Footprints and Fingerprints

Trail Mix and Whimsy.
That’s my mood these days. Sweet, salty, crunchy, dry but tasty and all mixed up.

There are Thinkers and there are Feelers. I’m a Feeler, which is like saying there’s a little lake over on the west side of Michigan. Feelings are how I am led through life. Through keen perception and experience, I’ve come to trust them. Feelings are different than emotions, almost contrary in fact. Emotions can lie and shouldn’t be trusted. If I reacted from emotion every time someone hurt me or made me mad, I’d be a slave to emotions giving them power to control me instead of me controlling them. Not to say we can save ourselves from ever having hurt feelings, of course we can’t; it’s mastering our response to them that I’m talking about. We Feelers rely not so much on research and lists of pros and cons, statistics and data to make our decisions, it’s these Feelings…intuitions and promptings in spite of emotions. Feelings do not run on the same frequency as emotions, they compete; so if you want to tune in to them we have to dial the naturally-loud volume of our emotions down a bit. If Feelers never recognize the difference between the two and learn to master our emotional response, we end up riding bareback in the Daily E-motional Rodeo and find ourselves laying trampled in the arena of Life. Emotions/Feelings…two far different things. If you’re a thinker, you’re thinking I need a prescription about right now…and that’s ok I’m not going to get all emotional about that response. hehe.

For those of you still with me…
I’ve been reflective and I’m not sure why, that season shouldn’t be coming for a couple of months yet. I feel restless, like I should be preparing for something. I feel like it’s time to move on from some things but its not knowing the *what* to move on from that has me here in the same place. It is that hamster on a wheel thing, going through the motions but progressing nowhere. This is also the place and time that I cocoon inside myself. Odd that’s it’s coming so soon but I know well enough to allow it take me there. I will stock up on blue fine point pens and notebooks and in the midnight hours I will fill them to overflowing with thoughts and poems and stories and love notes in the margins and then talk about pollen and chewing gum in daily life. My spirit is in whimsy. I am not comfortable with whimsy…which is the very reason I have to go there. I know I’m moldable in that place, out of my comfort zone and control. I’m willing but I don’t have to like it, I just have to let it be.

My life is changing significantly in all my roles both public and private and all of it out of my control. Whimsy *and* out of control, my two favorites…I can’t wait. (Sarcasm dripping) It is amazing, when I think about it, our lives are not just impacted but literally shaped by many, many decisions made by other people, some we don’t even know…and we have to just wait for the pieces to be handed to us and then deal. So I wait. For what’s next. Wondering what awaits me. Wondering if/what/whom I will leave behind. The footprints I’ll be leaving on the place I’ve been…did I wear a path around myself in self-centeredness? or did my footprints leave a thousand paths all moving away from me and toward others in a patchwork of directions? did I do my personal best? (No, I didn’t. I already know there are big fat Failures, they raise their hands waving, deseprate to speak first.) Did I respond in love? Am I leaving it better than it would have been without me? Am I better for having been there? What lessons can I wring out of this place? Who was impacted by my passing through? Was it positive? Did they see the Shekina shine? (just google it). Yes, I know this is a lot of thinking for a Feeler…but that’s another topic.

After all is said and done, my control, my part, my responsibility comes down to just two things…footprints and fingerprints. Where did I go and whom did I touch? That’s all I got.

That’s all and that’s everything.