Snippets and Snatches

What is the one thing that when you need more of it there seems to be less of it to go around?  Patience!  Sometimes when I think of myself as a reasonably patient person that is when I find myself in simultaneous situations that tell me otherwise.  Oh sure, I may be able to forbear many circumstances with a smile on my face but it is the resulting inner turmoil boiling my blood that tells me how far I have to go and proves my inadequate supply of the virtue of patience.  Really, I feel like I’m stating the obvious here and thereby removing any constructive need to write about getting more of something I sorely need, as if to hope that in saying it I might stumble upon a magic stepping stone filled with patience and when I touch it I am filled with jolts of calm forbearance in just the right amount, according to the intensity of the moment when it is needed the most.  Why can’t patience be like a magic stepping stone?  That would be so much easier!

So, when the shedding animals have me walking through tumbleweeds of hair and I want to hire a maid to deal with what I can’t, if I could only rub the magic stone I’d be like Mary Poppins singing about the joys of housework!  Or, when the sizzling, southern heat is zapping my energy a touch of the magic patience stone might convince me I’m really beachside at the arctic circle with the penguins and polar bears!  I wish! I wish! I wish!

Where can I get more patience since there is no magic stepping stone?  Honestly, there is only one thing that has helped me, sometimes after the fact of my impatience rearing its ugly head like a wild horse in a lasso.  It is heard so much it may seem trite but it works when I remember to say the words:  “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  The clincher here is that sometimes I need way MORE wisdom to know the difference between the things I can change and the things I cannot change.  And I often find that the courage to change the things I can usually requires me to set better boundaries and assert myself to keep them in place.  Only God’s touch can change my heart.

This was an awesome sight, driving around the Charleston/North Charleston area to see Pedro’s painting “Strings” on billboards for the North Charleston Arts Festival!  He is too humble to post this joyous moment in his life but I am so proud of him I have to share as he calls it his “fifteen minutes of fame” quoting Andy Warhol.  A friend said “May you have many more fifteen minutes of fame then!”  I concur, wholeheartedly!  True friends are the ones genuinely happy for you when something wonderful happens to you and when the going is rough they are the ones still standing by no matter what.

I heard there were 13 billboards around the area and we probably only saw 3 but one day I made a point to bring my camera and take a picture of one before they all disappear off the side of the roads.  It wasn’t too risky and I was very careful.  Pedro doesn’t know I got a picture so if he ever checks his FB account he will be very surprised!!  Go Pedro!  You are an awesome artist!