Category: friendship

aging, friendship, honesty, life lessons, love, Uncategorized

Some Trips Are Longer Than Others

mimijk

Hi there,

I know – it’s been a while. I’m not sure if you’re still passing this way – and it’s certainly understandable if you’ve changed routes. After all, there hasn’t been anything here to see for more than a year.

But if you’ve stopped by – it’s good to see you. Clearly I’ve been gone – and I’m tentatively back. In the interest of abbreviating a very long year – I got sick. If you listen to my hematologist, rheumatologist and every other ologist I’ve seen – I didn’t know how sick I was. The year has been a blur of blood transfusions, biopsies, a bilateral hip replacement and a brain that went wonky because my blood was so compromised. I had to get multiple assurances that I was clear-headed enough to even try writing again. The thought of appearing more nutty than I usually do was a bit too much for me to handle.

I’m better now. I’m a version of me again – one I sort of recognize and occasionally don’t. I lost a year of mobility and engagement with the world. These days, my body is a cranky participant in my efforts to get a bit stronger – thinking it prefers being sedentary to the aches and strain of movement (honestly, I can’t even call it exercise – it’s more like wishful thinking with a beat). But, I can tell you that the return to normalcy is greeted each day with an emotional ‘thank you’, even if my body and I occasionally disagree. There are no more hospital beds, occupational therapy tools and elevated seats. I can put on my own socks thank you very much. I can engage in the most mundane activities – driving, food shopping, laundry – and I think each is pretty damn fantastic. Musing over the monotonous with a significant amount of delight.

And yes, there’s also some fear – fear of a recurrence (the autoimmune world is at best dystopian, at worst just plain freaky), an awareness of how much I am unaware of – I could explain the list, though I don’t think I need to.

So, I’m going to re-enter the community and see how we do. The musings won’t be this intense – they weren’t before and life doesn’t ask that of me now. I’m just going to keep my eyes open and my heart full – and we’ll see what happens next. Thank you for stopping by – see you soon.

faith, friendship, life lessons, love, Uncategorized

Where are my words

mimijk

My dear friend,

We exchanged emails last night – and now I’m without adequate words.  This post will not do anything justice, and yet…I feel like there’s so much I want to say.

I’m sitting in my little office, surrounded by pictures of my family – parents who I miss daily, Andy, my boys who are now men, daughters-in-law, granddaughters.  This is where I feel most comforted, most bewildered, most loved.  I have one of your photographs framed here too.  An abundance, truly.  It can make my heart hurt.  I whisper “thank you, thank you” throughout the day.  I can think of no better mantra.

We’ve never met, yet I feel like we’ve known each other for years.  How do I console you when I am literally across the ocean?  How do I begin to articulate to you – a man of faith and family, deep love and incredible grace – that I have an ache deep within that exists with yours.  How I pray for a miracle, even though I know that you and your wife have made peace with something I am railing against.  Yours is one of those once in a lifetime loves – and though I believe it transcends time, I want you both to celebrate it together forever.  Petulant, I know.  Selfish, I agree – for this is not about me at all.

I pause to look once more at your magical new grandson, as he is held with some distractedness by his toddler sister.  Her eyes are luminous, filled with some whimsy and a little mischief.   You are literally in the midst of the alpha and the omega.  One struggles with this most profound of extremes.  Yet, you sent me peace last night.  How can that be?  In your deepest sorrow, you offered me gratitude for feeling the telepathic connection that has caused us to write each other out of the blue for a few years now.  How can that be?

