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Posts Tagged ‘wisdom in unexpected places’

Let’s Play: Cars on the Living Room Rug

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 13, 2017| 1 Comment »

Sometimes the best wisdom and advice comes through the simple purity of a child. They don’t see the world as complicated as adults do. (Nishan Panwar)

Dakota and I set up a ramp for his cars in the living room. Since the action tends to include a lot of collision and upside-down accidents, an on-site mechanic becomes necessary. I have the six-year old man for the job.

While his work is magically quick, he doesn’t have a concept of money yet. His bill for removing a nail in my vehicle’s tire is $300. True, the bill includes a heart and secret code, DN. Dependable NASCAR grease monkey? I don’t ask. The F and heart placed together definitely don’t require mentioning. Besides, Dakota accepts invisible cash.

Later, we take turns as airplane pilot. The plane is the couch. Take-off begins in recliner mode. Believable or not, I’ll take it.

“How far are we going this trip, captain?” I ask.

“Twenty miles,” he answers. “And it will take twenty hours.”

“Okay,” I reply, then call back to our ever-changing number of passengers to buckle their seatbelts. My belly laugh remains inside, saved for later. For now, levity heals any lingering abdominal pain.

“I love you, little buddy,” I finally get a chance to say. He doesn’t need to answer back. His grin is enough response. I’ll go back to grownup mode in a few hours—with just a little bit more energy to face the ugly places.

 

 

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One Little Boy and Beauty in a Messy World

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2017| 1 Comment »

There is always more goodness in the world than there appears to be, because goodness is of its very nature modest and retiring. (Evelyn Beatrice Hall, biographer, 1868-1956) 

Since I have three granddaughters, stuffed animals, dolls, and plastic dishes rule our toy room. Dakota needs some male space. We go to a local discount store to find the first installment on a transition toward a more balanced collection. I can’t afford renovation. Gradual change is more fun for a little person anyway because our one male child is in on it.

As Dakota places his five-dollar car purchase on the counter, he smiles. The cashier responds. “Okay if I give you a hug?”

My little guy looks confused, his eyes searching his hairline, but he accepts the quick squeeze. He has no idea how much charm he emanates. Since I am present, I suspect he knows the cashier’s gesture is okay.

Dakota and I arrive home and create a mini traffic world. Up and down the grass outside, on the rug in the living room. Life is contained and uncomplicated—at least for a while.

Later, I smile as I think about how fortunate I am that this little man came into my life—a future step grandson.

The news repeats the same stories in an endless loop. Rationalizations for maintaining the status quo continue. The word change becomes a platitude, no more than a vague promise hidden behind plans for the wealthy to grow richer and stronger.

The world needs more than any one voice to discover answers. Argument is counterproductive. The world could use more people who give a gosh-darn for more than themselves. Political motivation gets in the way. Forget party affiliation; look at what is happening to human beings—everywhere. Simple, not easy.

In the meantime, beauty lives hidden within places that keep the spirit alive. In the nonjudgmental acceptance of a child, in the presence of each day, in genuine friendship, in the ability to continue to give.

Peace, upon all.

My little man likes to clean. He is cleaning our coffee table and dusting pictures.

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Driving into the Morning Sun and Another Day of Illness

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 28, 2017| 1 Comment »

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

My teenage granddaughter is helping me with a novel I’m writing; she sees with younger eyes. I value her perspective. I value Kate.

As I drive to her house to drop off the first few chapters, the early morning sun blinds me. Sunglasses dull the intensity of the glare, but the shadowy lenses darken the road and traffic as well.

A premonition hits me. This day is not going to be easy. I’m not completely well yet. Fatigue wants to take over my thoughts and body. I can’t let it.

Along the well-known route I pass a dead opossum in the middle of the road. Around the next corner I see a young boy with a backpack. He is probably waiting for a school bus.

I see both death and learning. 

One turn north and my eyes get a temporary respite. Maybe today’s metaphorical staircase will contain more winding, uneven steps than a direct passage, up or down, in or out of sun and darkness.

The discomfort in my gut lightens for a while, yet the pain I see in the world grows beyond what I understand.

I feel a need to begin with accepting whatever happens today, hear what others say. Even if I can’t understand.

Faith—it’s taking each step as it comes. Into the glaring light. Into the frightening darkness. Into the unexplainable. Into giving without judgment. Into peace.

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One Hospital Admission Plus Two Canceled Trips

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2017| 5 Comments »

Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky. ( Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible)

Our flight to Berlin left three hours ago. Since my IV pole and the solution attached would get in the way on a budget flight, I guess this small hospital room will need to provide any current adventure. The standard-issue hospital gown might be slightly distracting as well. The fact that I am ill could also be a travel problem.

