A Dog’s Life in Haiku

October 21, 2019August 11, 2024 / Peggy Pilkey / 9 Comments

Our family dog Bud–now departed–would often spend hours lying beside the pond where he would observe our resident frog, turtle, and goldfish. His eyes told me all I needed to know–that he was feeling the deep joy and love for all living things that we often feel, when we allow ourselves to leave our cars, work, and homes behind for the great outdoors. We miss him still. He died in the spring of 2005. Two of the three haiku captions are, of course, written from what I imagined would have been his inexpressible observations and feelings.

Two curious souls
Face each other, and wonder–
Is this mindfulness?

Goldfish–once timid–
Swim across the reflection
Of his smiling face.

Basking on a rock—
Turtle eyes his reflection
Then plays hide and seek.

Achieving the Impossible

June 10, 2018February 17, 2019 / Peggy Pilkey / 9 Comments

While browsing my digital photo albums, I came across these pictures and others like it within my annual folders. These images, showing off the skill and patience of my eldest son Ken, speak to me about life and how we might choose to approach it.

Several years ago, a member of the writers’ group I belong to suggested we each come up with a single word that would sum up our personal writing goals for the year ahead of us. I was well-aware that my worthy intentions in relation to completing specific New Year’s Resolutions had fallen short time and time again. I truly wanted to be disciplined in my approach to physical exercise, to the completion of creative writing projects, to reading as many books as possible on my “want to read” list, to maintaining and nurturing friendships, and–as Julia Cameron advised in her book The Artist’s Way–to keeping “artistic dates” with myself. Yet I don’t remember sustaining any more than one of those activities for an entire year–reading, perhaps, being the only exception. So in answer to my writer friend’s challenge, I finally latched on to the word focus as a way of summing up what I was seriously lacking in my life; or to put it another way, what I needed more than anything else to accomplish my goals.

Focus. Everything I begin would have to be done with a sense of purpose and a determination to see things through to the end. For example, instead of writing a story, novel or poem and filing it away after completion, as I’d done in the past, I would have to research the markets and submit my work to an agent or publisher. Instead of exercising three or four days a week for a few months, then suddenly stopping the practice because I’ve missed a session or two, I would have to repeat –and believe–a mantra declaring that “some exercise is better than no exercise”, or admonish myself to”just do it!” Instead of saying I would like to invite some friends over whom my husband and I may not have seen in a while, I should simply set a date, pick up the phone, and invite them to dinner. Instead of telling myself I would like to immerse myself in books that I’ve wanted to read for years, I should immediately take those titles from my bookshelves (if I already own them), borrow them from friends, check them out of a library, or search my favourite used book stores.

Did my choosing the word “focus” lead to improved motivation and subsequent completion of my goals that year? Regretfully, I would have to say “not entirely”, although I did read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in the months that followed–books that had been on my want to read list for years. But something else was missing from the equation, and I didn’t realize what that was until I came upon these photographs. The word that I now consider equally important is balance.

In the past, as I observed Ken practicing his skills with patience and intent, I noticed how he seemed to be totally “in the moment”, concentrating on the exact placement of one rock upon another, his fingers sensitive to every little crevice or hollow into which it might fit, every little shift in weight that might possibly alter its ability to stand unsupported. I don’t remember him ever failing at this; his successes always amazed those of us who watched him from the sidelines. Perhaps if we focus on the goals we’ve set for ourselves in ways that are both balanced and healthful, we, too, will achieve “the impossible”.

