Turn the Leaf

TURN THE LEAF

A single leaf, a dormant tree

As it slowly fades from vibrant green
 

The graying limb it hangs upon

Glistening bright in the dew drenched morn

A breeze yet warmed by morning sun

Swirls around as it comes undone

Surrendered all, loosely clutched

Releasing to the cooling touch

Turning with abandoned ease

Among the long forgotten trees

To find itself upon the ground

Where rotting leaves lay in mounds

 

Heaps of color transforming from

Beauty found in dying form

Surrounded by the breath of fall
Colors scatter the morning air

Touch the leaf intent to turn
Forever changed, never mourned

Return the leaf with no concern
Leave it there, forever yearn

The Dark Dance

I went to get my nails done this week and my friend gave me a belated birthday present. Since I was still a little tacky (not attitude, just the nails), I asked her to open it for me because I couldn't wait to see what it was. She opened it up and it was a framed print that said...

Gosh!!! I got tears in my eyes and I just gave her the biggest hug because she couldn't have gotten me anything more perfect. I won't retell the story, if you wish to read it you can find it at....
http://tbirecovery4sp.blogspot.com/  Let's just say last year was a difficult year. In fact it was so clumsy and awkward it makes even my skiing look graceful in comparison. If you've ever been fortunate enough to see me ski, you would understand what a statement that truly is. My favorite ballet is the Nutcracker. I would go see it every Christmas if I could. Last year had it's ups and downs just like a ballet. It was a roller coaster of emotion, events and drama. I wish I had been a more graceful dancer, but then again if I were graceful, I wouldn't have a story to tell. As Momma would say, "It looked like a bull in a china cabinet." Looking back from this side, I realize more and more just how dark it was. Thankfully I wasn't left out on the dance floor alone and it wasn't the final act of the ballet. I stumbled into His arms last year and did a dark dance in the shelter of His love. I'm living in daylight now and yes, I'm ready to dance, but this time I think I'd rather break out the disco ball and boogie down.

Ecclesiastes 3:4

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance
  

Fall Changes Things

I look outside and the weather is wonderful. Slowly but surely the cool winds of fall are chasing the stifling heat of summer away. Soon the leaves will change to brilliant colors before they fade and drop to the earth to be recycled by nature. I feel a hope deep inside that I usually feel during the spring. This year has been difficult in many ways. I've watched a friend walk through the recovery of breast cancer. My husband has struggled with the release of a ministry he had spent years pouring his heart into, and I've fought to keep my head above water as I've recovered from my head injury. I thought about all of these things as I sat in the car and felt the sun warm against my skin and the cool breeze blowing my hair. Things change.... It's just a fact of life. You don't have to like it and you don't have to see it coming... But come it will. Sometimes change comes slowly like the fading of the leaves. Sometimes it comes like a tidal wave on the beach, knocking you flat; but change will always come. Some changes are easy to wrap your mind around, others shake you to the core of your soul. Some changes come for the better, while other changes seem bitter and cruel.... Some, a mixture of both. I know that the changing of the color on the trees, leads to a time when they will  soon look barren and drab. It's necessary for them to shed their leaves so they can spring to life with new growth.... New hope. Perhaps that's why I've felt a little melancholy about fall. In some ways I feel like my leaves have faded and are beginning to shed. I'm preparing myself for the bleak days of winter, but I know that new life, new hope and a new season is just ahead. What's the saying.... "Out with the old, in with the new." I know something exciting is just around the corner and I've gone through these changes in order to prepare myself to be blown away in a wonderful way by life! Yes, fall changes things.

