Nothing New

I received several emails from people who consider themselves one of those, “more comfortable” folks, telling me what they plan to do for someone!

I don’t know why that was unexpected, but it was. Sometimes I write a thot and no one responds at all. Then, one day, I get the most beautiful responses. Thank you!

This world is so full of people wanting to do the right thing and actually doing it. It is easy to forget this in the midst of all the terrible news each day. I guess it is just so much easier to see what happens from bad things. It makes better news.

Good things are much more subjective.

One day a mother gives her child a quick kiss and hug and he suddenly has a feeling about all the love that is really behind that. From that point on, that simple little act of love is factored out into a world having no idea who started it all! Of course, we really don’t, because at some point the mother got it from someone else who got it from…..

Aesop’s old fable about the lion and the mouse. Nothing new, just something nice to think about.

Attitude

I’ve seen my Muse smile in the face of unbelievable situations. He seems to understand that moaning and groaning only makes things feel worse. I really admire and respect that, while at the same time it breaks my heart to know he’s suffering.

His attitude has surely helped me to improve mine. Still, I wish I could help out. My own son and his family are just starting out and we have worked out a mutually beneficial system of give and take that helps us. They rent their apartment out to me and we share the wireless Internet. I let them use my car since they work overlapping shifts and I watch my grandson while they are both working, or whenever they need a sitter. In return they put most of the gas into my car and mow my lawn. They recently cut my rent by 25% for one month to help me out. It wasn’t easy for them, but I was desperate. Neither of us wants to take advantage of the other, so this works for us.

I had to take a sizable amount out of my 401K yesterday to cover some expenses I could not avoid during the past fifteen months. Moving expenses, a new transmission, catalytic converter, tires and brakes for my car, new refrigerator, economical space heater, and medical bills, are not exactly luxuries in today’s world. It is not something I did easily, nor will I do it again if I can avoid it. My credit card really pushed the issue when, out of a clear blue sky, they nearly doubled my interest rate.

I live as frugally as I know how and so do most people I know, but now is the time to get creative. If you have family, or very close friends you can share something with, now is the time to explore that. All of my children have had live in paying roommates over the years. Biting the bullet and swallowing pride can also come up with other solutions if you have wealthier family members who might hire you instead of the lawn people, or house cleaners, or even as a babysitter for ancient aunt Marilyn. It’s all a matter of attitude. Necessity can actually bring us closer together if we allow it to.

And…if you happen to be one of those more comfortable people, remember when someone reached out to you.

Down With The Drama!

Sometimes I feel like an Alice who, just having emerged from the rabbit hole, discovers herself in the garden facing a man with twinkling eyes and a smiling face. Before him is a simple pot of tea and some beautifully stable tea cups.

I am thirsty for the tea, but my time with the Mad Hatter has made me fearful that time is running backwards and at any moment the Queen of Hearts will jump out, back handing me into the rabbit hole I just came out of.

Taking a tentative step forward I curtsey and ask if I might sit down. The man nods towards the small footstool nearby, indicating that I should join him. As he picks up the pot and pours the tea into the cups, I notice that it has an incredible aroma and I ask him where it comes from.

He says it is simply grown on a bush and then dried out and bagged up to make a tea anyone is able to purchase and drink. I lift the cup to my lips, but just before I take a sip, I think I hear the purring of an invisible cat! Dropping the cup, watching it shatter against the flagstones I am horrified. I am sure I will be punished by the Queen for leaving the hole and the man for breaking his cup.

But he simply reaches down and glues it back together, pours me another cup of tea and hands it to me. Looking up at him I see he is still smiling patiently and I smile back

Who Am I?

I am certainly no hedonist. I don’t really like labels much. It seems they are mostly used as needed, when, sharpened to a point they are turned back against me, pinning me to the wall. I doubt if anyone can describe themselves in one word, or even three. We are complicated creatures. Of course that is the beauty of us.

Under a microscope, pinned against some examining board, I am much less interesting. And much less beautiful, because here is where that old phrase, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, comes in.

If you are looking for age lines, you’ll find them. If you are looking for luminous eyes, you might, or might not, find them, depending on how stressed out you make me feel.

