Here's to You Dad!!!

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good."
(Auden)




Lately I've been thinking of my father, feeling him around.  It's a distant type of feeling, I mean it's been so long since I've seen him or heard him, but I've been feeling him lately no matter. Maybe it's because next month is his birthday, and  this month is the anniversary of his death; I think.  I'm terrible with dates.



I ache when I think of him.  Our relationship was pretty stormy yet I can proudly say that I was a daddy's girl for sure.  He gave me my name, don't know if I should love him for that or not, Ha!  I always hated my name.  But he thought about it and gave it to me.

The night before my dear, young boyfriend was killed in a car accident I had a dream that he was in an accident.  I was with my father the next morning, the morning of my boyfriend's death, and I told my father about the dream, he was the only one I told.

He definitely was charismatic.




Born in the Jewish ghetto of Chicago, he always wanted to grow up and be rich.  He lived with my Bubbie (his mother), and his two sisters and one brother.  I heard he had another brother, but that brother didn't live long.  The story goes that he was reaching up for something on the stove and brought down the boiling water all over him.  He was a toddler of two.  Life was rough for my dad, but he didn't really talk much about it, and if he did, it didn't register with me as too much information.  I do know that the fact  he was poor came out when he tried to teach us about not wasting things and saving our money.  Of course I didn't listen to him. To this day I'm a spend thrift; yeah, it's a long story.  But my sister, well, that's another story.  She's more than good with her money, I"m sure my father is proud of her to this day.



He tried to help me so many times, in his own way.  And his own way was something I was never able to relate to, especially as a child.  Anger was his go to emotion. If anyone was hurting, he was angry, if something was wrong in his world, he was angry, and if one of us was in trouble, or sick..yep, you got it...anger. But oh the Christmases we had.  He loved them and always wanted us to have what we wanted. Turns out in the end, when we finally received our inheritance, we understood why he was so "frugal". He left a nice sum.


Yep, I ache still, just thinking about him and our f*cked up relationship; rides to school in silence (mornings weren't the most pleasant times in our household) fights about my mother's illness, pretty much walking out on me when I was in the most pain ever.  But there were good times too. Driving through the neighborhood at Christmas and he would laugh and say, "look at all the beautiful Hanukkah bushes", birthdays, and sure, there were more, I just can't think of them now.



After he died I had the most bizarre experience I have ever had:  I was asleep at the foot of my bed with the light on.  I heard his voice, it was audible, it was him, he said "Peggy".  And I pretty much jumped up and felt a little freaked out. A few seconds after I woke, there was this thought, like a banner across my head which said, "don't give up your faith, you're on the right track."  Do I think it was really him?  YES!  I KNOW it was, as much as one can know the sun comes up each morning, that's how sure I was, still am!



My mother never really liked to have pets, I mean we did, but she wasn't keen on it at all. But my father loved animals. I have a video of him on his last New Years Day.  He was outside filming, it was eerily quiet but you could hear the wind.  It was a cold, grey day.  There in his yard was the neighbors dog, just coming over to visit him. He talked to her, spoke to that dog.  I loved him for that...for his love of animals, for understanding mine.

Once I had a phone call from him.  He had just watched "Gorillas in the Mist".  He called to say I needed to watch it, that he thought of me, saw me in that movie.


He has been an inspiration to me all of my life.  His strength, determination, charisma, charm, and talent have influenced me in every area of my life.  A person never forgets their parents.  He will be with me always, until the day I die and there after I'm sure.  I think of him every day, not a day goes by that I don't.

 Sometimes on a rare occasion I think I see him, I mean it's someone who looks like him.  Funny, just lately I saw someone who looked like him when he was old.  It's probably him tapping me, telling me he loves me, telling me he's sorry.




 Five days before he died I was visiting and went to see a play he was in.  We were in his hallway when we had our little chat.  He told me he probably had about 15 more years. In reality, he had five more days.  He was a year older than I am now when he died; massive heart attack, died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.  According to the paramedic, he looked up at him and said, "I think this is it for me."...  God!




But he was able to say good-bye to me that evening in the hallway, he said something so sweet, so special to me, his number one daughter, the rebel who caused him more worry, more heartache than my other two sisters.

