Currie's Gratitude 30 June 2013

If only I’d learned to love this idea BEfore I was old enough to NEED a nap again… lions and tigers and bears OH MY!!!

Yet the important piece/peace is I get it. Now. I embrace it. Now. And I DO it. NOW!!!

I’ve learned, too, that a nap is NOT always or even usually about going to bed and to sleep for awhile during the awake time of my day. Who knew?! Did YOU?! I surely wish, if you DID, that you’d told me…

A nap is a wee time out in the midst of living a day. It might include sleeping. Or lying down. Or bed. Yet really it is more a state of mind and BEing that pauses. Stops. Turns off. Unplugs. RESTS. Until energy and motivation and inspiration are back running at peak capacity.

When Timmy was little and still took naps, sometimes a couple of them, I used those times to rush about and DO and very rarely had the wisdom to rest. To pause. To refresh my own batteries. I remember vaguely thinking it would BE a good time for me to take advantage of yet I took the wrong sort of advantage.

Nowadays a nap can BE just sitting and looking out the window awhile.

Or simply and quietly pausing.

Refreshing. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 June 2013

This is sometimes the easiest AND the hardest thing to remember OR to DO. Anger is such an explosive force that all sense and sensibility leave. Vanish. In fact, I might imagine they don’t EVEN show up.

A thing about anger and me is that for the longest time I did NOT realise that the deep hurting I felt so often was anger. I thought anger looked more in command of things. I suppose I did NOT think I WAS angry.

I equated anger with someone BEing in [or having] control. Anger equals Power. People could BE and often WERE angry with me, but I hadn’t the wherewithal to return anger, I could only BE hurt.

This, of course, had me always at a disadvantage. Feeling like the victim. And it surely kept me from learning to WAIT when anger was at the helm. Yet slowly, and perhaps only through long stretches of Solitude and Reflection, did I BEcome acquainted with my own anger. It surely had eluded me…

The waiting part had always seemed like a commonplace rule. Don’t react. Don’t engage. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. So I didn’t catch onto my tendency to act out IN the midst of my anger until it had BEcome something I just DID. Something I thought was just how I was/am… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 June 2013

Sometimes it’s the simplest direction that eludes me. That is where this one has ALWAYS come in and served me so remarkably well.

I used to want to write. I used to want to learn how to edit photos and how to make digital art. I say “used to” BEcause Now I no longer want to DO or learn or BE. I DO write. I DO edit photos. I AM making digital art. Every. Single. Morning.

Right Here. FOR sharing with YOU.

What changed is I BEgan just DOing these things. Daily. In the same way and at the same time. And Now I have BEcome someone I feel fits inside of my skin. Someone who DOES the things that make her happy, purposeful, and free of the I WANT I WANT I WANTs.

I recently completed a book of my Gratitude from my 60^th year. From when I BEgan to post this email into a blog.

I wanted to write a book, but assumed I had to have a story to tell or something to write about and that the process would require something that looks far more like w-o-r-k than this simple JOYous way I BEgin my days.

Ahhhhhhh… The sweetness of BEing wrong. Turns out I did it by simply DOing the next thing.

Repeatedly. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 June 2013

It has taken me several chaotic years to see how much I rushed to keep myself “crazy busy” with the most insignificant things just to feel there was some purpose for my continued existence. It’s both sad and embarrassing.

At the BEginning of my new Life with just Gracie and me, I clung to the many things I felt I MUST DO NOW in order NOT to feel my feelings of uselessness. I made myself a bit of a martyr [talk about embarrassing admissions…] and took to the role with flourish.

Oh my…

Now, on the other hand, I deLIGHT in the quiet and simple way I’ve built this new Life, MY Life. I love my pre-dawn time here, with YOU, writing, digital fiddling, and reaching BEyond the Wee Cottage, Gracie, and me.

[I even love it when it starts at the wholly unlovable hour of 2-something, like today. I just read awhile until I am ready to get up and BEgin.]

