Currie's Gratitude 31 August 2013

Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.

[Margaret Mead]

BElieve is such a remarkable word. It suggests Trust and simultaneously ushers in Wonder. It is a promise and a clarifying breath of fresh air. And as Margaret Mead said, it is so utterly simple and true.

What we BElieve and what we only think are, or can BE, as different as night and day. Sometimes.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. [May Angelou]

This BElieve has given me my greatest challenges. I DO hope for the best, holding out hope, giving chances and more chances. I think I can point to this trouble Time and Again. NOT BElieving someone is what they are…

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. [John Steinbeck]

I canNOT possibly add anything to those words. I can only sit with them awhile…

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality… [Martin Luther King, Jr.]

MayBE, like me, you’ll sit awhile and BElieve…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 August 2013

Twirl around Piglet,

Step lightly Pooh,

This silly ol’ dance is perfect for two.

[A.A. Milne]

Twirl of course has many meanings. And the reasons I like it are nearly as many. It is one of those words that sounds like what it is. That feels good whether I am saying, writing, hearing, or just reading it.

Sometimes I twirl when I am bothered and sometimes I twirl when I am just waking up and sometimes I can BE sound asleep and wake up in a gigunda twirl.

And sometimes… well sometimes I can stand in the sand and look up into the sky or out across the ocean and mentally twirl, in a good way, of course.

I’d like to be a kid again but only because naps were insisted, twirling in circles was acceptable, and the only password I had to remember was open sesame.  [Adar Burks]

Clearly that resonates for me. MayBE even for YOU, too. Perhaps we were wrong to want to grow up so fast?!

… As the mighty acrobat confidently performs his trick of twirling in circles, walking on tiptoe, jumping, climbing, staring, naming. He is joyous, filled with his grandeur and wondrous omnipotence.

[Louise J. Kaplan]

So here’s a thought: Go out and twirl. Stand on tiptoes. Let Go and BE!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 August 2013

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. [Martha Graham]

It’s a little odd that Dance is one of my favourite words. But there you go, I am a bit of an odd duck…

I’ve never been any sort of dancer, though I took dance, went to dancing school, tried to learn to two-step in another Life, and once or twice could have been spotted dancing wildly on a table… But enough about me.

Dance is such a remarkable thing. It is in many ways like a song sung through the body. It is unique. Which I think is why Martha Graham’s words resonate so for me.

I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance. [George Balanchine]

This is what I’m talking about. This is how other things - writing, imagining, creating… BEing – are for me. I MUST DO them; I’m only playing at BEing alive if I don’t.

Dance when you’re broken open… Dance when you’re perfectly free. [Rumi]

Dance. Move. Express your SELF.

I hope YOU dance… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 August 2013

Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone’s heart… [Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith]

I really think we’re all singing from our hearts. Always. And even then we are listening, too, for the songs in others’ hearts. But I might have Life mixed up with a Coca-Cola commercial. It happens. I am a product of my Journey.

Words make you think. Music makes you feel. A song makes you feel a thought. [Yip Harburg]

I canNOT think of a Time in my Life when music, words, and songs DO NOT stand head and shoulders above all the rest. There is a soundtrack for every piece of the Adventure I call My Life. And the words to the songs I remember are significant in wondrously impossible-to-explain ways.

One of my most favourite things about The Past is the singing. Whether it was my unabashed belting out songs while driving or the quieter memory of a song’s capacity to define the edges of my heart.

… There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food… [A.L.]

It is easy to accept the sense of purpose songs have brought me.

If I cannot fly, let me sing. [Stephen Sondheim]

What he said. Exactly. Let me sing… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 August 2013

About all you can do in life is be who you are… [Rita Mae Brown]

So I am thinking, too. I mean, how CAN you BE someone else?! I have been running a quiet experiment for awhile, I imagine the stories of people I see, in a day, out and about, even the people I “meet” right here, online. I give them backstories and circumstances and it all happens without much effort BEyond imagining.

… Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won’t like you at all. [R.M.B.]

If you’ve been reading me awhile, you know about my love affair with this word, BE. Sometimes I am asked about it, why I capitalise in inside of words like BEing and BElieve. I don’t have a pat answer. It’s really just something that happened in the course of BEing me.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

Sometimes I think it’s my way of embracing my first name, Barbara, while at the same time affirming I want to BE Currie. [although that may BE TMI, don’t you agree?!]

Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness. [Allen Ginsberg]

I’m just saying… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 August 2013

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart. [Maya Angelou]

Rarely DO I resonate so much with something and NOT even realise it until, well until it hasn’t seemed to register. Idea, to me, means something wholly different than what Angelou is speaking about, and then I have to wonder… REALLY?!

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved with one another. [Thomas Merton]

This is more how I think, first, about idea. The whole Idea of a thing, like compassion, here. A concept which is simply true and utterly clear without question.

Idea, of course, is a word of many uses, many aspects, and many interpretations. It’s made for such internal confoundedness. That’s how it is with some words, some of the especially juicy words like these one-words I am writing on Right Now.

Whatever you want in life, other people are going to want it too. Believe in yourself enough to accept the idea that you have an equal right to it. [Diane Sawyer]

Many uses, all of which make good sense.

To me… How about you?! Let me know. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 August 2013

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. [Meister Eckhart]

It’s curious. Odd. My word for 2013 is Enough yet when I looked for quotes about Enough most of what I found was Gratitude-related. I’m going to go with that, though… After all, it is Gratitude which brought me to the very edge of Enough, and Gratitude which held my hand as I leaped in.

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it… [Eleanor Roosevelt]

I suppose the same can BE said about Gratitude. It’s NOT enough simply to think about it, it’s something that must BE held and touched and turned over in one’s whole heart and BEing until it BEcomes the words to the melody that dances, without invitation, through one’s head.

And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it. [E.R.]

Working at Peace, at Gratitude, or at anything so worthy is a neverending endeavour. It requires complete devotion and nothing less will BE enough. This is one of the things I have discovered in this year, 2013, the Year of the Giraffe & Enough.

Gratitude… turns what we have into enough, and more… [Melody Beattie]

Enough is a BEautimous thing. NOT elusive, nor BEyond my grasp. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 August 2013

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. [Mahatma Gandhi]

I woke up unusually early early today. I should say my brain did… Sometimes I feel Life is a final exam and whatever I DO Right Now is what my entire grade hinges upon.

BUT… That is simply NOT Life. It is, well, it’s fear.

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. [C.S. Lewis]

My brain was going on about my upcoming move. Chiding me for NOT BEing 100% totally livable AND moveable NOW. For still having attachments to some stuff. For NOT BEing willing to Let Go and start over again from scratch.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. [Helen Keller]

I read awhile. I meditated. Visualised. Breathed. I let my “panic” have some space. And then I got up. All of Life is juicy and worth living full-out. All of it. Even the crazies…

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision. [Eleanor Roosevelt]

I didn’t think I’d leave the Wee Cottage. Didn’t imagine going back to AZ. Yet here I go, learning to make up my mind… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 August 2013

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self you will be happy to live with all your life... [Golda Meir]

I think, no, I BElieve that though Trust may BE an essential, it is NOT always in sufficient supply. I BElieve this BEcause I haven’t found it where I’ve placed it. Much of the time…

So this is where trusting myself has been key. And curiously enough, trusting myself has made it easier to trust others.

Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go. [Natalie Goldberg]

There was a time, NOT so long ago, when I didn’t have a clue what I love[d]. I was easily swayed and sent myself this way and that. Eventually, BEtween rounds of nausea trying to DO it “this way, NO, that way,” I found what I love. I got to know it. I indulged it. I explored it. I made it my own.

… Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. [G.M.]

Now I live a Life that I truly enJOY. Day in and day out. It might seem simple or even dull to some, but it is just right for me.

I am happy here. Productive. Creative. Generous. Content. At peace. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 August 2013

Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else… [Margaret J. Wheatley]

Really, if I had just had the tiniest inkling of how wonderful it is to Listen, really  to just LISTEN to another person, I might BE living an entirely different sort of Life.

I might’ve NOT been alone so much of the time. NOT that alone isn’t wondrous, too, but there have been long stretches of handling aloneness as loneliness with liabilities. Yet, were I to have been a true Listener, perhaps I’d have been more “wanted” by those who grew tired of Having To listen to me. Over and over and over…

… We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen. [M.J.W.]

I’ve been the sort of listener who assumed I was to have snappy words to “come back” AND answers, suggestions, and insights. I’ve spent 60% of my time planning what to say when with 100% given to listening, perhaps I’d have discovered that this is what we all want. Really.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. [Winston Churchill]

I’m listening…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 August 2013

Don’t Make  Assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want… [Miguel Angel Ruiz]

It seems the most difficult thing I have to DO is ASK. Ask for help. Ask for money. Ask for time. Ask for encouragement. Ask for someone to just BE with me, either Right Here & Right Now [which is usually nearly impossible] OR by phone or email.

