Window Shopping, Memories, Laughter, Peace

No, i don’t want a pair of 8″ brown suede heels — but I have fond memories of some brown suede heels I owned in high school. they were grown up shoes. They went with very little I had, but they did spark my mom’s longing and imagination.

Seems a plenty good reason to laugh and remember, no?

It’s the little things that bring us Peace, just a moment of Peace.

I bet most of us have some little something from our past, that when we see today’s equivalent, make us remember and make us smile. We all have memories, even if the scale varies. It’s good for Peace that we remember them, and share them with one another.

I just wish my mom had had the courage to buy the shoes for herself. That would have been a different kind of Peace. But I’ll take this one. I’m sure Lorraine had no idea how sweet a memory she was unleashing when she sent me a photo she called “window shopping!”

Gargoyles for Peace (and dry mortar)

Man, I know utility is a good thing. But let’s hear it for whimsy. And just think, back in the day, people used both!

What’s fun is a friend sent me this piece that he wrote on the particular gargoyle that Cindi photographed. I’m going to settle in and read when I get back from my walk!

I’m going to think a bit where I can add some whimsy into my practical work. It’s time to laugh. Whimsy and laughter are good for practical Peace.

The Blues, The Joy, The Peace

I used to sing back up with this woman. It was always fun because she was always ready for a good time. We always laughed.

And then she fell in love and went away, and music isn’t as giggly fun as it used to be in this valley.

Even when you sing the blues, when there’s harmony and friends, the blues aren’t as hard to carry.

The laughter and the music fill and heal your heart… Join together, they fill the hearts of the singers. They fill the hearts of the players. They fill the hearts of the audience.

Everyone’s hearts are in the same place. That’s Peace! Thanks Averie! You’re so Savory! And so is Peace!

The Funnel Cake of Peace

There are two women I know and love in this Valley. We get our picture taken a lot because we’re women from different traditions trying to gather the Valley together around things that matter.

And, we sometimes gather people together around things that don’t matter. Yesterday was one of those days. It was our fourth (or so) mostly annual Interfaith Coalition No Pork Picnic at a wonderful small family owned amusement park (Number One in the nation, we add proudly).

Yesterday Rabbi Nina wrote, Eradicating Peace, one funnel cake at a time. To which I added, putting the fun back in funnel cake. And so the picture from this gathering that we’ll send to the paper will have more than the three of us and we’ll all be holding a plate of funnel cake.

We didn’t have as many people as we’d hoped we might, since we’d had to reschedule for last week’s thunderstorms. But those who came stayed and played. (I just found out one family stayed through dinner!)

I’m not a huge amusement park fan. Once I’ve ridden the skloosh (a fast plow into a huge puddle of water!) and gotten soaking wet, i’m done for the day. Pullllease can I go home.

But there we all were, eating funnel cake and laughing. Life is very sweet — funnel cake is a good reminder. Interfaith community changes the world and it can always use a bit of sweetness and laughter. So here’s to you and here’s to us, lifting that Funnel Cake to Peace!

Busy Weekend (Sabbath) Peace!

What a rich weekend. Friday night at King Street Coffee House and great friends playing. Doing ceremony — a sad tribute to a lovely woman. An evening all about friends and listening to a dear friend who just gets better and better.

Today is jam-packed. Church (preceded by choir!). A friend in a play (and the reviews have been great.) And then more friends in another short road trip to hear EG Kight sing again.

A couple years ago EG Kight came very close to dying. And did not. But they didn’t know if she would ever sing again, let alone write, let alone tour. She’s back, her voice is better than ever, and although the touring is hard work, she packed a three hour show. Never less than her best.

And she is so encouraging. She’s played with one local musician before, and she brought him up. But she’d heard about a young man called him out of the audience and handed him her guitar. And then coaxed the best out of him and let him coax the best out of her. It was lovely. Such generosity.

So you know me. I’m a bide-at-home kinda girl. But once in a while, you have to make the effort to enjoy the bounty. And doesn’t that seem ridiculous.

I know this area is rich. But every area is. Feast and give thanks.

You can’t help but be at Peace when you’re sitting in a crowd listening to someone belting out the blues. (Most of the time I could even let the young talking kids in the front off my indignant that’s-no-way-to-listen-to-a-concert fuddiduddiness!) Music. Theater. Ceremony. Community. Faith. It’s a weekend worth celebrating and a Sabbath worth indulging, and making sacred. Oh, and there were moments of sublime beauty. It’s Peace if we give it a chance.

The Peace of an Eclipse with Friends

I beg forbearance. I may be burbling about this for a long time. The eclipse was gorgeous.

Hanging out by the fire with friends, lovely. Hanging out by the fire with my beloved? oh we don’t do that often enough!

And the sky was unbelievable.

Everywhere else people were complaining about the sky’s being overcast, but in this little circle of field surrounded by trees, the clouds — whispy ones at that — would dance in and dance back out. Leaving nothing but a heavy, heavy Milky Way and that beautiful orb that looked nothing like the Moon (nothing!) hanging in the sky like some foreign celestial body.

