Month: May 2011

My Two Ex-Dads

/ James Browning

I have been married and divorced twice. Both are longer stories to tell another time, but the failure of both marriages was in majority my fault. In spite of the pain and heartache that came with both of them, I benefited from both marriages.  Not the least of which was two Father-in-Laws who both treated me like a son.  Having basically grown up without a father I learned a great deal from both men about how to be a man and how to be a good Dad myself.

In both cases I always knew either would be there to help me no matter what.  All I had to do was ask.  That was a great deal of comfort that I never said thank you for.  Then there was all the times each did help me that I believe I always said thank you for, but those two words do not express the depth of my gratitude in retrospect.

S. and E. were strong men from a different generation where most got married once and toughed out all difficulties in the union.  They were both hard working and a success in their jobs.  They worked hard at their professions and even harder on their own homes to make them as good for their families as they knew how.  Both were men of high morals and were the sort who would help people without being asked.  From both I learned a lot about how to be a man that today benefits me more than ever.  Interesting how clarity in the rear view comes with time if you look.

Both men were very close to their daughters and were disappointed that the marriages did not end up being “until death do us part”.  They were disappointed in me.  That their daughters were hurt is something I will always regret.  In some ways I can see how forgiving me is a  difficult thing.  If the roles were switched I don’t know if I would be able to forgive.  I know one did forgive before he passed away and I hope one day the other might also.  Even if that does not happen, my gratitude for his role in my life will not be diminished. 

S. & E. were both good men who experienced pain through knowing me.  It has taken a long time for me to forgive myself.  Gratefully I have peace now.  Otherwise I could not write here and put my feelings out there for the world to see.  I am grateful for the legacy both men left me with.  I may not have practiced all of it well when they knew me, but today I am part of their legacies.  I will always be grateful beyond words.

If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.  Rabbi Harold Kushner

A Boy in a Man’s Body

/ James Browning

The smile of a child is beautiful.  It is expressed with innocence and with the full emotion of the moment.  We tend to lose this unaffected expression of our self as adults, but there are exceptions.

There is a young man about 19 or 20 that works at the grocery store where I shop that has worked there about 3 years.  Russ is tall and handsome, enough so that if circumstances were different he might have been a male model.  He expresses himself openly to customers and most seem thrilled to see him.  You see a big part of Russ never left the 5th or 6th  grade.

Russ bags groceries and shags shopping carts in the parking lot.  I am uncertain if he works full or part time, but is usually there at the store when I shop after work and on Saturday’s.  Russ smiles at everyone and makes direct eye contact that lets you know he really sees you.  If he knows you often you’ll get a quick hug and he will tell you that he loves you.  Even if you are a stranger he will flash that wonderful smile and say something to you that makes you feel good.  He is always filled with the joy of being alive and in his world people matter most.    In the store I will go out of my way to get into the register line where he is bagging just so I can speak to him.

Yesterday was challenging at work and I was brooding  inside myself when I parked my car in the grocery store parking lot.  As I was walking toward the entrance, there was Russ gathering shopping carts to take back in the store.  He was working diligently as he always seems to be and focused on doing well his task.    I just walked over and told him hello.  Russ’s response was a BIG “How are you?” and he meant it.  Moments before I had been in a funk from my work day, but at that instant all that “junk” melted away.

Maybe it was when he told me he loved me that did it.  Maybe it was the hug.  I am uncertain.  But I certainly know it was Russ and I am very grateful for this boy in a man’s body who is my friend of sorts.  His joy for living and his love for others are so rare.  Some might say God messed on up making him the way he is.  I don’t think so.  I believe God made him just the way he is and put part of an angel in Russ.  He is perfect just the way he is.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.  Melody Beattie

Long May You Run

/ James Browning

“Long May You Run” is a song from the one album that Steven Stills and Neil Young did together as a duo.  If I remember correctly Neil gets the writer’s credit for this love song to a car.  I wrote here in this blog a few weeks ago about a car accident I was in during April of 2005.  Now I want to express my gratitude for is the car that likely saved my life.

