A Cottage by the Sea
  • Home
  • On My Mind
  • Quotes
  • New Beginnings
  • Secrets of an Old Woman
  • A Solitary Traveler
  • Compassionate Reading
  • About me
  • About me and my blog
  • Comfort food
  • Books
  • Suggested reading
  • Poems

Change of plans

2/26/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
 ​Due to the Coronavirus, I’ve cancelled my 3/6-3/20 trip to Italy.  There is too much uncertainty: the healthy issue, and the possibility that I could get over there and then not get home easily. My idea of solitude does not include being sequestered at the Marriott Hotel at Logan Airport!
    Before I go on, let me acknowledge that I consider this disappointment not worth crying, complaining, or feeling sorry about. After all, it is my good fortune that has created it.
    That being said, how do we deal with disappointment when something we want and feel right about has been taken away? I have no control over the Coronavirus, but I can control what I do NOW in terms of my time and activity. For the past twenty years my solitary trips to Italy have been important stepping stones on my life journey.
   Now, what will I do during the two upcoming weeks? What will replace walking the streets of Rome and Florence, visiting the museums, and enjoying Italian cuisine? I don’t know. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I started cancelling my reservations. I do know, however, that what is before me is a combination of the choices I can make and the mystery and miracles of the unknown. Stay tuned.

0 Comments

Gentleness and strength

2/21/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
​Gentle is my word for the year. I want to be more gentle. To paraphrase Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, “I am gentle, except when I am not.”
     And yet, a single quality cannot stand alone. Pablo Casals speaks to my particular word: In life one must show strength and gentleness.  Gentleness without strength will never produce worthwhile, satisfying, or comprehensive results. Whatever your word, you can’t have one without the other. For example, we can’t function only with cold water, nor would hot serve all our needs. It is not an either or choice.
    Gentleness just came to me as my word for the year; I didn’t analyze what the ‘best’ word would be. Briefly (no more than a minute) I tried out a few other but no, gentleness was IT. Gentleness to balance my strength because sometimes my strong personality expresses itself with a sharp edge that cuts out the gentleness of the heart that is called for and that I want to express.
     Right now the challenge is to know when to call on kindness to blunt my strength. I’m still in my head about it, but I trust that the thinking process will diminish and natural knowing will take over. It is something akin to turning on the hot water to wash dishes and the cold to take a drink; we know what to do.

1 Comment

Priceless Gifts

2/19/2020

2 Comments

 
Picture
Priceless Gifts
By Anna Swir
(1909 - 1984)
English version by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
  
An empty day without events.
And that is why
it grew immense
as space. And suddenly
happiness of being
entered me.

I heard
in my heartbeat
the birth of time
and each instant of life
one after the other
came rushing in
like priceless gifts.


www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com



2 Comments

Just listen

2/13/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​I’m a one-on-one kind of friend. I prefer a conversation with one other person. Currently, however six of us get together once a month to share what’s going on in our lives. We are long-time friends, and by that I mean we’ve known each other for at least forty, and for some, fifty years. Now that we are older, with grandchildren in college or close to that age, we need each other in new and deepening ways.
     We bring our own lunch to someone’s house; the hostess supplies water and a comfy place to sit. Each person shares what’s going on in her life; the rest of us listen. Perhaps we comment or ask a question, but whatever we say is an affirmation. Mainly we listen.
      This feels like a new kind of community for me. When I taught I was in charge of the classroom community. As president of The Whole Language Teachers Association I set the agenda and controlled the discussion. My contribution to church committees has been to further a specific task or purpose. The back and forth in a one-on-one conversations encourages me to listen so I can respond specifically to what the other person has said.
    The  undefined rules and expectations of this group of friends feel different. I listen to hear what they say, full stop! To use another expression, I listen to ‘get’ what they say, to ‘get’ who they are. I’m just beginning to unravel what this means, but for a start, this kind of listening stop judgments before they begin, or at least doesn’t give them free reign. 

0 Comments

My whimsical blog

2/10/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​In the past 24 hours I have received two unsolicited emails offering services “to improve your business over your competitors” and “to help you developing on your site because you can get so many new customers everyday”. Clearly ‘they’ didn’t read my posts!! I’m not a business nor do I think of my readers as customers. Silence, solitude, and simplicity mix like oil and water with competition.
    Recently a reader asked me if I there could be a way she could get email notification when I posted. I looked into it and decided the answer was no. On a practical level, getting such an announcement started felt like a lot of work, and it would cost money. On a spiritual level, well, it wouldn’t not be in the spirit of how I envision this blog.
    I like that I don’t know many of the folks who reads it; I like that readers find it randomly, and maybe keep returning, or maybe let it go. My posts are practical and straightforward, because that’s who I am. However, I like that the blog floats around in cyberspace and then mysteriously lands on someone’s desktop. I like that there is a whimsicalness to it all, like life and death. 

