Category: Life

Life

Wednesday

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Yesterday, as I walked the dogs down by the river, I saw a bald eagle leave a tree and fly slowly and gracefully over the nearby field. Last week, I had seen a blue heron, another beautiful graceful bird, fly over the same field.

There’s my beautiful moment, I thought, as I watched the eagle fly.

Nature is full of beautiful moments.

The skunk was out in the yard again. I watched a woodchuck scamper down my brother’s driveway. Chipmunks scurry up and down the ramp leading to my side door. Even these more humble animals are amazing in their own way.

I’m challenging myself to find a beautiful moment each day for a week. This was a look back at Wednesday. How about you? Did you have a beautiful moment yesterday?

Life

The Visitor

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Day 3 — Beautiful Moments

Yesterday, when I got home, I saw a visitor in my yard. I’ve seen him before, but today he lingered and I could admire his beautiful coat. I couldn’t smell him, so I think he hadn’t sprayed. He was oblivious to me as he searched for grubs and bugs in the yard. When he finally spotted me, he turned tail and…. ran.

I’m challenging myself to find a beautiful moment each day for a week. This happened on Tuesday. How about you? Did you have a beautiful moment yesterday?

Life

A Walk Outside

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Day 2 — Monday: I used my lunch break to walk around the block. It’s a big block — maybe a mile and a half. It always half an hour to walk it. Yesterday was hot in the afternoon, but when I walked late morning, the full heat hadn’t come yet.

I lifted my chin to feel the sun.

I waved at friends that drove past – and loved the fact that I live in a small rural town where I know people and am known.

I’m challenging myself to find a beautiful moment each day for a week. How about you? Did you have a beautiful moment yesterday?

Life

Seven Day Challenge: Look, a Beautiful Moment

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Day 1, Sunday: I sat on a friend’s porch drinking coffee and watched a phoebe swoop and fly as it caught its breakfast. I heard a bumblebee then saw it, burly and buzzy, flying above the garden. I heard a turkey but never saw it; I tracked its movement by the shift of its gobble.

Do you ever sit and just be in the moment? I’d love to hear what a beautiful moment in your life looks like.

Life · poetry

Because I Lack Chutzpah

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Prompt: List ten things you would say to ten different people in your life, if you had the chutzpah.

  1. Please stop coming by the house.
  2. Please come by the house and help me sort through all this.
  3. Call your doctor.
  4. Do your job.
  5. Should you be eating that?
  6. Stop being such a bitch.
  7. Do you remember that time twenty years ago when I came to you for help and you shut the door on me?
  8. As a Christian, how do you feel about warehousing people? What would Jesus do?
  9. Could I tell you my side of the story?
  10. I love you.

This is a response to one of the prompts in this week’s Writer’s Workshop.

Ten things I would say. Ten people. No chutzpah.

Here’s a poem with the names of those 10 people hidden inside in no particular order.

A hadj
I’m dreaming of a hadje
Anywhere
Let me look
Arles looks nice
(Van Gogh and all that)
Or a farm
Where I could grab udder teats
And milk a cow by hand
Buy ripe fruit and vegetables
Harvested that day
Or visit the Cape
And hope terrapins emerge
From brackish waters
Travel to South America
See pika
(thy love for small animals satisfied)
Flee
Annotate
Breathe deeply
Visit an adobe house
Wear a robe
Kahuna visit
Honestly, though,
The best ever
Is home
Always home

Life · Travel

Munchkins

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I went to Dunkin this morning to get coffee. I’m traveling with my brother and needed my morning joe.

The young man who helped me was sweet. I’ll bet he was still in high school, trying to make a little money before he heads off to college.

So, I ordered my coffees — two of them. One for me, one for my brother.

The young man said something to me which I didn’t understand. I shook my head and said, “I’m sorry I didn’t catch that.”

He repeated his words.

I repeated what I heard back to him — “… rice?”

He laughed, and then spoke more slowly. “Hot. Or. Iced.”

“Ah!” I said. “Definitely hot.”

I paid him and put some money in the tip bucket.

I appreciate kids working. I remember how hard it was for me in my first public-facing job. I was 16 years old when I first worked at the Baseball Hall of Fame. We saw all sorts of people there.

I had also ordered a few Munchkins as a treat for my brother. When my young friend went over to put them in the bag, I listed off what varieties I wanted.

He handed the bag to me and sheepishly said, “I gave you an extra one.”

Was he appreciative of the tip?

Had he miscounted and couldn’t take the extra one out?

