Currie's Gratitude 31 December 2012

To the year that has been

And the one that is to BE

I wave

In gladness

And wonder

There are so very many memories of this year. In many ways it feels as though for all of these 366 days I have been Right Here with YOU.

And that is true.

This year has also been a year unlike any other that I have known. Even with my familiar and daily practises. I have never met the ME who I BEcame and am even Now BEcoming.

Goodbye requires Letting Go, but even if I am NOT ready [or willing] this day, and this year, will BE gone. Anyway.

And in their place will BE the New Today. The New Right Now.

It was designed like this quite on purpose I BElieve. Otherwise, at least in MY case, we’d BE living in a revolving door where there is no way “out” only the suction holding us in.

Letting Go is a gift I think. One of the best. When I have lived the stink out of a year, pushed it and myself to the outermost edges, the opportunity to Let Go is sweet release.

Even when Goodbye means no more, there is the promise of Hello. Always.

Who ever could [would] have imagined the amazing Hello’s of 2012?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 December 2012

It seems to me to BE nowhere near Enough

The LIGHT I can spread

And yet imagine if each one of us spread

All the LIGHT we have…

Endings are both wondrous and difficult. And they are impossible to contain. The way the End folds right into the BEginning is genius. Yet I sometimes find myself in that tiny bubble of air that is BEtween.

I think I understand this better Now.

I think it is something I taught myself was necessary a Very Long Time Ago.

And I don’t know that I have ever really stopped long enough to SEE it clearly… or see myself DOing it clearly.

This year has been [and still is BEing] remarkable. A bazillion tiny changes and some really HUGE ones. Deepening understandings across the entire spectrum that is Me.

Opening myself up and daring to step out, even just to stand alone, exposed, and uncertain.

Great leaps of what I would love to call faith but really they weren’t all that clear at the time. The sort of leaps where wings get built on the way off the cliff.  And mayBE the wings were only so-so until I learned to use them properly.

I have done my best this year to offer up all that I had and just Let Go.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 December 2012

It is NOT one voice all by itself

Completely alone

That makes the difference

It is the rich and remarkable harmonies

Of voices working together

Fresh from 3 days in a row teaching and collaborating with others to create an experience for the kids at Winter Camp, I find myself this early Saturday morning less exhausted knowing Today I don’t have to go DO it all again.

Ahhhhhhh…

I started out as loose and free as I like to BE when teaching. It was pretty clear that such an approach would NOT suffice.

So… I stepped up.

I shared my insights. I asked questions.

I collaborated.

It is pretty darned amazing how that works. How one voice grows strained and stretched BEyond capacity, yet 2 or 3 together create something extraordinary. Something BEautimous.

As I did so I felt empowered and re-energised. I didn’t wilt at the “slings and arrows” some kids can seem to BE launching at me. [sensitive flower that I am!!!] I met them there and found as my mind opened my heart did, too.

Kids today… this is what we often BEmoan. But this week I completed that sentence in new ways. They DON’T learn to problem-solve, think creatively, or work collaboratively. That, then, was what we gave them an opportunity to DO.

Ahhhhhhh…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 December 2012

DO it YOUR way

Always

Don’t copy

Or BElieve you need to BE someone else

DOing it some other way

Your Way is THE Way for YOU

When I teach I find myself slipping into another sort of mindset. Things that haven’t occurred to me in years suddenly pop on the scene of my brain like they were always Right There.

Perhaps they were.

The past 2 days I have noticed my teacher voice coming back. I have watched myself BEing direct and clear. Saying what I mean. Meaning what I say. FEELing a little meaner, too, when pushed a bit.

I don’t like all that so much but I’m also glad I have it, still, and more, that I am aware of it as a distinct WAY I can DO something.

With the many changes this year, I thought I was nearly done teaching at the museum, but this little Winter Camp gig has shown me some things about myself I didn’t realise or know still hold sway.

Sometimes all it takes is me BEing a little firmer. Using my capacity to connect with one child in a way that works and does NOT exclude the others or shortchange them in any way.

I think it’s important to know my edges and where to push or stay.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 December 2012

Imagine it BEing so simple

Clear

Poignant…

That could change everything.

Sometimes I pretend I am capable of turning the Titanic. Making Time stop and moving things and events and people into different formations.

