Remembering

Life is good. I am reassured of this every day. There are reminders everywhere. How can one keep from noticing the goodness all around us?

Right now for instance, I'm listening to beautiful music, a piece that hints at majesty and mystery.

I am surrounded by a loving family.

I am fortunate enough to live in a snug, comfortable house; all my needs are met.

The sky is blue, the air is crisp and cold.

The holidays are upon us.

Knowing and feeling this, I am compelled not to forget that there are others who aren't feeling the security and warmth of a home and family, food in their belly's, or of health and vigor.

I need to think of them and make a move in the direction of their wholeness. Their need is as much my own as it is theirs.

How to do it? Just start somewhere. Anywhere. A random act of kindness, a donation, a day at the food bank, an angel tree gift, visiting the elderly.....a kind word, a smile, a helping hand, a meal. I guarantee it will come back to you tenfold, or more.

Do you have a story of giving that might inspire us all? Please, please share.

Carnegie Hall!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

I just found a video of The South Lakes High School Wind Ensemble performance at Carnegie Hall last April. 

Enjoy,

"The Merry Widow"

"Pageant"

"The Thunderer"

PS: Abby's the cute piccolo player in the front row!

Coveting New vs. Old

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Is it wrong to want something so much? Probably. No idea how much it costs but I'm guessing way too much. From Gat Creek, a local furniture company that makes sustainability a priority, based in Berkeley Springs, WV. 

Oooh, so purty....

I found this one on craigslist...my new favorite obsession. It's $350, mahogany, made in the 1940's. 

Close enough? Maybe.

New Blogger?

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Last night we had dinner with our friends, DJ and Stephanie.  They were married recently and this was our first visit with them since the nuptials. Stephanie fixed up a delicious dinner and we just sat around talking for hours. Wonderful evening. Thanks so much.

DJ recently discovered this blog and is thinking about starting one himself. He's got lots of thoughts about a lot of things and I think it'd be a great forum for him. I remember when I started I had so much I wanted to say.  Nowadays my energy for it seems to be lagging, but that's not to say I don't still enjoy it.

Do you have any advice for him? Encouragement or words of wisdom?

taking life

November 10, 2009

I remember the reign of terror of the sniper, John Allen Muhammad. It was awful to be so scared. I remember the horror of hearing he'd struck yet again. I remember how I watched every white utility van, how I tried not to be forced into a life in fear but couldn't help being afraid.

He was wrong to do what he did. 

But I cannot condone what happened to him tonight. I just can't. Two wrongs don't make a right, they never do. I can't believe that this is just or right or valuable in any way. I know there are arguments that can be made, justifications and supporting evidence. I don't have any argument except that it's not something I believe in.

I'm terribly sorry that he did what he did. It was horrible, no doubt about it. 

I lied.

Monday, November 9, 2009

For all my talk the other day about holding Christmas at bay, I have a confession to make. I went shopping. While I was in Durham last week for my dad's surgery (which went well thank goodness), I had a chance to meet up with Lauren for coffee. The Starbucks we went to was next to a shopping center in Chapel Hill. Lauren wanted to take a minute to look for some new shoes. As we wandered across the parking lot I spotted a little store called WomanCraft. I couldn't resist. It's a co-op of local artists with everything from pottery to photography and fiber arts to jewelry. I bought some stuff. 

Then we headed back out towards the shoe store and we were waylaid again by a Ten Thousand Villages store! I hadn't been to one for a couple of years and I just couldn't resist checking it out. I could hardly drag myself away. I bought some more stuff. 

Either somebody is getting some cool gifts for Christmas, or I am. I'm not sure yet how it's going to go. But either way, I'm a big huge hypocrite. 

The North Pole? Already?

Monday, November 3, 2009

Have you noticed that Christmas is right around the corner? I took Abby to the mall yesterday and we were serenaded by Nat King Cole, we wandered around in a forest of elaborately decorated Christmas trees, and drank coffee out of red Christmas cups. 

Really? November 2nd? 

I love the holiday season as much as the next person but I get a bit worn down by the way retailers slam it down my throat from Halloween on.  But the advertisers and marketers are masters of deception.  They convince us that without all 54 shopping days between Halloween and Christmas we'll never be ready; never be able to buy it all, wrap it all, dress it up, cook it, or decorate it, much less enjoy it. We have to start early and keep up the frenzied pace till the clock strikes midnight on December 24th.

