White Tailed Deer

Crisp Autumn days are made for hiking.

Pull on layers of clothing, a pair of warm mittens and sturdy shoes then just go!

The woods really are lovely dark and deep and they are filled with surprises.  Leaves of every imaginable hue drift slowly to the ground. 

The wind soughs over the prairies grasses and gray choppy waters of the lake, but the creeks are dried up and make perfect places to walk when dead falls block the trails.

We got lost.  It's hard to see the trail with such a deep carpet of leaves already on the ground and we startled two big white tailed deer.  At first they looked like huge dogs, or even coyotes or wolves.  It's easy to let your imagination get carried away out there, but as their heads popped up, they twisted in the air and leaped away, white tails twitching straight up as they disappeared.

And we used the sun to find our way back to the car, colder, tireder, happier, because we had seen them.

Firsts

There are so many firsts in the world and most of them are worth celebrating!

First word, first step, first day of school…..

First driver’s license, first day of college, first degree…

First date, first job and if you’re a real hard worker…..

First book!

I just received my friend’s first book.  I helped a little with the editing so I am celebrating my first acknowledgement!

The only reason I’m not framing that page is because I don’t want to deface the book, but I have a picture of it on my desktop and it makes me smile every time I turn on the computer.

I don’t think you ever outgrow firsts.

Camelot

Living in Camelot is alarmingly awesome.

I have to force myself not to remember that this too will pass, just like the bad things in life will.

All things are transitory.  It is the nature of being.  Only a dream can remain the same, but then don’t the Ojibway believe that this is the dream world?

Maybe it can last!  Maybe I will live out the rest of my years in this beautiful place and then slip on into the bliss of eternity barely knowing because I am already so happy.

On the face of an angel

There is nothing sweeter than the face of a sleeping child.

It makes me remember how deeply good they are, how they reach out to others and truly care. 

Children do so many jobs gladly, finding the love that eludes grown ups.

They live each moment with a sense of joy most of us ache for so is it any wonder that when I gaze upon a child’s face in sweet repose I am reminded of everything beautiful and good in this world?

The rosy flush upon the sleeping cheek, the gentle smile that whispers across those soft lips, the way they stretch and cuddle – makes my heart swell until I think it might explode.

Horror and Hugs

Watching movies is simply recreation for me.  So is reading.  Yet occasionally I end up involved in things that are a bit heavy and my mind enjoys the chance to step out of its usual rut for a while.

I am reading The Inferno and last night I watched a horror film.  Neither one are typical fare for me.  If I was my mother I would not have let me watch that film.  It was way too dark for me and I only kept watching out of curiosity.

All night long I had disturbing dreams, really disturbing dreams!  In fact, they are still hanging over me like a dismal net full of tiny bits of flotsam dulling my day.

Waking up has been a combination of relief and desire to diffuse that anxiety.

I need a rug rat – quick!  Someone to hold in my lap and cuddle close!  Last night I skyped with my grandchildren, saw their pumpkin hats on their tiny smiling faces.

That is much closer to my idea of Halloween!

Diseney esque

Believing that what goes around comes around is a sweet thought and a good one, but my life receives so much more than I ever give that I seriously doubt this old axiom.

It is true that I have gone through some bad times, maybe even as bad as I was able to handle on occasion, but always  -- Always  -- there have been good things sprinkled within those times.

And right now my life is so beautiful that I know I have never done anything to merit this.

The closest I can come to explaining it is the Disney movie where Bambi frolics in the woods with Thumper and Thumper is so adorable everyone wants to pick him up and cuddle him. 

The birds flutter in the sunshine over my head.  Fluffy tailed squirrels chase each other in the park when I walk.  Even the squirrel at the tennis courts sits in Disney esque cuteness watching me chase balls.

When life is this sweet I am almost afraid to breathe, but I do…

In and out in constant thanks for the beauty of the moment.

You are the provider

Having lived my life under the general auspices of affluence, it would be easy to believe that the universe provides for worthy souls.

Yet it obviously does not provide for an awful lot of people in this world and while it might be easy to say they do not choose to live well, that would be a cop out.  Small children dying of starvation and disease have not earned that state.

Human beings make up lots of stories about why things happen, why things are the way they are, how to circumvent the bad things.

The truth is more likely that we are often a self-serving, greedy, thoughtless group of creatures who choose to opt for the safety, comfort and power of our own families above all others.

