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My soul is one
with the sun and sky,
the wind and mother sea.
My ancestors’ souls
intertwine with mine
beyond the galaxy.

How blessed I am
to have this time
to feel the sun’s warm rays,
the wind’s soft breath,
the sea’s salt waves,
on endless summer days.

I see my parents
and hold their hands,
in loving memories.
I’m thankful for
this mortal taste
of God’s Infinity.

We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea.

- Paul Tillich

A Gentle Awakening

After an unusually severe winter, Spring has arrived; not suddenly or abruptly with the turning of the calendar or the change to daylight saving time. No, Spring slipped in – as is her habit - softly, delicately.

As the days gradually grow longer and the temperature tiptoes toward lukewarm, the leaf buds on the oak appear - only the size of a squirrel’s ear at first. Clover blankets the still dormant lawn. A patch of sweet peas volunteer, seeded by last year’s vines, to bedeck the lattice fence behind the statue of St. Francis with pale green foliage and fragrant lavender blooms. The bulbs I planted in February pierce the soil with their slender blades – some will be daffodils, but I can’t remember what else I chose for the patio.

The azaleas show new leaves, but, within weeks, their greenery becomes obscured by pink and white blossoms. Over the course of the same weeks, I remove the remains of potted avocados and other casualties of winter, and trim back the ginger lilies and the banana that was a gift from a St. Louis guest. I place tiny begonias, petunias and impatiens in the planters and hanging baskets. The roses awaken, their new foliage almost wine-red, gradually moving across the color wheel to shades of green. The wisteria, still without leaves, fills vacant branches with cascades of sweet-scented blooms.

This Spring, we take measures of other subtle changes. Over the past three months, my grandson has mastered the arts of crawling, standing alone and walking. His first teeth emerge and give new character to his smile. He celebrates his first birthday in City Park’s Storyland. For myself, a long-awaited-not-entirely-new job moves me from the ranks of self-employed; it is my first full-time employment (with benefits) in over a decade. This change is imperceptible to the clients with whom I work.

As I rake the leaves for the last time, and dust off the lawn mower, I realize how precious these days are and how much I will miss Spring when she steps aside for Summer to take her place.

The sacred is in the ordinary, in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends and family, in one’s backyard.

- Abraham Maslow

Laying the Foundation

My 8-month old grandson is growing by leaps and bounds. I now understand where the expression "bouncing" baby boy came from. Each day he reveals a new skill, a new expression, a new sense of awareness and curiosity, a new connection with his surroundings.

He's becoming more human everyday. And, I see his own unique "self" evolving. Fortunately, he is surrounded by people who love him - his mother and grandparents, cousins and great-aunt. He shares smiles and laughs freely and often. He shows determination, and is encouraged, applauded, for his accomplishments.

I am aware that our earliest interactions and relationships are the foundation upon which we build our self-esteem. Before we have any grasp of the language, our sense of self is shaped - if we are loved, we are lovable. If the people who love us, express their love and respect for each other, then we feel secure. The values of our most significant others embue their actions, and we begin to "learn" values through our observations and interactions.

This is a foundation that is sometimes difficult to unearth after we become adults. What has made us who we are? After years of growing, learning and changing - our intellect and our memory fail to connect or recall the experiences we had before words controlled our thoughts.

All grown-ups were children first. (But few remember it.)

--The Little Prince

Facing the Inevitable

Last week, I was on the Loyola University campus and was amazed at how young the students are. Goodness sakes, I'm old enough to be their grandmother. Was it really THAT long ago that I walked the quad?

The thing is that even though I am comfortable telling people my age, I guess sometimes I forget - or my inner self goes into denial. The number just doesn't mean anything. I don't feel so very different than I did 30 or 40 years ago. . .

I don’t remember getting old. It must have happened quite suddenly - overnight, while I slept, I suspect. I never saw it coming, and my best friends never told me. I wonder if my parents and grandparents had the same difficulty reconciling themselves with passing time.

I recall my father telling me once of seeing a young man jogging down the street, and thinking to himself that it looked to be quite an enjoyable exercise. So, he tried it, but found he had forgotten how to run. Papa was 86 years old.

It's okay - I know I’m old; I've been receiving offers from AARP for years now. And, I must be old because my girls are over 30 themselves - though I remember them still as I tied their hair with ribbons, and we shopped for Easter dresses. Somehow, I think, that my memories - always fresh, always evoking the feelings of one bygone moment or another - are responsible for my confused state.

Sensory memories, like acid flashbacks, are vivid and emotionally charged. Transporting me through time and space, rekindling life’s sparks. . . Like the smell of raspberries - sun ripened, just picked - and I am suddenly the carefree four year old, with stained fingers, on my Grandfather's midwestern farm.

Or, something in the stillness of a summer’s morning - that hints of the day it will be, but isn’t yet - and my father tells a younger me that there’s still time for one more set of tennis.

A melody or song recalls a dance, though my partner’s gone. The words and rhythms, nonetheless, conjure spirits of lost young loves.

The sweet dampness of mossy loam - as a nascent woman-child, I bring blankets and books, and lie face down in dappled shade, studying life and lifeforms under familiar boughs.

Or, I could be the co-ed I just passed when I hear the patter of rain on the roof. But I’m cutting class, sitting instead with a friend in his flat, drinking wine, talking of life, and love, and sophomoric philosophy.

