My way

I had to go get my medicine from the clinic this morning and it was raining, so I decided to do my walking “early before breakfast” the way the skinny people do it, according to an article that I doubt was gospel in any way.

I am not prone to following other people’s ways.  They often don’t work for me.  My body has a clock and mind of it’s own and if I don’t honor it, I won’t keep doing whatever it is I am supposed to do.

I decided to walk at the local mall, a place I almost never shop at so it has a wonderland of colors and surprises to look at.  Once.  Since I forgot my glasses, it was mostly just that, colors and fly by mannequin forms, in the beginning.  Later I began to notice the other people walking and was surprised at the level of annoyance it caused me.

Here they came two by two, arms swinging, loudly chatting, having a gay old time; or in small herds usually led by the bull male, no one talking, eyes front, everyone focused.  The novelty wore off quickly.  I tried analyzing my feelings but never came to any particular conclusions.  It could just be that I don’t particularly like exercising and these fellow walkers were an easy target for my anger.

I noticed everyone stuck to a prescribed path that promised a certain number of miles, but since that has no meaning for me (I walk 40 minutes however far that is) I stuck to the carpeted areas as much as possible.  It feels so much better to my poor feet who object strenuously to this stuff.

Then I looked outside and saw it wasn’t raining so when I went down one of the auxiliary hallways I just kept going, right outside.  At first I thought maybe I was the only person doing that and was so proud of myself for being different!  Then I ran into the first fellow walker.  She was an older woman, meaning older than me!  And, she was very friendly.  Smiling, she called out, “I didn’t expect it to be so warm out!”  A little farther on I ran into a Chinese man about my age who commented on the lawn mowers sitting on the walk.  Evidently he doesn’t like his lawn mowers to be outside, which I found kind of cute.

At last I reached my car, dripping wet, glad to sit down and having completed another day of forty minute walking for whatever that is worth.

Awesomely Lost

Reality is not as simple as it sounds.

In theory one plus one equals two, but sometimes it creates unimaginably more.   And sometimes, sadly enough, you can even lose something when you put some things together.

Everything exists as part of a whole and I don’t have a clue what that whole is yet.  Every once in a while I get a glimpse of it, or think I do but then it fades away and I’m not sure.

It doesn’t really matter if I can comprehend the whole.  I am still part of it, so the best thing I can do is be present in this moment.

A moment is a colossal creation; a sort of pod that connects me to everything that ever was or ever will be.  A tiny time machine whose workings, like that of it’s parent, the whole, are hardly comprehensible.

Is it any wonder that I am mostly lost in awe?

Along the Way

This Way is so vast I never realized I was on it for most of my life.  I thought I had to choose to go on a pilgrimage, or choose to meditate, or seek out those inner thoughts by doing something conscious and special.

I never realized I was on the Way from the moment I was conceived, that every step is a pilgrimage and every breath a meditation.  I may be able to seek out some thoughts but those very innermost ones are preset along the way.  They simply don’t show up until the time is right.

The things I carry?  Sometimes they seem heavier than other times, but it is all perspective.  The heaviest one of all is only a feather on the breath of time.  Seen from eternity it has almost no meaning at all. 

And the faces along the way?  They are all one face – my own – looking back at me, wondering if I can love them just the way they are?  One by one they come to walk beside me, mirroring my thoughts, my feelings, my fears and loves, offering me an opportunity to grow, to pick them up and carry them so close to my heart that I don’t know where they end and I begin.

I suppose when my arms are too full, when my feet cannot take another step because of the size of my heart, when I am immersed in all that I am, it will be time to rest, but I wonder how that will happen?

Will the Way end?  Will I rise above it or become part of it, or will I discover that I am what I always have been and nothing really changes at all?

The gift of loving

It takes courage to really love someone.

Being willing to put the well being of someone else before my own, to bare my heart willingly and openly, to be there even when it is inconvenient, day after day, night after night, is a gift of heroic proportions.

