Currie's Gratitude 31 March 2013

This, the last Simple Instruction, Fly Free, embraces me this morning. I think for so very long all I have wanted is to follow such an encouragement and yet I have tethered myself to the ground with the reasoning [excuse] that I mustn’t go off on my own.

And yet I am ready and willing and indeed quite able to Fly Free. To choose for myself.

I am also capable of steering my own course and following the Guidance within and around me. I am, ultimately, NOT alone, nor am I [or have I ever been] left wholly alone. That is just how I have thought of it, wrongly.

Attachments to people, to places, to the things of Life, these all clip essential bits of my wings. They keep me from soaring. They ground me, complicate what is simple, and hold me in place.

None of these are essentially “bad” things. They don’t spell disaster. And there is nothing whatsoever wrong with attachment.

It is only how I have seen them. How I have held them. Where I have placed them BEfore or After or right smack-dab in the midst of certain things.

Flying Free is Letting Go by trusting deeply in the way Life unfolds.

Flying Free is living loosely, arms thrown wide, and heart wide open.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 March 2013

Surrender is best when it is gentle. I think. But oftentimes, when my choices haven’t been evident, I found it to BE hard, forced, and put upon me.

I’ve presumed myself a victim of Surrender. Over and over again.

Yet I realise at this particular juncture that I have had it, if NOT wrong, clearly mistaken and bent out of recognisable shape.

Life happens. It has wonders we could never have imagined. It provides challenges we might have never, in our wildest imaginings, thought would BE ours, and we step up to them with all that we have, ultimately meeting them.

Amazing stuff, eh?!

I always assumed I had surrendered to something or someone by giving up my fight or putting down my “weapons” of choice, BE they words, promises, or simply expectations in fine hats. And Now I realise that isn’t how it works at all.

Surrender is gentler than all I’ve presumed and thought it was. It is quiet and it whispers softly. It is always a choice, even when I don’t see the point at which I chose it and when, as well, I canNOT see clearly myself making it.

It is more like acceptance than I would have guessed. It is much more of a choice than I had given it credit for BEing…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 March 2013

I am learning about things I only ever knew from the outside. I am discovering how it feels to BE inside and immersed in a circumstance that does NOT respond to “mind over matter” instructions.

I am grateful to BE open to learning this. To BE non-resistant and unashamed.

How sad that we shame ourselves for our body’s shortcomings and challenges. How much sadder still that we blame others for their circumstances.

This might NOT sound grateful, on first reading, though you can trust me, right here, at first writing, it comes from a deep bed of Gratitude.

So often this past week+ I have heard It could have been worse, and I have thought it a time or mayBE a bazillion myself. And it is true. It could indeed have been a wholly different kettle of fish if this and NOT that or that but NOT this.

Ultimately it is what it is and shall BE what it shall BE. I wish I could have that split second back, stopping the whole thing BEfore it BEgan.

But I am NOT in charge of Time or Events, only of my response to them. This has been a guiding principle to me all this week and a bit.

I might have preferred this NOT have happened.

But it did…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 March 2013

It has been [mayBE still is, if I am honest to my core] hard for me to acknowledge others’ achievements and performances BIG and small without feeling or thinkingandfeeling whyNOT ME?! [whine, whine]

I am just saying. Somehow I suspect I am NOT alone in this. I think it’s a human beanish sort of pickle. 

Who doesn’t wish they were in the spotlight and revered… sometimes?!

Actually, when I recast it that way, mayBE I don’t seek spotlights and BEing admired so much as my little Ego-Currie imagines…

Anyway, this is really about applause.

BEginning it.

Going first.

BEing audacious enough to step up and bring my hands together in order to say YES!! BRAVO!! Well Done!!

Or simply, WOW!!! That is awesome. I am undone, speechless, and JOYously astonished and deLIGHTed.

I am ALWAYS happy to BEgin that.

To Go First.

To swell the wave that gives others the chance to join in and add to the roar.

