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


# # # #

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

#

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..

#

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....

#

beginnings and endings...

There are multiple reasons for the death and grief rituals we humans create. There is comfort in putting one foot in front of the other and knowing what comes next, in saying goodbye in prescribed ways in the company of others. Without the rituals it is a more lonely journey... A telephone call with the information of my father's death came today. There is no memorial, no burial, no funeral, no gathering in Indiana planned. I will probably be lucky to be called when they deem it time to scatter his ashes this summer.

This is a glimpse of the views where my father spent his last three weeks. Every room could see a slice of nature; every room opened onto a patio where hospital type beds could be wheeled out into the sunshine, where bird feeders were filled daily and the peaceful songs and sounds of spring were in the air.








Goodbye Dad...

###

"wider than the sky"

Part One: Life

CXXVI

THE BRAIN is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,
For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.

Emily Dickinson, Complete Poems

I stumbled across this and liked it. I have not fully explored the thoughts and meanings that come to me from her poem, but I believe it has no real connection to events and happenings of the moment... or perhaps it is that it evokes feelings or thoughts I wish to find in myself... or represents my need for escape into other thought... or perhaps any connections to the events of the moment do indeed "differ, if they do, as syllable from sound."

##

Stealing moments

"Man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard." Chief Standing Bear, Ponca Nation





Some days the sunset is just a brief flash in my side and rear car windows on the way home, so when I do get to see one and really drink it in, it is all the more delightful.

There are photos piling up without much chance to look at them. I uploaded a sparing few to Flickr, and will hopefully have some more later. I am heading to Indiana on Thursday, so it could be a while... although, I'm hoping that when I get back, I can head out with hiking boots and camera, and catch a little early hint of spring.

# #

Unconscious Mutterings Week 214

"I say ... and you think ... ?"

1. Contribution :: charitable or political


2. Ryan :: Meg


3. Minimal :: effort


4. Cleansed :: fresh start


5. Centered :: calm and in the moment


6. Arrow :: broken


7. Beyond :: unseen ahead


8. Execute :: tasks


9. Intuition :: strong


10. Apology :: given

Weekly word list found at   Unconscious Mutterings

#

watching

"Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart" ~John Adams

"We can hold back neither the coming of the flowers nor the downward rush of the stream; sooner or later, everything comes to its fruition." ~Loy Ching-Yuen

There is that sense of the unseen layers, me watching me, experiencing the knowing. I knew my father is dying, but somehow some part of me didn't accept it. Maybe I still haven't really. But this layer of sadness is hovering closer to the surface. It feels different than when my mother was dying in 1984. With my mother there were too many things that needed saying that were left unsaid. I would have at least liked to have said goodbye.

I have tried not to let that happen with my father. Over the years, I said things as they came up; things I thought were important for him to hear.... such as my thanks for him choosing to be my father, for being there at different times that I really needed him to be when I was growing up. Unsaid, were any thoughts about the times that he was not there emotionally. I do remember, but long ago let any frustration or pain of those go as I accepted my parents as human after all. And now he is dying... three days, three weeks, three months.. more, less.. soon...

I cannot fix it or run away from it... or perhaps more accurate, this time I choose not to try to do either.

#

Unconscious Mutterings Week 213

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Nude :: sans coverings


2. Support :: strength to lean on... hard to find


3. Rachel:: the number one spot for this name in Google is  Ray; I've never seen any of her shows


4. Crane :: Scarecrow


5. Candy bar :: temptation when I'm tired


6. Material :: woven, knit or crochet


7. Mind games :: In my first thoughts about this phrase, I was completely ignoring  another definition... hmmmm, very telling.


8. Eviction :: notice


9. Produce :: grapes, kiwis, avocados, spinach, corn, carrots, tangelos


10. Joke :: life

Weekly word list at Unconscious Mutterings

#