Category: inspiration

discretion, friendship, humor, inspiration, love

Acceptance Speeches

mimijk

When I was a teenager, I fully expected to win a Grammy, Tony, Oscar and an Emmy at some point or another.  I used to practice my acceptance speeches in the shower (typically after singing for the shower tiles, who as I have mentioned in the past, were always so appreciative they would sweat with enthusiasm).  Certainly I would look fabulous (proof enough that this was fantasy) and make sure to gracefully acknowledge everyone who contributed to the moment.  And I’d be witty and brief (further proof that this was self-indulgent make-believe), ensuring that I wouldn’t get cut off by music or a commercial.

And though I still tune in when an award show airs, I now find them to be almost as good as an Ambien.  I fall asleep after the first “Thank you so much!  I can’t believe it!!”  I’m sure some speeches are sincere, others may be funny – most are simply disingenuous.  And most of the recipients can’t move their faces any longer,  which makes it difficult to determine whether or not they are feeling anything at all.

I on the other hand have the joy of accepting awards that are given with far more generosity and sincerity.  This virtual community supports its members with acknowledgements that come from a lovely, honest place and I get pretty ferklempt (look it up in a Yiddish dictionary – ‘very emotional’ is probably close) when I am graced with one and permitted to pay it forward.

Renee@positiveboomer.net was kind enough to nominate me for two awards earlier this week.  I am very appreciative and grateful and a little embarrassed.  The embarrassed part is just me – you can just ignore that – it doesn’t diminish my thank you.  Renee and I share a slower, longer learning curve than most of you when it comes to anything technical.  And we both love Twinkies.  I love the joy in her posts – from the simple advice to the thoughtful expositions, the title of her blog suits her perfectly.

I’ve never been part of a Sisterhood before – though I have been asked to join the Sisterhood at our temple.  I have a sister who just rocks my universe, but in a family of  two sisters, I don’t think we had the numbers to qualify.  And I have a sister-in-law who I love very much..hmm..Anyway, I am now part of a larger Sisterhood and that is very cool.  I do wish though that the name of  this award could be changed so that it included men – for some of my favorite bloggers are men.  “Personhood” doesn’t sound very inviting … Something to think on..

Anyway, I believe the following bloggers are definitely Sisterhood material..

Deanna@deanaohara.com – her blog is titled ‘Redemption’s Heart’…

Paula@paulaacton.wordpress.coom

Laurie@passionateperformance.com

Amber@wordsaresuperfluous.com

Joanna@momentumofjoy.com

Jill@universalmusings.com

Susan@susandanielseden.wordpress.com

Maureen@magnoliabeginnings.org

As for Inspirational?  I don’t see myself that way, and it is incredibly humbling to be so considered.  If something I write gives you a smile, or provokes a thought, a nod – I’m beyond happy.  To me the real inspiration is found in the friendships and conversations that seem to uniquely define the special group of people who I’ve met through this blog.  And I am to list seven…

David@davidkanigan.com – one of these days he is going to acknowledge an award from me.  Well, he may not, but he was the first person I started to follow when I began this little journey, so he’s just going to have to deal with it.

Rhoni@help-me-rhonda.com

Anake@anakegoodal.com

Cathy@largeself.com

Bill@drbillwooten.com

Bonnie@paperkeeper.wordpress.com

Elizabeth@almostspring.com

Simon@simonmarsh.com

Andrea@thehandwrittenlife.com

Please give yourself the treat of reading these wonderful blogs – and then you will know why I can’t seem to step away from my laptop.  I guess I went on longer than the two minutes accorded most acceptance speeches – thanks for not giving me the hook..

 

inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Navemar – Nevermore

mimijk

“…here is the deepest secret nobody  knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life, which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)”

—e.e. cummings – i carry your heart with me

My mom would have been eighty-five years old today.  Seven years of not calling her first thing in her morning to sing “Happy Birthday”, seven years without celebration, seven years since I chose a gift for her.  Seven years and I can still hear her voice.  No one calls me ‘schatzi’ anymore.

Make no mistake, mom was a complicated woman with more reasons than most for some of her challenging qualities.  She was beautiful for sure and  incredibly talented artistically, able to make a slab of marble breathe, mold clay that came to life in a kiln.  She sketched and painted and studied – movement and the human form, meadows caught in play with the wind.  And when she lost interest in the delight of pencil and sketch pad, something bigger than any result got lost.  She was a haunted soul.  Haunted by the impact of having life, when so many of her family were lost during the war.  Part of the ever-diminishing segment of the population who bore witness to the unimaginable horror of the Nazi occupation.  Plagued with trauma I can’t begin to imagine, nor really took the time to understand as completely as I should have.

