Category Archives: Emotional Health

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Uncategorized, Wealth and Fame

More Houses, In Route From Here to There and Back Again

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“I sold that house, there, last week.”

“They’ve already moved in.”

“Oh, yeah, at closing. That’s the one with the tiger wood floor – imported from Brazil, got a good deal on it, nice light / dark stripe running down the board like this sample.”

“Exotic.”

“Now, this house here, we can go inside; it has bamboo flooring first time I’ve used bamboo, not sure I like it as well as the tiger wood.”

“I’ve heard it’s the new thing, a bit more green.”

“Supposed to be, but I don’t know.”

“Wow!  This is nice!  I do like the light color of the bamboo.”

“Come on upstairs.  Four bedrooms and a bonus room up there.”

“I love this cubby over the stairs, I’d put my desk here under the window and use it as a writer’s nook.”

“Everyone that has looked at this house likes that nook.  They say immediately, ‘I could put this or that here.’…funny thing, the realtors all said that wouldn’t go over well.  The plan had a two  story open staircase right here and called for a hanging chandelier,  I had the framers change it.”

“You have an architect and a designer?”

“I’m the designer.”

“You take the idea to an architect?”

“I do my own plans.”

Driving through the neighborhood:

“I built that house there, and the one behind it…

Now over here I had to wait to tear down the old rental and then add half a lot which I bought from the lady next door and then subdivide the new lot into two…This cul-de-sac we’re coming up on, I built these 5 houses about 20 years ago, when your dad was up here.  He helped me clear the property…

“The lady in that house?  That rancher? I didn’t build her house, but, she would vote for me for president if I ran.”

“She really likes you, huh.  You get to know her while you were building?”

“She has a nice little lattice work surrounding the patio out there in the backyard, you see?  She has an outdoor shower out there and she likes to go out the do her yoga and exercise and meditate in the outdoor shower.”

“Ah, you didn’t put windows in that side of the house you built next door?”

“I went in with two plans.  One was a split level, and this one is a cut out where the lower level roof extends about 10 feet further out than the upper level and the upper level has windows in the front and back, but none to the side.  No neighbors will ever be able to peep into her backyard.”

Driving through the larger community:

“I built that house… I have a permit out to build on this lot… This lot is planned for 5 houses, had to build a special water vault for that, should have gone for just four houses there… and, I can’t get the excavator to finish his job… remember when the garden used to be here?”

“And the rental?  Yes.  Did you build both of those?”

Affirmative grunt.

“It must be kind of satisfying to drive around town and see everything you have built, besides stuff you worked on while serving on the planning commission.  Do you know how many houses you’ve built?”

“Don’t know.  Probably about sixty, I haven’t counted recently.”

“I think we have seen about 12 or 14 today.”

“To tell you the truth, I think I am kind of reluctant to actually sit down and count.  It was kind of on that “bucket list” as you call it to build a hundred houses here before I quit and I’m afraid to count because I might fall short.”

“So, if you built 99 houses you fall short and are disappointed?  And if you built 101, you have over – reached your goal and have to stop?  I don’t think that is the idea of goal sitting and the bucket list.”

I think, in fact, gentle reader, that I am in the presence of a very modest, understated, specimen of the American work ethic and middle age success.

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being, Travel

Worth It For the View

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“Whatever would you want to go to San Francisco for?” I was asked by the older generation.  Many my own age were envious.  I could have enjoyed the company of several travelling companions had schedule and budget allowed.  After yesterday’s wanderings in the city, I now know.  I came for the view.  Chinatown was fun.  The food (butter cake, banana roll, rice and beef, stuffed shrimp at the wharf) a treat.  The cable car a must. The cheesy, top-off double decker tourist bus (though over-priced) provided much needed bearings for the city.  But the crowning moment for me was a stroll to the end of Fisherman’s Wharf and a wander out to the end of the pier.  I had already walked to the end of the Embarcadero, smelled the smells, shopped in the little shops, purchased a cable car music box for my mother (so I could tell her that’s what I came to San Francisco for).  I pressed forward.  Passed a sandy beach where two children built sand castles and a couple of die-hard swimmers trained in the cold water.  I rolled my toes in the sand without taking my walking shoes off and continued on my morning’s journey.  Just before the entrance to a wonderful military park, I veered right and followed an aging cement pier a half mile or so into the harbor.  By this time I had squirted a couple of honey straws and an individual peanut butter package into my mount to give me energy and keep me going.  The pier was wide enough for pedestrians and two-way cars to pass, but, motorized vehicles are no longer allowed.  On the way foot traffic was mild and I found myself mingling from a distance with single photographers and their tripods and a couple of serious fisherman.  There were, perhaps, a total of 12 people on the long, curving pier.  No one paid much notice to anyone else.  In the distance, Alcatraz Island rose out of the fog when the clouds parted and the sun came out.  The view was breath taking and breath giving.