Precious moments preserved in delicious, sensuous vignettes. And, I have 40 more years to look forward to. . .

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Albert Camus

It's Sunday and another drop-dead beautiful day. The Saints managed to hold on and win against the St. Louis Rams. Other than that, it's been a quiet, at-home day - time to reflect on things (other than my pet peeves).

It's also the first weekend for awhile that I haven't had my grandson to play with . What a bundle! He's seven and a half months old and rules the world. He is, of course, the best baby ever born!! And, he is the inspiration for today's blog.

Acorns Beget Oak Trees

So, now scientists can clone - replicate a living creature from cells, DNA, extracted from the host. Scientists delve beyond tissue and cells to examine molecules within the cell. Perhaps this is a step towards understanding the mysteries of life and certainly it will have significant ramifications in the medical and biophysical fields. But, it doesn’t compare with CREATION!

Two cells meet, by happenstance, no formal introductions . . . but before you know it, there’s a zygote!! And, everything it needs to know, it has from conception! As it grows exponentially, species, gender, flesh, limbs, organs, eyelashes . . . all the appropriate parts emerge. And, more, its potential and all the dynamics of maturation are imbued. Although, over millennia, life forms evolve; on any given day, mammals do not give birth to fish or fowl. Acorns do not beget pine trees. And most of the time, it comes out right - maybe even perfect!

Look up from the microscope and try to calculate how many times, in how many ways, with how many life forms, this occurs daily . . . has occurred . . . will occur. If your mind isn’t boggled, there’s something wrong. If you don’t feel a certain measure of wonder and awe, in the truest most literal sense of the words, your life is devoid of meaning and disconnected from the Spirit that created and sustains us.

With every breath, there is an opportunity to experience, and acknowledge, a miracle.

The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is the center of true religion.

Albert Einstein

Happily Ever After

Okay, so I grew up with Fairy Tales - Anderson’s and Grimm’s - brought to life and embellished by Disney’s animations of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Although many of the tales had severe moral tones, and equally horrific consequences for the “bad” child, there was also hope and a fairy godmother to bring hero and heroine together in the end. And, in the 1950's, the new television media wrapped America’s middle class families in the trappings of contemporary fairy tales. In the end, they all lived “happily ever after” too.

As a child, naive and vulnerable, I built my dreams and envisioned my future in “happy ever after” frames. I suppose it provided an escape from the sometimes awkward and messy real world and gave hope for a beautiful tomorrow. I still remember singing “Someday My Prince Will Come” while I cleaned my room or swept the porch. The problem was that this framework was not a perfect road map, and it gave no instructions for how to live in that “ever after” if and when I found it.

To complicate matters further, enter the Home Economics teacher into the young adolescent’s life, trying to provide the skills and tools for becoming a good homemaker. With our aprons and wooden spoons, we fancied ourselves to be young Donna Reeds or Harriet Nelsons, if not the fairy tale princesses of yore. And, though not stated, it was implied that cooking, sewing, and cleaning were the keys that would ultimately, somehow, open the door to living happily ever after. (But, wait, wasn’t this the life that Cinderella had escaped?)

Meanwhile, the young males were not being indoctrinated with the same fairy tales or life’s little instructions. Their games and stories didn’t always have a happy ending, didn’t always include a life ever after in the company of their one true love, and didn’t necessarily require them to be charming.

It has taken a lifetime and innumerable forays into love’s sweet dominion to glean the untold story that follows the fairy tale’s “happy ever after” ending - to begin to fathom what it takes to build and maintain a lasting relationship - to live after the “happy ever. . .” Too bad the Brothers Grimm didn’t write sequels. Meanwhile, generations of Cinderellas seek to reconcile the reality of their lives with the fantasy of their convictions.

We assume we are all perfect lovers and all we need do is wait and our love will grow and blossom as readily as a flower in spring. Not so. Love doesn’t grow unless we do. It takes patience, knowledge, experience, determination, and every positive trait we possess. In addition, love is always changing and unless we stay aware and change with it, it eludes us.
Dr. Leo Buscaglia
(from an exclusive interview by Veronica M. Hay)

I'm still a work in progress . . .

I’m not the person I thought I’d grow up to be. Not a movie star, not a missionary, not a mother. My teaching career was short lived. I have twice abandoned educational goals. My home is not furnished in contemporary Scandinavian style. My social life and network are sketchy. My artistic talents - whatever they may be - have not been nurtured or refined. The world won’t remember my work. My voice is rarely heard; my opinions, rarely sought. I am not even a self-proclaimed expert in any field.

I have done things I never contemplated for myself, and am proud of my work. I married a man I wouldn’t date, and he loves me. I am a step mother and a grandmother. My home is comfortably furnished in overstuffed leather and antiques. I cook for pleasure and entertainment - indulgence; people like my food. I have breathed life into festivals and programs and lives; now they stand on their own.

My path has taken many unexpected turns. Along the way, I have stumbled, and have been diverted.. Was it lack of conviction or ambition? Or something else, as doors opened and others were barred. I like to think that, in the scheme of things, every step along the way has been necessary, even if not deliberate. I have tested the waters in many different landscapes. I have taught, have led, have created, have loved, and I have been loved.

I am not the person I thought I’d grow up to be, because - as a child - I never could have conceived this life.

Life must be understood backwards, but . . . it must be lived forward.
Soren Kierkegaard