It's Sunday morning and the sun is peeking from behind it's sweater. I keep hoping the sweaters will come off her smile and we can bask in her light for a little while. In the meantime I am layered. A t-shirt with the words "your kidding, right?" a jacket with some Aerie lettering and polka dots in the hood. A baseball cap covering some deep graying at the temples. I am in a place in my journey where I can't put another chemical on my head. I went gray in my 20's. It's been a lifetime of purchasing colors. A lifetime of sitting miserably in a shower trying not to breathe until the toxic stuff can be washed away. Then an itchy scalp follows for a day until 6 weeks have past and it needs to be done again. I think it's time to accept myself. I think it's time to realize what 60 looks like after a lifetime of suffering. I'm done trying to impress. Except maybe my beloved and he likes the grey. (He is a little crazy that way) So I am walking the trail beside the creek and I am loving the sounds and the smells of a forest after the rain. It's my ritual, this creek and I. I meet Sammy, a beautiful scarred rescue and his "Mama" Lizbeth some days, and we catch up and share snippets before we carry on in our exercise time.  Today, I am alone except for a girl. She looks to be about 15 and she is swinging wildly on the swing set. Pumping her legs hard, her hair is flying back and forth and her face is tipped to the skies and she is smiling. It's a joyous sight to see and suddenly I want to join her. To take my pain wracked spirit and squeeze my 60 year old behind into a child's seat. "Hi," I smile at the girl "Isn't it magical to swing like that?" She smiles at me with the joy of an opening flower. "It is!" she cries loudly and I don't want to frighten her off her joy by asking if I can join her, not with all of the messages now of DON"T entertain a stranger. So I walk off...daydreaming of the skies coming closer. The crows along the trail are mocking me, a large old dog comes and takes a giant crap in front of me. I am all of that in my thoughts. "What is so wrong with speaking to a child?" I think.  So I turn back towards the playground, my heart beating a little harder in anticipation of meeting again. The swings are quiet, the girl has left. I walk slowly towards the swings and squeeze my hips between the sides of a blue seat. I begin to push off the sand and my feet start to rise. The spirit of my child comes shyly from within and the soles of my feet pump up into the sky. I feel the earth, I hear the sounds of my childhood and I pump harder. My stomach is flipping and I remember that too. The sun is removing her sweater and my face is tipped towards the glory. I am for a moment in time 8 again.  I swing and I pump and my heart is light and missing a beat and I am in some pretty beautiful joy.  All 60 years of pain is flying in the seat of a blue swing, size child.
The sun puts on her sweater again and I feel acutely the pain in my hips and I stop abruptly.
The old dog meets me with a large wag of his tail and he and I slowly make our way back to our homes.  I am suddenly lighter, younger in my heart. Full of something I had forgotten.

Live your life as if you are a miracle

This morning when I opened my eyes I groaned a bit with the first glimpse of the day before me. Outside my bedroom window lay a cloudy, grey, windy, cold, March madness. I lay long under the covers that tucked under my chin, lamenting another day of isolation and pain while I LONGED for spring. You know the sweet, gentle breeze of spring with yellow tulips and the Easter bunny, that  kind of spring. Butterflies flitting in the air while the strains of Mozart floated in across the garden of splendor and grace.  The spring of my imagination. The longing of my soul.
Reality and memory seem to clash in my "New normal" life. These days are not one of gentleness, nor are they what I would call peaceful or beautiful. They are in fact as rugged and raw as my emotions have been. Through the deaths of two family members, two dear friends and the loss of pets and home. In the process of losing those I love I also lost my health. I remember past springs of gardening under the grace of the sheer pleasure in the land around me. The flowers and grasses and tree's that we had so lovingly planted, the walkway to my beloved trolley which housed guests in bathrobes, sipping organic coffee and eating quiche made from the eggs of our happy hens, while Mozart did indeed float across the garden light. Now I look across a wide expanse of weeds and brown prairie with the winds throwing and stirring every single living being around. No garden, just tumbleweeds and rocks. I fell banished from life. Lonely and oddly forsaken.

Those are the thoughts of a mind allowed to run rampant. Without restraint, it will wallow and moan it's gloomy losses and glorify the past.

Then I know that I have been given a golden opportunity to practice what I preach and have preached for over 35 years to anyone who will listen. That joy and sorrow can walk hand in hand. That GOD is a mysterious love, one of divine and deep waters that carry me and if I resist too much, threatens to drown me in the magnitude and force of the rushing waves. Learning to walk on water. Walking on water for me is a mind set. A place of choosing to see the miracle of life around me instead of the obvious pain that is shouting "Look over here! This hurts like hell! When will it ever get better?" Doom, sadness, anger are as obvious as the brown landscape and windy cold. What is harder to sense but still just as real is the miracle of life. MY LIFE. The one that has survived the onslaughts of hell and come out walking and talking. The one that keeps getting beaten as hard as life can beat and rises again with words of glory for a GOD who giveth and a GOD who taketh away. Blessed be the Lord. I am a walking, talking miracle of Gods purpose and Gods grace. No power in hell can take that from me and believe me, they have tried.
So today, in the "reality" of this day I have a choice, to dwell in the cold, windy, barren land or raise my eyes up to the horizon and look for the joy in the midst of the sorrow, look for the tiny sprig of green that is straining to climb from dirt and mud to reach the sun. I can chose to know what a miracle my life is and think on those things. Chose to see what is remaining instead of what is lost. To remember clearly that we are a miracle. A living, breathing miracle. Cells without number. Created with love and just waiting to move onward and upward. Spring or no spring outside we can chose to be the spring inside. To bring warmth and light, joy and song, hope and gratitude.
To thank our maker for the days on earth. To believe in our destiny and our purpose. To dwell in the spirit that carries us and to look outside of our circumstances for that which is in need of us.
To recognize Jesus in every face we meet.