Love, Love, Love (Love, Love) As Tall As Lions

Today was a hard day.  Then again, every day is a hard day (have I said this before?); it's just varying degrees.  My friend Linda said something about "grief upon grief upon grief", which seems a great descriptor to me.  How many levels of grief are there?  How much time have you got?  It feels like an archeological dig, as I navigate the layers of strata.  I have barely scratched the surface.

I had a good conversation with Sarah this morning about Life.... and then later with Rev. Amy about sound tech requirements... and somewhere in between Nance brought over some yummy pasta, which I had for both lunch and dinner.

Tomorrow will be two weeks since Eric died.  That's f*cked up.  In last night's post, I mentioned that I was going to listen to one of the two Spotify playlists of Eric's that I had downloaded.  Nope, I barely made it halfway through the first track... but, after I backed out, I scrolled through that one, and then the other... and noticed that this song appeared on each of them.  I've been waiting for E to appear to me.  I think he just did.

SONG:  Love, Love, Love (Love, Love) by As Tall As Lions

BOOK:  Remember Love: Words for Tender Times by Cleo Wade

POEM:  Mother and Son by James Crews

Though you’re gone now,

my body still remembers

being held by you that evening,

wearing my blue fleece pajamas

with a white owl on the front,

and you saying, “Who, who,”

over and over, both of us laughing

as you explained that’s the sound

owls make when they need

to find each other in the darkness 

before sleep, a way of saying:

I can’t see you, but I know 

you must be there.

[Even though Crews is writing this poem from the son's point of view, I am choosing to view it from the mom's perspective.  Reader's interpretation, right?]

QUOTE:  "Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could." ~ Louise Erdrich 

Trip Around the Sun (Jimmy Buffett & Martina McBride)

Posting this at 12:10 a.m., August 5; today is my 67th birthday!  What a boring, nondescript number/age but, hey, I'm just glad to still be on this planet, not only doing well but Doing Good, as evidenced by my new ventures (elaborated on in my last few blog posts).

It's actually been a good year since August 2020 (of course the bar was low from last year's sh*tshow), as we celebrated the election of a new President and Vice President (Joe and Kamala!), and are having regular press conferences again (Jen Psaki!)... most of us have chosen to get the COVID vaccine (if only we could convince the hold-outs to step it up, as their hesitation has allowed the Delta variant to run rampant)... we're watching the year-delayed Olympics... we're in process of auditioning a replacement for Jeopardy's Alex Trebek (I have some favorites, of course, including this week's David Faber, who I'd never even heard of before Monday)... live music and hugs are back in my life, although cautiously, given the aforementioned outbreak... my grandson Colin has only gotten funnier, more verbal, cuter (as if that were even possible!).

Doing my first volunteer stint this morning from 9-11 a.m. in the community outreach garden (so excited!), have plans to get together with Rob and Sarah for lunch (the new vegan wrap at Pollo Tropical), and not a clue what's in store for the rest of the day, but I have no doubt I'll be pleasantly surprised with well-wishes of all types.

I am still without social media so, I would love to ask, as I did last year that, at some point, if you are reading this, could you please wish me a Happy Birthday in the Comments box below (moderated, so it might not show up right away!) and let me know what you're reading (or not... 😍 )

Thanks in advance for celebrating with me, and much love always... 💖

My NR:  My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir by Jenn Shapland

Also, bonus horoscope overview; interesting reflections/predictions, and some of it is already happening!

Leo has a reputation for being self-focused, but this year you will feel as if the self you've so carefully constructed is being unraveled. The people you feel closest to will offer you reflections about who you are, and the truth may bring about a shift of radical proportions. 

New people will come into your life to assist you in uncovering more of your uniqueness and even eccentricities. Allow yourself to become a wilder, stranger version of yourself. 

With partners and close friends, there may be challenges as you learn more about what you need in order to feel loved. The key to success this year involves letting go of stubborn tendencies with regard to your significant others, and instead allowing more freedom and space between you and your beloveds. 

if you set love free, it could lead to even more security. 

Take time in late spring and summer to reevaluate your own aspirations and dreams for your life. Is the universe urging you to take on more of a leadership role in your community? Are you striving to live up to ideals that are unrealistic?

Are you too scattered to come up with a plan for the future? 

You are learning how to balance your desire for social stimulation with the need to make a lasting contribution to the world. 

Rather than than over-relying on yourself, listen to your chosen family and the broader community to see how your creative gifts may be best utilized. 

~ Rhea Wolf © Mother Tongue Ink 2020

SONG:  Trip Around the Sun by Jimmy Buffett (with Martina McBride)

BOOK(S):  Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life by Cleo Wade

Shit I Can't Remember: Organizer, Log Book & Notebook for Passwords and Shit by Phil D. Organizers

POEM:  A Whole Other Stage by Judith Viorst

I've reached the stage where my lawyer, my broker, my allergist, and my president are all significantly younger than I.

I've reached the stage where I recognize, when I'm buying new living-room drapes or a new set of dishes, that they're likely to be the last ones that I'll ever buy.

And when I'm starting to tell my friends some really terrific story, and I ask them whether I've told them this story before, and no matter what story I've started to tell, they say yes,

I know I have reached a whole other stage.

I've reached the stage where I find that most of the spaces I used to park in are now too small for my car.

I've reached the stage where I'm no longer able to call myself middle-aged because that's what my children are.

And when going to see two movies at two separate theaters on the same day, followed by eating a sausage-and-anchovy pizza, is what I'm defining as orgiastic excess,

I know that I have reached a whole other stage.

I've reached the stage where a lot of the reading I'm doing is at the market checking salt-free and fat-free and expiration dates.

I've reached the stage where nobody bothers to look at my driver's license when I want to purchase tickets at senior rates.

And when I'm out of town and I phone my husband at six A.M., and I ring and ring but he doesn't answer the phone, and my first thought is not infidelity but cardiac arrest,

I know that I have reached a whole other stage.

I've reached the stage where the people with whom I once discussed Marcel Proust are discussing inheritance taxes and living wills.

I've reached the stage where I couldn't leave my house for twenty-four hours unaccompanied by eight different kinds of pills.

And when I have to admit that, offered the choice, I'd - unhesitatingly - give up a night of wild rapture with Denzel Washington for a nice report on my next bone density test,

I know that I have reached a whole other stage.

QUOTE(S):  "And so it is of human life the goal to seek, forever seek, the kindred soul." ~ José Martí

"To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says:  Leave no stone unturned." ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton