Tag Archives: Kelowna poet

January Fever

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After the 20 hour bus trip back from Houston, I was fairly depleted. I often remark how the “let down” period is usually two days after the life marathon event. Les Mis with friends was a total sob fest for me.
The combination of being physically tired; bored at the routine existence; having no project of passion in my life; missing my daughter, her family and my grandchildren probably played into the prodigious sobbing.

Canadian Beige series Capri Bean Scene

Also, lately I have been feeling so much that I am at a fork in the road. I see others my age who are choosing to leave. The thought of the “legacy” that I haven’t completed plagues me. What if I were gone? What have I done to fulfill my dreams? What gifts have I left in the lives of others?

My life seems so small in comparison to my dreams. The choices that I have made to play safe, stay in the ridges of routine, keep myself disciplined have left me feeling disappointed in myself.

When I was young, I saw myself as an aerialist swinging high on a trapeze. The risk taking, the physical skill, the star power was in me. I could feel it. Power. Power in sequins.

So when did my life become so mundane?

Capri Bean Scene Art Show Kelowna in January

In the past three years, I have come off of work addiction; relationship addiction and have learned to sit calmly in my center. But the sound of the big top still plays in the background.

How can I be myself; hold to my dreams and be so cautious?
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One of the biggest difficulties for me is learning acceptance. I accept the fact that I always double think everything. I am cautious until I react as if someone has hit me by a dart of some kind of adrenal intensifying plant. Then I suddenly lurch out into action. Do I think I can do things differently?

For instance, after the Les Mis sobathon that began as the lights dimmed (I have seen the movies and stage plays), I got very ill.

Keeping my spiritual practice in focus, I began to support my body. I stayed home. I drank lots of fluids. I kept my mind calm with meditation and affirmations. Prayers for healing were offered up.

Underneath was the foley like music. Underneath the intention and spiritual practice was the voice, “See. You never start. There is always something you create that keeps you small. Now you can’t start because you are sick.”

As I watch myself, I think of how everything is spiritual practice. Can I just watch my self-denigrating voice and learn from it? What is it that holds me to a place that makes me so restless and yearning? How much of these impatient thoughts are because it is time to reform my life and how much of them are old habits of mind?

When it is time, it will be time. This is what I tell myself.

But I made a chart which covers my intentions. I can check it off in a daily manner. I can walk along the lines of intention. Disciplining myself even further, when in my heart I wish to run away to the circus, stand in the centre ring and astound myself and others with my courage and my fashion sense.

The illusion of Stillness

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Mundane, repetitive, stuck, cycling gray
bare cutting into the sky
branches dividing the flat planes.

Over two yards a tree
is busy with dead small leaves
standing texturing the view somewhat.
I seek continuity of
over and over the same
gestures, habits of delusion.
Mind full of thought crows
brassing sounds
comparisons, directions
attempts to keep me scared
and small.

One day looks like the next
a river’s flat silver surface
all turbulence underneath
where water meets the rocks.

To be still, quiet and accepting of one state or another is a monumental practice. My urge to weave a story keeps presenting itself. Today after a month of taking my laundry to the laundromat because some mysterious parts are no longer functioning in my second hand washing machine I see my mind is at work. Up there, in the tree head I weave narratives.

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We create turbulence

The higher place is where I try to stand. I call it the balcony view. I picture myself standing on a balcony looking down at my thoughts as if I were a cultural anthropologist and the primitive society was ME.
As I bagged up the laundry, I checked in. So far so good. No story. Just putting the bags in the car. Then I remembered the times when I was in Europe doing laundry and as a grad student. So here was the version I was constructing: I was on an adventure. I was going to a new place.

At the laundromat, I realized I had no soap. That made me laugh. It had been so long I guess I imagined the soap just trickled down like pixie dust from the soap fairy.

