I held them in my hand. I could feel the heat of the words; it was as if they would burn through my fingers if I didn’t look at them. But I couldn’t. Look, that is. It was against the rules of the game as the word of the day cannot be seen until the morning when it is placed on the refrigerator door do the right of the handle. And even though I am the one making the rules, I can’t break them.

At least not yet.

The kitchen still dark, I open my hand and gently place the words – one by one – on the side. These would be my words for the work week. My hand was still warm from the words as I climbed into bed for the night. I could hear them whispering to me in my dreams, begging me to “pick me” in the morning.

***********************************************

Pre-coffee, I reached around the side of the fridge and chose a word. I could feel the heat emanating from all of them, but I can only choose one. I slide it into its space for the day and allow myself to finally gaze upon it. Today, the word is from The Boy.

I could hear this word roll off his tongue and into my ear. It’s whispered to me with his growly bear voice, the one reserved for mornings and intimate moments. When I try the word upon my own tongue, it sounds foreign. So I will keep it in my ear all day. And when I think it or type it, it it comes out only in his voice, a gift to me.

“Glorious,” he says to me. “You, my baby, are glorious. Now be a good girl, and write.”

A combination of work and travel and household dynamics led to the almost abandonment of the backyard as a place to be and was a part of the burden of upkeep of a house. This house had become a burden, not a home.

Through the mirth of a happy accident, I fell in love. I began to realize this house could, if desired, be a home. A home where I could build my life with someone who I was madly in love with. A man who loves me back with as much (or more) passion. Bit by bit, as we began to plan for our future, I began to see this house as a haven from the storm.

And I began nesting.

About once a week, I would clean out a drawer or clean out a closet. I had realized that, although we had been divorced for more than four years, my ex-husband still had stuff here. Not just little stuff, significant amounts of things. Because it was easier to leave stuff he didn’t want to deal with as he created a new life with a new wife. I finally broke the hold this stuff had on me the day I took the wedding gown I had found in the back of the hall closet and put it in the trash and carried it to the curb.

It’s a fabulous story, a story to which I will not digress, but I will tell you this: it was freeing to break the hold my former life had on me. When I finally realized I had been given the chance at a real life with a man who loved me for me. And that it was ok to let go of the trappings, feelings, and burdens of the past.

After my eldest daughter moved out, I went on an all-out-full-scale cleaning binge. I reclaimed this house for my future. Bit by bit. Room by room. Including the back porch.

I’ve swept and cleaned. I’ve planted marigolds. I’ve planted herbs that I will cook with, like basil and sage and dill. I’ve also planted a couple of tomato plants, a cucumber plant and a zucchini plant. I finally took the indoor/outdoor George Foreman Grill out of the box in which it stayed after I bought it a couple of years ago and put it together. And I hung a beautiful little copper wind chime.

Every morning when I water my plants or sit and enjoy my first cup of coffee, I am reminded you are never too old to find love or contentment. Every time I step out on the patio to pluck a basil leaf for something I am cooking, I am reminded it is possible to reclaim yourself from your past, just as I reclaimed the porch. And just as I watch my little tomato plants grow, I am reminded that good things come to those who wait.

My back porch may be simple from an outside observer, but to me it’s a symbol. It’s a symbol to remind me you can give yourself permission to love. And you have to let go of some of the past and purge it out to allow someone to love you back.

Hope you are having a lovely weekend!

There have been more changes this year than I have ever had, and the mirth of happy accidents have given me something I never thought I would find:  love.    Not simply love, mind you, but a head-over-heels, how was I ever so lucky to have the love of a man who has become not only my mate but my best friend?   This is one area in which I find it hard to make words, as I am so incredibly blissful and joyous.  As a writer, I am also a voracious reader, so I find that it is often comforting to find the words of others that reflect how I feel.  This is from a letter written by Zelda Fitzgerald to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1919):

If you should die  – O Darling – darling Scott – It’d be like going blind.  I know, I would, too, – I’d have no purpose in life – just a pretty – decoration.  Don’t you think I was made for you?  I feel like you had me ordered – and I was delivered to you – to be worn – I want you to wear me, like a watch-charm or a button hole bouquet – to the world.