Or, did we have a connection in our brief interaction?

I’m going with the last theory. He was a sweet kid.

This is my response to this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: sweet.

Every word of this really happened less than an hour ago.

Life · Writing

a List

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  1. I won the award for best speller in 4th grade, beating out Jack Harvey (aka Merritt Harvey). Does that inspire me to do better? No, I’ve learned that there are people for whom spelling comes naturally or for whom it is an obsession — and I am neither.
  2. The messiest room in my house, which I will change to the messiest SPACE in my LIFE is my desk. At work and at home, my desk is messy beyond messy — and yet it is MY space which I covet and love.
  3. The contrast between these things — of being a good speller and having an incredibly mess desk — is that I am slowly figuring out what is REALLY important.
  4. What inspires me to do better — daily reading, daily contemplating, daily trying to look beyond me to the world.

This is my response to a bunch of prompts, namely

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Life

Z is for Zig-Zag

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There once was a life full of twists
Opportunities taken (some missed)
Zig-zagging around
Fulfillment was found
[can you finish my limerick for me?]

Those darn zig-zaggy roads of Ethiopia
Arial view of the switchbacks in Ethiopia
Another view of the Ethiopian roads

I was startled awake in the midst of a dream last night.

In my dream, I was at an event, a concert of some sort. I was distracted by some severely handicapped people there — not in a bad way, just wondering where they would sit and how the music would affect them. I was seated near the front so I had close-up view of the performers. I watched them usher three of the handicapped people down to the front and seat them — one at a grand piano, one at a keyboard, and the third at a drum set. A handler placed the man’s hands on the keys of the piano and he began to play. It was beautiful, until he lost his place on the keys. The keyboardist began playing. The drummer began playing. The pianist was growing more and more discordant as he banged his hands on the keys; he had lost his way. I couldn’t tell what triggered it, I feel like it was the pianist listening to the others, because suddenly the music of the three musicians blended into something beautiful.

Then I woke up.

I had been thinking about this post — my zig-zaggy road post– but couldn’t come up with a focus. I think the dream helped me.

Sometimes we lose our way, and life becomes discordant. The switchbacks on the roads cause us to lose our sense of direction.

But then we arrive somewhere — it may be the destination we started off for, or it may be someplace totally different.

Regardless, life is beautiful if we look for the beauty.

Life · poetry

Rhyming Recipe for Ikigai

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Think of what you love to do
Jot those things down, one or two

Think of skills where you excel
Not half-bad, but really well

Think of things for which you’re paid
Perhaps in money or in trade

Now think of what the world needs most —
Is something there of which you boast?

Where those things meet is ikigai*
Find that thing; your soul will fly

*ee-kee-guy

This is my response to this week’s W3 prompt, which is to:

Write a poem in rhyming couplets (two lines that rhyme) that gives instructions for making something.

Requirements:

  • Use rhyming couplets throughout
  • Give clear steps or instructions
  • Be creative with what the“recipe” is for

Think of it as turning instructions into something memorable and playful through rhyme.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ikigai this week. I have a version of that graphic posted in my office.

Too often, I feel that we, as a society, shove people into a job that meets only one or two of those criteria. Find something that meets all four and you’ll find fulfillment and happiness.

Faith · family · Life

Serenity

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From the time I was young, I had trouble waiting
Always-late-people? So irritating!
Delayed planes and buses — very frustrating
I wished I could be easygoing!

Yes, I was impatient — but wanted to change
So I started to pray (does that sound somewhat strange?)
I thought that I knew what God could/would arrange
Truth is — I asked without knowing

Well, God sent me teachers — one at a time
For a total of eight — tiny, helpless, sublime
This slow learner experienced shift paradigm
While all of my children were growing

Sereneness is seeing the blue of the sky
Feeling the sun, watching bees fly
Being in moments ‘stead of letting them by
Not going faster, but slowing

So I learned to slow down from my children eight
Little knowing, indeed, what was my next fate
Aging parents, dementia, at the next gate
No regrets — just love overflowing

For eight I witnessed their very first day
For two I was present as they passed away
Each one a miracle in its own way
Listen — do you hear the wind blowing?

This is my response to this week’s W3 challenge.

Poet of the Week, Nigel Byng, challenged us to “Write a paean about a moment of personal triumph. This can be something from your past, something you are currently experiencing, or something you envision for your future. The moment should feel meaningful—something that changed you, clarified something essential, or marked a quiet or dramatic victory.”