For me the best remedy to this retail craziness is to stay away. Don't go to the mall. Don't watch commercials. Don't look at the newspaper inserts. I'm going to try to enjoy November for November. I'm going to build fires, walk in the woods, make soup, burn spicy scented candles, and at the end of November I'm going to have a big huge dinner to celebrate the delicious bounty of the earth. After that I may let myself begin to think about Christmas gifts and decorating the house. 

 

But not till then, if I can help it.

Hmmm

November 3, 2009

"He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open."

Rabindranath Tagore

Life these days....

November 2, 2009
For me these days life includes an iPhone. Brad wanted me to have one and so when my contract was up he got me one. While I admit I was fascinated by the phone, I also knew I could live a perfectly happy life without one.
And yet here I sit, in my car at the Sunoco station, waiting to get my car inspected, listening to music (on my phone) and blogging (on my phone) sipping my fresh cup of coffee from the Starbucks across the street. I'll be the first to admit that waiting like this is keeping me entertained but I have to wonder what the world is coming to...
I'm a little afraid of this road I'm heading down.

Happy Halloween, I mean Homecoming, I mean Halloween

Saturday, October 31, 2009

This cute little Pocahontas came along Trick-0r-Treating and wanted her picture taken too.

being

Friday, october 30, 2009

Why is it so difficult to just Be? Why is it that we have to be right or be smart or be politically correct. Why isn't okay to just be and to let others just be, too?  

I don't know if it's a stage of life thing or maybe it's the gray hair but I find myself wishing that we could all just learn to live and let live; that we could learn to appreciate the good in others and in ourselves and for that to be good enough. It seems like there's so much heartache and stress that comes from all the judging, and striving, and wanting.

Isn't it time for us to grow up and let it go?

Thanksgiving

Thursday, October 29, 2009

It's hard not to be getting in the mood for Thanksgiving. You just have to take a look around at the beauty outside to feel grateful. What a show nature is putting on for us! Every day it changes. Absolutely gorgeous. 

Smiles

Sunday, October 25, 2009

"Though sometimes people laugh when I say it, I myself always want more friends. I love smiles. Because of this I have the problem of knowing how to make more friends and how to get more smiles, in particular, genuine smiles. For there are many kinds of smile, such as sarcastic, artificial or diplomatic smiles. Many smiles produce no feeling of satisfaction, and sometimes they can even create suspicion or fear, can't they? But a genuine smile really gives us a feeling of freshness and is, I believe, unique to human beings. If these are the smiles we want, then we ourselves must create the reasons for them to appear."

His Holiness, The Dalai Lama

my new fave

Thursday, October 22, 2009

James Morrison; Nothing Ever Hurt Like You

Attitude

Monday, October 19, 2009

WATCHING THE BIRDWATCHER

She peers through a pair of binoculars
into a treetop lit with day’s last blaze,
where some bird alights unseen by me. 
Her gaze poised so tremulous and light,
as if resting upon a twig -- looking, looking 
at the bird that we don’t see. The bird in the tree,
and the seer of the bird sharing for the stainless present
the same slender branch. She stands stock-still.
Expecting nothing. Neither bird, nor bird watcher, nor air
are moving. Nor I, as I watch her, as she watches the bird --
all hung weightless and timeless and spaceless. Perched
upon this dimensionless brink. The twig could not bear
any more load than this bare awareness. If, therefore,
you would not spook the bird, nor snap the twig,
nor shatter this spun glass globe of air, then alight upon
the world like air, like breath. And do not linger any longer
than this bird watcher who now strolls off, the bird still hidden,
still lost in shadow. Forgetting the bird, forgetting herself.
Dissolving like an apparition into twilight’s final bay.
Only this poem still holding on. Foolish poem
grasping at the ungraspable world.

-- Richard Schiffman

Marathon

Monday, October 12, 2009

Reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. 

I'm getting to the point where I care about what happens but I'm only on page 244 and it's 600 and something pages long......  

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Still here. Didn't win the lottery, surprise, surprise.

haiku wednesday

Wedensday, October 7, 2009

lines upon my face,
silver-gray adorns my head,
time makes its mark here

Feeling old today. Guess you already know that.

new day

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

"The new day dawns and I am practicing my purpose once again.
It is fresh and it is fruitful if I win,
but if I lose,
Oooh, I don't know.
I'll be tired but I will turn and I will go,
only guessing till I get there then I'll know,
Oooh, I will know......

