week 2/15

New Beginnings – A Reflection

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I was going to repost one of my memoir pieces titled, New Beginnings. It took forever to find and when I reread it, it wasn’t something that I wanted to share again. It was hard to recollect and be reminded of some of the things I wrote at the beginning of 2013. It’s hard to look at where I was then and realize how far I’ve come but also how far I have to go.

I wrote then:

“I start 2013 in so much a better place than one year ago.”

I listed a few things that remained intact and speculated on a couple more.

I find that two years later I am in a similar place. 2014 wasn’t perfect, far from it, and there will always be downs to go along with the ups. There will always be things to overcome, health issues still to accept and turn around, career, if you can even call it that, to rise to, learning how to parent an adult, keeping my middle child from feeling like a middle child, teaching my daughter the things I’m still strays if so she won’t be; still searching for me in the vast emotional wasteland that is my head, body, and soul.

I am definitely in a better place now than then and in a better place than a year ago. I am still searching for better than that and a serenity that fits me.

In the last year, I took more deep breaths. I went on two spiritual retreats and one spiritual enrichment. I put more of me into my writing. I wrote more. I found Jesus without losing what I already had that was working with G-d. I believe more. I forgive more. My meds seen to be settling into my body chemistry and smoothing me out, repairing what needs to be but not losing who I am inside even as I still look for the rest of me.

I have several points during the year for my new beginnings. Previously, they were Back to School, Rosh Hashanah, and New Year’s Eve/Day.

I think this year will be a new beginnings appraisal every few weeks to check and discern and understand whether I’m still on the right path. If not, begin again.

You never run out of chances.

Recs – Ambient Noise

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I was privileged to attend Evening Prayer with my friend, Fran who was offering the evening’s reflection. She wrote about it here.

In listening to her talk about Gordon Hempton, the acoustic ecologist, it reminded me of one of my favorite “quiet” spaces: lunch rush at the Cracker Barrel. I know it doesn’t sound much like a quiet space, but the background noise of conversations you can’t really understand the words of, clattering of forks on plates, glasses sliding on wet tabletops, the occasional laugh; is noisy to keep unnecessary things out of my head and keep the concentration in. I actually get my best writing done at these times.

Right then, about the second paragraph of her reflection, I knew what my Thursday Rec would be: those noisy/quiet spaces that help us center ourselves, whether we’re trying to write or think or pray our way, these are some of the places that have been recommended. I had most of these resources, but this Tumblr compiled a list for their readers. (Descriptions for 1 through 10 were done by the Tumblr user, belt. I’ve also added a couple more:

  1. Rainymood – Allows you to play rain, with suggestions of ambient music to play at the same time.
  2. Calm – A visually beautiful website. Provides moving backgrounds and an option for guided calm which allows you to immerse yourself in the music and to relax.
  3. Showertime – The experience of taking a shower without the water. Allows you to control features such as length of shower, size of room, water pressure, etc.
  4. Coffitivity – The background noise of a coffee shop. Allows you to choose between different locations such as lunchtime lounge, morning murmur etc.
  5. Soundrown – A website with a sleek minimalist design, allows you to choose between rain, coffee shop, ocean, fire, bird noises, or a combination of the five.
  6. Relaxing Snow – Visually beautiful falling snow, the website gives you the opinion to play music with the scenery, or to choose your own.
  7. Raining.Fm – This website gives you the ability to adjust the rain to exactly how you’d like it, with options to tweak thunder, rain and storm noises.
  8. Rain For Me – Simple rain effects with the option to download the audio files for offline listening.
  9. Snowy Mood – Inspired by Rainy Mood, this website really makes you feel like it’s winter.
  10. Rainy Cafe – Combines the sounds of a bustling cafe setting with the sounds of drizzling rain. Allows you to select the volume of each setting, or turn one off completely.

Others I’ve found:

  1. SoundTracker
  2. http://www.simplynoise.com/
  3. http://www.naturesoundplayer.com/
  4. http://www.calmsound.com/
  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-qnBxzUv4g (thunderstorms)
  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJCpgVc-8n8 (waterfalls)
  7. http://mynoise.net/

Of these, I’ve used Coffitivity and the YouTube videos. I’ve also recorded my own sounds at Starbucks, Cracker Barrel and the Cohoes Falls.

Enjoy whatever level of quiet that you like.

Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes only. I do not know how any of these will affect your computer, so please research or use you anti-virus to check them out before downloading any of them.

Photo: new beginnings

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My daughter’s birthday outfit from yesterday. She’s always trying new things and collects photos of her outfits for her “fashion blog”.

What’s new is how she put this together and it looks so conservative but then she adds a pink leopard hair band and a tan knit beret and she knows how well it works and gives it that stamp of her style onto it.

The boots were on sale at Target and she wanted them because they were so similar to my new boots from my birthday.

Instead of just letting her go with would fire the sake of being weeks, I’m starting to offer suggestions but I also defer to get final judgment. I dint want to discourage get but I also don’t want her to think everything she chooses works when sometimes it doesn’t.