Go with it;Flow with it...JHM©11

"I want to be lean and clean for the future, dust off my wings. I know for sure that doing so will make it easier to fly."~  Oprah

"Stash's Sunset" photography by JHM©08

I am just in a good place right now and I am simply going to enjoy it...Circumstances around me have not altered to any great degree.  I'm just very happy.

Happy is as happy does and what I am going to do is flow with it, go with it.   I don't have to work to prolong it, simply enjoy the feeling. 

I have sunlight streaming through all my front windows, listening to my favorite show CBS' Sunday Morning, preparing to read my Sunday paper and have a healthy breakfast.

I joined several groups recently who have similar interests.  Maybe it is the shared interests that suits my sensibilities that is contributing to my feeling of continual happiness, I don't know.  

I am simply going to go with it; flow with it.

Maybe it was going through some of my photography and remembering the pleasure in shooting them helped.

"Betty's Table" photography by JHM©10

Don't matter;I am simply going to enjoy it.

Could have been my finishing up a project that I've procrastinated for weeks, sticking with it and knowing it is done and I don't have to do it again contributed...

Don't matter; I'm going to enjoy it anyway.

Or it could have been dreaming about decorating a new loft space with wonderful floor to ceiling windows in a new space, relishing the challenge of shaping it into what will work for me now, where I am now having said to myself it is just doggone fine to now format my space for who I am today.  Feeling my adventuresome self, seeing the world with childlike wonder and old school experience could be fueling this.

Don't matter; I am going to go with it;flow with it...

Or is it seeing images of veggies and flowers who have long since returned back to the soil to replenish and re nourish?

"Arty-chokey" phtographyJHM©08

Or seeing a picture of my eldest daughter with 2 of my grandbabies (her niece & nephew) sound asleep. She was on her off day from work and helping her sister out so she could get to work.  It makes me feel good that my children do indeed have a sense of community.

Or the trust my grandbaby, Tassandra age 11months,secured in sleep that all is right in the world, even if the world is not acting right, that Mom & Dad, Auntie and Grammy will make it alright with all they got.

And big brother Tevin almost 3yrs can camp for the camera:

Maybe it contributes. Don't matter; I am just going to go with it; flow with it

Could it be possible that shutting down a situation that was an exercise in futility; of releasing someone to go where they need to go as long as it is not near me be a contributing factor?

Don't matter,I am simply going to go with it; flow with it.

I had been so stagnant in trying to get the mojo working keeping it going which is almost near impossible to do with so many things working in opposition to what was need.  I had thrown my hands in the air as I could not push what was not there.  For those who can, more power to you!  I applaud that ability; it is  a skill I do not have or acquire and don't see the likelihood that I will.

I've always known in the later years of my life that there is always a way out of no way if as my good friend would say "if I could smooth myself out of the way".  I am what I am, a work in progress & as I figure it out, things get done.

And done well, I do tell...

Has this acquired knowledge contributed to feeling happy?

I am simply going to go with it; flow with it.

"The foolish (wo)man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his/her feet".~- James Oppenheim

"Standing out in a Crowd" PhotographyJHM JHM©08

All rights reservedJHM©11

What I am Clear (About) ..What I am Not...

"Sometimes the very thing you are looking for is found in the very thing you weren't".~ YKWTD (You Know What To Do)

Decisions,decisions, decisions.  Will they ever go away?


Well if you are over the age of 5, no.  Although I say this somewhat in cheek, making decisions is hard work.  It may not seem that way say if someone is deciding "Is he the one" or "Do I take this job although it means moving away from my family"  or do I want mayo AND mustard"?  Some decisions are harder to make (or keep) then others.


Time and experiences make some decisions really easy to make and implement without nary a bump.


And then there are the others...


I have to make somewhat painful decisions; this I am clear.


What I am not is do I want to do this? Will I do it.


What I am clear about is I need to do things for my well being.


What I am not is how.


What I am very clear about is that my present situation needs a radical change.


What I am not is not can I be radical but WILL I be radical.


I've not doubted for a minute my returning home to my beloved city of New Orleans was a right one, I now doubt whether long time I will stay.  And it is not that I don't want to, but I've changed.  The city is changing, some of it very good and badly needed, others well, it is the same old song just repackaged.


Mind you as I say this that it is not you who are not from here, never visited here and only know what the news tell you , which is so blown out of proportion, bad schools, extreme poverty, over the top crime  yada yada yada, it is not anywhere near that.


We have to remember even with so called  "traditional" news the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality rules.  Here is a radical concept: New Orleans is really no different then many major cities (and minor ones, ttowns or boroughs) in its ills.  But it true Franco-Lousiane manner it is blown way out of proportion.


What it is is a place steel reeling trying to restore its equilibrium after the most devastating (un)natural disaster in the history of this country & having carpetbaggers, visionaries, the young seeking adventures, hipsters, con artists, idealist & people rife on exploitation who have jumped into this restoration gumbo with little thinking of what or how to go about it without destroying the city.


And in this flux, I am clear that it is going to be a heck of a lot more work involved and more  hands involved working extraordinarily, exceptionally hard to do the almost near impossible, but possible  retaining/maintaining a measure of control.  In every aspect of this we can sometimes wrecking havoc on our health & well being; of not knowing or seeing the way out; wanting to be as healthy, as autonomous, as fully engaged as we need to be while the world once known is fragmented.  Of putting pieces back together or really fully have what is needed so one can indeed be independent, contributing community.

Or individual...


The way is not always clear.


Sometimes things gets muddled, we may have to redirect, revisit the choices and then step out...


Radically.


Understand I am not exercising the often futile sport of what is wrong with New Orleans or what is wrong with me... This is clear.


What is not is how to stop this sick sport from continuing.


I am clear that while undergoing the worst time of the worst time of my life, I am happy that I am not gone backwards in my work on reaching a healthy weight.  Truly there is plenty of room for improvement, but I am good with that...


What is not is will it happen here? Can I do more to reduce even more the chronic stress that continues to keep my blood pressure high?


The easy answer is yes; 'cept it ain't that easy.  


On paper the answer are definitive; get my economic circumstance improved and the rest will (truly) fall into place...Duh..


What is not clear is How? Where? When?


I am at the conclusion there is some huge really bad cosmic joke being played, but I did not get the punchline. 


 And the joke is being played over & over until I get it.


Alright! already!


If determination, fortitude, resilience, effort, heart, drive was money I would be wealthy enough to rival Gates, Winfrey or Forbes. And telling me I am not alone doesn't help.  It stresses me more just knowing more people are hurting and hurting as badly if not worse then I am.   And that raises my blood pressure more, not less.

Just like with my home town as it is going along trying to really shape its future and its present, so am I.  As a good friend calls it, something we have to smooth ourselves out of the way in order to make that way.  


We are in perilous times, far more serious then people like or want to believe.  I am not talking from a national time, but a global one.  There is a lot of shifting going on and whether we want it or not we are on the ride of a lifetime.


That I am clear...


What I am not is so what do I do now?

A friend had this on a email she sent me:

"Searching for a miracle, expecting the impossible"

So I guess now I've answer my own question...

And hold on...

What's difficult in life is to stay centered when somebody does 
or says something that tempts us to close our hearts 
because their heart was closed. That is hard. ~
-Marianne Williamson

"Just ah's" Don't Know where this will grow,glow until the end...

"Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature."~Thich Nhat Hanh

Bear with me, I do not know where I am going with this; but I am going...




I receive an email this morning from someone who raised in very apt question that I believed deserved an answer and I gave her one.  It got me to thinking about something.


Over the last several weeks I have had different friends exclaim "What has happened to us, how did we get like this"? in reference to a new or yet another tragedy, another absurdity, another  program or "news" report.  The crassness & coarseness that has been crammed down our collective psyche with increased intensity and volume has unconsciously allowed us to think or treat one another with more suspicion, cynicism and suspicion whether we want to admit it or not.  The  lowest common denominator  has shifted us culturally in ways that may be subtle, others not so subtly.


