Yesterday, my husband, my daughter and I swam with manatees. The one pictured above is one of many manatees who we met on our adventure. I have been wanting to swim with manatees since we moved to Florida almost nine years ago. They are the sweetest, most docile, gentle giants you could ever come across in the wild. This experience was one of my most favorite adventures in nature that I have ever experienced and I have done a lot of wandering around in nature, in my forty-nine years. What I learned from this is, don’t let your life just pass on by, without making sure you are getting everything that you want out of it. Take the time and energy and resources, to plan in the bucket list items. Life is fleeting. I forgot my little bag of fortunes, so today’s fortune comes from a manatee magnet in the gift shop:
Fortune for the day -“They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them.” – Bhagavad Gita
Good, beautiful Sunday morning. It’s a lovely day here. The sun is shining, the lake is still, the air is calm. It’s like the day is quietly, patiently inviting us to become part of it. Sundays are soulful here at Adulting – Second Half. Sundays are our poetry workshop days. I share a poem and I ask you to share some of your poems in the Comments section. A few of my braver readers have shared such gorgeous poems in the past. Please share yours, too. In the words of Peter McWilliams:
One of the great joys of life is creativity. Information goes in, get shuffled about, and comes out in new and interesting ways. . . . It doesn’t matter that you don’t know how to do it “perfectly.” . . . Does it give you joy? Does it give you satisfaction? Is it fun? Does it make you feel more in touch with the creative flow of life? . . . . Then do it.
Here’s my poem for today:
The Lake
The lake is like watching a reflection of my emotions,
Sometimes so quietly still, almost to the point of solid nothingness,
Sometimes so turbulent, I dare not venture too far in,
Sometimes a surprising disturbance, the unexpected jumps out,
Creating ripples, not in great haste, to disappear.
The lake appears so very deep, yet it has its shallows.
The lake houses a lot of life in its teeming depths,
It’s not nearly as placid as it seems, underneath it all.
Whether tranquil or churned up, the lake is truly beautiful.
Fortune for the day – “With true friends, even water drunk is sweet enough.” – Chinese proverb
My daughter stayed home from school yesterday. She wasn’t sick. She didn’t have anything special outside of school, to attend. She wasn’t ill-prepared for a test. My daughter is not a senior and it was not a “senior skip day.” My daughter stayed home from school because someone had made a shooting threat to her high school, over social media. We live in Florida and the demographics of our high school are very similar to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the horrific Parkland shootings occurred two years ago on Valentines Day. Despite our school principal sending an email of “assurance” that there would be extra police protection on campus, a lot of parents made the same decision that we did, and they, too, kept their children home from school. My daughter’s friend texted her that there were four kids in her first period class. Thankfully, blessedly, no incident occurred and supposedly arrests have been made, concerning the threats made on social media, but sending our children to school was not a risk many of us parents were willing to take. It’s hard to walk the fine line between not living in fear and anxiety, yet accepting the cold, hard realities of today’s world. I don’t know the answers to this terrible violence problem that we have in our country, so for me, right now, this problem remains solidly in my prayer box. And in the meantime, I will control what I can control. My daughter stayed home from school yesterday, for no other reason than we feared for her life and for her safety.
“There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.” – Napolean Bonaparte
“Violence isn’t always evil. What’s evil is the infatuation with violence.” – Jim Morrison
“In violence we forget who we are.” – Mary McCarthy
“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolute night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands.” – Ernest Gaines
Happy Valentine’s Day!! Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! I hope that you will enjoy the day, no matter what your relationship status is, currently. Love abounds all around us, in all shapes and sizes, in all forms and mostly in the form of just being completely and fully alive. Love is what we are made of, so please make this Valentines Day all about celebrating Love. That’s all. Please just celebrate wonderful, beautiful, awe-inspiring, life-giving Love. Earlier this week, Think Smarter on Twitter posted a post that said, “Don’t tell anyone ‘I hate you’ directly – Say ‘You are the Monday of my life.’ ” I thought to myself, that could be made into a more positive statement. “Don’t tell anyone ‘I love you’ today, just say ‘You are the Friday of my life!’ ” Now that, my friends, is true love! Another good quote that I saw on Twitter today from FofF, “There are people you haven’t met yet who will love you.” Hold that truth close to your heart today. I love all of you. I cannot thank you enough for your support and validation. Please feel my love.
