Inspiration Arises with Quiet

Some day soon this will be the view from my porch

Federal Debt and oil prices are rocketing through the roof again and, while this pisses me off, something more basic is plaguing me today. Once more I'm giving away my quiet time.

Last March I posted about this very thing and just rereading the article quiets me. So I'm sharing with you. Maybe you'll get your own little piece of zen and a resolve to reclaim your quiet time.

In the Quiet of Morning

I realized this morning that I am a little off-kilter. Well, maybe a lot. The realization has been sitting there, staring me in the face. Guess I've been too 'busy' to let it in.

I finally tore myself away from the computer and sat on the steps in the sun. It's still chilly here in North Georgia, 31 degrees when I went out. I put on my Koolaburras, grabbed a throw to wrap around my legs and donned my uberheavy Brian Head sweatshirt. I took my breakfast with me, a handful of raw walnuts, a plum and the last inch of green tea in my cup.


This is what has been missing in my life. Sitting. Being quiet. First thing. To start my day. This is what feeds me. CLICK to read the rest of the article.

You can also see that, while the writing has vastly improved in the last 10 months, the voice remains the same. At least that's my take. What's yours?

Do you treat yourself to quiet time? Is it sacred?

~ Olivia J. Herrell

In the Quiet of Morning

I realized this morning that I am a little off-kilter. Well, maybe a lot. The realization has been sitting there, staring me in the face. Guess I've been too 'busy' to let it in.

I finally tore myself away from the computer this morning and sat on the steps in the sun. It's still chilly here in North Georgia, 31 degrees when I went out. I put on my Koolaburras, grabbed a throw to wrap around my legs and donned my uberheavy Brian Head sweatshirt. I took my breakfast with me, a handful of raw walnuts, a plum and the last inch of green tea in my cup.

This is what has been missing in my life. Sitting. Being quiet. First thing. To start my day. This is what feeds me.

Lately, I seem to get out of bed, make my tea, then sit down at the computer. I first check Intellicast for the weather. Then off to Facebook, reading messages and comments,perusing friend updates. Since my friends are on both coasts, and cover three time zones, this takes awhile. I read a few articles, watch a video or two, pick up news, giggles and inspiration along the way. I comment, when so moved.

Eventually, I make my way to email, which is pretty sparse these days. I haven't seen patients in almost three months, so nothing from them. And, oh, how I miss those emails from my sweetheart. Guess those things fall by the wayside when you live together.

A week ago I added Twitter. And now, post-Twitter, there have been days I've been sucked in to the computer from early morning until mid-afternoon.

No wonder I'm off kilter! My morning ritual has gone bye-bye. There has been no sitting in silence savoring my tea, no listening to my muse. No journaling. No introspection. No inner thought food.

Yes, I've been learning Twitter, which is intimidating and mysterious. I'm now aware that it is a great tool for getting my writing seen; by magazines, news services, agents, other writers, and publishers, just to name a few. I get to follow William Shatner, who signs his tweets 'Bill'. I've made many contacts, including Deep South Magazine and Hello North Georgia, and a few of my blogposts were tweeted by WNEG.

Yesterday, after facebook and twitter and emails, I spent the afternoon painting my new office, slathering great gobs of dark, olive green paint over yuckey comet green walls. Alone for four hours, in that quiet old building, I had plenty of time to think. But there was too much noise in my head, all those twitters, and messages and that weird dream that needed analyzing. Turns out that dream just pointed me back to this same thing:

After 19 years of quiet morning time, I need it as much as I need food. It feeds my spirit. This is the time when I replenish. Am inspired. Commune with nature. Talk to God. This is where I find my center and anchor in. This is the place from whence miracles spring. My morning quiet time.

In the noisy clamoring of cyberspace, I'd forgotten. I used to tell folks that I get up by 7, but I don't do people until 10. I've been breaking my own rule. Just because they're in the computer and not standing in front of me, they're still people.

Oh. Yeah.

BTW, I miss you...

Garden Greens a la Randy

Our new garden is now tilled, hilled and planted thanks to Sir Randy, our resident horticulturist.

