Should Auld Acquaintances Really Be Forgotten?

I can't believe that I have been singing the same song every New Year's Eve for my entire life and never once stopped to ask myself what it means. For instance, who is an "auld" acquaintance and should or should they not be forgotten?

In a recent blog on the Huffington Post by David Tomar, he writes: "Simply stated, Auld Lang Syne is about the endurance of friendship, cherishing the past even as we look forward to the future ..."

As I look back on this past year, I am grateful for the friendships that are in my life, some old and some brand new, but I also recognize that as we move through life we often decide to take a different road and sometimes there are people who just can't make that trip with us. For whatever reason, we have to let them go. Even if time passes and we realize that we have stopped thinking about them as much as we used to, we should not feel guilty. Rather, we wish them the best and move on.

I think an "auld acquaintance " can also be those ideas and habits that no longer serve us. With the long awaited Planetary Birthday last December 2012 behind us, many people have used that as a catalyst to re-examine their lives and rearrange their priorities. Maybe we've decided that we are no longer happy with our careers and are striking out on our own. Maybe those of us who have seen 50 come and go, or even 60, have decided to redefine what aging means and give it a new face, a new look and a new feeling. We are throwing out the beliefs and conditioning that defined our parents' generation. Sometimes that also means letting go of old traditions and "the way we've always done it" so we can create new traditions that celebrate who we are now.  We look back in gratitude and understanding to what came before, and we let it go with love.

I always like to do a little ceremony on New Year's Eve. I take slips of paper and write down all the people, events and habits that I want to say good-bye to. Then I put them in a clay bowl and take them out on the porch where I light them and watch the papers burn to ashes as the smoke rises up into the sky. When the fire goes out I sprinkle the ashes into the wind (Note: up where I live "into the wind" can be howling and cold. In that case I rip up all the papers into tiny scraps and flush them, sending them out to sea). I always feel so much lighter and the coming dawn is filled with so much more promise when I do this.

What kind of ceremony or special event can you do to bid good bye  to "auld acquaintances" that will honor them and while still letting them move on? It's not so much what you do but the intention you do it with.

I wish you all, my dear  friends, a happy, healthy, abundant 2014.

And so it is.

Do You See What I See?

I grew up in New York City. Even though Christmas in New York was as magical as a place can get, the rest of the year was so "real" it sometimes hurt. Magic was the last word I would have used to describe it. Once I was old enough to understand terms like "Wall Street," and,  "Madison Avenue," I turned in my I-Believe-In-Magic button and entered The Real World.

Fast forward about 30 years. I'm living in the country, in a small town where magic is everywhere, everyday, if we just look for it. I see it in the changing of the seasons up close and personal. I see it in the antics of squirrels, birds, rabbits, otters and other members of my extended family. I see it in the sap from the maple trees as it drips into the metal pail at the end of winter and the first pussy willows that burst forth to announce the coming of spring. I take my grandchildren for walks in the woods to look for fairies and go on adventures. I see magic everywhere.

This Christmas I celebrate the magic of my first great-grandson and the knowledge that his being here in my life is the result of thousands of ancestors who loved, and that is magical all by itself. As I look up at the stars on a frigid winter night they seem all the brighter for the cold, and the glow of the moon bathes me in peace. This, too, is magic. 

I see magic everywhere I look. The key to seeing magic, I've found, is to actually look for it. Look for it in the first snowflake that touches you when you walk out the door, or the first chirp outside your window. Look for it in the first cloud of your breath as it meets the cold air, or in the gaze of your cat (or dog) when they look up at you with unconditional love. 

So this is my gift to all of you this year ... I'm giving you a key of your own to find the magic that is all around you as well. All you have to do is believe it will be there, and you will find it. If you need a little help at first, just pretend you're 5 years old again. 

Merry Christmas. And so it is.

Let It Snow

I have one of those knock-you-down winter colds. My head aches, my sinuses feel like they are black and blue, I'm freezing one minute and hot the next, and my whole body just aches (even my hair hurts). Lucky for me there is no where I have to be today and, even if there was, we are having our first heavy snow of the season. It has been snowing off and on for over 24 hours and the winds are supposed to pick up later today. What isn't closed has been cancelled.