As a youngster, I was beautiful on the outside and the emptiness within was lovely, if undeveloped. Now I am not so beautiful on the outside, but I like to think I am much more interesting on the inside. I’ve had a lifetime to gather data and digest it. There are so many files and sub files labeled me that I wouldn’t know where to begin if I had to describe myself.

The one thing I know for sure is that it could not be one word…….unless……..?

Well, how about fascinating! Or diverse! Or….perhaps I need to remove tongue from cheek and say if you want to know who I am, just talk to me.

Freedom

Isn’t it nice to wake up like a little child and just be glad that it’s morning?

Isn’t it great to walk past a mirror and think the person in it is okay?

Isn’t it fun to laugh with abandon, not giving a thought to whether or not it is sophisticated, or politically correct, or right? And to be able to cry the same way?

Isn’t it awesome to fall in love again and again with life and the world, and the people in it without regard to age, or gender, or race, or anything else?

Isn’t it good to be able to read what is interesting, watch what is fascinating, play with cool toys and feel all the shivers and tingles that go along with these things?

Imagine the freedom to do all this and still have an intelligent conversation with someone who feels the same way?

Spiders and Crocodiles and Alligators!

Last week it was spiders, crawling along the curtains, lurking in the bathtub, big North Carolinian wolf spiders. This week it appears to be alligators and crocodiles. They have shown up, not in person thank goodness, but in three quotes sent to me and in some email correspondence.

Here are two of the quotes I received, I can’t remember the third one.

"Leave a log in the water as long as you like: it will never be a crocodile!" --Proverb (Guinea-Bissau)

“Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet.” Chuck Palahniuk

Most of you who have been with me long enough remember the summer of the snakes. Real life snakes crawling in my yard and one large nest of them I ended up standing in. Alligators don’t particularly care for mountains for which I am grateful.

Whenever an animal appears repeatedly in my life, I like to ponder the aspects which might teach me something. With spiders it is easy, spiders are weavers and I am a weaver of words. I could take that farther and drive my friend who does not believe in anything supernatural crazy, but I won’t.

Instead, I’ll simply move on to the alligators and crocodiles who are both very good mothers. Unlike other reptiles they actually have been known to help their little ones hatch and reach the water. And they are destroyers, powerful dragon like creatures patrolling the banks of the rivers and waters they live in. They are representative of birth and death, beginnings and endings. That feels right.

There are junctures in life where decisions can have life altering consequences. The birth of one set of beliefs leads to the death of others and the battle in between could be a fiery one!

My Eyes Are Twinkling

I sit beside my three year old grandson watching him play Lego Batman. He maneuvers the controls with surprising agility and concentration. Pushing buttons, angling toggles, changing directions and characters, all at warp speed. He asks me to play and I decline. Video games are not my thing, at least none that I have found so far.

Taking one hand off the controls, he continues to play just the same with one. One handed, gesturing wildly with the other, he tries to convince me that I do want to play. I finally ask him if he is going to continue talking to me while he plays. What does he say?

“Indeed I am.” He is too funny.

This is my world right now, not exactly where I expected to be at this point in my life, but it is pretty darn good.

One minute I am wrestling with the dogs, playing video games with my grandson, or teaching him how to cut with scissors. The next I am reading about the Panama Canal and looking at pictures taken today, a thousand miles away. Later on I sit at the computer trying to do a bit of writing and starting to plan for the company coming next month.

And there are other things that fill in the little places so that nothing is left wanting. My heart is full, my eyes twinkling and right now I am strangely content.

Let’s Treat Everyone Equally

I’ve been reading all the political “stuff” for a long time now and I’ve been paying taxes on my meager little earnings a long time too.

What about if instead of raising taxes, we start taxing all those tax exempt places? Lower taxes across the board and make everyone pay, including those who live in large mansions because they do good works?

It is possible to do a lot of charitable work without being affluent. The truly good will still give, the others probably just trade tit for tat by getting a tax break when they give. Let’s separate the grain from the chaff, find out who is on the short list for heaven and who is just cutting their losses.

Benefits would include allowing private schools the same benefits as public ones, minus government subsidizing, let’s make everyone equal. Alright you say, what about all that good the so called charitable corporations do? They can still do it, they will just have to revamp their processes. Start at the top and work down. After all, who put a dollar value on Jesus? I doubt if he was insured for his fiscal worth, and I know he was not put up in a billion dollar mansion.

