Tag: love

Thinky Thursday

I have found that Thursdays are the days on which I am most drawn to writing on my blog. Maybe it’s because I have accumulated a lot in my head throughout the week, and before I chuck it all, and just enjoy my favorite, free-flowing Fridays, I decide that I must record some of what I have experienced and learned for posterity’s sake. (the older I get, the more I find that I must write things down. I probably will end up being one of those little old ladies who lives in a sea of colorful post-it notes, guiding her all along the way.) Speaking of writing things down, I was shopping yesterday, and I overheard two young women talking. The one young lady said to the other, “Oh, I need to get an address book.” And the other said, “For what?” And the first young lady answered, “For the wedding.”

Now this is one of those times that my evil, ever-present eavesdropping got the best of me, and I blurted out, “Girls, I have been married for over 30 years, and I still have my precious little “wedding box”. It’s like a recipe box that holds address cards. I just use colorful notecards to write down new people in my life, and also for the new addresses of the “old people” in my life. I know that we are supposed to computerize everything these days, but I honestly love my wedding box.”

The bride-to-be seemed absolutely delighted by my suggestion (sweet girl). She said, “Oh that’s a great idea! Thank you. I don’t like computerizing everything either.” (girl after my own heart)

Speaking of young ladies, lately I’ve noticed a beautiful trend on a lot of young ladies’ faces. I call it “subtle sparkle.” I have been the unfortunate experimenter of “splashy sparkle” throughout my life, but “subtle sparkle” is so much more lovely, and intriguing. One of my future daughter-in-law’s friends was talking to me, and as we were talking, I noticed her gorgeous green eyes especially. I then noticed just a hint of sparkle on her eyelids and I asked her if she thought that my crepey 54-year-old eyelids could pull it off. She insisted that I absolutely could (sweet, sweet girl) and she told me that it was Fenty Diamond Bomb All Over eyeshadow. Ironically, this same week, a young lady was waiting on me at my local grocery store, and she carried the same kind of intoxicating, clandestine shimmer on her eyelids. She shared with me that her eyeshadow was Moondust by Urban Decay – Space Cowboy. I took this as a sign to buy. I am a true believer that we are never too old for a little shimmer in our lives. Try these out, friends. Let your light shine.

There are two more things that I need to record on the blog this Thinky Thursday: First, I read an excellent article this morning by Sasha Chapin who insists that true charisma is responsiveness. It’s a fact, isn’t it? I immediately thought of the people whom I consider to be the most charismatic people in my life, and what makes them so intriguing is that they are so utterly intrigued with life, and with other people. Sasha says this about one of his own most charismatic acquaintances: “He is remarkably compelling, largely because he seems captivated by everyone and everything around him. Everywhere he goes, there is more ambient energy.” Chapin also says this: “You might dismiss this as a trick, but unless you genuinely love people and are comfortable in your own skin, it’s a really hard trick to pull off.”  Reading this article, I immediately thought of one of the most charismatic people I have ever known. Her name was Jodi and she was a high school friend of mine, and of everyone else’s. She has unfortunately passed away many, many years ago (she died soon after we graduated from high school), but I can still vividly picture Jodi’s sparkly eyes and her bright smile, to this very day. She was probably one of the most popular people in our high school, but not just with the popular crowd. Everyone loved Jodi and I believe that it was because when you were with her, she gave you her full, genuine attention. She was authentically responsive to everyone she met. She didn’t just put on a show. Jodi pulled you on stage, and made you part of her show. True charisma is responsiveness.

And here’s a final fun tip: Earlier this week I read a good article that compared our minds to overworked, overstressed, on-the-verge-of-burnout employees. We all have three elements to ourselves: Mind, Body, Spirit But we humans have a tendency to dump all of our decision making onto our poor, overworked, overstressed, overthinking, overanalyzing, on-the-verge-of-burnout Minds. Our Spirits are subtle. Our intuition rarely screams. Our Spirit prefers “subtle sparkle”, but it always knows what is best for us. And our Bodies are workhorses. Our Bodies go, go, go until they don’t have the choice but to finally scream out in pain. So, in order to give our Minds a break, and to give our Bodies and our Spirits the equal attention that they so full-heartedly deserve, here is interesting way to tune into what our Bodies and Spirits are trying to say to us. Use yourself as a human pendulum. Stand up and close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Think of a decision which you are having trouble making, and form this decision as a “Yes/No” question. Now notice if your Body is leaning forwards or backwards. At this moment, your relaxed Body is listening to the “subtle sparkle” of your Spirit. If it leans forward, the answer to your question is “yes.” If your Body leans backwards, the answer to your question is “no.” Now, of course, your overstressed, overworked, over analytical Mind is going to try to immediately take over and call all of this nonsense, but teamwork is dreamwork. Don’t necessarily dismiss what your Mind tells you, but make sure that you don’t dismiss what your Body and your Spirit are trying to tell you either.

