Sigh of Relief

This past week took a lot out of me. Maybe it's the moon. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's justified. Maybe it's not. Maybe I'm weak. Maybe I'm not. Maybe it's too much Coronavirus consciousness. Maybe I'm just a whiner.

Life handed out a lesson on mortality, the imprint a life makes here on earth and the importance of living a life in anticipation of "what's next", while enjoying the moment you are in. 

If I died tomorrow, would I be happy with the week I just lived?

I did my best but I was not at my best. I was kind but I could have been kinder. I worked more than I played. 

Then I did the ONE thing that tipped the balance. I cleaned.

My sons came home from a day trip they had taken to do some rock climbing and hiked through some prairie sand dunes. My middle son was kind enough to give me a perfect amount of produce from his garden.

I was had just finished my list of cleaning chores when they drove up. My son proudly handed over the vegetables of his labor. I looked at them and muttered inside my head "This is why I like to buy my vegetables from the store - I don't have to clean them first".

We came inside and as I walked across the kitchen floor I commented, "The floor feels dirty and I just finished vacuuming it." My son lowered his head and asked, "Does it feel like sand? I think it's me."

I felt the entirety of the day I had experienced but not vented aloud come out in one loud sentence, "This is why I don't clean any more. I just get grumpy!"

We exchanged some civil conversation before everyone went their own way and went on to live another hour.

I had a tough Friday. My week was hard. I could not wait for yesterday to end.

I woke up this morning and breathed a great sigh of relief. I made it through another week. Exhale.

This is NOT living. It is existing. I'm ready to look for signs of life and inspiration. I'm off to spend the day with my siblings. I will inhale the day and resuscitate myself enough to endure the week ahead.

I repeat. This is NOT living the life I hoped for. 

The Lost 22 Minutes

I planned to get up by 6:00 this morning but stayed in bed until 6:22 a.m. Those crucial 22 minutes could have made all the difference in the world.

IF I had gotten up 22 minutes earlier, I would have been finished coloring my hair when my son got up and headed towards the shower. And the rest of this story would have happened in an easy to handle sequence of events which would have resulted in a completely different outcome.

Instead, I was panic stricken when my son appeared in the hallway so bright and early in the day. I was in between waiting for my roots to take the color and adding the remaining color to the rest of my hair. "I have five more minutes to wait before finishing my color, then I have to wait five more minutes before rinsing the color out of my hair. I need the bathroom!"

While I was adding the remainder of the color to my hair, I missed a phone call. 

When checking the messages, I hit the wrong buttons on the phone and accidentally called my boss. I hung up as soon as I could remember how to disconnect the phone while on speaker (my hair was still saturated in hair color so I needed to use the speaker phone and I hit "speaker" when I meant to hit "exit" and I still don't quite know how I dialed my boss. No worries. She called me right back. "I need a little help with my grocery order". I hoped I could sign in, help her pay for the order and try to return the call I missed while I was coloring my hair. It wasn't to be that simple. Her postal code had changed over night and my trouble shooting skills had not yet woken up yet (it was only 7:09 a.m.) AND I still had my hair saturated in hair color.

While I was trying to figure out the grocery order gone awry, my timer went off. "Make sure to use the $15 voucher" was her advise to me when I told her I had to go to tend to my hair-color-in-progress.  

I could finally rinse the color out of my hair and I wouldn't be beholden to the clock. Conditioning my newly colored hair is normally when I have my coffee, work on my puzzles and do whatever sweating I must do before I hop in the shower and officially start the day. That wasn't happening this morning.

My middle son was coming by to pick up his younger brother at 7:30 a.m. (yes, it is not yet 7:30 and my morning is spiraling out of control). I stopped to chat with them momentarily before they headed off on their day trip and immediately went back to trying to save the grocery order I was trying to salvage.

I finally got the order figured out, went to pay for it and POOF! It was gone. No opportunity to enter the voucher code. "Can you just call them?" was her request when I phoned to tell her the good news, bad news scenario that just played out. Good news! I got your order figured out and paid for. Bad news! It didn't ask me to enter the voucher.

So ... I called. They couldn't help me. The only thing I could do was cancel the order and reorder it. I was JUST finishing that task when the phone rang. "Did you get my message?..." Yes, I did. I just haven't had a moment to call you back.

