From My Heart to Yours

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In the spirit of the Holiday Season, I offer these thoughts.

In the last several days, I have been in touch with family and friends, old and new, to exchange holiday wishes. Our conversations soon turn toward the happiness we’ve been experiencing. Each person mentions, in particular, what a wonderful Christmas this has been, citing a family gathering, a small, unexpected gift, a thoughtful gesture or a graceful compliment from someone whose opinion they respect.

I have been warmly welcomed into an extended family celebration and sit by a beautifully decorated Christmas tree basking in the warmth from the fire, while I eat my fill of delicious food and watch two overexcited toddlers being babysat by a village. Instruments come out and are tuned, voices are raised in song. The feeling of community is intense and warms me from the inside out.  This happiness is heady stuff.  I wish I could stay in this exalted state always and I revel in it while it’s here.

These positive feelings are buoyed up by the fact that the immutable laws of Nature allow the pendulum to remain in a negative position only so long, before gravity has its say. Now each tick of the clock brings us farther down the positive swing of the arc. Suspend disbelief and consider with me for a moment that things can only get better. Since we are what we think, perhaps we could simply think a better world into existence.

There is a YouTube video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkbpXRSIUnE which shows the positive and negative effects of thought on water crystals, and which opens whole new avenues of thought.

Choose to hang on and enjoy the ride! Take an occasional glance in the rear view mirror, but pay attention to where you are now, while you approach the unknown future. If you’re not in the driver’s seat, call dibs on Navigator and indicate your interest in moving up. Life is for living, for being involved.  There are few things sadder to read than stories of a life full of regrets and backward glances.

Here’s a serious thought.  Pretend that you are elderly, certainly you know your story is winding down.  Have this future you sit down and make a list – I mean really think this through! Make a list of all the things that you always wanted to do and never did.  Then come back to the here and now and start to do them.

As you may know, last January I packed up and sold off my worldly goods, including my car, picked up myself and my two cats, and moved away from my whole world of almost 50 years and started a new life in Oregon.  I am happier and feel freer here than ever before.  I made a list of 20 Wishes a year ago, and after rereading it just now, I find that, with a few tweaks here and there, I’m a solid 9 for 20, I’m working on several others and am tinkering with the rest.  I remain, as always, a work in progress.

Thought for the Day:  My most sincere wishes for peace, health, happiness and love, now, in 2010 and always.

Evening in the City

The rain comes down in a medium but determined manner, the day appears windless and the sky is a medium gray. All the little holes in the window screens are full of water, and they vibrate as the wind I cannot see trembles them in their frames. The traffic swishes by in the watery streets four stories below, the slick sound of the cars’ tires and the occasional deeper note of a bus. Oh, how glad I am to live in a city again, particularly when the city is Portland, toward which my heart has yearned for a decade. Eleven months now and I’m still in love with the skyline and the patterns of the lights and the sounds of traffic.

When the weather permits, I enjoy sitting on the deck, particularly at night, and breathing in that wonderful air. I don’t know, nor do I care, what it is that so delights me about it, but it is a constant source of pleasure.  And how could a day that ends this way be anything but good?

Thought for the Day:  (From “Taps”)  “Day is done, Gone the sun…”

To Paraphrase Blanche

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I am constantly heartened by the unexpected kindness of strangers, and here is the perfect example. I had gone to my local Fred Meyer and done a week’s food shopping, and I’d completely lost track of the number of items in my cart. I moved a few nonessentials to the end of the belt and asked the cashier to subtotal for me at that point. So… I thanked him and told him I’d changed my mind on the other items (none of which I couldn’t live without). I paid up and was loading my bags into my grocery cart when I noticed the cashier had put my extras in a bag, and I knew I hadn’t paid for them. I got his attention and began to explain, but he interrupted to say that the man behind me had paid for them, around $18 in all.

I turned around to face a perfect stranger, who when I attempted to thank him, waved me off and looked fixedly over my shoulder. So I accepted the gift and was very grateful and totally awed. Talk about Random Acts of Kindness, and, yes, Perfect strangers. I am so blessed.

I’m happy to share this story with you, but whether or not this kind stranger ever sees my post, I’m putting a message out into the Universe, to say thank you to a man who didn’t need a seasonal reason for a Completely Disinterested And Totally Random Act Of Kindness (or as I like to say, “CDATRAOK You’re OK.”)

Thought for the Day: Refrain from putting out there energy you really wouldn’t like to get back. That boomerang effect can be killer.