Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

Serendipity and the Daily Newspaper Delivery

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2018| 1 Comment »

Serendipity always rewards the prepared. (Katori Hall)

I stand on our partially wet, partially dry sidewalk and wave to our neighbor as he leaves his house. He waves back. During that short pause, the daily newspaper lands at my feet. The delivery man’s arm and back of his head are all I can see as he continues on his rounds.

To the right of the newspaper are damp yellow daylilies. A perennial that returns and blooms even though passing deer often choose the bright blossoms as a part of our neighborhood’s buffet.

Ah, I’ve heard of door-to-door delivery, but never six-inches-from-your-right-toe service. An accident maybe, but I’ll take it.

Inside the paper will be a comic page, death notices, and stories that could cause me to wince. Another layer of everyday life wrapped in an orange plastic tube. The completed package.

Completion. I wonder if there is a certain misunderstanding of the notion. Sure, I can complete a single chore. All that is expected of me on this journey? I may not be the final judge. All I can do is I watch for the serendipities, the blessings inside dark and light. They appear along the way.

Read Full Post »

Ella, Used-Car Salesperson

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 6, 2018| Leave a Comment »

You can be childlike without being childish. A child always wants to have fun. Ask yourself, “Am I having fun?” (Christopher Meloni)

I watched as my beloved Toyota was being towed away. Her replacement existed. Among a few possibilities. Nevertheless, Little Beige and I had seen many miles together. We fit old-sneaker comfortably; until that last crashing moment I knew what to expect. She didn’t complain when one of the kids spilled drinks on her back seat. I knew how her few buttons worked.

Now, I wait as my husband and the used car salesman work out the final details. Jay has a business degree, as well as a knack for checking out the facts. I listen, unaware that my granddaughter, Ella, has also been listening.

As Jay and the dealer leave the building for some checks on his car, Ella takes over the salesman’s chair.

“What kind of car do you want?” she asks.

“Green with an orange steering wheel.”

“We can do that.” She pauses. “I will have to make it.”

After a few arm swirls, she hands me the invisible product. “Do you need anything else?”

“How about a truck? Purple.”

Once again, the request is no problem. One item costs me $54.56. The other costs $56.56.

She laughs when I ask for a tractor complete with farmer. So does a fellow customer at the next desk.

Before Jay and the salesman return I am also the proud owner of a motorcycle and yellow school bus. Fortunately, the imagination doesn’t limit size. It doesn’t care about the age of user or seller either.

“We can go home and play now, Ella,” I tell her.

The day lilies by our driveway have dried by afternoon. The morning dew has evaporated. Each hour has its cost and its gift. I’d like to say I have forgotten about the fearful moment when I knew my 2005 Toyota had breathed its last breath.

Yet, somehow, I survived. Each minute brings something different—both pleasant and miserable.

Ella and I play. The sun rises and sets. We are part of a larger whole. A whole I may never understand until my life is completed, and perhaps not by then. After all, knowledge isn’t my goal; love is.

 

Read Full Post »

If I Were a Seed…

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2018| 2 Comments »

You cannot go around and keep score. If you keep score on the good things and the bad things, you’ll find out that you’re a very miserable person. God gave man the ability to forget, which is one of the greatest attributes you have. Because if you remember everything that’s happened to you, you generally remember that which is the most unfortunate. (Hubert H. Humphrey)

Inside the seed is the potential for a plant. My gardener friends may recognize the difference between a wanna-be green bean and columbine. My understanding remains in the metaphor realm. Internal beauty needs to fight through dirt to become real.

My fingers have become twisted with age and arthritis. A fractured metacarpal in my right hand permanently curved the middle finger. My music has been affected; my song has not.

Amazing as I realize that the cells of the body change continuously. My face doesn’t look the same as it did twenty years ago. I have an older, drier skin, memories locked inside the wrinkles. Yet, classmates from fifty years ago have recognized me. I have recognized them. The self remains. Hopefully I have changed inside for the better—losing track of the score and gaining interest in the game.

Have I reached perfection? Hardly. Sometimes I realize the condemning words I was told as a child have adhered to my spirit. They need to be pruned. With actions that prove them worthless.

For today I forget the past and begin again, accept who you are and who I am. In this strange, complicated world. May peace win. Somehow.

 

Read Full Post »

Truth Inside a Fantasy Story About Aliens from Outer Space

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2018| 1 Comment »

(close-ups: cactus and Diet Pepsi can, thermal camera view)

 

Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

The word, lie, appears in the media too many times to count. Quantifying transgressions is a waste of time. Truth, unfettered by emotion, exists. However, it hides under heavy layers of hype.

