T.L. Gray's Blog, page 42

Beautiful Run

Have you ever looked at a flower and just found yourself lost in awe?  They're not just simple things. They're not composed of a few lines and colors like the way we draw them with our little elementary school hands.  If you really look at them, you will find they are each a divine work of art.  These natural beauties are filled with complex details, extraordinary designs, and  brilliant colors.
The phrase “stop and smell the roses” takes on a deeper meaning for me today.  I have been so busy going back and forth in my daily life, fulfilling goals and responsibilities, that at times it has overwhelmed me.  I became the center of my universes, and like a workhorse, put on my blinders as I pulled my cart down rustic back roads, greenbelt trails, and tar-streaked highways. 
What are the roses in my life?  What are the beautiful things, the complex things, the intricately designed things available to me, placed in my path to make my world a more beautiful place? After reading an article by one of my closest friends, Three Good Things by Jeff Suwak, I got a glimpse of that beauty. 
There were so many parts in this one article that pushed and pulled me in so many different directions, I've had to read it several times and have only begun to see it's complex, deep, moving message. After I wiped the tears from my cheeks, and got a good night's sleep, the fog of stress, fear, and depression are beginning to lift, allowing a ray of golden sunshine to fall on me. It is a thin beam, but enough to start melting the ice wall I'd built around my winter's heart.  Of course, it's not pretty when walls fall.  My first instinct is to panic when the ground starts to shake and the thunderous crashes boom through my silence. I get scared, I get defensive, I cover my ears and curl into a ball.  But, I am grateful.
“

As I ran the trails, many words from that article kept rolling through my mind, especially about seeing the beauty in such an ungrateful world, and that's when I saw my first flower.  I nearly tripped over my own clumsy feet trying to divert my direction.  Sometimes I act before I think, and in this instance, after having been running for 2 miles, I was in a rhythm.  So while my reactive mind said “oh, a flower” my feet were screaming “keep moving”.  I managed to stay upright, but pulled a muscle, which made the last mile of the run excruciating.  But, I didn't let the pain stop me from enjoying those wonderful works of art.

 The first flower was actually a weed, but one of the most beautiful and complex weed I've ever seen.  It's something that brought me so much joy as a kid. As I knelt down before it, to get that perfect shot,   it seemed to whisper to me, “Your winter is just about over”.  I nearly started crying.  I took my shot and then hobbled down the path.



I only got a few hundred feet when I saw the next flower.  This one was brilliantly colorful, a bright spot among a brown world.  It seemed to softly speak to me, “A new season is coming.”  I felt tension release in my shoulders.


It started to rain and I still had a good quarter mile to go. But, I didn't let the cold drizzle steal the beauty from me. I limped some more and came upon another flower, almost hidden among a pile of  damp leaves. This one was very small and purple.  It seemed to laugh at me as it spoke to my heart, “You've only just begun to grow, there's so much more to come.”  My heart felt lighter, my future seemed a bit brighter.  Though it was raining, I laughed in the rain.


In a winter wood, filled with leafless limbs and dead leaves, I literally stumbled upon another flower as I came around a sharp corner.  I didn't see it until I had reached the center of the turn.  This one was very delicate, but intricately detailed.  It seemed to shout at me, “You can't see all the details from afar and behind obstacles.  But if you keep your eyes open and get close, you'll become amazed.  Pay attention to the details.” 



My leg hurt as I climbed the last big hill, bringing me back to the start of the 3 mile trail.  I felt relief as I spotted my car parked in the parking lot.  As I passed the restrooms and exited the greenbelt, I noticed a  little flower garden by the curb, filled with various colorful plants.  I hadn't noticed it when I started this run, knowing I passed right by them.  I shook my head and thought about how amazing it was that I couldn't see what was right in front of me - what had been in the open, I had missed.   


What beauty have you missed seeing?
Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

Three Good Things - Jeff Suwak

Here's the latest article by North Star author Jeff Suwak in today's edition of The Prague Revue.

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.                                                                                       –Andre Gide

   Writing in the modern age is a strange and often sleazy affair. So many voices are out there vying for attention that writers feel compelled to say outrageous, angry, and controversial things, things that provoke political disagreement, things that lower other people’s dignity in the name of comedy.  The masses’ appetite for all of those things is apparently endless, and the writers who get the most eyes are usually those that can find ways to provoke shock, enrage, and disgust.

