The Final Accounting

The time between Christmas and New Years is always a time of reflection for me. It's a period of time when l turn especially introspective. I like to look over what I've done and where I've been. For me, the final accounting is before me. Time to add things up.

This year my thoughts were centered on changes, changes in my life. Changes that I made by myself, changes I made with help and those more challenging changes that came about in and of themselves. It's one thing when we set out to accomplish something, with intent and purpose and quite another when the change is dropped in our lap, unceremoniously and unexpectedly. A change we have no control over.

So it is that change I am thinking of now, that unexpected, unwanted and unavoidable part of life we cannot help but wonder about. Wonder if a different course of action would have made a difference, would have produced a different outcome. I think about what responses of mine were good ones, the right ones. I think about the accidental responses, the ones I didn't give any thought to, the ones if I had thought about what would they have produced. Where would I be then, where would I be going now?

It doesn't matter, really. The exercise in "what if" is an exercise in futility. It's a game to play, one that doesn't matter in the least. It's interesting to ponder but for all of my wondering what is...is.

What matters is what I've done and where I am right now. What matters, in my final accounting, is how do I feel about this year's journey, how do I feel about the changes I made? My responses to changes that were made for me? Am I satisfied with myself? Am I willing to move on from what has disappointed me, move forward with what has delighted me? Am I able to add it all up, look at it clearly and objectively and be happy with the end result?

You better believe it.

Indeed.

You live a life worth living... and you love with all your heart.

My daughter is at the jumping off point, the brink of permanence, in a relationship with a wonderful young man. I couldn't be happier for her.

I look at her and see what lies before her, if she is willing to reach for it. I see what lies before her if she allows herself to be reached for. What I see is her life, the way a life ought to be. The way a life ought to be lived.

You have to know how special I think the connection between a man and woman is, the connection between a man and woman in love. We are meant to be part of a pair, a couple. We are meant to have partners. We are meant to, along with another person, live life in such a way that we discover every last thing about ourselves in the process...but can only do so with that other person as part of our journey. Not just any person, but the one you are meant for, the one who matches you. The one who was literally made for you. The one you love and the one who loves you.

A person can know themselves inside and out, know their own feelings right down to the last letter. Still, there is always a part of us, a part left undiscovered, until which time we meet the person who was meant to help find it, help us uncover those things we never could have found by ourselves.

So it is my wish, my desire, for my daughter to have this partner in her life. Have this person who is not there to complete her or change her. She's a fabulously complete young woman in her own right. My wish is that she have the partner who will add to her life, add his voice to hers in order to make a new song between them. Have that partner to help her uncover all that is inside her. Make a new life blending all they have as individuals, taking all they are made of, and all that they find in each other, and together making a life.

You see ... you live a life worth living....and you love with all your heart. There is no other way to live, truly live. No other way to love.

Indeed.

Bearing Gifts

I went Christmas shopping Friday evening in a local Department Store in the downtown area of my community. It's a wonderful store, timeless and traditional. The sales staff are older than those in most stores and they know the merchandise. The store has six floors of shopping, escalators and even a restaurant complete with a lunch counter. It's a dream, a throwback, a wondrous place and, to me, it does not feel like Christmas until I have gone there shopping.

After making a few purchases I stopped by the fine jewelry counter. While waiting for the salesperson to show me something from the case, a man standing next to me seemed restless, almost fidgety. He was my age, or perhaps a bit older, and appeared to be dressed in his work clothes. He wasn't dirty or disheveled but he must have stopped in right after working. I smiled at him and went back to waiting for a clerk. About a minute later he came closer to me and wanted to know if he could ask my opinion on something. My opinion is something I give often, without having been asked, so naturally I was willing to oblige! He had made his choice but wanted to know what I thought. He had chosen an exquisite Venetian glass shaped heart with 24k gold swirled inside. It was a beautiful piece, any woman would appreciate such a gift.

Apparently he had only been dating the woman he wanted to give this gift to for a short time. He didn't want to appear too pushy but he had feelings for her. He said he intended to tuck a little note inside the box before he gave it to her. The note would say..."You captured my heart". What a lovely gesture and I told him so. He was happy to discover I agreed with his choice of gift....as well as how he wanted to present it.

This woman is lucky. Lucky to have someone put such care into a gift for her. Lucky to have someone want to make sure the gift was special, thoughtful, make sure it was perfect. Later that night I thought about the gifts I have received over the years. Mostly the ones from my husband. When we first met he was a great giver of gifts, thoughtful and imaginative. The element of surprise was a strong theme. Over the years he has given me a wide range of offerings, each and every one appreciated.

Over time the gifts seem to have changed as has his dedication to choosing them. He has a hard time now finding something for me. He'll tell me I am hard to buy for, that I have everything. He'll sometimes want me to tell him what I want, or better yet, go out and pick it up myself. He'll say that this way I'll have what I want. I always decline that one.

It surprises me that, after all of this time, he does not know me well enough to understand that it's not the gift to me ... but the thought behind it. I don't need to be wowed. He doesn't have to "out do" the previous gift. Simply put I just want to be thought of. I don't care what he gives me. The smallest gesture is always the best with me. A tiny offering that says...this made me think of you.

The best gifts, for me, are those that don't cost very much but are priceless. They reflect the heart of the giver. They reflect their intent, their care. They reflect what I mean to them. They mirror the givers feelings for me. The gift, over time, can be taken out, again and again, and the lovely sentiment returns. Each time I would look at it I would know the loving thought behind it and the genuine spirit in which it was given. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

It can't be any simpler.

Indeed

When You're Fast Asleep

A dream is a wish your heart makes...

When you're fast asleep...

In dreams you lose your heartaches...

Whatever you wish for, you keep ...

What a sweet, lovely verse, part of a song written by Mac David, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston for the Walt Disney animated classic, Cinderella. Dreams. I like to think about dreams. I like to think about my dreams.

Dreams keep your sanity intact, or at least I think so. Dreaming is something you sometimes do until the crisis passes, until the heartache ends, until the drama subsides. Dreaming is something you do until things are better, until things return to normal. Dreams are a way of fooling yourself, if only for a little while. Without them life could be far too harsh, far too barren of joy and humor, far too serious. Far too much to bear. Dreams are a place to wander until it's safe to return home.

Mostly I like to think of dreams as self fulfilling prophesies. Not in the sense that a fantasy would come to be, but rather the dream of a life as we intended it to be. We all want certain things in life and sometimes they are just beyond our reach. Through no fault of our own sometimes, these things remain elusive, at our fingertips but not within our grasp. Dreaming, having a wish our heart has made, keeps those things right in front of us. We see them in waking moments and perhaps have them in the ones when we are asleep. Dreaming keeps them front and center. Keeps them in our sight and on our minds until that time that whatever you wish for....you keep.

So until those days that my own dreams come, I will keep wishing, keep on believing that ....the dream that I wish will come true.

Indeed.

A dream is a wish your heart makes

When you're fast asleep

In dreams you lose your heartaches

Whatever you wish for, you keep

Have faith in your dreams and someday

Your rainbow will come smiling thru

No matter how your heart is grieving

If you keep on believing

The dream that you wish will come true

If The Shoe Fits...

If the shoe fits, wear it.

