Monday Moanings - July 18, 2016

Audacious Hope

The past days,
                     weeks
                                months...

have been filled with news of violence, terror, anxiety, anger, retribution, shock, sorrow and death. I began to cringe every time a news alert was announced from my cell phone. I have now disabled those shouts which entice me to come, see, hear the latest horrors of the world.

This is not me burying my head in the sand, but rather me choosing to enter this new week with an audacious, wild and stubborn hope. A tenacious hope which insists on kindness, confidence, trust, empathy, forgiveness, joy, peace and life.

Such hope is courageous. It is deeply embedded in the very heart of each and every one of us, encouraging, goading, pushing, always seeking a way around and beyond every obstacle. How else would we have survived this long on earth?

As the world begins anew
             each month,
                                 week,
                                            day,

                  Hope whispers - 

There is a better way...

Come with me into this new week. 

Together let's go wild with hope - audacious, courageous, enduring hope.

"Courage, my friends; 'Tis not too late to build a better world." 

Tommy Douglas 1904 - 1986

©2016 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - January 12, 2015

A kinder, gentler week...

Phew! My goodness last week was a grueling one on the the world stage! The terrorist attacks in France while grabbing hearts and headlines, also spawned much fear and rhetoric. But then something more remarkable emerged - resolve. National leaders linked arms together to march through the streets of Paris yesterday. I honestly don't care who wasn't there in the front line. I'm betting the French security forces were thankful some of the more notable absentees were not there. The fact that this occurred at all is the amazing bit.

And yet as impressive as this was, the more heartening, the more reassuring thing to my mind was the huge number of ordinary people who walked streets not only in Paris but all over the world in solidarity with the people of France. Now that really was something to help me sleep at night and wake to go about my daily life free, confident and hopeful.

















I'd like a kinder, gentler week, if that is at all possible.
No sudden descents into terror and death;
no sharp twists and turns around fear and vulnerability;
just time to breathe deeply, ponder calmly and rest.

Perhaps spend a little time in a garden...

Can we all just have a good week? Please?

©2015 April Hoeller
(all photos were taken in Paris in May 2012)

Monday Moanings - November 10, 2014

NO!

The first syllable of the month says it all, but British humourist and poet Thomas Hood (1799 - 1945)
really nailed it.

        No sun—no moon!
        No morn—no noon—
No dawn—
        No sky—no earthly view—
        No distance looking blue—
No road—no street—no “t’other side the way”—
        No end to any Row—
        No indications where the Crescents go—
        No top to any steeple—
No recognitions of familiar people—
        No courtesies for showing ‘em—
        No knowing ‘em!
No traveling at all—no locomotion,
No inkling of the way—no notion—
        “No go”—by land or ocean—
        No mail—no post—
        No news from any foreign coast—
No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility—
        No company—no nobility—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
   No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
        November!

A little too much "no" perhaps? Well maybe, but I have to admit that grey sunless skies, leafless /lifeless trees and a damp chill that goes through to my bones, do little more than summon up dismal groans.

To escape the dead weight of such melancholy I trolled the vast expanse of the internet to have a look at how others have wrapped words around this second to last month of the year. Here's some of what I found:

 "Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapory air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian-flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air."
-   William Cullen Bryant

"The wild November come at last
 Beneath a veil of rain;
 The night winds blows its folds aside,
 Her face is full of pain.
 The latest of her race, she takes
 The Autumn's vacant throne:
 She has but one short moon to live,
 And she must live alone."
-  Richard Henry Stoddard

 "November comes
 And November goes,
 With the last red berries
 And the first white snows.
 With night coming early,
 And dawn coming late,
 And ice in the bucket
 And frost by the gate.
 The fires burn
 And the kettles sing,
 And earth sinks to rest
 Until next spring."
  - Elizabeth Coatsworth

Take heart, beneath it all, under the frost and brown, behind the damp and grey, Spring is plotting resurrection. And "No" will melt into "Yes."

 ©2014 April Hoeller (except poetry excerpts)

Thursday, or Thereabouts - September 18, 2014

Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

I threw my legs out of bed this morning and right into a pair of cranky pants. I didn't mean to. I certainly did not lay them out on the chair last night as today's wardrobe,  but I'm sure wearing the moody blues today. Irritable doesn't even begin to describe the bear living in my body today. Sure it was cool, raw and overcast this morning but there's plenty of warmth, light, hot tea and lovely music where I live.

What the crap is this all this about? Why am I so ornery today?





I had a great day yesterday. I got the white wine purchases from last week, all 54 bottles, catalogued and bedded down in the cellar. Now I'm a bit of a nutter about this process. The wines must be ordered by varietal (blend, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Grigio, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Vidal, Sparkling) and within that, alphabetically by winery and all is recorded meticulously on a Excel spreadsheet. I told you I was a nutter, right? But I'm an organized nutter!

Okay, so integrating the new with the 38 wines already on the shelf is a big job which elicited some head scratching and one or two instances of hair pulling yesterday, but in the end I got the job done. Every glass soldier had a place to lie down, save one, an old un-oaked chardonnay. It died a hero's death at supper.


Tomorrow, my love and I have a full day planned. First stop is IKEA®; I need two more shelves for the wine racks. Forty-one red coats stand waiting for a place to rest and there's not enough room at the inn. Then we're off to the Toronto Fall Home Show to scout out some bathroom ideas and few other updates. I have to confess that such sales expositions are not my idea of fun - I hate crowds, I hate noise, and I really hate high pressure sales tactics - but the tickets were free and the ideas will be too. As a reward for enduring the cacophony of the home show, the day ends with a divine supper, a sedate, flavourful Italian meal with wine of course! One red soldier will fall tomorrow night.




Tomorrow will be a good day. Yesterday was a great day. Today, not so much, but when viewed as a day bookended by two successful, fun days, it acquires a certain measure of tolerance, even acquiescence. I can mooch around cranky pants and all today, comfortable in the knowledge that tomorrow, just as yesterday, I'll be wearing something else.

©2014 April Hoeller