As Friday night became Saturday morning an overfull emergency room wasn’t the kind of adventure I had in mind. True, airport hassle may be distressing, but it doesn’t compare to intense pain caught in a continuous cycle. The clock measured each deep poke into the center of my body and back.

I watched the other folk who also waited.

A woman with blood mimicking a single-tone red tie-die covered her belly. Then I noticed her raised hand, the source. Nevertheless, she appeared calm.

Then, there was a woman who wondered about as if aimless. She sat on the side of my chair.

“You can have this chair if you need it,” I told her. “I can move to the other side.” One spot was open.

She barely turned around, and then moved away. Quickly. I sensed something deeper than physical desperation, but couldn’t prove it. I guessed her injury to be bigger than any hospital could fix.

Once my tests determined I needed to be admitted, I waited in my emergency cell until eight in the morning when a room was ready. My husband had wanted to wait with me, but I told him I was safe. He should care for himself. Go home. Rest. Then, he could care for me.

Yes, the pain continued, but my husband’s deep sense of sacrifice buoyed me.

I have some form of pancreatitis—obviously not connected to alcohol use since root beer is the only beer in my experiential vocabulary. No known connections yet. I’m told they may never be found. Sometimes, even the professionals never discover answers.

Today, I deal with much less discomfort, but many more questions. What the heck happened, and why now? Perhaps answers aren’t always what life is about.

This question I can answer, however: When will you be discharged? The answer: today. As early as this afternoon.

From the huge window in my room, I watch as a flock of geese fly through the rain. In V-shaped formation. Undeterred.

True, my original flight plans didn’t work out. Maybe on the next takeoff I will be more prepared. For now, I’m happy simply to return home.

Goodbye, IV line and helpful staff. I’m ready for departure. Hello, ordinary Tuesday.

composite photos of my room, a colorful approach

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Peace, Prejudice, and Discerning Friends

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 15, 2017| 2 Comments »

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind. (John Neal)

I meet every Tuesday morning with a spiritual group I joined when my older son was a toddler. The subject of hope keeps bouncing to the surface. I could use it.

Watch the news for more than five minutes, and the desire to remain on the couch indefinitely becomes tempting.

Deportation of innocent young people, hurricanes, earthquakes, the exploitation of personal tragedy, hate and greed take over the screen. 

As my friends and I talk about love that reaches deeper than the average Valentine card, I lift my socks-covered feet onto the coffee table. A deep purple bruise has taken over my right foot.

I knocked a few books off the shelf and gravity won. The foot swelling will heal. In comparison to the grief I see around me, this pain is a pinprick. The difficulties we explore are stab wounds.

However, my friend gives me an icepack. Love wrapped in a maroon towel. A symbol of hope. My friends share both encouragement and experience. Not lofty, disjointed everything-will-be-okay platitudes.

I share a short video. A Canadian politician is hassled by someone who confuses Sikhism for Islam. Clarification between the two groups is less important than the interruption centered in hate. Resolution comes through the leader’s call to peace. I hope the welcome greeting eventually touches the angry woman. Prejudice is heavy armor; it restricts movement and disables the heart. Hate armor takes time to build and time to remove.

The video can be found at this link: Sikh Politician Gets Verbally Attacked and Handles Gracefully.

In our small Tuesday group, we pause to check our responses. What preconceived notions do we hold? What views are opinions, taught, not experienced? And not true.

Kites fly through gentle wind; their fabric fails during turbulence. I choose where to fly a metaphorical kite, and where to call for reinforcements.

In the meantime, my foot loses some of its discomfort under the ice. I can decide to pass along kindness with the examples of my friends—or, I can add to the turbulence with discontent.

Peace. Upon all. Whether our political views coincide. Or not.

In the meantime, I will fly into Europe and meet other people. And see other ways of knowing life. Hopefully, I will come back with fresh perspective. And just a little more understanding.

photo-shopped public domain pic

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Being Both Flower and Weed

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 9, 2017| 1 Comment »

What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The flower our beggar squirrel beheaded has replaced itself—threefold. I suspect what I thought was a sunflower gift is a weed, a wild sunflower. The plant’s leaves appear as worn as my septuagenarian skin. I photographed the whole plant anyway. The leaves are part of its reality. I wear flawed parts, too, like every other ephemeral life form.

