Social Dilemma

I have spent a lot of time in recent days pondering the impact of it on our lives.  The impact of technology in general, but especially social media.  Truth be told many of us got lost in our social media especially in the last year and a half, because well, we couldn't socialize in real life, safely   But as time has worn on, breaking out of the social media trap has been hard.  And I say trap, because in so many ways, it is as much of a trap as living in the past if you allow it to be.   It's so very easy to lose everything in our present, when we bury ourselves in carefully crafted worlds that people build on here.   It's so easy to get caught up in it and lose sight of what is important.  So in the last few weeks I have been spending less time on social media.   I made commitments to myself to get some things done, and I was finding that hanging out on FB for literally hours at a time, getting lost in the scrolling, gave me an easy excuse to not do things, that honestly scared me a little.  

We tell ourselves that this is how we stay in touch, this is where our friends are and we need to stay connected, while feeling increasingly disconnected at the same time.  As I have spent less time on the platforms, I have learned something very important.  Well, honestly, not anything I didn't already know, but it finally forced me to realize, that while yes, there are some genuine relationships that have formed from association on social media, most people have no idea that I have quietly been living life outside the ether.    I imagine that there are many of us who have experienced this at one point or another, so it's good to remember:

    "People (in real life and on social media) come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime"

 but wait,  there's more.

    "When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person"

I am grateful for the relationships that I have built from FB and IG.   And the quote above is fitting, as modified, because it is true.   Of the thousands of people we meet in social media, only a handful are likely to be with us for a lifetime.   And that's okay, truly, because if you come out of it with even one true, genuine forever friend, then wow, how awesome is that.  More importantly if we have figured out which ones are here for a reason and which for a season, then likely we have  provided one another what was needed.  Whatever the reason, whatever the season, people come into and out of our lives.    At first I was a little sad, as I began pulling away and immediately started losing touch with some people, but now I have to smile and I realize how blessed I am to have met so many of them at all.   Everyone we have met here, or in any other amazing group in which we are members, have impacted us in ways that have shaped us for our present and our future.  Together we have all shared lessons in humility, bravery, love, kindness, fearlessness, compassion, friendship, patience, tolerance; every single one a point of light that has added to our collective glow.  Peace 

Be Yourself, Follow Your Path

This week I have been reading “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig.    The story is about a woman who decides that she wants to die and in the process, she lands in a giant library filled with books.  One of the books is the Book of Regrets.   It’s an overwhelming volume of all the things she regretted doing or not doing.    The Book of Regrets guides her decisions in opening any of the other books which allow her to explore the life she’d be living had she not made that particular choice.  If at any time she is exploring a particular life, she finds its not the right one, it brings her back to the library.   I am just getting to the good parts but in a couple of the lives she explores,  in the few I have read; she makes some interesting observations that I will share via quotes from the book.

‘Bertrand Russell wrote that ‘To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three-parts dead’. Maybe that was her problem. Maybe she was just scared of living.’ – Nora Seed in The Midnight Library

This is profound.   Maybe she chose to die and ended up in the library because she was afraid to live the life different choices would have taken her on because she was scared.    I think we all feel this way from time to time.  We are presented with some amazing opportunities but often we choose not to pursue them because they are seriously fucking scary!  But you know, we are dragons, and dragons can burn up that fear with the flame of confidence and strength!  So, come on dragons who is with me?  Do something scary.  I will share with you if you share with all of us.   I embarked on the journey to publish my poetry today, after 14 years.   In part this is because of all of you;  because you have embraced my poetry, and I thank you.  I am no longer afraid of sharing.

In the next life she explored, one of which she continued to pursue swimming, she became an Olympic athlete and retired with tons of records.  She later became a public speaker, and while she was in the life she could have had, (I should note that when she joins the alternate life, she does not have much of the context of that life), she had to give a speech and she was not prepared so she just winged it.   This is part of what she said:

‘If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And do not give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise. Keep your head down. Keep your stamina. Keep swimming . . .’ Nora Seed – The Midnight Library

Wow isn’t this spot on.  How much of our lives have we spent trying to be something we weren’t because someone else wanted us to be different?  I sure know I did until I didn’t.  One day, when my first marriage was failing, I contacted my maid of honor to tell her I had asked my husband for a divorce and to tell her how hurt because she had not been there in those tumultuous three years, but when she explained that she could not be around me, because I wasn’t me it was like getting hit upside the head with a frying pan.  It all made sense.  I had given up so much of myself away to be what he wanted, that I lost me.   After that I said never again.  Have you had one of those epiphanies?

Alright, one more.  In her next life journey, she was exploring a life that included much solitude.   As she explored that life, she was keenly aware of the value of solitude, how she could be in tune and hear everything the world was trying to tell her.     She recalled:   

‘If one advances confidently,’ Thoreau had written in Walden, ‘in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.’ He’d also observed that part of this success was the product of being alone. ‘I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” Nora Seed – the Midnight Library

Clearly sometimes we must have solitude to understand who we are and where we are going.   Make time for yourselves Dragons and find answers in the solitude you cultivate for yourselves.  I find I am most at peace and in tune with who I am than in the quiet of the woods with only the sound of nature around me.   Where do you get your solitude dragons?

This book has been incredibly insightful and thought provoking.  If you like to read, this is an amazing book. I started on Sunday and am halfway through.  I am sure that the remaining discoveries to come will be just as thought provoking.   Don’t you just love a book that or concept that opens your mind to amazing possibilities and stirs the imagination?  One last thought:

“All good things are wild and free.” From Howl, a song by Nora Seed (and quote by Thoreau) in the Midnight Library

Have an amazing day everyone.  Be you, be fierce, be brave, be kind, kick ass, be good, wild and free.

Peace ☮️  Love ❤️ 

Life in Transition - Part 2

The other day I was doing one of my least favorite chores, folding laundry.    This chore was one of my first as a kid.  I disliked it then and I dislike it now, but  we all know the clothes won’t fold themselves, so I dived in.  The particular  pile  that lay before me consisted of sheets and towels.   Towels are easy but sheets, especially fitted ones, are my nemesis.  My usual method is to just kind of roll them into a ball and call it done.   As I grabbed the first one I thought about my mom and how she could make a fitted sheet look exactly like a flat sheet.   Anyone who might look at a stack of my mom’s folded sheets would not be able to identify which were flat and which were fitted.   I was always in awe of this and always frustrated that I could never master this magic of the perfectly folded fitted sheet.   I drifted away in this memory of her and continued my folding.  I don’t know how long I stood there immersed in this memory but  I looked down and in my hands I held a perfectly folded, fitted sheet, just like my mom had always done.  At that moment, I felt her presence for the first time since she passed in January.  It was almost as if her hands had guided my hands on that sheet.  

For those of you reading this now, who’ve lost someone special, what are your magical memories?   When do you most often feel their presence?    When it comes, let it take you to that place and let it comfort you.   The people we love are never truly gone, they are with us all the time, preserved in our memories, and if we are listening, we will feel them, in those magical moments.

“Be still in your memories and let the magic wash over you.”   TLP 2021

  Peace ☮️ Love 💟

Paradise Lost

This morning I was watching a follow-up story on the fire that destroyed Paradise, CA.   It was told from the viewpoint of the Paradise High School football team, who were expecting to practice the day after the fire in preparation for the playoffs.  It followed a couple students in their first visits to the rubble of the homes they left.   It was poignant and sad and a reminder of the similarity of stories post-Katrina, after Hurricane Harvey, Michael, Maria,  and after so many other natural disasters that occur every damn day.   The stories are hauntingly similar and at the same time, a reminder of what community can do.  While these boys were unable to take their team to the playoffs because all but a handful of players was displaced, they were able to remain strong and move forward despite the tremendous battle ahead, placing finding homes above the glory of a potential title. The true spirit of team and family.

I have heard so many people after this disaster and others ask, why anyone lives in these disaster-prone areas.   Such callous words that come from a lack of understanding until it happens to you.    It is easy to sit by the glow of your computer and cast judgement on people who have lost everything when you have never experienced the kind of loss that we and these communities have.   The thing about mother nature is, she is not selective.  It is not a matter of if, but when.   There is no safe place from the wrath of natural disaster.  Those of us who live in places such as these, do understand the risk, but to expect us to pick up and leave our communities, our lives and our history, is just unreasonable.  We all live where we live and none of us our immune to the wrath of mother nature.

I cried as I watched the story because the wounds of Katrina are still not completely healed.  Every time another community is destroyed by disaster, we are reminded of our own losses and of strength we didn't know we had.   For some, we are reminded of how we feel for not being impacted, feeling helpless and guilty because we didn't lose anything.    But in between the human spirit rises.  Whether we become strong to recover or strong to help, disasters which destroy homes and towns, bring out the best in humanity.  It unfortunate that we have to lose Paradise to find our humanity.  

I hope and pray that those who read this will never have to suffer the losses, some the ultimate loss,  that families in Paradise did.  I also hope that those who didn't can find compassion for those who did.   

Peace and blessings for a better 2019 to all of us.~TLP

Pondering the Mysteries

Sometimes when I am alone in the quiet of the early morning I ponder the great mysteries of the universe.  I am sure I am not the only one who does this.   In this fast paced, interconnected world, it’s easy to get lost in the noise.   I ran across this poem I wrote sometime last year that must have been penned during one of those quiet moments when the noise disappeared and I was left with my thoughts.  

In moments like these, 

Just before dawn

I wonder if I 

Am where I belong

If the life

That I live

Is what was meant for me

Is our fate sealed 

Or are we masters of our 

Own destiny?

How do we really know

At the end of the day

And why are we so

Afraid

Of the answer

We drift day to day

And wonder why we are disillusioned 

With life

With love

With ourselves

We live in our past

And shake hands

With our regrets

Everyday

As life swiftly passes by

And we search for the one thing

That will fill the empty place

Created by a longing

For something 

We didn't even know we needed.

~Peace, Tracy

Copyright 2018 TLP

Life in Transition

Boxes, tape secured over the seams, line the garage of my parents home, the result of the decision to rent the home we grew up in now that my dad is gone and my mom lives in a private care facility.
As I walk through the yard and the halls of the only home my parents ever owned I can hear the echos of the days long gone. Christmas mornings, waiting for everyone to get up so we can open our presents, evenings at the dinner table where we broke bread as a family, sharing the couch to watch TV together. Laughter, tears, anger, fear, love, hope, and faith all emanate from these walls now painted and ready for a new young family who will love our home as much as we and our parents did.

It took me a week to take the first batch of boxes out of my truck and look inside. The wonderful family moving into our home took great care to box things up and label them based on who the items belonged to or which items had been spoken for. I chose to have all of the items related to my father’s love of flying boxed up for me. Now looking at the near complete model airplane he planned to fly, takes me back to the times when we went along on the days he would gather with his buddies, all with a love of flying, to watch those planes take off, land, and often crash. I had to unload it all, there were more things to transport. The transition was not over.

As my friend and I broke down the concrete table and benches from my parents back yard to load and transport to it’s next home under the great live oak tree in my back yard I couldn’t decide whether to leave the concrete base, that had been poured right there in the yard, behind. I had decided I could create a new base but I took one last look. As I stared down at that perfectly square piece of concrete, I saw the initials JJM and the date 5/2006 scrawled in the concrete. This was my dad's work, the  signature of his labor and his love for my mom. This will live on in my backyard where I will always be reminded of him and how much he means to us.

It seems that after all is said and done, this is how a life transitions. Boxes, wrapped with tape, labeled and divided and distributed. But what I realized in it all, is that the boxes are simply vessels to carry things that represent memories of our loved ones. It is up to us to keep the memories alive, every day. I plan to sit at the really cool concrete table, listen to the birds, and have a coffee with my dad.

Peace - TLP

K + 12 - A Brutal Reminder

On this 12th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the MS Gulf Coast and New Orleans, we are mourning.    Not for ourselves, but for the people of Texas impacted by Hurricane Harvey.  As we watch the news, we have seen the devastating wind, the unprecedented flood, and the anguish of the people.   Our hearts break for them, just as ours broke after Katrina.    

What we learned in Katrina, and what Texans are already learning, is that as you watch the life you built wash away, you cling to what is left:  Love, Faith and People.  You will be prayed for, wished positive thoughts, and have millions of donations made to support your recovery now and for days, months and years to come.   Strangers will descend upon your communities with only one purpose; to help struggling Texans recover and rebuild.   In the times of your deepest despair you will realize that the most important thing is community and the relationships you have with your friends and family and that in joining together you will be strong.   There is no color, no social status;  just people, recovering  from what will likely be the most devastating event you have ever seen.  While it is hard to see the positive right now, in each day that follows, you will have moments when even the smallest of things bring a smile to your face.  It might be the sun peeking through the clouds, a child's laughter, the gentle touch of a helping hand on your shoulder, but it will come.   You will discover that when the chips are down, you can depend on one another and that, there is love, kindness and caring in every single person.

Hang on Texas.  You are brave and strong beyond measure.  Know that selfless love and kindness is coming your way.  It will continue to help you through the coming days, months and years.  May you find comfort in the thought that those of us over here in Mississippi and Louisiana, know and feel your pain and are with you in spirit, praying for your safety and recovery.

Peace

K + 11 - Remembering What We Gained

Yesterday a friend of mine posted a set of  videos created by a local resident after Katrina.  They were a compilation of what was before and the complete and utter devastation of what was left (or more pointedly, what was not left) after Katrina came to our coast that day in August, 2005.  My friend commented, as I did, how unprepared she was for the emotion that watching those videos stirred.  I found myself back on evacuation day, sitting paralyzed in my house trying to figure out what to pack, knowing that whatever we left behind, would likely be gone.   As I continued watching, I remembered like it was yesterday, the long 13 hour evacuation to Perry, FL with our rag tag band of people, pets and boats, scared when we were barely to Mobile after five hours.   At one of our rest stops, the Florida rest area just before Escambia Bay, the scene was one that I could only describe as a cross between the Twilight Zone and Apocalypse now.  We were all weary, anxious, zombies.   So many people, headed East, many with no destination but a singular purpose to get away from Katrina.  When it was all said and done the devastation and loss of life was staggering.   But amidst the devastation, the miracle was what happened next.    We came together as a community bound by a common enemy that was Katrina and it brought about a unity not seen in all the years that I have lived in South Mississippi.   There was no color, no social status;  just people, recovering from likely the most devastating event most of us will ever see.   In joining together, we became strong.  We overcame and rebuilt together.   We re-established a sense of what was important and it wasn't what we lost, but what we found that day and in the days, months and even years after Katrina passed.   We discovered that when the chips are down, we can depend on one another and that deep in our hearts there is love, kindness and caring in every single one of us.  My hope is that each year as this anniversary comes and goes, we not forget this valuable realization.    :-) Peace   
#katrina #unity  #MSGulfCoast