presence

Reprise — Not On My Watch, Asshole

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I saw it when I opened the drawer to get my gardening gloves yesterday.

I was cleaning up after the wind. He has made quite a mess in both my front and back yards the last few days. A fine layer of dirt covering every surface. Leaves, twigs, feathers and discarded cigarette butts lay strewn around and piled up in corners.

We don’t smoke.

My Muse does, so I suppose they’re hers. I’ll have to look for the telltale red lipstick.

The wind always does this the day AFTER the gardener comes. NEVER the day before. He has a twisted sense of humor, he thinks it’s ironic.

It always starts the same way. I pick up a stray piece of trash that has found its way onto the porch. I’m usually in my morning get-up of a combination of pajamas, sweats and flip-flops. Next thing I know, it’s four hours later and I’ve cleaned the gutters and power washed the place. I loose complete track of time and ruin my manicure. This time, about an hour and a half in, it occurred to me to get my gloves.

Sometimes I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.

So…..I open the drawer of a little table outside.
It sits under the dining room windows and contains a trowel, clippers, gloves and other assorted yard taming junk.

And there it was……a perfect bird’s nest. Tucked inside this shallow drawer, next to a box of stick matches.(see photo).

My heart skipped a beat as I just about lost my mind with delight.

The thing is, I collect birds nests. I have a couple of hummingbird and five or six regular ones of various sizes.

I also believe they’re good luck. It’s a positive sign.
Protection…safety…being looked after.
Shit. Who doesn’t want that?

My husband just shakes his head.
Hey honey — Don’t be a buzz kill.

So many things crossed my mind as I gently removed it from its perfect hiding place.
The mama did a magnificent job.

It was big and warm and cozy. It’s a masterpiece, that nest-in-a-drawer. Truly one of Mother Nature’s miracles.

I remember seeing her, this tiny mama bird, outside the window, gathering bits of home building materials while singing her lovely melody. I’ve decided she’s my hero.

I sit every day writing, just on the other side of her temporary home. I could hear the babies. A couple of weeks ago, they were so vocal I went out and looked up in the trees for a nest. It never occurred to me to look in the drawer.

Note to self: I’ve GOT to develop an imagination. That bird has really raised the bar around here.

Two days ago I came across the body of a little tiny baby bird in another part of the yard. It was right under a tree and I could see the remnants of its nest high above my head. That baby had not fallen out. It was pushed. Probably by a crow.

The crows can be jerks. They dive bomb my dogs. I’ve seen them bully the smaller birds.

That made the nest-in-a-drawer even that much more ingeniously resourceful.
“Not on my watch, asshole” was the message it sent.

Don’t you love nature?
Don’t you love tenacious mothering?
Don’t you love gifts, beautiful little surprises?
I do.

This was a great reminder to appreciate the little things in life. If we are present and look closely, they are all around. These tiny wonders.

And….one more reason to love Saturdays.

Xox

Post Script: I’m reprising this post from last May because I opened the drawer this past Saturday to find she had built the second nest-in-a-drawer in as many years.(See below) I’m dying to meet her and take her for coffee. Honest to God, she’s my hero.
Carry on,
xox

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Another giant masterpiece found this week. I am rich in bird’s nests.
(yelp)

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Take The Time To Listen

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Prayer is asking the question; meditation is listening for the answer.

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Counterintuitive, but necessary.

Xox

FOMO – The Fear Of Missing Out – Jason Silva Sunday

Anxiety is the “Dizziness of Freedom” – Kierkegaard

Oh Brother – This is a big one for me! I’ve struggled since birth, with the anxiety of missing out on something.

As a kid I had the nickname of Corkie. As the story goes, I could lift my head to look around soon after birth. Being that it was a tad early to be weighing my options, my neck muscles were too underdeveloped to be “working the room” so to speak, so my head was unsteady, bobbing around “like a cork on the water”.
So there you go.

I was born with the perpetual desire to see what else was out there, what other interesting things I might be missing out on. I wasn’t dissatisfied with where I was, it was just…

Curiosity squared.

It caused me enough anxiety that at 17 I started my exploration of meditation and being here now – in the moment.

That was a foreign concept and I’ve struggled with it all my life. I can report that I’ve gotten better as I’ve grown older.
Not grown up, just older.

I realize that I may not be able to see ALL the options available, but it rarely makes me anxious anymore.
I’m learning that the Universe has put the ones that are the most relevant to my path; that will excite me and bring me the most joy – at my feet and in front of my face.

Whew.

Does the fear of missing out cause you anxiety? How do you handle it? Is it getting better? Or worse?

Love, love,
xox

I Stayed In The Moment – And It Was Awesome

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When they ask you to holster your cell phone for the night; do you get a little panicky?

Or belligerent? I saw it all!

As we walked into the party on Saturday night, we were asked politely, NOT to post pictures or video of the venue or the festivities on social media.
You could almost hear the OR ELSE that was implied.
It pushed people’s buttons, you could tell. They weren’t asking you not to take the call from the babysitter, they just wanted to keep things special, without the whole shebang showing up on Instagram.

The main idea behind it was that they wanted everyone to be in the present moment; a skill we ALL seemed to have left back in the early 2000’s, you know, when we looked around and people watched.
We can’t seem to experience ANY event without documenting it. Guilty as charged.

I kinda liked being asked not to. It gave me permission and a certain freedom to just be IN. THE. MOMENT.

In the frenzy of all the going’s on, I was a present observer, taking it all in through…gasp…my eyes.
Plus, I could see where I was walking and make eye contact with all the other party participants. Imagine that.

We are like junkies, I am, I know that, and I pale by comparison to the twenty and thirty somethings. So I pocketed my phone.

Even through the entertainment. Fleetwood Mac. I lost my shit, because, well because it was Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, right there in all their…Nicks and Buckingham badassery. May I just say right here: Stevie Nicks is a rockstar beast. Sexy. Transcendent. She held everyone in the palm of her hand – at 66 years old. That makes me so happy on so many levels.
I digress.
My husband took some pictures, hell, everyone had their phone’s out, but I haven’t see one shot on the internet and I’ll keep my promise as well.
And I have to say, not having my phone held up to my face, trying to get the best shot, left me free to enjoy every moment of the evening.

So, thank you event planners and hosts of this weekend’s extravaganza. Thank you for saving me from being behind a fisheye, and allowing me to see the whole picture.

Hey – When was the last time you just watched something awesome without taking your phone out to document it? I’d love to hear about it. It is weird huh?

Big Love,
xox

How I Remember It…

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It is ridiculously dark in a hotel room with the black-out drapes closed.

It is trip over stuff because it’s a strange room; blink, blink, blink for your eyes to adjust; bang your shin and stub your toe, dark.

I experienced all of those things on the way to answer my phone which was shoved in my purse, somewhere under piles of room service napkins, magazines and assorted other crap.

La la la la la la, my phone chimed its little heart out.

Who is calling me? Everyone knows I’m on my honeymoon and judging from how dark it is, (forgetting the drapes) it MUST be three am.

Five minutes earlier the ringing had woken me up, and I had stumbled like a drunken sailor, half asleep in the pitch blackness, to the bathroom. ‘Wrong number‘ I thought, still half asleep as I felt my way like a blindfolded mime, back to bed.
I heard it go to message. Now I was awake.
Hmmmmmmmm…that’s weird.

It started to ring again; this time I could swear it sounded more insistent.
LA LA LA LAAAAAA!

Curious, I quietly slid out of bed and started moving heaven and earth to find it, only to hear it go to message a second time.

Not even a moment later, as I was finally holding it in my hand, it started ringing again.

So did my husband’s phone, next to him on the nightstand, and so did the hotel room phone on my side of the bed. All at the same time it became a cacophony of three different rings, each one of them trying desperately at that point to get our attention.

I heard my husband’s voice behind me in the bed, “Shit, this CAN’T be good”.  He was suddenly wide awake as he grabbed both the room phone and his cell, putting one to each ear.
“Hello!” he announced tersely into both.

I had just flipped mine open to hear someone mumbling and weeping, and at the same exact moment we both lunged for the remote as three different people screamed into our ears “TURN ON THE TV!”

We were two days into enjoying our post wedding coma. Ensconced in a room overlooking the Pacific at the Biltmore in Santa Barbara, still feeling giddy from the excitement of such a magical night.
Exhausted, we had given ourselves a couple of days to decompress before we were to fly to a friend’s party in Chicago and then on to Italy to have a motorcycle honeymoon.
None of those plans would come to pass.

My brand new husband pulled open the drapes with one swipe to reveal bright sunshine; it wasn’t the middle of the night, it was after six in the morning. It must be a movie, I thought, as we both slowly sat on the edge of the bed; watching in stunned silence; as the second plane hit the tower.

I think I screamed.

Friends and family were calling; apologizing for bothering us, but wanting us to know.
That’s what family does. They share bad news.

Just thirty-six hours before, they had all been loopy from too much champagne and wine, toasting and celebrating love—now they were crying and asking me Why?

I couldn’t wrap my brain around what was happening. Everything felt surreal, like a slow motion movie.
I certainly didn’t have any answers.

My husband is an architect/builder. He knows about steel and fire and in his most serious Bob The Builder voice he didn’t pose a question or wonder aloud—he made a statement: “I hope everyone’s out of there, that building’s coming down.”

And right on cue, as he finished that sentence…the first tower fell.

Shit, shit, shit” he yelled, jumping to his feet.
I was screaming and shaking uncontrollably, “No, No, No…Oh MY GOD!”
Was this really happening?

Peter Jennings’ solemn voice said something to the effect of, “This has turned from an act of terrorism to an act of war.”

It was impossible to look away from the TV and I could not stop crying.

My mom called to tell me Pam, who is like a big sister to me, and had flown in from San Francisco for the wedding, had to deplane on the tarmac at LAX and run for her life; as fast as she could, away from the terminals and the airport, as directed by the pilot.

Really. He told everyone to RUN!
No one knew what was going on, and where the next attack, if there were to be others, was going to take place. Lee and my mom picked her up as she ran east on Century Boulevard with a whole crowd of other panicky, thwarted travelers.

Many of the woman had ditched their heels along the way, running in bare feet and business attire.

They had no idea where they were going.
How far would they run?
How far was far enough?
Where could you go that day to feel safe? I sure as hell didn’t know.
If you’d told me a place, I would have run there with you.

After the second tower collapsed and the news went into perpetual recap mode, I couldn’t watch another second; so I pulled on some sweats and sunglasses to hide my red swollen eyes, and walked like a zombie downstairs to the lobby.

My inner historian/collector had kicked in and I wanted to see if they had the newspapers in the gift shop without the headline of the event and also a later edition, with it.

The adrenaline of the past few hours had subsided, which had dropped us into a kind of numb stupor, so we also needed coffee. Bad.

The lobby was deserted. Everything was closed. No gift shop, no Starbucks, nothing. There wasn’t a soul in sight…this huge hotel felt deserted.

Back upstairs, I called room service.
It rang for what seemed like an eternity, then the voice that finally answered sounded out of breath and off of hotel protocol. She didn’t say Hello, Mrs Bertolus, (which I was loving by the way), like they had been doing for the past couple of days.

Yes? Hello, I mean, room service” she said.

Um, are you guys open? Is it possible to get a pot of coffee?”

“I’ll try my best, I’m sorry ma’am, but no one has shown up for work this morning.”

“Oh my gosh, I completely understand—it’s just so terrible…”

Yes ma’am” she said, “it’s so sad.”
She started to cry, which set me off.

Don’t worry about the coffee” I sobbed, feeling like an ass. “Just forget it, I’m sorry to bother you.”

“No ma’am, don’t be silly” she had composed herself, now the epitome of professionalism, “Your coffee will be right up Mrs. Bertolus.

Ten minutes later a young man brought up a pot of coffee and some croissants, and after some caffeine and food, the shaking stopped and I felt a little better.

The government had halted all air travel until further notice. Planes were finding a safe place to land and staying put. It was unprecedented and I was relieved.

The absolute LAST thing I wanted to do was get on a plane.
We had a lot of phone calls to make and rescheduling to do.

Against my better judgement we kept our reservations that night for a seaside dinner. The place was beautiful… and depressing as hell. Everyone seemed to just be going through the motions. I sobbed like a three-year old through the entire dinner, having a hard time forgetting those faces we’d seen all day of the people who were missing.

“How can I enjoy any of this? People lost husbands and fathers, brothers and wives and sisters. So many people died today!” I put my head in my hands, I couldn’t eat.

How can you not?” my husband whispered, resting his hand on mine.

Those people would give anything to be here, where we are right now, enjoying life. We don’t join them in death, that’s an even greater waste. We enjoy our lives. Every minute. Every day to the fullest. I think that’s what they would want. That’s what I would want.”

Damn, he’s good.

Just writing these memories makes me cry. It instantly brings me right back.

I think it’s important to tell the story. To never forget what happened.
Everything before 911 feels different, simpler, like we lost our innocence.

It just happens to coincide with my wedding. I can never think of one without the other. I celebrate the ninth of September, and I light a candle on the eleventh.
In my life they are forever intertwined.

Just like our parents had the Kennedy assassination, this is our generation’s “where were you?” moment.

Do you have a 911 story? Tell us.

much love,
xox

Hi, I’m Janet

Mentor. Pirate. Dropper of F-bombs.

This is where I write about my version of life. My stories. Told in my own words.

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