Tag Archives: reflections

Heartwings Love Notes 2001: Eating Humble Pie

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Heartwings says, “Humble pie is an acquired taste.”

As a child, I was clumsy and uncoordinated. Being tall for my age may have had something to do with it, however I also have poor proprioception. That means I lack awareness of the space around me. For instance, it’s easy for me to bump into things or kick them, or worse, stumble over them. Lacking in coordination, I did badly in most athletic situations. I played goalie in field hockey because I didn’t have to run. The problem with that was I felt guilty whenever the opposing team scored a goal. Sports really was my least favorite physical occupation.
Then I studied yoga. I began with a book which a friend gave me when I told him I was having trouble sleeping. I studied the pictures, followed the text, and found I was indeed sleeping sooner and more soundly. Next someone I knew announced she was teaching a series of eight yoga classes, which I eagerly took. Fortuitously, I discovered another teacher, signed up for her classes, took her teacher training, and became one of her teachers. How proud I was of my abilities and how good I felt about my new career.
Then I had an accident to my neck. Because many of the important postures put pressure on my neck, I had to give up both teaching yoga and doing it for myself. I was very disappointed. However, there was nothing I could do about it. By this time anyway, with five children, motherhood had become a fulltime occupation. I still meditated regularly and used some of the relaxation exercises I had learned to help me through my busy days.
I prided myself on all that I could get done. My days were full, yet my ability to cope and remain calm was something I cherished. Things went on like this for many years. The children grew up, my life changed, I was now married to a man who, unlike my former spouse, loved to entertain. We started an inner peace center, teaching meditation and classes. I never knew how many people we might host at any given meal. I was proud to be able to feed them at a moment’s notice. Spending hours in the kitchen was no problem; I loved cooking for people.
Many years passed. I found myself slowing down. I found I had acquired Parkinson’s disease. I got tired faster; I could no longer spend long hours preparing and cooking food. Slowed steps made trips to the grocery store tiring. I had to rely more on frozen foods and mixes. Again, I found myself having to cope with no longer being able to do what I used to do. This included mending and other activities requiring dexterity. Once proud of my ability to surmount obstacles, I have to ask for help with them. These days, I’ve had to get used to eating large helpings of humble pie. However, somehow I’m getting used to the taste.

May you enjoy whatever you need to deal with as you learn and grow.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Please share any recipes you have for Humble Pie, I so enjoy hearing from my precious readers. Please email me at tashahal@gmail.com. Enjoy past Love Notes at my blog: httpl://tashasperspective.com.

Heartwings Love Note 2000: It’s About Time

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This Love Note marks a milestone: Number 2000 in total over a period of many years, at 52 a year. You can do the math how many that is. I am eternally grateful to my readers and to the invisibles who have had a hand in the Notes’ creation.

Heartwings says, “Waste not, want not; use whatever time you have wisely.”

When as a child I visited my grandmother in her summer home in Beverly farms, I would stand by the big cuckoo clock in the hall to see the bird emerge. I loved it! I even remember being very little and someone lifting me to see the bird up close. My dear grandmother would even advance the hands to make it sound the hour ahead, just for me. Perhaps that was the beginning of my fascination with time and clocks. All these years later, its passage remains a mystery.

 I remember as a child waking up on sunny summer mornings and thinking about how I had a whole day to play, and what fun that would be. Indeed, the hours stretched out and brought me much joy as I amused myself. An only child until I was eight, I had developed a good ability to entertain myself. I was never lonely, though I was mostly alone unless an adult was interested in playing with me, and mostly they weren’t, so my time was my own.

Now, some eighty years later when I wake up on any morning, whatever the time of year, I go over in my mind what I need to get done, not to mention what’s left over to do from the day before. (Usually, I had planned more than I could accomplish.) Then as I get ready, beginning with my exercises, I prioritize my “to do” list. It’s simpler than it used to be. Eighty years holds a world of change, and hopefully I have learned what’s important.

