Tag: mommy blog

Everest

In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first people ever to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. Before that time, it was believed that this feat was not even possible. By the end of the year 2016, 4,469 people had successfully climbed to the top of Mt. Everest. Some of them more than one time. In 2018, the most people reached the summit in any one year, 800 people, to be exact.

This year, we have proved that a safe, effective vaccine for a deadly virus can be made in less than a year. In fact, we have proved that more than one vaccine for a deadly virus can be produced in less that a year. What has been a devastating disaster, has also proven to be a beacon of hope and wonder and proof of our amazing, inventive abilities. We have helped future generations who may have to go through pandemics, by our successes and our mistakes, throughout this ordeal. This is why we study history. Studying history is not about memorizing dates and names. It’s about learning from our experiences, and providing a template for the humans who come after us. Is it possible that a far deadlier virus is likely to come to this Earth, in the future? Is it not also likely, that because of our experience with the coronavirus, and the vital necessity to find a vaccine, we will prevent lives lost, not only now, but also into the future, with our better, expedient vaccine creating science and techniques? I recognize that this fact, does not take away from the pain and the terrible losses which we have suffered throughout this COVID crisis, but it gives some meaning to all that we have been through. Those who died, did not die entirely in vain. Their deaths lead to the deep sense of urgency, to find a way to stop the spread of the virus, quickly and effectively. And we did it. We created several effective vaccines in less than a year. This has never happened before.

On a personal level, this is a reminder to never say never. Don’t lose your dreams. Don’t lose your clear visions for yourself, for your family and for this world. Be a believer. Don’t stay mired in “impossible.” Anything is possible. Study history. Be inspired by the visionaries, the inventors, and the desirers for a better world. Be the change you want to see. Believe that the best is yet to come. Believe in the best of yourself and of others. Climb your own personal Everests, and create a life that heals and nurtures you, and safeguards you from negative forces. The world will be uplifted for your own uplifted being. Step into the power that has always been inside of you, and inspire others to do the same. If we use this year, and the hard lessons that came with it, to help us to step into our higher powers (as so many of us already have, in so many ways), nothing will have been in vain. Nothing. And the world will shine like never before.

I Am Proud

I am really proud of you. You dealt with a difficult situation, an extremely difficult year – a year filled with unknowns and trepidation and fears, and you handled it. You have one very tough experience under your belt, and the good that has come of this, is that you realize that you are stronger than you ever knew yourself to be. You dealt with disappointments and losses, and you took them on the chin. You learned to live in the moment, to savor the simple things in life, and you learned to have true compassion for yourself, and for others. You grappled with a wide array of extreme emotions, from yourself and from others, and you came to an understanding that life is much more complex than black/white, right/wrong – in short, life isn’t always as clear cut as we want it to be.

I am really proud of you. You learned this year, that gratefulness for what you do have, is the true sanctuary of the heart. You got exposed to so much in life, that you may have taken for granted, and yet, you also got the realization that there was a lot of distracting, superfluous stuff in your life, that was easy to shed, for a clearer path of where you want your life to lead. Through a very muddling, confusing, chaotic year, you were able to get clear on your highest values.

I am really proud of you. You had to spend a lot of time with yourself in 2020, and sometimes that person (yourself) is the hardest person to get to know. We tend to be the toughest, most judgmental critics of ourselves. There was a lot of time for “reflection” in 2020, and sometimes what we see in the mirror isn’t all that pretty, but when we learn to love ourselves, flaws and all, we are better unconditional lovers of others. I am proud that you came around to the gift of self acceptance.

I am really proud of you. You may think that you are all scratched up, weather beaten, bruised and vulnerable. You may feel exhausted and spent, but you are not what that small part of you sees. You are beautiful. You are made pure by the faith and the hope and the love, that kept you going. You may feel like you are hanging by a thread, but that thread you are holding on to is a steely, unbreakable golden thread. This golden thread keeps you connected to the miraculous experience of living life’s overwhelming, enticing and exciting adventures. This year you experienced the full array of what it means to live life on a precarious playing field, with its own terms, and you are humbler and better for it.

