Currie's Gratitude 31 October 2012

Although we may BE reluctant to DO so

Opening our minds is healthy

Much moreso than keeping them closed

No daylight or sunshine to warm their edges

No fresh air to tumble things into new formations…

As a person in the World Today, I value openmindedness. My own. That of others. But… sometimes, no matter how much I’d like to BE MORE openminded or experience others as openminded, it seems the lights are out and nobody’s home.

As a teacher of young children, I consider it my responsibility to BE openminded. To see from a perspective likely vastly different from my own. In fact, to see from many perspectives, all of them contrasted to some degree from my own.

It’s important to me that if I DO open a mind [or several] I must BE respectful, thoughtful, and sincerely careful where I go from there. Like a surgeon, I know there is danger lurking if something is left BEhind or NOT closed properly. One little nick or stumble can make a HUGE difference in outcome.

Oftentimes we don’t think twice about expressing our opinions and judgments. We assume our “rightness” and our “right” to DO so. It is only in retrospect that we can see how this has many unintended consequences.

BEing openminded or encouraging openmindedness?! Big responsibilities.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 October 2012

Dare to touch a heart.

Embrace the impossibility

That one tiny insignificant gesture

Given in simple lovingkindness

CAN DO that.

We’ve just rolled into the season of scorpions. Well, at least in my little World. Each of these next 3 weeks I get to step up and try touching the heart of another who has shown me, time and again, I canNOT.

I’d once have assumed that this knowledge would stop me. That I’d grown wise and clever enough to NOT set myself up to fail. And you know what?! The failure wouldn’t BE anywhere in what went out there. It was ALWAYS, and I mean Every Single Time, in my own heart.

I know I canNOT make someone change. I canNOT DO anything with expectations rooted in magical thinking. I can only DO with the love in my own heart. Give my gift. Say what I feel.

The only one whose heart will go untouched these 3 weeks, if I DO nothing, is me. Sort of a lightbulb moment, realising this is what is.

These past recent years I have grown increasingly introspective. And quiet. UN-brazen. Without expectation. This is good. For me.

I have also grown a thicker skin, some might say, where touching hearts is concerned. I DO it Now mostly for ME.

Imagine that...

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 October 2012

Don’t rush on without thinking

BE a little bolder than that

Trust yourself to DO whatever it is

By first taking a moment’s pause

To clarify your intention and

See the vision you have in mind.

In my Life I am sometimes given to BEing abrupt, blurting, and running on and on and on… [well, you already know this, I’m just saying.]

So I am practising something different. NOT something “new” just something new to ME.

Pausing. Pausing FIRST, BEfore acting [or reacting].

I think I have resisted this practise BEcause I’ve felt so desperate. And I’ve needed to quell my anxiety and hold my little demons at bay. I suppose I have been scared to Pause First…

I’ve equated pausing first with hesitation, and they are NOT the same. [well, sometimes mayBE they are pretty similar, yet I don’t think they are identical]

This morning, pausing first to think about something I WANT to DO, I came to see that the risks in DOing that thing were greater than the risk I want to BE taking. At least Right Now. And NOT just the risks to ME. That’s where I really see the benefits of Pause First.

Although I love spontaneity and lightness, I am more committed Now to NOT causing pain or risking anyone’s hurt feelings…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 October 2012

Keep going

Don’t stop

Or worry

Wondering how

Take it one step

At a time

Maintain mobility

Say YES

Sometimes I have zero recall. When I wrote my Take Two poem a couple of years ago, I know for certain I was in an entirely different head space. I valued things almost completely differently. So it is NOT surprising to me that I would have avoided and even refused to delve into Maintain Mobility.

This morning, undaunted, I selected it. It has been an adventure. This is what I love about getting up well BEfore the sun and writing. I am still open and my brain is smooshier, more malleable. I can discover parts of me that otherwise are unapproachable.

What I have learned already is that maintaining mobility is less about what I’d have thought. Especially since letting go of GraceLand. And relying completely upon my own steam and power to move me from Here to There and Back Again.