New readers, Fridays are reserved for favorites. Typically I list about three favorite things, songs, books, quotes, whatevers, etc. and I strongly encourage you to share your favorites in the Comments. Please see previous Friday posts for more favorites I have shared. Today, I am going to be in “cheesy Valentine mode” and list some all-time favorite romantic quotes from great chick flicks. Hope you enjoy! Have a lovely day and a fabulous weekend!!
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.” ~ Moulin Rouge
“You had me at Hello.” ~ Jerry Maguire
“I wanted it to be you, I wanted it to be you so badly.” ~ You’ve Got Mail
“It doesn’t matter if the guy is perfect or the girl is perfect, as long as they are perfect for each other.” ~ Good Will Hunting
“You make me want to be a better man.” ~ As Good As It Gets
“I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental—like on a breeze—but I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there’s anything you need, I won’t be far away.” ~ Forrest Gump
“It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together … and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home. .. only to no home I’d ever known … I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like … magic.” ~ Sleepless in Seattle
“You’re the first boy I ever kissed, Jake, and I want you to be the last.” ~ Sweet Home Alabama
“Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it.” ~ On Golden Pond
“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.” ~ The Notebook
“I wish I had done everything on earth with you” ~ The Great Gatsby
“I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” ~ When Harry Met Sally
And on a personal note, “Dear wonderful, amazing, incredible, awesome, kind, handsome, gorgeous, generous, smart, funny, athletic, dedicated, successful, husband, best friend, lover, life partner, father of our four beautiful children, love of my life ~ I am so incredibly grateful that you are the one I call My Valentine. Forever, I love you, with all of my heart!”
P.S. – Fortune for the day –“There is in the worst of fortune the best chances for a happy change.” – Euripedes
I told my husband that football season is over, and thus, it is “movie season.” We have watched a movie practically every night this week. I love it. My husband kindly goes along with it, as I did, watching a lot of football, this past fall. The other night, we watched the heart-wrenching film, HoneyBoy, based on Shia LaBeouf’s childhood experiences with his alcoholic father. It’s a tough watch, but it’s a good one.
What a like about books and movies is that almost always, besides being entertained and/or emotionally engaged, I also glean some sort of practical knowledge, to put into my proverbial tool box, which I carry around with me, while experiencing my life. So, the handy dandy tidbits that stuck with me from Honey Boy, are two items that the Shia-based character learns in rehab. One, is to hug yourself. I know, it sounds silly. It looked silly in the movie. I remember hugging myself as a kid and moving my hands up and down my back, as a prank, making it look like I was making out with someone, when I was viewed from behind. I don’t know about making out with yourself, but apparently, hugging yourself is a “real” thing. There is scientific proof that hugging yourself releases “feel good” hormones that help to ease your current pain or stress. Go ahead. Give it a try right now. No one is looking. Awwww! This is soon to become a habit, right?
The second tip is that when you feel yourself emotionally overloaded, a quick way to get back to center, is to force yourself to name four things in the room or area that you are currently in. It’s a quick and easy way to stop your mind from racing with escalating thoughts, which in turn, are provoking turbulent emotions. It’s your own personal “time out”, when you feel yourself losing emotional control. Desk. Candle. Clock. Screen. So easy, so simple, so useful.
These two suggestions were worth my time and money spent on the movie, even if I had not cared for the movie, at all. Everything has its worth, if we look for it. Here’s the fortune for the day:
My friend sent this to our group chat this morning. I am going to make this my “template for being”, for the rest of 2020. This is the perfect year to become your own best friend. One time when I was muddling around with a tough decision, one of my dear friends said to me, “What advice would you give to me, in this situation?” That was a huge perspective changer. I am much softer, kinder, more compassionate, forgiving and understanding with my friends and my family, than I tend to be with myself. We work hard to be “good” in relationships, but we often leave the most important relationship out of that equation. Our most important relationship is with ourselves. No one will be with us longer, on this Earth. And if that statement still feels/sounds/seems too “selfish” understand that it follows that we cannot love others any better than we love ourselves. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. I am guessing that Jesus wanted us to love our neighbors a whole lot better, than the conditional, demeaning, cold, harsh way that we sometimes treat ourselves. It also follows that if we don’t learn to love ourselves, we are starving for love, so we try to suck it dry from other people/things/experiences outside of ourselves. We soon find that our neediness, or that “giving to get”, doesn’t work in the long term, and we start resenting the very people and objects we claim to love, and thus, a vicious cycle continues.
