THIS TIME

I have often said that my life seems to traverse a path of circles or loop-backs. I began to notice this strange pattern of repeating or retracing several years ago, as early as childhood. I was moved around to several schools and homes with my family due to my father's job. In those days, family would just pack up and move when the father was "transferred". I saw myself as a sort of gypsy..no beginnings, no endings, a sort of "life traveler" belonging to no particular place or time.

A very favorite childhood book, "Half Magic" intrigued me and was a part of my few items I treasured before it, too was lost in one of the "moves". I saw myself as a creative energy, able to fit into all settings and make something out of anything...musings of a lost child? I am not so sure, the stories of my life many years later unmistakeably describe some spiritual force or Karma at work in and around me. I long ago lost shock and surprise at synchronous or serendipitous events which characterized my life. I began to feel as though the was a spirit force, a oneness with something...angels? heaven? Native American roots...I sure couldn't put my own name on it...but I surely had something going on...something that I began to learn was leading me on the paths I should follow, and something reassuring me that I was not alone, that I was being given angel smiles all the time....The repeating of scenarios makes me feel like second hand rose at times...perhaps that is God's humor or perhaps He feels I am more useful if I am placed in familiar settings to accomplish things...I was in 9 different grammar schools before I finished 8th grade...graduating from 8th grade in the same school I had started in Kindergarten.

Many years and much life forward..I am living in the home where my children were raised by my in laws while I worked...I often say I have become my ex mother-in law, or my own grandmother or something...I am raising my son's son in the same house..he and I attend games and care for him as I did with his father when he was a child..only now I'm a grandmother...it doesn't help the fact that I am in the same kitchen with my infant son, then with his infant son, doing the same things again...only this time..yes, THIS TIME, I am better..older, but better..kinder, more generous, more patient..and I am using these times...this time to do better what I had done before...a common theme in my heart about second chances and opportunities missed...as a "survivor" of more than one terminal or life threatening event, I am so grateful for THIS TIME, loop backs, repeaters or whatever you call it...I show up to life, and my Spirit guide, and say...OK Lord, I am following your lead This Time.......

Time to Come Home to Myself

I've been gone a long long time..it was August, when I last posted here, or even looked at it. I've been in a sort of functional fugue state..a post traumatic stress period...life became so invaded, so intruded, so totally empty of any protection or security, lost in the unfamiliar, chaotic, repulsive and threatened world of a terrible contractor experience..I lived in 2 rooms of my home..all that I have was displaced, my bathrooms gone, my clothing and daily items moved, bagged, boxed or lost...strange day laborers in my bedroom and my one bathroom there each day while I was forced to be at work, dust, filth permeated every inch of my house, items were taken, work was shoddy and sporadic, and I was threatened by a bullying owner for more and more money throughout, even though I had naively signed the insurance checks over to him before the "job" started...struggling all hot summer to live and maintain myself in the unfamiliar, unsafe world my home had become..and taking a grandson into live with me at the same time...it was the the most difficult situation I have faced in a long time...I was Scarlet OHara, my oh my how I had always identified with her spirit and survival instincts...I became Scarlet..wearing my drapes as a proverbial gown, with dignity and silent fears, terror of financial collapse, my home a disaster zone...I was on the ground as she was...it was all I had left...and I am JUST waking up..they aren't done, but I needed to stand up to the cursing threatening contractor on more than one occasion...they thought they had a foolish trusting patsy in me...but no, I have begun to reclaim my strength to stand up for the shabby work and unacceptable treatment, record and produce the facts (I'm a very wise documenter of details) and get them done AND OUT OF HERE FOR GOOD...then I will inform my insurance company of the tactics of the "highly recommended" (by the insurance adjuster) contractor....I really could write a book...I can finally breathe and bathe...nothing is perfect, but sometimes and perhaps better, is that the pain will end, and I can come HOME...and be at home in me.....

Long Time No Post

It's been so long since I blogged that I forgot how to access my own account! Or maybe the remodeling horror story has evoked an early Alzheimer's type response from over- exposure to inhalation and consumption of white dust and construction residues. I forgot that for a minute or two while I tried to remember my email name...very bad sign, I'd say!!!

I'm so tired right now that all I can say is I am still here, roomless except for one toilet, shower and sink in the master bedroom which I must regularly share with strange men and day laborers who don't even put the seat down-the toilet, not my bedroom!! More later.......

