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And The Uncertain Dance Is Made Easier. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on May 19, 2020 in Essays, Observations, Touchstone

Sometimes I think the youngers would be happy
for me to lay down my things, and pay attention to do
what other elders do, so it would be easier,
than to pretend to listen to what they do not understand,
to make fit into what they cannot relate.

Senseless no doubt it seems to nothing that swims in their heads
to give meaning to what they imbibe.

The celluloid people they watch I do not know, give fact and
form to fit what to me is meagre fare, not giving substance
to the ache seeking expression.

But alas, I try to sell my perspective with its shining specks
flittering on the white moth floating in the night, along
with the fireflies sending messages still to be read by the
night creatures.

They inhabit my sight as will the morning birds welcoming me to
acknowledge their presence with my ‘good morning world,
I hear you, I hear you.’

I fear their noise will awaken those lives still filled with the passion
of murmurings I have long forgotten.

In their place and time a fit, comparable to the seduction of a high
heeled shoe, now uncomfortable and alien to the wobbly feet.

Feet needing to support a body still needing completion but wishing
to take flight with nascent wings, promising growth.

All the time the youngers know that my having learned the steps well
makes easier the uncertain dance now in progress on the floor.

My Mentor said, do for one and you do for the whole world, for eternity then.

And I believed.

photo by John Holmes

Moments Of Thought. . . .for us. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on April 22, 2020 in Observations, Paradigm

Moments of Thought. . . .

In retrospect, everything becomes a moral decision. Some of us only learn this in our dotage when reflecting on how we lived our lives.
*****
It is a vast classroom but the basic lesson is one of abandonment. Everyone knows abandonment. The hardest lesson to bring home is to dream into being the splendor that can come when the heart is healed
*****
To insert the cosmic into the mundane is what we must do.
*****
Whenever we embark on a choice, we embark also on change. With choice comes responsibility to carry through.
*****
We are free to make other choices. But when we come to commitments, there may be no choice at all. No options.
*****
One’s sense of one’s place in the larger picture heightens one’s sense of responsibility.
*****
Unless you can share your heart, you cannot enter into a liaison with anyone and raise a family.
*****
You cannot force feed a menu when the seated are not hungry.
*****
The continuity of life is the only view worth harboring. How else to explain the eternity it takes for a mushroom or daffodil to reach full potential? One life does it for a human?
*****
In our solitude we don’t have an audience of peoples; we have an audience of souls.
*****
I have learned that if it is not done here, where I am, it will not be done elsewhere. If I see this good to do, I must do it now or there will not be this chance nor these favorable circumstances again.
*****
When a good is done on one hearth, all hearths will do good throughout all worlds.

It Is What It Is . . .

By Veronica Hallissey on March 24, 2020 in Essays, Observations

It All Connects. . . .

This is kind of a sidebar explanation that I connected in my head from a long ago comment. But first I want to say that an errand had to be run because we are still in the reconstructing of a kitchen needing final finishes. I asked son John who has done the masterful job of pushing out walls and stuffs I could not envision, was there much traffic out there today.

He said quite a bit and I said that stay at home directives were hard on the American mentality. When go to the corner was a first understood punishment and the next, go to your room and stay there. . . was the true lamented of the average soul determined to run. There were exceptions who relished the solitude at a young age. Our two eldest always left the room with a smile when told to go to their room until I say to come out. (I saw those smiles)

But I was driving my visiting sister around one summer holiday and she commented on the unmowed lawns and untidy landscaping compared to our childhood yards we both remembered. People then did not leave their homes much except for the few who had cars. We were fortunate because our father had a Franklin, though at the time laughed at as a box car. But it did have wheels and gas for the weekend and we went to the farms of people we knew and had an ice cream cone on the way home. So I never considered us poor.

But on this drive of neighborhoods, my sister’s comment was, does no one stay home anymore?

And when John said there was a bit of traffic, I made the comment of how hard for the American mentality. Where my life was tied to a public person who became suicidal when forced to stay home and whose idea of the only life worth living was breathing the polluted exhale of the street people, his relief would only be to die. And I would hope so immediately.