Cherished friend, I wish you peace.  I am thankful that your faith is deep and your family surrounds you.  I wish your beloved wife time…time to delight in your love and the love of her children.  I wish she could stay.  What can I say, I’ve never been one for small wishes when it comes to those I hold so close in my heart.  Needless to say, I’ll check in again soon, perhaps with better words – though that’s unlikely.  What can one say when there are no words?  Only these random murmurings.   Much love..xx

aging, friendship, grandparenthood, inspiration, marriage, parenting, Uncategorized

Of Paradoxes and Pop

mimijk

Hi,

So here’s what’s been rolling around in this very addled head of mine…My neighbor Gary is an avid gardener.  So much so, that we have never spoken about anything else.  He came to the door a few weeks back to tell me that our grass was being over-watered and that I should adjust the scheduling of the sprinkler system.  Ok, done.  The other day he flagged down my car to advise me that my grass wasn’t getting enough water (I’m abbreviating the conversation to keep this thing going).

Everything needs water – but not too much.  Every meal should be savored – but not so much that you get heartburn.  My cyber pal David (davidkanigan.com), is pondering the extremes of emotional bungee jumping, as I extol the state of balance.  But highs are awesome – it’s the lows that suck.  It’s all a paradox (sidebar – Annie LaMott’s Ted talk on her 12 rules of life and writing – enjoy it).  I got it – and to a ridiculous degree, it’s all a cliché.  Until of course, you get to some lessons I’ve learned from my father-in-law.

Sid calls me his favorite daughter-in-law, and he in turn is my favorite father-in-law.  Of course, we are also each others’ only person in that category, so for me, it’s an easy win.  He’s 92, one of the greatest generation, the head of Andy’s clan and he wears that mantle handsomely.  He recognizes the magnificence of my sons’ as fathers – and tells them.  He literally beams at the mention of his grandkids.  He’s vibrant and engaged and has become the official greeter to his community.  Going up to strangers, introducing himself, inviting people with an outstretched hand and an easy smile.  He’d win “Most Popular” if they had such awards for adults.

Pop has an easy walk, this kind of strolling gait that is unhurried yet purposeful.  He broke his foot a few weeks back, which only slightly inconvenienced his ability to dance at his granddaughter’s wedding.  His two granddaughters wheeled him onto the dance floor, he was handed the mike to sing along with Louis Prima and no one eclipsed him from that point forward.

And yes, now that his boot is off, he’s got golf to return to, bridge of course…you get my drift.  Pop’s unassuming and humble, he’s warm and truly finds no fault with anyone in his ever-widening circle.  He reaches out – with no hesitation.  If you surmise that I love him, you’re right.   I think he finds self-absorption boring – too much is happening for the over-examination of one’s self, or the pursuit of that kind of attention from others.

My parents were too young when they passed away.  I’ve written about them extensively and will not do so now.  What I will say is that neither was able to show me how to grapple with getting older.  I’m grateful for Pop’s lessons, because other than learning how to  play bridge, I try to play this life as he does.

Pop was married to my mother-in-law for well over 60 years.  And he still called her the ‘most beautiful woman in the world’.  We all were deeply worried about him – would he be able to get past the grief, heal enough to make a life for himself, etc.  And here’s the paradox that Pop taught me, the only one that doesn’t make me crazy.

You don’t get past grief (I knew that part);  you don’t get over love and you still live.  One can argue that it is a religious requirement to do so (it is in Judaism) – which is a pretty high imperative;  so is doing it for the spirit within that begs to sing.  Love and grief co-exist.  One doesn’t cancel out the other.  Losing someone you adore doesn’t give you permission to exempt yourself from life’s dance.  They are not different sides of the same coin – they are the same side of the coin.  There is no better moment to thank my father-in-law than today, there is no better reason than his patient coaching and his love.  What can you say to someone who asks the world to be his guest?  Thank you for the invitation, Pop – I gratefully accept and I love you.

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friendship, humor, life lessons, love, marriage, sisters, Uncategorized

Who’s Stewart?

mimijk

Hi,

There are many stories in here, so forgive the multiple parentheticals – recognizing of course, that really talented writers don’t use them often.  Ah well, I’ve never claimed to be a really talented writer.