And sometimes it happens without me pretending. It happens in those quiet moments when I am just open. Moments AFTER something strange to me has occurred. In a pause.

And that changes everything.

When I come to see or understand or even just to know something I did NOT BEfore, I am amazed at how it can completely turn me round to see from another [or another’s] perspective.

In The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster, this is demonstrated in a fun fashion. In what Tara Sophia Mohr said above it is very direct. Hard-hitting yet with an extraordinary gentleness.

I had several disparate things occur in my day that was “yesterday.” In each case there was a moment for pause.

For stepping away in my mind.

Stopping action long enough to consider what was happening and how I was reacting to what was happening.

These were gifts though I did NOT see them in that Light straightaway.

I did, however, notice:

How often I judge, assume, and simply BElieve whatever my brain tells me.

How I self-protect.

How I let myself BE affected. Changed.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 December 2012

Maintaining a sense of wonder

Allowing it room

And time to BE

Can get tricky

Still…

It’s worth the effort

I am grateful this morning. BEcause I CAN BE. BEcause I CHOOSE to BE.

It was a quiet and nice day yesterday. I stayed open for surprise and magic and the wonder that is Christmas. I wasn’t disappointed. [A bit undone and dismayed but still glad of my initiative to pick up the 20-ton telephone first thing when Gracie and I returned from Morning Adventure.]

It is curious how conditioned a person can BEcome and yet how astonished. I am reminded of a phrase that goes something like, “When someone shows you who they are, BElieve them the first time.”

If I had attempted to predict how things would shake out, if I had lost my sense of wonder and curled up into myself, knowing better than to put myself out there, I don’t know that I would find myself feeling so grateful looking back.

So this is a good thing. BEing a bit undone. Dismayed.

My great deLIGHT was a Beautimously painted pot and plant from the 3 kids in front. I think they are encouraging my thumbs to grow greener. It could happen!!!

And enJOYing them enJOYing their skateboards and scooter?! Just utterly and completely deLIGHTfull!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 December 2012

Amazing Quiet Creative Life

I wish for & I enJOY

Good Christmas Morning. Happy Happy Christmas to all.

I am grateful for the gift of BEing here with you, of the sense of BEing together without the boundaries of Time & Space & Distance.

Above is a collage made as a Love List for 2013. My friend, it says…  

amazing

quiet. Creative

          LIFE.

Over the course of this year I have come to love my amazing Life. For its quiet. For the opportunities for BEing Creative. For the time to learn myself and know who I am. Who I Dream of BEcoming.

I didn’t always feel this way. [and if I am honest, I don’t always feel it with such JOY] And I don’t imagine I always will feel this way. I only know that what makes me happy, Now, is that I get to luxuriously marinate in large chunks of juicy Life that is quiet. That is enJOYed in Solitude. That is amazing and simply wondrously so.

Although I spend so much time alone, in my own company, I never feel separate or severed. I used to. Very much so. I used to resist and complain and try anything to stop feeling apart and what I interpreted to BE unwelcome.

No more… Now I enJOY every second.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 December 2012

Always ALWAYS

Leave room to grow

To change

To open your heart wider

To let Life spin you on your axis

And twirl you like a dancer

It’s the entire point

After all…

Christmas is a good time to mark growth. It’s the same date every year. It has pretty much all the same players and acts to it.

What is different is ME. [or you. or him. or her. or them…mayBE even us]

Having spent this month in daily reflection www.becurrie.blogspot.com I have perhaps been more likely to compare and contrast and notice than other years.

And I have discovered a great many things which I never REALLY thought “out loud” about and so didn’t notice BEfore this year.

My comfort level with BEing alone. The silly little Christmas traditions I have [and love] and the way they each make me feel and smile and BE happier.

My memories. All the way back, to the ones I don’t remember except that somewhere there is a picture or something that I read or hear and suddenly there is a picture and a story in my head that reminds me that I DO this Christmas thing each year and always have…

My wish: the hope in my heart that those I love might know I love them, still. Always…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 December 2012

When your voice needs to BE heard

When YOU need to BE heard

When only you seeing or hearing

Can let another’s circumstances BE heard

Dare to make a difference…

Speak Up

I think I used to BE far more willing to Speak Up. To BE, like a child, insistent and bold and never the least bit reluctant to call what I saw what I knew it was called.

NOT so much anymore. And that makes me both sad and much more compassionate.

I grew up in a swirl of voices that mostly didn’t want to listen to mine. I’m BEginning Now to see that may well BE why I tend always to err on the side of talking too much. NOT that I am blaming or meaning to shame anyone… even myself.

This year for the first time ever I'm starting to interrupt my jabbering. And it is NOT an easy thing since 90% of my time is spent with just me and Gracie.

I have followed threads backward to what may well BE the WHY of lost communications with people I dearly miss.

I will Speak Up in my own head. Yet sometimes I think I am too late. All wrong. My efforts futile.

Still, I am pointed there. I am Willing to stop and change.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 December 2012

Even when I know what I want

And think I know the way to make it

Discover it

Or just bring it to Life

I’m trying

[by fits and starts]

To follow the directions

Christmastime is one of the times when I always seem to remember these 3 words and their wondrous blessings.

Yet there is always that pause. The laughter. And the memories of winging it when it would have been far wiser to seek AND FOLLOW the directions!!

Sometimes though there ARE NO directions. Writing. Making art. Creating something that just sprang to Life inside my head.

I had an opportunity to DO just that yesterday. I’ve had an idea for something floating around and a promise of something I’d promised. I decided to weave the two together and spent about 3 hours in that weaving. The result?!

Well, surely it was in the Great Direction Index in Currie’s Birdbrain, but I didn’t know where to find it until after I had DONE what I DID. I just decided to BEgin and GO. The way I DO when I write in the mornings.

Like my morning writing, the what I was creating had a “container” to go in. It had a purpose and I was pretty clear about that.

Sometimes directions need to BE followed BACKwards…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 December 2012

BEcause…

If you don’t try

Or start

Or sort it all out

At least you’re moving.

It’s never been my go-to response that failure is anything good whatsoever. And definitely NOT that it is progress. Yet there is too much swept under the rug with that attitude.

What I am thinking Now is that if I am failing [and I recognise whatever result as “failure” to meet the outcome I wanted] I am pretty sure that I am learning. I know something is happening and that there will BE more information available to me simply BEcause I tried.

And yet…

I don’t love to fail.

But I wonder, does anyone REALLY love failure?!

It is a curious Life when I challenge my suppositions and all that I take for granted. When I turn something one way or another I often notice that there is more that is possible than just succeeding or flat-out failing.

Everything that I have ever accomplished has had failure on its path. Everything. Even this writing. My lappie was having a major wee-wee and I had to restart, then it hung in “logging-off mode” awhile so, with trepidation, I shut it off manually.

Progress…

And Now, here I am, with an even greater conviction that Failure IS Progress. I am going to remember this…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 December 2012

When you know you are Enough

And you stand in that knowing

You stand strong

You stand long [as long as it takes]

And you stand in peaceFULLness

With JOY and deLIGHT

I am NOT someone who has much practise with knowing I am Enough. MayBE I know I am “good enough” but ENOUGH?! NOT so much.

And yet…

When I know it, which I sometimes DO, it is an amazing experience. Uplifting. Energising. [and pretty cool BEans if I DO say so myself!!!]

When I know that there is no one who brings what ONLY I CAN to Life I feel honoured. I feel inspired. And I want NOTHING other than to BE all the Enough I AM.

It is slippery though, this feeling, especially containing it without BEing carried away with or by it. Sometimes I see myself in the midst of trying to BElieve it is or I am Enough. And sometimes I am just so ridiculous. Like holding a snowball on a summer’s afternoon ridiculous.

Still, Enough is a BEautimous thing. It is where a deep breath is possible and what slows down all the much too deep thinking.

It is thirst quenched. And toes warmed. Hope fulfilled. Dreams coming true as gently as snow falling from the night sky.

It is, simply, Enough.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 December 2012

To the space that exists when I don’t

And to what is possible when I DO

It is telling that twice in one month I manufactured this prompt for writing. For poeming. For my art. When I realised it I just leaned into it that much MORE.

[it is truly amazing how little I practise just listening…]

I know that the hardest part of just listening for me is that I am afraid no one will hear me or worse, get me, if I DO.

And I think, too, there is that little girl in me who knows she knows so she constantly has her hand raised and is three-quarters of the way OUT of her seat bouncing like little dogs DO when they are barking.

