May 2 2015 Day 56 Days are passing too quickly
Today marks the end of the my eighth week on the road. I feel as if I have just left home. If plans go according to speculation I shall be home in just another short 8 weeks. Is it just me, or does life happen too fast?
Started out at the gym by 6:00 a.m. then back “home” to shower and change for a lady’s spring brunch at Jeanette’s church. This was the Bay Area Four Square Church in Danville California. It is the same church that our family attended when we lived in the Bay Area almost 30 years ago. We personally never attended services at the new building. At the time we worshiped in an old theater. Right after we moved away the congregation moved into the new campus. It was good to see it again. We watched it be built.
At the brunch Jeanette and I sat with two other ladies at our table. A young woman named Marnie gave me this word of wisdom: “Be more specific with your prayers and when God brings it to pass and it doesn’t look exactly like you thought it would, trust Him.” Wouldn’t you just love to know the rest of the story?
Well, I also talked to the pastors wife, Cindy Fry. Here are her word of wisdom: “Draw away from the crowd. Draw near to the Lord. It is intimacy with the Lord that strengthens you and sustains you. That is where you find your rest.”
Sue from last week’s travels met us after the brunch at Jeanette’s house. We all made a nice lunch and had a great time. I met Sue while attending college. She has a brother named Jack that made us a threesome. He is the kind of guy that everyone loves. Twenty five years ago Jack was diagnosed with ALS. Because he outlived most ALS patients his illness was diagnosed and re-diagnosed and pondered and studied. Some doctors call his illness PLS, others disagree. PLS is essentially the same as ALS but with a longer life span. Well Jack has definitely outlived most patients. He is paralyzed and his limbs do not work. He is still able to eat a few things and swallow. He loves the Lord and has an attitude that is puzzling, not only to the doctors but to those around him. Jeanette, Sue, and I drove over to see him this afternoon. What a delightful time to be in his presence. He was even able to talk a bit, though haltingly, and with great pauses. There is absolutely nothing cloudy or foggy about his mind. He kept bringing up memories the rest of us had already forgotten years ago. It was interesting being with him because even in his debilitated physical state he was still trying to boss me around WHILE I WAS TAKING THE PICTURES! He was instructing everyone where He wanted them to stand for the photo session. I guess I lost control of that photo session. I did what he said. I may never see Jack again in this world but old memories have been revived and not only did I get to talk to him he was able today to talk to me. Sue said he is often not capable of speech. I felt another blessing added on top of my basket. God is so good. Someday Jack will dance before the Lord!
Good memories, good friends, good food, good talk and now Sue is gone. The house is quiet and my stomach is full.
Not a lot of action today. I still have a lot of stories to tell about those first few weeks when I did not have WiFi and got behind on my blogging. They will have to wait until I am not so sleepy. There is a difference of being tired and being sleepy. Tonight I am sleepy. I’ve been up since 4:30 a.m. and it is now 11:11 p.m.
Good night!
May 1 2015 Day 55 My Only Episode of Tired
I guess two months is a pretty good run of not ever getting tired during the day. Well today it hit. I haven’t worked out for many days due to lack of place, timing, and schedule. Finally today I hit the gym and probably over did it. Two hours, full workout, and probably too long. Felt so good afterward though. It is also a very hot day. Probably up in the low 90’s and getting in and out of a hot car sort of takes the starch out of you (or at least me).
Jeanette and Denny had previous plans for this evening before my scheduled trip interfered with their lives. They are gone tonight and I am happy as punch. I made a phone call to my husband and made a big mistake. I laid down on my bed and I could just feel the energy drain out of me. It really caught me off guard because very seldom do I ever have that happen. For one thing I don’t lie down during the day if I can help it and do not stop and even sit except to eat and drive and type. So…maybe I won’t lie down again during this day. Confidentially…”I will tell you that I am tired! It was only a little after 7:00 pm when I started this blog and hope to be in bed by 9:00 as I have a big day tomorrow. It actually feels good to be tired. Sometimes it is difficult for me to slow down. CORRECTION: It is always difficult for me to slow down.
This has been a coming down day for me. I am settled in and will actually be here more than a week. I leave next Saturday May 9th so I am feeling as if I have a temporary home. Wherever I am actually feels like “home” to me. Where my friends and family are is home. But at the same time I so love silence and solitude. I hear the sound of a clock ticking and it is like music to my ears. I am so grateful for the sounds I do hear. With hearing loss being prevalent in my family (dad’s side) and my hearing being so much less over the years, to have my hearing restored has been a blessing. That happened October 2013 and was a miracle of prayer.
So…here I am alone and loving it. I think I only took two or three pictures today of some flowers. That’s all I have today folks. Actually I will show you three photos. The first one is of a lovely rose that was on my dresser when I arrived at Vicki and Bill’s house when I arrived in Monterey. I love roses. The next is of a small beautiful bouquet of roses on the dresser of my room here at Jeanette and Denny’s. I know for certain that these must have been plucked from their backyard. They have so many beautiful blooming bushes of roses. I had forgotten about all the roses in California yards. It is just so amazing to see. And when I am walking by them I cannot pass them without smelling them. I actually think I could identify their colors by their frangrance with my eyes closed. All very distinct and unique olfactory pleasure. If you don’t know it by now I am a “stop and smell the roses” kind of gal. If we don’t look, we don’t see. I think my wisdom for this night would be “Open the eyes of your heart and appreciate all the blessings God puts on display for us every single day”. Such a simple gesture to place a flower in a room. But it speaks so much louder than words.
I had another good piece of wisdom offered to me today. I met a man, a perfect stranger in my eyes, but I think we both departed having been blessed. It doesn’t take much to have two persons start a conversation when God is in the meeting. I shared a bit of my travel story with him and he was actually the first one to bring up God. He asked me if I ever asked God about things. Can’t remember verbatim his first opening statement about God but that was all it took for us to realize we were brother and sister in Christ. He said some very affirming words to me (which have since been repeated to me by another totally unrelated person and event) and gave me encouragement and affirmation of what I am doing on my trip. I won’t go into the details but will say that it was confirmation that I am on this journey for a reason. I asked him for a bit of wisdom and he said: “Let your past help someone else”. That is very simplistically quoted and I am sure there was a little more to it. He said he would email it to me but I am writing now and will correct it tomorrow if I receive his email after this is published. I found out through our conversation that he is a Pastor of a Hispanic speaking Baptist church in Manteca. It was a delight to speak with him.
Just stop and think about what God has allowed to happen in your life, that today may be the very reason you are who you are, doing what you do, capable of helping others in the same situation. Use your experience and gifts to help others. It is a way of making beauty out of ashes.
I know these blogs probably get to long, but like I said before, even if no one reads them I am writing them for myself. It feels good to feel the keys dance under my crooked fingers as I express my love for words by putting them in written form. Words are powerful. Use your words wisely. I’m still trying to learn how to do that.
Hey, it is only 8:21 p.m. I might get to bed by 9:00 after all.
Have a blessed night.
Good night.
1 May, 2015 21:42
Calilily from Vicki’s font yard. My favorite flower. She cut these for me to take with me.
April 30 2015 Day 54 San Francisco Here I Come!
Right back where I started from. Well, not completely back quite that far. I was born in Arkansas but grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area until I married in 1973. And here I am again. There have been times when I said I would never come back to California and yet, here I am. Actually planning a trip to San Francisco proper for later next week. The rest of the time I’ll stay in the East Bay Area. Seems a little safer. San Francisco is beautiful to look from a distance but up close it is crowded and quite messy to navigate in. My word of wisdom for today is if you have a stick shift car don’t take it to San Francisco. It is dangerous on those hills.
Left beautiful Monterey this morning. It is always too soon to leave Monterey, the city by the sea. I am still living in the memory of the beauty I experienced there. And today, well today, I am in rows and rows of houses and long congested streets and lots and lots of people. It was around 40 plus years ago I watched this community of San Ramon grow and bloom into masses of people. At that time the trees were little. Now the city is a paradise of huge growth trees planted when I was a young woman. The streets are dark and shady and the homes have aged gracefully with beautiful lines of integrity. All in all, despite the miles and miles of homes it is a beautiful place to live. The surrounding hills show a light touch of green desiring to burst forth from last week’s rain. The brown grasses prevail on most slopes and often overshadow the hint of green. It give a beautiful aura standing proud above all the homes. This area consist of several canyons. A flat area of land where the streets and houses expand out to rolling hills setting stage for the mountains.
I have never seen so many mountains in my lifetime as I have experienced on this trip. It seems every state has their own particular design of mountains and they just keep going on and on, especially as I travel north as the mountains go north to south. The problem is, there is just no snow on them. Only saw a few very tall mountains with some snow and that was the day after the snow storm in Denver Colorado. By the time I left Denver most of the snow had already melted on the slopes. Pray for rain.
When I was in Oakhurst at my aunt and uncles home (by Yosemite) one of my uncles horses took a bad slide on the mud and fell hurting herself pretty badly. I called the other day to see how “Toby” was doing. She is doing okay and will survive but it will take a long time for her recovery. My uncle loves to ride and has actually taken his horses up to Yosemite National Park and ridden the trails there where no one can go without a horse. I can’t even imagine the beauty he must have seen. Well, I said all that to say this: When I was on the phone my uncle Jetton asked me if I missed being home. I told him I would think about it and blog my way through that question. He said, no, I just want a spontaneous answer right now. So I said, no, I don’t miss home. I miss my husband and family but I don’t miss being home. He asked me when my halfway point was and when I’d be turning around to go home. I told them I had no half way point, and as as far as I was concerned, that from the moment I left home I was on a journey that was leading home. I think the reason for that is that I truly do live in the moment. There is no other moment but the one I am living in. Each experience is an experience unto itself, to be savored fully for the moment(s) I am experiencing it and then I let it go for then I am living in another moment. Yes, there will be a time when am home again and then I will be experiencing the joy and thrill of that moment. But, to wish I was someplace else, or miss someplace else because I am not there would just rob me of the fullness of the joy I am feeling where ever I am at that moment.
