Month: May 2017

Evanescent for WPC 5-24-17

Evanescent
Evanescent-

soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading or disappearing.
“a shimmering evanescent bubble”

Oh boy, I had to look this one up…maybe because I am the Queen of Holding On, of refusing to let go of stuff, especially love and also beauty…in any and all of its forms. And PEOPLE, don’t get me started. I hang on to people, healthy for me or not. I am still in touch with almost every boy I have ever loved!!

So I had a hard time “getting” the definition of this word…

synonyms: vanishing, fading, evaporating, melting away, disappearing;

I learn so many lessons from sea shells. Having grown up by the ocean, I have been a collector all my life. But it wasn’t until an amazing sailing trip throughout Fiji, where we got to prowl along beaches so remote it truly felt like we might be the first humans to ever lay bare feet in that sand, that I realized I was a shell snob. That was my first insight into my own ageism. I only wanted those gorgeous, undamaged shells. In other words, the young perfect ones.

Even though we had to receive permission from the chief of an island to collect shells, it was the locals who pointed out I was gathering shells that might not be finished with their life’s purpose yet. Most shells are recyclable! I was stealing some hermit crab’s future home or maybe a pearl’s gestation container!

But this post is not about shells. My interpretation of evanescent is about all things with a life cycle, no matter how short or long. My lesson from the word this week is to remember how the Fijians (the iTaukei) taught me to fully appreciate beauty at every stage.

It’s easy to see and appreciate the evanescent progression in nature…

I can see the obvious beauty there…

But it’s a bit more difficult when I study the phenomenon of Evanescence while looking in the mirror!

Time…….passing at warp speed now!

That’s all I can say…

Heritage for WPC 5-17-17

Heritage
The word for this week’s WordPress Challenge theme is Heritage. This “wall” in my home  office/group room was created to balance the masculine energy in my house these days as I live with SIX MEN!

But it really represents my Heritage. I come from a long line of very creative and powerful women, specializing in survival. Most of them, through necessity or circumstance, were Single Mothers.

These lacy, pastel bits and pieces are from these women, as far back as one of Brigham Young’s many wives…all of whom were basically “single mothers”

IMG_6906IMG_6901IMG_6900IMG_6899IMG_6898IMG_6897IMG_6894

Reflecting on Flowers growing through Cement

Reflecting

For our WPC theme this week Nancy Thanki wrote: “Whether it’s water or some other reflective surface, what have you seen recently that has changed your perspective on the view?”

Here’s my take on it. It is my mission in life is to learn how (and teach others) to    Choose a Perspective.

There was no sunrise yesterday morning. I’m not kidding. The sucker just didn’t come up!! No Sun. Just continued darkness…inviting the kind of depression that comes with S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder).

This is the chair I fight the cats for each morning, when the sun comes up and is streaming in from all sides, but not yesterday!

 

IMG_9607

Then I remembered three things.

  1. This IS Washington State after all. The weather can change in an instant. We just don’t like to spread the information about how truly gorgeous it can be when that sun does come out. We are crowded enough…
  2. I am the Queen of blooming where I’m planted, making the best of things, Choosing HOW I look at things, so I better use all that knowledge now.

3. Since my other posts this week were on Reflections, I wanted to do one on    Reflecting, so I did that. I Reflected for a while…most of the day actually…and    sure enough, true to its reputation, the Northwest Spring changed it’s mind about  everything!

So I went for a walk…just one block…and here’s what I found!

OH, and THIS!!!

And then THIS!!

And lastly, THIS!

If all that glory, on a single block, is not enough to shift your perspective, then I suggest you reflect on this; with whom will you be doing some psychotherapy…and how QUICKLY!

Song Lyric Sunday — Mother’s Day 2017

I just can’t write about my mother(s) today. I will sometime. I know I need to.

And since I didn’t get a single card or call or flower and I even had to make my own coffee, I’m feeling pretty forlorn.

So I will write about myself.

I have been a mother since I was 5 years old. I knew how to change diapers and handle baby food and bottle basics before I started school. I mothered my little sisters (and I must have done a lousy job because they resent the hell out of me.)

Don’t get me wrong. I love mothering. I live for it. My favorite movie as a child was not some Disney Princess thing. Nope, for me it was “Cheaper by the Dozen”.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3171616537

All I ever wanted was a huge family, a bunch of kids to mother!

I even mothered my mother, trying so hard to convince her life was worth living…but I failed…well, that’s how it felt to my broken teenage heart when she finally chose the permanent “check-out”.

I mothered, in the following order, myself, my sisters, my mother, my babysitting kids, my pets, my friends, my foster sisters, my boyfriends, my fellow students, my co-workers, my husbands, my neighbors, my BUGS, broken birds, and my hundreds of my clients…this last is a whole separate story of amazing “motherhood”.

I mothered myself when my own mother escaped her pain by shooting herself. How oxymoronic is that?

And I had to make the excruciating decision to NOT mother the child I was carrying at the time my mother died, leaving my sisters in my real charge this time.

Blissfully, I finally got to mother my son Michael, the light of my life, and eventually, a pile of step-children. And now, though I am their grandmother, I even get to mother my grandsons a little bit.

It’s still my favorite thing to do.

So here is my choice for Song Lyric Sunday, today, Mother’s Day, 2017. It’s the song I used to play for my most injured and damaged clients, in the hope that somehow, a little mother’s love really can heal. I know it has healed me.

And I know my “daughter” Pamela has received exactly this from her Mother.

 

And just so I don’t end on a pitiful note,

 

I’m off to Mother my CATS!!! They won’t know what hit them!

https://helenswordsoflife.com/2017/05/13/song-lyric-sunday-theme-for-51417/

IMG_1345

COB 5-14-17

https://ceenphotography.com/2017/05/14/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-may-14-2017/

For Cee’s Odd Ball Challenge

An OddBall Slideshow!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Gosh that was fun to pick out those weirdo photos with no category to fit into!

Thanks Cee.

COB-Banner