Soul Sunday

Hi friends. I don’t think that this past full week of the new year is what any of us were aiming for, to start the year out right. These are strange times which we are going through. However, we are not alone. We are experiencing a lot of “stuff”, together. I am grateful to commune with all of you, as we navigate another year of our lives, together. My regular readers know that I dedicate Sundays to poetry. Please share your poems (they are there, in your heart – put a pen in your hand and let them flow out. You will be pleasantly surprised – “Shakespeare’s a poet, and doesn’t know it”) in my Comments section. Today I wrote this poem (I hope that you may relate, and that you can enjoy some familiarity, with me):

It Never Fails

It never fails,

Every year I find it,

That one little relic,

of the holidays past,

That I forgot to put away.

This year it was a sparkly hand towel,

In the powder room,

Depicting a Christmas tree,

Shiny, erect, hopeful and bright.

Could it be a subconscious hint?

Much like a woman who leaves her glove,

After an enjoyable evening out,

Perhaps it’s an honest mistake,

or perhaps it’s an intuitive gesture,

From something deep inside,

Trying to connect and to keep and to hold,

The magic of the moment alive,

For the entire year to come.

Fuzzy Friday

I was going to share this picture with you, my readers, yesterday, but instead there was a fiasco in Washington DC that sorely needed to be addressed. I needed to get my feelings out about everything, in written form. That’s how I best process my inner emotional world – by writing. Anyway, welcome to Favorite Things Friday! On Fridays (in honor of my favorite day of the week), I typically list three favorite things, or songs, or books, or ideas, or websites, which have made my life a little more colorful and interesting and I strongly encourage you to add your favorites to my Comments section. Check out my previous Friday posts for more favorites. They can provide ideas for what to spend your holiday gift cards on. I usually use up my holiday gift cards almost immediately, every year. I tell myself that I am afraid of losing the gift cards, plus the sales are great, so I go all in. I am always amazed when people have gift cards left over from the previous decade. I am in awe of people who still have gift cards to places that already have new logos.

A few Fridays ago, I mentioned a favorite new app for my phone, called Marco Polo. In posting a video with a group of my friends, I caught the giggles and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. I thought to myself, what a wonderful thing to have in my back pocket – a video of me, laughing. So on days, when it is hard to find something to laugh about it, I can watch myself laugh, as a reminder of brighter days. On to my favorites for today:

Chia Pets – My husband got the Bob Ross Chia Pet pictured above, for my daughter for Christmas (among other things). It has brought a lot of smiles to our family (and now hopefully to you, too). Bring back the wonderment of your childhood and buy yourself a chia pet. They grow really fast (obviously) and the chia pet will help you to make your own video of yourself, giggling, as you watch your pet grow.

S.O.A.R. – I read about this mindfulness technique recently and it has really helped me to deal with everything that is going on in our world these days. When you feel a turbulence of feelings, use this technique.

S. – Stop and breathe deeply. (deep enough to make your belly rise and fall)

O. – Stay detached and observe what your feeling feels like, in a physical sense. Where does anger land in your body? What is the physical sensation of sad or bewildered?

A. – Accept your feelings. What we resist, persists. What we try to disown in us, doesn’t go away, it just often shows up in other ways, like in the form of sickness, or in sleep disturbances, or in short fuses, etc. Feelings are just feelings. It is okay to feel whatever you feel. Just accept your feelings.

R. – Release and let go of that feeling. You will be surprised by how easily a feeling that has been observed and accepted, will pass on by. We experience thousands of different thoughts and a wide range of feelings every day. I always remind myself and my family, that our true essence is that of the steady blue sky. Clouds come, and they go. The clouds always, always pass on through.

Addison Weeks Jewelry – I have probably shared this designer with you before, but I keep going back for more pieces of this jewelry. (My husband bought me my first piece of Addison Weeks jewelry, as a gift, a few years ago. He probably rues the day.) This year, I have fallen in love with Addison Weeks’ chains and charms that are interchangeable and look so lovely, layered together. My favorite thing about Addison Weeks jewelry is that it always incorporates natural crystals and stones. I love to wear nature. It calms me. It grounds me. Wearing a piece of what has come from the earth, feels right and Addison Weeks allows me to do this, is a fashionable, eye-catching way.

