Tag: goodness

The Adventures of Mrs. Potato Head

Yesterday, I decided to follow my own advice. I became Mrs. Potato Head (see yesterday’s blog post) on a scavenger hunt. I needed to get out of my usual routine rut. The maori mask above is what started my wild goose chase. I suppose what really started this whole adventure, was that Ralphie, our Labrador retriever, in exuberance and excitement for my husband gathering balls to be thrown into our pool for retrieving, knocked over a plant which we have had in our possession for over 27 years. This plant has lived with us since it first adorned our first son’s nursery. The ceramic pot which housed it, miraculously had lasted that long, too, through several moves to several homes in three different states. Thankfully, the plant survived, but the pot was dust. So I went to my favorite local nursery, which is so wondrous, you feel like you are in fairyland when you are there. Butterflies swarm the vivid colored plants everywhere that you look. While there, I purchased another fantastic pot for our precious plant and then I decided that I must also have the magnificent Maori mask decoration, too. (see above) Honestly, there were about 300 different lawn decorations I would have loved to bring home, too, including a life sized concrete collie, and a giant, colorful pot shaped like a pufferfish, but (probably by my husband’s design and foresight, in order that I don’t bring home too many large, strange, cluttery collections of concrete figurines), I don’t drive a pickup truck. Anyway, the Maori mask was signed by the artist, so I looked up the artist on the internet. (I figured I didn’t want our Maori to be lonely. I thought that perhaps he may need another kitschy friend.) It turns out that the maker of the Maori is a local guy. The artist of this mask refers to himself as a “yardist”. (I love this title. I may have to become a “yardist”, too.) His garden artwork consists of zany, brightly colored Tikis, cheeky oranges with sailor hats, and his top-featured “Pot Heads”, all having a mid-century flair to them. From his Instagram, I tracked down a local store that carries shelves of his artwork, and I purchased a Garden Girl, which is part of his “Pot Head” collection:

My Garden Girl will not be lonely. I love Pot Heads. I have collected various Pot Heads throughout the years (made by all different artists/yardists). I have Pot Heads all over my yard. Here are a couple of other Pot Heads who live at our home:

Now you would think this particular adventure and its story, in itself, would be enough for one day, but wait, there’s more. Happy with my purchase of my lovely new Garden Girl Pot Head, I headed to my car, and I crossed a little nature/bike trail that we have here, which runs through miles of our local beach towns. On the trail I noticed a black mailbox, with a large sign that said, Love Letters on it. I was admittedly curious, so when I got to my car, I went straight to the internet, on my phone, and that’s when I discovered the story of the Love Letters mailboxes.

It turns out that a local young lady was suffering some heartbreak after a toxic relationship ended, and so she would go to a rocky spot near one of our beaches every single day, in order to process her feelings and sometimes write them out. She found comfort and healing in doing this and she wondered if other people did the same thing. So on a whim, she placed a mailbox there, in between some rocks, with a Love Letters sign on it, and in the mailbox, she placed a notebook and some pens, with a note that encouraged people to write their own love letters in it. She welcomed them to sign their letters or to keep them anonymous, whichever they preferred. The young lady was amazed at how many letters that she would read, every few days when she would return to her spot. It gave her joy that her special spot gave so many other people comfort, too, and she felt connected to these people, despite never having met them. Interestingly, she kept her mailbox secret from her friends and family, but when she witnessed how many people utilized the mailbox and wrote their own Love Letters, she decided to tell her loved ones about it. They all thought that the mailboxes were a wonderful idea, and they encouraged her to make more of them. Now there are dozens of these Love Letters boxes sprinkled all over our area, and beyond. Daynie Cutler, the creator of the Love Letters mailboxes says that the most poignant letter that she has ever read was a love letter from a father to his daughter who had passed away two years previous, but she feels touched and moved by them all. So, did I go back and read some of the letters in the Love Letters mailbox that I had stumbled upon? Of course, I did! And they were beautiful. Some spoke of the pure joy of celebrating milestone birthdays with their favorite people. One was from a soldier thanking his friends and family for sending notes and packages to him while he was away and how happy he was to be back home with them. Another letter, promised that the young couple writing the letter would come back to this same spot and get engaged to be married in a few years. This is the letter that really put in a lump in my throat:

I wonder if these people have any idea just how much they mean to this writer? She/he loves them “with all that I am.” His or her people sent her/his loneliness packing!! Sometimes the depth of our love can be so hard to express. How wonderful to have a safe place to send a love letter out into the Universe! How wonderful that there are people like the quirky “yardist” and the Love Letters mailbox creator, Daynie Cutler, who bravely put their full, joyful, vulnerable selves “out there” which genuinely encourages others to allow themselves to do the same! Despite all of the negativity, and the pain, and the evil and the sadness that is out there in our world, there is so much good. Be a potato head today! Go to a wonderful nursery. Write a love letter. Be curious to look for the good. You will find it everywhere. Sometimes you will find good in the most surprising of places. Do it. Look for the good. It will do you good. Then please come back to here on the blog and tell us about what you found in my Comments section. It will do us all some good.

Here is my love letter to you, my readers: Simply stated, I love you. I am so utterly grateful that you come here and read my blog. I feel so “heard” and “seen” despite never meeting most of you in person. You have made a huge difference in my life. You have helped me to safely and bravely speak my truth and given me a place to truly be myself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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

Insert Hand Over Mouth

“Before you say it,  Is it true?  Is it kind?  Is it necessary?” – Bernard Meltzer

I used to espouse the above quotation to my children so much that my youngest son took it and ran with it.  He said it so much and so loudly in school, that his second grade teacher made a giant poster board of those three questions and credited it to my son.   For the record, my son is not Bernard Meltzer.

In all fairness, this was more of a “do as I say, not as I do” teaching.  It is something to strive for every day, but I admittedly fall short.  I have a tendency to be blunt.  I also have a tendency to blame my bluntness on the fact that I’m a Sagittarius.  (As if a pseudoscience based on the alignment of planets excuses me for being an ass, but hell, taking accountability is a work in progress, too.)

We’ve all heard the saying that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason, but in a loud world filled with so much information, it sometimes feels like we need to shout to be heard.  And quickly.  The trick is to stop and to think and to ponder before shouting, I guess.  There is a Latin saying that when translated goes something like this, “Truth speaks for itself, if we let it speak.”

I have learned from experts that there are 5 simple rules for good communication. The first rule is to be in a place of empathy and compassion.  The second rule is to stay calm and try not to speak from an angry place.  The third rule is to use “I” statements instead of “you” statements to avoid blaming and shaming.  The 4th rule is to ask questions instead of lecturing.  “How do you think this situation makes me feel?” is a good question to ask another person for getting them to see things from your perspective. And the 5th rule is to make an agreement about things going forward and to forgive the past.  Of course, these rules work best if you are superhuman, or the emotionless Mr. Spock or the incredibly kind Dalai Lama, but nevertheless, they are something to strive for in our every day relationships.

There is a neat tee shirt company called Om + Ah London.  One of their best selling tees says this:  Be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people.  I imagine that being a thoughtful communicator would go a long way in achieving this goal.  The quote is certainly a worthwhile goal to strive for and possibly might be worth putting on a giant poster board right beside my desk.