I don't think I have any real regrets...no, that's not true.  I have one!  One night we were in St. Louis at a bar where there was live music and he asked me to dance...I didn't.  He really wanted me to and I didn't. Damn stupid religious beliefs I had, damn stupid me.  Next time I dance, I'll do one for you dad!


I'm pretty proud of myself, I spoke at his funeral.  It was difficult, but I knew I had to do it.  Damn, it was difficult. I sat on the floor in the bathroom of our hotel room the night before his funeral, it was pretty late, and I sat there, on that cold tile floor and wrote down what I would say.  I don't remember much about what I wrote, I only remember a couple of things.  I used my love of interior design as a metaphor of him... I said that you want a space that people either love, or hate, but never something they're bored with.  That was my dad, you either loved him or hated him, but you weren't bored with him--ever!

At the end of my eulogy, I quoted a part of the lyrics "Wind Beneath My Wings"...  And I'll do so again...

Here's to you dad...I still miss you, still want you around...and will always love you!

Pegala

Did you ever know that you're my hero

and everything I would like to be?

I can fly higher than an eagle,

'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,

but I've got it all here in my heart.

I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.

I would be nothing without you.

Peace to You on This Night

This year tells me I'll be 63.  Dear God, yes, 63.  I was 25 just yesterday and my whole life was before me, endless opportunities.     



 I was probably in my thirties when I read an article in' Reader's Digest' that was written by a woman, uhhh...probably my age now.   She wrote that she would look into the mirror and see an old woman who was unrecognizable to her soul, and of course, that woman was her.  Although I don't see an old woman, I am old.  I am imperfect. Lately I have been feeling like a cat with nine lives, and I could be on my ninth.  



I still talk too much, but not nearly as much as I used to.  I have learned, at least most of the time, (NOT last night) to keep my mouth shut when I want to rant and rave and change the world for MY better. 





I have had babies who are now grown adults, one with her own babies, and one getting ready to embark on the union of partnering with his fiance for life. His fiance is a beautiful, strong woman, with spirit.  How happy does that make me to know that she probably can handle my complicated son who is way too much like me!!!  My three grandchildren call me Poppy instead of Grandma, (No, it wasn't planned.  My Maya Moo named me when she could barely talk.) and yes, I love not being called "grandma".  Don't ask me why, because I'll tell you.


So here I sit at my beloved, huge, old oak library table that serves us as a dining table, on a Saturday night.  The desert is wonderful this time of year.  The days are warm, and the nights are very cool.  My doors are open and looking out of my french doors on the other end of my table, I see the lights on our trees outside that are there year 'round. Pandora is set on the Bonobo station (which my son turned me on to), the dogs arelying on the floor, exhausted after working with us in the yard, and I'm feeling good! Really good!  Yep, it could be the vodka, but I don't think so.  I tend to believe that it's because I have learned to, perhaps, appreciate and be grateful for the things that I have been blessed to have: namely relationships, home, and of course, love.


My husband is in the office doing what he does, no, don't ask, because I really don't know, probably just chilling, and I am grateful he is my life partner.  We have been through a lot him and me, probably a whole 'nother blog.  He has been so many roles to me: husband, lover, friend, and the list goes on. We have come to a place in our lives where we can live with one another's differences, at least, so it seems.  I love him, I will always love him.  How could I not?  I have been with him longer than I haven't.  It's not the hormonally charged love you feel when you're young and feelings are intense. It's the love you feel for a person who has been with you, very imperfectly, for so long that you have forgotten what it's like to be without them.

At 62 I don't compete with young, beautiful things that I think will steal my husband's attention away.  Now I am more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been. I have regrets, but I can look back on me and see a person that I never really knew when I was young and in her skin.  Now I see her as just a girl, a young woman, who was who she was; wanting truth at any cost, always curious and restless, not ever wanting to settle for second best, and knowing exactly what she wanted, and when she wanted it. Whether it be good or bad, she counted the cost, and still does.


