Mimi Writes.......

Blog4Peace 2025 ~ The Tundra Year

2025-11-03T21:01:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the 20th year of Blog4Peace!

aka Dona Nobis Pacem in the Blogosphere

Our 2025 theme is Speak Love

Please leave your link below and in the comment section so that we may visit you.

Dona Nobis Pacem ~ The Tundra Year

When we started peace globes in 2006, I wrote a post called The Silence of Peace about the influence of my beloved grandfather on my formative years and how he shaped the way I see the world. He's been gone a long time and I still miss him so much, but his words and actions live on through the peace globes that fly each year around the Internet world, requiring us to think about peace and what it means to us.

My mission was to see the words Dona nobis pacem (Latin for Grant us Peace) scrawled on the roughly 70 million blogs reported to exist at that time, just for one day. A simple idea of unity and intention. I was a naive new blogger, overly-ambitious, trusting in the goodness of people and the wisdom of goodness. My heart was full of expectation and joy.

Were there 70 million posts? No. But words hold power, whether seven or seventy. What happened over the years proved quality over quantity matters. We've become a lovely worldwide community of connected poets, writers and artists. When Blogging moved to many other social media platforms, the peace globes moved with them. And yet, each year, we find ourselves here again to blog for peace and share our thoughts with the world.

It's been my honor to speak peace with you all these years.

In the year 2025, I write to answer the question, 'What brings me peace?'

only to find that I've landed in the same truth. Full Circle.

Deep down on the inside of me I could feel it as I wrote it again. In 2006, I wrote about the day I first felt real peace in my life. And this year, it all came tumbling out on the blog page again, along with my tears - vivid memories, no abandon, no regret, now solidly entrenched in the core of this little blog movement. I wrote. You wrote. We all said the same thing from 214 countries and territories. Then came The Doll Box, river words, Papa's fedora and much much more.

So I honor my grandfather, my Papa, today.

Returning to the framework he built from day one, in my writer's eye I could see a wooden railing in a little country church, graced by the presence of a kneeling praying grandfather, who wore a white starched shirt and all the faith he had on his sleeve. I traveled back in time to a memory that is as clear and palpable today as it was in the 1970s and as it reappeared on this blog in 2006. What have I learned in twenty years? The.power.of.words.

One night he took me by the hand and led me to the altar with him.

He knelt down on one knee, elbow resting on the other, and silently voiced his heart. Tightly grasping my hand with his left hand, I knelt beside him, snuggled under the arm of his tweed jacket, surrounded by the presence of many such men who sought God that Fall revival night. In a country church in the middle of the middle of nowhere on a crisp autumn full moon evening, all of Heaven came to hear Papa and his friends talking to their Maker in worship and reverence.

They were surrendered.

I was mesmerized.

A buzz of spiritual language filled the room, groanings and cries, hallelujahs, amens, tears and pleas, laughter, joy, community. Then just as suddenly, and much louder ~ silence and stillness.

A Presence fell.

Is there anything more beautiful than a room full of true worshippers in unity, unashamed, locked in, gathered around a sacred wooden altar, holding court with God Almighty? I think not. I know not.

What a privilege it was to behold, to experience. My fourteen-year-old hippie-bent soul wanted more. From that day on, I ran after that feeling.

I felt the power, as undeniable as the appliqued flower-power daisy plastered to my jeans, as sweet as the smell of Papa's tobacco pipe-infused tweed coat, and as safe as the crook of his arm; the place where I loved to linger, where I learned to listen in the wee hours of a work morning as he gathered his things for the day, whispering "Dear Gracious Heavenly Father" as only a granddaughter can hear, as he lovingly lifted lyrics to Heaven on my behalf. They covered me. He covered me. Jesus covered both of us. Those words held connection to eternity. In turn, those utterings and unctions kept him reaching higher and higher. And I kept reaching for him.

Because he was the place of peace that I needed.

A place where his unconditional love yielded safety and calm.

A place where no separation exists.

He knew how to find it.

And I wanted it.

OVer the years he taught me how to find it by his example,

so that when he couldn't be with me, I could find it myself.

I know that Presence to this day, because Papa birthed it in me. He still holds my hand and I still hear his voice, rising and falling, gently squeezing my small fingers with each inhalation and nuance of prayer. Wherever the Spirit led him, I went too.

It was so holy I could barely breathe.

I've spent this entire year deliberately inserting myself into that space again. Distractions have plagued me, physical struggles have been challenging, sickness and stress. The toll on my mind and body has been significant. This has been a year of pain and falling down, only to rise and fall again, reaching for that space of quiet and strength.

I call it The Tundra Year -

a long cold winter of the soul and a short cool summer.

And yet....inside of me an arsenal of weaponry appeared, quite boldly, and firmly at my disposal. It smelled of wooden benches and tobacco tweed.

By the bedside on my knees, gently walking in the forest, weeping with frustration, calling on my Maker, hunkering down into healing Scriptures, studying remedy and science, writing, angry whining, falling again, questioning, rising and starting over.

Has your faith ever been tested in the fire? This was my year.

Then one day, just as surely as winter snow creates new intricate patterns on leaves in the forest,
a renewing of my mind fiercely began.

But it wasn't easy. The process caught up to my jagged wonky physical complexities and made the battle more intense for awhile. Like a flash of dangerous lightning attempting to disguise itself inside thunder, once more it tried to sap my strength and make me weak.

Then something akin to flights of silver-winged birds whispered,
"You are not weak. You are strong."

I began to say it. I am strong. I am strong. I am strong.

I began to believe it. I began to walk in it. I stopped falling down.

Until I landed in the Grace that had been there all along.

I am on a healing journey. I am strong. I am strong. I am strong. I am strong!

My journey of faith and prayer and peace began at that altar of supplication in the 70s, where I witnessed what it is, what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like to focus energy and love and compassion with all your might before a Mighty Creator.

Likewise, we focus energy and love and peace and compassion with all our might on the world we share on the cusp of each November.

I am strong. I am strong. I am strong.

You must believe in the power of your words. Say something. Speak right things over yourself, your family and your world. See yourself healed. See the world healed. Pray for your neighbors and your enemies. Lift your thoughts to a higher realm, where peace and rest is not only possible but expected.

Papa expected the world to change when he prayed.
So do I.
There is no other option.

Where's your altar?

Does your heart flow from there?

"Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter." (Psalm 74.17)

My Tundra has been no difference or worse than most everyone on the planet this year. This verse gives me courage. Papa would approve.

Why did he feel compelled to pull me to the altar with him that night? Why did he hold on so tight, forming an unbroken chain between my hand, his hand, and God's hand? It remains.

His act of love nd obedience changed the course of my life. In that moment I found God's peace for the first time in my life. Transfer. Synergy. Life-altering, Truth. Only Divine LOVE does that.

I still believe in the power of words as has been our motto for twenty years. I believe in the collective power of intention. I believe in you as you speak Dona Nobis Pacem one more time into the atmosphere. One voice. One subject. One day.

Happy 20th anniversary, Dear Peace Bloggers!

What started from a bowl of Papa's earth marbles has gathered writers and artists from all walks, religions and backgrounds speaking into each other and for our troubled world, just as Papa spoke his prayers and love into me. In summer. And in cold dark winters.

Powerful words spoken in love must make a difference ..... breathing and birthing and shaking and sifting towards change - in our own hearts first, where it always begins- until we reach the dawning of a new peace-laden world for everyone.

God speed that day and God bless each and every one of you.

All 2025 Blog4Peace participants! Leave links below and in the comments.

NOTE: 2024 links are included in this widget as well!

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Blog4Peace 2025 ~ Dona nobis pacem ~ Join us!

2025-10-06T17:17:00.001-04:00

Announcing Blog4Peace ~ Post4PeaceTuesday, November 4, 2025
Welcome to the 20th year of peace blogging! (with a special challenge below!)Dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace)
This year's theme is....SPEAK LOVE
Join us on blogs and social mediaClick HERE for free templatesClick HERE for How To

(this template can be used)

(another template choice)
Go to Blog4peace.com for lots of information and examples of peace globes from prior years.
November 4, 2025 bloggers and social media posters from all over the world will blog for peace. We will speak with one voiceone subjectone day
We've been speaking peace for 20 years. It's a beautiful thing.
Please email me or message me on Facebook if you have questions.
And now for a special 20th anniversary challenge!
It's called the Blog4Peace SPEAK LOVE challenge and will run from today until the eve of Blog4Peace. Since our 2025 theme is SPEAK LOVE, I've committed to doing one small (or large) thing each day to experience what it means to walk in love. I invite you to do the same! Please share on your blogs and social media if you'd like to participate during the days leading up to November 4th (not a requirement, just lovingly suggested) Are you intentionally doing the love walk with your families, yourselves, your communities, OUR WORLD? I'm going to give it my best this month.
There can be no peace without love.
I want to be intentional. I want to make a positive difference, even in the smallest of ways, to as many as I can, as often as I can.I'll be sharing my experiences during the month of October on my Facebook page. Come on! We need this!
Day 1 Blog4Peace SPEAK LOVE Challenge!Join me each day now until November 4th

Here's mine ~ Day 1Waiting at the doctor's office. I'm fine, just in for a checkup.My goal today is to smile at 5 people with my eyes (above the mask) and see if they smile back.

