New beginnings (SJfT)

I begin lots of things. It’s the continuations that I’m concerned about! Three new beginnings that have become a part of my daily life are captured in the photo and poem below:

A Favorite Time of Day

Laptop tucked away
housework keeps till tomorrow.
Now is time to pray

to process joy and sorrow
line-captured while music plays

© 2017 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

My three new 2017 beginnings:

1. Bible Art Journaling
Earlier this spring I discovered Bible art journaling. You could say it was love at first sight.

Doodling, drawing, and lettering in my special journaling Bible has become part of my routine. Several times a week, in the evening when the jobs of the day have been put to bed, I get out my Bible, pens, and supplies, tune in to one of my Spotify play lists (favourites are Audrey Assad , Fernando Ortega, and Andrew Peterson) and meditate / create.

They say that when you work in an area of strength, the activity energizes you. That’s what I find happens when I do this. The day’s fatigue falls away and I am often still going at 10:30 – 11:00—pretty good for someone who wakes up without an alarm just after 5:00 a.m. (though I do often take a daytime nap).

Here’s the project I was working on in the photo (prompted by a Rebekah R. Jones Bible Art Challenge video).

“Be transformed” – a butterfly emerging from a “brain” chrysalis, meant to signify that transformation begins in the mind. (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

A chrysalis, before the butterfly comes out. (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

A poem I wrote years ago, “Transformation.” I hand-lettered it on tracing paper and added it as a tip-out over the chrysalis drawing. (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

2. Taking a photo a day
My camera has been my walking companion since I got my first digital in 2006. Earlier this year I found a website (Capture Your 365 – #CY365) that provides a daily photo prompt. I’ve been snapping photos challenged by those prompts since mid-May. The photo above was prompted by the July 3rd challenge: “A Favorite Time of Day.”

3. Summer Shorts poems
On the first day of summer this year I met with a local poet friend. Among other things, we discussed summer poem-writing. I told her about American Sentences, and she decided to embark on writing “Summer Sentences.” Her decision encouraged me to work on a summer poem project that seemed like it would fit into my life—writing short poems prompted by the daily photos I take. I call my project “Summer Shorts” and the tanka above is one of those.

There you have it—three activities that I’ve not only begun but continued, and that have added much spiritual richness to my 2017!

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This post is linked to Spiritual Journey (first) Thursday, hosted today by Julieanne Harmatz at her blog To Read, To Write, To Be.

 

Talking with a stranger

Happy National Poetry Month.

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted here. My time away has had its events.

Mid-February I went to northern B.C. to be with my daughter and help with the grandkids around the birth of her baby. Their lovely baby girl arrived on February 24th.

Then on March 2nd (still at my daughter’s) I had a crazy fall on some stairs and fractured my hip. Surgery the next day put everything right (I hope) though I’m still walking with a cane and not back to normal mobility (of course I’m back at home now). That’s life for you!

Again this April I’m attempting to write a poem a day. I’m using a grab-bag of prompts to help with this: Robert Brewer’s Poetic Asides blog, Adele Kenny blog The Music In It, Martha Silano’s book The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice and others.

Today’s poem was prompted by the Poets and Writers weekly email “The Time Is Now.” This prompt is actually for creative nonfiction but who says one can’t use it for a poem?

Children are often reminded not to talk to strangers, and for good reason. As we get older, communication with strangers isn’t as dangerous, but it can still be uncomfortable. This week, think about a conversation you have had with a stranger in an awkward situation. Who started it? Did you feel safe? After talking, did you feel like you knew this person any better? Did you ever see this person again, and if not, would you want to?

On reading that prompt I immediately thought of my experience this past Monday when, after attending my physiotherapy appointment, I decided to sit and wait for hubby on the bench outside the building.

Talking with a stranger

Appointment done, the sun is out
the day is warm, the bench is long
the lady sitting there is mute
hair turbaned, leather purse is gold
she wears sunglasses and a coat.

I say, “It’s nice.” She says, “It is.”
I find my notebook and my pen.
She looks asleep but murmurs then,
“How warm is it to get today?
“Twelve or fifteen is what they say.”

Our little talk has loosed her tongue
for now the muttering has begun
not to me or anyone
within our view converses she
with ones unseen

earnestly, disgustedly
with vehemence
and sarcasm, disdainfully
while I, relieved of chat polite
can write and write and write and write.

Violet Nesdoly © 2014 (All rights reserved)

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This post is part of Poetry Friday, hosted today by Amy at The Poem Farm – a farm where poetry flourishes!

 

 

“Match” and writing challenges

“In fisher talk, haul in a bumper catch”

Match

November is the month for poems to hatch
I hope to incubate a healthy batch

in fisher-talk, haul in a bumper catch
till there’s no room to store them in the hatch.

My problem is, these poems don’t hit me natch
I always seem to need a key or latch

I’ll count on Brewer’s prompts to be my match
igniting poems with pen or pencil scratch

© 2013 –  V. Nesdoly

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Today is the beginning of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Have you ever done it? I did four years ago. Gruelling. But I got a book out of it (the novel I published in June of 2012).

My usual habit for November is to take on a poem-a-day challenge. Today’s poem is the first one I wrote for last year’s November challenge at the Poetic Asides blog, when the prompt was: “Write a matches poem.”

So during November I’ll probably do a daily check of the poetry prompts at Poetic Asides (the Poem-A-Day Chapbook Challenge). If Robert Brewer’s prompts don’t do anything for me, I have a collection of weekly email prompts from Poets and Writers stashed in a folder in Mail, and then there’s Adele Kenny’s blog with her wealth of prompts, and I have some books… I shouldn’t run out of ideas. Unfortunately though, sometime during the month I’ll still probably fall off the daily wagon.

Do you do anything crazy writing-wise in November?

This post is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by the very lovely Linda Baie at Teacher Dance.