FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR LIFE FOR VALENTINE'S

Yesterday I saw a simple sign in a vintage shop with these words: 

 Fall in Love with Your Life

It was lettered in beautiful calligraphy on a piece of white-painted wood.  A plaque to hang  somewhere as an invitation I thought, a Valentine's day invitation, kind of like, "Be your Own Valentine" in a very un-lonely happy way.  

There is so much to love about our life, I bet you love yours already.  I love mine. Of course, there are things I wish hadn't happened, and things I wish I could change.  I have to admit that.  But not my whole life itself; not my life for someone else's, someone else's history, thoughts, being.  No. Never. So I'm thinking for Valentine's Day 2018 it's time to fall in love with our life all over again.  

💗💗💗💗💗

What might this entail? Well, of course it could include falling in love again with the people we depend upon and letting them know.  Valentine's is perfect for that.  Making someone a special cake, or giving flowers, or knit socks or a hat. There are as many ways to show appreciation as there are creative people.  I found a tiny train for my granddaughter for her dollhouse.  Theatre tickets for my husband and me.  I owe my cousin a special phone call.  

But falling in love with our life also means loving our homes, our pets, our hobbies, the objects around our house that help define us.  Our talismans.  I love my house when it's clean.  Here is a very clean room: 

I also--sometimes--even love cleaning my house, attacking dust curls with the Swiffer and then relaxing. 

Time-out after Cleaning

I love my dog, Mr. very sweet Wiggles.  Here he is luxuriating on a blanket.  

But to love our lives properly we also have to love our comfort zones, our ways of doing things, our ways of coping and ourselves.  We have to love not only people, but also the things that tell the stories about who we are.  This might be our first painting, a childhood toy or doll, a photograph of a sad or a happy time, something our mother gave us (I have Nina Naomi's wicker dresser, some of her quilts and antique plates, her jewelry. . . .), something only we would know has meaning.  We have to appreciate our skills and our knowledge, how well we do at work, how good a family member, spouse or partner, parent or grandparent we are.

What else can we love about our lives?  We might love our opportunities to pray, think or meditate. 

Otje van der Lelij, Dutch Illustrator

Many of us love being alone, especially with nature or art.  Dutch philosopher Mieke Boon says that nature and art can give us a feeling of transcendence, can make us feel like we are rising above our daily troubles. We gain insight into how we think, feel and observe.  If we are in touch with nature and art we can love that about our life.  

First Orchid of the Year, Banyan Rd., Vero Beach, Florida

We can love that we are able to find things that are absorbing enough, interesting enough, or exciting enough to hold our full attention.  We can love and appreciate the ways we have learned to cope with fear, sadness, anger, stress and pain. We can love that about ourselves.   

So, my Valentine's wish for myself and everyone is to just to love our lives--all the good things, all the hard things, all the beautiful things, all the mismatched and shapeless things, all the transcendent things, all the people who give us what we need and even the people who don't. Let's have a wonderful February 14, 2018!  With love, Nina Naomi












 

HEALTHY ATTITUDES (SELFISH REQUESTS vs FRIENDSHIP)

I'm familiar with a local writer asking Twitter cohorts to be part of a "Launch Team," i.e. "'Let's be friends' and you help sell my book."  The pitch went out to everyone following the saga of a young cancer survivor (who now calls herself a 'cancer alumnus'), of whom there are many who live quietly in gratitude and service.  You're so fill-in-the-blank (kind, helpful, special, know me, love me, follow me, have prayed for me, have your own following, are influential, etc.) that you'll help me sell my book.  After all, many friends have been asking what I need.  Well, I don't need a casserole or a ride to the doctor anymore.  I need a best-seller. I've written about my journey.  But I need to get it on the shelves.  You can help me do that. 

This made me think--not about Marketing 101, but about friendship.  

Two Girls in Front of Birch Trees, Paula Modersohn-Becker, 1905

All best-selling authors, I daresay, have private lives with friends who love them for themselves and vice versa.  The friends are there for them rain or shine but are not part of their marketing endeavors.  They don't become an unpaid salesforce.  

