The meaning of the name Nancy: Full of Grace. I hope it's true.

Inspiration can be found in the funniest places these days – especially if you are looking for it. This product line originally caught my eye because some of the products have cute ‘Dick and Jane’ style pictures on the packaging. I wanted some just for the pictures, but I don’t like to use lotions that smell like food, even if it is cookies, so I had to pass.

My husband bought me some fancy perfume for Christmas, but unfortunately it didn’t mix well with my asthma and I had to return it. Instead, I found this lightly scented perfume and lotion from the ‘Philosophy’ line. It is actually what I had asked for, but Darrell probably didn’t think it was fancy enough and bought me something else. He’s like that sometimes! I already had the moisturizer, which of course I had to buy because it is called ‘Hope in a jar’ - and I believed it.

         So now, every morning I read my beauty products before I start my day. They probably do more for my mood than they do for my appearance. The lotion is called ‘amazing grace’ and this is what is written on the tube:

“how you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain. And so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. In the end, it all comes down to one word. Grace. It’s how you accept winning and losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light.”

Finding Beauty

Do you find that you pay little attention to birds in the wintertime? They don’t all fly south. This morning I opened the front door and could see hundreds of them, all in the same tree. As I stood watching, all at once they flew off – right over my house and into another tree. It was really a beautiful sight and a great way to start the day. I wonder why they choose certain trees over others, since they all seem to be empty limbs against the cold, blue January sky. I wish they would choose my maple tree, but perhaps it is too low to the ground. It has a nice nest near the top that I was only able to spot once the leaves all fell. It isn’t always easy to see the beauty that is right in front of me.

Last week my husband was gone on a trip for his work. He was sending me beautiful pictures the “river walk” in San Antonio, Texas. I stepped outside to get the mail and that is when I noticed a beautiful sunset. I snapped the picture and sent it to him.  He told me to print it out, because he also saw how pretty it was. I don’t live in an inspiring neighborhood. It is called “Country River Estates” and it is a mobile home park on the east border of Kennewick. You can’t see the river unless you walk down the road, across a ditch and up the levee. It is also not really in the country, but the neighbors that are considered “county” have horses and cows. To get a picture of the sunset I had to stand in the middle of the road and hold the camera high enough to miss the ugly houses below.

            That is also the night I noticed the nest in the top of my maple tree.  Sometimes I go searching for something decent to photograph just so I can ‘share’ it on Instagram. I think it is a good practice to look for beauty where I can’t easily find it – it makes me appreciate where I am just a little bit more. 

How much time?

I admit it – I still have those moments. For the first several months after I lost my job at the Tri-City Herald, my husband refused to drive past the building with me in the car. When he would accidentally find himself driving down Canal Drive, he would turn to me and apologize. He just didn’t want to see me hurt any more than I already was; as if the mere sight of the building could hurt me. It took me several months to be able to walk into the lobby and an entire year and a half to go beyond that to say hello to my friends.

Today I was driving down Canal, and as I drove past the Herald I felt the familiar tightness around my heart and tears pooling in my eyes. I miss it still. I’m not sure how it became so ingrained in my soul, but there it remains. I wonder if that feeling will ever go away. Mostly my anger is gone. After all, it is about choices and some of them were mine to make. There were times when I struggled over Accounting 201, or now, as I have mini meltdowns over Algebra that I find myself thinking – “darn you Tri-City Herald.”  I quickly move past those thoughts though, to the problem at hand, that thing that I must conquer.

I’d like to say that I am over it, that I have found that open window I heard so much about, but truth be told I still just feel the closing of that heavy door. I am proud of myself for doing so well in college but wonder what will come from it. I don’t know what good it is going to do me in the bigger scheme of things. As I near the end of my little education I worry about my future. This is not what I had planned, but plans, with no actual planning, are not fruitful.

On this dreary, drizzly day I will just have to forgive myself for that moment of weakness and the acknowledgement that none of us knows how much time it takes to heal the wounds. I will open the curtains and turn on a light and try to set my mind to doing schoolwork – with a more grateful heart.

A Gift

I’ve been reading the Anne Morrow Lindbergh book, Gift from the Sea. It is a pretty little book that I saw when I was shopping with my mom last summer. Although she can’t afford such things, mom bought it for me and said it was for my birthday. I have been admiring the pale blue cover for several months, but hadn’t made the time to try to read it. Oh, I had picked it up and read a bit here and there, but never giving it my undivided attention. I’m not sure why I always seem to be multi-tasking, but I think has a little to do with the lifestyle I’ve created – and the fact that the Internet is making us all stupid. We are all getting used to working, surfing, emailing and checking social networks so often that we seem to have forgotten how to do one single thing at a time – like read a book.

Well, for my Human Relations class one of the projects is that we can read a book about relationships. I am now giving Mrs. Lindberg’s ‘gift’ my undivided attention. I call it a gift because it is beautiful. It has taken me by surprise and some of the passages almost take my breath away. I could never hope to write a book now because the best one has already been written. This little journal entry of mine is not a book review, although I will have to write a review for my class. This is just a side-note about a thought I had while reading this morning.

I’m also taking a math class this quarter. It has pretty much consumed me for the past 2 weeks, to the point of tears many times. So, while I was intending to clear my mind of algebra while reading “Gift from the Sea,” it managed to sneak in just a little, but in a better way. It was the following passage:

“…how does one learn this technique of the dance? Why is it so difficult? What makes us hesitate and stumble? It is fear, I think, that makes one cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily toward the next. Fear destroys “the winged life.” But how to exorcise it?  It can only be exorcised by its opposite, love. When the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation.”

I guess my thought was how like algebra it is; you can only solve the problem of fear by using the opposite, love. It sounds a little silly now, but it is the silly little things that get me through the difficult days of homework and all of this learning I have to do.  I know I would be learning anyway, whether I still had my job or had found another before deciding to go to college. Somehow I tell myself this is harder, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe this will turn out to be the best gift I could have given myself.