Category Archives: emotion

The writing on the wall

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robert frost

Life is full of itself,

simply and purely.

It doesn’t grant extra time for our worries

and it doesn’t allow further moments to dry our tears.

It evolves,

it moves forward,

never forgetting the past,

embracing all of its successes

and hopefully learning from its mistakes.

Although happiness sometimes turns to regret,

and smiles turn into frowns,

life does goes on.

And somewhere,

beyond confusion and pain,

in each life lies a new road,

paved with promises,

traveled by souls who have understood

the sign on the shoulder that reads

“it goes on”.

~~

(image credit)

 

I’ll bet you think this blog is about you, don’t you?

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She’s so vain.  I didn’t think it was possible but my dog has begun to show narcissistic tendencies.  She is absolutely one of the sweetest dogs I have ever known and I never thought I would be writing these words about her.

Our routines have changed since she had her second seizure a few weeks ago.  She came through it just fine but I wanted to keep as close an eye on her as I could, so her outdoor adventures became shadowed by my presence and an extendable leash so I could monitor her well-being.

Three or four times a day, we walk to the end of our road and back and she thrills in discovering new smells each time we travel along the same stretch of pavement.  She has been trained to sit down at the side of the road every time a car passes so they are not concerned about getting too close.  But lately after each car has passed, her smile widens and she leaps from her seated position to follow the occupants of the vehicle that she has convinced herself are on the road only to see her.  I am loath to admit that my dog has become a Kardashian.

Tail wagging, she veers into the middle of the road to catch a whiff of the humans in the metal can on wheels.  If the car is going in the opposite direction, I suddenly find myself the one being walked down the road.  And, much to my dismay, several cars stop to chat only reinforcing her belief that they have stopped just for her.  After her faithful subjects have curtsied and paid their respects, her head swells slightly, I feel moderately deprived of oxygen and we continue our walk until we are securely tucked back into our humble abode (which I’m sure she now feels is beneath her).

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(image: Callaway as a puppy)

As I’m sure it happens in Hollywood, Callaway’s fame happened overnight.  Three or four times a day, I apparently walk a movie star.  I missed the memo explaining my new role in this relationship but as long as I still have that smiling face in my life, I’m okay with it!

Are there therapy groups for an addiction to Pinterest?

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I thought I was over it.  It had been months since I had really even thought about it.  But like a recurring rash, my obsession with Pinterest flared up again with no warning, not even the smallest hint, that it was coming back.  It’s like taking a bite of a deliciously crisp pickle.  Once the salty goodness of that fermented cucumber awakens your taste buds, you can’t just put it down.

So I found myself, eyes glazed, clicking incessantly through the plethora of recipes and pictures of food porn.  I love to cook.  I’m pretty sure I have already established that on this blog but I have just begun a weight loss challenge with some friends and I was looking for new ideas that may be slightly more appealing than salad-in-a-jar.  And then I saw it….and the angels sang…..and a rainbow appeared over my computer.  Okay, those last two things didn’t happen, but the feeling I had would have mirrored the same happiness had those things actually occurred.

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A grain bowl – the newest rage on Pinterest.  This was my lunch yesterday, and most likely will be my lunch today.  It is a Mediterranean grain bowl with quinoa, cucumber, avocado, black olives, feta and a roasted red pepper sauce.  And as pleasing as it was to the eye, it was more pleasing to the palate.  It was absolutely delicious….and filling.

Looking at it from another perspective, perhaps my Pinterest addiction has benefits that far outweigh the burdens of my slight obsession.  At least, that is my story and I’m sticking to it!

 

Physics: The Laws of Motion, Part B, Subsection 2C

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I vaguely remember my high school Physics classes.  I’m sure I was busy writing a poem on the back of my binder or doodling my latest crush’s last name following my first name to see how they looked together.  I do recall a brief outline of Sir Isaac Newton’s law of motion saying something about an object at rest tended to remain at rest but the continuation of that class lecture began to sound more like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons and I lost the ability to follow along.

peanuts

(image credit)

There must have been a day in class that my head was so high in the clouds that I missed the fine print of Newton’s law that said: an object at rest for longer than six months will undergo much trauma and discomfort when it finally gets off its ass.

I’ll admit, apart from walking my dog a couple of times a day, for the past six months I have been quite sedentary.  This became glaringly obvious over this past weekend as I  crawled out of my cushy office life and breached the inner sanctum of our dining room and kitchen.  I don’t mind serving tables.  It gives me the wonderful opportunity to engage with our guests far beyond just checking them into their rooms.  My body, however, disagrees entirely with that philosophy.

I came home from work tonight with a sore back and aching feet, begrudgingly walked my dog and finally hobbled over to my couch.  My body turned, my back aimed towards the couch and I lowered myself to a more agreeable angle.  Similar to how my grandfather used to look getting into our Lazy boy recliner, I simply let gravity take over and allowed myself to fall the rest of the way on to the couch.  It wasn’t pretty but it got the job done.  Thankfully my arms and fingers did not take the brunt of my weekend activities or I would have been typing this post with a pencil in my mouth and banging the tiny eraser onto the letters of my keyboard.