Anyway, I was speaking with my builder last week.  A few years ago, her birthday gift from her husband was a girls’ weekend at an exclusive hotel.  These women have been friends for years; there are no secrets.  Well, with an abundance of alcohol there are no secrets.  And they imbibed – a lot.  One of her friends has been happily married for many years.  Great guy – sweet, attentive, doting – the kind of guy everyone else in the group holds up as the example when they’re arguing with their spouses.

After many drinks, her friend acknowledged that as much as she loved him, he wasn’t her ‘Stewart’.  Stewart was the one who got away.  Her college sweetheart – part dog, part romantic fool.  She was besotted, he was hormonal.  But she held out a fantasy, wondering for years, ‘what if’.

To abbreviate the tale, over the years her feelings for her husband have replaced that wonder.  She adores him – even though he wasn’t her ‘Stewart’.

I’ve never had a Stewart.  Perhaps it’s because I married often enough that by the time I hit 30, the prospect of a fantasy romance would have just enervated me.  I was a single mom with two boys under the age of five.  And honestly, being a mom was pretty much the only fantasy I ever really had that I insisted on making a reality (but that’s another story).

So let’s move on.

Have I told you that my sister is flippin’ brilliant?  On so many levels, this woman amazes me constantly (Debbie, I know you are shaking your head, telling me that this is same-sex, birth order bullshit – and even if you’re right, so what?  It is what it is.  Truth for sure – and some residual younger-sister-will-never-be-as-good neurosis for good measure).  She is beautiful, scary smart, talented beyond measure – and she is a writer – the legitimate kind.  In one of her recent stories she wrote “you fall in love with the way someone falls in love with you”.  Brilliant.

And true.

I fell in love with the way Andy fell in love with me.  He made himself fit into my life with such an abundance of heart, romance, delight – he introduced me to his magic and I was ultimately mesmerized.  He is my Stewart, but he isn’t the one who got away.  He’s the one who stayed.

We may fall in love with the vision of love that we see, but we stay in love with the person who orchestrated the imagery.  The person who may not be who we first saw (and are we the person they first saw?), but who’s in it with you.  The person who can be your best friend and some weird extra-terrestrial at the same time and still be cute.  The one who drives you crazy in every conceivable way.  I’m a kite;  Andy is an anchor.  He’s judgmental;  I’m not (but for my expectations of sub-contractors working on our house, but they’re not reading this).  We are opposite sides of the same coin – and that is the kind of love that can’t be fabricated by fantasy.

We fall in love with the way someone falls in love with us.  True enough.  We love the person who knew how to make that happen.  Perhaps I never had a Stewart because I have an Andy.  And even though this has absolutely nothing to do with what I intended to pen today, it is what’s been on my mind all morning.  So, I guess therein is another story.

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anxiety, friendship, leaving home, life lessons, moving, Uncategorized

Keep Moving

mimijk

“My, my.  A body does get around.” – William Faulkner

Oh William, you have no idea.

We’ve moved.  We’re in our new house.  It is lovely, really.  True, the microwave doesn’t open, the dishwasher is confused about its purpose, there’s a wine fridge but it too is inoperable, and though I have a double oven, it has to be replaced or repaired.  Did I  mention that our refrigerator legs aren’t locked, so that it creeps along surreptitiously,  advancing with little notice until it kisses the wall?

Of course, as with every new house, there’s a punch list that is lengthy – and I now understand why it is in fact called a ‘punch’ list.

At night, our boxes multiply as if their souls were rabbits.  And each morning, I look around in disbelief that there are so damn many them.  The yard is not seeded, sodded or fenced, so the Sirs and I walk with our heads down – our neighbors must look at the mosh pit that is the front yard and shake their heads with displeasure.  Some of the doors don’t lock properly yet, but what the heck, I can always make someone a cup of coffee.

And yet.

I love that I have landed.  I may not be able to find my way through this morass even with a compass and clear head (I lack both) – but I am home.  A place to create new memories, walls that will hold laughter and baby giggles, words from family and friends, new secrets and old stories that are told and re-told for their lessons and familial value – all will be protected by this structure.  When you cross our threshold, you will know you are welcome.  I think that is what I have missed most about our old home (other than the fact that my kids were still under the roof).  It was ‘home’ to all who entered – shoes were off, people curled up on couches, succumbing to those drooly kind of naps, big Thanksgiving dinners, intimate moments with friends around the kitchen table.

