CELEBRATE!

How do you celebrate the good times in your life; the smile-inducing memories?  All the years I spent doing fun-run events, marathons and triathlons, mark some of my favorite personal achievements.  Not that I ever came in first or even finished in the top ten; I certainly did not!  But I saw improvement in my abilities for a time and learned a lot about myself.  

In order to do triathlon I learned how to swim properly and ride a bike with clipless pedals.  I gained personal bests in 5K and 10K events.  And, without realizing it, I was keeping MS in check.  MS was there, lurking, during those years, showing up as a persistent lack of stamina that I could never overcome.  An MRI for a stubborn headache revealed evidence of “demyelinating disease” while I was training for my next triathlon.

I have a couple of notorious closets here at home that contain things untouched for a while; okay, years.  Maybe even a decade ... or more.  

In one of these deserted chambers dwell my treasured running memorabilia.  T-shirts, finishers' medals and swag, camel-backs and clip-on food pouches.  There’s even a foil thermal blanket handed out at a marathon finishing line.  All of them, hard won emblems of my years of fun runs and weekend warrior-ship!  I’ve even kept every bib number I’ve ever worn in a large photo album.  Priceless stuff.  

What to do with my trinkets and sentimental keepsakes?  The t-shirts in particular, are dear to me as evidenced by the pile of them that have lived in a far corner of my bedroom walk-in closet.  I decided to make them into a quilt, so that I could enjoy their colorful graphics and the achievement, fun and fitness they represent. 

The things learned during those years have remained with me long after my last event.  I may not have the same abilities I had once but I am grateful for the time spent running, swimming, biking.  No regrets, just appreciation for having taken an opportunity when it came.  Now as then, I celebrate the good stuff.  More smiles to come.

Windows

The cat loves the window.  Kitty TV.  She never seems to tire of looking out at the birds and squirrels.  The green space behind the house is often visited by deer, a tiny micro meadow adjacent to a fairly busy road.

There isn't a lot going on for me right now.  Actually, there isn't a lot going on for a lot of people as we collectively try and stay healthy during the coronavirus pandemic.  The trips I had planned, the restaurants I enjoy, the movie theaters I visit -- everything is on hold. 

There have been some good things that have sprung up out of staying at home.  I've discovered the joys of grocery delivery.  I marvel at how much less money I spend when I don't go into the store.  Now that the panic buying has subsided and paper products are beginning to reappear, getting everything on my shopping list has become more dependable.  

I've been retired for four years now, so I've had a little practice keeping myself entertained at home.  But while we wait out the virus I am challenged to find new ways of being with myself and others.  Does the cat miss going outside? The window she and I enjoy looks out over my green space, but another window looks inward where there is also ample space to explore. 

 

Sunday morning, obviously

Of every other day of the week, Sunday should really smell like bacon and coffee.  Really.  About a year ago, I let go of my frantic grasping of vegetarian eating with the startling realization that even adherence to that noble gastric discipline takes lives.  This morning I stand quietly in my kitchen peeling the wrapping off a package of sulfate free strips of impending deliciousness.  And with my fill of breakfast I sit down to satiate my next appetite at the keyboard. Right now, it is time to write; now, since it has been a while. I will play some piano later on.

Back to Sunday morning and the past 5 years of living alone, this has been my day to accumulate my stuff from the week and attempt to write something that I will like reading afterwards.  The book of short essays that masquerades as a memoir is ready enough for me to make a call to an editor or two.  I almost think it would be easier not to stop writing it than to say it is “ready” because I know it will morph into something else once a more astute eye looks at it. 

So obviously, Sunday mornings will need to become Monday mornings and spill over into Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday has always been my favorite day of the week so I don’t want to exclude it.  Fridays I should go shopping and out to lunch or catch up with friends over good Mexican food.  Now that the inevitable has transpired I will potentially have Sunday mornings all week, sans bacon but always with coffee.  You see, my corporate gig is over, at my choosing, with some encouragement pointed towards my bank account.

All the mornings spent getting dressed for work, standing in my closet thinking, wishing, hoping, “If I get a package....” are now history.  Surreal as the day the last of my five kids packed up, took her sweet dog and moved out of the house, the package actually arrived, the eagle landed in an email.  I am ready to fly. 

