Category Archives: One Word – Encourage

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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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When Grief Comes Without Warning

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In May of 2008, I received a message on a Classmates reunion site from an old friend from high school. In it she said,

” Hi Cutie, Nice to see you; desperately happy; hope the same is true for you.”

I was pleased to see her message and happy that in May of 2008, I was desperately happy too. One year later, I was married to my darling husband John and she was suddenly a widow with the love of her life snatched from her without warning. Last year on a Thursday morning in May, when most people were on their way to work or already there, her husband died in a car accident when another driver lost control and came across the medium into the path of her husband’s vehicle. Both drivers died on the scene leaving the people who loved them grieving and forever changed.

Pam and I are friends on Facebook and I have been able to see her journey as she’s returned to teaching and talked openly about the difficulties of making it through her grief. Recently, as the first anniversary of her husband’s death approaches, she sent out a request to her friends asking for a little help in the form of ” beautiful statements” to help her get through the next few days.

May 14 was the day Cullen died. I can’t imagine how it feels to have your best friend and soul mate be there one minute and gone forever in the next, I don’t want to know. I do know what grief feels like from other life experiences, the kind of deep heartache that you think you will never recover from, but I have not been through what she has and as such, I feel at a loss when it comes to an appropriate message of comfort.

The best I can do is to tell her how inspiring I think her love story has been to me. The very idea of still being, “desperately happy ” as she said in her message in May 2008, especially after so many years together, is a lasting legacy to the love they shared and certainly one I would like to emulate.

If any of you have any words of support or comfort that you might offer Pam, please leave them in a comment below and I will make sure she has a chance to read them.

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Bringing It To The Masses – No More Twitter Bashing

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Photo by Stephanie Roberts www.littlepurplecowphotography.com

If you have been reading me for very long you may know that I have been following the progress of reuniting a mother with her daughters. Jen Lemen has been at the center of it all working tirelessly to reunite Odette and her girls. News was tight as Jen Lemen struggled through all manner of delays with visas and immigration issues only to be held up by the ash cloud that affected so much of the air travel around the world last week.

There are many who supported Jen along the way in her efforts to bring Odette’s daughters out of Rwanda and back into the arms of their mother. I have rarely been good with delayed gratification and when information about their progress had all but dried up through blog updates and Facebook, I went to Twitter to find some answers. I’ve never been a fan of Twitter believing that there was no information I needed that I could not wait for if necessary. Minute by minute updates seemed on the face of it a waste of time, both for the reader and the tweeter so I while I had an account, I really did not use it … until last night when I became anxious and impatient for information on the final stage of their journey.

Yesterday, I watched as Stephanie Roberts, Dave Lemen, and Jen Lee tweeted the arrival and reunion of Jen and Odette’s daughters. I can’t remember how I first “met” Jen Lemen, it could have been through Shutter Sisters or perhaps Meg Casey who shared a house for a while with Odette and was there to share the joy yesterday with Odette and her girls at the airport.

Twitter made it possible for me to be a part of it all too as it was happening and I found myself holding my breath in anticipation as the updates came in. Seeing the tweets as the van left for the airport and Stephanie’s pictures along the way, I felt as if I had an inside seat as the joyful group made its way from one state and into another for the long anticipated arrival of Odette’s girls.

Once at the airport, Stephanie kept shooting out images and word updates and when the girls I arrived, I cried a few happy tears of my own after reading Stephanie’s tweet, ” They are together ” along with the image of hers that you see above. Jen Lee has a beautiful post this morning that can give more details about Odette’s story and how she and Jen Lemen first met.

I so love happy endings especially when it marks the beginning of something even more wonderful and new. I encourage you to click on the links and read more about their amazing journey … it’s guaranteed to make you smile.

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Dixie Carter – A Strong Southern Woman

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(Internet photo)

When Dixie Carter died last Saturday, Julia Sugarbaker breathed her last too. Although Julia Sugarbaker was only one role she played during a lifetime as a working actor, it is the one I will always associate most with her. Writer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason may have created the feisty southern character, but it was Dixie Carter who made her come alive.

