A MASTERPIECE OF LIFE

Life is a Journey to Your Dreams. "Today may there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself, just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us." This was not written by me. I came across it on the Facebook page of an acquaintance. It is excellent and they are words we can all live by. A friend of mine out in the Midwest has this as her email logo along with other words. It is “neverenough.” This is a fine example of how we should always be striving to do more, to gain more, to be more and to never stop the striving. Also pride is power and be your own inspiration are two other sayings I picked up on the Internet. Wow, you think, she sure does love these sayings. Yes, I do and I love using them in my articles. A few words can mean a lot to someone who does not feel this way. I was watching my soap opera and on it some teens were bullying a young man with such words as you are a loser because he lived in foster homes. He began to feel that way about himself until another couple took him in to their home and they made him feel like he was a winner. All he needed was an encouraging atmosphere and inspiring words and his whole world changed from loser to winner in a few days. Words are powerful and many a war has been started with the wrong words When I was a young girl in the fifties, I worked for a tyrant of a supervisor at the telephone company’s accounting office. She, the obnoxious lady supervisor liked to spew nasty words to the young girls to try and make them feel subservient to her. One by one, each one left and either got transferred to another department or they left the company. I left but I got her in a difficult position when it was proved she was Anti-Semitic to me and she got lowered in her position as a result of it being confirmed she was. She received what was coming to her and I heard that a year later they fired her for other transgressions Her name was Grace and that surely was a misrepresentation of a name’s meaning. Then I went to work in the office of a lumber company and he, the boss was like a tyrant also. He did not like it if you went to the restroom and if he happened to call while you were there, he would call back and lambast you for not answering the phone even though someone else took over the duties at that time. Finally, I found the position that I was meant for, one where I could show off how ‘smart’ I was and I excelled there, rose to the rank of assistant to the CEO of the company and I even met my husband of almost fifty-six years from an employee there who I had hired and he gave my name and phone number to someone and the rest is history. We were in a doctor’s office recently and a woman came in and she heard us talking, a little bantering too and she asked us how long we were married and when she heard the number she said “you both are so cute, I hope I can meet someone, someday and be married that long.” Ralph Waldo Emerson said “a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.” I imagine he meant that friends, in this case, married partners can be calculated or surmised to be like a painting of nature or life. I guess as we meet, court, marry, have a family and live life, we become like a painting that has been created out of canvas, paints, frames and a nail to hang it up on the wall where all can see it, praise it and love it. We are viewed by others and each one can see what they think they see. However, we are what we appear to be, from what we have succeeded in life doing and how and if we are happy doing it. When we look back on old pictures of our self, we often laugh at the hairdo we had, the dress or suit we were wearing and marvel how young we look. I have a picture of me in California in about 1974 and I marvel how slim my thighs were in a pair of slacks. I never really thought I had slim thighs then or now, but in this photo of about forty-four years ago, I see I really did. It is interesting how we look at our self from long ago and sometimes we think “is that really me?” Yes it is and was and we have come a long way from then, some days with lots of smiles, other with lots of frowns and most of the time with the “most of great days and hours.” I like the holiday time of December. When it is over, I think well now spring and summer will arrive and just in about eight or nine months, the holiday time of December will prevail again. About the middle of July, they begin to advertise Christmas in July selling on the cable stations. That is a bit too early. A write-up in the Sunday paper this week showcases a home of a couple that formerly owned a small bookstore. They closed the store up and retired and brought home the unsold books in the amount of fifteen thousand books and they are displayed on bookshelves throughout the home. They also have hundreds of paintings, prints and photos all over all the walls in the home. She says that a home should be what the homeowner loves and in other words, you do not have to adhere to what a home designer tells you the way it should be. It should be a place of holding things you love, earned, cared about and wish to see every day of your life and this makes you happy, secure and as Ralph said that a friend is the masterpiece of nature, so can we make our home a masterpiece of all the things we love sincerely and we too can become a masterpiece of a person who loves their life, their surroundings and most of all their family. So to the lady in the doctor’s office who thought we were a cute couple, I said to her that it is and it was a long time being together of almost fifty-six years plus two years and nine months that we went together; yes I can hardly remember when we were not together. However, we are our own masterpiece of longevity, strength, bravery, happiness, continuity and perpetuation. We can all be our own masterpieces in our life and we can encourage others to do the same. Children and grandchildren enliven our masterpiece; they are the jewel in the crown of our show piece. So if we are ‘cute’, our happiness is certainly a true masterpiece of life. elita sohmer clayman