Scottish Highlands

Scottish Highlands

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Making It Up As I Go Along #614

Inner Ringing
The inner ringing.
Always there
An electrical hum
In whispered tone
Background noise
Through inner thoughts
And the outside clatter
Unnoticed soundtrack 
Of my life

Intensified with exhaustion
Dream caused wake
Brings out the ring
To the forefront 
3:00 AM darkness
Conjured more disturbing
As the ringing drifts
Enveloping darkest corners
Of an already dark night

Until morning wake comes
Returning the ominous
To whispered background
Once more unnoticed
As I stretch away the night
And yawn in a new day 
The familiar soundtrack
The hum of my silence
Far from late night fears 

MONDAY…
--- Ball is rained out tonight.  I’m alright with that.  I’ve reached a point in my softball days where if it isn’t nice and warm outside, I’d rather not play.  Gone are the days of fastpitch finals occurring in October back home… and playing on fields that frosted over as the innings went.

TUESDAY…
--- Was going to go to the Mad Max movie after work… but postponed for a week.  So I do a good walk after I get home.  A nice part of working the eight hour days instead of the twelves.  Time to do other stuff after I get home.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Ball is a go this evening.  Meet Christine for wings prior to the action.  Ate too much for the amount of running around I did.  Hit lead off and scored the first four times I got up… so lots of running left wings feeling cranky in my belly.

THURSDAY…
--- Pretty quiet after work.  Tired and not feeling too energetic.  

FRIDAY…
--- After doing the morning testing at work, I take the afternoon off sick.  Headache and a bit of a lead feeling stomach made rest at home sound better than concentrating on messy fingerprints at work.  By supper time I starting to feel more myself.

SATURDAY…
--- Close to an hour walk in the late morning.  Lots of rain keeps me in the house for the afternoon.  Laundry and TV make up the bulk of the afternoon.  Falling asleep on the sofa in the early evening.  One thing about the no shift, my night owl times are taking a hit.  Most nights I want to go to bed before midnight.  And I haven’t slept past 8:00 since coming off the CPSIC shift.  
--- I did wake up just before 3:00 AM Sunday morning and felt unsettled.  Kind of disturbing dreams blend into foggy reality.  I force myself into a better reality by turning on the light and checking out things on my iPad.  

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Making It Up As I Go Along #613

Haven’t posted in a few weeks.  Lots been going on over that time frame.  The parents came for a visit.  Life was less than normal for a few days with a medical procedure.  Left CPSIC at work.  Been training for the Latent Fingerprint department.  Playing ball again.  Walks. Groceries.  Fossil hunts.  All sorts of things.

I couldn’t take time off with mom and dad when they visited.  Going to Latent training made that an impossibility.  I was off for about half of their trip but the majority of that time off had me preparing for, going through, and recovering from a fairly routine medical procedure.  It was great having mom and dad around for that.  To have them available to help out getting me food and drink… and to have dad driving while I was still a bit loopy on meds.  

It was also good having them around when I’d get home from work.  They cleaned the house from top to bottom.  I’d have been happier hearing them say they took a bus downtown to explore or shop.  But I appreciate the work they did do.  Home made meals also were a nice treat.  I rarely cook a regular meal.  Food preparation for one often just doesn’t seem worth it to me.  So to come home with a meal in the works for three of us was a nice thing.  And the frozen meals left behind from their visit come as a reminder of family by way of supper.

When mom and dad are here and I’m not taking time off work, it makes the visit feel more part of my routine.  So dropping them at the airport and returning to an empty house felt weird and a bit lonely.  

With that, there is no weekly portion to this one.  Just too much stuff over too long a period of time.  

Journeys

They came to be millions of years ago
At the bottom of an extinct sea
Some miles from here
Filtering extinct waters for extinct meals

Others sat anchored to rock
Swaying leafy branches
In long ago currents
Part of a long forgotten environment

And another fluttering through the ancient kelps
Searching out food
Hiding from predators
Trying to attract mates

A deposit of silt buried them all
Poured off continents of ice
Settling down into the deep
Like a gently falling snow

Millennia of silt past
Ice retreated
Seas drained
And sea floors become land

And in layers of sedimentary rock
They remain hidden
Ancient clams, plants and trilobites
Turned to stone within a grave a stone

I came to be decades ago
Thousands of miles away
Atop a rocky land
Sea winds whipping my blonde locks haphazardly about.

Growing up brought me here
Miles from this place
Working and living 
Unaware of their existence

Machines unearthed their graves
Broke up their rocky resting places
Transported them here
And dumped them as haphazardly as the wind with my hair.

And here they sit
Exposed for the first time to air
Thousands of miles from any sea
So long encased in rock that it is what they’ve become

And at this time I moved here
Blonde locks long gone
For several years walking over them
Unaware of their presence.

Until one day I photographed a bug
Had it landed on a different stone I’d have missed them
Without a zoom lens I’d never have tried the shot
Once downloaded to my computer it all changes

I return to the place with new eyes
Bend low to search them out
Recognizing muddy ripples in rock
Deposited by long ago currents
On long ago sands

And carefully I pick some out
Gently carry them home
Afraid my ten minute walk will destroy
What millions of years of geology created.