If you want to go for the burn, give until it hurts, feed the poorest of the poor, I honestly love and honor your desires. I try to give as much as I can in all the ways I can too, but I don’t believe it should be subsidized by the government. It is just too hard to document real good intentions.

Vicarious Vacations

I used to teach preschool with a woman whose family was in the Forbes four hundred. She was one of my friends and the best coworker I have ever had, but the exotic levels of her life style exceeded mine by leaps and bounds. One of our long standing jokes was about my vicarious vacations. Through her I saw Keven Costner working out next door, watched famous paintings being recreated in real life and danced the night away in elegant gowns on many cruises. It was awesome.

I’ve never been on a cruise, although my sister and I often talk about where we will go and just what we’d like to see. We even discuss what we will wear! Who knows, maybe someday my ship will literally come in and we will just up and go!

In the meantime I am on another vicarious vacation and the beauty of these vacations is that I get to view them through another’s eyes and thoughts and feelings. In a way it almost makes up for not being there myself, because a peek into the life of another human being is a writer’s delight.

This time I am getting peeks of Cartagena, Colombia. You know, that city where Romancing The Stone started to get really interesting? A place filled with history that predates our whole country! Soon we will be going through the Panama Canal! Imagine that!

This time via email I see maps and stories as the trip moves along, even better than the old days in some ways. And the pictures! It is one thing to see someone mugging for the camera with their customary cuteness, but something else altogether to see them all decked out in their formal best. They’re almost a little intimidating then!

One thing for sure about vicarious vacations, they certainly eliminate all the sniping that accompanied some of my real ones. These are just one long delight.

Powerful Motivators

My beautician has three degrees, can you imagine that? Yet she prefers to cut hair and work nights at a second job. Or so she says. I cannot imagine anyone preferring to work two jobs, but then I’m not her.

There is a lot of information in those last words, realizing that other people might have totally different thoughts about subjects I consider simple.

Another example is my cousin’s wife. When I met her the first thing she asked was about snakes. Were there many poisonous ones around? Did they get into the house often? Not something your average urban American thinks too much about, but if you grew up in rural Thailand?

We all come from different places. Honoring that is an important part of being a decent human being, because there are bigger and deeper and hairier differences I will be asked to deal with too. A sense of humor, a little effort at understanding, and a sense of perspective are necessary when observing or dealing with what appears to be the obvious.

Remembering that people are prone to exaggerate the truth to make their point is a valid reason to check out all statements before responding. No one is exempted from being double checked. No one. If it is truth, it will hold up and it can afford to wait while you do this.

Malevolent people count on me not doing this when they have an ax to grind, or prejudice to uphold, or feel the end justifies the means. Smiling, or laying down the law are both valid ways of controlling people’s emotions. Love and fear, two powerful motivators.

Another one is religion, which of course includes both love and fear. Doing something in the name of your god or church does not necessarily make it sacrosanct to everyone else. As my father used to say, “Every atrocity in the world can be backed by some religious view somewhere.”

It is up to me to be sure I do not further anything that will harm other people

I Love You

Someday we will all be part of the wind and the rain and the light. And that is okay, because the rain will never cease to fall, nor the wind to blow. And light? Can you imagine a world without the moon, or the stars, or the sun? Lennon can’t. When I say, “Ooh, feel the wind kissing your cheek? He always reaches up and smiles.

Someday this earth will cease to be and then all of this will simply become part of a universe that continues on. There is always something bigger, something more lasting, than what is in the moment, but the moment is where I am now.

It is good to enjoy it, to be allowed to be myself in every way and know that is okay. It is what I want Lennon to learn, to believe. Whoever he is -- I love.

Who you are is what I love about you, so why would I think you feel any differently? Probably because in my experience many people love people for who they think they are and that is just a disappointment waiting to happen.

I would not want to spend my entire lifetime reading one book over and over and I do not want the people I love to be the same either. It is all those nooks and crannies that make you interesting, all those smiles and tears that make you so lovable.

Smiles and tears, sun and rain, life is just one echo after another

Blowing Kisses

“Lennon is upstairs in his bedroom, playing quietly.” These words are half description and half prayer from a very tired Daddy who is unloading the car since Mommy did the driving and went straight to bed. She has to be up for work by seven tomorrow. Daddy doesn’t leave for work until two thirty in the afternoon.

