A Little Thought

     Life keeps me in an exploring state, how about you? There are so many dances we do whether it's a tango or slow sway, we're  occasionally being the partner who leads and other days we are the partner who steps on toes. I get into trouble when I do both. It works best for me these days to observe. Observe the situation, doing the best I can without judging what is in front of my eyes. As the ancient saying goes, "may be bad, may be good, who knows." Try to remain neutral.

    

Delicious Sunday

      Today was an absolutely delicious Sunday kind of love. There's a warm breeze outside after the thunderstorm we had in Kansas, in January! The first tasty bite started with meeting a friend at a coffee shop, armed with our latest books to share, stimulating conversation and an equal amount of listening to the other. The energy was charged so we took the party to the art museum. We spoke about American artists who went to Paris, never to return, Italian museum guides who charged a price to turn lights on if patrons wanted to see the art, a wooden carving of lovers with Cupid's story of shooting arrows, oh my, endless stories we conjured. Happiness is contagious and as long as the ball was rolling, we visited China, a gallery packed with juicy bits of information. I was so thankful to have left my husband at home, he wouldn't have liked the menu.

    " Happiness consists in activity. It is running steam, not a stagnant pool." ~ Oliver Wendall Holmes ~ 

Reflections/ Happy Martin Luther King Day

 
    "Not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Martin Luther King~
 Times change. I believe everything evolves and improves, always changing into a higher condition. I'm old enough to remember stories that I heard about black slaves. They were shameful and made a little girl from Kansas cry in her pillow at night. We lived on a quiet street with a dead end road, you could turn left or right but straight went into a field. The field where black men camped out near the railroad tracks. My friends said we lived in "nigger town" and asked if I was scared. It hurt bad the day I heard that question and made me want to redecorate my mom's living room but since she liked it the way it was, I decided I would plant flowers and make it so beautiful that nobody would be scared of my street. The street that blew wind up my nostrils while riding my bike, no hands on the handle bar with my brother, sisters and black best friends. A safe street where I had way too many mothers because back then everyone was your mama if we did wrong we were scolded by whoever saw us doing bad. We shared tomatoes from each others gardens and iced tea on the porch. I'm old enough to remember my dad saying how good things were getting for the colored folk. He told stories about the signs in his boyhood town back in Arkansas that warned black men to get the hell out of town before sunset or they would be found hanging by their toes. He'd shiver at the thought, munch a piece of ice and then tell us to quit eavesdropping.
   All those stories, some good, some too bad to retell but still things were changing, slightly improving. The city built a fast moving four lane road on my old street, many of the neighbors have died or moved. Today I reflected on the many  people who marched for change, the ones who died and sacrificed for us. We were ignorant and may God forgive us our past but now we do better. I leave this story with another story. The one about Julie and her new best friend. She adored this new girl, wanted to perm her straight hair so she could have curly hair like the new friend. "Mom, my friend is so pretty, she has a suntan and it's winter!" I suggested we have her over to play and we set the table with cookies and flowers. The surprise was meeting "Tara". She wasn't tan, she was a black girl! I laughed to myself that night and Julie worried that I didn't like her new friend. I just remember hugging her and saying how much I loved her little eyes that could see such beauty. So many things evolve and improve if we just keep our faith in the best, plant lots of flowers and let the wind blow.  Happy Martin Luther King day to all.

Love by Numbers

    The last to get picked on a team but nobody told them he wasn't into sports. You aren't invisible and never have been.