And so the day began.

It didn't get much better than this. But it didn't get worse. By 7:30 p.m., I had finally crossed off the items on my to-do-list, that I had hoped to have done before my work day started.

It is now 10:07 p.m. I have just completed my "morning puzzles" and web-surfing I usually do in the wee hours of the morning while the rest of the world is sleeping. I am finally where I usually am by 10:07 a.m. 

 If only I had gotten up 22 minutes earlier, this day would have started out so much smoother.

Tomorrow morning? I'm getting up with the birds! I'm going to savor my quiet morning hours before the rest of the world wakes up. And the best part? Tomorrow is Saturday. The day is "mine" to do with as I please!! And my plans for the day please me very much.

Rebooting and Restarting

 I stepped out of my bedroom to begin the day at 6:22 this morning. I think the day started to go sideways at about 6:27.

The last time I had a day like this, the day snowballed on me and in the end I should have stopped at the first sign of trouble and called in a professional.

I don't know who specializes in a day that is simply off to a bad start. So I am sitting still with my first cup of coffee [What is with that?!? I've been up two hours and have not had time for a cup of coffee yet!]. I shall work on my puzzles, regroup and restart in an hour.

I'm starting to hate Fridays.

Kodak Moments

 "The world lost a beautiful girl today" were the words my friend wrote to describe the inexplicable loss their family faced yesterday.

I became Facebook friends with my friend's son and his wife long ago and have been a silent cheerleader as the highlights of their lives were posted on their Facebook statuses. 

They regularly posted pictures of themselves together, their much adored chihuahua, their move into their new home and anticipated arrival of a new puppy they planned to adopt and bring home the day after she suffered a brain aneurysm.

Last night, I scrolled through this beautiful girl's Facebook page and read her words, felt her anticipation and marveled over the life this young soul was anticipating.

Frustrations over the isolation during this time of COVID, missing her family, friends and openly declaring her joy for having them in her life and anticipating getting beyond the isolation and getting back to a world where face to face visiting was the norm.

She was admitted into the hospital three weeks ago. Due to the COVID restrictions, only her husband and mom could visit her. 

I think of this beautiful girl and hope she could feel the love, support and prayers that were directed her way. I think of my friend's son and the support he must have needed as he navigated days nothing in the world could have prepared him for. I think of this girl's mom, her dad, family and friends. 

A young man lost his wife yesterday. Her parents lost their daughter. A vital member of the family will never come home again. Friends are lost and heartbroken.

If it were not for her regular posts documenting the joys in her life, her love for her husband, family and friends and her hopes and dreams for the future, those who are mourning her loss would have just a little bit less to hold onto.

Twelve hours before her life changed in a moment, she snapped a picture of the joy she was living in, in that very moment. "A Kodak moment", she wrote.

Enjoy those Kodak moments in time. The world is a better place when you savor the moment you are in and openly appreciate those who mean the world to you.

Home Accessories

I have a rather sparsely decorated home 

but when one lives with cats,

who needs throw pillows on a bed 

when you can have your own furry purring machine?

He brings his own accessories with him (aka: cat toys)

Who could ask for any better table top decoration than this?

No watering or dusting required,

when regular cat hair removal will do the trick.

I'm not big on trinkets, vases, flowers or plants.

I've got my very own living and breathing cat hair machines.

Who could ask for more?

 

Stories Within the Story

I watched the movie "The Color Purple" for the first time yesterday. I may be one of the very few who had not yet seen this 1985 movie. I'm a little behind the times. This story has been brought to my attention on several occasions over the past 35 years. Most recently, in light of the racial inequities that have been brought to light, I was once again reminded of "The Color Purple".

I was well into the story before I realized there had not been one Caucasian person enter the scene. I smiled when the first white character was introduced as a person who drove one sister to the her sister's home. I loved the irony - a white person driving a person of color. I later realized this "driver" was delivering the mail. But my original take on this minor character remained. He was a person serving them, not the other way around.

The story was based around the main character but had other strong characters and story lines. I loved Oprah's character, Sophie, who was strong minded and full of spunk. Until ... the scene where the white people dominated the screen, brought her to her knees and stole everything she was from her. When "whites" were introduced into the story line, they were the villians.