We watch the boy child running from window to window wanting to run off and though the chronological age is 70 or 80 years, it still is the boy/girl child that cannot grasp the enormity of the health crises. And they cannot. It is what it is.

We give further thought as to why there is no ability to connect to what is happening. Have you not wondered why? We come back anon.

Education wears many booties. . . .

By Veronica Hallissey on March 22, 2020 in Love, Observations, Touchstone

Knowing the comics section as I do, it appears that she’s studying Doonesbury, which thrills my heart! Of course she’s already read Dilbert (on the front page)…

Love, Emma E’s grandfather

I never knew the supreme abilities of the comics to educate. I remember when our two eldest, Tresy and David first took upon themselves to convince me that I should avail myself to the benefits of the education which life could not give me. I listened over the weeks and months I am sure, though I have no journal entry to verify that fact.

But I did listen and with trepidation, no doubt, began to look upon the comics in the morning to fill in what I inevitably lacked according to the two eldest. And I became hooked. It did not take long and my favorite soon became because I could relate with the myriad home crises, For Better and Worse by Lynn Johnston.

I have a couple of the celebrated anniversary books, the first one given to me by the son of Tresy, the fourth Joseph Harrison. I have loved these vestiges of another time and I think I will request the weekend edition of Chicago Tribune as a birthday gift. I miss reading the comics and realize that a diet of hard lessons with no relief in pictures, is a diet with little flavor.

This photo of our Emma E. reading the comics during this time of self quarantine of the family is a lifting of Spirit for me. Her grandfather Tresy takes great pleasure in sending this photo from her parents. Bless them all. It is a heart lifter!

When Your I Am Is Recognized. . . life’s dynamics. . . .

By Veronica Hallissey on March 11, 2020 in Essays, Observations, Touchstone

When your I Am is recognized. . . life’s dynamics. .

The first time I became aware of being recognized as someone Other than this Veronica was having my brother Mike’s face light up like a Christmas Tree when I came to his house. He was in the process of leaving life and when I appeared in the doorway, I saw his inner light. He lit up like a high wattage surge.

Even my mother, the Jenny, beside his bedside, saw his glow and turned and said your sister came to you. He grinned with obvious relief I later scribed from my Teachers because what he was being taught was what I was involved with.

The next episode was during David’s last hospital stay. I was asked by his father to see a client’s wife who was in the hospital. They were of money so she was in another section. I appeared at the door and she was on her knees in bed facing the door and with open arms welcomed me.

I knew her but her welcome was for a trusted heart friend. You know she shouted, what I say is true. They are babies, all of them! And she continued on. Her husband stepped out of the bathroom panicky, (obviously) and said it is the medicine talking.

I wanted to differ but said nothing. She was on pain medication but this was truth being shouted and she knew this as well as I. All babies she cried who never grew up. She suffered the little children. . a world full. . .

I have written about my mother, the Jenny and mentioned that there was never a heart conversation of belief with her. She did not know anything of me other than what was evident.

She came when the babies were born to help out. I was grateful for that help because I had none at all. She could not understand why I was up after 2 days to take care of things. Even with 8 children and no money, there were old friends who insisted on her 10 days in bed after birthing.

Yet when the first near death experience occurred, she knew immediately my knowledge and started talking. My brother, at the foot of the bed, said over and over, the medicine talks. It is the medicine. I told him not so, it is truth. Being Catholic he wanted prayers and priests. None of that was her need. But teachers were teaching she said and they said. . . .everything I had been learning about.

I will write of my talks because of journals I kept. When I asked of Papa she said he is just waking up. And of David, she flicked her wrist, ahhh she said, you go out too far. Too far . . .David and I were called misfits by my inlawmother, Sarah. Not of this world.

I will introduce some of those conversations and their evidential. And the cost of life’s tuition in this class.

this cannot believe photo still by
John Stanley Hallissey

When you are the ‘only’. . . it takes just one. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on February 29, 2020 in Observations, Poetry, Touchstone

So Who Cares. . . Nobody I guess. . .