The stories make us feel better about that.  They justify the intolerance and hate, the prejudice and injury we inflict on everyone else.

As election time draws near we are going to hear more and more stories justifying bad behavior and insane beliefs, but we are adults now.  It is time to put away our childish faith in absolutes and realize that the world depends on each of us to make it what it is.

Stick around

I remember thinking that life was basically over at 50.  The children were raised and gone.  The increase in my weight was matched by an almost constant decrease in health.  I began to burrow in for the long cold years of old age.

Surrounded by the elderly from a very early age I had definite preconceived notions about living and what life was all about.

Now, assuming that I will live to be about 99, I am discovering that life is divided into thirds, or at least mine seems to be.

The first third was spent trying to grow up and get settled.  I wasn’t particularly good at that.

The next third was bringing up my children.  I like to think I was pretty good at that.

This last third is turning out to be well worth waiting for!

The children are grown and have children of their own.  My health seems to have taken a turn for the better.   I can pretty much make ends meet financially.  I have meaningful work to do and time to do it. 

Instead of forcing me to dig in and begin the descent into oblivion, the universe has seen fit to send me love and joy beyond anything I could ever have imagined.  I am so glad I stuck around for this part!

Grace comes in unlikely parcels

 The ineffable beauty of the unknown rises from the mist of milestones marking the way.

Memories to strum by

When we are together I don’t notice the weather

The heat or the rain or the cold

But let me remember, this in December

When those times begin growing old.

I miss your sweet arms here the words in my ear near

So soft and so sweet and so bold

Watching scary movies dear, has become so very clear

Cause shivers are reasons to hold.

And stories at bedtime leave me feeling sublime

So sleepy as my arms enfold

Memories of the last time, when you’d climb in next to mine

And dreamtime gently took a hold.

When we are together I don’t notice the weather

But tonight I am feeling so cold.

My Place

“Everything in its own time.”

I heard this phrase from a friend yesterday, read it three times in my book, heard it on the television.

Is the universe speaking to me?

Am I listening?

Yes I am.

The sun rises every morning whether I see it or not.  Water flows downhill everywhere in the world.  There is a beautiful symmetry to this living.  It shows up in constants across the board, but I just don’t always notice it.

Sometimes the time frame is larger than my vision, the plan beyond my comprehension.  I think because I don’t see it that it doesn’t exist, or I used to think that.

Now I am starting to get a peek at the real miracles.  Over striving, thinking I am a necessary part of every little detail is both right and wrong. The world will continue quite nicely without my intervention, and enabling, and rending of my garments and hair.  There are enough people creating drama and dissension to keep the negatives flowing for a million years.

But I do have a place and I do have a calling to do what I do best.  Knowing what that is is the real quest in life.  Slipping quietly into my little place on the wheel means I will be at the right place at the right time and whatever happens is meant to be.

It is necessary to make room for the gifts that lie along the way and have faith that they will slip into my life when it is time.

Once upon a time

Dreams!

They can go from once upon a time to nightmares at the drop of a window making it a blessing to wake up.

I am amazed at how much better real life is than dreams, or at least my dreams and my real life right now.

That is saying a lot because I can imagine some pretty wonderful dreams.  Of course those are daydreams, tiny plays scripted and directed by me in my waking state.

Written by my subconscious they become frightening and confusing.  If I didn’t know better I wouldn’t even think they were mine, but they are.

I suppose it could be like Scrooge said, “an undigested bit of beef,” or, since I haven’t eaten any of that, or much of anything else lately, just the rumbling of my thoughts.

When life is too good to be true I start waiting for the other shoe to drop and when it doesn’t?  

All my old insecurities plot out a terrorist attack that flies in through the windows of my dreams and assaults me there!  It makes me wonder if I have some hidden need to suffer!

Maybe I need to make a dream catcher!  Then all my nightmares will get caught up in a web of love and I can get on with the business of real life.

Here I am living the dream and it, too, is as confusing as the sleeping one.  Not because it is frightening, but because it is the real once upon a time.

For once in my life reality is better than any dream could ever be.

The Hardest Part

Brown and yellow leaves swirl around me like Autumn snow and it might be depressing if the sound track of my life was not playing in my ears and a bright red leaf did not appear as if by magic to land right above my heart.