The tilling was contentious, and not because the soil is virgin Georgia red clay. It is an existing garden, soft and loamy. After the months of rain and wet conditions, the tiller sinks right in. And stays in one place. So after fighting that for an hour or so, it was time for a break.

As a reward for his physical labors (he'd also trimmed back our pampas and maiden hair grasses, a photina, the white oak, a leyland cypress and several pines), I took him downtown for a big, juicy cheeseburger at The Poolroom. After a trip to Home Depot for more seed, and Kroger for food and petrol, we were home again.

I settled in to the armchair to watch one of my favorites, The African Queen, with Bugsy curled up behind me (as he is now). The landscaper dude went back out to attack the freshly tilled soil. Two hours later, Charlie and Rosie had fallen in love. Bogey was clowning with hippos and monkeys, and they were spending their last hours of bliss before heading back down the Ulanga.

I hadn't heard the tiller in a very long time, and there is no window on the garden (east) side of our trailer. I took a time-out from movieland, donned my shoes and went outside to check on my man. And, wow. There he was, straddling a row, rake in hand, patting down the soil over freshly-sown seed. The garden plot was rowed in raised hills, each row neatly labeled.

Duly impressed, I said, "Wow!".

He stopped momentarily to step out and take a breath, and put his long arm around me. I nestled in (he's a foot taller than me: 6'3" to my 5'3") as we surveyed his handiwork with pride.

We now have 17 rows of greens; two varieties of spinach, several of lettuce, mustard, kale, turnip, rape (a novelty we'll both be trying for the first time) and carrots. It's the end of a cold winter, tomorrow is the first day of March, so greens are in order. Hopefully, they'll all come up and be spared by the plentiful neighborhood rabbits. (Where's Queenie, the beagle, when ya need her?) And, Bugsy won't mistake the neat rows for his own private litter box.

Today is Randy's home day. Me? I'll be shuffling off soon to paint. I'm staying in the food category, though. One room will be painted an eggplant-y color, another, deep, dark avocado.

Little Boxes

I live in a trailer. There, I said it. I live in a trailer. An aluminum box with walls like cardboard, small cabinets, very few drawers and thin slats, barely thicker than veneer, for trim. And while it has garden tubs in the two bathrooms, they're made of plastic. So the magnetic cloth shower liners I was careful to buy, won't even stick to the sides.

Why does this bother me? Why does it feel as if I've slid down a couple of notches on the totem pole of life? It is, after all, just a box. We all live in boxes; whether aluminum, wood, brick, block or stucco, they're all just boxes.

Most likely it is not the physical box that bothers me, so much as the cultural box we Americans have assigned to people who live in trailers. You know...trailer trash.

Wikipedia defines trailer trash as: "A derogatory North American English term for poor white people. The term originates from the belief that such people often reside in trailers or mobile homes, especially in trailer parks."


Urban Dictionary is not so kind: "Derogatory description for person who seems well-suited to residential life in a mobile home park and is distinguished by poor hygiene, foul language, slovenly or slutty clothing, and general ignorance. Recreations include drinking malt liquor in lawn chairs under tattered R.V. awning and teenage pregnancy. Close synonymn for poor white trash."

Actually, the second 'definition' found in UD is slightly more enlightened: "First of all you don't need to live in a trailer to be trailer trash, and only a small percentage of people who actually do live in a trailer are considered trailer trash and their characteristics are...annoying loud mouths, dirty houses and clothes, greasy hair, their kids are out of control, lazy."

Herein lies my quandary. My current home now places me in the same cultural box as trailer trash, or poor white trash, a box I have spent a lifetime peddling furiously to stay out of.

Ironic, that.

Interestingly enough, I love it. No, I don't love getting used to plastic bathtubs and having no 'junk' drawer to hide my mess. But I love that we have plenty of room to spread out, in this 16' x 80' box. Our previous, temporary quarters was about a third of this size. I also love that our box sits on a 3/4-acre lot that is surrounded by woods and rolling pastures, with a view through the trees and over the fence of the Appalachian mountains.

