Thinking Outside the YOU box

We all have perceptions of ourselves, qualities we think we possess and are a part of us that will never change. Perhaps we see ourselves as the nervous type, a couch potato, an athlete, an artist, a smoker. Whatever views you have of yourself help to pin you down, to keep you in one place, where personal growth would be impossible to achieve. We should "never say never" and not pigeon-hole ourselves into a corner. Think outside the "you" box. If you see yourself as a couch potato, you most likely, like me, would think that working out is something you would never want to participate in unless you were forced to. I tend to think I'd drop dead just putting on work out clothes! It's a view I have of myself, as that person who is just too busy reading to consider exercise. Maybe I should think outside the view of myself that I have created. I wonder if I could do it.

I once saw myself as a smoker, I thought of that little white stick as an extension of myself, that it would always be there. Well, it's just about 12 years now, and I haven't even wanted one, even on my worst days...so there goes that theory! Perhaps it can be the same with other things. Maybe I can change my own view of myself, thus allowing for personal growth.

Hmm.....now this is food for thought!

Change

Life surely rolls along, doesn't it? Ever changing, our surroundings and our very world alter everyday, yet we go along as if everything were the same as it were a year ago, 5 years ago...we walk around in denial for the most part. Even we are ever changing...growing and evolving, maturing (one would hope!) into the adult person we are at this very second and the person we will be tomorrow. Everything effects us. Everything changes us. Even the weather. Every little thing teaches us something, so that some deep down part of us learns something and becomes different because of it.

Our landscape changes...spring, summer, winter...but it always comes back again in a way, to those same seasons of life, which I believe is part of the reason we walk around believing that everything is inherently the same, but it is anything but. With every spring comes a new landscape. If we looked more closely, we would see that. Even the trees grow and change, get older. Land erodes, rocks shift, trees are planted and knocked down. Even those people who shared the spring with us the previous year have changed, or are gone from this world. Those people who are breathing air right now, right this second...well, not all of them will be here by the end of the day, or week, or year. Our personal landscape is always changing. Yet we profess to hate change. Well, at least I do. But, the truth of it is I live with change everyday, I am surrounded by it and smothered by it. I can't run from it. Why do we try? Sitting in the same cubicle day after day, drinking coffee at the same place everyday...that doesn't make things the same. It just gives the illusion of sameness, of safety and comfort. Do I think there is anything wrong with having a safe zone...well, not really, but I just got to thinking today that although I may need to feel safe....how safe am I?

A friend of mine passed away yesterday. Yes, he was 86 years old or so...yes, he surely lived a wonderful life full of love and happiness, sorrow and disappointments, much like all of us, but his passing got me thinking of the impermanence of things, as I know all passings do. You can't walk by a cemetery without thinking of your own mortality. If you can, then you just aren't looking.

I like to be aware of my life, my frailties, my mortality. I know I'll never have enough time to read every book I feel I need to read. I know that my friend probably wished he had more time with his family and his garden. But I know he's at peace now. That just has to be enough for those of us left behind.

The knowing and faith we have in what lies beyond is all we have. I don't mind clinging to it, even in the face of constant change. It's all we have, really.

Change is all around us, but so is hope, and beauty and light. I think we can acknowledge our own morality without losing sight of those things too.

Now, I'm off to feed my birds.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Today we had a two hour delay due to the snow that fell over the evening, so my daughter and I had some time to ourselves before we had to leave the house. It was nice, a slow paced morning. It was the kind of morning you wish you could have everyday, when there was no arguing, rushing and worrying. It was just a leisurely pace that suited both of us.

Well, we started to play a bit, just moping around, and we decided to play a unique version of "School." We use my feet as the students, and she is the teacher. One foot (the left) is well behaved, the other is a student who has no manners and is always getting into trouble. She loves this game and we rarely have time for it, so I agreed to it today.

