Long Hollow

Free

No, I'm not giving these books away - I just got them!
They cost me $1 apiece.
Almost free.

I picked these up yesterday from our community library Book Sale room ... the "back room", where I go to cheaply satisfy my severe book addiction.
(Please don't judge me; as far as addictions go, it's one of the better ones, don't you think?)

Anyway ... I believe even if books aren't free, they hold the key to freedom.

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." ~  Frederick Douglass

"A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us." ~ Franz Kafka, 1904

"The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive."
~  The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1964

"The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more you learn, the more places you'll go."
~ Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!" 

"Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words!"
~  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, 1943

(This is my contribution to Jillsy's One Word Wednesday. The word is "Free"! Click HERE to read the other contributions or to learn how to play along.)

 

Learning to Soar

On a recent walk through the Hollow, Tom spotted four ducks paddling around on our neighbor's pond in the distance, just minding their own business.

I wondered if it was the Mallard couple who used to visit every year, stopping by with their all-grown-up babies.

Probably not. Maybe. It didn't matter - I just knew I hadn't seen any ducks in the Hollow in several years, so I hurriedly pointed my camera in their direction.

I barely had time to snap one photo before they spotted us spotting them and took flight ... in search of some privacy, no doubt. So I just kept clicking- no time for adjustments to my camera settings or anything - fingers crossed the photos would be half decent.

They were just half decent. But that was enough to capture the moment and memory.  

The duck sighting - watching them lift away from the pond, turn, and soar effortlessly away - reminded me of a recurring childhood dream of mine:

In it, I run, run, run, then jump! ... and instantly I'm soaring, arms and legs still pumping, helping me climb higher and higher above the vacant lot, until I'm high above the trees and houses. I relax, arms outstretched, just gliding through the air, with an occasional kick against the pull of gravity. The wind caresses my face, my hair... 

Did you ever have a similar dream? Mine felt so real - I haven't had that dream since childhood, but even now I can put myself there, feel the freedom of springing from the earth, into the sky. Like swimming, but better. 

Much better.

 

 “God has given you a spirit with wings on which to soar into the spacious firmament of Love and Freedom. Is it not pitiful than that you cut your wings with your own hands and suffer your soul to crawl like an insect upon the earth?” Khalil Gibran

My friend George and I planned to sky dive together after high school graduation. I longed for the exhilaration, the freedom, that feeling of soaring through the air that I had experienced in my dream.

But that's the closest to the dream I ever came... thinking about sky diving.

George and I graduated, lost touch, our pact buried in a cluttered drawer of my mind. 

Two or three years later, during a rescue training session at work one night, I stepped to the edge of open double doors high above the ground and slipped into a harness, eager for my turn on the zip line stretching to the ground. I leaned forward, farther and farther, until my body was almost parallel with the ground, but still, there was no zip. 

I turned and looked at my feet, still firmly planted on the ledge of the doorway, refusing to budge. I tried to will them to let go. No luck. They had a mind of their own.

They were afraid.

I don't remember what happened next - probably one of the guys shoved me loose; I vaguely remember zipping without incident down to the ground.

But I realized at that moment I wouldn't be jumping out of an airplane. Ever. I took that pact out of the drawer in my mind and burned it.  

Fear had tainted my dream of soaring through the sky. Clipped my wings.

 

Fast forward thirty years or so. George and I reconnect. And guess what? He jumps out of an airplane in honor of his 50th birthday. He sends me photos of himself, soaring through the air.

He tries to persuade me to go. 

No way, I say automatically. 

Then Barry sends me photos. And Gina. What is it with everyone jumping out of airplanes?

And I remember the dream, remember my 10-year-old self soaring, swimming through the air above the neighborhood vacant lot. What a glorious feeling of freedom.

And I think, maybe. Maybe I can now. Maybe I will jump out of an airplane and finally feel that rush.

Is it possible for wings to grow back? 

I think of other things in my life I had feared ... other ways I had found to soar: returning to college, reading my words out loud to a class, submitting my essays for publication, moving to a different city, beginning a blog, cage dancing (yes, really!), running 3 miles despite my asthma...

