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