My father often told me, “Consider the source.” In those days I understood it in terms of bullying, not truth-sorting. Nevertheless, his advice fits.

How much does any everyday observer know about truth, the whole story?

Imagine aliens, the outer space variety. Their appearance doesn’t matter. Green. Orange. Short. Tall. They visit the earth and land their ship in a desert in the United States. They see a few lizards and decide they must be the inhabitants. 

One of the other-world visitors touches a cactus. “Hmmmn, not a friendly place.” (In other-planet language, obviously)

An empty diet soft-drink can lay half-hidden in sandy soil. The leader notices it. “Ooh, what is this?”

The second in command kicks it. “Looks like a home for something.”

An Arizona wolf spider crawls out.

“There is an odd odor coming from inside this residence, the residue of something,” one of the aliens adds.

None of the alien group decides to investigate the planet further. The wolf spider, lizard, cactus and empty can have provided sufficient evidence. Ignorant creatures. This planet is not worth its sand.

These aliens exist only in my imagination. Earth and its inhabitants are real. Some live well. Others endure dire poverty. I pray truth, courage, and enough solid concern for the whole, can save this globe. Eventually.

 

 

Read Full Post »

As Capable as a Seedling

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

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. (Thomas A. Edison) 

Recently, I heard about a redwood tree flourishing inside a concrete-bound city area. Several years ago, my husband tried to coax an infant California sequoia into facing less temperate Ohio. The seedling didn’t last longer than a few weeks.

Naturalists recommend native plants. I agree. Either the plants die or take over kudzu-style. However, stories involving thumbs greener than mine intrigue me.

Successful human you-can’t-do-that experiences fascinate me even more. The drug addict who triumphs over his addiction, the individual with special needs who runs a business or succeeds in a public office.

One small thing today I didn’t think I could do, what is it? Oh yeah, I thought my computer had died. It didn’t. I brought it back to life. And my father told me he wanted me to take a mechanical aptitude test to see how low a score I would get.

Erase the negative messages. Plant new ones. Let them grow. May we astound ourselves. And continue planting…

 

Read Full Post »

Scary Drivers—Anyone Have a Solution?

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 25, 2018| 2 Comments »

They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic. (Steven Wright)

I wonder how many drivers have made road trips—without wondering what the…heck is that guy doing? Traveling at NASCAR speed or moving twenty-miles-an-hour in a fifty zone.

When my younger son was about kindergarten age I turned onto a narrow road behind a woman, obviously elderly. Her shoulders sloped, and head leaned over the steering wheel. She drove the center yellow line as if she were failing a sobriety test. In slow motion.

When I reacted, my youngster responded, “Oh Mom, maybe she just has old-timer’s disease.

I don’t recall how I got around her, or when she turned onto another road. My son’s innocence, however, stays with me.

His simplicity didn’t nullify the lady as a roadway threat. It did help me get through the moment.

Years later, my middle granddaughter was in the car when a driver cut me off with half a foot to spare.

I gasped, but my granddaughter saved the moment again.

“Grandma, is that what’s called a jackass?”

“Bad driver,” I answered.

Unfortunately, not every accident is an almost. Signs above the highway note the statistics. They can’t relate experience. Pain. Loss. Fear.

Today I drive in the rain. Someone, male or female—it doesn’t matter—passes me on the left over the center line, misses an oncoming car by about a foot, and then repeats the favor with the next car.

Peace, I think. Not in pieces. Someday. Somehow.

 

 

Read Full Post »

Finish the Story: An Alien from Outer Space…

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

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

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

A good imagination helps.

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Unpredictable as Weather—Plans Set and Un-set

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Once Upon a Seed

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

seeds

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have added a part two: Love anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Poem: Serendipity on an Ordinary Friday

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

calendar

It’s all a series of serendipities

with no beginnings and no ends.

Such infinitesimal possibilities

Through which love transcends.

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

 

Serendipity on an Ordinary Friday

 

I have other plans,

agendas carved from time

not yet touched by day or night.

Instead, I meet a stranger

face to face,

eye to eye.

Five minutes after

your name, my name,

we recognize our common places

where the ugly and beautiful meet.

We, strangers before 10AM,

on an ordinary Friday,

speak, listen, and within twenty minutes

share an embrace.

Our skin colors appear different,

in the way two gifts,

both carrying gems,

don’t mimic their wrappings.

Today’s sun shines. It also casts shadows.

No longer strangers, she and I

have been blessed by light.

 

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »