Tag: love

Alchemization

“If you listen closely, when people give advice they’re actually talking to younger versions of themselves.” – Dr. Nicole LaPerla

One of my horoscopes today talked about using this month to turn “wounds into wisdom.” I think that this is what aging is all about. I believe that life is a constant cycle and process of turning wounds into wisdom. Sometimes we don’t reflect enough, or we aren’t honest enough with ourselves to do true introspection, and thus we just keep tearing apart at our wounds, making them bleed more and not allowing for the healing process. But we eventually, usually get it. And when we do “get it”, we are sad that our younger selves didn’t quite “get it” in what we deem to be a timely manner, so we at least try to save others, by spouting off advice.

It can be off-putting to get advice, especially unsolicited advice. Bernard Williams calls unsolicited advice, “the junk mail of life.”

“Wise people advice from experience. Wiser people, from experience, do not advice.” – Amit Kalantri

That’s the thing, we get most of our deepest wisdoms from our experiences. And so we desperately try to save others from having similar tough experiences that we’ve had, yet it is those very experiences which gave us our own deepest, best wisdom. What a Catch-22!

I’m guilty of spouting off too much advice, and I do it all of the time. I do it to my kids, my husband, my friends, my pets (“Trip don’t provoke Ralphie, you know where this leads . . . .), strangers I meet on the street. Hell, I do it here on the blog all of the time. Please forgive me. It doesn’t come from my wisest self. My advice comes from my desire to “save (“control”) the world.” (or if I am honest, like Nicole LaPerla says, my advice is my desire to prove to my younger self that I’ve learned and I’ve grown. Perhaps trying to save others from my own mistakes, is a gift that I am trying to give to my own younger self for putting her through a lot of tough experiences, that often took a long, long while to alchemize into wisdom.)

Mantra for the day: Self, I forgive you. Self, I appreciate you. Self, your experiences were worth the gold of your wisdom. Self, let go and trust this process of turning experience into wisdom, for your own self going forward, and for all whom you love.

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

Long Marriage

Happy 28th wedding anniversary to my best friend, my lover, my favorite person in the world. I treasure everything which we have created together – most specifically our family and the memories of incredible adventures, throughout our years together.

I know that happy, long marriages are rare and I am grateful to be in one of those long, happy marriages. I met my husband when I was 18 years old, the first weekend of my freshman year in college. For the most part, we have been together ever since. (We had a few youthful dramatic break-ups, during the college years – we are both hot-headed fire signs.)

If a young person would ask me what it takes to create a long, happy marriage, I would say that it takes two people who are fully committed to making that creation of “long and happy” happen. I would tell the young person that it takes two people who are willing to put long, happy, solid marriage, above every other individual goal in their lives. I would tell a young person who is thinking about getting married that you must come to an acceptance of who your partner is, and love them wholly. Do not try to change your partner. Focus on the parts that you love and admire about your partner, and notice how you complement each other. In my marriage, my husband’s strengths cover for my weaknesses, and vice versa. I would tell the young person thinking about marriage, to be with someone who can weather through the tough times because long marriages go through their fair share of storms. That’s just the way of life. When picking a life partner, always go with solid, not glittery. Solid withstands storms, whereas glitter flies away in the wind. Most importantly, I have always been eternally grateful for my husband’s steadfast, lifelong commitment to me and to our family. He gave me his life to share with me. This is the greatest gift anyone has ever given to me. I will never, ever take this gift for granted. My husband is “my person.” And I am “his person.” If our children end up in marriages like ours, I will sleep peacefully forevermore.

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

Love Is Love

I grew up in the northeast/midwest, but I have spent most of my adult life living in the south. Northeasterners often have the unfortunate reputation for being rude/abrupt/curt, etc., but this is not how I am experiencing the gracious people of New York City and New Jersey during my stay here. I am an observer and contemplator of life and what I have keenly noticed is a different kind of service style than we are used to in the friendly, hospitable south. Up here, it is clear that the servers and the clerks and the people who work in hospitality are not here to “make friends.” They are not about chit-chatting and God forbid, you appear to make anything close to a “demand.” That won’t fly. What I have noticed is that, in general, the Northern service workers are efficient, dedicated to excellence, and to getting the job done fast and well. And I can appreciate this experience. Like all things, “hospitality” can come in many forms, but no matter where you are experiencing any kind of service, the underlying theme is usually there – “I want you to have a good experience, and I am doing my best to give you that good experience.” And that sentence that I just wrote translates down to one word – love. As Kahlil Gibran famously wrote, “Work is love made visible.” Different styles of work is still love, and love is just one thing – love is love.

