More of a feeling, we see ourselves from
the inside. What does the mirror reflect?

Do we see ourselves as we see others?

Only will we know our experience, yet we
all experience the same seven deadly sins.

Some more than others.

How do we deal with knowing as little
as we do about how someone else feels?

Do we truly know how we should feel?

Of course there is pride, as sure as there
is greed; or envy and the wrath of all that.

There is no delicate balance in this life.

We lust for others. We live for ourselves.
Do you see others as you see yourself?

What do you feel today?

As we “close the book” on another year, it’s all-too-easy to drag out those cliché literary references. We are “turning a page” from one of the most tumultuous years this world has experienced.
   Today begins “a new chapter”. It is a new year.
   It’s now 2021, and I am writing in a fresh new journal for the first time.
   Often I’ve said there is nothing as inspiring as a blank page, and this year I am, literally, taking that to heart.
   I have selected a hardcover blank journal to begin the year. There are no lines, grids, graphs or dots on any of the 192 pages. It is plain — naked even — and waiting for my thoughts, concerns, observations, memories, recipes or reminders.
   There are no lines to guide my ramblings or control my direction. Right now it is smooth, unmarked, virgin white paper. I know it won’t stay that way for long. You see, my penmanship is not the finest. I sort of print/write/scribble, and if I get caught up in my thoughts it borders on illegible. It works for me, most of the time.
   I admit it will be a little more difficult without lines on the page to guide me.
Lines, generally, keep order. When you are not neat you tend to rely on some guidance, even if you don’t think you need it.
   Many times I’ve been accused of — even admonished for — colouring outside the lines.
   Yet, for the immediate future, I will care less (without being careless) about blurring the lines and simply record my thoughts and moments without consideration for how it looks. I will “tell my story” on those pages as a sign have been here and have lived through and survived these trying times (and I’m still trying).
   I won’t be held back by boundaries.
   I will leave my mark
   The blank page is there and will be accepting of whatever I have to offer on a daily, hourly or weekly basis. Whenever I am ready I will use my trusty pencils, at my discretion, to write small, or very large, even BOLD FACE to drive a point home… I may use purple or green (we all have a rainbow of options available to us), I may even use a pen, or create a collage or sketch a scene, if that is what I choose to do on any particular day.
   My journal marks my time on this planet. For the next while it will be free of borders, limited only by the size of the page, but not the magnitude of my imagination.
   A blank journal is appropriate for this year, at this “time of my life”.
   We have all experienced too many restrictions in the recent past: where we can go, what we can do, how far we should be distanced, even where we should line up.
   I believe the blank pages have no boundaries.
   I like the thought of that.
   Of course, with nothing to guide me, my printing or writing (at times just scrawl) is bound to get a bit messy, but so too is life.
   I will try harder to be more legible, even more clear with my thoughts, but most of all I will continue to try for more honesty, greater empathy and more understanding of myself, and of others.
   My journal is much like my life; a continual work in progress; an open book.
   Like me, it is reliable and always there, no matter how I show up.

“Nature creates curved lines while humans create straight lines.”
-Hideki Yukawa

This is the first year in many I have not offered some sort of free soultalk journaling program to kick off the year. Always enjoyable, the discussion and daily prompts are usually an effective way to initiate, expand, or keep up with your journaling practice. Somehow it just didn’t feel right this year.
I think we’ve all been forced into a period of self-examination, and there are far too many negative thoughts in our universe.
I know I will keep up with my personal writing, but I’m not sure I’m ready to try and inspire anybody else right now. It’s not the time. . . it’s not the year; not yet. Maybe soon.
-j-

It caught my attention, randomly,
early one morning. Recently.

Peacefully.

I wander the city each morning. I look for
alterations to my landscape. Bare witness.

No point in walking if you don’t see. Changes;
graffiti to some, a symbol to others. Proof.

Peace.

It meant something to someone that they would
take the time to scratch out a symbol on a wall.

It meant something, on a bigger scale,
decades ago. Pacifism. Or protest.

Purpose.

Peace is more than a state of mind,
or symbol from another generation.

Realistically speaking, peace should be simple,
not a complicated shadow of pitfalls and politics.

Prayer.

Peace should stop you and grab hold of the senses.
A thought. An idea. An ideology. Silent action.

Possibility.

Decades later it is still only a thought. A dream.
It wakes me. It means something to me. Now.

Promise.

I’d like to think it means something to you.
Dare we find substance in a shared dream?

© 2020 j.g. lewis

                              “They won’t give peace a chance
                              That was just a dream some of us had”
                                                                          -Joni Mitchell
                                                                              California

