What I Need

One of the benefits of passing years is learning to separate what I want from what I need. Although I am still not 100% there, and sometimes confuse the two (especially when really beautiful shoes are involved,) I am doing much better these days at making that distinction. Here is my current Top Five list of needs and wants...I'd love to see your Top Five or Ten for each.

NEEDS

1) A new car. Mine is on it's very last legs and is patched together.

2) More time for myself. I get run down and burned out really quickly when I don't have alone time. It's been scarce lately, and although I love my job and my after hours activities, I need to schedule in Lindsay time to stay on track and healthy

3) Some new jeans Gotta feel just right!

4) Stability in my personal life.

5) More time in the gym

Now for the wants....

WANTS

1) A whole new shoe wardrobe

2) Two or three new purses

3) A sectional couch

4) Time to scrapbook

5) A real vacation

Your turn...what are your wants and needs, and is it hard to tell which is which sometimes?

A post from one of my other blogs

This is from one of my now abandoned blogs....I am posting it here, because it was an important life lesson I would like to share.

Thursday, September 4, 2008
Mountains

When I moved to the Rockies years ago, I arrived at night. The flight into Salt Lake City dropped down on what would over the next few years become a familiar, stomach-testing approach into an airport that sat deep in a valley. In the darkness and the rush to gather baggage and get to a hotel, I could not really see the mountains. Although the pilots who had landed my plane knew they were there, and knew how to maneuver down safety between the ranges of the Wasatch on the East and the Uintahs on the West, they remained invisible to me.

In the morning, I walked outside to go get breakfast and stopped cold. I was completely surrounded by mountains. Although the closest ones were probably 10 miles away, their size and unexpected presence felt enclosing. A Florida flat-lander stood, mostly in awe, but a little in fear. What had I done?

Looking back, those mountains and my reaction to them was more than just a change in geography. It was the first real leap into a new world. And my first encounter with that feeling of enclosure and awe and what have I done...

That feeling has come back to me again and again, as I've moved into my life. And for awhile, my reaction was the same. Fear. Awe. Even panic. But I've learned something from that mountain experience.

Over the years in the Rockies, I learned to feel less overwhelmed by those mountains and all the others I lived among. I went back to Florida and drove my car, alone, across the country from South Florida to Utah. In the course of the drive, over switchbacks and steep climbs, I learned to see the mountains better.

Then there were days spent walking on the mountains, feeling their shape and strength and substance for myself, whether through the soles of my favorite purple hiking boots or barefoot in an icy mountain stream. I don't think I ever lost my awe...they remained beautiful, especially when the rising or setting sun painted them in a dozen different colors. But I lost my fear. I stopped being shocked to see the mountains when I stepped outside. They became accessible.

I am learning to apply that lesson to my life.

When new things happen in my life...things just as sudden and scary and enclosing as that early morning view of the mountains, I still get scared. And I wonder what I have done. And I see how close the danger seems to be.

In those times, I try to imagine the mountains. I try to remember that moment in the hotel parking lot, and the very different feeling I had years later walking in the same mountains on a cold winter day shooting roll after roll of winter photography. Same mountain. Different world.

Posted by Seeker at 5:28 AM

Labels: colorado, life lessons, lindsay39, mountains, rockies, salt lake city, utah

Class reunions, old friends and changing roles

This past weekend was my high school class reunion. And as I sit here looking through hundreds of photos of people I have known well for most of my life, people I knew well for only a year or two before we went our separate ways and people I knew only by name or sight, I have some thoughts to share.

The people who knew us when we were growing into our skins, so to speak, have a preciousness (is that a word?) that no one else in our lives can match. We can meet someone at 25 and be friends with them for the rest of our lives, and yet it cannot match spending a few hours with someone who was there as we journeyed from childhood to adulthood.

People who intimidated us in high school because they seemed more together or smarter or prettier or more talented become equals later in life when the bumps and struggles and lessons of life have evened the playing field. And among those who we most envied, we may find a friend who will confess that the feeling was mutual.

The things that mattered so very, very much in high school, like being thin enough or having perfect hair or wearing the perfect dress fall away, as you hug and catch up and share a laugh over an old photo or a tear over the news that a classmate has passed away far too soon (R.I.P Steve Flanagan.)

Being with people who knew you then, and still remember your name is one of the greatest gifts I've received lately.

Counting my blessings, sorting through the photos and looking forward to the next one in 10 years. May we all be well, all be smiling and all be present.

G-d laws, people's laws

The girl's name Tara \t(a)-ra\ is pronounced TAH-rah. It is of Gaelic and Sanskrit origin, and its meaning is "hill; star". Ancient Tara was the site of the "stone of destiny" on which Irish kings resided

Last night, I dreamed that I was in a big building, like an airplane hanger. The doors were open wide, and the room was empty except for a small Lucite cube in the middle of the room. I was there with someone named Tara.

She pointed to the box, a crystal clear square, about 2 feet across (so about 8 cubic feet in volume, so quite small in such a large and essentially open air space) and said "These are man's laws."

Then she gestured around us, and said. "These are G-d's laws."

There was nothing else to the dream that I recall, but the image and the words are fresh in my mind. So what does it mean?

