Monday Mimisms ~ Moves Like Jagger

Mist forming on a lonely highway. The smell of fresh rain. On my way to pick up grandson #2 (aka Beans) I stopped for a quick drive-thru iced tea at one of my favorite places. The ice is crushed. The tea is perfect. I had plenty of time and I knew my boy would want french fries and ketchup on the side. Back on the highway, I leisurely drove into clouds and rain, sipping my tea. Along about the third curve towards town, torrents of heavy rain began to pitter patter beat on the windshield. Concentrate, Mimi, concentrate...It's just a little rain. Put down the tea....the tea. And then it happened. It was the ice, you see. Crushed. Perfect. Just like she wanted. My hands cupped the glass and I saw her hands...Mama

When we would go shopping on Saturdays, she loved to stop and get crushed ice with sweet tea. It made her happy.    "I miss my mama," cried my heart and then out loud in a storm-soaked vehicle, driving into rain, through rain, becoming rain Oh God, I miss my mama.  I was a complete unexpected mess. The  floodgates opened and would.not.stop, keeping time with the windshield wipers and mixing in the clouds. We were as different as pumpkins and peonies, but today I just wanted to have tea with her and talk about dress shops and flower beds. The sobs came out of nowhere, unlike the stoic resolve I manage to maintain on a usual day....and I could not make them stop. I haven't written much about her since she passed in 2019. Her death was sudden. The aftermath vile and wholly undignified. She didn't deserve the end she was dealt and it was more grief than I could process. 

Beans climbed in the car, eager to spend a week with me, with a what-is-wrong-with-you-Mimi look and why is your mascara running question. No answer. I was spent. Then something amazing and brilliant and fascinating happened.Because he's been permanently banned from cellphones (long sad story for another day oh.the.drama) he did the only thing a phone deprived pre-teen could do.He reached for the radio. "How does this work?" he asked.
Do you know how quickly tears can turn to laughter? I nearly spun into a ditch trying to teach him how to use the dials. And this boy, who always somehow knows just what I need when I need it, turned the volume up to sonic boom, rolled the windows down just for kicks and set the controls on automatic scan. Who taught him to increase the bass? THUMP THUMP through neighborhoods we cruised. I'm sure it could be heard at the International Space Station.    Every ten seconds or so, the music would change from rap to classical to gospel to inappropriate wordy rap (giggles) to talk radio to strings and usually back to very loud rap music. We put on very large rockstar sunglasses and changed our mood and facial expressions to match whatever played. It was hysterical...well...to us...and every neighborhood we passed through as well, including the squirrels and cows and birds trying to catch a glimpse into the runaway rogue mess of a gyrating car we were in.  Until...

Maroon 5 began to sing "Moves Like Jagger"... Stop! Stop it right there! Beans began to bounce. The car bounced. I bounced. My shoulders twitched from side-to-side. My toes tapped on the floorboard and his feet moved on the dashboard. I conducted with one hand (who conducts Mick Jagger?) and drove with the other.  We sang at the top of our lungs as he masterfully executed the washing machine dance in the passenger seat while I crazily snapped my fingers to the beat and banged my head around like a teenager on the sidelines at a Beatles concert. (Yes, I was still driving, my Bloggy People) The clouds were dancing. Mama was dancing. Tea was spilling. Love was flowing.

I forgot all about mascara on my face and why I was crying in the first place. We car danced all the way up the driveway until we stopped for one more look out the rolled-down windows to see how many woodsy creatures we could scare with the Rolling Stones.  I never had a dance partner so brilliant.


The sun came out and we were home. 

 "You just ruined my ears for eternity!" I told him. More laughter. More volume.

Then a loud crushing pain in my heart.

"Nothing is for eternity, my girl," Mama whispered.

 "Everything changes."

And so it does.

Images: Mimi Lenox and Wikimedia Creative Commons
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How to Grow a Nation ~ Election 2020

I wrote this in 2016 on the eve of the Presidential election. My thoughts that day are identical to the thoughts I'm having in 2020 about this election.  My, how some things never change. So, I'll say it again...

 How to Grow a Nation

Are you watching the Democratic National Convention? I'm obsessed with the whole political scene, even more than in 2008 when I wrote a post on the magnitude of electing the first African American President. It was snowing the day of the inauguration. I remember it well. I put on a white hat and gloves with a teal scarf around my neck and went for a walk, excited about the dawning of a new day for our country. 