I wish my whole family was local, but I am so, so grateful for those who are here.  I think as you get older, you treasure ‘home’ differently.  It isn’t about acquisitiveness any longer – on the contrary, that which isn’t essential to your heart is purged – it’s about holding on to that which is most important to you.  And reveling in it.  Perhaps therein lies my impatience.  I want to find the pictures of my parents, the cards my sons gave me when they were small.  I want to ‘feel’ my life in what I touch.

Andy keeps telling me to go slow, that this isn’t a marathon – he’s right of course.  I’m driven by a compelling force to snuggle into what I know, before I begin to create something new.  If our fence was up, I’d have one foot in the new and the other in the old.  Barring that,  I’m just going to keep going until I uncover all those priceless treasures that I have missed for almost a year.  And whisper with delight and gratitude, ‘There you are!  Thank you for waiting for me!’.

Ok, time to get started –

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aging, anxiety, faith, friendship, holidays, inspiration, life lessons, love, Uncategorized

Heartbeats

mimijk

The year is coming to a close…and I struggle to write of joyous moments and rhythmic episodes of delight.  I know they were there – as I often say, in those spaces in between.  They were in the moments with Sophie’s head on my shoulder or singing (so to speak) on our walks; listening to Sienna imitate all the animal noises she knows and feeling the tenderness of her cheek; watching my sons as adoring fathers…the incredible kindness and love of friends near and far; the excitement of a new home (which with a little luck and prayer we will get into next week); sunsets that took my breath and sunrises that gave it back…

Yes…undeniably there have been moments, magical, wondrous moments.

And yet, this has also been a particularly strange and disorienting year.  Certainly being in temporary living quarters, without Andy more often than not, has been particularly upending.   Somehow as we get older it seems we lose more people – or perhaps age makes us more sensitive to these departures.  And in every corner of the world, there is pain – palpable, horrid, unrelenting pain – that one can’t ignore.  The faces of children – hungry, broken, scared; real-time nightmares from which one cannot look away.  I spend a lot of time seeking comfort, for it all hurts so damn much.

And I don’t get it, I swear I don’t…I don’t get hate, vitriol, bias, ignorance…I don’t get power grabs considered more valuable than the heartbeats of our children – anywhere in the world.  What are we doing?   Kleenex stock must be doing really well, for I’m certainly using my share.

And yet…yet, I hope.  I hope that you all receive all that you wish for and wish for all that you have.  I wish that the orbit of the earth, spins just slightly askew, so that we can stop perhaps, rewind and try again to create something enduring and universally  reflective of the beauty of the heart.  I hope…for all of us..

“Hope

Smiles from the threshold of the year to come

Whispering, ‘it will be happier’ –  Alfred Tennyson

 

most-influential-blogs-of-2012 (1)

anxiety, bias, friendship, life lessons, love, Orlando, Uncategorized

Disbelief

mimijk

Dearest Simon,

It has been too long since I’ve written – but if you knew how often I think about you and Jilly, you would feel overwhelmed with warmth, friendship and arguably quiet smiles.  You are so loved.

Your pictures have filled me with delight (and is there any way I can make copies of some of them – seriously – I want them in my new house) and comfort and hope.  Even when hope sometimes seems too ephemeral to hold.

This is going to be a bit political, perhaps more than a bit.  I ask that people refrain from posting ‘hate’ rebuttals.  At the risk of sounding harsh – you are entitled to your opinion as much as I’m entitled to mine.  But this is my blog, so perhaps you can begin your own if you want.

Audrey Niffenegger wrote – “There is only one page left to write on.  I will fill it with words of only one syllable.  I love.  I have loved.  I will love.”

