As a parent and grandparent, I often consider the legacy I will leave behind for my children and theirs. If yesterday’s activities are any indication of the direction I’m heading, I think I’m good so far.
Yesterday, Piper and I found ourselves with free-time on our hands. Longing to re-connect with EARTH, we changed into hiking clothes and quickly headed out of town. There's a trail system roaming through the foothills about a half hour from here that's a favorite of ours. The view of the valley is nice, but the dirt and trees and allll the critters are even better. By some amazing wondrous work of nature, as a family we are pre-disposed Tree Climbers. If there's a good "climber" nearby, one or more of us are quickly sucked up into it, sccchhhlllooooooppp! Like magic I swear!
By the same quirk of nature, we are also pre-disposed to enjoy whatever parts of life we can in the buff whenever discretion allows. (We make for interesting neighbors.) That's in the second part of this story.
Just off the trail head, there's a great ancient climber, magnificent in size and shape with long aged branches hanging low to the ground. Sccchhhhlooooopp! And there we were, two grown women, smiling and laughing in the boughs of this lovely tree. We took turns sitting in a comfortable forked branch some six feet off the ground. It had great great swaying action. If you’re a tree climber you know what I'm talking about. If you aren’t, you’re missing out on one heck of a good time. Technology being what it is these days, a cell phone in every pocket, we took pictures. Snap! Snap! Here’s one for posterity, “Grandma Up A Tree!” I texted the image to my grand-daughters. See, Grandma’s still got it! Grandma can be a goof, Grandma is just like you!!
An hour later, 'Grandma' got trumped by her own blood, her own Kin! An hour later, I opened my phone to a picture of a grand-daughter - who just happens to be dripping my genetic code - she was buck naked with a lunch box on her head!!! “Thanks for the picture of you in the tree Grandma! Here’s a picture of what I’M doing today!” Well HOT DAMN! You go girl! You goooo, you wonderful, wonderful child! Yep, that’s MY GIRL! The naked one with the lunch box on her head!
Autumn, you keep that picture of YOUR Grandma in a tree, and you keep your free-spirit! When you get bigger we’ll talk about the difference between discretion and suppression. There’s a great lesson to be learned here and I’m happy to see you are well on your way to living with the genetic vibes. After all Kiddo, you’ve got Grandma on your side! And in your DNA.
So am I leaving a worthy legacy? Some would argue money is best to leave your kids. Some would argue being a model citizen and rigid of example of how to make the right choices is best.
I don't argue. I don’t want to be a rigid anything. It’s uncertain what kind of money will remain when it's my time to go. And God and everyone else knows I’ve never made all the right choices. However, I do have a knack for cleaning up my messes and turning things positive.
Leaving a wealth of memories, wisdom and love are much more important to me. In the fork of a lovely tree on a beautiful fall day is a mighty fine place to be – even at my age. That is wisdom. Feeling care-free enough to run around your house naked, suggests emotional freedom as well. Also wise in my opinion. The lunch box on the head could be dangerous if you can’t see where you’re going, but hey, at least she was creative. Blame genetics for that also.
And love? There are many facets to love. I love who I am for the greater most part, even with all my flaws and imperfections. That's also a great place to be. I hope it shows and my children and grandchildren will feel the same way about themselves. I love and accept my children and grandchildren for who they are, for all their parts – silly, sad, moments of forehead slapping stupidity, good tempered and short tempered. We are totally and completely perfect in our Non-Perfectness. And we absolutely love sharing ourselves, all our wins, defeats - even self-defeats, with each other. My son called me this morning chuckling to himself (I love when our conversations start out this way, good stuff always comes after). He wanted to tell me that he, HIMSELF, had had to eat a $10 bet he lost to his wife last night. He was calling so I could laugh with him. I can think of no greater legacy than this.
Yesterday, Piper and I found ourselves with free-time on our hands. Longing to re-connect with EARTH, we changed into hiking clothes and quickly headed out of town. There's a trail system roaming through the foothills about a half hour from here that's a favorite of ours. The view of the valley is nice, but the dirt and trees and allll the critters are even better. By some amazing wondrous work of nature, as a family we are pre-disposed Tree Climbers. If there's a good "climber" nearby, one or more of us are quickly sucked up into it, sccchhhlllooooooppp! Like magic I swear!
By the same quirk of nature, we are also pre-disposed to enjoy whatever parts of life we can in the buff whenever discretion allows. (We make for interesting neighbors.) That's in the second part of this story.
Just off the trail head, there's a great ancient climber, magnificent in size and shape with long aged branches hanging low to the ground. Sccchhhhlooooopp! And there we were, two grown women, smiling and laughing in the boughs of this lovely tree. We took turns sitting in a comfortable forked branch some six feet off the ground. It had great great swaying action. If you’re a tree climber you know what I'm talking about. If you aren’t, you’re missing out on one heck of a good time. Technology being what it is these days, a cell phone in every pocket, we took pictures. Snap! Snap! Here’s one for posterity, “Grandma Up A Tree!” I texted the image to my grand-daughters. See, Grandma’s still got it! Grandma can be a goof, Grandma is just like you!!
An hour later, 'Grandma' got trumped by her own blood, her own Kin! An hour later, I opened my phone to a picture of a grand-daughter - who just happens to be dripping my genetic code - she was buck naked with a lunch box on her head!!! “Thanks for the picture of you in the tree Grandma! Here’s a picture of what I’M doing today!” Well HOT DAMN! You go girl! You goooo, you wonderful, wonderful child! Yep, that’s MY GIRL! The naked one with the lunch box on her head!
Autumn, you keep that picture of YOUR Grandma in a tree, and you keep your free-spirit! When you get bigger we’ll talk about the difference between discretion and suppression. There’s a great lesson to be learned here and I’m happy to see you are well on your way to living with the genetic vibes. After all Kiddo, you’ve got Grandma on your side! And in your DNA.
So am I leaving a worthy legacy? Some would argue money is best to leave your kids. Some would argue being a model citizen and rigid of example of how to make the right choices is best.
I don't argue. I don’t want to be a rigid anything. It’s uncertain what kind of money will remain when it's my time to go. And God and everyone else knows I’ve never made all the right choices. However, I do have a knack for cleaning up my messes and turning things positive.
Leaving a wealth of memories, wisdom and love are much more important to me. In the fork of a lovely tree on a beautiful fall day is a mighty fine place to be – even at my age. That is wisdom. Feeling care-free enough to run around your house naked, suggests emotional freedom as well. Also wise in my opinion. The lunch box on the head could be dangerous if you can’t see where you’re going, but hey, at least she was creative. Blame genetics for that also.
And love? There are many facets to love. I love who I am for the greater most part, even with all my flaws and imperfections. That's also a great place to be. I hope it shows and my children and grandchildren will feel the same way about themselves. I love and accept my children and grandchildren for who they are, for all their parts – silly, sad, moments of forehead slapping stupidity, good tempered and short tempered. We are totally and completely perfect in our Non-Perfectness. And we absolutely love sharing ourselves, all our wins, defeats - even self-defeats, with each other. My son called me this morning chuckling to himself (I love when our conversations start out this way, good stuff always comes after). He wanted to tell me that he, HIMSELF, had had to eat a $10 bet he lost to his wife last night. He was calling so I could laugh with him. I can think of no greater legacy than this.