Yesterday I walked the 3 miles home after the unexpected but necessary laundry. The wind was wild and the sun was shining. The sky blue and the air nearly crisp, for here anyway!!! I spent that time wandering in my own thoughtsandfeelings. Those that have been challenging me lately…

I sorted it all out. I feel better.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 October 2012

It is enough to speak.

BEing heard

Acknowledged

LISTENED TO

All are icing, excess, unnecessary.

Though cherished

Connection with response

Exchange

Is only a pleasure

NOT a necessity.

Recently I have been shifting and reshuffling ideas, concepts, perspectives, and whole systems of BElief.  I have come to understand that like a pair of glasses or an f-stop on a camera, what I see and how I see it can change and neither the first nor the latter BE righter or wronger than the other.

And I am grateful.

I am grateful for hearing and listening to myself. It is a skill I never wanted to develop. Resisted and postponed, thinking it really unnecessary. And Now I discover its importance and gifts.

When I am paying attention and listening in, when I care in this way for and about myself, I feel “better” and even that which knocks me down isn’t enough to keep me there. This is a gift. It is an ability I never imagined I’d care anything at all about.

Ho-Hum-fiddle-de-dee, that is how I considered listening to myself. Speaking softly was foolish and when I did so, frankly, I deserved to BE overlooked and NOT considered. I needed to make my voice rise above the others. Draw more attention. Grab. Compel. Capture MORE.

Although… MayBE…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 October 2012

Finding treasure is seeing BEyond

Past the What Is There

What Everyone Can SEE

To the deeper place

The heart of something

Or someone…

I am finding myself a bit much lately. In saying so I hope to Let Go enough of it to STOP TRYING to figure it out. To label this thing or that experience or the sum of this and that and the other “to blame” and “as cause for” what I am feeling or thinking or thinkingandfeeling.

Moods, a blue period, an unfamiliar stretch of road, all of these are automatically put in the I DON’T WANT column. Or at least the I don’t want TOO much or SO much of this. Yet what I am discovering is that hidden within each is ALWAYS and I DO mean ALWAYS a treasure, and oftentimes treasureS.

It’s hard to see it, and like the place where a tooth used to BE, it’s almost automatic to go where it is NOT or NOT NOW. This is when it is important to lean into the morass and its attendant muckiness.

Gratitude isn’t always about the rainbows and moonbeams. In fact, I don’t even know that is is OFTEN about them. Instead, I find Gratitude to BE a bit of a boost, a secret ingredient that makes Life LIFE…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 October 2012

Think and envision

BE clear about need

And patient with want

Even the smallest things

Are worthy of thoughtfull preparation.

One thing I try to build into my Life is preparation that isn’t rote or based in some ancient system. It is awake and aware of possibilities. It is relaxed. VERY relaxed.

Imagine for a moment making a Journey where your destination is almost unknown and unknowable… [after all, we really canNOT predict the future however determined we are]

My guess is that you, like me, at first imagined someplace you have long wanted to go [or even someplace you long to go back to]. I doubt that you thought about what this day holds, or even one slice of this day.

MayBE I’m wrong…

However much I focus on my future, my “future self,” or some nebulous Someday Somewhere in my Life, I rarely imagine its impossibility. In fact, such visioning has all the details neatly supplied without my really needing to consider them.

I think this is BEcause I envision myself well-prepared and well taken care of.

But you see, I never DO think of that. I think of the Future with impossibly complete faith that all will BE well. I see myself as prepared and ready for whatever comes or does NOT come to pass…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 October 2012

Seek Goodness in all things

Whether it seems to BE there

Or even to make sense.

Choose to look for Goodness

Knowing it is there

Everywhere

Even in what seems old, rotten, and no longer vital.

It occurred to me yesterday, walking, that time and space where much of my insight seems shaken loose, that perhaps the HIGH HIGHS and low lows of last week’s mood swing make perfect sense.

I will say I wasn’t looking for it to make sense. I mean why go digging into something once it seems I’ve cleared it and left it BEhind?!

