Scintilla Day 8: Simple Pleasures

What are your simplest pleasures? Go beyond description and into showing the experience of each indulgence.

Sunday is my favorite day of the week.  Where I live, most shops are closed and it's a day of rest.  People enjoy spending time with their families, having friends around for a meal, or taking walks when the weather is fine.  For me, it's a perfect day to enjoy simple pleasures such as:

Sun-kissed morning coffee

Pottering in my garden

A trip to Mannings Emporium

Eating local cheese

Chocolate & wine

Reflections & Family Time

Natural beauty

Hazy sun set

 

Mama's home-cooking: The Sunday Roast

 Snuggling with my cats

Reading & watching Mad Men

 * I'm participating in Scintilla, a fortnight of storytelling, with other writers mining the material of their lives.

Scintilla Day 7- Tribes

List the tribes you belong to: cultural, personal, literary, etc .

When I was younger, I read an article in Mothering Magazine about cultivating my own tribe.  I took this article to heart and set about forming one with other young mothers sharing my values.  The idea was that we would clean our houses together, cook meals, and tackle the mundane while our children played happily.  I learned how to bake wholemeal bread, with fresh yeast, from a mom I met at Le Leche League.  We exchanged recipes for making baby food- no way would we use jars!  Everything was new, and we were determined to do it right.

It seemed important to me, back then, to be validated.  I needed to seek the company of like minded people who understood my decisions to have water births at home, to breastfeed my babies beyond their first year, to use cloth diapers.  I grew long dreadlocks, wore flowing skirts I bought at French and English markets during my European travels.  I went through a phase of piercing ears, belly, nose.  I volunteered on organic farms in Ireland, which is how I first landed in my husband’s hometown.  

My travels brought me into contact with other seekers, artists, and people wanting to live a life less ordinary.  Today many of them are still part of my tribe.

I was only 22 years old during my first pregnancy, very much a baby myself.  Entering the tribe of motherhood was profound.  Some of my strongest bonds are within this community.  I have come to love my  friends’ children, and experience such joy watching them grow beside my own.

The demands of mothering have eased now that my children are older.  Sleepless nights are a distant memory of the past.  Now I have energy to pursue other interests.  I’ve recovered my love of dance, my love of writing.  

I continued to read voraciously through every move across the Atlantic, each birth, and even while my marriage broke down.  I have always belonged to the tribe of books.

Lately, I feel the pull of this literary tribe more strongly than ever.  The writers I’ve met through workshops, blogs and other social media have inspired me; in their company I feel understood.  Last summer a friend and fellow writer shared an insight.  She was attending a workshop on writing novels, and the facilitator pointed out that most writers grew up feeling like they didn’t belong.  Really?

It makes sense.  Writers have an uncanny ability to step outside a situation- even when they are inside of it.  The skill of observation is ever present.  Writers often intuit what others are thinking and feeling, possessing the ability to “read” people like books.  Being in a room full of writers is terribly disconcerting for me!  I have discovered myself being observed, while I observe others... There’s no way to hide in a situation like that!

I love this tribe though: the tribe of dreamers, visionaries, and those brave enough to walk off beat. I imagine the great Dr. Martin Luther King in this group, with his radical ideas about a world where we could all be equal, no matter what our connections, beliefs, or physical appearance might be.  

I imagine Jane Austen in this group too; a woman whose satire and wit still make people laugh two hundred years later.  Her social commentary and literary achievements are nothing to scoff at.  I often wonder how I would have fit into her society, had I been a woman living during that period.  

The tribe of free thinkers has never found life easy.  But I couldn’t live life any other way.


* I'm participating in Scintilla, a fortnight of storytelling, with other writers mining the material of their lives. There's still time to sign up for daily prompts if you'd like to join us!  

Scintilla Day 6- Faith

A photo by anne(♥)marie on Flickr.

Prompt: Talk about an experience with faith, your own or someone else's.

Even though she has every reason not to, my biological mother possesses rock solid faith. When I was a girl, she often brought me to daily mass, in addition to prayer group, and of course Sunday school. Somehow I was sent to a private Catholic school, despite our financial circumstances. Religion permeated the air we breathed.

Later, when my awareness grew, I was mystified. In college, I became downright perplexed. How could a woman like herself believe in a loving, benevolent, almighty Father? Her whole life has been nothing but struggle; she has survived a traumatic childhood, poverty, depression, encephalitis, and breast cancer. She has been in a nursing home since she was 44... forty-four! Do I need to say any more?

So one day I asked her. I’ll never forget our brief conversation.  I was 19 and had decided church wasn’t for me. For the first time I challenged her. “How do you know God exists?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “I see God every time you visit me.”

I swallowed. Was it that simple?

All these years later, I'm inclined to agree.  Knowing that I'll never fall- that someone will always catch me- is the sort of faith that sees me through my day to day life.  Yes, I sometimes say prayers- and send out wishes, intentions, or whatever you'd like to call them- to the universe.  But I also pick up the phone when I need help, assured that some earthly being will receive my call.

Faith and hope are inextricably connected. I experience them in a myriad of ways...

I have faith in the future when I look at my daughter’s unique hand print...

I have faith in love when I look into my soul mate’s starlit eyes...

I have faith in renewal, the cycles of life, each spring when my garden grows...

 I have faith in the mysterious unknown when I witness the sea and sky meet...

“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking
                           and sings while it is still dark.” Rabindranath Tagore


* I'm participating in Scintilla, a fortnight of storytelling, with other writers mining the material of their lives. There's still time to sign up for daily prompts if you'd like to join us! 

Scintilla Day 3: Memory & Song

Temple Bar @ Dublin, a photo by -BeNnO- on Flickr.

Prompt: Talk about a memory triggered by a particular song.

Whenever I hear “Ride On” by Christy Moore, I’m reminded of the night we met at The Temple Bar. It was your first time in Ireland, and we were both tourists in an anonymous city.  As you approached me, I recognized your smile, though you had changed.  Heavier now, and taller than I remembered, with lines beginning to appear; you'd become a fully grown man.  We were both aging well, I decided, but said nothing.

My glass was filled with gin, yours with red wine. Years slipped away with every drink, until we were stripped back to wild things unable to say no. The dizzy sensation of feeling young again- and free- was intoxicating. The pub was packed so we drew closer to hear one another. Your hand grazed mine, but I didn’t pull away. All the while, traditional musicians in the corner expressed emotions we could not.

I interrupted your story, saying, “This is a good song!” You nodded. Our conversation stopped. Even then, I was lost in the lyrics.

When you ride into the night, without a trace behind,
Run your claw along my gut, one last time.
I turn to face an empty space where you used to lie
And look for the spark that lights the night
through a teardrop in my eye...

The rest of our story is history.  That night is forever shrouded in mystery though.  Was it a gift, theft, or something in between?  A piece of myself has been missing ever since.

Ride on, see you, I could never go with you
No matter how I wanted to.


* A huge thank you to the three women who created Scintilla! Kim, Onyi, and Dominique are more than muses... they are bad ass goddesses!!!