Money

“Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of all evil; the sum of blessings.” – Carl Sandburg

This happens every time I take on something that stretches my commitment, abilities, and constrains my time. I try to escape, discover avoidance behaviors, and, oh yes, procrastinate. Probably why my situation is such as it is, but we will not go there. No, we are in the second day in my 2020 – 365 Creativity Project, and I found I have no subject on which to write.

The above quote appears in something I am reading, and I turned on Money by Pink Floyd. An inkling of an idea had taken flame, and it was running through the undergrowth. I have been blest with fortunate times in life and less affluent times. I have learned lessons at both extremes. Some were execrable others were glorious.

I think I am going to create a little fable. Hang on, I am more than a poet. Yeah, I know you are shaking your head. Or maybe you can suspend disbelief… thank you.

What the Lottery Wrought

Pepper never bought lottery tickets. Her family had awful attitudes around the whole process. Several of them held the opinion that people who played lotto paid the stupid tax.

One day the Mega Millions payout reached $330,000,000. Pepper looked at the money in her checking account, the cash in her wallet, the groceries in the larder, and decided she could buy one ticket without risking total disaster. She had lived there before and had zero desire to circle in that sesspool again.

The store she drove to in her sweltering car had its past winners posted on the window beside the door, shadowed by the metal security bars. She went in, requested a ticket from the gentleman who spoke heavily accented English, and he handed her the machine-generated printout with a wide sparkling smile and the genuine seeming, “Best of luck, big-time winner.” She grinned and said, “Thank you so much, have a great afternoon.”

She drove back to the woods and the trailer, she allowed no one to visit. She put the ticket on the table, and all afternoon and evening she kept walking by and saying fervent prayers that something could change, something good, something lucky. Could luck happen? It would be a first, but lightning did strike on occasion.

When the numbers were pulled on television, she watched the small set with her tongue stuck between her teeth, her nerves itching over her arms, legs, torso, and unmentionable places. As each number matched, she stood and began bouncing up and down and pumping her fists in the air.

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Yeah, now this is off the top of my head, I have no idea how to continue. I have to figure it out. So, we will see what becomes of this in another entry. I mean, if you want.

Recognizing Ourselves

Sometimes there is a tendency to omit potions of who we are from our claim of ourselves. To become stronger people, fully identifying traits, characteristics, gifts, skills, propensities, adds multi-dimensional depth. It also allows us to become aware of areas we may wish to improve.

Noting those things at which we excel may increase our confidence and encourage us to make existential changes that better align with our heightened abilities and bring us to make moves that allow more success and happiness into our lives. Maybe an inventory might propel us from a job we hate to a career that expresses our passion.

If we deal with things we believe to be liabilities, after identifying them, we may find ways to reframe them more positively. We are all individuals, we are all different, society may see some of our differences as undesirable, but that value judgment may be invalid in reality. We determine who we are. No one else has the right to label us or box us. The box is in another dimension in an undiscovered universe. We are free to be who we wish, but sometimes exploration must be done to find our niche.

As we enter a new year and new decade, we have open horizons, various potentialities, exciting opportunities. We must know who we are, our hopes, our desires, how we deal with everything we encounter and believe we have worth. All of us are precious, all of us have abilities, talents, gifts, and skills to share.

May we respect ourselves and each other and nurture those things we can bless others through.

Happy New Year! Do you, be well, change as you must, and conquer your limitations, because there are no limitations just challenges to enlarge who you are.

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Goals – 2020 – Read more, Write more, Smile more, Cry less, Pray often, Study more, Leash my temper, Be a better friend/kin, Go places, Tame the Wookie, Consume less, Conserve, Recycle, Finish Otherwise Entertained, Finish Creativity book, Cook, which I can well, but hate, Eliminate negativity, exhibit POSITIVITY, Learn to understand I am not broken, I am gifted with difference, Stay far from places that do not welcome me.

Write, Write, WRITE!

I am thankful for the rich lessons of 2019 and look forward to the opportunities of 2020.

I am secreting it away down here where no one will care or notice, but this begins my 2020 Creativity Project, I think, maybe.

Exit 2019, Welcome 2020

As we wave goodbye
To what we became and know,
We still share enough.
Our burdens we strip away
In effort to grow, survive,
Escaping the trap
Left behind like a list made
In haste, featuring
Doubt, observations obscure,
Uncertain meanings, some unknown.
Praying a grant, gift,
Of blessings, we tell ourselves
Focus, start this moment new
Build reality
From cherished dreams, independent,
No longer neglected, precious
As the life pulsing through us
Each one making our hope,
Love, present in human form.

This poem is in answer to The Sunday Whirl. In the past, I did a lot of such work, but it has been some time. As a prompt, you could trek over there and participate.

I again changed some site settings. I was not happy with the lack of a pictorial header.

I am writing a decent amount now, here. I am thinking about taking up a 365 Creativity Challenge like I have done in the past, but it is a huge commitment. There does not appear a level of interest here to encourage that much engagement. It is rolling around in my brain like a marble in a pinball machine, though. So, it may or may not happen.

I am grateful:

My son, Alex, has been home over the holidays.
His two excursions away in my Explorer have gone well.
I am adept at working around my technology’s pitfalls.
We have made some little headway on getting my home under control.
I am optimistic about the opportunities for the coming year.

I appreciate your visiting, Haphazard Creative. I hope you will follow the site or come back as you have time and interest.

All the best to each of you going forward.

Beyond

We are souls in human bodies,
Our hearts carry the seeds
Of love beyond our ken.
The hurt we suffer cannot
Dim the Heavenly light
Which fills us beyond pain.
We are songs lifting the world
In its orbit building sanctuary
Beyond with the Spirit that guides us.
When one of us moves beyond
This terrestrial home, we find
That it was a temporary space.
We are made more beautiful
Than we ever imagine, because we compare,
Judge, and cannot see beyond our shadow.
If we embrace what wonders
We genuinely are we see beyond
To the gifts, we can bestow in love,
Our lives can become such blessings
Beyond measure, meeting needs, giving hope,
Building loving homes for all of us.

All you wish

Remaining Real

I have a heartache
Deeper than the ocean blue
Higher than the sunrise sky
It reminds me I am human
Teaches me to take nothing
However mundane for granted;
Tells me to cherish every moment
And love everyone I encounter
Because people have hidden scars
Struggles they cover over before
They leave for outdoors.
Life is heavy, it weighs more
Than anyone can carry, so best
Practice is to forever be kind,
So I keep the heartache
Always near my thought,
Put a smile on and live as much
As I can like nothing ever hurts
Love is eternity and the journey counts
As much or more than the destination.
We are only here a while, so we should
Do the good we can, then even more.