Category Archives: Choices

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Comfort In The Dark Or What Waits In The Light

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John and I were talking about regrets this morning and I clearly have many more than he does. Never someone to sit around waiting for change, I have often jumped at opportunities when perhaps I should have waited, but I have always been more afraid of missing something than making a wrong decision.

Ralph Waldo Emerson might have been speaking to me when he said. ” For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”

I’ve heard people say and have said it myself, that everything that has happened in our lives makes us who we are now, but sometimes I still wonder what might have been different had I been more content to wait for the light of a new day to reach me instead of always trying to find my way out of the dark on my own.

There is something to be gained in patience, a virtue I have long needed to learn.

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A Walk In The Park With Mariellen Romer

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Photo Courtesy of Mariellen Romer

Mariellen Romer has been walking the talk. After joining the ” I Left The Corporate Life Club ” a few months ago, she has been following her dreams and they’ve carried her most recently to new locations and experiences in the western part of the United States. If you were to check her out here, you would be able to see an impressive corporate work history, but if you take a moment to see what she’s been working on lately you’ll feel like you’ve been for a walk in the park. Mount Rainier National Park to be specific.

Mariellen has been part of a creative team intent on sharing the benefits in visiting and volunteering for The National Park system. Anyone who has ever been over-stressed knows the good that comes in having a change of scenery or doing a different kind of work even if only on a volunteer basis so give this a thought and take a minute to have a look at what’s happening over at her space. In the videos on her blog today over at A Full Life, Mariellen is talking specifically about Mount Rainier National Park Volunteers, but don’t forget to consider something a little closer to home if you live in a different part of the United States. They will be happy to have the help and I bet you’ll end up feeling like you get back more than you give.

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Memorial Day – Because Sometimes We Forget

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Captain Eleanor Grace Alexander died on November 30 1967 in a plane crash in Binh Dinh, South Vietnam. I did not know anything about her until I made a point to find out who she was and how she died after seeing her name at the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. Eleanor Grace Alexander was one of eight active duty women who died during that war. She was 27 and unmarried.

Born the same year as my mother she would have been 70 on September 18 had she survived. Having read first hand accounts from people who knew her and several who served with her including Rhona Marie Knox Prescott who wrote this moving letter which is part of the Veteran’s History Project in the Library of Congress, I am grateful there was a record so that some of my questions could be answered.

As an American child of the sixties, it was the Vietnam War that was the backdrop of my daily life with body counts and war updates delivered each night by men like Walter Cronkite of CBS news. Sadly we are still at war, still fighting, and still burying the dead. Although we do battle in different countries now, the result is the still the same for many and unless your life has been touched directly by loss it can be easy to forget why we recognize Memorial Day, why it’s more than a precursor to summer fun and pool side parties. I’m guilty of forgetting in the past, of treating the three-day weekend that leads into Memorial Day as a much needed respite from a too full life. What I hope to never forget is that I’ve had a chance to live the life I have thanks in part to men and women who died in wars long before I was born.

I plan to take a few minutes today to think about Eleanor Grace Alexander and my great uncle, Hugh Lee Stephens who died in WWII.

Is there someone today that you need to remember … I only ask because I know from experience that sometimes without meaning to, we forget.

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Distractions – Bright & Beautiful

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When bright flowers bloom

Parchment crumbles, my words fade

The pen has dropped …

~ Morpheus

I make deals with myself sometimes … with the life long experience of a master negotiator, I have whole, silent, in my head conversations that frequently begin with something like this, if you do this for the next three hours, then you can …

Today is one of those days.

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What Remains The Same

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Elizabeth Harper – Athens, Greece – Summer 1981

Yes … that’s me. This image came from an old slide from my army days, one of many that I’ve been moving from place to place for years. With twenty-one just around the corner, this younger, thinner version of me thought she knew a few things about life and while I’d had some experiences by then that most of my friends from high school had not, like breaking down an M-16 rifle in the dark, or leaving home at eighteen for my first military assignment in Germany, I was clearly not rocking the world with my fashion sense.

