Morikami

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Written by my friend, Virginia Blanchard

<vblanchard318@yahoo.com> wrote:

thought you'd like to read something i wrote after my last visit to the morikami last week

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song of the bamboo

we are here .....tall and straight.... we bend and sway..

we yield, forgive, teach, be

we have been forever.....

we speak, we sing

we know the answers, yet no one asks

we require silence, attention, peace, a mindful awareness

we wait, watch, know

we are silent until the wind blows..... wind older than time.....our friend

through the wind we sing,
the sound of a rusty gate that leads to home, low, throaty, soft

we choose the wind that brings life to what we say, not all are worthy

we wait for those who understand, who listen to the void before, during, and after our words

we have stories to tell about the beginning and the end

we bend

we wait for you to listen

we watch you pass, quickly, talking

we wait for you to listen

to our song

Frustrated...or is it me???

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Frustrated...or is it me???

About ten years ago, hotels and motels came out with a new form of key.   Plastic like a charge card and you insert it in the room you're renting.

Well..sounds good...but does it work...at least some of the time.   I swipe it in the hotel slot in the door...and nothing happens...except for a red light.  Now I know that red lights mean trouble...so I instantly remove.

Now I try again turning the card in a different direction...same story.   I insert the card again and get a green light, but if you don't remove the card fast enough, it shuts off.  And this ritual goes on and on!

Five minutes have passed by now and I feel stupid, plus ..   I have to use the bathroom. 

 Finally another guest comes along and smiles at me.   I return the smile but I guess she can see utter disappointment in my face because she asks, can she help me.

I admit that I'm stuck outside my door.  I can't get in.   She takes my card...does exactly what I did...and the door flies open.

She feels very accomplished and I feel like a real dud.   She probably told someone she helped an elderly lady get into her room and why is she traveling at all if she can't even us a cardkey.

Does this happen to other people too....or is it just me????

Please .. please.. give me my old key back...even a skeleton one will do.

I'm being accused!

I'm being accused of becoming a recluse by my friend Virginia.    Perhaps she's right!   I don't go out much except to buy groceries at Publix or Winn Dixie.


Gotta eat don't I?     We're in the afternoon rainy season and usually afternoons is when I tend to leave my house to go shopping.


But the truth of the matter is when I moved here I had more friends than I could handle.   When I had a dinner party, I had to invite about l2 to 14 people....and that was with eliminating some hoping they wouldn't find out.   I enjoyed having friends but now I know it's all in timing.


One of my favorite authors years ago Helen Van Slyke wrote:

Timing. We give it many names: Destiny, Fate, Kismet, the will of God. Whatever we call it, lives are changed and molded by it, in small or drastic ways beyond our control. The precise, exquisite influence of timing moves people into new positions as surely as a spring flood rearranges the landscape. It is as unavoidable as life.

 
As the years passed that number dwindled down .. and down .. and down.


Some passed on .. while others went to live in retirement homes where they get catered to.


Which, for me, narrowed my field down to nothing.    I'm feeling the loss.


    Younger people have moved into our community of 333 units, but they're all much younger, and who wants to be stuck with someone who could be their mother.


I understand the situation well.    I still talk on the phone to a few friends, but the sad part of that is they've lost a good deal of memory.


So...I busy myself with my computer, books, my children, and TV.... and that keeps me pretty well satisfied.


I still consider myself very fortunate.....I'm living in a cute little villa...and I'm still alive!  And this was written on friendship

On Friendship
 Kahlil Gibran

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.


When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.


And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is