The wind is constantly shifting direction tonight.  So as the smoke revolves, I pick up my chair and move.  As I plopped down this last time, ping came the thought - this is JUST like life.  Shift.  Shift.  Which way?  Try this.  Then as the flames died, the smoke grew in intensity as a few more sticks were placed.  Then POOF.  Flames.  Yes - that would be just like life.  You never know the exact combination, but every once in a while the right elements for combustion will unite.

This is National EMS Week.  I think back to 1988 and why I even signed up for an EMS course.  It was to help a friend who thought he could not pass.  I figured since I was enrolled as a NMU student that fall, the class could only be beneficial to a resume.  He dropped out.  I remained not knowing really why.  This touchy stuff had me to the granite cliff edge many a night.

The last evening of class in February of 1989, I refused to fill out the state paperwork.  Suddenly I was called to the hall by the instructor.  Eighteen years old and the first time to be called into the hall by a teacher.  He said in so many words - what in the hell are you doing?

I told him that I never once thought I was good at this EMS stuff, I had only taken the course to help someone else, I was financially obligated and as a full-time student had too much to lose to just drop earlier.

That was the first time I heard about how some people are gifted with talents they perhaps do not see or want.  I listened.  I remember.  I walk that talk now with others.

The semester ended, I signed up for a lot of spring and summer classes, and then I received a call.  A person I had taken the course with and who lived nearby said that I needed to help the community.  Study.  Join the township service just as an extra set of hands until the state test was offered in August.  Guilt trip.  Total inability to say no.

The 4th of July weekend in 1989 was my first EMS call.  I had just received my huge red brick pager.  Orientation was here's a phone number to call when it alerts.  So I arrived first...to a rolled-over caravan filled with non-English speaking adults and children.

As I reflect and wonder what is next on my professional and personal horizon, I look at the experiences, the shift this way, then that way, smoke....smoke....and wonder what the next flickering flames will bring.

There is a robin very unpleased with me right now.  I have not a clue where the nest is, but I looked around and certainly cannot find anything.  Quite amazing how vocal they can be.

Sitting aside a new fire pit in the back yard.  It's dusk and chilling down briskly so I popped in the house and put on Dad's old Navy pea coat.  My parents gave it to me the other day.  I have always been mesmerized by a bon fire - the licking flames, glowing embers, changing colors.  I can hear the fountain and also the popping of the wood.  It is the best, very best of both worlds.  In my dreams I wanted a home  that entwined a fire place with water.  This may be as close as I get.  

Dive bombed by a robin.  Sorry.  I pay the mortgage here.  At least for a few more months.

Started the day with a productive meeting about an upcoming emergency exercise, then a quick trip to the grocery store had a friend and me running into a very nice brush truck from Baraga.  So we introduced ourselves and checked out their apparatus.  I certainly would take that any dreamcicle over the Army truck we have that pre-dates my birth.

Raked for a while and discovered that I'm going to bring more rocks home.  Time to ground the place better.  Plus, I'll put them around the fire ring.  As I sit here thinking of how to spiff up the home and watching the bright planet in the sky, I think wow it is about time that I do work for myself.

Gave the Model A's another base coat.  I think tomorrow mine will be started.  The National Model A Convention is coming to town and I picked up some wood cutouts that will be hung from the downtown light poles.  My intent is to incorporate glow in the dark paint along with glitter and some fringe.  Are you scared yet?  On another note, I sketched out a logo tonight for a local race.  Don't have the software to make it look good, but I just had to put graphite to paper and get over the urge.

The birds have fallen asleep.  Now that is astounding.  The conductor put down the baton.

At that, I'm putting one more log on the fire...

Beep.  Beep.  Beep.  That was the home answering machine the other night.  Rare that anyone calls my home during the age of cellphones that are practically like another organ.  So I listened to it and then listened to it again.  A stranger somehow found my number and wanted information on hospice.  My first thought - this is different, but there's a Higher power that drives things in life.  I only know of hospice from when Grandpa was ill.  So, the next morning, I called the person back and we chatted.

In the past few days I have shared moments with two people challenged with the ever present lingering notion of when cancer will rear its head again.  A challenge to one's faith.

