Natasha Bedingfield - Soulmate (Live from Abbey Road)

Soul Mate

One of my favorite excerpts from the book “Eat, Pray, Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert is when Richard explains what a soul mate is to Liz as she sits crying and sates,“I seriously believed that David was my soul mate”

The reply:

“He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and they smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you and they leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can’t let this go. It’s over, Groceries. Daivd’s purpose was to shake you awake, drive you out of that marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you SO desperate and out of control you HAD to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now its over .”

The first time I read this passage I had to keep going back. And I have gone back to it, probably twenty times since. I read it out loud, the way I thought Richard would have said the shit to me. It was such a raw, brutal truth, and I thank Elizabeth Gilbert for it every time I read it. I had to keep going back because my eyes were filled with tears – I couldn’t see the type on the pages of the book, and my breathing was heavy and laborious because I couldn’t breathe though my nose from he sobbing. I kept losing my place in the passage and had to start again. But that was OKAY. I wanted to get this. I NEEDED to get this. For as much as I thought he was my soul mate,, I needed to understand that he was not.. I, like Elizabeth, believed a soul mate to be something more, something different, the other half of me, the person who completed me. But Richards defining of a soul mate fit the men in my life. They all served a purpose and I hope I served a purpose for them. His definition rang more true than any other explanation of a soul mate I had read.

I haven’t changed as a person or as a woman. It’s just that now I am beginning to understand and love myself. That’s not an easy thing to do, and it sure as hell isn’t an easy thing to admit - that at one time you didn’t love yourself,

and to acknowledge the things you’ve done

and said because of that?

That at one time

I couldn’t have possibly felt complete

without someone else.

I’m not like that any longer.

It doesn’t mean that I want to be alone,

but it means that I don’t feel the need

to have someone beside me –

just to have someone beside me.

I want someone there.

I think someone deserves to have the depth of love

I am able to give.

Do I want a soul mate?

No.

I want love.

I want vulnerability.

I want dialogue

And companionship.

Shared thought

And Quiet reciprocation.

Affinity.

And Passion – intellectual & physical.

No, I don’t want a Soul Mate.

I want

The partner.

The lover.

The Companion

Who’ll continue growing with me.

Someone who recognizes their imperfections

And can forgive mine.

Who isn’t afraid to let me see

and know them completely.

Someone that trusts my love is strong.

Someone that feels how the strength of my love trusts.

I know my layers.

I’ve seen them peeled back and fully exposed

from pain and happiness,

love and sorrow,

loss and gain.

From one continual bad circumstance into another,

My own terrible choices and

a little bit of dumb luck.

I know who and what I am.

Doesn’t mean I am going to stop growing.

I am not perfect.

Hell, I don’t think I would even want to be.

What fun is there in perfection?

I am not looking for perfection.

Thank you to my soul mates, (as in Richard’s definition) –

Thank you for the reflection.

For showing me what held me back.

For bringing me to attention so I could change,

For tearing down my walls

& smacking me awake.

For breaking my heart so new light could enter.

For making me desperate & out of control.

For revealing another layer of myself to me

& then leaving.

You’ve helped build the Goddess I have become.

Thank you.

Healing that transcends Beyond Time (Ambient mix)

Loss of a LIFE

Today I learned that my cousin lost her father. Last week a childhood friend lost his mother very unexpectedly. Almost seven years ago I lost my own father to kidney cancer. An expected loss is no less painful than an unexpected one. And even though death is inevitable and we all know it will happen to those we love and to us, the grieving must still take place.

This morning when I contacted my cousin to give my condolences, I experienced that same awkwardness we all experience upon hearing about the loss of a life of someone we love. I didn't know what to say - words seem so shallow and unmoving. They just aren't able to convey an empathetic understanding of what it will mean to my cousin, me not having lived her experience with her father, will never understand the full impact of the loss she is today experiencing. I only hoped she could feel my hearts love enveloping her pain and comforting her in the only way I could being more than 200 hundred miles away, and that is with thoughtful prayer and love sent to her with my mind and heart.

