Wotta Day

I went to the  doctor, who is new to me as I am to her and a good partner, who really listens, take notes, puts them into my file and quietly thinks over symptoms and what works and doesn’t for my specific needs.

She takes her time with me and makes gentle suggestions; combining her expertise of medicine and my expertise of my own being,

After quietly thinking over a really rotten adverse reaction to a mega antibiotic, which I told her felt like a bomb going off inside and into raging, doubled-over, can’t-tell-if you-want-to-stay-or-go pain, she hit upon a missing med for my most complete treatment and it was Bingo!  I-could-have-had-a-V8! moment.  I’d forgotten it myself.

Much to her credit, she did not give me the usual. sotto voce, ‘that never happens’ or ‘I’ve never seen this with anyone.’  She just truly wanted to get things right for moi, instead of the patented ‘one size fits all’ medical malaise/laze

Today, I can tell you, she got it right and health care really became care.

I told her that when I feel better, I’ll sing her 3 choruses of Rodgers and Hammerstein”s “Getting To Know You.” It took her a moment then she smiled.

I am her horse of a different color.

On the way home, after picking up my prescription, Tom and I stopped in to a new favorite Thai restaurant to get food into my stomach to take the first dosage the next stage meds.  They do a really good dish called “Family Rice.”

It is a fragrant, non spicy plate of fresh vegetables consisting of broccoli, cabbage, carrots, zucchini, thin soft slices of chicken, pork and tiny Thai sausage and an occasional shrimp.  So easy on the tummy, it coated the spot.

On the way out, we saw a young woman whose sweatshirt read on both back and front, “People Make Me Sick.”

Having been wearing a face mask to avoid giving or receiving germs for the last month, not to mention the twitstormtrooper regime acts of violence and rape of every decency and civility, in our country, I could totally relate.

We told her we loved her shirt. Shared lots of smiles. I just loved this gal.

On the way home, we stopped in at Trader Joe’s for stomach coating yogurt and rolled oats, on which I’m living.

The gal at the checkout stand was a tall, beautiful, tattooed, blue and magenta haired, happy camper.

“Hi! How are you doing today?” she asked.

I was a little grumpy. Some meds make you a little cranky. (understatement. They really should come with a sign you pin to your lapel; cautioning, “Run for your life. Run away, run away.”)

Odd little things had gone weirdly awry in the day, from frustrating to painful; like the credit card machine at the pharmacy ejecting and rejecting my brand new credit card…4 times!!!! For no good reason anyone could figure out, which made me have to stand longer than was my body could handle kindly and not being able to find a close enough parking space where I could schlepp bent over from car to door and there were more horrible scare tactics from the dick measuring and nation pissing content which are too overwhelming for me to hear with no skin on.

My too ready reply of, “Oh, just hanging in there!” stopped at the tip of my tongue as I noticed this effervescent woman was working a the register with one arm; doing all the things a two armed person would be doing…and capably and cheerfully.

My oral reply changed perspective as I womaned-up to an authentic positive answer: “It’s mostly a  great day with a few sprinkles of weird little handleable challenges.”

She smiled and rang me up…yeah, you guessed it. The card machine and my  card did their lil dance, requiring another manager. (Maybe it’s a need for connection and care thing in the electronic world).  She laughed when I told her this is a sample of the weirdness stuff today. It all got happily solved and she ran out from behind the counter waving my receipt into my hand, while I was turning to leave the store. She zipped somewhere behind me and caught up to me at the door with a bouquet of daffodils and placed them in my shopping bag, saying, “Here! These are for you. Have a happier, less weird day!”

And the surprised-out-of-my-sox me, thanked her in astonishment and told her she was the light in the day and “Keep shining your light. You have no idea how you brightened my entire week!”

That little bouquet of yellow petals sits in a slender vase in my kitchen where I take meds, pray they’ll work and cry in pain as the pit storm hits.

One flower out the bright yellow bunch is pale cream with a red hearted petal in the center.

This one armed angel was more capable, with greater heart than many.  Just being her best self gave me several gifts this day: perspective shift, heart, grace, humor, joy, unexpected kindness …hope that healing will be better than I can imagine, better than the best I can imagine for myself and our world.

