Pamela Leavey

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Category: Creative Writing

Musings: Lapis

From my Nature Writing journal…

The lapis blue water of the Merrimack River flowed towards the ocean in gentle ripples. I could hear the soft lapping sound of the water on the river’s beach. The tide was still heading out towards the mouth of the river, but the current had slowed to a gentle tug. The sun reflected golden ridges on the ripples of the lapis water.

Was the water ever still, I wondered to myself? I knew the answer… Never. Even when it looks to be not moving, simply static and still, there is an undercurrent flowing with the tides. By nature water moves, always.

Lapis Water - Merrimack River

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Good Morning From The River

canadiangeese2

Yesterday morning as I sat at my desk, drinking my coffee and looking out on the Merrimack River, I welcomed the day with this post on my Facebook wall: (more…)

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Musings: The Path Less Traveled

hellcat dikeThe dike trail at Hellcat Swamp in the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge was opened for a week not long ago. As I walked the trail on the outer western edge of the Refuge, along the banks of the Plum Island River, I could feel the sun so warm and comforting on my back.

There was a special sense of peace felt there walking in this space that see when ever I make a trip to the Refuge.. I asked so often as I stop at Northpool Overlook, “what is out there?” (more…)

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Musings: The Elusive Red Bird

Musings from my nature writing journal…

A cardinal flew across the road today as I was walking. It darted out from the trees and made a quick trajectory to the other side of the road, flashing its brilliant scarlet-feathered figure in a swift streak before my eyes. I became transfixed upon the stand of trees and brush that the cardinal had descended into, managing somehow despite its brilliant color to blend in to the colorful fall foliage. There it sat hidden in nature’s camouflage. And, I waited, patiently and quietly for him to emerge, ever peering deeper into the wood to catch a glimpse of him fluttering from limb to limb. (more…)

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Letting Go or Holding On: Part Four

Letting Go and Holding On is a four-part short memoir essay, which is part of a larger creative non-fiction project that I am working on…

Part Four:

“What was it,” I asked myself, “that kept me hanging on to a faint hope that barely had a glimmer of light on the surface?” Was it the darkness in his soul that reminded me of my own darkness? He was a complex man, and I a complex woman. The danger signs had always been there. But it was never intentional. Like two schooners passing in the bay, we each tossed out a lifeline and we became entangled. Entangled and then trapped in some all-encompassing soul drama of unfulfilled emotion and passion.

It wrenched at my sensibilities with all of the weight of the dozens of boxes of books I carried with me each time I moved. There were words in those boxes of books. Words I could not express, but someone else did. There were words in those boxes. Words of love, words of wisdom, words of pain, words of self-discovery, words of social significance. Those were all the words I struggled to share and I clung to them like a lover waiting for her romance to blossom and grow as a rose grows in warm sun.

How does one find the strength to let go of something that one does not possess but holds dear? How does one stop memories that flood the mind like a tidal wave each day, rolling in and out of the heart like thunder across the plain? This existence seems barren and cold without the desired one… Yet there is no basis, is there, for the desire? Is it love or is it the illusion of love that is so attractive? Is it the man or the illusion of the man that is so attractive? These are the questions I ask myself daily and I have as yet to find an answer for them.

And still, I hold on, clinging to the vine of desire as though it were a lifeline tossed over the edge of the precipice while I dangle like a fish on a hook, waiting, waiting, waiting for he who may never return. I covet that which I cannot have and I covet that which I do not need. It is a paradox is it not. The paradox of holding on to things that one may no longer need or want. The paradox of life at any age in which you realize you have unfilled connections, desires and emotions. These are the things that haunt me.

These are the things that I pack in my boxes and haul about with me. They are not my baggage, they are my stuff and they are my dreams. These are the things I allow myself to wallow in, wishing for something more than I have. Understanding that connections made on the map of the universe, must be played out, despite the pain. From these things, I learn every day. And so, I keep them close. All the stuffs and the man. For now. Because I am learning from them. “When the learning stops, I will let them go,” I say to myself. Until then I hold on; I pack them up again in boxes again and again, hauling the weight of boxes of books and rocks and unrequited love with me wherever I go.

The EndMaybe.

Stay tuned for Nesting on the River.

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Letting Go or Holding On: Part Three

Letting Go and Holding On is a four-part short memoir essay, which is part of a larger creative non-fiction project that I am working on…

Part Three:

There are times when you meet someone and you just know there is a connection that goes beyond the norm. You feel this person deeply; you connect with them not as meeting a new friend but as though you have known this person all your life. Sometimes that soul connection is just a brief stop in the trajectory of your life, sometimes they are gone within an instant and sometimes they haunt you, leaving you feeling as though whatever the business was you had with them, they left you and the work is not complete. And so it was that I felt this connection with someone I had no business feeling anything for. He was unavailable on a multitude of levels, and in my heart of hearts, I could not let go of that feeling that he would be back for me one day.

The ultimate Cinderella fantasy, waiting for the white knight to return. But this one was not a white knight by any sense of the imagery or emotion. Oh no, he was a long, lean, agile, dark knight built for speed, riding a gleaming black Harley Davidson. Yes, he was agile and self-possessed yet the self-doubt he possessed could be seen in the corner of his heart space that lay open to my empathic feelers. That and his wry, ironic wit that seemed most prevalent to the unvarnished eye that overlooked the myriad of problems he possessed. Not run of the mill problems, oh no. One could not be so lucky. He was the epitome of the wounded bird. All the more desirable to the healer in me who saw him as someone who needed to be healed, someone who needed to be loved.

I remember when we first met as neighbors, I thought “Oh, a biker. I hope he’s quiet.” The connection did not happen at first. You know how that goes. You pick up a rock on the ground and you feel the weight in your hand. It feels off, you toss it back to the ground. However, something calls you to pick that rock up again, because you saw something in that rock. You realize as you look it over again that it is shaped like a heart. You say, “I need this rock. It belongs in my collection of heart shaped rocks.” These are the hearts of stone. The ones, who slipped, rolled or tumbled out of my life, rarely quietly, most oft they would tumult out of my life like an avalanche.

The hearts of stone are all smooth operators. Fine earthly matter shaped and molded by millennia of natural geological forces. These were the eternal hearts of stone. Most often, it felt like these were the only hearts I ever attracted. And I clung to those hearts of stone, packing them all into boxes; I took those hearts of stone with me each time I moved. They carried a weight heavier than in ounces, they weighed on my heart with all of the magnitude of lost and unrequited love.

Stay tuned for Part Four

 

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