EMBRACING CHANGE

As Autumn approaches, my thoughts naturally turn to the topic of Change. It keeps on coming even if I want it to hold off a little while. You know, just till I get something finished. And if you recognize some of these comments, yes, today's post is built on one I published several years ago. 

 

This time of year always finds me unsettled--not because of the weather, exactly, but because I know Autumn is progressing and will come to an end, and we'll be engulfed in Winter. I don't mean to hurry the seasons along. If it were possible, I'd slow them down, so I could savor the sunny days and the few warm breezes that come my way. Yet, change is inevitable--time passes, life goes on. Everything changes. Everything.

Today's thoughts on transition and change are visuals because I don’t have anything new to say about change.

 C. S. Lewis, known to many as the creator of The Chronicles of Narnia, became a Christian late in life and wrote many books about faith.

Maya Angelou is remembered for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, as well as for many volumes of poetry.

Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic.

My  story--my life--is in my hands. Staggering thought, isn't it?

One early morning gratitude--mumbled while your eyes are trying to open, before the morning jolt of caffeine, before your feet hit the floor--just one expression of thankfulness can make a difference in how your day starts, continues, and ends.

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Since change is inevitable, you--and I--might as well embrace it. Shall we give it a go? I don't promise it will be easy, or successful, or even enjoyable. But I say it's worth a try. It might even keep me from pushing too quickly into the future.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

The tree I love

LET'S HEAR IT FOR *GRATITUDE*

 

 

That's right - G R A T I T U D E.

Yes, I know it's August.

Yes, I recall Thanksgiving time is celebrated the fourth Thursday in November here in the USA.

And yes, I recall church liturgy reminds us to "give thanks" and some of those injunctions include the word "always." Or, "in all circumstances."

So right now, here in the last third of the eighth month of 2026, I am going to share with you some of my personal thankfulnesses.

Part 1 - Daily Life

My small town (pop. 12000-15000) has undergone changes. Yet my day-to-day existence remains recognizable and livable. Streets undergo construction to keep them up to date and safe. Businesses leave (due to the ups and downs of the economy) and new businesses come in to keep life viable. We have doctors, clinics, a hospital with ties to a large hospital only 20 miles away. We have a multi-purpose library to serve the needs of all ages, babies to elders. We can shop locally at large stores, or we can shop online--shipping is often from a nearby warehouse.

Part 2 -  Opportunities 

Now that Internet is a fixture of life, I can study anything that takes my fancy--online classes (for credit or not); hobby interests on websites devoted to teaching, trouble-shooting, encouraging, providing a virtual community of like-minded people like me. Without leaving my home, I can find answers to my art, quilting, knitting dilemmas. Or I can look up answers to questions that arise in the story I'm writing, currently medical info.

Part 3 - People

Late at night, I can shoot an email to a friend or family member. If I want a quick answer (earlier in the day) I can text. I'm not tied to the telephone for communication (medical providers recognize the value of a place for Internet Q & A). I can renew a subscription online, pay bills, and many other options.

Part 4 - What I Can't Do

Change the weather--tried but the website was always too busy to take my request. Physically return an unsatisfactory item I ordered. Get my teeth cleaned or have fillings replaced. Have blood drawn without going out to the lab. Reach out and touch your hand, give you a hug if you need one. I can weep with you, though you may not see it.

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I'm grateful for all of the above. No doubt I've left out something important, but there's always another time. (Only two months to November.)

Today I'm grateful that the weather is moderating, as the season begins to change. I am grateful for appliances that still do their jobs without complaint (some after many years of service). I am grateful that I can still get out and do some of my errands, and have the help of my youngest daughter so I can continue to live in my own home. And I am grateful for family and friends, neighbors and other folks in my community, who keep life humming along. 

Thank you for your support in reading and sharing your thoughts. I'm grateful for every one of you!

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

 

 

 

 TOUGH TIMES . . .

Everybody has tough times . . . I've never met anybody who lived in a land of eternal springtime, little birdies singing, flowers blooming their heads off--and honestly, I don't think I'd actually believe it if I did meet somebody like that.

But I have met lotsa folks who have tough times of varying intensity and length, and from them, I've learned a little about how to navigate those rocky places in life.

