Day 17 Small stone and my No-Comfort Zone challenge

3 Kokopellis dance,
each casts three shadows,
a distortion of design
and light. If I could
hear their flutes,
how many notes would play?

Carol A. Stephen

For my challenge this week, I have stepped outside my comfort zone and asked someone for help with something. My smoke alarms have been going off for no reason, except perhaps old age. I wrote a stone about it a couple of days ago. My brother isn’t here to help with it, so I reached out to a friend for help. For most of my life, I couldn’t do that, because of a great fear of rejection, even in such a simple thing.

Yesterday, he helped me choose new alarms, and today he will come back to put them up for me. That makes twice in a week that I have asked someone for help, actually.  The other day I also asked a neighbour to help me this winter with the snow in our shared driveway. I supply the equipment, he supplies the strength. That one was not quite so challenging though, since there was a benefit both ways. Today’s “ask” only benefits me, so that is a successful step outside the zone.  C

Stone 16 noticing small routines

first,
percussive sound,
then cold on fingers
becomes warm,
becomes hot.
water runs
down back
muscles lose
tension, arc
into stream
one
with the water
with the warm of it
with the wash—
morning shower.

Stone 15: false alarms mean rude awakenings

I wanted to write about seeing things, without the metaphor or simile as suggested by today’s guest post but my brain remains jangled by a recalcitrant smoke alarm that is having issues today. No smoke or fire, just the darned noise!

Day 15 False Alarm

in this silence, there should be peace
more precious after frantic hours
fighting angry smoke alarm
chanting its lies two floors below

without fire to fuel its chatter
perhaps it chirps to prove its voice
but my focus is splintered,
still on edge and waiting
for another chorus of worry and fret

Carol A. Stephen

A stone for Saturday, January 14

I was getting away the last couple of days or so from the spirit of small attentions. The first thing that caught my eye this morning as I woke, were the high dark clouds, and beneath them the lightening sky.

January 14

night lifts itself, slow,
from early morning sky
black segues to paler black,
then grey.

by ten, blue breaks
through clouds, ending the white
that has fallen on the roof for days.

Carol A. Stephen