“She” is a 1996 Volvo 960 that I got new 15 years ago.  From the beginning “she” was my favorite of all cars I have owned.  (I know guys like to refer to cars they care about as ‘she’.  I have never asked before, but do women refer to cars they care about as ‘he” or is caring about cars purely a guy thing?).  I always kept the car maintained very well and at the time of the accident in ’05 she was in top mechanical shape.  Sadly the car got banged up badly in the accident.

I was on the interchange of two freeways where there was construction.  The entrance ramp I was on had a stop sign just before one was able to merge onto the second highway.  So there I sat behind a big dually pickup waiting my turn after he got his.  All of a sudden things went crazy and for a split second I had no idea what was happening.  At first I thought my car was exploding, but learned a short while later the explosion and smoke was from the airbags going off.

Once I managed to get out of the car I saw a florist delivery van had hit me from behind.  Apparently the driver was in a big hurry, going 45 mph on the ramp, looking to merge and never even looked to see the two vehicles stopped.  So he hit me and slammed me into the truck in front.  The airbags exploded, the windshield shattered and suddenly my well cared for car was a mess.

I am very grateful to this day to have been driving a car as safe as a Volvo.  The drivers of both other vehicles left in emergency vehicles.  I walked away.

Due to the age of my car (10 years old at the time) and the cost of repairs (basically two new bumpers, a windshield and airbag replacement) the car was deemed a total loss.  However, I took salvage rights to the car, accepted the reduced insurance payment, located another car just like it to use as a donor car and brought the “old girl back to life”.   So now “she” looks a little more beat up due to the fact that the donor car parts were not in the pristine shape my car had been in.   And another six years have passed also.  But “she” is still my “girl”!

I have two other vehicles, but still love to drive my Volvo.  The ” old girl” has less than 70,000 miles on her and I will keep her  going as long as “she”cares to run.  Why?  “She” saved my life and deserves to “live”.  It is my way of expressing gratitude for the day my Volvo saved my life.  My wish for the car is best summed up in a line from the song I talked about at the beginning of this blog:  “long may your chrome heart shine”.

Praise the bridge that carried you over.  George Colman

Late Gratitude

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

If you happen to see the image above pop up on your computer all I can tell you is I can relate to the frustration you are about to endure.  About 10am this morning I was sitting here starting to type today’s blog entry.  Suddenly my computer reset itself all on its own.  When the reset was complete, what I saw on my screen was what you see above:  a nasty virus called MS Removal Tool had invaded my desktop computer.  Crafty nasty people somewhere created it and today it slipped past my anti-virus and anti-malware software.

I have now spent the majority of the last 12 hours trying to beat this bugger.   I did take about 5 hours off in bits and pieces to eat, meet a friend for coffee and finish a small project.  Each time I thought maybe the virus would just go away or I’d be able to come back fresh, do a new search and find the solution that works.  In the process of one of the “fixes” I found on the net I managed to spread the virus to my laptop via a flash drive.  No fun.  Now both those computers need expert ‘healing” I can not give them.  So into the shop they go.

You may be thinking this is a gratitude blog and so far tonight it does not sound like one.  It would be easy at this moment to turn this into a rant or a complain blog.  However, I have discovered it is within difficulty and challenge that a good lesson can be well learned.   So I open myself up to the wisdom I can glean from my experience today.

First, I know my computers will get repaired.  All I have to do is take them in and pay for the virus removal.  I am grateful there are skilled tech’s who can do the repairs and thankful too that I have the ability to pay them for it.  Neither computer is completely trashed like they would be if lightning got them, so I am grateful to be able to look on the bright side.   Further, if something like this had to happen, now is a good time as I will be distracted by a busy work week while the virus removal is taking place.  There will be little time to be on the computers.