I had a wonderful confluence yesterday where I was winding down and received one phone call from my mum and while we were talking, another from my son. It was a gentle easing into my evening. No fuss. No have-to. No martyr nonsense.

I realise that rushing around is a choice I made make no more. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 June 2013

Were I to choose one trait that I’d like to develop every second for the rest of my Life, this is it. BEing kinder than necessary is one of those BE the Change things I’d like to BE The Change I WANT to see in the World.

Kindness isn’t really half so hard as unkindness. In fact, kindness is an easy thing, a true default setting I think we come with fresh from the Bean Factory.

If each person walking on this planet were to BE kinder than necessary, I would imagine we would no longer see war, deceit, segregation, or any sort of winner and loser power struggle.

I know. It’s a BIG statement. It’s also probably simplistic and naïve, but I’d stake my Life on it.

Kindness is like the wind. You canNOT always see it, nor can you exactly point to it to define its edges, yet it is immediately recognisable and understood.

And then of course there is the “than necessary” piece of this BE Kinder Than Necessary. What is Enough?! What is Necessary?!

It is NOT important to have this “right” but it is clear as the bright blue sky when we’re NOT Enough of this simple human necessity.

If in doubt, I say BE kindER. I don’t think you can go wrong… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 June 2013

This appears to BE a sort of rite of passage from BEing a Me-Me-Me toddlerish bean to more of a tiny person bean, but it took me a whole lot longer in Life to BE comfortable [NOT to mention willing] enough to let anyone else go BEfore me [Me-Me-Me].

And I am NOT afraid to let it BE known I STILL struggle with this one. NOT so much daily as at those times I least suspect it.

Letting others go first, like BEing a better listener, talking less, and BEing Kind, BEing Kind, BEing Kind is unnatural for me. I’m inclined toward the path of default, least resistance, even what is merely comfortable. [this is NOT a proud declaration, by the way…]

BEcause of my inclination I can BE the “elephant in the room” that never comes into the conversation about WHY things are going [or NOT going] the way they are going [or NOT] in any particular time or situation.

In fact this little whatever-you-call-it showed itself to me yesterday in a sort of unusual flash of decision on my part. Rather than make a choice of ease and quick resolution, I chose to delay by making an appointment.

It’s good to stretch and take this sort of risk to grow by NOT putting myself first.

REALLY. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 June 2013

I try really hard sometimes to recall something from my childhood, some salient something that will help explain myself to me. Almost always I find something altogether else.

What I learned as a child seems as remote to me Today as DO most things that happened 50+ years ago. Even if I could hold it in my hands, it would BE like trying to hold a bubble.

One thing I remember HAVING as a child is Show & Tell. I canNOT remember any one in particular, but I KNOW I had them.

In the Spirit of a good Show & Tell, I have been trying to narrow down my choices of what to bring with me to share. 

Here. With YOU. Now.

And I realise every morning when I sit to write this I am Showing Up and Telling. Something. 

Even if the words don’t wrap round that Something nicely and neatly, I feel the same as if they did. Or could.

I come Here in the mornings. First thing. 

And I write. I make a little bit of art. I put it together and email it. 

Then publish it to www.iloveyoucurrie.blogspot.com and go on with the rest of my NOT so extraordinary yet deLIGHTfully ordinary little Life.

I make these little Show & Tells just for YOU.  

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 June 2013

It often takes the view from a Very High Cliff to remember that jumping to conclusions can BE a conclusion all its own. I’ve done studies…

Last night I had a dream in several acts. I even woke up BEtween acts falling back asleep into the dream’s continuation. As I think about it Now I realise much of it didn’t fit. There were certain people mixed-up with other people whose parts in the Play of My Life did NOT intersect.

Such is the World of dreaming.

I could jump to the conclusion that there is still the possibility of intersection, though I don’t think for a second that was the point. Instead, I BElieve the point was to help me see my Life in other ways than I’m seeing it Now.

