RIP Kelly Preston – I’ll never forget her in Jerry Maguire. Even though Kelly Preston played a meanie in that movie, she was still radiantly likable. What is it about feeling a fondness for people who share your name, even if you have never met them in person? Am I alone in this weird quirk?
Anyway, it’s “back to reality Monday.” I filed our taxes. I have a to-do list that’s a mile long, and this afternoon my son and I are giving blood. I can’t pretend that this is entirely altruistic (although I have frequently given blood throughout my life. I have A negative blood type, which is relatively rare). Truly though, like a lot of people these days, I am giving blood in hopes that they miraculously find coronavirus antibodies in my blood. Even if they do find the antibodies, I am not sure what that really means for me. Unfortunately, there are many people out there who have gotten infected more than once with COVID. I suppose that I would just love the false sense of security that antibodies would afford me, or perhaps some pride in a very productive and healthy immune system. Regardless, I’ll keep you posted.
I hope you all have a fabulous and serene start to your week. See you tomorrow!
Good morning, friends and readers. Today is our poetry workshop day. Today is when the words just come out of you, and you just try to put them into some kind of playful form. It’s our free-wheeling creative wordplay day. No judgment. No critiquing. Just getting it out there, all in fun. Please share your poems in my Comments section. Here is my poem for today:
Our Loves
You love to fish,
Like I love to write.
You throw your line into the deep waters,
With wonderment of what will be brought to the surface.
As do I.
In the meantime, you sit peacefully with yourself,
Just breathing, just waiting, just expecting,
Yet not knowing really what to expect.
As do I.
Sometimes the line never moves.
Nothing is ever felt.
Not even a nibble.
But for the days when the line reaches the bottom depths,
And catches on to something so full of life and movement and veracity,
And though difficult to bring it in, you actually feel one with the life process of it all,
“Please scream inside your heart.” – As advised at a Japanese theme park, so people wouldn’t scream out loud which would make it easier for the coronavirus to infect other people
I thought to myself, “Who hasn’t screamed inside of their heart, at least once, throughout this pandemic?!?” I have managed to scream inside of my heart and outside of my heart, on more than a few occasions, during this event-filled year. And I haven’t ridden on one physical roller coaster this entire year, but I have ridden on plenty of “proverbial roller coasters” throughout this pandemic. This has been one hell of a roller coaster year, so far, hasn’t it? I just hope that we are already past the major highs and lows, and are we coming to calmer, slower part of the ride, in order to get us safely back to the station. But who knows? Keep your seat belts fastened.
“We Ride Together. We Die Together. Bad Marriage For Life”. —- Will & Jada Smith, a joint quote they put out, after publicly explaining Jada’s relationship with another man, during a rough patch in their long marriage
Hmmm. I think sometimes people assume that all long marriages are happy marriages. Sadly, I think there are quite a few people who have committed to “Bad Marriage for Life.” Like all things in life, if you are going to commit to it, shouldn’t the goal be to commit to something good? As the wise Maya Angelou once said, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
And finally this:
I saw this sign posted on Twitter. Locally, I have seen signs posted in stores, that more so just plead with their patrons, “Please be Kind. Wear a mask.” Why do we have to beg each other to care about each other? It’s not an argument worth getting into, though. On our local Nextdoor social media, I have noticed that the longest thread, with the most messages, is a back and forth argument between the adamant Masks vs. No Masks camps. And all of that fruitless energy, could be much better spent towards personal peace and boosting our own individual immune systems, which is really the best shield against this scourge. I think that quote below says it best. Simple, but not easy. Below is an evolving process that lasts a lifetime, it seems:
A good friend of mine often reminds us to take the time to fill our own buckets. You’ve got nothing to pour for anyone else, if you don’t fill up your own bucket first. Nature has been such a soothing comfort during these unusual times. Water, in particular is Nature’s great healer, especially during the relentlessly hot summer months. My husband and I were purchasing some river rocks at a local pond store yesterday. By one of the store’s many beautiful, tranquil ponds, filled with sleek and striking koi fish, the owners had posted a poem. I think that it is an all together lovely poem. Please enjoy reading the poem and every time that you come in contact with water today, may you feel the healing, cleansing, reviving, calming, saturating, renewing blessing that water gives to us, every single day.
