I M Perfect lady

Author: bjukuri

  • Love after Love, by Derek Walcott

    The time will come

    when, with elation,

    you will greet yourself arriving

    at your own door,

    in your own mirror,

    and each will smile at the other’s welcome

    and say, sit here. Eat.

    You will love again the stranger who was your self.

    Give wine. Give bread.

    Give back your heart

    to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

    all your life, whom you ignored

    for another, who knows you by heart.

    Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

    the photographs, the desperate notes,

    peel your own image from the mirror.

    Sit. Feast on your life.

    —Derek Walcott

    I heard this recited by Kim Rosen on Sirius Radio with Ed Bacon, she wrote a book called, “Saved by a Poem”. I have it on hold at the library. Until then, I have browsed her website and found this poem.

  • The Journey, by Mary Oliver

    One day you finally knew
    what you had to do, and began,
    though the voices around you
    kept shouting
    their bad advice—
    though the whole house
    began to tremble
    and you felt the old tug
    at your ankles.
    “Mend my life!”
    each voice cried.
    But you didn’t stop.
    You knew what you had to do,
    though the wind pried
    with its stiff fingers
    at the very foundations,
    though their melancholy
    was terrible.
    It was already late
    enough, and a wild night,
    and the road full of fallen
    branches and stones.
    But little by little,
    as you left their voices behind,
    the stars began to burn
    through the sheets of clouds,
    and there was a new voice
    which you slowly
    recognized as your own,
    that kept you company
    as you strode deeper and deeper
    into the world,
    determined to do
    the only thing you could do—
    determined to save
    the only life you could save.

  • Until You Move.

    It is my day off, and immediately two bookkeepers began fighting for my time, each with a set of rules and regulations for what should/could and would be done on my day off.

    There are plenty of choices within each room of my house, and other ideas floated by as potentials to use up my time, and each idea was met with an opposing vote.

    It stuck me to my chair in indecision and time slipped by.

    What to do and what is worthy fought back and forth, paying no mind to my feelings or desires.

    Until I began writing this out, it never occurred to me to fire the bookkeepers, to keep my day off out of their hands and out of their books.

    It matters not in the big scheme of life whether I enjoy the sunshine with a walk or see it from my lazyboy, if I quilt or nap, do yoga or read, wash clothes, bake and do dishes, none of the above will define who I am inside, they are all doings of a human kind.

    If I take away value from each task, each task remains equal to the other, and become its own separated joy, and it can’t steal from another column in a bookkeepers journal.

    Somehow in my mind if I spent an hour cleaning I was stealing from the passion journal, if I slept, I then stole from the physical side, there was always a plus and a minus to all actions.

    I never liked numbers so I am getting rid of the value system, tossing out the worthy and the unworthy, and instead will live with just doings.

    All doings are equal.

    It seems the bookkeepers main tasks were to steal my day, steal my peace, and steal my joy, by putting up an opposing side, no matter what I couldn’t win.

    The bookkeeper was a guilt keeper, a day wrecker, and a nap spoiler lurking near each task with negative remarks.

    Without the bookkeepers narrative on how my day is going I will be free to enjoy whatever it is I am doing.

    The minus and plus columns will remain empty and in their place is a doings column, simply filled with what I do.

    I don’t know what I will be doing, what my energy level will be, what inspirations will come as I move through the day, what desires will arise, but what I know for sure no one is keeping score.

    In fact the more I write about this, the more I feel that I will disband the whole accounting system that used to lie within me, where values interrupted living life in the manner to which it appeared.

    Without values you are then free to do anything and life is much freer, you live from the spot of a pinhead in the moment of now.

    Now I am blogging, who knows what I will do after that, the present is always a surprise, unopened, unplanned, unknown, until you move.

  • Postal Pressure Cooker

    My five days of work is done this week, my weekend begins on Sunday. Yesterday the man who will begin doing Saturdays for me rode along on the mail route.

    It is interesting to see how a man looks at the route, compared to a woman. He sees the route, but not what his is going to be delivering.

    He is a bus driver during the week, so he was concentrating on the route, thinking that knowing the route and learning to drive on the right is the hardest part of the job.

    He failed to understand you don’t get to do the driving until you get all the mail sorted, and in order to sort quickly, you practice and practice and memorize and memorize.

    He kept going back to his strengths… his knowing bus routes and driving a bus.

    And I would focus on what he doesn’t know yet…sorting mail.

