seeking gold

Sometimes when I am trying to put something out of conscious mind to let it simmer to some next step or resolution, I have a habit of picking up whatever reading material is in front of me and opening it at random. I read whatever lines jump out at me and seek the destination they send my thoughts. I usually find patterns in the disconnected bits where there probably are none. But that is a thought journey I've traveled before and probably won't ever figure out with any certainty.

Anyway, picking up the book Buddha Is As Buddha Does, by Lama Surya Das , the words of Norman Vincent Peale leapt out at me:

"When you become detached mentally from yourself and concentrate on helping other people with their difficulties, you will be able to cope with your own more effectively. Somehow the act of self-giving is a personal power-releasing factor."

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Maybe Vulcan just orbited its sun more slowly?

And on Earth, Mr. Spock wouldn't have been two hundred or four hundred or whatever age he was in whatever might have been his last appearance in the Star Trek mythology line. (Wasn't he last on Romulus trying to facilitate peace?)

There are things I probably should (oooo nasty word sometimes, that "should" word) be doing and one of them involved looking for something on the Internet. When I was done and cleared the page to blank, I just couldn't resist clicking on that "Stumble!" button.

It came up with this silly site which will calculate Your Age On Other Worlds" and also has a grade school lesson on planet rotations and orbits. I am a little over 4 1/2 on Jupiter, 228 or so on Mercury and 29 and change on Mars. Funny stuff those numbers. I am still trying to get used to the feel of that Earth number rolling off my tongue.

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Stumble!

"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age." ~Lucille Ball

I don't think I'll start lying about my age now, or at least not yet. Yesterday was my 55th birthday!

Some time ago (maybe July?) in a very quick dash around to check on my favorite bloggers, Andy, at Older, but no Wiser was writing about finding some sites using the Stumble Upon toolbar. I am not generally fond of full toolbar additions to my browser, but this one looked interesting, so I bookmarked it to check out later. Yesterday I finally had the time to check it out and take it for a test run. I found some wonderful things, some quick look, read and move on, some momentary amusements, some go back later and go deeper. I couldn't stay away from it today either. All in all it is a very interesting tool. (Thank you, Andy)

One of the sites I found was this one: Even Happier: The 7 beliefs of the super happy people . The rest of that website has some promise for some quick fixes when I am feeling less than...


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Time

Playing around at Magnetic Poetry, very quickly choosing words which appealed to me in that moment, I came up with this:

would you see your velvet yesterday
wild angel
laugh sacred woman
soon time will work magic
dance to the joy of the universe
smile with the starry sky


I don't know what it means that these were the words that "spoke" to me today. I tried to just go with the flow. The last step was choosing some connecting words to group everything into some pattern that might make any sense. I'm not so sure I succeeded. I'll analyze it all later... or not.

Imagine hearing a very huge happy relaxed sigh.... that's me!
It's very nice being on vacation this week.

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Never argue with a woman who reads

This made it through to my work email several days ago and I hadn't seen it previously. It made me laugh so I thought I would share.

One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and reads her book.

Along comes a Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"
"Reading a book," she replies, (thinking, "Isn't that obvious?")
"You're in a Restricted Fishing Area," he informs her.
"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."
"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman. "But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden. "That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.

MORAL:
Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.

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there are no brakes

"If we learn the art of yielding what must be yielded to the changing present, we can save the best of the past." ~Dean Acheson

Change... Is change the one constant in life? Is there any "one" thing in life at all? Isn't everything perception? or how confusing and off tangent can I get with these thoughts...

My trip to Indiana proved to be another strange chapter. I thought I was there to scatter my father's ashes. My maternal uncle, who knew and was very close to my father for half a century was there to scatter my father's ashes. Childhood friends of my father's were there and ooops, my father's wife "forgot" to pick up the ashes from the mortuary and it was closed. So we who came for this final event for my father sat through a conservancy meeting, and a lot of paper honors and speeches from people who didn't know him naming him to the list of distinguished Hoosiers (the governor signed that), naming a "Larry lastname" day in the city of Bloomington, honoring his work (as one of a very tiny not quite handful of folks in this particular effort) on moving the the lake to conservancy district and managing its care for many years. These things were wonderful posthumous honors, but I didn't fly back to Indiana for them and likely wouldn't have. No ashes. No apology. It all shouldn't have been a surprise, given the exceptional number of other stunts this woman has pulled during the last few months, but it was.