My former brother-in-law wrote her obit for the New  York Times which made the brief tribute all the more personal.  Her parents took the family out of Austria shortly before the Anschluss, “..making their way first to Belgium and then through occupied France.  the family made its way to Portugal, where on August 6, 1941, they found passage among 765 other refugees on the Spanish freighter Navemar – one of the last voyages of escapees from Europe.  [Her] children and grandchildren bear in their hearts eternal, existential gratitude for her family’s valor and persistence…Our family is particularly gladdened that [she] lived long enough to know of the safe return..of her eldest grandson…from Iraq, where for the past year he has served in harm’s way the country that gave his grandmother safe haven.”

The stories of the Navemar’s voyage are beyond the pale.  A freighter that was never intended to hold more than 30 people.  The horror was unspeakable and a subject of articles written by those far more knowledgeable than me.  My mom was fourteen when she arrived at Ellis Island.

I don’t know about why one journey ends and another begins.  Maybe dad left to make sure that my son would come home.  Perhaps mom left once she knew he was here and that all her grandchildren were present and accounted for.  All I know is that some days are far harder than others, and I suppose they should be.  It is the movement of the human form – the bend in the head, the tear rolling to the chin, the beating of the heart that carries so, so much.

anxiety, friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness, motivation

Make It Better

mimijk

I hesitated posting this because I know of no one who hasn’t read this before.  And yet it’s so perfectly accurate, that to ignore the message is to deny the peculiar juxtapositions in our lives today.  It is no less astonishing when one pauses to consider that we have constructed this catch-22.

Perhaps we would be well-served to step away from our lives every once in a while and define our perception of success.  Certainly for me, my kids have always been at the top of the list.  There have also been times when my well-being was at the very bottom, while I rode the wave of wanting more – more money, more responsibility, more stuff, more of everything that would furnish my life with the accoutrements of success.  I have never surfed in my life, but I was really quite good at riding that wave to the shore, and going out again.  I’ll take it further – I almost drowned once (my uncle fished me out of the ocean) and quickly developed a healthy love of the ocean – from its shallows.  Yet, any phobic reservations were ignored as I pursued the next big wave.

No one tells you that the ride is hardly exhilarating when you flop onto the sand,  remembering little of the thrill, your board damaged from the multiple rides.  No one suggests to you that you need far better balance to love the waves.  No one reminds you that a happy life begins with your approach – not to things – but to everyone else (including your own sweet self).  Take a few seconds and give it a thought or two.  When was the last time you made eye contact with a stranger and said “Good morning”?  Did you get outside on one of these magical,  clear, gorgeous days and notice that the air is gently circling your skin with a really loving touch?  Instead of a break from sitting in your desk chair, when was the last time you took a break just to get to know the person who sits in the office down the hall?  The cashier at the supermarket?  How often did you dance this week?  And if you found the time (and we all have the time) to do any of these, did you integrate that moment into your daily post mortem?

See?   Even the occasional monkey takes a minute to think about this sort of stuff.

I think there is a better way.  And it’s not particularly difficult, just a little more embracing of that which is around us.  Smile – fake it til you make it.  Donate five minutes of your day to grace – the silent thank you, the conversation with a stranger who is really not a stranger, because you see him/her all the time.  Laugh hard – make your tummy sore.  Remember to say ‘I love you” – and look that person in the eye when you say it.   Don’t wrap yourself so tight that you can’t move outside your head.  There’s more out there than your thoughts, your list of have to’s, your aggravations.  Find something you have never noticed before and marvel at how little we see when our eyes are wide open.  Learn that this day is yours to turn into something for which you can feel awesome.  And then do it.  Happy Thursday everyone…

discretion, friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness, motivation

These Are The Days

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My cousin’s daughter got married last night.  Gorgeous bride, handsome groom – they could be on the cover of any bridal magazine.  They glowed, as only newlyweds can glow – reflecting so much light that your eyes are magnetically drawn to them, as one looks to the stars on the clearest of nights.

Our family has shrunk remarkably – my cousins and I now represent the elders of this tribe.  How strange, as we compared ages and reminisced about how large those nominal differences in our ages once seemed.  We don’t speak of our parents, for none of us have them any longer.  Family events used to be full of grown ups – there were so many of them, and eight of us.  We don’t say anything because each of us is so acutely aware of the absences.  The counterpoint of love and loss is too exquisite.

