SOMETHING NEW AND WONDERFUL EVERY DAY

This is what I found this morning.  I don't know why I've never seen it before.  

hello darling

I adore you I adore

I adore you I adore you

and tomorrow I plan to

adore you even more.

XOXOX

Isn't this wonderful?  As a greeting at workday's end, as a turning in bed in the morning, or in the middle of the night? To a lover or a child or anyone whom we adore?  I was merely browsing in a sundance catalogue (WWW.SUNDANCECATALOGUE.COM) this morning when I saw the quote on a pillow for sale.  It made me want to learn to embroider.  Surely I could practice writing this with calligraphy and then embroider it with lovely colored thread.  And I have just the right person to give it to.  I wish it were all finished and propped up for a photograph. 

What a happy way to begin the day.  Here is another, also from sundance.  

He said there are two ways

to live your life.  One is

as though Nothing is a Miracle,

the other is as though EVERY

THING is a Miracle.  

I don't know who wrote either of these.  But it's a reminder that something bright can enter our day in the most ordinary of ways.  Especially when we are open to it.  I am reminded of a quote I put on my collage this year at my friend's 2018 Vision Quest (See Post: For What Should We Pray?).  It goes, 

Don't wait for a Good Day.

Make today a Good Day.  

I think somehow, with no effort at all, I have made today a good day.  Thank you, God.  

 

HEALTHY ATTITUDES (USING PRIVATE SORROW)

It seems that a certain amount of self-promotion in our jobs or creative endeavors is healthy.  We need to share our honest confidence in ourselves as employees or as entrepreneurs with our bosses or the public we want to reach.  We work hard, we have talents and we have livings to make. 

But I've run into other kinds of self-promotion that, well, don't seem so healthy. I'm talking about using one's private sorrow as a stepping-stone to saturation fame.   The creation of a persona:  "I am young and adorable.  I thought I had the world on a string.  Then a catastrophe befell me [a disease or problem or affliction] that knocked me off my feet. Tested my presumptions.  But with the help of God, and friends, and all of you strangers, I am coping."

So, "contact me, be my Friend, buy my books, enter my drawing for one of my free books, write-in for my Advice on your Life Quandaries, join my Team, listen to my podcast, listen to me on someone else's podcast, click on my discussion guide, follow me, come to my events . . . . "  

A kind of layered hubris.  I thought my life was the best.  Then I found out it wasn't.  But I am so handling it.  You can too.  I can show you how to be me.  Or how to be a friend to people like me.  Or what I want.  Or what people like me want.  You'll love my story. 

Seeing this is perplexing. No one wants something bad for another, whether that person is young and adorable or old and heavy-laden.  We want the best for each other, friends or strangers.  We're made to be compassionate. We especially have empathy for someone young facing problems meant to be confronted after a life-time. 

We don't expect wisdom from the young, but humility is a virtue available at any age.  For those who are self-centered, on the other hand, perhaps we can help them see that every moment counts.  If you have a child, don't travel to promote an endeavor.  Spend that time with the child.  Don't email, tweet or blog all morning.  Keep your toddler home and be mom or dad.  If you are a child of God read the Psalms, not audience stats.   

This is asking a lot.  It is asking maturity from the young.  But if we are not young, we owe it to share what we've learned. We're not promoting anything, least of all ourselves.  Here it is: Time always runs out and no one ever says, "I spent too much time with my family.  I should have spent more time traveling for work, promoting myself, getting my due, being admired, gathering more Likes, selling more books."  No one.  

Maybe all that goes on in the world today affects the way we see things.  It does for me, I know.  Clearly fame, fortune and best sellers are transient. Someone whose life is short has less time for mistakes.  That could mean any of us, myself included.  Let not conceit be one of those mistakes.  Love, Nina Naomi

HOME---NOT SO SIMPLE

Is your home high in the air overlooking rooftops and a city street?  Can you hear the traffic?  Do you have a balcony to lean over?  Can you wave when a neighbor walks by? Or are there swings and a sandbox in your back yard?  How many places have you lived?  Did they all feel like home?

My home is mid-century modern with trees and a meadow. Lots of privacy, but always in need of clean-up and repair. Fallen branches, flooding creek, piles of debris.  I can't keep up.  

I also love urban.  In Princeton, New Jersey we live in a ground floor apartment.  We lower the bathroom shade in the morning when the school kids line up on the sidewalk for the bus.  There's a fire escape out the back door and a laundry in the basement. I add plants, pillows, throws and favorite photos to make it a temporary home.  

