As this is my last day in Maui, I am thinking upon the lyrics of Nickelback’s song: If Today Was Your Last Day. I am meditating on each and every word.
While taking my walk on the beach this morning, while photographing the abundance of nature, while packing, while driving, and while stepping on the plane, I will be holding these lyrics in my heart and mind.
I have, for many years, been living each moment like it was my last. However, I was living from a fear-based approach. Negativity swamped my mind. Today was my last day because I was slowly dying. Today was my last day because I might not live to see tomorrow. Today was my last day because I was afraid to live.
I walked Dead Man’s Beach. I thought of every worse case scenario. I remained careful and cautious. I didn’t reach out like my heart called me to reach out. I didn’t have fun because the fun inspired fear of loss. I didn’t risk, because risk meant danger.
I had been living like my last day entirely upside down and backwards. Fear consumed me. Everything measured by fear. Everything judged against worse case events. Everything absorbed into this shadowed light.
I don’t want to be on my death-bed with regrets of having not lived. I don’t want to live another day worried and harboring deep seeded anxiety. I want to live. And I shall.
I shall carry the healing waters of this tropical island back home with me to the state of Washington. I shall continue risking. I shall continue surfing the waves. I shall stand straight and paddle across the seas. I shall dive deep and swim with the beauty beneath. I shall speak my truth to those I hold so dearly in my heart. I shall speak my truth to myself.
I shall hold my own hand and walk forward, seeking adventure and joy instead of a prison of safety. I have lived so very, very long in captivity that the thought alone of running free is powerful.
Today is my last day in Maui but it is the first day I return home reborn into hope and the wonderful possibilities of life.
Nickelback
If Today Was Your Last Day
My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day’s a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride
If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
If today was your last day
Against the grain should be a way of life
What’s worth the prize is always worth the fight
Every second counts ’cause there’s no second try
So live like you’ll never live it twice
Don’t take the free ride in your own life
If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
Would you call old friends you never see?
Reminisce of memories
Would you forgive your enemies?
Would you find that one you’re dreamin’ of?
Swear up and down to God above
That you finally fall in love
If today was your last day
If today was your last day
Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?
You know it’s never too late to shoot for the stars
In the late spring of a bitter windy day, I wiped the grits of sand from my face and stared down below to the foggy beach. This would be the first time I’d see flaccid bodies all lined up in a row, bloated and an almost-blue. I hadn’t wanted to watch or even glance a little. I’d wished to run away or at least close my eyes, but I had to see. This was another coming of a dream. Some seven days had passed, seven long days of waiting and wondering who would drown. I knew enough from my past and the way my dreams played out to realize death would be arriving on a Saturday—on a cold, cold Saturday.
I wondered as the workers desperately pressed and pumped on the already dying flesh, why life, or God, or whatever essence gave me these glimpses of future events, wouldn’t also go one step further and allow me to serve some purpose and exist as more than a detached helpless onlooker. Had I had a magic button to stop the dreams, I thought at the time I would have. But then I thought I would have missed the dreams in the way I would have missed my arm, or leg, or eye; the dreams were so much a part of me, a needed part, something I’d been born with which had served me in some sense; even though I couldn’t comprehend the reason, even though I cursed the visions and the following reality, I knew enough, innately or perhaps spiritually, to know the dreams were necessary.
The dreams would serve a higher purpose someday, I was told. Not directly, but in whispers, gentle reminders to be patient, to be watchful, and to wait. I would cry then, in my teens, in the same way I cry now, when the weight of the world is so heavy upon my shoulders that I wish for nothing but silence and the unknowing, to be like the mother across the street satisfied with her scrapbooking and classroom volunteering, and yearning for nothing more than the simple.
That’s what I longed for: the sweet simple.
Those dead bodies below on the beach had been a family, the emptied vessels now covered in black bags on the sands below had been minutes before living tourists who hadn’t heeded the warnings posted at Dead Man’s Beach about the dangers of the ocean currents and under-tow. One boy had fallen in off the rocks, and in response, each family member had leapt to their own death.
I have been terrified of the ocean, ever since the tragedy at Dead Man’s Beach. Add this to the horrific flesh-eating fish dreams I’ve had since I was three, and the time my mother’s boyfriend saw a shark take a chunk out of his best friend. (His friend died.) And I’ve been able to justify not going in the ocean for about twenty-five years.
Yesterday, I overcame my great fear of the sea. As I paddled out into the ocean on my surfboard, I was terrified. I trembled. I almost cried. I almost turned back. But I paddled onward.