Happy 4th of July, friends! I hope that you have a safe and happy day!!!
Today, when I was reading about July 4th, I was struck by how many times the words “independent” and “independence” came up. After all, it is 244 years ago that our forefathers claimed today as “Independence Day” for our country. This prompted me to look up the definition of “independent.” This is the first definition that popped up on Google:
“Being independent means being able to take care of your own needs and to make and assume responsibility for your decisions while considering both the people around you and your environment.”
I like this definition of independence. Sometimes I think that we want our independence, but without personal responsibility. Sometimes I think that we want our independence, forgetting to be considerate to the fact, that our actions do affect others and our Earth. Sometimes I think we confuse selfishness with independence. They are too entirely different things. Independence is a virtue. Selfishness is not. Today we celebrate the independence of our great country. Today marks the day that the United States of America declared its ability to take care of its own needs, and to assume responsibility for the decisions of our country, with consideration for other people, other countries, and our Earth. In some ways, the United States has done an excellent job with our independence. In other ways, we have some work to do.
Our countries, our states, our institutions, our communities, our families, are all made up of people. Today, when we consider our own individual independence, we can consider how well we are living up to that honorable definition of independence, in our own individual lives. As we celebrate our “independence”, we can use the celebration as a time to reflect on how “independent” (in the virtuous sense of the word), we really are, in our own lives. Do we rely on others for our physical needs and emotional needs, without taking any personal responsibility for those needs? Are we healthfully interdependent with others, or are we woefully stuck in a codependent cycle with those we love? Do we make our own decisions, and do we take responsibility for the consequences of those decisions, or are we quick to blame others, and to take the victim stance, when things go wrong? Do we make decisions for ourselves with the mindfulness of how those decisions will affect ourselves, others, and our beautiful planet, or do we just act on impulse and let the pieces fall as they may?
We declared quite a responsibility, as a country, those 244 years ago. I think that the founders of our country, understood the weight of that responsibility, but firmly believed that we were better off with our freedom. Our founders believed that we were up to the challenge of co-creating the greatest country that has ever existed. Our forefathers made the decision to declare independence for the United States, thoughtfully, carefully, and with a full understanding of what the consequences of declaring our independence would bring for us, then and for the ongoing future.
We tend to celebrate July 4th with fireworks, and barbecues, and parades and parties, without really giving much thought to what the day really means to us. Perhaps this virus catastrophe, can be used in a good way, to give us more space and more down time to really reflect on how well we are living up to our own “declarations of independence”, in our own lives, and as citizens who make up our country. Claiming independence is commanding, freeing, exciting, exhilarating, creative and allows us to fulfill our fullest purposes and destinies. But claiming independence goes hand in hand with enormous responsibilities, vision, sacrifice, empathy and consideration for others, and the need to protect the boundaries of our own autonomy and independence. Claiming independence is a brave and heady endeavor and it must often be reclaimed and revisited, again and again. We can thank our forebears for the start of it all, but it is our responsibility to keep the good vision of it all, alive and well and prospering.
Happy Friday!!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! New readers, Fridays are devoted to my favorite material things. Fridays are devoted to the best things, songs, movies, books, etc. that make life so acutely real, tactile, sensual and amazing. Today, I’ve embedded three of my favorite renditions of patriotic songs, that still give me chills up and down my spine when I hear them played, every single time. Happy Fourth of July weekend, friends and fellow patriots. Despite all of our troubles, our mistakes, our setbacks and our foibles, our country is an incredible place, filled with AMAZING people. We ARE a beacon, and though we have been taking some licks lately, Americans stand proud, Americans stand strong, and most importantly, Americans stand FREE. I am very proud and grateful to be an American. The United States of America is a beautiful, beautiful country, filled with the most visionary, hopeful, resilient, generous people, who have ever existed. God Bless America!!