I also love it when I see it, in a film, for instance. It’s the thing that gets me, right in the heart…

Such a BEautimous thing to BEhold and BE a part of, applause…

I’m completely rethinking my earlier bit; I really DO LOVE LOVE LOVE to BEgin Applause or join in with deep wholehearted sparklingly bodacious gusto!!!

I love you, Currie 

Currie's Gratitude 27 March 2013

The perfect [for me] prompt for this day, Gracie’s 8^th Birthday, and this day in my Life, too. Smiling Big is easy for Gracie and BEcause of her wondrous companionship, easier for me than ever BEfore in my whole Life, I think.

I’ve learned so very much from Gracie these past 8 years. How to meet each day with unbridled JOY and see the possibilities in people. She never hesitates with anyone if there is a chance for her to love and bring them a smile.

She teaches me that forgiveness is simply Letting Go and Moving Along. Nowhere near the amount of  brainiac nonsense I usually engage in…

She brings me along and lets me feel a part of even though I tend to stay back in the shadows. She makes Life safer for me; and when it turns out NOT so safe, she is right BEside me [as am I with her] until things get balanced again.

I won’t deny that sometimes I have felt  NOT Enough for her. That I have thought that she should have a person who is “more something” that I am “less something,” but she seems to disagree so I guess I am the lucky duck in this equation.

We seem to BE Enough and Just Right for each other.

Yes…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 March 2013

I don’t know about you, or anyone, really, but sometimes I shrink. I hold myself in and back. I disappear into the corner.

And sometimes I even close my eyes to better imagine my invisibility.

I want to explain myself and get you and everyone else [as though anyone were really looking, mind you] to see what I would like you to see and NOT leave you to make up your mind without my “help” in DOing so.

This is NOT fun to reveal. Only necessary. In fact, essential. My days of hiding and shrinking and standing out of the Light are BEhind me Now.

I’m NOT saying I am jumping into the spotlight, NOT at all. Only that I am done trying to control and manage.

It’s all a great honking boondoggle anyway, assuming I can manage your opinions about me. [it’s even pretty crazy thinking I CAN since YOU canNOT manage mine about you, but let us NOT bring logic into this, okay?!]

Dealing with the effects of last week’s attack, the concussion, how tentative and even timid both Gracie and I are feeling out on our walks, it feels apropos that I’m dancing with Stand Tall this morning.

That is a simple instruction. It’s one that seems abundantly clear. Even if I am rather confuzzled…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 March 2013

Brave means bold, courageous, valiant, even plucky!! So that would make BravER boldER, courageousER, valiantER, and pluckyER. Don’t you think?!

MayBE BEing BraveER is more about quiet courage and the sort of pluck that is standing tall in your own Light.

Perhaps it is even just BEing a little more bold. Bodacious…

And valiant in a way that I might call fearless [or fearing less].

I am BEfuddled by this prompt BEcause I am letting myself focus on what is going on within me Right Now and I don’t get how the me who made this list of suggestions for March knew that the circumstances of Right Now would BE so spot on.

But mayBE that isn’t it at all. MayBE I always try to bring my prompts into the day… MayBE these prompts are good any day and any time?!

Curious to consider…

BEing BravER, for me, today, as Life is Right Now, means stepping back without feeling ashamed or irresponsible. It means changing my intention and going an entirely different way than I’d anticipated.

I

 won’t pretend I enJOY this [in fact, I am rather disappointed] but I can see that sometimes hard decisions are just right ones that are challenging.

And making them says more about my pluck than I might ever have imagined.

Really…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 March 2013

Isn’t it strange how often we compare ourselves with others and ALWAYS come up short?! [or, as has happened with me more than a few times, I am sorry to say, find ourselves superior]

I think if, at least in my case, I stop comparing that this whole tangle of nonsense will cease to exist.

There is a saying about BEing ourselves BEcause everyone else is already taken that I like to ponder sometimes. The reason BEing that it reminds me NOT to take myself so seriously and NOT to immediately discount my ideas BEcause, really, how original am I?!