I found myself saying, “This moment, this view, was worth the whole trip.”  At that moment, alone at the end of the pier and looking out toward the water, a sea lion surfaced, not more than twenty feet away.  He (or she) was coming straight for me, nosed up out of the water, blew (a friendly kiss, so it seemed) and then dipped and was gone.  What a moment!  What a view!

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Goals and Dreams, Home and Hearth, Spiritual Well Being

House#1 in route to there and back again

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This is a sanctified house – not because the owners are Christian (they would cough and gag and chafe at such a suggestion inadvertently linking them to the conservative religious right); but because they are spiritual, deeply in touch with their dreams and desires and goals.  This house is sanctified because every inch, every nook and cranny, every photo and artifact exudes who they are.  Ultimately, consummately, they are fulfilling the purpose for which they came to be and it is glorious to witness.  And, they love each other…deeply, as largely as they are capable of and they are persons of great depth, thought capacity, artistry, and innovation.  This house is authentic, as are the people in it, and the books that line the shelves and spill into architectural heaps on coffee tables and nightstands.  So, I will spend my time here being authentic, and taking long walks in this wondrous, brick and red geraniums, old money and rich tradition neighborhood.  Oh, and playing the grand piano.

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Health and Long Life, Poetry and Prose, Spiritual Well Being

Saturday Prayers

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Dear God, show me truth.  Show me your will and direction for my life.  God, please grant me the power to carry it out rather than the constant worry and striving to make it happen on my own.  For my daughter; grant a deep and abiding knowledge of who you  are-and are meant to be- for her.  Grant that she be always a fulfilled and loved woman, peaceful and wise at heart whether single or in a relationship.  For my son; I ask that you grant him an awareness and revelation of truth:  who YOU are, God of the Universe, and who he is to be.  Give to my son power and strength and wisdom and boldness in the things of the true and living God.  For the one estranged, who, because of his raging and insults has become my enemy, I pray for the higher good to master him.  I pray he would have truth and beauty and self-awareness.  For my grown and settled children, I pray that you would continue to knit them together in a strong cord of love and ethics.  Bring out the best in them.  You have given each of them marvelous strengths.  Burst on them at every turn in beauty, truth, joy, the energy of life and love.  And for my friends, my listening ears; I pray your protection on them, that my “viruses”  would not attach to their “systems”, but that they would remain whole, beautiful, joyous, successful, and wise.  May it be.

co-dependence, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, The Petty Pace

Toilet Paper Recovery

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We have nothing to fear but fear itself!  So speak the great American leaders. Being of the plebeian variety, my motivating thought has all too often been:  I have nothing to fear but embarrassment.

Just as one never attempts the possible in order to avoid failure; I avoid embarrassment at all costs.  I plan, I plot, I educate myself. I think things through, I consider the logical conclusions of my actions. I do my laundry, press my clothes, maintain a regular sleep and grooming schedule; all toward the goal of “having it all together.”

It is important to me to do the right thing.  Lately I began to question my motives.  Am I doing the right thing out of a noble, altruistic heart?  Or am I constantly doing the right thing in order to show others how it ought to be done? To prove that I have it altogether? To avoid, through super human effort, mistakes; or, heaven forbid; embarrassment.

I had a wonderful time Wednesday night.  Philip and I took an impromptu mother / son night out and viewed Star Trek. After the screening, I hit the ladies room (as is my custom); we struck a fast pace toward the car, all the while in conversation and critique of the movie.  The gas gage pegged at empty so I decided to fill up on the way home rather than chance a late arrival at work the next day.

We found an after-nine, discount gas station and commenced the filling and window washing.  From the shadows near the air compressor I heard a male voice call, “Miss.”  I ignored him.  Coming a bit closer, he hailed me again, “Miss, excuse me, Miss,” From the corner of my eye I saw a young man in his twenties, with garish henna hair and sideburns stepping toward me.  Was he going to ask me for money?  Directions? Quickly I looked to see where Philip was.  In the car, talking on his cell phone. “I hope he is paying attention to what is going on out here!”  I thought as I looked up. “Oh, Miss, there is something about to fall out of your pocket!”

(My pocket?  Do I have pockets?  If I reach for my back pockets that draws my attention and effectively ties up my arms.  And this guy is approaching me.  Where is his friend?)

Keeping my eyes on him, I reached behind with my left arm, my strong right arm at the ready.  Nothing.  Then I reached behind with my right arm,  my left hand free,  and grasped it – the 18 inch strip of toilet paper- as my informant faded back into the shadows and was gone.

I am now recovered from my laughter – and my false assurance  of having it all together.

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Goals and Dreams

Happy Mother’s Day to Me!

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Happy Mother’s Day to me.  I am of all women, most blessed.  I like my three grown (nearly grown) children. I like who they are.  It is fun to be with them.  They are people of character and responsibility or budding responsibility; creative, witty, sensitive, thoughtful, articulate. I am looking forward to spending time with them this Mother’s Day; and with my 3.4 grandchildren.

Did they choose the career path I would have chosen for them?  Who can say?  I was not foolish enough to decide who they were to become or to micromanage.  I did know from the day they were born what they were:  they were treasures.  That is what they remain to me to this very day – TREASURES.

Character, co-dependence, Emotional Health, The Rules

Rule Number 3- Please Everyone

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I have spent half a century trying to please people; how about you?  Yes?

Well, as they say, “You can please some of the people all the time and some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all the time.” But, hey, it never hurts to try, right?  Maybe I will be the first one to be perfect, get it right all the time, please everybody and the whole world will love me-rise up and call me blessed.

I don’t think there is a thing wrong with pleasing people, with living peaceably with everyone.  I do take issue with peace at any cost – or with pleasing others to manipulate the outcome. At sometime in your life someone has probably said indignantly, “After all I’ve done for you, how could you……”  The words are designed to heap guilt, to convict the hearer to change his ways. If the recipient has stolen, embezzled, cheated or betrayed, perhaps a parent or spouse does have a right to utter this accusation.  But, usually, I think what the offended one means is, “After all I’ve done for you how could you not do what I wanted you to do?”  This is the type of thing Handel’s father spat when George F. decided to be a musician and composer rather than a barber.  When parents say this they often mean, “After all I’ve done for you how could you possibly think of being yourself instead of the person I wanted you to be?”

Recently I was accosted by an acquaintance whose basic communication was, “You are the meanest person in the world!  I knocked myself out for you! I did lots of things for you, whatever I thought was right for you, whether you asked or wanted it or not and now I am angry with you because you did not respond the way I wanted you to respond and do what I wanted you to do.  You didn’t do the job the way I would have done it.  You are not the gregarious personality I wanted you to be. You’re not even trying to be the person I wanted to help you become. I have piped and you have not danced.”  Funny thing, I didn’t even hear the piper.  I was too busy marching to the steady beat of a different drum.  Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Character, co-dependence, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being

Back to Square One

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Recently someone tried to convince me that starting over is never a good idea; it just doesn’t work. Essentially she was saying that one needs to just stay in the pit one has dug and continue plodding, maintain the status quo of the circumstances and people one finds oneself with. I understand the Biblical principle behind her adamance to never start over (Peter’s example of a sow returning to wallowing in the mud, or Paul’s question as to why the Galatians were returning to the weak and beggarly rules they started out with which led them from the school master to grace).

I also dislike being bumped back home or to the hospital as much as the next person playing Careers or Monopoly or other reality games. While I understand the necessity to refrain from continually running away and starting over, I have found that retracing one’s steps is often beneficial to ascertain why one went to the kitchen in the first place, what one was thinking of, desiring and wanting, before allowing oneself to be distracted by outside urgencies or circumstances and the daily stresses of life.

So, pardon me, if, in my mid-life quest to be all that I can be and all that my Higher Power asks of me, I decide to return to square one, a mile marker with clear directions.

Though it appears to some that I am starting over, I am actually still standing expectantly on the beach waiting for the next big wave – not just any wave, but a true quintessential pipeline, something I can ride all the way into port; “or be content to sail with God the seas,” as Emerson penned.

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Politics, The Rules, Uncategorized, Wealth and Fame

I Can’t Be Miss America

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Dear Readers,

I am taking a poll.  It is multiple choice.  Please answer A, B, or C.

I was never crowned Miss America or Miss USA because:

A)  I do not look like a Barbie Doll

B)  I have an opinion, but I am inarticulate and cannot express that opinion

C)  I have a traditional opinion which differs from yours

Dear Reader. why do you think I, your very own Eine Feisty Berg, was never crowned Miss America?

co-dependence, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Religion, Spiritual Well Being, The Petty Pace, Uncategorized

Voo Doo Prayers

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Voo Doo Prayers; I hate them. I refuse them. They release way too much negative energy into the world through thoughtless, selfish, controlling words. You know what I mean. Voo Doo prayers go something like this:
Dear God, please make Jane trip and skin her knee right here so I can help her up and be her hero.
Dear God, please help Joe’s plane to have mechanical problems so it never leaves the ground because he shouldn’t be going on that trip anyway. Dear God, do something bad or scary in John Doe’s life so he will have to call on God for help and know that I have been right about God all along…….
How much better it is to pray a recovery style prayer, “Dear God, please give Jane, or Joe, or John, knowledge of your will for their lives today and give them the power to carry it out.” Oops, I forgot to ask God to keep me in the loop and tell me what his will is for Jane’s life – how will I ever know to pray heartily for that will and what I can do to make sure Jane does that will (are you smiling?).
Voo Doo prayers; I hate them, I reject them. Someone has been meddling with my car and my computer with voodoo prayers. I reject them. Onward, straight into the wave of what positive and good (tho sometimes hard) things God has for me.