   But, here’s the deal: I was just notified that I have a deadline to finish an article tonight, and I haven’t even started it, yet. What this means is that there is no time for bullshit. There’s no time for me to find snarky things to say about subjects that I don’t really care about. There’s no way for me to find a way to provoke a political witch hunt. All I’ve got time to do is to shoot the straight truth about what’s on my mind, and I’ve got some heavy stuff on my mind, tonight, my friends.

   The straight truth on this blustery Pacific-Northwestern night of the soul is that I’m in the midst of one of the lowest, dog-shit-eating stretches of my life. Nothing in particular has happened. I don’t know exactly what the problem is. It’s just been one of those stretches of days where I feel miserable, talentless, and unloved. I’m just tired. Really, really tired.
   Thing is, when you get stuck in these pessimistic ruts, you get tunnel vision. All that you can see is the misery of the world. The negativity builds and builds upon itself, and then you step into the internet and become dog-piled with all the triviality and superficiality and selfishness of the world.

   The thing is, there’s just so much nastiness out there that I just don’t want to add to it tonight. I can’t change the world. The one thing that I can do is to choose between spreading more negativity or adding some sort of positivity. This might seem insignificant. It might seem melodramatic. But, tonight, it doesn’t feel like any of those things to me.

For the rest of the article, please visit

Work Your Way Out

There are so many times I’ve been down, feeling beaten, uninspired, unproductive, and sometimes question my purpose and worth.  This is part of the human psyche and something everyone experiences.  Then, of course, there’s depression, which only magnifies those feelings exponentially. 
I believe most artists suffer from depression most severely because we are passionate, and just as much as we experience the beauty, magic, and wonder of life, we equally see the hardships, ugliness, and passionately feel the pain. 
We are individuals, unique in this universe.  Though we have common interests, experiences, and desires, there is no one else on this planet that has lived our lives as we have. In MY life, in my journey of climbing mountains, I spend just as much time navigating valleys.  For ME to find my way back up another mountain, I have to work myself out of whatever I’m struggling with, or I’ll become stagnant and slowly die on the inside. 
I have dreams, goals, and things I want to accomplish in this life, and those things do not just fall into my lap or happen on their own.  I have to fight for them.  Part of that fight includes working my way out of the slumps I find myself wallowing through.  When I can’t write and my mind won’t focus, and my motivation is almost non-existent, I buckle down and write anyway.  Yes, it is shit and stuff I’d never show anyone, but it gets me angry, gets me moving, gets my imagination going, and eventually gets me back to writing like I should be.  It is taking steps through the valley toward the mountain.  I can’t make it to the mountain without moving. I’m not going to float there and the mountain surely isn’t going to come to me.
When I’ve hit a plateau in my workout routine, I keep exercising.  In fact, I increase, change up my routine, try something new, but I work my way out of the slump. 
When I get tired of eating the same things day in and day out, I don’t revert back to the unhealthy foods that harmed my body and mind because I don’t see the desired results, I work my way out by discovering new foods, new tastes, new textures. 
So, if you find yourself in a gray place, neither black nor white, neither hot nor cold, and you want to get out – don’t retreat, don’t give up, don’t hide your head in the sand – work your way out!  Do the very thing that has you blocked.  At least give it a try.  It might not work for you like it works for me. 
Till next time,~T.L. Gray
This blog post has me thinking about a song by Lucy Spraggan called “Mountains”. For my friends and those I love who find themselves down... this is what I would say to them: 

“I know what you’re scared of - I used to feel it too. You’re not scared of climbing mountains - you’re scared that you can’t make them move. I would move them for you.” 

http://youtu.be/fuYuuF_JyKM

Healthy Art

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Healthy eating doesn't have to revolve around specialty diets, calorie counting and earning points. Those are all good and I couldn't have changed my culinary lifestyle had it not been for all those years of learning, acknowledging, and discovering the nutritional (non-nutritional) value of the foods I consumed. I spent most of my adult life yo-yo dieting, not understanding where I kept failing. I tried so hard to apply a healthy menu to a unhealthy mindset and the two just didn't get along. When my resolve broke down, my patience wore out, and my taste buds revolted, like an addict (because I had yet to change my mindset) I reverted back to what was comfortable, what was familiar, and alas - what was detrimental to my health and fitness. Feeling like a failure is our biggest adversary in the battle for our health. I developed a love/hate relationship with food.
I am still on my journey and will never fully achieve my ultimate health goal, because I understand now that this battle isn't a temporary fight, but a livelong adventure. I had to switch gears and begin to look at the whole picture with new eyes, new understanding, and a new perspective. I stopped setting goals for myself and threw out all my diet plans and started from scratch. I took an inventory and made a list of what were 'healthy' foods and what were 'trigger foods' that led to my temptation to over-indulge, binge, or consume to feed my emotions. I did not make a list of “good” or “bad” foods, because I'm beginning to understand there really aren't good or bad foods, just good or bad preparations and portions of the foods we eat.
I stopped seeing food as the enemy. “I” was the enemy. How I ate, prepared, and used food led to my unhealthy eating practices. So, I made an honest assessment of how I used and reacted to food, and those were the things I changed. Then I started dating food, looking at it with new eyes, seeing it's possibilities, understanding it's function, and then allowing my creativity to take over, thinking of ways how I can turn it into something beautiful, artistic, and fun . I experiment with color, texture, and flavor. Other than a few dietary allergies, there's now NOTHING I can't have or can't use to make a good meal. 
I don't diet – I create healthy art, and I love every delicious morsel.
Till next time,~T.L. Gray

