Category Archives: emotion

Don’t be offended, but I am not a fan of the Beetles

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In May of 2014, I bought a young Birch tree and planted it in my mom’s memory.  The tree is just outside of my living room window and, recently, my brother, sister-in-law and my nephews came over to place the river rocks around the tree that we collected at her celebration of life.  Each rock contains a word or two that was written by friends and family to share their memories of our mom.

I have been faithfully watering the tree each day and trying to make sure it thrives in its new home.  Last year I had noticed some of the leaves were beginning to yellow.  Upon closer examination, I also discovered the tree had become home to a bug that I have never seen before and this particular creature loves to devour the greenery and skeletonize the foliage.   Had these pests been named John, Paul, George or Ringo I may have been a little more forgiving, but these Japanese Beetles waged a war that I had sworn to win.

beetles

(image credit: walterspropertyservices.com)

 I diligently tended to my tree at least three times a day to pick these creatures off, one by one, to rid the poor tree of this unnecessary destruction.  Google and the garden center staff seemed to agree that this is the most effective way to eradicate these pesky bugs.  I only hoped that I could put an end to them before they put an end to my tree.

My tree blossomed beautifully again this spring but the creatures are back with a vengeance.  If anyone is going to Japan in the near future, save some room in your luggage.  I would love to send these iridescent insects packing!!

I followed the crumbs back home

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“A party without cake is just a meeting.” ~  Julia Child

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 I’m not sure how old I was or what passing birthday had just eclipsed my dream of being a child forever but I remember the birthday cake my mom had made.  It was a chocolate cake with homemade buttercream frosting and a bittersweet chocolate ganache.  It was decadent.  It was made with love.  And to a child still in single digits, it was crack cocaine.

Every special occasion I demanded politely requested that my mother painstakingly recreate that masterpiece.  Throughout my childhood, I never deviated from that cake.  It is one of the favorite memories I have of my mother.  I cannot recall whose smile was more prominent when the cake was delivered to the table, hers or mine, but I do know that cake was our moment to share.

Over the years, I lost track of the myriad number of times that cake graced our dining room table but I never lost my love of that cake.  I saw how much effort my mom put into that special treat and, perhaps through osmosis, I garnered the same conviction that cake made people happy.

After being absent for some time, due to unforeseen construction on the path of my life, I am back on the road that leads straight to my oven and my decorating tools.  I missed cakes.  I missed the escape from reality that decorating affords me and I missed the joy in people’s eyes when they had seen what I created for their special occasion.

The piping bags are ready, the cupboards are stocked and the fondant is ready to roll.   Let them eat cake!

I had come home

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coming home

There was no sweat on my palms,

merely a certainty I had never known.

There was no rapid heart beat,

only a calm, a sense of knowing

that when we met

we were meant to meet.

It was a feeling of being brought together

after a lifetime apart.

It was a sense that a long journey

had finally come to an end.

It was an understanding

of a soul knowing a soul,

and that our time to meet again had come.

 We had met before,

perhaps decades or a lifetime ago.

We had since locked our doors

and hidden inside,

but your eyes knew my eyes.

You had seen my heart before

and when we met again,

 I recognized you without hesitation

because so much about you was familiar.

I had come home

and you were there to welcome me.

Lighting the fire

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It stands alone.

Like our love, it was once filled with burning embers that cast a warm glow on our world.

But neglect is a powerful thing.

The embers fizzled out.

Charred pieces are all that remain and there is no more warmth.

The elements of life battered what was once beautiful.

The rusty shell stands alone, forgotten and empty.

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But a new fire burns within me.

Disappointment has been replaced with hope.

Happiness and passion fuel the flames in my mind.

No longer will my fire be contained.

It is free to burn at will.

And imagination and desire will be the oxygen for my fire.

My wrinkles are my map

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I don’t often stand and look in the mirror for great lengths of time.  Since I cut my hair short and I don’t wear much make-up there is really no need to linger at my reflection.  But this morning I did.  I made the usual faces one makes while looking at themselves and I really studied my face, each crease, each unique spot that has gradually appeared on my skin over the years.

I followed the lines of wrinkles starting to appear around my eyes and, although those fissures are permanent lines in what was once smooth skin, those lines created a map of places I had been in my life.  They are carved from life experiences that made me the person I am today.  Each of those lines tells a story and remembering some of those stories caused me to smile which only pronounced those lines even more.

Senior lady

I like to think I earned each and every one of those laugh lines because I took the time to truly enjoy the good moments I’ve had.   The small lines on my furrowed brow help remind me of the difficult and sad times, but times I undoubtedly learned a lesson or a coping skill.  Those wrinkles belong to me.  I choose to own them because I know the emotions they embody.  They are imprinted in my psyche as much as they are etched on my skin.

My wrinkles are my map.  They have led me from my past and, with the myriad of directions I may follow,  they will help guide me into my future.

An excellent “first date”

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I’ve watched them from birth to now.  I’ve seen them take a few of their halted first steps and utter the beginning of many words to come.  I did not birth them, but I love them just as much as if I had.