I am really proud of you. You shine. I can’t wait to see what is in store for you next. You have proven to yourself that you are resilient, kind, bold, able to face your fears, thankful, and deep. With all of that in your armor, no matter what awaits, you are prepared for it, and as always, your adventures in living, will be awe-striking. Go forward and upward from the ashes of the old you. You have a new layer of light that will help you through any experience that lies ahead on your path, and you have realized a strong connection to your inner compass. And that unbreakable compass that dwells deep inside of your heart, will never, ever steer you wrong. You know this now, more deeply than ever before. I am really proud of you.

Monday Fun-Day

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This Monday, every one in my family has the day off. This is a delicious way to do a Monday. If I were to describe my family’s 2020 holiday season in just one word, that word would be “nurturing.” We didn’t do our usual array of activities and parties and sometimes, even small trips. We mostly stayed home (we had a cold front here in our part of Florida), we ate a lot of comfort food, and we “played” with our new things. My eldest son said that he particularly enjoyed “the banter” of our family, as he lives by himself in an apartment. I love “the banter”, too. One night, my husband and I went to bed earlier than the kids, and we could hear them all laughing and teasing each other in the kitchen. It was music to my ears. I hope that this post finds you calm, and centered and nurtured, as well. I think that this is a very sweet and healthy way to enter into the new year.

“Nurturing is not complex. It’s simply being tuned in to the thing or person before you and offering small gestures toward what it needs at that time.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

The Sweetness

Merry Christmas Eve, my dear friends and readers. I am late in writing the blog this morning, because I slept so soundly and late into the morning. A mama always gets her best rest when all of her babies are nestled gently in her own feathered, welcoming nest. Oh what sacred and delicious sleep I experienced last night!

There is always a huge build-up to these last few days of the year. I had to pick up a few things at the grocery store yesterday, and it was the proverbial zoo. I had to ride around the parking lot a few times in order to find a spot, to park my car. The frenzied energy of the holiday build-up was intense. People were seemingly excited, agitated, distracted and gleeful, all at the same time. I think that is what makes Christmas Eve so special. It is difficult to keep up an ardent and vigorous whirlwind of action and emotion for a long period of time. The buildup of this intensity, in all of us, seems to hit a pinnacle, particularly at the end of the year. We are busy in preparation for this moment of celebration. We prepare food, we prepare our homes, we prepare ourselves for nostalgic emotion, we prepare our children that the anticipation is almost over, and in all of this preparation, we often get exhausted and completely overwhelmed. And that is why Christmas Eve feels so particularly restful and peaceful and beautiful. All that is asked for us on Christmas Eve, is to savor in the tranquility, and awe of it all. It is interesting to me that there is such tremendous buildup, escalation and ballyhoo, to bring us to the most peaceful, placid, hopeful, still and quiet, moments of the year. Perhaps it is the extreme contrast of feelings and energy, that is truly needed to fully experience the miracle of the moment. Perhaps to really be able to fully sit still with our hearts, and with our souls, we need to release all of the excess, pent-up “other stuff”, to clear it out of the way. Would the birth of Jesus have been as profound if He had been born in a decked out luxury resort, with flashing lights and announcers, and banquets and showy background singers?? I think that the miracle of Christmas Eve, is that it is the subtle reminder for us, to lose all the “other stuff”, in order to gain ourselves. It is the quietest, most observant, deepest part of ourselves, who waits patiently, and knows that at one point, in this loveliest time of the year, we will be completely spent and overwrought and overstimulated, and we will crash deep down, and we will find the calm. We will find the peace. We will find the hope. We will find the faith. We will find the Love. And we will bask in the glow of it all. We will bask in these best gifts of this lovely, lovely season. How sweet it is!

Give Me Five

Recently I read this:

“The 5/5 Rule: If it is not going to matter in five years, don’t spend more than 5 minutes.”

That mantra has been proven to me again and again, as something to follow. I keep a brief daily journal. The spaces are so small, to answer the same 5-6 questions every single day, that I rarely even answer the questions in full sentences. One of the daily questions is: What challenged me today? When I look at my old journals and I look at my answers to that daily question, most of the time, I can’t even remember what challenge I was referring to in my answer. And certainly, I am not feeling any of the broody, moody feelings that accompanied my answer for that day.

