The view was hampered by a minor yet persistently nagging annoyance. I could get the gist of it alright, so that the beauty was not lost, it’s just that there always seemed to be that fuzzy dark blotch, moving along with my every attempt to reposition for a view unobstructed. Even with all my effort the blotch remained. If the blotch had a tongue it would be sticking out at me wagging na-na-na-na-naaa-na.

As far back as I can remember there has been that blotch, moving, morphing, distorting, a distraction and at times even a hindrance. There have been days, weeks and even months of an almost entirely blurred vision so that all I could make out was a minuscule pinpoint of clarity through a thick fog. Nothing had ever been more difficult than to try to keep focus on that one minute invitation to press forward toward light, toward hope. Was it merely a tease? A lure to keep me moving until I came to stand on the red X where a secret hatch-door would open for the abyss to swallow me whole?

No, it never was. The blotch remained but so did the hope. Most of the time the blotch was just there, in the way, like being a short person behind a tall person only a few rows from the stage zigging to counter their zag. Or like what a TV program does to obscure the identity of an interviewee desiring anonymity, you know, the collection of bouncing pixelated squares in place of a face. 

Frankly the blotch often even went unnoticed, so accustomed was I to it, having learned to pay it no attention at all. With fortitude and resolve I determined not to let its power over me wreck my hope. I wrestled it, restrained it, straight jacket, double pad-locked iron chains, thrown overboard wearing concrete shoes, squelched it. 

There on the bottom though, with time, every time, salt eroded iron chains and disintegrated fabric. Sand beds abraised once snug-fitting concrete shoes and the blotch was freed to slither out, resurfacing large and ominous, I its magnet. 

The reunion could be one of subtlety like the slow yellowing of a picture. It could come on with a hard fast clank to my steeled resolve until my own hands raised to cover my wearied eyes, in attempt to block the despairing view.

The thing is not the blotch, that it is there, or even if it really exists at all. The thing is how much if any of me I allow it to command. I choose where to focus, on the nasty blotch that would steal my joy, peace and happiness, or on the portion of the view that is blotch-free. Even if there is only a pinpoint of clarity, if only a clear view the size of a peephole, look there. See the hope. With my eye tight to the peephole the blotch disappears. Stay close like that with my focus on the peephole view, recognizing that everything within my sight-lines, regardless of where I focus, is there for me to process into living. It can’t in and of itself control me, and I don’t need to try to control it, any of it really. The blotch simply is, and powerless over all hope. I empower it, or not. 

I can, again, render it harmless.

Dark secrets churn below the surface
boiling up behind the invisible lid
to a cauldron of noxious deceit stew
Nostrils scald at its putrid stench
Ingestion bleeds, rots gut, decays soul,
While dining alone.
Seasoned liar!
Salt would disinfect,
light would absolve the death,
If desired
P.J.

Bathing with a dinosaur

Praying for a daughter

In the middle of a Thursday afternoon

Since the cloudy morning

Beckoned hot sweaty yard work

Necessitating evening’s bath too soon

Well, anytime in my book

Is a good time for a bath

But never mind the bath at this odd hour

There’s a foreign object

On the edge of my tub

A pink bodied blue-eyed dinosaur!

He’s there as evidence

That just last night

He kept a bathing tiny person company

So thoughts of gratitude

For the tiny little dude

Who left the dinosaur there to bathe with me!

Then my thoughts turn to prayers

And my prayers turn to pleas

For daughter who is taking a test

Lord grant her recall

Clarity and confidence

Please Lord help her do her best

While the dinosaur stares

Past the silly grin he wears

As I in my tub offer prayers

I am grateful for this

Thursday afternoon in June

And my simple list of bath-time cares

P.J.

Dare I even pen the words

To describe my thoughts

Of more questions than answers

Overshadowed with doubts?