When I went next door to the deli/grocery store, a sample pushing woman approached me in her pseudo maid’s outfit lofting a silver tray. After exchanging information about my gluten intolerance, she ran off to check on the two miniature hamburger shaped chocolate eclairs. They were “safe”. She gave me both.

On the way back to the laundromat, I breathed deeply, looked at the sky and thought about how wonderful my day was. Two amazingly delicious, sugar saturated chocolate eclairs melted in my mouth one after the other. The machines were gigantic and tipped on their sides could be a power smart car. Fast. They were done in 20 minutes. I put the wet clothes in the car and drove home singing to the Glee CD I am determined to wear out.

So I did create a story. It was a story of finding the adventure in the flat places of winter. It was a story of seeing my being alone as being free. It was a story of unexpected pleasure when I dropped the turbid drama weavings, the cat’s cradle of catastrophe.

The washer still isn’t working. The repair men went away but after looking at the back of my dryer they explained that the luke warm hours of turning are a result of bad venting. Because they came today, I will have both the washer problem and the dryer problem resolved.

As I sit here with the tepid light coming in my window, I know that there are more things that will appear to be unrepaired, too slow, stultified which are in fact only incubating. Under the shell, under the soil there is growth going on. And that is a story that I allow to dance in my head.

What to do when you are doing nothing?

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Yesterday I had another nothing day. I went out to an appointment and had the car loaded with books I intended to read and take notes from. I had a list of what I call the “this and that” of life in my head. Small things left undone end up like an assembly line at a factory just filling up until it ceases to move. When there are enough items that only take a few minutes, then I tackle them all on the same day. So I had that intention.

I returned home, sat down and could immediately feel the last two nights of short periods of sleep in my body.

Somewhere in between seasons hung outside. It wasn’t raining. It wasn’t snowing. The sun wasn’t shining. The air was a dripping dull gray. My mind kept circling back to, “I can start now.” But I was hungry so time for late breakfast at 1 pm.

maple leaves sudden shift to autumn

After reclining on the couch watching crap TV for a while, my mind started its tick tick the list again but I couldn’t work up enough enthusiasm to even check in and see what mind was putting on a list. It was like some background furnace noise blowing through my head space.

I read a bit of my book, I fell asleep for a while, I spent two hours on Facebook, I took the nail polish off of my left thumb then lost my focus. Thank God I had to pee because that got me up to clean the bathroom since I was already there and couldn’t be bothered to sit down and then get up AGAIN to clean. Walking past the washer, I started a single load before I sank back into the warm, worn flesh of the leather couch.

Thinking about marketing, my web presence, my web site, how I needed to “feed the blog” this week, make a poetry video, clean up some poems for the reading Saturday night. Oh! Now the things that I was not doing were becoming more clarified. The shapes through the mind fog were starting to sharpen into discernible entities.

My body was sore from working out every day for five days. So I fell upon the default rescue thought. If I am building muscle then not doing anything is what my body needs in order to repair. So while I am thinking I am not taking action, by not taking action I am allowing my body to take action.

intense colors signal an ending


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There! I did it. Like a magnificent athlete, trained and conditioned. My mind can create a doing out of not doing. It is not about resisting the busy body music. It is a care taking.

But I wasn’t buying it. My internal dialogue was continuing the argument. The only thing you are successfully doing is converting time off into yet another item on your list. So you are trying to be working toward your goals even when you are not. Impressive.

At this point, I was exhausted by not doing anything at all with my day so I went upstairs to bed to read a motivational book about focus, commitment to goals and daily effort. Yes. You heard me. Even as I was rolling over in the down covers to take a nap, my mind was saying, “Good job. You are motivation yourself.”

If there were a gold medal for cognitive dissonance, I am in contention for it. Because I am always in contention with myself. I was even too blecky to sit meditation. The last thought before my second nap was, “Well this is some kind of meditation, isn’t it?”

