The Art of Being Human

    The greatest joys are in the small ordinary moments of our lives. It’s watching someone we love sleep, a cup of tea on a cold day, a thick mat when you step out of the shower. I’m finding that it takes courage to live in the fullness of these moments these days. Not because they don’t exist, but because we are bombarded with messages that tell us who we are and what we have is not enough. We are told in a hundred different ways that we don’t measure up, that the world is not safe, and something bad is just around the corner. It’s fear at its most insidious best. And I get it.  I get that we’re afraid, and I understand why. I’m not living under a rock. When I did my 90 Day No Negativity Challenge I learned one thing for sure, it’s either fear or love, baby. Fear is a soul sucking joy stealer that brings out the worst in people. We destroy our bodies and relationships, get into debt up to our eyeballs, and we test our poor children to death.  We finger point and blame becaus

He was a little too much of everything I didn’t want or need in my life and yet I found myself flooded with love every time I was around him. I’m talking about love now, not lust. I do know the difference. The first couple of times it happened I chalked it up to a round of steroids I was taking for a sinus infection.  They filled me with such euphoric good will for everyone that I had to stop myself from declaring my undying love to the mail carrier. My friends thought I was a nut. I thought I was in the middle of a spiritual transformation. No, just steroids.  Two months later my sinus infection was a thing of the past. The feelings were still there though and they were not feelings I wanted to act on for a whole slew of reasons and no small amount of common sense. Let’s face it, if we all acted on every feeling we have half of us would be in jail and the other half would be hanging from the rafters and dancing in the streets. It’s awfully easy to justify doing whatever c

      Revel called on Sunday morning and said that he would come over later to pick up my copy of   The Omnivore’s  Dilemma .  Our definitions of later were different. Mine was after lunch, after I got dressed, after I had tea, after a couple of hours. His wasn’t even close to that.  His later was after a few minutes. That’s why he caught me still in my pajamas, not even nice pajamas. I was in the ratty cotton ones I wear with my pink cowboy boot tee shirt.  If he had arrived when I thought he was going to I would have been dressed. Maybe.     “At least you’re out of bed and dressed.” He knows me. I'll give him that much. My plan was to hand him the book and go back to what I was doing. His plan was to talk about tilling up a section of my yard for a fall garden and play chess.  So, I stepped outside to talk about the details when neighbor pulled up on his bike. It’s one thing to hang out in my pajamas with Revel and quite another thing to do it with my neighbors.      It