Yes, hearts are all around us.

I feel grateful for goodness…earth angels who hold me in light, check in and call just to say, “I love you,” share some a laugh or two and connect just because they want to, kindly care, and I’m grateful for the celestials who complete this loving circle of light around me.

It is the receiving part of the circle of balance that is harder sometimes than giving.

I notice all and appreciate you all with my own well-armed heart.

So, I got to practice receiving and it’s in the surprises that show up where I am most stopped in my tracks.

Wotta day!!!

 

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Quote For The Day

” If there are honey bees left after the destruction in this world, how can I not go on?”

 

by Florence Ondré, on a sunny September day, after North Carolina’s short-sighted mass killing of this life giving, beauteous species; this day  before 9/11/16, when a solo honey bee visited a flower outside my door, like a lone fleeting angel visitation of Heaven on Earth.

A Visit To The Bottom Line

by Florence Ondré

“When you say to yourself or others, ‘That proves my point,’ it’s good to allow some time to elapse and then see if you can remember what your actual point was.”

Once Upon A Wild Hair

by Florence Ondré

 

This morning I dragged out the 10 times magnifying glass and took a what everyone the sane world says you must do….a good look in a mirror!

Shock of shocks, the discovery was that I’d gone right past becoming my mother and straight to being my grandmother! …and every bushy, crazy looking, wild haired old woman I’d ever seen.

Yes, I was right up there on my own world list of wild haired women where I’d wondered, “how could she go out in public like that?  good god, how could she live with those crazy ass eyebrows?”

There in the light of day, I stood aghast at my window, peering thru my eyeglasses to the magnifying mirror (yes I need both to see anything now) and viewed my own eyebrows gone awry.

Wasn’t it recently I’d tweezed the errant chin hairs which so cruelly and capriciously grow when and where they want?  I took care of those little stubborn hard line, now thankfully white instead of dark colored bristles.  I may not be able to see you but I feel you and out you go.

Then I moved the glass to my eyebrows and saw I had farm work to do.

Hairs had sprouted like gmo wheat fields from my upper eyelid to my brows.  God, how could I go out in the world looking like a mad scientist!

Pluck pluck groom groom…gone gone.  Whew.

And then I spied the brows themselves…. Hey! Wait a sec!  Shouldn’t eyebrow hair be short?  What karma had I been dealt overnite, with some leaning into the maginot line; lengthy enough to hang down over castle turrets; long and strong enough to be braided for princes to climb upon?

What had I done to become Andy Rooney or deserve curls gone wild every which way but loose?

Memories of women I’d known whose facial hair seemed to explode in odd directions on their aging faces floated to consciousness and I reached the terminal at the end of platform ‘why me?’  I had become them.

I wondered if my friends who spend tons of money on face creams, depilatories and spas had arrived at this plateau, unhaired, or had they just had more time and money to hide the inevitable? s

Some whispered the truth.  Don’t tell me we are not all one.

Stow the baggage of judgement and surface ego on this trip called life.  It’s simply a matter of arrival time.  Just for today, I’m a bit dishevelled from that red eye.

And now that I’m momentarily presentable, where am I going?

To a children’s party… and you know these are our greatest critics!

Who I Am What I Do

“It’s not a ‘rant.’  I am not ‘fussy.’  I just tell the truth, ask q’s, be reasonable, kind & then express appreciation for what is & for what is still coming.”
florence ondré dec 4th, 2014. inconvenient truth teller & survivor.

Two Year Anniversary And Still Sandy

by Florence Ondré

 

“I’d have a go bag ready, but she already got mine 2 yrs ago.”  is what I said out loud as I saw Liz Treston’s go bag photo posted on Facebook.

And, as I read my dear friend, Veronica’s posted anniversary words of wisdom and great heart, stating that she couldn’t participate in celebrations until her friend, Florence and everyone was back home, I was touched deeply, as I accepted the light she sends and asks for; knowing you all dear earth angels do surround, lift and uphold me in light..2 years ago,  today and going forward in a journey that is still longer than anyone expected.

Couldn’t do the lighted ceremony walk and standing tonight.

