| A week ago I took a break from writing this blog. I had finally hit a wall that I couldn’t seem to climb over,walk around or tunnel under. I’d had writers block quite a few times in the previous 227 days,and,in the days leading up to my hiatus on February 12,the blocks had begin building themselves into the wall I hit that day. I haven’t ceased being grateful each day for so many things in my life;neither have I ceased to have the struggles that still at times bring me to my knees. In other words,my week “off”was pretty typical. Although I haven’t blogged in a little over a week,I have nonetheless written every day. I sort of accidentally started a morning writing practice back at the end of January,and although it is not my intention to box myself into that feeling of having to write every single day,I have managed to do just that since February 5. I use that time as a means of writing pretty much whatever is on my mind when I first wake up. As I’ve written about frequently in this blog,I often awaken much earlier than I like (usually just before dawn,around 5:30 0r s0),and because I have too many things on my brain,I can’t get back to sleep. I decided within myself a few weeks ago that rather than trying to cajole myself back into sleep (which doesn’t usually work),I would instead try to bring myself fully awake and sit up and start writing about whatever comes up. It’s been a good practice because it has allowed me to write my way through the anxiety-induced adrenaline rush that so often hits me in the early morning. I sometimes start out with some worry or fear that sends adrenaline coursing through my extremities like liquid energy. By the time I’ve written for several minutes (I’ve been averaging around 45 minutes or so) I am much calmer and my thoughts are clearer. I’ve jotted on the cover of the journal I’m writing in “Writing my way to clarity,”because that’s what it feels like I’ve been doing with the morning writing. It really is helping me sort a few things out,first by surfacing fears that I’ve previously not given voice to. It has become an important addition to my daily life. I also continue to practice daily gratitude. This past week included gratefulness for many blessings of simple things as well as finding gratitude in the things that were more challenging. I am grateful for the relative health and wellbeing of my family–myself and my children–and for the safety and security we enjoy in our daily lives. While we have our struggles we also have things to smile and laugh at,to celebrate and revel in,and definitely to be grateful for. I am also grateful for being able to give of myself in those ways that I can. Although financial means might limit my ability to offer generosity in that form,I can certainly offer time,experience,gifts and talents to whomever might need them. This past weekend I was able to “be there”for a friend who called needing a listening ear and an encouraging word. I listened to her as she cried in anxiety and worry about her daughter who is in a particularly difficult phase of her life right now. Her “child”like both of mine,is a young adult,and is suffering the consequences of some of her decisions and actions. In anguish my friend asked me what she did wrong,how did she fail her child? I could only share my perspective,knowing her as I do,that she’d done the best she could in raising,providing for,and loving her child,and while she was not perfect a perfect parent,she was also not responsible for some of the poor choices her daughter had made in recent months. This dear friend was grieving and suffering. The best I could offer her from thousands of miles away was attentive listening,a loving presence,and whatever support and encouragement I could give her. At one point she’d told me that she felt like she was coming apart at the seams. I understood this very well having felt and occasionally still feeling that way myself. The interesting thing about coming apart is that we always seem to come back together again. For this I am exceedingly grateful. I have written many times in this blog about the gift of perseverance and resilience–we stand strong and when we fall down,we get back up,we bounce back. That is essentially what I told my friend. It’s alright to come unglued,fall apart,etc. particularly when there’s a supportive friend to hold your hand through it. There are times when I feel like,“This is it–I’m falling down and I’m just going to stay down here.”But before I know it,I am standing back up,a little wobbly at first,then steadying myself and walking on. It’s what we do. I definitely still have my share of struggles,but then we all have challenges. We all suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The difference is one of degrees. I am grateful that when these things hit,I manage to find my way through grace back to gratitude,generosity,forgiveness,compassion,and equanimity. Not all at once,and not right away. But eventually I get there. I am grateful to those of you who read this blog and have walked this path with me. I was gratified to hear from some of you that you miss reading it. I am pleased