September 30--Good Riddance! and Please Don't GO!!!

We have to recognize that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence. 
--Cornel West

    I enjoyed a chuckle over this random social media post:

Spring: depressed in a hopeful way

Summer: depressed in a manic way

Fall: depressed in a nostalgic way

Winter: depressed in a depressed way

    Praise the heavens, this is the end of September! I definitely did not pass through unscathed, and there is angst that still must be handled. The bonus for September passing is a big sigh of relief and moving into October, my favorite month, because of fall color, cooler temperatures and my birthday. It's better if the Cubs are in the playoffs, but that is not to be this year, so I have elected to cheer on the Royals, Orioles and Phillies in postseason play.

    I've written many times how much I love the Cubs announcers, Jim Deshaies and Boog Sciambi. Here's an example. As a "last game of the season" feature, Boog did a 120-second interview of JD, rapidly firing questions. The toughest was, "Snacks or naps?" JD was stumped, then said, "Can I have a snack, then a nap?" What a kindred spirit!

    October, I'm so happy to see ya!

        Leta

Boog (left), JD (right)

September 29--The Nerve!

Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.  --Rabindranath Tagore

Your heart is the real compass of your life. Purity of heart is the gift that guides you, leads you, shepherds you from one end of life to the other, always content knowing that you have done what you were born to do. What else could possibly be worth a life?   --Joan Chittister

    This past Friday, I drove to Kansas City for The Nerve Tour. This is a five-hour presentation on the human nervous system by Gil Hedley, whose personal slogan is "Dedicated to Exploring Inner Space." He and his wife Rachel are traveling to cities large and small all over the country offering this. Gil spent months in the lab with many assistants dissecting a human body to follow the nerve tree within us. I came away with two mighty impressions: 1) Gil, brilliant researcher that he is, is an extraordinary human being (clearly doing what he was born to do), and 2) the complexity of the human body is mind-boggling, and we really don't know much about it. I sat there thinking about how in roughly nine months from two tiny cells a perfect human body is created--the ultimate mystical mystery!

    Appreciate your body, whatever state it is in!

        Leta

Gil started with the brain and
worked his way down the nerve tree
in the body.

September 28--Love Includes Grief

Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.  --Fred Rogers 

    As I have noted in previous posts, I have lost several family members in September, plus I lost my best brother this past April. A recent family situation has also piled onto my heap of grief. I know grief well. Here are some helpful thoughts on the subject from "Every Day Spirit" by Mary Davis:

• Grief demands our attention. It is important work that requires soul space. Learn about it.
• There's no timetable. It's a personal journey and you walk at your own pace. There are no wrong ways to grieve.
• Grief is not a linear process; it ebbs and flows, possibly for the rest of your life. Stay with the feelings as they arise. Let them flow through you without judgment. 
• Tell your story to a compassionate listener. Connect with others who have had a similar loss. Speaking your truth puts your experience into words and weaves the loss into your life going forward. 
• Accept the help of loving people who offer it. They want to do something for you, and you need the support. Ask for what you need.
• Working with your hands--knitting, gardening, coloring--can be soothing. Writing letters and journaling can be comforting. Exercise can be helpful. Extra sleep can be necessary.
• You are the guardian of your grief. Be incredibly kind to yourself. Set limits where you need them. Do only what you feel up to doing. 

    I repeat Brian McLaren's excellent definition: "grief is love persisting when what we love is passing away." 

    Leta

Life sometimes feels like a black hole...

September 27--So How Do You Really Feel?!?!

Patience is always rewarded and romance is always round the corner! 
--Ayn Rand

    Being a die-hard Cubs fan, I know patience! Romance around the corner? I'm not holding my breath on that one. 

    Anyway, the Cubs are officially NOT in the playoffs and the remaining few games are rather meaningless. The banter between my two favorite announcers, Jim Deshaies and Boog Sciambi, gets fairly random and off-track. In a recent game, they mentioned someone who routinely hands out business cards that say "Stop Talking" and "Don't Care." That got a laugh out of me so I googled it, and it is a thing--goofy business cards. I can think of plenty of times in my life where I would have loved to hand over a "stop talking" card. 

    Right now I could use one that says, "It seems you enjoy being a hypocrite." 

        Leta

September 26--Paint the Questions

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart... Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.  --Rainer Maria Rilke

    See yesterday's post for a whole bunch of goofy questions. 

    A friend is in the process of down-sizing from their home of multiple decades to a single level patio home. This is what our real estate agent friend refers to as the "final destination home." My husband and I consider this option periodically, and agree that we ought to start looking, but we haven't so far. We are just living the questions... stay in our current home? move? around Wichita or elsewhere? what are our requirements? do we have the energy to move!??!!?

    Creating helps me live the questions. Certainly that is one reason I continue to write a blog post daily. It is also why I paint. I can have fun with paints and make the world and its concerns go away. Below is completed clay pot #3. It's not the Mona Lisa, but I like it. I'm going with the theory that a colorful pot will make the plant in it happier. 

    Change, and the questions that go with it, are in the air!

    Leta

Clay pot painting adventure #3

September 25--Just Wondering

Be worthy, love, and love will come.  --Louisa May Alcott

    Having love requires being love. It's simple but not always easy. 

    I have just passed two milestones. On September 23, two years ago, my S-I-L Sue died suddenly and unexpectedly. Then on September 24, both my parents made their transitions. My mom passed in 1979 and my dad in 2000. I suspect you can see why September has been a challenging month for me!

    These milestones had me pondering the afterlife which generated some silly thoughts and questions. Note that I don't believe in any such entity as hell. It's all heaven, but I'm thinking my idea of heaven may be different from yours. How do we recognize each other? I want to look like my younger, healthiest self, not older me. I've read via near-death-experiences (NDE) that we are greeted on the other side by loved ones who passed before. There are some of those that I really don't care to see. Are spouses reunited? I love my husband dearly, but with eternity and an infinite number of souls to choose from, I want to consider other possibilities. Are we still female or male? When do we get to organize coming back into another life? It's all a great-fun mystery!

     Willing to wait a long while for the answers!!

        Leta

September 24--The Mystery of Time

On the other side of pain, there is still love.  --Madeline L'Engle

    Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV):

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

    I'd like to get rid of "kill," "weep," "hate" and "war." Alas, those are still in our consciousness.

    Some day...

        Leta

Arlie's son glued a golf ball to a tee
and added it to the marker.
My brother LOVED golf.