I had the best lunch today. Yeah, the food was good, but it was so not about the food. My heart got fed today.
Several years ago, I was told by my therapist that I had a condition. Therapists are trained to identify these things. Really, all she did was put a fancy name on something I already knew. As I recounted one of the most meaningful moments in my life, she put her lips together in one of those all-knowing expressions, sighed, and nodded her head; then she said: You are touch deprived. I forgot about that diagnosis, until today.
I get hugs from my wonderful husband and wonderful hugs from Asher. Sometimes Asher will pat me on the cheek and say, “It’s okay, Mema.” He has no idea how it feels like he’s patting my heart. Today I was touched like that.
Today I had lunch with a woman I knew from High School. On my Facebook page this morning I said I was excited because I was having lunch with a friend from high school. As we talked today, I shared that was probably an overstatement. We weren’t friends in high school. We lots of mutual friends and were in youth group together at church. I didn’t tell her this at lunch, but I never felt I was good enough to be her friend then. She was quite popular and knew everybody. I thought about it on the way home and I think she intimidated the poop right out of me. She was a leader and I was just a follower.
V and I reconnected this summer through the magic that is Facebook. She caught up on my life by reading my blog and then shared the most personal and intimate letter with me. She used the word intimate today and then back off from it, but intimacy is where we share who we really are with someone else—and that’s the gift she gave me in that letter. At that point we crossed a bridge into a new kind of relationship, friendship. I was a whole lot less intimidated.
She greeted me with the warmest hug. Touch deprived people crave and fear being touched all in the same moment, but I will tell you there was a lot less fear than I might have expected. We went into the little restaurant, quickly ordered and then dove into conversation. At the very outset she clasped both my hands and looked intently into my eyes and assured me that she didn’t judge me. I’ve heard things like that over the past few years, and to be honest my typical first response is cynicism: yeah, right. Not today. V’s words were beyond genuine and her touch again reinforced her sincerity and was like a healing salve.
We ate our salads and talked for over three hours. I could barely believe how the time flew. Some very interesting things came out as we talked and it was apparent to me that our paths have truly crossed for a reason. As I have written this the tears have flowed. I feel very blessed to have entered into this new friendship.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
I Needed A Laugh...
Maybe you do, too.
16 THINGS THAT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN
By Dave Barry, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'
3. There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness.'
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 21.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Thought for the day:
Men are like fine wine . . . They start out as grapes, and it's up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
16 THINGS THAT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN
By Dave Barry, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'
3. There is a very fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness.'
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 21.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Thought for the day:
Men are like fine wine . . . They start out as grapes, and it's up to the women to stomp the crap out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Working
Last week I was called by a woman in my ABF. A woman I'm in choir with mentioned my name when the first woman started talking about a need for someone to be a companion for her mother since her dad just died. First woman called me. I met with her and her sister and was oriented to the expectations of the job. It sounded like something I could do. Pay wasn't that much, but it would be about 40 hours a week.
After meeting with them, I felt I should own up to my particular background issues. I sent an email explaining my situation and letting her know that I would understand if they felt it would be problematic. They responded, letting me know that they were still wanting to work with me. I started work on Sunday.
I am a companion for an 85ish year old woman. She's very sweet. She can care for herself personally and gets around pretty well. Too well at times. She is fiercely independent, but doesn't realize her limitations physically or cognitively. The challenge is to be there, but not hover or sit on her. Today when she was out in the yard sweeping under the trees I told her she was going to get us both in trouble if she didn't start using her cane. After her nap, I heard her thumping around in the bedroom only to find her trying to figure out how to take the AC out of the window.
This job is challenging for me, because I'm a doer and it's better to be a sitter and a be-er. On Sunday I ran down the battery on my Palm Pilot and my laptop and read half a book. Today I sat out in the yard with Ma'am for an hour. It was a nice sit, we chatted a little and sat a lot. At one point it dawned on me that perhaps we sat too long as eight mamouth vultures began swirling overhead.
I don't know how long this job will last. I have a lot to learn with it and from it. It's probably one of the hardest jobs I've ever had--because it's really causing me to stretch.
