Watching the horrible aftermath of the tsunami wave that hit Japan made me wonder if one could solve the problems in the Middle East.
I don't know what else could put them on the same side. The human side.
I don't know how to fight an enemy who does not value their own life or those of their children, and I don't know anybody who does, either.
They really have us there, don't they?
It's a whole new kind of war and it's been going on for quite a while now and we are not winning or losing. We are trying to hold our own and waiting to see what happens. We scurry around and react to everything they do, too late. We sacrifice our own freedoms and conveniences that we have worked hard to earn in the name of safety. Give me a break. I have done nothing to be searched for and I'll be damned if I will stand in a line and teach my children that it is normal to submit to that. How do you think they got those poor Jewish people on those trains? Why show your hand and force someone if you can entice them to do it on their own? The self made chains of slavery are nothing to sneeze at, people. We do it to ourselves all the time, and often because we want to be "polite", and not make a scene. Do not be afraid of a scene, my dears, any woman who has ever given birth will tell you it is not fatal. In fact, it can be empowering.
Remember the Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All? She had something to say on this subject:
"How soon, sugar, the terrible becomes routine. We've all got this dangerous built-in talent: for turning horrors into errands. You hear folks wonder how the Germans could've done it? I believe part of the answer is: They made extermination be a nine-to-five activity. You know, salaries? Lunch breaks? And the staff came and did their job and went home and ate supper and slept and woke and came back and did their job and came home and ate their supper and slept and woke and came back and did their job. ---That's partly how you get anything done, especially a chore what's dreadful, dreadful. --Honey? We've all got to be real careful of what we can get used to."
Is that gold or what?
She said this after telling a story about how the North burned out a plantation and while doing it talked about their wives and children, their plans for after the war. Like it was a normal day. By then I think it was a normal day for them. A normal day.
Please think hard about how much of an affect simply "accepting" changes can make in the world and in people's minds. Think long and hard about it because once things change they never go back to the same way again. We live in the greatest country in this world and it's the greatest because of our freedoms. People risk their lives for it all the time. We've fought for it ALWAYS.
It is staggering if you think about it for even 5 minutes.
Make your choices count.
Mar 13, 2011
I Hit it!
I have always tried to live my life with "the flow" of the direction I feel my life is supposed to follow. Part of this, and it may seem like a trivial part, is the urge to clean. I have what I like to call "high energy" days and "low energy" days.
A high energy day is a day when you get up and feel like you need to "accomplish" something. This could be re-organizing your cabinets, yard work, cleaning, or paying the bills. It doesn't really matter what you do, all that matters is that you have this urge inside you to get it done and you just "know" that you can do it and not get tired.
A low energy day is a day when you get up and you don't feel like doing anything. You might sleep, shuffle around in your pajama's all day, not shower, read, the list is endless. It doesn't really matter what you do on days like this either, and do not make the mistake of torturing yourself for not doing any of those things on your list.
We need both kinds of days. The low energy days are days when we need to take a break and nurture ourselves, let ourselves rest, concentrate more on our spiritual lives. The high energy days are when we have been given the gift of energy, and applied correctly, can make us able to enjoy the next low energy day guilt free.
Guilt free is a good way to go through life. It's not easy, of course, and it's doesn't come quickly, but you can get there if you catch that wave of the high energy day and ride it all the way to shore.
I have had such a day. I have had two of them. I can barely raise my arms above my head, and I'm still a lttle jiggly, but every muscle in my body is tight and I feel like a weight lifter. I also feel like the Queen of my castle.
It's not a big secret or anything, but this is what I did: I cleaned my carpets. The entire upper floor of my house today boasts clean carpets. It smells wonderful. The Grand Finale was none too thrilled about it, to say the least, but did the Queen care? No. What we have not actually washed down this weekend we have dusted and put away, and put away where it belongs, not stuffed it under a piece of furniture. I feel ready now, and this is the best part of high energy days.
I felt this surge coming on, you will too if you concentrate on them. For $25 I rented a steam cleaner from a friend, helping her out with some cold hard cash, and that gave me the weekend.
If you "work out", I say good for you. I am just wondering who cleans your house, because I am here to tell you that you can get an intensive, free workout at home just about any time. I spent about 4 hours Friday night and Saturday slowly, slowly moving a heavy machine across the floors of my house. By Saturday night I felt like I had dug a ditch, or maybe a grave. I took a very hot, very long bath and went to bed at 7:30 pm. Today I got up around 8 am and have spent the whole day in my pajama's watching movies. I did fix breakfast about 11 am and need to go see about fixing another meal now, but the point is I am enjoying a low energy day. And what muscles I do have left ( I use this term loosely, I don't really think I have any left) all feel toned. Today I almost went out and started raking leaves and burning those, but the wind was blowing and the urge left me. Just like that, I knew it was a low energy day, and I smiled and got comfortable on the couch, guilt free. It rarely gets any better than that.
