Tag Archives: gratitude

Seasons and Turning Points

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I’m enjoying a second cup of tea on the deck. It’s my reward to myself this morning. I’ve gotten the sheets and pillow cases out of the dryer. They are folded and put away. It rained a bit overnight, not much because my sweater I left ontop of a bucket outside the greenhouse is still dry. The sky is overcast but the colours of the garden are bright and luminous. How beautiful it all is!

The hot days of summer are gone and so are the days of my youth. I am in the autumn season of my life. I recognize this turning point, this change of direction when things do not go back to the way they were. I do not want to reside in hopelessness. I do not want to feel trapped, with no way forward. I want to feel a bit of peace. I want a slice of heaven, however big or small. I want to make a difference. I want to matter. I want to be heard. My wants are reasonable and getable. Did you know that getable or gettable is a real word?

What are your wants and desires? I am daily distressed about what I read in the two Heathers’ posts. And yet I keep reading. I used to bury my head in the sand but I can no longer hide. Nowadays I need to know what we human beings are capable of, the good and bad. I have to know both sides of the coin. There are still so many beautiful and good things to be grateful for. I will try to count them in the coming days. Right in this moment, I am listening to the birds chirping away to each other. And the sun just came out.

ERS and Honeymoons

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July 21, day 21 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I spent yesterday morning in ER with my father. I got his frantic call at 5:30 in the morning. He was having respiratory distress. The guy and I rushed over. He lived just half a block away. We got to RUH ER in good time despite the construction mess enroute. I wheeled my father in though he protested he could walk. It was a eery experience. The place was empty except for 2 security people. I wondered if I had come to the wrong place.

The whole waiting room was empty. It was as if God had cleared the place for us. The staff ushered us right into the trauma room after obtaining a few vital information. The doctor introduced himself to my father and then to us. Then the team proceeded treatment and tests. He was stablized in a short time and moved to an observation room.

This time around the ER experience felt like a honeymoon. It lasted only till late afternoon. The nurse came in and took off all monitoring gizmo and said my father was going to be moved to a hallway. Someone else need the monitoring more. I followed her as she wheeled my father on the stretcher through hallways packed with people. We finally stopped in a hallway by the pediatric surgery. Patients on stretchers were parked along one side of the hall. No curtains, no oxygen outlets, no bathrooms in sight. Call bells were the silver round things on bedside tables you ding for help.

Lucky that my father seemed to be calmer in the hallway than in the observation room. Maybe he felt better seeing he’s amongst other people. He’s been in these situations a few times in the last 2 years. I dare not to ask too much of the nurses seeing how stressed and busy they were. I, too, have learned to adapt. I do not tell them I am a retired nurse. I just observe and listen. And what I noted is that some of them do not take the time to talk to me properly and completely. I let it all go. I’ve learned that there is nothing to gain and quite alot to lose.

I do wonder how I would fare working in their conditions now. I am happy I am not. This nurse was a nurse but not always a nurse. I was grateful that my father got moved out of the hallway into a private room in the evening. The honeymoon resumes. He is doing much better. Home in a few days.

Same Time Last Year

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Sunny Sunday at last! It’s a reason to cheer. I’m feeling a little more optimistic. I have my blue sweater, earrings and eyebrows on. I’m not moving any faster but breakfast and dishes are done. The kitchen floor swept. I have plans of picking up my knitting needles and starting another logcabin quilt. My sister said she would love one. It’s easier when you are making it for someone. Having projects is good for the heart and soul. And it is good to follow through and finish. So I shall work on following through to finish this Ultimate Blog Challenge.

I am feeling grateful on this Sunday remembering how far I’ve come from the same time last year. This time last year was the 3rd month after my mother had passed. I had tubes in my ears. I was still without much hearing but had alot of choral music and singing in my head. It drove me a bit batty. I felt cognitively impaired and exhausted. The good thing was I was able to sleep. It was in January that I started a daily journal, charting how I was hearing and the noise in my head. I stopped sometimes in June because I was too focused on my maladies. It wasn’t good for my mental or physical health.

This time last year I was stressed and distressed. I was surprisingly not depressed. I knew I had to be careful and not sink into those blues. I had to keep my spirits up to heal. I read Caroline Myss’s and Herbert Benson’s books on healing. I meditated on the word joy. I painted it. I walked to the mall, the Dollar Store, the Asian Market. I walked somewhere every day. Today I am surprised by how much I did this time last year.

I am rejoicing at this recollection of my warrior self. I still have it in me to ‘joy’ on. February is on the horizon. My 2026 100dayproject will be doing another 100 logcabin quilt squares. I better sharpen my rotary cutter, clean and oil my Bernina 790 sewing machine.

Working at Effort

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January has not been its cold and sunny self. It’s been mostly mild and cloudy. I am cloudy, too, weighed down with the grey and how the world is. I am not at all motivated and excited about anything. It’s work coming to the keyboard but I cannot give in and up so easily. But what do I have to say that would be helpful and not harmful? Have you ever been feeling this way? If you have, what helped or not helped?

