IF.  I read a poem in college titled “If” and while it is really something of a guide to living, written from a father to his son, and sort of a to-do list to grow into a good man, it really can be a guide to living for all of us girls and women too, and I thought about the poem last night on a long drive, and how often I use the word “if” and all of the implications the word holds…

If I had more money I would do -blank.-  If I had more friends I would do -blank.-  If I had more free time I would do -blank.-  If I was not afraid of getting caught I would do -blank.-  If it was not illegal I would do -blank.-  If I didn’t have to go to work regularly I would do -blank.-  If I was more brave I would do -blank.-  If I were less timid I would do -blank.-  If I were more creative I would do -blank.-  If I were stronger I would do -blank.-

…my list in my head went on and on and on and on…41 miles each way, on the way to; very stressful, heading west, sun in my eyes, lots of traffic, slow pokes and speed demons…on the way back; black dark night with a waxing moon, peaceful and a road heading east all to myself…I listened to music on my trip, of course, there is always music, and then I would turn it off and just enjoy the silence before my mind started to wander, let the quiet consume me, and I would think about “if” and when I pulled into my driveway I had the most amazing thought; If I had not been where I have been these last 45 plus years, If I had not had the joys and the sorrows, the good times and the bad, If I had not lived through the lessons, and there have been SO many lessons, If I had not made the mistakes, If I had not achieved the goals, If I had not cried over the wishes unfulfilled, I would not be pulling into this driveway, walking into this house, being HERE, NOW…

Saturday prevening I had a deep, caring, and thoughtful heart to heart talk with my first friend from 1st grade.  She knows me too well to not know that things had been off with me for months and she called me out.  BOOM! conversation changes from dieting and shopping to  “what is going on with you, let’s talk.”   She is also the kind of woman who you can’t really disobey, she tells it like it is, whatever it is, and so the dude abides.  We sort shit out, succinctly, by just being clear and honest.  She makes me seek her guidance with her directness.  She gave me advice that has worked for her and gave me pointers in how to change-up the thoughts that were not working for me.  She listened to every word I said without interruption and more importantly without judging me, and chose her responses with care, she wanted to say the right things and she also wanted to say what she felt I needed to hear and she did it with kindness above all.  Some of what she said was harsh to my ears, but I needed to hear the words and they are the truth.  I felt better after speaking to her than I had felt for months.

Yesterday I made a choice to do just about nothing…I napped in the sun, read a bit, did minimal housework, & I thought a lot about the changes that I have to make in my life for me through the talk I had with my friend, that all of this upset these months has been self-created and NOTHING that happened in the past can be changed, NOTHING anybody else does or thinks has anything to do with me, people change, people change their minds, people say words they can’t take back and people make questionable choices and circumstances change,  but NOTHING is for me to worry about…worrying about things that have nothing to do directly with me and also trying to change the thoughts that somebody else is having is like flogging a dead horse…I can keep wasting the energy but why???  …it’s futile…and that really hit the nail on the head…I had been worrying about so much for so long that is really so unimportant to my survival…I have to change some of MY bad behaviors, MY bad choices, MY bad decisions, and focus on what matters to me and me alone, a good kind of selfish…my house, my job, my loved ones, my yard, my physical and my mental health are all directly tied to how well and good I am, and I have been neither well nor good, and all of the above have suffered.

I sat in the gloriously bright, but not humid sunshine on my south deck yesterday afternoon with only the sounds of music pulsing through the outdoor speakers and crickets, and felt so peaceful, thinking about how I can change some things very quickly, and some others will take some patience & practice and behavior modification, thinking that a talk with a friend who has known you and loved you for so long is perhaps the best remedy for anybody when they are in a difficult place, and it’s free, be it mental or physical or spiritual or financial or familial or habitual or all of the above…that guidance from a friend is sometimes the best way to start a change because they knew you before, or during and will know you after.  Other than my parents and my Aunt, and my sister, she is the person I have loved the longest in my life.  She has been with me through some of my greatest joys and through some of my saddest lows.  She has seen me at my skinniest and hottest (late teens and adult successes with weight watchers over the last 20 years)  and has seen me at my fattest and worst (three hours after I’d given birth to the biggest baby in the hospital comes to mind) she has seen my brightest smiles and has seen my pools of tears, she has been my friend when I have had a big fat wallet and she has been my friend when I literally did not have two nickels to scrape together.  She has watched me make some really bad decisions and has cheered me on when I made some really smart choices.