I mean, really …what was I thinking with that tight curly perm and if that wasn’t bad enough, how in the world did I think it was okay to go out in public wearing those cutoff short shorts! That sock-less running shoe look while not pretty kept me from getting blisters when I ran my first marathon in those bright yellow Nikes and I was still wearing Nikes twenty-six years later when I ran my second one.

These days, I wear my shorts a good bit longer and I ditched the perms twenty years ago, but check out that camera I have hanging around my neck … most of us change a great many things through the years such as behaviors that are no longer useful, bad hair styles, career choices, and sometimes husbands and partners, but there are some parts of us that are with us for the duration and central to the core of who we are no matter where we’re standing or what direction we may be looking.

I bet you don’t need three guesses to know what remains constant for me. It’s there in almost every photograph whether it’s around my neck, hanging off my shoulder, or in my hand, a camera of some kind is always with me and while not exactly a fashion accessory, it appears now it is has become a necessory item for completing my look. How about you, is there something about you that people have come to expect will be there, always the same whenever they see you?

Elizabeth Harper – Cornwall, England – Summer 2008

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Change Of Plans – Suggestions Anyone

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For the last six or eight months, John and I have been planning a big trip in September. Having walked the 105 miles of the Tour du Mont Blanc almost two years ago, I have been looking forward to doing it again with him this fall to celebrate a big birthday I have coming up. To make it even more special, we’ve been planning on taking my sister Margaret with us on the long walk through the Swiss, French, and Italian Alps.

Things got a bit complicated when Margaret and I began to plan her travel arrangements so that the timing might work with the schedule for the TMB. Because she was coming from Alaska, most of the flight options had her traveling for a minimum of 19 hours (it was difficult to find these) or up to 38 hours with the exception of one airline which could get her here within about 10 hours with connecting flights, but only flew from Alaska one day a week.

After all three of us had put in too many hours at the computer with no real progress and loads of frustration, I offered up an alternative plan … one that seemed less like an endurance event (which the TMB really is) and something more restful and less time restrictive.

Instead of walking a path that looks like this … or sleeping in places like this, I suggested a totally different sort of trip to Margaret and she decided it sounded good to her as well.

Even with the change, she will still be here for most of the month of September and for the first time since we were twelve and fourteen, we will be able to celebrate each others birthdays in person. She’s a September birthday too and since John’s birthday falls between ours, we’re going to be eating a lot of cake that month. The big question is, where are we going to be when we are blowing out our birthday candles.

A few days after she gets here, we’ll head for London for a week of exploring. My 50th birthday will happen while we are there, so John will come up the day before and stay overnight in order to celebrate the milestone with me too. Now here’s where you come in, I’m looking for suggestions for things you think we should see and do during our week in London and I’d like to have a plan that includes something special for my birthday.

Having been there a few times, I do have some ideas, but I would love to see if you can surprise me with something I haven’t thought of yet. I’m not sure what is on Margaret’s list, (we just decided on the change recently) but I do know that I would like to photograph London from the top of the London Eye on my birthday.


I would also like for us to see a show or two in the West End, but I am not sure what might be enjoyable. I’ve seen several there in the past. I loved Billy Elliot when I saw it in 2005, and Miranda and I saw my all time favorite musical, Les Miserables when we were there in 2003. I’m not opposed to a more serious production either as I was thrilled to see Ralph Fiennes in Brand on the same trip with her when she was fifteen. If you’ve seen or heard about a production that you think is too fabulous to miss, please let me know so we can consider it for our list.

After our week in London, we’ll be a bit closer to home as we do up the southwest part of England for a week or two. Then we’re off by plane to the next place on our list. It’s one of my favorites and if you’ve reading me for long, you may have already seen some of my photographs from there. Can you guess where we will be by the images below?

A Gift for Abelard & Heloise

This is one I snapped on our honeymoon.

I can’t wait to show Margaret where I was standing when I captured this familiar Paris scene. The seventh picture holds a clue.

