I went to a party yesterday afternoon and stayed many more hours than I had anticipated, and honestly had many more laughs than I knew I needed.  I had my purse and my phone in the pool house and I checked my phone only twice in nine hours.  I can’t describe how good it felt, to be “otherwise engaged,” and not at all interested really in the world inside my phone…

I originally got an iphone for one reason; I often was bringing my ipod and forgetting my phone, or bringing my phone and having no music all day at work…I bought an iphone only so that I had to remember and carry just one object.  However, as we know from countless stories on the news, in the paper, and in magazines, we, well many of us, myself included, have become attached too much to our phones,  I have become one of those who does, at least several times a day, look on Instagram & Facebook, and  check my email.  Not that many years ago I only KNEW what somebody was doing if they called me on the telephone and left a message on my answering machine in my house that they were doing ‘something,’ or needed ‘something’ or wanted to tell me ‘something,’ and I only KNEW about it after the fact, because the message was left at some ‘other’ time and I did not hear the message until I pressed play…and I lived just fine back then, NOT knowing anything…emails were read at night after work, phone calls were returned, nobody needed me immediately, and I find that texting now is one of those things that most of us can’t seem to live without…

Yesterday at a party filled with friends, old and new, I realized how much I do enjoy interaction with real live people; smiling and eye contact, the sounds of peoples voices, the warmth of their laughter, and all that good humanness that is so lost in this modern world we now live in.  We swam in the pool together, we drank beverages together, we giggled together, we shared some happy stories and we shared some heart heavy stories, we ate good food, we walked to the roof deck together and looked at the sun set, while it was setting, and we interacted and it felt so rejuvenating to my very core.  This is not to say that I won’t still be a person who checks her phone throughout the day, but it is to say that I think I am going to slowly revert to the me I used to be…or at least the essence of her, who liked togetherness and who did not “need” cyber-space to feel connected, who actually connects with humans.  Yesterday reminded me how ensconced I have become in a world that is not real.  Sure, it’s in real time…I see from photographs and read in posts that somebody is on the beach, or is on vacation, or is making scallops, or is missing somebody they love, or is feeling melancholy, or is angry at somebody who hurt them, and all of these things are valid and all of these things are part of life, but yesterday, among friends, in real life and in real time, I remembered how good it feels to be physically connected, and I am going to make an effort to be more present and less cyber, and although it is certainly something of an “addiction” it is one I feel I can enjoy a little more if I take it in smaller doses…

The man who is, was, most responsible for my love of cooking and eating, and more significantly, who made me my first cup of coffee of my life, has died.  Admittedly I had not seen him in more than two years, it could be closer to four, but the impact he had on the young me, significantly shaped the woman and the “foodie” I grew up to be.

I started working for his wife when I was 17 and a senior in high school.  He was retired from a job in design and engineering and had recently gone to culinary school for the sheer delight of food.  He could not believe it when I told him about my parents and my sister; how they just had no interest in trying anything new or different or prepared in a way that they had not had before, that my father ate the same packed lunch every single day, that my sister would not eat anything green, that my mother had not ever tried broccoli…these things were anathema to him…an Italian who loved food…and I think it intrigued him, how me, the member of this bland and boring eating family, so dearly loved to try new things.  I clearly remember telling him about my Mimom; how I liked to help her to prepare food and how she loved to entertain, and that I enjoyed food in a way my immediate family did not.  I think he liked that I was young enough to be molded.

He and my boss lived above the shop they owned where I worked, and on nights when I was on the schedule, the aroma that often wafted through the joists would make anybody in the shop salivate…the week in the summer of 1985 that I had to announce to them my upsetting news, that I had gotten myself pregnant and through tears admitted that I had also been too late with setting up an appointment at the clinic to get myself un-pregnant, he barely blinked before he said, “well that’s it for Suzi-Q’s and Tab for dinner” (which honestly I did often bring to work FOR dinner) and proceeded that night to bring me a plate of dinner before he and his wife sat down to their meal. That summer I ate very well. Almost every night of the week and he introduced me to things I had never seen nor heard of.  He made me eat capers at least a dozen times, in a variety of dishes, before he accepted that I in fact hated capers.  He made this pasta sauce called sun sauce, literally out on the deck, that tasted like nothing I had ever enjoyed in my life.  He made another pasta sauce with itty-bitty chopped carrots and served with a hard-boiled egg that was so odd to me but oh so wonderfully delicious, and his bolognese sauce was honestly something that I could eat two bowls of and still say, “sure, I’ll have more.”  He taught me how to make gnocchi from scratch, which I tried to do many times and for me they always sunk like bricks in the pot but when he made them they were luscious and light.  I could go on and on for paragraphs…I tasted spanakopita, caponata, piccata…night after night and week after week, he fed me.  He loved food and loved to cook and I think, looking back, that he loved that he could introduce me to so much that I had not before experienced.  I often think it was because of him, and only him, that I gave birth that winter to the biggest baby in the nursery.

