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Archive for the ‘positive thinking’ Category

Finish the Story: An Alien from Outer Space…

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »

alienI believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out. (Arthur Hays Sulzberger)

When rain turns ground into mud, and mud spreads through everyday life, maybe I need a cleansing breath or two before getting out the spiritual mop.

A good imagination helps.

A creature like one of my grandchildren’s toys becomes an alien—the outer space variety. He has a name, but it isn’t pronounceable with a human tongue. I call him A-Z, because it is as close as earth interpretation can get. He lands close to a town and enters in the darkest hour of night.

A-Z sees only one person on the sidewalk. The alien’s intuition is strong enough to catch not only the individual’s language, but feelings. This character could be fictional—or it could be me. The alien sends messages of love. Does the earth resident receive them or see only differences?

Oh, I have ideas about how the person on the street could respond with fear and begin an intergalactic war. I also imagine a blind woman who isn’t limited by visual first impressions.

I believe in an open mind. But, exposed to the elements of reality, it gets muddy now and then. Time to return to real life…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Unpredictable as Weather—Plans Set and Un-set

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it. (Patrick Young)

Icebergs in polar regions and desert heat rarely make weather channel news. In the part of the world where I roam, weather news has the reliability of gossip. Maybe the broadcast will fit. Maybe not.

In the meantime, life continues at the same continuous pace.

Right now, I am my own pain in the neck. More accurately, I have cervical damage, caused by carrying the same head for years. The weather irritates, but it didn’t create the problem.

Nature’s plan? Unpredictable. Like the flight of a lightning bug. The destination of a running toddler. The future of a random seed.

I have a book signing on Saturday from 1-4 PM. Several inches of snow could get in the way. If the forecast takes a just-kidding route, anyone who doesn’t need to be beamed up Star-Wars style is invited.

Nor’easters, hurricanes, and tornadoes are bullies without negative intention. I suspect casting blame is counterproductive. Action matters.

The tree in my backyard carries snow—on the second day of spring. Photo Booth’s Thermal Camera turns the snow blue, as if it were a lake. The pic doesn’t represent warmth or cold, however. The app on my iPad provides more game than fact. Something like predicting changeable weather.

We are all pawns in that realm. How I decide to deal with the challenge is another matter. Okay, I admit it. I’m still working on it. Ouch!

 

 

 

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Play, Grandma-and-Grandchild Style

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Luke and ThomasGrandchildren are God’s way of compensating us for growing old. Mary H. Waldrip

Imagination, it gets soaked with the ugliness of world events and can be destroyed. I need space in between each hit from hate. Meditation, exercise, and play help both my physical and mental state.

My youngest granddaughter is here today to bring welcome sunshine. She names a toy koala, Thomas and a toy cow, Luke. (Since the doll-version is gender-neutral, the name doesn’t really matter in fantasy. Ella was Daddy in our last game.) The boundaries of reality expand in play.

“How high can you jump, Luke?” I ask as Thomas.

Apparently, the surface of my bed has lost gravity. Or fuzzy, button-eyed cows have super powers.

Thomas leaps and lands on a blue blanket—a cave, with a bear inside. Time to explore.

Danger means excitement, never malice. The bear growls, yet never attacks. The toys fall. Their injuries are healed with imaginary bandages. Within seconds.

And so am I…

 

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Once Upon a Seed

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 9, 2018| 1 Comment »

seeds

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein

Mother Nature and I are mere acquaintances in the plant-life realm. I could destroy the hardest-to-kill houseplants as well as a plastic rose or two. My thumb isn’t green; it has a gangrene touch.

Nevertheless, I’ve kept one plant alive since my father’s funeral, more than ten years ago. The plant blooms occasionally. Today I noticed what could be seeds on a leaf. In-the-know friends could tell me scientific facts about the foliage.

Instead I see metaphors. I see the unexpected. And recall my dad’s voice.

Hi there, eldest daughter. Remember when we went to LaRosa’s for lunch? Before I went to the nursing home. I looked forward to those lunches.

From somewhere in my past I hear advice he told me when I was an easily insulted teenager. “Consider the source.”

I have added a part two: Love anyway.

