Peacocks are Pretty

When I was a little girl I used to twirl around and pretend I was a ballerina because I thought ballerinas were the most beautiful, graceful human creatures I had ever seen.  I wanted to be a ballerina and for a few exquisite months was able to take ballet lessons from Miss Sheila at the YWCA Armory in my little town.  Which meant my hard working mama needed to stop what she was doing and take this 5-year-old ballerina wanna-be to those lessons and wait around until they were done.  That didn't last long, though, because mom's rule was that if I didn't practice 30 minutes every day she wouldn't spend the money on those lessons.

Well, I couldn't practice 30 minutes a day on anything besides playing so the lessons stopped and my dreams of being a ballerina were limited to the amount of twirling I would do through the house and in front of the big mirror in the bathroom.

Inevitably as I twirled, I would ask my mom to 'look at me' and then want to know if she thought I was pretty.

My mother was and is one of the most beautiful women I have ever known.  She isn't beautiful from outward fussing about makeup or clothes.  Back then she wore old house dresses and only put on lipstick when we went out of the house to town or to church.  I can still remember watching her opening the lipstick tube and twisting the bright red out and circling her lips, smacking them just once.  Perfection.  That's all it took!   And she had beautiful wavy hair and elegant, upright posture and the most luxurious voice and a laugh like wind chimes - the lower, mysterious ones that I have hanging all around my home now.

I worked for years to be able to answer the phone and say 'Hello' the way she did.  She used to work as the church secretary and a family story was when she answered the phone with that sultry 'hello' and the man on the other end of the line, who had been attempting to contact his favorite watering hole, confessed he had the wrong number but was sure glad he mis-dialed a house of God just to hear that voice.  I am proud to say that now I do answer the phone with my mother's voice and my daughter is following in her footsteps, too.

But, when I was twirling and stopping to ask my beautiful mother if she thought me pretty, her reply was always the same;

'Peacocks are pretty, but they have tiny brains.'

I knew she was teaching a lesson about being humble and to value things other than outward appearances.   I knew she loved me.  I knew she was encouraging me to be smart and kind and good. I knew that she did not admire women who were too focused on the outward - clothes and makeup.

And I still wanted to be pretty.

Like her.

I didn't stop asking because like most little girls who were beginning to see glamorous women on the television I was very much aware of what was considered beautiful and wondered how I compared.  And every time I asked, the response would be the same....'Peacocks are pretty'.

Did my mom think that pretty always meant not very smart?  Which did I want more; smart or pretty?  Did it have to be a choice?  Couldn't anybody - ever - be both? 

Eventually I started junior high and had to start figuring out those answers on my own.  There were pretty girls with beautiful clothes.  And makeup.  And a mother who couldn't afford the one and wouldn't allow the other.  Somehow I had to learn to fit in and honor my mother as well as my dreams of having it all. So I did what most 13-year-old girls do to fit in; I packed makeup in my bag and rolled my skirts up past my knees as soon as I left the house. Eventually, as is always the case, mom caught the tell-tale smudges of mascara and knew that she had lost a battle.  But she won the war by allowing me to wear as much makeup as I wanted as long as she couldn't tell I had it on.  

I was convinced that prettiness and small brains were not necessarily hand-in-hand commodities. After all, my mother was both.  A girl could be very smart, kind AND pretty.  A girl could also be very pretty and very silly or, worse, beautiful and cruel.  There were choices and my mom had given me the gift of making them.

I wanted my mama to tell me I was pretty, but she did me one better.  She convinced me I was beautiful and worthy and could do anything I chose to do.  She encouraged me to work hard and was happy for me when I played hard.  She supported me in every decision I made and loved me through all the many mistakes.  She gave me her shoulder to cry on when my heart was broken and she talked me through my fears of getting married again when I had met my soul's match on earth.  Mom encouraged me to be a good and loving and consistent parent with my two beautiful children.  When I was being a selfish partner, she called me on it.  She even was there to help me decide when I had 'enough' and should climb off the corporate express train and become my own non-career person.