Eight years later, things have turned downright bizarre. When the current President's own brother pledges to vote for the opposite party in the upcoming election and the Republican past presidents won't endorse the Republican nominee, you can sense how divided we have become. At this moment I am perfectly at peace with the fact that the "party" doesn't matter to me.  I am having my own party and asking myself these questions: Who is moral? Who is ready to lead? Who is experienced? Who would I trust with the the nuclear button? Who is simply a good person, an honest person? 

Who is the well-seasoned soul in the room? 

Even with all the rumblings of fear and displays of violence and uncertainty in the world, I know we'll be OK if we keep moving forward.  Positive progressive movement doesn't only apply to politics - it's vital for groundbreaking research, innovative manufacturing, idealist entrepreneurship, excellence in education, social and equality movements, foreign policy goals, and the conservation of our beautiful planet Earth.  

But how do we get there? Where is the standard?  How do we begin? 
You don't have to look very far for the answer. Change and evolution happens every single day in all our lives, mostly in the dynamic and hard work of personal human relationships.  It looks like grace when you don't deserve it and sounds like kindness when you didn't earn it. 

It walks like love just because love is love. 

It moves into something bigger. Something worthy of every stakeholder in the room.
 And it digs down deep into the walls of dirty dirt to bring up a new handful of roots you planted long long ago when nobody knew where love was headed. 

 Human interactions are the model for great nation building.

Because moving forward is just as organic to the sustainability of great relationships as it is to the forming of the world's finest models of peace and prosperity.  You can't have an unbreakable partnership without the desire to grow a deeper commitment to the one you love, a willingness to understand and forgive again, and a pot full of dirt. 
 Then you put in seedlings for birthing and expect them to grow.

You can't have a strong nation without fundamentally good and moral people willing to do the same.  

My life isn't perfect. 

Our world isn't either.

But I'll keep planting.

And digging.

And getting my hands dirty.

And tending my own garden.

Because when I find myself planting seeds in window-boxes in the silence of the hot southern sun or during a snowy inaugural walk, I feel a growing in my own soul. And a voice with the deepest strongest wisdom of all saying...

"Just plant, Mimi. Plant."

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A Thanksgiving Poem ~ When You're Not Really There

When You're Not Really There
The table is set  the guests to arrive sometime near the stroke of a warm pumpkin pie

The wishbone is saved for big wishes this year you pray that a miracle follows your tears
The chairs they are empty and you are hard-pressed to find something other than memories bless
For there was a time when love flowed like a wine and children ran laughing 'round a table so fine

For there will be years in holiday time when you are the furthest from everyone's mind
Sometimes the lonely you feel is a curse Would it be wise to set years in reverse?

So look once again at the feast you have made Can you thank God for ghosts or for guests overstayed?
If not, light a candle for wisdom and sight Be thankful you waded  through waters at night

For no one is thankful for farce and ill will No matter the turkey and gravy you spill
Was it love or long-suffering?   malice or spite? or did thanksgiving tables wrong every right?

Ban from your offerings the forces of dark! and faces that hover around on a lark There will be others to join you in time and no one will spoil what you offered in rhyme
Raise your goblet to past  and then drink it all gone! Pour another this moment  for just you alone
If what you are seeking brings turmoil and pain it's better to stand in your peace and refrain

For all in your life is not perfectly clad with sauces and sweetness and  loved ones of old Your freedom your peace is worth china and gold
Dishes are memories Gather your place Tables are palettes of love and of grace
Surrender the ghosts of remnants laid bare and move through in freedom you're not really there

A poem by Mimi Lenox Photo credit Mimi Lenox Follow Me

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#2 Change Your Climate ~ Stress Gotta Go

Changing My Climate #3 ~ Stress

Ain't nobody got time for this!

My internal peace is steady and strong, but if you looked inside my window you'd see great change and upheaval happening. It's my choice whether to see the mess as overwhelming and let it take my peace or flow with the transitions in my life and accept the lessons they bring. I won't give in to the mess. I won't let it steal my joy. I will choose to say...
My internal peace is steady and strong.

#Stress #Blog4Peace #HoldingOn #GoingThroughSomeThings #Real

Your turn!

I'm writing on stress this year, how it affects me, how it changes my environment, my body, my relationships, and what I can do to CHANGE my level of stress in order to have peace. I shall attempt to Change My Climate! which is this year's Blog4Peace theme. I am posting one thing each day up until NOV 4. I invite you to do the same. Grab this logo and post along with me.

