Mary Ann Hayes

Battening down the hatches describes our activities this time of year, don’t you think? It’s all we seem to be doing these days, in one form or another.

The patio furniture has been stored away, even if all that means is stacking it on the side of the house and covering it with a tarp. The barbeque grill is under cover and the Velcro straps are all secured, the flag has been taken down for the season and the boats are out of the water- engines winterized and tarps bungied from one side to the other. And the sailboat? Well, it’s in the marina with the brass padlocks securing the hatch.

Let the storms begin! We are ready…or are we?

There may be more to battening down the hatches than all that. The word batten means to secure. And what is a hatch? It’s a small connecting door. So, battening down the hatches is the same as saying secure all small connecting doors, regardless of where they connect: to the cabin of a boat, to an attic, through the floor to a crawl space, or maybe, just maybe, something as totally unexpected as to the door to our hearts. That door has a special lock and a special key.

I don’t believe we are born with a lock on our hearts, I imagine we purchase one with the onset of our first hurt. Sadly, for some it happens when they are quite young. But if you are lucky, it isn’t until around adolescence, a time when tender hearts get hurt often and easily and we learn to batten down the hatch. On goes the padlock, throw away the key.

The heart rules. It becomes hardened or soft by the tides of life, the highs and lows, ebbs and flows. The question is how much healing, how much time, and what needs to happen, before a damaged heart heals and allows the locks to be removed. What needs to happen before a person opens their arms and their heart once again?

Some of us wait too long, far longer than ideal for a life as short as it is. The brave ones pick themselves up by the boot straps and dare to love again, to trust, to give each other another chance by opening the hatch wide and maybe not throwing away the key; maybe just hiding it with hope it will never need to be used again.

The holiday season is upon us and with it comes many mixed emotions. I love this time of year, yet notice a great relief when it is over; when I’ve successfully dealt with the difficult relative or two, cooked until I’ve become Julia Child, and spent more money than I have.  It’s a testy time. Through the years I’ve discovered it best that I approach this very special season prepared for any number of scenarios and with a wide open heart.

It may be time to batten down some hatches yet open up others. Let yourself enjoy the holiday season this year. Promise not to get too caught up in the commercialization of it all and focus on family, friends, and mending fences. Be the one with the wide open heart that made the holidays of 2012 a great and happy memory.

Later,

Mary Ann

I’ve missed blogging! Life got in the way BIG time but I’m ready to get going again. Blogging keeps my writing  life in order, my goals on target, and my mind sharp. Stepping out of the routine for such an extended period of time has proven to be fatal. Time to regroup and get back to it.

I’ve spent the past six months taking care of family and friends and although I  feel blessed to have had the chance to be there, it’s good things are settling down now because my keyboard is screaming for use. Words have gotten backed up in my brain and need to be released. They are fluttering around looking for a landing place on a page where a story is forming, questions are being asked, and emotions are shown. Words so full they explode like the sweetness of blackberries in peach cobbler or sparkles in the sky on the Forth of July.

So, I’ve settled on a word for the day. Today’s word is inertia. It means the inability or unwillingness to move; to act, kind of like I’ve been for half a year. Well, it’s time to move, time to act, time to eliminate inertia from the vocabulary of words that describe me! I will no longer remain at rest, unable to continue where I left off. Watch for my blogs. I plan to publish a new one twice a week beginning with this one. Not the best or most interesting one, I’ll admit, but it’s a start.

Have a good day and I’ll talk to you later in the week.

Mary Ann

The roller coaster of life continues. Ever notice how the nice, peaceful, contented times last for such a short stretch? Like sometimes as little as an hour or two? And then there will be a time, like a whole two weeks where we get lulled into thinking all the challenges and struggles and negatives are done with. We’ve faced it all and handled it all! We’re done!

Not quite. Exhausting isn’t it? I thank God for my sense of humor. Without it, I would be hiding away in some tiny cabin deep in the mountains somewhere, chopping wood and washing my hair in rain water. If I couldn’t laugh at life, there would be no sink or swim; there would only be sink.

Humor is magic. It’s s gift that allows us to release tension and stress without having to cry all the time. The motor won’t start, there is no wind for our sails, and we’re stuck out on the water at nightfall.  How are we getting home?  Humor got us there.  We celebrated our thirty eighth anniversary the other day. Without a sense of humor, we would never have made even ten.  I look in the mirror – you gotta laugh! Who is that? It sure as heck isn’t the person I am. Who I am in my head and who I am in the mirror are not related.

Expectations are not quite as high these days; at least for myself they are not. I have to chuckle at the ridiculous expectations of the world. If everyone decided to laugh at the worlds view of aging, what qualifies as success, or the ridiculous political correctness we shove down each others throats, maybe the worlds view would change. If everyone went ahead and laughed at it all, we would be able to relax and enjoy life a lot more.

When you find yourself getting all worked up about something, try to find the humorous side to the situation. Then just sit back and have a laugh. You’ll feel a lot better and you’ll maintain good health.