See? It's easy! I can't wait to read yours!
#Blog4Peace #SpeakLove #NOV4Free to use on your blogs and social media

Use this blank template to make your own peace globeor choose from many other colors and designs HEREPost if Nov 4 or ANYDAY on your own blog or social media! JOIN US.
(this promo is free to use on your blogs or social media)
Peace Globe TemplatesHow To Get Your Own Peace GlobeGraphics/Templates to Use

(working on a better graphic lol)
See you soon. It's a launch!

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Monday Mimisms ~ New Seasons

2025-05-12T12:38:00.000-04:00

Monday Mimisms
It's so good to be back on the blog again after a self-imposed hiatus; I've had time to reflect and re-assess my life and purpose. What began as a promising year of publishing and writing turned into unexpected postponement. A few months of rest and reflection has been good for me in many ways. This space will take on a new purpose (me-thinks) very soon.
New Seasons. New vibes. New inspiration.Thank you for being patient while I adjust my direction. I missed you!

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Happy New Year! Twenty -Five Years of Blogging and Friendship

2025-01-02T17:09:00.002-05:00

I am thankful to be alive and relatively healthy, still here, wanting to do many many more things in my life! Being single at this stage of life is the best! And the worst.....Sometimes I think I'd enjoy the company of a man on a regular basis, then I remember cooking obligatory dinners (when I'd much rather cook together), checking with someone else before I make a decision (like I would), coordinating family plans and events with extended families...nd a million other small add-on stressors that you gloss over when you live with someone else.
But if I fall in loveI shall reconsider(wink)
After being happily alone for more than twenty years, I've realized how blessed I am in the Late Fall of my life. I retired from teaching six years ago. I love a life without alarm clocks, bells and cafeteria food.I enjoy my own company, but I do get lonely from time to time.

From 2008 "The Christmas Meme"

I love spending time with my kids and grandchildren, ages 20, 13 and 5 - college, middle school and kindergarten. Never a dull moment at the dinner table.

Baby Boy is majoring in Computer Science, Beans is majoring in girls and BabyBree is majoring in Barbie. Perfect! They teach me about video games and I sneak in a peace globe conversation from time to time. I want them on that rain ya see......
Which season are you in?Which season have you enjoyed the most?
I've noticed, also, that people from my past keeping showing up. I'm stumbling over them in the grocery store and thrift store. Long lost relatives with news to tell, high school friends, friends of friends and acquaintances that should have been more than that; maybe we'll get a do-over. Who knows? Is it truly a coincidence? Or does the Universe have a rhyme and reason?That's to be determined. I'll keep you posted.Has this phenomenon ever happened to you?

Out on the river in 2018 with my Beans

As for you and I....I'm glad you're still here in Blogworld.I'm happy we met in the BlogoVerse in 2005when learning to decorate a blog with colored fonts and photos from PhotoBucket and ImageChef was as high-tech as we could go. But we helped each other through it and some of us even learned to code from scratch. Technorati was everything and memes rocked our world. ReMEMEber?
I wish you the best of health and true happiness in our twentieth year of friendship. I think I know most of you well. I've met several of you in the real world. A pleasure! Let's keep in touch.
Tell me about your season.How's your life going?

2006 Blogging Meltdown at the computer

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Blog4Peace 2024 - Hold The Light

2024-11-03T18:53:00.017-05:00

Welcome to the 19th year of peace blogging!

Please enter your blog link below so that we may visit you.

Dona Nobis Pacem ~

Hold The Light

The year was 1968. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had been slain. Our country was in turmoil. The controversial war in Vietnam polarized our politics and our hearts. Richard Milhous Nixon was about to become the 37th President of the United States.

I was about to begin my education.

It started at the back door.

A knock.

"Come on in, Joe!" Papa exclaimed with a laugh. "And Joe, come around to the front door. I'll let you in." In some areas of the south in the sixties, visiting black men in small town USA, still did not approach the front door of a white man's residence. Fifty-six years later, we've made progress...but there is much work to do.

I do not know the direction my Grandfather's politics would have taken had he lived to see this election, but I can promise you one thing: the candidate's social status, the color of his skin, his religious affiliation, political slant, or the cost of his shoes would not have mattered. Papa's welcomes were equally sincere and easily given.

The man needed a job. He couldn't feed his family. I heard low whispers from the living room and shuffling of money. My grandmother brought coffee and cake; then the front door shut.

Lesson one duly noted.

At my grandfather's wake, literally half the town showed up. There was a "colored" funeral home and "white" funeral home. It was out of the ordinary for blacks to visit the dead on the other side of the tracks.

But visit they did.

I heard stories I'd never heard.

"One day at work, your Papa noticed my feet were almost bare.

He gave me his shoes."

" He helped me and my family keep our home."

"He brought groceries to our house and in the winter he kept our furnace lit."

"He paid my telephone bill and brought toys for Christmas."

"He bought school clothes for my kids."

Apparently, he'd been sneaking around with blessing baskets for years. Then I started to remember those strange quiet back door whispers, "coincidental" meetings on the sidewalk, times when my grandmother had to suddenly whip up a chocolate cake, and rides in his station wagon to places he never talked about. "Stay here, Sis. I'll be right back," he'd say.
I always wondered what those porch conversations were about. Now I know.

He was the bridge builder. And the door opener.

And the example of moral courage in my life.

He was my light holder

Today, when I visit his double-hearted spirit in the cemetery, I'm reminded of this photo. When I developed the picture long ago, my shadow had fallen across the stone. It looks as though we are perfectly in sync - still. Now, I choose to let my shadow fall upon his and allow his to fall upon mine. With whom do you align? Choose carefully.

It started me thinking how my time has eerily overlapped his time - a slice of American history that was shameful in so many respects - the abundance of ignorance, the quest for power, were just background noise to the voices that truly mattered...those that marched and voted and wrote policy.

What it boils down to is the right of all persons to be treated with dignity and respect.

Those voices still speak in us.

Collectively, we are more than a stump speech and a soundbite.

The voices of our time matter too.

Unrest and violence prevailed in 1968.

Unrest and violence still thunder in 2024.

Please hold the light for those in darknessPlease hold the light for those in needSet your foot rightly, for the downtroddenmight come to your door

Let it deliver and emancipate like Peter's shadow in the Book of Acts.

Let it heal people. Let it love people.

That's what light does.

***************

Peace Bloggers,Please leave your links here and in the comment section. Tag me on FB.

Blog4Peace™ Post4Peace™©Mimi LenoxHow To Get Your Own Peace GlobeGraphics/Templates to Use

PROMO: The annual Blog4Peace event will take place on Monday, November 4, 2024. This special event is held worldwide with bloggers, social media posters and individuals from over 200 countries and nations taking part. Below is a direct link to the Blog4Peace website with details, art images and more. Please visit and remember to post your art in support of Hold The Light for peace. Nov 4, 2024
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Some bits have been re-printed from a post I wrote in 2008Original post

Blog4Peace - Post4Peace 2024 ~ Will be Held NOVEMBER 4, 2024

2024-09-22T18:51:00.009-04:00

Announcing Blog4Peace ~ Post4Peace November 4, 2024 Join us on blogs and social mediaIt's our 19th year of peace blogging in the Blogosphere!Click HERE for free templatesClick HERE for HOW TO
This year's THEME is... Hold The Light

Use this promo on your blogs. Many thanks to graphic designer, Ann Adamus! Original image Pixabay

When was the last time you held the Light for someone? These days it seems that the whole world is stumbling around in darkness. If we listen to the loudest and most critical voices, we can easily come to that conclusion.But it's not so.
We don't have to watch people stumble or be confused. We don't have to respond. We don't have to add to the momentum of suffering and deceit in this world by default. Do you know that there are people who need you to hold the light for them? Hold space. Hold the line. Hold the Light. We're all having a hard time right now.
I'm not talking about judging them or trying to convince them to go your way - there's too much of that happening already. We can love people without agreeing with them. Can't we?
When I was a little girl, my Dad worked on cars and faucets and mechanical issues around the house. He could fix anything. I was his "light holder." I wasn't very good at it and sometimes he'd fuss if the caged light I was holding swerved to the left or the right. Why was he frustrated with me? Because I had one job. ONE JOB. And that job was to hold the light for him.
His task was daunting. It was dark and he was weary. He needed to SEE. I couldn't see what he was seeing and I certainly couldn't help him; but I could stand steady and still, listening to his voice and directions, offering illumination and support.He didn't need a play-by-play of why I couldn't hold the light still or what my opinion was about how he was fixing things. My opinion, my argument, my sass...didn't matter.I had one job. He couldn't do the job without me and that light.
(template to use)

You don't have to speak to hold it - just hold it.You don't have to expose or uncover or guide or judge the path they have chosen.You just have to be there and let them find their way.
AND SOMETIMES....holding a Light means railing against injustices and CHANGE that needs to happen! Your words won't help them see but the unconditional silent steady light and TRUTH flowing from you to themheld without judgmentwithout opinionwithout directionsmeans that the one needing light has a clear path to make decisionsone that isn't muddied with your opinion, your "rightness" or the loudest voicewhether they're fixing a carburetor or mapping out a plan for world peaceor choosing the leader of the free world
The most powerful words of all are the ones we deliver in deed.Sometimes that means standing stilland holding a Light
We can do that, right?How will you do that?That is the question I want us, as peace bloggers, to answer ************

Nov 4, 2024 Bloggers and social media posters from all over the world willBlog for PeaceWe will speak with one voiceone subjectone day
You may use the logo/text below on your blogs.Many thanks to graphic designer Ann Adamus!

