How many heartaches?

How many heartaches in their life, I wonder?
Feed and educate them, I can; clean their clothes, encourage them, teach and pamper, I can.
Protect, I can only a little. And as they grow older, spread their wings and fly away, it will only get more difficult, let alone impossible.
And I wonder, how many heartaches? How many falls, blows and injuries, tears and disappointments?
I can do so much in their young lives, and yet, I cannot stop them from being hurt by the insensitive, the manipulative, the gross and the selfish.
It took me ages, as a truly candid and confident individual, ages to realize how some people think and behave along particular lines of interest. How some people can act in the name of love or friendship in order to achieve their goals. How some people can therefore use the good in you and then ditch you, how insensitive and opportunist some of them can be.
I have had a few friends who turned out to be interested in me only for the help or connection or support I could give them. For a long time I gave unconditional affection and faith to people who didn't deserve that. Only to feel the pain of being left alone, only to feel the nastiness generated by jealousy or greed or selfishness. Was I innocent? I slowly recovered from heartless friends and made fewer but better connections. I chose not to close my heart, but surely I became more cautious and less spontaneously trusting.
Now, I've had the opportunity to see the friendly connections my kids make, and how, in their turn, they so genuinely and spontaneously love their friends. And how the love and affection we give sends us over the moon and makes us fragile at the same time.
And I watch...and see the cuteness, the innocence, the beauty. Alas from the grown-ups who try to control their kids' lives, I also see manipulation and opportunism, competition and jealousy. In older kids I sometimes see the seeds of rivalry and aggressiveness.
And I am left with the helpless knowledge that my beautiful children will also come across those heartaches.
Not only any mother, but any woman with motherly feelings will know how it feels. The fear and the anger beginning to groan and moan deep inside, when our sweet beloved little one is faced with darkness. When we see them starting to doubt, hoping in vain, being disappointed, or sometimes worse, being hit or insulted or harassed. Or when we see them ignorant of the manipulation or arrogance around them.
A mother's life is made of these fears too. I want to use my past experiences, good and bad, to become a better person. All those heartaches in a lifetime must mean something. Maybe simply the assurance that worthless people make good people even better. That building a beautiful life for my family and me, means loving every minute of it and acknowledging every minute of it. Including the ones that hurt. Because if you survive them while keeping a good heart, you'll only get stronger and wiser and happier. You'll be a free individual. Because you've got to accept the bad as well as the good, and draw your own conclusions and walk your own path.

Letting out

I am very sorry to hear that May was so bad for Val.  I really hope June has been the opposite for her.

My daughter has been also in a stressful situation at work, as a new employee, and it seems to have started to affect her health.  The other day, we went to a bedrock bath, which are popular in Japan now, to detox, and talked a lot so that she could let all her stress out.  She told me she felt that she had lost her genuine self due to extreme stress.  She was urged to solve her problems but it seemed to me as if she ended up wallowing in her stress.  It is hard to solve all the problems she has at once, but I believe that being able to let out her feelings may have been of some help for her to recuperate her positive energy and deal with her difficulties.

Breathing starts from exhaling.  If you breathe out as much as you can, you will breathe in a lot of new fresh air.  Letting it out gets rid of all the bad things, then you will be able to let new, good things in, just like Val says in her post, "Bad brings out good".

It is quite heartbreaking for me to see my daughter suffering from stress, but every time she experiences hardship, I see her growing stronger.  Hardships might be the seeds that grow into beautiful flowers.  As a mother, what I can do is limited; just puring out my love energy and praying for her is all I can do.  As can Val.

Lots of love to Val and you all.

Dodging the bullets

I've been away for quite a while, haven't I?
Reading with delight Sachi's gracious posts, and feeling a little apart from it all.
Truth is, May has been..ahem, atrocious. In many ways.
I hadn't been through so much stress for ages, and stress is no stranger to me.
Then the sunlight hit again. Then health and radiant days came back again.
And in the midst of it all, I've been witness these last days to a number of casual,  mean events.
I've been reminded that although Man is given the beautiful gift of life - LIFE! - he too often, too readily uses this magnificent gift for petty crusades, low arguments, meaningless fights.
I've been witness these last days to cowardly revenge, linguistic integrism (hello, anti-English crowds, what a fight you're having here!), wrong accusations, small country town gossip, racism and rejection of someone different. And this is an open-ended list...
And it all boils down to such a loss of time.
Such carelessness for that gift we were all given.
To such negativity.
Turning petty details into fights. Cajoling revenge like a newborn.
Attacking the weakest. Teaming with the strongest, often happening to be the dumbest.
Enjoying to annoy, avoiding to help, focusing on antagonism.
Refusing to breathe, refusing to understand, refusing to let go, refusing to be kind, refusing to listen.
But Valerie, this doesn't sound like you!? Usually, not.
But May was bad, and bad brings out good.
And seeing what good I have, what good I may not have always been aware of, I see what good is spoiled.
How Man is too often daft. What a mess he makes of so many beautiful things.
What a waste. What a shame. How violent.
And it feels like all these little petty events I've been witness to surround us like bullets.
Being dragged into fights, having to speak up to defend rights, feels like dodging bullets.
I've been dodging a few bullets. I've had to shoot a few. And I dislike this.so.much!
Except flying to the rescue of the oppressed. That, I love :)
But at least I'm thinking that this blog's idea - enhancing, praising, favouring beauty and peace - wasn't such a bad idea. Wasn't it?
Love to all of you folks.

That yin-yang thing

I am not very yin-yang literate. I mean, I don't know too much about it.
But it has fascinated me for ages, this concept of interconnectedness, the fact that opposites are not really opposites. The fact that we need both.
From the experience I've had so far (very recent experience, and older experience too), I have gathered already that from darkness arises light. I've noticed that bad moments, feelings, worries, tend to enhance so beautifully, so vividly the beauties of our life.

The closer hardship gets, the more me value and cling to what's solid and pretty. To the love in our life. We cry, we fight, but how we savour those little drops of happiness.
It's sometimes called resilience. It's sometimes called seeing the silver lining. Cynics would call it brain-washing or wishful thinking, and people of faith would see God out there. Kelly Hampton hosts a blog I've come to love for her ability to see the good, the beauty. Or to look for it. Today she calls it 'service recovery'.

I share all of this. I dig beauty. I dig the search for it. And I dig how days of ugliness bring me closer to it. There is after all so much light. And it's a shame we so often forget to see it or feel it deep inside, for lack of time and for the sake of endless errands. I believe we should spare a minute everyday to stop, stop everything, breathe and remember. Remember to pick up that light.

Little gifts of love

On the consideration of creating a blog revolving around the idea of beauty, I hope I don't sound supercicial.
It could sound like it, yet I swear there is more to it than then 'look good' topic!
And this brings me to a little something I've had in mind...have you ever felt helpless when faced with someone else's hardhip? I have, so many times.
Truth is, many people face hardships much much worse than the little things I have to face. Still, two days ago, while I was at work, I received some news that are kind of 'not so good'. The kind that may be good, or...not. It wil probably be ok, still, I received a blow and I probably had it posted all over my face, in spite of my efforts.
A sweet workmate of mine came into my office and asked if I was ok. Of course I'm fine, said I ;)
Whereupon she came closer and gave me a quick hug and left quietly (actually, we don't hug in my country, we kiss, so she kissed me on the cheek).
And it left me speechless...with a rush of comfort. And it sent me back 10 years ago, when I too had the impulse to do something concrete for a workmate who had to face something hard. Something a thousand times harder than  my own worries, I must say. He lost beloved ones, and that was something I couldn't do anything about. That was the worse that can happen to a human being. And I couldn't tell him anything. What to say? So I had the sudden urge to bake him a cake. From the reaction I received, my foolish impulse seemed to be a good one!
True, words are beautiful. They are my drug. My daily dose of drug! I love them in books, blogs, songs, poems...ah, poems... But in the face of hardship, all those beautiful words seem to fall short of something. In the face of any hardship, any hug, smile, kiss on the cheek, brush of the hand on a shoulder, any little token of love, friendship or help seem to be best.
These concrete moves and gestures are for me things of beauty. That real beauty that shows when a friend does something genuine for you. It might be something a little foolish, unusual, tiny, a little helping deed in an ocean of helplessness. Yet it is much, it is big, it is a tiny drop of that most precious and powerful material of love. It brings relief, comfort, hope.
You know, very much like those little gifts kids give to their parents, a little heart drawn on a scrap of paper, a stranded lego that takes on so much meaning, because it is a GIFT.
It prompts me to write today that when you know someone who's unhappy, you can't change his or her life and destiny. But there is probably a little something that you can do. There is probably a little something I can do too.
And that's for me the true beauty of being human.