Why is it that when I’m sick, all that I want to do is to eat, in order to feel better? It’s like if I can just find the right breakfast combination of leftover chicken salad, crackers, a banana and a couple of Ghirardelli peppermint snowmen, and wash it down with a shot of Dayquil, I will be instantly done with my lingering cough from COVID. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll stick my head in the ‘fridge and I’ll try a new combination of wonder foods.
I wish that I were one of those people who loses my appetite when I am sick, but that is rarely the case. Unless I have a stomach bug, my body tends to scream, “Feed me! Feed me NOW! Food is the only thing that will make us feel better.” And what’s worse, it’s not like I have the mojo to walk off the extra calories. Sigh.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Happy New Year! May this year bring out the very best in all of us. May this year surprise us with its gifts, its peace, its opportunities, its blessings, and its hope. May this year be one of the loveliest years that any of us have ever lived, or dreamed of living.
Like so many people, I was a little bit soul-crushed to hear that Betty White had died yesterday, just shy of her 100th birthday. My son told me this news, and I thought that perhaps he was just confused. I kept asking him, “Are you sure?” Many times, during the last few years, I noticed Betty White would trend on social media and then everyone would panic, online, only to see that it was just another sweet, kind, funny story about Betty’s antics that was trending online. But sadly, this time, it was true. Betty had passed on. I read that Betty was taught as a child, not to fear death. She was told that death is just a secret that we all get let in on, at one point. That’s why so many people honoring her have written, “Betty, now you know the secret.”
Last night, I got a little binge-y, reading all of the comments honoring and making tribute to the wonderful, warm woman Betty White was in our world. She served in World War II, she stood up for black performers and gay performers, and she was a crusader for animals and animal rights. Betty White wasn’t just a timeless, hilarious comedian adored by every generation. She was so much more than just a Golden Girl. By all accounts, she was a total delight. She was the epitome of “golden.”
Paula Poundstone said, “You know what’s really great? We told Betty White that we loved her while she was still alive.” Isn’t that the truth? Betty never showed anything but love and gratitude for being able to spend her entire life doing that what she loved to do – entertain and make people laugh, and the world loved her back for it. She had a love affair with life that was lavish and on display and it all came back to her in multiples. There is no way that Betty White would have ever questioned if she was loved, appreciated, admired and respected. And she earned all of this with her delightful persona, sparkly eyes, total humble gratitude, and excitement for what comes next.
Last night, being stuck at home, getting over my COVID, I did a lot of reflecting about what my hopes are for the new year, and for this next chapter in my life. This is the year that I officially become a true empty nester, when our youngest child, our daughter, leaves for college. I stopped doing new year resolutions a long time ago. That got to be too deflating and demoralizing. I now try to think more along the lines of “What are my intentions for the new year?” Last night, I thought to myself, “Keep it simple this year. Why not try to live like Betty White lived? Love life. Love people. Love animals. Love what you do. Laugh. Be excited and expectant about what comes next.” I liked how Spike Cohen put it, and I would like this to be said about me some day:
“If you die at 99 and people say you’re gone too soon, you’ve lived your life right.”
I’m not going to lie. This COVID illness has hit me harder than I ever expected it to affect me. I am 51. I am not obese. I do not have any underlying health concerns, and I have had a double dose of the Pfizer vaccine. I’m ashamed to admit that I did not get the booster shot. I have a bad cough, a bad headache, the sweats, aches and pains and overall fatigue. This first-hand experience has given me a newfound respect for the coronavirus. Be safe and careful, friends. This is not fun stuff. It’s going to be a very quiet New Year’s Eve for me. I’ll be popping open a bottle of the Nyquil. Party time. Ha!
Fridays are all about my favorites. I typically list three favorite products, websites, TV shows, books, movies, etc. and I strongly encourage you to share your favorites with me. Many of us now have Christmas money and gift cards to play with. What should we spend these on? Here are my favorites for today:
Burning Bowl Ceremony – If you are a going to end up with a quiet, at-home New Year’s Eve, like I am this year, perform a Burning Bowl Ceremony. I LOVE this tradition. My family and I have done this many years, even during the years when I have not been sick. A good explanation of this intuitive, purposeful ceremony can be found here (but feel free to add your own “rules” and versions and touches, to make it an intimate experience for you):
Jane Davenport Art Supplies – This website is deliciously beautiful. If you love art supplies, this is a one-stop shop. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be “artsy”, you will love perusing Jane’s beautiful website, full of color and whimsy and beauty. Go here and enjoy, and make a purchase from Jane’s self-proclaimed hoard of supplies: https://janedavenport.com/art-supplies/
Owen Barry products – Although I live in the southern United States, and I have for most of my adult life, a part of my heart will always belong to my northern roots. I miss wearing winter clothes regularly. I have shared this Owen Barry website before on the blog. Owen Barry is a manufacturer of luxurious, well-made, leather products from Britain, but they have expanded their offerings and their website is better than ever. For cold days, you must own something from Owen Barry. You will have purchased a top quality “forever item.” Here is their website: https://www.owenbarry.com/us
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
See you all in the new year, my friends! May 2022 be just the delightful, hopeful respite which we are all in need of, in these otherwise strange and stressful times!!