I take just a little too long visiting with Daddy and suddenly he says, “Oh no, we’ve been spotted.” Looking up I see The Lennon staring down at me, long curls framing that bright little face as he waves frantically from his bedroom window.

“Gramma Angell! Up here! Here I am!” He’s absolutely sure that once I know where he is, I will come get him. I already know that he is supposed to be winding down and a trip to Gramma’s is not conducive to that right now, so I wave back, blowing him a kiss.

The face starts to crumple and I call up to him. “I blew you a kiss, did you catch it?” I blow more kisses and there is no doubt he is my grandson. His little hand covers up his mouth as he puts my kisses there. He’s beaming now.

He blows me some and I catch them too, sweeter kisses I’ve never had. We are connected, just as surely as if he was in my arms and we were hugging each other. We have shared a space that only we know how to get to.

Nothing lies between lovers except love. That is a transcendent experience it took me years to understand. Lennon gets it. He already knows that we are never really far apart, never farther than a kiss carrying all that love can blow in an instant.

The Art Of Love

My favorite photos are not those taken by professional photographers, although those can be quite artistic.

I prefer the ones that grab my heart in some way. Ones where the subject is just too cute to ignore, or so radiant that their beauty pours into me and makes me feel like I am glowing. In my opinion these are rare, especially among professionals. Carefully posed photos seldom seem to catch this particular feeling in me

Well loved children, and the occasional adult, are sometimes so steeped in love that it just pours out of them. In theory, anyone could take a great picture of these people. In theory.

I think it is the love bouncing back and forth between photographer and subject that elicits this phenomena. Such a moment, although frozen in time, seems to reach out and pull the viewer right into the picture, allowing them the vicarious feeling of being well loved too.

There is an art here, but I think it is one of loving, not technical prowess, and I think it is also just a bit of luck too!

As I Like It

It was a rainy day, just the way I like, where the clouds hung over the mountains giving them a mysterious look, as if I had been transported to the Himalayas. I was going to take a picture, but was distracted by a huge spider spinning his way down from the back bedroom ceiling and by the time I had dealt with that, I was back in North Carolina. No pictures.

Three days ago “all the leaves were green and the skies were blue,” but by yesterday Autumn’s golden colors were beginning to peek through and this morning I noticed the scarlets and oranges joining them. I love how quickly the colors begin to appear once they start.

Hearing that attitude is everything, I once more approached the big dogs very sotto voce and they seemed to respond. I liked that!

A beautiful day filled with time to read and time to write, good conversations and a good chuckle, or two.

Just the way I like it.

People-Sick

I am so ready for the kids to be home. I miss them, I do, but this dog sitting is starting to become a lesson in love that is harder than I ever imagined.

I just added up: I have let the dogs out at least 70 times in the past two weeks, mopped the floor over 56 times, re-made the big bed five times and shook out the blankets on Lennon's bed nearly every day. I have cleaned up messes of various and incredibly creative sorts for people-sick dogs, washed my hands so many times that my skin is dry and cracking, so when I went to get my medicine out yesterday I split the skin on my thumb and it is throbbing. That means it matches my other thumb that Eben bit through the other day. My toes are bruised and one is bleeding where I walked into a table hurrying to go upstairs to let them out when I woke up late and because of that I wore sandals, then one of them stepped on my bare toes! This morning, Joplin got so excited she jumped up and caught me with her nails, leaving a scratch from my neck half way down to my waist.

I am evidently not a good shepherd of beasts. Thank goodness Chauncey is an only "child."

Please let my sense of humor hold out until tomorrow night!

The Prize For Peace -- Is Peace.

“There is no peace on earth, I said.”

And if some people have their way, there never will be. Peace is not profitable for many very happy people right now.

If you have any doubt then pay more attention.

Dissension at any cost is the battle cry of those losing ground on things they thought were sewn up for the last eight years, but some people in this world have other thoughts.

What is it you really want?

Zippity Do Dah

I remember the first time I ever went to Disney World. I was twenty one and so excited. I think I entered every contest there ever was as a child, trying to win a trip to Disneyland, so this was a really big deal -- finally getting to go to Florida.

Back then I couldn’t wait to ride those oversized teacups and eat dinner at Cinderella’s castle. I had a list a mile long and my husband was very kind. Not once did he tell me how juvenile I was acting. He just took pictures.

