flexing my muscles.....

my brain is whirling this morning.

i'm watchin' the end of a friend's marriage...
and thinking how strange that whole path is.
there's so much effort in the beginning.
and then...there's so many tiny little deaths
along the way that they just seem to add up
to too much. and then it's too hard, too much
effort....or not worth the effort?

i don't know.
i just see it over and over and over again.

which brings me to 'discontentment'.....
i'm watching another friend who is 'discontented'
right now. and i can see how it's coloring his
whole world. and causing problems for him.

and so i turned my eyes to my own heart.
and definitely see discontentment in certain
places.

when i looked at my friend and his actions,
i thought how self centered discontentment
makes you.

and so i turned my eyes to my own heart again.
yeah.
i can be really self centered in my discontentment
areas too. self absorbed.

amazing how it stunts your vision.

ohhhhhh there's stuff to look at here.

so then it brings me all back to 'focus.'
where you focus. what you focus on. what you put
your energy towards.

which all brought me to a very short lived friendship
that passed thru my life. i was feelin' kinda bummed
that it was so short and gone already. has been bothering
me the last few days.

when i thought of this discontentment and focusing
stuff.

truly.
it truly all IS in how you look at it.

everyone i care about passes too quickly thru my life.
even if i get years and years and years with them.
it's too quick.

and yet......how lucky am i to have them come thru???

so all these thoughts whirled thru the blender of my mind.
and i whisked them together....and got this....

i've got so much.
i either concentrate on what i've got and keep workin'
at makin' it better, expanding my sight to see everyone
involved really clearly....

or i look at what i've lost and what i'm missing,
and focus smaller and smaller and lose the vision....

it's a no brainer, no?

and yet...it takes some muscle.

off to flex my muscle a bit....

wondering about peace....

i live in a really interesting county.
in the surrounding counties, it's known
as the county not to be in.

i want to say it's the poorest county in
the area, and yet, at the same time, i'm
pretty sure it's THE richest population of
african americans in the entire country.

so try to figure that mix.
it's poor whites, poor blacks, rich blacks
and middle class whites?? i don't know...
it's a weird mix. my neighborhood is blue
collar mixed.

i see a lot of interesting mixes at events.

last nite was no exception.
we went to the poor neighborhood event....
the poor, mostly white event.

i sat there thinking about war and independence
as i watched everyone milling around.

there is so much mixed into what class you're in,
what education you have, where you grow up,
who you hang out with, what you do with your time....

i am struck with this every time i go to an event.
doesn't matter if it's a rich white event,
a rich black event, a mixed middle class event...
whatever....i'm always struck by the different
moods and feels of the different groups.

i feel a strong flavor with each one of the groups.
and i notice it so much now as i see so many
different ones.

some i see more blending than others.....
but the gaps between the groups, the lines that
somehow form....they're so strong, and so apparent.

how do we ever blend an entire planet into peace??

it felt kinda hopeless last nite as i sat there
and watched....

it was an interesting independence day celebration,
that's for sure.

july fourth!

i love the fireworks tonite.

and the time goofin' with my family.

the whole meaning of the day tho gets
a lotta of emotions swirling that i
don't know what to do with.

cause it's not all black and white.

i sure wish life was black and white
sometimes. it'd be a lot easier.

i'm certainly glad we're independent.
and i honestly feel blessed to have
the freedoms we do.

recently i thought of women in other
countries and i just got sick over
their lives.

i hate war.
and yet i see so much conflict everywhere
with people not hearing or seeing that
i wonder how we've ever survived this long.
i wonder if we'll ever learn another way.

i see greed and power and hatred running
so much....

i see good mixed in with evil.

i see a swirling mass of complicated human
issues that don't look like we've learned
much at all about.

i don't see any clear answers.

i actually have these funky little camo pants
i bought at the thrift store. mostly cause
that hunter guy of mine has me noticing camo.

but today i slipped them on because of the
holiday. so that whenever i look down at my
legs i'll remember the whole huge mix of things
this day holds.

and i'll remember how lucky i am that i have
the freedom to do so.