Be your own best friend for the rest of this year. Make a Valentines pact to fall in love with yourself. When you listen to your inner critic, ask yourself, “Would I speak to my best friend this way?” When you make a health/life/relationship choice, ask yourself, “Would I advise my best friend make this choice?” When you give the gift of time, money or service, ask yourself, “Is my motivation to give here, clearly altruistic, or am I secretly trying to manipulate getting one of my needs met from outside sources (and if so, can I find a way to meet these needs myself)? Am I keeping expectations chained to this “gift”?” When you let other people dictate how your life should go/be/look like, ask yourself, “Would I want my best friend to give his or her power away? Would I want my best friend to be a victim?” People don’t realize that if we all experienced our own lives, acting as our own best friends, the world would be a happier, healthier, more loving, giving place than it has ever been before. The following verse from the Bible is read to us at practically every wedding that we ever attend. Try to look at it in the context of loving yourself. It takes on a whole, interesting new meaning and depth, doesn’t it?
No fortune for today, pure Love is our greatest fortune.
Fortune for the day – “In all things, give thanks.” – Apostle Paul
I didn’t watch the Academy Awards last night. I typically don’t watch the awards shows. I always figure that I can find out who the winners were and look at the beautiful fashions worn by the celebrities, the next day. Instead, my husband and my daughter and I, actually watched the movie, Joker, for the first time. I think that Joaquin Phoenix justly won the award for best actor. That was one intense movie.
I’m very excited to watch Parasite tonight, the Korean film that became the first foreign film ever to win an academy award for Best Motion Picture. I haven’t heard much about the film, which I think is the most delicious way to go into any film, or any kind of experience, for that matter. No expectations, no pre-formed opinions, no suppositions made by someone else’s judgment and assessment, is the best way to go into just about anything, I think. Then, the most fun, is afterwards, comparing each others’ reactions to an experience, in order to see what insights were matched and what observations might have been missed.
In reading about the Academy Awards this morning, I was particularly impressed with the fact that supposedly the writer and creator of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, spent most of his speech talking about everyone else who had inspired him in his film making career. He said this in his speech:
‘. . . .there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart, which is that “The most personal is the most creative.” ‘
Boon Joon Ho credited that saying to famed director and screen writer, Martin Scorsese. What an eloquent, succinct way to describe the truth. When we are fully and purely our deepest selves, we are our most creative. When we are willing to share our personal creations, they become part of this world. Our creations become part of this inner-connected Life – this Life which we are all in the process of co-creating.
I also listened to my most dutiful, practical self this morning and I stuck to my routine of exercising before reading and writing. While I was planking to SNL videos, I enjoyed some sketches featuring Ru Paul, the world’s most famous drag queen. I later watched some footage of Ru Paul being interviewed about his many Emmy wins for his long standing TV show and spin-offs. He said this:
“I didn’t choose the game, the game chose me.”
I think when we let the game choose us, in the most personal surrender possible, that is when our most pure, fabulous creativity outpours from our deepest, innerconnected reservoirs. How amazing this world would be, if we all gave ourselves permission to be truly and fully, our own personal selves and shared that most personal creation with the world around us.
Fortune for the day -“One who seeks knowledge must desire from a young age to hear the entire truth.” – Plato
Sundays are poetry workshop days, here at Adulting – Second Half. I hope that you are sitting comfortably, maybe even cozily wrapped in a blanket. I hope that you have a delicious, warm cup of tea or coffee, readily available, in order to warm your hands, and your heart. I hope that, in this very moment, you feel surrounded by peace, comfort, acceptance and love. I hope that, right now, in this very place in time, you are in your sacred space.
Here is my poem for today, and as always, please feel the courage, the inclination, the vulnerability and the inspiration, to share your own poems in the Comments section. One day, I hope that this poetry workshop of ours, is “Standing Room Only.” It’s our creative impulses, that come out from within the deepest part of ourselves (without demeaning censure coming from ourselves or from others), that drive this world forward – a beautiful world, which we are all co-creating together. Be free. Be open. Be real. Be alive. Don’t waste another second, in a precious day of your life on anything less than your purest, kindest authenticity. You, and our world, will be uplifted for your effort, and yet also the effortlessness it takes for you to be, your purest, truest self.
Melange
If my things were to represent my mind,
My mind would be chaotic, and in disarray.
Jumping from lucky symbols, to memories captured in the form of photographs,
Piles of inspirations, and numbered orderly logs, laid out in disorderly fashion.