I have pictures of me with Little Oscar and the wiener mobile. Pictures of me with Mickey Mouse when he was water skiing. Pictures of me in my big floppy white sun hat and those treasured white sandals hugging people all over the place.

But…the picture I have the fondest memories of, was one of me and Brer Bear! It was the middle of the afternoon and I saw him over near an umbrella table. I rushed over grabbing his hand and telling him how glad I was to meet him, never noticing the long line of children I cut in front of! Looking back, I can’t believe no one yelled at me, or got angry, but Brer Bear just grabbed me up in a huge bear hug and twirled me around. Then he planted a big Brer Bear kiss on my forehead and posed this way while my husband took pictures. Afterwards he hugged me again and waved good bye again and again until I couldn’t see him anymore.

Silly, you say? It certainly was. After all I was no child, but Burl Ives was Grandma’s cousin and I grew up on stories of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and the songs that went with them. All of this just melded together into one silly little girl bursting out of my grown-up body and allowing me to be an exhuberant child again that afternoon so long ago.

Everything I Want

Imagine searching for the perfection you have lived your whole life believing in and discovering that you already have it -- it is just not what you expected.

No one could have told me how fulfilling life could be living this way. My life, a life custom designed for me. I don’t know if it will last forever, most likely it will not. I don’t even know how I fell into this place, but I do know that I am much more than content here.

There is nothing about this life that I was not groomed to have since the day I was born. Perhaps everyone finds a place in the world that is exquisitely designed to fill in all the nooks and crannies they desire and need.

In any case, it has happened to me. Not by riding off into the sunset with Prince Charming and not by retiring on a tropical island with heart wrenching sunrises and heart throbbing oceans pounding on the beach outside my door. Not by following the rules, nor by breaking them either really.

I have reached the mountain top. Living and loving and working, in my own version of once upon a time. I find myself surrounded by everything I want or need. I am in love. Immersed in it, awed by it, fulfilled by it. Who could ask for anything more?

I’ve heard it said in an infinite number of ways, and it always sounds way too simple, but it is true, “Do what you love and all the rest will follow.” I just never believed it could be quite this simple.

This Hole Is Not Empty

A green space, filled with the scent of pine trees and always just slightly damp from the rain. Silent except for the sound of the birds outside the windows, or the dogs in the distance, it calls to me more than I ever imagined it would.

I come here first thing every morning and just before I go to sleep at night. I come many times in between too. Here I find that raison d’etre that all lives need. Not that I don’t have others, this one is just a special place, one that warms my heart and feeds my mind in so many little ways.

Sometimes I sit in the rain, knowing that this water has been around since the beginning and will be here long after I am gone; knowing that it moves across the country touching first one place, then another.

Beside the lake is a small hole that I never pay much attention to. After all, what is a hole except an empty place? At least that is what I thought until a day, or two ago. Now I am discovering this hole is far from empty. It is rich with life, over flowing with so many stories that I bought a book about it. I want to know more.

In the mean time I come here and find a connection to life that makes me smile. Sometimes it even makes me laugh. This is a peaceful place, a beautiful spot to find reflections and warmth in every breath I take.

Aye Aye Captain

One of the great gifts of living alone is a chance to discover my own absolute self worth.

There is no one here to blame anything on and no one to blame anything on me. The world simply is. I get all the credit and all the blame right now. For the first time in my life I truly answer only to myself.

It took a while to understand this whole concept. I went from being dependent on my parents, to being dependent on my husband. Then I put myself into an adoring relationship for a few years where the dependency was self perpetuated.

The first big step into freedom is scary. It is sort of like growing up all over again. There is a slight rebellious phase where a little acting out and experimenting is necessary and then there is the long road to the truth.

Every day I learn a little more about who I am and who I am not and the miraculous thing is that I am learning either one is simply information. Not good, not bad, just data that when combined and plugged into this brain of mine, compiles this creature called me.

I really am the captain of my own ship and that is sort of exhilarating. No one rings the matins bell, no one wields the cat-o-nine tails. No one makes me eat lima beans, or cooks my dinner. If I want to eat, I must prepare the table before me myself. If I have a problem, it is up to me to find a solution, but I don’t have to worry that I will be graded on my decision.

