Aha

I was asked a question last week that moved me to tears. It goes to the heart of blooming where one is planted.

In many ways my mother had a difficult life. Some of it was - as I've learned as an adult - a result of her own actions, some of it was due to the inevitable vagaries we all face in life simply because we are alive. The former can be the seeds of regrets, the latter the burdens we have to bear. Without going into the specifics of each of these categories, let me just say that the conversation I had last week involved speculating on some of her actions and choices so they fall into the former category.

The person I was talking to, who never knew my mother and has only others' perspectives to go on, asked me a question I had apparently never considered. It was: "do you think your mother was happy?" For whatever reason those seven words knocked the wind out of me. Snatches of conversations past with my mother floated into my consciousness as did  images of situations with her over a lifetime. What paraded through my mind resulted in a less certain answer to that specific question than I would have hoped. All these things that had been in memory (accurate or not) showed a picture that had never taken this particular shape before. Yet I had a new insight into a woman who died a lifetime ago but who is still often with me and who I still miss talking to. I suddenly saw her as my inspiration for blooming where you are planted. For letting go of the past you cannot change and making the best of what you have in the moment, wherever you are. For crafting a good (even if not fully happy) life with what is available rather than seeking to recreate the lives and happinesses of others.

Perhaps I'm romanticizing what was undoubtedly at times very difficult. As was pointed out by another friend recently, we can never really know our parents - or anyone - people are just too complex and multi-faceted. We can barely know ourselves. However this insight into how and why my mother lived as she did feels right and I accept it gratefully.

Technology is the cause of (and possibly a cure for) my bajiggity life...


The above was a Tweet I sent to the blog...learning all about the technology I have available now has felt a bit overwhelming, even though it doesn't require all the special programming languages that it used to. Thank goodness...

What I was thinking was that for so long I resisted certain kinds of technology - notably a cell phone - as an intrusion, a nuisance and an unnecessary expense. I had one when my father was ill because I was four hours away. After he died, I said there was no reason for me to have one. And truth be told, I didn't like feeling like I had to be that available.

Fast forward to Fall of 2008 when I was supposed to be teaching in Bankok for a month. I decided I wanted a connection to home so bought an iPhone to take along. In the year plus since then I've found that I can control the phone, it doesn't have to control me. That it is a fabulous tool - not toy - and is truly helpful. That said, I do still find life becoming more impersonal (an aspect of bajiggityness for me) and try to build in simple joys all around me. But, the phone isn't the problem, it's how people become addicted to the phone or any other technology to take the place of true connection - the face-to-face kind. Don't get me wrong, being in touch via technology is better than not being in touch. But it isn't the same, and no matter how much improvement there is, I don't think it ever will be in my lifetime.

Oh, and in case I left you hanging, I never got to Bangkok. That was the time - you may remember - when the folks in support of the Thai king took over the Bangkok airport and shut it down. I was stuck in Tokyo waiting to find out when/if the airport would open and woke up to the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Needless to say air travel in that part of the world was...er...experiencing delays and cancellations of a major nature. It didn't take me long to decide to turn around and come home. Perhaps that was the beginning of my decision to bloom where I'm planted....

What's in the pantry?

I've been thinking about cooking even more with what I have rather than what I want so tonight I made dinner with what I found. I do this a lot, but I want to do it even more. Needs are very different than wants and I plan to focus on meeting my needs for a while.

I pulled some salmon out of the freezer and some barley and mushrooms I'd dried out of the pantry. Then I grabbed some green beans from the fridge. It was a meal. I cooked the barley with a bit of onion that was left in the fridge and the dried mushroom. I cooked it in chicken broth from the pantry rather than water. I roasted the green beans with pepper and some onion sugar (great stuff if you can find it!) and baked the salmon with a sauce of lemon juice, honey and some ground ginger and cinnamon. It was tasty. It was good for me in many ways.

Unfortunately when eating a green bean I also knocked off one of the brackets from my braces and so now I'm waiting to hear from the orthodontist's office whether I can wait til my regular appointment or if I have to make a special trip in to get it fixed. Rats... nothing is easy....

Happy? New? Year?

I truly was not ready to accept that another year had passed last night, let alone another decade. It's all going too fast, despite my best efforts to live a slow life. And truly I'm not sure there is too much that will  be new in 2010 that is really important. There will still be problems craving solution. And surprises good and bad. There will be ups and downs. There will be births and deaths. There will be happiness and sadness. All of this we know. So what?!

Is it possible that someone, somewhere will act in a way that will make a huge positive difference in how we all - and I do mean all - live in the world? Or does it fall to each of us to act in ways that make small positive differences that ripple out and connect over time and space to make a huge, positive changes in how we live in the world.? I believe it's the latter. Each of us contributes to the whole. Each of us makes differences in ways that we don't recognize or will never know.

Bottom line....in 2010 I will remember that what I do does matter. It does have an impact even if I never see it. So paying attention and asking ---- "just because I can, should I?" ----is important.