[harley]

the meeting, wonderfully not surprising. the person i met was exactly the person i knew from online interaction. smile, laugh, blunt personality, wise, friendly.. and yes.. the eyes.. it was jaye.

the dinner with marcie and tom.. fellow pwps was extremely fun and way too short..jaye was back to her mission... reclaiming her life.

this part i think i will entice jaye to comment about.. the intensity of her discoveries made a huge impact on me.. soooo... jaye.. take the ball dear, please do tell. i started the thread, you start the discussion.. im ready for the first comment.

[Jaye]

A beautiful and talented woman who keeps a lovely country home, keepsakes and handcrafts in just the right quantity to offer a cozy welcome, she greeted me with a hug, as old friends do, at our first meeting in the 10 years we've known each other. We "raced" downstairs to her piano so I could hear the talent pour out...poems were thrust into my hands...outside the flowers were bright, our husbands talked--a military connection discovered--and we spirited Laura Jean away to Marcie and Tom's and a most hospitable dinner, away for these hours from the turmoil she has described here. We talked and talked--all of us with everyone else--four PWPs and a PD Partner sharing our struggles and our hopes. We women did some journaling and sharing of our writings while the men traded financial knowledge and the wisdom of life experience. "Harley" is sweeter than I expected, more trusting and vulnerable--but I saw her with my eyes that see through walls and briars. Yes, I am blunt with those I trust, but I can be gracious, too, and I hope I conveyed my delight with everyone present and with the hospitality we enjoyed.

But wait, Laura, you wanted the story of my reclaiming, so I need to explain the trip a bit. My beloved and I set out from the east coast of the US four weeks ago for Oregon, to look at areas we might want to live when the time arrives for him to retire. I have been retired since the end of 2001. I don't want to be too specific here about the particulars. We will be at home tomorrow, which is our wedding anniversary, after travelling 6000 miles in our Honda Element.

Before I tell my journey's tale, I must get a night's sleep, and I may not be able to get on line for a day or so, but I'll be back.

Jaye

[indigogo]

Jaye - Happy to see that you and yours made it safely home.

[harley]

while jaye rests from a journey that is definately novel material, (i do hope you put it into written word jaye, as many would benefit from what you discovered; as i.) i will keep the thread active with my own discovers as i have become a gypsy driven by no other wind than the one my soul follows.

it is as though something has entered my subconcience (sp?) and is taking me to peace of self through observance of the world around me. i had had enough of life as i had known it for too many years. i felt as though i was suffocating. all around me were bars and barriers. it seemed to me i was dying. then suddenly i began to sprout wings. i went through the paces in a near robotic mode as i picked up the phone and got airline tickets from funds taken out of my checking account overdraft protection. i didnt care, i needed peace. and i needed it very soon. destination? anywhere i could escape to within a weeks notice. a gracious and very supportive friend extended her hand, and i am now in alabama.

i am doing wonderful, and as jaye, i will rest for a bit and continue with what lessons i am learning and reclaiming..

jaye, your turn

[Jaye]

A shift in the way I view life began several weeks earlier, when a sage made a suggestion that relieved a large portion of the struggle within my mind. I had formed a rather harsh Inner Critic from the personalities of my parents, a large number of aunts and uncles, and all my grade school teachers, a critic that kept me looking for the faults and flaws in everything I did. Like many from a Protestant Midwestern background, I strained to see the forest that the trees made up, even after I had mapped it and lived in it. My wise friend noticed that I often referred to the Saint Francis prayer as a guideline, and recommended that I repeat it whenever the Critic got harsh with me. At 62 I was ready to leave all that scolding behind, so I tried it, It worked. By showing me how petty was the Critic, and how important the inner peace I had already discovered within myself through my religion, the prayer kept me "centered" at times when life's normal bumps and blows were trying to throw me off balance

The St Francis Prayer (Book of Common Prayer version)

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek 
to be consoled as to console; 
to be understood as to understand; 
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive; 
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; 
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

[Fiona]

Thank you so much. That prayer, too, is the most beautiful and inspiring, and it, too, is my watchword. Rock on, dear sisters.

[harley]

last night i sat outside listening to locusts and watching fireflies. the conversation i had the day prior with my host crept through my mind over and over until the waves of its meaning finally began to penetrate through my mental haze.

we discussed my life as a biker and the harshness of some of the realities of the lifestyle. there is an edge to this personality i carry, possibly the vulnerability jaye saw. as i began to speak of things from the past, i began to feel the edge... becoming uncomfortable, unsure, insecure, vulnerable. my wall began to come up. i got quiet. then the conversation changed to how i got saved by His grace while i was living in a biker house. the glow i felt so long ago has had many years to fade. the conversation on the porch with a dear friend rekindled its importance. the edge will fade as He shows me security in Him.

and i take this day and reclaim my faith that will happen.

[Jaye]

We travelled about 500 miles a day on most of our travel days (as opposed to visiting days or investigating days). First stop was my home town in the midwest.

