Category Archives: patience

Compassion and Patience Go Hand in Hand

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Pictures of Italy '11 031          If you have ever walked with very young children, toddlers perhaps or even one just learning to walk, you have had to practice extremes of patience. How well I remember, as a mother of five, the small hand in mine as we went for a walk. I’d have one of my hands on the handle of the stroller to be ready when little legs tired, the other clutching the hand of the child. They all wanted to walk, of course, at least as soon and as far as they could. The snail’s pace we traveled was a wonderful test of patience. Especially if I were in a hurry.  Little children can be very insistent.

Patience and perfection don’t go together well. As a small child I wanted my hair ribbons to match my socks. It seems I have always been addicted to seeking perfection. There is a story by Edgar Allen Poe called, The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl. It tells of a man who was apprehended for his crime because he had worked so diligently to make sure he left no fingerprints at the scene. My insistence on having all my ducks in a row is frustrating to me as well as a bad habit. I am trying to eliminate it, and I could be doing better.

Take tidying–it’s endless if I let it be. There is another favorite story of mine: A nice couple attracted the attention of P.T.Barnum, so the story goes, and he gifted them with a brand new sofa. Sadly, the rest of their living room furniture looked shabby by comparison, so they scrimped and saved and bought new. Then they had to paint the living room, and so it went until everything in their home was new except—you guessed it the no longer new, now shabby sofa. Tidying becomes an endless process because whatever isn’t tidied shows up more vividly and urges me to continue.

So then I feel compelled to do so. The trick is to know when to stop, call it a day, and resume later. However my fear is that I won’t get back to the work at hand because other things will crop up that demand my attention. Trying to be patient with what needs doing is an important focus for me. The chief hindrance? Without wishing to, I have slowed down. I just cannot move as fast as I once did. Part of this is because being somewhat clumsy I am trying to be careful not to make mistakes, and part is because age and arthritis have affected my agility.

Patience with myself is my task now, and it’s not easy. I once had a elderly counseling client who constantly lamented that he could not move the way he wanted to. He wanted to have a young body again. I can understand his frustration. Now I am in the same boat, What I have learned, sometimes the hard way, is that the secret to having patience is to have compassion. Over the years I have taught myself to feel compassion for others who struggle. Now I need to apply it to myself. When I view my struggles with compassion, it is easier to be patient. I have realized that being kind to myself is as important as being kind to others. I am patiently working on it.

Want an autographed copy of my new book Up To My Neck In Lemons? Send me a check for $15 Postage included, to P.O. Box 171, North Grafton, MA 01536,  and learn about lemons–actual, poetical and metaphorical. Make your life’s lemons into lemonade and enjoy my book a sip or so at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Lesson in Baking A New Recipe

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Apples 3Apples are versatile and make for good cold weather desserts. They are relatively inexpensive and always available, plus they are very good nutrition. Needing inspiration for an apple dessert, I checked through my cookbook collection looking for a different way to make one. Because I try to avoid pie crust, I’m not a pie baker. Apple crisp, though very tasty, gets boring. I found that the recipes in my cookbooks for Apple Pan Dowdy and similar concoctions called for too much starch for a healthy diet.

After perusing many recipes, I decided to create one of my own. Toward that end I was careful to note down my ingredients and their measurements in case I wanted to repeat my effort. Sourcing many of recipes I had perused, I tried dried bread crumbs. This proved to be a mistake. They absorbed too much of the liquid and made for a rather stiff end result. Still, the pudding tasted good enough so that I wanted to make it again, but a little differently. Rather than using dried bread crumbs, I decided to try fresh ones. I pinched small pieces off the bread, including the crust.

The pudding tasted wonderful. Unfortunately, my original dish size was incorrect for the change in the recipe. The resultant mess on the oven floor was horrendous. Another lesson learned. The recipe was so good I made it again with different fruit. This one worked well however it stuck to the baking dish. More lessons. The solution to that was to set the container in a pan of hot water for the duration of its baking time. This produced a moister result. All in all the recipe through trial and error has improved to a point where I want to share it.

 

Preheat oven to 350, use a 2 quart buttered covered casserole

Ingredients:

4 cups THINLY sliced peeled apples*

4 or 5 slices of bread

½ cup raisins or chopped dates

¾ cup rough chopped or broken pieces of walnuts (Optional)

½ cup flour

¾ cups brown sugar

1&1/2 cups cider

¼ cup butter plus some for buttering casserole

1 tsp Cinnamon, ½ tsp nutmeg, ¼ tsp clove

¼ tsp salt

 

Method: Heat cider, butter and spices on stove until butter melts. Stir to blend. Butter well a 2 quart casserole. Pinch off small pieces of bread. Cover bottom of casserole. Make a layer of apples, sprinkle on ¼ cups brown sugar, 2 Tbs flour, ¼ cup raisins and ¼ cup (optional) walnuts. Repeat bread, apples, sugar, flour, rest of raisins ¼ cup (optional) walnuts. End with a layer of bread, apples, (optional) walnuts, sugar and flour. Pour cider mixture over all. Bake covered at 350 for 1 hour. Uncover casserole and bake 10 more minutes to brown. Serve or save for later or next day. It tastes lovely with cream or ice cream or plain.  Alternative ingredients: 1 to 2 cups frozen cherries, cut in quarters and 1 to 2 cups frozen blueberries, omit raisings, substitute pecans for walnuts. With berries, you might use a shallow pan filled with water beneath the casserole for a moister pudding that doesn’t stick.