The thing I am discovering is that by NOT asking I think I am BEing kinder, more self-sufficient. NOT such a bother, and earning “Brownie Points” somehow. I think if I don’t ask much or often I can surely BE accommodated those times when I DO.

But it’s that darn pickle of assuming that gets me every time.

… Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement you can completely transform your life. [M.A.R.]

What I know is that I am the only one who CAN ask for what it is I want. Or need. Or think would help. But I always seem to want to avoid neediness and dependency, no matter the toll that takes on me.

Ultimately, those who have stayed, NOT advised, tried solving, or fixing me, just stayed, these are those I would ask. Fearlessly. Again. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 August 2013

Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars. [J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings]

It was just yesterday that I wrote about starlight and the moon, when full, nearly full, just past BEing full, awakens me and deLIGHTs my sleepy senses with the dance it performs… And though I canNOT say it is for sure the time round a full moon, I CAN say I was awakened last night and treated to a light dance…

The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences. What other body could pull an entire ocean from shore to shore? The moon is faithful to its nature and its power is never diminished. [Deng Ming-Dao, Everyday Tao: Living with Balance and Harmony]

Oh the moon. Such a marvelous invention and an even greater discovery. So many “blame” the moon or mayBE they are simply “crediting” it?! I don’t really play that way. I am awed and astonished. Simply that.

I DO love the idea of keeping to its course yet gently influencing by its nature. That seems a worthy enterprise, a spectacular intention, simply BEing an influence by one’s nature.

May our “moonness” always BE with us… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 August 2013

Star Light, Star Bright

First star I see tonight

I wish I may, I wish I might

Have the wish I wish tonight…

How long ago did I learn this and BEgin to say it, silently, inside myself?! What did I think of those lights in the night sky BEfore I knew their name?!

I love the word Starlight BEcause it has a magical tone, a sense of freedom and possibility, and it makes me think, no, KNOW that there is far more to this Universe than I will ever imagine.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. [Vincent van Gogh]

It does seem so, doesn’t it?! That when the stars are out [or when I can SEE them] dreams take on a new Life. They seem more than ever NOT dreams but visions of Hope.

I so rarely see the stars, going to sleep so early and rising BEfore dawn. I am, however, always awakened when the moon is full or nearly so, and I am awed over and over again by the way it lights the nighttime and suggests that daylight and moonlight are NOT so different, really.

Reach for the stars, you might touch the sky… [Steve Winwood]

It is possible. Yes it is!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 August 2013

I love this word. It holds every dream, each wish, however small or long ago, I have wished, and it connects Life. How amazing a feat for such a simple word…

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. [Mother Teresa]

This is so truly important to remember. I may NOT feel I DO much to make any significant difference in the World, but that does NOT change the FACT that I DO and have and will, for as long as I am here to make one.

What difference does one person make?! What does it matter that one person is here?! Tough questions, but then look at the ocean. It is there, wherever you stand at its shore. And it is there, wherever there is another shore, connecting one to the other. No matter who sees it or what shore they are on.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does no become dirty. [Mahatma Gandhi]

It’s easy to assume that BEcause one thing is sour, bad, or wrong, there is no point in trying to sweeten, make good or right what I/we CAN.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 August 2013

Birds fly over the rainbow

Why then – oh, why can’t I?

If happy little bluebirds fly

Beyond the rainbow

Why, oh why, can’t I?

[L. Frank Baum]

The other morning, walking with Gracie, looking up, [BEcause it is fun to see what I “see” in the clouds, and morning clouds are most cooperative with this] I saw a BEautimous little rainbow. No rain, to my knowledge, but the sweetest little rainbow nonetheless.

This is the amazing thing about rainbows. They just “happen” and they are, well, as Rita Mae Brown wrote: Leroy bet me I couldn’t find a pot of gold at the end, and I told him that was a stupid bet because the rainbow was enough.

The wee rainbow, that morning, at this particular time in my Life, it made so much sense and let me breathe, drop my shoulders, Let Go, and simply BE.

