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Heart-Felt

Sometimes when I write it is deliberate, sometimes it is inspired. This piece is both. This is  the result of five decades of February 14th memories and opinions.

In 2012 it falls on a Tuesday. I will be working. I will not expect anything spectacular and even if something spectacular happened no one would know, but two others in my immediate family. So what is all the hype?

Mine have been an cyclic battle of “here we are again or it doesn’t phase me” in my adult life. Have you guessed my Valentine’s Days have been less than desired by my standard. To begin with I am a hopeless romantic,  now you know the task of making me happy was daunting. Roses, chocolates, diamonds, sweet breakfasts in bed, romantic dinners… those would have been good starts. Now using reasonable deducing one might think this person is STILL a candidate to be a fan of the day. Maybe the celebrations have “just missed” and the “mushy-hearted”  fool is waiting to emerge. However, that is not the case. Then you explore the disappointed cynic and perhaps that is a part of my feelings too.

How did I get to this place? Well the greeting card industry had a great deal to do with it, but I am not going to bash them. There have been times that I believed I would be better served in that very industry, the flip side of that is I have made myself indifferent due to an industry filled with something I have an on-going love affair with, WORDS.

In elementary school you may recall little heart shaped cards and  hard pastel colored candy that were associated with the day. Nothing noteworthy happened here, that is until the tuggings of adolescence began to surface. At first mostly girls gave valentines and some boys, with their mother’s insistence participated. Then you could see the popularity contests start. It went from everyone in the class to actually recognizing fond feelings, friendship or budding “puppy-love”. You were either giggling about the reality of it, fantasizing about it, or feeling isolated for a lack of it. I spent a great deal of time in the fantasy realm where it was safe. Allowing me to protect my heart, but it happened. He came  mid-school year, I was in sixth grade, and he was the prettiest boy I had ever seen. He didn’t know I existed and as time went on I would hope that I had remained in that place, but I never forgot him.  He wasn’t particularly mean to me, he was being an eleven year old boy who was as guided by his hormones as he was by peer pressure.

The teen and early adult years would be a series of  near misses with  significant others or simply lack there of. The lukewarm would-be cynic began to develop and grow. Somewhere in between there were some really special ones for me, ones that will remain in my heart and mind forever.

Therefore, I felt compelled to research Saint Valentine, whom of we have to thank for the name of our sentimental fool’s holiday. He was beheaded.  I am laughing as I bluntly put that out here, for while this was not intended to be a super serious piece it was not the intention to poke fun at either. Irony at it’s roots.

Finally and all put aside; I truly hope your Valentine’s Day is filled with chocolate hearts, beautifully worded poems and the sweet embraces of the one who holds the key to your heart. That is a sincere heart-felt wish.

Ahhhh..Mondays

Whether you listened to them or not we grew up with groups that bemoaned this day of the week. “The Carpenters”-Rainy Day and Mondays, “The Mamas and the Papas”-Monday, Monday  come to my mind first and foremost; no one I can think of right off hand has written a song saying  YEAH Monday, can’t hardly wait! Today I am feeling all the dread associated with this day of the week.

It began about 7:15a.m. I saw the light filtering  in from my bedroom and bathroom windows, and my thought was,” Oh No…..” Once again the weekend had flown by and all I was left with was another MONDAY. From my “Facebook” posts  I wasn’t alone.

I don’t know why this Monday January 30,2012 was so very bad. I certainly have seen worse ones. By that I mean I was faced with things that would actually contribute to a bad day, while this Monday was simply bad  because.. Maybe it was because I didn’t get enough sleep, maybe it was because it was the last Monday in the month, maybe it was bad because I was looking for a reason to feel bad and Monday just happened to be available.

Happily I can report it did get better. Once I started the day, once I realized Monday was not going to disappear because I wasn’t ready for it to be, my universe returned to “normal”. I had to come to grips with as bad as I may have thought my Monday was and facing the day ahead, it sure beat the heck outta the option of not being able to face that same Monday.

The day far behind me and nothing significant to report. Either consciously or unconsciously I did not let a particularly bad start direct the remainder of my day.  I submit this to you; if your day starts off bad, make a decision and take a stand. Do not become one of those folks who lets things happen, and  the only thing they have available to contribute is a complaint.

