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Posts Tagged ‘encouragement’

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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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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Celebrating Flaws?

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

We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left. (Sarah Vowell)

Sarah Vowell has written six nonfiction historical books, including Lafayette in the Somewhat United States and Unfamiliar Fishes. She is an actress. I’ve seen her interviewed and been mesmerized by her wit. Therefore, I read the last sentence—several times. “But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.” Should that read But get rid of flaws and there would be no one left? Or should it be, But get rid of my flaws and I would not be?

Then again, perhaps Ms. Vowell is onto something. Each individual is a part of the whole. We share flaws the way we share common emotional existence. No one has it all. Perhaps that is why we were designed to be social beings. I am part of the whole. The whole is part of me. Or, she could be saying that without flaws she is only a shell with no one inside. It’s a question for my grammar-freak friends.

Today gray clouds fill the sky, but an almost circular hole opens and lets the blue peek through. By the time I have driven to my destination the sun has won. For now. The TV news loves to forecast sensationalism and doom. Unusually warm winter temperatures should fight with cold air soon, giving birth to storms.

And I realize that storms inside me want to rise, too. They want to make a big fuss about recent mistakes, failures that feel larger and higher than the clouds. Yet, those mistakes don’t rise to more than my four-foot-eleven height off the ground.

Then four-year-old Dakota rushes into our house. His huge brown eyes let me know he is happy to be here. Little people don’t hide their feelings. He asks why at least a thousand times. “Why isn’t your hair long like my mommy’s?” “Why isn’t Jay back from the YMCA yet?” When he heard that I was going for physical therapy for my neck he wanted to know, “Are they going to take your neck off?”

Fortunately that answer was a simple no. I smile at his innocence. He doesn’t know how small he is yet, how much growing he needs to do before he is an adult. The statement, in an hour, has as much meaning to him as the unfathomable size of the universe has for me. I can’t grasp it. Nor will I ever comprehend more than theory.

Yet, none of the people I love are perfect. If they were I would have nothing in common with them. So, I thank Sarah Vowell for her honesty, and look at my flaws with a tad more reverence.

mistakes The Optiism Revolution

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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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First Hug of the New Year

Posted in inspiration, kindness, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 6, 2016| 1 Comment »

Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. (Franklin P. Jones.)

 On the first day of January I am in the locker room at the Y—that sacred realm where children run naked and women hide their extra flesh behind wrapped beach towels. I see Kathy. Actually, I’m not sure she spells her name with a K. I only know her from the Y. She wears a beautiful soul that emanates enthusiasm for life.

Kathy generally arrives at the pool at about the time I am preparing to leave. Several months ago she bought place mats with the characters from Frozen for my granddaughters. She greets me as if I were family.

I finish dressing and wait to make eye contact with her. She is talking to someone else on the other side of the aisle.

“Oh, Terry, Happy New Year!” she exclaims. “I love your smile. It is so contagious.” She hugs me. Not one of those quick, in-a-hurry embraces. A healing squeeze. A you-are-important-and-I’m-letting-you-know-it hug.

And I choose to remember it.

“First hug of the new year,” I say.

I decide to pass the gift on, leak it out to others as the cold outside deepens and the warmth inside my old ’97 Toyota blows rich comforting air toward me.

In “The Curse Under the Freckles” I tell my readers that Chase doesn’t think much of himself, but he is important. He needs to break the curse; the cousin he relies on for almost every move can’t. Chase faces the impossible. He  sees himself as the kid at the bottom, both in class and in life.

Sure, I will need to go outside into the chill soon. Utopia exists only in the dictionary. However, beginnings are important. And every New Year’s resolution I’ve considered reeks with negativity. Perhaps fictional Chase and I have more in common than I realize.

Thanks, Kathy! You’ve made my day. No, correct that statement. You’ve started my year off right.

beginning makes the conditions perfect

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Like Botched Icing on the Cake, Literally

Posted in humor, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 31, 2015| 3 Comments »

Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest. (Hermann Hesse)

At the bottom of the chocolate birthday cake recipe are directions for icing. They advise: frost while cake is still warm. Ah, how time saving! However, while I’m sure I followed the simple instructions, the results appear syrupy. The final product could be high-caloric lava, better suited for a junior high science project.

The time saver has now turned into a messy challenge. My white sweatshirt mimics a Tough Mudder competitor’s. Okay. Is there any way to save this stuff? I work quickly and add powdered sugar, then press the concoction into the top and sides of the cake with the same technique I would use if the icing were made of my grandkids’ clay.

I run out of frosting and don’t want to know how rich this cake is as I make icing of a close-enough color. Voila! The caloric contents of a candy store on one plate. However, divided among a dozen people it may be okay…nibbled…recognized as the dieter’s weekly intake. Provided the outside chocolate layer doesn’t fall off during slicing like shingles during a heavy storm.

In the meantime I learn to take myself less seriously and allow the spasms in my neck to relax despite the nuisance. I take a photo of my creation. It looks better than I expected. Happy birthday, Greg, Sarah, and Claire!