Sometimes, things are planned and rain happens. It’s NOT fair, NOT nice, and NOT a lot of other stuff. What it is is Life. This is what I love about a rainbow. It reminds me to stop BEing so serious and stern and just roll.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow. [Charles K. Chesterton]

Over the rainbow…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 August 2013

I will not play tug o’ war. I’d rather play hug o’ war. Where everyone hugs instead of tugs. Where everyone giggles and rolls on the rug. Where everyone kisses, and everyone grins, and everyone cuddles and everyone wins. [Shel Silverstein]

Such a deLIGHTfull image. I think Shel knew this “hug World” quite well.

Hugs are good. They are necessary. Like food, shelter, and clothing. I know. I’ve done a 4-year long study on how few and far BEtween hugs one can subsist on. [the results are NOT favourable to those who live BElow the Hug Poverty Line]

Hugs are essential. They set what’s crooked or broken right again. They are healthy and nourishing. They are THE ONE AND ONLY required food group, whether you are vegan, gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, or even macrobiotic.

A hug is the perfect gift – one size fits all and nobody minds if you exchange it. [Irvin Ball]

Arm ourselves for war? No! All the arms we need are for hugging. [Author Unknown]

I confess, I have gone to street fair events here sometimes JUST TO FIND the “hug booth” and I have binged and binged but NEVER once thought to purge…

I don’t know why it is only that it is required to have hugs. Hugs to give. Hugs to receive. Hugs for Life. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 August 2013

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. [Leo Buscaglia]

I never gave much thought to the idea of touch. Perhaps I felt it was “BEneath” me BEcause that was what I was “taught” by those who I supposed had all the answers. I’m grateful that I finally decided to discard this advise, to make my own BEliefs that fit ME and my own Life.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. {Henri Nouwen]

I’ve assumed that whenever someone shared their “wounds” I “should BE able to” give them more than just the space to share and my Presence in that with them. Until I came to this season of Solitude. In my own Presence I have discovered that BEing Present for myself is what really touches that part of me that “needs” other people.

I learn as I go. I try. I fail. And Life BEgins to sing. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 August 2013

kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

~ e.e. cummings

Oh indeed… A funny one-word prompt yet NOT if you consider the value of this lovely 4-letter word. Who wouldn’t prefer to come away kissed more than to walk away wise?!

Always kiss your children goodnight, even if they’re already asleep. [H. Jackson Brown]

I love that one. I love the memories it brings flooding into me of childhood and parenthood alike. It sets off a long, long train of recollections and rememberings which somehow invade my face and make me grin like a bit of a fool.

Kisses aren’t much in abundance in my Life at Present. I don’t mind this so much as I mind the absence of hugs. Hugs are easier to obtain, even for a solitary soul like me. [BEsides, Gracie kisses are ALWAYS available, well, almost always…] And for anyone who knows, a Gracie kiss is a magically surprising JOY.

Harvey Fierstein said, A child’s kiss is magic. Why else would they be so stingy with them?  

Makes me pause and consider whether that is true, the stingy part… I don’t know that it was with Timmy, but definitely it seemed so when he and I were thousands of miles apart.

Perhaps I am someone who has adapted to a more kiss-less Life?! 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 August 2013

Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings. [Ralph Waldo Emerson] Celebration, it’s really such a simple concept. And a happy [or happy-fying] practise.

In my opinion…

We really have lost our bent toward celebrating. So much comes at us and to us, so fast, so constant, it is like we canNOT come up for enough air to really celebrate the tiny and HUGE moments, happenings, occurrences.

And then here is an utterly wondrous idea from Audre Lorde, It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

This approach, for me, is the little piece [peace] of magical something I’ve always missed and wanted so to find. I’ve felt that either I must try convincing someone of my perspective, opinion, or BElief; OR, someone was, through derision, quick thinking, or simply fancy footwork, hammering at me to see it their way.

But what if, instead of all that wrangling and fuss we’d just embrace that we are, each of us, unique and equal?! NOT the same, just ourselves first of all, and created with the intention of equality?!

Celebrate possibilities. Dream freely. Boldly even. Risk embarrassment and BE fearless. Leave every bit of yourself on the field of YOUR dreams. You CAN DO it! 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 August 2013

We’re so busy watching what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are. [Bill Watterson]

I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but it is all too easy, even expected [AND ACCEPTED] to live for what’s on BEyond Now. It is, or it has been my experience, silly to simply enJOY the moment at hand. To savour the sweetness and touch the heart of this moment’s JOY and wonder?! Oftentimes laughed at and scorned.

Learning to enJOY Life as it flies is the perhaps THE GREATEST gift I’ve found living in solitude. I love this from Eve Ensler:

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important that finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.

