writing

In The Meadow

Stanley

In The Meadow

In the meadow no one can hurt you.
No one can spread lies about you.
No one can attack you.
No one can make you feel bad.
No one can be mean to you.
No one can hurt you
In the meadow.

In the meadow lost loved ones
Are still all around you.
Smiling, laughing, holding you
In their hearts with endless love.
They are still there loving you
Without judgement or conditions
In the meadow.

In the meadow the world is simply beautiful.
There is no war.
There is no hate.
There is no anger.
There is no hunger or sickness or pain.
There is nothing but beauty and life
In the meadow.

In the meadow I am happy and at peace.
I wish you could be there too
In the meadow.

Soon…

Stanley

Soon the sun will rise above those trees at the top of the hollow, sending bright life giving light down to dry the dew in the meadow along the creek.

Soon the sunlight will pass through these trees around the meadow turning into angel’s fingers dancing across the flowers, touching every dew drenched petal and leaf and transforming a common green field into a magic carpet of sparkling rhinestones.

Everywhere hang garlands seemingly tossed casually like discarded diamond necklaces draped between the stems of the taller plants.

You can see this, and feel this too, if you know where to stand and look.

I can show you, but only if you come here early in the morning to the place I call Happy Hollow.

Surf to live. Live to surf.

Stanley

Old man who can’t surf anymore has bleak, almost hopeless message about depression.

(the keyword is ‘almost’)

I’ve been battling severe depression all my life.

I don’t know how I’ve made it this far. I’m going to be 65 in a few weeks.

I’m currently so depressed I haven’t gotten out of the house in weeks or done any of the things I normally love to do this time of year. Continue reading →

Desperado

Stanley

I’m coming to this post via a sort of backwards completion process. Only the reverse of that. LOL.

Backwards completion is the method of visualizing your end point or goal and then figuring out how to get there. I did the opposite to come to the insight I hope to share in this post and this video compilation of images. One step in front of the other until I realized where I was. Continue reading →

Life On The Edge

Stanley

There is a place called Three Fathom Harbour I’d seen on the maps and driven past a road to it on the way to Lawrencetown. We didn’t head over that way more than a couple times this year, so I never checked it out. I’d heard there was a pretty consistent surf break out on the point of land on the west side of it called The Wreck. I was told it was a nice easy walk out along the well maintained public Atlantic View Trail.

Edging...its a very long way down.

Edging…its a very long way down.

Finally in early October I determined we were going to go check it out, so off we went early one morning. As usual I brought along George and my phone and snapped a few shots along the way. Turns out the fork we took led to a very steep cliff and along the edge of it for a ways. Looking at the soft crumbling soil and remembering the heavy rains we’d had the past week, and George’s newfound penchant for living life on the edge…I decided to backtrack and find another route out to the point rather than the one along the cliff edge. I think I know the real reason the beach below it is called Terminal Beach. Very surprised there are no warning signs or flags or anything. A truly dangerous place… Continue reading →

Being Here

Stanley

While walking with George, my too excited puppy, this morning as we crossed the creek, the big blue heron who often visits early to fish in the various ponds on the property and who was hiding unobserved behind the new spring leaves on the bushes along the water, suddenly lifted off and took off elegantly and gracefully into the sky. That is always a good omen and an exhilarating moment.

As I walk in the morning like that, I often regress deeply into childlike wonder and awareness. The words that escaped my lips at that moment were “Look, there goes Billy the Blue” and the big bird was christened after one of my dearest friends, a pilot who also shares those skies. Continue reading →

A Special Morning

Stanley

Daddy awoke just after dawn. Slipping quietly out of their bed so as not to disturb his precious beloved, he dressed and made his way downstairs. George, their happy mutt still slept as well on his bed downstairs, thankfully. Had he noticed the usual sounds of daddy getting dressed for the day he’d have been running up and down the stairs making a hell of a racket. Daddy clipped on his leash and whispered, “come on buddy lets go for a walk.”

Down the steps of the deck they went, up the gravel road to the barn as fingers of light from the rising sun danced around them. Turning into the barnyard, he grabbed a pair of rusted old clippers from the fence post where he’d absently left them a few days earlier. Continue reading →

February

Stanley

The little pear tree in the middle of the meadow looks so tiny, small and lonely in the sea of white snow which now buries its trunk up to its lowest branches. Out in the barn tiny mice are hidden away in nests of cardboard shreds and rope fibers and string and strips of fabric pulled from old rags and carefully constructed inside idle old farm equipment and wherever they think they can stay warm and safe for the winter. The hungry feral barn cats survive by sniffing them out for a meal, if they can, or venture up to the old log cabin where they know they will find a bowl of cat food left out for them on the back deck. They must summon up their bravery, or have their fear overcome by hunger, to sneak up there through the deep snow, for if they aren’t careful and stealthy, George, the dog at the cabin, will sound the alert if he hears them on the deck late at night. Then all hell will explode and wake the whole house as he jumps off the warm crowded bed to jump against the thick glass of the back doors making all the noise he can manage. Continue reading →