Be Happy in the World as Long as You Live

“And what would you do,” the Master said unto the multitude, “if God spoke directly to your face and said, “I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE,’ what would you do then?”

And the multitude was silent, not a voice, not a sound was heard upon the hillsides across the valleys where they stood.”

--Richard Bach, Illusions

 

Have you ever noticed that a foul mood brings more annoyances, irritations, and mistakes?

However, a happy mood usually brings good stuff.

Dr. Gabor Mate’ told of a time when he was an infant. His mother called the Pediatrician and said that little Gabor was crying all the time. The Pediatrician said that all the babies were crying. They are picking up the anxiety from their mothers. The Gabor's lived in Poland, and Germany was about to invade it.

That's the way I have been feeling for the past month.

I wrote a blog yesterday about what was on my mind, then lost what I had written. Was that a lesson regarding my foul mood?

Was that the universe telling me to either shut up or up my foul mood into a tinier fowl?

Once I fed some tiny quails for our landlord in California.  Have you ever seen their cute little spotted eggs? 

Our landlord sold the eggs to a Japanese restaurant, which considered them a delicacy. His little gathering of quails—a bevy is an old-world term for them—was so tame they would flow as a unit out of the enclosure, and I had to push them back in to close the door.  Later, he collected another group and housed them in a business structure on the property. Those young quails were so wild I couldn't open the cage to feed them without fear of losing one, and once I did.

The door to their cage was on top of a low container. When I lifted the on-top-of-the-cage door, an ace pilot quail flew out faster than a speeding bullet, aimed for the door to the great outdoors, and was never seen nor heard from again.

I never told the landlord.

What lesson is there in that story? I don't know—watch which door you open, I suppose.

Yesterday I closed a door on my Real Estate ability to sell. I'm keeping my license current, for I worked my butt off to get it. However, I am dropping my associations.  Fees are due and paying a considerable sum of money for something I don't want to do seemed ridiculous. I was following up on leads that my principal broker was buying and giving to me to call.

How do you feel about cold calls?

“Ok? Don’t bother me? I won’t answer. GO AWAY.”

Luckily nobody got really angry with me.  

I could call ours “lukewarm” for the person I called had filled out a form. I know they wanted information, probably not a call, but then I was playing the game.

No more.

I resent getting calls to sell me something. I figure most other people do too, and I don’t like to bug people. At least here you can read or not read, it’s your choice. Lead gathering headlines were something like this: “Downpayment Assistance, Cash Deal.”

Really? I was a Real Estate agent. Everybody knows that a Real Estate Agent can make a living only by commissions, which many people resent or try to lower. Calling irked me. My procrastination irked my boss.

I felt like a quitter.

But I quit anyway.

That means I cannot list a house for sale, help an owner sell, or help a buyer buy. Agents must belong to the RMLS and Realtor ®, for we are required to use their forms.

My time and efforts belong to what I am passionate about.

And that is writing.

I could continue the Newsletter concept I began when I created our website for Vibrance Real Estate LLC. Our mascot/logo was a Pink Flamingo—thus I titled the Newsletter A Flamboyance—which is a gathering of flamingos. (Those exuberant vocal, chattering birds are sometimes called the long-stemmed rose of birds.) It's odd that occasionally, we see that tropical bird, not indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, perched in someone’s yard.

People do want information. That’s the reason they signed a form to get it. Now if I could get them to sign up for a Newsletter I could do what I like to do and still be in the Real Estate business.  I could tell people about FHA loans, (low down payment, government-insured) or VA loans (no down payment). There are other loans like a bridge loan that will loan you money so you can bridge the gap between the time you sell your house and the time you purchase your dream home. (Once you find a house you love you don’t want to lose it before you can sell yours.) The Real Estate Association recently required a buyer to sign a buyer’s agency, so read carefully.

My daughter and I could give tips. Want a brainstorming session to make that oblong room look more inviting? Daughter dear and I once flipped a house where we touched about everything except the roof. We did siding, flooring, tiling, painting, carpentry and installing. A sledgehammer with my daughter’s muscle behind it bashed out a wall, opening the living room to the kitchen. We found a beautiful piece of Tiger wood” that made a bar to separate the two rooms. Daughter’s mantel over the kitchen range sold the house. (A single lady—first time buyer bought it, and we helped her find downpayment help.) That was a thrill. We were not real estate agents at the time, but we still made a profit

I learned to use a table saw and make mitered corners. The worst of the flip was installing a garbage disposal. Well, hanging kitchen cupboards was no piece of cake. But we were proud of our accomplishment and loved the design aspect. Maybe that's what we can do. Have people send us pictures, and we will critique the house and offer ideas. Sometimes a little runt of a house can transform into a jewel.