Where we stay in London we have to carry our laundry to the basement across the street.  Once we stayed in Zimbabwe.  A wonderful woman came twice a week to do our washing in the bathtub and sweep the carpet with a broom.  We love all these places.  There are so many other places I would like to live--France, Portugal, Barcelona, Germany, anywhere in Italy . . . . This list is pretty much endless.  California, Pacific Northwest, New England. . . .  I want to know the people and have neighbors.  When we lived in London our neighbors were from Australia, Canada, India, Malta, South Africa and Zimbabwe; a very international community.  We were all young and having babies and relied upon each other.  It was a special time.  

All these places to call home.  I miss every one.  But especially Mecklenburgh Square in London where our daughter was born.  When I write "This Is Your Kingdom" posts, it's the UK I yearn for.  

View of Mecklenburgh Square

I envy people who have lived in the same place forever but also people who move a lot, see new places.  Both have their attractions, don't they? 

Bella GRACE (www.bellagracemagazine.com) had a feature called "Living in Other People's Houses" by Jennifer Clawson Farnes.  It made me think about all the wonderful kinds of homes.  Cottages, bungalows, condos, atomic ranches, Craftsman, apartments, house boats.  And why being home-less, without a place to call home, is so serious.  And should be an inalienable right, food and shelter. And in some countries it is.  

Homes aren't just places of comfort, though.  We all know that tragedies happen in our homes.  Bad news.  Hurtful discoveries.  Facts that won't disappear. Words that can't be unspoken; forgiven yes, but not unsaid.  Where love is greatest and emotional distress is too.  Our beloved pets die.  Our parents die.  A spouse, a partner and, yes, even a child may die. So a home isn't just a refuge.  It's where we get bad news as well as good.  We have fights there.  We get angry there.  We get hurt there.  We crawl in our closets and hide our feelings.  But we also find consolation and solace there.  Home is not such a simple place after all. 

The sayings about home are interesting.  Some writers say home is people, not a place.  That may be so but I think of London as home and I don't have a single friend there.  The city itself is my friend.  I know the bus routes and alleyways and neighborhood restaurants.  I don't get lost.  I can shelter in a museum or cafe or library.  Cities are like that.  That's why many of us have a favorite city. 

Robert Frost (1874-1963) says, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."  That may be true if our parents are alive.  Or a brother or sister who loves us.  Or a friend who loves us as much as a family might.  But not everyone I expect has a place like that and, yet, I feel like we all have made homes for ourselves, places we want to be no matter what.  I'd love to read a book of essays just about what each writer calls home.

What do we make of all this?  It is still winter where I am.  Although the daffodils and crocuses have come up and the red bud are in bloom, we have freezing rain today.  No soccer practice for the children.  British poet Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) says that winter is the time for home--good food, comfort and warmth. Wherever we are, let's make the most of every day in our homes.  Two weeks before his death my aged father had to leave his home for a nursing facility.  Those of us who have had to face this with our parents know how hard it is.  But two weeks?  How lucky is that?  Let's treasure our homes, our nests, our collections of little things.  I don't even need to say this, do I?   With love, Nina Naomi

Home

"WHAT IF I FALL?" "OH BUT MY DARLING, WHAT IF YOU FLY?"

There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?  
by Erin Hanson

Do you love this poem?  "What if I fall?"  "Oh but my darling, What if you fly?"  It's the direct address, "my darling," that sets this quote apart.  The poetic speaker shows the questioner such tenderness.  The speaker is excited for the questioner, wants magic for the questioner.  The poetic speaker wants this for us, the reader.  We are the one asking the question.  We are the fearful one being encouraged. The speaker is anticipating what we want, what we fear and what we need.  

I first thought the amazing thing about this poem was that the poet, Erin Hanson of Brisbane, Australia, was only 19 when she wrote it.  And that she has written many beautiful poems.  Poems that speak to us with simple rhyme schemes and a bit of whimsy.  Such as, 

Your blindness to my downfall,

Has gone too far to be a joke,

As I stand ablaze before you,

And you tell me you smell smoke. 

Or the line, 

If you cannot be the poet, be the poem.

Of course many writers begin young and surely the ones who last do. Anne Frank (1929-1945) was a girl when she kept her Diary. Poet and writer Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) wrote at a young age.   And some of the world's greatest poets wrote and died young.  John Keats (1795-1821), still one of the most studied British poets, died of tuberculosis at age 25.  