Tonight a call to check on a neighbor.

There have been so many of these types of occasions lately.  It is like I am getting this re-assurance of what Mom said the other night - you are a true public servant.  There is a reason why you have no spouse and children, at least yet.  As a friend echoed, your calling perhaps is to be with and give widely amongst people who know you listen with more than just an ear.  A person who takes the time to find answers after others have searched...even when it may be right there, yes right there, in front of their faces as those are the most difficult to self-see.

Up in the air a lot these days, I suppose increasingly so through this past year.  The house will be paid soon.  It was supposed to be the starter place.  My professional careers have taken me down so many diverse paths - well, it's Sybil-istic.  Not one to ever plan beyond a few days, and without an ounce of competitiveness or manipulation.  I was raised with the notion that women were to find men so they could be taken care of for their life.  While I have no qualms regarding that personal choice, I find it to be fertile ground for great limitations and lasting devastation.  Love is to push each other to a level where alone you would not achieve.  There are still a sect of women who purposefully seek those that will provide for their every want (not necessarily need) independent of the consequences to others.  The deep inner belief of two becoming one shall never be truly welded when one person of the package is there because of what he or she gets, instead of gives.  Breaks my heart to witness this erosion of a person for another.

Do unto others...

A real friend helps us think our best thoughts.  Do our noblest deeds.  Be our finest selves. ~ anonymous

Picked that quote out of a jar this morning, a jar given to me by a friend who mostly understands that those to whom I become close will experience just that....a stirring to be the best they can be and in reverse also I experience their help.  I think back through the years and some people were just not ready for that kind of maturity in a friendship, or their external situations disabled them in continuing what life is all about - connections with people.  There is a line that forms between those you find interesting and are compelled to share lives with versus those you are more than satisfied occasionally talking to and being on the fringe.  I have noticed it is those with low emotional intellect that seem to be on the fringe.

Speaking of low emotional intellect, may I recommend the book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  I was astonished to read how within my professional careers, I have been so fortunate to experience elements of combating this!  I recall collaborating with a group of persons on our personality styles, expressing the ultimate necessity for us to regularly meet and share each part of what we were doing for the whole, and at the foundation trust in one another had to reign or there was no team.

A frustration I currently experience.

So, I found myself taking on-line surveys this morning.  At one time in life, I picked leeks for money, so this survey stuff seems like sprinkles on a cupcake.  I have been shaken through the last year to analyze just how out of whack our consumer products cost in comparison to my dwindling income.  I have to go back to the late 90's to compare with my take-home now.  So with that said, ingenuity is kicking in again.

THINKING best thoughts
DOING good deeds
BELIEVING there is a reason for everything

Stepped on a dinky little chunk of aqua glass this morning. In my living room? How very odd.

The blinds and a few valances that came with my house are now all down from their cobwebbed resting places. The house will be paid off in a few months, so I figured that it was about time to change a few things. With birthday money from my parents, I bought cellular shades and have two sample books spread across the floor for others. Thanks to friends who recently purchased blinds as they got me motivated after 20 years of stagnation!

Decorated just a little today for Easter. I was hoping to watch cheer on the faces of others, but plans have changed. It is a blessed moment to sit in silence and reflect that it is He who is in charge and that is what matters.

This past week has bottled quite a bit of highs and lows. Just seems that life would be bland and unfulfilled without knowing them and yet at times wondering...well, should I become less vulnerable? Walls. They're so very easy to build. Discerning when to build and where to have the windows and doors is quite challenging. It must be why the sunrises and sunsets are so breathtaking. Without a window or a door, you'd never see them.

Continuing on this mission to purposefully give to someone each and every day this Lenten season, I reflect upon this past week. Wow. More layers than a piece of baklava, and it feels good!

Getting a better handle on finances as of late. The wage is just not keeping up with the mundane expenses and I must find additional employment opportunities. Now that I've trimmed all that can be in the house, it is time to re-focus energy on side-line work. I cannot imagine being a person so fortunate to just have one job. The amount of time that would free! I could do more volunteer work!

There is nothing so crystally satisfying as watching a person receive totally unexpected kindness.