What I want these days is so much different from what I wanted when I was half this age, but yet, there are so many things that stay on my desire list. What I want comes to my consciousness each morning I wake; I want to be happy, I want to be present and not think about what coulda been, shoulda been, woulda been.  So as I sit up in my bed that looks out at the beautiful mountain and red tile roofs ,and intentionally think "this is my life"  it is good, it is perfect right now.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.  It's the littlest things that break those idealistic thoughts: like on my way to work and someone does something really stupid and cuts me off, or goes too slowly in the left lane.  So, I'm back to square one. I begin to miss the days when I would sit up until wee hours of the morning talking about the mysteries of life.




I ramble, yet again. It's such a beautiful Saturday night.  I love my life; no, it's not perfect and no, it's not without anxiety, lost loves, some regrets and other things along that line.  But I'm alive and I have lived a quality life where I have had to go down to the depths of my spirit to appreciate times like a quiet, uneventful, Saturday night.  I have finally learned how to live without drama and it feels sooo good to be in my skin. It's a grace type of thing.  You know what I mean!

For Seth: Insanity: We're all on the spectrum!

Last night I found out some very disturbing news.  An old acquaintance of mine was found dead.  He was very artistic, very intelligent, and he was young.  He  died in a dumpster amid garbage.  My thoughts are, according to a newspaper article that he was trying to keep warm on a cold Midwest March night.





 He came from a Christian family, went to a Christian high school and graduated from a Christian university.  His family was a respectable middle class family.  His mother was an artist and he seemed to have inherited her talent for the arts.   He won an award or two for film making and his videos were creative, imaginative,  young and interesting. 



I didn't know him that well, but he made a video for me when I had a small, inner city school.  He also did some house sitting and dog watching for me once when I was out of the country. Yet, lately, I found out that he has recently been homeless; drifting around a cold city in the dead of winter, alone.

He was found in a dumpster, dead.  The newspaper article stated that his parents said  he was mentally ill and refused to take his medications.  My heart breaks!  After hearing the news, and then going to bed not long after, my dreams were filled with strange images from my past and dark feelings that made no sense at all.   But the feelings totally aligned themselves with how I felt about my friend's death.


Strange enough, the day they found him, I had been watching some tedtalks on my computer. The ones about mental illness specifically drew my attention and I watched with an alluring curiosity .  When I was a child I knew that my family didn't resemble other families.  My mother had electric shock treatments when I was about eleven or twelve.




"Electroconvulsive therapy is a procedure in which electric currents are passed through the brain, intentionally triggering a brief seizure.  ECT seems to cause changes in brain chemistry that can quickly reverse symptoms of certain mental illnesses.  It often works when other treatments are unsuccessful." (mayoclinic.org) As a young girl, when I asked what mom was going to have done, it was simply explained to me that she was going to have treatments that would help her forget the "bad" things.  In the sixties, these treatments were done without anesthesia

 No one really talked about things like that in those days.  I just knew something wasn't right, especially when she went to the hospital and stayed for what I thought, was a large amount of time. I remember my father taking me to visit her in the psych ward.  It felt so strange, the atmosphere had  an ethereal, sad quality that I felt immediately after I got off the elevator. I can't remember how it came to be, but I was asked to sing "Has Anybody Seen My Gal" to an audience of people captured under the title of mentally ill. Their blank stares and empty faces made me think of zombies and people absent from their bodies. I think I was about twelve.




I was always sort of afraid to tackle the thought that anyone I knew had mental illness, let alone, myself.  I remember my sister saying our mother was mentally ill and how it made me feel defensive, as if  it was a huge insult to be in the league of the mad, and insane.   Now, I see  that type of thinking is more damaging than the illness itself. Still, any sort of "illness" bothers me.  Maybe I'm a perfectionist?   I know I'm codependent, I've been through therapy.  Yet still, the stigma is shadowy, grey and certainly not something you want to discuss at a cocktail party.

My friend didn't take his medications, wound up in a dumpster, and was accidentally killed in that dirty, circular file of other peoples waste and items of rejection.  He didn't take his medications! WHY?

I believe  people diagnosed with mental illness, at least the ones that I know, have all been and are pretty perceiving to things "normal" people aren't.  To live in a world where everyone is expected to think along the lines of someone else's definition of normalcy is difficult if not impossible. Not to forget the trendy thinking of "not depending on chemicals" to "fix" a problem...everything should be "natural", "healthy" and "organic".  Lastly, you have religious solutions to mental problems that say if you pray hard enough, or do just the right thing, say the right thing that God will "deliver" you.  And if God doesn't, just try harder or have other people pray for you.  Whatever!!! Sometimes those theories are the most damaging.


