Sixteen times per minute,
twenty-two thousand breaths
in a day. No time
like the present.
There are no other excuses, but
there are always other ways.
Breathe. Choose today
to speak up when you can,
push out the latent sorrow,
guilt, and anguish
only you can understand.
Inhale. There is no life, no
oxygen, like this day. Despite
our selected perceptions,
there is not a
single breath to waste.

©2018 j.g. lewis

Every year, as we near the end of the calendar or come close to our winter’s solstice, I make a list. I write two lists actually, on one slip of paper with a bold line drawn right down the middle: the dividing line.
  On the left side I begin to list all the negative crap I have dealt with over the past year, the frustrations and things that got me down, or couldn’t be resolved. To the right (because it’s all right), I freely list all the good things that have taken place, the positive news, and stuff I simply feel good about.
  It’s my way off summing up the year. Hopefully the good side is longer than the bad. Usually, it is.
  I then take the paper and tear it down the middle, right along the line, separating the positive from the negative.
  The left side I’ll tear it into tiny pieces and toss it in the recycling bin, or flush it down the toilet. Gone. Good riddance to bad rubbish. The right side I neatly fold, slip it into an envelope, and mail myself a letter.
  Cathartic, yes, it’s my way of leaving things behind and stepping forward with a new positive attitude. The year-end review is invaluable, providing me a better idea of what I have done. It also rids the mind of what is no longer important.
  I don’t open the envelope when it arrives in my mailbox, but only slip it into my most recent journal. I keep it there for future reference; perhaps there is a day I’m feeling down and need pep talk, and I’ll open it then. Or, maybe the next year will be kinder to me and I won’t need reminding.
  Presumably, it may forever sit, unopened, in my journal, and that’s not a bad thing (I left all those behind). Writing the lists keeps me looking ahead, and that’s much easier once you’ve got the negative stuff out of the way.
  Others have told me they appreciate this exercise, and have adopted my practice. It might just be a symbolic gesture, but deep thought and action often provides us with those little moments of resolution.
  This year, I’m taking a more concise approach and listing one positive thing I’ve felt over the past year, and one negative aspects of my life (or the year of my life). It’s been another rough year; I don’t want to dwell on it. This is the good thing I want to remember today, next year, and in the decade to come. This is the list I’m going to mail to myself. I may never open it, but I know what is there. You want to remember things like that.
  I’m then going to take the other side of the paper, the negative element that has been bothering me, and I’m going to set a match to it. I’ll let it burn to ash, disappear right before my eyes, as if it is a ceremony or exorcism.
  It’s not that I won’t think about it again — this kind of stuff always haunts you — but I will know, in my mind, I have dealt with it, that I’ve made the effort to remove some of the negativity from my life
    It might only be symbolic, but don’t we all need more symbols, or gestures and actions to mark even the smallest steps we take forward?

Each street has a function, a name, and familiarity
to someone. Not merely a destination, but a place on which lives
are lived. More than lines on a map indicating territory, a street
defines a place. Vehicles drive and humans wander, tripping through
what others leave behind. Cigarette butts, empty bottles, and dog shit
reminders that we are not alone on this path. The human race,
not without a whisper or trace of humanity.

Traffic patterns become the regularity marking our time,
coming and going on the same street, the same route, the pedestrian
nature of what we do, and how we live. We travel with frequency
along indistinguishable streets to get done what we need to, and enjoy it
as we can. Little happens at night, silence stretching to fill the space as
taxicabs and cowards leave little light behind. You can’t imagine streets
not being there, yet man and beast travelled before they existed.

Fate or destiny, missed turns along the way. Calm or cold,
you decide if it is late, or early, when you arrive. Even rush hour moves
forward. Lanes merge and we struggle with speed and direction.
Congestion on major arteries, blood pressure measured with the click of
the turn signal. We come to dislike traffic and our place in it. There is
no point between A and B, frustrations articulated by the contrast. We each
have an address and every street takes somebody home.

© 2016 j.g. lewis

COVID-19.
   We know what we know, can’t make much sense of what we don’t understand, and find it difficult to keep up with all the shifting information that flows our way.
   Some of it is true; a lot of it is nonsense.
   We only know what we want to know, and we tire of the ebb and flow of statistics.
   The numbers are going up. Again.
   Pandemic fatigue.
   Second wave, third wave, fourth wave, fifth; where are we now?
   Confused?
   Twenty-one months in, do we really know?
   Did we think it would take this long?
   And, now there is a new variant with both its danger and its doubt.
   How are we to know?
   What is safe?
   What is normal? What is right?
   First shot, second shot, three shots; will we need more? In Canada, the first vaccine was injected one year ago. Since then, millions and millions of people have been vaccinated.
   We have become accustomed to our habitual mask.
   We still wash our hands diligently and sanitize when we can. We know we must.
   We move cautiously, but freely, but only to an extent. We don’t know when it will get better and realize it might get worse.
   This is where we are today.
   What about tomorrow?

Your whisper fair warns us, yet still
we are surprised. The calendar’s last page,
and we are left feeling more. Always.
Winter: a beginning comes near the end,
while the end craves new beginnings.
The longest season, physically, or
spiritually. Consistency, year over year,
over year, from one into the next.
Cold, as it is darker. Light is appreciated,
and necessary. We grow up knowing,
the facts of this season. Always,
our lives marked by winter.
Time, and years, have become forgotten,
but we are reminded. The soil
and silence, frozen. Our insular existence,
non-secular pain, wind-chafed emotions,
a reminder again. We desire
a warm touch; December, January or
otherwise. Hope, as with autumn’s last leaf,
dangling in a greater stillness.
A confessional. Always. Dormancy
until early spring, what we allow or when
we embrace. Silence. Darkness.
We need not be surprised.
Impulse knows. We have been here before.

©2017 j.g. lewis