I heard!

This week I listened for continuing education credit to a judge talk about the importance of listening. I've been thinking about it for the past several days. This is a kind man, who thinks it's important to be respectful and civil and courteous when engaged in the practice of law. This civility he speaks of is a rule of professional responsibility ... and I was happy when I read it for the first time .... but, oh-what-a-surprise, it is not necessarily followed. The best thing he said was that when a person makes a decision about what someone else is saying, that person has stopped listening and fails to hear the whole message. It sounded pretty basic, but profound, and it was beautiful. So many of us are not good listeners. It made sense to me that it is because we prematurely judge (or just judge) and therefore tune out before we should. I've been talking a lot about listening lately, thinking about how good it feels when I know and feel that the person I'm talking to heard everything I said, and how bristly and frustrated and edgy I can get when I know someone has tuned out or will never get it because judgments have been made and I feel with pain that that person has nothing else to hear.

Food (and Juice) for Thought

Last year I brought cashews and juice to a stranger at a car dealership who sold me a car headlight bulb and installed it for me. He was installing it just to be nice, and, as he said, because he wanted me to come back. He cut his hand in the process of installing the light bulb on something sharp inside the hood of my car. I told someone that story and that someone said I was creepy for bringing gifts back to him. I saw the same guy today, as I was coming back to get something else on my car fixed. He walked out with me to look at the car and I told him he helped me last December. He said he doesn't remember. I told him I brought him juice afterward. He said, "Oh, I remember that. That was the nicest thing that happened to me all year." I laughed and said, "Well, but you cut your hand ...." Creepy? Magical? Sometimes there's a fine line.

Equilibrium

My wise and thoughtful friend Suchanderina said recently, "If you give away too much of yourself too fast, you will get hurt." I've had my heart broken three times in less than a year, she observed about me. I wasn't counting. If you never give any of yourself, then you can be just as miserable. I guess I have to look for a happy medium somewhere, as usual.

Silly shortcuts that aren't much shorter

Cake mixes are silly. Taking an extra step or two by using a recipe to make a cake is healthier and much more delicious. I am in disbelief that I had not discovered this long before now. I wrote the same thing about spaghetti sauce many, many months ago.

Creativity was Living Under a Rock

Today I took a beautiful black and white photo, a portrait against some trees and a little sky. I made my subject laugh and captured a bit of true happiness, and I was satisfied with it on the first try. I was assigned to take this photo, and I was determined to do something creative with it in a job I have that occasionally and miraculously calls for the artistic nature in me to emerge. I also created a glorious dinner this morning that cooked all day and was perfectly and deliciously ready when I wanted it in the evening. On a small scale, I created what I probably alone consider a little magic today, and that is enough.

Sun Blue Green

Today I found the change of perspective I'd been seeking, and it was blissfully therapeutic. Not too far from here, but far enough, there were tranquility-inducing negative ions floating from a little waterfall next to a giant fossil rock where the soothing sun was pouring down on all of me. I visited a friend's three-room cabin nearby, swept off a few pathways and steep steps leading down to the Shaver's Fork River. All was mostly wellish again.

Thursday

Trying to clear my mind to let in new stuff. It's hard. How does one clear one's mind? Vacation? Fasting? Change of perspective? Deep breathing? Yoga? What am I doing wrong?