Author: admin

Monday-Funday

Meme Credit: Achalika, Twitter

Yesterday, I had an interesting observation. If you consider the idea that all living things are just various containers/receptacles/vehicles for Life Force, the energy that gives the spark of life and vitality to every living thing, then it occured to me, despite my human smugness, Life Force, in that very moment, was having a much better time being contained in my robust, leaning towards the sunshine bamboo plant, and also being contained inside of my contented, little brown dog, Trip, as he lay napping happily at my feet with one paw resting on my foot. I, at that time, was grumbling over my weekly calendar, all the while worrying about the people and the details of the upcoming week. So the Life Force inside of me got to feel tumult and angst and a little bit of agitation about things maybe not going exactly as I had hoped and planned. Maybe being in a human container, is not the highest goal for Life Force. Maybe Life Force is much happier being contained in a tree, or in a bird, or in a fish. These entities do a much better job of acceptance and joy of just being peacefully themselves, in the moment, than we humans ever do, that is for sure.

Later last evening, my husband started talking about his excitement for the upcoming football season and the Vuelta (which is a bike race in Spain that lasts 21 days. “We” just finished up watching the equally long Tour de France about a week ago.) So, I put my foot down and I announced that last night was my night to choose what we would watch. I was in the mood for an uplifting, heartwarming movie. So I Googled “uplifting, heartwarming movies”. Many websites that I looked at that contained lists of “uplifting, heartwarming movies” had overlaps of the same suggested movies, and we have already seen the majority of these movies, but what struck me the most, is the fact that most of the movies listed were from the year 2000 and below. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and La La Land (2016) seemed to be the most modern movies on the lists. Despite having seen it several times, we chose Jerry Maguire (1996). It never disappoints. Still, using just this one example, it was a reminder that society desperately needs an infusion of “uplifting and heartwarming.” We’ve collectively been through a lot, particularly in the last few years, so maybe it’s time to set aside dark and depressing for a little bit. A large dose of “uplifting and heartwarming” would do us a world of good. Large doses of anything are made up of small particles of the same matter. Maybe if we each choose to be a small particle of “uplifting and heartwarming”, we will start seeing “uplifting and heartwarming” in masses, everywhere we go. Maybe we will even see “uplifting and heartwarming” in the movies, again.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends. I’ve experienced a lovely weekend. I hope that you have, too. Today, I decided to stop slacking, and I finally wrote my own poem for today. (Write a poem today. If I can do it, you can do it. Trust me. I consider poems to be messages in a bottle sent from the deepest recesses of your heart, up to your head to be translated, with understanding and resonation.) Baudelaire once wrote, “Always be a poet, even in prose.” Here is my poem for today:

Light breezes, finding the perfect seashell,

puppies, babies, foreign lands, spicy food,

the joys and angsts of raising children,

flowers, books, singing robustly when driving my car,

laughing, playing, loving with intimate vigor,

sunny, clear days, and calm, fire-lit starry nights,

As I ponder of what trinket of beauty to write a poem about,

I ask myself,

If I were to be thrown into a small, dark, dank prison with iron chains,

Or I found myself tied to a lonely hospital bed for the rest of my days,

would have I let myself experience enough life and unbridled emotion,

from my vital, gifted, assumed days of freedom and health,

to fill those lonely, lost days with poems of lush and vivid memories?

Am I living the poetry in my heart that is begging to flourish right now?

There is nothing sadder than a heart without poems.

Living life is what beats a heart.

Poetry flows from the beat.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Lightning Strikes

Last night we went to an event with our youngest son and his friends which was held in the arena where our local hockey team plays. Our local hockey team is our city’s pride and joy. We’ve won three Stanley Cups, two of them in back-to-back years. It always gives me a giggle, particularly now, in the August heat of a Florida summer, to think about how dominant we are at a winter sport that was invented in Canada, whose winters are as brutal as our summers. One feature of our event tickets was to be able to tour the locker room, which was surprisingly small, humble, and modest when you think of it as an area that these great champions spend a fair amount of their time. This actually made me smile. It made me think of the unpretentious Ted Lasso. When we turned the corner to a small sitting area with a couple of well worn couches, there were these words printed on the walls (as always, the words were my favorite feature of the night, besides laughing with my family and friends):

“The Standard is set by our action and mindset – Our action is swift and without hesitation, our mindset is one of quiet calm in the heat of battle, we will win as a result of our values. We are Fearless, Accountable, have Integrity, are Tenacious and Humble. We have Faith in The Standard.