Children tend to live as human beings; adults as human doings. And time is at the center of the action in either stage of life.  It seems there is only so much of it—sixty seconds make a minute, or so they say. However, how do you feel after holding your breath for sixty seconds or laughing for the same amount of time? Do they feel the same? That’s the odd thing about time. It’s supposed to measure the same, yet it does not, at least in my experience feel that way. Another example is going somewhere versus coming back, which feels much shorter, clocks to the contrary.

Stephen and I have always collected interesting clocks. Our small apartment is full of them. Most of them are synchronized, more or less, within five or so minutes. Several display the accurate time, and others may lag a bit, depending on the age of their batteries. However, I know which ones are correct. Also, I like seeing what time it is whenever I feel like it, even without wearing a watch—mine is currently in need of batteries. I’m not sure I get any more done by looking, but I do like to know. Recently I came across a study that showed that the heart’s activity influences our perception of time as it passes. Time is a conundrum it’s fun to explore.

Enjoy whatever time you have and don’t try to save it at the price of your joy.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

How do you feel about time? Do you take your time? Or do you find there’s never enough? How’s your time management. Write and tell me about your relationship with time. I so love to hear from readers. Please write me at tashahal@gmail.com. You can see more love notes on my website www.heartwingsandfriends.com, or see my blog at https://tashasperspective.com.

Heartwings Love Notes Kitchen Helps and Hints

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Heartwings says, “Good tools are an important part of success in the kitchen.”

When at around the age of ten or eleven I first began to cook, I was permitted only to make brownies. In a year or more, I graduated to salads. That was it. My mother feared I would “ruin the food,” her words, and although cooking was low on her list of things she liked to do, she did all the rest. Once I got married and had my own kitchen, I taught myself to cook whatever we were going to eat. I had the impression I ought to serve meat twice a day, and because I was on a rather meager budget, we ate a lot of hot dogs.

These many years later I still do enjoy cooking, although I do not feel I must serve meat twice a day. Perish the thought! Protein twice a day, when you have diabetes, as I do, however is important and a rule I do try to follow. Besides meat and fish, this can include nut butters, cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, and other forms of protein. I don’t make many elaborate meals, because at eighty-seven my stamina is not what it once was. However, I do try for us to have mostly healthy, Mediterranean style dishes and lots of fish.

I have learned that certain tools are essential to efficient, enjoyable cooking. I have several different sized cutting boards, and my smallest is probably the one I use most. Two serrated knives, one large, one smaller and several small, pointed utility knives are helpful and better still, several pairs of scissors. Although I have a good chef’s knife for chopping, they are easier for me to use to deal with celery, scallions, and fresh herbs. I also use the scissors to reduce peppers and onion to smaller pieces once I’ve cut into them.

One of my most favorite tools is a canning funnel. It’s not that I do any canning, although my mother did. Our basement closet was once filled with glass jars of fruit and vegetables picked from her garden. Today the food I can purchase in the market is a lot more available and does not require standing over a hot stove. My canning funnel as well as its traditional sister, with the smaller spout, is absolutely invaluable for pouring soups, stews, cooked fruit, and anything liquid into jars without spilling.

I once had plastic funnels and somewhere along the way I acquired stainless steel ones. I highly recommend these as one of the most valuable tools in a kitchen. A good, versatile garlic press is also vital if you use much of this nutritious vegetable or herb, depending on what you call it. My lemon squeezer is another big help for our daily before breakfast half a lemon in water liver cleanse. Slotted spoons and several sizes of ladles are helpful. Lastly, I have two smaller and one larger spatula.  These small ones are extremely handy for all sorts of cooking, and the larger one is useful too, for serving.

May you have success with your efforts in cooking, and enjoy it.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Do you have some kitchen tools you are especially fond of? Please email me or comment and share your story. I so enjoy hearing from readers. Thanks! 

Heartwings Love Notes 1098 Where Can It Be

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Heartwings says, “Putting things back where they belong is important.”

