When I find a meme that so eloquently sums up what it would take me three hundred words to articulate, I post it.
Category Archives: spiritual
One thousand and ninety six days
4 CommentsThree years ago today, March 7th, was the worst day of my life. I woke up to my cell phone ringing at 7:00 am and the voice on the other end of the phone told me my mother had passed away in her sleep. We knew she had been ill, but she had been having a great week during the week leading up to her passing so her death came as a shock.
There are still days I get excited to tell her about something that happened and mindlessly reach for the phone to call her. I’m sure that will never change. Below is the poem I wrote and read at her celebration of life. I miss you mom.
You left us in the early hours,
so peacefully your spirit would roam.
Through a gentle wind and the rising sun,
the angels called you home.
A ladder was built for your journey to light,
each rung meant to make you content.
While bathed in the glowing light of rebirth,
you gracefully began your ascent.
Loving arms awaited you there,
curling you into their embrace.
Heaven welcomed an angel back home,
rejoicing her love and her grace.
You leave behind your spirit and joy,
in those who loved you each day.
While our days will be saddened by the emptiness we feel,
we know we will see you someday.
~
Jane Eleanore Nairn – May 21, 1940 – March 7, 2014
Do the thing that makes you happy
4 CommentsWe were busy chopping vegetables and chatting as women do while we prepared more freezer crockpot meals for our local food bank. The conversation hovered over several topics, after peeling and cutting carrots there were some offside comments made about tiny orange hands and the laughter was abundant.
And then a comment was made that we all talked about but I thought about more and more on my drive home. When she was younger, the daughter of one of the women had asked her dad, “If you died tomorrow, would there be something you regretted not doing.” That really stuck with me.
I have been pondering my past and my present and was extremely contented to feel that, if I died tomorrow, I would be extremely happy knowing that I have lived a good life. I have made mistakes and learned from them. I married for the wrong reason and got divorced for the right one. I have always given 110% to everything I do and I have come to understand that doing things for others is the thing that makes me truly happy. That should have come as no surprise to me since my career in Hospitality has been about taking care of other people.
Some people spend most of their lives searching for happiness but that euphoric feeling is not as elusive as some believe it to be. Do the thing that makes you happy. If you love to read, read. If you love to play golf, play golf. If you love to do macrame, do macrame! By doing the thing that makes you happy, you have a much better chance of being happy. Sure, life likes to throw in a curve ball every now and then to keep us on our toes but life doesn’t run us, we run our lives.
I am who I am and I where I am because I chose to do the things that makes me happy. And if I cross over and am asked if I lived a good life, I will smile proudly and say “absolutely”.
A Change Is Gonna Come
5 Comments
I have learned not to use the phrase “things happen for a reason”. It can be a truly offensive statement to those who are struggling to find that reason for their situation, especially in cases of terminal illness.
However, I am a firm believer that people are brought into your life for a reason. I have blogged before about my marriage and subsequent divorce and how much I learned about myself and my strength throughout that process. Had my ex-husband not come into my life and had I not said yes to the proposal, my life would be very different today. I would still be clinging to the notion that it was my purpose in life to “fix” people who I knew were broken. My courage to walk away from that marriage was the beginning of my evolution.
Perhaps my believing in reincarnation allows me to be so sure that souls connect and somehow find each other in each lifetime. I have argued this point before when trying to explain the feeling of Deja Vu when you meet a stranger. It is certainly not a scientifically proven fact but it warms my heart to think that people gravitate towards the souls with whom they are meant to be connected.
I have very strong bonds with certain people in my life. I know they have changed my life just by their very presence and, in some ways, I know I have changed their lives with my presence. That connection draws us and keeps us together. And it is that connection that makes me confident that we were meant to find each other again and prove that change is not always a frightening thing.
Always
Leave a comment“Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion” ~ Arthur Koestler
His face was etched in my dream,
and it seemed like he waited for me.