So this is where I came to BElieve that I must BE Myself since nobody else ever CAN BE. It’s sometimes quite exciting but almost always daunting. I think if I can keep myself small and tiny enough that I won’t rock any boats or stir any pots that don’t need stirring up.

Other times I think that this realisation gives me the sort of courage I call gumption. It is like an extra kick that lets me go higher than I’ve imagined possible.

Yet most of all, I am humbled to BE Me. To BE Currie. Just when I thought I knew myself, there I go changing.

Expanding and daring myself to reach BEyond my Present grasp…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 March 2013

Sometimes I think about things in a way that isn’t ordinary. Sometimes I think about things in ways so ordinary they almost don’t register as thoughts.

This is how I think of writing. For me, writing is thinking. Out loud, perhaps louder in some cases than others, but out loud enough that it’s NOT merely thinking.

Some of my Life I have “wanted to BE” a writer [and other things, too] without realising that I already had [have] everything I need to BE that whatever [in this case, writer] Right Now. Right Here.

Mind-boggling…

BEing a writer is BEing someone who writes. Granted, we mostly think of writers as ThoseWhoHavePublishedBooks, but that is just wrong-thinking done with great skill and accuracy!

I write first thing each and every day BEcause A] I CAN, it’s My Life, and MY Choice to BEgin this way, and 2] it’s what makes my day and thus My Life someplace I want to BE.

I don’t write to BE heard, to make a difference, to make a point, or to BE in any way cool, better, or special. I write BEcause it’s who I am. Who I BE… Just that simple. I write BEcause it has BEcome my way of entering the World every morning.

Like opening my eyes to the new day…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 March 2013

It might seem inappropriate to ALWAYS bring laughter. I mean, there are times and places where it is NOT considered a good practise to laugh…

Still, I BElieve it has been laughter that has got me through my most difficult places. It is like a great whoop of release that lets me fit again inside my skin when times are the most trying and dark.

I’m NOT saying [or even suggesting] we should all break into raucous laughter in those places and at such moments when BEing solemn and quietly respectful is sort of the way things are meant to BE, but I AM saying that when I have been such places and moments myself, I know that without laughter, or simply the remembrance of laughter, I’d have had a much harder time of it.

Laughter is a language that is universal. If you think for just the tiniest moment to what happens BEtween the Very Old and the Very Young, what I think you will remember is how they communicated the great JOY of BEing with laughter and smiles.

Amazing!!!

There is nothing quite so energising as a baby’s smile, nor so cherished as those deep crinkly smiles that unfold into laughter from someone who’s been round the block a good many times.

Laughter?! Bring it on!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 March 2013

Once again I find the timing of my prompt significant. Breathe Easy… what DID/DO I mean by that little phrase?!

Relief?! Gratitude?! [that it wasn’t worse than it was]

For me, I’ll go with the relief that it is only my very sore body, fuzzy-headedness, and a still timid Gracie.

Breathe Easy…

That it wasn’t worse and that I NEVER Let Go of Gracie.

That the lady came out and got her dogs.

That there was a man outside a few houses up who saw the whole thing.

That I was able to get up and walk home, comforting Gracie.

That my brain seems okay and that my soreness is manageable…

I know how it is when you have a dog [or dogs] and they get out BEyond where you can control. I know the lady was really feeling horrible. I know BEcause once upon a time I had a dog who got out and in her over-protective mode knocked the mail carrier down the steps…

But I am still shaken AND stirred.

Still canNOT get the sound of Gracie’s cries to stop replaying.

Still feeling like my brain was left out too long in the sun.

Still finding my breath hard to catch much less breathe with ease…

This is why we Let Go of the Past.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 March 2013

Dreaming is a skill I think. Really. It seems like it “just happens” but it isn’t the source of itself. 

It requires a bodacious dreamer. 

The more vividly I dare dream, the more great things come of my dreaming…

I used to BE afraid to dream. Especially vividly.

I used to want to keep my dreams manageable and small enough NOT to raise eyebrows or incite wrath or ridicule.