Who has not heard that idiomatic proverb? I first heard it as a girl told to me by my mother countless times. My mother's way of making sure I held myself accountable for thought as well as deed I suppose. If a proverbial shoe fit...I did indeed wear it. I wanted to be accountable, wanted to take to heart the things I did, felt.

Of course if just about any shoe fit me....I would wear it. Shoes...I love shoes. I love how certain pairs of shoes make me feel when I wear them. I will buy a pair of shoes and put together an outfit around them. I love shoes but I digress.

So as not to appear shallow...I must say it is not this particular kind of shoe I refer now. Not the pretty and sexy shoes I often try on and buy. It is the shoe that many who struggle wish we would all try on. Try on for size.

I'm talking about walking a mile in someone else's shoes. We often look at others, size up their lives and make a judgement. I wonder what the judgement would be having stepped into their shoes for a while, walked their paces, felt the pinch from a long day on their feet? We see a seemingly attractive person with a nice house, nice car, nice spouse, nice kids and we think...what a nice life they must have. We might even feel a little jealous, a little envious, wishing such niceties for ourselves. We would be making an egregious error in assuming that the nice we see equates to the nice they live. Those shoes might very well cause blisters, aching blisters they endure day in and day out.

So before you judge, make an assumption...try on those shoes. Try those shoes on and see if they fit. If they fit take a walk in them and find out what it feels like to wear them

What it feels like to wear them in their life...blisters and all.

Indeed.

Move On

MoveOn.org is an organization, a liberal organization, created to bring Americans into the political process through advocacy, political action and civic action. Borne following the Clinton impeachment hearings, it's founders sought to move the country, move Americans, "on". The idea was, for the good of the country, to Censure the President and be done with it. Move on!

We have all heard those words before. Many of us have said them as well and with the best of intentions. Move on.

It's not so easy to move on is it? Sometimes we're involved in a series of events that make us want to do anything but move on. We can't conceive of not being in that particular situation, being with that particular person. Moving on would be anathema to us, out of the question, unfathomable. We seem to want to stay right where we are and who we are with. Despite being told by countless friends, in countless ways, we stay. We remain fixed and immobile. Stuck.

Now the "staying" I refer to is a mindset, a thought process, a mental place. I have a girlfriend who went through a divorce after twenty five years of marriage. She had a terrible time dealing with the end of her marriage and we would spend countless conversations with her asking why this was happening to her and me telling her to move on. I'd say we had the same conversation for about two years. Two years! What I found interesting was the fact that she was the one who left, she was the one to bring an end to the marriage. In a physical sense she did, in fact, move on. Not in her mind however. In those two years of telling her to move on I would get frustrated. I couldn't understand why she was unable to move forward with her life. It was certainly for her own good. She knew this, she would tell me each time we talked...."I know I have to let go but it's just so hard".

It is hard. This experience with her serves as a reminder for me. There are many things in my life I have had to move on from, had to let go of. Some simple, some more complex. Some dispatched with ease like the loss of a favored political candidate or a change in jobs. Others more difficult like the loss of a loved one, one who sometimes remains in your life. Like the loss of friendship, one that has gone sour and irreparable. Of course the loss of friends and relatives to illness, death. For me...and the most difficult of all....the loss of a dream. The loss of something I may have put all of my faith in, hung all of my hopes on. Something I might have been counting on, wishing for. Something I may have set my heart on. Gone.... and with no way to bring it back. How frustrating, how hard to deal with, how difficult to move on.

Yet I have. I have and so will I continue to do.

Move On

Indeed

The Party Continues....

I celebrated a birthday this week...a big one. A milestone. One I had mixed feelings about.

While no one would ever say that I am not vain, vanity had nothing to do with my mixed feelings. Aging has not really bothered me, not in a visual sense. I'm curvier than I once was, yes, and not quite as svelte. I have the same angst most women do at my age but I am without the telltale wrinkles and crinkles that land on most faces. I really don't look my age.

I have been mulling this milestone quietly and introspectively for some time now. As the day drew near my precious husband would stop and exclaim, "I can't believe I'll be married to a 50 year old". He's younger than I am by nearly two years, his turn will come. Last weekend he regaled me with the tale of a dream he had had. As he told it....he dreamed of me standing in our kitchen. He said, "you were young and you had your long hair. You were so pretty and you looked so thin....like when you were twenty. You had on a nightie and looked so sexy, you looked so good to me". As if that wasn't enough he said, "what happened to you?". Bless his heart.....he's lucky I didn't injure him.

I'll admit his words upset me. One glance in a mirror confirms my own satisfaction with my appearance. Still I was perplexed. You see in his wondering what had happened to me....I wondered why he didn't know the answer to that question. That's what bothered me.

What has happened to me is that I have grown. Simply put but accurate...I have grown. I am all kinds of wiser than I was back then, when I was twenty like in his dream. I'm smarter and I am eons more worldly. I have the maturity of one who has been there, the good sense of one who has done that. I know so much more about people and their nature. I know so much more about my own nature.

I have never stopped growing. Never stopping learning about myself. I am so beautifully familiar with my mood and temperament. I'm never confused by what I might be feeling. How could I be? I know myself better than anyone. I have learned to let go of things that are useless and a drag on my optimism. I have learned to excise people who seek to hold me back, malign my growth. I have opened my mind to a world of possibility....not the least of which are my own desires and wishes.

My body does not cause me grief now. Despite it being far less aesthetically pleasing than when I was twenty, I love the look of it now. I'm familiar with each nook and cranny, have fine tuned each sensual response and forgiven it of any perceived shortcomings I had initially thought were there. I am comfortable in my own skin. Confident and uninhibited. I love how I turned out so far.

What has happened to me is that I have developed into the woman I had always wanted to become, the one I worked hard to become. It is in this place, this place that I am so comfortable, this place in life that I am at, that I see what has happened to me. I see what I have become....but I'm not done yet. Not nearly.

My daughter had decorated the house with the appropriate party decorations. She had chosen a theme that made me smile. The decorations were tagged "The Party Continues". How perfect, how perfectly the thought dovetails with where I am right now in life. For all of my growth, for all of my desire to learn more ....the party continues...and my growth will continue. As I navigate this wonderful path, this road that I travel, I will continue to seek out those things left for me to know, left for me to learn. As I continue on in my life, I cannot wait to see what else I discover along the way.

The party continues

Indeed.

Edelweiss

I have a lovely music box that plays the tune of a sweet song written by Rogers and Hammerstein for the musical, The Sound Of Music. It was a song called Edelweiss. I sang it to each of my children, as I rocked them to sleep as babies, it's melody sweet and soothing, calming and tender.

Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me

Small and white, clean and bright, you look happy to meet me

Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever

Edelweiss, Edelweiss, bless my homeland forever...

In the film, Captain Georg Von Trapp (played by Christopher Plummer) sings this sweet song to his children as they look upon him completely immersed in the moment, full of love and admiration for this man. From that time I have considered Edelweiss as a love song. Singing the tune to my children was an expression of love. The words making me imagine, metaphorically, my children the small blossoms, the small blossoms that needed tender care, needed my tender care. Needing my tending.

Love will do that to a person, fill them with a desire to tend those they care for. It creates a tenderness that comes to life through small loving acts of caring and devotion. Most of us have had this feeling, this experience. Most of us have tended, nurtured another person and not only our children but our love partners as well. It's natural, instinctive really. It is in this tending that the purity of the love we feel is expressed, the emotion given over, the heart opened wide. This is where action speaks louder than any word ever could.