Was it just coincidence, or was it perhaps one of those “cosmic clues” for which I have such fondness, that the hour we were speaking on Saturday was about the same hour, of the same day of August, that 28 years before she watched me make one of my very first of so many terrible choices, when she stood by my side in a fuchsia mini dress in my parents back yard, holding my purple flowers  as I got married?  …said words I knew were ridiculous, knowing full well, despite my youth and inexperience in life, that nothing was going to be as I wished or dreamed or wanted, and nothing good was going to happen from that day forward…She wants what is best for me and wants me to be my best, that’s love, no matter how you look at it…She has shown me love for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, and we will probably remain friends until death do us part.

My Mimom, my Dad’s mother, is old.  She refers to me as, “my granddaughter the grandmother” and yes, she is a great-great grandmother.  She works out with a personal trainer at the gym in her building for a half hour almost every day.  She has been nearly blind for all of my adult life.  She lives more fully, old and with poor sight, than most people half her age do.  She is sharp as a tack and while we have grown apart these last several years, she moved much farther away than she used to be, she remains one of my favorite people of my life.

Some years ago a girlfriend of mine said to me about her, “do you buy a gallon of milk or a quart?  When you are that old, do you think about how few or many days you have?”  …and I realized this morning, thinking about my Mimom, and how she recently asked my Dad’s sister to take her furniture shopping,  that she cares not for how many or how few days she has left, she simply lives for the day, each day, every day…her present tense is ALL that matters.

It is a flaw in me, my inability to embrace the now, the present, the what is, and while I do try, repeatedly to get better at it, I need to learn from one who knows, who has lived a long time, through good times and bad, how to be present.  I admit fully that I have been difficult to be around for the last many months, that my inability to be content with how things are and what things are, makes me on edge and uneasy and pitifully unable to appreciate my present tense.  I have come to understand over many weeks, perhaps more than I ever did before, that you can only be moody for so long before people just want nothing really to do with you…My Mimom, on the other hand, is one of those people who, everybody wants to know, and spend time with, and has always been this way…As a child I spent most if not every school vacation with her.  She is the person who taught me how to set a formal table, eat an artichoke, serve crab imperial, how to mingle at a cocktail party, how to throw together an impromptu dinner…she used to be the ultimate hostess, and not only had neighbors and friends for cocktails many times a month, she also threw luncheons for her lady friends and had bridge games with snacks weekly…she has a big laugh and a big voice and has a kindness and joyousness about her that made and still makes people simply want to be around her.

I have not been living for today for too long.  My friend Miss B. who lived down south for many years often uses an expression, “any day you wake up on this side of the dirt is a good day.”  I love the expression but have not been successful in my implementation of the concept.  I believe I am either not trying hard enough or am too consumed with other thoughts to simply be present, to have my “Ah” moments, to just live well…it’s sad for those around me who can only take so much and so many of my mood swings, and it’s sad for me, really, who has so much to be thankful for and grateful about and can’t simply stop with the roller coaster of occasional or sometimes frequent, negative thoughts.  My Mimom clearly went through hard times in her life; getting married during the depression, having her husband go off to  Europe in World War II…I’m sure they had downs in their marriage and that she had downs of her own, but in all my life knowing her, she never gave any indications ever that things were in any way, amiss…I never asked her, but I am pretty sure she probably never needed to pay a therapist my BigDad’s hard earned money to help her get her shit together!

