Deserving

I came to the conclusion many years ago there is no such thing as a mistake when it comes to humans.  Humans make mistakes, plenty of them, but when it comes to a human being, no being is a mistake.  Regardless of how inauspicious our creation and beginning in this world, no one has been or ever will be a mistake.

Family Genealogy is one of my favorite past times.  I love listening to my mother tell of her life, I enjoy looking at old pictures from my grandmother’s scrapbook.  I have researched back many generations on both my mother and father’s sides.  When I look at my “pedigree” chart, my uniqueness in the universe is confirmed.  There is only one of me (many are happy about that,) and there will ever only be one of me.  Decisions were made over the past hundreds and thousands of years, which led to the specific moment in time I was conceived.  I would not have been me if any one of the previous combinations changed.

The “what ifs” come to play in this picture; what if my grandfather Scott did not go to Worcester, did not take the job at the Press Steel, never met my grandmother?  What if my great, great grandfather was not hurt in the war in Austria, and did not come to America with his family for treatment?  What if my great, great, great grandfather (father’s side) stayed in London, England, never traveled to New York; never met his wife from County Cork, Ireland, who also traveled to New York?  You can see how a person’s uniqueness can unravel with the change of one decision.

There are so many other life-altering decisions this applies to, but this is not what my focus is.  The title of this post is “deserving.”  I am not trying to build a case of me being “deserving” of anything special, but rather I wish to assert all are deserving of respect and honor, regardless of status in life, due simply to being the only one of their kind.  Each person has a part to play in history, a part, which cannot be played by another.  Each person deserves a smile, a glance, encouragement and support, a thank you or you’re welcome, a hello, just because.  I like to acknowledge birthdays by telling people how much I appreciate the fact they were born.  By their very existence, my world and in many cases I have been changed by who they are.

As I celebrate another year of life, I can only hope I make a positive difference in other’s lives.  I also wish to “tip my hat” in thanks to my ancestors, who made some “right” decisions about who to have children with.

Commitment - 7/17/11

I read this last night when digging around in my archives, notice the date.  I decided this was pretty appropriate to post now since this encompasses my goals for 2012. Hope you enjoy!

Commitment:

I feel the need to write again if for no other reason than to chastise myself for a lack of commitment.  For my entire life (so it seems) I have had a vision for what I would like to do.  I have been drawn to be creative in writing music and in writing short stories or blogs as they are called now.  I have sought and desired to live a life that was consumed with the creative arts, but in this process have had to “make a living.”  There are plenty of people out there who pursue their passions while still making a living and I have come to the conclusion (many years ago) that what I lack, what makes the difference between them and me is commitment.  I am plagued with two deadly traits, one is perfectionism, which often stops me before I even start and the second is “if it don’t come easy I give up.” 

Sacrifice would be another word that would come to mind while pondering this subject.  People who are driven in a certain direction often sacrifice their own personal immediate gratification for a greater satisfaction in the future.  This concept speaks to me of the Christian life, sacrificing immediate gratification for the greater satisfaction in the future that which is just out of sight of our current situation. 

In Philippians, Paul tells the church to press toward the goal as a runner in a race.  Athletes make a commitment to their sport.  They train their bodies and minds in preparation for the race.  They run daily, they practice, they sacrifice, they make a commitment to a future glory, and take pleasure in the work they do now.  This is where I fall short, I do not work daily at my passion, I do not sacrifice for it; I don’t break a sweat over it that is not good.  I am disgusted with my lack of drive and false thought that it’s okay to do something when the mood strikes.  I know that in order for me to ultimately do what I want to do with my life; I need to make some commitments, which means sacrifice of my immediate comfort.

I have fought against discipline for years, not the punitive meaning of discipline for that comes regardless, but again the discipline of daily routine and practice of things that don’t come easy.  I need to be “up and doing” as Longfellow writes in “A Psalm of Life” “act in the Living present, Heart within, and God o’erhead.”

As I prepare for an upcoming concert, I need to train as an athlete.  I need to commitment myself to that preparation and to also focus on the other creative areas of my life.  It is time for me to make some sacrifices and work, train and practice my art.

“Winter blahs, a whining Mainer”

I have come to better understand the phrase “the winter of my discontent.”  As I stumbled on the ice with an old yogurt container of sand in one hand, mail in the other (I was returning from getting my mail,) I decided this blog might end up being a whine session.  So, if you would like to get some cheese and crackers to go along with my whine before proceeding, please feel free. 

I am tired, tired of being cold, tired of expending great amounts of energy to complete the simplest of tasks.  Every August, maybe September I get these idealized visions in my head of how wonderful it will be to wear heavier clothing, eat hearty food, curl up under blankets and read a book.  Lest you think I just dream of indoor activities I promise myself, every fall, I will snow shoe or learn to snowboard; I will make the most of this “wonderful” season.  But, here I sit and reality is I am tired! All I want to do is hibernate like bats and bears, curled up sleeping in nice dens, eating off the fat I put on over the holidays!  But I cannot do that, I must go to work, I must pay the bills, I must go out in the snow to walk the dog and get the mail.

Oh, the dog…yes well he gets very excited when the snow arrives (at least one of us does!) However, now it is the dead of winter, he goes out, does his business and comes right back in, so much for him being part Newfoundland!

I have felt recently like I am fighting everything. Fighting to get my clothes on, fighting to open jars, fighting with the blankets on my bed, urf.  I have taken to singing my discontent, I sing at drivers, I sing at inanimate objects in my way.  Whine, whine, whine this is what I am doing at the moment.  I know I have chosen to live in Maine; I have often said I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else for I love the change of seasons and the north Atlantic, but here in this moment I would be willing for a week of warm, white sand and aquamarine colored ocean.

As always I am pulled back to reality by the thought of my mother who grew up in Downeast Maine during the 30’s.  She tells me of waking up in the morning and having snow on floor of her bedroom due to the windows being loose and the wind blowing the snow in.  She had to walk to school; rarely having snow days and heated her soup over a wood stove in the corner of the schoolroom.  My grandmother used to go out to for water and had to chop the ice in the well before drawing.

Life was considerably harder during those years, but maybe all things are relative.  I try to talk myself into believing I come from hearty stock and should not whine like I do.  Maybe I am soft, yeah, I am soft; I have a furnace, running water, hot even.  I have a stove to heat food on and a car to drive to work with.  I am trying to be “radically thankful” (see former blog.)  More than that I am trying to motivate myself into action, I am writing this blog, I made interesting food to eat tonight.  Maybe I am not so discontented now that I let my whine out on paper.  Thanks for reading my whine, hope your cheese and crackers were good.

Have to start somewhere

I have had a number of people ask me "when are you going to update your blog?????"  I sheepishly grin and tell them "soon."  So for you who have asked, here is a quick blog, and for those who read this and didn't ask...well you get it too.

In the past three weeks, I have started three blogs and one song.  I have not finished any of them at this time!  The first week of January I began to set some goals, one of which was to publish a blog at least once a month, preferrable twice.  I decided I need to start somewhere, and was inspired by other blogs I have read that are simply one or two paragraphs.  To my reader's I make this resolution: In 2012 I will make a concerted effort to publish at least once a month.  It may not be the best of what I feel it should be, but I am going to prime the pump and keep writing.  I am going to try and share those passing thoughts (that I have daily) and hopefully a couple of these will inspire a smile, a chuckle or a hmmm from the reader's.

I would ask one thing of my reader's...continue to ask "when you gonna post?"  Thanks for hanging with me people, 2012 the year I work on being consistently creative.

Naming Cars

I decided to share this writing from 2008.  I saw where car sales were up and decided this would be fun to share. 

I got a call yesterday from my cousin.  She had just gotten a new car and wanted my help in naming it.  She called me back today with the new name, she told me that her husband had thought she was crazy naming the car.  That got me thinking, usually when I get a new car; I name it.  I remember my friends always commenting on how strange it was that my family named its’ vehicles.  My mother does, my brother does, I do, my cousin does…etc.  Somehow giving a name to your car personalizes it, makes it yours, and gives it life and meaning.  We have all met people who love their car, but don’t name it.  Call me crazy, but I talk to my car and like to be able to call it by name especially when I have to pass someone or I’m driving in bad weather.  I pat my car in loving praise or slap the dash when it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. 

I got thinking about what makes a good name for a car.  It can’t be too long, a couple of syllables only.  If the name is a couple of words long, you want to make certain that it has a cute nickname.  Let me give you some examples of what I mean.  Two of my cars have been named “flash.”  The first was “the green flash,” the second is simply “flash.”  I had a Subaru that my cousin named “Ruby” because I got it the weekend of our Aunt & Uncle’s 40^th (ruby) wedding anniversary.  What made the name really cute was it could be called “Ruby Subie.”  Her latest car she named “Scout” because it is the same color as her scoutmaster’s shirt.  My mom’s car is named “Hallie” because she bought it on Halloween, and my brother’s van is named “Goldie” because it is big, gold colored, and well appointed.  My best friend’s first car was called “Penny.”  She used this name for two reasons, the first was the car was copper in color like a copper penny and secondly the first car she ever drove had the name “Penelope Pig,” “Penny” or “the pig” for short.  It was a huge 60 something, Chevy Biscayne.  I could go on & on with the names such as “Truck, truck,” “Red Wing” or “Giddy-up-Go,” but the point I want to make is that the name needs to flow off you tongue with ease and should have some meaning behind it. 

