hope – Page 2 – aspoonfulofsugar337

The memory keeper.

I shiver in the shadows of your unvoiced fears

My fingers icily tracing the outline of your unspoken anxieties like lace

As my whispers leave their memory on your wizened face.

You give me life,

I am the invisible force that keeps you on the straight and narrow

When others clamour and chide and try to pull you towards a doom and gloom and sorrow

That would drown us all.

In silence I stumble forward

And see the smile appear like sunshine after storms

As the dreams and yearnings of those earlier years come flooding back

And rekindle faith and hope and love.

Some may see me as the invisible worm

The memory keeper and in a moment I can change the mood and alter the meaning

Of all of your past and how you perceive your future.

This is for Tuesday’s poetics at d’verse. With love.

It has been a time of renewal, a time of shifts and loss and mourning, a time of giving and holding others, a time of allowing self to be swept aside. My father in law passed away on Dec 1st, one short week earlier we had finally moved house, the nights were long and cold, I packed and unpacked, we haemorraghed money- my husband was a selfless soul endlessly on the road caring for his father and mother, answering endless telephone calls- moments lost, tablets forgotten, repeated conversations, fragments of life recurring then receding, we collected groceries, cooked meals, later we watched as he listlessly slept and shouted and screamed in some other life, some other world crying through pain for help and searching for security and struggling for each long laboured breath until he was gone.

Each day I have gone to work, in my new job, loving the company of my new colleagues, welcoming the benign banter of everyday life, desperate for a smidging of something that resembled a slower pace, a calmer moment, welcoming the newfound calm of our homely little house, genuinely craving the solitude that I know will energise and bring renewal. The moments where the sky in all its splendour is the most treasured and important thing, when the cold chill biting at my fingers and toes reminds me of the joy of life, longing for the frozen earth to yield to spirited snowdrops and there to be enough space for me to savour the solitude that I love so much.

January brings snow

and frozen slivers of ice

Witch Hazel shivers.

This is for D’verse. Love to all and Happy New Year.

Brave new world.

Ecclesiastes 3.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

I am full of hope that this new year will see us enter into a new phase of life. For me it is a brave new world. I hope that our expectations are less, that we can live off what we have without desiring things that are uneccessary. I hope that we can judge both others and ourselves less and learn to be tolerant, compassionate and kind. That we begin to appreciate that success is not measured by the amount of money or belongings that we possess and that our status is ascribed by our actions and words and not by our “job” or our “qualifications” or our “bank balance”.

I love my family unconditionally. There are times in the last few years where we have all faced adversity and unexpected challenges. I hope that my girls continue to walk forward in their lives secure in the knowledge that they are loved and that it is what they give, what they contribute and what they make of their lives that counts. I hope that they have many moments of joy and they have the heart and soul to recognise those moments for what they are. I am already proud of them beyond measure and they have already given me more love joy and pleasure than it is possible to describe.

For me it is a time to express my gratitude for all that is, and has been, and will be.

In this moment we are infinite. (Perks of Being A Wall Flower)

In these moments where we live and breathe.

It has been a complex year and all I know is that many of you out there will have faced your own tough challenges, some that have been overcome with grit and determination and others that have almost broken you with the weight and depth of their difficulty.

There were days this year where I genuinely thought that there would be no resolution, that the interminable darkness and despair would swallow me whole, that my worthiness had been buried never to resurface under some massive cumbersome rock that could not be shifted.

I learned that it is important to feel wanted and needed and worthy and that for me these things come from the work that I do and the relationships I build with the people around me.

I learned that I need to feel connected and secure and that for me comes from having a home and a place to be in the world.

I learned that heartache and heartbreak are cruel masters that spare no-one and that all around me there are people whose stories would make my own look like a walk in the park, that we all need kindness and compassion. That a smile and a hug are the simplest gifts that can give someone a brighter moment in their darkened day.

I learned that many of us fear death, and that at the end it is not dignity that matters but the holding of the hand, the soothing of the brow, and just knowing that someone sits beside you.