So today I feel that I can get so much done because I rested yesterday. I have a list in hand. The “this and that” items such as buying a tiny bulb for a dark lamp are all written out on the notebook page. I have inventoried my web presences which I intend to realign to one another, reconstruct my marketing plan.

veins like river beds on the earth surface of the leaf

Are these days of no action easy for me? No. The guilt and the internal nattering are not relaxing at all. But I say to myself as if I were a space traveller that it is what the other earthlings do. It doesn’t seem to set them back that much. And after all, I can cross “rest up” off of my list now.

Better get out and rake those leaves.

What is it all about? Face into wind, words carry

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Intention, attention, detention. Each day born like a chick. Pecking away the shell of sleep.

So shaky on first legs. Aware that each thought is creating the web lines I will walk each day. Visioning out, creating the universe my orb will rotate through before I can make it to the bathroom, or even put my floor into reality by placing feet upon it.

To catch myself, right then. To catch myself gently by taking my mind in hand is the goal.

When first waking, I place one hand on the scars where my three surgeries were for ridding me of cancer. The other hand I place on my heart and let both my chest and my hand warm one another.

Each day, I lay flat before the universe is constructed and I say to my mind, “You are radiantly healthy and you give and receive love easily.” Each day, I use Reiki or affirmations, or magic on my body in the two places that have to be calmed and assured. “You are radiantly healthy and your heart is full of love.”

Only after those moments do I stand, shake off the unbeing of night and sleep. Where ever I have travelled, I am back into the habit of mind-body connection we call awake. As I walk to the bathroom, I watch my thoughts. My mind has already made up the holodeck I am stepping into for the day.

“Whine, whine, whine,” the song goes in my brain. The hard stone of loneliness is still below my heart and above my belly button. Still there, I can feel the dark, heavy spot. Parents dead; children moved away; marriages done one after one. The house is quiet with only the blowing heat in winter or air conditioner in summer breaking into the white, clear silence.

I turn my mind to gratitude as one would help a child learn to tie shoes for the first time. I am patient. I talk to myself with compassion. “Let’s see. We will make a list. Wow, you had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Your body feels good. You are not afraid that someone in your environment will hurt you, will be sneaking around betraying you. No one is criticizing you. Your body feels strong and rested. The bed is comfortable, the tree outside your window is beautiful, your car purrs when you turn the key, ….” On I go chanting to the trembling gray feathered bird which has broken from the shell of night, chanting that the world is a safe and wonderful place.

The coffee is excellent, the best and freshly ground. The orange juice is golden. I drink it standing at the window so I can see the brilliant color in between sips. I take my pills that help me build strength and optimism. They work for me. I congratulate myself on everything that I did to advance my sense of safety and confidence in the world yesterday.
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The stone of past oppressions; of a war zone childhood; of bad choices and loss is still there. But I notice that it is getting smaller. I make friends with its presence as if it were a mole or a scar, only it is one which I carry within.

So many times during the day, I reach “no story” status. It is the top of the mountain for me. Something happens. My car needs $700 worth of repairs. And I say, “thank you,” to the universe for the mechanic’s catching loose bolts and a rusted arm that would have lead to an accident. Within one hour, I drop it and do not weave it into the cloth of thorns that I could choose to wear throughout the day.

Sometimes, I have no body or personality or thoughts. The sense of floating comes to me at times while I sit meditation on the deck. The feel of the sun melts the dimensions, my physical body, my aura of jagged thoughts away into no thing. It is beyond pleasure. It is just space.

The result of watching my self through the day is that I can see the four year old; the frightened 38 year old with two children to care for; the woman who ran bleeding after love appear in my thoughts. And whatever age my shadow self is, I see her. I know exactly where it is coming from. I know exactly why she wants to start the story, the drama, the cliff hanger, the adrenaline of anxiety which is her addiction. Sometimes, I am even able to soothe her and step away from her pull on my hand. “Follow me into victim land,” she will call out.

What has been most exciting for me in this process is that I am learning that I am not good or bad. I am human. I have a personality, a soul, a history, habits of mind, self destructive patterns and even cognitive dissonance that has me eating sugar while trying to become radiantly healthy. But I am learning.

By God, by all that is Holy the gifts this life has brought to me are starting to be evident. I can watch myself with love. The struggles with arrogance, judgement, social anxiety, over control, failure to allow myself to be close to others are on going. Even when I had past life regression, I could see the same lessons appearing. So how can I expect to “get it” in this life if I have been doing the work on the tendency to isolate myself since 1053 B.C.? I mean really, let it go sister.

When I awake with my feathers so young and wet they look like fur, and I lay among the shell fragments of dreams, I recreate my life. Each day is a new universe, a new energy field, a new web I weave with my thoughts. What is my life about? It is about learning how to live. It is about learning what I have created and taking full responsibility for each thought I use to speak to my self. I am after all brand new, unsure, trembling to be here.

I see myself so strong and soaring in the sky with no weight of darkness. I see myself light in light. So I touch my scars and my heart, and I talk to myself each day. I am teaching myself how to live. It is why we are all here. To understand. To live with no story, no drama, no victim/villian mentality. But thank God we are reborn each day, new, fresh face into the wind with our words carrying out into the world our intention to be loving.

And sometimes the sun shines.

August Fades

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The clouds overhead today floated in a brilliant light tone of prussian blue sky. At the start of day the clouds were muted but as the sun moved across the sky to flare the blue to a vibrant pastel the clouds burned white. Now, as the sun sets the edge of all the clouds is neon rayed. Like the last days of summer, for a few lingering moments the intensity of smudged color hangs in the air.

long shadows moving on summer lawn

The sky is shifting. Grays in multitude of shades hang in the silver air. Seasons shift. Lights shift. Colors shift in this period between seasons.

I mowed my lawn today with my wonky, cartoon-wheeled lawn mower. The axel is bent on all of the wheels so they roll around at various positions of 45 % angles. It works. It cuts the grass. And it didn’t cost me much. The green kingdom with its six mum plants and the last two roses waving their orange flag looks orderly. The care and attention I put into my lawn is easy to see.

I have trimmed back the lavender bushes so that a body can pass up my walkway to the front door without having to kick back the seedy stem heads. All that was trimmed, I am placing in net bags to give to friends. Their purpose is to promote tranquility.

Squeezing the bag causes the air to fill with the memory of the purple blossoms swarming with bees in the warm air of summer. The pollinating, the creating of blossoms are instantly recalled as the thumb sinks into the tiny pillow of dried plants.

I love summer and inevitably go through a kind of reluctant farewell to the heat and brilliant colors. There is sadness in the chill air after sundown.

The beginning of summer always holds promise. This year I will play more. This year I will find the loved one. This year I will be the carefree child creature I am at core.

As the promise of summer passes away, I recall which promises I have kept to myself.

being aware t

my choices help to create who I am

I have gotten the yard in shape; painted the fences; painted the deck; renovated the kitchen; dug up and replanted my garden beds; gone to school in Boulder, Colorado where I earned an A on my M.F.A. course; maintained my commitment to body building; connected with new people in order to build friendships. My nearly 4 thousand kilometer trip from Kelowna to Boulder, Colorado; on to Denver, Colorado; visiting Portland, Oregon and returning home was out of my comfort zone and an accomplishment.

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However within myself, I have carried with me a certain sadness that has been there most of my life. Some days it is active and pressing on me. Others I just ignore it by getting busy and moving toward my goals. Feelings of not being safe when I was young, not being loved are smaller and less insistent.

Roses my neighbour bought for my birthday

What I have learned in this last year is to ask for help. I am going out the door more often to be in the company of friends. I stay calm in difficult situations and can solve what needs to be solved without drama.

My body is healthier. My outlook is more optimistic. I am finding it much easier to understand what is happening when negative emotions arise. It is very rarely that I find myself justifying my behaviour or condemning myself for a stupid error.