What we don't get in such shifting & the Olympian rush to judgement, criticize or assumptions is a complete true behind the scene what lead case A to its conclusion , we just rush headlong into condemning, criticizing or indicting something or someone without all the facts as if we now care for all the facts.


And sometime truth is stranger then fiction; at the end of it even if we cared enough to really know , what would it changed?


I just know that it has altered a cultural consciousness to a new low.  From the early days of  the 'inquiring minds want to know" to the sleaze of a Povich circus to outright in your face Springer tacky orgy of the lowest common denominator passing for entertainment or a host of "news" programming that mad gossip & slander way too eager to entertain us the underbelly of very surreal human drama.


Even as I am writing this NBC just announced that Mr. Ted, the man with the Golden Voice" has checked himself out of rehab after a very public "help" by Dr. Phil to aid him into working on his addictions.  I like many others truly wanted the best for him; I still want the best for him.  As many of us know who may have had family members with addiction problems, it is not an smooth easy road to rehabilitation; there is no walk off into the sunset hand in hand end for this.


But I do not know if I could handle such a public detailed scrutiny into my life; could any of us?


But my point is somewhere the collective ball has been dropped and we are not too far off from being like the days of ancient Rome where far too overly privilege folks bored out of their collective skulls, looking for the next high, the next stimulus because of boredom, deflection or whatever get entertain by watching Christians torn apart by lions for their "enjoyment".


We are like a locomotive going down hill with no breaks.


And I think we know it & either unwilling or unable to stop it; we're getting something out of it.


And it is hard, increasingly hard now to either have or gain integrity because you are not going to be believed or mocked or looked upon with suspicion understandably so. in the last few days an acquaintance of mine lost her sister in death who had the same health issue I had.  It gave me the chills because that could have been me. No one could believe as it was "just a hernia".  The" just a" on anything worried me




As I told her as we converse, that I had many who did not believe me either  because it was "just a".  Even family members, friends, acquaintance or total strangers did not.  They thought I was trying to excuse away what they thought was my getting fat not that there was a real health issue going on and as I got sicker & sicker, less & less mobile, less & less able to work, that I was just making things up, I was looking for attention, I was just lazy you name it I heard it.


Fortunately for me not everyone had been bitten with the cynical bug; if they had I might now be here today to even write this.  And I thank God for that as I may  have ran screaming into the woods or not here to scream into the woods.


As I now try to put this figurative Humpty-Dumpty back together again knowing it will take time, effort and a lot of work; harder still is to know that I can restore myself in a larger way.


One thing for sure I know is one cannot argue with a belief; people do not like being wrong and will hold onto something no matter what evidence there will be to the contrary because of not wanting to be wrong or saving face.  But that is a whole other issue & doesn't have anything to do with me.  That is their responsibility if they want to.


There have been people who made one error or even several errors turned away from them, did extraordinary lives and all it takes is some young eager beaver reporter trying to gain brownie points or make a name for themselves, to dreg back as far back in the past to Christopher Columbus to find something, anything to shade a negative life on someone.


How many of us could stand up to that scrutiny without  collapse?


I am quite sure most of us by now either saw or heard about the discovery of Oprah Winfrey's sister.  I thought it was very smart for her to tell her story before all the "just a's" broke out.  In fact within minutes of the show closing I got not one, two but three "news alerts" & speculations from news sources.  We are talking about minutes & of course it wasn't very nice.  Of course it is nothing but family business & let family take care of family business. And yes she is a very well known figure so there will be interest, but I applaud that she took to break the story herself before the "just a's" began.


Make sure to know that when I wrote about  people's redemption's that I was not speaking of major crimes against nature as in an Idi Amin or Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti or an Adolf Hitler-like horror perpetuated on mankind, but more of the garden variety human error. And even in that garden if a person is not remorseful if they have not made any effort at correcting what they are able to do, well how one hold them accountable is up to that individual.  But still again I say without knowing all the mitigating circumstances that we may not be aware of.


 Even wise King Solomon once said " Oppression can make even the wise one act stupid".  Those circumstances that we are not aware of, may indeed make a person make a decision that was not write but caught up in the oppression or circumstances they made a poor choice.


So at the end of the day what would you do?  What would I do?


Part of where I am in my life is maintaining peace in myself and in my small corner of the world.  Not unlike many others I have had more then my fair share of wrongs & injustices done to me where I am still paying for these people's actions or decisions.  They gone on with their lives blithely unconcern or unaware of what they left in their wake, while I am gasping for air and trying to stand up, to right myself because of their actions.


What it has  taught me is as the Sankofa proverb states "There is no shame to go back & correct what not done"... I just feel like we have lost something collectively or maybe we never had it but pretended that we did.  I just know right now what I can perhaps do is make peace with what I can & be what I can be right now, the best I can be right now...


Holding on hoping for those others to right it with me is an exercise in futility.  I don't know, perhaps they are like me in the sense they are trying to adjust themselves, correct themselves, right themselves, I don't know & right now it isn't my business to know.


So again I didn't know where I was going with this; I am truly writing out of my head & my heart.  The answer is there right below the surface & I await it breaking through & then I will know.




"Small minds talk about people;average minds talk about events; Great mind talks about ideas"~Unknown.

Way to Glow~Simple Act to Move a Mountain

Don't be afraid to give your best at what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves."~ Dale Carnegie

I woke up this morning right about the same time when people in the hospital would have been flipping on lights,banging in your rooms, take blood pressure readings after waiting you up out of a dead sleep while I was in the hospital. After nearly 2 weeks of daily interrupted sleep, my body now is trying to find itself back into a more peaceful undisturbed restorative slumber.

I was thinking of someone, a certified nursing assistant that did a very small act for me, that touched my heart, restored dignity and respected my humanity. While it is a routine and simple thing that we do everyday, her act actually went deeper for me in restoring the hearth on the way to wellness.

She bathe me.

Yup, that simple.

When I was too weak, bewildered, overwhelmed, hurting feeling like part of a cattle herd being force down the chute for branding I was having difficulty caring , not my hygiene, but just the simple act of standing upright let along walking to the bathroom.

This sweetheart after making my bed with fresh sheets, bringing me water etc, brought in warm water and proceed to sponge bathe me.

One of the 1st things I thought is how overly sexualized our culture is that people would be shocked of one woman bathing another with other hints being tossed in, but it was not like that.

In other cases, people have become so alienated from one another, more often with very valid reasons, souls that have become fractured or shattered when a touch becomes some to fear or to hurt or someone control that we have forgotten or become unused to "caring without suffering attached to it.

People intellectualize or depersonalize "loving" people not in IRL, but at safe distances, losing out on our common humanity, "sharing" in Farmville sharing faux food instead of breaking bread in real life, in real time with people we know face on.

People go to such elaborate means to "care" only while it is abstract, at a distance and not have to really do anything. We have come to a point I thnk, in our collective mind, have absolutely lost our collective mind, seem to have lost our way over the simplest things that could make a difference.

For real...

In real time.

This nurse had no hidden agenda... It had nothing to do with "OMG a woman touched me!" but definitely of one tending to the sick & the needy.

I thought to myself, it is the 1st time since I was a baby since someone did something like that to me & tears welled up. It was comforting and it made me feel stronger.

I thought about that TV miniseries from a couple of decades ago "The Women of Brewster Place" starring Oprah Winfrey & a exceptional cast of actors. In the one scene after a young woman, played beautifully by actor Lynn Moody, lost her baby and while she she was almost comatose from grief a scene showed Ms Winfrey in character, bathing this young woman and she wept & wept & wept seems like forever.

The loving act was comforting allowing the woman to render her grief without having to do anything else, but grieve.

This was a lot like that for me.,

As I fell ,weakened, back in bed feeling so much better although weak, I thank her for what she had done and her response was she was simply doing her job. I told her it was more then that & that I bet she took really good care of her mama. She smiled and said she did indeed loved her mama. My thoughts was you could tell with all the tenderness she took care for me who was about the age of her mama but a total stranger.