As I thought about her father and the man he was (I should have blogged about him so I could have written about the man he IS, now its too late for that) my own father came to mind. I thought about and how she and I, each being a part of them, will always have them with us in some sense. She had said to me that her heart is broken and she is in shock. Both of which I knew and experienced.

I said to her I knew this, and that he was such a good father and grandfather and husband. He had a beautiful, quiet, reserved spirit about him and he was a very good Godly man. I expressed to her that one of the comforts me for came in moments after my fathers death when I would wish that he were still alive to so they could have met him. I would find myself saying to new people in my life "I wish you could have met my father, he was so wonderful". And in saying that to others I began to understand the depth I had been blessed to not just have known him but to have given the awesome opportunity to have been HIS daughter. The sadness of his loss never goes away but time allows the pain time to release into more - maybe appreciation, maybe understanding, but its no longer just pain. I told her that I know my dad is still with me in so many ways because I, Yvonne, partially defined who he was. My rebel spirit, my outspoken persona, my wit and sarcasm, my tenderness - all inherited from my father. I am my fathers daughter. And she is his.

I told her to allow her heart to be broken. Let the love they had heal that.

I told her to miss him, but to tell him she misses him.

I told her to be in chock, but know it will pass with acceptance.

and then I told I loved her. Those were probably all the words she really needed to hear.

You can go home again!

You Can’t Go Home Again….Really?

As rush-hour transitions into Friday evening and most of us Cincinnatians commute to our homes, gratefully submerge ourselves full-fledged into the weekend, my commute “home” will take on new meaning. It will consist of more than 576 miles of concrete and rebar, meandering through the Great Smoky Mountains, into Cherokee, North Carolina and ending in Covington, GA., my childhood home.

Yeah, I like the scenic route.

I am going back to visit high school friends, neighborhood shopkeepers, an elementary school bus driver and the week-old grave of a mother whose children I watched every Friday night for years. All of whom I became reacquainted with, after more than twenty years, on Facebook.

I want to drive the red dirt road to “our” five acres of GA Pine and lakefront property. I want to see the “House That Built Me” (thanks Miranda Lambert), walk the trails where I drove my go-cart and mini-bike, and stand on the dock where I caught catfish with my brother and my brood of boys (I was the only girl in a circle of five friends). Oh, and eat a Sunday meal at Henderson’s, where they’ll serve up aforementioned catfish, hush puppies and coleslaw like no other! And sweet tea…can’t forget the sweet tea.

As I reflect upon the people, places and events that molded me into the person I am continually becoming, I am grateful for my experiences and the lessons I have been able to draw from because of them. I learned perseverance and diligence from my best childhood friend’s family, headed by a single mom – like me - with four kids, working her way through nursing school at night, who still allowed me to go to Braves baseball games, college theatre and sleep in her king sized bed with all the kids, cooking me grits and bacon every Saturday morning. I learned how to love and accept those “different” than me, after witnessing one Clan Rally in the town square. I learned the importance of independence and responsibility by taking care of my brother. I learned how to swim, recognize poisonous snakes and endure hour-long bus rides in the GA heat. I learned the true meaning of Friday Night Lights, that a one-armed man can makes the best pot of Brunswick Stew and that no one can take me away from me. If I don’t allow it.

Sometimes I wonder where I would have been in life had I not left Covington. Who would be my children? Would I even have any? Would I have married my high school sweetheart? Would we have divorced by now? Would I be less progressive? Would I be more narrow-minded? Would I be wishing I had left home in search of something “greater”? Would I have found it?

Thomas Wolf’s George Webber stated “"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." I disagree with Mr. Webber. His “can’t” indicates a reason to not even try. I think we CAN go home again. I think we SHOULD, lest we not forget ourselves and stop giving gratitude from where we came.

So, go home again. I have.

Actually, come to think of it, home’s a place I never left.

I cannot hold back

Having this blog
had become my outlet
a place
to freely write about
my experiences
my thoughts
my fears
my feelings....about my experiences

it was very liberating to me
There is something about tapping it out on a keyboard and the musciality of the words that my mind is presenting on the screen, that flows without regard or worry as to what anyone would think of feel about MY thoughts and feelings.

