Unfortunately, my youngest son suffered another major seizure last night. He is okay. We are okay. But today is a day for me to be quiet with myself, and with my son, and with my family. We’ll take your prayers and loving thoughts, in buckets. Thank you for your support. xo
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
This provoking Tweet took up a lot of my thoughts yesterday. Looking at its stats, it really hit home for a lot of people. I read a lot of the comments underneath the tweet. The author of the tweet is a black woman, and a lot of the people who commented, said that they were tired of “struggle” being the “badge of honor” for people of color. Many commenters said that they are tired of “strong” being the trait that overshadows everything else that any individual mother is, both in the lives of her children, and also in her own life.
I texted the tweet to some of my close friends. It resonated with them, too. One of my friends is a single mom, and she has been the primary parent for her two sons, for many years now. She noted that she tried hard to show her boys that not only was she strong and resilient, but that she is also responsible for her own happiness. Honestly, this friend of mine goes at life with a gusto. I am sure that her boys would describe her as “so strong”, and yet also happy and full of life. I admitted to my friends, that in reflecting back on being a young mother of four children, I think that I was “hit or miss” in regards to what this text is saying. I was happy raising my family, and we had a lot of fun and love, but I can’t say that I did a great job with “peaceful” all of the time. I worried too much. I took a lot of things too seriously. I tried to control people and experiences outside of myself, way too many times. Another friend agreed with me, that she also worried too much. We both lamented the fact that we sometimes let worry affect our moods too much, and that impacted our families. My friend said that she is now focusing on being that happy, peaceful grandma, filled with fun and love, to her beautiful granddaughter. I thought to myself, “Oh yes, I am going to do that, too. I will be the same way. I will be that wonderful, peaceful, fun-loving grandmother.” And then it struck me, the fact that I said that I also plan to be “that happy, peaceful” grandmother, denotes that there really is a choice involved. Happiness, peacefulness, and resiliency are states that we can choose to strive for, and to achieve, if we make them our highest priority.
Years ago, a friend was telling me about an argument that she had with her mother. Her mother was annoyed that my friend wasn’t doing more for her husband. Her mother claimed that her own generation did a lot more for their husbands, than our generation does for ours. In a fit of anger, my friend snapped back, “Well, maybe that’s because we don’t want to become angry, bitter, resentful, brittle older women, like so many women in the generations who came before us.”
Whether we want to admit this or not, our mood states effect, and are noticed by everybody, and everything around us. Our loved ones, the people who we claim to care about the most in this world, live in the vicinity of our own personal energy, more than anyone else. They absorb, and/or are repelled by the energy which we are constantly “putting out there.” In that sense, if we want to uplift our families, our friends, our communities and the world, we need to find ways to uplift ourselves. It’s our responsibility. Some may say this is our highest responsibility.
Anthony DeMello’s writings are some of my favorites out of all modern philosophy. He says this:
“If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole Earth.”
And this:
“Live your life as you see fit. That’s not selfish. Selfish is to demand that others live as you see fit.”
And this:
“The reason you suffer from your depression and your anxieties is that you identify with them.
You say, “I’m depressed.” But that is false. You are not your depression.
If you want to be accurate, you might say, “I am experiencing a depression right now.” But you can hardly say, “I am depressed.”
That is but a strange kind of trick of the mind, a strange kind of illusion. You have deluded yourself into thinking—though you are not aware of it—that you are your depression, that you are your anxiety, that you are your the delights and the thrills that you have. “I am delighted!”
You certainly are not delighted. Delight may be your experience right now, but just wait, it will change; it won’t last: it never lasts; it keeps changing. . . . .
It never strikes us that things don’t need to be fixed. They just need to be brought into awareness so they can be understood.”
And finally this:
“May the peace of God disturb you always.”
