Category: poetry

Cultivate kindness

Leana Lovejoy1 Comment

Taming an unruly mind is not unlike training an unruly dog.  Patience, persistence, determination, intention and love are all included.  It’s most effective to leave behind the all-too-human propensity towards self-criticism, which doesn’t contribute anything valuable to the process of gaining mastery over our minds.  The instructions have been available for eons –   the ancients (think Buddha and Padmasambhava) codified a system for inner peace that has proven to be challenging to us modern humans.

In this universe of polarities, right and wrong, good and bad, up and down mour surface situations continue to change dramatically sometimes from one day to the next.  Technological “advances” seem to have had the opposite effect on the human spirit.  Addicted to “devices” many people do not seem to be aware of the world around them, bringing it all down to a tiny screen on a tiny electronic box, called a “Smart Phone”.  Those nuggets of magnetism are miraculous, no doubt, and become more so every day.  How is this possible?  The human mind is also miraculous,  unrelentingly imagining then creating improvements, modifications and changes to the way things function.

The down side of all this activity is the need for a busy mind.  It has come to be called ADD, attention deficit disorder, which is replicating mightily these days – and is perhaps the siren song of our civilization.  It seems that most of us have forgotten how to sit quietly and contemplate.  Here is the challenge!  There is a lot of evidence that a wealth of material possessions does not bring happiness or deep peace.  In fact, clearing clutter has become a best selling idea, only made possible by the overabundance of non-essential items that tend to collect when we have expendable income.  Clearing our homes of excess things doesn’t necessary clear our minds, but interestingly the processes can be parallel in their unfolding.  What this means to me is – clearing mental clutter is a process of examining thoughts and choosing whether to turn the volume up or down on them.  Recycle, compost or just donate to the landfill, but get rid of unhelpful thoughts!

It’s a good start to simply ask yourself these basic questions:  is this thought helpful and supportive, is it relevant and useful, and does it make me feel good?  The best test of a thought is how our body responds when we think it. We all know what it feels like to have the white hot heat of anger, or some other uncomfortable feeling grab us and wrestle us to the symbolic mat.  In our discomfort it is easy to lash out – causing harm to those we love.  It is a sign of maturity and the  wondrous benefit of effective inner work to be able to choose wisely under emotional duress.  It’s a work in progress for sure, it’s certainly more desirable to my mind than remaining are willing mired in old ways of conflict and abuse.

Taking a stand in our lives to shift our relations and learn to truly love is, in my belief, the one true path in life.  Other things matter little in comparison, and the I’m sure that at the end of our lives what really matters is how much love we shared.  There was a bumper sticker going around “he who dies with the most toys wins”.  Nothing, to my mind could be farther from the truth.  Choose love, dear ones.

 

Learn to Discern, Choose Love

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“Love calls – everywhere and always.
We’re sky bound.
Are you coming?”

–Rumi

Learning to choose Love, is to me the most important aspect of life.  It’s an ongoing process – a spiral dance, a vision quest a grand education. And in the choosing lies the question – what exactly is this thing called love?  The English language is to me, woefully inadequate to describe Love.  Other languages have many words because there are many meanings and faces of love in its expression.  For now I’m speaking of the universal love that is the compelling energy of this world.  Romance can be delightful, but couple-love is by nature limited (only two allowed) and love with a capital “L” is unlimited, limitless and universal.

It’s not actually a choice, to love.  It is innate in us and to love we must retrain our minds to follow that track,  using our heart’s truest wisdom to guide the way.  We all have a built in tool for finding our way – it’s called our intuition.  Some call it “gut feeling”.  Our minds and deep conditioning can get in the way of this deep inner knowing and there are some big obstacles to deeper listening, but this capability exists in everyone, I’m sure of that.

During these days of the corona virus as the world has quieted, our activities are limited and we are essentially confined it is more important than ever to focus on deep inner listening. What is the feeling when we know ourselves to be acting in opposition to our own innate wisdom?  Where is it felt in the body? Noticing some physical discomfort is often a great starting point for finding the way.

Choosing love doesn’t mean allowing others to mistreat or take advantage of us.  In the face of anger or abuse there is an important need for self care.  Most times the best solution is to remove ourselves from harm’s way, verbal or physical.  The most successful strategy I have found is to use a kind of energetic aikido and relax into the truth that nothing other people say or do is really about us.  It is a reflection of their own inner state, their judgements which they believe to be true, and their conditioning and trauma.  Choosing love in intense situations can mean quietly exiting the arena of conflict, at best leaving a feeling of compassion behind.

