Extra Ordinary

How does one describe a life? Is it a movie or a map? Is it a huge pile of accumulated goods and treasures, or simply an enormous ball of string? Is it a book or a bank account? For many long years, I considered my life to be like a book, with one page following another...perhaps a loose-leaf binder, with high hopes that I could always buy more filler paper on which to write. I think the whole binder/book thing may be what lead me to writing a daily journal...a journal that no one would ever read, un-indexed, sans-cross-references, and little or no annotations.

However, recent events have given me a different perspective on life and how it should be described. I saw some very beautiful quilts that represented portions of a person's life -- perhaps a marriage or the birth and growth of a child. I thought, maybe my life is a quilt -- a crazy quilt of every design and color imaginable, to represent the fullness of a life, lived one day at a time -- each panel representing the violence or peace, sadness or happiness, anger or love, fear or solace in that day. Viewed from above one might take in the wholeness of a life, and yet see patterns that have dominated sections. In my own quilt, I want the fringe, the part yet to come to contain extra ordinary days, filled with warmth and sunshine, conversation and smiles, love and blessings.

Mick

Extra Ordinary

My life has grown into a massive quilt;
Stretched, a continental-sized mosaic.
Each day became a square from which it's built,
Designs from peculiar to prosaic.
Colors range from black to sunshine yellow,
But blues and deep browns tend to dominate.
Sections of the quilt are truly mellow,
And others clash and battle...filled with hate.
The areas of shadowed gray and brown,
Will often border plots of purest white.
With thread of gold each patch is tightly sown,
And silver buttons hold each junction tight.
As each new one is revealed, I chary,
Pray for patches extra ordinary.


Mick McKellar
March 2011