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Posts Tagged ‘determination’

Lost Keys, Panic, and Peace

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

Hooray! Hooray! The end of the world has been postponed! (Hergé)

One definition of serenity: mind and body occupying the same space at a given moment in time. Tranquility, calmness, and peacefulness, all show up as synonyms on dictionary.com and meriamwebster.com. Sure, I’m serene; that’s why I can’t find my car keys. And I know they have to be in this small house. Somewhere. I used them less than two hours ago. And I need them again—now! Amazing how the loss of a few slivers of metal can create instant panic.

Okay, what story did my friend Carol share just a few hours ago?

She had been mowing the grass. She had a lot on her mind at the time, a mountain of responsibilities. Her husband has a rare and crippling disability, and he needs constant care. Life hasn’t compensated with extra privileges to make her job easier.

Yet, she knows how to redirect counterproductive thinking. She gave herself a task: a one-hundred-item gratitude list. It eased her work, lightened her being. I can do that. Who knows? It may even free my mind enough that I can focus and find my gosh-darned missing keys.

These blessings could appear on my list: a cool breeze on a hot day, a swim at the Y, an unexpected invitation to brunch, a perfectly brewed cup of coffee. At least they make a good start.

One activity at a time, Terry, I tell myself. Think logically. I already searched the pockets of the pink Capris I wore this morning. But, that was in panic mode. This time I explore more carefully. And the keys are in a side pocket. No mysterious disappearance at all. “Minor Armageddon” averted.

As my gratitude list grows I realize that sweetness comes from contrast. Dark versus light, cold versus warmth. A delicate spring flower expresses a deeper beauty because it survived winter. No one can live long without embracing sadness, even horror. However, what’s the point of living in the past? In cold or darkness.

That doesn’t mean I would ever tell anyone not to be sad, no matter the reason. An emotion is what it is. I would say, don’t isolate. Find a friend. See your own goodness, despite appearances. Sometimes a positive attitude takes work. And that is okay.

I start my ’97 Toyota with a single turn in her ignition. Okay, she’s old. But, by a young person’s measure, so am I. But not too old to begin again. One intentional step at a time.

negative committee

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Upside-Down Computer Screen and Spilled Pretzels

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Above all else, go with a sense of humor. It is needed armor.
Joy in one’s heart and some laughter on one’s lip is a sign
that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life. (Hugh Sidey) 

 Famous last words: Sure, one kid today? I can handle this by myself. After all, didn’t I take two sons through the stages of their early lives? Don’t Jay and I frequently have as many as seven children in, out, through this house? It gets a good scrub job later. But we manage. What damage can one three-year-old girl cause?

Ella climbs into the desk chair at the computer—time to watch her favorite videos: “Sesame Street,” “Sid the Science Kid,” “Curious George,” “Super Why.” We share laughs over the same scenes as well as a few new ones. Elmo from Sesame Street explores learning through humor. A bird and a fish don’t nibble the food Halle Berry gives them, so Elmo finds a tiger to demonstrate this word that means “tiny, tiny bite.” Absurdity and learning fit well together.

So do fluke events. At least I don’t think Ella means to find the exact spot on the screen that turns it upside down! My mouse is  confused, too. Fortunately I have a laptop so I flip it over to find an icon with a clue. No luck. Ella’s daddy could help me later, but I decide to call computer-whiz-nephew Alan. He talks me through it with relative ease.

After that crisis I check to make sure that all is upright in the laptop world. Ella escapes my radar. For three seconds. Small crash, fortunately only pretzels. All over the floor. She feasts from the kitchen tile.

“No! No! No!”

Ella is as unimpressed by my censure as the bird and fish were by Halle Berry’s insistence that to nibble does not mean to gobble the entire item, or worse, to absorb Ms. Halle’s hand. Ella grabs a handful of pretzels and stuffs them into her mouth.

“These only.” I give her the few that remained in the bag and reach for the broom and dustpan. “Then I peel a banana for her, better nutrition anyway.

Later, during a more focused moment I ask Ella, “Are you a little girl or a monkey?”

She smiles, looks me in the eye, and answers, “Ooh, ooh.”

Maybe it was that last banana.

(pic from The Secret of Humor is Surprise)

pizza on floor the secret of humor is suprise

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Watercolor and Imagination Meet the Storm

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. (George Scialabba)

My two older granddaughters want me to do watercolors with them, an honor. However, painting my hand and then splatting it on paper asks a bit too much. This artistry is part of their Mother’s Day gift for their mommy. And they are excited about doing it, in deep, dark purple.

My computer paper supply slowly diminishes and the dining room table looks like an upside-down wastepaper basket.