That’s all for today, friends. Have a wonderful weekend. Shine on.

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

They Both Got Good Ones

This morning on a phone call:

Me: Did you hear that Dolly Parton’s husband died?

My husband: Yes, and when I saw that news I thought to myself, Kelly’s going to dive deep into that one.

He knows me so well. I had already read about a dozen articles about Dolly’s marriage and extremely private husband. They were supposedly opposites, but they loved each other’s company. Dolly called Carl Dean, her husband, her “best friend” and she said that they shared a naughty sense of humor. While Carl Dean hated the limelight and he was, in her words, more of a “loner”, he always supported her decision to be a country music star and everything that comes with that profession. Carl told her that he had picked her, not the lifestyle, and that he would always pick her for the rest of his life. In one video, Dolly (who met Carl Dean when she was just 18 years old, and married him at age 20) spoke of the great comfort it is to come home to someone who clearly knows you, and who loves you for exactly who you are, when everything else is stripped away.

My favorite quote about Dolly and Carl was from a reddit thread from a couple of years ago. One redditor simply said, “They both got good ones.” I think that sums it up perfectly. Maybe for some, that is all that there is, to the simplest, best formula for a happily ever after marriage.

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

Thoughtful Thursday

Kristin Fontana writes an excellent newsletter. She was talking about a conversation she watched between two “relationship experts.” Fontana said that what she got from the conversation was a definition of forgiveness which I have never heard before, but it really resonated with me. (I just knew that it had to come here to be a thought exhibit at Adulting – Second Half. ) Forgiveness is the memory without the emotional charge. Forgiveness is experience alchemized into wisdom.

The concept of forgiveness is a toughie, isn’t it? It’s a confusing concept. It’s hard because many times forgiveness is treated like an “all or nothing.” And there are so many contradictory pity statements floating around out there about forgiveness.

“Forgive and forget.” “Forgive but don’t forget.” “To err is human; to forgive, divine”. “When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive”.  Oscar Wilde said this: “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.” When I looked up quotes about forgiveness, the AI overview said this, “There are many quotes about forgiveness, including the idea that it’s a gift, a constant attitude, and the final form of love.” 

Ultimately, in order to forgive anyone or anything, we must let go of the emotional charge that comes from the memory of the incident or incidents. To let go, we have to be able to detach. To let go, we must be able to trust ourselves to go through the process of alchemizing our experiences, and the emotions that come from those experiences, into wisdom, and then to act on our deeper wisdom going forward. This process is probably one of the hardest lessons we humans ever learn. But when we don’t go through the process of forgiveness, we withhold love and peace from ourselves.

And also from Kristin Fontana’s newsletter, verbatim, is this lovely fable:

According to an old Native American Legend, one day there was a big fire in the forest.

All the animals fled in terror

Suddenly, the Jaguar saw a Hummingbird pass over his head, but it was flying toward the fire.

Moments later, the Jaguar saw him pass again, this time he was headed away from the fire.

The Jaguar asked,
“What are you doing Hummingbird?

“I am going to the lake”,  he answered.
“I drink water with my beak and throw it onto the fire to extinguish it.”

The Jaguar laughed. “Are you crazy?” Do you really think you can put out that big fire on your own with your very small beak?”

“No”, said the Hummingbird, “I know I can’t.”
“But the forest is my home, it feeds me, it shelters me and my family. I am very grateful for that.
I am part of her, and the forest is part of me.”

I know I cannot put out the fire, but I must do my part.”

At that moment, the forest spirits who listened to the Hummingbird were moved by the bird and its devotion to the forest. 

Miraculously, they sent down a torrential downpour, which put an end to the great fire.

The Native American grandmothers would tell this story to their grandchildren. Then concluded with, “Do you want to attract miracles in your life? Then do your part.”

“You have no responsibility to save the world, or find the solutions to all problems but to tend to your personal corner of the Universe.”

“As each person does that, the world will save itself.”

That’s all we really have to do, right? Do our own teeny part, and then trust the Universe to take care of the rest. The Universe is using each one of us, and our own unique individual gifts and talents, to bring up the whole, but we were also gifted with free will, so that we can choose to fly like the hopeful hummingbird, or we can sit in cynicism like the jaded jaguar. We can be brave enough to feel our emotions and set them free, and then march on with our deeper wisdoms into a brighter and lighter future.

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

Find Your People

Happy Monday after the Super Bowl. I heard on the radio that this is the least productive day of the year. This is not surprising. I am only here being “productive” because I heard a song on one of our regional commercials, (Publix) during the Super Bowl that I had to look up. And now I MUST archive it here at the blog. I now have a new favorite band. Here is the song by Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors:

Here are the lyrics:

You gotta find your people
The ones that make you feel alright
The kind you want to stay up with all night
You got to find your people
The ones that make you feel whole
That won’t leave your side when you lose control
The ones that don’t let you lose your soul

You gotta find your people
The ones that get the joke
Who understand what you’re saying before a word is spoke
You gotta find your people
That put the needle in the groove
When you’re together, you got nothing to prove
When you’re together, you got nothing to lose

In a world of strangers, you don’t know who to trust
All you see is danger, tryna find what you lost
You can’t go in alone, everybody needs help
You gotta find your people, then you’ll find yourself

You gotta find your people
That’ll call your bluff
Who’ll ride along when the road is rough
You gotta find your people
The ones that you feel equal
They pick you up and don’t put you down
Help you find your way in the lost and found

In a world of strangers, you don’t know who to trust
All you see is danger, tryna find what you lost
You can’t go in alone, everybody needs help
You gotta find your people, then you’ll find yourself

The ones that understand you
The ones that lend a hand to you
The ones that don’t demand anything from you

You got to find your people
The ones that make you feel alright
That tell you the truth then wish you well
You gotta find your people, then you’ll find yourself
You gotta find your people, then you’ll find yourself

As I was researching this, I found out that this band has a lot of amazing songs with amazing lyrics. Listen to “Gratitude” and watch the lyrics. So good.

One of my favorite parts of life is the happy surprises and the least expected, unlikely discoveries that seem to come to you, just when you need them. I never dreamed that this year’s Super Bowl would help me to find a new favorite band. Score!

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

It’s Friday, No Horsepucky

It’s Friday, the best day of the week!!! For old times’ sake, I promise to add a favorite thing of mine, for you to ponder purchasing, at the end of my post, but first, also for old times’ sake, I have a really cool No Horsepucky story that happened just last week:

My regular readers already know that we lost our big yellow Labrador retriever, Ralphie, during the holidays. He had an aggressive lymphoma, and was in a lot of pain, and so we had him euthanized in our home. This was understandably devastating for all of us in our family.

Now there is a field, by a church with some homes across the street, that we would take all three of our dogs to, on occasion. We would take them off of their leads and let them run their energy off, while they gleefully ran circles around us. We were always careful to make sure there that were no other dogs nor children around. Admittedly, there is a leash law in this town that holds this big, wide open field. And also admittedly, we were breaking the law when we did this. Last week, around dusk, we took our two remaining dogs, Josie, a tricolor rough collie, and Trip, a Boykin spaniel, (also known as “little brown dogs”) to this field and we let them off of their leads, in order to run around like mad and chase each other. Lo and behold, within minutes, out of nowhere, there appeared flashing red and blue lights. A young police officer came out of a police car, and so we immediately put the dogs back on their leashes.

The officer looked chagrined. “Guys, I’m sorry,” he said. “There is a regular, same, anonymous caller who probably retired too soon, who thinks that their new job is to enforce every ordinance in this town.” He sighed. “So, I am sure that they are watching me talk to you. I have to tell you that you can’t let your dogs off of their leashes.”

“Understood, officer,” I said respectfully. “We’ll keep our direwolves under control,” my husband muttered under his breath.

“It’s really weird, though,” the officer said, as he turned to get back into his patrol car. “The caller said that it was a big yellow lab running off lead.”

True story. No horsepucky.