It may take time even years before a car names itself; for example, I had another Subaru that after a few years of calling it “the Subaru” needed some bodywork to pass inspection.  At about the same time the valve gasket started to leak, so the car got named…”Tin man” after the character in the Wizard of Oz because it had tin and rivets on the fenders and often asked “oil can, oil can.”  My best friend had a Hyundai that she had owned for years.  As she recalls I was upset that she had owned it for a long while without naming it, but once when we were traveling the car started to have problems with the fuel pump and died on route 95.  At that same time our friend in PA had shared with us a limerick he had made up about “there once was a lady named Ida, who liked to drink apple cid-ah…I won’t continue because it gets gross from there, but suffice it to say that when my friend’s car had a gas problem, she got named Ida.  And lastly, my father had an AMC Gremlin that he drove many years without a name.  When my best friend and I drove it (it was quite old by that time) we commented on how it rattled, had no get-up and go and you had to down shift and pump the brakes to stop.  We felt like we had to put our feet through the floorboards to get going and to stop and the shape reminded us of the Flintstone’s car, so we dubbed it “the Boulder Buggy.” 

Many times I hear people refer to their vehicles in the female vernacular, “what’s wrong with your car?  Oh, her heater’s not working right.”  “I like your truck.  Yeah, she’s a beauty.”  I had a teenager ask me why I always called inanimate objects “her” or “she?”  The only answer I had for him was that I was taught that way.  But I bring this up because of something I had been told by a friend of mine regarding how to name vehicles.  For the sensitive who may read this, you might want to stop here.  If a car is an automatic, gearshift on the steering column it’s a girl.  If a vehicle is a standard, stick shift it is a boy.  If you wonder why I told the sensitive to stop before, you may want to go back to biology class.  I have to say that most of today’s vehicles do not have gearshifts on the steering column (I’m dating myself,) so the theory of on the column, off the column doesn’t work.  Also the same friend who told me this had a standard, stick shift on the floor, 4x4 truck named “Lola.”  We laughed about how the truck must be confused.  And you remember “Tin man,” he was an automatic and “Ruby” was a standard, stick shift.  Oh well, so much for that…I just think it is a fun thing to consider when picking a name.

One last bit of thought of naming cars & trucks, not every vehicle has a name or gets a name.  As sad as that may sound, some vehicles are just modes of transportation, a way to get from here to there, pieces of moving metal on the highway of life.  Not all my cars have had names, they’ve been known by their make, model or vehicle distinction (i.e.: “it’s out in the Honda” or “ let’s take the Focus” or how about “ I left it in the truck.”)  This is kind of impersonal, but let’s face it, some inanimate objects are just that- inanimate objects.  When I was talking about this with my friend I made the statement that the cars that got names are the ones that “talked” to me or “told me” to name them.  No, I’m not hallucinating or taking drugs, I’m talking about that moment in time when the inanimate takes on a personality and you just know inside this piece of metal is a living, breathing piece of machinery asking to be recognized and named.  Names are associated with memories and some vehicles, sad to say are not memorable.  You just “bought the car cause you had to,” there’s no special occasion to associate with the purchase, after years of driving it no special memories are attached, it simply did not speak to you.  For some of you, you’re thinking how strange I am, but for those who enjoy driving and understand what it means to have a vehicle speak to you, this is not odd, I know I am not alone.

Well I’ve mused enough for now.  Just remember when you name your vehicle make it short, make it personal and don’t worry whether it is a boy or girl…you’ll know by how stubborn it is.

Change of Season

Sometime this past summer I made a vow that I was going to enjoy each season as it was.  I was going to try to not complain about the heat of summer or the cold of winter, and would attempt to refrain from lamenting about fall being the harbinger of winter.  Come to think of it, the only season I didn’t really complain about was spring, for it was getting warmer, the days were noticeably longer and all was fresh and new.  So here I sit writing my thoughts regarding the end of summer in Maine and the onset of autumn.

