Category: mindfulness

friendship, humor, life lessons, mindfulness

A Monday Olio

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I saw this and wanted to share it with you…

So?  What were your first four adjectives?

Mine were ‘happy, patient,  peaceful, elegant’.  Although I am happy (for the most part) and patient (sometimes ridiculously so) and am a real believer in peace, I am affirmatively not elegant.  No one under 5′ is elegant – trust me.  In truth, there are no adjectives for vertically challenged women that don’t suggest the plight of a retired cheerleader – ‘perky, cute, spunky’…You may get a ‘pretty’ thrown in on occasion (though that’s usually from a relative).  But of all the magnificent descriptives out there, we don’t get the $.75 words – ever.  Where did I put my pompoms?

Lest you think this really bothers me though, let’s remember that I’m ‘happy’ and ‘peaceful’ too.  What I was really more interested in was how I arrived at these four adjectives.  I’m really very linear.  For someone who typically finds the most circuitous path to get from Point A to Point B, I was pleased that my route was so direct.  True, I did focus on the right, and I tend to lean to the left – but no one said this was a precise exercise.

I hope you have fun with this and don’t take any of it to heart.  Unless of course you are over 5′ and you find ‘elegant’ – in which case, it’s a completely accurate assessment.

 

discretion, friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness, music, parenting

A Magical Moment

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I hesitated to post this video – primarily because so many people may have viewed it already.  Yet the more who view it the better – for the way it makes you feel your heart beating,  for the glimpse of beauty for which language has yet to adequately evolve, for the chance to feel that you are witnessing a magical moment.  Happy Friday all..

[youtube.com/watch?v=QX-xToQI34I]
humor, life lessons, mindfulness

With Apologies To Ogden Nash

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If you’ve ever had sciatica

Or other throes rheumatica

You’ll understand it when I say

My nerves are screaming “Attica!”

Such inflammation takes its time

Plays havoc with a peaceful mind

Reducing my thought processes

To plebian words and rhyme

 

Since sitting isn’t optional

Typing supine not optimal

I’ll go in search of heating pads

And accept this posture comical

 

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

‘What Becomes A Legend Most’

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It’s isn’t Janet Jackson in a full length mink coat, of that I’m sure.  I think the tag line is terrific – just misplaced.

We can all think of legendary people and moments for which books are written, songs are penned, clichés are born.  And then there are the everyday legends who may have no famous (or infamous) public persona, but impact our days, change our thinking, inform our choices and enrich our hearts.

There are people in my past who are legends in my memory.  My family is legendary – in more ways than one can define the adjective.  And then there are those who come into your days and you’d be an idiot not to recognize the karmic element of your meeting.  So it was when I met Chris.  He wouldn’t agree with me, he would argue that none of it is a big deal and perhaps when our time together is over, I will quickly recede from his memory.  That’s cool – he is forever etched in mine.  Meet Chris –

I began training with Chris a little over a year ago.  Given some of my physical limitations, I had major trepidation about going to the gym.  Chronic pain is well, a pain – long scars that extend from the neck down to places that haven’t seen the light of day in years, makes ‘flexibility’ a dirty word.  Tendons, fascia, ligaments that are just generally ornery – and that’s on a good day.  My body and soul are truly yin and yang.  I was afraid that at the least, I wouldn’t accomplish anything, and at worst I would end up doing some further damage to myself,  because at core I am still competitive and will ‘play hurt’.

Chris lost his leg a couple of years ago.  He was riding his motorcycle and was struck by a drunk driver.  I’m not going into the specifics of his accident – it was gory and awful and with or without hindsight, life-altering.  Chris was a trainer before the accident; he’s a trainer now.  He is an avid competitor – it seems that he’s in a marathon or triathlon every other week.  He hears a lot of praise when he’s pushing the envelope,  and deserves all of it.  But to me, he deserves it because he held on to his heart throughout this ordeal, he didn’t compromise on his life and he didn’t lose the ability to laugh.  He adores his wife, relishes his friendships and family and knows how to have a good time.  He still has to deal with the frustration that comes with parts that fail, waiting for insurance companies to do what they’re supposed to do, having to consider what most of us don’t even think about at all.  He still has to deal with the ghosts that dance in his head (even though he doesn’t think anyone knows about them) and get up every morning and dare the dawn to get in his way. And let me tell you, the morning steps aside.  As it should.