Time to Remodel the House....

It started with a garage door opener which kept spontaneously opening the garage door in the freezing winter nights....it was like a demonic attack, everytime I shut it, it opened itself....I called Sears...they promised to fix it...I took a few hours off from work to wait for them...they were late...I called....annoyed. Then I heard water running...no water should be running...checked all bathrooms...washer hose...nothing....peeked into garage...the door was OPEN all night..pipes froze and broke...flooding the first floor....where is the damn water shut off?? call 911..."sorry lady, not a police matter"...call a plumber...find the shut off...what a mess! glad I was home..could have been worse, I think...call insurance...get quotes...and then...began the demolition and removal process...and the discovery of just how much damage can hide behind the walls and hidden parts of your home....I am learning to survive in a mess of what used to be a home...right down to the July 12, 1968, 41 year old newspapers stuffed in the walls....when LBJ was president and neighborhood boys were dying in Vietnam and GE refrigerators were on sale for $135...and this was once a brand new home, with brand new pipes, and floors and walls..and gagage doors that were opened manually.....h-m-m-m...progress!

No Time for Me to Blog

Hurry hurry hurry...from one thing to the next. Time flies, tempus fugit they say, and it is so true. Time makes us bolder, children get older...I'm getting older too...I'm thinking of the changes in my life, in life and the changes around me... changes in the seasons of me, the seasons of learning, the times for loving, the times that were moving slowly, languidly, musically and in synch with the songs I sang....and here I am, in the later seasons of my life...seeing the ending in the realm of possibilities, hurrying hurrying,,,without the time to blog about me...if I don't, who will...who can?

No Time Like the Present..

Not much time or inclination to blog lately..busy with work, busy with life, grandsons, medical exams and general icky stuff...I pefer to use words like icky to express my general mood...it leaves interpretation to the reader or listener...and some time for me to identify whatever it is or was that I was feeling......I am not feeling icky right now, so I am blogging...no time like the present, I'd say!

But I do feel sad for an aging Rod Stewart on Idol tonight...still has the charisma, just seems a bit awkward and tinker-toyish compared to his pink spandex hot legs days...like me I guess.....icky thought....I'll leave on that note...til next time...smile...

Mommy Time

It's a new term, "Mommy Time" I don't remember it from my Mom, nor do I believe it was a concept that occured to me when my big ones were little and I was a mommy...I wonder why they have it now and I never did...? It would have been nice.
Maybe my class of Mommies were raised with that "service-minded" Peace corp mentality..children were our gift, we put them first and focused on their every Spock-dictated whims, lest we would cause them some strange and lingering pyschological damage, or worse, risk losing their friendship and respect for us...
The "mommies" we became, and I mean me, were programmed somehow to put our little babes on lofty pedestals, in a devoted, parent-sacrificing playpen, where we clucked and chatted about our little angels development, under our ever watchful and increasingly book-guided child rearing...there were no nannies, no or few babysitters, and grandparents filled in when we fell ill, or were forced to leave our precious children to become"working mothers" (god-forbid). We wouldn't dream or condone of a culture which allowed the Mommy to take a time out from the children, unless hospitalized or worse.
There were no designer babies, born at will and convenience of the Mommies...we waited, prayed and hoped for our wanted babies...and in that mind set it was untenable to do anything but dedicate ouselves to them and their every need and want...we were the pre-Mommy Time-Out Mommies... we mostly still hadn't burned our bras or learned who we were and what our own talents and needs might be...we were the post-war, post-hippie, Camelot generation of Mommies...WE had our Mommy Time Outs as Grandma's and it was almost too late.
We watch our daughters having Mommy Nights, Play dates, Nannies, tennis and golf lessons, spa days and more...while the little babies we waited to grandparent were postponed almost unbearably longer than we thought healthy, and then watched them arrive in timed, scheduled and synchronized bundles, before and after an incredible amount of "mommy times and Mommy time-outs, ladies nights and career-minded decisions...what had we missed?
Our babies and children never knew the electronic era...we didn't text or email, the kids had no DVD's Wi or DS; we were reminded not to be on the phone if the children needed us, and we weren't off duty until they slept, if they did. Mr. Rogers was our role model of dedication to children and sesame street taught us how to make them smarter....but we were still hands on..stay at home was the norm, and we waited to begin our lives and Times until they left....
BUT...they came back, and we now had to fight back the urge to follow them around and sacrifice our well-deserved Mommy Times for the needs of our grown "children" ....Next, I will soon need a nanny...for Me, for it will be the new "Mommy Time"...a time out...for them... from their own tired Mommy...;(
The mommy time "right" is about to be bequeathed..... upon us!

