Life is like...

Life is kind of like editing a photo:

- focus on the parts you want to keep
- discard what doesn't beautify your overall picture
- crop with care
- take a little time to clean-up the rough edges

Who's Steering This Ship?

So, I haven't posted in a while. (Errmm... depending on your point of view, that could be a good thing or a bad thing.) It's mainly been about life steering me, rather than me steering it. You know, when life just keeps you busy and you feel like that lyric in John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy":

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans..."

I hate that feeling of being steered, rather than me doing the steering. (Umm...control freak?) 
I suspect that it's a feeling at least some others also share. It's part of the nature of living in this "modern" world, having a family, making ends meet, and choosing to homeschool. It's also part of living in a nation being "led" by people with little to no moral fiber. Zilch in the heart department. I literally had about 20 minutes last night where I could not stop my racing mind from scrolling through all that's going on and all that I have to do. We all have so much going on, so much that we care about, and--if you're at all like us--so much that we're worried about on a daily basis, and have been for the last 9+ months. It's an ever-increasing sinking feeling and persistent worry of what kind of world are our children going to have to survive in? Ugh. I've had to take a facebook hiatus because I...I just can't process all the daily unnerving news stories, the endless debates between Trumpers and, you know, rational people; and those folks who insist on posting every single random thought they have about everything from their nightly dinner plate to their annoyance at "political posts". 
I just can't be out there on the face-space right now and be a fairly happy person. 

Instead, I'm choosing to focus (mainly) on stuff that does help me feel happy: my wonderful family, Halloween, the chilly air that's finally arrived to our area, making "mummy dogs" with our kids, snuggling and watching the Halloween Baking Championship, making my hubby's favorite chili, having family over for a football game and chili and game-playing. 
Focus on the good. 

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

Our love of country and national identity must extend deeper than the symbols of the flag and anthem, than the politics of left and right, or "what church do you attend?" or socio-economic status. Our national heart and soul and all that we treasure most as Americans must genuinely be about freedom and equality for all who reside in our borders. We must be truly accepting of our beautiful diversity of cultures, lifestyles, and perspectives--especially when we disagree. We must be about caring and helping our fellow humans, regardless of how they arrived at their circumstances. Any less renders songs and flags and platitudes rather hollow.

Here's the thing: the U.S. Constitution (under the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights) guarantees each of us the right to decide if we stand or kneel. It does not give us the right to dictate to others whether they "must" or "should" stand or kneel. If we don't recognize that, if we don't protect that right for all perspectives--especially the ones with which we disagree--then our nation has much bigger problems than how people treat a song or a piece of fabric. Those items are lovely things, but they are symbols of the true beauty of America--the freedom and equality that are supposed to be afforded to everyone, no matter their gender, skin color, religion, politics, gender-identification, socio-economic status, ethnic origins, sexual-orientation, or geographic location. And sadly, in 2017, not everyone has complete freedom and equality--this is what the players are very successfully bringing attention to; and the fact that they have us all talking about it proves that their protest is meaningful. It's up to all of us to carry the ball from there. 

The protests have again brought to the forefront the fact that not everyone here is truly free...not when certain skin colors are systemically profiled, punished more harshly, and generally persecuted. Not when some genders, identities, and lifestyles are treated as second class. This bigotry is ingrained in our society. We must decide to care more about liberty for all people than what boxes people fit into. It's a tough, ugly national conversation, but it is one we must keep having and working through until we are truly the "land of the free".

Silence Is Not An Option

Bigoted, deceitful, sinister predators achieve positions of power by playing on people's basest instincts and worst fears, using fear and the associated anger to divide people.
I don't want to play into that agenda. We are all human--so much more alike than different. At the same time, racism, bigotry, misogyny, and hatred must not be allowed to stand. Ever. So, remaining silent is not an option. And having to explain to my children that this kind hatred exists...What. The. Hell. They "hate" bedtime, you know? They have nothing in their hearts or in their lives to even begin to compare to this level of utter malevolence. And yet, there it is, threaded into the fabric of the nation in which we live. This has to be a line in the sand, or we allow our nation to become what Trump and his gang value--which has nothing to do with love, kindness, or equality. His actions/inactions should be unacceptable to every single human being who values love and respect, freedom and equality for all.
And yet, there are people who *still* support Trump. Just how much are their stocks and commodities and Supreme Court justices and Confederate landmarks and dreams of unregulated gun ownership worth?
Other people's rights?
Other people's freedoms?
Other people's lives?
What does it take for his supporters (for who he cares nothing) to draw their own line in the sand and refuse to stand with him? You'd think they'd at least draw that line out of self preservation....because, eventually, Trump and his gang of bigots will run out of "others" to condemn and will starting turning on their own flock. That's what bigoted, deceitful, sinister predators do.

