One word after the other

just let go and believe in the process

I have decided to take your advice… those of you who told me just write everyday whether you feel inspired or blocked. Just do it! So I hope you guys don’t get tired of me but here I go….

Think back when you were a kid. You had the whole world to look forward to. Every day was new and ready to be filled with memories we didn’t even know we were making. I remember summers with my cousin. She told me that I turned everything into an adventure. I love that. I remember that feeling. I had a pretty great imagination and she was a willing member in my audience. Those summers were magical. Our grandma’s backyard was our world and as we grew older we were allowed to walk to the store and sometimes during those walks, we’d sneak to the lake that was just a few blocks away. We made up stories of what the abandoned buildings might have been. Or maybe I told her my versions and she hung on to every word. I think that is when I really began writing. I’d make an empty building into an old boarding school for girls and describe their lives there. Or an old boarded up house on the corner haunted. And of course our grandparent’s basement was a resting place for some old limb or other body part that would come alive as we screamed running up the stairs!

If only I could find that imagination again. That part of me that kept us entertained all summer long! like putting one foot in front of the other, it is really just writing one word after the other until it turns into an adventure to find that story teller in me again!

Thank you for inspiring me to remember the magic.

When people disappoint you…

It seems a little ridiculous. I’m a grandma, and today I feel as if I am an orphan. Pretty silly, huh? I’ve been going through this catastrophically tremulous period in my life. My dad died way too young. He was 51 jogging around the block. My mom died a few years ago and I think it didn’t affect me as much as my dad’s death still does. Until now. Maybe because my dad’s was such an unexpected and untimely death and my mom was 83 and not in the greatest health. She was suffering and a believer, so I felt that she was going to a better place and wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. So, it was bitter sweet.

A couple of years after my dad died, my stepdad came along, married my mom, and promptly sold our family home that I grew up in. I was married at the time, and it was my mom’s decision, and I was happy that she was happy again and moving on. But there was just a tiny bit of a piece of my legacy and a little bit of my dad, falling away from the foundation I knew. Later, I would come to fully understand just what a pattern this truly was. The quick decisions, obviously not ever needing any input from me. Shrug, smile.

My mom moved quickly. They combined households and then purchased one together. Now they are selling the home that they lived in for a few decades and for some reason I feel like an orphan. Kind of like I don’t belong to a part of a family anymore. I mean, the one I came from. Now, I know, I am part of my own family, the one I made with my husband. And I guess that is the way it is meant to be. And the friends I have made in my lifetime have become family. But it’s a funny feeling when the ones that once felt like family, feel like strangers. And your beginning foundation or heritage is gone, like dust swept beneath the carpet. It just makes me sad. And writing is my way of figuring things out. But I don’t think anyone can explain this one to me. Except maybe… there are certain times when you find out people’s true colors and that’s when you make yourself a promise to never be surprised again. Because NOW you know what to expect.

Once upon a time.. there was this girl….

who had a family….

You have power in what you don’t say!

It’s about time! But I’ve finally begun to really embrace the tools I’ve learned over the years and use them! The one thing I learned that really has been empowering,  is basically shutting up. You see… IF others don’t know what you are thinking. They have nothing.  Sure you can blurt it out and remove all doubt. But I have discovered over the years that silence really is golden. It is amazing how empowering saying nothing can be.

Don’t get me wrong. If you have a good point to make, make it crystal clear if need be. Because sometimes it needs to be said indeed. I am just talking about after you have made your point. That’s enough! Don’t go on and on. Your lack of words can empower you. This is one of the greatest tools I have to learned over the years… Believe me. It works. Not saying everything on your mind helps you walk away without regret and feel pretty darn empowered.

**********

Say very little. No, don’t say it all!

Or it’ll bounce back to you, like a rubber ball.

Those times, you know, when you should have shut up,

when what you just said was more than enough,          

 and know, you have power in what you don’t say,

and have no regrets as you’re walking away.

For… I’m content to say just what I mean

and proudly walk away without making a scene.

Diane Reed ’21

It was the best money I ever spent

Sometimes in life, we give a little more than we have to give. Whether it is an extravagant gift, a favor, or just time we really didn’t think we had to spare. And sometimes the reaction of the recipient is so over the top grateful, it was worth every penny or second. But what happens when you never even get a thank you? I taught both my kids to say “thank you” it is kind of a parenting 101 no brainer. I wonder why or how some adults lose that lesson along the way? I know that there are many people who do things because they are just good and kind people. They don’t expect a thank you. They don’t notice when it is not given. They see a need and step up without even thinking about it and do whatever they did or gave whatever they gave because they wanted to. My dad is a lot like that. He has given to so many people just because he has a good heart. And I think maybe because once upon a time no one gave to him when he needed help as a kid. He is a self made success in his own right and through the grace of his Lord that he lives for daily, has it to give now.

I wish I could be more like my dad. Not letting my left hand know what my right hand is doing. (A quote my mom used to say that means not expecting acknowledgment for something we’ve done.) Not talking about it, or wanting anything in return. But lets face it, when someone truly appreciates something we’ve done for them or given them and are truly thrilled, there is something powerful that happens, that makes you feel well a little like, “that was the best money I ever spent.” Right?

It makes me think about all of the times we pray for something and our prayers are answered and we don’t even stop to thank God for answering something in such detail that we can’t believe it was just a coinidence. It was God coming through for us. I have to wonder, does God notice when we don’t thank Him? I believe that He answers in such detail sometimes just so we know it was Him. I know I fail to recognize all the prayers He answers daily. I know I complain a lot. But when I heard someone say recently, “It was the best money I ever spent.” in commenting on how grateful someone was in receiving a gift that they never expected they could ever afford but really wanted.  I felt the power in that statement and understood the feeling it emulated. When someone is truly grateful, you want to feel it and when you do, you want to feel it again.

We are forever asking God to do this or that for us. And when He does, do we stop and thank Him in a way that makes Him want to answer our prayers again? Of course, I am talking about earthly, feelings, I know He is above all that human nonsense. But we are told in Exodust 34:14 that God is a jealous God. He made us in His image so He does have feelings. What IF we are missing something ? What if we made a point of stopping and counting our blessings and thanked Him daily for answered prayers? We might notice Him there in our midst and just maybe it might change our lives and us for the better.

Oh Lord please forgive me

when  I don’t stop to say

“thank you” for the answered prayers

you answer every day.

Or even stop to remember

all the blessings that you send

and end up asking you for

something else again.

 

1 Chronicles 16:34

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Colossians 3:17

 

March

 

 

 

My mom

 

My mom and me

Terri, her sister (Pam also one of my bffs!) & me

Terri, Allen and I at his Oscars Party a few years ago…

 

March birthdays have always been tough! My mom’s was the 3rd and Terri, my bff’s  was the 5th, my oldest granddaughter’s is the 6th, my dad’s is the 11th, my daughter’s is the 15th and my mother in-law’s is the 17th and our nephew’s is at the end of the month.  I used to complain. But the older I get, I realize that I am blessed to have that many special people in my life born in March!

Sadly, my mom and Terri are no longer with us. Yesterday was my mom’s birthday and tomorrow will be Terri’s.  It’s funny, you really don’t know what to do. I mean, it stopped being their earthly birthdays for them when they entered heaven. But as long as I live on this earth, I know that I will always remember their birthdays.

I guess I am just writing this to remind everyone that life is short. And well… if you have a big birthday month too… where all the birthdays seem to be crammed into one month! Embrace it and realize how blessed you are!

It seems as if just yesterday my mom was carrying me around or I was sitting on the curb with my best friend. Or attending an Oscar party with her that our Kindergarten friend Allen has annually! March is still full of birthdays of people I love. But I wouldn’t complain if I still had two more to celebrate again!

A Heavenly Birthday Wish

I remembered you today, even though you are not here.

I lit a candle in my heart and shed a wistful tear.

But somehow I know you’re celebrating in a different way,

and don’t worry about earthly things like specific kinds of days.

Everyday’s  a celebration in heaven up above,

filled with joy and peaceful things and the most precious kind of love!

And so I blow out the candles and wipe my tears away

knowing you are celebrating with the angels, every single day!

Diane Reed 2019

 

 

 

 

Readjusting Our Gratefulness lo

 

I can still get up from a chair without using my hands. But if I am sitting on the ground, forget it! I have to practically get on all fours to get up. And it’s not attractive! Okay, now a lot of you sitting in a chair, just tried to get up without using your hands didn’t you? I’m blessed to be able to. I don’t take it for granted. Especially as the years catch up with me.

The older we get, or at least the older I get, the aha moments seem to hit like darts. Little realizations that would have been handy to “know” a few decades ealier. Perhaps why they refer to the wise “old” owl rather than the wise young owl and so on. Unfortunately, with age and the beginning of loss, also comes losing loved ones, friends, family and mentors that have taught us all that wise stuff.

I am sitting here, early in the morning of the last day of a trip to Oregon. The visit that brought us here was for a Memorial for my husband’s sweet aunt. Recently, we’d bonded more with his aunt and uncle in the last couple of years and I’d gotten to know Carol in a different kind of way than just a part of my husband’s family in another state. They’d moved near us for a couple of years until health issues brought them back to Oregon. But during the time I’ve been part of this family that linked us, and all the stories my mother in law shared with me, the link that bonded us was writing. Carol was a talented writer and it connected us in a way that passions link people.

We talked a lot about attending writing seminars together. She in fact was the one who told me about the two writing magazines I still receive to this day. And the one that made me more serious about writing my book (still waiting to be tweaked and edited and tweaked some more but it’s finished because of Carol) and starting this blog. In fact, she was one of the ones who faithfully read it and usually commented. In all the other important places she has left a gaping hole for everyone else, I feel silly kind of silly saying I notice a great big hole here. But I do.