Intertwining two lives makes both of us very vulnerable.  It is hard enough to stand up and be strong in this world, but if I have to do it knowing that my rock is mortal it is even harder.

Mortality makes us liable to things like inconstancy or death or just plain making mistakes.  Those things can wound the ones I love.  They can wound me and the pain is indescribable!

But not insurmountable!

I think it is this vulnerability that brings out the very best in us.  Like all things, it is knowledge of the opposite that makes the present so precious.

There will never be medals of honor for being a good lover, but the prize is in the moment.  No one else benefits more from loving than I do.  It is the ultimate gift to myself.

Perspective

Two-dimensional visage

Whose eyes never look into mine

Ever changing voice ethereal as the wind

Some would say you are not here.

Reaching out I cannot touch your hand.

You draw my smile from the wastelands

Open my eyes to nuances I’ve yet to see.

My ears feel your words

I say you are never far away.

Reaching in you touch my heart.

Do we really want to go back to our roots?

In the past, being larger and richer meant being better fed, brighter, smarter, more entitled.  Our country started out saying that all men are equal (they didn’t say much about women or people who were what they considered subspecies. It wasn't an issue then.)  Now we have had a couple hundred years to mature we are returning to our roots the way children do when they finally realize their parents are not as far off the mark as they once thought.

Some of us have become a pesky power to reckon with, so we are at a pivotal point in the history of civilization.  Comfort says we should return to the way it has always been.  Rich men rule.  Our constitution says that in a country like ours, majority rules, but when something that was never a threat before becomes a power to reckon with the powers that be start playing rough. 

More than ever the time has come when intelligent human beings need to really think before they hand over any power to an administration that believes it knows what is best.  As comfortable as it might be to believe that someone will just take care of us all and hand out justice with a fair hand, it is wrong thinking.   It is dangerous thinking.  

We need to take care of each other and ourselves.  This country is a work in progress.

Monsters and aliens and us, oh my

My mother spent the first twenty years of my life trying to shape me into something people would admire, approve of and accept.  I understood her fears that I was not enough just as I was.  I felt it too.

Constantly watching other people; always wondering what they thought; reading books trying to figure it all out, I started down the road to who I am.

I love watching movies, but most of them are a lot like the real world, I have to guess what the people are really thinking.  Books are different.  They carry me inside the character’s mind and deepest thoughts.  It may be contrived for entertainment purposes, but even so, it comes out of the author’s head.

It never occurred to me that other people were looking just as hard as I was, that there were people wondering what was stuffed inside this big head that belongs to me!  I always assumed that I was the only one on the outside looking in.  Kind of like a giant alien child with a magnifying glass observing the human race, knowing that if I ever revealed myself they would all run screaming from the room and I would be alone.

But maybe we are all aliens in this world, odd little creatures clustering around one flower after another, searching for the heart that binds us all together, the point where we are enough and more than enough just as we are.

The perfect end to any day

Need a few minutes to savor the goodness of life?  A few moments when the day is behind you and the night looms large before you? 

How about reading a bedtime story to a favorite child?

Imagine sitting down in a puddle of light in an otherwise dim room.  Beside you is a soft, sleepy child.  In front of you is the doorway to another world.

The world immediately shrinks.  Everything that is important lies within reach of this place and nothing else really matters, except the book, the child, and you!  You become a symbiotic couple whose tendrils firmly anchor you in a very good place.

Sharing this special moment just before yielding all will to the hours of sleep that follow is a rite that is unequaled by any other.  Savor it.

 

Walking with grandma

Waking into the room, three girls and a grandma, seek an adventure without any idea of what awaits them. 

A log cabin confronted by a teepee faces off right before their eyes and nearby hang the pelts of animals whose short earthly lives are extended by a long association with education.  Raccoons, and skunks, foxes and squirrels, hang side by side with a plethora of other creatures so the children of today can see what their great grandfathers grew up with.