The annual Blog4Peace event will take place on Monday, November 4, 2024. This special event is held worldwide with bloggers, social media posters and individuals from over 200 countries and nations taking part. Below is a direct link to the Blog4Peace website with details, art images and more. Please visit and remember to post your art in support of Hold The Light for peace. November 4, 2024.
LINK to use
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Monday Mimisms ~ Touching Memories

2024-01-15T15:15:00.001-05:00

Don't you hate it when you're discussing something of importance to you that is causing some angst and the person sitting across from you says, "Oh, let it go. You've got to let that go. Just let it go." REALLY ????POOF. GONE like Girl Gone??
HardlyWalk a mile in my snowshoes, Buster! I don't know what the magic bullet is in these matters, but I DO know (and have recently discovered) that when I'm ready to let something go, I'm ready. REALLY ready. Not one minute sooner. Not at the moment of glibness, right on time!

As I opined on Facebook's mass platform of memes....
I'm getting better at letting go. I noticed today as I threw out bag after soggy box in the basement (Did you know there was a GREAT FLOOD in Bloggingham yesterday??) that hardly any of it bothered me. Nothing I couldn't part with was damaged and it game me an excuse to deeply purge. That roll top desk I've been staring at for 40 years? I used it in the piano room of my first house. Donated.

My son's infant chest of drawers. Donated.
Twelve notebooks of meticulously created Music Theory and Sight-Reading lessons, complete with originally composed vocalize for my classroom back in the day?

That was a hard one.....ummmm...it took weeks to gather all the resources (stop it, Mimi!) You're not teaching anymore and you're so old those resources are out of print)! GONE
But it was nice to sing them again before I trashed them.
A few lamps were ruined but I realized they weren't my style anymore. Now I can buy newer ones that suit me better. Silver lining!I threw away five Christmas trees. FIVE! Who wants a soggy tree?Twenty-five bags later and I'm still far from finished.

I'm exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.Rinse. Repeat. Tomorrow.
I touched a lot of memories today. Stories! Stories I'd forgotten.You will most undoubtedly hear them.There are some sad AND marvelous tales in that basement...most are completely unbloggable.
Homer made me sign a non-disclosure agreement

Back to the soggy dungeon. See you on the upside.

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Monday Mimisms ~ Happy in My New Year

2024-01-01T15:56:00.004-05:00

Mimi 2008
Monday Mimisms ~ Happy in My New Year

Welcome to 2024 in the year of the blog. Thanks to the WayBack Machine (keep of old blogs!) blogs are infinite and eternal, omnipotent and omnipresent. I wish people have one of those machines. We could crank up our young, newer, healthier bodies and go from there.

Back in the day when I used to hide behind trees all day long and try to conjure a word or two, blogging was much more intimate. Our communities were a tight-knit group. We looked out for each other. When the occasional naysayer or troublemaker showed up, we (usually) shoooed them away and blogged on. With the exception of the peace globe bloggers (AMAZING you are!) most of my blogging friends are posting on Facebook or Instagram. I enjoy interacting with you on social media platforms, but sometimes it takes me years to put two and two together..."Oh! Cindy is really Blogging Catalina from Amsterdam! Who knew?" And then we have a small reunion. There are those who do not want blog and real life Facebook to meet. Totally understandable. I try to honor those requests. I won't out you!

But seriously, I'm amazed that the majority of my friends on Facebook are peace bloggers. We've gotten to know each other over the years in more personal ways (thanks, Facebook) but as many of us have discussed, it's just not the same as regular blogging. "Blogging is dead," we say....MAYBE....but that's not going to stop me from re-entering the arena. Blogging makes me happy. Journaling makes me happy. Writing feeds my soul. And I PROMISE...this year I will publish a book off-blog...I PROMISE!!

2023 was a loooooong year for me and so many of my friends. I've had perpetual health challenges and a car accident mid-year that I'm just now starting to recuperate from, realizing that blogging and living in my 60s is a different universe. Retirement is wonderful!! Aches and pains are not. It takes a little longer to recover from trauma than it used to.

Still, I'm determined to fully regain my health in 2024.

I had a fantastic healing beautiful Christmas visit with my kids and grandchildren in their home (as it should be). I have room for a little more hope these days. Let's stay on this path, shall we?

***wait a minute....I thought I wouldn't have anything to say this morning when I decided to crank up the blog; instead, I'm a regular bloggermouth (that's blog + blabbermouth for all your non-blog speakers)....**

I truly hope that if you are still blogging or have a new platform, that you will leave a link below so that we can stay connected and supportive.

This morning, after meditation/prayer, washing dishes, making bed, starting laundry, feeding Snickers, organizing a drawer...I stopped mid-chore and asked myself, "What creative thing have your done in three hours? Exactly how are you spending your time, Mimi? Priorities seem to be askew!"

And while all those things must be done and I am content to do them, the only thing remotely creative was my silent time (essential to my day) but then I jumped right back on the To-Do Train. This must stop!!!! And it must stop now.
THIS was dangerous and exciting...

While I don't think meme--stealing is exactly my vibe anymore, I sure am thankful for the fun times right here on Mimi Writes. But that book has been writing itself for awhile in my pencil head, many chapters here in the Blogosphere with you. So much more to tell. I think the crux of the matter is that with age comes wisdom. How much to blab? What to camouflage...But I think I have the perfect balance between privacy and authenticity in mind now. The latter always wins. Always.

Not to fear, the "old" (vintage!) Mimi will show up soon enough with new pencil skirt tales of craziness.

It's already happened.

I just posted on Facebook, "New year, new routine. Before I sat down to write the first blog post of the year (new routine) I reached for the bottle of Vitamin C serum (on the right below) and smeared it all over my face...except...ummm....what's that smell??!

It was CBD oil.

I'll be happy all the day long.

This is going to be one doozy of a post.

They look alike, right? In case you're wondering, No, I did not wash it off."

Ananda Full spectrum hemp extract 300.
Ten mg cannabinoids oil for nerve pain.
Works for me! Let's see what it does for my wrinkles.

Some things never change.

Welcome to my vintage blog and all the memories it holds.

Let's make some new ones.

You can smell the cannabis from there right?

Snickers won't come near me.

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Dona Nobis Pacem ~ The Room

2023-11-04T01:13:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the 18th annual Blog4Peace aka Dona Nobis Pacem in the Blogosphere. We will post Saturday and Sunday, Nov 4-5th wherever you are online. Please leave your blog or post link in the MR. LINKY below or in the comments section or tag me on social media. Your peace globe will be added to the Official Gallery of Peace Globes
Our 2023 theme is Change The Room ~ The Transforming Power of Walking in Peace

Dona Nobis Pacem 2023The Room
A conversation with Spirit
"Fill them up," He said.With what? asked the tired peace blogger on the eve of Dona Nobis Pacem.

My peace boxes

For weeks I've known that the box marked "Early Writings" in the back of the closet would provide the backbone of my peace post. And is my usual custom, I waited until nigh the hour to investigate.
"Fill up the peace angel boxes with words you will choose from your fairly ancient writings. I will show you the pattern..."Ha Ha, Lord. That's a funny comment you made. Ancient, eh? But You know best. Let's begin.

And just like I've picked up Papa's hammer or his earth marble in years past, I listened.

I am nothing if not obedient. Inside the closet box I found love poems....lots of silly love poems. Anguished teenage diaries, college essays, journals, quotes, love letters written and received, peace signs and flower power patches, concert tickets....all in the box. It was the seventies and I was young and overly sensitive about most things; and yet...when I read my teenage epiphanies today, I realize not much in the way of what I really care about has changed. Peace. Relationships. Music. God. Rinse Repeat.
Life happened. I became a very young bride back in the days before electricity (ahem). We made our first home in a little mobile house in the middle of the woods.

It was clean and efficient, secluded and perfect for two. And because I grew up with a grandfather whose favorite pastime was folding his hands in prayer, the first thing I did was make a prayer and meditation room. A floor cushion, a cross, a Bible, a picture of Jesus, and a candle traveled with me to our first real house in the suburbs. That was denominational "meditation" back in the day. I've learned and adjusted much since, adding A Course in Miracles later; nonetheless, it was a fine foundation when I didn't even realize I was building a spiritual practice.
Wherever we lived, I needed a room. A place to be quiet. A place to pray. A sanctuary of my own away from noise and life's chaos. That has not changed in my ancient times (thanks Lord) though sometimes the "room" is under the wide canopy of an oak tree in the stillness of woods and rocks on my little mountain.
And that's what I did in that little flat-roof suburban house while I waited for our baby to arrive.
Every day. Every day. Every day. at precisely 4:10 pmIt was my favorite part of the day. I couldn't wait to shut the door, kneel on the floor and spend some time alone with God and my writing journal. Going IN the room was like being siphoned into a vortex.I was drawn into it.