How nice to feel that tending, to be the one tended. To feel the caring, nurturing, touch of another. As children most of us knew this beautiful feeling. But what of the tending, the tender care we feel once we've grown? The tending given us now, as adults, and at this stage in life? It's a stronger touch, a more satisfying feeling certainly. To be handled with such great care, to be encouraged, to be accepted and to be loved as an equal. To feel the warmth of affection, the embrace of respect. To be seen and beheld as something rare, something precious. Something worth holding on to, not tightly, but with open hands that do not confine or limit. To be tended in the truest sense.

To able able to bloom and grow. To bloom and grow even now...

Indeed

False Faces.....

Halloween is less than a week away. Around my house there is some anticipation about costumes and trick or treaters rapping at our doors. This has me thinking of my past Halloweens...the ones from long ago.

I always loved dressing up. In my world we didn't use store bought costumes. My mother would either sew a costume for me or we would put together something from what we had in the attic. Over the years I have been an array of all manner of imaginative characters from Aunt Jemima to a Radio City Rockette, from a Beatnik to an Alien. Dressing up was fun and great effort was made to conceal identities. We were brazen in our subterfuge, hoping to fool our friend's mothers. We we so bold we even tried to trick the nuns at our church convent by assuming other identities when asked who we were. It was silliness, good fun and healthy mischief.

We always sang songs when we trick or treated. Of all the songs we would sing on doorsteps one was always my favorite....

Who's behind that false face
Nobody knows but me
Who's behind that false face
Nobody knows but me
I won't tell you
You will have to guess
If the guess is right
I will answer yes!

A simple song for a child to learn certainly. My children all sang it. Well perhaps not my youngest....he was a bit shy and would just stand there with his bag held out. Sorry.....I digress.

The song is simple, yes, but it belies something I think about often. False faces, masks if you will. Personal masks, private faces concealed from others. We all have used them at one time or another. I consider them a sort of defense mechanism, protection actually. A sort of armor. We wear a face in public and sometimes it is not our own.

Now I am not talking about people who hide their true self from others, people who claim to not feel comfortable showing their "real selves". People who "act" one way in front of people but claim to be very different on the inside. I am talking about people who do not care to show the world at large what things they are feeling at that moment. People who have control, show restraint, have strength. I was raised in a home where I was taught to keep my emotions in check in public. I might be upset or hurt or angry but I was taught to wait until I was at home, in the privacy of my room, before letting those feelings register and spill out. Nothing was ever repressed, just postponed until I was in a suitable environment for it's unleashing. My parents were big on the concept of .... never let them see you sweat.

For some this goes against human nature. Certainly for my husband who's every thought is displayed on his face in vividly glorious detail. One only need look at him to gauge his mood. He's not one to keep it in check certainly. He was sometimes confounded by my lack of visible emotion early on...thinking I was cold. I am anything but cold....I just don't like to display my thoughts. He'll often point out this oddity to me, interpreting my blank face as a worry of what someone might think of me. The funny thing is I don't worry what someone thinks. I just don't want them to see what I am thinking.

The face I want them to see is my own. The face I want them to see is my calm, cool, collected self. The face I want them to see is one of my choosing. I'll be blowing my stack once I get in my room at home.

Nobody knows but me.

Indeed.

Going Home

You Can't Go Home Again is a novel by Thomas Wolfe. Published after his death, this novel deals with a small town man's search for his identity out in a great big world. Who Says You Can't Go Home is also a song written and performed by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora refuting the point. I have heard the phrase, you can't go home again, used as a way to illustrate one's passage, a marking of time, leaving one's childhood for a grown up life and the inability to return to that "home" again. Many think it can't be done.

Today I took a little road trip with my Dad. My son was playing in a football game against a school about 75 miles from home and I drove him to the game. Initially I had planned on taking some CDs of stand up comedy acts, some favorite comedians of mine, to listen to on the long drive. I thought it would both pass the time for us and I also thought he would enjoy them. It's been a long time since I spent that time alone with my Dad and for some reason I felt I needed to fill it with something.

Today was a beautiful fall day in the Northeast. The sky, cerulean and crisp, the leaves in various colors and stages of yellows, greens, reds and oranges. The route travelled was a two lane country road for the most part and there was little traffic along the way. We set out and I was about to put the CDs in the player and Dad simply said. "Leave them". He said, "It's a beautiful day kiddo...let's just talk".

So we talked. We talked about national politics, the election. We talked about our local taxes. We talked about our health care plans. We talked about my satellite radio. We talked about his buying a new car and that he wanted a Nissan this time. We talked about being pro choice vs being pro life. We talked about SNL. We talked about the Redskins. We talked about his sister's season tickets and making that trip to see her in Virginia a reality. We talked about Adam (Pacman) Jones and Maurice Clarett. We talked about John Madden as a football commentator, Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw and Tony Kornheiser. We talked about how much we dislike "Jaws" and "the Playmaker". We talked about how much he wanted Penn State to lose today (they didn't) and that thankfully Notre Dame would not lose as they had a bye week.

We talked about our church. We talked about his health and my mother's health. We talked about his doctors and his newly diagnosed anemia. We talked about my health. We talked about my children, his beloved grandchildren. We talked.

Yesterday I had remarked to a friend that this drive with my Dad made me think of the good old days....the days I lived at home. Days I had time to spend with my Dad. Days I remember fondly. I said that sometimes I want to go "home" again and revisit that part of the past that feels good. Quiet times, simple times. That part that feels like home to me. Today I did just that. For in that car, all along those 75 miles there and back, my Dad and I talked like we did when I was at "home". It was like Sunday nights, sitting at the kitchen table, and playing gin rummy and talking. It was like car trips to his bothers' homes on holidays and talking. It was like sitting out on the porch on a summer night and talking. It was like those calls in the afternoon, between my classes, when I was away at college. It was like old days, good days, days gone by. The words never stopped, they never waned and they flowed from us both in abundance and with purpose. We picked up right where we left off...at home. We talked...my Dad and I. We talked.

Who says you can never go home. This afternoon I went there....and back.

Indeed.

43 Questions...

Twenty Questions was a one-time popular game in which one player is designated as the "answerer" and this player chooses a subject that the other players attempt to reveal by asking questions. If twenty questions are asked, and the subject remains unrevealed, the "answerer" wins the round. At least that's the twenty questions game I know and have played. One variation is playing the game with the "questioners" asking personal questions of the "answerer" and increasing the degree of difficulty with each round. When the "answerer" gets through twenty questions without balking at an answer they take the round. The game unearths lots of information about the players involved. This game also becomes quite interesting when alcoholic beverages are flowing. I digress.

Last week my daughter sent me a forwarded email called 43 Questions. A list of forty three questions to answer and forward on to friends. Surprisingly this email did not come with the usual disclaimer warning of all manner of doom and pestilence should you not forward the email to at least nine friends. I promptly answered the questions, sent it back to her and also sent it along to a pile of my friends. I am still getting responses back in fact one came in this morning. I caught a giggle or two when I received the email from people I hadn't sent it to initially. It made the rounds, certainly.