Soliciting help from friends is healthy.  But doesn't it depend on what we are soliciting help for?  For the school fund-raiser?  Or for our personal gain?  To help us through a rough patch? Or so that we can become a commercial success?  After-all, one of the hallmarks of a being a true friend to someone is that we do for each other but do not use each other.  You know the admonition:  Love people but use things.  Lebanese writer, poet and visual artist Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) says it beautifully:

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility,

Never an opportunity. 

Gibran's quote made me ponder how graciously accepting an unsolicited offer from a friend is different from what we call a "Selfish Request."  You know, imposing on the generosity of others by asking for favors either blatantly or through manipulation. Sometimes this is done ingenuously:  "Selfish Request coming up . . . ."  

I have seen requests so labeled from this particular writer.  Cajolingly appealing.  "I need a quiet place to write. [And I had cancer.] Your beach house?"  Followed by the same request to another colleague with a beach house.  And then another?  Leaving dirty towels behind her.  Selfish requests. 

None of these thoughts has to do with the merits of this surviver's book.  We all have times when connecting with others helps. We remember that we are not alone.  Whenever we must learn to live with sadness as a companion to our happiness, our friends help us.

So yes, we should do something when bad things happen.  Write if that's our talent.  Set up a foundation if we have money.  Do research if we are of that bent.  Create a memorial.  Become an activist.  Crusade--that's how MADD was founded (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).  And yes, we should ask for help from others--help to process a loss, to recover from a loss, to make it day to day through a loss, to fight injustices, to right wrongs, to contribute to a cause.  So many ways to help others.  

Something that is not a "selfish request" in any way.  Something that is not commercial or narcissistic.  Really, something that does not earn us money or help us climb the ladder of success.  Now that sounds healthy, doesn't it?  

MINDFULNESS FOR THE NEW YEAR

The more I learn about mindfulness the more it seems to be a new(ish) word for some very old concepts.  Living with awareness of the world around us.  Doing one thing at a time and doing it the best we can. Focusing on the present rather than what's over and done. Or yet to come.  Paying attention.  Judging less. Tossing mental baggage. Seeking out the quiet soul. . . . None of these is a new idea.  Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) says,

 Forever is composed of nows 

Yes.  We agree. But how often do we remember it?

I suppose the opposite of mindfulness would be mindlessness.  When we act out of old habits.  Or don't know what day it is.  Or work at such speed we are like high-functioning zombies. Or scroll through our mail while a friend or child is waiting for a little companionship. Zone out. Hasn't this happened to us all?

Writer Ann Lamott (b. 1954) says, 

Almost anything will work better if you unplug it for a few moments. . . including you. 

So what can we do to work better this year? I've found a bunch of ideas that all sort of fit under the rubric of mindfulness.  Most are from experts in their fields.  They seem helpful. See what you think.

• Recognize the myth of multitasking.  A way to over-stress, increase errors and reduce productivity.  Who knew? That slowing down is not lazy but smart. I love it!

• Acknowledge that our brains adapt to behaviors we repeat, positive or negative.  So choose positive behaviors to repeat. Many of my negative behaviors involve thoughts. I'm going to work on this. If a thought takes me nowhere I'm going to try my best to let it wither. 

• Rejoice in ordinary things.  Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chodron (b. 1936) says,

Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. 

 

Oh my. This is most certainly true.  Art and music, exercise, reading and writing,         gardening and cooking, observing people and nature. All these are ordinary things.  We say a lady bug is good luck because we rejoice in ordinary things.  We love finding a caterpillar.  Or a four-leaf clover. Or seeing a falling star. The list of ordinary things that makes us happy goes on and on doesn't it?  

• Encourage conversations at a depth we will find interesting.  I saw this suggestion in a magazine called Mindfulness Made Simple.  Focus and draw one another out. Lean in to a conversation.  Ask why or how.   Know that every person is worth our attention. 

• Try to enjoy what we do.  At work enjoy supporting our colleagues, helping others, being intellectually or physically challenged.  At home think of house and yard work as exercise, enjoy feeding or eating with our families, giving and receiving love, feathering our nest, or just being ourselves.

•  Acknowledge limits:  cultural norms, money, age, health, talents or time.  Then decide what to do about them.  American activist and academic Angela Davis (b. 1944), an advocate for the homeless, the unemployed, and the mentally ill says:  

I'm no longer accepting the things I cannot change...I'm changing the things I cannot accept. 

