Them that can – don’t and them that shouldn’t – do.

Them that can – don’t and them that shouldn’t – do.

     I know my English in the line above is poor. But it is the thought that kept running through my head as I hung up some laundry to dry. I’ve been sidetracked lately. Sidetracked with some things thrust upon me and some chosen.
     Without going into the boring medical issues I have been facing, I found out I have a torn rotator cuff (two places) requiring surgery but the MRI showed that the arthritis in the shoulder was far worse than the doctor thought so surgery really will not fix the problem. It would take a whole new shoulder replacement. NOT! I am opting for pain management and physical therapy. Enough on that subject.
      The other sidetrack from writing my blog more faithfully, is my new art class. I’ve been drawing. For years I have loved crafts and at one time I had so many things going that nothing ever got completed. That is when I had to decide what the one real love of my life was and without a moment’s hesitation I knew – writing.
     But occasionally I get the ‘crafty’ bug. I also realized with the affected arm that there are some things I can no longer do. So if I want to get that #1 best seller novel written, I better get on with it and save the arm and hand for the writing.
     Another sidetrack today was a movie. AT LAST ONE I CAN RECOMMEND! Hallelujah!  The Way, with Martin Sheen. I have a habit of taking notes when I watch a movie especially when one starts tugging at my heart strings; which this one did. So here are some feelings that this movie triggered.
     First, a short commercial. I bought myself something this week. I ordered myself a new coffee mug with the two new sayings that made me happy this past month. On one side, Please do not annoy the writer. She may put you in a book and kill you. And on the other side, Stop thinking so much and just get on with it. Absolutely what I need to see every day first thing in the morning. If I spent as much time DOING what I spend time THINKING about doing, I'd accomplish so much more.
     So this movie followed suite of where my thoughts have been lately.

Sometimes the people we meet help us do things we would not do otherwise.

Even if we could create our own perfect world, it would still have flaws.

When does life ever give some of us a pass to finally eat what makes us happy. There is a lot of happy eating in this movie.

    
     You’d think after 63 years of being hungry for the things I shouldn’t be eating, it would be wonderful to just eat anything that made me happy. That is what the title addresses. I wonder if the people in this would who restrict themselves the foods that they could eat without any guilt will one day open a menu and it will hit them – “I could have eaten anything I wanted and didn’t!” It would be nice to think someone out there might realize their good fortune and have a slice of pie for me.
     Back to the movie. Martin Sheen is the father of a son who knew he wanted to live life his way. And of course it cut across everything his father wanted him to do with his life. He chooses his own road and he takes off to walk a pilgrimage trail and ends up dying. This sends one of the biggest sidetracks life can hand us into his father’s life and the story grabs hold of you and doesn’t let you go. There are four main characters who are all oddly complicated, (smile) and yet compliment each other perfectly. My hat off to the author of this story. I love it when unusual characters are created and yet they are so strange they soon become strangely familiar.
      I try to see myself in the ones I would otherwise - write off. No pun intended. But what I love the most is they don’t stay strange or annoying. And that is what I think life could teach us most. Sometime it takes time with people to realize that you really do like them. And, then sometimes time just confirms what we thought in the beginning, we still don’t care for them.
     I am in the middle of writing two books. After ditching Not enough Nuts and Raisins, I am writing a child’s book incorporating my favorite gift, my tea pot with ‘feets’.  And another book that has come out of a longing to make that world where everything in it would have the things I love and the people I would love to have in my life. Howbeit perfect, it will have its turns and twists.  
     As I said once before, that is one of the marvelous things I love about writing. I can be, do, have, and go anywhere I want when I write. Fiction is the most wonderful place in the world to visit. In fact, I am going to go get something to drink and watch the movie, The Way, again. I don’t think I squeezed all the emotional nourishment I need right now out of it the first time. I highly recommend that you watch this movie.

How topics of our conversations change as we grow older

How topics of our conversations change as we grow older

I have been slipping on my blog writing. For the few faithful I do humbly apologize. But I have not had much to write about that did not include pain, pills, tests, Dr. appointments, Bengay and hot showers. All of which I am not going to elaborate upon.

But all that did get me thinking. I gave myself a good laugh the other day while walking down to get my mail. I wondered what some of the oldies I passed in the hall would think if my conversation included something other than the above mentioned. For instant, “Hey, do you want to Jitterbug to the mailboxes with me?” or “How about a game of marbles after lunch?” (They probable would think I’d lost my marbles.) Or maybe, “Been doing any good fishing lately?” “Let’s play hide and seek, NOT IT!"

Yeah, I know, I am pushing the boundaries of sanity here. But I think we need to listen to what we talk about as life changes. We go from kid games, to dates with boys/girls, hair dos and don’t, car models and movie themes, job résumés and job titles, babies and bills, vacations and  pictures of our kids and grandkids. Then something happens around the time a lady’s hair turns ‘blue’ and men become stooped over, pale and bald and we all do the waddle-walk like our mothers.

