Thursday, August 27, 2015
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Who We Really Are
Words connecting us on our walk through life
reminding us how to find our way.
People meeting us eye to eye, listening to our hearts
as we follow the music of our hopes and dreams.
Steady, rhythmic as the beat of the ocean's timeless waves
life drums out a story, of light and shadows patterned to the fabric of time.
I know you, why would I not, we know each other, how could we not.
Friends, family, neighbours, we all are one.
Yet I wonder, who we really are, as we dance our steps
as best we can and try to keep the song in our hearts strong.
There is only so much the mirror can tell us all,
and we never see ourselves at all, only the light bouncing silently off each other's souls.
Who we really are is dust off the gods' magic wands
as the stars align to the light and the slumbers of our nights.
Trudi Ralston.
August 17th, 2015.
reminding us how to find our way.
People meeting us eye to eye, listening to our hearts
as we follow the music of our hopes and dreams.
Steady, rhythmic as the beat of the ocean's timeless waves
life drums out a story, of light and shadows patterned to the fabric of time.
I know you, why would I not, we know each other, how could we not.
Friends, family, neighbours, we all are one.
Yet I wonder, who we really are, as we dance our steps
as best we can and try to keep the song in our hearts strong.
There is only so much the mirror can tell us all,
and we never see ourselves at all, only the light bouncing silently off each other's souls.
Who we really are is dust off the gods' magic wands
as the stars align to the light and the slumbers of our nights.
Trudi Ralston.
August 17th, 2015.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Nobody Wins - A lesson in caution
The summer heat continues on, it is often too hot for people to be outside long until the evening hours when the sun's heat is fading behind the tall evergreen trees. My son is at a friend's house and I feel his absence in the quiet house as the AC unit drones on and my steps echo down the hall way. The isolation of our small family can hit hard. Suddenly, a wave of sadness gripped me, and the powerful song I first heard at 22, " Nobody Wins", by Elton John started singing in my head. I heard it the first time I realized my parents ' marriage was turning into a nightmare, and we were all going to pay the price as their four children :
" They must have loved each other once
But that was many years ago
And by the time I came along
Things were already going wrong
I felt the pain in their pretense
The side they tried hard not to show
But through the simple eyes of youth
It wasn't hard to see the truth"...
The chorus is heartbreaking, and chills me to the core, to this day:
"And in the end nobody wins
When love begins to fall apart
And it's the innocent who pay
When broken dreams get in the way
The game begins, the game nobody wins"...
By the time my mother was done tearing her marriage apart, my youngest sister committed suicide, my other younger sister died of cancer at age 44, my brother's marriage was destroyed, my father died alone in an Alzheimer's institute in Belgium after she kicked him out 7 years before that, my brother and I became permanently estranged, and she died from complications of a lifetime of alcohol abuse. I struggled with the trauma of loss, betrayal, anger, and the fear I would not be able to escape my parents' awful marriage, and my in- laws disastrous marriage. My husband and I have been married 29 years, and it remains difficult at times to believe we are OK, as the ghosts of his and my parents haunt us off and on, the doubt, the fear, the sadness.
Elton John goes on in the sad ballad to show the fruits of love gone wrong:
" They must have loved each other once
Before the magic slipped away
And as their life became a lie
What love remained began to die
I used to hide beneath the sheets
I prayed that time would find a way
But with the passing of the years
I watched as laughter turned to tears"...
I remember my mother screaming at my father in her drunken rages, when I was already an adult, 26, taking a semester break from graduate school, to try to help my parents' miserable relationship. It is horrible when children get torn apart, no matter what age, when their parents' marriage turns to dust and ashes. My mother roped me in, and manipulated me into her narcissistic games, it was exhausting, and in the end , she threw me away like I was a used Kleenex tissue. It was devastating to my already shaky self confidence. I put myself back together, for the most part, with a lot of time, and a couple of years of therapy, but the damage, though invisible, is real. The hardest part remains to stay vigilant and make sure I do not set up traps for myself , my husband and our 23 year old son, that get us stuck in the same swamp of my parents' and my in-laws marriage disasters, keeping our love for each other alive and healthy:
" We used to love each other once
With all the passion we possessed
But people change as time goes by
Some feelings grow while others die
But if we learn from what we see
And face the truth while we still can
Then though the passion may be gone
Some kind of love can still live on"...
The song is a strong reminder to me to stay alert, to be aware of my own weaknesses incurred under the regime of my parents' sick marriage. The chorus is powerful, and reminds me of how important it is to be determined to break those chains from the past, to make sure the damage to my son remains minimal, because it is so devastatingly true that " And in the end nobody wins
When love begins to fall apart And it's the innocent who pay When broken dreams get in the way
The game begins, the game nobody wins"...
