Love is an Open Door
Working with the under 10 set has helped me to see that there are still major lessons to be learned from Disney’s blockbuster Frozen. And seeing some of the nastiness of the social media offerings over the last couple of weeks leaves me no alternative but to remember out loud what my Grandmother taught me, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”. I’m sure there are grandkids all over the country who were taught the same thing. So why have so many of us forgotten?! At the risk of sounding pious: social media musings cloaked in semi-anonymity are not exempt from this rule.
There was a song from Sting a few cold war moons ago in which the recurring line told of the Russians loving their children too. He continued with, “we share the same biology regardless of ideology”. Sting’s not from the US but it would seem his grandma taught him that we can agree to disagree– in peace. Love really is an open door that we can choose to walk through when we eschew hateful rants and remarks. Kindness leaves bridges in tact no matter what our beliefs, and choosing love over hate makes us all winners every time. Without that door we are walled up behind our ideologies and ideals lofty or base, depending on who’s rating. Not hate or bitterness but Love
is an open door.
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A child of the 70s has arrived in StarDate “twenty-fifteen”! I remember when 20anything sounded far away and futuristic. And now we have arrived. While recently watching an episode of Star Trek TOS I enjoyed seeing how many things we have that good old Gene Roddenberry “saw” in the 60s. Flip phones, Siri, translators and stun guns have all been in use in some form or other. And yet it is a very different world from the one we watched from the bridge of the Enterprise. From my perch on the bridge of a ziplining course, we are still here on earth and will be in the foreseeable future. You would think that would make us live more purposefully as a species. And maybe, this time of year, we do. For a short time, the year is new and we dive into it full of Great Resolutions to do Great Things. Usually by March, magazines stop featuring new diets and even paying for the gym membership wont get us off the sofa. Weekly date nights with spouses fall by the wayside and we have indeed screamed at our kids. More than once.
I remember being 8. I never thought my birthday and Christmas would “never come”. I never thought about them at all. Time would creep by without my knowing. The year was always full with friends, family, school, performances, summer vacation and days of playing outside till the street lights came on. Suddenly, Thanksgiving would come and with it the first appearances of the Signs Of Christmas. (For my younger readers, there was a time when Halloween did not ring in the Christmas Season.) From that moment on I could not WAIT for My Birthday. Not a lot has changed. I still love My Birthday and wait anxiously for it. This has been a great year after a few really rough ones. Seasons really do change and feeling the warmth of Springtime after a long, hard winter has been amazing! I celebrated my birthday at a ladies’ tea with women who have provided immeasurable support throughout this incredible journey we call life. While my Swissters couldn’t get here and a few key players were missing, the women there reminded me of my connectedness. They reminded me that the only child with neither mother nor father is not alone but a part of a larger circle of love. My birthday was a celebration of life, survival, love and the wonderful thing that happens when friendships blossom and deepen! Those connections affirm that he who walks in the light of love is truly forever young. Happy Springtime, Happy Birthday, Hedreich!
Amazing how time really does fly when you’re having fun. Except for a moment or two, this was just the greatest summer! I saw Elsa and Anna and Olaf at Disney, hit water park slides, amusement park coasters, rode trails, swam lakes, saw knights and medieval instruments of torture, had friends and family visit and visited with friends and family. All this fun I had in the company of the world’s most wonderful 10 year old. And then, almost without warning, Summer was over and there were a host of new starts. A pair of Harry Potter-esque glasses and a new school for my 5th grader. Fitting an ‘upright’ into the car for the school orchestra’s newest bassist. The search for a Boy Scout troop as he earns his Arrow of Light. For me, finding a single-mom-student-budget car to replace my wheezing mom-mobile before she leaves us stranded on the road. Getting rid of the post-divorce trauma poundage. Training for my first 5k ever. Oh and starting the last semester before getting on the licensure train to graduation and certification. Talk about the dog days of summer being over!
…and the living is easy! I love this time of year. Even though I am never short on lesson plans to write, music to arrange, homework to finish and a never ending barrage of kid stuff to play host/chauffeur for, it still feels like the living is easy. Maybe because without the daily school run, all the other stuff seems less jumbled up and squished in. Maybe it’s because the warmth gives a special glow to my son’s skin and eyes. Or maybe it’s because I am finally starting to realize that relationships mean more than a completed to-do list. A day of studying will have to be recouped no doubt. But spending a day with my multi-generational sister-friends nourishes the soul. And taking time to ooh and ahh over the summer camp war wounds proudly earned in a game of Capture the Flag cements mother-son camaraderie for the years to come. The living is easy when we allow it to be. Even the most difficult moments can be simplified with faith, friendship and a healthy dose of fun and shared laughter. July 4th fireworks remind me that the days are already getting shorter whether we’ve noticed or not. Be sure to relish the sunshine and warmth of summer. It does a body–a soul– good.
I’m sure that when Lionel Ritchie wrote that tune he was not thinking of late night statistics and laundry sharing space with arranging and choreography. But having recently celebrated my son’s 10th birthday as well as my 5th Mother’s Day as a mom on my own, I realize more than ever that time waits for no one. Five years is a kind of landmark, a time to reflect but mostly a great hallelujah time of “How I Got Over”. It’s like the official beginning of a new chapter. Life is a wonderful whirlwind of performances, little league, field trips, instrument acquisition, hunger relief events, band practice, new music, friends, family and well, laundry and permutations. And even when it takes me all night long, I am overjoyed to be able to…well, I’m just joyful. The dryer buzzer just went off so I gotta go. But the pic will let you know what else is going on. Stop on by. We’ll leave a light on fer ya!