My mom taught me the really important lessons in life.

Peacocks certainly are pretty and not very bright.

And I am not a Peacock.

Thank you, Mama.

Mercy On Me

I have gone to church most of my life.  My first memory of church was, almost literally, the little church in the vale.  It was a tiny, old Methodist church tucked well back a country road surrounded by woods and an ancient graveyard.  It was so quaint that it had two entry doors, one on each side of the church facade.  Only one door was used,  but there were two for that once-upon-a-time when women and men were required to enter into and sit in church separately.  There was still an ancient group of gentlemen that maintained their lifelong pews on the left-hand - mens side - of the church.

I loved going to church.  I loved the dusty/musty smell covered up with furniture polish from the cleaning earlier in the week.  I loved the coolness of the church basement where Sunday School classes, Christmas gatherings and wedding receptions were held.  I loved that my mom was the piano-player which allowed the 4 of us, my brothers and I,  (my father never went with us) the freedom of drawing on the bulletin, slouching, and staring at other people, which most children are expressly prohibited from doing and going into the giggles unchecked during the hymns.  I loved the way men and women dressed up - farmers during the week wearing their Sunday best to include all those hats.  I loved running around in the cemetery playing tag while the adults were filing past the preacher saying their say.  I loved the food that was laid out for potluck dinners.  I loved the way the adults would fuss over the children.  And I especially loved the music.

I was steeped in the old rugged cross in the garden of prayer, the rock of ages on sinking sand, being able for bringing in the sheaves,  and Christian soldiers marching as to war, then on to Zion.  I still have the old hymnal - barely an inch thick and dated 1944 - and thumbing through the pages I can hear, even today, the bass cadence of that east wing of old men singing 'Oh, come, come, come, come, come, come.....' while the rest of us were finishing the invitation to 'come to the church in the wildwood....'

There was a revival held one summer to convince us all of the fire and brimstone that was waiting if we didn't beg for the Mercy of the Lord as we lay down our sins at His feet.  I may have been all of 5 or six, but was acquainted enough with the ways of the church to understand the gravity of the alter call.  And to my mother's dismay and impotence to stop me (because she was busy rocking the rafters with her piano playing) I walked up to that altar several of those nights of that revival to admit that I was a sinner and beg that He have Mercy on Me.

I am not sure whether mother finally convinced me that repeated responses to altar calls were, basically, overkill and that Jesus did indeed know my heart and I could just relax in my seat for the rest of the revival.   But after a few repeat visits, I finally did keep my seat.

I was moved.  I wanted God's Mercy on Me.  I wanted to live in heaven and I wanted to be a good girl now, above all else.  It was only years later that I would remember with embarrassment and some shame those trips to the alter and wonder what could all those adults have possibly been thinking letting a small, crying child go up repeatedly to an alter asking forgiveness? 

Eventually, like many young people who grew up 'churched', I found  myself wanting to 'steal away'.  But this was now stealing away from, as opposed 'to' Jesus.  Somewhere along the way, the mortification I felt personally by all that begging for Mercy as a child translated into an anger, then disdain for the preachers who could so terrify a child into thinking that she was a black-hearted sinner who needed to be washed clean by anything, let alone blood.

It was only when Lauren was born that I knew I wanted my children to grow up with the church as a foundation.  Even though I had begun to veer from the path of a professed Christian,  I wanted my daughter to know the prayers and the songs, the stories and the traditions that were in and at the heart of me. 

I wanted her to understand that what moved me most about the message of the church was not fear, but Love.    I wanted her to know that Love was the only thing that really means anything in this world and was, really, the only thing we are 'commanded' to do.  In each of those 10 commandments  Love is the foundation.  I didn't want her frightened about the sinning and the blood and the dying.  I wanted her touched  - and led - by the Love. 

I was recently reminded that the beginning of my true, personal spiritual quest came when I was in my early 20's in the form of a book about a seagull named Jonathan. I resonated with the message and understood that there was truth there.  The book was written especially for 'people who know there's more to this whole living thing than meets the eye.'  Jonathan wanted to spend his time learning to fly - to soar - rather than merely existing.   So do I.