Enjoy the ebb and flow of your life, and the simple joys that make it worth living. Tomorrow is another day and no telling what it will bring. Be ready to go with the flow.
A high energy day is a day when you get up and feel like you need to "accomplish" something. This could be re-organizing your cabinets, yard work, cleaning, or paying the bills. It doesn't really matter what you do, all that matters is that you have this urge inside you to get it done and you just "know" that you can do it and not get tired.
A low energy day is a day when you get up and you don't feel like doing anything. You might sleep, shuffle around in your pajama's all day, not shower, read, the list is endless. It doesn't really matter what you do on days like this either, and do not make the mistake of torturing yourself for not doing any of those things on your list.
We need both kinds of days. The low energy days are days when we need to take a break and nurture ourselves, let ourselves rest, concentrate more on our spiritual lives. The high energy days are when we have been given the gift of energy, and applied correctly, can make us able to enjoy the next low energy day guilt free.
Guilt free is a good way to go through life. It's not easy, of course, and it's doesn't come quickly, but you can get there if you catch that wave of the high energy day and ride it all the way to shore.
I have had such a day. I have had two of them. I can barely raise my arms above my head, and I'm still a lttle jiggly, but every muscle in my body is tight and I feel like a weight lifter. I also feel like the Queen of my castle.
It's not a big secret or anything, but this is what I did: I cleaned my carpets. The entire upper floor of my house today boasts clean carpets. It smells wonderful. The Grand Finale was none too thrilled about it, to say the least, but did the Queen care? No. What we have not actually washed down this weekend we have dusted and put away, and put away where it belongs, not stuffed it under a piece of furniture. I feel ready now, and this is the best part of high energy days.
I felt this surge coming on, you will too if you concentrate on them. For $25 I rented a steam cleaner from a friend, helping her out with some cold hard cash, and that gave me the weekend.
If you "work out", I say good for you. I am just wondering who cleans your house, because I am here to tell you that you can get an intensive, free workout at home just about any time. I spent about 4 hours Friday night and Saturday slowly, slowly moving a heavy machine across the floors of my house. By Saturday night I felt like I had dug a ditch, or maybe a grave. I took a very hot, very long bath and went to bed at 7:30 pm. Today I got up around 8 am and have spent the whole day in my pajama's watching movies. I did fix breakfast about 11 am and need to go see about fixing another meal now, but the point is I am enjoying a low energy day. And what muscles I do have left ( I use this term loosely, I don't really think I have any left) all feel toned. Today I almost went out and started raking leaves and burning those, but the wind was blowing and the urge left me. Just like that, I knew it was a low energy day, and I smiled and got comfortable on the couch, guilt free. It rarely gets any better than that.
Enjoy the ebb and flow of your life, and the simple joys that make it worth living. Tomorrow is another day and no telling what it will bring. Be ready to go with the flow.
Mar 4, 2011
After she's gone
The other day I was catching up with my cyber friend Katie, at Marriage Confessions, who is a redhead, who is expecting her daughter, Gracie, to be born soon, and they were showing the baby's room. Here is a link to the blog, I highly recommend it.
http://marriageconfessions.com/2011/02/16/bellycast-6/
This little girl has a beautiful room, freshly done and waiting for her, featuring one of the MOST gorgeous mobiles I have ever seen. It's made of butterflies.
I have followed this couple for a couple of years. They got me with the first baby, "Bean", but I stayed for her honesty. They are very brave, this couple, and very grounded. She is clearly big and pregnant in the video, worn out, tired of even talking, and he is steadfastly videoing little details that he knows she wants you to see. This is a good picture of them as a couple. She does most of the talking on the blog, he takes care of the details, steadfastly and faithfully. So sweet, and then, it happened.
She pointed to a shelf full of dolls in Gracie's nursery. My heart stopped and I got tears in my eyes. Her sweet young voice explained how these were dolls that had been hers growing up, and sat on a shelf in her room when she was a little girl. I was bawling out loud by then.
