Tag: women who think too much

I Am Sixty-Five, Thank you Jesus

August 11, 2018
Thank you Jesus, for allowing me to live to the age of sixty-five, a blessing that many never receive and for helping me to learn to live with the wrinkles.
Thank you for forty-two years of sobriety with only one night of insane drinking.
Thank you for the man in my life who has loved me with his entire heart. He loves me on my best days and even harder on my worst days.
Thank you for my daughter’s life, her sobriety, her sweet, forgiving, beautiful heart and the love that she showers on me. Thank you for the beauty that she sees in me.
Thank you for my four children, fifteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, my sisters, my family and my few, true friends.
Thank you for one beautiful house after another all the way up to fifteen, for the many moves you’ve allowed us to make safely and for all the wonderful places we’ve been able to explore.
Thank you that I can still walk when all my x-rays declare that I shouldn’t be able to get out of bed.
Thank you for the awesome gifts you tucked into my heart when you formed me, the ability to play with words and the creative ideas that flow through me.
Thank you for all the pretty clothes in my closet and all the books on my shelves.
Thank you for the successful surgery that allows me wear normal shoes for the first time in almost twenty years, and for my pink boots that I picked out as a birthday present.
Thank you for the music that blesses my life.
Thank you for the church that you led my body to because as you know, it blesses my spirit, even though it was 1800 miles away from my house at the time.
Thank you for every breath that I take and for every day I wake to find another chance. Amen.

The Table & Chairs

 

My old table and chairs have been freshly painted and they’re adorable, but that’s not all there is to it.

They have traveled a long, rough road to land pretty on my front porch.

I’ll start with when I first remember seeing them in my mom’s living room. They were brand-new, white.

I was thirty-something with three young kids and my sister, seven years younger, had four young kids.

My mom had a small basement apartment underneath my aunt’s house, but she had one closet full of blankets and pillows that we would use when we slept over. We would just spread them all over the tiny living room and it would be wall-to-wall kids.

Mom never cared how small her place was, she always had room for all of us.

We would cook huge Sunday dinners in her little kitchen, and then we would all stand there together doing the dishes.

In the evening, after the kids would settle down, my sister would put a table-cloth on the little table and a candle. She would say we were in a French bistro.

Then she would ask me to read some of my poems, which I always just happened to have with me.

For an hour so, we would all be transported to a little café in France and I was the entertainer.

My mom was my first reader and fan, but they were all my very first audience and their love for my writing carried me on waves of encouragement.

I didn’t find out until many years later that my sister also wrote poetry, and I was stunned when I read it because it was so much better than mine. She always gave me the spotlight.

My mom passed away in 2009, and I don’t know when my older sister acquired the table, but she graciously gave it to me when I asked her for it last spring. She also gave me the round cushions.

The little set traveled eighteen hundred miles with me to my new home.

My husband spent days painting it and repairing the metal binding around the table. Butterflies surrounded him as he worked, even landing on his hands.

I scrubbed it down before it was painted and butterflies were landing all over it then too.

My mom is a butterfly, so I believe the restoration made her happy.

Now that it’s finished, just looking at it makes me smile, overcome by the flood of memories it invokes.

I had my coffee at it this morning and as butterflies flitted by, I could feel my family, young and unscathed by the heartaches yet to come, unburned by the tragedies and the pain we would all go on to experience.

Those were innocent days. I just didn’t know. I am thrilled to have the table to remind me.

 

Waves

 

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Enjoy the waves of peace and happiness while you are riding high.
Soak up the sun and the sweetness so you will be strong when the waves crash down, because they will crash down.
Always have faith and believe that although the waves cannot last, they will rise again…
Waves will lift you up above your brokenness over and over.
That is what waves do.

