A View From Below

All pics taken laying on the ground

This is a beautiful moment gone horribly bad.

Imagine being in the forest and enjoying the pure beauty of it.  Delight in the varied colors and scents that make life 3-D.  Breathe in deeply as you watch an ant hill being meticulously constructed by industrial worker antsl  Take your shoes off and let your toes feel the soft spongy coolness of the bright green moss.  Lay down at the base of a tree and see the leafy view from below. 

Feel the safety of being one with nature and then imagine it being taken away....in a brief moment of utter hell... loss of innocence...sheer terror and another life is given in the name of war...death would have been less horrifying .  She must live her life every day re-living this memory....until one day she realizes that this one moment took a piece of her soul and she must stop the damage before it touches future generations. 

 

Share The Love

Purple pansies and two tone violas

My lovely neighbor called me today.  She and her husband planted butterfly plants... and as a result,  monarch and other butterflies migrate two doors down to the pansies on my deck! I could watch them forever flitting around, landing on the abundant purple pansies.  The contrast of colors from the orange and black butterflies to the purple flowers, is spectacular.  Tiny violas are interspersed next to the pansies, and they have a faint scent of perfume.  It is heady and wonderful to appreciate nature.

By planting the butterfly tree, my neighbor gave me a gift.  When we do something nice, we are giving a smile.  For the person who receives the kindness, something so simple could get them at a time when they needed that random act to put them on a better path. Conversely, if we experience negativity or anger or violence....we could live a very different life than we had planned.

 War is hell.  There are always many sides and many cultural alliances that we do not understand.  I think however, we of many nations can agree that there is always collateral damage.  Most of us don't want to think about it.  Some of us don't care about it.  But when you ARE THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE, as are the children I write about, your perspective becomes personal.

Many who have survived pay the price for other's greed and evil. Some become examples of what not to do with your life, and others inspire a generation.

Trust Your Instincts

Bella, Nico and Juliet posing for the camera

My three dogs live their lives by instinctual demands.  When they are hungry, they eat.  When they are thirsty, they drink.  When another dog torments them, they bite.
Imagine if we humans actually listened to those intuitive feelings that drop into our brains from time to time. 

My instincts tell me to stay away from anything that can hurt me.  It is a simple human reaction of self preservation.  There are however people who seem to need jump into the head of volcanoes.  The kind of person I am speaking about usually does so to try to protect or "save" someone in some way...a rescuer. When two rescuers get together....as in the case of my protagonists, a lot can change.  They have a mission.....they have one goal and together they can save many lives.  But at what cost?  With each one, a little bit of their souls gets chipped away....until finally, they wonder....was it worth the fight?  Is the life a child worth selling their souls....losing themselves completely to the wrong side of the battle? Stay tuned to see what happens.

The Faces of Hope



Dad as a little boy!

That's me on mom's lap with Dad next to me!

During 1999 my family was dealing with the recent death of my 51 year old brother and a diagnosis of melanoma for my father.  My mother and I were with the oncologist is a small sterile room in an offshoot of Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital.  The doctor was explaining to him that it was as if someone coated pine needles with melonoma and threw them at his stomach.  Wherever those pine needles landed, is where he had cancer.  He was filling up with fluid and uncomfortable.  The doctor told him he would drain the fluid from is body in hopes of relieving his discomfort.  It would take a full day to do so.

"Ray, this is a bad diagnosis. There is not much time."  I asked the doctor to tell us how much time but my father did not want to know.  I exited the room, unable to breathe and not wanting my parents to see me cry.  The doctor followed me and said..."I give your Dad 7 weeks to live. I know you just lost your brother and this is a very difficult time for your family." He touched the side of  my arm and looked in my eyes....and then walked down the hall.

I cried as softly as I could manage thinking of my mother....losing a son 8 months before, and losing her daughter many years before my birth....and now her husband of  54 years.  I couldn't breathe thinking of her pain...thinking how I could breath life into her...when my heart was breaking apart, bit by bit with each subsequent loss.

To my right I noticed a man helping his young but fragile wife.  She was  using a walker and her body showed the ravages of chemotherapy. Slowly she walked towards me and told me she had double breast cancer.... and that she was feeling very sick from her chemo treatment that she had stopped moments earlier.  Her husband and she wrapped their arms around me and asked me why I was crying.  Can you imagine the humanity of this moment?  A woman so desperately ill comforting me? I was overcome with emotion.

"My brother died 8 months ago and the doctor says Dad only has 7 wks to live. If he is correct, he will die on my brother's birthday.  My mother will not be able to survive another loss...I won't be able to help her because my heart is broken.  I am not strong enough."