I love that when I sit on the back steps in the morning, I experience the world awakening in a whole new way. I hear roosters crowing, turkeys gobbling, birds chirping in their raspy morning voices. I feel the wind on my cheeks, ruffling hair that escaped from my warm, winter hood, see leaves skitter across the lawn, watch the young pines sway. On clear days, I get to see the sun rise.

I love that we have a garden plot, all ready to be planted, and that soon Randy will be tilling the ground. That this weekend we will drive to Ellijay for blueberry bushes and fruit trees. And that we'll no longer be throwing kitchen waste in a landfill, but be mulching it in our garden. I love that this summer we'll be enjoying and sharing pesticide-free, homegrown tomatoes and beans and cucumbers and squashes, broccoli and carrots, and more of our tenderly-grown bounty.

I love the quiet sense of nature that abounds outside the walls of our home, our tin box in the country. I love knowing that as the seasons unfold, I will experience these surroundings in ever deepening levels of profound. And, I love that the quietness seeps inside the walls of our box, quieting our minds and filling our hearts.

When viewed in this lovely light, the quandary fades. It doesn't matter. It is, after all, just a box. A cultural box, a pigeonhole, with no real meaning, like so many of the other ones. These boxes were created by someone else, to consider, as Financial Times Lexicon says, a person, activity, etc, as belonging to a particular type or group, in a way that is too simple and therefore, unfair.

I am not 'trailer trash', never have been. And living in a trailer doesn't make me so, nor does it make me less.

Boxes are hurtful, to those who create them, as well as to those who must live in them. We all have value, no matter who we are, where we live, how we look or act, and what we do in society.

What kind of box are you living in? Not at home, but in your mind? If you think about it for a while, you will most likely come up with more than one.

Me? I live in a doctor box, a daughter box, a partner box, just to name a few. In my mind, these all have 'meanings' and, when I don't live up to what I see in my mind's eye, I'm the one who suffers.

So, today, for now, let's all step out of our boxes. And just be okay with where we are.

Click Here to Listen to Little Boxes on YouTube

The Rewards of Waiting

I feel better today, calmer, quieter, more at peace.

It is 28 degrees with a forecast high of 45, but my winter coats are here, my scarves, my gloves, my Koolaburra boots. I have all I need to stay warm and dry.

Today my three things to do are: 1) find a blank journal so I can get back to my pages, 2) rent a storage locker for my soon-to-arrive adjusting table and, 3) reprint the application for my Georgia chiropractic license. Oh, yeah, plus the other assignment of making a list of my things and where they are. Think I’ll also make a list for matters left in the air, still needing attention.

I will go to the noon meeting for another dose of sanity and because it’s Day 2 of my seven day commitment to Lucinda, my new ‘temporary’ sponsor, who has six years to my almost-nineteen sober, but has been close to meetings and working the program while I have not. Plus, how can I deny the wisdom of someone determined, willing and able to help?

Last night I ate a delicious meal cooked by the childhood sweetheart I told you about, Randy Jeffers. He made flat-iron steak with fried green tomatoes and cornbread, all of which melted in my mouth.

I feel so blessed. I have all I need today; warm clothes, a bed in a warm house, Bugsyboodles, home-cooked meals and a stocked refrigerator, hot green tea, friends-new and old, family, adventure and most of all, love.

2009 is winding down, bringing a close to the first decade of this millennium. I spent it all in California, having arrived there in January of 1999. Now 2010 is looming large and I have been given the gift of a lifetime.

Two years ago, almost three, I bought a card at the Akashic Bookstore that reads, “If I had known I would get to spend the rest of my life with you,” he said, “ I would have started the rest of my life much sooner.” I knew, then and there, that I wanted THAT man. Imagine my surprise when, on Facebook, I found him. Rather re-found, and re-connected. He says he let me go once and isn't about to again.

So here I am. Back in Georgia. Back where I started. Only the 17 year-old boy is now 53, and the 16 year-old girl, 52. We’re done with our wild ways and adrenaline rushes. And, we’re ready for love, the kind that lays dormant and lasts a lifetime.

So, welcome 2010. And, welcome love.