Peacefulness lies deep within each of us, and we will find it, if we are willing to let go of the idea that we have to find peace in the circumstances outside of ourselves. Many people commented on the above tweet, stating that their mothers were strong and capable and resilient, and yet also, kind and loving and peaceful. Being strong doesn’t have to be synonymous with being miserable and full of struggle. What we model for our children and for our grandchildren, teaches volumes to them, more than anything that we say. By giving ourselves the intrinsic right to peacefulness, and happiness, and joy, no matter what our present circumstances are, we are showing our children that they can have the same. And when we are resting in our deepest inner peace, we are able to handle our struggles with grace and courage and strength, no matter what comes our way.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
This tweet made me laugh out loud this morning. For a good portion of the United States, Labor Day weekend marks the closing of many public and club pools. And that’s a hard reality for a lot of kids to accept. Having four children, I didn’t have the luxury of any idle threats. My kids greatly outnumbered me, so they had to believe that I was in control, at all times. Therefore, when I told them it was time to get out of the pool, or “something” would happen, they knew that the “something” was going to happen, no matter what. Fortunately for me (and for my kids), I never had to drag my children out of the pool with my teeth. But if I had to, I would have done it. And they knew that fact. Just like any otter mom, I have my fun and cute and playful side, but “When provoked . . . . they’ll snap. Otters boast a sharp set of canines and crushing molars. And theirs is a formidable bite, roughly comparable in force to a German shepherd’s . . .” (Outsideonline)
Last night also marked the beginning of Rosh Hashanah. Happy New Year, to my dear Jewish readers. I am not Jewish, but I love the new year celebrations of all religions and cultures. I think that they are wonderful reminders that we can start fresh and anew, any time that we want. On a day like this, that marks a transition for many of us, whether from a religious sense, or from a seasonal sense, or from a school calendar sense, this is a great day to carve out a few moments of reflection. Since the pandemic started, fear has been in control of many facets of our lives. We have had to “do” so much of our everyday lives, with an undercurrent of uncertainty and fear. What if we chose not to continue this way, no matter what is going on outside of ourselves? I am going to end this post with my favorite passage from Matt Haig’s How To Stop Time novel. It’s a good prompt for reflection today. I hope that you like it, as much as I do. See you tomorrow.
“And just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being f*cked over? If I could love without the fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking about how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?” (Matt Haig)
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Thank you to everyone whose work makes a meaningful difference in my own life, every single day. Thank you to the people working at the electric company, and the water plant, and the cell phone towers. Thank you for the police, and the paramedics, and the fire department. I slept well last night, knowing that you are always at your jobs. Thank you teachers who have taught my children so well. Thank you farmers for providing our sustenance and thank you wonderful chefs for making the food even more delicious. (especially the cook at my son’s fraternity house. I know what it takes to feed three sons, I can’t imagine making meals for 300 young men every day.) Thank you medical professionals. You are working on fumes, these days, we know. Thank you airline professionals. The anticipation of my trips and adventures is one of the best feelings in life, ever. Thank you to all of the constructions workers who have helped to make our house what we want it to be. Thank you to the people who reliably take our garbage and recyclables away, every week. You are saints! Thank you to every repair person who has fixed our cars or our appliances, much to our relief. Thank you to my husband and other bankers who help to gather the funds where they are needed, in order to make people’s dreams able to be realized. Thank you entertainers and musicians for being the source of a hearty laugh or a deep cry, whenever we need it. Thank you maintenance crews for making our roads so driveable, even in the craziest of weather. Thank you manufacturers. I love my stuff! And I’m always looking for more stuff to delight in. Thank you, technology professionals and engineers and scientists. I can’t even pretend to understand how you do what you do, but I do know that what you do, has brought us to a whole new world, in the span of just a couple of decades. Thank you retail workers, who always make everything sitting right on the shelf where I need it, look so easy. Thank you Amazon delivery people. Sometimes I wonder if we have one of you assigned just to our house. You are a dream come true! Thank you fellow writers. Reading is one of my greatest passions in life, and you have given to me so much wonderful material! Thank you to everyone that didn’t come to mind in the first ten minutes of me scrambling to get this blog post out. I appreciate you. Know this. It’s amazing to me, in just one day of my life, how much other people’s work goes into making my every single day, what it is to me. Nobody does anything alone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
“No man is an island, entire of itself. . . . ” – John Donne
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Hello friends and readers. I hope that you are experiencing a delicious, comforting, restful, yet interesting and rejuvenating holiday weekend. I’m a little “slow on the go” this Sunday morning. I find my mind wandering on to many things, but none of it rhymes, nor do my words seems to fit any kind of a poetic flow. My regular readers know that I devote Sundays to poetry on the blog. Poetry can be serious. Poetry can be fun. Poetry can be mysterious. Poetry can be poignant. Write a poem today. You won’t regret it. You’ll be tickled by your cleverness. Today I am borrowing from some other poets’ cleverness and wit. Here are two poets’ fun and short, little rhymes:
GREEN EGGS AND HAM – Dr. Seuss
I do not like them in a box
I do not like them with a fox
I do not like them in a house
I do not like them with a mouse
I do not like them here or there
I do not like them anywhere
I do not like green eggs and ham
I do not like them Sam I am
A WORD TO HUSBANDS – Ogden Nash
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
Here are a few other funnies from the humorous American poet, Ogden Nash:
I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I’ll never see a tree at all.
