Friends, I wrote the blog post seen below about two years ago. I never mentioned the subject again. I never planned to repeat it again, but the truth is that my web hosting bills came due, and like all things these days, their charges went way up. Please read the following (please and thank you ahead of time). I appreciate your support in all the ways that you show it!!
A Bonus, I guess
“As a society, it’s as if we’ve read too many blog posts about the 80/20 rule. When you strip away too much of the non-essential, you lose the kind of craftsmanship that endows an object with soul and makes the world feel alive.” – David Perell
I read a couple of interesting articles about the homogenization of society, over the weekend. In modern society, we want everything to be fast, easy, cheap, and to look like an Apple store. And the price which we are paying for this is the loss of creativity, uniqueness, and cultural diversity. A lot of this has happened due to our greater globalization, and it’s not all bad. We have a lot more conveniences, worldwide, than we ever had before. Still, I think that it is important to notice a phenomenon when it is happening. I think that it’s okay to rebel against this a little bit. I think this is why there are those of us who like to peruse antique stores and flea markets, and pick up an object and say out loud to ourselves, and to whomever else may be near, “They don’t make them like this anymore!”
This week make sure that you dress yourself, feed yourself, and surround yourself with items that have soul, and make you feel alive. Don’t be a sheeple.
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.
Good morning. My regular readers know that I devote Sundays to poetry on the blog. I don’t have a poem today. I don’t have a poem in any way. I’m not sharing one I wrote. But what I have, is wrote in quote. Poets don’t always write in rhyme – for that, they don’t always have the time. Sometimes poets just really have wise things to say, and so that is what I am sharing with you today.
“I have never started a poem whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering.” – Robert Frost
“Poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings.” – W. H. Auden
“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” – Emily Dickinson
“A picture is a poem without words.” – Horace
“Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.” – Plato
“If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.” – Seamus Heaney
“A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.” – Wallace Stevens
“To have great poets, there must be great audiences.” – Walt Whitman
Thank you for being my great audience, readers. I love you. Have a blessed, poetic Sunday. <3 (Write a poem. Discover the ending. Make sense of your mixed feelings. Blow your own mind, or perhaps just take a photo and see the poetry in it. Find the vital truth that only your deepest inwardness knows. Fall in love with yourself through your words. You are a great poet, even if the only audience is yourself. <3 )
How’s everyone’s summer going? An informal survey with my friends and relations says that it is going “really fast.” I feel the same way. But really, we all get the same 24 hours in any day. And summer is roughly equal to the same amount of time as any of the other three seasons. Perception is a funny thing.
I saw the quote listed below and it reminded me that almost all of us have had a summer crush/vacation connection (usually in our teenage years), or perhaps, we all can think of that just one particularly amazing summer in which everything was just right: our bodies looked and felt great, our trips and our weekend events were amazing and particularly memorable, we felt unusually relaxed and connected with all of our friends and our family, and the weather cooperated perfectly through it all. We just wished that the summer would never, ever end.
“I’ll never regret someone that I had an amazing time and experience with. Even if we fall off, you made my life special at a certain time. We grew together, even if we grew apart. Thank you.” – Poem Heaven (Twitter)
There is something about the slow, lazy, dreamy summer days that make you feel nostalgic for it, before it is even over.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
RIP – James Caan
James Caan is my favorite for today on Favorite Things Friday. Any time I went to a movie, and I found out that James Caan was in it, I’d be glad. I loved his expressions, from the crazy temper of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, to the smirky-ness of Walter in Elf. I loved his confident, macho, wise-ass demeanor.
The quote above by James Caan, is all that any of us parents are trying to do, right? We don’t get a degree in parenting from esteemed universities. We pretty much get on the job training – sink or swim. We try our best to carry on the traditions that we love from our families of origin, and we try our best to make the changes that would have made our own childhoods better. It’s not easy, but the loving part is in the earnest trying to be better, and to do better, in the hopes that our children will do the same, and improve upon us, so that the generations ahead will move forward towards a goal of loving, parental perfection. This is perhaps an unattainable goal, but at least it’s a point in the horizon worth pointing our ships toward.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Never forget how unique and wonderful you are in this world. There is only one of you. That makes you priceless and precious. Treat yourself as such.
It was interesting to me, last weekend, when we were driving through a part of Florida that had recently been decimated by a hurricane. Instead of rebuilding homes on their land, it appeared that a few people had purchased large, expensive RVs that they parked under metal RV “carports” on the land that used to be a beach homestead. Many of these fancy RV “carports” actually had screened in porches built into them. It was a fascinating solution.
My husband and I are embarking on that stage in life, where a lot more opportunities are opening up to us, as to where to live and how to live. It’s exciting and daunting, all at the same time. Still, as I ponder these decisions, I have to remind myself that “wherever you go, there you are.” We are all like our own little RVs, carrying around our own awareness and perceptions, our egos and personalities, our thought tickers (kind of like a stock tickers), our hearts, and our baggage.
One beach that we recently drove through is home to gorgeous, multi-million dollar homes where a lot of the Nashville country stars, and Hollywood stars with southern ties, are known to have beach houses. People like Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Trisha Yearwood are all said to have residences there. None of these stars’ lives mentioned, have been “a cakewalk.” Clearly, no matter where you live outside of your own body/”RV”, that outside spot doesn’t protect you from the hurricanes of relationship, mental health, and addiction issues. Wherever you park your own little personal RV, that’s where you are. No matter how fancy the outside of your parking spot is, what truly matters is what is going on inside of your own unique RV.