Except you do. . .
All it takes is just one I hear,
to look for the sun to rise each morning. .
to look at the moon at night and wonder,
where home is. . .
to keep the world turning on its axis.

Just one to hear the promise that
the rose will bloom in December
along the fence, in the dead of winter. . .
to have the promise true. . .
and the world to hold its shape.

To have just one
to care enough to rail
and fill the hunger for love
of just one child harbored to the grave
clinging in the aged body, still . .

Brains and body parts halt in growth
except to make another just like themselves.
But who cares? You do.

The Teacher said . . suffer the little children,
tolerate them for he gave unsparingly
of himself to assuage the Unmerciful God
from the first book, though for untold centuries
mankind tried to gain tender mercies.

The greatest hurdle. . the Everest to climb
is the not knowing.

Are you the ‘only’ who cares?
You think you are not so different. . .
like others? And they care too?
Not sure but you
might be the ‘only’ who cares. . .

to feed and nestle the babe
before you turn off the light,
. . . someone needs to stay the night . .

but who else cares . . . enough?

Artwork by Claudia Hallissey

You are invited. Come, we eat. . . .

By Veronica Hallissey on February 16, 2020 in Observations, Touchstone

We become what we feed our mind.
*****
Become the person you want to meet coming down the street.
*****
When you form the question, you already know the answer because you form the question.
*****
Hopefully the added years bring thoughtful conclusions. You feed your mind what?
*****
It is not said that understanding behavior makes it easier to live with.
*****
Sometimes the only faith you have is that you can do it whatever needs doing.
*****
Maybe all that requires doing is you; nothing and no one else.
*****
The world is a canvas to our memories.
*****
Imagination is memory and memory to be executed and made manifest requires ‘hands on’ in this world.
*****
Memory becomes knowledge in this world when it is faithfully executed and applied to enhance humanity’s evolution for good. Not to argue the word ‘good’ when we use the word ‘enhance’.
*****
Kindness should automatically accompany action with our second breath without thought.
*****
Self discipline shrinks or expands to the breadth of one’s Conscience.
*****

Is However Long We’ll Talk. . . Psalms of Love. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on February 9, 2020 in Observations, Poetry, Touchstone

However long. . . .

Coming into a chosen family will be what someone will call a misfit. And the label will stick. This often is a child with a need to know everything and talk. There will not be anyone to listen. Because there will be other children, work to do, buses to catch, and excuses given on the spur of the moment.

I don’t have time to listen will be the mantra. And the child grows to be adult with the need still unfulfilled. Because in the course of life, there will be work and school, meetings and planes to catch and television. Now of course we add hand held devices.

The need continues in those born with the desire to learn and talk but there is no matching soul with a similar need. The sweet hours of the night are filled with the best conversations, though silent they be. No matter the fatigue of the soul, the mind conversations are filled with wonder and appreciation.

I awoke with the words, however long the night is, and wondered perhaps I read them someplace. Years of research never found them anywhere. It proved to me again, that we are not abandoned. It is included in Psalms of Love. . . get it for the one you love. . . .

However long. . . .

However long the night is,
is however long we’ll talk.
A tongue dismembered from its throat
is punishment too severe to be humane.

It has taken a life of silence
to filter through its members;
lessons enough for the toughest skin to break.

I have marched with your words
through endless tasks,
through nights not filled with magic.
And heard the harangue from compressed lips
tearing even the plea of forgiveness from Me.

Now I promise.
In the stillness of the life you know
I will come for you. In the light of the night
I will make my way
and no walls will bar my entry.

I will sit the night and across the table
a hand will clasp the one you call your own.
And in the magic of words spoken
I will listen to the story built
to house lives of wonder.

It has taken too long.

And we, the each, will speak and listen
and as the words flow like rivers
toward their delta, in ribbons of courage,
we will stay the night.

And however long the night is,
is however long we’ll talk.
July 1987

(photo by John Holmes)

We Make The Difference. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on January 23, 2020 in Observations

Passionate about learning and feeding my hunger, I find so much written verified by study. Kierkegaard says that the more one forgets, the more changes one can wrought in life. The more one remembers, the more divine life becomes and the fewer options life contains.

