Sometimes you just have to adjust one little thing
/**This Blog Post is dedicated to my daughters, who live their lives with more TOWANDATUDE than anyone I know. They inspire me every day.
I have a rosebush in my garden. It sits over by the little shed and is pretty much a non-producer, only two to four blooms a week. I am not the kind of gardener who likes to fuss with prima donna plants. Don't be asking me to fertilize or dead head you, because I am not interested. So the rosebush and I co-exist without much interaction. Which is a not at all unlike my relationships with high maintenance anything, plant's, people, or cars.
The other day, I got out my bright blue hand cart and moved the giant terracotta pot that houses her royal highness (said rosebush) to a location in my little herb garden under the pergola. Low and behold, two days later that bush was maxed out with blooms ! It's so pretty. That pot has been sitting over at the corner of the cutie patootie potting shed for the last two years and I did just one little tweak and there ya go, BLOOMS, ROSES ! Who knew ? Well, you knew I was going somewhere with all this, because you are perceptive that way and I am predictable if nothing else, so here comes my metaphor. Go get your coffee cup.
I don't know how you are, but I'd like to think I'm pretty transparent. Having been told this by a number of friends and family members over the years and not in a positive light I might add. They've said things like "You are transparent to a fault" "Your facial expressions are a dead giveaway" and "With you, what ya see is what ya get" you get my drift. So, I'm going to be upfront and transparent here and say that sometimes I can get "THE BLUE FUNK", a friend labeled this for me back in my Pennsylvania years. Not long ago, a series of built up disappointments in my world and in the life of a loved one was causing me to frequent the Scott tissue box. It was time to revisit my magic formula for combating disappointment.
1). I have to release others from my expectations. A friend said to me recently that "EXPECTATION BREEDS RESENTMENT". When I presume my expectations on others I'm headed for disaster. No one knows (unless I tell them) what I'm expecting, and what I'm expecting is MY thing, not necessarily their way of thinking at all. This kind of expectation is pretty self centered. It seems that SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO GO YOUR OWN WAY AND YOU HAVE TO GO IT ALONE. Maybe the ones who began your journey with you, won't be the ones who show up at all. JUST KEEP ON WALKING, PUSHING YOUR HAND CART AND ROSE BUSH.....
2). I heard Dr.Fuchsia Pickett speak when she was in her eighties. (Look her up, pretty cool Towandatude filled story) When asked, "How do you know what you are supposed to do in life? How do you get going when you're stuck?" her reply was to "GO BACK TO THE LAST PLACE YOU HEARD GOD'S VOICE AND START AGAIN".
We all have those moments where we cease to BLOOM and the BLUE FUNK overtakes us and it all goes downhill, (if you don't you're probably from another planet and not meant to be reading this Blog) In these times of BLUE, I go out to the back porch, have a little quiet time and try to think, "What was my intention ? Where was I going with all this anyway? What did I know in my 'knower' (that place deep inside where I am true to myself) that I was setting out to do?" I go back to that first step on the journey to my goal and start again, with a little tweaking usually. I move that terracotta pot just a little one way or the other and there it is. My course is adjusted, my navigation is set and I start again...
Then, all at once the roses bloom and all it took was a little tweak. I smell the roses, put the hand cart away and walk on alone, without expectation of anyone but myself and my intention to do that thing, the thing I know to be true to myself and what I know in my "knower" to do, and to do it with all the TOWANDATUDE I've got.
BE ENCOURAGED TO LIVE THE LIFE YOU KNOW YOU WERE MEANT TO LIVE AND ALWAYS BE TRUE TO YOU. May you be filled with your very own TOWANDATUDE !
Below, the two women who inspire me every single day, and their grateful Mom.