There IS intersection BEcause I am in all the parts. And dreams are, I BElieve, God’s way of bringing story to Life, MY LIFE, when I am “captive” and can “see” things unfold on the screen in my sleeping brain.

Sometimes there is no conclusion to jump to, no pat answer, no easy explanation. Sometimes it is NOT the sum of the parts but the parts themselves which turn Life into or away from the Light.

I’ve done the studies but don’t have all the answers. Yet…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 June 2013

This would appear to BE simple. Well, at least for a jabberer like me. So for a change, let me lean into it and try.

I’ve been puzzled about having enough money to stay on in the Wee Cottage. My rent here eats up most of my Social Security Disability.

I’ve been willing to move. I AM willing to move. But what I really want is to stay. I am happy here, living my simple, quiet, little Life with Gracie.

I’ve learned to make DO and live within my means. I made the money from selling GraceLand LAST April [2012] last me over a year.

I’ve enJOYed the challenge of having Just Enough; of making it through each month without fear and angst. I’ve Let Go of my regrets about how careless I was for so long in Life. I can only move forward so the staring into the Past is simply a time-waster.

I’ve enJOYed my “losses” in this process. The 35+ pounds, the things I just don’t eat anymore, the money I don’t spend “just BEcause I CAN,” and the things I don’t DO which have left me with time to create and discover parts of me I never knew existed.

I’d like this to continue AND need a wee bit more $ to DO so… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 June 2013

If there is one thing that more than anything else I hope to excel at in my Life it is listening. I think I am a good listener, but I know I talk MORE THAN I listen. And that is what I bump up against time and again.

Living alone has helped me put this into focus in a way that’s let me actually make headway. And I am glad of that, even if I am still a long way from where I’m aiming.

I have been forced to listen to myself AND to BEcome frustrated when I blather on and DO NOT make time and space for just BEing with myself and listening to my thoughtsandfeelings tumbling about.

The thing about listening, even just a little more, is that it opens up windows that had been sealed shut with layers of old paint. It lets light and air in. It casts shadows that bring clarity. It puts things together. It gives me an entirely new perspective.

Listening, even just a little bit more than I DO can keep me from hopping lickety-split to conclusions. It can provide that essential pause button to Life’s breakneck speed. It encourages me to practise kindness and simple understanding.

I know this BEcause I have people who REALLY LISTEN to me.

Brilliant!! 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 June 2013

I really love the wisdom of this. I didn’t, for a Very Long Time, mind you, but Here, Now, Today, I am its greatest fan.

DOing something badly, or VERY badly, is one of those things I learned to avoid at all costs. And, if [okay, WHEN] I did DO something badly, I also was quick to deny it, defend myself, blame others or circumstances, shift responsibility, or simply roll my eyes in disgust at anyone who dared bring it to my attention.

Now though, all that has changed. For the better if you ask me.

I embrace the opportunities I have to stumble, fall short, look silly, and BE laughed at. NOT that I like the way some DO their laughing at me, but I’m even growing a little tougher skin there, too.

I see it most of all with making art. And just this week with my determination to get My 60^th Year put together in a book. I am in way over my head trying to navigate it, but I am willing to DO it Very Badly and that is making all of the difference.

There are some things I have done badly lately that have stung, too. Handling my birthday misadventures. Letting myself get agitated by other people’s BEhaviours.

Still, I know I’m responsible. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 June 2013

Like there is another choice?!

Somehow I imagine my head was somewhere faraway when I wrote this. I realise there is value in these four words, as well wisdom and simple common sense. What I don’t seem to BE grasping is its BEing here, on the day after what was a Very Difficult Day that marked my entry into this World.

There were several wondrously amazing moments on my 60^th birthday. There were even spectacularly horrid ones that I’ll likely come to cherish. Overall, the only thing I seem capable of is carrying on, letting go, and letting things sink in.

One of the things I’m aiming toward Now is keeping an even keel. The high highs and the low lows take too much out of me.

