To My Dad....

Dearest Dad:

Happy Father's Day.

Please know how much I love you today and always.

I know we've spent most of my life with you there, and me somewhere else....

but you are in my heart and thoughts 

24 hours a day,

7 days a week,

365 days a year.

Love always, your daughter and grandchildren

XOXO

“We never know the love of our parents for us till we have become parents.”

~Henry Ward Beecher

Those who Do

There are those who talk, and those who do.  My friend, Hallie *, is a person who does. 

She puts her words into action.  She is a wonderful example to me.

Her latest goal to help others?  To raise $5,000 dollars by July for children's cancer research by shaving her head and collecting donations.  I donated today, since I can't travel to Nebraska and shave my head with her (this time at least...am considering doing this sometime in the future though; my hair is driving me crazy anyway)! ;-) 

On a serious note, in the past year or so, I have had one friend lose his child to cancer and another friend lose her niece to cancer. 

Today I gave a gift in honor of both these little ones.

I am so blessed that my children are healthy and HERE with me....life isn't always easy, but things like this help me remember what it's all about. 

*If you'd like to help, please click on Hallie's name above (in blue). 

This....

.....says it perfectly.

My Girl....

My firstborn, my daughter, the baby that I dreamt about having from the time I was a child myself....is officially a 10 year old.  An entire decade flashed by in the blink of an eye.  She turned double digits this past Sunday, on Mother's Day of all days.  It was a bittersweet day full of emotion for me.  It has gone by way too fast.  I want to push the pause button but know that's not possible. I do hope the next 10 years take their time and go slowly, I want to savour them.  She was named after my great-grandmother's maiden name, Ramey.  Her name means "from Reims"(the beautiful, ancient French city).  My great-grandmother was a fiery, determined redhead, but was also so kind, generous, spirited and loving....all things that seem to have been passed along to my daughter along with the name. The day she was born is when I truly started to understand life.....she's still teaching me every day how to grow and better myself at the same time as taking care of her.  I have a long way to go before I could ever claim to be a perfect mother, but she by far, has made all my dreams come true.

I love you, Ramey.  Thank you for being you.    

Shining Star....

For some major inspiration....click here.  For those of you who don't know NieNie (I don't personally know her either), for the record, she is a daily inspiration to me. I wanted to share her new video with you all. Her humanity just shines and her spiritual side sparkles. I thank my lucky stars for the good example that she is to all women and mothers everywhere......

Oh L'amour

When I woke up this morning, this popped into my mind.  True love, alongside my spirituality, is something that gives me a vast amount of hope.  Yes, love hurts once in a while.  As Joseph Campbell said, "love is the pain of being truly alive."  It may not always take the form we think it should or end up the way we wanted it to, but today I feel grateful for it either way.  Mr. Shakespeare sums it up better than I ever could; luckily for me he recorded it on paper so I'm able share it with you 401 years later...... 

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose Worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~William Shakespeare, 1609

The Chosen

I come from a small family but luckily my chosen family of friends is quite large.....and today they are my sunshine.  These are the friends I've had for decades or perhaps just for a little while who all have one thing in common: they know me as well as I know myself, if not better.  They live as close as around the corner from me here in our desert city, to as far away as the each coast of the U.S. and even beyond to the suburbs of London.  This week was full of moments that tempted me to give up all hope.  I feel like I try so hard but then fall hard on my face in failure. I wonder if I'll ever learn?  These best friends, my sisters, have kept me afloat and turn my face toward the light when all else seems dim.  I would be negligent if I didn't acknowledge my love to them for taking good care of my heart, even when I don't feel deserving.  Thank you to my girls (you know who you are).

“What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun. A true friend is more to be esteemed than kinsfolk." ~Cicero

LVM version 5.0

Happy birthday to my baby, who turns 5 today.  I love this little girl so much.  She was born on St. George's Day (you know, the guy that slayed the dragon). I've always thought that being born on this day would give her some of that same courage and strength to slay her own dragons in life when she grows up.  Until then, I'll happily do it for her.  I feel so blessed that she picked me out of all the women in the world, to be her mom.  Thank you Lilz.  Happy birthday!

A mother's love for her child is like

nothing else in the world. It knows no

law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes

down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

~ Agatha Christie

My 3 Reasons

Another long absence from blogging, another good reason, which I am choosing to keep to myself and an unfortunate few friends who have had to hear all about it.  Recently I feel like I don't have much of what I thought I would have at this age.  What I do have are 3 beautiful reasons to wake up every day, reasons to want to make this world a more beautiful one, reasons to fight when all I want to do is give up.  I am starting to believe that I was created for one soul purpose, or at least that right now, my life has one main reason for being.  That is to be a mother to the "reasons" mentioned in the lines above.  Their names are Mimi, CJ and Lilz.  I love them more than they will ever know.  One of the hardest things to do as a mother is to put your own fears, your own worries, your own worst nightmares, your own short-comings aside for the sake and well-being of your children.  I knew when they were born that I was literally charged and called to protect these little lives.  I have never wanted to mold them not into what I wanted them to be, but to take their own individual personalities that they were born with and guide them by example along the way, to help them find their own feet and love themselves in order to find their own spirits.  In the year 2000, the year my first baby was born, my world became a universe orbiting around my children. It is something I have never regretted.  When they came along, life ceased being about me and became about "we."  My little ones are no longer infants.  They are 4, 7 and 9 years old.  They can now think for themselves, talk for themselves, express themselves.  There are certain things though that they cannot do for themselves still and that is where I come in.  In some ways, they need me more right now than when they were babies.  I feel I am re-learning all over again this week what it means to truly be a mother, and I'm striving to be the best one that I can be.  I have much to learn and a lot to overcome in the near future but one thing I know is that their love for me means more to me than anything.  It means more than any worldly good.  I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.  A few years ago I saw the following passage on a friend's blog.  I knew it was so fitting for how I felt about my children and was waiting for the right time to use it.  It seems fitting today. 