Coming as it has right before Christmas, this cold combined with the weather is forcing me to stop all the pre-holiday hustle and bustle and just be. That's not so easy when there are gifts still to be bought, a menu still to be planned and bought for, cards that still need to be bought and sent out (yes, I'm still old fashioned in that respect). My head has other plans. It says I need to be still so it will stop pounding. Being still also means my thoughts as well. No sense sitting still just so I can work myself up in a frenzy worrying about what isn't getting done. So I am looking at this cold as a gift, an afternoon to just be. Watching the snow falling silently outside the window, a woodpecker working on the suet in the cage hanging next to the feeder, a cup of ginger-lemon tea at my side and a warm cat on my lap ... not a bad prescription to have to follow.

Another gift this cold has given me is the opportunity to be a Mom to the child inside of me. I'm watching a stack of old Christmas movies (yes even the children's movies) and trying to remember the awe and magic of a child's Christmas. I've been having a problem "feeling it" this year. Maybe this cold is reminding me that we all need to nurture the child inside us during the holiday season and remember to gift ourselves with love, patience and compassion. Sometimes we grow ups get so buried in the events of everyday life that we forget to look for the magic that is always around us if we just stand still long enough to connect with it.

So today I lift my cup (of tea) in salute to the magic of  being still, of believing in Christmas, and in the 5 year old inside me that is thinking popcorn would go really well with my move. Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

And so it is.

Call Me Irresponsible

If you were to ask any five people who have known me for a while what some of my best qualities are, I would bet that every one of them would have "responsible" somewhere on their list. I am the person who shows up early to church to make the coffee and set out the treats for coffee hour. I'm the person who volunteers to set up and tear down for meetings, programs, and parties. I am the first to volunteer for whatever the group is doing. In short, I see a need and I fill it.

This is certainly not anything to be ashamed of. On the contrary, it is commendable to be responsible in an age where so many people and institutions refuse to do so anymore if in fact they ever did. It is also a wonderful example to set for the younger generation ... except ...

...except when you let it take over your life. Somewhere along the line my sense of responsibility began to become obsessive. I started taking responsibility for everything without allowing anyone else to step up and do their share. My mothers words, "if you want something done right, do it yourself," became my mantra. And as everyone knows, the more you become Fallback Position #1, the more people will just assume that you'll keep being the one to do it all, and that not only keeps them from taking responsibility themselves but eventually wears yourself pretty thin.

The other day I had had enough. I totally refused to be responsible for anything. I stayed in my bathrobe all day. I left a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. I let the laundry go for another day (I live alone and figure as long as I have enough undies and outfits for four days of work and church on Sunday, I'm good). I put on Christmas music and dragged out the Christmas decorations. When people called me to see if I was available for this or that, I politely refused and told them that I was taking a Mental Health Day. I also advised them that I was confident in their talent and ability to do it on their own. I drank spiced tea and ate shortbread cookies and hugged a teddy bear. It was the best day ever.

Today I came across this post on my Facebook page. It was written by author and Angel Therapy guide Doreen Virtue:

1. Release the belief that you're responsible for everyone and everything.
2. Let go of perfection.
3. Ask for help and accept help from others.
4. Focus on what's important, and the rest of the day will take care of itself.

That sounds like a pretty good recipe for life to me. How about you?

And so it is.l

In Praise of Hot Water

It was Murphy's Law at my house on Wednesday evening. I came home from work to discover that the hot water heater in my apartment had decided that this was the perfect time to move on to the Promised Land (or wherever old water heaters go). My building manager said she didn't know there were any that old still operating in any of the apartments. I could have lived without the reference to age. 

So here I was with seven people coming for dinner the next day and no hot water. Our maintenance man had gone hunting for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Fortunately my daughter had come over and done much of the cooking ahead of time so it was basically just the turkey to stuff and put in the oven. I figured we could boil water and wash the dishes the old fashioned way until Friday when they would get a plumber to install a new water heater.

Then came the issue of bathing. I boiled some water and carried it into the bathroom. After I poured it in the sink I went to raise the heat in the bathroom (each room has a baseboard heater with its own thermostat) and, low and behold ... no heat in the bathroom. Like the water heater, the baseboard heater crackled and creaked before it went to live with the spirit of the old water heater. Okay. I was a Girl Scout once. I know how to camp out. I carried my bath things into the kitchen where, thankfully, there was heat. I boiled more water and bathed in the kitchen. It wasn't pretty, but it got the job done.

As all of this was going on, instead of getting myself riled up over something I couldn't possibly control, I started to laugh. I thought to myself, "No wonder they only took baths on a Saturday night ... it was too much work to boil all that water and drag the tub into the kitchen to keep warm." The next day after dinner we made an assembly line: boil water, wash dishes, wipe dishes and put them away, boil more water, next batch of dishes, etc. We were laughing about how we felt like pioneer women. It struck me, then, that this is what the words "family" and "community" mean. This is how our ancestors lived, each dependent on one another, doing what had to be done to accomplish tasks we now zip through in mere minutes instead of the hours it took them. I realized that our modern way of life was built on the work and determination of those that came before us and I wondered, sadly, how much of that feeling of family and community we've lost as a result.

