Currie's Gratitude 29 October 2013

Embracing Life. Embracing Change. Embracing What Is. These are all possibilities Today. For me.

I canNOT say that this has been my Way BEfore. At least with any consistency. But Today. For Now. It is just this way. And that is something for which I am grateful.

It is funny how Expectation can often keep the lid on Possibility. If I had been running the circus of my move I would likely NOT have stayed [or left myself] open to the kindness of so many others. Others who don’t even know me. Who don’t even have any good reason to WANT to BE kind and generous toward me.

I’d never have agreed to a full 4 weeks without internet access and as long without all the aspects of my daily Life that depend upon internet accessibility. BUT… what a gift it is and has been.

Feeling missed. Feeling that my NOT BEing Here each day is noticed and wanted. That is a great gift. And even if I have only heard it a time or two, it fills something in me that needed filling. And I am grateful.

Knowing that Home Now is NOT what I expected but far BEyond what I could have imagined makes my heart sing. I am embracing all that I’m finding with gusto!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 October 2013

I didn’t used to ask this question. I didn’t really care, if I am totally honest. I thought if I wanted I should HAVE or GET. I didn’t really consider how NOT having or NOT getting might actually BE more essential to Me.

I’m really missing BEing connected on a daily basis, and I really don’t like trying to make the time when I am over at Mum’s. I like to BE where I AM and Present, NOT off in my online Life & World when my in-person Life & World are what they are at this time.

I think writing daily is essential. For me. And I know this by how different I feel Now that I am able to get up and write first thing every morning.

It isn’t the same for me, writing by hand, no matter pencil or pen. Somehow this writing opens me up. So at least I am DOing it Now, each day.

And one of these days, hopefully this week, these writings, my Gratitude writings, will BE sent out and posted.

What is essential, I am discovering, is BEing Here Right Now. It is NOT essential to HAVE or GET or BE some other way, some way that is NOT this. I have taken a very long time to discover this…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 October 2013

There is a lot to BE learned from putting away any thoughtsandfeelings I may BE holding onto about KNOWING My Way is THE Way. I’m almost always wrong, often dreadfully so, and I LOVE the deLIGHTful surprise of BEing able to BE surprised by how much better [or simply different in an extraordinary way] another way than my own actually turns out to BE!!

For instance, how long and longer it is taking to have internet access here at home. I’ve NOT once gone on BEing indignant or entitled. I have taken it in stride, with Gratitude for the people who are genuinely trying to help me. I have never lived in a brand spanking NEW place BEfore, and it is complicated, getting things to work.

I think mostly I am glad I have learned to BE more patient. To trust the process. To BE able to find My Way within things that don’t go as I would prefer.

This is something I really did NOT know was lacking in me. I mean, I did know, of course, that I have been insistent and downright childish about things when they didn’t go as planned. What I did NOT know was how sweet it could BE to make room and allow things their own ways of BEing and unfolding…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 October 2013

There is one thing about Life I am sure of. It ends. Eventually. For everyone. I know that I am NOT telling anyone, including myself, anything new under the sun, but I have, it seems, forgotten to remember this the past several days.

As much as I canNOT imagine Life without certain people in it, however far on the periphery that “in” may BE, I know one day either I or they will have to contend with the loss of each other. And when that time comes, if it is I who will BE dealing with the loss, I don’t want to have regrets which I might BE able to avoid entirely Right Here and Right Now.

On to another sort of loss and forgetting…

Turns out that there is more involved in getting phone and internet service here in the Wee Casa after all. And with that, there is NOT going to BE any hurry hurry rush rush. So all that I had hoped to get posted and OUT THERE will stay On Hold another number of days, at this time unknown.

So, while I might go to the trouble [NOT really] and bother [again, NOT so much] of taking this lappy to Mum’s or the library to post these, I may Choose. Staying. Unplugged. Until. Whenever…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 31 October 2013

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. [Albert Einstein]

Compassion seems like one of those words that has been used to the point of nearly using it up. It’s almost a buzz word and sadly, buzz words lose their meaning far too quickly.

I am learning, yet again, that BEing compassionate is something that BEgins with ME. Having compassion for myself. Making room for my awkwardness and inexperience. Owning what is true for me and asking for or stating what I need. Sounds easy until I am DOing it…

Compassion often seems easier to have for others than myself. I am quick to care about another’s thoughts or feelings yet slower on the uptake when it comes to me. Just noticing and noting this can make all the difference.

And as I've gotten older, I've had more of a tendency to look for people who live by kindness, tolerance, compassion, a gentler way of looking at things. [Martin Scorsese]

I’ve had several conversations lately where I feel I am lobbying for compassion. For simple human kindness and consideration.