Okay, and now here’s the promised favorite for this freezing Friday (even here in Florida – yikes!). I read an article in the WSJ before Christmas that this particular ice cream scoop is better than all others. Supposedly, the way that the scoop conducts heat from your hands, makes scooping ice cream particularly easy, smooth and simple. So, I stuffed my family’s stockings with them, and when my daughter opened hers she exclaimed that they were the exact same scoops that she had used when working at our local, beachy, well-known, famous-in-these-parts ice cream shop.

What is this marvelous, must have contraption? It’s the Zeroll, Size 20, Original Ice Cream Scoop, and you can order it from Amazon. Now, go buy your favorite ice cream so you can try it for yourself. Yum. (Some good things do come from freezing cold.)

Finally, here’s a great question that my husband (who played football his entire youth) posed to me recently when I was getting my panties in a knot over nothing really. He said to me, “Babe, what’s the long-game here?” It jolted me into perspective quickly. Most of our little aggravations with people and with situations, aren’t that big of a deal in the scheme of things. But relationships and events can be damaged and possibly even ruined if we let these little grievances get to us, and we react poorly. So when you find yourself in a frustrated state, take a pause and ask yourself, “What’s the long-game here?” I think that this question will come quite in handy, as our family has two weddings in the horizon. While we want these days to be incredibly special, we all know that things rarely go exactly as planned. The long-game in any wedding, is a special, warm celebration of two people’s love and commitment to one another. The long-game is supporting a happy, healthy union.

The next time that you are spiraling, take a beat, and ask yourself, “What is the long-game here?” And then decide whether your actions and choices are supporting the long-game in any endeavor or relationship that is important to you. And after careful consideration, if you are quite okay with the long-game being shortened or ended, by all means, have at it.

Have a great weekend, friends! Scoop some ice cream and play the long game.

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

(((California)))

I know that I have a few loyal California readers, and I want to let you know that my heart and prayers are with you, and all whom you love. These last six months or so, in the United States particularly, it has been beyond proven that we are no match for the elements. May you all be safe and serene and find glimmers of hope in this horrible situation. If you get a chance, please let us know that you are okay.

Yesterday, marked the first real day of the new year for me. It was the first time I had my house completely to myself in over a month. (and as an introvert who craves solitude, this was deeply delicious) I went straight into a nesting instinct on steroids, and I cleaned every linen on every single bed in the house. I had saved our bed for the last, and so, way past our bedtime, our mattress pad was still drying in the drier. Therefore, I made up a makeshift pile of blankets on our bed and I told my husband that we were “camping.” We officially started the new year, “camping” in our own bed.

I no longer write a regular Favorite Things Friday blog post, but I do want to recommend a couple of fun little gadgets. The first one is one that I bought for myself, for my birthday:

Solareye Bird Feeder with Camera – This bird feeder is a joy. I am spying on all of my hungry little feathered friends with a close-up view. I’ve only had it up for a few weeks, and I have already “collected” 12 different species of birds, all captured on video, for me to view whenever I need a smile. This feeder turns “birds-eye view” on its heels! The Carolina Chickadee has proven to be my most frequent visitor so far. This hungry little guy has shown up 32 times already.

Also, my eldest son and his fiancee’ got us an Aura Digital Frame for Christmas and it is amazing! It was super easy to set up (with their help, of course. They’re young!) The best part of this frame is that all of us in the family can download pictures to a shared Aura App any time that we desire, and then the pictures (and videos) pop up on our frame. It’s such a lovely surprise to see a new picture of loved ones that we weren’t expecting, to suddenly pop up. I have owned other digital frames before, but the Aura takes things to a new level. I highly recommend it.

Spend those Amazon gift cards that you got for Christmas, on something good, that will continually bring a smile to your face. You can’t go wrong with either of these gadgets. Please share your gadget recommendations in my Comments, too.

Shifting gears, this was the daily peace quote:

“We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?“

– Jack Kornfield

If you aren’t sure what you deeply value, look at what you do, and what you choose, in your everyday life. That is what you are showing yourself, and the world, what you truly value. If you are feeling unhappy or unsettled, chances are, you aren’t living your true values. Take some time for self-awareness at this beginning of this new year. If you value love, health, family, friends, security, using your talents, truth, integrity, joy, travel, service, nature, knowledge, hope, peace, loyalty, beauty, kindness, progress, adventure, faith etc. are your actions reflecting these values?

Okay, before I close, here’s another big hug to my readers from the beautiful state of California! May the best of today, be the worst of tomorrow for all of us in 2025. Onwards and upwards . . . . It’s all going to be okay.