Fearless – I am not afraid to fail.

Accountability – There are no excuses.

Integrity – I honor my word with my actions.

Tenacity – I will do whatever it takes.

Humility – Team above self, always.”

With a Standard like this, is it a wonder that they have become The Standard to beat???

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Not the Bride Friday

My friends and I were having a text conversation this morning, talking about the stories that we tell ourselves about what other people are thinking about us, and what is going to happen in the future, and we let these stories grow and grow, especially if we are creative, imaginative, emotional, anxious people. We can easily be our own worst enemies. We have the meanest of “mean girls” inside of our own heads who are experts at torturing and manipulating us. My friend said that when her daughter finds herself getting carried away with worries like this, her daughter says to herself, “I am not the bride.” This is a reminder that we aren’t the focus of other people’s thoughts and attention, nearly as much as we think that we are, and when we put our worries into the wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee, don’t-be-a-narcissist, “I am not the bride” context, this is the thought that follows: “Ewww. No thank you. I don’t care to be a bridezilla. Sit down and shut up, stupid mean girl in my head.” So today, on Favorite Things Friday, my new favorite mantra is “I am not the bride.” I think that this will make for a nice, in-the-moment, easy-going weekend.

My bonus favorite for this Favorite Things Friday is a jewelry company called The Pink Reef (HELLOPINKREEF.COM). Their jewelry is colorful, and feminine, and mostly statement pieces, featuring large hand-painted flowers and butterflies. I believe that Barbie would buy jewelry from The Pink Reef. And clearly, based on the blockbuster movie sales, we all love Barbie.

Friends, you are not the bride (hopefully you’ll only ever be a bride (or groom) once or twice in your whole lives – even Elizabeth Taylor was only the bride eight times in her entire lifetime). Let that peaceful thought carry you throughout this weekend, freely doing whatever you please to live an enjoyable, in-the-moment, full of awe experience, all weekend long, without ever needing the approval of others. Free yourself to enjoy the festivities without any concerns about being in the spotlight. Delight in shutting your “inner meanie” down.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

This Is A Good One

I remember many years ago my uncle relaying a story of sitting next to “The Boss” (Bruce Springsteen) on an airplane heading to New Jersey, and my uncle said that Bruce was an incredibly nice, gracious, down-to-earth man. Since the theme of the blog this week seems to be trending towards “good, kind-hearted people”, I thought that I would share this video. Good people are everywhere. Make it a point to look for them. They usually don’t make a show of it, but they are everywhere. If you make a point of looking out for something, you will be surprised about how often you find it. Sometimes you will feel inundated. Try it. Pick anything – a red rose, a butterfly, a dolphin, an orange car, etc. and marvel at how many times in a small amount of time you see this particular thing or an image or representation of this item, as you are going about doing your daily life. ( “The Baader–Meinhof phenomenon is an example of such biased attention. What is it called when you learn something and then see it everywhere? This phenomenon is called the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or the frequency illusion.” – Scribbr) Why not add kind, wonderful, thoughtful people to your list of things that you want to see on a daily basis? Wouldn’t that be a great uplift to your every day?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good Guys

Based on the views, yesterday’s post about being with people who are “good for your soul” must have struck a chord. I feel like the Universe is sending me this message loud and clear this week, based on what I experienced yesterday.

Yesterday, you subscribers may have noticed that you got your email with my blog post a lot earlier than usual. This is because I had jury duty. This is only the second time in my life that I have ever been called for jury duty. The first time that I was called for jury duty was in 2016, during a time period that our youngest son’s epileptic seizures were not in control, and he was still a teenager at home. The clerk of courts kindly accepted my excuse, and I didn’t even have to drive down to the courthouse at that time.