My mother commented the other day how the hummingbirds had left even though the weather was still quite balmy.  She figured that it had to do something with the change of the light and length of day.  I would tend to agree with this as my drive to and from work is a bit more challenging due to the position of the sun, a tell tale sign of seasonal change. 

Whether it was the change in the angle of the sun or something else, this week in particular heralded change for me.  I began to long for the comfort of a pair of jeans and the warmth of a hoodie.  I made heartier food, although I will confess the cravings started 2-3 weeks ago when I went in search of winter squash and potatoes.  This week however I sought the comfort of soup and whole grains.  I made coffee this evening, preferring something warm to drink to the icy, sweating glass of Kool-Aid that had been drink du jour for the past two months.  When I crawled into bed last night the warmth and weight of my comforter wrapped up to my chin coupled with a chill on the tip of my nose made me smile.  I had come to love autumn!  I won’t lie; I continue to be concerned with having to drive in the snow and oil bills.  I still do not like being cold and suffering with cold feet all day today was distracting, but these past few weeks did not fill me with dread as they had in previous years.  Rather, when the cold front moved through the other day, I was filled with anticipation like a child is filled with anticipation just before Christmas, I was going to be able to wear heavier clothes, eat warmer food and curl up under a blanket with a good book.  The past week has had pumpkins, apples and Vermont cheese dancing in my head.  I am longing for colored leaves and crisp morning air. 

As autumn arrives I am thankful to be a New Englander.  I hope to savor each unique moment of the season: the harvest, the warmth of blankets and heavier clothing.  The beautiful sunrises and sunsets I will witness since the sun rises later and sets earlier.  The sense of awe I will have watching the leaves don their final beauty for the year, as the earth prepares for its winter rest and the trees, having shed their leafy mantle, stretch their bare limbs to the sky waiting to receive the first snowflakes.  I wish for everyone that in the midst of our daily lives we do not crave something other than what we have, failing to take time to appreciate each day for what it is, for it is “the present.”

Rebuilding Walls

I had a few experiences this week that has caused me to pause and think about Nehemiah, the re-builder of walls.  As some may recall just over a year ago the company I worked for closed suddenly.  As I searched for God’s will as to where I should do for work, God provided three biblical examples to guide me.  The first being Daniel (praying for favor in the eyes of the new King); the last being Jonah (go to the Ninevites or to the belly of the whale.)  The story behind those two names is something for a later date or you can email me to find out the rest.  The third name given to me was Nehemiah; re-builder of walls and here in lays the rest of the blog.

Had you asked me fourteen months ago what the name Nehemiah meant to me I would have replied, “I believe God wants me to be a restorer of broken walls.”  This was the attitude I entered my new employment with, I was there not only for paid employment but to re-build broken walls.  This is not written in a boastful manner, I don’t consider myself to be any “great” Christian rather it was the attitude of a servant that simply sought to do what God wanted me to do in the place HE had chosen for me.  I’ll not lie and say that for the first few months I questioned whether this was my final destination or simply a bridge to something else.  But when nothing else came it became apparent that at least for the foreseeable future, this was where I was to be.  As time went on I became acquainted with my coworkers and saw there was a place and a work for me there.  There were individuals who became important to me and relationships that were being built.  I found happiness in where I was; a place, I am jokingly reminded by others; I did not want to be, fast forward to the present.

Recently, as I was driving home from work the thought came to me…God has used my job and my coworkers to restore some of my walls.  Those who were the Ninevites to me had become Nehemiah.  The place that appeared so desolate and bleak had become a place of restoration.  Although I was hesitant and reluctant, God placed “Nehemiah’s” in my path to rebuild and restore what others had broken and burnt. 

As always I have to ask, what further can I learn from this, how can I apply this in other areas of my life?  First, there are times and places we chose not to be, but in obedience (or desperation) we go.  It is in those places that God can meet us.  Secondly, those who we think we are sent to minister to, often end up ministering to our un-recognized need.  I was of the belief that I was to go and be an encouragement to others, yet in just over 24 hours I recognized others being an encouragement to me.

What were the experiences, you ask??????  Those are not important for they were simply everyday occurrences that will mean nothing to anyone else.  The people who were involved will remain nameless for they were simply acting as they always do.  That is the beauty of being a Nehemiah; you don’t know when you are one.  Our words and actions are stones and we live life one stone at a time.  We can either cast them at others or we can place them row upon row restoring what was once a wasteland into a beautiful city.  Oh, may my life be one of construction and not destruction.  God, bless those who are Nehemiah’s to me by simply being who they are.