iPods Forever

I am deleting all of the songs on my iPod and starting over.

Here is a blast of a song from the '80's that I will be adding to my new song list.

I don't know what happened to Lisa Stansfield but I always turn up the volume when I hear this song:

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Wild By Cheryl Strayed

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

                     ~ Mary Oliver

                     "The Summer Day"

From the moment I started reading the first words of the New York Times bestseller, Wild, by Cheryl Strayed, I couldn't put it down.

 

It has truly been a long time since I have read a book so honest and at the same time so poignant in its telling of a compelling personal story.

 

In hiking the Pacific Crest Trail all by herself from the Mojave Desert in California to the Bridge of the Gods that crosses the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border, Cheryl Strayed tests herself physically, mentally and emotionally in ways that many people never do in their whole lives.  And don't ever want do.  Ever.  Talk about pain!  You will never think about hiking boots the same way after reading Wild.

 

But Cheryl Strayed is a beautiful writer and through her unfiltered descriptions of what she is feeling and thinking, she is able to grab you and take you along on her powerful journey as though you are right there with her, step by step, the whole time. 

 

As she treks along the Pacific Crest Trail, Strayed slowly finds her inner resources and becomes stronger as she sleeps outdoors, purifies her water (I could feel her thirst), dreams about Snapple lemonade, adjusts to carrying a heavy backpack for miles and miles every day through intense heat and then snowfalls, deals with rattlesnakes and black bears and sometimes just being the only girl on the trail.  As she occasionally meets fellow hikers along the way, I was amazed by the immediate trust and support that most of them felt for each other; as if there was an inner radar that told each of them who was friend and who was foe in the great outdoors.

Grief is what puts Strayed on the Pacific Crest Trail and she describes every raw emotion of it: the falling apart, the sadness, the regrets, the anger, the exhaustion, the inability to wrap your brain around reality.

Just to give you a taste of how Strayed writes, here is a short except:

"There were so many other amazing things in this world.

They opened up inside of me like a river.  Like I didn't know I could take a breath and then I breathed.  I laughed with the joy of it, and the next moment I was crying my first tears on the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail).  I cried and I cried and I cried.  I wasn't crying because I was happy.  I wasn't crying because I was sad.  I wasn't crying because of my mother or my father or Paul.  I was crying because I was full.  Of those fifty-some hard days on the trail and of the 9,760 days that had come before them too.

I was entering.  I was leaving.  California streamed behind me like a long silk veil.  I didn't feel like a big fat idiot anymore.  And I didn't feel like a hard-ass motherfucking Amazonian queen.  I felt fierce and humble and gathered up inside, like I was safe in this world too."

I don't want to give away what happens to Cheryl Strayed in her amazing book so I will not reveal the particulars of her long distance adventure in the wilderness. You must read it for yourself!
 

Baby Angels

I have written previously about angels and particularly about a book my aunt gave me titled, Angel Letters," by Sophy Burnham.  From time to time, I read this book because I find it comforting and it puts life into perspective for me.

 

There are a number of stories that I tend to re-read when I am stressed or confused about life and this short story is one in particular that always takes my breath away:

 

In April 1990 Sophy Burnham was being interviewed about her book on WOR-Radio in New York.  She was being interviewed by Gil Gross and as they took calls and discussed the subject of angels, Gross told the following story about a young couple who had one little girl and a new baby:

 

"The little girl wanted to be left alone with the baby, but the parents were afraid.  They had heard of jealous children hitting new siblings, and they didn't want the baby hurt.

 

     'No, no,' they said.  And, 'Not yet.'

    

And also: 'Why do you want to be with him?  What are you going to do?'

 

     'Nothing.  I just want to be with him.'

 

She begged for days.  She was so insistent that the parents finally agreed.  There was an intercom in the baby's room.  They decided that they could listen, and if the baby cried, if the little girl hit the baby, they could rush into the room and snatch the infant up.  So, the little girl went in, approached the crib.  Alone.  She came up to the newborn baby, and over the intercom they heard her whisper:

     'Tell me about God.  I'm forgetting.' "

Happiness Is A Choice

Dear Readers,

Today's post is a continution of yesterday's chat about life being easier to navigate when you embrace a positive attitude.  As the below story says, happiness is a choice, and you can practice it as much as you want!!

A very good friend sent me this story that was recently published in a British newspaper called The Guardian.  It gently addresses the thoughts of people who know they are at the end of their lives.  The story is timely because it gets right to the core of addressing how we live our lives verses how we wish we had lived our lives.  My friend said she found the story below to be "rather uplifting, because we might still have time to prevent some of our own regrets."  I agree!

True happiness comes from forgetting about yourself and doing something for someone else just because you want to, not because of what you're going to get in return.  You do it just because you know it makes the other person happy. 

I found this philosophy to be true even after my husband died.  Helping my son, a friend or someone at work freed up my mind and let me temporarily think about something else.  Sometimes it was a relief to get out of that heavy cloud of hurt and try to become part of something lighter. 

Focusing on the bad, the ugly and the negative, just puts you in a bad, ugly or negative frame of mind and it's hard to believe that anything constructive will come out of that.  I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did:

Top five regrets of the dying

By Susie Steiner

The Guardian

Wednesday 1 February, 2012

A nurse has recorded the most common regrets of the dying, and among the top ones is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'. What would your biggest regret be if this was your last day of life?

A palliative nurse has recorded the top five regrets of the dying. Photograph: Montgomery Martin/Alamy

There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
"This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."

What's your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?