8 weeks later I went back to work and one afternoon when I felt really drained and really tired, and frankly overwhelmed with the life I now had,  he asked me if I wanted afternoon coffee.  I had never had afternoon coffee with my boss.  She loved afternoon coffee and in fact, in all of my 18 and a half years on the planet, had not ever had coffee ever.  I said “yes” or maybe I said “sure” and frankly, none of that matters because he brought downstairs from their apartment at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon two mugs (high fired, artisan hand crafted stoneware mugs to be exact) and I took my first sip, of what was to become my be-all-end-all-beverage-of-choice, of coffee.  It was wonderful that he introduced coffee to me, because the following year when my baby was one I started college at night after work, and anybody who knows me knows that coffee became a much needed part of my life.

I worked for them for more than 21 years; full-time at that shop for 14 years and then part-time for another 8. My boss and her husband let me sort out my work schedule with college so that some semesters I worked four days a week and went to school three, some semesters I left work at 4 so I could make it to school for night classes, they did not mind that during slow days in the winter, after all my work was done, that I did homework at the counter.  They encouraged me to go to college and were two of my biggest cheerleaders for achieving high marks.  They also both knew the value of a good cup of a coffee and a really delicious meal.  I could write about him for paragraphs, but I think instead, in his honor, I am going to go downstairs now and make a shopping list, from one of the cookbooks he wrote, and be a foodie this weekend.

I watch some television and I read some magazines, so I am not oblivious to how the lifestyles of the rich and famous differ from those of us who are neither rich, nor famous, but it was not until these last few weeks that I learned first-hand HOW different their way of living can be…One of the properties I manage has been owned for 30 years by the same family who built it, and in these 30 years it has only been used as a vacation home by the family as a place for their friends and loved ones to gather.  Because it is so expensive to own a home on the water at the Jersey shore, many owners subsidize their expenses and property taxes by renting the property for a portion of the season.  None of the customers I work for ever did this, until now…

My client excitedly reported to me back in June that the house was going to be rented for two weeks by someone who is ‘on television and very famous,’ but I said that I didn’t want to learn the identity until right before the rental started because I didn’t want to feel “star struck.”  Secretly, well, not so secretly, as I immediately called my parents and told my boyfriend the news that it was going to be a person who is on television and very famous, but I was SO NERVOUS that I was finally going to speak to Jon Stewart, who is in fact a person on television and very famous, and is known to have vacationed on the small barrier island where I work, and I really wanted it to be him…  I saw him a few summers ago, buying blueberry muffins at the place where I used to get my daily coffee.  I wanted, at the time, to have him sit on the stool beside me and order breakfast so I could casually get into a conversation with him and mention that my dirty Sherwin Williams t-shirt is just the uniform for the job I do until he hires me as a writer…cue dream like string music and cartoon bubble popping up over head…”I wonder how I can tell him I would do anything to write for his show,” I thought, but alas, he paid and left and I sat there on my stool like an uninformed, highly uncreative, moron…so it was sort of relief, in an odd way, two days before the rental began that I learned THE NAME of the person on television who is very famous, because it was not Jon Stewart.

I worked very hard, as always, I do LOVE to clean, to ready the house, which is much like a 5Star resort with or without my loving touch (I have not ever been to a 5Star resort, but I take care of this house as if it were) and prepare the property for the arrival of this person who is on television and very famous so that this famous person would think our little island was just lovely, and the native people were so wonderful, and I had visions of this famous person saying to me, “oh yes! I would love to meet your granddaughters and your boyfriend’s daughter while I am here, we’ll pick a day next week” but that DID NOT EVEN COME CLOSE TO HAPPENING.  Within 16 hours of the arrival of this person I was told by the real estate agent handling the transaction that “she freaked out when the man came to clean the pool and is fiercely private and asked her assistant to tell me to tell you that you will not be needed on the property while they are here unless they call for you, their staff will take care of everything.”  SO…this person who is on television and very famous, who I don’t even work for, is pretty much firing me from my job for two weeks…I am pretty much eliminated even before I get to perform in the live knock-out round!

The day before, while using a squeegee on the sliding glass doors and mopping and packing away the last bits of my customer’s possessions I listened and watched…The A-List celebrity had a lot of “people.”  The staff was more than I imagined.  There were personal assistants, a household manager, a nanny for each child, a chef, a housekeeper, an assistant to the household manager, a body-guard, an assistant to the real estate agent who had organized the rental, also a mother and mother-in-law, and friends and family…all these people for a family of four to have a two-week vacation at the Jersey shore?!  I was befuddled.  How do a man and woman and two small children need so much help?  I wondered…as I observed and overheard all  of the goings-on & hubbub, as the people began to come and go in preparation for the A-List celebrity to arrive, at how I must have managed to get up,  get my kid ready for school, get myself ready to go, and get to work, clean, and pay the bills, and then feed us both, day after day, all by myself, for all those years, with no people??!!

The housekeeper was unpacking a box of candles shipped from Barneys New York and I sniffed them as she placed them throughout the first floor, and as she unpacked, I Googled these candles, and they were not brands I have seen other than in glossy magazine ads…They ranged in price from $70 to $130 EACH, according to the web site, and to be fair, smelled AMAZING…the housekeeper unpacked all TWELVE of them and I was beginning to get the vibe that being a person who is on television and very famous must be AMAZING…my customer loves when I cut a fresh arrangement of flowers for her each week when I clean, so I thought to myself, well, this A-List celebrity surely will enjoy a vase of fresh flowers too…so I did my usual arrangement in the master bath, and then I cut a fresh gardenia and put it in a bud vase for some added elegance, and was so delighted with my attention to detail, and then the assistant told me, “oh nice, the florist is coming tomorrow with flower arrangements in vases for the whole house” …oh…cue deflated balloon sound and frown face in cartoon bubble…making me feel a bit like a homemade arrangement from the yard was a pitiful example of beautifying one’s space!!

Two weeks flew by, and the famous person flew off, and I got to get back to the house yesterday…first things first, the staff did not take care of everything…it seems they took care of the celebrity and nothing else, particularly the plants.  DEAD plants in lovely planters, all over the deck…even the ones right next to the hose…nobody, not ONE OF THIS MYRIAD OF STAFF noticed that the plants were turning brown, then crisping up, day after day in July on a deck??!!  I felt so angry…I planted them all in May and tended to them lovingly and they last all summer in my care and now they are dead.  I’m not only out two weeks of work, ergo two weeks of pay for this property’s tasks, as I was not needed to clean, obviously, and then I was dismissed from my other chores, due to the celebrity’s claim of being fiercely sensitive about privacy, but they did not do what they said they were going to do!!!  That sort of thing makes my blood boil, A-list celebrity or not.  THEN I find out this person is not so fiercely private as I was told, as LOTS of people saw her on the beach, at a local shopping area and at a local amusement park!  SO yesterday I started work to get the house back in order, and to be fair, the cleaning lady from the house in Beverly Hills washed all the laundry and remade all the beds, which was beyond lovely of her, and honestly unexpected.  I emptied out the pantry to clean it and get my customer’s things back in order and found four full size jars of Hellman’s mayo.  This was shocking to me as I don’t think I even buy four jars a year, and the chef thought he might need four jars for 13 days!  SO an A-List celebrity comes to stay for two weeks in a house I take care of and all I have to say for it is that the chef bought a lot of mayonnaise…how anticlimactic can a blog get??!!