We are wearing our seniority with limited gravitas.  Dancing with typical disinhibition, not giving a moment’s thought to any propriety associated with our status.  I killed it (and myself) in five-inch heels, caring little about the consequences (sounds like me in college actually).  Let’s not talk about my crooked shape today.  It was worth it.  We longed for the opportunity to forget that there were no parents watching us from the perimeter, nudging each other and marveling at our energy and rhythm.  My dad wasn’t there when the music moved into Motown; I longed to see my mom’s ‘dancing face’ (lips pursed seductively, eyes harmless yet flirtatiously looking directly at her partner).   I wore her bracelet because I knew she would want to be there.  The days of going from one table to another knowing that because you were one of the kids, you were met with the kind of familial adoration which may have little heft, yet envelops completely.  My aunt’s laugh – which would begin a chain reaction with her brothers both hiccupping and crying with delight.  Who knows what our children see when they watch us.  Fortunately they dance along.

Perhaps the bittersweet taste is more acute this time of year.  Tomorrow is the beginning of Rosh Hashanah – the beginning of a new year and the ten ‘Days of Awe’.  ‘On Rosh Hashanah it is written on Yom Kippur it is sealed’ – the fate of another year decided by the sincerity of one’s heart, the commitment to a life led with the best of intentions, the depth of one’s atonement for causing another person pain or sorrow.  I am not religious – and yet I believe deeply.  I attend services on the High Holy Days – am I trying to hedge my bets?  I don’t know.  But I remember leaning against my father’s shoulder and playing with the fringe of his prayer shawl, doing my best to behave so I could sit with the grown-ups when the kids’ service was over.  To sit with my two grown-ups.

And now that is me.  And I ask myself  if my words and my actions have been kind enough,  my generosity sufficiently reflective of that which is in my heart, beseeching  that my family be graced with a sweet, healthy year.  I take my role seriously in this regard – I’m not fist pumping to Marvin Gaye, not trying to prove to my body that it’s still too young to be anything other than spontaneous and flexible.  I am praying for continued life and that’s a pretty adult activity.  The responsibility of the senior members of the tribe to effect with concentrated sincerity and seriousness.  And the wind seems to sigh, knowing that this is the truest dance of all – one that we all move to regardless of our sense of rhythm.  To my friends and family, whom I love more deeply than any ocean and with width and breadth that spans farther than the sky – I wish you a year of joy and health, abundant laughter and sweetness – and love..always, love.

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness, music

Finding Life

mimijk

Days

What are days for?

Days are where we live.

They come, they wake us

Time and time over.

They are to be happy in:

Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question

Brings the priest and the doctor

In their long coats

Running over the fields.

(By Philip Larkin)

I got a call from a recruiter this week – a C-level HR position in another global law firm.  We may speak tomorrow.  Whether or not we do is irrelevant.  What matters is why I even entertained the prospect at all.  And I realized it’s because I spent so long making a very comfortable living, I really didn’t know diddly about making my life (sorry for the cliché).  Thoughts about working represent the comfort zone and figuring how to find my best life is a far scarier proposition.  And I don’t do fear – I prefer to think of myself as naively intrepid.  And other than the first shock of the day when I see myself in the mirror, I try to avoid any other activities throughout the day which may inspire my flight or fight response.

And the bottom line is – running away from life by running to work isn’t an answer.  Too many people do it, and I used to gently suggest to them that their effectiveness was impacted when work became their refuge, instead of an end in and of itself.  Guilty as charged.

So what am I doing to inform this new narrative?

I started writing this blog with no idea as to its direction or purpose.  And though I’m still not sure of either, I am sure that it has brought me into the lives of some incredibly generous, talented, gorgeous people around the world.  I have found that there is so much that unites us, I’m continually amazed that there are so many divisions.  I delight in laughing out loud at phenomenal humor from people who are deft at taking themselves lightly, or shaking my head with wonder almost every morning at my pal David’s prolific (and occasionally neurotic) wisdom.  I wait for a word from Simon which always fills my heart, celebrate Rhonda’s life-out-loud voice and hold Lori’s words as close as one would a second skin.  Bonnie and I may live in different time zones but we’re on the same page (though hers is a younger, cooler page without question).  Maureen writes her messages with a gentle hand, and Christine and Tuck’s mama share the unbridled joys of parenting (with the occasional frustration thrown in to comfort those of us with wonderful, albeit imperfect progeny).  Some people grapple with physical challenges – some of which I personally share – and are not hesitating to dance through life.  Russ and Ivon and John and Shimon make me wish I was smarter.  Susan makes me pine to be able to write poetry – all my Dr. Seuss riffs notwithstanding. Keith inspires me to want to walk with a lighter footprint upon the earth.  I could go on and on and on and I mean no offense in omitting any names – I hope you know how incredible I think you are.  You are all a part of this life I’m building.