Elton John's song is a powerful, powerful message, one anyone caught in that web of parental marriage dysfunction can learn from.
" They must have loved each other once
But that was many years ago
And by the time I came along
Things were already going wrong
I felt the pain in their pretense
The side they tried hard not to show
But through the simple eyes of youth
It wasn't hard to see the truth"...
The chorus is heartbreaking, and chills me to the core, to this day:
"And in the end nobody wins
When love begins to fall apart
And it's the innocent who pay
When broken dreams get in the way
The game begins, the game nobody wins"...
By the time my mother was done tearing her marriage apart, my youngest sister committed suicide, my other younger sister died of cancer at age 44, my brother's marriage was destroyed, my father died alone in an Alzheimer's institute in Belgium after she kicked him out 7 years before that, my brother and I became permanently estranged, and she died from complications of a lifetime of alcohol abuse. I struggled with the trauma of loss, betrayal, anger, and the fear I would not be able to escape my parents' awful marriage, and my in- laws disastrous marriage. My husband and I have been married 29 years, and it remains difficult at times to believe we are OK, as the ghosts of his and my parents haunt us off and on, the doubt, the fear, the sadness.
Elton John goes on in the sad ballad to show the fruits of love gone wrong:
" They must have loved each other once
Before the magic slipped away
And as their life became a lie
What love remained began to die
I used to hide beneath the sheets
I prayed that time would find a way
But with the passing of the years
I watched as laughter turned to tears"...
I remember my mother screaming at my father in her drunken rages, when I was already an adult, 26, taking a semester break from graduate school, to try to help my parents' miserable relationship. It is horrible when children get torn apart, no matter what age, when their parents' marriage turns to dust and ashes. My mother roped me in, and manipulated me into her narcissistic games, it was exhausting, and in the end , she threw me away like I was a used Kleenex tissue. It was devastating to my already shaky self confidence. I put myself back together, for the most part, with a lot of time, and a couple of years of therapy, but the damage, though invisible, is real. The hardest part remains to stay vigilant and make sure I do not set up traps for myself , my husband and our 23 year old son, that get us stuck in the same swamp of my parents' and my in-laws marriage disasters, keeping our love for each other alive and healthy:
" We used to love each other once
With all the passion we possessed
But people change as time goes by
Some feelings grow while others die
But if we learn from what we see
And face the truth while we still can
Then though the passion may be gone
Some kind of love can still live on"...
The song is a strong reminder to me to stay alert, to be aware of my own weaknesses incurred under the regime of my parents' sick marriage. The chorus is powerful, and reminds me of how important it is to be determined to break those chains from the past, to make sure the damage to my son remains minimal, because it is so devastatingly true that " And in the end nobody wins
When love begins to fall apart And it's the innocent who pay When broken dreams get in the way
The game begins, the game nobody wins"...
Elton John's song is a powerful, powerful message, one anyone caught in that web of parental marriage dysfunction can learn from.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Whistling Winds
This has been the driest and hottest July on record for our state, and now that August is here, the feel of a cold breeze this morning felt like a delightful and welcome change. It felt like an early September this morning, the kind that makes you reach for that sweater you put away last autumn.
