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Posts Tagged ‘appreciation’

A Little Time with Little People

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2016| 1 Comment »

Childhood means simplicity. Look at the world with the child’s eye – it is very beautiful. (Kailash Satyarthi)

Ella, a toy Mickey Mouse, and I cook with plastic plates, cups, anything that could act as a pretend utensil. The fact that Mickey, Ella, and I are not even close to being the same size doesn’t matter as we share Ella’s chicken, both invisible and delicious. Reality can be stretched in any direction with a strong imagination.

We need to leave for the ten-mile drive to kindergarten soon. Very soon. I tell Ella. To her time is as invisible as the chicken that could turn into brownies at whim.

Nevertheless, we make it to the car. And go on a bear hunt, with a few changes in the script. The bears become white or red, according to Ella’s whim. And the drive becomes beautiful instead of ordinary and tedious.

***

Dakota cooks using the same play utensils and Play-Doh. Usually his creations become chocolate cake. And he expects me to eat far more than a sumo wrestler could handle at one sitting. I feel full even though the blue or yellow clay has never touched my lips. His attention span doesn’t last long, however.

He picks up the book I wrote for Ella. It was never meant to be published. It is in a three-ring plastic binder. I printed two copies. One for Ella, one for her bus driver—a principal character.

I ask Dakota if he wants a book about him for his birthday. He thinks for a moment and answers, “With me and with Ella.”

The world through a young person’s eyes. Simple. Honest. Beautiful enough to make my tear ducts leak. Just a little.

My adult agenda gets overwhelming. Sometimes I wonder if I have enough time to stop and play with my little ones. Then I realize the stopping is life. My writing agenda merely talks about it.

Ella and Dakota playing

 

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The Abundant Ordinary

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.  (Eckhart Tolle)

Sure I can take one thing at a time, I tell myself as I grab a breakfast bar to save time, then open the dishwasher to unload it. Uh, maybe not. Nothing like rewashing dishes because they have peanut-butter residue on them.

I’m trying to decide how Terry as overwhelmed-monkey-in-the-middle-of-chaos could have been averted yesterday…by multitasking on my own time today. Okay, from the top. Take one thing at a time, and acknowledge the goodness in each moment. As that moment occurs.

I try to plan for every contingency—in advance. Something like directing raindrops into rain barrels. Without overflow. Or flooding. No real-life messiness anywhere.

Simultaneous requests will probably not go away. Some folk may need to wait. Some tasks, too. Do I need breakfast first or should I return plates and silverware to their designated homes within my home? Either way I drop things if I move too quickly.

Right now I’m glad my grandchildren enjoy being with Grandma and Grandpa. My son has taken over plans for a family birthday party. I turn seventy soon. A friend offered to take me shopping for a much-needed bathing suit, although she can’t do it today. My suit has faded and thinned. If it could talk it would beg to be euthanized. I find a replacement. It won’t last forever either. Nothing does.

Humor and gratitude: a winning combination. My health is improving. And I decide not to take it for granted anymore. This day is a gift, a syncopated, less-than-choreographed, clumsy dance.

But each minor imperfection doesn’t matter.

Life is innately good.

Dance even if there is no music

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Thinking, Not Over-Thinking

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. (Lorraine Hansberry)

Think. Not over-think, worry’s first cousin.

I’m on my way to an exercise class. The class is my chance to kick, run, jump into a V-step or Charleston left, then right—all in my own clumsy timing. I’m definitely back-row inept. So what if the person in front of me is five foot eleven and I need higher heels to hit the five-foot mark. At least I won’t confuse anyone behind me.

Traffic is light for a Friday morning. I sit, drive, and take in the moment as my ’97 Toyota follows the familiar route.

The sky is blue, clear. And I breathe in and out slowly with the hope that my spirit can find similar clarity. A bird crosses the road. Too low. It almost hits my windshield. I’m reminded of the sparrow that lay dead in our driveway yesterday. I’ve seen too much loss lately. Large and small. I realize I can’t discover the beauty of each moment when I’m running on high speed in multiple directions.

My unwritten chore list is long. Again. I am hosting a friend’s birthday party this weekend. My office is also my grandchildren’s play area. The carpet is filled with tiny pieces of paper, remnants of kid art, what my mother called snibbles. Actually, I never heard the word anywhere else. So I asked my brother Bill if he knew anything about the word.

He speaks fluent German, and years ago, before we both had kids, he beat me at Scrabble. Regularly. I saved the score sheets and averaged the points. He was three points a word more proficient. But did he gloat? Heavens, no. We played cooperative games to see how many points we could gather together. Well over 700. That board grew with diverse, well-connected words and designs. Now Bill works to recognize people, not politics. The people of Palestine. Persons. Individuals. Not a lumped nameless mass.

This is where my thinking leads me now: I am proud of my younger brother.