By taking the high road and finding something to be grateful for, even in the face of something malicious like a computer virus, I give myself the gift of peace.  There was a time when after going to bed I would have fretted and kept myself awake for an hour or two over something like this.  But letting it go, putting it into perspective and realizing in the grand scheme of things it really does not matter much is the healthiest and best choice.  It is a gift I choose to give myself.   For that lesson learned well, but the hard way I have great gratitude.

If we will allow it, the friction of life can smooth us like the friction of rushing water in a river can smooth a rock.  JB


BEWARE:  MS Removal Tool is a computer infection that pretends to be an anti-virus program, but is actually a program that displays fake security alerts and scan results in order to make you think your computer is infected. MS Removal Tool is installed through the use of malware that will install the program onto your computer without your knowledge or permission.

Learning to Love a Book

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

 

Early in my childhood I developed an acute love of reading.  It became my way of exploring further the world I saw on TV, in films and in magazines.  I developed the ability to be able to see in my mind what I was reading in a sort of movie in my head.  Through that ability I read in “full color”.  I have had wonderful adventures and have met the most intriguing people.

I have spent time along the Mississippi with Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer and journeyed to many other destinations with Samuel Clemens.  I learned about how challenging life could be from Charles Dickens and will always be grateful for his introductions to Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Timothy Cratchit and for the first love story that touched my soul in a “Tale of Two Cities”. 

From reading I learned how to save the day with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.  When Jim Hawkins taught me about pirates and buried treasure I could not put the book down.  “Treasure Island’s” Jim Gunn was not my first meeting with a castaway.  That was Robinson Caruso who begins as an aimless wanderer and ends as a pilgrim.  From him I learned about perseverance.

As a child, the Bible was just too difficult to read for me in its original form.  But there was Vacation Bible School at the Lineville Baptist Church in the summer that brought the stories in the book to life.  When the tales were translated to a kid’s level I was amazed as I read the books they gave us.  David and Goliath, Samson and the lion, Noah’s ark, Jonah and the whale and more were all great adventures I learned from.

By junior high I was reading James Bond novels and fancied growing up and being some sort of a cross between Bond and Albert Einstein, doubling my chances to save the world.  Soon I discovered Jules Vern, H. G. Wells and before long graduated to the scary stories of Edgar Alan Poe (and remember seeing Vincent Price star in the movie versions of several of them).  I will never forget the far out journeys I took with Isaac Asimov to deep space, with Arthur C. Clark to the monolith, visiting Mars with Ray Bradbury and or the trip to a brave new world compliments of Aldous Huxley.  These authors stretched my concepts of reality and made me think and ponder deep questions I had never considered before.

As the years passed I traveled through the beautiful writing of Kahlil Gibran during my hippie days and then into the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett which touches my heart today more than ever. Now I read to grow and focus mostly on philosophy by every one from Epictetus, Aristotle and Socrates to Thoreau, Russell and Carl Jung along with books with a more spiritual theme by writers like Tolle, Walsh, Lama Das and the Dalai Lama.  My exploration of Eastern Spirituality has been going on for over a decade now and still takes up a good bit of my time.  I am deeply indebted to Huston Smith and others who expanded my view of religion and spirituality to the broad perspective I have today.

I have said all this to express great gratitude for four women who were instrumental in my learning to love reading so much.  They were the teachers I had my first four years in grammar school:  Mrs. Pruett, Mrs. Levi, Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Wood.  I will always be grateful.

Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.   John Henry Jowett

A Hapless Romantic

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

  

Often I hear people refer to themselves as a hopeless romantic.  That is either very sad or else they are speaking without paying attention to the meaning of the word hopeless which is defined as “having or offering no hope”.  I am certainly a romantic, but am far from hopeless.  Rather I define myself as a “hapless romantic” (hapness means “not favored by fortune”). 