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

Reminiscence

I was twenty-five when I had my first child. He went everywhere with his two young parents – weddings galore, hiking adventures when he was just a couple months old in a colorful baby carrier, and a trip to Puerta Vallarta, Mexico where his favorite part was the bumpy ride on the public bus. Yesterday, when we were reminiscing with him about these times, before his three younger siblings were born, it occurred to me how somewhat reckless and fearless (and maybe even clueless) we were, and yet thankfully, it all turned out just great. Our eldest son is as independent and adventurous and “alive” as they come, and we still have a blast adventuring with him. Sometimes I wish that fearlessness and that bravado of my youth would come back to me. I long for that inner assurance to trust life, and to go at it with pure gusto. I desire to easily let go of so much caution, and to allow that caution to be thrown to the wind. Interestingly, I do feel my courage circling back again, now that I am into the first few months of my empty nest. However, it’s not blind anymore. This courage is not a cocky courage. This courage is full of knowledge, experience, and wisdom about the frailty and the preciousness of life, and all things in this life. And thus, it is a clearer courage. My middle-aged courage is clear and conscience about risks, and also clear and conscience about what you miss out on, when you don’t take risks.

I am headed out on an adventure with my curly, ginger haired 26 year-old baby boy today. He towers over me. My son teaches me a lot about the things that are popular with his young generation. Yesterday, he ordered a rare Korean thistle for dinner. (and I tried it and it tastes like chicken – kidding, it tasted like spinach) When we go on our adventures for today, we will both be brave and excited. He will have that fresh, free, unscarred curious courage of youth, and my braveness will come from my wisest most weathered place in my heart, which fully understands the risks of almost everything, and knows that it is important to take some of these risks in order to experience the uncontrollable exuberance of a fully lived life. The circles of life constantly circle back, in slightly different form, but always with the same simple lessons: to live fully, to love unabashedly, and to trust the experiences you have in life, and all that these experiences have to offer you.

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

Put a Ring On It Friday

Happy Friday!! Happy Best Day of the Week!! On Fridays, I don’t think deeply (thus, I don’t write about deep or meaningful things). Or if I do, I quickly shut it down. Here on the blog, on Fridays, I discuss my favorites: things, songs, products, websites, books, u-name-its. Please share some of your favorites in my Comments section, so we all can even more fun this Friday.

Before I mention today’s favorite of mine, I want to gift you iPhone users, a bonus favorite. Text “pew pew” to some of your favorite people who also have iPhones. Fun, right? If you hold down the send button when you text someone on your iPhone you will find that you have all kinds of options, to add pizazz to your text messages. (my favorite option is the “Invisible Ink” option) Thank you, my dear friend (you know who you are) for teaching me the “pew pew” skill. Have you come to regret it, yet?? Pew pew. Pew pew.

Today’s favorite is a time saver. Shinery Radiance Wash washes your hands and your jewelry, all at the same time. It adds a gorgeous sparkle to your engagement ring without you having to take off your rings to clean them, and risk losing them. It’s wonderful stuff, and it can be purchased on Amazon. Speaking of lost wedding rings, we are having to replace my husband’s wedding ring for the second time in our almost 28 years of marriage. (Thankfully, he only loses his wedding ring when he is with me.) When we were on our honeymoon, my husband lost his first wedding band when we were snorkeling, because it was too big for his hand and it slipped into the water. A trip to the jewelry store in St. Martin was the first stop of the next day, because as a young bride, it was important to me for my husband to “keep a ring on it.” Last weekend, we were boating with our daughter. During the pandemic lockdown, my husband had his wedding ring made a size larger, because, as you may intimately know, the pandemic and weight gain went hand-in-hand for many of us. My husband has since lost his pandemic weight gain, and the ring was too big. Guess what came off in the water, again? So today’s date excursion, is a trip to the jewelry store. Why? Because as a middle-aged bride, it’s important to me for my husband to “keep a ring on it.”

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

Not Woke to Care

I read an excellent thread on Twitter this morning written by Daniel Blackmon (@UncleRedLeg), who, in his own words, is this: “Army COL, Field Artillery Junkie, husband, dad, lifter and pretty good golfer.” It was in response to a family member asking Blackmon how he felt about the military having to deal with all of this “woke crap . . .You know all that inclusion crap, all that can’t call parents ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ all that pronoun stuff.”

