“What if”

Surprise! We Are Going To…

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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I’m not big into surprises. I like to plan my life in advance. If I had my way I probably would have every day of my life planned out in pencil for the few necessary erasures that would be required here and there. So imagine my surprise when B announced “I think that instead of taking this business trip to China alone I would love for you to come with me…oh and by the way, we will also go to Tibet… and Nicole is coming to babysit. So what do you say?”

Tibet. Place of my dreams. A place of full of “good” karma. A place so breathtakingly beautiful that I hear that you often just forget to breathe as you stand in front of the Himalayan Mountains in awe. It’s the place where dreamers, doers, climbers and athletic persons who are all in supreme shape go to test themselves both mentally and physically. And it’s where the base camp for Mt Everest is located which we will be visiting in the dead of winter. Frankly, I’m a little worried. Why?  I cannot do one pushup unless I plank against the wall. My idea of cold is 75 degrees and I have knee replacement surgery penciled in on my calendar for March 27, 2019. Oh and one more thing…I hate to fly. Seriously hate it and take out extra life insurance as a cushion. So why am I going?

I love my husband, that’s why. After a year of the “almost divorce” consisting of six months of fights, disappointments, therapy, sadness and worry; the fact that he wants us together at all is a huge testament of how hard we have worked to try and find each other again. It brings me joy to know that out of all the people he would want to spend his time with… it is me. Still. Again. Now. And even better, I want to spend time with him too as our friendship grows into something deeper and more meaningful to us at this stage in our lives.

I am also going so that I can challenge myself. No, I won’t be going for the summit but I will be standing there looking at a mountain that has spurred people to accomplish great things and brought them closer to “God” in whatever form you believe she/he takes. And I hope some of those feelings… the exhilaration, excitement, and the oneness with “another” will touch me in ways I have yet to experience in this lifetime.

Finally, I am going because I truly believe that travel is one of the keys to genuine peace with one another and within the world. Whether it is 2,000 miles or 200 ft; leaving your comfort zone is necessary for growth because it frees you from the tethers that keep you trapped within the confines of our own mind. Being away forces you to look outside yourself and sometimes dig deep within yourself to find answers to the obstacles you have put in your own way.

So, YES, I’m going to Tibet. YES, I will scamper on Everest! And YES, I will be going with the person I care about the most in the world! And if I die at least they can write on my tombstone “She summited in life just not on Everest.”

A No Negativity Day

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

urlPema Chodron

One of the things that Pema Chodron talks about on her Udemy lecture is exceedingly difficult but excitingly profound.

Chodron says that once a week we should strive to not talk or act out of a place of negativity and that by refusing to act out of negativity it creates a sense of heightened awareness. This is especially true to observe in regards to ourselves. None of that negative self-talk (I should have know, I should have done better, I am so stupid…or whatever it is you say to yourself that is done in a negative state of mind) is helpful; its only destructive. Chodron states that when we engage in negative self talk we are just throwing kerosine on the fire of our soul.

When you are going through an “almost divorce” it is difficult to not engage in self-talk that is defeating and detrimental. The “what-if’s” and accusations of all that is wrong with the relationship and YOU are difficult to not take on when a monsoon of sadness and negativity is swirling around you. But in order to see things with a new perspective and to gain our grounding we must.

So let’s challenge each other to each live tomorrow (Friday) within the positive instead of the negative. Then on Saturday we can go back to being as negative as we desire LOL!

The Perfect Study

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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Several years ago I read a study that found that overweight women were consistently judged as younger than they actually were. In addition, and even more important, overweight women were rated younger than their skinny same-age counter parts. Seems that the fat in the face fills in those age fissures that often become as wide as the Grand Canyon when you reach my age.

This study was of interest to me because I am overweight. I am not obese but I have 40 pounds to lose to reach my optimum weight, improve my chances of avoiding knee replacement and probably prolong my life. Yet, as I read this study I realized there was a major flaw contained within it so I want a new study to be done. The perfect study. A study that every woman would pay good money for the results. And it is this:

I want to know exactly how much weight to lose to reach the perfect balance of enough fat to fill in those fine lines while still improving my health. At what point do those lines become caverns when the fat decreases. Is it 24.3 pounds? 18.2? 35.8? What is the optimum fat to filler ratio? Surely there is a way to measure this! I mean if you can invent Viagra certainly this should be a piece of cake. (Of course, we all know that the penis always has precedence over anything else known to man)

In this vein, my girlfriend contends that as women age they become either cows (fat, happy and always have something good to eat on the stove) or goats (skinny, carry carrots in a baggie along with a cup of double expresso at all times, and have a mmmmmmad and hungry look about them 24/7). Somehow, I think if I could learn this mathematical formula I could avoid both and look like a llama (perfect balance of fat to lean, great long distance spitter, soft and cuddly).

So all you scientists out there, I’ve just given you the perfect study that will make you a mint. At just a $1 a pop those huge students loans will be a thing of your past while this llama will be strutting her stuff in front of the pen.

Christmas This Year..Think Heifer International

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Yeah, I know, this post is going to sound like one of those poor-oh-so-whiny and  spoiled American blogs and today that is what is truly is. I know. I get it. But today I will put myself out there and hang my head in shame if it gets just one of you over to the Heifer site to make a donation to this worthwhile organization. Thanks.

Christmas has become a fiasco in this house. Every year the pile of presents seems to get bigger while the actual needs get smaller. The holiday had become grand that no one can remember exactly what they received because there was just too much to process and catalog at one time.

I confess this is all my fault. Unlike my ex-brother-in-law who takes his kids shopping for a new toy every Friday (ugh); I am one of those parents who rarely buys something for my kids unless it is their birthday or Christmas. The rest of the year…forget it.  Yet, I have discovered that this parenting philosophy of mine also works to my disadvantage because I guilt myself into believing I have to make up for all those “NO’S” during the rest of the year and so at Christmas I am like Santa on steroids…disgusting…especially when there are so many children in the world just wanting to have a meal to fill their empty stomachs. Over the years my travels have pressed into my psyche the enormous needs throughout the world and in this country too.Buying toys or providing food…the seriousness of this weighs heavily on my mind during the holiday season and throughout the year. Really a child going hungry should not be happening anywhere in this day and age. But it does all too often and we all suffer because of it because who is to say what that child could have grown up to achieve? Perhaps they would have been the one to provide the missing “ingredient” to make sustainable cold fusion a reality? Or maybe they would have become a person who promotes unity and healing throughout the world? Maybe someone like Gandhi? Or maybe they would have practiced the art of a local healer whose ability to diagnose keeps her community alive? So much potential talent snuffed out and wasted due to weather, politics, poor infrastructure, greedy middlemen or assholes who intentionally starve their citizens while their pockets and bellies grow fat.

While I cannot change all the problems in the world I can change them in my little corner. So after much decision and debate this year we are trying something new. Each child will get four presents; one in each category: SOMETHING I WANT; SOMETHING I NEED, SOMETHING TO WEAR and SOMETHING TO READ. They will also pick out a animal to donate through Heifer International to a family whose life will be changed because they now have a way to sustain themselves and make money as their animals procreate and grow. And if you are interested you can contribute too. Visit Heifer International and learn more about this worthwhile charity. Or do something for your neighbors in need. Whatever we each do we will be making the change that we all want to see and that is the best gift we can give ourselves in a world gone mad.

http://www.heifer.org/

 

The Road Not Taken…335 Days To Fix This…29 Days Yell Free

/ Gardy Loo Pismire / 2 Comments

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Robert Frost’s A Road Not Taken is a mystery to poets and critics alike. To author, David Orr, Frost’s poem is, ” a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives.”

And I think that could be true.

For we all practice self-deception of one sort or another in order to stay with our significant other. We re-write the stories we tell ourselves about why we love, why we stay, who we love and the games they play in order to make the story comfortable to us. We all make up stories which allow us to go on with our lives. “He won’t hit me again”, “He’ll fall in love with me again”, “We can survive this,” are the words some say in attempt to change the storyline and make it “fit” into how we imagine the story of our lives should go.

In this vein, I suspect if you asked most men when they hear the words ” The Road Not Taken”  they would say it takes them back to the  women who have inhabited their lives. For it seems to me, that men are often following that Road Not Taken back to the past; wondering if Anna would have been a better lover, if he would have had more in common with Jane at this point in his life and if Jennifer would have been a better mother.  Often, it appears to me that men “regret” losing the woman on whose path they did not travel, while women “what if” or “if only” the road they chose to take. Men seem to let go of their culpability in the demise of a relationship while women, well we, “if only” ourselves to death. “If only I was thinner I could still be married to him.”

Me, I am trying to take a fresh approach on Frost. I think that what he meant was that we as people are altered with every decision we make when we step onto one road and leave one behind. As a result we need to make decisions that will bring us to our best and true self. And that whatever road we have taken we must make it the best road for us. One full of life. One full of hope. One of love, compassion and grace. We can’t turn around and take the “other” road but we can enjoy the one we are on. So today, I am going to take hard,strong, meaningful steps on my path. I will leave the tip-toeing around for another day.