“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.- ” Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 GRATITUDE

I’ve just started a decades old project at the suggestion of my daughter.  Scrapbooking my pictures of my magical two months in Italy and France from TEN years ago.  That little Sneaky Pete daughter of mine I’m sure had an ulterior motive. Either: a) Just the practice of designing and laying out a page and doing something creative would show that elusive Muse I miss her and want her to come home. Or,  b) Help pass the time while I sort out how/if I want to continue with this forced retirement. Or, c) Remind me to focus on how immensely blessed my life has been and get cracking on living and breathing the kind of gratitude I had a decade ago.  

No matter the reason, I am now having a ball enjoying long walks down memory lane and feeling the

emotion that accompanied my trip of lifetime.  I can close my eyes and remember how awed I was to stand before Monet’s Water Lilies Collection and discover they weren’t 16x20 size like the knock-off I have at home, rather, massively long landscape canvases stretched across a pure white Museum wall.  I recall the exhilaration of parasailing in Nice, France and getting dunked into the French Rivera. And, standing in Cathedrals at the tombs of the great Masters of Religion, Architecture, Art, and Science sparking my imagination and offering up their stories. My most profound experience on the trip, was the memory of walking

around the tomb of St. Francis, my hand outstretched towards the circular  stone and iron monument.  As I moved around the tomb, I felt a mysterious vibration and goose bumps popped up all over my body. I was stunned into silent reverence and left there imprinted and changed.    You can see his tomb here and read the story of his burial.

https://churchpop.com/2016/10/04/the-mystery-of-the-hidden-tomb-of-st-francis-of-assisi/.

Beginning the project of putting in order over 15,000 digital images and then remembering where I was; which cathedral, museum, or site has been a great adventure in itself.  It’s forced me to pore over my journal, souvenirs, and do internet searches on the history.  This has to be good for my much older brain!  

Mixed in with those trip photos are images of my grand-

daughters through the years; parties, day trips, much smaller vacations, and holidays.  How could I not smile and be reminded of my very blessed life?  I’ve spent far too much time over the last few years healing from too many surgeries, regretting being forced into retirement of sorts, and feeling sorry for myself.  It’s become apparent, especially this past year, the missing key that drove my delight in life and trust in God.  Gratitude.

Gratitude changes an attitude and allows us to see the sacred moments.  

I started to recall some of the most devastating events of my life, times when gratitude seemed impossible, but somehow, with God’s help, I eventually uncovered it.  When my mother died, far too young, I was intensely angry.  I loved her so much despite the fact her alcoholism resulted in a very chaotic, toxic childhood for my brother and I.  However, seven years before she died, she found recovery.  I discovered gratitude for being able to get to know a sober, bright, funny, caring,

and GRATEFUL mother.  She was a gem.  When my  39 year old husband died after an 18 month battle with cancer, for a time, all meaning in my life seemed destroyed.  Miraculously the end of that same year, my daughter and son-in-law announced they would be presenting me with my first grand-child.  The gratitude for that great blessing led me to see how lucky I was to have found the love of my life and enjoyed him for the ten years of our relationship. 

That time was magical, and I now recognize that we were given so much more in our limited number of years than most couples experience in the lifetime of their marriages. That gratitude heralded in two more lovely grandchildren.  Oprah Winfrey often says, “The more thankful I became, the more my bounty increased.  That’s because, for sure, what you focus on, expands.  When you focus on the goodness in life, you create more of it.” 

This scrapbooking project has become the watering can to grow my gratitude.  It was still there, just  hidden beneath the mud I’ve been wallowing in. It’s beginning to break

ground, and revealing signs of life.   I used to complain back in the day of long hours of working, sometimes two jobs, attending school full time, and keeping up a monster house on my own, I didn’t have enough time to do so many of things I had loved when I was a young mom - writing, sewing, cooking, crafting, reading, exercising, and yes, even scrapbooking.  I’m a sucker for photographs. 

I heard a voice reminding me of that and the whisper that followed, saying, “Good grief, lady. Watch what you pray for.

I have given you a great gift these past three years - TIME. And, the resources to take care of your needs.”  That’s another mystical gratitude story for another day.

I’m trying.  Somehow I sense gratitude’s even more important in these senior years, when the body, mind, and finances start diminishing.  However, I can be grateful for the surgeries to ease the pain, online games to keep my mind sharp, and the economy for greatly improving making jobs plentiful.  I only have to be retired if I want to be.  Most of all, I am grateful for the time which has allowed me to do so many of things I love.  And, for my deceased husband’s love in leading me to his Social Security until I do decide to retire, and apply for my own!  Who knew?

I’m also considering going blonde again.  Look at my smile in these photographs! I think it might be true.  Blondes do have more fun! 

Let gratitude be the pillow which you kneel to say your nightly prayer.  