When I was a senior in high school, I rehearsed every Saturday with a choir of about 70 students from high schools all over the state. We had been screened for good character and community service, and had sent recommendations from our teachers and other adults as well as giving an audition. I was chosen because I could sight-read the alto parts and I played the violin and so could be in the string ensemble for used for some of the classical numbers, and I could oh-by-the-way sing decently in a choir situation. All winter we worked on our repertoire and in the spring gave several practice concerts. In the summer we travelled to England, Finland and Sweden and stayed with local families in each area where we gave concerts at the rate of about one or two a day for seven weeks. We were sort of the billboard for a youth exchange program.

In late June this year, in my home town, was held a reunion for all the Chorales sent over a 15-year period. About 8-10 members from my year, 1963, showed up. There was much hugging and reminiscing at the banquet. We also rehearsed for about 12 hours over the weekend and gave a two-hour concert on Sunday afternoon in a great concert hall in the town. The conductor of my and earlier Chorales had passed away, and was replaced for the remaining years by the man who had been my high school teacher for choir, madrigal group, and a Broadway-type musical. He is now 83 and conducted for the reunion, assisted by a former Choraler who is now a teacher.

I have described all this in depth so you will know how important the Chorale experience was in my young life, and how big a chunk of who I am now was formed then. I should add that my father had died two years earlier and I was still looking for a new normal.

One of our numbers, in 1963 and in 2008, was a version of, you guessed it, the Saint Francis Prayer. So meaningful was it for us in 1963 that the conductor had it printed up on cards for us to keep (it must be in my basement SOMEwhere!). I credit the prayer with giving me a new basis for faith, the likes of which I hadn't known since my sister taught me Sunday School songs in my babyhood.

My ex has a younger brother and a younger sister who were both in Chorales after mine. We had been in correspondence ahead of time, and planned to get together with other family members after the concert.

Now i have given you the background, and next i'll tell you about the remarkable things that happened in my home town this summer.

[Jaye]

After a quick visit with Paula, who was staying with a relative of hers who lives almost right on our route that day (and I mean quick--we had to take our welcoming cherry pie "to go"), my beloved and I arrived in my home town a couple of days ahead of the Chorale reunion. He had never been even in that state before, and I hadn't been there since my mother's funeral about thirty years ago, so I was to give him a guided tour of sorts, provided I could find my way around at all (thank goodness for Google Maps and laptops!). First on the windshield tour: the hospital where I was born--but ooops! where was it? A construction site with about five gandy cranes laboring away told its noisy story. Or maybe the hospital was at the other end of the medical complex. Anyhow, there was a nice view from there.

Next: my parents' grave. My sister says she's never been back there because "they're not there." I believe that, too, in my own way, but something drew me back to the quiet "park" with flat brass memorial plates on the ground above the graves, the favorite flowering trees planted to fulfill last requests, the lush grass crowding the markers. i was surprised that I had a strong urge to clean the brass letters and to pull the stolons of grass away from the names and dates. So with a tissue and, well, tears, I wiped and pulled.

Maybe it was the fussy little activity that took me out of myself, but as I stood I became aware of a continuum of energy reaching from those boxes in the ground up past me, toward the sleeping stars, sweeping the universe. I saw that some day my own body would lie resting in the earth like theirs, and I would be "not there," too. "They belong to the universe now," came the thought, and I wondered that I hadn't noticed it before. They weren't mine any more, these two people who spent such a short time on this earth. The came here for a time, made the best of life that they could, made two other people with their bodies, and departed. My yearnings and resentments were useless. I felt I was required to release it all--their sudden deaths at 44 and 63, their midwestern tenacity, their Methodist severity, their sacrifices for the sake of their children, the puppy they got for us, the homemade doll clothes, the driving lessons--all of it not mine any more, but everyone's, and in the One.

All the energy I had used trying not to think about the unpleasant bits of my early life was freed up to live with. In the context of the universe (or God, as the reader may prefer to think), none of the petty negative stuff mattered at all. What matters still is the sowing of love, peace, joy, consolation, and the rest of St Francis' list, for me and by me, for and by the whole world. Who else's name should I put on a brass plate in my mind and let them belong to the universe, right now, while I can still relate to them with no expectations but to enjoy who they are?

My beloved and I drove around town some more, found one elementary school but not the other, found two houses but not the first one, found the junior high, the dorm for freshman year at the University... and we continued the next day until I had to sequester myself with my music to get ready for rehearsals. But Thursday evening we paused in our investigations long enough to have dinner with an old boyfriend, or rather friend boy, who'd been a pal of mine after high school for several years.

Now, the way this story is going, you already know that the friend and I picked up right where we left off, that he and my husband got along so well they promised each other to keep in touch, and that we had a wonderful time. That the fit was going to be perfect was obvious from the moment hubby and I arrived at the agreed-upon restaurant. There was Bill, laughing his head off, sitting on the tail gate of his small SUV--a 2004 Honda Element just like ours.

Next: Singing and PD

[harley]

off to sc today, not much time to write at the moment but wanted to pester jaye about the pic..