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Monday – Funday

credit: @PoemHeaven Twitter

The point is, one point at a time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The other day, I was getting a replacement crown on my tooth, and so I was a captive audience for my dentist’s assistant. She is actually quite charming and entertaining, so it was like listening to a delightful podcast. Before going to school to work in dentistry, the dental assistant spent her teens and twenties in Miami, during the 1990s, working at an exclusive resort on South Beach that catered to the rich and famous. This was an era that my dental assistant claimed that South Beach was one of the most beautiful, glamorous places on Earth. She named dozens and dozens of celebrities she had met throughout the years. She said that she was petting one guest’s cute little dog, only to look up to see that the owner of the dog was Elton John. The dental assistant said that Elton John was absolutely delightful. She said that most of the celebrities she had met were kind, warm, polite and had well-behaved children. Out of her many experiences (Janet Jackson’s personal chef made delicious pies for each of the eight pregnant employees at the resort), she only had two negative experiences with arrogant, overreaching celebrity customers. I won’t relay the gossip.

When the gauze was removed from my mouth, I asked my dental assistant a question. She had dropped out of college, to support herself and her mother, during that time when she was working many long hours at the luxury resort in Miami. Her family was a working class family who had moved from the Bronx.

“B, did you find the ridiculous displays of wealth annoying? Was it hard to cater to these types of people?”

She scrunched up her face when I asked her this. I think that I disappointed her with my question.

“No! I’m not like that. Baby, we all do the best with what we were given in life. I was a cute, bilingual Latina girl and I know that is why I got the job there. It was a wonderful time of my life and I made good money. You can’t blame people for their talent or their parents’ money. You only judge people on their character.”

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning. I hope that you have a nice warm cup of coffee (or whatever your favorite morning beverage is) right near you, as you read this post. Sundays are for poetry on the blog. I also hope that you have a neat little notebook and a pen that you particularly love to write with, right next to your neat little notebook. I hope that you plan to write yourself a poem this quiet, beautiful morning. Poems are love notes to yourself.

Years ago I wrote a blog post that people seemed to really like and relate to, as it pops up as being read again and again, throughout the years. Here it is, if you are interested: https://kellyfoota.com/?s=thank+yourself or you can just search “Thank Yourself” on my blog search function.

I found this poem yesterday by a writer on Twitter, that has that same tone of my blog post. I love it, and as April begins, it’s a good poem to start the month out with, for sure (credit: @ronwritings, Twitter):

Another post I noticed on Twitter yesterday, was a post by Dr. Nicole LaPera. She asked her followers: “When was your first memory of feeling loved?” It hurt my heart, to read so many posts by readers that stated that it took well into their early adulthoods to feel loved. Some people posted that they have never felt loved. After reading a few of these tweets, I went right to our family chat, sent my family a picture of that tweet, and I wrote to my four children: “I don’t know how you guys would answer this, but I hope that you know how much your Dad and I love you, from the very start. Where you’d you get your start?” and then I added six heart emojis. And that last question is an inside family joke. Of course, this text message then turned into a family lovefest, but it honestly wasn’t a fishing expedition of mine. I wanted to be sure that my children feel loved. People need to know they are loved.

People need love. People need to feel love, and to feel loved. Why would we ever be stingy about sharing the most abundant and renewable force of energy that exists in our world? Today, love yourself. Show love to people. Be love. Feel love. It’s everywhere and it’s everything.

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

Mr. April

“Have your feelings instead of your feelings having you.” – Ashwini Narayanan

I think that the statement above might be something which I will have to work on, for my entire life. I understand it, logically and rationally, but feelings have their own power like no other, right? When your feelings overcome you, you’ve been had, and it’s hard to tuck those swirling, whirling feelings back into their rightful place. Feelings “correct” place is that of being a helpful, useful navigation system.

I read a good piece by Cassandra Tyndall this week that talks about the difference between demolition and renovation, both in our individual lives, and in society as a whole. Today in society, it seems as though we have a lot of built-up, pent-up anger, and frustration, and pain that often explodes into a system (or even into our own lives) like a wrecking ball. (These are the moments when our feelings have us.) But very few things, need to be completely demolished to start anew. With a little tweaking, and updating, and making a few changes here and there, a whole new system, entity, (or person) can emerge. When we have our feelings, and we explore what they are telling us, most things (industries, ruling bodies, relationships, structures, etc.) can be adjusted and renovated, versus burnt to the ground and annihilated, precipitating a long, hard all new start-over.

I remember when I was teenager, and first learning to drive, I would move the steering wheel quickly and wildly, trying to shift lanes instantly, which made my father turn ghost-white more than once. My father would often remind me to just made small corrections all of the time. Big movements are not necessary when driving except in dire emergencies. When we are driving to our destinations, all it takes is small corrections to keep us safely on our path.

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

Friday Freak-Out

Credit: RD.com

Hi friends! Sorry! My morning has gone in all different wayward directions. It’s not my usual Friday vibe. It’s so annoying to have an un-Friday kind of Friday. Hopefully, my Friday will get more “Friday” as the day goes on.

Since I have been so distracted (nothing major, just a lotta little “chit-chits”), I don’t really have any favorites to share. I will say that I am thrilled that two of my favorite series have come back recently with new seasons and I highly recommend watching them: Yellowjackets and Ted Lasso. They are two entirely different watches and yet equally as good, in their own unique ways.

Please pick up my slack, and recommend your own favorite things to my Comments section. Or go through my archives and look at other Friday posts for some of my favorite things, websites, songs, beauty products, foodstuff, etc.

Have a great weekend! See you tomorrow!

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

Suck Up

“Goldman Sachs economists predict that 18% of work globally could be computerized, with the effects felt more deeply in advanced economies than emerging markets” (CNN International)

My four adult kids find Artificial Intelligence fascinating. We talk about AI a lot, and its implications. I listened to this recent full interview on CBS (link below) with Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered “the godfather of artificial intelligence”, as I was driving around, running errands yesterday. The grounds AI is making in such a short amount of time, is exciting and fascinating, all at once. I have that same feeling that I get before watching an interesting and intriguing, but terrifying thriller. I’m really curious, and I want to see what happens, but I’m also filled with dread and doom at the same time. Geoffrey Hinton believes that with AI here, we are on the brink of something bigger than the Industrial Revolution and/or the invention of the wheel. What I keep pondering is, will we humans soon be relegated to a lesser status on the food chain? Will we end up being “the apes” to Artificial Intelligence? Or will AI get into the wrong hands and take us all down to obliteration? (That’s my pessimistic side coming out.) If we do handle AI carefully and thoughtfully and consciously and wholesomely, it could make life easier for all of us, and allow us to pursue our creative and leisure pursuits more frequently and enthusiastically. Only time will tell . . . . .

Here’s a question I asked ChatGPT yesterday and the answer that I received back. (I find Chat to be kind of a “suck up”, but I also adored Chat’s articulate answer):

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

SB

I inadvertently read a really good blog post the other day, from a website that sells jewelry. The writer was talking about the fact that her mother always repeated the same old saying, with drama and sadness, “You are only as happy as your least happy child.” The writer came from a huge family who went on to have huge families, so invariably her mother would have at least one child, or grandchild, who was going through a hard time, and so her mother was always a bit down. Until she wasn’t . . . .

The writer (Jill Donovan) said that her mother came to a peace one day, realizing that ultimately her children and her grandchildren were not hers first. They came from Source/God/Spirit/Universe, and this same Source that had always gotten her through her rough spots, would get them through theirs, too. And so while the matriarch of this huge family felt empathy for her loved ones, and helped to support them, she came to a greater peace of holding on to the faith that these trials would just bring them all closer to the deeper meanings and purposes of their own individual lives.

This is a truth that we all “know”, but it is sometimes hard to live, isn’t it? We have these fantasy-filled visions of our children living problem-less, seamless lives, with no difficulties to deal with, yet in our own lives, if we are honest with ourselves, it was during the harder times that our most authentic selves rose from the ashes. It was when we successfully navigated through our tough times, that we realized how steely, strong, determined and capable we really were to handle anything. And we didn’t do it alone. The Source within us helped us rise to the challenge. And the people who loved us, were kind and validated our feelings, but because they also believed that we would overcome our adversities, that belief in us, and that belief in our ultimate triumph, was more helpful than pity and tears.

I’m in my fifties now and it’s been really fun witnessing the growth of my friends and peers. Most of us have grown children now, and so I am now seeing my friends taking the time to unabashedly explore all different interests, and parts, and relatively unexplored avenues of themselves. Many of my longtime friends are showing up with talents and interests which I never knew that they had before. (honestly, I don’t think some of my friends even knew about these aspects about themselves either.) It’s really inspiring. By the time you get to our deep middle age, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t experienced any rough spots in their lives. But it is true, time and experience, flowing through the craggy rocks of our lives, usually polishes sharp, rough stones into beautiful gems. It is so gratifying to witness women who have had to go through deaths of loved ones, and divorces, and heartaches with their children, and financial breakdowns, and struggles to succeed and grow in their careers, to triumph over all their adversity, and now delight in exploring parts of themselves that they had long ago buried, under the self-imposed burden of believing that it was their job to keep everyone else happy.

Whatever your beliefs are, just know that Something Bigger (SB) from where we all came has got us. SB has you. SB has me. SB has our kids, and our loved ones, and our friends, and our pets, and our world. So be as happy and as curious and as exploratory as you want to be, in any given moment. That happiness inspires us, and lifts us, and frees us to deeply explore our own selves, and our world with less fear and trepidation, and more openness and hope for all.

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

Your Own Little Jail

My friend was talking about the unhappiness she was having in her job the other day. She said that she realized that she was more than willing to take less money for less stress in her life. I suggested that maybe she could actually make comparable money, and still find a job that was less stressful than her current job. My friend is an expert in her field. She has spent her entire adult life cultivating her skills in this area. My friend deserves to be paid well. I told my friend to question and investigate her belief that a well-paid job automatically comes with a great deal of stress.

I read an article the other day that suggested that by the time we reach adulthood, roughly 70 percent of who we are is unconscious conditioning. We take on the beliefs of our families, our communities, our countries, our religions, our educations, our generational peers, and our professions, and we don’t do much to really question and explore these beliefs to see if they really resonate with the deepest parts of our own core selves. Unfortunately, it often takes a full blown crisis in our lives, to wake us up to our own truths.

Is there an area in your life where you are struggling, maybe not at full-blown crisis stage (yet), but an area in your life that just doesn’t feel right? Explore your beliefs around this problem. Are your beliefs true? Is there another way of looking at what you are going through? Have you created yourself a prison of “Well, this is just the way things are”, or a guilt prison of “Well, this is what I should do”? Where is that should coming from? Is it really your own judgment, or is it a conditioned judgment that you have never really examined and questioned? When you do this activity, you may find that you have been your own jailer, hemmed in by your own limited, conditioned beliefs. While this can be an upsetting realization, it is also a freeing one. When you are your own jailer, you are also the one who holds the key to your freedom.

*****In regards to yet another American mass shooting tragedy that happened yesterday in Nashville, take some time to really examine your own beliefs about what could be done concerning this epidemic of needless devastation. One thing that I am certain about, (a belief of mine that I have fully explored, and personally experienced in my own life many times) is “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” One person isn’t going to fix this problem, but we all can do our parts. Take some time to explore what part you think you might be able to do, to help solve this problem. (Don’t waste time arguing about what other people should do. What could you do? Contact your local politician? Sign a petition? Volunteer for a mental health organization? . . . . ) Think outside of the box. Our future generations deserve more than this current “Oh, this is just the way things are” defeatist attitude.

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

Monday – Funday

Actually, I slept really well last night. We went to bed quite early after enjoying a full weekend of just plain, good ol’ fun. We went out of town, which helps anyone to stay in “the just fun” mode. When your house projects, and your home office, and your laundry room are not in walking distance, or staring you in the face, your only option is to relax and to enjoy. Changes of scenery are wonderful.

Yesterday morning, when we were packing to leave our hotel, a funny thing happened that nearly jump-started my heart. My husband and I were staying at an artsy, modern, boutique hotel that had minimalist decor. Our headboardless bed was sitting on a low platform, giving the whole room an Asian feel. When I was packing to leave, I did my usual “Let’s check underneath the bed to make sure that we didn’t drop anything”. I had to get way down on my haunches because the bed was low, low, low. It was then that I almost emitted out a loud, guttural scream and this was not because of the pain that I was feeling from going low, low, low. I almost screamed because I saw a limp hand lying underneath the bed. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was my own hand (I recognized the wedding rings). It turns out that the platform that the bed was sitting on was made of mirrored chrome.

If you like the picture above, check out this Russian fisherman’s Instagram below. He takes pictures of the ugliest catches he has ever brought out of the ocean. These creatures make the World’s Ugliest Dogs look like show dogs.

https://www.instagram.com/rfedortsov_official_account/

Have a great week, friends! (if you want to)

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Happy Sunday. Happy Poetry on the Blog Day. We were up until the wee hours last night reminiscing with dear, old friends with whom we reunited with yesterday. Unfortunately my mind is too foggy for poetry making, and I have to get ready for brunch.

Life itself is a good epic poem, going along to the beats and the cadences of our own individual rhythms. Write some poetry today, or live some poetry today. The dictionary says that “poetic” means having a dramatic, sensitive, emotional way of expressing oneself. Live fully. Live poetically.

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

Instructions?

We got a new oven the other day. Our previous old oven was stuck on one temperature, “Lukewarm”, and we had already had it repaired once. I didn’t bother to read the instructions for the new oven, of course. I’ve never been a great one for reading instruction books. But even still, it did strike me as interesting that I really didn’t need to read the instruction book in order to understand how to use the oven, and to set the time. It was all really intuitive. I got to thinking about all of the times that we have stayed in various rentals over the years, and how it was always pretty easy to figure out how to use the various appliances in every single place. Most appliances and machines are pretty standard, even with the extra bells and whistles and the societal insistence on every one of your appliances now being able to reach you, and interact with you on your cell phone. Sigh.

I’ve always marveled at how engineers figure out how to make things work. My brain just doesn’t work that way. And I imagine, when companies are coming up with new designs for ovens and the like, they probably start out initial meetings with statements like, “Okay everyone, we have to make this really, really simple to use, you know, for those “creative” types who refuse to read instruction books.”

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