I truly believe that most people, upon further inspection, fall in the category of  "mentally ill".    I know some  who suffer from such severe anxiety that they break out in rashes, or try to plan their lives out ahead so much that the moment is non existent. These same people view counselling or therapy as something for other people; poor souls.  Mentally ill? I believe so.  In denial? Absolutely!   They believe that you have to be in a near vegetative state to even have therapy.

I met my friend when I attended an inner city church filled with people who would be diagnosed mentally ill if they had the money for treatment. I loved that church and funnily enough, felt more at home there than anywhere.  There was a woman who was certainly bi-polar, and very kind.  Once she was in one of her moods she threatened to kill me over something trivial in my mind, obviously it wasn't trivial to her. (I was educating her son.) It was almost amusing that I had no fear in me whatsoever!  I knew she deeply loved me and appreciated what I was doing for her and her son.  And, I knew her heart.

A young life is gone and I don't understand why.  Brilliant, creative and good hearted, he left too soon and he left in a way that grieves me as much as his lost life.  In spite of the fact that I haven't spoken with him in years, it still hits hard and heavy that he left our world.  I hope he has found peace.

Just Think About It,( with your heart)

First, I want to say that it's a February evening, the sun has not quite set, and this, my friend, is close to paradise.  The Phoenix weather is p e r f e c t at this time of year.  My windows and french doors are open, I hear the birds singing, and well....I'm just happy I'm here

Secondly, on not such a happy note, I want to talk about my vegetarianism.  I know, there are certain things I just harp on, and this is one. Yep, I'm doing it again. For years I intentionally stayed away from being sort of self righteous about not eating animal. But it seems that the more people actually know about what they're eating, they go one of two ways; they usually lose their appetite for animals, or they defend their desire to still eat meat without feeling bad, to the hilt. 



 “I can't count the times that upon telling someone I am vegetarian, he or she responded by pointing out an inconsistency in my lifestyle or trying to find a flaw in an argument I never made. (I have often felt that my vegetarianism matters more to such people than it does to me.)” 
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

I remember when I was just a little girl, sitting at our family table, looking at the roast my mother put before us.  It was dinner.  I saw dead animal.  I don't know exactly how I finally erased the thought of the truth that I was eating what once was a living creature, an animal, but I managed to get that thought out of my mind.

I love those moments in life when you have this amazing moment of realization...a revelation....a type of waking up.  That type of moment happened to me twenty five years ago this year.  I had been really sick and wasn't able to eat for a week.  As my appetite rapidly returned, I told my husband how hungry I was.  We had a grocery store not too far from us where you could buy fried chicken.  He told me he would  run over there and  and buy us an easy dinner of..yes, fried chicken.  That evening, as  I looked at the dead bird I intended to eat, I looked at it and saw veins, muscle, flesh and blood.  It seemed as though this voice that had been in me for a long time, but only spoke just then, said something....something loud and clear, that resonated in my whole being, had this message:  "You don't have to eat that.  Your mother isn't here to make you eat your meat.  You're an adult now." And that was it. 

 I haven't had meat since then, and I seriously do not miss it.  I didn't become a vegetarian for any sort of health reason.  I became a vegetarian because I knew what I didn't want to do,and that was, eat an animal. I also pictured exactly what the animal looked like before it was slaughtered.Most of all, I wondered what it would be like to be the animal, knowing I would be slaughtered.  I realized that I was eating something that probably didn't want to die so that I could indulge in it's flesh. 

At first I was almost shy about letting others know of my decision. Yet at the same time, there was this sort of peaceful feeling that I had been true to my real self. Not the self that is conditioned by culture and society. But I really didn't want to appear self righteous around all of my meat eating friends. I don't think I actually knew another vegetarian  back then. When I told others I didn't eat meat, they most always had this sort of speech that it's fine, as long as I don't impose my "tastes" on them.  And then of course, they proceeded to tell how there are some "arrogant, self righteous" vegetarians "out there".  