When someone close to you dies, you reflect on death, but you also reflect on life. It seems to me that we all live many, many, multiple lives here, during our Life on Earth. We live each of these multiple lives through our different relationships, vocations, interests and experiences. Everything and everyone that “happens” to us, shapes us, molds us, and changes us. Our individual lives are in a state of constant evolution and flux. We like to see our individual lives as “one unit/one long story”, with “I” being the constant, but we do this mind trickery to ourselves, out of our human need for simplicity and categorizing and security. Everyone who we come in contact with, brings themselves and their perceptions and their past experiences and history, into the relationship, and we do the same. And then, when we meet that person once again, and even though we recognize that person through past and present associations and shared memories, in reality, each new meeting, is really like two new people, experiencing each other, in a fresh, new way. This phenomenon even happens with the people who we are closest to, the ones we live with, and who we experience life with, on a daily basis.
So when someone dies, who you have had a long history with, you have a lot of versions of that person in your head and in your heart, and to console yourself, you try to lump all of those versions together into one entity. You realize that you won’t be adding anything more to the relationship together, here on Earth, anyway. All of the fluidity of the relationship, is now just within you. The story, the legend, the history, of that particular relationship is now on your shoulders. It feels like a heavy load of responsibility to bear.
I think that it’s good to remind ourselves, that just because a person whom we loved, is no longer on Earth in bodily form, there is one thing that remains. The only thing that was truly a Constant, the Same, every time you encountered the person, was their God center, their light, their soul. Those of us who enjoy the practice of yoga, greet each other with the word, “Namaste”. Loosely translated, “Namaste” means “the spirit/God in me, recognizes the spirit/God in you.” So throughout the long time periods that you experience your closest relationships, you get to see so many aspects and versions of the persona and of the body, which Life (spirit/God) has lived through that person. These people, who you intimately know, get to see the same with you. How we experience each other is all grand and delightful and joyful and heartbreaking and interesting and awe-striking and overwhelming. We are mirrors to each other. We are the reflection of Life. We get to co-witness the constant evolution of a human life, through our relationships. And all of the while, when we are doing this mirroring/experiencing/witnessing of each other, the one thing that is the very Same and Eternal, within each and every one of us, just sits in peaceful, eternal, loving Awareness. And that Awareness never, ever changes, nor goes away. It remains with all of us. Always.
Right before this coronavirus thing really took hold, I swam with manatees. It is easily one of my favorite memories of 2020. Go to your happy memories, today. Go to your gratitude. Look for the stuff that makes you happy. Make lists, and make writing the lists of “your happy stuff” a priority today. This will be your best fuel for a quiet, moody Monday in 2020. This will keep your energy light and bright and clear and strong.
I am, once again, back to focusing on “acceptance” in my life. This lesson in acceptance comes up a lot, for us self-admitted “control freaks”. We tend to have to repeat the Acceptance class again and again and again. Acceptance has a hard time sinking in for us. Right now, with everything going on in the world, the universe is really testing a lot of us, on so many different levels, on how well we are faring in the “Acceptance” department.
I planned on writing/blogging on “Acceptance” today and I thought to myself, “Haven’t I already touched on this subject?” So, I went to the search function on my blog and I searched “acceptance” and three pages of many, many of my blog posts showed up. So, the answer to my question is, “Yes, lady, you have more than touched on the theme of Acceptance. You might even start boring yourself, with this one.”
I’m sorry to be so repetitive. I have a little pamphlet that I picked up in a spiritual store over a decade ago, at a time when we were rebuilding our lives in a new state, after the total fiasco of the Great Recession. I have referenced this pamphlet so many times, that it is wrinkled and torn and the pages are thinning. But its strength is in its words, which resonate with me, every single time that I read it. The pamphlet is entitled Acceptance: The Way to Serenity and Peace of Mind, by Vincent P. Collins.