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

Transition

Happy New Year, friends. I hope that you had a lovely holiday season. Ours was beautiful, poignant, painful, joyful and full of change and expansion. It is clearly apparent now that our family is growing up and growing out, in all different interesting and fun directions, but our years and years of “same old/same old” when it comes to our holiday traditions have definitely come to pass. Our children all have wonderful long term significant others (our two eldest sons are engaged to be married) and so my husband and I have had to learn to share and to embrace change. We have had to learn to create new traditions, and to feel our way to these new traditions. We have also lost loved ones along the way, and this Christmas was no exception. Sadly, we found out that our Ralphie, our beautiful Labrador retriever, our last true “family dog” (our eldest two sons were still in college when we brought Ralphie home), had incurable and painful lymphoma and so we made the choice to have Ralphie euthanized at home with Lap of Love (this service came highly recommended to us by our friends. If you ever come to having to make this unfortunate choice, they were wonderful.) I suppose the only upside of this situation happening at Christmastime is that we all were with him, to say our goodbyes.

I know what I truly love when I do a search on my blog. I searched up “Ralphie” before I wrote this post and there were eight pages of blog posts to look through. Some of those excerpts are seen below. When I kissed Ralphie good-bye, I had this vision of him starting to cross the Rainbow Bridge, but then turning and jumping off of it, into beautiful crystal clear water and swimming to his beautiful, big heart’s content. Thank you for everything, my big, beautiful, lovable fur friend. Until we see you again . . . .

“Two years ago, when our elderly rescue spaniel/corgi mix passed, we decided we wanted a new puppy. We had moved to Florida and the kids really wanted a dog who would love the water. So, in researching, we decided we would get a Labrador Retriever, a big family dog which is known to be a water lover. My daughter and I picked out Ralphie, a Dudley yellow lab puppy and he truly is the most loving, funny, zany, adventurous, loyal dog that we have ever had the pleasure to live with. I now understand why they are such a popular breed. They are big dogs, so people are wary of them, yet they are the sweetest dogs alive. Ralphie hardly ever barks. Labrador Retrievers love everybody and all other dogs. They are curious, obedient, eager to please, and super smart. Ralphie turns our Roomba, the X-box and some light switches, on and off, and these are the tricks that he taught himself to do. Ralphie hates when anyone in the family is upset and he will do anything that he can to make you feel better. And water loving – oh my goodness, Ralphie is part dog/part fish. He swims in our pool more than any of us. He treads water, he puts his whole head in, and he leaps in the pool for his toys, endlessly. His joy for life is absolutely contagious! He brings a smile to my heart just thinking about him.”

“Ralphie is over-the-top, in your face exuberance and intensity. He is smart as a whip, lead hopelessly by his bear-sized nose, and constantly on the move, unless he is entirely passed out. Still he keeps his fervor going by swimming in his sleep. When he gives kisses, they are full, wet and all encompassing. His huge tongue is like a washcloth you would use to wash your car, and with a few passionate licks, he has managed to cover your whole face, your ears and your neck. He is not at all protective, he would definitely have the “flight” tendency in a “fight or flight” scenario. He is so absolutely and completely in-tuned to us, his family and to himself. Every night, he comes to the couch, where my husband and I are sitting, to remind us that it is his bedtime by lying his head on one of our knees.”

“Our Labrador retriever, Ralphie, spent a lot of time with us in the pool this weekend. He’s now an interesting shade of yellow-green. Ralphie is definitely “that blonde kid on the swim team.” You can’t miss the fact that he loves to swim.”

“Limp Tail Syndrome

They say it comes from swimming too much,

It came from doing your greatest love.

It stole your wag. It stole your grin.

Your body can’t smile in your wiggly way

with the big wet soppy toy in your mouth.

It will pass. All things do. But now

Your body just grimaces and growls,

And your tail hangs limp.

You wear your emotions on your whole body,

Not just a sleeve. You don’t hide anything.

You are the embodiment of life, breath and love,

And joy and pain and listless agitation.

You are so fully you, always and ever.

Soon your sprightly tail will wag again.

Easy, light, high and fast and free and happy.

Your tail never hangs limp for long.

It’s not in your nature to be kept down.”

