Livng the Life

Reflected, Refracted, Reframed

Shattered, broken, cold

Silent, bowed, calm

reframed, refracted, reflected

fractured

splintered

De-Boned, Denied, Defenseless

Anonymous

Feeling Blessed to Know You

Sunset in Cow Country.  What a beautiful time to reflect. 

The sun has just dipped low behind the trees across the road outside my window - is blood-orange brilliance now dimmed to a blush pink rimmed with gold.  And I am now not quite so blinded by the light.  Funny how it seems that it is only as the brilliance passes and we sit somewhat melancholy in the afterglow that we have th momentary glimpse of both what could have been and what should not have been.  A taste of both the bitter and the sweet.

I am not complaining.  Life has been a very good ride for the most part.  I have awesome family and friends that I would climb mountains for and vice versa.  But sometimes - when that sun is setting I must say I have a bit of time to consider regretting - and then the golden glow bounces up and I catch myself and know that my path is a pretty good one.

I think I am pretty lucky to know that the people I truly love are for the most part happy.  Even the ones who are far distant or that I have lost touch with have found their place in the universe and are laughing and enjoying their days.  And I find no small amount of solace in the warmth that that gives me.  Pretty peaceful here in Cow Country as I watch the sun settle for the night and breathe - just breathe - knowing that really great people are in really great places - most if not all doing really greath things - and for those who are working toward the doing - I hold the certainty that they will get there.  That's what good people do............they attract good things, it may not always seem like it, but life is abundant and I am so lucky to be able to share and to have shared mine with wonderful folk who deserve every ounce of magic good karmic energy that swings their way  -

I sure hope all of you are enjoying the sunset or the sunrise - depending on where you are on our fabulous planet this fine October day.

I am grateful for the chance to know you and be known by you. 

Be blessed and feel blessed - the world is a wonderful place

EM

Turn the Other Cheek - Happy Monday

Ever just felt like the car you were in was heading toward something you knew was a bad idea?  Ever felt like one of the crash dummies?  Knowing the impact was coming - but not able to do anything about it?  Basically because it was your job to sit back and take the hit, and then let the scientists measure the damage?  Because after all - it is very important to be able to determine just how much you can take.  How much direct force hit, how much pressure, how much wind shear (yes that would be the velocity of the voices coming at you with requests).  And there you sit, compliantly strapped in like a good little crash dummy, just waiting for impact.

Yep, that's life sometimes.  You brace for it and then you just deal with the fall out afterwards, cause there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop the hit from coming.  In fact, if you try it just makes the hit come down harder.

I think it is probably easier for those of us who grew up when corporal punishment was still practiced in some small degree both at school and at home.  At least we have a clue that the smack down capacity of the universe is out there.  We have learned to brace for it.  We have even learned what it feels like to dance around the edges of danger inviting its harsh reality.  Though I for one can tell you that I learned pretty quickly that I did not like its branding heat enough to play with that fire often.  My preference has always to play it just safe enough to lean away from challenging the harsh hand of punishment I can avoid by suimply modifying my behavior.  What seems most difficult is the punishment that life meets out without regard to what you do or do not do.

It is simply there - a quick back hand across the cheek - I guess its life's way of making sure you are not asleep at the wheel. One would think that the Almighty could have come up with a softer way to express his need to be accounted for . Just sayin'.

Alas - here I am, bright red print on the side of my head where fate's B*%$ slap just landed only a few short minutes ago.  I am feeling stunned and wounded and more than a little bit piqued. 

I mean - it makes no sense.  I have just been sitting here in my little corner, doing not much of anything (honest) - I work, I sleep, I work some more and then I pay the bills and try to make sure I have stuff covered for my family.  Wow - its exciting - yep - I am living the life!  I am not really complaining - I have a great family - so looking out for them - its really what I enjoy most - that being said - I can't imagine what I have done to the karmic balance that requires such heavy handed treatment. 

But then again, life doesn't always dole out its charm just because the infraction has already occurred.  Sometimes you pay in advance, sometimes in arrears, and it seems some just pay-up when they are pushing daisies.  The latter doesn't sound all that bad - except I don't really know for sure what those sould are required to do when it gets to daisy pressing time, so I think maybe wishing on the truly unknown may be a tad worse than just wishing that the current beat down were more like a love tap.