I don’t understand what is happening in our world.  I don’t understand why we don’t hold our children in the highest esteem – so that we raise them in a world that doesn’t feel like it’s one breath away from self-implosion.  I can’t wrap my head around vitriol, hate, rage that foments more rage, violence that – like a cattle prod –  propels people to consider more violence.  Yes, this is about Orlando.  Yes, this is about insincere apologies (if they are offered at all) and veiled intimations that extremism is the best answer to extremism.  What can I say?  I’m an aging woman who marched after Kent State and was hit with lead pipes for doing so, who wore a necklace for too many years with the expression “war is not healthy for children and other living things”.  And yes, it turned my neck a hideous shade of green.

I wasn’t going to write about this today.  I was going to tell you a funny story about my new temporary neighborhood.  It can wait.

There is no comfortable way to end this – other than by sending love to you and your family.  To insist that I will just try greater kindness, find opportunities for compassion and work like crazy to make sure that my walk and my talk are in sync.  There really is only one page left – and we are writing it with our words and deeds.  I write to you because I write with the deepest, most loving conviction.  We have to stop killing each other.  We have to stop jumping from individual perceptions to massive generalizations.  One person at a time, one heart at a time, arms wide open.  So, with head bowed and heart hopeful and saddened, I send much love, Mimi

anxiety, discretion, friendship, leaving home, life lessons, love, moving, sisters, Uncategorized

Before The Sun Rises

mimijk

Hi Deb,

You have helped me through these last few weeks more than you know.  And my gratitude is inestimable.  Thank you for understanding that new chapters are exciting and daunting, bold and frightening, hopeful and rife with doubt.  That I swing between these extremes from one minute to the next, like the proverbial cradle in a treetop.  A precarious position from which to observe one’s days, let me tell you.  Have I snuggled in yet?  Hardly.  Right now I feel like I’m invisible in my own life.  My son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter know me, her family has welcomed me warmly.  And that’s all I know.

And that’s all who know me.  Well, my neighbor Mike – who has graciously welcomed the Sirs, despite Archie’s early morning sun salutations that arguably could wake the neighborhood.  Poor guy, he spent his life with acreage separating him from the rest of the world, so he and Bogey could greet the day with unbridled enthusiasm and only risk the ire of some late-rising birds.  He really doesn’t understand why I’m telling him to ‘shhhh’ at 5:00AM.  I’d like to know that someone knows I’m here, but not necessarily because my dogs insist on it.

Because of my geographical challenges, Andy keeps encouraging me to purposefully get lost each day and find my way back to home base.  Funny guy – his rationalization for my GPS not being updated, I guess.  I’m lost already – and I’m sitting at the kitchen table!  Oh, and did I tell you how I took out my side view mirror as I backed out of the new garage?  Yup – thought I saw a snake (it was an extension cord).  And you wonder about my hesitation to just go?  I’m intrepid in my imagination – it’s safer.

Ah well…life transitions.  I’ve never been good with them as you know, though I’m damn lucky that they happen despite my reluctance.  Just when you feel like you’ve got one aspect of your life down, fate yells “Plot twist!”.  Children grow before you’re ready to let them go; newlyweds get used to each other and morph into something familiar, but different from that frenetic excitement; our inside age begins to disconnect from our outside appearance; life laps at the shore as we’re standing on the boardwalk wondering what the hell just happened while we were looking for the concession stand.  I keep looking at everyone else and wondering why I’m not getting my feet wet.

The truth is this is the perfect time to wade in – because no one knows me, because I am not really visible.  I can try anything I want and it will make no difference one way or the other.  But for the fact that I tried.  And that’s what I’m slowly starting to understand.  I spend so much time fretting over what I did or didn’t do, wondering if I’ve pissed someone off, what I could do to make a situation better – it’s kinda exhausting honestly.  And I don’t have any power other than to try to be a decent human being.  To love wholeheartedly and let go when asked, try and be a little nicer to myself as I haltingly begin to walk to the shore.