Other creatures, luckier, or not, live on in aquariums and clamber at their glass walls, eagerly seeking the attention of the only diversion they are allowed: looking at humans filing endlessly past their small worlds.  The girls reach out sweetly and watch as the turtles follow their fingers up and down and across the thin barrier between them.

Something slithers past that peripheral place that allows shivers to run up and down spines, but is still contained in other aquariums and everyone turns to look at the snakes, who put on quite a show.  Dead mice lie on rocks, ready snacks for creatures that are not yet hungry, but one is thirsty and dips into his water bowl with a tiny forked tongue.

And then something moves that is not inside a cage.  Large and furry, it lounges amid a pile of bones and wings, hooves and antlers, snake skins and unfurry pelts.  The girls run over to pet it and the huge, overfed cat stretches languorously under all the attention.  He seems totally unaware of the charnel house that is his couch, preferring to focus on the luxury of being pampered.

Suddenly they are drawn by the sound of birds and discover the next room.  Now the girls are the exhibit, enclosed in a glass aquarium for people that birds can come to view as they eat dinner in a variety of small avian cafes.  They flit around, listening to the bird calls recorded and filed away under pictures of their makers mixing in with the live ones coming through the outside microphones.

The whole building is one of sensory delight, preparing them for what comes next.  Stepping out of the glass walled world of the building, they venture into the forest and become part of the world outside.

The rest of the afternoon is spent wandering through the chapel in the woods, smelling the hints of wildflowers and earthy pine trees.  Long muddy paths lead to longer grassy ones.  Deadfalls lie off to the side, lovely sculptures made by a hand much larger than theirs.  Gnarly trees look down upon them, remarking at their youth and beauty. 

Finally they leave the trees to walk through the old cemetery, monuments left by man to mark the time dear ones walked through this world and then stepped through the veil.  A final stop in a small country church that predates even their great grandfather’s time and the adventure is over…but just for today.

Three girls and a grandma, seeking an adventure to mark the moments they spend together.

Faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive...

I saw him through the window early this morning.  Sitting on that deck holding a small teddy bear and something about him just caught my attention.  A small boy with almost black hair and the most startling green eyes,  up on his knees looking over the railing with such longing.  I was afraid to take my eyes off of him, worried that he might leap up at any minute and run for the nearby lake, but he didn’t.

The next time I saw him was late this afternoon.  Sitting on the deck floor this time, chubby little legs stretched out in front of him, such a look of concentration on his face that I had to wonder what he was thinking as he put those Legos together.

After a while he tired of the Legos and got up on the bench again, this time jumping off.  Again and again, he jumped from the bench, landing hard on the deck and I wondered that his mother did not come out to check on him.  Surely she was watching him through the window because otherwise when he landed like that it must have shook the entire house!

He would land on the deck and sometimes stumble a bit, then look quickly towards the window and repeat the action.  Finally he moved over to the steps.  Just two steps from the deck to the grass.  He put out both arms and I swear I thought he was going to fly, but he simply landed with a tumble in the grass and scrambled back up onto the deck to do it again.  Sometimes one of the straps on his overalls fell off his shoulder and he reminded me of a dark haired little Dennis the Menace until he pushed it back up.

At last, glancing furtively over his shoulder, he ran!  Not into some phone booth since there were none, but behind the nearest bush emerging without his overalls on at all and I realized who he was!  It was as plain as the shirt on his tummy!  A five year old Superman raced across the yard wearing only his Superman shirt, little briefs peeking out below them as he slipped the surly bonds of earth and practically soared towards the water!

I might have run after him, but right at that moment, his mother came tearing out of the cabin door and took off after her small super hero, chasing him down just before he stepped into the water of that large lake!  I might have wondered how one punishes Superman, but his mother didn’t seem to have a problem.  She promptly plucked a switch off the nearest bush and helped him straight back into the house.

Black and white and red all over!