Fly Me to the Moon (Weekly Photo Challenge: Boundaries)

October 7, 2015February 1, 2018 / Peggy Pilkey / 5 Comments

When I was a child, I would look up at the night sky and imagine myself to be in the company of Peter Pan, Wendy, John and Michael, escaping to Neverland with arms outstretched, as if flying were the most natural form of transportation in the world. After several trial flights off the edge of a barn loft into a pile of hay, I had to accept reality. There have been times in my life, though, when I experienced “flying dreams”–ones in which I felt detached from my physical body, yet was fully aware that I was soaring above the earth, elated by my freedom, no longer bound by the limits of space and time. Even upon waking, the feelings associated with being at peace and in a state of wonder would remain with me long afterwards. While watching the lunar eclipse on September 27, 2015, I marvelled, again, at nature’s awesome display. As I watched the moon pass through earth’s shadow–our home planet temporarily blocking the rays of the sun–the moonscape took on a mysterious blood red glow. Lovely! These are a few of the photos I took that night from our deck in the city.

The Yellow House (Weekly Photo Challenge: Yellow)

December 29, 2014January 13, 2015 / Peggy Pilkey / Leave a comment

The Yellow House

I had written about this yellow house for a post in January of 2014 entitled Remedies for Winter Blues, and this is the second time I’ve been unable to dismiss an earlier Weekly Photo Challenge from my mind, succumbing, at last, to “dealing with it” in my own belated way. You guessed it! The theme for the assignment that I missed weeks ago, in December, was “Yellow”, and there’s no denying that this image fulfills that criteria. To learn more about why I first chose to describe this home across the street from where I live, please read my earlier entry, and tell me what you think. (The black bear standing on its hind legs–a sculpture positioned between the two marine blue doors of the duplex–holds a basket filled with flowers in its front paws during the summer months. It gave me a scare when I first noticed it as night was falling, but I appreciate the zany sense of humour expressed by the wonderful couple who own the building.)

Gone, But Not Forgotten (Weekly Photo Challenge)

December 27, 2014March 12, 2015 / Peggy Pilkey / Leave a comment

Gone, But Not Forgotten

This photograph was taken a decade or so ago, before it became necessary for Betty–my mom–to move to a senior’s care residence, and before our beloved pet “Bud” passed away from complications of hemophilia within two and a half years of her death. This image came to mind when I first saw the weekly challenge on this theme in early December. Over the intervening weeks, prior to my decision to post their photograph, I have experienced such warm memories of them both that I could not help but share their love with you, as they gently cared for one another, and for all our family. Gone, but not forgotten. Ever.

The Face in the Window (Photo 101: Glass)

November 26, 2014April 1, 2021 / Peggy Pilkey / Leave a comment

1. The Face in the Window

I was standing across the street from Flight of Fancy: Fine Art Hand Crafts in Bear River, Nova Scotia one summer afternoon a few years ago, when I had the uncomfortable feeling that my husband and I were being secretly spied upon by a stranger. Intuition, perhaps, made me glance up at a second story window of the gallery, and I was relieved to find that there was, indeed, a mysterious but non-threatening figure staring out through the pane of glass.

2. Iris Blossoms on Windowsill

One morning in early spring, I rescued these iris blossoms from where they’d fallen to the ground during a stormy night. I love how the velvet-textured, purple hues of the standards and falls were intensified by the natural light shining through both them and the vase in which they stood on the windowsill. The swirling cobalt ribbon of colour in the glass along with the deep blue starfish and a small dish nearby, further added to my pleasure in the scene. Even the showers outside my kitchen window were unable to dampen my mood that day!

Reflections 2: Self-Editing

November 16, 2014July 20, 2018 / Peggy Pilkey / Leave a comment

These reflections of the mirror-image variety prompted me to consider those of a different nature, which I mused about on this site a few years ago. In an earlier post, I had described my delight in playing with words. Similarly, photographs may occasionally capture my imagination to the extent that I can’t help but “play” with them, too.

When, for example, I viewed the first of the above smaller pictures on my computer screen, I immediately thought of a perfectly symmetrical, cultivated Christmas tree lying curbside after the holidays. I decided to rotate the image, making the “tree” appear vertical, just for the fun of it. Could our friends have been paddling up its trunk, or had they been hanging there, like blue and red baubles attached by the same white, satin ribbon? In the last of the images, fallen branches reflected by the surface of the water reminded me of a dream catcher; and in the photo above it, I immediately saw a giant squid. Could those be tentacles flowing out behind the creature swimming past?