After meeting with them, I felt I should own up to my particular background issues. I sent an email explaining my situation and letting her know that I would understand if they felt it would be problematic. They responded, letting me know that they were still wanting to work with me. I started work on Sunday.
I am a companion for an 85ish year old woman. She's very sweet. She can care for herself personally and gets around pretty well. Too well at times. She is fiercely independent, but doesn't realize her limitations physically or cognitively. The challenge is to be there, but not hover or sit on her. Today when she was out in the yard sweeping under the trees I told her she was going to get us both in trouble if she didn't start using her cane. After her nap, I heard her thumping around in the bedroom only to find her trying to figure out how to take the AC out of the window.
This job is challenging for me, because I'm a doer and it's better to be a sitter and a be-er. On Sunday I ran down the battery on my Palm Pilot and my laptop and read half a book. Today I sat out in the yard with Ma'am for an hour. It was a nice sit, we chatted a little and sat a lot. At one point it dawned on me that perhaps we sat too long as eight mamouth vultures began swirling overhead.
I don't know how long this job will last. I have a lot to learn with it and from it. It's probably one of the hardest jobs I've ever had--because it's really causing me to stretch.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Writing to Change the World
How do you know when you’re on the right track? When you pick up a book, how do you know you’re supposed to read it? I have been slowly moving into the attic and turning it into my space. (Asher thinks it’s his too, so I have to leave room for him.) Yesterday, I brought up a two shelf bookcase Nelson made for me a few years back and put some of my writing books on its shelves. One of the books is Mary Pipher’s Writing to Change the World, An Inspiring guide for transforming the World With Words.
Two weeks ago, I hung out my grant writing shingle and called it Nexus Funding Solutions. I chose Nexus because it is a synonym for connection. The past couple days I have been working on my speaking/teaching ministry and chose the name Zugos Ministries because yoke is a synonym for connection and one of the verses that has been greatly impactful upon my life is Matthew 11:29 where Jesus invites his followers to take his yoke and learn of him. Today I pick up Pipher’s book and the first chapter is titled ‘Writing to Connect.’
But before I could get to the first chapter I got stuck in the introduction. Here’s some of what she wrote:
-Language is weaponized when it is used to objectify , depersonalize, dehumanize, to create and “other.” Once a person is labeled as “not like us,” the rules for civilized behavior no longer apply. (p. 4)
-I am not interested in weapons, whether words or guns. I want to be part of the rescue team for our tired, overcrowded planet. (p. 5)
-Once we have a label that doesn’t fit us, we can ignore the humanity of the labeled. Part of our responsibility as writers is to tell stories that make such erasures impossible. (p. 6)
-Good writing facilitates the making of connections in a way that inspires openheartedness, thinking, talking, and action. (p. 7)
-Stories are the most basic tool for connecting us to one another. Research shows that storytelling not only engages all the senses, it triggers activity on both the left and the right sides of the brain. People attend, remember, and are transformed by stories, which are meaning-filled units of ideas, the verbal equivalent of mother’s milk. (p. 11)
I’m supposed to be reading this book. Already I love it, but I can see it will not be an easy read. Already, it is requiring me to think and to feel. At several points in the introduction I choked up and got teary. This is profound stuff for me. For as long as I can remember I have felt disconnected and have spent my life trying to connect with others and to make them feel connected. The painful and destructive effects of this are that there have been people who took advantage of that and who drew me into unhealthy relationships. I did things seeking to be loved and to demonstrate love that were neither loving nor lovely. I have no pride about this and carry deep scars. Fortunately, I have emerged from the darkness and pain no less intense in my desire for connections, but wiser and healthier about my boundaries.
One of those relationships put me on the wrong side of the law and I now carry a label that results in immediate judgment and disdain. I really struggle against this because what I did is not who I am, but unless you know me you will never know that if you get the label first.
I was sitting here thinking about this and thinking about what I had just read and I started wondering about what I could write that would change the world. I began thinking about the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with over the past couple years. People, who like me, meet with barriers daily because of poor choices they made. Some of the choices involved illegal activity, some dropped out of school and have been stuck in meaningless jobs fighting a meaningless existence, and some have looked for love in empty relationships creating babies all along the way. Very few of these folks read books.
