SPEAKING VOLUMES



Flower

Woke up Sunday morning as I do most mornings of late: my two cats (Smokers, and her daughter, Flower) purring and "kneading" my stomach with their soft, claw-free paws.

"We love you! Wake up! We're hungry!" they announced loud and clear without (obviously)saying a word.

I am thankful my cats remember me after my three-month stay in Myrtle Beach. I missed them, though I did not realize how much until I came back.

On my way to the kitchen to fetch them some kibbles for my kitties, I caught a whiff of coffee brewing and bacon frying...yay!  John was already up and fixing breakfast!

I am, of course, even more thankful John remembers me after my South Carolina sojourn. :)

In fact, with each day that passes since my return, it becomes more apparent that we missed each other more than we originally thought.

 

At any rate, we've been doing some "re-nesting" every weekend, as our house became a bit of a man cave while I was away.

I've been busy re-arranging furniture, curtains, rugs and lamps, and John has been hanging pictures at my request. Did I mention John hates hanging pictures? Yes, that seemingly small "honey do" speaks volumes about John and his continuing love for me, without him saying a word.

During today's re-nesting, by the way, I unearthed three rather dusty books and a magazine I had, at some point prior to my Myrtle Beach departure, stashed under my side of the bed:

The Ten Things To Do When Your Life Falls Apart (An Emotional And Spiritual Handbook), by Daphne Rose Kingma; Ten Poems To Set You Free by Roger Housden; The Hormone Diet (A 3-Step Program to Help You Lose Weight, Gain Strength and Live Younger Longer, by Natasha Turner; and a copy of Shambhala Sun Magazine's Second Annual Guide to Mindful Living (July 2011).

Speaking of speaking volumes!

What a jog down Sad Memory Lane...I remember speed-reading each chapter, each magazine article, desperate for answers, a solution, to all that seemed to be careening out of control in my life. Was that unhappy, hopeless woman really me?

Yikes!

Stuck between the dog-eared pages of The Hormone Diet, I discovered a slip of paper sporting a quote by the late, great Gilda Radner.

"While we have the gift of life, it seems to me that the only tragedy is to allow part of us to die -- whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious uniqueness."

Wow. I really had been struggling.

"In the midst of chaos, give your soul a place to rest," advised one of the other book's back covers.

Months later, as it turned out, I did just that. I left my life in landlocked Iowa and spent a quarter of the year living and working by the ocean, awash in the ancient healing wisdom of the crashing waves.

Perspective

What a difference three months by the beach can make! Regularly standing at the shore's edge, staring out at the forever-and-ever vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, tends to put one's personal issues into a more realistic, more manageable perspective.

Clearly, thankfully, I am no longer who I was before my salt water sabbatical.

Once again, hope springs! 


Still need some work on the weight/strength/living younger longer issue, but that is fodder for another post.

Awesome Iowa Sunrise

Point is (despite my whining about missing the ocean and going through beach withdrawal), it really hit me today when I woke up how happy I am to be home...grateful for my husband, my cats, my re-nested house, my fun job at our small-town grocery store, and the stark, awesome beauty of a wintry Iowa sunrise.

Living more mindfully by the minute, the transformation continues...