Luckily, or not, I did not pass anyone in the hallway to try out my conversations on. I doubt they would have thought it was as amusing as I did.

But on the flip side of my brain, I am taking a second session of the memoir writing class and right after it, there is a Painting and More class for seniors. When I woke up yesterday, all the above ailments almost won out on the vote to not go to these classes. Once the old bones got up and moving and a pain pill kicked in Arthur, Ben and I went anyway.

And I am so glad that I did! I am going to enjoy the art class even more than the writing class I think, or at least equally as much. I am going to tackle my fear of watercolors. All I might end up with is a rather large brownish watery mark in the middle of my paper, but I’ll call it, ‘The Puddle’, or Le`de plumea` de Compost pile.’ That way all the flowers you would have seen, you'll be able to imagine are composting on the paper.

Other people make watercolors look so easy. We will see. Hopefully I’ll be posting all my creations for your ‘looking pleasure’. After all it has to be better than listening to all the twinges and pains of growing older.

There is a God… ask me how I personally know.

There is a God… ask me how I personally know.

When we approach the issue of God or someone starts throwing about religious vocabulary filled with what appears to be trite verbiage to the listener, critics of all kinds show up. And when Satan or the Devil is involved in the mix, it really brings out all the late night comedians.

The main question always posed early on is, “How do you know God even exists? Have you seen Him?” To which I would very quickly answer. “No.” So when asked the follow-up question always on the heels of the first question, “Then how can you say you know He exists? Maybe it is just a deep psychological need all of us have to create this Super Being always standing in the background ready to take on responsibility for all the unspoken or misunderstood questions of ‘why this or why that’ that all we humans have.

Questions that have been being asked for thousands of years. If you have any knowledge of the Bible and its references to peoples’ experiences of dealing with, if there is a God, the one I go to instantly is the story of the young man who was found in the temple by Jesus who had been blind from birth. Jesus heals his blindness on a day he least expected it and my, my, what a commotion it caused. I love how the rendition goes. Once the onlookers become aware of what just happened, the authorities, the current day religious leaders and even his parents are all called upon to get in on the discussion, his parents finally duh, they ask him. Every time I read this I still am amazed that it took so long for everyone involved to finally get smart enough to ask the right question to the right person.

This is where how I am feeling today bears witness to my blog sharing. I can see all eyes coming to rest on this young man. Who, probably while everyone was discussing and even arguing over who of them was right or wrong about who Jesus was or wasn’t or what did or did not happen, is simply ecstatic with his new sight. He then gives the absolute best and oh so completely appropriate answer. I love how he begins, “I have no idea who Jesus it. I don’t know how this happened or why it happened to me today, but the thing that I do know is this, I was blind and now I see!” I am sure everyone was waiting for some BIG mind-boggling oration riddled with impossible to understand technical jargon.

Oh, how I understand! I know my ‘blindness’. I know myself. No one knows me better than I do; no one but God. I know the dark places I have gone to. I know when I walked out of  those dark pace as if someone hit the pause button in my life and I walked a safe distance from whatever was happening in my life and the pause button was again pushed and everything continued on but without it effecting me. If you have further read the Bible, you know there were times Jesus was about to be in the midst of a stoning. Have you ever wondered how he just walked off? The stoners were ready; the crowd had not disbursed, nor the atmosphere of the moment disrupted by an ancient police squad with teargas. No, the pause button that was in effect for Jesus back then still is in effect today.

Again, I cannot reiterate enough that I know me. I know exactly what I can and cannot take. I know my emotional and physical threshold and yesterday it was once again tested. I had to go have an MRI of my right shoulder done. Not ever having been on the receiving end of this procedure I did have enough wits about me to request what they call an “open” MRI. Excuse me while I roll with laughter for a minute. OPEN???? What part of having a huge round padded (still laughing) disk slid within 4 inches of your face with only a very limited view of maybe six inches to the right or left of you would you consider open????

The minute this machine was moving toward my face cutting off the only movement of cool air in the room coming from the central air-conditioning, I knew what being buried alive must feel like. As my heart rate begin to instantly spike and my mind turned on me that had been my ally all morning telling me I could do this, I suddenly found myself alone on a cold metal table about to suffocate and finally succumb to the reality that I was about to cross my threshold of sanity.

As my left hand began to raise up off the table to begin scratching madly at the air and this disk that had so quickly covered me from the top of head to about my waist, and knowing what fear taste like, something happened.

This God that I have lived with for 40 years once again hit the pause button for me. Did the machine stop? No. Did the sound liken to someone beating a drum like dripping water in the middle of my head that was accompanying this live burial stop? No. Did the technician all of a sudden do or say something that came to my aid?  No. God factored Himself into my circumstances in the form of a Bible story I have read over and over. I saw this young man step out of a long ago era, peer into the small space between me and life, as I know it, about to leave me and said, “I understand.”