It was enlightening to go back and read how I was feeling at a particular time
about a particular situation and see how my ideas or views had changed because of what I had written when I submerged in the moment I was experiencing those feelings.

then I told people about my blog. i "shared" it on Facebook.

and then my knowledge
that people I knew
were reading my innermost thoughts

made me become apprehensive in my writing


and that is not what I want to happen

I cant be afraid of my thoughts, my ideas
or more importantly my feelings about anything I may write

I cant care to be judged for being who i am and feeling how i feel.

I'm so torn between being honest with myself and writing what I feel
and holding back.

I dont want to hold back.
It's NOT who I am, and WHY am I holding back?

I try to rationalize why I am holding back. Right now I don't know.
Maybe I do but I don't want to share it yet.

Maybe working through some more blogs with progressively "get me there".

I AM feeling Something. I KNOW what it is.

I just cant bring myself to write it
or think it
and it really pisses me off that I am even fighting myself to feel it.

Don't hold back.

I've found myself

I wish I had thought to blog years ago.
or at the very least written a diary.
Consistently. not just spurts of emotion here and there.
How many times have I been so sure of where I am going?
More than I care to admit - makes me seem so wavering and unsure - but I'm not.
Not wavering and not unsure.
It's just that now I realize my worth.
It's just that now I have the confidence to demand no less.
It's just that now I can project outwardly everything I feel all that I am inside.
All that I have always been.
All that IS my entire being, all that my spirit has been from the beginning.
How many lives has it taken me to reach this point?
I dont think I will ever know, but to me - Yvonne- ,right now existing in this body, at this time,
is so beautiful. I wouldnt give back a moment of any pain I have experienced for being in the place I am at this moment. For knowing me. For knowing Yvonne.

I wish I could give this journey to my children. Wrap it in beautiful paper and tie it and say "Here, my pain is yours, my knowledge, my strength, my passion.. I give it to you. . You don't have to go through it."

I wish they would not have to travel the paths I have traveled - because the paths are so hurtful, so hard, so defining of who we are to become. To save my kids from the pain is all I would want to do - but the truth is that they must experience the hurt, the love, the loss, the beauty firsthand. For it to "stick", for you to learn and know it - and most importantly give it to others through your own ability to show love in the face of loss and sadness - you have to do it. There is no other way.

This past 9 months has been the best path I have taken. How can the hardest be the best?
It's the best
Even though it was not the path I was viewing from the distance.
Even though it was not the path I had been told my feet would trod.
Even though it was not the path I envisioned. or dreamt of.
Still, the purpose has been to serve me for the better. The cosmos, the Divine, God...knew.

Even though it is not the path I forseen, or the one I intended to take,
or the direction I had been told I woud go.
It is where I am.
And its so beautiful.

I have become so strong and so much of the person that I am on the inside because of all the "unintended paths".


I'm not afraid to say no.
I'm not afraid to disagree.
I'm not afraid to speak what I feel.
To anyone.
I am worthy all alone.
Just Yvonne.
I cannot even explain the power that gives mmy spirit.

Finding myself feels like nothing else in this world. I love myself.

I'd love to paint a picute of my heart. The progression of it.
A picture that would show the black darkness that has existed there-
from the self loathing
to the the pity-
to the hatred
and jealousy
and pain
that had dwelt inside of me -
but more importantly the progrssion of the change that has taken place.

A change I have worked damn hard to achieve.
through thoughtful meditations
and life experiences
and life losses
reading
observing
watching
but never
not alone
with the help of friends and family
who continously show me love and direction
and give me guidance with their words or actions.

I charge you to find yourself.
Youre so beautiful.
The you within.

Love,
The "ME" within

Prelude to the BDE

11 AM Saturday morning? Perfect. Lunch....then somewhere? Not sure yet. He'll look when he gets home. That was fine with me.
It's wonderful just knowing someone with the cerebral capacity to actually think on their own and make a plan.
So exciting. So surreal.
A place I can be the woman I am - and not an aggressive she-wolf, who has to control things, who must constantly make the suggestion or decision.
Giving up the reigns is super.
I know, it's just date plans, but that's the thing.
It's DATE plans.


