I do not condone the violence, destruction and the looting that has accompanied the protests this week. However, I absolutely support the cause of stopping the undue violence that has been perpetuated on the black community in America by the police. Therefore, this is my peaceful stand. See you tomorrow. I share my prayers for peace for all, and a loving, fair solution to this sad state of affairs, without further escalation of pain for anyone.
My friend sent this to our group chat yesterday. Humor helps, right?! Have a great Monday! See you tomorrow.
It is poetry workshop day, here at Adulting – Second Half. Yesterday was a day of highs and lows. I was thrilled with the successful launch of the space shuttle! Such a nerve-wracking yet exciting, prideful event to watch! Still, my heart felt very heavy with all of the pain our country is going through with these horrible, unjustified killings. I wrote today’s poem, yesterday, from a very emotional place. Please fill my Comments with your poems. It is great release.
For the Love of our Sons
To my sisters who are “mamas” of big, strong, handsome, young black men,
We share the “mama” part, we mamas of sons, but your burdens are greater than mine.
You and I worry about our boys’ health, and opportunities and decisions and loves,
But you also worry that the people who are supposed to protect our boys, might instead
Destroy them.
You have to teach your boys a lesson, I would never even conceive of,
You must teach your sons that they are often considered guilty suspects by their very appearance, and you must teach your sons to be wary of the people who I have casually taught my sons to mostly trust.
Dear mama, my sister in motherhood, my heart aches for you. Being a mother is such a vulnerable position to be in, from the minute we feel our babies growing inside of us,
we love them intensely . . . with everything we have.
You and I are no different in that regard. I know this with my whole, bare heart. Your heart beats for your children, as my heart beats for mine. Do our unveiled hearts look very much the same? I imagine that they do. Love is love.
A mother’s heart brims with Love. An overflowing Love is what a mother’s heart is made of.
But I have less worry, less burden than which you must carry with you every day.
You hold yourself with such dignity and pride and strength and a serene knowing-ness, which I so admire,
Yet I know that I could probably never, ever replicate your beautiful countenance.
Mostly because I’ve never had to try.
You must need that beautiful, intense, impenetrable armor of yours, to shield your heart. But honestly, how much distress can a heart hold before it breaks and shatters and bursts, the lovely, steely container that holds it?
I don’t carry your burdens. I understand that. I know that neither of us should have to carry anything. Our hearts should be light of load, as we carry out the request of the Universe, to nurture our precious sons into manhood.
I don’t carry your burdens. I can never fully understand. I won’t disrespect you, by pretending I know how you feel.
But I can offer you my heart and my hand and my arms to rest in. I can offer you my prayers. I can offer you my careful consideration in all of the choices that I make and the lessons I impart, which help to form this Life which we are all living in. Together.
We are co-creating this world together, all of us, and I want all of our sons to experience the complete fullness that their lives have to offer. This is what uplifts the world. When your son benefits, so does mine. When your heart is light, so is mine.
When your daughters have baby sons, I want your daughters to feel as nonchalant as I do, when teaching her boys about authority figures. I want that lesson to be a minor footnote and not of much concern. I want the beautiful wonderment of life to be the focus of her teachings. Mamas shouldn’t have to teach fear and defensiveness and undue submissiveness to their beloved children.
This outpouring is my long way of saying, please don’t think that I don’t care. I do care. I care very much. I want this sadness, despair and anger and travesty to end. I want this racism to be over now. I want all of our children to experience a life free of racism. I want racism to be thing of dusty history books, an account that is so shocking to our grandchildren, that they can barely comprehend how these injustices existed.
Dear sister in motherhood,
Tell me what I can do to help unload the burden of your pain.
Sincerely signed, a mama of big, strong, handsome, young white men
My friend’s minister sends a daily text of encouragement to whomever wants to receive them. I got great comfort from today’s text:
Whenever we hear that things will happen “in time” we often feel that they will take “a long time.” Be encouraged: “the right time” can be sooner than we think.
I’ve noticed in myself and in others, the waves of patience, impatience, fear, uncertainty, hope, peace, calm, anger, wonder, bewilderment, resignation, excitement, boredom, rebirth . . . . . it’s all a lot, isn’t it? It’s okay to feel wonderful one day, and worried as hell, the next. That’s just part of being human. The text from the minister today reminded me of the parable of the guy who was swimming across the English channel. He was exhausted, breathing heavy and all he could see was the heavy line of clouds and fog over the water, the grayness that seemed endless. He started to think that his pain and his exhaustion would be never-ending, and that his adventure was pointless. He was all set to give up, but as he was slowing down his strokes, getting ready to signal for the boat to pick him up and to end his hard-trained for goal, the sun came up and the fog lifted and it turns out that the shore was only a few feet away. The swimmer realized that he almost gave up on his determined, meaningful journey, right before his moment of glory.