Itching Time

Poison Ivy, poison ivy...lord it makes you itch
So who gets poison ivy from digging in dirt to pull out roots?
No "leaves of three, let them be"..NOT EVEN A TEENSY one did I see...
but, No....it didn't matter!...it got me bad, sneak attack with no warning - kamikaze ivy!!!
Who could imagine that 40 minutes in the garden could drive a sweet woman like me insane?
Well, I am here to tell you...I should have listened to my Dad and given up gardening when I was 4 years old (see earlier post "Is It Time Yet")....Nuts! I say to all the happy gardeners..
one dose of this curse and you'll be sticking plastic and polyester plants and flowers into your garden..from a distance, and dressed like a mummy........
I have itches and increasing torture on almost every inch of me...picture the recent 97 degree weather at night and rampant poison ivy making you feel like a thousand hornets attacking..or those infamous red ants that sting people to death...I ran out to the store today and bought every item on the shelf to de-itch and sooth myself, and ah-h-h something worked..relief...smells bad, but who cares...now all I need is......something to kill the damn ivy!

Will There Be Time?

There's a place for us, a time and place for us..take my hand and we're halfway there...take my hand and I'll take you there...someday...someway...
A wistful love song in my young soul, its melody and its message...a promise. Peace and quiet and open air...time to love, time to share..someday, somewhere.......
Oh my oh my...does it ever leave me? It is almost 46 years since I sat in a movie theater, with an unremembered date...weeping, and hopeful...that there would be a time, a place, a hand to take me halfway there......will there be time? Still? Yet?

My Times

I wondered about what I could share as "My Time"...I can think of so very many "times", but none that were truly MY time...well, a few..
I remember some quiet reflective walks on beaches alone and in no particular hurry or purpose. There were some walks in other spots too...Carmel, California in the mornings; around a local lake at home...walking alone is part of "my times"
I like fishing, not necessarily catching fish, just fishing...standing in a stream in waders, on a boat, a dock..on a beach as a child with my mom...fishing is peaceful, and is part of "my times"
It does begin to dawn on me that my times were usually moments of quiet, peace, restorative, spirit-feeding times...swinging in my hammock, rocking a baby grandson..or for that matter, a child, a son, and a daughter...god-filled times, of love, gentleness, peace, comfort...it never seemed to require much else of a worldly or material nature to find these "times"...
My Times are simple..building a sand castle, planting flowers, painting a bird house, reading a book (when my eyesight was better), listening to music of every type...riding along a beautiful pathway of beauty like California's coastline or Redwood forests..riding through Big Sur or King's Canyon in a Mustang convertible with the top down and Amazing Grace or Pachelbel on the CD player....whew! Definitely one of "My Times"
Watching my first grandson born in the delivery room, and watching my sons's tears of joy as he became a father...My Time..helping to raise him.. all of those days are my times, all 16 years of time with 2 fine fine guys..the father and son.
Seeing my daughter graduate from college and law school...and then watching her plan and carry off the most beautiful wedding I have ever seen...simple and lovely..outdoors in a garden...and her beauty, her joy was one of "my Times"..watching her carry and nurture her babies..becoming a mother and sharing those 2 beautiful little boys with me...my beloved and precious grandsons...EVERY moment is in my book of "Times"
I was not sure I had much to write about...but "My Times" are multiplying in my mind...I think I'll pause and savor these for now.....

Pinky Time

In the pink..... Is it really spring here?
Cherry blossoms are in the pink. Ladies, babies, and girls are in pink today.
Hardly any dull, dark drab winter clothes adorned the folks opening their doors and jackets to show their skin and clothing pinks..... and to begin to feel the warm sunshine... at last.
And there are flowers peeking out, some in pink...no pink birds, but a beautiful pink sky at sunset.
I wore yellow, and white, and a purple necklace, my purple glasses, and a smile...oh, yes and black pants (I'm not completely in the pink yet)...But mostly I wore a smile, and turned my face toward the warm sunshine. I'm SO ready to be in pink and out of my winter chilled cave...I think I am in morph mode...it's time, spring Time, my favorite time (one of)...I feel my happy heart returning, and it's.....Pink!

