beeconcise

A few days ago a huge fat robin flew into the grapevines on the trellis outside of my office window, long enough for me to want to get my camera, but not long enough for me to go get it. It was as if this robin had a mission to complete, and my grapevine trellis provided a resting place just long enough, and then the journey began again, with the robin flying off into the blue sky.

It made me think of my journey, so often feeling like I’ve been blown about like a leaf, but of course this is never true, even though we’d often like to blame our circumstances on other people, places, times. I always told my children that their lives were the results of their choices. Easy to believe when it’s not your own life. It’s a lot harder to decide just exactly what the choices were that led you here or there, to this position, this place in time, this event in your life.

Yesterday as I was leaving in the car for some errands, I was stopped by a not infrequent line of quail crossing the road, marching with a purpose I don’t usually have. They were single file but united in their purpose, which was apparently to get to feeders in the yard across the road from where they nest. It made me wonder how they knew what their purpose was that Saturday morning. To eat, of course. But can it really be this simple?

In so many ways I envy the quail. They sense where the food is and go get it. No decisions about which grocery store, which foods to buy, is it good or bad for their cholesterol, or will it make their feathers look fat in their summer suits? I sat there, watching the quail, smiling to myself at what an easy life they must all have. Then, of course, I looked up the hill to where predators also live, where the snows cover them all winter, where they have little shelter, and decided I’d really rather not be a quail, even though their purpose in life seems so much more simple than mine.

I thought about the quail all morning, in the library, at the grocery store, the drug store, the exercise class that day, waiting for a friend at a coffee shop, and again visiting my mom at the assisted living facility where she lives. Even though I feel like I do few things of importance these days since I don’t work now, I realize I do have important things in my life, yet still manage to float through my days with little purpose. I go from one to-do task on my list to the next, with some things a whole lot more enjoyable than others. At the end of many days I feel exhausted and couldn’t tell you why, at least until I look back at my to-do list and realize the stress built into a particular day.

So I’ve decided that I need to be more like the quail, to march to my destinations fully aware, with purpose, and to cut that errand list in half, or toss it away all together. Some days you just need to do that for yourself, and then fill that time with music, flowers and even poetry. I think it’s called leaving time for yourself in a busy life, and remembering to always include yourself into life’s equations.

Oh, my ~ How I wait for Christmas each year, not for the tree or the presents, but to hear from people I love and don’t see very often ~ wanting to connect with each one once again.

All over again I remember former friendships, good times, laughter, cooking dinners together, lunches out, wine, parties, and just plain fun watching our children cavort together as we shared coffee and ‘Mom’ stories. And how I adored seeing these kids as toddlers, beginning to grow older.

Later, as the kids grew older and wiser, we parents shared teenaged stories, our chats together became more serious, more meaningful, people moved, lives changed, but always we kept in touch at least at Christmas.

In between the years, I’d think of friends, laugh about photos taken when we were younger, thinner, dare I say better looking? Because now, actually, I think we’re all becoming really beautiful people. E-mail to me now is even more special, because now I even get to see grandkids, in-between holidays, which makes it fun to chat back and forth every single day.

Hearing from family members out of town (out-of-town-to-me, that is, even if they’ve never moved from where they were born) is heart warming, reminding me all over again of places I’ve loved living, and people I’ve loved growing up with. I sit down immediately, rip open the envelopes and read the cards and letters again and again, loving pictures of the kids, even the pets. If they include pictures of themselves, that’s the cherry on top for me. I love seeing them all!

Once I had a friend who told me she was so overwhelmed at Christmas that she couldn’t even consider taking the time to open the Christmas cards they received then, but would collect them and later in the winter, sometime in January, she and her husband would sit down to read their cards together. My mind spun out of control. Was she serious? The thing I’d waited for the whole long year? It felt to me like telling Santa you didn’t have time for him until January, or maybe even February or March.

Of course I realize ‘to each his own’ and it’s their life. I just want to tell them it’s so WRONG. For me, in January, February and March I’m still reading over holiday letters, and save them from year to year. There are friends of mine who hate Christmas letters, a tough pill for me to swallow. I, of course, know in my heart that they, too, are just WRONG about it all, but oblige and do not send them my Christmas letter. It always makes me feel a bit sad, and I’m not sure why.

At any rate, I am excited that another Christmas season is upon us, and I eagerly check the mailbox each day for holiday cards, notes, family letters and pictures. I know we’re all busy. Every single one of us. But it’s still nice to know people still think of us and our little families, as we do theirs ~ reaching out across the miles, as they say. If I didn’t know better I’d think I should have gone to work for Hallmark years ago. Why didn’t I ever think of that?