Hi friends and readers! Today is Favorite Things Friday! On Fridays, I don’t go deep. Fridays are for discussing three favorite items, songs, websites, pet supplies, etc. Please check out previous Friday posts for more favorites and please let us know some of your favorites in the Comments section. Without further ado:
Oxyfresh Fluoride Super Relief Dental Gel – If you have sensitive teeth and gums, this concoction really helps with that issue. I like to use it particularly after using the Crest Whitening Strips. I mix a little of this with my regular toothpaste and my teeth sensitivity has gone way down. I order my tubes of this winning formula on Amazon.
High Noon Vodka Hard Seltzer – One of my best friends from college introduced me to this delicious, refreshing, low in calories, seltzer drink. The alcohol content is low, the taste is delicious (no aftertaste) and it comes in a variety of delicious flavors. High Noon is the perfect summer refreshment to complement any slow and relaxing weekend picnic.
Bakery Boys of New York cookies – The awesome little Farmer’s Market near my home that I recently discovered has a treasure trove of amazing tasting delicacies from all over. They carry a whole line of Bakery Boys of New York cookies. Our household is particularly fond of the Angel Wings (light pastry puff butter cookies) and the Mini Black & White cookies. Apparently, grocery chains from all over, carry these cookies because they are so delicious!
There has been a great deal of pain and negativity and fear and anger swirling around these days. This weekend, let’s all try to find our deepest peace. If we each can get to a calm, centered energetic state, that will emanate out into the world and it will help to neutralize some of this bleakness that we have been experiencing during these tumultuous times.
My middle son is working on his medical school applications. He asked me to edit the personal essay section that he wrote. This filled me with pride, seriousness and a great deal of trepidation. You see, my middle son’s major motivation to go to medical school started mostly with an experience that he had in high school with his younger brother. My youngest son is epileptic and my middle son witnessed my youngest son’s very first grand mal seizure (now called tonic-clonic), while he was driving them both to school. That day was categorically among the very worst days of my life – of all of our family’s lives. I cannot convey, in words, the desperate fear and the pure helplessness you experience, watching your child seize, lips turning blue, praying for it to end, as you hold him, trying to stop him from hurting himself, as his body flails uncontrollably. Every second of one of these seizures, feels like an eternity. It is scary as hell. My son’s neurologist told us that a grand mal seizure is like doing the most intense workout that you have ever done, in the concentrated time span of a few minutes. The experience is terrifying and the aftermath, is exhausting and painful. My youngest son experiences headaches that last a day and an unfathomable level of exhaustion, after coming out of one of these major seizures. Luckily, my son’s seizures are now controlled by a cocktail of medications, which unfortunately also have a bevy of undesirable side effects, but that’s for a different blog post. This post is about my middle son.
My middle son loves science. He loves technology. He loves fast cars and understanding how everything works. My middle son was my child that I was always having to pull his hands off of the buttons that he wasn’t supposed to be touching and pushing. My middle son is talented, smart, and extremely dedicated. He is meticulous and yet underneath all of that heavy, responsible armor that he carries around with him every day, lies a big, old heart of gold. I think there was a part of me that always knew that my son would be attracted to the medical arts, but the day that he witnessed his brother’s first major seizure, and was able to handle it all, in such a self-possessed, astute manner, despite tears flowing down his cheeks, as he calmly called us, and drove the car down a grassy median, avoiding the rush hour traffic, to get his brother home safely to us and to the paramedics, sealed the deal. He knew right then, that he wanted to use the gifts that had been given, to become a good, talented healer. There are silver linings in the bleakest of moments. This I know for sure.
When the paramedics loaded my youngest son into the ambulance, as he was now coming out of his seizure, I stepped up into the ambulance to sit by him and to comfort him, on the way to the hospital. Before they closed the back door of the ambulance, I glanced back at my middle son, standing in our driveway looking up at us both. If a mother’s heart can be ripped into two, it happened to my heart, in that moment. Part of my heart was beating for the welfare of my baby strapped to a gurney, and the other part was beating for the comfort of my brave, young man-child, who handled the situation so heroically. I wanted to comfort them, and me, and the rest of us, all in a steely envelope of relief, but all that I had was a fleeting glance, conveying worry/pride/gratitude/awe all at once, before the doors were quickly shut.
While my youngest son recuperated at the hospital and we knew that he would be okay, my middle son assured my husband and I, that he, too, was fine. In fact, my middle son wanted to head back to school because he had an exam that he didn’t want to miss and a soccer game to play in that night. It was evident to me that he was back to his level-headed, matter-of-fact, goal-oriented self. But I could also see that he was in a serious state of contemplation.
This morning, I made small edits to my son’s personal essay about what events motivated him to get into the medical arts, the most consequential event, being the day he witnessed his adored baby brother’s first major seizure. This essay that he wrote for the application, is his story. It is not mine to change. The story is his perspective and each member of our family has a different “story” about that very same life-changing event that happened in the lives of our family, and each of its members. We knew that this experience would change and affect all of our lives in some ways, forever, but in my middle son’s case, the change for him, came mostly, in the form of an internal, directional sign, pointing forward to his purposeful calling in life. Life works and moves in us and through us, sometimes, in the most poignant and mysterious of ways. We have no choice but to accept this fact, and let it flow.
