If You're Going Through...

Hell, keep going.*

It's been a long, tough summer. Too hot, too dry.

Too many emotions.

I feel older and tired.

Quick summary -

I've spent the last years writing less and working more. Caring for family members. Dealt with the horrors of Alzheimer's. Very many caregiving duties. Moved my parents out of their home of 40 years, and took another entire year to sell and clear out all of its excessive contents. Had to sell the house. Lost my Dad. Grieving. And pulling things together at all sorts of levels for Mom.

Watched my children grow into teens and adults. Watched them struggle in school. Watched school not help. Transitioned the oldest very successfully into a very good college that she loves. Missed her being in her childhood and our home.

Working my hardest to help the younger one do the same. She's a different person, so very different needs, currently involving much patience and therapy at exorbitant cost financially, emotionally, and chronologically.

Keeping it together. Enjoying the blessings. Still have a stable, loving family despite all of the stresses and stressors. Working more than ever and hoping to work even more when B leaves home.

Trying to remember or rediscover who I am, what I like, what I do, and how I help the world

The world needs help, and people need kindness. I try to live that in my days the best I can.

That's me. That's where my blog went. And where my time and energy went. And what I'm doing.
Maybe I'll come back here. Or come forward here and move ahead.

Try not to get swept away by excessive heat - either from climate changes or from world events or from personal struggles.

Stay cool.


**************************************
*Winston Churchill

After an absence of so many months

 

Hello, old friend, my writing

 

 

 

So much to

Say I can't

Unlock the words

Lenten Reflections - a Poem a day - The Present by W.S. Merwin

From Poetry Daily

 

 

The Present

As they were leaving the garden
one of the angels bent down to them and whispered

I am to give you this
as you are leaving the garden

I do not know what it is
or what it is for
what you will do with it

you will not be able to keep it
but you will not be able

to keep anything
yet they both reached at once

for the present
and when their hands met

they laughed


By W. S. Merwin

All Life is One, and All is Change - Oscar Wilde Poem

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See by Oscar Wilde Next

(Excerpted from "Panthea") We are resolved into the supreme air, We are made one with what we touch and see, With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair, With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change. With beat of systole and of diastole One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart, And mighty waves of single Being roll From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. . . . Not we alone hath passions hymeneal, The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth At daybreak know a pleasure not less real Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good. . . . Is the light vanished from our golden sun, Or is this daedal-fashioned earth less fair, That we are nature’s heritors, and one With every pulse of life that beats the air? Rather new suns across the sky shall pass, New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass. And we two lovers shall not sit afar, Critics of nature, but the joyous sea Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be Part of the mighty universal whole, And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul! We shall be notes in that great Symphony Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die, The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!

Energy Drained

Boy, these last few months have not been easy ones. 2016 turned out to be so much work. Just nonstop responsibilities.

I am really struggling to keep up with my responsibilities as a parent and guide my children towards their own successful lives. My daughters' issues are really affecting me. I literally find that I do not have the physical or emotional space to have anything like my own life. I am constantly putting my own needs aside in favor of meeting the needs of others. It has been exhausting.

Friends would give the advice of not to do it. But it's not that simple. I cannot not do it or what needs to get done will not get done. Suffering will ensue.

I am very tired.

"Are You Okay?"

Sometimes we are so busy with our own lives that we don't take the time to stop and notice the others all around us. Or sometimes, we are so wrapped up with responsibilities that maybe we simply cannot pause to interact.

But, still, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't care. I continue to care about other people, even if I don't always make the time to be mindful of their lives, or even kind as they go through their days.

Still, I hope I can always remember that in my heart, I care deeply about the well being of all those in this world. I hope that others around me, both near and far, are having the best possible days. That sharing is possible. That caring is eternal.

Even when I do feel unable to smile, or to chit chat, or to ask, with true sincerity and warmth, "Are you okay today?"

A Writing Retreat? Now that Sounds like Heaven...

 This sounds just like heaven right now. A simple getaway. All about writing. Interesting, literary people and food, wine, and creativity in France. Hummmmm...

The next retreat is this autumn. I am sorely tempted!

 

 

For the record, after my last little burst of complaint, I continued to buckle down and I did indeed slog through. That proposal is done and submitted. Well on its way to bringing funding, I believe. And onward I go!