1/27/11 Guilty Leisure

Imagine two women who grew up in the same neighborhood. They are both diagnosed with ovarian cancer in their mid forties.  One is destined  for a difficult battle, enduring the worst of what the disease delivers, succombing to it's horror and passing away within a few years.  The other, essentially skims past the perils of the disease.  After a surgery that removes the evil, she is free of the disease and needs no further treatment. Both were young women with families, a husband and children.  One was selfless and inspiring, the other, selfish and shallow.
Which one survives....
the one who still has volumes to learn about humanity, humility and sharing happiness.

1/13/11 Dirty Snow

Trudging through the snow
I see glistening silver crystals
Beautiful, intriguing
The sparkle mesmerizes and captivates
So alluring
and yet
when I reach out to touch
it disappears
gone from sight
but I know it was there
I dig and explore
hoping to reconnect with the beauty I saw

Only when I reach the dirt underneath the overlay
do I realize
what I was seeing
was an optical illusion
the sun's relfection off the serene snow
a trick of nature
and then I think of the trickery of human nature

We are not always as we appear
dig deep, there's always some dirt to uncover

1/6/11 Smile

A smile is something we all are capable of
a very simple exercise that can be infectious
A skill that requires very little of us and yet so many people are challenged in this arena

I can't imagine it being a struggle to share a smile
I am perhaps, the other extreme
Growing up, I was often referred to as, "the one who would laugh at anything"
Funny, but I felt compelled to laugh, or at the very least smile if someone tried to make me laugh with a joke
It seemed the courteous thing to do
Why would I want to make someone feel useless when they were merely trying to make me smile
It cost me nothing and it made them feel good, why wouldn't I just be polite and smile?
It wasn't an idiotic, insincere smile
nor was it a condescending, pathetic smile, as if to say, "you poor sap, that was sooooo lame"
It was a genuine appreciation for their attempt to make me and others happy

Actually, let's go one step further...
let's eliminate the jokes and laughing concept and just introduce an everyday occurence
The simplist human interaction
Eye contact and smile
So basic
and yet so sparsely disseminated

I find it astounding that this one, quite simple skill is not shared more generously

The ability to bring a smile to someone's disposition is
perhaps the most elemental endeavor one can share
and yet there are some who struggle with this daily
and for those that do, I am sad

Smile and the world smiles with you
Scowl and the world turns to stone

1/4/11 Circuit Breaker

Once free of decision your mind is free to explore...but
Let selection stall you and your mind is a mangled mess of circuitous treachery
Choose decisiveness and
you break the mesh that tangles your mind, disconnecting, from that which ensnares you
Freeing yourself to enjoy circuitous treachery, only when it is chosen

1/3/11 Fallen

I fell today... hard. 
I am told it was a graceful collapse, but I wonder.  How graceful can one be, when they have lost control, slipping on a round fuzzy ball, both feet in the air and then CRASH, on the left hip, in a skirt no less? Of course it was on a hard court, no give or cushion (other than that, which I had amassed over the holiday hooplah).  I can not remember the last time I fell, never mind on a tennis court, but it was a valient effort to retrieve that topspin lob that sent me to the back curtain where the retired balls congregate when their play time is over.  After the fall, I sat and pondered.  Is this yet another sign, that retire is what I should do as well?  Was this a smacking correlation that I belong with those retired balls, fallen and discarded at the back of the court.  Should I take this accident as no accident at all, but fate issuing it's desires on me?  Is it time to listen to the call of the dead ball and toss it in, or, I guess in this case, out?  I guess I'll see what fate brings me tomorrow.  Tonight I am on ice!!

1/2/11 Cloud Cover

The air was heavy today, thick and dismal, saturated with a dampness that was visible and blinding.  So heavy, lights were dulled to the point of mutation. It was as if the clouds were sinking and settling on the earths' surface, no longer suspended above. It seemed to me, a parallel of sorts.  Indicative of my own body, saturated from the extensive eating and drinking that has become synonymous with the holidays, I too, feel like a sinking cloud.  What was the joy and splendor of the holidays is now a numb memory, dulled by the lethargy that settles in my being, clouded with a covering of excess. All good things must come to an end and my body has had enough. Time to dry out and float the clouds once more!!
Happy New Year!