I have been making up stories since long before I could write, but by second grade I was writing stories down on paper for other people to read.  I remember how good I thought those first ones were and have to laugh now.  They were always about children lost in a huge mansion.  I remember learning to spell mansion and how surprised I was at the way it looked.

Part of the fun of writing is having people read it, but that is also the scariest part of writing.  Every story has the potential to become a nightmare of humiliation if it is rejected, or, worse, torn apart!

I’ve learned to accept editing.  That is different than just ripping something to shreds.  Editing makes a story better.  In fact, it radically diminishes the chance that someone else will come along and dissect it for fun.

I have a friend who reliably edits anything I give him.  He’s good.  Sometimes my work comes back looking like that sunburned zebra we used to tell jokes about, black and white and red all over, but when he finishes, my story is always ten times better.

It’s when I don’t have him read it through first that I feel most vulnerable.  The thought of him becoming an impartial editor of my stories outside our friendship is pretty scary, because then he must be brutally honest.

I wouldn't want it any other way, but it sure is something to think about.

Foundations

Patiently walking every day is not something that comes naturally to my people!

The goal of man is to live forever, but my grandmother’s generation lived into their nineties and my mother died at fifty eight.  My nephew had his first heart attack at 31.

We are passionate people, more apt to walk twenty miles on one day than one for twenty days.  In love with each other we also love our vices too.  The ones who smoke, or drink are as yoked to their habits as the ones who work seventy-hour weeks are yoked to theirs. 

I was weaned on over doing it.  Sick people are supposed to tie rags around their heads and surge forward.  Tired people work until they drop from exhaustion.  Happy people are those who are miserable because they are doing all the “right” things.

Ours is a close-knit family.  Moving away from the center is as difficult as pulling apart two industrial strength magnets, but it has been done.  Some of us have been struggling all our lives.   Torn between love and common sense, we desperately seek the middle ground; often with the same passion our dear ones seek the higher one.

Distilling the fine points of living can sometimes backfire and the casualties lie along the side of the road, sad reminders of what doesn’t work. 

Changing the habits of a lifetime sometimes requires digging out the basement and building a new foundation.  Without that I will find myself walking twenty miles on one day and none on all the rest.

Jealousy

First impressions are like opening a door on Christmas Eve.  Expecting to see Santa Claus I find instead, the Snow Queen with her frosty eyebrows and brittle smile.

Wrapped in icy white instead of wooly red she is a shock to my system.  Unfamiliar and cold, female and svelte, strong and imperious instead of round and jolly and grandfatherly, I am threatened by her simple presence.

And so I slam the door and turn to face the waiting room, an embarrassed flush on my face, an uncomfortable knot in my stomach, a need to make excuses on my tongue.

“A beautiful woman,” I say and feel the split in my tongue even as the words come out, knowing what will come next.  “I’m sure she’s warm as toast underneath, but who knows where those icy fingers have been and what strange bedfellows she has been forced to accommodate.  Can we really afford to let her in?”

And they all nod solemnly, like I knew they would.  What else can they do?  No one knows the Snow Queen, so she stands in the yard like a marble statue.  Cold.  Alone.  Undiscovered.  And we marvel over her beauty, at a distance of course. 

It is safer that way.  Had I let her in she might have won them over with her winning smile and gentle ways, but we will never know that now.  Had I let her in, she might have thawed before our fire, melted into our love, become as well known and loved as that jolly little elf in the furry red suit, but I never gave her a chance.

Had I shared my milk and cookies with her, instead of locking her out, we might no longer be living in this cold white world where strangers are left standing at the door and everyone else huddles fearfully before the fire.

My shame overwhelms me and I fling the door wide, call out for her to return, but she is gone.  There will be no second impressions now.

 

Confirmation

I am a poster child for exercising, or not exercising, depending on how you look at it.  I had convinced everyone, especially myself, that I was too ill to do much at all.  For the last year I barely did more than I really had to do and that left me breathless, in real pain, and miserable.

