New Year ~ New Life ~ New Hope

The mother deer brought her doe as a sure sign of new life and hope. The picture was taken a few days after Christmas from our front yard. Not so unusual for those living outside the city. We who live in the heart of the city and just feet from a busy commuter train track, find these visits an affirmation that all is right with the world and our Sister Deer will allow us to live with her and her offspring.

It is a sign of new life, new hope and a positive blessing for the New Year.

We continue to ask the Lord to bless each of you as you have blessed us.

Happy New Year!

Counting Days To Give Us Patience

As children we learn, or attempt to learn the lessons of patience very early as we count the days to Christmas, Hanukkah, Birthdays and once in school the time of Summer Vacation.

As we seem to mature we continue the lessons of learning patience, counting the months until we can get our drivers license, legally drink something stronger then Coke-Cola or Pepsi, the days until graduation and Summer Vacation.

We enter the work world, thinking we have arrived at adulthood, what we have been so patiently waiting to achieve, so we can continue the lesson of counting the days until the weekends, holidays falling for a long weekend, and the time left until Summer Vacation.

While being schooled in the lessons of patience, we manage to accumulate stacks of calendar pages littering the roads we have chosen to travel as we learn the most important lessons of patience. Living for tomorrow on some happy and not so happy memories of yesterday.

Oblivious to today, except to be eager to have it gone, for we will be just that much closer to our objective day and perhaps even our Summer Vacations.

While still Christmas we can catch ourselves even speaking out loud,"Next Christmas (insert holiday or event) I am going to ask for, plan for, or have..." Seeming not to notice that what we had aimed for was now here. We even have been known to spend our Summer Vacations planning for our next extended period away from work, school, our so call routine life.

Somehow I have formed the image of humans, seeking patience while planning to learn, never learning a thing as we count the days until we can count the days.

Is that way the more things change, the more they stay the same? Could the lessons of patience really be about learning to be in the now... to see the world, enjoy the world, embrace the world given us today?

Learning to live Today as our Christmas, our Hanukkah, our extended holiday weekend. Taking time to live our Summer Vacation! How else will we know that, that time, day, place we long to be, has come unless we do?

As long as we are so busy counting, everything will stay the same, just beyond our reach, as we continue to count the days.

The Wonders of Nature and New Discoveries

Life is one of those things that just seem to happen best when we are not really looking.

Nature always amazes me! With all the chaos in the world, nature manages to retain it's order and continue the ebb and flow of what is at the core of being.

I had seen the mother and father of this family for several mornings on my way to work. Finally I just has to try to capture how well they had managed to keep their young one in tow while leading them into their new world.

From the safety of a hidden nest, each morning the parents led their brood across a well traveled road to reach the banks of Trail Creek. There I am sure the young received lessons in how to manage the water way filled with pleasure seeking boaters and thrill seeking fishermen.

After a full day of lessons, well taught and dutifully learned, the parents would gather the young once again on the banks of the creek and begin to retrace the morning journey to the safety of their hidden home across the busy road.

I am so thankful they allowed me a few glimpses of this remarkable journey into their new world.

Oddly they even seemed to enjoy the radio program I had been listening to while filming this remarkable family unit.

If only we humans would take as much time and care to prepare our young for their world discoveries.

Random Thoughts of an Aging Sort

Watercolor pencil drawing of a Sunset on the Southern Shores of Lake Michigan
Lighthouse at Washington Park, Michigan City, IN.

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Fine aged French wine. Aged sharp blue cheese. Aged Japanese Kobe Beef.

Just three items that makes one salivate with delight over the aging process.

Now add to this mix our own aging and quickly faces grimace, bodies shake and voices rise in denial.

How well we accept the age of what goes into us but find unacceptable the age we have achieved.

While it is popular to say 50 is the new 40 and 60 the new 50, in actuality for the majority of mankind (and this includes womankind as well) that is just not the case. We seem to adopt this way of counting as yet another mode of denial of the reality of life. (If your allowed to survive this long, this will happen to you... face it.)

Now at 65 years of life, I personally have no desire to say, "I am at the new 55." No I am 65. Glad and somewhat relieved and proud to have reached this mile marker of life. Still putting in 40 hours a week, enjoying life with my husband of 38 years, still worrying over a mature 30 something daughter, and learning to look at life through the mystical eyes of our Pug, AJ.

I have no desire to turn back time to a long gone decade. I am thankful to have survived to tell about it not relive it.

There are days I may wish I had a lighter spring in my steps or less character lines greeting me each morning, but as my body, who speaks to me in the most intimate fashion says, "Been there, done that, I don't think so!"

Age and maturity has nothing to do with growing old or growing up. I will never be old as long as I remain in the NOW. Growing up is for those who choose not to dream. I will never give up dreaming.

From where I was to where I am, I may have come a long way. But I still have far too many things I want to try, places to explore and friends yet to meet. This journey has just managed to shift into second gear and I am ready to roll.

I'll be looking for you just around the bend in the road... I will greet you with a smile and a big Hoosier Hug!