My Two Cents of Sense

November 8, 2019

I’m a believer in rubber bands, they are amazing little tools, they hold mail together, can hold up a rebel zipper on jeans when attached to the button, they can be put on a wrist to remind us of something we have to do, they can even be fun to make paper missiles go a little farther when you’re a kid – but most of all I love rubber bands because they always end up back in the same shape even when we stretch them (well most of the time). They are versatile and come in all shapes and sizes for special purposes. I liken relationships of people to rubber bands. Relationships have ebbs and flow, much like the stretching of a rubber band and sometimes the flow is more prominent then the ebb, but usually for good reason to the person that’s flowing.

Sometimes people just need a break, they need to stretch and figure things out. It can seem hurtful to us or like we’ve been abandoned, but that usually isn’t the case. Kids for instance, often do this to parents. When they are teenagers, they want independence, then life hits and it’s the parents they come back to for advice and shelter from all that scares and overwhelms them. Husbands and wives do this often simply from the dynamics of change, going from unmarried to married, or from married to having children, or from children to empty nesting, or not feeling quite like they did when they were young and feeling inadequate. Usually stretching in those times is a part of personal growth, the rubber band in those cases doesn’t always come back to the same exact shape, but usually because we’ve grown in some important way.

When someone stretches away from you, it’s important to understand why but more important to let them go (for awhile). What is awhile? Well that’s unique to every person. It can be days, weeks, months or years, but eventually, because love is in the mix they will return, never doubt that.

November 28, 2019

Thanksgiving, like, Christmas, we often gloss over it’s origins or what it really means. Of course then there’s the fact that like most things, there’s different meanings to different people. In 1621, tangibles were limited.

As we all know, the word Thanksgiving manifested out of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts giving thanks for a bountiful harvest in 1621 (of course there was so much more than that as well…but I digress). Fast forward 398 years and though we still celebrate, I don’t even think we come close to having the same sense of thankfulness that the pilgrims did. Of course we think we do, but life was much simpler, but harder in 1621 and if you weren’t harvesting you didn’t eat; in 2019, few and far between actually harvest, now we simply walk into a grocery store and take our pick of the plethora of foods offered. This begs the question of what are we giving thanks for in 2019?

I give thanks for the all the usual suspects, family, health, friends, job etc., and most of all to God for his mercy and love for such an imperfect humanity. For all the lessons we’re supposed to learn that we resist and for all his patience with us to learn. This is where giving comes in.

Giving isn’t about the tangibles (not fully anyway). Giving is about what we give of ourselves to make someone else’s burden lighter and their road brighter. Giving can be a simple hello, when you know you are distracted, but someone is walking by you; giving can be listening for the millionth time to a story an elder family member repeats because it holds meaning for them; giving can be a hug; giving can be a prayer – giving can be simple!

God never intended for us to make life complicated, but we are human and we do. But at Thanksgiving, just take a moment to be grateful for what you are thankful for and how you can give back to humanity. Don’t complicate it and I promise you will feel good.

These are strange times we’re in right now and one day we’ll look back and say, “remember when…”, but what will the tone be and what will the dialogue be when we continue the conversation. Our words and actions today, impact how we will live and view our future; it will also impact how we view our past.

I’ve never in my half a century on this earth seen such worrisome dialogue around the state of our union. We are in the midst of a very serious pandemic, but instead of focusing on all the positives that have taken place, and how this country has done a 180 degree turn to face this pandemic; we’re focusing on a blame game and pointing out the negatives. Let’s agree to disagree that there is plenty of blame to go around on so many things, however, blame only paralyzes the positive efforts in play that will change our paradigms so we can see a way forward. In my mind we remain blind as long as we don’t keep our minds open to hearing all sides. We’re all subject to having an opinion, but none of us should close our minds off to the possibility that good things are being done every day, every minute by the spirit of great people that make our country what it is. We should be open to possibilities whether we like the people speaking the words or not. So many people in all walks of life are risking their health and welfare everyday to get us to the point of obliterating this virus, let’s focus on that. Let’s use our brains and our God given voices to communicate and figure out innovative ways and share ideas to get through each day.

This epidemic is WORLD WIDE, it’s not just a few people here and there. The Rhetoric in this country that has been elevated above the good science, technology and innovation being done and that rhetoric is only managing to undermine getting us all to a place where we understand what our part is in making us a safer country overall. Never think that your voice doesn’t count or that your ideas are not worthy.

There is only negative and positive energy in our universe. Changing our tone and using active listening will surely open our minds and hearts to the possibility of being part of the solution even if that means doing our small part – which might be just wearing masks, washing our hands and keeping a social distance. We can’t leave it up to everyone else, these things ARE OUR PART.

Let’s move forward using words like, “what if”, “how about”, ‘I’m listening…’ instead of words like, “I hate…”; “we’re never…”; I can’t….”.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

I love to write, but I admittedly have stopped writing for a very long time. When I was young I loved to write poetry and songs. If I had been brave enough to pursue my dream job it would have been writing songs and collaborating with musical artists (…and maybe even doing a little singing), but fear got in my way!

My mother loved to write, she was interested in children’s stories and was really very good. She read me several of her stories as a child and I loved them! She worked up the courage only one time to submit her work and was rejected and never wrote again except for her children. There of course weren’t as many publishers in those days – we’re talking the 1960s – and being turned away was a big blow to her confidence. My Father tried to encourage her and explain that one rejection didn’t mean total rejection and abject failure, but to Mom it was.

I think that happens often to many of us – not having the confidence to pursue what makes us happy – I know having confidence enough to write publicly has been my desire, but fear held me back, except one time I dug very deep and wrote a song and sang it publicly. I was 19, getting married and wanted to do something very special for my then fiance, soon-to-be husband. I met a girl, Laura, that lived in one of my parents apartments, she had a guitar in her corner and I indicated that it was great that she played. She explained that she’d played all through high school and was in a band in college etc. I told her that I would LOVE to write my fiance a song and sing it at the wedding and admitted my fear and that I could never do it. Laura had other ideas! She said she’d help! I was stunned. This person I barely knew, was willing to help me compose a song. I was thrilled and scared all at once!

We decided to go down to the lakeside, sit on a dock, have a little wine and see what we came up with (I was from the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY so it was beautiful and good inspiration). It was to be a surprise, so even if it never manifested, there was no harm no foul. I wrote the song in about 20 minutes, she had some chords from another song she’d done years before and by the end of the evening, we had the structure of a full blown song. Over the next four weeks, we practiced in the church most nights, working out tempo, adding a little here and a little there, even adding Laura as a backup for the hook. She was awesome. Always encouraging me, telling me I had the voice, so use it! I of course thought she was off her rocker, but somehow she gave me confidence.

The wedding day came. I wasn’t nervous, which was odd considering it was my wedding! I remember my Dad asking me just before we walked up the aisle .. “do you want to go get a cup of coffee and think a little more…” I laughed and said, “No Dad, I have a song to sing!” He laughed and onward we walked.

A weird calm came over me when my priest handed me the microphone. I was focused on my husband-to-be, hoping he didn’t think this was all really stupid and just sang him the song, no fear, no second guessing, just singing – straight to him. It went perfectly, apparently there wasn’t a dry eye in the place to include my new husband. I didn’t know because I never looked right or left. As we exited the church and greeted our guests, I got nothing but wonderful comments and many that said, “I didn’t know you sang!” I laughed and said, “yeah me either!”

Moral of my story is…I’m taking a leap of faith and starting to blog. It’s not big deal if I don’t get followers, my goal is to just write on all sorts of topics and not be scared to do it!