A heroine of my romantic soul is Elizabeth Barrett who became the wife of Robert Browning in the mid-1800’s.  Some of the passages of her poetry and especially sections of her love letters to Robert during their semi-secret courtship are so very moving to me. Elizabeth had been sickly since her teen years.  Being stuck in her bedroom for days, even weeks,  at a time that served as a catalyst for beginning to write poetry in the first place.  When Robert came along she disbelieved his feelings for her at first.  At around 30 years of age (in those days considered an old maid) she had given up on ever being loved by a man who she in turn loved.  Once she accepted Robert’s feelings as true, the love that flowed from her in words is very beautiful.   Her health improved greatly during their near two decades together.  True love is a great tonic.

So after two failed marriage and lots of heartache, whenever I begin to think I will not love and be loved again I read her words and am inspired.  Hope returns then as does great gratitude for the words she wrote over 160 years ago.  They are so fresh and contemporary the words could have been written not long ago.

August 17, 1846

“… As for happiness – – the words which you use so tenderly are in my heart already, making me happy,… I am happy by you.  Also I may say solemnly, that the greatest proof of love I could give you is to be happy because of you – – and even you cannot judge and see how great a proof that is.  You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am not every likely to mistake it for the common daylight…”

 August 26, 1846 –

“….How I wish for two hearts to love you with, and two lives to give to you, and two souls to bear the weight worthily of all you have given to me.  But if one heart and one life will do… they are yours… I can not give them again…”

  August 27, 1846

“…I thought once that the capacity of happiness was destroyed in me, but you have made it over again… And while you love me so… I will take courage and hope, and believe that such a love may be enough for the happiness of us both…”

 What a beautiful heart Elizabeth Barrett had and her great talent at expressing her feelings of love has, in my opinion, never been bettered.  My thankfulness for her writing is deep.  Also there is much gratitude for her son for publishing the letters she and Robert exchanged.  Thanks Elizabeth for leaving behind the “food” that has helped to nourish and keep my hapless romantic heart alive. 

 Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.  Henry Ward Beecher

Playing It Backwards

/ James Browning

Through the years I have become much more conscious of eating food that is good for me.  Not that I was ever awful at it, but my habits needed some adjustments to be more healthful.  A couple of years ago I developed a taste for strawberries, melon, blueberries, grapes and fruit for breakfast.  Now most every morning I have a bowl of some combination of them.  I have always kept bananas around as they are my favorite fruit and today I could easily be writing about them.  However, it’s strawberries from my fridge pictured above that have my attention so I can express my gratitude for them.  Not just for the strawberries, but the amazing fact that I can get them year round.  Of course, they are sold at a better price in-season but the fact that in the middle of winter I can buy them blows my mind!

When I step back and begin to express gratitude for the ability to get strawberries every day, it is the people who make it happen that deserve my thanks.  I did a little homework on how they are grown commercially today and my list of people to thank got pretty long.

  • The person who plowed the field and made the mounds to plant on
  • Those who installed the drip irrigation system in the mounds
  • The one at a nursery who took the cutting for a new plant
  • The packer that got the new plant ready to be shipped. 
  • The man or woman who drove the truck that carried the new plants to the farm
  • The person who planted the new plant
  • The one who fertilized the strawberry plants
  • The people who covered the plants with plastic so they stay moist and the one who punched the holes for the plants to “breathe”
  • The human hands that “weeded” the plants and cut off runners
  • The person who picked the strawberries and packed them.
  • The drivers responsible for the berries getting from the field to a wholesaler then to a grocery store
  • The produce stocker who put them out in the store so I could buy them
  • The checkout person who I paid for the strawberries

And I won’t even get into all the people responsible for making the car that I drove the strawberries home in or the refrigerator that keeps them fresh.

You may be thinking that this is a pretty stupid thing to be writing about and expressing gratitude for.  But I disagree.  By my count it took at least 15 people that were directly involved so I can have my strawberries for breakfast.  Yet, I know I have only scratched the surface.  The actual tally is probably several times that.