I can ask for advice, or I can simply choose not to tell anyone what is going on and deal with it myself. Wow, a lot of freedom, a lot of responsibility, but what an adventure it is turning out to be!

One Dark Night In the Middle Of The Mountains

Let me set the scene for you.

Midnight in the mountains. Cold, rainy, dark, and likely to stay this way for the next couple of days, but the dogs have to go out. They need to go out now because? Because I want to sleep in, in the morning. And, because they have not been out for nearly seven hours. And because Duke cannot go much longer than this without an accident.

So here I am, standing in the rain watching my shadow’s naturally curly hair grow wilder and wilder by the moment. The dogs? They’re all wedged into the dry space between the screen door and the door jamb. They are not coming out. They think I’m nuts.

I whisper sweet threats into six deaf ears and finally pull out the pièce de résistance. Beggin’ Bits! I’ve been whispering so I don’t stir up all the neighboring dogs, who are not so lucky as these three wimps. Those dogs live outside, but now chaos reigns!

My three shoot out of the door like greased pigs who have finally hit maximum compression, only they are not grunting and squealing. They are barking, big, loud, deep woofs, that set off every dog within miles of here.

Joplin hits my chest, but luckily Duke hits me from behind at that exact same moment, so I am saved from a tumble into the puddle behind me. It is Eben who does the most damage. Her nose scents the treat in my fingers and goes straight for the prize, catching me with her teeth, puncturing my thumb nail and causing me to spew out words a grandmother should not know into the suddenly silent night.

Grabbing my thumb, I look surreptitiously around, hoping no one else is outside, then slink in to clean up the stuffed purple bat one of them chewed up and shredded all over the house. I turn out the aquarium lights, ignoring Hugh Laurie, the giant Jack Dempsey who wiggles up to the top hoping for another treat and grab a towel so I can wipe off twelve wet muddy feet.

Now I can’t sleep and my sacred hours are ticking away before I have to do this all over again!

My Thots, the flip side

Metaphors flood me as I try to write about those teachers who taught me what not to do and be. They are important too. In fact, they can leave an incredible imprint.

One frightening thing about them is that they often come from a misguided sense of love. Ideas like, “as the twig is bent, so does the tree grow,” or “spare the rod and spoil the child, “ or tough love makes us strong. Like topiaries, these are not bad ideas, but they can be bent into shapes that have no resemblance to the actual plant.

Fear is a powerful emotion. Fears that we don‘t have enough, or might not be enough, can be taught in backhanded, destructive ways masquerading as good advice, or wisdom. For example, rather than teaching someone what to do, do it for them so they don’t screw it up. Imagine all the things that teaches?

Osmosis is a silent teacher. A fear of doctors and dentists, teachers or policemen, illness or death, aging or poverty, the unknown, or unfamiliar; never voiced, but as clear as the actions that perpetrate them, can disable generations.

Teachers come in many guises, but sometimes it takes a lifetime to figure them out. Woe to those who never realize there are reverse teachers in life, the ones you need to outgrow, or shed, or morph out of.

They do present an opportunity, though, a chance to look at the unpalatable with love and by understanding, perhaps dissolve it.

Life Upon My Way

Teachers. I have had some of the best. A few life altering ones and so many others that to draw pictures of them all would require a Tibetan mandala with heroic intricacies.

Starting of course with my parents, my gentle child-like parents who were so unprepared for this world. Yes, even my mother, auburn haired demon goddess that she was, was too gentle for this world. My Parents showed me love. No two people could have loved each other more.

My children owe a great deal of my softer and most accepting side to my friend and teacher, Teamaker. Her immense patience and her beautiful soft ways taught me mothering of the highest order. After her came the Earth Mother who kept me grounded and helped me get a running start into the world of teaching. And then there was the Rose, whose Brooklyn upbringing and ex-nun status made her just perfect for kicking my butt into the world of spirituality.

My dear dear Shams brought it all together into a world of Rumi and Lao Tzu and T.S. Elliot. He showed me how to suck the juice out of every single second, to find the Love and stay in it no matter what. Because of him I have been places and done things so extraordinary and rich that even kings and popes and wizards would be jealous if they understood. He taught me how to find the still point and dance there forever.