Fast forward twenty five years.  I've changed a lot!  I'm more eccentric about my love for animals to the point where I admit to liking them more than people.  I'm not embarrassed to tell that truth.  As a matter of fact, if someone has a problem with MY vegetarianism..I realize it's not me, but their own self, who has the problem.  AND their problem is usually that they really don't want to think of meat as an animal, or at least they don't want to see, feel, hear the cries of how that animal was killed. 

The thing about me is that I idealistically want people to see life the way I do. (Well, at least I admit it!) Espeically when it has to do with animals. Animals have been faithful and loving to me without exception, why shouldn't I love them so? It's difficult for me to express the way I really feel.  Words don't come easy for me so I'll close with this video, which says it all!  

Ramblings on a Free Friday

Sitting upstairs in my beautiful bedroom, the sun slowly coming up and my view is amazing:  Mountains preceded by red tile roofs, framed with the tops of trees. 




 I'm feeling extremely grateful for this day. And yes, I have the day off from my day job.  I will be helping my daughter move into her long awaited for new home that she can call her own.




 Peaceful and tranquil, and suddenly one of my beloved dogs hops on the bed and demands my attention by literally getting in my face with his big, sad-ish looking blue eyes, placing his huge paws on my computer and begging for touch.  This is the one who had been neglected the first year and a half of his life. His persistent attempts to be touched or played with (He CONSTANTLY brings his ball or rope toy and drops it in front of me so I will play with him.)is so annoying, but I understand and love him to the moon and back! 


So, where was I? Ah yes, the view.  It's almost totally light now and I will soon be getting ready to meet my daughter at the gym where she trains, do her weights class and then head out for some serious, enjoyable work. But still I ramble.  What I really wanted to do was write about how terribly difficult it is to stay in keeping with my life intention: that is to be grateful for all things, to see the good in all and to thank God for this beautiful world. And I AM grateful, and I DO see the good in all and I certainly do thank God for this beautiful world.  But when it gets right down to it....we live in an imperfect world, and anyone who cannot see that, I question their sanity.  Or, if it IS perfect....the perfection is hiding in the greyness of....what??? Pollution?  Okay, pollution.


I was brought up by a Catholic mother,

 and Jewish father.


(of course these are pics of them in their youth, but what great pics they are!)


I believe I have mentioned that more than several times.  And, I was brought up by a conservative (not in his younger days) father, and a liberal (not in her younger days) mother.  Both of my parents were very intelligent, and both obviously impressed me to think for myself, to look at all sides and then make my decision.  I am grateful to have had the parents that I had, I miss them very much, and I often wish they were here so that I could throw around controversial subjects to hear their view on them.  But they're not.


Okay, rambling yet again.  I guess what I want to say is that I truly want to be a positive thinker like Joel Olstien, or Louise Hay, but I see too, at times, to be more like what Mark Twain calls "an optimist who hasn't arrived yet." Unfortunately, to be ruthlessly honest, I blame others for my inadequacies. (Be careful with your judging here...I"m being open and stupidly honest).  So tell me how to keep my upbeat thought process when I'm around people who are always talking about the horrible injustices of the world, people who are angry and fearful that their "rights" are being taken away from them, and others who seem to always see the dark side of the cloud?


When I let myself get involved with the "world's" problems, I become one of the people to be blamed. Catch 22.  So there ya have it.  Again, no answers today, in the meantime, I'll celebrate my daughter's new joy with.....well.......a good sugar-free coke. (another intentional choice...to stick with my gym's New Year's Challenge and give up alcoholic beverages for 6 weeks....Oy Vey!!!!) Have a great, and joyful imperfect day!

My Baby Blue

I have to talk about my Milo....He is my blue eyed, red and white haired, Australian Shepherd.  Let me say this though,before I get started;  I have three dogs and I love my other two with all my heart.  My Milo though...he's different.  I mean they're all different, like having kids, you love them all, but in different ways.  And comparisons are really foolish when you talk about the love of your dogs.  But this is about Milo!

I saw his sweet, innocent, eager face on Facebook.



 I had been looking for a  third dog, but not  actively. When I saw his face, I had to find out more.  His large blue eyes, spoke volumes to me, and the expression on his face was almost confusing and begging for love.  He was adoptable, good with kids and other dogs; well, that was all I had to read. I think it was the next day we drove across the city, about a half hour to where his foster home was.  Turns out he was about 18 months old and his first 17 months were spent in a four by six foot pen, alone, with no real human contact. Apparently, some guy bought him from a breeder and it turned out he traveled a lot so he left Milo with his mother.  His mother was "allergic" to dogs, so she basically pushed food into his small pen.

