Moving On

The longer we live, it seems, the more we need to learn to move ahead without fighting it, because, the only thing in life we can count on is change. And if you have lived to the ripe old age of even two or three, you know that some changes are simple, and some are not. At two or three you might not be able to put that into words, but you know it just the same. Changing from spending the day with Mommy to spending the day with Nana is not so hard, but changing from spending the day with Mommy to spending the day in daycare probably is. And as we experience more of life, the changes are still both simple and not so simple. Today I am writing this blog entry on my new system, so I have had to watch the tutorial videos, do the housekeeping, convert files, and generally get myself up to speed. Every time I add some new piece of technology to my repertoire, I think “OK, now I’m up to speed” and within hours, I hear about some new program I should know, so I start looking into that. But all this is the easy stuff. It is also the enjoyable stuff, and what makes us lucky as hell. The hard stuff is the change we have to get used to when we have no alternative but to do so. When we have to cope with the changes that come as a result of illness, and when we lose loved ones, in other words, when change is not under our own control, and the change is not one we relish or have an easy time adjusting to, then moving ahead is more important than ever, and harder to do. I have had to remind myself so many times this past year, that every ending is a new beginning, and there is always a ray of light to be found if only we look for it in the darkness. How many times have you been plunged into darkness, whether it is due to a power failure, or being on a camping trip in the woods, and it seems like you can’t see your hand in front of your face, and then, magically, your eyes adjust to the darkness, and you begin to see shadows, and eventually the lights get fixed, or the morning comes and it is a glorious dawn. Healing and wholeness will come in time if we will only let them in, but so much better to hasten their coming with appreciative living. When we lose a loved one, we can dwell on the loss, or we can choose to remember the happy times we spent in each other’s company. When perhaps a job change forces us to move from a house we love, we can take it as a step down or a loss, or remember the parties we were able to host there, or how we spent holidays there, or the people we welcomed there when they may have not had another place to be on a holiday, the new friends we made there, and what relationships we built there. We all have to remember that happiness is a choice, and for most of us who are lucky enough not to have to live in survival mode, we can choose what takes precedence in our thoughts. Am I going to let that scratch on my car from the parking lot ruin the day I spent shopping and found just the thing I was looking for at just the right price? Am I going to dwell on the delayed flight home from Cabo, and how cranky the whole family is and how it means we will get home at midnight instead of comfortably early, or am I going to remember the sun and the sand and the water and how the family played together and enjoyed each other’s company? Choose happiness and move ahead gracefully. Happy New Year.

What is real and what is illusion?

This morning I woke up with a question in my mind: what is real and what is illusion? Is it because we are headed to a matinee of The Lion King, where we will be convinced that the actors on the stage are a group of animals? We will willingly abandon all our reason in order to suspend disbelief that animals do not talk or sing, that they do not relate to each other in the same ways that humans do, and they do not wear flowing costumes. But having said this, I can also say, that we have learned that whales sing to each other, that different families of dolphins speak different dialects of the same language, and have names for each other, and we know that many males of bird species sing and dance and don brightly colored costumes for courting, or if they are the same feathers, then they display them in different ways. So the question is: how do we differ from our animal brothers and sisters? Another question to ask is: when do we want to differentiate between what is real and what is illusion? The answer that jumps to the lips is…”well, always”. But is that true? The other night I had a dream that I was a younger self, and I was visiting old friends in the company of the young healthy selves of my beloved parents and brother, now of blessed memory. My mother leaned over to me in my dream, and kissed me on my lips, and in that delicious space between sleeping and waking, I felt her kiss on my lips. I woke with my hand on my lips, as if I were holding the feeling there on my lips, seeking to keep it from escaping me. Was it just a dream,, or did my mother find a way to come to me and comfort me as I approach the first anniversary of my brother’s death, to assure me that they were OK and together. Or was I comforting myself? What is real and what is an illusion? Every month, Oprah has a page in her magazine titled “What I know for Sure”. Well, I’m not sure that I know anything for sure, but I think that it is important to be as real as we can with the people we love best. It is important to feel gratitude every day for the gifts we have been given, and if at all possible to share those gifts with the world. It is important to pass on our love and knowledge, and to hold close the people we love and never take them for granted. It is important to seize the joy in every moment, and to look for and find it in even the most unexpected places. It is important to know that every day is different, and that when we feel strong, we should extend a hand to someone who needs a hand, and when we are in need of a strong hand, to not refuse the help that is offered by another’s strong hand. I know that it is important to look around and see what is offered, and to take it and to share, to actually stop and smell that lovely rose that perfumes the air around us, to preserve the world in the best way we know how, and to help others who have a better way, to love and to be loved to the best of our ability, and to just do our best. What is real? What is illusion? Open your eyes and your heart and you will see.