Throughout my spiritual journey I have studied various world religions and become aware of the similarity of most as well as the shared Genesis of Islam, Judaism and Christianity.  I was particularly struck with the truth of a quote credited to Martin Luther King, who formed the first Protestant church.  He said, 'No one can do my dying for me, therefore no one can do my believing for me.'  Amen to that!  Interpretation seems to be something that can't be told or given, but must be personally made.  I am convinced there is no one 'true' religion yet have never* questioned the ever-presence of one eternal (non-anthropomorphic) God that loves unconditionally and never punishes.

I say I am 'Buddhistian' because the tenets of Buddhism ring most clearly true to me except for my unshakable belief in God and God in us.  It is the lives - not the deaths - of the Masters that move me and for that reason I identify myself also as a 'Christmas Christian'. 

Recently I attended a funeral of a good and faithful servant of the church.  During the service the unanimous prayer to ask God to 'have Mercy on Me' was begun and I was shaken to my core.  Just as it seems ridiculous to ask the ever-present God, source of all things everywhere, to 'be with me' in prayer, so does it feel insincere to ask an unconditionally loving God to 'have Mercy'.  It dawned on me with the brilliance of sun in the morning that the one to whom I should be asking Mercy was ME, for in my life I have been my own worst critic and enemy and have rarely shown myself the loving kindness that Buddha suggested or that Jesus spoke of when he said to love our neighbors as we did ourselves.

God have Mercy on me?   Not even close.

But.

Loving God, help me to feel and know your presence in all things.

And.

Ruth?  Have Mercy on Me.



* Okay.  Once.


 

Wedding Tears

I have a friend, a Facebook friend named Ruth who I haven't actually met but have fallen in love with through her whimsy and through what I can only call her kindred spirit.  She uses the term 'wedding tears' when she reads something that touches her, or at least that is what I am assuming.  When she writes those words, there is absolute recognition of what she means in the very heart of me.

Wedding tears. Oh, have I shed many of those in my life.

Happy.  Sad.  Joyful.  Pensive.  Hopeful.  Wistful.

Weddings have always been a mystery to me even though I have attended several, participated in a few, had 2 of my own and been the MOB for one.  But the mystery has changed definition along the way, along with the tears being shed.

My name is Ruth and I was a wedding cynic.  My first actual 'wedding tears' were tears of anger.  What was all the fuss?  People who really didn't know each other that well were promising until death did them part and I didn't really think so.  All that money and all those people and all those guests celebrating something that probably wouldn't last as long as the toasters they were getting.  Oh, I was jaded, alright. 

I didn't start that way, of course.  I believed in all of it.  I was the little girl that walked 5 miles into town with her mom and stood in line on sale day for the doors to open to the toy store where I could buy a wedding dress for my Barbie.  The only 'store-bought' clothes she ever had.  And I wore the slip on my head and clutched the bouquets of dandelions picked for imaginary weddings.   I watched the movies and fell in love with all the leading men and cried at all the happily-ever-afters and believed they were true.  I watched Sound of Music and knew that two people could love each other that much.

But I was newly divorced and hurting and thought that marriage was a hoax perpetrated on those little girls who grew up wanting to be those brides and not really thinking about what 'ever after' really meant, happily or not. 

Angry tears led to heart broken tears.  My best friend was in love and marrying someone I didn't know very well.  I was afraid for her.  I was afraid I would lose her.  I was afraid of her getting hurt.  And I wanted the dream she was buying into.  She was very much in love and seemed to know what she was doing (she is still married, happily, all these years later) and I wish I had any hint of a clue to the mystery.  My heart was breaking for a thousand reasons.  She was so certain and I didn't know what that felt like. I was sure I never would.

Then the tears became scared tears.  I was getting married again to a man who was my best male friend and who wanted the same things I wanted and who was as insane as I was to be getting married on a dare 2 weeks after we decided that getting married was probably a good idea.  What were we thinking?  I don't think anyone who knew us would have bet we would be married 6 months later and that included both the bride and the groom.  Like I said, what were we thinking?