As I played out this scene and compared it to the realities minorities face each and every day, I was embarrassed to be part of a race who has committed such injustices.

I continued to reflect on the vantage point this story was told. I considered the different stories that could have played out, had the tale been told from a different person's vision of the same set of events. I dared to consider what the story could have been, had it been told from the white person's point of view. 

The slant of the story, the perspective, each individual's history places a different emphasis on how a story is told. The adage "there are two sides to every story" is an understatement. Each one of us is a compilation of our history, our perspective, our state of mind and health, who and what we may be protecting. When prejudice we have unknowingly been raised with and exposed to, plus racial biases are added to the scene, it is little wonder there is conflict within this world of ours.

Racial privilege is a term that is new to me. I hang my head in shame to think that my view of the world is so very small and with a privilege I simply happened to be born into. I think of the babies who come into the world and know only the life they have been raised in. They become adults with their own personal biases stemming from the vantage point of their circumstances.

I think of the very small life I have lived and I try so very hard to consider the story another would have told of the exact same circumstance, from where they stood. When I retell the stories of my life I am conscious to speak of the other person's vantage point. I strive to tell my stories so there are no true heroes or villains. But I know even at that, my view is tainted by personal bias, history and lack of a full understanding of the other person's side of a story.

Stories are told from the vantage point of the person narrating the tale. Seeing, hearing and feeling the narrative from the main character's point of view provides us with limited insight unless the story is told in a way to bring each character's perspective into focus (which, may I add, "The Color Purple" did an amazing job). It is up to the audience to mine for the gold that is hidden within a multilayered depiction of events. 

It would serve us well, if we dug deep to find the truths within the headlines of today's news and the stories we are told as we live our lives.

An often quoted adage going around the Internet these days is to be kind to each other. You have no idea what another person is going through. Or as Ellen Degeneres says, quite simply, "Be kind to one another". Without condition, without bias, without assumption. Just be kind. Look for the story behind the story.

Charlotte (The Sequel)

 I recently wrote of our new neighbor, Charlotte, who built her web on the outside of our kitchen window.

I once watched a spider build its web and I was captivated by its natural born ability to create such a structure, seemingly in thin air, as it spun its web from one solid surface to another. Then it created the web itself after the foundation was in place.

When Charlotte's web first appeared outside our kitchen window, I was pleased to know it was outdoors and grateful for this miracle of nature to be placed right in my line of sight. 

Charlotte's web was a small pleasure nestled among the many daily requirements of living. When a friend called to talk with me on a serious matter within her life, she stopped at one point to ask me how I was doing. I had nothing to say that was of any importance and due to the weightiness of the burdens she was carrying, I simply told her about "Charlotte".

A lighthearted, easy to tell tale about a spider and its web was an ideal topic to focus on as life continues to go on all around us.

Nature.

When the world feels heavy and you have no idea where to turn. Look up. Look out. Focus on the sky, a bird, a flower or an industrious little insect. Lose yourself in a small moment. Marvel at the way life goes on without human intervention each and every day. 

So much is out of control within this world of ours. If we could think of our troubles as something that could be lifted off our shoulders and float into the weightlessness of the sky above us and let go of that which we cannot control, it could help us through our darkest moments.

My friend laughed when I told her about Charlotte. A light moment within a deep conversation. When I confessed that I was just a tad concerned that Charlotte may be staking out our home for a safe place to weather the winter, she told me she would have gotten rid of Charlotte and her web immediately. I questioned my sanity for a moment then went on to live another day.

The next morning, I looked out the kitchen window and Charlotte and her web were gone without a trace. We had high winds and some rain that must have dislodged Charlotte from her precarious home built upon our kitchen window structure. Charlotte has moved on. Either that, or she has moved in with us.

Live and let go. Easier said than done. Charlotte and her web provided a welcome diversion for the time she was our close neighbor. 

Watch for the gifts of nature. Lose yourself in a moment. When the moment is gone, just be glad for the time you took to enjoy it.

No matter how heavy or light your world may feel, look up and look outside. It may not help but it couldn't hurt, could it?