This sort of thinking has me recently pondering everything from the shirt I put on to the pine board I purchased to make a home repair.  I wonder how many people’s work it took for me to be able to have a product.  Many people return a good deed by “playing it forward” and that is a wonderful practice. I have a new practice that is similar.  I stop here and there and “play it backwards” and think about all those responsible for all the things I am able to have.  I feel that expressing a little silent gratitude in “backwards” fashion sends goodness to them.  But to a much greater degree those thoughts enrich me by just thinking them and through that gratitude I feel more connected to the great circle of humanity.

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.  Cynthia Ozick

Seeing the Bluest Blue

/ James Browning

No matter how many times I have tried to photograph a blue sky, I have never been able to capture the same image my eyes see.  Yesterday was an exceptionally beautiful day and offered one of those bluest blue days I have seen.  Rain and a cold front moved through in the two days previous which scrubbed the air to look crystal clean.  There were little whiffs of clouds scattered here and there in the sky, but nothing that was organized.  What I saw touched me.

In years now past I can remember looking at paintings in books, magazines and museums and thinking the artist did not portray the sky accurately.  He or she overstated the color and made it a much brighter color than reality ever shows.  I had that opinion of sunrises, sunsets and especially the blue of a clear sky.  There is something about the first half of life that causes many of us to sleep walk through our surroundings.  I suppose it is because we are so inward focused in those years that it prevents us from really seeing and noticing things as they truly are.  That was certainly the case with me.  The sky was always just there with its presence acknowledged by me but never really seen.

My recovery from a painful divorce a few years ago and working past my own stuff that was largely the cause brought me to a new way of being.  One of the activities that helped bring about the change in me is to at least once per day profoundly notice something and really see it.  At first it was a hit and miss endeavor, but after a couple of weeks it began to settle in as a new habit.  It was then that I was able to stop and look pointedly for a short while at a flower and see how wondrous it was  in color, texture and form.  I also began to really see people and was struck by how serious and unhappy most people appeared seemingly all wrapped up “inside them self”.  The exception is most young children who have an unbridled zest for life.  Even when pitching a fit they put themselves completely into the moment.  Now I can’t help but smile whenever I see a 2, 3 or 4 year old’s  marveling over something.

Early on in my awakening I discovered the marvel of a blue sky.  When I really stopped to “see” it, my amazing discovery was it was so blue it did not look real.  The first time I was stunned by a blue sky I realized if I was able to capture the sky as I saw it, most would think I doctored it in Photoshop.  Iwas a member of that “most” group most of my life.  Life is so much more interesting, amazing and touching when outward awareness is open, awake and alert.   

I challenge you to try my little habit that changed my perspective so soundly.  At least once each day look up from where you are and what you are doing and really see something.  Look for beauty, color and life in ordinary things rarely noticed.  Study what you see for 30 seconds or so and take memory snapshots of what you are looking at.   I’ll bet you will find what I did:  there are amazing things all around us all the time to be dazzled by and to be grateful for.  Really seeing  helps balance the difficulty and challenge of life and makes living taste so much sweeter.  If you don’t know how to get started just go watch some little kids playing or look up and really see a blue sky the next time you come upon one.   Once your eyes open wide enough to truly “see” you will never be the same again.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.  G.K. Chesterton

I Can See!

/ James Browning

When I first came to the computer this morning I had intentions of writing about a different subject.  However, as I sat down I realized my glasses were in another room (without which I can not focus well on the monitor screen or on anything inside of about 30 inches).  I had to go find a pair to even be here writing this.  From a few feet away to infinity I am blessed with good vision, but up close my age is showing.  So with a reminder of how much I depend on my glasses my original subject was  tossed aside.  Today from the keyboard I want to express my gratefulness for my dear “spectacles”. 

Around the age of 40 the first pair of drug store reading glasses came into my life with me thinking they were actually kind of cool to wear.  Having them on did make things slightly clearer, but they were not necessary… at least not yet.  Ten years later when I celebrated living 5 decades, reading glasses were my constant companion.  Now there are pairs scattered around the house, extra’s in my car, spare’s in my desk at work and in travel bags there are always backup glasses just in case.  At this point I am pleased to be able to buy what is needed at the local drug store for $10 or so.  So having multiple pairs is not particularly expensive (another piece of good fortune). 