All of a sudden I found myself experiencing that liberating pause button that only God can press. I closed my eyes, my breathing instantly relaxed, my hand went back down to my side, and a cool stream of air miraculously found me in that cramped space.

Forty minutes later after intermitting 6, 7, or 8 minutes in length of drum beating sounds, that hovering padded disk firmly overhead, unable to move any of the body parts that I am used to readjusting due to pain or stiffness throughout my day at my discretion I emerged like an observer of my own life.

So, I’ve been asking myself since yesterday, what again would I say to anyone who asked me, “Yeah, but how do you really know that God exists?” I have yet another ‘blind’ understanding. I did not just summon up some inner strength or mind over matter or positive thinking strategy. If that is the case then I have a latent duel personality just waiting for the bus to the funny farm.

And that is what I think it comes down to for all of us. It doesn’t matter what theology says, what the day’s authorities think they know, what religious tradition or teachings claim or don’t claim, or even what you put off believing in your own heart about who God is because believing in Him might change you forever . . . it’s the things that you know, that you know, that you know, that you don’t know how you know them or why they happen or didn’t happen, they just did in that personally experienced ‘pause’ of your life.

So, even when I find myself in those personal moments when I am my own accuser of why I believe what I believe, I know me. And no one, not even myself on those questionable days life brings to all of us can I help but say, “All I know is, once I was blind, or in this case about to go crazy and make a total fool of myself, and here I am.” Restored once again and in as right a mind as possible for me. You’ll have to excuse me as I must pause right here to give thanks to the God that I know exists.

Today life is just a bowl of Potpourri…

Today life is just a bowl of Potpourri…

Several things are going on in my world right now, some good, some not so good. One thing I have learned is that whatever it is, somehow it all works together for my good. .

Potpourri fragrance of the day # 1

The writing class ended yesterday and everyone was gracious in being sure to ask me if I was coming back, seeing that I was one of the ‘new kids’ on the block. But the best thing was being handed the finished product of the class. A soft cover book is constructed by compiling a contribution from each attendee.

It is our choice as to which of the prompts we submit. I could not help but use, Mom’s, Gone with the Wind. Opening this small collection of each individual’s personal memories and finding my tribute to Carol Follett October 25, 1923- July 29, 2003 seemed fitting to her life and times.

I can just hear her now, “Ooh, let me see. Let me see.” She would think she had just made the President’s Christmas card list. It gives me a satisfaction and joy that I cannot really express to know that she is being honored in the reading of a small, yet wonderful part of her life.

Potpourri fragrance of the day # 2

This past weekend was a hard one. Physically, my osteoarthritis afflicted left knee flared up and I guess in sympathy, my right shoulder joined in the campaign. It was like having a toothache simultaneously in both spots. A lot of rubbing, moaning, hot showers, pain pills and heating pad episodes. Luckily, Monday afforded me an already scheduled doctor appointment. Upon seeing the fix I was in, she sent me instantly to an Orthopedic doctor right down the road from her office. Four x-rays, an examination and two cortisone shots later I limped my way back to my chair, a cup of coffee and a deep-sleep napping session that lasted on and off all day. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Potpourri fragrance of the day # 3

The bird –yes, or should I say ‘a’ bird and me are going to come to blows if it doesn’t find a new tree to do its two-hour chirping session in each morning starting at 3 am. My physical condition is the only thing that has saved me from scaling the porch railing, climbing into the tree, finding, strangling and plucking every feather off its scrawny little bird body. Unbelievable as it seems to me, this same bird is back again this year. Like clock work at exactly 3:05 am it starts. Now mind you, it isn’t a sweet little ‘chirpy chirp’, it is a four part chir-ER-ER-ptt-ptt-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee thing that it does. Over and over and over and over and over and over and . . . . for two solid hours right out my bedroom window. Unbelievable! So, being creative, I bought an Owl. I now have an Owl statue glued and tied to my porch railing. I could hardly wait for 3:05 am to come the next morning. Sure enough, The bird makes its presence known and starts chirping. 1 chirp, 2 chirps, 3 chirps, 4 chirps, 5 chirps, . . .  257 plus chirps later, three curtain shaking rampages, four trips out on the porch, five taped Owl hoots played (yes I recorded an owl hoot) I finally came to this decision, there is at least one bird in Ohio who isn’t afraid of an owl and I now have that owl firmly glued to the rail on my porch which seems to be encouraging a nightly visit from its new best friend. All I can say is thank God the owl just sits there – quiet.