My joints hurt so badly that sometimes I just sat in a chair or lay in my bed covered up with blankets and sleeping.  I was mostly marking time. Then, when my doctor wanted to put me on a bunch more medicine for diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure I panicked. 

So, I bit the bullet and decided to give it all one last try.  I would exercise!  In the beginning I gave myself credit for every move I made.  If I walked to the car, I counted that as exercise and noted, “Five minutes, walk down steps to car.”  If I went shopping I did the same thing.  Then one day I walked to the trash dumpster and decided to walk over to the apartment office and pay my rent.  Wow!  It took ten minutes!  I was so tickled that I made it a point to walk ten minutes for the next week.  I was slow.  My ankles hurt.  My knees ached and I was so winded!  Until one day I wasn’t quite so winded and decided to walk a little further.  After three weeks I walked twenty minutes and discovered my breathing was better, my joints were not quite so sore and now, after nearly ten weeks I am up to 30-40 minutes at a brisk pace covering quite a bit of ground.

My blood pressure is way down in the normal range, my sugar level well into normal, I have lost a fair amount of weight and I am feeling – well, younger!

Today a friend sent me a link that just sort of gives the reasons for all of this and I’d like to share it with you.  It is a doctor talking about the studies that show what is the single most important thing you can do for your health.  I hope you’ll take a look.  It’s called: 23 and ½ hours, What is the single best thing we can do.  It’s better than you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo

An enchanted walk

I did that thing today.  That bit about taking the road less traveled.  Really it was just a grassy path, but it did divide and my daughter and I chose the one less traveled.  Not because it looked better, just because the other people went the other way.  I wonder how many people make choices like that?  Probably more than I think.

We were taken by the beautiful wildflowers that clustered here and there among the wild grasses and weeds.  Although if the truth be told I have a very hard time telling the weeds from the flowers, if it blooms and I like it, then it is a flower!

There were violets of every hue standing next to blue-eyed marys and spring beauties!  Toothwort and bloodroot and hepatica were scattered among the bluebells.  It was an Easter basket of delight for the eyes and soft walking for the feet too.

We marveled at butterflies that flew like flocks of jewels, and at emerald green beetles adorning the logs along our way.  It was an enchanted journey and had you asked us we might have said it was Brigadoon come down to earth just for us, but the only inhabitant was an ancient grandfather tree and a lonely Canadian goose.

We wandered down to the river and through the lowland meadows then slowly began the climb to the cliffs and there was a time when I thought my legs could not take one more step!  We joked that if I did not, then future travelers would find two sad little skeletons lying among the bluebells.

Nearly two hours later we emerged from our journey into familiar ground and crossing a bridge finally made it back to our car.  A step into the past when hikes like this were easy for me.  And you know what?  Today really wasn’t that hard!

A stiff upper lip, or cheek, or ...

I saw an ad for Botox treatments, which advertised, “for women 18 to 65.”  Supposedly it erases frown lines and wrinkles, which lets the world know that you have laughed too much?

Where do we get these ideas?  I know of almost no one who likes immature trees and can you imagine wanting only tulip sprouts, or seedlings?

We do seem to prefer our animals with large round heads, short limbs and compact bodies, all part of that baby look, so does that mean we want our lovers and idols and partners to all be infants?

Evidently a lot of us do.

In a world where youthful mothers promise healthy babies this makes sense.  In our world where so many people are on birth control that wouldn’t seem to be an issue, but it obviously is.

When society has most of its basic needs met, it seems they need to invent something that adds a little excitement in their life.  Our society has a class of people always willing to provide that – because they get their excitement from the money such things generate.

People like to hunt, kill, eat and wear other creatures.  They like to decorate their skin or buy extravagant dwellings and fast cars.  And now we have people whose age is marked by their inability to move parts of their face.

I think I prefer old souls no matter what kind of a shell they live in.

April

The riches of April fall from the sky like courtiers preceding a royal family.