  

     "You are the trip I did not take;

      You are the pearls I cannot buy;

   You are my blue Italian lake;

       You are my piece of foreign sky."

(“To My Child,” quoted in Charles L. Wallis, ed., The Treasure Chest [1965], 54)

(Childhood) Logic

My little boy is barely 7 years old.  He comes up with the most hilarious things, as children often do. 

Since my writing by nature usually reflects my more introspective side, I have decided to break my own mold. Every so often I thought I'd share with you some of the things I hear in my home that come from the mouth of babes.  It may not make you laugh the same way it makes me, but hopefully it will at least bring a little smile.

The other day, Mr. C (one of my son's many nicknames) brought me a perfectly good yellow crayon. He was drawing a picture of space and was using it for the stars.

The following conversation took place:

C: "Mommy, I really need this sharper."

Me: "It's already sharp, Lovey.  Why do you need it sharpened?"

C: "Yeah, it's sharp but it's not nearly sharp enough." 

Me: "How much sharper would you like it to be?"  

Son: "Well, really, it's only sharp enough when it hurts to be poked with it."*

Luckily he didn't add a "duh, Mom, don't you know anything?" on the end of the conversation. 

(Sweet kid)

I could, however, tell by the intense look he gave me that he thought this should have been perfectly clear logic to me.

I must admit that I like the way children think and speak.  They just cut to the chase.  I could learn a thing or two from that.

Sadly I didn't have a thing to sharpen the crayon with, other than a pocket knife and it ended up more block shaped than when he handed it to me.

Guess it's time to invest in a new crayon sharpener. 

*And yes, I did remind him that it's not kind to poke anyone with anything sharp, and he said he only meant for paper of course.  Phew.

Hello 2010 (and age 34....gulp)

Anyone who reads my blog (or the few beloved friends who read my blog), hopefully realizes that I always have the best intentions of writing much and writing often.  It's probably also become crystal clear that my intentions and my abilities are often out of sync.  This is a perfect example....when on 31 Dec I wrote goodbye to 2000, it was my intention to write hello to 2010 the very next morning.  Didn't happen sadly.  My life just doesn't have a script right now. Sometimes other things just get in the way of my love of writing and expression. 

Soul-searching lately has taken up a lot of my time.  I became very ill recently, not the type of unwell feeling you can work through but the kind that knocks you off your feet and actually makes you curl up in bed.  I had a lot of time to think, watch DVDs, and think some more as I willed myself better.

One of many epiphanies I have had as of late is that perhaps the best plan, for me anyway, is to really let life go unscripted.  Sure, have intentions and make them the best possible, but don't hold yourself to expectations, especially unrealistic ones. 

Life isn't perfect and no amount of scripting will ever change that.  But to me that is part of the beauty of it; we never know what is really right around the corner. The unknown of tomorrow could be something negative or it could be the most amazing thing we've experienced yet.

My birthday is a week and a half into the new year.  When 2010 arrived, so did my 34th year of life.  This year I did something different, I did not set any new year's resolutions.  And I think as a birthday gift to myself this year, I will do the same thing. I'm not going to hold myself to anything that I don't know for sure that I can accomplish; maybe let myself off the hook a little.  That way, I won't beat myself up or feel like a total loser if I don't get everything right, all the time.  I've always been someone who sets the bar very high for herself, only to feel like a failure to myself and those around me when I fall short, which is often may I add. 

If I've come to know one thing with age, it's that I am not a super hero, I cannot fix every one's issues (as much as I want to), I cannot make money out of thin air to make someone else happy, I have bad days like everyone else, and I am not perfect and very, very human. 

What I am realizing is that it's taken me 34 years to really learn what my priorities are.  Those priorities are the same as they've always been from a young age really.  The problem is I never thought they were anything special.  And I'm not being trite saying I am anything special now, just someone who is aiming to be content with the life she is living. 

It may not be a dazzling life, this life I've led for more than 3 decades now, but if I can look back on it and feel mostly at peace then it's good enough for me.  Sure, I'd love to say that I could inspire billions around the world like Oprah, but I am happy enough trying to inspire my own children. 

 Being a loving mother/family member, being true to myself, being a real friend to others, letting spiritual rather than worldly things be my guide and at least trying to embrace optimism rather than being pessimistic (even if the rest of the world may laugh at me for being "naive") are the things that matter to me.  These things have been magnetized lately, especially after my grandmother's passing in November.  We can't take money, cars or houses with us when our time here is up.  It's only the love and care we've shared with others that we leave behind.

Now if I could just stop wanting to make everyone else happy with themselves, just as they are.  Maybe next year for my 35th I will give myself the gift of not worrying.  Something tells me that's one thing I will never master. ;-)