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Posts Tagged ‘imagination’

Water Wisdom

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

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. (Oprah Winfrey)

Water is a symbol for the unconscious. I may not be in a deep sleep, approaching a great sea, but the Y pool brings its own unexpected gifts. I find myself drawn to people who tell me stories, or share wisdom. Some of the facts in the next paragraph have been altered—for the sake of anonymity. The purpose of this sharing is for enrichment, not gossip.

Two women always smile when I arrive. They live generosity. The father of one of the women is being forced to move to a nursing facility. He is neither ill nor feeble. She stands with him, not with the convenience of other family members. I listen, blessed. The other woman cares for her brother-in-law who has a debilitating illness. This does not keep her from volunteer work among other disabled people. The gentle spirits of these women blend into the pool water, mix with the chlorine somehow, and make me richer.

On another day I bring my granddaughters to the indoor swim lanes. Rebe pauses at the shallow end and picks up a water weight. Her imagination continues on land or in water. She pretends to be an instructor, directing me, her make-believe daughter.

“These are really heavy,” she says. “So be careful.”

“How much do they weigh?” I grin knowing that she has no idea how much is too much.

“To infinity and beyond,” she answers with make-believe authority.

“Such a goal,” I think. A few minutes ago I encouraged my girls to go for their dreams. Actually I have no idea where my five-year-old granddaughter gets her ideas. But in the water today, her eyes tell me she is happy. This is female-bonding day: Grandma, Kate, and Rebe. We have plenty of time left before Mommy and Daddy arrive to bring the girls home.

Nine-year-old Kate continues to swim laps, grateful that there are no adult-swim-time interruptions in the indoor lanes.

And the water responds with caresses as gentle as the strokes we create. I celebrate the sweetness of this “now.”

Sure, life on life’s terms continues. This time in the pool is only a respite. I can only pray for my friends who face injustice. A raging thunderstorm makes the drive home slow, as I calm a frightened kindergartener by telling her to count after she sees lightening. If the boom takes a while, the strike is far away. If the thunder comes quickly it has already passed by—and it hasn’t hit us.

“Okay, girls, hit the garage door opener!” I call as we arrive home.

They don’t need to be asked twice.

The troublesome storm continues a little while longer. But the sun has never left. It returns like a good parent.

sail boat

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Street Closed: Back Yard Open to Deer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

You can’t wait for inspiration. Sometimes you have to go
after it with a club. (Jack London)

Our street is blocked because of utility construction—gas line work. No parking on either side of the street. Enough noise to get the ears in the neighborhood accustomed to the upcoming Fourth of July blasts. And, of course, there’s the joy of trying to maneuver in and out of the driveway. Sure, I realize I’m lucky. I have a house and a car. More important, I have a husband of forty-two years and three granddaughters. The car may be seventeen years old, but it starts—most of the time anyway.

But, unexpected inconvenience can masquerade as the end of the world. Well, with enough flare for drama, it can. So, at dusk I decide to look out the back window of the house after the workmen have left for the day. Two fawns lay resting in our yard. Their peaceful pose would make a great photo for a meditation page.

I sit at my dining room table in between separate realities: In the front of the house, a ravaged scene, divided into light and blacktopped squares covered with huge metal plates. Signs along both sides of the street read—no parking Monday through Friday from 7:00 A.M. until 5:30 P.M. Rocky rectangles of sidewalk.  In the back yard the two young deer remain on the grass. Plenty of grass nourished by weeks of rain. Green provides a rich buffet for buck, doe, or fawn from the top of the hill to the bottom. City reigns from one window’s view, nature from the other. What I see depends upon which scene I choose.

No season lasts forever. Even construction. Although I have seen more of it in recent winters. Perhaps that isn’t so bad either. Not in an economy where folk need jobs and lines need repair. Maybe I won’t take that parking place in front of my house for granted when the work is completed. It’s possible. Then the deer can return to the front. Of course, they ate all the tulips years ago. There are plenty of weeds, however, to make a fine dawn or dusk meal. Eat, nature, and enjoy.

sign in Albuquerque, New Mexico

closed from Inhabitants of Burque Albuquerque construction

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Dust, Flaws, and Possibilities

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. (George Orwell)

Last week while Jay and I vacationed in Colorado, a housekeeping crew caught the dust before it settled on anything. In my home dust moves much faster than I do. But it doesn’t need to be my enemy, even if it is listed among the many allergens that make me sneeze or wheeze.