Body building, eating well and eight hours of sleep

What has helped me the most in my journey is the idea of no story. Things just happen. The sun has set. The sky is now edging turquoise to navy blue clouds. It just is.

companionship in the falling light

I am proud of myself for not sinking down into distracting negative behaviors to deal with emotions which come up. I have seen what drinking alcohol does to the mind, to the ego, to the personality. I have observed my financial tail spin when I tried to buy my way out of distress. So standing emotionally “undressed” in the wind of what is, is my choice. Ultimately, it is easier.

Why did that happen? Why did the relationships not work out? Why am I feeling stuck or lost in a particular moment? It just is. When the cold water of the lake is moving up my ankles and then drawing back again, I watch the movement and feel the temperature and texture. It just is.

We all have our own lessons. We are like children sitting in school with a worksheet, head resting on a hand. It is hard, so hard that we stick out our tongues, we hold the pencil awkwardly. We try an answer. We hope.

May you continue to dance through the autumn with a smile upon your face.

Where Am I Now?

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Washington State passes

The question of where I am in life keeps popping up in my head. It is the result of linear thinking, three dimensional floating in my own waters of delusional aquarium life existence. “Where am I?” “How am I doing?” “What next?”

The sense of not knowing has been hanging in the air like some heavily laden perfume. The smell of repressed depression has lingered in the environment for almost three years.

The journey this summer has caused a sharp break in that sense of constraint. Driving across the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado through the haze of smoke nestled on the horizon was an adventure.

The flat land stretched out for days. One night I was listening to the University of Utah’s jazz program that runs for several hours. Darkness, stars, flat almost deserted highway and beautiful Cab Calloway pieces were surrounding me. The show told me stories about the history of jazz and its great musicians.

Travel is so much a metaphor for life. The assumptions that I make about the next stretch are usually in error. Sitting in the heat inching along in Vancouver, B.C. because there were accidents on all three major egresses is good practice for patience. I put on my favorite CD and sang along. The thoughts peeking out from the back of my mind was, “Oh no. This will go on forever. It will take hours to get out of here. Now I will be late for the entire journey.” But it was a small voice.

My bigger voice was telling me, “You are here.” Period. Who knows what conditions will exist in an hour, in a day, or tomorrow. The mountain pass was challenging with the rapacious, semi-suicidal semi-truck drivers jumping one another, cutting in, passing on impossible curves. I thought about the economic downswing or more accurately the depression and how much these drivers had riding on each trip. Their very desperation was obvious in their driving.

So it is now dark. It is now road construction with the lanes winding in unpredictable loops with the orange toy-like markers directing where to swoop next. How long will this go on? As long as it does.

The sky in the flat states is stunning. Blues so intense that they made my eyes sting. The clouds become the landscape. The clouds become the geography in these planed horizons.

My cell phone was reassuring. I texted both of my children to tell them where I was on the journey. “I am approaching Boise now,” I would indicate to my son and my daughter. The cell phone and the Tom Tom embolded me. I felt supported.

Because I was unused to driving and it is difficult to predict travel time, I stopped only for what I called liquid in or liquid out. I would get gas, use the washroom and replenish my water. My meals due to my financial straits were usually almonds and grapes that I could eat as I drove.

Bathrooms, washrooms, rest stops. Well now that is an entirely different issue. Some places were clean and welcoming. Others I had the urge to go to a local emergency room to have my nethers disinfected by a surgeon. The rule of thumb seemed to be the further away another service station was, the less the proprietor had to do to maintain the facility. Only show in town mentality rules.

I was very excited when I saw the first outcropping. Climbing a hill somewhere (I frequently let tomtom make the decisions and had no clue which state I was crossing) I saw a big of greenish earth and rocks jutting out.


