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There is music again in my life after a long spell of silence. I realize I needed the silence as well as all that brought it into my life in order to grow in the ways that I have needed to grow too.
If it weren’t for the last couple of years of hard times I wouldn’t be sitting here right now with this music in my heart. It is funny how that goes isn’t it!
Life gives us what we need if we only listen and learn which is a pretty tall order some moments.
In the last few weeks I’ve reconnected with music from my teens and early adult life. It’s been wonderful to hear those artists and songs again.
They are not spinning around on a turn table however as they did way back when. But they are being heard on the very old probably considered antique speakers we had way back in college…they don’t make them like they used to so we’ve hung on to them and babied them along the way!
Carly Simon’s song “I can see clearly now” lyrics popped into my mind this morning as I was reflecting on the growth I see in myself and some of the wonderful experiences I’ve been having of late. The rain is definitely gone. I can see the bright bright bright bright bright sunny day ahead too!
The lyrics of that song and many others I’ve been listening to by Carly Simon and by Joni Mitchell are sooooo full of wisdom. These song writers were older than their years in the wisdom they wrote and sung about. I don’t think I really appreciated that fact until this morning.
There have been many forces and experiences that have shaped me along the way of my life.
It wasn’t till this morning that I realized perhaps just perhaps all the songs I listened to and sung with so very many years ago provided me with some wisdom that has helped me along my life’s journey too!
I thank you wonderful artists’ soooooooo very much for all the magic and wonder you’ve brought to my life!
What music grows in the garden of your heart?
I’m in Petosky at the very moment of this writing seated in the breakfast lounge of the Days Inn looking out over the bay. It is terribly humid outside for the third day in a row. This makes for a somewhat hazy view of the Lake Michigan bay.
The sun is probably getting ready to come up over the bank of clouds out there somewhere. I’m beginning to see some color in the clouds…it’s time to take a pause and wander down the street to see what mother nature has in store for me this morning…
I started this yesterday morning and didn’t have the opportunity to finish my work. I was in Petosky for a family reunion of sorts in celebration of Lisa Wingate, my first cousin’s success as a New York Times best selling author.
Lisa has written 30 books and her last one “Before We Were Yours” stayed on the best seller list for 10 months straight! You really have to read this one…that’s all I’m saying! She is am amazing writer.
Lisa had a book signing event that McLean and Eakin Booksellers sponsored since this book has helped keep them in business of late! I say that in jest. It is a wonderful store which if you happen to find yourself in Petosky Michigan you may want to wander into.
This event prompted Lisa’s father to make the trip from Oklahoma to attend. He is my father’s brother. It prompted my father’s sister and her adult kids and my second cousin and her husband to attend too.
I decided to attend just a few weeks ago after my wise mind self, that little wise voice inside who I’ve learned to pay attention to told me I needed to go. And thankfully I listened to her because it was a wonderful family reunion time as well as soooo very special to hear Lisa talk about her writing journey and her book.
The Vereyken family origins are here in Michigan. In fact Lisa’s first make it big book “Tending Roses” is based on stories that my father’s mother told to her about her life growing up!
That book is also another good read by the way! Mind you, it’s not that any of her other books are not worth the read too!
So, it is these Michigan origins and this long winded tale that brings me to Gram Vereyken’s cookies…I hosted an after Lisa’s event family gathering at the hotel I stayed in so we could all visit some more and consume a ton of snacks that I brought.
Gram V loved to bake for her family. I remember to die bread rolls she brought to every family dinner. As the years went on she got a tad wiser I suppose and would bring us rolls she baked up from the frozen bread dough she bought at the store…one year she did fess up to it anyway but who knows just exactly how long she had been doing that!
Gram V’s Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies are a family favorite. I’ve taken them over the years to various places and they are always a hit. Everyone wants to recipe too!
We just couldn’t have a Vereyken family gathering of the grand kids without having her cookies now could we? So I baked up a batch to share with my cousins, aunt and uncles. They were well received with lots of yummy responses too.
It was wonderful to watch peoples faces light up as they discovered the container and chow down on a cookie to two or three. You really can’t just have one!
I could see memories flooded into people’s eyes as they remembered things about Gram and the times she baked them up a batch of her cookies.
Gram’s cookies brought our family together to honor her memory. Those cookies are a great unifier in a very diverse family. They are Gram’s legacy. She would bake them with all her love for us too. And we knew we were loved by her.
I remember picking up care packages at her house when I was in college that she’d pack up for me when I came home to visit. They always contained a batch of her cookies!
My adventure north was a wonderful one full of family, fun, laughs, shared memories and a beautiful sunrise on the bay…who could ask for anything more!
What things are unifying forces in your family?
