The Tulips at St. James Park have run their course, the bulbs dug up and stored away until planting this fall.
    Right now it is just dirt, but I can feel potential.
    In the coming days, gardeners will fill the plant beds with a fresh crop of flowers to see us through the summer. I am anticipating beautiful things.
    Over the past couple of years, St. James Park has become a regular part of my landscape. It began during the COVID lockdown when I found myself passing through the park on my daily walks around downtown Toronto. It was more than a habit.
    The park became an oasis in my day; comfort within the concrete of the city. The shade of the magnificent trees always gave me a reason to stop.
    Sometimes I would sketch the flowers and trees, write a poem when the muse called out, or simply spend time with my journal or my camera.
    Some days I would just sit, as I did yesterday and the day before. Some days you only have to listen or look around.
    Yesterday, I noticed the water has been turned on in the bird bath after a two-year absence. It’s not quite a fountain but I know I’ll find myself, at some point, wasting time with my camera and capturing birds as they refresh themselves in the heat of the day.
    I look forward to it; time well-wasted is good for the soul. It’s always nice to have a place where there is the potential to do just that.

06/02/2023                                                                                                                   j.g.l.

We live in a world of what ifs.
What if we did something else,
or what if we weren’t there (as
sometimes we shouldn’t be
when it comes down to the
wrong place at the right time).
What if it never happened?
What if we had responded
differently or if we had taken
the advice we were told?
Would we have been so bold?

05/30/2023                                                                                        j.g.l.

Remembrance.

As it is, not
as we wish it to be.

You have days
to think back on,

and you do…

05/25/2023                                                                                           j.g.l.

sit

just for a moment 

wherever you are

listen

look around

be present

take the time

a moment or two

don’t think

(or overthink)

simply be

you should do this more often

06/02/2021                                                                                  j.g.l.

It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for the light of the Sun to reach the Earth 93 million miles away.
   I know it takes about six days for a letter from Canada to arrive in the United Kingdom, but a few days more for correspondence to travel from Winnipeg to Toronto in the same country.
   Four minutes are required for a soft-boiled egg, but 14 minutes are needed for the water to reach a running boil.
   It takes roughly 14 minutes for me to walk to work or 17 minutes by streetcar (with, at least, a six-minute wait). I don’t drive because finding a parking spot downtown can, at times, take forever.
   It can take minutes or months for the answer to any question (depending on the circumstance), but even longer to muster the courage to ask.
   Politicians can make a promise in mere seconds, yet years to take action or hide from the obligation.
   Poems can generally be read in under a minute, but may take the entire day to be fully absorbed.
   A good novel may take a writer a decade to write, but it will be consumed over a weekend.
   Actual time is precise, but situations are variable. The importance of it all is subjective.
   Time equals duration or distance. Is it as relevant now as it was then?
   Time is time.
   How long does it take for my light to find its way to you?

05/29/2023                                                                                                     j.g.l.

News this week of the passing of Tina Turner was an unexpected shock to many of us, particularly those who had performed with her through the decades.
Social media was flooded with quotes, heartfelt remembrances and tributes from those she inspired.
    Many of us were.
    The words that particularly grabbed me were those of The Who’s Pete Townshend, who openly expressed grief and regret. Tina was the voice of the Acid Queen when his classic rock opera Tommy was transformed onto the silver screen in 1975.
    I, as a big fan of The Who, was infatuated by the original Tommy album and, admittedly, any of the music issued by the English rockers. Of course, I couldn’t wait to see the movie.
   The Ken Russell project was, in many ways, precursor to the music videos that flooded our screens at the end of that decade and well into the ‘80s. The movie was true to the storyline and, with a whose-who cast from the music industry, adequately told the tale of the deaf, dumb and blind boy.
    But one performance in the film affected me like no other and it was Tina’s seductive portrayal of the character. Sure, I had seen pictures of her in early issues of Rolling Stone magazine but the Ike and Tina Turner Review, like many of the stalwarts of early rock and roll, predated my intense interest in popular music.
    Tina came alive for me on the screen with her pure sex appeal: those lips, those legs, her entire presence was more than arousing for a young teenaged boy.
    And that voice; there was nothing like it. Ever.
    I didn’t hear anything new from Tina for years, but gained respect for the classic songs that would find there way onto the radio. Apparently there were a series of solo albums, but nothing charted.
    In 1982, while working at my first stint at a daily newspaper, I received a review copy of the soundtrack to the film Summer Lovers. This was at the beginning of the era where there was almost as much attention focused on the soundtrack as there was on the film itself.
    The Summer Lovers LP was, essentially, hit and miss (much like the movie) but among the artists of the day were two tracks by Tina, including a stunning cover of Robert Palmer’s Johnny and Mary.
    Aside those two tracks, I heard nothing else from Tina in those years, until I was driving to work in 1984 and What’s Love Got To Do With It? came on the radio. Her voice was unmistakable and I, like millions of others, rushed out to buy the vinyl.
    The rest of the story, as they say, is history.
    Tina became a major, empowering force in the industry and took her talents to stratospheric heights.
    Thankfully, her music will long live on.
    We all have Tina Turner moments now. As I read the tributes, the words of Townsend struck a chord. “I truly thought she would live forever,” he wrote on Facebook.
    His words about “meaning to track her down” hit me hard and should serve as a reminder.
    We all have people in our lives that were meaningful at one time or another, but we have lost track over the years. We think of them, sometimes at the strangest moments, and wonder where they are, what they are now doing, or if they even remember our presence.
    Perhaps now is a good time to find them and find out? Wouldn’t we be better off if we took the time, now, to make contact or at least try before we no longer have that chance?

R.I.P. Tina Turner