Going Off On A Tangent

Oh, how we love to hear ourselves speak. At times it is to a point that we do not even realize how self-absorbed we truly are. I remember a song that James Brown sang a few years back , “Takin Loud And Sayin Nothing”. I was not a fan of James Brown in those days. I do however appreciate him now. I had to listen to him to put myself in a mindset to write about this  subject and James put me in that state.

I periodically find it difficult to concentrate, there are so many things going on in most of our daily lives. We feel odd or concerned when we cannot remember things, but the busy-fast pace we exist in can be pointed out as the reason. It takes time to process everything and when you do not give proper time to any project or endeavor the results will reflect the negligence.

Now right in the middle of all of this, my position changes again and without warning. I find myself vacillating on the smallest of decisions. Yes, this is a pure demonstration of lack of concentration. Do you have too many things pulling you in too many different directions? I think we all do. There is no time to slow down, because if you do you may miss something else. It is easy to see how one might loose track of where they are or what they were talking about.

It is hard to be effective if you are not grounded or centered. That applies to conversation as well as active, hands-on projects.  Something is missing when we waver, so our battle must begin and we must bother to recover that steady spot. In that mode of recovery our sense of being, our center needs to be retrieved. Otherwise you may find yourself,  literally speaking, in the middle of nowhere and wondering just how you got there.

sour….

This comes up from time to time and I feel compelled to address it yet once again. It is my personal effort NOT to fall into the category.

We will begin with the glass half empty scenario. I have always consciously said I am the “half full” person, but then I examined real life situations and thought how many times did I think or verbally express something like, ” Who left the half full soda bottle in the family room”. We have become condition to say we are the positive being and the correct answer for a positive being is to say “half full”. However, what do you think when left alone with your thoughts? Really. Think about it; if your encounter with that half a bottle of soda is negative what will your question be,  and how will it be delivered.

No one wants to be negative, but negative things occur in our lives. We cannot ignore them all and we certainly cannot be PC all of the time. Plus why would you? I think a better way to approach this is to just be real. Therefore let’s journey into real for a bit and visit my old friend”sour”.

My dear friend/ally/ sister once told me in the closing part of a conversation,” you don’t want to become sour”. That has stuck with me for over 12 years now. She told me that as a passing thought, but it stuck. I cannot give an exact date, but I know where I was and who I was working for. That narrows things down quite a bit. Those things are only important to me if I want to determine the exact time thing. I was 40 and said to myself, “Yeah she is right. No one wants to be bothered with a mean old person.” My thoughts turned to how many I knew and how often I had run into the type in daily passing. I pictured the scowling faces and I heard the ugly tones coming out of their frowning mouths. I vowed that I would not become one of those people.

Perhaps 40 was premature to decide something such as I would not become sour, but that is what I did. I believe that we do not just suddenly wake up and become anything. Time is a factor and must be taken into consideration. Fast forward to now at 52 I am forced to see that maybe I was not so successful in avoiding that “sour”. Along with that nasty disposition and grimacing face comes the need to assign blame and responsibility, as you may have guessed “yours truly” is not going to be tagged for any of this negative material. However, the mere fact that I have bothered to recognize I am not to blame forces me to admonish I am. Where are the scapegoats when you need them?

I looked into a mirror and saw the lines of “that mean older woman”. I tried to smile her lines away, to no avail.  The gray hair didn’t help either. Therefore, this is my shout to my contemporaries; Stop It Now. Don’t let traffic, daily routine, and “other rude people”put a permanent scowl on YOUR face.  We are not as young as we used to be, but we are resilient. We have to be, cause we are still here.

Who Do You Think You Are?

This is an excerpt from my novel in the works…

First there was the sign from God… I walked into my living room and noticed how the light shone in from the skylights. I was putting a book away and then it came to me, there is a book missing. The book was the family Bible.

I took it from its safe haven and looked at the golden name engraved on the leather book cover; the name of our family, the name associated with my husband and sons. I said to myself,” I should have had our fist names engraved instead”. Then there was a flood of information and confusion: what names would you put? your first name or your middle, my husbands first name or his middle. I saw that the controversy I was trying to avoid was deeper than just the name(s) that it occurred to me should be on the Bible; and no matter how I was dancing around it, I was still trying to be cleverly deceptive.

Knowing exactly who you are is a lifetime process. It never ceases to amaze me how much we take for granted, when we should be treasuring these things as gifts. I am/was fortunate to have made friends with a very sweet lady, who just happens to be a member of The Church of Latter Day Saints. Genealogy is very special to Mormons and they have a vast collection of resources. I took advantage of my friend’s offer to help guide me on this personal venture and I will relay my trip.

Once I embarked on my journey I found out very quickly that for all I knew and thought I knew about my family, it was just a surface scratch. The truth was that I had only a vague idea who I was. What’s more I had an even less idea about the people who are related to me.

On a personal note, and it seems I always have a personal note, I am pretty certain who I am. I can trace my lineage back to the mid- 1800’s just from my memory of what has been told to me, through photos, and obituaries. This by some standards is nothing, but the farther back you go the less connected you are. The personal attachment becomes weak and frayed. Surprisingly there may still be some family resemblances one can detect. Having this kind of information is valuable; but remember the rules of a collector’s item  and apply them here, for these “items”are only as valuable as what someone is willing to pay for them. Thus, the assignment of worth can be tricky.

Dry Spell

I have ideas hanging around out there, but cannot seem to put them down. My level of concentration is zilch.

What does a”would-be-writer” say when they are unable to write. “Dry Spell” says it all for me.  I feel like I am in the desert, alone, no shade in sight. When you write there is a conversation that is ongoing with self, and when that conversation is absent you feel very isolated.

My words are my escape. I am hurled into parts unknown, yet the journey is welcomed. I am at the helm, so to speak. Imagine being in a storm at sea, while it is terrifying being tossed about and you feel so tiny and insignificant, would you feel any less terrified in the middle of a calm ocean? The vastness alone is overwhelming.

While this period, this time was short-lived, it seemed like a lifetime. There is only so much you can say, about not having anything to say.

Perhaps you have experience a “Dry Spell” of your own. It doesn’t simply apply to writing, that was for me because I write. Figuratively speaking, it is simply an unproductive period. What do you do when you feel that way about work, school, relationships? Mine was a relatively simple fix; I let it run it’s course and it remedied itself. That however, may not be the best solution for other circumstances or situations. Think of a runaway rail car, eventually it will stop. Question being when and how.

Not having the cure-all for this period, I say it is better to take some action rather than no action. Don’t walk away without making an effort to move things along. All that may be required is a small push, while in other instances it may be a mountain that has to be moved. Whatever the case may be; since it is you and it is affecting you, get behind that helm and steer.

A Chronic Case Of Temptation

Feeling neglected, unappreciated, and ugly; what happens if in walks your Achilles Heel.  It won’t take much.  You are vulnerable, but moreover this is wanted. There are no guarantees that even in the most ideal circumstances that this very same culprit will not invade your space. The question is what will you do when faced with this challenge.

Let’s fast forward to the consequences. Why do there have to be consequence? For one thing the hint was Achilles Heel, weakness. To approach something that leaves us open to danger gives us the sense of foreboding and taboo. We humans love ” to get close to the flame”. The adrenaline rush, the excitement gets us going, and before we know it we cannot turn back. To be honest we may not even want to turn back. Would you worry about the consequences if there were truly no way for anyone that you didn’t want to know, would or could know? This calls for honesty too.

However, it is not all about consequence. There is the amazing indescribable feeling. It is both visceral and physical. What do you have to counteract such an attack?

First you need to think, and I mean really think long and hard about what you are about to do. Don’t brush past anything, for that will leave room for excuses and others to blame. Remember, ultimately you are in charge here. Be prepared for what happens, that means taking the bad with the good. I put it that way because the good (pleasurable) will overshadow the bad and the possibilities thereof. If you think of the good part first it will allow you to put that bad on the back burner, it needs to be on the front burner. Still feeling cavalier after taking all this in, consider your very own conscious. Can you live with yourself, because you cannot run away from that being.Finally, the ideas and realities of karma and God(not necessarily in that order).

I  say do the right thing. I am not  going to tell you this is easy, it is not. I believe that when we try to be a good righteous person and challenges appear in our lives, the fact that we consider the wrong things or even do the wrong thing and feel guilty afterward does not mean we are lost souls or hypocrites; to me it means that we are on the right track, we just have a hard road to tow. It is manageable, it is just a matter of choice. Good Luck

Back To Where We Started

“The more things change the more they stay the same.” I was once told this in passing by a friend. At the time it was directed at me, now the tables are turned and I will redirect that same statement at this same friend and a couple of others. I wonder how astute they are, I wonder if any of them will know or even suspect that I am sending  this out to them. This is not mean, it is not a “dig” at any of them. Simply stated, it is just an observation.