For me,  it would have been a schlepp and crawl… yet I thank my dear friend, Lori Stein, for taking my spirit with her; walking in light and love; carrying me in her heart and placing my ribbon on the boardwalk with hers.

Odd day…morning took me back to 2 years ago….looking out at the grey ocean, I remembered sandbagging til we couldn’t see day light then grabbing what we could carry, to evacuate to my son and daughter-in-law’s apartment on the 4th floor of their apartment building around the corner.

As much as my son was hurricane-prepared, we were all not one bit prepared for the magnitude of the disaster bearing down on us.

I’ll never forget thinking at night, ‘Ok we lived through the first high tide, now just one more and we’re home free.’

Then, seeing the tsunami size wall of water breaking the sea walls; rolling down my street, over my house and the neighborhood; bending light poles to the ground; sweeping vehicles along raging waters like paper boats; submerging them  and covering everything to blackout in the entire island, wiped out forever what slight hope there was for anything less than total devastation lingering in  our shocked minds and stunned hearts.

Watching exploding green transformers in the pitch dark; feeling winds and rain rocking our shelter of a 6 story building like a leggo tower and seeing fires grow like flower blossoms into ever bigger raging in homes in the canals, brought me to my knees as prayer died on my lips.

I don’t think I yet have the feeling back in me even as I remember.

It is weird how sunshine on water make me stop disconnectedly in my tracks and I’m discombobulated, like my grand children, by wind.

There is a wariness about weather and a tentativeness to living.

Maybe it is in large part because I am one of thousands still not home.  I feel the homelessness acutely in a deep ravine of sadness within me as at the same time I am grateful for the roof over my head, which I know is necessary shelter… but still not home.

My landlady and her sister have become dear family to me.  Yet I am still a stranger in a strange land.

I love that they understand with compassion and outrage that I have to go through a recovery that is not a recovery at all..but a challenge as high as the “Game Of Thrones’ winter wall.

Today I met three deadlines with minutes to spare.  Titan’s work. Man-made, hamstringing, keep-you-from-getting-back-home-or-surviving; working a cut throat game of keep-away with funds supposedly earmarked for survivor’s home rebuilds.

Duly filled out in proscribed forms, I sent all out on angels wings and marvel at myself for the miracle of getting my sight back just in the nick of time for me to bear another kind of brutality of Ocobert 29th….insurmountable mountains of paperwork, unimaginable feats of courage and endurance, and superhuman, lift-the-car-off-the-kid,where does it come from – strength.

People think I am a never-ending deep well of can do….sometimes I can/sometimes I cannot.

Today is a sci-fi conglomeration of both.

As the last ‘t’ is crossed &’ i’ dotted, I am grateful for my dear Tom, at my side then and now, who sits beside me and acknowledges with words what I haven’t been able to say out loud…”I want to feel like we should be celebrating something big but I just feel so exhausted & numb.”

I am once again , as always, appreciative that he speaks my heart and soul; knowing and showing continually that we are on the same page.  And I am grateful for his help with everything that gets thrown like tons of bricks at us.  I walk around sighing out loud with no explanation of the sighing. It’s like steam hissing out of my very cells of my weary worn body.

Sandy taught me to accept that I have no control over much outside my own self, and even that is not set in stone.  So, sometimes, I just lay down;  flattened and give myself over beyond 100 per cent and say the short form prayer….”Help.”

Today, grand daughter, Selia, had her first grade class trip to Schmitts farm and asked if I would go too.  I took those few precious hours off from paperwork mountain and thought, as I watched the children’s pure joy at learning how to pull radishes from the earth and green beans from their stems, ‘This is the perfect way to spend the second anniversary of the storm which changed us all forever… to be involved in life-giving simplicity.’

So,  instead of going to the rebuilt, multimillion dollar boardwalk, which I cannot seem to make friends with or the ocean which can rise up and knock the stuffings out of everything,  we took time off from work, so Selia could have both her Gramence and Grampy with her.

I’m glad we both were there today.  It seemed right in so much wrong.

