ODE TO 60 -- DEDICATED TO MY BROTHER WAYNE

The Lord doesn’t make mistakes. He created you in His own image.  He “created your spiritual DNA and already had your spiritual inheritance planned before he ever spoke, ‘Let there be light’.”  “This (life) is a journey of joy and peace and hope and strength and fulfillment, discovering the wonder of who you are – a unique spirit.”

When we have birthdays, whether they be at 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60, etc., we will often say, “Life begins at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 (or whatever).”  In reality, however, life begins at the time of conception.  Reality also dictates that every day is a birthday.  In between those 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s (or whatever), we are allowed to rebirth ourselves into a brand new day in celebration of a new beginning that will, most certainly, bring new surprises, new challenges, new journeys, new meanings and renewed wholeness.

It is that once a year, though, that we are celebrated for being birthed into this world.  There is the ceremonial cake, ice cream, presents, balloons, high-fives and Happy Birthdays.  Who doesn’t love that once-a-year official birthday?  I sure do.

So, just what does 60 look like?  I really couldn’t say.  I’m 57. What do I know?  But, whatever 60 looks like, it looks good on my brother and he wears it well.

*HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WAYNE JOHNSON*

MARCH 13

 

I feel compelled to tell you today just how honored and blessed I am to have you as my brother and, even more so, as my friend.  You have enriched my life above and beyond anything I could ever (even) begin to express here.  The words simply don’t exist but the feeling of how I feel about you is now and will forever and always be woven and imbedded in my mind and in my heart. 

Thank you for leaving your paw prints trailed through my life (our lives).  Thank you for being the beautiful person that you are and for being the most awesome brother that you are to me.   Thank you for always being there for me – through thick and thin. Thank you for loving me. 

Straight from the heart,

Your baby sister

I Say, I Think -- Much Too Serious!

Ya know?  I think a lot of people just take life way too seriously. I say, “Don’t do that.”  We should be serious about life but not so seriously serious that we lose ourselves into a world of frantic (fanatical) craziness.

I think setting up too many perimeters is just too confining, constrictive, suffocating and, quite frankly, unhealthy.  (Not discounting simple boundaries, though.)

I say that a strict rigid daily routine is much too tediously tiresome.  I speak from experience because I used to be one of those freaks who stuck to a strict rigid daily routine. A neat freak to boot. It wore me out.  So, one day, I just stopped. Now I am the type of person who has only an idea of having a (daily) routine/plan. Today I rely on my “backup plan” which is basically not having a plan at all.  It’s a whole lot more fun.  I call it my It my life in the “re-mix.”  I mix it up a bit.

Let me ask you:  What side of the bed do you normally get out of in the morning?  I say, “Get crazy with the day” and get up on the other side once in a while.  Believe it or not, it makes a difference.  Well, go ahead and try it.  Don’t just sit there and take MY word for it.

Let me ask you this:  Do you put your right shoe on before your left or your left shoe on before your right?  Well, do it backwards then. Switch it up.

Let me challenge you to do this:  Next time you get in the car to go somewhere, get in on the passenger side and then maneuver yourself into the driver’s seat.   I said it is a challenge and I dare to say that it is not an impossibility.  (When I did this I laughed my butt off at myself during the process.)  Go on, go ahead and try it. I double dog dare you.

I say that “changing it up” once in a while will definitely mess with your brain at first because you’ve done gone and confused it.  It still wants you to get up on the right side of the bed and it still wants to get that shoe on the right foot first.  Or left.

I say to free yourself from being so rigid and/or being so strict about your daily schedule/routine.  Don’t become a slave to it.

I say free yourself and throw caution to the wind.

 I say kick off those heels, lose the socks, go barefoot even if just for one day.  All day.  Inside and outside.  Everywhere.  Really.  So what?  You end up with dirty feet?  Big fat deal!  Hide the shoes and hide the socks but remember where you hid them.  (This might be a good time to “take a memo” of where you hid them and not rely on that confused brain of yours to remember (your secret hiding place) because you will definitely need them by sunrise tomorrow.)

If freedom could get any freer, then women, I say shed that bra, too.  What?  Have I gone too far?  Nah.  Just reach back there ladies, unlatch the hooks, unleash those “girls” and let them fall where they may.  A-La-Natural!  Ahhhhh, barefoot and braless = freedom at its finest.

See?  Isn’t this just so liberating?  Isn’t this just so much fun? 

Now, I say, take it down a notch, slow it down a bunch – inch out of that fast lane and move over to the roller skating lane, of course, making sure that your roller skates are on the right foot (or left).

I say, I say, just don’t take life so seriously. 

Let freedom ring – seriously!

Just a Moment...

Clock:  1:54 a.m. 

I am awake.  My mind and body are restless.  My eyes are awake.  They are staring into the darkness.  Everyone is asleep tonight – but me.  If there is anyone out there who is not asleep, I say, they darned well oughta be.  I’ll keep watch on this hour.  I don’t mind, I reckon. 