I noticed immediately when I got in his car the radio was playing SIRIUS Chill,
the same channel I had tuned in to on our last date a week ago.
Thoughtful. Extremely thoughtful.

Where would I like to eat lunch?
"Where is it I asked?" (meaning the date, but then knowing I didn't want to know where we were going exactly I said "What way?"
"South" he said.
"There's a good Indian place, not too far."
Sounded good to him and we were off.

I took his hand...I so enjoy the intensity I feel every time we touch.

In the parking lot he complained of the mess in his car then he reached behind my seat and presented me with a beautiful potted Kordana Rose and a small box of chocolates (because he knew I was being mindful of what I ate). Again his thoughtfulness overwhelmed me. I had no idea he would have thought to get me anything like that. It made me feel so wonderful. It felt so absolutely beautiful to receive something. Not even that I am materialistic in any way-but the gesture, the thought, the act of giving me something really, honestly overwhelmed me. Even now, writing about it, I am so moved by his thoughtfulness. He actually had to process a thought of what I might like to have, he was indful of the fact that I have been not eating sugar and he had to get out of his car, go into a place of business, look for something, purchase it, think enough to hide it carefully so I wouldn't see it when I got into his car and then think of a clever way to give it to me. Total THOUGHTFULNESS. TOTAL thoughtfulness. My heart so appreciated his thoughtfulness too. Warmth.

The date could have ended here and it would have been in my top three.

Time - Passing of, Existing Within, Losing Track of and Wasting....

There is so much you can do with time!

I really don't like that I have let time pass by and I haven't documented it.
A month isn't a long time but a lot has happened in the past four - five weeks.
A lot, situationally and emotionally.
I'd like to rewind and blog about everything I've missed - but I am one of those people who has to write in the moment - or the emotion has to have been so very strong - positive or negative - that I can still pull from it and place words with it so you and I can really understand the situation.
It's not just for your observation and judgment of my life - its so I can read my growth as a person and learn from watching myself...from here on the outside - after the fact.

So here goes a quick run down of the past five weeks - cryptic as this is going to be - its the best I can do at the moment (something my life seems to have been made up of..."best-i-can-do-moments")

TICKING AWAY THE MOMENTS THAT MAKE UP THE DULL DAY.
Birthday party with GueSTS, MuSic, DRiNK and DaNCe. Seeking capacity to forgive. Gaining confidence on the job front. Giving Forgiveness. KICKING AROUND ON A PIECE OF GROUND IN YOUR HOMETOWN. Realizations. YOU RUN AND RUN. Possesing Gratitude. Seeking my PuRPoSe. Honesty. ALWAYS seeking my PuRPoSe. WAITING FOR SOMEONE OR SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU THE WAY. What IS my PuRPoSe? Laundry. Thankful. Snow. Family. Missed friends. Snow. Do I have a PuRPoSe? Truth. Rear-ended. 6 pounds gone. Reconnections. Loss. 3 pounds gone. Snow. TIRED OF LYING IN THE SUNSHINE STAYING HOME TO WATCH THE RAIN. Disease and surgery. Old friends-new acquaintances? Flirty? Yes. FLIRTY. Welcome Back 1 pound! Of course, you have a PuRPoSe! Fear. Steadfast. Condemnation. THOUGHT I HAD SOMETHING MORE TO SAY. Diligent. SELFLESS. Determined. Weariness. NEVER SEEM TO FIND THE TIME. Curious. Excitement. Texting, calling, emailing COMMUNICATING. STUCK. Change. SNOW and ICE. Dinner? hmmm? DINNER. Anxious. Excitement.
CALLS THE FAITHFUL TO THEIR KNEES
TO HEAR THE SOFTLY SPOKEN MAGIC SPELL.

It was just about a year ago I decided to completely stop hitting the snooze button. Alarms had been going off forever and I just hit snooze. There is way too much going on in this life to continue hitting "Snooze". Who and What I have missed already by doing that? Who knows? but I'm not missing anything else anymore.

Life is so damn beautiful.
People are so beautiful.

Lessons come hard to me - but they stick.
Our lives are made up of time - one moment overlapping another.
A rainbow of emotions.