But the marriage 'took'.   Moves were undertaken and houses were purchased, Children were born and raised.  Fights were fought and reconciled.  Separate ways were taken then merged again.  Friendships were made and lost and kept.   Parents aged and died.  And 28 years later we are still together.

Tom is still my best friend and the love of my life.  And along the way, through him,  I have learned something about the mystery of marriage.  It is no longer something unexplainable and obscure, but that which is sacred, which is what I always missed before.  I didn't ever really 'get it' about marriage being a sacred, astonishing thing that two people enter into and that changes them forever.  Before it was just 2 people making promises they probably couldn't keep.   Now I truly understand that the two do become as one, if entered with eyes and hearts wide open.

And it is through Tom that I finally understand the mystery of Grace.  Unconditional, forgiving, always growing, undying, forever-after, forever-more love.

Lauren, my precious daughter, got married a year ago and I went through all the emotions, once again, for her.  Did they know each other well enough?  Did they love each other with their eyes wide open?  Did they know what they, individually, wanted enough to forge what they wanted to be as a couple?  Did they understand the sacredness of the commitment they were making to each other?  And I came to the conclusion that none of us really understands a thing until they experience it.  I knew that this young couple loved each other with a resolve and wanted the same things the way her father and I did.  I believed in them as individuals and could do nothing other than believe in them as a couple.  They will be their own family and they will experience the same things their parents and the rest of the worlds' couples have experienced throughout time.

Isn't she beautiful?  The light of my life and the center of my heart.  Remember the picture of me after the slide?  And the expression on my face.  Yeah.  She got those from me......

It is a mistake when we wish couples 'happily ever after' because that is untruthful and unfair.   Now, when I go to weddings I wish the couples one 'simple' thing.  I wish them everything.  Joy and sorrow. Laughter and tears.  Good times as well as hard ones.  Gain and loss.  Victory and defeat.  Because that is what life is made of and if a couple can expect to experience all of it together, then, truly the two will become one.  And then I cry for all that they will go through, all that I have wished them.  All I know they will experience together.

Wedding tears.

Birthdays and Tiaras

I recently had a birthday.  Most of us do.  But for some reason not everyone is as in love with their birth day as I am.  And I mean, I am in LOVE with my birthday.

I was born in May in the drowsy mid-50's in a sweet little town in Indiana.  We lived on a farm, though we weren't farmers.  We were just the renters, but the farm was working all around us.  Cows and tractors and lots of fields full of growing things.  Woods to explore and creeks to ford and all the time in the world to do it.  Winters were cold and white and creeks and springs and wells froze solid.
But May was my birthday month (and my Mom's and older brother's) and it was made for me.  It was a time when the first of May was still celebrated as 'May Day' and children made baskets for hand-picked flowers and hung them on doorknobs.  (I don't think anyone anywhere does that anymore.  But I remember it).  I felt that the whole month was made to celebrate my birthday.  And I knew that, no matter how drab the month may have started,  by my birthday the whole world would be the most exquisite green.  Only much later did I discover that the gem stone for May was the Emerald, which was only fitting; a green stone for the greenest month.

My earliest memory of a birthday may just really be of the pictures I have seen taken of that day.  Mom dressed me in a navy blue dress (made out of her wedding dress!) with a white lace Peter Pan color, black tights, white anklets and black Mary Janes.  We went to a park and had a picnic.  What I remember was a huge slide that did a twist and a turn before it deposited me laughing out loud at the bottom.  I know this because the picture shows me with this amazed, smiling, open-mouthed look on my face emerging from that slide.

I have spent most of my life with that look on my face.

Somewhere along the way birthdays got unpopular.  People didn't claim their birthdays or didn't want anyone to know it was their birth day.  I never 'got' it, but I played along for many years.  I pretended that I didn't really care.  Birthdays were narcissistic events or at least proved you were getting older, which wasn't a good thing,  and should be ignored. I hated it, but I went along with it.

