Riding into Cripple Creek

First of all, thank you, thank you to all our active duty military (my son included) and those who have served (my husband and my father included).  You protect and have protected the freedoms we enjoy every day.

Yesterday I rode with my husband and our neighbor, Jim, who served in the USNavy in Vietnam, and thousands of others in a Veteran’s Ride from Woodland Park to Cripple Creek, Colorado. 

What an experience!  It was about a 20 mile run, starting at 10:30.

Me, Skip and Jim

There were thousands of other bikers and it was a beautiful day.  We were all there to pay tribute to those who have served our country, and those who are still missing in action and/or prisoners of war.

Just starting out

 We were cheered on at the start, able to run through all intersections as police and military stopped traffic along the route.  I was thinking it must be something to see from the air – miles of bikes.  I mean they were as far as I could see in front of us and as far as I could see behind us.

Almost there

We had a great time.  As a mother whose son is about to deploy to Afghanistan it was very moving.  Once we got there, it was awesome to ride under an American flag that was hanging over the street, suspended from two extended ladders of two fire trucks. 

Now that's a flag!

We parked, walked around, ate lunch, shopped, sat in the shade and enjoyed ice cream, looked at all the bikes, cried (I did a couple times during a poignant tribute), and then rode back home by ourselves. 

I’d never done something like that and it was an unforgetable experience. 

So many bikes and so much leather!!

 I’ve also never done something so brave as to leave my home and fight for my country or work to defend my country in a foreign land.  

So thank you to my husband, my son and my father for your service and courage. 

You are heroes!

A spot in the sun

I started the summer with my oldest daughter’s wedding (simple and beautiful).

A couple weeks later I had surgery, which was followed by an unexpected lengthy recovery.  I relished mornings at this little green bistro set on one of our patios.  The sunshine and morning breezes were therapeutic.

We, and when I say we, I mostly mean my husband, moved our office to our home.  That took about a month to complete and I struggled with not being able to help.  He struggled with keeping his back in alignment.

Children and parents visited in July.  Our son, Matthew,  is leaving for Afghanistan later this month so everyone wanted to hug him and laugh with him and relax in simple summertime pleasures.  

Can you guess which one is the airman deploying?

So now it’s August and I’m up and around again.  We’re settled in our house again.  Kids and parents are back home again – home to North Carolina, California, Arizona, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  I love to have them and I hate to have them go.

Having them go…. that reminds me of one other significant thing that happened this summer.  My son Jeff’s sweet dog, Ursa, died.  He was devastated.  We had a good conversation about death though and how it’s one of the risks in loving someone – that one day they can be gone.   Jeff said, “If they didn’t bring so much joy, you wouldn’t miss them so much when they’re gone.”  He’s right.  Is it worth the risk?  I vote, and he votes, yes.

Because love? Love is at the very center of our being.  It’s all that matters in the end and what matters on the journey.

So summer vacation is winding down.  It hasn’t been a vacation here – more of a staycation.   Highs and lows with not much in between.  

And me? I’m glad to be back.

We’re fortunate enough to own a beautiful motorhome, really like a hotel on wheels.  Our food is simple.  Our floor space is just enough. Our clothing is just what we need.

At night we cook on a campfire under stars and a moon that shines partially behind pine trees.  We’ve hiked to lakes and abaondoned cabins, lookouts and loops. 

We wonder how different any of us would seem to someone living 150 years ago, living so far, as we do, from nature.  What would someone from 150 years ago (1860 – so beginning of the Civil War time here in the States) think of us?  Cell phones and internet and television and cars and bluetooth in cars and texting and often not knowing, really, where our food comes from.   We eat foods from places they wouldn’t have had access to so they’d be unknown. 

We decided, my wise husband and I, that we’d be practically a different species to them.  We have the same hearts beating, we love, we fear, we hope, we cry, etc., so okay, we’d not be so different, but our lifestyle would be beyond what they could fathom.

I’ve also been able to be remotivated about my writing, did some beading, would have cross-stitched but I forgot a needle (it’s the little things), read, puddle-jumping between 4 books; Travels, The Soul of a Chef, The Next 100 Years, and Rumi.  It’s been a delight.

I’ve had deep, long conversations with my husband at night.  We’ve talked about our plans and goals and analyzed our 8 children and pondered the real reasons we desire wealth (has a lot to do with those 8 children).

We took a walk under a full moon one night. 