A large portion of Carol’s memorial was in the reading of excerpts from her writings. And it made me remember a time when my dad died and I scrambled, looking for anything my dad had written. I guess in a way to salvage a piece of his heart. Writing really is a little bit like a glimpse of being able to see inside someone’s soul. Whether just a note that someone wrote, or a blog or a book or a collection of poetry found in a tucked away journal. Though, I kind of cringe at  the thought of anybody reading  my journals.  I’m not sure I’d want ANYBODY to read a few of those

I guess like in life, you can’t help but wonder, or at least it made me wonder as I sat there remembering Carol,  what kind of memories  and stories would I leave behind? Like me, Carol’s life wasn’t always without pain or good and bad choices that effected her children and their memories, but as I stood a little as an observer and on the outside of all the history that came before I knew Carol, and watched everyone come together in honor of this amazing woman, I had no doubt that her love rose above it all. There was no doubt that she loved and touched every life that was there that day.

I know that I made some pretty significant friendships and reconnected with some others and it made me realize that life is this amazing journey. And it really is all about love and making an effort to make a difference. So someday when we are gone our life will make our loved ones reflect and heal old wounds and reconnect in important ways.

I wonder, why does it take us so long to slow us down enough to realize how important some things are, and how unimportant others are? Perhaps, why He has alloted our bodies a certain amount of time to move fast and then slow us down to GET the things we missed along the way? The other day, I watched my granddaughter jump up from down on the ground when I called her, not using her hands to get up, and I thought… I remember when I could get up not using my hands, when life was still so unlived, and my body still almost brand new and how I probably didn’t even appreciate being able to do that when I could.  And how the older we get, we learn to really recognize the little blessings we missed along the way. And sometimes  we readjust our gratefulness and it sticks.

Like A Flip Book

I feel as if my life is so out of control right now. I’m kind of having a little panic attack as I do the bills.  I have no job. I mean it simply hit me that I am unemployed! My parents are aging and I am worried about that, as roles reverse and I feel the pressure. It almost feels as if my life is like a little “flip book” as all the years just flash before my eyes.

From riding in the back seat of my daddy’s car and watching the moon follow me, I remember falling asleep only to wake up as he carries me in the house, feeling safe and so content. And then all of a sudden, first dates and the ups and downs of falling in love for the first time and a couple more times after that. Of weddings and having babies, of miscarriages and parties and funerals and then more baby showers, a painful divorce and another chance and another wedding, in-between the pain of failure and the whirlwind of just living life and trying to survive with all the joys and heart aches that come with it. Never feeling that the good times lasted too long but looking back “now” and feeling that even the bad times were kind of the good old days.

I remember shopping with my daughter her freshman year of high school. We had a budget every year. My kids always got the first day of school outfit and some other new outfits, new shoes and a new backpack with school supplies. I guess it was so special for me because my dad always took me school shopping and it was this amazing tradition that I treasure more than I ever did when it was happening.

The year I remember most, my daughter and I were on a vacation with my childhood best friend. She was blessed with never needing a budget and her kids usually came out with a bag of something from each shop we went in. The girls had run ahead of us and when we walked in the store they were all already shopping. My friend’s daughters started handing their mom clothes they’d chosen, when  my daughter ran up to me with a jacket that made her eyes sparkle. I looked at the price tag and with a raised eyebrow said, “you know this one jacket is a third of your school clothes budget!” Without missing a beat she just put it back on the rack as my friend purchased more items for her daughters as they ran ahead to the next shop and my daughter happily followed.

Something kicked me deep in my heart, the way she didn’t argue or even mope. At that moment I felt richer than all the money I could ever need. It only took a second for me to grab that jacket and take out my credit card and decide that I’d just have to figure out how to stretch the budget  for that year. When I reached my daughter I handed her the bag and said, “this won’t count as part of your budget.” She burst into tears hugging me and said “Oh mama, thank you but it’s too much!” It was probably one of my best purchases I ever made. Later my stunned friend asked me, “How do you make a kid be so appreciative?” I knew that it was kind of a rhetorical question so I didn’t say what I wanted to, but the answer is  you don’t buy your kid everything they want so they appreciate the things they do get.”

Today my daughter buys her own clothes and lives her own life. Both my kids have little parts of me in them but they are mostly themselves. And I am happy they are strong and have their own personalities and are creating their own way. But at the same time I wonder where it all went? The time of buying clothes and setting curfews and driving them to this place or that place, well it sends me to a place where I feel the pages flipping by. In a way, I wonder where it all went. So fast? in my flip book of a life!

I remember my grandma telling me how in her seventies she still felt seventeen. Me too! Now as I look to my future I feel that flip book, remembering the box boy who called me Ma’am in my thirties! Or the woman at Ross asking me if I wanted the Senior Discount in my forties! I remember being size five! Where did it all go?! That little girl I once was, is just a ghost of me, but still deep down inside somewhere.

Like a flip book, I want to slow it all down, I want a do over! But then I realize that someday, these will be the good old days and that today is the oldest I have ever been and the youngest I will ever be again!

“It’s Okay Sir, There’s No One In That Car”

Anyone who has followed my blog knows this story… but sometimes I just need to remind myself of all my blessings. So please bear with me as I remember.

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I was feeling a little sorry for myself, having recently been laid off, but still trying to finish out my “time” when it dawned on me what anniversary it was, and how thirteen years ago today, I was bustling around our little store, turning on the Christmas music and the fireplace. Making hot apple cider and setting out cookies.

My daughter and I had just pulled up in front of our little gift store, Rose In The Woods, to “open” as we waited for our employee Caroline to relieve  us long enough to go Christmas shopping.

All month long I’d hear our customers say… “This is my last gift I have to buy!” and I’d panic, because I hadn’t bought anything yet, besides the gold watch I’d ordered for my husband and just picked up from Pan Jewelers, a local merchant in our building , a few days earlier.

As we pulled up, my daughter Brooke asked to wait in the car but I coaxed her into helping me open, promising that with her help, we’d get out of there sooner to go shop! Just as the Fed Ex guy showed up with a back order of quilts, Caroline, our employee walked in the door as Brooke implored,”No mom pleeease don’t open that box!”  knowing that normally, I took the time to open each quilt and hang them on a fat dowel to display. I decided to compromise saying that she could just price them in their zippered plastic packages and was about to find a basket to put them in when the phone rang and my husband was calling from across the street where he’d recently moved his printing business in order for us both to have more room. Asking if Brooke could run over and  pick up a mug for a customer who was scheduled to pick it up that morning.

We both rolled our eyes as if to say “we are never going to get out of here” as Brooke ran across the street. And another customer walked in. I’d just found a basket for the quilts when we heard a loud bang and all of a sudden our painted wooden floor began to buckle and roll as the room began to shake for what seemed like several minutes. I can’t say why, but I directed everybody to get in the back of the store and as they did, the roof caved in, right where my baby would have been placing that basket filled with quilts.

Not knowing, that when our roof caved in, it had also slid off of the building onto the cars below, including our car that Brooke had asked to wait in! I ran outside to find my baby still holding the mug, crying in her Dad’s arms as they surveyed the crunched building that used to hold Rose In The Woods. Not yet knowing about the two women killed right next door, I ran to them. As we stood huddled in the middle of Park Street that day, we watched as heroes began pulling the bricks from things.  I  suddenly noticed as they started removing bricks from my car. So I ran over, and choking back a sob I tapped on the shoulder of one of the firefighters and said…”It’s okay sir, there’s no one in that car.”

If I Let You In… Please Don’t Break Anything

..

 In San Mateo… in my front yard… I wonder if I never moved who I’d be today… ?

At a very early age, I learned how to put up walls. Probably because… when I was younger, I was always the “new kid.” My dad was up and coming. A Mattel Executive, right when they were introducing Barbie and Hot Wheels. He rode the wave  and then in the 70s he seemed to settle into a computer Company called CSC in El Segundo and remained there for several years as one of their Vice Presidents. When I was nine, we finally landed in a Southern CA Community called;  Palos Verdes Peninsula, where other up and coming daddies also brought their families.

Being a Mattel tester kid was fun. During our first move I met Terri. My first best friend, who ended up being the best thing about all of my dad’s transfers,  (& remained my best friend until she died a few years ago) admitted that she was jealous of me. She told me once, “Your dad went on all of these business trips and always brought you something back.” Little did she know, I was jealous of her. Her dad came home every night and she lived in the same town all of her life.

Palos Verdes Peninsula

 

Maybe it takes a kid with a better backbone to go to four elementary schools before nine, but I never really mastered the art of making friends back then, basically it was just plain awkward, coming in the middle of each school year. And kids can reeeally be mean. In turn, I tried to teach my kids to seek out the underdogs and welcome them into their group. Kids learn how to be bullies at an early age and I feel that if more parents would take the initiative and teach their kids to be more aware of the friendless kids, I think they’d ALL have a head start on becoming amazing adults.

The thing that saved me is that I loved to read and write and I always had Terri.We bought funny stationery and sealing wax and wrote to each other often. And where ever I went, I knew I had a best friend “somewhere.” Who knows if I’d remained across the street, if we’d have stayed best friends or even traveled in the same crowd. But there was something magical for both of us…  To her, I was the girl across the street that traveled all over and for me…  well, she didn’t even know. She just made me not feel so alone in those times of being the new kid and arriving after everyone had already made their friends for that school year.

Looking back as an adult, I see that every circumstance and experience made me into who I am today. And I am grateful for them. But back then it just seemed to suck. I think that is why I only need a few good friends now. And perhaps why I love my blog friends so much. It is a safe place and in my neighborhood here, I rarely have run into a bully. Most show up as the kind of friends I wish I could have found in my elementary school days. And for a magical moment it is just you and me. When I read yours and you read mine.

