A Wonderful State

July 24, 2013 Naples, Maine

Some things are good for the soul. The difficulty comes when we must recognize which things in our life are good, and which things are not so good. If we're fortunate, we have people around us who love and support us through the incongruity. I am fortunate.

A friend recently told me she wanted to see pictures in which I am happy. Pictures that reflect the me I am reclaiming.

I hope she likes this picture. I do.


 

Celebrate With Food

This may not look like much. This food couldn't be simpler...blueberry muffins, blueberries, and strawberries. But for me, to me, it is a lot.

It is a lot because unlike the majority of people, I rarely think about food. My family and friends have tired of my refrain - "I don't care about food!" - and my poor husband (who loves food and, yes, is trained as a chef) has put up with my disregard for 39 years.

I recognize the problem.

Recently I began working at understanding food and my relationship with it. While I doubt I will ever become a person who lives to eat, what I am becoming is a person who understands how important food is to those I love and because of that, it needs to be important to me, too. Or at least I need to pay more attention to it.

So, on the morning of the Fourth of July, I presented my husband with this breakfast.

He was pleased.

Small steps count.

Struggle

My thought this morning was a post on struggle. To write about the hardship that accompanies life, the pain and the sorrow we feel as we, and those we love, are faced with cancer, divorce, unemployment, financial stress, rejection, and a host of other life events that take their toll. So many of these events are present in my life right now it seemed the natural choice.

I brought all the people I love through my thoughts and gave a moment to each of them who are on the forefront of a struggle. (It took a little time to do this...but that was time well spent.)

As the parade of family and friends continued, it changed. Not the people, but the backdrop against which I viewed them. What evolved was not the slow, sad list of struggles, but the longer list of joy and fun and love that I share with each of them. I didn't see cancer and the long road ahead of treatment, I saw summer evenings on a boat. I didn't see divorce, I saw welcome smiles and time together. I didn't see unemployment, I saw opportunity. I didn't see rejection, I saw the full embrace of a loving family. As for financial stress, I saw how unimportant money really can be.

Maybe I really am a little too much of a cup half full kind of girl, but it is my choice to make and I certainly am not going to spend any time struggling to change that.

I leave you with an example of struggle. This is my granddaughter, Ryleigh (you've met her before here). Not all hills we climb are as simple as learning your first song on the piano, but regardless of the size of the hill, our struggles are hills nonetheless. The title of the song is "Love Someone". If anyone knows how to do that, she does. If I'm a cup half-full girl....she's a cup is overflowing one. Her Great-Grammy Lois would be proud.