March 25--Are You Your BFF?

Friendship with one's self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.  --Eleanor Roosevelt

    So true! If you don't like yourself, the one person you can't get away from, how could you like anyone else?!?!?! I've been around folks who continually criticize themselves--that does not make for any sort of pleasing long-term relationship. If one can handle his/her own internal "good/bad/ugly," it makes one much more ready to handle that in others. 

    I'm off to make new friends on the pickleball court!

        Leta

We are ALL LOVABLE! 

March 24--It's Really Not a Bad Thing

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one's self. 
--Edith Wharton

    Think about who that friend is for you. Maybe there is more than one. Let him or her know how much the friendship means to you. 

    Tax season work can get heavy, so I feel like writing about something funny. My husband and I were enjoying beers on the deck last evening before dinner. We started talking about being "anal" about certain things. I had gone to the bank and picked up some cash and the teller put all the bills in proper order. I like that. My husband and I agreed that if the teller doesn't do it, we immediately rearrange it outside in the vehicle. He jokingly said that when they was interviewing prospective programmers at the Eagle, they would give them a pack of Smarties and see what they did with them. If they laid them out and sorted them by color, they were hired on the spot. I busted up laughing because below is the picture I had taken at my lunch time earlier in the day...

Reese's Pieces,
properly arranged 😀

Then he pulled out his money clip (a binder clip), and we both arrange our cash in the same way--ones on the outside, bigger bills inside. I think we were meant for each other. 

    Nerds rule!

        Leta

March 23--Freely Given

"Why did you do all this for me?" he asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you."

"You have been my friend," replied Charlotte. "That in itself is a tremendous thing."  --E. B. White in Charlotte's Web

    How many times have friends rescued us just by being friends, just by being there? It's what we do as friends. Friendship is not something we deserve. We create it by being our natural, authentic, open selves. That is a "tremendous thing."

    I'm thinking of things that are simply given to us in life, that we did not do anything to produce--sunrises, sunsets, flowers, rainfall, beaches, mountaintops--all the spectacular wonders of our awesome Mother Earth. Let's be friends with Her. 

        Leta 

A 2000-year-old live oak in FL,
read its story below...

March 22--Wonder

Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship--never. 
--Charles Caleb Colton

    I'll let you do with that one what you will. 

    Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations this week are on the "beginner's mind." The idea is to approach life with the curiosity and enthusiasm of a child. We could all use a little (or a lot) of that. Here's his description:

Beginner’s mind is a readiness to always be in awe, to always be excited. We see it in children and in people who don’t filter everything through the brain. Beginner’s mind is one’s mind before the hurts of life have made us cautious and self-protective. We can still be excited, we can still be in awe, we can still expect tomorrow to be different than today. Mostly, beginner’s mind is someone who’s not in their mind yet. That’s the freedom. They can still experience naked being apart from filtering it through mental categories. That’s what it comes down to.

    Have a wonder-full day!

        Leta

Outside a cookie store in Savannah

March 21--New Worlds

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.  --Anais Nin

    I love how the Universe brings people together. I have several examples of this quote in action. 

    The first is meeting my husband through mutual friends at the company where we all worked. I grew up in Pennsylvania and he grew up in Missouri. All sorts of wandering, rambling and decisions eventually made our paths cross, and a new world of love, marriage, and family was born.

    Another example is the meeting of my dearest 12-step friend at one of the first meetings I attended. I soon asked her to be my sponsor, and a new world of recovery was born in me. We are best buds to this day, grateful for each other's support through decades of recovery.

    Lastly, there's my world-traveler friend. We met through golf. Who knew during those first few rounds when we were getting to know each other that someday we would literally travel the world together? That's definitely a new world born in each of us. 

    Wait! One more! Our dog Barney--his arrival in our lives birthed a new world of love, joy, movement and laughter. He's an angel. 

    OK, I'm done,

        Leta

Aunt B's Soul Food,
an excellent restaurant in Tupelo, Mississippi, 
discovered on our recent Florida-Georgia trip

March 20--Cream of Wheat

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.  --Woodrow Wilson

    One of the staple foods in our house when I was growing up was Cream of Wheat. Hot cereals commonly graced our table. So when I had a family of my own, I anticipated that being the case also. Let's just say that did not happen. The first time my husband saw the remains of Cream of Wheat solidified in the pan, he labeled it "cement patch," and it was never to be seen in our house again.

    So if friendship doesn't hold the world together, Cream of Wheat will. 

        Leta

March 19--Friends Again, Woohoo!!!

There's no word yet for old friends who've just met.  --Jim Henson

    Re-friend? I've had this experience several times in my life, and it's the best! A fairly instant connection is recognized on both sides, and we know that we have known each other before. Clearly there has to be some belief that we live multiple lifetimes. I've heard the term "soul family," the idea that there are connections much bigger than our human brains can comprehend, and we continue to spend earthly lives connected in assorted ways. 

    Even though some of my re-friends are far away, the Universe keeps finding ways to bring us together. I believe that's our extra-strong spiritual connection at work play. 😉😉 What a blessing it is to hang with friends who lovingly accept the good, the bad and the ugly within us! 

        Leta