Since we’re talking about compassion, it’s another term that calls for clarification.  Pema Chodron, a Buddhist wise woman calls certain behaviors “idiot compassion”.  She explains it this way:  “It refers to something we all do a lot of and call it compassion. In some ways, it’s what’s called enabling. It’s the general tendency to give people what they want because you can’t bear to see them suffering.”  This one is seen a lot with small children, whose parents give in to their tears and tantrums.  This doesn’t work out so well in the long run, as many adults attempt this same kind of emotional manipulation in adulthood- and it doesn’t usually work out very well on either side.

True compassion is felt in the heart.  It is warm and fuzzy and can also hold tinges of sadness for another’s suffering.  We can’t truly assuage the suffering of others, but by holding them in compassion and love we can lend emotional support which is in many ways one of the most valuable offerings we can make to each other.  These days we may be limited to reaching out by phone, and as hugging has become dangerous most of our connections are virtual, and yet that is opening a door to creativity.  How do I express my love in new ways…please let me know what you have discovered!

Circling back to the best way to be a helper in this time of confinement due to Covid-19, having compassion for ourselves and others, putting the others who are sharing our homes is at the top of the list.  Learning to deepen the ways we express our love to each other is essential and important.  Taking responsibility for our own hurtful behaviors can work wonders on our relationships and is truly the higher path.   Every time we notice ourselves veer off the path of love and compassion, healing happens and we can stand up, brush off and re-enter the realms of love and joy.  Welcome home!

 

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Heart medicine – a poem

Leana Lovejoy1 Comment

 

letting the raw parts be heard

finding expression for the inexpressible

tears for words

words for tears, cried through my mind

 

The discomfort of some feelings

certain sizzlers like charcoals

yearning to burn

cannot be contained in this body

nor understood in this mind

or felt in this heart

where do they go

how can they be handled

how do I surrender to the flame

 

jumping jacks

Buddhist chants

Primal scream

or Lou Reed

temporary respite

cushion the blows

that rain upon my shattered soul

 

How did this happen to me?

What detours did I have to take

to reach my destination?

Where is the map?

wisdom knows

still,  letting her lead is an

unaccustomed kind of sensation

like breaking in a pair of shoes

or traveling to a foreign land

at first, everything is different,

unfamiliar, uncomfortable

then, gradually a learning

a relaxation and trust emerges

the way is shown

 

 

 

Love and Devastation

Leana Lovejoy1 Comment

When a love relationship turns to hate, or dislike or disharmony – what is that about?  This is one of the most troubling, painful and challenging situations in life for me.  I imagine it is the same for others.  One of my spiritual mentors said it this way: “In order to love you must be willing to face the devastation”.  A Buddhist friend and I were pondering this turn of events and he relates it to the idea that in the light there is also the dark, in happiness there is sorrow – it is the yin/yang truth of life.  Absolute duality.  In the emotional realm it makes sense that once again the idea of attachment and aversion is where the suffering lies.  Attached to “good” feelings and afraid of “bad” feelings – there is also an unconscious awareness of the pain embedded in the pleasure.  True freedom is acceptance, but that is not a Pollyanna-ish idea.  Acceptance includes everything.  Leave anything out and it is not acceptance.

These spiritual “basics” are bandied about frequently in my world.  The basics don’t change but my relationship to them and understanding of them does continue to deepen and expand.  Contemplation and experience, rinse and repeat.  The cycle becomes a spiral…unwinding towards understanding, and then acceptance.

There was a time when I mourned my lover’s death while he was alive.  Deeply entwined in a long term relationship I feared its ending – and sometimes felt I should leave before he left me or died.  I imagine this is not an uncommon way to react to intimacy and love.  If I push it away then i can save myself from the pain of loss.  Well – that is a losing game!  It is not win-win, it is lose-lose.  Perhaps it is easier to avoid intimacy and love altogether, and so avoid the pain of loss.  Pondering that it is easy to see that life then collapses into pain, loneliness and depression.  There is no the easy way out.

So, what is the way out?  My experience is this – the way out is through.  Through the pain, through the difficult emotions, through the grief and through the loss.  Remembering all those I have loved and lost, the grief remains but the love, wow, the love was so good.  My life was so enriched by the loss, by the love and continues to be enriched with the memories.  Happy, happy memories.  Ironically it seems that happiness is easier to remember than pain.  Is that true for you, too?