I could burble for a long time about this. I probably will. Forewarned is forearmed… have topics ready to talk about if you run into me and don’t want to hear about the Moon, the Moon, the Moon!

Why I wonder, when I do something like last night, plopped in a field around a fire, don’t i do that more often. Steve and I both love it so much — although I’m sure he missed a drum in his hands. It was lovely and filled with Peace. it was a perfect moment in my life.

Perfect and filled with Peace. I wish us all many such moments. They give us fuel to walk the Peace Path.

Pool Peace

Swimming. it’s such an odd thing for me. When I’m in the pool, it doesn’t feel any different than it ever did. The magic is as magic as ever.

It’s the only sport at which I’ve been halfway competent. (very little falling down, i like that!)

Only sport in which I’ve felt the beauty of my body doing what it’s supposed to do.

I can get in the pool after ‘way too much time off and still swim. I get out of breath, but nothing hurts as a result… just a little achy muscle, waking up from not being used.

So it’s always a surprise to catch sight of myself in a mirror… and see I’m not a skinny teenager. And neither were any of the women swimming with me.

Thank goodness for the other women. I love the swimming but the casual conversation and the laughter encourage my attendance.

Some of those women are hella strong. it’s something to aspire to.

But it did make me laugh to see a couple young women. They’re so beautiful. So strong. And no one was ill-mannered enough to gawk… but i remember thinking i would always have that skinny girl body.

I learned early, however, about women’s laughter. I knew about my own experience at my women’s college. And then 5 years after I graduated, there was a problem at school and all the alums showed up. The women we’d dismissed as bluehairs? HA! solved the problem, with guts, ingenuity and money. And oh, my goodness, could they laugh!

I knew then that I was safe in my future, although I was equally sure I’d always be skinny.

Well, there was a curve ball!

But laughing and swimming, they both stuck with me and I stuck with them. And they always make me feel like a girl. And isn’t that great.

Really? Sledge Hammer Peace?

It made me laugh really. Ann and sledge hammer in the same sentence. Ann with a sledge hammer in her hands. Don’t tell my brother or my nephew, they might injure themselves laughing…

Now, to be fair, it wasn’t back up over my head, being swung to put in a railroad spike. No grunts needed for impact. We were whacking at the spikes to loosen them up so that they could be pulled up after someone else had been out there swinging to put the tent spikes in the ground.

But I was tool using, nonetheless…

Of course the fact that i was the youngest of the geriatrics cleaning up post yard sale… meant I was likely to have a look-in. But still. And I’m upright today. Without bruises. Pretty good, I’d say…

Tell no one, I enjoyed myself, Tool Usin’ Mama that I am!

Peace, folks, and relax, the only tool I’m using today is a computer — and maybe a car.

Peace in Moving Beyond

Sometimes I realize what a stick I’ve become.

Do I really want to go to a Burning Man Party I wonder?

Oh, yes, I did. It was just marvelous. Not only the food, Ann’s first way of judging a party! But a whole bunch of new people in a beautiful place. People who did fun things, like the woman who twirled fire. That was really a fun thing. It was beautiful. She’d learned in Hawaii, and hadn’t done it for years.

And then the man. My friend had built this marvelous man. I sweet talked my bud who went with me into staying for the burn. It was lovely and emotional. Yay!

And the night, mugginess and bugginess aside, was a perfect evening. The stars, the stars, the stars.

And today’s another party of another kind. A weekend of relaxation. hurrah. (well, except for the yardsale!) And today, the summer is over and I get to go back to church after the sabbatical. My peeps! (This is sort of an all over post, isn’t it?)

There’s a lot of Peace in exploring things just outside your comfort zone… and even if it doesn’t get all the way to Peace, there’s a lotta fun! It’s the Sabbath. Relax and enjoy. Why not try something new?

Re-membering Peace

Life is made up of such layers. So many things in our lives that have made it sweet and all those things evolve… some are still part of our lives, some are lost to us and some are just now entering.

Yesterday was the second anniversary of Deb’s death. It’s almost time for what would have been my niece’s 49th birthday. All the joy of that family is held closely… and yet… and yet… they’re all gone.

Last night was the pre-wedding celebration of my friend’s second marriage. HIs first wife, my dear friend, died eight years ago. To see him last night, so happy, so happy! Again! At last!

The dinner was at a carousel. It was a lovely venue on the edge of the East River in Brooklyn. Full Moon rising over the park as we took the water taxi in… We sat looking back at the NYC skyline on a gorgeous summer evening. Eating grilled cheese sandwiches from a food truck. Oh, I remember New York, I remember. It was once a love of mine.

And there was my friend, swirling around the carousel, his bride going up and down on the horse beside him, intimately talking and laughing, just the two of them on the ride… so fun.

And lots of old friends with lots of catching up to do.

So many memories. So much happiness tempering the loss. A chance to both be present to the moment and to put all the pieces back together to envision a sweet, sweet future.

Remembering Love is an act of defiance, an act of Peace. And I’d love to stay longer, but New York is outside my hotel, demanding I remember… and an old friend is here to walk through it with me. Bye for now!

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

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