I have been blessed by some of the most incredible teachers in this world and it appears that this is not going to end soon. Even now, high up here on a North Carolina mountain, I have met two new ones. One who you know as the Muse and one you don’t know, but who touches me almost daily with his remarkable perception, kindness and wisdom. He reaches out with an invisible hand and offers me the chance to join him in his ordinary pursuit of extraordinary goodness.

All good people, unbelievable human beings, who do what great teachers have done since time began. They teach by being, by living and working and showing me how it is done. They are the perfect manifestation of what a teacher should be…can be… is

Home -Made

Productive week for me! Lennon dictated a story before he left and I turned that into a book for when he gets back.

I did less complicated things for my own children and of course we had lots of dictated stories in preschool, but this is different. There are couch cushions to lift, flaps to peek under, heads to slide, but most importantly are the words. They’re his.

There is just nothing like seeing your own words in print.

I made some cards and of course I let the dogs out umpteen million times, fed the fish and finally found the cat hiding in the old garage. All present and accounted for.

It’s getting cold. I brought in the spider plant, made some home-made chicken soup, then froze most of it.

My house smells like fall. The neighbors are burning already, the soup makes my house smell like my mother’s did when I came home from school and I’m starting to batten down the hatches.

It never gets horrendously cold here for very long, but it is down in the low forties at night now, so time to throw an extra quilt on the bed. I guess if it got really cold before the kids got home I could have a four dog night, but I’m not sure we’d all survive it!

My Blessing

Oh, Pygmalion, I understand your fears and thoughts. What I do not understand is why I should become the next recipient of Aphrodite’s blessing. What have I done to receive this gift whose simple existence fills me with light like none other has ever been known to do?

No simple Galatea for me. I have been given a Muse so ethereal that the simplest thought brings him to me. His body, a work of perfection. His face, surely the mold that all things beautiful come from. His eyes, oh those extraordinary eyes, filled with a sweetness that cannot possibly be of this earth.

He comes to me and takes my thoughts, gently weaving them in and out of tales whose complexity and depth could only come through one sent by the gods.

He is the sun upon my face, the light that lingers in the afternoon, the stars that twinkle in the heavens above me. His fingers hold my heart to keep it from exploding. His hands touch my soul in some daring deep mystery.

I listen in every moment for the thoughts that flow into me and barely a word passes that does not bring him to mind. Yet we come from separate worlds whose only connection flows through the beauty of a blessing.

By The Hour

I began working on a small project today about four o’clock. I finished and looked up to see it was nearly nine o’clock! Not an uncommon thing for me.

It did make me think, though. If I were only paid by the hour, how rich I would be. Well, compared to how rich I am not right now. I won’t make any money at all off of this project. I never expected to. It is simply a work of love.

That’s the beauty and the problem with most of my work.

Transitions

Death is a difficult subject in our society. We have sanitized it so much that we lose sight of the fact that both birth and death are a natural part of living. It has become something doctors and “others” step in and take over for so many people.

I had the opportunity to care for someone who was dying and even after she died, we washed her body and dressed her and sat with her and her family and our friends for a while before the undertakers came to take her away. Somehow that death felt like the transition it was. It was peaceful and sweet. Sad, but comprehensible.

My mother’s death was terrible. She was whisked away on an airplane to another city. I arrived and was only allowed to see her for five minutes twice during the night before she went into surgery. Then they came and said she was dead. I never saw her again until she was embalmed and so different that I barely recognized her. It was very hard to understand that the woman who gave me birth and was later one of my best friends, was gone at the age of 58. It was now you see her. Now you don’t.

I know I don’t want to suffer and linger in pain my last days. No extraordinary means should be used, except pain medicine. I’d like to die as naturally as possible for everyone’s sake.

Still I know that if someone I loved was dying, it would be very hard for me not to want them to try everything they could to stay alive. It is one thing to die, but to let go is something that requires an extraordinary amount of love.

The Power And The Pain

Funny how I always think of Lennon. I think of those hands, those wonderful hands and all the possibilities they hold within them. I think of his eyes, gentle and curious, still so innocent and so sweet, his exuberance, his simple way of accepting everything. My world is infinitely better because of him.

