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May 28, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
My plane touched down at 5:38 a.m. in Charlotte. After spending a week in the Arizona desert surrounded by cacti, I have never loved Charlotte and the lush climate of the East, humidity and all, more than I do now. For the last hour, the rains have been pouring forth from the heavens with great determination and speed, rushing to the ground as if in a competition. The wind is bending the tall tree branches until they scrape repeatedly back and forth across my cubicle window. The gray skies have darkened the day like an early winter evening.
Passing over one dry river bed after another in the West, and still recovering from our own drought in the Southeast, the rain, always a welcome sight these days, is even more treasured, for in each precious drop there is nourishment. No living thing survives without water. Water is life. In our space exploration, it’s what we seek first when we hope to find other potential current or former celestial life.
For the few minutes I was home this morning before heading to work, I peered out my bathroom window at the weeping cherry I planted some four years ago at a mere three feet tall. At the end of last summer it stood tall in the middle with a few weeping offshoots, nearing perhaps twelve feet in height. It now towers over the deck, having gained at least another foot during our wet Spring. Today, I would swear it’s grown another two feet since I last gazed at it, using each rain in an attempt to wrest more share of the sun hoarded by the tall oak that shadows it and the entire right-most portion of our garden.
The peach tree planted with only meager hopes that it might live to supply edible fruit one day, it too is thriving in our wet Spring. Last year, its branches too weak to hold much weight, bore only one peach (whose pit I saved as a momento of our first peach). Today, the strong branches are weighty with many round blossoms. We watch them with anticipation, the tree clinging to and nurturing each one, growing it’s circumference little by little. like a mother grows a baby, letting it expand according to nature’s clock protected in her womb. Soon, we hope, we will have free peaches, sweet and delicious as they only are when allowed to ripen to maturity on the tree, enough to accompany a meal, enough for pies, enough for the wildlife. The Yoshino Cherries in the front garden, which I assumed to be only ornamental, are likewise ripening to bear free, fresh, untainted fruit.
Last year, there was not enough water. We lost rhodendrons. We lost hydrageas. We lost hundreds of dollars of hostas. This year, the rains return and with them, the life that cannot exist without them. The rain is magnificent and we so blessed by the frequency and relative dependability with which it comes.
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May 7, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
“The more you recognize and express gratitude for the things you have, the more things you will have to express gratitude for.” ~ Zig Ziglar
We notice what we focus on and we seek evidence to support our beliefs. If we (unconsciously) ask ourselves, “what’s wrong with people and the world,” we’ll search for examples to answer the question. Similarly, if we ask ourselves, “What’s great about life? What should I be grateful for?” we find very different answers.
There is much, too much, that needs fixing in the world, but while we keep an eye toward making conditions better for all the world’s inhabitants, we can also remember all the blessings for which we should feel joyous. We become accustomed to our circumstances and environment. What we live every day seems normal and blends into the background of our consciousness.
Much of practicing gratitude is considering our world without that which we love. Sometimes we become automatons and need an external reminder, an event that forces us to look outside of our inner world and routine. Through comparison to others, we are jolted out of sleepiness and staleness, and are reminded of our fortune and all that we treasure.
While downward comparisons can serve to open our eyes, we must use caution in measuring our lives by the conditions of others as we run the risk of setting our expectations inappropriately. We may feel more grateful for our small home after seeing a homeless person, but considerably less so when we visit the grander home of a colleague or friend. To experience gratitude, we must manage the delicate balance between acknowledging that there are always those who are doing “better” and those who are doing “worse.” We must assign the appropriate value to our circumstances, focusing on what we love most in our lives and not obsessing about what’s missing, particularly when we have contrived something “missing” that would never really serve us anyway.
As we make gratitude a conscious practice and habit, we need downward comparisons less as a reference point. We find gratitude intrinsically; that is, we notice what we love in isolation of other markers or references.
There is another challenge is practicing gratitude: to make it a habit in a way that keeps the experience fresh and conscious, but without making us complacent or lazy about what we have and where we are. Being grateful does not excuse us from being social activists. Being grateful does not negate our continued struggle to improve ourselves and the world around us.