Vallon Drive… Street I grew up on since Junior High…

Today, I wonder who I’d be if I’d always lived across the street from Terri, and we never moved. I wonder if my kids would be the same kids, or if I might have had a totally different life. All I know is that  I over think things. I scrutinize the whys and try to figure out what makes others tick. I know now that as a kid, when I’d feel as if I wanted to disappear, I really wanted to be found. Though, over the years,  where I used to care, I have learned to not trust that many people. I appreciate people who are honest, those who keep their word, are not judgmental and especially are not bullies. When I was younger, I used to wonder how the bullies would turn out. As an adult, I’ve realized that a lot of people just end up being mean adults. Though a few have surprised me and had the depth to change and we have become good friends. I think that knowing where people came from helps and I don’t think that I could ever not accept an apology.

Over the years, I’ve learned to embrace the adult perspective and move past my insecurities. And I am still a work in progress. An “I LOVE LUCY” episode comes to mind where Lucy thinks that everyone has forgotten her birthday, while in reality Ricky and her friends are waiting at a surprise party for her as she goes out and joins “Friends of The Friendless.” As adults we see the irony in the humor of LUCY. And I think I have grown from that little awkward NEW KID into embracing my friendships…

But…. If I do let you in, please don’t break anything.

That first Whiff

                                I’m on the left, Scott is the one on the right

I think we all have them… that file of memories tucked somewhere inside of each of us that snaps us back like a rubber-band. That place when we smell or taste something familiar or hear a song that sends us back to a different time in our memories. I even have a time of day that hits me in a way that I just feel safe. As if someone has just told me that it is all going to be okay. For me it is around two PM.  That time of day must have been about the time when I’d wake up from my daily nap to my mom’s warm welcome back. A time before bills, a time when someone else took care of all my needs.

Whenever I taste chocolate milk, (BOSCO to be exact) I always think of my friend Scott who lived nextdoor. His mom would set up a little table under the tree in his front yard and make us peanut butter and honey sandwiches and chocolate milk. Such a decadent treat back in those simple days. I can still taste it. I remember walking into his kitchen,  and the scent of plums and peaches filling my head. His dad had a grocery store a few block away and every once and a while, I get a whiff of what that grocery store smelled like, and it snaps me back into those carefree wonderful days. It was a combination of the produce and deli departments and the memory of buying pixi stix for a penny each that still can prick my heart.

Bactine and Dippity Doo, Coppertone,  and the smell of tar and asphalt all have the same effect (The tar smell probably because there was a freeway close to our school that they always seemed to be working on. As a kid, I also loved the smell of a restaurant as you walked through the door. You know that first whiff. A combination of cigarettes and coffee. Every now and then I smell it but now that they don’t allow smoking in restaurants, that exact whiff is few and far between.

One of my favorite memories is falling asleep in the car as a kid. Watching the moon follow me home as I drift off and then feel my dad pick me up and carry me inside. As he unlocked the door and that first whiff of “HOME” would hit me. I can’t explain it, nor have I ever been able to duplicate it,  but I can still smell it in my head. And it was the BEST! I think it was a combination of a million things. But most of all, I think it was just  that it was that  time in my life when someone else was in charge of worrying about everything. Maybe there is a special scent for feeling carefree? If not, there should be!

How about you? What do you remember? What are some of your best  memory smells? You know, those first whiffs moments that you will never forget?

You Have A Memory On Facebook

I wrote this several years ago when I was going through something that hit me like a Mack Truck. My first husband had recently died and my nest was empty. I was in the process of re-inventing myself and a Friend Request on Facebook literally rocked my world. For almost a year I took a powder. Pouf and I didn’t even know who I was. Once I’d been loyal and honest and felt that I had a decent amount of integrity. And the next, I was falling down a rabbit hole that didn’t have a rope.

Through a lot of work I found my way back but I am not proud of who I became for a while. The Friend request was from someone who’d destroyed my confidence when I was a teenager. The relationship was subtly abusive and hard to describe other than that of a frog sitting in tepid water, who finds himself smack in a pot of boiling water. The getting out and getting over it and the memories almost did me in.

Today I read… YOU HAVE MEMORIES ON FACEBOOK…. It was the post below. I’d written it before too many followed my blog. It was safe. We were all strangers. I am writing a book about my journey. Of abuse, of reconnection, of second chances to say everything you ever wanted to… Like I said, I am not proud of my choices but I don’t regret them because they made me who I am today. Someone who appreciates today and has stopped looking back.

The Post was titled;

YOU CAN’T LOSE SOMETHING YOU NEVER HAD

You remind me of the ocean, the smell of the waves, the scent of summer, of heartache, of endings… of beginnings… of engagements and breaking up, of learning for the first time how to put aside dreams and learn how to survive the pain of heartbreak, you gave me my very first broken heart, you remind me of a never ending love that has weaved it’s way through the decades that have passed, the place in my heart that still hurts if you touch it, you are the reflection of my youth and my hopes and sorrows.

You taught me how to love and were the keeper of my tears. You challenged me and you suffocated me. You believed in me, maybe more than anyone ever has and yet you smothered me, snuffed out all the confidence in me. I sailed boats with you and flew planes!  I mean “I” actually FLEW a plane without an engine because of you! When you believed in me. I believed in me! I discovered that I could do things that I never would have thought of doing, if it had not been for you. Oh how you took me to the top of the world and then, oh but then… you dropped me and oh how I crashed. And even today, I’m not sure that I ever recovered. Maybe that is why I let you back in, to go back and get pieces of me.
You loved me and you hurt me over and over again, you left me found me over a lifetime of hellos and goodbyes, I loved you and I hated you, and yet I forgave you , fantasy and reality cloud into one, I see so clearly and am blinded at the same time, I understand because I know your pain and yet I can’t overlook my own, I give up everything for you and  escape with my life, I never look back and remember it all, I am safe when I am falling, I am silent when I am calling, I lose my soul and find it again, i pray for forgiveness, I believe and I doubt, I fail and I succeed, I dream and then I look back and remember, I laugh and I cry all in the same breath, I dance in my head and ache in my heart, I grasp at my youth and cling to my wisdom, I crumble where I am and gather the lessons I have learned, I turn around and find you, I let go over and over again, I sing from the mountain tops inside the silence of my imagination, my heart is stopped, I thought that I could change things, somehow fit you in to that place you left so long ago and yet the space has been filled, maybe not perfectly but slowly, I think that as I fill it with new dreams around the healing wounds, I might still have a chance at surviving this whole crazy place that I have found myself in, I take a breath as  I fall on my face and pray for strength to stop the madness.. and feel my heart begin beating again. And finally realize that …..

Someday I want my book that I am ripping apart once again, to give hope to the broken hearted and strength to those that haven’t even reckoned with their own strength yet!

You Should Have Been There

We are told that life does not come with an instruction book. “It is what it is.” Terri, my bff who died last summer, said that a lot her last year. I didn’t have time to stop. Or no, let me rephrase that, I wouldn’t let myself stop and linger too long in the places where I might miss someone not there the weekend of the wedding. Someone, that should have been.

During the course of the planning, deciding who would sit where, & who would walk who, and what side was which, the reality of who was missing  came in a wave and I let it pass. And then, just walking around the bales of hay, alone after the rehearsal, the night before the wedding… as dusk was falling, and I was caught up in a moment away from the  happy chatter … another wave… But I wouldn’t let it hit me.  To really think about the people missing, the ones who should have been there. Because if I’d let myself I would have come undone. And this wasn’t about me. And I know they each would say, it wasn’t about them either.

My dad. Terri, Lucy, Randy… my grandma…. all gaping holes. All there in spirit I know. My mantra to avoid the pain, to grasp that it really  is what it is… was: just breathe. Sometimes to stop and feel would just be too excruciating. Though I knew you were here. I felt you all. The reason I won’t go visit graves. you are not there. You are in the joy and the love, in the moments that have led to now… but as I look around I still think… It is what it is… And yet…

Yes, You should have been there.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:  Ecclesiastes 3:1

Maybe there is an instruction book after all. Yes. I know there is.

A Place

I have been so wrapped up in work and life and my daughter getting married that I have neglected my writing for far too long. Posting posts from my archives, and just trying to stay afloat. So now that the wedding was magical, and my baby is successfuly married… I can officially announce that I am back! Though it is a bit like Double Dutch, trying to jump back in with both eyes closed. Where to begin?

First Dance

I will come back to share all of the wedding notes & pics with my loyal readers that might be interested, but in the meantime, I just penned a few silly thoughts that I have written about before. And I have found it all so interesting. It is a bit like the “CALGON take me away”  concept. We all just need that place to land each day. I would love to have a waterproof laptop because I seem to think all of my greatest thoughts while I am in the SHOWER and then pouf* they always seem to wash down the drain before I can find a pen and remember them, or aren’t as profound once I am dried off!

Anyway, I have really needed that place a lot lately. Perhaps I am cleaner than usual! But those long showers tend to clear my head and in the end, life happens and it is what it is. Isn’t it? But I am grateful for it all. The good, the bad, the lessons learned. The chance to make ammends with your past and to embrace each day. I’ve always kind of been stuck in the past or the future and I am finally just learning that today is the answer. To find that place where you can gather yourself and not just face the day but embrace it!

A Place

Inside my shower I’m inside my head

As the years fall down around me

The water rushes as I am ten again

And then fourteen, sixteen, twenty

A place where I can finally cleanse myself

From all the day’s wasteful chatter

Where wisdom seems to find me

Giving me a sense of what really matters

A place where I can just find me again

Sometimes where I’m washed in my own tears

Weary from the pain I feel

A place to cry where no one hears

To cleanse my soul and to talk to God

and then to give it all to Him

to be grateful for every moment

that I’m allowed to do it all again.

