Archive for the ‘Thriving’ Category

Normal

Posted: November 5, 2013 in Thriving
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I clearly remember him, and later her, looking at me and saying, “I just want to be normal.”

The sorry soul, wasted, sobs for sanity.

Traumatized longs to just get back to normal — that steamy, soapy tub we ache to soak our grubby souls in once again.

Rub-a-dub-dub-ten-kids-in-a-tub — so many choices, so much bad grub.

Sordid chemistry, heart-breaking abandonments, hidden betrayals, personal illegalities, corporate illicities, national infamies — getting back to safe, to that boring, flat-road scenery we love to drive home through is so, so, so fine!

A warm bed, no nightmares, no hangover, the same wife, no jail time, eight hours of sleep, a Chai tea latte, hot oatmeal, school lunches, the cat on the couch beside us as we watch TV,  the morning news about another shooting in a mall or airport — normal is a speeding target swerving.

But that doesn’t make it of any less amazing.

Sane, sober and safe will always be the same kind of good. Gang-banging, bullying, doping, betraying, benumbing, or firing hot bullets into other people is not good or even remotely any kind of good-bad.

It’s good to get up everyday, go to work, come home to the same place at night, sleep with the same person, eat good food, not drink too much, to hope, choose, speed, swerve, and hang on to all the normal we can get — smashed down, shaken together and running out of our own taps.

Normal; it’s good.

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No And Yes

Posted: May 11, 2013 in Relationships, Stamina, Thriving
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“No” has a happy home in every wise brain.

What gifts, what endowments, what freakishly fine talents would have been kept from the world without a no to the cheapskate, the naysayer and the lazy bim, bam and bum within.

What successful child ever grew up without no, and the child who was never told no, never grew up.

What dieters ever thinned down or up without no to the sweet whining, seductive call of cake or cookie or calorie?

Which of the bent, twisted, cracked, crumbled, conflicted minds that ever breathed oxygen avoided the penalty box, the ticket, the firing, the expulsion, the drugs, the alcohol, the jail or the prison except by a few stern self-inflicted no’s.

No is needed, a lot, but not just no.

There is more to life than just no. Look around the edge or over the top of every high, thorned, hedged and conventional no, and you’ll see a lovely, nubile, winged, bright, book-toting yes looking right at you.

Run towards that yes yelling and waving. Yell, “Yes, I can! Yes, I will! Yes, I do!” For it is that very yes that has the power to replace old addictions, discover new habits, heal relational wounds and inspire fresh contributions to all the fine arts and the fine sciences.

For within each and every spoken yes there is restored memory, perspicacious reason and a super-gorgeous winged thing of imagination.

Don’t you know that every pen, poem, piece, pan, paper, piper, pean, pastry, panacea or panel ever pieced together has a joyful-howling pack of yes’s pursuing it?

No may be that mangy dog that must have its dutiful, flea-dipped day, but yes, drop-dead gorgeous yes, will drive the sports car with the top down, write the poem, paint the picture, eat the chocolate cake, kiss the fluffy cat, refinish the wood floor and host the latest, flipped over, hip-pity hop, hop, hop bop.

So feed that! Smack that! Yes, jump on that –everyday! Close your eyes and fold your hands and put your heels together and yes your own fresh yes five times a day. Eat it up and go back for seconds and then have a dollop of yes on top of your best yes, for dessert.

The yes within the yes of your own, sweet, self-affirming yes is your best inner guest.

No is fine in its time, but wise souls always fly the furious flag of yes just before charging right over the top of a no longer helpful no.