Oh Happy Day: Go with it;Flow with it JHM©11

"I want to be lean and clean for the future, dust off my wings. I know for sure that doing so will make it easier to fly."~  Oprah

"Stash's Sunset" photography by JHM©08

I am just in a good place right now and I am simply going to enjoy it...Circumstances around me have not altered to any great degree.  I'm just very happy.

Happy is as happy does and what I am going to do is flow with it, go with it.   I don't have to work to prolong it,simply enjoy the feeling. 

I have sunlight streaming through all my front windows, listening to my favorite show CBS' Sunday Morning, preparing to read my Sunday paper and have a healthy breakfast.

I joined several groups recently who have similar interests.  Maybe it is the shared interests that suits my sensibilities is contributing to my feeling of continual happiness, I don't know. 

I am simply going to go with it; flow with it.

Maybe it was going through some of my photography and remembering the pleasure in shooting them helped.

"Betty's Table" photography by JHM©10

Don't matter;I am simly going to enjoy it.

Could have been my finishing up a project that I've procrastinated for weeks, sticking with it and knowing it is done and I don't have to do it again contributed...

Don't matter; I'm going to enjoy it anyway.

Or it could have been dreaming about decorating a new loft space with wonderful floor to ceiling windows in a new space, relishing the challenge of shaping it into what will work for me now, where I am now having said to myself it is just doggone fine to now format my space for who I am today.  Feeling my adventuresome self, seeing the world with childlike wonder and old school experience could be fueling this.

Don't matter; I am going to go with it;flow with it...

Or is it seeing images of veggies and flowers who have long since returned back to the soil to replenish and re nourish?

"Arty-chokey" phtographyJHM©08

Or seeing a picture of my eldest daughter with 2 of my grandbabies (her niece & nephew) sound asleep. She was on her off day from work and helping her sister out so she could get to work.  It makes me feel good that my children do indeed have a sense of community.

Or the trust my grandbaby, Tassandra age 11months,secured in sleep that all is right in the world, even if the world is not acting right, that Mom & Dad, Auntie and Grammy will make it alright with all they got.

And big brother Tevin almost 3yrs can camp for the camera:

Maybe it contributes. Don't matter; I am just going to go with it; flow with it

Could it be possible that shutting down a situation that was an exercise in futility; of releasing someone to go where they need to go as long as it is not near me be a contributing factor?

Don't matter,I am simply going to go with it; flow with it.

I had been so stagnant in trying to get the mojo working keeping it going which is almost near impossible to do with so many things working in opposition to what was need.  I had thrown my hands in the air as I could not push what was not there.  For those who can, more power to you!  I applaud that ability; it is  a skill I do not have or acquire and don't see the likelihood that I will.

I've always known in the later years of my life that there is always a way out of no way if as my good friend would say "if I could smooth myself out of the way".  I am what I am, a work in progress & as I figure it out, things get done.

And done well, I do tell...

Has this acquired knowledge contributed to feeling happy?

I am simply going to go with it; flow with it.

"The foolish (wo)man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his/her feet".~- James Oppenheim

"Standing out in a Crowd" PhotographyJHM©08

All rights reservedJHM©11

What I am Clear (About) ..What I am Not...

"Sometimes the very thing you are looking for is found in the very thing you weren't".~ YKWTD (You Know What To Do)

Decisions,decisions, decisions.  Will they ever go away?

Well if you are over the age of 5, no.  Although I say this somewhat in cheek, making decisions is hard work.  It may not seem that way say if someone is deciding "Is he the one" or "Do I take this job although it means moving away from my family"  or do I want mayo AND mustard"?  Some decisions are harder to make (or keep) then others.

Time and experiences make some decisions really easy to make and implement without nary a bump.

And then there are the others...

I have to make somewhat painful decisions; this I am clear.

What I am not is do I want to do this? Will I do it.

What I am clear about is I need to do things for my well being.

What I am not is how.

What I am very clear about is that my present situation needs a radical change.

What I am not is not can I be radical but WILL I be radical.

I've not doubted for a minute my returning home to my beloved city of New Orleans was a right one, I now doubt whether long time I will stay.  And it is not that I don't want to, but I've changed.  The city is changing, some of it very good and badly needed, others well, it is the same old song just repackaged.

Mind you as I say this that it is not you who are not from here, never visited here and only know what the news tell you , which is so blown out of proportion, bad schools, extreme poverty, over the top crime  yada yada yada, it is not anywhere near that.

We have to remember even with so called  "traditional" news the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality rules.  Here is a radical concept: New Orleans is really no different then many major cities (and minor ones, towns or boroughs) in its ills.  But it true Franco-Lousiane manner it is blown way out of proportion.

What it is is a place steel reeling trying to restore its equilibrium after the most devastating (un)natural disaster in the history of this country & having carpetbaggers, visionaries, the young seeking adventures, hipsters, con artists, idealist & people rife on exploitation who have jumped into this restoration gumbo with little thinking of what or how to go about it without destroying the city.

And in this flux, I am clear that it is going to be a heck of a lot more work involved and more  hands involved working extraordinarily, exceptionally hard to do the almost near impossible, but possible  retaining/maintaining a measure of control.  In every aspect of this we can sometimes wrecking havoc on our health & well being; of not knowing or seeing the way out; wanting to be as healthy, as autonomous, as fully engaged as we need to be while the world once known is fragmented.  Of putting pieces back together or really fully have what is needed so one can indeed be independent, contributing community.

Or individual...

The way is not always clear.

Sometimes things gets muddled, we may have to redirect, revisit the choices and then step out...

Radically.

Understand I am not exercising the often futile sport of what is wrong with New Orleans or what is wrong with me... This is clear.

What is not is how to stop this sick sport from continuing.

I am clear that while undergoing the worst time of the worst time of my life, I am happy that I am not gone backwards in my work on reaching a healthy weight.  Truly there is plenty of room for improvement, but I am good with that...

What is not is will it happen here? Can I do more to reduce even more the chronic stress that continues to keep my blood pressure high?

The easy answer is yes; 'cept it ain't that easy.  

On paper the answer are definitive; get my economic circumstance improved and the rest will (truly) fall into place...Duh..

What is not clear is How? Where? When?

I am at the conclusion there is some huge really bad cosmic joke being played, but I did not get the punchline. 

 And the joke is being played over & over until I get it.

Alright! already!

If determination, fortitude, resilience, effort, heart, drive was money I would be wealthy enough to rival Gates, Winfrey or Forbes. And telling me I am not alone doesn't help.  It stresses me more just knowing more people are hurting and hurting as badly if not worse then I am.   And that raises my blood pressure more, not less.

Just like with my home town as it is going along trying to really shape its future and its present, so am I.  As a good friend calls it, something we have to smooth ourselves out of the way in order to make that way.  

We are in perilous times, far more serious then people like or want to believe.  I am not talking from a national time, but a global one.  There is a lot of shifting going on and whether we want it or not we are on the ride of a lifetime.

That I am clear...

What I am not is so what do I do now?

A friend had this on a email she sent me:

"Searching for a miracle, expecting the impossible"

So I guess now I've answer my own question...

And hold on...

What's difficult in life is to stay centered when somebody does 
or says something that tempts us to close our hearts 
because their heart was closed. That is hard. ~
-Marianne Williamson