My Mimom always told me to keep my relationships with my girlfriends at the top of my list of important things, that relationships with men often end and men often die first and that it is critical to a happy life as an adult woman to have close girlfriends.  While I only have a couple with whom I share time, and even then it is not so often, I do have many women with whom I am casually acquainted whose place in my life I treasure.  I can’t be a good girlfriend to others if I am not a good friend to myself.  I’ve great aspirations of being a better version of me.  To have my public persona jive with my own state of mind is as good a place to start as any…but how to make it happen is what trips me up, time after time.  I can’t write that I am lazy or unconcerned, because I am the opposite of both, and I truly want to be better at being me, living for today.  We live this life day in and day out and sometimes things fall brilliantly into place and sometimes they crumble horribly apart, but it’s still OUR life, we have to make the best of the situation, any situation, any time…I do not wish to upset my friends or family or people in general with my words or my actions.  I do not wish to feel so conflicted and confused and frustrated so often with myself.  My Mimom was a guide for me as a young girl and woman who I should have paid more attention to in the details…I could have learned so much more from her than I did…She gave me a good foundation, it is up to me alone to build upon it…day after day…

I had many jobs this last week but two in particular brought me so much pleasure…two different customers were having weekend guests, so in addition to my “regular” work they wanted to make things even more special for their visiting friends…mind you, both homes are magnificent, modern, masterpieces with views of the bay that are priceless. A friend of mine opened a new florist in our area this season so my first stop was there to put together arrangements for the bedrooms.  I felt oddly excited, perhaps because as a woman who loves pretty things, I was sort of giddy with the task of choosing flowers and decorative stems and greens to design modern arrangements for vases, as if they were for me!!!

Because our season here at the shore is just about over and all the annuals I planted for Memorial Day are looking pretty shabby, I also bought a variety of late-blooming flowers and fall plants to fill in all the planters I have tended all season.  I mixed gothic looking dramatic black pepper plants with hearty red hibiscus bushes, I mixed purple angelonia, which blooms into October, with mini white mums and was so happy, of course being dirty and playing in  soil always makes me happy, (I’m sure it comes from all my weekends making mud pies in my playhouse as a child) but when I finished all the planters at both properties the satisfaction was almost as glorious as if I had freshened up all my own pots in my own yard!

I arranged the fresh flowers into vases at both houses and put them in the bedrooms, I refolded towels and made sure there was nothing missing, that they would not have to go looking for anything, much like if these weekend guests were staying at a fine hotel.  I plumped pillows, and I smoothed out duvet covers and all the time I was working I realized it didn’t feel much like work at all.  I felt oddly like I was nesting, as if it was my home in which they’d be staying, as if they were my friends who I wanted to feel comfortable and relaxed.

The man I love sometimes laughs at me when we make the bed together; the way I go from side to side to even out the blanket and smooth out the sheet and make sure the matelasse’ coverlet is even on both ends and pound and plump the pillows so there are no lumps, and he often says with a grin and perhaps an exhaustive sigh, “babe who is going to see it?”  …and I realized this week, in all the preparation for beach guests that were not mine, that part of my joy in this house, my dream house, is that I like the idea of making a space feel like the most perfect space…clean, tidy, organized, loved, tended to, maintained…cared for. During the hurricane we had here in October, at one point I had nine people, two dogs, and an iguana staying here.  A friend who really wanted a shower, and was so excited that my generator made this house livable, when he opened my linen cupboard his first word was “wow” and then he laughed and walked out to me in the hallway and said, “you have all white towels and they are folded perfect, I’m afraid to touch them, it’s like a fancy hotel”…and we all got a good laugh, I got teased for my ways, but I sure felt happy, that a guy would notice and that I really do care that my towels are folded perfectly…I treat the homes of my customers the exact same way I treat mine, like a treasure.

