Category Archives: inspiring

I cry a thousand tears

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cry

~~

A thousand tears have fallen

and saturated my face.

Keeping alive the memories

that time will never erase.

Salient thoughts burden my brain,

each with a life of their own,

keeping me close to my ardent emotion,

my sadness never far from home.

A rushing wave of sorrow,

an eclipse of what was good,

 trying to find the buoy of happiness,

in the sea of misunderstood.

Embracing loss, moving on,

clinging to what I hold dear.

Knowing that the emotion I feel,

others keep just as near.

I cry a thousand tears,

knowing I am not alone,

 and I hold tight to those who cry with me,

 feeling that they are my home.

(image credit)

Rather, the light saw me

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I have started this new year feeling better about myself than I have in a very long time, maybe ever.   The scale still hovers around the same number, the grey hairs seem to multiply exponentially while I sleep and the lines around my eyes seem to be getting deeper.  But those lines around my eyes are being etched further into my skin because my smile seems to be a permanent fixture on my face.

I will be the first to admit that I have never spent much time volunteering for anything.  Sure, I jumped on the “pay it forward” bandwagon and I have even blogged about that very phenomenon.  But there is something much more rewarding about really putting in the time to help someone rather than just buying a coffee for the person in line behind you.

What began as helping a friend, who is currently tackling an undiagnosed medical issue, spiraled into a concept that is slowly growing into something I am becoming very passionate about.  It combines two of the things that I hold near to my heart – cooking and being able to help people.

Some of my blogs over the last few weeks have alluded to the Sundays we have spent cooking in the kitchen of the family resort where I am employed.  We have successfully sent almost twenty freezer slow-cooker meals to a young family who lost their home in a fire just after delivering twins, and we are gearing up to do it again this Sunday to add ten more meals to their freezer.  In a few short hours in the span of three Sundays, we have provided a month’s worth of dinners, giving them more time to devote to their children and their next step rather than having to think of what to cook each night.

I also had the pleasure of delivering the first of those meals to my very dear friend on Friday, the friend who inspired this journey.  Just knowing that I can alleviate the tiniest bit of his stress pays me in ways that I never thought possible.  It is a very emotional feeling and, even as I write this, it brings tears to my eyes.

light in your eye

I have watched them before.  I have seen volunteers many times and noticed the light in their eyes but, until now, I had never really understood the source of that light.  I get it now….and it is a light that I would like to have continue shining in my eyes for a very long time.

(image credit)

 

 

 

Beyond the open door

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IMG_2609

On Friday night, I stared at this painting for a long time.  It hangs in a conspicuous spot in a familiar room but I had never seen it before.  Perhaps it was the shaded lighting of the late evening that made me study every detail in those brush strokes or, quite possibly, it was the collection of components in the painting that intrigued me, but every single item on that canvas made me linger and give it thought.

From the cracked tiled floor to the chance assortment of belongings, each item was distinct and gave me the feeling that any one of those things could feasibly represent a chapter in my life story.  That thought made me stare even more as I tried to piece together the narrative that the artist was trying to communicate.

I got a strong sense of the feeling of wanting to stay connected.  There is great comfort in keeping familiar things close.  But there is also the fascination of what may exist beyond our comfort zone.

That open door is the focal point that grabbed and held my attention.  In a room full of things seemingly collected on purpose, this door opened my curiosity.  What magic or what memory lay beyond that partially opened portal?  What is there to be found if we are brave enough to push it open all the way and take a chance on what is on the other side?

Sometimes being complacent with the things we have become accustomed to blinds us to what may lie just beyond the threshold of our comfort zone.  Maybe the memorabilia in the foreground is meant to alleviate any pain while it draws us towards the next step.

There is a warmth in just having things fit into the right place and having that place feel like home. But maybe the real feeling of home is just a few steps away and we just have to walk through that door to discover the hidden treasures that await us if we are brave enough to explore the possibilities.

 

All of the things I did

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toes in the water

I am not here to just put my toes in the water.

I am here to cannonball off a spring-board,

fully plunging into the deep end.

I am not here to simply smell the flowers.

I am here to roll through the meadow,

to give in to careless abandon,

and to saturate myself in their fragrance.

I am not here to be a guest in my own life.

I am here to live purposely,

to breathe deeply the essence of this life,

because I know, all too well, that life is short.

And at the end of my journey through this lifetime,

all of the things I did,

and all of the life I inhaled,

will hopefully served to remind me,

that I lived a deliberate life and that I made a difference.

(image credit)

fiction249

Making the right things different

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“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love.  It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love the changed person.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I love stories of couples who have been together for decades, who celebrate year after year together and still maintain that bond of love and friendship.  My grandparents had it, my parents had it and my brother has it.  I have not been able to weather that change with as much success as they have but that truth does not make me sad.