Of all the things I am learning in this solitary season of my Life, discovering what I enJOY DOing, BEing, and Having is the most magically magnificent.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 August 2013

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. [Anais Nin]

Perhaps. Or mayBE we write BEcause Life is so remarkably juicy and delicious. Or BEcause it feels so good to attempt to share this pleasure with another. Or others…

Art and life are subjective. Not everybody’s gonna dig what I dig, but I reserve the right to dig it. [Whoopi Goldberg]

Now with this I have no differing opinion. In fact, this thoughty little Whoopi-ism is largely what I am learning about Life, in particular from these last 7 years on my own. I really never understood that my taste had disappeared into that of another. I’m NOT blaming, just saying…

Taste is subjective and cause for retrospective introspection. I note this watching a series on Netflix. I want so much to “like it” so I can share it with JOY and sincere interest. And yet I find it more of an exercise in endurance. I’ve no patience for watching how we humans interact with meanness and derision. I mean, I know this is true enough, I’m just NOT all that into it…

Still, The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. [Eleanor Roosevelt] 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 August 2013

Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap. [Barbara Jordan]

This sounds like an awesome premise. I’m fairly certain that the ideas of tea time and cocktail hour have their roots in napping.

As for me, while I am NOT always DOing the lie down and close my eyes kind of nap, I DO take time in each and every day to sit and BE still, oftentimes with my eyes open looking out the window. This has BEcome my refreshment. The time in my days when I recharge and switch gears.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon. [Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown’s Little Book of Wisdom]

Brilliant!! The afternoon is a time that seems to stretch long, especially during the time of year when it stays light well on into the evening. I often have a good laugh at, with, and near myself for my little pause respites during the afternoons.

Yet what amuses me even more is how I climb into bed, thoroughly exhausted, when the sun is still up and this bothers me NOT one bit.

Napping is simply living Life on one’s own terms.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 August 2013

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific. [Lily Tomlin]

I canNOT think of a better reason to utterly love the word NOW. Really. So much in my own language and Life have been vague and linked to someday or sometime when really I could have played it so much wiser simply by recognising that it is and was ALWAYS, Now.

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now. [Alan Wilson Watts]

It is only possible to live in this moment, this Right Now, and yet it is almost trained into us to seek for what will come and then, if or when [or if NOT] that comes, to go on seeking for what’s BEyond this achievement or place.

As I prepare for moving, this time, I am keenly aware of my tendency to stop living in the moments I have and focus instead on where I am going Next. Gratefully, I am DOing quite the opposite. I am marinating in this little ordinary no-frills Life I have here, in the Wee Cottage, with Gracie.

I am BEing, quite simply, exactly WHO I AM. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 August 2013

Of course I love this word BEcause it BEgins with BE. However, more than that I love what it MEANS to me, how gorgeous it is a concept that can BE pulled into service with no notice whatsoever.

And I love this from Richard L. Evans, Don’t let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was. Isn’t that just exquisite?!!! Somethings make such deLIGHTed sense within a context.

To BEgin is hopeful and possible. It is fresh and clean and sparkling. It is also daunting, even terrifying, looked at squarely. Much as I would like it to BE sunshine and rainbows, BEgin has its other side or opposite edge.

I found this very thoughty quote from Tori Amos:

Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin.

As a person who is, by choice, introspective and contemplative, this entire notion resonates with me. To BEgin to heal I had to go BEyond where I was comfortable going. I had to stay, oftentimes in the dark and damp nothing and nowhereness.

Yet that was truly the BEginning of my most glorious adventure. 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 August 2013

What is there to love about this tiny word?! Frankly, a LOT!! It marks new BEginnings, and it encourages, merely by its utterance.

As one who has had a lifelong love for Dr. Seuss, I cannot help but share, 

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go.

As well, T.S. Eliot, 

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. 

I love the way each of these reflect the best in the other.

This two-letter word holds promise and possibility. Hope. And tongue-in-cheek, a la Oscar Wilde, 

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. 

Go has myriad interpretations.

Most of all, I love this concept of C.S. Lewis, 

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

This compels me to Let Go, take flight, and simply BE.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 August 2013

I’d “hoped” that one-word prompts might keep writing somewhat simpler; and while sort of does, it’s also making me think deeper…

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. [Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams]

Of all the quotes about Hope, this one has me riveted. I’ve mostly “used” Hope, like a pacifier, to soothe me in the challenging times, to help me “rise above it” as I was so often told as a child when I was troubled or confused.