Until I turned 50!  Five - Oh.  Something about 50 needs to be celebrated.  I threw myself a girlfriends' party and asked everyone (God help me, I did!) to wear red hats and my friends, being the  amazing group of women that they are - all of them - did!  (I am actually a little embarrassed about that, now, but at the time I thought it fitting.)  And my husband, who is the love of my life, actually planned a surprise party for the next night and all of the women who were with me the night before came BACK the following night with their husbands for Round 2 of Ruth's 50th. 

The cat along with the red hat were out of the bag.  I couldn't pretend any longer that I didn't care about my birthday and decided that, no matter where I was or with whom, I would love my birthday out loud along with all that it meant.

Because my birthday meant that my mother, who loved me so much that she prayed for a little girl to come into her life, had an answer to her prayer.  My birthday meant that I got the chance to come here - to this beautiful planet - to learn who I was and figure out why I was here. It meant friends and school and first kisses and swimming lessons.   It meant I could meet Tom and learn to love him the way he always deserved to be loved - and to be loved unconditionally by him.  And it meant that I could give birth to my own precious babies and finally know the indescribable love that my mother felt for me.  The circle was complete.

So, somewhere along the way, when I was celebrating another birthday - usually on the road in some kind of meeting or training class - I let people know it was my birthday and that, if I could, I would wear a tiara all day long in celebration.  When asked another year what I would do for my birthday I mentioned the likelihood of yard or housework, but always with that imaginary tiara in place!

And this year my very precious friends made that tiara a reality.

Thank you Jenny.  Thank you Helen.  Thank you Tom.  Thank you Lauren and David.  Thank you mom.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  This life hasn't always been easy, but it has always been an adventure just like that spiral slide.  What more could we really ask for?

Just for today....

Just for today I will not anger.
Just for today I will not worry.

Those are the first two of 5 principles of Reiki that Tom and I recently learned when we went through our Reiki I training.  The idea of the principles is to repeat them every morning and every evening like a mantra or a prayer and then to practice them throughout the day.

The premise, of course,  is that worrying is a waste of time and energy and that anger doesn't contribute anything good to yourself or to others or the world in general. And, Reiki being what it is, doing either just doesn't really match well.  Thankfully you don't 'lose' your Reiki when you fail miserably at keeping any (or all!) of your prayer (or your promise to yourself).

Because just the other night I had a swift descent into both, simultaneously.

The storyline goes a little like this.  My precious 85-year-old mom and I have made a pact that, since my retirement, we will talk each and every day and have done so pretty consistently for this past year.  But it had been 2 days since we talked and she couldn't get in touch with anyone and proceeded to scare herself sick with worry.

Which made me Angry.

I wasn't Angry at Mom.  I was Angry at me for not calling.  Okay, I was a little miffed at mom for even going to the Worry place.... but I understood why she was so upset.  Because I did the same thing immediately with my son.

I started to Worry.

I realized that I had called and sent him a text earlier in the day and hadn't heard from him, either.  And everyone knows that today's young people live with their phones attached somewhere close to their bodies.  If they don't answer or their phone goes straight to VM, something or someone is dead!  So I went to the same deep, dark place my mom had just been and for which I was still upset and couldn't sleep.

Then I was Angry at myself for Worry-ing.

So why do I/we do it, anyway?  Oh, I wish I knew.  I wish Anger and Worry were as easy to identify and abolish as Jealousy is, at least for me.  I know that when I am feeling Jealous that, basically, whatever relationship I am in is not a very healthy one and I, well, end it.  Pretty much just like that.  Not without warning, but if I feel that green thing descending over me I know I am in t.r.o.u.b.l.e.  And I don't like that feeling at all..... so I choose not to.

But Worry?  Well.  We usually don't worry about things that aren't very important or that we can do something about or about people we don't care for deeply. So it just isn't something that can be 'walked out' on.  It's genetically coded in our emotional DNA.

