April 17, 2016.

Of course I cried.  My son is travelling with his school, not one hundred miles away but several without me, without his father. In reality it could not be a safer trip and the good Lord knows he deserves it – a good student, a good person and his irreverence is probably appropriately reserved for and encouraged by, me, definitely not “Mother of the Year.”  All my experiences of these past years, you see, to some degree, were witnessed by him.  Felt and experienced at a time of his own transformation.  Oh son – and I have told him a thousand times – my cringe at those memories and the revelation of my own hypocrisies are  overshadowed by the theme of survival.  We made the journey, all of us, including my former husband, to these days.  We are alive.  We have today.

(It is Sunday.  My God moment of the past week?  Well, one such tidbit is popcorn.  There exists not just regular corn or the tasty two-tone white/yellow variety….nope.  Popcorn.  It is Sunday – Sundays are popcorn.  In fact:  Life is popcorn.  Why?  Really? I do not know, but there is no denying its existence.  For some reason, popcorn….)

One lesson I wanted for my son and my life was doing what I say I am going to do.  I do not know if there is some magic percentage which qualifies a person from total hypocrite to honest Abe – is there a sliding scale of ones own righteousness? No, I do not think I want to examine myself and definitely not anyone else under that heavy magnifying glass.  I get too confused.  Sometimes all it takes is a drive down the road, time to think and the simple question “Did you do what you said you were going to do? Did you do it?”

Sometimes the answer is “Thank goodness, no.”  And of course, there are a rainbow of possible answers.  For me though, on this particular path of mine I have realized two things:  1) The rock story guides me back to center.  That is who G-d made me to be.  Gentle, aware and quite okay, thank you very much.  2) Mother Nature is the only change which can awaken the green hidden in the buds of grey tree fingertips. Boom. Leaves on trees. Done. The change is complete.

Personally speaking I have not found life to be so.  I change slowly, improving, then destroying.  Old habits get in the way, crowding out the freshly planted ones.  Years went by without realizing that is life.  It is how I change.  You do not stop.  Do it again.  Do the same thing because often times the same things you do today are not the same things you did yesterday or five years ago.  In fact, they are not.  People tried telling me a million times but I would not listen nor would I understand until I felt it.  Or maybe it was coming face to face with my own shortcomings then deciding over and over…how badly do you want it?

In business it is up to me.  In my life, it is up to me.  And more often than not it is one brick at a time, rejoicing at the experience gained by failures equivalent to the actual victories.  And sometimes those victories are only meaningful to your own soul.  You gotta practice your own version of the ‘high five”.  I had made a promise to myself to be energy efficient thinking all along I would replace a thirty year old freezer which hummed loudly as it cooled the air around it along with freezing its internal contents of expired cakes, soups and meat.  I started to ask myself if rather than replacing it, why don’t I really try to determine if I actually need it.

Last night I finally cleaned it out, then unplugged it.  Silence. Victory.

…..

I am writing outside for the first time of the year.  On my front stoop, blankets, coffee, the morning sun, my dog Wally, and the wonderful welcome of breaks in my concentration by the tattling chirp of chipmunks, crowds of frogs (or are they toads?) and the springtime friskiness of robins.

……..

I have heard, with a heavy heart, that nothing is forever.  What if that is wrong?  What if everything is?

…..

Snippets of thought and snippets of change and I am grateful to be a snippet, a small speck in this universe, contented by the promise itself of learning to follow through on that which I call “promise,” but rejoicing in small changes…like the unexpected welcoming softness of Eve’s new rug on toes and soles which celebrate a season of barefeet.

Popcorn?

Just a bit of heat, water, “insides” and the integrity of ones shell.  Delicious. A very tasteful life.  You pick the flavor, if necessary.

Happy Sunday!

Love and Blessings,

Steph

#onewomansjourney #beautifuljourney #popcorn #promises #sunday #womanslife #writing