He found snibbles in the Urban Dictionary. My bro, both intelligent and resourceful. And the sunshine outside seeps inside me just a little bit more.

In the meantime, daffodils are beginning to bloom. Grass pushes up green blades from thawed earth. The goldfinch has started to display his warm-weather feathers.

Beginnings. Each moment. As I sit. In the car. Or on the porch. As I stand. In the line at the grocery. Waiting. Anywhere. During celebrations and during painful times. Think, Terry, with expectant awareness. And live in the now. The naysayers will come. Ready to criticize another for hair or skin color, race, intelligence, or immigrant status. Ready to separate us from them, to say one group is more human than another.

But, you can’t be knocked over by hate, Terry, because you are caught off-guard in your own trivial considerations. One more time. Catch the beauty. Know it is real. Gain strength. Opinions change. Truth does not. Think. Think. Think…

bluebird and rainbow

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Readjustments and a Cake Made of Legos

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 5, 2016| 1 Comment »

The art of life is a constant readjustment to our surroundings. (Kakuzo Okakaura) 

Today could be declared Murphy’s Law day because what didn’t go wrong at least turned sideways. The details would take up too much space to list. Almost anyone living in the real world can give personal examples with little thought.

Readjustments take more flexibility than my agenda allows.

I finally get a chance to write—for what I think will be an hour—when I’m needed somewhere else. No question about it.

“I really hate to bother you,” my needy friend says.

My answer comes with a sigh, but not much thought. “I left a funeral no more than seven hours ago. Two women I know lost husbands this week. What am I giving up?” The answer is rhetorical because I don’t want to admit how much I cherish my precious, guarded quiet time. I think I can get through this.

And I do. My creative inspiration before the interruption lay somewhere between pause and stutter anyway. Most of my work this evening returned into the backspace key. I have already forgotten the erased words, and it is probably better that way. Like every writer, my work doesn’t fall onto the page the way the credits appear after a movie—in quick, neat-flowing lines.

Toys lay scattered on the floor of the room where I type. Another chore on the endless list. And then, I notice a block of Legos and remember my middle granddaughter’s building project. At first she wanted to make a building, with symmetrical sections and colors that match. Windows, or at least open spaces. Decorative pieces in fun places. A roof, all one color. But we didn’t have enough orange pieces to cover the top—not without a wrecking crew and a plan to make something smaller.

Eventually my granddaughter did start over. She designed a cake. She accepted the fact that our building supplies are scarce, and created an imperfectly colored celebration. A happy birthday for her sister turning twelve next week and a blessing for me today.

I can’t expect more from each day than what is. But often, each moment is enough—more than enough.

Miss Rebe’s art

Lego cake

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Living Through the Unknown, Unanswered Questions

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 27, 2016| 6 Comments »

There are no easy answers, there’s only living through the questions. (Elizabeth George)

Sun streams through the window and I try to hold onto the brightness, as if blue sky carried answers to questions that don’t fit into logical formulas. Life. Death. Illness. The healed and unhealed. The why.

The husband of a friend died yesterday. Several other people have cancer. A friend of my husband was just diagnosed with non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Magic wands remain in fiction. Moreover, I look at the political scene and my stomach twists. How can so many people choose hate and see nothing wrong with it? I know a child who could have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I talk to a friend from the Y. “Will you pray for my husband?” Too many folk seem to be suffering right now.

A double rainbow appears on the wall behind my laptop, yet I can’t capture it with a photo. I don’t have adequate equipment. The picture appears dark and the rainbows show pale.  I erase the photo; the rainbows fade. I don’t have the ability to save the world by myself. Nor do I dare to reply to grief with platitudes.

Instead I offer an ear, arms, perhaps some of my time. And perspective appears. What matters? What doesn’t? If I give up my serenity over something small, a traffic delay, spilled juice, a photo that doesn’t work, changed plans that don’t fit my agenda, how much energy will I have when I really need it? Perhaps this is one small part of living through the questions.

Right now I’m aware of what I have and how fragile life can be. However, my attitude can change after a few ordinary, nothing-special days. I pray for awareness, to learn from unanswered questions.

love tainted world Optimism Revolution

 

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Imaginary Bears, Ella, and the Water Park in February

Posted in Down syndrome awareness, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Children re-invent your world for you. (Susan Sarandon)

Ella and I play in the shallow end of the water park. We pretend to be in a world where blue, green, and red bears roam with white, brown, and black bears. With mock fear we run from all of them. Ella has told me blue bears eat grass and red bears eat cake, although it could be the other way around. She remembers. I don’t.

Her six-year-old imagination enlivens me.

But when another little girl enters the water with her grandmother I step out of the way and give the children a chance to meet. The other girl hugs toys to her small chest.

Ella notices. “Toys,” she says softly.

The other girl, obviously several years younger, sits in the water next to Ella. She hands her two of her treasures.