The time has gone by so quickly and my nephews are now 15 and 12.  They are unique characters and very different from each other which makes them all the more fascinating to a person who does not see them every day.  I get fragmented pieces of time to create memories and I have realized that time is quickly running out before they fly from their nest.

I had a date with my 12-year old nephew tonight.  It was more like an expeditious speed-date but it was an hour that I got to spend with just him.  We laughed, we talked in funny accents and we allowed ourselves the freedom to just be silly and enjoy each others company.  He and I are very similar creatures and it was nice for both of us to recognize that bond.  He reads as voraciously as I did as a child and shares my animosity towards running.

My 15-year old nephew is the opposite.  He most likely thinks he will burst into flames if he had to read a novel.  His hours of leisure, and work, are spent at a golf course.  He lives and breathes golf.  He has found his passion and it is something at which he excels.  He and I have yet to have our date but I will be asking him soon and I am  hoping to make these dates a recurring event before I blink and they are both in their twenties.

I want these moments.  I want to create this stronger bond before they have gone off to college and the miles are stretched between us.  I selfishly crave those snippets of time where I see signs of them becoming the men they will continue to be throughout their lives.  I want them to know how proud I am of the strengths they possess and encourage them to never let anyone try to change their ideals.

smallest things

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These dates may seem like small things to them but the memories we create will reside in my heart, and hopefully their hearts, for many years to come.

Finding the beauty in exhaustion

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I absolutely love what I do for a living but the long hours and the physical demands of the job can take a toll on the state of my well-being.  I have just organized and worked a wedding and dynamic conference back-to-back.  If you asked me to spell my name right now I would have difficulty providing that information with any sort of accuracy but the reward I have reaped far outweighs the strenuousness I have endured.

At the end of my arduous days, I feel content in the fact that I have given 110% to, not only give great service to each of these functions but, help create a memory for each of my guests.

Where I feel I should lose energy in the many hours I work, I gain strength from the energy of those around me.   This strength does not come from knowing what I am capable of.  This strength comes from my perseverance to give my best effort and make sure I represent all of myself and not just part of myself, not only in work but in every aspect of my life.

That is the beauty of my exhaustion.  I can sit back and relax knowing that I have given everything I have.  I can take solace in the fact that I do my job well.  And I can absolutely appreciate when I receive praise for my efforts because I truly feel like I have earned it.

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Although my weariness does come at a price, the satisfaction I get from knowing that my efforts positively affected so many others makes that extreme fatigue all that much more bearable and makes me want to do it all over again.

 

I’ll show you a full moon!

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Yesterday was an interesting day.  The energy in my work space was charged with an unknown element and the entire day felt like I was living in an alternate universe.  People were doing inane things, the simplest conversation turned into a painful thirty minute ordeal and the tension could have been cut by nothing less than a chainsaw.  My rhetorical question was to ask, “is it a full moon?” and the response was an embellished “yes”.

Although there is no direct correlation between the phases of the moon and human behavior, the full moon gives human beings a fantastic excuse for acting like idiots.  The blame is put solely on the celestial orb, taking the onus from the one acting completely out of character but, when the sky is dark, strange behavior is accepted as exactly that with no other plausible justification.

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Many of our references to luck, or the lack thereof, are written in the stars.  We wish on a falling star.  Our horoscopes are creatively tied to constellations in the sky.  And we blame a magical orb of light for any unfavorable happenings during the phase in which it finds its truest beauty.

On those days that society deems the moon to be the cause of all of its woes,  the child who still resides in my mind hopes that the fantasy man who inhabits that enchanting sphere is truly giving us the full moon.

And the Heavens opened when I realized it had pockets

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I have mentioned before that I am not the most delicate of females.  I have always been, and most likely always will be, a tomboy.  It is me in the truest form of myself and how I feel most comfortable.  I am capable of donning a dress and feeling pretty but yesterday upped that ante by about 90 percent.

I went dress shopping for the dress that I will wear to walk down the aisle as maid of honor for my best friends’ wedding in September.  I began to sweat as soon as I walked through the door of the shop.  For those of you who have not experienced a bridal shop, it is a sea of chiffon, satin and lace and had I not controlled my breathing to calm myself I may have broken out in hives.

It is a daunting task to find a place to begin, especially when my fashion sense is based on jeans, hoodies and a baseball cap.  The first dress I picked was lovely.  I locked myself in the change room and, as soon as I tried the dress on, the metamorphosis had begun.

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The dresses kept coming but I kept looking back at that first dress.  All the other dresses paled in comparison and made me more self-conscious about wearing a dress than I already was.  I put the first dress back on again and I thought, for perhaps the first time, this dress could reflect my true personality without the baseball cap, the jeans and the hoodie.  This dress brought out a part of me that I have ignored.  For the first time in a long time, looking in a mirror, I felt beautiful.

Maybe it took finding the right dress to recognize that long-lost piece of myself.  Perhaps this was the a-ha moment Oprah always talks about.  And just perhaps a certain friend of mine may have been right when he said, “just find a little black dress, put it on and get over it”.

It’s not black and it has pockets but, I get it now.  Maybe there is that one dress that can be the sum of all of  your parts while making you feel better than you thought possible.  I think I found mine today.