So often, we think of G-d's laws as something we must contain within a box...a structure, a set of walls or a book. And the rules and laws of people surround the true core -- so we strive to protect G-d's laws from human changes. We build up lists of rules and fences and such, in a belief that we as people must DO something.

But this dream was saying quite the opposite. G-d's laws require little structure or containment. Yes, the hanger offered a roof, but it was far, far above. And with the big doors open, there was little enclosure. Almost none, in fact. They simply "are." Everywhere.

And G-d's laws were safe, not because we boxed in G-d, but because G-d's laws surrounded and contained and so completely outdid whatever little man tried to do. All our fuss was little more than a small box in the middle of a vast and open space.

I looked up the meaning of the name Tara...the site of the "stone of destiny." I don't know anyone named Tara...so the meaning intrigues me. My destiny? Or just a coincidence?

Another meaning was also suggested, since I heard rather than saw the name: Terra.

The girl's name Terra \t(er)-ra\ is pronounced TARE-ah. It is of Latin origin, and its meaning is "Earth". Mythology: the Roman earth goddess, equivalent to the Greek Gaia.

My experience of the creator is solidly female. Mother Earth. The Creator as the birth-giver/life-giver. Terra or Tara...I am captured by this dream.

Any thoughts?

Love in action: cooking

Some random thoughts about cooking as an act of love.

• On my vision board from a couple of years ago, there was a quote snipped from a magazine: Remember the sacred art of nourishing. I try to always keep that in mind as I plan for, shop for and cook meals.
  
  
• My friend Omar always says that he cooks with love. And it's true. Each and every dish he makes is infused with love. You can actually feel it.
  
  
• A Buddhist nun in Salt Lake City, Utah told me that your feelings affect the health and nutrition of the food you cook. If you are feeling grumpy or angry or sad, she said it's best to stay out of the kitchen because those emotions will affect the food and those who eat it.

Tonight I am cooking dinner. On the menu, there will be a homemade arrabiata sauce with sauteed eggplant. A fresh green salad, with baby greens, sliced fruit and nuts. For dessert, chilled peaches, maybe even with kasiri cheese if I get to Whole Foods in time. And in each dish, there will be love.

Into the moment....

On Sunday, I went to the Jazz Brunch by the water in Fort Lauderdale. I had posted this on Facebook nearly a month ago, so it was on my calendar and well planned. On Sunday at just after 9 a.m., we were there, sitting in a beautiful spot under a tree, right by the water, watching boats going by, talking, relaxing, waiting for the music. All part of the plan.

The music started, we sat back and listened and started on our picnic brunch. Peaches so juicy it took two or three napkins each to deal with sticky hands and juice-soaked chins. Cheeses. French bread. Nuts and dried fruit. Yogurt. Ice-cold bottles of water. A good book at hand. Music. A breeze. What more could we want?

Then a friend came by with some friends of his. Would we like to join them for lunch? We had our lunch with us -- had been eating. So why would we go? But then they said, just come for drinks...and why not? A few minutes out of the sun. A few minutes away from our plans. No problem. So we went. And we sipped iced tea and other cool drinks. And we talked. And the friends of the friend went from strangers to people we connected with. A couple that lives just down the street from me. Another who graduated from the same university. People with common interests and goals. Families with kids at home or at college who shared birth years or majors.

The guise of strangers fell away as connections were added to connections. The few minutes planned stretched into an hour.

"Do you want to go out on the boat with us?"

For a brief moment, the thought crossed my mind...what about the jazz? The plans? But the offer of a sunny afternoon on the water quickly won out. We walked back to our space under that shady tree and packed up books and brunch and blankets and headed for the boat.

On-board, the one hour sail tuned into 3 or more. Strangers no more, I chatted with women and men who I had never met before that afternoon -- how could it be? They felt like friends! What a treat this day had become!

In the middle of the fun and laughs and great conversations, I stepped back from the moment and thought about the day. It had begun amid plans. Good plans. But the offer of new directions and new friends had drawn us away from those plans and into the unexpected.

And I realized that this wonderful day held a great message for my life.

I had planned. Prepared. I had the things I needed for the day at hand. I had direction. But I also accepted the offer of positive change, and shifted plans to accommodate the new opportunities. Easy to do when the choices are among jazz by the water, lunch and an afternoon on the water. Now the trick will be to remember that lesson in life when the choices aren't quite so delightful.

Plan.
Prepare.
Prepare to change.

Working on it!

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming!!

Dreaming of traveling with someone special to places familiar and well loved like Key West and California, and places yet uncharted in my life so far (ok, in THIS lifetime) like Russia and Egypt and Samoa.

Dreaming of more days and evenings with friends like last week's trip into the waters off Key Largo, Teresa's birthday party, annual visits to friends in PA. (almost Ren Faire time again!),last night's dinner at Seasons 52, or the upcoming tubing trip in North Florida.

Dreaming of publishing books written and books yet to write.

Dreaming of love and family and holding hands (and hearts) for years and years to come.

Dreaming of sharing my Shabbas table with guests who have shared meals with me before, and those I have yet to meet.

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming...on a rainy Florida morning.

(rain on grass image from Tingog.com)