Love is…

This is one of the best definitions of love that I’ve ever read. It’s from one of the books in this series Through Wolf’s Eyes. One of the later ones, though I’m not sure which one now.  It is a good series. I recommend it.

Friday Falafel* Five

Here is this week’s offering of great posts that I’ve read. I hope you’ll click through and give them a read or a look.

ADD and Autism

 

http://momnos.blogspot.com/2013/04/our-kind-of-autism-awareness.html (autism awareness)

http://www.diycouturier.com/post/47249603128/21-tips-to-keep-your-shit-together-when-youre (depression)

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/04/its-different-girls-adhd/63746/ (ADHD in girls)

 

Kindness and Love

 

http://www.kindovermatter.com/2013/04/through-lens-of-kindness.html (kind photography)

http://mad.ly/68e5a3 (you deserve love)

http://www.kindovermatter.com/2013/04/only-connect.html (making connections is what it’s all about)

 

Creativity

http://99u.com/articles/14599/the-5-most-dangerous-creativity-killers (make a change, if necessary)

 

Equality, Freedom and Poverty

 

http://www.upworthy.com/history-may-not-remember-this-speech-but-i-guarantee-that-you-will?c=ufb1 (equal rights in marriage (video))

http://www.upworthy.com/its-hard-enough-convincing-some-women-they-need-feminism-so-when-a-dude-gets-it?c=ufb1 (equal rights in gender)

http://billmoyers.com/content/slideshow-poverty-in-todays-america/ (photos of poverty in america)

 

*The falafel is in there because it makes about as much sense as me continuing to say FIVE every week.

Mother. May. I…

She was born in 1956. She would be 56 this year. Just a quick 20 years older than I.

Being as her birthday is the 13th of May, it is always engaged in a dance with the Mother’s Day.

Occasionally they meet up.

Like today.

Last year was the first Mother’s Day since she’d been gone and her birthday was on the Friday before it. I don’t know yet if it’s harder this way or not. I’ll hazard a guess that every year will be hard in its own unique way.

This year, I would have loved for her to see me hanging my BFA Senior Art Show which opened on Thursday. and graduating next month. and, of course, how big and strong and cool her favorite (and only) grandson is growing up to be. These things hurt my heart.

But we will not dwell on them too long, for while they are true, they are not the whole story. The whole story is so much bigger and broader than just that. I talk to her about these things and ask her to help me and watch over things.

and still, that is not the whole story. I am so grateful for the 34 years that we had together even as rough as some of them we were on each other. There are many, too many, people that lose their parent far younger than I did and have an even smaller bank of memories to draw upon to comfort them when they need it. Obviously, I would have liked to have longer with her. I would have loved to have been able to grumble and fumble our relationship into our old ages together. But that is not the cards we’ve been dealt. And you have to play the cards in hand, not the rest of the deck.

I’ve probably rambled on for long enough.

I love you, Mom.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO YOU! (and the Grandmas)

I miss you.

 

Six Word Friday: Hold

We hold each other’s hearts tenderly

to shelter us against undo weathering

cupped gently against the bitter wind

hold my heart, call me friend

nestled carefully with softness and feathering

no key needed, we’re flocked together

buffering each other against the elements

forming covalent bonds with simple elegance

offering stabilizing support; energy to lend

carefully tending to our shared experiment

 more than chemistry, in the end

science plus love= a friendship blend

Six Word Friday: Share

I wouldst share my heart today

Pouring love with all I’d say.

I’d wax poetic with tender care

A life and world changing share.

But I am shy. So… bye.

share more

Healing Susan

So.

This morning a friend on Facebook posted this link.

http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/how-did-we-get-here/

I went and read this post by the strongest bravest person I’ve seen in quite some time.

If you have a moment to click through and read about her journey and send her some healing thoughts or prayers, you won’t regret it.

For me, the comments are what got me.

When I read it there were 245 comments all saying something very close to the same thing.

Dear Susan, we love you. You are surrounded and bathed in love. You are lifted in healing light. We are thinking of you and sending you love and prayers.

The love I could feel coming off the screen was very nearly palpable, but that wasn’t what got me.

You see, my mother was named Susan.

Reading comment after comment about how Susan is loved and lifted in the light hurts a little, but mostly heals my heart.

Dear Mama,

I love you.

You are surrounded and bathed in love.

You are lifted in healing light.

I am thinking of you and sending you love and prayers.

♥

Healing Thoughts

There is plenty of evidence that our thoughts have strength beyond the outer limits of our body.

Within our body we have seen that thinking a medicine will work has a measurable effect on it working, even if it is a placebo. As long as there have been humans, there have been examples of good thoughts or prayer having affected healing when other options have failed. Recently there has been scientific research showing our interconnectivity as humans. Not in a warm, fuzzy New Age way, but measurable, provable effects.

So I’m setting my intention here.

Many of us are bruised and battered today. We have been beaten up, knocked down, rolled over, and dragged under either physically or emotionally. Put through the wringer until every last drop of energy or hope has been squeezed out of us.  I am sending you mine. Right now. Close your eyes and imagine that you can see it. Streaming across the universe like a beam of light. I imagine it pools at your feet like a glowing puddle, just waiting for you to reach down and grab it. Reach down and grab it. Wrap it around you like a warm blanket to protect you against the cold. Wear it as a bandage to hold together those wounds that feel as though they may never heal. Throw it over your shoulders as a cape to lend you superhuman strength against those burdens you cannot lift. Fashion yourself a shield to carry for protection into the fray. Grab hold of it as a lifeline, knowing that I will never let go of my end.

May you be bathed in healing energy, held tenderly in love’s light, cradled and lifted in hope’s hands.

Whatever else happens today, know that I am loving you through it. That my heart has room enough for you to hide inside. That my shoulders are strong and soft for leaning on. That tomorrow the sun will rise and the ocean’s wave will continue to wash up on the shore.

Smoked Oysters

I realized today that I have a lot of memories involving oysters. Which seems a little odd, but whattaya gonna do?

My Grandparent’s Annual Christmas Eve Oyster Stew Party was a big part of my childhood. The other oyster tradition is a little thing that my mom and I always did. We both love smoked oysters, but when I was a kid we didn’t have a lot of money and those were definitely not on the regular menu. Every year on Christmas there would be a tin in each of our stockings. I always make sure Santa knows that he’s supposed to bring me one still.

I’ve spent many a Christmas apart from my mom over the years. Since my parents shared custody of me, I was often at my dad’s on school vacations. Later, I grew up and moved away. Being apart from my mom on Christmas is something I’m used to. Plus, now that I’m the person responsible for the majority of Christmas happening at our house, it’s a busy whirligig of a week with not enough sleep and too much shopping to really take any time to reflect on the ghost of Christmases past.

But, today the pace has finally slowed. I sat here eating my smoked oysters and missing my mama.

Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Mom.

Six Word Friday: Saving

I think love is tiny acts of

saving each other again and again.

I shore you up today. Tomorrow

it’s your turn for the same.

Together we can save our selves.

Our time, our money, our sanity

One small moment at a time.

Love is boring.

I’ve been married for a while now. The thing about love is that it starts out pretty flashy and dramatic. That’s great because maybe people wouldn’t get together without these “fireworks.” We’ve seen an entire movie genre spring out of the hormonal secretions of those newly in love. Of course, only rarely do movies show the rest of the story.

What happens in the castle after Cinderella marries the Dashing prince?

Because after the honeymoon phase, people settle in to living an actual life. Which just entails…stuff. Not bad stuff, just stuff. The little daily minutiae that all added together equal a life. Even if you lead a very exciting life, there is still cooking, cleaning, working, bill paying, child raising.

You know at the beginning of the fairy tale if the hero is willing to die to save the heroine.  And that’s great.

But it doesn’t really help when you are waiting in line for 3 hours at the DMV. Because I think that’s where love is.

Real, lasting love is sitting on those stupid, uncomfortable seats with you. It’s helping you dot your i’s and cross your t’s in triplicate in order to stave off another 3 hours. It’s taking turns herding the kids outside to get the wiggles out. Often, love is boring. Because life can be boring and you’ve got to love through that.

Love knows what it’s like to pace.

It will spend the wee hours of the morning walking the length of the house soothing a colicky baby. It’s in waiting rooms in hospitals everywhere.

When everything is going well and there are no hospital waiting rooms or colicky babies? Love holds your hand on the way into the grocery store. Or takes the trash out. Or makes your coffee for you.

Or sits through your favorite Dancing Show on a Monday night.