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If you look back over the blogging I’ve done in the last six years, I wonder how many times the title TGIF appears? It is what it is.

I’m beginning to believe that post-45, I could easily measure my years in ailments – there was the year I injured my piriformis, then the year I had carpal tunnel, then the bunion and hammer toes and resulting bunionectomy and toe surgery, then the tennis elbow, then the other side of my back with the nondescript knot that is either arthritis or too much Pilates, now it’s the thumb. Of course. My thumb which is used to text, to mouse, to pick up my nearing 22 pound son is falling off my hand.

As we sat on the porch the other day – Tatjana with her knee brace, me with my thumb brace, and a 14 month old toddler between us – I thought we looked like a visual definition of OLDER PARENTS.

Only I am happy to report I then saw a friend decades younger with a new baby and she too looked wrung out. So maybe it is just PARENT.

Yesterday, two colleagues passed away and we also heard that someone who has been coping with a lot, just added one more thing to their burden, a father passed away. I’ve thought about dogs passing, parents passing, colleagues passing and how life goes on without them, or rather life is punctuated by their absence but continues nonetheless.

We’ve been reflecting on the journey as we approach our annual conference next week as an organization, I’m thinking life is a series of many journeys, and many people and dogs walk beside us — this tells me that life is short, but it is wide.

In every life comes a little rain a friend said to me recently, and in every life comes abundant joy. These are the building blocks of our memories, when we will sit on the porch and say, “Remember….”

There is no better way to start your day than to take a walk through City Park with your dogs and see fellow dog walkers, runners, and the beautiful Great Blue Herons chucking across the grass under the spread of the majestic oaks. Dogs are interesting creatures. When we were at the beach both Heidi and Loca did some amazing things.

I was walking back to the house from a long walk on the beach, carrying Tin in my Ergobaby, and Heidi, on the return home, insisted on walking point very far ahead. It makes me nervous so I kept calling her back, but she’d return to her sentry duty way ahead of the pack. I was huffing and puffing as Tin is getting heavy and walking in the smushy sand was getting harder and so I kept calling her and Loca kept to my side, in heel position. Finally Loca broke her heel and ran to get Heidi and basically corralled her back to me. A retriever at heart and a good girl.

Then after bringing Tin into the Gulf several times, one time a wave came crashing over us and I though he might be freaked out, so on the last day by the water, I was letting him play near the shore and when he ran into the waves, I was not holding him back but steadily watching him. Heidi didn’t like his proximity to the waves so she came down and started circling us, putting herself between Tin and the water. A protector by instinct and a good girl.

Later I dreamed of Arlene. I dreamed she was at my friend Clare’s house with her dog, Scout. In my dream, I had given Arlene to Clare because Clare had lost her dog and Arlene and Scout could be old together over there. And I felt guilty, guilty to have two young, vibrant dogs. I felt guilty that Heidi had come to us because her owners are going through a rough patch and we’re out of ours. Guilt is a fruitless feeling.

Guilt doesn’t get you to the next rung.

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a

man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.

–Thomas Henry Huxley

Musing on growing old, being young, past your prime, balancing life, finding a new prime, discovering my role or rather redefining it at this stage – these are all present on my mind right now – and will bear fruit when I get to some answers or better questions.

I’ve missed my walks the past two mornings, and it showed in my ability to cope. Take a walk!

The news today was bleak – in one news blast there was some hope that the oil spill was going to be capped soon and things were not as bad as they had looked before. But then the next news blast came from a neighbor who said that the oil was going under the concrete because the chemicals they put on the water was pushing it under. An update from Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries says there is no way this oil can enter the marsh without causing many years of damage to the hundreds of thousands of people who make their living here in the Gulf.

Meanwhile, Lenny Kravitz and about 40 other A-list performers are putting on a benefit concert called Gulf Aid on Sunday at the Wharf by Mardi Gras World that is going to go from noon till 10 PM. Raising money. But to do what still seems like the $6 million question.

Two colleagues passed away from cancer today – both younger than me. Very vibrant people with families and lots of reasons to be alive.

Focus on good things, tangible things that are here and now – Saturday is Fortier Park Festival, Sunday is Gulf Aid, then next weekend is Bayou Boogaloo which is now closer to our house than in years past as they will have a stage near the Dumaine Bridge, and then the following weekend is Greek Festival. Festivals to forget all your worries, forget all your cares.

