Barbara's Creative Projects
Saturday, March 28 was the 51st Elmira Maple Syrup Festival; 68,000 people descended on the town. Amongst them were four very special people from East Wenatchee, Washington – Andrew, Tamara, Kiya and Sawyer. A very special treat indeed!
Thanks, Elinor, for sharing these pictures.
I came across this video this morning (as I don’t have a TV I don’t see commercials in the usual way):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXTZbv4fums
Turning 60 last November was very strange for me. I don’t feel 60 — what should it feel like? I think I don’t look 60 — or what my imagination says 60 should look like. Where do those images come from? And how does one change them?
Like so many women I struggle with body image. Going to the swimming pool with my daughter and grandkids while in California, I had to change into a bathing suit in a semi-public area, then walk from the change rooms to the pool (once in the pool I didn’t care anymore about the scars or cellulite or the way my belly sticks out or my boobs don’t) I do it fighting an unwanted sense of shame.
I watch my granddaughter, at age 5, completely unaware that there is any reason to feel badly about her body. I see my daughter who wears a bikini even if, after two babies, her belly is no longer flat. I am so glad that I have not passed on to her all of my traits!
One older woman dressing after a swim complimented my long skirt. She commented that at the athletic club you frequently see the same people wearing very little, and then you see them somewhere else, dressed, and they look familiar but it takes some minutes to figure out who they are.
Another woman about my daughter’s age had forgotten her towels. She walked around the shower/change rooms, drying herself and her little girl with several washcloths without any embarrassment or self-consciousness. How I envied her.
When my Beloved Man tells me that I am beautiful, that I have a beautiful body, I rejoice that as we age our eyesight diminishes. Ha! I accept his compliments with joy, but I don’t really believe him now any more than I believed Volker 40 years ago? Why?
Truly, I am grateful that, thanks to good genetics and a healthy lifestyle, I have a strong healthy body, that I can freely move through each day, play with my grandkids, make love with joy and so much more.
I resolve to keep on giving my body good food, plenty of exercise and loving care so that I can keep on feeling young. I will likely continue to feel that sense of shame about my body, but I will not live there. I will feel it, but not own it. I am beautiful, whatever my age!
This morning I took a walk around the neighbourhood of Sky Park, in Scotts Valley. I took a lot of pictures of flowers — having left the cold and snow behind in Ontario, my heart enjoys the beauty of the flowers blooming here. There was a light rain during the night, something California desperately needs.
I wonder what my Amish grandparents would think of my Catholic ways?
For several years now I have listened to the Jesuits’ Pray-as-you-go podcasts on a daily basis, usually part of my bedtime routine. As well, I have started reading through the Carmelite’s Lectio Divina every morning with my first cup of coffee.
Growing up I never heard of “Seasons of the Church,” or Advent or Lent, yet now they are celebrated in our worship.
This week I decided to make a set of “Anglican Prayer Beads” (what’s the difference between a rosary and Anglican Prayer beads, I wonder). I’m not sure I will follow any formulaic pattern for my prayers — that just isn’t how I have talked with God all my life. But the idea of having something in my hands when I pray, if it is just to give each bead a person’s name, or to give a thanksgiving to each of the beads in one “week”, a petition to each bead in another or some other pattern, I look forward to finding a way to deepen my relationship with God through yet another Catholic practice.