Pearls of Wisdom

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This is my first post from long ago writings by me.   It made me chuckle when I re-visited these writings from roughly 1983 when I was in my mid 20’s that I had the audacity to call them Pearls of Wisdom.

It was hard for me to record these exactly as they were written 30 some odd years ago, I so wanted to update and edit.  But, for authenticity, I didn’t.  Here, from a 20 something year old are some guidelines for life….

–Being attached to outcomes distorts your perception of what’s happening.  You tend to ignore your intuition or gut feelings because you are absorbed with wishful thinking.  You can have a preference in the outcome but you must be able to clearly see what is happening in the present time to be able to create an action plan to get to where you want to be.

–If you wait to see what is expected of you before you perform, the level of expected performance is set by something or someone outside yourself and vey well may be lower than your own.  If you go for it and don’t put limits on yourself, no one else will either.

–The more you use your brain the better it works and the more creative it becomes,  it is resonating at a higher level and “tunes in” to higher creativity.

–You can’t be happy in a relationship until your happy with yourself.  Two halve’s don’t make a whole; it makes for a fragmented relationship with unrealistic exceptions resulting in resent.  If you are hoping for self confidence as a result of a relationship, your process will be mirrored for you and you will attract into your orbit someone who is hoping to get self confidence from you.  Self confidence is not given and recieved.  It’s way more personal than that.  (Seems a little dramatic now but when I wrote this I capitalized this next part which I will do here in honor of that young girl.)

SELF CONFIDENCE IS CREATED WITHIN YOURSELF BY A PROCESS OF TRYING/STUMBLING/FALLING/MAKING CORRECTIONS/TRYING AGAIN/AND FINALLY SUCCEEDING IN ENDEAVORS LARGE AND SMALL AND ASSERTING  WHO YOU ARE AND COMING TO BAT FOR YOUR PERSONAL BOUNDRIES ALONG THEY WAY.

–I have never seen anything healthy come as a result of an outburst of anger.  It usually only causes pain, fear and confusion.   For the person who is supposedly expressing themselves, it leads to feelings of being out of control and wounded self esteem.

–The older you get, you more you look like who you are.  So people who like themselves have an easier time aging.

–Creativity lies where there are no facades.

–We are not going to enjoy the “more” we get later if we’re not enjoying  what we have now.  Happiness comes from within, not from stuff.

— Work HARD!!

 

 

 

 

Where Ya At??

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“You have amazing diction and enunciation,” my new neighbor and friend Ann said to me. “You should be a public speaker!”

“Well, thanks. And for the record, I was a public speaker for years and taught public speaking one on one to senior executives,” I said.

“Yes!” Ann said, “I knew it!!  We kinda destroy the language here in Texas, don’t we?”

“Well, yeah, in some ways, you do,” I replied.

Ann is highly educated and was an educator herself for years and years.  And, she is a Texan through and through.

I will never say “ya’ll”, “fixin’ ta leave”, or “jus’ sayin’” no matter how long I have to live in Texas! I mentioned in a post a while back that I have been complimented here in Texas on my accent. “It’s an intelligent accent,” one Texan told me. However, I’ve also been reprimanded.

“Ma’am,” a bartender once admonished me when I complained to him about inconsistencies, “don’t ever try to apply correct English grammar to Texas slang.”

I’m from Southern California and my mother was a stickler for the spoken language and corrected my siblings and me constantly as we were growing up. That has been a blessing. We’re all well spoken and the language section of entrance exams were always a walk in the park for us.

Dangling participles are my mother’s worst enemy; I adopted that enemy and my friend Debbie suffers for it. Or, at least she used to. (If you don’t know what a dangling participle is, shame on you. At in the horrid sentence Where are you at? is a dangling participle. The correct sentence would be simply Where are you? There is nothing dangling in that beautiful and concise sentence.  I can think of a few things that are very nice dangling, participles are not one of them.

After I knew Deb for nine or so years, I finally felt comfortable correcting her when those danglers resonated in my body like an electric shock. I explained to her why she might want to stop it and for about eight months she made a heroic effort. One day however, she simply stopped. I called her on it and while I won’t repeat her response here, (I just remember it had an “F” in it) I knew it was time let Debbie be Debbie. Debbie will probably be Debbie in the comments section of this post.

Anyway, back to my new friend Ann. My friend Tim and I were returning from the vet when we let my two dogs out of the car off leash just as a woman I had not yet met in my new neighborhood was walking by my house with a small dog. For some reason, my 100 pound golden retriever Troy, hates small dogs. He raced over barking, growling and crouching like he was going to take that dogs head off. I was screaming, Tim was balancing a huge box of light bulbs we bought on the way home in his arms and the woman was trying to coordinate the confusion, her dog and the leash, which was becoming dangerously wrapped around her legs. I’m no spring chicken and I knew she wasn’t either but I later learned Ann is 87 years old.

To my horror, she went down. Onto the rough pavement. I raced over and grabbed Troy by the collar and dragged him into the house while Tim did what he could to tend to the woman on the ground and a very frightened little dog. I ran back out apologizing profusely wondering if she broke a hip or worse.

“I’m fine!” she said, “I love dogs and I understand dogs; I just want to go home,” and off she went up the street. Tim and I were both shaken but relieved to see she seemed to be walking well.