As a child I was taught to be tidy. Emily, the practical nurse my parents hired to help care for me when I was around two or so, tried hard to make sure I learned to put my toys, and later, my clothing away. She was with us until I was around eight years old when she left to get married and have a family of her own. Unlike my mother, she was patient and physically affectionate.

I am not faulting my mother in any way. Her behavior was molded by her upbringing. While kind and a good mother, she grew up with strict German parents who did not encourage demonstrative behavior. Even as a grandmother she was reluctant to accept or to give physical affection. Fun and fond behavior was not a priority, neatness was. 

Once I was married and had children of my own, I did my best to be as tidy as I could. This grew more difficult with each addition to the family, which eventually added up to five children. I didn’t have a lot of time to devote to being neat or organized. My mother often criticized me for my “messy house,” and it never seemed to occur to her that there was a good reason for this. I thought it was more important to enjoy and care for my children than to be neat.

Neatness does have virtues beyond looking nice. Having things in order means when I need to find something, I’ll know where it is and can find it without any difficulty. That is why the saying, “a place for everything and everything in its place,” has been my guideline as long as I can remember. For instance, I try hard to keep all of my tools where I can easily reach them and as close as possible to where they will be used. Being a systematic Scorpio, I have sectioned off the shelves in my pantry by assigning them to what I can make or do with the contents.

However, unfortunately this works as long as I am the only person putting things away. Also, there often is more to be put away than the shelves can conveniently hold. This results in items get shoved to the back, effectively disappearing from view and becoming unavailable. So, although I no longer have little children to run around after or an eagle-eyed mother judging my attempts to be tidy, I struggle still with my tidiness conundrums.

The current state of my health doesn’t help either. Despite Stephen’s great help, much does not get done. There are days I simply only have enough energy to cook meals and see to my immediate emails, not to mention attend doctors’ appointments. Prioritizing becomes important, and as it was once so it is again: I do what is important and let the rest go.

Reaching and Grasping

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Heartwings says, “It is very helpful for one’s reach not to exceed one’s grasp.”

Reaching for things is somewhat more challenging for me than it used to be. I am often faced with the need to ask for help. Fortunately, Stephen is usually available, and though he has also shrunk, at least he is much taller than I am.  Sadly, I have diminished from five feet four inches to five feet one and a half or maybe two. In addition, I have lost flexibility. Asking for help is getting more necessary, and I am getting more used to doing that. It seems there is always more to be learned.

In a yoga class and lecture that I attended many years ago now—yet somehow it seems just a year or two have past, the visiting sage told us this. “My mantra is I know nothing; I want to learn.” I balked at first at the seemingly negative affirmation. Affirming I know nothing? That didn’t sound right. But affirming I wanted to learn, did. So, I gave the whole sentence some thought.

Eventually, light descended upon my brain, and I finally understood. This sentence describes what is called Beginners Mind. What that means is that at the beginning I expect to learn, so it is important not to cloud the mind with what I think I might know. When I think I know something, my mind does not generally seek more information.

If I think I have grasped whatever it is I need to learn, I most probably will no longer reach out further with my mind. It is more important than you might think for your grasp to exceed your reach. Because there is always more to be learned, whether it is the how-to of a project, the pitfalls, or else the simple understanding or a further interpretation of what something might mean. We cannot always know how much more there is to know. 

When I look at each day with a beginner’s mind attitude, there are wonderful conundrums that arise. They give me something to think about other than the dismayingly negative tales of misbehavior that often comprise the daily doings of the world at large. The arguments and disagreements people have that stoke violence could so often be resolved by a better understanding or even a simple agreement to disagree.

For me the world I live in is filled with interesting experiences to be explored with discoveries to be made along the way. Perhaps because I am a poet, I especially delight in finding beauty that has simply created itself. The lovely weeds right now along the roads, waving in the breezes from passing cars, are a delight to be seen. The delicate Queen Ann’s lace, mingled with the tall, graceful Artemesia are probably destined eventually to be cut down, yet each day they remain, they fill the eye that gazes upon them with their beauty. I am grateful to be able to see them and to find something so special within my grasp.