Finally Kate decides it’s hand washing time, much to my relief, and she begins another drawing. A purple girl with turquoise hair and a green hat. Her project has purpose. The girl has a story, in sci fi form, with human feelings, a past and a future. I listen, looking down at my wimpy sapling with a few dabs of pale green for leaves. I had no interest in creating it to begin with. It felt like a doodle on perfectly good 20-lb weight paper destined for the trash.

Rebe experiments with color. What happens when orange blends with blue? An odd shade of brown. Then what happens if it is streaked with purple? A storm has been brewing for the past hour. At the tender age of five Rebe knows what a lightning strike can do. The last crash felt farther away. She says that artwork has distracted her. Her wisdom brightens me.

I’m amazed at how easy it is to underestimate the insight of a child. The next day our little girl will pass her next swim test. I won’t be there, but will hear the joy in her voice when she tells me about it on the phone.

Then I will need to use my imagination, envision her quick strokes in the pool, not on paper. And hope that perhaps someday I can approach the world with the simplicity of children at play.

Somehow, as a child, I thought growing up meant knowing-it-all and freedom. Yet, if I’m really learning I discover that wisdom, truth, love, can’t be grasped and held. They expand and grow. Always. Like orange blending into purple and a child’s drawing becoming story, as an older woman watches two young girls embrace color as a gift. Not circles of hardened pigment swirled with water.

The storm passes. For now.

(pic taken from Morning Coach)

learning from children morning coach

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Being and Seeing the Beautiful

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2013| 1 Comment »

 A diamond doesn’t know how valuable it is to others. (Mark Tyrrell)

Five-year-old Rebe churns the water as she reaches the halfway point in the swim test lane. Anyone watching would have known I was her grandmother, even if I wasn’t screaming. My grin takes over my face.

Early last year she played in the shallow end—safe, preferring to stay in the pretend world. Within months she jumped off the side and let Grandpa catch her. Oh, she still loves the imaginative. But, this expansion of her spirit warms me. The next step, to tread water for a short period of time, should be easy for her, as soon as she gains the confidence. I have no doubt that she could have traveled the length of the pool, back and forth, as easily as she could have walked poolside.

You are a diamond, little girl. Your surfaces haven’t been polished yet, but, somehow, that gives the innate you even more possibility.

Of course I don’t talk to a five-year-old child in metaphors. “Good job, Rebe,” suffices.

I want my granddaughter to see her potential, her beauty. However, as I think about some grownup friends, I realize it’s not necessarily that easy to reflect the goodness I see. When someone suffers deep sadness, pain takes over.

I tell one of my friends what I see in her. She can’t look me in the eye. She isn’t ready to accept anything more than grief. And, somehow, I suspect I would not fare any better if I walked her path.

Perhaps it isn’t easy for any diamond to be shaped and formed, not easy for any person to develop either—at any age.

 In the meantime, an almost kindergartener passed her first swim test at the Y. And a yellow wrist band sparkles, in its own way.

(pic from Positive Inspirational Quotes)

becoming PIQ

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One Gentle, Annoying Infinite-Loop Song

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. (Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher, 1828-1910)

A song I wrote recently runs through my head as I hunt for something I lost—the steroid inhaler I use to prevent asthma attacks. It was on my dresser. Now it disappeared, melted as if it were some kind of metallic ice, and then evaporated. The repeating song has an uplifting tone; my spirit doesn’t want to go there. Is this just a walk along a city street or is this a way of seeing? The words explore attitude. Do I notice soot-stained curbs or bird-filled trees? All a matter of attitude.

My attitude wants to sink, throw something rather than systematically search. No, I am not facing immediate danger. Discomfort? Yes. And I am missing my writing time by organizing areas where I could have accidentally placed it while doing a bad job of multitasking. This wasn’t in the day’s plan. Moreover, my effort delivers nothing. Yet.

The song continues to play through my skull like the hold music that comes after, “Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line. There are 615 callers in line ahead of yours.”

Okay, I hear you, song. I’ll try to find the good in the moment. Ah, what is this, hidden on the side of my dresser? Something that I was absolutely certain I put somewhere else—and I need it in three hours. Hmmn, yeah, well, I guess that could be called good news. And I finished organizing an area or two that’s needed it for months.

You can stop that incessant singing at any time now, Terry, I tell myself. I got the message! Oh well, I guess it’s better than the old camp favorite, “A thousand bottles of beer on the wall,” especially since I don’t drink anything stronger than orange juice.

Ear plugs don’t help in this situation; one step at a time does, maybe with a little rhythm added.

pic from Positive Inspirational Quotes

stumble part of dance PIQ

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Not-so-silent Meditation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 9, 2013| 1 Comment »

Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts. (Leo Rosten, author, 1908-1997) 

My day’s plan is to walk through the woods and take everything in without judgment, A meditative stroll, without the need to put anything into words, without thinking about work that waits at home, no thought of time. Jay and I don’t even have a camera with us. Spring has arrived, finally, and the sun is cooperative. My lightweight coat is unzipped, baseball cap on, hiking boots laced.