For the very first time in my rather long life I had a professional manicure and it was yummy. It’s been fun to have fancy fingers.
A few years ago I had a couple of pedicures which was also a yummy experience. It was ever so fun to have fancy toes. I kept them up afterwards matching the color with one I found at the store.
I like that color and had the manicurist use my old bottle on my fingers. She suggested that it’s getting old and encouraged me to find a new bottle. I picked her brain on brands, all the products she was using, and where to find the items. Afterwards I went to the store she suggested, scored some bargains and filled up a shopping bag! I want to keep up my fancy fingers.
I realized in the mist of my manicure what it was that kept me from having the experience sooner in my life. When I was in high school way back a thousand years ago, in speech class we had to do a demonstration speech. I was a very awkward freshman that year.
One of my classmates was in a cosmetology program and she did a demonstration speech on doing a manicure and asked for a volunteer. I was up in the front and offered. But she took one look at my fingernails and made a disparaging comment about my nails and found someone else.
I recall looking down at my fingernails and the shame I felt looking at them.
I don’t recall anything else about her speech except her arguing with the teacher about whether it was ok to cut cuticles or not…she said it was and the speech teacher said no. I asked my manicurist whether it was ok or not since I wondered all these years. And yes Mrs. grumpy whatever your name is speech teacher it is ok to cut cuticles!
That comment and my shame about my nails that was made way back in 9th grade kept me from having someone give me a manicure for all the years since!
Shame keeps us, kept me locked up inside and away from fully living life.
This was one very small shaming experience too.
Comments we make towards others can have dramatic effects on them.
I understand that the student needed an easier set of fingernails to tackle for her 3 minute speech. I don’t blame her at all. That comment made in front of a whole classroom of people stayed with me all these years since!
So what I did as the manicurist worked on my nails was to tell her a bit of my story which allowed me to release the shame I’ve carried all these years…finally and thankfully too!
We all experience shame in life in varying degrees too. It’s just a part of the human condition.
Circumstances come together in ways that affect us. I might have been able to brush off that comment if other things had been different in my life up until the moment it was made.
What is most important is that we give ourselves the gift of opening up with someone we can trust about the shame we carry so we can release the load that we carry.
I have to admit that I do feel a tad bit lighter…think I’ll call it the “shame diet”!
What is an experience from the past that you carry and are willing and ready to lose the weight of today? Who might you confide in and share your experience?
Photo by Jim Robbins; Pexels
Dear Dad,
Happy Father’s Day to you! I really can’t believe it’s been 5 of them now with out you to celebrate with. How can that be?
In the morning sunshine I still feel your presence and the comfort of your hugs. Some days it’s both painful and peaceful when I do too and all in the same breath.
I miss you so.
This week I wondered something I have never thought of before. The sunshine, my wise self and tears confirmed this to be true too. Since both Jill and my birthdays are in June those years we each were born you thought of us as your very special Father’s Day gift!
That thought has really warmed my heart.
I have a special memory of you that comes to me often when I am making myself a sandwich for my late night at work suppers. Not too many years back I watched you fix yourself a sandwich to take to work. I was seated at the dining room table and you were in the kitchen at your house. You were putting all the fixings on it including lettuce. As you piled on the lettuce and put the top piece of bread on it you “smushed” the lettuce down to make it all fit. I can still hear the crunch.
There was something very special in this everyday simple act that struck me and lingers as a moment to remember about you. I’m not exactly sure what it is that imprinted that moment in my memory other than it was a caring about yourself act to make a sandwich complete with lettuce on it and it warmed my heart to see you do that for yourself.
Funny how remember certain events and not others. Of all the millions of moments in my life that included you in them that one sticks out so keenly! And on Tuesdays and every other Thursday mornings when I make up my sandwich to take to work you come to mind and I smile inside and of course some days get teary eyed too.
So here’s to you this Father’s Day with special memories to warmly remember and fill my heart!
I do hope you have a special day and with Dunkin, Filmore and Sidney dance away with the angels today!
I love you Dad-
Jude
With Father’s Day coming up I am missing my dad more. His birthday is in May which reminds me he’s not here to celebrate with. Hard to fathom it’s been five birthdays without him and five Father’s Days too. It all seems like it was just yesterday that he was here to celebrate with.
Often when I think of how life simply goes on without those special ones in it, I feel sad rather than comforted. It seems so unfair that life should just go on as it does. Here I sit in my grief, lost for words and uncertain about tomorrow while others go about their normal lives.
Other times it is very comforting that indeed life does go on just as it does. And so do I in spite of the pain and heart ache I feel. It’s easier in those moments to put one foot in front of the other and carry on.
I forget till these tender times of reminders just how exhausting grief is! I know my grief honors those I’ve lost and loved so dearly.