At the risk of becoming like the Alec Baldwin character from an episode of “Friends,” not necessarily in any order, here is my very short and incomplete gratitude list for today:
What’s your list?
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May 3, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
So how do you pass the time while you’re listening to the Orioles game? There are lots of fine ways. For example, one could turn on the Bluetooth headset and listen to the game while accomplishing some of the numerous tasks on the “to-do” list. One could knock out the apple muffins and banana bread, or make scones and chocolate chip cookies, or attend to the laundry. One might even attend to the stack of papers that need filing, or finally complete the odious, oft-avoided chore of mopping the kitchen floor. All of these would be very useful ways to spend a couple of guilt-free hours while having the pleasure of listening to Joe Angel describe the play-by-play of one’s favorite team.
Or…
One could become utterly fascinated with the dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail and spend hours trying to document it using the terrain map on Google maps. As some of you may follow the Desert O’s blog, Weaver’s Tantrum, you may know that he is hiking the AT at this very moment. It’s long been a dream of mine too. I met a woman once who had just returned from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (alone) with a foot injury. She hiked the entire thing, downing bottles of ibuprofen to get through the pain over the six months it took to complete the distance. At the stops in towns, she would polish off gallons of ice cream. I met her at a party and was so fascinated that I couldn’t bring myself to follow party etiquette to mingle with other people or let her mingle with other people. I couldn’t stop asking her questions about the training involved and what the experience was like. She was my instant hero and I added the Pacific Crest Trail to my “life to-do” list that night. But you know how life is. You realize that some dreams, like owning my own farm, and a house in Italy, or being good friends with Oprah or Brooks Robinson will likely never come to pass. Some dreams are just too big for a little gal like myself to realize.
Now, after reading Desert O’s blog, I find that my dream to hike the AT is resurfacing. I’m determined to hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim. Maybe next year. My husband refuses to buy into my craziness and has promised the most he’ll do is meet me at the other side with cookies. However, hiking the AT I’ve tried to put out of my mind. It’s one thing to wear yourself out and deal with short-term misery of a couple of days hike, but to take time off work and be uncomfortable, cold, and hungry for months at a time, is quite a different question of stamina and endurance. After reading Bill Bryson’s book, “A Walk in the Woods,” I tried to tell myself that a hike like the AT wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be anyway. Yet, now I’m finding it hard to convince myself again that I’m not intrigued.
So I have already wasted a couple of days following the Appalachian Trail where it’s marked on Google, creating my own map, tracing the trail with placemarkers, researching on the Internet to find more maps to explain what happens to the trail after the Davenport Gap shelter near Highway 40, where the trail seems to end abruptly, and remembering all the other places I still want to visit here. Numerous places I’ve heard nice things about: Hiawassee, Georgia, Mount Rogers, Virginia, and for once, to time a visit to crisp Roan Mountain, Tennessee when the rhododendrons are actually in bloom.
I’m behind in my chores again, and the stack of magazines and books refuses to get any smaller, but what a rich, wonderful life I have. Times like this, I wish I could find the fountain of youth so that I could see and do all the things on my long, long list. The short hikes, I know I’ll get to one day. And for now, I’ll have to settle for doing weekend hikes and reading and thinking about Desert O’s adventures. He needs a trail name. Consider visiting his blog and making a suggestion. I think it should be an Oriole name.
I’ll keep dreaming and maybe it won’t happen for me, but I’ve already picked out my trail name. I don’t want to give it away but it has something to do with an outstanding fielder whose name conjures up images of peaceful mountain streams. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be reading my adventures of hiking the AT that hopefully with have nothing to do with bears, starvation, or frost-bite, but will include copious amounts of ice cream, and peaceful mind-clearing days.
(Hey if I can believe the Orioles are going to the World Series this year, I can convince myself of anything. And yes, I know that just because you believe something, it doesn’t make it true.)
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March 18, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
I have to brag for a minute. I don’t know how it happened with the copious amounts of mindless dribble that emanates from this IP address, but somehow I ended up with an exceptionally astute and bright audience.
You know how to take a hint and act on it! I laud you summa-la-ly.
