Monday Meditation

When one door of happiness closes, another opens: but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

~ Helen Keller 

Monday Meditation

A Drinking Song 

Wine comes in at the mouth   
And love comes in at the eye;   
That’s all we shall know for truth   
Before we grow old and die.   
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

~W.B. Yeats 

Wordless Wednesday

Burnside's Bridge Antietam National Battlefield
Sharpsburg, MD

Something I Stumbled Upon

Sea Longing

A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall

Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,-
Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,-
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

~Sara Teasdale

Monday Meditation

One joy scatters a hundred griefs.  

~Chinese Proverb

 Who would possibly believe that the act of throwing rocks in a creek could be so 
completely fulfilling? 

Apparently the 4 and 5 year olds in the photo.  

Sometimes the simplest things bring the most joy.

The Beach

Wednesday was a real doozy of a day.  

Just take my word for it.  

Things started going bad the moment I stepped in the door at work and little by little they got worse and worse.  However, because my major resolution is to remain in a positive attitude (don't laugh, I can do it), I tried to focus on things that make me think in happier terms.

Like the beach.  

Doesn't matter which beach, any beach will do.  

This photo happens to be from Haven Beach in Mathews.  

One day, I'm going to sit in one of those chairs sipping wine out of a red solo cup.  

With or without company.  

Doesn't matter.  

I just want to sit and listen to the waves and the gulls, feel the sun on my skin and watch the water. 

 Or take the kayak out for a spin around the creek.  

My favorite time being the evening when the stingrays are out feeding on the sandbars.  

There's nothing like getting on amongst a school of them, feeling them bumping the kayak and watching them fly through the water.

 Or throwing endless sticks for Bailey and watching her fly through the air as she leaps off the dock.

Or walk the beach and explore.  

See what pieces of flotsam and jetsam I can find.

Take hundreds of photos.

And not give a damn about anything else.

So yes, Wednesday was bad, but each new day brings the promise of being something different- something better. 

Wordless Wednesday: Deltaville Year in Review

The Tornado:

 

Cleaning up the damage

 

Sailing the Piankatank

  

Hurricane Irene Preparedness

 .... here's to 2012 being something positive and filled with hope.

Fishing Trips

I find it fascinating how certain tastes, sounds and smells can immediately take someone back to a specific memory.  Looking for a late night snack, I pulled out a box of Cheese-Its.  I don't know if it was strictly that sharp salty cheese flavor or a combination of that and looking through photos for the blog, but immediately I was 10 again and fishing on Pepop's boat.

That's me perched on the bow behind Pepop's black lab Sheba.  

It was always a wrestling match with Sheba over who would stand/sit at the point of the bow.  

Sheba typically won.

She was known to knock people off of things like piers and boats.
(I can't help but chuckle over the memory of Sheba knocking my cousin Kelly face first into the marsh muck at low tide- if only I had a camera then)

Pepop was always at the helm and always in the same attire.

Every summer, Pepop would take all of the kids out on his boat Pigpen to go fishing.  

Grandmother and Aunt Patsy would send us next door with some snacks, which were almost always Cheese-Its and cans of Slice.  

 It apparently had 10% real fruit juice in it. 

At Pepop's house we gathered up our fishing rods and headed to the boat.  

Pepop's rods were unique in that all the hooks were covered by Memom's cigarette butts.  

She was always afraid that someone would run a hook through their skin (which I've done).

Once aboard Pigpen, we would head out to the river.  

Once in our spot, we would all wait patiently for Pepop to bait our hooks, which was always a dangerous operation.

At  the most there would be 5 kids with swinging fishing rigs on a small work boat.  

Someone would be moving empty hooks to get bait, 

someone else would be moving loaded hooks out of the way and 

someone would be casting- and that meant pulling the the rod way back before flinging it forward.  Everyone wanted to be the one with the furthest and best cast.  

Everything is a competition after all. 

It was a dangerous maypole dance of un-cigarette-butted fishing hooks.

Not being known for patience, I usually felt something tugging my line every minute or so and was continuously reeling in the line to check the bait.  

Sometimes I would find a blue crab on the line and sometimes I'd find my bait gone

but most times I just found that the bait was intact and I had nothing.

  On the hundredth time I checked my line, I swore I had something.  

My cousins groaned and laughed and made fun of me- until I pulled a spot on the boat.  

I had hooked it in the stomach as I reeled the line in.

It didn't really matter how I got it, I was vindicated.

A spot I caught when I was 2-3 on my dad's boat, not a Pepop trip (note my chicken pox)

Another time I checked my line and saw the rod bend in a U shape.  

I got excited and I jerked to set the bait and started reeling in my catch. 

It was heavy whatever it was.  

I was thinking it was probably a shark, maybe even a Great White. 

I jerked and reeled and jerked and reeled and as I jerked one final time I simultaneously heard Pepop tell me to stop and suddenly the rig burst from the water and sailed right past Pepop's head.  

I had apparently hooked the bottom of the boat (nearly hooked Pepop's head).

At some point Memom would radio Pepop and ask him if we were all wearing our life jackets.  

This prompted Pepop to quickly tell us, "Put them on! Put them on!" and once we were all standing with our life preservers on, he would radio back to her that yes, we were wearing them (and then they were taken off).

Eventually, some of us would get bored with fishing.  

The snacks would come out and we would sit around, 

rolling with the waves drinking warm Slice and eating Cheese-Its.  

I usually got tired of Cheese-Its and would begin feeding the seagulls.  

Of course I had to do this on the sly as Pepop did not have much love for the seagulls (since one pooped on his shoulder). So I would just quietly drop them over the side of the boat like a trail of bread crumbs.

It never takes long for seagulls to swarm.

This was always Pepop's clue that it was time to pack it up.  

I miss those trips.

I miss that smelly sea green boat.

Monday Meditation

To be able to move on, one has to learn to forgive not only the person (or people) who have done one wrong but also oneself. 

~ Eugenia Tripputi

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

~Lao Tzu

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.
~Brian Tracy

Reflections

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

~George Bernard Shaw

Look within!... The secret is inside you.
 ~Hui-Neng

Having had some time to think about things and life in general,

I've decided on a course of action for the coming year.  

It comes down to the fact that no one has control over our lives or emotions other than ourselves.  

No one can make someone happy, no one can make someone unhappy.  

It is our reaction to the stimulus that creates the mood. 

So don't react in a negative way.  

Change your response.  

I used to think of this as a lonely photo.

If I was in one chair, who would be in the other?

Now I wonder why I need someone in the other chair at all because it would be a blessing to sit and feel the sun warming my skin and listen to the waves roll in and 

just be.

And if I choose to have someone be there, then I need to put someone there.

Stop fearing rejection. 

Stop with the negative self image.

I have decided, this is the year I turn things around.

This is the year I manage happy.