Today I’m going a few miles away to pick up a special package. I’m very excited to get it. It is going to be a large, colorful, over-brimming package and it only cost me $20. When I ordered the package online, the website also gave me the opportunity to share the joy, by purchasing and sending one of these amazing packages to someone else. My package is going to be over-brimming with fresh fruits and vegetables, grown by my local farmers. The other package will be headed to a local food pantry. I love the idea of being able to support and to nourish my family, nourish other families, and also, our wonderful farmers, in such a simple and easy way. While my link is a local link, I understand that this program is happening in many cities, all over the United States. Google “Farm Fresh” to see what is available in your area. While this coronavirus situation is indeed, very, very painful, the silver linings that have come with it, are plentiful. In fact if you took all of these threads of silver linings, such as more rest and quiet time, the healing moments for the Earth, the long, lingering family dinners, and the pure appreciation of the simpler things in life, you could probably make quite a pretty, shiny silver scarf. When the vaccine is developed and all of this fiasco is put to rest, we could all still wear our shiny silver scarves, from time to time, as lovely reminders that even the worst of times, have lovely, glimmering, sparkling gifts of hope and joy and peace, to offer.
I’m delayed with my post this morning, because I had a first thing in the morning (first thing in the morning appointments are part of my “false sense of security”, avoiding coronavirus strategy) dermatologist appointment. All of this time we’ve had at home, has allowed me to notice more things. I’ve noticed a lot things around our home that need to be fixed, cleaned up and upgraded. I’ve noticed that as much as I don’t love cooking, I do love home cooked meals, and I’ve noticed all sorts of interesting marks and patterns all over my skin, seemingly growing and changing on a daily basis.
When I was a young girl, the moles on my skin were called “beauty marks” by my family. I wore them proudly, enjoying the idea that every part of my body was sprinkled with a little bit of beauty. Also, when I was a young girl, sunscreen was not considered to be vital. In fact, I was more likely to use a whole bottle of baby oil on my skin than any sunscreen. Thankfully, I was raised in Pennsylvania, so my skin is not quite as ravaged by the sun, had I been raised here in Florida. Still, my chest definitely looks worse for the wear. Today, my dermatologist called my moles/beauty marks . . . “wisdom marks.” Let me tell you, I have a whole, big and busy map of wisdom on my chest. I am one wise woman! I find it interesting that when “beauty marks” age they are called “wisdom marks”. My husband’s dermatologist calls my husband’s moles, “barnacles.” I’ll stick with “wisdom marks.”
I was very relieved that my doctor saw no signs of skin cancer. I told her that I was kind of bothered that my beauty/wisdom marks had gotten kind of puffy, like little brown chocolate muffins. She told me to leave them alone; that moles just get kind of plump as we age. The dermatologist did mention that by the time I am in my late seventies, my age marks should flatten out and get skinny again. I wonder if that will be the case for my whole body?! I hope not. I’d rather be less puffy, right now. However if I’m honest with myself, the coronavirus quarantine hasn’t helped much with the flattening effect on anything on my body – quite the opposite actually. I’m not going to worry about that fact too much today, though. For today, I am going to relish in resting and living in my beautiful suit of pure, puffy WISDOM.
https://www.facebook.com/NorthGeorgiaVapor/videos/377365622880358/?t=0
My brother-in-law shared the above video. It says more than any words could convey. Thank you to all of you who have served our country, and for those of you who have lost loved ones, because these people had to pay the ultimate price for our freedoms, my heart goes out to you in gratitude. No wonder why you feel such a deep, deep loss. You loved some of the most courageous, giving people the world has ever known. You are in my heart today.
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day, friends.
“It’s not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin
If ever there was a year to see how adaptable we are, 2020 would be it. The first time I saw a child in the grocery store with a mask on, my stomach lurched and my heart filled with sadness. My youngest son recently commented on the same fact. Seeing children wearing masks brings a visceral reaction for a lot of us. Of course, our precious children need to be protected. Wearing masks is smart, considerate and often required. Interestingly, my eight-year-old mentee loves her “camo” mask. She told me that it matches a lot of her clothes and she feels like a ninja. I would call that being responsive to change.
Maybe if some of the rest of us adults could change the fear, anger, righteousness, embarrassment, frustration, and sadness that we often attach to the masks, to instead, a chance to bring out our own “inner ninjas”, our survival rates would go up and our contagion levels would go way down. I imagine that flexible, agile ninjas are the epitome of healthy immune systems. It’s a lot more fun to go about our daily chores with a stealthy ninja spirit, than a spirit filled with fear, defiance, resentment and defeatedness. Ninja energy seems to be a lot more vital and mysterious and sly, than already attaching sickness, pain and outrage, to what is nothing more than a piece of cloth and some string.
