Tag Archives: joy

Memories Are Made Of This

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Most of my readers are aware of the huge downsizing I’ve had to go through this year. It wasn’t exactly my choice, though I’d been saying for years it had to happen.

If you recall last March I struggled with packing up our four-bedroom home and reducing my stuff to a two-bedroom apartment. Then I forced myself to part with more for a move to a one- bedroom apartment. My heart had to take a few more jolts to let go of my storage space conglomeration, and because I was moving again to smaller one-bedroom I had to eagle eye what I had left.

I think Marie Condo, the organizer guru,was on to something when she said, “Keep only things that speak to your heart.” The first move I found too many things that spoke to my heart such as my first doll, my first teddy bear, and mementoes from my children. With gritted teeth and help from a friend I let many of them go.

By the third move I was so tired I let things walk out the door with friends and strangers.

Yesterday I needed a large vase and tore through my cupboards looking for my favorite blue vase my husband and I received for a wedding present all those years ago. I realized it was one of the items that probably ended up in a thrift shop somewhere.

As much as I miss some of my “stuff” , and at times feel sad about it, I believe I feel freer now. I don’t spend my time rearranging or looking or taking care of endless objects that I thought meant a great deal to me. In reality they were just objects, some left from an era of family that had no meaning to me, but yet guilt wouldn’t let me part with them because they were family relics. Relics kept because they had meaning to past family members but escaped my adoration.

It’s exciting to fill my space with fun eclectic finds all new to me which speak to my heart as Marie Kondo advised. Yet, I find the few things I have kept from the past, whether I realized it or not, speak to my heart too.

From the pictures on my walls to the knickknacks gracing my tables when I see them they each have a memory of someone special in my life.

One memory may be strange but unique. The time of Lent and Easter is a reminder of not only the season for me, but of my mom. Every Easter season, on Palm Sunday we received palms. They were the tall, willowy ones. My mom would keep hers and braid it. She was very good at the art, and then she would put it n a vase where we could see it. I never asked why, or if I did, in my young age, I never paid attention to the answer. Doing my research I found the palms symbolize the warding off of evil and are supposed to be burned the following year on Ash Wednesday. The Palms having been blessed, should only be burned and buried, and it also is an old tradition to burn the blessed branches before natural disasters asking God to avert or lessen the coming disaster.

I found a braided palm when I packed up my mom’s house over twenty years ago. I remember the final years she lived in her home, it sitting in a vase in the window. I may not be Catholic anymore but the roots run deep,and I knew you didn’t throw the palm away. There was something about it that touched my heart knowing my mom’s love of her religion, and what the palm symbolized to her. I could see her braiding it with care. I kept it. It sat on my windowsill in a vase reminding me of her.

Fast forward to all of these moves. I took a little heat from people that I wouldn’t let go of that braided palm. They didn’t understand my stubbornness. I carefully packed it and unpacked it all three times. It’s brittleness making it a challenge to move so it didn’t disintegrate in the packing. Today it sits in another vase in my bedroom reminding me this Easter Season of the journey to the cross and also of the past, and the faith my mom had. And…of course her talent weaving and braiding those palms.

We pare down, let go of our past lives symbolized by the stuff we have saved, hoarded, hid only to bring out to see what was in the box and always feel guilty because our family chides us about all we keep. Yet, somewhere in the muddle of the junk and the regrets of keeping so much are the memories that are attached, because there are mementos which melt our hearts each time we look at them. They help us remember who we are, where we came from and what matters. Those are the items we need to keep to help us stay attached to our roots. The ones we have to ponder deeply, hold to our hearts and ask ourselves how deeply they speak to our heart and why.

Someday I will burn the braided palm. Or perhaps my family will in my last days. Maybe I’ll be surprised and it will be passed on down the family for as long as it will hold together to remind them of God’s love, His sacrifice of His son and the roots that are deep into our life called family.

The Constant Battle For Comfort

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Cats are connoisseurs of comfort. ~James Herriot

My Sunday thoughts this morning are on comfort. Not on the kind of comfort you might think I am referring to on a Sunday morning. Yes, I already read my devotions, said my prayers and then…I wiggled and tried to get comfortable in the chair I am sitting in. I wished I had an ottoman to rest my feet at the end of my easy chair.

Do you have those battles in your household on what is comfortable to each of you, the people you live with not understanding because what doesn’t fit you, fits them perfectly?

I am short, very short. Many chairs are not built for short people. One of my recliners hits my head at the wrong place and so the angle is always uncomfortable because it is hard to look up. The contour of the chair has my head crooked down. Most of the time I can’t rest my feet on the floor when sitting on certain chairs and sofa’s because I can’t touch the ground. Case in point, I never can touch the floor sitting on the church pews in church.

The same goes for the seats in a vehicle and the head rests. I always wondered at the wisdom of my grandchildren not being able to ride in the front seat with me because they weren’t tall enough. Their driver, me, was shorter than they were. I think I should invent a flamboyant booster chair for adult drivers that are short.

