Tag Archives: writing

Silence and Solitude – Life Lessons

I learned to sit, in silence and solitude, at the end of my street, on Narragansett Bay, looking out and way, when I was young and questioned everything.

When the world was too much with me, I went to that place.

As I celebrated more birthdays I went less and less; and, finally, moved away to begin another part of my life.

Recently, I visited that street, again. I walked to the end of the street and looked out. The place I used to sit is no longer there. Nevertheless, I can bring it all back, as if it was the day before yesterday.

It’s come to my attentions that sitting in silence and solitude is, frequently, questioned, invaded and/or under suspicion in this society. Some folks just have to come up to you, say anything, and break that embrace of peace in which you were sitting. I don’t know why.

The long life lessons I learned as a young girl, sitting for hours sometimes, were to feel, with my entire spirit, to listen with an acutely tuned ear to the patterns of life and nature; and, most important, to stay open and be patient. I did not know then (only learned years later), I would come into the writing life and what lessons I already knew about feeling, listening, staying open, and patience.

I still question everything. I still create and/or find places where I can sit, in silence and solitude, and look out and away.

Where and how did you learn your life lessons?

Stay safe. Take care of yourself and each other.

In gratitude,

~ Jessan

The First Bird

“I stand alone.” ~ Jessan Dunn Otis ~ #poem

Sailing With My Father – #poem

4 Replies

Sailing With My Father

Historically a quiet man with an

extraordinarily dry wit

When sailing your quietude

became fierce, sailing on

the edge

The hand with a piece of shrapnel

from a war on the tiller, holding

steady

Face turned windward, eyes

noting obstacles, checking

cat tail direction

The rush of wind caught to

fill the sails

We were happy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jessan Dunn Otis|Writer

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dedicated, in Love and Memory, to my father, Mahlon Hendrickson Dunn, Jr., 1914-1992 / Until we meet again.

© Jessan Dunn Otis, August 6, 2018

Weeding With My Mother – poem

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Weeding With My Mother

I learned to weed a garden

squatting next to my mother

Once I began to learn what was wanted

and what was unwanted

The rest was easy

Bend down

Get my hands dirty

Smell the earth

Look carefully

Make clean spaces

Talk softly.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dedicated with Love and Memory to Helen Constance Smith Dunn ~ 1912-1980 / Until we meet again.

© Jessan Dunn Otis, June 30, 2018

The beauty of this place

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The beauty of this place

Sweet, salted sea air Pine and palm Sugar sand and St. George Island – sand dollar, shark tooth “TomTom, how you doin’?” “I’m doin’ alright.” Tillie Miller Bridge between here and Tiki – Plump, Gulf shrimp and Apalach oysters Hickory smoked chicken and ribs (no rub) and sunfried jellyfish

Seagulls Sea terns Great blue herons Dolphins spyhop and blow every now and then Distant light on Dog Island in a 2:20 AM blueblacknight

Sopchoppy Eastpoint Panacea Alligator Point

A few days back Julie and Artie left, again, having returned from leaving once before and we all walked this beach, beyond the pine tree point, further than any of us had gone before – sea-silvered driftwood, beheaded brown pelican in the brambles of sea grass and pine needles Warming sun Cool, hard-packed, low tide sugar sand under bare feet Sassy leaping pine-stained, sepia rivulets

The laughing gull has returned each morning, greeting and reclaiming its territory and, more than likely, calling out “Sea urchin!” to the others that, eventually, return — glide, drift, rise and drop, land Eat, stay — then, again, depart — leaving this length of calm, shallow bay to terns, herons and egrets to forage

The beauty of this place is as intricately delicate as the silent glideflight of eleven brown pelicans in singular formation, skimming the shallow wave crests – moving from east to west – becoming, eventually, a pulsing line disappearing into the horizon

The beauty of this place

The red smirch of Crystal hot sauce spilled at the edge of a previous high tide line, scattered with Apalachicola oyster shells from our early evening appetizers, has been consumed by the storm-driven, rough chop of last night’s rain, wind and the approaching full moon Wind out of the Southeast, breaking diagonal crests of gunmetal gray and the red buoy strains on its chains as the tide shifts and the channel churns

There is violence in the beauty of this place, too – ships lost, lives swallowed whole, coyotes grab dogs, alligators grab anything

Waves meet land and visibly reverberate back into water, again –

making unmaking remaking

A broken buoy drifts Freed until it’s caught on low tide sea grass before this tide turns The sun breaches darkening, layered afternoon storm clouds to the West, while brilliantly illuminating the etched, white sandbar over there

Burble of language bounces inside my ear – “Hey! How you doin’?” heard so often it becomes as familiar and unnoticed as the wave and the air and this light

The beauty of this place is as much a mystery to me as you

Bert and Kathy, Hattie and Zack – come and met and gone Orange and onion salad, frittatas made and shared Al and Sandy, Sharon and Larry, Scotty, Doug, Gen and Ted Sun-warmed, woman laughing with Pat — LaVerne with her easy, flashing Apalach smile Kim and Tony and oystering all Monday morning across from St. Vincent because the rip was too chopped

