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~
photo by Mary Dessein, allowed by BowieAnd Inspector Goatling will be checking. Is he adorable, or what? And Bowie’s twin brother, Gene, poking his inquisitive self right in there, too.
The wonder of animals, as they are so present in the moment. Who knew goats are affectionate and like to be cuddled? The dearest behavior, which I expect from my kitties and just melted me when hugging the goats, was that each goat put his head on my shoulder. Granted, it was for a few seconds, yet they did.
Present in the moment as well as letting go. I am famous for saying I raised my children with wings not strings. Okay fine, famous in my own mind, yet walking that talk is entirely another experience – an ongoing one to boot. My blog nearly three years ago about when my son stepped through the SeaTac airport door at 6 a.m. to go back to Tennessee, was when it felt like my heart was splintering off in shards. Especially when he acknowledged he didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to leave home.
Home. We each have to find our homes. Most of us many times in life. I am again at that point: where is my home now? How do I find it? What opportunities will arise for me?
I watch my daughter and son-in-law, both remarkable, flexible, creative people, search for and find their home. Visiting them (and my grand-goats and grand-puppies!) is such a delight as I witness the struggles, joys, and rewards in the myriad of things they are doing as they work toward the vision they have of their future. And their home.
Looking back, my style at their age was much more of a ‘fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants’ operating system. If it seemed like a good idea at the time, then, “Okay! I’m ready to go.” There is certainly a history to support that, yet lest I go into it now, suffice it to say it was my m.o. for decades. It took me even longer to recognize it as an m.o. I was not an Ennio Morricone or Meryl Streep who knew what they wanted to do at a young age and pursued it single-mindedly.
The term shoplifting is thought to be first documented as such in 1591 by British playwright, Robert Green. Originally called ‘lifting,’ it is obviously not a new phenomenon. Lifting is also raising to a higher position, or perhaps moving to a different position; I get that connection.
When I was with my kiddoes in a fabric store on Friday, the red and white warning sign to shoplifters was reversed in my mind at my first quick glance at it. Hhmm, I knew some prosecutors that could use some lifting back in the day when I worked in the legal system. I digress.
How do I find my home now? It involves the concept of trust. Dang, that is a hard one. To trust, don’t I need some control, some input, some history? This dance of trust and faith fascinates me, as I don’t have it figured out; it is a beautiful concept, yet how to live it. I’ll spend some time on this terpsichorean connection soon.
As to this moment with trust and faith, there is a saying we heard in the Program often, and in the counseling world, attributed to various sources, a prominent one is O.R. Melling, “When you come to the edge of all you know, you must believe one of two things: either ground will appear to stand on or you will learn to fly.”
Really? Trust in what? My intuition. Some message from the Universe. An ad in the personals. Well, two out of three’s pretty good.
So then will I lift or prosecute? Maybe both as prosecute also means continue on a course of action with a view to completion. I am definitely invested in finding where I belong at this chapter of my life… I plan on it containing occasional hugs from goatlings and grand-puppies.
“Life is a journey through a foreign land.” Another from O.R. Melling. That’s an understatement, right?
Bluebird bike I gave myself permission to buy a bike.
In itself remarkable, as my choice of ultra frugal living these days, a bike is not a necessity. Yet I need exercise. Walking? Naah, too slow.
Yes, there are bikes for sale online. I know nothing about bikes. A friend tells me about a bike shop nearby. When I arrive, I find they don’t sell used ones. Low end new ones are $350. Then of course I need a helmet, tire pump, repair kit, kickstand, plus sales tax, so we are talking close to $500. Nope, not happening.
As I am beginning the trip back home, I hear my phone ding. Of course, I pull over in order to check it, and see Lydia’s text, “I love being divorced.” Oh really? That merited an immediate call. In the course of our conversation, she asked if I’d gone to a local big ‘everything’ store in my bike search. “Why no!” I said, “what a great idea.”