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#1 Change Your Climate ~ Kindness

Blog4Peace ~ Changing My Climate #1

If you allow people to continue to mistake your kindness for weakness, 

it just make your weak.

Kindness becomes a vulnerability when your purest intentions no longer serve.  You feel the shift. At first you don't notice until what you thought was strength begins to make you weak.  I will not lose my strength. I will choose a better way to be kind. And the first recipient will be me.

Your turn! I'm writing on stress this year, how it affects me, how it changes my environment, my body, my relationships, and what I can do to CHANGE my level of stress in order to have peace. I shall attempt to Change My Climate! I will post one thing each day up until NOV 4. I invite you to do the same. Grab this logo and post along with me.

#stress #changeyourclimate #Blog4Peace #MimiLenox #NOV4 Follow Me

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Out on the River In Batman's Shoes

It seems like yesterday when I wrote the story of your birth. Six years later we're here at the river of peace. My river. My place. The soft sounds of birds and water mingling, crisp air and sunshine, the threat of rain and the quack of Mallards.  I sit and contemplate. Feeding ducks and watching sunsets. The rocks and water you love so much. And today, I am watching you climb. You are climbing  farther and farther away .....

"Don't go too far! Baby Beans!" I shout. "And don't run. Don't run on the rocks. Just walk slowly and watch your step. Careful. Slow and steady."

It's not so much the river I fear. It's those blasted beautiful chunks of granite beneath your little Batman shoes. I'm not out there with you. Just watching from my own safe rocky seat, perched with a camera, a banana, a water bottle that keeps rolling away, and the eagle eye of a grandmother who knows all too well the lightning speed of time, how it steals the years before you know it, slips from your grasp...and suddenly, you're sitting in a nice safe river space watching your own baby beans jump from rock to rock, adventure to adventure. "I wanna go THIS way, Mimi, Look at MEeeeee!" and each time I say, "Careful my boy. Slow and steady. Watch your step. Slow down."
We'll come back tomorrow, I think to myself....we'll have another day. More time. Except. Maybe we won't. 
Strangely, I feel that time for me is slowing down to a nice slow anticipated finale, which will unexpectedly crescendo into new adventures. Perhaps my mood is based on the smell of algae at my feet.  Life pushed me here ya know. In a hurry. Work to do. Bills to pay. One hundred things to do each day for the last twenty years in the name of surviving... just so I can get to this riverbank day, and a few short months from the promising world of retirement, also known as Phase 3 in the Life of Mimi. I used to bring your older brother to this same river.  We had marvelous days of exploring and side-quacked moments. I miss him here with us today, but feel him alongside us nonetheless. Baby Beans jumps and I hear a splash. One shoe drops in the water. It's time for a water rescue. Oh!! Never mind, he's got this. "Slow down, my boy. Be careful...." The words unheeded by the boy reverberate back in waves down the river, flowing in reverse to me like an echo, lapping in wisdom at my tennis-shoes now wet with worry and visions of a swiftly changing world just down the road of my crazy life swirl in my head like the rings of ripples caused by the skipping of rocks thrown gingerly in the water by the hand of the boy you see standing firmly in a red shirt and fearless face. Words. Words you see, always flow back to the one who sent them.  I know that I must heed my own words.
"Slow down.  Be careful. Don't run. Choose carefully. Don't run. Watch what you're doing, Mimi. Slow and steady."
I'm reminded that each day is important, not just the finish line.  I'm skipping from rock to rock too. Carefully choosing which way to go. Will I fall? Will I lose my shoe in the river like you did? Who will be there to fetch it out for me? Will I be strong enough to dive in and gather it myself? We come in from the bank and start to climb up the small cliff towards home. You see me tentatively sizing up a large rock in front of me, considering how to get down to the other side without falling. Without a word you hold out your little hand.  "I need to help my Mimi," you say to yourself, but loud enough for my heart to skip a beat at the goodness in you. "Here. Hold my hand." I take your ball-throwing fingertips in the age-spotted curl of my hand and you squeeze my hand so tightly.  "Now jump!" you tell me, "Jump!" With all that could go wrong with this plan of yours - the dirty rocks below, sharp edges and visions of  a skinned-up me,  I do not hesitate. You get me over the crevasse in one piece and we walk on. I can see, in the flash of two lifetimes - mine and yours - how some things are just a matter of holding on, trusting the hand in front of you, and taking a leap of miniscule faith.    I think today I shall stop calling you Baby Beans. Your hands and your heart are strong.  You're going to be just fine. And so am I.

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