As I look around the house there are some cobwebs growing on the rocks. Rocks in the house. Why yes, they're forms of good energy and grounding so to speak. So unlike last weekend when I spent hours matching socks and have only about 80 unmatched ones left, this weekend - today - is remove clutter and webs day. Literally. Figuratively.

Have you gave unexpectedly, even better anonymously!

Do you have life clutters and webs?

Senses.

Ever noticed how they capture moments?

A song brings me right back to rides to the dump, now affectionately termed landfill, with Dad. Yes, I'm listening to Neil Diamond. Dad has always been a music listener and so it was that Dad's trucks had 8 track players during that stint of time. Listened to a lot of music when I'd wait for him in the truck while he jawed with the guys at Carroll Motor Supply. I chuckle at people who are aghast when they see children waiting in vehicles. It was so very commonplace. I suppose like riding a bicycle without a helmet. Now I listen to songs - ones that I used to choose as ringtones for certain people - like Shawn Colvin's I've Never Saw Blue Like That. Well, my phone is now liberated. They're all gone - everyone is now a surprise.

Smell. Working now over half of my life in emergency services, I can say smells can bring you exactly back to full color vision playbacks and the rest is up to your imagination. On a much better note, few things are comforting smells to me: a spicy white carnation, a box of Camel cigarettes, a soothing rose. Mmmm....

I've been enraptured by this velvety blanket I received for Christmas. It feels like the tippy ear ends of the vizsla that I am so fortunate to borrow on occasion. Remember the wear-a- blindfold-walk-on-eggs-atop-crackers game? Please say yes. That better have been something everyone had to feel. The day I crawled into a wrecked car in pitch blackness and sat on a dozen eggs and a box of Saltines - well, ping, I remembered the game.

Cilantro. It tastes like dish soap. Now, now - I never had my mouth washed with dish soap as that was left to bar soap and thankfully not usually Lava. Is it not the most amazing thing - taste? How so very well defined in some compared to others.

As the big brother on the block, sight tends to rule over the others. But, there are many levels to it. Our challenge, should we choose to discipline ourselves, is to look beyond the surface.

Intuition. Like sight, this requires sensitivity, but in addition to constant honing is also discernment. A gift not from within ourselves.

Memories and our current breath entwined and etched....by our senses.

Lived what seemed to be a life documentary last night.

Persons with psychiatric problems thrashing out upon others and themselves. Then seconds later, calmness like mirrored water. An injured caregiver on one side, a previously vicious person on the other. One born in a native land, severely disabled, left by his family in the care of others with the edict that much of traditional United States medicine is not allowed upon their son.

To watch the givers close and afar was spiritually twisting. At one moment they are saving themselves from being injured and the next whispering kind notions and funny sounds to their aggressors. Bless them.

Sharing what was mindful overload and realizing there are not many people of depth with the capacity to fully appreciate and core-fully understand. It is no wonder why our world of relationships seems to be a bouncing ball from thing to thing and person to person. An emphasis on physical support, with the weeping wane of spiritual and emotional support.

Yet there are those quiet and steady givers amongst the rest, and they, like stars, grab attention when you take the time to look.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Just a few months early (notice the optimist says early, not the opposite).

Had this discussion about snow the other night while sitting on the rescue truck tail. Yes, that would be when I spent the tick tock of midnight with the rescue guys. One of these years, that's going to change. So about the snow, I live here for a reason. It's called The Lake and The Seasons. People who whine and complain about receiving snow in the winter are showing their inner, green sprouted garlic bulb. Move on. Plant somewhere else.

There's a lot of snow on the decks from today. I'm thinking this week I'll disconnect the Sea-Doo battery, and switch attention to Little Blue. A tenacious and trusty snowblower that desires only to have the spark plug removed, gas down the cylinder, and a few pulls each and every year.

The neighbor's homemade Irish Creme was a silky delight. That recipe, I do believe, will be the next request of these very salt of the earth people. But first, I must continue shedding the current contents of the fridge. It's pluffed with too much. You know, when the meat and vegetable drawers are full of beer bottles, it's time to keep the doors unlocked and the invites flowing.