All will be well,
Even after all the promises you've broken to yourself.
All will be well
You can ask me how, but only time will tell."

Gabe Dixon

I'm off to Durham. One more trip to see my folks and practice my purpose. Yesterday was full of good news and I'm hoping this week will only bring more. But only time will tell and I'm banking on the fact that all will be well.

Blessings,
Sara

A prediction

Monday, October 5, 2009

Just watch and see if Kate Gosselin doesn't end up as the new girl on The View.  They seem to be very sympathetic to her plight. And she calls them "girls" as in "Hey Girls!" 

I'm just sayin'.

The River Sings to the Stone

I kissed the stone in the cold of her dream

for she is the silence and I am the psalm,

she is the riddle and I the riddler,

the two of us cut from one eternity.

I kissed the solitary flesh of the stone-

she, the sworn faithful, and I who betray,

she, the enduring, and I who pass on,

she, the earth’s secrets, and I who tell all.

 And I knew when I touched a speechless heart:

I am the poet and she is the world.

by Leah Goldberg

The Help

Friday, October 2, 2009

What a difference a day (or two makes). I'm feeling more like myself today. I'm not sure if it was the flu shot or what but this week kinda sucked. 

I started reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I'm totally sucked in. I'm a child of the sixties, literally born in '62, so I was alive when this stuff was happening (the Civil Rights Movement, Jackson, Mississippi, the March on Washington, etc) and yet I'm fairly ignorant about how bad things really were.  This story has me fascinated. I'm only half way through the book but so far I'm really loving it. I'm supposed to be reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  It's thick and it's due for this month's book club.  Lots of people recommended the book so I hope I will enjoy it too. But I'm not into murder mysteries so I hope there's something else to it that will get me going. Have you read it? Did you like it?

Meghan came home today. Yay! I haven't seen her since August 15!  So far we've already been to the mall. We'll go to the fb game tonight then more shopping tomorrow. By the time she heads back to school late tomorrow I should be completely broke....

Have a great weekend!

Purpose

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Do you spend time contemplating things like "What is my purpose?, What am I doing here? How can I make my life meaningful? Am I doing what I am meant to do?" Is it just me? I don't know why I do this to myself, but I do.

As a girl I was very clear on my purpose. I wanted to be a mother. I knew that I would love being a mom and caring for my children, family, home. It seemed like it would be enough. As a young adult I began to understand that I would have to have a way to support that goal and therefore I would need to work. I chose Nursing. Not because of some lofty calling, more like a realization that I had an affinity for the work.  I have a pretty steady temperament and a nurturing tendency.  Plus at the time there were lots of nursing jobs available. Put the two together and there you go. I became a nurse. I can't complain too much. I'm still employed in my field and I still find the work fairly rewarding. But is it my Purpose? I don't think so. And now my children, who I so desperately wanted, are growing up and needing me less.

Isn't life's Purpose really just to learn how to live well?  To appreciate the magic of being alive, the beauty and bounty of our planet, and the people we love? Maybe the question shouldn't be about Purpose but rather about Plan? What is the Plan for my life? If my purpose is to learn to live well then the Plan should promote that goal. What does living well mean? What is my definition of that? How can I get closer in reality to my Idea of a life well lived? 

Staying focused on the Idea isn't easy. Details and minutia seem to get in the way.  Like, oh yeah, I'm supposed to be sucking the marrow out of life. I forgot. I was so busy with the laundry and watching TV.  My training as a mom and nurse taught me that handling these details was important and handling them well was rewarding. Now I'm in a new phase of life where I want more than just the satisfaction of paid bills and a tidy house. I get caught in the riptide of everyday and struggle to keep my head above water long enough to move the next level where I'm aware of a sense of awe and appreciation. That's where I am right now, and for some reason I'm blogging about it. I'm not sure why I feel the need to put this down in words but somehow it helps me to clear my head and get my attitude adjusted. 

And for those of you who know me in person, please don't worry about me. This is not a cry for help. I'm just up early and thinking about my day. I'm not sad or depressed. I just think this way sometimes. No worries. Now I'm heading out for a walk in the beautiful crisp morning air.

Thanks for listening.