As we were playing, the students had to do seat work and art class, and then lunch and then gym...and it was fun for her to switch roles and be the teacher, but something struck me about the interaction she was having with my feet..or should I say students? The right foot student handed in his paper and she looked at it, as if grading it, and told the right foot that he would get no credit for his paper because he did it in red marker. The right foot student said, but I like red, don't you like red? The teacher said that the work was to be done in pencil, not red marker, so he would get no credit. The foot argued that it was a form of self expression. My daughter the teacher didn't see any room for that sort of nonsense in her classroom! Well, it got me thinking. Since she was mimicking her own school experience, she must hear that in school. Only use a pencil, only use blue ink, only write on every other line...etc., etc. In our quest for order and discipline, have we lost our creativity? Are we squelching our children's imaginations by telling them to color within the lines? Have we crossed that line?

Well, given my nature, I'm certainly concerned about this and try my best to get my daughter to express her individuality as much as she can without breaking too many of those important rules she must live by. I realize there is need for order. I know that a school without discipline wouldn't be much of a school, but I don't see how NOT using a red marker for your homework, as long as your homework is neat...well...what does it matter what you use to write your homework down as long as it's done right? Are we doing these children a disservice? Should schools be teaching our children to be free thinkers instead of little lemmings who follow every direction given? Are we brainwashing our kids and making them less than they could be?

Very good questions. No answers here. As I said, I'm seeing the need for discipline. I've seen kids who have no respect for authority and where they end up in this world, but I'm just not sure that everyone using a number 2 pencil has anything at all to do with discipline and I fail to see how it helps my daughter spread her wings.

I suppose all I can do is be sure to allow her all the freedom of expression that she desires, within reason, and hope that all the rules and regs at school don't squelch her natural exuberance and enthusiasm for life. She's a unique child and is capable of great things and I want to do what I can to be sure she doesn't lose any of her creativity. She's amazing, and I want her to stay the awesome girl that she is, through her teens and beyond. There is no reason to lose that energy. We just do. Well, I will stand guard and hope she keeps that fire burning.

It's my job. That's just what I do.

No Reason

My very favorite sound of all time, other than the sound of my children's laughter, is the mournful sound of a train whistle in the distance.

This sound is especially mournful sounding during the autumn, when for some reason, it just sounds better. Maybe sound travels differently at that time of year, but the train whistle can sound so haunting as the leaves begin to fall off the trees and the mornings are brisk.

I sit here now, in the middle of January, on one of the colder mornings I've experienced and I strain to hear the train sound that seems to travel so well in the autumn. I can barely hear it. I know it's there, but I have to strain, and as I listen to it, it seems to lack that quality it carries with it during the fall. It doesn't seem to be crying...it doesn't seem to be mourning the end of the summer. It's just a whistle.

Maybe that's why it sounds so different during the fall...because it seems to be mourning something. The sound drags on forever then. Now it's just whistle blast and nothing more. I suppose a scientist might say it has something to do with the weather, or the snow muffles the sound, or my own senses are dulled by the long winter season, but I think the train whistle mourns the passing of summer and sends out her melancholy call for all to hear.

I'm a romantic. It's just who I am. I'm not about to try to change that now so I can become more practical minded. I wouldn't want to see the world that way, with logical, reasonable explanations for everything beautiful....everything miraculous. I like not having a reason for everything I see. It makes me feel closer to the divine.

So, is the sound of a train in the distance during the autumn something that can bring you closer to the divine? I think so. It stirs my soul to hear it, wakes up the divine within me, and brings me a little piece of eternity right here on earth.

No reason. Just beauty. Embrace it.

Snipet #21

As Mrs. Edna Putnam sliced leeks for her much sought after chicken soup, she thought about Evelyn and the wind. The wind had just started to pick up as she stood by her kitchen window slicing vegetables, and it was then that she recalled that it was Evelyn's birthday.

Thirteen years ago the storm that had raged through the town destroyed so many of her beloved plants and trees. She had painstakingly planted every tree and form of greenery on her property herself, and the loss would have been devastating to her, if it weren't for the arrival of Evelyn. She saw Evelyn's birth as an omen, and an omen as powerful as that was due a bit of a sacrifice. Mrs. Putnam loved life, all sorts of life, animals, plants and people. She was the town midwife for many years, taking over after her own mother had retired. She came from a long line of midwives, as far back as her great-great-great grandmother Chelsea Beadle.

These women had been well known in the art of female medicine, even before there was such a thing as female medicine. They knew secrets they never told anyone except their apprentice, and each had an apprentice, their daughter or niece, when the time came to pass the knowledge on to another. But Mrs. Edna Putnam was not blessed with a fruitful womb, and when her husband died unexpectedly when she was 32, she knew her fate was sealed. She had loved George Putnam from the first moment she laid eyes on him when she was 14 years old and he was 17. For her it was love at first sight, for George, as he would affectionately say, Edna told me I was in love with her, and who was I to say otherwise?

There would be no other loves for Edna Putnam, and that was that. Unfortunately, it left her with a bit of dilemma. She had no idea who to pass the knowledge on to. She felt strongly that she would find an apprentice someday, but it wasn't until the birth of Evelyn on that stormy night, that she believed in miracles.

So, as she chopped her vegetables for the chicken soup, she pondered what she would say to Sara Martin and how she would convince her to let Evelyn learn the secrets of Edna's ancestors. She thought Sara might balk at the idea, as it seemed to Mrs. Putnam that Sara had done her best all these years to appear just like everyone else in town, even though everyone in town knew that Sara and Evelyn were anything but.

She would have to approach this cautiously. She would have to choose her words carefully. She would need another miracle.

Carpe Diem

Today is a snow day....my favorite sort of day...when I get chance to spend time with my daughter, get caught up on chores around the house...it's just a super experience that makes working for a school district really worth it!

I got up and started my day as any other, thinking I had to be somewhere. Well, after a few alert calls from friends and the school my daughter attends, we found out we had no where to go today. It was an exciting morning! Mia was still sleeping, so I thought I would have a little time to see a grown up movie. I put on Dead Poets Society. It's one of my favorites and I was excited. Well, she woke up after the first 10 minutes and I left it on for a bit. When it came to the part when Robin Williams tells his students to Seize the Day...Carpe Diem...well...first off she was shocked I KNEW what it meant...and also she said something else that was interesting. I told her I had some vinyl appliques to hang in the house yet, and one of them was the phrase, Carpe Diem. I told her I couldn't find it, and that I hoped I would find it soon. She put her hand over my heart and told me to hold it there and then I wouldn't need to hang the words on the wall. Wow. That just about knocked me over. She's an intriguing child, to say the least! It's like...she's old or something! I have been blessed with a wise child.

Well, that whole conversation and the movie got me thinking. Am I doing enough to seize everyday? Do I Carpe Diem? Is there more I could do to make my life more fulfilling? Should I be seizing more? I like to think that as much as I'm able to, I take as much advantage of everyday as I can, but how can I be seizing anything from behind my desk in my miserable cubby? How can that be seen as fulfilling? How can I live up to my potential sitting there?

I have been at my job for 26 years, and out of those years I've spent a few chunks of time regretting my decision to stay there...wishing for more. Then, practically speaking, I think how could I have survived without the job? It kept food on the table...a roof over our heads...my son in private school. Where would we have been without it? If I had been frivolous about it, and abandoned a job that didn't fulfill me...my son would have been living out of a cardboard box! In that regard, I know I did what I had to do...but now...my situation has changed and I'm closer to retirement than I've ever been before...do I stick it out? Do I leave now and seize the moment and do something daring and impetuous? What is my destiny? Am I on the right path?

So many questions...even at my age, we have so many questions and doubts. Amazing. I know that I have obligations. We all have obligations and we must do what we have to to meet them, but where is the magic? Where does it go? Is is where my daughter said...in our hearts? Do we carry that passion for life in our hearts, and go about that everyday mundane routine, yet burn inside? I think that may be it. I think if we carry it with us, then it makes it easier to do those things we must do.

I know tomorrow morning I will get up and there won't be a snowday to keep me home. I will have to go to that cubby I despise and make the best of it. I know I must. But I can Carpe Diem all the same. I don't have to be living a glamorous life to seize every moment and live it the best I can. I can be calm and carry on. I can Carpe Diem, plan for my future and hope for the best.

What else can a girl do? So just do what I do...do what you must, yet carry that passion in your heart and don't let the fire go out. Maybe just wanting more, feeling the desire for more, will eventually bring more to you.

Carpe Diem, however or whenever you can!