A lot of time has passed since I’ve taken a good long road trip, but I have one coming up. The price of filling up the gas tank has taken the fun out of this good old American pastime. We used to do them often, every chance we had. Driving allows travelers to observe the country as it is, not from above the clouds where everything appears to have a sense of order. A road trip is the real thing.

Did you know, outside of the Pacific Northwest, lush and green and amazing as it is, the sun is shining? Not only that, but the temperatures resemble the summers of old. Nice and warm in most places, downright hot in others. Looking out the window this morning, I’ve decided to wear sweat pants, a long sleeved t-shirt, and a rain jacket to take my morning walk. I’ll need a hat. It’s raining. If the wind were blowing I’d be wearing a fleece under my rain coat, but thankfully it’s not. The dogs will be soaked to the bone by the time we get back. A little sun would do us good.

So a road trip to the sunshiny state of Texas where it’s warm and dry and two thousand miles from home. That’s the sad part, the many many miles apart. Not easy to visit there. Got to watch for those airline deals. Our goal has always been to raise our children to be adventurous, self reliant adults. I guess we were successful.

So, I will rejoice in the adventurous spirit of my daughter. Applaud her strength and independence and cheerfully go to a place I’ve never been to do something I’ve never had to do before: leave a member of our family so far from home to begin a new life, a whole new adventure.

Anybody got a tissue?

Later,

Mary Ann

I sat in my neighbors kitchen close to the window where an eagle perched on the lip of a bird bath not ten feet away. The magnificent creature was very aware of our presence, so we spoke quietly and moved slowly not wanting it to leave. A good thirty minutes past, with our camera’s flashing and a crow making a perfect pest of itself by diving at the eagle’s head, cawing continuously.

The most extraordinary thing about the bald eagle is it’s vision. They can see forever. I watched the head that can turn nearly 180 degrees and the eyes that scan for miles and wondered how it would be to have such vision. Would we see danger coming long before it arrived? Would we see warnings written on the walls, whereas we miss it all now?

Vision is tricky. It’s subject to our open or closed hearts. There are times we see sadness, despair, and rejection, in the eyes of each other, only because our hearts are soft and receiving. The other times are navigated by the coldness of our hard hearts as we refuse to see past the outer layer of those in our midst, past our anger, hurt, or humiliation. Our vision is clouded or crystal clear, depending on the state of our hearts.

Sitting in my friends kitchen watching the magnificence’s of the eagle brought me to wondering about my own vision. Do I see what I should? Is there life in front of me that I refuse to acknowledge out of fear, or stubbornness, or laziness? What happens before my very eyes as one day follows the next that I do not see, for one reason or the other?

Makes me want to open my eyes with the help of other senses; if I listen more attentively to the tone of a persons voice, to the choice of words spoken, I may be able to see from their perspective. Illness often causes an unusual odor; if I pay attention I may be able to detect a smell to explain the way a person stands back, rejects a touch, or avoids eye contact. Touch can help us see that an infant is cold or too warm, or that a person is tense and uncomfortable.  We can taste water and see that it may look clear yet is contaminated. We can see through the use of our senses, that everything isn’t always as it appears.

I wonder if the eagle uses other senses to fine tune his vision or if his telescopic vision overpowers all.  Regardless, I’ve decided to add clear vision to my life’s journey. I will try and “see” through the use of all my senses, through the ordinariness of day to day life, through the fog settled in my brain, and through the emotional ups and downs of my heart.

Later,

Mary Ann

None of us can forget the emotional rush that transported us from being a mere woman to being a woman who is also a mother. How can it be explained? Nothing has ever felt as spiritually all consuming as the moment I took that precious newborn in my arms, inhaled that intoxicating newborn smell, and felt the heart beat of my child against my chest.

It’s overpowering. Unexplainable. Unbelievable. As a mother, we never forget the moment when the world stopped and all of heaven and earth smiled upon it’s newest addition. Pure magic. It’s the reason Mother’s Day is such a big deal. It doesn’t seam to matter what happened after that, the memory on Mother’s Day is the one where we are sitting in the glider holding our newborn and feeling nothing but contetment and love.

But then, I’d never been a grandmother. Until now, that is. Oh, my, I love being a mom, but being Grandma is the best! Us Grandma’s are consumed with an intense love of the new grand-baby that courses through our veins like the flood of rushing water spilling over Niagara Falls in the spring. It’s beyond words. We want to breath that new little baby right up our nostrils, that’s the intensity of our grand-baby passion.

It’s a good thing we don’t get to keep them full time. It’s a good thing we are the helpers this time around, and not the baby’s main attraction. I’m sure we would drive them crazy with our undivided attention, our determination to do it right this time around, just let us show you how!

Yes, we are totally in love and completely out of control. And we love it. Our little grand-baby is the most beautiful human being ever put on this earth, hands down. He is precious beyond belief and amazing in ways no other child has ever been in the entire history of mankind. This statement is not open for challenge or discussion or doubt. Just ask me. I’m his GRANDMA!

Later,

Mary Ann