I don’t really like this sort of conversation…

Still, I am glad to have found the willingness to speak up. Finally.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 October 2013

We all have to leap sometimes. Without a net. Or knowing that the chances of falling are great, even inevitable…

I’ve made this month all about leaping. Jumping cross caverns of things I did NOT want to drop into. Or so I thought…

Turns out that my mistakes have been great teachers. That nets have appeared out of nowhere. That I have had help, encouragement, and, most surprising to me of ALL, my own ease and inner calm to guide me.

I am NOT so surprised to realise I am calmer than I ever imagined myself capable of BEing, I have actually had a sort of sixth sense about this, ever since selling GraceLand and BEcoming this newer and more deliberate and mindful Currie…

What I AM startled by is that I CAN and DO move so quickly from disappointment to acceptance and simply carry on, mistake or regret fading gently into the background.

This is SO NOT ME!!!

But mayBE I really HAVE changed. And mayBE this is NOT the last of the changes that will serve to thrill and astonish me…

I still won’t have my internet here in the Wee Casita until early next week. Oh well. Someone else or several someone elses made mistakes.

I choose NOT to suffer from them. Only to accept…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 October 2013

DO you walk to school or carry your lunch?! I love odd questions and how they force me to think of all that I don’t think about, all that I take for granted…

I am utterly amazed at my level of calm and patience after over three weeks of basically NOT BEing able to write and share. I am astounded that I have spent days, strings of them, off-line and unplugged. And I am still upright, breathing in and out, and making mischief.

I am grateful for what this time has taught and continues to teach me. About myself. About the things I assume. What I take for granted. And what I never imagined WANTING to know. I suppose it is a LOT like living without television was. In the BEginning of that Journey.

There are days when I am struck by all I DO and realising that I didn’t even make an effort to DO all that I did. I truly used to BElieve I didn’t have enough time.

Enough. Ahhhhhhh… my word for 2013.

When I am NOT looking down at the pedals, when I am just sailing along, riding and pedaling for all I’m worth, Life is pretty darned remarkable. It is full and JOYous and so very Enough.

I may grumble some but really…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 October 2013

BEing blissful is NOT an easy task. It takes intention and it takes effort. And NOT just once and for always… I’ve done a study of sorts this month. I have learned a LOT about how to BE happy, to find bliss, to stay the course, AND to live Right Now in This Moment.

That is, I BElieve, the key for me to a happy Life. Living Right Now in This Moment. In today. It is so easy to BElieve that it’s “more important” to delay happiness [oh, and NOT gratification, HAVING is something I don’t require to BE happy in my Life Right Now, Today] and to save for a time on BEyond Here or Now.

I have so missed writing and sharing with you all. I have missed reading your sharing. I have missed BEing part of the flow of Gratitude and love and BEautimous Encouragement.

AND…

I have been Present. I have been in the World and around people. Sometimes a LOT of people. And sometimes DOing Too Much “outing and abouting” for me. I have moved BEyond my usual ways of eating, I have been driving, a little bit, and sometimes I have gone days without creating a thing, really…

And this is all really surprisingly okay.

It’s still Right Now.

I’m still ME.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 October 2013

It’s a new thing for me, finding the good things. Seeing BEyond the surfaces and what is immediately clear. And yet it seems that I have been DOing this forever and always. It is that natural. That immediate…

I have missed writing, and even though I am writing this for the 3^rd day in a row, I still don’t know the way that is simplest to post it and email it from the Chromebook. And I have no hurry hurry rush rush to figure out HOW. I am content to wait until I have Internet here at the Wee Casa on the Desert. It will only BE another day or two.

I’ve never spent so long “unplugged” since I BEcame “plugged” in. Yet I find it refreshing and enLIGHTening to BE as I AM again, today. And for tomorrow, too, should this continue on. This is a JOY to know about myself.

Practises and Habits are good things, too. There is a sweetness about waking early, in the dark of the early morning, and writing as though what I am thinkingandfeeling is worthy of recording. And then of sharing.

Yet there is also sweetness in some time away, apart, and unaccounted for. I like that I CAN and DO see this so clearly.

Even if just for today…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 October 2013

Worry is the misuse of imagination. I am NOT sure who said this. I have it on a coaster I haven’t unpacked yet. I think it so often Now it is almost a mantra. BUT… this was NOT always the case. And Now & Again I still fall face-first into worry. So BE it, eh?!

I used to BE a first-class worrying dervish. I could worry a good time into a little slice of  poo-pie in a blink. I was known as “Worry-Currie” and did NOT feel like that was a “bad” thing…

I wanted to post my Gratitude from yesterday’s first writing this month, but when I opened up the little Chromebook at my mum’s, I forgot I could best DO that by posting directly onto my I Love You, Currie blog and THEN sending the link via email.