With all of the joy that I feel in the closure of a fruitful 19 years with the same company, I am burdened with the realization that many other employees were not given a choice to leave.  We knew.  We waited to hear.  Some would be taking their last walk to the exits and we knew the day was coming, but for me, this foreknowledge did not dampen the shock. 

It is not the change that was shocking.  Granted, passing by cubicles with random items left behind by employees that had been let go was a downer.  Change is constant.  Even my dad, by whom one could set a watch, changed over the years and not just by aging.  What I find more disturbing is how far the human response will go to obtain a desired object.  Grasping for a desired outcome, or goal is not a bad thing unless it becomes necessary to trample others in the process. 

To be fair, a certain element of grasping is at the heart of any for-profit business venture.  Grasping in some degree is likely at the heart of just about anything initiated by a living being.  The animal kingdom is a food chain and I inhabit a link somewhere in it.  I can feel bad about that if I care to think about it much but without it would I have been born?  There is something to the whole survival of the fittest, circle of life thing, but road kill is just gross.

This might be a bit too long for a blog post.  I feel a new essay coming on.  I’ll make some more coffee, but that’s enough bacon for today.

What's A Writer To Do?

Happy New Year!  I’ve been writing a book.  A memoir, if you’re asking me what sort of book it is.  Someone once told me that everyone has at least one story to tell but I believe that within the one story there are hundreds or maybe thousands of stories.  That is encouraging to me.  There is no lack of material.  The familiar places you and I visit have seen us clearly.

I don’t know what the vast majority of readers want to read these days.  The initial offering of reading material online is typically short and usually provocative.  When I look through the popular reading lists, it seems there is a vast world of literature and book publishing out there.  I wonder where I might fit in with all that or if I would want to.

When I was still in high school, I had wanted to become a journalist but as I began to look around at the media, I was discouraged.  There seemed to be so much hype necessary for stories to be heard and I was not, I am still not, a hype kind of person.  I do like the short essay or column form and columnists do not need to tow the line of sensationalism.  It helps to have some notoriety in the social-sphere, particularly if you have a cause or a philosophy to promote.  I might have a few of these I can pull out of hiding.

I share my writing in blog form and even submit an essay here or there.  What is important to me is that my voice is authentic.  I am happy to always be finding my voice, because I know the living of years brings change.  I would want a reader to “hear” me as my words are read.

Whether or not I finish the bigger work of a memoir, I have come to be completely in love with the part of me that writes.  I will always create with words.  This has been my outlet since I was a little girl.  It didn’t matter then if anyone read what I wrote.  Now it matters more.

Dear Terrorist

I woke up this morning thinking of you, so I thought I would drop you a line.  I write to you not knowing who you are or where you are so how to reach you is unclear.

I imagine you are young.  I am a grandmother.  I hope this is not a deterrent to you hearing me out.  I will try to keep it brief.  Maybe you are busy, or hiding.

I know you were small once and that you have parents.  Maybe you have siblings and a grandmother like me.  It is not easy growing up and I know this because I had to grow up like you.  In a lot of ways I am still growing up.

If you are thinking that we have nothing in common, I would have to disagree.  We have everything in common that really matters.  We both have hearts that beat, we breath in and out, we seek joy, feel love, live life, desire much, experience pain, endure loneliness, and cling to hope to name just a few.  We are only human, you and I.

Which is why I am writing to you, wherever you are.  Before you take the next step into whatever terrorist thing you are planning, could you think, really think, about our common humanity?

If we sat down together in my house with whoever your youngest family member might be, my grandkids, your mom and maybe some family photos, a pot of tea or some good coffee, we could talk, about everything.  We could take turns listening.  We might be surprised to find we have a few things we could laugh about together.  Maybe you would change your mind about the suicide vest. 

We are all only human you know.  And really, what is left behind after so many die?  If you die we will be forced to go on without you.  Your dreams and hopes and ability to become great here on earth will be forgotten.  I wonder if that is what you really want?

Sincerely,
The Common Denominator

The Smiley Light!!

Dear Diary:

I live in a smile-and-wave community.