While I loved reading all the responses that came back to me, loved learning new things about people I have in some cases known for a very long time, I especially loved reading my daughter's responses. It was somewhat eye opening for me. It wasn't that I learned something new about her, her responses held no real surprise in content. She's my daughter, I know her favorites, her preferences and her likes and dislikes. What surprised me was her tone, her wit and her humor. My daughter is a smart ass! I couldn't be more pleased.

My daughter is a beautiful girl. There really is no other way to put it. She turns heads, a lot of them. When she was a child I worried she might become vain, become too concerned with her appearance, too focused on something she didn't do anything to achieve herself having simply been born that way. Being born pretty is not always a good thing in my opinion. It can limit a person's dimension certainly.

Reading her responses to the 43 questions introduced me to the many delicious layers of her personality. Layers I had not seen before. I was delighted and I laughed out loud at her beautiful sarcasm. I saw so many things in her responses, thoughts and attitudes I did not know she had developed. I saw how her mind works, the turns it is capable of taking. I saw the sheer fun she has in poking fun at herself... a quality I find to be very attractive. A quality I find to be a lifesaver at times. She's witty. She's funny. She has grown into a bright, lovely, young woman and is everything I could have hoped for and more.

#28. Would you be a pirate? Only if I could have a parrot on my shoulder.

Smart ass.
Indeed.

On A Clear Day....

Fall days can have a certain sparkling quality that I love. Crisp and clear, the colors vibrant, strong and true. Summer's haze disappears, the air is light and one can see for miles. Sitting outside this afternoon, looking off into the distance, I was thinking about clear days and a line from a song I knew long ago....on a clear day you can see forever.

On A Clear Day You Can See Forever was the name of a musical that opened on Broadway in 1965. Barbra Streisand starred in the film adaptation and recorded the soundtrack in 1970, the lyric beautifully written by Allen Jay Lerner. I was thinking about clarity recently, the clearness of vision, so important for a person to possess. I thought about that lyric, thought about the words to that song, and went back to it for another look.

On a clear day
Rise and look around you
And you'll see who you are

Could it be any simpler than that? Look around you and you'll see who you are. How often do we look around, look at other people, look at their lives and see everything but who we are. We see what we want, we see what we think we need. We see what we wish for, we see what we hope for. We can be shortsighted, seeing only what others have, what others are. Often we do not see what we are, what we have. We look with a flawed vision. Perhaps through a filter that clouds things ... making them appear fuzzy, blurred. Obscured.

Taking a clear look, sharpening our vision, removing that filter, reveals something quite different I think. On a clear day we can see possibility. We can see a path, a future, a road to what we want. If we look with clarity we can see solutions, we can see progress, we can see alternatives. On a clear day we can see what we are capable of, what we can become, perhaps what we were meant to be. Certainly we can see what we want to be. On a clear day.

I love to have those clear days, that clarity of vision, to help me navigate a clouded life. The clarity to sidestep the mess, avoid the pratfalls and overstep the potholes that can distract and take me out of myself. Clear days to take a long look and regain my stride and focus on a point in the distance, a point where I want to be. A point where I can be...if I look clearly.

And on a clear day
On a clear day
You can see forever and ever and ever and ever more.

Indeed

Eternal Longing....

I am an eternal optimist. I always have been. I believe in certain things. I believe things will always work out in the end. In fact I expect them to. I believe good things will happen for me, to me. I believe I deserve them. I believe wholeheartedly in someday.

Each morning I wake up knowing that the day's possibilities are endless, full of promise, full of new hope. I also know that if somehow today falls short of wonderful, tomorrow will be along soon and it might turn out just so. In fact it probably will.

Eternal optimism.

Eternal optimism lends itself to a little indulging in eternal longing. Longing, that wanting, that desire, that yearning for something one wishes for so deeply within their heart. That something I have always wanted, I have always hoped for yet somehow it has always been just beyond my fingertips, just beyond my reach.

I am not talking about a sort of lusty longing, something that might spring from a protracted affair with a frivolous notion. Or the longing for something a la mode, something everyone wants. Or the longing for something that glitters before ones eyes and is borne from an earthly desire.

No, the eternal longing in my mind is something quite different. The longing I have is for something real, something I know, something I've seen. Something I know to be true, something I know I can have, something I believe I will have.

It's not a romantic notion but visceral reality. It's real and I will optimistically wait for it. My longing will remain hovering blithely above, reminding me to be patient, reminding me to reach and to believe that one day it will be in my grasp. My longing pushes me forward with a tender momentum. Propels me to stay the course, believing, eternally, that my wish, my unrelenting wish, my heart's most precious desire is soon to be in my hands. To have and to hold...it will be mine.

Eternally optimistic am I.

Indeed.

Mirror, Mirror

Last week I wrote about some advice I received, good advice actually. I related a story of sage advice given me, advice to not spend life looking back in a proverbial rear view mirror, looking forward instead.

Of course having written that .... I've done nothing but look back all week. I'm honest if anything. I will also be the first to admit that I am full of advice but have a hard time taking my own sometimes. So I threw aside the advice and looked back. Looked long, looked hard and looked back.

I saw what I always do. Precisely the reason the priest told me not to keep looking. I saw what things have hurt me, what things have changed me, what things I wish I could forget.

A few comments about that blog made their way to me this week....reasons that looking back can be productive. One person suggested looking back was a way to learn from mistakes, learn from what went wrong. Another proposed that we have far too many good things to view in the rear view to completely ignore it. I do have so much in my life, so many good things to look back on, it's almost a sin to not acknowledge that. So I will agree, agree with both notions....a look back once in a while is a good thing.

I'm still stuck on what I see when I look back, however, the things I don't want to see. So I thought about it for a while, thought about what I see and why it bothers me. Who wants to remember being hurt, being lied to, being betrayed? Who wants to dwell on loss, mistakes made and opportunities squandered? Failures, regrets and disappointments? Certainly not me.

What to do? What to do?

In the end I decided to take that look.... but to look at myself....in that mirror. I can hold a mirror up to my face and see the person I am, see the person I have become. I can see the sum total of what has happened in my life to this point, good as well as bad. I can see the pleasure and I can see the pain. Most of all I can see that for all that's back there, all that has happened, I have stood up, dusted myself off and kept going. I can look in that mirror and let my eye wander to the background, let my eye wander to what's behind me. Then I can look at myself again, look at this wonderful work in progress and see that I am moving forward with my eyes focused on the road ahead.

Smiling to boot.

Indeed.

Rear View Mirrors

A number of years ago I was struggling with a personal matter and sought some advice from my Parrish Priest. He's roughly my age and very easy to talk to. We sat and he listened intently as I started to unfold my story for him. At issue was my trying to reconcile my faith against what was going on in my life. Simply put I wanted to know why bad things happened to good people.

After letting me go on...and on...and on....he said he wanted to share some very sage advice he received from someone at a personal crossroads of his own. He told me that I shouldn't live life looking through a rear view mirror. He told me that I needed to keep my eyes on the road I was traveling, looking ahead and not behind me. He said that if I kept on looking at what was behind me, I would not see what was in front of me and I might even go off of the road altogether. He said, finally, that there is nothing much behind a car on the road anyway. Nothing more than dust. Dust settles and what doesn't settle always blows away.

He's a wise man.

