I am honored to have been invited back again for another month at Karen Wallace’s lovely The Calm Space. I hope you will please come join me there today as I share about me and happiness and our own little game of chase.
See you there!
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Photo Credit Jeff-o-matic
“Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself.” ~Charles DickensIt has been an amazing week for me as a new blogger. And it began with no fanfare at all — a lazy post promising things to come and the gentle hope of another good week of learning. But Tuesday saw me sharing the journey with Janice Hunter, a real treat for me and a treat for her readers, as well. New guests started knocking on the door, and I found that I didn’t have time to click the stats key quite so much. And then things gained even more momentum: Barbara Swafford at Blogging Without a Blog shocked the pajama-bottoms off me with her good morning surprise — I was featured blogger of the week! I think I still have the tell-tale coat-hanger wrinkles around my mouth from all the smiling I did that day.
With all of this lovely new publicity (plus a dandy little thing called Twitter), I’ve had a lot of new faces popping by to say “Hi” and have a slice of the metaphorical coffee cake. And you have such kind things to say about my “home.” So many kind words, so much encouragement, in fact that I feel I should proclaim now, “But no, I’m not the best housekeeper. Don’t open that closet!”
You’ve all seen the movies where frazzled hostess frenzyingly cleans before guests arrive by stashing anything and everything under beds, in drawers, in the closets, behind the sofa cushions. I am that frazzled hostess, sure that at any moment one of you is going to lift up the proverbial pillow and say, “Hey, wait. Don’t I see some crumbs here?”
It is true. I am a happy person, but before anyone decides to put me in a padded room box (see Nadia’s recent post Pull off the Labels), you must know that I’m not always this happy. And, in fact, looks can occasionally be deceiving … like the spic-and-span house with the closet door straining against the weight of unseen objects behind it.
Life here is good, but good because it has a bit of the not-so-good mixed in with it. Over the weeks and months ahead, you will be treated to stories of my time here in Greece, stories that are not always happy, stories of experiences that have actually been quite painful for me. But I will share them because it is my belief that it is this totality of human experience that makes our lives beautiful. To my mind happiness without any sorrow is at best an illusion.
I have a shadow side, too. While I choose to focus on and give energy to my “light” side, I cannot ignore my “shadow” either. Nor do I want to. I see this acceptance as balance, as in harmony with my spirit as Yin and Yang are with each other.
So for my own piece of mind as hostess, please allow me to open up the closet a bit for you and dust off a few cushions:
These are things I’m working on and have been for quite some time. And I have learned that these “crumbs” and “closet” items do not make my house unlivable as much as they are as expected as actual crumbs and clutter in a “lived-in” house. It would be nice if they weren’t around at all. But their presence doesn’t mean that my house, my life, isn’t (can’t be) any less beautiful … or any less suitable for you to come popping by. And I hope you will, again and again and again. I make a mean cheesecake, after all … .
To all of you who have welcomed me into the community this week: Thank you!