Milo wasn't his name.  It was Patches.  Patches.  I don't think so.  I knew from the minute I met him he certainly was not a "Patches".  Even now, as I sit here typing, and he goes in and out of the dog door, or as he lies on the floor by my chair, I look at him and know that Milo was his name and should have been his name from the start.

Anyway, his transition was really fairly smooth.  He was great with Tasha and Lexy, our other family dogs. Tasha was very curious and happy he was here and Lexy, the old alpha dog, had been through four other dogs in our household, so she took it all in stride. I honestly can't remember much about his first few days in his new home.  I think that Tasha had some sort of special language that she used when she communicated to him, and told him everything was cool in this house, to hang out, and enjoy his new home. Yep, I do think that was her message to him.




 Because that's what he did.  He seem as comfortable as he could have been for a boy who had no real human contact for the first 17 months of his life.  His foster family, however, was awesome.  They nursed him through the trauma of losing his testicles, and made him comfortable in his own fur by combing out all of the mats.  They also provided a happy, safe place with lots of hands on love and affection.

Still, as with humans, those early days of life are vital, and form us in so many ways.  Milo can't get enough physical contact, and he loves being stroked, hugged and loved on.  Like a typical Aussie, he gets a huge amount of joy from leaping up in the air to catch a tennis ball.



When it comes to food, he can't get enough.  That's  a little disturbing. The owner of our gym said that her dog would eat until he blew himself up. That's Milo...I think he would as well. Fortunately I have a great life partner, my husband, who takes him and his 'siblings' on a hike each morning, on the mountain across from our home. He LOVES that!!  






Milo is extremely intelligent. They say Aussies have about the same intelligence as a five year old human.  I believe it, Milo has proved it.  He is my boy, there is a bond.  I feel guilty that I have to go to work and leave him. Even though he has two others his same kind; dogs. I feel guilty when I leave and don't take him, but I have to remind myself that it could have been worse for him. It doesn't keep me from thinking that he would be much happier with a younger family, with kids who can play with his young, curious self.



Okay, well, it's a Friday night, and my boy is lying next to me, asleep.  He is beautiful, and I am fortunate.  My companion, my boy, my faithful friend, Milo, is a treasure to me.  I am happy to be his!

Grateful Me

So, it's been a while since I've written.  Firstly, I want to say that I probably have had the best Christmas that I've ever had!  And yes, it is because we finally finished our room addition, and yes it is because my daughter and my son in law have finally bought a most magnificent home, (and yes, near us!) and yes, because my son found a lovely lady to love him, and marry him.  (And of course she found a most excellent man, my son, to love her and cherish her; at least he better! ;-)  )


But it's a new year with a future ahead of us all.  I believe there is much in store for us and I want to make sure I'm aware and intentional about knowing how rich I really am.  A friend of mine on Facebook told me about a book she is reading, and highly suggested it to me.


 It's called "The Magic",  by Rhonda Byrne.  Her perspective on life is refreshing and in my case, life changing.  She talks about the wonders of youth where anything is possible, life is endless,  Santa Claus is real, miracles happen, true love is genuinely authentic, and life is good! With her words, she takes you back to those young, childhood memories. If you're really open, and you're really looking, those memories will stir something deep within your being that you thought was lost eons ago. 

" Truly I tell you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."  Jesus


Actually for me, I'm a die hard idealist who remembers all the enchantments I used to feel when I sat under my grandparents overgrown shrubbery. It felt like a perfect world where no one, or nothing could damage my fantasy of castles, princes and princesses, and a world so appealing, you never wanted to leave. I imagine C.S. Lewis had such a world in mind when he wrote about Narnia.  



For me, it wasn't a wardrobe that took me there, it was my grandparents Spirea.  It grew about four feet upwards and then it's limbs spilled over to the ground and left a cozy, charming space between the trunk of the bush and the limbs that touched the ground. Most of the time it was decorated with tiny, delicate, white flowers that looked like lace.   There, I climbed under it's protective covering and sat for hours, thinking, pretending and enjoying the summer's day.  



