by Sharon Cooke | Jul 28, 2019
I have this noise in my car. Not always. There is a certain pattern and then there isn’t. I took it to my mechanic Jorge, who is amazing and we did a test drive. Of course; nothing! He tells me to tape the noise. “Okay,” I reply, I can do this. Not easy, when the fines for distracted driving are quite the threat and to add to the challenge, I can’t do anything on my cell phone without my readers (as in glasses, that I don’t wear all the time). Yes, I’m over forty, okay, I’m over fifty, but I’m not the “old lady” that my darling (not so darling at times) grand children call me. Wait till Christmas and then they’ll think twice as to what they call me!! Ha Ha, the old lady (which I’m not) still has the upper hand! I have to admit that I may have shared too much with Jorge. I told him that the noise was so loud and as I was concerned that my car might break down, I started affirming for the best, in short praying. Low and behold it stopped. Jorge took my sharing in stride. I think. Jorge did his best, worked on my car and felt he had taken care of the noise. But he hadn’t and by the time I’d returned home it was there again. A few days later I’m out with my son, Cody, and by the end of our excursion my car sounded the ‘noise’. The next day Cody sent me a Facebook message. The photo of a woman driving her car with...
by Sharon Cooke | Dec 27, 2018
Christmas Eve morning and I’ve set off to begin my day. I’d planned to stop at a City Cafe for wood fired bagels. Just three, as a treat (along with the many other treats) for over the holidays. I open the door to the bakery and the place is crammed with bodies. I scoot around to the far side where there is a pocket of space to get to the box that holds the bagels and then I realize all these people are in line for bagels and the box is empty. Back I go to take my place in line with empty brown bag in hand. Where my original choice begins to wobble. I only wanted three, is it really worth it? And then I hear from myself, “Yes it is, just wait.” The room is warm from the open oven, the smell of fresh bread, flour misting through the air, the radio playing a choir singing Christmas carols fills the space that is left and everyone waits patiently. For a moment from observing those ahead of me who are already sporting full bags, I think, “Bagel Hoarders.” And then I hear from myself, “It doesn’t matter.” And it doesn’t. We will all get what we need, in due time. I remain to stand and take it in. The woman making the bagels appears oblivious to the throngs of bagel lovers standing with open bags, watching her every move, monitoring her. Is she good at what she does, is she fast enough, how does she know when they are done, there’s no timer going off, is she doing...
by Sharon Cooke | Aug 6, 2018
I’m driving on a street in the city. Today there has been some construction, which wasn’t there the last time I traveled in this direction. But it’s the city and it’s summer and what is one way today isn’t necessarily the same way tomorrow. I’m following two SUV’s. I also drive an SUV. There are two lanes and in one is a huge piece of asphalt cut out of the pavement, then a gap follows where in the next lane there is another piece, the same size cut out. Each piece is a few inches deep. The first SUV maneuvers through like a veteran contestant on “The Amazing Race” around the one section with the utmost precision through the gap and on with their journey. The second SUV comes to an abrupt stop attempting to drive through the cut-out ever so slowly as to not cause damage to their vehicle. It’s focus, only on what is directly in front of them, not even entertaining an alternative route. I am given the same choice. I can take the hole in the pavement or I can move smoothly through the gap never having to slow my speed. Yes!! I choose the easier route! I leave the second SUV behind driving gingerly through the hole in the road. It felt good to know I had grown to allow myself an easier experience. There would have been a time that I would have been the SUV that took the more difficult route, so entrenched in struggle. But no longer. Here I am in a “Yahoo” moment! The reality inside the vehicle left behind...
by Sharon Cooke | Jun 11, 2018
Runners on, that don’t run — but they do power walk and I’m out the door. On the way to Rockway Gardens to enjoy the tulips. I arrive and something is terribly wrong. Where are my Monet pallets of colour? Am I seeing things? All I see are overturned beds of earth. Dark, clumps of earth. Dirt, just dirt. How did this happen? Spring took forever to arrive and then ‘poof’ it’s gone. I’m thinking the gardeners must have just pushed through the season, it’s not right, that they didn’t wait for me. The tulips, they didn’t wait for me. Once home, still sure that I’d been robbed of my tulip moment, I pull up last years tulip photos. There they are under the date, May 18th. Today is May 28th. Ten days. I’m ten days late. That night I walked along the street and breathed in the heady fragrance of lilacs and lily of the valley and looked up to the near full moon. This I wouldn’t miss. So many moments we want to experience, but it falls into the category of; ‘I’ll do it later.’ Sometimes later is too late. We miss the moment. I sit with this and mullonder. A mull and ponder, hence mullonder. I ask my daughter, Holly to take in the film, The Book Club and she’s working. “You go ahead Mom,” she tells me. Then I get a phone call and the kids have a ball game that night and she’s working. I ditch the movie for baseball and then another call comes in. “I’m done early now, all is well, you...
by Sharon Cooke | Mar 26, 2018
He walk’s back and forth waiting, waiting to hear the one thing, the one more thing that will be that moment that validates his need to pounce and begin the attack. It’s not the one thing that is the source of the attack, it is what’s been brewing inside for days, months, perhaps even years. And so it is for the camel. It’s not that one extra piece of straw that breaks its back. It’s the heavy loads of straw day after day that the camel is forced to carry. Then one day, one extra piece of straw is added and the camel, turns its head towards its owner and through his eyes says, “Really? Well, screw you, I’m done!” The camel folds his knees under him and collapses to the ground. Long before we ever reach that moment of graceless lashing out, at an unsuspecting soul, the innocent bystander or even the guilty party; our inner self has alerted us to an imbalance. The Divine Voice that whispers, “Yoo-hoo, yes you. You’ve outgrown this friendship. This job; you know it’s not a good fit for you. Your relationship; you’ve been unhappy for how long now? That shirt, I know you’re not blind. Can you not see that the buttons are ready to pop? So either put the donut back in the box and start walking or buy a bigger size.” Everything from having to experience sugar withdrawal to perhaps investing in a lawyer to get through the Big “D” (divorce), to having to find a new BFF and therefore, have no one to go to the movies with...
by Sharon Cooke | Dec 25, 2017
There are times when I feel a Sarah Jessica Parker character and I are kindred spirits. Don’t be alarmed, I’m not talking Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in The City, we all know that would be an elaborate fantasy. This is more Meredith Morton from the 2005 film, The Family Stone. It’s Christmas and she arrives at her boyfriends family home, the Stones, where she is to meet everyone for the first time. She can do nothing right and everything just goes from bad to worse. No one likes her, they’ve decided this before they’ve even met her. They set her up to fail as they are all in need of a good laugh. Criticism abounds, so they can feel better about themselves. At one point she is covered in an uncooked egg dish she had planned to make for Christmas morn, she crashes a car and in front of everyone finds out her boyfriend doesn’t want to marry her. Then on top of everything, she is feeling complete shame for having got drunk and woken up in her boyfriends brothers bed, to be told that he didn’t take advantage of her and had slept on the floor. More rejection! She throws her hands in the air and in a tearful voice, cries out, “Doesn’t Anybody Love Me!?” There you have it. Sarah Jessica and I have bonded. And then it’s Christmas eve morn and there is a knock at my door. I’m still in my robe and slippers, I’m not sure if I’d even brushed me teeth. “Dear Lord, who could this be?” It’s my dear friend, Tonya. She’s...