Well complaining never really gets you anywhere.  There are some that say that the squeaky wheel gets the grease - I guess that is true - if you are lucky enough to be where the grease is, and where someone who knows what to do with it also happens to be.  Otherwise the squeaky wheel just gets to be annoying.  So with that in mind I guess I should just get over it.  Rub my reddened cheek and extend the other so I can at least match from one side to the next. 

Life Balance is said to be all the rave these days, guess I will givve that a try starting with cheek number two................

Happy Monday all ....................

Speeding Comfortably

Oh what a world we live in.  When the days go by so fast that we can't seem to remember where one ended and one began.  I can remember a time when moments seemed to last.  I guess that just isn't the way it works anymore.

I wonder sometimes if that is because of the way I have changed or if the world has changed around me.  I suspect it is a bit of both.  From my perch in the glass wasp nest (yes I expect them back as soon as the warm weather truly hits us again)- I see the traffic go by.  People rushing to the next place, some so fast that they swerve around other vehicles as if they are in a chase scene for a high action movie.  Maybe they just like driving that way?  I guess that is always possible.  

I have found that everything I do seems to be measured by how fast it gets done.  I spend very little time actually wallowing about.  I am as busy as a worker bee.  Even my relaxed time has a pressed pace- I read fairly quickly -  an average of  two to four books a week depending on their length, from 60 to 80 pages a day (more if the book is really good) - all fit in over morning coffee and the thirty minutes I set aside prior to lights out.

It sounds like I parse out my day with a regimented schedule.  I have to admit I do not even come close.  I think if I had a second middle name it would be chaos.  I pretty much live in a constant state of chaos. And as far as I can tell most of the people I know do too,  It may be a bit more controlled than mine - but it is still chaos.  No real set anything - perhaps they might know what day and time the basketball team they are on practices or has games.  But they do not know when their spouse, kid or job will cause a conflict with that schedule.

And the moments that we have.  You know, the onces that stand out?  Those that we want to capture and those that we never want to go near again - they seem to contract over time.  They get smaller and smaller until you can fit them in a tiny little box inside your memory.  Where they stay until you choose to pull them out and feel their warmth (at least I hope you are pulling out the ones you would like to live again and not the other kind). 

I guess sometimes there are people in your life that press your nose into those memories that you would prefer not to relive - but I tend to avoid the people who press me to live like that.  I don't think they have the right to press me to live in the ugly parts of the past.  If it is past, it is past.  I can't imagine why I would want to roll around in something that is painful a second, third or fourth time around.  Though I have to tell you I know a number of folk who spend most of their days doing just that.  Its like they can't put that box down - they have to keep rooting around through it - even though when they do so it makes them hiss with pain.   You would think they would figure it out and leave the memory box alone. After all the past is not going to change.  It is what it is.  It won't undo itself because we want it to be different.  Once we accept that something has happened we should be able to move along.

And now it seems that life is like an express train.  Everything is on full speed ahead.  It is like there is never anytime to slow down and take the hit or enjoy the moment.  Things happen at such a rapid pace that you have to grab a glimpse of what they mean and then off you go.

I wonder if this is the Pandora's Box of our Age?  This speed with which we transact our business; our lives; our relationships?  The fact that so much of how we share is now electronic?  How often do we end up connecting to people through text, email or social media?  The next generation has gotten to the point that they won't use the phone to speak - it is just a texting device.  So many of them will push off a call if they can reduce it to a text or an email (and even that will have text abbreviations in it).

I miss the slower days.  And yet - I am caught up in this speed enhanced world- I fear I cannot go slower now. I am addicted to checking each of my interactive media devices. So I guess I am as guilty as the next person in supporting this stream of ever increasing separation from the human to the electronic - from a rythym set at the pace of a heart beat to one set at the speed of rocket moving faster than the speed of light.  Though I may sometimes get wistful and long for the feeling of a slow day in the sun, I have to admit I know myseelf well enough at this stage in the game to state unequivocably that I wouldn't last 6 hours in that type of setting.  In fact, I might not even make it that long unless I was getting in a nap.

So for now I will accept that I am likely one of those drivers who moves from lane to lane in order to get where I am going faster and smile a bit for those who are taking their time.  I have a feeling we are both working on balance.  When they look in my window they probably are asking themselves if they shouldn't consider speeding up - just as I look at them and wonder about slowing down.

So here's to our rat race - may we all find the speed that is comfortable - and may we all take comfort in our speed.

