Peach Pie Thoughts

It occurred to me this morning as I devoured my SECOND piece of fresh-from-the-oven pie that I would be very roly-poly were I living in a more temperate climate.  You see, today began cool and crisp and fall-like and everything in me was ready to bake.  Because we had just purchased peaches from a local farmer, I made peach pie.  Had it been like it was in July -- hot and humid -- I would never even think, much less, feel such a thing.  My need to be in the kitchen begins and ends with cool temperatures so ever since I noticed the small signs of fall, I've been thinking soups, stews, chili.  Add to such thoughts, pumpkin pie, home-made bread, and Christmas cookies.  Is it a wonder that I manage to gain weight in the fall and winter and then have to work it off during late spring and summer?  So as the last fragrance of cinnamon and peaches wafts through the house and I sit here, my tummy full and my senses gratified, I'm hoping for Indian summer and if that doesn't happen, a good dose of self-discipline.

Good Advice

"Once during the day, think of who you are as living energy and not as a goal to be achieved or an obstacle to be overcome.  Feel yourself without inventory."  THE BOOK OF AWAKENING by Mark Nepo

Hmmm.  "Feel youself without inventory."  Once again this book, a gift from a sister-in-law, has me thinking.  Just what does he mean when he says, "Feel yourself without inventory"?  It's a phrase loaded with potential for discovery.  It didn't take me long to acknowledge that I am perpetually taking inventory of myself.  I live a "should" existence.  I should clean the house.  I should read this book.  I should call my mother.  I should contact my friend.  I should exercise more.  I should volunteer more.  I should eat healthy.  I should drink more water.  I should, I should, I should....  I've lived my life shoulding myself all over the place and as a result I have carried a lot of guilt along the way.

I also spend a lot of time judging myself, another kind of inventory.  Did I do my job well?  Am I a good student, teacher, friend, principal, wife, mother, person?  Have I served a purpose with my existence?  Again, the answers to these kinds of questions creates guilt as I almost always fall short of my own expectations.

And daily I take stock of my physical self.  I look in the mirror and see the wrinkles, the blemishes, the gray hair, the muffin top.  I stand on the scales and can't deny that I am not at my desired weight.  So what that it's only five pounds over, it's not good enough. 

Not good enough.  Now there's a phrase.  Not that long ago I went to see a therapist because the issues I was dealing with at the time, I could not resolve on my own.  I was caught in circular thinking and I needed someone to hear me and guide me to some kind of resolution.  She didn't exactly do that but what she did do was insightful.  She asked questions.   Pointed, directed, essential questions that forced me to look more carefully at some of the baggage I had been carrying around during my lifetime.  Some of that baggage, perhaps the heaviest, can be summed up in the phrase "not good enough".  I wasn't good enough for my father to not question now and again whether I was really his daughter.  I internalized that conclusion and thus found it easy to believe I wasn't good enough for others in my life.  I wasn't good enough for myself.  While it did result in my working harder to prove otherwise, no matter what I achieved or what accolades I received, in my own eyes I was never good enough.  The therapist didn't tell me what to do but acknowledging the power I had been letting "not good enough" exercise in my living led me to the resolution I sought.

And so being told to think of myself "as living energy and not as a goal to be achieved or an obstacle to be overcome, to feel myself without inventory", well, I find I like that concept.  It's worth experiencing.  If I can achieve that, I'm pretty sure I'll be happier, freer, and able to experience life more fully.  It's never too late to take good advice.

Live Out Loud

I've been thinking about my daily reading for August 12th, titled "To Live Out Loud".  I liked the phrase as soon as I read it.  It just sounds healthy and free and right.  But then, I read the entry and what at first seemed a simple, joyous concept became much more complex and more difficult.  Think about it.  What does it mean to live out loud?

