May 23, 2004

• THINGS THAT REFRESH MY SOUL

  Memories

  Guess this choice dates me, although young people have memories too – they just don’t seem to cherish them quite so much. When I was choosing previous topics in this Sunday project, I had to check the dictionary for ideas most of the time, but for M the ideas just seemed to come rolling in – Music, My Mother, Men, Money, Moderation, Mental Health – oh stop. So here are a few of my memories of all of these…My mother was illumined from within with a great passion for peace and justice and freedom and all those Aquarian ideals. She kept me on track with piano lessons for 13 years, sweating through recitals, and playing our old upright at home, so that today a Chopin prelude eases my heart. The men in my life occasionally set out to wreak havoc, but more often they let me love their tenderness, and two of them gave me children. Money was best known in my journey for its capacity to bring sudden relief from the despair of poverty until one day I learned to stay put and pin those bills to a bulletin board and pay them. That was a good day. Mental health has been tricky all my life, but much improved since I put away the use of chemicals for that purpose and turned to a spiritual recovery instead. I count this the greatest accomplishment of my life – to have made the phone call that would bring me in from the cold on 12/5/84. And as for moderation, in the years I have left I must build on it, even while looking back at the lack of it early on that nearly took all the memories away.
  Deep Thought: If you’re being chased by an angry bull, and then you notice you’re also being chased by a swarm of bees, it doesn’t really change things. Just keep on running.
  Today I am grateful for: Still being here

  • 10:25 am
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