Potpourri fragrance of the day # 4

On the writing front, I am highly motivated now after taking my teapots to the writing class and receiving such overwhelming encouragement to start a story about them have started, Miss Dots and the Timely Teapots.  And as I mentioned in a recent post about doing something different from the same-ole-same-ole, I am going to set up a storyboard/outline to see where these whimsical characters are going to take me.

So all in all, my basket of potpourri today has a mixture that I think all of life needs –balance. Not to mention, coffee, toast with jam, the bird off doing whatever it is birds do, something creative to exercise my mind, and almost being pain free. Plus my new pet glued to the porch, I think I’ll call him –He who doesn’t give a Hoot.

       "You wanna be friends, little bird?"

Final writing class….

Final writing class….

 I am really going to hate to see this class end. I started it for one reason and I found so many other reasons to rejoin the Spring class. This final writing prompt was to describe ourselves without adding our name to the paper. They will we distributed and read by someone other than ourselves during the class and we have to see if we can identify who the person is. Of course as writing goes, everyone has there own style of writing and as one class member noted, she cannot keep a straight face so it is going to be hard for her to not give herself away.

This will be my final contribution to this class. I am seriously thinking about joining again.

Catch me if you can

    
They say you cannot go back, but in this case I am going back to the first day of this class. I decided to apply the cluster method to see if I could pinpoint some word, place, or action I had not mentioned.

 I thought about all the ways in which I’ve traveled. I’ve been in a baby buggy, on roller skates, and a bicycle. I ridden/driven a car, a truck, a motorcycle, an old time humped-backed black taxi, and driven a tractor and a four wheeler. I’ve been in a boat, both big and small. I flown in a plane both commercial and private, but never a rocket or a helicopter and hope I never do.

I began to think about all the places I had lived. Seven states in all and traveled to another country but never lived there. Then it hit me, my Alaska! Alaska had been my dream for years. I envisioned its rugged landscape enfolding around me and swallowing me up in its vastness. I’d become a speck on a speck there. I’d forge my world out of the woodlands and blend in with nature. I’d be clothed in the skins of the animals I’d hunt and feast off their roasted, baked or broiled flesh. I’d savor every bite of wild berries and relish in the long summer fruits . . . Whoa! Wait a minute! Hold on!

Yes, Alaska was and will always remain as one of those thoughts planted in the reserves of my mind and heart where it will remain untouched or tainted. But the reality is that after visiting and standing in Alaska’s breathtaking five dimensional wonderland, breathing the pristine crisp air and feeling dwarfed by its mass, I came home to either have to summon up the courage to throw all caution to the wind and move there without a foothold or even a place to start or forever let Alaska be that everlasting dream.

I learned over the years that courting dreams are like courting a mate. The list of desires or deal breakers varies from person to person and asking others for their input is a ridiculous thing to do. It muddies the waters of love and dreams get washed away in the landside of human differences.

But Alaska gave me something I did not expect. It gave me one of life’s impossible moments that come when you least expect them. As our plane was departing Alaska the pilot came on narrating one last time the highlights of Alaska’s rocky terrain. As the plane made its final bank to the left Mount McKinley in the Denali Valley appeared in plain sight out my side of the plane. I had two last exposures in the disposable 35 mm camera I had brought with me, so I lined the camera up at my left shoulder in the cramped space of my seat by the window and clicked it once, and then for the last time hoping for whatever I might capture of this majestic mountain as I left my dreamland. Thinking that what I’d probably end up with would be a glossy 3x5 snapshot of the plane’s left wing.

As one often does in life I settled back into my daily routines letting them override the excitement of my trip and the 35 mm camera lay undeveloped for weeks. When I finally had the pictures developed, I was once again transported back to Alaska and beyond.

The last two pictures not only caught my immediate attention, but the strings of my heart. I could not believe what my hastily taken unfocused picture-snapping-act had afforded me. I had been to the top of Mount McKinley! My eyes had seen its majestic peak! I joined the ranks of mountain climbers who have seen this very same spot. Me, a nobody in the climbing community, a couch-peach, captured not only in life but forever on film the top of a mountain that stands thousands of miles away, that never knew I was coming, that had been forged out of hundreds of thousands of years of wind and rain, sunshine and violent storms.

Every time I look at these pictures I am so amazed. In looking back if someone asked you, “what was the most amazing thing you ever ended up doing that you never dreamed you’d do?” What would it be? For me it was looking upon the top of a mountain that I did not have to exert one bit of strength in making the climb. And yet I too, have been to the top of the mountain; A mountain that is standing this very moment in time maybe being bathed by sunlight or enduring another harsh storm that is reshaping its massive formation. Perhaps even now someone is being rewarded by their physical endurance and has reached its peak and is rejoicing in the magnificent view.

The same view that you now hold in your hands and I saw with my very own eyes. Hopefully these pictures will teach us all the lesson hidden within them, you never know when something quite unexpected will happen and become a lasting memory.