Another is wrapping my emotions in Teflon. Essentially, NOT letting things stick and clump up on me rendering me nearly useless.

Perhaps the sinking in part is a means of keeping pace with that. Could BE…

Sometimes I get a completely wrong idea right. I sketch it loosely, find its edges, its shadows, its value. I work at it and focus on it with great intensity and purpose.

And then I suddenly discover that where I’ve been drawing an apple what I’ve been seeing is really a beach umbrella!!! Ridunkulous, eh?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 June 2013

What a way to say what I mean, eh?! I’m all for opening up my mind. I’m 100% BEhind keeping an open heart, but how does an open brain figure in all this I wonder?!

Well, here’s a little something nobody really knows about me: I am fascinated by the brain. That is the truth. It is quite an amazing thing once “open” and understood.

Our brains are quite remarkable in all their myriad functions and capabilities.

And just as easily as we can learn to identify the various parts of our brains, we can BEcome confounded and perplexed by the intricacy and scope of HOW the parts DO what they DO.

[and don’t DO what they don’t DO depending upon what happens to us or them in the course of living]

When I say Open Up Your Brain I mean just that. [and so much more]

Open it up to discover its reach.

Open it up to find out why you always go from one place to that other place when so inspired.

Sometimes, when I am quiet and calm, I sense that I can BE outside of myself, and my brain, and see myself with far more clarity and objectivity.

I can point to where I adopted a BElief and recognise my wrong-thinking’s roots and nourishment…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 June 2013

Wishing is often a crapshoot. It is misdirected intent. It is silly.

And yet it is fun and wondrous. So what can I say?!

Whether wishing on stars, birthday cake candles, or as I flip a penny into a pond, I’m going to keep wishing and wishing and wishing for the rest of my Life.

I love the freedom of wishes. How they are able to transform instantly, without making sense or needing to explain themselves.

I love the possibilities in wishing. Imagining that I can make Gracie small enough to fit in my pocket so I can take her with me wherever I go is a favourite wish I make.

Even if there is nothing whatsoever sensible about it, when I wish I wish BIG and wild. I wish with total BElief in my wish’s capacity to manifest itself.

I even wish without exactly naming what I am wishing for. BEcause I BElieve that wishes are less my planning and seeing than their own glorious deLIGHTs.

As I skid headlong and awkwardly into my 61^st year, I am wishing for Hope.

I am wishing for the Hope of Peace, NOT merely on Earth and BEtween nations and people, but within every heart, mind, and BEing.

I am wishing for laughter and tears and a wave of smiles.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 June 2013

There’s a hole in the road called My Life which I have fallen into time and time again. 

Even when I see it there, somehow I don’t avoid it in time or, well, just forget that I need to navigate more thoughtfully.

The hole is Helping. Too much. Without BEing asked.

You know, don’t you?!

Finishing someone’s sentences. Barging into their story. Cleaning what they don’t see needs to BE cleaned…

I have a friend who is moving “home” tomorrow. 

She has talked to me a LOT over the past few months about the job of leaving somewhere she has lived for 16 years. 

I’ve wanted to help out, to step up, to relieve her of some of the burden; but I’ve NOT been asked.

This is rather an astonishing thing for me. 

And I say this with, ummmmmmm, okay, a good bit of good old-fashioned pride.

Apparently I have been of great assistance ANYWAY!!! 

I have been an ear to listen. 

I have been a voice of calm, reassuring her that YES, this is a BIG undertaking. 

Sometimes that’s been the best help of all.

I won’t deny I’ve wished I could BE of some “REAL” help.

Still, I like that I have been able to help as I have. 

BEcause that’s what she’s asked of me. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 June 2013

It’s so easy to expect myself to BE more than a human. 

To chide myself for feeling disappointment when things go awry. 

To demand that I NOT feel what I feel as the wheels fall off of my little red wagon.

Fortunately I am NOT so unfair in my assessment or treatment of others. 

