world of limited movement, and closed doors I am finding a new freedom.

There is no guilt in not doing things right now, I can just choose to sit, or read, or play. I have no schedule. Its like those long summer days at home with the kids before school and lunches. Like living in a vacation day, filling my curios mind with things I enjoy. And I am seldom bored. I think I really dislike the routine of school. I dislike packing lunches most of all, and empathize with the kids feelings of monotony toward sandwiches.

I have spent the last few years starting and re-starting over with the changes that have been my journey. Right now, it seems this unique thing has happened, this moment of open potential; where I can experience my life devoid of everything I have taken on and signed up for over the past decade. What do I want the memories painted of the canvas of my life to resemble? With in this moment I am choosing.

Posted in Earth, journal

we are all in this together

Posted on by J.A.B. 
What will this crisis bring,
when we have passed through the cloud of contagion?
My mind drifts and wanders as I sit quietly and
Acknowledge my fear.
Not so much for myself, its the fears I hold in my heart
for of my aging parents, my children. Our economy
 
Into my mind walks and image, of a small woman
with strength in her bones, resilience in her posture,
A thin smile on her lips, and unspoken love in her eyes
My grandmother.
 
Holding my fear safely in her hands she speaks
Of times of war, hardship, failed crops
Making bread with no milk. Birthday Cakes with out eggs
and apple pie out of potatoes and cinnamon
 
Her memories embrace me, the warm smell of bread
I hear the Singing of my mother and her sisters,
As she remembers them together in the kitchen
every hand busy and hearts full. 
Into my ear she whispers a truth.... 

Our needs are not as complex as we imagine them to be
 
We are all in this, distanced but together at home
 
Surreal is how to best describe waking up to
The absence of city life, no traffic sounds,
In place of business we have
Italians singing together on balconies
Cities applauding health care workers at 7pm
Songbirds streaming mini concerts online for us all
Neighbours shopping for each other
 
In this absence of industry,
we are strengthening our communities
giving to each other, protecting each other
staying in for each other
 
I wonder what world we will create together
When we are no longer at home  
                                                    - j.a_b
I have been thinking a lot about the generations before us and how they endured WW2, and the great depression. I have seen the the old food stamps my grandmother had for staples like flour. We will come out the other side of this. There will be loss, tragic loss to many families. Some of us will loose loved ones. Others will or may have already lost their businesses and livelihoods.    
I still have great hope that is living along side my fears. Imagine what will grow out of this pause we took for each other? We see some often the results of sowing hatred and fear-mongering. This spring we are planting compassion for each other, we are coming together  in solidarity around this whole big beautiful world. It gives me hope. This pause in our industry and our current path might just be the re-do we are looking for. 
                    ❤ stay safe, wash your hands

Posted in journal

And the Goddess Sighed

Posted on by J.A.B. 
I was struggling lost in my grief;  and the Goddess said “You are not alone”

“Yes I know, I know I'm not alone. I'm part of the Great Cosmic world, 
we're all connected,” was my reply

But she knew I did not know and so.....

My world grew a bit darker, my emotions engulfed me, becoming 
bigger than I could hold. I had to reach out, I had to reach out of 
my darkness. To the people who care, who love me.
 
It was only then I learned that I was not alone. 

When my heart was so heavy, I could no longer carry it on my 
own. I had to lean or fall to the floor. I learned to lean on the 
people that will answer a call at 3 a.m. Those that listen, who 
are not afraid of my fear, who are not afraid of sadness.  

The people who are able to love a whole person, even the pieces 
we feel shameful about, the ugly parts that we try to hide form 
ourselves. They came spilling out of me onto many a kitchen table, 
because my heart was broken open in my grief.

In the warmth of  these kitchens with tea in hand, tears falling to 
the table, I was not alone.

I learned that we truly are connected. The love between friends 
can move across a room in a look of compassion. Injecting my grief 
with their light. Our shared words can be carried inside us, pulled 
out when we need them. Our laughter flows through it encircles us 
and billows out into the world we create.

I'm never alone, I'm surrounded by more love that I could have ever 
imagined. It exists beyond time and our mortal senses.

Then the Goddess sighed; 
and I could feel in my breath the rhythm of the ocean tides

                                                                                           - j.a_b
Posted in journal

Human Be-ing

Posted on by J.A.B.

Not sure if this is a funk that I am in today. I don’t want to go and do the things I have to do. Today feels different than the days where I cannot face the day. Those dark stormy days. This is a completely different texture; I just don’t want to go to the grocery store, or tic the boxes off my to-do list. I want to curl up and…. well be curled up.  

The sun is leaking into my living room, my pup is stretched out at my feet, I can hear her soft snores. My coffee cup is still warm. I feel relaxed, like I am beating within the natural rhythm of this day.

 How much of this kind of time did I used to have, before trauma over took my life? What did I do with my mornings after I took the kids to school? The memories of that time are bright with laughter and lack shape, they smell of warm bread, craft paints and tomato plants.

I think I read books and puttered around my house. I think I had actual down time. I know that I enjoyed hobbies that have fallen to the waysides of my life now.

It is odd to look back and think, to remember ….

Even odder still to realise that I have forgotten how to just be. So long now I have been running. Revved up in survival mode, running from one moment to the next, stopping only long enough to take big gulping breaths of tight air. Striving each day to make lemonade out of all these damn lemons.

I think I have forgotten how to just be.

So today I’m gonna through my keep-busy-list into the fuck-it bucket. So I can get some practice relaxing.

Posted in journal

not quite a poem

Posted on by J.A.B.

not everything I write is really a poem. A big chunk of the work is what I would call musings. Its basically me trying to make sense of and process a either my emotions or some life lesson I am wrestling with. My journals are messy like my mind, I write all over the place, so what might start as a emotional rant can form into a micro poem or one of these “musing” style pieces. The piece that I’m posting today is one of those. I hope you enjoy it …..

From feb 1 2019
 
Sometimes I’m not ok, my chest tightens and this feeling of doom settles into my bones.
And sometimes its not because anything is wrong.
 
Lately its because things are right.
 
I’ll stand up for myself, my views. I’ll speak up, my voice sounding clear and calm.
Then 30 min later, I am a disaster. Broken feeling, full of terror and dread.
 
The need to be rescued. The twisted pull of my old habits and out-grown ways of being in this world
 
This is not anything the self-love gurus prepare you for.
 
None of the memes show you this
The slow, lonely, death of your inner victim.
 
And oh, how the damsel can scream.  As she sees her manipulation end, her usefulness erodes.
 
Make way, because I no longer need her,
I am becoming empowered !