My house is very small by comparison to most other houses, certainly compared to all of the homes I work in and on.  I have no room for guests here, literally or figuratively.  When I was walking through the house in the fall of 2009 with the building inspector and the tax assessor, with fingers crossed that a Certificate of Occupancy was going to be issued at the end of our grand tour, they both asked me what on earth made me build a one bedroom house?  My answer seemed so obvious…I’m single, I live alone, who needs rooms that never get used??!!  I will most likely never have the opportunity to prepare for weekend guests like my customers do.  I doubt I will ever have the means to add on to this house if the need arises, so the chance to make a space welcoming to friends for an extended stay will probably never come to me…so I will simply always jump at the chance to do it for my customers, and will continue to do it in my own way for myself…making this space that I so love, that I designed and planned, and drew, and built, feel like the most wonderful place to visit, and count my blessings, unlike the friends of my customers who will stay through this afternoon and then go back to the cities from which they came,  that I don’t ever have to leave.

I worked last week for a customer I’ve had for many years, she still works full-time as a practicing attorney at 79 years-old and she is still madly in love with her husband of 46 years.  While I cleaned and organized linen cupboards she chatted about her work, her life, her family, and she shared stories of some of the many travels and adventures she’s had during the years of her marriage, which are the entire years of my life.  I felt a mix of happiness and hopefulness those hours in her company…happy that I love my job and that I enjoy so many of my customers, and hopeful that my time to really live, will come…that it is not too late for me, that nothing is too late for me, that I’ve not missed the boat or the bus, that no doors have closed, that it’s not too late for me for anything…

I’ve been thinking a lot the last couple of months about the life I am living: Am I living well, or just, well, living?  By global standards, I live lavishly, if I make the mistake of “comparing” my life to those for whom I work,  I do not.  If I focus on what I have and what is good and what is happy, I can safely write that I live well and have a very good life.  If I focus on the few things I want that I have not got, I find my view becomes narrower and narrower day after day and I begin to feel that I am  simply existing and not living really or living fully at all.  Anybody who knows me, knows that I use the word “fabulous” a lot…how am I today?  Fabulous! …but my propensity to too frequently dwell on the few -have nots-  rather than the many -haves- of my life, makes me anything but fabulous.  It is a self-perpetuating cycle of occasional unease and upset that only I can break.  Nobody can fix this flaw but me.

During the work hours I kept saying to myself, ‘I am this happy, I am this satisfied, I am as content as this woman’…just because I don’t yet have the money or the freedom to travel like I wish to, and just because I’ve got a few nagging thoughts that irk me, does not make me any less “well” than she.  My unease about a few things I can’t change somehow begins to make me uneasy about everything, even things I CAN change.  I am in charge of my own joy.  I am the captain of my ship, I am the mistress of my domain, I am the boss of me, so I must wonder why I keep thinking about WHEN things might be different, when I know, I honestly know, that I am in charge of me.  My happiness, my contentment, my satisfaction, my ease…I am the creator of my joy and therefore I am the creator of my woe…things can be different JUST by changing the way I think about them…

I’ve never heard this customer say one bad thing, one negative thing, one not “happy” thing about her life, her husband, her work…she is totally at ease with all that is her world.   I am in charge of the rainbows and butterflies…it is up to me to find them even when they are in hiding.  This customer is as in love with her house as I am mine…she loves its design, its layout, the treasures she has accumulated in it, she feels most “right” when she is there…she feels most herself when she is there, it is her space to regroup and restore her soul after her long week of work in the city.  I realized in talking with her that her joy upon arriving at the shore is not much different from my joy when I get to the base of my driveway at the end of each work day.  I suppose much like Dorothy, even if I got over the rainbow I might find that there’s no place like home, that Oz is just some other place, not some better place…

I was among friends last night, remembering one.  I spent a lot of my evening chatting with a man,  (who happens to be the first boy I ever kissed, in kindergarten no less,) and his beautiful wife and her beautiful sister, as well as a number of other acquaintances from high school and grade school.  This man’s father grew up with my mother on the island that not many of us call home, at least not anymore, but the island that to all of us in many ways, is home.  We have all played on its beaches and swam in its ocean and for many of us, who never strayed much farther than a few miles from it, it remains a place to which we feel connected.

