a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
Music is a language for the soul and Aretha Franklin sure knew how to belt it out. In celebration of the beautiful Queen of Soul who blessed us musically with the gift of her voice, let me share some of her songs.
Once I saw Linda’s SoCS prompt ‘ic or ical‘, it had to be music for me. I have enjoyed listening to Aretha over decades and will still keep enjoying her timeless pieces.
Life has taught me that being of good cheer is a value not outwardly acquired, but one that is fostered from within. Why do I say this? Because day by day the vicissitudes of life seeks to weigh us down.
It takes resilience and constant mind-over-matter not to get submerged under the flood of misery and bad news which seems to prevail these days.
It takes uncommon grace to build an oasis of peace within you and to keep your chin up even when life batters you.
It takes wisdom to know that each day lived in misery is a day lost to misery and we must find moments of cheer in every given day no matter what.
These moments of cheer could be as little and as simple as finding solace in a quiet moment, a power nap, a smile, deep meditative breathing, regular reminders of gratitude, a glass of milk, sharing a hug…
On the other hand, school is out for Summer and the kids are ecstatic. I have mixed feelings ha, ha. I love that there is no school and we all get to unwind a bit, but I know that in a couple of days after mindless hours spent on games and what not, they will start singing the ‘I am bored song.’
I’ve got to put on my mama cheerleader cap on and think of cheap and cheerful ways to keep them positively and gainfully occupied without having to rob a bank.
With each passing school year, I watch my young ones’ gallop through their classes, growing older and inching day by day to the time they have to leave for college and fly the coop.
Gulp! The thought leaves butterflies of apprehension in the pit of my stomach. I hope that I’m equipping my chicks well enough to survive life’s onslaught out there without mama dogging every footstep that they take? Only tomorrow will tell.
For now, let’s enjoy every bit of our simmering Summer with copious sips of cold, freshly squeezed orange juice or watermelon. Cheers.
Jacqueline
Forget about the fabulous, ginormous buildings and flashy highways, this is an arid desert. It’s so dry to such an extent that even the bugs have reservations about inhabiting this space. When I take my morning walks, I look at the plants/flowers around hoping to catch a bug or two, but nary any to be seen creeping about. They have done well by planting flowers and trees – well maintained and fertilized by our defecation and pee-pee which is routinely collected by special trucks, if I may say so. Luckily, some of these trees can withstand the scorching heat to a large extent, but it seems like all the bugs, butterflies, bees, birds and creepy crawlies hibernate or migrate till the cooler months at the end of the year.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a caterpillar going to three years now. I guess it’s one of the prices that one pays for living in a big city, you miss out on being out and about in nature as much as you would like and as a result, you don’t get to see Earths minutiae creatures going about their business. One thing that I’m looking forward to sometime in the near future is living again in a proper house with its own grounds where I can grow vegetables, plant flowers, put out birdseed…
Writing this just made me feel nostalgic. I had no idea that there would come a point when I would miss the Squirrels that used to scurry up the tree in my front lawn back in Cypress Fairbanks.
P.S. For some reason I forgot yesterday was Saturday. I have no idea where the days are racing to.
Once I saw the prompt reservation I knew where I wanted to go with it. Of late, I realized that I have been my own stumbling block in many ways. I have been standing in my own way of pushing forward and 99.5% of this manifestations have been due to mental blocks or subconscious reservations that have taken deep root in my mind.
Now, with my merciless carving knife or should I say pen, I am practising mindfulness and paying special attention to the negative messages that come to my mind to counteract my positive affirmations. I seek to understand this negativity better, trace their origin, influence and self-healing. Dissecting oneself can be a painful, messy, unsavoury affair, but the journey to find one’s true self and to realign one’s path requires no reservations.
Messages that may have been founded on experience, background, upbringing etc, inadvertently play a huge role in our lives. They underlie our success and wellbeing and unless we dig to the roots of these negative messages without reservations, it is very difficult to change them.
Jacqueline
– Written in response to Linda’s SoCS prompt ‘reservation.’
We are not allowed to use an open grill in our apartment for safety reasons and this is one thing that I miss sorely. I recall Summer days of cook-out back in Houston, the camaraderie of family visits and it almost seems like aeons ago. Time flies.
Some parks allow the use of charcoal grill but the UAE is getting a tad too hot for such indulgence so, yours truly has to rely on my kitchens’ oven grill which is not quite the same.
Maybe it’s all in my mind right now – that flavour of sizzling barbecue wafting in from somewhere and causing saliva to pool in my mouth. Let me take a peek out of the window, maybe I’ll go begging for a bite 😉
His words sound hollow,
filled with empty promises
that he never meant to fulfil.
Her eye’s look empty,
they have no life in them
life has beaten her hollow.
They make quite a couple,
she holds on to his empty words,
he digs extra holes in her hollow state.
This poem sprang to mind once I saw Linda’s prompt for today ’empty/hollow.’ It stole through the quagmire of thoughts battling for position in my head. Maybe this is a mirror of how I feel lately, empty and hollowed out? I can’t even make precise sense of this poem ‘cos most times my poem has a story behind it.
Have a good weekend peeps.