I am grateful that I can still get out of bed and talk about it. I’ve never felt less like it, but I did go to the gym. My workout wasn’t off the richter scale. I don’t imagine it would shave off even an ounce but I did move, skip and flex a couple of muscles. I am grateful that I made our lunches and the dishes are done. My limbs are heavy like lead. My eyes want to close. I want to lay down and sleep till this is over. In this state, I am grateful for any effort I can make.

There were a few moments of little joy.

  • Stepping into a quilting store and seeing all the colour fabric.
  • Driving down our back alley and seeing the toddlers from the daycare playing. They stopped and waved at us with their little hands.
  • Watching this reel of a deaf 3 year old teaching his little sister sign language. Little hands are happy hands.

So, there! This is today’s effort for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. Not great but something is better than nothing. Or is it?

Wordless Wednesday – Happiness is –

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Happiness for my 94 year old father is his new walk-in shower. He is still able to climb in and out of the tub but it was getting harder and harder. It is my pleasure to make this possible for him. The shower head is held onto the mount by magnetic so can be easily pulled off and be put up again. I will shop for a shower chair to him to sit in. My sister and I spent a 12 hour shift with him in ER Monday night. We are all alright. Our healthcare system is the way of our world – kaputs. We are thankful still for what we have and who we are. There’s always a silver lining to everything. I am half a pound lighter. Tickled.

Thanksgiving Blessing

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Another beautiful sunny day for this Thanksgiving weekend. I have much to give thanks for – bounty harvest, good health and family. Beannacht is a poem written by John O’Donohue for his mother. It means blessing. And I say this blessing for my mother who passed from this life in October of last year.

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

August Heat

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Another hot 30℃ August day, the kind of heat we wanted in July but never got. Makes me wonder what kind of winter we will have. So many unusual and unpredictable weather patterns. How will we navigate the future? Will our planet survive what we have been doing to it? And can/will we change our ways? We seem to be hell bent on going down the same path – fast everything, more money and more stuff.

I am not hopeful but at the same time, I am not hopeless either. I am still interested and engaged in this little life of mine. I am doing my best in not adding to the stress of the planet. Perhaps it means little to the grand scheme of things to say I recycle. But I do. I recycle and compost. I save rain water. I even save water I wash my vegetables with. Perhaps I do go a little overboard sometimes and exhaust myself. But I’m happy to have that extra water to throw on the strawberry plants. They pay back with beautiful delicious red fruits.

I feel very fortunate that I am able to do the work of growing my own food and to share some with family and friends. I am grateful that I find joy and fulfillment in working the soil. It keeps me sane and grounded when life is hard. And it is always hard.

Sunrise

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It was so beautiful and comforting to see the sunrise this morning. I took a moment to give thanks to whoever/whatever is responsible for this day. I took time to sit in silence with my morning tea, for this day will not come again. The sun will still rise every day but the light and air will never be quite the same. Nor will the petunias and all the living things. I, too, will never see, hear or feel the same as I do in this very moement.

It is an astounding realization of how precious the present moment is. It brings to mind Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day. 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Clouds

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Clouds got in my way for a few days. I’m struggling to find my way back. It’s difficult. I’ve lost my momentum and rhythm. Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now is one of my favourite songs. It speaks so true about how clouds are for me. I’ve been very much feeling them the last few days. It helps to know that I’m not the only one. For a long time, I’ve felt somewhat defective, an odd ball, a failure being this way. It’s hard to believe that we are all the same. We are. We are all human.

The clouds have at last delivered. It rained. I should say showered. It lasted only a few minutes. The sun is trying to come through. I should be grateful. And I am.

  1. I am grateful for any rain that fell.
  2. I am grateful that there are no smoke in the air.
  3. I am grateful that some of the clouds are lifting.
  4. I am grateful that I am still here, tapping a few words on my keyboard.
  5. I am grateful for Joni Mitchell’s song, Both Sides Now.
  6. I am grateful I can still feel gratitude.

Both Sides Now – Joni Mitchell

Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
Looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun
They rain and they snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way that you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way

But now it’s just another show
And you leave ’em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away

I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions that I recall
I really don’t know love
I really don’t know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say, “I love you, ” right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I’ve looked at life that way

Oh, but now old friends, they’re acting strange
And they shake their heads and they tell me that I’ve changed
Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day

I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all

It’s life’s illusions that I recall
I really don’t know life
I really don’t know life at all

Where Did It Go?

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Going to the gym is another ice breaker to start the day . It’s a habit now. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I would grab my gym bag and head for the door. It helps that somebody else is going, too and doing the driving. It makes it simple and easy. Of course there are times the habit is broken. The time getting back depends on how long I’ve lapsed. Good Friday is not a good enough reason to skip though the temptation is there.

I am sorely tempted to change my website again. I might just press the button after I post this and let things fall where they may. They say curiosity kills a cat. Well, it is killing me and I am wasting time wondering about it. It’s not that anything will get broken, right? It could mess things up but how else can a person learn?

Did I say it’s Good Friday? Sunday is Easter. Time is marching speedily along. I haven’t lost faith but I haven’t felt the reverence and holiness of this time for a long while. I miss it and wonder how I can get it back. It’s been a difficult year of losses. But I am also filled with gratitude for the life that I have and for our world with all its wonders. Of course, there are troubles. There always will be. It’s for us to work together and solve them.