When life has finally given you a person that makes you feel complete it is the most rewarding gift in the world.   I am ever so thankful.  2009 has wrought  the most amazing changes as I begin the next chapter of my life.  Happy Tuesday.

• I was able to sleep in a little, fix some coffee and mediate.
• Spent some quality time just hanging out with my sweetie
• Cooked lunch
• Took a walk
• Grocery Shopped
• Watched a goofy movie with my youngest
• Washed, folded, and put away four loads of laundry
• Played a game of Scrabble in the afternoon
• Had dinner with my youngest, my oldest and her boyfriend as we watched Last Cake Standing

And my day is not yet at a close.  I still am looking forward to:

• Kids going to bed on time without squabbles
• More quality time with my sweetheart
• A clean kitchen when I go to bed so that the day starts fresh tomorrow

Who could ask for much more than being surrounded with laughter and joy and love? Sometimes, I think we put so much emphasis on the big events in life that we lose sight on the absolute joy in the moments of each day.  We are assualted with so many negatives out there.   In fact, there are some folks that I know who seem to live so deeply in the world of the negatives that they can’t find the positives; the miss the sweetness of the moments as they rush from one activity to another or lament upon the bad things in their lives.  Life is simply too short to dwell in the negatives.   I prefer, instead, to look at the sunny side of the street.

Hope your Sunday has been as wonderful as you.

I’ve known Miss J since the 6th grade, which would have made us eleven.   She spent the night at my house, was one of the few friends to attend my wedding shower; but I moved on to my married life and she went away to college.  The rekindling of this friendship after twenty-two years is really sweet.   As you cannot help but do, we discussed some of the folks we went to high school with, and those interactions we had in present day as well as those we had in the past.   Some folks, you see, are unable to live in the present and still cling to the lives of their past.   Some folks are interested in growing and bettering themselves; others are more self-centered and shallow.

She told me today that our freshman year, the purity and sweetness of my voice when I audtioned for the part of Daisy Mae our freshman year moved her; as an artist, she saw beauty there.  It meant so much for her bring forth a brief moment of my past, and let me know that it was something that she still remembered so many years later.  She also confided in me about an action of her past and I was now one of only six people that knew; she told me because she just knew that she could trust me to know and not judge.   A true friend, you see, is someone that you can talk to daily, and still have soemthing to say; or someone that you can talk to after two months and have a milion things to catch up on; or someone you haven’t seen in twenty years, and it feels like you had just seen them the day before.

I am so thankful.

Each bank gets an opening balance of generous proportions.   A person is in our lives whether by chance or choice, and their account opens.  Silently.  Efficiently.  With a large balance if you are of a generous and trusting spirit and of  kind heart.  Deposits are made on a daily basis.  Rarely do we notice the deposits because they are a part of living with those that we love.  It’s those smiles over coffee and the unexpected phone calls to report something as inane as the happenings of our day.  Each day a person is a part of our lives, deposits are made because we continue to like them there in our lives.  There was a connection of some sort that began the relationship and opened the bank.

We still don’t notice that the bank exists as it grows.

In the case of most people in our lives, the balance never falls below the limit.  Sure, we grow apart from friends as our interests change – or the thing that connected us, like a job or a class, no longer exist.    That is different ’cause the relationship was not about love, but like, and the bank account was never high enough to keep on the first page of our portfolio.

But like all bank accounts, withdrawals can be made as well. When an account is high, we don’t notice little withdrawals.   Little things like using the last of the milk or never taking out the trash.  Continued physical distance, like in the cases of long distance relationships, causes little tiny withdrawals, too.  Bigger things, such as hateful words cause slightly larger withdrawals.    But all of them are still small enough to not be very noticeable in the whole big scheme of our portfolio.  Sometimes, withdrawals are huge and cannot help but be noticed.  Things such as infidelity in a marriage can make withdrawals so large that it can’t help but be noticed.  In most cases, friends and lovers stay in our lives.  We don’t walk away from our family members.

When you are of generous heart and loving spirit, withdrawals are forgiven.  Deposits are made back as time passes.  Even huge withdrawals are forgiven if you are the kind of person whose heart is wide open.

But in some cases, the people that we care about the most continue to make withdrawals without enough making deposits.  The little things that didn’t matter in the past  begin matter because the account balance is so small.

Then, one day, the account gets so dangerously close to zero that you realize that the bank really exists.

In some relationships, such as a marriage, it’s when you go to a retreat or seek counseling.  In the case of a friend, you may decide the drama is too much to continue to deal with – or you may go on a girlfriends weekend to seek repair.  In the case of a lover, you may seek a romantic getaway – or decide to take a break in hopes that time – and your heart missing that person will add enough deposits in the account to risk opening your heart to them again.

There are extenuating circumstances in every relationship which are factors in what happens if the account falls below zero.    Sometimes, we cut our losses end a relationships, in hopes of salvaging a relationship with that person later.  Sometimes, the intervention allows hearts to open up enough that little things that made tiny deposits in the past are so appreciated ( now that we know the bank exists) the deposit doubles.

And sometimes, we are in limbo, hoping that deposits are made and hope that the withdrawals are reduced.  This can be a heartbreaking and contact with the account holder becomes mentally and emotionally exhausting.    We cherish the relationships we have that have a high balance though we may not always show our appreciation as withdrawal from everyone seems to be the safest way to survive this limbo.  Because living in limbo sucks.  We pray for the account that has such a low balance.  And we also pray that we don’t make too many withdrawals from the accounts we hold with others while surviving limbo.

None of the contacts have been of a sexual nature but from a friendly approach – how are you, what are you up to, what projects are you working on, can we make our paths cross so that we can have dinner – gestures of friends…of kindness and of laughter shared. But it makes me wonder – why me – why now?  Is it the full moon?  Something in the water? Maybe it’s the upcoming holidays?  Maybe a rough patch in their lives and they simply need someone to talk with…someone they know won’t judge them?

I doubt that it is my sparkling personality. Maybe it’s simply that people who have seen me when I have been vulnerable know that no matter what has happened between us in the past, I still care.  I forgive easily and though I don’t always forget, I do try.  Life, you see, is short – and I don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to learn something new about myself.  And I don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to share kindness with someone that I (have) loved.

I love easy, by the way.  I think it’s a gift you can give to others and to withhold it is harming yourself.  “In love” is different and I fully recognize that gem and that differences.  I may love easily, but falling in love is a whole ‘nother thing that I don’t do easily.

In some ways, work has slowed to a very manageable pace.   I am beginning to open back up a little…I tend to become quite withdrawn when I am stressed and overworked – as if my mind and emotions are simply full up and I close parts of things down.  Not that my world is all peachy and flowery – there are some things going on with my oldest that is quite stressful, but that is being worked on. I have faith.

I know that the lessons we learn in our lives are meant to teach us – about life, about how to cope, about how to be better or how to let go.  Relationships with people are often the way in which we learn those lessons.  At times, we are haunted by the ghosts of our relationships past – kind of like in A Christmas Carol.  Sometimes, it’s simply a memory or a flash of a Ghost of a Relationship Past that pops in, to poke you into being the bigger person and being the first to make contact.  Do the appearance of these apparitions means I need to learn something?  Or, instead, am I supposed to teach them something…about forgiveness and loving kindness?

I try never to be one of those people who lives in the past, but I recognize that without our pasts – and without the ability to be honest about the ups and downs of our past – are we able to truly live in the present.  Maybe the Ghosts simply want to be Ghosts of Relationship Present and Future…..

Well, on that note, I think it’s time for bed….but what about you?  what do you think?  What do you think about Ghosts?