I struggle to conquer uncertainty and borderless fears. My husband and I are traveling to Europe soon. On past trips, I have met people who have brightened my spirit. Nevertheless, the worry-pain I build-up feels like surgery without anesthesia.

I have the same sense of direction as an untethered balloon. Leave my familiar surroundings and I float wherever the wind takes me.

I imagine telling my husband, “Sweetie, I’m following you everywhere you go as we travel. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Um, even on my way to the men’s room?”

There may be a few problems with my plan. Maybe I’ll take everywhere out of my request. Superlatives such as everywhere, the greatest, the worst, and all, lose truth somewhere. Death is final, as far as I know, at least as far as my limited vision can see. The other side has only sent subtle hints, two or three pieces from a billion-piece more-than-I-can-fathom puzzle.

In the meantime, I study the weed in my front yard. Yellow. Green. Hints of brown. Sun. Shadow. And I wonder how one dull, broken stalk replaced one flower with three.

“Hey, girl!” I tell myself. “You’re taking a trip that frightens you because you know it’s worth the risk. Have a good time, and recognize the flowers among the weeds. Who knows what lies ahead?” I’m about to find out.

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Light, Shadow, and a Few Crooked Fingers

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Shadow owes its birth to light. (John Gay, poet and dramatist)

My fractured metacarpal is healed. Or at least the break appears as a fading memory on an x-ray. Just below the mended crack, in my middle finger, the damage remains. Arthritis, lots of it. Severe. Yet, amazingly less painful than the word severe would indicate.

The bone’s joints are not aligned. Middle finger knocks its smaller digit comrades into a crossover position. Make-a-fist is no longer a realistic possibility. Adaptation is my next goal.

In fact, the doctor opens his computer and shows me guitar tools…thumb picks. He discovers devices to aid the less-than-perfect hand.

(I try to find the link later—no success. However, I can find guitar stores.)

“I guess I have a challenge then,” I tell the doctor. And he agrees. He also adds that studies have shown pain and attitude are linked. The more positive a patient is after surgery, the more likely the individual will need fewer, if any, opioids.

For me, surgery is not the best option, however. Maybe that is a good thing. Continuous movement is natural for me anyway.

My friend, Mary, recently broke her hip. She spent some time in a rehab facility. She managed her pain with only ibuprofen. At the time, I was amazed. How could she do that? Now I understand. She did it with her upbeat attitude.

Later in the day, I spend time with a friend who sees shadow even when her eyes are open. Nevertheless, she has brought me light. Ann is blind. I am driving her to a doctor’s appointment. We chat. About everything from our lives as they really are, not our show-selves, to who has the best fried chicken. Somehow, she knows what part of town we reach as I turn from one street to another.

I tell her about my granddaughter Rebe, how she and her sister, Kate, made a bridal veil out of a white shawl and a pair of my underwear. Ann tells jokes.

As we leave the office Ann says, “Okay if I drive home?”

“Well,” I answer, “only if you drive wa-a-y too fast. I need some adventure.”

A gentleman is waiting for the receptionist. He smiles. I hope we have made his day, too. Light mingled with shadow, in unpredictable patterns.

No, Ann does not drive my car home. She does drive my spirit in the right direction. And I am grateful.

light and shadow, flowers blooming in light

My crooked fingers remain less than photographable, better left to the imagination.

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Health Issues, A Late Marketing Start, and a No-Umbrella Rainy Day

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »

The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace. (Carlos Santana, musician)

I don’t take breathing for granted—not after a two-month fight with asthma and bronchial issues. Then I broke my hand and the complications escalated. My second book in the Star League Chronicles, Stinky, Rotten Threats, came out.

While my hand was in a brace, a pen could have been a foreign object. For weeks after my hand was freed, I wrote with a strayed moth-like path across the page. Typing wasn’t much better, slower, yet possible. My twisted middle finger crossed over my ring and little finger.

I continue with occupational therapy to correct the problem. My handwriting is legible. Pain is minimal.

Now, as I drive in the rain I wonder what to do next. Each day I missed allowed my work to get lost among the grand onslaught of well-known-first-to-be picked publications, then independent press and self-published books.

In my new fantasy, Chase and his friends face evil capable of destroying their magic woods and killing their leader. The kids don’t give up; they can’t. And, of course, as the writer, I saw snags appear along my way—like a computer that turned itself off as I finished final edits the day before my deadline. The gosh-darned-electronic-device erased a whole slew of edits.

No, I didn’t take that incident as a quit-while-you-can prophecy. I understood it as a challenge. (After a few cleansing yet non-repeatable expletives) Can I do the same with my health issues?