Tim went to visit her immediately to be sure she was okay while I went in, got online and sent a huge bouquet of flowers and a box of chocolates to be delivered that same day to Ann’s house. Another lovely concept I learned from my mother. The next day I received a beautifully handwritten note from Ann and we have become fast friends visiting each other often.

So jus’ sayin’, ya’ll. Since I’m not fixin’ to leave Texas anytime soon, i’m so grateful to have my beautiful friend Debbie waiting for my eventual return to Scottsdale, Arizona, my wonderful friend Tim who helps me with so many things here in Texas, my new friend Ann in my new neighborhood and my amazing mother’s influence in the person I am today.

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The Good Doctor

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“You have an umbilical hernia,” my doctor said laughing, “and the weird thing is, so do I.” My doctor laughs at just about everything, which utterly delights me. The first time I saw her, shortly after we moved here just over a year ago I was a complete wreck.

“I hate Dallas,” I said back then, “there is nothing beautiful here and the weather is a joke.”
She laughed and typed on her laptop.
“I miss the nature and wildlife in Scottsdale so much I could cry!” I moaned.
She laughed and typed.
“I used to be a public speaker and had audiences of three hundred; now I can’t make it to the grocery store without a half of my dog’s Xanax.”
Laugh and type.
“I cough all day, every day and I have horrible anxiety because I’m sure I have lung cancer!”
Laugh and type.
“I used to write management training programs for corporations, now I can’t sort out a recipe!”
Laugh, type.
Her laughing didn’t put me off. It made me think she didn’t think anything was wrong. When I was finished emoting she diagnosed me with “severe allergies” which apparently is very common in Dallas, said I probably had PTSD (which was confirmed by a therapist several weeks later), sent me for a chest x-ray to calm my nerves about lung cancer, and gave me some OTC allergy drug recommendations.

“So, what do we do about the hernia? “I asked, “What did you do about yours?”
“Well let’s wait and see. I just push mine back in from time to time.” she said, “and I just pushed yours back in. Let me know right away if you experience any new pain and if you do, we’ll think about surgery. But for now just carry on and exercise as you normally do, abs and all. But before you go,” she went on, “how are your menopause symptoms these days?”

I’m fine,” I said, “but I’m on hormone replacement therapy and you’re not and the last time I saw you, you were having a very rough time, so I’m wondering how your menopause symptoms are.

“Well,” she laughed, “I was drinking way too much red wine and I think it was making my hot flashes worse, so I switched to Scotch and I’m feeling soooo much better.”

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YMCA Big Texas Hair

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After we were in Texas for a couple months, I knew we both needed to join a gym for exercise and to control our stress. We checked out the trendy and expensive Equinox which overflowed with young, gorgeous people in expensive Nike outfits working hard on their glutes, abs and biceps while glancing around self consciously as the music pounded. I’m too old for this, I thought.

Then we checked out Gold’s Gym, which was filled with body builders who were groaning, flexing, dropping weights with a loud bang and grunt then sashaying around while the music blared. I’m too old for this, I was sure Steve was thinking.

Finally one day when Steve was at work, I saw an ad for the YMCA and wistfully remembered how much I loved those gay guys singing that song back in the day. So I went to check it out and I immediately loved it. There were young people, old people, fat people, skinny people, white people, black people, straight people, gay people, Nike people, Target people, but best of all, no music. And that makes perfect sense since everyone is listening to music with ear-buds these days anyway! I happen to like silence when I work out and find music at those already dreadful times annoying. The facility was newish, clean and cheap!

At my YMCA the yoga teacher, Susie, has big, blond Texas hair and wears a different sequined top to every class. The other day she was bummed because she couldn’t get a light in front of the class to go on and she said, “Ooooh, I’m so mad, I can’t get this light on and I want ya’ll to see my top!” She ended up going mat to mat so we each could see its brilliance. Then at the end of Savasana, the delightful ending ritual in every yoga class, while we were all flat on our backs and deeply relaxed, she said quietly and slowly, “Now ya’ll deepen your breath, begin to wiggle your fingers and toes, bring yourself back into the room, roll gently to your right and stay there a minute and when you’re ready, get up slowly, come to a comfortable seated position and fix your hair.” I’m not kidding but she was, however she was fixing her hair as she said it.
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Hey all ya’ll!

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Several people in Texas have said, “I like your accent.” No one has ever said that to me before in my entire life. “It’s an intelligent accent.” one woman said. I don’t know what they are referring to. Granted, I don’t say “ya’ll” or “jus’ sayin’” or “fixin’ to leave” but does that constitute an accent?

Just recently I heard that in Texas slang “ya’ll” is singular and “all ya’ll” is plural. I couldn’t believe it. So when Steve and I bellied up to the bar at a trendy neighborhood restaurant I called the bartender over.

“Hello Sir,” I said.
“Good evening, ma’am……sir,” he nodded to Steve.
“Sir, I’m new to Texas and I just heard that “ya’ll” is singular and I’m struggling with that,” I said.
“Why are you struggling with it?” he asked perplexed.
“Well, I would think “ya’ll” means “you all” which would mean more than one person,” I said.
“Ma’am,” he said, “let me give you one piece of advice; don’t ever try to apply correct English grammar to Texas slang. Texas slag knows no rules. Just roll with it. Over time it will all make sense.”

Meanwhile, the “G” fell off the sign at Whole Foods for SHOPPING CARTS. So now it says SHOPPIN CARTS. They don’t bother fixin’ it because that sounds just fine to the people in Texas.

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