May you be able to look upon life with a beginner’s mind.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha

PS Do you have comments, questions, or stories to share? I would love to hear from you, and I find great joy in your correspondence.

Heartwings Love Notes 1096: Memory and Forgettery

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Heartwings says, “Remembrance of things past can be precious.”

Lately my forgettery works better than my memory, or so it seems to me. I shudder to think old age is creeping up on me, however that might be the case. At eighty-seven going on eighty-eight maybe it’s appropriate to have some memory issues. The thing is, I have said for years if I must Lose out either in mind or in body, I’d prefer to keep my mind.

My mother was physically strong even into her nineties. She once fell down a flight of stairs and got to her feet with nothing to show for the experience but a few bruises. She was physically active in her old age, and unlike me, she could go for long walks at a fast pace. Her mind, however began to leave her in her mid-seventies and by the time she was my age she had become more absent of mind than not.

My grandmother on my father’s side was strong and vital until age eighty, when she fell asleep the night of the lovely Christmas party she had for us, and never woke up. She was found the next morning, where she had dozed off sitting against her pillows. She was reading the book the children’s father and I had given her for Christmas and never woke up. What a lovely way to go. I would like to be that fortunate.

She had a youthful demeanor, and by sales people and other strangers, when I was with her, she was often thought of as my mother. I like to think I’ve inherited her good health and her mental resilience. She might have been somewhat forgetful. I remember my mother once saying that when she stayed with her, my mother was always stepping on the notes to herself that my grandmother left on the floor. I prefer to leave my notes on my desk or on the kitchen counter. I have two pads of recycled paper I keep in different places to help me remember to do things that I need to do in a timely manner.

In some way, it appears to me that I am more apt to neglect what I do not write down. So, lately I am taking care to write even more down than I used to. I also write down stray hints and phrases that are themes for columns. These float in and as quickly float away if I don’t make note of them. Today’s subject is an example of a quick inspiration based the word “forgettery.”

My long-term memory is excellent and goes back to my very early childhood. I have impressions from being in my blue highchair and even in my blue crib. I was so good at escaping from it that my parents moved my bureau up against it to prevent me. I hope my memory continues to hold up and that my forgettery will not increase, however, only time will tell, and time’s not saying right now.

May you remember whatever you need to, by the time you do.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS How about you, dear Readers? Do you have memory tricks you use or other methods that are helpful? I love it when you share, and I treasure your responses. Thanks in advance.

Heartwings Love Note 1093 The Kindness of Strangers

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Heartwings says, “When you look with kind eyes, it helps you to be kinder.”

Recently, I sat in a movie theater for nearly three hours. When the film ended, I stood up to find the restroom. While there were some railings near my seat, as I headed for the exit corridor, there was only a wall to help me steady my steps. My balance was challenged even as I used my cane. “Let me help you,” came a voice next to me. “Take my arm.” A short, kindly woman extended her arm to me.

She walked down the long corridor with me, at the rate of my slow steps very patiently, until we reached a ladies’ room. Only it was not the usual one but a special locked family room. Again, she waited with me as an attendant fetched a key and let me in. I kept thanking her. Every time I said how grateful I was, she shook her head and dismissed my words. When I came out, she was gone. My husband told me she had waited to tell him where I was. Sadly, I never learned her name.

The Dalai Lama tells us his religion is kindness. Focused in this way, kindness becomes a way to practice one’s spirituality. Of course, this is not confined to Buddhism. Christianity’s Jesus tells us to “Do unto others,” and other religious and spiritual paths have their versions of this kind of behavior as well. For most of my life, I have tried to practice kindness as often as possible.

The other day I was exiting a parking lot when a huge truck stopped in front of me, attempting to make a turn into the plaza across the street. After waiting for the cars to finish passing, it turned. There was a huge line of cars behind it, and I resigned myself to a long wait. But no, the person behind the truck waited for me to pull out and go. I gave her a big smile and a wave. What a blessing I received from that stranger on the road.

