Reflections-Making Things

I remember wanting to be a fashion designer when I was a preteen. I used to look at clothes and imagine different styles and color schemes for some of the outfits in my wardrobe. I enjoyed looking through clothing catalogs and gazing at the coordination of accessories. Perhaps these were the beginnings of my fascination with sewing and the art of making things.

In junior high school I took old jeans and made small handbags. My mom was impressed by this because I did it by hand. We didn't have a sewing machine.

As I grew older my interests grew. I became involved in other creative endeavors, and I didn't do much with my interest in fashion.

Finally at the age of 39, I decided to purchase my first sewing machine, a basic Singer. It was suitable for a beginner. I took a one hour sewing class at the local Joann Fabrics and made a pillow case. I was quite proud of it, and glad to have taken this first step in learning a new craft.

Walking in the Clouds

It has been said that one's ability to succeed in life can be determined by their perspective.

I recall walking out on a winter day very recently and marveling at the thickness of the fog.  I walked for a bit and arrived at a crosswalk with a crossing guard on post.

Chester Pike is a wide street with two driving lanes and a parking lane going in both directions.  I exchanged smiles and greetings with the guard, and added, "What a brisk and foggy day it is!  I wonder if this is what the visibility is like in LA."

She replied, "Yes, brisk.  The fog is not quite as thick as the LA smog. I'd rather have the fog."

"What's the difference?" I asked. 

"Smog comes from the pollutants generated at the surrounding factories.   Fog comes from the clouds.  So right now you are walking in the clouds."

"Well, I'll take that.  Thank you!"

Just Say It

Sometimes it's hard to laugh when someone you love is hurting.  Or dying.  Or has died.

It is difficult to hold a grudge when you know that someone you know is hurting or has lost someone.

Just before Valentine's Day one of my friends lost his father-- a decorated US Veteran.  One of my acquaintances lost a mother to a stroke.  Another friend, a woman, a doctor, suffered a stroke.

Who do you love?

Tell them.  Enjoy them.  Think of them, and the times that you laughed together.

Did you laugh today?  Did you think of those you love, today?  Are you grateful for having them here to enjoy another day?

Yes? 

Tell them.  Just say it.

Thank you,
I love you!

Yesterday & Today.

Should tomorrow come and I have the ability to tell you again...I will take the time to do so.  Maybe a call, a handwritten note,  or a text.  Maybe a message to edify you.  Maybe an attempt to make you smile.   I can't call everyone in one day, but for every day that I have breath in my body, I will use some form of expression, whether big or small, to say...I love you.

Be well,
Katrena

Resolve

There's much to be said about taking the chance on doing what you want, and or love to do.  Stepping out on faith to accomplish a set of lifetime goals, frankly, is a scary thought.

There are great risks involved in becoming a full-time entrepreneur, or a returning to college.  But when considering risk vs cost, one has to question what is more costly? Not going for it? Or trying and learning everything you can along the way...sometimes falling, picking yourself back up...and doing that until you get it right.

What would you regret? Not trying for fear of failure? or trying and actually having some success, no matter how small that success is?  At some point you realize that even a small bit of success or more valuable than NONE at all.

I've had so much going on for the last two years that it's sometimes difficult to stop the room from spinning long enough to see where I stand.  Some might call this overwhelm.  I'm inclined to agree.

I've started projects that I've had to put aside or on the back burner because of adverse conditions.  That is to say that, for a season, whenever I made any effort to work on my "To DO.." list, that small list of manageable action steps, which lead into achieving bigger goals...adversity strikes.  People and situations served as vessels to break my focus, and my determination.  That's what it feels like.

How does one push through that adversity? And the fear or frustration that comes along with it?

Prayer?  Meditation?  Reflection?  Support?  Talking it out with someone?  All of the above.  But I think the thing that sets some situations apart from others, the thing that makes the difference between success and failure, is resolve.  Failures will occur.  But viewed from a certain perspective, failure, past and present, can be a "catalyst" for absolute success.

What can a person learn from failure?  And how can one bridge the gap between failure and success?

One has to resolve in their mind that success is attainable, that they have the right to want it, the potential to have it, the will to take ownership of it and the courage to go and grab it.  I am one of those "Ones."

I've learned from my failures that taking the risk to succeed is a much more appealing to me than paying the cost of not giving my best effort.

