Tag Archives: joy

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Flowers

I want a love who loves me

bring me roses
write me notes

my mother-in-law’s husband
leaves a note on her pillow
with a kiss for each day
he’ll be gone

give me kisses
hold my hand
walk in the rain
in the sun
in the moonlight
on the beach
in the forest
under the stars

I want to love you

more than the rain
the sun
the moonlight
the beach
the forest
the stars

I want a love who loves me

I want a love who loves me
and I love

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U is for ursine

U is for ursine. Have you ever felt ursine?

Ur”sine (?), a. [L. ursinus, from ursus a bear. See Ursa.]

Of or pertaining to a bear; resembling a bear.

Ursine baboon. Zool. See Chacma. — Ursine dasyure Zool., the Tasmanian devil. — Ursine howler Zool., the araguato. See Illust. under Howler. — Ursine seal. Zool. See Sea bear, and the Note under 1st Seal.

I am thinking of my sister again. My mother called me tiger and her bear. “Chris bear” was one of her names. Have you felt tigerish or ursine? We talk about a temper like a bear or hibernating when we aren’t feeling very social and then there are teddy bears and care bears and last night I saw the new Jungle Book movie.

I know the book well and loved it. I spent much less time with television. The movie is a mix of the book and the Disney version and I am considering the deviations. Sher Khan did not kill the wolf leader in the book, though he did influence some pack members. And the ending is changed and an interesting change at a time when we are afraid of the disconnect that many of us feel from nature. We are afraid that too many people and that sin of greed are destroying species and destroying the world.

And so I do feel ursine. Sometimes it feels unbearable. Sometimes I want to rear up like a grizzly bear and tear down the veneer of civilization. Sometimes I just want to sleep as deeply as a bear and dream…. dream of playing with my sister.

In my photograph, two cars have crashed in the Octoblast and one has been ejected forcibly: that is my sister bending over it…..

 

 

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T is for tender

T for tender, in this alphabet of feelings.

Look at the Webster 1913: such a rich variety of meanings. Dictionary.com seems to have toned them down and we have lost the quotations: from the bible, from L’Estrange, from Shak: I realized, oh, Shakespeare…..

Ten”der, a. [Compar. Tenderer (?); superl. Tenderest.] [F. tendre, L. tener; probably akin to tenuis thin. See Thin.]

1. Easily impressed, broken, bruised, or injured; not firm or hard; delicate; as, tender plants; tender flesh; tender fruit.
2. Sensible to impression and pain; easily pained.
    Our bodies are not naturally more tender than our faces. L’Estrange.
3. Physically weak; not hardly or able to endure hardship; immature; effeminate.
    The tender and delicate woman among you. Deut. xxviii. 56.
4. Susceptible of the softer passions, as love, compassion, kindness; compassionate; pitiful; anxious for another’s good; easily excited to pity, forgiveness, or favor; sympathetic.
    The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. James v. 11.
    I am choleric by my nature, and tender by my temper. Fuller.

When my daughter was two, my cousin visited with his wife and one year old. My daughter was delighted with this younger child and she was very tender and kind to him. On the third day I realized that she had interpreted “family” as they were now part of the family.

“Camille,” I said, “They are leaving tomorrow. They are visiting us and they have a home.”

She gave me a look of horror and then terrible disappointment. She revised the meaning of family: family doesn’t mean live together. That is how she interpreted family, which is completely understandable. I was sorry to make her so sad, but I didn’t want her to be shocked and sad the next day. She was still loving to the younger cousin and sad when they left. I apologized to her for the misunderstanding.

5. Exciting kind concern; dear; precious.
    I love Valentine, Whose life’s as tender to me as my soul! Shak.
6. Careful to save inviolate, or not to injure; — with of.
    “Tender of property.”Burke.
    The civil authority should be tender of the honor of God and religion. Tillotson.
7. Unwilling to cause pain; gentle; mild.
    You, that are thus so tender o’er his follies, Will never do him good. Shak.

What makes us feel tender? A sleeping child, a lullaby, a new baby, a very young animal, new plants or flowers…

8. Adapted to excite feeling or sympathy; expressive of the softer passions; pathetic; as, tender expressions; tender expostulations; a tender strain.
9. Apt to give pain; causing grief or pain; delicate; as, a tender subject.
“Things that are tender and unpleasing.” Bacon.
10. Naut. Heeling over too easily when under sail; — said of a vessel.

⇒ Tender is sometimes used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, tender-footed, tender-looking, tender-minded, tender-mouthed, and the like.

I bruised my daughter’s tender heart when I told her that they were leaving, but I did not want to lie to her or take her by surprise…..

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J is for joy

J is for joy.

Do you feel joy sometimes? Are you joyous? Joyful?

From Webster 1913: The passion or emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good; pleasurable feelings or emotions caused by success, good fortune, and the like, or by a rational prospect of possessing what we love or desire; gladness; exhilaration of spirits; delight.

From dictionary.com: the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation.

I took the photograph two weekends ago. My daughter was racing, category 2 mountain bike race, three laps, four miles each. I was walking the course backwards with a friend. We had to be alert and step off the path every time a rider was coming. There were around 100 riders in category 2, all ages, men and women. We stopped to take photographs and cheer for everyone and especially our team!

A rider on the first lap had an asthma attack from all the pollen, and we walked him back out. I walked the bike while he concentrated on breathing. We stopped again to take pictures and then he could ride out. I walked on, listening for bikes, and there were trillium along the path….

I don’t think I can feel joy unless I also admit grief and all of the other feelings. It’s like weather, emotions come and go and may or may not feel like they make sense. If we refuse a feeling, it just seems to get stronger and rather panicky and keep bothering us…. until we treat it like the guest in Rumi’s poem.

Grief comes, and can be sweeping our mind clean for a new joy.

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I is for introverted

I is for introverted…. welcome to 7 sins and friends where we are welcoming and admitting all feelings, even those we don’t approve of, as human and as ours.

From dictionary.com
noun
1.a shy person.
2.Psychology. a person characterized by concern primarily with his or her own thoughts and feelings (opposed to extrovert).
3.Zoology. a part that is or can be introverted.

Odd. Introverted sounds much more selfish than I think of it! I think of introverted as people who get energy from being alone and who like to play in their own minds! I tested as more introverted than extroverted on a Myers Briggs test at the start of medical school, in the 1990s. I thought then that I was an introvert. But the test merely expresses people’s preferences, so everyone can act in an introverted or extroverted way, depending on their mood and how they are feeling at that moment. And part of continuing to grow is to learn to use the parts of ourselves that we avoid or that are poorly developed. I tested as an introverted thinker and what did I avoid? Exactly what I am writing about: feelings. I had to do a lot of work over the years to develop that part of me and I avoided it until my mother died. Then I had to do the work and it is well worth doing. Not that anyone is ever done….

adjective
4.Psychology. marked by introversion.

I

verb (used with object)
5.to turn inward:
to introvert one’s anger.
6.Psychology. to direct (the mind, one’s interest, etc.) partly to things within the self.
7.Anatomy, Zoology. to turn (a hollow, cylindrical structure) in on itself; invaginate.

I took the photograph behind a church in town, walking around on Sunday. I had not been behind it and didn’t know that there was a labyrinth. A labyrinth makes me think of introversion, all the turns and walking a path in a small space, focused and yet open to whatever thoughts arrive.

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C is for Credulous

C is for credulous. Have you ever felt credulous?

“willing to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence; gullible.”

My young guest in the picture is not quite sure how to interact with the old lady: she is the old lady who swallowed the fly. The fly, the bird, the cat, the dog and even the horse have just been neatly delivered back out of her. My guest is not sure what she will do next. The world is a magical place.

C

Adults get caught up too, but in a darker version of credulous. Something for nothing. A deal too good to be true. A young relative on the phone, caught in another country, asking for help. Email from people saying that we have money from a distant relative who has passed. Calls over and over to my clinic that say they are from my long distance company and that they want to “help” me lock in service before a change…. I asked for a number to call back and was given the number of a sex line. I called my long distance company and they said, “Yes, they just lie.”

I think that fraud is on the upswing in the United States, but perhaps I am just a credulous person who believes that most people would like to earn their living in honest work and doing good for other people and the world.