a dream

two -- or was it three? -- nights ago i had a dream
and recalled in VIVID detail
someone i had not seen

in a very long time

when i woke
i was shocked to find
it wasn't real

and also shocked at how my memory
had stored away in such minute detail
so many, tiny things the mind
captures in a moment's glance
about someone --
the color of their eyes, their inflection and tone, their way of moving,
their character -- their flesh

how fascinating, but more disturbing;
unsettling to relive such intricate detail
of a wasted memory, long spent

Weight Watchers

I told my kite story and related to my work with Weight Watchers tonight. It was my first meeting back after 3 wks out due to sick leave/surgery, etc.

I got an ovation!

In my nearly 3 years of being a motivational speaker/Leader with Weight Watchers I've gotten only a handful of ovations at the end of one of my speeches. Tonight.........was one of them.

I was in terrible low-grade pain in my face still - since the bones have not reset. I mean, I was crying in my car before the meeting. But put my 'game face' on and walked it, and was 'happy Cari'. And something worked, bc it connected with them bc I just put it all out there, and by the end some of them were crying, and 4 grown women came up and hugged me.

I came home and took a Valium.

lol.

I Made It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEZ9qJpdcdA

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Yesterday I flew an $8 kite in my backyard. It didn't come with string, so I had to find something in the house, and it needed a tail, so I had to make one. It was a delight trying to make it fly. And fly it did: very high.

There is something in a human being, or maybe just in me, that rejoices when flying a kite. There is something about when it goes up, and up, and up...that makes me deep-down happy. It connects with that thing in me that is always looking upward. That may have been the best $8 I have ever spent, and certainly the cheapest therapy.

It also occurred to me when it took a nose dive in the neighbor's yard that only optimists fly kites. It took some inventive creativity, a little time, and it didn't' go up right away. But the initial investment paid great dividends. My kite Flew. I didn't care what the neighbors thought, and I ignored Steve's incredulous looks while he mowed the lawn, or how it looked when the first string I found broke and my kite floated half-way into the neighboring corn-field and it took me a good 15 minutes of searching to retrieve it.

Flying my kite was a kind of special, private satisfaction that spread. Shortly after my kite was high above our house I saw another colorful kite ...appear ...across the way.

I had inspired someone else to fly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g89NxTTycxc