Four Leaf Clover

Perhaps we could all use a little luck...

transitions..

What we are today

is but a dim reflection

of what we were

and a faint glimmer

of what we will be

To and Fro... now where to go.

People coming to and fro

leaving here going there

people knowing

people showing

fear

What more can I say?

Monday again?

It's Saturday!

Hope and Need

Hope is a four letter word

Need is a Curse

Yet I am hopelessly cursed

with the Need to hope.

It is not always easy to get from here to there, but you cannot get there without trying.

I am trying to get a job in NYC that I probably have a snowballs chance in hell of getting, but I thought... if each person that reads this closes their eyes and prays or if you don't pray think really hard of me getting it. It surely can't hurt.

What is the point?

Somedays I just wonder

why bother

Pain Before Beauty...

Pain before Beauty

In our early years, pain is limited to our personal experience; beauty is illuminated for us by what we are taught is beautiful. Our parents’ concept of beauty becomes our own until we journey further though life discovering for ourselves new perceptions.

My early perceptions of pain and beauty were gathered and learned by watching my mother dress. A wince as she plucked a few errant brow hairs, the apparent torture as she squeezed into a girdle, her shoes too tight yet they perfectly created the illusion of delicate feet. Time and again I asked, “Why do you do all of that if it hurts?” Her answer was always the same, “Pain before beauty”.

Even now, over the span of decades, her personal mantra, “Pain before beauty”, still echoes. To me, my mother was beauty. Her auburn hair glimmered gold when the sun touched it, ivory skin so soft when our cheeks touched I thought of velvet, lips full and painted red, and a waist so small that her full skirts and petticoats seemed to exist just to cling to it. The scent of Shalimar lingered to guard me as she moved to leave, her silks and satins playing a symphony.

As I watched the theater of my mother my perceptions of pain and beauty were simple; beauty was my mother and pain part of the quest for beauty, or perhaps just a scraped knee.Life visits itself upon me and pain no longer is as simple as a scraped knee or even a plucked brow.

Pain now encompasses heartache, betrayal, the suffering of those I love, lost innocence and the loss of faith. Beauty is a face that wrinkles with a smile, a mother nursing her child, courage in the eyes of a veteran, laughter, the innocence of a playing child, and unwavering faith. “Pain before beauty” became to me the mantra of a vain woman.

Ten years of fighting cancer left my mother little reason for vanity. Faith replaced vanity. Her mantra became the Hail Mary; instead of pearls she wore scapulars and clutched a rosary as she once clutched an evening bag. Her cheeks were now ashen and lined from pain, hair merely faded tufts clinging to her scalp, lips cracked and dry. The scent was of medicine; the symphony not of silk against satin but the drip of IV’s against the faltering ping of her life monitor.

At the end, we waited as she lay in a coma; her eyes opened and looking past us at once focused on the crucifix on the far wall. The joy was complete; she saw what we could not, save through her eyes. She was not afraid; she smiled and nodded as if in answer to a question and then, in a moment of rapture her soul departed, leaving the smile upon her face.

Now, I realized that with faith she had a different beauty, and I truly understood - “Pain before beauty.”

“Pain before beauty” was no longer a vain woman’s mantra to me, but a courageous woman’s epitaph.

Renée Soulié© copyright 2005

Dragonfly is the totem of the dreamtime, and illusion. Dragonfly gives us the gift of communication with the nature spirits. Dragonfly teaches us how to differentiate between the real and the imaginary energies of life, and to bring your thoughts and actions into a form which you can bring into the reality of your life. And this is why I have a dragonfly tattoo... to always remind me to live my dreams not get caught up in the dreaming itself.

Is it still Monday!????

I can't do a thing with my hair!

Ugh... The Best things about Monday

Is that first cup of Coffee....

Sunday Drive....

For Sunday.... throw caution to the winds.

Forget the chores.

I am taking my little car for a drive to the beach...

Friday! Get Ready.... Set... Go!

Thursday After The Fourth

I want to be here....

so much more than here...