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!

12/7/10 Silent are the Sounds of the Sad

Do we hear the sounds that are our life

Are they happy sounds, loud and clear
or muffled and distant

Do we recognized them as our own
or are they difficult to distinguish from others

Are they angry and maddening
or soft and subtle

Are they melodic or mundane

Do they project
or are they a whisper

Are they constant
or do they skip a beat

would anyone else want to hear them
or
are they better left in isolation

11/2/10- Shake The Cake

I took Stella to Nelson Forest today.  That sounds so intriguing, a forest in Marshfield and it was spectacular.  Perfectly crisp and as I walked I was able to relfect on my previous day.  Sometimes I take myself so seriously and why?  Is there anything that should shroud my mood to the point of frustration and anger?  No!!!  I need to lighten up, accept what is my present situation and either affect change or move on.  Yes I am heavier than I would like to be but does it mean so much to me that I should hate myself every day. I can despise the excess that rolls over my midsection but it does not mean I need to hate everything and everyone that comes across my path, bumping them out of the way with the flab that acts as my rubberized repellant.  This extra baggage has it's advantages.  It keeps me warmer than my skinny counterparts. If I were to get lost in this forest I would have plenty to live off for a long, long time!  At times I can package it so tighly, that it actually looks like muscle and I can intimidate others with my power.  I am what I am. a slightly over weight, middle aged woman that tries her best to get some exercise everyday.  I can push myself harder than most when it comes to physicality, but put chocolate in my face and I melt into the butterball that I truly am. I've always loved sweets and I've always struggled with my weight.  There have been occassions when I've altered my ways and lost the cravings and the corpulent bounty that is my body, only to be bounced back to the penalty line.  Soon I find excess eeking back pound by pound.  This re-emergence of my prior self is a slow progression and I always think, what's a pound or two, I still look good.  I can still pull this off.  I'm still less than my most, better than my worst, and smaller than some, so a pound or two is really nothing and if I wanted to I could shake that off with a rigorous run or few extra sit ups.  I'm good, I still look good.  Just when I start feeling extra confident, and people start commenting (and they always seem to comment about how good you look after you regain a few pounds), the two pounds becomes three.  I'm still okay, after all, I'm still getting compliments so I guess they can't see the three pounds, but if it gets to be four or five pounds, then I'll be sure and get back on the treadmill, full tilt.  I can shake this off with one good day of healthy eating, no snacks and the weight will be gone and as soon as I say four or five pounds, they appear, as simple as that!!!  I do not feel the need to go pound by pound and explain the mind set. suffice it to say, it is more of the same aformentioned mentality that continues to surface just as the circumference of a new, more expansive body part spreads it's mess and invades my slendor space.  For me, this does not happen over night.  It is a slow incremental inching of about two and a half pounds per year.  No need for me to qualify that with the number of years, but let's just say, it's been a few, but far to many!!  I've spent the past, "few" years settling, but with unease.  I still think I can shake the cake habit and re-emerge as the ripped, slim, hotty I thought I was a "few" years back but today I realized this could be a full time job for me and I'm not sure I want to work full time.  Perhaps part time is much more my style and most definitely, my speed.  I'm not abbreviating my goal, I'm just lengthening my time, afterall, I do have a lot more girth to grind and I'll start full tilt, tomorrow!