joy

Grandma’s dress

Deb Brock Connection, Opportunity , , , ,

July 31, 1013 – Grandma’s dress

Green! Now that’s a real summer green, I thought. Kind of turtle green. Hmmm, not the typical contemporary mix of hues, just a real solid, mid to dark green. It was a print but I didn’t take notice of the print, just the color and the simplicity of the pattern which had a vague familiarity for me. Somehow the simple green cotton summer dress just looked “real”. I suspected it was a re-sale piece, “vintage” as the thrift stores now advertise. Or, perhaps, I bet it was home made, but if so, certainly from an old pattern. I was only observing it from the back, since the young woman was standing in front of me in line at Caribou just minutes ago. The woman carried a well worn over one shoulder sling backpack. I noted several highlighters in a line in one of the external pockets. There was a sewed on decal with wording that looked like German but I wasn’t sure. Immediately I wondered if or not the back pack sling was really an old one, or just created age new travel gear. I mused on the juxtaposition of the dress and back pack sling.

Once the young woman placed her order she stepped to the side and I stepped forward and greeted Jenny, one of my long time enjoyed barristers. Jenny knows my never changing order so she just took my cup and in a brief exchange Jenny and I reported our individual good day accounts. I then turned my head to the left and smiled at the young woman in green, and as I always do when I enjoy a flash of beauty in feminine form, I told her so. “I really like your dress”, I said. She smiled in a rather confident yet private manner and said “thank you”. Keeping eye contact in an ever so light affection, I kind of hummed, smiled and again said: “very nice.” Instantly, generational flow melted the space between us as she said “It was my grandma’s”.

Within the breath she said “it was my grandma’s” time slowed and I could smell country air, fresh peach pies, and hear the sound of screen doors not quite slamming, thudding, or banging, just bouncing. “Of course”, I thought, “of course, your grandma’s”. “Oh, how delightful” I said. Then all l I could do was nod my head and smile and repeat the words, “nice, very nice”.

Jenny handed me my espresso, I gave a hearty thanks and good wish for the day and left Caribou. Even as I got into my car I was wishing to return and visit with the woman wearing her grandmother’s green dress. I really wanted to get to know her and her grandma, but, I was en-route to my office and as we all know, you have to get to the office. Silly me, I should have stayed to visit. I bet her Grandma would have.

~ DocBrock

A Good Day to Die

Deb Brock Discovery, Spiritual, Uncategorized , , , , , ,

July 11, 2013 –  There is only one thing to say of today: I am surprised I am yet alive.

There are numerous evenings, when Ron and I, sitting with our glass of wine, toast that it has been a good day to die, which of course, makes it a good day to live, and vise versa.  This end of the day philosophizing is a registering between us that we did good work, experienced a specific joy, one of us had a break-through with a client, or simply that we learned something new that was interesting and is useable.  We share many of these toasts and we are grateful for the declaration that life is good.

Today, however, for me, was something different.  Today wasn’t about the richness of doing; it was about the richness of being.  Most Thursdays I spend the day entirely alone (until Ron comes home, of course).  So today I was alone with “The Mother”, which I treasure.  And, for whatever reason, She chose to grace me with a communion that has continued all day as the sweetest sup.  From awaking onward, through whatever work or play I did the day was simply too perfect, too beautiful, brimming with a heightened sensory awe.

It felt as if I had become enveloped, saturated internally as well as externally with an incredible visual and auditory clarity.  Granted, I am by nature a very visual person, and I do tend to hear things, but this day was more than “being visual” or “auditorily inclined”.  Every tree leaf, every billow of every cloud, every bird song; the cardinals, the redwing blackbirds, even the little twitterers on the clothes line, they along with all the greens, pinks, lavenders and yellows of my garden, everything I saw and heard, filtered through my eyes and ears but registered through an easy breathe that whispered “how simple and grand is life today”.  Crossing senses, it is as if everything I heard and saw was magnified in slow perception so that nothing was missed yet all was ingestible.   In the immensity of this sensual awareness I kept thinking, “This is the kind of day people die with abandoned joy, satisfied and content”.

I felt no fear, nor did I wonder if I might get hit by a car on Riddle Road or have a severe reaction to a bee sting or anything dramatic.  And it wasn’t that I wanted or hoped to die, although certainly I thought if I did, it would be quite alright, and was confident that it would be an easy passage. I experienced no grand intentions or resolve.  Rather, this state of sensorial clarity was, I suppose, simply a cellular communion with a summer day.  I am glad for it and end it knowing it is a good day to die which makes it a good one to have lived.

~DocBrock