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

Fluidity

Everything is fluid. Even how you think about things is fluid. Especially how you think about things is fluid. We have started getting Christmas cards and a couple of them have come from people who were from a time when we lived in a whole different state. I have really fond memories of the people there. We were young families, literally raising our kids as a village. The neighborhood we lived in was mammoth. It was so big that it was essentially our neighborhood kids filling the entire elementary school. But yet, the neighborhood felt small, due to the wonderful circle of people we cavorted with there.

Many of our former inner circle there, like us, have left the neighborhood, for different neighborhoods (upsizing and downsizing) and like us, have even left for different states. We had to leave that neighborhood, and that state, back in 2011, for the necessity of greener pastures to support our large family quickly descending upon college age. So, leaving there, was truly bittersweet. We had poured our heart and souls into re-designing and adding on to the home where we lived there, with the faulty assumption that it would be the home that even our grandchildren would come to visit. And then, almost immediately after we finished the totally draining (both emotionally and financially) years long housing project, the Great Recession housing crash happened. We essentially had to give that home away for pennies on the dollar.

For many years, I had bitter feelings about that home. It had become a financial burden and albatross around our necks. It became “the thing” that made it hard to get “a fresh new start” in our new state. It was amazing that a creation that I had once had been so proud of, and had poured so much of my heart and creative vision into, had quickly turned into one of my biggest nightmares. It was a really humbling, shocking, disillusioning time in the lives of our family. And for years, only thoughts of anger and disbelief and frustration and regret, surrounded any ideas of our former home.

Today, out of curiosity, after receiving the cards that reminded me of our “former life”, I looked up our former home. It had been sold again in 2017 and the owners had added on even more beautiful updates. Interestingly, I noticed that all of my feelings of anger and disgust, had dissipated. I am back to feeling proud of “my former creation.” I am back to feeling deeply proud of the fingerprints, and the heartbeats, and the creative vision that we had for that home. I am mostly proud of the happy history and memories that we added to that place which we called home for a time in the life of our family. I am back to feeling only a full fondness for a lovely time in my life, and the lovely nest which we had created for our family at that time. And at the same time, I have no desire to go back. I am truly fulfilled at where I am in my life right now, and I see how all of the dots in my life have been connected and are being connected, as the picture of my life is being lived.

I have noticed this circling around of feelings and perspectives many times, about many people and situations, in my own life. I have also noticed this in the lives of others. Life has a way of softening the edges, after processing the hard stuff. How many people, having gone through vicious divorces, end up deeply hugging each other at their shared children’s major milestones? How many people have been able to find the gifts of lessons and silver linings, and forgiveness of self and others, in even the worst circumstances of their lives? Oprah Winfrey is credited with saying this: “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it’s accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.”

If you are going through a tough time in your life, give yourself the knowing that someday you will likely look at this situation with a different perspective. The worst, sharpest edges causing the gashes, and the bleeding, and the pain, will dull with time. The sharpest edges will stop being able to hurt you anymore. That’s the beauty of true forgiveness. It’s an acceptance of what is, and deciding to only take the “good stuff” from the situation. Forgiveness is finally stopping the continually gashing of yourself with the sharp edges, and allowing yourself to heal the wounds, so that when you come back to viewing the situation, you will see that the now dulled edges, can’t really hurt you anymore. You will find that with time and distance, the healing has created a strong (and sometimes scarred, but often stronger for the scarring) barrier to what was once a truly visceral, seemingly unending pain. Believe this. Stop poking at your pains and let them be. Allow the miracle of the change of perspective to appear when the timing is just right. Believe in impermanence and fluidity because they really are the only constants in life, besides the underlying Love that holds us all afloat.

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

Exquisitely Beautiful

This has been a deeply cathartic, restorative year for me and my immediate family. It has been what we needed. And I didn’t set out for it to be this kind of a year for us. Of course, everyone hopes that every year will be special, and peaceful, and joyful, and exciting and relieving, but that’s not how life works. We know this. Sometimes “cathartic and restorative” comes from all different circumstances, even if others looking in, might not see what we have been through, in that same comforting way. Life is personal. In hindsight (which is usually the clearest vision), I’m delighted with what me and my family were guided to do and to experience in 2024.