Actually, the only reasons I bother cleaning are to breathe and to live without complete chaos. No innate satisfaction involved. So, to keep my mind from feeling like a soiled rag I need to think deeper than spilled soup on the stove. What lies above and below the stains? What is important? What isn’t?  What should change in my life now, and what can only happen slowly? Not always as obvious as the question sounds. It’s so easy to wipe off the surface of a problem and leave resentment behind.

When someone admits a flaw I can relate. The trick seems to be in finding a balance since I tend to be easier on others than I am on myself.

Sometimes, to clarify perspective I try to see through the eyes of someone with simpler vision. On Wednesday our five-year-old granddaughter spent the day with us. She loves spending time with Grandma. As she pretended to give birth to twins, two soft dolls stuffed under her shirt, she said, “Look, they are wearing caps.”

Impossible in the real world? Well, yes. But she is centered in childhood’s innocence. The fact that her grandparents slept until five minutes before she arrived, didn’t faze her. She needed an unmade bed for her thirty-second spontaneous doll delivery, and a too-neat bedspread would have been in the way.

Grandma plays with her. Maybe I don’t have the same spontaneity as a kindergartener. I’m a bit stiff when it comes to switching roles mid-play, and I get distracted when the pretend world creates too much clutter in the world the grown-up Grandma will need to repair later. However, there are many levels in this existence, all happening at once. Dust and grime, imagination, beauty, and infinite possibility—all coexisting. I don’t want my blackened dust cloth to distract me from the whole.

pic from Positive Inspirational Quotes

different perspective PIQ

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Rubber Band Memory

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Some stories are true that never happened. (Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate) 

I open a desk drawer to get the fingernail clippers and get distracted by a huge bag of rubber bands. When did I buy them? And why? The answer isn’t what matters—it’s the story, locked somewhere in the past.

Who remember events that happened every summer of childhood? Well, there was that scout trip in the sixth grade. Or was it the seventh? Memory, it’s as solid as quicksand or as good a substitute for a tennis ball as a raw egg.

My husband and I were in the same room as someone told us a story; we didn’t hear the same version. I suspect that happens often. Anais Nin: “We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.”

Nevertheless, emotions draw from a different kind of truth. I look into the eyes of my grandchildren. Even though their perceptions may come from fantasy or a limited world view, the girls speak with fresh honesty.

Therefore, I want to be careful about the moments I leave in time. Some of the facts may be adjusted along the way, so I want to recognize the good in bad news, the beautiful in a broken glass, or the sweet possibilities in a lemon.

The bag of rubber bands has a gaping hole in its side. Many of the bands had to have been used. Perhaps a few have broken. Maybe some have bound important papers, while others found their way to the trash, or another state. Don’t know.

Truth lives in a deeper realm, a place poets touch yet never embrace. It passes through too many hearts.

heart cloud

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Talking Freckles

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2013| 1 Comment »

If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud. (Emile Zola)

On land I could never run with a lanky nine-year-old girl on my back. In the water, however, I pretend to be a horse. So does my husband—with five-year-old Rebe on his back. Jay moves much faster. In or out of the water. I’m more pony height.

When Grandma horse and Grandpa horse trade riders, Rebe gives me a name. At first it is Sleigh-ride. Then she changes it to Head-chopper. Kate turns Grandpa into a dolphin, more appropriate for the water. Imagination “reigns.”

Then Kate chooses another game. What if things spoke? What would an object say if it could? She calls out a word and my job is to give it a voice in two to three sentences. Most of my responses wouldn’t be worth editing. Fine for grandparent-grandchild play, but way too silly for a public forum. Moreover, I can’t remember all of the inanimate objects she suggests.

“Freckle,” Kate says.

A good friend calls them angel kisses. Summer has made Kate’s darker and larger, a random pattern like wildflowers scattered in a field. I see part tomboy and part let’s-pretend feminine. I see blossoming kindness, innate to her being.

But I don’t alter the game with metaphors, even if they do compliment my young granddaughter. I say something about how the fresh dark freckle chatters away to a face, and that face ignores it. Somehow, Kate finds the scenario hilarious.

Objects don’t communicate, except in fantasy. And people aren’t always that good at it either. I know I can assume. Sure, I hear what another person says. Sort of. Not on every level. That takes time.

Perhaps I’m not always clear either. It helps if I can learn to live as out loud as my grandchildren. Celebrate life as it comes. Learn. Be. Grow. No matter what. Celebrate color as if it had the power of breath, and recognize the power of dreams.