So in conclusion I got dismissed from my job due to exaggerated claims of extreme privacy issues, but then learn through social media that the celebrity goes to the most popular and populated destination on our small island, and then leaves nothing behind as a memento for my girls, not one thing, that I could have brought home to them…like a consolation prize for not getting to meet someone the really like, and by the way, said celebrity is being deleted from the girl’s playlist as I write…I admit that I looked for the candles yesterday as I started cleaning…I thought to myself, well, the girls did not get to meet this A-List celebrity  but maybe I will bring them each home the rest of the candles…we could each have one in our room as a memory of the time we Almost Met one of the beautiful people, but no…not even a stinking piece of wax left in a glass jar…nothing left at all as a memento of any sort, for a meeting that never was, just four unopened jars of Hellman’s.  Anticlimactic?  For sure.  Not one chair turned…

Today is the birthday of my 1st friend from first grade.  We have been friends for nearly 42 years.  I have known her almost as long as I have known my own sister, and much like my sister and I, we have a shared history that simply connects us whether we are in good times or in bad, getting along swimmingly or barely speaking.  There is a quote from C.S. Lewis about friends, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”   It matters to me, a lot, that my 1st friend from first grade has been the most successful relationship of my life.  Every time I’ve had a break up, whether it was a 24 hour fling, a 24 day whirlwind, a 24 month romance, or a decade of commitment, I’ve found myself deeply contemplating “what must I have been thinking?” and yet, through all these years, I’ve never once questioned my relationship with her, and  she remains a constant love in my life.

We don’t get to pick our family; those relationships either flow or don’t, and  we either work at them fiercely, trying to ensure that they succeed, or we don’t make much effort at all, and their survival or death is simply a matter of how much we tolerate or how much we don’t.  I know a number of people who have ended, totally, relationships with people to whom they are related…but with a friendship, a relationship that only exists because we choose, there is a constant understanding that it is purposeful and intentional, the maintenance of it…we don’t HAVE to know each other and we don’t HAVE to like each other, we want to.  How many of us at some time have heard some relative of ours say we “should apologize” or “should call” or “ought to” do some act that expresses forgiveness or understanding, to a relative because of some quarrel or miscommunication?   I suspect most of us, but a friendship is quite different, we don’t have to do anything at all, it is by choice, and through deliberate actions that we keep a friendship viable.

My 1st friend from first grade and I have had periods of time where we neither spoke nor saw each other; some short phases of a lapsed relationship, and some V E R Y L O N G periods of little to no contact, but what I do know for sure, is that if during any one of those phases when we were absent from one another, if I needed her for anything or she needed me, we each would have been there without question for the other.  She never liked kids nor wanted children and it was not lost on me, at 18 in the hospital, just hours after I became a mother, that she was the first person who came to see me.  I admire her in many ways, most significantly in her ability and desire, and frankly her skills, at remaining true to herself, always.  She constantly follows her gut and goes where life feels right for her.  She says what she thinks and she does what she wants and I respect her so much for that.  I question myself constantly and I don’t think she ever has to.  When we were teenagers, we spoke on the phone every single day, now we speak on the phone once a year or so, mostly a text now and then, but when I am with her, it’s as if we still talked on the phone every night.  We are profoundly connected by time and history.  We went in very different directions in life, perhaps both by choice or both by circumstance…I think she is far more pleased with the choices she made than I am, but that is simply the past and what is done can’t be un-done.  She is still the person I use for my ‘password prompt question’ on any web site when it asks for  “best friend,” and she is still the person I think I would first want to tell if something wonderful happened to me, or something awful.  We’ve shared a long and winding road, even when we were moving in totally opposite  ways, and still we continually find ourselves traveling down different paths and neither of us knows for sure what view we might have next, or where our present route is going to lead us,  but much like having a compass to find North, I will know, no matter what my course, or what phase of life I’m in, or what part of my journey I am trying to forget, unravel, or erase from my mind, she will be part of my knowing who I am in this world…I am a woman who has a good friend.

Every June, for what feels like forever, I try to find a card that “says” anything remotely related to how I feel about my Dad.  I imagine Father’s Day could be different for men than it is for women; especially if your father is a great success in his marriage and his career and his overall life, and you have always felt you are just shy of a success in his eyes, or perhaps even more so if you have a lazy no-good bum for a dad, and you want to be anything BUT like him…the feeling of wanting to be good enough, not just good, to have your father think as highly of you as you think of him, I think is probably not gender related at all, when you have a father who is the very best of all humans that you know, and have ever known, and likely will ever know…wanting to be as good a person as this person, your dad, is, is daunting I think, whether you are male or female.