If you don’t want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won’t have to work.
Some tortures are physical And some are mental, But the one that is both Is dental.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend, friends. I suppose this is the time of year that marks “unofficially” the end of summer. We made it. As I often asked my kids at dinner on various school days, “What were your highlights? What were your lowlights?” After you get them out of your system, pitch the lowlights, and keep the highlights in your “Beautiful Memories” file, to open up whenever you need their reassurance and joy.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“I kept looking at P today with wonder, like “Omg, we were 18 when we first met each other.”
“The heart knows its ties . . .” (texts I sent last night to my best friends from college. We had been boating all day with P, and her husband. P is one of my very best friends from college. My husband and I, and P and her husband, all graduated from James Madison University, which sits beautifully in the Shenandoah Valley, in Virginia. JMU is truly one of the most lovely places on Earth. There’s a magic there that can’t be explained in words. It softly and gently transitions young people into adults, like no other place that I have ever experienced. It’s like a beautiful silk cocoon nestled in the valley, holding it’s charges while molding them at the same time, without us even realizing it. Perhaps that’s why we keep close ties with our friends from JMU. We all know and understand the specialness of this magic.)
Lifelong friendships are so interesting. Change is the only constant, and who you are at age 18, is not at all who you are at 50, and there have been many versions of you, and also of your friends, all along the way. That’s what’s really special about lifetime friendships. There is an allowance of each other’s morphing and growing and transitioning and refining and reforming, and yet, throughout all of that, you still really like each other. You still want to spend time with each other. There is a naturalness to lifelong friendships that is hard to come by, in a world full of judgment, “cancel culture”, and everyone vying for their own fifteen minutes of glory. Lifelong friendships are a comfortable and a reliable and a sheltered place to rest your heart in, from time to time. What a blessing!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Hello!! Happy Friday!! Happy Best Day of the Week! This Friday is extra special since it is tied into the holiday weekend. Enjoy it!
My regular readers know that I don’t think too deeply on Fridays. On Fridays, I usually list three things that make my material world more interesting and enjoyable. I call it “Favorite Things Friday”. Please list your favorites in my Comments section. It’s always great to discover new products to try, or books to read, or shows to watch, or singers to listen to . . . . .
Today I only have a couple of favorite things to share:
Favorite New Author of Mine: Matt Haig. Matt Haig is a British author, whom I have just recently discovered his writings, and they are wonderful. I have read The Midnight Library, The Comfort Book and I am in the middle of How to Stop Time. I also purchased his children’s book, A Boy Called Christmas, which I can’t wait to devour. Matt Haig’s writing is concise, interesting, imaginative, empathic and full of historical references and personal insights. I love his writing style!
Favorite New Tip: If you have any games or apps on your phone, that are filled with advertisements that annoyingly interrupt and delay your play, put your phone on airplane mode. I only recently discovered this because I was actually on a flight and I was playing a game and while being on airplane mode, the game was still playable, but the ads couldn’t come through. I then tried it at home, and it was the same experience. Voila! If you aren’t expecting any important calls (the kids can call Dad, too, remember), then try this. Uninterrupted Sudoku is a much more enjoyable experience than having your concentration broken by ads for more games that you never have any intention of downloading on to your phone.