This is the stuff of my life now.  Fairy tale walks listening to music created especially for me.

Coming home I eat lunch and doze in my chair while the earth rumbles and quakes in the throes of a thunderstorm.  It always rains on important days in my life.  I don’t know why that is, but I like it.  Thunder and lightning, rain pattering against my windows, I sit snugly under the knitted cover of my favorite throw and life tells me it doesn’t get much better than this.

But it does! 

Modern technology slips in through the mist of my nap and I am awakened by a call inviting me to Skype!  Skype!  Skype!  It sounds like maybe Pegasus is about to come galloping through the thunder and lightning and land on my porch.

But instead I go to the computer and the face gazing back at me stuns me with its beauty.  Whatever name I attach to it, we have known each other forever and the next hour is flooded with joy…

Old English, Middle English, Canterbury Tales and the hardest part is remembering that I am in the Heartland on a simple fall day in 2012.

Different by design

As a child I had no idea that everyone was different by design.  I believed I was supposed to be a clone of who I thought my mother and grandmother were.  I thought the differences were flaws. 

It has taken me a long time to find myself hidden away in these flaws, because coming out of such a firmly established shell is not encouraged by most of the people I’ve known in my life.

No one ever stood on the sidelines and cheered for me.  Instead they held a carefully monitored checklist so I would know what needed changing and I tried to change those things.  I tried so desperately, because I knew the list holders were there out of love.

It’s a strange thing, this love that needs to bend and shape and control.  For a sensitive child it is a soul killer. 

I still often find myself feeling like a turtle scooped out of its shell.   My skin prickles with feelings, my eyes mist over at the drop of a hat, there is a knot in my throat and my heart sometimes feels like it is caught in a vise, but that is who I am.  

Learning to live with these things has taken me a long time.  Learning to accept and love them has taken even longer. 

I am who I am.  Not like most of the people I know and yet fundamentally the same in so many ways.  I want to be loved and appreciated, to know I bring joy to those I love, to believe that who I am has value in some way.

Shedding my self-loathing is immensely liberating, almost a third of me has disappeared, but it is a part I don’t miss at all!

Precious

From your hand to mine…it passed almost inconsequentially.

I put it away quickly because I could barely think about it without remembering what was to come.

Now it has become so precious because I can barely think about it without remembering what was.

From your hand to mine…I never touch it with my hands, or eyes, or heart, without thinking of that.

Reflections

Imagine a photograph of a reflection.

Within this picture each reflection holds another reflection.

Although it is not very good by photographic standards it still manages to spark more reflections of a deeper and richer sort inside of me.

Gazing into this picture I re-experience ineffable moments, moments many might find unbelievable, but...

I don’t really need a photograph to do this. 

These moments indelibly etched into my being forever more; might have been there forever before.

 

Extraordinary

Passion is the safety net that lies between a humdrum life and an extraordinary one.  It keeps tossing you back into the game no matter how many times you slip out.

But the secret is to find that passion.

Our society hands out dreams in little cellophane wrappers and people gobble them down by the handful.  You need to stick a finger down your throat; upchuck all those dreams that belong to someone else and make room for your own.

Don’t be afraid to be yourself.  There’s a reason you are you!   You don’t need to know what it is to be it.

Life is too short to roll out of bed in the morning more tired than when you lay down.  Dive into life, drink deeply and you will find what it is that sparks your soul. 

Passion is better than the fountain of youth!

Remember

Turtles are the animal most people think of when they think of me.  It took me years to discover that turtles were attaching themselves to my life, but when I finally did I realized how significant that was.

I carry my home with me.  Ever since I was a small child, home was wherever my family was and the places I liked best were small and cozy, like all six of us being packed into the car at night.  Now that I’m older it becomes even more significant.  I am at home when I am with people I love and I like my world best when it feels solid and safe.  Any kind of dissension makes me want to crawl into my shell and hide away.

However, there was another animal associated with me from the time I was very very young. Owls fascinated me almost before I was old enough to remember.  My father took me to the zoo just to see one when I was barely three and I remember standing in front of a glass fronted cage trying to talk to him.  “Who.  Who.  Who are youuuuu?”  The story goes I didn’t even want to see the other animals that trip. 

It was a huge white owl that sat on a fence post in central Illinois one Fall day that drew me into an strange little adventure and another big owl up in a tree during a snowy day hike with my sister that led me to rent a house in the country.