And many more, now that I think about it. With a running start and a jump, I had done them all, leaving my fears on the ground behind me.

Heck, just a few weeks ago, I shushed my fears and played the drums in public! (Thanks for the photo, KV!)

Now that was scary. But such a free, soaring feeling...

Maybe I will try skydiving after all, and soar through the sky like in that old dream of mine.

Maybe.

(This is my contribution to Jillsy's One Word Wednesday - have you guessed the word? Soar! Click here to see Jillsy's beautiful photograph and the other great entries. And feel free to add your own!)

 

 

 

 

Balance

Silly me.

I'm longing for balance in my life, between work and play, book and blog, drums and laundry, sleep and wakefulness ... but I envisioned this balance as a stagnant thing, like evenly weighed scales.

Boring.

Life is about moving, and now I realize balance is a verb, a see-saw in constant motion, each end loaded with what we should aim for, never letting one end remain up or down too long.

Or like a swing, going up and up and up, that has to travel an equal distance in the other direction (but then is guaranteed to move forward again.)

How did I miss this? We've been given plenty of examples of Balance: sun and rain, hot and cold, happiness and anger, health and sickness, joy and sorrow.

We don't want too much of either one, even of sunshine or joy or health, because how can you recognize and appreciate joy without experiencing sorrow?

 

 

I want to be knocked over by joy...

 

 

...but that means I have to accept sorrow.

 

 

I'd rather open my heart to joy and experience it full strength...

 

 

...even though I know sorrow is waiting for another turn...

 

 

I'd rather risk an unbalanced life, too much of one or another and the stress that comes along with it, than live in a stagnant gray unmoving twilight.

 

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow." 

And he answered: 

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. 

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. 

And how else can it be? 

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. 

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? 

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? 

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater." 

But I say unto you, they are inseparable. 

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. 

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. 

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced. 

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

~Joy and Sorrow, by Khalil Gibran

 

This is my entry to Jillsy Girl's One Word Wednesday Challenge. Hop over to her site to see the other entries.

Star Light, Star Bright... (or Gemini-Cricket!)

 

Tom came home with a horrible headache last night and went straight to bed. I felt bad for him, but that's not what this post is about.

It's about stars. And wishing upon stars.

Because he was out of commission, I took over his nightly chores, which included feeding the puppies. And that's how I found myself shivering out on the front walk, staring up at the sky while the dogs ate, searching for meteors. There was supposed to be this fantastic meteor shower going on, a geminid meteor shower, but I didn't see anything special, just the same few stars - the half moon reflecting on our metal roof was too bright, I think. It was still fabulous, and I tried snapping some shots of the reflection, but I was shivering and Belle kept jumping on me...

(Those are my excuses if the photos don't turn out.)

I finally gave up and came inside.

But then this morning at 5:45, when I turned on the kitchen television while I started the coffee, the nice newsperson reminded me again about the meteors, so I dropped the coffee, slipped a green fleece jacket over my pink fleece robe and ran outside, grateful that we live in the country where no one would see me in such a fashion faux pas. 

I didn't even grab my camera. I just wanted to see a 'falling star', dang it!

So I stood there on the rock path in front of our house, neck painfully and unnaturally arched backwards so I could stare up at the sky, and I saw...nothing. Well, I saw a few stars, but that was it. 

I decided to give it a few minutes.

Soon more stars appeared, like freckles on a red-headed child on a summer day...faint stars filling in the spaces between the big ones.

That's when I remembered something I'd forgotten: the vastness of the universe. All those zillions of stars above me reminded me that we're just tiny dots living on a tiny dot amongst zillions and zillions of tiny dots.

Why does that always make me feel good?

So many stars...

At that point, I figured I had missed the meteor shower, but I couldn't waste those stars.

"Star light, star bright..."

And then I saw it, just on the edge of my vision. Very faint, but I'm sure I saw it. A meteor. A falling star.

I saw three more before my neck told me I better stop.(It's been giving me fits all day.)

But it was a magical morning, for sure.

A morning of falling stars. A morning of wishes.

Fingers crossed, soon I'll see mornings of wishes come true...

