changes

DEEP INSIDE OF YOU

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Deep inside of you and
Deep inside of me,
In point of fact,
Deep inside of all of us
Lies a loving spiritual being
Striving to come forth.
To see the light of day
To see the wonder of the world around us,
To see the beauty and to see the love of everyone,
To feel the oneness and the purpose of all that we encounter.

It is our fate and our future to open our eyes,
To open our minds and to open our hearts and Know
That we are all in this world together.
Sometimes it seems to be a difficult step to take,
To relax and know that we are here to help each other.
Sometimes it is harder to allow another to take a step toward us.
But here we are, on this small globe together.
Our lives are entwined with each other.
Let us resolve to restore the love and caring that lies deep inside,
Deep inside of You, and deep inside of Me.

A CIRCLE IN TIME

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When I was very young one of the fun things that I liked to do was to play board games with my cousins on a Sunday afternoon. We were very competitive with each other and I can still remember the shrieks of laughter when I won, or the moans of disgust when I lost. I gloried in showing that I could be the fastest or best, and so when I lost, I felt embarrassed and impatient with myself. We played Monopoly for hours on end, or card games like Rummy or Solitaire. It was always fun tho.
But time moved on, and I married, became a mother and was the overseer for many of their boisterous events. They had some pretty noisy games.
Now I am retired in a whole new environment, time to do whatever I want, and what do I do? I play GAMES. I play word games, or solitaire, casino or slot games, number games, you name it, all on my Ipad or computer.
The fun thing is that I am still playing these games with my sisters, many cousins, daughter in laws, brother in laws, all of the same people that I played with, some of them over 50 years ago. We write each other little notes of congratulation over a good win, or make a resolve to do better next time.
Who would have thought that I would be still playing games with the same people, all a lot older, but still having fun together?
Life is really a circle, isn’t it. We just have to hold on tightly and the brass ring will come around again.
And then there are all of the new friends like you, who have come along. Life is good, especially since we can all smile and cheer as we enjoy playing games with each other. Thanks for all of the great competition, it keeps us thinking young.

YOU’RE MY INSPIRATION

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For the past few days the song “You’re My Inspiration” by the group “Chicago” has been drumming thru my mind because the subject for our Creative Writers Class has been “Inspiration.” I thought of my own mother and how she never gave up but conquered throughout her life, living a very productive and successful one. I thought of many other figures that I knew that did the same.
But eventually I came to the conclusion that I have the perfect example right here in our own group of writers.
To my own knowledge, we have had almost all of the major adversities in life in the past four years since I first joined. Many of us have been widowed after long and successful marriages, and others have had and still do have to cope with serious illnesses. Still others have had deaths or divorces in their past experiences. Yet never have I felt anything other than admiration for the way our members have risen up, and helped others get thru their own difficulties. We are all growing older and looking out for each other and that is a wonderful thing.
So Creative Writers, I salute you! You are my Inspiration, and I am so thankful that you are in my life. As members of this group, you are providing a great happiness for us all. Viva la, Writers!

JUST THINK WHAT 35 YEARS CAN DO

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Every once in a while a new experience comes along that has the effect of making a very different way of looking at our lives.
Bringing forth four sons, living with them thru a tumultuous twenty five years or so, surviving the ups and downs of daily life as they grew and wrestled each other for their place in the family order is something that is not for the faint hearted. I can proudly report that I did survive it.
When the last one to leave rode off into the sunset I didn’t waste too much time or breath missing the constant uproar that had been going on for the past quarter of a century. Wives came along, and then grandchildren, and a whole new style of family living. Everyone ended up with a chance to make their fortune on their own. We knew what each other was doing, roughly speaking, but their lives were their own to make.
Time went by. We often lived in the same towns, like Cortez, CO, Lawton, OK, Holton, MI, even Wyoming and Montana, but we didn’t stay in each others houses overnite. We had our own homes and our own spaces.
Fast forward.
We are wintering in Florida in a retirement community, and guess what. Son #3 and wife are arriving for nine days! We are all excited, hoping for warm weather. I begin to plan things, and then I realize. I haven’t lived in the same house with #3 son in over 35 years! I don’t know what he really is like on a day to day basis! What does he like to eat, what kind of TV does he watch? What are his every day habits?
For twenty years I took care of him, knew him as well as anyone in my life, and now a relative stranger is coming for nine days. How is it going to work out?
Wednesday noon. I hear a car door close, then another, and they are here! Looking as great as they always do, smiling and hugging, and it is like the years have all flown away and we have our children back again.
There are some obvious differences. I notice that now they tend to take care of us, instead of the other way around. As they are showing us new pictures of their life I realize anew that they are grandparents also, and in the prime of their lives. They have their own friends and their own business interests. Their lives are full and I am so proud of them.
I finally realize. They are grown up. They don’t just need us but want us also.
The days fly by and all too soon the alarm rings at 2AM, and off they must go to the airport. And we return to our quieter life, thankful that we have had a great time renewing our friendship with our children. We can rest assured that we did our job and they are part of the living proof of it.