to be posting again this evening. Continued posting will be a “game day decision”that is,I won’t know until I get into the day whether or not I will post this blog in an ongoing,consecutive days fashion as I did for all those months. But I will commit to writing at least once per week sharing ideas and reflections on the general theme of gratitude. In the meantime I hope you continue to think about the things you are grateful for in your own life and find ways to express it. Gratitude begets more gratitude;generosity begets generosity and so forth. It’s definitely worth trying! Thank God for music. I think there are very few things that put me in a place of pure emotion more than listening to (and often singing at the top of my lungs) music. Early evening found me in an extremely agitated state. Part anger,anxiety,worry,and other emotions I can’t name surged through me. I had earlier put on some music to keep me company while I cooked dinner,so was already in singing mode. Then when an emotionally upsetting incident occurred,I decided to plunge myself into the singing as a means of releasing myself. I put on an iPod playlist I called,“Smooth Sounds,”and from the first notes of the first song I was able to begin letting out emotions I hadn’t realized I was feeling. Some of those emotions had nothing really to do with what had upset me,but the evocative songs in that list allowed grief and sadness to come up and out of me as I poured myself out through the lyrics and music. I am so grateful for the music that fills my life. I realized last week how much I love to dance as I put on an uptempo playlist and danced around my bedroom. There the music allowed me to release the dance that had been locked up in me and got my body moving to rhythms I hadn’t whirled into in many,many months. This evening it was singing powerful,slow ballads from a wide variety of artists and musical styles,that put me in touch with love,heartbreak,loneliness,and grief. It allowed me to experience the storm and the calm afterward,and now,though I am exhausted,my heart is quiet and still. When I sing as I did this evening,it reminds me of my own music,my love of singing,and the power that flows into and through me when I am sharing a piece of music with others or even by myself. I wonder where if anywhere is the place for my music in my “what’s next.”Is there a place in my “life purpose”for the songs I have written,and are there more songs in my heart that are yet to be written? At this moment,as has been my situation of late,I don’t know the answer. I do know that just when I think there is no venue,no space or place for my music,something happens that changes my mind and won’t allow me to let go of offering the gift of music,even if only to myself. My future is still a nebulous thing,fuzzy and unclear,shrouded in mystery,the deep unknown (okay,perhaps that’s a bit dramatic.) But wherever I go and whatever I end up doing,I will carry my music (and the means of making it) with me. One never knows what could happen. I am grateful for the reminder of the importance of music in my life. The reminder itself was a bit painful,but the music was the salve my restless spirit needed. Last week the dancing,this week the singing. Music is a wonderful gift. I look forward to engaging more with musical expression in the days to come. Perhaps it is time for me to restart my daily guitar playing,as well as playing more music at home and in my car. Life has been a bit quiet of late. It’s time to turn up the volume a bit. Let it be so! I was sitting here this evening getting a late start on tonight’s blog. My daughter,who is visiting for the weekend asked me,“So how’s that blog coming along,Mom?”I turn to her and give her,“the look,”and turn my attention back to the keyboard. I started writing a while ago and she noted my slow progress in getting words onto the screen. This has been one of those weeks when my writing has run hot and cold,some days I’ve had a lot to say and others I stared at the screen and the blinking cursor. Today is one of those days. Today started calmly and got a little more frenzied as the day went on. The dog woke me up early,but that turned out fine as I was ready to get up and do my morning writing. I’ve been getting a lot out of doing a kind of stream of consciousness writing as one of the first things I engage with in the morning. It’s a different kind of writing and serves a different purpose than my evening gratitude writing. I do it longhand,for one thing,using pen and paper,tools I used back in the olden days before setting a writing machine on my lap had emerged off the pages of science fiction and into reality. And I try to write first thing in the morning before I’ve done much more than gone to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I sit in my bed with a lap desk and start writing. It appears I have a lot to say and am grateful for making the space in my life to start doing it. The writing my way to clarity campaign continues. I am signing off now. I am waving the white flag of surrender on tonight’s blog. I am grateful for many things this evening–a long