My husband and I are both children of fathers who served in the military. Our family has quite a few military veterans and I am extremely proud of that fact. I was curious about an Army Colonel’s response to this question, because quite honestly, all of our fast moving societal changes, has me, this sometimes obtuse and stubborn, middle-aged lady confused and muddled and frustrated and trying to balance and to explore what I think is right and is healthy and is worth supporting. I LOVE Colonel Daniel Blackmon’s point of view. I think what the bottom line of his essay is saying is to stop making assumptions. Get to know people, individually. Be earnestly and openly curious about everyone whom you meet. If you want to earn people’s respect and trust, ask questions and listen to their answers. Daniel Blackmon says it best:

“So, inclusion…why is it important?  Inclusion is not about overtly empowering people who don’t deserve it.  The cream will always rise to the top. It’s about applying a level playing field as much as that’s possible. Some folks will always have more talent, more brains, more acumen for leadership, more hustle. These are not traits that any one group of people have a monopoly on. Inclusion is about caring about your people irrespective of what they look like, what kind of background they come from, or who they love.  Inclusion is about building trust that might not initially exist because of all of those previous reasons. . . . . . If I have to give an order to a group of people that will put them in harms way, they damn sure better trust me enough to know that I have done everything within my power to ensure maximum levels of success because if they don’t and I didn’t, the results will be catastrophic. . . . .  I am committed to let my people know I care about them because trust is a two way street and if you don’t have the trust of your Soldiers, you don’t have their respect. The men and women of our Army are raised by all types, a mom and dad, just a mom, just a dad, 2 moms, 2 dads, uncles, aunts, grandparents, foster parents and the list goes on.  What I’ve taken to doing is not asking about their mom or dad but asking, “Who do you call when you have some good news? Who do you call when you have some bad news?  Who do you call when you want to laugh/cry? Who loves you back home?” Most of the time I get pretty generic answers but sometimes the answer is surprising and what is even better is the look on the face of the Soldier when they get to tell you who that person is. It also puts the onus on the Soldier to tell me as much or as little as they want to about their family situation and more importantly, it lets them know that when they’re ready, they can tell me or their leader and not feel like they will be judged. It’s not “woke” to care. . . . (I, the blogger, repeated this part once again for emphasis): If I have to give an order to a group of people that will put them in harms way, they damn sure better trust me enough to know that I have done everything within my power to ensure maximum levels of success because if they don’t and I didn’t, the results will be catastrophic. . . .At one point in my life when I was a young man, this wasn’t as obvious to me as it is now.  I wish someone would have explained it to me better.  Maybe then I could have built better teams, been a better leader, made more of a difference. But I am committed to it now. I am committed to let my people know I care about them because trust is a two way street and if you don’t have the trust of your Soldiers, you don’t have their respect . . . .”

My takeaway: Don’t decide anything or anyone is “crap” until you really get to know them. It is not “woke” to care.

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

Sure Do Love

RIP – Loretta Lynn This loss really got to me yesterday, although I think that a peaceful death, in the homestead that you love, after 90 years of exuberantly loving life, is a lovely, gentle, fitting ending to a beautiful life on Earth.

I have never been a huge country music fan, but I always found Loretta Lynn interesting and intriguing. I watched Coalminer’s Daughter more than a few times. I read two of Lorretta Lynn’s books. I even drove my children by Hurricane Mills ranch in Tennessee when I was doing a nine-state road trip with four little kids. (Don’t ask – these are the things that you do when you are young, and energy-filled, and crazily optimistic.) We stopped at a small country diner down the road from her beloved ranch, and we were told that she often made her way down the road to have dinner there. Even as long as we lingered over biscuits and gravy, sadly, Loretta Lynn didn’t show up that evening.

Years ago, I watched Mike Wallace interview Lorretta Lynn on 60 Minutes. At this point, Loretta was already up there in age, (probably in her late 70s or early 80s), and she was as positive, charming and authentic as ever. I remember Mike asked her one of those annoyingly obvious-answer questions, like sportscasters ask quarterbacks after they lose a huge game, “How do you feel about losing this game?” Mike asked Loretta the “duh question” (although I don’t remember what the actual question was that he asked her), and she answered back in her simple country twang with “Well, of course I felt terrible. Wouldn’t you, Mike?” I could tell, it was at this moment in the interview, that Mike Wallace, a longtime, veteran journalist, appeared to be a little shaken by Loretta Lynn’s frankness. He became a little sheepish, but also utterly charmed. Loretta could say things like this with her down-home, no BS, this is the way of life, common sense, and still be utterly kind and gracious. She didn’t come off like a sarcastic harpy. She came off as innocent, pure and real, looking imploringly at him with her gorgeous, full of fun, sparkly blue eyes. And I remember watching Mike falling a little bit in love with her, as I believe the rest of the audience was doing as well. I know that I did.