I didn’t remember, I didn’t try. I just Let Go. I enJOYed the hours spent at Mum’s. Watched a bit of CBS Sunday Morning she’d DVR’d, peeked at football, and deLIGHTed in a Sunday meal that was truly a taste treat.

I got home by 6, BEfore “dark,” and in bed early enough to read awhile BEfore turning the light off. Such a simple day. So easy. Fun. And awake at 4:30-ish. I’m adapting. I’m home Now. Here…

I love you, Currie

Currie's BElated Gratitude 20 October 2013

I suppose they DO…

As a matter of fact, I KNOW they DO. And I know this BEcause the GOOD of my Life in the Wee Cottage, and living at the beach, is still with and within me, here, a few thousand miles away, in the desert…

Oh how I have missed my mornings. Writing. Sharing. Sitting with you all over a cup of tea and the sunrise. BEing connected even to people I mightn’t ever know in person yet have come to love so dearly here. Inside the World my lappie is. Has been…

I don’t have internet access yet, in the Wee Casa on the Desert. I DO have it at my mum’s, and that is where I shall take this and post it later this morning. Or early afternoon… I have gone on a bit of a different timetable here. But it’s rolling back round. Little by slowly. And soon I shall have the ability to send this off straightaway to you…

It has been a long and wondrous 3 weeks. I didn’t expect to take such a sabbatical, and Now that I have, well, let me say that technology fasting is one of my new favourite things!!! Who’d’ve thunk that could happen?!

I have much to share. And I will. I surely missed you.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 October 2013

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.
~ Fran Lebowitz

It feels like it has been such a long long time I have been away from this space. This early morning time. This knowing that whatever I am writing about today is going to BE shared and read and enJOYed, I hope, by more than just me.

I’ve missed this time. I have missed each and every one of YOU. Even YOU whom I DO NOT know by sight, whose voice I’ve never heard…

I have spent the past month waiting. BEing. Living in the Present and NOT DOing much reflecting or even imagining. I have been amazed at my capacity to wait. To trust the process. To lean into what has been without needing it to BE different so as to suit me.

I am Home. In the Wee Casa. And I am utterly awed and undone by the wonder that awaited me here. So many things to marvel at, I wouldn’t know where to BEgin.

Perhaps most especially I am filled so full with Gratitude at my capacity to enJOY disruption, Change, and both living with and without what I BElieve essential.

I never imagined myself to BE this person I have come to know the past 30 days…

Nope. Never.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 October 2013

Some days are like that, Mom. [Timmy Duncombe, age 5, 1983]

I'm really enJOYing this wee break from technology... It is awkward, at best, to figure out HOW to make writing my Gratitude anything DO-able, so I just DO what I CAN when I CAN. Today, BEing my Timmy's 35th birthday, I thought I'd make the effort to write and make a bit of Timmy Day art. 

Gracie and I are still camping out in a friend's apartment here in the land of the "Q-tips" [people pretty much over 75] and keeping a low profile. It's nice, really, to break with my usual ways of BEing and DOing for a time. 

Without any internet access in our little apartment, whatever I DO DO is done here at Mum's, and frankly I'd rather enJOY face-time with her than navigate this deLIGHTfull little Chromebook and its peculiarities.

I am grateful for my simpler ways of BEing and the lower maintenance that I require Now. I just let things BE and roll with them. Staying in this one day is the single best thing I practise each and every day. Well, that and Gracie adventures.

I'll pop back as I can and make my way, too, through my Gmail inbox. I am unaccustomed to using Gmail in Gmail, so every day is a new learning curve. 

But DO remember, always and no matter how quiet for how long I am...

I love you, Currie              

Currie's Gratitude 3 October 2013

That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.    [Steve Jobs]

I am enJOYing a good laugh this morning… I have never made such a simple move and never felt so content to just BE where I AM and NOT BE how I customarily AM.

I have sort of gone off My Way of BEing Me, and instead of feeling out of synch and that sense that I am missing something, I feel energised and curious about what the moments reveal.

Awhile back, when I decided to come back to Arizona, I envisioned going to sleep in the Wee Cottage and waking up in AZ. I know it sounded silly to others, but it made sense to me. It was the simplest way for me to SEE this move happen.

Little bit by slow bit, I reduced my “footprint” to manageable for moving. Nothing that is NOT essential is on its way here.  Gracie and I flew Very Light and I am LOVING the simplicity of just Enough…

I DO miss writing and so I am coming back to it Today…

I love you, Currie