“so much happened this year it feels like i lived 3 years in one.” -@thedeepestmsgs, Twitter
It appears that I am going to end this eventful year with a bang. I just tested positive for COVID. I can’t believe that I made it this far without ever catching it. (in all fairness, I was too lazy to get the booster shot) I feel pretty lousy, like I have the flu. I haven’t been really sick in so long that I forgot what it feels like. (It feels crumby.) I know that I am going to be okay. I’m a generally healthy person. I am more annoyed than anything, although I am so grateful that my family and I made it through the holidays healthy, and together. Dayquil is my new best friend.
I hope that you all are staying well. 2022 had better have better plans in store for us, than the last two doozies. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is going to be a much better year for all of us. (knocking on wood with every appendage which I have on my body)
I need to go back to bed. See you tomorrow.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
My daughter has to take another COVID test today because someone at her work came down with it. Luckily, my middle son got to come home for the holidays. He tested negative for COVID right before heading home, despite his roommate catching it. His roommate was vaccinated and boosted and still came down with it. And now his roommate’s plans to visit his 95-year-old grandfather for Christmas, are ruined. His roommate only had mild symptoms for one day, and now he is left all alone at their apartment for the holidays. I will never turn this blog into a political or controversial or an inflammatory tirade, so all that I will say is “Sigh.” I don’t have the answers. “Sigh.” I (like everyone else) am so sick of this sh%t. “Sigh.” Deep breath. “Sigh.” “Sigh.” “Sigh.”
credit: champagnetastehome, Instagram
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Yesterday, I spent a little bit too much time ruminating in my fear and my worries and my disappointments. It didn’t help that I had woken up in the morning to a terrible dream in which I had been told by a doctor that I had throat cancer. I spazzed out on that one. Interestingly, about half of the hundreds of dream interpretation websites which I looked at, said that this was actually an excellent dream that foretold fortune and happiness and lovely surprises. Nice. Let me tell you, Dreams, “There are much kinder ways to tell me that good things lie ahead.”
Also, yesterday morning, my son texted a picture from his first medical school class. It was occurring on Zoom, in his teensy little apartment bedroom, for eight hours straight. Sigh. Thanks again, Coronavirus. So awful to see you again!
The great mask debate is in full force (and obviously on national display) here again in Florida, and my daughter starts her senior year of high school tomorrow. The ugly vibes are swirling on the news, and in social media, and in the neighborhood and like everyone else, I am so, so, so tired of it all. I had tricked myself, earlier this summer, that with the vaccinations, Covid was practically a thing of the past, and instead it has come back with an ugly vengeance. Some of my closest friends, despite being vaccinated, are in quarantine, healing from Covid infections. Luckily they have seemingly mild cases, so far.
So those three paragraphs above, show you where my mindset (and heartsick) was yesterday, and even into last night, as I crawled into bed. I don’t like that mindset. I don’t like negativity. It doesn’t feel good. As I was waiting to go to sleep, and I was thinking that I really didn’t care to have anymore scary dreams, I went to my phone and I looked up “the most comforting, reassuring thought in the world.”
Over a decade ago, when my family and I were the poster kids for the Great Recession, and we were watching our savings go down the drain like rushing water, this Bible verse helped me to get through those tough times (Matthew 6: 28-30):
28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
This verse made a lot of sense to me and it became my daily mantra. And thankfully, we made it through the Great Recession just fine. Last night, though, I wanted a new, fresh mantra. My current worries and stresses are more about the health of my family, and of my friends, and of our world, and maybe even my own mental health. My worries are more about the overall health and well-being of everyone I love, including our Mother Earth. So, when I searched up “the most comforting, reassuring thought in the world” last night, the search wasn’t as satisfactory as I wanted it to be. It turns out that there are about 18 million comforting thoughts to pick from.
