Category: Awareness

The Time Will Come

~ TiffanyCreek

The time will come when, with elation

You will greet yourself arriving 

At your own door, in your own mirror,

And each will smile at the others welcome,

And say, sit here. 

Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.

By Derek Walcott

     My friend Sally sent me this poem several month ago.  I take it as a message to make peace with oneself. Before we forgive others, we must forgive ourselves.  

     Another version of this theme is found in a jingle my mom taught to me when I left her house one day.  It goes like this:

I’ve gone out to look for myself, if I should return before I get back, keep me here.

     And finally a quote by David Bowie:

Aging is an extraordinary process whereby

You become the person you always should have been.”

I like David’s quote because we race through life trying to figure out what we want to be and do when we grow up, only to realize that our true selves were within us all the time.  I like to relive the idyllic aspects of my childhood and re-create them whenever I can.  Things like chasing butterflies and collecting crickets for that much loathed science project you had to do at the beginning of every school year.  I hated jabbing those pins into the thoraces of those poor insects and sticking them on cardboard poster board.  Egads! then you had to label them.  I went back to chasing butterflies instead and looking at wildflowers in the field, and consequently failed the school assignment.   I’m happy I failed, because to this day I can come back to myself and the child that lives within, and say:

This is who I was, this is who I am. GRB

Beans, Corn and Squash

~ TiffanyCreek

Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book “Braiding Sweetgrass” (2013 Milkweed Editions, Canada) incorporates indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge to teach us about the world of plants. Her writing is poetic and like a prayer or chant, gently guides the reader through her prophetic thought. In the chapter called ‘Three Sisters’ Robin explains the relationship of beans, corn and squash as they grow together in the garden. When the English came to the New World they were perplexed by the native’s tendency to grow their plants in groupings instead of rows. As it turned out these groupings were based on the native’s experience that together, plants such as beans, corn and squash, flourish in a symbiotic relationship, and engage and share nutrients with their roots in the soil. Their reciprocal communication evolves naturally once their seeds grow to form vertical foliage, and flowers and fruits. They eventually not only give to each other but to the planter who inserted them in the earth to begin with. As an example, plants need nitrogen to grow and the nitrogen provided by the air isn’t enough so beans, characteristic of legumes, reaching into the sky, have the ability to draw nitrogen down into the soil benefitting not only them but the corn and squash that share their space. The beauty of the Three Sisters, represented in color by green for beans, yellow for corn and orange for squash is also founded in a native legend which describes how when the people were dying of hunger three beautiful women came to visit the village in colored garb. Symbolically they represented the three plants that eventually fed the people and saved them from famine. Kimmerer goes on to explain that each of the vegetables alone does not provide the necessary nutrients for a complete meal, but when eaten together, provide the perfect balance of vitamins and nutrients needed for a balanced diet. Kimmerer’s writing exudes positivity and the virtue of Simplicity. In a prior chapter called “Epiphany in the Beans’ she begins with a quote: It came to me while picking beans, the secret of happiness. I realized from this quote that our everyday living entangles us in rushing around and overthinking, when if we would just slow down we can find the joy in the simple things. This may be getting off track a tad but the same idea came to me when I was at the grocery store packing my groceries. Feeling at peace with myself, I looked up at the cashier and said to her: “This is going to sound crazy to you but I really like to pack groceries.” She agreed it was a mindless task. Anyway, back to topic, the next time I go to the store I will be sure to load up on scrumptious greens beans, yellow corn, and orange squash to bring home for my next feast. In the meantime I shall carry on my reading of “Braiding Sweetgrass” as I know it’s bound to be filled with more, and greater wisdom.

Close Encounters

~ TiffanyCreek

A few weeks ago I recorded a pleasant encounter I had at the grocery store. My hope is that this story will add some positive vibes to the world

     I’m always impressed how encounters with new people can be so meaningful, and almost magical.  I had one such encounter in the grocery store this week.  While I was checking out a young Asian man stood right behind me.  We both did a double take because it was only two days prior that we were in exactly the same place together.  I reminded him, “We met here two days ago and you were buying a bag of King Arthur Wheat Flour and you were going to make cookies for your girlfriend who was visiting.”  He said “Yes, and here’s my girlfriend Sarah right here.”  I said, “Hello Sarah!”   Sarah smiled and said hello back.  Then I asked the young man how the cookies turned out and he said “Great!” and that they would make them again. I saw he was buying Tofu so I asked  him with all seriousness if he was going to make Tofu Cookies.  He laughed as if one doesn’t make Tofu Cookies, and said they would make something, but I didn’t catch the name. “A Korean dish,” he said. We conversed a little more and I managed to get them to tell me they were students – he at UCONN and Sarah at U of San Diego.  I said “Oh my son lives in San Diego.” Yet another coincidence.  I asked what he studied, and he said, “Economics.”  Then I asked Sarah, and she said, “Economics.”  As I proceeded to leave he asked me what my name was and I told him, and I asked what his name was, and he said “Pin”, “Pin and Sarah” he said.  I said it was a pleasure to meet them.  We both agreed ours was a wonderfully joyful encounter and we hoped we would meet again.  I then left the store, with a memorable experience to take home.

It never ceases to amaze me when a magnetic charm takes hold in this world. Really, what were the chances that I would bump into the same stranger in the same place within two days of each other? And on top of it, have such a pleasant conversation. Since these two consecutive meetings, I haven’t run into Pin, or, at least I am not aware of our paths crossing. Though, it’s possible we have – and maybe we will. Until then, let the magic of the world unfold.