I knew the "meeting" had been called to order as soon as I shut the door behind me. Palpable presence and peace. The atmosphere was climate controlled by a Presence I can only describe as perfect peace and joy. He never failed to meet me there. When I gave Him my time and attention, He gave me strong weapons: patience, love, clarity, compassion, a softer heart, inspiration, mindfulness, solace peace

When I was a little girl, I watched my Papa change atmospheres all the time. It was as effortless as changing his hat. People acted differently when he was around. What he carried was palpable.But the question is...where did he get it?

Papa's marbles

That's easy. Listen carefully. I'll tell you a secret.He' s the one who taught me about the room.
His "room" is scorched in my mind.His room was the Bible on the nightstand in a cold back bedroom, the first thing he touched in the morning.
His room meant devotions at dawn and scribbled scripture notes in the margins of books you weren't supposed to write inHis room gave thanks at mealtime.
His room was a recliner that welcomed silent sunrise prayers..a place none of us disturbed (except the occasional kiss I planted on his forehead as I passed by on the way to breakfast, quietly, quietly you see....)

His room meant gentle hands on my shoulder and a tug on my sleeve

There was a Lamp in his roomIt showed us who he was, no need for preachy words.It was fueled by The Book sprawled open on his lap - The Book from which he gathered his strength.

His room was a well-worn pocket prayer book that he carried with him. Buried under a lifetime of rhymes in the box of many ancient words, I unearthed the small stained power book and its leaves of gold.
Tonight when I opened the tiny pages, it fell open, right on cue, as if it were still open on his lap as I walked past him to the kitchen
Tears fell on page 40 as I read "In Time of War" and "Prayer ForPeace"
Can you imagine anything more timely in this hour?

He has shown me the pattern. I will place the prayer book in the peace boxwhere it surely belongs

Marrying prayer and peace sounds like a mighty fine idea.It was Papa's way. I aspire to his way. He didn't make peace, find peace, or go looking for peace -
He carried it.
In his pocket, in his coat, in his mind, in his heart, in his actions, in his demeanor, in his attitude, in his love walkGoing into the room was easy for him. He simply yielded.I watched.
No matter what beliefs you hold or where you find your rooms of solace, know that it matters greatly how much of it you carry out into the world with you.

In this dark and trying time in the world, I'd like to offer Papa's Prayer For PeaceHe passed it to me. I pass it to you.
"O God, who hast made of one blood all nations of men, mercifully receive the prayer that we offer for our anxious and troubled world. Send Thy Light into our darkness and guide the nations as one family into the ways of peace. Take away all prejudice and hatred and fear. Strengthen in us day by day the will to understand.And to those who by their counsels lead the people of the earth, grant at right judgment, that so, through them and us Thy will be done through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."
Shalom

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Announcing Blog4Peace ~ Post4Peace ~ November 4-5, 2023!

2023-10-02T10:00:00.007-04:00

Welcome Peace Bloggers who Blog4Peace! Welcome social media posters who Post4Peace on a myriad of social media platforms including Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram and beyond! Wherever you are online, you can join our talented community for this annual worldwide event. We are represented on every continent and country in the world. This is our 18th year of peace blogging.
Whether you choose to Blog4Peace or Post4Peace, it's the same community and it's all good!

Bloggers and social media posters from all across the globewill blog and post for peace
NOV 4-5, 2023
Our 2023 Theme is
"Change the Room"The transforming power of walking in peace
Created by graphic artist Ann Adamus @ Zoolatry

Last year we wrote about FREEDOM and how that privilege is entwined with PEACE. We said No Freedom No Peace. You were amazingly insightful and bold from all corners of the Earth. We talked about how to GET FREE in the midst of unwanted invasion (personal or global). This year we're turning inward and moving outward. Let me explain.This is my challenge to you

Imagine what would happen if instead of trying to find peace, we walked in with it?What if we simply carried it in?
What if we were the peace everyone else was searching for? What if we expected the room to change when we entered? Don't you think it would?Why can't we be the water and the well?

When I was a little girl I watched my Papa change atmospheres all the time.It was as effortless as changing his hat.People acted differently when he was around. You never heard loud voices or cursing or strife when he was in the room; they respected him too much. What he carried was palpable.
I've spent a lifetime trying to follow his example, trying to understand where that power came from, then founded an accidental peace movement from a ragged bag of his dusty marbles. Decades later they came to life in the story that became Dona Nobis Pacem for all of us in 2006. It was only then that I knew his uncanny penchant for atmosphere shifts was no accident at all.
Years later he is STILL transforming that wide-eyed little girl STILL transforming all of us.A bowl of marbles and one personHis quiet unconditional lovechanged rooms, changed atmospheres, changed me, changes youStill.
What you carry is palpable.HOW you carry it alters the atmosphere you're in

You either change the atmosphere

or the atmosphere changes you

Maybe if we all learn how to change the room we could collectively change the world.

We have called attention to the absence of what we want. Instead of focusing on the absence of peace, why don't we just walk in with it like we own the planet?

Because. we. do.

Maybe I was a bit naively ambitious in 2006 when I asked you to change the world and expected a peace globe to magically appear on 70 million blogs. Today there are 1.9 BILLION websites worldwide; of those, 600 MILLION blogs. Apparently, we're still expecting to make a dent in the atmosphere because, after all, we're still here.

So walk in like you own it.

Because. you. do.

The planet is groaning for peace and stability and the world is watching how you carry yourself.

We are not the ones to fall down or offer tired platitudes. We are not the ones!!

If that's who we are, if that's ALL we are, then I'm out right now.

I'm about to make a bold statement!

THIS YEAR you will write words that transform. And nothing less.

You will draw and paint and sing and created from a place of clear knowing! This will be the most powerful year of peace posts we've ever seen.

From the moment you set your pen to paper, you will feel it. It will happen in you. How do I know?

Because you've been peace blogging for many many blog years and you just happened to walk right past me a time or two.

I caught it then and I sense it now.

So tell us. Tell us how you do it.

You will write stories of how you walked on seeming hot coals unscathed in the past year.

. When all seemed lost and you wanted to give up, you prevailed. When your body and spirit grew weary and the challenges seemed more than you could bear, you prevailed. .

Someone out there needs to hear that story.

We don't change the world or the room by ourselves.

We pass what we carry to each other.

Peace expands.

We transform.

People will behave differently around you.

I promise.

Let's go! It's a launch.
How To Blog For Peace
Peace Globe Templates HEREOfficial Peace Globe Gallery (see thousands of globes from every country)

Peace globe #1

Use this blank template to make your own peace globe
Contact me at blog4peace @ yahoo.com or on Facebook if you have questions.Images: Mimi Lenox, Pixabay©Mimi Lenox All Rights Reserved Blog4Peace™ Blog For Peace™ Post4Peace™ BlogBlastForPeace™ et al

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Monday Mimisms ~ Powerful Whispers

2023-07-09T23:37:00.003-04:00

Where have I been? It's been a minute. The entire month of June got away from me. Complications showed up. I took a fall on the porch and spent a few painful days sleeping away the bruises. Friends said, "Rest and heal!" That's sooo hard to do. I'm a terrible patient. I keep pushing through sans common sense.
Lost my writing mojo for one red hot minute while the anti-inflammatory meds became the most important task of the day - but sorely needed (pun intended).

Finding courage in an antique store
2013 - Revisited this post and reclaimed my writing chops

Then I got off my prissy behind (literally) and started venturing out again.
More thrifting. Lunches with beautiful friends to catch up. Soaking in Epsom. Burning lavender candles in the middle of the day.

Looking for furniture as I redecorate my house. More gentle house decluttering. All gingerly. Slowly. Mindfully. Thankfully. I came so close to breaking my hip. Ummm....perhaps I should sloooooowwww down instead of thinking I'm a modern version of Laura Ingalls Wilder on the Bloggingham Prairie trying to do things I shouldn't be doing. Getting tangled up in a heavy water hose was NO fun.

I couldn't sit for long periods of time, which turned out to be a good thing: it made me get outside and wander around. Sunshine and grass under my feet. Good for the soul....and the soles.
Naps happened.

The Lion spoke ten years ago this spring.
I remember the sound of the muse. Powerful whispers.
And his roar. I'd like to catch a glimpse of him again. It took falling down to get my attention. I'm ready for a new set of words.
I'm ready for inspiration from the Lion.
I wonder if he remembers....

Dusting off my pen and paper...

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Memorial Day 2023

2023-05-29T14:17:00.002-04:00

Honor and respect
Some gave all

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Monday Mimisms ~ Toes Out the Window

2023-05-22T17:01:00.001-04:00

I was seventeen.

Performing in 1974

My hair weighed more than I did.