My love language is the written word. I love to read. I love to write. I love comforting thoughts. My search had me strumming through hundreds and hundreds of uplifting verses and quotes, many that I had already seen, and had already read before, many, many times. So many of these quotes talked about the fruitlessness of worrying. Duh. But that’s not particularly comforting when you are stuck in the worry cycle, which has taken up a life of its own, in your head. It’s hard to find the “off button” for the Worry Cycle, at that point. So reading about how taxing worrying and anxiety is, to your body and to your spirit, is honestly, at times, just more upsetting and worrying, than anything close to being reassuring and comforting.
I was frustrated that there was not one simple consensus as to what is the “the most comforting,reassuring thought in the world”. So, I figured that I might as well take a few screenshots of quotes that at least, resonated with me. This quote was very similar to my favorite Bible verse:
“Don’t try to force anything. Let life be a deep Let-Go. God opens millions of flowers every day without forcing their buds.” – Osho
This one has always made sense to me:
“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.” – Pema Chodron
And as I was beating myself up angrily for being such a Wanda Worrier/Debbie Downer/Negative Nancy, this one really struck home:
“I just give myself permission to suck. I find this hugely liberating.” – John Green
But then, some kind of Divine Intervention happened. Without searching for it, I somehow ended up reading a scientific article that talked about comforting music. My guardian angel must have been saying to me, “Girl, you don’t need any more words. You need to get out of that silly little pissy-missy mind of yours, if you want to have a good night’s sleep, and a hope for a more positive tomorrow.” The article that I miraculously landed on, said that this ONE song, created by professional sound therapists, has proven to reduce anxiety by 65%, and shows a 35% reduction in any one person’s typical physiological resting rate. This song is wordless. I played the song as I was trying to fall asleep. And I slept so soundly. My husband didn’t know that we were both being “treated” by this song last night, because he was already asleep when I played it, but this morning, the first thing that he remarked to me was how well he had slept last night. The lesson I gleaned from this experience was that we shouldn’t get so stuck in trying to control the ways in which we are going to be comforted, or fixed, or reassured, or loved to sleep. When we do the “deep Let-Go”, the Universe gives us exactly what we need. I slept incredibly well last night. I don’t recall any negative dreams. I feel comforted. I feel reassured this morning. It turns out that last night, for me, Marconi Union’s “Weightless” was “the most comforting, reassuring thought in the world,” and it is not even a thought. It doesn’t even have words. Last night’s comfort came from pure sound. Be open to every amazing resource available to us, friends. Keep the faith. We are loved. We are protected. All is well.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I love this tweet. Never has this fact been more evident than throughout this damn pandemic. Right??? Here are some of the Comments to go along with this tweet:
“Peak adulthood is realizing that your parents were just winging it, too.” -@mjonesonline
“Oddly comforting, isn’t it?” @allisonching1
“Middle age is looking around for an “adultier adult” and realize everyone else isdoing the same but they’re all looking at you. Because you ARE the adultiest adultpresent.” @getoffmylawn585
I recently did some self-reflection on this annoying thing that I do to my kids lately. It’s not charming, or “loving mommy” of me at all. (but honestly, I don’t see myself quitting it, anytime soon) Whenever my kids (ages 17 and up) have to do something exasperating that I used to do for them, such as calling customer service lines, and then waiting in the queue for 3.8 hours, and then having to speak to someone who doesn’t seem to understand English, and then being afraid to complain about this fact because it might get them “cancelled”, I just say this, with a quirky little smirk on my face:
“Welcome to adulthood!!” (and then I do this irritating laugh)
When my kids have to pay for something ridiculous, like paying an extra fee and some taxes for a permit for something that is required for a class that they’d rather not have to take in the first place, or when they complain about having to pay for things such as “batteries that aren’t included”:
I reliably chirp, “Welcome to adulthood!!”
Talk about being forced into a club that you never really wanted to join in the first place. And then looking around and going, “Wait, these are “the adults”?!? Seriously?!?”
On our walk last night, my husband and I were having a conversation, trying to make sense of the new round of COVID variants/mask rules/vaccine requirements/infection rates/school and work plans, etc., that seem to be all new, just for this week. Detaching and listening to our conversation, I had to giggle. We were repeating “news”, “conspiracy ideas”, things that we had “heard” in grocery store lines, work mandate memo updates, rumors from friends and neighbors, things that we had read on social media, etc. All of what we were saying to each other was completely convoluted. All of it contradicted each other. All of it was overwhelming and scary and frustrating and maddening. And of course, we both said all of it, with an air of solemn, all-knowing authority.
