All We Are Saying...

I remember sitting cross legged on the Worcester Common, with my hair frizzed out like Janice Joplin’s, and my training bra tucked inside my back pocket, while joining a massive choir of Flower Children, singing; “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.” This was the 60’s mantra, and although I was too young to really grasp the importance of the message, I remember feeling incredibly peaceful at the time.

Perhaps we were naïve in thinking that we could change the world with a song, but being a part of something much larger than myself taught me that I wasn’t alone. It emboldened me in a way I had never experienced before, raising my cowering expectations to a heady high…at least for that moment.

After a lifetime of living in fast-paced society I can see what a rare commodity peace really is. Life sometimes seems like an omnipresent octopus with eight suction cupped arms reaching in eight different directions at once, bringing multi-tasking to a jaw clenching new level, and causing me to be at odds with…well, myself. My life has given birth to a life of its own, creating a second generation of things to do, and sometimes a third. So, I’m taking the simple advice from an old mantra, and giving peace a chance.

This means I will have to make room for peace by intentionally inviting it in…and doing peaceful things.

Things like: Going the long way home on purpose because it gives me time to finish listening to my favorite song.

Adding extra hot water to my bath because I’m in the middle of a chapter…and the world won’t stop if I take a little longer.

Leisurely browsing through the library, and randomly reading the first and last pages of a novel, because somebody poured their soul into writing it, and I know that I will never get to read all the amazing books that have been written.

Writing poetry, even though I’m not sure how, because I love the surprise of using words in new ways …and poetry reminds me of my mother.

Going clothes shopping and gathering armloads of eclectic items that I would normally be afraid to wear, and then trying them on, and discovering something fabulous in the pile.

Writing in my journal using cursive handwriting, with large flamboyant letters that flair and twirl like dancers, so that no matter how conflicted my words seem, they all look beautiful.



The other day I took a stroll out to my mailbox and I noticed the same two familiar doves that I’ve seen dozens of times before. They were sitting peacefully, side by side on a telephone wire, quietly watching the clatter of life below…and I wondered if they realized what a good example they were setting.