I have learned that the only moment that matters is the one I am existing in right now.
Not what happened yesterday
or what may happen tomorrow.
Its important that I am here now.

I want to feel time emerge from behind me, pass over my shoulder and watch it forge ahead into another dimension.

Just Breathe

I brought you some something close to me
And left with something new
I can see through your head
You haunt my dreams
But there's nothing to do but believe



I’m used to it by now
Another day
Just believe
Just breathe
Just believe
Just breathe
Lying in my bed
Staring at the ceiling
Just breathe
Another day
Another day
Just believe
Another day
I’ m used to it by now

Breathing gets me through the moments - not only the physicality of inhaling and exhaling but symbolic of retrieving, bringing in, the relinquishing and letting go. Everyday there are those things that we must learn to LEARN and learn to LEAVE where they are.

Familiarity is comforting. It fits. It feels right. But taking the stride to move outside your comfort zone can be daunting.

SO for the days you need the EXTENDED REMIX - have a look here!

Youth is wasted on the Young ~George Bernard Shaw

Youth is fleeting? Really??? Who said THAT?

Why is it then, that sometimes I find, hidden between moments of everyday life, glimpses of my youth. Not fleeting memories of it either, but honest-to-goodness youthfulness.

That feeling of excitement that buzzes through your body when gazes meet.

The soft pink flushed cheek, of a pleasurable embarrassment, against words that make you trimble warmth from the inside out.

Raised goosebumps as your naked knees touch on a bench in the park.

Something about this song makes me want to stand in a field in Montana wearing a white, eyelet sundress wearing boots.

George Bernard Shaw also said "We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing".
He was an Irish playwright who lived to be 94 years old.

I think that he knows what he was talking about.

Throwin' Down My Heart

One thing that amazes me about myself, in a good way, is my continual ability to forgive. I absolutely cannot harbor resentment. I'm just not capable of it. My broken-heartedness may sometimes take time to mend - but it always does. I love that - because I absolutely abhor the way hatred feels inside of me. It doesn't "fit". and I'm glad for that.

Being in the mood to experience some different music this evening I searched my Netflix account and scrolled to "Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart". Being a fan of Bluegrass, I appreciate the Banjo and this documentary is about Bela Fleck's journey into Africa - incorporating his genius banjo playing with the local music in Uganda, Tanzania and other African countries. Driving home the statement "Music is a universal language".

Each and every time Bela Fleck entered a new country, he was welcomed with excitement and acceptance from the natives. He was greeted with smiles, laughs, affection and a shared understanding of the love and appreciation of music. I started thinking about my heart as a musical instrument and the previous ways in which I have handled joy, sadness, disappointment and intimacy in relationships. In regards to moving forward, sharing again, always so guarded. subdued. restrained. reticent. inhibited.Which in a sense, is how I feel my persona becomes.

After carefully giving my love and heart to a man, for whatever reasons, after a time of totally possessing it, he gives it back, a little more used and bruised than before. I've always been so careful with my heart upon those returns. Taking extra care to protect it longer, hold it closer, not allowing the same "opportunities" to enslave my "precious" heart again. But something about the last 8 months has allowed me to become carefree with it. More accepting of the rejection and loss. The rejection doesn't really feel like rejection anymore. It's become more of an affirmation or realization of knowing what I do or don't want. And realizing that everyone's destination in the end is the same. A journey to find that love and acceptance that isn't subdued and restrained and inhibited.

Bela cried upon parting with the locals, having gained an understanding that sometimes communication, as very important as it may be, isn't always necessary to connect, to mesh and to weave bits of your life into anothers'.

So, for the moment, I'm throwin' it down.

My heart.

I'm not just Virtually Insane....

I am a firm believer in being myself. If I got all caught up in trying to be who you or you or you wanted me to be I couldn't be around all three of you at the same time (considering I had to be a different persona to each of you). And not that we don't possess multi layered personalities, with some layers showing more than others at times, we still should always be our true selves. (Remember my #1 Glass Heart Rule?)

Well, there ya go.


