Misty Morning

“Life is foggy; always try to see what lies behind the fog!”

― Mehmet Murat ildan

That dream-like state…you know you’re awake but then maybe not…the path is a little unclear and the mind feels dull and full of cobwebs…the days feel like you’ve been holding your breath because you forgot to breathe…and you might pass out any moment…that’s been the past several weeks…

I’m waiting for the sun to burn off the fog… yet I am enjoying this misty magical feeling…keep looking for the fairies and the unicorns to arrive any moment…

It’s been 2 1/2 years since my replanting to this beautiful South Africa…like any movie…adventures galore…some heart pounding, breathtakingly scary and some amazingly magnificently beautiful…but all I hold tightly in my heart…

Let’s see…

The last few months…not including the pandemic…cancer surgery, chemo…canceled trip home…we’ve recently renovated the house…and are still in the process…although we can now use the kitchen…had a helper quit unexpectedly…Mr. P’s crown and implant…6-month cancer checkup…my request for renewal of my visa application that was delayed due to the pandemic…which meant I couldn’t leave even if I needed to…applying with immigration for a wedding registration…YES!!!! Mr. P and I are getting married…nothing big…casual and very small❣

In two weeks’ time, I will be married to the man of my dreams…after a millennium of dreaming and believing…and more often than not…telling myself I was stupid for hoping that I could still find a knight in shining armor…often joking that at our age…the armor has a few dents and dings…but then my ‘damsel in distress’ robes are a bit tattered and torn…and everything is viewed through the lens of love and care…and that changes everything…

When I write it out…it sounds hokey…but it is a true as the sun rising and setting…we had wanted to get married with family in the us and Europe but all that was nixed when we couldn’t travel last year…we will be blessed to share the day with a small part of our South African family to celebrate with…and now we can party all next year when we meet up again with others…

Which brings me back to trying to put it all together in a country where I don’t know who to use for catering, cake, or flowers…although everything will be wonderful no matter what…sometimes the most memorable events are those where things didn’t go as planned…

I wish for you the same magical life in the midst of living the day-to-day…wonder and wander like a child…get lost in dreams…in your hopes…never ever give up…connect to the moment…to what is…to yourself…to the universal energy that flows through everything…find gratitude until it overflows your cup…play…in everything play…doing dishes…dance to the music of life…

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Embrace the mysteries of who you are…make wishes and believe that they will come true…I will warn you that probably not when you want them too…but they do…be crazy in love with life…it is short…to short not to live in joy…for breath, life and love…My life changed when I became content with what and where I was…happy…just plain delighted to be alive…when you find happiness and joy where you are…sharing the magic of the now…you would be amazed at what happens…

Sending love, laughter, lots of magic…don’t forget to dance…it is quite liberating…

Braver. Stronger. And More Beautiful…

We can’t control what happens to us…but we can control how we handle it…

The next 6 months are a journey into the unknown for Mr. P & I…I thought seriously about not using this blog to document this journey…to only keep a private journal…but this blog was created to show that our life tapestry is beautiful…not in spite of… but because of the dark…

The dark skies that cause the stars to shine all the brighter…and that there is always hope…there is always the present🎁

And so I write…

The unknown is always the worst part of life…I think…Mr. P & I have lived long enough that we know how to prepare for the storms that we know are on the way…

Yet we were definitely not prepared for Mr. P to be the one to have any physical issues…no family history of serious issues…always very health conscious in eating and exercising…we had discussed the possibility of the “old age” aches and pains…and possible physical ailments…many…many years down the road…but not so soon…

It has been a whirlwind from the first knowledge of the tumor to surgery…waiting for genetic DNA diagnosis of the tumor…listening to the oncologist tell us that that it was a stage 4 type of cancer…that all the visible cancer had been removed…chemo only needed to remove any floating residual cells… another surgery for implanting the port…waiting for that to heal…seeing nurses…making appointments…

51 Days…8 weeks…2 months…no matter how you count it…such a long time…such a short time…

So much to be grateful for…that the tumor was found before it spread any further…that the doctors Mr. P had were exceptional…love and support of family…and our faith…we are blessed beyond measure…I try and stay in that place…I definitely not perfected that spiritual attribute yet…

The first chemo treatment was today…and they found that his port was blocked…so the beginning already seems to have began with step backwards…

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

I look out the window as I wait to hear something..anything…and even the skies seem to be weeping today…

“Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.”
― Meister Eckhart

An X-ray showed that there was a hole in the catheter…now we wait…the doctor is out until Monday…not positive if the port needs to be replaced…which would mean another surgery…another two weeks before the chemo can begun again…

All in the midst of an increase of Covid cases…

Yet…the colored threads still travel through the minutes and hours of our days

Last night we had a beautiful chat with his son and his girlfriend via Skype who are living in France…it was my first time meeting them…and it was light hearted and fun talking of religion…philosophy…….