These thoughts carry me back to the process of self-editing. Instead of dreading the work involved, perhaps I should give myself permission to be playful; perhaps I should revise chapters of a manuscript in order of last to first; perhaps I should change the size and type of the font I’ve been using or the “working title” or the names of the characters; perhaps then, I would see my writing with fresh eyes, making me aware of whole new creative possibilities.

17 Words That Together, Speak Volumes

May 1, 2014July 3, 2018 / Peggy Pilkey / Leave a comment

Any Beach, Any Place, Any Time

“Be / As a page that aches for a word / Which speaks on a theme that is timeless…”

So often, as writers, we struggle to fill blank pages with words that when taken all together–in their final and edited arrangement–will be meaningful to readers, and that will somehow, in some way, move them to a deeper understanding of themselves, their relationships, their appreciation of nature, their understanding of suffering and so much more. Recently, while listening to the soundtrack of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull for the first time in many, many years, the words I have quoted above touched me in a way that I’d not experienced before, even though I’d played the album over and over again in the ’70s when I was in awe of both the Voice and the lyrics of the singer. (That capital V was intentional!)

Coming to these words again, after writing fiction for many years, I now envy Diamond’s poetic and succinct expression of the deeply felt emotions that one may experience in relationship to the blank page, for he chose to equate it with each one of us and our yearning, or spiritual longing, to infuse whatever we place there with infinite and universal meaning. There have been many times when I, too, have ached “for a word, which speaks on a theme that is timeless….” I’m sure I’m not the only one who has felt this way. You, too?

Remedies for Winter Blues

January 30, 2014April 14, 2015 / Peggy Pilkey / Leave a comment

I’ve never particularly liked the winter season, and in fact, I’ve always been one of those people who dread its arrival every year as the daylight hours become fewer in number. Yet when I observe a duvet of pure white snow blanketing the neighbourhood, with gusts of wind tucking it up around the foundations of every home, I can’t help but pause and enjoy the beauty of it. On another day, my attention may turn to the mist rising from the harbour, or to one of several vignettes making up the landscape beyond my windows.

The Yellow House

I remember my initial shock when the owners of a Victorian era duplex located across the busy road from our home, painted it a bright, daffodil yellow. I wondered how I would ever get used to the sight of it, since it had the same effect on me as if a flashbulb had gone off a few inches from my face. The next spring, these same neighbours, brushes in hand, covered their front doors in an ultramarine blue.

Each year after that brought more small changes to the property opposite ours. Then last summer, a red lacquered, wooden chair appeared on the front step, and at the same time, the garden beds on either side bloomed with perennials, including spikes of blue delphiniums and red hollyhocks. What can I say? I was completely won over by the effect. Wow! I thought. A Van Gogh! Well, I may have been stretching the comparison more than a little, but the primary colours reminded me of Vincent van Gogh’s oil painting entitled “The Yellow House” (1888), in which the sky above the streetscape appears to be an expanse of cobalt blue, similar in shade to the doors mentioned above. This winter, after the first snowfall, the duplex not only exuded self-confidence, it also seemed defiant; no drab, gray day could possibly alter its sunny image. Ever. It struck me recently that the paint job I had first objected to, has since become a pure tonic for my winter blues!

: Persistent Fruit on Malus, “Sugar Tyme”

There are other scenes, too, that have had an uplifting effect on my mood. The summer after the removal of our damaged crab apple tree, my husband and I replaced it with a disease resistant variety that bears “persistent” fruit. These have the appearance of large, crimson berries, and remain on the tree from fall through the following spring. We also planted two Pieris japonica “Mountain Fire” shrubs several years ago—one in front of each main floor window facing the sidewalk. The cultivar’s name describes them perfectly, since clusters of drooping, scarlet flower buds hang on evergreen branches all winter long, and new leaf growth in the spring is red, too. It’s amazing what a shot of colour will do to one’s morale on an otherwise dull day.