And so I circle back to you – and your loving reminder that I’m not untethered, that I belong even if I’m not sure at this point where I am.  Your refusal to let me deflect the conversation away from me (and we both know I’m pretty good at that).  Maybe it’s just knowing that you remind me I’m ok, that you’re my sister,  and when one is loved, precise coordinates aren’t necessary.

anxiety, friendship, grandparenthood, leaving home, life lessons, love, mindfulness, moving, Uncategorized

Lost In Thought

mimijk

Hi,

How have you been?  I have been remiss in writing to you timely; the thoughts in my head refused to make themselves apparent when I sat down at my laptop.  True, I could have sent you some jumbled, free-form excuse for a post, but you would have seen right through it.

“Wandering and confused, lost to myself, ill-assorted, contradictory, pausing, bending and stopping” — Nicholas Sparks

Yeah, I’m good…thanks..

So – we have moved.  Not just around the corner – go big or go home – we moved to another state.  Renting a lovely little house until our new home gets built.  Ostensibly, this should be completed before the end of the year, but something tells me that’s a concoction of hope combined with good intentions.  Looks delicious to drink, with a surprisingly bitter after-taste.

I have found my toothbrush, coffee, hairdryer…the Sirs have found their favorite spots in the backyard, though their enthusiasm is tempered with a bit of anxiety.  Andy discovered his sweatpants, iPad and softest t-shirt.  All that we’re going to unpack for this temporary stay has been unpacked (let’s not talk about how much remains unopened).  I’d say we’ve made progress in a week.

I have found the supermarket, Target and HomeGoods.

I’ve had the delightful company of my almost-six month old granddaughter who discovers the world around her with a contagious delight.  We’re learning as we go.  My appreciation for the warm welcome from my son and daughter-in-law and her family is greater than my facility with the English language permits me to articulate.

So, I promise you it’s all good – remarkable really,  given that we just threw our lives up in the air a week or so ago.  And yet…

I’m so lost right now that if someone pointed the exit to a paper bag, I’m not entirely sure I’d find my way out.  Directions have never been my long suit.  I miss my other son, his wife and yummy daughter, I’ve lost the familiarity of faces that graced my days for years, the enveloping comfort of driving down a street that welcomed me for decades, the subtleties that define ‘home’ and gently imprint themselves on your heart.

Don’t get me wrong – it was time to shake things up.  Learn a new neighborhood rhythm, find alternate ways to embrace being lost and learn how to find one’s self (my GPS never seems to have those coordinates).   Grab onto some newness to life in a way that one is forced to in situations like this.  I’m going to learn how to play the ukulele, start moving these arthritic hips and see if I can at least make them a bit stronger.  Slowly wind my way around the maze of uncertainty and trepidation, bump into some privets along the way…I’m going to sit down and have a good cry some days and I’m going to get up and keep going.  And one day, we’re going to have a new house, and it will shelter new memories, its walls will contain laughter and love, and family get- togethers will be enhanced by the miracles of two little girls who will define their grandparents’ home in ways I can only imagine.

But right now, I need to figure out where the light bulbs are…

 

aging, anxiety, friendship, leaving home, life lessons, love, Uncategorized

Connecting The Dots

mimijk

Hi Simon,

I’m trying to find the better part of me, and when I engage in such challenging activity, I am always tempted to talk to you.  You see me as better than I am.  The truth of the matter is, you see everyone and every situation bathed in a light that softens the edges, mutes the glare, blesses the spirit. (If you don’t believe me, check out his blog windinmywheels.com – there’s just something about my friend Simon).

People spent their snowbound days differently.  Just as the snow began, we were meeting with a stager – a very talented woman who claims the professional mission of depersonalizing a home and transforming it into a space that others could love.  So, I have been packing and purging – nauseous and angry and and considering everything except the pictures of my family (in all its iterations) dispensable.  I’m not convinced I’m ever going to feel that sensation of ‘home’ again.