(I wish I could claim these photos, but the one above is of the Perseid Meteor Shower by Gary Randall and the one below by Creation Photography, both snagged on FlickR. Click the photos to see more of their work.)

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Jillsy Girl's One Word Wednesday Blog Hop. This week's word is "Wish". Want to play along? Just write a post and add it to the list. But whether you play or not, be sure to check out the other participants.

My Daily Reminder

A gift from TG for my birthday years ago...

Each time I grab my keys, I see it and think of her and everything else I have to be grateful for...which is a lot, when I take the time to think about it.

And I do, thanks to TG.

I think of the potential of each day, the hope, the promise...

The responsibility.

It's a gift that keeps on giving...one of the least expensive, yet one of the most valuable.

Thank you, TG. (I love you.)

(This is my contribution to One Word Wednesday, the brainchild of Jillsy Girl. Be sure to take a look at the other contributions on the word "Gift" in the Blog Hop below.) 

 

 

 

Stockings Stuffed and Overflowing...

When I was growing up, we didn't hang stockings - we didn't have a fireplace, for one thing, but it just wasn't part of our tradition. But I learned about stockings from Dickens and other writers, and I didn't like being left out, especially if it held the potential for more gifts, so I made my own and hung it on the wall. And what do you know? On Christmas morning, I found it filled with wonderful surprises!

We had a fireplace when my kids were small, and therefore a mantel for their stockings, so the tradition continued: an empty stocking on Christmas Eve became a personalized treasure box on Christmas morning.

As the kids have gotten older, though, Santa has had a tougher time filling their stockings. They want less and less, but what they want cost more and more, and Santa's budget doesn't stretch very far beyond the gifts under the tree. 

So the last few years Santa has tried to go the practical route and stuff the stockings with things they needed anyway...lip balm, cough syrup, acne medicine, toothbrushes...

Not exciting stuff for sure. Nothing to make them run to their stockings.

I remember a few Christmas mornings as a child when I found an orange and an apple in my stocking. What the heck? My mom explained that in the days before refrigerated trucks and year-round fruit, apples and oranges were considered an indulgence...a rare, very special gift.

There is also a legend about St. Nicholas rescuing poor maidens from being sold into slavery by tossing gold coins in through a window for their dowries...the coins landed in stockings hanging by the fire to dry. An orange or tangerine, or even an apple, in the toe of a stocking symbolizes the generous gift of gold coins from St. Nicholas.

I don't think an apple or orange in their stocking would excite my kids, but lately I've been thinking of other fruits I wish I could get Santa to stuff in my children's stockings...

Right judgement, understanding, faith, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long suffering, wisdom, knowledge and understanding, strength, reverence/piety, hope and optimism, prudence, discernment, fortitude/courage, justice, modesty, chastity, and, of course, love...

Now those are some precious, rare fruits...not that my kids don't already have a little of those, but you can never have too many, right?

Just like shoes.

And, here are a few others I would want Santa to squeeze in as well...discomfort, anger, tears, foolishness...

I hear you...you're wondering why in the world I would wish these for my children... especially when I know they've already had some of each. (What kind of mother am I, anyway??)

Well, here's why (from Philip Yancey's book, Prayer)...

May God bless you with discomfort,
at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger,
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears,
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war,
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their
pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness,
to believe that you can make a difference in this world,
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done
to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor

Amen. 

 Yep, that would be the ideal stocking, stuffed and overflowing...

 

This is my contribution to One Word Wednesday (better late than never!) This week's word is Stuffed - click on the other contributions below and feel free to add your own!

 

 

 

 

Potentially SPLAT!

First off, Belle was no where around when I stepped out for our morning walk. Max lay in his bed on the porch, but didn't get up like he normally would, excited at the prospect of a walk. And when I mentioned it, he just kind of whimpered.

I remembered a lot of barking last night; they must have run amok through the woods during the night, chasing a deer or an armadillo or something. That never fails to aggravate Max's elbow dysplasia. You'd think he would have learned by now, but I guess to him, it's worth the pain the next day. (I can sympathize...I've had nights like that, only mine involved dancing and red wine.)