Nature does its part. However—I have scarcely trudged fifteen minutes before I notice how many beech trees there are along this trail. Their parchment-white leaves left from last summer break through my resolve not to capture the experience in words. Oh, I didn’t promise to stop writing. Just pause long enough to commune with nature, let it talk to me before I express an opinion.

Yeah, trees, I forgot. Your turn to talk and my turn to listen. And the wind sways the branches, teasing me, begging me to define them. The old beech leaves curl, like cocoons, without butterflies, no need to prove anything. Yet, they have withstood snow, bitter temperature, and harsh winds.

You sure jabber to yourself a lot, an old oak calls, silently of course.

I beg your pardon.

Meditation requires quieting of the mind, not analyzing, even if your conclusions create poetry. The best art mimics life; it doesn’t recreate it.

The tree hasn’t been running around, trying to find its place in creation; it already knows.

I nod and continue along the trail until my husband and I reach the lake. He takes my hand and we watch the sun play along the surface of the water.

My mind doesn’t calm easily. It asks for results, generally immediately, or at least quickly, even though I have had a lot of experience working on projects that have taken years. Not all of them have been successful in the world’s eyes. That doesn’t mean I didn’t learn. Or that I am not learning from standing still, watching water move in slow mesmerizing patterns, on an ordinary April day, as if there were nothing better to do but be aware that life can be both beautiful and good.

knowledge has no end

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One More Time, From the Top

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2013| 4 Comments »

My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn. (Louis Adamic)

I feel ridiculous. Sure I know how to tune my guitar. Strings get out of tune—all the time. I did this last night in forty seconds. Too much warmth and the wood swells; the sound becomes sharp. When the temperature drops the wood contracts. The E string goes flat and the others drop out, too. But, I’m using a different kind of tuner. The Snark works even in a noisy room. The room is filled with conversation, shouting, laughter. I’m the one distracted, not the electronic device.

Fortunately, a few deep breaths and minor adjustments remind me of the obvious. Externally, I appear calm. All I have to do is tell my internal self to do the same. I have at least thirty minutes of music prepared. Won’t need anywhere near that much for the few minutes I have at the YMCA senior luncheon, before and after the speaker. Today’s topic: “The Wise Way to a Healthier Brain.”

My part of the preparation feels like studying for an important exam: sixty hours of an intense mental workout for an hour’s worth of questions and answers. But then music is different. It is something the soul gives itself, for its own sake. The music lover doesn’t count practice hours. Actually, I have no idea how many hours I have spent getting ready.

Several years ago I stopped playing for months, many months. During that time my hands succumbed to arthritis. When I came back to my Big Baby Taylor, my fingers didn’t want to do what they once could handle easily. So, I did what anyone else who is foolish would do, I scheduled a gig, and forced those digits to cooperate. They did. Somewhat. However, since this girl didn’t pluck a string until she was in her mid-fifties, she can hardly be called a professional. Stubborn? Well, that is another matter. I have sat on my bed and played, paused, and then thrust my hand into a warm wrap to recover before continuing.

Come on, you can do it, I think. The arthritis pain is low right now. My middle finger on my right hand suffers most. But, my friend, Antoinette, did healing touch on it yesterday, and showed me how to send warmth to the swollen site. Here is one of the suggested techniques: http://www.spirithospital.com/Article–Healing-Mudras.html So far it is working. Positive thinking, more than a concept.

“The sound is ready. Go ahead,” I’m told.

Well, the sound could be better. I do what I can and give my best anyway.

Oh, very little in life is perfect, but several folk ask for the words to my original work. That is a plus. Seniors don’t applaud unless they mean it, and they clap with enthusiasm. My three-year-old granddaughter waves to me from the back, but doesn’t try to run from Grandpa and leap on stage. Perhaps the size of the group is too intimidating for that move. There are at least 150 people at the luncheon, not that I would stop to count.

I started awfully late in life to become a great musician, but if all I wanted was perfection I would miss out on a lot of joy, a lot of opportunity, and find regret instead.

Smiling, I pack my supplies after the event ends.

“We’ll have a better sound system for you the next time,” the set-up person says.

Okay. I guess there is going to be a next time. A few inflamed joints can’t win yet!

pic from The Optimism Revolution

music feelings The Optimism Revolution

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Scrubbing the Stove, Freeing the Mind

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2013| 4 Comments »

There is a road

that runs straight through your heart.

Walk on it.

(Macrina Wiederkehr, “Seasons of Your Heart”)

The top of my stove needs a good scrubbing. It wears the residue of dinner, at least the splattering from it. I’m amazed at how much it wants to remain adhered to the surface, like a memory: a trauma perhaps, or a life changing event.