Margaret and I will be spending seven days in Paris on our own for a sister’s week. We have a lot already in mind to fill our days, but tell me what you’d want to see and do if you were joining us. I’m looking for things I may not have thought of yet.

Lastly, I could use suggestions from my Paris blog friends on short term holiday lets. I’d like to book a place soon and I have scoured the internet looking for a place that is not too pricey, works well for two, and is in a decent location. We don’t mind walking, (I’ll need it to offset my bread intake) and I have used the Metro before so we are fairly flexible. While I would prefer a studio apartment, if you have a hotel recommendation that is reasonable, I’d be open to having a look at that as well.

I’m so looking forward to spending this time with Margaret. We’ve not had a chance to travel together since we were children and I don’t think our memories of fighting over who had more room in the backseat of the car on road trips in the late sixties and early seventies is going to compare at all with the memories we’ll be making in September 2010.

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” Mister Rogers & Me ” – Nantucket Film Festival

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Mister Rogers & Me (photo courtesy of Benjamin Wagner)

Many of you may remember previously when I’ve talked about Benjamin Wagner. He’s been working for some time now on a remarkable looking film titled, ” Mister Rogers & Me. “ It is a deep and simple documentary about Fred Rogers told from the perspective of Benjamin, with the help of quite a few others who knew him as well. In the trailer alone, you see folks like Linda Ellerbee and Tim Russert along with Susan Stamberg and Marc Brown sharing their thoughts on the impact Fred Rogers had on the millions of people who either watched on him on television or those like Benjamin, who had a chance to actually sit down and talk with him before he died.

I’ve written about Benjamin and his story before, and how a conversation he had with a man who really was his neighbor put him on the path towards a life that celebrates the deep and simple in a world that is too often focused on what is shallow and complex.

Benjamin’s desire to share the message of Fred Rogers and the combined efforts of both he and his brother Christofer, have led them to the place where they are now as ” Mister Rogers & Me ” is set to premiere at the Nantucket Film Festival in June along with the films of some already well known actors and directors.

I have watched the progression of this dream of his from the sidelines for the last few years and the story has had a lasting impact on me. Sometimes, I catch myself having conversations with strangers, like a cab driver on the way to the airport about living a life more focused on what is deep and simple. I can’t tell you the number of times it has come up or the places I shared it.

In the quote below, Fred Rogers talked about leaving something of yourself behind in every meeting we have with the people we meet. Sharing ” Mister Rogers & Me “ along with the deep and simple message is what I’m leaving behind today. While I can’t attend the premiere due to living in the UK, I can share the message, and you can too. If you feel inclined, would you forward this link or perhaps create a post of your own to share with the folks who matter in your life. It’s a sweet story with a powerful message and it might be just the very thing they need today.

If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

~ Fred Rogers

I want to thank Benjamin for staying with this project and investing so much of himself into such a lasting legacy. Fred Rogers would be modest about being the center of the story, but he would be so proud of you and he would likely say it in his gentle voice, ” I am so proud of you, Benjamin.”

I like to add my own ” Well done, Benjamin,” and say that in this big global world, I’m so glad you and I are neighbors.


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My New Blog Crush Is A Brazen Careerist

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I hope you won’t think me fickle, but I have new crush and she’s been taking up quite a lot of my time lately. Penelope Trunk’s blog, Brazen Careerist is so popular that she has tons of readers … 52,400 subscribers at present. Most of them probably think they’re stopping by to pick up a little career advice, but there is so much more to this woman than just how to get ahead in business.

We haven’t known each other for long … well, she doesn’t know me at all, but I do have a few favorites of hers I want to share with you. This bit of advice makes total sense to me. I have known this for a while now and actually managed to work it out on my own, but I was well into my forties before came together a flash of awareness. Here is another post that might look like business advice, but it’s really like a parachute in a way. Then there is this one, I like it because it might make you think differently about the stories you’ve been told about how having or finding the right job is the path to happiness.