Such a waste of dreaming all that…

Now I give my dreaming a LOT of space to fling itself like waves on the sand, bigger and BIGGER, first this way then that. 

Like waves, dreams recede, yet over time they wear themselves into my heart and mind and onto my Life and BEing.

Sleeping dreams are an entirely different sort. 

I know mine are vivid, yet my awake mind seems to pop them like bubbles or lose them like holding water in my hands. 

They disappear when I think of them and vanish when I try to tell them out loud, even to myself.

Still, dreaming vividly, brilliantly, audaciously, those are such great dreams. 

They lift me a little off the ground and let me soar above and BEyond the everydayness of my Life.

They invite me to BE a bit more grand, bolder, daring myself to shine brightly.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 March 2013

It was only a few years ago that I read the quote about worry BEing the misuse of imagination. I am NOT sure who to attribute it to. [easy enough, it’s Dan Zadra]

For me it appeared as a sort of cryptic message. 

I knew I was a worrier, but I didn’t know that my defaulting to worry could BE remedied by building its strength to DO other things.

Rather than worrying HOW or WHAT I’ll DO, Now I imagine, envision, and dream up scenarios that make my heart sing and my feet BEgin to tap.

Now I embrace the imaginative energy that I have available to put toward those things that give me HOPE. 

It’s NOT as easy as it sounds…

Most people seem to think the way to solve a problem is to think it through. Well, most of the people I know or converse with anyway.

How odd it feels to imagine rather than worry. 

At first. 

Like pretending I don’t know something I DO know. Like BElieving in the Tooth Fairy.

In a way, I think of prayer as a means of building imagination. 

Especially prayer that surrenders, that deeply and completely entrusts the whatever-I’m-praying-about to what or whom I pray.

MayBE that seems weird, but imagining hopefully works for me.

Really, really well.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 March 2013

I am glad I was born to dance when we didn’t have to lead and follow. When we could dance and move and DO what the music inspired/inspires in us.

I am also okay with having learned the lead and follow kind of dancing BEcause if I’d NOT had that in my experience bank, I don’t know that I would appreciate the freedom and exhilaration of dancing a la Currie.

From another perspective, there is the Dance of Life. Up until recently, I have thought I was A] BEing led by someone or something or a combination of the two; and 2] struggling to keep up and resisting stepping in synch.

Today I am looking at the entire landscape of Dance with new eyes and a fresh perspective. I see that while I felt I was BEing led and told what dance to dance, I was also choosing to follow that lead.

And I recognise clearly that I was [and still am] the one I was/am trying to step in synch with.

That’s the kicker. How could I have NOT seen this for so very long?!

Over my recent time of deliberate quiet and contemplation I have discovered there is new music and I am opening up more and more to what it inspires in me.

Let’s dance!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 March 2013

As I have dived deeply into writing on prompts that I gave myself at the end of 2012 for the first 3 months of 2013, I have often been amazed at the timing of certain prompts.

Love Gently is one of those…

I rarely think about HOW I love. HOW I am loved. But I DO notice HOW other people love one another. Or the what I can see of HOW…

One thing that I notice whenever I am “out in the World” is HOW couples are interacting. I’m sure I don’t have the first clue about the inside Life they have, yet what I observe is always a revelation of what I BElieve about love and long love.

Older couples [okay, my age and older] are among my favourite to observe. The ways they communicate without words, the tendernesses BEtween them.

Or the hostility that is so present I think it might possibly explode.

I don’t know when I BEgan to default to this impression of 2 people interacting, yet it has been much on my mind this morning as I have written and made this wee wonder.

I don’t know about long love, NOT first hand anyway. I wish that I did.

In fact, that is the only thing I wish for that I don’t have.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 March 2013

One of the biggest challenges I have had [and still have] is BEing Quiet and giving another [and others] time and space in which to speak.

With the intention to grow in this area [and my deep HOPE than I can… eventually] I spend a great deal of my time Now in deliberate silence.

No music is Now my norm here in the Wee Cottage. Quiet, with the weather we’ve been having thus without the A/C coming on and off throughout the day, is a most pleasant new discovery.