Emotions are tricky turf.  Our coping mechanisms and addictions seem to be born from the desire and need to suppress what we are afraid to feel.  The British culture was molded from the idea of “stiff upper lip” which is shorthand for “show no emotion”.  What happens to feelings that want to be felt but aren’t?  Where do they go?  One theory is that they turn into themselves and cause disease (dis-ease, duh). I see the possibility here.  The psychiatric diseases are clearly seen as suppressed emotion and energy.

How, then do we feel emotions?  It takes so much courage to let the painful feelings be felt and pass through.  The more deeply and completely they are felt, the more quickly they pass through, at least that’s true for me.  I consider this process to be the sacred fire, as the allowing of intense emotion seems to burn something – and there is a purification that completes when a feeling is fully felt.

A wise person once said to me “Every feeling fully felt leads to love”.  I have experienced the truth of this – the complete and utter bliss that lies on the other side of grief.  The Tibetan Buddhists belief is that we have the possibility to attain a “rainbow body” – and the process of burning off all that is not true, all this is not love, leads to this illumined state.  Bring it on!

 

Creativity….a radical choice

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Joy, delight, laughter, friendliness, fun — the results of an optimistic and positive outlook…are we born this way or can we nurture optimism? Some imagine it to be biochemical, and while the surfeit of pharmaceutical remedies is mind-boggling as well as mind altering…prividng temporary relief…what is actually needed is something more durable and long lasting.  I’m not necessarily advocating ditching the pills – but to encourage the search for true solutions – to reach deeper and find out what is really holding you back from joy, back from living fully, back from your heart’s desire…

A wise person said “creativity is the antidote to depression”.  Depression is a lack of engagement, it contains apathy, hopelessness and despair.  Creativity means engaging with the universe with energy, excitement and open ended possibilities.  If it’s true that insanity is repeating the same action hoping for different results, then creativity is the antidote for that, too.  For in the act of creation there is no “same” action – by definition it means new and different.  Creativity is the powerful force of this world – artistic creation culminating in manifestation as a result of intention and action.

Sometimes inspiration comes  with complete clarity.  Bells clanging, trumpets blaring –  I know exactly what I want to create, and along with inspiration comes energy – lots of energy.  I recently reminded myself that by relaxing and taking a vacation, my energy is renewed and refreshed and clarity comes in a bit of a whisper, instead of a roar.  And still the information penetrates and opens, like the thousand petalled lotus, the world unfolds in unexpectedly magical ways, guiding me along to places I didn’t know were available to me.

Creativity isn’t just for artists.  Engaging with life in a creative way is possible in each moment.  Sitting  on a park bench, observing the flow of humanity it strikes me how much individual creativity has gone into each person’s creating of themselves – even the simple act of choosing a set of clothes for the day has an impact on how life unfolds.  Who doesn’t love putting on a pair of flip flops for the feeling of “life’s a beach”… or wearing something elegant and special for that kind of event.

Judgement is the death of creativity – it can stop us in our tracks – subvert the process and send us spiraling back down where we came from.  Learning to kick judgement to the curb is an important step in fully engaging in the creative process.  Unleashing our heart’s capacity to groove gets easier and easier – like a flower unfolding or a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.  Gazing outward with an attitude of gratitude is more powerful than even one teeny tiny criticism – which can completely deflate the unprepared and make a dent in the joy of creation.  Disregarding all those impulses is great practice for any activity of life – courage is the act of defying all contraindications and boldly stepping forth to our own personal calling.  Summon courage!  It gets easier and easier, and sometimes the outer world reflects positively on our creations and sometimes it doesn’t – but letting go of the need for the world’s approbation is true freedom.  Spread your wings and fly!

Everyone has talent – it is not reserved for a special few.  Sure, most of us will never shred on a guitar like Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton and we may not paint like Van Gogh, but the value of our own participation in creation is immense.  Recognizing our calling to create, beneath the insecurities, the timidity and the fear lies pure joy.  Imagine yourself as a 3 year old coloring outside the lines – bring laughter and enjoyment along for the ride and start experimenting with your own special magic.  Everything is art – making a cup of chai, potting a petunia, rearranging the furniture – all these simple everyday acts can engage our creativity.  Oh yeah!