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As I stepped on my 2003 Nissan Sentra’s gas pedal and she jumped into charge mode, I saw a young man with a woman on the back of a motorcycle coming up behind me. She had black hair tied back on her neck and a white peasant off the shoulder blouse. Her feet were barely clothed in minimalist sandles. The sleeves on her blouse whipped around her arms. I smiled and envied her freedom. She rode in the open air, up a pass without protection. (Also, what crossed my mind was the fact that a daughter of a friend had spent her life recovering from a motorcycle accident whereby she had her leg sliced and experienced multiple operations.) Both thoughts rested in my mind at once.

The real sense of accomplishment came when I saw red. Finally, the beautiful red earth of Colorado began to show up in outcroppings along the road. Getting there. I was getting there.

Driving along the highway to Boulder was challenging. I got off the road and got lost early on but found a way to circle back. Tomtom was furiously trying to correct me but I refused to listen. I was a bit frightened and would only double back on tracks I know I had laid down. Too insecure to break off onto a new road, I ignored her voice.

By night fall I was well and truly exhausted. It had been a long day, a long three days and I just wanted to find a place to stay. I got to Boulder with the kindness of stranger. Three different times cars behind me laid on the horn and came close to hitting my rear end. It was dark. I was lost. And the exits were just coming too fast for me to process.

Exiting in Boulder, I drove around in circles. Finally, demoralized I pulled into a parking lot next to Chucky Cheese and laid down in the backseat. I thought to myself just stay here until morning. I had tried two motels and been told that a state wide Baseball tournament had every single hotel/motel in the state filled up. The rooms had been reserved a year ago. I texted both of my kids that they could find me at Chucky Cheese and laid down.

Then the voice started.” You deserve better than this. What are you doing woman?
Just take a few minutes to rest and calm down. The universe supports and cares for you. Trust.”

I locked up the car and went for the first time in my life into a Chucky Cheese at 10 pm at night after an eleven hour day of driving. The noise was blinding. The colors were deafening. But behind the counter was a small, dark haired obviously gay kid who was an angel. He looked up the hotels, called the first one on the list for me and I ended up with a reservation.

My previous rooms had been under $70 a night with a free coffee in the morning. My gluten free cereal was in plastic refrigerator dishes and I added milk or coffee cream to them and ate them in the morning. This time the room was $135 but it was better than being rousted in the night by a security child in a dark uniform.

So I followed the “loosey goosey” directions from the desk clerk. On the street he had indicated, I got out at the first motel and discovered that was not the place. They had a $150 + room still available but not my reservation. I walked over to the next motel. A young, efficient woman at the desk told me ‘everyone’ came there by mistake. What I was seeking was around the bend.

Well, yes!

So on the third try, I scored the motel room and thankfully went to sleep. I was glad I had decided to leave Boulder and go up or down (Lord only knows) to Louisville to find this haven. The next day I headed to the Snow Lion dormitory only to discover that once again life is always fascinating.

The first room assignment I received changed early on. However, I was sent an email calling me Bob Hanson and moving me in with two “other” men. I replied that it was very generous of the dorm to provide me with two men when I had been around no men at all for the last 28 months. Perhaps, I should mention that I wasn’t Bob.

So a third room assignment was emailed to me. I printed out the email and included it in my documents before the journey. When I arrived at Snow Lions in Boulder at noon, I presented the paper.

No, the Resident director informed me. No that isn’t your room. It had been changed yet again and I had to wait until after 3 pm to get into the room because it hadn’t been cleaned. So I filled out the required paperwork and went away.

I walked around Naropa campus, going into rooms, moving in and out of various buildings trying to get a sense of the place. Finally, I ended up sitting upstairs in a large space looking like it was set aside for meditation. I sat quietly for an extended period of time grounding myself, dropping the anxiety from last nights three hours of driving in circles, being lost and releasing frightened thoughts as they came up. I was here now whatever that meant.

I had crossed the mountains, climbed the passes, driven the plains, found motels and gas stations. My body was not sore. I was not feeling depleted. Whatever happened next, happened next. And as I sat in the room with pictures of Buddha, I thanked my spiritual practice for being a home for me, no matter what happened in the outer world, I was safe, protected and fascinated by the journey. Gratitude arose and I sat in it.