Honestly, there was a time in my life that I would have been excited for the “new adventure” of possibly being on a jury, but yesterday, I was not excited, nor engaged about the possibility. I, of course, believe in our legal system and I understand and I support the fact that jury duty is a civic responsibility and a duty, but like all of us, I was not particularly excited about having my life, and my daily schedule interrupted. Also, I have gotten to be even more emotional, and more nuanced (sometimes muddled) in my thinking about things, as I have aged, and sadly, though not as jaded as many people seem to be, I definitely have become more cynical about “the state of things” than I ever have been in my life. In short, I didn’t have confidence that I would make the best of jurors.

Luckily, the jury supervisor told us right from the beginning that for the 14 trials that we had been called for, 11 of them had already been settled. Looking at the room of about 150 people, with seemingly every category of human beings represented: age, color, fashion style, etc., I figured that my odds were really good to be dismissed. And I was right. An hour later, the jury supervisor dismissed all of us, saying that the final three cases had been settled and we were free to go home (with the warning to please not tell everyone that this is the “norm”. In fact, she said, this was highly unusual. We were lucky.) I was home by 10:30 in the morning.

By late afternoon, I was exhausted. I had not slept well the night before, and I had walked around in the high heat, a little too much. One of my friends and my youngest son both recommended for me to watch the show, Jury Duty (Amazon prime), so at dinner, I implored my husband to sit on the couch and “veg” with me. Last night, we binge-watched all eight episodes of Jury Duty in the matter of around three hours, and now I believe that I would make for a better juror. My belief and faith in humanity has been restored a bit.

Jury Duty is a show where a young man named Ronald Gladden believes that he is taking part of being in a documentary, about being a member of a jury, in a civil case. The truth of the matter is Ronald is a real-life “Truman” (like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show). Everyone else in the whole show – judge, other jury members, lawyers, bailiff, etc. are all actors. The show is meant to be a comedy (it was created by the makers of “The Office”, and things get really zany, and even sometimes a little bit gross and over-the-top), but what stays constant is Ronald Gladden’s wonderful, steady character and kindness. Being made jury foreman, Ronald stays even, and calm under pressure. He works to be inclusive of all members of the jury, including “the weird ones”, and the older ones, and the ones whose accents make them hard to understand. He is uplifting to those who need it, and discrete about those who have made mistakes. Ronald is helpful and understanding and patient, consistently, with every single one of the jurors. He is thoughtful and inquisitive when taking notes about the case. Ronald steps up to being a leader, as the foreman, when he helps the jurors come to a consensus that they all felt comfortable with, without shaming or deriding anyone into their decisions. In short, he takes his job seriously and he does it well. It’s no wonder that #RonaldForPresident is trending viral on social media. It seems that we are all a little thirsty to witness more of the better side of humanity these days. Ronald Gladden is one of “the good guys” and we love him for it.

There were 2500 people who answered an ad on Craigslist to be in this documentary. The creators of the show were very selective. The executive producer, Nicholas Hatton said they were looking for someone specific: “It was vital to find someone we sensed the audience could root for and would also provide the heart and moral compass of the show.” They got it “spot on” with Ronald. And he is not an actor. He was not acting. Ronald was just being himself – a wonderful human being.

Last night, after crawling into bed after binging the entire show, I told my husband that now, I kind of wished that I had been picked for jury duty after all. It made me question if I would have behaved as decently and patiently and kindly, as Ronald did, throughout the three weeks of daily dealings with an unusual, eclectic, sometimes annoying group of characters. I feel inspired by a young man who showed me that this is indeed possible, and it is beautiful.

“Each human being shall have all of these in him, and they will constitute his nature. In some, there will be high and fine characteristics which will submerge the evil ones, and those will be called good men; in others the evil characteristics will have dominion, and those will be called bad men.” – Mark Twain

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good Food for the Soul

Our daughter experienced the last day of her summer job, this past Sunday. She worked at a popular, local ice cream shop near to one of our more beloved beaches. At dinner last night, my daughter told my husband and I that what she loved most about this particular job, is that it “brought her back to herself” again. Needless to say, this perked my ears.

“I lost myself a little bit, at the end of spring semester,” she said honestly and earnestly. “And these kind, fun, full of camaraderie people whom I worked with, along with the regular, supportive customers, and the excited, happy-go-lucky vacationing out-of-towners, brought me back to my natural self.”

