When Life Gets Backed Up

In the wee hours of this morning I was blissfully dreaming of colorful spring flowers cascading down the edge of the outside cement stairs and spilling out like a waterfall into the garden bed. It may have been the association with water that woke me up for that inevitable middle-of-the-night trip to the potty. Half asleep I took care of business and hit the handle only to discover that the pump never shut off, the water was not going down with its regular speed, I hadn't put on my glasses so the entire episode was fuzzy, and oh, by the way, it was 3:43 A.M. I pulled the plug on the pump (my bathroom hookup is very strange and requires a knowledgeable adult about these things, which I am not, except that my Dad always told me if something wasn't working, pull the plug, so I did), and went back to bed. I was sure that I would hear the landlord, who lives above me, moving around as he got ready to go to work and I could inform him of the situation before he left. Imagine my surprise when I awoke again much later to discover that I had overslept (that's what I get for staying up past my bedtime to watch the Pro Bowl) and he had already left for work. My options were to have a hissy fit  and let this episode "back up" my whole day - a little potty humor here - or I could "go with the flow" - more potty humor - and be creative until he got home.

How many times in our life do we let something that is totally out of our control get the best of us and back up our whole day? You know, the traffic jam that makes you late, the snow storm that shuts everything down, the power outage that turns your half-baked birthday cake into a half-raw pancake, and the birthday dinner becomes a PB&J with a candle in it? Like my backed-up potty we can either let it ruin our day, or challenge ourselves to be creative and find another answer to the challenge. It all begins with taking a nice, deep breath and reminding ourselves that we are not responsible for these acts of nature  (traffic jams are human made but that's another story for another time). All we are responsible for is how we react to the situation and whether we blow it way out of proportion or try and find some humor in it.

In my situation, I decided to pretend that I was back on a camping trip I'd taken with my sister years ago where the campsite was very primitive and we had to make due with what nature offered us. As I recall, we survived the ordeal and it didn't take anything away from enjoying our beautiful surroundings. As I write this I am toughing it out, flushing with a bucket, and watching the approach of an impending snow storm blowing up the valley. Guess I'd better fill some buckets up with snow to melt for water just in case my landlord gets stuck in a traffic jam, in the snow storm, with a power outage, and can't get home for a while. While I'm out there, I think I'm make a snow angel!

And so it is.

Color My World

I always said that when I turned 65, I would stop coloring my hair and let myself go grey. Well, I turned 65 this past July and I did, indeed, stop coloring my hair and let it go grey. However, at the time I was laid up and working on recuperating from the injuries I suffered in June. My hair was the very last item on my list of things to concern myself with. Then it was October and I was all involved with the move to my new home. Before I even had time to turn around, it was the holiday season and I was swallowed up in that. So imagine my surprise when I looked in the mirror at the beginning of January and saw this old, grey, washed-out looking woman who not only had not colored her hair in 6 months, but who hadn't had a hair cut in that long either. Somewhere along the way I lost tract of exactly who I was and how I felt about how she looked, not to the world, but to herself.

It came to me that it was time to stop referring to myself as the woman still trying to "recuperate," and start moving beyond that. Looking at my reflection in the mirror I understood that my decision to go grey had something to do with embracing my age except that now, 6 months later, I wanted to redefine exactly what that meant. At that moment all I knew was that I wanted some color in my life, not only in my hair, but in my life in general. So off to the hairdresser I went. My, but she cut off enough hair to stuff a small teddy bear. By the time I was ready to lay my head on the pillow that night, I finally looked, and felt, like me, truly me.

Sometimes going with the flow isn't always the best idea for you on a personal level if the flow isn't going in the direction you want to go but think you should. In fact, I agree with Louise Hay who says that the word "should" needs to be dropped from our vocabulary because it always makes somebody wrong. The more I thought about things, the more I realized that I don't live in a black or white world, or even a grey world. I live in a world full of vibrant color and I want my life to reflect that. That even extended to the plans for my new garden this spring. I tore up the original plans and, instead, starting looking up pictures of gardens that exploded with color. Surrounding myself with color is an act of self love because it speaks to who I really am ... love.

Like the old song says, "color my world with love." And so it is.

When Humans Plan, Heaven Laughs!

Yes, it's snowing again. They are calling for another 5 inches. In years past, this would be starting to get on my nerves by now. However, this year is different for two reasons: First, I am not experiencing this very snowy winter in a third floor apartment with a view of the brick buildings next door. I am looking out of the window in my new home at the vastness and beauty of snowy slopes, valleys and trees decorated like powdered sugar on cookies. Second, underneath all of this snow, for the first time in 15 years, are the bones for my new garden!

While other non-gardening folks are going into that post-holiday funk, gardeners are pouring over seed catalogs and drawing up diagrams and graphs of how they want their gardens to look come spring. In the old days of my gardening life, I would have done the same. This year, however, I going about it a little differently. My reasons come from years of experience and the hard worn knowledge that when humans plan, heaven laughs.

