Let's Talk

 

 

Pouring the coffee. Preparing the Way.

 

It's 1:16 p.m., so I'll stick with the coffee. I'm drinking it iced today. 

 

That'll you have? Coffee or tea? If we hang out long enough, I'll break out the Riesling.

 

We're outside in my backyard, under the spreading maple tree. 

When the temperature drops later in the year, we'll have to move inside, but for now, we can sit under this maple and enjoy the shade and our drinks that sit on trays beside us. Maybe I'll switch to iced tea. Would you like a tall ice-tinkling glass of tea? Do you take sugar? Lemon?

 

We're settled. Okay, Let's talk.

 

First, me, since I am writing this. 

 

This is a magic tree; once in a while, a single leaf whirls while the other leaves sway with the breeze. And the breeze under this tree seems constantly moving, brushing silk against the skin. It always amazes me to see that one leaf dance—it happened this morning; I can't explain it; I can only marvel when it happens, like so many things in life. 

 

That one leaf out of many is celebrating all by itself. We can do that, but I love every single leaf on that tree, and here we'll be sitting under it like so many dancing leaves.

 

Our two dogs, Lafayette and Sweetpea, are used to us being here by now, so they sleep under our feet and soak up the cool of the lawn. 

 

I read this this morning: 

 

"I'm excited waking up in the morning. My partner thinks I'm some kind of lunatic. He said, "How can you wake up every morning so happy and excited?" And I think I got rid of all the crap from yesterday because I slept it away. Now I have another chance—maybe today will be better."—Norma Kamali.

 

"That's for me," I mentally yelled and ran to the computer to invite you to join me.

 

So here we go, a new blog—a happy blog. Please provide some input along the way. It will give us something to chew on while we're sipping. I know, "What the world needs is another blog!" (sarcasm). No, it needs something to uplift to tell others they are not alone, and together dig for jewells from the fertile ground beneath our feet.

 

I'm a little giddy after completing a manuscript that is a memoir/autobiography/travel/adventure/special interest book. I felt happy for some reason I am not sure of yet. It may be completion, that hope is available, that we are not on this earth to have a monotonous life, that service is essential, that many of my friends have moved on to happy hunting grounds, and that I'm still here; I ought to make the most of it.

 

We have this one chance--you might think you will come back for another try, but to waste this life is stupid. Why wait?

 

We have this opportunity to have a happy life. Happy is a relative term, and who can expect to always be happy? Instead, I suggest, as Liz Gilbert so succinctly put it, "The opposite of depression isn't happiness; it is vitality." So she slips a recording into the player each morning and dances to work through the grief of having lost a love.

My past two months of writing cleared the space so this blog would fall onto the page. A memoir is ongoing, and each moment is remembered one moment later. When you put a period on the last sentence on the final page, you will be a different person. It's like painting the Golden Gate Bridge; by the time the painters have completed the bridge, it's time to return to your starting point and begin again. 

 

That is the reason I am suggesting that you write your own. Thus the title Come, On, I Dare You.

 

“It takes a daring person to give up sickness and give up living from doom and gloom. It wakes daring to actually give from joy and to change your work so that you are doing nothing but adding to peoples’ greatness.” --Dr. Terry Cole Whittaker

 

"True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories — a tremulous attraction here, a perfect Christmas there, the smell of October in some forgotten year." --Florence King