Last night was one of those nights when my hateful brain decided that 3 am was my final hour of sleep. By a little after six I was in the office staring blankly at my computer monitor, hoping for at least a couple of synapses to fire. By eleven, I had realized the impossibility of that goal and had succumbed utterly to my fog, concentrating nearly exclusively on keeping my eyes open and my head erect. Then I got a call from the receptionist, “You have something here.” After my heart stopped racing from the startling jolt of the phone, I went to retrieve my “something.” It turned out to be a dozen, beautiful, red roses, each one perfect.
Thank you wonderful gift giver!!
When a lady receives flowers at the office, it generates a lot of interest, but when that lady’s husband works in the same office and knows he wasn’t the one who sent the flowers, it makes for an interesting, eyebrow-arching, squinty-eyed husband. It’s particularly interesting when said husband searches memory for potentially forgotten occassion and then attempts to scratch out the sender’s name on the attached note and write in his own when Enchanting Sunshine closes her sleepy little eyes for just a minute.
Keep the flowers coming, and once again, if you send me the deed to a house in Cinque Terre or Lake Como, I won’t complain.
Enchanting Sunshine apologizes for the incoherent nature of this or any other entry due to extreme sleep deprivation and general lack of brilliance or imagination. Reader assumes all risk in suffering or boredom resulting from any clickage within the Enchanting Sunshine domain. If reader wishes to send money and stop complaining, perhaps content of higher quality can be generated, but reader was warned after all and should set expectations lower and more within the realm of, well, realism. If you wish to pursue legal action against Enchanting Sunshine or any of its subsidiaries, claims should be submitted to Hawk, the Fact Checker, aka HFC, whose DC roots and part Italian heritage will ensure that it will be the last claim you ever submit.
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March 15, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
It’s been a while since I had an episode of “That’s Love” or “We’re All Going to Die!” so I’ll work on some “We’re All Going to Die!” news and let this post serve for the former.
I love the Internet. I can’t imagine now how I ever lived without it. How did I book travel arrangements? How did I figure out where a restaurant was? How did I stay in touch with friends (oh, right, I spent hours running up phone bills). In addition to the already wonderful things I love about life post-Internet, in the last year, I’ve added one more thing I love, blogs!
Maybe I’m just high on all the recent good news I’ve had, but when I read the posts of other bloggers, I see more than just a blog entry, I see an act of love. That’s right, you heard me, Buddy.
There are the dedicated Orioles blogs that compile sometimes lengthy and detailed facts and analyses about the Orioles that make it easy for me to stay informed. Sometimes I read the posts and there’s so much information I can’t even digest it all and I think to myself, “that must have been a lot of work to put together!”
There are the “stay in touch” sort of blogs that are meant to share daily news with distant loved ones.
There are the daily thoughts kind of blogs, that introduce readers to ideas or news, or share a small view into someone else’s world and what excites, frustrates, or interests them.
All of these blogs have something in common. They are an act of love in their creation. They give us a chance to share a connection, they provide information, they are a sacrifice of time and effort, and they provide a window into someone else’s soul, a chance to see the world through someone else’s eyes and experience a tiny piece of what they feel. These blogs, your blogs (listed over there on the left), to me, reveal a kindness.
Sometimes I struggle with the etiquette of comments. I want to post every day, “Great entry! Thanks for putting it together!” so that other bloggers know that their posts aren’t going unappreciated out into the ether, but I think I’d be a pest then and maybe served with restraining orders (and I’m trying to avoid that after the Cal incident (I’m kidding!)). So instead of commenting, I quietly navigate back to my starting page and think all the good thoughts to myself. I wonder questions to myself like “what’s Mindpinball up to-has he gone to see any games yet?” or “how does this Orioles blogger keep up with all these players?” or “why isn’t the dude with the wastebasket making any confessions lately?”
Again, maybe I’m just drunk on goodness (I swear I haven’t been to a California vending machine), but I wanted to thank all my favorite bloggers, if you happen to read this, for sharing a little part of yourselves and let you know how much I look forward to reading your posts every day.