Six years ago I was working with my father almost every weekend and often before or after work, building my house.  He was the very best carpenter and the very best teacher and I was the most attentive apprentice and dedicated student that summer.  There are countless things I learned to do, by his side and under his watchful eye, things that I have not done since, and likely will never do again, but still…sometimes, admittedly, I wish he had taught me how to mix the perfect cocktail, slow dance with a boy, bait a hook, sail a boat, surf, or throw a football, or swing a bat, or know whether I need a wedge or a driver, or how to clean and cook a crab, but that was not the kind of father he was, or is…I do however know how to use a 2×4 to hold up a short side of sheetrock while I use my left hand and my head to hold up the other side while using my Makita cordless to screw it into a ceiling joist, and I am the only girl I know who owns more router bits than nail polishes, and I  know how to weld and can honestly say I was excited to get a self-darkening helmet one year for my birthday, I know how to install outlets and switches, and how to winterize plumbing and turn it all back on for the summer, I know how to finish trim a house, and I know how to install hardwood floors, and-and-and…every single day I think of something that he taught me, and while some of it, let’s be honest, none of it really, might ever be used again in my life, the details are in my mind…perhaps never to be retrieved from my memory again, but taught to me by this man I love who is my Dad…

My father loves my mother with a depth and kindness and patience that is mind-blowing…daughters and mothers, I am told and so often have read, are well known to often have a difficult relationship at times, and indeed ours often was and sometimes still is, so at periods of my life, oh too many times, I would think, “how can HE love HER so much, this woman who drives me crazy??!!”  The older I grow, the more I know this is natural and rather prevalent in most modern families…I suppose more than anything I learned from him that love has many levels, and takes many forms, and what somebody does not see or can not see in a person, somebody else does…there is value in that kind of teaching, even when we don’t know we are learning…I’ve read a famous quote, countless times, that the best thing a man can do for his children is love their mother, and perhaps it is true.

My dad is retired now, but many of my customers were once his, and too often I hear, “you are just like your father” and I want to tell people that it is impossible, but the highest compliment, as he is the greatest of humans…I feel that if I can be half the person he is, I can be content in my life…There is not a card at any store during any June that has ever said anything to my Dad that I feel in my heart or in my brain…He taught me to be a good person and to never be an asshole, but he never said a curse word in front of me, so technically he never taught me to not be an asshole, but he has said instead to make plenty of deposits in my karmic bank, and I think that is very much the same thing…he taught me that I can be patient and true to my heart’s voice, that it is really only with the heart that one can see rightly…what other people may not see, I can see, that what is essential might be invisible to everybody else, that is a big lesson, and I learned it from my father…he also has made me know and understand that tomorrow I could be run over by a pie wagon, and that each day or hour of my life could be my last, and to do my very best as a human, to be ready to go at any time… and while to most of you, these might seem like useless “things” to teach a person, they are to me, priceless…

There is an expression, “it made my blood boil,” that has a negative connotation, but to me it seems it’s the most amazing thing that two people can do to each other, make each others blood boil.  We talk about a good-looking man or woman as “hot” and we see fantastic sports cars or boats and say they are “hot” and it seems to be that FIRE is one of those elements associated with good not bad…unless it’s of course an actual fire, like in the woods or your house…

…SO at work last week, my final job of a day ended with a customer’s sink having very low water pressure and my hearing a “gushing” sound coming from the crawl space.  THIS, by the way, is seldom, actually, it is never good.  The next day I started my work day at a house I worked on for most of the winter; fixing damaged sheetrock from leaks and painting all the walls and ceilings and doors and trim, and was there to oil the decks for the season.  After moving all the furniture and sweeping the decks and getting ready to start my task, I walked back through the house to go out to my truck and smelled the most awful burning bad smell I can describe, coming from the floor of the dining room!  I sniffed myself around the house, like a truffle hog in some European country side!!!  sniff-sniff-sniff, walking all around the house, in and out of every room,  trying to identify the smell, trying to narrow down from where it was originating, going so far as to run to a construction site next door to see if they were pouring hot tar or soldering copper pipes…nope, the smell was in THIS house where I was working and I became extremely upset.  There was nothing on, or in use, other than the things that had been on and in use days before when the homeowner’s were still there, I didn’t turn anything on or off…  What to do??!!  Do I stand in the dining room and wait to hear flames or see fire?  Do I stand in the dining room and wait for the smell to worsen??  What are the “rules?”  What does one do in such a situation?!  A man working at the job next door, happened to be a local first-aid volunteer and he was kind enough to come over and sniff around with me, and told me that I absolutely should call the fire department, that it smelled like an electrical fire to him as well, and that they can smoulder for hours and days and even weeks until they burst into flame, and so I called the police and told them I was worried that there might be an electric fire in the crawl space, of a house that is not mine, but I am here working and I am really concerned, that I see no smoke and no flames but that the smell is overwhelming and I am very unsure what to do, as I am just here to oil some decks!