Last night I was enjoying a stroll through our backyard when I heard our neighbour Mark calling across the fence to our dog Yara and me. It turned out he wanted to hand me a bag of golden plums a friend of his had extras of in his orchard.The hot, dry summer has made all fruit and vegetables here grow abundantly, as Mark and I both commented on our own gardens. Mark and his wife of 43 years have lived next door from us since we moved to this house 26 years ago. They raised 4 children, we all saw grow up and get married, and they now have 13 grandchildren and another one on the way. Mark's wife, Karen, who is 62, was diagnosed with bone cancer 5 years ago, and has been battling this devastating disease ever since. Mark is out early every morning getting his bicycle ready to ride the 3 miles to work. I believe it really helps with the stress of his wife's illness, which is progressively getting more debilitating. She is now in a wheelchair. I asked how she was doing, and he said the doctors were getting ready to update her medicines, since the current generation had run its course in stalling the cancer. It sounded like the pain medicines too needed an upgrade. I am so glad Karen and Mark have such great children, and that their children live close enough that they can visit on a regular basis, so that the grandchildren too can bring a welcome boost of hope and energy. Talking to him over the fence so casually about such grave matters made me grateful we live in such a friendly neighbourhood where people feel comfortable enough to check each other's mail and water each others plants when out of town, and to stop by to borrow a cup of milk , sugar or flour when out of these while making a recipe or dinner. I thought of my friend Catherine, whose long time and former boyfriend bravely battled bone cancer for 10 years, until he finally succumbed to the disease at age 50 a couple of years ago, leaving behind a young wife and 5 year old daughter. At least Karen has the satisfaction of having lived a full life, having celebrated a long marriage, having raised and see marry all four of her children, and now enjoying a large troupe of grand kids. Life seems so random at times. Some people live to be a hundred, others never make it to adulthood, or die as children. You have to enjoy every sunrise. That is one of the things I really enjoy about living in a country setting. I love the feel of being close to nature, to its rhythm and wisdom, and its acceptance of life as it unfolds on good and bad days. As humans we tend to think we are the only creatures on this planet, and we forget we are surrounded by animals, plant, sky, wind. We get so absorbed in our own importance that we forget we are part of a larger system, a larger mystery. Nature has a way of reminding us of that, as we experience here with the enormous wild fires in California right now, and the terrible drought in Texas, the very strange heat here this summer, and that is just in our own backyard. Being close to nature keeps me calm, realizing this planet is billions of years old, and that whatever is coming its way, no matter how dire things may get, it and humanity will probably get through the upheaval one way or another. I do have to admit the climate globally is a bit oppressive, also politically, and that too, I hope will pass and leave hope for our children and their children.
My husband and son believe the universe is a random sequence of events, and that there is no such thing as destiny, human or otherwise. I am not so convinced all matters human or otherwise are just an accident that evolved over time into what we now see or perceive as reality. I am thinking of the pictures I took this morning of a very dedicated bee that fearlessly dove into a large Morning Glory's narrow heart and it was a tight fit, but like an expert spelunker she manged to get in there without tearing up her wings or legs. That confidence and determination is what life is all about, whether you are a bee or whether you are me taking the picture. I heard Mark's footsteps echo away as he walked back to his house, and I walked past our greenhouse back to our house, where my husband and son were eagerly awaiting me finishing the BBQ. pepper jack burgers I had started to cook for dinner.
Joni Mitchell has a song called " Both Sides , Now", where she has a line that says " Well something
's lost, but something's gained in living every day". It felt that way tonight, in a very real and concrete way.
.Maybe that is one good thing coming out of this global climate change we have going on. Whether we are next door neighbours or live half a planet away, the weather makes us relate, at least on that level, as if we were we all living next door.
Monday, August 3, 2015
The Recipe
If I give everything I have, everything I am, was and can be,
will it stretch my soul far and wide enough for you to see its light coming through?
If I swallow the words I want to scream, and chew them quietly like my morning cereal,
will your words find a way to my heart, and will I be able to listen without choking on their silence?
If you give everything you have, everything you are, were and can be,
will it stretch your soul far and wide enough for me to see its light coming through?
If time could slow down just for a while, and help us find the smiles we dropped like crumbs
along its path, would it be enough to see tomorrow's river touching our searching steps?
If for one moment we could reach up to the stars above our nights, and touch their fire
would they lead us back to the dreams we tossed up in to the sky like sparkling dust for our eyes?
Soft like a summer's breeze, our steps together mark their prints in destiny's sigh
and together we walk, together we search, for that dawn where all hesitation falls away.
A touch of pepper, a pinch of salt, I think this dinner turned out allright.
The candle is lit, its lilac scent delights the moon watching over the story of our lives.
Trudi Ralston.
August 3rd, 2015.
will it stretch my soul far and wide enough for you to see its light coming through?
If I swallow the words I want to scream, and chew them quietly like my morning cereal,
will your words find a way to my heart, and will I be able to listen without choking on their silence?
If you give everything you have, everything you are, were and can be,
will it stretch your soul far and wide enough for me to see its light coming through?
If time could slow down just for a while, and help us find the smiles we dropped like crumbs
along its path, would it be enough to see tomorrow's river touching our searching steps?
If for one moment we could reach up to the stars above our nights, and touch their fire
would they lead us back to the dreams we tossed up in to the sky like sparkling dust for our eyes?
Soft like a summer's breeze, our steps together mark their prints in destiny's sigh
and together we walk, together we search, for that dawn where all hesitation falls away.
A touch of pepper, a pinch of salt, I think this dinner turned out allright.
The candle is lit, its lilac scent delights the moon watching over the story of our lives.
Trudi Ralston.
August 3rd, 2015.
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