New Life in the Yard

The hubby has been tossing seeds all over the yard and life is popping up all over. I'll wander out
by the well and find purple morning glories dancing in the morning breeze, or look out the window and glimpse yellow flowers (squash, maybe?) by the property line. When we toss seeds out into fertile soil, we never know what might spring forth! What ideas are percolating in your mind this spring?

Fresh Courage

One of the features I really love on Facebook is the one that posts "memories".  Each day, a few pictures from "this day", on some random year, are posted.  It's fun to see what I was doing six years ago, or to read a quote that I thought was cool last year, and to reflect on the moments that have passed. This year, some of the pictures from last year documented our move to North Florida.  I remember so well the swirl of emotions my husband and I felt, as we considered leaving our friends and everything that was familiar to us to take a huge leap of faith to a place we felt would be better suited to where we're at in life.  Yesterday, a picture of our oak canopied dirt road popped into the feed, and I smiled as I thought about all of the hope and fear that was simultaneously taking space in my mind as I snapped that photo from the front seat of my husband's truck.

2017 was a crazy year, to be sure, and in so many ways.  Some changes were amazing, and some not so much.  In addition to the positive messages, family photos, and funny memes decorating my Facebook status feed, there were lots and lots of political posts, posts that ran the whole gamut of party and belief.  Some I agreed with, some I did not, and some I considered thoughtfully, trying to figure out if there was any truth to the statements being made, or the article being posted.  I found myself getting angry about a lot of issues, and this is where something really great happened.  Tired of reading blurb after blurb, "listening" to friends who were supposed to care about each other tearing one another down over opposing political beliefs, and feeling helpless over situations in our country which I felt powerless to change, while wondering what exactly the truth was in all of the major issues being wrangled over, I started to read. And read. And read some more.  I've never been one to blindly believe anyone; regardless of who you are, or what qualifications you possess (or don't possess) in relation to a subject, I'm going to fact check you if you tell me something.   I'm an avid reader to begin with. Books have always been a major weakness for me, and Amazon Prime has kicked my addiction to levels I hesitate to admit to.  It was only natural that I'd look to books to teach me, to help me discern the truth from the garbage. As well, I began talking more with other people, trying to figure out what makes people veer toward one belief as opposed to a different belief that seems more obvious and truth filled to me.  I began to understand that some folks will cling to a certain ideology or belief regardless of what facts are placed before them.  I realized that having discussions with such people were a waste of time, and that I shouldn't expend much energy in being upset by the fact that they wouldn't consider the opinions of anyone else. I also realized that there are many, many people in our country who care very much about the things that are wrong in America today, and the things that have been wrong in America for a very long time. And, as much as the realization to me of how ill informed many of us have been was upsetting, I feel energized now in a way I don't think I've ever been to stand up and start refusing to support the lies and co-opt the bullshit.

The absolutely beautiful thing about seeking answers is that each time I delve into a book, search online, pick up a magazine, or have a conversation with someone involved in social justice activism, I'm lead to yet another source of information.  I've always advised people that if they want to learn about Judaism they should read a book written by a rabbi, or by someone else who is Jewish, rather than  a book written by someone of a different faith about what it means to be Jewish.  There are understandings and nuances to Judaism that I feel are often missed by those not "living the life".  (This, of course, doesn't mean that nothing good can be gleaned by reading books by non-Jewish folk, just that they shouldn't be one's only source of information.)  So, when I decided I wanted to read about what it's like growing up as a black man or woman in America, I understood my best option to be to read a book written by someone who actually grew up black in America.  I recalled a book by Nathan McCall called "Makes Me Wanna Holler", that an African American friend had been reading back in the 1990's when I was living in Boston.  Because he'd spoken highly of that book, it seemed a good place to start.  I was not disappointed; the book proved both enlightening and  inspiring, and it made me want to read more.  And so, I will.  I ordered "Lies My Teacher Told Me" this morning and am currently reading, "The Prisoner's Wife" by Asha Bandele.  Knowledge is our best avenue toward doing the right things, and it's my sincere belief that anyone who votes (and everyone over the age of 18 who can vote should, and should have access to do so) has a responsibility to educate him or herself well past the confines of Twitter, Facebook, and internet articles.  These are all okay to a point, but there is so much being portrayed out there as fact that isn't.  I find that it's easier to get to the truth when I read from many different sources so that I can piece together something that feels more accurate and honest.