We were all together at a local bar to remember a friend who died unexpectedly last weekend.  This friend who died did live on the island and he also left it, many times, in his adventurous travels.  He shared his journeys with all of his cyber-space friends and for me, a girl who has not traveled much at all, the photos and the descriptions of his explorations were glorious.  He did not go to all-inclusive fancy resorts where workers cater to your every need…nope- he backpacked through icy mountains and hiked wildflower filled hillsides…His photo albums on his Facebook pages are titled: Morocco, Scotland, Ireland, Pompeii, Tuscany, Paris, Prague, Iceland, Switzerland…VERY different from most of the rest of us who have Facebook photo albums labeled “the zoo”  “the boardwalk” “the dance recital” or “the soccer game.”  That he took the time to share his adventuresome spirit, with those of us who have neither the means nor the guts to explore the world or spread our wings, was a gift.

I left the bar early last night, and said goodnight to the man who was the 1st boy I ever kissed, and went home to the boy who I hope is the last one I ever kiss.  On my drive I thought about how many times I go over this bridge and how seldom I’ve  been very far from it, and how it’s doubtful I ever will be very far from it…I realized that as much as I have suffered with wanderlust in my life, the fact of the matter is that if the only place I go is home, where there is love and friendship, sharing food, sharing drinks, sharing laughter…sharing a life…I’ve actually gone quite far, and perhaps that is enough…

I had major surgery on Valentine’s Day 2006, and I have seen enough films to “know”  that sometimes when somebody dies, not only are those alive left with the sadness and the loss but all those thoughts of “I wish I had said” …fill in the blank…So the week before my surgery, with the lingering thought that I may die from an anesthesia reaction or whatever else could happen, I wrote letters.  Many letters.  To my daughter, to my parents, to the man I was dating, to my sister, to my Mimom, to the little Sweet-Ti infant grandbaby I’d only just begun to know…I “said” all the things I wanted to say.  I put them all in envelopes and left them that morning on my desk addressed with to whom they were for…just in case.  While it may have been a morbid act, it felt good to do it, while I was writing and also that day as I was being prepped and poked and as I started to count backwards from 10, and to be honest, I only remember saying “10” I felt so peaceful, that if that was to be my last day alive on this earth, there was nothing left unsaid.

I have been filled with mild, and sometimes deep regret since early February for things I have said, and have written, creating drama and upset to someone who deserves neither.  Words when spoken can’t be taken back, and I have said many things  since this winter that were better left unsaid…I’ve been unrealistic about expectations, I’ve been selfish with all the -what I want and what I deserve- types of comments, I’ve been upset over a situation that has nothing to do with me nor does it or should it, affect me directly…and I have tried to “do better” and I have tried to “be better” and I have really tried to force out the thoughts when they enter my brain, it has been a struggle for me, and I am upset with myself and despite my efforts, I keep on behaving badly in this area.  How many times can you say you are sorry before the person no longer believes you mean it?  How many times can you say you will try to do something and then you don’t ever really do it?  It’s a little like The Boy Who Cried Wolf isn’t it??

Last evening I got word from a girlfriend that a mutual friend of ours from high school had died.  I just had drinks with him and some friends earlier this summer and while we had not been “friends” since high school, we had been very good cyber friends these last several years.  I felt sad, that someone as young as we was dead, and that he had so much left to do and to say, and surely so many who cared about him had things to say to him.  I’ve written for years about my Dad, truly the greatest human I will ever know, who often says, “tomorrow you could be run over by a pie wagon” and he lives his life so fully and so completely and with such kindness and goodness that when the pie wagon does come, there will be no regrets in his last breath.  This death of a friend from my teens got me thinking for the last many hours about the life I am living…

