Find slight purpose to every thought.
Each pencil stroke, intention or step is enough.
Only you will determine how much.
Inaction does not negate action.
Each action validates the next.
Perhaps that is its purpose?
Maybe it is only a thought.
It need not be deep.
If only it were just a pencil stroke.
02/02/2026
What is it about darkness, specifically the night, that provides comfort?
It is more than solitude.
Even by yourself, or especially when you are by yourself, there is aloneness.
It is not loneliness. There is nothing to compare it to.
There is nothing there.
At night, there is no one there to talk about it.
You can’t see everybody or anybody.
During the day you see everybody, and they see you.
Can they see your loneliness?
© 2026 j.g. lewis
Plans made even yesterday, or days or
weeks before, now shadows and smudges
on a vacant page.
If we knew what we believe was there
never would it have been erased.
Even now, even later, our
letters cannot be traced.
Intentions. Things forgotten, ignored and
not tended to. Or not bothered with.
Aspirations, at first, then nothing.
Unceremoniously irresolute and
abruptly unfinished. Incomplete.
Our lives often as such.
If we believed what we knew was there
wherever would our hope be placed?
Is our later, in the now, still
filled up with our disgrace?
Why are we not able to offer ourselves
the continued commitment required.
Thoughts often as much.
© 2026 j.g. lewis
Memories: you are never sure when you have them. You are never sure when you make them. Unexpected, often; they just happen.
It doesn’t seem to matter when they occur, you simply remember. It may have been years (or decades) since the event took place, but the predicament, the people, or the places come back to you fresh, from your memory.
Memories come to you from photographs, in conversation, from music, or sounds and scent. Memories are as inspired as they are inspiring.
The older you get, the more memories you have. Sometimes you talk, or write, about them. Other times you just let the glow of past days settle in your sub-conscious.
Memories are more than they used to be.
© 2026 j.g. lewis
I am planning a mid-year trip to the other side of the world. I’m only now researching where I will go, and how I will get there; a destination I have long imagined.
My current passport expires in a matter of days. I spent time yesterday morning at a government office providing particulars of my life, ensuring renewal of the document, well in advance of the trip.
A passport signifies the intent to travel and, at the most primary level, is proof of whom you are and where you are from. It is yet another government-issued document explaining your citizenship and where you belong.
I am Canadian.
I have lived in this country all my life. My renewal application lists a change of address. Home is not now where it once was but is the home I expect to be living in for as long as possible. It is more than an address.
As part of the application, I was required to provide two identical compliant photographs to accurately represent who I am at this time. Expressionless, without my eyeglasses. Without my corrective lenses, I cannot clearly see the image that represents me.
I was also required to provide references, two of them, to validate my existence. I even had to think about how long I had known these particular friends. How long has it been? Certainly, I have known each friend longer than I knew my last passport, or the one before that.
My planned trip, right now, involves travel to at least two foreign countries. Likely, on this trip, there will be more. I’ve never been to that side of this world; there are a lot of countries. How many will I visit this trip, or the one that follows?
A passport is a formal document issued to one of a country’s citizens. It allows exit from and re-entry to your own country, but also to foreign countries in accordance with visa requirements. I can only now think of the possibilities to see other countries, cities, and cultures.
A passport provides not only the opportunity to travel, but also the chance to dream of where you would like to go next.
© 2026 j.g. lewis