Post-It Love

Post-It Love from Kreatif360 on Vimeo.

The Story of Lille

A Life of My Own Choosing

Its 1978. I am seven. My mother is thirty-six. She sits with friends at a luncheon.

“Kids these days. Watching Starsky and Hutch, Hawaii Five-O, nothing like what we grew up with, that’s for sure.” Eleanor was a worrier. Still is.

“I don’t worry about Brynne.” said my sweet mother.

“No?” Susan managed to say while swallowing a swig of coffee laced with whipped cream, her upper lip a frothy white.

Mom shakes her head, hoping someone will interrupt and free her from having to reveal what she certainly didn’t intend on sharing. Life was like that sometimes. You tell yourself not to mention your host’s ugly furniture and sure enough, it pops up and in your face like toast from the broken toaster.

“Whatever do you mean, Christie?”

Mom smiled uncomfortably. “Oh, about Brynne? Nothing really. Just that she doesn’t watch much television.”

“But when she does, Darling…?”

Mom decided to come out and say it. “She likes the Price is Right and The Lawrence Welk Show,” her eyes staring into her tea cup.

No one said a thing for a few seconds and then…

“You mean the game show?” said Carol, trying to mask her surprise.

“And that old lady show with the dancing and bubbles?” Another giggle.

Mom nodded. “She loves it. Don’t ask me why, but she does.”

And after a few fake laughs, that was that. I had officially embarrassed my mother.

“Who left me an inch of orange juice?” my father bellowed through the house, leaving me terrified that I somehow, in the middle of the night, did what I always feared I would do. Was it me? Did I forget and drink his orange juice? I started to tremble before mom explained she had given it to my younger brother late last night and forgot to make more. I went back to eating my boiled egg, the butter still warm on my spoon, my heart beating faster than a white rabbit’s.

When you want to learn to ride a bike, to hit a baseball, to drive a car or eat with chopsticks, you have to focus. You have to practice. You have to want to grow yourself in that particular direction and to do it determinedly so. Even as a child, I was determined to have a love-rich life filled with laughter, joy, wonder, even magic. I had my hurdles as we all do, but reading, writing stories, hunting for leprechauns and yes, watching the Price is Right and The Lawrence Welk Show is where I chose to focus my attention.

Have you ever watched the Price is Right? To this day I get tears when I see the joy on the contestants faces. They are filled with hope, with the silly joy of unbridled happiness. As a child, I remember wanting to feel what they felt. I wanted to have that happiness inside me every day. So I watched. And laughed. And watched some more. And delighted in other’s joy that soon became my own.

Then there was the Lawrence Welk Show—the music, the bubbles, the dresses, the smiles, the way every person on that show seemed to set aside their difficulties, deciding, even just for a few minutes, to focus on joy. It gave me a kind of distilled hope that I could do that, too. I didn’t want to escape my reality but I did want to create a container to house what I wanted out of life and to go there whenever I needed to. When my mother was embarrassed or my father was angry, I wanted a bubble of hope to help me soothe the blow, to remind me that nothing is as bad as we think it is and that if we look yonder over that hill, we will always discover what we believed we would….what we focus on.

As a child I wanted a love-rich life filled with laughter, joy, wonder, and even magic. I still do. So guess what? That is exactly what I have.

You can do anything

When was the last time you challenged yourSelf to see things differently?

Ride the Wave

It was raining. Pounding down on the cobblestone roads with excited fierceness. Soon the road was a river too high to pass without drowning my shoes. So I stopped inside a doorway and watched. Cars raced by parting the seas like Moses. Dogs hurried from door to door. My rain splattered clothes started to seep water onto my shivering skin.

And then, from out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving in the distance. It came closer and closer, riding the tiny waves, whimsical in its movements, making me smile even before I knew what it was. First its flag, then I saw the rest…it was a boat! A newspaper boat! And it was riding the new river through town, its little flag flapping in the wind, its happy little mood taking the sting out of an otherwise dreary moment.

How did I forget about newspaper boats on rainy days? I mustn’t forget to teach my daughter. I mustn't forget to remind myself. Ride the wave, Brynne, ride the wave.

Little bit Crazy and a lot Silly

Yesterday at my favorite café I sat writing. Writing and sipping my new special drink. (You can fill in the blank to whatever your favorite is) So there I was, writing and sipping, enjoying my morning, when a man came and sat in the squishy chair across from me. We smiled. Or maybe it was just me that did. I think he did back. He was tight. I like to smile at tight hearts.

A little while later when I assume his coffee had filled his bladder, he piled his newspaper onto his ipad and shot off like a rocket for the bathroom. He didn’t say a word to me. Just left.