It’s The Memories

We start out with nothing and we pick up a lot of things along the way. Some of the things are important and some of them are not.
Some of those things bring us joy and some of them bring us down. Some of them actually hinder us and so many hurt us.
Today, I sit here wondering, where are the letters I wrote to you when you were a baby?
In our crazy lives, we have moved so many times and lost so many material things, and I wonder, are baby letters material things or are they heart things?
I always tell you that you are my sunshine and the first time I told you that you were two years old.
I sat down that night and I wrote you a letter so that you would always know, no matter where you went, if we were together or apart, that you were a ray of sunshine in my life.
Since then, we’ve put a lot of miles on our boxes and our possessions.
We have traveled to different states, to different apartments and lived in dozens of houses.
A lot of memory boxes have been lost along the way.
I spent a moment regretting those losses, wishing I still had your baby book and your brother’s Hot Wheels and Lego’s and your hippie christening dress, but then I remember that most importantly, I still have you and your brother, and all the moments I spent with your sister.
I own my memories and I don’t need to carry around all the boxes.
Even knowing that, I still have way too many boxes because every time I lose a memory box, I hold on tighter to stuff.
I think today I need to clean out some of the boxes and lighten my load because in the end we come with nothing and we leave with nothing.
It’s all the people we love in between our beginnings and our endings that matter and the things we carry around are not important.
The best things can’t be packed up in a box…the memories, the love and the moments.
The boxes are just stuff that can be lost.
We own our precious memories, the moments and the love already received, because those things are safe, packed in our hearts and in our minds.

Spirit Whispers 2

Spirit Whispers

Do not look at the things that you can see and touch. Do not look at your problems, do not look at the things that are blocking your way from what you call happiness.

Look at me, just look at me and you will walk toward the plans I have for you.

Just look at me and you will feel a calming peace flow through your veins.

Just trust me, my child and my plans will unfold before you.

Walk in faith for I am with you. I am always with you. Nothing that happens in your life can overcome the plans I have for you. Just take the next right step in faith.

Trust me.

His beauty surrounds us…

Spirit Whispers 1

Spirit Whispers
You are loved, you are so loved, you are loved beyond measure.
Love is all around you. Just shut your eyes for a moment and open your heart to receive.
It is in the air you breathe, the wind that cools your skin, the rain that falls on your face, the moon shining in your bedroom window as you sleep, the stars watching over you, the earth beneath your feet, the flowers I created just to see you smile, the ocean, the lakes and the life giving waters that flow at the touch of a faucet.
Man routed the water, but I created it for you because I love you.
You are loved by the birds singing good morning to you, you are loved by the butterfly that flies by your shoulder.
I created it all just to remind you how much you are loved.
You are precious, you are precious to me child and you are loved with every breath you take.
I remind you…you are loved…you are loved.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had Thanksgiving dinner last night (August 20) and I baked a birthday cake for me, but nobody would sing happy birthday because my birthday was two weeks ago.
Here’s how it happened. I don’t usually do the grocery shopping, but I was at the store to pick up a few things, and as I walked by the frozen aisle, I saw turkey breast on sale.
I don’t know how you shop, but sales definitely influence my purchases.
I started fishing around in the bin and found an 8-pounder.
As soon as the turkey was in my shopping carriage, my mind started racing ahead to stuffing, potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce.
I started to feel excited, just like it was the real holiday and I thought why not?
Who says you can’t have Thanksgiving anytime you want?
Especially since I have a lot to be grateful for and so does my family.
My husband was flying back from visiting his mom in two days, so I set the turkey in the refrigerator to defrost.
I told him I was cooking him a special dinner and since he can usually read my mind, I told him to guess what it was, but he missed on this one.
When I invited my daughter and her son over for dinner, I told her we were having Thanksgiving dinner and she said, “Okay Mom.”
By the tone of her voice, I know she was wondering if I had taken my Cymbalta this week.
It wasn’t until the turkey breast was defrosted and in the pan that I realized it had legs and wings and it was actually a mini turkey, which turned out to be awesome because I found out at dinner that the only part of the turkey my grandson Jonas eats is the legs and the dark meat!
We forgot to take pictures, rare for me, but my grandson Jonas said grace for us and everything was delicious.
After dinner, I served my Swiss Chocolate cake with Butter Pecan frosting, even though I didn’t get an extra birthday song.
This morning I opened a sweet text from my daughter.
“I ate stuffin in the middle of the night mum, thank u for being u.”
Hey, if you want Thanksgiving dinner in August, cook it.
Plus, it was a great chance to see if I could still cook a big dinner!
Life flies by and tomorrow is not promised.
We’re having Christmas dinner next week.