Even the most skillful gardeners who have been gardening in the same place for years will tell you that there is no way to anticipate everything that Mother Nature can, and may, throw at you. So the garden bed of tomatoes that have done so well in that spot for the last 3 years may do very poorly in year 4. Or, the roses that were so spectacular last year, may languish this year.  Anyone who tells you that their garden is always 100% abundant and problem free is probably pulling your leg (or living in their own little world).

Since this will be my first year gardening in this place, I have to give myself time to become accustomed to how and where the sun rises and sets, how much sunlight my garden will get - which can change from spring, to summer and through the fall - how much rainfall I might expect, and what will do well in an area where I will be doing most of my planting on a slope which I have never done before. So while I can certainly make some preliminary plans and educated guesses, the truth is that I just have to wait and see what Mother Nature has in store for me and adjust as I go along.

As you might have guessed if you have been following my posts in the past, you know that there is a life lesson here as well as a gardening lesson. By now, in mid-January, we may have already fallen off our New Year's Resolution wagon, or at the very least are questioning our sanity at having made them. The truth is that while we can have a overall idea of how we want to live our lives in 2015, and what changes we'd like to make to improve how we experience the world,  we can't always be 100% positive that things will work out according to plan. There is no way to anticipate the unexpected: an illness, a divorce, a death, a job loss, or, even the good stuff like a raise, a promotion, finally meeting your soul mate, and so on. The point is that we need to leave room to be flexible so that instead of being knocked over when the unexpected happens, we  can make some adjustments and re-think our goals. That way 2015 is certain to be a year with less stress and a lot more happiness.

As for my garden, I think that I will start out by putting things in pots and then moving the pots around until I have a better sense of what does well in each spot. That way there will be less dying back and more growing, and really, isn't that a better plan for living anyway?

And so it is.

The Benefits of Hibernating

Now that the last box of ornaments have been put away, and the last Christmas cookie eaten, I am free to journey into that wonderful state of being known as hibernation. The bears aren't the only ones who benefit from hunkering down for the winter and going within to dream of spring, sunshine and happy days outdoors. For generations Native Americans took a page from their brother bear's playbook and used the winter to prepare for spring by repairing their gardening and hunting tools and drying seeds to plant.  But they also used the time to sit around the fire and tell stories that gave the little ones the inner tools they would need to know in order to grow into responsible adults while keeping their heritage alive.

We can use our "dream time" in exactly the same way. I make it a point to watch little or no TV (which I have been doing less of as the years pass anyway- except I seem to be hooked on a program called Tiny House Nation). I pick a topic that I've always wanted to learn more about and use the Internet to teach myself about it, or I learn a new skill, or I do some intense journaling while exploring some idea, emotion or belief that I want to work on. I envision how I want my life to work and then explore what I need to do to get there. Living as I now do out in the country, I venture out for church and grocery shopping only and spend a good deal of time watching the drama of a winter in nature unfold outside of my window - who needs TV? I spend more time reading, praying and meditating, and prepare myself good, healthy foods, something I am in need of after the excesses of the holidays. In short, I treat myself as I would a valued guest in my home.

I admit that not everyone can do what I do as I am retired and do not need to go out to a job every day. But even when I was working, I would limit my time outside of the house in winter  to only those things I absolutely needed to do and combined my to-do lists, like grocery shopping on the way home from work, so that I could spend as much time as possible in  my winter "cave." I usually came out of my hibernation in the spring with a leaner, healthier body, a calm and focused brain, and energy to spare as I ventured back out into the sunshine.

So here's to hibernation. Why not give it a try and see what the bears have been enjoying all along!

And so it is.

What Is Mine To Do

I can hardly believe that I am sitting here writing my annual end-of-the-year post already! It seems as if 2014 flew past at lightening speed for the most part, although I know for a fact that there were 8 weeks between June and August when I thought the time was crawling by just to annoy me personally (recovery time from the fall)!

As most of you know, I am not one for New Year's Resolutions, or goal setting, or making promises I won't keep past January. This year especially, I am taking some very good advice and looking back at 2014 to see what I learned, how I grew (or didn't), what is worth taking into the new year with me, and what needs to be left behind. Most of all, I wanted to look at what I experienced at the time as setbacks which, much to my surprise, turned out to be blessings.

A funny thing happened when I took the time to sit down and run the year in review in my head. I suddenly remembered something that I had heard Colette Baron-Reid, the psychic medium and intuitive, say several times in the years I have been following her work: "What is yours will not go past you; what is yours to do will come to you". As I am a firm believer that we need to follow our gut and go with the messages we are sent, I applied that quote to the events in my life this past year and was more than surprised.

For instance, on the negative side of the equation we have the loss of a job in February, and the injuries I sustained in June when I fell (fractured hip and shoulder, surgery to put pins in my hip). At first I could see no way that these things were mine to do. That is, until I looked at what followed. While I was laid up for the entire summer - those 8 weeks that crawled, remember? - I used the time to finally sit down and do what I had been promising myself I would do for years: I put together a book of essays and published it. For someone who told her mother when she was 5 that she was going to write a book, and then took 60 years to do it, it was as if the Universe said, "okay, time for you to do this." Would I have been able to accomplish this while I was out hunting for a new job? Perhaps, but perhaps not. In this instance, I was unable to go job hunting, so I had no choice but to sit and write.

