Blog

Other People’s Children

I have been enjoying some really fun, celebratory lunches and dinners this holiday season, celebrating birthdays and the overall holiday season with my family and with my friends. I am looking forward to a warm dinner tonight with some of my closest friends and I can’t wait for a very special lunch today. Today, I have a Christmas lunch with a very good friend, whom I just met this fall. We have lunch together every Wednesday. I enjoy her company so much. She makes me feel like a giddy little kid again. Often, our lunches together, are one my highlights for the week.

Today, we are going to munch on McDonald’s Happy Meals, as a special treat. We’ll probably eat inside today because of the weather, which is a bummer, because my friend really prefers to eat outside. She wants to be an opera singer, but she’s too embarrassed to sing in front of big crowds. She sings and dances in front of me sometimes, on warm, sunny days. She’s very talented and animated. Sometimes, when we eat lunch, my friend and I wear brightly lit headbands, or headbands that have unicorn horns or kitty ears. My friend is very neat; much neater than I am. She brushes my crumbs off the table, right after I finish eating. She and I talk about important stuff, like the proper way to eat cupcakes. We both love fashion. We use our imaginations a lot. I love to hear stories about my friend’s dolls named Nuneia, Bonita, Rock, Paris and France. My friend is kind, funny, loving, thoughtful, smart and cute as a button. Her name means beautiful flower and she is in the third grade. My friend is my “lunch buddy”, which is a county-wide program, setting adult mentors up with kids who could use a little extra attention in life. (which is really just about every kid. Like they said at mentor training, being a mentor is just all about being a good listener, a good friend, and a believer and shower of all of the potential and abilities of their “buddies”. Like they kept repeating at mentor training, “Who couldn’t use a mentor?”)

Our county school system is the 8th largest in Florida and the 27th largest in the country. Our county has over 3500 homeless students and 54% of our students receive subsidized lunches. Our county wide graduation rate is 86% but it is rising, in part, because of an emphasis on programs like the mentoring program, which works to ensure that every child knows how special and vital they are, to this overall, interconnected Web of Life, which we all share. We were taught in mentor training that most kids have three major concerns: Am I normal? Am I liked? Do I fit in? (sadly, some things never change, right?)

They say when you volunteer, you get so much more out of it, than what you put into it. Honestly, that statement has rung hollow to me before. I have volunteered for things/programs/events that made me question why I was even there. There are cynical times in my volunteering life, when I have felt like I was just a warm body to fill a quota, in order to get some funding needed, or for a tax break, or to provide an “image” for a company or other entity, to show that this particular entity is “making a difference.” This is not one of those times. I have been mentoring a high school student and a “little flower” this fall semester, and this experience has changed my views and my outlooks and my patience and my compassion and my hopes for the future, PROFOUNDLY. Our school district can’t find enough mentors. Our already overtaxed teachers often mentor a few kids, on top of everything else that they do, because there are not enough volunteers. If you have a little extra time for some fascinating insights, and communication with today’s youths, please check out the mentoring programs in your local school district. You ARE qualified. You ARE needed. You WILL love it!

“Each of us must come to care about everyone else’s children. We must recognize that the welfare of our children and grandchildren is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people’s children. After all, when one of our children needs lifesaving surgery, someone else’s child will perform it. If one of our children is threatened or harmed by violence, someone else’s child will be responsible for the violent act. The good life for our own children can be secured only if good life is also secured for all other people’s children.” – Lillian Kate