Chris’ will, his expectations of himself, his laugh…it’s the stuff of good character.  The way his eyes betray him when he thinks someone is in pain, his sense of commitment, his frustrations…it’s the stuff that makes him human.  The combination of heart and head, determination and focus, reality and hope…that’s the stuff of everyday legends.

inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness, music

The Perfect October Song

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Arguably not the most original of posts this morning, though the morning is clearly exceptional.  It’s our first emphatically chilly morning, the smell of oak trees pervade the air,  Archie is trying in vain to catch every falling leaf only to be confused by their trajectory and the sheer volume of movement around him (the purpose of being outdoors for his morning ‘business’ is completely forgotten).  Teddy is stopping to smell the mums and I am inspired by the sounds and sights of the morning.  It’s a wonderful day to take a slow walk into life..

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

Getting To Enough

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Thank you Molly Mahar – whoever and wherever you are.   This resonates with me.  Especially the mistakes part.  I have made and continue to make a lot of mistakes.  Even if I were less self-deprecating, I wouldn’t register on the perfection scale,  and that’s a-ok with me.  Of course there are things I’d like to do better, and I’ll keep trying – but perfection?  No thanks.  Not only is it illusory, it’s a state of hubris which in and of itself is imperfect and insufferable, so there you go.  I choose to break the cycle before it starts.

What I can stop doing is obsessing about all the things that I don’t get right.  The conversations that miss a beat, the nuance I fail to notice.  Not checking in with my friends and family enough (whether or not they check in with me with the same frequency), taking tomorrow as a given when I should consider it a gift.  Over-thinking.  Oh that’s a big one.  I looked at the quarter moon this morning and thought it looked like the perfect tip of a french manicure (which by the way, isn’t really French at all..).  And then I considered this an insult to the moon.  All of the magnificent analogies about ‘la luna’ and I end up with a french manicure?  How ridiculous.  But I digress (something else I do way too often – please tell me that is part of my charm)…Holding on to something way past its expiration date.   Adding so many ‘shoulds’ to the ingredients of my daily stew that I end up stewing so long that the meat of the day is too tough and chewy to be delicious.  I could go on, believe me  – and this would end up being a tome.  Boring and self-focused, and a tome.

I’m working on the adventurous part.  Lately I have pulled back and in, needing the security of my home and the time to delight in little events in the day that often go unnoticed in the quest for intrepid activity.  There was some Hatfield & McCoy turf war in the trees yesterday afternoon (well at least that’s what I think was happening).  Scores of wrens were chirping at each other, flying back and forth frantically between two trees, circling with the derision that only one wren can have for another.  Despite the absence of wind, the trees were shaking with vigor generated by this family feud.  One woodpecker was apparently trying to broker a deal – giving up eventually because his shrieks did nothing to appease anyone.  An adventure?  Perhaps not, but in my head the story unfolded as one.

And yes, earlier this week a stranger in the Starbucks line started to talk to me and I responded with “You can see me?!” (Long story, but a few of us in the blogosphere agreed to do this – and I was the only one who did – do I know how to have an adventure or what?).  The person replied, “Of course..” and kept talking.  So much for seeking adventure.  I guess adventure comes to she who just keeps her eyes open throughout the day.

So I’m thinking that it’s time to arrive at the place where I accept myself as being enough.  Doesn’t mean I’m not going to continue to try to be a better person, wife, mom, sister, friend – but perhaps with a little less self-flagellation in the process.  I’ll remember that the gorgeousness of humanity is in the sparkle of the soul.  And of one thing I am certain – we all look great in sparkles.