Time for the Good Stuff...

Oh, for a moment of cookie-making, and kissing soft cheeks, in the drear of a long work week...some days it is only a moment, reflecting on the special Times of my life, that remind me it isn't all work and no play, day after day...the pause that refreshes, restores, and puts a smile in my heart...before I sleep and start my day over, gratefully, very...it is, after all...not THAT many days until it is Christmas cookie-making, grandson-kissing Time.....:-)

Nitey Night Time....

Is there anything in God's world sweeter, or more comforting, than a warm, snuggling, sleepy baby...and his Grandma.... reflecting on the joy of the moment, the Gift of this Time, when he is so content to just be in my arms...

How brief the time that he will be there...
Soon he'll be all gangly and full of ceaseless activity... snakes and snails and puppy dog tails... that's what little boys are made of...but first, he snuggles with Grandma. Thank God for this Time....

Is It Time Yet?

Oh the need to move, hurry, alter, change the pace of time ..how human, childlike. Do we ever really master that impatience?
When I was a wee girl, not quite 4, my beloved Daddy decided to try his businessman's awkward hand at a garden..He selected his favorites, and many of them...radishes (delicious with salt), peas, peppers, green beans and celery, lettuce too. Carrots, he was like Elmer Fudd about them, but I don't want to rush ahead...
I ate lollipops and watched him dig and sweat and get eaten alive by gnats and bees and mosquitos...My daddy always wore a suit a tie and a fedora hat in public...I wasn't sure who he had become, so I watched from the back steps......every day he dug and spaded the dirt.
He ardently, and without any prior experience or background in tilling the land, or doing much of anything hands on, tackled our rocky, non-garden prepped, rented home's backyard in Nutley NJ...he really worked hard..my mother used to holler "Will you PLEASE take a break, you're going to have a heart attack"...she would send me to that back garden with water or a beer for him, but I was afraid of the bees and the yappy dog, so as much as I loved my Daddy I would run back to the steps....
Well, finally the garden was planted...little sticks with seed packets were every where, and then it began...the Is It Time Yet? phase...
I'm sure my Daddy's dreams of his garden yield were grand...he'd come home each day off the bus, newspaper under his arm, hat and suit on, and rush to his garden...he watered and nurtured that dusty seed- packet- covered patch like a godfather....every day, I would go with him while we looked for little green things to stick up...and Lo..they came!!! My Daddy the farmer...could I love him more???
Every day, water, hope, inspect, chase off rabbits...even position that ferociously wild dog near the garden to scare critters away....little beans, little things began to grow......rabbits ate the lettuce... No matter, his eyes were on the radishes and carrots....Daddy, is it Time yet??
And soon enough we had a new routine, me and my Daddy...go to the garden...pull up the radishes and carrots and check out how big they were...and jam them back into the dirt to get bigger...he would tell me...Honey, just a little more Time........
But it never came...and neither did the carrots or radishes....and we gave up....he told me it must have been the lousy soil in Nutley...later I realized that Martha Stewart was growing up in a house just a few steps from where we lived....gosh, Daddy....maybe it wasn't the soil at all....it just wasn' t Time........

Time to Get Hoofin

Time to..get a move on, get my Mojo working, get hoofin..another bug-chasing, germ stopping workday, and I'll be running on empty if I tackle all that's scheduled by day's end...I used to spend great chunks of a day..get ready...teaching and making sure that grown-ups wash their hands...yep, all ages, types and smartness...Wash your Hands, then get hoofin...and then wash your hands after hoofin, and in between, and basically just never stop washing your hands, ever...Kill those germs...
Now, I hope they believe it, and do it, because I can't watch them as much and encourage them, as I'd like...I'm stuck in the bean counting, documenting, public reporting bureacracies of the healthcare world...trying to cram everything into a day...and not for a moment forgetting that I, like the others...have to wash my hands to kill germs and stop those dreaded...yep...HAI....time to get hoofin....you, too, if you're reading this...be one of my elves...IT WORKS!!!