“Wow!” I say to the girl’s grandmother. “Unusual for such a young child to be so generous.”

“Well, she isn’t always like that.”

While the children play we grandmothers chat. I celebrate the moment and watch the kids’ stages of interaction, sometimes distant, sometimes close. Never expected.

The girl’s grandfather enters the water. The little girl goes to him and I carry Ella through the oval channel of the Lazy River. Ella points to the little girl and calls her, sister.

I feel blessed by my granddaughter’s simple love. Another woman in the channel comments on the beauty of Ella’s large blue eyes. They relay the honesty of her spirit. Down syndrome limits her body; it does not limit her being.

After Ella and I are dressed and ready to leave, the little girl’s family is in the lobby of the Y. The little girl wants Ella to come to her house. A precious, yet unrealistic request. Ella’s mommy will be picking her up in less than two hours.

I see again the gift of Ella when Mommy and Ella are seated on the floor in our living room. I wish I had a camera ready as our granddaughter leans into her. Ella lets her light shine. Our little girl reaches out to soothe and comfort Mommy, as if she knows she had a long work day.

My world gets complicated even if I don’t work an official eight-hour day. I plan more for one twenty-four-hour period than a planet-toting Atlas would. Then life comes along and adds more. I need to spend time with Ella, choose love first, and then realign my priorities.

No, Ella isn’t an angel. She is human and has her stubborn moments just like everyone else does. But, she doesn’t live in a funk, and she doesn’t hold grudges.

For her each moment is what it is, no more, no less. An incredible opportunity simply to be. I suspect that since I read too much into situations, I have more handicaps than she does.

Thanks for the fun day, Ella.

the world as it should be

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Two Mini-Splinters and Two Magnificent Neighbors

Posted in inspiration, kindness, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be. (Louis de Bernieres)

The wooden railing that leads to our basement is old and splintering. It left two of those shards in my left hand. I tried the smear-the-area-with-baking-soda-paste cure. One of the splinters disappeared with the treatment. The other said, No way, I’m not giving up that easily. And I am left with an aching hand.

I feel like a fool as I ask a neighbor if she can help me. She recently earned a nursing degree. The temperature outside has dropped into the Frigid Zone and the sun set at least an hour ago. Why couldn’t I have thought to ask her before dark?

But Madison is quick to assist me.

“I’ll come to your house. After all you are doing me the favor,” I say.

“No, no,” she replies. “It’s dark. I don’t want you to fall on the ice. I’ll be there as soon as I get my shoes on.”

She arrives. And so does her husband, Nathan. He brings an electric sander—to get to the source of the problem, the offending basement railing.

I wish I had dressed more appropriately, at least something better than an out-of-season green Christmas sweatshirt and gray long johns. But, Madison and Nathan don’t act as if they notice.

Unexpected gifts are often the best. Nathan smooths the railing and Madison removes the splinter with a steady hand. I barely feel a pinch.

Thanks, to both of you. I feel blessed for hours after you leave. Kindness has a way of lingering.

kindness is earth angel

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Sunglasses and a Side-trip to Walmart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 10, 2016| 4 Comments »

There is an abiding beauty which may be appreciated by those who will see things as they are and who will ask for no reward except to see. (Vera Brittain)

I rarely shop at Walmart. I believe employee working conditions could be much better. However, I have been unable to locate sunglasses that fit over the top of prescription glasses. Easy on, easy off. Changing to a tinted pair of prescription glasses while driving is distracting. And I’m not an online shopper. I remember that Walmart carries the glasses. As the last choice, I decide to buy only what I need, and then leave.

The greeter inside the front door frowns at me. I said hello first. I’m reasonably certain I did not come in wearing an attitude.

Then she asks, “Do you have a return?”

I look down at the reusable bag in my hand. “Oh, no! Just doing my small part in saving the environment.”

She nods as if she hears my words, but still believes I’m a space alien.

The trip is successful and I am ready to leave within minutes.

“Have a nice day,” I call to the greeter as I leave.

She stares at me and I wonder if she is considering calling security. But, the short walk to my car is without incident. Perhaps I am reading suspicion into a place where it doesn’t belong. Besides, my spirit was positive enough to purchase sunglasses on a day when gray, snow, ice, and gloom fill the sky. The weather forecast for the rest of the week doesn’t say much about sun. I’m thinking ahead. In a good way.

In the meantime my new sunglasses replace the ones I lost at a park. Lost, found, rediscovered. A continuous process. The snow-covered branches will shine when the sun comes out. Eventually. But the trees are beautiful now. It just takes a discerning eye to see beyond the obvious—an obvious that isn’t necessarily as clear as I think it is.