We are having a dinner with Mr. P’s sister and her husband in a couple of days…able to keep up with the rest of the kids via WhatsApp…everyone is healthy…we recently had our second pleasurable excursion here in town…and so much more…we are blest beyond any imaginable measure…

But most of all…our love threads the tapestry with such unbelievable colors of happiness…I am so appreciative of every moment that I have with this man who stole my heart…I waited a long time for this love and this is not going to be the end of our story…

Even when he drives me crazy…He is always my biggest support and my number one fan…  he cuddles with me…He never fails to wipe my tears away…We respect each other, even when we disagree with one another…I never have to question his love for me…and❣❣❣❣❣❣❣❣❣❣❣

and we will keep holding on…till the end of time

And Suddenly You Know…

Photo by Chris Moore on Unsplash

…And suddenly you know that it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings…

Now a year of memories after arriving here in South Africa…Dedicated to the Love of my Life…Mr. P…A remembering of our first meeting…Atlanta, Georgia

Superbowl LIII…the American football championship was being played for the first time at the Mercedes-Benz stadium the day of my arrival in Atlanta… February 3, 2019…

When our first meeting was planned…it happened to fall on the day of the biggest and most grandiose sporting event of the year…Atlanta, Georgia in 2019…that fact did not even register with me in the slightest…not being a sports aficionado in the very least…I know…I know… a cardinal sin…especially in the Midwest…

American sports…all this booing…drunkenness…dressing in spandex suits…irate fans spending hours defending their favorite athletes…noisy plastics horns that make the decibel level unbearable for everyone…subjecting themselves to the unbearable tortures of cold and heat…yelling at the television as though that’s going to help change a score or motivate their teams…start fires when they win…slaves to superstitions…

I digress…Driving into the 9th largest city in the US…Atlanta…my heart began to stumble over it’s own rhythm…my gut started to knot into a ball of tight rubber bands…thoughts swirling into a vortex of irrational thoughts…concentrate…I had to concentrate on finding the Airbnb that P. had booked for me…

The closer I got to the address that I had been given…the more I started to panic…questioning whether I was even headed in the correct direction…receiving quite few curious looks while circling the neighborhood block again and again…

Feeling like a Martian on Venus would be an apt description of the confusion I felt in trying to locate the entrance to the apartment complex…kept going around and around…and around…I know that I am directionally challenged…but still…this was ridiculous…so I admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to come out well in the search and gave up and called…

I had no expectations…mentally picturing something such as a “Bed and Breakfast” type of place…I had never stayed at an Airbnb before…the photos of the room were simple yet clean…the host claimed that the place had “good vibes”…and it was afterall the Superbowl…

I found the entrance and my stomach fell to the floorboard and then out the door…hanging unto the bumper as I traversed the empty cracked grey parking lot between the sordidly dingy red apartment buildings…everything that your mind conjurs up when the term “ghetto” is used…

undefinedPulling into a parking space…I reluctantly sat…resisting leaving my car where I feared that I would return to find nothing but the black shell of the remains…

…slowly I opened my car door and transcended the rickedly narrow black staircase to the second story and timidly knocked on the flaking back door…

The door was opened and I entered a small kitchen that was stacked littered with a hodge podge of items…kitchen utensils…counters of food…not a great first impression…

…the hostess…pleasant enough…soothing my jitters just a tad with her few pleasantries as she showed me to my room at the end of the short dark hall…

…In a manner of minutes…it became peripheral to the knowledge that I was going to meet Mr. P soon…would there be any “chemistry” or just a budding “friendship” that would fade with time and distance…there was no way that I could figure out the answer…I had tallied everything I knew and had felt during our year long emails sent and received…the Whatapp messages and photographs…the voice memo’s that had continued to intrique me over time…I had been incapable of calculating the end result…