Objects that touched my heart, at the very instance that I laid eyes on the piece,
For no particular rhyme or reason, perhaps just deeply primal.
The compilation of it all, makes no sense to the untrained eye.
But to me, it is a beautiful, nonsensical pattern,
A medley, an assortment, that makes perfect sense.
Fortune for the day –“Never blame your neighbor until you have been in his place.” – The Talmud
I’m struggling with some writer’s block this morning. Nothing is particularly striking out at me, to write about, or stirring up in the inside of me, to write about. I feel kind of “meh” and listless today, if I am going to be perfectly honest. So, I googled “What do middle-aged women want?” What I got back was a whole bunch of rants (albeit some them very poignant and funny) about how we middle-aged women are ignored. We are ignored by the beauty and fashion industry, in the corporate pay scales, by entitled children (except when they need something), etc. etc. One article was even complaining about the fact that middle-aged women are even ignored by sexual harassers. So then it seems, we middle-aged women get hurt and pissed by being largely ignored, and thus, we get grumpy, indignant and stand-offish. And who doesn’t want to stay clear of a grumpy, stand-offish, hormonal, middle-aged woman with a resting bitch face that could stop a tiger in its tracks? So essentially, we are made to feel that it is our fault that we are ignored. And that really gets our goat. Thus the vicious circle has us trapped. I don’t know what the answer to this is, ladies. I just write it as I see it. Sometimes it is easier to watch, than to engage.
Happy Friday, friends and readers!!! Happy almost weekend! New readers, Fridays are dedicated to frivolity here at Adulting – Second Half. On Fridays, I typically list things that make the Material Girl side of me, sing. I strongly encourage you to list your favorites in the Comments section and please also check out previous Friday posts for more favorites to delight in.
Earlier this year, my husband and I were out to dinner with another couple and I started bragging about the fact that I rarely catch viruses. The minute those words came out of my mouth, I wanted to bite my tongue off. I started crazily knocking on anything, within arm’s length, that even resembled wood. I knew that, in that moment, I had instantly doomed myself. So, of course, the chickens came home to roost, after my trip last weekend. (despite bingeing on zinc lozenges throughout the trip, as if they were Hershey kisses) On Monday, I felt that fun little tickle in my chest that kept insisting on popping out of my mouth, coughing style. I felt the familiar exhaustion that comes at the beginning stages of a cold. So, that’s when I doubled up on Vitamin C, continued with the zinc and also added Umcka ColdCare chewables and Trace Minerals Max Hydrate Immunity effervescent tablets to the mix, and I can tell you this, that virus didn’t stand a chance. It got suffocated under all of my supplemental bombardment. I can’t tell you what worked best out of all of the mix, but all that I can say is that the virus was very short-lived. Bye, Felicia! Don’t let the door hitcha on the way out, dumbass virus.
Today’s favorites (the cold remedies were an extra bonus. You are welcome.):
AKC breed beanies – I was perusing the AKC site, most likely for dog training tips, and of course, I quickly gave up and ended up at the AKC store. (story of my life) There, I found these wonderful beanie hats with embroidered patches that look exactly like our dogs (a yellow Labrador retriever and a tri-color collie). I bought the beanies for our entire family. It’s like we are our dogs’ fan club. (but they already knew that) The beanies are top quality, come in all different colors and the yellow lab patch looks so much like our dog Ralphie, that my family thought that I had the hats custom made.
Anthropologie Block Letter Monogram Necklace – I’m not sure why exactly, but lately I’ve been getting a thrill out of wearing my monogram. It’s like lately, I’ve given myself my own stamp of approval. These necklaces are particularly nice quality and the letters are HUGE. Your friends will not have to put their readers on to see your letter, hanging from your beautiful monogram necklace. Laverne from “Laverne and Shirley” would totally approve. My friends and I were watching the HGTV channel and we noticed that a house searcher had two of these necklaces on (perhaps she and her husband’s initials?), which could be a very nice Valentines idea. Buy yourself two necklaces as a romantic gesture for your husband. Win. Win.
Vivino App – My friend introduced me to this wonderful app. All you have to do is take a picture of the wine label from the bottle of wine that you are considering buying, drinking, giving as a gift, or even chugging. All of the information that you ever wanted to know about that particular wine will pop up, as well as users’ personal ratings. Apparently, the app will start to recognize which wines you seem to favor and suggestions will pop up, catered to your tastes. Cheers!
Fortune for the day: “The more one meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be one’s world and the world at large.” – Confucius