I hope 2018 finds you wanting to learn, feeling passion filled for whatever it is that warms your heart and stirs your soul.



 

Happy New Year!

It's hard to believe, but it's 2018 already. At this time last year my family and I were pondering the idea of moving, and in the middle of working out the financing to buy our (literal) dream home in a town almost four hours north of where we'd lived for many years.  It was scary, but also exciting.  Now, eight months down the road, I'm very glad we took the leap of faith and made this move.  I'm looking forward to what 2018 has to bring and hoping the new year will lead us to good adventures and some new friends who share our heart places. I've been very much missing our old friends, the groups we were a part of and the amazing Goddess group and spiritual community I left behind in Fort Lauderdale.  We still have yet to discovery a homeschool group that fits our family. I do have hope that, over time, and with perseverance we'll find our place here in North Central Florida.

Namaste.    

Leaning In

Sometimes the fear creeps in like a cold stabbing to the heart. Other times, it's more a dull feeling of dread, a surety that something isn't quite right. I've been told the bouts of panic over the well being of loved ones springs from a form of PTSD.  This makes sense to me, on some level, as our family and I personally have experienced sudden loss on more than one occasion. One afternoon, I was hugging my Dad after spending a fun day with him, telling him I loved him before heading back to my apartment by the University. The next morning, I was waking up to the phone call nobody wants to receive- there'd been an accident. A month later, every plan I'd made to spend more time with my Dad that summer, after a hectic school year with very few open spaces for down time, was forever shattered. One morning, I was in my apartment in Boston. I'd just pulled some muffins from the oven, sticky, sweet, and hot. The phone rang, my cousin, far too young to be gone, had been in a wreck.  There were no more chances to tell him that I understood him more than he could know. It was just over. One day, I walked into the print shop I worked at in Allston, Massachusetts, after the usual morning T ride from the Fenway.  Our shop manager, who was usually the first to arrive, was missing. People were speaking in hushed tones about a tragedy...shortly thereafter we found out our manager and friend had killed himself. My mind raced back to a conversation we'd had just days before while running a press together. He'd just been talking about proposing to his girlfriend. Had she said "no"? How did we go from heartfelt, life affirming conversation over freshly printed t shirts, to that last, anguished moment he spent in the late hours of the night in his little Cambridge apartment? 

Life throws us curves. Sometimes, it throws us grenades. These incidences and others have brought me to a hard realization that there isn't always "one more day" to make that phone call, pay that visit, or "get things right".  They've brought me to a constant feeling of impermanence, and a sadness under the surface of loss to come. I hate this feeling, because sometimes I feel it prevents me from living with full joy in the happier moments, in the now. When you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop, you don't have both of your feet firmly planted right where you are. The only place I know to go with this is to divinity. Nothing makes sense to me unless I go there; there is only impending doom and a paralyzingly fear of the horrors to come. I wish I could say I'm being over dramatic, but this is the reality I experience every day. It's not my every waking moment, but it's the shadow lurking in the corners of my daily journey. 