What else makes me happy at this time of year? Blue jays perform their daily antics in the silver-tipped branches of our magnolia tree, and chickadees hop among the dried berries of the Engelmann’s Virginia creeper vine beside the deck. When I spotted a red cardinal in early January, and soon after, a pair of fat robins sitting in the Viburnum nearby, I realized that I should never take anything in life for granted, but appreciate the small moments of joy that make up my day. [Check out my On Gardening menu tab for a description of this wonderful shrub–Viburnum x bodnantense “Dawn”, also known as arrowwood.]

: Pieris japonica “Mountain Fire”

: Twilight

: Winter Sky

Like me, you may have noticed that sunsets can be spectacular in the winter months. The rose-coloured sky provides a canvas against which leafless trees appear to lean, their trunks and limbs looking as if they were lacy cut-outs made of black Bristol board. Surprisingly, it is in these months that the following lines resonate with me the most:

“I think that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree…”—Joyce Kilmer (Trees, 1914)

The stark silhouettes of barren trees taking shape at twilight attest to the truth of this poet’s words. One night–or should I say morning–I awoke at 4:30 a.m. and looked outside to see clouds racing across the sky like a stampede of wild stallions illuminated by the moon. I wanted to capture them permanently, but the slideshow below is unable to convey the speed at which they were travelling, and unfortunately, the images taken with my camera are not as sharp as they should be. During the time I was watching, the trees in our backyard became visible again, developing slowly, much like the details of a chemically infused Polaroid print (an analogy for those of you who might remember such a gadget in the days long before digital photography). If you have insomnia, as I sometimes do, get up and check out the night sky. You might be surprised by what you see, and at the same time, find your own remedy for winter blues.

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Reflections

August 6, 2013March 5, 2014 / Peggy Pilkey / Leave a comment

I awoke this morning intending to write a reflection on a topic that is often in my thoughts, but try as I might, I was unable to find words that would adequately express what is in my heart: there are not enough of them to describe the despair I often feel when I witness “man’s inhumanity to man” brought to us “live” on TV, or the sadness I feel when I hear of a friend’s fear-inducing medical diagnoses, or the helplessness I feel at the sight of devastation caused by tsunami, tornadoes and floods… There are so many more soul-crushing events that I could add to this list, but I know I don’t need to spell them out for you because you have your own.

With all the remarkable advances made in the twenty and twenty-first centuries involving cross-cultural understanding, religious tolerance, economic interdependency, scientific and health research, co-operative space research and climate change research, why are bloodshed, hatred and resentment still fueling wars in this day and age? I repeat the question time and time again, but the answers continue to elude me. If philosophers, scholars, theologians and others–of the few that I’ve read–have been unable to answer this question in a way that completely satisfies me on an emotional, intellectual and spiritual level, then how can I possibly attempt to do that myself! I can’t.

It’s often said that the worst situations bring out the very best in people, but I would like to think that kindness, generosity and altruism exist on their own–no painful prerequisite sharing of sorrows required to illicit them. The “good news” stories may not dominate what we hear and read about in the media on a daily basis, but they’re out there. Years ago, my mother’s engagement diamond escaped its setting and disappeared, with the dishwater, down the drain; it was later recovered from the trap. Like her diamond, each ordinary example of people caring for each other, helping each other through all manner of setbacks, needs to be retrieved, polished and held up to the light. Many people are doing that already, spreading positive messages about their families, neighbours and communities at a grassroots level, some using social media sites. If we are able to do that—to focus on what is beautiful about each other and in nature—then we will have hope, and therefore be more open to receiving and recognizing moments of unexpected grace.

The following reflections of the mirror image variety are ones that I captured with my camera in July 2013. They remind me of such moments. Perhaps the answer to Why? is simply Because! The beauty of these scenes flooded my whole being; I felt them; they spoke to me.