Category: Biography

Allowances

On days like this, it is hard to put my stuff out. I have the vow to trip over. The one that says I will post every day this year, and yeah, it is looking like that may become my permanency. It gives me the incentive to work when I might be tempted to go idle. What do you do to motivate yourself, or if you are not producing as you like, how can you make a change?

I have written four pages in the journal today, but I could so not post. Just go on reading the novel I want to complete, and wanting the chocolate I will not bring home. If I go to Aldi and get it, I will binge, to the degree I will eat almost nothing else until it is gone. Nope. I went to Sam’s Club the other day and am proud to say neither Nutella nor Airheads jumped in my cart. These sorts of things I battle regularly. What do you fight with every ounce of self you can muster? Is it food, television, books, shopping, negativity? You can win, at least sometimes. The more you win, the easier the next scrimmage will become.

I have played no music today, which is an anomaly. It has been me and my brain. Always a bit of a stretch, kind of like I imagine bungee jumping in the Grand Canyon, terrifying and exhilarating at once. What happens when you step out of your routine? Can you stick to it as you would like?

Anyway, I hope you have a rewarding evening and accomplish something that makes you smile.

Missing My Peace

Across the ocean between
I wonder
Do you wait, or do you go on;
Forgetting you were
The starch that stiffened my spine,
Enough
To stand when I only wanted
To run away and hide.
Now,
Without, I can hardly face
The rising of the sun,
All the troubles we worried,
Surely,
They have come, and without
You, I am drowning
No one to throw a raft.
Mama,
I am supposed to be grown,
But standing here alone,
This world seems less than ever,
My home.

Yet, I am thinking of how I wish
I could make you proud,
Show that what you taught,
I finally learned
Well enough that others could see
The magic you often said
Existed in me.
My courage seems settled –
With your ashes in that urn.
I wilt like a rose denied a drink,
But Mama,
Do you know? Do you know how
I miss you so? Sometimes, just
To hear you say I love you,
To have you give me a hug.
Ah, what comfort it would give.

I cry, and wonder why, because
I was
Taught to be reliable, to hide hurts.
Sometimes I do, but God knows,
I need you, and I can hardly get
A grip on why He took you.
Some have said I can stand
All I must do is work
A plan.
My plans keep washing away
In a deluge of troubles
No barrier erected by me
Can forestall.
I know, I know there is no call
To give up, but I have almost,
Then I remember how you said,
“Believe that you can,” and I try
Again.

I guess if I could reach
Across the divide
Seeing you,
You would remind me
To keep doing my best,
Never give up, study myself,
For the rigor of each test.
You would say, “My love is
With you no matter how far
Apart we seem. Trust in
Love
To feed your heart
And strengthen your mind.
Keep living, you are my dream.”
Okay,
Okay, even though it is harder –
Than, I imagined it could ever be,
I will live, for you gave life to me.

© Jo Ann J. A. Jordan

As a prompt, create something about a loss that has affected you deeply and changed your perception. It could be a person, pet, thing, or a time. You choose. You are endowed with creative power, use it.

I hope you will follow or return to Haphazard Creative. I am in the midst of a Creativity Project and would love your input and your continuing support.

Thank you for taking the time to visit. May God richly bless you and all you love.

Discovered

I have searched almost
Everywhere I have ever
Been, for a key
Friend
Who could unlock who
I am and understand.
People have shed light,
Insight,
But no one entirely, clearly,
Reflects the heart, whole
Of me as beautifully
As the ink stains on paper
I have placed with joy,
Rancor.
Sometimes I write with
No real understanding of
Who I may at the moment be,
But later find myself captured
Effortlessly.
Poetry is right in ways
I cannot quite define,
As if life might find
Its measure in a telling
Line or through an accidental
Rhyme found like a crumb
On a velvet sleeve
Deposited
At some point but unnoticed.
We are the poetry of Creation
Written into brief existence
By God, Lord of Eternity,
Who
Must rejoice when we create,
As does He consistently.
I know He knows my totality
And pray for His guidance
As my soul composes love.