MayBE for this simple reason: I look for silver linings, gifts, and goodness. Everywhere. Always.

And perhaps it is my fervent BElief in ponies amongst the piles of…

I am grateful that my mood is shifting back to more of a normal space. It’s much more comfortable here, especially when out in the wider World BEyond the Wee Cottage. It’s NOT like everything is suddenly wondrous BEyond measure. Certainly Life still has its sand traps and speed bumps.

What is nice, though, as I am looking from Here, is to see the arc of things. The way each little bit builds on each other little bit. How altogether it created a bridge for walking across, stopping upon, and looking over…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 October 2012

Everything has a process

Even if I don’t know what that is

And more often than NOT

I won’t know the whole process

Until after

MayBE

So trusting it is essential.

Life happens and oftentimes it challenges me way BEyond what I think I can handle. I have to trust a LOT. I have to trust that I am trusting. I have to BE honest and forthright and NOT pretty things up or dumb them down.

Sheesh!!!

I was actually less patient when I was younger. I was so impatient I would mess something up just so I didn’t have to “wait and see” what happened. [I DO NOT say this with pride]

Lately I have been navigating an internal low pressure system. I have been at the effect of people, places, and things over which the only control I have had was my attitude and I kind let that go, too. I know that this will pass, that all things DO come to pass, and I am certain there will BE rich and meaningful lessons from this.

And yet…

Right Now I am sick of trusting the process, sick of the whole notion that I must trust processes. I’m missing my upbeat and far more mellow self.

This is exactly why processes require me to trust them…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 October 2012

Many times Life just rolls by and on out the door

No one takes even a moment to acknowledge

Its wonder

Magic

Extraordinariness.

Something was pointed out to me yesterday which put some other things into perspective. I am glad of that. I felt better in the realisation. Better still as it sunk in.

Life is ordinarily rather worthy of celebration. And yet we seem to hold celebrating for the “big things” and the “agreed upon” dates and days and such. Whole industries have been built upon our agreeing to celebrate certain days and dates and events.

But Life just all by itself is truly a magical thing.

Just think about it… the smile on someone’s face. A kind word. Laughter that is deep and true that rises up over everything else and pours itself on a moment.

Every single moment of every single day there is reason ENOUGH to celebrate, if, that is, reasonableness is desired.

When I forget this, which I DO, all too often, I seem to come apart and get very fragile, too tender, and I “break” too easily.

Yesterday I let myself BE in the funk that was still hanging on. I didn’t fight or try to overcome it. I just let it BE. Perhaps that is all it wanted…

A little celebration.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 October 2012

Naps aren’t my go-to

Never have been

And still…

I love a nap

That space of time

When Life goes on and I just pause

Watch the wind through my window

Close my eyes and imagine.

Gratitude, as a practise, is a good place to visit in the early hours of my day. Like naps, Gratitude refreshes me. It sings me a sweeter melody. Encourages going a little deeper and shifting perception into perspective.

Imagining, just for a moment, that instead of coming here each morning I go straightaway into my day without pause. Without mining my heart and my brain for what is simple, perhaps, yet amazing to me.

I have to tell you, that scares me. It really does.

Lately I have wondered about changing the way I DO things. Waking later, writing less, going to sleep later. It seems odd that I have come upon the way I have of living my Life, but here’s the thing: I DID NOT CHOOSE THIS. I might well continue to practise it, but I know that on my own I never, NOT EVER, could have figured this out.

I am grateful for all that is definitely weird, oftentimes odd, and even strangely off-putting about me. I am NOT a lot what I once was. I am simply ME.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 October 2012

It’s hard to stay silent

To NOT give in to bitter thoughtsandfeelings

Yet complaining has never EVER

Worked so well as NOT complaining.

Sometimes it seems Life is just a continual heaping-on of more and more stinky smelly stuff. It BEcomes almost comical how things go wrong and turn inside out and upside down. And then it stops me, cold. In my tracks. Like a brick wall.

