A Monday “Accident”

After a rush to get the kids off to school, I grabbed my diary off my bookshelf and rushed out of the front door in my white Converse.

 

I sat down at my corner spot at my local coffee shop, pulled out my notebook and turned to November.  Damn! Wrong notebook. Many years old.

 

I flipped through it and I looked at the words. 

 

List after list

Chest pains

Deadline after deadline 

Anxiety

 

Stress

More words

More deadlines

More stress

 

I recalled it all. 

 

I must tell you though, the coolest feeling in the entire world was as I realised that all that was in the past. 

 

…and that the crap we stress about today, will also just be old words and old memories in scruffy notebooks one day too. 

 

Shucks, that’s a lovely feeling! Don’t you think?

 

 

© Lee Mayimele

 

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Where we don’t know the origin of the pics used, all respect and due credit are hereby given where appropriate. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and A Heart Full of Stories with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All media rights and copyright for the words reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Kids (A reflection from a greying Mama’s Heart)

Dear Kids

Whilst no parent has all the answers and whilst this mama is constantly, still learning, know this for sure:

1. You are never alone
2. Travel is the best teacher
3. “No” is a good word. Use it often. It’s particularly lovely when there’s a dead silence and you offer no explanations
4. “Please” and “thank you” never goes out of fashion
5. Water heals. Oceans. Tears. 2 litres a day
6. You have a built-built in “people” radar. Please listen to its beep beep beep when something feels offish
7. Sleep is medicine
8. Play, play, play. Never stop playing
9. Less sugar, less screen time, more grass, more laughs
10. God is inside you and no one one has a special hotline that you need to go through
11. Betrayal is painful. Nothing can prepare you for that kick in the groin
12. Go out and explore. You can always come home to cry
13. Try and remember who you were before the world started pinning its labels on you
14. Your body is beautiful. Exactly as is. Explore it. Admire it. Treat it right and it will reward you so much
15. No one knows it all
16. Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you family
17. Believe in magic. Those who don’t, never find it
18. Your word is your honour. Do what you say you will. Always
19. A grateful heart is a magnet for miracles
20. Give freely. Of what you have. Of your time. And quietly please
21. No one likes a show-off
22. Learn to listen. To God’s voice in the early morning. To yourself. Certainly to people who you trust
23. Shortcuts never work
24. People will forget what you say but they will never forget how you made them FEEL. Be kind
25. Books, music, thunderstorms and tea are good for lonesome days when you need your mama
26. Abundance and prosperity are your birth right
27. Look beyond the labels of race and religion, gender and social standing. How people treat people from whom they need nothing is where you should focus your scoring and grading
28. Jealousy is when you count other people’s blessings instead of your own
29. Love does not need to hurt
30. Speak your truth. Even when your voice shakes
31. What sets your soul on fire? Go there
32. Learning is constant
33. Messing up is okay. Intentionally hurting someone never is
34. You teach people how to treat you
35. You may have one “true love” or many or even none. Remember that you are whole anyway
36. You have a story that only YOU can tell

 

xoxo

Mama

 

© Aluta continua, as they say.  A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

Feathers appear when ANGELS are near (A story about a lady cleaning my room)

I was sitting and writing in my hotel room, watching the bluest sea go up and down like digital musical notes while a lady who looked just like my late mother went about her business of cleaning my room.

 

I kept changing my position slightly in order to stare at her, wondering each time if she noticed. I was feeling naughty, bad, sad and weird all at the same time. It’s hard to explain.

 

I finally let up the espionage to take a walk along the beach.  She called back at me “Lady, you dropped something”.  It was a feather which I quickly picked up in a big red blush!

 

It was then that I felt this immense sense of Gratitude.

Gratitude for her presence,

Gratitude for the lesson,

Gratitude for way the dice landed placing me in a position to live the life I do,

Gratitude also for the luxury of being able to travel, write and tell YOU about the things that touch my heart.

