a kind of kindness

In the past week I have become acutely aware of two of my most extreme character flaws -- well three, if I count my tendency to use excessive amounts of dish soap to wash painfully few dishes; I always do have the cleanest dishes though. One of the flaws is really more of a bad habit, a minor flaw, and only aggravating to myself. The other one, needs seriously, for my peace of mind as well as for the comfort and well being of those who have to interact with me, to be addressed.

So I am going to refocus my mind on the daily virtues in the book by Linda Kavelin Popov 'Sacred Moments', which was previously the back bone of my blogs, as well as a renewing, and hopefully, productive way to live each day. (I have decided that focusing on the bad, will only glorify it and it seems pointless to be keeping who I don't want to be at the front of my mind. We will see how this goes.)

Diving right in, the virtue of this past week has been kindness. I don't know if it is that I am rarely kind, or if I was just having an overly morose and self-centered week, but focusing on being kind was an unexpected challenge. At least if I was not as kind as I should have been in all situations, I noticed and acknowledged how unkind I was. I noticed the kindness in people around me and that made me feel better. For instance, I saw an older man drop his bag of groceries on a busy street and a young guy with headphones in and neon hightops on chased an apple down the pavement and brought it back to the man. I know this is a brief and superficial look into kindness but I am in a limbo between exhaustion and needing to get this written so I can mentally move on to next(this) weeks virtue: order.

Also late last week Florence passed away. The funeral was a suitably peaceful event as she was 97 years old and had passed in her sleep, but it definitely made me stop and pause and re-examine a lot of what I am doing with my life. In my previous post about Florence, I ended by saying that I had her by my side and I knew there was nothing she couldn't teach me. I pray that she is still by my side.

happy happy hippy.

It is interesting how much happens around and to us for no apparent reason. So I would like to take this moment to ponder the unapparent, because nothing happens for no actual reason does it? 

 I wrote the above lines about half an hour ago and have sat here staring at the computer and coming up with a million elusive thoughts on the idea- each of which mean nothing, and lead nowhere, and are simply evanescent musings that I already know will lead to no conclusion or greater understandings. So I pondered like I said I would, I hope you did the same. 

The thought came to my mind because when I got home tonight I was so happy. Like almost painfully happy. Embarrassing happy, where you can't stop smiling and just want to laugh out loud. (On a side note, laughing is so weird. It is an odd stuttering staccato noise that we make in our throats to express joy... it is weird when you think about it.) It could have been all of the caffeine-heavy black tea and sugar I consumed in the last two hours, but I think it was also joy. And it was for no apparent reason. And I really mean that. There are many reasons that I can think of to be happy about life, but there was no visible reason for me to be so happy at that moment (except the caffeine). Life in general is just good, and full of goodness at the moment. 

The junior youth girls are a large part of that goodness. I am so in awe. Last Thursday we got together and did a quick tour and meet and greet at Heritage Square, which is a seniors residence here in town where we are going to volunteer. The girls were so polite and comfortable and excited to be there. I got the chance to meet the moms tonight. I have known some of them for years and gotten to know a couple more over the last few weeks, but as of tonight I have met them all. And they are all great, and supportive, and awesome, and wonderful. 

Friends are another part of the goodness. Friends that I have known since I didn't know myself, friends who have gone through the good and the bad, friends who I wont see for another ten years, friends who I haven't seen in five years, friends who I can call after a nightmare at 3am and will talk to me until I fall asleep again, friends who make me laugh, and friends who send you an email just when you need it. (So I started this whole friends paragraph not really knowing what I was writing and then I just realized that the song that had started playing on my iTunes DJ was See My Friends by the Kinks - this is why I shouldn't write with music on.) 


The possibilities of the future contribute to my goodness.


The Starbucks girl that brought free samples into my work today huuugely contributed to my goodness. 


The following week will be a good one. 


I think the caffeine is worn off, because now I just feel regular happy.