"A" pedestrian walkover in Michigan

Have you ever heard of 

the SKETCHBOOK PROJECT?

Neither had I until this past week.

They just started a new project called

THINGS FOUND... THE LETTER A. 

I'm participating in this one...

and thinking about another...

or 3.

3 faces of vulnerability

In my experience

vulnerability has 3 faces:

1. ENCOUNTER ~ moment of self-revelation, intentional or not

2. MEMORY ~ moment of self-revelation

revisited

3. RE-ENCOUNTER ~ with the one to whom you have revealed

Though not literally naked,

I often feel that way when I am most vulnerable.

I've been feeling vulnerable alot lately ...

and thankful for the wise women who surround me.

playing with words ...

Seems there is always a lesson to be learned ...

Here are a few I've learned from others:

DENIAL = Don't Even Know I Am Lying

FEAR = False Expectations Appearing Real

BITCH = Being In Total Charge (of) Herself

FINE = F'd-up, Insecure, Neurotic & Emotional

and a few more I put together myself:

DON'T = Daring Oneself Not (to) Try

CAN'T = Cowardly Avoiding New Things

DOUBT = Digging One Under Before Trying

FAILURE = Freely Admitting Ignorance; Learnings Unrecognizable Regarding Experience

(when I should be working on something else!!!)

my hard drive crashed

My hard drive crashed.

My hard drive crashed!

My hard drive Crashed!

I received this lovely card in the mail the day after ...

... my hard drive CRASHED!!!

morning goosebumps ...

I spent the morning in the lounge of the service department while my car was being attended to. I read 3 People magazines and listened - unwillingly - to several cell phone conversations. {After which I half expected to be handed a cigarette and asked if it had been good for me! But that's a whole other topic and does not belong in this blog ...} Service personnel would enter the lounge now and again to find a customer whose car was finished by calling their name. "Tom" ... "Alan" ... "Ed" ... "Sophie" ... "Jason" ... And then it happened ... he said "Sister, you're car is ready" and the entire lounge, myself included, looked up to see who was being summoned. That's when I realized he was talking to ME! {Why is it that after 25 years of being a Sister I still get goosebumps of embarrassment when someone calls me that in public?} So I put down the magazine, listened to the damage being done to my wallet, and gathered-up my belongings. While I waited for the car to be brought around I glanced at the TV but what I paid attention to was the woman I could see out of the corner of my eye. She seemed to be staring my way in great concentration. After about 10 seconds {which feels like an eternity when someone you have not made eye contact with is looking straight at you!} I looked her way and realized she was looking at my foot. I looked down and saw ... Just then I remembered why after 25 years of being a Sister I still get goosebumps of embarrassment when someone calls me that in public.

The Guest House

How'd you spend YOUR weekend?

I spent the weekend hanging out with Mijo. He LOVED seeing himself on his Aunt's computer screen - so much so that he even waved! :)

We visited with my newest grandnephew, JJ. He is the tiniest, cutest little peanut! Mijo couldn't wait to get his hands on his little primo ... and when he did, JJ went fast asleep ...

When he wasn't holding JJ, he helped JJ's Grandma feed him. I guess he thought he was better equipped seeing as how he had more recently been at that stage!?

Oh yeah, when he wasn't holding or helping with JJ ... he was attached to JJ's Mama ... she said it was a cultural thing! ;]

Easter Cuties!

I spent Easter with these two cuties and several more!

what i've learned this year ...

2009 was filled with learnings for which I am both Graced and Grateful:

