Summer Rain

I bought a new car yesterday. I traded in my 20 year old beauty Sabine and after they took her away I sat on the couch and sobbed, unable to even go outside and look at the newly manifested beauty I had wanted so much.

I was NOT a person who *could* buy a new car. It's amazing how much I feel the need to really hit that one home to the world at large. It was a completely farfetched idea, and I was just crazy enough to start looking online for Prius C's in baby blue. Just to dream, and maybe get the cosmic ball rolling. I would name her Charlotte. 

Turns out all you have to do to buy a new car is find it and promise the people you'll pay money every month. Turns out I can do that. Turns out from start to finish my impossible notion became reality in under two weeks.

Looking at Charlotte was uncomfortable, driving Charlotte was uncomfortable. I did some errands, sizing her up fiercely in the parking lot each time I returned to her. IS THIS ACTUALLY CHARLOTTE....IS IT REALLY HER....THIS IS NOT MY CAR. Sometimes it was a whisper, sometimes a scream. 

I realized that I was uncomfortable, not because this isn't my car, but because it is.  

Here's to blowing what we *can't* do out of the water. 

Charlotte and I will be just fine. As we headed out for dinner and some music last night it began torrentially raining, wild storms completely out of the blue. For a state that is back to being all but on fire after the terrible flooding this spring it was a miracle and a spectacular blessing.

I had a sudden moment of clarity, and asked Will if he remembered the factory name of my car's color. 

I saw the same realization twinkle in his eyes and he smiled. 

"Summer Rain."

Stop and Go

Sometimes I feel like my life is one big game of stop and go.  Maybe that's healthy to point, but what happens when there's too much stopping and not enough going?  At the risk of repeating an analogy that makes a lot of sense to me, too much stopping is like pausing a song after every line to reflect on it, without allowing yourself the experience of hearing the song in its entirety.

It's important to have a balance, between adventure and reflection.  If you're going, going, going all the time it's easy to miss the meaning of your experiences and what you've learned from them, because the next thing is already there.  But, if you never allow for adventure you'll inevitably be stuck reflecting on a past that is well over by now.

I find myself spending so much time hesitating....just hesitating: second-guessing, rethinking, worrying about the potential worst outcomes of things I put out into the world (and often jumping ship when I find a strong dislike of the worst worst one!).  Some things should be well thought out, absolutely, and others (like that funny post you're making on facebook)....well, just don't need to take up that much time and energy.

We all want to have an effect on the world, but in general we want it to be positive.  With exceptions, of course, no one wants to say or do anything that leaves a negative impression, and we definitely want to leave a good first one.  Some of us are far more cautious than others when it comes to that, and the fear can leave some people paralyzed, never actually gaining the confidence to make any impression at all.

Life is ever flowing, and it's a much more pleasant experience if we let ourselves flow with it.  It's good to take time to rest and reflect, but usually we can get away with coasting for a bit when we need to, rather than slamming on the brakes and shutting the whole thing down 'til we know exactly what we're doing again.

I don't know about you, but I rarely know exactly what I'm doing.....though usually there's some kind of light on the horizon, towards which my heart knows to aim my feet.

Make A Wish

Make a wish.  it used to be the most magical thing in the world.  do you remember?  it was the best thing ever.  i mean really, what was better than making a wish that all of your wishes would come true?  Or just making a wish that your heart believed in more than anything else that had ever come before?

for as long as i can remember, when it was 11:11 or finding a dandelion or blowing out birthday candles, i have wished the same thing.  i’m sure there was a time when i wished for a toy (or another toy...), and then for my skin troubles to go away, and then for a certain boy to fall madly in love with me.....the list goes on, but that magic of making a wish and believing in that magic (in one form or another) to make it come true seems not to have followed.  i’m trying to get that back.

i started pretty early on to wish for what seemed like the only logical thing left after those other distractions were laid aside.  i wished to not let fear hold me back from doing the things i wanted to do.  it was that simple.  i’m not one to let myself regret, but if i did it would be just as they say: regretting the things i didn’t do.  i catch glimpses of what i’m truly capable of, firework flashes of what it would feel like.  i’ve lived a long, long time, but still feel like i’m just getting started.  fear will never “go away,” but it is no longer welcome to hold me in my tracks.

our lives are in our hands.  i know it’s hard to believe in magic.  i know it’s hard to believe in a lot of things, but if we stop making wishes then it’s all over.  you don’t need an excuse, though 11:11, dandelions and shooting stars are all rather good ones.

let the universe show you that you’re a part of everything.  let her show you that she’s listening.  let her show you that she can help.

make a wish!

make a wish!

make a wish!

*above photo prints available at https://www.etsy.com/listing/113199205/dandelion-seed-in-red-flowers

Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts

it’s interesting that we’re so afraid of our our bad thoughts.  “step on a crack and you’ll break your mother’s back”....yikes!  and there are people who won’t do it, no matter what.  either they’re convinced it will happen, or it’s just not worth the risk.  

these words were written on an airplane, and who hasn’t had the inner dialogue of the devious devil daring the plane to go down an the exhausted angel desperately putting out the fire?  

we’re afraid of the bad thoughts, because we fear they might come true.  why don’t we think the good ones will come true as well?  no one worries that if they hold a positive thought for long enough it will come to fruition.  instead we think the positive thoughts don’t really matter, and won’t let ourselves get duped into believing them, just to be disappointed time and time again.   

you would be impossibly hard pressed to get me to stand in a dark room and say “candyman” three times in the mirror, but there are times when it’s just as difficult to look in the mirror and say good things as well.  sometimes it feels like lying, sometimes it feels like we don’t deserve it, sometimes it feels like we’re being tricked into some sort of woo woo fortune teller stuff.  

i’m just saying, if we think some of our thoughts are powerful but not others, i think that deserves some re-examination....  

don’t you?