Recently, I decided I would try my luck at eHarmony. I mean it matches you on compatibility - how many different levels does the commercial say? Billions and Billions?  I don't actually know if its that many but - just having a basis with someone that is like-minded might be nice for a change - so I entered my 16 digit credit card number, zip code and CVV and off I was into the world of "virtual dating". Sending "ice breakers" and meandering through the uncharted waters of "Guided Communication". "This is way we say hello, say hello, say hello..."

It was kind of exciting - looking at the profiles - imagining me with this guy in his favorite city of Bangladesh or that guy riding along on his plane, both of us giving that radical "thumbs up" pose with our aviator glasses hiding our fear and apprehension, or no, maybe THAT one - fighting the bull......wait a minute.... is that the NYSE Bull? photoshopped into a random street in Pamplona?? Give me a break, isn't there just a regular, run-of-the-mill man who still likes to posses the remote control, fart after a good bowl of chili and not take out the trash the first time you ask him? I mean that is what I'm used to. Maybe I'm the only woman left in the world dating the Neanderthals of the species. And science thinks they're extinct! I mean these men are accomplished men - They ran marathons, climbed the Alps, had a summer home and boat up east, took martial arts, and were VPs of this and CEOs of that. What kind of a woman handles those kind of men? They get pedicures and their teeth whitened, their hair product is more expensive than mine. Remember Glass Heart #5? Hairy Chest - I began doubting ANY of these men would possess that. Surely they waxed.


So after reading a plethora of perfect profiles one stood out among all other men.

His name was Terry. (His name has NOT been changed, because he's NOT innocent, but we'll get to that later). He was passionate about Drag Racing (ok so its a distance cousin to NASCAR and I wasn't SO excited about that), his profile picture was adorable though. He was wearing a jean jacket (number one sign he isn't a CEO to anything)and he was holding a beautiful little girl in his arms and he looked like he was singing some Christmas Carol to her. He wanted Honesty in a relationship. Wow, Maybe this was going to be O.K. after all. But the clencher came when I read his activities.
He listed them as such;
watching movies
napping
hanging out with friends

watching, napping, hanging - they are verbs - all ending in "ing". Those are things I enjoy doing in my everyday life as well. A walk a few times a week is really nice or a bike ride on a Sunday afternoon on the Loveland Bike Trail is doable - even on a trip to Colorado in the winter, I will strap on my skis, but for the every-day-kind-of-Jane that I am, those three activities Terry enjoyed suited me just fine. and if he so happened to have a hairy chest, it was ON! I just needed to figure out how I was going to ask that in a question. SO I sent him an ice breaker. I'm a liberated woman - I am comfortable enough in my own shoes to take on rejection. I mean it's only a "No" and there are lots of fish in the sea. Including me - cause I feel for everything he said "hook. line. and SINKER"

CHROMATICS I WANT YOUR LOVE VIDEO

I love contrast. Contrast of black on white. Contrast of a deep thrashing drum against the quiet reverberation of a harp. Contrast or a strong mans hand on my own soft flesh. And the contrast of these innocent images as the sultry sounds of the Chromatics play on in the background. I don't know that I prefer the music or the imagery over the other, but I like the way they look together.

I know that my own personality is very contrasting - my political views don't match my religious views - which doesn't match my societal morals or mores.

According to dictionary.com, used as a noun, Contrast means "opposition or juxtaposition of different forms, lines, or colors in a work of art to intensify each element's properties and produce a more dynamic expressiveness." And you the know the Oscar Wilde quote "“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” I think ones life is a work of art - therefore ones life is subjective. We can't be judgmental of each other in this life. It's not our job - to pass judgment on someone else. The only thing we should be passing over to another person is love. I'm open for that - give me your love.

Let's see what I could do with it.

Little Green Apples-O.C Smith-1968

Little Glass Heart

Mid-year I went through a break-up of a relationship that devastated me - not that I don't understand most break ups are devastating, or that I think mine was more devastating than yours - but to get to the next blog, I have to muddle through this one...

