Twist on a dream

Since my children have grown, I have had a reoccurring dream that I have a baby again. The dream is always filled with stress because I don't have any formula in the house, and I don't have diapers and I am not attentive to the schedule of the baby. Just totally unprepared.

Finally last night, I had a dream that I was taking care of a baby and I did not have any worries that anything was wrong. The baby was happy and in the playpen, and she even did a back flip and jumped out of the play pen onto the floor and landed on her feet! She was very proud of herself.

I must have had a shift somewhere in my consciousness, and I can nurture that baby again just like I did way back when. Maybe it is a sign that I am moving forward with other new beginnings in my life. That is what it feels like.

Have a Rainbow Day

On the beach for our last night on the cape. We tried to get there earlier in the day, but an unexpected thunderstorm kept us away.

And the storms just kept on coming.

Finally, it stopped enough for us to take a ride to the beach and as we walked the shore, a rainbow appeared in the sky... then a double rainbow.

We had never seen a rainbow over the ocean before. Beautiful. Everyone was so excited and taking pictures.

A rainbow makes people stop and take the time to feel connected to nature, to each other and to their hearts.

The picture does not do the rainbow justice as it went all across the ocean... like it was a sign.

Beach Books

July 2, 2007

We can not write in water.....we cannot carve in water. Water’s nature is to flow and that is how we should treat life… emotion, negative or positive. Do not deny it but always let it flow through and then away.
-Anonymous

I just finished reading a novel that was perfect for vacation,

A Year by the Sea, by Joan Anderson. It was very inspirational in many ways. How lucky for her to have a cottage on the cape to escape to for a year. Some of her revelations have come to me in less dramatic ways, as far as not spending a day on a deserted island with the seals. But if I had an opportunity to do so, who knows what that would be like for me.

I spent my time instead doing energy rings… expensive and dramatic and took just as much courage, but not sure it led me to where I needed to go. Well, more accurate is not sure I allowed myself to be led.

So today, I also started and finished, A Walk on the Beach, Ms. Anderson’s account of her friendship with Joan Erickson, wife of Erik Erickson, author of Childhood and Society.

One day Ms. Anderson was walking on the beach and she runs into Ms. Erickson and they become fast friends and confidants. Amazing….Joan E. becomes a mentor of sorts for Joan A. and she introduces her to her publisher and encourages her to write up essays about her year at the beach and viola…. she has a best seller and now gives workshops to women about taking time for themselves. Ms. Anderson had published children’s books before so she had been in the business.

I enjoyed both books; they were introspective and held my interest. In fact I could not put them down. Guess I was trying to find the parallels in my own life. Oh, and great quotes and wonderful mentoring.

I started with a quote form the book that moved me and I will end with another:

“You must go through some things crying all the way if you’re ever going to live with them without crying.” Howard Thurman

Happy Birthday to Me

July 1, 2007

Today is my birthday. Anyone reading this will have a guess that I am a baby-boomer, what with pictures of Arlo, Judy Collins, and my future Beatles’ post gives my age away pretty much. It is OK.

So I wake up to an empty summer house, as the husband went off on his bike ride very early this morning. I know the rest of the day will be mine to do the things that make me happy on my birthday. Simple and quiet and that sounds so good to me!

“Birthdays come but once a year and when they come, oh dear, oh dear.” That is a line from some childhood book. Could it be Winnie the Pooh? Not sure, but every birthday I think it like some sort of mantra stuck in my brain.

Ah, yes….The Beatles. Paul, Ringo, Yoko Ono, and Maureen Harrison were on Larry King Live Tuesday night because of the one year anniversary of the Cirque show in Las Vegas. It was sure interesting to see all of them together, because I don’t think I ever have seen the boys with Yoko.

It was all polite and nice. Larry isn’t that great of an interviewer and what in the world could he even ask them that they haven’t answered one million times before? Same, same, same.

I think about what I would ask if I was the interviewer and I am not sure that there is anything I don’t already know from all the press and all the books I have read over the years. I think I would pick out stuff from the books and ask if certain things were true, bet most of those books are lies.

The next day I was riding in my car and I tuned in to a radio station that was playing a set called, All You Need is the Beatles. Wow, haven’t heard a Beatle set on the radio in a long time, but I don’t listen all that much now with Launch cast and IPOD. So it was a very nice surprise and they played some of the older music, like She Loves You. Man, it was so good to hear that song and after all of these years. I got the goose bumps listening to it and before you know it, as I kept listening to song after song, I was crying.

Is it the music or is it because the music is the soundtrack to my life? It is hard to separate. And is it necessary to do so? I will have to check in again to 88.1 at Wesleyan again soon and hope that I can slip into the past again.

OH Bla DE, OH Bla DA… Life goes on ….braaaa… la, la how the life goes on……yeah, yeah, yeah…..

Return to the Cape

Here we are again at Cape Cod. We have been coming here for quite a few years, the past few renting this house in North Eastham. It is a house that suits us well, not too big, and roomy enough for us and some company if we want. I love the ground floor deck, and even though we have a deck at home, I never sit out there, like I sit on this deck. I wonder if it is mainly because when we are here, we are in vacation mode and I can allow myself the luxury of time to sit on the deck and do whatever I want to do. Mostly read or write. There is no where I have to be and no housework to speak of. Time stands still and we can relax and enjoy. Every year I say that I will take the time to do this at home, and I never do. So it is good to come here and just do what comes naturally. No set time to be anywhere, see anyone, and minimal chores. Got to love it.

I will post pictures of the cape taken by my husband. He likes to get the credit for his photos.

This morning when we arrived we noticed that the owners had done quite a few fix-ups and updates and my husband now has a suspicion that they may be selling it. We should buy it I announce, like we even have money to do so.

After so many years, it does feel like our home. I hope that an impending sale will not mean that we will have to find another place to go….so we will appreciate this week like it may be our last week in this house, for we don’t know it’s fate.

Writing this week will be easier. I will have the time and I will have places to write about. I have fallen very short of writing my goal entries of three times per week. Sometimes finding the time isn’t as big of an issue as getting the thoughts down or feeling motivated to write.

I wonder sometimes if anyone lands on this blog and if there is anything that one would find interesting. Even getting one post would feel like hitting the jack pot!

P.S. There is no Internet here, so I will write and post when I get home or if I get to the library.

Later that same day…. We just returned home from the new Wellfleet Theater or WHAT… Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theater. It is a beautiful place and the play was fantastic! We saw

The Clean House, a play about obsessions and relationships between women. It was funny and terribly sad all at once. The actors were superb. I enjoyed it beyond words.

“If the floor is dirty, look at the ceiling, it is always clean.” – Matilde, The Clean House