Uncategorized | Perle Champion

Here’s to the common cold

30 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

disease is a cold
called common and so it is
no life threatened here

Yes, I came down with a cold today, suspected its coming yesterday.

Thought to come home and feel sorry for myself on the couch. Instead I had a bit of a celebration.

Yes, I put my Jammies on (Victoria’s), but I opted for my fav lean cuisine spinach souffle and garlicy pesto toast for dinner preceded, accompanied and followed by Veuve Clicquot.

A little celebration. All I have is the common cold – it’ll pass. So many people with far worse things going on in their lives.

So I’m on the couch with my cat, my woobie, a Downton rerun and the last of the champagne – cheers y’all.

I’m counting down – 62 days to go.

28 Jan 2013 1 Comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, Poetry, Retirement, Uncategorized

I’m retiring from my day job March 30, 2013, and I’m counting the days.
—-
Oh, The Places you’ll go! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
—– Seuss

We all do it; we put all our hopes on the destination. You know the litany: When I graduate; When I have money; When the kids are grown; When I retire… Don’t deny it, we’ve all done it – still do.

Well, I have 61 days until I retire. That’s 1,464 hours; 87,840 minutes, 5,270,400 seconds.

I wonder how many of those things I plan to do when I retire, I can get a head start on between now and then. I have a list, and here are just a few.

Publish my e-books (I have 5 in varying stages of completion, but I always start editing them again when I decide to upload them to Amazon).
Publish my NaNoWriMo novel this year. (I’ve participated in and written 50,000 words for ‘national novel writing month’ every November since 2004, but have never edited, rewritten or published any of them.)
Start sending out query a week, instead of every now and them. (Follow-up on the submission to Victoria Magazine – haven’t heard back from my last query a few months ago. Last published with them in 2008.)
Hang a photography show at a local gallery: (Two galleries are interested, but although I have the slides picked out, I have yet to get them digitized, printed, matted…)
Ditto Art show (I’ve been painting and drawing again, but not as much as I can.)
Start back to yoga classes (it’s been 5 years of gonna, and I’m still pretty limber.

There are more, but this is the enough to start with.

This list ends with ‘Move to Some Beach Some Where’. I’ll have to add – visit some beaches between now and then so I can make an informed decision. I’m leaning toward Virginia Beach so I can visit the ARE library on a regular basis. – tick, tick, tick…

Before we knew, we knew

20 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Uncategorized

Before we knew we
knew we knew we knew it all
piri reis mapped it
longitude unknown
known and the map proves it true
mapped fifteen thirteen

Beach dreams

12 Jan 2013 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Uncategorized

come ride with me along the sand

where dusk sits easy on the land

feel her presence close at hand

the guardian Naiad of the strand

© Perle Champion 5/4/07

Farewell and hail

31 Dec 2012 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Uncategorized

The one resolution i swore to keep was the 2012 WordPress 365 blog challenge – 366 as it was leap year – and with this post I’ve accomplished it.

— the finish line reached
resolution accomplished
penned one post a day

—
I pull once again an old poem from my archives which speaks to me now, as it did when I wrote it so many years ago.

Old Year, New Year.

Old and gray – tired and worn
many died – more were born
much was said – so little done
with the rising and setting of each sun.

Farewell to thee with tears we say
and greet the new with laughter gay

So much could, should, would have done
but alas, I’d just begun and the year was gone.

And so, today I make firm resolution
to do much more by new year’s conclusion.

Happy New Year Y’all.

Once upon

08 Nov 2012 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Uncategorized

—-
Lays of doom always had a hint of hope. For we knew, yes we knew, we would make it through to the other side. And, here we are. Darkest night looms; Spring is not promised this year.

We are our choices

30 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, Haiku times 2, Poetry, Uncategorized

no Yang without Yin
we all have that dark within
we must make choices

moment to moment
twixt the two and in the end
we are our choices

Changes

29 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by Perle Champion in Blog 365 Challenge, Poetry, Uncategorized

I wrote the poem below, long before this journey began in earnest. I knew then, that I wasn’t following full time, my dream.

Pulled in so many directions by an exceptional (modern terminology for lots of problems) child. It was necessary to have the best job with great insurance and live in the best neighborhood with the best schools with special education programs. After that, a husband with cancer…I won’t belabor the point – I’m sure you get it and I’m not the only one that works the 9-5 and then some to provide for family.

Well those days are long gone and I somehow stayed in that rut. No more. It is so time to move on. I planned this once before (the poem below was written in 2007), but somehow I got sidetracked – not this time. I’m exploring the whispers and giving them form, so it is no longer ephemeral. I’m making ‘real’ the change that once ‘rode the night wind.

my future rides the night wind
ruffles curtains, caresses skin
whispers promises at the edge of dream
leaving traces of something almost seen