Success is within my reach.  In fact, at my fingertips.   It's already mine.  I just have to walk in it.  I've tried and failed enough times to learn a few life lessons.  I don't know what the next success or failure will be.

But, I do know one thing for certain: I'm still here, I still aspire to attain a healthy, and prosperous way of living, and I'm closer NOW, to reaching those goals than I've ever been before.

re·solve  [ri-zolv]
verb (used with object), re·solved, re·solv·ing.
1. to come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something): I have resolved that I shall live to the full.

Put another way, "I have made up in my mind, I will enjoy life to the fullest.  And in THAT lies the key to my success, and in essence, my happiness."

For a season, I was reluctant to share my story.  I was hesitant to open myself up and say, "Here's my experience..." in hopes that someone can relate.

That season is over, and I'm no longer afraid.  This is me.  Pure and Simple.

Be well,
Katrena

A Time...

Today I am mourning the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year-young Black man who died after being fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a Hispanic man with a German/Jewish last name and who has been formally acquitted of all charges related to Trayvon's death.

I cried.  I wept.  I was so hurt that I had to write about it.  I had to tell someone HOW I felt.  I wrote a letter to four of my closest friends.  Each of them...has a son.  One of them has four sons.  In my letter, I told them how I was grieving, and how I wished that George had exercised some wisdom  He wanted to protect his neighborhood, and that's okay.  That's how he's wired.  But I wished that he had exercised some wisdom, and used good judgement.   I wished that George had put aside his prejudice, his preconceived misconception, and used his authority more responsibly.

In my letter I told them that I don't have a son, but if I did...I would teach him that it's his job to protect his house and his community, and all who dwell there-in.  ALL who dwell there-in.  Instead of following Trayvon, like he was a suspect...George probably could have said, "Hello young man, are you okay? Are you looking for something or someone?  Do you need help?"  His approach could have been to ensure that THIS young man was safe and would be getting home safely to his mother and father.  If so...this would be a different July 15th.

I asked my friends...no...I URGED my friends to reach inside of themselves, face the pain that we are all feeling over this.  Cry.  The power of your tears will propel the appropriate action, and touch the right person at the right time.  Perhaps through a letter.  Perhaps a call.  Perhaps a prayer.  Perhaps a song.  Perhaps an awakened sense of responsibility to the young men you know, and even the young men that you don't know.

Reach inside...go in...deep and access the God in you.  Show these young men in your life what God looks like.  And teach them what their purpose is, and HOW to walk in it.  Teach them to use wisdom, good judgement and kind words as vehicles of peace, instead of using prejudice, disrespect and guns as weapons.

I don't have a son.  I've always wanted a son, but I don't have one.  I don't question why.  I choose instead to be a teacher, a mother, a mentor, if I can, to as many young men as I come into contact with.

After writing the letter, I learned that a close friend of mine lost her brother to murder.

Just then, my closest friend called me on the phone to see how my day was going, and my voice cracked.   He asked, "what's wrong?"  And I cried.  I wept.  After I collected myself, I finished the call and went outside for a walk. I needed to sit down in the sun, close my eyes and listen to the nature that surrounded me.

"Be still...and know..."

After a few minutes, I got up and started walking again, and just then a mother deer and her two fawns ran across the grass and into the woods.  It made me smile and it gave me some peace.

So I came in and began to write.  Often when I'm hurting, I write.  It's therapeutic.

A time for joy
A time for pain
A time for separation
A time for reconciliation
A time for laughter
A time for tears
A time for reflection
A time for expression

I began to write these notes, and I was moved to go to the book of Ecclesiastes.  I've learned in the past few months that when I am moved to do something...I should just do it.  I know of the "For Everything There is a Season" passage.  But I needed to read it again.  So I did.

I read it in a few different versions.

Here's the one that stood out to me:
Ecclesiastes 3 - The Message (MSG)

"There’s a Right Time for Everything

3 There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:

2-8 A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace."

After reading this...I wanted to get the correct definition of lament.

Dictionary.com reads:

"la·ment  [luh-ment]  Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1. to feel or express sorrow or regret for: to lament his absence.
2. to mourn for or over.

verb (used without object)
3. to feel, show, or express grief, sorrow, or regret.
4. to mourn deeply.

noun
5. an expression of grief or sorrow.
6. a formal expression of sorrow or mourning, especially in verse or song; an elegy or dirge.