A Bigger Life

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Fear has kept me small. To give myself credit, I have been doing a great deal of work on myself. Shamanic Practice, reading and study and deep grief exploration. My house has been my cave, my hermit crab shell, my tiny Victorian sanctuary. The sense of isolation and loneliness has diminished from the howling I could die from the pain wounding when my marriage broke up to a sense of being a survivor on a space ship. I had the plant to care for. The plant of my body. The plant of my house. My garden kingdom needed care. And, of course, my plants.

A shelter with blooming walkways

I wrote and published five books, read prodigiously, hesitantly began to connect with other people. The Centre for Spiritual Living provided me with a surety of social contact when I joined the choir. The director Barbara Samuel encouraged my growth and risk taking. From the first session when she said, “Lean into it, baby. Lean into it” I started to find a place to stand, on a stage, singing, in front of others.

It helped me to claim my expressive self. It helped me to find spiritual sisters who are also intent on dropping victim dialogue and living in a more vision out manner.

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And on the 18th of July I made a large commitment to myself. After nearly two decades, I drove alone in a car for long distances.

To fully understand the level of challenge this was for me, let me explain that during the past decades when I drove alone to go to Whiterock to visit a friend, I invariably ended up in the far reaches of North Vancouver. I became accustom to just ending up somewhere on a beach and circling back. It was the path of least resistance.

The last time I drove to Vancouver, B.C. for a visit and stayed alone, I turned around and dove back home crying most of the way. Just too overwhelmed and confused by the city, not being able to find where I had parked my car, feeling fragile.

So I got in the car, drove to Vancouver, negotiated the passport office and headed out across Washington State, Idaho, Montana, Utah to Colorado a distance of 1743 kilometers or 1083 miles or 941 nautical miles. I had my golden laughing Buddha on my dashboard, my tomtom nagging at me from the next seat and my handbook for Naropa Buddhist University Summer Writing Program in the back seat.

The journey across mountain passes, through accident sites, negotiating construction zones whereby the lanes where capricious, passing and being passed by semi-trucks crowding the long stretches of road left me chanting, “You are safe. You are protected. You are in the flow of love.” I found myself talking to my body frequently.

My main emphasis of conversation was to be aware of my physical response. “You don’t need to tense up body. Let go. You are fine. Let go of your neck. Let your hands be gentle on the wheel. Let your shoulders relax.” And it worked! Some days were 18 hours long. Some days I was behind the wheel for 12 hours due to accidents, work zones and various other normal anomalies. But each night as I found a $70 motel, I lay down without any sore or aching parts on my person at all.

First came negotiating the streets of Vancouver. Watching the people standing in groups talking in East Vancouver with their lurching, skeletal forms changed to students with the golf hats, technology wired to their bodies outside like surface veining and then the hearty tourist people in North Face climbing gear exploring the wonders of Canada Place. Finally, business people who were all seriously late. I think they were already three days late when they woke up on Monday. Heel clacking, rushing the lights, texting with head down charging down a street with remarkable peripheral vision on display marked the successfully rapacious.

But the one thing I noticed was that the moment when a smile broke out, the time when people seemed most alive was when they stood together in groups. It didn’t matter what social strata they represented. Three or four gathered on a corner and their faces lit up. Addicts, students, tourists, business people. A shared human pleasure.
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Driving through the border was interesting. I said I was going to Boulder, Colorado to go to school. The ten year old looking skinny blonde guard asked for my keys, opened my trunk and went through my suitcase. Lots of books and writings. Notebooks and shoes.

He asked me again where I was going after he shut the trunk. I repeated my destination. He inquired if I had rented out my house and if so for how long. He asked to see my plane ticket back to Vancouver. I very quietly took a breath and swallowed all of the smart ass remarks that immediately arose and I said, “I am driving.”

“Yes,” he said, “you are driving down. But how are you getting back?”

“I am driving down. And I am driving back,” I said evenly. I was thinking….. hence the car.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at me again. My age on my passport doesn’t jive with the way I look. I am wearing too many bracelets. I have a Buddha on my dashboard. Just too many strange things but nothing concrete. So he waved me through.

Later I discovered an apple had slid under my seat so I was smuggling in contraband.

Making my way through Seattle to the exit was a two way conversation. Tom Tom was telling me to shift lanes, to take exits. I was telling my body, “You are safe. You can just relax.” There was a flurry of words as I moved from one lane to another.

Ellensburg. Made it to Ellensburg. When I was attending college at Western Washington College in Bellingham, I thought the Ellensburg, Yakima area a blighted place. The thought was that it looked like a site where an astroid had hit and left a crater of featureless desert. But now returning forty years later, I found it beautiful.


I wondered how many other judgements I had made in my life were too quickly formed and made from a place of prejudice.

Driving over the high mountain pass in Washington under a nearly full moon, I gunned the gas pedal to pass the endless trail of semi-trucks. I saw one truck run a car off of the road and not even slow down. They wanted to make time in the darkness so they were aggressive. I kept trying to get far enough ahead so I didn’t have to deal with them in both lanes, jockeying for position, scooting past one another, cutting into the lanes.

I was proud of the fact that I just did what had to be done and for over an hour pushed to get beyond the mess of competitive giants.

I was growing. I was stepping up to challenges. I was keeping myself calm and not asking, “what if?” Just do now. Just do now.

What was I doing when I lost my focus?

Posted on by

Summer heat, body resists.

I sit on the step and watch the bees

busy in lavender

losing their way. Quick flight

returning to purple blossoms

visited only a moment before,

circling.

I wonder:
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Are they getting essence from a repeated flower

but the setting down, fly away

so quick

impossible to tell.

Are they like me,

losing track? Activity itself

becomes the goal

among depleted blooms.

How can you get creative in the Okanagan Sun?

Posted on by

Creative in Summer: Poetry and Photography

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Teaching:

1. The Outdoor Poet: July 18 9 am – 2 pm

self portrait with triangles

self portrait with triangles

Cherie Hanson holds an M.A. in English with a concentration in Contemporary Poetry from UBC, Vancouver. She was one of six poets selected from across Canada for the Sage Hill Experience workshop. Her poetry received recognition from the Surrey Writer’s Conference. Study with this imaginative writer with over twenty years experience as a teacher in a beautiful outdoor setting.

He was a fool, poem on fabric

He was a fool, poem on fabric

2. Digital Photographic Art: July 25 9 am – 2 pm
Cherie has been a guest judge for the Central Okanagan Photographers club, the Light Room and the Okanagan Film Festival Society. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Okanagan, in Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton and Prince George. More recently, she has been selected for shows in Florence, Italy: Ferrar, Italy: Vienna, Austria: Los Angeles: Sacramento. Learn how to select, crop and treat photographs with soft ware to take them from so so to stunning.

UBC Okanagan Continuing Studies

www.ubc.ca/okanagan/continuingstudies

Email: ccs.ubco@ubc.ca
Tel: (250) 807-9981

Poetry Event at UBC,

Posted on by

Spoken Word Open Mic, Tuesday, Oct. 7th at the
Well  (UBCO pub in the basement of the Student Service Building)

7:30 pm—Dress as a pirate (if you want) and bring a mix
CD-or-tape to exchange.

Brought to you by the Creative Writing Program at UBC Okanagan Okanagan.

untreated photo of sunset in Kelowna

P.S.  What do you call a pirate who cuts funding to the
arts?   Stephen Haaarrrper.

I wrote a quick poem/reaction:

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Picture This,

The icy blue eyes
a cold ocean captain.

Feeding the baby with a political spoon
the photo op
showing him
flashing the silver
in a household of captive
ethnics.

They are diminished
by his swash buckling presence.