Diane Reed ‘16

BACKSPACE

You are the pen and today is the page,

your attitude is the ink.

YOU control  the way  you react,

in what you say and do and think.

At times we are bold in the things that we say,

at times we should say nothing at all.

It’s all in the way we write the words on each page,

and the way we want them recalled.

For life does not have a backspace key

for all the things that we say in haste.

So, just remember as you click on SAVE

to review  first, and when needed erase!

S

Diane Reed 2016©

 

We are the Authors of our stories!

A blank page has always inspired me. I remember as a young girl, receiving a new diary with a key and a lock. I remember the feeling of anticipation and hope. It was as if someone gave me the power of my own destiny. And metaphorically speaking, we each are given that. I feel a little sad that we have gone so electronic and our world has become so “techie” because I still feel that there is something special about opening up an empty book filled with blank pages and writing about our aspirations there. I guess you could do that with the blank page on a Word Document on a computer and even make a file and title it “My Diary” or “My Journal” but there is still just something about seeing your own handwriting and how it changes as your life does.

I have found journals from my past and it has been a gift to go back and read where I once was. And hopefully to see how far I have come. When my grandma died, the only thing that I wanted was her diary. It was this green little leather bound five year kind, that she kept when she was 16 through meeting my grandpa and ending with having my mom!

One of my standard gifts has always been empty books. Especially to young people. I’ve told my kids that their lives are like empty books and every day they write a new page. It is up to them how their stories turn out. We are the authors of our stories. And I’ve encouraged those in their twenties that seem to be stuck, to go out and WRITE their stories. I can name three off of the top of my head that had their cosmetology licenses or a degree and stayed stuck making minimum wage because they were comfortable where they were. I nagged them to take that last exam that would give them wings to fly from the nest. And watching them soar, made me think…

I finally had to admit that I’ve kind of been stuck myself, thinking that it was too late for me. Feeling very comfortable in how well I knew my job, I didn’t want to have to go out and re-learn something. Heck, I don’t even like to read instructions or have to learn a new game. Talk about being stuck. I felt that my pages had all been written on. And that I was too old to begin again. And I was feeling very beaten down as I battled the storm. Finally realizing that I was NOT alone! God and me had this one!

Though the wind hadn’t just gone out of my sail, it had been SUCKED out! I began to realize that I could make my own wind! I was the author of my story and it was NOT over! And so with a lot of prayer, I forged the storm and moved on!

I kind of feel as if I have begun writing in a new empty book as I begin my new job. I am the author. The job has been created just for me! It is a new venture for my company and I am pretty sure that everyone is rooting for me. I love my team and the people I work with. And I intend to write a BEST SELLER! How about you? I’d love to hear about your “COME BACK” stories!

Happy NEW Year Everyone! Happy NEW story, happy new life! God bless you all!

It’s in the discomfort where we learn the MOST

We live in a world of instant gratification. Of fast food drive thrus and microwaves, where the click of a key allows us to pay a bill, buy a birthday present or reconnect with your past, all in a quick minute. We have remote controls to change a channel, turn up or down the volume, and turn off and on lights, we can now, even start our car from inside our house! They even have new techniques where a machine does stomach crunches for you with electric shock rather than good old-fashioned sit ups! So we’ve become entitled creatures of habit and expectation.

I’m sorry but it’s just not that easy. A good old-fashioned sweaty jog around the block a few times is better than some magic pill. I know. I’ve lost and gained and lost and gained the same freaking thirty then forty and now fifty pounds over my lifetime and am heading toward losing again! Hopefully!!!! And have found that it is in the hard work of counting calories and maybe being a little uncomfortably hungry to see the results. Things worth working for take time. And it in the discomfort where we learn the most! I find it so funny when someone asks me how I lost weight when I have in the past, and answered Weight Watchers and seen their disappointment. Everyone wants me to have disovered this magical way of losing so they can get in on the secret. When in fact, there is no secret other than calories in and calories out. Sorry. And if you watch Bambi a thousand times, his mom still dies. 😦

 I think the same goes for all things in life worth working for. We have to go to school for approximately 12 years in order to graduate. Not all twelve years is pleasant but in the end the accomplishment is worth the work.

I know that when I was a young mom, newly married, with a baby and a full-time job and not much help from my husband in way of child care or helping around the house, I wished that I could fast forward everything to an easier time. And to all the young moms out there, I am here to tell you all that you don’t need to push that button, it happens faster than you ever can imagine! Suddenly, those babies are getting married and having babies of their own. I look back and remember how overwhelming it all  was and wonder…. how can I even miss those chaotic days  now? Well, I do. At least from time to time. And I wonder…  Did I remember to kiss those fat smudged cheeks enough? Did I breathe in the smell of freshly washed baby hair as many times as possible? Or did I just rush through their baths to get some “me time”? I am here to tell you that you WILL get your share of “me time” soon enough. So enjoy being without a moment to call your own, because eventually they will be abundant and you will want to rewind back to the crazy days when you had no help and thought it was too much to handle. Or at least put NOW on pause and someday realize that even though some days are really hard, they will someday be your Good Old Days. I know, I look back and wonder what was really that hard? Don’t get me wrong. I remember the panic and pain I felt, but wow, there were some pretty great times that I missed altogether just being so upset.

I also remember how disappointed in my marriage I was. How selfish my once very attentive and handsome young husband suddenly seemed to become. I mean, we were both working full-time jobs. It seemed as if he checked out as soon as he walked in the door. Popping a can of beer and turning on some game, totally tuning me out. I felt so alone and disillusioned. Hind sight is 20/20. I look back at all the hard times and see where I could have handled them differently, where my reactions could have been more clever. And yeah, if you want to call that game playing, well I wish I’d played more games!  I also see why I am so desperate for affrimation now. I wish that my marriage hadn’t ended in divorce the first time around. I wish I could show that I appreciate my much more attentive (somewhat more helpful)  🙂  husband now. At least he keeps my car maintained and fixes my computer issues and loves me like no one else has. I guess I can pick up his dirty clothes and rinse the dishes he leaves in the sink a little more lovingly. 😀

I guess my point is, that in that first marriage I was disappointed in, or the diet that seems to be a constant test, or the job where I know that I  definitely deserve better, or wherever it is that I need validating in, it is not a fast fix. Things take time, (as for my job… maybe ten years is enough! ) But in the meantime, we need to gather the lessons learned and see that the solution may not happen like an instant breakfast or flicking a remote control, it may take time to really get it right, but it is in the lesson where the magic is! And I guess the magic is…. realizing that every moment is important and it is up to us define every single one!

All The Special Places That We Left Behind

Sometimes I wander through my mind like rooms inside my past.

Going back to different places that left my life too fast.

 Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go and find,

all the special places that we’ve left behind?

If at any given moment we could go down memory lane,

and everything we left once, could somehow be the same?

I know exactly where I’d go and who I’d want to see.

I know if I could pick an age, just how old I’d want to be

 But I know there’s no such thing as going back again,

to find our yesterdays in places where we’ve been.

I guess in all that I have learned to finally understand,

that being happy is done best,  exactly where I am!

Diane Reed

2014

Inside Every Minute

 

 The older I grow

the more I don’t know

the faster the days go by.

Yesterday’s passed

the minutes don’t last

it make me just stop and sigh.

The laughter and tears

the hopes and the fears

another candle blown out

Inside every minute

the memories in it

Well, In the end

THAT’S what it’s ALL about!

Diane Reed 14

 

There’s light at the top of the hole!

First of all I want to say that…. I am so blessed to have you guys! Thank you ALL for your support and prayers! You guys are amazing! I feel that we have a little church or at least a prayer circle right here in our midst!

It’s not all that easy to just break out of that dark hole that I’ve been stuck in and just shake it off as if I’ve just fallen down and skinned my knee. When it is something that hurts from the inside out, it takes a bit more than a bandaid.  I remember once when I’d just had my daughter, she was three days old and we’d both come down with chicken pox! My first husband and my son, who was seven at the time, had gone to his baseball game and come home early with a huge black eye! From what I could gather my son had been beamed in the eye and my husband was not happy about it at all! He was the kind of dad that said; “Hey man just shake it off!” Okay so you can imagine how I felt. My poor baby was hurt.  And I wasn’t there to comfort him and his father was no help at all! On top of it, I was not feeling too well myself. Later my husband apologized and realized that he’d been embarrassed and made it all about him but I guess my point is… sometimes you just can’t shake stuff off.

We all have our broken times. Our losses, our heartaches and crisis. Some of us are dealing with life and death, some of us are dealing with catastrophic financial issues and debt and then others can look at their own lives and realize that they don’t have it quite as bad but still can’t seem to snap out of it. My grandmother used to say that someone’s hangnail is just as important to them as the other guy’s broken finger is to him. It all depends who is feeling the pain. I guess that makes sense in a selfish kind of way and I guess I’ve been feeling kind of selfish lately. The funny thing about being “selfish” is you don’t really recognize that you are being it until much later. Hind sight is always 20/20.

 I remember once going to marriage counseling and having our therapist tell me that I was depressed. I wanted to shout. “Ya think?” I was abused by my first boyfriend, My dad who was my best friend, died from a heart attack too early in life,  I had two miscarriages that pretty much did me in. I finally divorced after struggling to keep my marriage alive for my kid’s sake for far too long, I remarried and then we lost our business in an earthquake…. yadda yadda yadda…  my husband  had to take a job beneath him that required him to work EVERY holiday and then after nine years got laid off and now I am still stuck in my going no where job after almost ten years. After being my own boss for the last twenty years, working for someone else. Depressed? No. Just circumstances.