The more I thought about this the angrier I got. The anger was a churning in my gut that left me feeling nauseous. However you want to label these folks, they reside below the bottom rung of the ladder. They feel hopeless and helpless. They don’t see much reason to try because the other shoe will be dropping momentarily and any good they might experience will only too quickly be jerked away. They dream of winning the lottery because they can’t find a job that’ll help them get out of their rut. They’ve long forgotten what it feels like to be healthy and part of that is because they smoke and drink so much to take the sting off the discouragement and frustration. Read? They can barely sit through a sitcom. Nothing entertains. Nothing encourages. Nothing changes.
Now that’s not the part that makes my gut hurt. The part that makes my gut hurts is that there is an attitude and mindset in our part of the world that likes things like that. Lots of people make money off the misery of the below the rung folk. Jobs would be lost if folks actually began to climb up the ladder. Health care. Pharmaceuticals. Social service systems. Ministries. Businesses looking for cheap, desperate laborers. And on and on. That’s what makes me sick.
I have sat in groups and talked one-on-one with people about this. They feel desperate. They would really like life to be different, but they don’t believe it ever will be. They don’t trust. They don’t trust people, agencies, or programs. And don’t get them started on what they feel about God.
How do we get the message to them? Connect with them? Help them out of hopelessness?
A quick internet search of just the word connections presents the pressing concerns of those around us: flight connections; dating connections; business connections; internet connections. Yahoo alone listed 763,000,000,000 possible links. We have an insatiable need to connect, but seem completely unable to reach beyond ourselves to make it.
This is the right time for this book and me.
Two weeks ago, I hung out my grant writing shingle and called it Nexus Funding Solutions. I chose Nexus because it is a synonym for connection. The past couple days I have been working on my speaking/teaching ministry and chose the name Zugos Ministries because yoke is a synonym for connection and one of the verses that has been greatly impactful upon my life is Matthew 11:29 where Jesus invites his followers to take his yoke and learn of him. Today I pick up Pipher’s book and the first chapter is titled ‘Writing to Connect.’
But before I could get to the first chapter I got stuck in the introduction. Here’s some of what she wrote:
-Language is weaponized when it is used to objectify , depersonalize, dehumanize, to create and “other.” Once a person is labeled as “not like us,” the rules for civilized behavior no longer apply. (p. 4)
-I am not interested in weapons, whether words or guns. I want to be part of the rescue team for our tired, overcrowded planet. (p. 5)
-Once we have a label that doesn’t fit us, we can ignore the humanity of the labeled. Part of our responsibility as writers is to tell stories that make such erasures impossible. (p. 6)
-Good writing facilitates the making of connections in a way that inspires openheartedness, thinking, talking, and action. (p. 7)
-Stories are the most basic tool for connecting us to one another. Research shows that storytelling not only engages all the senses, it triggers activity on both the left and the right sides of the brain. People attend, remember, and are transformed by stories, which are meaning-filled units of ideas, the verbal equivalent of mother’s milk. (p. 11)
I’m supposed to be reading this book. Already I love it, but I can see it will not be an easy read. Already, it is requiring me to think and to feel. At several points in the introduction I choked up and got teary. This is profound stuff for me. For as long as I can remember I have felt disconnected and have spent my life trying to connect with others and to make them feel connected. The painful and destructive effects of this are that there have been people who took advantage of that and who drew me into unhealthy relationships. I did things seeking to be loved and to demonstrate love that were neither loving nor lovely. I have no pride about this and carry deep scars. Fortunately, I have emerged from the darkness and pain no less intense in my desire for connections, but wiser and healthier about my boundaries.
One of those relationships put me on the wrong side of the law and I now carry a label that results in immediate judgment and disdain. I really struggle against this because what I did is not who I am, but unless you know me you will never know that if you get the label first.
I was sitting here thinking about this and thinking about what I had just read and I started wondering about what I could write that would change the world. I began thinking about the people I’ve had the opportunity to work with over the past couple years. People, who like me, meet with barriers daily because of poor choices they made. Some of the choices involved illegal activity, some dropped out of school and have been stuck in meaningless jobs fighting a meaningless existence, and some have looked for love in empty relationships creating babies all along the way. Very few of these folks read books.