We'd just finished a Beatles medley for the student body of our high school

and all I wanted to do was step out of the Yellow Submarine we'd build out of cardboard and slide into the passenger seat of my boyfriend's car

Toes out the window. Coca-Cola in my hand.

Hair-in-a-ponytail-happy-I was.

Fast forward forty-seven years.

and volcanoes are exploding in my pencil head

Pandemic Me

So much time on my hands

Thinking about the one I should have married

Thinking about the one I could have married

The one I shouldn't have married

The one I didn't marry

All of those shoulda-woulda missteps brought lifelong consequences unbeknownst to the long-haired girl.

The one who got away before I found myself at the ripe old age of thirty-something.

What is it about sixty-something that causes one to psychoanalyze the whole of a life?

Shouldn't I be knitting sweaters or something?

Who does that?

Me. This week. That's who.

Then I hit a big bodacious bad brick wall. SCREEEEECCCCHHHH.

BAM. OUCH.

Last Thursday night I was sitting on the couch staring at the wall in silence, evicting a few rickety ghosts from my head, watching them fly away into mist. Scribbling on paper. I'd been there awhile...just kind of numb. Needing to not-think. You get that, right? There had been unpleasantness, you see.

I don't like unpleasantness. I like peace.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Meditate. Pray. Listen.

Before I knew it, all the ropes that held me down had been untied. I lit a match and symbolically burned a paper full of angry words in my left hand.

Watched it burn. Watched it burn.

Ashes. Poof. Gone.

Then picked up what was left of those I-should-have-could-have-shouldn't-have people with my right hand and blew. them. away.

I looked at the clock. It was 2 am.

I straightened my dented crown and went to bed.

I've been on a slippery slope you see.

Trying to function and still save me.

There. I said it.

It doesn't matter how long ago your loved one last misused a substance or drank to excess or suffered a bout of depression, in a mother's head and heart they're always a fool's breath away from active destruction; except with addiction or alcoholism or even narcissism it's mutual destruction. A person with a substance use or personality disorder can look at you stone cold sober holding a Bible in one hand and Holy Water in the other and you still won't believe they're sober or truthful.

That's my problem, not theirs.

I don't want to cover it up anymore.

Not because of my beautiful loved one - he's been successfully working his sobriety for many years -

but because of ME.

Standing in the wide weary gulf between helping and enabling

when I found myself alone and climbing out of the recent brief foxhole we shared,

it resurrected all kinds of emotional baggage from years and years ago when he was actively struggling with substances. Oh, the memories. We found ourselves dancing to that worn-out record despite ourselves

my eyes were opened

to what I had become

what I needed to deal with

what I needed to admit

what I needed to understand

what I needed to

stop

doing

Don't you hate that word?

What word, Mimi?

Codependency

Yes, I hate it.

The day I started blogging, half my face fell off

Then all kinds of wonderful adventures began

Today, this many years young,

I found the other half again.

There is a thin line dangling between the edge of authenticity and the need for dignity and privacy. My writing has always walked that wire. But in every word and every story I try to err on the side of transparency, in the same way I would want less shame-based words applied to the people I love.

Addict is not a noun or an identity. Alcoholic is not a noun or an identity. Codependent is not a noun or an identity. They are disorders and struggles, not moral failures. The disease is not the person.

I've wanted to say it for years.

That I am proud of him

That I love him with all my heart

That I see him

Despite me and my uneven walk with worry and faith

But just for a little while, I think we need a mini-divorce.

Hush Homer. I'll be checking your medicine cabinet tomorrow..

Just until I regain my sea legs and he sprouts more of those beautiful wings.

He can be free to make his own adventures

I won't be holding him hostage with my smothering

I can be free to make my own adventures

not holding myself back with fear

What codependency does to your peace of mind is insidious and suffocating

You don't even know it's happening!

It's a learned belief and habit that I must unlearn

Have you ever seen your son or daughter nearly dead from a disease?

You'll do anything to keep that from happening again. Even when you no longer need to. Even years later. And therein lies the devil of enabling.

The job of addiction is to kill and destroy. When you enable (helping someone do something they can do for themselves) at first you believe you're actually helping. You feel good about it. You get a rush of feel good dopamine. Sound familiar?

Here's the problem. The real sneaky job of enabling is also to kill and destroy.

My hardwired need to protect, spills over into the decisions I make about everything and everyone else in my life. Now that was an eye-opener.

Codependency grows from a normal natural parental instinct which screams protect.my.child. Mothers have it the moment their babies are born.

There's no shame in it. It's motivated by love.

But with substance disorder, because of the unpredictable trauma that goes on in families as a result, it can grow wild and out of control and you start looking for a recurrence of symptoms in your loved one. It drives them away. It feels like moral judgment even when your intention is to only throw love.

Sometimes I move about the world in shoe-drop mode, post trauma reactions that aren't even real in the moment. It's not irrational or hypothetical. The triggers of past events can still be seen in my mind and felt in my heart.

So I make up my own scary stories in the now and convince myself that I need to DO something to prevent them from happening again. It's that dead-child-coffin-dream fear, to put it bluntly. It's very common for parents of children who've suffered from substance abuse. It's like you're watching a horror show on the big screen of your life. The substance has the starring role, the protagonist. Everyone is in desperately twisted love with the alcohol, the pill, the high, the drama. Your loved one is drowning. You are the unintentional antagonist. Everyone dies.

You run yourself ragged trying to help. It doesn't help. It makes things worse because they lose the dignity of making their own choices. And you lose your mind watching them suffer.

I think I dented my crown when I hit that wall, my friends.

But I'll be OK.

No matter how many times I stick my toes out the window and put my hair in a ponytail, some days are like a roller coaster ride. You either hold on or fall off.

But mostly, I discovered the amusement ride in my head wasn't fun.

I joined a support group. I took an assessment. I signed up for a codependency class online. I wrote emails and ask questions. I watched podcasts on parents who also struggle with enabling NODDING and NODDING and NODDING my head.

Who knew I belonged to a club that no one wants to belong to all these years?

I didn't join to fix him. I joined to fix me.

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Monday Mimisms ~ Getting Back To Me

2023-05-08T08:00:00.003-04:00

The housing market exploded into doom-for-buyers about the time they settled in. No reasonable rent to be found. No affordable housing on the horizon.
They were stuck here with me, Homer, Snickers, squirrels and trees. For the past eighteen months I've had guests in my house; changing jobs, seeking housing, and going with the flow of economic turmoil. The bonus? A delightful 3-year-old who calls me Mimi liberally planted kisses on the mirrors....and on me...every single day. It's been challenging and wonderful all at once. At times the experience forged our relationships with in-your-face fire, followed by loving transitions of the heart, only to be followed by more fire. All necessary. Part and parcel for three generations under one roof. And probably long overdue. I'm happy and proud to report they've moved on to a home of their own ... new commitments, new adventures. I still haven't washed the lipstick marks from the mirrors.

Now there are only the ghosts of Bloggingham... and me.

While I love them and will miss them, I'm rediscovering what it means to be truly finally retired and free.My life has been on pause for a few years. Lately I've been to a couple of lunch meets with old friends and colleagues, bought a new dress for Friday night tip-toeing into a nightclub (if I remember how to walk in heels), found a new Farmer's Market and stocked the freezer with healthy foods.
And the music? UP. LOUD.
Sleeping?IN
Clothes and shoes?FLUNG OFF(did I say that??)
Mostly, I appreciate and value my independence. I don't think I'll take for granted, again, any little thing in my home. Did I fully appreciate my space before? NO. Did I remember to stop and be grateful for pine cabinets, wood floors, porches and tire swings? Not always.
I'd almost forgotten what it meant to hear silence.
I have learned to be thankful for the smallest of things: the forks and spoons I now wash in the quiet of morning, the sound of a perking coffee pot, the sight of birds making new nests under inconvenient eaves and dust...even dust...because I get to do a big spring clean and spruce my home new into what I want it to be just for me again. I feel like I walked into a brand new house.
I need rugs. And lamps. And art on the walls.I'm throwing out carloads of accumulated junk from attic to basement.VERY liberating.
I've lived alone for the past twenty-one years! Having others here for so long was an intense experience for me. I like my own company. I like my own space. I like my own routines. And let's face it, I drive people crazy!!!(Just ask them!) Hush Homer..
Someone said to me the other day during one of our post-pandemic marathon phone calls, "You never apologize.""Excuse me?" popped right out of the snarly mouth of mine. "I don't apologize??""You're the most unapologetic person I've ever known," he said. "You don't explain yourself. You're just who you are all the time. I admire that about you.You don't care what anybody thinks....I pay attention."
I appreciated the insight but me thinks I need to do some serious tweaking on this codependent thing and learn what boundaries I'm sabotaging for mySELF that causes me pain and stunts my personal growth. Inner Truth time.
So this time in Act 3 of my lifeit feels like starting overfrom scratchlike flour and dough-making scratch mixing mud in a wild strawberry mud-pie scratchmaking love in a cold backseat scratchmoving off to college starting overscratchlyrics and crazy chordsout of thin air scratch
staying home BEING
88 keys of blank pagesjust waiting for meand my time

That's what musicians do. That's what writers do.That's what I do.No apologies.