And Anger, I am learning, is just an indication of fear, which is the premise of Worry, to begin with.  It doesn't contribute anything positive, but it is certainly something from which something (about myself) can be learned.

I haven't solved anything yet, but I am still working on it.  And I am saying my five Principles every morning and evening, with this twist:

Just for today I will not anger. 
Just for today I will not worry. 
I will not get angry about worrying and I won't worry about getting angry.  
Okay???

Oh, and David is fine.  He dropped his phone in the toilet and it was dead.  

Ruthie B in love with.....

Baseball!

I don't have a favorite team (except whatever team David is playing on at the time) and I don't know hoot about stats or averages or records.  I just love the game.  I love going to whatever park or diamond it is and watching - really watching - the game.  

And I root for both teams.  This gets me very odd stares sometimes and, when David was playing, reminders of just whose team I was 'on'.... until my friends told the remind-or that 'she roots for everyone'...and I did. 

I love the hot dogs and the beer, even if it isn't (I just typed 'sin't' and thought that funny because typos are just psychological slips, in my viewpoint) on my diet at any moment.

I love baseball rain or shine, blistering or chilly.  I don't mind waiting for the game to start if it has been called off.  I want to stay to the bloody end, even if the score is completely lop-sided.  I just love being there.

I don't know why, really.  Maybe it is the pace that the game is played.  More 'real time' instead of the hectic pace of everything else.  Maybe it is the dreams of the players on the field.... dreams that may just be starting, or years of dreaming being realized.  I love the mythology and the story-telling in general.

Maybe it is remembering 8-year-old Nick in the outfield picking dandelions and hearing all the parents yelling for him to 'look up, Nick!'.   And he looks up just in time for the ball to fall squarely and solidly in his mitt.  Maybe it is the memory of the conquer-the-world smile on his face mixed with the confusion of 'what just happened?!'

Maybe it is the memory of a distant father who sat on the front porch in nice weather or in his chair when it rained listening on the radio to the Cubs or the White Sox play distant games.  Or the memory of watching my brothers and that father play backyard games that I was always too little to join.

Or maybe it is the sound of baseball being played in the park that backed up to our home.... late night games that I would listen to from the safety of my bed...... mixed with the sound of the carousel that still haunts me.  The sounds of summer.

Then again, most likely it is the memory of playing catch with my then-3-year-old son and watching him play catch with his father as he got older (and when his throws became a little too wicked for me to catch without injury).  And watching him in countless games through scorching Missouri summers and glorious falls.  He pitched.  Wonderfully.  Most moms whose sons pitch will admit they die a little when their son is on the mound.  Not me.  When David pitched all was right with my world.

Yes, when I am watching baseball, all is right with my world.

Who wouldn't love that?

Well, hello!

I have been wanting to, been encouraged to, and dreamed about starting a blog.  I am not sure why and for whom, but at least for me.  After 28 years working for someone/something else, I have spent the last year being a '4-year-old'.  Or at least that is what I told people when they asked me what I was going to 'DO?!' now that I wasn't working anymore. (whenever I hear that word, I think of the way Meryl Streep as Julia Child says it... 'DO?!')

Well, I didn't know.... but I did know that I had worked forever, or what seemed like it.

What is that about, anyway?  I started working when I was 12.... as soon as I could get my mom to sign the papers that said it was okay.... at the Dog 'N Suds in my hometown.  Oh my!  Car-hopping, wearing a little changer-thingy and delivering Spanish hot dogs and icy cold mugs of root beer to the customers sitting in the comfort of their cars, hanging the trays on the driver's window.  Making 50 cents and hour.  And tips.  I knew I was made for a life of service and sales when one day I came home after my shift and counted my money.  I averaged over $2.00 and hour!  BIG money and just because I was friendly, knew how to memorize orders and deliver them with a smile.

And I never stopped until I was (blubber-blubber-blubber) years old.  I worked every day after school and all day on Saturday and then  6 days a week in the summer.  And I couldn't wait to get in to and then out again from college so that I could get on with my 'real life'......

