Greeting the Day

It’s Monday morning as I write this and I can’t think of anything better than starting a new week with a sunrise like this one. I freely admit that I don’t jump out of bed in the morning, yet there is something about starting a new day before the sun comes up that makes it worth it to get up early.

Once I was doing a workshop outside Phoenix with a group of Navajos. It was a two-day workshop and on the second morning when I went for a run, I encountered one of the attendees on his way back (I was on my way out). He told me later that they have been taught to greet the day with their steps.

I always think of this- whether I’m out running in the early morning hours of the day or swimming as the sun is coming up. There is something to be said for starting a new day with steps or a swim, some kind of movement.

I was thinking this morning how easy it would have been to sleep in and miss this beautiful show by Mother Nature. It’s worth the effort to drag myself out of bed and into my running shoes. It’s the best way to greet a new day, to see hope in the possibilities ahead, no matter what happened the day before.

Where Hope Resides

It’s hard to believe it’s the start of August and that Greg went back to school yesterday. I’m always reminded, as we head toward fall, that September is the month we put extra effort into suicide prevention with National Suicide Prevention Month and World Suicide Prevention Day.

But there have also been some deaths lately, a death here in New Mexico that no one is saying is a suicide unless one reads between the lines and the death of Sinead O’Connor who couldn’t seem to find peace in herself and then the suicide of her son that made it even more challenging.

All this together started me thinking on what my message September is this year and I realized it’s going to be much different than usual although not a new message for me.

It’s about where we find hope.

I don’t know why, but so often my head the phrase, “where hope resides” travels through and it did last week as I contemplated these deaths and the emotional pain that these people- and so many others– feel.

Life feels so much more challenging these days than ever before- we remain divided and angry. There has been change that makes sense to some and not to others. Even going to a restaurant has come to feel like a chore when you don’t know if they have enough staff to feed you (another topic for another day). Sometimes finding joy feels sucked away with the vacuum cleaner in this change.

When I find myself getting down, the question comes floating through– where does hope reside? In some way, it does in this photo of sunrise in the rice fields in Ubud, Bali. A new day always means a new start. And no matter how difficult the day before was! There is something about darkness giving way to light. After all, it can’t stay dark forever, the sun has to come back.

Perhaps instead of a message this year, a statement of inspiration, I’m issuing my own challenge to everyone (a good challenge, I’d like to think!): where does your hope reside?

Staying the Course

Sometimes I forget to follow my own advice.

Recently, a friend's daughter had gone out for her high school cross country team. She ran track in middle school but only the short sprints. After her first race, when she finished almost completely last last in the field, when we were back at our house after the meet to eat pizza, I pulled out the clippings from my high school days. The very ones where I finished dead last on my team and near the end of the line in the junior varsity race. By the end of that season though, I had moved up to last spot on varsity and I wanted Hannah to know that working hard would pay off. I also wanted her to know that everything I have accomplished today is because of those lessons I learned back then.

As I work at Chelle Summer, trying to get the word out there to sell the hand bags I have made as well as make more and get ready to sell customer swimwear in the spring, along with all my other responsibilities (including a full-time research job), sometimes I can be sitting at the sewing machine and I'll begin to wonder, is it worth it?

I wrote several weeks ago when we launched the store of the web site that to me this is the harder part of starting up something new: actually getting people to buy what you've created. Anyone of us can create something and throw it out there. The hard part is making people see that you're different than the millions of other products that we're bombarded with (and see all over social media). 

It's also a challenge to keep going when you're alone and have time to think. It's easy to wonder if it's worth the time and effort, if it's what I'm supposed to do, and if there is something else I'm supposed to be doing.

But then something comes along and reminds me, yes, this is the right direction on the map. I don't always get there as quickly as I would like. But, yes, I'll get there somehow. I've done it before and I know the rewards are great. I just need to stay the course.