I dream in color

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Gravestones, a Sparrow, and Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

“I don’t ask for the sights in front of me to change—only the depth of my seeing.” (Mary Oliver)

In a small Indiana town I stand admiring a gravestone from the mid-nineteenth century—it bears my name. Sure, I added my husband’s  surname more than forty years ago, but I wore this one until I married. And that part of me exists, if only in the past. I have no idea who this woman was, or anything about her husband, Leonard. However, there is something sobering about seeing your name engraved on a gravestone, something that triggers the imagination.

As I wonder through the roughly parallel lines of monuments I see other graves with the same last name I had. My father didn’t know all his relatives. And he lived in Indiana for several years. I don’t know the full story about the distancing among those persons, only one incident that stands out because it reveals my dad as an innocent, vulnerable child.

He had an uncle, known to be cruel. At my father’s home he asked my father if he wanted to see a match burn twice. Dad always had a scientific mind. And, like all children he understood words at face value. The uncle lit his cigar, and then burned my father’s young arm. Dad howled and his mother came to his aid. She asked the uncle to leave and never come back.

No one else in that family ever returned either. The family tie burned as well. I never asked for the uncle’s name. The mama in me had the same reaction as his. I dismissed the uncle, too. Now my father has died.

I look at the layering of graves, from the earliest to the most recent. Moss covers some. The oldest are swallowed by black algae as well as yellow and green lichens. Time, rain, and wind have erased names, memories. No flowers decorate the older side. However, the past leaves unanswered questions. This person lived only twelve years and this one managed to reach his eighties. Unusual for early 1800. Personalities lose their touch. What color hair did she have? Did he treat his wife as an equal, or with the attitude of the times? Even the most ornate statue remains carved stone. It never speaks, leaves clues about the human spirit.

My meditative stroll reminds me of the last four lines of Robert Frost’s poem, “In a Disused Graveyard:”

It would be easy to be clever

And tell the stones: Men hate to die

And have stopped dying now forever.

I think they would believe the lie.

A baby sparrow hops among the stones. I maintain my distance. Unnecessary fear helps no living creature. He is no longer in that area when I return ten minutes later. Perhaps he has found his way to the sky. Perhaps not. I can’t help him any more than I can help my father’s long-ago past, or anyone’s past—including mine.

Instead I fly back into the moment: overcast, yet warm, externally quiet, internally alive with possibilities. The secret is to stay in the present and to love with as much power as I have. Now. On this June day. I pray to remember that, for longer than it takes to think it.

Peace to all, continuously renewed.

(pic from Morning Coach.com)

only live once MorningCoach

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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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Once Upon a Laugh

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

A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing. (Laura Ingalls Wilder)

I should have known my son Greg would grow up to become a stand-up comic. Actually, both of my boys had a knack for making me laugh. When Steve was in grade school he sneaked items like “a pony” onto my grocery list, somewhere in between milk and cereal.

Once, when the two were teenagers, they were watching sports as I left for my weekly shopping. Snacks and drinks were scattered on the floor by the living room couch.

“Be sure to have this cleaned by the time I come back,” I told them.

“Sure, Mom,” they said.

The fact that neither one of my sports enthusiasts blinked could have been a clue. The scene didn’t look any better when I returned.

“It’s okay, Mom. We’ll take care of it. Turn around,” Greg said.

“Uh huh.”

“No really.”

Sure, I sensed a conspiracy, but I turned around anyway, for about ten seconds. The boys grabbed an old throw rug and covered their dirty glasses and bowls with it.

“I don’t understand it,” Greg said. “It works in the cartoons.”

I’d been had. However, they repaired the damage. They probably brought the groceries inside—after I finished laughing. That part of the story isn’t part of the punch line. Good kids create a great family, but don’t add much to a joke.

Now Gregory Petersen is awaiting the summer publication of “Open Mike,” Martin Sisters Press, a fictional story about a comic on tour. Michael Clover delivers quick-wit lines that make his audiences laugh—most of the time. Self-healing takes more than a joke at another person’s expense.

Laugh on one page. Cry on another. Yet, each scene fits the way the ocean yields to high and low tides. It’s life in fictional form.

Please note: my son’s book is one-hundred percent fiction. We are not a prototype of the Clover clan. And I am grateful. In fact, Greg has told me that he can’t make it as a full-time comedian; his youth wasn’t horrible enough. He works a day job.

Ah, well, I am thankful for all the fun my sons continue to provide. I am blessed and know it.

laughter words to inspire the soul

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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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