Our daughter is a rising sophomore at a large, competitive university. None of her closest friends from high school ended up attending this same university with her, so she had to navigate a lot on her own, this past freshman year, in an environment that sometimes felt like swimming with the sharks, to her. I told my daughter how proud I was of her, for her considerate self-awareness. I reminded her what a good lesson she has learned, and I hope that she will be able to remember it, and to apply it, for the rest of her life.

“It is healthy and important to limit interactions with people who make you feel ‘less than’, or who you are afraid to be your true self with – these are not your people,” I said to her. “How you feel around a person speaks volumes. You must be true to yourself. You will never be happy if you feel that you can’t be the authentic version of the one-and-only-you. We all get cheated when people aren’t able to be fullest and deepest and truest expression of their own unique selves. People who accept you, and love you for your own distinctive qualities are the best kind of people there are in this world. Remember to be that kind of person for other people, too.”

The ice cream shop coworkers were a hodgepodge of older, full-time managers and workers, college students from all different universities and colleges, working for the summer, and a few high school students sprinkled in for good measure. Based on the funny stories, the social events they had with each other outside of work, and the support and cooperation and consideration shown to each other during busy, bustling work nights (all things which our daughter had relayed to us throughout the summer), it became extremely evident, that this eclectic group of people made for an amazing, good-for-the-soul, mix of coworkers and friends.

Sometimes in life, when all of the individual ingredients are so wholesome and incredible on their own merit, and they come together in one spot, you end up with something like an absolutely unbeatable, unforgettable delicious hot fudge sundae. For me, the fact that my daughter learned to appreciate the goodness and the sweetness of people who make you comfortable to be fully yourself, the people who help you to bring “the you” out of you, and who celebrate you and appreciate you, is the biggest, juiciest, most delightful cherry on top, of this memorable experience, in her young adult life.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday Funday

Our Labrador retriever, Ralphie, spent a lot of time with us in the pool this weekend. He’s now an interesting shade of yellow-green. Ralphie is definitely “that blonde kid on the swim team.” You can’t miss the fact that he loves to swim.

There are two quotes that stood out for me, from my weekend reading. They are by the same author, Ehime Ora:

“Today will be an easy day if you let it be. Try not to spiral in your thoughts. Not everything that you think is true.”

“You deserve peace in your life, not just low stress. There’s a difference.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

I’m delayed in writing because my husband and I got up early to do some touch up painting on our house before the blazing summer sun took over with a punishing stranglehold. It’s been one of those weekends of tackling those “instant gratification” chores – painting, weeding . . . It stinks when you are doing it, but the results are so uplifting. I keep telling my husband, as we are knocking these things off of our list, “Well, now we’re hurricane ready.” He keeps admonishing me to stop calling a hurricane in.

I’ve been lazy with my poem writing lately. I hope that you have done better with it than me. I miss it. Poetry really is the heart’s first language. Here is a good poem that I found for today:

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Flourishing

This week I had a wonderful experience of sending flowers to someone who loves flowers, and who is also so deserving of receiving beautiful flowers. I have learned through trial and error, the best chance of getting really wonderful, “just right” flowers to a person, is to look up a florist with excellent ratings in that person’s zip code. You then make a real live phone call (they need to hear the emotion in your voice) to that particular florist, and you relay your personal story – “the why” you want to gift a meaningful bouquet of flowers to a person, the particulars of why this person and this occasion is so vitally important to you, and then you give the floral designer their own creative license to translate that story, which you relayed to them in words, into their own artform – flowers and foliage and beauty and form. Florists flourish when you give them your trust of artistic freedom.

In my experience, florists/floral designers love their work. They take great pride in their work. Their artform is all about translating some of the most beautiful, delicate pieces of nature into a message of cheer, hope, beauty, celebration and love. What a wonderful calling!

When I received the text from the florist that the flowers had been delivered, and then soon afterwards got the extremely excited texts and pictures from the receiver of the arrangement, I texted the florist to say how pleased and happy we all are, with how the bouquet turned out.

Soon after, the florist sent me a sweet text back, gushing with pleasure that we were so happy. He ended the text with “thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuu.” (his creative license with gratefulness is also adorably “extra” in the unabashed, wonderful way, seemingly only true artists can be)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.