This past weekend my brother was telling me about a screech owl that has moved into his yard and it made me remember how terrified I was the first time I heard one of those.  Like coyotes howling on dark prairie nights, screech owls draw a primal fear up from the depths of my being.  It is like they are warning me of something I cannot yet see.

This week I am reminded again that owls are here to warn us, to remind us, to make us remember that this world is far from being sane and safe.

From the Owl Report:
Remember Matthew Shepard, December 1, 1976 - October 12, 1998   

The Gift

It lay there, a simple box wrapped in fancy paper and tied with a big bow.  The card on top said, “For you.”

Lots of people came by and looked at it.  A few even opened it up and peeked in, but most of them simply closed the lid quickly and walked away, embarrassed to have been caught looking.

Only one person lifted the lid up, lay it on the table next to the box and, smiling, allowed what was inside to come out.

To this day there are people who will swear the box was empty and others who only blush when asked what they saw.

But I am eternally grateful to the one who set me free.

All Time

Time existed before man was around to try and squeeze it onto a graph that has a beginning and an end. 

It will be here long after any definitions of it cease to exist.

An event occurs within time, but which time?  The instant it occurred?  The moment it is recalled?  Within the boundaries where it altered what was, or is, or could be?

My thoughts draw upon my experiences, coloring them, shading them, weaving new thoughts in and out of them, creating the fabric of my life in this moment.

My life, my time, only appears to be linear.  I am everything I was or ever will be and if you have eyes to see that you walk among the gods of all time.

It can happen to you

I love stories like Pygmalion and Pinocchio, or even the Velveteen Rabbit.  The idea that love makes you real feels right to me.  Most of us are created out of love, or at least born into love.

It may not be possible to carve the perfect person out of a block of stone, or wood, or even stuff them so full that they can be held and hugged and expect them to turn into someone real, but until the world steps in and begins chipping away at them and they begin growing armor plating to protect themselves, most children are sweet and cuddly and warm my heart more than I can ever believe.

Still it would be fun to create my own soul mate.  Carving him into the perfect shape and relying on Fate, or Blue Fairies, or Venus, or Anyone to make him real!

He would be cuddly and sweet, honest and brave, playful and brilliant!  He would be as big as me with the soul of a child and the mind of a god! 

What was it Disney said?

“Fairy tales can come true.  It can happen to you if you’re young at heart.”

Millennia in a moment

Drops of dew lie like tears on the face of the rose and I think I know how it feels.

It is an overwhelming warmth of feelings that cannot be expressed in any other way.  Squeezing the heart until it feels it must burst forth in some sort of ecstatic manifestation.

The rose finds it impossible not to lean into that light, to draw strength and security from it, to imbue it with everything that is good and pure and true.  And the sun cannot stop itself from leaning down to bury its nose in the beauty of such perfection.

The rose and the sun, two separate and totally unique entities, brush up against each other and the world sighs.  That brief moment in time is filled with a soft warmth and scent so delicate and so real that it continues to expand throughout an entire lifetime.

The still point from which everything else springs, comes softly, millennia in a moment, the essence in each glistening drop.

Terrible tails told at timely times

It is October, time for goblins and ghoulies, but I think this is the time of year when Peter Rabbit must have crawled into Mr. MacGregor's cabbage patch, because everything in the garden was up and ready to be eaten or picked.  And that is really a scarier tale than you might think.  It is a story of subterfuge and intrigue that seldom gets told around nursery fires anymore.

Peter rabbit scrambled under the fence and hid among the strawberries until he thought it was clear.  Then he saw the back door!  Poor little Peter was so curious that he hopped into the kitchen and there on the table was a long yellow thing.

Having never seen a banana before, he snatched it from the bowl and while he was running back out the door, accidentally ripped the peel off.  So it was that Peter Rabbit discovered bananas and became so engrossed with them that he never heard Mr. MacGregor coming at all!  That first time Mr. MacGregor only took him home to his mama and told her what a bad little bunny he was.

The next time, poor Peter was chasing butterflies with his great big paws, batting them around like tennis balls when Mr. MacGregor caught him and once more dragged him home where he told Flopsy, Mopsy and his brother, Cotton Tail, how easy it was to dupe the grown-ups.