Jacqueline
SQUAWK!! This is the silent shrill angry animal sound that has been recurring in my head of late. It seems like my life has been going down the river of late, tossed and tumbled like a flotsam from one tedious occurrence to the other and from three flu-bitten grumpy children to a flu-croaky, grunty husband and now it’s my turn, after nursing them and I must say, I sound pretty croaky. I think my croakiness is more like husky and sexy 😉
Groan! For the last couple of weeks, my blog has suffered as well and I’ve been bingeing on sugary stuff – I comfort eat when I feel low and even though I know it’s not good for me, I still do it. I hiss in disgust at myself but that still doesn’t stop me from gobbling a pack of biscuit chased down with a glass of juice. Meow! I feel like a bad kitty and have avoided the scale like a plague.
On the bright side, silent twitters also ring in my head happily ‘cos I just got a moonlighting part-time coaching job at an institute to prep students for English IELTS/TOEFL exams. I must say that I enjoy the weekly interactions and after 3 hours of teaching the rudiments of grammar, reading, writing and speaking, I come out feeling totally gratified. If the truth be told, this is something that I would do for free – but I need the funds badly.
Okidokey, let me moosey off now and get ready to bleat it – I have a tutoring session this morning with two young and funny Algerian kids who are learning English. See you later alligator 🙂
P.S. Dear Linda, I think I’ve managed to fit in several animal sounds with today’s SoCS prompt – sMOOth – though I suspect that there are many more waiting to be let out.
No one likes money woes, sadly there’s hardly enough in circulation for most of us, which means that most of us struggle to make enough money to make our ends meet not to talk of having extra money to save.
Well, I’m speaking for myself. I hate financial strife, and it seems that of late especially, my budget is shoe-string thin and stretched that it literally takes Gods’ grace to get by.
I love the freedom that having money buys and hate having to worry about funds for basic needs. Whether we like it or not – money is still a vehicle that helps us achieve a lot of our goals and having unpaid bills and indebtedness hanging around one’s neck like an albatross has a way of dampening one’s life and stifling creativity.
In recent times, I’ve had to get truly more creative with money management. I’ve had to try many tricks in the book on how to stretch a dirham to achieve the goal of three dirhams, on how to earn a bit extra and as a matter of fact, I have an unfinished post in my draft about the lessons not having money has taught me.
Maybe one day soon I’ll finish writing the post – it’s a lesson in progress – and down the line, I’ll share my lessons as well as my personalized tips with you. Though money is not everything, it definitely matters and if you don’t mind my saying so, yes, I love money or at least dreaming about having enough money and the freedom that it would bring.
So far have I sojourned on this side of existence, yet most days I feel that I’m yet to begin. I feel as if the path before me is longer than the routes I have walked. As if the mountains to climb are higher with many more rivers to wade through.
So far have I come from the long-limbed, tall, awkward, bookwormish, scared, young unassuming ‘yes’ girl who internalized the pain and confusion of abuse, to the feisty, outspoken and confident mature woman that I’m today.
It’s two days to my birthday and I find that I’m always in an introspective mood several days to my birthday. I find myself reviewing things in my head and asking myself some cliched questions like ‘does life truly begin at 40?’
Well, my life’s calendar has hit 40 and heading way into the middle and these are my thoughts so far; it’s taken me 40+ years to decipher ‘who I am’ and I certainly like this human that I’m evolving into. It so happens that I didn’t find my true passion earlier than my 40’s and I oscillated from one career pursuit to the other. Now that I know what I know, I don’t have time to waste in the pursuit of things that steal my peace and waste my time.
With these years of experience, harsh reality has taught me that it’s possible to be viewed as overqualified and too old for certain job opportunities – my personal experience was a rude shock that took days to assimilate.
So far, I’ve discovered a sense of belonging to myself, to a God within me and to let go of what the world thinks and meeting its ever-changing barometers.
So far, I understand that I’m halfway to the finish line, that life and death begin together and that each day the more we are alive, the closer we are to death, thus each day has to count and my best life is now – not yesterday, not tomorrow.
For me, 40+ is just a precursor to better years of adventures to begin. So far, so good. How are you holding up so far?
Fine. What does it really mean to be fine? Can I truly from the depth of my spirit say that I’m fine? Or is it just a superficial response to ‘how are you,’ so that I don’t make anyone feel discomfited by my true response which I suppose would be ‘heck no, I feel all raggedy and angry a lot lately.’
I wouldn’t even know where to start with my venting but here goes ‘ I’m not fine with the fact that my body does not want to age like fine wine.’ I have deep aches and pains from Fibromyalgia that not only causes discomfort but makes me grumpy a lot of times when the pain flares up.
I’m not fine with the fact that at this juncture in life I’m still struggling hard to get my dream of being an accomplished writer and blogger kick-started.
I’m not fine that the basic needs of life are still a huge hustle and that if I don’t work as hard as I do, I would probably be one pay cheque to destitution.
I’m not fine with the fact that I want to go back to school to obtain a degree in Writing & Publishing but that aspiration is still a pipe dream due to lack of finance.
I’m not fine that I’m grumbly and I feel ashamed at the deep-seated feeling of dissatisfaction that has found its way to wedge in my soul in recent times.
I’m not fine with the status quo and not prepared to keep quiet about it. I believe that to find a solution to a situation, you’ve got to be willing to bring it out into the open air and look at it candidly. Phew! I feel better just letting some of these thoughts out.
La di la, in all honesty, life is a struggle and not fine and dandy for many of us but it’s up to us to take a good look at our issues and to make extra efforts to live a fine life.
a cooking pot and twisted tales 