Cleaning Closets...

It's that time of year when the weather turns warm, seasons change and we need to do a good cleaning in our closets. A Spring cleaning of sorts. We take out the clothing we have worn during the cold and dreary season and make way for our warm weather wardrobe. Cleaning closets.

I always seem to accumulate things in mine. Things I don't really use or want anymore, things I have a hard time throwing away, discarding, letting go of. Things I think I will have a use for but really don't. Things I am attached to but need to part with. Things that no longer fit, no longer fit me.

I have been thinking of a different sort of closet cleaning as well. The mental kind. Cleaning mental closets. When the weather turns warm my mind also needs a cleaning, a good going over. Winter leaves, the sun shines warmer and I want to throw off drabness and make room for lighter thoughts, brighter thoughts certainly.

Sometimes our closet is crammed with things, too many things, much more than we need. We all hang on to things, store them in our mental closets. Remnants of a life lived, souvenirs of battles and skirmishes, of love and laughter. My mental closet is filled with them. Every once in a while, however, I need to get in there and make room for new thoughts, new memories. Brighter ones.

We all have that one item, that one article we can't seem to part with. It felt so good when we wore it, felt so good to be seen in it. Over time, over changing seasons, we may not wear it so much, may not reach for it as often. One day we find we have buried it in the closet, let it be covered up by new favorites, new choices. We still can't part with it, still can't bear to throw it away.

Much like that article we hang on to... we have similar thoughts in our mental closets. Memories we can't let go of, thoughts we bury and can't part with. The funny thing is, just like an article of clothing, these thoughts merely take up space, leave no room for new thoughts, new memories, brighter ones. We end up with a pile of things we have no use for instead of ones we feel good in, ones that fit. Ones that become us.

Seasons change, styles change and we must change with them. We must clean out those closets, make room for new things. Otherwise we are left with a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear.

Indeed.

Seashells

I was chatting with a friend today about seashells. I have them all over my house and often in the most unlikely of places. I do not live anywhere near a beach and have no sort of beach decor in my home. I simply place these shells lovingly throughout my house as a reminder of my most favorite place on earth...the beach.

Some of these shells have a specific memory attached to them. I have one that sits on my desk at work and it reminds me of what I came very near to losing last summer. I have a glass bowl filled with lovely pinkish ones, gathered on a private beach near Marco Island, Florida, reminding me of a very special and precious family vacation. One shell I snuck up on a window sash and it brings to mind a walk on a rainy Christmas Eve on a cold and deserted beach in St Pete. I have dozens of them, dozens of lovely reminders. Lovely memories all, personal benchmarks projected onto my favorite souvenirs from my most favorite place.

It occurs to me these shells are a sort of Talisman. A Talisman is an object believed to be magical, believed to confer on its bearer supernatural powers or protection. A Talisman these shells most certainly are as they are indeed magical to me. I feel their power when I look at them, when I succumb to the thoughts they evoke from within me. As for protection, I need only hold the shell in my hand and the sweet memory transports me to a lovely day far removed from whatever is bothering me in the present. Inanimate objects with a life of their own, they elicit reflection and private thought.

I think we all have this sort of souvenir, this sort of Talisman if you will. Reminders of happy times, blessed days and significant events...even people. Charms that distract us from grief or annoyance, symbols of happy times and the winsome frivolity that springs from joyful memories. For some they take the form of photographs, matchbooks, menus from restaurants, stones and pebbles...all sorts of things and yes, seashells. My children have their own magical tokens. My daughter a silly miniature green plush poodle that has an endearing and enduring meaning only the two of us know about. My oldest son a T shirt he won in a competition when he was twelve years old. One he wore underneath an athletic uniform until it split it's seams, threadbare, just like one his father had worn the same way before him. A reminder of accomplishment and dreams, of a father's advice and guidance, a shared bond. My youngest son has a plastic angel, swiped from his older brother's room when he went away to college. Something he could hold and have and keep his brother near and not feel so left behind. I came across it, buried in a drawer, not two weeks ago when I emptied his dresser upon the delivery of new furniture.

Magical charms with memories attached. Powerful reminders of constants like the love between those in a family, the love of a place where peace is found, the love of a person where a life is found. Long and lasting powerful memories that protect and preserve, that provide peace. Memories that endure despite all that may transpire in us and around us.

Talismans, indeed.....

Celestial Navigation

I was thinking about celestial navigation recently. A friend of mine asked me if I have ever noticed that when you look at the stars at night there are some that are difficult to see...but if you look just a little to the side, they are bright as can be. This remark got me thinking, thinking about stars, thinking about being guided by stars. Thinking about celestial navigation.

Celestial navigation is, by definition, navigation based on observation of the sun, moon, stars, or planets to determine position. In the simplest terms it is a way to look up at a night sky and figure out where you are and in what direction you need to go.

I have, many times, looked up at a night sky to try to figure out where I am. When the weather turns warm I spend time each night on a chaise on my back deck. I like to sit there and look at the sky, the stars, and sip wine and think about where I am....where I am in my life. Invariably it's a reflective time, a time for soul searching, a time to look for answers, a time to look for direction. A personal celestial navigation of sorts.

My eyes will scan the stars, stopping at the bright sparkling ones and drifting along to ponder more distant ones not as bright, not as immediately noticeable. I find them beautiful, so unreachable in a sense, yet at the same time within reach.....as are the many things I ponder while looking at them. Things that have been unreachable I find suddenly, perhaps miraculously, within reach, within my reach.

Legend has it that if you make a wish on a shooting star...it will come true. The funny thing is when one sees a star move across the sky...one has to ask...is it a shooting star or is it, in fact, just a satellite orbiting the Earth? One has to ask themselves, then, am I wishing on a shooting star or just a satellite. A sort of celestial glass half full or glass half empty scenario if I ever heard one, certainly. I will always choose to believe that what I see is a shooting star. How could I not?

Mostly I look at a night sky full of shimmering stars with eyes that are full of humility. The great vastness, the scope, the magnitude of the night sky reduces me to the simple speck I am in this universe. Whatever huge and monumental issue I have been struggling with suddenly becomes monumentally inconsequential in nature, ridiculously small, too small to even worry about really. A problem once deemed unsolvable looks petty and without merit. What fears I have had about my desires seem irrational, seem unrealistic, seem silly. It's good to put things into perspective every now and then and that night sky certainly does just that for me.

I also look at a serene night sky with a lot of hope. For whatever I am wishing for, whatever I am struggling with, whatever it is I want to come to pass....it really is possible in that vast expanse above me. I see so much room there for my little wish to become a reality, I see so much room that I can certainly find among it the one thing I need to complete my life, to make me happy, to make things right.

Certainly the thing I want most is out there, it's right out there sparkling and twinkling and just waiting for my wish in order to make it come true.

Indeed