I wasn’t planning on surfing at all while visiting Maui. But there I was, regardless of all my fears and misgivings, flat on my belly, in a borrowed, rather-stinky surf shirt, paddling over the waves. And I got up on my surfboard, not once, but at least five times and rode the waves.
They may have looked like little waves to the observer. But to me they were the biggest darn waves of my life.
I’ve realized I have spent much of my forty-some years living on my own Dead Man’s Beach. I’ve been counting my days. Worrying about lurking dangers. Terrified to be happy.
This evening, as I sat in a local bar having yet another fruity rum drink (a new thing for me), the musician played Here Comes the Sun, and I was brought back to a summer day in Oregon, when at the age of nine I was riding in the back of a pickup truck listening to that song. I remember at that age I had an intense feeling of happiness and freedom. It was one of the last times I remember feeling so elated.
Yesterday, when I rode the waves, I returned to that sunny day in the back of the truck. I walked off of Dead Man’s Beach and I found my sun again.
A wise man once told me that he asks everyday: “How can life get any better?”
I have been cleansing my body through beneficial nutrients. I have been cleansing my mind through beneficial thoughts. Today, like a tree, I spread my roots into the universe and offer you these gifts of thought. May you be blessed with serenity and a gentle lullaby of peace. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. You are good enough. You are enough.
* When I start to feel pressured, I realize I am the one putting expectations on myself by focusing my energy on the future, reflecting on the past, or judging a person or event. Today I release the feeling of pressure, and gently fall back into the bliss of serenity.
* Trust your gut feeling. Believe you are the barometer of truth. In regards to advice, direction, and strategy, listen twice to your inner being before listening once to another.
* In the entire world there is but one you. You are as unique as the water crystals, each line on your skin an intricate and delicate marker of the beauty you are.
* I once again understand these words I write are only words, only my temporary truth. Ever changing, these words are no less permanent than the tide of the ocean. I sweep forth treasures of shells and seaweed, and the occasional sneaker escaped from the sea. However, nothing is a truth, only a finger pointing to a possible avenue for a possible someone to find his or her own truth.
* Do not question when you will be tall enough to provide adequate shelter, adequate goodness. You are merely a tree set down to grow. Focus on nothing more than the growing, and in this you need not focus either. Because, as a tree grows, with proper nourishment and adequate environment, as shall you grow.
* Nothing is misunderstood, everything is miss-understood—simply missed as you stood under the essence and were not yet ready to grasp the concept.
* I remember today and always that words have a soul, and that we beings are each connected in our thoughts, words and actions.
* I am remembering to evaluate my choices when I feel off balance. I ask myself what is an area I can increase, what is an area I can decrease? I visualize the choices in my life on two scales. If one side is too heavy, I remove part of it. If one is too light, I add a portion. In this way I return to a state of equilibrium.
* I cycle through great grief, anger, forgiveness and acceptance. Through these four seasons I rediscover the unique messages of my soul.
* My mistakes on this journey are equally as worthy as my perceived triumphs. For in my falling, I am made to rise higher in a new found empathy and self-knowledge. Today I embrace my mistakes as much as I embrace my successes.
* Some mornings before I awake I hear a gentle whisper. Once I was told that the path to healing is the opposite of a short cut. The opposite of a short cut is a long mend. Life is a long mending of our emotional, physical, spiritual and mental wounds—the needle and thread is unconditional love, unbounded truth, dedicated service and unyielding compassion.
* When we give without expecting anything but love and healing in return, the universe gives back.
* I pray for a time when we each shine in our own uniqueness and authenticity. When the idleness of conforming has transformed to an active celebration of the masses’ manifestation of love, peace and service.
* In learning to greet the morning alarm with positive affirmations, I am training myself to think positive thoughts upon awakening. “Good morning Beautiful day. Today will be filled with splendor, awe and healing,” is more beneficial than “Stupid alarm!”
* In knowing our essence, we see clearly our true purpose. In renewed clarity of our authentic self, we are freed from victimhood. In this release from fear of injury or loss from circumstance, agency or condition, we are able to focus attention on healing service and the creation of harmony.
* As a human being it is my birthright to flounder, to question, to have moments of sadness and anger, to be fragile, to be vulnerable. In examining the facets of my being, I perceive no weakness, only the limitless ability to connect to others in my authenticity.
* To live fully, I fully forgive everything and everyone. I view each new day as an opportunity to forgive, to forgive self, others and circumstances. By participating in a continual process of forgiving, freedom manifests. No longer hidden behind a barricade of judgment, in forgiveness, I arise a beautiful songbird surrounded in a crystal sky of compassion and love.