Snipet #20

For Sara, it seemed as if Evelyn's thirteenth birthday came on as suddenly as an April shower. It was certainly not something she was ignorant of, yet somehow it shocked her, left her almost speechless in it's abrupt arrival. She was totally aware that Evelyn was growing up. She lived with the girl for thirteen years. It was hard not to notice those kind of changes, yet they seemed so unexpected at the same time.

As she gathered the ingredients for her traditional sponge cake, she let her mind wander off to the past. She didn't dwell on the fact that she was alone, she didn't allow herself to think of Evelyn's father very often, but it was inevitable on Evelyn's birthday that she would think of the man who was her lover. Sara had not heard from him, hadn't seen him since the night he left. She had considered trying to find him. She consulted with a private investigator, but the price was very high, both financially and emotionally. She decided to just carry on without him and if he returned, then she would deal with that, but he never did. It were really almost as if he hadn't existed, and if it weren't for the evidence of Evelyn, Sara would have thought she had dreamed him up of a summer evening.

Sara had to come to terms quickly with her situation. Her baby needed her and she hadn't hesitated. It was just her way, to give her all to whomever was right before her, needing her at any given moment. Evelyn needed her attention, completely and unconditionally, and that's just what Sara was prepared to give. She had immersed herself in motherhood and wore the role easily. She felt it was what she was born to do. After a while, in her mind, the absence of a man became less of a burden and more of a blessing. She enjoyed being Evelyn's whole world and not having to share the raising of this beautiful, precocious child with anyone else. The problem with Sara's single status was that it was more of a burden to Evelyn than to anyone else, yet Sara seemed unaware of how her daughter becoming her everything might be weighing the child down. She certainly was aware of how Evelyn's father's absence affected HER, yet didn't give much thought to how it might make Evelyn feel.

Sara was tired, which was to be expected. She was tired from mothering, she was tired from all the energy she put into forgetting, she was exhausted by trying to fit in. She was just tired. Not that she didn't love many aspects of her life, especially Evelyn, yet the effort of being Sara was at times difficult to bear. She spent many sleepless nights with her eyes closed, lying on her back in her bed, hoping to absorb the wisdom of her dearly departed female relatives. She believed if she lay still enough, if she concentrated enough, maybe she would learn some of the things they knew so well, the things she wasn't aware that she knew deep down inside her, but were long forgotten. She would wake up as ignorant of the wisdom of the ages as she was the night before, and feel like a failure. She thought she was just too distracted or unworthy to receive the gifts she felt were just beyond her grasp. She believed she could almost smell them, the clove, cinnamon and cardamom floating in the air just before her, dangling effortlessly just out of reach. These blessings were very real to Sara and had substance and scent and she longed for them with every ounce of her being.

What bothered Sara even more was that she was sure that Evelyn had received these gifts without any effort on her part at all. She was just born with them, just knowing without knowing how or why. Just knowing. She loved her daughter, but a small part of her was envious of how Evelyn embraced life, how she wasn't afraid to be who she was, how she didn't see the need to spend countless hours concentrating on forgetting and ignoring the world around her. Sara got to the point where she truly believed that during Evelyn's birth, the child had taken from Sara all of that which was magic and light and took it for herself. It hadn't dawned on her yet that she could learn a great deal from her daughter's fearlessness and love of life. Parents didn't learn from their children, or did they, she would wonder.

Sara had always admired Evelyn. From the day the child was born, she held her in very high regard. She believed that the wind had raged the night Evelyn was born for a reason. Evelyn was different, and that was good. Who wanted an unimaginative child who was like everyone else? Not Sara. Sara loved that the Wolf was in her daughter. She may have been envious, yet she was not jealous of her, and showered her daughter with all the love she could, everyday. She thought it wise to stay on the good side of such strong magic, and to be touched by it, even for a moment, was worth everything.

All the sacrifice, all the effort. Everything.

Froggie Feeding Days

At our house, there is always someone to be cared for. There are children, a husband, a dog, a bird, 4 snails and since Christmas, 2 little African frogs. Yes, I consented to share my living space with two inch long African frogs. How that happened I have yet to comprehend. One minute I was making a Christmas purchase at a toy store and the next minute I changed my mind and bought these two funny looking froggies...I'm still shocked at the swiftness with which it happened. Shocking, really.