And,  I am content at the end of the evening to have hugged and been hugged by my grand daughter and her classmates and happy in the company of good teachers and friendly, 6 year old, farmers who get delight out of the discovery of earth worms under radish leaves and run with free abandon to climb haystacks to slide down a curlicue tube; shrieking with delight… certainly not thinking of how scary 2 years ago was or how long so many could not be with their school or pals because they were displaced.

I drink in the energy of them as they pile onto the tractor and sip their juice boxes and hug sheep on this Autumn day which warmed to near summer temps….just to give us pleasure on a day which was anything but.

Threads In Theatre Tapestry

by Florence Ondré

 

My friend, talented actor, Ashley Grantham, posted on facebook, these profound and grace-filled words of newly passed actress, Marian Seldes, from one of her interviews with James Grissom for his book, “Follies Of God:”

“The theatre keeps presenting to me the wonderful experiences of learning to tell time and falling in love for the first time.   I get these experiences-these feelings- every time I work on a play.  I get to start all over and relearn things, and I get to meet new friends– family, really– to whom I can give and receive love.  And this rejuvenates me, and it keeps me strong to serve the writer, to serve the play.  I guess I’m saying that I am always loving and I am always bending  time, and that’s as good a description as I can manage of a life in the theatre.”

Reading this perfect description of work and purpose in the theatre, simply stunned me with the accuracy of what it is all about and how fortunate we are, both those of us who do this work and those who experience the soul and life touching in the witnessing.

Over the years, I’ve struggled with the my own high respect for all aspects of theatre and, as time moves on, feeling a bit like performing has slipped into more a personality contest; worth minutes of limelight and too light an affair of single dimension, than a craft with depth in the endeavor.

I think to myself as I read Ms. Seldes words of wisdom, garnered from years of experience and well-earned success, ‘Who speaks like this anymore?

Who waxes multi-levelly on ever-expanding understanding of the depths and heights of their work with such careful and honest thought?

Who shares, with such kindness and generosity of heart, the inner workings to inspire and give how-to-gifts to co-worker-family with regards to spending well the coin of their realm of time upon this stage of life?

Who ‘gets it’ on so many layers of understanding lessons come to fruition by humble work ethic and love of profession?’

To be able to ‘start all over,’  ‘relearn things’ and know family of choice shows up in family of work for the claiming, if one is lucky enough to be awake and aware; to go beyond what one can see and touch to ‘always being loving’ and ‘time bending,’ both of which we are all capable of if only we would be open to that inner viewing, knowing and relishing.  How fabulous is that?!  How fantastic is the possible zest and willingness to see our own lives and work and days filled with this kind of love, service to chosen craft and be in awe of the time-bending we do in our mortal moments?

For me, I have to go back to my roots to see how far I’ve come on my journey and what light of clean scrubbed-faced-wonder still lives and breathes in me and whatever work I do.  What integrity, such as the above, was in me at the beginning and what wisps of wonder waft through my being today?  What nugget of motivation fuels my creativity and how have my perceptions changed or remained the same?

Surprised by  MS. Seldes beautiful, oh-so-acurate description of acting as ‘bending time,’ the breath of complete understanding and new realization hit me like Cupid’s arrow to the heart. These wonder full words, cobbled together, describe the indescribable; the intangible.  The very reading of the words is an ‘aha’ moment.

This is what work in theatre always felt like to me….working in wonder.

In my early, tenderling, formative theatre years, I fairly glowed with this shining light and thirst for learning and giving; for exploring one’s nugget of skill to be willing to be of service to the skills and talents of others in cooperative creation.

In a world of so much great talent, it is easy to be have humility and keep practicing; working while still searching for one’s own best defining talent.  One can be told by respected teachers what they see before their wise eyes and yet have depth of understanding dawn down the road.

It is only later , I learned what my team of master teachers in my first summer stock, at Dorothy Shay’s Duke’s Oak Theatre, where I was a most grateful apprentice, meant in their end of season review and assessment of skills learned and strengths discovered.

As I stood along on the bare stage, with only a work light for company, I heard their individual report cards.

“You are not the best of the dancers.”  “You may not be the greatest of the actors.” “You do not have the best voice of all.”