As I was reading some of the tributes to Lorretta Lynn yesterday, I ended up on her Instagram. On her personal Instagram, Loretta posted many, many pictures of the obvious loves in her life: her late husband, Doolittle, her children, her family and friends, playing music with her country music friends and colleagues, her ranch, her horses. I noticed without fail, she would post the picture and she would write things like this: “This is Mooney. I sure do love this man. I love you, honey,” or “Ernest brought up my horse to the ranch to cheer me up. I sure do love that horse,” or “This is the woman that helped raise my kids. She is like our family. I sure do love . . . .”

Since the news of her death, there is an obvious outpouring of loss and sadness over a real American treasure, Loretta Lynn. She lived the American dream, but she was also honest about the hardscrabble life of the poorest, working class members of society (particularly women), before it was cool to be honest about anything. She never walked away from the truth ever. She lived her life purely, focused on what she loved. She loved her husband, her family, her friends, her music, her ranch, and her faith throughout her entire life. She lived her life honestly, abundantly, authentically, excitedly and gratefully.

What do you “sure do love” in your life? Focus on what you “sure do love” every single day. Because honestly, that is really what life is all about. A little country girl from Butcher Holler, Kentucky, knew this truth, and Loretta Lynn lived this truth probably better than almost anyone in the world. And that is why it hurts so much for us to let her go.

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

A Letter

Dear Friends and Readers,

We are fine. We are so lucky. We really dodged a bullet in my town. We never even lost power at our home. I still am pinching myself in disbelief. Our only casualty was our neighbor’s small tree, which fell on our pool cage but it was even kind enough to not break through the screen. My husband just pointed out that the tiny pump in a small pond on our porch even stayed on throughout the winds and the rain. Our immediate family and our local friends and neighbors, are thankfully, unscathed from Hurricane Ian.

That being said, we do have family and friends to the south of us, who really suffered the brunt of this hurricane. There is no such thing as a hurricane tiptoeing through anything. Yes, it is true that things can always be replaced, but it is still devastating to have to rise up, and to have to restore and to rebuild the home and the life and the community which you have lovingly and carefully created and curated for yourself. It is traumatic to experience the worst case scenarios of any natural disaster. Please set all judgment aside. The people who were hit the hardest by Hurricane Ian weren’t even in “the cone of uncertainty” as late as this past Sunday. For all of our technology, and “brilliance”, we are not even close to a being a match to the natural forces and higher intelligence of our world. As the mayor of our town likes to preach, “Mother Nature always wins.”

Please continue to pray for the people who are still in the path of Ian, the lesser. The storm isn’t over yet. And thank you for all of the love and the prayers and the concern and the good ju-ju which you sent my way. I felt it. One of my biggest worries before this all even started to bear down on us, was that I wouldn’t be able to connect with you on the blog, for days on end. That would break my heart.

Love to all,

Kelly

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

What’s Missing?

credit: @RespectfulMemes, Twitter

Hi friends. We’re still standing here. There are no power outages yet, just steady rain. It’s probably too early to tell, but we may have dodged a bullet in our area. Still, we continue to pray for our friends and family all over Florida, who may not be faring so well. Hurricanes are scary, unpredictable monsters.

I really love this meme that I reposted above. When you go through scary, dangerous times, you are not always at your best. Sometimes some of the whole of you is “missing”. Fear and uncertainty do not always bring out the best in people. Too many of us are conditioned to believe that we are only loveable when we are perfect, and even, and helpful, and steady. But that’s not true. Yes, it is true that sometimes, when someone we love is really off-kilter, we have to put some space between ourselves and them, for the health of all involved, but the love never goes away. Things can go “missing” in a person and in a relationship, but love remains. Love is indestructible. Love is. Know that you are always loved, whether you are whole, or whether parts of you go “missing” from time to time. The part of any and each of us that never, ever goes missing, is love. Love is the material of our souls.

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