Bravery, Gratitude, and a Talking Horse

A dear friend texted me the other day to tell me how much the essays in my book, “When I Was a Rock Star,” encouraged her and thanked me. Being valued is a great way to start my day. The essay she referred to is ‘How Do You Be So Brave?’ which is about kids who have medically complex health issues at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Dr. Stanley Stamm, who founded the pediatric cardiology department at Children’s and pioneered treatments. One of his caveats, “Treat kids like people, not patients.”

These kids have to work to be alive every single day, some in order to take their next breath.
And they do it.

My dear friend has bought six copies of my book! One for herself and five as gifts. Yes, I am very grateful.

This amaryllis is something, right? It usually blooms end of April/early May. Here it is blooming the end of February. This amazing plant is about forty-four years old. Yup! and it was a start from my Aunt Margaret’s plant those many moons ago.

It gets more amazing: it blooms once a year, sometimes three stalks of blossoms, sometimes just one stalk. When my mom died eight years ago on September 2, a single stalk came up with a single blossom on it.
I have no explanation for it other than this is some remarkable, perceptive plant.

Another dear friend gifted me with a remarkable book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, by Charles Mackesy. “We don’t know about tomorrow,” said the horse, “all we need to know is that we love each other.”
“We have such a long way to go,” sighed the boy. “Yes, but look how far we’ve come,” said the horse.

How far we’ve come. Each of us measures this in different ways, hopefully we do indeed see it.

Another talking horse: Mr. Ed.
Remember this fun television show from the ’60’s? Some of you do!
Our family looked forward to it each week. We got our first television around 1961. Mr. Ed, the talking horse who spoke only to his owner, Wilbur, was played by a gorgeous American Saddlebred, who’s name was Bamboo Harvester, and his voice was done by an actor from westerns, Allen Rocky Lane.
Mr. Ed had a mind of his own:
“My mom didn’t raise her horse to be a jackass.”
“You don’t have to say your horse told you. Tell your friends it was your cat.”
“Quit gabbing and bring me some oats.”

Okay, I’ll quit gabbing~ Thank you for reading.

And my book, “When I Was a Rock Star: Thoughts on Being Present on the World” with the foreword written by fabulous musician, Dmitri Matheny, is available on Amazon in paperback and e-book!

Woo-Hoo! My Book

A journey. A learning curve. An accomplishment. An undertaking. A wow-do-I-feel-great!
It’s up on Amazon… When I Was a Rock Star: Thoughts on Being Present in the World.
Yee gods and little fishes, as my best friend in grade school would say.
And this week of publication has brought excitement, visits from friends as well as a gorgeous bouquet of sunflowers from a neighbor this morning.

Working at seeing the abundances in my life. There are many. The Canadian geese are starting to fly through with their amazing honking as they cruise overheard. My pup is two years old and still speaking to me. My new abode is now really feeling like home. The lupine seeds I planted months back are finally sprouting. The nectarines I got at the market a few days ago are perfectly ripe and delicious. This amazing opportunity to publish. Ah yes, gratitude.
Thank you for reading. Thanks to so many of you for support over the years.
My request: Please tell everyone you know about my book. If inclined, leave a favorable review on Amazon. The more sales and reviews get me more sales and searches, which increase my reader audience. Yay-hoo!

P.S. You can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and facebook.

Picasso… melons.

Would I kid you? They are really tasty. To me it tastes like a combination of a cantaloupe and a pear. It’s a new melon, a ‘proprietary’ melon that debuted a year ago. You’re on your own on that one, yet it sure is good.

Reminds me of when I saw a Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum many years ago. There was so much information on his life as well as seeing his works. When I was in Montreal in 2019, there was an exhibit of Picasso’s work related to the influence African art had on his art. Wow, that was an eye-opener as well.
As you may already know, the Pacific Ocean is small compared to what I don’t know.

This morning, Dean Graziosi was talking about when tough things happen in life, and then thinking ‘I can’t do this,” is when you need to stop and see it as an opportunity. That’s a challenge to be sure. Yet, having come across a few of those in my life, as I’m sure you have as well, giving up is sometimes not an option. It is figuring out how to get through it. Recently, getting my book published has presented me with some challenges, perhaps obstacles depending how I’m feeling at the moment.
These challenges were nothing like a physical injury or being served a divorce decree or an exploding water pipe in my wall or a tragedy in the family, yet I did not know what more to do. I followed instructions, to no resolution.

When I was walking my pupster at the off-leash park recently, I stopped to really look at how spring is abundant and verdant. The vetch is absolutely gorgeous in the acres of knee-high grass. Pup loves to run his huge zoomies through it. When he gallops back to me, there is a happy grin on his face. So much about being present in the moment, present in Nature, simply being. He sure knows how to do it. I’m learning~

My book. I am excited as it is now looking like publication around the end of June. I will certainly be announcing more information and the help I will ask for to promote it.

And a reminder to myself with melons and vetch, to take some time to just be, even when I am anxious and frustrated. Listening to the soundtrack from Michael Mann’s ‘Last of the Mohicans’ has been great. Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman wrote the music.
Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVjwBNsiOv0. I love ‘Elk Hunt, The Kiss, The Courier,’ yet cannot rule any of the tracks out.
When I first heard this twenty years ago, it shifted a few things for me as I was then doing a radio show, meeting musicians, reviewing books and movies, and started learning about Celtic music (here is where I was introduced to Clannad!)

Remember to be patient and kind to yourself. Try a piece of fresh fruit. Dance around to some music, even if it is just in your own head. Stop & look deeply at some flowers.

What’s the Trade-off?

It seems to me there is a trade-off for most every change we make. We hopefully trade up, as in we gain more than we release. A change in jobs, or a different career, a new home, a marriage, having the surgery, a new car, ending a relationship, the bargain lawn mower, getting a puppy, or putting in a garden. Sometimes, as we all know, the trade up does not go quite as we’d hoped.

Maybe even raising our kids is a trade-off. The years of wonder, stress, and joy of raising them the best we could. Then when they are grown, they go off and do their own thing. Sometimes far away from us. The success is that we gave them all we could, they are independent and autonomous people. Yet they are hundreds of miles away, perhaps even on a different continent! When one of my neighbors said he didn’t care that his kids moved away, it meant he would have a smaller house to take care of, I was taken aback. Okay then, different strokes for different folks.

A few evenings ago, there was a golden sunset filling the horizon. I watched a large seagull swoop and loop over my neighborhood for nearly ten minutes. I did not see him flap his wings once. Such elegant lifts and turns and circles. Was he simply doing it for the joy of it? Swoop and sail for the sheer delight? A seagull enjoying being alive? How wonderful to see.

   So, this champagne mango I bought. I justified the high price as it was Mother’s Day and I deserved a treat. The trade-off? Not so much, I have to smile. The skin was tough to cut through, the pit inside was huge (gutli is its actual name) and getting the fruit off of it was a nuisance. Just so you know, being called champagne did not make it a genuine treat.

And now I have foxgloves as tall as I am. Yay-hoo! I can hardly wait until they bloom.

Yes, the book is coming along, I’m excited. Publication planned for June 12. You’ll be hearing about that!
Thank you for reading~

Foxgloves with puppy guardian. Photo by MDessein

Forgiveness. Really?

Redemption. We’ve talked about this before, yeah? You and I, you and your spouse, with your daughter, your boss, your neighbor, your therapist, your lover, probably even your cat.

     What is redemption anyway? The act of saving or being saved from error or evil; the action of regaining possession of something in exchange for payment; clearing a debt; release from the consequences of an offense for the person who committed the offense.

     Okay then, what is forgiveness? A conscious decision to release feelings of resentment toward a person(s) who has harmed you.

     Interesting. In the program, we used to talk about forgiveness is not forgetting, it is not condoning, it is releasing. Lewis Smedes noted “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

     Really?

     Last year, in one of my sojourns to work with the kids in Juvenile Justice, I told the Haitian story from Diane Wolkstein, “One My Darling, Come to Mama.” It goes like this: A mother has four daughters, she loves and dotes on the first three and despises the fourth daughter, Philamandre. Every night when the mother comes homes, she sings as she is coming up to the house door, “One my darling, come to Mama. Two my darling, come to Mama. Three my darling, come to Mama. Stay Philamandre, stay. Stay where you are.”

The three daughters would let their mother in, they’d eat dinner together. If there were any scraps left from dinner, then Philamandre could eat.

     One day, the three daughters were kidnapped. When the mother came home, she sang. No answer. She sang again. No answer. She opened the door, saw the daughters were gone, and ran away like a madwoman, singing the song frantically. Philamandre realized she was on her own, went to the town and found work. Eventually she came to work in the palace of the king, and over time, the prince and she fell in love and were married.

Years passed. One day, she heard the maids talking about a crazy woman singing a song out in the street. Philamandre, now queen, went to the window to look out. Yes, it was her mother. Her clothes were rags, her hair was wild – filled with sticks and bird droppings.

     The queen went outside, brought the her mother in. She bathed her, gave her new clothes, and trimmed her hair. “Mama, the others are no more. I am here. You did not take care of me. Yet now I will take care of you.”

     I said nothing more for a minute or so, looked at the five young women sitting in a semi-circle in front of me, dressed in the standard-issue orange trousers and blocky shirt, and then said, “I’ve never understood that story. How someone mistreated could then turn around and take care of the one who mistreated them?”

     One of the girls looked me in the eye, “Maybe she didn’t want to be like her mother.”

     I’m three times as old as this seventeen year old, yet she has wisdom like that?

Honeysuckle 5-31-2020
Honeysuckle in the rain 5-31-2020

I have often pondered how abused children, when adults, re-establish relationships with their abusive parents and often take care of them, specifically with a couple people I know.

     I have been thrown under the bus, as they say, for things I did not do yet got the consequences as the person who did the action would not take responsibility for it. I have been lied to, stolen from, betrayed, mislead, as we all have, sometimes by my own family members. I was bitter. It wasn’t right, where was justice? I was resentful.

     In looking up Lewis Smedes, he was a professor of theology and ethics, and author of fifteen books. “Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.”

That young woman who responded to me may have been in custody for an illegal act, yet she had certainly learned a few things along the way. Indeed, there is hope for the future.

Years ago, one of my siblings did some egregious things. I believe I have forgiven them yet want no contact with them. One of my cousins chided me for that, saying, “But they’re family.” In my head, I am going, “Yeah, but…” Recently I came across another wisdom of Professor Smedes:

“You can forgive someone almost anything. But you cannot tolerate everything… We don’t have to tolerate what people do just because we forgive them for doing it. Forgiving heals us personally. To tolerate everything only hurts us all in the long run.”

Oh my.

So tolerate is now in the mix. Forgive. Permission to not tolerate. Redemption. Significant issues for me in my life, as many changes are being presented. Some of them being who am I now in my life, who do I strive to be, who do I wish to be with? How do I do this? Where shall I live? How do I pursue what gives me meaning?

I leave you with this from Hans Z and Lisa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBE-uBgtINg while I go redeem my coupon for the turkey taco. Let me know what you think~