Happy Yellow Friday #4 Daffodils

Near where I live there is a field of daffodils that bloom every year. I wait months for these beautiful flowers to bloom, I drive by, even if it is out of my way, to watch them pop up, fully bloom, slowly fade away.

I look forward to seeing them every year, the time that they are alive and fresh, as if they are smiling, is only a matter of a few days but I stop the car each day and I smile back every time I see them. The are on a hill with bright green, manicured grass and it looks like a perfect photograph. I tried once to photograph them but it was unsuccessful, you must need a wide-angle lens.

That’s okay, I have loved them for so many years that the picture I have of them lives in my heart. I am grateful for having been able to see this for the last 15 years. I look forward to seeing them again in the  Spring.

 

 

 

 

Plinky Prompt: Time Stands Still But You Can Change One Thing

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  Field of Daffodils with an old barn in the background. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  For a moment today, time stands still — but you can tweak one thing while it’s stopped. What do you do? See all answers

• Edit answer |
• October 10, 2013 by hibernationnow

• Standstill

• I would turn back time, not for very long, just a few months. Instead of Winter approaching, I want it to be Spring again. I want to see luscious green grass with fields of daffodils waving their thin yellow arms to greet the sun. I would take out my sandals and head to the beach, walk outside, sit on a bench and people watch. It’s definitely the official day of ice cream. Soft serve, vanilla with rainbow-colored sprinkles. Nothing could be better than that…

Carry on Tuesday: My Favorite Things

Daffodills in St. James’, close (Photo credit: existential hero)

Don’t you know that it is human nature to be able to list the worst memories in your life more easily than it is to remember the best ones? Why is that? Why do we all remember, more clearly, things that we don’t like at all instead of all the things we do?  Maybe because sad things leave us scarred emotionally, we remember them because they wound us like a deep cut into raw flesh. Your skin is deeply cut, blood seeps out, you’ll probably have that scar for the rest of your life and it will remind you, forever, of what happened to cause that pain.

When I am feeling lonely or blue I try to think of peaceful things, the things that make me happiest, my favorite things: the ocean, dogs, collecting seashells while walking on the beach, the mass of yellow daffodils that come up once a year in the same place in my neighborhood. This year I only saw the start of the meadow of yellow flowers, when they barely started to bloom. It rained every day for a week after that, it wasn’t an auspicious start to summer.

It is harder for me to remember the happiest days than the worst days. There have been moments of magnificence in my life, with my husband, certainly the birth of my two children, but other than that, my head is cloudy. I can’t blame everything on Fibromyalgia,or Fibro-Fog as we call it. I don’t think I could have come up with this before anyway.

Perhaps tonight I’m steeped in self-pity, oh yes, now I know why. I just figured it out. The great unconscious, the biggest moment, months, years of grief: the death of my father. Father’s day is two weeks away. It gets to me every year around this time and every year I forget. How on earth could I forget that my father is dead? I know he is dead. What is wrong with me? Every year since his death, eleven years ago, I still go to the Father’s Day section for cards, or this year I picked up a new pen that I knew he would love, forgetting that there was no physical him anymore. I guess I will never stop doing that.

I will make a concerted effort to continue to think of past, happy, moments and will jot them down. The word “magnificent” sounds like an over-rated French movie. I’ll stick to happy but the point is, my memory can remember the pain first, the pleasure, second.

For all those women* who do not have a Father on Father’s Day, this is for you. I know how you feel, from my broken heart to yours. Do whatever you can to make your own life a little easier, a little happier, whatever it takes. Or honor your dad with a special memory or flowers, a drink, anything to help ease YOUR pain. Buy yourself some chocolate or ice cream or both. I feel for all of us, I really do.

*should say women and men

Father’s Day 2009 (Photo credit: Paul Allison)

Where Is Your Favorite Place To Drive? Plinky Prompt

Image by Kris *V* via Flickr

• My Favorite Place to Drive
• “Take Me Home, Country Roads”
  Volkswagon Beetle 

  I would be driving on country roads, passing mooing cows and prancing chestnut horses. I would drive slowly past the dancing goats and the green grass vibrant with color and misty with dew. I would be in my (fantasy) yellow Volkswagon Beetle. I would have the windows down as the warm air breathed life into my hair and skin. Of course, my favorite music would be blasting. I would listen to old tunes, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell and my new favorite, Josh Radin. My dog would be in the seat next to me and I would talk to her and she would be stretching her face into a broad smile. Two bottles of water would sit next to me for when we both got thirsty. The trees would be in bloom, it’s the height of Spring, daffodils have sprouted and so too exuberant tulips in red, pink, white and yellow. I would stop for a picnic because everything tastes better outdoors and I would lie in the grass, on my back and let the soothing sun kiss my face my face and body.

*S.N.O.W. The New DSM Disorder

Image via Wikipedia

S.N.O.W stands for Sadness, Nothing, Overwhelming, Winter disorder and people in the Northeast are suffering from it in masses this winter. Because of an extended period of snowstorms, approximately every two days, sometimes more often, more and more people have been diagnosed with the above disorder. It appears that this new syndrome called S.N.O.W. now appears in the new DSM (Diagnostic Symptoms Manuals used in mental health.) The disorder has the following symptoms: claustrophobia, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. To illustrate the symptoms the following scenarios should make it more understandable:

1) Claustrophobia: many people who are unable to go outside and are not able to be independent, to drive on their own through wintry conditions, feeling closed in, unable to breathe, unable to go anywhere.  Every time there is snow, freezing rain or ice the feeling of claustrophobia intensifies.  People suffering from claustrophobia generally also suffer from the following:

2) Anxiety: The feeling of being anxious, disturbed, uneasy. Your heart beat may seem faster, stronger, you may have chest pains and the feeling of being nervous all the time. This is natural for this condition.

3). OCD:  Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: patients generally run to the window or door, or they stand next to the aforementioned window or door flattening their faces against the glass for many minutes on end. They go back and forth to see if the snow has stopped, the ice pellets have turned to rain and how the snowflakes fall and in what particular pattern. Patients also try to gauge how much snow, rain, ice, etc.   Patients say that they sit riveted to the Weather Channel or local forecasts or both.

4) Depression: the feeling of sadness that does not go away, feeling “blue,”sad, lonely, isolated, unable to feel joy. The feeling that you will never be happy again, that you are unable to enjoy anything in life including but not limited to: loved ones, music, television and anything else you formerly enjoyed doing. You may not want to get out of bed (and really, why should you?) because you feel there is no way out. You may be correct in this assumption.

Once the diagnosis has been made, the following recommendations generally fall in the following perimeters: 1) prescriptions include: a week, 2 weeks 4 weeks or three months (depending on the severity of your patients’ symptoms and bank account) to a warm climate for as long as you can. Some destinations, for example, are: in Arizona, New Mexico, Florida or Los Angeles.  A sun “lamp” to give yourself the (fake) feeling of getting outdoor light can also be used though there are no firm statistics that support this.  Tanning beds are also thought to be an option, but one which comes with a medical advisory of a possible link to skin cancer, more specifically, melanoma.

Of course your mental health professional may write you a prescription for anti-depressants but really, by the time they actually start to work (6-8 weeks) Spring will be hopping on its feathery feet to come and stay for a little while. For the short-term, think of yellow daffodils sprouting and listen to the song “Breathe” sung by Anna Nalick, continously. Symptoms of S.N.O.W. should dissipate within two to three months. It is possible that in the winter of 2012 the symptoms may resurface.

*a parody