Welcome to adulthood.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I know that these days a lot of us mamas have heavy hearts. We worry about every single person whom we love. We worry about what our loved ones are doing, and what they aren’t doing. We also worry about how what our loved ones are doing, and what they aren’t doing, is affecting them, physically, mentally and emotionally. And as women, especially, we tend to love many, many people in our lives, with a very caring, nurturing, protective form of love. We love with a ferocious energy, and wide open hearts, which bleed profusely when anyone who we care about is hurting. We can get depleted quite easily in times like these. But I would like to suggest that we are not alone. Whatever your faith is, you, as a open-hearted person, intuitively know that there are much bigger, stronger, vital forces that keep you sustained, even in the worst of your days. I would like for you to cement the above visual into your brain. Print it and carry it around, if need be. I would like for you to superimpose pictures of all of your beloved family members, your friends, your pets, your community – all being embraced by their own Higher Powers, all of the time. I would like for you to be sure to include your own picture in this visualization. Any time a worry thought comes to mind, about anybody or anything, I would like for you to have to breezily brush away the feathers from your face, and for you to relax comfortably and breath easily, in the hands and the arms that are holding you, and sustaining you, and healing you, and strengthening you, and at the same time, doing all of this for everyone who you love and who you care about, all of the time. Because that is what is happening. Every single day. Do not be afraid. Just take it easy and rest and center yourself, whenever you feel overloaded and just ask for help. It is here for the taking. Right with you. Every single day. This I know.
Yesterday, as I was digging through my purse to find my keys, masks were falling out of my purse, all over the place, like it was a volcano spewing blue and white lava. Sometimes, when I reflect on moments like these, I sit in awe and wonder and disbelief, at just how completely bizarre my ordinary, suburban life has gotten to be. My friends send “Score!” texts when they find cans of Lysol or Clorox wipes for sale somewhere. Big Brother makes frequent, stern announcements over the speakers in my grocery store, to follow the directional arrows, in the aisles and when the announcement is made, everyone looks like sheepish robbers, while donning our masks, whispering apologies for having our carts pointed in the wrong direction. We’ve made the decision for our daughter to start out school online, fully recognizing that most of the high school teachers are my age and older, and thus, probably as adept with computers as I am, which is terrifying. Anytime anyone in our family coughs or sneezes or complains of a sore throat, the first step for me, is to practice mindful breathing, so as not to go into a full-blown panic attack. The list goes on and on. If we thought life was absurd before COVID, we are definitely in Wonderland territory, now.
“In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
“Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.” – Albert Camus
Hi friends! I hope that you had a nice, relaxing holiday weekend. I didn’t write a post this morning because I was out of the house, bright and early, as I strategically planned to get my major food shopping/paper supply hunting done this morning. I figured that probably, the day after Easter, the stores would be emptier of people, and even more sterile than usual, and it turns out that I was right. I also got the extra bonus of half-priced Easter candy. It is so strange to have to be strategic about grocery shopping and to have to go to four different stores, in order to find toilet paper. I’m still trying to get used to our “new normal.” My husband and I both noted that we are finally stringing a couple of nights in a row of decent sleep per week, so perhaps at least our bodies are taking stride with this new way of life, even if our minds aren’t there yet.
Speaking of food, my friend schooled a group of us friends, via text, the meaning for a new “word of the day.” The word is German. The word is “kummerspeck.” It means the excess weight you gain from emotional overeating. It’s literal translation is “grief-bacon.” I’ve been indulging in a lot of grief-bacon, lately and my cart was full of grief-bacon today. There is not an American expression that translates directly. We Americans like to be in denial about our grief-bacon.
The biggest thing that I’ve been pondering around in my mind lately, is the fact that since we are all (quite literally all of us, around the whole world), are going through this together, that this somehow makes the burden a little bit easier, mostly because everyone can relate to, and to empathize with the grief being felt by everyone. It’s a relief not to be singled out, in a way. Yet at the same time, it hurts so much, to see literally everyone you deeply care about, experiencing pain and fear and sadness and anxiety. It’s one of those situations in life that you would typically say that you wouldn’t wish on anyone, yet it is happening to everyone you know, to one degree or another. It’s a lot to process, isn’t it?
Anyway, I hope you didn’t worry about me. I am back in the saddle again. I promise to post earlier tomorrow morning. Stay well. Enjoy some Easter candy and try not to think about your grief-bacon.