A Fine Christmas Tea

     
                                    "Enjoy life sip by sip, not gulp by gulp." ~ Author Unknown~


    My mother knows that a fine Christmas tea is best after the tree has been decorated and "smack dab" in the middle of hectic December on a Saturday afternoon. It's an intimate affair for my sisters, daughters, nieces and my small granddaughter. The invitation is by phone, to one person, spread like gossip because she thinks she has told everyone, maybe it's a queen's way. She is our queen and the promise of chicken salad in puffed pastry, tea cakes, chocolate truffles and berries commands all to a halt. For one day there will be no laundry, emails won't be answered, unfinished projects will remain unfinished.
   Over the potholes and through the traffic we drove to grandmother's house we went. Some were in heels, some  were in flats and one in the back was wearing her new pink boots, a good day for a fine Christmas tea until I was rear ended from the back! The woman behind us was laughing with her passenger, I felt rage taking over. Who drives that fast without paying attention? I have a baby girl in the back seat! There wasn't any damage, we were all fine but I couldn't release the uninvited anger towards this stranger. A stranger wearing chains and feathers around her neck with furry boots and burgundy painted hair who had a hard time talking without laughing. Our lives weren't a joke and tiny Kaitlyn said, "Wham! We got hit. I am so glad I was wearing a seat belt grandma!"

     Tea parties! I would be home safe without them, cleaning house and getting things done but we were dressed up so onward we drove. The warm sweet tea calmed my emotions and my sisters' conversation melted the memory of our wreck. Thinking back on that day, I remember my daughter commenting on the woman's excessive amount of necklaces and Kaitlyn asking in a most angelic voice, "is she going to our tea party?" to which her accessorized aunt said, "oooh, no!" This little four year old child, living as a zen master, free from judgement and purely in the moment, able to forget the wrong. I learned much from the tea of 2011.

           "tea parties were invented by little girls who one day became great grandmothers."
    1. Allow yourself one day to play without work or worry.
    2.  Invite your closest companions for conversation.
    3.  Sip your tea, never gulp, take life slowly.
    4.  A tea pot has its neck in hot water and manages to sing.
    5.  Try not to count other people's necklaces.
    6.  Laugh, laugh out loud.
    7.  Forget the past.
    
  


  

Flu Season

     Safe behind a wall of glass sat Ermyl, the lady who manned the fort at the local community center and  all the old men loved her. An eighty plus year old hottie is what she was, born and raised on a farm where work was her only friend. Her hair was dark and she didn't care that it should be gray because it made her feel pretty when it was colored besides that's how it was when her father was alive. She lived with her son and man was he lazy, how would he take care of her now that her eyes were going. Neither one of them drove much but they liked to cook and I always knew what she was fixing for dinner. Ermyl was afraid of catching the flu, so much that her bottle of hand sanitizer remained behind the wall of glass.
    After a long winded conversation with Ermyl, she would grumble, "Card! Slide your card under the window," where she would slather protective germ killer lotion on her wrinkled hands. This was prime timing to mention something about myself such as what I was cooking for dinner or how the tree in the front was loaded with apples, perfect for a Thanksgiving cobbler to which she'd reply, "uh huh, yea, ok now, goodbye~!"
   My old community center was torn down and replaced with a park. I don't think Ermyl is alive any more but we laugh often thinking about her. Thanksgiving is one day away, wash your hands, it's cold and flu season. Be kind to the relatives and your friends, don't throw up on anyone and remember to take turns telling tales.
   

Farmer's Market Detour

 "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms~to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." ~ Viktor Frankl


    The plan was all about going to the farmer's market, buying pumpkins, heirloom tomatoes and dancing outside with the local musicians. The surprise was an empty parking lot much to the horror of the back seat passenger who was head strong about buying a pumpkin. We blamed it on October, decided to have lunch at another place. Our little back seat passenger requested a window seat with pumpkins, lots of pumpkins and a chocolate shake. There weren't any detour signs so we cranked up the music and drove to wherever. Lucky for us, the new plan landed us in a small vegan restaurant in an old neighborhood oozing with a patina of brick, flowering vines and oodles of vintage.

  What to our wandering eyes should appear, but a window seat of pillows in oranges and reds with 

pumpkins, lots of pumpkins! The back seat passenger had trouble hiding her smile.

     Healthy chocolate shake with almond milk so big it takes two to drink...$6, faux mac and cheese with cashew butter...$4, rainbow veggie taco wrapped in a collard green...$10, letting go of the plan, PRICELESS!