I have been gifted with a wonderful sense of intuition. Oftentimes, I will know certain things before they happen, or I will get inklings of things to come, like when I was thinking about a name one morning, considering that if I'd ever had another baby girl I would have given that name to her. The next day, my Mom called to tell me that my sister and her hubby were going to be blessed with a baby girl. They were naming her that very name I'd pondered on the previous morning over coffee. One could say this was one hell of a coincidence, but the name in question is not a common one, so I'd have to disagree.  I've experienced inner stirrings of unease over certain people only to find out later that they'd been sick; I once had a vision that a family member had collapsed, only to discover the next day that she'd passed out in a subway on the way home from work the day before (she was okay, after a nasty bought with a virus). The trouble with this intuition is that sometimes my mind will tell me things are wrong that aren't, sending me into panic. I've learned to take a moment when this type of situation occurs, to use the tricks I've learned to separate what is real from what is only fear.  The intuitive feelings I get are subtly different from the messages of doom my mind will sometimes broadcast, and breathing through the discomfort is necessary in order to discern what's really going on. I believe we're connected to our loved ones on a spiritual level and I envision a golden or a silver cord that joins me to a particular person when I'm feeling fearful with regard to their well being. In reaching out on this level, I'm usually able to get a better grasp of what is going on, and this has helped me to ease out of panic attacks.  It's difficult to explain this process; I only know that it works for me and has offered me a layer of peace in my day to day life.

I'm not sure why I felt compelled to write about this today. Maybe there are other people out there going through the same struggle. Life is going to do what it does. We can control only how we handle what comes along. Loving others means opening ourselves up to being vulnerable, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

New Beginnings

Our old house sold yesterday. As I read the email letting us know that the South Florida leg of our journey had, at last, reached a closing point I felt the tiniest bit of sadness. The feeling was a clenching of the heart, like a tiny green worm burrowing into a sweet autumn apple. Anyone who knows how I've felt about the lesser aspects of South Florida living (which is pretty much anyone who would listen) will probably find humor in my writing this. For me, though, there's zero irony to be found in feeling sad for the closing, both of the house sale and the chapter of our lives that was South Florida. I appreciate the twinge of loss, because it means that I deeply cherished the beauty that I did live while there. Very few times of life reflect total loss. There are almost always wonderful things to be found among the weeds. And, for that matter, some weeds are beautiful in their own right. 

I have never been made for city living. My spirit expands in the forest, on the tops of mountains, at a lakeshore where the water reflects the ever reaching sky. For the past year, I struggled nearly every day to maintain my zen within the confines of an urban environment that was growing more toxic by the day. My husband had wanted to sell our house for quite awhile, but I was only able to let it go once my heart had become too choked with the soot of daily life to bear any more time in our existing city space. Such is the way of life, I suppose. We hold on so tightly, until one day we realize our palms are bleeding from the force of our squeezing, and we open our hands to greater possibilities.  About a year ago, I stretched my arms wide to the sky and released everything; the fear, the expectation, the death grip I'd had on what was. 

Our family created amazing and beautiful memories in our home in Hollywood. I miss the goose who lives on our former lake, enough some days that thinking about him brings tears to my eyes. We'd become kindred spirits, helping each other through the rough spots.  I miss the community we had there; our environment is different here in mostly good ways, but when you move away from the city you also move away from some of the cool things cities offer.  In some ways I wish the drive back wasn't so long, but we needed to move so many miles away in order to find the other things we were searching for. There is always a sacrifice to be made when pursuing our dreams.  

Yesterday, my husband and our neighbors' son found an owl on the side of the road leading to our new house.  The poor thing had literally fallen out of the sky by the front of my husband's truck.  They brought her to our house and our daughter and her friends marveled over how cute she was. The little owl (most likely a screech owl) sat, nearly unmoving, in my lap for a long while before finally climbing up my shirt to hide beneath my hair. She seemed strong; perhaps she'd been momentarily stunned by something out in the woods. After the moon rose, we placed her in ma tree behind our house, hoping she'd find her wings again and return home to the wilds. This morning, she was gone. I searched the tree, as well as the ground all around it, but she'd flown off after having gifted us with the most magical of experiences (we go crazy over owls in our house), and my spirit was lightened knowing that she would not be spending any time caged. Isn't this similar to our journeys of change? Life knocks us down, and for a moment we're paralyzed, stunned by the realization that we've been blind sided by something that we need to take better consideration of.  We try to hide, but then we find ourselves lifted up, to a higher place where the view is clearer. It's from here that we can fly.  

Wild things should not be caged. Nor should our own hearts. 

Namaste.

