Be you

I have always known that I am different than the ordinary. This morning a friend posted something that really hit home with me. I decided to share it on my blog. It just goes to show that being a little different is not bad at all. Just be you because that is all you can be.

Making a decision

I decided to take the weekend to think about my idea to do another children's "writing camp" at our family center. In the meantime I took a look at what I had left over from the last camp I did, five years ago. Everything just sort of fell into place and I realized doing another one would take very little effort on my part.

After exercising this morning I stopped by the office to ask if they still had room for another camp in their summer program. To my surprise the answer was yes because someone had dropped out. I didn't even have time to think, as my idea was promptly put in the computer. Even the room I really wanted to use would be available for my camp. I was even told a member of the summer staff would be appointed to help me with the camp. I really did need someone to help with crowd control etc.

I just remembered that I pulled an angel card a couple of days ago that said I would have a new partner. Seriously?!

It almost seems as if my guide/guides gave me a push in the right direction and all I had to do was follow. Some days are like that!

Are you a writer?

Recently the following came through my news feed and it caused me to give it some thought. Paraphrased it said: My advice to young writers is just do it. A writer is a person who is writing, not a person who is publishing.

Over the last twenty years I have written and written. Although I have been published in more than one form, the money I have earned writing wouldn't fill a thimble. I just realized, I don't give a damn!

I don't believe I was put on this earth to make a living writing!

It is my job to inspire others to write. Let them make the money, or not. That has nothing to do with me. Personal experience tells me it is cleansing to get it out of your head and write it down, creating room for new experiences.

Just write!

The same but different

Lately things and people keep coming back into my life, the same but different. It is like they have changed roles. I keep running into people I knew twenty years ago. It is getting a little bit freaky!

For the last week I have stayed away from Future Foundations Family Center, where I usually exercise three times a week. The place has been empty lately and it just isn't any fun having a conversation with a room full of machines.

This morning I decided to give it another try. As I entered the fitness room I saw two real live people. Yay! After awhile I realized I had met the couple before. Last year they offered classes on how to use a bow & arrow to the kids who participate in the summer program. I had a chance to touch base with them during the half hour that I used the machines. I was informed that they were going to offer the class again this year.

After they left I remembered an angel oracle card I had pulled this morning. It was: New Partner. A chance meeting is no mistake. It is Divinely orchestrated as a catalyst to set the wheels in motion for the fruition of your prayers. Pay careful attention to new people we send into your life. You will recognize them by your sense of familiarity, comfort and safety. 

On the way home I began thinking about the Children's Writing Camp I had offered at the center in previous years. The last one I did was 2014. I began tossing around the idea that perhaps it was time to do another. I have learned a lot in the last four years and that would help make another camp better than the last one. Also the staff at Futures is completely new and the camp would be directed at a new batch of students.

I even went so far as to dig up a copy of my resume, which has also been updated and print out a temporary flyer for a 2019 Writing Camp.

Will I take the next step and present my idea to the staff? Perhaps.

Your words matter

This morning a poem crossed my Facebook news feed that I was very familiar with. I remember exactly where I was when I read it for the first time. I was sitting alone in the my high school library. I was looking through a book of poems. One caught my eye and has been in my mind for 63 years. It was written by the American poet, Edwin Markham 1852-1940.

Outwitted
He drew a circle that shut me out, heretic, rebel, a thing to flout
But love and I had the will to win,
We drew a circle that took him in.

Wondering if any other words he wrote rang a bell I googled his name to check that out. I was happy to find a couple of quotes that did.

There is a destiny that makes us bothers, no man goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.  

And another that I found is:

We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.

And then I thought, the man died 79 years ago, isn't it wonderful that the words he wrote still matter!

Friends are family too

Family holidays are hard to get through for those of us who have lost touch with biological family, for one reason or another. That's when friends count the most. I am grateful that I live in a small town and as someone once said, I know everyone. Well that's not quite true, but I know a lot of people, and they pop up all over the place.

Just the other day I was having coffee with a friend when a lady tapped my arm to get my attention. I was surprised to discover it was someone who had been my District Manager for Avon over twenty years ago. That brought back some memories. I remember all those Avon boxes piled in her driveway, waiting for the representatives to pick them up and distribute them to customers. It also reminded me that I was a member of the President's Club at one time.