Settling In

June 2

We are moved into the new house. Beds are setup and bathroom stuff, not much else. We are all about as tired as Miss Kita…
I totally love the house. The hardest part is over. It’s all fun from here, decorating, rearranging and settling in. Amen and thank you Jesus for such a beautiful home and thank you to my honey for finding it…

Arrived In Oklahoma

June 1, 1:07 P.M.

I woke up this morning knowing that I could run over to my daughter’s and have a cup of coffee. It was the most incredible feeling in the world. Like waking up on Christmas morning.
So, that is what I did and then we went to Wal-Mart and I bought a gorgeous, pink hibiscus and a couple of plants that she picked out. We also bought three quirky, pineapple glasses for the kids.
When I got back to the travel trailer, I got out my new bag of organic dirt and my plants and I gave them all some love and some water.
I re-potted a few and I replanted Jodie’s for her in cute little pots from my house in New Hampshire.
It was probably 90° and I just loved the healing heat on my skin. It made my aching bones feel loved.
I have been so tired of being cold, even in the summer, and I am loving the heat and the constant sunshine.
When I was done, I went inside and cleaned my little, temporary home.
After that, I took a long, cool shower, did my hair and laid on the bed with my puppies, doing Facebook and looking at WordPress.
I should have been looking at Facebook and doing WordPress, but oh well!
After few hours, I decided to take a nap and I fell asleep feeling blessed. I woke to my daughter texting me, saying, “come outside,” so I did!
She lights up my world and it was so unbelievable to have her outside my door on a whim.
Her friend Kelli, whom I love, was with her and they came in and sat down for a while.
Kelli said she loved my little home and as I looked around, I realized; I had made it a home, even if it was just for a few days. I had put homey touches all through the tiny rooms because today is only the day we have, and I knew that for a few todays, I would be living here.
We visited and when they were leaving, I told my daughter that she lit up my day by dropping by unexpected and I meant it with my whole heart.
Now, my honey is on his way from spending the day with his brother and he is bringing me and the dogs chicken for supper.
It has been a perfect day of physical rest and spiritual rejuvenation. I am grounded. I am home. I am healing.
Tomorrow at noon, we sign the papers on our new home and the hard work starts again, but I’m going to take it slowly, one piece at a time.
All the boxes are going in one bedroom and I’ll deal with them little by little.
God has blessed me so richly that I am overwhelmed and I thank him for this day and for all the wonders that I know he has in store for me with each day that he wakes me.
I wasn’t sure if I’d done the right thing pulling up my roots once more and traipsing across the country in a bouncy RV with everything I owned in a U-Haul behind me, but I knew when my daughter showed up at my door that my world was right and as usual God had led me in the right direction.
My grandson Jonas called me and thanked me for his new glass.
Then, Jodie called me and she told me that the kids said that their drinks tasted sweeter when they were drinking them out of a pineapple glass.
LOL
Amen.
And thank you, Jesus.

Adventures in Moving

 

May 25, 11:55 a.m.

I’m bouncing around in a travel trailer holding two dogs!

Now I’ll see how good I really packed it. We drove away with the storage (under the bunk bed) door open. You know, the place I stuck my writing files and picture boxes so they’d be safe. First, I panicked.

My honey said I was overreacting when I asked him if any of my boxes had fallen out. No, he didn’t go back to check. He told me my negative attitude was going to ruin the trip. BOOM! Then, I prayed and sang, “LET It Go.”

At least I’m writing.

PS Nothing was lost!