Transition Places

Transitioning times can be difficult. We know that jobs change, children grow up, babies are born, and people pass on, but the knowing never seems to lessen the ache of letting go of what was and moving toward what is.  We're going through lots of changes right now: new home, new town, new homeschool groups and friends. It seems like every time I turn around there is something else to be considered; we currently need a new family dentist and a new pediatrician. My daughter has had the same doctor since she was born, and he's amazing. Unfortunately, driving four hours for an appointment isn't practical! More changes.

In the midst of the chaos, I'm finding myself becoming very emotional. Seemingly all of a sudden, I went from being a Mom to a wee girl to being Mama to an almost teenager. The changes are beautiful; there's nothing more incredible than watching your child blossom into the person they were meant to be. Still, with every outer change that happens in our lives, our role in things changes; we transition too. This is good, but the road that moves away from bath tub peek-a-boo, kissing chubby baby feet, frilly little girl dresses, princess outfits, and fairy wings is a rocky one. Some days, even while in awe of the young woman our daughter is becoming, I miss those things. Just as she is learning how to be a woman, I'm learning how to best parent her. This happened so quickly.  I cherish even more deeply every moment I have with her, knowing that in a few blinks she'll be off on more adventures of her own and I'll be praying that her Dad and I have equipped her with the inner and outer resources to make good life decisions.

For today, the house is quiet. Everyone else has opted to sleep in (even the dog), and I'm grabbing a bit of introspective time. I'm transitioning too, into a time of more space to write and to create art. I'm learning how to balance our business responsibilities with time spent homeschooling in a meaningful way. My desire is to make more room for art and cooking and trips outside our house in the coming school year. I'm embracing this new way of being even as I'm feeling a little bit stretched trying to move into it. I'm reminded that whenever I start a new workout routine, certain muscles hurt until they're used to the new exercises. Once the soreness passes, the muscles are stronger and better formed.  Life is like that too.  I know that this is all for good, but I also recognize that it's okay to ache a little over what has passed into memory.  Nobody understands the word "bittersweet" quite like a Mom or a Dad.

Beautiful weekend wishes!

A New Home

I've blogged in the past, but this new adventure my family and I are about to take needs a new blog space. And so it is.  

For many years, I've wanted to leave South Florida. I've watched lots of good friends pack up their belongings and hit the road, the latest of whom left our whole little family a bit out of sorts. I think it was that loss which lead my husband and I to think deeply about what we wanted and what we were willing to do to get it. Thus began our year of searching; searching for a new area to call home, searching for a new house, and searching our own souls and hearts to make certain we hadn't just been captivated by some sort of later in life angst. We explored the Daytona Beach area, Ormond Beach, and the surrounding areas, enjoying the scenery, talking with the locals, swimming in the ocean, discovering places we'd never shopped at, eaten at, or hiked.  We fantasized as the homes of other folk passed by the truck windows and talked a whole lot about whether we might be crazy to be thinking about leaving the place where we've successfully run our business for the past several years. We returned home, talked more, wrote out lists of pros and cons, prayed, and finally decided that moving was really the only good option for us if we didn't want to stay in South Florida mired in regret. This area has grown too much. It's too crowded, too urbanized, too hectic, and too much of some things I won't post here because I'm not into going on a tirade of the things I'm weary of in this area apart from what I've already listed. People will get upset with me, etc. 

After connecting with a realtor who was on our wavelength, we were able to find a beautiful home that was eerily like a house my hubby and I had drawn while dreaming about the kind of house we wanted to live in. We thought it had to be some sort of divine providence that our realtor had sent us exactly what we wanted (but better) and determined that if the house was still for sale after Christmas, we'd drive up to North Florida to take a look at it. We spent the next couple of weeks on holiday travel, rich foods, and obsessively checking the listing for the aforementioned house to see if it was still on the market.  By the end of the winter holidays, we were sure we should go take a peek at the place which would later become our house on the lake. 

Now, a couple of months later, we're very grateful, and very hopeful our house in South Florida will soon be snatched up by some family who loves  it as much as we have for the past eight years.  We've taken a leap of faith, but I'm sure it's a smart bet.