 

I dreamed of days like this, I must tell you.

Days of random magic,

heart swells,

ocean air,

pink sunsets,

…and days when the old saying “feathers appear when angels are near” rings beautifully true.

 

I wish YOU days of “magic” too.

 

© Aluta continua, as they say.  A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Whilst we don’t know the origin of the pics used, all respect and due credit are hereby given where appropriate. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and A Heart Full of Stories with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All media rights and copyright for the words reserved.

 

Have you ever? (A deep and personal reflection on life revisited)

Have you ever listened to the rain falling?

Did the gentleness of drops tumbling get you poetic or did the sheer power of the storm remind you of your owns storms?

 

Have you ever felt like you’ve been kicked in the gut?

How did the breaking of your heart sound? Did it grind, wring and burn corners of your chest that you had long forgotten?

 

Have you ever received a gift?

A blessing out of the blue for which no amount of gratitude would be appropriate?

 

Have you ever been betrayed?

Did you stand in the doorway of broken trust and bleed as the shattered pieces of glass cut you as they fell?

 

Have you ever danced? Really danced?

Did the primal impulse to sway create waves of sexual energy that made you high?

 

Have you ever been needed?

Did you beam and melt, motivated and elated or did the knowledge turn on your need for control and power even more?

 

Have you ever traveled alone?

Did you have a partner with you who was not there in spirit? Did the vibrations of civilisations past call out your name and send you home changed  but on fire?

 

Have you ever blessed someone with prayer?

Did your heart send vibrations across tall walls and rough seas; intercessions seasoned with grand visualisations of success, prosperity, abundance to people who you dreamed great dreams for?

 

Have you ever watched a loved one hurt?

Did you feel hammers banging inside your chest and did the shivvering knees make you nauseas with helplessness?

 

Have you ever been touched?

Whether by the 80 year old hand of a stranger, rough with callouses but warm with unspoken stories about abuse, slavery, loved ones that have never returned? Or, was it simply a simple line from a simple song that charged your soul’s batteries and flooded your veins with warmth?

 

Have you ever been lost?

Were you lost in the forest of someone else’s shadow or perhaps lost in the company of familiar people dancing to a beat you could no longer hear?

 

Have you ever been silent?

Did the inner noise, tainted with memories and paranoia, make you doubt whether to trust the whispers emanating from your pulse asking you to be still and trust yourself.

 

Have you ever had a brush with God?

Did it happen when you were at the top of a beautiful mountain or did it happen when you came face to face with a hijacker?

 

Have you ever been an addict?

Did your drug of choice soothe you, own you, control you and lift you all at once? Did your alliance seem ubreakable?

 

Have you ever received a compliment?

A genuine string of words about who you are, not what you can give? Did it remind you of the value you create, the impact you have, the light that only you bring?

 

Have you ever looked your soul in the mirror?

Did your reflection smile lovingly, nod tenderly and embrace you with comforting words of encouragement?

 

Have you ever been seduced?

Did it help you to escape your bad reality only later to return you changed and unsure of the way forward?

 

Have you ever connected with another heart?

Did it feel predestined to happen? Did you go there?

 

Have you ever wanted a glimpse of your future?

Did you follow that need to seek guidance from soothsayers, Tarot cards, horoscopes perhaps? Anything that promised the slightest secret fast forward to a life more grand?

 

 

 

I bet you have! And, guess what? So have many spirits before you, many souls yet to come. These shared experiences give us the assurance that we are part of the same journey and that the “answers” we seek already exist. 

 

These experiences should also remind you that YOUR unique set of experiences, YOUR unique choices, YOUR bespoke combo of emotions is what makes YOUR story a story that deserves its own page in the great book of life.

 

May you learn to appreciate that. There is no story without YOU.

 

Believe it!

 

Lee-Ann Mayimele is Chief Storyteller at  A Heart Full of Stories ©, 2016.

Copyright: Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.