PREFACE - An Apple a Day

PREFACE (I know, blogs usually don't have a preface, but then one does)

2008ish 

A few years ago, while working at the Temple, I was finally able to put my design skills to use designing lobby presentations for High Holy Days, Shabbat Services, Kristallnacht, Yiddish Words & Phrases and a number of other subjects related to Judaism. I loved doing the research and learning so many new things.  Being a "non-Jew" I worried that my my work wouldn't be as true to the faith and the Jewish people as I desired it to be. I looked at Jewish Art, read the Prayer books and even listened to the Rabbi's Shabbat Services (as it was also my job to convert those files and save them on CD's for the congregants.) But more than anything I wanted the content and presentation to be meaningful to the viewers. I wanted to evoke an emotion from them - even if it was on a subject they understood and lived daily. I hoped that MY view, as an "outsider" would bring something more to light for them and it would become more meaningful in any small way.

As wonderful as it was to design the presentations and other marketing materials, I also had a lot of administrative work to complete. I found this to be mechanical, tedious work, best suited for someone "Left-Brained", not me, a creative and free spirit who particularly care to conform to societies groups, including that of an "artist". I am individualistic and feel constrained with policies and procedures and having my brain cluttered with the necessary format of a business letter or how to do the perfect mail merge. That information just doesn't sit well within my head - so I don't retain it. Try as I may, and as important as that information may be, I am just not the type of individual that should be doing that work.

One day I was so exasperated at the postage machine! I was trying to figure out why it wouldn't seal, after realizing I had just labeled 348 envelopes with the incorrect postage amount and stuffed them with letters to the congregants with the incorrect address format (It's THREE hard returns YVONNE! THREEEEEEE!!!)when I blurted out to Heather "All I want is an Apple Orchard! I just want to sit on the side of the road barefooted, feel the sun and rain on my face and sell my apples....maybe sing and play my dulcimer for people as they pick.... but I am tired of papers and formats and postage machines!" That thoughtful emotion came out of nowhere. I didn't consciously form that thought in my head. I really had never thought about owning an apple orchard. I mean I can barely keep a houseplant alive.

But once those words hit the air and they resounded in my own ears, I began thinking about how nice that would actually be. Yeah, an apple orchard. I have a dream. A real-doable-dream. I am sure I had dreamed before as a child, as to what I would be when I "grew up", but lately I couldn't remember any of those dreams. Life as an adult is hard, sometimes it totally gobbles up our dreams, or we get side-tracked, or we just plain don't know how to realize our dreams or have the resources or the people supporting and encouraging us.

fastforward 2010 - AN APPLE A DAY

I work with a great group of people in Marketing. Jason, who recently lost lots and lots of pounds, has  encouraged the rest of us, by his example,  to take better care of our bodies.  It all started with the apples he would bring in daily. He cuts them up and offers a piece to each of us, which we would greedily partake. I can't remember ever enjoying an apple more than those he would share. Soon we were all bringing in an apple as well and we would each get a slice or two of everyone's apples - so in essence we each ate a different apple everyday. It kind of became a game of "what-type-of-apple-who-would-bring-in" - we've sampled Galas, Granny Smiths, Honeycrisps, Jonathan, Fuji, and Pacific Gold.....to name a few...and we each have our favorites. You know, I never even realized there were so many different types of apples or how different their flavors and textures are - or how the sharing of these apples would keep my dream "In-My-Face" on a daily basis.

Other dreams began puddling around this one, reminding me of the importance of knowing what you want and not settling for anything less.

finding HAPPINESS, keeping PEACE, continued LEARNING, living LIFE (not watching everyone else from the sideline), sharing INTIMACY.....all things, that to me, the thoughtful desire for this apple orchard represents.

Owning an Apple Orchard? It is a far-fetched dream - granted - but still, it is mine. I haven't put any particular goals or objectives into action, haven't written a business plan, don't know the cost of purchasing land or even if Ohio is a good place to lay the seed. I do know that the sun shining on my face, with my toes in the dew-covered spring grass, while I strum out "Peace Train" as you gather a basket of Honeycrisps, sounds like a beautiful reality.

This is my story....

pink martini - hang on little tomato

What happened to the plan?