PLAYING OUT DOORS

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Looking at spring blossoms today with a blustery winter storm going on in Michigan is probably pretty disgusting to the people that are busy surviving the typical Febuary storms. When I go on Facebook or Twitter and see the pictures I wince, and hope that all of my friends and family are safe. I try not to brag about our beautiful weather here in Florida because I still remember what it is like to live in the north in the winter. Visions of all of the clothes that we piled on, the extra scarves and the fur lined boots if we were lucky still fill my memories. I am remembering all of the wet mittens, coats, hats and scarves draped all over the registers, and the smell of them as they dried. When my kids were young we used bread wrappers both in and out of the boots trying to keep them from leaking. It was difficult to get things dried before it was time to go outside again.
And yet we did go outside. And when we didn’t have to go to school we loved playing outdoors. Snowmen decorated our yard and we made forts out of the many snow balls that we rolled into larger spheres. We made them large enough so we could even stand in the fort, and we covered the tops with branches or blankets. Then we would call the fort our club, and have meetings. Sometimes our mothers would give us cookies to have a picnic.
We went sliding, and ice skating. My dad would use a hose and make a pond for us in our back yard early in the winter and we would have all the neighborhood kids over for a great time. There was usually an ice pond at our neighborhood school but we had to walk about 6 blocks to it. Some of my cousins had a long steep hill right behind their house and we would go there on Sundays after church.
It was a long time ago, and it was a simpler time. Thinking about it now makes me realize just how much things have changed. I rarely see children playing outside just for the sheer joy of it as we always did. My mother never called me in until it was almost dark in the summertime. We didn’t own a lot of equipment, we were really lucky if we had a bike. Most of us had wagons tho, which we had plenty of use for.
This has turned into a look backward into time, and for a lot of us that is probably a good thing. We have a lot to be grateful for, the memories of a simpler childhood, playing outdoors, very little organized events of any kind, other than school, Sunday school, and church, but we sure had a lot of fun playing outdoors.
As the Beatles would sing, “Those were the days, my friends, those were the days.”

JUST SUPPOSE

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Just suppose that we all followed the Golden Rule.

Right there I lost 90% of my readers. I can tell because I can feel the immediate reaction to my statement. We all want to follow the Golden Rule, it is the standard for decency among people and nations, right? But, but, but, we all know that when push comes to shove we will lose the 90% because we feel no one else will follow it. We would like to do unto others and have them return the favor full fold, bringing happiness and satisfaction to our lives.

But trust in each other implicitly is what we are lacking. We have been burned too many times, by friends or nations or governments. We have listened to too many opinions on too much television, radio, and speeches. Now we are having a hard time believing each other.

For me the word “Freedom” means the ability for each of us to be free to do what makes us happy and productive, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. There is the kicker, because it is very difficult to allow others to have their own opinions without getting excited when they are different than ours.

How to solve this dilemma? Maybe we should all try to LISTEN to others more often. My dad always told me that there is more than one side to a story. Part of the problem is that we tend to listen more often to the ones that agree with us.

This has been a Sunday morning ramble, after listening to the so called news shows. I don’t have the answers but I have decided that I want to try to listen more. Maybe it will start a trend if enough people read this on Twitter.

HOW HAVE MY GOALS IN LIFE CHANGED?

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Looking back at my somewhat helter skelter life, I am really having a rough time putting the thoughts about my past goals down on paper. Somehow I can never remember having any special goals other than the ones that are universal to all of us. When I was in my teens I wanted to grow up, get a “good” job, get married, have children, basically do all of the things that my parents had done, and have enough money to keep the bills paid.
My father had always drummed it into my head that I could do whatever I really wanted to do, and I believed that implicitly. The problem with that was that no one, including me, really believed that I would ever do much more than get married, raise children, go to church on Sunday, and in general live my life in the same way that I had been brought up.
But then along came the draft. I had married, and my husband was called up for duty, and so off we went, he joining the Army and I trailing along behind him. We lived in the West and in the South, and I began to realize that there was a whole different world out there than I had ever experienced. There were so many different ways of looking at things, and so many new people to meet.
After the service we went back home to Michigan and raised a family. Traveling had opened up my new world. At the same time women’s liberation had begun. It became more acceptable for girls to go to college or find work that fulfilled them in different ways than before. But at the same time we women still had to take care of our homes and our children. My main goal at that time was just to survive it all. I look back and remember how tired I was and how pushed I felt for a long long time.
Eventually the children grew up, the jobs got better, and traveling became one of the main goals in my life. Moving to Colorado and living in mountainous country fulfilled me for a long time. Cruises to Alaska later on in life bring fantastic memories to me even today.
Eventually I began to write, and to feel the urge to share my thoughts and feelings with others. This led to the goal of writing and publishing a book of poetry. I became obsessed with the thought that I could accomplish this and I wrote and worked and edited until my goal became fulfilled.
Now my goals seem to have quieted back down. I am back to thinking about the everyday facets of life again as I did when in my 20’a. Keeping house, connections with our children, writing, traveling, all has come full circle. The days when I had to keep pushing myself to get everything just so have faded into the past. I can take the time to do whatever I want to do, go for a ride with my husband, crochet, knit, read, read, read, and I don’t have to worry about whether my goals are getting met or not. I can study all of the things that I never had a chance to do when I was a young mother, and I can enjoy all that the world has to offer.
In a way it seems very odd to me that I have landed right back where I started. I venture that this is true for many women of my age. We are so fortunate that we have seen the best of both worlds, and now we can relax. We still remember when we cooked everything from scratch, had a wringer washer, and ironed the washing every Tuesday. We lived in a world where all of the normal people did pretty much the same things in the same way.
Now we can choose what we wish to do, and where we wish to go. That is enough of a goal for me. I have arrived at a great place and I am enjoying every step of the way.