 

Trust

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Trust the Divine – surrender – accept – go with the flow – be grateful for what is received…

Many guides and teachers (including me)  have spoken these words as an offering of wise counsel.  I’m more than ever aware of the underlying fear that holds me  back from the complete expansion and trust that I seek.  The most common worries seem to be about money, health and relationship.  Worthy worries! Living in the present moment and constantly referring back to the feeling of trust means to me that I need to “go deeper”.  Deeper into myself, into the place that thoughts originate. Sometimes called the “true self” or just “the self” finding out where thoughts originate is quite an enjoyable inquiry.  Then comes the next level which in my opinion is to recognize the witness – the thoughts originate somewhere but it is “me” that is witnessing those thoughts.  I suggest that refraining from overthinking this one, which is quite a bit more important to awakening than it seems at first glance.  It comes to mind that there is an internal voice that is “thinking” thoughts, and there is the awareness that is listening to those thoughts.  Which one is “you”?

Relaxing into fear sounds like a paradox.  I start my session with a question – or an intention.  I sit up with a straight spine and begin to breathe deeply, and close my eyes. As the walls begin to crumble in my mind  I watch the time  pass while I continue breathing and relaxing.  I become aware of the depth of feeling that is opening and expanding inside.  Its a lot like diving in the ocean where what matters is breath and presence.  Then I pause to look around and settle in to wait for a kind of psychological unravelling to begin.  I have experienced this as descending down a rope, into a chasm, down down down, always referring back to my question or intention.  What is here for me?  What can I learn that will help me on my life’s journey?  What is the next step I need to take towards healing my heart, healing my body or healing my mind.

This is the purpose of meditation – to wait for the insight and guidance that resides within.  To reaffirm my commitment to learning what love is, what service is and what healing is.  Om namah Shivaya… I bow to the Creator, who also destroys.  I ponder the paradox and see the magic that has always been there, the droplets of grace that have brightened my day…

 

Crisis = Opportunity

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Life as a human is confounding, demanding, intensely challenging and ultimately a complete mystery.  It doesn’t matter how many drops of wisdom have rained upon my head, there are simply always ways to get it wrong.  To be messy.  To trigger and be triggered by others actions.  To be misunderstood.  To lose track of how to do it right – if there really is any doing it right!  Or perhaps we just keep picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off and trying again.  That seems to be a more realistic way to understand life and  how it actually works.  The never ending challenges that are presented as the pilgrimage, the path, life itself – are ways we grow and learn and simply experience.

How do we reach for humility?  Or does it sometimes just come and slam us to the ground, in an unexpected moment? Is there hope of perfection?  It’s possible that humility is the complete realization that perfection is unattainable…that our foibles are part of us, that finding others whose quirks and crazinesses coincide and resonate with ours is the most effective way to enjoy ourselves. Even then, the stumbling blocks just keep coming.  They trip us, we fall, sometimes break a bone, or sprain an ankle, other times just pick ourselves up and continue on.   Perhaps we dance to reggae music all day just to scare the blues away.  The so-called higher path would have us see each stumbling block as a gift as a messenger as an opportunity.  What gold is the dragon guarding? The dragon of course symbolizing the challenge.  A tangible result of living in humility is to see everything as a gift from the divine – and to be able to genuinely ask the question “how is this situation helping me be the person I strive to be” and fully facing that recognition with confidence in its positive outcome.

I once tripped over a broken concrete slab, fell to my knees and was unable to walk for about 5 years.  Walking was then (and still is) one of my favorite activities.  It seemed possible that my injuries would require me to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life. This seemed unimaginably painful, truly agonizing and utterly terrifying.  I sobbed, I wept, I sat around a lot and gained a lot of weight.  Yikes!  Then, somehow a miracle occurred and a talented physical therapist tweaked my knee back into place so that true healing was catalyzed.  Today I can go days without any pain at all and walk miles in the sand.  I am so grateful for each step, each stroll, each meander – so much more grateful than if the possibility hadn’t gone missing.

It is also humbling to find a close friend or companion preferring the company of another.  One of the most difficult life challenges to navigate is the loss of love, or the seeming loss of love.  And then, the resistance to it actually drives it farther away.  All the teachings about acceptance and surrender are called upon to no avail.  It’s hard not to feel forsaken again, alone – not friendless but without that special friend or soul mate.  Humility and love say – celebrate your friend’s happiness with their new friend.   The demon ego says all kinds of other unhelpful things, which I’d rather not repeat.  Often anger arises – which is of course masking the deep pain of loneliness and rejection.  And yet, what if we are never actually being rejected. What if the universe is giving us exactly what we want and need, but we have a lag time in recognizing that.  In that lag time, humility comes in handy to keep us balanced and joyous.  Saying thank you to everything is truly the path of love.