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Monday Mimisms ~ Hemlines and Shoulders

2023-05-01T00:45:00.002-04:00

The plan: Band playing. Outdoor music and festival food. Scores of antiques. Hotdogs. A raffle. Socialization. And oh yes....there was rain. Lots of rain.The much anticipated event cancelled by a thundercloud. Spring.Fling.Interrupted
The dress would have to wait.

If you can imagine an off-the-shoulder look....

As luck (unluck) would have it and in perfect (imperfect) timing, Beans came down with some sort of virus (not Covid) and a high fever, so...I couldn't have gone anyway. When I picked him up from school on Friday his fever was 102 degrees. He had to hunker down with me for the weekend in lieu of spreading it to #theheartpatient at his house. A quick wardrobe switch from that new-dress-floozy-feeling to a nurse cap and thermometer bag and I was good to go. Those quick wardrobe changes in opera workshop classes back in the day really pay off from time to time. Poor little guy has been so sick. I'm masking up and staying as clear away from him as I can, spraying Lysol, singing German Lieder to make him fall asleep

and eyeing that cute little dress hanging in the hallway just begging to be accessorized.
I've decided to wear the dangling Cherokee feather earrings and strappy floppy Clark sandals with a gold petaled fleur atop for comfort and attention. Yes, I said attention. I need some attention. The kind that a new dress can bring. Because it's not really about the way you look in it or how others see you in it...it's about how it makes you feel.
And right now I'm feeling pretty darn lucky that I get to spoil this little person who loves and depends on his Mimi AND pretty excited and looking forward to the next sunny weekend full of spring festivals and funsans thunderstorms and flu
That dress makes me happyBodaciously clashing with the wallpaperThe hemline hangs short in the front longer in the backsymmetrically askewand that's why I laughedwhen the mirror said "It's you!"

Gute Nacht

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Monday Mimisms ~ The Cherokee Girl

2023-04-18T12:29:00.002-04:00

*Reprised from 2010*

I am slightly north of fifty.

Most days I like my place on the chronological globe. Some days I want to string it up from the highest rafter and kick the bucket of wrinkle remover off the highest cliff and call it a day.
Today was a bucket kicker of a day.

I took my 6-year-old grandson shopping through the neighborhood yard sale boutiques. He had a pocket full of money (mine) a skip jump and a heartbeat of joy (mine) and most everything else in his wiry little body that you can count on in this world that means a blessed thing. And he’s mine.
Wrapped around my sinew and bone like a web-spun intricate cobweb of blissful peace.
He is.
Blissful.
Peace.

My hands have a few wrinkles.
I know they weren’t there yesterday.
And my eyes look tired. Must be the heat, I tell myself.
No.
It’s because I’m past-midlife-never-mind.

And then I went home and got properly stuck on the age thing.
And why some days I look like hell
and some days I look like twelve
and how today I feel just like the Cherokee girl my grandmother was

I tried to wash my freckles away in the morning dew when I was 8 years old because she said they would disappear. Lo and behold, at 53, I am still trying to cover those blasted freckles and make my smile stop being crooked like hers and my nose wrinkling up oh.so.adolescent.like when I really really smile.

For years I fought it. I wanted it to shift into Hollywood styled sophisticated perfection. I wanted to pout like Garbo, sizzle like Marilyn, slink like Ginger. I did not want to effude giggles like a pigtailed Mary Ann. (Oh, I do alright in the catwalk department on a good ole’ day you see…..but it’s days like today …..when the sun is long and my freckles come callin’ that I see…I see…..(“I brought my grandson today, ma’am. His name is Baby Boy”) a wisp of her staring cold in the mirror and laughing cause she still sees the marks behind whatever makeup I put on (“Grandson? He’s not your son?”)……knowing full well I can‘t wash them off with the dew (“No, no,” I laugh, “my own baby is 30.”…) even though that’s what my greatly superstitioned grandmother told me (“That’s about what I thought you were.”) while she watched me wash my face with dewdrops one morning at 5am in the backyard trying to scrub them away….(“Oh DO go on, ma’am…I will buy everything you have in your garage today…“)

Whoever heard of a movie star with freckles?

I can't have both.
Can I?

So I came home flailing all my will into a long dramatic selfish pout, casting winks and coy glances hither and yon for the birds and the squirrels and trees, splashing on makeup and dropping pearls round the long strands of auburn that also belonged to the glorified goddess of an Indian-laced grandmother and took this shot and that and that shot and this trying to see what the yard sale lady said she saw in the shadow of my grandson‘s smile this morning…...oh I was bound and determined to have a dandy of a roll in the whine fields if I couldn't coax that number down and have a long satisfying look in the yard sale lady's mirror...... I desperately needed those years to wash away you see and since it was not morning, but a sun-washed afternoon in my fifty-third year I felt time turning pages in the solstice of a day that I knew I was meant all along to land in with my grandmother laughing all wrinkled and joyful behind that willow tree looking at me flirt shamelessly with wildlife and memories......wondering how did I get here so fast in a spot where spots are signs of age and not of youth with no stopwatch to slow them down... down.... down....
Until finally I saw something in the lens I’d never seen before.
Something steadfast.
Something strong.
Something …..
Cherokee

a streak of stubborn
A chiseled chin
A bold lined woman
Who never takes no for an answer
and knows exactly where she's been

One random streak of grey
And freckles
Not in the dew
But in the new

And then
I had an epiphany

About perfection
And the lack of it
In me
And imperfections
And strength
in the middle of
imperfect things
that I no longer want to wash away

My grandmother's gift of stubbornness and grit might have been borne on the backs of those unsophisticated marks, but she knew what she was doing when she passed them on to me.
She knew I would need them
there's some kind of magic in dew

*NOTE 2023: Baby Boy is now in college studying Computer Science. I am north of sixty. Still wearing dangling feathers and feeling ever so much more like a Cherokee girl inside and out. Grandmother had wisdom that has served me well. This morning I found a white feather on my walk at precisely 11:11. Thank you, Grandmother...I miss you too.

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Monday Mimisms ~ Do I Look Like Annie to You??

2023-04-10T10:36:00.002-04:00

~~Three~~ Five Things I Will Never EVER Say to Anyone AgainWho Is Going Through a Hard Time

1. You are stronger than you know.
Please, for the love of all that is BloLy (that's blog + holy for all you non-blog speakers) Let's not tempt the Universe and test that theory.

maybe I need to look in the mirror

2. This too shall pass.
Sometimes it takes a loooooonnnnng time to "pass." In the meantime it's perfectly logical to schedule a nervous breakdown.
3. You've been through worse times than this! You can do it!
Bite me.
4. I'm sorry you're sick. Are you sure it wasn't caused by stress?
Now you have insinuated that I don't have the strength to soldier through and I'm somehow to blame for my own distress. A double-whammy to my pain. See #3
5. Tomorrow is a new day.

Thanks. Another day of this???!!
Instead.....Have a big ugly cry. Throw some things. I tried Velcro curlers but it was so unsatisfying. Shut the bathroom door and cuss in the mirror. If you're not used to cussing you'll start tripping over consonants making up new debauchery! Feels so good. Then you'll start laughing because you can't even cuss right.
Crawl under a blanket or a rock with a bag of Cheetos. Works for me.

Anger. Let's say it. It's there because you're hurting, exhausted, and you want the pain to stop. Call up your best friend. Tell her to bring wine, a Bible, a witch doctor, a Priest, some herb roots, Reiki people, anointing oil from the Nile, snake-handling gloves, a Santana album for dancing and a box of very sinful chocolate. Yep. We're covered.I have friends who already have bags packed for such occasions.
As for the above well-meaning offenses, I have been guilty of saying all of them.And I vow to do better.
P.S. I hope this made you laugh
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Monday Mimisms ~ Omega 3 Omega Me

2023-03-20T13:22:00.008-04:00

My study perch

I woke up this morning feeling very clear-headed and centered. Happy. Calm. Healthy. Change your diet. Change your life.Change WHEN you eat and HOW you eatmight just reverse your diabetes.
I'm on a new path of nutrition and healing. My glucose needed a good kick in the pants and out of my body for good...so....I took a deep dive into how my body actually works; binge-watching youtube videos by cardiologists and endocrinologists, kidney specialists and nutritionists. I had to weed through the quacko-pretend doctors first (!) but it was entertaining and enlightening. The subject of lipopolysacchirides was intriguing. Did you know that there are fluffy LDL particles and small dense LDL particles? I never knew. You want the big, fluffy kind (think snowflakes) not the little ones that wreak havoc on those pesky cholesterol numbers.
And why do I think dietary changes will improve my diabetes even more? Precisely because I can tell you from my experience that quitting CAFFEINE reversed my hypertension. I replaced coffee with French chicory root coffee. It's a natural diuretic.

