Happy Valentine's Day: Another Year

Pss. 116:1 "I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications."

Another Year...

It was here and then gone

the year that was then wasn't

We started off on a slippery slope

the days of does and doesn't.

I try to make some sense of it all

but memories mesh together

A sunny day here, a rainy one there

all measured by crazy weather.

Then there are days filled with pain

coughs, sniffles, and sneezes 

your hand in mine, memory blind

a warm soft hug appeases.

We've made it through some blizzards

together all seemed so easy 

fierce lightning storms and raging winds

with love, it passed as just breezy.

Here we stand once again

confusion trying to take hold

but we're too strong to let it win

Our souls should stand so bold! 

This Valentine's day remember

as all the ones in the past

The year might soar in a whirlwind

but it's our enduring love that lasts! 

To my honey! 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Memory Lane

Annapolis Maryland

Pss. 23:3 “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”

The Path Down Memory Lane

Last week was one long stroll down memory lane. I understand we’re not to live in the past but to move forward, but something about the season of fall makes me want to stroll down that path, at least once a year to revisit the good and bad that I left behind.

I don’t wallow in the mire; I never cling to the dust, I just reminisce then brush it off like an over neglected attic. Sweep the lint, brush away the good and bad crud, filter what goes out and comes back in. Yeah, that’s the best way to deal with an unsavory past.

When people see me now they think, ‘oh it couldn’t have been all that bad, look how well she turned out.’ This statement might be true from your perspective, on the outside looking in, but from my perspective, life was not good in any way shape or form.  

I started writing my blog in 2005 but didn’t start taking the writing and expression of my thoughts seriously until 2008. In the very beginning the blog was just about my thoughts, most of which I deleted but by 2008 I turned the blog into helping writers and the craft of writing. 

I’ve been writing poetry all of my life and really didn’t get into writing fiction until about 2004 when WVU (Writers Village University) came into my life and changed my path forever. I was so excited with the new turn in my life, I shared it with my family who as always, never for one second encouraged me and didn’t really care about my writing unless I was famous and making tons of money. 

As years passed by my love of writing grew and my blog has been an important avenue of healing because it is here where I bare my soul and that’s why the name changed a few years back, I was healing and moving away from the painful past and moving into a new leg of the journey that God had carved out for me in my path to the future. 

My journey is not about making money, my journey is about healing and this is what you read, a sinner on the path of healing. I write from my heart and if my family read anything I wrote they would, I’m certain, be ashamed of not having more to do with me or they’d be angry and finger pointing but such as it is, they will only look for my writing AFTER my death.

Job 30:13 “They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no help.”

I have written my mother and father poems since I was very young. I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I bought a Hallmark card for them, I’ve always written my own. Maybe not Hallmark quality but it spoke to them and how much I cherished them in my life. My sister was always jealous of my ability to convey meaning to my parents via poems and she has tried writing a poem once but her one try in life came off as forced emotion; whereas my father adored my poems and looked forward to them with every Christmas, birthday and father’s day.

This is what started the stroll down memory lane last week when my mother was reading the poems I wrote to my dad and she told me that she cried with reading each one. She also said that my dad had kept a lot of them in his drawer, I guess so he could read them and feel somewhat close to me as I, his baby, was so far away from home. Then she said something that unknowingly hurt, she said my father read one and looked at her and said, “We’re never going to see her again, are we.” It hurt because he never had a chance to see me again or to hear the last poem I wrote him. (Thanks to my sister, he never got to hear it read. Bitter? YES! Admittedly so!)

While everyone is ranting and raging about politics, I’m taking a stroll, one that has me thinking selfishly about my healing, my growth and myself. Is that selfish? I don’t think so, I’m reminded of a childhood that was, I reminisce of the pain-filled life I left behind, and I look to a brighter future with my Lord by my side and Him whispering to me saying, “he (my father) heard the last poem you wrote, as did I, I am well pleased.”

Yes, He always talks to me like that. Always has and always will! The stroll down memory lane will end for now as I head into my future with my Lord and I walking hand-in-hand. 

Pss. 16:11 “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

The Angel's Called

Ex. 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
 
~ * ~ The Angel’s Called  ~ * ~
The angels came from mounted high,
cradled his soul I don't know why.
Wrapped in fleece-like softened wings;
silenced now he no longer sings.
 
Nestled within a tidal womb
fertile bed becomes a tomb
Shrouded in the serene abode
a vacant place his body stowed.
 