I like the Buddhist idea that we get to keep coming back to a physical life, time after time, until we get it right…I also like the Christian idea that we die this physical life but we get to live forever in heaven.  I don’t know that I believe in anything, and I have friends of many faiths and friends of no faith.  I like the idea of a “religion” of kindness.  I’ve joked over the years, yet it is SO true for me, that I love Eddie Vedder’s quote, “there’s only one commandment, don’t be an asshole,”  yet, even though I try to go to bed at night and say my apology to the universe, if I have been an asshole to anybody that day, I find that I’ve been perpetually difficult to the man I most want to be kind to, the man I want to keep sharing my life with, the one who I don’t want to think ill of me…

So I’m thinking about my recently dead friend, and wondering what he might have wished to be different, done differently, what he maybe wishes he had said and what he perhaps wished he had not…I have not been living to my full potential these many months.  I know this much is true.  I have been needlessly unkind and occasionally difficult and said “I’m sorry” too often.  If this is the only life I get I think I had better start behaving better and know as well as understand, that there are many things better left unsaid…I want my last words that I say or that I write to be based in kindness, understanding, compassion, generosity, grace I suppose…I believe perhaps today more than yesterday, that the ONLY things I SHOULD say are the words I would want somebody to remember me by…

It’s funny, in a confusing way, how changing one letter, s or m, can make so much difference in a meaning of emotion…I’ve been journaling, a lot, for the last month…I have been “accused,” I write accused because it’s usually mentioned in a negative way, for most of my adult life, of “thinking too much” but I suppose the alternative is thinking too little, and that can’t possibly be good!!!  & in my “diary” writing I became so aware yesterday morning of how frequently I flip-flop between “sad” and “mad” in my writing and interchange the words as if they are the same meaning…it got me thinking, do they mean the same thing to me?

If for example I was challenged to describe myself in six words or less, neither sad nor mad would be in the list, yet I find when I reread some of the thoughts I’ve put to paper, there is a trend towards both…I don’t like it…I know that *what you think, you become* so I guess I’m concerned that focusing on both of those emotions, as separate sensations or as the same type of discontent, is pushing me to a state of being that I’ve no interest in experiencing on a regular basis…I don’t want to be either.  I don’t like to think that I am.  The words sad and mad don’t produce the same “feelings” inside of me, or I suppose they shouldn’t, so I have to wonder why I exchange them and so often & have, like I do in both my thoughts and my journaling.

19 years ago, the man I was dating pointed out to me that if I only wrote in my journal when I was upset or angry or confused or concerned, that I was creating a “false history.”  That while my feelings may be pure and my words may be true at the time I write them, that by only noting my upset, and not my joys or even things as simple as the kind of weather, it is not an accurate diary.  In the olden days people used diaries as a way to record history…the weather, the farming, the things that went on in the community…they weren’t only filled with angry scribbles when Dorcas was so upset because she found Samuel in the barn with Silas, or Rebecca being angry with Josiah for not helping her with the children.  I knew then and know now that he was right, that to write a real diary has to be a daily or weekly ritual that is filled with facts, not just emotions, otherwise it’s really just an ego stroke for yourself.