Walking home yesterday with my morning coffee, I watched the man ahead of me in the intersection bend over and pick up an empty plastic soda bottle from the street.
   He then not only stepped over to pick up a flattened paper coffee cup next to the curb, he continued stepping along the sidewalk picking up a wad of paper, then another single-serve beverage container which had been carelessly discarded of by an uncaring person as if it was somebody else’s problem.
   And here was this young man, perhaps a student or a guy off to work, a regular ordinary man taking his time to pick up someone else’s litter.
   I continued watching the guy as I passed through the intersection, and then crossed the street in the other direction. He picked up several more pieces of refuse before depositing it all into a street-corner recycling bin like the one on many streets in this city’s downtown.
   These recycling bins are not new to Toronto, and would have been there at the same time whomever possessed the bottle originally chose to toss it to the curb.
   This man, this regular guy, took the time — he took his time — to pick up after somebody else.
   He continued down the sidewalk on the way to wherever, as I continued to watch, and walk on.
   Shame. On. Me.
   I think, or thought at the moment, I was seeing the same concern for the environment than I had at one time. I began thinking it was more of a concern for the environment that I used to hold close.
   Look at me now; I just walk on by.
   I saw a couple of other coffee cups, and a water bottle or two, as I made my way home with coffee in hand, but I didn’t bother picking them up.
   I was too lost in thought.
   Now, I like to think of myself as a committed environmentalist. I continually recycle all that I can with my blue box (and remind myself how much material can be recycled each time I walk the contents down to the condo building’s recycling room). I walk, or take public transit, more than I ever have before, at times going weeks between trips in my car.
   And before COVID-19 hit us almost 10 months ago, I would often take my refillable travel mug with me to Starbucks. The company temporarily discontinued use of refillable cups in the early days of the pandemic, but I use one when I can. I even use reusable mesh cloth bags for my fruit and vegetables (instead of plastic) when shopping at the market (when I remember to pack them) along with my well-used cloth grocery bags.
   What I do, regularly and with consistency, are habitual things I do to do my part.
   This guy was doing more.
   I used to be that guy. I used to do more.
   When my daughter was young we used to stop and pick up bottles or cans on the street and drop them into our blue box at home. Heck, one spring when we lived in rural Manitoba, we cleared out a ditch on the road into town over a stretch of time. We filled the trunk of our car many times over with recyclable materials. We drove it to the recycling depot with a sense of pride.
   The environment, then, didn’t feel like it was everybody’s problem, we made it our problem. We became part of the solution. We saw the bigger picture. That was decades ago.
   Recycling, reducing, and reusing are lifetime habits. I thought I was involved in doing something that made a difference to our planet. I also used to compost when I had a yard, with grass, and a huge compost heap.
   I now live in a condo. I don’t have a compost bin, even though “non-smelling” containers are available.
   How committed am I?
   Yesterday afternoon, on a walk to stretch my legs, I took my packsack with me. I picked up more than a dozen stray empties (bottle or cans) from the curbside on one side of the street. I was selective, yes, not bothering with the stacks of paper, or trash; I hadn’t the capacity, and I’m fearful of the number of syringes and needles deposited on the street even more carelessly than single-serve beverage bottles.
   But I did stop and pick up some material for the recycling bin.
   I did something I used to do.
   I was inspired, yesterday, by a man who saw waste on the street and disposed of it like it was not an inconvenience.
   He did his part.
   It’s amazing the impact that one person can have. By watching his actions, I was reminded of things I used to do and how much more I could be doing to save this planet.
   I was inspired.
   I can do more. We all can.

It has become a habit of mine, or a personal ritual, to make an annual list about this time of the year.
   Each of the past three or four years, I’ve taken an ordinary sheet of paper and marked a line down the middle. It serves as a review.
   On the left-hand side I write down the negative aspects of the year, things that held me back, or things that continue to bother me.
   On the right-side of the page (because it feels right) I begin listing all the positive aspects of my life; accomplishments, events, memories and people.  There is no order, but each item I write down has a reason for being there.
   There is a great deal of thought involved.
   Once the list is completed and I’ve covered all the major points, I tear it along the line.
   I then take the ‘negative’ side of the paper and tear it into a million tiny pieces and toss it in the recycling bin, or hold it to a candle and let it burn.
   This, to me, signifies an end to those thoughts. It clears my mind of all that negativity and leaves space for the more pleasant thoughts I like to have.
It’s freeing, emotionally; it allows me to leave negative thoughts behind, for a while.
   I then take the ‘positive’ side of the list, tuck it into an envelope and mail it to myself in the final days of the year.
   It’s like sending good thoughts forward.
   When the envelope arrives in the next year, I tuck it into my journal. I’ve got a few letters to myself in a few different journals. So far, all of them are unopened.
   I keep them in the journal thinking I may some day need a reminder of the good things I’ve got going on in my life.
   We all need reminders.
   We all need lists.
   This year my list will be different. It has been that kind of year.
   Again I’ll take a piece of paper and draw a line down the centre, but this year I am thinking positive.
   On the left-hand side of the sheet, I am going to write down all the ‘positive’ things I have managed to do this year. Sometimes, in all this negativity, it has been easy to forget some of the good things.
   On the right-hand side of the page, I’m going to list the things I never had the chance to do this year, or things I wanted to do but was unable because of COVID-19.
   We’ve all been denied opportunities this year because of this coronavirus. We haven’t been able to meet up with friends and family as readily, if at all. We haven’t been able to hug, or kiss, or even shake hands. Our travel has been restricted. Heck, for most of the year I haven’t been able to get to the library.
   It has been more than an inconvenience. Each of the things I couldn’t do will be listed. When I complete my list, I will again tear it in two, but I will not destroy the left-hand side as I usually do.
   I will instead tuck the one side of the list into my 2020 journal as a reminder that good things could still be accomplished, or completed, even undertaken in the midst the turmoil that has been 2020.
   It will take more than a pandemic to stop good things from happening.
   I will then take the right-hand side of the list, fold it up and tuck it in an envelope, select a nice stamp and mail it to myself.
   And, this envelope will be opened.
   When all of this is over, when we get past the danger of this virus, when all of this is behind us, I will then open the letter to myself, be reminded of those things I have missed out on in 2020 and then set out on the task of completing everything I have listed.
   I will do these things for myself, to show myself or prove to myself that I will not let this virus take away any more than it has.