Needless to say, it became a very big deal very quickly.  All those hardworking volunteers on the local fire department crew, having to stop what they were doing and take time out of their day to get to the fire station, and then get geared up (and so many layers and it was SO hot and muggy) and then come to this property.  I felt like I apologized to every one of them, but Wow!  When the fireman took the crawlspace cover off of the house, the smell covered the entire cul-de-sac, to which another fireman said to me, “it’s a good thing you called.”  Within an hour the power was cut to the house and many workers were searching for the cause.  Two days later, and many hours of man-power, and much loss of perishable food from the refrigerators and freezers, I find out from the homeowner that it was an air conditioner that blew, and that “maybe it made a smell.”  Maybe it made a smell?!  I read the email and felt like such a jerk!  I felt like he was implying that I overreacted.  I felt bad and felt mad at the same time.

I know people and have known of people who lost all or almost all of what they had in fires, and I also know people and have known of people who lost all or almost all of what they had in water.  I felt and still feel, quite strongly that the devastation of losing everything surely is far more significant than the expense of paying an electrician and the cost to restock groceries…I did not know if he wanted me to say I was sorry for calling the fire department, or say I was glad it was “only” a broken air conditioner system, so I said I was glad his house did not burn down.  And I meant it.  I was very glad that his house did not burn down.  I decided not to ask if he was implying anything, nor to say I was sorry for all the trouble that he then had as a result of my calling for help; having to pay an electrician, having to have his electrical panels re-inspected by the township, having to lose a lot of food…so I did the only thing that felt right to me, I said a little thanks to the universe, that it was not a fire and that I did what the cop, the fireman, the local first aid volunteer, and one of the electricians said was good, that I called because “you just never know.”

Here I am, on planet earth, in the United States of America, in New Jersey ‘The Garden State,’ walking distance to the bay, and a short drive to the ocean, with woods on three sides of my house, and my pantry is full, I took the girls out for frozen yogurt, and took the girls to 5Below, where I never spend below $5 dollars…and many are complaining right this second about something…too many mosquitoes, too humid, too much traffic, too cloudy, too crowded, too something…always there is somebody with something to complain about.  I have made a choice, after deep thought and serious contemplation all winter long, to just be happy.  Today I was thinking about how lucky I am that I get to be a white woman living in the USA, owning my own house and my own business, and having enough.  Sure, there is a lot I would want to have that I do not, and I would like some things to be different, but all in all, I have enough…of everything.

I have enough love to last me the rest of my life, and enough money to get through the month and hopefully next month I will have enough for that month too, I have enough food to feed a household throughout the day, today and this week and this month, I have enough land that I don’t have to see a neighbor unless I look for one, I have music and I have laughter and I have books and I have friends and I have a house that I LOVE, I have shirts in my closet with the tags still on them and shoes I HAD to have that I wore one time…When you think, really think about this modern life on this planet earth, OUR life, the kind of life you, gentle reader, and I live…there is so much to be thankful for it makes your head spin…I saw some photographs this morning of emaciated African women in tribal dress, used for shock purposes, in a mock advertisement of sunglasses, handbags, and watches…beside the price of the item was the cost to feed her family for a year, or supply a village school for a year, or stock a household for a year…for the price you and I have paid for good sunglasses that we lost at a bar, for a good handbag that we toss in our back seat, for good watches that we don’t even wear anymore because we use our iPhones for clocks.

We are lucky beyond our wildest dreams; living this life, on this planet, at this time in this dimension, in this itty-bitty dot of space on this spot of the universe.  There is so much to be glad for and thankful about in this circus of life, this circle of life, this chaotic or calm…this is the greatest show on earth, this thing called living…let’s all try to do it well.

I live near the water, and work near and on the water, but have never been a “water” person…I get violently seasick when messing about in boats, so much so that I have to take a Dramamine when I have to clean one for the summer season.  I have never been on a jet-ski, never been on water-skis, and in fact, not since my vision became so poor as a teenager, and I could no longer clearly see the shore, have I gone swimming in the ocean or dove into a wave…yet, I love the water.  I love how it sounds, I love how it smells, I love how it glimmers or crashes depending on the weather,  and I love how lucky I feel when I am reminded that people all over the planet never get to hear, breathe, see, or feel it…and that I can do all of these things every single day.