Peace to all, no matter what needs to be repaired. Or eventually discarded. Tomorrow begins another year. Happy New Year to all!

birthday cake

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Recipe for Fun: the Baking is Secondary

Posted in humor, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 24, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe. (Donna Tartt )

Sure, Kate and I should use the food processor to crush the cookies to make the truffles. But rolling them between two sheets of waxed paper turns the task into a game. And that is the purpose of our day—to spend time doing something fun.

Besides all I have is a recipe held precariously in my head. A superb baker, who owns two ovens, told me how to make the delicacies. Last week. I’m counting on my fallible memory.

Kate and I laugh as some of the crumbs escape across the table top. At least the cookies came from the organic section of the grocery. The mess contains fewer unnatural ingredients.

The final results taste fantastic, but won’t make the cover of any food magazine. We don’t take the time to make each ball even. And we run out of melted chocolate.

“Are you going to blog about this?” Kate asks.

“Why not?” I answer. Some of life’s most beautiful moments happen during mundane, messy, silly, and this-isn’t-the-way-it’s-supposed-to-happen experiences. Cookies-smashed-into-cream-cheese-and-scraped-off-with-the-blunt-edge-of-a-knife fit into that category.

As we work I think about how privileged I was to take Kate with me to find last-minute holiday gifts. I tend to be a get-required-items-then-skedaddle shopper. Kate and I stopped to look, to see, to celebrate, to talk over hot chocolate while Grandpa and Kate’s little sister, Rebe, had the chance to swim at the YMCA.

Kate wanted to help Grandma catch up. I feel honored.

The sink looks like it has taken over for a commercial chain of restaurants. Kate and I also made pumpkin bread. The stainless steel appears to be bleeding, in orange.

Then when Rebe comes back with Grandpa she decides she wants to bake, too. She doesn’t want to be left out. I agree only if she takes some of the finished products home with her. More food would end up in the freezer than we could give. Contents would need to be stacked like mortared bricks. For the freezer’s system this would be something like trying to breathe inside a basement wall.

And my waist line doesn’t need to hold what the refrigerator can’t.

After all our creations are completed the girls make a tent with blankets and couch cushions. I play with my granddaughters and crawl inside their play environment, too. I grab a plush toy cow and tell them it gives chocolate milk. Kate readily accepts a pretend squirt. Rebe claps her hands over her mouth and says, “I’m lactose intolerant.” She isn’t. But she has definitely inherited her father’s quick wit.

My neck should hurt more than it does. But perhaps laughter heals in unexplained ways. My considerably-past-middle-age years will return, sooner than I want them to appear, long before I see in a mirror the ridges in my neck. Probably sometime during the clean-up. For now I have discovered a great secret of the universe. The light in my granddaughters’ laughter makes me feel whole.

Kate and Rebe, thanks. Just for being the wonderful girls you are.

May  everyone find peace, love, joy, and plenty of laughter during the holiday season.

laughter words to inspire the soul

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For My Husband: the other half of our ordinary kingdom

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom. (Thomas Carlyle, historian and essayist, 1795-1881)

At dinner my husband Jay compliments my cooking and then suggests we go shopping soon. For my Christmas gift. “I don’t want to get something you need,” he adds. He knows I have a pair of shoes with heels that have been losing a battle with city sidewalks. The soles would not be road-worthy if they were tires.

“We will get whatever you need; I want you to get something extra,” he says. “Something you want.”

I understand the difference, yet don’t have a ready answer. Certainly, if I think about thing-possibilities long enough I could probably come up with an idea. But what I want most no one can give me. I want more people to get along. I want violence to stop, listening to come first and speaking to arrive second. I want my friends who are suffering to see an end to pain. I want the depressed to see a purpose in their lives, the grieving to find comfort, the people I have hurt without knowing it to find healing. I don’t feel well now. Neck spasms. Lying down and getting up again has suddenly become monumental. Health cannot be purchased and wrapped.

I smile and tell my mate we will shop this week. And we will. Probably. Next week at the latest.

I recall driving through a fog to my small community’s church service. I was halfway down a long winding road, no other car in sight, when I realized my lights aren’t on. I could see reasonably well without them, but turned them on anyway. Light, one small passageway, created a clearer path.

One small change in perspective makes a difference. Perhaps it is not the item, the purchased thing, that matters. The gift is no more than a symbol. I think about the built-in imperfections of life. Many people have complimented Jay and me on our ideal marital relationship. I smile because we live the muddy, you-said-what real as well as the let’s-go-to-a-park fun times. Moments arise when work-it-out hasn’t found a solution yet.

We don’t live in Utopia. We have our moments of discontent. Neither one of us has sprouted angel wings, levitated, or prophesied before the masses. We are 100% human, flawed, and complicated. Mind-reading 101 could help with the misunderstandings, but it exists only in fantasy. One of my characters in “The Curse Under the Freckles” has this gift. But, even this character finds it noisy, distracting, and annoying at times.

I suspect a perfect world would be predictable and boring—even in fiction.

So, I have no idea what toy I will choose on shopping day, but the product isn’t my focus. I imagine a journey with someone I’ve known most of my life, yet don’t completely know yet. Even if that journey includes a mundane thirty-minute mall walk. In the meantime, sweetheart, I’ll take your hand and you take mine.

At ages 69 and 70 neither one of us is too old to learn. From a geological point of view we are infants. From today’s practical position it doesn’t matter anyway.

how awesome you are

 

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