Tag: inspiration

Monday’s Maxims

+ “Behind every great recipe there is a grandmother. We call ours “Cuddy”!” – from a package of Chunk Nibbles

This is the first time I have heard “Cuddy” for a grandmother’s name and I just love it. I do believe that the best recipes I have ever gotten are from my grandmothers and my great-grandmother. Not too long ago, I brought out some old recipes for a neighborhood gathering and I was told that they were total “crack” and couldn’t be left alone until they were all gone. So much is store bought these days, that baking from scratch tastes extra good, doesn’t it? Nostalgia must be the secret ingredient. My mother-in-law taught my daughter how to bake (I am not at all a kitchen wizard) and I still have fond memories of watching them spend an afternoon in our kitchen together. Baking is bonding.

+ “Adopt the pace of nature: Her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why do we go out in nature in order to relax? Because there is no “hurried” energy in nature. Nature is in acceptance of what is. Nature sits in faith that everything will unfold as it should, in its own time.

+ “The entire world you see is an afterthought.” – Alan Cohen

What are you seeing in the world? Are you wearing the right glasses? What you experience through your senses is then translated through your mind, using labels, beliefs, lessons, media, past experiences, emotion, other people’s influences, etc. We could both be looking at the exact same world and be translating it in entirely different ways. You could look at the identical object/scene you are observing today, and see it in an entirely different way tomorrow. Make sure that your translator is up to snuff.

+ “You fear losing what was never yours. Nothing belongs to you but the journey.” – Shams-e Tabrizi

We don’t even get to leave here with our bodies. Our true treasure is the adventures of our every day lives. Learning to let go of attachments is one of the hardest lessons in life, isn’t it?

+ “There is no fail. You either win or learn.” – Gary Keller

Our daughter has just recently started her new job and as always, she is being extra hard on herself for not being perfect at it, from the starting gate. If we learn from the lessons of our mistakes, there is never a loss. I know these words fall short on her now, but in hindsight, there is no doubt she will see the truth of it. What we learn “the hard way” is what sticks with us the most.

Happy Monday! Happy New Month! Happy New Week!

“Every dawn is a new beginning.”

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

Joys and Serendipities

So this morning, I was thinking of some of the every day small things that bring me joy and make me feel totally unique and myself. Two things came to mind:

First, this is Celestial II:

I love betta fish. They are the most underrated pet you’ll ever have. They’re beautiful, they constantly want your attention (and by attention, I mean food), they’re curious and they are relatively easy to take care of, even among other fish species. I’ve had betta fish throughout my whole life, but in particular, Celestial I was more than a fish to me. He was almost like a “familiar” or one of my “soul pets.” He lived on my desk and watched me write for a good five years, until he recently passed. He was a cream colored betta fish with dark eyes. After Celestial I died, I decided that I will always need a “Celestial” betta fish mascot of sorts to live on my desk, watching me write, for the rest of my life. (I got the idea from the University of Georgia bulldogs mascot, Uga tradition. The current official Georgia bulldog, Uga, is number XI (11).) And so last month, I ordered Celestial II from eBay because I wanted a fish that looked almost exactly like Celestial I. Celestial II arrived from North Carolina in excellent condition and he already has me wrapped around his fins. He is demanding, commanding, active and dramatic and I absolutely adore him. I have two other bettas, Minka and Ice Baby, who live in the kitchen, and they each live with a helpful cleaning aide, their snails. (the snails are both named Gary) Unfortunately, just like his predecessor, Celestial II vehemently refuses to have anybody else living with him. He is vicious about his private space. He loves his solitude and so do I. Who ever thought that a fish could bring so much joy?

Another possession that brings me great joy is this little piece of art:

She’s filthy, I know. I’ve tried cleaning her off, but when I do this, some of her paint starts getting removed and I don’t want to destroy her. (I’ll have to get with a museum to find out how to do art restoration – wink). I bought my Namaste lady probably over a decade ago when I started driving convertibles. I consider her to be my friendly protector. Recently, my aunt and I drove my convertible to get breakfast and when we were leaving the car, my aunt asked me if I wanted to put the top up. I said, “No, I’ll just put my Namaste lady on the dash. She’s great at guilt trips.” I do look at this darling woodblock as a friendly symbol to anyone who passes by my car, even when I am not around. She’s also a reminder to me, to stay calm, when other drivers are in a crazed state. My Namaste lady was painted by an artist named Tiffanie Seiler, and here’s the crazy part: This morning, when I looked up what number the current Uga bulldog is, it turns out that the Seiler family, have been the owners/caretakers of all of the Uga bulldogs since 1956. Now I do not know if Tiffanie is related to these particular Uga Seilers, but I love coincidences and serendipities, so this kind of made my day and it’s only still the morning. (someone once told me that “Coincidence is just God being anonymous” and it has stuck with me ever since)

What are your favorite “little things” in your life that help you to be and feel uniquely you? I’d love to hear about them in my Comments.