And I realise…

DON’T COMPLAIN.

Even if complaining seems the most natural and normal thing. Or if I am sure it is what ANYONE would DO.

Don’t complain.

When Life is unpleasant, when people are unkind, indifferent, and even when they act as though I am invisible, irrelevant, and insignificant, I am learning NOT to complain, NOT to insist upon BEing heard. Or what is more, to BE UNDERSTOOD.

It isn’t what I observed, nor even what I was “taught” by the actions of those around me growing up, but it IS what I have learned from my very own example… or should that BE examples?!

It’s easier to complain. It’s more comfortable to work up a head of steam and make sure that everyone around me KNOWS better than to MESS with me. Especially NOW.

Still, I’m working on NOT complaining. Nor BEing one who complains. Even DOing so nicely…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 October 2012

It’s all sorts of weird to go first

In forgiving

[or so I always thought]

BEcause what about

WHY?!

And what happened to ME BEcause of what YOU/THEY did?!

What’s really happened is I’m growing a little

Getting stronger

And smiling more

When I forgive first [and when I forgive at all]

A part of me wants to go into the story of the past two days and tell you what happened to me and therefore build an excuse for my crankiness and BEing out of sorts. I want to tell you again [and again after that again] WHY I choose to live as I DO. Mostly in Solitude, without television, radio, newspaper, or ringing telephones.

I want you to UNDERSTAND and pat me on the head and say “poor baby” and throw wide the door to my pity party.

I want you to know and to “get me.”  To nod in agreement and understanding. To BE outraged alongside me.

How silly though. REALLY. BEcause there’s nothing quite so slimy as pulling anyone else into the muck I am trying to rise out of. And there is always that AFTER-TASTE of ohwhydidIDOthatagain?!?!

So instead I am going to say I am so grateful to BE here Right Now writing this. So glad that I get to BE grateful…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 October 2012

It isn’t hard, dreaming

It isn’t hard, dreaming

Seeing something into BEing

Getting a clear picture

And yet I hesitate

Resist

And leave things hanging out there

Spinning off into the far distance.

I am definitely a dreamer. And I visualise things without apology. And yet…

Lately I have been putting the brakes on dreaming dreamily and only envisioning the “proper” and “acceptable” stuff, NOT everything.

Strange. I know.

I think what’s going on is this: I have shifted into an entirely new gear. I am more content with what is, with what I have, with how my Life is BEing, and with what I am DOing. Right Now. I don’t want “more” anymore. I am simply and easily squeezing the deliciousness out of everything, enJOYing it immensely. I have discovered a storehouse of treasures untapped. Right here inside of ME. And all round about me, too.

No longer am I into wanting things or whatever all I have wanted with abandon for all of my Life up until Now. Instead I am noticing how the light looks when the sun rises. How clouds dance in the sky when I am walking. Somewhere. Since I am walking. A LOT.

I am grateful for the smallest things and finding overlooked things every single day. I am thrilled by what might BE considered silly…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 October 2012

Simple, right?!

We all know this

Intend to DO it

Yet somehow

Without meaning to

We let one

Or both

Slide…

I’ve long been a proponent of eating healthy. Yet for a long while I simply chose NOT to look at the junk I continued to consume, whether intentionally connecting that to healthy eating or seeing it as something separate and far from equal.

Sleeping well?! It used to BE if I just got enough sleep, I’d BE fine. If I could turn off my brain and let my body really relax, I’d count it good. I had no clue what sleeping well really looked or felt like.

We’ve all experienced this, to one extent or the other. We’ve good intentions and then Life happens. And suddenly we’re running on empty, or just fumes. We’re trying to find the enoughness and okayness. We negotiate and re-negotiate with ourselves, our bodies, our lives.

Sleeping well and eating healthy are Now my top priorities. It’s NOT always easy, even if I DO live alone and have extremely limited resources to indulge my far from healthy appetites. I don’t think My Way is THE Way. MayBE just THE Way for me. And I know I’ve more options, too.