I hear more trains, but I don’t think there are more of them.

I hear the ceiling fan’s quiet hum. The ticking of the clock. The sounds of Gracie snoozing, dreaming. Little things. Squirrel chatter. Cooing and pecking and bird songs.

I still talk “too much” when I talk, but it is getting better. Easier. More just how I roll to take a breath, a beat, BE comfortable in the spaces without words. Especially MY WORDS.

Change comes slower to some of us than it does to others.

And it canNOT come until there is awareness and acceptance of the need for it.

Even still, awareness and acceptance galore, it has taken me all of my nearly 60 years to learn the peace there is inside my own quiet.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 March 2013

Generally speaking, I consider playing fair to BE playing so that if anyone could see I’d have nothing to hide.

Yet, this is ALWAYS the case. I see. I know. And God sees and knows.

Lately I have been deliberately avoiding talking to two people I love talking with every week.

In one case BEcause I am making choices and changes and don’t want to navigate the opinions, suggestions, and, okay, the general bossiness that turns me into a defensive little girl in a blink…

The other one is that I just feel a little too exposed and vulnerable. I can suck it up and have that conversation, same as the other.

I am just playing fair with myself. Putting my need to regain footing and strength BEfore my desire to have 2 weeks go by without those calls happening.

Mostly I wouldn’t see playing fair in this light. Mostly, that is, up until Now. Something is shifting in me, and on top of all that has already shifted, it’s a considerable drift. I’m pleased with myself and proud of myself for honouring myself in this way.

And I am surprised. This is so NOT like what I would have considered Me BEing Me…

However odd it might seem to me, I like this sort of playing fair.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 March 2013

It feels a little silly saying I tried tomorrow and yesterday, yet what is true for me is that I feel I HAVE tried to live in both. Sometimes at the same time!!! 

Hard as it’s been for me to really grasp the necessity of living Right Here & Right Now, I’ve finally “got it” and it’s working well for me. I can pretty much know when I get a bit squirrely or too too that I’ve stepped forward or hung back.

The place I notice this most is when I am thinking about something I need to DO. Simple things. Going to the market. Returning books to the library. I will way overthink things and sometimes delay so long I no longer have “choices” open to me.

This is largely why I made a rule for myself some years back: DON’T THINK ABOUT A THING ONE MOMENT LONGER THAN IT TAKES TO DO OR BEGIN IT.

This rule helps. It makes it possible to simply NOT THINK which, while I agree this can BE a dangerous practise, done too much in the wrong sorts of situations, is ideal for a busy brain like mine…

The funny thing is how balanced and peaceful this rule has made me.

Such a simple change of focus.

Such a HUGE difference…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 March 2013

Have Faith…

People say this. Like everyone else can grasp exactly what they mean.

But I don’t think we all see these two words exactly the same way. 

In fact, some of us have such a strong disdain for “Faith” [capital F = some sort of organised religious Faith] that we can BE set off if approached by these words.

And surely no one would want THAT response for another person… Right?!

I’m just saying…

So, when I say, Have Faith, I mean trust in something larger than what you know, larger still than what you DON’T KNOW, and so HUGELY LARGE that you really canNOT get your brain around it.

BEcause… that’s the only way I have EVER found to really live without Fear. And Having Faith is the only thing that has ever made my deep well of fears dry up. Bone dry. NOT a drop left to BE dealt with.

Although Faith has had kind of a bad rap over the years, and BEcause Faith is usually at the center of things like war [persecution, oppression, well, you have the idea], some people, people I really love, admire, and cherish having in my Life think having Faith is the BEginning of the End.

So I am quieter with my Faith. Though I’ve plenty of it…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 March 2013

Come to the edge, he said.

We are afraid they said.

Come to the edge, he said.

They came to the edge,

He pushed them and they flew.

~ Guilliam Apollinaire, French Poet

This little poem holds the essence of what I [and others] call BEing Brave. When we go to the edge, fear and all, when we allow for the abject terror that arises in us and DO IT ANYWAY, we are exploring our edges.