Tiny diamonds filled with possibilities and workers descend upon my world like clockwork every year.

Sinking into the ground they become the nursery personnel who feed and coddle the new babies emerging from their tiny wombs.  Softening the seed hulls, loosening the hard ground, feeding the hungry mouths that will grow into flowers and trees and bugs!

Landing on the bones of old trees and bushes and sliding off the tired facades of human houses, they whisk away the sleep left by winter’s long drowsy months and freshen up visages getting ready to face summer’s relentless sun.

Beating against my window in angry protests, they call me to wake up and join in this great spring-cleaning.  Today is a new day, a fresh day, one that has been carefully prepared just for me!

Now I must decide what to do with it!

Faces of wisdom

All my life I have looked for wisdom, sure that she is standing just behind the next tree or hidden in the rocks behind me.

As a ten year old I wandered from room to room in my grandmother’s nursing home, talking to women who had dusted their faces with flour instead of powder, built cabins by hand from pieces of their covered wagons, and had scars from being scalped by real life ”Indians.”  I wanted to learn the old languages, to sing the old songs, to climb up in someone’s mind and listen to the stories of a time gone by.

I tried to build my world on the foundations of ideas, thinking that they would withstand the earthquakes and tornados and battering by storms better than wood and stone and that stuff they call plasterboard.

I have held my dreams close and tried to let my children grow free thinking it is true that what loves me will always come back and, perhaps, never really leave in ways that matter.

I’ve taken a hundred pictures of trees whose faces peer out from behind the wrinkles of soft dark bark and roses who stand elegantly amid their thorns.  Somewhere deep within both of them I think I might find myself.

Now I stare into the faces of my grandchildren looking for the child I was and still am, but the search for wisdom goes on.

Always just behind the next tree or in the rocks behind me….

In the hands of the gods

In our world we have become overly conscious of words and less thoughtful about our actions.

People who react to abuse by law enforcement officials are justifiably upset, but it makes me uneasy when I see our system of justice even further abused by people who want to try someone in the media without due process. 

Mob action is just as bad as racial profiling and murder and blatant manipulation of the truth in court. 

Real justice will not bring back a beloved child, but it will go a long way towards making his death less pointless and it might change the point of view of people who forget that laws are for real people, not just concepts written down on paper.

Violence changes actions, but I doubt if it changes the thoughts behind those actions in any positive way.   Using a gun to solve a perceived problem is a permanent solution.  In a split second a decision is made that affects people forever. 

That kind of power belongs only in the hands of the gods.

Extraordinary is

I remember being twelve years old in a rather progressive school system and wishing with all my heart that I were more “normal” and less extraordinary.

I remember with some embarrassment when I learned just how truly “normal” I really was!

Now I am learning that normal is extraordinary and people who don’t realize that still have much to learn!

The false pride we feel when we put someone in their place, or exert our supposedly superior abilities and knowledge over them is a nearly fatal flaw.

The truly extraordinary person knows how to make everyone feel at ease and comfortable in their own skin.

Imagine the ramifications of this!

Anything is possible

Anyone who has worked very hard to achieve something knows how disappointing it can be when you fail.  It can feel like it was a waste of time, but usually, if I am honest with myself, it is not.

There are people who need to be needed and there are people who hate to see others succeed where they did not.  And there are just people who feel it is their duty to tell me how I could do better.  I don’t like to believe that, but before giving up on a goal because someone else was not pleased, it is good to consider all the possibilities.

I succeeded on three of four fronts recently, but came home feeling terribly depressed because I haven’t yet conquered the last frontier so to speak.

Instead of encouragement, or praise for the other three I received a dearth of negative suggestions about what all I did wrong!

I guess now my newest goal is to prove I can do better!

Hear my song

Imagine a 22-month-old composer!  Her song, whenever she sings it is always the same.  It has a tune and words and quite a little beat.  Actually it is very simple, but very wonderful and might have gone totally unnoticed if her father hadn’t picked up on the fact that she sang it quite frequently over the course of several days.  It was a song and it was hers and it was unique!