I’m in better shape than I’ve been in a while, and knock out 110 sit-ups at the gym (with a back support), do pull-ups, weight-lift and bike five miles in seventeen minutes.  May not sound like much to you, but I’m enjoying learning what my body can do.  I’ve taught myself how to knit (badly – but hey, I’m great at scarves), began teaching myself the piano and am reading as many books as I can that don’t have to do with leadership and management.  I stay in touch with those who fill my soul and have learned to let go of those who have no need of me and for whom I arguably have no need.  I still hate the phone.  I learned how to download videos from youtube.  I consult, though not as often as I might like (but then again, I am lousy at self-promotion and don’t imagine that changing).

I sing again – although when no one is home.

I’m still learning how to be the best mom to adults, how to be an in-law who’s never an out-law.  How to love so hard and not squeeze the life out of that love.  I’m learning how to sit outside and not feel that I have to get up and do something.   I dance like a madwoman in the kitchen – and I’m not  half bad.   I sat in Starbucks this morning and listened to an elderly woman talk at length about a friend in the hospital.  I have no idea what her name is, but we hugged each other good bye.  I’m learning how to breathe.  And as I write this, I realize that I am learning that this is how one goes about making a life.

And I feel pretty damned intrepid.

friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

When Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary

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Wednesdays are really unremarkable.  By definition they are just middling.  The middle of the week.  The day that carries the dubious distinction of being known as ‘hump day’, permanently stuck in the position of being neither here nor there – not being part of the beginning of the week or the end of the week.  Poor Wednesday – always in the middle of the hourglass.

Except when it is an extraordinary day.  Then Wednesday stands proudly on its own – capably bridging both sides of the week with chest extended, pride exploding from each of its hours.  What happened today?

Nothing really.  Nothing that I can articulate well, at least.  After the weekend storm, we’ve been gifted with a series of golden days.  Truly magnificently golden.  It almost hurts to stay inside.  The sky is bluer than blue, the air cool and clear…goosebumps in the pre-dawn hours and kisses on your skin in the afternoon.  The morning coffee smells better.  The quiet is more magical.  The Sirs can’t help but get their wiggles out because these are days meant for wiggling and giggling (ok, so maybe dogs don’t giggle in the way we do, but still..).  All one’s senses are commanded to be on high alert to absorb the sheer grace of these days.  Mercy – when the universe attempts to provide us with what we are craving – and succeeds on every level.

One remarkable (and completely tangential) note – Fellow blogger kizzylee.wordpress.com has published her first book of short stories.  Titled “Whisper, Whisper”, she writes of flights of fancy that make you shudder with the kind of fear that lives right below your sense of reality.  The irony of course is that there is nothing about her that would suggest that this would be her genre of choice.  An adoring mom of four fabulous children, running from pillar to post with perpetual good cheer and a smile that carries across the pond.  Perhaps a captivating tale with an ogre of sorts and a happy ending assured – I would have anticipated that.  The two sides of  kizzylee – both pretty remarkable.  How delighted I am for her – another reason to enjoy this day.  It’s news that affects me more than a new iPhone on the market – but hey, that’s just me.

And in the glow of this day, I smile more broadly at the joy around me and I say ‘thank you thank you thank you’.  My heart aches more acutely with the unfathomable tragic news from around the world, the vitriol that populates every channel on tv, every paper, even the language on Facebook as the elections approach in the States.  I hang my head and weep – this is not what these days are for, these should not be the takeaways when the stars wait expectantly each morning to see what choices we will make today and the sun insists on sending warmth onto our shoulders regardless of the impression we are making upon the earth (to say nothing of each other).

Today is extraordinary because in the absence of  in-your-face surprises, a butterfly hung out for a while on some mums and just let its wings spread and sighed.  I’m lucky.  We’re blessed.