And yet – as we are continually evolving, ever-changing ephemeral beings made from a lot of empty space with some molecules floating around in it (!) perhaps change really is always good.  My inner Pollyanna knows this – it is one of the superpower wisdom bits of life.  See challenges as opportunities.  The Chinese character for change also means opportunity.  Emptiness leaves room for something new to arise.  Looking back at my own life, and its stages, when one person leaves, another arrives, or another dozen arrive.  Net gain, for sure. Being able to find this truth in the harder moments is another benefit of humility, which in my opinion means living in acceptance and surrender to the conditions of this moment.  The truly deeply unbelievably profound mystery of manifestation and life seems to demand a recognition of its magnitude.  In Sanskrit it’s “Jai Ma” – or “Celebrate the Mother of Us All”… It’s not humility if it doesn’t feel fantastic!

 

 

Nurturing Grace

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Grace is the flower, the fragrance the sunlight of life.  How can we tend the thoughts in our head in order to create a fertile field that nurtures grace?

I recommend a simple experiment.  Imagine a scenario – play it out in your head from start to finish.  It can be something simple, as long as there is a desired outcome.  Here’s a possibility – you’re in line at the grocery store.  You’re in a hurry and the person in front of you is taking a long time unloading their cart.  What do you do?   One option is to get mad, frustrated, tap your toes, sigh loudly expressing frustration.  Imagine that fully.  What do you suppose that is creating in the general area?  Are others supportive or possibly disgusted at your behavior?  Ponder this.  Then, imagine the opposite.  You move up and lend a hand, helping unload the cart, and in this process discover that the person you’re helping is actually handicapped, and only has use of one arm.  Oops, in the other scenario that was overlooked, as selfish priorities completely took over.  The minute that kindness and gratitude were introduced there was a complete paradigm shift and in this instant you are living in the world as you truly wish it to be.

Now, extend this outward.  During the day the “attitude of gratitude” has an effect on others around you and a deep effect on yourself. It sounds so simple but doesn’t always prove to be easy to maintain.  It’s a work in progress!

Then there’s grace.  Is grace accidental?  Is it completely random, or is there a way we can create fertile ground for grace?  If there is, then gratitude is the bedrock, the compost, the essential nutrient for grace.  Despite circumstances, despite everything, we can be grateful and in that very feeling is opening to grace that makes life worth living.  Sometimes it seems to evade us – where does it go?  In this interactive life there are definitely ways to invite back the honored guest and offer her the seat at the head of the table.  Most religious and spiritual teachings are about this – how to nurture grace.  The ten commandments of Christianity, the Eightfold path of Buddhism, the 8 arms of Yoga… all are profound wisdom, distilled to bring the most benefit to our lives.

Once again, as in all true teachings there is no reason to just believe them, they are all possible to confirm through personal exploration and experience.  Give gratitude a try, make a charitable donation or help a person or animal in need.  The reward for selfless service (called Seva in sanskrit) is immeasurable grace.  Perhaps sainthood is elusive in this life, but living in the light of love, well that is a worthy goal.  Each step taken has the option of moving towards love or away from it.  Choosing mindfully, with conscious awareness means paying close attention, bringing awareness back over and over to the simple truths that belie their power.

It is a hard won realization for me that when I’m struggling and heading towards suffering, the best thing to do is find somebody who needs help more than I do.  That’s not hard to do in this world, there are so many down and out, or handicapped in ways I’m not or injured, or…..well the possibilities are endless.  During one of the hardest time of my life I was living in Hawaii (hmmmm) and would just get in the car and ask the universe to guide me to someone I could help.  Then it turned out that they were everywhere – the sufferers.  I know I can’t help everyone, but supporting just one person or animal is important to that one.  Making a positive difference in life – that to me is truly meaningful.  Go for it!

Determination revisited – the Hero’s Journey

Leana Lovejoy2 Comments

This is a hot topic for me right now.  What has made the difference in my successes and completions?  What has provided the fuel for those endeavors?  Some contemplation led me to this realization:  The most important factor in success, the very most important ingredient is ….. (drumroll, please)  self-love.

For us to believe in ourselves, we do need to love our very own self.  Unconditionally.  Absolutely.  Completely.  Believe in ourselves, nurture ourselves and trust our own guidance and intuition.  Self-trust is born of self love, just as trust of other is born of love.