How many of us think we are ordinary and never do anything wonderful and unique when the truth is that most of us just do not have anyone who notices who we are and what we can do and is both willing and wanting to celebrate us!

Many parents might have smiled and just dismissed this simple song as babbling.  It required ears to hear that it was definitely a finished work being performed over and over again.  Now ask for “Your Song” and she will burst into it with joy and precision!

I think attention is the purest kind of love.  To take the time to really notice another person and encourage them to do whatever it is they love and are good at, is a gift so seldom given and so desperately appreciated.  No matter what this little girl grows up to be, she is likely to feel confident and loved and empowered. 

Redoing

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

T.S. Eliot – Burnt Norton

I suppose a poet is eternally burdened by the "what ifs" and what "might bes" of this world.  When for lack of a chance word, history could be completely different, who wouldn’t want to contemplate changing what was so that what is could be more bearable?

The real questions then become a search for the truth.  Because truth is not just a sentence upon a page, or story passed down from generation to generation.  Truth is a kaleidoscope forever growing and changing depending on who is looking at it.

Altered by the light and constant turning upon the spit of generations, truth pivots like a gyroscope in the eye of a hurricane.  It is not just a mixture of metaphors, but a mingling of eternities whose beginning and end are caught up in the essence of infinity.

Were I to still the hand that hurt you so long ago, what else that I love and treasure might yet be changed?

Longer than awe

I am into my ninth week of this new life style and I still find exercise for the sake of exercise a trial.  Nothing compares with the excitement of going out to play tennis, especially not walking.

I’ve tried walking around the neighborhood and in parks.  I’ve walked at the mall and with friends.  But no matter what I do, it is often all I can do to make myself get up and go out and do it day after day after day. 

I allow myself to take Tuesdays off because that day I am on my feet working in the library, but otherwise I have not missed a day since I began walking thirty minutes.  I’m kind of proud of that, because it sure hasn’t been easy.

Sometimes I can distract myself, but today, for the first time, I found myself truly present to the walk.  It was a day from a child’s coloring book, clear blue skies without any clouds, bright yellow green grass, deep yellow sunlight, dark black shadows.

The shadows were like ephemeral artwork, mimicking the trees and birds on grass and buildings with impressive definition.  The air was so clean and crisp it could have been Fall except for the Spring colors surrounding me.

Pinecones were scattered under their parents as if some artistic hand had placed each one.  Dogwoods held onto their blooms with quiet precision and there was a scent of lilacs that pinned me to one spot for several minutes as I searched for its birthplace, which I never found.

The walk was longer than the awe and my feet were clumsily tired by the time I climbed up the steps to my apartment, but there were certainly moments that made it memorable.

Patience and perseverance

How many parents dream of having a little child prodigy?  A tiny Mozart, or Bobby Fischer, or perhaps a Pele, or Michael Jordan, even another Pavarotti, or Shirley Temple, or Anna Pavlova, we want our children to be extraordinary! 

Perhaps a better question is how many little prodigies are lost because a parent’s dreams sublimate the child’s actual being?  And this goes both ways.  Parents who have so little interest in their child that she is never offered the tools that would allow her to demonstrate her genius; and parents who want a soccer player so badly that junior never hears a violin?

Some children will succeed given unreasonable circumstances, but why take the chance when there is a choice?  All children, especially the “perfect child” need to start out with the basics, eating the right foods, getting enough fresh air and exercise and sleep. This sounds like common sense, but it is surprising how many children are denied this fundamental building block.

Next we teach patience and perseverance.  Almost anything can be achieved with these two skills.

And finally, we provide as broad a base of experiences as possible. There are no surfing prodigies at the North Pole. 

There are rules for chess, positions for ballet, symmetry and perspective in art, instincts to hone in sport.  None of these things can be done without a fundamental knowledge of what they are, so parents need to provide a good solid foundation for whatever a child loves.