The most basic definition of change is to make something different.  That is how the dictionary categorizes change and I have been through many circumstances in my life that have caused me to become different.  Sadly, or perhaps not, I was unable to continue relationships with certain loves because I became a changed person.  I had grown from experience, I had aged from knowledge and I had matured from the lessons of my reality.

I am, decidedly, not the same person this year as last.  There is an underlying intensity to me that I had never previously possessed.  There is a confidence, a slow-burning belief in myself, that is gradually being fueled by the understanding of my recently discovered strengths.  And that person did not exist while I was in those past relationships.  That person slowly transformed from chrysalis to butterfly, evolved from the person I used to be, and changed into the person I am now.

Butterfly Emerging

Certainly it would be a happy coincidence if we are fortunate enough to mature together and to be able to love that changed person in our lives and grow in the same direction.  But it would no fault of either person if that change took different trajectories.

People change.  Ideals change.  Love changes.  Our job is to decide whether we, being the person we are now, are still able to love that changed person or whether we need to make a change for ourselves.

(image credit)

2 Kisses I shall give you

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sunrise-18a

In the wee hours of the morning,

her visits often happen then,

the charge in the air is palpable

and sleep is still in my head.

Her message hangs heavily in the air,

the words are always the same.

“Two kisses I will give you,

to help get you through your day.

 One kiss is to give you courage,

to help you save the world.

The other kiss is to help protect you

from the curve balls that life will hurl”.

Her words soothe me and give me peace

in the last moments of my sleep.

And on my cheeks, as I face the world,

two kisses I shall keep.

(image credit: santabanta)

~~

This was originally posted in 2014, but I swear I could feel them on my cheeks this morning.

A Sunday well spent

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“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

 freezer meals

For those who have read my recent posts about my passion for cooking and my desire to give back to people in need, this post should come as no shock to you.

I recently stumbled on the genius trend of freezer crockpot meals.  These meals are all prepared ahead, placed uncooked in ziplock bags, laid flat and frozen.  When thawed the night before, they can be dumped into a crockpot the next morning and 6 to 8 hours later, a family has a hot meal waiting for them.

I had one specific friend in mind when I decided to do this but as I told people what I was doing, the list of recipients grew a little longer.  I spent a Sunday afternoon, without watching football, and chopped, poured and bagged until I had completed 16 meals.  At the end of the process, it had taken slightly more than three hours from start to finish – a very encouraging pace.

This Sunday, and most likely the following Sunday, I am going to gather with a group of women to do it all over again, with one major difference.  Although many of the women will take some meals home for their families, we will be donating at least one meal per person to a young couple who lost their home and all of their belongings in a fire.  And though the fire is tragic enough in itself, they were at the hospital giving birth to their first children, twins, as their home was slowly destroyed.

It breaks my heart to think of this couple, worried enough about being parents for the first time, now starting their life as a family with absolutely nothing.  It overwhelms me with emotion to think of all the joy they had setting up the nursery, all of the meals prepared by family waiting in a freezer to ease their first days parenting – all of it, gone.

It is through tears I write this last paragraph.  Currently there are about 16 women wanting to help this family by packing freezer meals for them, as well as some dear friends who have donated cash to the grocery bills.  We shall divide and conquer.  We shall chop, bag and provide, not only food but, our support and concern for a family who could really use a helping hand.

Table for one?

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This time of year my office is a much quieter place than it is in the summer and the first thing on my mind when I get home is to change into some comfortable track pants and relax with a glass of wine.  Curling into a corner of my couch should be enough to soothe the winter blahs I feel at the end of a long day, but it isn’t.

What relaxes me most, what softens the reality of a dark winter day, is cooking.  And although I typically cook only for myself, I enjoy creating a food experience rather than just making something to eat.  I like to think of food as an encounter more than just a necessity.  Food should nourish but food should be enticing.  I don’t just put my dinner on a plate.  I want my meal to have an attraction beyond taste and, even if I am only cooking for one, I will put that effort into the presentation of my meals.

chicken

There is something truly invigorating about inhaling a combination of smells that you know blend into an amazing taste medley.  And the effort of cooking these meals for one is not as taxing as people would think.  A simple preparation of “real” food takes a few more minutes than opening a package of processed food and putting it in the oven, but the benefit far outweighs the effort.

Perhaps the artsy side of me weighs heavily on my plating but, regardless of the reason, I continue to put a concerted effort into each dinner I create.  I take great pride in knowing that I nourished, not only my body but, my eyes and my mind.  Food feeds the soul as much as it feeds the engine and as I dig into my meal I always feel happy knowing I didn’t reach for that can of Alphaghetti!