When I lived in Toronto the first few years, I would drive down to my home in Quebec which was a 6 hour drive. Leaving in the morning driving east, I would follow the sun all the way to Montreal. They were long trips alone, so singing with the radio blaring was the only way to stay alert.
(c) Clr ’14
single girl road trip
driving back to the country
winter wind at my back
chasing golden sun
singing old high school songs
on that long lonely highway
November is often a dark morbid month for me. I find I have to get accustomed to the lack of warmth as well as the loss of colours, bare trees and shorter days announce more darkness. All seem so desolate and depressing. But then winds pick up, cool the air so much, clouds once heavy with rain turn into lovely snowflakes.
Soon the earth will be covered in carpets of white; I don`t feel the sunset at four so discouraging now for the snow gives light. It is pleasant walking on the snow covered ground, hearing the crunch of my boots on the spongy snow. We are less than one month before Christmas and now, finally, I am getting into the spirit of the holidays…Christmas meaning so much more than gifts and decorations but the spirit of a rebirth and giving; the sharing of love and warmth among friends and family.
winter stroll
looks up at the milky way
snowflakes on her lips
***
Christmas Eve
sylphs gather in concert
shaping snow sculptures
scheduled with the North Star
welcoming the messiah
Photo: Hot Air Balloon Shadow by Snupi2001 @ Deviantart.com
Every August there is a festival of hot air balloons in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, called Festival International de Montgolfières. The first hot air balloon was developed by the brothers, Michel Montgolfier and Jacques Eitienne Montgolphier from Annonay, France, in 1782.*
Our family lived near this St- Jean. Hot air balloons depend mostly on calmer winds, 10 miles an hour or less. Therefore just after dawn or late afternoons near dusk generally have less wind speed. We would sometimes see a shadow cast over the field behind our house during dinner just before sunset.
It is always a thrill to see them up in the air when they take off as a fleet with the varied burst of colours in the sky. Last year I stopped on the highway to look at five balloons floating over Mont St-Grégoire. Such a calming effect when they float over you and you can hear only the puffs of air blowing into the fabric of the balloon.
In this prompt of Heeding Haiku with HA at MindLoveMisery’sMenagerie, we are given two words, chestnut (autumn) and balloon (spring). What came to mind was the festival a month before autumn. August is considered early autumn.
Bastet gave us a lovely musical video to help inspire our muse at MindLoveMiserysMenagerie Such a lovely choice too! I love violins and the harp…such beautiful instruments that mimic nature as well as human nature.
Bliss
harp breathing life
sunflowers twirl in concert
bees buzz
Our host has posted music to inspire us. I don’t know about you but fairies, leprechauns and angels keep fluttering in my mind’s eye. Perhaps it is the Irish in me for I do love Celtic music and this piece brings me close to my Irish roots on Ballybunion. I am not much of a fairy tale writer as you may have noticed in my other blog I wrote for the Lavender Lady at MLMM prompt. My children told me while they were growing up all the bedtime stories, I invented when tucking them in, were not subtle enough…all had a morale to the tale and they quickly figured it out. . Well, what do you want with a mom who is a counsellor and family life educator? But I do remember one tale of the rabbit with those long droopy ears and that extra tall giraffe who were…
Things rarely turn out as I imagine. This is sometimes best for what joy, discoveries and excitement would I find if my life was all mapped out. I’d be like a peg on a wall map. My need to control would actually make me a slave of my making. Do I get disappointed with the outcomes of life’s events? Of course I do many times. The heartaches, the disappointments and the self-degradation are part of life and in some ways who I am. I am a product of my past and life experiences. How I make of it, is still my choice. We always have choices…not always in abundance. I may have to choose for a pearly grey from a drab grey but still, I have a choice. And with the darkness of despair how else would I be blinded by the beauty of the glowing stars as well as golden sun? If I have doubts about love and being loved, I meet exuberance when I am embraced by those who do love me. It may come from someone I have not been waiting and then that makes it a double bonus cherished and forever imprinted on my heart.
I am a daydreamer by day and by night. Many times I cannot tell where a dream started or where a fantasy ended. And is that important? When life takes too long to show its glowing stars, I escape into stories I devour for days and days. And more recently, I dip into my consciousness and write what transpires from many escapades in delusions and fantasies, me, myself my muse and I.
Tournesol dans un Jardin 