Often, I've had mentors from my churches. They prayed with me. They recommended books and authors whose writings gave me a different point of view. They showed me how to turn difficult times into possibilities for growth. And the best thing of all, over the years I've developed a habit of looking for those ways on my own.

If you've been reading Thursday's Child for a while, you know I spend a lot of time reading. One of my favorite writers has been, and is, C. S. Lewis. I first knew his work when I was an undergrad English major--we used one of his books, The Four Loves, in a Middle English course. (Lewis was an academic in England.) A few years later, I made his acquaintance again when my oldest daughter brought home The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first of the Narnia series. And since that time, I've read many of his books on religious subjects.

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Recently, I've collected thoughts from various sources. Around Mother's Day, The New York Times ran an article about advice people had received from their moms. What fun to read! Some of those sayings I'd heard in my young life--things like "walk in the other person's shoes before you judge." 

But the one that stood out for me, and that I'd never heard before, was this: "If you try, you either win or you learn." Got that? Win or learn--not win or lose. In similar words, I've been reading that sentiment, "win or learn," for the past several years--mostly from visual artists, writers, and  teachers, who are absolutely convinced that mistakes are good things, because they help you learn something you didn't know before.

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A few weeks ago I watched a video on YouTube by an American artist I follow, Ellen Crimi-Trent. This was a follow-up video about her father. A few months ago, Ellen and her brother were helping their artist father downsize his studio; he had hundreds (literally!) of paintings, some framed, some not; and he was no longer able to paint due to poor health. The family members were clearing out the studio, selling paintings locally and online. They'd done this once already this year; now they were having a second sale, and the end was, apparently not in sight. Their father, the artist, could no longer hold a paint brush. I'm guessing he's in his 80s. 

At the end of the video, Ellen closed with this thought, "Take the time and space to enjoy every moment that you have." That really hit me where I live.

I wish you the same--time and space.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

 ROAD TRIP THINKING

Lilies--as a possibility

On a recent road trip to an appointment in the city, my daughter (also my driver) and I got into a discussion about the ways people navigate through life. 

**As an aside: We've learned, by experience, that it's best not to get into these deep talks on the way to the appointment, only afterward, when we're on the way home. That way, we don't miss an crucial exit on the freeway and possibly arrive late. Going home--not so much pressure.**

On that particular day, my daughter mentioned "deficit thinking." Not a term I was familiar with, but I grasped the idea. Pretty simple, really: thinking from a place of not having. Examples abound in all areas:

  I can't paint, I don't have the talent/supplies/money/connections . . . .

  My life is full already--I don't have time to paint/practice the viola/learn to quilt . . . .

  And my all-time favorite: I'm too old to _______. 

Okay, that's enough examples. We all know what "deficit thinking" means. If we haven't said it (or thought it to ourselves), we've heard it said. Boiled down, it's what we used to call "negative attitude."

Okay. Other side--"possibilities thinking." 

Got some samples to share? How about these:

  What do I have now?

  What can I do, even without a particular tool?

  What if I _____?

Basically, we're looking at what we can do based on what we already have/know/can try.

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Deficit thinking deals quite a lot in If-Onlys.

Possibilities thinking deals in What-Ifs.

So how can we shift from the minus type of thinking to the plus type?

Not as hard as you might think. Consider these:

    Do-Overs. If you're old enough, you were brought up on the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Hardly anything in life is a one-and-done. Why would painters, musicians, sculptors, quilters, and other creative folks keep on trying new techniques? Why would they explore a new idea, a new way of looking at the same subject? 

  If you watch the Olympics, do you think those performers got it right the first time? If they did, why did they continue practicing? (Sometimes for years!)

  Hindsight. The only reason anyone tries the same thing more than once is to assess the result. Could it have been larger? Smaller? Taller? Miniature in scale? Different colors/textures? That doesn't mean the first one was "wrong"; it means there were other possibilities--and how do they look?

  Looking in the Rearview Mirror. Another way to assess results. Put it away for a time to "cool" and take it out later. This is a technique often used by writers, who report errors and typos that appeared after a time away from the manuscript. Distance can be measured in time as well as physical location.

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Again from my experience, I suspect a lot of us hesitate to risk the try-and-fail of possibilities because (1) we don't want to waste time, (2) we don't want people to know we're less than perfect (or at least good) at something, or (3) it feels scary, especially if we haven't tried it before.