 

 

anxiety, discretion, friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

How To Hold On And Still Let Go

mimijk

 
There’s a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver that I’d like to share with you – it’s title is “In Blackwater Woods”

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

 

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

 

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

 

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

 

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have learned

 

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

 

is salvation

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

 

You must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal,

to hold it

 

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it,

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Fall is breathing its freshness into the air.  A time of transition – and I’ve never been good with transition.  Once I get to the other side of it, I’m fine – but the subtle and not-so-subtle angina of knowing things must change makes me jumpy.  And yet, fall is when kids go back to school, when the forgiving schedules of summer become more intractable, when we shift our sensibilities to what is yet to be.  I celebrate as my best childhood friend seeks to find her new rhythm now that her daughter has started a new career in a city far from home.  My friend D cries in her daughter’s room after she leaves for her freshman year of college (I totally get this – I slept in my son’s room for two weeks).   I sometimes still wonder where my place is in my own little family – as the boys have established their own married lives and I had to give them the room and space to go about their adult lives – and on a daily basis, their schedules and plans have nothing to do with me.

And all these children/adults are doing exactly what we have wished, dreamed and prayed for – they have become caring, responsible, decent people who are loving and loved.  People who are delighting in the lives they are making for themselves.  These are the times when I remember clearly the words of the rabbi at our wedding, reminding us that we are not lucky, we are blessed.  I think about that a lot.

I think about how I’ve yet to let go of my parents though they are no longer here.  In my heart, my friend Alex never hurt with such relentless despair that she would have to leave this life.  I hold on.

I hold on to being in my junior seniorhood and inwardly jump up and down when my trainer tells me that I can still rock ‘cute’.  Of course I’m paying him, I know that – but there are few adjectives for retired cheerleaders that aren’t totally nauseating (and I only did that for one semester in college).  I listen to a friend as she struggles through a huge life change and wrestles with the idea of letting go of that which is already gone.  And look forward to a wedding this coming weekend when two young people let go of their old lives to begin one together.

Perhaps the salvation is not in the letting go, perhaps it is in holding on loosely.  Not necessarily with the intent to try and reel the past back in, but to able to regard it as a touchstone from which to move forward.  To know that as life proceeds without our permission, that which we love with all our being still remain in some way ever-present.  Perhaps that is how we can move forward and embrace the transitions that leave us breathless.

 

friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Thoughts For A Friday Afternoon

mimijk

I found this quote so reassuring and comforting and hopeful – what better mindset to have as we head into the weekend?  To know in the stillness – between one action and the next, that you can pause and consider all the love that conspired to bring you to this moment.  Hokey?  Okay.  But tell me who ever is genuinely loved too much?  And who doesn’t need to be reminded that no matter how snarky the mood, difficult a day or challenging a moment in time may be – you are part of a greater, loving whole?

So, back to your regularly scheduled chaos –  but hopefully with a moment to smile.  Happy weekend all..

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness

DIFIK (Damned If I Know)

mimijk

I love the English language.  I love French too, but since I happen to know English better, it’s my favorite.  Reading it, writing it, speaking it – I’m a fan.  So many words, so many alternatives for expressing one’s thoughts, so much potential for discourse.  There are a lot of people who have read this blog, many of whom have commented (and who write their own blogs) with far greater eloquence than I will ever have.

Yet, I am feeling so alone.

I recently read that there are now more than 80 million who are texting regularly.  80 million people!!  Now, I am not a very good texter.  I don’t do conversation in short-hand, counting characters as I go.  It doesn’t come naturally to me, and in my little old-school brain, it bugs me that it comes so naturally to everybody else (or to 80 million people other than me – but that seems like a significant enough number that I can refer to them as the collective ‘everybody’).  Anyway, I just looked up ‘texting’ on Google – and printed off 40 pages of acronyms.  Forty pages of abbreviated ways that people can arguably communicate with each other.  Really?  This is communicating?  This is what you’re doing while you’re driving, rolling your shopping cart down the supermarket aisles, walking on the street – all in the name of staying in touch (and multi-tasking – or so you think)?

143; 459; 831; ILU; ILY all mean ‘I love you’.  1432 -‘I love you more’; IWALU – ‘I will always love you’; ILUAAF – ‘I love you as a friend’; LUL – ‘love you lots’ LYLB – ‘love you later bye’.  I could go on…I can’t even count the number of phrases with a certain epithet that rhymes with ‘truck’ – well I could, but there were just too many per page to sustain my interest.  ROFL – ‘rolling on the floor laughing’; ROTFL – ‘rolling on the floor laughing’; ROTFLMAO – ‘rolling on the floor laughing my ass off’…there’s also ROTGLMAO – ‘rolling on the ground laughing my ass off’.  I’m so glad that they’ve added enough options so that you can use different nouns.

