word(s) for the day # 4

word(s) for the day

August 4. 2018

love.

xo b

word(s) for the day #3

August 3, 2018

For my inner Henny Penny, the sky is fucking falling, this feels radical.

Still, I'm going to give it a whirl and see what happens.

Maybe Henny will drop into child's pose and calm down. see hen in child's pose

In?

🌀
xo b 

~ Thanks to dear friend, Jane, for this card of encouragement.

word(s) for the day #2

word(s) for the day 

August 2. 2018

First, today is my daughter, Jesse's birthday.

Happy Birthday, my sweet. 🎉













Jesse's birthday is one of the happiest days of my life. I remember her steady blue-eyed gaze, the delicious lightness of her in my arms. I was twenty-two and famished after 24 hours of labor so we ordered a pizza. I ate three slices, took a four hour nap, then walked out of the hospital five hours later with baby in my arms and went back to our little apartment on N. Winooski Avenue in Burlington, VT.

🌀

Every day she shows me the Warrior Way with her strong, refreshingly direct, compassionate energy in the world. When life threw breast cancer in her path at the age of thirty-one, she doubled down on her inner strength.

Mom, I don't have time for negative thinking. 

Five years later, she is a key person in helping others with cancer navigate the insanity of the financial/insurance aspect. Recently she was promoted to Manager of Oncology Financial Services at St. Luke's. She's playing with the big dogs now and doesn't let anyone off the hook when it comes to patient care. Her patients fall in love with her strength, candor and insistence on living, rarely ever knowing that she was one of them.

She told her breast surgeon years ago, I think you need a happy person at this place. 


boom.

Just for today: trust I really need this one.

trust that you are where you need to be
trust that all is well 
trust in the mystery guiding you to the next right thing
trust that life is beautiful in all its wonder and weirdness

 

xo b 

word(s) for the day #1

word(s) for the day

August 1. 2018

While ~ 

downsizing and deconstructing a beloved home of fifteen years to move across the country to California into a postage stamp house, bracing this mother's heart to drop Claire off at college (California State University Long Beach) on August 18th, then flying back to Pennsylvania to keep packing up and get the dog (remember Chewy?) to drive across the country because he'd lose his marbles in the cargo of a plane, probably flying back again to deal with the house and then leaving the best people (like Jesse and E and my brothers and Ollie and Luca and Jessica and and Pearly and Ann and...on and on

I've been kinda losing my mind and crying a lot. Emptying a junk drawer can send me. Try it. See what happens. In one of my podcasts #14? I talked about STUFF and how we live with stuff and what happens when you let go of your stuff. It's not just on the physical plane, people.

There's some serious shedding going on. 

Yes, this is a big adventure and life happens outside of the comfort zone 😁 and I'm absolutely privileged to have the opportunities to do the things I do, and people are encouraging and my husband who has been working and doing the bi-coastal thing for a long time is so excited.

And it still sucks.

Apparently, moving is one of the top 3 things that put people over the edge, along with dying and losing someone you love? It all makes me breathless which is why I'm sitting on the back porch drinking a cold beer while the dog sleeps in the sun why does he do that? It's so hot. ☀️

The plan is to post a word for the day for the month of August. That's the plan. 

Maybe we can all pause and breathe and well, see what happens. 

love
b 🌀

 

heed the car wash, grasshopper 🌀

May 24. 2018

The car wash story has been on my tell-list from the beginning of the year.

Relax... Let the conveyor ease you through the wash 

That day, I followed the directions. Car in neutral, hands OFF the wheel.

It was thirty-seconds of ease. 

I've been fretting way too much about getting back here after being gone since January? I'm like my students who miss a few classes and never come back because they feel too weird or lost or embarrassed. Where have you been, I ask when (+ if) they return. Like when a friend says, catch me up on everything. How? I'll begin here:

Winter took it out of me, us. can I get an amen?

😳 We were in the company of thousands of other people. 

One storm (Toby?)left us eight days without heat, water, electricity. My mantra was, We have no power. I'm out of power - not a great mantra. That week was crashing trees, stoking the fire, a funky motel, sleeping at a friend's house, wandering through our dark cold house with camping lights.

Yup, this winter took it out of us.



Except for Chewy. 

Looking back it was a very tough labor with lots of cursing and moaning but today it's hard to remember how bad it was because the baby finally arrived.

I'm a little like this poem by Hafiz, like whoa what happened?
__________________________________________________________
A Strange Feather

          All
The craziness,
All the empty plots,
All the ghosts and fears,

All the grudges and sorrows have
         Now
        Passed.

I must have inhaled
    A strange
    Feather

That Finally

     Fell

     Out.

     🌀

I suck at letting the conveyor belt of life ease me through. Some days I am so white knuckling the steering wheel like I got you, mother f*cker. A serene image, yes?

Heed the car wash, grasshopper.

Relax... Let the conveyor ease you through the wash 

So right now, lift your hands off of whatever and float them up in the air.

Palms open.

xo b

I Only Know This

                    






Here's a short list I jotted one night before bed. It was - 2 when I wrote it:

The cashiers
Googling winter depression (see face below)
Rabbi Kushner's quote
Moving the body
Doing one kind thing
My button is bigger than your button? We're so fucked.
Why can't the dog wipe his feet?
The car wash message

Every January I'm surprised by feelings of crazy and crowded.














Then I remember. (Or a family member reminds me) Oh yea, I'm like this every winter.  It's minus 2. The windows are closed. Dark at 5:00 pm. All I want to do is nap and read. Eat Ritz crackers with peanut butter. Make lists. Drink tea. Daydream about the hundreds of bulbs I planted in December. I guess this part could go under Chapter 2: Googling Winter Depression. Stay tuned. 

I'm not sure why, when in stuck-land, we forsake the things that bring us the most joy but the good news is, we return. I love this space. I love doing the podcast. Keep an ear out for a new one @ (betsyjacksonwriter.com) It's +39 F out today. I'm ready to break out my flip flops.

Always, alway, we begin again. 🌀
_____________________________________________________________________

Chapter 1: The Cashiers

Marie at Price Chopper is seventy years old.  I only know this because she told me.

She said, I love being old. (I asked her to repeat that a couple of times for me)
She said, I'm seventy years old. I don't care what people think of me.
She said, I love my life.
She said, I love my husband.
She said, I have one glass of red wine at dinner - that's all, one glass.

Margaret at Target is sixty years old.
I only know this because she told me.

She said, When I turned sixty, I started watching tv.
She said, And drinking.
She said, I used to read, do crafts, always cleaning.
She said, I'm more relaxed now.
She said, My drive is an hour, that's not great.
She said, But I say, Okay God, let's do this.
She said, I drive with God.


_______________________________________________________________________


Peace and love to you and yours

          + 





xo b