I learned early on, that the stronger one’s Conscience, the stronger one’s responsibility to commitments, of course fewer options. Eventually, the higher one reaches, the narrower the road becomes. No option remains except straight on through. It becomes the only way.

Everything is a Given by experience. One learns or one expires. Kierkegaard scribed and so do I and many authors do. If one’s work has market value, one takes one’s profits to a bank. I credit my desire to learn while trying not to make too much garbage for my progeny to shovel.

Kierkegaard gave meaning to the levels of heaven. I have learned that the heaven of man’s creation is more a myth than an actuality. I recreated worlds with memory giving glimpses remembered lovingly, and tried to duplicate. I replicated to the extent I could but with no extra hands to help, the work eventually stopped my heart.

We come borning with the idea we can make a difference. Let me go Father, I can make a difference we all say. And we do. Sometimes we jump start evolution. It is the only way we can save our planet from going down the tube again. Jesus tried. He believed in evolution and tried to make man accountable by not blaming parents for the ills of progeny and to the child harbored in adult bodies, he became an intermediary.

This has been my knowledge for nearly 90 years. Not the easiest way to live, especially when one sees one’s country struggling to grow up. In the midst of turmoil groping, yet with hope, there will be Light when the turmoil concludes.

You Are The Difference. . . .

Walking obscure, you catch a glimpse
of yourself in a storefront, not trendy
nor polished, a little unkempt,
not to be remembered. Wondering why
must you always smell of baby powder.

So much to do with so many needs.
Why do you hear them crying?

It’s always the children, you think,
for whom you would do much,
but some of them are so big and so old. . .

You pass out treats to the little ones
and listen with your heart to the elderly. . . .

You wonder if your caring can make
any difference in lives that are so needy.

You are the difference,
you who take the time to blot teary faces
and listen to abandoned lives. . .Hazarding that. . . .
some are too big to sit on your lap
but all the right size

to sit on your heart. . . .

Time To Love One Another. . .

By Veronica Hallissey on January 16, 2020 in Observations, Poetry

Since the beginning of December, we have been on a fast track. Upcoming was a family vacation away for the son and in law daughter I live with and their family and me on the premises here in California having my elder son and in law daughter visiting, keeping watch. They worked things out pretty neatly. I am fortunate.

And the visiting watch keepers went home to Chicago and the vacationers returned for Grandson Josh and son John to tear out the kitchen to be remodeled. Except it included building out a wall to the house and tearing down inside walls and ravaging.

I complicated matters by coming down with my yearly bronchial cough making me sound the ever coalminer. I sought refuge in my room because truly the cough took whatever energy I had to care whether school kept. I did not care one iota.

We are nearing departure for Josh with the end results of remodeling to be finished by son John. I could not conceptualize the ending result because it was so outside my frame of reference. I am more comfortable with worlds at large and their space in mind. More comfortable also with yarn and fabric in a wall quilt and Scandia hat. How I supervised the addition of rooms to a previous house we lived in I do not know.

It proves to me that if one by intention shows up for work, heaven takes that as a good to go sign and shows how. Workers have always been scarce. Just remember the vineyards that lay waiting even with the promise of all the wine on the vine!

Now that the holidays are over and everyone can relax or recover their normality, or perhaps the time this year for your family was good, we simply begin again. I take you back to a time before the devices starting eating up our time together.

Maybe we could try to bring back some of it by looking at each other whom we know and love and caring less about the likes of those we don’t even know!

I Take Your Hand. . .

Come, I take your hand. We go to
places where our hearts share dreams.

Sometime back, in our histories
having no years, we trod places
where paths had not been worn.

It was a good time, seeing how
we formed lives with no lesson plans,
loved with no time and lived fully aware.

We remember now when the hands
of the clocks tell us we have only so much time;
only so much time to check emails, to see
bank statements, and to note how many Likes
from those we don’t know.

And only so much time before
the next commercial break and then

we might have time to love one another?

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