swords to ploughshares

THANK YOU for all of your birthday wishes and comments.  I'm a bit overwhelmed by them...because as I read them, a part of me wondered:  what on earth did I do to earn such love and support?! 

When I was younger, I used to stress out like you wouldn't believe over my birthday.  Back when I drank (hello, insanity, my old friend) I used to plan my own birthday gatherings--sometimes hosting a party, sometimes getting together with friends to go out to dinner, whatever.  And although I had some fun moments, I truly never really had a good time.  You can guess why, right?  Because I was trying to make my birthday perfect.  God, I was an idiot.  So I always spent my party time worrying and stressed out over trying to make it--and everyone around me--be whatever I had concocted in my head would constitute the perfect gathering.  Somewhere along the way I had convinced myself (and done a good job of it) that if I could just once have a perfect birthday, my life would somehow magically transform overnight and become perfect.  Mind you, I didn't waste my time actually thinking through whether or not this seemed remotely likely, possible or viable--I just thought it would happen by magic.  It took me awhile, but I finally figured out that the magic isn't in the imagined perfection...it's in the LETTING GO.

Nowadays, I don't plan anything for my birthday.  We didn't even know until 4:00 that we'd postpone having our family dinner--we had tentatively thought we might have a birthday dinner without my brother.  He's missed every one of my birthdays since we came back to the States because he hosts a golf tournament in Mesquite, NV during this week.  The first year I thought:  wha...WHAT?!  You're not going to be here for my birthday?!  That was the old perfect demon talking.  Then sanity took over and I realized:  oh, okay, no biggie--we'll just get together another night and I can prolong my birthday celebration.  (Sanity is so much more fun to hang out with than insanity.)  So now I don't plan anything...I just let the day unfold...

53rd birthday

Linda said she wanted details on the birthday cake Jeffrey made for me.  I hope she wasn't expecting anything too elaborate.  ;)  Bless his heart, there it is in the upper left corner.  (I don't know why the time on the coffee-maker is wrong...he must have unplugged it at some point...because I shot that about 5 am.)  Then there was brie and a baguette (in addition to whatever each of us was eating for lunch) and another chocolate cake (and coffee ice cream, my fave) at work.  The gift was from Carolyn and I just had to snap a photo of it before I unwrapped it because she always wraps her gifts so beautifully.  It's three fabulous hurricane candles for our front porch now that we've redone the yard. Our Advanced Choir always comes into the office to sing "Happy Birthday" when one of us is celebrating one, so that was a treat yesterday...not to mention that the Choir Director brought cookies with her.  And dinner was at Thai Nakorn, our favorite Thai place a few blocks from home.  It's owned by the family of a student at my school (the mother is just a delight.)  Notice my Thai iced tea...LOVE.

My Dad, never the king of subtlety, had already let the cat out of the bag that they didn't know what to get me (and I was no help at all--when my stepmother asked what I wanted for my birthday, I think my response was, "....uh....uh....I don't know...") so had sent me a check instead.  Their cards (because it's his tradition to always give two*...and lest you think he sends my stepmother to the card store...oh no, my Dad is hugely sentimental and spends time in the card aisle himself picking out just the right ones) arrived yesterday along with a (very generous) check.  (*This is a tradition Jeffrey adopted from my Dad years ago.  So each year from each of them I get a sentimental card and a funny one.)

And there was something else in the mail yesterday...something I'd forgotten about...  When I wrote my post about LEAP! being my theme word for 2008, I said that re the Creative Every Day project for the year, I'd told Leah that two things I really wanted to pursue this year were photography and poetry.  I can't even begin to tell you how hard that was to say that 'out loud.'  All those old voices came up...  Who the hell are YOU?...What the hell makes you think anyone wants to see what YOU'VE photographed or written?...Have you not looked around the blogosphere?...Do you not understand that there are TONS more people out there more talented than you?...For god's sake, you don't even own an appropriate camera!...  You know, the whole angelic choir.  Cue the harp music...more like harpie music.  And the thought that someone might pay me for anything I create.  Let's not even go there...   But I will tell you this:  A couple of weeks ago, I said to myself--mind you, I didn't write it in a journal...I didn't post about it...I didn't even dare (yet) to write it on a slip of paper and put it in my God box--but I said to myself:  this year, I'd like to be paid for my photography.  And then the harpies got so loud that I had to quickly change the channel in my head.   So imagine how I gasped for a moment when I opened our mailbox yesterday to find sitting next to my Dad's cards, an envelope from Ploughshares Fund.  A couple of months ago, I got a Flickr mail from their Communications Director asking if they could use one of my photos in their annual report.  She said they would, of course, give me photo credit and that they could offer a small payment.  I just went back to look and that email arrived on Halloween.  I'd forgotten about it!  Sure enough, they used one of my candlelight photos (twice) of the Youth for Hope candlelight vigil in our downtown park on New Year's Eve 2006 (the one that Jeffrey and I helped to create)...and sent me a check...

Ploughshares Fund 2006-2007 Annual Report

Today's Daily Om email just arrived and it's appropriately titled, "Declaring Our Intentions."  :)

I've had photos used online (with my permission) a few times, but this is the first time I've been paid for the use of a photo.  And I can't tell you how happy it makes me that it's for an organization like the Ploughshares Fund and for a photo of a project that was so inspiring and for which I was so grateful to be a part of.  'Swords to ploughshares' is the idea of converting weapons over to peaceful applications.  And two things really struck me yesterday along those lines.  One is that we CAN make peace in this world if we want to.  We live in such fear-mongering times that it can be hard not to get sucked up into that vortex. And the second thing that really struck me is that peace begins at home.  And it's no accident that I put that "Choose peace" mantra on one side of my God box.  I had such a great day yesterday, and I truly believe it's because I started my day by making that gratitude list (in the previous post).   Compare that to the weird, off day I had on Monday where I started out the day by bitching and moaning about having to go back to work.  So I'm going to make a conscious effort to adopt an ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE this year.  As the no-complaints challenge has shown me, I spend way too much time complaining and not nearly enough being thankful.  So 10 things I'm grateful for on this 10th day of January...(I'm not going to post a gratitude list every day, but I just feel so blessed after that incredible day I had yesterday that I can't not do one today)...

1) declaring intentions and having them manifest
2) peace
3) photography
4) the enormous love that comes my way
5) more chocolate cake  ;)
6) the willingness to learn from my (sometimes embarrassingly obvious) mistakes
7) family
8) friends (all of you)
9) coffee gift cards (since we're out at home) ;)
10) and, yes, those holiday lights on the bookshelves 

from tree to bookshelves