During the late 80’s and early 90’s there were several television shows I tried never to miss, and Designing Women was one of them. While I always pictured myself as more Murphy Brown than Julia Sugarbaker, my step-mom Cullene could easily have been the model for the well heeled, articulate character, who was always willing to fight for the underdog or let someone know when they had pushed her just a bit too far.

As I’ve gotten older, I know there have been times in my life when I might have been channeling versions of all three women, calling on some secret source of inner strength that even I was not always aware was waiting in reserve. Take a look at this video where Julia speaks her mind one more time if you are not sure of what I mean. Dixie Carter may be gone, but she lives on in her children, in the roles she created, and in women who cheered each time Julia Sugarbaker stood her ground, leading the way for southern women who were watching like me.

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I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

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Photographs of Mollye are lifted from Facebook

I am stealing a song title from a Beatle’s tune this morning to say a few more words about the post I wrote here a couple of days ago, which I followed up with this one yesterday where I thanked everyone for their supportive comments. If you are someone who reads comments left by others as I sometimes do except over at Pioneer Woman’s place because one post can garner thousands of comments and who has time to read that many … anyway, if you happen to be reading the comments left on the post, Are You Judy’s Daughter, you will see a comment from someone named Mollye, that could do with a bit of an explanation.

My dear friend Mollye is one of the sweetest souls I know. We met about ten years ago when we were both working with folks who were either infected or affected by HIV. While I worked mostly with the physicians and medical providers who managed their care, I also had an opportunity to meet people like Mollye who worked at the time for one of the AIDS service organizations in Atlanta. After reading her comment on the revealing mother-daughter post I wrote, I decided it might be a bit confusing without a little backstory.

Mollye is quite accomplished in many ways, in addition to working as a gifted therapist, she is an amazing artist and photographer. She specializes in pet photography when she’s not helping people searching for their best selves and I only wish I had more of her art hanging on my walls.

I sent Mollye a message yesterday with a link telling her of the dream I had a few days ago that prompted me to write the mother-daughter post. What I did not say publicly in that post was that Mollye had been in my dream too, showing up right at the end just as I was waking up. I told Mollye that I was not sure whether it was because I had looked at her art just before I went to bed which deals directly with ghosts and is titled “Spirits of the Field,” or because she is an Alabama native which is the last place I saw my mother who has lived only two hours from my former home in Georgia for about the last twenty years. For whatever reason Mollye popped in at the last minute, it was comforting to wake up with a sense of her nurturing presence after the familiar rejection by my mother in the dream.

When I woke this morning and sat down to check my messages as I do while the coffee is brewing, I read the sweet comment she left me and felt so lucky to have friends in my life like Mollye. We all have histories and ghosts that haunt us, but who we become in spite of it all is a true measure of a life well lived.

I could make excuses for my mother’s behavior, but there is nothing so horrible in her history that would have made her into the bitter narcissistic person that she is. She is what she is by choice and although I understand that intellectually, that knowledge has provided little emotional comfort over the years.

There is one thing I am very sure of and that is while we may not be able to choose the path we on which we begin our journey, we can choose which direction we take once we gain our own footing. The love and kindness of friends like Mollye are some of the gifts of my journey and an example of the good you receive in life when you choose to walk in the light.

Please feel free to share your story of someone who might be a ” Mollye ” in your life in a comment below.

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Cleaning Out The Attic

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Sometimes when you least expect it, a moment happens that reminds you of another life. A life you thought you had packed away, carefully folded, like clean clothes in an old suitcase. It waits, stuffed into a dusty corner with the forgotten bits of a past you no longer have use for, a neatly packaged collection of memories waiting to be discovered by another generation when cleaning out the attic after your death.

You forget it is even there except for the times when you feel obliged to shift the Christmas boxes or saved baby clothes to make room when the roof needs repairing or the pest control people come by to take care of the scratching sounds you hear late at night when sleep won’t come.

In shifting the suitcase to a new location, you wonder why you put it there and when you open it, you remember and you think, maybe I should get rid of these things that no longer fit me. So you shake them out and hold them up to the light. You might even step outside the attic where the light is better and you can see more clearly.

At the very end of it all, you may share some things with your friends who are happy to reminisce with you and remind you of all you have that fits the you that you have become. You consider what to do with it all after picking through the past, and after ruling out recycling, you stuff it into a large garbage bag and put it out with the Monday morning trash.

When I thought I had no more tears left for the sad mother stories that are at the very core of my history, I found myself wiping them away yesterday after reading your lovely comments. The sweetness and sensitivity you shared was healing and so appreciated. I hesitated for several months before sharing the accidental awareness found in a strangers question last January, but the dream of bowling balls and my mother pushed me to share a part of my life that sadly is similar to others out there. My deepest thanks to each of you for your support and kindness.

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Hanging On When It Looks Hopeless

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Last year for my birthday, my husband John planned a lovely get away to St Ives. Along with an overnight stay at the sweet little B&B below, he surprised me with a stop along the way to buy a Dogwood tree for my birthday because he remembered that I had talked about missing the Dogwoods that bloomed in my Atlanta neighborhood every spring.

This is what my Dogwood looked like when we got it last September. It seems to have made it through the winter snows we had here and has even begin to put out tiny new leaves as you can see below.

We would be seeing an explosion of color by now if we were in Georgia, but the Dogwoods here will not reach their flowering peak until much later. It was early June last year when I realized that Dogwood trees grew in England. They were in full bloom then which is long after you would see their flowery bits in Atlanta.

When we brought it home last September, there as a small piece about 4 inches long that broke off in the car. John slipped it into a small vase of water and put it in the kitchen window where it sat looking like a dead stick for the last five months. I almost tossed it a couple of times, but since John has the green thumb, I deferred to him and left it there.

A few weeks ago I considered dumping it again. It looked so dead that I wondered why he was keeping it. So I took it out of its watery grave and sniped off the end. I gave it a fresh bit of water like John had been doing for months and stuck in back on the window ledge. After all this time, I did not expect much. In fact, I thought we would be tossing it into the compost bucket soon, but today I gave it a passing glance like I have all winter and guess what I saw.

The top looks the same as it has all winter, but hello, what is that I see inside the glass.

It’s new life … welcome back my little Dogwood.

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Reaching For More

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If you click on the photo above you can see a mix of postcard messages and photographs from a visit to Scotland in 2004. I fell in mad, mad, love with the area the year before while on vacation with my daughter Miranda. At the time of our visit in 2003, I was on the cusp of making a major career decision and I was scared as most would be of doing something I might regret. Deep inside most of us know when it is time to make a change, but we find ways to rationalize not moving on.

Miranda and I traveled a bit that year doing an Outward Bound experience in Colorado, followed by our trip to the UK which included a few days in Amsterdam and Barcelona. It was during this break from my job that I began to enjoy my life again and somewhere along the way, I got my smile back.

By my second visit in the spring of 2004, I had left my corporate job and was taking some time to figure out what to do next. As I traveled around Scotland, I bought postcards in different locations and wrote messages on them before mailing them back myself in America. Friends who had picked up my mail and looked after my cats while I was gone joked with feigned huffiness that they had not received any postcards, but there were about ten waiting for me at home. The card below is one of the ten and underneath it you can see a message I wrote to myself.

I wrote the words above after taking a wrong turn at the end of the bridge that connects the Isle of Skye to the rest of Scotland. A wrong turn put me in a position to capture the image below reminding me that sometimes leaving the path is a good thing.

Today a blogging friend of mine left her corporate life behind for a new one. Some of you may have seen Mariellen’s comments here at GOTJ. If you have not been by her place you should, she’s a great writer with tons of life experiences to share. I can’t wait to see the new directions she will go as she begins this next phase of her life. If you have a minute, I bet she would appreciate a kind message of support over at her place.