Get Up! Go on!

Okay, it’s the middle of February and we’re approaching the biggest point where most people who set new goals for themselves at New Year’s usually falter and fall right back into their bad, unhealthy habitual routines.  But, don’t give up.  Get up.  Speed it up.  Dig in a little deeper, because you’re about to hit to a good milestone, reach a transformational point, and see some progress.  Diet and exercise require a lifestyle change to be effective, period.  Temporary practice only produces temporary results. In the same manner it took to develop the unfit and unhealthy habits, so too will it take just as long to create new ones. It can be done.  It can be accomplished.  You can change your life.I don’t diet and exercise anymore.  I did when I started out, because essentially both required a major shift in my normal practices, the biggest being my mindset.  I now live more active and healthy.  When it comes to food, I used be concerned about calories and fat content, but now I concentrate on taste, convenience, cost, and enjoyment.  I no longer look at my ‘diet’ as being filled with foods I can’t eat, but turn my focus to those varied healthier choices and consider ways to make them tastier and artistic.  I don’t look at exercise as something that I have to do if I’m going to lose weight.  I hardly weigh anymore, because I’m reaching the point where my weight doesn’t matter as much as my strength and ability to participate in various activities. I now seek out adventures that are exciting, thrilling, and less inhibited because I’m healthier and more energetic.  But, I didn’t get this way by some miracle pill, divine miracle, extreme surgery, magic shake, or expensive training.  I’ve lost more than 80lbs this last year, built up my lungs and muscle activity to run a mile, and took up the art of gourmet cooking through a lot of hard work and determination.  Every time I thought of quitting and returning back to what was easy and comfortable, I’d think about all those things I was too unhealthy to do, how I felt about myself, and how much my friends and family worried about me and my health, and then I would push myself a little bit harder.  Yes, it hurts.  Yes, it’s hard.  Yes, at times it feels like that next goal is just always right out of reach.  Yes, you will have weak moments.  Yes, you will stumble at times.  But - YES, you can do it. Yes, you can get up.  Encourage one another.  If you have a friend or family member that you know who has set a goal for themselves to get their bodies healthier by eating better and exercising, please be a cheerleader for them and let them know how proud you are that they’re taking a stand for their life.  Help them, don’t tempt them.  Send them a note of encouragement and celebrate with them even the tiniest of accomplishments.  A long line of tiny accomplishments make up major achievements. I wouldn’t be where I am today had it not been for a few of my friends who constantly pushed me, encouraged me, and celebrated my achievements with me.  Till next time,~T.L. Gray

Happy Valentine's Day

Whether you have a sweetheart or not, take time today and tell the people that are precious in your life that you love them.  Don't be afraid to shower those you love with affection, even if they're grumpy old curmudgen's who gripe and complain about how stupid this holiday is.  They'll get over it.

I don't care if it's stupid, I'm going to always tell those that are important in my life how much I love them.  We should always celebrate love and express it as often as we can.  You never know when you might not get the chance to say it again.  There are too many people I've lost in my life that I wish I could have just one more chance to shower them with love.

I'm one of those that don't particularly care for the commercialism of this holiday, and I hate even more the demanding expectations that are placed on sweethearts.  In my opinion, that's no more than manipulation.  In a perfect world, we'd shower each other with love and affection all the time, but we are imperfect beings and sometimes need a reminder. 

I'm a hopeless romantic.  I also know I am a fool, because I still believe in love, though I see very little of it in my life. I know it exists and someday I'll find it, because I've recently found it in me. I believe in a great, passionate love.  I believe in a deep, moving love.  I believe in a faithful, enduring love.  I believe in God's love.  I believe in mankind's potential to love one another.  I believe love is the most important thing in this world, because it is what inspires us to see one another, care for one, to help one another.  It is our lack of love that kills us all.