    The sorting sets the tone, sets the pace and will slurp up many hours of daylight, if you don’t know where the letter in your hand goes, and you have three trays of mail, each holding 300 plus pieces.

    Overlooking this part puzzled me, and I quickly learned that the only way he will learn is by doing, so I left him at the end of the day with a tub of catalogs, each needing to find their home in the 469 slots.

    Nothing teaches like experience.

    Nothing shows you how much you don’t know than by standing with one small catalog searching for its home, and watching the time slip away, while you hunt and hunt and hunt again, the name not meaning anything, the road seeming lost among the many small dirt roads, and you trying to remember which part of the route it was on, the beginning middle or end, and looking upon the pile yet to go…the 469 slots all seem alike, the names printed below unfamiliar, the five digit fire numbers mocking with a mysterious sequence, the roads failing to click in route formation, now you know what you don’t know!

    The stance of ineptness is so clear it feels overwhelming. And the knowing that you have 469 houses waiting for their mail.

    We are one of the small offices who get their mail that is mixed up and needs to be sorted, most mail comes to the carrier presorted to the route, and you just take it out and deliver.

    In our office you can only deliver what you know.
    Isn’t that a great metaphor for life that we have to be willing to not know until we know, and that we can’t give out what we don’t know?

    It takes a certain person to be able to do this job, and we don’t know until they are placed in the postal pressure cooker.

  • The Short End of the Stick!

    Each day when I am at work, I silently thank my co-worker for wanting the larger route, the one with fewer dirt roads, but much more mail, for every day my route appears to be easy.

    No matter what day of the week, when we both arrive, I have less, which doesn’t allow me to utter one complaint, for each day He has it harder than I.

    It is amazing that this simple fact that his lot in life is harder than mine leaves me no room to complain, which also sets the tone for the day.

    How lucky am I to have this little route.

    What an awesome way to transition back into the working world, feeling like you are the lucky one each day.

    This lightness carries me through the day, no matter what I have to deliver, he has more, no matter how long it took me it will take him longer.

    He willingly gave up this route for a variety of reasons, yet now he is looking back at with different eyes.

    You truly don’t know what you got til its gone… but I am fully aware of what I have and each and every day and even a few times a day I give thanks to the Gods that be, that something within him wanted him to leave this route to me.

    I am thrilled to be left holding the short end of the stick!

  • Celebrate your differences!

    What would be good advice to offer a new couple who just got married, what pitfalls or blind corners do you have to warn them of, when does reality overtake love, and what then is the best thing to do?

    In my experience of 23 years I would have to say, is to be truthful with your self first and then with him/her.

    That if you give away parts of your self in little lies, soon the you they fell in love with will be gone.

    And it is in the most scariest of situations where there is the most at stake, it is then you need to be honestly truthful.

    By honoring your self first, the other person will always be with your most authentic self.

    While it may seem kind to bow down to the comfort or spare a feeling of hurt, what you are really doing is lining your relationship with lies.

    I had heard Dr. Phil say yesterday to different couples who were either too comfortable (no spice) or those in a power struggle of control, etc…that you are either contaminating the relationship or adding to its strength (I forgot what word he used, but meaning adding to its integrity).

    In each situation, all you are responsible is for your self.

    The union of two people will be only as strong as the weakest individual.

    A marriage made in heaven is where one is strong the other is weak and visa versa.

    If we were exactly alike, there would be no need for the other.

    Celebrate your differences!

  • Will you see?

    I am falling into a routine of working each day, of getting up, doing yoga, reading, writing, and heading out to toss mail.

    As I arrive at the Post Office each day, another pile of mail greets me, more magazines, catalogs, political ads, and a few trays of mail to sort; a never ending job.

    Not so different from being a stay at home mom, where the dishes, clothes and housework, cycled into a never-ending job.

    In order to keep the mundane from being so mundane, it is our responsibility to look for nuances of differences.

    From sharing a few words with a waiting person at the mailbox, to bringing in treats, to seeing the land as you drive upon to change what you listen to as you drive along.

    It is the same, but different each and every day.
    And I think we can look at life as a routine, no matter what it is we do, or look at the miracle of miracles that accompany us each day.

    How many miracles will you see?

  • Success

    Life flows with such ease and delight at times, you feel its divine orchestration, where each small detail you didn’t even know you needed is taken care of.

    I have felt this in getting life lessons, where its painfully easing you into awareness, but my day yesterday was the opposite.

    My day off prompted me to ask three friends to share the day with me, which tripled my joy.