It’d one thing to be kind to those we love and cherish. It is to be hoped that we will give freely to dear friends and family. On the other hand, I was brought up to avoid strangers, to fear interaction with them, or at the least to be cautious around them. No one suggested being kind to them. I have never been inclined to follow this approach.

To be sure, being kind to strangers may or may not bring an immediate or any reward, yet that is not the reason to be doing it. Being kind is a good way to expand the heart and to build compassion. I have met with much kindness in my life and I have done my best to return it whenever I could as well as to initiate it. It costs little to nothing to be kind, and it adds to the sum of compassion in the world.

May you be as kind as you can be, always.

Blessings and best Regards, Tasha Halpert

Would you share a kindness from a stranger story with me? I so enjoy it when you share your stories. Comments and suggestions are welcome too.

Heartwings Love Notes 1092: Adjusting Expectations

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Heartwings says, “Dealing with our expectations takes lots of work.”

Expectations are tricky. They can make you think you’re falling behind, or create unrealistic goals that are impossible to fulfill. On the other hand, they can be guidelines or parameters that help us. How they function is up to us. While it is actually best to live without expectations, AKA: beginner’s mind—it is also almost  impossible to do so.

Our expectations of ourselves begin in infancy, when we struggle to our feet and take our first steps. However, at that time they are not conscious. They are also based on other people’s actions toward us. As we become aware of others and begin to interact, we expect the ball we throw or roll to be thrown or rolled back, and a world of actions and reactions begins to emerge for us.

Expectations are our attempts to learn for better or worse. They are built by experience. As young children we often learn how to make adults laugh or smile and thus treat us nicely. We also learn the reverse is true when we misbehave and make them angry. How well I remember wishing to read the newspaper during the day, yet refraining, knowing that my father wanted it pristine for his readership in the evening after work. No matter how carefully I refolded it, he would know, as I found out to my sorrow. But that was then.

Fast forward some eighty plus years into the future. I’ve had a whole lifetime of experience and of dealing with the expectations around which my life has revolved. Now, thanks to age and Parkinson’s, I am dealing with a whole new set of them, both positive and negative. Unexpectedly, all my previous experience has been superseded and I must deal with a whole lot of new parameters and limitations.

For instance, I’ve always been an independent, I’ll do it myself kind of person. Now I need help practically every time I turn around. I have difficulty opening jars or beating up eggs. It takes me a much longer time than it used to, to fix even the simplest meal. However, this is not said to complain or seek pity. The issue is one of having realistic expectations. Were I to do it the Zen way, I would have none at all. I would simply get out the ingredients for a meal and go to work on it.

Or I can learn to adjust my expectations to be content to proceed as skillfully as I can without being concerned. It’s true that I try to live without expectations, yet those niggly statements I grew up hearing—”You can do better” was a frequent one—tend to nip at me and must also be dealt with. I must talk back to them, assuring them I am doing my best, and that they can take it easy on me. Best of all, I must take it easy on me and remember not to have unrealistic expectations.

May you be able to fulfill most of your happy expectations.

Blessings and best Regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Do you wrestle with expectations? Do you have a few or lots? I so enjoy hearing from readers.

Heartwings Love Notes 1087: The Virtue of Doing

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Heartwings says, “The virtue of doing may cause one dismay.”

Those of us Yankees raised in the traditional way of our ancestors, may well have inherited their ethic: To be busy, to be doing what is useful and good, to keep our hands occupied, is our watchword. There is even a saying that goes something like, “the devil finds work for idle hands.” This means, I expect, that if we don’t keep busy, we’ll get into mischief of some sort.

