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Tag Archives: wide awake


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roygbiv. [merely-a-thought monday]

she reached into her rainbow bag and pulled out two rainbow buttons, handing them to us. “brilliant!” i thought, while also thinking we should have brought our “be kind” buttons and given them out as well. this darling little girl, accompanied by her mom, stood in the center of the blocked-off pridefest road, twirling right and left, gifting festgoers with happy faces.

i was awake most of the night. it wasn’t until sometime after the birds began showering the rising sun with song that i fell asleep. middle-of-the-night musings often keep me awake these days. the harvard medical school reports that insomnia is present for 35% to 60% of women after menopause. i’m seriously thinking someone needs to do something about this.

so it is in those wee hours of the night i ponder everythingunderthesun. it is like my own personal pablo neruda book of questions – random, open-ended and with no real answers. all over the map, i revisit growing up, walk through previous houses, go back on vacations, have conversations all over again, list groceries, think about deferred house maintenance, slink around the edges of new creative projects, send positive energy to beloveds. i wonder about the universe answers – if they will drop in, like a sticky note from the heavens above. i list gratitudes – simple, like this tiny girl’s happy face rainbow buttons – and complex, like straddling the line of relevance. i list worries – like the day to day challenges of aging, the challenges of a world fraught with superficiality and division, the challenges of the environment, the heart-challenges of most important relationships. the one thing i do not do is sleep.

i’m pretty sure i am not necessarily capable of solving everything at 2am. and 3am is worse.

but a couple minutes after 4am – when the birds gather in our neighborhood trees and sing up the sun and its roygbiv – and i am present – that is when most of it – the kaleidoscope of life – makes sense.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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fretta. [saturday morning smack-dab]

this was last night. this was sunday night. this was monday night. this happens allthetime.

how is it that you can be yawning-up-a-storm, tired-tired-tired, yet, you go to bed, sink under those yummy covers and are wide awake? or…you wake up after the first sleep cycle and nothing – absolutely nothing – will let your mind rest.

random pieces of life pass by in ruminating-world: memories, questions, ponderings, worries, conversations. bits and snatches of life from waaay back, from yesterday, angsting about tomorrow or the next day.

i had a dear group of girlfriends who tried to meet up once a year (or as close to that as possible). we had lots of shared history and shared lots of the ups-and-downs of life from our little corners of the world – each of us with different paths and challenges. we all had nicknames. mine was “fretta”. i don’t have the opportunity to see them anymore but i’d say the nickname is generally still fitting. i do fret.

now, david, on the other hand, sleeps.

i’m not foolish enough to think he never frets, but when he lays his head on the pillow and pulls up the blankets? he is gone. i don’t know where all that ruminating stuff goes at night. i am guessing to where the wild things are.

me? i carry my wild things with me. we fret together.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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“great minds discuss ideas…” [merely-a-thought monday]

eleanor roosevelt

 

i don’t subscribe to ‘inspirational daily’ but somehow this showed up in my email feed on thursday, a particularly good day to read the wise words of eleanor roosevelt.  an activist, the first lady regularly published her musings and views.  her accomplishments as a diplomat were far-reaching; her life story difficult and profoundly inspiring.  and she was wise. her words remind me of sue bender’s words (from ‘plain and simple journal‘) “to reconcile our seeming opposites, to see them as both, not one or the other, is our constant challenge.”

what would either of these wise women say about our current climate, i wonder?

would eleanor roosevelt pine for the fine-tuned, thoughtful, intelligent discussions of her lifetime?  would she abhor the fact-less, jarringly aggressive re-telling of stories, of narrative, all-dressed-up and skewed to one side?  would she shudder to hear of attempts to decimate human rights, to place limits, to undermine?  i can’t imagine that she would consider the display of indecency, of avenging and putrid name-calling ‘great-mindedness’.  i fear she would, instead, point a wagging finger at the players and implore them to be wide awake, to be thinking, to be discussing idea and possibility and wholeheartedly move forward with conscience.

i wonder, does sue bender, in her middle 80s now, feel a sense of deep disappointment in a society that does not attempt to reconcile seeming opposites, does not see them as both, does not cross the aisle but instead builds walls of hateful rhetoric, looks for the worst in each other, advances the ugly?  what would her kind soul say about the divisiveness, poisoning all in its rampant siege, a pandemic reaching unsuspecting venues, its toxic arrows out of the quiver and readied.  how would she parse out the arguments, the lack of concern for the victimized, the harassment of those on the other side than the leadership?

goodness knows, i suspect both of these amazing women, living in different generations, would be saddened by this climate.  they might weep in absolute dismay.   or, they might just whisper into the wind, to whomever might listen, “great minds discuss ideas.  average minds discuss events. small minds discuss people.”

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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“we should be wide awake.” [merely-a-thought monday]

we should be wide awake billboard

i sleepily rub the dreams from my eyes.  coffee helps.  and the snowy world outside comes into focus.  no longer immersed in the land of nod, all things rush back:  the casts, the worries, work task lists, bills to pay, the world around us.  before i peruse the news and the weather, though, i mind’s-eye blow my children a kiss and wish them good days, i hug the dog and the cat lying by my side, i thank sweet d for the coffee with the ernie straw.  it all starts.  the day has begun.

this past week has been extraordinary in so many ways; more on that another time.  i’m buoyed by a hopeful spirit, by connecting with people, by sheer love and the sureness-of-foot taking one step at a time, moving forward; the tide is predictable – it ebbs; it flows.  i am wide awake now, thinking.

“we should be wide awake.”  yes.  for all things.  we should have our eyes open.  we should monitor our response to the positive, the negative.  we should be mindful.  just as worry pervades our time, so does hope.  we need lead with kindness.  we need remember we are sharing this good earth with a hard-to-fathom 7.6 billion or so other souls.  we can’t avoid the reality that the narrative we each individually choose must be deliberately and painstakingly vetted with the truth, with awareness, with sensitivity, with fairness.   not sleepily, not uninterested-in-all-but-the-reactionary-anger-dramatics, not without due diligence.  we must guard against the bandwagon of lackadaisical; we must avoid the geared-down rhetoric of hatred.  we are human beings and we have a responsibility.

just as certain as the tide, it is predictable that the two factions in any division will aggressively forward their agendas.  it is up to each of us to stay informed, to discern, to ask questions, to speak up, to make intelligent, educated choices based on civility, impartiality and honesty, equality, democracy and freedom.  no matter the venue, no matter the place of division.

to be wide awake.

woke:  increasingly used as a byword for social awareness.

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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