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

A Girl Named Sue

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize what most people want more than anything is a witness to their story. Why do we think that social media has become so popular? Most people just want someone to listen. Most people want to be validated and comforted that they are doing their best as they experience the incredulousness of living a life on this Earth. Yesterday, I was trying to get a million errands done because we are having company this weekend. However, the cashier who was waiting on me at one of my stops, clearly needed me to hear her story. I sensed this – intuitively but also because she mentioned to me more than once that she had not had an easy life. To be fair, I was also sensing my own inner aggravations about time limits, and I was feeling the impatience of the people behind me, but something told me that it was more important in that particular moment that I could easily fulfill an obviously strong need of another living being to be heard, by just intently listening. I am a big believer in boundaries, but I am a bigger believer in listening to my intuition and my inner spirit, and something deeply calmed in me, and so I became a listener, a witness, and a validator to a woman named Sue.

Sue was an orphan of Indian descent. She was raised by nuns in a convent in Ediburgh, Scotland. Most of the nuns were good, sweet ladies, but the head nun was horrific, mean and controlling. Sue was a natural student and so by the age of 15, the head nun had made Sue start teaching the other children at the orphanage. Sue knew that this was not right. Sue was still a child herself. She told the head nun this fact and was dearly punished for it. So Sue kept calm, put her head down, kept with her studies, and despite the nuns pressuring her to stay at the convent and teach, she left the orphanage at the age of 18 and continued at university, while also working and living in a small apartment with five other women. Sue became an educator in a school of her choosing, and won more than one teaching award throughout her career. Sue also met the love of her life, an older man and a doctor. They married, had two children and Sue was living the life of her dreams, but unfortunately her husband suddenly passed away. At that time, her two young children begged Sue to move from Scotland to New York City, as Scotland was the land of their father and there were too many memories for all of them to bear there. So Sue finished raising her kids in New York City, and both of them have gone on to be successful in their lives and have families of their own. Sue’s children and friends all thought that she should remarry, but Sue felt that she already experienced the one great love of her life. When Sue retired, for better winter weather, she chose to move on her own to Florida, with her children’s blessing. Sue likes cashiering because she likes to keep busy and to meet people. I told Sue, “You have always had a strong spirit, it seems.”

She sighed, “I didn’t have a choice.”

I said to her, “I know that you didn’t want any of these hardships, but you stepped up to the plate. You met them. You endured and even thrived.”

Sue clasped my hands and thanked me. “He died 22 years ago today,” she said with watery eyes. And it was then that my heart knew that I was right to listen to it, and to hear Sue. And not surprisingly, I got everything done that I needed to get done for the rest of the day.

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

Frislands (or Islands of Friday)

I recently read about a theory created by psychologist Pauline Boss, that states when going through times of big changes, loss or upheaval in anyone’s life, we need “islands of certainty.” These are stable, familiar entities that give us a sense of normalcy which we can “cling to” while moving through change. Boss puts these islands of certainty into four main categories (conveniently they all start with the letter “p”) : People, Practices, Places and Possessions

What people (and/or pets), rituals, regular haunts, and most treasured things give you a sense of comfort and stabilty? It is suggested to write a list of these precious parts of your life and update it regularly, so that when changes or surprises inevitably occur at different times, you have something to refer to, and to remind you of what and where you have to turn to, for comfort, for a sense of normalcy and certainty.

****And for old times’ sake (reminscent of my regular Favorite Things Friday posts of the past), I am going to add a new favorite of mine. I read that plastic jelly shoes were making a comeback this summer and I thought, “Not for me!” The first time jelly shoes came around in my lifetime, they were made of stiff, sharp edged plastic that inevitably created miserable blisters on my feet. Also, the jelly shoes’ colors would fade fast or inevitably get ugly marks on them. But alas, recently I got suckered into buying a new pair of tortoiseshell jelly ballet flats made by CUSHIONAIRE (I bought mine from Amazon), because an article in the New York Times insisted these were not the jelly shoes of yesteryear. And they were right! I love my Cushionaire jelly ballet flats! They are soft, stretchy, comfortable and they have an amazing cushiony sole. I wore my tortoiseshell jelly flats all day yesterday with a breezy pair of linen pants, and I felt cool and comfortable and fashionable, even as I was melting away in the hot air of summer. Happy Friday, friends. Friday will always be one of my Islands of Certainty!