I know the only way to heal is to feel it head on and let the sobs and tears flow as they do. Avoiding the pain will not help me in the long run. In fact, it would do more harm than good if I did.
So, here’s to keeping the Kleenex Company in business once again!
When are the tender reminder times of loss in your life?
Contact Me today to start Grief Therapy!
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The last few years have had some challenges related to loss and health concerns none of which were life threatening to me but rather took me out of commission for months to varying degrees.
I really did not have energy for much beyond the basics of work, tending to immediate family, our house, the cats and yard. At some moments even these things felt like just too much as well.
It feels that I am finally coming out of this period of time more fully. My energy and interest in life beyond basic survival is returning. I am very grateful too. Life has felt rather bland.
I know there have been other times of my life when my energy was down for various reasons. It seems this is just how the flow of my life is and has been.
There have been things discovered about myself along the way whether I had energy for life or not.
“ To everything turn, turn, turn there is a season turn, turn, turn, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” as the song lyrics go.
Well this certainly seems to be the case in my life. I was wise enough in my early 20’s to know that I wouldn’t be all I was at that point in my life if I hadn’t experienced all that I had up until that very moment in time…the good, the bad and the ugly too. This is still a part of my thinking today.
Certainly there were experiences that I would not do again if I had the opportunity for a do over but all in all each one provided me with life learning and perspectives I would be without had they not happened just as they unfolded.
Life does unfold just as it is supposed to.
Acceptance is the key and often requires hard work to employ!
What do you notice about the ebbs and flows of your life’s energy over time?
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This prompted me to look into aging and body stiffness which I also have been having and assumed to be all about the joy of aging. However my research is making me think differently about aging and stiffness and muscle aches.
What I stumbled upon is the concept of “somatics” which I learned simply means “the body experienced from within”. It’s a term coined by Thomas Hanna. I have found some information on line about this concept.
According to the website: https://gravitywerks.com/what-is-somatics-2/ , “Somatics is about how you feel from the inside out. It’s more about your feelings from your own unique perspective. How you feel or describe your feelings or sense perceptions can be negative such as pain, stiffness or any number of discomforts. It can be positive such as feeling good. Or it can also be neutral or a lack of feelings in certain areas. Of course, you can feel or process any number of feelings or sense perceptions simultaneously as well. Though when it comes to pain, that or those feelings seem to predominate any good we can also feel.”
There is another term I found called “proprioception” used to describe our feelings as it relates to the position of our body and its movement. How we each define pain and feel it is unique to our somatic experience. Negative feelings and sense perceptions can vary at different levels for each of us. Generally our negative feelings about pain get in the way.
Like everything else what we tell ourselves about pain makes a difference in our experience with it. And not just physical pain but emotional pain too!
Hanna developed a system of somatics exercises which are a specialized set of movement patterns unlike regular exercise that target the brain’s motor cortex to affect change. The movement practice is to help people get back in touch with their sensory-motor system through feelings and sensitivity using the brain and body to make the necessary changes to restore control and comfort, according to gravitywerks.com.
“In the same manner that some people simply cannot let their shoulders drop and release held tension in the neck and shoulders, stored or programmed high tension levels, fear, trauma and other personal negative events preclude us from simply letting things drop,” https://gravitywerks.com/what-is-somatics-2/
This intrigues me. Our bodies can be reprogrammed at a certain brain level and then remember to let go of what is causing the pain!
What I’ve come to realize it that how I’ve been experiencing life inside my body for all these years is most likely the reason for my stiffness and sore muscles. I hold in all kinds of emotions in my body especially my neck and shoulders. The result after years and years and year of doing so is pain from very stiff neck and shoulder muscles.
I can reprogram my body. You can too!
I tried it some exercise this morning and it helped my stiff morning muscles loosen up very quickly. I know I have work to do to retrain my body’s long held habits but this information has offered me some hope. Perhaps the years ahead won’t be as stiff and sore as the last few have been!
Where do you hold pain in your body?
Photo by Emma Guliani; Pexels
Like the students who were interviewed yesterday I’ve come to expect this will happen yet again and again and again. It is a very sad reality for me to realize that these tragic events are so common place in our country and that I’ve just come to shrug my shoulders while letting out a deep breath sigh when they do.
It’s just too much, too hard to keep reacting with outrage each time because nothing really has been done to prevent these events from happening. I feel powerless to stop it. My letters to Congressional leaders and petition signing and marching have made NO difference!
A part of me is growing to accept this is just how it is and will be.
I recognize this is an enormously complex issue to solve. However it seems that we really do not value human life here in the USA. Oh, we will gladly sell you all kinds of medications and spend enormous amounts of money on medical procedures to prolong your life making it appear that making a buck is really about caring for life. But, we won’t take measures necessary to prevent gun violence from potentially killing you.
