Making Your Bed In The Morning...



  Have you ever wondered if making your bed in the morning is overrated?  I am praying that my kids do not read this blog post before they are all out of the house.  As a returning college student, after twenty years, I can see why making ones bed in the morning does not seem as important as I have made it out to be over the last seventeen plus years of each of their lives.  I would venture to say, my twenty seven year old would probably agree as well. 

  However, the saying still goes, cleanliness is next to Godliness right?  That sounded so proper when I would whisper it to myself as I walked through my daily chore list while sending kids off to school,  not so much anymore.
 
  Here I sit in front of my computer, two weeks into my new college career and I have a completely new appreciation for my young adults who are either finishing off their high school career or just starting their adventure in college.  Oh how I forgot what it was like to be a student.  Granted, they are much younger then I am but there is still the stress of keeping up with the agenda of the teacher regardless of what is going on in and around your life.   

  I recently found myself miscalculating my morning and thought I would have time to get my son to school, my bed made and bags packed for my own class schedule.  It was not the case; I looked at my bed, shrugged my shoulders and said aloud as if my pillows were my audience, “making the bed is so overrated.”   I grabbed my purse, books and water bottle and headed out the door, hoping to be able to at least make it home before anyone found out I broke my own rule.

  I  debated for a second on whether I should tell my children my thoughts around making the bed first thing in the morning but then I thought I might loose some of my credibility as a mom.  I decided to keep that little tidbit to myself until the last one has flown the nest and then I will share how I feel about making the bed.  Do not get me wrong, I love when my bed is made first thing in the morning but do I find it a moral failure to leave it UN done, no and I should have never treated my children that way when they were younger.  What can I say, I was a mom navigating my way around parenting and training them in the way they should go.  Bed making 101, oh how I would do things differently.

  However, today, if I had a choice between making beds or eating breakfast together you bet it would be the later.  I would leave more space to sit with my kids, share about what is going on in their world, and I would be less concerned about dust bunnies, UN made beds and dirty floors.

  I know there is a greater lesson for me to learn as I step back into the classroom.  There is a big picture to be seen as I walk in the shoes of a student.  Only two weeks into the journey and I find myself with more compassion and empathy for my own kids that are students as well as others on the journey. 

  Everyday my brain is stretched as it has never been stretched before.  Everyday I find that I am trying to keep up with those who are ten and twenty years younger then me without competing or comparing.  Everyday I find that when I sit down with my red journal wide open to write the lessons I learned for the day, I could write for hours. 

  This going back to school is much more about me being given a second and third chance to do over what I did not think I could do the first time around.  This going back to school is about me getting the opportunity to connect with the next generation coming up in a non-threatening way.  This going back to school is about me understanding that I am much stronger then I ever believed I was and most importantly, this going back to school has allowed me to see that making my bed is highly overrated. 

Thank you for letting me share.
Cris

The Invitation

Another poem dedicated to my tribe.

Love you ladies to the sky and back.
_______________________________________


by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's desire.
It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow,
if you have been opened by life's betrayals,
or have become shriveled and closed for the fear of future pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own,
without moving to hide it, fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy,
mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic,
or to remember the limitations of human beings.

It doesn't interest me if the story you're telling me is true.
I want to know if you disappoint another to be true to yourself,
if you can bear the accusation and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be unfaithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty,
even when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure,
yours or mine,
and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the moon "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone,
and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are now or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.


Just Take My Hand And Dance With Me.....

Happy New Year!  

This poem is dedicated to my tribe.  Thank you ladies for taking my hand and dancing with me and teaching me to do the same.
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I have sent you my invitation,
The note inscribed on the palm of my hand
By the fire of living.
Don't jump up and shout,
"Yes, this is what I want! Let's do it!"
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.
Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
Spiraling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
To feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don't tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong
Without abandoning yourself when you are hurt
And afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don't tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
Truly okey with the way things are right now in this moment,
And again in the next,
And the next,
And the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
The place you cannot go beyond
By the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
To the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other
How we have set and kept
The clear, healthy boundaries that help us
Live side by side with each other,
Let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving
Those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,
The places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet
And the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
Without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us
Shout that soul's desires have too high a price,
Let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
The stories and the songs you want
The children's children to remember,
And I will show you how I struggle
Not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
Knowing both our absolute aloneness
And our undeniable belonging.
Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,
Holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations
Of our sincerest intentions has died away on the wind,
Dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale
Of the breath that is breathing us all into being,
Not filling the emptiness from the outside but from within.

Don't say, "Yes!"
Just take my hand and dance with me.

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer