1.29.20 Remembered Sunday

“At the beach, life is different. Time doesn’t move hour to hour but mood to moment. We live by the currents, plan by the tides and follow the sun.” – Sandy Gingras

On Sunday morning I woke up with a spirit-calling urge to go to the beach. It was the kind of magnetic pull that made a three hour drive suddenly seem like the easiest choice in the world and I honestly don’t regret a second of it, because I’d go again tomorrow!

Only my daughter and I decided to go, and our day was bliss. We spent hours adding songs to our beach playlist. We ate lunch on the go, spilling our hummus until everything (unfortunately) tasted faintly of chickpeas. We dance with our shadows and thawed our cold-beach feet in warm collected tide pools. We found tiny feathers and glittery seashells. We watched the way the beach turned glassy with reflections of the sky. We stepped in bubbly foam and dashed in and out of the tide, the cool water playing tag and winning. We found shapes in the clouds. We only left after an unleashed dog came and peed on my towel! Even that disgusting shock became a giggle-worthy memory.

On the way home, we got ice cream for the drive. Then, my daughter read me chapters of one of my all time favorite books … I loved hearing the words I’d read a hundred times made new in her voice. And I think that those moments … with salty beach hair, sand-trails, and stories my daughter shared in the air … those might have been even more beautiful than the sea itself.

Last night I couldn’t fall asleep for thinking how fast it is all going … that I’m only a handful of years before my kids aren’t kids at all. Then I remembered Sunday, and had peace knowing that I’m tying as many memories together as I can, creating a lifeline of  moments that will always bring me back to them.

Can you share a memory you’ve tucked in for safe keeping? I’d sure love to hear it.

Elle

 

 

1.22.20 7 Magical Intentions

• On January 22nd, I was featured in Grace Notes, Bella Grace Magazine’s beautiful blog. This was such a fun assignment as I was asked to think about “7 Magical Intentions to Set at the Beginning of the Year.” I wish everyone thought magically …  about enchantment and things that feed into whimsy and dreaming. Please take time to check this post out and share which of the seven intentions you intend to follow! Or better yet … how do you remain magically minded in a world that demands we stay rooted in reality?

Hugs and happiness,

Elle

1.20.20 Fickle Dreamer

I fear I have become a fickle dreamer

inconstant 

in my inner Siren song

I hear the wishing whispers trickle past me

and loop and sway and linger, 

then move on 

And Time I would so aptly steal forsakes me

for any other “seeming” 

noble cause

So double-sworded Guilt 

cuts it’s way into 

the thoughts I gave myself 

to stop and pause

To live one’s life 

as one who can’t stop dreaming

but also as one who is slave to “musts”

can make for un-attuned and rife disaster

a string of broken dates and built mis-trusts

I try to let in wishful thoughts in earnest

I try to breathe with meditated hope

and find I’m disappointed by reality

where I am left to see

and do

and cope

I fear I have become a fickle dreamer

and Muses speak in contradicting tones

Society berates my whims and fancy

both entirely

and at no fault of my own

So where does that leave those as me

and dreaming? 

Am I to carry on this two-faced game?

Where words and stories chase in jar-less wonder …

Fireflies I adore and cannot tame

In sharing riddled circles 

and in wander

In walking spiraled paths

that lead astray –

I find that stealing Time 

is worth disaster

and into further dreaming

I must stay

I may be fickle in my tasks and progress

I may not conquer goals I set right now

but at the northern edge of Periphery

I see I will someday, 

and more

somehow

The life of dreamers isn’t ever easy

as nothing of our wistfulness makes sense

Yet as the stars, 

your words of truth encourage

and I will carry on 

and Ever

hence 

1.11.20 “Everything”

Some days

like this one

when the news is an endless string of perception

instead of perspective

when conversations coil, and curl, and corrupt

the very thing they were trying to defend

when pain is justified as progress

and things like ethics

or morality

are contorted and twisted into dirty words

replaced by apathetic tolerance 

because caring is too much work

on days like this

I am tired

because Hope is a heavy thing to carry

in a world that’s upside-down

where gravity pulls me to stay grounded

to accept

to comply

Hope is a phosphorescent glow

sometimes too bright

for the dark society prefers

chaos and conflict blending in muted shadow

Hope is an unaccepted truth

when lies are currency

and deceit is received and perceived as fact

Yes

some days

like this one

Hope hurts

the way love can

when it’s pure

the way a mind can

when stretched to believe with verity

the way faith can

when it has been shaken

but stands stronger among the debris

Hope is not worth anything

it is worth everything 

and thus

I carry on 

1.4.19 The Serendipity of Words

Today I was checking my Instagram feed and came across this lovely tag from a woman I’ve never met named Debbie. Her post said, “A small line from a most beautiful poem written by Elle Harris, which inspired my journal page today.”

Can I just say I’m so, SO very humbled. Any of you who have followed me for awhile know the story of myself and my friend Michelle. We met because Michelle’s best friend, Katrina, was very sick with cancer, and in her final days, Michelle said that she read one of my poems to Katrina over and over again.

Nothing in my writing career has ever come close to mattering more to me than this story, because nothing in the world could ever compete with serendipitously being “there” to help comfort the journey of one’s spirit from this world to Heaven itself. From that time on, Michelle and I became very close and when she told me the story of Katrina, I wrote a piece for her, that eventually ended up in Bella Grace Magazine.

Fast forward to today. Debbie found the poem and used a line of it in her journal. When I messaged it to Michelle, she said that it came at a perfect time because this season marks the third anniversary of  Katrina’s passing. How like the Holy Spirit to tie all of the threads of these disconnected lives together. How like destiny to lace and weave time and space for such a moment as this. How like fate to know just when a whisper across worlds needs to be heard. What a gift that Katrina still speaks.

Sometimes it is so very easy to feel that my words are rootless … sent out into the void of space without direction … but on days like this … I remember that isn’t true. And if my simple words have found a way to matter this much, I shall write on.

Thank you Debbie. Thank you Michelle. Thank you Katrina.

You inspire.

All my love,

Elle Harris