She walks in the door after a day of meetings, appointments, disappointments and challenges. Before she pours a glass of red, she puts on her favorite pair of jeans – the ones with the threadbare knees. The cotton has softened with many washings, and now the fabric covering her thighs resembles suede more than denim. Continue reading →
Posts Tagged: life
10
May 12
Comfortable as an Old Pair of Jeans
6
May 12
Anything Can Be
Listen to the Mustn’ts Listen to the mustn’ts, child
Listen to the don’ts
Listen to the shouldn’ts
The impossibles, the won’ts
Listen to the never haves
Then listen close to me–
Anything can happen, child
Anything can be. -Shel Silverstein
4
May 12
On Enjoying the Ride
Imagine how sweet this journey would be if we quit second-guessing every one of our decisions. What if we reveled in the things that went well for longer than we stewed over the things that went wrong. Continue reading →
1
May 12
A Tale of Manifesting
“Mom, didn’t you say you were going to take us to a play about Camelot?” Continue reading →
23
Apr 12
So You Say…
So you say… that you wish you could find extra hours in the day to maybe carve out a compost pile in the backyard, learn to play the fiddle or compile all those photos into scrapbooks; yet you never miss an episode of your favorite TV show. Continue reading →
18
Apr 12
It Isn’t Fair But It Is Good
We’d gone in search of lavender fleece. We came home with jewelry making supplies, three unpainted birdhouses in need of jazz, and half a yard of turquoise fleece for, “You know, mom…. more projects.” Continue reading →
13
Apr 12
Time Out
The rainy grey skies gave her permission to sink into the couch. Continue reading →
10
Apr 12
When Enough Is Enough
She could remember when seeing his name in her Inbox made her heart race with excitement. Now seeing his name in her Inbox made her palms sweat. She let the cursor hover over his name. She didn’t want to click to open his email.
She’d have to decide what to write back.
Did she even want to write back?
Being nice was her thing. She’d been supportive. She’d been there. She’d listened and responded.
Was there anything positive coming out of this relationship? If this was positive, why did it feel bad?
Were there healthier places to invest this energy?
Was she opening and answering emails because she was afraid there wouldn’t be another to come along.
She closed her laptop and stared out the window at the park.
__________
Her daughter came up and said, “Mom… are you interruptible? Can I ask you something?”
She looked into her daughter’s blue eyes and found the answer she’d been looking for:
Would she – one day – want her kids to
pin their hopes on this kind of relationship?
She opened her laptop and deleted his email before opening it.
16
Mar 12
That’s Not My Journey
We may walk hand in hand for a time, or we may know each other only briefly.
We’ll share many of the same turns and detours.
We’ll marvel at the beauty found in the connection we share.
I may pull your rolling red Samsonite for a stretch, and you might offer to carry my fraying black backpack.
I will empathize and address your concerns with compassion. I will hand you tissues when you cry and pour the wine while you laugh so hard you can’t hold your glass.
I will listen while you detail the reasons for your choices. We’ll both smile and nod when we realize we’ve made similar mistakes.
We’ll learn lessons from each other that we wouldn’t be able to learn from another.
I’ll be the first to pat you on the back. Though I instinctively brush off your kind words, I’ll try to remember to be gracious.
Neither of us may know where we are going, but I will not follow you.
That’s not my journey.
27
Feb 12
Why You Shouldn’t Make Your Bed Every Day
There are the frazzled days when, for no apparent reason, you feel out of sorts.
Maybe you blame it on the full moon.
Perhaps you need to eat more protein and less carbs – or less protein and more carbs – I can never remember. You may be dehydrated, or you slept poorly.
You sit quietly, coffee in hand, sifting through the thoughts mulling around in your head, trying to filter out the cause of the frazzle-ness. You find several potentials - emails that need answers, an over-baked tray of cookies, the need to run out to get milk, or a dwindling supply of firewood. None of them amount to enough to cause the Frazzle.
The exercise of sorting through and examining the thoughts helps you see that what you are craving, though, is control.
This moment – right here, right now – demands a bit of control.
Not the heavy-handed I’ll tell you what we are having for dinner and you will eat it kind of control, but the kind of control that attempts to gently pull in fractured energies and encourage focus.
In an uncharacteristically desperate attempt at gaining control I make the bed – the same one that will go for days without being made.
The making of the bed starts a snowball effect. (If I made the bed every day, I wouldn’t have an obvious place to start the snowball effect. Isn’t rationalization handy?) The snowball builds as I clean the cat box, take out the trash, sweep the front stoop, straighten the cushions on the couch and refold the blanket on the rocking chair.
The completion of each chore, starting with making the bed, allows me to pull in all those scattered energies, get some semblance of control and focus on what’s really important – figuring out what to make for dinner.