Then it is time to sit back and watch.  Patience and perseverance is a prime parenting skill too.

Fear verses love

Quick!  What is the thing that bugs me the most?  Right off the top of my head, not willy wallying around saying it is world peace, or hunger in some far distant country.  What is up close and personal, the thing that creeps up on me when I let my guard down just before I drop off to sleep?

What if I did something differently is there a chance I might improve this situation?

Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  I think most of us would agree with him and yet we often do just that.

I call that hopeful wishing instead of insanity, but the point is still that if I do the same things over and over again I shouldn’t be surprised when I keep getting the same results.

Any long ingrained habit is difficult to change.  In fact, it can be so difficult that I can come up with a million excuses for not even trying rather than admit I am afraid to put my foot down and stop spending money, or over eating, or smoking, or drinking, or even indulging spoiled children.

A bad situation can feel less threatening than change.  Change is really hard!  Contemplating change is frightening because I know there is no guarantee it will work and I also know from experience that the process will probably be long, difficult and painful.

It takes courage and character to do what is right.  It also takes a whole lot of love.  Whether that love is for myself or for someone else, if I can find it, the whole process becomes a lot easier.

Beauty marks

Thank goodness for the people who love me for who I am!

The people who aren’t trying to remake me into anyone’s image except my own.

The ones willing to allow me to be who I am even if it changes moment to moment.

The ones who think the cracks and wrinkles are beauty marks.

These are the ones who persevere along the way.

If there are angels among us, they are surely these people.

The Elixir of life

I have always heard that as people get older, they get wiser. 

I think I just get simpler.

Instead of becoming a great storehouse of knowledge and experiences, maybe I am just being distilled!

Pretty soon all that will be left is the elixir of me!

And then who knows what will happen.

A collection of feelings

I am getting ready to move again.  Having been here almost two years I have accumulated stuff or kept stuff that I brought in my car from North Carolina.  I wouldn’t actually call me a minimalist, but I do like things clean and neat.  My sentimental side, I don’t know if it comes from nature or nurturing, wars with my neatnik side as I choose which things to keep and which to toss.

The original downsizing was simple.  I gave everything to the kids.  It was gone, but not gone!  Then came getting rid of everything I had no attachment to which was pretty easy.  Now for the harder stuff:

I understand some people keep things because of a “waste not want not” position, or because they might not be able to replace it in the future if they need it later on.  I don’t waste water, or electricity, or food, or gas, but with all the thrift stores around I think my cast offs will not be wasted either.  They will simply go to someone else.

And I trust in the universe to provide for me when I am in need as long as I live sensibly most of the time.  It always has so far.

So….I get rid of extraneous belongings once again and, for those of you who are shopping freaks, it is almost the same feeling, but in reverse.  I pour over racks of clothing, sort through closet shelves, dig through drawers and choose items – to get rid of instead of buy, but it is a very similar feeling to the hunter gatherer one that comes when shopping.  I just gather it up and take it to somebody else’s little clutch of stuff.

Priorities

What would be the ideal environment to raise a child in?

Loving, kind, patient, attentive, creative, consistent, well educated, well read, are just a few of the words that come to my mind when I think of a caretaker.

Safe, calm, encouraging, tactilely rich, with opportunities to also use and hear a variety of languages, sounds and music, are the words that I think of when I try to pick the environment.

None of these things require money, although money certainly makes everything easier.  Instead they require someone who takes advantage of what is already here: homes, yards, parks, libraries, and time. 

Nothing replaces time with a child.  No amount of fancy toys, beautiful clothing, or expensive schooling can over ride sitting down and listening and responding to a young child in a way that encourages them to feel safe and loved and free to explore the world around them.

I think the one thing our society falls short in is educating our young people about what is really important in life.  Raising a child is a choice.  If you are going to bring them into this world you should be prepared to make them your number one priority.