Pamela Leavey

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Category: Creative Writing

Food For Thought: The Road of Life

hitting the road

I often muse on the road or path that our lives follow for the road and the path such perfect metaphors for the trajectory of our life. Where we go in our life, what we do, the detours we take, these are all aspects of traveling through our lives to get somewhere, or to just be, to just be in the moment and savor the journey.

Today, I remind myself that as I travel the road of life, I am grateful for the varied terrain, the gentle slopes, the tough hills, the steep canyons, the winding roads and the clear path ahead that have all been a part of my life. The journey was never meant to be easy. (more…)

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Musings: Stone Walls

There are troubles, that brew in my heart and mind, which are weightier than the stones stacked precariously upon each other forming centuries old walls across the landscape. I question the existence of my troubles as I question where did these stone walls come from?

stone wall

Who moved these stones from place to place to build these walls that block my path? Who took these stones from the earth and stacked them just so, creating boundaries where once there were none.

I am a woman with few boundaries, except when it comes to my heart, which I shield with stone walls, keeping love a bay. This is my truth, though I rarely speak it.  (more…)

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Old Dories on the River Bank

old dories on river bank

The two old dories sat patiently on the river bank, watching guard over the dory floating quietly in the river, tied to the dock below.

“One day you’ll join us here,” the two old dories said.

The dory in the river replied, “I know, but for now I’ll just be here in the moment. Peaceful and still on the river.”

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Food For Thought: Watching the River Flow

I sit at my desk mesmerized… The river has shifted its flow and is moving upstream with the force of the incoming tide from the ocean. Along the sides of the river, the water is rippling in an undulating motion as if trying to go against the movement of the upstream flow.

I am captivated by the flow of the river and its motion, seeming so unnatural a motion, to flow upstream instead of down. Yet, every day the river takes a trek both up and down stream, for I live on the lower end of the mighty Merrimack River, where the tides of the river shift with the ocean’s tides. The frigid temperatures of this day have created massive sheets and formations of ice, which stretch across to the center of the river. They are captivating to watch as they move past my vantage point at my desk window.

Merrimack River, Amesbury, Mass

I think of the river, in all of its guises, as part of me, in all of my guises. I am as changeable and impermanent as the river. I feel the cold hard edges of the ice jarring me from the inside, begging me to reach deeper into the depths of my own source that I might understand the very flow of life.

I see the forms of other life and substances caught in the ice, frozen for a time, creating more texture, forming more questions in my mind. Where did this branch come from? Where is it going? Who am I in the grand scheme of it all. (more…)

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Musings: All That Glitters

All that glitters, sparkles before my eyes as I sit each day at my desk watching the Merrimack River in its constant state of passage. I am like a passenger, perpetually voyaging along the river, though the motion runs afore my eyes, it too runs through me.

There are rivulets that run within the mighty river that races downstream giving visage to a fluid landscape that flows to the ocean and then turns abruptly with the tides and flows back upstream again. How can that be, you might ask. How can a river run upstream? A river at the mouth of the ocean or sea is affected by the tides. As the tide turns on coastline, so too turns the water in the river until it reaches a certain point where the tide can no long flow against the force of the river’s natural downstream direction. There is always, always flow. Like life. (more…)

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Musings: Dusk Sky and Geese

From my Nature Writing Journal…

sunset on the river

As I gazed out from my desk at the vista before me, I could see that just across the road to the waters of Merrimack river where I live. The sky was striped with soft pink and slate blue stripes. A flock of Canada Geese was flying just above the tree line. They were heading west with the sun announcing their presence with their loud call that sounded somewhat like an old car horn… “honk, honk, honk.”

Even as the sun was setting and geese were flying overhead, their call trumpeted through the still. Soon it would be dusk. The colors of the sky transmuted to darker hues that transfixed me. I sat on my porch bench and watched the sky dark until the blue hour had settled in. Another flock of geese could be heard off in the distance, or perhaps it was the same flock, flying back my way.

What message were they conveying to each other, I wondered. What message were they conveying to me? Stop, sit, and listen. Be in the still. Soak in the moments when there is nothing but sheer silence surrounding your presence. In that silence is where you find the answers to your deepest questions. In that silence is where you find peace. In that silence, is where inspiration soars like the geese winding their way along the river.

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