You start to settle and slow into the rhythm of the mountains and nature after a day or two and wonder why you don’t do it more often.  There is energy and inspiration floating everywhere out here.  There is quiet.  There is peace.  There is spirit.

When I meditate my ideal situations in life – a week like this is one of them.  

I’m so grateful.

Dust it off

The Sight of a Soul

One of the marvels of the world

is the sight of a soul sitting in prison

with the key in its hand.

Covered with dust,

with a cleansing waterfall an inch away.

A young man rolls from side to side,

though the bed is comfortable

and a pillow holds his head.

If a prisoner had not lived outside,

she would not detest the dungeon.

Desiring knows there is a satisfaction

beyond this.  Straying maps the path.

A secret freedom opens

through a crevice you can barely see.

The awareness a wine drinker wants

cannot be tasted in wine, but that failure

brings his deep thirst closer.

                                 -Rumi

I read this poem a month or so ago and realized, on a very bad morning, that i was like that prisoner who held the freedom I desired in my hands. 

Eating the right things?  I hold the key.

Not eating the wrong things?  I have the key.

Choosing good thoughts?  I posses that key.

Peace?  Feeling good?  Perceiving the best?  Letting go?

I have the key. 

A cleansing waterfall is only inches from any of us. Sit quityly and be honest with yourself and you’ll discover again that the keys are in your hand, or hanging close by, waiting for you to unlock the chains that hold you in whatever form they exist in your life.

I wish you the vision of your  freedom.

I guarantee you hold the key and awareness is inches away.

Blossoms popping on the apricot trees

April, The Angel of Months.

                      – Vita Sackville-West

I don’t know who Vita is, but I agree with the sentiment.

Easter will be here in 3 days and my parents and my kids will be here in 2.  Can’t wait. 

Pastel Easter baking

It’s time to bake something with lemon and sprinkles and coconut.  Time to pick up the Easter ham and hard boil eggs and drizzle the asparagus with hollandaise.  It’s even still time to hide easter eggs.

Time to fill the vases around the house with tulips! 

pinks and purples, whites and yellow

Nesting in the trees.

In the trees by home

Stephen King, of all people, wrote,

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends.  In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well.”

We are supposed to be selfless, let go of our ego, seek inspiration from an ethereal source (god, God, Spirit, a muse, an angel) and then trust that source enough to put what we have to say out there for others’ benefit.  I like this.  It takes any fear or insecurity about what I might have to write that’s of benefit to anyone, off my shoulders.  It’s freeing.

But then – there’s this quote,

“We could get what we want if we had the confidence to imagine reaching our goals.  As the medical profession has found out in the last few years, high achievers who trust their skills are happier, healthier, and less likely to have a heart attack than people who worry all the time about whether they can deliver the goods.”

Uh-oh – bring the ego back into the equation.  Have confidence in yourself. You can get what you want if you trust you can deliver the goods?  So, think about what it is you want?  Do you want to be a writer, or do you want to write?   It’s okay to want the former, but you have to enjoy the latter.  To me the advice stretches across an unreachable chasm of dichotomy. 

Stay close to your creative source.  Observe the world. Notice places and people around you.  Write things down.  This is natural to a writer. 

Some days are flat and you feel like you’re only achieving crap – but at least you’re achieving.  But the crap days are worth working through if only to float through the days when you’ve got a firm grip on the trolley strap.  On those days - writing is magic.

You’ve heard the old adage to not ask for help unless you’re willing to move your own feet.  It’s true.  Except in a writer’s world, your feet can keep still, because it’s your hand that has to keep moving your pen across the page or your fingers that have to keep producing at the keyboard.  

Keep at it. Get it down.

So keep at it.  Believe in yourself – because in the end – that IS your source.  

Every day is your moment and the moment, even as it is happening, is becoming history…..(I heard this remark from Usher).  

You see, I pay attention.  I’ve  learned not to constrict the parameters of where  inspiration will most likely come from, and I’m so often pleasantly surprised at where and from whom wisdom lights on my shoulders as a gift to carry with me.

A Pink Place to eat

Doesn’t this look like a fun place to eat?  It’s fitting that the door is open. I recently painted 3 walls in a room at our house soft pink and have had the unexpected pleasant surprise – that’s serendipity by definition – that it’s a very soothing color in which to take an afternoon nap.  

 You’ll have to either believe me or paint some walls this color and try it.  It’s ineffable.   I felt like a very fortuitous cat basking there in soft pink sunlight and so will you if you get to painting and find a moment to nap.