I felt as if the walls were caving in. My legs folded under me and my body began to shake.  They simply held me tighter and the wife put my head on her shoulder.  She kissed the side of my face and told me to never give up hope.  "Hope is all we have.  Faith is something that illness cannot rob from us. You will get through this. You will have the strength you need and we will pray for you."
I thanked them as they walked away.  I went back into the room with my parents and silently thanked God for that couple and their wisdom and kindness.

Dad died August 26, 1999...what would have been my brother's 52nd birthday with Mom and I at his side.  I woke up remembering that lovely couple today that so enriched my life on that day...thankful to have met them and grateful for the life ahead of  me.

The Spider Web

Today as I walked my three dogs, I spotted a small perfect spider web in the wet grass.  It has rained for days, and some poor spider choose this flooded grassy area to take up residence. Now I admit, I know nothing about spiders except...I am not a big fan of them. But their handiwork is quite amazing.  How long did it take for them to weave that beautiful lacey web?  How much determination did it take? I am sure it is instinctual in spiders but in humans, it would take a high level of determination.

Let's apply the principles to people!  One person chooses a path that takes them to success and the other seems to follow  things without having a plan.  If they do not stick to it....like the spider....their "web" or their path does not hold together.  When it rains with a vengence, the web may be washed away, and hours later I will find another in it's place.   You cannot stop that spider from doing what he is supposed to do! We humans on the other hand, could learn a lesson or two from a spider.  Rome was not built in a day and spider webs may come and go, but our willingness to go forward and start over can only be thwarted by our own stumbling blocks.

If a spider can rebuild a complicated web in a matter of hours, then we can remove stumbling blocks as they come at us.....and even better....as we create them. Fear of failure, fear of success and just plain fear of the unknown can keep us from our greatest achievements. 

Not a spider web, but nature at its best!

The next time you want inspiration, just look to nature.  There are so many examples of pure instinctual determination, you will feel encouraged! For me....taking a picture of the beautiful spider web was an interesting message.  As I looked at it covered in the early morning dew, it was translucent and beautiful, but when I photographed it, it was too soft to translate clearly.  Elusive and surviving but a moment in time, it had an effect on me.  Time is precious...and I want to enjoy each moment.  So I will say adieu now....I have lots of webs to weave.

Find the Time to Live As You Love

Nico as a pup

Waking up a little early in the morning can net you huge productivity benefits. When I work from home and not a cafe, I am constantly pulled in many directions.  Should I wash the dishes, pay the bills or do a little cleaning?  If I wake up an hour earlier and attack those necessary but mundance chores, I am ready for my work day at the appropriate hour. 

I remember my mother telling  me that with each passing year, time got faster.  Well it feels like the truth.  There seems to be little time in the day to accomplish all that is expected of us in our lives.  Better said...there is little time to do all that I expect of myself each day....write, exercise, walk the puppies, light housekeeping and maybe....a moment to breathe in the beauty of the day!

Anyway, the extra hour is helping me make time to breathe in the deliciousness of each day.  That part is the component that I look forward to the most.  It reminds me how much  richness there is in everyday life.

Enjoy Your Ride ....Even If It Scares You!

The happy smiling faces of my pansies!

I am always talking about paying attention in life..watch a butterfly, cuddle a puppy, taste some cous cous or travel to exotic locations! Experience life to the fullest and feel every moment. Be present in your own life! The thing is if you get complacent  you may miss an opportunity.  We all know that not every opportunity belongs to us because we have choice.  But some of them are meant to wake us up or change our lives in some way.

I am not talking about just the once in a lifetime opportunities that you know you must accept.  I am talking about the small forks in the road, or the subtle nuances in life that may direct you to an unchartered path.  The unchartered path does not scare me. It excites me.  I had to figure that out along the way. We all feel fear and some of us push through the fear and some of us stay in the fear. That fear can stop us from realizing our true potential.

A few blogs ago I talked about writers facing their fears by writing the absolute worse scenario around their deepest fears. I admitted, I am not a big fan of flying...but I do it anyway because the world would be way too small for me, if I did not. Facing my fear is simply getting on the plane and going where I want to go!  What if that fear got in the way on a particular day and there was a producer in the next seat next to me looking for new material for a movie. What a missed opportunity for a writer!

I don't want to "what if" myself out of life.  I don't want to hold back because of fear. I want to look life square in the eyes and be ready for the next chapter with open arms and more importantly, an open heart.