Lilly Sway

 We are the only animal that has the capability to think with compassion, and forgiveness, and love. We are the the answer for so many who need help and guidance. Who can we be?

We can be helpful, humane,compassionate insightful,willful, and so many other things.

I heard an antidote the other day, it was about two rats each placed in a vat of water in two different rooms and one had the light on, the other was left in the dark. I knew that both rats were going to die as it was started off with how long do you think they would survive if both were in water with no way out. Of course the one rat with the room lit was going to go on longer for he had that light to keep him motivated to keep him thinking that something would change or that maybe he could overcome his situation. I thought this to be perfect for how I can relate that from which my sharing to you, what is transpiring in my world, and why I say to you, Who can we be?

I saw a  few of my neighbors tipping their hats to the traffic yesterday and then again this morning, right in front of their home right in the middle of one of the busiest streets that flow into our neighborhood. I have seen them quite often in the last couple of years,, pan handling on the freeway, at the grocers, and in the medians on big thoroughfares. It seems that this family moved back into the home from which they had been gone from for a very long time. I see them pan handle with what I believe to be either friends or siblings as they always come from the same home walking to and from their now very familiar corners. I have heard all of the complaints and all of the banter on what my neighbors would like to do to have them removed. I wonder who we are to judge and to complain so much about what others do or do not do?

I passed the gentlemen up this morning as I drove my child to a U I L competition at our neighbor hood High school. My son said some thing to me to the effect of, how really bad they must be struggling to be left to the desperate option of having to panhandle for their survival.  I said how do you know that it is not just them trying to have an easy way to meet their obligations. My son said, mom if you live in the United States, and you are having as hard a time as we very well are, then  you know that you  can at the very least try anything that you can think of to survive a rough and hard journey we are only human after all. The basics are truly the core of our lives, water, shelter, and food I wonder why more people do not try to help them, as opposed to getting them thrown out of the neighbor hood. He said that in this great country people from around the world come to try as hard as humanly possible to achieve their goals , so then who are we to judge any persons’ ways or the means by which they can  get to their goal, excluding illegal activity of course, (did I mention to you that my son is twelve?). I asked if he was OK with what the men were doing, and what he thought of how they were going about their business.

He said, that he has seen us all at home try to make ends meet, and most of the time they don’t. I thought about how much our children have seen, and heard, and understand of our own situation and struggle, as I dropped him off. He is right there are many people trying to work two, or three jobs for what ever reason, their motivation, and even their unconventional ways to get there are not for us to judge. I see the reality TV show commercials  that are about teens with children struggling, young men and women trying to stay in the lime light of the night life with sex and drama, the woman who is conceiving child after child to what seems to be no end, the New Jersey, Orange County and the like cat fights. I can not be offended to the fact that this is how they choose to live their life and survive. It is not what I would or could do, but on that same note as their dramas unfold on our televisions and we laugh and sneer, and gossip about what sluts, or users,  or just plain idiots these people are I am sure that as they live their lives that they  laugh all the way to the bank. So who are we to judge?

Who are we to judge? My neighbors more of them than I care to mention thrive on the shows I mentioned, and as they were not blinded enough to what is entertainment, they in the same breath have the nerve to complain about the men in our neighborhood who have now been jeered at, sneered at, and cursed at by fine (”church going”) neighbors. I would rather not see a man woman or child beg, or panhandle for food, or money anywhere, but in this day and time I see it often and more so than not, with the economic struggles that is taring away at us, stripping that ray of light from many,  putting your dreams in the dark, and leaving most of us to deal with our living as if balancing on a high wire, or even trying to keep from drowning in a vat of water to either give up or to drown.  I see that one must do what you can to survive, and then they must endure what they must. Yes who are we to judge what any other person does and how they do it to survive (as my son said, excluding illegal activities)? My families battle and struggle with our economic state is seemingly bleak at the moment and times are and have been really tough, I am thinking of getting a hat from the closet.

Food For The Mind

Lilly’s Way

I have been putting off writing this month as I do when I am busy, or in this case, when I feel not up to the task at hand. I get bogged down more often than not with my very simple, but many chores, or I am trying to steer myself out of a state of depression. Yes it is true situations are not always prime and easily resolved in my world, hence the word that describes me best or any one for that matter (Human) that makes me as fallible as the next person. I do have many challenges these days, physical, monetary, and then those things that just seem to squash the very life out of you.

My writing is a state of reality to what I live, and what I lived, and sometimes in many cases the things I do not like to talk about. Writing about what makes me tick is an abounding consolidation that I deliver to you stemming of the hardships, triumphs and failures that make Lilly (me) who I am to all. I procrastinate mostly for the time to keep my self whole, to give myself a moment, or two to ponder the significance of what I will write about and why I am doing so. I do struggle, as many people do with just always trying to take the good, forget the ugly, and learn from the bad. It is easy to say but very hard to accomplish continually.

Much less on a daily basis. I often speak of how those very negative things have made me, who I am, but I rarely try to see what they have taken away from what I could have been. That would be digression. I lived a life on a line as a young person the things that I knew would keep me safe and the things that would make my life more miserable than my reality. So I learned to procrastinate put hard or challenging things off until I had to deal with them absolutely.