I won't forget her easily and what she did for me...

We a re a composite, bits and pieces or a dizzying array of experiences emotions, living. everything we do can indeed affect in large or small ways other parts of our health.

When we care for all, we care for the one & the one will care for the all.

Thank You.. You're Welcome;enJoying this Day

Oprah's Pearls~Janitha Richards,artist©99

I was particularly moved a week ago upon receiving a lovely long email from someone I've never met in real life. But we have met because of her talent. About 11 years ago I saw her art in a gallery in New Orleans which had my name all over it and had to have it. What I had not known then was it was her very 1st painting & I unknowingly was her 1st sale!

It was called "Oprah's Pearls" and it still has an honored place in my home. I bought it not knowing 6 years later I was going to create and present a piece of my own art to Ms. Winfrey who I have admired greatly who gave her gifts to the world being a huge advocate for service.

My service it turns out for this artist &mother, daughter & woman was a validation I had not known I had done. What I wanted was the image that was calling my name. My gift & promise to myself when I started my career as a visual artist 17 years ago was that I would share the wealth, no matter how meager my wealth would be.

So I always had what I called my "10%-er rule". Whenever I enjoyed a sale I would allocate a minimum of 10% & buy another artist. I've kept my word even to this day.

Well over a decade later in part because of Face book, this very talented woman found me. My heart was full upon reading her lovely words and how she had looked for me all this time to do one singular thing thanking me for what at the time I thought was the thing to do & doing it

What is telling that there are still people who are conscious, considerate & caring? You never ever know who when you put your hands out there who you have empowered. Most of the time you'll never know then something like this will pop up out of the blue. With her permission I am sharing part of her original message to me:

"Just starting out, I didn’t (and still) have any idea of to portray myself as an artist. I was terrified to show my work. And one day as I was learning my craft, an angel showed up and purchased my first painting. It was called "Oprah's Pearls". That day was one of the happiest and proudest of my life. Then to find out that the person was a great artist herself was just too much. Your support propelled me to pursue my present path as a visual artist and writer and will write my history.
I have sold other pieces since then, and each time I do I want to tell you about it. But the day was always bittersweet, because I never had the opportunity to meet and or thank the person who made me believe in my craft. I think you are that person. I have searched for you for years. Seriously for years, just to tell you thank you and how much that meant to me".
Believing in Miracles,
Janitha

I share this not for ego massaging, but to illustrate that no matter how small you may think what you do can not ripple out and mean a lot to another. I’ve been on the receiving end many times of somewhat gracious patience, expertise; cheers as I meandered along do what I am purposed to do.

Sometime, one may never know as it was for me initially that something you said or did or your humor, your tenderness, your sharing may reach someone in bigger ways then you may imagine. You do not have to be lettered, possess an earth defying skill or jump the highest or throw the furthest or have Oprah Winfrey/ Bill Gates money to be of service or the catalyst for another human being.

Something Dr. Maya Angelou said to me in the lobby of a hotel as I was escorting her to her car after speaking at the African American Women on tour stayed with me for 15 years. In part her comment was in regards to commercial success& creative success was “People think that money & recognition walks hand in hand. Do what you do well. Recognition will come…and then the money will follow”. It was one of many pearls of wisdom I gleaned from that amazing woman.

I’ve carried many just like with this woman, who in small & large ways wave the wind to carry me on gently nudging me to face the sun when I wondered if I should. I’ve done a’ight for a woman who had one semester of sewing in 1964, flunked it & was considered “too sensitive”, too much of a dreamer & was a joke to many, then and now.

Never ever is surprise if by chance long after the money or the memory fades, the gift of your caring, sharing infuse someone lifting them up & they come a’calling. Such an audacious gift, to be enJOYed, that will continue to glow forever and ever,amen.

Be mindful of saying thank you or you’re welcomed

And I thank you…

And you are indeed welcome, Sister artist Janitha Richards of New Orleans.

JHM All rights reserved ©09