…I sat at the edge of the bed and my hope…and made the call that I had arrived and was settled in…we made a date to have our first supper togather…I felt my heart beating in my throat…the unquenched life long desire for a true romance bubbled through the long lonely years…surfacing in tremors and fear of just another huge disappointment…hope springs eternal they say…maybe…possibly…

Waiting was an eternity…but the knock at the door came…

I remember that he seemed to fill the doorway…tall and handsome…nicely fitted jeans…just like I like…

As natural as the sun rises and sets…he opened his arms and I ran into them…Time stopped…and then he wrapped his arms around me…and for the first time in my life…I was home…he was the place that I had searched for all my life…

Everything dimmed and fell away…this is where I was supposed to be…

“It is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age.”
― Robert Ingersoll, The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child

Day 277…Lock Down & Locked Up with Mr. P

Husband wife fighting (With images) | Funny marriage pictures
…And the good news is…we haven’t killed each other yet…

In this liminal space between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’…not quite knowing how to navigate this ‘in between’ space…hurtling across that void of unknowing…this is the space that most of us are occupying at the moment…

Anxious, uncertain and kind-of-scared…isolated from my children and grandchildren in a time of global crisis…and forced proximity with Mr. P…

Now self isolation and sheltering in place…Oh my! this is where I find… My state of bliss

Cooped up 24/7….how would this affect our blooming relationship..like any 2-way street…still under construction…and no space in our togetherness…

In the 9 months that I have been here in South Africa…every morning Mr. P ascends his White Steed and trots off into the frey of the battle in his work-a-day life…

Our budding love had been so incredibly sweet and beautiful…like a blooming garden…every day I found a new delight…of course, there have been a few weeds and bugs we have encountered…but just enough to add a little interest and never enough to detract from the joy and pleasure of this relationship…

I was curious as to how the quarantine would alter our dynamics…

…and were/are content and happy

There have been a couple of strategies that I know have been instrumental in ‘surviving’ during this stressful time…and even ‘thriving’ during this unsteady, uncomfortable, anxiety -ridden time…

#1. We kept a half-way standard routine…coffee in bed and enjoyed the lazy morning hours to just revel in the warmth of the morning sun and each other…Mr. P caught us up on on the news, while I shared all hilarious memes and beautiful photography before starting the day…and then out of bed and dressing in something other than sweats…gives a small sense of normalcy…

Celebrated Mr. P’s birthday in lock down…with chocolate cake and everything

#2. Exercise and eating healthy…regular meals…Alcohol and chocolate loudly called and tells me that it can fix everything…yet sanity reminds me that cabin fever is not solved with ‘junk’ food…and exercise gives a wonderful boost to the immune system…not being allowed to exercise outside of the home Mr. P runs around the outside of the house for 20-30 minutes every day (the dog thinks his peeps have gone off their flipping rocker)…my preference is on-line exercise programs…

#3. We respect each other’s time and space when needed…when we needed time to work on our individual interests or personal projects…we went to our respective corners…

#4. Completed projects around the house…ahhhh…the sense of accomplishment is a great boost of ‘feel-good’…creating loveliness in our world that does not feel so lovely right now…

TOP 25 GRATITUDE FOR FRIENDS QUOTES | A-Z Quotes

#4. and Gratitude…for me, it’s always about the gratitude for what we have…each other…and the moment

How are you striving to maintain health and sanity during this interval of time? Would adore to know how you keep your life filled with magic, laughter and love during this upheaval in your space …what good things have been awakened in your life…

Day 263…Taking the Leap

And then you knew…

“And suddenly you know: it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings.”