INSTEAD… I could be thinking…. I was given a second chance with a wonderful Christian man who helped raise another man’s kids and has been a wonderful father to them. I had a chance to have a cute little store that was very successful for a while. And though our store did not survive. It was pretty amazing that WE DID! And I need to remember that everyday!

https://dianereedwiter.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/a-thing-of-beauty-in-an-unexpectd-place/

 

And by the grace of God we both were given the opportunity to slip into some very good jobs. My husband always wanted to be a youth leader and being General Manager of our local movie theater gave him that opportunity for almost nine years! He was paid very well. His boss was very generous and offered him commissions that many larger city theaters probably don’t offer and so it was nice while it lasted.  And just when those doors closed due to the theater’s finances, his boss generously provided him with a severance package which allowed him to go back to work with his dad as God opened that door, just as his dad needed him again for an old job they’d done years ago. Which he may not have been able to do, if he’d still been working at the theater due to the demanding work schedule.

As for my job, it has given me the opportunity to meet some great friends and learn humility! I am learning lessons I may never have learned without the experiences I am having each and every day.

Also…. my daughter just checked in and told me that though she felt the recent 5.2 earthquake in Southern California and it upset her, she is okay! If you have read our story in the link above (right below the photo of our crunched store)… I have to be reminded that I appreciate and need to live for every second of every minute of every hour and looking too far ahead is just too overwhelming…. For God reminds us that THAT really should be Enough! Though… The next few weeks… If I could ask for prayer for health and business stuff for my father in law and  their business there is power in prayer and I am a believer in this little prayer group!

Sooo…. Though I am not checking in with some profound life changing aha momentish message…. I am telling you there is light at the top of the hole!!!!!

 

The Scent Of Words

I knew at a very young age that I had words and stories locked inside of me. In Elementary school my teachers noticed that I could write. But not until High School did one particular teacher actually take me under her wing and offer me Independent Writing classes.  I think that most writers can tell you when they knew they had that light bulb moment when they wrote  something special or different that set them apart from the rest of the other kids in the class. Like an artist who paints their first masterpiece or the singer that sings a song that takes someone’s breath away. Or a comedian that makes you laugh until you cry, and the dancer that makes people stop and really watch till the end.

When I was in elementary school I loved to write for me but when I was in college, I put my amature talents to use and totally BS-ed my way through my Sociology class with my essays. I had no idea what I was talking about! But I received this comment on one of my most blatantly ramblings….                                       “100! If I could give you more, I would! Brilliant!” Okay, now I am coming clean. Like I said….I really, truly had NO idea what I was talking about! I just took the question and re-wrote it a bunch of different ways. But I knew then I could possibly fake it and so I did.

Today, I have a much more humbled outlook. I mean, in fifth grade there aren’t a lot of kids that love to really write. I was a different kind of fish in a small pond that stood out a bit because of just that. But in the bigger world, there are trillions of great writers in a much bigger pond. I am just one of many that likes the same bait.

The world has changed a bit also. When I was assigned to write those reports that we all remember. Remember those STATE reports? Didn’t we all have one assigned to us before we reached Junior High?  I’d spend hours at our local library, pulling out drawers filled with information, clinking dimes into a copy machine copying pictures in books for those reports.

Now kids today can find it all on line. It makes me dizzy just how far we have advanced but  in the same breath, I am kind of sad that our kids will never experience pulling out a library catalog  drawer filled with index cards with  information on them. But though their computer knowledge will always far suprass mine,  there is still something to walking into a library and smelling the leather bound books with words pressed on pages, and being able to walk to a certain section of the library, finding the shelf, and  pulling down an actual book and breathing in the scent of words.

Affirmation

I’ve been told that I need a lot of it…  “Affirmation”  that is. Who knows why? Maybe because I felt silenced when I was younger.

Or maybe just not heard. Now, I bubble my stories out to the world. Doesn’t matter if I have known you for one minute or many years. I’ve finally found a voice and my words help me connect.

Today my poor sweet husband gets much of the wrath that he does not deserve. Sometimes I feel him nudging me under the table. He says he is protecting me from me. I know he just cares, though I can’t help but feel a little offended and reeled in at times. Even though he probably is right.  Maybe less is more.

But I feel I’ve been hushed for way too long. The problem is…

I have this story inside of me that I feel needs to be told. A story to empower young girls and perhaps make the men in their lives take a closer look at themselves. When I was younger I was in a very controlling relationship where I plainly just lost “me” for the sake of  “him.”

      

Everytime I excused the way he treated me, I lost a little bit of “myself” in the process.

There is more to the story and my heart is conflicted in telling it,  for I feel an odd kind of loaylty in the act of forgiveness that happened years later. I understand more now about my abuser and my heart truly does ache for him. But having acknowledged that, I feel that if just one person is taught something then the pain was not wasted. My message is that NO ONE should be hushed. Everyone’s heart deserves to be heard. I think Aibileen said it best to Mae Mobley in “The Help  ” You is strong, you is smart and you is important.” If we were taught that as young girls and didn’t allow anyone to come and challege it, there would be fewer young women in the world allowing the abuse that they experience.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZimx1wHYcs

Our opinions may not fit perfectly in the spaces that others want them to…

But we have a right to have  them, just as they have a right to have theirs. Somebody needs to wake us up. Perhaps Glinda said it best to Dorothy when she said… “You had the power all along my dear.” 

We All Break If We Don’t Bend

When did she leave? That part of me?

“she’d”  never  have allowed the pain.

I guess she didn’t want to see

the parts that still remained

like painted tea cups upon a shelf

handled with such care

always worrying  they were too high

so why’d she put them there?

I know that we all have choices

in the messages we send

I can see it  more clearly now…

We all break if we don’t bend.

Diane Reed

2013 ©

“Forget what hurt you in the past. But never forget what it
taught you.”

In One Blink

 

Memories of promises

made of tule and lace

lost inside a moment

in one blink it’s been erased

learning lessons can really hurt

and the pain can seem unending.

Smiles and sometimes laughter

stashed behind a heart’s pretending.

Faded letters now just memories

along with promises once made,

by all the ones who’ve let me down…

the ones who should have stayed

It’s hard to face  yesterday

when I stopped believing;

 the day when I  realized promises

 don’t stop those you love from leaving.

Diane Reed

2013

For my book…

TODAY

I have had it all wrong. All of these years, I have laid back upon my past resting comfortably on it’s memories.  Whether it is  longing for it, or blaming it. I have bought into the theory that you can’t help what haunts you. And yet, you “can” choose to embrace TODAY. I have learned that… Tomorrow is the chain reaction to how we each live our todays. When you finally GET that your life will change from the inside out.

Yesterday I chose to embrace NOW. I enjoyed and appreciated who life put in front of me that second. And you know what? I wasn’t miracuously filled with so called joy, but I was less annoyed and simply happy.   I realize that I have been stuck in a pretty sad place. People actually noticed that I was different and it made me sit up and take notice…. That people actually noticed that I was different, made me realize how they might have been seeing me before.  It is not easy for me to admit that I need to work on places that are so simple and that I have been so stuck, but it is exciting to realize that I have the power to choose how I want to live my life each day.

Over the years, I have accumulated layers of sadness that I can’t deny. My heart has been broken a few times, I have been disappointed and dishonored. But those who dishonored me have done nothing more than i have done to myself by denying my own passion. If you’ve only known me for a while, you probably know I am a writer. Each day, I feel that I am getting closer to connecting with the right people and just perhaps, walking the right paths where opportunities will rise up to greet me.

All I know, is that…

You can  blame, or embrace the challenges you face

You can stay in your pain, staying  stuck in “that” place

getting lost in  the layers you’ve known through the years

as you collect and are the keeper of all of your tears…

Or you can choose to believe that today is God’s gift

and be part of the lesson teaching others how to live

You can rise above all the pain you’ve experienced in your life

as your message sings a song that reaches new heights!

Diane Reed

2013

In Every Word I Write

The other day, my good friend Sandy,  a great writer herself,  sent me a  quote on how writing is courageous and how we put our flesh and blood down on paper and what a powerful thing we do, allowing someone in our mind of tangled and beautiful thoughts, in a way saying “here, untangle me.” And it inspired me to write this…

 

I invite you inside  of me,

past the paper and the words,

past the adjectives and nouns,

between the errors and  adverbs…

 to see the rawest part of

the pain that  I feel

the fantasies I write about

 that I wish could be real.

The joy in the

very depth of my soul,

the triumphs and failures

that lead to my goals

you have followed me on every journey

and walked on every path.

You’ve been there through my tears

and  know what makes me laugh.

Each word has been a trail,

weaved throughout my written life.

I give you each a part of me

in every word I write.

Diane Reed

2013

The Most Distressed

I don’t often post a series except of course in posting my chapters 1-9 from my unpublished book’s rough draft…  So this is unusual for me to do a two parter but I just was so inspired by the message I received yesterday while picking grapes at our friend’s vineyard, that I had to just add this today….

In the course of yesterday while I was picking grapes at my friend’s Harvest Day Vineyard Grape Picking Party… I was told to avoid the clusters where there were over 50% “raisins” (shriveled grapes).

However, later as we were chatting over wine and good food, I learned different lessons of the art of winemaking and one of them was that the stressed grapes make the better wine. (Not to be confused with the raisins!)

It’s in the fruit that is the most distressed,

the one that ‘s weathered and withstood the test.

it’s the fruit that’s clung onto the vine

that someday makes the better wine.

Oh Lord, I’ve finally begun to see

the message today, you had for me.

I may not always understand the pain

but growth is found beneath the rain.

inside the storm as we hang on..

It’s in those times that have made us strong.

For those who’ve held on longest to the vine…

They are God’s reserve…

HIS finest wine!