I suppose you could say I DO what I CAN. Always. Right Now.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 October 2012

When I see something

[or someone]

I don’t know

[have never seen BEfore]

There is this “thing” I DO

I wonder…

Is it the same for you?!

I’d like to call it my wild and far-flung imagination, yet the TRUTH is, I am a judge. And I assume. And what’s more, I BElieve what I judge and assume. I take it as fact. Evidence. Proof Positive.

This has got me into trouble. Far too often. Far too much. And for far too long…

It’s hit a new high since I started riding the bus. So, to NOT try to swim against the current, I have been making a game out of this nasty little habit of mine. In light of whatever judgment I have made, I blend in that much MORE in the way of COMPASSION. I decide that the “awful and nasty” man who keeps up a ritual of hand to nose, hand to eye, hand to ear, and tops it all off with hand to mouth is practising some sort of deep thinking. Has splendid visions of what is possible and…

Really, this is NOT meant to BE flip or unkind. I have GOT TO train this brain to use its imaginative power for GOOD. In service of kindness, compassion, and for thinking very good thoughts.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 October 2012

It is often hard to BElieve.

When I see my reflection

Looking at me in the mirror

Or discover something I wrote

Just yesterday, mayBE last week

When I wasn’t really “there” writing it…

Seeing the woman I live inside of

The She who is ME.

I am NOT all that existential, really, but I suppose this is what comes of capturing my thoughts as they free fall like drops of rain in a storm. Waking early and writing first thing, BEfore thinking or listening or BEing influenced in some way. Like sifting through dreams. Their weird settings and impossibilities plain as the blue sky.

I am grateful I have made it a habit, to catch these things and put them down, so to speak, on “paper.” It is sort of like BEing a solar light for the stuff that wanders in and out of me. When the light is lessened outside, what is inside of me lights up. Brightly.

Amazing, really. And yet how can “amazing” feel so normal?! This is something I might never find an answer to. And that is fine. I have grown up. I have BEcome someone who needs far less than she ever imagined. Who prefers enough and embraces discipline like Gracie does belly rubs.

I am so grateful just to BE.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 October 2012

Bubbles take themselves lightly

All they care about is BEing

Bright, floating, fascinating.

Hugs connect us

One with another

Even just us by ourselves.

Bubbles & Hugs

Heal and mend us whole again.

I have learned so very much these past six years, on my own again, mostly without anyone else to consider, to have give me input, to bounce things off of… It has had its ups and definitely, too, its valleys of endless seeming too muchness.

Little moments, a smile here, a laugh, the too few and much too far BEtween hugs. Moments of bubbleness, where all is reflected so delicately, like magic and intention singing in perfect harmony.

While I have wished things could BE different, and mostly that is wishing I COULD BE DIFFERENT, I am so grateful for them NOT bending to my will. For NOT getting my way. For NOT having a quick-fix and a rubber stamp solution.

For so long Now I have had to draw upon wisdom within me. How imperfect a system, eh?! I don’t even KNOW what I don’t know, so how is it I imagine I will find within me the wisdom I seek. Need. REQUIRE?!

The healing process isn’t finite. This is one thing I have learned, grasped firmly, and know to the depths of myself.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 October 2012

Lean in and let your nose recall

Whatever your favourite smells

Cherish them with deLIGHT

And never hold back from a risk

Like loving someone

New

Again

Just BEcause you CAN

I used to think I was weird BEcause I had such a strong sense of smell. In one tiny whiff I could recall exactly the glorious scent of someone, a time, or a place. It hasn’t always been a good thing, I’m the first to admit, yet it has always been a sure thing for me. One sense that really has both a brain and feet…

If it is possible to risk everything for nothing certain, for the very strong likelihood that it will blow up in my face, I have to say I have often gone for it. EVEN THOUGH…

What is this, this way of strong recall and the terrifying chance I’ll BE landing with a resounding thud?! I think it is Life. As ME, perhaps as others experience it, too.