Forties

Yesterday was my 49th birthday. I’m in the final year of my forties. My forties have been excruciating, enlightening, exciting, enlarging, enlivening, but mostly awakening. I honestly dreaded turning 40, but looking back, I see this decade as the most growing, interesting, “coming back to myself” period in my entire life. If you are one of my younger readers, don’t dread your forties. These middle years will give you a new lease on life. They will remind you of what is really important to you, and in that sense, your forties are very freeing. The forties help you to value yourself and to value your own life more than you ever have before, which in sort of a paradox way, helps you to respect others’ lives better. The forties decade requires you to enter a greater level of acceptance – an acceptance about aging, about the preciousness of time, about the fragility of life and the frailty of unhealthy relationships. You come to an acceptance of just how little you can control others, and you start to really hone in on the one person who you can control and improve – that being yourself. You experience a lot of lessons about change and about letting go, when you are in your forties. You often experience changes in vocations and locations, you experience the passing on of waning elders and the surrendering of your children, growing and moving on, into their own adult lives. You experience struggles and hardships and also, you offer support to others, in their times of tragedy, more than you probably had to deal with in your younger years. That’s okay, though. Because once you reach your forties, you have enough experience under your belt, to understand and to appreciate your own strength, your own stamina, and your own fortitude. In your forties, you believe in your own capabilities more than ever before, and your contemporaries also seem to share that steely confidence. You have enough courage to share with those in need, and enough humility to accept help when you need it. Life becomes more meaningful and precious in your forties. Nothing is taken for granted. You recognize your blessings so much more vividly than ever before, and that makes you feel more hopeful about growing old. You can only imagine that the richness of experiencing life, can only get more enhanced as you age, because on reflecting on the younger half of your life, you see the metamorphosis which you have already undergone and you feel very grateful. You feel so very, very, awestruck and grateful, all at the same time. Young people always think that we older people would go back in time and do it all over again, but I daresay, most of us would not. That’s an exhausting thought. We have earned where we are in our middle years, and that hard won acquired wisdom, is dearer for the time and the energy and the emotion that we’ve put into making our way into our middle years. Young readers, your forties aren’t likely to be easy. No one really gets ten years of “easy”, at any stage of the game. But your forties will better help to guide you to “simple”, in terms of peace, in terms of faith, in terms of Love. Your life will not become easy, but it will become more simple. And simply wonderful, at the same time.

Game On

My son was almost arrested a few days ago. He had only been home from college for about a day and a half. He is an excellent student and he attends a prestigious university. He was with three other friends, with the same kind of pedigrees. It was in the middle of the day. What was his offense? He and his friends were visiting their previous high school teachers and coaches. Despite being what would be called “distinguished alumni”, they are never allowed on the school property again, for the rest of their lives. Why? They entered the school through the back teachers’ gate (on advice from a former teacher). My son and his friends were technically “trespassing” and in today’s world, that is a serious, serious offense.

My daughter is a sophomore, at that same high school. Every day that I drop her off at school, I anxiously scan the crowd going into the high school, trying to get a feel for the energy of the kids and of the other people entering the school, each day. I say a little prayer for everyone’s safety (I’m pretty sure that I am not the only parent who does this) and I wave to the school officer, the same officer who almost arrested my son. Earlier in the school year, I thanked the lead school police officer for making me feel safe, and for giving an aura of calm and authority, to all who enter the school.

My feelings are very conflicted on this entire situation. The police officer acknowledged that my son and his friends are “good kids”. He knows that I volunteer every week at the high school, as I wave to him as I head into the office, to mentor my student. These are some of the reasons why the school police officer gave my son and his friends “a break.” By banning them from school property forever, they got off lightly. They won’t have arrests on their records. The officer assured me that he will probably have to do a lot of explaining as to why he didn’t arrest them for trespassing. Their principal was in tears, begging the officer not to arrest this group of kids, all who had been in the top ten of their graduating class, this past spring. But ever since the horrific Majory Stoneman Douglas massacre, that occurred right here in Florida, the laws are incredibly strict. And as a mother of a student at the high school, I am grateful for this fact.

I have been letting this situation churn inside of me for several days now. It has been unsettling and upsetting, to say the least. My son played basketball for the school, but he is never allowed to attend one of their basketball games again. His friend, a former baseball player, can never go on to the baseball fields. My son will never be able to pick up my daughter from school, for me, nor will he be able to attend one of her high school tennis matches. The teacher who texted the kids to use the back gate, has taught students for years on end. His students consistently have the highest passing rate for the AP Calculus exams, in the entire county, sometimes even in the state. Nonetheless, he is in serious trouble and he may lose his job.

The kids were wrong. The teacher was wrong. The rules are in place for a very good reason. I think that the biggest pit in my stomach lies in the fact that this is a prime example of where we are, in today’s world. This is what it has all come to, and I despise it. For the sake of our children and for our grandchildren and for all future generations to come, we need to change the direction that we are headed in, and we need to find a way to come to a common ground that makes sense for the greater good of our society. Politics, partisanship, superiority, sensationalism and hate, have proven to do nothing for this problem, except to make matters more divisive than ever. We need to wake up.

I wish that I had the answers. I don’t. But I believe that a Higher Good has the answer and if we make it a priority as a WHOLE, to feel in our hearts, our intuitions, and in the deepest parts of our souls, what the right answers are, we can then take loving, tangible steps towards the greater healing of our collective hearts, and of our unified minds. We need to stop living in fear and judgment. We need to stop being narrow-minded and righteous, seeing anyone who doesn’t see things as we do, as the enemy. We need to visualize this problem, as if our entire society was stuck on an elevator car, which is hanging by a loose cable that is about to break, and is about to come crashing down. We need to work together, feverishly, to find an answer to our violence problem. We need to do this, as if our lives depended on it. Because they do. We need to look upon each other as bright, hopeful, capable, sincere people who only want the best for our families, for our friends, for our communities, for our country, and for our society. We need to stop playing coy games. The real game is on, and it is CRUCIAL that we all play on the same team, against the evil that is taking us down.

Soul Sunday

Poetry workshop day. Please share the love/the feels/the words that try to convey the love/the feels. Here’s mine:

Nostalgia

Giggling about a Sesame Street video with my friends . . . .

When I’m approaching fifty.

Driving past the houses with their Christmas joy on parade . . .

With my son driving the car, this time.

Putting up the ornaments reminding me of people, places and pets . . .

Many, who have long passed on.

Trying to recognize the child’s face from a long ago play group . . .

In the Christmas card picture of a lovely young lady, dressed in a wedding gown.

Trying to find just the right thing to eat . . .

to soothe the funny swirl of feelings, aching around in my insides.

The longing that I am pulled to, yet try to avoid, all at the same time . . . .

Nostalgia.

Theme Party

Do you ever have the sense that each holiday season seems to have a certain universal trend or vibe or energy to it? I suppose the holidays, in one sense, are really an end cap/recap of the year gone by. To me, every year, the holidays seem to kind of summarize the year, in a very general sense.

This year’s holiday feels a tad more subtle to me than the last couple of years, so far. The parties which we have attended have been nice and warm, but nothing too outlandish. People seem to be “calling it a night” a little bit earlier than usual. The Christmas cards that we have received so far, seem a bit simpler, too. They seem to be less newsy and to contain less pictures. The outdoor decorations didn’t go out as early this year, as they had been put out in previous years, on many homes in our neighborhood. I’m not sure if it is just my own projections, but the holidays just feel a little more toned-down, a tad more introspective, in a broader sense, this year. It’s not a “sad/worried” energy that I am sensing, but more of a quiet, inquisitive, slowed down atmosphere. Is that what you all are sensing?

I notice and analyze quirks all of the time. I suppose that is part of being an observer/writer type person. Last year, about 90 percent of the Christmas cards that we received, had pictures of our friends’ pets on them. Pictures of pets on holiday cards are not unusual, but last year it seemed to be the complete norm. Last year, I was surprised when I opened a card that didn’t include a picture of a pet. I said to my husband, that indicates to me, that people were needing to feel warmth, and comfort, and unconditional love more than ever, last Christmas. Last year’s holiday season seemed to have more of outwardly frenzied neediness to it, than this year seems to have, to me. So far, anyway. This year’s holiday, thus far, seems to have more of a universal theme of acceptance, relaxation, and introspection. Tell me what you are sensing. I would be curious about everyone’s unique observations. And if you think that I am completely “off my rocker”, go ahead and tell me that, too. It’s often been suggested that I move to the beat of my own drum. (Don’t we all? Some of us are just better at hiding our drum beat under the cloak of conformity than others, I think.) My current calm presence can take any suggestions, right now, I am sensing, with a semblance of light bemusement. It’s just something in the air, this Christmas. Right?

Image result for quotes on overall collective emotions

Friday 13

I’m not really in a bad mood at all. It’s Friday, for goodness’ sake! I just thought that the meme was hilarious. The minions will always be a “favorite” of mine. Happy Friday!!! Happy Friday, the 13th!! (extra lucky) Happy Favorite Things Friday! New readers, Fridays are all about the material world. We keep it light and on the surface on Fridays. I typically list three favorite songs, downloads, gift items, gadgets, whatevers and I strongly encourage you to list your favorites, as well. Please check out previous Friday listings for more favorites. Favorites never go out of style. Here are today’s favorites:

Wsky Laptop Cooler – My laptop computer runs really hot. I need an oven mitt to move the laptop to a different location on my desk. This laptop cooling stand is quiet, only comes on when the computer is on, and is unobtrusive. I ordered it on Amazon and I truly believe that it is adding years to the life of my computer. I wish that they would make a person sized one, as it would be a wonderful way, to lay out in the sun. (shhh, I admit that I still do that, but I do wear sunscreen)

Derin Collection Coin Purses – I love small little bags to put all of my little minutia in. My friend once emptied out one of my colossal purses and counted 15 different bags, inside of the bag. (wallets, eyeglass cases, checkbook holders, makeup bags, you get the gist) No exaggeration. Hey, I own my idiosyncrasies. I love bags of every shape, size and color. I just found these Derin coin purses and I am in love. They look like tiny little Persian rugs for your purse. They are wonderful and the bottoms expand to hold all of our lucky pennies. Every purse needs a Persian carpet, right?!

Jillatay Etsy Store – I decided to add to my nativity scene collection this year. I typically like simple nativities that are only one piece (like Mary and baby Jesus) or a few simple pieces. (The larger sets are beautiful, but do not fare well in a chaotic household of six active people and two large dogs with long, wagging tails that tend to take these elaborate nativities out, in one full sweep) Anyway, I found some adorable nativity additions at this store and I fell in love with this ceramic artist’s complete whimsy and spiritually artistic viewpoint. (she makes art from many religious/spiritual/natural viewpoints) Check her site out. Eye candy! See an example below.

Have a great weekend, friends!!!! Happy Friday!!!

Santy Claws Red Jizo Kitty Cats Porcelain image 0

Cray-Cray

I don’t have much to say today. Just a little Thursday rant, I guess. I was doing laundry yesterday and as I was putting the dryer sheets in with the laundry, I noticed that the box emphasized that these dryer sheets have new “technology.” What?!? They are fabric softener infused dryer sheets. They are essentially sweet smelling, waxy, paper towels. That is not technology and that is okay. Simple is okay. If fact, sometimes “simple/no technology required” is refreshing. Does everything have to have “technology” these days? Should I download an app so that I can connect with my dryer sheets?!? Really?!?

That’s all. Sorry. I realize that I sound like the angry, stuck-in-her-ways old woman whom I swore I would never become. Happy Friday Eve, friends!!!

Image result for funny old woman memes

I’m Positive

“Staying positive doesn’t mean you have to be happy all of the time, it means that even on hard days you know that better ones are coming.” – FofF (Twitter)

I think one of the added tricky elements of the holiday season, is that you often feel the onus to feel cheerful, happy and blessed, from morning until night. And on the days that you aren’t in slap-happy mode, you feel the need to berate yourself, more than ever, for not being/feeling grateful, productive, and glistening-ly excited. You put yourself on your own naughty list for not being overjoyed, every second of the day.

I consider myself to be a mostly upbeat person. I have a sunny, friendly disposition most of the time. Because of this, I think that I feel an expectation from others, (and truthfully, mostly from myself), to be in a jubilant way, all of the time. However, as we all know, the demand, “Be Happy”, doesn’t work like a switch. You can’t just magically turn “Happy” on. “Happy” can be as inconsistent as our strands of Christmas lights, working beautifully one second, and then the next second, turned off, for no particular rhyme or reason.

These last few days, three of my kids have seemed particularly stressed, preparing for, and taking their final exams. My husband and I have been prodding them along with, “It’s almost over. Christmas break is right around the corner.” For some people, the holidays, themselves, stir up so much turmoil and fuss, that their mantra is, “It’s almost over. The new year is right around the corner.” That’s being positive. That’s being hopeful that there will be a happy release, just around the corner, from anything that is tying you up in knots right now. So, “happy” is just a fleeting emotion, and like all emotions, “happy” comes and “happy” goes. Being a positive person, however, is a state of being. It is the looking for the silver lining, the understanding that the clouds will always pass, and the faith in yourself and in your Highest guide, that whatever you experience in life, you will manage it, learn from it and grow, and you will survive it. And that whole process just described is called thriving. Thriving is what positive people do. “Happy” is the cheaply made, not so reliable strand of twinkling lights. “Positive” is the Star of Wonder, faithfully shining in the skies of our hearts, every single day. Even when we can’t see it, we know that the star is there, guiding us along our journeys in Life. And it will see us through to our destination. I’m positive of that fact. Absolutely positive.

B-E-B

Today is my youngest son’s birthday. He is still away at college. He doesn’t have any final exams today, but he does have two tomorrow, so he’ll spend his day studying. We laughed together this morning, when we talked about that fact. Adult birthdays aren’t quite as magical as when you are little kid. Real life still has to happen, with a cake break, if you are lucky.

It is strange not having him home for his birthday. I have been through this now, with both of his older brothers, but it still feels strange. Is there anything more intimate between a mother and her child, than her child’s birthday? On the day of a child’s birth, the child gets the blessing of life on Earth breathed into them, and also, at that very moment, the mother has already begun the gradual, painful, yet affirming process of releasing her child and letting go.

I asked my son, “How do you feel about it being the last year of your teens?”

He answered, “How do you feel about it?”

My real unsaid response was this – Oh, honey, you don’t want me to unleash the storm of feelings that I feel on every single one of your and your sibling’s birthdays. The torrent of pride and love and bewilderment and fear and memories and giggles and gratefulness and giddiness and pain and hope and guilt and amusement and joy and awe would probably be too much for both of us to handle . . . . but maybe not. Maybe that torrent of emotion is what we both felt, on the crescendo of that beautiful winter day, nineteen years ago. And I think that we have both turned out pretty good, so far. We weather well. I know that I love our relationship. I know that I love you from the deepest wells of my heart. The relationships that I have with you and your siblings and your father, is what my makes my life sing its very song. Thank you for the gift of my sacred song.

Instead I answered, “I feel great! I’m proud of you. I love you. Have a wonderful day!” And then we hung up, and I let go, just a little more.

Life With Gusto

Image result for quotes on model trains

“You’re in my heart, you’re in my soul
You’ll be my breath should I grow old
You are my lover, you’re my best friend
You’re in my soul

My love for you is immeasurable
My respect for you immense
You’re ageless, timeless, lace and fineness
You’re beauty and elegance

You’re a rhapsody, a comedy
You’re a symphony and a play
You’re every love song ever written
But honey what do you see in me”

You were probably singing along to the above lyrics from the song “You’re In My Heart” by Rod Stewart, as you were reading them. (Admit it. I know you did. You are fun like that!) I have always thought that those lyrics were the best that I have ever heard in a love song, and what I really enjoy about the song, too, is that it is encased in such a fun, upbeat, easy-to-sing melody. It’s the kind of song that 25 people will belt out together, at a bar or a party, all looped together, in shoulder slung arms. I did some research and I found out that Rod had written that song, mostly for the Swedish model/actress, Britt Ekland. Having always been quite the “player” in romantic relationships (he has had three marriages, and eight children by five different mothers), Rod doomed their relationship to last only about two years, but the song will go on in popularity, for quite some time. The lyrics and the tune are timeless.

I think that Rod Stewart probably has a big heart . . . . a big heart in the sense that it is filled with a lust for life, rarely witnessed in other human beings. I just read that in the 26 years that Rod Stewart (now aged 74) made 13 musical albums, and went on tour 19 times, he was also creating a masterpiece. Rod Stewart just put the finishing touches on an epic model train railway city. This is how it is described: “a 124ft spread depicting an entire US city and inspired by the view from his childhood home.” (Twitter) So, while writing songs and rocking it out on stage, womanizing, being a dad and a husband, and a grandfather, and a knight, an avid car collector, and at one time, having given it a go at becoming a professional “footballer” (in America, we call them soccer players), Rod Stewart was working on his model train set. Apparently, though most of this awe-striking creation is kept in his Los Angeles’ home’s attic, he would bring parts of it on tour, keeping the part that he was working on, in its own separate hotel room, so that he could work on it, in between shows.

There must be a connection with musicians and train sets. One of my best friend’s boyfriend is an avid musician, who also faithfully attends his model train club meetings, at least once a week. Apparently, Roger Daltrey, Phil Collins, Neil Young, and Ronnie Wood, also share in the hobby.

Miniature train sets, are fascinating. When I was a kid, we made several trips to The Miniature Railroad and Village, owned by the Carnegie museums and now housed in the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida also houses a magical train display, depicting the circus in the 1920s. My favorite part of both of these attractions, is how they simulate night and day, so when it gets dark, all of the the warm and twinkling lights on the buildings and street lamps start to glow.

I kind of got wander-y and meandering in this post, much like a charming little model train, making its way through towns and countrysides, and bridges and tunnels. I’ll park my post back in the station, of the point that I was trying to make all along. Life is grand. Life is full of possibilities. Life is so interesting because we are so interesting in the ways that we are INTERESTED. We all find ourselves attracted to different fascinations. What if we all started this upcoming new year (and new decade, for that matter) with an agreement to go after our interests, our hobbies, our passions, and our curiosities, with gusto? With wild abandonment? With unbridled enthusiasm? Can you imagine how great that would feel? Can you imagine the wonders that would come from that excited frenzy? Take the shoulds/what other people would think/judgments on level of “cool” or “sophisticated”/our somewhat limited beliefs on time constraints/worries that we aren’t talented enough/comparisons to others, etc. etc. right out of the equation and in the forever truism made popular by Nike – JUST DO IT.

Friends, in embarking on a whole new span of time – a new year, a new decade, in our decidedly short lifetimes, let’s throw the excuses out of the window, and get back on the tracks and see where they take us. It’s bound to be amazing. And much like a miniature train, it doesn’t have to end. It can loop around and around, reminding us, again and again, of just how damn delightful it is to be ALIVE.