Tag Archives: Living

Gone for a moment. . .

 

. . .but never forgetting.

 

The more I try to understand life, the more I seek new answers. I got the chance to retire and I took it, I put some time and effort into my books and got the first two published and set up the templates for more to follow. I have met some wonderful people and I have found strength in myself that I never knew existed. I have the strength to believe not only in me, but in the fact that others believe in me as well.

 

The confusing part here is, the time I spent on my books, was what I thought I wanted, I blogged every week, I had freedom to come and go, to be where I needed to be, I was where I thought I wanted to be, then something happened; I found myself missing people, interacting with people, seeing smiles, activity, movement. I found that I was loosing touch with earth energy, I could see it but I couldn’t dip my hand in it to feel it rush by. The energy of all things, the river of life was just out of my reach.

 

Oh it gets better, I wanted now to get back in the river, slowly mind you, one foot at a time, maybe just stand on the banks for a while to adjust. No, headfirst I went, no worries I thought, I could swim, just a relaxed stroke to stay where I was in the current. The banks seemed to get smaller; the river of energy was getting wider, more people, and more life, more living. I was going too far out, loosing my balance once again, I was losing my creative side, by focusing too much on staying stationary in a current that was getting stronger.

 

Metaphors aside, I went from one extreme to the other, writing every day to not writing at all. The reality came when my editor asked me to write some pages for BawB’s Raven Feathers Vol III, I said “no problem” but, there was this one little thing; I had nothing. My mind was a complete blank, a writer with no words, and a page with no meaning. I was devastated. But alas, I am a writer now, because I have had no words, because to all of you writers that are smiling, this is what writing is all about. We write because we want to, if we are forced to, we cant, if we choose not to, we miss it, writing is a release for us, a smile that comes form the inside and transforms into words. Keep smiling my friends and keep writing.

 

I write because I want to, it makes me want to smile

I’ll write these words I have to share, I hope, for quite a while.

 

WI:)ND

 

BawB

It’s not just the path you walk. . .

 

. . . it’s also the direction you’re going.

 

I have found a new path, one that is taking me in a totally new and wonderful direction. However, it comes with a cost—my writing will suffer. Being retired has given me all the opportunity in the world to sit and write at a relaxed pace, but now that I have rejoined the workforce, life is a little more hectic.

 

Writing has never been a chore, but now, making time to sit down and focus for even five minutes seems daunting. So this is a new path indeed, one that is taking me away from something I love to do towards something I need to do. I will, of course, find a way to do both, and I’m sure most of you can share a tip or two about time management skills. The show must go . . . uh . . . I mean the book must be written.

 

Are you wondering what would take a retired writer away from the pages of unwritten thoughts? Well, it happens to be a path of intrigue and mystery, a chance to live in my own novel of the unexpected. I am now a PI; I spend my days answering the questions that need to be answered, finding the facts to fill the holes, and yes, sitting for hours and watching the world go by . . . waiting for something to happen.

 

I can’t think of a better way to fill my days. I’m sure you can imagine what goes through my head while on the job: the characters, the events, the pages of new unwritten material—but wait, is it just that I am remembering my heroes, Sam Spade and Thomas Magnum? Ah yes, the glorified images of racing around town in a Ferrari or sitting in a smoky bar with a whiskey, neat, while figuring out the latest clues.

 

I, however, am a poet of sorts, a lover of life. I see energy and share myself with the wind. What could I possibly gain from the antics of investigation? Well, aside from allowing me to hone the much-needed skill of “finding time,” this job is a new path to explore, a new adventure. It has inspired me to create even more unwritten thoughts about life, and it has reminded me how important it is to walk any new path that presents itself.

 

Life is too short to wonder if you can, or to wish you would have tried something new. Life is for living, and I will continue to live mine doing as much as I can to keep this smile on my face and to share it with the world—because, as I have mentioned once or twice, smiles are free and are very contagious.