Today was a special day in the fact that I had no plans except traveling from one location to the next. And the good part was that it was less than 100 miles away. It was a beautiful drive and I missed all the commute traffic by leaving in the middle of the day and arriving here about 3:00 p.m.
And I am here with my childhood friend Jeanette and her husband. Today was Jeanette’s last day on the clock at work. As of closing time today she is retired. She had her hip replaced in February and was on disability leave and today that leave expired. She says she doesn’t know yet how it feels to be retired. Funny thing, neither do I. But I’m practicing. Jeanette and I met when we were 12 years old at church in Oakland California. Our mother’s became good friends and thus we stayed in contact also. We had our babies close together and our boys used to play together. Well tonight one of Jeanett’s boys was on a TV show called “IT TAKES A CHURCH”. He was the bachelor looking for a prospective wife. The only thing was that it wasn’t him who did the choosing. The show was filed at his church with his friends and his pastor watching the auditions of the girls that would like to be chose and then the church chose the four finalist. Then it was up to Ryan to make the final choice. Of course mom and dad were proud as punch watching their young son (in his 30’s) do an excellent job of being himself. I’ve know Ryan all my life and he is a wonderful young man. I once did a model shoot for him in San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts. He is a gorgeous man as well as a great guy. We were all rooting for our favorite gal. We all chose the same favorite for of course we knew just which one would be the best for him! And he didn’t fail to deliver! We haven’t heard from after the show’s debut so we are wondering if they hit it off and are still dating. This was filmed several months ago and his parents did not know a thing about it until they were told a couple of days ago that the show was coming on. What a surprise they received when they watched the program because they didn’t know what it was about or what his part in the show would be. It felt very satisfying to be here and have the opportunity to watch this show with his parents. It was a fun night. Ryan lives and works in Southern California so he is not home very often. Ryan is an R.N.
Oh, one more incident I want to tell you about. I have a friend that lives a few blocks from Jeanette in this same neighborhood. We have been friends for 60 years. We met because we lived in the “housing projects”. My family of 5 girls lived in a small three bedroom apartment on the top floor. Albert’s family of four kids lived in the apartment below us. That made for a lot of angst with his dad because I often went to sleep with my coffee can full of marbles on my bed only to have them topple over in the night and hit the linoleum floor above Albert’s dad’s bedroom. Not a pretty sight to have him come upstairs banging on our apartment door saying things I can’t say here on my blog. Well that is how we met. We have been true friends ever since. Albert is retired now and he and his partner live close by Jeanette’s house. Jeanette and I were off on a journey to find out if I could get some passes to a gym and on the spur of the moment I asked her if we could stop by Albert’s. Albert did not know I was coming or in the area. Jeanette and I knocked on the door and Mark answered, looked at me and I just stood there with a silly grin and forgot to say anything. I could tell he did not recognize me. My friend Judy and I stayed with Albert and Mark 4 years ago when I was here for a planning session for an event I was “co-producing with a cousin”. Finally Jeanette asked if Albert was there. Mark recognized her. When Albert came to the door he immediately knew who I was and then poor Mark was embarrassed for not knowing me. I guess that is what happens when you grow as old as I did in such a short time as four year. He actually did not recognize me because of the hair style and the 80 pound weight loss. It was fun none the less to surprise them. They immediately made us feel welcome and we had a great short visit. I told them I had to do something to write about in my blog. The back of their house opens up to a beautiful yard. In standards of Wisconsin yards it is pretty small but he has made a small place absolutely beautiful. Other than the pics I took there I have no others today. I will post some for you to see. He has a rose garden oasis. This is blooming time in drought ridden California so these flowers are very precious.
I asked Mark what his words of wisdom would be. Here is his answer: “When you look at your life and see you have less time ahead than you have behind, take a a trip”. He said he did just that and had an amazing time. It seemed he really connected with why I wanted to go on this trip. He understood the value of the journey, one moment at a time, experiencing what life brought to you in each moment. That is somewhat how I feel. The value for me is what God brings to me. Everyday I see God’s hand and direction in my life and I am so grateful for the opportunity of this journey. It really is a journey of a lifetime.
Thank you for those who take time to read these pages. I do not feel bad if you do not read them, if they are too long, too boring or too time consuming. For me it is documentation of my journey of today and melding the moments of my past into the beauty of the present. This journey is bringing back so many memories and I find that regardless how uncomfortable some of the situations I’ve experienced are, I no longer have pain from any memory. All the negatives have been let go and there is no longer any pain associated with any one memory. All the pain has been released through the healing presence of Christ living within me for He has shown me the truth of what really is. It is a wonderful place to live.
And every day I learn something.
Good Night
Visions of Poetry 