Have you noticed that most of the American printed landscape must be designed by 20 something’s whose vision has not deteriorated yet? 

–         The instructions on just about any over the counter medication is so terribly small that I have to often use a magnifying glass while wearting glasses to accurately see what is printed.  I wonder what unique ailments or conditions I might have one day due to taking inaccurate amounts picked when my glasses were not nearby.

–         Are there books I am not supposed to read?  Is there knowledge the young ones don’t want me to have?  The small sized printing in some give me the idea that might be true.   What are those young “whipper-snappers” up to? (smile)

And more….       

–         Ever tried to tighten those little screws on glasses?  I solved the issue by using a head band type magnifier with the little screwdriver.  You should see me then.  I look like a questionable jeweler in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

–         I need my glasses to use my mobile phone (without them I have accidently talked to some very interesting people), to use the nav system in my car (more than once I have ended quite a ways from where I intended), to see the button labels on my TV remote (or else find the correct channel through trial and error or the up/down channel selector) and these days to even eat I need my glasses (I have this thing about knowing exactly what and how much I put in my mouth!).

I say those things tongue in cheek and have been smiling the whole time I was typing them.  I don’t mind at all and take my need for glasses as a prized trophy for living life and trading my years for wisdom gained.  Those who have worn glasses since childhood probably won’t feel the same as I do.  If I were them I probably would not either.

So as I look at the photo at the top, I am reminded again of my imperfect eyes that see pretty well overall and my glasses that take care of the rest of my up-close seeing.  I absolutely do not feel the need to complain or wish things to be different for me.  I will always be thankful for my glasses that make reading, a favorite pastime, easy.  Without them I would not be able to begin the new book you see in the photo above that arrived from Amazon.com just a few days ago.  I can’t wait to start it.

Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.  Doris Day

From Sore Muscles to Gratitude

/ James Browning

As I was getting out of bed this morning it became readily apparent that my arm, hand, back and leg muscles were sore from painting a closet yesterday.  The chore took several hours from masking it off to the cleanup afterwards.  While I am not out of shape, I did do a lot of twisting and reaching while painting the hard to get to places in the closet.  Those movements left me sore this morning from using muscles in ways I don’t normally do.

So my first though was to go “darn it, sure wish my left elbow was now hurting from tendonitis this morning”!   Then of course all the other muscles in my body that were sore chimed in:  upper leg muscles said “what about me?” shoulder muscles said “don’t forget what I did”, back muscles said “I worked hard, pay attention to me” and so on.

I got my morning cup of coffee and decided to go check out my work in the closet in my library.  Once the lights were on and I could witness my work, it seemed like some of the soreness left.  There is something about being satisfied with work I accomplish that lessens the pain involved.  I was pleased at my work, and satisfied that the trade off of getting the work done versus being sore was a fair transaction.  The work will be enjoyed long after the after effects are gone.

Today I am grateful for the closet project being done, but even more so that I have the ability to do it.  Not just the steady hand and arm to paint with, but my legs to hold me up, my back to strengthen and keep me up straight, my eyes to see what I am doing and so on.  Physically I am not young but I am very blessed to be able to do most anything I want to. 

 This morning I remembered what a friend said yesterday regarding how challenged she is with the movement of her hands.  While she very healthy and whole, surgeries have left her with her hands unable to do tasks that require small and precise movements.   When I suggested yesterday she use a razor blade for a small project, she indicated she could not do that and would probably cut herself if she tried. 

So this morning when I reflect on my closet project completed, I remember the edging around the ceiling I did and the precise movements it took.  I realize it is a blessing that I can do such things.  The more I live, the more simple things I find to be grateful for.

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.  William Arthur Ward