 

I like this idea, trying within our means to help change the unacceptable. There is so much of it today.  

This is enough of a beginning for me, these six challenges. Are they new or old for you?  I think the point is to do more of what works for us and less of what doesn't.  In 2018 to find or repeat what works for us, that we enjoy or that educates us, kindles our curiosity or helps us understand the world better, makes us finer people or helps others.  This is good.  

Van Gogh

"JOURNAL SPARKS" BY EMILY NEUBURGER

I ran across a reference to this book in thesimplethings@icebergpress.co.uk, the UK magazine I cite often, full of fresh ideas.  I don't use a Journal the same way Emily Neuburger does--to scribble, sketch, capture the moment, experiment. . . .  But her book sounds lovely and full of creative thoughts.  For me a Journal is a place to survive.  Maybe for you too.  Not necessarily a fun place.  A survival place is a necessary place.  A place to say things that can't otherwise be said.  A Private Place.  That's probably why I call mine a Prayer Journal.  God can absorb anything.  

Nevertheless, I loved the prompt from Journal Sparks.  The prompt suggested creating an imaginary conversation between ourselves and an animal or inanimate object.  For some reason, I immediately wanted to do this.  Here are mine. 

Me:  I am worried.
The Cat:  I never worry.
Me:  I find life hard.
The Cat: I don't.
Me:  How can I be like you?
The Cat:  Stretch more.

Me:  You're broken.
The Blender:  I know.
Me:  Do you care?
The Blender:  Not that much.
Me:  Why not?
The Blender:  I'd rather not be used. 

Me:  I like it best when you're clean.  
The House:  That doesn't matter so much to me.
Me:  Wouldn't you rather sparkle?
The House:  Only because it makes you happy.

Isn't it amazing what we can convey in a few lines? If I still taught 8th grade English, I would give this assignment to my class. They would do so well at it.  Sometimes an idea that seems silly at first then becomes intriguing, doesn't it?  What do you want to try?  A tree? Your grandmother's pendant? A photograph from the past? 

Every time of the year brings its own simple things to enjoy and perhaps to write about.  This first day of the year I'm thinking about snow falling in thick flakes; about a sled, hand-warmers and knit hats; about a fried egg on hot buttered toast.  And a wish that is not so simple:  someday, someday, seeing the Northern Lights.  

Yesterday my husband was recalling our favorite simple thing last winter in New Jersey--going to the indie movie theatre then walking next door for late-nite Belgian waffles. There are so many ways to honor nature's changing seasons.  Winter walks are wonderful.  In cities of course, where there's so much activity and so many duck-in places.  But neighborhoods too, at the end of the workday when lights are coming on, curtains being drawn.  Sidewalks or paths, it doesn't matter.

One idea for the New Year may be to find ways to get lost.  Tired from long hours, bruising news cycles, and the clamor of too many devices, we might benefit from some lost time.  Some call it slowing down and digging in, not being so distracted from the things we really enjoy, even if all that entails is actually finishing a job we've started.  Lost in a book--the ultimate relaxation.  Lost in the richness of our town, or our day.  Reveling in what our senses bring in, sights, sounds, smells rather than old repetitive thoughts.  None of these ways of being lost is idle or indulgent.  Rather they are ways of being present, of using our simple everyday events to tackle big ideas.  Let's do it!

THE CURIOSITY OF HAVING AN ENEMY

I found out recently that I have an enemy.  I have lived a long life and never had an enemy before.  Well maybe once.  A girl in 5th grade pulled my hair so hard that I can still today conjure-up the sting on my scalp. She had told everyone that she was a princess and a friend and I made fun of her.  We were wrong and she let us know it.  I knew nothing about difficult families in 5th grade.

It's the enemy I have today that is the surprise.  It is a strange feeling to know someone who wishes to cause you emotional distress.  My grown-up experience with enemies has always been through the Psalms.  The authors of the Psalms are besieged by enemies--wicked people and liars, gossip-bearers and false tale-bearers--from whom they seek deliverance and rescue.  "Silence all my enemies and destroy all my foes." Psalm 143. 