Happy Valentine's Day,
~T.L. Gray

Breakin' a Fever

The fever I'm speaking about this morning isn't from a sickness, but from a mental state of mind - the elusive Cabin Fever.  I've suffered from this ailment before, but yesterday and this morning, I literally had it bad.
 

Much of the United States have experienced some wild wintry weather these past couple of weeks.  A few weeks ago Atlanta and most of the state of Georgia was shut down due to a snowstorm, which we refer to around here as Snowpocalypse. Just as quick as the storm came, so it went, but there were a couple days I was stranded and couldn't leave.



Having see the danger of what could result from being unprepared, this time the news stations were flooded with warnings and emergency instructions, causing a bit of anxiety by using words like "Catastrophic", "the worse since ...", "survival tips", etc.  I had all kinds of fears of freezing to death, being stranded and not being able to get help, being stranded all alone.  They spoke of two waves of danger.  First the Catastrophic Ice Storm, followed by a massive wave of snow, speaking of all the roads being covered in layers of ice, and the weight of the ice and snow bringing down trees and powerlines, plunging 100's of thousands into darkness and cold.  Nah, who's going to worry about such trivial things.  Well, the Ice Storm hit, and it was every bit as thick as they predicted.



While the world lay covered in a glistening wonderland, I feared for my safety. I pre-cooked meals, blocked myself into my back bedroom, and stocked it with extra blankets and emergency items in case the power went out.  It was so cozy that I hated leaving its warmth to rush to the bathroom or grab something from the kitchen.  I didn't want any of the heat escaping in case I lost power.  I still had 24-48 hours I knew I was going to be stuck, and I needed to preserve all the warmth I could.  Needless to say, my fears had me more than I wanted to admit, because I tried and tried to read and edit the various projects I've been working on, and thinking I didn't have to go to work for a couple days I'd get ahead, I couldn't concentrate.  I'd read the same chapter over and over, but listening to tree branches snapping and crashing outside my window and having the lights flicker on and off, didn't allow for me to concentrate.  Then, I received a huge scare when my soon-to-be new upstairs neighbor showed up and I heard footsteps above.  I almost had panic attack thinking someone broke into the house above.  I felt relieved to see my housemate there, because I knew that if catastrophe struck as all the newsmen predicted, I would at least not be alone. Someone would know where to find the body. I felt so relieved, I cooked him one of my favorite gourmet meals.



My housemate left that evening in his 4-wheel drive in the lull between phase 1 and phase 2 of Ice Storm/Snowmaggedon 2014, and I was once again plunged into silence and uncertainty, I barricaded and braced for the second wave to hit.  I tried to write, tried to edit, tried to watch television, tried to do anything that would take my mind off the sound of cracking limbs, howling wind, and unimaginable horrors of abandonment, falling trees, and broken power lines with no way to escape. Though I was once again alone, I was never alone during this whole ordeal.  My best friends were with me by texting, sending me instant messages and silly stickers, bitstrips, sharing pictures and video chatting.  They may have been in different parts of the country and unable to help should one of these foretold catastrophes actually occur, but they helped to keep me calm, let me know I'm not truly alone, and that there are really people in this world who do care about me and my safety. I fell asleep without worry or concern last night.


 I woke this morning to a winter wonderland.  After a quick hike and taking a few photos of the fallen trees and snow cover, I slipped back beneath the covers and slept some more.  This was the most sleep I've had in a couple months.



When I woke a couple hours later and got dressed, I looked out expecting to see the snow gates to  my proverbial prison, but instead saw glorious sunshine.  You talk about getting excited.  I couldn't wait to get outside and hike among the melting snow and ice, feeling the warmth of the beautiful sun on my face. I nearly skipped all through the hike and a HUGE, huge, HUGE smile covered my face.
I got so excited, shrugging off this bad case of Cabin Fever,  I called work and asked if it was okay for me to come in today.  So, enjoy these next few shots and thank you for letting me share my experience with you. 





Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

Sensory Reminiscences

There's nothing I think more potent in transporting us instantly like sensory memories.  A certain smell, a certain scene, a certain song, a certain color, a certain feeling, a certain word or phrase, etc.  All these are able to instantly trigger a memory or a feelings in our minds and take us back to a connecting memory.