This just proves that you can't go shopping the day before Christmas with your best friend who could talk you into ANYTHING at the drop of a hat! My mother used to say I'd lie and she'd swear to it...and she may be right...but I like to think that we have more scruples than that!

The first dilemma with these frogs is that I hate frogs. Well, I don't HATE them. I just don't LIKE them. They're icky. Icky AND cute...which is how they ingratiated themselves into my life in the first place. I swear if I am ever forced to TOUCH one of them, I'll have my whole body sprayed down with Lysol!

Then there is the feeding dilemma. They eat twice a week. Hmm....now how does one figure out WHICH two days to feed them? You certainly wouldn't feed them on a Tuesday and a Thursday because then they would have to wait four days to eat again, and they could starve to death! We considered other combinations of days...the debate went on for a day or two (all the while they patiently waited for the divine hand to bring them their pellets) until we finally decided on Monday and Thursday. So now, twice a week, our little froggies get fed 4 pellets on Monday and 4 pellets on Thursday. Dilemma #2 solved.

Dilemma #3...not so easy. Naming the little buggers. I thought maybe my daughter would want to name them after her favorite couple, Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but that's not what she wanted. Then I thought maybe something simple like Ike and Mike, after the two ducks my grandmother had many years ago. Very cute names, I thought. My daughter didn't agree. We ended up naming them Eragon and Arya, her two favorite characters from the Eragon movie. (She's a big dragon fan!) Anyhow...the frogs now have very fancy, fantasy names. Good for them.

Ok, I think I'm out of dilemmas. Not even sure why I felt it necessary to write about my frogs, except I'm distracted to DEATH here at work and I can't write my snipets because everyone's conversations are rolling around in my over addled brain and I can't come up with anything that makes any sense. Writing about the frogs seems to take care of two things...one, it gets this "whatever" that is pent up in me out, AND it may also cheer me, as writing always seems to do that.

This morning on Facebook I said that this was going to the the greatest Thursday of my life. Well, I can't say that it's lived up to that, but you know, the night is still young! You never know!

Snipet # 19

Later that night, after his mother had gone to bed, Percy took the box of unopened grape leaves out of the garbage and took them to the sun porch. He sat there in the dark, considering what they might taste like, should he be brave enough to eat one. He sat there with the box on his lap for a few minutes and just as he was going to put the box aside and go back to bed, he heard a noise. It was a quiet rumbling at first, then a growl, low and steady. It seemed to be coming from outside, yet it seemed to be emanating from within Percy himself. It was then that he recognized what were hunger pains, pure and simple, yet deep and heady. It was plain hunger for food, yet a longing for distant lands, for different sights and smells, for other ways of seeing those things his eyes rested upon everyday. He thought he would die if he didn't devour every last grape leaf in the box.

He tore the box open and picked one up. The oil dripped down his fingers and would eventually stain his favorite jeans, but he didn't care. He slipped it deftly into his mouth and savoured the taste of another world. His mother was wrong, he was sure of it. What could be so bad about trying new things, of thinking of other places? How could his mother ignore what went on around her? Percy was confused. Wasn't she ever young? Was she born into the world, full grown, as a matronly woman with a stained apron and pin curlers in her hair?

As Percy contemplated his mother's errors and flaws in judgement, his father cleared his throat from the sun porch doorway.

What ya got there son, he asked.

Grape leaves, Percy replied. Mom was throwing them out. I just wanted to taste them. She didn't think it was such a good idea.

Your mother is a simple woman, Percy. Don't be too hard on her, his father replied, as if he could read Percy's thoughts.

I just don't understand, Percy said as his father sat down beside him.

What's not to understand, he asked. She takes good care of us. She is a kind woman. She is comfortable with her life just the way it is. Anything different spooks her, that's all. She just worries about you Percy.

I'm not so sure about that, Dad. I mean, she seems so unhappy sometimes. Aren't we enough to make her happy?

She doesn't always know how to show it Percy, but if she didn't care, she would have gone ahead and let you eat that whole box of thingamabobs without even giving it a second thought. In her mind, she was saving you from something. That's not the action of woman who doesn't love her son. Judge not, lest ye be judged, his father said in his mock minister voice.

But she put them out for me to eat in the first place. Then she took them away because she thought they would hurt me. It doesn't make sense.

