When our recent vacation came to its close, I was reminded of the Dr. Seuss phrase that my friend always uses at the endings of happy events and gatherings, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
On the other hand, when difficult things are happening, I often remind myself, and my family, and my friends, that our lives are really just the vast, blue sky and the clouds always, always pass. This visual always comforts me with its pure truth.
We brought our youngest child, our only daughter, home for the summer, from college yesterday. She successfully completed her freshman year. We enter a new passageway of being home together, when all of us are used to living our own individual lives. There is always an adjustment period during times like these, but I slept soundly and happily last night knowing that she was safely under our roof once again.
Today is May Day. For many cultures today marks the beginning of spring. Today, we enter yet another fresh new passageway into the journey of our lives. Smile for all the good times which lie behind you and that will always be a small part of you, hope for and excitedly anticipate all of the unknown adventures that lie ahead of you, and know that if you do hit a patch of black clouds, these clouds will pass. They always do.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I’ve missed you, my dear friends and readers! I am writing this in an entirely zombie-fied state (we got in at 3 a.m. last night), and I probably shouldn’t be writing this at all, and yet I must. I have been yearning to put down in words, so much of what I have experienced in the last ten days or so. And I have desperately missed writing the blog (and you) so very much! I will tell you now that my husband and I are back home, and we are safe and satiated. My husband and I just did a whirlwind “second honeymoon/damn, we raised four amazing kids and we still really dig each other/congratulations, and now, here’s a gift to us and for only us” trip to Italy. We had both been to Italy when we were small children, but never until now, had we experienced Italy as adults. So for all intents and purposes, it was our first trip to Italy. And Italy is everything that it is cracked up to be. And more. And more and more and more. It goes without saying that the Italian food and wine are unbeatable. (one of the first things we did when we got home was to throw away all of our atrocious, plastic bottled BOGO grocery store olive oil. The real thing arrived today from Pruneti in Florence!) The Italian people are kind, upbeat, gorgeously nose-up proud and defiant, and yet hilariously self-deprecating all at once, and hospitable, and charming and beyond accommodating. The Italians are lovely, intoxicating people. The antiquities of Italy are exhaustingly marvelous (Europe is easily the capital of sensory overload). The gelato is addicting (my effort to repeat my nightly gelato with last night’s 3 a.m. Drumstick out of box, with freezer burn, was sadly disappointing and pathetic). The Tuscan countryside seems too beautiful to be real, and when we were at the coastal area in Cinque Terre, I truly had become convinced that I had fallen into a gorgeous painting hanging on a museum wall. There were many times that I had to pinch myself, and I questioned whether I had somehow been hit by one of the many zippy Vespas that had buzzed around us like flies, and that I had somehow easily and quickly died, and luckily, I had skipped the morose parts, and suddenly, I had arrived in a charming, indulgent version of Heaven, full of beauty, pasta, gelato, bread, and wine. (yes, I do think that I deserve to go to Heaven . . . for the most part)
I have so much to digest. I have so much to recount. I have so much to be grateful for having experienced. But, I was also admittedly eager to get home to my precious, grown-up, stateside, busy with their own lives, babies. And home to my devoted fur babies. And home to my plant babies and to my own comfortable bed. And to free flowing water, and to free flowing boring American coffee, and to easily accessible restrooms of a generous size. And I was so eager to open up my precious blog, and to reconnect to the blog’s treasured, loyal readers. Thank you for allowing me my pause. Thank you for allowing me to recalibrate, and to disappear for a little bit into one of my life’s adventures. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for staying with me. I believe that it will be worth it.
I missed you. I’m back. I’ll see you tomorrow! Ciao!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning, my beautiful friends and readers. Thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for “hearing” me. I love you. I started this blog in 2018, when my eldest of four children officially left the nest, by graduating from college and moving to a whole other city. And every year since then, I have written a blog post almost every single day. This blog is one of my own favorite things of all time. It has become my lifeline back to me. However, consistently, I have taken Easter weekend off from writing, since the day that I started the blog.
This is a holy time of year. Easter, Passover, Spring. This time of year is the biggest, most gapingly open portal to hope which we receive in any given year. It’s the perfect time to press the “reset” button. Whatever your spiritual beliefs are (or aren’t), you can’t help but to feel the renewal of life and hope all around you. This time of year, is the best time of year for me, to quiet my thoughts, and to let the good of life, just soak in. I hope that you are able to do the same.
Here are a couple of bonus favorites (for Favorite Things Friday), to tide you over. I hope that you are eager to come back to the blog on Monday. I know that I will be more than eager to write it.
L’Oréal Paris Age Perfect Satin Glide Eyeliner with Mineral Pigments – Oh my gosh. I can’t believe I forgot how much I love this eyeliner. I recently randomly pulled it out of a cup of eyeliner pencils that I keep by my bathroom sink, and then I instantly remembered how great it is, the minute I started putting it on. This pencil is so rich, so smooth, and so long-lasting. I love eyeliner, like Cleopatra loved eyeliner. I have a lot of eyeliner pencils. This one is the best!