Tainted by disappointment

Surely facts are veiled

Not seeing the whole picture

Some elements withheld

I can’t help but troubled be,

Working hard for good,

When again, my best effort

Doesn’t gain the end it should

I pray may it be so

But again He answers, no

Another rejection saps my will

To give it one more go

I really want to give up

Move on, get it over with

When emotions and feelings

Prod me to just quit

But like the devil’s on my left

An angel’s on my right

Prompting me to see it through

And not give up this fight

Though I almost now expect

I’ll have to settle for plan B

I still wish, I still pray,

God’s will be done in me

I’m wearied of the struggle

While this life unravels plans

Left here with a tangled thread nest

Filling up my hands

I want to change my world, I do!

So positive I’ll be

While I keep on trusting

For reward eventually

P.J.

Harsh the long run when short run’s

rows are tough to hoe

but reapers gone before attest

to struggles of the sow

with burdens real I can’t but feel

it’s not as it should be

time to break out, as walls inside

fast close in on me

head past where the green grass grows

on any by-way east

drive ‘till I run out of road

destination: beach

to stretch out on a couch of sand

for sun to warm me through

then dip and sway in salty waters

as they wash and soothe

yes, anytime I find I need

a check-up from the neck up

beach therapy proves to be

quite often just enough

P.J.

Walking along, it became increasingly evident that darkness crept nearer, just ahead, to the sides, and even behind. It was enveloping, like a northern winters night to be braced against. As light further faded, dark’s sounds were haunting. A shiver reminded that chill comes when light goes. The sky hid its stars behind a canopy of pitch clouds. 
What was most startling though was not so much the penetrating darkness, as the power of this one small flame to dissipate it. The dark’s vastness far greater than the small flame, yet the light radiating from the small flame source wholly negated the dark. 
Fascinating!

Luckily for me I have never had any desire to go to the moon. Add to that, rowboat across the Atlantic Ocean, climb Mount Everest, and track Tibetan tigers. I don’t want to be president or an algebra professor. What I do want seems much less lofty and yet almost equally unachievable, which really has me stumped. Why won’t things just work out as I wish? Are mine just pipe-dreams? 

Definition of pipe-dream: a hope, a wish, or dream, that is impossible to achieve, or not practical. 

Hmmm, I know these that I have are not impossible. For me to get to the moon, that is pretty impossible, but my wishes absolutely are not! So, are they not practical? In some ways, not, I am alone in the journey, the dream that would take me miles and miles from here without so much as a dog for a companion. And what about expenses, and my old car. It’s enough to be alone but alone and left stranded by an old car I cannot repair myself, in the middle of nowhere, well, that is intimidating. Then there are my responsibilities and the people who count on me, my sweet grand-kids. I would miss this critical time with them, time that never offers a hold. I stop me for their sake. 

It is July. Already June has passed and the rest of summer nips at the heels of autumn. If not now the opportunity will again be gone. That thought makes me sad. Too many thoughts lately have made me sad. Here in the midst of so many wonderful positives, how dare I feel sadness? 

I am in an ever so much better position in life than many many others, in countless ways, yet discouragement over what I can’t, didn’t or won’t, weight heavy on me. Doubt whether I really do have any skills or talents, and frustration over why after all these years of practice they have not yet earned me a position to meet reasonable minimums. These negatives are common to man. I do not describe anything that every single person has not themselves questioned or wrestled with. 

Thoughts such as these can be a marvelous catalyst to positive change. To work through steps needed to reach goals. Dream big but in small enough bites as to not be overwhelmed and frozen, unable to figure out where to start and see progress. Procrastination stagnation sees nothing at all happen except the passing of time. 

What I have told myself, what I continue to tell myself, what others have told me and what others continue to tell me, shapes me. I am either motivated forward toward my best, inspired to work it out, or leaned on hard pressed in this place, making it scarier and unnecessarily difficult to do anything but remain, stay put. Shrivel up and die really. That hardly seems acceptable!

I think the struggle never ends. One replaces another, some never resolve, simply fizzle. Some sprout, bud and bloom in glorious satisfying accomplishment. 

I wonder if my sprout has shriveled on the vine. I hope it is just in a dormant season in wait for that infusion that will burst it into full life.

 to end a lighter note:

Call the “wha-mbulance” for the whiners!

and on a positive note:

We need to be both comforted and comfortable being dwarfed by God, who is immeasurably greater than us. Like going to the beach or mountains where we are dwarfed, and refreshed. (Jackie Kendall)