And yet you reminded me that ‘home’ has a far, far different meaning than I ascribe.  Your quote “Home is where your heart is.  It is your resting place” – my heart is everywhere, Simon.  It feels both full and far too diffuse.  It hurts.  And as stupid as it sounds, home could be anywhere (and has been, believe me) I felt my family around me.  And though we will find a place to rent here and a place there, I am less and less tethered.  Is love what keeps one from floating away?  I have no idea.  Clearly if one were to determine what ‘element’ I am, it isn’t air…

So how does this all connect – bear with me.  Our first dog was a little schnauzer named Demi (hybrid of my sister’s name and mine).  I loved that pup as only a child can (though I think the person who truly adored Demi was our dad – they even looked a bit alike).  Yet, when I was told that I needed to ‘share’ him with my sister, my response was to tell my parents that she could have him.  I didn’t want him anymore. A lie of course, indignant and self-defeating without question.  If I loved him so much and had to let go of him a bit, I would let go of him completely.  Just so you know – we shared Demi, loved him and his nuttiness and there’s no unhappy ending.

And here I am today – plowing through closets and rooms that held the people I love in various stages of growing up (which include some moments that one might want to forget) and railing – ‘Take it all. Give it all away – none of it means anything to anyone but me anyway’.  Hmmm…similar reaction to sharing that little dog all those years ago.

I guess I go to extremes, huh?

And yet my friend, if I want to extend a little kindness to myself, I could just admit that sometimes it’s hard to love – family, home, memories.  It’s hard to let go and harder still to trust.  It’s hard to be understood by the people who you think would get it, and then you are given the chance to cry with relief for the friends who do.   And that brings me back to writing you.  Thank you, Simon.  Thank you for being so selfless that from across the pond, you sat with me for awhile.  You let me go first as we sat and talked.  And you nodded and smiled.  And in that moment, I felt blessed.  Wherever I go, I will remember being there with you and perhaps I will rail a little less and relish a little more…

Much love to you and Jilly,

Mimi

 

 

 

 

 

friendship, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Dear Universe

mimijk

I’d write this to Santa, but being way over the age of majority and Jewish, it would seem remarkably disingenuous to do so.  Instead, I’m sending this to the universe, because based on my calculations, it’s large enough to handle a few requests from me.

Hi Universe,

How’s it going where you are?  Hopefully well, and you’re approaching the holidays with both anticipation and delight.  I hope you get all that you ask for and realize that you already have all that you want.  I’m not a big one for lists – I’ve been blessed too many times over to look at a gifted life and seek more.

And yet.

There are some things I desperately want this year.  You see, we’ll be welcoming our first grandchild into the world in February, and while I spend a ridiculous amount of time wondering what our relationship will be like, I’m spending more time perseverating about the world she will be joining.  And there’s some work we really need to do.

–  This year I want the world to work on forgiveness.  If we’ve done something wrong – to the world or to an individual – let’s own it, apologize, forgive and learn the lesson.  I feel emotionally assaulted everyday – whether it is the horrific senselessness of murder and ill-defined parameters of justice; too many homeless for my extra coats to warm; so much vitriol and judgment and too little shared compassion and faith.  Anonymous haters spitting venom in virtual environments where pain is the currency and absence of accountability is assured.  Can we have a body politic that agrees that a good foundation is one predicated upon us not hurting each other and/or this fragile earth we are only borrowing for a short while?  Can we eliminate the ‘yeah, but…’ and replace it with ‘maybe we can’?

–  This year I want families and friends to recognize that we can be extensions of our best selves to those we love the most and reflect a better self to those who we may never see again.  I want memories to be filled with limitless possibilities that we inspire with the merest of actions, the most innocent of exchanges, a smile.

–  I don’t want any more children to be hungry, or cold, or denied the feeling of being held in love and safety.

–  I want gratitude to be as contagious as kvetching and just as colorful.

–  I want the world’s religions to remember that the shared predicate is love.  I’m no scholar, but I’m no fool either.  If there is no love as a foundation, what is there to believe?