When, too, as Albert Einstein said, we “Never lose a holy curiosity,” we can know [despite all of what we think and have been told or simply come to BElieve] we are in the territory of “edges.”

And it is by exploring these edges, bumping into them, shoving them aside like branches as we carve a path through the woods, that growth and real change happen, even as we protest and declare that we canNOT abide CHANGE.

For my part, Exploring Edges has pretty much been my Life these past several years. Everything I knew and took for granted [yes, there is the trouble…] vanished literally overnight. And even if I was a catalyst [or THE catalyst] I am quite sure I would NOT have said I wanted to lose everything.

At least NOT like I did. Without even catching my breath…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 March 2013

I used to think that Giving Thanks, saying Thank You, and BEing a thankful person were mostly all the same thing just with different aspects in practise.

I was wrong.

Giving Thanks is more an attitude; [and NOT merely an attitude of Gratitude, which itself is nothing to sneeze at, mind you] it’s a way of living in this World, of BEing one little bean in the whole bunch who is, No Matter What, thankFULL.

So full, in fact, that this little bean canNOT BE without BEing through those thanks. Quite amazing.

Of course, this is just my opinion and semantically, I am certain we could find [yes, I would help] the many wrongs in all I have written here.

What I mean to say is that I canNOT BE anymore without BEing through all that I Give Thanks for. CanNOT even truly BEgin my day without first practising Gratitude, in the particular and perhaps weird ways I DO that.

I don’t know [or mayBE I canNOT remember?!] what Life was like BEfore this. 

There are many such changes in me. I recall but I’ve lost the memory that is built into me of what it was BEing ME BEfore.

All I know is, Now I Give Thanks. 

Even if it’s weird or “too much.” 

I Give Thanks.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 March 2013

I have always found great consolation and inspiration from the knowledge I can start my day, even my entire Life “over” again.

I know it’s NOT an exact science, nor is it truly possible to BEgin a Life over, yet it is as solid as the sun to me that I ALWAYS have the option to BEgin Again.

With my art especially I have used this time and time again. And through DOing so have discovered that I actually quite like my mistakes.

BEginning Again is the great gift of each day.

It is also the gift I give myself each night as I go to sleep, telling myself I’ve lived this one day as I have, and Now it is over. I bid it farewell and simply accept it is done.

DO I learn from my mistakes?! Of course. [well, most of them anyway]

DO I leave the Past in the Past?! I really DO try Now, more than I ever imagined myself capable of DOing…

BEgin Again!!

Look at Life as opportunities, openings, and the cracks where Light comes in. EnJOY your Adventure Today, and don’t wait for whatever you’re waiting for BEfore you live full-out.

Live it FULL-OUT Right Now.

BEgin Again each morning and any other time when it suits you to…

That’s Life!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 March 2013

Paying attention hasn’t always been my default. It is much more, Now, yet for a long time I was foggy and fuzzy and a little distracted.

When I think of paying attention I imagine BEing aware of what is going on around me. However, it seems like it has more BEcome what it going on INSIDE of me. In my head, my heart, my body…

On the other hand, paying attention to someone else is MUCH more a deliberate thing, especially a live and in front of me someone. Even Gracie qualifies for this sort of attention paid.

Yesterday I was out amongst the World taking care of 2 errands at two malls. I took the Connection ride rather than the bus to one and an hour later the other, and then took the bus home.

It was exhausting and overwhelming and I felt like I was drowning.

Seriously. I never imagined I could BEcome so crushed by people and places and things, OH MY!!!

The World seems full with unhappiness. Anger. Easy irritation. Explosive bursts. Insults.

People don’t smile much, in fact they don’t look at other people much. Everyone is lost in their own private space, or on their phone or looking at their phone…

MayBE I “should” get “out” more?!

I’m thinking NOT so much…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 March 2013

The truly great part of someone listening to me, deeply, is how this makes room for ME to hear MYSELF.

