Breaths of Fresh Air

This morning I woke up and headed straight for the coffee pot. It was early and I had to have my youngest dropped off for a fundraising event his football team was participating in today. In those minutes that the coffee was brewing I walked over to the patio doors and stepped outside. The sun was shining, the temperature was still crisp but it was a glorious morning. I stood outside in my nightgown and robe, lifted my face to the sun and took a deep breath.

I dressed, took my son to his event and on the return trip home I was stopped at a red light. I had the sunroof on my car open, I lifted my face again and took a deep breath.

Once I arrived home I took our dog outside and ran around the yard with her. Tired from running in circles around the pool (she's a chihuahua) I dropped into a chair and did it again. I lifted my face to the sun and took a deep breath. This time I thought about what I was doing. Thought about how each of those breaths this morning filled me with life. They energized me, made me feel good, made me feel happy. I felt new, refreshed and ready to take on whatever the day had in store for me.

It was air, fresh air that did this.

Later I got to thinking about an expression. The one we use to describe a person by saying....they are like a breath of fresh air.

It's wonderful to have someone in your life who is that breath of fresh air. A person to fill you with life. A person who energizes you, makes you feel good, makes you feel happy. A person who when with you....will take on the day right along with you. A person who can breath life into a dull existence. A person who can raise the level of joy within simply by being near. A breath of fresh air.

We all need that breath of fresh air. It's nice to stand outside and soak it up. Even nicer to stand near someone special and soak them up.

indeed.

These Are Mine....

Three times this week I had occasion to talk about something that has been on my mind. It's not been the best of times for me lately in a personal sense. Lots of things have challenged me, family health issues, job stress and a few other things have weighed on me heavily.

I was on the phone with my friend Sara and she heard something in my voice that made her ask what was wrong. She was the first to hear what's on my mind. I told her...The first fifty years of my life were consumed by either my parents, my husband or my children...and I would like whatever years I have left to be...mine. We laughed and joked about what I said and that was it. She didn't grasp that I was serious. Then in an email exchange with a friend I said virtually the same thing. This time I got a whole hearted agreement from a woman who both knows me and understands me. Late this morning I told my daughter about both conversations and reiterated my thoughts on my years left. She responded with her usual...Oh Mother.

Oh Mother is the verbal equivalent to an eye roll. She's twenty four and I will excuse her innocence and naivete. She does not know what it's like to look back and see the bulk of one's life behind them and already spent. See the bulk of one's life devoted to family and obligation. She does not know the desire one can have inside to be free of obligation, be relieved of duty. She does not know what it's like to wish to not have to answer to anyone, not have to make sure all is right and where it belongs at all times. She does not know what it is to feel caged and kept. She simply does not know. I dearly hope she never does.

I say these things without regret and without qualms about how I spent my time. I am not wishing to turn back time, time that made me the woman I am. I am simply musing of what time is left on the books. What time is ahead for me to enjoy and I would dearly like to be able to say....this is my time.

My time.

Indeed.

What A Fool Believes

April 1 will be here on Wednesday. I have a distinct Love/Hate relationship with April Fools Day. I love it because I am a practical jokester and save my best stuff to unleash on April Fools Day. I dislike it because falling for the joke always reminds me of what it feels like to, in fact, be a fool. To feel a fool.

I am not the sort of person who fools easily. I am quite intuitive and generally can see a liar and a cheat from miles away. I can spot a poseur and don't suffer them kindly. It's not the liar and cheat I refer to here. I can deal with them with relative ease. The one that has the ability to fool me comes wrapped in decency and kindness. Presented to me in humbleness and affection. Fools me for what I believe them to be. Not because they've lied or misrepresented....but because of what I saw, what I believed.

Kenny Loggins and Michael MacDonald wrote a song called, What A Fool Believes. In it lies the truth of why some of us allow ourselves to be....the fool. One phrase lingers in my memory...

But what a fool believes he sees

No wise man has the power to reason away

What seems to be

We have all been made a fool. We have all been fooled. It hurts like nothing else in life.....at least that's what I think. My first experience as a complete fool changed me forever. It changed how I looked at life and at people. It made me better and it did not ruin me. In fact it made me smarter and more equipped to deal with life, helped me to make good assessments. Still, it happens to the best of us. We are fools because we believe. It's that simple.