The more I thought about this the angrier I got. The anger was a churning in my gut that left me feeling nauseous. However you want to label these folks, they reside below the bottom rung of the ladder. They feel hopeless and helpless. They don’t see much reason to try because the other shoe will be dropping momentarily and any good they might experience will only too quickly be jerked away. They dream of winning the lottery because they can’t find a job that’ll help them get out of their rut. They’ve long forgotten what it feels like to be healthy and part of that is because they smoke and drink so much to take the sting off the discouragement and frustration. Read? They can barely sit through a sitcom. Nothing entertains. Nothing encourages. Nothing changes.
Now that’s not the part that makes my gut hurt. The part that makes my gut hurts is that there is an attitude and mindset in our part of the world that likes things like that. Lots of people make money off the misery of the below the rung folk. Jobs would be lost if folks actually began to climb up the ladder. Health care. Pharmaceuticals. Social service systems. Ministries. Businesses looking for cheap, desperate laborers. And on and on. That’s what makes me sick.
I have sat in groups and talked one-on-one with people about this. They feel desperate. They would really like life to be different, but they don’t believe it ever will be. They don’t trust. They don’t trust people, agencies, or programs. And don’t get them started on what they feel about God.
How do we get the message to them? Connect with them? Help them out of hopelessness?
A quick internet search of just the word connections presents the pressing concerns of those around us: flight connections; dating connections; business connections; internet connections. Yahoo alone listed 763,000,000,000 possible links. We have an insatiable need to connect, but seem completely unable to reach beyond ourselves to make it.
This is the right time for this book and me.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Of Lullabyes and Naptime
Apples for babies, cats, and dogs, elephants, foxes, giraffes and hogs. Ice cream, jelly beans, kangaroos and llamas. Monkey’s nose. Ostrich toes. Penguins quietly race on snow. Turkey umbrellas, violins, wings, xylophones, yo-yos, zebras.
If I had a way to copyright it I would. It’s the best lullaby-ABC song in the world. It has put three babies to sleep, the oldest and the youngest the most. I wrote it when Penelope was born and it works best while rocking, though it has been effective while pacing around trying to get a little one to sleep.
Asher fights taking a nap. Most kids do. But when he is finally reaching the end, we grab a bottle and head for the rocker. His eyes can’t resist the song. Sometimes I feel like Kaaa on the Jungle Book. Annie and Nelson both tried to get him to sleep a little bit ago, but it wasn’t working. Nelson finally instructed me to grab a bottle and take over. Two minutes and he was gone.
Now while you might contend that it’s like opening a pickle jar, and they did all the hard work. I maintain, if they had started singing earlier, the fight would have been less frustrating for all involved. Either way, it’s peaceful for an hour or so right now. And that makes Mema happy.
If I had a way to copyright it I would. It’s the best lullaby-ABC song in the world. It has put three babies to sleep, the oldest and the youngest the most. I wrote it when Penelope was born and it works best while rocking, though it has been effective while pacing around trying to get a little one to sleep.
Asher fights taking a nap. Most kids do. But when he is finally reaching the end, we grab a bottle and head for the rocker. His eyes can’t resist the song. Sometimes I feel like Kaaa on the Jungle Book. Annie and Nelson both tried to get him to sleep a little bit ago, but it wasn’t working. Nelson finally instructed me to grab a bottle and take over. Two minutes and he was gone.
Now while you might contend that it’s like opening a pickle jar, and they did all the hard work. I maintain, if they had started singing earlier, the fight would have been less frustrating for all involved. Either way, it’s peaceful for an hour or so right now. And that makes Mema happy.
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About Me
- daisymarie
- I am 54 years old. I have been married for 32 years to one of the most incredible men on the face of the planet. Our journey hasn't been easy, but it's been rich in love, forgiveness, joy, and adventure. I'm learning daily that God really does have a plan for my life. I want to live into whatever that means...however it unfolds. I'm an ESFP with a healthy dose of ADD...I love to help people see how very incredible they are and how much love God wants to lavish on them!