There it is always easy to see that, of course, who wouldn’t think, feel, or BE whatever… 

And yet for myself this is NOT where I go. First, and sometimes even last.

Over the past couple of days here in my simple little Life and World things have blown topsy-turvy. 

What I thought to BE firm has revealed itself to BE quite unsettled.

Yet I am NOT letting it take me there, “there” BEing someplace I generally go in times such as these. 

My doom and gloom place where I pull my dress up over my head, hunker down in a pout, and BEgin to recite my litany of blame, shame, guilt, and regret.

I suppose I attribute this to remembering that I am “only” BEing human. 

I am BEing a person. 

I am feeling the normal and oh so common feelings anyone else would BE feeling.

It definitely helps to look at myself as I might YOU.  

Or anyone I know and love…    

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 June 2013

Even I find this a bit of an odd duck. Still, I know its wisdom is sound.

I rarely think of how little I pause these days, given instant connection that technology and even my own compliance with its various processes makes possible. 

Still, I sometimes postpone even ordinary and really a no-big-deal responses.

I used to know why I did this. 

Sometimes, frankly, I enJOYed the savouring of the words, whether email or voicemail. 

Connection via technology is a Very Different Bird than in-person connection.

And I also did this BEcause of less attractive reasons. 

Perhaps for a feeling of control where I felt out of control. 

Just saying…

What I am discovering is that responding Now, straightaway, leaves me feeling “righter” within myself. Like BEing in tune.

My savouring could make someone else feel insignificant.

And then there are times when I anxiously wait to hear back from someone…

So Now I’m focused on DOing NOT delaying. [though sometimes I delay when I sense Time helps me to “get it righter” within]

Responding, paying attention, engaging, all these things make both my Life and my myriad connections into amazing living breathing realationships. 

So, just as when you and I are together, I’ll respond to your questions and say what I am thinkingandfeeling Right in the moment.

I love you, Currie  

Currie's Gratitude 13 June 2013

While it might seem the obvious choice, I’ve NOT always been so keen to make peace as to stir the pot. 

To accept rather than judge. 

To surrender rather than keep fighting to BE right.

But I’m getting there. 

Now I look for ways to make peace. 

And I’m NOT referring here to “war” peace, although…

A good example off the top of my birdbrain is Gracie. BEcause I so often DO share food with her, for instance our afternoon “cocktail” or “tea” time with apples and carrots or bits of banana or mango when making a smoothie, I’ve noticed her BEcoming a bit of a beggar at other times when I am preparing food.

My response has sometimes been a wee bit harsher than I’m comfortable admitting, but there it is anyway. Think what you will.

Of course I have created this situation…

However, when instead of BEing annoyed and outspoken about my annoyance I say NOTHING, I have noted with some deLIGHT that she stops herself. 

She moves into her corner or goes into the bedroom, and there’s no more begging.

For so long I felt entitled to my raised voice and meaner face, but no more. 

I realise that I, too, can self-correct. 

I CAN, in fact, BE a peace maker.

Which I much prefer. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 June 2013

Here’s a thought that took me a Very Too Long Time even to consider. 

I expected [I suppose] that Life’s Lessons would come labelled and colour-coded. Like the answers in the back of a workbook.

But alas, Life is far more contrary, [or mayBE it’s just BEing sensible] so I have learned to dig deep and keep at it, knowing that sometimes I won’t have the exact “lesson” in so many words, but I WILL learn from it.

And that is enough. At least it’s BEcoming enough for me.

A recent experience showed me how important it is to dig deep and keep digging, even if I’d ultimately just replace the dirt I’d dug up. 

Part of me wanted to just wing it, act in the moment from my emotions that were swirling. DO something, even if it was wrong.

When I put the brakes on that method, I felt like I was idling so high I’d overheat. 

That was NOT comfortable in the least. It even made me a little prickly.