A Day at the Beach

~ TiffanyCreek 

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

I love the beach
It’s a special place for me
I take naps
Listen to waves
And walk along the sandy edge of the ocean,
Watching children make castles in the sand.

Dreams of the inhabitants flood the beach
My dreams, their dreams, everyone’s dreams.
The salty water of the tide moves in and out
And sweeps up all these dreams
and moves them back out to the sea.
Back and forth, back and forth, 
dreams tumble like shells with the riptide.
Dreams that may never come true
Dreams unseen in real life
Except in the minds of those who dare to ponder 
that which is possible.

A small girl with blonde hair to her shoulders
Builds pyramids by the seashore with her dad.
Chichén Itzá comes to mind.
The re-creation of a place they never heard of before.
Maybe shown in a picture, at some time,
By some teacher, from who knows where. 
And it stuck in their mind.
As the tide moves in at about 4 o’clock,
Most pack their bags to go.
Begrudging the work that lies ahead
Their feet kick up their dreams in the sand.
The lifeguard stays on,
Talking away with an older female friend sitting down below. 
She keeps him company for the day.
He talks about the sea, the wild sea so ‘bravo’ from the full moon rising in the sky.
Gentle souls were he, and she.

And the small blond girl stood before her pyramids
Arms extended from East to West
Absorbing the current through her veins, eager to gulp her up like a whale.
But she stood strong, and firm, 
Impermeable and invincible against the steady gust of wind,
As she overlooked the sea with its fierce and raucous waves. 
When her father said “Aria, it’s time to go,”
A loud and thunderous “No” came from her tiny back turned body,
Resistant to a thief who would dare to steal her dream.
But she acquiesced leaving her castles behind, like the friendly couple
Sitting nearby, she too packed up her things to return to her camp at Burlingame Park.

A single colored, sleeping woman, with a indigo bandana, tied like a crown on her head, was awoken from her dream.  Startled to find her dry little island in the sand 
Surrounded by the water, the encroaching tide told her she must flee -
To save herself from getting totally drenched.  Her dream clung at the edge of consciousness
As she raised herself from the ground.
 
The small girl was still standing in the distance with her parents.
We caught her eye and waved, she waved back.
Then they were gone. Disappeared as if they had never been there before.
Their effervescent dreams dissipating like mist into the air.

The beach was empty.
Only the friendly lifeguard high in his chair was left chatting away,
With his older female companion sitting below.
Relating his stories of the sea.

We too thought it time to go,
Reluctantly, we gathered our things.
As we stepped away, I searched my pocket filled with two white rocks
To see if I had room to take everyone, and their dreams home with me.
But no, I too, like Aria had to leave my dreams in the sand.
At least for another day.


By Georgianna Rivard

All Together

~ TiffanyCreek

NOT LOST BUT GONE…
Sometimes a poorly exposed photograph is worth the effort. In this case I was able to bring back the memory of three small children, in a small way. Here we have the grave of Little Mary Smith (1865), Little Fannie, and Little Someone Else. The inscriptions were hard to read, but with a bit of tweaking, I was amazed how the letters and words become clearer, until “Voilà!” You have a phrase.
Plainfield, Connecticut August 26, 2016

Stepping Stones

~ TiffanyCreek

My journal is filled with disconnected ideas, weather conditions, and random thoughts.  Days and dates, and months of the year quickly pass by.   Yesterday marked the first day of Spring, an annual milestone, filled with new hopes and dreams, like a toddler taking their first steps across the room. 

I don’t remember learning to walk, but will never forget when I learned to ride bike.   One day, a small bicycle suddenly appeared in the yard, and I knew what to do.  It wasn’t mine.  It was borrowed, and I would teach myself to ride.  No eyes watched me, and no one talked.  No training wheels attached themselves to the frame, either.  It was hop on and go, from the top of a small embankment of the lawn, down.  The incline was slight, and the soft, fluffy grass protected me when I fell.  The time  spent balancing became greater than time on the ground, until finally I was sailing away.  It only took a day, or two.  Left to my imagination,  in this crucial task of growing up,  the  way to build and sustain my fragile confidence, was to be left alone, to own the accomplishment for myself.  

It just occurred to me that the photograph I took of the stepping stones, leading from the forest into the open field, can be a metaphor for every task I embark upon, in every new stage of life, like riding the bike.  And now, as each page of the calendar gets turned, and every new season passes by, the uncertainty remains as powerful as before.  But, to move along means to cross the stepping stones at every  juncture, and make the most, of tous les jours.   

Sensitivity

~ TiffanyCreek

“Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is…and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be…and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart…no matter what the merciless hours have done to her.”
― Robert Heinlein

New Clothes and Old Clothes

~ TiffanyCreek

“New Clothes and Old Clothes” from “The New Book of Days” by Eleanor Farjeon, captures the way I feel about old clothes. There are some pieces of clothing I really love and can’t part with. I may or may not wear them, but keep them for their colors, the feel of the fabric, or some memory attached to an event or time. It may be something I wore over and over again – the threads so bare, the collar so frayed.  The intangibility of the passing of that time is what matters most to me.

Eleanor says, “In May, older clothes are kinder to you then new ones.”

I rather like New Clothes,

They make me feel so fine,

Yet, I am not quite Me,

The clothes are not quite mine.

I really love Old Clothes,

They make me feel so free,

I know that they are mine,

For I feel just like Me.