That’s all that I have for today. Please check out previous Friday posts for more fun favorites! Have an amazing day!!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
The other day, when I took my dogs out, the two older ones sat down decidedly in the grass, their noses twitching to the scents in the wind. They were making it clear to me that they weren’t going anywhere else, anytime soon. My dogs instinctively knew that they needed a restful sunbath. So they took it. And I followed suit. And it felt wonderful to sit out in the pleasant sunshine, on the soft grass, smelling the earthiness all around us. I buried my nose in the soft, luxurious fur of my collie, Josie. There may be no better scent nor feel in the world, than sun-baked dog fur. This is a type of the easy, simple therapeutic experiences that can make all of the difference in a day, but we often forget to take the time to do them, nor at the very least, to notice that we are doing them. In this way, animals are often wiser than we are, because they are so attuned to their senses, and allowing themselves to bask in their senses.
What are the little things that perk you up? What are the little things that make you excited to anticipate doing them? Really taste and savor your coffee, or the various flavors of your lunch. Really bask in the warm water of your shower. Be really deliberate about what scent of perfume that you want to apply today, and make a point to sniff your own wrist often and delight in the scent mixing and changing with your own skin’s essence. Follow your intuition. Take the time to savor the sensualities of the day.
“Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses” – Milan Kundera
“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.” – James Baldwin
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Earlier this week I was perusing my Nextdoor website for recommendations for some housework that we need to have done. I believe that this was the original intention of Nextdoor, as it focuses on one particular community, usually within a 20 mile radius. Unfortunately, though, like almost all social media websites, our Nextdoor has also become a political fight, “mask vs. anti-mask”, “vax vs. anti-vax” nesting ground, among other heated, controversial topics, both local and national. I usually avoid these posts, as if they were the most contagious variant of the coronavirus out there, but I somehow got curious about a particular post written by a neighbor named John Guidi, that was noted as the day’s most popular post. It turned out to be a well-written, hilarious, sarcastic post, starting with this line:
“Political posts: If you feel you must make controversial posts on this board, please adhere to the following guidelines:”
Here were some of the guidelines:
5. Make sure to condemn somebody in every post.
8. Try to offend as many people as possible.
11. Always attempt to be very defensive.
15. No matter what someone else posts, always try to find fault with it.
17. State and restate the obvious.
I honestly read the post with glee and apparently so did many others in our neck of the woods, as it had over 200 likes and “thank yous” and smiley faces attached to the post, and 177 comments, comments which turned out to be a lot more of the usual back-and-forth, righteous, “rule” additions, posturing at the podium, etc.
I then took a look at the second most popular post of the day, which turned out to be a mother sincerely asking for recommendations for a local therapist for her adolescent son, who is suffering from depression. Her post showed earnest concern and desperation. Her name and her picture and her neighborhood, were all published on the post. And the beautiful thing is that the people who answered and commented on her post, were so kind and loving and honest about their own struggles and situations. She got dozens of recommendations and many tender and hopeful and caring posts, sending love and prayers for her comfort and for her son’s recovery. I got a lump in my throat thinking about how courageous it was for this mother to publicly admit that she needed some help. And the people of my neighborhood and surrounding areas could not have been more kind and understanding, and thoughtful and compassionate with the posts that they wrote to answer her plea. She wrote a sincere “thank you” post more than once throughout the Comments section.
Wow. That’s when I got my own personal “a-ha” moment. As well written as the first post was, it really wasn’t any different in tone, than so many of the biased political posts that we are besieged with, on social media today. Reading the first post and agreeing with it, I realized that right at that moment, I, myself, was in my own high-and-mighty, judgmental, “I am smarter/wiser than”, smirky, condescending ego mindset. It felt “good” and yet not good, all at the same time. Reading the second post, I was humbled. Being a mother, I felt so much empathy for the fear that we mothers feel when we can’t protect and heal our own children, all by ourselves. I felt so much admiration for that mother and equally, I felt so much gratefulness that my community responded like it did, with concern and support and hopefulness. I suspect that the people who answered her, came from many different backgrounds, political and otherwise. Reading her post and the responses to it, was affirming to me. I felt good. Just good. I felt connected to everybody in my neighborhood, not just the people who share my beliefs.