Someone Else's Shoes

I hate to be a big whine bag, but hey, it's my blog and I'll whine if I want to. I am one month, two weeks and two days past my fall. I sit here with a headache, barely able to move my neck and even after sleeping for 14 hours could most certainly go right back to bed and stay there all day. I am thankful however that yesterday was the first day in a couple of weeks that I needed to go to bed at 5:05 in the evening. I willed myself to sit upright in my chair in front of my computer until 5. I walked in my front door practically stripping before I got to the kitchen. After throwing the pillows to the floor and pulling back the comforter, I literally fell in bed. My pillows never felt so good! To say I'm exhausted today is an understatement. I start physical therapy today and I am hoping that will help give me some range of motion back in my neck and shoulders. Who knows if I'm lucky it might even help my headaches (which aren't nearly as bad as they were). I've had a good attitude about this whole thing, but to be honest with you it's starting to wear on my nerves. When people ask me how I'm doing I'm quick to tell them much better. If my husband is standing nearby he kind of rolls his eyes and shakes his head like I've lost my peripheral vision and can't see what he's doing. He's been very protective of me which I appreciate because I'd be pushing the envelope a lot harder if I thought he'd let me get away with it. When I start to open my mouth I never know if my brain is going to kick in or not (I'm mean more so than usual before the fall). I'm still getting used to the look on peoples face as I stop mid-sentence to either remember what I'm talking about or searching frantically for the right word. The viewpoint from my end is kind of humorous because everyone has the same expression... Eyebrows raised, they kind of lean forward like what I'm fixing to say is extremely important and then there is just dead silence as the anticipation itself makes me even more bumfusseled. I find myself shying away from social activities where I'm not 100% comfortable. I have been missing break recently because I just don't follow conversations easily and God forbid if I try to say something and get all locked up. It's easier just to keep to myself than to have to explain my behavior. I'm at the point in work where I'm more focused but less sure of what's been going on for the last month. I'm terribly afraid that I have or I will let something slip by me. I keep reassuring myself that there probably isn't anything that I can screw up past the point of being fixed, but then I'm usually the exception to the rule with screw ups. After talking to several people who've experience similar injuries, I'm looking at only a few more weeks or a few more months of healing before things return to normal.... (or at least normal for me). The one thing I've learned is I need more patience with older people who suffer from memory problems. You truly don't know how lost they must feel until you've walked a few steps in their shoes. As for me, I'm ready to be back in my own shoes... preferably high heel pumps... very loud.... very gaudy... cause that's they way I like em.

Pillow Top Princess

As a woman I have the need to feel in control. I'm not a control freak but I like to think I have things "taken care of". Since New Year's Day I haven't felt in control at all. A terrible fall has left me with a fuzzy head, terrible headaches, a stiff neck and a little disconnected to the world around me. The fatigue has been overwhelming!! I am able to work all day but by 5:15 I am snuggling under the comforter with my kitty held tightly to my chest. My husband has been a saint!!! He brings me dinner in bed, has kept the kitchen clean and hoovered over me like a mother hen. Sometimes I pretend to get a little aggravated with him but it's not really him, it's my body I'm a little mad at. I might be able to handle being "down" for a couple of days but geez, this has rocked on for almost 4 weeks. One of the more disturbing aspects of having a concussion is the memory, or shall I say lack of it. I can be in mid-sentence and totally drift off into another dimension, only to drift back in a couple of seconds later. Today I was in Walmart headed for the item I needed to purchase when I completely forgot where I was going, I mean the object was practically in front of me. It makes me feel loopy or loopier than usual! I'm really hoping people haven't noticed the vacant look I get sometimes when I'm trying to remember what I'm doing and why I'm here. Oh well, time heals all wounds. I'm ready to get my groove back, find my mojo and get back in the swing of things. Until then I guess I'll just play pillow top princess and enjoy the perks of the predicament.

A Memory That's Meant To Be Captured.

I've been scrapbooking as a hobby before scrapbooking was cool. When I was in highschool you couldn't really buy scrapbooking stuff so I just used what I could find... old greeting cards, stuff like that. Several years ago I decided to get caught up on my scraping so I began with my wedding and worked my way up to present day. It was a long, happy, sad, expensive process. Since then I've tried to keep up with my memories and work on capturing more. My boys are not posers, they hate posing for family pics and would just like for me to put-the-camera-away! I know they don't understand it, but those scrapbooks are precious memories just waiting be be reviewed.....

A couple of years ago we had 2 major floods within a couple of weeks. I had stored my scrapbooks in plastic totes and placed them in the basement because there were so many of them. The totes would have been perfect if they hadn't began to float and then fall over causing several of the lids to pop off ruining years and years of memories. That was a heartbreaking loss!!! Nevertheless there are more memories to be captured and I make sure to try to capture them all. New Year's Day is one of my favorite holidays. The reason it is so special is because we spend the entire day with our friends and their kids playing games, eating, laughing and telling stories. We start planning next year the evening of New Year's Day and look forward to it ALL YEAR LONG. This year I brought both of my cameras along with my tripod. I always try to get a few group shots before the end of the day (that's is without a doubt all of the guys favorite part of the day). Almost everyone was there when we arrived. A bunch of people were in the den watching T.V., the kids were in the cellar playing video games while the women were... you got it, around the kitchen table just talking. My friends house is really cute. They have done a lot of work on it including building a sitting room over the cellar. In the cellar her teenager has a "Man Cave" where the kids play video games. It's really neat because the cellar door is flush with the floor, it's almost like having a hidden door in the library. Since we had so much food there was a table in the sitting room with desserts and drinks... just to make things flow better. The cellar door was open and kids had been running up and down and occasionally an adult male would wonder down then come back up thinking to themselves..... that's a really neat "Man Cave", I mean it was written all over their face (truly they never grow up). Okay, bare with me cause this is where things get fuzzy and I'm going on here say. Apparently I decided to quench my thirst so I got up and mosied over to the drink table at which time I felt I needed to add something to the conversation going on at the kitchen table. Unfortunately I turned around to add my two cents and when I did I stepped into the gaping hole in the floor where the "Man Cave" happened to be. The fall must have been quite a tumble because I remember none of it. Next thing I vaguely remember is pain and people around me but mostly just pain. What I know from what I'm told is I was taken to the local hospital where they did test and stuff that annoy you (like cutting off your favorite jeans and your Victoria Secret under things... said with much bitterness) when you don't feel well and then they shipped me to the City. I'm not really sure where the camera comes into play here but I'm thinking that maybe it was in the City because I don't think anyone was interested in capturing anything up until that point. The best thing about having best friends is they are the Best!! They know you and they know what you like and don't like. The Girls went to my house to get clothes for me and most importantly they got my make-up tool box (yes it seriously takes that much work to make me presentable). When I got to the hospital in the City one of them, knowing I would insist on capturing the moment had I been conscious, brought a camera. First of all this is one New Year's Day that none of us will forget, even those of us who don't really remember it. Second of all, it is what I would have wanted. I don't remember them putting my lip gloss on me (that is a true friend that won't even take a picture of you without your lip gloss on) but I do remember one of the nurses or doctors telling my friend, who was holding the camera, that she couldn't believe she had her posing for a picture. I'm glad she did! She got some really good shots of everyone spending their New Year's Day in the waiting room and some really bad shots of me looking exactly like death warmed over (seriously warmed over). I have a tendency to make light of almost everything. There isn't hardly anything that should be taken too seriously. My husband however, does not feel the same. He hasn't appreciated me making light of my near death experience but like I tell him "I'm still here, I haven't gone anywhere". He vows however that this is not something he will ever look back on with any humor, "because I thought you were dead in my arms". They kept me over night and let me go home in the morning. I do remember getting a call from the Girls who had spent the night in the City, asking me what kind of Starbucks I wanted. You betcha! They knew exactly how to perk me up and get me going again. One of my Girls asked me the other day if I remember asking her in the ER if she had a penis. Nope, I certainly don't recall that. She said she told me that the reason I was alive was because "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much, James 5:16) and she had been praying really hard. That was my response...."Do you have a penis I don't know about?". She said she did but not to tell her husband cause he hadn't found it yet! I don't care who you are that's funny and it's all is a memory meant to be captured. I'm pretty sure I've gotten all the crapy stuff behind me for this year and nothing but smooth sailing ahead. Happy New Year!!! Go out and make some memories.