Trying something New, even if it is “old” but new-to-me Now, always involves great risk. This is NOT to say I am all up in your face and blowing my horn, just that it is risky, Life, and it takes a Spirit of some combination of guts and foolishness. Willingness and deeply held faith.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 October 2012

Whatever YOU mean when you say you

Love Life

Is enough.

No further proof required.

I didn’t always think this

Or BElieve it…

Instead I tried over and over

To check if did love Life

Enough…

An unusual pairing. It makes sense to me. That is more than sufficient. Quite enough.

For a long time I didn’t think I loved Life BEcause I did NOT love or show or DO it like I thought it had to look. I was always comparing insides with outsides and apples with oranges. Eventually, when I no longer felt any compulsion to check-in, to compare, or in any way differentiate MY Life with anyone else’s, I discovered my LOVE for Life.

And it was good. It was enough. It is, still. In fact it is more than enough. Most days I have way more JOY and Love around and inside of me than I can possibly absorb. It makes me wonder if perhaps the whole time I was trying to BE part of a couple or a family I was simply chasing my tail… Like Gracie, was I constantly sniffing everything to see if I could find myself there?!

The other night I woke myself to answer this question: How did you find yourself?!

I kept looking, I said… I kept looking.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 October 2012

Life is uncertain

Things change

Constantly

Hearts change

Minds change

We change

Staying true doesn’t change

BEing Light doesn’t either

I’m trying to remember that…

Some of what I have been DOing in the past nearly a year will come to a true jumping-off point at noon today. I have my first appointment, an “intake” appointment with my Job Coach for Ticket-to-Work. MayBE I am a bit on the wonky side with all of this, yet I actually feel “ready” for this. The final step, of sorts, and in other ways a BEginning…

Over these past 11+ months I have moved from BEing totally dependent upon myself to Make Things Happen to Trusting the Process. I have also gone from scatter-shotting a litany of possibilities to just one thing I want to DO, what “working again Currie” will BE.

A year ago I thought I needed to make sure people knew the depth and breadth of my experience. Today it’s enough that I want to teach, in particular BE an afterschool teacher. Though I’ve experience [and even a little desire] to expand that, as I’ve lived with it Now for several months it has grown comfortable, wrapping itself round and into me.

Although Life is constant change, it is also constant fine-tuning. Simplifying. Clarifying.

I am sooooooo grateful.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 October 2012

Boldness is where to BEgin

Anything

Never is the opportunity greater

Than at the BEginning

Generosity is possible

Always

Even when it seems less likely

There’s anything worth giving

For some time I have been holding back and BEing conservative with money, presuming that only ca$h is wanted when I am asked to GIVE. I’m wrong of course. As we all are when we assume and presuppose things.

While I won’t pretend that it’s clear, simple, or anything LIKE easy to give what is NOT ca$h, I will say that I have discovered a deep well of Generosity inside of me. One that has nothing whatsoever to DO with what my bank account says about me.

Just the movement from one context to the other has been remarkable. How it allows me to see myself. How it shifts all of what fires on my insides. Amazing…

In my desire to help people who are living with cancer I am giving away my original art. Some I am just giving, gifting. The rest I am looking for ways to give so that there might BE actual ca$h to give. It might seem [even BE] silly, almost ridiculous, but this is what has made itself so clear to me recently.

And all things are eventually made clear, even to me…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 October 2012

When you know what is

Enough

You will have all the

Hope

You could ever need

And inside of that you will know

Peace.

Gratitude is something I call “my practise” BEcause it will NEVER BEcome a skill or capability I can have Enough of, needing no more.  Although that might rain on a parade or two I’ve imagined, I am content to keep “practising” this for the long term. And BEyond that.

And yet there are so many other aspects of BEing alive that I have long had enough of, that I’ve only refilled and hung onto for “a rainy day.” Discovering the space that lives BEtween Enough and TOO Much is the dance of my Life.