Finally, something a little like but NOT exactly prayer or meditation got me to ease off the accelerator and wait patiently. [sometimes digging means BEing still and DOing nothing more than BEing]

What came up was so simple. Clear. Unmistakable.

A BEautimous lesson. Just for me.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 June 2013

Interesting how the words pay and compliment show up together in this prompt. Whatever could I have been thinking, eh?!

I think this is a good way to live. Especially for someone like me who often sits waiting for someone to say something nice and good and kind, you know, pay ME a compliment?!

I’m NOT saying that I require praise nor seek tribute. It’s more that I love how it feels to give them which only expands how I feel when I receive them.

Yesterday I read these lovely words from one of my favourite wordsmiths:

I sometimes feel like I write to myself, to the air.  And then one of you pipes up and I am reminded that I am not in this alone, that someone is listening, that it matters to someone when I write.  I’d write even if no one listened…but oh BOY am I grateful for you someones who listen. 

And just like that I felt right with the World again. Knew it was okay for me, too, to feel extra specially glad for this daily practise and the ways in which I enJOY true connection, even with people I would NOT know if I bumped right into them!!!

Each day that I write I discover anew the supreme JOY of simple Gratitude.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 June 2013

Somedays I wonder how I can know something and BE oblivious to it simultaneously. 

It is like my feet are travelling in opposite directions.

Well, mayBE that’s NOT a great example…

I have been trying to sort something out lately, trying BEing the operative word here. 

In essence I’ve been thinking about something without bringing it into the Real World. 

In my head a thing can have an array of consequences, outcomes, and I suppose even possibilities which once I make it real and put it out there will only have the consequence and outcome, leaving further possibility[ies] to vaporise.

If I study myself in this process, I come to understand that I am merely BEing human. 

We have these amazing contraptions up there in our heads, these brains which can leap and scale and soar BEyond anything Real Life actually throws cross our paths.

While I could use my brain in myriad ways, sorting a thing out in my brain is a little like playing with matches. 

Dangerous. 

Even unwise.

And so… what I must DO is see this clearly. 

Step aside. 

Look at my own thoughtsandfeelings more objectively. 

In DOing so I have a greater possibility of understanding NOT only myself but others BEing human, too.

We are, after all, more similar than our differences suggest… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 June 2013

Nearing the day of my birthday, I will sometimes catch myself reflecting on birthdays past, on others’ birthdays, and on the crazy amazingness of Life on this planet. How we celebrate one another, how we cherish memories of BEginnings, and especially how it feels to both love and BE loved.

Most late afternoons, were you to BE looking, you would find Gracie and me winding down our day with a special treat we love to share. I will get out an apple and our bag of carrots, make myself a cup of tea, slice the apple, count out 8 baby carrots, and sit on the ottoman while Gracie perches on the chair-and-a-half.

For the next half hour or so we indulge in our treat. We celebrate another day. We enJOY each other’s silly yet fiercely loving companionship.

It is glorious. Truly. Few things in Life have given me more sheer wonder and deLIGHT.

Yet how simple a thing…

On Gracie’s birthday LAST year I took her “into town” for a doggie yogurt. Shortly after, GraceLand moved from the Wee Cottage, and the yogurt place closed. Her last birthday, in March, we were both a bit too shaken and stirred to go out and celebrate so we invented our little ritual.

And so every day’s BEcomes a celebration Now…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 June 2013

When I was little I saw lots of squirrels and I guess I just took them for granted. And then, for a long time, I didn’t see squirrels. 

MayBE there were none. MayBE I wasn’t looking.

Or, just mayBE, I forgot about them altogether.

Now I see squirrels each and every day. I watch them fly from bush to branch, scurrying cross the fence outside, almost absentmindedly walking along the telephone [are those telephone poles standing above ground?!] wires, and chasing and chatting amongst themselves everywhere along where Gracie and I walk.

I am sure they DO have purpose and intention, yet to me it looks as if their entire Life is about BEing squirrels and DOing squirrelish things. 