Maya Angelou

Word (s) of the Year 2018 - Wabi-Sabi

Wabi-Simplicity

Sabi - The beauty of age and wear

I’ve been selecting a word of the year for the last seven years.  Most of my life I made  lofty New Year’s Resolutions which left me in a shroud of shame and feeling like a dead beat for the rest of each year.  Lose ten pounds turned into thinking about food all the time and gaining ten pounds.  Be kinder turned into being a doormat, and writing my memoir left me with such severe feelings of vulnerability and writers block  I could barely sign my own name on a greeting card.    As I grew older I recognized I was the one breaking my own heart and stopped resolving, after one final resolution.  I resolved to ban shame from my life. Whether it came in the form of other human beings that needed to use it as a tool to feel superior, or from some warped idea on my part that it could be a motivator.  

I read an article which suggested rather than making a resolution that was accomplishment based, identify how you wanted to FEEL in the upcoming year. For example,  instead of resolving to lose weight, identify why you want to lose weight.  What is the emotion at the bottom of that? Maybe it is to physically  feel better. Your word then instead might be Healthy or Alive.  Or, maybe buried below that desire to lose weight might really be to feel accepted or loved.  Identifying how you want to FEEL opens up a whole new pathway and focal point for your year, guiding you into subtle changes that promote healthy living.    If you don’t identify the FEELINGS beneath the resolve to lose weight, but you are really wanting to feel healthy, alive, accepted or loved, simply losing weight isn’t going to get your there.   However, if your Word of the Year is to feel Healthy, you might actually ask the question at the start of the day, “What can I do today to promote my good health?”  Or, “Will taking part in a yoga class with like-minded others, help me feel accepted.”  You see the difference? 

It does take some soul-searching, but I can tell you at the end of every year, my Word has changed me.  Some years more profoundly than others, but I like to think of my word as divinely inspired road signs on my quest to be the me God created. And, I’ve learned it's  an endless journey, in His time, not mine. 

It all began in  2011.  My word of the year was BLOSSOM. My first experience in the New Year of blossoming came a week in.  I contracted Shingles. On my face. Every morning, across the left side of my face, a new patch of crusty looking sores opened up like time lapse photography of a flower; from bud to bloom to black death.  Blossoming for sure, but not how I saw my word revealing itself.  Horrified and confined to the house out of fear of emotionally scarring anyone who laid eyes on me, I had plenty of time to reflect.  My word was working.  Stress was at an all time high, and taking care of myself was not even on the to-do list.  What did that say about my professions of really loving myself? What a phony! By the end of the year, I understood the meaning of loving myself.  We nurture the things we love and under that care, blossoming begins.  I also learned it was possible to bloom wherever I was planted.  That was up to me. 

The words continued through the years: 

Blossom, Freedom, Fearless, Create, Authentic, Transformation.  

Each year the word would arrive almost through a series of mystical, ah-ha moments, or in a few cases, a couple of spiritual bonks on the head. 

Wabi-Sabi - the first time I became aware of the word, it was printed on the front of a greeting card.  I liked the sound of it, although it reminded me of the word Wasabi, that hot green stuff served with sushi.  Maybe it meant “hot stuff” I thought.  But, then it appeared a few more times in the form of messages and the definition was made clear. A few words leapt off the pages, leaving the rest a blur.  FINDING BEAUTY and ACCEPTING PEACEFULLY.  It referenced a way of life that sounded not only appealing to me, but necessary.

How many times in the past few years with the immobility of surgeries, health issues, money issues, and too much time on what I saw as very empty hands,  had I felt defeated and depressed.  How much time was I wasting pining for how I envisioned my Golden Years.   Financial security, good health, a mate, or someone to share adventures and explore the things I didn’t have either the time or money because of work, obligation, and busyness in what I viewed as my productive years.  Golden Years my ass, which also seemed to be growing faster than I could kick it back into gear.  I felt invisible with a voice that frequently seemed to be muted by no one interested in hearing it.  I thought I could deal with a few of the imperfections resulting from aging - the grey hair that was creeping up the hairline by my ears, wrinkles carved into the sides of my mouth, an aching body, and even the skinny bank account.  But was I really?  I had worked hard, been on my own more of my life than with any real help, never abused the system, paid my own way. Then I stopped.  Life is rarely seen as fair, by anyone. Everyone has their own cross, grief, and despair.   The real sucker punch to my heart was the feeling of uselessness that accompanied a ghost like existence. 

There had to be a pathway to acceptance without giving up.  There was. Wabi-Sabi.  

I think my intention is already kicking in.  Yesterday as I sat across from a very special, older friend, who I always looked at as living those Golden Years I craved, I said, “You know, I’ve simmered down some lately, and am looking at this time on my hands as a gift from God.  When I was working so hard, striving and zoned in on accomplishment, I used to wish for time to pursue things I love; like being creative, taking care of my spiritual body, and enjoying the grand kids and family activities.”  I have that now, and I am focusing on being grateful for all of that.” My next thought was, where did that come from?  Yes, it’s begun.

I can’t wait to see if this year ends with a real Wabi-Sabi lifestyle.  If it doesn’t, I pray that I will at the very least, peacefully  accept the natural cycle of growth and decay. Here’s to 2018 “hot stuff”.