Diane Reed

’13

Our Blogging Neighborhood

I know that I’ve written about this before. But I just can’t get over the connection I have with some of you.  When I started blogging, I was pretty much doing it for me. A place to store my rambilings and perhaps share some of it with my close friends. But then… Oh and then…  something magical happened.

You guys did!

Thank you for happening to me!

 

I used to pick up my pen to write

when I was there, at my desk alone.

I would write and then re-read

and my feedback was  my own.

But somehow through the scheme of things

I opened another door

and all at once you guys came in

and I was not alone there anymore!

Somehow we’ve formed a village,

a neighborhood of those who understand.

Some of you are not too far away,

and some are in other lands.

But somehow through our passion,

through our need to feel heard;

we all have connected

through our love of the written word!

Diane Reed

2013

This was my reply to the first comment that came in…

(It fit perfectly for the way that I feel about many of you… I thought I’d cut and paste it and add it in the actual post so you understand just how important you have all become to me and how much I appreciate you!) 😉

I am so glad to have met you as well! YOU were one of the ones that inspired this. Some come and go and then come back into each of our lives. No guilt trips or expectations. Just glad to see ya when you’re here and miss you when your not. But thrilled to reconnect with those who haven’t been around a while and excited to make new friends here each day, who I might find that connection with… and when it happens… it is like magic!
I don’t need to ask anyone to read my blog or what they think… I have you all who do that for me. I loved one of the pictures here with the lights all on at night. I can just see us all inside one of those lit windows blogging away or writing our words. Regardless of where we are, in what town, in what country…. our hearts are strung together with our understanding of how important our words are!

                                                                                    Thank you!

Behind The Door Of Yesterday

Behind the doors of yesterday

we all hold that perfect key

unlocking places in our past

where shadows used to be

Dancing upon moonbeams  until all  the music dies

letting go of all the pain as the broken winged one flies…

Falling hard from our dreams, when we finally land

 

searching for our innocence all where we first began.

Diane Reed

2013

As I continue to work on my book, I feel stuck. I am in a place of pain. Of total confusion. I guess ambivalence would be the best word to describe where I have landed. I keep going backwards. I need to start moving forward. I have a story to tell. A lot has to do with my past. I have the framework sitting there for me to build upon and yet I am not sure why I need to write these silly poems that have nothing to do with me today….

Or do they?

Life Is Like A Book And Every Day We Write Another Page

For as long as I can remember I have written. First in Diaries as a young girl and then in journals.

There is just something about a book filled with words that someone wrote by hand years before. When my Grandma died. Everyone was choosing memorable keepsakes they wanted that would help them to remember her. I happened to choose her little 5 year diary.

Photo of my Gram’s Diary

It was such a treasure because it was written between the years where she met my grandpa and had my mom! Now if you know me at all, you can imagine how special that is to me.

Pages from my Gram’s Diary

Whenever I pull it out and read it on those rare occasions, I like to picture my grandmother as a young girl, coming home from a date, excited and in love, flopping on her bed, pouring her heart into the allotted tiny little spaces reserved for her in a five year diary.

Part of my story is centered around my journaling. Not only are those books the keepers of my life’s journey but they are a reflection of my own mantra…. I have said over and over again to my kids and their friends that…

Our lives are like an empty book and every day we write another page.

We can look at our books as pages waiting to be filled and embrace them… or we can feel that we don’t have a lot of chapters left. In my case I have to admit feeling kind of stuck, as if I have a lot of torn pages with erase marks and crossed out words all over them. I am fighting  to find my way back to grab a new chapter and hang on with dear life and yet … it is hard when you are tired and older and looking back at  all those old journals… reading and remembering and wondering what the heck happened?

As I sat there reading all the journals in front of me, I couldn’t stop. I read them all.

My journals have been an interesting way that I have captured my past. Like photographs I have different snapshots in way of words on pages. Recently, I found a box of old journals and my Mantra kind of came true for me….

The first journal I pulled out was filled with silly, sad poems…  

first about wanting to fall in love and then about falling  in love and then the rest about my broken heart.

The next was filled with poems from my first marriage. Once again, falling in love and then a lot of writing about what went wrong.

Between having babies  and finally going through a divorce, I found about five more books filled with prayers and poetry and pleadings to God to make it better.  Finally I found one that is not finished about my life now… Once again, the falling in love and struggles and joys it has brought me.

My blog kind of has replaced my journaling in the way of writing in a book. Though I still love to shop for them and buy them as gifts or keep them just in case I am inspired to go sit on a hillside somewhere and write a poem.        

Someone once told me that if anything happens to her she wants to make sure that she has someone appointed that will burn all of hers. I find that so sad. Burning my journals would be like killing a part of my soul. In a way, my words will keep me alive once I am gone. I am so glad that my grandma saved hers.

In my next few posts… I am going to share some of my poetry that I found. Some of them are pretty silly, some are sad, some are quite good and others pretty bad….but they all are parts of me from different times of my life….

Come with me if you like….

Here is the first one…. I wrote it after finding a book that I must have found a few times during my life because it starts out with my son as a baby, and then starts up again with my daughter being born and a lot about my struggling marriage and then I must have found it after I got my divorce and found a lot of pathetic poetry and then a few years later, I was writing about my new marriage… There I was holding my very own quote in my hands… my life written out as a story in a book. Funny how it all came full circle. I was facing my own advice. Knowing it was time for me to listen to myself.

Yesterdays’ Pages

Same Book

same heart

same eyes

same tears

Lost inside the memories

 locked inside the pages

lost in the

rolling around in the grass

laughing

kissing

breathing

dreaming

living….

Yesterday;

 young and stupid

and

so in love

 just on the edge

of tomorrow

Now yesterday’s

filled pages.

Diane Reed

2013

Just a VESSEL

I am but a vessel

that houses who I am

A symbol of the outside

where inside my soul lands

I’ll only love you if I really do

won’t fake it if I don’t

my ears have believed

a thousand lies

but my eyes…

well, they just won’t.

seems as if I’ve spent a lifetime

being someone

everyone wished I’d be

but suddenly

I’ve become

the most authentic

part of me!

Diane Reed

2013

Lately, I have done a lot of soul searching. Who are we really? I will tell you what I think. We are not the vessel we are wrapped up in. That is just a shell that carries us through out our journey. We are what is inside the package. A bunch of memories, joys, and tears, triumphs and mistakes, goals and dreams. A heart and soul and series of lessons learned. It is not what is on the outside at all. That is just our shell. It has nothing to do with what is truly important.  In the end, what we leave behind is not the body we lived in… but the messages we believed in…. The faith we have shared, the authenticity we have learned to finally be comfortable in and accept nothing less.

Sure in the end….when people think of us… they will probably picture that vessel but it is what it carried that will really matter.

If we said a thousand goodbyes…

The messages attached to “Good bye” mean different things at different times in our lives. To some it means see you later when to others it holds the sting of finality. And then there are those who though they may have said it a thousand times … they are the ones who will never completely ever be gone. They are the ones whose “goodbyes ” have as much strength as a feather.

And then…. there are the ones who are completely gone. They have left this world. Their ashes have been scattered and we will never hear their voices (at least not on this earth) again. In a way it really makes me resent the game playing in the frivilous goodbyes. I mean after all, life is so fragile. It should mean so much more than it seems to. We are not game pieces that can be moved by the toss of a dice. We are human beings with lives that are already hanging from the most fragile of threads. We can only play with the hand we are given but it makes how we play so much more important.

Inside the memory of a thousand good byes

my grieving heart sees through it’s lies

past the dreams we gave away

wondering now… what if we’d stayed?

so tell me again go ahead

beat the horse until it’s dead

Explain it to me, please just try

What should I do with your goodbyes?

Diane Reed

2013

Falling In Love AGAIN

This one is for those who remember these words from a verse I heard long ago…

“Oh my love come grow old with me… for the BEST is yet to be….

So many times when we are young we don’t grasp that we are actually living our “Good Old Days” we have bills and toddlers to deal with and then suddenly in a blink of an eye it is over… our toddlers have grown up and moved on to have families of their own and we find ourselves living like strangers wondering WHO is this person I am living with? Perhaps with much water under the bridge where we even forget why we fell in love in the first place… It is up to us to remember. To realize that we almost missed the BEST in the part we promised each other long ago.

If you are in that place… lonely and wondering; WHERE the the heck is the BEST you promised me?! Look inside yourself. And remember LOVE is a verb!

I caught myself looking at you

and in the wisp of the moment,

on the breath of love,

as an angel’s wing brushed my heart

I remembered

what falling felt like…

 

The scent of joy and passion

the sound of laughter

riding on a memory…

All mixed in with the pain of life

that almost made me forget.

But in that glance

I fell down into my memories

rushing past all the bad

and landing in all the good

falling, falling, falling

 in love again.

Diane Reed ’13

IT’S MY TURN (to not reply)

I trace my finger along the boundaries

my heart has reassigned

I want to tell you something

and then I change my mind

It’s getting easier not to respond

to just turn the page again

I know we promised to be friends

but is that really where we’d end?

I recall when you stopped replying

and slowly I have learned

to find the strength and roll the dice

and know it is my turn.

Diane Reed

2013

A writer writes….

A writer writes…

because she has to.

We are different.

We feel things differently.

Others who  hurt and feel joy,

just hurt and feel joy.

we need to write about it

and relive it with every word.

We invite our shadow of experience

to follow us and whisper words

that can only be found inside our heart…

The one thing that holds the pen to the stories we have to tell!

Diane Reed

2013

I have been on a break… working a lot and exhausted emotionally and physically! I heard something today that inspired this~

When an actor was describing why they act. A student was asking him if he ever got stuck. He went on to say that sometimes he is in a middle of a scene or an assignment and it just flows and other times it just doesn’t. The seasoned actor smiled and replied. If it worked everytime, everyone could do it. WHEN it works is what makes it special.