They seem to have a default setting at PLAY, and even the “work” they DO is done playfully.

I’m guessing this is why I forgot about, stopped looking for, or simply took squirrels so for granted that I didn’t see them for years and years.

Awhile back I recall writing about my discovering squirrel chatter. I don’t know if I didn’t hear it BEfore, or, which seems more likely true, I simply didn’t expect any sound from them, but a NOT so long ago morning I learned that indeed squirrels are chatty and amusingly so, too!!!

Really… quite astonishing!! 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 June 2013

It never occurred to me how hard it is for me to say WHEN. To DO so is so absolute. Clear.

If I’d learned, growing up, to think of this in the way I DO Now, I’m fairly certain my Life would have seen much more peace and contentment.

Instead, I have BElieved that Life is Difficult. That I need to BE scrappy. That putting up with and/or ignoring are ideals to aspire to.

I love the line in Regarding Henry where Henry’s secretary reminds him that when he’s got enough in his tea cup he needs to say “When.” BEcause it is one of those simple and straightforward learnings.

It’s far more essential with relationships and in the day-to-dayness of ordinary living to know when it is WHEN and to communicate it clearly.

Especially to myself. This is my sticking point. The place the wheels fall off my little red wagon…

WHEN is it time to ask for help?! WHEN is it time to let something go?! WHEN have I had quite Enough, even more than Enough?!

Saying WHEN might mean The End to communication. Or BEing willing to have a door close and BE on the other side of it. 

That, well, frankly that is often enough to keep me from saying “When.”

How about YOU?! 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 June 2013

How simple can one’s story BE?! I’ve often wondered BEcause my own story seems to have so many footnotes and references. How I’d love to make it straightforward and utterly without need of explanation.

A troubling aspect of my story is how rigidly defined I can feel BEcause of it. How I would love to break out of its timelines and wrongthinking [on my part] about how I am limited and powerless in the face of it.

How about YOU?! What is your story?! Is it simple and straightforward or weighed-down by tangents and clarifications?! I’d like to know, really. Of course, only if you’d like to share it with me.

If I could tell my story, my very own version, from Here Right Now, I’d like it to BE short and sweet. I’d leave the detailing out. I wouldn’t burden it with technicolour or enhanced anything.

I am trying to live that story Now. Or, rather, I intend to live Now in as simple a way as I can so that, really, there is no story.

I know that is naïve and so BE it.  It’s my Life, after all.

Actually, I’m NOT so sure that my “story” is anything that needs telling. I’m just Here, DOing what I DO and BEing who I BE.

That’s enough. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 June 2013

Sounds like the simplest of things to DO, but Letting Go is really, and I DO mean REALLY hard. It’s a lot like getting caught up in that spidery web of attic insulation, you know, the pink or yellow stuff?! Really challenges one’s capabilities in a Very Large Way.

I’ve thought I was good at this at times. Thought I had it down. Nailed. In the bag.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. And did I mention, WRONG?!

I recently thought back to an important relationship I had in the early part of the 80’s. What struck me was how I was certain I would NEVER EVER BE able to let that go and, somehow, without even trying, I’d practically forgotten it altogether.

BUT…

That is NOT what I call Letting Go. That is more than anything, a deep pocket where memory slipped itself in and away.

Letting Go is more the in-your-face stuff. For me, a big one recently was letting my car, GraceLand, go 14 months ago. [and I sold it to the guy next door!!!]

Totally, oh, and completely changed the entire game of How I Live Life Now. While most days I see this car, I no longer think of it as GraceLand. Or mine.

Would that it BE so with people.

Ahhhhhhh… Would it BE so. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 June 2013

I was pretty deliberate with this prompt. I see that Now. It is often hard for me to NOT substitute ALWAYS in place of whenever possible.

Yet it is only through understanding my limitations, imagined or intimately acquainted with, that I have come to understand that whenever does NOT equal ALWAYS.