A couple days later I was getting water at an outside machine when a lady stopped by to say hello. At first I didn't quite remember who she was. Then it dawned on me that she was the lady who offered tax services in Grants. I had not seen her for many years.

There is a young man, well he isn't that young anymore, who is the produce manager at Smith's. He went to school with my middle child many years ago. He recently chewed me out because I called him James. I asked,'What should I call you?" He answered," Jimmy." It is the name I knew him by in his past life, when he was like twelve.

Smith's is a great place to find people I know and have known. It is not uncommon for me to run into someone I wrote about when I was a columnist for the local newspaper. That happened recently and I was granted a sincere hug from a man whom I had deemed as "authentic". He still is.

It is not unusual for me to find former teachers of my children and youngest grandchild among the shelves of the grocery store and other places in town. I recently ran into my daughter's fifth grade teacher at the hospital. When she asked about my daughter I told her she doesn't communicate with me anymore. I laughed when she said, " I should kick her in the butt!" 

So on this special holiday I count my friends as family too. 

Easter memories

The very first memory that I have of Easter took place when I was a child, living in Olympia, Washington.I remember participating in an Easter egg hunt that took place on the capitol grounds. I also remember a time when my mother attached a cotton ball to the front door, making my brother and me think it was part of the bunny tail. Of course, I remember coloring the eggs in the kitchen.

I think the most important Easter memory I have is the phone call from my mother, informing me that my father had died. It wasn't a surprise as he had been ill for some time. I have always found it odd that his death happened on Easter Sunday.

I remember when my daughter was little coloring eggs to take to the church for their egg hunting. Of course the years I was a practicing Catholic come to mind too.

A more recent memory I have that includes my youngest grandson occurred when I was helping out his class as a room mother. The class was sent outside while we hid eggs inside the classroom. When the kids came back in they were supposed to find the eggs. My little grandson only got the one that was on his chair. He put his head down on his desk and cried. His friends felt so bad for him they each gave him one of their eggs.

The last Easter memory I have happened in 2009. It was the last time I was invited to my daughter's house for a family celebration. Since then Easter and every other family holiday has pretty much been spent without family.

By any other name

Sometimes we connect with people who we at first think are road blocks. They disrupt our lives and can cause problems in our thinking. I used to think they were road blocks, but my opinion has changed and I now believe they are simply resting places. They give us a bench to sit on and reflect on the direction our life is taking.

This happened to me recently. A person entered my life who had a totally different outlook than I did. The relationship gave me a chance to take stock of my life; to see where I was going and where I had been. Most especially, this person forced me to bring my strong points into the bright light and use them to evolve.

It reminds me of the saying that people enter our life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

On this Easter weekend I wish all of my readers and friends the opportunity to connect with someone who offers a resting place for them. Peace be with you all! 

 



 

Life purpose

The angel oracle card I drew this morning is Life Purpose. The advice was: The purpose of your life is to serve in a way that brings great joy to yourself and others. Don't worry about finding your purpose. Instead, focus upon serving a purpose and then your purpose will serve you.

Interesting words. I thought I was doing that with my writing, but this morning I am wondering if that is true. I'll have to think about that for awhile.

Perhaps the universe is trying to get me to understand that although it is my purpose to pass on what I experience through my writing, it is not my purpose to control what happens next. It's like a sky full of snowflakes. Some of them will land creating beauty on the earth; some of them will melt before even touching the ground.

Who is in control?

Recently a message floated by me that I reached out and caught. The message was: It is not my responsibility to heal, save, punish or control other people.

It reminded me of something a massage therapist said to me a few years ago. "You don't have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders."

Sounds a bit like a control freak to me. I am always trying to fix people, get them to see that they could be better than they are.

A friend once said the road to perfectionism is an attachment to outcome. I suppose that is very true. The problem with that is the universe is always creating obstacles. It seems nothing ever turns out exactly the way I believe it will.

A few months ago I submitted a poem I had written several years ago. It was a poem that I believe came from my soul, as it was in my mind one morning when I woke up. I rushed to write it down before I forgot the words. Over the years it has had many titles, but the current one is Pure Love. I really thought it would win, considering where it came from. It didn't even place. Needless to say I was more than a little disappointed in the outcome.

I suppose the point of my little rant is, I am not in control.

Hello

Hello humans, my name is Ejay. Some of you may know a little about me because my mom sometimes writes about me on Facebook. More than one picture of me has appeared there too. Most people think I am adorable. Wait, guys can’t be adorable. Maybe handsome is a better description.