Good & Gather Crushed Garlic Cubes and Crushed Ginger Cubes – I purchased these wonders at Target recently, and they have become flavor game changers. You keep them in your freezer (they look like small ice cube trays). Then, when you need to put something on the skillet, you just blop one of the frozen cubes on to the pan and it turns into the perfect mix of oil and flavor, to help to make whatever you are cooking, taste divine.
Have a wonderful weekend friends. I hope that the weekend ends with us all feeling refreshed, renewed, relieved, revived, rejuvenated and reoriented to living our lives with excitement, hope and energy. I will see you back here on Monday.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
****Happy Birthday, Big Red! (and little brown dog 😉 ) M, you were the first to make me realize the divine privilege and pleasure it is to be a mother. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you infinitely.****
So I have just spent over an hour trying to upload a picture that I took of Josie, our wonderful collie. I took the photograph this morning, through our sliding glass door, as I observed elegant Josie, out on our lanai, face towards the sun, standing calmly next to our abundant, bright pink, hibiscus blossoms. Josie, a full coated, tri-color collie, is total eye candy. She is truly a feast for the eyes. You’ll have to take my word for it. The best part of Josie is that she is a sweet, gentle dog. She has no idea how amazingly stunning she is, which makes her even more lovable and incredible.
We are enjoying a fabulous spring here which is making me take more pauses, during my days, to really soak in the beauty all around us. Our plants are having a particularly good blooming season, and it feels so good to marvel at the true beauty of the little piece of this amazing world which we live in. Last night, my husband and I sat in our tall, green, fragrant grass and we gazed at the almost full moon. I didn’t want to come in. I truly felt what it means to take a “moon bath.”
In my frustration with technology this morning, I have lost my focus on what to write about. Perhaps the lesson is to stop trying to explain (in the way of words), and to stop trying to capture (in the way of photographs), but really instead, just be completely one with the beauty of the moments. Perhaps the lesson is to feel the feeling of awe so immensely, that you almost lose the borders of your body and you forget that you are anything but awe. I think that this is what is happening to me this morning and this spring. Words and pictures can never fully and completely convey experience. Words and pictures become their own experience, while the actual sensory experiences can never be taken prisoner by time, or by words, or even by film. Our every moments are precious, elusive, fleeting gifts and our only requirement is to savor them as they happen.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
***Happy Birthday to the love of my life. What we have together is my greatest treasure, and where all of the most amazing experiences of my life originate. Lucky, lucky, lucky – just like I said.***
I read a good quote yesterday that I had to ruminate on a little bit. It’s a common proverb, often used among the financial broker/trader community:
“Your first loss is your cheapest loss.”
No one gets a “loss-free life.” There are losses all along the way – loss of innocence, loss of youth, loss of relationships, loss of jobs, loss of money, loss of health, loss of loved ones . . . .if we can come to an acceptance that loss is just one of those least favorite experiences in life, we can have an easier time “cutting our losses” and taking the hard, but valuable lessons which they often bring with them.
The problem is, we don’t like to accept that loss is part of life. We have turned loss into meaning that we are “losers”, and that gets us in the gut. And so we become maniacal about holding on to whatever it is that we believe we are losing, and we make worse mistakes and create even bigger losses, to the detriment of ourselves. (Ask any reformed gambler.) Sometimes we get so caught up in “not losing” that we start hanging on to things that we don’t even want.
We’ve often heard the proverb, “Don’t throw good money after bad.” It’s hard to do. I’ve done it. (Ask me about a once beloved house in Carolina that evolved to become a detested noose around my neck.) Haven’t you? We are a hopeful lot, and that is good . . . .until it isn’t.
If there is something in your life that needs a rational, reality check, be honest with yourself about it. Stop. Think. Don’t dig a deeper hole for yourself. None of us are perfect. None of us have all of the answers. None of us have never made a mistake. You can’t go on to make a big catch, if you don’t cut bait with what isn’t working and isn’t workable. Take the lessons from the last unsuccessful cast, and move on to broader horizons.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
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.
The key words for spring are “new” and “fresh”, right? Happy Spring! Tomorrow is a new moon and the start of the astrological calendar. These next couple of days are the perfect time to decide what in your life needs some “new-ness” and some fresh energy breathed into it. What has become stale and frozen and motionless in your life? How can you add some vitality and brightness and vigor to your everyday routines? I read an article over the weekend that stated that we have a tendency to make major life decisions such as where we live, based on what we spend only 10-20 percent of our time doing. If we are honest with ourselves, 80-90 percent of the time in our lives is spent on work, errands, appointments, commutes, and everyday-functions. The smallest percentage of our time is spent on dinners out, and parties, and vacations. Yet we may choose to live by the mountains, or at the beach, or at the heart of a major city, at a sacrifice to what would make our everyday experience more calm, enjoyable, economical and pleasing. The key is to focus on making your 80-90 percent so wonderful that the 10-20 percent, almost doesn’t matter – it’s just the cherry on top. What are some little changes and shake-ups that you could make for yourself, at this fresh new start time of year, that could bring some sparkle and delight to your own everyday life? Spring forward. Spring into action. Spring to life!
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.
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.
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.