Happy Friday, my dear friends and readers!! Have a lovely weekend! See you tomorrow.

Heal.

I have no words that haven’t already been expressed about yesterday’s horrible display at the Capitol building. I am deeply saddened, disgusted, pained, mortified, flattened, outraged, etc. by the actual events, by how the events were handled, and what this display really shows about the state of our country. This is not the United States of America I was raised to love and to cherish and to respect and to revere. This is not the United States of America that so many of my dear family members were willing to wager their lives on, by serving in our military. We must find a way back to our United selves. It has become imperative.

How do we do this? We heal ourselves. Yesterday, Congress did a good job of rising to the occasion. Can you imagine how utterly terrifying their experience of being bombarded on, by an angry mob had to be? To have to cower, and to wear gas masks and to remain in a locked down room for hours? Yet, our senators and our congressmen and congresswomen, rose above their fears and they did the right thing, together, for the unified vision of our democracy. Republicans, Democrats, Independents from every unique state of our nation, overcame their trauma, to do the right thing for our country. They became united because their trauma woke them into the pure reality of how fragile our precious, hard won, democracy really is, in the face of it all.

A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about a question that I am planning on focusing on, in my own life, this year. Am I passing on love, or am I passing on pain? There is a lot of searing pain in this country. And a lot of this pain is justified. The pain comes from every sector, every race, every community, every generation, every family. It is our job to heal our own pain, so that the pain of our country, this deeply wounded chasm, starts to heal, on a macro-level. We must help each other to heal, by passing on love. We each can only heal ourselves. And each of us knows best how to do our own peaceful healing, with the help of our own sacred higher power. We must support each other in our healing, versus fueling the fires of hatred, which only keeps the disease of division, alive in this co-creation of our ever-evolving country.

Other countries may mock us. They may be scolding us and secretly, relishing in our current upheaval. But deep down, they are trembling in pain and in fear. They are as mortified as we are, about the state of our division. The United States is a beacon of hope, all over the world. No one can deny this. No one can afford to lose hope. It is our job to heal ourselves, so that hope can remain, for us, and for everyone around this globe.

My solemn prayer is that our lawmakers, our business heads, our political leaders, our religious guides, our major media stations, only have one major purpose in mind, in going about their duties, going into this new year and beyond. That purpose is to make all actions, and all decisions, and all priorities, about healing us back into a united state. In the meantime, the rest of us have the job to heal our own minds and our own bodies and our own spirits, by acknowledging our own pains, our own angers, our own grievances, and finding healthy, serene ways to heal these pains that lie within ourselves. There is nothing stronger, and more radiant than a group of healed and healthy people, united in the vision that our forefathers so carefully laid out for this country.

Remember, you must heal yourself. Don’t be so arrogant that you think there are no areas in yourself, that don’t need some cleaning up. We all have these areas, and it is an inside job to recognize these wounded places in ourselves, and to bring them into the light. Then, as we uncover some pain, we can ask others for guidance and help, and we can be there for each other, to help to heal each other, instead of just acting out our pain, in unconscious, reckless desperation. No human leader is going to heal you. You don’t need someone outside of yourself to heal you. You don’t need conditions outside of yourself, in order to be healed. People think if a certain person is in office, or if a certain agenda is being carried out, then they will be healed and happy. On a personal level, people think that if they have a certain level of money, or a certain relationship, then they will be happy. It doesn’t work that way. Happiness is an inside job. Those of us who believe in God, believe that God helps us with our healing, but there are no conditions outside of ourselves, that are required for God to help us. We don’t have to be a certain religion, or be at a certain level of “good” for God to help us. That is what is meant by God’s grace. God never leaves us. It is my belief that God is inside each and every one of us, deeply imbedded in our souls, quietly, calmly, peacefully sitting in the deepest seats of our hearts. Let’s find that part of our hearts, and ask to be guided to healing. It is our sacred duty to ourselves, to our families and to our nation, to heal.

Healed individuals lead to healed nations. Our nation needs to heal. Let us each do our own part. Let’s keep the highest vision of this United States, alive and well, by each of us doing our own part, in our own lives. It is simple: Pass on love to others, and pass on love to yourself. Heal your pain, and pass on love. Pass on love.