I was born somewhere in Cibola County, New Mexico in February 2012. I don’t remember much about my first home or if I had siblings because I ran away from home when I was about 10 months old. I was picked up by animal control and spent three weeks in a facility that housed other dogs and cats. I was put in a cage with a roommate, waiting for my family to come and take me home. It never happened, although they were contacted. 

Finally, an ad was placed in the local paper with my picture. I was apparently ready for adoption- yay! I thought, please someone come and get me. I don’t like it here! I’ll be good I promise!

A couple of days later the lady who was to become my new mom came to check me out. She looked at me, I looked at her and wagged my tail- a lot. I was taken out of the cage and it was love at first sight. After all the paper work was finished, I was officially adopted. 

After my new mom led me to her car I hopped up on the front seat to get a better view. As I did that my mom noticed a piece of wire attached to my belly. She was able to remove it and we were off to the office of the local vet for a quick visit and to get my shots. We also set up an appointment for neutering. I found out what that was a bit later. I will keep my opinion about that to myself! 

Finally arriving at my new home I discovered I had acquired a fur sister and brother. There was something strange about them though. They didn’t know how to bark and made meowing sounds. They did have four legs and a tail though.

I found that I had a pretty big yard to roam around in. It looked as if I was going to have fun chasing birds and wild rabbits. I later discovered that, Smokey, my fur brother, seemed to enjoy catching mice.

My first night in my new home was rather scary. My new mom put me in her bathroom with a blanket and food and water. It was dark in there and I kept throwing myself against the door in hopes she would let me out. That lasted one night. From then on I have slept in a basket with a very comfortable pillow, right next to my mom’s bed.  

I was seven years old in February and I am very grateful that I have had a comfortable home to live in and humans to love me. Thank goodness for the picture that connected me and my mom!

Dinner party

I was  thinking this morning about the people who have influenced my life for one reason or another. Most of them are now deceased, but if I could, it would be fun to invite them to sit at my table for a meal and conversation. What would I serve them? It would be my famous crock pot chicken over egg noodles and a scrumptious desert. Perhaps angelfood cake with fresh berries!

Now for the guest list.

First it would be my maternal grandparents, William 1886-1918 and Laura 1891-1984. There are some questions I would like to ask them. In doing ancestry research, a baby boy cropped up that I am wondering about. Who are the biological parents of this child? I also have some unanswered questions about my own birth. Then there is my belief that at least one of them possessed spiritual gifts that were never discussed in my life time.

Richard Bach, born 1936, would be a welcome guest. I would love the chance to talk to him about his unusual beliefs and thank him for being an inspiration for my current writing style. His book, Illusions, gave me the push I needed to try my wings as a motivational writer. One of his quotes sticks in my mind: "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly".

Maya Angelou, 1928-2014, would be a star guest. She was a poet, actress, author and civil rights activist. She was also one of the most amazing women I have ever read about. She came from nothing and rose to great heights before her death. The words, "and still I rise" are associated with her life.

Another amazing guest would be Dr. Wayne Dyer, 1940-2015. He was a highly respected motivational author and speaker. One of his famous quotes is: "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change".

There are also two souls who I personally knew in this life that would be guests. The first is, Mr. Hall, my high school journalism teacher. I would love to pile up the published books, E-books and blog posts I have written since 2000 and plop them in front of his face. I was never given a chance to write in his class because all he cared about were the "popular" students.

The other soul from my past is a lady by the name of Juanita Pilcher. She was a friend of my mothers who later became a friend of mine. She saw something in my that escaped my biological relatives. I would like to ask her just what that was. Toward the end of her life I was one of the few people she wanted to talk to. We don't always know how important we are to another until it is too late.

Although my guest list is not very long, these are the people who would be invited to my special dinner party.





  

Just do it

I have been trying to find someone to help me with some yard work with no luck. I had managed to remove the majority of weeds in the front and back yards of my house. One of the remaining tasks was a fifty foot strip of gravel in my front yard that housed a new growth of weeds. I had been putting it off because with spinal stenosis it is difficult for me to attack them.

This morning I decided enough is enough and I set out to do it myself. I got all the tools ready and began the tedious job. Instead of kneeling down or bending over, which hurts my knees and back, I use two alternating foam knee pads to sit on and just move around the area from one end to the other.