I always tell my family, “Let Life love you.” And what I mean by this is, “Surrender.” Surrender to the belief that there is a beautiful plan in place, even when you start mucking it up with your own worries, and your own need for control, and your resentments, and your mistakes, and your actions and your inactions. Life knows what you really need, and is guiding you along every step of the way. You are just going down the beautiful stream of your life, and while you might be getting caught up with what is going on in your own little, fiery red canoe, rowing against the tide furiously, in the meantime, the current of the stream is still guiding you down to exactly where you need to go. And every once in a while, when you get tired of your own foolishness and you take a beat, and you take some life-affirming breaths, and you remind yourself of this fact, your eyes and your heart will be suddenly clearly opened to the beautiful synchronicities that are happening in your own life, and in the lives of all others. You will fully understand that Life does love you. Life does love all of us. Life is love, and the rest is just the games and the tricks that we play on ourselves in our own fiery little red canoes. And the games are okay. They are creative. They are just part of being alive, and being daring enough to spend some time being human.

There is not a more poignant time in life than during big beginnings and big endings. That is why we have created so many major rituals around births, and deaths, marriages, and graduations. We need these rituals to help us to store and to process the “big feels” that come during these major opening and closing times in life. I don’t think there is a time when you ever feel more alive than during these turning points in life and even when they are hard times, they are so exquisitely beautiful. The stream of life is exquisitely beautiful.

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

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ Yesterday, I texted my husband that I had written a blog post. He told me that he loved that I had given myself permission to just blog on whim. Kelly Corrigan recently interviewed Christy Turlington Burns (supermodel from the 80s) and also the current creator of a series called The Art of Recuperation, on Kelly’s podcast. Christy said this in their conversation, “When movement feels like freedom and not duty, your feet will carry you further.” Do things because you want to do them, not because you “should” do them. And if there are things that you think that you absolutely have to do/should do, find the “want” behind the should. I will go to my annual physicals, because I want to remain healthy. I will go to work, because I want to feel financially secure. There are a lot more things in life that are self-imposed “shoulds” that you really don’t have to do, if you consciously consider everything. (Everything in life is really just a set of actions/energies and the consequences of those actions/energies) And after coming off of a busy time period that now, allows me to catch up on some truly delicious rest and sleep and recuperation, this quote from the conversation makes a lot of sense, too: “Not all that tires depletes. Some exhaustions feed the soul.” My soul has been fed incredibly delicious experiences all year long and now I am really enjoying some contented, deeply experienced, rest. (long, happy sigh)

+ I read this quote by Eckhart Tolle yesterday: “Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not “yours”, not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.” Don’t say, “I’m depressed, or I’m angry, or even, I’m happy.” For you are not those things! You are feeling depressed, or you are feeling angry or you are feeling happy and you probably feel these various feelings and many more feelings, every day, throughout each day. YOU are the peaceful, timeless observer inside of yourself who experiences your bodily sensations, who notices your thoughts, who experiences your everyday escapades, who feels your emotions. YOU are a tiny spark of Source/Creation/Life/God/Spirit experiencing being alive as a human being on Earth at this moment. Live fully in all your powerful glory. Experience it all and know that all is well.

+ We were boating with friends of ours over the weekend and we saw the effects and changes caused by the hurricanes on the beaches and the barrier islands by our town. It was humbling and yes, much of the human created parking lots, and structures and widened beaches have been devastated and need to be repaired, but the natural beauty remains constant. No matter the changes it goes through, nature looks beautiful in every cycle of its life. (as do we – we are part of nature) We saw several dolphins, a pelican decided to fly along beside our boat (similar to that recent car commercial where the bird is flying in unison with the car), and we had the best shelling experience that we have experienced in a long, long time. (The storms sure churned up some beauties!) No experience is ever one-dimensional.

+ I collect potheads and other garden goop. One of my regular readers, Kelly from Cali, recently asked me how Harmonia did through the hurricanes. Harmonia (the muse of my blog, you can read about her on my front blog page) remains solid, still, and beautiful and nonplussed. Here she is today with Celeste, one of my favorite potheads:

This is one of the first potheads that I ever brought home. I never named her. She looks like the masthead of a noble ship:

And here are Bert and Ernie, who are so kind to hold our sunscreen and bug spray. They were discovered in an old barn in my grandfather’s tiny hometown of Windber, Pennsylvania:

And this is Garden Girl. I recently met her maker, a self-proclaimed “yardist”, but that is a story for another day (or check my archives. I have written about him before):

Don’t you just love people who can bring life and whimsy to materials like clay and rock and concrete? They are creators. We are all creators and we are co-creating this world every day. Let’s make it a wonderful one.

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