Going forward--how about leaning toward the Possibilities side? Leave Deficit Thinking for other folks to try. Or maybe, more folks will look at our positive efforts and decide to try them also.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

In Full Bloom

 

 

 

IT'S ALMOST AUGUST!

Okay, you're ready to turn your calendar page, right?

You scanned through the filled-in squares on your cell phone calendar, right? Mine has a couple of birthdays!

So you're ready to go! New month day after tomorrow. August, 8th month of our year, named in honor of the Roman emperor Augustus, in the year 8 BCE.

If you want to know more "awesome" things about August, check out The Fact Site.

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In my neighborhood, folks are keeping up with the lawn (heavy rains every so often keep us green, but also make mowing a necessity, whether we have the time or energy or not.

No doubt stores are crowded with parents filling shopping carts with school clothes and classroom supplies, plus the family groceries. I have to say, I don't miss that part of my life; getting four kids ready for a new school year was a job in itself.

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In these last few days before the big yellow buses trundle down the street to pick up students, there'll be last-minute swims, fishing trips, picnics, family visits with grandparents, maybe even a short car trip to a campground.

Once the school doors open, left-behind parents can take a deep breath, maybe drink another cup of coffee, and stop running so fast. Even leaving the house to go work will seem easier.

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August always signals for me the beginning of canning season. Even though I no longer have a garden to tend, nurture, and harvest, I think of my children who have big gardens and will soon be canning tomatoes, green beans, and squash among other delicious homegrown treats; then when the weather chills everything and fresh stuff is about gone, it'll be time to make jams and jellies.

Having done all those things in another life (long before I retired), I know how much work is involved. When I receive gifts of canned goods from my family, I honor the hard work and hours spent bending over plants they tend, along with the late night sessions with hot water baths and pressure cooking (for the canning processes).

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Wishing you a joyful August--wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whatever season you're experiencing.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

 

 ONCE UPON A TIME . . .

[Summer is a time for reunions--family, school mates. This summer I'm looking back at my life, and at the lives of my children and friends. Following are a few thoughts published a several years back, memories of times I might have forgotten, but thankfully I have not.]

I am 9 1/2 years old. I’ve spent the summer with my dad while my mother went with her new boyfriend to Las Vegas to get married. When she and my new stepfather come home, my dad delivers me to a house in a town I’ve never lived in before; it is the home of my new step-grandmother, a woman I immediately adore. We three, the new little family, live upstairs in the big attic room of Grandma Randolph’s house while our house, one block east, is being wallpapered and painted. In a few weeks we move again, into what I come to know as our house.

Our house, which is rented, has big rooms, with high ceilings. My bedroom is in the front of the house, with French doors leading into it from the living room. It is bright and sunny and with the high ceilings has an open and airy feel to it. I love it from the moment I see it.

Thinking back on that house, it was only four big rooms: two bedrooms, living room, and kitchen, with a bathroom featured by a claw-foot tub; and a side small room I never discovered the reason for, but probably another little bedroom that we used as storage. There was a long back porch off the kitchen. Possibly a basement, but I don’t recall going down into a basement in that house. So, scratch the basement.

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I am 22 years old, the mother of three children. We—my husband and the three children—have just moved to a city I’ve never lived in before, though I did visit once for a couple of days. The house is rented, furnished, and it has two astounding, wonderful things about it: an automatic dishwasher and a spinet piano. We can afford beds and pots and pans and clothes; I have never believed I’d have a dishwasher and piano so soon.

That house has a basement and an upstairs, and an attached garage. My son learns to walk in that house and we put up gates to keep him from exploring stairways. The gates do little good.

In that house I watch TV while I iron, and on November 22, 1963, I see our president being assassinated. At that moment I become two people—one watching, and disbelieving, the horror of seeing someone as important as the president of our country being shot while on a campaign trip; the other person observing the children who play on the floor under my feet, keeping the cord of the iron away from interested fingers, answering the telephone when I get a call about the TV story.

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I am 36 years old. The organist at my little country church tells me a law office in the county seat has a vacancy for a legal secretary and I should apply. I go to the interview, sort of as a lark, to see what kinds of things people ask when they interview you. It is unlikely, I think, that I’ll get the job—my background is in English and French, I will soon sit the Master’s written exam for an M.A. in English Language and Literature, and I’ve been around the block enough times to recognize the value of a degree in English: You can either do anything or nothing. (Garrison Keillor is right on the money with his jokes about English majors. My mind is considering whether I’ll be better off working at McDonald’s.)