 

 

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

The Family You Have, The Family You Choose

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“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family:  whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard

There are all sorts of families – the ones that we are magically born into or become a part of; the families that we build one person, pet, ritual at a time; the families of friends that may morph and change with the understanding that these connections are in many ways as binding as any others.  Within the context of this forum in which we meet and discover virtual understandings and ‘aha’ moments, we are defining a new family.  I think of many people in this community who I feel I know and love as members of my family too.  People who are always there to support me when I write through my neurotic moments, laugh along with my silliness, commiserate when life becomes complicated or evocative of times that are painful to recount.  Friends who I fret about and delight in, inspire me with their incredible talents, and celebrate with head-shaking wonder at the magic that they create regularly.

So it is within this uniquely bound family that I find myself accepting the Family Of Bloggers Award.  I love the implication of this honor, for it suggests that we are in many ways a family of choice.  We are together because we choose to be, minus some of the drama and trauma that come from nuclear units that are perhaps more complicated, defined by far different memories of shared history.

David Kanigan (DavidKanigan.com)  who writes the blog titled Lead.Learn.Live and Laurie Barkman who authors PassionatePerformance.wordpress.com both nominated me for this award this week.  David has a following that is remarkable in both its size, intelligence and loyalty.  When I started following his blog, I hoped to come close to the quality, provocative writing and thoughtful commentary that his writing reflects all the time.  I still don’t know how he does it, finding references, writers, images, videos that invite and engross the reader.  He is incredibly self-effacing, and he is shaking his head as he reads this not able to admit that all of this is true.  But I would bet an awful lot of money (if I had it, which I don’t, so I feel good about placing the bet) that there are many, many, many who agree with my summary.  I have followed him from the first day I came to WordPress and I will follow him should the time come when I no longer post..

My line of work and Laurie’s closely parallel each other.  The primary and striking difference is that she manages to imbue the topic of performance management and leadership with practical wisdom and a passion that is palpable.  As some of you may know from earlier posts, I have a love-hate relationship with this topic – perhaps because I’ve been training and speaking about these topics for so long.  But I return to Laurie time after time because her advice is wise and practical, her commitment sincere and passionate and the results always on point and well-considered.  As much as I believe that there is nothing new under the sun because of a general reluctance to deal with the discomfort of change, Laurie gently encourages me to reconsider and remember what I loved about training and development.

So, I thank them both and embrace the metaphor that I am part of their family, as they are part of mine.  I’d do the Sally Fields thing, but David would tease me – even though in my head I’m thinking “you like me, you really like me!”  As inspirational blogs go, I have many to nominate and feel certain that I would inadvertently miss some.  Which is why I am going to nominate all the people who are kind enough to read my posts each day, comment each day and travel on the karma truck through all sorts of topography.  Thank you for being part of my virtual family.  Thank you for embracing me from the moment I started seven months ago and for encouraging me to keep the gas tank full and ready to roll.

 

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

Whichever Way You Go

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“I can’t say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days” –Daniel Boone

Another reason for me to feel sizeable respect for dear Daniel – only three days of bewilderment?  No wonder he became a tv star and iconic figure – the guy knew where he was going.  I imagine him looking for animal scat, tasting berries and understanding the topology of the land so well that he never needed to ask for directions. I’m bewildered most of the time – and that’s with a GPS system.

I’m not even sure I know how I ended up here.  Recognizing that I have been with myself  throughout the last fifty-eight years (with some minimal exemptions through infancy and a few times in college), it seems somewhat disingenuous to beg disbelief, yet…how many of us can say that our lives are playing out exactly according to plan?  This isn’t a bad thing – it’s a respectful nod to the reality that for all of our planning, devising, fantasizing, considered thinking – life is going to happen and unfold in ways unforeseen, ways both magical and horrible.  And for all the control that we wish to assert over our lives, we also have to let go and let it happen.  Because it’s going to with or without permission.