I just love it. People say hello (it seems to me) a lot. Total strangers smile-and-wave, smile-and-wave. It happens often. Sometimes it can be a little annoying. I don’t know these people. I’m either not very threatening or I look like I need a friend. Maybe I have unconsciously taken on the characteristics of my Labrador retriever and everyone just assumes I’m friendly. Alright, to be honest I start a lot of this stuff – it makes me feel good.

I remember playing a game with my peers once when I was in high school, only they didn’t know we were playing a game.

The optimal time to play this game was when I was walking down the hallway alone and I would encounter a fellow student. I did not play the game with teachers or school administrators. They were generally hard-wired and auto-response driven and were not a reliable indicator of a decisive win.

Also, I wouldn't play the game in a crowd as it did not work in this bastion of puberty, due to the extremely high levels of hormonal static and the risk of fatal stigma shock. This meant early morning or after school hours. In order to play my game, a student would have to have 1) just come from some mandatory penance or make up exam, 2) a rigid scowl plastered across his or her face, and 3) at least two frown lines ingrained across their forehead.  The name of the game was, “I can make you smile.” This is how I played it.

Spotting the unsuspecting player I always made the first move and shifted my path slightly so as to deliberately invade their personal space which for a high school student is about a 5 to 8 foot radius in every possible direction. At a juncture that synchronized their full body scan of me, my full body scan of them, and my pace with their pace, I locked onto my target and our eyes would meet.

At that instant, in that fleeting micro second between eye blinks and not a moment too soon or too late the eyes must smile. Not the mouth so much, but the eyes must emit The Smiley Light!! 

This, my friend is ultimate power and something you must experience to believe! This force has been known to disarm every cranky pants in its path! This is what Pinky and the Brain never figured out in their quest to take over the world. This is what the Angry Beavers failed to conceive of.  This is what Ren and Stempy used to have before Ren stopped taking his medication.

Anyway, across the board game continuum that were my high school years and even beyond into the early days of career building I played The Smiley Light game until I forgot how and the busy, dawn to dark years had their way with me.

Fortunately, in my neighborhood, everybody plays and sometimes I even get to be the cranky pants.

Signed,
Chuckles

Hokusai Says

Hokusai says look carefully.

He says pay attention, notice.

He says keep looking, stay curious. 

Hokusai says says there is no end to seeing

He says look forward to getting old. 

He says keep changing,

you just get more who you really are. 

He says get stuck, accept it, repeat 

yourself as long as it is interesting.

He says keep doing what you love.

He says keep praying.

He says every one of us is a child, 

every one of us is ancient

every one of us has a body.

He says every one of us is frightened. 

He says every one of us has to find

a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive -- 

shells, buildings, people, fish, 

mountains, trees, wood is alive.
Water is alive.

Everything has its own life.

Everything lives inside us.

He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn't matter if you draw,
or write books. It doesn't matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn't matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

It matters that you notice.

It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.

He says don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid.

Love, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.

- Roger Keyes

Doorways and Anchors

Another experience of separation came to teach me this week disguised in the sudden death of a beloved pet.  What I took for granted, expected to exist and cared for every day, was gone in a matter of seconds.  How do we, how do I bring the truth of life's frailty into a shared space with the pain of separation?  Acceptance and helplessness seem joined at the hip in some circumstances.

The Buddha taught that impermanence will cause separation from everything and everyone I care for.  Pain will occur in some shape or form, in every living being.  Suffering, however, arises from grasping for what cannot be, and also for what can be.  We do not have to suffer.

These teachings are beautiful, simple truths.  As I live out my days in these latter years of my existence my feelings seem more intense than ever.  And as I make a space for my experiences to dwell, I am learning to hold them and regard them with loving compassion.

Without judgement, I look at them all; the anxious thought, worry, sadness, peacefulness, joy and acceptance as they appear.  No longer do I entertain negative self-talk as I did for so many years.  Shaming, chastising internal dialogue has been exposed and abandoned.

Where there is love, kindness and self-acceptance alive in me, all these can then be available to others, genuinely.  Life in this moment is our agent for joy, peace and hope.

Another loved one passes through the door of earthly time, and what I feel is what it takes to anchor them within my heart forever.