Yesterday, my husband and I decided to do some hiking. We approached a trailhead marked “Black Diamond” which meant steep and difficult. A fit, sprite woman, in adorable hiking regalia, who appeared to be in her sixties came down from the trail.
“Was it strenuous?” I asked her.
“Well, that depends on your age and your joints. You see I’m 90, so I have to take it a little more slowly.”
“WHAT?!? You’re 90?! Wow, I am looking at aging goals right here!” I exclaimed wondrously.
“The key is to keep moving,” she said. “Just keep moving.” She then smiled proudly and jauntily headed down to her car at the foot of the mountain.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Thank you to everyone whose work makes a meaningful difference in my own life, every single day. Thank you to the people working at the electric company, and the water plant, and the cell phone towers. Thank you for the police, and the paramedics, and the fire department. I slept well last night, knowing that you are always at your jobs. Thank you teachers who have taught my children so well. Thank you farmers for providing our sustenance and thank you wonderful chefs for making the food even more delicious. (especially the cook at my son’s fraternity house. I know what it takes to feed three sons, I can’t imagine making meals for 300 young men every day.) Thank you medical professionals. You are working on fumes, these days, we know. Thank you airline professionals. The anticipation of my trips and adventures is one of the best feelings in life, ever. Thank you to all of the constructions workers who have helped to make our house what we want it to be. Thank you to the people who reliably take our garbage and recyclables away, every week. You are saints! Thank you to every repair person who has fixed our cars or our appliances, much to our relief. Thank you to my husband and other bankers who help to gather the funds where they are needed, in order to make people’s dreams able to be realized. Thank you entertainers and musicians for being the source of a hearty laugh or a deep cry, whenever we need it. Thank you maintenance crews for making our roads so driveable, even in the craziest of weather. Thank you manufacturers. I love my stuff! And I’m always looking for more stuff to delight in. Thank you, technology professionals and engineers and scientists. I can’t even pretend to understand how you do what you do, but I do know that what you do, has brought us to a whole new world, in the span of just a couple of decades. Thank you retail workers, who always make everything sitting right on the shelf where I need it, look so easy. Thank you Amazon delivery people. Sometimes I wonder if we have one of you assigned just to our house. You are a dream come true! Thank you fellow writers. Reading is one of my greatest passions in life, and you have given to me so much wonderful material! Thank you to everyone that didn’t come to mind in the first ten minutes of me scrambling to get this blog post out. I appreciate you. Know this. It’s amazing to me, in just one day of my life, how much other people’s work goes into making my every single day, what it is to me. Nobody does anything alone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
“No man is an island, entire of itself. . . . ” – John Donne
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Happy Labor Day. This is the right way to do a Monday, isn’t it? My family just woke up, fully rested and restored. The morning is bright and still and quiet and calm. I saw this meme the other day and I thought to myself, that is exactly what we are doing here in 2020. We have been assigned a whole range of seemingly insurmountable mountain tops. We have reached peaks of anger and frustration, and pinnacles of rage, in so many facets of our society. But on this day that reminds us about just how much we can achieve when we labor together, we realize that we are the chosen people, to move these mountains of fear, and pain, and shame, and anger, and inequalities, and sickness, to the side, in order to clear a path for all of us, to walk into a brighter tomorrow. We are the chosen people of 2020. We know this, because we are here. We are being trusted to move the mountains. Someone knows that we are strong enough, yet have malleable hearts and open, bright minds, in order to see beyond the terrifying heights, to the beautiful valleys that stretch beyond the rocky mountain ranges. As long as we all remember to see it as our sacred task and duty, for all of us to labor against the problems, instead of “us against each other”, we will make it. We will move mountains in 2020. We are the chosen people. It is time we start acting like it.
In light of all of the painful world’s events that have occurred in just this short time, I think that this wisdom from the Dalai Lama is so correct:
“There is a saying in Tibetan, ‘Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’ No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.” ― Dalai Lama XIV
I hope that you have a reflective, restful day off (if you are fortunate enough to have this Labor Day off) and enter into another fall season, refreshed and hopeful. Over the weekend, a dear friend of mine’s son, tragically lost one of his dearest friends. I wrote to him that every friendship that I have ever had, whether long or short, has affected my life and in essence, has become a part of, and helped to form, who I am, at my very core. So, in essence, those friendships will be with me forever. In that same sense, every tragedy and every triumph that we experience in our lifetimes, also becomes a part of who we are and helps to form us, and to grow us, individually and collectively. Thus, nothing is for naught.
