ellenspictures

Category: life stories

  • Thanksgiving…

    Thanksgiving…

    No matter how hard your life is, or what has happened, it is a day that we say “thanks” for everything that we have that is good.  We celebrate with food, friends, sometimes family, and sometimes the family comes before friends (not in some of my extended family, in their case, mostly, the friends are more important).   So, we have people we know who need to be with others, together, to celebrate.

    When my grandmother was still around, and even my mom, it was a “default” to gather with family.  I think that this set of constructs seems to have faded.  I don’t even get invited about half the time by that side of my family.  Their priorities are different and involve friends, mainly – and first degree relatives – despite that we are by comparison, an extremely small family – just a handful of us left…  There is always something more important like a football game, or some other event…  the likes of this would make my grandmother roll-over in her grave, seriously, but then, she has been gone for many years… and I am sure that somewhere, as she fades back in memories, somehow, the importance  of family is brought forward… no thoughts as to how that plays out…  Usually, when someone gets sick or dies – well, even that isn’t really something that might sustain visiting or building stronger relationships – it is what it is.

    At our Thanksgiving celebrations of the past, when asked to say prayers, my Dad would always launch into a rambling prayer, truly from his heart… On one occasion, he asked my cousin, Susan, to say a prayer and she, being caught off-guard, and being a young teen, pretty much giggled herself into a mess – my Dad, picking back up the conversation with God to ask for continued grace, and moving us along to the meal.  On another occasion, it was at the Thanksgiving table that I bit into one of my Grandmother’s famous watermelon pickles and felt the first twinge of pain that signaled a case of mumps that I had to endure over the next few days – more like ten – when I was in first grade…

    And then, there was the Thanksgiving after Rob’s birth – just a few days following – with my post-partum perspective, just having given birth to a child who required immediate emergency surgery to repair a lethal birth defect, who lay in a Neo-natal intensive care unit forty-five minutes away from our house – it was hard to scrounge up “thanks” – but I did, at least, thank God for letting our baby at least have a chance at life – not knowing the rocky road ahead…

    At any rate, we try to keep traditions where we can, and make new ones where old ones seem to fade away.  It’s about distance, of time and relationships, and how we seem to live now — alienated, sometimes, as we go through our day to day lives… Our focus is more immediate.  We seem to be thankful when reminded about our gifts by hearing of some loss that others have suffered, or some travesty that someone we know is enduring at present – God’s little reminders, I guess…

    But each Thanksgiving, there will be the feast, and friends, and some family – and we will toast to our blessings… This is how it is… and how it will be…

    This year our Thanksgiving was good – with my remaining first degree family, and some good friends – and it was different, but we were thankful for our gifts – and the food on the table… and asked for grace for the future…

  • bad bandwidth, slow down, chillax…

    bad bandwidth, slow down, chillax…

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    we are so connected that we can’t do much with ourselves if we aren’t… we think.

    yet.  if faced with that space in our lives, we have to re-learn what activity to choose:

    • do nothing (that’s scary, uhm, isn’t that like meditating?)
    • go find others to do something with… (hmmm, sometimes scary)
    • go be by yourself and in a focused way, do something that is a solitary relaxation activity (ahhh, now we are getting somewhere)
    • follow the lessons learned, being an only child (could write a book about this)
    • work on that book or some other book (ok, maybe there isn’t a book to work on…) write a poem?  haiku?  riddle or limerick?
    • play games
    • …

    in times past, and in times now, and in times forward into the future, we must, individually, face change.  change is life, life is change – how much have we heard this and it is true.

    think of it.  every nano-second, inside your body and mind, split second changes occur.  outside of yourself in the world around you, change is happening in multiple dimensions and it is chaotic, yet it is somehow mostly organized, with predictable phases and even behavioral characteristics.

    interesting conversations.  many changes in thoughts.  anxieties.  anxieties settled by something in the next second.

    i remember well, a time, years ago.  we had a group of children engaged in a day out from the hospital where they were patients for behavioral and psychiatric treatment for dysfunction and conditions that made them not able to live at home.  on our way back, one of them began to have a psychotic episode where one minute he was okay, the next, he began hallucinating, then became panicky, then expressed himself by being paranoid and acting out.  one of our staff got the brilliant idea to try opening an orange drink, then offering it to the boy, stating that this would make him feel better.  change the scene, change the sensations, hoping to change the progression of the episode.  amazingly, when the boy, who trusted the staff member, took the drink, tasted it, and swallowed it, it somehow did settle his anxiety and the psychotic expressions seemed to lift.  amazing.  change of sensation tipped the brain somehow.  not very scientific, but something worked.

    this stuck in my mind from that day forward.  whenever i get anxious i remember that time.  what is going on.  stop.  take a break.  do something different.  change.

    every one gets anxious at least once in their lives.  most of us get some sort of anxiety once a day, most days.  it is hard to relax in a connected and chaotic world with so much stimuli coming at us all the time.

    being by yourself for a brief time, when you don’t expect it, can be considered a small activity like going to a movie, or doing anything else.  short duration. seek to get the best out of the time.  read a book.  write a book.  sketch.  meditate.  what else?  the list can go on.

    take that opportunity to relax.  chill-out.  remember.  it won’t last.

  • Reflections, Mirrors, Passages…

    Reflections, Mirrors, Passages…

    Every day we take for granted that which is around us, when suddenly, we can have things ripped into a different reality, or just news can make you think hard about what you take for granted.

    I look at my pictures from the past, and what I see in the mirror today, and I think, “how am I different now?”  Besides general aging, are my thoughts changing, bit by bit?  If what has happened to other people happens to me, how will I react or handle the situation?  We are always apt to have anything happen.

    Falling reminds me of this.  I fell inside the boat we were in, fishing, last week, foot slid out from under me when I went for the seat that moved out of my way when I was trying to get out of the way of a fish being caught – lots of action in a short period of time, lots of moving parts, then I went down to a painful conclusion!  And I fell, yesterday, my foot having become tangled in a cord under my chair, in a hurry, then straight down onto my other knee.  This happens fast.  Your body takes over.  Your mind is NOT in charge here.

    This time of year is a cluster of emotion for our family.  Definitely, people have been born, lived, died, and celebrated in this time frame – the harvest – then the celebration of life – holidays… every one, every year, on and on, and the trail of time weaving its life events throughout the labyrinth of occurrences…

    life stream

    It is all a bit of a journey – rivers flow, we flow, and we don’t really stop until we do…  And it can leave you feeling a bit flattened, at times.