Patience is a Virtue

“How many opportunities of being happy do you miss by giving all of your attention to what brings you angst?” – (Valencia, Twitter)

I got a little triggered yesterday. I went on to my Nextdoor app (which is social media for your local neighborhoods, often used to share local news or to sell items or to report lost pets, etc.) and the thread that was bursting at the seams, considering our local neighborhood news, was the angst over not being able to get a vaccine yet. In Florida, anyone over the age of 65, is now eligible to get a vaccine to prevent the coronavirus, if it is available. And the system for getting the vaccine is flawed. The phone lines are jammed. The technology for setting the appointments blew up, and people were having hissy fits the likes you’ve never seen. I am sure that there were a lot of people, while writing hysterical commentary on the Nextdoor app, were having their blood pressures go through the roof. And let’s remember, the vaccine just got approved for public use, on December 14th.

It’s okay to be upset. The system for getting the vaccine certainly has to be improved, and it will be. Just like how obtaining masks, or getting coronavirus tests, or even, acquiring toilet paper, in the beginning of this pandemic was next to mission impossible, I now own a pile of masks in every color, shape and form, I can obtain toilet paper at any level of softness that I want, and I could get a coronavirus test today, from more than one place, and know the results in fifteen minutes. This is America. We are inventive. We are forward thinking. We are capitalists. It is in everyone’s best interest to get the vaccine, especially in the interests of the moneyed powers that be. Therefore, once the kinks are worked out, I have no doubts that everyone who wants the vaccine, will get one, sooner than any of us think.

We are like a football team who is playing against a team that we have never played before. We are having to make new plays in the middle of the game, and then we are having to make adjustments when our plays don’t work. We are having to play with, and against players, who have all different level of skills, and unique personal agendas. There are going to be a lot of mistakes. There are going to be a lot of unfair plays, and a lot of missed calls. Some people have been seriously hurt, and others still are going to get hurt. At the end of the game, the coaches are really going to have to study the tape, to see what went right and what went wrong, in order to play a better, more solid game in the future. Some of these coaches may be shown to be underperforming, and they will be replaced. Still, we are going to win this game against the coronavirus. The momentum is with us in a major way. We have a vaccine. We have more than one vaccine . . . . . in less than a year!!!!

During the long year of 2020, we often claimed that the good that came out of our experience, is that we were learning the value of patience. We we learning not to take the people, things, and experiences that we were blessed with for granted, by acting entitled. We claimed to have learned how strong and able, we really are, in tough circumstances. How quickly we forget our “lessons” sometimes! We will prevail if we keep calm and carry on using safe, social distancing practices just a little while longer. Let’s be team players and see this game through to victory.

Book Nerd

In the beginning of the year, I download books to my Kindle like they are candy. On top of the books that have been so kindly gifted to me, I gift myself about 100 more. (okay, that is an exaggeration, but I do get particularly book hungry at the beginning of the year, and my appetite is voracious) During most of the year, I methodically read books, one at a time, but during the beginning of the year, I dive into my books like its a smorgasbord of ideas and words and interesting stories. My pile of books becomes like a plate which you have filled up at a “serve yourself, all you can eat” banquet or buffet, with all of the books piled up, and running and oozing into each other, and thus, I can’t remember what flavor or tidbit belongs to which brilliant piece of literature. I get overwhelmed and delighted with everything that sits before me, and I want to devour it all, and fast. I am not sure why I do this. I find myself reading too fast and not always savoring the different styles of writing and genres. Perhaps there is more downtime around the holidays that I want to use up, or maybe I am always looking for some inspiration to help me with my “theme of the year.” Or maybe it is just that I love to read, and fresh starts remind me to do what I really love to do, in my life.

I saw on Twitter that Stephen King recently celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary. That interesting and inspiring tidbit, spurred me to look up more information about Stephen King, and to order his book, On Writing A Memoir of the Craft. Honestly, I have never read any of Stephen King’s fiction books because I am a huge scared-y cat. I’ve seen maybe three Stephen King movies, and those viewings were decades ago, and they still terrorize me. I wrote off “all things scary”, quite a bit a time ago. My flight/fight response is very dramatic and intense, and it is not healthy for me to go through it, or for anyone else to have to witness it. Still, in just reading the first few chapters of this book, I realize how much I have missed out on. Stephen King is a master. His writing is so engaging, it is almost an out of body experience.