So instead of walking, I brushed him. He enjoyed it, and I enjoyed spending time with him - there's nothing like making someone else happy to take a few pounds off of your heart - but I still missed my morning walk...my quiet time, my prayer time.

Belle eventually showed up (I think Max sent her off to play with Haley, knowing he wouldn't be up for the walk...what a sweet dog!) but by then it was too late. I had to get ready for work.

Fast forward several uneventful hours. Just before the end of my work day, I published a new Jobs4Autism post and noticed that the one I had published the week before was missing. Poof! All I could find was the initial draft...just a few tidbits of information and a link. If I didn't see the link published on our Facebook page, it would have been easy to believe I never published it at all!

I had worked on that post for several hours...and now it was mysteriously gone. Hours of work...vanished! So discouraging...all that time wasted...

And then later this evening, while balancing my checkbook, I notice that one of my online payments to a credit card never went through. Well, that can't be right. It's in my checkbook and I have the printed verification in my file!

I signed on to the account and those dreaded words popped out: ACCOUNT PAST DUE! You know what happens when accounts are past due, don't you? The gates of Hell open up!! Late charges, skyrocketing interest rates...whatever they want to do to you is fair game. No rules apply anymore. 

But I knew I paid it, so I snatched up the phone, ready to argue, while I dug out the printed confirmation notice and checked the email folder where the confirmation message will be. Only the paper I printed didn't have a confirmation number...and there was no confirmation email.

Gulp. Ah, man.

It probably happened during one of those late night bill-paying sessions and I was in a too much of a hurry to pay the next one so I could get to bed or work on my book, so I didn't notice the payment didn't fully process. Thank goodness I have a record for paying on time, over the minimum...the representative took my payment, waived the payment-by-phone charge and the late fee and assured me my interest rates hadn't been raised (yet - I could hear that silent word, but ignored it for now.)

Just a reminder that I need to pay attention... I need to stay in the moment, not let my brain go skipping off to play in the next room before it finishes the task at hand, like an errant child.

And the same for posts that I publish; no matter how rushed I am or how late it is, I need to remember to regularly save a copy of it somewhere else. For goodness sake, my computer swallowed a year's worth of my children's book one time - you'd think that would have taught me my lesson, wouldn't you? Sigh. I can be so dense sometimes.

Poor Max. I'm already doing all I can for his elbow. The rest is his lesson to learn (just like mine with the dancing and wine...)

The good news is, even with these potential potholes in my path today, I didn't trip up, didn't fall SPLAT into a Bad Attitude. Maybe it's still Mother Teresa's words in my head...maybe it's the proximity to Thanksgiving...maybe the combination has just made me more aware of my many blessings, and the negativity these little blips could burp out don't stand a chance against my current Good Attitude.

What a great feeling! I'll enjoy it while it lasts...

Here are some more words from Mother Teresa to help me keep it going... "What we need is to love without getting tired. How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. What are those drops of oil in our lamps? They are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others, our way of being silent, of looking, of speaking, and of acting...."

I hope you were able to avoid going SPLAT! today, too!

Guess what? This was my contribution to Jillsy's (currently hosted by Sally G.) One Word Wednesday Challenge and Blog Hop...technically the word is "Splatter" but hey, I think "Splat" is close enough and fit my day better than "Splatter", right?

Check out the other contributions below (and add yours if you want to play!)

 

 

 

 

 

Dynamic, according to Definition

²dy·nam·ic  noun \dī-ˈna-mik\

Definition of DYNAMIC

1: a dynamic force 

2: dynamics; an underlying cause of change or growth

a : of or relating to physical force or energyb : of or relating to dynamics (see dynamics)

b : marked by usually continuous and productive activity or change <a dynamic city>b : energetic, forceful <a dynamic personality> 

Example of DYNAMIC 

Max, one month after Charly dog died...look at that face...look closely at his eyes...

Add a little Dynamic (dog)...

...and look at those eyes almost a year later...

And that's your lesson for today, made possible by Jillsy's One Word Wednesday, currently hosted by Sally G. with an added twist...a blog hop. Be sure to check out all the entries below, and if you want to participate, hop in!