MayBE for the first time.

On the other hand, the truly grand and glorious part of listening deeply to another is how I discover that while we are indeed two different people, we FEEL, and sometimes we even THINKANDFEEL exactly the same.

What I love most is when someone really takes the time to listen. Deeply.

No planning some witty retort, definitely NO FIXING me going on BEhind the scenes, and nothing the least hurried or rushed or even a little impatient going on.

When I listen, deeply deeply listen to another, I don’t hear words or story or context; I hear their heart.

Their sameness that I know in me.

I hear how we are much more one than separate.

And yet… this does NOT give me permission or license to treat them off-handedly.

To put my nose up in the air a wee bit more than is graceful with that knowing look, whether they are with me in person or NOT, and poo-poo their predicament or circumstance as Yeah, I’ve Been There, Done That, Too, yada yada yada…

Listening deeply means leaning in and sometimes having to inhale what surrounds another…

And yet it’s so healing.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 March 2013

What does Go First mean to YOU?!

To ME it means BEing someone who steps up in a roomful of unsure. 

To make BEautimous mistakes that lighten things up.

It means that when there is something sticky, Just Let Go. Drop it. 

At least my end of it. 

Making room for the elephant without drawing attention to it.

It means saying YES [or NO] easily. Nothing more required. 

[the “or NO” part BEing the sort of NO that makes space for someone else even when I am DOing or BEing whatever it is; you know, give someone else a chance to shine even brighter.]

It means reaching out, sometimes over and over and over again. 

NOT keeping track [or score] of who did what last. 

It means picking up that telephone even if I get the voicemail and no returned call for 2 months running…

It means opening a door for someone BEhind me or coming out, or simply for someone who needs or wants a turn.

It means giving without claw marks or my knuckles turning white. 

It means if I have and YOU need I give…

It means listening for someone who is afraid, hesitant to speak.

And it means trying something, BE it new or scary or even a little odd. 

Like loving the hard-to-love.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 March 2013

I don’t know how this works for anyone else, but I am Now more certain than ever that when I am feeling smooshed, squashed, swept in the corner, and a little like eating glass, it’s a good time for reaching out, BEyond my little Gone With the Wind movie set, and seeing what I might DO or simply BE for someone else.

While it doesn’t render whatever all is making me feel less and discarded brand sparkling new again, it CAN help me to see that I am NOT the only Poor Pitiful Pearl on the Planet.

This is perhaps what I love about making my art, too. Or, at least this digital fiddling part. It catches me and all of my loose and fraying ends. It gives me focus and lets me BE imaginative and a possibilitarian.

So often that is all it takes to slide from negative to positive.

I know!!! Who’d’ve thunk?!

The other side of reaching out, the kind I have to DO, this is a comfort, too, in its way… I mean, if I can find someone that I won’t drag down. BUT… mayBE that isn’t what I think it is.

MayBE, just possibly, reaching out to someone AT ALL is Enough…

Though I’ve more questions than answers, Reaching Out is good stuff.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 March 2013

I have never been a great napper. I suppose BEcause I would have such a hard time AFTER a nap, but it’s been a long time, so I’m throwing that story out and writing a new one.

Gracie has taught me about the art of the nap.

She provides lessons.

Daily.

Multiple demonstrations.

Each with its own particular emphasis.

She has napping down.

In particular, when it is cold as it has been for several days Now, she loves to take a good snooze on her outside couchie in the warm sunshine. She just goes to sleep. I am in awe of such finesse.

BEcause I get up so early and go to sleep so early, I have thought naps were BEside the point for me. Until recently. Now I am reconsidering and it’s, well, it’s quite a little adventure.

For me a nap is NOT so much about sleeping as it is about pausing. Taking a beat. Remembering myself.

There are no Big Deals in my days really. No job, no expectations of dinner on the table or chores to complete. It’s a quiet and rather an ordinary Life, so I am reintroducing napping into the mix.

Somedays that might look like lying down and closing my eyes, while others just sitting and looking out the window…

I love you, Currie