 

It’s not just the path, it’s also direction—it’s the way in which you grow.

As long as you’re moving you’ve made a choice, so you should have a smile to show.

Believe in You.

🙂

BawB

http://www.bawbsravenfeathers.net

For every beginning. . .

 

. . . there is an end.

With the recent passing of a very special soul in my world, I was left wondering about life and the things we consider important at any given time. I thought about  the things we choose to spend our time on. I thought about how we all begin our life stories the same way, and how many of us are oblivious to the end of them until they are upon us.

I choose to spend time writing about life —inspirational quotations and poems that come from my heart. Every day I share something different through a form of social media. I have no thoughts of a beginning or an end; my writing involves that which occurs in between. I looked today for something inspiring to share about life ending but could find only the following words, which are etched into my soul:  “For every beginning there is an ending, and for every story there must be a front and back cover—one to open and one to close.”

I realized while chatting with a friend that our lives are so busy, so involved with choices and options, so centered around success and failure that we (as humans) only take the time to think about the end of a life story when the story is completed, when the author of a lifetime has written his or her last words. That is the reality of an ending. We then usually take a moment to consider our own mortality—only a moment, however, and then we resume our hectic lives with the memories of a book that has closed its covers.

My life story began over half a century ago. I have not yet written a beginning, nor have I thought about an ending. I will, however, continue to write about life; I will inspire as best I can; I will share my thoughts about how important and precious life is; and I will share the sadness of those consumed with the inevitable ending of us all. But we must remember that we will never be gone, nor forgotten. Each life becomes a book that is placed on a shelf in the minds of those who had a part in it. Each life is a book that never grows old, and one that can be read over and over again.

One step, one day, one page at a time, we try to live by being free;

The stories of life that we have shared will soon become our legacy.

🙂

BawB

Pressure isn’t pressure. . .

 

. . . until you’re under it.

 

It was finally nice outside last week, so I eagerly got started on the spring yard chores. I also took the camper in for service and went for a ride on the glide. But, these things took time. The time I usually allot for writing was used up by early morning walks outside, then chores. As a result, I would miss my writing “window.”  Seriously, I get it, writers write, but they also have to live like everybody else, and I wait patiently all winter to get out and enjoy the spring and summer months.

 

My passion involves pavement, a destination, and adventure. Yes, these things can be achieved in the winter months, but it’s a little tougher riding a motorcycle with snow tires. Plus, the camper needs water to provide me with life’s necessities, and, alas, water loses its liquid state at 0 degrees Celsius. Interestingly enough, all of my mates also share the same passions, so suffice it to say the kitchen table solve-the-world’s-problems sessions are now few and far between, as we are all out somewhere doing something in the great outdoors.

 

What does this mean to the world, you ask? Well, I am now feeling pressure. Yes, I have been walking away from the keyboard and saying “maybe tomorrow.” But how can I truly walk away now? Those of you who have just found me are now learning about me, and those who know me are happy to read what I write to fill the void of a couple of minutes every Monday morning.

 

Now I find it necessary to ask all of you, my fellow writers and bloggers, how difficult do you find the task of sitting down in these early weeks of spring? Are you dedicated, and if so, how do you work through the call of the wind? Would I be shunned or chastised by the blogging community if I were to post every two weeks, or three? What happens to those who blog on an every-now-and-then basis? Do they have followers? Do their followers stay? Do we write for ourselves or for everybody else?

 

I worry because I have become dedicated, not to anyone in particular but to myself. This is something I have chosen to do, and I enjoy it, but I also enjoy other passions. I just gotta ride when I can. I need to feel the wind.

 

Don’t give up, don’t quit on yourself, be true to what you do.

Whenever you feel an urge to live, then do what’s best for you.

 

🙂

 

BawB

 

Yesterday is a memory. . .

 

. . . tomorrow’s on its way.