Our greed is killing us!
I can’t imagine what it is like growing up for this generation. School was a safe place for me…aside from the normal insecurities we all deal with growing up that is.
My heart aches for our children of today. They know a trauma that has not been commonplace in our country till now and a trauma our ancestors fought hard to free us from.
I do know people of color and the LGBT community in the USA have suffered with these kinds of traumas since our country’s beginning. We as a people are not innocent of doing harm to others.
My heart goes out to all the families and all the children who are grieving losses and trying to heal wounds that will affect them for the rest of their lives.
It is yet another sad day for us all…and even sadder is the reality that there are more sad days yet to come!
What will you do today to help put an end to gun violence in our country?
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We just don’t know what lies around the next corner of life and what strengths we will be called upon to use in order to make it around the bend. But we do adapt sometimes kicking and screaming NO the whole way, sometimes with grace and balance, and most times not without a little if not a lot of help from others along the way.
We all do have strengths to draw upon. We all do have areas of weakness or our “stuff” to work on as I like to say too.
We do learn a lot about our strengths when we are looking at one of life’s challenges squarely in the eye.
It’s hard to know what we would do until we are actually in the moment too. Thinking and doing are often vastly different beasts. We can think all we want but a challenging moment calls upon us to dig deep into the resources of our inner being. Sometimes we surprise ourselves with what we do in fact find too.
When we wonder exactly how we would handle a situation that someone we care about is experiencing, we can appreciate those strengths that we recognize and let them know just how amazing we think they are!
Is there someone in your life whose strengths amaze you? Will you tell them so?
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Guess what…my husband spotted a hummingbird yesterday on our front porch checking out flowers I have waiting to be planted! I think I can safely say spring is here to stay. Those little birds make it official for me.
So, I made up a batch of hummingbird food and put up my feeders last evening to welcome them properly! Hip hip hurray!!!
I popped into a couple garden centers yesterday in search of annuals for pots I put around the yard. Oh my, the colors and flowers were soooooo delightful to see all pretty and just waiting for a proper home for the summer. They seemed to perk up as I passed each one by saying please take me home with you!
Recent rain has helped to green up the grass here. Leaves are sprouting on the trees. Forsythia is blooming as are the daffodils showing off my favorite color.
It certainly had been a very long winter in all kinds of ways from the weather to all the nasty events, talk, attitudes that make headlines on the news. Times have felt very dark, cold and dreary.
I find myself very appreciative of every hint and mark of spring that has arrived this year. I am soaking it up and savoring the color and warmth and hope that it brings to restore my strength for what lies ahead.
Mother Earth is waking up once again and seemingly so am I!
It is easy this time of year for me to notice and take in with curiosity and wonder simple things that do nourish and fill me up. I guess that is the benefit of the winters of our lives. They offer the opportunity to look for a light as the mist of darkness begins to clear.
Will you take a moment to notice with a curiosity something simple in your world today?
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It felt sooooo good to be out for a walk in the warm sunshine last Sunday that I wanted to dance all the way…there was definitely a spring in my step and my heart was full of joy.
I worked out in my flower beds for the first time too and got some badly needed garden therapy. Boy has my body reminded me this week just how long it’s been since I crawled around on my hands and knees out in the yard! I’m not as young as I used to be.
I have to remember to pace myself more than ever before which doesn’t come easily for me.
It just takes longer for me to do physical things that it once did. I am reminded of this periodically when I want to get more done in a days’ worth of time than I am able to accomplish or end up feeling the physical effects of my doing with sore muscles the next day.
My mind thinks I’m still 21 but my body knows the truth and lets me know it when I choose not to remember that fact.
Perhaps the benefit of working slower is having more of an ability to pause and smell the flowers than I did when I was a young 21 year old “whipper snapper” full of energy and raring to go. There was less pausing to enjoy and savor in the moment back then. After all I had all the time in the world to do that later. I gather this is the later…it just seems to have come awfully fast!
What benefits to growing older do you notice?
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How we handle ourselves in the face of life’s unfair realities is of significance.
We have many choices in how we respond. Without some space to work through our emotions before we respond we may react in ways that creates an injustice to someone else.
Even though we’ve been “pooped on” or someone we care about has it’s really not ok to “poop on” someone else in return!
I generally need some quiet space to unload my emotions and initial reactions before I can determine the best course of action to take.
Often the best course is simply learning to accept that which seems unacceptable…a pretty tall order to do sometimes too!
Through the difficult times in my life some good stuff has come out of it which includes having learned new coping tools, growth in ways that has stretched me for the better and experiences that have taught me to appreciate all that life has brought to me—the good times and the hard times too.
When faced with an injustice what helps you negotiate through it?