I get in the store, find the bicycles, an employee tells me many of them are on sale. A young couple in their 30’s stroll up. The husband wants a three-wheeled bike with a basket so he can tote groceries and their toddler. While he cute-ifies us riding up and down the aisle, his wife and I examine bikes, their experiences, their opinions on good bikes; a friendly employee comes by and offers to get down the bike that seems the best bet (and it‘s purple!) Another staff member sees it takes four hands to retrieve the bike, and helps him get it down.
After a few minutes of picking out a helmet, seat cover, bike bag, and a tire pump, I take them over to the counter, and come back for the bike. As I roll it up, and look around for a clerk, a man looks at me from the aisle at the end of the glass counter, which is a handgun case, about ten feet from me.
“Are you going to buy that bike?”
With a big smile, I nod.
“May I tell you about that bike? I repair and rebuild bikes.”
“Sure.”
He walks over to me, mid-thirties or so, curly dark hair, caucasian, slightly heavy-set, about eight inches taller than me. He points to the word typed on a clear sticker in black capital letters, FRONT. “See that? It’s because these bikes arrive mostly unassembled. Most of these bikes are pretty good bikes, yet the bikes, and barbecues, are assembled by guys who go from store to store doing that. They have ten minutes per unit. They are rarely bike mechanics. They are assemblers. See right here? This part is on backwards. Here, look at the calipers.”
He closes his hands into fists on the brake handles. “I am squeezing them full on. See, the calipers are not tight on the bike tire.”
“Are you my bike guardian angel?”
“Nope, bikes are how I make my living.”
Moving his hands off the handlebars, he steps back and nudges the derailleur, it wiggles. “This should not be moving like this, even though the unit is a good one. So, if you decide to buy this bike, you’ll need to take it into a bike shop and have it tuned up and some of it re-assembled correctly.”
Oh my.
Not only would I have bought this bike, I would have ridden it with these problems, having no idea that I was making them worse by riding it.
I introduce myself and ask his name.
“Paul.”
People coming out of nowhere to help me: Lydia happy to be divorced, the young man at the bike shop, the young couple, the helpful staff. Then Paul. All moving me forward.
Amazing. When others act in our lives. Assuredly, people have moved in my life, and moved me, whether I wanted to or not. It has been in the last year where I actively recognized where my actions ripple in others’ lives. That is almost a “Duh!” moment as I was a counselor for decades. However, that was my job, which means that I saw some of my impact on others but did not see it on the personal level that I have now begun to.
A real estate deal I was working on last year: it did not pan out to my benefit. I did a ton of work for the owners of the house, nearly all of it they did not know to do (getting an easement which had been erroneously placed on the property removed, a wetland expert out to examine the property; believe me, the list goes on.) In part due to my work, they eventually sold the property for more than they expected, and in part as I stirred the waters to get interest in the property.
Giving a lady who stopped me in the parking lot directions to the highway last week, so she in turn arrived at her destination where people were waiting for her so they could go on with their plans. Leaving an extra copy of the local newspaper for my neighbor, who reads it, talks with a friend, who then takes some action. The dominoes falling once set in motion. And most of the effects, I wouldn’t be able to imagine, for they happen outside my vision and awareness. (As well they should, I have enough trouble getting to sleep as it is.)
So, after owning my new sapphire blue bike a couple weeks, I get on it, helmet securely fastened, and launch out of my driveway. On to a street! I had up to this point only ridden on the paved trail for bikers and walkers.
As I get maybe twenty feet down the street, my seat tips forwards. Stop. Readjust it. Try again. Now I can’t get my foot onto the pedal fast enough, and have to keep restarting. Okay, wobbling forward movement. Seat tips again. Sheesh. I stop and readjust it. Knowing I have to go into the bike shop the next day, I realize this is too dicey an arrangement to ride in the big show: moving cars, 4 x 4‘s, and mini-vans. Before I reach the stoplight, I turn around to head home. As I veer left to get up onto the sidewalk, unable to turn and use the handbrakes at the same time, I nearly slam into my neighbor’s fence, and have to stop with my feet.
Okay, that’s the last straw. I dismount and walk the remaining few feet to my driveway. In years past, I would have been embarrassed.
Instead, the best supervisor I ever had’s adage came back to me, “If you can’t do it right, at least be a lesson.”
Ah, those ripples.