I read everywhere. I read advertisements. I read people’s faces and energy and emotions. I read quirky signs in stores. I find a lot of good short reads on Twitter. Something that I read on Twitter recently, is a question, which is really a tool that I plan to use all of the year of 2021, until I forget about it. The Twitter blurb said: Am I passing on love, or am I passing on pain? And I thought to myself, on the flip side of this, when I am experiencing dialog or reactions or actions, from other people, is what they are doing: passing on love or passing on pain? When I am kind, generous, paying attention and listening, thoughtful, using direct communication and exuding optimism, these actions are coming from a place of love. When I am sarcastic, cynical, mean, passive aggressive, violent, judge-y, tossing out guilt trips, or being manipulative or controlling, these actions are coming from a place of pain, and it is my job to filter through those feelings of pain, to heal myself, so that I don’t act from a place of pain, for most of my time. Me, and my relationships, will be healthier for that honest introspection. At the same time, if I use that same kind of consciousness and mindfulness, when noticing other people’s actions and reactions, I can keep a level of detachment, and thus not personalize these interactions so much. When a person is being cruel or hurtful, that is coming from a deep rooted pain within themselves. It is not my job to fix that other person’s pain. It’s not even possible to do so. Only that person can heal their own pain, but it helps me to see the angry person, who I am dealing with, in a more empathetic light. It also helps me to see with whom I need to have better boundaries with, in my life. Finally, that question is a really good question to ask ourselves, about how we treat our own selves. Am I passing on love (to myself) or am I passing on pain (to myself)? How do I speak to myself? How do I nurture my body? Do I protect myself from toxic people and experiences? Do I treat myself to the things that speak to my deepest, most intuitive sense of self? How I interact with myself is often deeply entwined with how I interact with others. This simple question brings a level of mindfulness and consideration to all interactions, which can really help to lift up the amount of peace in anyone’s daily life.

I think that is why I love to read so much. There is great, great power in words. An eleven word question that I casually read on Twitter, may be a life changer this year for me, if I consciously remind myself of the question, and I utilize it. Someone once told me that you are the culmination of the people you meet, the experiences you have, and the books that you read. I believe that this could be true. Perhaps my book reading frenzy in the beginning of my new year, is just part of those resolutions or intentions that we all make to ourselves in the beginning of the year, in the hopes of becoming a better version of own selves. If the books that I read, are a part of who I become, I want to find and to explore and to discover as many different facets of myself, and my living experience as I can, before I no longer have the ability to do so. Books help to navigate me, to myself, and that is why books are meant to savor.

Monday Fun-Day

Good morning! I’m feeling a bit “slow on the go” and perhaps a tad irreverent, this morning. In the beginning of the pandemic, I shared links to websites which I had found, that were counting the numbers of coronavirus cases, in different parts of the United States. Today, I am happy to share a link to a website, which shows the number of vaccines administered, in each state. It is updated daily, and it shows the percentage of people in your state who are currently vaccinated against the coronavirus. This is a number that I am happy to see go up! Here is the website:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

Happy First Monday of the year! May it be the best Monday of your life!

Soul Sunday

The New Year lies before you
Like a spotless tract of snow
Be careful how you tread on it
For every mark will show.

Good morning. My regular readers know that Sundays are dedicated to poetry. Poetry is emotion in free form. We think of poetry in just written form, but honestly how we live our lives is a form of poetry, unique to each of us. Today, I choose not to write a poem of my own, but I did some exploring on the internet to find New Year’s poems that spoke to me. I have published them here. Please feel free to share your favorite poems, written by you or others in my Comments section. Have a blessed, easy, dreamy day before we enter the first full week of 2021.

To the New Year

BY W. S. MERWIN

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible

Burning the Old Year

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

Headed Home

My husband said in our family text chat, that he thinks that 2021 is going to be like 2020, in reverse. We asked him for clarification and he said that spring was the big turning point in 2020, of having to accept the coronavirus, and all of the changes it was making in our lives. My husband thinks that spring of 2021, will be the big springboard of taking us much closer to “normal” again.