It’s amazing to me how quickly I am unstrung when my organizational skills let me down, like this morning. When I can’t put my hand on my Passwords folder. Or when I don’t remember a password I use often, like the one for this blog. All of the Zen lessons in the world don’t seem to help when someone is in the midst of chaos. And there is the problem.

It’s that chaos thing. Now, sitting here, having finally re-discovered my password, I know the first step is to just breathe. Catch my breath. Think about it. Walk around a bit. Take a shower. Breathe some more. And it comes to me, gently … at least where to look in notes, in an old folder, or any place I might have tucked the info I need.

My daughter sent me a beautiful article today, by Leo Babauta – 7 Little Things That Make Life Effortless, posted on Zen Habits 10/10/2011. And it’s about exactly this. How we crowd our lives with things that get in our way and the message that comes to me is … how we continue to struggle with these things without ever trying to change our lives to accommodate an easier lifestyle.

Earlier his summer two good friends suggested the same book to me, the same day I read about it on Cassie Steele’s web site … Time is a River by Mary Alice Monroe. When a message like this comes to me in layers ~ certainly 3 in one day ~ I act on it. Downloaded the book that instant onto my Kindle and was halfway through it when one friend’s book arrived in the mail. I sent that one home with my daughter later. The message for me in this book is to relinquish the long struggle.

Struggle. That’s the word. Let it go. For me this is key for many reasons: Job Status. Elderly Relatives. Keeping up the good fight. It isn’t giving up because you can’t keep up, it’s giving up to simplify, to make every single day easier, better, effortless. Who wouldn’t welcome this?

I like effortless. It’s my new mantra. And as quickly as I realize this for myself, I realize ~ after far too long a struggle ~ that I’ve found the key for my character, Addy, in my Will-She-Ever-Finish-The-Book Benson’s Cove. The answer is yes. I’ll finish it for myself, if nothing else. And having Addy recognize the struggle she needs to give up sets this plot back on track.

I like effortless. Want it in my life. That says it all.

I’ve always wished I could be thinner, even when I weighed less than 100 lbs. Then out of the blue I suffered a stroke one frosty January morning as I was trying on new clothes ordered from Cold Water Creek. The stroke was mild, but I know that it’s essential now for me to exercise, eat healthy and stay fit. And guess what – I’ve lost twenty pounds and had to buy new clothes in a size smaller. But I would not recommend stroke therapy as a way to lose weight.

I’ve also wished that we spent less and saved more for rainy days. Just as quickly as I had a stroke, my husband lost his job in the middle of the recession. We now know, without a doubt, that losing your job in a recession qualifies as a rainy day. As a result we are spending less, buying little and doing without creature comforts we enjoyed in our lives – gym memberships, life insurance, expensive haircuts, planned vacations, even some prescription drugs. All gone now, but a much larger Rainy-Day-Fund tucked away for when a need emerges. Even though this is a new form of comfort, I wouldn’t recommend job loss as way to improve your budget.

Don’t think I’ll wish for anything else. Heaven only knows what might happen if I send any more wishes out into the Universe. We’re good, as the kids say. I’ll just go water the tomato plants, pick a bowl of juicy red raspberries, and inspect the cucumber, zucchini and pumpkin plants in the yard. I’m not even grieving the three trees we lost this year due to winter kill. We can replace them with flowers: the peony that’s too close to the grape trellis, blue geraniums out growning their bedding area, and iris by the patio that need to be thinned and moved.

As I puttered around the yard yesterday afternoon, clipping stems of spent iris, they reminded me of a cluttered closet that needed to be cleaned out, made ready for new growth. I found myself wishing for a gentle rain to give them all a good long drink of water before the summer is gone.

And this morning I knew, that just like the iris, I also need a good long drink of water … a nice quiet and soothing rainy day. I can’t think of a better time to visit the Cold Water Creek website for a few new clothes (as long as they are on sale and in a smaller size, of course). After all, we do have this nice new Rainy-Day-Fund, all tucked away for when we need it. And right now a rainy day is all the reason I need to apply a little shopping therapy. And I’ve learned my lesson – I am being very careful what I wish for. I only want a little rainy day, not a flood. I do hope the Universe is listening!

This morning I took a picture of a bowl of rocks on our breakfast table. My rocks sit in a vintage glass bowl that belonged to my mother, who has just moved to an assisted living facility and no longer has room for her pretty glasses and dishes, or any need of them, as a matter of fact. My daughter, Allison, has a matching bowl (from her grandmother) on her table, also, with flowers in hers.