I was very sad, or maybe mad, on the first day of summer, for a reason that need not be shared, but it was partly my own fault, great expectations for what was to be,  instead of great gratitude for what was, and I realized while I was feverishly writing, the thoughts and the words just kept coming back to the same idea…like a skipping record…saying the same thing over and over and over, just using different words, and within a few days I thought, “geez! I’m even annoying myself at this point!”  So I stopped the thoughts and stopped the writing and moved on.  Then again on July 21st another meaningful day in my mind, yet another self-fulfilling prophecy or maybe just a delusion, making myself both sad and mad by my own thoughts…what a waste of energy!!!  Truthfully I’d been struggling with these thoughts since the beginning of February, again droning on and on like a broken record in my brain…I don’t like them and I don’t like how they make me feel, and I try, I really do, to stop thinking them…but they just kept creeping back into my brain!!!  Frankly they infuriate me and make me feel weak and make me feel insecure and those are two adjectives I loathe, not just about myself but really about anybody!  So for the last several days I have been thinking about, *what if this were my last week or month or year in this life?  What if tomorrow  I really do get run over by a pie wagon? What if I really do buy the farm or kick the proverbial bucket in August?*  What a wasted many months, or days, or hours, being either sad or mad.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, no music playing all those hours I worked; just the slapping of the bay on the bulkhead, the squawking of the seagulls, the clanging of sails on the masts and booms of the boats in the lagoon, the laughter of adults having a very fun day a few houses down from where I was working, the splashing of bodies in the water, the roar of jet skis off in the distance…a beautiful sunny day with a pleasant breeze and mild temperature and not very humid at all…back and forth I worked, staining a house, board after board after board…soffit, then fascia, then siding…and I just let my mind wander…the work kind of happens on its own, and when you are doing a job like painting a house your thoughts just sort of flow like stain…and I thought, how about “GL” instead of S or M??  Am I not ultimately mostly “GLAD?”  Am I not thankful for the work I have that allows me to live in my dream house?  Am I not grateful for the good health and well-being of those I care about?  Am I not pleased that last July I met a new boy and my whole world became brighter?  Do I not still feel overwhelmed when I think about the first time he smiled at me?  Do I not feel such happiness when I think about some of our first dates, first kisses, or the first time he told me he loved me?  I don’t need S & M with my ‘ad’…neither suits me nor brings me joy…I’ll take ‘Gl,’ glad for all that I have and all that is good, and put the pen away.

We all learned about the periodic table of elements in junior high and high school…we know that all matter is made up of elements or combinations of elements…but what if we had a table for what matters?  What if we had a table of the elements for the heart, the soul, what we feel, what we love, what we crave, what we loathe?  Everything we FEEL, everything we DESIRE, everything that makes us weep, or yell, or jump for joy, is also made up of elements isn’t it?

I have not used the periodic table since I was in college.  I’ve explained it to the children I love, and we read about it in their book called “Science Verse” and I do very often refer to water as H2O, and I sometimes call salt “nacal” which makes the kids laugh, but in general the periodic table of the elements  became nothing but a blip in my memory after I was finished with college, however, if we had a Periodic Table for what matters, not only for the elements OF matter, I am quite sure that I, and you, would use it or refer to it, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

A beautiful smile, straight white teeth, creativity, a deep voice, talent, a sexy laugh, affectionate, nice biceps, defined deltoids, athletic ability, smarts, compassion, humor…those are just some of the elements that make the man I love VERY appealing to me.  He thinks I am smart, have a radiant smile, am kind, funny and make him laugh, capable and hard-working, honest &  faithful…those are some of the elements that make him love me.

We all know that when two or more elements are combined it’s called a compound.  We know that Hydrogen, Oxygen, Helium, and Carbon are the most common elements in our world.  BUT if we had a different kind of periodic table, the elements of what matters, I think the most common ones might be LOVE, COMPASSION, UNDERSTANDING, KINDNESS…most of what matters has a base of one or more of these elements doesn’t it??!!

I got straight A’s in college, which included chemistry and biology, so I know I can, if I apply myself, “GET IT.”  There is nothing tricky about science, it’s really just facts and sure, some science is based purely on hypotheticals, but those come from bits and pieces of  facts, science is not subjective, it is pure and simple when you break it down…kind of like life when I think about it…it may seem complicated at times, but really, when you break it all apart into its categories and its basic elements, it simply is what it is, it’s how we organize all those parts that really matters…

I was doing a job yesterday where I had no music, no distractions, just the hum and rattle of my pressure washer for 8 hours…back and forth, board to board, deck to deck…you might think the monotony of the job would be awful, but it isn’t…it’s oddly soothing…it’s like mowing my field or vacuuming to me…so I thought a lot, for a lot of hours yesterday, about feelings I’ve been having since the solstice, questions I’ve asked myself, confusion about some aspects of my life and unquestioning certainty about others…and I was breaking down all of the thoughts into their smallest possible detail…