 

How far ahead do you plan? Do your plans carry certain expectations? What if something goes wrong? If a glitch appears in your plans, are you disappointed? Or, are you capable of living in the moment and altering plans without so much as furrowing your brow? Life really is difficult sometimes, so it’s important to find balance by controlling your stress levels and increasing your fun times, even while enduring unforeseen circumstance.

 

They say “live in the moment,” but what does this mean, exactly? If you live in the moment can you still make plans? Yes. Living in the moment means breathing without worrying about your next breath. It means going ahead and making your plans but finding the balance required to understand and appreciate changes. Things are going to happen—let them, then change your plans in the moment.

 

Life should flow from one moment to the next. One day, one week, should flow to the next. Plans can be made, and then you can flow until the day and time the plans were made for. But try not to wait for that day, as the unwritten laws of physics state: “The object waited for becomes the object furthest away from the moment you are living in.” You’re right, I just made that law up, but this is always what happens when you wait for something, so it should be a law. Instead of waiting, try to have fun with the balance between excitement and nonchalance Too much anticipation can lead to disappointment if “things happen.”

 

Live your life today and stop worrying about what’s to come. Your life is going to happen, and it will be what you make of it, so make it happy and fulfilling. Use your moments to share a smile, enjoy the little things, and plan for the big things. Spend time both making memories and enjoying them as they happen. Don’t rush tomorrow—it will come, and with it will come 1440 new minutes to live in.

 

Mother Nature goes out of her way to give you things to see and listen to. She even knows that smells can trigger memories. So out of all the moments of your life, take at least one or two a day to appreciate the beauty of it. In between the plans you’ve made.

 

When you smile at beauty a memory is made, like a camera’s clicking shutter.

If it’s butterfly you’re smiling at, then take the time to hear her wings flutter.

 

🙂

 

BawB

 

Can you hear the wind sing. . .

 

. . . the new song of spring?

 

Does the thought of spring do anything for you? Can you feel a change occurring within you? It’s really quite amazing I think, the fact that humans have evolved into such a dominant, thinking species. We have excelled in the last few decades at miniaturizing and improving our electronic devices; our communication equipment can now tell us in less than a heartbeat what the weather is going to be next week. Yet, we are still so much like our animal friends that we feel and react to the coming of spring.

 

I start my spring on March 1. I always have. It’s around this date that I can “feel” the changes in the sun—it seems warmer, stays out longer, and refreshes the day with more vigor. The wind goes through changes as well; it dances differently, it carries warmth with a song of change and starts to whistle tunes of enjoyment. Coats on our neighborhood four-footed outdoor denizens start to change, birds flutter about looking for somewhere to nest, and motorcycles start to appear on the streets.

 

Cars and bikes display a winter’s worth of changes, modifications, and polishing the very first day the streets are officially dry. We watch the news for the updated weather forecast and will alter our go/no-go temperatures by five degrees if it means getting out there for that first ride. Of course there are the winter folk who feel spring in the air as well. They entertain sad thoughts of the need to once again store the machines that brought them smiles, and they reflect on all the fun they had over the course of the winter months.

 

Spring changes us emotionally as well. I swear that most of us go into a rest mode during the winter. We still exist, we work, we live, we share our smiles, but during the first few weeks of spring, we, like the flowers and the trees, start to bud. Color comes back to our cheeks, we walk with a bounce in our step, and even the morning rush is less stressful because we feel a calm inside us.

 

I am finding it easier to sit in the office with my morning coffee and write my thoughts and share my daily inspiration on Facebook. It almost feels to me as if the day has become more welcoming. Even my dog, Levi, has a smile. He’s started shedding his winter coat and takes a little longer every morning to do his outside run.

 

Best of all, soon I will be out there on the streets with my freshly polished and modified motorcycle feeling the wind in my face and the freedom in my soul.

 

Feel the spring wind as it covers the ground.

It shares with you the warmth it’s found.

 

🙂

BawB

Stress by any other name. . .

 

. . . is still avoidable.