The rocks in my bowl are there because it makes me remember Allison, almost-five Asher, and husband, Chris, who were here this summer and soothed my ruffled feathers during my mother’s move to the new retirement community.

I look at this beautiful and fragile glass bowl, filled with sturdy, heavy rocks, and see both the past and the future, in one lovely bowl on my table. In the background of the photo I took, we can see our healthy Ash tree in the yard. The funny thing about this is that Ash thinks this tree was named for him, and in a way I guess it was, as it was planted in the same year he was born, but just three months later. Asher Ellis Workman and our Ash tree both arrived in our lives in 2006.

It’s also nostalgic to me to note that my grandson’s middle name is Ellis, my mother’s maiden name. And so it goes … one thing follows another, people follow people, lives follow lives, then age, die, and we begin again. I like to think that one day a great grandchild of mine will have this same vintage glass bowl on his or her table … maybe filled with sea shells from Pensacola, Florida, where this story began, at least for me.

This morning for some reason I climbed out of my warm, snuggly bed at 4:00 a.m., and decided this was the day and the time that I should make up the bed in the upstairs guest room, and then exchange the lamp on one of the bedside tables with the lamp on the bedside table downstairs.

Don’t ask me why, except that I wanted the two bedside lamps in the upstairs guest room to match, and they didn’t. One of the lamps was a sweet lamp from my mother, which she probably had as a wedding gift so many years ago. The other lamp was newer, a clear glass base filled with sea shells from Pensacola, Florida.

And so … I made up the bed upstairs, opened the window and noted the sun wasn’t even up yet. Where was my coffee, for Heaven’s sakes? Then I unplugged and carried the sea shell lamp downstairs … looked over the new ‘reading area’ we created in that bedroom yesterday, and delighted in the new look for this room … all a result of moving furniture around after my mother vacated her lovely apartment at Lilac Terrace, when she moved two weeks ago into the Assisted Living community of Parkway Village.

We gave away some furniture, putting it back into the Universe I tell myself, and then brought some of it home with us, and this is why we’ve been rearranging things to accommodate new furniture. It’s as if my mother’s spirit is more with us now, and I do like this. So … after changing around the lamps (and I do like the lamps here they are so much better now), I decided we needed a book beside the new chair and lamp in the bedroom downstairs.

And that sent me to the book case in the family room, where I had a bit of nostalgia looking through the books there – finding the text book I taught English Composition and Technical Writing from some 25 years ago. Not only was this a lesson in nostalgia, I found a page from a church bulletin in this book, and have no idea why, but the topic was – God’s Plan For My Life. Well, Dennis and I can certainly both use a bit of this wisdom now.

Then I came to The Teo of Pooh, which enchanted me all over again. I sat down then and there and read through almost the entire book. By then it was nearly 5 a.m., and I had to laugh wondering what Dennis would think if he found me downstairs, lights blazing, and reading a long-forgotten book at 5 a.m. on a Monday morning. It makes me laugh, but also makes me want to begin meditating daily, like Pooh, who sat beside he tree in the enchanted forest, thought about nothing in his childlike attitude, and then went for a spot of honey. What, really, can be better than the life of Pooh?

Of course this is the book I laid on the dresser next to the newly-placed ‘reading’ chair in the bedroom downstairs. I always did like to provide a place for house guests to escape from our noisy world for a little reading and relaxation. On the other side of the bed is my favorite book of short stories, The blue Bedroom, by Rosamund Pilcher.

On really energetic days I ponder the idea of creating a Bed and Breakfast Inn. Not sure I’ll ever do that, but if I do, I’ll call it the Red Rooster B and B. Of course then I really would be up at 4 a.m. just about every single day, changing beds, tidying bathrooms, cooking up scrumptious breakfast meals, planning afternoon wine and cheese events … readings, perhaps? Or maybe I’ll just write a book about it. How does Prudy Parker sound for a character’s name? She, of course, would fall in love with a wonderful gentleman named Paul something-or-other. And so it goes.

Obviously I need to read The Teo of Pooh a little more, and remember to be more like Pooh, who made an art of doing absolutely nothing . Not opening a B and B, and not writing a book. Pooh was just able to be Pooh, and love being exactly what he was – a bear in an enchanted forest, with lots of friends and an unending supply of honey.

Yesterday my mother, all moved into her new assisted living facility, has decided that with three wonderful meals provided each day, she no longer needs her old recipe box. It’s a scratched old and red tin box that probably once held candy many years ago. In it she’s got recipes she’s copied down, some cut from magazines, some cut from the sides of boxes like cream cheese, or saved soup labels with recipes on them.

I’ve found Mrs. Clark’s Egg Custard recipe, which Mrs. Clark (our next door neighbor in Pensacola) always made and brought over when I was sick, and I can’t be sick to this day without wanting some of Mrs. Clark’s egg custard. Of course now I am the only one to make this, so it doesn’t get made when I really want it. Let’s face it – who makes egg custard when they think they might get sick? Nobody tells you these things … tomorrow you will be sick and want egg custard. Best make up a batch tonight before you go to bed. Nope. That’s not the way it works. At least not in my life.

But looking through these recipes, I found my Aunt Margie’s Coke and Bing Cherry Salad recipe, Margery’s Cornbread Casserole recipe, and my mother’s Grits and Sausage recipe (be still my heart!). There’s the recipe for Old Fashioned Rice Pudding (I pulled that one out), and another for English Shepherd Pie (Ummm), and one for Cranberry Salad. My favorite was my mother’s Oatmeal and Peanut Cookies recipe.

I also found ‘How to rid your house of annoying ants’ from a newspaper article, and a great recipe for cleaning windows, from 1989. Even these don’t seem that old to me, but the yellow card stock and paper notes from so long ago all lend themselves to be nostalgic for me on so many levels.

After trying to decide which recipes to keep and which not to keep, I know deep down that I’ll simply put them all back into this old tin box and put it away in my linen closet, to go through and remember on some rainy afternoon. I always loved the rain in Pensacola. Now this seems like it’s just the thing to do on a dark and rainy ‘Pensacola afternoon’, even if I don’t live there anymore.

The thing that really sticks in my throat looking through these recipes is that it never once occurred to me when I was younger that putting meals on the table might have been a chore for my mother, or that going to the store and paying hard-earned cash for groceries to feed a family might have ever been something that she dreaded to do, as I sometimes find for myself. It seemed that cooking happened, things smelled good when I came home from school, and we had dinner every night and somehow the dishes got washed, without any help from me. Little did I know then about the recipes my mother must have consulted after I went to school, in the middle of the day, wondering what to pull together that evening for dinner. No internet. No cooking shows to watch on TV, at least not until I was 12 and we got our first TV. The recipes were a lot more hard to come by for my mother than any ever are for me now, with our computer age at hand.

I doubt I’ll use the recipes for getting rid of ants or washing windows, but I’m going to definitely cook up some of that Chili Cornbread, and maybe mix up a nice batch of that Cranberry salad. And soon!

It’s 5:30 a.m. and I’ve been awake since 3. My daughter, Allison, son-in-law, Chris and Asher, the WCG (World’s Cutest Grandson), are leaving early this morning to fly back to their home in Georgia. I remember from being a military wife just how great it was to visit my family, but how even more wonderful it was to return to our home with our own friends and our own lives.

In the midst of my daughter and her family’s vacation, we unexpectedly moved my mother into an Assisted Living facility. Lots of tiring afternoons and busy schedules, but having my daughter here saved the day for me. When I finally took my mother to her new place to live, I returned home that evening to find the room where mother had stayed now clean with freshly made bed, flowers on the kitchen table, dinner cooked and family fed.

It was wonderful for all of us to also be able to visit my son, Phil, and his famiy in Tri-Cities over the 4th of July. Phil and nephew Asher (4 yrs. old) spent July 3rd. at a neighbor’s back yard camp out ~ 34 kids with 12 tents (the last I counted). Phil volunteered for this. We are all amazed that he volunteered, and even more amazed that Asher agreed. First time away from Mom and Dad. First time sleeping in a tent. Score one big time for Uncle Phil.

On an impromptu visit to Manito Park yesterday, while Mom and Dad ran an errand downtown, Asher and I got to play in the park (he played, I watched); then we walked up to the Park Bench for huge, delicious scoops of Cookies n’ Cream ice cream in waffle cones. Sweetest moment of the day for me? When he turned his ice cream smeared face to me (custodian of the napkins that were trying to blow away in the breeze) and said sweetly, “Wipe my face, Grandma!” If only I’d had a camera.

I told him this morning as he was heading out the door with two stuffed animals, that I would not only keep the bowl of rocks sitting on the counter, collected from his walks around the neighborhood this week, but that I would be dusting them, too. It’s a Mom thing. I am still that, you know: Mom, Daughter, Sister, Grandma, Wife. So many hats. So little time.

Is this how life happens? One day you’re home, at peace, having a hummingbird morning, or driving home from a Yoga class and counting bird nests on the way, when all of a sudden your life blows up in your face? Is this really the way it happens? Does it have to? Is there anything I might have done to prevent any of this?

