Lazy Days and Mondays.....

You can't be friends with a squirrel! A squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit.”

Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City

I was sitting out on my deck yesterday morning---

having worship if you will--

sometimes for me...

a Sunday Morning on the deck

with a hot steaming cup of coffee and the sounds of the Universe

are the best sanctuary in the whole world.

As a first born overachiever...

I tend to have problems with

sitting back and taking it easy.

My mind runs about five thousand miles fast

and unless I am very intentional with my meditation...

it is very hard to stay centered.

As I was sitting there, staring into the trees just being present,

this guy came up,

laid down right in front of me and stared for a few minutes....

next thing I new he was snoozing away.

I thought about how lazy he was....

how he ought to be...doing something...

and I realized...

the same thing I think about a little squirrel enjoying a day

resting and sunning is

what I feel about people....who rest, or take a break or enjoy doing nothing...

I think they are lazy,

unmotivated,

no ambition.....

I watched him awhile...

and now that it's Monday,

I find myself thinking about him....

I've been feeling sick all weekend...

pushed myself on Saturday to pretend my throat did not hurt,

rested a bit on Sunday,

but went to the gym and did several miles and burned several hundred calories on the treadmill...

went to work

today

even though I could barely swallow---

sat at my desk and actually spit in a Kleenex...

now I have paid sick time--lots of it...

and I sat there spitting in a Kleenex---looking back there is something very wrong with that picture.

I did have a strep screen done down the hall and it appears that i have a virus...

I came home,

went to the gym...omg...I went to the gym even though I could not swallow--how sick am I.

and

now as I begin to think about being lazy...and

I realize,

I might learn a bit from my furry friend....

It is okay to slow down,

to enjoy the view,

but I want to do it better and faster and first...

I want to cram everything in,

to have a cherry on top kind of day

--- every day...

to live,

and laugh and dance and sing....

but for today and maybe tomorrow...

I'm gonna take a Lazy Monday evening day...

going to bed early,

going to pamper myself..

and I'll be damned if I let this over achieving first born girl

spoil it for me....do you ever fight with yourself.

Lazy Day Monday reflections

on Sundays gone past

can sometimes

open our eyes,

and

teach an old dog a new trick....

perhaps.....my friend...the lazy squirrel

has taught me that

enjoying the view..sometimes means you

just lay and stare and breath and sun....and do absolutely NOTHING! imagine that!!!

Have a Lazy Reflective Monday Evening....

you never know what you will learn about yourself....

Happy Monday...and Hugs to all of you.

What is that thing under the surface?

Tom Wingo: It's the Southern Way; when things get too painful, we either avoid them or we laugh.
Susan Lownstein: When do you cry?
Tom Wingo: [laughing] We don't.

from the movie, "Prince of Tides"

Unfortunately this southern bred girl has lived this quote for too many years of my middle lengthed life.

We are a hospitable bunch and we never want to burden anyone,

so we pile it up, heap it on,

and

bury all that stuff that

we don't think is pretty or warm or comfortable underneath the surface of our skin.

Tom Wingo had it right....we either laugh about it or we hide it.

For me, for years, I buried it underneath the surface of my skin and spooned cake and ice-cream and all kinds of delectable goodies into my mouth

to push that burning, searing pain

of my past deep inside,

buried it,

hid it,

so no one would ever know or hear or sense that

something was wrong.  Sometimes us Southern girls are so

good at the hiding that we even fool ourselves into

 believing that "pain" doesn't live with us anymore.

I suspect a few along the way have known..

known that there was something

 held me back,

caused me to bury recollections that were unpleasant or deemed unacceptable...or

perhaps...just something you don't tell.....you know keep the skeletons in the closet and don't tell

the family secrets. But most other southern people never have the nerve to ask about it.

So for me,

this southern bred way of living,

of not feeling the pain, or acknowledging that it was there

burning a hole in my heart,

caused me

to become

a

"big girl"......a still sexy hot big girl, but a big girl anyway.

In the past few years,

something has broken away....

memories flooded

and

even now when I try to pretend I don't feel them...I know that it is a lie.

they are too strong,

and almost overpower my ability to cope.

I recognized it.

began to understand it,

tried to talk about it, and try to befriend her--Pain that is.