So Cotton Tail, thinking he had both his mama and Mr. MacGregor figured out as push overs, sneaked around the garden eating his fill of spinach and red peppers and onions until he was such a fat little bunny his cotton tail wouldn't fit under the fence and Mr. MacGregor was very unhappy.  He began to chase him, yelling and screaming until it scared him so badly he hid under a flower pot.  When he got caught he tried to pass himself off as Peter.

But the truth is really quite different.  Cotton Tail couldn't even begin to squeeze under that fence and Mr. MacGregor had to carry him home to his mama who was quite put out with him.  She talked to the old woman in the shoe, then spanked her little Cotton Tail soundly and put him to bed!

And so it was that Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter had blackberries and cream -- not Cotton Tail who was told to stay out of the garden and never to try to pass himself off as Peter again!

Wishing

"When you wish upon a star" most grown-ups don't expect anything at all to really happen, but sometimes wishes come true.

Sometimes something so perfect and so amazing happens that you don't even know how to talk about it...and so you don't! 

You just count your blessings and live in the miracle, enjoying something a lot of people never have a chance to experience at all.

Moments like these can't be manufactured, or owned, or ever forgotten.  They alter a life forever more because from then on you know that wishes can come true.

The stuff of dreams

Back to college! Imagine having a chance to sit in on classes you never even heard of when you were a kid!  Watching The Jazz Singer and King Kong and talking about Alfred Hitchcock!  That was the stuff of dreams when I was young.

But not tonight. 

Today I drove down a river road and saw a beautiful white egret wading in the water's edge, then I toured the oldest town in Louisiana!  Beautiful old homes and unbelievable tree shaded streets right out of the movies and speaking of movies, I saw the house from Steele Magnolias!

I walked among prize roses and looked at beautiful art.

I got lost and was found!

My life is the stuff of dreams now.

The Deep South

The deep south!  Things I have only read about really do exist here in amazing technicolor and 3D! 

Driving along I saw what looked like white dust bunnies along the sides of the road, then glancing up I saw a whole field of white!  In Illinois that means snow.  Here it was cotton!  Cotton as far as I could see and not just one boll on a plant, but lots of them, like snapdragons on a stem.  Amazing!

There are trees that stand up like giant sprays and even the possibility of alligators in the ditches which I understand are part of the bayou!

And it's dark down here!  At least at night, but it is beautiful and quaint  too. 

I got lost tonight, but the people are very friendly and helpful.  It's been an interesting trip with towns like Boomtown, Arkadelphia, Texarkana, Natchitoches...and the pronunciation is not what you might expect.

I have been east and west and even north, but this is the first time in my life I have really been into the deep central southern part of our country.  It is different.  But I stand in the window looking out and I am charmed.

The best laid plans

It's been one of those days. 

I worked in the school library where some of my smallest people don't speak English and some can't even tell me their own name!  Then I picked up my medicine, packed my clothes and set off on an adventure!

As adventures have a tendency to do, nothing went as planned.  I ended up eating at a Cracker Barrel because the choices were that or MacDonalds, but I only ate half of what they gave me and I didn't order that pumpkin custard I wanted to try so badly!

I also didn't stay at a hotel or motel there because it seemed like such a busy and drab area.  That was a big mistake.  Little did I know I was on the edge of the wastelands!  There wasn't another hotel or motel where I felt safe parking my car and you can't stay someplace if your car is afraid.  Instead of driving a few more miles, I drove a few more hours and now I'm going to get to the place I have reservations at tomorrow in time for lunch!

I can't cancel those without paying for them so I"m staying there anyway, but that means I still won't arrive at my final destination one minute earlier than I originally planned. 

But I am enjoying the driving when it's not raining.

And I can't wait until I arrive!

Filled to the brim and over flowing

Love is powerful.

It coaxes me into situations I never dreamed of before and forces me to leave when it is the last thing I want to do.

It lifts me up and pulls me down, twisting me around like a tornado on the flat plains of Illinois leaving debris all through my life.

But what beautiful debris it is, the stuff of art and creation!  The stuff stories are made of that would never have existed without love.

At its worst, love raises perception to the nth degree, making every little thing a matter of great importance.

At its best, it shows me humanity’s most beautiful traits.  How different people can both perceive and give all the love they have in totally different ways and still find peace together because they understand that.

When one cup is filled to the brim by another and both are overflowing, anything is possible.