A few minutes later he returned, plopping down in his squishy chair once again. He snuck his ipad out from under his newspaper and started working again.

Well, of course I couldn’t just let the opportunity slip away. It beckoned me. I practically felt the giggles deep in the base of my belly germinating, waiting for the invitation to be released. So I burst. With a silly idea.

“When you were gone,” I said with the most serious look I could muster, “a big burly man came and grabbed your computer. He started to run away but luckily I have been lifting weights so I was able to throw him to the ground when I caught up with him. And see this,” I said pointing to a place on the side of my face, “he did this. Hit me pretty hard. Bet it will be a nice bruise in a few minutes. But at least he didn’t get away with it. I would have felt terrible if you came back and your computer was stolen. Not on my clock.” I said, shaking my head.

The whole time I was telling my elaborate story he just stared. Sat and stared. Like I was a nuts-o, middle aged woman gone mad. His eyes got bigger at moments, then tried to look away, but couldn’t for more than a second. He was trapped. He sat himself next to a wild woman and didn’t know how to get away. Couldn't, not fast enough.

“Ah, thanks,” he said. “he, he…” he said faking laughter. “Funny.” His sarcasm stunk.

“Just wanted you to know I’m your friend,” I said, smiling. But his eyes were long gone, buried in his newspaper as deep as he could possibly go.

So I left it alone, trying to keep my giggles to myself but unable to stop asking myself questions: What came over me? Was I cruel? Trying to lighten up this man’s heavy life? Or was I just a little bit crazy and even more silly? Gosh, Brynne. Ding dong. And then I kept giggling. For what seemed like ages. To myself.

About an hour or so later, Mister Uptight packs up his things and starts to leave. Before I can say goodbye, yep, that’s right, before I can say goodbye, guess what happens? He wishes me a good day and says he will see me next time with a great big genuine smile wiped across his face.

“Wow...thanks! Bye!” I said right back, my eyes sparkling as bright as the sun.

Maybe being a little bit crazy and a lot more silly isn’t such a bad thing after all.:)

Flutter, Flutter....

Summer is nearing an end. The weather's beginning to move closer to cold, there's a whisper in the air. What does it say... to you? Does it tell you to begin something new? Or to dream bigger, that life is ticking by? Maybe its inviting you to explore, to travel, to experience the freshness just beyond. Over there. Or maybe the whisper is telling you to slow down, that it has still more to say.

'What in your life is calling you? When all the noise is silenced,

the meetings adjourned, the lists laid aside...what still pulls on your soul?'

--Terma Collective, "The Box"

I dare you to listen. Harder and longer than you ever have. And then I dare you not to smile. The magic has always been right here. Inside you. Waiting for you to give it wings.

Keren Ann - Lay Your Head Down

What Message Will You Ask For Today?

I was walking on the beach, alone, in a small fishing village on Mexico’s Pacific coast. A friendly couple, one I had seen numerous times in town and found to be particularly kind in the way they smiled at me, walked toward me, holding hands. As we neared, my heart started to beat faster. Why do I keep running into them, I said to myself, might they have a message for me? As they neared, my anxiety grew, my heart now practically yelling at me to speak to them. “Excuse me,” I said gently, “I keep running into you and I can’t help but wonder why. There are many people here and still its just you two I seem to keep finding on my path. It might sound silly to you, but might you have a message for me?”

“A message?” the man said. “Gosh, let me think. No, I don’t think we do. Do we have a message for this young woman, dear? Oh, yes…wait…yes, we do. Remember that other young woman we ran into a few months ago?”

“Yes…yes…I do.” She said to her husband. “Yes, that’s the message we have for her, you’re right.”

“We met a young woman a while ago who lived her whole life in the States. As the years went by she realized she was disenchanted with her life, nothing inspired her anymore, nothing except a dream she had to move to Mexico. So, one day, she packed up her bags, and left everything behind to follow her dream.”

“Except her dog, honey. She took her dog.”

“Oh yes, she took her dog. And she told us she has never been happier, that she wished she had done it earlier so not to waste even a single moment living anything but her dream.”

“Wow,” I said, dumbfounded, my brain in hiding, my heart still beating wildly.

“That’s our message to you,” he said with a smile, “I hope it helps you somehow.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Yes, I am sure it will.” And it did. Because I honored my deepest Self, the catalyst inviting the all-knowing energy to flow through me, because I listened to my heart, I didn’t miss a valuable message, a bright light illuminating my heretofore unknown path, the net that lay right before my eyes. I had always dreamed of living in Mexico and here was a message telling me that was just what I was meant to do. So….less than a year later, not knowing a single soul, not speaking the language, not even having a job lined up, I left behind my ‘normal’ life and set out to live my dream in rural Mexico.