I've recovered. Mostly. I think. Life seems a little strange still in some moments to think my father is no longer here... So many conversations left we didn't have. I felt and still feel that way about my mother sometimes too, but the ache is not quite as immediate or as sharp after twenty four years.

And another new stage of life is about to begin too. My child is leaving home, moving out on his own. Less than twenty minutes away, but not in my house any longer. This will happen in two weeks. Another ending, another beginning, another change.


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start here, pause there, and onward....

I was headed to the blog, but got stopped by a lengthy telephone call... then I thought I'd check one of my email boxes and got further sidetracked.... and finally wound up here after reading a quick couple of things including:

For a few days I’ve been peppering some of the smartest people I know with this question. Here’s what they said. You’re a grownup when…

* You know there are many things much more important than yourself.
* You’re willing to say “I was wrong.”
* You’re attentive to the footprint you will have left on the world.
* You forgive the carelessness of the young, regret the thoughtlessness of your own youth.
* You finally realize you have no one to complain to.

Growing up is a choice. The journey begins with the simplest of steps: identifying your values, then acting accordingly. This means jettisoning the excuses that have previously blocked your path (“I’m too tired,” “I don’t have the time,” etc.). And then the tricky part: doing all this while retaining your sense of humor. Few accomplish these goals. (Total success would mean being something on the order of a saint.) But the important thing is to point yourself in the right direction and start marching.


Steven Slon, Editor, AARP The Magazine
"What is a Grownup?"

Yeah... taking responsibility and retaining one's sense of humor is definitely right at the top of the list....

More grownup stuff: 50 Things You Need to Know by 50


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Unconscious Mutterings Week 232

1. Situation :: self created


2. Theme song :: still searching for one


3. Kelly :: green


4. Club :: sandwich


5. Swerve :: car


6. Couch :: potato


7. Bigfoot :: lives in the really old forests ;-)


8. Arbitrary :: rules; too many of those


9. Inventor :: wish I were an


10. Blazer :: silk and wool tweed

Weekly word list can be found at Unconscious Mutterings

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wandering on a Saturday noon

How on earth did I miss this by Mary Oliver? I notice it was referenced by Sacred Ordinary in an entry dated May of 2006 and in Panhala at some point...

The page at Panhala is beautiful... Messenger, by Mary Oliver

The poem begins:

"My work is loving the world." ...

and later....

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.

..."

"Messenger", by Mary Oliver; Thirst: Poems, 2006 Beacon Press

Completely unrelated, I'm off to see a matinee of the latest Harry Potter film.... I'm sure it will be good.. and I'm just as sure I probably won't write any review of it..

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wandering paths

"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate." Henry David Thoreau, Walden (The Portable Thoreau, edited by Carl Bode)

I haven't figured out the way to return to blogging with any flourish or even a decent explanation of where I've traveled in the months behind. But with a telecommute day and a few moments in between reports and telephone calls, here I am. Back regularly or intermittently, only time will tell.

Of course, when I say "traveled" I didn't mean the physical, outward sort, rather the inner journey. However, in concrete terms, I'm also just back from Massachusetts (4th of July week), and next weekend (20th) I'm off to Indiana for two days, maybe for the last time in my life. I'm taking the camera and perhaps there will be a few pictures. My photos from Massachusetts are still being reviewed and processed, but they were almost all of family and friends and chosen for the people, not for art projects. Should that be the same? hmmm... perhaps if I were talented, they ought to be, but since I'm not...
nah...

Journeys and tangents... ongoing.. always.... and once again a stumbling resumption of a path from which I wandered....

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