So I go to the interview, trot out my credentials, which look pretty anemic lying there on the polished desk of the new junior lawyer. Experience? (Rearing children, reading, cooking, doing laundry, driving like a madwoman to get to class on time 30 miles from my home . . . .) Can I type? (Wow, something I can do!)

What really got me the job was the fact that I could spell. They didn’t know that for certain, but they assumed I could if I was practically a Master of English. (It’s true, I could, and can, spell well.)

It was the first “real” job I’d ever held. And I managed it for another 30 years.

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I often hear people say, “In another life”—meaning, not reincarnation, but who the person was at, say, age 9 or 22 or 36. Do we really remember being that person? Or do we remember things we did? People we knew? Events that happened (perhaps)? (Or did they?)

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So much advice is written today about how to keep our memory sharp; how to increase memory (as if we were a computer and could add another 64 Mb in a little chip). How to keep from losing memory (put it in a little bag and tie it to our belt? Put it in our safe deposit box at the bank? Stick it in a box and put on a good tight label telling what it is, and add the date and our initials?).

I’m all for memories. But sometimes, it seems to me, too much emphasis is put on what we remember. Why should I remember every street address and telephone number where I lived during the years from, say, birth to age 20? (An impossible task—I moved 20 times in 17 years.) Or how to make white bread without a recipe? Or who wrote that book I used to read every single year? Or what cupboard holds the cereal bowls?

Maybe it’s about what is personal to me . . . to you.

I remember Grandma Randolph, who treated me like the little 9-year-old girl she never had, always had time to talk to me, even though she worked away from home, and who helped my mother alter the new dresses that didn’t fit my summer-plump body.

I remember people who were kind to me when my mother died—Aunt Dessie, Mom’s oldest sister, took me, her 15-year-old niece, to her favorite dress shop and bought me a tweed suit and silky blouse to wear to the funeral. I wore those lovely clothes for years and years. The suit was a color I now know as mauve, with little flecks of blue and grey. I think Aunt Dessie also bought me a pair of white gloves. (All my clothes had been destroyed in our house fire six months before.)

I remember going into surgery in Indianapolis, nearly three hours from my home, not knowing anyone in that vast hospital except the eight people—family and friends and clergy—who had come to be with me and pray for my wellbeing.

I remember losing a large measure of my innocence when someone shot and killed our young president.

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Today we celebrate our memories: personal ones, collective family memories; shared and unshared. Good memories, that we're happy to take out and stroke because they make us remember good times. Bad memories, yes, I celebrate those; they tell us something about who we are, how we coped (or didn't), what we might have learned about ourselves, about life, and living.

We need our memories: They are the stories we tell—to ourselves and to each other—and thereby connect us together.

Blessings,

Thursday's Child 

 

DISTRACTIONS

July is a hard month to write about. It's hot. It's humid. (Today we're promised Heat Index of 102 deg. or more!) Plus unhealthy air quality. I don't have a swimming pool. Even sitting outside in the shade doesn't appeal.

So, I've had to make my own distractions. Best I could come up with this year is--HUMOR!

Following are some quotations from The Best of Bits & Pieces, a 1994 book one of my daughters gave me. Ready?

1--Experience is a comb that nature gives us when we are bald. (Chinese proverb)

2--The person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds. (Mark Twain)

3--Life is like a ten-speed bike--most of us have gears we never use. 

4--Learn from the mistakes of others--you can never live long enough to make them all yourself.

5--If everybody obeyed the Ten Commandments there might not be an 11 o'clock news.

6--All mothers are physically handicapped. They have only two hands.

7--The next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it.

8--If you have lived well, laughed often, and loved much, consider yourself a success.

9--The Lord gave us two ends--one to sit on and the other to think with. Success depends on which one we use the most. (Ann Landers)

10--If you're going to give someone a piece of your mind, make sure you can spare it.

11--Don't watch the clock. Do what it does. Keep going. (Sam Levenson)

12--Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. (Henry Ford)

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All right, there you go! A round dozen bits and pieces that may make you laugh, or smile, or maybe just think a little differently. 

Have a great week. 

Blessings,

Thursday's Child

Lots of words here!