Visualizing Sweetness

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” This quote is from the author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exuperay and is very sensible advice. Besides being extremely poetic, it calls to me about visualizing what you want in your life, and advises that if you learn what it is you want, and see yourself having it, you will find a way to get it. Visualization is one of the several practices we use in Learning Circles to achieve what we want more of in our lives. During this very commercial time of year, I keep coming across articles reminding people that it is experiences that we value truly. One advertisement says that we never look pack happily and say to each other “remember that text…” but rather when we are remembering something happily, it is an experience of time spent together with loved ones, or adventures we had, or when we went somewhere and saw something new, or met someone interesting. “Things”, even the shiniest, most wanted thing wears out, gets old, we tire of it, or it is outshined by the next new thing to come along. Think about what you remember fondly from your past. I remember sitting with my grandmother while she had a coffee in the afternoon, and dipped a cookie in it and shared it with me. I remember her combing her long hair, and singing to me. The other adults in the house were busy, the other kids were at school, so it was before I was five years old, but it is a treasure that has never worn out, never gotten dusty, and certainly never lost a piece or part so that it didn’t work anymore. It works just fine for me, like watching my mother bake, or being bundled up so I could sit in the garage and watch my father and brother refurbish an old broken down two-wheeler that my dad had bought for me for $6. He replaced the flat tires, and spray- painted the bike white, and it wasn’t so much the bike, but the effort that they put into it that blew me away. I yearned for a bike, and although it was not through my own efforts that it became mine, my world expanded, as I took another step into it. But it wasn’t my yearning that got me that bike, and put my feet on the road to wider horizons, it was the yearning of my darling dad, who read the want ads, and spent what little extra money we had on bike tires and paint, so that he could give me, a seven year old, a bike. Last night I had a rare dream of being with my parents and brother, all who have passed on now, visiting lifelong friends. In my dream, my mother leaned over to me, and gave me a kiss. It was so sweet, that I swear I could feel her lips on mine. And if I had that dream, it is because so many times in our lives together, that sweet thing happened and I am just now remembering it again. Now is the time I yearn for the sweetness of family life as it was, and I have it all in my head and my heart. Be sure to make sweet memories for your children to carry around all their lives, so that their dreams, even in advanced age, are of the sweet kisses you gave.

The Lights of Christmas

I am set to speak to a group this week about my favorite subject, Appreciative Living. This is a way to have more Joy in you life by looking for the positive in the things that are already part of you life, and by asking yourself, when you are at a loss as to why you are not joyous, “what do I want more of?” If you’ve lived beyond childhood, then you know that it isn’t “things” that bring joy, it the experiences you share with loved ones, the discovery of new ideas and the making of new friends. Both good and bad, uplifting and depressing, exist in all the experiences we have, and it is up to us to find the good and uplifting in what we do. For those of us who have lost a parent, or both parents, you know that the pain of loss changes over time. For me that acute sense of loss is the worst at Passover, partly because both of my parents died at that time of the year, and partly because the table seems so empty without them. But at this time of the year, my daughters and I shift into a different gear. My mom was absolutely fascinated by the lights of Christmas. We were often lucky enough to be included in the Christmas celebrations of our Christian friends, and Mom, who had a great sense of fun and looked for good times wherever they could be found, was thrilled to join them in their celebrations. But the outdoor displays of Christmas lights were her absolute favorite. As they got older, I used to drive my parents around the neighborhood every year, and watch my mother’s excited shiny face as she fogged up the car window with her “Oohs and Ahhs” over the Christmas excesses of Westlake Village. Since my parents have passed away, every year my daughters and I select a night close to Christmas, when everyone who is going to put up lights has already done so, and take the Regina Amira Memorial Christmas Lights Tour, and indulge in an orgy of happy remembrance of Nona’s smiles and laughter as she enjoyed the magic of Christmas. No one who celebrates Christmas could be more thrilled and appreciative of the glow of Christmas displays, than my very Jewish Mother. We miss you, Mom and Dad.

Madiba, Rest in Peace

A Voice in the World 12.6.13 Yesterday, was the first day in a week that I have had a voice that could be heard by others. Not even one week had passed since I had laryngitis, but I felt the loss keenly, because it meant the loss of contact, and I had the advantage of being able to write my words. My voice is the way I confirm my love and contact with the people I love, it is the way I express my happiness by singing a song, it is the way I express my thoughts most readily. So last night, as I sat watching and weeping over the reports of the death of a giant in our midst, Nelson Mandela, a man who his government tried to make silent for 27 years, I thought about what it means to be truly without a voice. All around our world, there are people without a voice. Every day I read the morning newspaper, and I see articles about children mowed down in the crossfire between gangs and police, not worlds away, but here in Los Angeles. There are articles about women worlds away, who are voiceless in societies which not only require that they hide their bodies, but punish them if they try to bring their brains out into the light. There are thousands of ordinary people “disappeared” by their governments, whose only voice in the world now is that of those grieving mothers who search for them in vain. And how many people live under “house arrest”, silenced for fear of what they might point about the ills of society? Our world is replete with examples of malignant silence forced on enemies of the state, enemies of those in power, truth tellers of all stripes. Many will emerge from their silence bitter and rageful, ready to tear down and destroy what they perceive as evil, and if the good get in the way of that, they just might be thought of as collateral damage. I wonder if we can find it in our hearts to model ourselves on the example of Nelson Mandela, a man who emerged from 27 years of imprisonment with a smile for even those who were responsible for his imprisonment, not because his neck was bowed, and not because he had triumphed over the system, but because he knew the time had come that his message of working together for the betterment of his people had come. His generosity and ability to see every citizen of his country as a brother and sister, white oppressors as well as rainbow shades of color that exist in South Africa mark him as singular. The smile he spared for all, the lilt in his voice, the dance in his step all marked him as a man who did not waste 27 voiceless years in bitterness. The obituaries that we have seen of the prison years on RobbenIsland have told of the friendships he made among his jailors, of the time spent learning their language, of the way a man in his 70s, freed after a lifetime of imprisonment, “hit the ground” running toward the life that he envisioned for all of his countrymen. His was not a grab for power, but a portrait of how a man can optimize the time he has been given on Earth, living gracefully within the boundaries of a righteous and courageous life. An example for the ages. Madiba, Rest in Peace.