Live, Laugh, Love

There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. 
It is God's finger on man's shoulder 

- Charles Morgan -

Blue and Green

Softness, spring, hope.  Fresh starts, growth.  My mom's favorite colors became mine, too.  Renewing.  Because I need over and over again, another day, another chance.  Failure, if  I am allowed to label it that, is a daily part of my life.  That is, planning things that don't happen the way I plan them, and sometimes not at all, reminds me of something like failure.  I'm great at giving myself plenty of chances, and making all kinds of excuses, so in that sense, failure doesn't really exist in my vocabulary, but it scratches at the door every once in a while, trying to get in.  Just doesn't stay long, because I am not comfortable with failure sticking around.

As soon as I make a goal, any sort of plan, the chances that it will get changed are very high.  The phone rings...whether it's business, one of the kids, one of my siblings, Mom, or a friend, it's one of the most important things to happen in my day, and I'll drop everything for however long it takes to solve problems of all sizes, how much a plumbing fitting costs, where the nutrition bars are, the answer to world peace, or what to have for supper.  It's a habit I've sort of unconsciously adopted.  Being a working mom seemed to require it.  The next crisis to be handled, the next tear to be wiped away, the next owwie kissed.  Mindy taught me a lesson early.  If I warned her not to do something, she would do it, anyway, and cry.  Do you comfort a child like that?  The first time it happened, I hesitated, then sighed and took her in my arms. You do, because you must. And say, "I did warn you, remember?"

New Year's resolutions?  I make them with the best of intentions and grand purpose, and long past New Year's, I'm still fondly clinging to my goals.  However, come May, they're more like hopeless causes.  My husband loves to hear my goals and see me making a plan; goals of my own, and preferably with him, no pressure, of course.  I think it's so he can change them.  Kidding.  He has this thing about wanting me to plan ahead.   He really hates learning at the last minute what I've been thinking about doing for a week and am ready to start.  Right now would be fine, or tomorrow at the latest.  I was just waiting to see if my plan was possible before I threw my curve ball.   Since he wasn't ready for any sort of ball, it just appears that, immediately, irrevocably, my plans become known just so they can be round-filed.  It may be Murphy's Law at it's worst, or best, or even my imagination.  Is it unconscious?  Perhaps Sigmund Freud has a fancy label for it.  I call it marriage.

I have a quizzical  look I reserve for special occasions such as this.  Did that really just happen?  Amazing! Then I figure if I'm going to change my plans for everyone else, I suppose it's only fair that the LOML (love of my life) gets the same treatment.  It's a head-scratch-er, kind of like, like...computers; the things they can do, if you talk to them just right, and what happens if you talk too fast.  They don't hear what you said, so they just keep looking, blindly, in cupboard after cupboard, opening doors, and shutting them again, over and over.  They might even become over-heated and give you the silent treatment; freeze up, so you have to reboot.  They are saying, "Sorry, I didn't understand the command."  Planning ahead is the secret.  If he knows about it a month, two months, six months in advance, we're good to go, although not without complaining about it when the time comes.  If  I didn't plan ahead, forget it.  No surprises, thank you.  

Some days I feel like I'm the station master at Grand Central Station.  Everything runs like clockwork, at least to my thinking, and I can smoothly handle one transition after another.  On other days, its more like  "First train to Nowhere and second rocket to Outer Space.  Everything, on those days, is an emerging challenge, or a flat out emergency.  Panic reigns.  The simplest of problems, like missing your first credit card payment, is given the highest priority. 

 Even Cell-phones require recharging.  They do what they can for as long as they can, and then that's it. Sometimes things just don't work when you need them to.  Adjustments have to be made.  We are people, not machines, and sometimes less dependable.  Feelings get hurt, tears happen.  We need serotonin building time.  We need moments, or hours of recharging. Sometimes happiness is one hour at the gym and a juicy, red, grapefruit waiting on the counter.  That's a good day.  Other days, it's a pile of books, a magazine and a fragrant cup of tea  next to a sheepskin rug, my planner and a music CD.  Complicated little nest, happy me.  Other days, it's every man for himself and me for the chocolate-covered strawberries, on the floor, with a box of Kleenexes, behind the couch.  Those are the not so good days, except who can have a bad day if it includes chocolate covered strawberries?