* To see through the eyes of a child if only for a moment, to dwell in wonderment and awe, to realize this world is a gift, this I wish for today.
* Today I recognize infinite happiness resides within me. I embrace this sacred space and joyous light within and gently release the responsibility I have placed on objects, people and circumstance to bring inner contentment. I stand in compassion of all that passes before me, allowing the joy found in the concrete to linger momentarily, before blowing the essence softly forward like the seeds of a dandelion.
* Each day is another opportunity to choose to partake in the process of discernment. In using discernment, instead of judgment, I stay on equal ground with all. In judging I automatically give up energy and view myself as lesser or greater. In observing, while gently releasing judgment, I remain energized, at peace and available to serve.
* The message I have been told since childhood is to serve and to love. The message I have been told since my young adulthood is to give without need of recognition or monetary gain. Only in giving unconditionally can I honor my true intention of love and service. Only in giving unconditionally without expectation can I be the most effective teacher and student.
* Tomorrow as I wake up, before I recognize where I am, who I am, and whom I am with, I shall recognize the awakening of a glorious and love-filled day.
* I Imagine a book of instructions for the globe, where each day has a deed: one day I help an elderly person, one day I offer a stranger an envelope with money, another I clean a neighbor’s home, and then on some days, together across the globe, at the exact same moment as other lights, I focus on the thought of love and peace…..I Imagine.
* I was reminded this morning that we are each like the flowers, in that we grow to our greatest potential when we are planted in fertile soil, have pure water, and are surrounded in the clean air and sunshine. Today so many are searching. In nature we can find the answers.
* In accepting my mind’s limitations, I choose to stand equal, unchanged in perceived controversy and chaos, for I know not what I see, not what I judge, except through the shattered scope of my narrow viewing.
* There are but two ways to walk in this world, as a blind man in search of safety or as a wise man in search of truth.
* To many honoring the soul’s quest require guidelines, e.g., authenticity, discernment, giving, and loving; though, in honoring our true intentions, there is an innate ever-changing removal of requirements. Thus there are no rules, guidelines, or examples, except what each individual person creates. Above all be true to thyself, thy own beliefs, thy own calling—there are no answers except within.
* In relationships where members strive to be authentic, accept the inevitable differences between them, and express thoughts, feelings and needs, a light of truth shines the way to self-growth, inner wisdom, and confidence.
* I have an infinite capacity to serve others. Whether through a positive thought, helpful word or silent prayer, I serve. And as I give, I grow in clarity of mind and energy of spirit. In this way of mindfully serving, I refuel my entire being. So exists an endless cycle of giving and receiving that need only be powered by the intention of goodwill.
Quotes collected from the roots of Samantha Craft’s thoughts. Spread your roots.
I love you. Thank you for partaking in my journey and helping me to heal and blossom. “I’ll stop the world and melt with you. You’ve seen the difference, and it’s getting better all the time. There’s nothing you and I won’t do. I’ll stop the world and melt with you…the future is open wide.” ~ Modern English
The dreams I had last night! Slumbering images that stretched into the night. Dreams in which I floated weightlessly in delight. Dreams in which some entity telepathically painted living pictures containing the secrets of the universe before my mind’s eye.
Before you second-guess my experience, note that I did inhale a half-bar of chocolate with espresso chunks yesterday, and I am on this new pig hormone for my hypothyroid, so I can only conjecture what is occurring at a cellular-level.
Crazed by caffeine or hormone overdose, or not, the dreams were mighty spectacular. Beings of light revealed that the world as we know it is a grand illusion! We are creating our reality. They explained that through my thoughts and where I choose to travel in my thoughts, I create my experience in this world.
In my last dream I was a passenger on a large windowless tour bus at a wildlife park. I was struggling to take photos of the upcoming buffalo and my camera battery was missing. A man sat across the aisle examining my actions. I quickly pulled out a notebook and began sketching the buffalo, until the man across the way said gently, “Just be. Enough. Just be.”
by Samantha Craft
I awoke with a greater understanding that my current sense of reality is based on my perceptions and established names and labels. My mind accepts a proclaimed and/or majority-recognized truth as a fact and a reality, and continually partakes in a constant quest to organize, categorize, and understand. Having a brain with “Asperger’s” traits, I imagine my brain is working double-time to sort out fact from fiction, all the while knowing everything factual is dependent upon the observer and the collective history of the observer.
I am awakened to a new truth, whether a passing, a fleeting, or a permanent truth, I do not attempt to know. My truth lies in freedom, in an understanding that freedom is created when I allow self to be. Or more specifically, not even allow, but just be.
To obtain peace, the baffling-cycle of trying to understand my life and my self must be released. The more I attempt to process and solve, the more confused and agitated I become. For every step forward in thought, I move backwards two steps in agitation.
At the moment, I am pondering this notion of nonexistence, the nonexistence of time and the nonexistence of months, and the nonexistence of anything and everything. I am examining the manifestation of reality: how words and symbols, and sounds, create. I’m thinking on my middle son’s recent inquiry: What if an animal exists that is a different color or form than we know, and we don’t yet have the capacity to see those specific colors or forms? Is the animal then invisible to us because we don’t recognize those aspects? And in truth, does the animal even truly exist, if we cannot conceptualize it?
I’m wondering about society. Wondering if the act of plastering more and more warnings about illness, war, and fear in our mailings, in our media, on our shirts, on our billboards, in our books and documentaries—is by default creating a reality filled with more suffering. If words, symbols, and sounds create, then what is our society creating? Perpetuating? Bringing to life?
I’m wondering if we were saturated with positive messages, symbols of love, uplifting affirmations, and confirmation of our safety everyday of our lives, if we could create a world blossoming in calmness and peace.
I’m thinking society has had some things backwards for a very long time, now.
A corner of Buddhist philosophy explains how we can never quite see the whole of ourselves, and postulates, if we cannot see the whole of our being, then we cannot with validity claim we (as a singular being) actually exist in whole. The whole of me is impossible to capture on camera, in the mirror, or even from the viewpoint of an observer. There is always an aspect of me missing, perhaps the sole of my feet or my backside. I am never in completion. And nothing I set eyes upon is in its entirety either. As hard as I try, I cannot see the whole of you. I cannot see the whole of nature—the whole of a tree or a flower. However I search, there is always an element of the wholeness missing.
My mind, too, will always find the element of the wholeness of reality missing. Because the wholeness is not there to find. My mind attempts to construct and complete the picture of wholeness. My reality is constructed to completion only inside my mind, not outside my mind.
In reflection:
(1) I have been trying to figure me and life out like some gigantic puzzle. Only all the puzzle pieces aren’t available.
(2) I have been so seriously attached to finding solutions to life and following manmade rules that I have built a lifetime of memories of no fun.
(3) Since I have collected hardly any happy-go-lucky memories, my mind has no place to retreat to except to the wicked, sad, dismal past or the fears of the wicked, sad, dismal future.
(4) In order to find retreat in the present moment, I would benefit by establishing happy moments and releasing the analytical, fight-or-flight based existence.
(5) I honor my journey, where I have been, where I am going, and where I now stand.
(6) Everything is unfolding at the absolute beneficial time.
(7) I set myself free to be a passenger of life and not a solver of life.
(8) I don’t have old baggage; I have an overstuffed, overused backpack of notes and observations.
(9) I give myself permission to leave the backpack behind.
(10) I give myself permission to do nothing more than to watch the buffalo.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
–Albert Einstein
by Samantha Craft
One of the best movies of the 1970’s. Bless the Beasts and the Children
I did the unmentionable this morning—I stepped on the scale. I’m hearing horror music in my head, like from the shower scene in Psycho.
I’m not on speaking terms with food. I’m so over eating.
As in done with chewing all together. I need someone to stick an IV (intravenous tube) in me with a nutritional drip of fresh-juiced organic fruits and veggies. Then I need someone to remove my refrigerator, my pantry, to cook for my children, and escort me to the athletic club. I need a cook, an athletic trainer, and blinders—like the horses wear. Actually, I probably need all my senses blocked. I can see myself with blinded-eyes, arms stretched out, feeling my way to find the food, like some starved zombie. I can see me with my pointy chin in the air and my nose twitching, as I sniff out the sweet and sours. I can even see me, once absent of all my senses, except the ability to taste, walking around aimlessly licking things.
Maybe that psychic was right! Maybe I was a dog in my past life!
I try to workout, I do. I’ve done the dance and yoga thing. Even the occasional treadmill in the dark room at our gym. A whole darkened room dedicated to those of us who don’t want to be seen with our fat jiggling. What a concept!
I’ve got this mind-boggling, athletic club phobia happening at the moment. Some of you know what I mean. All of the sudden the gym becomes this monstrosity of the mind. You can’t figure out how to get yourself to go, but yet you have this running tape in your head telling you that you should go. And then you promise yourself you will, or make some excuse.