Three brilliant, crested egrets graze along this shore, dolphins pass and blow and continue on, as heedless of us as the swarm of terns that rise and twist and glide away to feed further down on this storm-tossed, driven gloss

WOYS, Oyster Radio, 100.5 FM, plays softly as the shrouded sun journeys further West The playful pinwheel whirls and chatters, stick jammed between the weathered 1st and 2nd boards of that well-worn picnic table Just outside this open window, burlap oyster bag flaps

Steelwater, forbidding wind along this coast of Carrabelle Another invisible finger whips this water, etching new (yet ancient) patterns

Tide turns, distant sandbar, barrier beach revealed Unseen fish school as flocks follow and feed, far off

Damp, salted air Thin, singular electric line that leads from shore to dock light Whisper of wave and wind

The beauty of this place

No matter where I go nor what I do, the beauty of this place will taste like home as salt is in my tears

The apparent void dissolved The horizon I can never reach will always draw me in, seeming to want to go further than my eye can see, when the greatest daring starts within

The beauty of this place…
~ ~ ~

Dedicated to: Suzanne Creamer, Stephine McDowell, Marlene Moore, Jennifer Moro, Albert Otis, Jennifer Pickett, C.J.(Joe)Pouncey, Sassy, Judi Rundel

~ ~ ~

HoHum RV Park/Carrabelle, Florida/January-February, 2004

(c)Jessan Dunn Otis / 2004-2017

“Dirty Money”

4 Replies

“Dirty Money”

Think of all the things you’ve done to “make money”. That, in itself, is a ridiculous concept. We don’t “make money”, the government does. We, you and I, earn money.

I started earning money as a girl – granted an allowance for accomplishing certain chores. Chores done, allowance paid. No chores done, no allowance. Some chores completed, partial payment.

Simple.

Time passed.

At 19 I landed my first “adult” job as a clerk-typist at a social service in Providence, Rhode Island. Paid weekly. Still living at home with my parents in Warwick, RI. Within a few months I fledged myself. Time to go out on my own. One room apartment on the East Side, shared bath, no parking. Independent. Earning money. Paying my own bills.

Time passed.

Many changes.

Some time later I began to see and understand better about what money, as a thing, did to folks. The earning of it, who had more of it, who had less of it and how those two conditions stratified and segregated people from and against each other. Judgements. “Better than” because one had more money. “Less than” because of having not so much money.

This is nothing to say about how the getting of that money perverted folks – what one did to get more, as if the flash and bling and apparent “power” that all that money was had made a person, somehow, superior or more influential, ultimately.

I still earn money and appreciate what it allows me to do – support a household, buy food, purchase something beautiful, share it to support a charitable cause or new initiative. There are times, however, when I think about the earlier tradition of barter – I have something you want, you have something I want, we determine a fair value, make the deal and each of us walks away satisfied and happy. Simple. Neverthemore, in most Westernized societies, barter has faded and it’s the dollar that rules.

Next time you think about money, think about what it really is – a coin or a decorated piece of paper – and, what it takes to earn it, how the having or not having it creates false and devastating divisions between us (as people and as nations); and, what’s the true value and human cost of “earning money”.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

written by: Jessan Dunn Otis|Writer

A new spin on K.I.S.S. ~ essay

May 1, 2017 – #poem

4 Replies

May 1, 2017 – #poem

So much to say

So much Silence in between

Solitude is my constant companion

Blessings

Gratitude

Balance in all things

Letting thoughts and breath

run out and back

Sun on skin

Joy-filled hoot from behind

that hedge

Mating calls of this bird and that

Distant roar of plane pushing into

brilliant blue of this afternoon’s air

One mourning dove lowing

soft and close

Blessings

Gratitude

Thank You for this life

This one I’m living at this moment…

…this moment …this moment

Each of us is in service to someone or

something

Who do you serve?

…this moment

…only this moment.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Leaders and the Strategy of Distraction – essay

2 Replies

There are a lot of things that can distract us these days. Should “leaders” fall into that grouping?

More than a few “leaders” employ the strategy of distraction, tossing out red herrings willy-nilly and expecting the populace to follow.

I’m not falling for it. Listening with a long memory of “leaders” who have come before, the art of the strategy of distraction is one that is particularly dishonest, disingenuous and demeaning.

When asked a direct question, give a direct answer. Simple enough.

We certainly live in interesting times. Leaders need to lead forthrightly, without talking down to the populace nor intentionally and/or unintentionally employing their particular spin on the strategy of distraction.

Simple enough.

Jessan Dunn Otis | Writer

|collaborate|communicate|create| 1996 – (c)

Tag Archives: writing

Silence and Solitude – Life Lessons

The First Bird

“I stand alone.” ~ Jessan Dunn Otis ~ #poem

Sailing With My Father – #poem

Weeding With My Mother – poem

The beauty of this place

“Dirty Money”

A new spin on K.I.S.S. ~ essay

May 1, 2017 – #poem

Leaders and the Strategy of Distraction – essay

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