Now that it’s winter the grass is stiff and frosted and you are not here to play summer games, how shall I laugh and stay warm? What does winter hold? Are there gifts I can accept?
Frost-Time
Author: joanvinallcox
Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, and rabid reader who has taught in both the college and university systems.
Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia.
She is a widow from a pretty happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter.
Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry.
Daybreak in November
My desk is covered with ‘shoulds’ and some overflow to the floor. Morning finds me regretting my weight gain in the dark. I want to avoid any stretching and I’ve used up all my ‘feels’. Now my watch is demanding I answer all my texts. The thermostat has left and the microwave has coughed. I’m out of toilet paper and the world keeps spinning on.
Día de los Muertos / When I Die …
I shall go naked into my shroud, no robes or rings, just flesh and bones, go shrouded into the earth where flesh will leave bone, and bone will linger.
Beyond Now
Leaves skitter across asphalt. Time expands and simultaneously shrinks. Community fades. Where can I seek refuge? In the darkness there is a light that flickers as the breeze moves the leaves. Beyond the times futures pulled me into, I stand reaching into an unimaginable prospect.
Sky Songs
A rosy morning out a hidden window: a curve of birds wheeling. Irrevocably awake, I see patches of sunlit leaves beyond the branching shadows: Now is a gift.
Hope
In the distance and under the surface a portal awaits, away from the noise and daily demands. When I am ready, it will appear and open.
Autumn Equinox
Alone on a dark porch, on a dark house, streetlight on a silent street. The candle sputters and dies. Emptiness.
The Silent Weeper
The silent weeper lives in estrangement, loneliness. Is there a path from solitude that doesn’t cost, that doesn’t require, change? I go down to the lake - its roll and rumble and the wind teach me about impermanence
The Long Goodbye
After happy-ever-after comes the long goodbye, wrenching and awkward. The first year is numbness, overwhelmed with tasks, and learning new ways The second is weeping and anxiety; tasks continue to overwhelm and yet soothe. A structure to the daze.
Peace
I’ve learned to notice traffic jams in my brain, and to let my mind go offline, to drift in quiet aloneness, until I am restored.
Learning Living 