But, alas, I didn’t visit a pink place for lunch today.  I went to Jimmy John’s and selected a great tuna fish sandwich. 

Tuna on Sourdough - #15

While I was sitting, waiting for the sandwich to be made to go – I saw the following quote and had to write it down:

Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey Theory holds true

Do you go for the big outstanding amazing experience or would you just like a little slice of pie, please?

It was a slow Monday yesterday in the office so my husband, business partner, and love of my life (he wears so many hats) and I wandered over to the local theater to see Avatar. 

The Oscars were handed out the night before and (thank God) James Cameron did NOT win for best director, nor did the movie win best picture.  

But that love fest aside, and I really did put my ‘tude about Mr. Cameron aside to watch it, I still give it a big thumbs down.  It was just the same ole, same ole story to me, and all the bugs and creatures and waterfalls and high branch tree walking gave me the creeps.

Skip gave it a thumbs up. 

It’s interesting to me how different venues entertain and enlighten each of us. 

I wrote a piece once in college about a Halloween night when a young mother had an evening class at the University she needed to attend, so her husband took their 3 little kids trick or treating and when she came home late, she pulled their baby boy from where he was sleeping in his crib and breastfed him, sitting in the dark room where the tree branch shadows moved around the moonlit room, enjoying the baby’s warmth and tickling little fingers against her breasts as he emptied their fullness.   

The professor thought the paper stood out enough that he chose to read it to the class and defended it when a couple male students in the room couldn’t wrap their heads around it.

“What was it about?”  they asked.

“Nothing happened,” they complained.

Years later and apparently I’m the same creature.  I enjoyed discovering a new market in town we stopped at after the movie more than the movie. 

The colors of the fresh, organic produce in this place were a delight and I couldn’t help  myself from turning down the aisles, one after the other and skirting the perimeter to take it all in.  Food and freshness and this can become that…….

Beautiful colors and textures!

I’m not a science fiction type.  I couldn’t be more earthy and homey. Give me a little story.  I want to know about people.  One on one really.  Family.  Lovers.  Relationships.  Marriage.  Sisters.  Children.  

An epic is okay.  I’ll sit through it.   Special effects?  Honestly?  A yawn for me.   But a kitchen decorated tastefully?  Beautiful wood floors and a garden in back?  I’m all over it.  My feet tingle.

And this got me thinking – try to stay with me here – that there are all kinds of categories on Jeopardy.   And yes, I jump from colorful produce to Jeopardy as effortlessly as Jake pranced around on those vine covered tree limbs. 

But, back to those Jeopardy categories…

There’s Poetry as well as Politics.   Geology as well as Food.  Literature as well as Sports.   Ballet as well as TV sitcoms.  Some contestants make a clean sweep of a column intuitively while others stand there openmouthed with their buzzer dangling.  Yet, they come alive on another. 

Is one category of knowledge more important or worthy than another? 

No my little Einsteins! 

Go for what, and pursue what, and be okay with what you prefer.  It’s saying something to you.  Work with it.  Embrace it. 

And try not to look down your intellectual or aesthetic nose at what you don’t enjoy as much.

How can you NOT be in the moment?

I had a fantastic lunch this last week at a little place in Littleton called Tres Jolie.  I was by myself, which itself made it kind of a meditation.  It was a little coffee shop and confectionary store.  There were glass pedastals of candies and baked treats, chocolate and lemon and rum raisin goodies.  I had a glass of ice water with a tomatoe and mozzarella with pesto croissant, then indulged in a little cappucinno and a cupcake.  I sat in an overstuffed chair at an aged blue metal table on a warm February day with sunlight warming me through the big glass window.  It was so invigorating and renewing.  

It’s not that lunch solves everything, but it goes a long way. 

Since there are many ways of meditating, you know, sitting meditation, zen meditation, walking meditation, mirror meditation, that meditation that’s kind of creepy and at the same time funny to me – the kind where you concentrate on a sacred word in a centering prayer and hum it , why not try a chocolate meditation?   

I was definitely in the moment  and was renewed and strengthened by that treat at Tres Jolie.  There are many paths to the present moment and this one was delicious. 

Joan Borysenko said her “all time favorite meditation is a small, moist piece of chocolate cake eaten with exquisite attention and tremendous gratitude.  Any time we are fully present in the moment we are meditating.”

That’s all.  Merely consider it.