It is this moment that matters, not the money, or the glamour, or the furnishings, the shadow of our former life or the lure of future success, but this very moment.

It is the simplest action of human understanding that matters, listening carefully to those around us, sharing their journey holding their hand as well as hoping they will hold ours, not the politics, the rhetoric, the arrogance of selfishness but the humility that is born from suffering, enduring and surviving.

I learned that it is important to be kind and compassionate to oneself and that every moment is a taonga to be treasured.

Namaste as the year draws to a close.

May there be moments of peace in our life.

Not so lost in translation

At d’Verse this Monday we were discussing translation and poetry.

My daughter Ellen’s favourite poem as a young teen was the translated version of Past One O Clock by Vladimir Mayakovsky and it has also become one of my favourites. Mayakovsky was a playwright as well as a poet, he often satirised aspects of “the state” and found himself in conflict with the authorities. He reportedly took his own life in 1930 aged 36 although there had always been some doubt cast over the timing and nature of his demise. Both he and Lilya Brik had affairs but even after the relationship ended they remained close.

I have no idea if it is a good translation but feel that it is most beautiful. Having lived in NZ I realise that often it is not possible to create perfect translations, so for example some phrases in Maori are more than just translatable words, a poem is a Taonga, which literally means a treasure or something that is highly valued, but the word Taonga is a much more accurate description it carries a sense of the sacrosanct.
Anyway I have to let you read the poem to understand its poignant beauty. It was left as part of his suicide note.

©Alison Jean Hankinson.

Past One O clock
Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed.
The Milky Way streams silver through the night.
I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams
I have no cause to wake or trouble you.
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind.
Now you and I are quits. Why bother then
To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts.
Behold what quiet settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.
In hours like these, one rises to address
The ages, history, and all creation.
©Vladimir Mayakovsky

With love to you all. XXXX

Light and shadows of loneliness.

As the day casts its long shadow homeward

I recognise that so much of it has to do with the light.

They say it is always darkest before the dawn and perhaps that dawn is the realisation that the fear, shame and guilt linger longest in the hours of darkness

and they dance and pirouette amongst the silhouettes and shadows to a tune that beguiles and steals the light.

We light candles, we whisper of hope and future happiness and draw circles in vain to cast aside the demons.

We crave love and long to belong to another so that we have a hand to hold in the darkness a kindred spirit to guide us through the pain and suffering and lamentable servitude to solitude.

Sunrise.

Night yields to day and despair drifts away and the endless ebb and flow brings us slowly to the shores of our halcyon dreams.

This is my contribution for World Mental Health Day. I think loneliness is a huge issue for so many people young and old alike and I think the hours of darkness are able to bring/conjure up their own unique set of torments.

For those who struggle to sleep it seems a long night.

For my girls.

Submitting this for open link night at d’Verse.

Sounds of silence

Footfalls through the frost

Whispers on the wind,

Stillness in the stars,

Grubby chubby little hands

Seeking out shells on the shoreline.

Moments of magic in motherhood.

Memories fall like raindrops from the skies

Teardrops in my eyes

as I cherish every second of your lives.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

Love you always wherever you may be-Mumma.

I think I have been silent for quite a while and now it is time to break the silence. I realise that so much of what I am and what I have done with my life and what I have become is linked to becoming a mother.

For me there was never any doubt that it was a fundamental part of what I held as important-not excelling in a sport or becoming a great leader or even the top of my career but giving and nurturing as best I could new members of the human race. I didn’t always do the job well, but I mostly did my best with the time and resources that I had at my disposal at the time.

I was always clear in my own mind that each would become their own person and make their own way in life and that in some respects all that I was doing was giving them some tools for their life basket and a safe place to grow. So it was a sprinkling of knowledge, a touch of high spiritedness, add in resilience backbone and compassion for others. I always wanted them to fly the nest and soar in the winds in their own little worlds build their own castles in the air and thrive and survive and have soul.

