A New Journey

How I got here

The intention/prayer notes fell out of the ocean painting, bought  a few years back in one of those lonely trips to the antique mall, where I would schedule to bury my grief and loss, shifting through discarded dreams and abandoned life remnants of others. Even as a child, I always found comfort in the voyeur's perch, of old folks' company, auditing  past tragedies. The "jugga", reclamation engineer instict was a built-in of my character.

I had tucked them in, before I had hung the suspended "boat " of "Wits End", a makeshift dinghy constructed out of a shopping bag bottom with sturdy rope handles, to hold all my  pilgrim's prayers and devotions of my widowhood journey. Every time Natalia or the bleakness of my loneliness would bring me close to desperation abyss, to the edge of Thelma and Louise canyon, I would write one and add it to the boat's berth. The boat would sway and I would close the door of the empty closet that once housed Steve's stuff and I would go on to my busyness. It was a very nifty, therapeautic shortcut.

I had forgotten the time, the occasion, the particular hue of want of these notes declaring " I need LOVE, I need a human touch, I need an embrace" and the plaintive one, "I need strength to walk alone, protection from evil doing and serenity, my God".

And now I got what I wished for.

The graduation apex was the symbolic mountaintop, on the first day of a new summer, of the glorious sunrise of new love that was granted, answered from those notes.
I don't remember where the boat ended up or its contents.

I know that I am filled with gratitude and plentifulness and blooms in my garden of Eden.
And the resolve to pay it forward.

Two Flowers

Held close inside
the crook of my ring finger
-me and you-
are two blossoms
as last of the blooms
that were granted
a new spring,
a promise
for four seasons and
a life that will
grow unincumbered
of practiced fails
for miracles require faith
and hope and redemption
and finally giving
without reward