You see, I have a redheaded daughter. Having a red headed child gives you a bond with anyone who has ever had red hair in their family. It is always the first thing remarked upon. By the time my daughter was 3 she would lean away from hands raised to touch her hair because everyone always did, first thing. "Don't let them touch my hair", she would discreetly request as they headed toward us, hands already outstretched. Not only do I have a red headed daughter, but Grace is her middle name. Is the bawling starting to make sense? Well, in her room, since before she was born, there has been a shelf. My mother started buying dolls for my daughter when she was born. Only redheaded dolls. Not expensive ones, not collector's items, just redheaded dolls, many of which have been displayed since her birth on that same shelf, where they are still sitting in her now basically abandoned room.
More than one shelf. Note to Katie, bookshelves lining the top of her room are really handy.
I went to her room. The dolls sit silently collecting dust and perhaps dreaming of days past us all now, like me. Do they look forward to another little girl, like me?
I laid down on my daughter's bed, on top of the quilt my mother made, feeling my connection to the two women who are closest to me in this life. Who always will be closest to me, in life or beyond. Life flows through us, as women and all we are is the conduit, the vessel, the link between. At times I find this a relief, other times it feels like the weight of the world. Always, it is a fact. Known. Unquestioned.
I looked at the Sunflower Sue quilt made by my grandmother, lovingly and prominently displayed on the wall. My Nana, mother to 2 boys and expecting her third to be her girl, made this quilt for what turned out to be my Uncle Melvin, who would be a big brother to her baby, my father. Four boys. So she threw the quilt up in the closet and drug it out when she really needed it, bound it in some blue she found lying around, and when I graduated from high school, I got the quilt. (Score!!) She laughed so hard telling me the story of her hopes for a daughter and the last-minute blue binding that she almost peed her pants. This quilt is one my most precious possessions. She had to wait for granddaughters, but she didn't mind.
I thought of Katie, at one end of a tunnel, expecting to meet her daughter any day, dreaming of what it will be like to have a daughter. I thought of me, at the other end of that same tunnel, reflecting on the reality of all those dreams I had harbored also, before I knew who my daughter really was, when she was just an idea in my head. A hardly dared, hoped-for wish that I made every day, never out loud.
I thought of what it means to be a link in the chain. The only thing that connects all that you are with all that you will be. You are no more important than any other link, yet at times you are the most important because you alone carry the knowledge of who you are, where you came from, and how you got here today. You have to be sure to make every effort to never leave your children alone spiritually. You may not be able to keep them from being alone physically but who among us is ever really alone spiritually when God is always, always with us?
You have to give them.......everything. You have to make them strong enough to stand alone if necessary and stay true to themselves. You have to somehow try to teach them to trust themselves, because they are worthy. To love themselves. To take pride in who they are. They are everything up to this moment of NOW, which will only last a very little while. When they are two you wonder if you can stand it and when it will ever end. Then in a very short (too short) time you are wondering where the years went and if you should throw away old prom decorations which look like trash to you, but.......it might have meaning for her.
I wondered when my daughter will finally take her room apart, what she will keep and how carefully she will pack it. What do all these things mean to her? Does she even know yet? Has she ever taken the time to think about it or will that happen some day still in the future? Will I be there? I thought about writing down all that I know in case I'm not. She comes from a long line of strong, smart, headstrong women. This is her birthright and I have no doubt it will, in myriad ways, be her salvation.
Until then, this will all be here waiting for her, undisturbed:
So I closed the door to the recently abandoned room, I have now blogged the whole thing, and I try to assure Katie that it will be all right. She will survive birth, joy, rebellion and finally abandonment. Soon, too soon, she will be laying on Gracie's bed, crying over the shelf(ves) full of dolls and missing her baby who is now an independent woman walking around in the world with her own opinions, hopes and dreams. And a room full of stuff that needs to be sorted into piles to throw away or pack really well, to wait for a baby to be born to inherit them.
Because in the end, children leave.
Of course they do. It is then your job to just be there. Waiting. Until they come back.
And they do come back, bringing you grandchildren. New links, to be loved and held and told their own story, the story of them. Who knows how that story will end?
It never ends.
That's the beauty of it.
http://marriageconfessions.com/2011/02/16/bellycast-6/
This little girl has a beautiful room, freshly done and waiting for her, featuring one of the MOST gorgeous mobiles I have ever seen. It's made of butterflies.
I have followed this couple for a couple of years. They got me with the first baby, "Bean", but I stayed for her honesty. They are very brave, this couple, and very grounded. She is clearly big and pregnant in the video, worn out, tired of even talking, and he is steadfastly videoing little details that he knows she wants you to see. This is a good picture of them as a couple. She does most of the talking on the blog, he takes care of the details, steadfastly and faithfully. So sweet, and then, it happened.
