How To Raise A Flower

 

Life is tumultuous and as you age, the days turn into months, months turn into years and decades.  Take a look over your shoulder for just a minute, let your eyes gaze lovingly and the memories will swell from your brain straight up into your soul, reflecting many emotions into your misty, knowing eyes.

Love is a flower that you plant, gingerly, as a seed. You caress it, you whisper encouragement to it, place it with a couple of brother and sisters, gently into the little opening you have made for it, prepare it for it in the warm, raw, earthy ground.

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You feel the warmth of the soil through your fingers, meditation, for your mind and your body, you gently cover the mound with loving fingers, with sensitivity and quiet blessings.

You learn patience, consistency, respect, work ethic. You must nurture every day yet give these flowers the opportunity to blossom on their own.

Allow them every chance to help grow with some assistance from Nature’s wily forces. You are a caretaker now.

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The sun chuckles and smiles brightly, water is given to quench the Earth’s soil, keeping in mind, the right amount of water, not too much, not too little. Life, as you are learning, is about balance.

You talk to the buds starting to flourish with gratitude, thanking them for their presence in your life, for their gift to you, as they murmur their silent thanks to be alive.

Everybody brightens, the flowers flourish and your soul is filled with happiness and gratitude. Every day you say hello and good-night. Take a photograph, show your loved ones, perhaps sit next to your flower with your favorite book. You already know that it will only last a short time so enjoy every second it is alive. Their lives, like ours, live for only a short time. Embrace that time with gratitude.

Soon, when the buds dry up, we understand things don’t last forever, in your heart you will carry a picture of your journey.

Loving the process all the way through, knowing you helped nourish it, all along, having a friend.

Thank you, dear flowers for your place in our lives, in many people’s lives, for the absolute joy of watching you grow, for the perfumed smell of sweet ecstasy that slips into our hearts and whose memory lasts forever.

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Talking Out Loud: Feeling Sorry For Myself

My throat is scratchy, every time I swallow it’s like a science experiment. I feel cold even though I am under three blankets. Oh wait, I shouldn’t be surprised, we’re back from our short vacation in the sun.

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We are anticipating a snowstorm with wind and ice and I’m sure the clouds can just feel me smoldering with anger and resentment, like a fire just beginning to spread quickly.

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The Universe can feel that I don’t want to live here anymore, the Winters are too tough for my aches and pain, Fibromyalgia has never been my friend but it is becoming my worst enemy.

I hate having to confirm a lunch date with my best friend in the morning although she totally understands.  Will I be okay for getting up and out of bed? Can I dress myself and drive my car and meet her over salads sipping strong, strong coffee? I have NO energy and NO short-term memory. That is excruciatingly embarrassing to me, that is the worst part.

I will know that only tomorrow morning and even that is iffy. I can deal with this chronic pain disease much more easily in the Spring, Summer, even Fall but Winter? Oh, Winter is the devil of all evil, to me. He’s that bratty, bad boy, the one every grade school had who tried to make other kids’ lives unbearable, the bad boy brat that succeeded in torturing a grade.

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Way back, when I was a child, we never had a “No Bullying Allowed” rule. We just had the town bully and everyone knew who he was. I can picture his face so easily in my mind as he grabbed my winter hat and threw it around the bus to taunt me.

Now, we are all grown-up, the bullies, the kids, those of us who care for our grown-up children and parents and dogs. We face problems every single day. The stress and tension are finally catching up with me.

I don’t smile much anymore. It’s tough enough to get out of my warm, comfortable bed with my dog lying beside me. Sometimes, I choose not to get out of bed. I’m okay with that.

Please, I don’t need platitudes or well wishes, I just need circumstances to change. I need a sign, I’ve been patient. Until now.

Yes, I will ask the Angels for help.

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I will ask anyone for help. But, so far, nothing has worked. I’m so very tired. I want to curl up in my bed until I see that it is Spring. Things will change in the Spring, for the better. We will make it change, not now, not during the bleak, gray darkness of Winter.

The new us, starts in the Spring, 2015.

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We Are Warriors, Not By Choice INVISIBLE ILLNESS WEEK

I’m not going to lie. If I had a choice of having Fibromyalgia, the umbrella tree illness and all its branches and not having it, I would drop it in a hot fire-searing second. But, like any illness, we don’t have a choice. We have it and the more we fight it the less happy we are.

