Live(s) Inspiring Today
I wear my mask often, but not here where the air feels fresh and waves in motion move with the moon.
I’m conscious to pass by other people with a wide berth, and they do the same, mostly.
I watch clouds zing through the sky.
And I see two children wearing masks as they sit building a sand city. Maybe they came from two different families, but I can’t help but feel a longing for them to run free on the beach—fearless and in wonder.
Continue reading “Rockaway Beach & the Blue Plastic Pail”“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that something deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
e.e. cummings
September’s gift comes from Rosemary Powelson, once a colleague at Lower Columbia College. She taught art for many years, tap dances, acts in plays, and is a joyful soul living it up in the world. I think you’ll enjoy this travel story: She took her granddaughter to Paris–and it’s a lovely tale of how we can love each other well.
Thank you, Rosemary. I’ve fallen behind on my own blog-entries, but more will come. For now, how fun to share Rosemary’s story. When she told me about their time in Europe, I said, “Would you write that for us?”
* * *
One summer afternoon, some years back, my 10 year old granddaughter, Renée sat on the couch reading The Little House on the Prairie. Out of the blue she announced, “I want to go to Paris.”
“Sure, I said, when you’re 16.” I didn’t think much more about it, but soon I noticed her “Paris” t-shirts and the Eiffel Tower key chains hanging from her back pack. She had a big dream and trusted me to make it come true. I opened a savings account and started dreaming with her.
On her 14th birthday she looked me in the eye and asked, “Are we really going to Paris?”
“Yes,” I replied–and felt the train leave the station. Continue reading “Paris with Renee”
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
Carl Gustav Jung
Last year, at the beginning of 2014, I decided it was time to search out–or simply notice–people doing cool things in the world and write their stories. “Cool” is relative, of course. What’s “cool” to one person is “absurd” or “crazy”–or maybe even a pure waste of time to another. I’m pretty sure some of you will find the story of Kathleen Benz puzzling while others of you will be inspiring and wonder “What would that be like? To spend three years cloistered, without any responsibility other than to develop insight and compassion?”
Last year I also began writing articles for a local newsletter once in a while–highlighting people and activities of a local Buddhist organization. So, it only makes sense to merge these two “platforms” once in a while. Since I’m rather new to hanging out with the Tibetan Buddhists at KCC in Portland–and some of these folk have known each other for decades–writing stories has given me a chance to ask questions and get to know people in a way I wouldn’t otherwise.
Lucky me! Continue reading “The Way We Make Our Lives: Kathleen Benz Soon to Retreat”
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer,
it sings because it has a song.”
Maya Angelou
Last year my friend Stacey Hill told me she’d begun a ritual of gathering herself up three words to guide her for the year. She challenged me to do the same, and I did. But, by 2015 I’d already forgotten our new “ritual”. Stacey, of course, was on top of it, and I found a good old-fashioned letter in my mailbox: She announced her three words–“C” words.
“What are yours?” she wrote.
Finally, weeks later, mine woke me in the night–“R” words this time.
In the morning, they were still in my mind, so I texted Stacey. (No time for the old-fashioned letter, I wanted to tell her NOW.)
Only minutes after I’d sent the text, my phone rang–or, rather, sang.
“I love your words!” said Stacey. Which made me happy, and I asked her about her own, and we talked about the mountains of snow that kept her home from school for yet another day–as she drove her car home.
“Hang on a minute, Deb. The plow truck’s in my way!” Her driving in post-blizzard Massachusetts had me feeling nervous–but that’s another story.
Yes, in 36 inches of snow, this New Englander was talking to me (hands free, of course) while she drove home from a cafe! Continue reading “Risk, Reveal, Relate: The Poetry Circle Goes to Manzanita”
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly,
you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
This week I’ve invited writer and artist Majida Nelson to tell us about something that has inspired her life. You’ll love her story–one that begins on her 58th birthday–in the 99 degree “bake your skin off HOT” desert.
Besides numerous illustrations and art projects, Majida K. Nelson, writing as M.K. Nelson, published her first middle grade novel, THE RED ROYAL SECRET in November of 2012 (Puddletown Publishing Group). The adventures of camera-mad Lucky Lukenyenko, his best friend Ken Wong and tag along little sister Mei Ling unfold in contemporary Portland, Oregon but have roots in history. It’s a fun read–highly recommend!
A native Portlander, Majida and her husband, Mark, recently moved from the Hawthorne district all the way across town to Humbolt–our neighborhood in northeast. Majida is an avid gardener in the process of leading her neighborhood in the planting of more native habitat.
Thanks, Majida, for sharing your creative spirit and being the first guest-writer for L.I.T.!
Ride on! Write On! (or is it Right on!) and Boogie-woogie. . . I wonder if you have energy left to dance along the way. Maybe it is internal!
by MK Nelson
Pillion Post May 2009
Wait a minute…it’s my birthday. 58 (but who’s counting?) and how am I celebrating? Sweating in 99 degree heat in California City (near Mohave–as in desert) “assisting” with a flat tire change. Mostly I’m keeping “the mechanic” here above watered inside and out.
We were cruising along in the 99 + degrees doing pretty well for maritime types. We hoped to get into the Desert Tortoise Reserve before noon. In the shade of a gas station we stopped to drink water and to get our bearings when I noticed a Harley guy coming across the lot. “Are you looking for a tire repair?”
Bewildered, we looked down at our rear tire. The bike had picked up a nasty shard of metal outside town and pierced our new tire.
Bikers look out for each other and thank our lucky stars for that. It was hot. We had a flat. The town had no motel. We needed lunch. Did I mention it was bake your skin off HOT? Continue reading “Changed For Good: Motorcycling in Marriage & Doing What You Thought You’d Never Do”
“Cooking is like love.
It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”
Harriet van Horne
As we drove home from our New Years visit to Port Townsend–always an amazing eating venture with friends Paul and Sharon–I thumbed through a cookbook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library. I even jotted ideas in my notebook! I knew I’d get lost imagining flavors and textures, so I scribbled possibilities for first-week-of-the-year menus.
Mollie Katzen is author to one of the first cookbooks I used back in my twenties: The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Who wouldn’t love to cook from a book with such a great title?
Since then, Katzen has updated her nutritional understanding: Continue reading “On the First Days of the New Year: Be Inspired by Something Yummy”