May your Saturday be filled with love, soul enveloping happiness, plentiful affirmations about all you offer to this world, and something interesting to tickle your brain.
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March 13, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
The weather here today is GORGEOUS! I’m working from home and when I let the cat outside, I realized that I have no choice but to resign. How can I be expected to continue working when there are trails that need to be hiked in this beautiful weather?
The streets of my subdivision are lined with Bradford Pears and their white blossoms have just popped out in beautiful synchrony. It’s my favorite thing about Spring how all of nature seems to be having a silent conversation, working together to bring joy to us after the cold and lifeless winter.
It’s so gorgeous here in fact, that it distracted me from Spring Training. I just looked at the clock and noticed the game started forty minutes ago without my watchful eye on the box. Gotta go. Os winning…
Hope your Spring day is just as beautiful and joyful!
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March 9, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
Something is definitely up. I’m having an a-ma-zing week. Here’s a brief run down of just the last few days.
This morning, my laptop was giving me issues first thing, and I thought, “Here we go again,” but my husband helped me figure out a work-around and it was all good. Our attic is almost finished now, so any day now there will be order restored to my home. Not only have I been able to listen to the Orioles games, but they’ve been playing well, and a lot better than I expected, even for Spring Training.
Let’s not forget that I was able to purchase a ticket to Opening Day.
This afternoon, I went to the gym in the fancy part of town because it’s close to a grocery store I like and I wanted to combine trips. I haven’t been to that gym in ages, and was surprised to see that all the aerobic machines have televisions attached to them!! I think the gym’s video service provider is Time Warner, so that means if TW stops fighting MASN, I’ll be able to watch the Orioles while I workout this summer!
But wait. There’s more!
I went grocery shopping and there on the shelves in the snack aisle was a product that after fifteen years of living here, I had given up hope of ever seeing in my local grocery store. It was none other than the best potato chips ever made, Utz! Utz! My favorite chips…here! I did a little happy dance right there in the supermarket aisle. I didn’t even care who saw! What’s more is that there were two bags left, which is more good news… I promptly found the manager to a) thank him and b) tell him that I waited fifteen years for this, and to please not take them away again. He said they have been flying off the shelves. Utz have only ever been sold in a small geographical region, the very same region where many Orioles fans are. So that means…there must be others here! It gives me renewed hope for my meetup group. (Membership still one.)
Things just keep looking up!
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February 14, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
I hope that on this made-up, Hallmark-created holiday your heart is full of love for the special people in your life and you also know how much you are loved and appreciated. If not, just remember that it’s a made-up holiday anyway and really an odd thing to celebrate when you consider the slaughter it commemorates. Maybe you can make yourself feel better by, say, watching the Grape Lady shouting in agony, or pulling out your gratitude journal and listing some things you love about being alive. (Best we all do that before the Orioles start giving us plenty of reasons to feel depressed.)
If that doesn’t work, you can always resort to chocolate fondue:
~ Get a microwave safe bowl.
~ Pour in some chocolate chips.
~ Mix in some Kahlua, or liqueur of your choice.
~ Melt 30 seconds in microwave. Stir. Melt a little more.
~ Add whipping cream. Stir.
~ Cut up fruit. Dip. Eat.
~ Be happy.
Love and happiness to you!
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January 14, 2008 by enchantingsunshine.
This past Thanksgiving, I had my first Black Friday experience. My husband had been eyeing a new television and knew a store that was selling it for half-price, so the day after Thanksgiving, bleary-eyed and groggy, we dragged ourselves out of bed to stand in freezing temperatures before sunrise in a line that was a half hour wait just to get inside the store. To be more accurate, my husband stood in line and I wandered through Bed, Bath and Beyond for ten minutes only to learn with disappointment that the things women love most, like duvet covers, bath sheets, and Santoku knives do not go on half-price sales on Black Friday. Nevermind. I re-joined my husband in line and felt a bit like a little kid, kind of excited to be part of the Friday shopping frenzy I had never before set an alarm clock to experience. Once inside the store, we learned in an instant that the television my husband wanted was already sold out. Always prepared, my husband knew Sears might still have it. We headed there next. Not only did Sears have the television in stock, but gave us an additional 10% price-matching discount! We have two other friends who bought the same TV on Black Friday and we are the envy of them both.