I loved that!

Have a great day!

Safe Keeping

Like a bruise, my heart has places that…

I don’t want to touch again.

Like paint that never dries

or a story that never ends.

My mind keeps wandering back

and I get lost in the past,

then you come and wake me up

like pushing forward fast!

Snapping me right out of

the nightmare that kept me sleeping,

handing back the heart

you were holding for safe keeping.

Diane Reed

2013

Share this:

This is my Musician friend’s blog who surprised me with a melody attached to my book I am still in the process of finishing. At first I wasn’t so sure what he was all about… He is very honest, sometimes painfully so… He came in the backdoor and critiqued my posts from the beginning to almost the end. (I have almost 200 so gotta give the guy a lot of credit and a little break! Smile.) He praised some and constructively shredded others. And oh how I have learned. Some kicking and screaming but I mean when someone just reads one post, it is validating! But several at a time, commenting on each and every one, well that feels amazing! Even when he challenged me to do better! Anywaaay~ now I am positive I have found my very own Mr. Holland! (Remember Mr. Holland’s Opus?)
I don’t think he gets enough recognition for his talent so just wanted to share his blog with you.

No Stolen Cat Pictures

Luddite: a person opposed to increased industrialization or new technology: a small-minded Luddite resisting progress.

I try to stay current on technology and how it can benefit me. Before 2006 I had ripped all my audio CDs into digital files and while living in Thailand I gave those physical optical disks away. Why do I need them when I have all the quality and contents in one folder of one drive? Similarly I handled my DVDs of movies, ripping them to standalone computer files and discarding the disks. Years later, very recently, Apple Computer is once again leading the industry in eliminating optical drives from their computers; first they lead the charge to smaller hard-shelled floppy drives, then to optical drives, and finally to getting rid of these optical drives altogether declaring them irrelevant.

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ENOUGH!

I built everything so high,

they had to  fall down~

“My dreams” are now broken pieces

covering the ground~

I hear your voice shouting

“Just pick them up!”

till down on my knees

my heart says…

“ENOUGH!”

Diane Reed

2013

I found this one in my DRAFTS just waiting for pictures…

Yesterday’s Melody Part II

Please read the end note when you finish the poem!

Thanks!!!!

I dance in the flames as I fall into step ~

Trying to miss the places that made you upset~

The memories make me jump higher and higher~

I feel the sting as I dance past the fire~

The tears bring back the pain that I’d  put away,

spinning back  into the melody of yesterday~

Like a butterfly trapped, still inside it’s cacoon~

I dance through my mind running from each room~

as I close the door, where  you live in my mind,

I find the part of me that I left behind.

Just like a jewelry box dancer trapped in a box

my heart is inside with the key and it’s lock.

Diane Reed

2013

Before you get too concerned. I have a friend who is reading my book (Has read almost my whole blog) and has written a song that we both have been working on. I was supposed to do the lyrics and believe me I thought it would be a piece of cake. I had written songs before with others who wrote the music and I wrote the words, and it had come so easily. But this one was not so easy. I think because I have been stuck at the end of my book not really knowing how to finish it, I was stuck in the writing of the song process. I am not saying that I have found the perfect words yet but the well has opened  and I am finding inspiration again. The book is about certain things and my recent poems are as well. Don’t worry about me being stuck in the past… smile…. I may write about it as I continue working on my book because I have thought about including a poem before each chapter so I am just working on ideas. I am writing about yesterday but standing in today. I promise!

To sample my friend Jim’s piece that he wrote I have shared his link to his blog that you may find inspiring. He is very talented. His song is called Finding Diane…. (Even though I am writing my book in fictional form, and so it would be Finding Keri 😉  ) I love it so much! This is actually the ending… maybe he will post the whole song soon…. http://nostolencatpictures.com/2013/03/31/music-theory-0031/#more-2804 It would be fun if you would stop by and LIKE his blog. He has some great posts in his archives as well as the beginning to this song! Thanks guys!

A Little More

Perspective is such a great thing to consider! But it is all relative.
I am blessed. Though we lost a prospering store in 2003, we were  given the “opportunity” to be able to open up a restaurant shortly after that. Well,  That was a joke. Due to a very mismatched partnership (don’t get me started!!!) We lost the last of our nest egg and were like 20 year olds starting all over again from the beginning. We went about getting “REAL” jobs and until last year when my husband was laid off, we were sitting pretty fat and happy without missing much of a beat except that I had to work for someone else which is something I promised myself that I would never do again. Though… I have gone back on my word with myself on many occasions lately so what the heck~

Most recently, my husband has been working with his dad on a project that has been a lifelong one they began many years ago when they used to work together. Since being laid off last year, my husband has stepped on board again and it looks as if things are going to take off for them. It is an amazing environmental  project which basically takes toxic waste or waste in general, ( it can be plastic, wood, tires, you name it) and turns it into bio char for farming or energy, etc.   I BELIVE in what they are doing, and with so much interest in the environment recently, it has gotten a lot of positive recognition. I  know that in God’s timing it will all come together. But in the meantime, we are living on my paycheck and his unemployment. It has defintely been an awakening. This month, we have come to the end of the line. I have managed to pay all of our bills on time, for all of this time. But next month is going to be tricky. We are going to have to start picking and choosing bills to pay.

For the first time in years, since the earthquake, I am living  in a place of genuine faith. God has answered recent prayers about health and other personal things and so I know HE is a God of miracles! I have watched other fellow bloggers live their lives in faith and I know it can be done. But I can’t say that I have always been such a good sport about all of this. It is all relative, but if you don’t have it… money becomes more important. And yet I keep trying to tell myself it is character building. Though all you prayer warriors out there, I would appreciate prayer! And I thank you ahead of time because I know I will blogging about a miracle soon!

So anyway, as I was wallowing in my own problems, I read today’s post from my sweet friend whose blog name is : free penny press:

http://freepennypress.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/live-below-the-line-year-2/

Talk about perspective! I thought it was a wonderful reminder that it is not all about me! Feeding ourselves on $1.50 a day…. it made me think! I get so caught up in “needing” always wanting a miracle… and usually getting many. God is good and so generous. He always come through in the end, even when I ask for more.

Oh Lord,I’ve found myself

on a pretty selfish path,

forgetting to be grateful

for everything I have~

Making my prayer time,

all about me and what I need~

Losing my perspective,

consumed by my own greed~

Today… I want to thank you

for the GRACE you’ve given me!

Not seeing my flaws

that I know you might have seen.

May I be reminded

just what I’m asking for

when I forget and come to You

asking for a little more.

Diane Reed 2013

Yesterday’s Melody

I hear a song

and my heart flies away~

I want to snatch it back

for it’s gone to yesterday.

The melody wraps

around my heart,

though in my head

I keep playing the part~

No one can know

The pain that I feel,

over a fantasy

now, that  seems unreal~

And so I pretend

that nothing is wrong,

as I try to block out

the tune in that song.

But the melody lingers

as I push replay,

and wander back into my heart

still there,

in yesterday~

Diane Reed

2013

(Don’t worry… just editing my book, wandering back into yesterday… Gotta do it to get to the last chapter! )

This Is The Day The Lord Has Made

“Sunrise”

As the day open’s it’s eyes…

painted skies

fill my heart~

God’s canvas

splashed with pink,

His work of art

is my day’s start!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diane Reed

I woke up to a beautiful sky filled with pink cotton candy and my entire heart softened. I opened the blinds and sat there in awe as I watched the miracle of the morning welcome a new day and knew that God had orchestrated that very minute and me sitting there, possibly hoping that I would realize he was there with me. At that moment I just had to STOP my life with a screech! And wonder WHAT AM I THINKING? I often forget to thank God for what I do have. I just tumble into a long list I am asking HIM to give or solve for me. How would a friend feel if we did that to them? I have decided that I need to connect with God more. I feel that  in a way, a sunrise is God’s text to us and that HIS intentions for us, was always to have  a Garden of Eden.

He never intended us to have illness or relationship issues, His plan for us was not to go brankrupt or lose jobs. We interrupted God’s plan and let that snake of a devil worm his way into our world. Well, I say enough! It is time we took back! what has always been rightfully ours!

 We have God on our side! He is BIGGER than anthing we could ever be afraid of!

 We need to fight for what He intended us to have!

Are we going to let a little snake steal our joy today?!

 I say NO… I am not…

What do you say?

It is your choice.

Thank you Lord for this day. May I bless you in all that I do today.

Getting Over It

How long is the normal life span? I know a few people in their nineties and several in their eighties still going strong, so it baffles me as to why the beginning two decades are so important to who we ultimately become. But they are very important.  Considering that we will live to be one hundred,       (give or take a decade or two)  our formative years are only 20%  of our entire lifetime but I believe that they are some of the most important.

Some people tend to totally forget the first ten or so years while others remember every detail as if it were yesterday. We all have had our happy

and not so happy memories.

Some of the bad ones are obvious. There is abuse and no matter how you look at it, it is evident. Others are not so evident. It may be subtle, a parent depending on a child too much, a sibling or peers tormenting them. We remember and we form scars that last a lifetime. We have been told to “get over it” and yet how does one get over a mountain? I will tell you. One step at a time. It is possible. But the trick is not to discount the memories.

I know someone who was horrifically abused. More emotionally than anything. He was the boy with the story no one would believe. His mom was  schizophrenic. She was beautiful and full of love for life and for him for that matter,  but in a moment could turn into a raging monster. At first when I met her, I had trouble opening up my heart to her because of what I knew. And yet, she was hard to resist. We slowly became friends and though I never forgot the stories I’d heard, I let my guard down because this boy who I loved, wanted a connection with his mother so badly. I became the bridge that connected them. We shared many happy memories until I witnessed one of her rages. Her words cut deep and were directed towards her son who I loved.

I was very young back then. Our relationship began the summer after I turned seventeen and ended shortly after I turned twenty. Funny how those three years changed me forever. I think that I had a few co-dependent issues from my own childhood and so I brought those with me, thinking that I could fix something that was far more broken than I imagined.  Because the boy I chose to love was abused. I in turn, was also abused by him. Because I loved him, I chose to look the other way. Because his mom couldn’t love him in the way that he needed to be loved, I took on the responsibility of that love and mine.

And thus the cycle of co-dependency began to spin.  I looked the other way when he treated me badly because I had witnessed firsthand his abuse. Only imagining him as a child with no one to protect him. And my heart broke for him. Funny, even though I was his target for his abuse towards me back in those days, I took it because I knew where his pain was coming from. But I was still young enough to be damaged by it too. Not until writing my book, did I understand that I was also a victim of abuse in a way I never understood before. Though I looked the other way then, because I felt his childhood pain, I have had to come to grips with my own pain, in trying to break the circle.

In the book I am writing. I share my experiences. Though instead of memoirs, I am producing it as fiction. Taking out the unnecessary details and changing the names for the most part. But what I want to get across is how we find ourselves in situations and why. As I have written it out. It has been like therapy for me. But it has made me realize that the abuser isn’t the monster I remembered him being. For years, I had not even been able to say his name. When we finally broke up, I had been so hurt and damaged I didn’t know what to do with the pain and so I turned it into anger.

Through out my life, and my relationships I know that, that one relationship controlled my entire life in all of the years that followed. I have had a hard time trusting and I’ve always needed to feel in control since then. Recently, that not so young boy (anymore) contacted me. I was not sure if he was even alive nor was he sure that I was. I  finally got my closure. I know for me, that I needed some sort of a resolution and when the opportunity knocked I had to open the door. I did what was right for me. I know it was selfish but I don’t regret it. I do regret hurting the people in my life now. And I can’t say that I am proud of all of my recent choices but I feel as if I can finally close the anger chapter of my life and that I have been educated in such a life changing way. Far more than any degree could offer me. I have learned so much about who I am and surprised myself about what I am capable of. Not everything, good. But it has gotten me to the place where I can say goodbye to my young self

and look into the mirror and see ALL of me.

 I have had a hard time penning the ending to my book since then. I know now that I clearly had digressed, allowing my seventeen year old self to interrupt everything about who I am today. But though not everyone may agree, I needed to ask questions and say things I never said and I got that chance.

Being “The one that got away” and knowing no one ever gave him the love that I did, is very sad but a little vindicating. Maybe at first, I thought revenge might be sweet. But when you have really loved someone, you only want the best for them, no matter how much they hurt you. Whether it is divorce or young love. There is such a fine line between love and hate. And until even today, I am learning that love is more powerful than any form of hate could ever be. And if the love had ever been genuine and you can go back to find it’s roots,  I guarantee, letting the hate go will feel much more vindicating than anything revenge might bring. It took me over thirty years to feel it. Today, I feel that I can move on. Or as some people have said :”Get Over it”.

So I guess in the end, I want to make people see how subtle abuse can be, how everyone is a victim and how the abuser isn’t always a monster but just a product of their own abuse from their own childhood. My book is called Pieces of the circle. Now I feel that I can sigh and find that spot in the circle that needs to be finished and write it.

A rough draft of my book below… I’d love to know what you think or if you have any suggestions…

https://kerisjournal.wordpress.com/

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAR!

 (My Mother In-Law)

When I was a little girl, I imagined so many things…

Constantly wondering what my life might bring~

Who I would love and share my life with

Who I would marry, and if I’d have  kids~

Well, life happened differently far from my dreams,

Happy endings are not what they all seem.

I was hurt by my life by the time I met you,

and it was hard for anyone to really get through.

But you were so patient and forgave many times,

and finally we bonded through the years like fine wine~

Today I have regrets over the time that I wasted,

like a lifetime of chocolate all left untasted!

Your wisdom and experience is hard to compare,

and the way that you love, is so very rare~

You have lived your life like a fine work of art,

but even more, is the beauty I’ve found in your heart~

You’ve been an amazing grandma through all the years

thinking of your love, just brings me to tears~

And today, as I stop to realize… everything in the end….

The mother in law I imagined once, is now one of my best friends!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAR!

I love you!

Red Flags

“Insanity: doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

― Albert Einstein

How many times do we find ourselves

making the same mistakes?

trying to fill the holes in our lives

no matter what it takes?

We overlook the lessons

we know that we have learned

we ignore the raging fire

and contine to get burned

We feel the pain inside

and yet we really just don’t care…

We try to disguse the warnings

as the answer to our prayers

when we really knew that all along

there were no answers there

Perhaps…

Just God, waving HIS red flags..

telling us to

“BEWARE!”

Diane Reed

2013

Painted Windows

It’s kind of funny,
how I see things so differently now,
as if a window, once painted shut has opened,

And how I overlooked the heart you
once left broken.

I am annoyed with me
and the things I did not see~

My vision has been restored~

And the opportunity for a second chance
is my  reward.

Being able to now open the windows once painted shut,

Somehow… it all seems just enough~

Though looking back,

I am surprised that I almost gave you
back so much of me.

 And yet looking through the open pane
I see it now all so differently~

Diane Reed

2013

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASMINE!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Birthday girl~

You came along and blessed our world…

You were the cutest baby of them all,

I watched in wonder behind the wall~

Your Auntie loved you from the start~

You fit just perfectly into her heart!

 

I have to admit you stole mine too~

You had so many people loving you!

(And of course you know… your daddy’s too!)

You came along and fit right in!

My first granddaughter and “now” my friend!

HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY!

I love you Sweetie!

Love,

Your Grandma!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TERRI!

Hey Terri,

I know that this is a day before your birthday but I wanted to make sure that you got this because I knew you would not be home and didn’t know if or when you’d be on line.  I just wanted to catch you in time so that you would truly  know that you were  loved and remembered!

May this be the year of Answered Prayer!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I love you~

Di

How many years has it really been

since you and I became best friends?

We met back in the days of dippity doo

Has it really been fifty two?

You were there for my first day of school

we thought our velvet  shoes were too cool!

Days of summer, Bosco and bactine

you were a part of everything!

playing ball at dusk  till the lights turned on

reminds me of a a favorite song

We both loved the little kid nextdoor

You won out! He loved you more!

I found a picture with all our grins

Sorry I couldn’t cut out the twins!

They were both right in the middle

but then I changed it up a little!

Ahh I remember  all the times we shared

And when I moved how much we cared

We did not want to ever lose touch

even then, our friendship meant so much~

Our moms were friends who loved each other

and so we kept in touch through our mothers.

Until you wrote me a letter and I wrote back

then… we kept in touch with notes and sealing wax!

Sometimes we visited on occassion

When my dad gave us a Terri vacation!

As years went by I always knew

That where ever I went I could count on you

Whatever happened you were my friend

You have been my circle without an end.

We’ve been there through each other’s broken hearts

and supported all of each other’s starts!

Once we played with dolls and then had ones of our own

And had even more fun than we had ever known!

The years have been good. You have made them better

through our love and our bond and a million letters!

we have weathered some storms and celebrated others

And we have even become grandmas and mothers!

And the “Auntie” to my baby that you have been~

Well, I just love how “she” loves my very Best friend!

 

So many memories no one but us have shared

I’m just so glad that you’ve always been there!

Now as we celebrate YOUR DAY I wished I lived near

Cuzzz I’m celebrating  you in my heart

 At my party right here!

An Exercise in Finding The Joy

(I was challenged to find the joy by a friend, “Take Light”  here on my blog… here is my first stab at it! Please be kind… I have been stuck in yesterday for far too long! Thanks! I needed that kick in the butt!)

I thought I’d use the metaphor of jogging to start exercising my heart and preparing it for the joy I plan to round up!

Like tying my shoes before a run,
imagining how I’ll feel when I’m done~
I walk out the door with my ipod on,
facing the chill as my eyes kiss the dawn~

first, I start to walk slowly and then pick up speed,
knowing that this very moment, is all that I need~
Words dance through my head and into my heart,
realizing this is the way to make the words start~

This writing hiatus that I have been on,
was all stuck in my past and now released in my dawn~

So… as the sun rises, I see HIS grand work of art
and in the act of just living I’ve found joy in my heart!

Diane Reed ’13

                                                                                                                          Here’s to living IN TODAY from now on!!!!!

The Places That Hurt Before

Her heart was bruised
and a little misused,
she learned at a young age
how it could break~

Years went by
and life went on,
she learned the games
of give and take~

But she always wandered back
into the forest of her yesterdays~
looking past the shadows
losing her way inside the maze~

Now the bruises on her heart…
They don’t hurt much anymore~
unless you push very hard
on the places that hurt before.

Diane Reed ’13

My own words

My words find me

alone in my room~

They keep me company

like a familiar tune~

From the time I was small

I’ve brought them along,

they comfort me

when all else goes wrong~

My words come from

a place deep inside,

where my tears and my love

all tend to reside~

At times I have written only for me

and others, just for you~

No matter what, where ever I go,

They’ll always come along too~

They are easy to bring.

they don’t take much room~

I’ve carried them with me

since; there in the womb~

Judge them or love them

but don’t take them away~

For without my own words

I’d have nothing to say~

   

Diane Reed

2013

Ambivalence

I step over the line
And then I look back
as the fragrance of the moment lasts

I hold today loosely
as it slips through the cracks
and I fall into step
with this dance

Like a feather falling
I hear your soul calling
as it brushes my heart
and then lingers

Like hugging sand
when the hour glass breaks

Just time
running through our fingers….

Diane Reed 2013