exactly

If I could have a superpower, it would be to fall asleep as soon as I laid down.

full & dancing cups

Unless you're lucky enough to have been island dwelling for the past few weeks, you know that the commercial rush of Valentines is permeating everything.  Even on a good day, I find it annoying to have LUV shoved in my face in every shop and business I enter, & on bad days? I just want to kick the teddy bears.

Found this essay today and thought it was worth sharing. 

A Valentine Life~SARK

The whole concept of Valentine’s Day was not ever meant to be only for couples, or if it was, it’s missing out on a lot. If we’re going to have a celebration of love, let’s make it inclusive of EVERYone.

Loving ourselves so we can truly love others is the real valentine, and experiencing what I’m calling a Valentine Life is available to everyone.

I think a Valentine Life is one where we ongoingly blend and alchemize the wonderfull and the terrible into a brand new mixture we more easily use. I call that the “marvelous messy middle.”

I’m currently what I call soulfully single after my beloved fiancé John physically departed 2 years ago, and my soul is exponentially enriched by that love. I could choose to feel sad about Valentine’s Day because my partner died, and I don’t. I feel glad that I experienced that kind of miraculous love and now that love lives on mightily in me. Have I felt terribly sad? Of course! Monumentally so. Again and again.

And love is bigger.

Love is the message and love transcends form and measurement. Love of children, animals, nature is all around all of us and reminding us all the time to fill up on love.

And we are made to fill ourselves up from the inside- because we are all succulent creatures. A succulent consistently gives itself the nourishment it needs. There is no need to wait for love. Love isn’t to be found as much as it is to be felt.

Let the feelings of love fill you from everywhere and then offer that to others and the world.

If you feel alone or lonely, feel those feelings by acknowledging them- say out loud or under your breath; “Loneliness, I see you, I hear you, I acknowledge you.” This allows loneliness to soften and change shape. When we tend and care for our feelings in this way, it builds a tremendous power and resilience.

We do need to feel all of our feelings- I believe we just don’t need to stay quite so long in the challenging ones. Also of course, we aren’t meant to try to skip over the challenging ones. It’s all about the flow and movement. Emotions are made to be in motion and we’re the activators of that motion.

Go forward in love with ALL the feelings in your emotional family, including loneliness and all the others, and live more like a full cup of self love, sharing your overflow with the world.

The world needs all the full cups we can get- not half empty cups trying to get filled with flowers or chocolates or declarations of love from others.

Flowers and chocolates and all else are good unto themselves, and best applied to a full dancing heart, and let us all experience yours.

P.S.??  All chocolates are discounted on the 15th of February!!

bejeweled

Wintry sunsets are lovely. 

No cents found on my splashy walk today, but two ersatz diamonds were fun.

tides of grace

I wish I could say that I'm one of those peeps who lives by the adage of "wait and see what the tide brings in". But I'm an anxious little soul that excels at worry. Just as I lost most of my ESL tutees over the past few days, I got an email asking me to do a 3-month music lesson sub for a maternity leave. It's only one day, but it's a solid twelve weeks of work.

Breathing a little easier as I continue to figure out my next chapter.

ice, ice, baby

Some interesting pods that I see for several miles along the trail. Wonder what will come out of them this spring?

Still icy, but the sun has returned for a few hours. 

And when you're iced in, you start to rearrange your books by colour. Not sure if I'll leave them this way, but they're pretty to look at for now.

avianonics

It would be interesting to understand what birds are saying. I notice a huge uptick in chatter and activity right before a storm system moves in. I also wonder if the different species understand each other.

Shiny moment on my walk.

perking along

Meet my new press~the jaunty colour is perfect for these drizzly winter mornings.

douleur partagée

Really am not in the mood to post today, but I am determined to find joy in EVERY day even if I have to squint really hard. The upside to venting about my stressful car-eating-money episode is the outpouring of others telling me about their horror stories. So, in a warped way, this brought me into community.

(Yes, my car is back. It was the alternator. And the shop guys were good about not pushing the other items that need to be fixed. Think they could sense I was teetering on an edge. So. Now, I have a local mechanic to go to.)

if you're looking for the joyful, find the next post

Today started out so well. As my French press died on Friday and Amazon has yet to deliver my new one, I splurged on a lovely mocha at Peet's.

I was so happy as I have some extra music students right now for coaching. The state solo competition is coming soon, so lots of young instrumentalists need accompanying. I was pleased that it wasn't quite snowing enough to cancel rehearsal.

And then. My car just died while I was driving to work.

On the upside? I was able to pull into a parking lot so I wasn't blocking the two-lane country road. And, towing is in included in my insurance.

Sad view of my little car

As I'm new to this area, the insurance rep had to find a repair shop for me to be towed to. And, as it's Sunday, everything is closed. The shop is about five miles from my apartment and the tow truck driver wouldn't give me a ride back to my place~or even to the shopping center where I could walk (and I'm schlepping my flute and music books). And for reasons unknown, my phone is dying. Trying to find a taxi service on a sleeting day is super fun without your phone going out.

So. I just missed a full day of work and will miss part or all of tomorrow's as well, and will have a huge car repair bill. To say I am frustrated is a small word for what I'm feeling. 

Baking a tater-tot casserole because only carbs and Campbells will do for this kind of a day. I think I win the title from Alexander for today!

still with the smile

Still lovin' my blue Baltimore boots! And, as there was no snow/salt/sand out today, they could safely walk around.

le rêve

Happy Friday all y'all. May you have pleasant dreams tonight.

my kind of 'hood

Played Scrabble with my advanced class yesterday~they were thrilled to kick my butt with their scoring. All I can say in my defense is that my vocabulary is stellar, but my spatial skills are low. It was lots of fun, though. 

Finally had a cardinal oblige me by sitting still long enough for me to get my numb fingers to work the camera buttons on my phone.

Annoyed that I didn't see the blue moon rising during the frigid evening walk. But it was still a lovely way to end this interminable month. 

And I am oh so pleased to be living in a town where everyone keeps their Christmas lights up!!!

My opinion is~if there is snow in the forecast, we need twinkle lights.

and now I know

I was surprised to see an individual student name listed on the school calendar for a birthday celebration~and then, I met Fatima and know why the entire school threw her a party. She is an exuberant woman from Morroco~when she gets excited (about every fifteen minutes or so) she starts to speak in a mash of four languages(Arabic, French, English, and Amazigh), but we still figure out the point of her story.

One of the standards of teaching ESL is the amount of food that shows up~one of the reasons that it so much fun.

Birthday girl wearing the green scarf. 

SO many cakes.

I am having such a good time this week~meeting students from: Jordan, Honduras, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Morocco, and Spain.