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

Temperature Rising

I recently heard the term “human emotional thermometer.” This label means that you are the type of person who is continually taking the temperature of everyone else’s moods and then treating those moods of other people, as if they are your responsibility to fix/change/manage. Many of us women fall into this category. And while we are often very good at testing and managing other people’s emotions, our internal emotional thermometers are often broken when it comes to measuring our own emotions, and what personal needs those emotions are trying to guide us to fulfilling. As in touch as we are with the zeitgeist of the room, we are often entirely out of touch with our own internal feelings.

Are you a human emotional thermometer? Do you need to change the settings from “external” to “internal”? When we become more attuned to our own feelings and moods and thus start taking care of our own needs which these emotions and feelings point to, we actually embark on healthier, mutual relationships. When we can rely on ourselves to understand and to communicate and to fulfill our own needs, we can relax into the idea that others are capable of doing the same thing for themselves. The reality is that most others probably do not want to be “managed” by us, anyway. Finally, when we trust ourselves to keep our own temperature at normal, we stop expecting others to magically do it for us.

“Be a thermostat, not a thermometer.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Think of your moods as a thermometer that takes the temperature of your life.” – Robert Biswas-Diener

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

Randomness and Magic

I read a fascinating letter earlier this week, written by Jack Antonoff, who is the lead singer of the band Bleachers (one of their best known songs, and one of my personal favorites is I Wanna Get Better). Antonoff has written music with Taylor Swift and he is also a music producer. In his letter, Antonoff was basically blasting music creators who are using AI to create. Here are some excerpts for the letter:

“What we do has become an ancient ritual. . . . You don’t have to write music, you don’t have to record it and you don’t have to bring out the band and play it. And yet for us, the idea of optimizing what we do is a complete miss of the entire point of what compels us in the first place. We (myself, the band and everyone I know, frankly) have never been looking for this work to become quicker or easier. We were never frustrated by the randomness and magic it takes. We do it for that exact reason — and without the process itself ::: nothingness.“

“So to everyone who is gassed up about the new ways you can fake making art, by all means, drive right off that cliff. We’re genuinely happy to see you go. . . .Generations coming will be engaging in the ancient ritual of writing, recording and performing as it comes to us from God.”

“So as we embark on this strange detour where the bad actors will willingly reveal themselves through slop, and the struggling great will be further spread thin to make an honest living doing what they were put on Earth to do, we (myself, the band and frankly everyone I know) remain more dedicated than ever to reveal what comes from within. Writing music, recording and performing it — that’s it. Nothing more embarrassing than considering there is a way to optimize that holy process.”

I don’t know where I stand on using AI in the creative process yet. I don’t feel as angry about it as Jack Antonoff seems to feel. Creating with AI is all still so new and continually forming and reforming. I remain curious and hopeful. (that being said, I never, ever use AI to write this blog and with all of my grammatical errors and run-on sentences and odd transitions, that’s probably obvious) However, I completely agree with Antonoff that the real joy in any creative pursuit is getting caught up in the flow of something bigger than yourself. Writing feels like transcribing downloads from an entirely different realm. Painting, sewing, playing music, woodworking, cooking . . . honestly, doing any creative pursuit often makes time feel like it’s stopped. Like most things in life, the true joy of any creation isn’t really the final product, it is the process of bringing the creation to life. As Antonoff puts it, it is the “revealing what comes from within . . .that holy process . . . as it comes to us from God.” And as he stated, this is an ancient ritual. Over the weekend, we went to an art museum which we had never been to before and again, I was mesmerized by the rooms and rooms of ancient art from all over the world, many of these pieces being centuries old. All of these pieces were made from the ancient ritual and holy process of revealing the downloads coming from within, or perhaps coming from God.

There is probably a place for AI creations. AI is really just a super fast conglomeration and reiteration of what humanity has already brought into the world anyway. But I truly do hope that we don’t let AI rob us of the sometimes painstaking, but beautiful, healing, cleansing, humane, revealing process of birthing our own creations into this world. If we are honest with ourselves, creating is really the point of living and experiencing life.