I also keep a prayer box. When things are really worrying me, I write these worries down and I put them in my prayer box, knowing that they are being handled by forces far greater than me. It is astonishing to open that prayer box up, every so often, and to read my older worries, only to see how many of these concerns have been resolved, often in the most miraculous of ways. I highly recommend this practice. It is freeing.

Sometimes I think that I just soak in my worries, and my concerns, and my traumas and dramas, out of boredom, or as a distraction from the mundaneness that sometimes occurs in the practice of managing every day life. Obsessing on situations, often just leads to emotional chaos and then, my out-of-control emotions (caused by the freight train of my obsessive, ruminating thoughts), start to control me, if I don’t reign them back in. If I don’t control my emotions, then they control me.

And now for a holiday bonus tip:

I got a lot of interest on a recent post discussing “my purpose.” There is a brilliant, wise old soul (although judging by her picture, she is a beautiful young woman) on Twitter named Valencia. I read her Tweets every single day. She is the epitome of wise. (on an aside, most of the wisdom which I’ve garnered in my life, has come from the most unlikely of sources. A lot of the times, younger people are much wiser than many old fools.) I think that I came around to understanding my own purpose with her help. She posted this a few weeks or months ago, and I wrote it in one of my journals. It makes a lot of sense.

“Living with your purpose isn’t only a matter of career choice. If you have trouble finding your path, kindly stop pressuring yourself to pick ONE main direction. Instead, write down your values and the principles you wanna live by. You just found the foundation of your purpose.” (Valencia on Twitter)

Eusociality

Last night, for my birthday, we had a family Zoom call, as none of my sons are home, yet, for the holidays. I know that we are all tired of Zoom. I know that Zoom is a poor substitute for experiencing the energy and closeness of each other, in person, but still, there are some good qualities to it that I enjoy. Watching the screen, is like seeing a moving portrait of my beautiful children. Further, it keeps my kids in contact with one another. A lot of times we moms tend to become the “news deliverers” to our children, about what is going on in their siblings’ lives. As kids scatter and move in all different directions, in their busy, hectic lives, the well intentioned calls to each other, often and understandably, get pushed to the wayside. So, Zoom, has a way of reminding them, that their siblings are actually a pretty fun, warm bunch. And I relish in watching them enjoy each other.

Holiday Mathis wrote today about “Eusociality” which is a scientific term for the way creatures such as ants, and bees and termites live and survive, in their social groups. Individually these organisms cannot live long without their group. They each have a special task and duty and purpose to fulfill, and the individual is not often capable of fulfilling the other tasks carried on by other members of the group. Some scientists actually see the larger organism (the group itself, living and working for the whole) as the one living entity because individually, most of these creatures could not survive for long on their own. Holiday says that some scientists argue that humans are “eusocial.” I believe that could be true. At the very least, when you have a family group or a friend group, and one member of that group is gone, the whole entity changes. When we have Zoom calls and one family member can’t make the call, the nature of the Zoom meeting is often completely different. And that’s only the micro-view. Imagine your day today, without your grocery workers, or the farmers who grew the food in the first place, or your postal workers, or the people who are keeping this internet thing afloat. (Imagine your day without reading my blog – scary! 😉 )

Even in these socially distant times, if you take the birds-eye view, we are still working as an interdependent life system, with every other living thing on this Earth. No mask can cover that fact up. And this one major life system of ours, might be a little sick right now, and it might have parts that are conflicted and weakened, but in the end, this life system of ours will heal itself. That is the beauty of Life and Creation. It was made to live and to breathe and to thrive. We are each just one little unit of that healing which goes to the healing of the whole, and I need to believe that we are well on our way. If we each do our own part to heal ourselves, we’ll be at overall wellness, before we know it.

Auntie Dionne

“I’ve been having the best time, you know, being me.” – Dionne Warwick

I love watching SNL clips on You Tube. I don’t usually stay up late enough to watch SNL live, so I have to wait for the clips. I watched a great clip where the SNL players were pretending to be on a “Dionne Warwick Talk Show.” Dionne, the legendary singer, turned 80 the other day, and that was SNL’s way to celebrate with her. Apparently, Dionne Warwick has been enjoying a new kind of fame, as of late, with a younger crowd. She has been tweeting (Twitter) some crazy, funny tweets about younger performers. And she has been getting some new found attention for it; she is often dubbed “The Queen of Twitter”. When asked about this attention, Ms. Warwick says:

“I find it quite amusing.”

