“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers.” Maya Angelou.

I don't usually like to post quotes.  I like reading them, but I just don't have the personal connection with them that some people do.  But this one changed my life a few years ago and I was reminded of it today and I thought I should get it down where I can easily find it again.  I used to think that what other people thought of me was more important than what my own hubby thought of me.  I was prone to being an ass to him at any given moment.  This quote changed that.

My mom asked me today if I thought it was possible to teach a person something from one's own experience.  I mean, as a mom, as a parent, its our highest goal.  We want to spare our kids the pain of our mistakes, we want to give them the wisdom that we ourselves earned through experience.  But I'm not sure we can, not really.  I think we set up norms for our kids, I think just by living with them and interacting with them, and loving them, we set up their expectations for the world.  Then they go out and generally function within these parameters.  Not always, but generally.  Its a whole, the apple doesn't fall far kind of thing.  We are comfortable with what is familiar and we will seek to create surroundings that fit within our childhood expectations of 'how things should be'.  But real wisdom, I'm just not sure how much we get to impart.  The times I've really been struck by other people's experiences are when those other people are not close to me.  I am more likely to listen to someone whose flaws I am unaware of, someone who is an ideal (such as a Writer, a Leader, etc) rather than a actual participating member of my daily life.  

If someone, say my mom, had said 'quit being a witch to your hubby' I would have said, 'mind your own dang business.  I grew up with you.  I know how you can be.'  I never would have heard the truth or the wisdom.  And yet Maya Angelou, someone who, for all I know could be a total meanie to her family, changes my perspective on life.  

Just saying.  Seems unfair.  The people you love the most, you hear the least. And vice versa.  

Christmas

It's hard to even know what to write about this Christmas, but it been weighing on me heavily and I sort of feel like I need to write something about it down.  Maybe it'll help to make it all make sense.  But then again maybe certain things don't need to make sense or are better off left in the realm of mystery, beyond comprehension.  

Grief sucks.  Really badly.  

My cousin who I love dearly and who I've basically looked up to all my life, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Nancy Ann.  Nancy Ann was only with us for 9 hours before she died.  

I am very grateful that I was able to go to Baltimore last weekend and be a part of the funeral and to just be with family and be sad.  The pain of losing a child is beyond description.  It seems to me to be the deepest and darkest of pains.  Without words or boundaries of any sort, it spreads and grows and covers everything.  It is horrible and terrifying and sacred in its absoluteness.  

On the Monday we returned from Baltimore (so this monday) we learned that one of my mom's best friends from high school and long time family friend had been murdered over the weekend by her boyfriend, who then proceeded in the most cowardly and disgusting of fashions to kill himself.  

The point is, we spend a lot of our lives saying things like God will never give us more than we can handle, and even if things get rough, we'll have love or each other or our faith.  What never occurs to me is how damn much could be asked from us.  The world feels raw and dangerous right now.  And I feel extremely self centered as these things have not happened to me directly but to those whom I love and care about.  but I grieve grieve grieve.  It is all I can think about most days.  

And I love.  My boys (all three) are amazing.  I have held them closer and tighter the last few months.  And while I did let many of the details of Christmas go this year, less gifts, no cards, very little baking, my Christmas day was more wonderful than it has been in a long long time.  

Dust in the Sunlight

Right now the boys are smacking the couch and playing in the dust that rises up and swirls around, visible only in the beam of sunlight coming in the window.  Its charming.  And yet I'm becoming increasingly disturbed by the amount of dust they're able to procure from a single cushion.  

Rant

Poverty is failure when you live in a nation that measures success by the size of your paycheck.  Poverty is humiliation when you live in a culture where pride is determined by the things you own.  I am not referring to great personal wealth, I am referring to simply having the ability to buy groceries, simply being able to buy shoes for your child.   I have been surrounded lately by people who have some sense of a redeeming social value in personal poverty, people who 'choose' to live in poverty or glamorize the idea of being poor.  But when you cannot feed your children, when taking your child to the hospital is making a choice to take on debt that you may never fully recover from, when you don't know where you are going to live from one day to the next, when you have to rely on others to provide for you what you cannot provide for yourselves, it is painful and it is destructive.  

The stress of worrying about bills and food causes people in poor communities to have higher rates of heart disease and diabetes.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice 55% of homeless girls are engaged in formal prostitution.  Children in poor communities are far less likely to graduate high school.  I find it to be so condescending to claim that living in poverty is in any way living simply.  Poverty is complex and overwhelming for those trapped in it. 

I know this all seems obvious.  And I know that most people just want to help those in need, but it seems to me that sometimes people want to help "the poor" but have no idea how to begin to relate to the people living in complex situations that have led to poverty.  

Things I am grateful for...

1. Vanilla cream chocolates

2. Biore Pore perfect strips

3. Thunderstorms

4. A hubby who can help do my homework for me (he designed a website for my final project...one class done!  Hurrah!)

Holy Crap.

Thats me.  At the fair.  With a butter sculpture of Mt. Rushmore only made with Ohio presidents.  And yes, thats dear old William Henry.  

I mean really.  Could I be more happy?  Could they have added any more of my very favorite things into one perfect...thing?  

I can't even begin to be articulate about this.  

Ira Glass and Chris Ware...oh it's all just too much!