I started this blog on a complete lark in the summer of 2018 when my husband and I helped our eldest son unload his things into his new apartment, in his new city, for his first job out of college. In a sense, writing this blog saved me. It saved the creative part of me that perhaps I had let get a little dark for a while. Thank you for witnessing and being part of my creative process and my flow of thoughts and my emotions, as they came to me from within, as I transcribed them from something deep and yearning in my heart. It is not lost on me, that as I just helped my youngest child unload her things into her new apartment, in her new city, for her first job out of college, that I feel an intense need and yearning to come back to the blog to write. I have so much download, and Adulting – Second Half is my favorite place to put these downloads. Again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. May we never lose the sanctity of the “randomness and magic” it takes to create.

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

We’re Here

I’m back. This past weekend, we dropped our daughter, and our youngest adult child of our four adult children, in her new state, in her new apartment, with her new roommate, who seems less like a new friend, but more like a person our daughter must have known in a previous life. It seems as if they are ladies who have fondly known each other for months and months, not for just a few days. And this is such great relief for this mama’s heart!

So now, it’s here. We’re here. (I keep repeating this to my husband. “We’re here.” And my husband, being the more practical and less philosophical one out of the two of us, keeps looking at me quizzically, but thankfully he always kindly stops short of saying, “No sh$t, we’re here.”) This is the moment which I have been anticipating since our eldest son graduated from high school 12 years ago and started the whole launching pad experience for his three siblings behind him. Our four charges are all fully launched. And it is now time for me to launch into a whole new phase of my own life. It’s here. We’re here.

I’ve written this on the blog before, but it is a worthy reminder (and a mantra that I have to tell myself daily, and sometimes many times each day) – Worry does not equal love. Confidence equals love. Hope equals love. Faith equals love. Assurance equals love.

The time is here. My family and I are here at this whole new phase of the game. I always tell my kids that the best indicator of future success is past success, so I am confident, hopeful and full of faith and assurance that this next stage is going to be fantastic. It won’t always be easy. It won’t be without its stumbling blocks and its learning curves, but it will be amazing. This next stage of life, for all of us, will be amazing.

Yesterday, I read a quote by one of my favorite authors, Paulo Coelho. The quote is this: “You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.” We humans are creatures of habits and these long habits can often create beliefs in us that can sometimes keep us submerged in places that we need to swim away from. We all occasionally fall into the rivers of unconscious rhythms, despair, ruts, confusion, and ennui from time to time. But if we take a moment to get calm and intentional, we can stop splashing around in worry, we can stop drowning in our feelings and false beliefs, and we can give ourselves the life jackets of confidence, hope, faith, assurance and love. We can stop fighting the current of our lives and instead choose to curiously float with it, to the next interesting destination, waiting right around the corner . . . . the best is yet to come! It is. And we’re here for it.

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

Gaping

Our only daughter, our youngest of four kids, and the last to leave the nest, takes off in about a couple of weeks, for a fabulous new job opportunity, in a state that is a two-day drive from us, in a whole different time-zone. Lately, my sweet friends and relations have been sending me texts, kindly asking me how I’m doing and how I’m feeling. My pat answer has been, “Doing well, just trying to soak her all in. Smiley emoji. Thumbs up emoji.” Perhaps I should go with the more truthful, modern answer, “I don’t know. It’s complicated.” But, I won’t. I don’t want anyone to try to poke at my carefully created shield. I’m still in “mother-mode.” I’ve got to be my daughter’s cool, calm, collected safety net. I’ve got to be that reassuring presence that tells her (and tells me) that everything is going to be okay. And it will be. I know this from the bottom of my heart, but still . . . How am I feeling about all of this?

I don’t know. It’s complicated. It’s a complicated mash of every feeling under the sun that I’m still trying to keep under the lid of my shield – a shield that protects others from a violent storm of emotion that would only inevitably be followed by that way too uncomfortable cloud of discomfort and cringe which just hangs in the air after any kind of explosion of passionate feelings, and also a shield that protects me from an intensity of feelings that I’m not ready to feel yet. I have so many feelings flying around, under the radar of my carefully crafted shield, that I have even witnessed myself having strong feelings about those feelings, all swirling around, all at the same time. And right along with this massive, swirling cone of conflicting emotions, I have an internal high and mighty judge and jury telling me which of these feelings are “correct” for me to have, and which of these feelings are “wrong” and “shameful.” Honestly, a statement that has always been hard for me to grapple with is “Both things can be true at the same time.” This is a hard concept for me. I like cut and dry. I like logic. I like “truth.” I get annoyed when people use the term “that’s my truth” too much. It seems like a cop-out to me. I like to believe that there are actually a fair amount of factual truths that just can’t be denied. And yet, when it comes to feelings, I’m having to come to terms with the idea that “eight million things can be true at the same time.” And that is the truth. And that’s okay.