Of course we don’t drink the ocean…someday we might have to figure out how to make that happen, but for now, we are blessed, are we not, to have safe and easily obtained H2O?  I saw a photo recently on social media, it was a picture of a skeletal woman dressed in a blue piece of fabric feeding to a deathly skeletal child, some water, and the caption read something like, “so tell me about what a bad day you are having.”  I’ve been thinking about the photo for a few days now…and this morning woke up, went to pee, washed my hands, rinsed out the carafe, filled the coffee maker, and then went outside to water the flowers in pots on all my decks while the coffee dripped…and I realized that I used more water in those 17 minutes of my morning, WITHOUT EVEN THINKING ABOUT IT, than much of the world has for a whole day, for a whole family.  It’s so easy to take things for granted.  South Jersey might not be in such a catastrophic drought as California, but I think I am going to give a little more thought to how much water I use, and try to use less, not for any big bold environmental statement, but just because I was reminded this week how precious it is.

I know that if there is God, he/she lives right inside of me…my good thoughts & my kindness, how deeply & fully & faithfully I love, my compassion and my empathy for those less fortunate than I…if there is God, I don’t need to look in books or go to a building where somebody tells me I should be if I want God to know about me.  “There’s only one commandment, don’t be an asshole” is a quote I have loved for years, and I think it’s true…if there is God, God knows that I am not a jerk, it really is that simple, to me.

I have become somebody I love again.  I have become my own best cheerleader again.  She never left me, our friendship never fizzled out, she just was a bit too quiet for too long for my own good, she’s back to being LOUD again and I like her better when she turns it up…my discovery, my awakening I guess is that I let other people’s judgments and thoughts and fears and criticisms infect me, to the point that all the mean and negative things that were swirling around in my mind, kind of, well no, they totally shut out all the wonderful and positive and loving…and I learned that when you let other people’s worries and upsets and beliefs become YOURS, you hurt yourself and only yourself, they don’t care that you now feel upset and worried and question what you thought you believed…it’s like gonorrhea, somebody gives it to you and then they walk away and now you are left with the misery or trying to cure it!  When the fears of other people make you question yourself, and diminish your very happiness, your contentedness with yourself, that’s a problem.  I understand now better than ever, that entire religions keep their shee-ople in line doing just this…fear and worry.  Well, it’s not for me.

Carole King and James Taylor, oh…just thinking of them singing makes me sigh with a deeply loving and contentedness feeling…can’t you just FEEL comforted, reading these words, winter spring summer or fall, all you have to do is call…you can’t help but sing them in your mind…and you know what?  It’s true.  You’ve got a friend.  All you have to do is call.  No matter where, what, when, or how.  When you are down and when you need a helping hand and when you feel like nothing is going right…she is right in-between your ears ♥  If you need a friend right now, and can’t quite get your thoughts in line, here they are…from 1971, celebrating Carole’s amazing song writing and feel better-ing abilities.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHhjKQ8L_iU  This video from YouTube is one of my favorites as it starts in 1971 and finishes up 40 years later, which is a wonderful REMINDER that you have a friend for your WHOLE LIFE!!!  It’s with you forever.  Like Glinda tells Dorothy, “you’ve always had the power my dear.”

I listened a lot to what I call my *singing ladies* mix over the winter.  A mix of songs that, while not energizing or good energy-pumping for heavy or intense work or cleaning, make me feel good from the inside out…Carole King, Cat Power, Aimee Mann, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith…those are just a few, but they sing and wrote songs that if you listen to them often enough, you begin to feel like they were written with you in mind.  Lyrics that swirl around in your head become a constant companion, so much better than nasty judgmental words that somebody said to you that hurt your feelings, or vicious criticism that you read from an email somebody sent you…You learn to let go of all that shit when you finally realize that God, or the power, or the friend that you most need, is right inside of you all the time.  What a way to get rid of the dull and dreary winter thoughts, spring…hope, growth, bright warmth, awakening…

Linda Ronstadt sang it so simply, It’s so easy to fall in love…I don’t care if it’s with the sound of rain on your roof, I don’t care if it’s with the smell of your freshly bathed baby, I don’t care if it’s with the feel of your fuzziest blanket on your feet on your sofa on a chilly winter night, I don’t care if it’s with the taste of the most perfect peach of your summer, I don’t care if it’s with the sight of a freshly bloomed gardenia bud on the bush outside your window…Just fall in love with something good, LOVE something, as many somethings as you possibly can, a whole lot.