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I do think it takes a long time to finally accept this chronic illness, beyond anger and months of crying, not to mention countless clueless doctors and the raised eyebrows of many who think we are all nuts. I don’t know about you but I want to slap that question mark look right off their smug foreheads.

One of my doctor’s, a well-known person, left me sobbing in her exam room, after diagnosing me with a thyroid condition. I was already on synthroid and still in agony when she clicked her expensive heels, saying “there’s nothing I can do for you” and marched out. She hadn’t diagnosed Fibromyalgia, she didn’t have a clue.  This was eight years ago and the image still is clear in my head.

We are warriors, all of us, invisible illness warriors. You probably have heard of us but you may not know who we are and how we suffer. We don’t offer up the information, and if you know we have a chronic illness you ask in a perfunctory manner only. Our answer to all of you when you casually ask ” how are you?” is “fine.” We always say “fine” at least I do. Not many people really want to know the details and if you think about it you will agree. That’s okay, it takes too long to answer, doesn’t it? “Fine” works for both of us.

If you REALLY want to know there are always  follow-up questions or even a cup of coffee or lunch. We tend to be independent, close to other people who have the same ailment, the ones who know what chronic pain feels like. Some of my closest friends are women  who I have never met yet I love and trust implicitly, met on a Chronic Pain/Fibro group on-line. THESE women and I are here for each other even if only by e-mails, messages or by phone. I thank G-d for these women who are more loyal, supportive and loving than some of my so-called “friends.”

Radical illness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We know that there are more cloudy days than sunny days. We don’t expect sunshine all the time but even when the sun is weaving through the clouds, in and out, we appreciate the moments. We whisper our thanks in a hushed silence, trying not to let those dark clouds come further down and overwhelm us. It takes effort, I know.

 

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It’s the in-between season now, we haven’t had that first bite of crispness in the air yet, like the bite of a fall Macoun apple, but, as evening comes rolling in, and darkness shrouds the trees, you feel the rain that is soon to come. You feel it in your bones, they ache due to broken wrists or ankles, the weather forecasting of having Fibromyalgia.

We can’t change our world, we can barely change our body. What can we change? A few things, our diet (no, I won’t give up coffee and ice cream) and our attitudes, different doctors. I could write a book on the doctors and methods I’ve tried. Let’s face it we are stuck, but we are alive to see our children grow up, a dog to love and for the dog to love us back. Having my dog rest her head on my knees or stomach makes me incredibly happy when I have to lie down. She is a rescue dog but really she also rescued me.


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Dedicated to my dear friend, Judith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haiku Horizons, Cut

 

Cut slashes, deep, wide 

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Red blood blooms, my opaque skin

 Silver, metal, blade.

 

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Heart turned inside out

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cut vows with betrayal, lies

 I trust no one now.

 

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Freshly cut flowers

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blue vase sitting in the sun

Enjoy time and place.

 

 

#FWF Kellie Elmore

Petrichor: The smell after it rains.

 

After it rains

 

 

the scent of sweet lavender lingers in the air

 

droplets of water, morning dew, glisten on tall, oblong leaves.

 

Wild flowers, purple, pink, yellow, blue sway together like fans in a concert

 

dancing in the wind

 

stretching to feel the warmth of the velvet sun.

 

Fresh, green mint plants,

 

tickle our noses,

 

we inhale the menthol, clear our senses, to feel alive.

sunset (Photo credit: lil miss priss)

Mix mint with lime and muddled basil and sweet cane sugar, seltzer

 

to celebrate the glorious day with mojitos.

 

We sit on the freshly painted, white outside deck, of our house

 

waiting for the sun to set

 

With our best friends, our beloved dogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children: The Moon, The Sun And A Fibro Flare Up

Sigh. Welcome. I know you are here even if I don’t have any interest in wanting you to be here. I know you have arrived in town, I can feel the physical essence of your negative energy from the follicles on top of my aching head to the bottom of my over-extended curled toes. It would be too simple to describe how I feel as “everything hurts” or use my example “it’s like having the flu every single day without the temperature.” People try to look sympathetic while they are trying to figure out if I have lost my mind. No, sorry, we are NOT crazy.  My husband was right, my balance is really off and I should have brought my pink cane that I use, on occasion. Fibromyalgia is no one’s friend.