When everybody wins business is simply more fun. (Aka, the Pink Flamingo.)

I General Contracted the building of our log house. That went from getting a forest Land Use permit, to building a road (hiring contractors) to the finished product—with a little help from another general contractor who took me under his wing, including taking me to the county to get a septic drain system permit.

(You know what a “French drain is? Ask me. You know about rock dust, and road fabric? Ask me.)

One of the fun things about writing is it clears the mind and sweeps the house so the muse can enter without soiling her gown.

 

Richard Bach, the author I quoted at the top of this blog wrote Jonathan Living Seagull. “A nice little book,” said Ray Bradbury. “It will probably sell about 15,000 copies.”  Jonathan was first published in 1970 with little advertising or expectations, by the end of 1972, over a million copies were in print. The book reached the number-one spot on bestseller lists mainly through word-of-mouth recommendations. It is about a seagull trying to learn about flying, personal reflection, freedom, and self-realization.

Bach's following book, Illusions, is my favorite book of Bach’s. Released in 1977, Illusions sold 15 million copies in 35 languages.

'What if somebody came along who could teach me how my world works and how to control it? ... What if a Siddhartha came to our time with power over the illusions of the world because he knew the reality behind them? And what if I could meet him in person, if he was flying a biplane, for instance, and landed in the same meadow with me?"

I'm going to reread Illusions.

 

And now for chapter 58 from my memoir Your Story Matters:

Prince Charming

I am reluctant to tell this; I don't know why I would suddenly feel hesitant, for I have written this story in a blog, and many have read it. However, now I admit in a book that I am often afraid to show myself.

Last night, Prince Charming, the name I gave the neighborhood peacock, was standing on the neighbor's roof across the street, squawking out that plaintive call that, if you didn't know better, you would think someone was being killed. It reminded me of the play Midsummer Night's Dream, performed at an outdoor theater in San Diego next to the Zoo. As though on cue, a peacock would squawk at appropriate moments. 

Prince Charming disappears each winter, slinking away with no tail. However, he appears strutting in the spring with that long, luxurious tail sweeping the ground. That makes it doubly surprising that he would be on our fence in December with a long tail.

Once upon a time—true story—my first daughter, then two years old, and I visited our newly purchased house in Riverside, California. I was planning minor repairs, as a College Fraternity had lived there, and the house had scars.

From the living room, I looked up into the clerestory windows and saw a peacock staring down at me. This was significant because not long before, I attended a self-hypnosis class where the instructor told us that we would find our totem animal. 

In my mind's eye, I followed the instructor's instructions to walk down a forest path. We continued until we came to a group of bushes. I knew my totem animal was hiding there, as I could see the rustling of vegetation.

"It's all right," I coaxed. "You can come out now." 

I expected to see a deer, A wolf, or a little fluffy animal. However, what came out was a total surprise. It was a peacock. A male peacock's tail furled out in all its glory. 

Not long after, in my mind's eye, I revisited my peacock in the bushes and asked why he stayed hidden.

"Because here, I am the only peacock."

Fast forward many years.

As we were preparing to build our Log Home in Oregon. Neil and I were walking the dirt road that abutted the property when we saw a male peacock running with some wild turkeys. A peacock in the forest?

More years passed, and we bought our present house; you know that story. When I saw that peacock out the window sitting on our back fence, I ran around like a crazy person, calling my dog Sweetpea to come look.

I didn't know we had a neighborhood peacock. Neither did I know that in Riverside, our house was located up a hill from the park where the Peacock supposedly lived, but he liked our roof better. 

I thought our present neighborhood peacock had come just for me, and in a way, he did. He came onto our property and sat on our fence on a day when only Sweetpea and I were in the house. 

As my imaginary peacock didn't want to compete with other peacocks, I think the real peacock tells me the same.

Time to put myself out there.

I'm dense. I must be told three times. 

 

 

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive."