interesting conversation with my daughter about faith and religious beliefs and spiritual matters,an interview with a potential client for some short-term contract work,and a handful of requests for help with a very wide variety of activities. This went from being a somewhat quiet weekend during which I would do some housecleaning and laundry and perhaps finish my taxes to working on a variety of projects and such and hope I get to the cleaning and laundry. Still,it’s all good and all leading me in important directions. I still don’t see the details but definitely feel the momentum building. Who knows what’s going to happen next? I continue to be grateful for this wild ride that I’m on. Although I still feel like I know little for certain about what’s ahead for me,I still feel like I’m moving in the right direction. For now,that’s good enough. I’ve had my share of the fluttery panicky feelings earlier in the week;yet here I am again at the end of the week feeling alright about where things stand. Gratitude rules! May we be peaceful and happy. May we be safe and protected from harm wherever we go in this world. May we be healthy and strong in our bodies. May we live with joy,ease,and wellbeing. Let it be so! I am now in this moment enjoying a nice,long exhale. For the better part of the afternoon and evening I’ve been poring over records,statements,documents,and publications all in the pursuit of credits and deductions as I prepare my 2011 income tax returns. I worked on them a little during the morning,but most of my activity has been between about 4 and 10 p.m. Somewhere along the way I decided to start doing them myself–not sure what exactly got into me–and have been doing them for the past six years. One piece of gratitude here:I am grateful that I only have to endure this once per year. And to my credit I must say that each year I get slightly more organized and do a better job over the course of the year of saving,filing,recording,and documenting all manner of minutia in preparation for this annual event. All of this mind-altering financial activity has worn my brain down to a frazzle. I will,however endeavor to pull myself together long enough to express some simple gratitude for things that I appreciate and am grateful for in my life today. First of all,I am grateful for the dogged determination that I possess that causes me to get after something that needs to get done. There comes a point in many projects where you simply have to bear down and push through until it’s finished. Somewhere in my childhood or youth I was told this poem which,much to my chagrin,I likewise imposed upon my children. It goes like this: When a job is once begun,do not leave it til it’s done.Be the job great or small,do it well or not at all.When I taught this to my children,I hastened to add that doing it “not at all”wasn’t an option. They were to put their best effort into the task at hand,whatever the task happened to be. The “do it well”piece has been somewhat a bane in my life in that it caused the demon of perfectionism to rear its head in my life and in that of my siblings and others around me. It wasn’t enough to do something,you had to do it well. You had to be excellent. I have learned over time,sometimes the hard way,that good enough is alright sometimes. Everything doesn’t have to be excellent or the best or perfect. I am grateful to have mostly learned that lesson,though the pressure to be better than people’s expectations of me continues to pop up from time to time. In any event,I am grateful for the stick-to-it-ive-ness that allows me to plow through the madness of tax preparation time and emerge on the other side with my mental faculties relatively intact. May it be so this year as well. I am also grateful for the opportunity that’s coming my way to share a piece of writing with a publisher. I won’t go into detail yet because it is very early in the process. For now let it suffice to say that I had let this particular work languish a bit in the midst of all the other stuff I’ve been working on over the past several months. A year or so ago I sent a draft of a portion of the manuscript to a close friend who works in book marketing at a fairly large,well-known company. For years I had nagged her to help me find an agent or get some advice from the publishing contacts she had. And for years,she never quite got around to it–life (kids,career,spouse,etc.) had an irritating habit of getting in the way. Suddenly,in the past week she up and asked a friend of hers in the book publishing world if he had suggestions or contacts to help my book get looked at. He turned around and gave her the name of a executive at a literary agency and offered to make contact with him on my behalf. All I would need to do is e-mail the exec with a copy of my manuscript and he would give it a read. EEK! So,in short order (as in this weekend),I need to dust off my manuscript–literally and figuratively–and see if it’s in any shape to send to this man sometime early next week. My characters are laughing at me. I had been neglecting them and now they would be back front and center commanding the attention they so richly deserve. Irrespective of what happens with this particular person on this particular occasion,I will have broken the ice and done something I’ve thought about doing for a long time. Of course I’m quaking in my boots. What if he hates it? How will I respond to rejection? How would I respond to success? All kinds of interesting questions arise for me,and that’s a good thing. I am excited and terrified,but I will “do it well or not at all!”I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from the process. It has been a long taxing (okay I probably should have resisted the pun) day. I am grateful for feeling productive though I still have much work to do before the taxes are done and the manuscript is ready and all the other things I have in the hopper are moving along toward completion. And I am simply grateful to be alive. Though I was mostly inside at my computer working on my taxes,it was a gorgeous,springlike Bay area day. The past few nights the near full (waning) moon has shone bright and beautiful through my window. Cats fighting and turkeys gobbling and all manner of birds singing have sounded outside my window as the day and night progressed. All is well. May I continue to experience happiness and the source of happiness. So may we all. So be it! And so another day has come and gone. I’m grateful for another day. Kahlil Gibran says,“wake at daw with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.”I can’t say for sure that I woke with a winged heart. I actually dragged myself awake this morning after being out later than usual last night picking Jared up from work. I turned off the light longer after midnight than I like to and had to be up and out early for a brief appointment. I feel like I didn’t settle in today. I ran around a lot,went to the pantry,went out to dinner with a friend and just made it home a little while ago. I’m tired. And,it has been a good day. For the past 45 minutes I’ve written,deleted,rewritten and re-deleted this second paragraph. Hmmmm. What is the cure for the blasted blinking cursor? To just keep going and circling until you find something to say? To stop writing altogether and give up until tomorrow? To steal something from my morning’s writings of the past few days? No one would know that’s what it’s from except me,and even though it’s not focused on gratitude I could no doubt spin it in such a way that it did. Of course,none of that really feels right. So I will offer simple gratitude tonight. I am grateful to everyone who takes a few moments to read this blog. Whether you are a regular reader or have just stumbled upon it and read it once I so appreciate you coming along with me as I grow and develop a grateful heart. I so hope that you spend these minutes inspired to think about the things in your life for which you are grateful–those things that sustain you,that make life easier,that give you joy,that support you,that nourish and comfort you,that help you heal. Imagine what it would be like if everyone focused each day on the things they were grateful for. What kind of ripple effect would that have across our world? I am grateful for the time I spent with my friend this evening,for good and important conversations I had with a number of folks today,for the time interacting with the folks at the food pantry this afternoon. I am grateful the insights I gain every time I sit down to write this blog–even on days like today when I can’t seem to string two sentences together very well,I often learn something simply by exploring the question,“what are you grateful for today?” Tomorrow,as Scarlett O’Hara observed,is another day. I look forward to its unfolding and for another opportunity to wake with a winged heart and give thanks. Today was a slow,steady kind of day. It was rainy and overcast much of the day,making it feel very chilly and wintry and was very sleep-inducing. More than once I nodded off in the process of working on my taxes (of course,I might have done this on a sunny day,such is the excitement of doing taxes.) In spite of the meteorological blandness,I am grateful today for how the morning started–once again I spent nearly an hour writing this morning as my campaign for clarity continues. In spite of the weather,I was able to dodge the rain long enough to get in my full walk at the Park today. So I managed to accomplish two things and this blog will be the third. In between writing and walking,I did manage to get some more work on my taxes. I will need to redouble my efforts as I’d like to have the whole ordeal over with by the weekend. It’s an ambitious goal,given all that I still have to sort out and enter,but it’s doable. We shall see. I started writing this blog in the early evening (around 5 p.m.) Even as the sky darkened toward night time,birds were singing outside my window. It was interesting how noisy they became suddenly,after having been quiet for most of the day. I speculated that the rain must have stopped or diminished enough to get them out and about and active. I enjoyed the sounds of the birds,particularly as they included songs I’d never heard before. I kept pulling up my window blinds trying to spy out who was making the sweet whistles,but to no avail. I so love the sounds of nature around me,even when it’s the turkeys squawking to one another way too early in the morning. I am grateful for the beauty and variety of the flora and fauna where I live. Of course,from the time I was a child I’ve loved engaging with great outdoors and the critters who live and walk amongst it. For me,one of the challenges of living in the Bay area has been living in a mostly urban environment. Before I moved to California I lived on a lot more land than I have since I’ve been here. That’s why I am so appreciative at the pockets of nature I found around the condo where I live now,and in Chavez Park,where I walk several times per week. And now it is night time–after 10 p.m. here on the West Coast. I am taking an evening class on Tuesdays through the month of February and quite likely another throughout the month of March. Both are on basic Buddhist teachings being offered at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland where I have been involved in sitting groups,daylong retreats and classes since I first started going there last July. It means that my blog will be late on those days (and perhaps on Thursdays as well when I go to the sitting group). I am pleased,though,that writing is taking a larger role in my life,almost in spite of me. I had been toying with the idea of writing “morning pages,”as prescribed in the book,“The Artist’s Way,”by Julia Cameron. Although I haven’t decided to formally enter into that process,I notice that I’ve been writing quite a few mornings in a row. What is clear is that I have a lot to say,even if it’s just to myself in the morning and to the faithful readers of this blog in the evening. Having spent the better part of my life wanting to be a writer,it’s interesting that when I wasn’t paying attention I actually became one. Now to move onto the part where I actually finish and publish some of my writing projects…that would be good. I am tired,but grateful for many things in the day just past. I am learning a lot on my journey toward clarity,much of it coming through the writing and exploration of thoughts,questions,and ideas. I look forward to the continuing in this unfolding process in the days,weeks,months ahead. May we all live with joy,ease,and wellbeing as we walk the path. Let it be so! Today I had the blues. It hurts to admit that after having such a stupendous day yesterday,but that’s sort of how this goes,that is how my life plays out sometimes. And,that’s alright. It has to be. I am grateful for every day that I draw breath and walk on the planet. Sometimes I’m going to feel good,sometimes I’m going to have the blues. Heck,sometimes I might even have the blues for two days in a row or feel good for a whole week. And,it’s all okay. This morning when the liquid anxiety coursed through me as I did yesterday,I sat up and wrote in my journal. Unlike yesterday when I wrote I did not feel immediately better and go on to have a phenomenal day. I was sluggish and tired and cranky and weepy at times,and yet here I am at the end of the day focusing on gratitude and the good things in my life. The practice and process of being grateful doesn’t have to be difficult or dramatic or even particularly deep. It simply begins where you are in a given moment. For me,throughout the day I look around me at the many good things,the blessings that surround me and say thank you. Thank who? That actually depends in part on what you believe. I suppose if I believed that I earned every single good thing in my life I would be grateful to myself. But that sounds a bit ridiculous,doesn’t it? Where does the strength come from that gets me out of bed in the morning,particularly on a day like this? What gives me the ability to smile and laugh and experience the full range of emotions that flow through me over the course of a single day? How is it that this incredibly complex collection of cells that we call our bodies functions as it does on a moment-by-moment basis? I can’t take credit for these or so many other blessings that are in my life. So,I thank God. I can’t help it,it’s just there. So on a day like today when I can’t seem to get my act together and feel low energy and fighting off the blues,I still have so much to be grateful for. When I get “stuck”on trying to figure out what I have to be grateful for (sitting watching the cursor blinking on my nifty laptop computer,powered by electricity that I don’t generate by myself),I need only quiet myself and focus on my breath,the beating of my heart,the blood coursing through my veins,my ability to see the screen and reason the meaning of the words I am typing. As I’m waiting for my muse to show up to inspire me to write about something I’m grateful for I can relax on my soft bed,the humming sound of the heater blowing warm air down on me,listening to quiet music in the background. Perhaps I can trot downstairs and open the fridge and get myself a snack or can jump in my car and drive over to the grocery store and pick something up. I am grateful for all the things I don’t