I was talking with a friend recently and I shared this story. After our conversation ended I sat and thought about how often I have mentioned my Priest's words to others, how often I have shared his advice. I also thought about how many times I did not take his words to heart, my own heart, continuing to frustrate myself in the process. I also thought about where I am right now and where my eyes are.

I am not looking in that rear view mirror now, no I am not. My eyes are fixed on the road ahead. They are focused, clear and intent. I see the road as it unfolds before me and when I am unsure of what to do, what direction to go, I do not look in the rear view mirror for guidance. I stand still. I stand still and watch the road ahead until I know which way to go.

And now, when I get the urge to look in that rear view mirror.... and I do get that urge... I think of my Priest's words. I think of that dust he said was there, that dust left behind me. The dust that eventually settles, eventually blows away. The dust I have left behind.

Left behind.

Indeed.

This Morning....

Children's poetry author, Eleanor Farjeon wrote the lyric to a beautiful song called, Morning Has Broken. It was recorded and released in 1971 by Cat Stevens on his album, Teaser and the Firecat. It has long been one of my favorite songs, a soothing one certainly. The lyric full of promise, full of hope for the day ahead. All of the darkness that had accumulated, all of the dread and conflict, all of the turmoil and trouble that had built up over the previous day....vanishes in this sweet, bright morning. Whatever thoughts roiled in sleep, haunted in dreams, is broken in the truest sense. If we allow it, if we choose.

Morning is new. It's a beginning. It's a start, a jumping off point. It's fresh and rife with possibilities. It's set out before us to do what we will. Whatever was there yesterday is gone. We make today what we will. If we choose.

Eleanor Farjeon wrote the lyric for children. It's lovely words penned to inspire, to soothe and encourage. I wonder if Ms. Farjeon ever imagined a woman fully grown, one who first listened to Cat Stevens' rendition of her work at thirteen and saw the possibilities. One who thirty seven years later still listens and now sees the promise. One who has embraced her words and made them her own.

It's a new day. Let's go live it.

Indeed.

Morning Has Broken

by Eleanor Farjeon

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the word.

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play.

Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day.

Full of Grace....

Each year the date August 26 commemorates the passage of the 19th amendment, ratified by the states in 1920, giving women in the United States the right to vote. 144 years after the men in the newly formed union were given the right.

I got to thinking about strong women. How strong women had to be to have to wait 144 years to have her voice heard. Waiting in silence.

I have always thought that a strong woman, a truly strong woman was not particularly loud. You know the type, noisy, brash, outspoken. A woman who intimidates like a force of nature. An angry woman of sorts, full of all manner of histrionics, albeit a passionate one certainly. Not at all strong to me, the outburst showing a fear, a weakness. The noise a cover for insecurity. To me a strong woman's steely silence was absolute, impregnable, indestructible.

I have always found strong, silent women to be the ones I wanted to emulate. When I was a young and impressionable 14 year old I watched the Watergate hearings on TV and was mesmerized by Maureen Dean, wife of Nixon White House Counsel John Dean. She sat a few rows behind her husband, a vision of calm collectability as her husband was roasted on a spit before the House Judiciary Committee. Later I marveled at Pat Nixon's composure and grace as she walked with her husband as they left the White House cloaked in disgrace. She was silent and remained so despite what vile and cruel things she endured on account of her husband. She was strong and I wanted to be just like her.

Through the years I have admired a number of women, the strong silent ones. Thinking of them as mentors I worked at perfecting my own quiet dignity. Handling adversity with grace and dignity, to me, is the true test of a woman's mettle.

You see, to me, it isn't about being the loudest, having the last word. It isn't about beating down your adversary in front of everyone. It isn't about writing a tell all book and airing all of your dirty laundry to vindicate yourself. It isn't about striking out, striking back. It's about composure and silent conviction. It's about showing grace under fire, calmness when all that surrounds you is chaotic. Standing still, silently defeating what rises against you. Gracefully diffusng the adversity.

It's been said people suffer in silence. I think some of them find their strength there.

Indeed

Quality Time

I was thumbing through a book called the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman this week. A friend suggested I read it so I bought a copy and thought I'd give it a try. I am not a fan of the self help genre usually.

As I flipped through the book a page of a chapter caught my eye. Quality Time. Reading further I came upon the statement, "...we are giving each other twenty minutes of life. We will never have those twenty minutes again; we are giving our lives to each other. It is a powerful emotional communicator of love."

That statement got me thinking.

I have friends that I don't get to spend a lot of time with for a number of reasons. Dear friends, valued friends, friends I love. My life, my family, take most of my time and don't allow me as much time with some that I'd like.

So I started to think of quality time. I remarked to a special friend recently that we do an awful lot with what little time we have. We squeeze so much into each conversation, cram in so many thoughts and feelings into a very short space of time. We have to, it's unavoidable. Reading that statement I realized that in that short expanse of time ... I am giving my life.

I think when you don't have a lot of opportunity to spend time with someone, someone you would very much like to spend a lot of your time with, you create an atmosphere that concentrates on what is important to both of you. Focus narrows, each word spoken important, each thought conveyed with sincerity. Small talk is pushed aside for deep conversation. Care is taken to make sure the other understands their importance, their place in your life.

Committing to friendship, investing emotionally in another person is, in fact, giving of ones life. In opening up, sharing and becoming involved personally with another we give from our lives. We give a precious part of ourselves, a small piece of a life lived.

How nice when the other person returns this in full measure.

Then it really is Quality Time.

Indeed.

A Reunion....

I attended my husband's 20th High School Class Reunion in 1998. My husband and I did not know each other during our high school years. While we grew up in the same city, we attended different high schools and had a completely separate circle of friends. I am older than my husband as well. There were perhaps a handful of people I would know at this reunion, most of them males.

This would be the first time his classmates would meet his wife so I was interested in making a good impression. My husband's class was a small one and it was part of a very close knit community. He was the captain of his football team, very popular and well liked. When you meet my husband you are immediately drawn to his personality. It's a big personality, it fills a room and people like to be around him. I knew that I would be spending a lot of this evening watching him enjoy his classmates and they, him. I would need to amuse myself as I wanted him to have fun and reconnect with old friends.

After cocktails, small talk and a lovely dinner the reunion found it's legs and people started to dance and reminisce. My husband, who hates to dance, was repeatedly drawn to the dance floor much to my amusement. When he wasn't dancing he was sitting and talking with someone. Where was I in all of this? Sitting at our table and smiling. Of course the classmates were friendly and polite but wanted to spend time with each other and not with me, someone they didn't know.

Sitting at the table, doing my best to not look bored (I was), I was approached by a petite, pretty brunette with eyes the color of dark chocolate. Her name was Ann Marie and she introduced herself and told me that I would know her older sister, Barbara. It was an ice breaker and a welcome one. She sat and we talked a while. I liked her immediately, she was such a genuine individual. We decided we needed drinks refreshed and went off to the bar. She turns and said...."Let's get the girls out dancing" and collected a few ladies along the walk to the dance floor. She introduced me around. Even though my husband had performed his perfunctory duties at cocktail hour, Ann Marie's introductions were more intimate.

After dancing off and on for a while, she took me around the room making sure I met all of her friends. I had such a fun time. My husband kept coming over to see if I was enjoying myself and Ann Marie would say to him..."Go back to the jock table"... and we would all laugh. I would have to say I had never expected to have that much fun in a roomful of people I hardly knew.

