The rain is back –
my familiar old friend –
and I settle into my comfy chair
with a mug of cocoa
and a cinnamon roll and watch
the raindrops hit the deck
making tiny splashes
and tickling my soul
with their happy pattering.
This is peace. This is joy.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
It has been a challenging week – both personally and globally, I guess – and I needed to get out and exchange smiles and meet new friends and see the good in the world.
As I was on my way to Fred Meyer’s yesterday I realized that it was “senior” day there and I’d get to buy things with a discount. So that was cool. I love “senior” day at Fred Meyer’s – not just because of the discount, but because it’s kind of fun to be with a store-full of other people who were alive when the Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan, and when man took his first steps on the moon. There’s a kinship there.
As I was checking out, I had to keep asking the cashier to repeat herself, and we both started laughing. I commended her for her patience with me, and with the other seniors there. I told her my dad lived to be 101 and I was his POA at the end and, maybe because of this, I can recognize in other people the ones who care for, and know HOW to care for, our society’s oldest members. The cashier laughed and said that she’s told her older relations that they don’t need to worry, she’s got their backs.
I also met some way cool “youngsters” at Fred’s yesterday – and by youngsters I mean young people around my sons’ ages – late twenties and early thirties.
I’d stopped in the photo department to buy photo paper and ink and there was a young man in the aisle, looking for computer stuff, I think – and he had this amazing hair – curly and long and red and tied up in a pony tail. I turned to him and said, “It has to be said: You have amazing hair.” He started laughing and thanked me, and told me that he’s the only one in his family who ended up with curly hair – and he didn’t get his until he was twelve or so. I told him the same was true for my eldest son.
Later, as I was waiting in line at the in-store Starbucks, I got into conversation with two young families with babies in carts ahead of me in the line. The mother of one of the babies said that the babies were cousins and were only a few months apart in age – and I learned the youngest was only two weeks older than my granddaughter. So that was pretty cool. I got into conversation with the father of one of the babies and learned he was my oldest son’s age. And, as we stood in line at the Starbucks in Fred’s, he talked to me about his recent spiritual journey, and the importance of the sun, and the connection he feels with nature and he asked me if I saw the face in his picture of the sun and I know this is all one sentence, but that’s the only way I can convey the energy coming from him as he talked to me. It’s amazing the conversations one can have waiting in line at Fred Meyer’s.
I went out to my car, and there was another young man feeding his jeep some kind of fuel enhancer (?) in a bottle that I at first took for a soda can. He’d noticed my sticker for the Wake ‘n Bakery in Glacier – and said he liked all my other stickers, too – and soon he was telling me about his youtube snow reports and his horses and farm, and how he’d grown up in Michigan, but had lived in Marblemount for twenty years, and the difference between x-country skiing in the topography of Michigan and x-country skiing in the topography of the North Cascades and, again, I know that’s a lot to put into one sentence, but that’s the only way I can convey the energy I felt coming from this young man, too. It’s amazing the conversations one can have in a parking lot at Fred Meyer’s.
By the time I’d left Fred’s I’d exchanged smiles, and made new friends, seen the good in the world, and seen the face of the sun.
This morning Baby Linh raced up to me on all fours, pulled herself up on a basket next to my chair and looked at me with a big grin on her face. Then she started laughing. She laughed and laughed a big rolling belly laugh mixed with happy squeals for a good three minutes. And I laughed with her. We laughed just for the sheer joy of laughing. It was the most therapeutic three minutes I had all day.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine…”
– Proverbs 17:22
I imagine Mom tucking me into bed and asking me about my day. And I tell her…
I took the grandbaby out into the sunshine on the back deck and sat in a chair and she bounced on my lap for a while. We listened to the birds singing and she put her forehead against mine and chatted to me in her own language about life, and we laughed and sang together, and celebrated being alive on this fine spring day.
After she and my son and daughter-in-law left to run errands, I put Four Weddings and a Funeral on TV in the background while I washed the dishes and cleaned the counter and answered emails, and worked on my Blossoms game.
Then I went to the post office and got my mail and, just before I left, Luciano the Neopolitan Mastiff stuck his head out of the truck that pulled into the space next to me. Luciano and I are new friends – I just met him for the first time a couple of days ago – and I was so happy to see him again. I got out of my car to say hi to him. His kind human recognized me and gave me a biscuit to feed Luciano. I held it out on a flat palm to feed him in the same way I would feed a horse. He sucked up the biscuit and left a trail of doggy slobber on my hand. It was awesome.
I drove from the post office to the supermarket to pick up some things before I headed home. The older woman in front of me in the checkout line was classy and elegant-looking. She had golden open-toed sandals, tan capris, and cool, spangly jewelry, and her hair was beautifully-coiffed in what we used to call a “page boy.” She turned to smile at me and to apologize for taking so long to put her stuff on the counter, and I told her I loved her shoes and her earrings and… oh look! We had the same kind of reusable shopping bags! She laughed and said she thought she’d gotten hers from some charity she’d donated to. I looked at the bottom of my bag and saw that I’d gotten it from the Lakota Sioux people – a group I donate to regularly. I’d forgotten I’d gotten that bag from them. It was cool to realize this gracious put-together woman and I both donate to the same people. I love making connections like that.
I stopped at the Edison Cafe to get some lunch and a raspberry Italian soda and sat at the table outside to wait. Soon Austin (the owner of the cafe and one of my former eighth graders) delivered the soda to me. He’d topped the soda with whipped cream and sprinkles and it was beautiful. Before I’d come outside, I’d nodded and smiled to a couple of young men eating their lunch at a table inside – one of them was covered in tattoo art, and the other had a long black braid past his waist – and the thought came to me that I would love to have been the teacher to these gentle giants – they both emanated kindness and good will. When they came out to get in their car, they smiled at me again and wished me a good day, and I wished them one, too. I felt the genuineness of their wish for me, and our new connection.
I came home and mowed the lawn in the front of the house and in my Secret Garden – I love the smell of freshly-mowed grass – and the birds were singing – and the sun was shining on me – and it was just lovely.
I watched a movie I found on Netflix (The Peanut Butter Falcon) and then my son and daughter-in-law came home, and my other daughter-in-law stopped by – and it was so joy-filled to have everyone in the house, laughing and sharing space.
Then the grandbaby bounced on my lap and chatted to me for a while about her day, and I nodded at her insightful comments, and told her I love her.
It has been a good day, Mom.
Karen Molenaar Terrell
I wake and feel the presence of Love with me,
enfolding me in wings of joy.
I have worries when I wake –
frittering, fretting, fruitless frustrations and fears.
I reach out to our Father-Mother for reassurance and hear:
“Fear not. All is well. Trust.”
And I do.
And it is.
And the fear dissolves into nothing
in the comfort of Love’s gentle mothering.
I feel the laughter of the Cosmos
and join in the celebration.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
(Rainbow flower doodle by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
My dear Humoristian hooligans –
Your mission (should you decide to take it – and, really, what’s the alternative?) is to keep hope alive in yourself so that you can bring it to those lost and weary in a valley of despair. May your irrepressible joy and never-ending good will to all bring light to the desolate, discouraged, and disheartened. May your generosity and open hearts transform the stingy, stodgy, and stuffy. May the bigots, bullies, and busybodies be transformed by your relentless kindness and unfailing patience. May you bring laughter to those in sorry need of a good laugh.
Go out there and work your magic, my friends!
Karen
The last couple of days – in an effort to keep life in perspective – I’ve been making an effort to acknowledge all the 99.9% of life that’s good and beautiful and going on around me all the time – every creature that’s expressing life; every breath I take; every smile exchanged; every pretty little rock I find; the perfume of every flower I sniff in the Valentine’s display at the supermarket; every raindrop sparkling in the sunshine; every purr from my cat; every shared laugh on the boardwalk; every swan and eagle winging above me; every kindness shown me by friends and strangers – and I’m here to tell you that we live in a wondrous and bountifully beautiful world.
Karen Molenaar Terrell
Photos above by Karen Molenaar Terrell.
If I
stop loving because others are at war
will that help the world?
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
T’was two weeks afore Christmas and all through Eff Bee
not a creature was stirring – not a they, she, or he.
We were prostrate and spent from the holiday bustle
not a twitch could be seen from the teeniest muscle.
We lay all unblinking in our respective beds
while visions of gift-wrapping swirled through our heads.
And clad in our jammies and our way cool madcaps
we had the vague hopeful hope our bodies would take naps.
Holiday jangles and jingles pinged through our brains –
Presley, Crosby, and Mathis taking us down memory lanes –
and would we remember every member to be gifted?
We mentally went through our lists, hoping none were omitted.
There were homes to be decorated and cards to be sent;
parties, caroling, and cookie-making, and we hadn’t made a dent.
But with a collective sigh we remembered there and then
that it’s really about good will to all creatures – every they, her, and him.
And so our thoughts finally settled and our bodies relaxed
as we thought of those we love and a world festooned in pax.
With our hearts wrapped in kindness and the world as our ‘hood
We’re all brethren and sistren – and verily, It’s all good!
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book
My dear Humoristian hooligans,
Today may you love the hell out of the world. May you open the floodgates of Love and let Love water the weary hearts athirst for kindness and caring. May you refuse to allow fear and hate to steal your hope and courage. May the bigots, bullies, and busybodies be transformed by your open hearts and good will to all. May the stodgy, stuffy, and stingy be transformed by your irrepressible joy. May you bring laughter to those in sorry need of a good laugh, and hope to those ascared of the future.
Go out there and work your magic, my friends!
Karen
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 