I watched an interview with Dionne Warwick, by Denny Directo, from the TV show Entertainment Tonight. It was one of the most positive, uplifting interviews which I have seen in a while. Ms. Warwick was performing in Las Vegas when the coronavirus came and shut everything down. She was sent home, to hunker down. This is what she said about that:

“I got to know my home, sleep in my own bed, make my own meals when I wanted them, how I wanted them. I’ve been having the best time, you know, being me.”

So simple. So pure. So healthy. There is a lot of times during coronavirus that we all dwelled on what we were missing out on, and what has been lost. And it is certainly healthy to grieve and mourn what this terrible pandemic has wrought on all of us. Some of us have even experienced the greatest losses of our lives, and those terrible losses need to be grieved. But at the same time, the coronavirus situation has, in many ways, forced us to get reacquainted with ourselves. By realizing what we miss and what we don’t miss, we understand our priorities better. By having to spend more times with just ourselves, we got to explore what really makes each of us tick. Sometimes this is an uncomfortable process. Sometimes being forced to really be with yourself, makes you face what you don’t like about yourself. But that’s okay, too. There are lessons of humility and acceptance and compassion, in that experience. And when we soak in those kinds of lessons, we then are better able to extend acceptance and compassion and kindness towards others.

Thankfully, the vaccine is here and it is giving us all hope that our “normal” lives are right around the corner. But in these next few months, maybe making sure that we have a loving relationship with ourselves, before we head out into the freed up world, again, is the way to go. Maybe if we all fall into the ease of “having the best time, you know, being me“, the after-pandemic world will be a whole new world, the likes of which we have never seen, filled with acceptance, compassion, humility and awe. Maybe if we spend some time, in these last few months of socially distanced living, giving complete unconditional understanding, and comfort, and love to ourselves, we will be able to better know how to extend that Love outwards into the world, which so sorely, sorely needs it. I have hopes that not only is “normal” right around the bend, but this “normal” will be brighter, kinder, more interesting, deeper, and more authentic, than we have ever experienced “normal” before. I can’t wait to see what it looks like and feels like! It’s going to be amazing.

“someday we will forget the hardship, and the pain its caused us; we will realise, hurt is not the end. lessons appear to teach us strength, we learn happiness is an inside job and to cure our insanity we must not fear what is to come, but believe in what we’ve been taught.”
― Nikki Rowe

“God gave us a variety of ways to get hurt out and do it clean. Blood cleans a wound. Tears clean a different kind of wound. You might not like it, Frannie, but you shouldn’t stop yourself from doing it. Clean the wound so it can heal. Then move on.”
― Kristen Ashley 

Monday Fun-Day

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I saw “Snow Day” trending on Twitter and I got lost in some happy memories. When I was a kid in Pennsylvania, we would sit by the radio, and we would listen attentively and hopefully, to the Snow Day cancellations. The schools were announced in alphabetical order. If for some crazy reason, you had to go to the bathroom or some other interruption or loud noise happened, you’d have to wait all over again, for the next series of Snow Day cancellations, and wait patiently as they were announced, one by one, in alphabetical order. If our school got swindled, and we just got a stupid 2 hour delay, or worse, we actually had to go to school, we would console ourselves that the other schools were “wimps”, and that they’d have to go to school into the summer to make up for the snow day. But secretly, we stewed in angry jealousy.

My kids were raised in North Carolina, when they were youngsters. Snow Days were sparse there, but sparse snow also creates instant and dramatic Snow Days, in the south. (North Carolina didn’t have much in the budget to clean snow up, nor did they have the salt piles stored up in weird looking pyramids, like they had in Pennsylvania) One of my first realizations that my children were having a significantly different upbringing than I did, due significantly, to the onset of technology, is when I called out to them one morning, that the man on the radio said that they were having a Snow Day. “We already know, ” one of my sons called back. “We saw it on the internet.”