Instead of staying with these thoughts I think about the joy I’ve had preparing special foods on this surface. I have created my own recipes, many that worked. I have also followed the directions in a cookbook, then dumped the result into the garbage, like the time I added baking soda instead of corn starch to a cherry pie filling. That caused one bubbling mess before I realized what I had done wrong. The clue came when I saw an unopened box of cornstarch on my counter. It helps to smile at my own foibles. After all, no one, except the cook, suffered from that experience.

The word suffered brings me back to my original concerns. Some folk I love are hurting. And I can’t scrub out their problems with elbow grease and a steel wool pad. I can diffuse the energy that binds me by cleaning—praying all the way. Somehow, that helps. Don’t know how, but it does.

You can’t change anyone but yourself. Not a new concept. But haven’t most of us tried, in one way or another? “Shoulding” all over someone leads to frustration. Distant silence translates into I-don’t-care. How, just how, do you find a way of letting people find answers? I listen. Yes, but it feels so helpless sometimes.

Eventually, as I scrub, I look outside and see the trees covered with snow. It’s the end of March. That isn’t out-like-a lamb, the way spring is expected to appear. Mother Nature doesn’t need permission from the calendar. The branches create an incredible, random pattern of white, one that won’t remain forever. Spring will arrive. At least it always has. The snow on the street has already melted.

The passageway out has opened. Now that the stove shines again, I look for the road that runs through my heart. It considers the possibility of miracles. They could happen. Maybe not. In the meantime, I release all choices that are not mine, and whisper love without judgment for someone special to me. The gray lifts as the sun peeks through, just a little. Hope. No promises.

I accept that as enough, for now, and take a stroll through the road that passes directly into my heart.

walking in the light

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Replace the Word Re—d with Respect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil. (Hannah Arendt)

Computers fascinate my granddaughter Ella. She knows how to maneuver the icons on her Samsung Galaxy tablet, and her small fingers move with alarming speed from screen to screen. Sure, her tripled chromosome adds learning challenges. However, since she creates an atmosphere of joy wherever she goes, her efforts spread courage, too.

If Ella can work harder to reach a goal, so can I.

Since I have experienced the wonder and beauty of a child with Down syndrome, I wince when someone uses the R-word, that taunt that ends in a d. It is not used by the medical community, only by the unthinking. (By the way, Ella is a child with Down syndrome, not a Down syndrome child; the difference may appear subtle, but it isn’t. She is first a person, and second, she is a child who has a challenge to overcome. Also,  the word syndrome is not capitalized unless it is part of a title, such as the Down Syndrome Association where the emphasis is on an organization, not a person.)

Grammar, however, is secondary. An understanding of people is what matters.

Today is the day to pledge to end the r-word:   http://www.r-word.org/

Many folk who have handicaps have more determination than college graduates. Actually, with help from the caring, some people with special needs have earned college diplomas.

So, today, right now, replace that put-down word with respect. It goes a lot further and delivers a lot more truth.

r words

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Music In the Key of A for Arthritis

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2013| 1 Comment »

Aging is not “lost youth” but a new stage of opportunity and strength. (Betty Friedan)

The knuckle on my middle finger on my right hand looks like it belongs on a gnarled tree branch, the kind that has led a part of the tree in a peculiar unexpected direction.  Oh, my skin, bones, eyes and ears have aged, too. In fact my five-year-old granddaughter asked who the bride was in the forty-one-year-old photo on her grandfather’s dresser. I laughed at that one. But it’s that finger that troubles me now. It gets in the way of smooth finger-picking on the guitar. And I have three gigs lined up these next two months.

I am not the only person who needs to overcome difficulties to get to a goal. Pictures fill the Internet of runners on  prosthetic legs. I revel in stories of  persons who have survived stage-four cancer or the young person with Down syndrome who earns a college degree. My challenge isn’t that great—all I ask is to entertain a few seniors at the YMCA and nursing home and make them smile, perhaps sing a few more years and let new words and chord patterns blend into a fresh song.

The going has been rough, especially in southwest Ohio where temperatures tend to be bipolar. Middle finger says uh-uh and nicks the wrong string or rebels entirely.

“Oh no you don’t,” I tell it as if it were a belligerent child. Then try again.

Funny, that hasn’t eased the pain one bit. Help came from another source—a call from the Activities Center at the nursing home where I played last month. “Can you come back on March 21 when we celebrate birthdays?” The voice on the other end sounds sunny. Apparently I got good reviews from the residents, despite middle finger’s balking. I mean, ouch isn’t in any of the lyrics. By the end of my last performance I had to single strum a few times before beginning again.

The arthritic rebellion quieted after that phone call. I managed the Travis pick without swollen, painful interruption. Apparently, yes you can are powerful words. I have decided to use them even more often as I speak to other people—maybe even give myself reinforcement instead of reprimand. Who knows what can happen?

from the Optimism Revolution

expect miracles Optimism Revolution

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