A few weeks after the reunion I received, in the mail, a photo someone took that night of the two of us, Ann Marie and me. With it Ann Marie enclosed a lovely note and wanted to stay in touch. She touched me so sweetly, of course I intended to keep in touch. We did keep in touch.

Ann Marie passed away last weekend.

She succumbed to a particularly aggressive form of Breast Cancer that had metastasized. She battled her illness for several years, bravely. When we got the news my mind went right back to the reunion. In the ten years since Ann Marie and I had seen each other, enjoyed conversation, parties and laughter... it was that reunion that my mind seems to have chosen to be the note that will play within me when I think of her.

I want to be remembered this way....in the way I will always remember Ann Marie. As soon as I think of her a smile appears...I remember her kindness, her sweet personality. I remember those beautiful eyes that betrayed her inner warmth. I want to be remembered as a generous soul, someone who extends herself first, someone who gives, simply gives. Just like Ann Marie.

These are the very words I wrote in a note to her daughter this week, and similar ones to her two sisters. Ann Marie was a special woman to a lot of people. I had the distinct privilege to have been just one among her many friends.

So to Ann Marie, I close my eyes and whisper....Rest well my friend. We will talk again dolce', we will talk again.

At the next Reunion

Indeed.

A Little Rain

Into every one's life a little rain must fall. That's what I was thinking this morning when I woke. It was a slow roll of thunder that woke me. I lay in bed , near an open window, listening to this thunder build and come closer and closer. Shortly afterward came the rain. A nice steady, slow summer rain.

Into every one's life a little rain must fall. I lay there thinking about the rain that fell on mine this week. Amidst the raindrops falling outside my window I thought about the ones that fell inside, inside of me. We all have weeks like this, I am no exception. Despite my usual 100 watt smile and happy demeanor, a little rain falls on me from time to time. Sometimes this surprises people.

I worked with a woman who once said to me, "I can't imagine anything ever goes wrong for you" I laughed and asked why? She said, "Because you're always so happy". She said it not with any kind of admiration, but a sort of accusation. You're always so happy. I almost felt I needed to apologize.

I am an incredibly happy person and mostly it's self generated. I choose to be happy, choose to not get mired down in the muck of bad feeling and unhappiness that life drops on us each day. That doesn't mean I am never feeling badly or unhappy. I means I don't let it get to me, bring me down. I rise above it, I let go of it and I smile. I always smile.

This week was an exception. I was not at all sad or unhappy....just a little bit blue. I felt something missing, felt an emptiness. You know this feeling.....I didn't know where to put myself. I was at odds, off center. I was not myself. Something just wasn't right.

It didn't intrude on my day to day comings and goings, It didn't keep me awake at night or distract me from my work. It did not stop me from enjoying a single thing...but it was there if I paused and let my mind wander. It was sitting there ... right at the edge of my consciousness.

If my friend from work saw me I'd have said to her "See? Into every one's life a little rain must fall". I would have then opened up an umbrella and went about the day smiling. Smiling because when the rain stops, and it always stops, the sun returns and shines down on the world. Making everything right once again.

Making it right once again.

Indeed

Skinny Dipping

Last night I did something I had never done before. It was something on my personal "Bucket List". Now I have had a Bucket List long before the film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman was ever released. In fact I didn't call it a Bucket List, I didn't call it anything. It was simply a personal "to do" list I had in a bound journal that sits on the desk in my office at work.

Up until recently my personal Bucket List, for the most part, contained locations I wanted to visit, Umbria, Italy, Mount Rushmore, County Mayo Ireland, Napa, California. It was a sort of travelogue if you will, a map of places I wanted to visit. Following a life changing experience, my personal Bucket List underwent a dramatic revision. It now focuses on experiences, things that would impact me in a personal way, enrich me. It has more to do with living life than visiting one. I still want to visit all of the places on my previous list....but now I am more focused on what I am doing rather than where I am going.

Last night I decided I was going to go for a swim. It was late, my son was asleep in bed, no one else was at home. My 24 year old daughter had just come in from a Brad Paisley concert. I was heading out the door to the pool area when she asked what I was doing. I told her I was going for a swim and to join me. She didn't want to swim but wanted to sit with me.

When we got out by the pool I told her to leave the lights off. I was wearing a bathrobe and nothing else. I told her that I had planned on skinny dipping for the first time in my life and if she didn't want to see her mother naked she should not look while I got in the water. Her jaw dropped. She was speechless...she asked what was going on with me. I simply told her that was doing something on my Bucket List and slid into the water.

I felt wonderful! Alive! Invigorated! I swam the length of the pool and back listening to my daughter's laughter ring out. I swam to where she was sitting and asked her to join me. She said no and kept laughing. I told her how good I felt, how I had always wanted to swim naked and how wonderful I felt in that water.

I asked about her own Bucket List...asked if she had one...and indeed she did. She told me a few of the things she had on hers, and like my old list, hers was a series of vacation spots. She asked then about mine. I told her, quietly and personally, some of what was on my list. I told her how my list had changed, mostly because I had changed. I talked about what things I wanted, what things I had not yet done. I talked. I had never talked to her like that before.

It's not often a child sees a parent naked. Stripped bare both figuratively and metaphorically. I had bared myself in body and thought. Shown myself without artifice, decoration and embellishment. I let her see me...really see me as a person and not a parent. I told her what I had hoped for in life, what I wanted and what I wished for. It was a moment I'll not ever forget.

I was not bothered that she did not join me in my skinny dipping. Not in the least. At 24 she's just not there yet. She doesn't see life the way I do, had the experiences I have had. She doesn't know the importance of having some experiences or know what experiences she really wants. She's not where I am. She has a whole life to live yet, her own self to discover. She is not ready to bare herself quite yet, not even to herself. Oh but she will ...she most certainly will. Someday.

Indeed.

Compliments.....

Compliments


Compliments are nice to receive. We always feel special when someone compliments us. It's an acknowledgement, a validation, a stamp of approval of sorts. We feel good when we get one, we feel a boost, walk a little taller. A compliment can break a mood, turn us around, change our outlook briefly.

We all accept these compliments in various ways. Some of us accept them with graciousness and pleasure. Some with suspicion, with an eye on lurking ulterior motives. Some with disbelief, almost a feeling of unworthiness. Some with surprise and delight and some simply take them at their face value. I am delighted by the compliments I receive, usually gracious in my acceptance but as I have grown older and wiser I tend to consider the source of that compliment. I have discovered, again quite recently, that some compliments are given solely as a way to ingratiate, to make the giver look good. A false compliment I would think.

I have never been stingy with compliments myself. If I like something I say it, if I think a person has done something special... I say so. Giving a compliment is a gesture of generosity, a kindness, and sometimes a person desperately needs that boost a compliment can give. I know I often do. I can think of days that nothing seemed to go right and out of nowhere someone will say, "I am glad I ran into you, you always make me smile." Immediately I will feel good, perk up, walk a little taller. My own compliments are sincere and heartfelt. I mean it when I tell you what I like about you, what I think is special about you. I mean for you to feel good, know that I think you are special.