 --Howard Thurman 

It's Tuesday--Mystery Solved--Stop Obsessing

At about 2 am, I was kicked off the Internet. I had both my old and new computers on and couldn't figure out what was wrong. After too many tries to get on my new computer, it closed me down. This morning, I looked at my old computer and saw it was in airplane mode. In my hazy late night, early morning stupor, I thought, as the cat walked back and forth over the keyboard, he had changed settings before, so I closed it. Too late. He had turned on airplane mode and said, "For Heaven's sake, go to bed." So, how was your night?

Chapter 49

My Friend Bill

"Life, you know, is a constantly chuckling teacher of unexpected lessons."

—Bill Fisher

 

"The human brain is genetically disposed toward organization…I knew her, she was a managerial fragment to another on the flimsiest pretense and in the most freewheeling manner, as if it takes a kind of organic pleasure in creative association without regard for logic or chronological sequence."

—Tom Robbins.

Isn't that what I said?

Hardly. I do not have the elocution of a Tom Robbins. 

I had to laugh, though, when I read it. Not only does it weirdly, creatively, and articulately describe how the mind works, but it also reminds me of Bill Fisher, my old buddy from far away. 

Bill loved Tom Robbins' writing style. And his dream was to write in that vein.

This morning, as I searched through old emails, I found an email from Bill Fisher. I knew I was missing some and wondered where they were. It was one of Bill Fisher's final letters to me.

For years, Bill and I shared our writings with each other. I loved Bill like a brother and his wife Beverly equally. Bill had a Ph.D. in medieval literature. He was a former Real Estate Agent, and during the time I knew him, he made his living writing a weekly newsletter called The Wednesday Wrap. He sold The Wrap to various Real Estate Agencies, which published it under their brand.

He taught writing in Colorado in the summers and dreamed of being a published Robbinest novelist. (Robbins described ordering Thai dishes as "sounding like a harelip pleading for a package of thumbtacks." Now, what sort of mind comes up with those things?)

Bill, Beverly, and our family lived in the San Diego area. Shortly after we ended our two consecutive training sessions at The World Healing Center, both families moved to the Pacific Northwest. Bill and Beverly moved to Olympia, Washington, and we moved to Eugene, Oregon. And we kept in touch.  

In his letter, Bill told me that Bank of America wanted him and his colleagues in the newsletter trade to take over the writing of three monthly 4-page newsletters, plus a weekly economic summary. He said the pay was remarkably good, but the work was soul-deadening. "I had to unlearn much of what comes naturally to me now as a writer. They wanted 8th-grade level, simple, uncontroversial, and uninspired. We would go round and round over a piece. They don't believe dashes should be used. Vocabulary should be simple. Humor should be avoided (good old humor usually offends at least one person.) And everything I wrote was reviewed by roughly six VPs, and one or two from the legal staff (speaking of an unimaginative, humorless bunch)."

 Bill had recently taken a trip with his family to Portugal.

"I knew from the get-go that there was nothing I would love more than to create a book out of the travel experience and intuited that the experience would have much to teach me. Little did I know. The central learning experience was a broken ankle--my right leg broke in two places, actually, when I fell on a hike, we were attempting as a shortcut to a close-by secluded beach. I continued to walk on that leg for ten days in huge pain but nonetheless loved every moment of the trip. I tried to convince myself and everyone else that it was a sprain, not a break. I was wrong."—Bill Fisher.

 The doctor in the States said he would have operated on Bill's leg immediately, but since he had walked on it, the leg had set, and it was healing, he put a boot on him and sent him on his way. 

 Wow.

During one of Bill's and my sessions at The World Healing Center, a young man from our twice-a-week, full-day group meetings was emoting, sharing how he, a white boy in Africa, loved the comradery of the other boys. They would play and walk down the street with their arms around each other. Here, he felt lost and had no such friends.

From the back of the room came a voice in Swahili.

The rest of the group didn't know what it said, but the kid did. He fell apart, and the room exploded into hugs, kisses, and whooping. It was Bill's voice, and the words meant, "Welcome, Brother!"

Bill had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.

'' Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.” - Abe Lincoln 

In my dreams...

This is the 1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt election results.

Stop Obsessing over the polls says Michael Moore:

Jeez, my mailbox is exploding! Everyone is freaking out over the latest polls, the pessimistic pundits, the sudden (?) rise of Trump, the warnings of doom and gloom! Mike! Mike! Please tell us he’s gonna lose! She’s gonna win! Flowers will bloom in December! Unicorns will ride on the backs of lions! The McRib will return!