On an ordinary Tuesday evening nearly a month ago my husband came home with a terribly high fever, causing him to miss work the next two days; when he returned to work on Friday he was fired, then spent the next 4 weeks with multiple ER and Dr. visits, trying to discover what the mysterious illness is, was, or might be. Nobody seems to know, even with an ultra-sound, MRI and more. It’s a total mystery to me as to what caused this illness or what caused him to be fired from a new job. I don’t understand.

But, rolling with the punches, I hardly flinched when – the same week – we were informed that my mom needed more assistance than was available at her retirement home, meaning a sudden all-out-mission to find her an assisted living arrangement. Literally within 3 ½ weeks my mom is now moved into her new place to live, husband’s illness is in the final days, and I am in the middle of a long-waited-for visit with my daughter, her husband and TWCGS … The World’s Cutest Grandson.

I just want to know how many other people have a major illness, a third job loss in 18 months, and a sad and depressing move of a family member to an assisted living facility all within one month. Isn’t this a lot? It feels like a lot to me. It felt like a lot two weeks into this month-from-hell when our Alaska trip was cancelled, due to this mysterious illness that befell my husband.

I wonder ~ Is this the way a bird feels when it’s nest is destroyed by a wind storm, or its eggs are shattered by an avenging squirrel, or a fish watches its fish-friend swallow a hook and be jerked to the water’s surface and into a net, holding it now for dinner that evening? Do we all just have to take what’s coming with no control, no answers, and no mercy? Again, I don’t understand. Annie Dillard wrote about birds with tail feathers missing & squirrels with scars on their little bodies. She said, ‘It’s a rough world out there, folks.’ I’ve never forgotten that comment. But I still don’t understand.

I don’t want to ever repeat a June like the one that has just passed. Never. Ever. Again. I’m tired now, and frankly think God should pick on another family for the next few months. I am requesting a visit from the Angel of Good News, hoping she will wave her magic wand and make us all whole again. We’re not asking for wealth. Not even eternal health. Just the ability to not knuckle under when life gets really, really hard … because there was a day or two in there when I didn’t think I’d make it, yet my sweet little daughter came to the rescue with dinners on the stove, flowers on the table, and hugs when needed.

So I did keep on. But it was awfully hard. It took two and three hour naps at the end of some days, and going to bed before 8 p.m. on other days, and I do not want to do that again. If there was a lesson here, I promise I’ve learned it. But, know this ~ I really do not understand.

It happened so quickly, one day this past week. It was early, before the rest of the neighborhood was awake, and I’d just opened the vertical blinds on the sliding glass door at the breakfast table. And then I saw it.

A hummingbird stopped by to say good morning to me. This flashy little bird, one of the few hummingbirds I’ve ever seen in our yard, flew under the patio cover and hovered, right in front of our sliding glass door. I’m told their wings flap something like 70 times per second. Can this really be true? I’ve recently read a beautiful essay by Cassie Steele, about going to the hummingbirds‘ wintering grounds in Mexico, and suddenly one of these lively little creatures was at my glass door, looking directly at me for 4 or 5 seconds.

To say that I was mesmerized would be putting it mildly. Think of it. I was the only one there, the only one to see this beautiful sight. My heart was the only one beating while watching this magnificent bird. And it did not fly away immediately, but hovered, looking at me, as if sending me a message. Are you listening? Can you hear me? I’m telling you, the universe is speaking. Don’t forget to listen. It’s more important than you know. And then it was gone.

Years ago I read a beautiful short story by Hemingway, in Big, Two-Hearted River, if I’m remembering it correctly. He reaches down into a rocky stream bottom and touches a trout, which swims away quickly as any self-respecting fish would. But Hemingway wrote … ‘It was gone, gone in a flash.’ That’s the way I felt about the hummingbird that visited me early that morning.

I really did stand there, afraid to move, afraid I’d scare it away, and I wanted to absorb its beauty. I’m sure we’ve all felt and acted this way when surprising a deer or some other skittish animal at various times in our lives. Wait, don’t move. Don’t even breathe. Just inhale.

Someone told me years ago that I’d probably been a bird in a previous life, because I always went around curling bare toes over things to pick up on the floor … a pencil, bits of paper, or clothes. “You’re like a bird, perched on a branch,” I was told. And quickly, watching the hummingbird wildly beating its wings as if to communicate with me, I remembered this long-ago comment.

Most people would gather their morning paper and coffee to get on with their day, but for a few minutes there, looking out into the back yard, I lost myself in thoughts of what it might be like to really be a bird.

A shrink would probably have a field day with this one!