No more high blood pressure. This morning's reading was 118/77 and has been consistently so for many months. Such a simple change made a huge difference in my life. More importantly, NO pills, NO side effects, NO caffeine jitters. In fact, it helps with sleep as well.
Then I put my Milani knee-high combat boots on!I am NOT playing. All business. I am not one to blindly follow the status quo. Knowledge is power. I hunkered down.I focused.
I'm on the first week of intermittent fasting and major dietary changes; only allowing myself an 8-hour window to eat and then nothing but water, chicory, or tea for the rest of the night. Rinse. Repeat. Since removing insulin some time ago, I've felt better overall, lost weight (I stay out of strong winds) and have had good-to-moderately-OK control on no medications with periods of perfect control and low blood sugar. In each season of your life your body changes. Diabetes, too, is always changing.
THIS recent uptick in numbers is totally my fault. I really thought I could eat ...oh say...a bowl of popCORN at night? Seriously, Mimi?
My diabetes started nine years ago just past the middle of my life. As you learn to live with it, your body has to adjust to all kinds of new medicine chemicals and protocols and habits (finger-sticking yuck). Shots were not fun. Then I learned I had hyperinsulemia. Who needs that??! The shots had to go.
Doctors hate patients like me. I'm allergic to everything (literally)..in particular, three classes of diabetes' drugs, two insulins, and most every antibiotic known to man. It's not that I'm opposed to medication, it's that it most always makes me sicker. And I'm just stubborn enough - and annoying enough - to ask 40 trillion questions at every single appointment. I want to control it myself because I have to control it myself.
That reminds me...Did you know there are 40 trillion bacteria in your gut?!This microbiome is incredibly important for your overall health.Aren't they pretty?

and critical to metabolic health
My struggle is nighttime snacking. I "think" I'm hungry when, in fact, it's emotional eating. I'm not eating past 7:00 pm now and it's totally reducing the morning basal reading which is EVERYTHING.
When you start out low, you have somewhere to go! When you start out high, you might actually die!

Yes, I have an old-fashioned
telephone!

That is my motto from experience. Today I made an appointment with a nutritionist/dietician to help me navigate these waters and will have a virtual visit with an internist tomorrow.
I'm currently researching Omega 3s & 6s. I learned recently that you're not supposed to overheat olive oil and cook with it but it's OK to put in your salads. What??! I do that every.single.day. I'll ask the doctor.

Meanwhile...there's a real live Princess in the castle.

I'm a little distracted by all the wand-waving. I bowed and asked her name.

"I'm Elsa," she seriously declared, then wafted back down the stairs to re-accessorize.

Her braid fell off. It was tragic.

She told me her wand is "magic"Somehow, I believe her.

Back to studying. I hope you all are healthy and happy.
P.S. I am not a doctor. Consult yours before embarking on major changes. Follow Me

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Monday Mimisms ~ Like He Just Walked Through The Door

2023-02-13T10:49:00.001-05:00

Papa's box 1974

Somewhere in the attic is a box....and another....and another......that looks like this one. Every year of my life until the year that he died, on Valentine's Day, he brought one home with him - one for her and one for me.

It was the same every year.

Wonderfully the same.

A red medium sized heart-shaped box of chocolates
with a red silk rose and a ribbon.

From Papa

It wasn't the chocolate I craved. Nor the box.
It was this....

As if on cue, he would enter with an eager smile and a faithful gift for both of us on February 14th. He would kiss my grandmother on the cheek as she hugged his laughing belly, cup my uplifted adoring face with the other hand and ask, "How's my girl?"

What a silly question.

He knew I was his girl.

I still am.

Today I asked my own sweet three-year-old granddaughter the same question:

"How's my girl?"

Her answer was a big sloppy kiss on the side of my cheek, and then the other, as if she knew I needed affection that only she could deliver, with an extra smack of "wipstick" smeared from one end of her face to the other now transferred to mine, she laughingly commanded, "Go look in the mirror, Mimi!" And there it was. Two big love lips on both sides of my face, purposely planted by none other than "my girl."

It was the faithfulness of those boxes that made me love him so.

It's the memory of that faithfulness that teaches me how to love my own.

It's why I make sure she has heart-shaped boxes on Valentine's Day. She will have seasons in her life - as I have had recently - when there is no tangible presence of sentimental gifts, times she'll feel alone. I hope she keeps the boxes. This one from Papa has a reflecting surface in the middle. I can see my own face clearly in the box year after year. For the past forty years, no matter the season I'm in, when I pick up the box I not only see myself..... I see and feel how he loves me

Still

And it feels like he just walked through the door

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Monday Mimisms ~ Who Would Ghost a Queen?

2023-01-16T13:50:00.001-05:00

So THAT's where you're
hiding the candy..

Why am I explaining? Questioning?
Again. My newest non-resolution. Stop explaining. Just be.
My days are nuttier than usual. Busier than usual. Mostly I'm spinning this one around in a chair 'til she's "Bizzy!" as only a three-year-old can hilariously proclaim, gently fighting with Beans (age 11) about the battles he's "not" fighting in video games when I walk around the corner and hear him declare "victory" over his enemies. Can't he just learn to meditate?

Learning to "watch"
in the doctor's office. Fun times.

Or relentlessly checking the "watched" spot on my back. Watch it? I can't SEE it! So, I've decided not to "watch" it. I told Dr.Derm that SHE should be the one watching, not me. I will drive myself and the whole Blogosphere crazy if I watch.

You see it, right?

Maybe I should take a picture of it backwards in the mirror and let YOU watch it. Oh, I crack myself up.All I know is that when I go back in March to see if all this "watching" has produced any crazy results, I shall declare ('cause I'm a Queen) that I'm done with the eye and body contortion routine. Just take it off. Please. Now. "These take yeeeeaaarrrsss to develop into a problem," she said, "Don't worry."Then. Why. Are. We. Watching???

Bree "watching" flower roots

She knows how to get to the bottom of things.

Which brings me to my latest sad and silly malady.

I've been ghosted. Ghosted! Me??!

Who would ghost a Queen?

It started out so lovely. Five-hour phone conversations. Morning texts. Goodnight emails. Mutual commonalities and laughter. Then New Year's happened...er....or didn't happen. And I realized that the more I talked to him about my own personal goals and aspirations the less interested he seemed to be in understanding that independent streak in moi. He could have just said what I suspected...that he wanted to be joined at the hip. I can't even FIND my hips.

Instead. Ghosted.

I'm going to talk to Baby Boy. Since he's eighteen now soon-to-be majoring in Computer Science, he should know the ways and whys of intraweb romance. Or not.All I know is that he never had any trouble with dating in Kindergarten. Wait...there was that Tiffany girl.....and Amy...oh, and Susie (!) who popped him in the head with a paper airplane. Maybe I'd better not ask Baby Boy.

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Quicksand and Mistletoe ~ A Holiday Card From Me

2022-12-25T17:03:00.001-05:00

The Christmas Holiday season is not happy for all. At times in my own life it has been bittersweet.

Overshadowed by schmaltzy Hallmark Christmas movies, rife with Walton-Family-Like dinners around a flowery table, carols and presents and music and smiles. Christmas. Right.Wrong. For some, just wrong. To me, holidays can be fraught with landmines and quicksand. When I was growing up, the holidays brought long white-tableclothed layers of southern cooking with scores of cousins and aunts and uncles. Tight squeezes in the bosoms of very large aproned women I only saw once a year. "My, how you've grown! Now go take Grandma the baking soda."
Somewhere in between the sweet banana pudding and Uncle Joe's smelly cigar, there were happy car rides with Daddy on Christmas lights hunts and Mama (who hated Christmas) throwing hissy fits (it's a southern thing) with wooden spoons full of cherries meant for the meringue pie that landed on the linoleum floor instead.

I learned to dodge.
It also brought worries over money, arguments that kids shouldn't overhear through the bedroom door, and the ever present reality that some adult somewhere would get too intoxicated or high as the evening progressed and old family scores to settle would ruin the last of the whipped topping goodness in my impressionable soul.Stomach aches. It always happened.
So be careful when you longingly dream over those perfect Christmas candid shots on Facebook and Instagram. Nobody's family is perfect. Nobody's life is immune to addiction or alcoholism, depression or stress - even when they try to hide behind a filtered screen. Now that I have my own crew of flawed holiday traditions, I see those generational threads of dysfunction pop up occasionally in the midst of mistletoeing and whispered conversations at the kids' table. I hear them. And I remember.
Children and adults need a safe place to Christmas. Over the years I've managed to re-purpose my unpredictable lineage into happier spaces for my own kids and grandchildren. That's the thing about painful memories. We have the power to change the way we create the future.
Whatever your situation - and God bless you if you are lucky enough to have one of those Walton Family scenes at your address - I DO believe it's a good thing to honor our spiritual and festive traditions, spiritual or secular. But for some, the season is excruciatingly lonely and sad. Pressured in the quicksand, memories rise to the surface.
Not everyone will celebrate this day or this season. There won't be a card for them, so I wrote one.

