It's All in the Perspective by Angie Ledbetter

While searching for (and sometimes struggling to find) something to be grateful for every day, I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective. Seeing events, both good and bad, from a larger view has taught me some neat things. Likewise, looking at a situation from someone else’s point of view has also been enlightening. Sometimes, what may seem like a curse to me is actually a joy to someone else, and vice versa. It’s all in how you perceive the thing/event.

We think there’s nothing good about getting your foot run over by a bus, but maybe there is. Along with the pain and suffering, perhaps being off our feet and home from work allows us to spend some quality time with ourselves. Maybe we’ll reevaluate that 9-5 job we hate and find a way to work from home. Perhaps our neediness will allow someone else to pitch in for a change. Or maybe we’ll think up some new invention to aid people with limited mobility. Who knows? But by staying open to the possibilities, the sky’s the limit on what might be...with the help of perspective.

The definition of perspective reads, a visible scene, esp. one extending to a distance, vista; the state of one's ideas; the ability to perceive things in their comparative importance. And here's a bit of Internet lore:

A wealthy father takes his young son on a country trip with the idea of showing him how the poor live. They spend a few days on a sharecropper’s farm, then return home. The father asks, “How was the trip?” “It was great, Dad, the son says.” “Did you learn from the trip?” “I saw that we have one dog and they have four. We have a pool that reaches the middle of our garden. They have a creek that has no end. We have imported garden lanterns; they have a sky full of stars. We have servants to serve us; but they serve others. We buy our food; they grow theirs. We have walls for protection, they have friends to protect them.” The father is speechless. Then the son adds, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are.”

Homeostasis by Kat Magendie

The road is narrow and curving, some snow still visible in the higher elevations. Roger is driving, and from the passenger side, I can see where the road drops away with nothing between our car and what looks to be a thousand foot drop. We slow to make a particularly sharp curve, easy…easy. A truck approaches. We pull over to a stop to let them by, and eye each other as they pass, smiles on our faces, waving that one-hand “hi there” wave strangers but locals give each other. Then, we're off again, winding, curving to our destination.

I have the realization that I'm not grasping the seat or gritting my teeth. I've become used to driving in these mountains, exploring the little-used roads and the steep drop-offs where there's nothing between me and a tumbling ride toward the bottom of a mountain, unless the trees stop me, that is. When I first moved here, I was tense, nervous on mountain roads that weren’t even close to this perceived danger. Homeostasis. Our mind-body smartly adjusts so we can relate to our environment in a way that is not constantly in a state of fear or dread or anxiety. This is the same area I visited three and a half years ago—only I have changed.


I wonder. How much have I adjusted to in my life? What kinds of things were once scary, maddening, or anxiety-producing that I no longer react strongly to? Are there important things I'm missing just by a seemingly complacent attitude? Or rather, this is just life—live it the best way I can; live it with gratitude...ONWARD HO and YEEHAW! Just as I'm about to do the mental pump-fist-in-the-air, we hit a small patch of ice and our Subaru fishtails—I tense, wait for the bad to come, and when it doesn't, I relax. Up ahead, a car inches along, and when they pull over to let us pass, the occupants’ faces are frozen in fear. I grin. I wave. I relate to them—hey, give it time, you’ll adjust, OR! you'll go back home and kiss the ground you came from.

Moments of Solitude by Nannette Croce

Being alone doesn’t necessarily mean being lonely. One person feels alone in a crowd, another is “her own best company.”

I don’t know if I am my best company, but I find myself very good company.

Seems more and more people almost fear solitude. They walk around with tiny phones clipped to their ears so they can talk constantly, in the car, the grocery store, while exercising. If not talking, they IM or chat. Keeping constant contact is the mantra of our time. No one says, “leave me alone” anymore.

I not only enjoy being left alone from time to time, I need it to stay balanced.

I make my best decisions alone. I may solicit an opinion now and then, but I consider that opinion, and all others, in solitude. Ultimately no one knows me as well as I know myself. Many people can’t say that, but I think that is because they spend little time alone, getting to know themselves.

I am grateful for the people who enrich my life, but I am also grateful for those moments of solitude. They enrich my life as well.

I Hear Music by Barbara Quinn

I’m a fan of many types of music. I listen to Blues, Rock and Roll, Classical, and Opera at different times for different reasons. Chopin’s Nocturnes are a sure way to spark creativity . Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan, never fail to put me in a better mood when I head my car to the shore. Opera can bring me to tears and all types of music can be downright orgasmic. Music and I have an intense relationship.

I spend a good deal of time in Asbury Park, NJ, which is a short walk from my place in Bradley Beach. This area is the home of the "Jersey Shore Sound" whose most famous practitioners include Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, Little Steven, and Bon Jovi. The Jersey Shore Sound has been described as dance music with lyrics that have a sense of being an underdog. Other flag bearers for the sound include Lance Larson, Gary US Bonds, and John Eddie who often perform in and around Asbury Park. Wherever you go in this area of Monmouth County, music plays. The venues range from The Stone Pony to the smallest coffee shops which cram in a musician or two. Outside on the street corners, there are doo-wop performers. Even in winter you’ll hear people practicing in the alley in Ocean Grove, their voices echoing off the buildings. Antique shops sell CD’s of local performers such as Meat n’ More, a group named after a local meat market on Main Street in Asbury. Giamano’s, a fine Italian spot in Bradley Beach, has an upstairs bar area the size of a living room where musicians perform on weekends.On Monday nights in the summer Bradley Beach hosts opera at their beachside pavilion on the boardwalk. The ocean crashes behind you and the gulls caw overhead adding to the score. Any time of year, when I walk along the boardwalk it’s not unusual to find someone facing the ocean playing an instrument; one fellow in a kilt plays the bagpipes, another sits in his car with a flute. I love hearing the melodies that are coaxed out of them by the sea.

