I went to the grocery store for a small amount of sliced ham and swiss cheese to have for our lunches last week. As I stood waiting my turn, the man who was waiting on the elderly woman made eye contact and was not only very courteous, but also took his time being helpful. He held up a slice to ask if it was the thickness that the woman wanted. Then, he moved over to the other person who had been waiting patiently Read the rest of this entry »
Well, here it is: the anniversary of the first post on my blog, last February 23, 2011. It has come a long way since then and like much of life, has taken its own path.
When I first started out,I began the blog with an intent to model thoughts that might inspire others to share their ideas about reaching a point in life when one thinks about what’s left to do, especially if you’re like me and feel as though you have spent most of your life doing for others (uncommon hours ~ a new beginning.)
To start off, I loaded up the blog with ideas by Transcendental thinkers who were loners and encouraged people to follow their own path rather than to succumb to convention: Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson (“I’m Nobody, Who are you? Are you Nobody too?) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Trust Thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string!”).
I also wanted to include descriptions of the kind of help I have received from the Cosmos throughout my life without which I wouldn’t be where I am today (“serendipity and synchronicity”; “life is long.”) It was comforting to learn that Emerson himself had a strong mystic sensibility throughout his life.
Without really knowing it, my intention throughout has been to write intuitively: that is, write only when I felt the urge and to write solely about what came forth naturally. To my great surprise, I began to write some early posts about my father who had died in 2008 (“my father, myself”, “doubled and redoubled”, “kindred spirits”) I had not thought we had been very close, he, mostly preoccupied with himself and his career in astrogeology and then the study of the Tao-Te-Ching. I also reminesced about music and learning the piano at an early age (“Basil Toutorsky”, “playing it Bach’s Way.”) By now, the blog had begun to take shape as a kind of memoir/remembrance in essay format, some more nostalgic than others (“ashes to ashes.”)
One of the prominent underpinnings of the blog have been photos taken and generously offered up by my daughter, Caitlin. From the outset, they added grace and humor, pathos and interest to the postings. One Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t know what got me thinking recently about an old set of sterling silver that I had a long time ago. It was a very simple trifid pattern and there were, I think, at least a set of six or eight place settings in a worn, black leather case that zipped up. I remember that I impulsively (and generously!) gave it away in one of my cleaning out “less is more” phases. Since then, I found some inexpensive forks at an antique shop in Essex, MA. that also have a delicate curved trifid pattern–very simple and elegant to behold and to use. Over time, I’ve looked and tried to find out what the markings on the backs of both patterns were but didn’t get very far.
Yesterday, I had some time on my hands while waiting for someone. So I found myself on eBay scrolling through about forty pages of listings for “vintage silver forks.” Past page twenty-five appeared a two-place setting of forks, spoons, tablespoons and knives marked with a hotel mark from Europe. They were a Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t know if you watched the Super Bowl last weekend but we did. And because of the notoriety of the Super Bowl Ads, we didn’t even mute them out. It was bad enough to watch the Patriots stumble through the game with Tom Brady’s error on the first play casting an ominous tone over his teammates and the rest us for the remainder of the game. Gronkowski wasn’t there even though he went through the motions, it seemed.
Halfway through the agony, the animated animal cartoon ads and the dumb beer ads rolled on. Then, the 2 minute spot by Chrysler with a familiar raspy voice narrating, “It’s halftime, America,” caught our attention. Wow! an ad not for THINGS for people to buy. It wasn’t really even about buying cars. The message was about VALUES, for pete’s sake. And it created a hullabaloo afterwards too.
I thought they got the perfect guy to make this perfect pitch: Clint Eastwood. He’s almost eighty-two and still going strong, doing his thing, his way. His politics are Republican and fiscally conservative AND he Read the rest of this entry »
You know how sometimes in the middle of the winter, you get a little stir-crazy and wonder what you’re going to do to be creative or productive? This week, I watched a show on “Anderson”–(the best daytime TV show on earth, in my humble opinion–and I’m not a daytime TV person at all.) Cooper manages to get issues before us with real life people and helpers who give advice that can be useful for a lot of people.
Take the fridge, for example. The show was about how to motivate yourself to eat more healthily. Turns out that one of the things you can do is to rearrange your fridge so that you put the most healthy, appetizing Read the rest of this entry »
Most mornings, I have been making green smoothies for breakfast. I’ve been drinking them for about two months or so. Into my blender goes some almond milk, pomegranate juice, a fresh banana, a good handful of baby spinach, some green algae supplement called Pure Synergy and either frozen mango, peaches or wild blueberries. Blend it all up and drink while I begin reading the day’s New York Times newspaper.
Then, if I feel like it, I’ll boil an egg or two to round out my breakfast. I’ve always wondered how to do this in order to get consistent results–a white that has formed, a yolk that is still warm and runny, and Read the rest of this entry »
I remember reading fairy tales to my kids when they were growing up. You know, the ones by Grimm Brothers about the glass mountain that the knights rode up on their steeds to rescue the princess from the dragon. Or the search for the three golden apples, one after another in order to win the hand of the princess. Each quest seemed to be more impossible than the one that had come before. Often, heroes and heroines prevailed against all odds and the story closed with a happy ending.
For many of these stories, a lad full of innocence and pluck would win the day and the princess’s hand in marriage. These stories have imbued us from an early age with the notion that hard work, luck and a sense of destiny results in the possibility of happy endings, (similar to the ‘american dream.’)Through incredible hardship, those with their hearts in the right place get their due. Many of us still hope for Read the rest of this entry »
blocked by fear
Later in life, I was faced with so much to handle that I knew I had to give it up to a higher power and ask for help (see “eggs in one basket.”) After my divorce and jobless, living in a town where I hardly knew anyone, my Read the rest of this entry »
I was in Porter Square yesterday for a late lunch and saw something that caught my eye in a shop specializing in Japanese pottery and decorative things. They were papier mache dolls of Daruma, used in a practice to focus one’s intention on a wish, place it into the Universe and follow it to completion.
Since Monday is the Chinese New Year, the year of the Dragon, I bought two of these dolls, one for me and one for George–and have been thinking about what my wish would be. Apparently, you’re supposed to make the wish and fill in one eye on the doll (see Wiki Daruma doll photo above.) Each time you look at it, you Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve spent most of my life alone. Oh, I’ve had people around me at times, but for most intents and purposes, I’ve led a pretty solitary life. Perhaps that’s one reason I like the Taoist hermit model. It feels comfortable to me. For that, I’ve learned how to trust myself and my instincts.
Something happened a little awhile ago that surprised me. I could have questioned it to death, but my instincts told me that my intuition was correct about what happened and probably how it happened to come about. So was it in fact true?
With this long and carefully honed sense of things for myself, I think I can also tell what’s false. At least for me. Some might say that I’m just very opinionated, thinking that I am right about things all the time. I don’t think I’m right all the time, in fact. I think that most of the time, I’m just right about things for myself. That’s all. There is no real right or wrong or true or false. It’s how we perceive things in the end. Or at the beginning of things. And what feels right to my inner self.
This post seems kind of rhyme-y to me. That is, there’s no real rhyme or reason for it. Is there?
mulberryshoots 