Earthbound duty not his call,
a rain of stars on him did fall.
Whisked away before I could hold;
a lifeless body lay there cold.
 
Summoned to be an angel himself;
journey of breath put on a shelf.
Though I miss his earthly duty;
I savor now his angelic beauty.

To think on this day 32 years ago I gave birth, blows my mind. The grieving process has minimized but it will never go away because Christopher is a part of who I am today. Even though I didn’t get to hear his cries, or see him walk across the floor for the first time, his voice played out in my soul day after day, year after year. His footsteps were heard in other children running and playing; his laughter was deep in my soul comforting me.

On this day as I remember the images all to vividly, I hold my child who was STILLborn in the essence of my being. As some people wish that grief would end, I don’t because grounding is necessary to move me forward in life and to always keep him alive in my heart.

My prayer for him today is that he is doing his heavenly duty for our great and Honorable King of Kings, and may he welcome me into Heaven when the time comes.

I’ve never stopped loving you, Christopher. 

I walk alone...

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

- Douglas Adams

In writing, it is kind of hard to focus when insanity rears its head. Sure the folks can pretend to be writer’s but really they are just fooling themselves. The writers that I admire most are the ones who keep their sanity in check, learn and progress at a normal pace in their writing careers, and the only insanity can be seen from their families by way of, “What! Are you crazy?”

I realize they walk alone. They surround themselves with like minded people and the crazy ones, they surround themselves with the gibbering fluctuating frenzy of madness. I realized these past few weeks as the clique isolated me from themselves, the reason they pushed me away, it wasn’t my ‘craziness or madness’ it was my sanity. I’m sane and in the clique, there is no room for sanity.

They throw pity parties, they float in jellybean madness, they gossip like the wind, they toss around God like he was a joint to pass around; they can always be seen huddling around, supporting one another but in the end, they get nowhere except where they began, in the white room.

This all has certainly been an enlightening experience, and I’m glad for it because it peeled those out of my life who were bringing me down.

“People too weak to follow their own dreams, will always find a way to discourage your own.” Author Unknown 

This is true because as I sat getting pelted by ignorance, I realized those folk are weak and just needed someone stronger than themselves to sling mud at. Sure I got mud in my eye, but I’ve moved on to where I can finally focus more strongly on REAL writing, not the circus atmosphere; I seek the pleasant Shady Brooks atmosphere.

Ok, Shady Brooks is a place in my mind where water ripples downstream, I create the illusion of the rainbow permanently above my head inspiring me to move forward in life, sitting on the edge of the water with my notebook in hand. No laughter, just the rushing water, wind-chimes off in the distance and me sitting there, alone, awaiting sanity to brush my face and as they slowly appear, I realize, they are all new people, that have entered my life and are lifting me to the heights that I need to be.

Thanks for the memories my fellow writing friends. You carried me to the hot air balloons lift-off and now I must soar. I’m going to new places to meet new people, and you all will just be a memory. A bad and a few good...but nonetheless... a memory.

In memory of September 11

September 11

I cradled my morning coffee,

my eyes they struggled to see,

a horrific terrible tragedy,

unfolding in front of me.

Today’s background clutter,

seemed to take a second stance,

scrambling cameras everywhere,

gave rise to a deeper glance.

A plane had hit a building,I

couldn't believe my eyes,

the horror of a gaping wound,

of such an enormous size.

By now I'm jolted wide awake,

something was just not right.

I witnessed the impact yet again,

on the twin without a fight.

Billowing smoke and fragments

scattered all around.

People frozen in a spot,

as objects fall to the ground.

Reports of other targets,

were coming into view.

My tear-filled eyes wondered

what this world was coming to.

In merely a matter of moments,

my blurry eyes did see,

heroes rushing into the scene,

as workers fought to flee.

The crumbling of a building,

number two not far behind.

The crashing of plane three and four

had stupefied my mind.

I couldn't feel my fingers;

a wounded numbness arose,

I sat in total disbelief,

from my head down to my toes.

Longing to be shaken,

from this nightmare that is real.

My body shrouded in emptiness,

as I buckled to a kneel.

I prayed for love-torn strangers,

whose faces were racked in fear.

I longed for welcome solace,

through the shedding of a tear.

The aroma of terror lingers,

as I'm trembling to the core.

I long for the taste of freedom,

which I sense will be no more.

A sleeping nation awakened,

by trumpets sounding in heaven.

Altering our lives forever,

on the day of September eleven.

Copyright© Joni Zipp