Have you noticed how you tend to think of people in the time and state in which you last saw them? You see a child of a friend and first thing that comes out of your mouth is, “Wow, you sure have grown”. Why do we think everything revolves around us? That question asked and once answered that may explain how we can allow our minds to get to such a place.

Reuniting with people allows us an unique opportunity to visit a place that no longer exists. It seems the older we get the more we want to be in that place. It is safe and always open for alterations, even if these same alterations are not true to form. I can, at last, now say that my visits to this Xanadu has become less intriguing. The inhabitants have changed so much due to the inevitable, I sigh with relief that I  can always make a non-committal stop-over and not be bound to that place with them.

To the afore mentioned individuals I laughingly acknowledge and point out the avoidance. It was unnecessary; for we as adults are afforded what escaped us as youths, the ability to say we have had enough or even no just because we want to without further explanation. We must welcome and encourage change, because change is progress. I do not desire to be in numerous places of my past, but there are some parts of it and some individuals that I would like to remain CURRENT with. By saying I would like to remain current simply means, there is a point of interaction where we can be in the now and it is safe.

Do Ya Feel Me?

I want to write something positive. I would like for it to be thought provoking, but most of all I would like for it to make the readers think of something that makes them smile and appreciate some thing or some one. This could be a difficult task because I have to draw on my feelings for these words.

As I stare upward at the clear night sky and take in air, it all seems so familiar. This autumn night gives me a feeling of deja vu and while that is generally a good feeling it is still unsettling. I make myself ignore the unsettled part and surrender to the good. Over these past  52 years how many of these type of nights have I been blessed enough to see and appreciate.

Maybe it is the view of Pacific Ocean after a steady, cleansing rain.  Watching the waves crash into coastal rocks and give way to the tide, knowing this is so massive that all you can do is take in the splendor with your eyes, but being grateful you are able to enjoy it in this simple manner.

The things you cannot buy or possess, but you can be in the moment. The moment that could amount to hours if you choose to stay, or it could end in a few seconds if you choose not to.

As a child who grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, I cannot tell you how excited I felt when I watched a doe and her two fawns grazing on my clients property in North Georgia. Not roller coaster excitement, but the amazed and awe struck excitement of experiencing nature first hand.

Perhaps yours will be a child’s birth, and your first one on one meeting with this new tiny being. Maybe it will be the flashing colors of wild flowers growing along an interstate highway as you drive by. Whatever it is take it in and hold on to it. If you are lucky you may revisit that spot again in person, but if not you will forever have it to hold in your mind’s eye forever.

Do You Torture Yourself

Now why would someone even consider something like torturing themselves? It does seem rather masochistic yet you probably watch a news show or pick up a newspaper( a reputable one, if that even exists anymore). Stocks plunging, murder and mayhem, political views any one of these has the potential  to create stress , I am speaking of stress at a high level too. We are now all very aware that stress kills.

Lately, I have found myself spending time watching programs that have stories of South Africa during its apartheid  period. I have seen stories of the cruel treatment, murder, and injustice. I was curiously compelled and captivated by these stories; I was also disgusted and angered at a level which made me ask myself, “why, why are you still watching this?”  I recall hearing(and I don’t know when or where) the United States was South Africa prior to the Civil Rights Movement. I cannot say I agree with that statement. Also very clear in my memory is my “adopted”mother never being interested in films, miniseries, etc. that depicted slavery or the segregated south. She simply said, “I don’t want to watch that sh%t, I lived that sh%t…”

Angered by yet another something that I have no control of. Sometimes I just feel like I want to, need to scream. I cannot just scream on command, for no apparent reason. Watching these programs are enough of a catalyst for me to call up that anger. Once it is released, I can move on.

Parents often make children do things they do not want to do(i.e. eat your vegetables, clean up your room). This may seem harsh at the time, but ultimately it teaches the child some valued lesson and/or is good for them in the long run. Perhaps this is the very place we learn about dealing with the bad.

Therefore, we lament. Enduring the bad relationships, staying on a job we hate; in some way these things help hone our coping skills or do they? Being the tortured, tragic soul may in some way symbolize a hero and you cannot be a hero unless there is a test or trial to overcome. Do not forget the final essential component in this process, you must move on.