sistah love

My sister surprised us with a visit a week ago and today she's extended her stay. Her being here has been a positive jolt to my system. I don't know how to describe it. In the simplest terms, just having her wider perspective has done so much for me. I am feeling better, more confident and just happy. We saw each other last year and we speak often, but to have her physical presence is great. She travelled to Bali this year, and she has come back with a very different outlook. To hear how much she now gets how energies work and is so much more mindful about what she wants to achieve and is accomplishing is infectious at the very least. We spoke about one or two people close to her, and it was insightful as well. One is always complaining that they are unwell, but will not work towards getting better, despite all that they have been told and know. The other person is an old flame that she has had a tendency to contact every time she comes. The third is someone I wrote about recently who she and I conclude actually hates women and himself. What talking about these people did for both of us this time is pinpoint exactly how we all can keep ourselves back. The first person needs to go on a diet. They prefer to sleep and to eat copious rounds of bacon and then they say that they have a back pain, night sweats. They hate vegetables and hop in an Uber every chance they can get. We now see that their behavior affects their job and their relationship. So if you feel that you can make an excuse in one part of your life...it spills over into every part of your life. The old flame she has realised is not changing for the better. Sadly she has left him behind longer than she had thought, and she has come to terms with the fact that some people are in your life at one time and not for another. The last person, is a relative. However, he has a pattern that screams cautionary tale. I appreciate that through these people I can look at myself, at all that I do in my life and I can make adjustments because of that.

Life is so strange...sometimes I lie in my bed and think about the fact that this moment shall never come again, even if I lay here in the same clothing, in the same spot, the room the same temperature. I consider the fact that every year, as I grow older and I look back on the time I have spent, I always wish that I had had more joy and worried less. Now that I am older, I also feel so conscious of the fact that every moment is one to give thanks for and to appreciate because in the future, I know that I shall remember even the most difficult moments as those that I lived through and learned from. But more so, as the small things and not so small things change me, I shall recall these moments as precious, these still moments when nothing serious crossed my thoughts and I could think on anything, everything and nothing at all.

B-I-N-G-O

The long, hard week that I had prevented me from really sitting and having some solid time to myself with my own thoughts. I am very lucky to have the luxury of focusing like that. I cannot imagine doing what I did this week all of the time like many people do! I am exhausted, but I want to make note of an observation that I had. My sister comes back tomorrow from a dream vacation. Before she left she was concerned about a bill she wad to pay, and she knew that it was going to be dealt with, but she was still anxious about it. She mentioned it to me, and I realised something that I probably would not have under any other circumstance. I am going to do my best to be clear -: She knew that she would be paying her bill....yet, she put negative thought to what had not happened AND she fed it. ............................................................................................................................................... how many times do we all do this? It just struck me. We ...or I...may say that I want this or that. But the moment the situation does not go my way, I lose my faith. I get like a spoiled child. That attitude becomes the thing you focus on.....and what you focus on...YOU GET MORE OF................................................. GO TO THE HEAD OF THE CLASS.

The month has not ended and it has felt like the Apocalypse! In fact, I am considering a little theory....I think that all of the sages of the world who saw the Earth being destroyed , probably did see 2020 in their vision, and they articulated it as the end of the world because they really could not imagine how we humans were going to get out of all that we are aware of now. Even for Hollywood, there are only supposed to be a handful of survivors. We survived. But the price! The cost!

That Alzheimers! I remember when the New York Times did an article on it, perhaps 20 years ago or more.I was just out of high school, and like Cancer, it brought up a lot of fear. It sounded like something that anyone could get out of the blue. It also seems so prevelant that it is easy to still think that way. Auntie Lorna has passed. She had it. She was one of those pioneering women, the youngest, the first...and she was also beautiful, like the old world beauties like Lauren Bacall.Her life would make a great film. Despite the fact that she was no longer able to have any real conversation with us, hearing her son tell us that she was in critical condition yesterday did not prepare us. I would now say that nothing really prepares you. May she rest in peace. Amen.

Ode to Auntie Lorna - rest in peace

"LEISURE" What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. By Wm. Henry Davies. (Wm. Henry Davies (1871-1940) is to be considered as the poet of the tramps. Born at Newport, Wales in the UK, Davies came to America from Great Britain and lived the life of a vagabond. One day, as the result of jumping a train, he lost one of legs. Davies returned to England where he continued to live the life of a tramp and a pedlar. He wrote poetry (presumably he did right along) and, eventually, he determined to print his own book and did so with the little money he earned panhandling. A copy of this first work, A Soul's Destroyer, came into the hands of George Bernard Shaw; which, in turn, led to the popularization of the poet.

magnify the glass

There is an observation that I want to make about the disagreement that I had with my friend. I chose to step back after I told her how I felt about what she was saying to me, and I deduced that what she was telling me had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with her past experiences. I think that most arguments people have, have something to do with what affected them strongly in their past. You either work to do better, or you work to avoid experiencing anything like the things that hurt you, ever again. I recall that just as I accepted that I liked, even loved juliemangoman, that I had a hell of a lot of baggage from my past that I had thought I had processed and unpacked, show up like a hurricane upon me. I was devastated by the awareness at the time. Even with the last person... his past as I knew it and my past seemed discordant with whatever we may have been able to build next. But I am writing because I think that I am on to something momentous with this observation about the way that we all behave. You may be having a relationship or an experience with someone. But you are also having multiple relationships of a sort. You are having reminders and memories that are being processed through you. You are having physical and emotional tests taking place as you appear neutral, perhaps even laughing with someone and giving them good eye contact. All of that is going on and you are coming to conclusions that you weigh and decide whether that person is a friend or foe. They are also doing the same with you. With all of that judging going on, you really do not know how much of the experience is authentic to the moment. The only way to know, is to be genuine yourself. It takes maturity to listen to someone arguing with you or blaming you for something you have no inkling of, and just allowing them to vent and then resisting the urge to argue back to win. What you do next is also of importance, because, after they calm down and even if they apologize, you have to be willing to not lord things over the other person. You accept their 'difference.' They were able to show you by their actions, a way that something small can become big. They have shown you the way that misunderstanding can lead to unpleasantness, and that ultimately, we are all like little frightened children at the end of the day.