Someone who chooses to be an enemy is deeply flawed and narcissistic. She is not used to being thwarted.  She feels superior and wrote to a colleague, "Let's get together and discuss our innate superiority."  

So, someone who decides to be your enemy has colleagues, family, maybe even followers.  But no one should waste their time this way, acting only in service to oneself no matter how cleverly disguised. 

I hope this has not happened to you. But if you have an enemy, shut the door.  The door of an enemy leads to nowhere. 

SLOW JOURNEYING THROUGH ALASKA

Glaciers, Prince William Sound

My husband and I spent many months planning what he calls our Great Alaska Adventure, June-July 2016.  We began with five nights in Fairbanks in a cabin on the banks of the Chena River.  We did everything local we could find--a Fish bake with wood-grilled salmon, wild Alaskan cod, and snow crab; a summer solstice baseball game lasting into the wee hours of the morning; a river cruise by stern wheeler; and a visit to the training grounds of the Iditarod dogsled team. We used local shuttles to get from one adventure to another.

We plunged into the scenic wilderness of central Alaska by taking the Alaska Railroad Goldstar domed train to Denali National Park.  There we hiked, rented self-drive jeeps and photo-hunted moose and the elusive Denali.  We took the same train to Anchorage and rented a car for the drive to Alyeska, a glacier-carved valley in Girdwood, Alaska.  In the midst of seven glaciers, Alyeska became our base camp for trips to Whittier and the glaciers of Prince William Sound and Seward and Resurrection Bay.

On the road 

Amazingly, we saw every single bird, fish and mammal we hoped to encounter, from moose to whales, to puffins, to otters, to seals, to birds of every variety.  The rookeries lining the cliff edges of Prince William Sound were so swirlingly noisy they outdid even the waterfalls.

Rookery, Prince William Sound

Now we monitor the Fairbanks weather and sunlight.  On December 21, the winter solstice, the sun rose at 10:50 a.m. and set at 2:41 p.m.  Three hours forty-two minutes of daylight!  There were fireworks downtown to celebrate the shortest day.  I wish we had been there.

REFLECTIONS--THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP

We took a slow journey through the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  I've written about slow journeying before.  It doesn't take more time.  You see less, but see it closer.  Some people call this easy pace vacations, or smart travel or insight travel. Different from stealing some sightseeing time on a business trip, which most of us do when we can.  But sometimes, as we all know, less is more. Our plan this time was to stay on the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia, less than a 4 hour drive away, and meet up with old friends.  

Chesapeake Bay Beach, Virginia

Sunset over the Bay the First Night

Then cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (17.6 miles of bridge and two one mile tunnels for shipping lanes), an engineering marvel. I'd been wanting to cross this bridge for ages.  There's no superstructure. It's low level trestle style with single tube tunnels.  The bridge begins in Virginia Beach and ends in Cape Charles by the Bay, a beautiful small town nestled in Virginia's Eastern Shore.  So worth visiting!

Then stay on Chincoteague Island, enjoy the National Wildlife Refuge, and view the wild horses on Assateague Island.  We had only 3 nights, so maybe that doesn't sound slow paced enough, but somehow it was.  An over-the-top nature experience.  Of course we saw the horses.  We caught them grazing at dusk.  I didn't get a good photo of the horses, but my snowy Egret is in a lovely setting, isn't it? More daylight. Delicate long legs on it's own slow journey. I love the reflections in the water.

Finally on the drive back we went through the Dismal Swamp on the Virginia-North Carolina Border.  It's a Coastal Plain Swamp.  These are the most wonderful photos to me.  The reflections made the swamp not dismal at all.  Buggy maybe, but so beautiful to see the clouds and trees upside down.  I read the history later.  What is amazing is that the water is only 6 feet deep.  When you are there it looks much deeper because of the reflections.  We weren't lucky enough to see otters or weasels, and didn't want to run into a black bear or bobcat.  But the birds and bald cypress were plentiful.  We enjoyed it all.  See what you think.

Canal at Great Dismal Swamp

Clouds and Trees, Dismal Swamp

Usually an upside down world connotes something stressful--politics maybe, or something askew at home or at work.  Not here.  Here the trees, clouds and water brought nothing by awe and wonder.  It seems misnamed for sure.