~Meister Eckart

  • On February 2, 2019 I left the safe haven of a small country town called Scottsburg to head for the big city of Atlanta Georgia…451 miles to contemplate what our time together would look like…

Although we corresponded daily… but Port Elizabeth is approximately 7 hours ahead of Scottsburg, Indiana…so while Mr. P was eating supper after work…I was in the middle of my work day…although we corresponded daily…it was normally in voice memos that we sent to each other…we hadn’t really spoken to each other in real time…which had it’s advantages and disadvantages…

Voice memos made it easy to say what I wanted to say in an uncomplicated and tranquil method…there was never any pressure at that point…just a simple flow of words…no thinking of how Mr. P was going to respond…and for him it was the same…

However, that was also a disadvantage…if there was something difficult to discuss or if I was unhappy about something…then I had to wait another 24 hours for a response…and that often felt like waiting on “pins and needles”…

The few phone calls that we had actually been able to experience had felt awkward and far more uncomfortable than the ease and depth of our voice memos to each other would have indicated…

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and therefore…the solitary two day journey to Atlanta had questions bouncing around in my head like kids on a trampoline…and like kids…it was an exercise in futility in stopping them…

Mid-afternoon on a cold February day…I reached the Tennessee border

Tennessee Border

Tennessee…the country music capitol of the world…the 16th state to enter the union…The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States…and Tennessee Whiskey…

The American Civil War made a huge impact on Tennessee, with large armies constantly destroying its rich farmland, and every county witnessing combat. It was a divided state, with the Eastern counties harboring pro-Union sentiment throughout the conflict, and it was the last state to secede from the Union, in protest at Lincoln’s call for troops. It also provided more regiments to the Union than every other Confederate state combined. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_in_the_American_Civil_War

Mr. P was interested in the Midwest States…although he had lived in the North-East and traveled to the US almost every year… he had not really seen this part of the country…so the 10 day journey that we decided on would take us from Atlanta…back through to Tennessee…and onto to Kentucky and Indiana…whether in silence or conversation…we had yet to find out…

It was a brave thing to do with someone that I had only spoken to on the phone…from halfway across the world…but then I have never been one for following conventional rules…where was the fun in that…

“I wondered about the explorers who’d sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

Curiosity beckoned…expectation rising…I climbed back behind the steering wheel…turned the music up…hopping back onto that monotony of the interstate, exit signs and mile markers…the future…a misty unknowing…full of uncertainty and obscure dreams…

Day 235… Should I or Shouldn’t I

“The best part of the journey is the surprise and wonder along the way.”
― Ken Poirot

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My All Time Favorite Quote

The adventures of our life come because of the unknown…not knowing what the future will be…the key to enjoying those adventures is being open to that misty uncharted land…unleashing the fetters of the routine and the safety net of our habitual lives…

I had a choice…fear the worst and live in regret for not taking a chance or embrace the joy and curiosity of the possible…

What was the basis of my fear?…why do our minds and thoughts always take the dark road…why do we tend to always believe the worst…our decisions should never be made based on fear…

I had thoroughly enjoyed our correspondence…so much so, that we never missed a day of talking to each other in some way, shape or form…he had shown a large percentage of characteristics of a man that I felt was important in a relationship of my choosing…but there were certain flags that I believed had merit…

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But what if…my fears were correct…what if we meet and we weren’t compatible or enjoyed each other’s company…after all…we were from different cultures…grew up in opposing family lifestyles…we were from different social backgrounds…and communicating for 30 minutes in a one-sided conversation is so far from sitting across a table and having a heart-to-heart dialogue…

I do know that I am different from the mainstream woman…I have not lived a conventional life…I do appreciate who I have come to be through the myriad circumstances and environments of my life…and I really do love who I am…but I have never in all of my 60+ years found a man that fit well with this eclectic mixture of womanhood…

Age 30…more or less
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When I am in this type of conundrum…I ask myself “what is the worst case scenario” and “how would I handle it?…

The truth was if I didn’t meet with him…I could potentially lose this relationship anyway…the possibility was intriguing…and worst case scenario we would have an interesting 10 days together…

Mr. P traveled to the US every year for a convention and the time was drawing near…a decision needed to be made…no more waffling…

I did…in hindsight…it was the best decisions in my life and definitely one that I will never regret..no matter what the future may hold…

“So. Tell me. What do you think? Which is better? To take action and perhaps make a fatal mistake – or to take no action and die slowly anyway?”
― Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love

It was decided to meet in Atlanta, Georgia…and on February 2, 2019 I left the small city of Scottsburg, Indiana to start the most life changing journey of my life…to find a miracle…find the magic of love

“The friendship I have had in my heart for you has ripened into a deeper feeling, a feeling more beautiful, more pure, more sacred. Dare I name it you? Ah! It is love which makes me so bold!” — Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

…wishing you magic, laughter and most of all love…

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