My excuses are actually quite good. Forgetting for a moment that I’m disabled and I actually undergo substantial pain exercising, I’ve got a long list of reasons that home is better than the gym. Basically, what it boils down to (odd word phrase to picture) is the following:
dyslexia (makes dance classes hard)
body odor and odd body movements (makes yoga class hard)
naked people (makes the locker room hard)
sweat and germs (makes the treadmill room hard)
People in general (makes leaving the house hard)
Hard as in not comfortable, as in a mattress you wish you never bought.
Of course, this time of year, the outdoors aren’t super inviting. I did choose to live in one of the wettest US states imaginable. Which does indeed make for supple skin and that pale vampire complexion.
Just on the way to school today my youngest son said, “Wow. So dark outside. So much rain. Look at all the puddles. I wonder if more ducks will be here soon.”
I’m convinced the town I occupy, in the state of Washington, is runner up in cloud-coverage to the town where the popular series Twilight takes place. The author of Twilight researched to find the cloudiest place in the USA, a town where vampires would want to live.
Perhaps my current location and complexion is the reason I am rethinking my whole vocation and life purpose, and considering this whole vampire lifestyle. That and now a days vampires are so good looking and hot! Which is ironic as they’re physically quite cold. An irony I probably only find interesting. Which concerns me to no end.
I like to walk. I am very thankful for these two functioning legs. But the majority of the time, in these here parts, a stroll in the neighborhood means sopping wet shoes, drenched clothes, a rain-slapped face, and dog-shivers—and that’s with an umbrella.
Plus, this born-and-raised-in-California gal is still adjusting to the temperature change. Where I used to live, if the temperature was 40 degrees in the morning, it rose to 65 degrees by the afternoon. I thought, for most of my life, that all places gradually rose in temperature throughout the day.
Here in my town in Washington, when the temperature is 40 degrees in the morning, sometimes it’s only 41 degrees by mid-day. What the heck? Not one single Washingtonian thought to inform me of this meager frigid-factor when our family was scoping the neighborhood. I’m fairly certain that Washington natives get a kick out of watching the newcomers from California adjust to the pangs of climate change. I actually sleep in my day clothes many nights because I’m too cold to undress. And I’ve developed quite the close relationship with my space heater. Even my socks and me are buddies.
On a sunny day, I have to be careful in traffic. As it seems everyone takes the day off of work, and there exists a good three-times as many vehicles on the road. Give us a little sunshine, and we’re all tongue-wagging chipper, like a bunch of canines set free at the dog park. Only instead of sniffing butts, we are all glancing up at the sun and smiling wide. Some of us even point up: There’s the sun!
If you ever think about moving here, don’t be persuaded by the green-lush beauty and the natives telling you that you can wear open-toe shoes in May. Last May the temperature topped in the high-50’s. The smart folk, they head down to Arizona for the late winter or fly across the ocean to Hawaii.
Of course, if you ever visit in August, you’ll see why we stay. When the sun comes, the land looks like pure heaven.
click to see where image was found
Despite my aches and pains, my issues, the weather, and the temperature, I do need to get the ball rolling, so to speak. LV (see MY LINGO) keeps chatting in my ear. She’s whispering day and night the likes of these types of statements:
You do know that it’s not too good to be able to pinch a full half-foot of belly fat in one try, right?
How can these same jeans still fit you when you are clearly carrying some fifteen pounds more of fat than when you bought them? They must be Amazing Super Power Jeans!
If you keep going at this rate they’ll have to get a crane to move you out of the house.
Crazy Frog has been flashing images of sperm whales and singing: “Do you know the muffin-top, the muffin-top, the muffin-top. Do you know the muffin-top, that lives on Sam Craft Lane.”
And Crazy Frog has done the math: two pounds from being snowed in from snowstorm, two pounds for three-day power outage, two pounds for the loss of our dog Scoob, two pounds for the university incident. He figures we should sleep for the rest of March to avoid anymore stress-eating.
I have no idea how to end this post. I’m just staring at the screen thinking about cream puffs, cinnamon bread, and bagels, and wondering if I can in fact sleep the month of March away and wake up some 15 pounds lighter. I’m wondering about the Amazing Super Power Jeans and Vampires, and thinking of a new superhero. I’m wanting to search YouTube for superhero songs. And, I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that I really do need to get out of the house more, take the first step and head to the gym–despite the Naked People!!!
Everyday Asperger's 