I was about 3/4 of the way finished with the job when a car stopped on the street side of the chain link fence. A man yelled at me that he thought I had fallen and he was going to help. I yelled back, "I was just tying to get these freaking weeds out of the gravel, but thanks for stopping."

To make a long story short, the weeds are gone and I am happy that I stopped waiting for help and did it myself. When my son came home he said the weather was going to change and we are in for several days of cold rain. Anyone who knows me knows I am a big believer in following my intuition. I am wondering if I somehow knew this was the only day I had to get those pesky weeds out of there?

Friendship

Lately I have been having problems inspiring the members of my online writing group, "Write On", to write. The current prompt is, describe a friend, which I thought would encourage members to write. I mean everyone has at least one friend- right? Even getting feedback on what others write is like trying to take food away from a hungry dog!

In desperation I asked the question, what quality is most important in a friend? I did actually get a couple of members to come out from the rock they were hiding behind and respond. The answers to my question were: loyalty, respect, honesty, trust, compassion, genuine, empathy and support.

The answers led me to check out my good friend, Brainy Quotes, to see what I could find. I found some wonderful quotes and I would like to share a few with my readers.  

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.~Helen Keller

A friend is someone who walks into your life when the rest of the world walks out.~Walter Winchell

A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeable.~ William Penn

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.~Henry Ford

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.~Elbert Hubbard

A friend is a gift you give yourself.~Robert Louis Stevenson

Friendship is one mind i8n two bodies.~Mencius

For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.~Saint Teresa of Avila 

So there you have it! I have always known there is more than one way to "skin a cat"!

                                     

This time of year

For at least the last twenty years this time of year has provided much personal information. It is like something opens up and I see with clearer vision who I am. I have known for some time that there is something different about me, but have never been able to put my finger on what that is. I have been aware that I seem to have a personal connection with a being from another realm. Many times when I am writing I know that my words are not entirely my own or perhaps they are, just not from this time and place.

It all seemed to begin with an experience I had in 1999, during a hypnosis session to stop smoking. Out of the blue, a bolt of light came from somewhere above and penetrated my heart. I have always regarded it as a wake up call of some kind.

Recently I came across an article about the various kinds of empath traits. The very first kind was listed as Clair-cognizant. It is the ability to simply know something without having any basis in logic or reason. I never gave much thought to the fact that I might be an empath, but as the saying goes, "if the shoe fits".

This morning an article about INF J personalities came into my Facebook news feed. After reading it my reaction was, "Oh my God! It fits like a glove". Perhaps I am not weird after all. I simply have a very rare personality type, making up only 1-3 percent of the population. INF J stands for, intuition, feeling and judgement. It is the rarest personality type in the world. Why me I wondered?

That certainly explains a lot and is no doubt the reason I have a problem with relationships with certain individuals. I sense when people are lying. I remember not too long ago someone I used to work with made the comment, "You see more than most people do". At the time I just accepted it as, he was probably right, but I didn't know how that could be.

I have had an "on again off again" friend since 2009 who simply boggles my mind. I know without a doubt that we have an exceptionally close spiritual relationship. He is either unwilling or incapable of seeing what I see. I know it is time to give up on him, but I keep hoping for a miracle. They do happen every day I hear!

This time of year, this year, has not been disappointing. The information it has provided was certainly news to me and it just may make the remainder of my human life, this time around, more interesting.

Are you authentic?

The word authentic has popped up in my mind more than once lately so I decided it needed to be explored. If I were to pick a one word definition it would probably be real. According to the dictionary it means: genuine, real, true and credible.

Recently I had reason to read one of the 54 true life stories I wrote for my amazon E-book, Spirits of Cibola County. The very first sentence of the last paragraph of the story I wrote about Johnny C. was, "If I were to describe Johnny C. in one word it would be authentic. What you see is what you get." I hadn't seen this man in several years and the other day I had an unexpected conversation with him at our local grocery store. He has not changed. He is still authentic.

The word popped up again in my writing group, "Write On". The prompt this week is, describe a friend. I believe it is the best word to describe any friend, at least one that I would want to have!

I have had friends who have tried to run my life for me. I have had friends who have tried to play mind games with me. I have had friends who have left when I needed support the most. The best friends I have had are authentic. They may not always agree with me, but they are always there when I need them.

What I see is what I get, every time. They are my idea of authentic friends.