Part of, or maybe all of, a good present tense-  living a happy life, making a happy home, having a fulfilling job, caring about your friends or your family, ALL include combinations of one or more of these elements.  If any of our personal goals are unmet, if we feel something is missing in our lives, if we feel unchallenged, out of balance, dissatisfied, confused about our life’s purpose, discontent, uncertain, perplexed about what role we are supposed to be playing, in our world in general and or home in particular, any of the thoughts that we all think, some of us more frequently than others, (yes, I am totally comfortable sharing the fact that I suffer from this character flaw of “over thinking” almost everything) all we have to do is recombine some of those basic elements, reconfigure our compounds, and my hypothesis is that the answers or the change will come…now, let the experiments begin…

I love many things- shiny silver bracelets, the color purple, gerber daisies, my family, the sound of children laughing, my fireplace on a cold night, my central air on a humid day…the list could go on endlessly, as I try to find the good and the beautiful in most everything and most every day.  Coffee and Wine are also on my list and I was thinking this morning about why?…and I realize that they both give me a similar peaceful feeling.  Although some people are jolted by the caffeine in coffee, I am not, and have at times been known to drink it all day long and into the night and still sleep soundly.  Some people are lulled into dullness with the alcohol content of wine, but I am not, and find that most my senses are stimulated by it.

I love to read reviews about coffee and wine when I am trying new beans or new grapes and it’s curious to me that the ratings almost always use the word “Balance” in the descriptions.  Is that what we crave?  Is that what we are seeking?  Perhaps, since I see the word used so frequently, I am not alone in my quest for balance in my life, and to be clear, if my beverage is well balanced first thing in the morning and shortly before dinner, well, hey, it’s a start!

Many winters ago, my boyfriend at the time and I began an experiment in roasting our own coffee beans.  We were positively giddy with the UPS delivery of green beans, in small quantities, from many parts of the world.  We used a regular old cast iron skillet and a wooden wok tool, no special gadgets, and the intense flame from an old gas range, and we learned a lot about beans…how they “pop” during the first phase, and double in size, and how they sizzle and become glossy during the second phase, and how long to turn them, how long to air them, the ratio of water to beans after we ground them…we learned that some beans require not only the wall fan but the front door and all the windows opened so as not to be smoked out of the house, we learned that some, despite their delicious flavor when brewed, actually smell like dirty feet.  We had a small notebook where we’d jot down details: the type of bean, where it’s from, how long we roasted, how much we put in the pan, etc., and even though he was a scientist and had a love of data, and I like to write and had a love of being overly verbose, we never could duplicate a roast, regardless of the number of details we noted, ever!

That same winter, with not enough work to stay busy and therefore a lot of down-time, we also started an experiment in rating wine.  I tried, and failed miserably I might add, to remove the labels from each bottle and glue them into a notebook where we then described OUR take on the bottle, and tried very hard not to read the back of the bottle first…could we detect the kind of grape, the region, how was the texture, how deep was the color, was it too sweet or too dry, how did it adhere to the side of the glass, how did it smell, did I like the design of the label, did the aroma fill the room or just our noses as we took the first sip, notes of berry, notes of dirt, notes of chocolate, notes-notes-notes…it’s fun, in a dorky way I suppose, because you really have to dig deep in your brain, or search your thesaurus, for adjectives.

What I learned most that winter was that one, I was surprisingly happy without having television, two, life can be quite good with only music in the house and not background noise of  woeful or depressing news & ridiculous commercials, and three, a great cup of coffee and a great bottle of wine have a shared characteristic that matters to me, BALANCE.   In my life now, much changed, VERY much changed from that winter so many years ago, I find myself seeking balance every day in every way, in myself and how I try to make my way in the world…not letting myself get too angry or too upset, or too worried or too fearful, or perhaps “too” anything.  If I am rude or unkind I try to fix it with apology and affection.  If I lash out or say something I regret, I try to fix it with calming grace.  I really continue to strive, I guess almost daily, to become a better version of me and I joke, but it is in truth, that I am a work in progress, and I was thinking this morning, as I took my first sip of coffee, that happened to be a VERY good cup of coffee, that it was perfectly balanced, and so today, I shall try to be the same…