Second Time Around

I've heard it said, and sung..."Love is lovelier, the second time around"... (did that mean ME?) Well, it sounded pretty enticing, even if it didn't mean me, maybe I would feel that way...or maybe the other one would be lovelier...sounded great, the goose hung high....
I was ready ready ready..I liked the whole idea and the people singing and talking about it had such nice encouraging lyrics and concepts...the second wife gets the maid, the second wife gets it all (I could only imagine what THAT meant)...all I needed was a man who had only had ONE previous wife, not two or ten, or none...I was going to do it right this time...I hummed "Second Time Around" hopefully, and quietly if in the presence of Mr. Potentials...here I am ready to be lovelier, ready for abundance...and VERY careful not to fall or be in love with anyone else but my next...number two.
Yay, waiting...and then I noticed a flaw in my math, and theirs too...what about teensy weensy small little "lovings"...did they spoil my chances at that "second time around; second wife" offer?? How much did they count in the love karma rules?? and what if HE had some little loves between ME and his old number one?? Did it make me number five or six or worse??? I felt math and honesty were conspiring to keep me from having a maid, a convertible, not having to work, great homes at the "shore"...having it ALL...was I never going to be in love, lovelier?? It began to feel an awful lot like work ...and really hard to keep track of all those numbers, and be careful not to fall in love with the wrong horse in the race for 2nd place......so...I decided to blog for a while... and wait for a real number 2 to come around...maybe for the second time!!!

A Time Share

Time Shared….Saturday, April 4, 2009
Does anyone, except the very young and the very old, feel the speed of passing time, and the relentlessness of its pace? The young try to hurry and hasten it, elders seek to pause, rewind, or still the page-turning and closure…. of episodes, scenes, chapters, even the whole book of their time, their life stories…Tritely said, not unique, and understood as experienced, each only to thine own self be it known ..truly.

Time shared, or not, rapaciously and relentlessly carries away the breathtakingly precious moments, the holy-jumping-jesus-knock-my-head-off-super-howdy-do times.... right along with the sadly and inattentively, carelessly, wasted chunks and snippets of too many of the days already spent...
Well, I do...I really do, feel it, know it...an acute penetrating sense of wanting to be alive, awake, aware, and honorable to myself, and to the Giver of the Time Gift. It has gripped me…first tapping gently, slowly..... and then with more force....saying, “do you really want to waste this moment, do you really want to postpone doing that, don't you want to take the moment now to say (or not say) this?”

I don't know exactly when it began to whisper into my often cluttered day and mind... prodding me to slow down.... to pause, to hesitate...... and perhaps take another path, another look, make another choice...it caught my attention. I knew without understanding, that it was now Time, my Time........ to pay attention to the page-turning and passage of missed moments and choices.
.......Sometimes I believe it was inextricably linked to the little eyes and fuzzy heads of my sweet baby grandsons...their little eyes clicked within me...yes, clicked.....they seemed to KNOW me, they each seemed to have the key to me, and to my Time, the links to my soul that none before had held...their precious, unexpectedly unconditional love, and acceptance of me as the flawed and imperfect person I am...now as their loving and devoted Grandma...... it was hugely transforming......it made me sing silly things, do anything, and everything, plan and not plan the freeing of my self and my Time on their behalf...
...... I felt time now as never before, I now could almost see it moving around me and in me ...as they grow, Time taps me into a new acute AWARENESS, urgency...do it now, say it now, touch, feel it, give, in each moment your best, your whole heart...and it is wonderful, but wistful to me, for they do not seem to see or feel it, nor do they experience it as I do...
......They came to get me, to turn me toward the truth and precious moments of life...an answer to years of uncertainty was now evident to me in their eyes, their smiles, their hugs, their wonderful acceptance of their Grandma...they call me Captain Fun...and you know, for this Time, maybe the first Time, or a long Time, it's great!
.......Not one minute of Time is lost because my hair isn't neat, or my clothes aren't perfect, not a minute is wasted - not one. When they say "Grandma, you're the bestest one in the whole wide world"...I am, I really am....and Time seems to grant me a tiny reprieve, a Grandma’s pause, a Grandma’s gift of Time…Time Shares….it is yielding it's very finest moments.. I had to wait, and I had to be patient, and honor the life I have, but wow, is it exceeding all I thought I knew about Time...I’m being shown, and led, by two very precious little boys..my Sam and Kieran...They just came from the place I am heading towards, and God sent them to help me find Time, Time to Share….Time to find the Way.