Moon (Photo credit: Paul Garland)

Thank goodness we have for best friends and Fibro Friends, we understand each other, we know how we feel. We don’t really need to explain. I don’t have to tell my fellow sufferers how I will feel when I have to spend over 6 hours in a car. Yep, you heard me 6 long hours to get home from visiting our amazing children and that’s with no traffic. It’s realistically more likely 6 and a half to seven hours but that burns like acid on the tip of my coated tongue.

We traveled to see our adult children at their perspective colleges and I wouldn’t trade that for anything but on the way there we stopped halfway so my pain, Fibromyalgia, would be manageable. I assumed the same thing was planned for going home. It was not. How did this happen? I have no idea except that my husband did the arranging and he probably told me what he booked but with Fibro Fog, confusion and loss of memory, it did not sink in.

In the end it didn’t even matter, we are now home, we saw our adult children and whatever physical pain I suffered was quadtrupled  every second I was with them. I might make different arrangements next time but I don’t even care. That’s what Love is. Simple, Straightforward, Us, Them, Family.

Think of me, taking whatever drugs I have, including but not limited to, Benadryl,or  Xanax that might relax my muscles enough to get me through the trip, curled on the back seat cushions, going home.

I adored seeing my son and daughter, and I would do anything for either of them. I love them so much, so very much that pain and stiffness and being out of sorts for a few days, will help remind me of why we went to visit.

Sun Rays Dancing…!!! (Photo credit: Denis Collette…!!!)

We went to visit the moon and the sun. Two things I cannot live without and two things that I enjoy simply by watching. My grown-up adult kids. They are worth every darn tingle, ache, pain, IBS attack and a host of many more symptoms; so when you hear me complain, please tell me to shut-up and to remind me of how worth it, it really was. Love, family love is, what matters and pain is just a side effect. It will get better, hopefully, in a few days. Just being around them, gave my husband and myself incredible joy. It was worth every single second of this trip and many more. We have GREAT kids, each one a delightful pleasure, we’re lucky to have them in our lives. We appreciate THEM.

Thank you, kids, for having us, we loved seeing you in your home. It was great for all of us, especially me to show me how much both of you have learned and grown-up. I’m proud of you both. Really proud.

Yellow Magic Madness # 44

Two Cats, blue and yellow (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Haven’t seen the sun in many weeks. Need to find a spot of yellow

somewhere to keep my spirits from drowning. Perhaps a yellow cat?

Haiku Heights: Grey

A Macedonian girl in a traditional folk costume (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grey clouds, sniff contempt

from tan, crisp, chicken-fry, skin

We belong here too.

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Silver specks of light

pop, electrify, brown hair

Proud of who I am.

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Love, innocence, light

warm eyes see goodness, not grey

lips smiling, sweet one.

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Yellow Magic Madness #29 Spinning Yellow, Out Of Control

Wheel (Photo credit: Today is a good day)

I am a very

spiritual person and so I pray. Tonight, my oldest friend is in the ICU, his kidneys have failed him. We were born one day apart, he never let me forget that I was older by one day. Our mothers met in the maternity ward in our old local hospital many years ago. Tonight he is fighting for his life. Yellow magic, Yellow light, The joy of Yellow, the Hope.

My mind is spinning out of control, like a misguided ferris wheel on the wrong speed, it’s going too fast. He went through a bad time physically last year. I feel like I am living in a surreal world. Right now, all I think about, is him. I’m scared and sad and yes, a little angry too. Please don’t die, please. You had a lonely life, but you have us, your friends. Don’t give up. I am begging you.

10:30 PM : My phone rings, I don’t recognize the number, the voice sounds muffled, I hear loud BEEP- -BEEP sounds every few seconds. My friend has called me, I am shocked, happy, relieved, confused. We talk for only a few minutes, I tell him that “I love him, that all his friends do” he becomes emotional; I was so grateful to hear his voice. Let him make it through this night, and another….just one slow day, after another. Breathe…Breathe, Breathe.

Haiku Heights: Ocean

Sea and Moss Green (Photo credit: Masahiko Futami)

Dizzy, magic swirl

labyrinth, green moss, blue sky

Sun, heat, lipstick red.

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Innocent devil

mesmerizing calm, rage, one.

water, sun, spirit.

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Mom and Baby (Photo credit: BenjaminThompson)

Pink flip-flops, sunscreen

blue popsicle, grainy sand

cuddle, mom and me.

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