 

Up to my Neck in Lemons, my latest book has more recipes, poetry, and insights into turning Life’s Lemons, into Lemonade To have your own autographed copy,  please send $15. To Tasha Halpert at P.O.Box 171, North Grafon, MA 01536,  or purchase your copy on Amazon.

Keys to Patience

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20180828_145205There is a joke I remember hearing some time ago to the effect that when a minister repeatedly prayed to God for patience, God sent him an incompetent secretary. He ought to have known better. Patience training is best experienced when I am in situations requiring patience. How else can I learn? There is no other way I know of.

Motherhood is good for learning to be patient. Certainly patience is needed when caring for small children. They take their time, as they need to do. I still vividly recall my walks with toddlers when they were small. Once they refused to stay in the stroller, I had to move at their pace because there was no way they could walk faster than their short legs could carry them.

Those days are long over. Now it is my turn. I need to walk more slowly because no matter how much I would like them to, my legs simply do not move with the speed they used to. I remember how fast I used to walk at one time. I was even proud of it. When did I begin to slow down? Age creeps up on us when we are not expecting it.

There are lots of books on what to expect when you are expecting a child or when one is born and you need to cope. Someone needs to write a book on what to expect as you age. Perhaps it could be titled Aging for Dummies. There is much more to aging than physically slowing down. While I work at being patient with myself in various situations, it is not easy.

Of course we all age differently. Still, it might be useful to know more about what can happen to the body not to mention the mind. Most of my relatives aged well. That is to say they were vigorous and active while they lived. However, I have passed the age they were they left this life, and I do not remember them ever mentioning how they felt as age advanced upon them.

Because at the time I wasn’t thinking about aging, It did not occur to me to ask them. When we are young or even middle aged, the country of old age is a foreign place. How it feels and how it causes us to act are mysteries we cannot plumb without experiencing aging for ourselves. Still it might be nice to have some guidance. Patience is a high priority.

At least I can contribute things I have learned that may help. Depending on how much patience I have time passes either quickly or slowly. So rather than focus on how I dislike waiting, if I observe my surroundings, it is easier to be patient. I also recognize that the more patience I have with myself the easier it is to be patient with others. One of the secrets to achieving patience is distraction. Another is respect. That respect is usually linked with compassion, something that seems to have come with age and as I have worked for it. When I respect my limitations or those of another, patience comes easy. Above all else what really matters is one simple thing: practice, and aging gives me plenty of that.

Benefits and Liabilities of Aging

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Sunfloer bowed downWhen I was little my grandmother used to take me with her to visit her friends. Among them were two sisters who had never married but lived together in a pretty home with a nice porch. They used to give me cookies and cambric tea–milk, sugar and a wisp of tea in a delicate china cup. My own mother was physically strong and after my father passed on lived alone and drove herself between Florida and Maine even in her eighties.

These and many elders of my early years presented an image of healthy, hearty behavior. My grandmother used to do fancy dives into the swimming pool of the beach club she occasionally took me to. My great aunt played golf and tennis and had silver cups to show for it. I had teachers with white hair who were wise and good natured. My life has brought me many examples of vital elders who carried on their lives energetically.

Just recently I attended a small reunion for my high school classmates. I was impressed with their fortitude and vigor. As we visited together I enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with theses women with whom in our teens I had shared time, space, and teachers. It was quite special to be with my contemporaries. I found that even after all these years we still had much in common besides our age and the school we had attended.

The life paths we had taken had varied widely, yet we all shared a dedication to improving the world and being of help when needed. Born when we were, we had grown up with different mores and rules of behavior than those of today. As a result we have had to make many adjustments. When people do not grow with the changes that accumulate around them, they become bitter and crabby. It seemed to me that none of us had.

No doubt we all had our share of aches, pains and limitations. At our age some of that is to be expected. However I didn’t hear anyone complain about their health even though one of us used a walker and another had both vision and auditory issues of a serious nature. One of the blessings of age can be the ability to deal creatively with one’s limitations. Patience can come more easily when one has lived a long time.