I noticed twice yesterday where I deliberately did NOT just listen. Where I had to add, correct, interject, say just one more thing…

And I noticed three times when just listening was so sweet. Wait, four, no, five… well it’s surely interesting how much MORE just listening I’ve been DOing lately.

Who knew my garden could bloom and blossom like this in December?!

The thing with listening, just listening, is that I get to “get” another. I get to “hear” another. I get to BE Present for and with another. Just exquisite…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 December 2012

It is NOT just a hymn

Nor words to a pretty song

It is as real

And as deep

A wish

As I have ever known

Some mornings I surprise myself. I think I am just living along the surface of Today, showing up here at the appointed time, writing like I breathe, BEcause there is no other choice for me.

And I am so very wrong.

This morning I feel full of something I canNOT wrap words nor even my thoughts round. It is a prayer, my prayer, and it is a prayer of Peace.

Peace in hearts. Peace in minds. Peace for the young. Peace for the old. Peace we can understand and see and touch. Peace that is in the wind or in a wave or in the wonder of a baby’s smile.

Peace BEtween. Peace among. Peace in the city. Peace in the country. Peace in a whisper. Peace in an inglorious shout. Peace around tables. Peace that rides starlight.

My prayer is such a simple one. It’s borrowed words for goodness sake!! It isn’t original or new or in any way improved. Prayer doesn’t need upgrades. It is ready to go out of the box. No batteries nor any charging up required.

Prayer is as simple as breathing and, as essential for Life.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 December 2012

Yes, YOU CAN

I know it

I am certain

BEcause YOU

Dear one

CAN DO Anything!!!

How nice it would BE to get tired of hearing these four words. Spoken with heart. With genuine kindness. With that certainty that underlines it emphatically.

For me, I heard it too rarely and did NOT hear it for long, long spells when I most needed someone to BElieve in me… as I did NOT. NOT one tiny speck of a bit.

Oftentimes there is a conversation ongoing in my head that is me arguing with someone, generally an “authority figure” composite, that what I am imagining and considering is indeed possible otherwise HOW could I BE imagining and considering it in the first place?!

There are other things said in response. Things I heard so often that, well, if I didn’t know better, I’d think WERE TRUTH.

In my heart I am committed to BElieving in. Dreams. People. Ideas. Forgiveness. Connection. Possibilities…

If it is YOU and YOUR DREAM, I’m there. Matters NOT one smidge if I think your idea is something I’d like. In fact, I BElieve regularly in things I don’t agree with. BEcause I BElieve in who BElieves and Dreams them.

I think that there is no better gift to give or receive than 

YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 December 2012

but DO sing!!!

sing out

sing loud

sing silly

with your amazing smile

singing is the thing

NOT the key you’re in

I’m laughing both near and at myself this Christmas. I am pretty much staying out of the madness that is Christmas as I have known it. I haven’t validated my new bus pass in 16 days. I’ve been walking to DO laundry or go to the market. NOT going anywhere just BEcause it is there and I feel like meandering.

I did NOT intend to BE this way this year. Well, I DID mean to BE reflective as I’m BEing in my www.becurrie.blogspot.com posts. And I’ve really enJOYed making my goofy Christmas tree cards, but I didn’t really anticipate that I’d deliberately step out of the midst of Everything Christmas.

Sing off-key, to me, means just join in as you are. Raise up your voice. It is all our voices singing together that brings JOY to the World, NOT one person’s voice alone.

If I told you that what I miss most of all at Christmas is the other voices, would you understand what I meant?! Would you know that it is the way we all soften a bit around our rougher edges that means Christmas to me?!

I am singing way off-key. And it’s wondrous!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 December 2012

Imagine if everyone

Coming to a potluck supper

Brought JOY

How delicious that would make

Everything.

Life is a curious adventure. At least that is what I think. Sometimes, trying oh so hard to BE the right way or DO the right thing or MAKE something work out or simply work well, I forget all about JOY and how no matter the amount, flavour, vegan-ness, or gluten-free-ness, just JOY itself is perfect.

There seems to BE a foodie trend here this morning!!!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Partly it is BEcause I have devoted the month of December to reflection. But that could sound like I am spending the entire month staring in the rear view mirror. [which, by the way, I no longer have!!!]