Before my husband gave his own explanation, I immediately envisioned the long hikes we have taken as a family, over the years, in many of the National Parks. Living through last year, was much like climbing the uphill part of the hike. The uphill part of any long, challenging hike is exhausting, frustrating, full of trepidation and yet also, anticipation. Sometimes you feel like you aren’t going to make it. You keep wondering, “Is this hike ever, ever going to end?” You start to concentrate on just the next step and then, the next step. Then, when you finally reach the summit, or the pinnacle, or the destination of your hike, the views are clear. The relief is palpable. One time, after my husband and I climbed to the top of Camelback Mountain in Arizona, I literally started sobbing at the top of the mountain. I felt so much relief, release, pride, exhilaration, and exhaustion, all at once, and the emotions hit me like a hurricane. So, in staying with my hiking analogy, we’ve come to the destination of hope, with this virus. We have a panoramic view of hope. We have created effective vaccines, but we still have the hike down the mountain, of getting everyone vaccinated, and assimilated back into some close form of our previous normalcy. The downward part of the hike is usually so much easier. It usually goes so much faster. There are still tricky, slick areas and you must be careful, but it always feels surmountable. And the destination at the end of the hike, is a known entity. It’s your family car that reliably takes you back to your loving, warm, safe, comfortable place that you call home. Friends, we are headed home. Doesn’t that feel good?

Happy New Year Friday!

Happy New Year!!!! 2021 is finally here!!! I do think that it is an excellent sign that 2021 is starting on a my favorite day of the week, Friday. Friends, I stayed up way, way past my bedtime last night. I am wanting to enter the new year, quietly and introspectively, while cooking up the luckiest meal of the year. We always have pork, sauerkraut, kielbasa, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas and collard greens, every year on New Year’s Day. What is your traditional new year meal?

That first paragraph was my roundabout way of saying that I won’t be doing my usual Favorite Things Friday post today. Please forgive me. I wish for all of us, only the best that life has to offer in this hopeful new year! Savor this fresh new start! See you tomorrow!

Smiley

Yesterday, my daughter and I picked up some takeout for dinner, and the young man who came to the car with our food, was a walking smile. He was what jubilation looks like in human form. Though wearing a mask, his eyes glittered when he talked, and the wide smile that must been on his face, was easy to picture behind the mask. When he walked to the car, it was more of a float/bounce.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Are you always this happy and joyful?”

“Oh, yes ma’am,” he said, without any hesitation, but perhaps with a tinge of “aw shucks” sheepishness. “My manager calls me ‘Smiley’.”

“Don’t ever let anything change that about you. It’s delightful. Your energy is wonderful,” I told him. (I love that I’ve reached the age that I can say things like that with some guise of wisdom and authority and knowingness. I like to think that I come off like a sage – ha!)

The blissful boy just smiled some more, and bounced on to the next car. My daughter turned to me and said, “That was nice of you to compliment him, Mom. I could tell that he liked that. Men don’t get complimented as much as we do. I’ve read that they relish in compliments longer, and really enjoy them.”

“Wow,” I said. “I love to compliment people. I get as much joy from their reaction as they get from the compliment. I am never dishonest, though. I only compliment what I truly like, and notice, and appreciate about something special and unique about a particular person. Maybe we women should relish in our compliments, too. Maybe we women should really enjoy and believe what the kind person who gave us the compliment had to say, and just soak it in, and marinate in it, all day long.”

Readers, let’s do that in 2021. Let’s make one of our resolutions to believe the nice things that people have to say about us. Let’s make one of our resolutions to notice and relish and appreciate and acknowledge the wonderful qualities of other people and of ourselves, and to say these things out loud. Let’s “glow up” in 2021 and let’s help others to “glow up”, too.

Happy New Year’s Eve, my friends and readers. We’ve reached the last day of a shocking and treacherous year. That makes us strong, resilient, optimistic, hopeful, resourceful, adaptable, and supportive people. You are strong, resilient, optimistic, hopeful, resourceful, adaptable and supportive, and I love that about you. Thank you for being a stable force in my life, and making a positive difference in it. Enjoy the evening!!! Glow up!!!