As always! My morning coffee is at hand. I love the morning to write in, as there is a quietness I covet. The cars do zoom outside, and there is some nice soothing music from the living room. This room has been invaded by my grandson at this time. He is a fragile diabetic, and so Mom an LPN brought him up before she was to work with COVID patience in her facility. Alex is 13 ½. It’s been really wonderful having him here! We are making some great memories.
I found this when I opened Joyce Hifler’s book. It’s about memories. “There are enough memories stored away in the depths of our minds to fill and immense storage place___memories of every conceivable kind on every possible subject that ever has been related to us__and many of those memories are so very beautiful.” (These are the memories that will get us through these times.)
“The best of life’s beautiful things are still free__bits and pieces of the joyful things that are a part of us___What are we that is not a fragment from the past happiness? Or a past hurt we can’t help but store___and what are we worth but what we collect of life’s most beautiful and priceless collections of memories?” The best and beautiful are easy on the mind. It the past hurts that need to have their place, by letting go enough to give them their place in a way that allows the beautiful, the pleasant, the treasure-able to come forward of these.
It is the experience that gives us up into all our range of emotions. We can not live life and not experience. I feel, for all that is “bad,” there is “good” and knowing the difference is where there is balance. Just why things are this way? It seems to be how we are. Just how to be different___ the only way to change it seems to make more “good” than “bad”. And learn how to communicate well. And I think to look at time differently by changing what we do with it. Time has expectations that create anxiety. This is true for everything. We feel rushed, and like there is such a lack of time. Do we really have to work the hours we do with so much time in the morning and so much in the evening, and then a weekend. We are left with about 24 hours to have a family life in. Other people raise our children, is there any wonder things are as they are?
Here is a thought too from Hifler. “We treat ourselves as children, warming and criticizing, but never giving any definite guidelines to follow, We become either deeply cynical about who we are or wishy-washy sot that lets self go off on tangents of sheer ignorance. And the great support would be to recognize there is an inner person who would stay on the right track if we would be honest with ourselves, be less grumpy and more gently firm about what we accept of ourselves. If we won’t, who can?” Just wow! I am going to have to spend some time with this thought!
Hifler then continues. “Good things come in little packages__such as a little book I read recently__a book called The woods___it is written by a man who deals daily with the harsh facts and difficult times through a large, metropolitan newspaper he edits___but he balances the daily news with his inner ear attuned to that which makes him peaceful”___(We all need to cultivate these ideas.)__ “and I want to quote: “Perhaps against ever these odds, black times, black thoughts, a gloomy day, the woods can work its magic__there is one saving truth: Human folly has not stopped spring__the strawberry plants in the meadow are in bloom__the rain draws from the ground a damp and earthy smell that proclaims fertility, rebirth, renewal. Charles B Seib makes me know that even in the dead of winter we can know that spring is coming__and so will our inner peace when we seek it on an individual basis and find it in the simplest things.” We can! The world at large is not within the gardens of our minds.
“A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted___”
One of my favorites! “I have a garden in my mind__in which I walk sometimes__and in the glowing gold__of a setting sun__a rose of courage climbs__and finds its way along the fence__that protects and holds my heart___And all along the walk of love__the flower of peace makes its start__A mockingbird in all its joy__sings deep within the night,__And rest comes gently drifting down__and settles oh so lightly___upon my grateful heart serene__and I spend my tranquil hours___within the garden of my mind__among the fragrant flowers.
Anisette Studios & Shibui Fine Arts 