Simple

Very little is truly simple. Some things seem so by comparison, because many things are truly complex. Making things simple, cutting back to the core, to the essence,this is often seen as a desirable objective. But to my way of thinking, there is nothing simple about doing so.



My apologies in advance, dear readers:

Remember the concept popularized by the movie "When Harry Met Sally" of being high maintenence? I was probably somewhat high maintenence even before Weight Watchers, but Weight Watchers taught me it was okay to be that way, not just okay but, in fact, wise. If I want to add my own salad dressing in a restaurant or I do not want my fish cooked in an ocean of drawn butter, I am paying for the restaurant to prepare that food and I deserve to have it prepared in the way that I can most enjoy it. Are you beginning to sense how difficult "simple" may be for me?



Okay, it is now 2 days later than when I originally started this topic/post and I have mulled it over for that entire period and I am more convinced than when I wrote the 2 paragraphs above that this topic is near the top of the uninspired topics for me in the 11 months I have been trying to do SS every week.



I even attempted one of those poems where you take each letter of the word and write a line that starts with that letter:

Savvy and probably safe

Inventive

More difficult than it seems

Probably wise and healthy

Lots of work!

Essential



Is that pathetic or what?? That's a rhetorical question.

I shall not bore any of us further. Have a simply wonderful week!

Masks

Rambling thoughts on Masks in our lives

"Which mask shall I wear today?" I mused. Of course, I will use my teacher face: caring, helpful, tolerant but firm; and, as needed, my mother mask---today will it need to be comforting or cautioning, soothing or scolding, proud or disappointed? Then, surely, today I will need my loving wife face and my friend face. Are these masks?

Which of our life roles could be considered masks? I daresay that at times our most constant and comfortable roles---no matter how much we pride ourselves on being honest, sincere, straightforward and up-front---involve wearing masks. How many of us have not pacified and been solicitious of aging parents, in-laws, even children and spouses, when we really wanted to bite their heads off or at least show them how frustrated and exhausted we are, sometimes deliberately in response to something that very person had said or done or caused? Many also are the masks that conceal from specific people or from the whole world the pain or the failures we do not wish to talk about or share at all. Pain of loss or fear or hurt or whatever is private---all of us have occasional masks for these.

Are masks actually quite a bit like "little white lies"? Not something we are very proud of, and certainly not something we want to be known for---because doesn't that make us dishonest? fake? insincere? But at the same time, a necessary survival skill. One just cannot go around constantly being blunt and hurting people's feelings. Like the adage "You can catch more flies with honey (than with vinegar)", frequently positive change can be accomplished more successfully and sometimes more rapidly with positive, friendly encouragement than with direct, sometimes hurtful, honesty. The visage that you wear to facilitate these changes or compromises or simply avoidance of conflict, surely it is a mask. N'est pas??

Aren't some of these masks totally positive?? For years I have heard the positive thinking concept of "Fake it 'til you make it." I believe in it. I have seen it work. "Act successful and you'll be successful!" Believe in yourself to become who/what you want to become, and you shall become as you have believed.

What about theater?? I have always loved dramatics and theater. I am now almost at the end of two months of emersion in a community theater show---my first in many years, but far from my first. This topic has sent my mind musing about this aspect too. Sometimes it is said that actors love acting because they can escape whatever upsets them about their own lives, they must become someone else. It is a safe, legal, even praiseworthy way to lose ones self and ones problems, to wear not only the mask but the whole persona of another. And the better job they do of removing all trace of themselves and becoming this other individual, the more praise/credit they get for it.

Masks-----a very deep and provocative topic.

*Please excuse my occasional sentence fragments. As a former English teacher for years and years, I feel I simply cannot publish this without acknowledging that I know they are there and have used them deliberately.

Second Chance

"Do-overs" as Billy Crystal repeatedly referred to them in the City Slickers movies, should we get to have them?
One or several? One per year or per decade or one for every 25 years successfully lived?
Surely we have all occasionally wished for one or several. Yet one must also consider the potentially colossal ramifications it could have. Remember The Butterfly Effect? or Frequency with Dennis Quaid, where even when the change was to save a heroic fireman's live and keep his young son from growing up fatherless, the very small change needed to achieve that specific objective caused more far-reaching collateral changes than could have ever been imagined. The closest we can really come in this life, I believe, is an apology and a chance to try again to do it better, to do less damage, to avoid some hurt. Sometimes even that is not a possibility.

This seems to be a bigger topic (way bigger and with awesome and frightening reverberations/ramifications) than I think I am up to tackling today. So I believe, I'll choose the easier option of taking a second chance at one of the Sunday Scribblings topics I did not complete.

Later:
You will find that the one I have now posted to the SS page for #59 Second Chances is a completion of one prompted and begun several weeks ago on Secret Identities. I had fun with it.

Oceans

I love oceans. Oceans are somewhere near the heart of life and romance and beauty and peace.

Going to sleep and awakening are both more peaceful and more exciting when they happen to the soothing music of waves breaking at the surf's edge and onto the beach. Sunlight and moon light reflected off the dark and white of the ocean sparkle like diamonds and hold some special magic. Moonlight dances on the waves with a romantic, dream-like quality. Sunrise and sunset are more spectacular when duplicated in the water at the horizon. Experiencing either makes me feel more alive, and closer to God.

I have spent most of my life in Florida, so "my ocean" is the Atlantic. But the properties that make oceans special in my mind are pretty common to all seas and oceans. The roar or the hum of waves washing up and/or breaking in the surf or on the shore: the sound is soft, peaceful, soothing, reassuring. The smooth, solid warmth of the sand beneath my feet. The warmth of the sun beating down on the top of my head and on my shoulders. Where else can you be alone with your thoughts whether or not others are around? You can think and walk or meditate. You can pray.

Being at the seashore is to me like being in the world's most spectacular open-air cathedral. The waves and the birds make the music. The sun on the water creates the sparkling stained glass. The sky and the clouds are a ceiling with most spectacular art work. The angels---sometimes they seem to be visible, sometimes not, but I can almost always feel their presence. And God is always near.

The ocean is special in millions of ways beyond this. There are memories of parties of many people and parties of 2 or 4. Memories of bonfires on the beach, back when that was allowed. Music and dancing. Sometimes music from a DJ, sometimes from a live band, and sometimes from just one or 2 friends with guitars, as we sat around and sang. Jogging on the beach in a stiff wind or in stifling heat, the good clean feel of burning out frustrations, or anger, or just calories. Snuggling on a blanket on the beach waiting for the sunrise. Easter sunrise service. Wading into the surf with my dad who taught me to watch and jump the waves. Salt water in your eyes, but loving it. Body surfing. Mindlessly riding the waves on a raft. Walking along the edge of the surf, chasing the sandpipers, getting your feet wet, talking about deep and significant things or just daily ordinary things with a friend; or walking alone in deep thought.

There is no place else like the ocean. It restores my soul like visiting home or sitting very quietly in an almost empty church. Although there can be peril in some aspects of the sea, that is not at all what it represents to me. In their sheer massiveness, oceans are awe inspiring. To me they have to represent a slice of heaven or at least of God's presence here on earth.