What is so lovely about Erin Hanson's (www.thepoeticunderground.com) poem is that it reminds us that there are people like the poetic speaker in our lives.  I hear my mother's voice in the quote, "Oh but my darling what if you fly?"  Not only that, we can be this person for someone.  The person who never ever says, "You can't do it.  Don't even try."   

We can be this person for ourselves too.  We can whisper these words, gently encourage, lead with love.  I can say to myself when I have doubts, "Oh but my darling, What if you fly?" What if our hearts soar, our spirits rise, our souls lift off?  A good thing, yes?  I want to have this friend.  But even more I want to be this friend.  Even to a stranger.  Me to you and you to me. 

"THIS IS YOUR KINGDOM," (OR HOW TO MAKETHE MOST OF YOUR DAY OFF)

I decided to use my day off for a day-trip.  I picked Pittsboro, a lovely small town about an hour away.  And in fact Pittsboro is a kingdom of sorts because it lies in Chatham County which is named for William Pitt, the 1st Earl of Chatham, England.  Chatham is 32 miles from London in the southeastern County of Kent.  Pittsboro itself is named for William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806), the youngest Prime Minister of the UK.  So, a very English town. 

French Connection, Pittsboro, NC

This lovely old home houses a shop that features French fabrics, African arts and crafts and metal sculptures from Monterrey, Mexico.  Huge 18-wheelers arrive quarterly from Mexico with sculptures made from tin drums and other cast-off metals.  Perfect recycling.  I bought a quirky yellow pelican for the top of a totem-pole tree I am decorating. 

French Fabrics

The rest of the town is just as charming.  About 3,700 people live in Pittsboro.  The historic district has coffee shops, vintage boutiques, art galleries, antique shops, restaurants and bars, just about everything to make for an excellent day trip. 

There's also a first-class woodworking school with sold-out classes in hand-carving, window joinery, spoon carving, bench work, puzzle pots, memento boxes, etc.  Windsor chairs are a specialty (www.woodwrightschool.com).  If you're not into that, there's Shag Dancing. What fun to take a class in that!

On the way back I stopped at Fearrington Village to see the herds of black and white belted cows and goats that graze there.  One was close enough to rub its head.  And I passed a pottery studio in a little turquoise and cobalt house off the road with an OPEN sign.  The owner is Lyn Morrow (www.lynmorrowpottery.com), a local ceramic artist who trained in Perugia, Italy!  I thought that was amazing. I loved talking with her.  With North Carolina clay thwarting gardeners all over the state, we are big on pottery.  

My local kingdom doesn't have palaces or tombs of famous kings and queens, or churches with brass rubbings, or most of the things we love to see when we travel abroad.  But the day off was great!  If you are driving up or down the eastern corridor, meander off I-95 a bit and enjoy Pittsboro, North Carolina on Hwy 15-501 through mostly country.  Or better yet, enjoy your own kingdom on your day off.   

Fearrington Village Belted Cows

SIMPLE NESTING INSIDE AND OUT

We think of nesting as an inside pleasure. But of course other species like to nest outside (except Wiggles who prefers his bed) and we can too. Both are good.  The Simple Things (thesimplethings@icebergpress.co.uk)--my go-to, relaxing, inspirational, missing-the-UK magazine has a feature called NEST--Love Your Home Inside and Out.  It reminds us that this time of year is perfect for finding comfort in simple things like our own nesting places.  

Morning Place to Nest

 

Afternoon Place to Nest

Outdoor Place to Nest

My house is somewhat random minimalist.  Less to dust, less to trip over, more room for kids' cartwheels.  The afternoon chair is from a consignment shop ($69), the outdoor nest from Target and Home Depot.  Nothing to make me feel guilty (Post:  "Be Happy with What You've Got"). 

What's best about nesting is the time to relax and think.  (Well, not always. A child may want to play Old Maid or roast marshmallows by the fire.)  Thinking costs nothing.  It is the simplest of pastimes. Not repetitive dead-end thoughts (something that's over, that we didn't deserve, and can't undo), but thoughts that give energy and pleasure.  They can be reflective of what's good about our lives, or enjoyment of the very moment, or plans for a wonderful future.  I was thinking about what depletes my energy and what builds it and how to do more of the latter.  Your list may be similar.  What builds my energy is yoga, pottery-making, blogging, reading, working in the yard, cooking, being with friends, loving, planning travel, theatre, seeing new things, eating out. . . .Next nesting session I may work on how to do more of these.  

What do you like?  Tucking in your children?  Reading to them?  Being outside?  Singing?  Getting to know others?  Going to a party?  Dressing up?  Some people say it's important that we know our desires.  I bet that's true.  Nesting is a good start.