She pointed to a shelf full of dolls in Gracie's nursery. My heart stopped and I got tears in my eyes. Her sweet young voice explained how these were dolls that had been hers growing up, and sat on a shelf in her room when she was a little girl. I was bawling out loud by then.
You see, I have a redheaded daughter. Having a red headed child gives you a bond with anyone who has ever had red hair in their family. It is always the first thing remarked upon. By the time my daughter was 3 she would lean away from hands raised to touch her hair because everyone always did, first thing. "Don't let them touch my hair", she would discreetly request as they headed toward us, hands already outstretched. Not only do I have a red headed daughter, but Grace is her middle name. Is the bawling starting to make sense? Well, in her room, since before she was born, there has been a shelf. My mother started buying dolls for my daughter when she was born. Only redheaded dolls. Not expensive ones, not collector's items, just redheaded dolls, many of which have been displayed since her birth on that same shelf, where they are still sitting in her now basically abandoned room.
More than one shelf. Note to Katie, bookshelves lining the top of her room are really handy.
I went to her room. The dolls sit silently collecting dust and perhaps dreaming of days past us all now, like me. Do they look forward to another little girl, like me?
I laid down on my daughter's bed, on top of the quilt my mother made, feeling my connection to the two women who are closest to me in this life. Who always will be closest to me, in life or beyond. Life flows through us, as women and all we are is the conduit, the vessel, the link between. At times I find this a relief, other times it feels like the weight of the world. Always, it is a fact. Known. Unquestioned.
I looked at the Sunflower Sue quilt made by my grandmother, lovingly and prominently displayed on the wall. My Nana, mother to 2 boys and expecting her third to be her girl, made this quilt for what turned out to be my Uncle Melvin, who would be a big brother to her baby, my father. Four boys. So she threw the quilt up in the closet and drug it out when she really needed it, bound it in some blue she found lying around, and when I graduated from high school, I got the quilt. (Score!!) She laughed so hard telling me the story of her hopes for a daughter and the last-minute blue binding that she almost peed her pants. This quilt is one my most precious possessions. She had to wait for granddaughters, but she didn't mind.
I thought of Katie, at one end of a tunnel, expecting to meet her daughter any day, dreaming of what it will be like to have a daughter. I thought of me, at the other end of that same tunnel, reflecting on the reality of all those dreams I had harbored also, before I knew who my daughter really was, when she was just an idea in my head. A hardly dared, hoped-for wish that I made every day, never out loud.
I thought of what it means to be a link in the chain. The only thing that connects all that you are with all that you will be. You are no more important than any other link, yet at times you are the most important because you alone carry the knowledge of who you are, where you came from, and how you got here today. You have to be sure to make every effort to never leave your children alone spiritually. You may not be able to keep them from being alone physically but who among us is ever really alone spiritually when God is always, always with us?
You have to give them.......everything. You have to make them strong enough to stand alone if necessary and stay true to themselves. You have to somehow try to teach them to trust themselves, because they are worthy. To love themselves. To take pride in who they are. They are everything up to this moment of NOW, which will only last a very little while. When they are two you wonder if you can stand it and when it will ever end. Then in a very short (too short) time you are wondering where the years went and if you should throw away old prom decorations which look like trash to you, but.......it might have meaning for her.
I wondered when my daughter will finally take her room apart, what she will keep and how carefully she will pack it. What do all these things mean to her? Does she even know yet? Has she ever taken the time to think about it or will that happen some day still in the future? Will I be there? I thought about writing down all that I know in case I'm not. She comes from a long line of strong, smart, headstrong women. This is her birthright and I have no doubt it will, in myriad ways, be her salvation.
Until then, this will all be here waiting for her, undisturbed:
So I closed the door to the recently abandoned room, I have now blogged the whole thing, and I try to assure Katie that it will be all right. She will survive birth, joy, rebellion and finally abandonment. Soon, too soon, she will be laying on Gracie's bed, crying over the shelf(ves) full of dolls and missing her baby who is now an independent woman walking around in the world with her own opinions, hopes and dreams. And a room full of stuff that needs to be sorted into piles to throw away or pack really well, to wait for a baby to be born to inherit them.
Because in the end, children leave.
Of course they do. It is then your job to just be there. Waiting. Until they come back.
And they do come back, bringing you grandchildren. New links, to be loved and held and told their own story, the story of them. Who knows how that story will end?
It never ends.
That's the beauty of it.
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