I have been often complimented in my life... about everything from my appearance to my sense of humor. Hearing that I look pretty, have on a nice dress, smell good... is nice and I am not above wanting to feel attractive, feel a bit of superficial stroking. But these things aren't really what I am about, what I want to be thought of as, how I want to be perceived. I graciously accept such compliments but I don't dwell on them. They don't turn my head so much as one might imagine.

I do receive many compliments on my words. People will tell me they admire something I've written, something I've said. My favorite compliment is one I hear often, I love how you think. I never tire of that one, nor it's giver. I am touched deeply when I am told my words affected someone else, that a person had a reaction to what I've written or said. It's more personal to me, more intimate. So it is in this area, a very personal one for me, that I am wary of a false compliment. It is in this area that I am stung most by an insincere platitude.

I have found a surefire way to avoid that sting or at least detect the falseness of it. I look to the behavior of the giver, how they act toward me, how they follow up that compliment. It's very easy to tell someone what you think, feel. It's quite another to show them. Actions speak louder than words......

I think it bears repeating......actions speak louder than words.

Indeed

Same Time Different Year...

I have been very quiet these last few weeks. My thoughts turned inward, reflecting on what might have been. Reflecting more on what turned out to be, on what is yet to come. For as much as I resisted and tried to push these thoughts from my head they have prevailed, they have made their presence known in precise terms. I was not to escape them. And rightly so.

I had to commemorate a certain sort of anniversary this past week. It was not the sort of anniversary warranting a card or gift certainly. I received no flowers, no special dinner. It was the anniversary of the day I was to face my own mortality. A day, for my life to come, that will never go unacknowledged. Ever.

It's funny how you imagine you will handle some of life's challenges. We all imagine the scenario of the physician telling us that we have six months to live and we let our minds wander to what we would do with those last six months. I know I have thought about this. But what of being told you have a few hours to live? What then?

Having come out the other side of a devastating situation, having beaten odds and earning a spot on the one in a million team, I can tell you what you do during those hours...indeed I can. What is far more interesting, far more important to discover, however, is what is to be done with all of the hours that are yet to come. The hours, but for miracles and fate, are in front of me now.

Not a single one of those hours will be wasted on petty nonsense, gossip and destructive thoughts. Those hours will be filled with joy and pleasure. With love both given and received. With a firm resolve to live those hours and not simply pass them.

This year has been one of discovery, one of recovery and one of limitless possibilities. I will never again take for granted the notion of Someday. Someday is now. Someday is in my hands and Someday is mine to have and to hold.

I am holding on to Someday and I am not about to let go.

Indeed...

Sweet, Summer Soundtracks.....

I was at the beach this past week. I spent a part of each day, in a swimsuit, soaking up the glorious summer sun and swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. My tan is rich and deep, my mood energized, my soul fed, nourished and filled with sustenance. I live for that trip to the beach...I love it so. So many memories flood in.

While I lay on the sand, I thought about so many trips to the beach when I was younger. Trips to Wildwood Crest, NJ, Seaside Heights, Brigantine, Ocean City. Trips farther south to Ocean City Maryland and my favorite Myrtle Beach, SC. Wonderful summer sojourns, carefree summers, sun streaked hair. Heaven on earth for me.

As I lay back, I listened to the gulls and the surf. Unlike past summers of long ago there wasn't any music. Everyone had an iPod or mp3 player, private music, personal selections. I remember a Transistor Radio as a "must have" along with a bottle of Coppertone, a bright bikini, matching flip flops and Ray Bans. The radios tuned in to Top 40 hits on whatever channel we could tune it to. We'd lay back and listen to that summer's soundtrack. So much of my summer memory is tied to this music. Once back from The Shore, we'd listen to the same music at the local swimming pool, the hamburger stand, pizza parlor or ice cream stand. Those summers really did feel endless. Our worries were minor, our pressures as simple as our pleasures. We lived to hang out, date, go for rides around the lake, slow dance with older boys who wore weejuns and smelled of English Leather. We were happy, free spirited, fun loving. We traveled in packs, enjoyed to be part of a crowd that would pair off around sunset. We had a blast.

For as many things that might change for me, for as many things that might end....these summer memories will never fade. They are right at my fingertips, ready to be called up, conjured for a bout of reminiscing. I did so this past week.....many, many times. I listened to that eternal summer soundtrack in my head. I heard the music, the water, every delightful beach sound took me back. I conjured my young man, wearing madras shorts, crisp shirt, holding my hand for a walk on an evening beach. Stopping in a quiet spot to sit, I am nestled between his propped knees leaning back into his chest. He's pushed my hair to one side, leans in and rests his jaw on my collarbone. This feels intoxicating, cool air brushing along skin warmed all day under a hot sun. Quiet talking punctuated with the feel of masculine fingers slowly running back and forth on my forearm. He catches a waft of scent as he plants a soft, sweet kiss that catches me by surprise when I turn my head to say something.

Such nights should last forever but as all good things do...they come to an end. Tucked away in memories brought to life by the scent of sun tan lotions, sounds of rolling surf and music...the summer soundtrack. Wistful, lovely thoughts uncovered again for a sweet reliving.

Such nights should last forever....even now if only in our dreams....

Even better if dreams should come true....

Indeed.

Use Your Words

When my children were young and would get angry or frustrated and they would fuss and push, stamp their feet or cry, I would always say to them...use your words! Use your words indeed. I wanted them to put into words what they were feeling and not bottle it up and hold it inside. I wanted them to be able to express themselves....from the heart. Express deep feeling, hurt and frustration and equally joy, pleasure and love. Use your words.

Many people neglect to use their words. So many gifted and verbose people fail to use their words in a personal sense. What a shame that is, what a loss, it's a stinginess, a withholding. Words are meant to be spoken, meant to be shared, meant to be given and enjoyed. I am uncomfortable around people who won't share their words with me. I get a sense of unease, of separation. I do not like it.

No one who knows me would ever accuse me of not using my words. I use them to their fullest each and every day. I love to express my thoughts, feelings and wishes through my words. I love to share them. They are little pieces of me and I am not the least bit stingy with them. I want what's inside me to be expressed, to be known. I am willing to give that part of myself. I want you to know what I think, what I feel. I want you to have my words.

I have found that sometimes one single word can mean all the difference to someone. The simple giving of that one word can potentially turn around a situation, make things right, make things better. One word someone might be waiting for can change everything. One word, offered in peace, solemnity, passion or kindness can exact a tremendous change...open a door to a myriad of possibilities. One word.

Why hold on to them? They are of no value locked inside, held back and squandered. Words are intended to be let go of, feelings shared, thoughts voiced. There is a reason we are told when we are young that one can't take back their words. We aren't supposed to take them back. Words are meant to be spoken.

Indeed

Links In A Chain...

My husband shares his father's name. In fact most of the males on his side of the family name their firstborn males after themselves. Both of my father's brothers gave their firstborn males their names as well. It's a tradition for some, a legacy. I suppose it's a sort of primogeniture, a passing down, the bloodline continued, an honor.

The feminist in me always bristled at this...what of the daughters I wondered? Were they not part of that bloodline? I couldn't help myself.

Of course they are....and I knew that. I didn't need a father's name to carry tradition forth. I didn't need the designation of Jr or II or even the III to feel part of a line of succession that is my family. Nor do my sons need their father's name to carry forth his line. By virtue of our births we are all links in a chain that spans from generation to generation.