If I love myself, I’ll follow through on healthy eating, regular exercise and self care.  I can’t put the cart before the horse, that is the piece called will or discipline, which can be inflicted in various ways upon ourselves but isn’t successful in the long run. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that discipline, as in the military, creates defeat, since the will or commitment comes from outside influences, not our own desires, stirring from the cauldron of self love.

How do we nurture this all-important self love?  That sounds so easy, but as part of the game of life it seems many of us were implanted with a bug that creates havoc in our operating system.  This “bug” has created self-doubt, shame and guilt.  These low vibration emotions can defeat us – they render us incapable of self care, of taking powerful steps in the right direction and are self-limiting.

Learning to love ourselves from the inside is a hero’s journey.  It’s a full time job, it’s the Big Work.  Don’t delay, just take a step or two in the direction of self love, as often as you can.  Become your own cheering section – find reasons to believe in your own worth.  It’s really a matter of realization, awareness and choice.  How do you treat the people and animals in your life that you love?  How can  you give yourself some of that same loving care, in your mind and in your actions?  How are ways self love might express?  This takes some mighty pondering!  Ponder away, the benefits are fantastic.

The successful times of my life have had this important thing in common – I believed in myself.  I used to think this way:  “if it’s possible for a human to do it, I can do it”… taking into account my own limitations, of course, but applying that thought and confidence to a potential outcome, I always experienced success.  We believe in the ones we love (including ourselves).  This applies once again to  the “law of attraction” – a  principle that states that when we are in alignment with our goal then we can achieve it.

Here’s a possible affirmation:  In this moment, I choose to love myself.  I love my life, I love my little ways and foibles and I am completely confident of my success in whatever I choose to do. And if I do fail, I will learn as much as I can from that failure, pick myself up, dust myself off and try again.   I release all shame and guilt and recognize myself as a piece of perfection, an integral part of the Great Mystery – a beloved being, perfect in my own eyes, the only ones that really matter….And so it is!

Everyday Angels

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angels… are they cherubic little beings that can fly? White robed celestial blondes with halos?  Or are they just like us, only waiting for an opportunity to serve in a time of need?

I have had several extraordinary encounters that poke a little fun at the idea of the haloed image and show a different side to this idea.  Here are a couple of stories I hope you enjoy.

I was fixing up a little cottage to rent to some friends who needed a home.  I decided to install a bamboo floor, and being a die hard “do-it-yourself”er I was on my hands and knees laying the floor with the help of a couple of friends.  The project was humming along, but we were all tiring out and there was still a fair bit of floor to nail down.  The friends called, their moving truck was on its way – we only had a couple of hours before they arrived, eager to unpack and settle for the night.

Both my helpers had given up in sheer exhaustion.  I too took a short break, but since it was my responsibility I said a short prayer to the universe for help – I needed angels to assist me, since my helpers just couldn’t do any more.  Then I got up and returned to the cottage.

Shortly after I arrived back to the cottage there came a knock at the door.  I opened it to find two men – the movers – who had arrived a couple of hours early.  They were both wearing “Los Angeles” baseball caps (yes, a sports team, but I don’t remember which one).  Most of you know that translates to “The Angels”.  They looked inside at the floor, and asked if they could help – they were experienced at laying floors and got right to it!  We were finished in no time, their work was extremely high quality, apparently they were actual craftsmen.  Such an excellent cosmic joke and is there a deeper meaning?  You know I think so!

and, while I”m at it, one more story that actually happened to me –

I was holding a plant sale (among other things I’m a nurserywoman and hold occasional plant sales at my farm).  My signs for the highway – sandwich boards, actually – were all worn out and I needed new ones.  I’m not a sign painter but thought I might find someone who could do a good job, time was running out!  I went to the hardware store and bought some plywood and hinges to make the signs.  I was sitting in my little truck in the parking lot, getting ready to leave for home when a man knocked on the window.  I rolled it down (it was an old truck, no electric windows!) and looked up to see a man handing me a business card.  “Do you need a sign made” he asked me.  WHAAAAAAAAT?  Are you kidding?  I really said that!  After a short conversation it seemed that he was actually a professional sign maker.  I told him what I needed, gave him a small down payment and went home, wondering it I had been conned.

Sure enough, right on time, as agreed, he called and met me in town and he had created perfect signs for my sale.

Next time I need a sign, I know where to go!