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 

Really?

As I go through this book copying chapters here, I find instances that I want to change, which is invariably what happens when you go over a book. I'm curious if some authors are happy with their completed project or if they finally say just print the darn thing.

 

 

48

June

"To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight." –ee cummings.

 

Two years ago, my eldest daughter filmed our ninety-six-year-old friend June.

My daughter's primary interest was what she ate. She wanted to know how people fared before they had all the processed foods we have today. 

However, we found June's attitude far more fascinating.

June grew up in Chicago, which was not a good place to be during the Great Depression. Her biological mother died before June could remember her, and her stepmother died slightly later.

According to June, her father was a traveling salesman and a con man. Her father often couldn't pay the rent, and she frequently came home from school to find their belongings on the sidewalk. They would then move to a new place, and June would move to a new school. That amounted to 13 schools by the time she was in the 8th grade.

After the death of June's two mothers, her father couldn't or wouldn't cope with June and her two brothers.

June said she was always hungry and stole food, mainly fruits and vegetables, displayed outside the store. She would choose a store on a corner where she could run down a side street. She was the fastest runner on the block and thus elected to steal while the other kids waited a distance away, where she would share her bounty.

After her father left, she lived with various family members and eventually ended up in a girls' school. June had gone before a judge and asked, "Your honor, do I have a choice about where I live?"

"You most certainly do," he answered, and thus she chose the Girl's school. Her guardian aunt keep trying to save her soul, which clashed with her grandmother's teaching on metaphysics.

She said the food was basic but good at the school, mainly fruits and vegetables, as meat was expensive. Breakfast was oatmeal or porridge. One egg on Sundays was a treat.

Her aunt, still her legal guardian, wouldn't let her join the military when she was fresh out of high school, so she got a crummy job (her words) until she was twenty-one and then joined the Army WACS.

While in the military and egged on by her roommates, June stole a pie from the kitchen but didn't run fast enough and was caught. Her sergeant placed her on potato peeling duty, where June commented that that was the worst job. "Oh, no, it isn't," said her sergeant, moving her to garbage duty. The stench was so putrid that June began throwing up and couldn't stop. Thus, she ended up in the infirmary.

She realized that leaving school was a mistake because she wanted to attend the University. When she was discharged from the WACs, the GI Bill was available, so she took a test and qualified for college admission. While in the military, she met her husband, and after she left the WACS, both became students.

He was a pilot and a vegetarian, so they continued a no-meat diet, for they liked it, and meat was too expensive for two struggling students. When they became more prosperous, they tried a steak but didn't like it. However, when June became anemic, the doctor told her to eat liver, as raw as she could stand."

June was an artist. Her husband ("He was beautiful," she said) was a military pilot and the love of her life. "Your job isn't to clean house," he told her. "It's to paint."

And then came the fateful day when two uniformed officers came to the door. June ran, knowing what their presence meant. The officers chased her to tell her that her husband had been killed in a plane crash. His buddy pilot in another plane flying beside him saw him slumped over, so he must have either lost consciousness or died before the crash.

Howie's death sent June into a depression, and she drank heavily for a time. She considered herself an alcoholic, and she stopped drinking alcohol for about 20 years. In her later life, a doctor told her that a little red wine in the evenings would be suitable for her, and she drank it with no repercussions. She found she could take it or leave it. 

A military doctor told her she was diabetic. She said, "No, I'm not," but for the next 50 years, she monitored her food, checked her blood sugar level, was healthy, and never took medication.

June grew up a Christian Scientist who did not believe in illness. Once, she had the mumps and didn't know it until someone told her. Still, she carried on as though having the mumps was nothing.

I know she had many love affairs over the years but never re-married. One relationship that meant a great deal to her was a platonic relationship with an elderly gentleman who wanted her as his driver. They traveled extensively, and she had the opportunity to see the world. Once, this little old gentleman who dressed impeccably, was an engraver, and June told me she never knew precisely where his money came from, told one of June's unsuitable suitors she couldn't get rid of that he would have him killed, and he knew the person to do it. The man left the city, and she never heard from him again.

June moved from Florida to Oregon with her boxer dog. When he wouldn't walk across the road at a Motel because it was too hot, she told the owner they had to stay until the temperature dropped.  

June traveled to a ranch with me one day, where I wanted to see a particular horse. I didn't want the horse, but they had a little Pomeranian dog for sale. June debated about buying it, for she thought she was a big dog person. But decided to take the dog. 

She named the dog Lucky Lady Lilly, which sounds like a dance hall girl, and that fit June fine. The two remained buddies for the rest of Lilly's life. June had hoped they would go together, and once June told me she never thought she would live so long. June knew Verner Erhart, the founder of EST, and Dan Blakenship who spend 50 years searching for the treasure of Oak Island.

I told her she lived so long because she appreciated life. She loved people, and people loved her.

Although June had said she would not go into an "Old folk's home," her niece convinced her, and she entered a luxurious complex where she fell in love with a widower. They had one glorious year together until one morning, the attendants found him dead. He had declared that they were getting hitched at the beginning of the new year.

"I would have loved to be Christian's wife," June said.

I'm telling you this because while June had a challenging life, for the thirty-some years I knew her, she was the most positive person I have known. Besides, some people's lives deserve to be told—like Bill's, who you will meet in the next chapter.

 

 One of June's paintings:

 

I believe Mary Trump, Donald Trump’s niece who has known Donald Trump her entire life when she says that he has always been a bully, and that if elected President he will seek revenge on the people who have opposed him.

That is not Presidential material.

I have said many times that I don’t care if you like Kamala Harris or not, but I still believe in democracy, and want to preserve it. We have a country built on checks and balances to ensure that one aspect of the government does not overpower the others. Really folks do you want to give the President absolute power?

That’s absurd. That is a dictatorship.

Trump wants absolute power. Harris does not.

Where's the choice?

 Really?

We're been off-kilter, angry, polarized, fearful, raciest, and anti-women long enough, and I believe it was largely stirred up by Trump.

Time to have some joy in our lives.

 

From Michael Moore posted in Substack:

"Which is why maybe at this point in my rant I just need to say out loud that which is being said to me in private by people I respect — and not just in whispers, but in excited tones of exuberance: That a new era is being born, one where Caucasian is just one of the options but no longer the bossy pants of the world. Where it’s OK if you’re missing the lower right quadrant of the second X chromosome thus making it a “y” which means you’re never going to have your own Fallopian tubes so just deal with it and keep your hands off the gender who has them. Simple. 

"An aggregate of top polls as of today shows that Harris will defeat Trump in the Electoral College count by 270 to 268.

But I think we need more. We need to ensure Harris wins by a landslide.