I am having a strange sort of awareness lately around the Enoughness of things. It would seem I always go automatically to refill what is empty. To assume I will need “more” when something is running low. What is curious is to BE daring enough to set aside my assumption, to dig deeper, into my BElief, and to look at whatever I find there without averting my eyes.

It is a more hopeful way for me to live trusting in Enough. To look BEhind and Ahead and know there has always BEEN and will always BE Enough. More than Enough.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 October 2012

Hesitation isn’t thoughtful

So much as fearful

And BEing indecisive, too

Just another flavour of fear.

Know when to say WHEN

When to choose

When to decide

And always… always

LAUGH.

I’ve been so serious so much of my Life. When I was around 14 or 15, I was told this often. In a variety of ways and using different words. [was that supposed to help me “swallow” it?!] Of course, THEN, I protested. [probably loudly, perhaps also seriously…]

Now, with a few more decades to teach me about things like seriousness, choices, decisions, and saying “when,” I might actually agree with those assessments of my younger self.

Still, it really doesn’t matter. Laughter matters. Taking myself and Life more lightly?! Two more things that matter.

The serious business of choosing and deciding is less so Now. I don’t know for certain how or why this is, I just KNOW IT IS.

Every hesitation I make in choosing is a moment or another [often much LARGER] chunk of time, wasted, squandered, that will never come again. OUCH!!!

Learning to lighten up has been the overriding theme and underlying purpose of my Life in the past decade. It seems strange to say this, Now, but NOT in any way wrong. Or too late. Nor too soon. Right On Time…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 October 2012

It’s only BEcause everyone does it

That’s all

No good reason for all the fuss

Or the fighting

Climbing up and over

Squashing others down

I don’t think there is anything I dislike so much as competition. Especially the way it is promoted in places where cooperation works so much more successfully.

BUT…

This could simply BE a sign of my age. My growing a little too entrenched in my own ideas, BEliefs, and firmly held convictions. [this aging thing isn’t always pretty]

I am grateful for my own capacity to see things in their true light. Without the glitter and the hype. Without the grandiosity of a more is better mindset.

It is hard, I am discovering, to try to defend something that has long since BEcome The Way Things Are [or Are NOT]. It is like speaking a language that no one can translate precisely. Only the idea of it, and even then it’s wrapped in awkward syntax.

And still I BElieve that Cooperation is ALWAYS better than Competing. It’s fair. MORE fair, actually.

With everything based upon Winning or Losing, BEing Picked or Rejected, it is no wonder that we have the World we have Today. And we have opened our doors wide to let them in. Fed them full. Invited them to stay. Forever…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 October 2012

Whether you can carry a tune

Know the words

Or you are the ONLY ONE

Singing

Step Up

BE Bolder

And never hesitate to

Try Again

It is a strange World we live in. In one corner there are the planners and goal-setters. They are concerned with grades and scores and percentages. Statistics give them indecent pleasure. They seek to have more letters after their name and more titles in front.

And in another corner are those who just wait-and-see without a care in the World. They despise pursuing anything and often go along or NOT, depending on nothing.

Then, scattered in and among the above, are the bright lights. The surprised and surprising. The quiet ones who never seemed like they’d “amount to anything” ever. They often surprise us with the way they make new trails, find out how to make things work better, differently, and in remarkably extraordinary ways.

Wherever I fall, today, or wherever I did, BEfore Now, there are a few things I know to DO. Those things that, by themselves might BE ordinary and rather bland, yet together make magic:

1. SING and DO so LOUDLY.

2.STEP UP and in and along; just don’t sit idly by waiting for an invitation or a reason.

3.TRY AGAIN. Despite Yoda. BEcause I CAN.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 October 2012

Stay close enough

And open up

Easily

Look within

Really see what is there

Inside YOU

And you can

[RE]Discover YOURself

If there were only one thing I could point to that has changed for the better [BEcause, really, there has been so VERY MUCH] in me these past 6 years, I wouldn’t hesitate to say Telling My Truth.

For 12 years I had let My Truth dissolve and disappear. And I could NOT have told you what I BElieved BEcause I had forgotten that I even had a Self that was just ME, my OWN self.