How is maintenance going on your own personal RV? Are you fueling it up healthfully? Are you shading it from the hot summer sun? What about that thought ticker that is constantly scrolling? Is that thought ticker stuck on repeat? What are the quality of thoughts that are constantly being played and replayed on it? How’s the windshield on your own little RV body? Do you keep it clean, so that your perception is clear and wide open? Is your RV carrying too much baggage? Are there things/habits/relationships that need to be kicked to the curb and let go, so that you can ride to your destinations, freer and lighter? How about that heart engine of your own beautiful little RV? That’s what needs to be protected the most, because, otherwise your RV isn’t going anywhere.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Credit: Project 143
If you do the math, 2,050,560 children become orphans every single year. And approximately 250,000 of children are adopted annually. Hmmmm. I’ve never been great at math, but it appears to me that there are plenty of children already in the world who would greatly benefit from being adopted. And sadly, we in America, all know the face of another precious orphan whose parents were gunned down at a Fourth of July parade, by a 21-year old man (with prior issues of violence), who legally bought high powered rifles in his own state.
I’m not trying to be political here. I am grateful for the new law that our Republican governor in Florida put into place recently, that would never restrict loved ones from being able to visit their loved ones in a hospital. No one should EVER have to die alone. Last fall, there was more than one time, when our son’s epileptic seizures were out of control, that we were denied access to visit him in his hospital room, and this was in Florida which was generally much less restricted than the rest of the country during the earliest times of the pandemic. I remember sobbing at the front of a hospital entrance in my husband’s arms, with the power to do nothing but to hope and to pray.
Can we stop with the party lines??? Can we start to come together with realism, common sense, and an agreement to compromise, for the good of our country and for the good of our country’s precious citizens??? These hard core, black/white, all or nothing, stubborn, defiant, righteous, hateful lines that both of our major parties are walking, are not doing us any good. We are not walking a straight path. We are walking in circles. And we are quickly circling down the drain, to the despair of the majority of us, who adore our country.
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.
We lived nine years in Charlotte, NC before moving to Florida. Where we ended up landing this weekend, was a quintessential southern-flavored town, right on the white sanded, Florida beach. It felt as if Charlotte had landed up on the beach. It was lovely to experience again the southern charms of excellent biscuits, babies with monograms and big bows, and drinks filled with mint leaves. No one could ever deny the unsurpassed-ness of southern hospitality.
My husband and I did a lot of biking and swimming and playful flirting. This is the first trip that we have taken in a while, where we could just focus on the two of us. We noticed a sweet young couple cuddled together, taking a luxurious nap on one lounge by the pool. Almost 28 years ago we were that sweet young couple, swaying on a hammock, all snuggled together, on a beach on our honeymoon, dreaming about what was to come ahead in this life that we would share. Wow. It would take volumes of books, full of depth and nuances, to explain the intricacies and the lessons and the adventures and the joys (and also the challenges) of raising a family of four children, to that young couple huddled in a hammock. I think if I saw honeymoon me now, I would just say, “Darling, it’s going to be amazing. Sometimes incredibly challenging, but always amazing. Treasure it. Experience every moment, knowing that you have just made the best decision of your life.”
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Dear United States of America,
Foremost, you are my beautiful country. This weekend I stayed in my own lovely state of Florida and travelled to incredibly, scenic parts of Florida which I have never seen before. I saw so much diversity, in just this one state. Miles and miles of untouched wilderness, gorgeous coastlines, cities and small towns, all with their own flavors and charms and heritage. The diversity in the people matched these beautiful, unique places, and this is in just one small part of 1/50th of this incredible, vast, magnificent land.
USA, I love you. My grandfathers and my father served to keep you free. I married into a patriotic family. My father-in-law made a career in the army. My sister-in-law is one of the first women to graduate from West Point. My husband remembers to always put the flag out on every special day. He always remembers, and I love him for that loyalty and respect that he has always shown to you.
That being said, America, I am angry with you right now. So very angry. I love you and I will always love you. You are my country. But right now, I don’t like you. I don’t like you at all. I don’t like how divisive and angry you have become. I don’t like that you seem to have forgotten the very tenants that you were founded on, such as the separation of church and state. I don’t like how violent and dangerous you have become. America, you are behaving like a spoiled, arrogant, greedy brat. For the first time in my life, as an American woman, I can better empathize with how complicated patriotism and days like the Fourth of July must truly feel to our native, indigenous people and to our black citizens. My heart finally understands a little bit of what hurts these days must bring up to huge swaths of your own sacred citizens.
America, you are in an awkward stage, like an angry, petulant, stubborn, entitled, lazy teenager, hellbent on self-destructing. It’s not a path that you want to stay on. You have a lot of healing and growing and awakening to do, and I hope that you wise up to these facts before there is no turning back. Choose your leaders carefully and soulfully, so that the free world can respect and accept your own leadership once again. Find some humility. Find a path forward that you can be proud of, and that will preserve all of the ideals that so many of your own people gave their lives to keep.
Happy Birthday, America. Please do better. You are capable of being so much more. Dig deep and be what you are meant to be – a beacon of freedom and hope and prosperity and vision and dignity and integrity, for all people to revere.
May this birthday be the day that it all turns towards the light of better days ahead for you my beautiful, beloved country. I truly hope so. Make it so.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning. Our intuitions have served us well. I am waking up in the only room left available in a fabulous, old inn listed on the National Historic Register. The hotel is in one of those towns that feels like it has always been home – one of those comfortable, feel good places, which in some ways feels like it has somehow always been a part of me, even though I have never been here before. I love this serendipitous feeling.
Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Atticus says it best:
Here is my poem for day. Take a moment today in which all you do is feel. Write a poem.
“The Well Beaten Path Back To Me”
I did not know where I was going so I let my soul take the wheel.
And it steered itself to where it could best be refilled, renewed and restored.
My soul always knows the way.
It has the wisdom of the sun and the stars and the knowledge that beats my heart.
Serendipity leads to serenity.