Well, why didn't anyone mention that 'real life' lasts a really long time (if we are lucky) and not to rush being a kid and not really having responsibility? And most of us won't go through our 'real life' doing what we really are passionate about.

That's why I chose to be 4-years-old this last year.  That was the last time I was as free as the wind with nothing looming ahead of me (like kindergarten) and nothing to worry about.  And, so I have been.

And it has been heaven.

Now?  Well, now, I guess, it is time to be 5 years old and start planning on what's next.  Which has never, really, been far from my imagining.  So? What do I love?  What am I passionate about?  What is it I want to spend the rest of my life 'DO'-ing?  (remember, give it that Julia Child lilt)

I love - and I mean LOVE - my family.  My husband of 28 years, Tom, and my glorious almost 26-year-old married daughter Lauren (and her yummy husband Erik), and my son, David, who is so amazing I get tongue-tied around him.  (Thank God I am his mom and can kiss him anytime I want (thanks to Sweet Home Alabama for THAT wonderful line) ((and must be thought of with a little southern drawl)) because if I wasn't - if I were my 22-year-old self that just thought he was perfect and wonderful - I would trip and fall flat on my face in front of him!) And my precious mama who is 85 years old and for whom I have every day of my life to be thankful for.

I love my girlfriends.  I always knew that girlfriends were the ones who would love each other through thick and through thin (figuratively and literally).  Men are wonderful and I have loved a few, but women friends are the glue that holds our hearts together.  They are there always and I am lucky to have many in my life.  I.  Love.  Them.  And I think they know it.

And I love my home and my garden and to cook for all these amazing people who keep encouraging me and telling me lies about how wonderful it all is.  Truth is, I am happy when I am cooking, and/or cooking when I am happy.... either way, NO ONE goes hungry around here and I am pretty much happy all the time.

But not always, or I wouldn't have been looking so completely forward to being 4 years old again.

But all that I mentioned I was already doing.  What to do to make the most/best use of the rest of my time here?  That is what I have been wondering about.

And I had a dream, which at first pretty much turned my world on end.  I could go into great detail, but won't.  Tom says that if anyone else had my dreams they would go crazy!  They are like reading books written for the Twilight Zone!  The long story short of this dream is that I was told by a shaman (beautiful with long, flowing black hair doesn't hurt the imagery at all) that I was 'made to love women'.  In the dream I knew I was given a precious gift in answer to my questions about 'what am I to DO?' (Remember.  Julia.)  But I had a family and was happily (now) married.  Was I being directed to change my life I was 'made to love women'!!!  In the dream I even hung around for the shaman to come out again and asked for clarification.  He said 'You love men, but you were made to love women.'

Okay.  So what is a married, heterosexual woman supposed to do with that?

So, I did what I do, which is to journal and come to an understanding with these amazing dreams.... then go straight to the woman who has helped me glue my fragmented soul back together over this past 4 or so years.  I call Diane a Spiritual Intuitive sometimes, my Spiritual Teacher others....but whatever the title, she has worked miracles with my head and my heart and I will be thankful forever to have her in my life.  I told her my dream and what I had agonized over and the conclusion to which I had come and she said..... 'oh, Ruth, I wish you had called me immediately.'

This dream-message wasn't about my sexuality (I am happily married to Tom, as I said).  This was the answer to the prayer I have been saying for years and what I have been working towards all my life: to live an authentic life, speak my truth with courage, wisdom and love and to make a difference in the world.

I know that giving birth to 2 of the most amazing children anyone could ask for had already made a huge difference in the world, but what to do through the rest of my life, and with everything I have learned since then?  My work was in training and leadership development and coaching.  I knew that wasn't an accident.  I loved that work and found it fascinating and fulfilling and wanted to take it beyond the corporate structure. It was my girlfriends who encouraged me to start writing and to work with women in workshops or personal coaching.

So. 

I was made to love women - heart, mind and soul.  And to draw them together and - with them - learn to love ourselves - and this world - into a place of sanity, authenticity...... love.

And so, it begins.