© Jo Ann J. A. Jordan

As a prompt, create something that relates your relationship to or experience of poetry.

2020.08.11 Sea Birds rr

 

It Might Be Okay

It might be okay to hurt this much if there were an acceptable reason for it, like getting run over by a Peterbilt. As far as I can discern, I have not tangled with a big rig. Given the way my consciousness is working, I suppose I may have missed an encounter, but due to COVID-19 isolation, I consider that dubious.

Speaking of isolation, I generally think of myself as an expert, but it has now reached the point my tolerance is fraying. I have spent a goodly share of hours trying to ameliorate my negative feelings. Music seems to be my best weapon since a 9 mm and firing range is not in my vicinity.

You probably have your own list, so, I will leave off illustrating mine.

Oh, I turned on the TV, once I figured out which remote worked it. The first thing to splash on screen was a commercial. Then there were more. Have I told you how much I hate commercials and ads? Yeah, I use VPNs, subscriptions, and avoidance to make those nuisances remain outside my life. My son does not have all the ad-blockers I do, and he is more geek than me. I ask questions of geeks is why I have armor. My aversion is such that I had not touched the TV remote since February. They believe me at AT&T because the DirecTv portion of my bill is less than $20. We will not talk about the outrageous other portions.

The problem with this level of pain is that it works like a predator, which diminishes the possibility of sleep to nil. Sorry.

If someone came to you and told you that you could not fail, what is that thing you would immediately begin doing? Are you already doing it? Preparing to begin? If not, please consider that the item you thought of is your purpose and probable area of giftedness. You should start chasing the making of this the goal of your life yesterday. My son, Alex, and I have an expression, Prime Before, yeah, there is a comic sketch, brilliant really, but he says that is us. I agree I want to have the thing at my fingertips before I know I need it. I believe this is the motive of some of my collective behavior.

I want to be a writer, which I am, and so I write every frigging day. Feel like it or not. Inspiration, or only about the dregs at the bottom of the empty well. I write.

I am not whining to be a nuisance. Were you in my place; you would get the pain. I am doing my best to put positivity to work. I must say when all of the crap built to the point, I just wanted to knock things over and spill everything on the floor, and I figuratively grabbed myself and called out for the only backup I have. I felt a sense of accomplishment. I told Alexa to play Gotta Get A Grip by Mick Jagger. Music has long been a panacea for me. I think music, reading, and writing, along with the grace and forbearance of God, and my dear mother, who is now gone, and the son who has been an overarching blessing, are the defining reasons I struggle to remain.

I am rambling a little; I keep hoping I will find peace enough to sleep. None of you may read this, I am on the edge of giving it up despite my vow. WordPress keeps spamming me about renewing my domain. Commercials, I did say they were abhorrent to me. Yeah, they’re coming into that annoyance level where I decide to the abyss with this. I will note it before I tell WordPress goodbye.

This is getting old, not sleeping.

Very well then, alright. God Bless You all, and many blessings sent your way.

© Jo Ann J. A. Jordan.

Broken

Wookie and I were playing. I threw her toy, and it hit the rice bowl I made in maybe kindergarten, maybe first or second grade. I knew it was terrible; then I heard the china hit the ceramic. The delicate china at that velocity under gravity’s influence stood no chance. It shattered, as you can see.

Sometimes we are like delicate china, safe enough until a tempest of trials and troubles hits us out of the blue. Maybe it is the winds of change in our finances or our health—the loss of something or someone we hold dear. We break, and we feel we are permanently damaged, but we are fortunately more resilient than china.

Somehow with God’s help and the passage of time, we recuperate and usually become more durable than before. We learn from the problems. We have so many reserves of strength and such power to overcome adversity.

I am not sure what to do with my broken keepsake, but God knows by sending us through the fire that he refines us and fuses our brokenness into greater faith and reliance on Him.

I did not have a post for tonight. I had been away from home today, spending time with one of my most favorite people—nothing like broken memories to set me straight.

© Jo Ann J.A. Jordan.

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As a prompt, create something influenced by brokenness or healing. You may conduct your work in any media that suits you.

May Christ guard and keep you and yours now and always.