Live & Let Live

In my profile, I share that I am a "believer in Love, Family, Nature, Equality, Peace, Kindness, Diversity, and Lifelong Learning". That list is the gist of what I feel in my heart is universally true and right in this experience we call life. No doubt there are those who'd read my profile and think there's something missing from her list of what she believes in or I'm sure her belief in God or Jesus is meant to be assumed. Meh. Not so much. I am genuinely happy for those who find joy, strength, comfort, peace, and whatever else they need through believing in a god or Jesus or in attending a church. Truly. I'm happy for anyone who genuinely experiences all of those. The truth is that worshiping a god or Jesus or attending a church does absolutely none of that for me.

"Oh, you must have had a bad experience at a church..." has been uttered more than once by well-meaning folks who just don't want to accept that I don't believe as they do. No, my disassociation with religion (organized or otherwise) is not merely about having a "bad experience" at a church. I grew up going to church on occasion--those experiences provided nothing more than lessons in how to taking mental vacations and other means of quietly entertaining myself for around an hour.
I've read the Bible--that overly wordy, poorly written, edited and reedited repeatedly over history, grossly contradictory of itself, largely misogynistic book; and it provided me no golden light of belief. No Ah ha! moments. Nada.
I attended nearly a decade of Catechism classes--truth be told though, I was the kid who was regularly getting into trouble in class because--brace yourself--I asked questions. Lots of questions. And when I didn't agree with the answers, I'd press for more meaningful answers. And when there were no meaningful answers (which was usually the case), I'd expect to have the line of reasoning behind those answers explained. And it turns out that those folks were not into providing such reasonings. "Just believe it because you're supposed to!" Ugh. I'm not so good just following something or someone because you're supposed to. It was about a decade ago when I finally admitted to myself that this whole religion & god thing wasn't doing it for me. Since that moment 10 years ago, I've regularly given great thought to what does bring me joy, strength, comfort, and peace... ... ...Ta da! Hence the list in my profile.

What perplexes me about those who want to explain someone like me away with "Oh, you must have had a bad experience at a church..." is that anyone who has talked with me on the subject at any length has certainly heard my reasoning for no longer believing in all that jazz. It's about so much more than having had a bad experience.... it's about religion and dogma and all their trappings making zero sense to my questioning mind. It's about no longer being able to subscribe to a belief system that actively discriminates to varying degrees, depending upon the denomination. It's finding it ludicrous to look up to some magical dude who supposedly has some grand plan that we humans are too moronic to understand. And when those "plans" by this supposedly all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving being involve violence, illness, suffering, and (depending upon the denomination) vengeance... well, hell no. I want no part of any such plan, thanks. I happen to think that we humans are more capable and more connected to each other than religion would have us believe. My rejection of church and religion and all its trappings is about realizing that we humans are so much more alike than different, and we need to look to each other for comfort, help, joy, strength. Instead of looking up for someone to solve our problems, let's look to each other. In looking to each other, we can find a little common ground. We can learn to live and let live.

Love > Fear

So, there is a video circulating on facebook (for the second time now) of a supposed U.S. Marine stationed in the Middle East. He speaks in favor of Trump's Muslim ban, based on what he purports to have experienced. What troubles me about this video is that he is painting all Muslims and Middle Easterners with the same brush, based on interactions he claims to have had with those who live in the country where he is stationed. Yep, he proclaims that we should ban all Muslims/Middle Easterners because of one or two conversations he's had with some men in the nearby village. This is unfortunate. 

Would it be fair to view all Christians through the lens of the Crusades or the Inquisition or the Witch Hunts or the Catholic Church protecting pedophiles or the Christian white supremacists in the U.S. who've committed violence via stabbings, bombings, and mass shootings? No. I am quite confident that Christians would be immensely offended and cry foul and scream about yet more oppression against them if they were all painted with the same brush as those who committed abhorrent acts in the name of "Christianity".

I do not and will not subscribe to painting everyone with the same brush based on the actions of a few. Such thinking is solely based on fear. We humans are better than that.

Resentment Is Like Drinking Poison...

This is a brilliant analogy. For supposedly being the most evolved and self-aware creatures on the planet, we humans can be fragile, ego-driven beings who work so hard at trying to fool people around us...maybe we even think we can fool ourselves. (We can't.) But holding on to resentment never, ever ends well.

Sure, we all temporarily harbor a little resentment or anger from time to time. (Hey, we're human!) But to make an occupation of it--that takes enormous compartmentalizing, the memory of an elephant, and a serious lack of hobbies. Worst of all, it damages relationships; and, ultimately, it erodes the spirit of the grudge-holder, in the way a choppy surf erodes a shoreline.