Part of what I’ve been impressed with is the way that most of her favorite posts are about her relationships with the people in her life who mean the most to her. Of course you will find seeds of other topics tucked neatly in the intellectual soil waiting to germinate in your consciousness. She’s good that way … she knows how to take a bit of this and that and shape it into a good story that will make you want to stop by later to see what’s happening in her world. Before you know it you be hanging out like a stage door groupie, waiting for the next post. Okay, maybe you won’t have it that bad, but I do think you might enjoy a little nose around her space if you’ve got some time in your schedule.

And this crush thing … it doesn’t mean that I don’t still love you too, because you know I do!

xo

E

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Leaping Ginger Cat Takes Flight

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Dexter, the leaping cat is a Ginger … well at least that’s what he would be called here in Britain. In America, we would likely refer to Dexter as an Orange Tabby. Living on my street, I’d call him just about the most playful cat I’ve ever met.

If he’s outside when I am walking past his house, what you see in these photographs gives you an idea of what’s bound to happen. He doesn’t seem to forget his playmates and once you’re his friend, he will come running up the street to see you if you call his name.

He has taken to stopping by the house now which is not something John encourages. It’s not that he dislikes Dexter or cats for that matter, but he enjoys watching the birds that come to snack on the bread crumbs he leaves on the bird table and Dexter’s tendency to leap out at the birds seems to put them off. My daughter Miranda took these photographs last Friday, two days before she flew home. We laughed and laughed as she tried to catch Dexter in mid leap.

Speaking of leaping, I did a little myself yesterday when I signed up for Kelly Rae Roberts e-course titled, FLYING LESSONS: TIPS + TRICKS TO HELP YOUR CREATIVE BUSINESS SOAR

It looks as if it’s going to be a good one and it’s filled with a talented mix of people. I know because I’ve been reading their introductions in the comment section and snooping through their websites to learn more about who they are and what they do creatively. I’ve pasted my own intro comment below if you’d care to read it. It came out quite naturally and seemed appropriate for a course titled Flying Lessons.

Elizabeth Harper said…

The best dreams are always the ones where I fly. Those of you who are night-flyers know exactly what I’m talking about. Sometimes my own technique varies when going airborne, but the one consistent thing that always happens in beginning of the ascent … is the leap.

The leap is required before I can feel the air under my body and take flight.

The leap is essential for flying.

This morning as I was reading a few of my favorite blogs while waiting for my coffee to brew, I clicked on Kelly’s post and noticed as I have for a while that she was talking about this e-course. I frequently make major moves on intuition and when I feel the nudge, I move so before I had my first sip of coffee or the sleep had been rubbed from my eyes, I had signed up.

The leap … remains essential.

As an American married to a Brit, it was just such a leap that lead me to find love and a new life on the Cornish coast of England.

A quick look at the comments tells me I am in the company of talented group of folks and I am so pleased to be here too.

My name is Elizabeth Harper and you can find me at https://giftsofthejourney.wordpress.com

If you feel like leaping, there’s still room in the five-week on-line course that begins May 30 … maybe I’ll see you there.

Image belongs to Kelly Rae Roberts

UPDATE : This just in … I got an email about an hour ago from my sister Margaret with a receipt for the Flying Lessons class. She was up late working on a website, read about it on my blog and decided to sign up too. This should come in handy for the creative project I mentioned here, (second item on the list) that we’re working on together.

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Grown

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Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing.

~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

If you guessed that our first visitor from America was my daughter Miranda, you would be right. I’m thrilled to bits to have her here and introduce her to my UK life. I just have to remember she’s grown.

When she was a baby, I used to kiss her all over her face telling people who happened to catch me at what some thought was an excessive display of mother love that I was stocking up for the days to come when a mother’s kisses might not be as welcomed, knowing even then that children reach an age fairly quickly and rightly so that begins to give you limited access in some areas of their lives.

At twenty-two she’s been there for while, but I still need to remind myself sometimes. I know it’s healthy and normal and I am glad she has grown up to claim her own space in this world, but sometimes I wish just for a minute … I could have one more chance to shower her with kisses.