booandbunny

My days are filled with kissing. These kisses are a blessing I not only fail to count, but one I fail to think of counting. They come in so many shapes and flavors and sizes how can they all possibly be classified with the same word? And it’s such a small word.

Kiss

The smallest of words seem to carry the most in our lives. Sometimes I think brevity bolsters their power.


And so I wander through my days, kissing. As the kids get older there are fewer kisses to collect, but I collect them nonetheless. "Mama needs at least a thousand kisses a day or she will grow weak and start to shrivel." That is what I used to tell them when they were smaller. They would pile on me and pour out giggles and kisses and I would drink it in as so much nectar from the gods.

Now, like Santa Claus, I have to fight to keep their faith in me. The power of reason is a little thief, I think, pocketing our innate openness and replacing it with, well, guarded expression. But I still collect their kisses. Three in the morning, three before they leave for school and many many more each night when I tuck them in. "I love you, Mommy," they say each night. And so I drink some more.

But it’s this time of day when kissing changes. When their rooms are dark; their dreams are in high gear; their doors are closed to the rest of the world ... that is when the Baskin Robbins’ world of this tiny little word opens up for me. Sometimes we’re both in the mood. Sometimes only one. Sometimes an open bottle changes the flavor of the encounter. Sometimes there’s a little coaxing, the kind of lingering that closes us off from the outside world, pushes the power of reason from our pockets and fills us with fairy dust. Sometimes one needs taken care of, reassured. Sometimes there’s only enough energy for the obligatory peck, no anger or malice or negativity, only fatigue. So many shapes this kissing takes. But this kissing, His kisses, they have filled my days for half a lifetime. They are a sweet shop of expression whose language is mine alone.

I’ve kept my Scribblings to myself for far too long. It feels so good to be kissing the world with words again! For more on this and other prompts, visit Sunday Scribblings.

Megg asked about a theme for the New Year. She’s put one word to her efforts and got me to thinking. I am working on the same old list ... exercise more ... eat better ... take chances ... create something ... but I come at these things with a new outlook, bolstered by doing these things last year. So when I put it in one word for Megg I chose the word

ENERGY

But really what I want to do this year has more to do with chi ... a Japanese word for "flow of energy." Karate class is a great place to not think, and in the not thinking I found what I really want to do with 2007.

"I bet you thought I quit," I told the cardio instructor Wednesday night. "You said if people are going to quit most do it around the third class. I came to two than stopped.

"You can't count that stuff during the holidays," he said with a grin.

I told him how I couldn't manage to empty my brain and just move those two weeks. He understood. "New Year, New Attitude," he said turning on the music. "Alllriiight ... from heeeEEERE!" And so began a muscle-busting sweat inducing hour. The second for me that night. I never could have done this last year.

With my head empty and my body moving I felt things flow. "I can do this," I thought on the ideas that revealed themselves last year. "I can make them real. I can. I CAN."

And so the energy flows, and I am trying to rein it in ... harnessing my chi ... A flow of ideas has rarely been cut off for me. It's the flow of positivity that I have often choked at the source, despite the amazing support of my husband and others. Let it flow.

The flow of creativity has resulted in a frenetic sampling of all kinds of outlets ... crafting, writing, cooking and now exercise ... but the focus for the flow has been lacking.

I lack DISCIPLINE.

Not sound too Zen, but a river outside its banks is chaos. The flow must be harnessed. I should know. I live here between two of the biggest rivers in the world and I lived here 14 years ago when each jumped its banks. What a sight. What chaos.

Harnessing Energy. That seems like a good theme. And something new, too boot! Happy Weekend Everyone.

I don't know what in the heck was going on with today's post when I tried to post it, but the words are out there in the world (fInAllY) and I must move on to that resume updating I promised myself. Hope you can see this goofy, tiny gray type and that you don't get Blyoggered.

Oh smell the promise of something new! We as Americans love new things. Why should a new year be any
different? The smoothing of the crease in that freshly unwrapped calendar … the way it needs time to hang out
and flatten a bit on the wall … the blank slate of the unknown, the unexpected and the unwanted converging with
the anticipated, the announced and the annoying routine. I love this time of year … until it comes time to take the
decorations down. That always brings a bump of blue to an otherwise bright orange season.

But this year my resolutions are new and fresh, too. This year I have tangible goals and a desire to reach them.
This year I know going in that yes, I can get off my butt and exercise regularly and, yes, it does make a difference
in my size. But, more than that, it makes a huge difference in how I FeeL! I love SpongeBob,
so I quote him here: “I’m ready!”

This year I have something else, too. Something I haven’t had in a very long time. It was the big change in my life
in 2006 and feeling it’s warmth around me I know there’s no reason not to chase some of the goals that might seem
unrealistic and unattainable. 

It’s a group of girlfriends. It started here when I found other women with similar interests, frustrations and desires
as my own. It started as I wandered these pages and realized, as so many of us have typed WE ARE NOT ALONE.
Learning this here made me look at the women I see regularly in a new way, helped me open up, maybe, in a way
I had been unwilling to attempt in all these years. Only two other times in my life have I had a group of women I
enjoyed spending time with. Senior year of high school there was a gang of seven of us who ran together …
one of them, my very best friend, my maid of honor, is still with me today. Senior year of college there were four of
us who lived together at journalism school. Those three women stood up to my wedding, too, and we still are connected.
That is a rare gift.

But since the early ’90s, when life scattered us from coast to coast (and beyond at times), I’ve not known that fun
that comes with a bunch of girlfriends getting together. I’ve savored moments with a special friend, the comfort of
knowing her well enough to invite her for dinner with my family and open the door in bare feet. But that slumber-
party mentality hasn’t crept into my life until now. Sometimes you don’t realize what you’re missing until you’ve
found it. And starting a new year with this new sense of support and understanding has given me an energy I don’t
totally understand. But I’m going to do my best to harness it and believe in myself as much as my husband believes
in me. And that would really be something new!

Here’s to the unexpected … the anticipated … the promise of the blank squares of a new calendar … the blocks
with which we’ll build our New Year.