I am my father's link, his succession, his legacy. So much of what he imparted to me growing up stayed with me, served me well in this life. My Dad is a merry, mirthful Irishman. Full of wit and charm and a delight to be around but he sent me out into the world armed and ready for what might come. His lessons to me were straight and easy to understand. To this day I can hear him tell me to not give my trust away....to make a person earn it. To be sure a man is worthy of my love before I give it. To stand tall as I walk this earth. To never forget where I came from. His words to me made the links in our chain strong. As strong as the links that were his chain before him.

And so the chain continues, the links are now my children and his lessons to me have become mine to them. So on this Father's Day I can think of no better way to honor him than to thank him for making our chain strong, to make sure that my links hold, to make sure we continue the chain we are a part of. Make sure my children know where they come from, make sure they know they are all links in this wonderful chain, the chain that is our family.

I never needed a "Jr" to follow my name to be my father's daughter.

Indeed.

(Happy Father's Day Dad!)

The Magical Hour

I have been thinking about Midnight this weekend. Midnight. The Magical Hour, the Witching Hour....my favorite hour.

I don't think of it as a supernatural time nor do I associate it with witchcraft. It's more bewitching to me than anything. It's magical in nature, magical in the best sense.

Midnight is often associated with an end, an expiration, a closure. Cinderella's coach turns back into a pumpkin at midnight, her ball gown to tatters. Her wonderful, magical evening comes to an end as the clock strikes twelve. It was as if it never happened, as if her evening wasn't real. That is not what Midnight is for me.

I was out on my deck Friday night, at midnight. I was tired and ready for bed, the house asleep but for me. I sat in the darkness and started to think about who else might be awake, be outside enjoying the darkness. Would they be wondering who else was awake, wondering who else might have the same thoughts as they. I looked at the stars and wondered who else was looking at the same stars, I wondered if they shared my thoughts on the night's magic. What a world of possibility was in that thought. What if it was someone I knew? Someone I knew, looking at the stars, thinking about the magic before them. What an astonishing possibility that was for me.

I closed my eyes, collected my thoughts and imagined that in this magical hour I could send them to whomever might be out there. I sent my thoughts, filled with joy, filled with possibilities out into that magical darkness. I wonder where they went....

Midnight is a beginning. A new day begins at midnight. Everything starts all over again. A starting point yes, a door opening to something wonderful, something magical, something shared. It's a time full of mystery and possibilities. A time when everything you might wish for is possible. In that magical hour anything is possible as long as you believe.

And I do believe ...

Indeed.

Without Asking

One of the best things in life, for me, is to receive something without asking for it. I am talking about things I wish for, things I long for, things I only dream about in quiet corners of my heart. Things that suddenly and mystifyingly are placed in my hands without my ever having to have whispered my desire for them.

A good part of our lives is spent thinking about the things we want. Tangible evidence of success, symbols of having finally arrived, materialistic validations. I am not talking about these things, these things many of us want. I am talking about those things that cannot be purchased, cannot be captured. I am talking about things truly given, given freely. Given without reservation and without a request for a return. Given with an open hand and and open heart. Given without our ever having to ask.

For the giver of such things, the inherent satisfaction of this gifting is immeasurable. The giving is the key, the giving over to another person without their asking is an exercise many do not endeavor. So much is at stake as these gifts come from within, these gifts are part of ones own self. There is risk involved. No one wants to discover their gift unwanted, unneeded. No one wants to realize they've misread, misunderstood, misstepped. Certainly.

For the recipient of such a wondrous gift, a gift that comes without the asking, the experience is sublime. It is no small gesture. It's magnitude can be astounding especially when the likelihood of such a gift is far removed from ones existence. The realization that one has received such a gift can call ones worthiness into question. Do we deserve such bountiful joy? Are we worthy, truly worthy of such simple and heartfelt generosity, worthy of what's been given?

Of course there are times that in our own preoccupation we might not realize that something so precious has been left for us. We miss the sweet gesture, it arrives almost unnoticed for a time. Then suddenly we see it, we realize that it's there. Without having to ask...it's there. Placed in our hands with tender care.

How does one say thank you for such gifts given ?

We say it with affection, with humility and with the full measure of it's intentions returned. We say it often, we say it out loud, we say it until we are told to stop.

Then we say it some more.

Indeed.

Take Time

A lovely friend of mine stitched a beautiful cross stitch hoop for me and sent it to me. She told me that when she saw it she thought of me. It had a beach theme, a starfish, shells and some ocean water. What caught my eye were the two words it contained...Take Time. I understand completely why she thought of me.

I love things that remind me of the beach. All of my friends know that the beach is a most favorite place for me. That's not why she thought of me....she thought of me because of those two simple words......Take Time.

We all get so wrapped up in life that I think we forget how valuable time really is. Some of us have a different perspective because we know how precious time is. When you have to think about not having any time left...it makes you wake up. It makes you look at time in a different way.

I know I appreciate the time I have ahead...no matter how much there may be. I learned to value each and every minute, savor it and milk it for all it's worth. I learned to use my time to be good to myself, kind to myself, love myself. It's my time...I own it and I will use every last second of it in exactly the way I chose.

It took a lot to get me to this place....this place where I take time for me, take time for myself. I spent a lot of time in giving, in making sure others had their time...often at my own expense. I realize now that it's me that has to take the time to be myself, revel in myself before I truly can give to another. I have to take time for me before I can give my fullest, my best.

My sweet friend reminded me of this with her cross stitch. I have it on my desk at work with some shells, blown glass fish and rocks arranged around it. It will serve as a sweet and gentle reminder to me to never stop taking time for myself. To never let my time be wasted. To love myself first so that I can love someone else with my whole heart.

Indeed.

For Mothers.....

Who isn't thinking of mothers this weekend? I have been. I have been thinking of mothers all week. Many mothers, mothers we all know.

I have been thinking of mothers who have a grown child serving in our Military. Mothers brimming with pride but who ache inside until that time they know their child is safely home.

I have been thinking of mothers who have a child who is missing, who has disappeared. Their agony never leaves them, their dread hidden beneath a patina of hope they have no choice but to cling to.

I have been thinking of mothers who have to bear the criticism of their children's public mistakes. That's a heavy cross to bear and few will help shoulder the burden.

I have been thinking of mothers with children who are troubled and in trouble. They often blame themselves unfairly for their child's poor decisions and actions.

I have been thinking of mothers who have children suffering from serious and chronic illness. Mothers who would trade places with that child in a blink of an eye but who must put on a brave face and comfort when they need the comfort themselves.

I have been thinking of mothers who have a child who is estranged from them. A space left unfilled no matter what other children they have to honor them. Until the last is where they belong there is no peace for them.

I have been thinking of mothers who have children who have passed on into the next life. What an empty day they must have amid all of the cards and bouquets they might receive. Bittersweet memories of the past must soothe and still a heart that will always long for them.

I have been thinking of my own mother and every wrong I have done her. For every time I made her worry. Every time I defied her. For every tear I never saw her cry and for every harsh and biting word I am sure she can still hear in her mind....I am sorry. I hope that not only on Mother's Day, but on every day, will she feel the full measure of my love and respect for her. She is my guide, my compass and my past. I love her so.

Happy Mother's Day ...