Once I become acclimated to being an object in motion I will be fine.  Either that or I will be starting a Go-Fund-Me account to be able to afford an Indego Exoskeleton to keep me upright.  Either way, I have an afternoon off today and I will enjoying being an object at rest for a few extra hours.

 

A Simple Reminder

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All friendships have an energy, a momentum that carries with it an implied understanding.  The bonds of those friendships can be stretched taut like an elastic band but, when the tension is finally released, that friendship continues to maintain its original integrity and strength.

I am fortunate that I have several of those friendships in my life.  As circumstances have occasionally dictated, some of the parameters of those friendships have been forced to change but the feelings contained within that framework have always remained the same.

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(image credit)

When you find a pearl in a sea of oysters, you grab it and you never let it go. I don’t need to have a lot of friends in my life but I do need to have real friends, friends who know that my silence speaks louder than my voice, friends who laugh with me because they share my humor and friends who know that they will never have to search for my heart because they will always find it on my sleeve.

Friendships don’t happen by accident.  We are drawn to people who are meant to be in our lives because they teach us things about ourselves. I will never underestimate the power of a true friendship.  And, though I try to tell my friends as often as possible that I love them, a simple reminder never hurts.

Dirty little secrets

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Muted secrets,

poignantly apparent,

bereft of understanding.

Walls painted in silence,

ceiling fans churning the absence of dialogue.

Silence is not always golden.

The reticence can stain.

Neglect is a dirty color.

But silence breaks,

and whispers become a symphony of sound.

microstories263

Yes, I can see it. No, I’m not neurotic.

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I’m a cloud watcher.  I can only sunbathe for so long before I feel like I will spontaneously combust (thank you blood pressure medication) so I move my overheated body under the canopy of my deck umbrella and watch the clouds go by.  They never cease to amaze me.  Whether it is the pattern in their wisps or the shapes I see in their billowy contours, I can cloud gaze for hours.

I have not been able to watch the clouds lately,  however, because the sky has been a solid, monochromatic grey.  Perhaps because I am so accustomed to looking beyond what I really see, recently I have been seeing faces in the strangest locations.

This morning I rolled over, still shaking off the remnants of my slumber, and faced my closet.  A shirt that was at the top of the laundry basket was piled in such a way that the aged face of a man stared back at me from the shirt’s folded elbow.  For some reason, I couldn’t avert his keen focus on me and I stared back with the same intensity.

He seemed familiar to me.  And this is not the first time I have discovered a genial visage in a random place.  It happens more frequently than I should probably admit.

I have since discovered that this phenomenon has a name – Pareidolia.  There are many people, like me, who have the ability to see faces or animals in a benign object.  An extreme example is the woman who sold a 10-year old grilled cheese on eBay for $28,000.00 because it supposedly had the image of the Virgin Mary on it.  Some people see a cinnamon bun below, others see Mother Teresa.

mother-teresa

(image credit)

Whatever the reasoning behind this strangely named anomaly, the writer in me enjoys the visits from these odd characters.  I’m sure one day they will insert themselves into a story line somewhere along my writing journey and I will be grateful for their intrusion into my reality.

Time for audience participation – cinnamon bun or Mother Teresa?

Never let me go

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otters

I held you in a dream.

You became a part of me,

as if my body never ended

and you were merely

an extension of me.

And though I felt like I was floating away,

you were there

to pull me back to you,

to hold me in my slumber,

to keep me in your embrace,

to never let me go.

(image credit)

**I saw a video of these otters slowly drifting apart and coming back together.  They inspired this poem.

Cut and dry

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Perhaps I spent too much time worrying.  After all, it wasn’t my problem but I couldn’t seem to stop ministering to his lack of self-control.  I care more than he ever did and in the end I divorced the bottle, not him.

microstories262

We’re both shaken up

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“Happiness is a warm puppy.” ~ Charles M Schulz

~~

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I have had the pleasure of sharing my life with this beautiful creature for the past 8 1/2 years.  She has been my companion and my confidant without question.  Last night she had her second seizure in exactly six months to the day.  I must admit I handled this one much better than the first but it is still a very traumatic event.

It is a horrible sensation to feel helpless, unable to control what is happening to the one living thing that has given me unconditional love since we first laid eyes on each other.  The only thing I could offer her in the moment of her worst distress was the return of my unconditional love.

I remembered to remain calm.  I kept her out of harms way as her body remained rigid under the gentle touch of my hand.  Once the sound of my voice could be heard again, she began to relax.

You don’t have to have a child to feel like a mother.  I lay in bed after she finally went to sleep, hyper-vigilant to the point that I remained awake for hours after the event.  I listened for any odd sound in her breathing and for any strange noise similar to the commotion that originally alerted me to the seizure at the beginning.  Once I did drift into slumber, any unfamiliar discord woke me with a slight panic but the puppy continued to snore softly in her bed.

This morning, she is the same puppy in a dog’s body.  She is full of energy, eager for her walk and her treats and acting happily like nothing ever happened.

We see the vet in a few days and fingers crossed we get a relatively clean bill of health.  I’m not ready to imagine my life waking up and not seeing that face.