Buenos Nachos

This has been a pretty fast year all told -

I have been to TX a couple of times, to PA, to IL, to FL, to GA, to TN and to Argentina...........I am definitely working the frequent flyer miles.  And somewhere in between I am working on finding the pieces of me that I have lost over the last few years.

I guess I started this blog in the hopes that I would be able to work my way around - and if not all the way around,  at least work out enough of the kinks that I could move on without gasping for air.
I have spent part of the time spinning in place, letting the gravity of the empty spots inside prevent me from moving - even sliding backward.  Then somehow I found the grace to start forward and along that path I have zigged and zagged, often fallen -( fallen quite far at times )- only to find myself trapped behind walls I have had no idea how to break through.  And at times, feeling as if the path that seemed to be "forward" was nothing more than a giant circle, a never ending pathway to my personal pit of despair.

Yet today, as I write, feeling fairly melancholy, the one thing that I know is true, is that I have definitely moved forward.  And I have started to collect the parts of me that I lost along the way, at least some of the parts of me that make me feel whole.  I kind of wish I had taken this journey years ago, when youth could have added to my capacity to rebound.  But I suspect I would not have appreciated the value of the lessons learned at that point.

There is it seems gold buried beneath that pile of rock and sludge (and possibly scat from various animals that do not bear thinking about). 

Or perhaps a better metaphor for me would be that under the jalapenos there could actually be a plate of really good nachos - It does however take getting over your distaste and your fear of the burn of those peppers. 

Not everything in life presents itself as a great idea when you see it.  Somethings have to be tried.  And not everything you try will be great idea.  There are somethings that you learn to make great by finding the balance that works for you.  In my case, with the nachos, I can get to Damn Good Nachos - but I have to start by leaving the jalapenos a the store - You see I can pick around the sides and dig way down under on a plate that has been tainted with jalapenos- but I cannot handle the flavor of a jalapeno infected nacho - Just not for me.  But I know that now - as I have tried it - full on pepper and post-pepper removal. 

I guess that is part of finding yourself.  We spend a great deal of our lives accomodatig others.  I think this is a good thing.  It really doesn't hurt to see a movie that is not really your thing if it means you get to be with the whole family for the evening - just not that big a give.  But, it is also not that hard to  make a plate with and one without the jalapenos if you are baking up your dishes for a group event.  And it doesn't hurt anyone for you to eat from the plate you prefer.   It just takes having the knowledge of what you like and the gumption to pursue it.

I know this sounds pretty trivial - but I think you can read beyond the cheese and peppers and get to the point I am trying to make.  You really can't move forward when you lose who you are (and it happens) - until you take the time to figure out who you have become - (not who you want to be) and then start living in that skin. It is not an easy process - and along the way you can expect to have your fair share of burnt pallettes - (jalapeno's are not the only pepper that can take you down that road).

So to all of us who are on that road -

Buenos Nachos...........

On Social Investment

Time passes so quickly.  We spend such a great deal of it running from one place to the next.  Even more is spent vacantly staring t the world around us - with technology paving the path to our ever growing capacity somehow convince ourselves we are participating in our own lives, while simply sitting there staring at a screen - or perhaps in a an act of sheer bravado manipulating the figures on the screen with our handheld controls.

I just started reading a synopsis of the European Unions approach to standardizing basic social investment impact measurement standards.  While it may appear that these two paragraphs have nothing to do with each other I would argue that they do.  Investment is not only cash or cash equivalents.  Investment is also measured in time and talent contributions, or as we often refer to it - as sweat equity.  And in this global context we are really beginning to look at matrixes that can help define and support methodologies that can provide objective measurements of the results achieved by making these investments.  We are not longer tracking the return on investment for just cash, we are tracking the return on investment for time and talent as well - the social return on investment, - we are even beginning to look at the environmental return on investment.  - Big concepts, which are starting to shape the way the world is looking at how business is done.

But it got me thinking - that perhaps  there is more.  Perhaps under all of this is a deeper paradigm shift.  Maybe are starting to move toward a more robust view of our lives as humans as a whole.  One in which our internal metrics for understanding who we are, for measuring our levels of success, are not measured by cash in the bank and fancy cars in the garage, or how great the score was that we achieved on Call of Duty or Candy Crush Saga.  Perhaps we too, as individuals, couples, families and communities will begin to look at the way we choose to spend our time and measure it with regard to the social return on our investment. 