Sweet, sweet music is a healer, an energizer, a way to soothe nerves. I’m grateful to all who send their sounds out into the air and enhance the soundtrack of my life. Play on!

Gratitude Schmatitude by Angie Ledbetter

Yeah, today I’m grouchier than the average bear, and I’m not even sure why. It’s probably a combination of several factors – constant interruptions when I’m trying to write, people who don’t come through for you when you think they will, frustration over sidetracked goals, teenage angst times three in my household, and even traffic woes (I could write a book on the traffic situation here since we almost doubled our population with New Orleans evacuees after Hurricane Katrina).

I can usually get myself out of a blue funk quickly by counting my blessings or trying to gain perspective by seeing the bigger picture, both hackneyed aphorisms, but effective nonetheless. But something’s off kilter today because even the smell of fresh coffee wafting through the house isn't doing the trick. What to do now?

Well, I could “wallow in it” for a while and see if that improves my attitude, or I could vent to a friend – usually a good way to drain the poisons – or I could just press on in my daily routine and “fuggetaboutit,” as Stephen King says in his book on writing. But, wait! I say to myself. You forgot your secret weapon for getting outside of and over yourself. Do something unexpected for someone else (even and especially a stranger). My favorite of these gorilla random acts of kindness is paying someone’s restaurant or coffee shop tab. The confused-turned-delight look on the stranger’s face is always good for a jolt to my outlook. I bet that Secret Santa, Larry Stewart, who anonymously gave out hundred dollar bills every Christmas felt like a king all year round. His generosity will be missed. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243578,00.html

Okay, now that I have a game plan, I feel better. I’m looking forward to surprising someone in the bookstore cafe to ambush at the cash register.

Tracks, by Kathryn Magendie

The snow shows me things on my mountain. And I want to believe, if I will be pardoned by those who matter, that my great great grandmother, a full blood Blackfoot, watches over me, teaches me how life pulses and throbs on Mother Earth. I imagine my ancestors walking softly through their woods, just as the Cherokee walk these Western North Carolina Mountains I am fortunate to live within. I step upon ground that thrums with stories ancient and true. I notice how without thinking about it, I am now walking from outside my foot to inside, a rolling motion—is this my great great grandmother’s way? I say, “Show me, Kip a ta ki, (old woman). I have lived too white! My pale skin, my white ways.” I can hear her laugh, as if to say, "You are who you are meant to be. Your blood is red. Your heart beats. Your lungs take in the same air."

I tread silent, as I don’t want to break the spell. Bear tracks, kiaayo, along the road above my log house. There are feline tracks, too, and I crouch to touch one of them—a big feral house cat? Or the Bobcat, natayo, I once saw racing across my driveway and up the incline of what is my “backyard.” I step off the road, and bend again to study the larger track. It is bear. I think, if Bear and I meet, if she isn't threatened in anyway, Bear will mostly likely run away—same as Bobcat did that day (my Bobcat sighting was rare and beautiful—I feel honored). I have respect for wild things—the respect of care and distance, not of personification of human idealization.

I finally call out, “Hey, Roger. Looks like bear tracks, and these must be a big cat, too small for Bobcat.” He comes over to look. The dogs sniff eagerly. The wind blows. The snow sparkles. The mountain, miistak, gives and takes away. I am filled with thanksgiving. The gratitude of a life full of promises, both ancient and new. I am who I am. My great great grandmother breathes warmth on my cheek, prepares to leave me, “Pookaawa, sokapii (child, be good).” I answer, “Wait! Forgive me my stumbles—on the land, on the language, on life.” She makes the branches rustle, a wave. Is gone. I walk home. I am home. The mountain accepts me.


Black Bear facts
The Bobcat
NC Museum of the Cherokee
The Blackfoot

All Warm Inside by Nannette Croce

A few days ago in my area a predicted rain changed to unpredicted snow around late afternoon. The accumulation was only 1-3 inches, but with temperatures holding at freezing, it played havoc with rush hour traffic, or so the radio said. Watching the heavy wet flakes stack up on the driveway and street, my mind drifted back to times spent idling in traffic while the sky grew dark. Jumping out of my car every so often to remove caked snow from my wipers, the only consolation being that mine was not one of the cars that skidded into each other a mile up the road. I remembered the time the Fed Ex guy hooked a chain to his van and pulled me out of a ditch when the road out of the corporate center had become indistinguishable.Then there was the afternoon and evening spent chasing after an over-stimulated two-year-old waiting for her Dad, whose company had shut down at noon, to come home and play in the snow. It was 7:00PM before I saw his car struggling to make those last few feet to the driveway. And oh those many mornings listening to lists of school closing numbers while running the limited childcare options over in my mind.

I went downstairs and poked my head into my husband’s office, knowing he’d be too engrossed in work to check the weather.

“Feel like making a fire? It’s snowing.”

“Hey, yeah. Can you make us some coffee?”

We took our laptops into the family room, sipped coffee in front of a warm fire, and, from time to time, remembered other winter events in the days when we had no choice but to take to the road.