Perhaps because I had a mother raised in Germany, or perhaps because I had a Yankee father, I was always urged to be doing something, even if it was reading a book. My chief daily chore was taking care of our chickens. They lived in a hen house with a yard fenced in with chicken wire. I had to carry their mash from the barn and in the spring, summer, and fall, fill their water container from the faucet by the henhouse. For this I was paid the princely sum of fifty cents a week. In the winter I had to lug the water from the house, which was much more difficult.

Nowadays, fortunately I have no chickens to feed, only two human beings that need three meals a day, and our pitcher with the filtered water needs only to be carried from the sink to the table. Until fairly recently my life seemed relatively tranquil and most of what I needed to do could be done easily within my available time span. Then along came Parkinson’s Disease: a collection of symptoms clustered around the nerves and their connection to the brain.

My chief symptom is slowness. It takes me much longer to get things done than I am accustomed to, even though I have had two years or so to get used to it. This is made more difficult due to my childhood programming vis a vis the virtue of doing. For instance, I have to deal with my dismay at taking more than an hour to fix a meal when it used to take so much less time. My kind husband would say, “Don’t worry about it, take all the time you need.” That doesn’t silence the little voice that tells me I am too slow, or even that I am lazy.

Dealing with the frustration is a daily chore I wish I could eliminate, yet so far, I haven’t been able to. The voice of conscience seems to have no mercy on the hands that fumble when I work at cutting vegetables, or the feet that I must walk slowly and mindfully with lest I stumble. I know I do just fine, yet when the dinner isn’t ready in a timely manner, it says I ought to have begun sooner, and that’s no help.

I don’t mean to complain, only to share in case someone else who shares my dilemma might feel comforted to know she or he is not alone. 

May you make peace in your heart wish any disability you may have.

Blessings and Best Regards, Tasha Halpert

P If you have a story to share or some issue to discuss I’d love to hear from you. Your correspondence is precious to me. Please write me at tashahal@gmail.com

Heartwings Love Notes 1086 The Wisdom of a Blind Eye and a Deaf Ear

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Heartwings says, “Gently ignoring a situation can help soothe troubled waters.”

In the interests of peace, it is often advisable to turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to some of the unimportant yet annoying sources of conflict in a relationship. For instance, my mother resented it that my father did not want her to ever wear black. His mother, after the fashion of her day, wore black for seven years after my grandfather died of the terrible flu that ravaged the American soldiers and many others who were overseas at the end of World War One. Young at the time, my father had grown to intensely dislike black attire. Perhaps it reminded him of the loss of his father; I do not know and never asked him.

My mother was patient about this, as well as many other things that were not agreeable to her in their life together. To turn a blind eye is to avoid seeing, a deaf ear to avoid hearing what might otherwise be a source of irritation. However, doing this may also build resentment toward the perpetrators. It is sometimes difficult to walk the line between giving too little attention and giving too much. One must ask, is this situation important enough to make a fuss about or is it something that can be overlooked?

Here it might be good to take note of one’s feelings and to pay attention to them. It must be decided whether the annoyance is strong enough to prompt a response or not. If not, one can let it slide. If so, one can speak up. Sometimes the unaddressed feelings can build up and cause a problem or an argument. Sometimes which is worse, they create a ‘blowback,’ causing resentment that turns into anger and even sabotage. When one is trying to be nice, it might be all too easy to ignore the very real feelings of dismay that will turn into something worse when treated with a blind eye or a deaf ear. It seems important to allow one’s feelings about something uncomfortable to be mentioned rather than ignored, when there is danger of a buildup to the point of explosion.

For instance, I remember many years ago when I was a teenager, chiding my parents about their prejudicial language. They had grown up with it and to them using the ‘N’ word, for instance was perfectly normal. They did not take kindly to my efforts to correct them. Still, it was important to me to do so because I felt strongly about it.

Honesty is indeed the best policy; however, you need not be blunt nor simply complaining about something insignificant. The secret to success in speaking up is to not play the blame game, but to be truthful about your feelings. When you feel strongly, when your feelings are authentic, and when you phrase them in such a way as to convey this, your rate of success will be much improved.