Stones

I've neglected this for a long while now.  I could offer a thousand excuses, but they are just that, excuses.  They would all be true, but excuses nonetheless.  I created a new blog to post Emily's cooking lessons on (http://emilycooks1015.blogspot.ca/) and it seems lately that is about all I have written.  And even those posts have been a struggle.
I confess I battled a lot of fear and doubt, and I was afraid to give them any acknowledgement at all lest even speaking their names would give them power.  At long last though I found employment again (you'd think being unemployed I would have had written all the more with all that free time, but no, not I) I have been so blessed to have good friends to stand by me through the storms life sometimes leads us through, friends who reminded me when I wondered if perhaps I was being an ostrich with my head in the sand, that there was much grace on me and on my situation.  I knew the axe was going to fall, but I knew too there was a better job, better suited to my needs and my gifts.  I had faith God would sustain me through it, and provide abundantly.  And provide he did.
I took a temporary job with Elections Canada in the weeks leading up to the election in October.  I met some lovely people and remembered the rhythm of working.  It provided an opportunity to test Emily on coming home from school to an empty house, a milestone for us both.  And as that job drew to a close I had an interview that led to a job offer I know will be a great fit.  In any case my prayers have been answered.  A good job with variety to the days, hours that will suit Emily and me well.  I am excited and hopeful.
In the midst of these past couple of weeks I have been remembering a pair of small stones I used to keep in my pocket years ago, stones I picked up somewhere on the west coast on a lonely, frustrated walk I took while visiting my ex-husband's parents.  I think I still have them, tucked away in my jewelry box. Of course this remembrance was borne from some other thought in my head....I don't even recall it any more, my thoughts tend to wander and drift and weave themselves together in odd ways.  Thoughts about the journey I have found myself on this past year, and the roads I would like to take, no doubt lines or phrases from sermons or songs.  I've been asked before about my creative process, and it is not something I can answer easily, or concisely.  And all that leads me to offer you, gentle, patient reader, this:

I have walked dusty

rutted

gravel roads

Have strode

ankle deep through

warm, black

sifting

summer-fallow

Have stood upon

windswept, timeworn

mountain peaks

In my pockets

have held

smooth,oddly lovely

riverstones

set fieldstones on fence posts

Under my tongue

one small

smooth

stone

brings water to a parched soul

Like people in glass houses

not sinless

I have learned

to hold those stones

knowing too well

the hurt

But those same stones

have power to heal -

to build monuments

to honour

to defend and secure

And though sand sifts

restless

my feet are fixed

firm

on bedrock

pocketed riverstones

like gems

keep me steady

keep me sure.