There are some that are just plain stupid – AFJ – ‘April Fool’s Joke’ – how often do you need to use that expression to justify writing it in short-hand?  RLF – ‘real life friend’.  I don’t know how to say this gently, but if you have friends that exist only in your imagination – I understand – but perhaps it would help if you talked to someone about this FTF (face-to-face).

I am officially going anti-acronym.  I am guilty of writing ‘lol’, even ‘rofl’ and yes, ‘btw’ has come up in more than one message from yours truly. And reading this list has shown me that we are giving each other and the English language short shrift.  The other night Andy and I watched a family of four sit down at a restaurant, each completely immersed in his/her smartphone.  They didn’t say one word to each other.  They also ate with a fork in one hand, and kept texting with the other.  Ok, it’s not how I would define family fun time, but clearly I’m missing something.  I guess I haven’t gotten the 411 on the benefits of not speaking directly with each other, looking at someone’s face or enjoying the rhythmic dance of conversation.  It would seem that m.02 (my two cents if you can believe it) is really outdated and over-valued.  The joy of reading a descriptive sentence, the first class seat on a flight of imagination that is provided courtesy of language.  And talking?  I think it’s becoming passé, much like cursive.  Perhaps it will be taught as part of the history curriculum someday (which will be provided online and with all the appropriate abbreviations to accelerate course completion).

Sigh…I think my cool factor just went down about forty points.  But my cynicism quotient is definitely up.  We are short-circuiting our connections in the name of staying connected.  And I’m not down with that.  So I am SMH (shaking my head) sending you a 5FS4N (five finger salute for now – which I sure hope means ‘bye for now’) and committing to doing my part to keep written and oral communication alive and well.  🙂  Oh, that means I’m smiling – emoticons are ok right?

discretion, friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Karma Gets It Right Again

mimijk

This morning, I’m raising a mimosa to Karma – acknowledging that once again, the truck rolled up the right driveway and gave back to two people what they have so generously put out into the world.  Salut!  L’chaim! Cheers!  Down In One! (oh..never mind the last one – I was having a throwback moment to my freshman year in college.  Note to David – this is not what Eric is doing – he is studying assiduously.

You see, yesterday an incredibly wonderful, warm, beautiful, generous, fantastic friend of mine got married.  My own personal experience tells me that the act of marriage is not always the great big hug from the universe you think you’re receiving.  Sometimes it is a painful, difficult and hurtful lesson that you have got to learn, intentionally masked by flowers, good food and music.  But this is different.  Yesterday the karma truck rolled up my friend’s driveway to celebrate the kind of love that the universe offers as its finest gift to those who are richly deserving.  Their lessons have been hard and emotionally painful, requiring that identities get rebuilt later in life than one might prefer.  Teardowns and subsequent reconstruction is hard work – projects ideally not taken on during one’s renaissance (so much nicer than ‘middle age’). Ironically, the effort that was required resulted in the emergence of two remarkable people with a dawning understanding that this was who they were before they kept adding to their exteriors (which was done to protect what was inside).

And they are amazing people.  I can ‘feel’ her essence from hundreds of miles away.  She knows what I am thinking though she has never met me.  Our emails are prescient and eerie, as if we are connected by some invisible cord that tugs when the other may be in need.  But this isn’t about how special she is to me.  Rather she brings her heart – open and huge – to the world around her.  In her writing, her spirited commitment to others, the magnificent love that just emanates from her whether she wants it to or not.  She is not perfect – that’s not what good karma is all about.  She brings her best self into the kitchen each morning and makes sure that it is reflected onto the day’s canvas.  And if her best self isn’t feeling all the great, she puts on a sweater to limit what others may see until she is ready and treats it gently, tiptoeing into the day, lowering the risk that she could do any harm (she couldn’t).

What she and her husband (she has to practice saying that I think) have is a bond that is so strong and unbreakable that it still surprises them after many years together.  He is her grounding when she flies too close to the sun; she is his ardent fan and passionate supporter should the crowds not fill the stands.  They understand that the magnificence of love is in the giving – and they give to each other without hesitation, caveat or limitation.  They have received what they so richly deserve, for I don’t know anyone other than my friend who begins the day thinking first about others, with almost too little regard for herself.

So I’m lovin’ the karma truck today.  And I couldn’t let a momentous occasion go without my own little wedding reception.  When it’s time for the toast, I hope everyone raises their glass and asks that Love smile on them and be good to them from now until forever.  May laughter and light fill their home.  Enjoy good health, great wine and best friendship.  And know always how much you are loved – by many.  We are  honored to be your friends.