Here’s my favorite passage from my beloved pamphlet:
“God is infinitely wise: God knows what is best for us. God loves us with an infinite love; God wants what is best for us. God is infinitely powerful; God can achieve it for us. We, on the other hand, are ignorant, weak and wayward. Yet in weakness lies our strength. Are we licked, beat, flattened, hopeless? Fine! It is only when we admit our utter helplessness that we can be sure of God’s help.
No one but a monster could pass by a starving, naked infant freezing in a snow bank without picking it up, sheltering, feeding, and clothing it. So it is with us. As long as we insist, “I can handle it!” – God says, “Go ahead!” But when we appeal to God as a helpless infant, God picks us up in God’s gentle hands, cradles us in God’s powerful arms and our worries are over.”
I missed writing my blog yesterday because I was at the hospital with my son. I have mentioned before that my youngest son is epileptic and yesterday, he suffered a major seizure. He’s okay. Other than some lumps and bumps from hitting himself on the hard floor of our local YMCA, where he works, he has mostly physically recovered. Emotional recovery will take a while longer. Yesterday, my son had his hopes finally dashed that he could wean himself off of his medicine forever, and live a “normal” life. All of our hopes for this outcome, were put to rest yesterday. Our family had one of our familiar wounds ripped open, and it will take some time to let it heal over again. The fragility of life and how little control we really have over anything, seems to be the theme this year, at every level of life, down to our family unit.
I’m very emotionally raw right now. My son’s biggest dream was to have outgrown his condition. His epilepsy diagnosis is something that we have been dealing with, working with, wrapping our heads around, for over six years now. His excellent response to his medicine cocktail (which took a while to find the right one – every epileptic person is unique, in what works for them), tricked us into believing that his brain had calmed down enough to say good-bye to the random electrical storms, stirring in his brain, forever, without the crutch of medicine. Medicines aren’t necessarily perfect miracles and we were eager to see if my son could be safe and healthy without his epilepsy medicine, and so with the blessing of his neurologist, we started the weaning process. My son’s seizure medication has a trunk load of side effects, including hair loss, weight gain, lethargy and a big tax to his liver, to name just a few. Still, after what we experienced yesterday, we’ll take these unkind side effects, in order to go back to the strong reassurance that these medicines have the ability to keep these scary and dangerous seizures at bay. (Before trying to wean from his medication, my son was seizure free for about four years.)
Seizures are terrifying to witness, so from a selfish point of view, I am grateful that I did not have to witness yesterday’s seizure. The head of the local YMCA called us and told us that the paramedics had taken my son via ambulance to our local hospital. We have been through this drill before. We knew what to expect. The miserable new wrinkle is that we were stopped at the door to the lobby of the hospital, only to be told that we could not go inside to be with our son, due to COVID concerns. That little wrinkle almost put me over the top.
We all have our burdens to bear. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Uncertain has always been my least favorite state of being, so during this period of trying to wean my son from the meds, we all have had a heightened sense of insecurity. Thankfully, we can go back to the security that his medicine has afforded us for the last four years. We can close the “what if” chapter, for now. We can focus on the “what is” chapter, and look for the healthiest ways to heal ourselves and each other.
Yesterday’s outcome could have been so much worse. I am very aware of that fact and I am very grateful. Most epileptics recover from their seizures just fine – the bigger concern is what they are doing when a seizure happens. Drownings, falling from high places, car accidents are really the biggest concern for most people with epilepsy. Thankfully, my son was in a safe place, surrounded by people who knew about his condition and care about him deeply.
I’ve always been very open on this blog. I’ve opened my fragile heart to you today. Please handle it carefully. Please take today to be very kind to anyone you meet. We really don’t know what trials other people are going through. We humans tend to be really good at “faking it.” And with everything going on in the world today, there is a whole lot more of us out there “faking it” than ever before. Be mindful of this fact, and please be kind. Be kind to yourself and be kind to others. We all have the power to be kind, and that power is more uplifting, and more reassuring and more inspirational, than almost any other power in the world because kindness is rooted in Love.