Stepping up will sometimes, perhaps often, mean DOing Nothing. Or at least NOT DOing some certain something.

It can also mean standing still, standing firm, BEing Present, or just standing alone. Like the cheese stands alone in the Farmer and the Dell.

Stepping and standing are NOT the same except sometimes they CAN BE similar. Stepping up to acceptance of a thing, BEing the first to blink, or simply standing down…

I’ve tried in my Life to BE someone who isn’t afraid to BE the only one standing. 

And sometimes I have even succeeded in this; yet never once have I NOT felt fear and a significant amount of embarrassment when stepping up. Even in a crowd.

There’s that rush of whatever it is that courses through me, and I feel a little lightheaded. It’s hard to swallow. It feels like I am going to fall. My face either flushes or drains of colour.

Still, whenever I possibly CAN, I DO step up.

Even when I’m alone.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 June 2013

I’ve never forgotten this early “goal/lesson” from Kindergarten report cards. 

Plays well with others?! 

DO I need improvement in this?! 

Is it possible I play BETTER with others when I’ve ample time by myself?!

At this point in my Life I have learned myself much better. 

I have discovered my love of Solitude. 

Seen myself flourish BEyond anything I’ve ever managed whilst spending copious amounts of time in my own company.

I’m NOT saying I don’t play well with others generally, just that in order to really DO this I require time with just myself. 

Quiet time. Unordered time. Time that I choose to fill my own way.

It is clear that playing well with others is a positive. A desired thing.

And when I DO have that chance I LOVE IT BEyond words.

And yet my time is spent largely with myself.

This has helped me learn to BE my own cherished friend. 

Someone I make and take and find the time for and enJOY the time with.

Someone I play “nicely” with, share my toys and cookies with easily…

At the same time [though it’s NOT the same same time] I strive to BE as kind with friends, neighbours, and all whom I meet when I am out there having my tiny adventures close to home. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 June 2013

It is always the Right Thing to BE encouraging. To uplift, support, and in turn empower the best in another.

Criticism and BElittling only tear the spirit apart, undermine, and ultimately break another, even if that is NOT the intention.

While some DO make a decent case for constructive criticism, I think criticism, when I am DOing it, comes straight and undiluted from my own unfathomable need for approval.

It is never constructive, either to me or another. It only digs my heels in deeper to that impossible addiction to endorsement.

There is a sense that we only get this once to BE who we are, despite the idea of an afterlife or multiple lives, so I am choosing to BE an Encourager, to commit myself wholeheartedly to empowering those whose paths and mine cross.

To catch people DOing things well and right and good and amazing, really. It’s so very much more pleasant to live in this Light than in the shadow of that critical and judgmental one.

I’ve certainly NOT always been like this, and it is clearly a decision I make again each day, and often several times during the day, especially those where I’m granted the opportunity to feel superior.

Given a DO-over, I’d gladly choose this way instead of any other I took…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 June 2013

While NOT every day is filled full and brimming over with Adventure, a tiny bit of imagination and a large scoop of willingness usually brings plenty enough to the everyday for me. 

This is worthy of Gratitude.

BEing ready for Adventure is simply BEing open to whatever happens. 

After all, it’s ALL a gift, a small but essential fact of Life I often forget.

Most days I wake up eager to BEgin, even in the dark of still very much nighttime. 

I look forward to what the day will pour out. 

I lean into it with everything I’ve got, even when that makes me feel downright silly!!

On those days when I am more reluctant, when I am worried about something [usually far into the Future and definitely NOT in Today] or NOT feeling particularly well, I just build in kindness and treat myself as I would a cherished friend.

Often it is those times, when I see myself as I see others, that I grow MORE adventurous and am able to bend with the wind. 

I think kindness toward myself is an essential ingredient for this more adventurous Life I seek to inspire. 

Who knew?!

Anything and any day, even a “bad day” can BEcome an Adventure.

With the right outlook. 

And an open heart.

BE ready…

I love you, Currie