• Beginnings and endings are equally difficult. • Each risk ventured results in some amount of freedom. • The “freer” I feel, the more I am able to trust. • The more I am able to trust, the safer I feel. • The safer I feel, the more I am able to risk. • Sometimes you have to act as though you’ve accomplished your goal in order to see the reality of its possibility. • I can be open and faithful to a process, even when it is uncomfortable or I disagree with a component, as long as I am able to use my voice and feel I’ve been listened to. • I don’t know how to ask for what I want or need but I am learning and practicing. • I am very hard on myself, holding myself to a high level of expectation; when I hold others to that same expectation, I am more often than not left disappointed. • When all is said and done, I am ultimately accountable to myself, who is the harshest critic I know. • I need to embrace and accept where I am in the moment, with all of the pain and discomfort that may entail, instead of wishing the past away and the future already here. • Feelings are just feelings, not judgments, and they do not make me right or wrong, good or bad. • Being overly concerned with others’ feelings and reactions can sometimes paralyze me from making decisions that choose life. • Intention alone does not equal effort. Good or healthy intentions cannot be successfully realized without honest will and desire. • Recognition is the first hurdle of the relay toward wholeness. • Behaviors give messages and have a purpose. • I often find it difficult and uncomfortable to accept the giftedness others see in me. • ART and CREATING are self-soothing forms for me to get in touch with what I haven’t words to express: my Inner Self. • My safe place is in the arms of God, regardless of whether or not I am able to recognize that Presence. • Because of God’s Presence, I am never alone in this process we call Life, no matter where it takes me. • It is the time spent concentrating on my goodness that makes my goodness recognizable. • Recognizing the good inside is a means of recognizing God and honoring the Divine within. May 2010 be equally Graced...

Grace-filled moments ...

My friend is dying. She laid atop her bed in a fetal position, fully clothed, coat and purse at the ready by the foot of her bed. Her eyes half-closed, or maybe half-open. She looked pale, tired, and gaunt. She wanted to go out for a bite to eat, but not really. Her stomach had been paining her for several days already, it was distended and hard. She wanted to pretend that she was well, like she used to be, able to rise and move quickly and join me for a Coney or Taco Bell run. But her body had gotten the best of her; the fatigue she could no longer deny.

Maybe I’ll rest just a little longer.

I removed her shoes and covered her with an afghan, hung her coat and drawered the purse. We would spend the evening inside this time, without food or talk thereof.

I watched her stir in fitful sleep. Her stomach growled in loud protest to the little room it held amidst the growing masses of poisonous consumption. I cannot fathom being in her skin; I wonder if she can understand being in mine.

Nineteen months earlier I’d been forced to bid another close friend farewell. I sat by her side as her body succumbed identical to the scene before me. Same pain, same poison, same patient. I beckoned her to remain close to her comadre, to midwife her transition and welcome her home.

The thunder in her belly grew louder and tears began to escape from behind the veil covering her eyes.

I hate this. I hate it all.

I thought the same as the words left her lips. I rose and lay on the bed beside her. She rolled to her back, handed me the pillow she’d been hugging between her arms, and tucked her toes under my thigh. I rested my hand on her boney knee and gently caressed her leg as she spoke.

She spoke of fear: not of death, but of pain … of having to say goodbye … of putting others through loss, especially her mother … of not expecting this death to have arrived so soon …

And we shared the silence. The unspoken heartache of the moment. The here and the now which would forever be one of the last. We cried and we honored the wordless ache we both harbored hidden from the other.

Then came a knock at the door: her night meds. She rose to brush her teeth and I readied her bed for sleep. I tucked her into bed and we embraced in deep love and gratitude for the sacrament shared. I arose and stepped toward the door, then turned back and told her “I love you, Mar.”

I love you, too, Sar.

AM I LIVING THE LIFE THAT WANTS TO LIVE IN ME?

AM I LIVING THE LIFE THAT WANTS TO LIVE IN ME? Am I? Maybe, but that’s much too strong an answer. I’m not even sure I know what that life is. Loving. It contains a lot of love - Visceral love, Intuitive love, Not the kind you think about or question. Gut-love, Thou love. Happiness, too. Elation perhaps. Laughter and tears In equal increments. Feelings deep, but not yet Eternal, or stagnant. Truth-seeking, Honest, Altruistic - The kind of integrity Which transforms lives, And never relinquishes to Navel-gazing. Thoughtful. Compassionate. Simple and certainly Tolerant. Open to Life and not Intimidated to be Vulnerable - Emotionally and Intellectually. Never forgetting that Only Mercy is Enough. ?