Whoa. Everybody please calm down. We’ve all been here before. Exactly 3 weeks til Election Day — so that means it’s official, folks! We’ve entered the fear-mongering, pendulum-swing stage of the election season. We are no longer basking in the glow of Biden’s withdrawal and the adrenaline shot from Kamala’s injection into this race...

For more, Read Michael Moore on Substack

https://substack.com/@michaelmoore

That Was Totally Weird

A few days ago, Hubby and I watched The Last Stand, an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that began with a narration of the landscape—do you know where I’m going with this? Well, we didn’t. 

 

The narrator described the opening scene. He described the characters as if reading the movie script. All this while we were also watching the action and hearing the dialog. There was no background music, just the narration. “She downcast her eyes,” yep, he described that action right on cue.

 

I said, “Hey, we can see that; why are you telling us?” 

 

The narrator continued. It was annoying as we could see that the bad guy had his legs wrapped around Arnold’s neck, that was until all that reading became funny.  I thought it was a schtick, a ploy of the film, for there wasn’t much dialogue. Soon, I wasn’t paying much attention to the guy reading. But he wouldn't shut up. Okay, the move ended, but the guy kept talking. 

 

He read the credits—like ALL the credits, Castle Rock Film Co. Columbia Pictures, to the extreme of describing the lady holding the torch. He read ALL the actors and their parts. I skipped through that long list but wondered where in the heck this was going. Then the narrator called his wife, got her message machine, and said he missed her and wanted her back. He ranted for awhile, the message ran out, but began another and he continued where he had left off. The message ended, but he wasn’t finished talking.

 

Another message came on with a continuation of his one-sided conversation and apologizing. I thought it was similar to a cookie at the end of a movie. Way to go Arnold, you must have chosen this script because of this device. Then the guy, who should have needed a drink of water by now, started describing the following movie, The Morgans. We turned off the TV and laughed. “That was awesome. How weird. How clever.”

 

The next day, Daughter Dear said it was a setting on our television that got clicked on somehow. It was probably for the sight-impaired--maybe it was an open mike.

 

Oh.

 

But I’m still laughing.

 

More than you wanted to know?

I completed my 27 hours of real estate Continuing Education and then another 3 of Laws, so I’m set with a Real Estate Broker license for the next 2 years. The first year only lasted from the time we took your exam until our birthday month. 

I am study and tested out.

So, if you got anything weird from me, please chalk it up to my scrambled brain. Now I have changed the name of my newsletter. It’s on Substack. It's purpose is to let people know what I am up to, and determine if they want to continue with me. Here's a glimpse if you are interested: If not, tell me a funny story.

 

 

Introduction

Hi, I'm Joyce

 

Remember The Twilight Bark?

 

On a hillside in London, Papa Pongo desperately barked for help in finding his 15 stolen puppies. The great Dane heard his cry and set in motion the twilight bark where the message passed from dog to dog until it reached a farm outside town. There, the Colonel heard "Stolen, fifteen spotted puddles," until, with the help of Sargent Tibs (a cat), and a correction in hearing, they led the charge and rescued not 15 but 101 spotted puppies. After misadventures, trickery, skill, and bravery, they defeated that despicable vicious vile old witch, Cruella DeVille. (Disney movie 101 Dalmations.)

 

Jewell was my dog. Now she is my emissary, a past love heralding in the future, to lay a bark trail, of what you can expect from me.”

 

My daughter might take offense when I say that Jewell was my dog, for we adopted Jewell to be her dog. However, when my daughter was busy in high school, Jewell and I became inseparable. You know how it is: once a dog stamps her love on your heart, it's there forever.

 

This stealing of his dog's name worked for Indiana Jones. Isn't Indiana much more fun than Henry Jones Jr. and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It doesn't have a ring to it, does it? And try to say Joyce Davis without it coming out, JoyceStavis.

 

This newsletter morphed from a blog I've written titled Wish on White Horses. However, as that blog isn't about horses—this newsletter isn't about dogs.

 

Both animals are our teachers.

  

Horses teach us not to follow someone else's path but to blaze our own. Dogs teach love.

 

More... 

 

 

joycedavis.substack.com