I am a calm person by nature. There isn’t much that gets me riled up, at least in my day-to-day life. Don’t get me wrong, I could go off on a tangent with the best of them, but I choose to see the simplicity in things. While in my shop this week working on the bikes, getting them ready for spring and making some modifications, I found myself getting quite frustrated rewiring the controls on the Sportster. It should have been easy enough, I’ve rewired bikes before, but this machine did everything in its power to raise my stress levels.

I know what you’re thinking: machines don’t have power. But they do. We give them names, we look after them, we wash and feed them, we groom them, and we adorn them to make them look more appealing. Yes, machines have power over us, and as some of you will attest to, they have personalities. I swear I could hear laughter coming from this motorcycle as I manipulated a paperclip into a tiny little hole to release a lock that held a connector pin in place. But I maintained my composure, talked to the connector  in a calm, rational tone :), I worked through the building stress levels by breathing and keeping it simple,  the tiny lock reluctantly released its hold. All calm was restored in the shop.

This same mind over matter syndrome took place again in my office for three days in a row. Normally, every morning I wake up, let my little dog out, put the coffee on, and then sit down to do some writing—my morning brain workout so to speak. Well, for those three days, likely due to the time I was spending with the bikes, I had nothing. Not a word came to mind. I sat for about an hour each morning and drifted in and out of peaceful calm looking for, well, words.  There were none, and yes, I got frustrated, stressed out in fact, because I am a writer. Writers write, and I had nothing.

I took a moment to breathe, to find my calm and to realize that being stressed about not writing was making not being able to write even worse. After only a few moments of realizing I was not moving forward, I stepped back, took a breath and relaxed, I simply thought about not thinking for a moment, and the words began to flow. All calm was restored in the office .

It is so easy to let go of calm. We give in to our instinctive fears, we worry, we compete, and we pressure ourselves to meet unreachable goals and deadlines. We forget to breathe. Let me remind you today to find a place to store your calm— somewhere in your mind that is easily accessible, somewhere you can go to breathe. Go there often, and enjoy being you. Always.

Smile . . . Breathe . . . Believe.

🙂

BawB

When you say you have nowhere to go. . .

 

. . . which direction are you looking?

 

If I had a nickel for each time I have heard someone proclaim “I’m bored,” I would be a rich man. How on earth can anyone get bored, with all there is to do and see, to read and watch, to play and listen to? I just don’t understand it. It would be so easy to slip into a rant right now, but with some self-restraint and calm breathing, let me just say that if you have the time to be bored, then you are not taking the time to enjoy the little things in life.

 

Often when people say they are bored, they blame it on a lack of direction. But what does it mean, exactly, when people say they have no direction? Are they lost? Or admitting that no one has told them where to go recently?

 

I have found on my journey, through listening to others and, of course, soul searching, that direction can be found with a compass (your intuition) and a dream. The compass will point you in the right direction and the dream will help you create the place you would like to be. You should be knowledgeable when it comes to reading a compass, how to find true north and believe in your intuition, and equally, you should be able to tell the difference between a dream and a fantasy. You could dream about being further along in your career and, in the process, solidify the steps you need to take to advance to the next level. This is a direction-driven dream. Conversely, you could fantasize about being the president of the company and firing your boss, but if you don’t actually want to be president and just dislike your boss, this is only a fantasy.

 

My point here is that I dreamed about something different in my life. I wanted to go in a different direction, so I trusted my compass and looked at paths that would take me to different places in my life. The path I chose was that of a writer who publishes books of inspirational quotations and stories about life. As it turns out, I was destined to follow this path.

 

If you find yourself with no direction, lost where you are, then look at a different horizon. See if there are other paths out there for you.  If you look, maybe a door or two will open to show you an unexpected turn. Don’t be afraid to be happy being you. You are the only one responsible for your success in life. Follow your own compass.

 

Take a step towards some place that you would like to go.

You will find before too long that your energy starts to flow.

 

🙂

BawB