My bed, separated by a nightstand, is situated next to an open window.  The air outside is briskly cool but it feels good.  The sound of quietness can be heard for miles.  I put the blanket next to my face in an attempt to reassure myself that everything is going to be okay, everything will be fine. 

My mind wanders over to the place that I call my home-away-from-home.  It’s in a cabin that is situated on a hill in the small country town of Moravian Falls, North Carolina.  It’s beautiful there.  It’s God’s country.  When God created them there back woods, He done threw away the mold.  Yes He did.  There is no other place like it in the whole wide world.  I swear.

Now, at night, you see, you can hear the babbling creek below.  If it’s a breezy night, you can just hear the leaves rustle/wrestle around in their own little playground – whether they’re on the ground or up in the tree(s).  And the trees there are big.  Real big.  They’re friendly trees.  You can hug ‘em and they hug you right back.  But, seriously though, I wouldn’t want to go and make even one of them mad or anything.  Now then, if it’s a stormy night, the show gets even better.  The thunder there in North Carolina doesn’t merely “clap,” – oh, no, no, no, it roars.  You can feel it in vibrate into your chest.  Really.  The lightening produces its own skylight production.  It’s like a dramatic play and ballet mixed in together.  The rain is the accompaniment.  It pounds hard on top of the roof in a melodramatic kind of way.  The feeling is actually one of almost exuberance.  No, not “almost.”  It’s exuberant, indeed.  The air is different on my mountain, too.  It’s fresh.  It’s clean, not recycled.  Organic.

There is a deck around my cabin.  It’s a lovely deck and, best of all, it’s mine.  Someone put a hanging porch swing up for my leisure for which I am ever most grateful for.  In the mornings, I brew my coffee, take it out on the deck, sit in the swing and talk to the most delicious variety of birds there are out there in the woods.  No, I’m not crazy.  Well, maybe I am.  I’m telling you that, when I whistle at my forest friends they, in turn, whistle back – with the same melody – but they just do it better than I do.  They’re birds.  While I whistle, I can’t help but to be in awe of the giant trees that are just within my reach and surround the property.  And, above the ginormous trees is the blue sky in all of its glory.  So, I greet the trees and the up-above skies, pray a prayer and sip on my java some more.  I’m the happiest there at my home-away-from-home than I ever have been in my life. Truly. It’s my sanctuary.  One could conclude (as I do) that it is also my sanity. I feel a sense of “persona” there.  I feel a sense of purpose there.  No city life.  Pure home-grown country.  I feel “grounded” there.  No hustle or bustle, no pushing or shoving.  Nobody is really ever in a hurry there unless one is either late for supper or there’s a “Black Friday” sale happening the day after Thanksgiving -- in which case, there might be a rush and there might be some shoving and nudging going on.  I don’t know.  But you can be rest assured, however, that I won’t be late for supper there and I won’t be hitting the after-Thanksgiving sale(s).  I can Google Amazon (if I can get a connection) for those kinds of things (and I do have “connections” there on my sweet mountain in my most treasured cabin). 

Clock:  2:51 a.m.

Back to reality on Sycamore Road, my “home-in-home”.

I wrestle with the covers and fuss with the blanket in an attempt to comfort myself / reassure myself that everything is going to be okay and everything is going to be fine.

Everything is not fine.  Everything is not okay.  I don’t feel good.  I am certainly not myself.  I looked in the mirror earlier and I realized that, while the reflection looked somewhat familiar, the person I saw looking back at me wasn’t really me at all.  Now, c’mon, this is not a simply a case of “Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall” here.  Mirrors don’t lie.  People do. (Don’t really know why I put in there, “People do.”  It just looks important up there next to “Mirrors don’t lie.”  It fits.  Well, it’s what came out of my mind and onto this paper so I’m sticking with it.  It fits, I tell you.  And, I say it’s the truth, after all.)

I’m getting older now. I can’t count the wrinkles on my face anymore – I’m outnumbered.  I have “old people” skin on my arms. No short sleeves for me.  I am outnumbered by my hair follicles, too.  I really love my wigs, though – they keep my head warm. I feel naked without them but you can’t sleep in them or even snooze in them.  I was told not to so, therefore, I don’t. I think I’ll invest in some head scarves.  Yes, that’s what I will do. Yeah, that’s a great idea.  Fancy ones.  Better yet, I’ll find someone who can sew me up some.  Fancy ones, of course.  My eyes have grown weary and puffy bags lay beneath their pupils mimicking uneven lumpy cotton balls.  My body aches from head-to-toe.  I try so to hide behind the truth in order to protect those that love me.  I think I do a bang-up, fooling, kind of good job at masking.  (Masking didn’t happen overnight – it has taken years of practice.)  But the real honest-to-Gawd truth is that I cannot hide any of it or mask any of it from myself.  I wish I could.

Perhaps all of this stuff about the wrinkles and bags and blah, blah, blah sound a little vain, huh?  Yes, probably.  Yes, maybe.  I am, just in this moment, seeing scattered pages of my yester-youth laying tattered at my feet. Remember, it’s just in the moment. 