0 Comments

A blog about solitude

2/7/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​A blog for those who are looking for silence, solitude, and simplicity, and who sometimes want to be alone.
  That’s what I wrote over ten years ago on the home page of this blog, and the focus still stands. In fact, the home page hasn’t changed much except for  biographical update (which I ought to again), the cover of Very Grateful: The Story of My Hundred Year Old Mother and Me, and the addition of three topics: A Solitary Traveler, Secrets of an Old Woman, and Compassionate Reading.
   I began this blog when I began going to the cottage by the sea. It was there, for those five winters that I settled into solitude. My life now has a different rhythm with less extended days of solitude. I miss that, but I still have hours of solitude in each day, and I still travel alone for two weeks time. 

0 Comments

Spend time with positive people

2/3/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Spend time with positive people is one of the ‘nuggets of truth’ I wrote about in The Teacher Book: Finding Personal and Professional Balance, a book I published in 2000. That nugget is still with me twenty years later. It is not that I avoid all negativity. We all have difficult things going on in our lives, and at times we need to pour them out to someone. I can listen to that, and I am very grateful that I have friends who do the same for me. By positive people, however, I mean those who desire to get out of despair, not those who seem to want to remain in a ‘poor me’ state.
     I believe that good conquers bad, that every human being has a beautiful soul, and that we each have a choice to go high. Those who are profoundly stuck in negativity need a listener who will remain with them through to the other side. I know when I am not that person. I know my limitations. That’s what I mean by my choice to spend time positive people. 

0 Comments
    Contact me: [email protected]

    Categories

    All
    3rs
    3Ss
    3S's
    Aging
    Andre Dubus Iii
    Ann Patchett
    Anticipation
    Art
    Assisi
    Barbara Kingsolver
    Being Alone
    Beyond Words
    Boo
    Books
    Cantice Of The Sun
    Celebrations
    Choices
    Christmas
    Churches
    Community
    Cor
    Cottage By The Sea
    Cottage Day
    Courage
    Curiosity
    Dad
    Dalai Lama
    Death And Dying
    Depression
    Desiderata
    Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    Donald Hall
    Dostoyevsky
    Dr Alex Tang
    Edinburgh
    Eleanor Lerman
    Elizabeth Strout
    Emily Dickinson
    Environment
    Esther De Waal
    Faith
    Field Trip
    Florence
    Fo
    Follow Your Bliss
    Food
    Friendship
    Frugal
    Gifts
    Giving And Receiving
    Gratitude
    Health
    Heart
    Hermits
    Hope
    Humility
    Impermanence
    Independent And Close
    Inspire & Affirm & Encourage
    Introvert
    Iona
    Ireland
    Italy
    James Hollis
    Jane Austen
    Jan Sutch Pickard
    Joan Chittister
    John Dear
    John Masefield
    Joseph Campbell
    Judgments
    Katherine Paterson
    Knitting
    Li
    Lonely
    Longing
    Love
    Luke Russert
    Marsha Sinetar
    Mary Oliver
    Max Ehrmann
    Meaning
    Memories
    Mom
    Moving
    Museums
    My Day
    Nature
    Nina Sankovitch
    Now
    Oliver Herford
    Pamela Dalton
    Pandemic
    Paris
    Passion
    Paulo Coelho
    Peace
    Philip Koch
    Place
    Play
    Prayer
    Present Moment
    Quiet
    Rachel Carlson
    Radical Compassion
    Read
    Reading
    Resolutions
    Restlessness
    Retirement
    Retreat
    Richard Rohr
    Rilkie
    Rita Golden Gelman
    Robert Kull
    Rome
    Routines
    Rumi
    Sankovitch
    Scotland
    Seen In A Draper's Shop
    Service
    Silence
    Sim
    Simplicity
    Skye
    Sol
    Soli
    Solitude
    Soul Work
    Space
    St Catherine Of Siena
    St. Francis
    Stress
    Susan Gain
    Tenzin Palmo
    Thanksgiving
    The Uncommon Reader
    Thomas Keating
    Thomas Merton
    Three Sieves
    Time
    Travel
    Tru
    Viktor E. Frankl
    Walking
    Wonder
    Writi
    Writing

    Archives

    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010

Proudly powered by Weebly