I like a soft bed, my spouse likes a hard mattress. I like an old dining room chair I bought at a sale and not the ones that sit by my dining table. The old chair keeps me at the level where the table is not above my chest. I keep replacing one chair with my old chair and my spouse keeps putting the matching dining room chair back up to the table.

Our stackable washer and dryer are gone and I am ecstatic. I could never reach to the back of the dryer without a little boost at my feet. I still have a bit of a fear of falling into my washing machine when I have to jump a little when reaching in to get my wet clothes out. It was a battle to get my spouse to understand what we had was not working for me because it was perfect for him.

My list could on and on. Can you relate? Small cars are not comfortable to tall people. Small chairs are not comfortable to large people. It’s irritating to them to always have to change the driver’s seat when sharing a car with a short person.

Don’t ever look at the top of my refrigerator or anything higher than my height. There is probably years of dust because I am the duster in the family and what I don’t see I don’t dust. I know its there but it’s easier to ignore.

It’s hard for us to understand what is uncomfortable for those around us if we have our comfort needs met. We dismiss the concerns and our lack of understanding on what works for others causes problems in relationships and friendships. We don’t want to give up our comfort or we secretly seethe with anger if we do.

I hope there are many that have found the art of compromise. Yet, we appear to living in an angry world. I can’t help but wonder if the anger stems from a need not being met or a concern not being heard. We seethe inside until we erupt like a volcano.

It might just take someone saying, “I hear you. We should work on seeing what might help.” Or it might take us not expecting others to meet our needs but seeing what we can do to make ourselves more comfortable. I bought the old dining room chair. Yes, it gets moved elsewhere but I can always put it back when I need it.

God made us all different. We have tastes and likes and needs that are unique to us. We are not like our neighbor. My neighbor likes a weed free lawn. I don’t really care about weeds. Some of them are pretty. However, what I do with my lawn affects his because my weeds infect his life. He puts up with my weed yard even if it causes more work for him. This year I sprayed my weeds. It’s a compromise. It’ll make life easier for him. He makes life easier for us by doing things for us that we can’t do anymore. We are both more comfortable in our lives because of it.

Yesterday a wise friend and I had a conversation about relationship dynamics. They pointed out to me our words, and I know mine are, get peppered with, “They won’t let me do that.” This person was right. We stop ourselves from living parts of our lives because of the lack of understanding of someone else of what we need for comfort for our body or our soul. I have to ask myself where I learned that. Do those people really stop us or are we stopping ourselves and using it for an excuse? Our life doesn’t need to fit someone else. It needs to fit us and only then can we be comfortable with others.

This is my Sunday morning rambling. I have no answers. I have a challenge for you. What are you going to do this week to allow yourself to have those moments of comfort that you need?

I’m going to get an ottoman so I can put my feet up in this chair that doesn’t quite fit me and relax. It can be moved when someone taller sits here. A small compromise for a big chair so we both can have our comfort.

“I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort where we overlap.”

Ani DiFranco

A Yearning For My Front Steps

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This morning I have an inexplicable yearning to go outside and sit on my front steps and breathe in life.

It is the appearance of the sun in what has been a cold and bleak and cloudy Minnesota which brings to mind spring and thoughts of flowers and warm weather. However, I can’t explain my feeling that I need a front step sit. I have a perfectly good outside porch to enjoy but something in me tells me I need steps.

Though the sun is shining today my front steps and porch are crusted with ice. It is still winter and there is still snow on the ground. I like the beauty of winter as long as I don’t have to haul my old body outside. The pull is real to feel the fresh air on my face so I may dash out, raise my face to the sun and dash back inside to the warmth of my fireplace. Still, I feel the call of the front steps or the back steps for a peaceful sit.

Outdoor furniture awaits my porch sitting so why would I abandon that in place of the front steps? I think it has to do with my past and memories.

Living at my grandmothers and then when my family moved, we didn’t have fancy outdoor furniture. We would go outside and sit on the steps and talk and enjoy the evening. The front steps were better than the back steps because you could chat with those passing by or you could wave at the cars going by. Occasionally they would stop and talk.

There were interesting views. At my grandmother’s house I sat on the front steps and watched the trains go by or watched the animals. My mom or uncles would come in from the chores or the garden and we would talk for hours on the front steps. At our house my dad would sit with me as we watched the neighbor kids play or visited with those in the neighborhood, sometimes calling across the street. There were no cell phones or outdoor phones to distract us.

I do sit on my front concrete steps occasionally in this day and age for a quick moment when I am shaking out a rug or waiting for someone to pick me up, but most of the time I sit on my comfy chair on my outdoor porch or my patio. I have to say that for some reason it isn’t the same. Perhaps because of the front step memories.

I have no good explanation for yearning for my front steps unless it is perhaps missing those that used to share my experience. I also shared many front step conversations with my best girlfriends. If those steps could talk they would reveal so much about the past lives of the step sitters.

Perhaps when the ice is gone I will forgo my porch and patio for an occasional step sitting. I have a feeling it will be a good way to breathe and appreciate the simple life of the past,

“A journey to a thousand miles begins with one step.” –John F.Kennedy