The benefits of accumulated years are a kind of grace that can make up for the increasing changes that as we age limit activities, not to mention movement. Speaking for myself, I would say that patience tops the list of these benefits—not only patience with others but also patience with myself. In addition, being able to wait out a difficulty, the knowledge that time helps heal as well as facilitate, and the ability to listen to and soothe those who live with greater immediacy and impatience are some of the benefits I cherish as I grow on in years.

The Importance of Self Care

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Teddy Bear 2

As children we are often told to be kind, to be sharing and giving, and to show our love to others by how we treat them. We are seldom told to care for or to love ourselves. I remember as a child sending for a nurse kit from Quaker Oats. It was advertised on a radio program I listened to every weekday. I liked the idea of being a nurse. It was a way to care for others, as I was told to do. After my little kit came I bandaged up my teddy bear and treated him to a hospital stay as I played nurse in my little white cap and apron.

As young people we feel invulnerable; we can go for a night without sleep and hardly notice. Unless we have allergies or some medical condition, eating whatever we like is the rule rather than the exception. We seldom need to sit and rest after exertion but can continue on as if we were made of steel. I was in my late forties when I began to realize I could no longer treat my body as if it were some kind of machine that could go on and on.

I began to notice that if I didn’t pace myself I would need to slow down or even stop in the middle of my efforts to get everything done. This bothered, even annoyed me. I didn’t like to stop. I wanted to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Then I had a real wake-up call: I got an excruciating pain in my neck and shoulder that wouldn’t go away. It took a number of chiropractic treatments and a lot of rest before I was able to move without hurting. The experience was extremely unpleasant. I finally got the message: I had been treating my body badly, and I needed to change my attitude.

First and foremost I realized I heeded to stop and rest between efforts. I also began to notice that when I ate certain foods I was uncomfortable; when I didn’t get enough sleep I was dragging. While this annoyed me, I had to admit it was important information. I realized that while it was strong and able my body needed a different kind of attention. Rather than treat it offhandedly as a machine that just needed fuel and occasional maintenance, I needed to treat it kindly, as if it were a faithful animal that was carrying me where I needed to go. I also had to accept its messages as needs and wants rather as impediments to what I wished to do when I wished to do it.

The importance of my self care grows with each passing year. Movement I used to take for granted has become an effort. There are even things I can’t easily do at all any more. But what is more important is that I remember to do what I need to do for my comfort as well as my health: Rest between efforts, meditate, take time to sit with my feet up, put in my eye drops, drink enough water, eat enough fiber, avoid what I can no longer comfortably digest. My list could go on and on, however I’ve made my point. Self care matters. More importantly, remembering to care for myself means I can continue to care for others, and that most of all is a good reason to do so.

Tasha Halpert

The Wisdom of Waiting

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Pictures downloaded from my camera 2. 156

 

Children are notoriously impatient. I was no exception. The car ride into Boston for holidays was excruciating, especially as dad had to take traffic ridden Route One and what was then the Sumner Tunnel. Sitting still for any length of time whether in a car or on a couch was difficult for me. Today, given the current parenting advice I might be labeled with some alphabet letters and perhaps given medicine. However in those days life was simpler and that kind of behavior wasn’t considered abnormal.

Because of this my most disliked punishment was not a spanking but being made to sit on the piano stool for fifteen or more long minutes. In addition I would be, “put on silence,” Which meant no conversation with anyone. It was difficult for me to learn to sit still. Once I when I was the only child at a very tedious adult afternoon tea I manufactured a case of hiccups so as to get some attention. My parents caught on to what I was doing and put a quick stop to it. Patience training begins early.

Fast forward to today: On Friday a few weeks ago, a big cardboard box appeared in the hall. Despite its weight, I lugged it in. “I think our exercise machine has come,” I told Stephen. “Good,” he said, “lets open it later.” He was busy as was I. Saturday and Sunday came and went. There were things to do and places to go. Occasionally one of us would say perhaps we might open it, yet it was never quite the right time.

On Monday a dear friend came for lunch. I mentioned the arrival of the exercise machine. “Can I see it?” she asked. “Sure,” I said, “no time like the present.” I opened the cardboard carton and started to lift out the machine. It wasn’t completely assembled. “Oh, let me help,” said our kind friend. She looked it over, lined up the parts, followed the instructions, and in very little time had it all done and in good working order.

How glad I was that we had waited. I’m sure we would have had to spend most of a day figuring out what went with what, where, and how. My clever friend had it put together in no time. There is wisdom in waiting for the correct moment, for that is when success is attained. The moment itself cannot be hurried, nor can its arrival be predicted. No amount of wishing or searching can affect this. Sometimes patience practice can be frustrating.

For example, no matter how hard we looked, Stephen and I found every place we’ve lived in Grafton by stumbling over it. Because none of our deliberate searches brought good results, we were forced to be patient. The practice of patience, like the practice of a musician, needs to be lifelong. Eventually it can be seen simply as a challenge rather than as a tedious bore. However, one must be patient because that ability comes only with plenty of practice.