The next day someone sent me a Native American proverb on Facebook. The closing line was: "you are the result of the love of thousands." Have you ever stopped and thought of how many people came before you since the beginning of time to produce you right here, right now, in this moment? In this life of dishwashers, and indoor plumbing,and hot water, and heaters? I did that day. It was a moment filled with lots of humility and gratitude. 

I don't think I'll stop using a dishwasher or enjoying the benefits of a hot bath in a heated bathroom, but when I offer my daily prayer of thanks and gratitude, you can be sure that I will now include thanks for the love and hard work of the thousands that produced me, and I will never experience the joy of hot water running over my hands again without thinking of them.

And so it is.

Thank You

It goes without saying that this week the majority of Americans will be focused on Thanksgiving Day and all that it means. Some people will have a long list of things to be grateful for. Some won't. Some will be focused on the feast and some will be grateful for whatever food they have that day. Sometimes gratitude is a tough thing to pin down when you're feeling less than grateful for where you are in life.

I've been seeing a particular quote from Meister Eckhart floating around Facebook and other venues in the last week or so: "If the only prayer you said was thank you that would be enough." I think "thank you" and gratitude go hand in hand. So my gratitude list is also a prayer of thanks for all of the good things in my life, like a home, food on the table, a job that pays the bills, a family I love and that loves me, and so much more. There is, however, someone who should be on that thank you list that is usually left off if they are remembered at all. That's kind of hard to believe when you realize that they are the most important person in your  life. You could not live without them. It's you. Whether you believe it or not, you have done more for yourself than you may imagine. You may not always be happy with yourself, but you have always done the very best you could with the experience, knowledge and assets you had at the time. You have always been there for you when no one else was. We're talking the best friend you will ever have.

So this year I am topping off my thank you list with a short but heartfelt note to me in deepest gratitude:

Dear Barb,

Thank you so very much for always being there when I needed  you. You have always looked out for me and done the best you could every day. Some days were better than others, but you never left me, never forgot me, always encouraged me and pushed me to be the very best "me" I could be. I know it's not always easy being my best friend. I know I can be argumentative, frustrating, procrastinating, and downright stubborn a lot of the time. Still, day after day, you did what had to be done to take care of me. You fed me when I was hungry, tucked me in at night, doctored me when I was sick, and rewarded me for every accomplishment however small. I know you will always have my back and with that knowledge I am less afraid to try new things, meet new people and reach for my dreams. Rest assured that when my dreams come true, you will be standing right there with me as we share the glory together. You taught me that I am stronger than I know and braver than I believe myself to be (didn't you say that to Winnie The Pooh, too?).

Thank you. I love you.

And so it is.

Staying Rooted

I've been writing alot about trees lately. There is no other time of the year when I feel their presence and their wisdom as deeply as in Autumn. This morning I sat looking out of the window at the now bare branches of the maples, oaks, ash and birch trees. Here and there woven into the branches are the nests that will stay vacant for the most part until their owners return from their winter homes to the south or wherever they have taken up a safer residence out of the cold. What struck me as I looked at them was that even without the magnificence of their leaves, they were still beautiful. There they stood with their roots deep into the earth and their arms open wide and reaching for the heavens. The winter winds and snow will beat against them in the months to come, but in the spring they will still be there to welcome the birds and squirrels back ... if their roots remain strong.

When I think about all of the storms of my life that I have weathered, I know that I have not come out at this end without some scars. I know that with age comes change both internally and externally. I see so many women who, as they get older, try to find themselves in bottles, jars and lifts. I'm not saying that we shouldn't look and feel out best. What I am saying is that the truth of who we are is not in how we are made up, but in what we are made of. Our personal truths are the roots that we plant deep, the foundations that provides us sacred ground to stand on, that give us strength to lift up our arms wide to the heavens and give thanks while we ask "okay, what's next?"

A few months ago I wrote about a tree that was a special friend to my granddaughter when she was small. When the tree came down after a very harsh winter, she was devastated. But the roots of the tree remained in the ground even as her shattered trunk lay all around her. Out of those roots planted so very deep came a new generation of green, the next ones to offer homes for the animals, and hope for the future. I guess, in the end, that's the message the trees are sending me ... hope, that, after the winter, comes the spring. Always and forever.

And so it is.