I was recently visited by the resentment of someone in my life. It reared it's ugly head in a gift shop, of all places. One passing question from the clerk solicited a rare, honest comment from this person. From that instant, this person couldn't recover from the fact that they had actually made a genuine statement about their resentment towards me. So, very unfortunately, the remainder of our day together was peppered with this person alternately trying to smooth-over their original comment and, yet, also (once again) air their almost two-decades-old grievance.

I have empathy for the fact that deep down inside their heart, this resentment comes from hurt. I don't wish for anyone to be hurting. At the same time, geez--way past time to unpack that toxic baggage! This person's inability to see past this one event has always hindered our relationship. One choice decided my place in this person's mind and heart--that has not and will not ever change. I know this because I've tried. And tried. And tried. It took me a good 10 years to realize that nothing I ever subsequently did or said would ever make up for my supposed misstep of 17 years ago. I finally gave up futilely trying to convince this person to put down the poison bottle. I "let it go" (to quote another strong female character) because I won't allow my spirit to be poisoned by another's darkness. Do not ever allow someone's negativity to erode your spirit! 

I am sad for this person because they'll keep drinking from that ol' poison bottle, hoping that I'll be the one who's damaged. And in their pain and resentment they have and will continue to miss out on many potentially beautiful moments.

From BridgieBean, With Love...

This post has been percolating in my mind for a while now. After reading about the tragedies of this past weekend in New Jersey, New York, and Minnesota, and the danger of a collapsed ceasefire in Syria, today seemed like a good day to post it. Sending love, strength, and peace to those places and people, and to anywhere and anyone else in the world that needs it...

Times like these that we've recently experienced are scary. It seems like not a day goes by without hearing of a new incident of violence in some corner of our world. Some days, that corner of the world is right in our own neighborhood, so to speak. And almost every time, the initial shock and devastation gives way to waves of antagonistic bluster and finger-pointing. Guns, religion, skin color, politics, nationality, gender, economics, privilege, racism--all are batted about in a grotesque ping-pong game of endless blame and recrimination. Except in this game, there are no winners, only an increasingly divided society, where fear, misunderstanding, and hate are perpetuated. Differences are accentuated and divides are widened. It occurs to me that for a nation that claims to pride itself on celebrating diversity, individuality, and chutzpah, our society more often fears and loathes those qualities and anyone who exemplifies them...anyone who represents something different than some homogenized vision we have of ourselves. We have to moved past this mentality that is neither kind nor constructive.

During these trying times, some people have the audacity to talk about peace and love. (I like to think that I fall into this group.) 
Give peace a chance. 
          Love is all we need. 
                    We are One. We are Love.
Seems harmless enough, right? Though, somehow, even peace-mongers and love-enthusiasts come under attack in the blame game, with accusation hurled at them like You're living in a fairy tale land if you think that matters! or Peace and love are not how the real world works! These are actual statements people have made to me when I've spoken or written about peace and love being the answer to what ails humanity. It saddens me that there are folks who are so accepting of and drowning in negativity that they no longer see that love does conquer all, if we let it. But in that disappointment, there is still hope that our overall societal approach to problem solving can change for the better.

I was once someone more prone to bluster. I grew up exposed to the Rambo-esque action movies of the 80's and 90's where the "heroes" used tough talk--and often brute shows of force--to argue their points and save the day. Real life rarely resembles the movies. Such "cowboy diplomacy" does not save the day. If anything, it makes hostilities more intense and widens the rift between those with opposing view points. Such rifts are so difficult to mend. I've seen this both in my own life and in watching the events of our world. While I hope that I have and continue to learn to approach problems in my life with a gentler touch, I don't see the world at large learning that lesson. Violence keeps happening. Perpetrators do so expecting to affect some major paradigm shift--but it isn't working. Leaders' responses (usually involving "thoughts and prayers") are always the same, but the violence that plagues us goes unchanged. Perhaps worsening. What's that adage about doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result?

There was this great scene in the most recent season of Doctor Who where the title character talked about exactly this. He pleaded that the two sides in their predicament sit and genuinely listen to each other. Imagine if we humans found a way to truly do that... I think we'd see that we have similar hopes, fears, joys, struggles, and dreams. I think we'd learn about each other and begin to understand that we're so similar. Realizing that would make that cowboy diplomacy, that us-against-them mentality virtually obsolete. If we'd all wake-up from the meaningless drivel that divides us, we'd realize that we can decide how the world works. We are all us. We are all them. We are ONE. And we'd find that we want nothing for ourselves but peace and love. 

☮ ღ ☺

They Say It's Your Birthdays...

We've spent the last couple of weeks preparing for and celebrating birthdays. Our kids' birthdays and the 21st birthday of their uncle, my youngest brother. It's been busy and fun and lots of blissful family togetherness. This realization hit me the other day: our youngest child is now the age that my youngest brother and third youngest brother were when my hubby and I married. Mind. Blown.