Every night as I drifted into sleep,
he was there, eager for me to be in his realm.
His hand would reach for mine
and we would lose ourselves in a world
where time stood still,
where anything was possible,
where we could be together.
He was my forever.
But my forever changed,
minutes shifted,
seconds were altered,
and what once seemed like reality
slowly devolved into fantasy once again.
Where once he was my future,
he quickly became my past.
And in my last dream,
there was no hand to hold my hand.
His smile no longer reflected mine,
and my illusion of always
changed.
It’s just my allergies….
2 CommentsI have suffered with allergies since I was a child. My sensitivities are mostly environmental so they are certainly manageable. As a child I used to break out in hives when I ate strawberries but, I was as stubborn then as I am now so, I ate them anyway and eventually outgrew my reaction.
As I have matured into the person I am today, I am finding an increase in my hypersensitivity to certain things. The environmental allergies still plague me year-round but I have discovered lately that a broad spectrum of human emotion, compassion and empathy is having a strange effect on my eyes.
When I hear stories that touch my heart, the redness in my eyes is immediately evident. There is a small bit of swelling in the upper and lower eyelids and I am guessing my body creates tears to cleanse my eyes of the allergens. This “allergy” is becoming more and more prevalent. What was once just a susceptibility to dust, mold, grass and trees now encompasses impassioned stories, movies, television shows and even commercials. Seeing another human being cry is definitely the biggest trigger for this new onslaught of “allergic reactions” and once the tears are formed the next symptom of these “allergies” is a stuffed up nose.
I have battled allergies for years and these are the only ones I can say I actually don’t mind having. I have given up wishing I could control these allergic reactions in public. I’m sure seeing a few tears is easier for others to witness rather than a contorted face that looks uncomfortable and painful.
So, if you see me and it looks like I’ve been crying…..it’s just my allergies.
I usually hate it when he’s right, but not this time
8 CommentsI have a great friend who is sometimes is too smart for his own good. But his advice is sage, his common sense is welcomed and his support is evident. The combination of those things has recently led me to draft a couple of letters to companies that have been manufacturing the products I have been using for the venture I began for our local Food Bank.
I penned a few well-constructed emails today to let the companies know how integral their products have been to the success of our Freezer Crockpot meals. In a world so full of negativity, it’s nice to be able to spread a modicum of happiness. In those letters I did nothing more than tell the truth about how much of a difference this project has made to our small community and how much their product has helped with that success.
In a few short hours, I had my first email response. Nowhere in my email did I ask for anything but, after being so impressed with the project and inspired by our story, this company immediately offered to send us some complimentary products to “help continue our excellent work”.
For those of you who know me, or follow my blog on a regular basis, you will know that some tears were shed after I read that email. And I’m not completely sure if the tears were of pure joy because this company didn’t hesitate to help or because my friend was right….again. Regardless of their cause, my cheeks welcomed the emotion.
This Food Bank project has been a labor of love since the beginning and the more time I spend organizing, shopping and setting up the volunteers, the more I know this is not just a one-shot deal. This enterprise has become a part of my life, and one I hope to continue for a long time. And now that I know even more support is out there, more home-cooked meals will make it into deserving homes during their tough times.
The road already travelled
2 Comments“Time moves in one direction, memory in another.” ~ William Gibson
Nostalgia is a funny thing. When you least expect it, what began as a glimpse into your subconscious suddenly floods your senses and overwhelms you with thoughts of the past. It could be a song lyric, a smell or an old picture that triggers the trip down memory lane but, regardless of how the journey begins, the open road to your past looms behind and begs for you to follow it.
On occasion that journey can feel like you have stepped through a portal into the time-space continuum and have completely ensconced yourself in that moment so many years ago. You can visualize the wallpaper on the walls that no longer exist in reality but feel like they are an arm’s length away if you reached out to touch them. You can inhale fragrant scents and feel the presence of the person who used to wear that particular perfume or cologne. That one song can play and transport you back to the time and place you have associated so strongly with those lyrics.