Not that we can spend every waking moment attempting to have positive impact on the world around us.  But perhaps we can be more deliberate in choosing time to have this impact, within our core relationships, our extended families, our workplace, and our  communities.  I know that my neighbor, who rescued me from the snow drift last night had a tremendous impact on my life - not just because he helped me out of an inconvenient and very cold situation- (which he did ).  But also because without knowing anything about my situation, he saved me from doing more damage to my neck and shoulder which are trying to heal from an unfortunate event at the end of 2013.  His act of kindness had much broader impact for me, and I have a feeling that SROI (social return on impact) was something that he took home afterward.  His kids watched as he saved the day - and they learned from his efforts too.  I will likely bring his family some baked good or another this weekend as a thank  you, even though I know I don't need to. 

It is a small example, but one none the less - a community connecting  -

I  think we are well past due for that type of change -

So while the winter blues may have you in their grip - don't forget to make time to invest in those around you - the returns will be well worth the effort........

Let me know if you want a link to the report................

Rock Steady and pay it forward....

There and Back Again

It has been awhile since I posted.  I apologize for the silence - I guess there are times when what a person has to say - they say only to themselves ( Of course there are times when what they choose to say should probably have been left to themselves as well). 

In my silence I have experienced a myriad of adventures/misadventures and other rather indescribable events.  I have spent a good deal of time grappling with just who it is that I have become - and who it is that I want to be.  Much of this introspection was not at all palatable - while some was surprisingly pleasant.

Coming to grips with yourself is rather like wrestling with a massive grizzly bear while attempting perform this task in toe shoes and a strapless gown that a size or two too big.  No matter what you do you are painfully aware that each movement could cause you to either embarass yourself dreadfully with a public clothing disaster (think on the lines of cliche schoolroom nightmares); break an ankle or get your neck chewed in two.  Not many good options on that list.  However, if you do manage to finesse this tango there is the distinct possibility that you will have learned the fine art of ballet, developed a deep and meaningful relationship with a wild creature that you otherwise would never have dreamt possible, and perhaps created an opportunity to take a fabulous gown in for sizing at the end of the day.  All of which seem to be reasonably valuable outccomes - especially if it means that the person in front of you in the mirror is no longer a stranger - but someone you know, like, and yes, most importantly respect.

While I can easily state that I have the respect part down and am fairly comfortable with the like (on most days)  - the knowing part is harder.  I suspect that may be true for almost all of us.  Perhaps that is the root of the existential dilema. Each of us may like and respect the person that we believe ourselves to be, but frankly, we may not actually know who the hell we are.  Predominantly because we derive a great deal of our definition based on how we interact with others and how they define us through these interactions.

Irregardless of our personal attempts to ensure that we are defined by the actions we take, it is the reaction of others to these actions that somehow end up as the milestones upon which we take the measure of ourselves. 

I must admit that I am not very good at picking up on these clues.  Often I simply move - forward, to the left or to the right - perhaps even back a step or two and then proceed on, based on my moral compass and what I believe is the best action I can take given the cause and effect that action may have on those I care about and the world around me as a whole.  Given this, I tend to come round every once in awhile to moments where I question - just who and what does that make me ?  How am I perceived?  Am I the person I think I am?  Do I deliever a different message in the things I say and do that I think is occuring?  After all - reality is what You percieve it to be - therefore it is different for Everyone. 

In the time that I have been absent from the blog - I have wrestled with this quite a bit.  And I think at this juncture I have determined to trade in the ballet shoes for some comfortable gym shoes, the over-sized evening gown for jeans and a comfortable long-sleeved sweater (it is bitterly cold where I am) and to talk with my Grizzly Bear over a nice cup of cocoa.  Life is just too short to spend it muddling over perception.  Yes it is important to understand how you are percieved - but it is not the primary driver.  Your own inner moral compass must remain the primary driver in deciding what you will and will not do.  If you waiver from this, I believe you end up weakening your inner-self and eventually will not have the courage to face your reflection because you will no longer be able to find yourself in the mirror - only a prismatic view of who you might have been - as you fractionalize who you are by bending to fit the image of the people in your life for whom you strive to be different.

Don't get me wrong - I love rainbows - and I would truly love to find out what is at the end of one -
Though I think I may already have a pretty good idea - The end of the rainbow is just you or me - whole and complete - and accepting of who we are.

Ready to go find Toto? I am................