My hot flashes have returned but I am keeping the card my friend in California sent that says, “Real women don’t have hot flashes, they have Power surges.” And sometimes just spinning the negative into a positive gets you through the day.

I hope Tin gets to this point in his life – I hope it comes soon and lasts a lifetime – and that is to love yourself. It’s taken a long time for me to acknowledge that I love my solitude, I need to dance, and I’m never going to be thin. It is what it is. Last night, my mother in law was talking about how she can’t keep her weight on and that she has always been able to eat what she wants. I sighed across my salad. I also have been willing to acknowledge that my moments alone are truly valuable to me as I work at a hectic pace, life a full life, and my family has grown exponentially in a short period of time. My horoscope today – ta da:

May 13, 2010

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

   It’s time to take the guilt out of your pleasures! Whatever it is that brings you real joy needs to be brought out in the open and celebrated, no matter what others might think. If you like dancing to yesterday’s top hits while wearing clothes that would embarrass a teenager, go for it. It’s sure to be liberating — not only for yourself but for your friends, who are eventually inspired by your fun-loving example.

The people who have built those homes in Ft. Morgan are lucky to have a house on the beach. But the last two evenings, I’ve sat on the porch giving Tin his bottle and looking at the light on the bayou and damn, I’m lucky to live right here in this spot. We really have everything we need in our little community and if you can get your mind to focus on the light on the bayou and not the red sparks of volatile eruptions that run the gamut from catastrophic oil spills to global economic uncertainty (not to mention aliens), I think you will find that you can be on a permanent vacation right here on the bayou if you slant your mind’s eye in just the right way.

While I was on the beach, my Yogi tea zen dropping said, “Happiness is nothing but total relaxation.” I think total eluded me, but pockets were accomplished. I think now that there were long walks on the beach, one morning on the porch alone with my tea and the sound of surf, and a few trips to the drugstore for a knee brace where I was alone with my thoughts.

I spoke to a colleague recently who said they were wondering how to cut through the clutter and be able to step outside of where you are and look in with fresh eyes.

Rots of ruck is what I told him. Happiness is in the moments and all the rest is riding the wave.

When Tin came home, a lot of mothers told me that parenting is the most rewarding and challenging thing they have ever done in their lives and literally, bite my tongue, I thought to myself “challenging?” – how could anyone say this is challenging as I moved deftly from having lost a parent, acquired a son, and changed my life radically in a space of a week. I really thought challenging was because perhaps those parents had difficult children. Ha!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

As Tin started coming into his own, he seems to have developed a huge desire for independence, an intolerance of missing the window of sleep or food, and a real frustration at not being able to get and do exactly what he wants when he wants. Challenging – ha! Ha ! Ha!

A friend told me that after her kids were grown she took a course in the philosophy of a Christian woman that said when you tell a child to do something like pick up their room, you have to make sure you look them in the eye, communicate exactly what you want them to do, and have them repeat back to you what they are intended to do, and then if they don’t do it, you don’t repeat, you go into the room, tell them they have not done what they are supposed to do and give them a spank (not spanking).

I told her I wholeheartedly agree except on the hitting part – I believe in a no-hit child rearing policy – but definitely on the, I’m only telling you once part or else there are consequences.

The challenge here is that Tin doesn’t understand truth or consequences YET and so now it’s more like trying to be understanding, discerning over tired, over hungry from irascible and unreasonable and introducing no and boundaries and you do all this while you are figuring it all out yourself, and your partner is doing the same thing but coming from a different thought process, and you just say, why I oughta…. but then your nanny (his Mary Poppins) sends you an iPhone pic she took at Storyland and you think, what a cutie pie!

What does it mean when everything stresses you out? For me it means I’m overwhelmed but it also means I’m off center, which is the same as overwhelmed in my book. I write this entry left handed because my thumb is in a splint from the one two punch of consumer electronics and constantly picking up a growing 14 month old. So even blogging – usually one of my least stressful items is challenging.

I think I believe that Lena Horn was correct when she said it is not the burden that wears you down but how you carry it – or even the more modern put the oxygen mask on yourself first before attempting to help others.

But right now even trying to figure out a way not to feel stressed is stressful.

Whatyagonnado?