Despite this ... and in order to have anything at all in life ... we have to risk being that fool. We have to let go and say... let it come to me and I'll believe. We have to stand still and wait for it with our eyes open. Stand tall and see what happens.

What a fool believes is what they see. What they see is often what they want to see, what they wish for, what they wish it to be. Sometimes it's necessary to be that fool, necessary to not reason away what we see or what we believe. Sometimes we have to be willing to be that fool in order to have what we see. Sometimes what we see....is exactly what is there.

Sometimes it's exactly what seems to be.

Indeed.

I'm Detaching!

During last week's episode of Big Love, the hit HBO original series, a main character blurted those words during a rather contentious family discussion. Apparently she became so exasperated with the way the conversation was going that she essentially threw up her hands in frustration and said, "I'm detaching!" and she got up and left. All during the remainder of the show my mind kept going back to that one exclamation. I'm detaching.

The word detach, as a verb, means to unfasten and separate; disengage; disunite. The definition doesn't sound very promising. A detached retina is bad news. To become detached from society a problem, a tragedy to be perfectly honest. Yet as I watched that scene and let those two words sink in...I saw nothing negative about them. In fact I liked how the character said them, I liked her tone and I liked the fact that she said them and got up and left.

I saw her detaching as a sort of triumph over drama. She had enough and was not going to let the drama control her. She refused to give in and become part of it. I think I liked that more than anything else. I see myself detach that way...I just never put those words to my actions.

I find myself, often, not wanting to get caught and dragged down by negativity. I will walk away from a group at work who are in a full blown gossip fest. I detach. I will ignore a less than kind comment my husband might make in favor of a peaceful dinnertime. I detach. I bite my lip, my tongue and the inside of my check and stay perfectly quiet when my mother is mid-rant about something she read in the newspaper. I detach.

I detach, it seems, in order to preserve my mood, keep my composure, maintain and even strain. It is a skill I think, one I wish some others around me would adopt.

Unfasten, disconnect, disengage? Not in my mind. I'd like to add diffuse, disarm and dismiss to my personal definition of detach.

Dismiss!

Indeed.

Release

Please release me let me go
For I don't love you anymore
To waste our lives would be a sin
Release me and let me love again

I have a memory from childhood. One of my mother, sitting in our parlor, in the dark, listening to a song play over and over on the stereo. The song was Please Release Me and it was written by Dub Williams, Eddie Miller, Robert Yount. Many artists have recorded the song but the album she was playing that day was one by Jim Reeves. Every time I hear that song my mind goes right to that memory.

I can still see her now, sitting there in the dark, on a club chair with her legs tucked underneath her. The only light in the room the glowing tip of her burning cigarette. I can still hear the sound she made as she inhaled, paused, and then slowly exhaled the smoke through her lips. I am standing in the front hall, having just come down the stairs. I know she can't see me so I remain there, watching, for a very long time.

Please release me let me go
For I don't love you anymore
To waste a life would be a sin
So release me and let me love again

This memory has been with me for nearly forty years. An image of my mother in what was, I'd imagine, a very private and painful moment. It was a rare glimpse for me, into the life of an extremely private woman. One I find myself more like as each year passes.

My mother is an attractive and interesting woman. She never seemed to be like my friend's mothers. She had a simple style, she was quiet and very private. She never called attention to herself yet one couldn't help but notice her. She made the other mothers seem pale in comparison. At least to me they did. To this day so much about her is a mystery to me, a mystery I am recognizing in myself.

I wondered then what she was doing sitting there like that. I couldn't possibly conceive of what might have been on her mind. Not at that age, but I can now. I can wonder now...was she at a crossroads? Was she struggling with her marriage, her life? Who did she need release from? My father? Another man? A past love? Someone she may have wanted a relationship with but couldn't have? Clearly she was working through something, having a moment within herself. A very private moment. I'll never know what she was thinking that day. I'll never know if she found her release. I do know that I hope for her sake that she did. I dearly hope she did.

Please release me can't you see
You'd be a fool to cling to me
To live a lie would bring us pain
So release me and let me love again

I understand that sitting in the dark, having done it myself. I understand struggling, understand a need for self examination and a search for direction. I understand private thoughts, a private life. I understand beyond her mystery, I understand my own mystery.

I understand.

Indeed