Some people might think I’m ridiculous and silly, the way I am so crazy in love with my exquisite black walnut floors, or how I am so crazy in love with the tidy results of skillfully folding my sheets and towels, the way I am so crazy in love with my granddaughters when they say or write something brilliant or clever, and the sounds of their laughter, or how I am so crazy in love with the way I breathe so deeply and fill my lungs so thoroughly when I am standing at the edge of the ocean and tasting that salty gritty overspray on my lips the first time I go up to the beach after a long dull dreary winter…In my life I’ve loved them all.  AND, if I had to, I could name a dozen more, or think of a hundred more…I am fully absorbed in the act of being glad for what is good and noticing and appreciating all the things I love, and if you are feeling like there is still something lacking in your life, something amiss in how you feel in this body on earth at this time, maybe, just maybe, STEP 21 is for you.

I think STEP 21 is a nice way to end this project.  I don’t know for sure if this is good for everybody but I do know for sure it’s good for me.  I can think, just off the top of my head, of SO MANY things I love, and the more I add to my love column every day, the less noticeable my dislike column becomes and the better I feel.

I know people who are happy on the outside and smile widely, and put on a great show of ‘everything’s fine’  but are deeply sad on the inside.  I know people for whom nothing in their life is the way they hoped it was going to be.  I know people who have reinvented themselves and recreated themselves and have been reborn in every way imaginable.  I know people who have had very hard times and splendidly super times.  I know people who lead seemingly satisfying lives, who in truth are not all that satisfied with much of anything.

Much like you dear reader, I have been very happy and also very sad in my days on this planet, but more than anything else, I have tried to be a good human and hope that you have as well.  There are some people I know who will never ever think outside of their tiny boxes, and there are some people I know who have awakened in a way that is so bold and big and beautiful that they can’t imagine ever going back to who they once were.  We are all so different, but I do believe that one thing we have in common is a want to love and be loved.

Some have had little success in the romantic love department and some have hit the jackpot.  I know some women who love shoes and dogs and some men who love cars and golf, but who have not found any success or satisfaction in romance.  I know some people who have had great success in the romance arena but little success in any other part of their lives.  I know people who find love in the four-legged-tail-wagging creatures who greet them at the door every evening after work, and I know people who find love in their kitchen cupboards and drawers and at their stove while they cook and create feasts.  I know people who find love in the ebony and ivory keys at their piano, and I know people who find love in the strings of a guitar.  I know people who find love in the soil and earth and air and water, and I know people who find love in their new 60 inch Samsung.

I know a lot of people who have been through a lot of different experiences and I found that we are all so unique in how we get through this thing called life.  I have found this 21 STEP program very useful.  Some of you might think it was a big waste of time to read these 21 ideas to a better life, but for me it was pretty awesome to force myself to think about things in a different way.  Some of my friends were going through some difficult situations over these last few months and I felt inspired to write about ways that we can all change for the better.  This is the end.  Not of RStar’s Common Grounds but the end of our 21 STEP program.  Was it helpful?  Did you find any value at all in reading any of the words I wrote over these weeks?  If not, sorry you wasted your time.  If so, stick around, I am not going to stop writing any time soon…

The other day my daughter and I were talking outside in our shared driveway, and she told me something I wrote to her in her card from her high school graduation that she’s never forgotten, “I wouldn’t trade our worst days for a life without you in it” and I thought when she said this, wow, that’s some good stuff…but more than that, I thought, well, maybe this is what makes life so beautiful.  Love.  No matter what kind of life it is, and no matter what kind of love it is.  Sure, romantic love with great sex and great kissing and candle lit dinners and travel has got to be fabulous, but honestly so is discovering that scarlet bee balm looks fabulous in your garden behind the lavender, or that it turns out you really enjoy golf, or spin classes, or working at the food pantry once a week, or volunteering with the ladies auxiliary at the local fire company, or…or…or…there is SO MUCH that is wonderful in life, we just have to be able to love it.  It’s so easy.