I'd love to say that one memory sense is more potent than another, but I'm finding that's just not true.  It depends on the measure of contact.  As a writer and working in literary field, I'm surrounded by words.  I work with words, I play with words, and I often dreams about words, so needless to say certain words, phrases, book covers, lines of prose, familiar passages of poetry are able to trigger different memories in my life at any given moment.  I've learned over the years to avoid certain types of words for that particular reason, because there's just some things you don't want to remember. 



This morning, however, it wasn't words that have transported me, but music.  I had one of the best adventures of my life last summer.  This morning my iPod was set to scramble and played songs at random and a song by MSMR came up in queue.  I was going about my business as usual when their song Hurricane started playing.  My body reacted before my mind was able to comprehend.  I froze in place, my fingers literally stopped typing, my mind jumped to a sensory memory of a particular moment standing outside an airport.  My breath caught.  My throat tightened.  I re-felt that moment of nervousness.  My stomach fluttered in anticipation.  My hands shook.  In the original moment, I had never been more excited and more afraid in my entire life.  In this moment, for just a second, I once again felt that sensation. Then, I couldn't stop the tears. 



The sad part wasn't remembering the wonderful scene, I cherish it and hope to remember it forever. What hurt was realizing how far I've retreated, how much I've stuffed a particular part of my life back into it's familiar and comfortable box. I had promised myself not to do such a thing. I've come too far to go back. I deserve to move forward.



I've set my iPod to play that album over the next few weeks, not so I can remember that beautiful summer, but to remind myself of the promises I've made, and I can once again start breaking down those damned walls. 

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

Be Happy

I'm learning that the happier I am, the happier people I attract, and the happier people become around me. Happiness and joy are contagious. I feel better, stronger and am less afraid.  But also just as addictive are the negative depressives.  Another important thing I'm learning is that I don't have to allow these negative depressives into my life - it's okay to cut them out.

I'm not talking about beautiful friends who may be having a bad day, a hard time, or a moment of sadness, weakness, or depression.  Being a good friend is reaching out and being a comfort to them, lending a shoulder, a hug, an attentive ear - and doing all we can to be there and lift our friend out of the dark place.  Those are the best opportunities to share our happiness, be an inspiration, and be a good friend. I wouldn't be where I am today without the wonderful friends in my life who helped me.

What I am talking about are those who ONLY look at the world with negative dark-colored glasses, where they seek out all that's wrong with everything (yes, the world sucks and there's a lot of bad things going on - I don't stick my head in mud and pretend I live in a fairy tale), look for the bad in everyone, expects everyone to hurt, have manipulative intents and alternative motives.  I know.  I used to be that hurt, angry, little girl. It's not a nice way to live.  It ages and beats you down and crushes your spirit.

I'm becoming that irritating person who chooses to look for the silver-lining.  I show up to work smiling, singing and spreading positive platitudes, skipping through the day making all negative depressives want to stab me in the face. But I choose to still smile, because they have no idea what I'm going through, or that most days I'm fighting some of the biggest battles in my life, or that I walk around terrified and alone almost all the time.  My smile is my weapon.  An upbeat song in my heart, or playing in my ears through my iPod, is my armor.

There will be days when I'm going to need to be carried, because I've dropped my weapons and have been overcome by the shadows of depression - but those days are happening less and less as I become happier. 

Proverbs 16:24: "Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and medicine to the bones."
Proverbs 17:22: "A merry heart does good, like medicine.  But a broken spirit dries the bones."

Smile today, especially if you don't feel like it. 

Till next time,
~T.L. Gray

Carrollton the Beautiful

Those who know me, know I have recently developed a love for the Pacific Northwest, and I can't lie, it has stolen my heart.  It was the first place I ever felt at home, where I spent an entire eleven days with my eyes wide open and walked around in a state of awe, admiration, and wonder.  I've been to many places, and while I can see and find a beauty in any place I visit, there was just something different about Washington.

While my heart is in Washington, my reality is here in Georgia.  Had I the means and opportunity, I'd pack my things and head out first thing in the morning to go home, but I don't see that happening for a long time, or possibly ever.  I know how life interferes and makes plans for us no matter what we've planned for ourselves.  At least that's been the experience for me. I've watched too many dreams dissolve around me. I'm doing my best to take strides not to lose another one.

In the meantime, I'm not without appreciation of the beauty around me.  Because Carrollton also has piece of my heart and I really love this town.  I have many great friends here and the natural beauty and sweet charm of this place is like no other I've ever seen.  While Washington is my passionate lover, Carrollton is a my best friend.

Here is just a taste of that beauty I saw today on my hike.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.