They have moved into their own lives now, almost effortlessly without a backwards glance and yet I know that they will always be connected. I don’t think the umbilical cord is ever truly broken and just as I will always carry my own mother in my heart even though she is long since gone I think they too will always carry a part of me in their hearts and so the story goes, the ebb and flow, mother to child.

Summer sunshine

I have had a break from writing. This is largely because I was exhausted and needed to use as much energy as possible focusing on recentring and bringing some sense and order into what had inadvertently become a very complex and draining period of my life.

From this I have learned that shutting down has some favourable benefits so long as you continue to give yourself time to reenergise and re-focus.

There is only so much that one brain and one body can handle without exhibiting signs of stress and wear. Things were going wrong at every turn. It seemed like there was no end in sight nor even a small glimmer of hope on the horizon. I had to cut back to the bare minium, doing the things that needed to be done and prioritising aspects of my life that would enhance my ability to survive and bring solutions to our immediate problems and needs.

After two months of gruelling toil we seem to have at least some solutions in hand. Yesterday I started a new job and hopefully this will provide the stability and purpose that has been needed to fulfil the desire to belong and be of value.

Returning after such an extended period of time away brought with it a huge reverse cultural shock and I discovered the qualities that were of value in NZ were not of the same value here and that times had changed and that my place in society was no longer that of respected citizen of value and worth and that to all intents and purposes I was replaceable, aged and worthless. My survival therefore depended on my ability to adapt and accept the changes and get on with it to the best of my ability- regardless of any hopes, dreams and aspirations that I had thought realistic before we returned home.

There were days that my awareness that this might be as good as it gets was the best I could muster. Days where potential tragedy loomed large around the every corner and the fine line between survival and anihilation was rendered invisible.

The sun shone, life moved on. I lived and breathed and took time to value the world before my eyes, trusting that one day there would be small opportunities for change that would help open new doors and windows to let the sun stream in and liberate the gloom.

Hopefully this is the first page in a new chapter that will bring peace, friendship, connection, love, purposefulness and place.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

A stitch in time…

They say a stitch in time saves nine

But who knows that we are broken

When our smiles catch the light and we mesmerise with our stories of hope

And our lives unfold like a picture book

Full of Princes, Princesses and perfection

No poverty here, no lack of good cheer- no sleep deprived hell

Or whispers of madness.

They say a stitch in time saves nine

But who knows we are broken

When we give with compassion

And our public persona is playfully convivial,

Full of charismatic colourful conversation disguising the trivial.

No hidden hopelessness here, no silent solitude, no depth of despair

Or signals of worthlessness wounding within.

We march on.

We playfully tease.

We make small talk

With skillful ease.

We wish you had seen our innermost thoughts.

We wish you had been a true friend of sorts.

We wish you had held out your hand to take ours.

We wish you had noticed that whilst we spoke through flowers

We were broken, bereft, beyond all life’s care.

All we wanted was you to be there, to lift up our spirits

Make the sun shine,

And be the stitch in time that saves nine.

I wrote this for a prompt earlier in the week at d”verse but missed the widget, so here it is for open link night. Love to you all. XXXXX Love for the lost. XXXX

June already….

This is my first post in quite a few weeks. It was a glorious May, the weather was sunny and bright and the fields, shrubs and trees blossomed. For me though, I needed to conserve energy, close in and give myself room to breathe.

It was a time of despair, frustration, discord, reassessment, consolidation and repair. It took time and it took silence. Time to listen to the sounds and focus on the real things and let go of the white noise and the humdrum and the background churnings that distract and destroy.

I continually ask myself what it is that is important- to me, to others, to our world. I am not sure I have the answers, I am not sure they are the right questions, I just know that the disillusionment of the last year sapped my energy greatly and I must remember not to let myself get sucked in again by its draining darkness. I can still believe in what seems right to me, it is not for others to decide by either their actions or inactions, I still get to choose what I feel, how I greet each day, how I process the events that happen to me and around me. This helps me get up and reach for a new day, a new dream a new horizon. I am not broken, just bruised and a little misshapen and the bruises will heal in time.

Carpe diem- seize the day. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX