Happy Friday! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!! May today be lucky, plucky, clucky, ducky and crispy! (see Wack-a Chicken game) Obviously, I am in my typical devil-may-care Friday mood! On Fridays, I try to stay away from the serious side of life. On Fridays, I discuss my favorites of anything. Life is supposed to be lived sensually and tactically and curiously and peacefully, and then our minds start making up stories about it – stories that get us all tripped up. On to my favorite for today:
While we all love clovers on St. Patty’s Day (especially the elusive yet extremely lucky four leaf clovers), we usually do not like clovers on any other day, especially clover that shows up in huge swaths in our lawns. In wanting to be good to the Earth and also good to our three dogs, my husband no longer purchases synthetic weed killer. (which he insists doesn’t work well anymore, anyway) Instead my husband swears by this formula (which, you guessed it, is my favorite for today): 30 percent Harris Vinegar (one gallon), 1 cup coarse salt, and 1 teaspoon dish washing liquid. He mixes all three ingredients in his sprayer and makes sure that the concoction sits for 30 minutes so that it dissolves and mixes completely. Harris Vinegar is much stronger than the usual stuff that you get in grocery stores and use in salads. It’s worth every dime when used as a cleaner and as a weed assassin.
Some Irish proverbs to consider:
May you be at the gates of heaven an hour before the devil knows you’re dead!
May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far.
May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest day of your past.
It is often that a person’s mouth broke his nose.
And what I wish for all of you, my beloved readers:
May your heart be light and happy, may your smile be big and wide, and may your pockets always have a coin or two inside!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Since last Monday, I have been grappling with a pinched nerve in my neck. I have pulled muscles before, even in my neck, but this experience has taken “pain in my neck” to a whole new level that I have never experienced before. Now, if I ever call anyone a “pain in the neck”, it will be possibly one of the worst things which I could ever call a person.
In the beginning of this pinched nerve mess, I started out thinking that I could just stretch my neck out, with some light exercises. This plan, instead, took things to a whole new level of miserable and excruciating. I then assumed that a day at the beach, vacillating between hot sand and cold water would do the trick, all the while downing Aleve and Advil like candy. That ended up being a sand-filled, “how am I even going to get up and out, from this beach chair?” disaster that sent me to an Urgent Care the very next morning. In conjunction with my doctor’s orders, I got prescription strength Aleve and Advil, and I rested on the couch, all this entire past weekend, watching an entire season of “Love Island”, and other stupid, mind-numbing shows, on the couch, with the kind, cuddling company of my daughter. (They say that love and laughter is the best medicine.) While this was peaceful and enjoyable, by Sunday, my restless self was still in a great deal of pain, and so I caved to starting steroids. Since this pinch nerve situation happened last Monday (and I am still not even sure how it happened!) I dreaded every single night (as did my husband), because until last night, I could not find one comfortable position to prop myself up into, in order to fall to sleep. For a week and a half, it took me a good 45 minutes to an hour, until I reached utter exhaustion, to finally fall asleep in a strange contortion of me being twisted in tandem with a heating pad and a mountain of pillows. I looked like a living Picasso painting.
But then, yesterday, I remembered that a wonderful acupuncturist had cured a pesky eye twitch of mine in just a couple of sessions, a few years back, and I thought that it couldn’t hurt to see what she might have to say/do on the matter of my neck. And last night, after a few needles and ear seeds later, I had the best night of sleep I’ve had, since this whole fiasco started. My arm and thumb still feels a little numb (in case you’ve never experienced it, and I hope that you never have to, pinched nerves in your neck radiate through your entire shoulder and down through your arm all the way to your fingers and thumb), but the pain is gone. I have one more session today, and my acupuncturist is confident that I will feel better by the weekend. She didn’t “tsk tsk” me for going to Western medicine first, and using her as a last resort. In fact, she told me to continue following their orders, too. “We will work in tandem,” she said, “to get you better.”
I am a believer in the yin/yang of all healing practices. What I love best about Eastern practices is that my acupuncturist started yesterday’s appointment with, “Okay, what is your body trying to tell us, my dear?” Sometimes Western medicine seems to just want to put a quick bandaid on to the symptoms. But Western medicine is backed by a lot of science and technology, and in my life, I have witnessed that all healers have the same thing in common: A deep calling to help others to make themselves whole again. Just like there are many paths to God, there are also many paths to healing. And ultimately, I think that our minds, and our bodies, and our spirits feel appreciated and “seen”, when we don’t take them for granted. Our bodies notice when we take a pause, and we show that we are willing to amble down different paths of healing, in order to make ourselves whole again. And so this helps our cells to relax, and they jump aboard the healing process, too. Pain is just a cry for help, to set things right. There are so many different healing modalities available to get any of us to wholeness, if we willingly surrender our controlling ideas of “how and when” we should arrive at “whole and well.”
“A healer’s power stems not from any special ability, but from maintaining the courage and awareness to embody and express the universal healing power that every human being naturally possesses.” ― Eric Micha’el Leventhal
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
There is this movement called the “30 Days of 30 Bags Challenge” where you get rid of thirty bags of stuff, in the spanse a month. I have been attempting this challenge, with admitted fits and starts, since the beginning of this year. Yesterday, I decided to make up for lost time. My daughter, who is our youngest child of four kids, is home from college for spring break, so I decided to take on the family board game cupboard, and the kids’ books cupboard, with her help and input.
We ended packing up at least 5-6 big bags of stuff. We donated these bags to our local community library. Despite over the years of my pertinent insisting that our kids look in the cupboard for a required reading book, before ordering it on Amazon, it turned out that we had four copies of TheScarlet Letter and five copies of Othello. Hmmm. Someone must have “lost” their copy of Othello. Still, the library was pleased with the donation of “good” books, and my helpful daughter got the prize of a delicious slice of coconut cream pie, which the library was offering up, in celebration of Pi Day (3/14), yesterday.
Cleaning out cupboards is ordinarily an exciting, satisfactory feeling and overall, yesterday was indeed purifying and cleansing, but this cleansing happened with a big ol’ dollop of Bittersweet soap. Invariably, among the books and games were old notebooks with my children’s handwriting, and a whole shelf worth of yearbooks (which still remain here at home.) The above picture is one which I found in one of my own notebooks, that it appears my daughter had “swiped” (she had written a confession in it – “This is my mom’s notebook.”) My daughter had drawn the picture above in the notebook, which was a self-portrait of when she was a little girl in a quirky T-shirt, that had been one of her all-time favorites. The t-shirt had an alligator on it, and the words, “Careful, I bite.” My daughter wasn’t actually a biter, but we both got a kick out of that shirt, and in some weird way, I thought that it made my precious little girl, safer from would-be predators. (My eldest son was the only biter of our four children, and he only once bit another child, other than his siblings. Unfortunately that one time, the victim happened to be the preacher’s kid at Vacation Bible School. My son’s explanation, while rolling his eyes in exasperation of having to explain himself, again and again: “I already told you, I was pretending to be a lion!”)
So yesterday, after completing the chore and getting caught up on the bag challenge, I sighed a sigh of happiness, satisfaction, and also a little heartache for an era of my life, which has now passed on. I tossed out my old notebook, after tearing out one important page of a cute little girl’s doodle. That page is now posted on my blog, and it also has a special spot of its own, on the side of our refrigerator. This picture won’t be in any of my “30 bags” any time soon. We have room.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I have a rare case of writer’s block today. It doesn’t happen to me often. I think that it is related to the time change, and the achingly distracting pinched nerve in my neck. It is said that when you have writer’s block, you should just write. Just write.
It’s times like these when I am feeling sorry for myself that I get a text like I just got from one of my sons, who is in medical school. He said that he just met a patient who survived being trapped in rubble for three days, during 9/11. I have espoused more than once on the blog that just because someone else is having a heart attack, doesn’t mean that your broken toe doesn’t hurt, but sometimes a little dose of perspective comes right when you need it to come, also. There are some hardcore survivors all around us. People’s stories and backgrounds are fascinating and we know so few of them. If you ever want to be truly entertained, ask some questions of a stranger. People are more fascinating than any of us realize, especially if you ask the right questions.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
It’s amazing how little heat it takes for an Easter Bunny to turn into an Easter Beast. You have been warned. May the bunny part of all of us (and not the beasts) be prevalent today.
I want to take this moment on the blog to do a shout-out to all GOOD office personnel of medical professionals. Honestly, the office staff of any medical professional is almost as important as a cure for what ails you. Our dentist’s office staff are amazing people. I would trust them to successfully organize anything, and they do it with a friendly attitude beyond compare. They make it look easy. And our dentist realizes this, too. He took them all to Italy one year.
I have left the services of good doctors because their office staff were mean and horrible. I once left a good pediatrician due to her office staff. (She lost out on the payment of bills, for four kids.)
Every job is important. Every job makes a difference. It’s usually the people-facing jobs that make the biggest difference of all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, to all of you out there who take your jobs seriously, and who are devoted to excellence. It means more than you realize.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I saw this poem posted on a Twitter account earlier this week and I took a picture of it because I knew that I wanted to share it here, on the blog this Sunday. I love the irony and the cleverness of the poem. I hope that the daylight saving time isn’t messing with you too much today. At some time, write a poem today. You won’t regret it. (You can start at noon and save a lot of time. 😉 )
Why Did It
by William J. Harris
Why did it
take all
day
to get nothing
accomplished
Why, I could
have started
at noon
& saved a lot
of time
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I’m sorry to be delayed with today’s post. I’m grappling with a pinched-nerve in my neck which is like having the worst toothache that I ever had, in my neck and in my shoulder. I am sorry for those of you who deal with daily pain for years on end. Pain is so miserable and distracting and annoying.
The above video is part of the best scene from Babylon, a movie which we watched last night. Babylon is about the change from silent films to “talkies”, and it takes place in 1920s/30s Hollywood. The movie is not for the faint of heart. It shows the debauchery and the underbelly of early Hollywood like you would never expect. The film is long (3 hours), but I found it be interesting and entertaining and thought provoking.
The scene above is a monologue from Jean Smart, who plays a notorious gossip columnist who has just written an unflattering feature about Jack Conrad (played by Brad Pitt), a washed up, silent films era star. In the scene, Jean Smart’s character is telling Jack that while he is no longer “spotlight” material, the beautiful thing is that he will live on, indefinitely, in the films that he starred in, for generations to come. At the end of the scene, where Jean Smart’s character tells Jack that his time is up in Hollywood, and there is nothing that he did to create this fact, and there is nothing that he can do about it now, we see Jack Conrad leave the room, disquieted but grateful that the gossip columnist gently but firmly told him the truth. “Thank you for that,” he says, almost under his breath.
I appreciated this scene so much because it so clearly depicts when any of us hear “a truth” that we deeply know, but we have not yet let this truth surface to our consciousness. We don’t want this truth to be the truth, but yet when we finally face the truth, we are also grateful and relieved to no longer have to pretend anymore, that it is anything other that what it is. It is what it is, is the ultimate truth about anything when we finally face it head on. And the truth can be so painful, and yet so liberating all at the same time.
This scene in Babylon is the ultimate scene of letting go of ego, and of realizing that the idea of life is bigger than any individual life in it, even the lives that are lived out in the spotlight. Life has gone on longer than any of us can fathom, and it will continue to go on, long after each of us departs. Towards the end of the scene Elinor St. John (played by Jean Smart) says this:
” . . . It’s the idea that sticks. There will be a hundred more Jack Conrads, a hundred more me’s, a hundred more conversations like this one, until God knows when. Because it’s bigger than you.”
Elinor does leave Jack with a hopeful thought about people seeing his movies long after he is dead, and in that regard, his memory lives on. On a broader scope, that’s how anyone of us continues to live on after our deaths, for generations and generations in families, and in close groups of friends, and even in societies. Our stories become lores and legends. Our mannerisms become traits in family genes. Our habits and rituals become customs and traditions. Our creations and treasures become heirlooms and antiques and springboards for more creation. The ideas of any essence is what sticks. “That which is bigger than us”, never ends. We are each just small waves of an endless/timeless ocean, and this truth is both frightening and liberating in equal measure. It is what it is.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Happy Friday!!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!!! Today’s favorite is a different pair of socks than shown above, but when I was searching for a cute Friday meme, with socks, these showed up. These Monday/Friday sock sets are sold by Uncommon Goods. Adorable!!! I’m sure happy that it’s the day to wear the yellow pair.
On Fridays, I discuss only the frivolous side of life – stuff. On Fridays, I talk about my favorite things. Today’s favorite is also a pair of socks I saw a woman wearing at the Stretchlab, and I decided that I had to have them. She told me that I was the fifth person to compliment them. These are non-slip socks that have a see-through mesh top with beautiful floral embroidery on them. These TAVI NOIR socks are like “shoes light”, and they make you feel like you are a beautiful ballerina. If you must wear non-slip socks around somewhere, they might as well be beautiful. Here is the link on Amazon:
I was at the beach yesterday. I can tell that spring break is full-on. My own daughter comes home tonight for her spring break. Good times! Enjoy it, all!! See you tomorrow.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
In the last six months, our extended family has had not one, but two individual members, who by all current statistics, medical scientific knowledge, and highly regarded doctors’ opinions should be dead, but they are not. They both are alive, and thriving at home, and making future plans. One of these family members was told that she 100 percent had three days to live, by a highly regarded doctor, in a highly regarded ICU, in a major city in our country. I imagine that this doctor’s practice, and “certainty” about anything, has now changed forever.
I won’t go into too much detail. These are not my stories to tell. I am just a witness to their miracles. I honor and respect my loved ones’ privacy. I also empathize with, and I understand that not everyone’s loved ones get that “miracle”, and it is painful to try to understand the “whys” of this fact. The bottom line of it is, I don’t think that the certain “whys” of anything will ever be fully understood while we are still living human lives on Earth. We can drive ourselves crazy with “the whys”, or we can just live.
The reason why I bring these experiences which I have breathlessly witnessed to the blog, is to remind everyone that when there is life, there is hope. Science is not full-proof. Science “advances” all of the time, with new knowledge, new technology and new data. When you are alive, be “alive.” Be alive. Be in the moment, fully experiencing every sensation, every feeling, every thought that you are capable of undergoing, in each precious moment of your life. While you are alive, there is a reason why you are alive. Know this.
Some tortoises live up to 150 years. Most butterflies live for 15-29 days. Are tortoises more important than butterflies to our ecology? Have you ever read The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews? It starts out describing The Scientific Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions. This law of physics proves that in certain circumstances, the seemingly inconsequential instance of a single butterfly’s flap of wings, could set molecules in motion, that could cause other molecules to go into motion, on and on down the line, which could ultimately cause a major storm, and even a hurricane, on the other side of Earth. Every single life makes a difference. Every single life matters. The length of anyone’s or anything’s life is not important. While alive, every life makes a difference and an impact on this co-creation, which we are all living in, and working on together.
I read an article recently that stated that “exceptional” people are extremely rare. These are the historical and current figures that most of us have “an inkling” about, and at the very least, have heard their names. Very few of the “exceptional people” in our own generation, will be remembered in a few generations to come. It is not important to be exceptional. It is important to be fully “you” when you are alive. You play a unique part in this tapestry of life that no other person or thing can play or do. In that regard, we are all exceptional. What you do when you are alive, moves molecules of energy that can cause major events on the other side of the world. What you do when you are alive, certainly impacts everyone and everything that you have been in contact with, in every instance of your life, and these impacts have an exponential effect that anyone can see, even with rudimentary mathematical and statistical understanding.
The other night, my husband and I watched just one episode of Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” documentary series on Netflix. The episode we watched featured cancer patients and patients with mental illnesses such as depression and OCD, receive carefully measured psilocybin doses, in a safe, clinical setting. Every single person interviewed, described this experience of taking the psychedelic psilocybin (derived from mushrooms), as phenomenally comforting. Each patient had a unique experience, but the unifying theme seemed to be the melting away of the individual self, and the realization that we are all part of the same beautiful energy.
We have the choice to believe that we’ll just fold into this great energy of love and light when we die, or we can choose to believe that we are currently part of that same energy here on Earth, just in a different form, for the fun of experiencing co-creation in a tactile, sensory form. Of course, we don’t have to believe any of this. We all have our own beliefs about the afterlife, and no one who is currently alive really knows what happens after we die. So for now, our mission is to be in the now, and to live. Our mission is to Be Alive, in the one and the only exceptional life that we are currently experiencing, in our own unique human form.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I’m so sick of figuring out what to eat all the time. – Erica Rhodes, comedienne (Twitter)
I was so validated when I read this tweet this morning. One of my biggest complaints over the years, being the stay-at-home parent to four kids, was figuring out every night’s dinner plans. I’m not a great cook. I don’t honestly love to cook. I find it frustrating that something that takes a lot of time and planning and expense, creates a big mess, and inevitably adds fat to my body, is also devoured in a span of a just a few minutes. I’m not denigrating those who love to cook. I admire you. I wish that I was as passionate about cooking, as I am about writing.
Now that my kids are grown and out of the house, I now realize that I still hate figuring out meals, even if it is just for myself. My husband gets tired of hearing me complain about figuring out dinner. (Breakfast and lunch long ended up in the “fend for yourself” category, even when our kids were still at home.) “I honestly don’t care!” he says with a frustrated tone. “Stop stressing about dinner! We’ll just eat whatever we feel like eating at the time.” But that’s part of the problem, too. How much time of your life do you sit in front of your open refrigerator, or your kitchen cabinet, and you think to yourself, “I’m really hungry, but nothing appeals to me. I’m starved, but I just don’t know what to eat.”? If we are honest with ourselves, true food cravings are few and far between, and they are usually related to hormones and/or emotions. True food cravings are wonderful, because they turn eating into a focused mission to be accomplished, above all other missions and chores.
Some people who read Erica Rhodes’ tweet were outraged, and called her privileged for even thinking such a thought, let alone tweeting it. (And then, at the other end of the spectrum, there was the guy in the comments, who truly does seem kind of privileged, when he mentioned his live-in chef. Sigh.) I think that it goes without saying, that of course, those of us who have plenty of food to eat, are extremely grateful for this fact. There is no need to shame anyone. Everyone understands that there are certainly many worse problems in life than figuring out what to eat. Still, it was relieving to see that a lot of other people struggle with this daily dilemma of figuring out meals. Here are some comments to Erica Rhodes’ tweet, that even if you don’t see them as viable solutions to this problem, you will probably get a good giggle from them. I know that I did. Comments to her tweet:
It’s such a bother! Makes me want the everlasting gobstopper from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Every day! (Matthew Kenneth Gray)
I started eating salad every day for lunch six years ago. I hate it still after all this time but there’s a peculiar freedom in knowing I’m never going to enjoy lunch again. (Justin Stenson)
Grubhub needs a “surprise me” option. (John Dawkins)
Book a gig on a cruise. (Matt D’Rion)
Did Steve Jobs eat the same thing everyday? I know he wore the same clothes not to have to think about what to wear. Thinking about it, perhaps not the best idea anyway. (baranoide)
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