Time stopped.  My young heart sank because I was the last of the apprentices to be reviewed and the others, with family lines tracing back to theatre royalty of Lunt and Fontanne, Windust and Ritter had received high marks for at least one of these areas of performance.

It seemed forever in moments, standing statued still in my leotard and tights, waiting for their collective summation.

My mind raced hurdles with fear.  Did I have a career ahead?  Would I be good enough in this life of endeavor which I’d always known since childhood was my passion and lifeblood; a part of me like breathing; a place in the world to contribute and make a difference with my own gifts; to be of service?

Or had it all been in my own head; a fantasy land from which they would flunk me?

Breathe and smile, breath and smile your tremulous teen smile.

“…but you have ‘it,’ ” I heard  director, Mary Ann Dentler, of Broadway’s “Peg O My Heart,”  say.

“It?”

After politely thanking the board of theatre owners and master teachers,  I exited stage right in confusion and disappointment.

What was ‘it’?  Could I put that on a head shot and resumé?  How could this be an attribute when ‘it’ sounded like the plague?

“How did you do?”  my enormously and validated, talented singer, dancer and actor apprentices, excitedly asked as I stumbled into the wings.  “What did they tell you is your best attribute or strong suit?”  “What did they say?”

In a soft, quiet, uncomprehending, green voice, I replied, “They said, I had ‘it.’ ”

They hugged me.

I never knew if they understood anymore than I, what this invisible gift from the gods was, they were simply my first family in the theatre. It was these dear ones I loved; who loved me back in that special energy of unconditional acceptance which I came to know as extended family with each show and cast I’ve been privileged to join.

A life in the theatre is endless learning and growing; transcending all barriers; ascending and plummeting the roller coaster of emotions.

And, when you can touch an audience, even when you are not the best singer, dancer or actor; yet reach into hearts in the dark and move  people to tears and laughter and give them pause for thoughtful looking within, there beyond all wishes otherwise, is the best gift one can bring and give in the theatre, “it!”

You can study til you’re blue in the face, but this odd nugget is what you are either born with or not.

…The incandescent warmth of connection; tender, always loving, time bending, in the ever-expanding family and leaps of learning…. honest to goodness, ‘it!’

 

 

 

 

 

Butterfly Angels

by Florence Ondré

 

A classmate from high school, Sue Floyd Turner, posted a lovely picture of a person looking at a butterfly fluttering closely by, on which a quote from Doreen Virtue, read, “Butterflies are often messengers of love sent from Heaven above.”

In this month of the 2 year anniversary of superstorm sandy, where so many thousands of us remain displaced; out of our homes with not much more than empty and broken promises in a recovery system that has failed us cruelly, life has become a ‘before’ and ‘after.’

‘Anniversary,’ what a disconcerting name for an event not engendering much singing, dancing or huzzah celebration.

While stunningly still struggling to survive in hardship and basic deprivation as deeply devastating as the storm at landfall 2 years ago, it has been hard to know if Angels are anywhere near.

We tens of thousands feel forgotten; yesterday’s news, receivers of  “Aren’t you done, already?” “Thought you were back home because the yard looks nice.” “I thought everything was fine by now,” comments.  We’re a people of the invisible in between; halfway to or nowhere near a land called ‘rebuild; trying to appear as some semblance of  lost ‘normal.’

In all the overwhelming, with deadlines and more cut offs and losses of help to get back home and frustrating feelings of hopelessness, I realize as I stopped and read this post, that I have noticed the occasional butterflies wafting by in odd circumstances and places.

‘Stragglers to the winged migration,’  I’ve been thinking, as I push on to the next meeting, pound through redundant paperwork, sit on phones trying to track down information to open the channels of funds earmarked for rebuilding which still remain tied up in  mismanagement and blood red tape… and send light to be of some support, inspiration and oddball humor to as many as I can.

