Waterfall

Gorman Falls

November 13, 2021, Shower Meditation

I closed my eyes to meditate this morning and immediately saw a rushing river… which led to the edge of a waterfall… cascading over the edge to plummet into the depths below. I opened my eyes.

What is the message?

And that one little vision expanded into all the rest of this.

I had been feeling pressured by time. It was just January, and now it is November. I just turned another year older even though it just feels like a number.

There are days when my river of tasks is slow - when I focus on getting through five minutes at a time as addictive busyness had taken a toll on my ability to being okay with doing nothing.

And there are days when time is much faster - when suddenly I realize I need to shut everything down and get ready for bed.

Where'd the day go? Did I do what really matters in the long run? Will my accomplishments of today matter a year from now? If not, what do I want to do differently tomorrow?

There are the life lessons that say to flow with the current vs. struggling to swim or row against the current.

Am I flowing or resisting?

Am I allowing bouts of fatigue and being completely caught up on my writing and volunteer work to remind me to take breaks?

Am I holding on to thoughts and experiences like they are rocks along the river or leaving them behind and flowing around them?

And the question I sometimes ask myself - if my time on earth expires today, am I doing what really matters?

What does really matter?

Relationships.

It's the only thing I can take with me when I leave earth.

I find myself resisting taking the initiative to make the first move - the first leap over the edge of the waterfall - to connect with my granddaughter. My memories and conclusions about these memories are the rocks I grab during the journey out of fear that I might drown. What exactly am I afraid of? Rejection?

She'll be 9 in January. I've only seen her in person twice, the last time five years ago. I've been waiting for the day she is old enough to call me on her own or even ask her parents to call so she can talk to me. Or longer… the day she is old enough to visit me. And when she is, will she?

What if she is as self-conscious as I am when talking to a stranger? She only knows me by name. I sense her bashfulness when her father occasionally video calls me while she is sitting on his lap. I reminisce about my preference to have words on paper I can reread again in the future vs. relying on memory to hold onto the content of conversations.

I reminisce about my friends who spend time with their children and grandchildren without a second thought. Why is my situation different?

I'm even self-conscious about calling her father - the son I gave birth to in 1983. Somehow, time got away from us. We have both gone through a metamorphosis, and it seems like we are strangers to each other. He's not one to write emails or letters. He's not one to start a chat via text except on a rare occasion. He's in love with his daughter and fatherhood, apparently consumed by every available moment when he is not at work to be with her. I understand. I did that once, too. It doesn't change the yearning I have to talk to him or get a note from him. For the most part, it's his amazing, beautiful wife who nudges him when it's my birthday or Mother's Day. And if she didn't post snippets on Instagram Story, I wouldn't see glimpses of their lives.

Thus, in the theme of the waterfall, watching time rush by, I paused to write my granddaughter a letter asking questions I hope she will write answers to - one I mailed to her with a postage stamp on it. I usually just mail cards and gifts on birthdays and holidays. 

Once upon a time, I had an aunt (one of my maternal grandmother's sisters) for a pen pal. Maybe we can become pen pals, too. 

I also wrote another digital letter in the document I plan to share with her when she is either 16 or 18.

The pool at the bottom of the waterfall is beautiful. But in order to experience it, I must let go and travel over the waterfall. Right?

Unless… there is a back way that I can hike in… something my niece discovered she could do one day.

Souvenirs

I just discovered I had not published this post from April 25, 2020.

-----

During this time of stay-at-home orders, I have used my imagination in various ways. One, if I was on a spaceship, I'd have to stay inside the entire time I was in space. I can pretend I am on a secret mission via boat or spaceship. I wrote in a previous post about Howl's Moving Castle -- turning a knob that opens the door to different places even when you never leave the castle. I can also do this each time I look at an object I share space within my apartment.

One of many self-therapies I do is practicing gratitude. This includes paying attention to each and every object in my home, bringing them to life vs. just sitting on a shelf, in a cabinet, on a wall, or in a draw. Many are souvenirs... reminding me of places I used to live or travel to. Some remind me of people I used to know. Here are some examples.

There is a three-foot square quilt my brother's wife made for me when she got into a quilting mood. It is hanging by the table I work at every day. When I look at it, I see in my mind their beautiful house and their land in Vermont... where I visited a very long time ago. I have a digital album of photos I took while I was there. My brother works at Simon-Pearce blowing glass, and many of the pieces adorn my windowsill and cabinet shelves. I can remember touring the facility. I can remember my surprise when I opened a box he sent me and saw he had twisted the stem of one of the long-stem glasses just for fun. One year, he created stain-glass... and sent me one of those... which lives on my front window sill.

There is a blanket with a sleeping kitten on my wall over a loveseat. It takes me back in time when I lived in an old motor home... which wasn't insulated. I consulted with my sister... the one who lives in Washington... about how she stays warm in the cabin they live in. She had told me they put blankets and comforters up over the windows in the winter. I hung this blanket over the window and wall by the bed I slept in. But that isn't all. A kitten I adopted... Snowflake... lay down in front of it one day on the bed in front of the blanket... with the exact same expression as the kitten on the blanket. Even though she is long gone, I can still see her on the blanket hanging on my wall as if she is actually there.

There is a fairy holding a flower on one of my bookshelves. My mother didn't know I had it. But one year, she sent me another one from the same collection. Now there are two.

There is a small Disneyland castle on one of my shelves. Once upon a time, so many years ago, I did get to go to both Disneyland and Disney World. I don't remember which one I got the castle at, and it doesn't matter.

There is a tiny seagull sitting on top of a clear box that has small seashells and stones in it. I remember growing up on the coast of Massachusetts... going for walks on the beach across the street... searching for treasures to bring home with me.

Just before the lockdown, I had reconnected with a long-time friend who began taking me for long rides for sight-seeing, grocery shopping at stores an hour or more away, art galleries, and more. We collected some souvenirs to bring home. Each time I look at one of these souvenirs, I feel like I am in those places again.

Sometimes, when I look at something that doesn't have meaning for me anymore, I decide to donate it... so someone else can enjoy it. I hope they are looking at these things with a similar sense of gratitude.

Old Movies

Copyright (c) 2017 Renee Alter  Fort Groghan, Burnet, TX

I'm sure you have watched a lot of movies... romance, cowboys & Indians, old world wars, fairy tales, Walt Disney, Star Wars, murder mysteries, detectives, and more. Some left you feeling uplifted, some taxed your adrenaline surges, some left you sad and depressed.

Have you ever considered your past experiences as movies? When I began to do this, I gained a completely different perspective of them.

Imagine you are in the movie theatre. You have seen the trailer and decided you wanted to see it... based on about two minutes of previews. Then the movie starts.

The first scene is your childhood and you are the main character. You see your siblings if you have any, your parents, perhaps your grandparents or foster parents if they raised you. Or maybe you grew up in an orphanage. You see yourself in school. Perhaps you were popular or perhaps you were bullied. Perhaps you then came home to witness your parents shouting at each other so you hid in your room.

The next scene is you as an adult. Depending on how old you are now, the journey has been either short or a very long. It may have included illness, accidents, pain, depression, war, death, or a myriad of other possible scenarios.

But remember. You are in a movie theatre watching a movie. All movies end leaving you with the afterthoughts of what you have seen. Soon these memories fade away and are no longer in the forefront of your mind.

Your life has been a movie, too. This means, you can leave the theatre and if you didn't like what you saw or how it ended, you know it was JUST A MOVIE.

Two years ago, I met actor Randall Oliver. He co-wrote stories for children with my friend and fellow author Elaine Kelley about his horse named Nobody (which I published for them). Some of the movies Randy was in were Horror Movies--harsh, evil, and scary--so I wasn't interested in watching any of them, no matter how nice a man he is.

After having conversations with Randy about how he would get totally absorbed in the characters he portrayed, then have the ability to walk away from the set to re-acclimate back to his normal daily life, I came up with the idea of my life being a movie that I could walk away from.

I could pretend I was an actress and the characters in the movies I starred in (family, partners, etc.) were completely different people than the roles they portrayed, which provided me with a way to forgive.

I wonder what actors and actresses do with all the lines they had memorized, just as I had been ruminating about all the uncomfortable conversations I had.

One of the 10 cognitive distortions is discounting the positive. I discovered I had been 'afflicted' with all 10 cognitive distortions, but the one that relates to this post is how I had discounted all the GOOD things that I experienced while I dwelled on the sad, bad, and the ugly. It was as if I only had been collecting the bad movies in my movie box (my memories and subconscious) but didn't pay attention to the uplifting ones.

Consider your past a past filled with OLD MOVIES.

Your old movies can include previous marriages, the death of people and pets you loved, the traumas of the wars you fought while in the military, the traumas of the fires and natural disasters you were either a victim of or one of many rescuers, a horrific car accident you were in or witnessed, and more.

I realize there are many resilient people in the world who have the amazing ability to leave the 'theatre' of their experiences without holding onto the images of the 'movies.' But if you're not one of them...

You've now had plenty of experiences being on the set of those old movies playing various roles, and now imagine you have become a screenwriter and director.

What new screenplay will you write?

Who are the actors and actresses you want to play the parts?

How will you rewrite your life story?

Walk into a new movie!