By September it was clear that I would no longer be able to heal completely if I was going to continue to live in a an apartment that was a third floor walk-up. So along came something else that was mine ... a ground floor apartment opened up in the very town I was yearning to move back to. Now instead of walking up stairs, I was walking outside on grass, watching cows in the field, geese on the pond, and blueberries growing on the hillside. What was mine did not go past me.

If I were to make one promise to myself this year, it would be to look twice at everything that comes my way and see if there isn't something there that is mine to do. I'm not talking about an obligation, but rather a idea or an opportunity that calls to me as if to say, "claim me, I'm yours."  Instead of running to get ahead, I think this year I'll just stand still, listen, and see what comes. Ah-h-h! Hear that? It's the sound of me breathing a sigh of contentment.

Happy New Year. May everything that is yours to do come to you with love and joy. And so it is.

The Gift of Hope

There is a picture hanging on the wall of my bedroom that has hung in every bedroom of every house or apartment I've lived in for the past 25 years. The picture is called In Disgrace, and it shows a little girl of about 3 standing in the naughty corner with her loyal puppy sadly at her feet waiting for her to be reprieved. It was given to me by my youngest daughter, now 43, who spent a good deal of her young life in that same position, only her puppies were imaginary friends. Her favorite line to her pretend puppies was," I hope she doesn't forget us here."

Hope is powerful. As long as we have hope, there is no one and nothing that can stop us from believing that there is another way. I have to admit that of all the gifts  I have written about this month, this one was the hardest to do. It is hard to hold on to hope when all of the news is so bad. Every day when we turn on the TV or log on to the computer we are greeted with another tragedy, another horror, another example of man's inhumanity to man. But somewhere in the back of my mind is a saying passed on to me during some crisis in my life that came to me as I sat down at my desk this morning: "As long as the sun comes up tomorrow, there is always hope ... and the sun always comes up tomorrow, so there is always hope." I would add to that a line from that wonderful movie, The Last Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: "It will all work out in the end, and if it hasn't worked out yet, then it's not the end."

The sun will come out tomorrow, and with that gift, we can do anything. Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday filled with love, joy, and the hope for a better world for everyone. It's time to start writing a new story.

And so it is.

The Gift of Giving

Some of the most meaningful gifts I've received over the years were in response to something I gave to someone else. These weren't always the kind of gifts that were wrapped up in paper and ribbons, although some were. The ones I'm speaking of were gifts that touched my heart and changed my life in some way, and all because I had given a piece of myself to others.

One particular gift came to mind recently. Years ago when I was in my early 30's I became a community outreach worker for an inner city church. The church sat in a neighborhood that had fallen on hard times.The area was mostly African American and Latino.  Unemployment was high as was drug and alcohol use, and child abuse or neglect was all too familiar. Along with providing a Mothers' Morning Out program. which gave at-risk women some much needed free time to themselves while we ran a nursery school of sorts, it was my task to visit the elderly in the neighborhood to make sure that they were being taken care of and that their needs were met. I was also trained to offer to pray with them and, more often than not, just be a friendly ear for those who had no one to talk to.

My very first home visit was to a woman named Blanche. That should have been my first clue as Blanche was my mother's name. Blanche lived in a very run down but very well kept little home that she shared with her adult daughter. Her daughter eyed me suspiciously when I knocked on the door, but when I explained that I was from the church down the block and just wanted to visit with Blanche, her eyes softened. She said that her mother would be so pleased to have someone from church to talk to as she could not get out much any more and that she, the daughter, often worked nights and weekends in housekeeping at a local hospital and couldn't take her mother to church. Blanche was 92 years old.

I found her seated in an old tufted armchair. She was the tiniest African American woman I'd ever seen, with snow white hair pulled back in a bun and dressed in a faded but clean cotton house coat. When her daughter explained why I was there, the smile filled her face.

I was so very nervous. I had never done anything like this before despite all of my training. I was suddenly tongue tied. I didn't know what to say to this beautiful lady and didn't want to let her down. I started pulling out brochures about the programs our church was offering and going into my learned speech. But somehow she knew what was going on in my head, and in my heart. She reached over and took my hand in her two small ones and thanked me for coming to visit her. She asked me to tell her about myself, about my children, and the work I was doing in the neighborhood. She then told me all about herself and how grateful she was for her daughter, for taking her in and taking such good care of her. We spoke of her fond memories spending time at church and we prayed together. Before I left, she leaned over and said, "you did very well, dear. You'll do just fine. Just remember to be yourself because that is beautiful enough for anyone."

I cried all the way back to my office. I had gone there to be a comfort to this lady, and she had comforted me. Blanche made me a better person, and all the work I did after that visit came from my authentic self. She passed away peacefully in her sleep a few months later. I was richer for having known her, and the community poorer for having lost her.

Christmas doesn't come in ribbons and paper. It doesn't come in gift cards and parties. It comes wrapped in love and genuine compassion for others, and for every gift of yourself that you give to another, it comes back ten fold. May your gifts be many and, as the song says, "let your heart be light."

And so it is.