This does NOT mean I was any sort of victim, nor was I 100% a volunteer. It is just how I rolled during that period. And it was mighty tempting to lose that Self I had BEcome, BEfore that 12-year chapter of My Life… but it was NOT easy to open up and see this.

As I’ve learned to look within myself, [at times staring into the void BEcause I couldn’t really SEE anything through all my upsets, outcrying, and feeling abandoned] I’ve discovered a sweetness I never guessed was mine. And a tender heart.

Discovering myself at this point in Life, is quite wonderful. Extraordinary. And very encouraging.

It isn’t EVER “too late” to BE who I AM. NOT Ever.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 October 2012

Starting out?!

I prefer happy.

Dreaming?!

Always DREAM BIG.

And BE quiet?!

ME… Quiet??

Indeed!!!

Saying YES to it all?!

My choice!!

For most of my Life I would NEVER have said I am someone who starts out HAPPY. In fact, it still feels like I am “making BElieve” when I own that. Yet that is who I am Now. I BEgin at Happy and find that it makes HAPPY much happier. And quicker to realise. Even spread.

My dreams are BIG but NOT in the ordinary size-wise container. They are BIGGER than I can figure out, make happen, or say HOW they will come to BE. They are BIG enough. Which is, perhaps, why so many of my dreams BEfore never came to BE more than ho-hum.

BEing quiet for me would seem an oxymoron. Laughable. Impossible. And yet… In living my Life in Solitude I am discovering the deLIGHTs of quietness. Silence. NOT filling up space with sounds and distractions. Especially the space BEtween my ears. [I still can talk, and talk too much, but then there shall always BE work to BE done, eh?!]

Saying YES?! What is it about that that seems a little naughty and provocative?! Why DO I feel somewhat bodacious about making [choosing ] this decision? Automatically? Without hesitation?

I DON’T!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 October 2012

Lean into your dream

Get close enough to taste its sweetness

Fly free from your mooring

Soar and look at Life from a new perspective

Create everyday

Like it is just what you DO and how you roll

Learning is indeed my heart. It is what I love and what fills me with JOY and Wonder. I’ve no desire to ever “know it all” or BE an expert. I cherish the NOT knowing and the discoveries that it allows in. Perfect is NOT a word that fits me; and I pray it NEVER EVER WILL.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, without brain cramping or deepening the 11 BEtween my eyebrows. I have been imagining, clarifying, and almost painting with my thinker. It is extraordinary what happens with this freedom. What reveals itself even if I don’t really SEE it BEcause at some level I think I already take it for granted, assume it IS.

Sometimes, when I am BEginning something new, when I need to find a container for an escapade, I just grab what’s at hand, what I already have. In time this whatever-it-is either adapts or I adapt it in some fashion. I have learned that this process NEVER lets me down. It finds me at my creative centre and sends me soaring even higher.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 October 2012

Ó 2012 Currie Silver

Adventures make Life more amazing

Learning infuses Life with JOY

And Fear is NOT needed

NOT Now

NOT Ever

And

For Always

As Life unfolds, and Time goes on, I find myself growing easily into someone I’d imagined yet NOT really BElieved I could BE. It’s a funny thing, an amusing insight. Yet there is no denying I have BEcome less awestruck by FEAR, more open to Adventure, and willing to embrace my every learning edge with JOY.

Great JOY.

It is nothing BUT cause for deep juicy Gratitude.

This is one of the times in the year that I often recall with great clarity. Perhaps BEcause it is Timmy’s birthday coming up, the first week in October is a slow motion sort of time. Of course, I am also aware of much that I have forgotten, Let Go, and simply overwritten. And it is good, all of it. I’ve no need to BE or DO “more” than just this.

It’s been a wondrous 6 months since I sold GraceLand and BEgan this new chapter of MY Life. I’d never have imagined all of “THIS” would come to BE. That where it has taken me, where I find myself living and enJOYing Life as it is and as it is NOT could BE HERE…

I love you, Currie