Just take the jam, Percy. Just take the jam.

Jam, Percy asked.

My mother was very much like your mother is. She rarely had time for play, or for children getting in the way. She cleaned her house, fed her family, took care of business quite well, actually. She used to make this jam, Percy. It could dissolve the finish off a wood floor just like acid It was that horrible. But she made this jam every year, and every year, even after I up and married your mother, she would send us a jar of that jam. Not so much as an I love you on a note. Just the jam. Your mother used to get so angry. She said she was angry for me, but I wasn't bothered by it in the least. It was your grandma's way of saying she loved me. It was all she had to give. That damn jam. Ya know, I used it to strip the paint off the walls in the bathroom some years back, he chuckled.

Very funny Dad, Percy laughed.

So, just take the jam, Percy. It's how she loves you and how she needs to love you. She don't know any other way. Just when you find you're feeling sorry for yourself, think of her, and how hard it is for her. Think about what may have made her that way.

The conversation that had transpired that night was the longest one Percy could recall having with his father in years. He decided not to question why it happened, he was just glad it did.

Are you hungry, Dad? Do you want one, Percy asked, reaching out to give his father one of the plump, stuffed leaves.

His father shrugged his shoulders. I'm just tired, Percy. Just tired, he said. Then he got up slowly as if he were pondering if he should go back into the house or go out the front door. With a soft sigh, he turned toward the living room and left Percy alone on the porch. That was the end of their father and son bonding moment. It was odd, but it was nice, and it was enough.

Percy thought of what his father had said long after the grape leaves were eaten and the box hidden in the dumpster behind the store. He might never understand his mother, and that would have to be fine. She may never understand him either, and she would have to find a way to deal with that herself.

Isn't that just the way of it, Percy thought to himself. We're all going around day by day, just coping, just trying to figure things out, trying to negotiate the many moods and ways of those around us. What is it we all truly desire but to be respected for who we are? If that is what we desire, then we can do no less than to offer that same courtesy to everyone around us.

Percy decided to take the jam, sprinkle some sugar on it, spread it on some fresh bread, and share it with Evelyn.

Snipet #18 *not sure in what order this will fit in*

Percy's mother was an odd woman, no one in town would deny that, not even Percy's mother. She would openly admit she never felt very maternal about her son, or her cat, or her husband. She cared for them, as she felt she must. She loved them, as she also felt was her duty, but she never felt that pull that other women seemed to experience. It seemed to her it would hurt to much and she would much rather not have to hurt at all, so she tended to live on the fringes of her own life, observing as an impartial viewer the comings and goings of her own family. It wasn't a happy existence, but she was content not to feel much of anything, which gave her the illusion of happiness. Smoke screens and light tricks were good enough for Irene Cooper. It never occurred to her that her son might question their lives, that he might hunger for something else.

One day while Percy was sitting in the kitchen doing his homework, his mother plopped down a bowl of odd looking food that looked rather like green cigars with oil all over them. They had an odd smell, but Percy was curious.

What's this, asked Percy.

A shipment of these things came in yesterday to the store by mistake. Your father tried to return them, but the company that he got them from insisted that he had asked for them. Can you imagine that? Your father ordering these little green bullet looking thingies? Really? He didn't even know what they were called until he spoke to that nasty foreigner on the phone yesterday, she replied.

Well, what are they, Percy asked, as he poked at them with a fork.

Grape leaves is what he called them. Said there is rice inside. You like rice, don't you, she asked.

I guess so. Did you try one, he inquired.

Me? Good Lord child, no. I wouldn't put one of those heathen made confections in my mouth. Can you imagine a place where such food were considered normal?

Yes, he replied. I can imagine. Actually, what is normal? Normal is anything that is familiar to a group of people. This is familiar to someone. So it's normal somewhere in the world, and we're considered odd to them.

His mother laughed in response to that, as if her little General Store and her cozy existence could seem anything but normal to anyone.

Percy began to lift one of the grape leaves to his mouth and his mother shuddered.

Give me that, she said. I've changed my mind. We'll just throw them out.

Why, Mom, he asked. I want to try them.

Don't be silly Percy.

But I'm hungry, Mom. Aren't you hungry?

I don't know Percy. I just don't know.