Sitting in sunset silence in the backyard of my gutted house; letting my eye and heart wander; remembering which flowers and trees were planted where, before, I can practically smell the lilac tree;  creator of Monet lavender and jade moments,  which grew, over the years, to lush health and  tallness like my sons who played with their friends there; growing up with the roses and blueberry and raspberry bushes; the garden where the great zucchini, big enough for 5 boys to have to line up and hold, took reign over string beans, tomatoes, broccoli and carrots and gave giant sunflowers, as tall as the first floor of the house, a run for their money…the grape arbor that shaded the patio where our golden retrievers lay for cool shade and the evergreen, with soft, sweeping-the-ground arms, that covered the hiding place, buffalo-wallow-like retreat of Bailley, our dog blogger.  The sheltering boughs of the years-before-us, Russian olive tree which created a secret garden corner nook where children, big and small, could look up to see soft silver fur on the underside of green leaves and peek through bird and squirrel nests to see patches of blue sky and scudding puffy white clouds to play ‘who-can-find-the-angel’ in them…the puny peach sapling, newly planted only days before destruction; the least likely to survive and the surprising sole survivor of the flood, produced a prodigious portion of precious peaches this season.

In this back and forth memory lane, I am less sad and more comforted as I pull my focus back to present and see the empty canvas, waiting to be a new work of art in nature.

As I wipe the tears from my face, a lone butterfly comes flittering by: kissing the fluffy stalks rising from the gift given by next door neighbors,  after the flood receded; a small clump of dune grass replanted in hope for life.  For the first year, it drew in upon itself and faltered in the spot where our robust butterfly bush had made its honeyed home; busy with buzzing bees and beautiful butterflies, before the sea drowned it.  Yet, this summer, this dune grass plant tripled its size and grew strong stalks; wide, lengthy, variegated  leaves and white, fluffy, feathery arms high   in sea breeze and whipping-winds, interpretive dance, above the cedar newly reposted, salvaged, cedar fence .

It is odd what died and what lived; what withered and what thrived.

My human focus, needing to be on surviving myself, took me away from the garden and as I sit still, now, in its energy; noticing, I realize that this backyard haven was the first place: the first piece in a puzzle of gigantic loss, where I let go.

This design is no longer mine.  Everything grows or not in its own perfect way, without me.

What lives, lives. What doesn’t doesn’t.

And, just for today; just for these moments, I am grateful for it all as I sit in the simple silence of what might be…whenever it will be.
And I send thanks to Sue and Doreen for reminding me that Angels come in many forms to gently light upon our awarenesses like butterflies, uplift, lighten burdens and show us, in all the world changes and crushes, that we’re not alone or forgotten.

We are guided and loved.

… and, ooh,  ooh… just as I typed these words on my laptop at my makeshift desk, there’s a butterfly right outside my window here in Mt. 6 Manjaro; the top floor, high rise apartment shelter I fondly have dubbed thus, from the early days when I had to climb 7 flights of stairs up and down several times a day when there was no electricity, elevator, heat, water or sewer.

There she is with her rice paper wings, saying hello and farewell;  readying to make an arduous, miraculous journey of her own from New York to Mexico…from start to finish.

How will she do it?

How will we?

On Angel’s wings perhaps.

 

Quote (and possible smile) For The Day

Every time I wonder, ‘Is it just me?’

It never is.

Florence Ondré

Open Letter From The In Between

Today, while I’m a bit more rested, coming down from holiday crush to try to be superhuman; having taken silent time, I’m closer to sanity and further away from a slip and fall to match my dear Tom’s. (we do everything together..lol)

Invisible ice will bring you to your knees.

Did it slow me?  Hmmm. yes, in some places, not so much in others, but I did have to make some clear choices as to where and how to expend my dwindling energy.

Grand kids came first, cooking came second, family activities and then somewhere after, came me with  visions of juggling dancing in my head and circus music circling my cerebellum.

It was a fun time with the children and their joy is always worth everything!  I am always glad to be tired from making the kids happy.  It was thus for my own kids and now it is for my grands.  Nice to see the threads weaving through the tapestry.

In my going within, I took a look at what seemed to be wearing away in my own life and missed certain voices and visits dear to me.  it seems time is speeding up, people are speeding up, lives are speeding up.  You can hear it in the impatience in voices and feel the voids of connection.  It bruises the energy, these hit and run relationship behaviors and leaves one feeling unimportant and empty. The question arises, “How meaningful am I to a person who only calls or returns calls on a day labelled, holiday?”