I am grateful I haven’t let go the string of my Hope, haven’t released it to the sky. At times I was sure it had removed itself from my grasp. I stopped looking in its direction, often for so very long a time that I wasn’t sure it was even there where I’d left it…

Hope is not about proving anything. It's about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us. [Anne Lamott, Plan B, Further Thoughts on Faith] 

Sometimes “simpler” is letting things BE, just as they are, just as they are NOT… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 August 2013

Telling the Truth isn’t the same as “the truth of the matter,” NOT usually… 

I suppose a better way to say it is that the Truth and truth aren’t necessarily one and the same. 

Clearly Truth and truth are concepts I’ve danced round the floor with more than a few gazillion times in my Life.

Mark Twain had acquaintance with my BEfuddlement round Truth/truth, If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. 

I’ve found this a simple measure and a wondrously wise principle for Life, too.

These words from Dumbledore in J.K. Rowlings’ Harry Potter series, “The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”  highlight the peculiousness of the fence upon which I’ve tried to sit to understand what is and is NOT Truth.

While I actually BElieve that I am NOT good at lying, that does NOT mean I am stellar in my T/truth-telling skills. 

And yet I can still look to just yesterday to see where I massaged and managed the Truth to make it more palatable.

What is Truth for me is often difficult to reveal to another. 

Maya Angelou clearly understood this, There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.

At least she seems to…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 August 2013

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. [Lao Tzu] 

A cherished missive. It’s inside me so much that I canNOT diminish even the smallest of steps that I make.

The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between… [Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth] 

As one who has moved too many times to number, I’d have to say it’s the “what’s in BEtween” my moves that has made up my Journey in Life.

When I envision my own ordinary little Life as my Journey, somehow the confusing and BEfuddling make perfect sense. It is when I misunderstand it as a standstill that I get myself lost in the weeds. 

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started. [Henry Ward Beecher]

And when I am tempted to compare myself?! 

God has arranged strange ways for some of us to find him. Sometimes He brings us on long physical journeys; sometimes He leaves us at home and makes the journey internal. Yours has been both. You have gone a long way and struggled a great deal, but I can see from your eyes that it was not for nothing. [Abigail J. Hartman, The Soldier’s Cross]  

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 August 2013

Love, Love, Love. All you need is Love. 

Darling, I love you just the way you are. 

These are the thoughts wandering gently round my birdbrain.

What is it about the word Love that I love?! 

Or is it the idea of Love that I love?! 

Perhaps it’s even the feeling. 

Or the experience. Both of loving and BEing loved.

I hesitate really to put too fine a point on it.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. [Mother Teresa] 

Wise and empowering words which come close to what I REALLY thinkandfeel about Love.

Another perspective is from Lao Tzu, Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

This bit of poeming from e.e.cummings:

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

it is one which has always felt more real to me a definition of Love.

I may NOT know any better way to say it than this; just like this…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 August 2013

Play clothes. Play date. Who else straddles this generational divide?! This is the fun part of one-word prompts for writing.

Play through. Play out. Come over to play. Go play in the traffic. Ahhhhhhh… I think I am BEing silly.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. [Plato] 

Which then makes Play-Doh come to mind. 

And how about play “dough” as in play money?! 

Oh my.

Okay, let me try this one: Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. [Tom Robbins]

This makes sense to me, thank you very much!!

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. [Khalil Gibran]

Play is a word that can BE used in so many ways; I think this is why it’s one of my favourites. 

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. [George Bernard Shaw]

It is a happy talent to know how to play. [Ralph Waldo Emerson] 

I’m discovering how deeply true this is after forgetting it for a very long time.

“Plays well with others.” Something to strive for… 

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 1 August 2013

Words are utterly and indescribably delicious. I have so many I love, finding them unexpected and cherished friends. 

Dream itself is especially flavourful. By itself or in its many remarkable collaborations.

Sweet dream. Daydream. 

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one. [John Lennon] 

Dream boat. BEyond my wildest dreams.

I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time. [A.A. Milne] 

Merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.

This is sheer deLIGHT for me, writing, this first thing I DO each new morning, oftentimes earlier than long BEfore sunrise. This month I’m exploring one word each day. 

Writing, stirring, discovering. Learning what is there, HERE, inside Me.

Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.

[Langston Hughes]

You know that place between sleeping and awake, that place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always think of you. [J.M. Barrie] 

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had. [Alice Sebold]

I am a dreamer and a welcome mat to dreams that dare appear to me. 

I love you, Currie