This is a hard pill to swallow for those I know who are pretty controlling.  And yet, it can also be freeing.   I choose to believe that the fates have been inordinately kind, giving me moment after moment to savor, chance after chance to try again, years of frenetic activity and days of magnificent solitude.  My losses have been deep and define my emotional shoreline, offering protection against day-to-day irritants that no longer cause further erosion.  Love is represented in the highest elevations and they continue to rise.  Laughter, like wildflowers gone amok, proliferate the land I walk.  And all that is unknown is the forest I hesitate to enter, at times choked by fear and other times brazen with curiosity.   But given my poor sense of direction I’m probably not all that intrepid – I only go as far as the light allows,  for I have to be able to see my way out of the density of trees.  This I think is the caution that comes with learning a few lessons along the way.

And so it is this morning, with the Sirs asleep (one in my lap, the other on my foot), hot coffee in hand and the most comfortable silence imaginable, I can tell you that I have no clue where this road leads.  What I know with certainty is that I’m walking on some spectacular ground, surrounded by the whispers of my friends and family on the wind.  I’m planting as much of my best as I can, for I do believe that you get out of this journey what you put in.   And with that knowledge wherever I end up, that’s where I’ll be.  Ooh la la..

inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness, parenting

A Really Good Man

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“You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons.  And if you treat them like sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if just in your eyes.” –  Walter Schirra Sr

 

See that gorgeous baby?  Today he turns thirty-one – at around 10:47AM.  As much as he will shake his head with disbelief and some embarrassment that I am writing about him today, he can be comforted with the knowledge that he remains anonymous to most who will read this.  Truth is, it’s his birthday to celebrate; it is mine to remember.

I’ve assumed many hats in my life, and played at many roles.  We all do this – it’s part of growing up.  The one hat that I always wanted to wear was that of  ‘mom’.  I couldn’t wait.  I would admonish my six-year-old peeps if they were rough on their stuffed animals (my theory being that all these toys came to life once we slept, and their retribution would be fierce).   I was a maternal kind of friend before I could spell ‘maternal’  – or even knew what it meant.  Whatever I became professionally was serendipitous; becoming a mom was my touchstone.  If I became nothing else, so be it.

Memory blurs years together which must be why they pass so quickly.  One moment a baby is born and from that point forward time accelerates, making it impossible to isolate and hold each moment.  I can still remember holding and bathing him, the smell of his neck…I thought his baby toes were replaced with ten little pearls.   He squinted like Mr. Magoo, the lights were too bright.  So I’d squint back at him and dim the glare.  When he was nine months old he spent an entire night pulling himself into a standing position and then plopping down on his butt.  The next morning, he held on to a chair as he rose and wobbled into the dining room.  I was on the phone with my mom while I watched in disbelief – he had only crawled for four days!  Where were these days going?

We developed our own language and as awful as it sounds, I reluctantly brought him for speech therapy.  I wanted him to be able to converse with everyone; I wanted him just to talk with me.  He had one of those baby laughs that bubble up from the belly and just erupt into the room.  His grandmother’s toes were a real hit, don’t ask me why.  I couldn’t get enough of this child – I still can’t.

He is of course now a man – a really, really good man.  I respect him tremendously, though I love him more than that.  I love his heart – he will dismiss this publicly and appreciate it privately.  His sense of the greater good, his relentless work ethic.  He’s loyal and highly principled.  I love how much he loves his wife, how close he and his brothers are.  He’s very handsome.   I appreciate that he asks for my opinion though I fully expect him to do what he thinks is best.  I understand that I had to let him go into his life, and he understands that in many ways it is impossibly hard to do.  I keep trying to get that balance right.  My sons have grown into heroes in my eyes – not because of me, but in spite of me.

There are days when I just want to stop time and make cookie pizza, hold one on my lap and the other under my arm and repeat the chorus from “Horton Hatches An Egg”.   I want to watch a high school baseball game and learn secrets that most moms don’t get to hear (I am very very aware that I wasn’t told all of the secrets by any stretch).  It’s okay to want all of this, but time has its foot on the pedal and is driving this train.  So I’ll savor today and celebrate his birthday,  from his first breath to the man he has become.  May each day bring him all that he wishes for and may he wish for all that he has.  I love him all there is – Happy Birthday..

inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Navemar – Nevermore

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“…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…