Why do children laugh and cry with abandon?  They don't think about how others will react.  They just feel and express that in the moment through sound or word or action.  Adults, on the other hand, self censor.  Expressing what you feel, whether it be joy, disgust, sorrow, or contentment, makes you stand out, draw attention.  Most of us are uncomfortable with that.  So we either keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves or we compose our expression of them to fit the audience and our own need to fit in or worse, to be invisible.  Thus, we dilute both and become disingenuous.  The more we confine our real selves, the more we modify ourselves to blend, the less we know ourselves.  We lose touch with our soul and become less real.  I can't remember the last time I cried or laughed freely.  I mean really freely, with abandon.  My first thought is that I can't imagine the vulnerability I would experience were I to do so.  But now I find myself hoping for a time when I can do both because now I can't imagine how empowered and invulnerable I would be.

Living out loud, I think, is allowing ourselves to not only feel but to express what we feel by word, by laughter, by sighs, by action, by whatever is real in its generation and expression.  Living out loud is to be real to yourself and to others without regard for what others think.  It's clear to me now that living out loud would be a gift to both myself and to those around me.  What do you think?

Small Signs

This morning as I walked the neighborhood small signs were all around me, signs that fall is just around the corner.  First, the air was crisp and cool, something we didn't experience the last five weeks or so.  Second, the leaves of trees and bushes are no longer the intense emerald of summer but rather the deep, dark tones of green we see just before the leaves start to change to warm autumn shades.  The flower beds are another indicator.  Spring flowers are long gone.  The bleeding heart foliage that has hung around considerably longer than usual is now turning yellow.  Many summer flowers are past their prime, going to seed, with stalks turning stiff and brown.  I actually saw some sedum, an autumn flower, starting to turn tones of pink.

There are other signs, signs not needing a walk to be apparent.  Banners are up around town welcoming university students back.  Monday the public school administrators start working, their summer vacation ends.  Hummingbirds visit my flower garden regularly now bulking up for their long journey south.  The rose- breasted grosbeak that visits our feeder in the spring before heading farther north has already visited us on his way south.  Football players, both college and high school, are out practicing, getting ready for the opening game.

And perhaps the best sign that fall is on its way is our annual planning for the upcoming holidays.  Now we are making arrangements for family get-togethers at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I love that the anticipation begins now and builds slowly through September, starts to speed up in October, and we ride the peak from Thanksgiving through New Years. 

The signs are there.  Small now but building even as I write this.

The Book of Awakening

I received the book, THE BOOK OF AWAKENING, as a Christmas gift this last year.  I confess it has stayed on the book shelf up until recently.  For no identifiable reason I pulled it off the shelf a couple of days ago and lo and behold, it has been a comfortable, supportive companion each day since.  Today's reflection began with the following quote from Goethe:  "So long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow, you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth."  Just that thought alone was enough to give me pause, to take time to reflect. 

This past week I've used the word "synchronicity" several times because I've either experienced a sequence of seemingly unrelated events that seen as a whole were clearly related or such events in the lives of my friend were shared with me that were of the same kind.  That's what is at play again with today's passage.  I sent my sister, who is at a cross roads in her life, a card this past week that says something to the effect that you only start to grow when you reach the outer edges of your comfort zone.  This morning as I wrote an email to a friend, I mentioned that the greatest growth I've experienced has always followed my greatest discomfort.  And then I read the August 9th entry in this book and there it is, the quote and the daily reflection titled, "Preparing the Way".  The author likens living to a series of mini deaths.  Death of old habits, death of old ways of thinking, even the sloughing off of dead skin cells is part of living and growth. 

Each passage ends with suggestions for meditation.  This one asks the reader to "sit quietly and consider the many selves you have been.  As you breathe evenly, consider how the new self has always been growing underneath the old.  Now close your eyes and meditate on the newness growing within you right now.  As you breathe steadily, relax your grip on the habits of your mind that might be blocking your growth."  It's proved to be a peaceful way to enter into my day.  I thought I'd share it here so you, too, can benefit.

PS:  If you're interested in the book, it's THE BOOK OF AWAKENING by Mark Nepo. Conari Press.