What I think is REALLY going on is that I am finding a deeper than I can ever remember feeling JOY in me FOR NO REASON AT ALL. I want to learn this feeling. I want to meander through it and see out its windows.

I want to taste it and listen to how it sounds like at once the gentlest breeze AND the howling wind and both are BEautimous.

I want to Bring JOY to Life. My own, yes. Of course. And…

To the larger Life within which I am living.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 December 2012

It isn’t always the first thing I DO

In fact, sometimes I really DO try

BEing some way I think is expected.

And only after DO I wonder why

I dismissed BEing Sincere

Out of hand

Without even a pause…

The other evening I was reading this little book I have had forever. The essay I read is called Be Sincere. There is this one line, When others depend on your strength, it is your sincerity they are counting on.

This stopped me cold. I had this sudden parade of memory, of the times I’ve been insincere as well the times I’ve BElieved and depended upon another [or others] on whom it turned out I should NOT have depended nor in whom I should have BElieved.

I have significant difficulty speaking directly to someone whom I canNOT BE sure of. I feel small and childish. I am afraid of their reaction so I try, if I must speak with them directly, to BE neutral, which is ultimately insincere.

While I can easily show up in written form, BEing direct is much more difficult for me. As I think about this I see it showing up over and over in my Life. Driven by fear or another’s reaction I have “risen above” only to scale new heights of insincerity…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 December 2012

The very best reason I’ll usually choose

When someone asks me WHY

I DO

Or live

Or write

Or pretty much anything is simple:

BEcause I CAN

I didn’t always feel this way. Wasn’t always so sure and I was NEVER EVER aware of this level or sort of self-confidence in me. And Now?! Well, Now I AM. So much so that sometimes I have to get off my own back about what and how I was in the Past.

When people ask me questions, and sometimes when the questions aren’t asked but I can sense the BEwilderment BEhind whatever is said, done, or even NOT said or NOT done, I realise that perhaps that is also why they DO and why they ARE the way[s] they DO and BE themselves.

BEcause I CAN is clear. It is clean. It is even polite. [though I often have said it with tremendous snarkiness in me, I admit ;~D]

BEcause I CAN also brings an end to further probing which borders or crosses right into mocking.

BEcause I CAN reminds me, too, sometimes, why I am choosing to BE or Live or BEhave the ways I am choosing to BE, Live, and BEhave.

It is also a great encouragement when I’ve lost my way and got caught in the weeds…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 December 2012

it’s always possible

[even when some insist it is NOT]

to start again

to start fresh

to go back to the BEginning and take the story another way

one which you’d never have thought

THEN

but Now seems so clearly the “only” way

Long a proponent of starting my day over any time, I admit I have had a terribly difficult time of making fresh starts.

I have felt I must “pay for” my mistakes rather than see them a “missed takes” and simply DOing another. A Take Two [or take eleventy-seven even] is only Starting Fresh.

It might have helped me to “get” stuff I didn’t “get” until recently. Like getting that there is good reason for sleeping BEtween one day and the next. It’s for recharging and refreshing and simply stopping all the go-Go-GOing of everyday.

Or, quite possibly, it might have helped to see that as much as I hold my own feet to the fire, I don’t hold others to that standard. I make room. I look for similarity. I intend to understand. I make Letting Go easy by DOing it every chance I get.

Starting Fresh doesn’t always feel so fresh. It oftentimes is more worrisome. Old hob-gobbly fears and doubts creep in.

Yet there is no mistaking the gifts in Starting Fresh.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 December 2012

dare to ask…

for what you want

or just what you think you need

you never

EVER

could imagine what asking

might reveal.

I’m often full of questions and fuller still of hesitation, doubt, and rationalisations why NOT to ask them.

That’s been a GINORMOUS disappointment to me over and over and yes, over AGAIN.

Lately I have BEgun to dare myself a little. And then a little more. What I am discovering, much to my amazed astonishment, is that often it is the question I won’t ask that is standing BEtween me and whatever it is that I think I need. Want. Or just think I need. Or want.

As I was searching for something to use for my art this morning, I came upon this star box. I made it during the summer of 2010. When I was still a bundle of confusion and spinning round and round but never really stopping anywhere for long enough to get my bearings or balance.

I gave it, and a bunch of other art I’d made, to the Pap Corps ladies last Christmas for their 12-day sale at the mall. It felt so good to BE DOing something when I thought I could DO nothing.

