Wednesday, July 4, 2012

My Random Fourth But It's Not My Fourth Yet


Thanks to Stacy Uncorked who lets all the random flow.

I know it’s technically the Fourth of July holiday right this very minute but we weirdos here at the lake don’t really acknowledge it until the Saturday closest to the 4th. This year we, whoever “we” are, picked this coming Saturday, the 7th . So today is just like any other day for me. And HOTTER than H-E-double toothpicks!!!

I guess I’m mentioning this because, as all of you are out picnicking and celebrating, I’m doubling up on my writing since it’s not the holiday yet for us. People arrive here tomorrow. So many that I’m making a hard pressed attempt to displace some of them (in-laws are going first!). My mom, dad and best friend get first dibs on guest beds. Everyone else, fair warning…fend for yourselves!

Tomorrow starts all the decorating and hoopla. The lake will get crowded, the grocery stores packed with lines down the aisles and all the other good stuff that goes along with a holiday weekend. We are applying the “fly by the seat of your pants” approach to the 4th this year. Give me strength.

Thank God for my mother who will bring the holiday with her!

The Fourth of July makes me melancholy though. Always. It means that summer is already halfway finished and I don’t feel I’ve done close to half the things I wanted to do in the first half of the summer and I certainly won’t be able to fit everything into the second half. But I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. Live for the moment, right?

I’ve had the unique opportunity to do a lot of thinking in the last 9 days. I haven’t written at all, which has felt strange but freeing as well. It’s been just pure thinking time. (I feel some Dr. Seuss coming on here!) Time for tangent thinking and “what if” thinking, and possibilities and changes type of thinking. Peaceful thinking and scary thinking all rolled up into one long stretch of thinking. And what thoughts I’ve had! Damn, I should have written them all down!

Mostly I thought about people. My family, important friends, people that mean something to me for any reason at all, big or small. My life. What I’m like and why? What’s important to me in my friendships? The awesome friends I have and what makes us friends? Why you become closer to some and drift further from others. How certain friends handle hard situations and who sticks by your side even when things aren’t perfectly perfect.

I thought about the concept of “soulmates” and stumbled upon this:

‘Throughout life you will meet one person who is unlike any other. You could talk to this person for hours and never get bored, you could tell them things and they won’t judge you. This person is your soulmate, your best friend. Don’t ever let them go.”

I ran across quotes that made me smile and cry and laugh so hard. I saw a video from over a week ago when my friends visited that someone posted of me on Youtube (take it down, please). 

I saw this and it gave me more fodder for thought:

Life’s Natural Highs:
Falling in love
Hearing your favorite song on the radio
Lying in bed listening to the rain outside
Bubble baths
Giggling
Long conversations at night
The moment you wake in a sunlit room
Lazing on the beach
Running through sprinklers
Laughing at an inside joke
Laughing at yourself
Laughing so hard your stomach hurts
Laughing for absolutely no reason at all
Friends
Having someone tell you that you’re beautiful

And I loved this last one called “Weird Love”.

We are all a little
Weird and
            Life’s a little weird,
And when we find
Someone whose weirdness
Is compatible with ours,
We join up with them and fall in mutual
Weirdness and call it
            Love.

To say these last nine days of meditation were emotional would be an understatement.

Each day friends have stopped by, called or emailed just to talk. Why don’t we make more time for each other on a daily basis? I know life gets in the way but does it have to? 

6 comments:

loverofwords said...

Staying in touch and listening are so important. I lost a dear cousin recently and I still think of things I want to tell her and then I remember. . . . Great post! And I do think that not writing for awhile if you are a writer is good.

Gina said...

I agree and sometimes I just don't take the proper amount of time to stay connected with people important to me. I will give myself big points for listening skills, though. I'm really good at that.

I'm sorry you lost a dear one. So hard. And yes, you always are reminded of things you'd like to tell them. I know the feeling.

I was afraid to start writing again and I don't know why so I just took the plunge.

Jack said...

There are people who we meet who we have a connection to. I have learned over time to pay close attention to those who have it with me.

Some of the most important things I have learned have come from them.

Gina said...

I agree that we all need to pay closer attention to those connections. The real good ones don't come along often. The casual ones do, and are nice, but there are plenty of those. The "real" ones, not often enough but if they happened more often then they wouldn't be as special. I'll go with quality over quantity here!

TMWHickman said...

I wondered what you were up to! Thinking and meditating are underated. Maybe if more people did that, the world would be happier? I am glad that you decided to start writing again, because you have a gift for it!

a.eye said...

Love the soul mate quote! You did some really deep thinking!