In spite of it all, I do have a spirit of love for myself. I have the spirit of love for others.  I know who I am even if I have to go look for myself once in awhile.  I have the Spirit of God within me.  I am blessed in so many ways that I find myself outnumbered there, too.  (Which is to say, that is not a bad thing.  Not at all.)

That being said, I am HUMAN. And sometimes that “human-ness” thing just doesn’t work out so well for me and I succumb to, well, to all of it.  I’m not going to beat myself up over it.  Ouch.   

I’m getting older now and I’m growing tired now…

I think I’ll have my coffee out on the deck this morning.

Clock:  4:12 a.m.

Through the Years -- Keeping it Real

 

This is my first blog.  I do keep a journal as I have done throughout the years since my early teens.  Sometimes those journals can get you into trouble if found in by the wrong hands and read through the eyes of the finder in a spirit of unwillingness to perceive what was written and with what intentions they were written with at the time.  Personal experience.  Oh, I’ll continue to make my journal entries, alright.  My journal is a place with where I can go to, hang out with and even tell my secrets to.  However, I have decided to blog by the encouragement of my daughter, Jenny.  So, here I go, jumping head first into the deep end of unfamiliar territorial waters, if you will.  I have my swim cap, goggles and nose plugs in place.  Splish-splash.

 

I grew up in a family that was pretty much the norm – dysfunctionally-dysfunctional. Wait. Is that dysfunctionally-dysfunctional or dysfunctionally- functional?  Well, either way.  I was third in the birth order out of three children and the only girl.  Wow.  We all were raised to use good manners, please and thank you and such.  We prayed before our supper, finished our plates, cleared the table, washed, dried and put away the dishes as our tribute to our parents who prepared the meal.  No.  I take that back.  We did the after-dinner chore out of obligation or by the threat of punishment if we didn’t.  There.  That’s more honest.

 

As I came into my years, so to speak, I was a very trusting person.  I saw no stranger.  There wasn’t a person I didn’t trust.  I flew by the seat of my pants, happy-go-lucky and skipping-to-my-lou all the way through.  Days turned into months and months turned into years at some point I found myself as an adult.  Nothing changed for me really. Well, except for the obvious (body changes). I was still skipping-to-my-own-lou. I still held fast to that “I trust everyone” nature and I still knew not a stranger.  Really?  Pretty scary thought (given today’s world), eh?  Well, it all worked for me most of the time.  Sometimes not.  But, I’m a believer.

 

Now, the age of ripeness has found me at 57 years old.  I am rather fond of 57.  I’m kind of crazy now.  (Regression?)   I’m silly.  I do odd things on purpose. I yell at the roosters in the back yards and in the front yards of our house (home/castle) to be less vocal in the mornings.  Admittedly so, I actually use the “shut up” version of scolding those fowls. I laugh a lot and I laugh loud.  It’s the belly-gut, side-splitting kind of uncontrollable laugh. I laugh at myself, I laugh with others.  No matter. I sing in the sunshine.  I sing in the shower.  While I am told that I do it rather poorly – no – I think it was reported that I do it very “badly,” I do it anyway because it makes me happy. (Camelot soundtrack is a favorite of mine, by the way.) When I sing and forget the words, I break out into a strong melodious hum.  It’s okay.  God doesn’t care how I sing or how I hum – On key or off, He loves me in spite of myself and unconditionally.  Wrap your arms around that one. 

 

I’m human, I cry, too.  And when I cry it is not a whimper.  Oh, no, no, no.  I do the whole bawl fest thing. I don’t hold back. What’s the point in that?  I mostly cry when I leave our children or grandchildren after a visit or they leave my husband and I to return to their respective homes that have quite a bit of distance between the residences. I cry for various reasons.  A good cry releases endorphins in your body and am told that that is a good thing.  Well, it must be because I always feel better after a cry. And, I pout, too.  Again, I’m human.  Pouting is a right of entitlement as far as I am concerned.  It just seems wrong to cry and then not pout about it.  That’s like the peanut butter without the jelly or the fish without the water or the car without the gas.  Well, you get the picture.  It’s elementary.

 

Where am I going with all of this?  I really don’t know.  I started out with one thought process and then I somehow ended up here.  Point A to Point B and now I am in search of the C.  Oh, there it is.  “C” was playing hide-and-seek.  Silly “C.”

 

In sum, I have been taught many lessons in this life journey of mine.  I have learned much from my own personal experiences.  I have seen a great deal through the eyes of others.  A few of those lessons:  Be true to yourself.  Stand up for what you believe in.  Stand firm but not rigid.  Live richly in love and laughter.  Share your smile.  Say I love you often.  Be kind.  Eat your vegetables. Be rigid about that. Hee!  Know that it is okay to cry.  It is okay to pout. It’s okay to have a rough day. It’s okay to be out of the norm.  Just remember, at the end of the day after you’ve laid your head to pray and before falling into your slumber land that, no matter what, it really is all okay and tomorrow is still another day.  Another day to rain and shine.  No, that would be rise and shine.  Either way.

 

Thank you to whoever reads this for your indulgence.  It’s been “real.”