With these ruminations, I’m thinking there was more purpose in slip and falls and nonstop preparations with a physical body becoming more challenged as time goes on its own merry way.

I think the gift of this season for us all might be revelations in the re-evaluations; the questioning, “Who & what is important to me?  How can I better shepherd my energy and have more balance?  What can I let go of to choose more personal closeness?”

I have more questions than answers at this moment and that is a good place to be..open to what comes on the brink of a new year.

For those with whom I did not get to connect, for those who called with well wishes, I thank you and please, know you were all thought of fondly and sent best wishes from my heart to yours.  And it is in that chamber you are always held in loving light.

I’m grateful to know that I express this on a daily basis unreservedly…no holding back or saving for a holiday or rainy day.  I’m a sandy survivor.   I’ve lived through enough rain to float the ark!

As our physical connections change- especially with personal distancing of so many wonderful electronics, may we remember to give each other our best gifts of spending time with each other; in person for those geographically near, or a personal call where we can actually hear the essence of our voices for those farther away in miles.

And may we remember to give each other our full attention when in each other’s company, putting away our smart phones to honor each other with full focus and behavior that says, “You are important to me.”

For we all pieces of God in action;  worthy of this honoring…..and we are gone too soon.

May Angels bring you highest good beyond your wildest imaginings in this coming year and I know they hold you close as this old year merges into the new and exciting energy manifesting.

In Light and Love,

Florence

Wonder Full Whirlwind

Wonderful whirlwind….so much preparation for holidays and no matter how early I start, the time whirls into the wind of  ‘OMG! Will I ever get everything done that I wish to.’

It is a cyclone cycle of joy and fun, high energy and bone wearying exhaustion.  And oh, how fantastic it is to give everything you’ve got to make your rounds, to give gifts to your loved ones and those who benefit from cheer, heart generosity and the gift of your time and attention; to see the smiles; hear the shrieks of unbridled glee of the children opening and playing with presents and yums at the sharing of creations of a holiday meal; then sink into the glow of sighs of holiday warmth well done; ending all with a wealth of gratitude in every tired cell of your being.

It is a time out of time, each solstice: each pre year’s ending melding into new beginnings and, for me, while I’m stirring batter for homemade baked goodies, I’m stirring memories in between singing seasonings into culinary creations and silence into the rhythm of simply being.

In each moment, Earth time constraints dictate what will and what will not get done while elastic Universal Angel Time reminds me all is in divine order and, while I give full concentration on tasks at hand, focus being in each now in the chaos of creativity.
As I go a bit crazy, feeling like I’ll never get it all done, my dear Tom says, as he helps lift pans and bowls my now older, physically challenged hands cannot and mops up my tears, the floor and my arms and hair from the frustration of flying rosemary sage stuffing, “No worries, it’s the same every year and every year you do great!”

I feel and look like I’m stretched thin and wild in every direction, yet this year, this Christmas after last year of no holiday celebrations after becoming homeless in the devastation of superstorm sandy and a full year of physical and emotional displacement, within, I have a river of deep and abiding silent certainty that in change there is still the light of love guiding me and all of us to some higher good…better behavior and boundaries, healing, choices for closeness and the release of that which does not feel comfortable or honorable in every corner of life.

No more sameness for same sake.  This season, for me, it has been a time of cessation and reflection in the middle of the doing doing doing; a clear look at myself and others and a letting go of facades to home-in on happiness.
I give to each of you dear ones, on this day after Christmas and pre New Year’s Eve, my heartfelt wishes for health, happiness and wealth in all areas of your life… And room for change where Angels make their magic! 

Of Magnetic Memory

Today I saw a saying that spoke about not waiting until funerals to show we care and I remembered that when my mother retired to her Florida home, she placed a ceramic magnet on her refrigerator that read: “Appreciate Me Now and Avoid The Rush.”

I always loved that one.  It showed me that a) she was aware that she was worth appreciation and b) knew the worth of what’s important in the now.  With her gone from my life in this dimension, I still smile each time I think of that magnetic reminder.

Thanks Mom.