Perhaps most of us see through tinted lenses, not to protect us from glare, but to keep us inside our own narrow perceptions. The goal is to see things as they are and go with the moment…someday…I’m still working on it.

sunglasses

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Marcia and the Art of Embracing a Better Me (or You)

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 20, 2016| 1 Comment »

You are important, valuable and unique. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Live your truth and be amazing. (Ricardo Housham)

 Our outdoor thermometer reads twenty-two degrees; this is a step up from yesterday’s reading of eight degrees. I wait for the sun to shine as brightly as it does in mid-June, even if brightness and warmth are not synonymous.

Like many people I have survived trauma. Cold desperate winters remained inside my being long after each spring thaw. The situation is more common than most individuals want to admit. Since those days I have embraced the pain as well as the good that came from the past. After a lot of hard work. Time. Meditation. The love of friends.

However, I only recently learned that memories live in the body as well as in the mind. Why am I perfectly fine one moment, and then, without warning, an internal storm rises? I tend to retreat. Others strike back. The why isn’t always obvious. Even if I don’t act upon how I feel, the response remains.

As a writer I watch people. When threatened, one person may stare with contempt, mouth closed, jaw clenched. Another may fight without editing words or actions. We are emotional beings—whether we want to admit it or not.

The body remembers trauma, sadness, and loss even if the mind has long-ago gone to the next page. Am I depressed? Heck no! I have a loving family, a passion for writing, and more energy than many almost-seventy-year-old people. Moreover, the physical therapy for my misbehaving neck is working.

Nevertheless, I suspect that part of the disconnection between my head and shoulders has something to do with blocks inside my body’s memory. And that is where Marcia Erdman comes in. She does something called Defusion Therapy. She is also a licensed massage therapist. And she is highly intuitive.

“You give more than you have to give,” she told me once.

And she was spot on.

One brain therapy works for me because I don’t have problems that keep me from living life. I have blocks that keep me from reaching for the sky. No, I won’t harness every lofty goal, but why not try? Why not make the world a better place, simply by being in it—as fully as possible. Marcia uses an approach that includes Three in one Concepts. In essence this means that the mind and body work together to choose rather than react when stress inevitably appears.

Marcia’s system includes muscle testing and symbols, such as flowers, to improve areas that need growth. The highlighted sites explain the system better than I can. Besides, I’m a newbie. And for people in the Greater Cincinnati area, Marcia is accepting clients. Simply click on the link connected to her name.

In the meantime I watch the snow fall since rebelling against it won’t make winter pass any faster. Peace upon all. Wherever you may be.

 

becoming PIQ

 

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True Friends: A Group Known as Apple

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 13, 2016| 1 Comment »

Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mock-up, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. (André Aciman)

I am sitting among friends, other women who are senior citizens on the outside with young spirits on the inside. Every Tuesday morning we meet and talk about our lives as they really are, not as we want them to be. We call ourselves Apple. This name appeared before I joined, forty years ago. Someone in the group mentioned the biblical quote: “You are the apple of my eye.” And laughter resounded. Many of the women looked like apples—their bellies were swollen with advanced pregnancies.

Now many of those babies are parents. But the Apple name stuck. We’ve changed over the years. The singing and harmony that drew me in doesn’t exist. The room isn’t as filled as it used to be. Members have moved or found other interests. In the early days the stay-at-home wife was common. That changed. Many of us went back to work. So did I. But I was fortunate to find a part time position that didn’t interfere with the time for the gathering. One woman died in a car accident. Two others care for disabled husbands.

As friends we have seen one another through triumph and tragedy, seasons and years.

M knows I hate driving in snow. She called an hour before the sharing time began, and she asked me if I wanted a ride. No false pride here. I accepted with gratitude.

Now a squall begins outside. Complete with a threatening wind. The kind that sets my worry gene into gear. But I pause. Listen to my Apple sisters share inspirational stories. And laugh. No, the storm isn’t okay. But it exists. We can’t harness it.

A ten-or-twelve vehicle pile-up on our local Interstate is making national news right now. I don’t know about it yet. Awareness is good. Especially when that means a major highway is closed. Continuous in-depth coverage? Maybe not. Especially when it begins a rolling snowball of coast-to-coast anxiety.

I learn later someone I love struggled through the morning commute, slid on the ice, and had a generally difficult day because of that awful four-letter-word beginning with an s. Yet she managed—without the dubious benefit of my fears. I offer my help. She won’t need to drive an hour out of her way for a babysitter. If I could hop in a time machine and change her outcome, I would. But I believe in fantasy only in stories.

I’d like to say that every word I write springs from my soul like some kind of innate holy water of positive thinking. It doesn’t. I work at it just like everyone else does. And I’m grateful for my friends at Apple for their constant support and love.

We’ve come a long way from new mamas to not-so-new grandmas. Together. Thanks. May your friendships be filled with people who listen more than speak, share both their highs and their lows, and know how to laugh at their shortcomings. Peace—one imperfect day at a time.

apples

 

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