–  This year, I want this whole growing up thing to be a little easier.  I thought I’d at least know what I don’t know instead of finding the list increasing and expanding each day…Universe, I ask that we give ourselves the gift of the better part of who we are.  Chicken soup for the world, I guess.

“It’s funny:  I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools:  the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience.  But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendship, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do.’  And mostly; against all odds, they do.”  — Annie LaMott

friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Where’ve You Been?

mimijk

“Bo Diddley Bo Diddley have you heard

My pretty baby said she was a bird.

Bo Diddley Bo Diddley where you been

Round the world, gonna go again” — (Elias McDaniel, songwriter)

I’ve been away a long time – or at least it feels like a long time.  Not sure whether I’m really back.  Blogger fatigue?  Not really.  More the sense that if I had nothing interesting to say, better to stay mum.  When I consult, I often say that if you put your bucket down a well for water and you get a bountiful supply, you’ll keep putting your bucket down that well.  If you put a bucket down a well and draw up dirt, how often are you going to return to that well?  Felt like a lot of dirt to me.  So I’ve been out dousing…

Serendipity, the universe, a smack upside the head – call it what you will.  I received a comment from a woman named Karen in response to my last blog.  I’m sharing it with you in part (you could check it out yourself, but it’s important to this little story to quote from it here).

“Dear Mimi,

I just found your blog and it could not have been better timed.  I find your writing to be so lyrical and admire your authenticity…I want you to know that you have made an impact on my life at a time when I needed inspiration and the strength to move forward; I lost my husband 18 most ago; we both had cancer at the same time.  8 weeks after his death I was diagnosed with a second cancer and went through 9 months of grueling treatment, alone, without my Beloved…[L]ife has a way of being arbitrary in how we learn the real lessons, yes?  Our life together was like a beautiful song – starting with an anthem of the wonder of finding one another, then verse after verse over 45 years playing out the excitement of creating a family, the expansiveness of gratitude for all our hearts could hold that spilled so lavishly onto us and those we held dear, and then even over the period of shock and awe, our determination to live in the ‘now’. to savor the tastes, the touches, the fragrances and sights of ordinary days.  Your writing has restored my soul, my heart, my mind and my body once again hear that beautiful song – the one we created together that chapter and verse comforts and sustains me, and the belief once again that though we ay not always cling to it, that the Universe is on our side, that it is Love that is always the answer to aching hearts.  Thank you Mimi, thank you.”

I was left humbled, silenced by such gratitude for something I didn’t realize I had done.  That Karen shared this with me – to give me such a generous gift.  I affected a life.  I. affected. a. life.  Is there a greater contribution one can offer – especially without any knowledge of doing so?  I am still awed.  I am still shaking my head and I am still so touched that my words helped this beautiful woman.  This beautiful woman who was willing to share her personal thoughts with me.

Flash forward to dinner with someone I used to know in high school and college.  Ok, we dated – but that was a lifetime ago and after forty years, it counts far more as someone who used to know you before you learned a lot about pretense and guile and the only games you could play were the most sophomoric ones.  Anyway, he mentioned a memory – I was 17 or so, and apparently was upset about something.  He asked me if he had done something to make me mad, was it about him, etc.  My response?  “You know, sometimes it’s not all about you.”

And here I’ve sat – with these two disparate, yet powerful moments in my hands.  I am heartened to know I still run true to form.  That I am still focused more on others than on myself.  It isn’t selfless believe me – it’s just where my comfort lies.

But do you realize that you change lives with your writing?  Those whom I follow devotedly, affect my day, my thoughts, expanding vistas and shrinking others that have been over-planted and tended.  You have changed my life.  And if we can do this with and for each other, are we not answering one of the highest of human purposes?  You matter.  You have made a difference.  You touch with tentative but determined intention.   How incredible is that?  We are here.  And when we hurt or thrill, when we cry or giggle – when we least expect it – we are gifted.