My friend Chris sent me a poem by Kaylin Haught, and I love it so much, I want to keep it forever, so here it is. I will put it over on the sidebar (Is that a valid use of the term?) as well, but I want to share it here so you won't miss it:

God Says Yes to Me

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic

and she said yes

I asked her if was okay to be short

and she said it sure was

I asked her if I could wear nail polish

or not wear nail polish

and she said honey

she calls me that sometimes

she said you can do just exactly 

what you want to

Thanks God I said

and is it even okay if I don't paragraph

my letters

sweetcakes God said

who knows where she picked that up 

what I'm telling you is

Yes Yes Yes


I think I need to hear more from Kaylin Haught. She's new to me, or I'm new to her, and I'm smitten.

"The Messiah" in Duncan went well. It wasn't a sing-along after all (I had my signals crossed). It was a proper concert, a full house, and exciting to sing. This coming weekend's concert, though, is a sing-along for sure. I can't believe that I used to dislike "The Messiah". Our soprano soloist was wonderful, and her "I know that my redeemer liveth" brought me to (very quiet, discreet) tears.

The tenor and bass were also a pleasure to hear, but my mind kept going to something Chuck, with whom I sing at St. Paul's, had joked at our last rehearsal. I think -- but I'm not sure -- that he was quoting Norman Luboff. What he said was "The tenors make the ladies swoon, but the basses take them home."  Whenever the male soloists started to sing, I would have to suppress a grin.

That calls for a musical offering, doesn't it?
How about some Kiri?

I know that my redeemer liveth


  "Messiah" image from Google Images

Music! Music!

Let's see. This is my week: Tuesday night, I rehearsed The Messiah with the Malaspina Choir. Last night (Wednesday), I made a 45-minute trip to Duncan to rehearse The Messiah with the Cowichan Choir (and Malaspina Choir. We're teaming up.) This afternoon, I met with Thursday Writers. We did not sing. Tonight, there's church choir.Tomorrow, off to Duncan again for another rehearsal. Saturday, a rehearsal with Vox (for our dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol - with carols) , then to Duncan for the Messiah performance. Next week there will be more rehearsals, but here in town, rather than in Duncan, thank goodness. The Cowichan group will come up here to perform The Messiah with us for a Nanaimo audience. Two sing-along Messiahs in a week -- bliss.

Altogether, I'm just about ready to collapse -- but I'm loving every minute of it. I don't know how I managed to retain any semblance of sanity in those years when I didn't sing. When I was in my early fifties, singing with a choir and with my own little quartet to boot, I suddenly started sounding like a frog. My allergies had decided to control my life. I stopped singing altogether, and just took the practice up again a couple of years ago -- not long before I was diagnosed with cancer, actually. There was a time -- two times -- when I was afraid I'd never be able to sing again, but all is well now. I have no breath control, but then I never did have any breath control.

Life is just full of surprises and second chances and joyful moments, isn't it? Happy Advent, everyone.

Photos:  Advent wreath - Google images
              Posters - Malaspina Choir and Vox

What an adventure!

Do you know that if you blog for ten years or so, then walk off and ignore not just your blog(s) but everyone else's for a couple of years, you come back to find some really interesting stuff?

For one thing, I found My Writing Spot -- or My Writing Nook, depending on where you look -- and rediscovered things I had written, or started to write, a long time ago. I clicked on various titles in my list and discovered, among other things, some haiku -- so I quickly (before I had time to think too hard about it) submitted three of them to Haiku Universe. Maybe one of these days I'll open my email and find one of my own haikus staring back at me.

And that, boys and girls, is how you jump in
with both feet.

Watch this space.










Photo: Google Images

Psst...

I don't look like this anymore. That look is so last year. I have hair again. Not only that - I have a life again. I sing with three choirs, I'm active in my church, I'm meeting with my writing group every week. I'm trying to get my lazy body moving -- at least for a near-daily walk.

I've also developed an interest in my family history. My younger sister and I spent hours last month poring over Ancestry.com records. We found that our favourite uncle, who disappeared from our lives decades ago, has been dead for over twenty years.  That was hard -- but we also found parts of our history that were a complete surprise to us. I'm sure that anyone who was orphaned young goes through something similar when exploring his or her ancestry. Now we're going to check out our DNA -- more surprises to come, I hope. I love surprises.

So I'm coming back to life, little by little. No. Not little by little. In great leaps and bounds, followed by extended periods of exhaustion, followed by great leaps and bounds. Welcome to survivorship.

Has blogging gone out of style while I languished in Cancerland? I must have a look at the blogs I used to follow faithfully, to see whether the blogging life has gone on without me. I suspect (and hope) that it has, and that I've got a lot of catching up to do.

Last week, I went hunting through old posts on Amazing Voyages of the Turtle in search of a particular poem, one I wrote in 2009. I did find it, eventually, but I also discovered poems there that I'd completely forgotten. In a couple of cases, I had to scroll up and down to make sure that I had actually written them. They didn't even look familiar. I hardly ever write poems anymore. No, that's not right. I never write poems anymore.

It's not that my new life is devoid of creative outlets. It's just that I've let some things -- like poetry -- fall by the wayside, and it's been so long, I've come to doubt my ability to produce a poem, to write a blog... So this, the new blog, is by way of a renaissance -- at least, I hope it is. I hope that I can, in fact, go home again.