I am alive! I love my life. How does one define “life”? not sure, but I know that I am.
One thing I see as “living” is learning. I love to learn. I learn new things every chance I get. I DO find my self limiting my learning by my pre-judges of new things that come, and it would be my wish to not be doing that to myself,
AND, there’s only so much room in here. I choose, for instance, not to learn how to change a carburetor, or even how to cook a really good standing rib roast. Some things I just don’t care to learn. What I know about those things, is that some people DO choose to learn about them, I can find them when I need their expertise.
The things I most like to learn about are things of creative nature. Things that are beyond my ability to grasp at the moment, but which fascinate me in their largesse. There’s a kid I’ve been following, a young man named Jason Silva who excites me in his exuberant video presentations of such things beyond my ability yet to fathom.
As much as I like to learn about things bigger than me on the outside, I am always seeking to delve deep into the things bigger than me on the inside. Things like why I chose to come into this life in a body that’s bigger than most of those with whom I choose to hang out with. I tend to be one of the larger ones in almost every group I enter, and that awareness usually sends me into self-deprecation.
In my private moments of choice, I am constantly fighting bad food choices. I buy expensive greens and they go to waste (but not mine). Yesterday, I drove around and past three stores before I finally succumbed to two Peppermint Patties.
Every morning, when I get up, I am faced AGAIN with food choices that confound me. Actually, I do eat to live, not live to eat. If I never had to eat, it would be fine with me. , By the time I figure out WHAT to eat, I’m usually so hungry I’d eat anything, and yet, I have a hard time choosing.
I quickly dropped 20 pounds a while ago, when I stopped eating bread and sugar. Of course, three months of traveling and being off my healthier choices has resulted so far in picking 10 of those pounds back up again. It’s so frustrating and discouraging that I have a hard time caring. I do know for sure, though, that bread does not serve my body well. The minute I eat very much at all, like a 6″ Subway sandwich, I go into spasms of IBS.
With good friends encouraging me, I have been better about living fully in the paradise of Hawaii, choosing to do things that feed my soul. Swimming and snorkeling; sewing and serving, quilting, reading a LOT, mostly by listening to books on tape while I work at jobs that otherwise could be boring on the computer, learning to play my ukulele! I can strum and change between about six chords already. I can play the vamp for a hula, and a sweet little tune I made up to get me through the C, G and F chords. I’m told that if I can do that, I can play about 100 songs with those three chords. I’m ecstatic to hear that!
I’ve also been really happy to bring children back into my life, in a joyful, once-in-a-while, grandma sort of way. I met all four of my grandchildren for the first time this summer, traveling a LOT to do so, stretching my belief systems about abundance and ability to live as though I’m as rich as God.
I’ve also been helping a young family near me by watching their three little ones from time to time to facilitate them working too hard to keep their kids in private schools.
Another way I’m hanging out more with children will start this week, when I begin as a volunteer at a “Sew-Fun” group, where old ladies gather to teach youngsters how to sew in an after-school program. There are adult students in the group as well, but I am looking forward to working with the kids.
In meeting my newest set of grandkids, newly adopted by my son, I assured my son that I would be there for him in any way possible, and reminded him that I am willing to be of help to him, and he said, “Yeah, but you live in a different reality. You don’t even pay rent.” Yep, that’s me. He reminded me, and I reminded him, that we each create our own reality, and I have to say that I’m pretty happy with the reality I’ve created here.If only I could figure out what to eat for breakfast.
Julia Musings 