arranging....

the fun has begun.
josh stayed the nite last nite.
and this morning there was a lot of
goofin' on facebook.
yo got on josh's account and posed as
josh and then josh did the same to yo!

then as i was laughing about it all, i
found out josh got on and posed as me!

i'm looking forward to a day of laughter.
we're off to a good start.

while they were doin' all this, i was
wakin' up with a book. got this line i
wanted to share....

it's a quote from virginia woolf -

'arrange whatever pieces come your way.'

that's it.
that one line.

i immediately thought of a few pieces
that have come my way.
and i was struck by the simplicity and
gorgeousness of this idea.

it's all in how we arrange, isn't it?

gonna make one heck of an arrangement today.

bold as love

yo's got jimi hendrix playin' in the next room.
bold as love.

i love that phrase.

think that's gonna be my weekend phrase.

bold as love.

there's a whole heck of a lot mixed in that
phrase.....

i want to consciously live it.

you're only hurting yourself...

remember that trite ol' comment you heard
growin' up? 'you're only hurting yourself?'

yeah.
yeah.
yeah.

i was thinking about that this morning.

when we just can't get a concept down for
some reason. when over and over we hurt
someone because of it.

it's not the someone who keeps getting hurt
that matters after awhile.

they adapt, change, just look for different
things.

but you've lost out because of that. you've
lost that part of them you once had.

i saw that real clearly in someone else recently.

oh yeah. always easy to see it somewhere else.

so.
now.
i had to find it in me.

and so i did.
easily.

well, easily to find.
not easy to hold.

ouch.

but yeah.

and i saw real clearly what i'm losing.
so. um.
time to change that, isn't it?
cause i'm only hurting myself.

more moment stuff

she has parkinson's.
we've been acquaintances for years.
just passing each other at events.

yesterday i found myself having coffee
with her and a friend.

i got to asking her about it a bit.
there's years and years worth of conversation
there...

but something that came up was coping skills.
how do you cope? i asked her.

and one of her answers was living in the moment.

ahhhh.....there's that darn concept again.

i asked a bit more about that. didn't get as
far as i wanted as distractions gave way to
leaving....

but i heard myself say something that has been
making me chuckle ever since.

it was something real brilliant like 'sometimes
i'm really good at it. i'm there. in the moment.
and other times i just suck at it.'

well, grin, yeah, ter.
you're either in it or you're not.
this isn't a thing you can do halfway.

oh yeah.

i wondered if she got good at it because she had
a constant push to work at that.....
she seemed to think so.

like i say, a whole lot more to talk about.

i've been holding the moment thing ever since tho.

the universe handed me the weekend to practice it.
i'm goofin' with the guys a whole lot this weekend.
we're making a point of it.

and i know it's the perfect opportunity for some
real good practice.

feelin' way lucky....

i wanted to deal with it on my own.
'it's my stuff, i got it.' i told him.

'it's our stuff. we need to work on it
together,' he said.

ohhhhhhhh i didn't want to.
i'll just work on it myself.

and this is where he excels.

he pushed.
and gave me space.
and pushed a little more.
and waited for me while i struggled
to answer.

i think that's one of his greatest gifts
to me....the in your face, i'm here, we're
gonna face it thing he does while at the
same time backin' up and giving me space
to accept that and gather my courage. he
patiently waits for me.

how does someone get in your face and give
you space at the same time?

i am reminded of that quote i posted a bit
ago here about a soul mate....one of the lines
from it...

a soul mate is the person who brings you
to your own attention so you can change your
life....

somewhere along the line, i got awful lucky.

whoda thought???

i walked down the newly paved road and
soooooo wanted to pull out my sidewalk chalk
and decorate all that solid blackness......

joked with the construction guys about it.
'that's the artist in you coming out,' one of
them said. yeah....

'are you tickled?' i asked them.
they've been tryin forever to get this road
paved.

they're not done. got a long ways to go, i think.

they've become part of the neighborhood.

as i walked away i thought how quiet it would
be when they're all gone again.

and i realized i'd miss them.

now how in the world did that happen????