To All .....
......whose children are not coming home and will never come homeI wish you peace and fragrant memories
...who never knew their father or mother I wish you nighttime visitations in the form of dreamswords and whispers in your knowing placeto help you understand
...never had a happy childhood ChristmasI pray you make your own holiday so beautiful and full of wonder as an adulton your own terms, in your own way, wholly and deeply meaningfuljust. for. you.
To All...who live with abuse, chronic illness, poverty or griefI wish you strengthin leaving, strength in staying, strength in rememberingwisdom and abundance and self-care

And if you are alone

I hope the Spirit of Christmas makes you rich with palpable joy with NEWNESS and anticipation (!) 'til it bubbles over right down to your socksmelted like hot chocolate that lost its cupand keeps you warm at night
Know that life is full of wonderful peoplejust waiting to know who you are

To All ...whose children will call from jail or rehabI wish you calm in the midst of your fear
....who children are sick and in need of a miracleI wish you words to pray and an audience with your Maker
To All.......who felt as though an alien ship dropped you into the house of your birth parentsmay you learn to parent yourself with the kindness and insight that comes from loving YOU and then give that gift to your own children may the cycle be unbroken
To All whose homes are silentwhere no none speaks but in angerMay you only speak in loveor not at all

To All....whose empty nests are emptier than they'd hopedI wish you years of bringing your parenting to a new level where letting go feels like flying
To All...whose families live far far awayI wish you warm breezes that speak of hugs
To All.......whose children will sleep in a car tonight, under a bridge, or in a shelterI wish that you will only see the quiet adoration in the trusting eyes of your childand that every star in the cold night sky leads you HOME

To All .....whose time is shortI wish you arms of Love and whispers of the God-kindso that your family will never be alone and you can leave in peace
And to All..who hear "I love yous" but know it's just an annual Christmas ruseI pray you speak loving fire that burns and pierces and calls for nothing in return but truth
To All...

whose child became a casualty of addiction or mental illnessI wish a reunion with a healthy child
To All who knows not where your Loved One is tonightI wish a phone call
If your fresh-faced child fights in a warI wish an end to the insanity and a laying down of arms
And To All..whose arms are empty today for whatever reasonI wish a visitation
of peace

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Monday Mimisms ~ Snippets of Life

2022-12-19T15:30:00.000-05:00

There are so many people in my house right now that sometimes I feel the need to go sit in my car for privacy. Has this ever happened to you? I pray to the God of Real Estate every day! Help my relatives find affordable housing.. Puuuhhlllleeeaasssse.These people are making me itch.

Now that that's out of my system....I have a gentleman caller and we are making our way through the beginnings of friendship and such. Six foot two eyes of blue. Male FRIENDSHIP. Perfect. It's push and pull with me. He must think I'm a yo-yo. One minute I say I'm too overwhelmed with my current Situationship to focus on a new one; the next minute he convinces me that I need him in the kindest of ways.

I'm drowning in dishes.

Remember all those dishes I bought in September at the Sale of the Century?Most of them are still here. Sales are UP but not fast enough for me.

I think I'm allergic to bubblewrap. I'm sure it's not the people...

MUST. FIND. SOMETHING. SMALLER. TO. SELL.

Seriously, I do NOT have time for all this packing and shipping.

Bree is keeping me entertained day and night. She wants to play "makepop" all the time. So we smear on "wipstick" in a myriad of colors. Then she kisses me on the cheek with a loud POP to leave a BIG mark. It's insanely funny to her. This is why all my mirrors look like this.

Meanwhile...Beans has started Tae Kwon Do! He can kick higher than a kangaroo.

I'm afraid of him.

I sent out Christmas cards. I had a falling out with a friend that made me sad. I had RSV for a month. I had more nausea from the falling out than the virus. Plumbing and electrical issues here. ACK! Who neeeeds that? My first grandson started college majoring in Computer Science. Remember Baby Boy?

Baby Boy 2010

Making Snowman and Santa cookies with the little ones. Trying not to eat them myself. We're driving around looking at lights like when I was a kid. It was the thing to do! Getting used to having a cat in the house - something I thought I'd NEVER EVER do. And I'm at the age that most times when I search someone on Google, I find an obituary instead. Seriously???! The pandemic has not been kind to mankind. Or maybe I'm just....vintage.
And.oh.the.purging.
I'm throwing out boxes of STUFF. I can't believe I thought I needed all this STUFF. Instead of "stuff" in 2023, how about I try something really important...like a relationship, like taking peace globes to the next level, like taking a ballroom dance class, like finishing that book, like starting all over in the castle once again with a new metamorphosis and a single life vibe that suits me just right. I've climbed over a lot of dross in 2022. I'm long overdue for new pencil skirts.

Cookies anyone?

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Monday Mimisms ~ Me and a Meme

2022-12-04T22:23:00.001-05:00

I decided to do a meme on Sunday for Mimisms on Monday

! Does that make sense? No worries. I was shocked to see that they had stolen my meme (shocked!) from way back in the day. Just kidding. It's what they do. That's why it's called Sunday Stealllliiinngggg. So. I shall play the meme I wrote from my blog called The Queen's Meme - although these questions are a mishmash of romance and groceries. I have no idea who really wrote the first seven or number 14. I like to play tongue-in-cheek. Buckle up. Thanks Bev.

1. What do men really want in a woman? That's like asking, "What do fish really want from the ocean?"Who wrote these questions??!
2. Should marijuana be legalized?Absolutely
3. Why did the cow jump over the moon?To get to the pot store.

(I can't believe I said that)

4. What do women really want in a man?That's like asking, "What does the ocean really want from fish?"Who wrote these questions?!
5. When you are having a really good day, what usually makes it good?A day at the river with Beans.

6. What can make your good day turn into a bad day?If we fall off a rock and plunge into the river. I can't swim.
7. If you could start from scratch and turn back the clock for a re-do, what would you re-do? I would major in Music Therapy instead of Music Education.
8. Do you make a list when you go grocery shopping?No. I make a grocery list BEFORE I go shopping.
9. Do you buy more groceries when you're hungry?I buy more EVERYTHING when I'm hungry.Just ask Amazon.
10. Coupons. Use them?Yes Yes and YES!
11. Have you ever complained to the manager of your grocery store?The day I found expired dates on my precious keylime yogurt. Alas, I had to buy blueberry instead.

12. Do you like to buy groceries at huge chain stores like Walmart? Or do you shop exclusively at food stores?I don't like to buy food at Walmart. I want a real food store with better sanitary conditions for groceries. The vegetables are left out in the bins hardly ever misted and washed. The watermelons are never fresh. Yuck.
13. What do you typically have for lunch?Salad. Protein. More salad.
14. Tell us about your last lunch date and what made it special.I met an old friend and colleague for lunch in town. We taught together for twenty years on the same hallway. Oh, if those walls could talk! I just hope the security camera footage has long been destroyed.
Images: Mimi Lenox photography & PixabayFollow Me

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I Am Sure (Quite Sure) That Today Is NOT My Birthday

2022-11-29T12:27:00.000-05:00

I've been saying this every year on this blog for the last one hundred years. In the interim...wars have started and ceased. The cosmos went backwards in time and came around again. Three presidents have passed by...and passed on. God rest their souls. And Twitter was bought by Mickey Mouse. The jury is still out on that one.

Homer baked a birthday cake for me KNOWING I can't eat cake. I wonder what's in this lovely strawberry concoction? I hope it's just strawberries with no evil sugar. Thank you Homer!

Meanwhile I am enjoying the once-a-year attention on Facebook. Birthday wishes are the BEST part of that platform. Thank you!!! They make me smile and I love sending birthday wishes to my friends.

And still is it NOT my birthday.

I know it is not my birthday because I have yet to use color on my natural brunetteness. I will not be one of those women who embrace the grays and let them flow freely. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think I'll join the party.

So far. So good.

I know it is not my birthday because no one in the "real" royal family has bothered to send a greeting. The day is young. I'm still waiting.

I know it is not my birthday because I can still wear a baseball cap and a pencil skirt, although my French nails are beginning to fall off when I'm stressed. I wonder if I should talk to my doctor about that.

And lastly, I know it is NOT my birthday because FINALLY those pesky "Sign up for Social Security" commercials have stopped coming in the mail. I did that last year. It takes an Act of Congress to get that little red, white and blue card. Now that I'm past-the-age-of-knowing-better I feel free to know better.

Does that make sense?

I didn't think so.

Well. Thanks for stopping by. I'm going to make a virtual appointment with my doctor about those nails. Last visit she said she didn't want to discuss my makeup, eyeliner, pedicures OR my Internet dog and his health problems.

The nerve!

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Pumpkin Pie and The Man at the Window

2022-11-23T14:08:00.001-05:00

Holidays can be the best of times for families where lifelong happy memories are made...or they can be excruciatingly stressful times full of unhappy memories to unpack through the years. I hope your clan experiences the former. If so, you are truly blessed. But let's be real. Holidays are tough for a lot of people. We're not all The Waltons!

Today I want to re-post a story I wrote in 2007. It seems highly appropriate for the societal climate we find ourselves in some fifteen years later. And to be honest, I need to revisit for personal reflection.

The years in between give me much to be grateful for. Sometimes it's good to be reminded of beginnings.
Mama's Jail ~ CLICK HERE TO READ.

Have a wonderful holiday with those you love!

Have an extra slice....

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