Origin:
1520–30;  (noun) < Latin lāmentum  plaint; (v.) < Latin lāmentārī,  derivative of lāmentum"


Well...reading THIS made me want to learn more about the Book of Lamentations.

and Wiki reads:

The Book of Lamentations (Hebrew: אֵיכָה, Eikhah, ʾēkhā(h)) is a poetic book of the Hebrew Bible. It mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple in the 6th century BCE.
In Judaism it is traditionally recited on the fast day of Tisha B'Av ("Ninth of Av") the saddest day on the Jewish calendar mourning the destruction of both the First and the Second Temples in Jerusalem - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Lamentations

Today I am mourning the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year-young Black man who died after being fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a Hispanic man with a German/Jewish last name and who has been formally acquitted of all charges related to Trayvon's death.

Today, I am mourning the loss of my friend's brother.  I don't know his name and I didn't know him personally, but I feel the pain.   I don't know any of the circumstances surrounding his death.  But it hurts..

Today, I am mourning the death of my cousin, Mattie Robichaw.  I am extremely close to her father, Cecil. His father was my mother's oldest brother.  Cecil talked with me today about how he misses his daughter. His twin.  His best-friend.  He talked with me today about how he presses on from day to day caring for his family...his youngest daughter, and his grandchildren, Mattie's children.  Mattie died in 2011, at the tender age of 30, after an accidental fall.  She left behind a mother, a father, a sister, three children and a host of family and friends.  We love her dearly.  And on August 13 we will likely, mourn her.

Today is the eve of Tish'a B'Av.

Apparently...this IS a time...for mourning.  THIS time, this moment....is the right time to lament.

And it's ok...because it's not the only time there is.  There WILL be and there is ALSO a time to cheer, a time to laugh, a time to embrace...

All the Moments in Between

For all we know...we may never meet again.  Before you go, make this moment sweet again..." ~ Donny Hathaway

I listen to this song repeatedly.

It reminds me of how precious life is.

How precious love is.
How precious a person is.
How precious a relationship is.
How precious experience is.

How precious time is.

How precious THIS moment is.

------

Birth.  Death.  Marriage.  Divorce.

These seem to be the occasions when we become most mindful of the "delicacy" of this experience we call life.  Either when it's exhilarated by newness, or shattered by loss.  One extreme, or the other.  What about all the moments in between?

It Didn't Matter

We argued earlier today.  And it was quite heated.  I got on his nerves...again.  And he's was getting on my nerves.  Again.

But now, it was the end of the day.  I had already taken my evening shower, and had now been in my late night designing mood, when suddenly he walked over to me, removed my laptop for a moment to pick me up, hold me and kiss me.  If his sole purpose was to stop me in my tracks JUST to give me some love, then that's more than okay with me.

Now, I smell his skin.  And it reminds me of the first time that I got that close to him and smelled his skin.  So it didn't matter that just a few hours ago...we were awkwardly silent.

Now, he was running his fingers through my hair again, just like he did our first few nights together.  And the high volume and stern tone of our angry voices from earlier...it didn't matter.

Now, I was looking at the hairs on his face.  The long ones.  The short ones.  The dark brown ones.  And the grey ones.  And my mind started to wander, and imagine his struggles, and his stresses.  And when I realized that as he was lying in my lap, with his eyes closed, relaxing to the tune of me rubbing his head, what had bothered him earlier today...it didn't matter.

Now, he's lying in my lap and his skin feels so soothingly good against mine.  I think about how cramped up we were, our first nights together.  Sitting in the back seat of my parked car...either in the park...or on some busy commercial street...or in front of his house.  It was a small space.  But for all I cared, it could have been a shoebox.  As long as he was there with me, touching me...it didn't matter.

A few minutes ago, I looked at the scar on his forehead.  And I remembered the story of how he got it.  He was imitating a character from one of my favorite movies.  I recall that we both laughed when he told me about it.

Now, I'm looking at the his eyebrows.  There's hair missing from his right side.  Is that from a minor injury?  Or not?  I think about the day when he'll tell me, and now I imagine that there will be something about that story that will remind us both of something else that we have in common.  Some additional piece to this unexplained bond that we share.  And at that moment, our nerves, those nerves from this morning, they won"t matter.

Damn.

What was the point of our grievances earlier today?

Now...I guess...

It didn't matter.

Sleep "good" Baby.