    I was chauffeured and entertained with great conversation, and given different viewpoints as our day unfolded.

    We learned we travel well together; we seemingly flow in similar directions yet with different views, enhancing our experiences by adding a new flavor I myself couldn’t have gotten alone.

    Sampling a small Quilt display to browsing Art books in a Library, Lunch, shopping for fabric, chocolates and clothes, each of us arriving and leaving with what we love.

    The energy of the ladies mingled with the energy of what we saw built within me the desire to be better, to expand my quilting techniques, to explore more, play more, enjoy more, be more.
    The day was much more than I dreamed it would be.

    Thanks Ladies for sharing yourselves so abundantly with me.

    With renewed energy, exciting fabric and filled with ideas, I am ready to play in an Artful way. The first road trip a great success….

  • The Lady and Her Jeep

    I was shocked to learn that I had joined a new group, a group of which I knew nothing about, and still don’t, but feel I will learn as I go.

    As I drove my Jeep across the Bridge in town, an oncoming Jeep spotted me and gave me a friendly wave and smile…I waved back, pondering who was that?

    My second wave was as I was traveling along the highway, a white Wrangler waved and then it dawned on me, all Jeep Wrangler drivers wave at each other.

    Sure enough a dark green one spotted me and he too waved, then more and more.  It is the oddest thing and funny to be part of a group that I didn’t even know about. 

    I wave back, but don’t have a clue what the agenda is of this group…what have I joined?

    I wonder if my yellow light on top or the fact that I drive from the right puts me in a special sub group within the group, if delivering mail is a bonus or a demerit?

    What is the common bond between the Wrangler owners, what character trait or lifestyle would be a common thread?  Do I really fit in?

    It’s an unexpected feature and one that I am not sure how to use or express.

    Perhaps I own a Jeep but I don’t match the persona one usually has when owning one, I landed here by accident. 

    Yet my jeep will look as it has had a lot of fun mud bogging when I return some days off the route.

    It feels like I joined an adventure group unbeknownst to me…and what is scary is this mail route will become an adventure depending up on the weather.

    Again maybe everyone knows but me that by owning a Jeep Wrangler my life will take me on exciting rides.

    Wow…no wonder they smile and wave…’hope you are tough enough to ride’ and I do too! 

    We will see if my spirit matches where this jeep will take me, do I have the right stuff? 

    I am thinking the confident get a jeep, and in my case I need the jeep to be confident…confident I can make it through the rain, sleet and snow and dark of night to deliver the mail. 

    Maybe this group isn’t for the faint of heart…but will make the faint of heart strong. 

    I guess this group is for me. 

    I will rebuild the confidence I lost, the strength that seems fleeting at times, the endurance against all kinds. 

    The Lady and her Jeep.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Wise Listened

    I only spent one hour in her presence and wanted to follow her home, and in fact we may have been behind her motor home as she left our town, I had the chance but turned off as our road appeared, allowing her to leave me wanting more.

    It wasn’t so much her story but rather the affirmations I felt as I listened to her.  I wanted more.

    Her story and mine shared some similar roads, and I could see how her courage was grown, how she shined in her individuality how comfortable she is in her skin, although I know it wasn’t always so.

    She spoke of her childhood in a tone of ‘this is what it was’ marveling with us and showing us how those steps were gifts that she used to become who she is today. 

    Dr. Maya Angelou.

    From an abused mute child to one who had us all sitting in rapt attention to each word, insight and profound wisdom she uttered.

    Maybe we can’t listen to another until they have something worthwhile to share.

    She has enough wisdom inside, and I feel I just got one little tiny peek.

    A peek of who I will be!

    She makes life seem only worthwhile if it is colorful; with characters and scenes that put fiction to shame.

    It’s like the more you suffer, the better the storyteller you will become and how much more interesting the story will be to tell.

    She didn’t hide the ‘shameful’ parts, rather she allowed them their truths to stand equal to the kinder parts, the happier times and she weaved them all together into one strand of self.

    The audience followed her as she led us on her journey as we sampled a few moments of significance that made her who she is today.

    A colorful woman telling us this isn’t a rehearsal, so get on and live life.

    Thanks Dr. Maya Angelou for taking the journey to come and speak to us today.

    We are just another spot on her journey, and she a spot in ours.

    A connection and energy exchanged.

    I left feeling she was giving us a hand up, as she reminded us of all who came before us, what their cost was, and how we don’t have the right to waste our time being less than who we can be.

     A wise woman sat on that stage and the wise listened.