even realize that I take for granted. I often used to end days like today just being grateful that the day was over. I am grateful to be at the close of the day and end it knowing that it could’ve been better and it could have been a whole lot worse. I will wake tomorrow morning with a renewed sense of the possibilities the day holds. I will once again draw upon the wellspring of energy that replaces itself each day;it must or I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. One writer says that “the mercies of God are without end;they are new every morning.”Thank goodness! May we all experience gratitude for the many good things in our lives,and even the challenges that come along for the experiences they provide and the lessons they teach. May we all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. So be it! Today has been an exceptional day. It began with a wonderful breakfast with my kids. We had such fun and easy conversations;it was natural and easy. Michal came to visit this weekend. Yesterday we had a good time shopping to get her some interview clothes and other necessities for her upcoming visits to prospective graduate schools. I am not a big shopper–particularly clothes shopping–and I confess that I hadn’t been looking forward to it. But I wanted to go and be as supportive as possible of Michal as she prepares for these trips. In the end we found a nice array of dresses,slacks and jackets for her. In retrospect it was kind of fun. She definitely knows what she likes and was quite decisive and clear about each of her purchases. She looks great in business attire–I’ve rarely seen her in anything but jeans,and haven’t seen her in a skirt or dress in years! After breakfast this morning we spent almost an hour listening to music and dancing–yes,dancing. It was a lot of fun. I had asked Michal to put together a playlist of dance music for me so I could get my blood and my mood moving. There was a time many years ago when the kids and I used to dance around the living room of my house in Michigan. I often danced while I vacuumed the floors in that house,blasting Gloria Estefan’s “Tres Deseos”(Tres Deseos–Three Wishes) and swinging the vacuum cleaner to the beat of the music. Today’s dancing,this time around my bedroom to oldies by Michael Jackson and the Bee Gees as well as contemporary tunes by Cupid and LMFAO,was fun and meaningful. I have not danced and played like that in a few years,and what’s really cool is that I still move pretty well! I am grateful for dancing today. It reminded me the sheer joy that comes from moving my body to the drumbeat,bass,rhythm. I didn’t care about how I looked (though it must not have been too bad because not only didn’t Michal “roast”on me for embarrassing moves,she actually taught me a line dance and other contemporary dance moves.) In her new book,“Finding Your Way in a Wild New World,”life coach and author Martha Beck talks about “the path of sacred dance”in moving us to a state of “wordlessness”that helps us tune into our inner wisdom. She suggests,“Find or play music with a strong drumbeat,then either do a dance you’ve learned or just let your body follow the rhythm…you know you’re doing sacred dance when you realize that for a few moments or minutes,you weren’t thinking in words.”Today simply by dancing in my bedroom to wonderful upbeat rhythms I remembered the power there is not simply in movement,but in dance in particular;that the combination of music and movement can be transcendant. To dance today was simply divine,to do so with my daughter was priceless. When I woke early this morning it was to the familiar liquid warm anxiety coursing through my veins. This has become a common if uncomfortable phenomenon that I’ve come to recognize as a precursor to panic. I rarely get to the panic stage,but I definitely know the precursors. Rather than lay there and try to vanquish the fear I decided to get up and write about it. For the next 60 minutes and eight pages I wrote my way from anxiety to calm,from confusion to clarity. I’ve attached a yellow sticky note to the front of my journal that says,“Writing My Way to Clarity”because that’s what I’m doing during this time. By the time I finished writing this morning I had set the tone for the rest of the day. In spite of the early morning anxiety,between hanging out with my kids,dancing to the beat,walking out in the beauty of the Park,and other activities made this a beautiful day. And I am so grateful. The truth is,Mama said there’ll be days like this too! May we all know happiness and the root of happiness. Let it be so! I have spent the better part of this day honed in on gratitude. Rejoice with those who rejoice,weep with those who weep. I’ve done a bit of both over the past few days. I have celebrated along with my daughter as she learned she has been accepted into all five of the graduate programs she applied for a few months ago. She has worked hard through her four years of college–she’s consistently been on the dean’s list for good grades,has been an active student leader on campus,and has involved herself in national organizations and other professional