Time flies. Rattles, teething toys and picture books (for which we snuggle to read together) give way to action figures, dolls, and chapter books (which they'll read more independently). Some of those fun preoccupations will eventually succumb to music that I may or may not be with-it enough to listen to and make-up and (dare I say it?) first cars and jobs. I try to live in the moment, to be ecstatic and present in where we are right now. But I know that day is coming. I know it will be here in the blink of an eye, because it seems like just a blink since my youngest brothers were the ages our children are now.

While I do sometimes miss the younger versions of our kids, I revel in who our beloved Bebes are and who they are becoming. They are loving and kind, smart and funny, observant and imaginative. I am consistently aware, with every atom that is me, that the greatest gifts of my life are these two, stunning little people. How wondrous that I get to share in their journey... and that I have the humbling privilege of them calling me "Mom".

Some Have Gone And Some Remain...

I started writing this in June. The middle of June to be exact. After an hour of furiously writing, I set it down, not to return to it until June had departed. Now that June is safely behind us for this year, I can share... Admittedly, I have a difficult relationship with our sixth month. The month of the summer solstice. The month of my wedding anniversary and the birthdays of several loved-ones. It's also a month of achy memories for me, for our family. So, a general melancholy forms around me once we get a few days in.

June once revolved solely around the end of the school year, the start of summer, sunshiny days spent vacationing and frolicking in the swimming pool or ocean. Bright, sparkly, gleeful, and carefree. A little over 16 years ago, when my then-fiance/now hubby's only wedding prep request was that we marry on June 1st, I was glad to add one of the most important events of my life to the revelry of June. So we married on that rainy June day in the mountains of Tennessee--the showers totally and completely brightened by the warm blanket of love and family in which we celebrated. June continued to be delightful, sunny perfection.

The first dent in that shiny month came six years later, when we suffered our third miscarriage. It happened around the middle of the month. The rest of that June, and that summer, was cloudy for me, as I quietly grieved and inwardly raged at the Universe. Trying to make sense of it all, I began reading about Buddhism and cosmic interconnectedness. I tried my hand at mediating. I eventually started back at school for another year of teaching Kindergarten. I thought often about the lyrics We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun... The sun eventually shined for me again.

Three years later, the happiness of June would take another hit, as our beloved Gramps entered the hospital. He rallied initially, but soon declined beyond the possibility of recovery. I remember feeling gutted by how vulnerable he seemed laying in that hospital bed. Looking at my own one-year old son, I couldn't help but think about how Gramps was once someone's precious baby boy. He slipped away around the middle of June, and with him went a certain glowiness that never fully returned. Three years after mourning our Gramps over the strains of Oh, Danny Boy and honorary shots of Heineken (his favorite), our family endured another crushing loss.

Our golden-haired and golden-hearted Rosie. The best of us. Our most heartbreaking loss. Our youngest sister fought as courageously as any warrior in any battle. For six long months, she and our mom and brothers lived in the hospital and waged war (and were winning!) against two new lungs that were shirking their duty. Until--once again, around the middle of June--an inexplicable turn ripped her from us, from her family and her fiance...from her hopes and dreams for a second chance at life. A part of my heart will always rage at the Universe for the cruelty of her loss. I now understand that saying about life not being fair.

This June we all saw the month tainted by the horrific hatred carried out in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Jordan, Somalia, Turkey, and, of course, Orlando. Devastating. Potentially defining for us as a human race. I've watched the aftermath unfold and see so clearly that the cultivated fear and loathing in our world cannot--must not go on. We are all connected, like the water of a pond--what happens to some of us ripples out to the rest of us. All the superficial differences that we humans fight over don't really matter. We are so much more alike than different. Love, Respect, and Kindness must prevail. When will we finally see that?

So much sorrow amid June's sunshine. I can't reconcile it yet. And while I don't and won't wish the grains of time within the month away, it is generally no longer a month of carefree sparkliness for me. Maybe this will change with the coming years. Maybe it won't. I don't know. I only know that I try to take June one day at a time. I strive to focus as much as I can on the joyful moments spent with my hubby, bebes, family, friends--all my dear ones...feeling grateful for my love and best friend, our years together and the family we've built...celebrating the birthdays and other special days of our loved-ones...sitting on my parents' back porch as we talk and watch the sunset...teaching our kids to swim in the local pool...enjoying the longer daylight hours and their light streaming through our windows...squeezing in a "family show" before our bedtime ritual because "it's too light out to sleep, Mom!"...celebrating our Rosie's birthday with random kindnesses... cherishing the memories and love shared with those who have gone and those who remain.

Fab Friday Photo

"Look, Mom--I can put on my sneakers all by myself!"