Stop And Smell The Flowers

Since my book “Night of Grace” was recently rejected, I have been disinterested in blogging. Rejected might not be technically accurate. I submitted my little ouevre into a book 'casting call' of sorts from a reputable agent and neither received a rejection or even an acknowledgement or explanation for its inadequacy. Rather, the deadline for the contest came and went without my poor defenseless book receiving any feedback. So disheartening. I hate rejection, technically accurate or not. To make matters worse, I only started this blog so I would have some writing samples for that agent to check me out. This makes the blog guilty of rejecting me by association. Or of failing to win over the agent. Either way, poor blogsite is tainted with the stink of failure and so I don’t want to be associated with it anymore. I think I’ve mentioned my penchant for quitting. It’s kind of my thing. I live with this motto, slightly different from a common adage: “If at first you don’t succeed, never, ever try again.” Truth be told, a less pithy cousin of this motto more accurately describes my modus operandi: “If at first you don’t succeed, throw a snit fit, slip into a funk and finally quit with a snide, ‘I never really wanted to do that anyway.’”

On a more practical front, I’ve been a little busy. My in-laws celebrated their 50th anniversary by inviting their five children, spouses and ten grandchildren on a cruise to Ensenada, Mexico. Immediately thereafter, my sister gave birth and I was able to stay at her house in LA area for a week to help her acclimate to the wonders of a fourth boy. Flying home, I was soon whisked away by husband and kids to Tahoe for my 41st birthday. Sidebar concerning the age forty-one: it lacks the novelty and excitement of turning 40 but assures me that I am stuck in the forties for the next decade. Blah. Upon my return from my sister’s house at which I helped her reorganize her closets and drawers and give some bathrooms a militant scrubbing, I was struck to the core that I hadn’t done the same in my own home since the last time she gave birth two years ago. So I’ve been in the throes of determined cleaning and reorganization of my home. Have I been avoiding the blog? Perhaps. But I’ve fabricated some seriously legitimate excuses for neglecting my blogging duties.

But this Monday morning I read something that broke through my blog anxiety. Unfortunately, as part of my ongoing house revamp, I had already determined in my heart that this Monday would be the day to attack the odious and olympic task of cleaning my sons’ room so I couldn’t take the time to blog. Background: My sons are sixteen and soon-to-turn-eighteen. Not to cast aspersions on an entire gender(male) and breed(teenager) but these children of mine are some kind of gross and their room is a monument to their worst hygienic mishaps. Times two. Here is a historic sampling of things discovered in their room:

• week old taco bell tucked under the bed for later consumption
• empty bag of french fries with a small container of mustard inside
• empty box of Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice cream bars
• cafeteria style gum collection stuck to the back of a headboard
• dirty socks stuffed under mattress
• dirty underwear lost in the back of closet for nigh on a year

The list goes on and on. Because this is not an attempt to shame my sons (as if that were possible) but rather an effort to convey my reluctance to attack this job, I have only listed a smattering. But Monday was the day on which I had scrounged up the resolve to sally forth into the fray. My son’s eighteenth birthday is coming up and I thought it would be nice way to start his year: with a clean room and a new paint job.

It is now Wednesday, the sty is almost clean, new paint a-drying and I have a chance to refer back to the reading that ignited a tiny flicker of inspiration. For my aforementioned birthday, my dear friend Laurie gave me this beautiful tiny antique book called “Pure Gold.” Bound in elaborately stamped and embossed red leather, this book contains little snippets of wisdom for me to ponder in the mornings. On Monday I found this:

I have at length learned by my own experience (for not one in twenty profits by the experience of others) that one great source of vexation proceeds from our indulging too sanguine hopes of enjoyment from blessings we expect, and too much indifference for those we possess. We scorn a thousand sources of satisfaction, which we might have had in the interim, and permit our comfort to be disturbed, and our time to pass unenjoyed, from impatience for some imagined pleasure at a distance, which we may perhaps never obtain, or which, when obtained, may change its nature , and be no longer pleasure.

~More

Sigh. This has been particularly true for me lately. First of all, having built up my hopes in anticipation of my first cruise ever, I was kind of disappointed. My expectations were dashed to bits when Julie McCoy did not greet me on the Lido Deck. I was further upset by the strange, stale stink that pervaded the entire boat. At the Captain’s Dinner I was taken aback by the graceless goofball who was supposed to be running the ship, no Captain Steubing he. Curse you The Love Boat for making me think my experience would be an endless round of romance, moonlit dances and white shorts clad employees just waiting to make me smile.

Then, my birthday trip to Tahoe left me feeling a little unsatisfied. In all fairness, having some gem of a human being break into our car by shattering the driver’s side window to steal our GPS might have put a damper on the festivities. Also the inedible ahi tuna at my birthday dinner was gastronomically upsetting. Still, there was so much I could have been grateful for but because I had built up the event in my head, the slightest mar kind of spoiled the whole deal.

I was so desperately “impatient for some imagined pleasure at a distance”, that “I scorned a thousand sources of satisfaction which I might have had in the interim”. On the drive from San Francisco to cruise embarkation at Long Beach, I could have basked in the fabulous time I had with my kids. We literally laughed the whole way. I could have been overwhelmed by the fact that, every night, outside my window, a full moon graced the waves. I could have relished the moments, quickly dwindling as the children grow older, that we could all be together. Ditto for my birthday trip. Why wasn’t I, in the moment, appreciating the funny, smart, enjoyable beings these young humans have become? Why was I waiting for the next fabulously forty-one birthday event to make me feel like the Queen of the May?

In the same way, when I failed to win the opportunity for that agent to choose my book, I was thoroughly deflated. Instead of enjoying the blogging experience, being thrilled with the fact that I had actually completed a book, glad of the opportunity for growth in sharing my writing with others, I focused only on what I thought was my ultimate goal. I was so desperate to win the prize of being a published author that I failed to to stop and smell the flowers.

So, this week, armed with my nugget of Pure Gold, I have decided not to be indifferent to the blessings I do have, even during the loathsome process of cleaning a filthy room. My new wisdom firmly tucked in my pocket, I was ready to appreciate everything from the spiritual to the physical. As a reward for my new attitude, I was blessed with an unexpected windfall: not precisely a flower but some kind of flora...cultivated right inside the room of my very own children. How could I have ever failed to appreciate these "thousand sources of satisfaction"?...more commonly known as mold spores.