Today I get to teach. Twice a week, I leave my house (if I am well enough) and today is one of those days, because I get to teach at the local Art Center. I have a small class of 2, both adults. And I get to share my love of polymer with them. I do love teaching. I love the look on people’s faces when they see what they can do. I love the moment when they see what they have created. I love the excitement that comes from these moments. Plus (I am fortunate), I only teach things I personally am excited about: polymer, Zentangles and Personal Spiritual Explorations (I was a minister, after all) A long time ago, someone asked me “what are three most important jobs in the world?” For me, the answers were easy: 1) Being a reasonably good parent. (This is self explanatory. No one is a perfect parent, but most of us try our best) 2) Being a teacher (knowledge needs to be passed on to the next generation, or else we, as a species will stagnate and die) 3) Garbage collection (I was in NYC when they had the big garbage strike.) So, I wonder, what would be the next three most important jobs in the world? ortant Jobs.

Today I get to teach.

Twice a week, I leave my house (if I am well enough) and today is one of those days, because I get to teach at the local Art Center.  I have a small class of 2, both adults.  And I get to share my love of polymer with them.

I do love teaching.  I love the look on people’s faces when they see what they can do.  I love the moment when they see what they have created.  I love the excitement that comes from these moments.  Plus (I am fortunate),  I only teach things I personally am excited about: polymer, Zentangles and Personal Spiritual Explorations (I was a minister, after all)

A long time ago, someone asked me “what are three most important jobs in the world?”  For me, the answers were easy:

1)    Being a reasonably good parent.  (This is self explanatory.  No one is a perfect parent, but most of us try our best)

2)   Being a teacher (knowledge needs to be passed on to the next generation, or else we, as a species will stagnate and die)

3)   Garbage collection  (I was in NYC when they had the big garbage strike.)

So, I wonder, what would be the next three most important jobs in the world?

Learnings

Almost every morning I awaken to the sound of purring in my ear and the feel of several small warm bodies cuddling up next to me.  With my eyes still closed, I think a heartfelt “Thank you” to whatever Powers That Be.  I cannot even imagine living without animals to love.  

I tried it once.  When I left my ex, he kept the animals.  I had my new apartment all to myself.  It was wonderful!   No animals to clean up after, no one to feed and water, no fur on my clothes, no cat toys or dog chews littering the floors. 

I lasted almost 3 weeks.

(If you want to read the story of how I began acquiring my new family, read the March posting, 2011 of this blog.)  Franklin was the first.  He still has a special hold on my heart.  As I type this, he is peacefully snoring on my quilt.  I never knew that cats snored, until Franklin.  My other cats and dogs each have their own personalities, likes and dislikes.  We each have our quirks, but we tend to all get along pretty well.

Although I love telling stories about my animals, what I am thinking of just now is what they give us.

Like most (if not all) humans, I need Love in my life.  I need to have someone other than myself to think about, to care about.   My definition of Hell is when you have all these gifts, all this love to give – and no one wants it.   That is one reason why human beings are social animals.  We need someone to give to.   And that is a Good Thing.  Love is not something to be restricted to just our own species.  With animals, caring is very pure: they do not care if you have money or status.  They judge solely on how we treat them, personally.  

This is very liberating – and somewhat disconcerting.  If I were to win an Oscar, for instance, my dog would not care, my cat would not be impressed.  But if I were to sit down and just pay attention to them, to play or pet or just talk, they would be delighted.

For critters, everything  is personal.  Humans try to distance themselves and pretend that certain things don’t matter or don’t pertain to them.  The famous gangster-movie phrase “It’s just business” has no meaning to any animal – nor should it.  Only very foolish humans will accept that excuse, because it is all personal.  Life is personal.   Animals know this and we can learn from them.

Someone once asked me “How do you know when an animal loves you?  How do you know if it’s just that they want to treat you well so that you will continue to feed them?”  I would ask the same thing of myself.  Did I love my parents just because they fed me and kept me safe?  Certainly that had something to do with it, but I would hope there was more to it than just that.

What I notice is that my animals trust me.  And trust is a very good place to start when you are thinking about love.

All this and so much more the animals have taught me.  I wonder, what have the animals taught you?

Yet another New Beginning

As you can tell, it has been some time since I posted here.  Like many of you, I have gotten swept up in my life and have been somewhat daunted at all I am trying to accomplish.

Today I want to talk about 'the Vision thing'.

I just finished reading Sandy Steen Bartholomew's blog about her  struggles with finding her vision.  She is very open and I recommend the blog (http://beezinthebelfry.blogspot.com/) .  It led me to rethink my own vision for my life.  I will share one quote with you from her blog that I find to be very true.  Ready?

"Dissatisfaction and discouragement are not caused by the absence of things but the absence of vision."

It seems to me that those of us who want a vision for our lives have created a strange situation for ourselves.  When we create a vision, we sometimes work on making that vision come through.  But the very act of working on a vision changes the situation, so we have to go back and re-vision our lives.  Plus, there is the normal change of simply living that happens to all of us.  Suddenly, we find that either the vision has been accomplished or it does not work for us any more

So we are constantly re-visioning.  And it can be frustrating   I don't know about you, but I have not lived up to all my goals by any means.  I have had to discard thousands of dreams and move on.  Most of my beautiful dreams stayed in the dream world.  I've had to realize that having unfulfilled goals are not always a bad thing -- it is possible that they are simply the result of a being very creative person.

I know that it would not be humanly possible to do all the things I have wanted to do with my life -- even Biblical folks did not live long enough to accomplish all I want to do.  So I have had to pick and choose what is most important to me.  And even just that cannot all be done by one mere human.  So I re-negotiate with life.

Most of my life I wasted.  I kept on waiting for 'something' to happen.  I wasn't sure what, but something.  I did do a few things, but mainly I floated along with life, not really directing it.  I had no vision, not really.

Oh, there things I wanted to do, but I would constantly come up to obstacles and I would be discouraged.  I stopped trying.

Then one day I put my foot down and said "I'm doing it."  And I did.  It cost me plenty.  It cost my dearly beloved husband (With whom I am still friends, thank heavens), time with my dear foster granddaughter, stalwart friends and a paid-for home.  I lost a lot to follow my dream, but I loved my new life.  I think I made a difference in the lives of many others, a difference for the better.  I was able to enjoy it for about 7 years before I got hit with my disability.  Then, of course,  I had to re-think my life -- again.

So much has changed.  I used to have lots of people in my life.  Now, not so much.  I had a job that fulfilled me, helped others and brought in a nice amount of money.  Now, not so much.  (By American standards, I live in poverty.)  I used to be able to do just about anything and was constantly busy trying to get everything done.  Now, not so much.  It's somewhat difficult to form a new vision when you are not familiar with your own life and it's realities.

I am in my third year of the disability.  I have changed a great deal.  I am calmer.  I have time to think things through.  Because I can seldom leave the house, I don't have to rush around any more.  I love that part.  Not rushing is wonderful.  I can listen to the birds waking up in the morning.  My dogs and cats love it that I am home all the time.

And strangely enough, for the most part, I am happy.  This is definitely the happiest part of my life.  My needs are few.  I currently live in almost 250 square feet of space, not counting the kitchen, bathroom and laundry which I share with a roommate.   I keep to myself for the most part.  I have three very good phone friends, the internet, Roku for my TV and as much artwork as I can manage.  I even have a women's group that I can go to once a week if I am up to it.

Life is good.

But what about the re-visioning thing?  That I need to work on.  Do I want to try and finished the novel that is 2/3 done?  How can I help more with animal rescue?  What sort of artwork do I want to do?  Do I want to continue to try and teach art?   What sort of writing do I want to do?   How can I work on my Social Justice issues to help them become real? How can I most make a positive impact on the lives of others?

I don't know.  I don't have the answers.  I do know that for some of us, it is very important to have a vision, even if that vision keeps on changing.  I'm working on mine.

If you would care to leave a comment, I would love to hear about your visions for yourself.

Peace,
-byrd