That was all a long way to say that since Thanksgiving, we’ve had the old television taking up space on the floor between our living room and kitchen. I tried to give it away to my temple and to a friend’s church, but no one seemed to need it, a fact I find incredible. Before my husband came along, I had five channels (two of them were PBS - which was all I watched anyway) and a little TV that made my husband laugh when he saw it. No one was interested in this perfectly good TV. I could have donated it to Goodwill, but I really wanted a more personal donation, for it to go directly to a family in need, without them having to pay for it.
Last week, a friend suggested a local rescue mission. When I called, a woman answered the phone. I said, “I have a television I’d like to donate if you need it. It’s in perfectly good condition, my husband just wanted a new one. You know how men are.” She replied with a hearty chuckle, “Ooooh, YES I do!” We had a good laugh over that, men liking new TVs, even though I’m certainly profiting from it (though MASN in HD would be nice!). The mission people agreed to take our TV, so today my husband and I finally managed to haul it to them. It was such a rewarding experience. They received it so happily that I wanted to come home and fill up a moving van with more stuff and donate that too. It reminded me that my resolution this year is to do more charity work, something I used to be good about, but in recent years have done shamefully little.
Experiences like that, having contact with people who have it so rough, makes one grateful for one’s blessings. I spent the rest of the afternoon full of gratitude for all the love in my life, all the luck that has gone my way, all the breaks and the blessed life I’ve had, the chances people gave me that set me on a certain course…even my material possessions: having a solid roof over my head, heat, food, hot showers, clean drinking water. I could go on for hours about it.
“There but for the grace of God go I.” Luck, much more than any of our own actions is to account for all the beautiful things in our lives. In my humble opinion, it’s not karma, not because we are more special than another in God’s eyes, not because we’re more deserving, it’s luck. All else is an explanation to feed our egos so that we can absolve ourselves of compassion or responsibility in making the world the way it should be: a place where every person can love the experience of being alive. Any value we hold that allows us to minimize and dismiss the pain of others so that we don’t have to wrestle with empathy doesn’t help us to evolve. We shouldn’t excuse ourselves from action because we were blessed, judging others for their circumstances. We do what we know. Those of us who are more fortunate have a greater responsibility to help those who haven’t had our advantages.
I wish everyone could be and feel so blessed, and I wish there was a way to save today’s children from misery that one day we might not need missions, homeless shelters, hideaways for battered spouses: that eventually we will really live in a nation that we could accurately describe as civilized. When will we revere the quality of our lives more than capitalism and the promise of acquiring unlimited wealth? When will we get it, have a true respect for each other and get that we all do better when we all do better?
(Yes, I know I’m on some watch list now.) Sorry for getting preachy. It just happens.
Don’t worry, tomorrow I’ll go back to being sarcastic and flippant, but for now, I’m pulling out my gratitude journal and noting how incredibly good life has been to me.
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December 21, 2007 by enchantingsunshine.
I have five straight days at home!! Surely I will squander them on email and doing something senseless on the computer and then will be highly irritated next week when I go back to work and wish I hadn’t wasted my time.
Hopefully though, I’ll catch up on a long to-do list, including finishing those books on murder that I borrowed from the library. Last week, my husband was cleaning up the living room and happened to notice the titles for the first time. I was still sleeping and he woke me up to ask, “Is there something you want to tell me? Are you going to kill me?” In my morning fog, I debated whether it was better to give an answer to make him worry and keep him on good behavior or reassure him. I went with the reassurance and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. How often does one get an opportunity like that? Oh well, I’ll just have to buy a new chef’s knife and leave it casually on top of, “Green River Running Red.”
We each have our special Christmas traditions to keep.
It’s so lovely having five days off ahead of me, my wonderful husband beside me on the couch doing his thing, clueless that he’s the most loved husband on the planet, the cat on the other side lying in her new heated bed, clueless that she is the most loved cat on the planet, and a stack of books on true serial killers on the end table to warm me through the holidays. What a wonderful life I have!
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