Kayak Class

Never been in one, a kayak that is.

I'm driving nearly three hours to be in an all-day class

on the White River in Bull Shoals State Park outside of Mountain Home, Arkansas.

I turned 60 this year, so I may be loosing my mind.

Or I may be trying to catch up.

Or I may be tired of  "all work and no play."


No matter.
I am glad I have the gusto and guts to go.


Hope I don't sunburn myself to melanoma stage.
Hope I don't act like the oldest, dumbest, weakest one in the group.

Hope my new lunch bag doesn't secretly give off an image about me like "She's old" or

"She's an oar short" or "She sure doesn't know how to pick out lunch bags."

I better be more worried about staying afloat than about my image.

KAYaking  here I come!!! Yippeeeee!

Writing Jitters

I'm taking a break from writing to write.

This week is my vacation—my writing vacation.
And eating out with friends.
And shopping for a new bed and mattress and sofa.
And taking a day's class of learning how to kayak on the

river.

(I like it that kayaking starts with my name.... KAY.)

I'm on chapter two of six.

When concentrating for longer than 30

minutes

I get jittery and want to do other things
Like go Krogering
or write on my blog
or snack on popcorn chips and Oreo Thin Mint cookies
or walk in the neighborhood (exercise

MUST become a part of my life)

or water my yard
or buy makeup at Dillards
or make chocolate rice-crispy candies for friends and

neighbors

or love on my cat
or do another load of clothes.

How do I keep my bottom still in the seat?
How do I stay focused?
How do I stop wandering?

Must get better at discipline.

But then I've said that to myself for YEARS.

Sigh....

Back to writing.

N o  MorE  FaCEboOk



I've needed to do this for a while.

Leave Facebook.

Sign off.

Get away.

Use time differently.

So I did it.

Hope I don't go into the Facebook delirious tremors.

I have one plug-in to social media.

ONE.

Facebook.

Not Instagram.

Not Tumbler.

Not Twitter.

Not SnapChat.

OK I do have Pinterest. But I haven't built it or kept it up or followed anybody.

I probably will now.

Oh and LinkedIn. Probably need to give that some serious attention.

Maybe.

Now I've unplugged that ONE thing.

Facebook.

There goes my social life. Sigh......

Maybe, just maybe, I will discover a new life

after  Facebook.

. . . for now . . .

Unleash Me

I am a woman who wants to. . .

Write, love and be loved, enjoy, travel, be, relate and be related to, pray, heal and be healed, and
worship and know The One who made me.

No more am I just interested in a 9 to 5 job (fine print: “with some evenings and weekends”).

No more am I intrigued by problem-solving   
      meetings and topically designed
               committees which only end up
being more notes in the minutes with more meetings needed in the future for more notes in the minutes . . . .
No more am I gratified
            by numbers, output, quantity, or scores.

I find time extremely valuable.

I find real conversations extremely valuable.

I find love and joy the most important among the trophies of skills, talents, abilities, possessions, positions, and titles.

What kind of “job” is that?

What vocational calling is that?

My Lord and my God, I am listening to you.

Amid this crowd of clamoring thoughts in my mind,
you stoop to write a message
in the soil of my heart and soul with your finger.

Unleash me from my fears and oughts and help me respond beyond my comfortable boundaries I have set and rules I have made.

Amen.                                                                                       

by Kay

Afternoon Matinee

 

Shadows grow longer

as I gaze from work's upper story windows

down onto the coiffed grounds

where a silhouetted,

more quiet, bronze-orange afternoon

takes the place of the earlier

energetic, effervescent morning.

 

The days are shorter

even with the same hours always given;

yet light is more quickly upstaged

by the dusk-to-dark act.

 

Lingering and looking

At the matinee performance of light and shadows

I am wistful and full of memories. . . .

 

 

 

While the warmth of the western sunshine

pours through my picturesque porthole to the outside,

I ponder, worship,

and feel grateful for a moment more.

 

 

Then moving on to all that awaits me the rest of my day

I pick up the pace

before darkness falls.
 

 

Unburdened

The unanswers, anxieties,

and clamor of things

that need plans laid

and  decisions made took a back seat as I walked

from my car to work's door this morning.

Startled from my self-absorption, I noticed

color had arrived in the many trees
dotting the campus.
Reds, oranges, and yellows amid the fading green--
all against a backdrop of sky blue.
The morning breeze scurried leaves
in swirls on the ground,
and the morning sun poured
through the colander of trees
creating shadows and shafts of dancing light.

I looked and saw,

tasted and knew
God is good.

This  masterpiece morning reminded me that

the Master Artist, the ever-present I AM
knows, sees, and acts
in this world,
in the pain,
in the present,
in my life.

With morning and all its color, light, and gust

giving my face a last caress
before I entered a day's worth of insideness,
I smiled grateful for hope anew.

 

by ckh --  experienced at Baptist Health-North Little Rock 11/10/14