The important thing is to know how we rejuvenate ourselves.  My husband loves to sit down in the orange director's chair next to my desk, prop his crossed feet on the desk top, and talk about money, or alternatively, have me watch him work. A yellow legal pad on his lap, a pen in hand and firing questions at me.  Just call me Encyclopedia Brit-onika, Memory in Chief (not)  He likes me to talk to him, plan, brainstorm.   Then he can point out the disadvantages of everything I've said, and go with his plan, of which I must freely give the final approval, of course, to show that everyone's happy. All he requires is that I hold the light, build the fire, be present. And not argue, as that's just confusing.  Tilting my head in wonder at this process, I marvel at life's wonderful and complex paradoxes.  

If a messy pile of paperwork builds up on the orange chair, it's just that I needed a little more space.  Having decided to use the massage table as his fourth messy surface, I don't feel remotely guilty.  Then, the first time he looks at the chair and decides to stand, I giggle, feeling slightly ridiculous after all.  I move the paperwork and make myself a cup of tea.  Being childish isn't good problem solving.

One, maybe two, of the kids needs a lot of socializing.  Another needs solitude to recharge, preferably with exercise. Give them those things, plus healthy meals and adequate sleep, and they're the energizer bunnies.  Being a mom is so much about cheering them on.  Since doing mom stuff makes me happy, and being available is important to me, I'm in it for the long haul, to listen, and perhaps offer some hopeful but partly uninformed, largely inadequate, suggestions.  They seem to be learning to only call Mom in an emergency.  Or maybe they're just getting more able to figure things out on their own since explaining everything is complicated.  In a way, the need for a flexible schedule increased when they left home, since I never know when a call for help might come.  Once a mom, always a mom, so I will offer advice as seems necessary, most importantly remembering the admonition of Hippocrates: first do no harm.  

 I have a complex relationship with schedules.  I need them, want them, make them, but freedom to change my mind on the spot is not an option. Like toddler Mindy, the ominous consequence to changing the plan might as well be a direct challenge, even if I made my own schedule.  In a moment of positive energy  I'll say yes to the most unreasonable requests, and with all good intentions, think I can do anything.  I see people wrapped up in a work schedule that's completely unreasonable, situations that  take away their time and rest, and give them nothing to show for it but dark circles under their  eyes and an ache in their heart.  Then I realize that I'm also in some vast empty  place when it comes to directing my life, a void where chaos often reigns.  Some people would call it being a doormat.  I say, try living without one.

Being sensitive to the needs of others means I've been known to jump on a boxcar to nowhere with someone who has life less together than I do.  Trying to mend shattered hearts isn't for the faint of heart.  I think of poor old Humpty Dumpty.  I've figured out how to jump back off, safely, most of the time, but when I see this happening to my kids, it's a wake-up call.  It's been said, "you can't fix stupid,"  yet some of us are stupid enough to try.  I'm not exactly hard-hearted.   Those boundaries I was talking about?  While I'm at it, it needs to be an Iron Curtain, with a barrier of rolled barbed wire on the top, and stony faced armed guards pacing between towers.  No means no, you can't get to the moon from here.  There are limits and even cell phones have them.   People will invade space that doesn't belong to them with needs so great that no one person, not even a whole army, will ever be able to meet those needs.  Some people are stupid, and other people are just selfish and inconsiderate.  We have to be able to create space around ourselves, space that is off limits. I need to work on this.

DEAD TREE

Psychiatry is the art of teaching people how to stand on their own feet while reclining on couches. 

Sigmund Freud

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them. 

Joseph Addison

The foolish think that nothing is well done, except that which they do themselves. 

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. 

 A.A. Milne

When someone abuses me I can defend myself, but against praise I am defenseless. 

Sigmund Freud 

Bleeding Heart

Wild Plum Blossoms

One Way to Raise Cash

A Lebanese Arab emigrated to America sixty years ago and accumulated great wealth. Upon his death the rich man's will stipulated that his hundred million dollar bequest was to be divided equally among his three closest friends: a Catholic, a Protestant and a Jew. There was only one small provision: each of the heirs was required to deposit one hundred thousand dollars in the coffin before it was lowered into the ground. This act, according to the deceased's statement, was to prove their good faith while the will was in probate.

As the coffin was about to be closed for the last time, the Catholic quickly deposited his hundred thousand dollars into the casket. The Protestant followed suit and placed his hundred thousand dollars besides the Catholic's money. Then the Jew reached into the coffin, withdrew the two hundred thousand dollars in cash and replaced it with a check for three hundred thousand dollars.

Heart Mountain Sunset

http://www.jewishpath.org/rs2page1.html