I begin the uphill drive home when I see a woman walking with a cane in the downpour. If only I had Star League powers… Maybe magic tools don’t exist in real life, but I do have an umbrella. And several more at home. I pull over and call to the woman, offer protection from the deluge, albeit late. Her hair hangs drenched in her face.

“I’m almost home, but…” She pauses. “Thank you. Not many people would stop and do that. You can pray for me, though. My name is Geneva.” She stands in the wet and shows no sign of urgency. “I paid my rent. I really did. My landlord says I didn’t. He’s going to evict me.”

I am dry inside the car, yet feel a sudden chill. “Of course, I will.”

Geneva asks for nothing else. The futility of a one-umbrella gift hits me, and yet she says, “You’ve made my day, though. Thank you. Thank you more than I can say.” She turns and continues to walk.  Without the umbrella. Uphill, far more uphill than I drive. Far more uphill than any challenge I face.

As the day passes I’m tempted to go back and look for Geneva. Perhaps, I will find her again. I don’t know. In the meantime, I pray not to forget that moment. Or her.

Photo: Sun and Rain

The sunflower appeared compliments of a visiting bird. No sunflower seeds were planted. It was nature’s gift.

 

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Ella’s Intuition: How Does She Know?

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. (Albert Einstein)

Ella leads our play and I follow: trick or treat, hide and seek, happy birthday in multiple forms—bunny’s fifth birthday and mine. Ella plays the role of Daddy; I am Daughter. I ask how old I am today. The reply? Seventy. In the make-believe world, the next obvious question has an unknown answer. It doesn’t matter.

While my spirit keeps up with the imagination of my granddaughter, my bones don’t. My lower back aches. But, I don’t tell Ella. Later, when her daddy and Grandpa come back from their errands I will put heat on the complaining area. For now, I will move a tad slower.

Then, I notice the microwave announcing my food is ready. I didn’t put anything in it. My bed buddy is warm.

Ella admits she did it. She shows me how she placed the fabric-covered bag of rice inside and hit Express. “For your back.”

How did she know? And get this warmed for me so quickly? During hide and seek?

Ella goes to the toy room and grabs the box of bandages. She places a strip inches from the most annoying area. Comforting heat relieves the discomfort in my back. I sit leaned against the chalkboard on the floor in the room with the toys as we play.

“You are amazing, Ella. How did you know my back hurt?”

“And your throat, too.”

My hiatal hernia has enlarged and burned the inside of my throat. Not a problem I would share with a child of any age.

Ella’s Down syndrome may have affected her muscle tone and other areas of her development. However, she has been reading phonetically for several years. Her intuition is beyond exceptional. She is a blessing in my life.

I’m not sure she knows how to explain how she understands what most people of any age would never recognize. To me, the answer is a mystery. For her, she is simply being Ella.

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An Old Refrigerator’s Last Words

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 13, 2017| 3 Comments »

I ran and ran and ran every day, and I acquired this sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never give up, no matter what else happened. (Wilma Rudolph)

I am a cloud-white, magnet-covered refrigerator. Appliances don’t celebrate birthdays. We don’t speak either, but I’m making an exception. For my final goodbyes.

My compressor stopped. And the husband living in this small house immediately sought help from an expert, a neighbor who can repair anything from ceiling fans to jet engines. The expert declared me incapable of resuscitation. Then he offered a cooler to save my interior parts—including at least a hundred dollars’ worth of items bought less than an hour ago from the grocery.

Another neighbor also came to the rescue. She said she had a freezer in her basement. I was impressed. The wife, the woman who rules the kitchen, turned my controls to the coldest possible temps. I gave it one more effort. I brought life back into me, Lazarus raising Lazarus.

Maybe I don’t have vision in the human sense, but I know Terry smiled. She saved my handle when it broke last year. With black duct tape. True, it’s not a conventional cure, but it kept me in alignment for a while. The sides of the tape are frayed, but the handle works—even if my energy can’t be promised for much longer.

Yes, I too ran and ran and ran. However, modern stoves, refrigerators, wash machines, weren’t made the way my ancestors were—to function through generations. Before profit became a god. No need to mention my brand. The notion is universal.

My replacement isn’t going to be loyal any longer than I have been. I plan to hold on until the delivery service pulls my plug. I’ll go wherever I’m led. I can’t hold on much longer anyway.

Tomorrow? Who knows? But, I count blessings. I lost nothing I was given to guard. I thank a kind neighbor. And that sudden burst of energy to run one more time.

the old handle, new stainless steel, and old in thermal camera view

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