Notes From Moving


My little momma, throwing it together, beautifully as always, even moving a whole house. Super excited Jeanne Marie! I’m blessed beyond measure to have u moving closer. All the healing n growing we’ve done in past few years has filled a void I can never describe. It gives me hope of sharing myself with my own babies one day. Thank u for being my mum n my friend, love u always. Jodie Lynne

I’m so blessed to have you in my life as my daughter and as my friend and I love you to the end of the earth and back. Thank you for always loving me and for building me up…I can’t wait to have coffee with you anytime we want. I love you, Mum

Moving Again

So we’re moving again. This next house will be the 15th house we have bought and hopefully the last; although I wouldn’t count on it.
We’ve also rented at least six apartments. I have painted and wallpapered each place we’ve lived in and I’ve also left behind beautiful gardens, even at the apartments.
I don’t know if I have Gypsy blood, but I’m pretty sure I do.
We have lived in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,  Oklahoma, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida and New Hampshire and are now in the process of moving back to Oklahoma. I guess Oklahoma wins as the favorite.
I started packing the day we sold the house, which was over two months ago, and I am just finishing up tonight, one day before we load the moving truck.
I started packing early because I didn’t want to cut it close, but that didn’t work out too well. I think we have too much stuff!
It’s 11 p.m. and I just sat down for the first time since 10:00 this morning. Unless you count the ladies room.
My daughter Jodie is flying in today with her friend Kelli to drive my car back to Oklahoma and my husband is on his way home from the airport with them right now.
I ache from head to toe and I’m exhausted. I really think I am getting too old to keep moving. If only I could just convince my head that my body doesn’t like this packing thing.
I don’t even want to think about the unpacking thing and maybe I won’t even do it. Maybe I’ll just put all the boxes in one of the spare bedrooms and let them stay there.
Maybe I’ll just sit around and write when we get there.
By the way, I’m writing a book called 15 Houses.
I’ll let you know if I ever finish it.

The Princess

The Princess was sitting in her castle and she swore no man would she let woo.

She turned them all away as she said, no, not you, not you, not you, to myself I will be true.

She danced with her butterflies, she twirled in her flower gardens like when she was two.

She whispered to her flowers, confessing, I love you and you and you.

So happy was this woman that she vowed never to wed and then a Knight in dazzling armor appeared at the castle gates, the sun shining on his head.

She was blinded by his beauty, aura like spun gold and this one Knight she invited to her bed, visions of together growing old.

Prince Charming was his name and wow, that man tickled her fancy with his soft kiss and even if he just walked by, she would stumble and a step she would miss.

Well, we all know about no such thing as happy endings and soon the Princess gave up her other loves, like her writing.

She was busy twisting and turning and bending to keep the Prince happy, looking in her mirror-mirror and often sitting there silently for hours.

The Prince started kissing her less and less often and his voice for her…he no longer softened.

Many nights she cried herself to sleep, under so many full moons…she would weep and weep and weep.

Many moons later, she came to her senses, had the guards toss the Prince out and around her old gardens she built stronger fences.

This is a true story and you know it’s true, because I was the Princess and you, you were the Knight I gave my heart too.

Silly Princess, Stupid Boy, hard lessons, me and you.

Easy…

Hope is

The Farm-House

 