I write about it,

I relive it,

but that thing,

that ugly nagging thing that

I don't want to acknowledge,

is a pestering

memory haunts.....hangs over like a dark cloud on a stormy day.

Understanding this,

naming the pain,

living it all over again

has helped me to give up my driven need to

coat my body in layers,

create a boundary from the world.

I gave it up, the food that is....I no longer find myself needing it

  or wanting it to control me or

cover the beauty of my authentic self, or tamper with

all that I am.

So as the layers of my body shrink,

I now in all my southern hospitality and my frozen hospitable smile....

invite that pain to come on over,

pull up a seat at the table,

and have a good old southern

chat over tea and biscuits and jam,

perhaps drink a cool glass of lemonade on the porch.

I think I should listen to her,

touch her,

and feel her in my depths of my bones.....

to feel it in the fullness of what I can feel,

and

then invite her to move on over,

step it back jack,

get a new plan...

for

she has

held me back for way to long,

covered my body,

robbed me of awareness..

but no more...

time for her to come on out...

and

move on over...

I feel like Joy might just be knocking at the door.

Like the shell above,

washed to the surface,

covered in muck,

uncovered ,

even in all its flaws

is a beauty to behold,

a wonder to perceive,

I too will be able to live more fully,

more whole

and

more alive

than ever before..

so for me..

that's what's bubbling under the surface on this

late Monday evening.....

what's underneath your surface?

"who lives in a purple house?"

Just as promised--here is the picture of the purple house--

now will the owner please raise their hand?

Choosing the road Less Traveled
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference

Robert Frost



My daughter and I have a horrible sense of direction.  If there are two roads to take, you'd better believe that both of us would choose the road less traveled simply because most of the time we are so caught up in the visual scenery that we most often miss even seeing the road that everyone else takes.  Yesterday we decided to have a girls day and drove out of town to visit an art museum.   We did our traveling prep and printed out a map quest but just as we were beginning to think we were going to have no problems......there were were "Lost".   We have no internal GPS and so what should have taken us ninety minutes to drive ended up taking 180 minutes.  Funny thing is, we didn't get upset, didn't get stressed and really enjoyed our time being lost.  Let's just say, we created lots and lots of memories.

Our first stop during our lost time was way off the beaten path at a small convenience store in the middle of somewhere but I still couldn't tell you where we were.  I got out and went in and asked for directions-of course they told me to turn around and go back the way I just came.  I went to the van and we started to pull out when suddenly from across the road was the brightest paint job on a house that I've ever seen.

I immediately put the breaks on and my daughter said, "What are you doing?"

I replied, "look at that house!  Who lives in a purple house?????"   I had to stop, go back in the store, buy batteries and then stop and go back in because I bought the wrong size--I'm sure the lady behind the cash register thought that I was the "crazy customer that would not go away."   I took a picture of the purple house and have thought alot about what kind of person lives there---I must say, the story I've made up makes me a bit jealous of him/her.  Truth is--I'd love to be free enough of everything--- "what others think and what the expectations of the world are"----- to throw a rainbow of colors on the outside of my house and dare the world to look.  I would bet the person who lives there is creative, must be fully birthed into their authentic creation.   I wonder what the inside looks like?  eclectic, artistic, crazy.  I wonder if the person is a writer, a painter?  I am almost certain--I'd love being around.  I'd love to sit on the front porch with a glass of iced lemon aid, eat some chocolate chip cookies just out of the oven and share in some conversation about the mystery of the world.  I'd really like to meet that person.....underneath all this rambling today---perhaps, I'd really like to be comfortable enough in my own skin to live in my own purple house and be proud.

I am thankful for day with my daughter, laughing and talking in the car, for taking the road less taken and being lost but found and for the wonder of seeing a purple house.  Whoever this person is, whatever they do, whatever reason they painted the house purple----well let's just say, they have invited me to look at the hidden boundaries that keep me from the freedom of authentic living.  

two roads diverged and I'm glad I took the one less taken, for if not,

I'd never have seen a purple house.
Someday, I hope I'm free of all the "things" that hold me back,
all the "things" that keep me boxed in,
someday, when I'm birthed fully into my authentic self.....
maybe...if I'm lucky...I too will be the proud owner
of a purple house.