Unfortunately, when we moved to Florida, Snow Days became a thing of the past. Not to be outdone, however, Florida took it up a notch. In Florida, we have “Hurricane Days.” Every kid deserves the thrill of a day off of school, every once in a while, and Mother Nature knows how to make that happen. Mother Nature loves her children equally.

McRib-ness

“I don’t want this guy gettin’ in your head, cuz he’s in mine a little bit.
I don’t want you to forget that you’re bringing something to the table.
You’ve got that Carl-ness.
That little twinkle in your eye, and you’re givin’ it to me right now.
That little glint that says they’re never gonna beat you; they can’t lay a glove on you.
Don’t forget that cuz you can’t put a price tag on that.
End of sermon.” (From the film You, Me and Dupree)

Friends, things are looking up!! The vaccine has been approved! The McRib is back at McDonalds. (I had one the other day, and it was just as I had remembered – incredibly messy and incredibly scrumptious) I feel like we are all getting back to our ***(insert your name)-ness. You’ve got that “you-ness” that’s been lying dormant for a lot of this year, and I think that the “ness” in all of us is sick and tired of hiding out in the bunkers. Our “ness” is bursting at the seams. Our “ness” is ready to bloom again.

Yesterday, I ran some mundane chores (nothing out of the usual), but I dressed out for it. And my friends and my family know that I am not afraid to take risks and chances when it comes to fashion. I felt more “myself” than I had felt in a long, long time. I said to my husband, “I miss my Kel-ness. I need to bring her back to the front row.” I am a little rusty. I forgot to put on earrings and I have hundreds of pairs to choose from, but that’s okay. My Kel-ness came back quicker than I thought. She’s been dying to get out. She is tired of being patient. (She still wears a mask and stays within social distance mandates, of course, but she doesn’t let that take away from the rest of her zesty Kel-ness.)

One of my friends is a social butterfly. She’s like a one-woman flock of social butterflies, that’s how social she is, at her very core. Like many extreme extroverts, this year has floored her to her lowest of lows, at times, but yesterday she texted that she had reconnected with people she hadn’t heard from in years and I could feel her “***-ness” flowing through the 5G cellular network. This is a woman who has more friends that I could possibly count. And yet, she can’t ever seem to get enough of all of them. Her “ness” was back. And it inspired me.

We are on the cusp of better days. We still have to be a little more patient, but in the meantime, bring out your “****-ness”. Polish up the parts of you, which feel the most authentic and right and meant to share with the world. Polish up the parts of you, that are your purest being. Remind yourself of what really makes you, you. That “you-ness” is your unique gift to the world. That “you-ness” is your true purpose in this pattern which we call Creation. Don’t apologize for it. Let it shine! You’ve missed your “ness”. The world misses your “ness.” Light a little fire under your “ness.” We are starting to wake up from hibernation. We are starting to remember that it is good to feel good. When we all are living fully in our own individual “nesses”, that’s when the world really begins to glow. I saw this quote on the internet today:

Ego says, Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace. Spirit says, Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.

I think that we feel the most peace when we are being our purest, truest, fearless selves. We feel peace when we give ourselves permission to be our highest forms of our own “-ness” without cover, shame, apologies or confusion. Perhaps, in finally tiring of this very trying, messed up, annoying year, a majority of us have started finding our way back to our “nesses”, despite it all, and in doing that, we have found a sense of peace. Miraculously then, it seems that the world around us starts to look like a more magnificent, hopeful place than it has looked like in a long time. You don’t believe me? Go get a McRib.

Monday Fun-Day

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I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I was reflecting on one of those “coming into my age” moments. Last week, I was having a Zoom meeting with my mentee, who is in the 4th grade. She made a reference comparing me to her grandparents.

“Oh,” I said, trying to hide the horror and shock I was feeling, in my voice. “So, you think that I’m about the age of your grandparents?” I looked off to the side, trying to look casual and only mildly interested.

“Oh, no, no,” she said, not so convincingly.

But then I thought about it more. Her mother is in her twenties. I have a son who is 24 years old. If her grandmother also had her mother in her young twenties, there is even a chance that her grandparents are younger than I am. Things That Make You Go, Hmmmmm.