That road that stretches behind us still waits for us whenever we feel the beckoning pull of sentimentality. Venturing down that protected surface serves to remind us where we’ve been but will always afford us the opportunity to turn around and forge ahead into the future.
Understanding and embracing those things from our past can only motivate us to continue. We carve the paths of our progressive journey knowing that the moments that have shaped us will always be there to remind us of where we have been and where we have since chosen to go.
It`s one day after the 12th
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I have never been a superstitious person. I’m not afraid to have a black cat cross paths with me. I do use caution around ladders but that is more of a safety issue rather than a superstition. And I certainly don’t believe that I will have 7 years of bad luck if I have the misfortune of breaking a mirror into tiny shards of reflective glass. I will, however, have 7+ horrible minutes of clean up!!
Bad luck seems to be brought on by bad attitudes. If I had woken up this morning in a state of panic because of the calendar date, I’m sure some incident would have befallen me and I would undoubtedly have had people tell me it is a result of the dreaded Friday the 13th. I arose this morning as I always do. I put on my jeans the same one leg at a time. There were no black crows eyeballing me from the top branch of their perch, screeching raptor-like obscenities and warning me to stay indoors.
Did you know that historically there have been fewer car accidents on this day because people exercise so much more caution or don’t drive at all? The irrational fear that this day imposes is an interesting phenomenon. People have such an overwhelming fear of the 13th day of the month falling on a Friday but never really take the time to ask themselves why they have this fear. If you reflect on your childhood, somewhere along your journey, the superstition was unwittingly passed on to you. The moment that seed was planted, it matured into an irrational fear and has embedded its roots into your psyche. I’m a firm believer that we make our own luck. If you think bad things will happen on Friday the 13th then they probably will.
Friday the 13th has never imposed any ugliness on me but I also impress nothing put positive thoughts on it. It is just another day. If Friday the 13th is your ‘monster in the closet’ – lock that closet door and throw away the key. It holds no more power than what you allow it to have.
Are you superstitious or was today just another day…
I don’t have a thing to wear…
8 CommentsI am going to be on television. It will be a fleeting interview about a subject I feel very passionate about but I am now starting to sweat the small details. Can I remember not to curse? Will the 10 lbs the camera adds make me look like a beached whale? And what the hell do I have in my closet that will help me not look like a road beacon or a clown?
I am that much of a self-professed nerd that I actually Googled what to wear on a TV interview. It was actually quite helpful so I’m glad for my nerd-ish tendencies. The cursing is another subject, all things considered, but I’m certain I can hold it together.
One of our local news stations is coming up to Muskoka to do a brief segment about the Crockpot Freezer Meals I have been organizing for our local food bank. The news personality coming to do the interview actually did a four-day challenge to eat only the food provided by her local food bank and her struggles were palpable, to say the least. She photographed her meals along the way and the results were far from appetizing. There is only so much you can do with processed, no-name pasta, canned sauce, tuna and canned fruit.
I have always loved cooking. Perhaps I have taken for granted my access to fresh meat and vegetables, but this project has made me truly value my good fortune and my goal is to help create some of the same good fortune for those who struggle through the winter months.
Our town is very seasonal with respect to many things and jobs are at the forefront of the shortages. And some families who may find success in the booming summer months are left to visit the local food banks in the winter months to help supplement their supply of necessary items to make it through the tough times. That, to me, seems egregiously unfair and the reason I began http://www.gofundme.com/dollarsfordinners
So, regardless of whether I look like a street clown or Shamu on a good day, I will face those TV cameras. I will tell my story of Crockpot Freezer meals in hopes that other communities may recognize the possibility of doing the same thing in their small towns.
It takes a village, not only to raise a child but, to empower a community so we can all say we were an active part of making it a success.
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