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now”

Alan Lakein

I don't particularly like this quote. Maybe because I am not a good planner....and it shows - believe me. I don't even know who Alan Lakein is and that bothers me. OK, so I took a moment to Google him. He's an author, and Bill Clinton credits his book to helping him achieve success by writing down all of his goals and then categorizing them by importance and then under each goal writing specific activities for achieving those goals. While that's all well and good for some, and would probably, perhaps, most definitely serve me well, I won't be making any lists and categorizing any activities under any goals. Maybe if I were planning a vacation to Montana and I was going fly fishing and moose hunting I might make a list. I am pretty sure you don't use worms and I am not even sure if moose exist in Montana. So for something like that I would make a list.

But right now my goals are pretty simple. Pay the bills on time. Don't eat sugar. Sleep all night. Don't cry. Focus. Focus. Focus. on the positive. Don't cry. Focus. Self-control. Self-control. Self-control. and Don't cry.

My very first post boasts of having this grand plan in two years - and get this, I even get generous with myself and state "the latter part of the second year", or something like that. Well, today that two year time line has passed and I am not one iota, one idea or even one list closer to achieving that goal. Am I kidding myself achieving? How about starting? Not even starting it. The ideas flourished in my head, I researched how to invoice customers, and read books but when it comes time to apply the intangible to concrete - nothing. I don't know if I got bored, thought it was going to be too much work, lost confidence in my abilities, became creatively blocked or just decided to quit. I am a quitter. I quit everything. It's a bad habit, I started young, I quit Bluebirds, I quit Brownies, I quit softball (although I am sure my teammates were quit thankful for that, I quit tap, I quit piano lessons, I quit band, I quit cheering, I quit nursing school....quit, quit, quit. I quit trying on my marriage(s). One would think after all of that quitting I would tire of revisiting the same outcome of UNsuccess. But I don't. The only thing I haven't quit is quitting.

What's that other quote "Life is what happens when we are making plans?"
That quote I can agree with. Life does happen. But it doesn't just happen to me - it happens to all of us - everyday. I guess those with lists know how to handle Life because everything is written in categories and subcategories that dictate just exactly what one should do when Life appears in front of us.

One of the most recent books I have read is Eckart Tolle's "The Power of Now". Great read. I needed it at the time I was reading it. His words spoke to me personally - specifically in regards to not being concerned with the past, or the future, but to only live here in the now. That can be difficult to do - I analyze everything, everyone, every thought I have...I have to make sense of it; mold it, shape it, color it so it fits perfectly where it is supposed to fit. But the truth is sometimes there is no sense to be made. Accepting that has been the hardest thing for me to understand and then to do. I have come to realize that within the confines my persona, comprised of the environment I grew up in and the way I perceive the world and how I live and love is not like others. Not that I am right and you are wrong. Just that there are differences. Vast amounts of variables that can make something so familiar to me become foreign and unknown.

Henry Miller says "“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.”

I think I would rather grow than be successful.

Amost Heaven...

It was almost three years ago when I went to Colorado for the first time.
I absolutely fell in love.
Everywhere we drove was perfection. The rich hues of the sky and the water and the reflection of the mountains in the water. It was brethtaking - literally so.

I felt so little and tiny and insignificant in the vastness of it all.
We hiked and every hill we embarked upon brought more beauty.

I remember at one point we stopped and looked over a large clearing where many other people were.
There was a sign that read "To this scene nothing needs to be added, it satisfies my soul". I can close my eyes and feel that same overwhelming emotion.

John Denver was right.

What I miss

                                                 

I miss my dad.

I miss cricket.

I miss playing cupball with my brother.

I miss puddles.

I miss kissing.

I miss the county fair.

I miss hearing The Christmas Story from the book of Luke on Christmas Eve,

I miss New Hire Mondays.

I miss cornfields.

I miss hearing the mandolin.

I miss long van trips with no air conditioning.

I miss Georgia backroads.

I miss sticky little hands.

I miss Stockholm.

I miss thunderstorms.

I miss Saturday mornings.

I miss Friday nights.

I miss being a part of.

I miss love.

I miss you.

NASA - Predicting the Weather

NASA - Predicting the Weather: "Predicting the Weather
A United Launch Alliance"