If this sounds as if it is a cop-out, well it is, or was, at the time when I was young it saved me anguish. I usually do not like to deal with just all good things in my life, I feel that would be glutinous. I believe that good is for sharing with those who need to brighten a thing or two in their lives. Like when there are A’s on the report card and I know it because the principal called or e-mailed me a congratulations for my child’s accomplishments. I wait until the report card comes and I make sure that my husband can be surprised or overwhelmed at the news and then he can directly bond that moment with my child into a memory they will both cherish forever.

I love a moment like that, and it lasts so very long on the good things to do list. Which means, that I don’t have to dwell on the fact that my husbands illness is making it harder, and harder for my children to connect with him. I try to never let more than a day go by with out telling everyone in my life that I love them, this is also the warmest and most fulfilling thing that keeps me from procrastination, as it means that I must do my part to ensure that what I am saying is real, and that I must find a way to keep on keeping on. The ugly things past, and present get the back seat to most of what I try to think about, but sometimes it is very much in the drivers seat.

The thing about ugly, is that it does show up and you must deal with it on the spur of the moment, so as to not let it overtake your life. There are things in your life meaning my life that,  you must argue about, or think on, and sometimes engage just to keep it real. I am a person who feels strongly about many things and I do get into arguments about what is right to me. I see the disease (diabetes) my husband is dealing with and it is very sad and hurtful to see what it is doing to him. He is of another time when you did what ever it takes, to stay focused on the problems you can solve, and never, and I mean never stop to deal with what you have no control over.

So I deal with the ugly I get into arguments, say what is on my mind, and try to make my husband deal with now, instead of letting him try to just keep on going as far as he can before he drops out of my life. The anguish I feel is heart wrenching to me. I see and can do nothing to slow him down on the course of choice, and he like most men always seems to think, is that it is under control, and if it was his time to leave us for any reason, we, he, nor I could do a thing to stop it. I get down in the dumps, and want to just sleep away my sadness, as my mother did the years that came after we all left home. My mother slept for ten years, and never wanted to go anywhere, or do anything and sadly all the begging in the world could not budge her from that bed. My mother died at 83 very physically healthy, but very damaged mentally from the hard brutal life she lived.

I remember feeling sad, and crying, for many a time went by the same every time. I came over, she would not leave her bed. I would help her bathe, make her bathe, cook her favorite meal and just sit and try to make her talk to me . She would take her bath, smile and then just go back to bed. I stay out of the bed and spring from it, even on my worst day, just so as to not let the bad overtake me, as it did my mother. There are bad things now as there were back many years ago in my life, but I refuse to give in to the bad. I deal with it. I cooked breakfast yesterday and put off cooking lunch for the way I felt, and could not bring myself to make lunch, I know you must think me crazy but I procrastinated until dinner hour, because my depression was so profound that I just could not engage. I did manage dinner and this morning I made up my mind to interact even if there was this over whelming feeling to just sleep all day.

I deal with a lot from day to day and sometime even you could say most of the time. I can bring myself to realize the short term bad can hurt you forever, if you let it. So even though I procrastinate I do manage to shake it off, and then just do what I can to keep the stride as hard as it seems to just keep in step with my reality.

I have been putting off writing for the very reason, that what I feel today is a heavy mixture of what was, and what is, and what will be. I try to look on the bright side, but there is not always that silver lining to look forward to. I procrastinate yes I confess I do, but today as any other I will do my best to overcome it.

Food for the Mind

Lilly’s Way   www.lillysway.com

Well a new year is cresting our lives, and we have it all to do again, and again with a little more knowledge under our belts. I am wishing you all have the same optimistic view for the future that is anew in a day plus a few hours. I will stay the course for the future of my family and myself.

I do not want to taint the time ahead with what was wrong with the past. I had a beautiful Christmas with family, and friends. That just made for a great week. My outlook is always boundless with leaps toward the greatness of the events to come. I look at each day as a new chance in my life, one that can give me a better understanding towards what must be endeared, and endured. I recall small rituals around our home that have become tradition in my home.

I wash all of the laundry (I am so very grateful to have our plumbing  back) as my mother did, clean the house spotless, try to fill the fridge, try to pay all the bills off early (well we do try), so ( according to my mothers way) was so that we would not be playing catch-up all year. I think it was more of a superstition than a tradition, but we were always right on track during the holidays cleaning, washing, ironing, and the like to make it a good start for when the new year rang in. We would stay up and give each other a hug, and kiss, and wish everyone peace in their lives for the coming year.

I do the same now as l did then. These years my children have the task well managed as these times are tradition and they are excited to carry the torch so to speak. My oldest carried in groceries to fill the fridge the boys changed out linen and my daughter and I laundered the last of what we deemed all of what we “needed” to wash. I have been in a good mood today and I can see that my children love to be in charge of what they now think are important traditions.

Although when they were small it was not so much a tradition it was just a chore. I love this time of year and aside the odd warm weather, it is like most years except I feel a great importance to the fact of our still all being together, I know things will change as they must, for our lives to be what they must be. I am though feeling a selfish overwhelming gladness that for now they are as they are. Guilty? No, not at all. Time goes very fast and so come on new year I am ready for you.

I wish you all a blessed New Year, and wish for you all peace in your lives.

Food For The Mind,

Lilly’s Way