Seeds of concern may be planted with kindness, then fertilized with manure.

Actions centering on the safety of schools and the lives of immigrants, have been received as political insults.

Somehow discord is inevitable. Growth rarely occurs in direct straight lines. Art consists of both positive and negative space. Sunshine creates shadow.

I’d rather coast and take it easy, than work toward balance. Unfortunately, coasting doesn’t work on uphill slopes.

Beauty and mystery. Science and metaphor. Inside are unexpected seeds. Planted in the mind or in soil.

 

 

 

 

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Poem: Serendipity on an Ordinary Friday

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , on March 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

calendar

It’s all a series of serendipities

with no beginnings and no ends.

Such infinitesimal possibilities

Through which love transcends.

(Ana Claudia Antunes, The Tao of Physical and Spiritual)

 

Serendipity on an Ordinary Friday

 

I have other plans,

agendas carved from time

not yet touched by day or night.

Instead, I meet a stranger

face to face,

eye to eye.

Five minutes after

your name, my name,

we recognize our common places

where the ugly and beautiful meet.

We, strangers before 10AM,

on an ordinary Friday,

speak, listen, and within twenty minutes

share an embrace.

Our skin colors appear different,

in the way two gifts,

both carrying gems,

don’t mimic their wrappings.

Today’s sun shines. It also casts shadows.

No longer strangers, she and I

have been blessed by light.

 

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Conflict, Arthritis, and Compassion

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2018| 1 Comment »

arthritisDifficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. (William Ellery Channing)

Be nice. Nice. Nice. The teachings of my childhood. Begin with following all rules with a smile and… I don’t remember what came after the and.

Since I happened to be a girl who grew up in the middle of the twentieth century, options were limited. Rarely mentioned. Mom, teacher, nurse. The arts? Forget it. Not practical. Difficulties during those days needed to be faced with stoic silence.

The result—any pain, sorrow, even joys I felt that weren’t shared by my family seemed bizarre, disconnected with anyone else. I see life differently since I learned the world’s inhabitants have as many similarities as differences.

Empathy is a gift. A celebration of shared humanity.

When people, or groups of people, mock mass deaths for political motives I cringe. Conflict? Inevitable. I’ve shared meals, laughs, celebrations with some of the mockers.

Growth in compassion seems as likely as studying the brain through decapitation. And yet, using a less graphic image, grapes and roses grow after deep pruning.

Do I back down? No. That’s the advice of early childhood, the place where I got lost. Instead I follow the advice of my arthritic hands. They throb.

Mother nature has been sending enough rain to flood rivers and streams to overload the land. Pestering my aching joints with action is the way to be nice, nice, nice to them.

I pray for more people to listen to the survivors of injustices. May the listeners place themselves in similar unjust circumstances, without rushing to judgments.

May the survivors recognize they are not alone. May I somehow not sever all connections with the people I see as creating harm.

An impossible request? Maybe. A-step-up-to-unlikely would be worth the effort. In the meantime, I sharpen empathy by choosing awareness in close-by places.

The man behind me in the checkout line at the grocery store has three items. I have at least thirty. He can go ahead of me. My tired mate who needs a nap doesn’t need to be awakened by the vacuum cleaner. And, I have a friend or two who could use a phone call this evening.

Maybe the larger world is no closer to repair, but my smaller realm has been blessed.

 

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Screened Vision: Varying Points of View

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 17, 2018| 1 Comment »

screened vision

(screened vision, black and white, not easily read and slightly off-center)

The most important thing is to be whatever you are without shame. (Rod Steiger)

Even if I had the X-ray vision of the Superman I watched long before flat-screened TV and Netflix, I doubt I could understand human motivation. Friendships with the folk who share a similar sense of empathy, are easy. Those who can’t see a relationship between weapons and death, are difficult for me to figure out.

Someone I know tells a story about direct experience with an individual wielding a gun—at her. No pause for recognition of her experience, the person she tells continues with a statistics-game. No awareness of the damage done by violence.

Yet, this man is worthwhile, genuine in what he does. I have no intention of turning away from him. Argument proves nothing.

A photo taken through a screen isn’t the same as a picture taken in the cold and ice—as it develops. The picture isn’t the same as the photographed space.

