Stain-glass Eyes

  I’ve spent most of my life believing I understand people. Now, not so much. First of all, if I was truly going to understand others I’d have to peel away my own complexities to understand  myself .   Their inner layers are deep and sometimes I’m tempted to bounce over “take-off-the-peeling” part and just throw them into a pot, generalize and be done with the hard work of understanding their intricacies. So…another dig. I can pare under the outer epidermis of myself, but so many times I feel a slight wrinkle and wiggle and quickly let it grow over again. A dig means there are some surprises which lead to further digs. It can help me know more about me but it also be terrifying. It does intrigue me though. It’s a challenge. (The fact I have a need to live in a world other than my own is also an incentive) Honestly, maybe other people are not open for anyone to understand them. Maybe I’m not either on any given day of the week. Our shields and camouflage are firm layers. For me time to

“ You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them .” — Maya Angelou On my brown chair, (which fits just right for my short stature), I sit. I can see the wind blow the long spindly branches of a tree out the window. Cold but no snow. Dreary, darkish and almost oppressive, but I try not to let it inside. I keep it out. Being a fairly optimistic person I’ve decided weather wasn’t going to keep me from writing on the first day of 2024.     Life stuff is on my mind. What’s ahead and what’s passed. No one can say a year passes without their life being altered in some way! It would be untrue. It changes constantly. We celebrate, improve, regress, cope, struggle, assess and move forward. There’s something to the statement “ Live each day as if it’s your last ”. Not that I think it’s possible, but I do think we could get rid of a lot of non-essential, trivial habits and obsessions that take up big chunks of the day.  To decide what we need a