development activities. I am proud of how well she’s done,particularly considering the struggles she had during high school. I am grateful that she got much of her rebellion and bad behavior (such as it was) out of her system while she was still in high school. By the time she got to college (which she sort of barely got into) she seemed ready to focus her attention and take care of business. She also developed a very clear sense of what she wants to do with the next phase of her life. She discovered she really enjoys working with students on a college campus and has,since her sophomore year,availed herself of a variety of opportunities to do so. She is planning to do a Masters degree in Student Affairs/Higher Education beginning this fall. It’s been a lot of fun watching her go through this process and seeing her develop confidence in her abilities and the poise of young adulthood. It has been quite gratifying watching her moving forward. May she continue to grow in wisdom and compassion and live with joy,ease and wellbeing. Rejoice with those who rejoice. I also spent some time commiserating with a friend whose daughter (roughly the same age as Michal) continues to spin out of control. I listened as she described her daughter’s latest misadventures and various transgressions. I felt helpless to do anything but listen,occasionally offer a suggestion,and mostly try to be a supportive presence to my friend. As I listened to her,I heard some of the same issues emerge with her daughter as I had with mine. The difference is that my daughter worked through and outgrew her challenges,my friend’s daughter has not. It is taking a toll on my friend that I wish I could somehow help to alleviate. My friend feels guilty,somehow responsible for the mess her now grown “child”has gotten herself into. I exhorted her to let go of the guilt (as best she can) and know that while she might have had some influence on how her daughter turned out,the daughter must also take some responsibility for the poor choices she’s made over the last few years. I am coming to understand for myself that as our children grow and begin to take over more and more responsibility for their own lives,the less I can or should take responsibility–blame or credit–for how things turn out. As I think about my friend’s daughter I can see both the influence of my friend,that of her ex-husband (her daughter’s father),as well as the impact of the daughter’s own bad decisions on how things are unraveling in her life at the moment. I will keep them both in my prayers. I remember the sweet child her daughter once was and know that she’s still present on the inside of the troubled young adult. May she be free of suffering and the root of sufferings. Weep with those who weep. I am grateful to be writing this evening. I do not take for granted the liberty I have to spend time doing something I love. I have my share of struggles ahead as I continue working on how to make ends meet and acquire employment or income-producing initiatives that meets my needs and feeds (or at least doesn’t drain) my soul. In spite of the challenges,I will continue to navigate these days as best I can with a grateful heart. May I live with joy,ease,and wellbeing. So may we all! Tonight is one for simple gratitude. Tonight’s post will be brief. It has been a good week–remarkable in its ordinariness. I did the things I normally do during a given week–searched positions postings looking for possible jobs,did my volunteer work,did some reading and writing and thinking,and worked on my taxes. I also played my guitar and sang,walked in the park taking pictures of the white egret and the great blue heron,and played my cedar flutes. Each of these are various ways of connecting to things that I love. I am grateful for the time I’ve been able to spend rediscovering these passions. It is not yet be clear to me how these passions will align with the work that I’m seeking,or next steps I might take in looking to create income for myself,but I am grateful nonetheless. This morning I woke early,as often happens,and spent time in quiet reflection and took some moments to write before starting into my day. Interestingly I was writing about one of my greatest fears. I think sometimes the things we fear are so scary that we don’t want to go there,to explore them. This morning I wasn’t feeling anxious as I wrote about my fear,so I was able to think more deeply and feel into those things that seem most frightening. In thinking about the future,particularly when things are as uncertain as they’ve been,it’s helpful to confront the things that are scary. I’m grateful for all that I’m learning from the experiences of the last year. Even the hard stuff,perhaps especially the hard stuff,have strengthened me in ways I am still discovering. Tonight I am tired and relatively inarticulate (Mama said there’ll be days like this),so I am signing out early. I’m hoping to have a little more energy and therefore more to say tomorrow. In the meantime,may we all know happiness and the root of happiness. May it be so! | |
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