Remembering that I dared to ask what I COULD DO made all the difference.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 December 2012

it has something to tell you

and always something to reveal

it is NOT to BE killed

squashed

even endured

listen to it

Now… yes

Funny thing to write about, listening to pain, but there you go. Sometimes the lessons come in strange wrapping.

I had a day with it yesterday. NOT at the start. No, it waited. And suddenly THERE it was!! In a blink. Unexpected and intense.

Pain is a friend. I’ve had to make it one. Otherwise I’d have spent my Life running ahead of myself and BEing stretched to a point where I was NOT useful. Even capable.

When I listen to pain I often hear secrets. Its whispers and insights are quiet, pretty much under the radar. I think this is from all the Time I spent “killing” pain. Or stuffing it down so deep, under so much that really only kept me from experiencing anything else, too.

In another stretch I thought my job was to endure pain. To feel it, to have it, to accommodate it, yes, but silently.

When I first tried to lean into pain and listen to it, all I could hear was gibberish. I would get frustrated quickly and then just kill it to endure it.

Now I invite it to sit. To BE. And I listen.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 December 2012

when you dare to shine

and give your unique sparkle

to the World

it BEcomes LIGHT in

the heart of everyone

Every. One.

If there were a magic storehouse where the pilot lights of people who have been Here are kept, I guarantee you that no one could EVER differentiate one light from the others BEcause together they are such a shining brilliance.

And, if even one person reading this were to imagine their very own LIGHT shining, it could spread faster than a wildfire. It may sound funny or odd, and I may indeed BE too optimistic, but in my mind that is the simplest and quickest way to right whatever is wrong.

Spread Light.

BE Light.

Dare to SHINE.

I wonder sometimes, when I see cigarette butts, ignored dog poop, paper wrappers, or a bottle or can in the bushes… HOW?!?!?! How is it that just one thing undone, overlooked, or deemed insignificant or unimportant BEcause after all, it’s just one butt, poop, wrapper, bottle or can… can really matter?! Can make that much of a difference?!

I don’t have the answer. I pretty much live in the question.

What I DO know is that each of us and all of our LIGHT matters. If we can dare to let it shine… Spread… Can you imagine?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 December 2012

Imagine this

Just for a moment

Whenever you had a brilliant

[or even a silly and seemingly insignificant]

Idea

There was always loads and loads of

Encouragement available to you…

MayBE I am mistaken, or NOT, yet I have found there to BE an abundance of discouragement. And ridicule. Rolled eyes. Deep sighs. Stifled laughter. Faces made by someone on the other end of the telephone.

I have many ideas. Many are admittedly missing essential parts, and NOT terribly thought through on my part.

BUT… sometimes, some really special and amazing times…

I imagine for one moment that surrounding me are all the people I love, all the people I know, and all the people I’ve lost. And they are cheering, clapping, jumping up and down in utter JOY.

They see my hesitation. My awkward and uncertain self trying so to NOT fail. NOT fall apart.

And they just lift her up and by extension ME. And how we start to soar and shine and come to know the wonder of Encouragement.

It is so easy to give a child that YOU CAN DO IT!! Encouragement, but NOT so much adults, peers, even partners and best friends.

Imagine there were an Encouragement Always Available stand just up the block. Would YOU BE someone who could work it Today?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 December 2012

Just listen…

It’s hard,

Yes.

For me, too.

And it’s always

ALWAYS

The Right Thing

And best response

When uncertainty

Or overwhelm

Descend…

A writer and talker of the “too much” variety, I have a hard time when it comes to Just Listen. It has felt like having my right hand tied BEhind my back. It has felt as difficult as any swim up the waterfall. And even though I’d have thought age would make this easier, it hasn’t.

However, age has given me new insight, a different perspective, and deep understanding of listening’s many sterling qualities.

It keeps me from regretting the reaction that tries to shoot out of my mouth in the moment of thoughtsandfeelings colliding like a demolition derby.

It keeps me Present and Open to what I might add to or how I can BE of some service in a situation. It gives me that deLIGHTfull pause to which I can bring years of similar experiences and perhaps formulate a true response, one that reflects my heart and has benefitted from my mind’s taking the time that Just Listening [and I daresay ONLY Just Listening] provides.

Although it is hard, Just Listening makes Life easier. And NOT just for me. I imagine it does so for others as well. That’s quite the amazing thing…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 December 2012

Dare yourself

Go ahead

It’s always

ALWAYS

Worth everything you might imagine

Just to

DREAM

I had a job once, working in a bookbinding factory. I was young, 19, mayBE, that summer I worked crazy jobs here and there, and this factory job was one of several temporary jobs. It was stifling. It was boring. And I couldn’t [wouldn’t] see an inch BEyond my own nose. [read: ideas about Life]

One day as I let my mind wander wherever it wandered, I thought about WHY… Why did I DO this summer this way?! Why didn’t I go to camp?! Why did I choose this experience over that?!

I don’t recall finding answers to these questions. I DO remember getting fired from that job for BEing a “sleepyhead kid.” To say I was devastated would only BE partly true. What I really was was blessed.

Looking all the way back there, 40 years ago, I have a hard time seeing ME @ 59 in a way that’s different and separate from ME at 19. I don’t know if this is normal. I don’t know if anyone else has these sorts of meandering thoughts.

I don’t know BEcause I don’t ask. I don’t dare ask. I don’t dare, all too often, to dream. To Imagine. Or to Hope for… connection.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 December 2012

Choosing to DO or BE

Have or Let Go

It was always up to Me.

I’ve been reflective and thoughty as December has BEgun. It is my choice. It is how I am using this time. While all round me [and deLIGHTfully so, I might add] the holidays are marinating themselves into everything, I am standing Here and BEing more of an observer.

I AM CHOOSING this. It is what I want Now. And I am enJOYing it very much.

So much so, in fact, that when the 3^rd of the 3 kids up front asked about my tree, I came back after our late afternoon walk and brought the tree down from the closet.

When I woke up this morning I was struck with the simplicity of this one piece of Christmas I have chosen. Instead of wanting it to BE more or different or one of several “things” to signify my spirit, I was struck with how Enough it is.

Choosing to really choose what I want and NOT what I think I should want or what YOU might want me to want is a whole lot bigger of a deal than I’d imagined. It has given me wings. It has brought me JOY and peace.

Gratitude fills me daily for this gift of Choosing To…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 December 2012

Telling the truth isn’t easy

It can BE scary

Even paralyzing

It often makes others go a little crazy

Yet it is always the right thing

Always

Correcting a lie is often a good starting point for telling the truth. And it really and truly NEVER is about someone else. It is ALWAYS about Me.

I spent some time yesterday telling the truth. It started inside my Very Busy Brain. And by early afternoon it came tumbling out within a lot of words in one of my journals. The one where I write stuff out and where the cramps in my hand don’t get to make me stop.

It wasn’t an easy thing, but it got easier once I started. I wrote 3 letters that will never BE sent or read but they are no longer taking up precious space inside of me. They canNOT stifle me anymore.

Telling the truth sounds so noble and honourable. Really it is how I save my Life. Which I suppose some would consider noble and honourable, but it’s NOT. NOT really.

Telling the truth in a jumble of words that even I didn’t reread was the Very Best Thing I Could DO. For myself.

It wasn’t noble or particularly honourable. It was simply necessary. And it was Time I did so.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 December 2012

Unlike fighting

Or resisting limits

Embracing them can

Actually

BE deLIGHTfull

I thought I would have been the ultimate resistor of limits. And perhaps I lived as though I was. [or mayBE I had just convinced myself of this?!]

Now I am embracing them. Discovering the soft underbellies of those limits I know Today has been something of a miracle this year. I’d NEVER EVER have guessed this would BE a place I’d find myself happy to BE.

I grew up with people who in so many respects were at each extreme of the spectrum of limits. I got dizzy, physically and metaphorically, just trying to make some sense of it.

As an adult I have waffled and pushed and avoided limits. I have resented anyone trying to impose them on me.

As a person living with a dis[different]ability I have ignored and fought and even denied limits. Which is too bad. Really. BEcause so much precious time was wasted, unused, and misappropriated in the process.

Embracing limits has been the best part of this year. BEfore I was of the mind that I was something of a victim [yes, that word is staying put, Currie] is the various equations called My Life.

No more. Today I am grateful for knowing my limits and especially for respecting them.

I love you, Currie