Random Thoughts

"There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in, but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze." Etty Hillesum "The sky is falling!" cried Chicken Little. "The sky is falling!" Most every day the first email I read is from "gratefulness.org". The daily quotes are always uplifting and thought provoking. When I read the Hillesum quote above, my mind went to a woman Terri has blogged about who is struggling with her own personal darkness. Since Terri has had some experience with the aftermath of one extinquishing her own flame, not to mention her big ol' compassionate heart, I sent the quote on to her. My mind was on people I don't even know who are suffering in a place I've been. It didn't really occur to me to think about my father, until I came back to check on him. He's had a few pain-filled days. New pain medication seems to be zapping him of the little bit of str...

My Sweetie and I had an actual date tonight. We got dressed up, went to dinner, then went to the Symphony to hear Brahms' German Requiem. Good company. Good food. Good music. I must say it was all quite delightful. At one point in the concert, I quit trying to watch all the musicians and closed my eyes letting the music take hold of me. I could feel my body relax and my spirit soar. I can't wait to do it again. Wishing for you unexpected pleasures, Merry ME

Can anyone see the strings attaching me to the Divine Puppeteer? I kind of feel like I've being moved about by forces I don't usually notice. I don't go on Facebook much but I went there this morning after reading Terri's blog , Honor Yourself. Today is the anniversary of someone close to Terri taking her own life. Someone young, with a full life ahead of her, who didn't know how to hold on or who to turn to. In what had to be a moment of pure agony, she felt it was better to go out into the unknown than live in the pain she could no longer bear. Our mutual blog buddy, Pam, went on FB and declared this "YOU MATTER" Day in honor and remembrance of that girl who hadn't lived long enough to know that no matter what else happened, she mattered. I don't know what drove this girl, or so many of the other teens (no to exclude the adults) we are reading about in the news. Suicide, it seems, is becoming an epidemic. Ironically, in a world where there are so...

There are few things that can make the mother in me want to turn and run. For instance, I can, at the sound of a young child standing at the edge of my bed in the wee hours of the morning, crying, "my stomach hurts" go from sound sleep to full speed in a matter of seconds.I've learned "my stomach hurts" is usually followed by projectile vomiting. Or, though more gross than anything else, is the coughing, hacking sound, usually emanating from another room that you can't get to fast enough, of a cat hacking up everything it just munched from its food bowl. Cats seem to think this ball of bile-covered, unprocessed cat chow is like a gift from the Gods that should be left in the middle of a rug for all to see and admire. Then there are the sounds of a college student, full of excitement and wanting to share. Let me just say some things are better left alone. But up there at the top of the list is the sound from a child wearing Mickey Mouse ears, carrying a stuff...

My evil twin has been in charge all day. I don't really know what bee has been up my ass, but I do know I haven't been or felt very nice. For all my talk of being kind to others, I think I need to take a little bit of my own advice. By then end of the afternoon, after fussin' and cussin' about most everything, I went to Sweetie's inner sanctum and asked for 10 minutes of silence. I sat in his chair, closed my eyes and prayed. I tried to breathe in serenity and breathe out my pissy mood. I think it helped ... at least for those 10 minutes. Later it occurred to me that giving myself permission to step out of the frustration and into the quiet was an act of kindness. To the people who have to live with me but mostly to myself. Seems I rarely include myself when I get on these virtuous bandwagons about being kind and gentle and giving and loving. I wonder why that is? My plate is plenty full these days. And I see the holiday season as a runaway train aiming right at me....

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." Joseph Chilton Pearce Back when I started this blog, I didn't even know what a blog was. But I knew I liked to write. I needed an outlet for my words or they were going to continue spinning in my head until I burst. And it seemed like it might be fun. I believed my Sweetie, daughter, sister and Aunt Letty would read what I had to say even if no one else would. And I trusted them to be gentle with their comments. You see over my lifetime I have only shared my creative side with people I could trust not to make fun of me. Fear of failure, fear of success and fear of being shamed held me captive. A constant question was "why me?" Why should someone spend their time reading my words? Why should I be published when there are so many others out there who are better? Who do I think I am, Miss Fancy Pants? It might be beginning to sound like an old story, but what I've gotten from blogging has been mu...

"Don't say that you want to give, but go ahead and give! You'll never catch up with a mere hope." Johann Wolfgang Goethe So here I am writing about kindness and hope and I get an email from a blog friend, Teresa . She told me about what her daughter, Madeleine, had decided to do to celebrate her ninth birthday. Not her nineteenth birthday, mind you, her NINTH. I don't think when I was nine I had advanced much beyond gazing at my own naval. I could try to tell you about her idea, but I think it would be better if you just check out some of the videos on the site . Be sure to watch 'til the end because seeing the footage of fresh water come spewing out of the ground will make your knees weak and eyes leak. At least they did mine. [Akasa, you're going to love this!] Being a nosy sort, I immediately wrote her mother back and asked her to tell me about Madelein, aka Luna. Of course, asking a mother to tell you about her child is like asking Mrs. Fields (or S...