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Written in November 2004, in an internet café in Red Wing, Minnesota. |
In college I defined "success" as being able to always have orange juice, toilet paper and fresh flowers. My roommate at the time, Sharon, agreed and made it her duty to remind me of my philosophical statement at different times as we matured throughout our lives by purchasing these items for me or mentioning them in a birthday card. We are still great buddies, and I might add.both successful by my collegiate definition.
Janie, my traveling buddy, and I engaged in a "success" discussion one night as we sat in a quaint hotel. She asked me what I thought success was defined as. I shared with her my collegiate naiveté and she asked, "Do you mean buy the fresh flowers, or grow them in your garden?" That puts a whole new perspective on it, now doesn't it?
Maybe success is writing in an internet café while drinking Chai Tea Latte 'Flat'
(coffee snob language for 'No Foam', according to a dear friend of mine) and
eating African Peanut Curry soup while sitting amidst a mass of self-help books
and fabulous antique lamps that cost way more than I can afford.the lamps, not the
books. Kiss My Tiara, Every Woman Has A Story, Girlfriends Getaway, Always Kiss
Me Goodnight, Advanced Cinematherapy.The Girls Guide to Finding Happiness One
Movie at a Time..oh, now to this I can so relate! I'd Rather Laugh, All About
Me, and The Art of the Sports Car..huh????
The lamps, like the Blue Moon one, (the name of the café) are pricey. I've
always had a fascination for the moon, but not $175 worth. Maybe a picture will
do. Maybe next time I am here, they will be begging me to take it. It is lovely,
a tiffany glass blue shade and a heavy metal moon with a swinging star, watched
carefully by the angel below, cresting on the edge of the moon. But it would not
look lovely in just any house, just in mine I think. So, would I be successful if
I could buy it in a blink? I think the memory of finding it, and not buying it,
might be worthy of a successful experience too.
I have never had African Peanut Curry Soup. Maybe that is success.to keep finding something new to enjoy later in life. Having fresh flowers, toilet paper, orange juice and African Peanut Curry Soup. I have had all of these on this trip. I stayed at a Bed and Breakfast and was pampered.not only did I have the t.p. (ok, kind of a standard at a B & B), orange juice on a breakfast tray with fresh flowers - and that was before breakfast, but I had blueberry pie with whipped cream as the first course for breakfast. What a treat! It has been nice to be pampered. Is that success.being pampered?
Heading back home today with flowers, not from a garden, but from a florist (as this is November), red roses, opening slowly and delicately as is my new life. It is too cold to have the wild flowers from my garden, whatever we could scurry up from the last harvest is drying in baskets in the sunroom. And, is that success.was it a successful garden if it gave us life?
Perhaps it is not success that I have been trying to measure. Maybe I have it all wrong. Perhaps it is contentedness. The roses make me happy. I drink much less orange juice in these days of carbs and sugars. I must say that toilet paper still seems to be a somewhat successful purchase. If I am not successful, I choose to be contented. If one is content, is that not enough? Even before happiness, which is perhaps an intermittent extension of contentedness.
And, last but not least.can success or contentedness or happiness be a topic worth talking about if we do not evaluate our own inner self. Are we who we say we are? Are we doing what makes us happy? Do we strive for perfection because that is what is expected of us, or is it because that is what we expect of ourselves? So, here is a light example for this very heavy topic.. What makes you a successful quilter? Is it a perfect quilt or a perfectly finished quilt, or is it simply a finished quilt? I know where I fall! I just tell my quilt snob friends to get on a galloping horse and canter past that quilt.they'll never see the orange juice spot that I spilled on it while binding it.. in fact, it just might camouflage my work a bit.but it is done.
My dad did not measure success as I did. He measured it by example. He gave all that he had to those he loved, material items as well as values, the values of course being priceless. My family was fortunate to be able to be with my dad before he died. We had a chance to talk with him. I asked him if he knew how successful he was. I asked him if he knew the incredible value of the gifts he had given to us, his children. His every breath was an effort, every word a blessing for all of us. He slowly replied to me as he held my hand, "I didn't used to. I do now."
My dad was the most successful man I know. Perhaps true success manifests itself in something you cannot see.
Smiles to you,
"Mattie"
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