I am so lucky. My life is like the ocean. I am carried along on one wave after another and just when I think I might drown, it lifts me up into the light and dazzles me with something totally unexpected. Of course there are the times I have found myself up against the jagged rocks and painful pinnacles of a dark, or dangerous obstacle, but those times eventually pass and when I can look back on them, they generally have something to teach me.

If I am honest, most of the changes in my life have been the result of something I did, or did not, do. There is power and pain in that knowledge. Power knowing that I can change things. Pain knowing that the options are not always good ones and that sometimes I might make better choices.

Either way it encourages me to get out there and do something when the going gets rough. The slightest movement on my part has been known to carry me a very long way. It’s always worth a try.

Some of my worst times have laid the way for some of the best. Lennon came at the end of a dark and painful period. Truly the light at the end of the tunnel, always in the light, always full of light, always there just being himself.

Talk about lessons!

Time To Let The Dogs Out!

The kids are on vacation, this time for two weeks and that means I am on dog duty.

I live in a separate house below the big house. To go upstairs means going outside, through my yard and up the hill to the deck. That is where the big dogs live. Three large tail wagging, mongrels who guard the kingdom when everyone else is gone.

First came Eben, an Australian Shepherd who arrived as a tiny puppy nearly six years ago. She is Einstein in a dog suit. Eben could carry on a conversation with me if her teeth and lips were only designed to do so. She is fickle and a bit spoiled.

Next came Duke, an English Springer spaniel mix with thick bones and eyes that could melt the hardest heart. Except for his former owner who mistreated him terribly, breaking his legs and starving him until my son and his wife rescued all ninety pounds of him. An alpha male, he is an awesome dog who Lennon fell on and over as an infant without any problems at all, he sleeps whenever and wherever he chooses, oblivious of bouncing beach balls, or flying super heroes.

Last came Joplin, a large pit bull, pointer mix who was dumped on the highway and brought home by two very soft hearted new owners. Terrified of men in the beginning, she won her place when a rat got into the house and she pounced on it snapping its neck and laying it at my son’s feet. She is big and strong and still a little fearful, so that makes her a slight risk. Sometimes she has to wear a soft muzzle to remind her not to snap at the other dogs, or us, but she is always very apologetic and heartbroken when she forgets.

All three are trained to follow certain commands and to never defy Lennon. Before he was three he could order them to the bedroom and close the door, but they are dogs and they are excitable and right now they get lonely for their people. That’s where I come in.

Duke is getting senile and tends to piddle on the kitchen floor if I wait too long to go upstairs. Then it takes piles of paper towels to soak up that river--not fun. Joplin and Eben become very competitive for attention and tend to play games about whether or not they want to go out. I use random reinforcement with some liver treats to keep them on their toes.

Still when I first open the door of the laundry room and step in, all three tear towards me leaping and barking like giant puppies, sometimes nearly killing me with kindness and joy. I’m getting smarter, now I walk in with one knee out, shouting, “Down!”

The only real problem is me. Schedules are not my thing and this requires some regularity if I don’t like floor mopping.

The Game

Closing my eyes, breathing deeply, I merge into this moment. Listening, allowing the sounds and scents to fill me, flow through me, carry me away into another time, another place.

The rain patters gently against the open window. Soft rain, cozy, a million tiny reasons to gather closely, to avoid this wetness that we love! The fall breeze carries it inside and I feel the earthy coolness against my skin, smell the familiar dampness as it permeates every memory, wait for the sweet anticipation of what is to come.

Leaning back I feel the air gently flowing through me. In my nose and out my mouth, leaving an after taste that cannot be here, but I want to be here. That mysterious knowledge of another human being sharing the same breath, the same taste, the same space.

Straining to hear, I know the next sound will be sock-soft steps shuffling gently across the carpet. Floating towards me on the soap scented mists of a sacred shower still dripping drops. That place my feet stand every day with gratitude. A place where tears and water become one sweet shower of thoughts and memories.

The savoring game, how it reaches out, pulling me in, leaving me addicted to my own thoughts, my own memories, never more than a breath away. Called up by the magical mixing of wind and weather, rain and water in a world still living and loving all around me. A game that leaves me smiling and content except for tonight when a distant radio is turned up and that song tears me apart like it has never done before.

Too vulnerable, too open, to play these games tonight. Balance relies on the music being silent, its weight not tipping the scales. The music pierces my heart, too rich to be simply savored, but the rest? It is always the same.