How am I feeling about all of this – my youngest now really and truly embarking on her adulthood and moving far away from me, bookended by two of her brothers’ weddings, all in the span of a few short months?

Overwhelmed. Happy. Sad. Nostalgic. Relieved. Excited for them. Excited for me. Excited for my husband. Worried for them. Worried for me. Worried for my husband. Tired. Proud. Impressed with myself. Disappointed in myself. Hopeful. Out of sorts. Organized. Disorganized. Astounded. Needy. Ecstatic. Protective. Patient. Impatient. Grateful. Scared. Small. Big. Guilty. Enough. Not Enough. Supportive. Not wanting to be supportive. Listless. Astounded. Scattered. Lost. Found. Misdirected. Accomplished. Agitated. Confused. Insecure. Exhausted. Lonely. Craving solitude. Reflective. Empathetic. Energized. Fearful. Confident. Faithful. Old. Newly young. Free. Righteous. Curious. Doubtful. Even sometimes angry, and maybe even a little envious of all the new experiences that my children all have ahead of them. Open. Assured. Defensive. Questioning. But mostly, I feel gaping. I feel totally gaping with Love and Vulnerability. Gaping. Yep, I feel absolutely gaping wide.

How am I feeling about all of this change in my life? (shield goes up)

Thank you for asking. I’m good. I’m just trying to soak my daughter all up before she leaves. Smiley emoji. Thumbs up emoji.

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

Last Week It Happened

It happened. The first of our four children, our eldest son, got married last week. It was the first marriage of any of our children. If you think that your own wedding was lovely and magical, you can’t even imagine how incredibly magical the marriages of your own children will be! I’m still floating on a cloud. I am still thanking the Powers That Be, for the pure foundation of love our son has found and created with his beautiful bride. I am still thanking the Powers That Be that our whole family has been a witness to their beautiful love and the divine ceremony and celebration that cemented their wonderful union. We are so very blessed and I feel it tingling in every cell of my body.

“A bride is the most beautiful poem ever written…” – Oscar Wilde

“To get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.” – Mark Twain

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” – Nat King Cole

I have often told myself, in these most recent years in which our children have grown up into adulthood, that my job now is narrowed down to just love my family. Love them. Love them. Love them. I have already birthed them, fed them, guided them, taught them, scolded them, protected them, prayed for them (this will be ceaseless), sheltered them, prodded them, cheered them, advised them, comforted them, fought for them, and occasionally even apologized to them for my shortcomings, and now, our four amazing adult children are capable to do all of these things for themselves and for each other. I just need to narrow my motherly duties down to Love now. And this is the easiest thing for me to do. It comes naturally. Love them. Love them. Love them. I love my family ceaselessly and I am so grateful for the outward celebration of our love that was experienced, happily and beautifully, just a few short days ago.

“I think that enduring, committed love… is the most noble act anyone can aspire to.” – Nicholas Sparks

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

Savoring

Our youngest graduated from college last weekend. Our eldest son gets married next week. This week has been a combination of wrapping up loose ends/taking an exhale/and recharging the batteries. As I have been waking up slowly each morning, I’ve envisioned my bed as a soft, safe charger, much like my iPhone gets charged each night. I’ve insisted on going to bed early and keeping the schedule light this week. The graduation and its celebration went off magically. And I am pleased and I am relieved. I am hoping the same for the upcoming nuptials. I’m honestly relieved that the wedding is finally around the corner. When I’ve mentioned this pining for months now, to anyone in earshot of me, that I really can’t wait for the big events of this year to just be here (we have another son getting married in September), I get a lot of admonishment to not wish my life away, and to just totally savor it all. And this annoys me a lot. This annoys me because I am a savorer. I pride myself in that fact. I savor my life and most of the moments in it, but too much anticipation gets to me every time. And not in a good way. I do not do well with “limbo”. I savored my daughter’s recent graduation AND I am relieved and happy to have it completed successfully. I relish in the surety of a plan that is well executed and is then relegated to being a fond memory. I don’t feel too sad when planned events, vacations, reunions, celebrations, etc. are over because I know that there will always be more (and this is because I am a savorer and I have proof of that in my many, many, many savored memories). Like the quote below says, once you’ve added an experience to your memory bank, it’s yours. It cannot be lost. It’s in your “vault of you.” Your experiences become shapers of you. Maybe that’s why I hate limbo. I keep wanting to pull all of the scattered pieces of myself, past and future, back into myself. It’s like my future self can see ahead and is always yearning to be more and more fully and wholly me.

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