Life continues without a set pattern. I need to be who I am, speak my own truth and respect the truth of another. Sometimes this respect is as difficult as seeing through two separate screens, made of vastly different experiences.

Peace. Five letters, each one separated by centuries of misunderstanding. Nevertheless, an essential goal. For all.

 

 

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One Valentine, One Belated Christmas Card

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 12, 2018| 1 Comment »

rose in frameAppreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. (Voltaire)

I’m struck by two profoundly different moments. The first, an original drawing received on a Christmas card, two months late. The artist died fifteen days before the holiday. The second, a red fabric rose given by my friend Cathy as a Valentine. She told me it was a thank-you for my ready smile.

Cathy’s welcoming approach to everyone results in a sunshine response. However, I’ll accept her gift and hug. Who started our friendship? I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Living that friendship does matter.

The Christmas card has found a quiet display in the bedroom. The artist’s picture with his birth and death date appear on the back. I hear his voice in my memory. See you later. A wave and laugh. Not enough time for one more thank you, acknowledgement of his gifts for humor, art, affability.

I talk to him in the silence of my thoughts. About the nuances of art that appear simple, yet come with quick, aptly applied brush strokes. Then, I switch to travel stories and ask what it was like to ride a camel. No response from the other side; I would believe my mind had cracked if I caught his voice in the lamp or mirror.

Then, I realize the gifts of this day bring enough gratitude. One rose, Cathy. Three granddaughters. One almost-grandson and a simple wedding between his mom and my son is in the future. A tiny affair with a big impact—at least in my family’s life.

What is excellent in others belongs to us as well. May that excellence continue to grow because of the next step I take. May we meet in that space…

 

 

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Flowers in February (Artificial)

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »

seasonsAdopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“Are those flowers real?” friends ask when they see the pastel arrangement of out-of-season blooms on my table.

They aren’t. I bought the vase from a struggling-artist neighbor. The arrangement matched an oil painting created by my husband’s grandmother, although my subconscious made the decision, and let me know about it later. The fact that my black thumb couldn’t kill the blossoms, chose first.

The notion of forever warmth and sunshine—without effort—is appealing.

Sure, I realize utopia doesn’t exist, even in storybook land. Either the flying unicorn runs into some adventure or the bored preschooler falls asleep before his bedtime tale ends.

Now February, the elongated 28-day month, shows its power in Midwest America. This thin-blooded, needs-another-blanket individual, shivers. (My husband wears shorts until the thermometer dips below zero.)

I don’t sparkle in the sun the way snow on a bare tree does. The secret of nature is patience. No season, day, month, year, or life lasts forever. The darker moments carry disguised blessings. Without the difficult times in my life, I suspect I could take what I have for granted.

My purchased flowers are not real; it is okay to enjoy them, as artificial. In the meantime, I celebrate the fact that I have indoor heat, a warm coat, and opportunities to give to others. Opportunities I hope will warm the spirit of somebody else since mother nature’s timing, warm or cold, doesn’t budge.

Patience? I haven’t arrived on that perfect path yet. I still rely on artificial flowers as a reminder that their fresh counterparts will reappear. In their own time.

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Which Road Today—Writer or Grandma?

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 27, 2018| Leave a Comment »

When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it. (Charles de Lint, writer)

If there are spills on the kitchen floor and crumbs on the carpet during the next few days, I know who did it. Moi. Jay is spending some quality time with his siblings. I chose a quiet retreat pace—if three magazines and two books in bed qualify as embracing-the-simple.

Since I’m not a speed reader, chances are I haven’t exactly created a quiet one-thing-at-a-time retreat pace. My expectations usually include a ridiculous amount of multitasking, using unfocused brain synapses.

I am a writer, one who takes two steps backward and one forward. Today, reverse seems to be the primary gear. I have managed half a paragraph in two hours. The backspace key is getting most of the action.

The phone rings. My youngest granddaughter, Ella, is on the line. “Want to go to the library with me today?” The answer is a no-brainer. Grandma mode is simpler. It requires love. Word order doesn’t take a lot of thought on the grandparent path. I love you is adequate communication. No editing necessary.

Time to drive—through the rain and into the arms of a child.

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