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I dreamed of the farm-house again last night.
When I saw the numbers match the numbers on the ticket in my hand at the end of the 10:00 o’clock news, when I learned that I’d won the lottery, before I even had the money in my hand, before I took the tiny slip of paper to the Lotto office to be sure it was really the single winning ticket for the $90 million dollar jackpot, I threw my cigarettes, a tooth-brush and my Master Card into my purse. I ran out to the driveway, tore open the door of my blindingly yellow Dodge Hemi truck, turned the key, felt the thunder as the engine roared to life and I flew out of the driveway.
I sped to the Tulsa airport, disregarding the speed limit because I was rich now. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t thinking that money made me above the law, but I could definitely afford to pay a speeding ticket.
I parked the truck in the long-term parking lot, ran inside the terminal to the first counter I saw and walked away with a ticket for American Airlines Flight 144 to Boston.
After a take-forever walk through security, I raced down the chintzy red carpet, catching the flight attendant’s attention just before he shut the door.
I was going home. My husband always told me that it wasn’t home anymore, that home was where we lived, in our 1986 trailer home set on two acres of Heaven in Owasso, Oklahoma.
I always said, “You’re right, honey.”
But he wasn’t.
As the many plaques will tell you, home is where your heart is and I had left mine on the cold, wet sand of Plum Island, nesting in the sand dunes I had crawled on before I could walk and then when I was older, I’d left more of me on the hot, sandy beaches of Hampton and Salisbury.
The last pieces I can remember seeing were hidden in the tunnels behind the walls of the farm-house, the tunnels where I had stashed my baby sister, playing quietly with her on the dusty floor so dad wouldn’t find us or hiding with Mom when the bill collectors pounded on our door.
When the wheels came down as we flew over the water of Revere Beach, I held my breath. I didn’t breathe again until the plane’s wheels touched the runway.
As the familiar seat belt ding sounded, everyone rushed to their feet.
I grabbed my purse and I pushed along with the crowd of people who also wanted off the plane, now.
I headed straight for the Avis counter and rented a luxury car with no idea of where I wanted to go or why I had flown eighteen hundred miles on the very day the lottery had blessed (or cursed) my life. All I knew for sure was that I was going to kidnap my Mom out of the nursing home and she was coming with me for one wild ride.
The car almost drove it self as I left the Avis parking lot. I think that the auto pilot of my soul was driving.
I sped along Route 93 with my feet driving and my heart dancing.
Suddenly, I knew where I was going! My urges were taking me back to the farm-house on High Street, to the house that my dad had bought for $8,000.00 only to give it back to the bank several years later.
So many times, I had dreamed of that familiar front door opening to me.
The present owner would throw open the solid white, wooden door with red trim, welcoming me home. The dream varied, probably depending on what I ate before I fell asleep.
Sometimes a woman, sometimes a man, but the answer-er always allowed me to wander down the hallowed halls of my dysfunctional, childhood home. Well, one of many, but the first real house with running water, walls, doors and a roof the rain didn’t ping off.
The farm-house that I’d been forced to leave behind when I was still a young girl.
In my memories, the curtains that my mom had sewn on her push pedal Singer sewing machine still hung in the living room windows.
I remembered the day she’d made them. I remembered the scent of the hot, damp cotton as she’d ironed each panel and hung it. I remembered the look of pride on her face as she stood back and smiled at what she had created.
I’d left a shard of me behind when I’d left that farm-house while taking a fragment from the walls. A sharp; yet, comforting splinter and it was still tucked away safely inside my heart’s vault.
A splinter that led me home, if only in my dreams, over and over.
Somehow the wood and the mortar had become entwined with my soul, an intrinsic puzzle I could not solve.
Finally, I could buy that now declared historic house, no matter the cost.
Panic pulsed through my veins and I asked myself, what am I doing?
Did I think that I could move back to the farm-house and did I think that I could start my life over again?
I guess so because I had dreams when my mind went back there, so I figured my body could too.
If I went back to there, could I go back to then and start my life over and change my now?
Could I hide in the secret tunnels and let time remove the stains and the hurts I had gathered in the years since I had left?
These were the questions searing my brain as I drove toward Billerica, doing forty miles over the speed limit.
I had to buy the house before I went to get Mom.
Money could bring my mom back to her house, the house she’d lost so long ago.
I dreamed of the farm-house again last night.

 

Full Moon Rises

Soul wanders
through the darkness
searching for your light.
It floats blind and lost
searching behind
the  stars each night.
Heat remembered
frustrates and
fuels the fire.
Full moon rises
sparking rebellion,
tears and desire.
I want! I want!
soul screams out
to the empty night.
Its over. It’s over.
Must be accepted
by each daylight.

Someone Like You

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I didn’t know
I could be broken
until I was shattered.
I thought I was stronger
and it wouldn’t matter
after all I’d been through.
I just wasn’t counting on
being destroyed by love
I just wasn’t counting on
someone like you.

Moments

Happy Day

I Can

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I can bring the rain when there is a drought.

I can change the color of the clouds

using the sun to turn them inside out.

I can change the leaves on an orange tree

turn them to red in shades of fifty-three.

But, I can’t make you love me.

Wordless Wednesday

I Am Glass

I am glass and I am broken.
I am damaged.
Stay back
because
my sharp edges
will cut you
and my pain
will slice you.
My insanity will crush you
as my love chokes you.
I am glass and I am broken.

Love is…

 

 

My daughter sent me a picture of a rainbow and I told her it was awesome, that I love rainbows.
She said, “You silly gurl, you are a rainbow.”