Yep, I remember that well.  

Of course I couldn't stay.  At that age,  I wasn't able to put my feelings or thoughts into words.  But if they could have been, I would have said that I didn't want to leave, and why couldn't the world stay like my imagined world.  Now, as an adult I have to ponder the question; "Was it really imagined??? Is it really imagined?" 


"I am here to tell you that the magic you once believed in is true, and it's the disillusioned adult perspective of life that is false.  The magic of life is real - and it's as real as you are.  In fact, life can be far more wondrous than you ever thought it was as a child, and more breathtaking, awe-inspiring, and exciting than anything you've seen before." (Rhonda Byrne...)

I won't even begin to tell you my whole story, but let me say this; one of the reasons I sought out my grandparents' backyard sanctuary was because my everyday life was not exactly my aspiration of the most ideal way to live.  It wasn't bad, and don't get me wrong, I am thankful for my upbringing, but there was always a subtle modulated communique, that spoke of doubt, cynicism and sadness and sickness.



So, to read those thoughts that Rhonda Byrnes spoke of in her book...WOW! And to actually be willing to believe those words, receive those words; maybe????  

Here's the short version of my story; At one point in my life when I found my faith after losing it for years, I was taught that we are not to go by our feelings, that our feelings deceive us, we need  to be practical etc etc etc..blah blah blah.  You catch my drift!!! So trying to be the best person I could be, I interpreted that to mean that my self was not trust worthy.  I became someone hard, self righteous, and fake. But I did it with good intentions of pleasing God and others.  I don't think I pleased God, myself or anyone else for that matter. Actually the reverse happened. However, thanks to God's wonderful grace and mercy, I was able to change.  I had to go through a whole lot of pain to get rid of the fake self and find who I truly was.  I am thankful for the pain that I went through, for the hell that I went through, for all that happened. (I really did try to keep it short!)


"That's the thing with magic.  You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you."  charles de lint - writer anc celtic folk musician

Now, my life has been getting better and better.  Thank God! This book is teaching me even more about the mystery of life abundantly.  The book, as I've already said, is called,  "The Magic".  The Merriam-Webster definition of magic is "power that allows people to do impossible things by saying special words and performing special actions."  The magic she is talking about is gratitude.  Not just saying thank you, but saying thank you all the time for specific things, at specific times, and as she said "saturating yourself in gratitude." Feeling the gratitude in every fiber of your being is the goal.  



"When I started counting my blessings, my whole life changed." willie nelson


When I was about 8 or so, my father called me downstairs to watch a video of WW2 concentration camp survivors. He told me those were my ancestors. It was actual footage of the 'prisoners' being released from hellish, abusive prisons. Tiny men and women who were just a skeleton of their former selves.  The vision put an imprint on my soul that never went away. 




 I remember taking baths after that, and thinking about those survivors, thinking about all the things they had to go through. At my young age I soaked in my tub and felt extremely  rich and grateful for the clean, warm water, the big white tub, and of course the perfumed, bubbly,soap.



That was probably the beginning of my appreciation of all that I had. 

In Rhonda Byrne's book, you can choose to take the journey each day by doing certain exercises. The first one, which is repeated for 28 days, is keeping a journal of all you are grateful for and why.  Each day you log ten things you're thankful for and why you are thankful. 

"It is quite possible to leave your home for a walk in the early morning air and return a different person - beguiled, enchanted" mary ellen chase, educator and writer 1887-1973


 After you finish writing them, you read them aloud (or in your head) and say, "thank you, thank you, thank you". By the end of the 28 days, you have 336 things you are grateful for.  Because you say them every night before you go to bed, you wake up feeling wonderfully prosperous.  

Why do you think scripture is filled with giving thanks?  It certainly isn't because God is a narcissist. I believe it's because God set up certain ways our world, our universe works.  If one is grateful for what one has, however small, then much will be given to that person. If one complains, criticizes, and is constantly finding fault, I believe even what that person has is taken away... not by God, but by their lack of appreciation.

Okay, so I'm finished.  This is my fourth day and it's been a wonderful four days. I am thankful to Rhonda Byrne for writing this book!!! I will keep you posted!