Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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respect your life

January 30, 2023

At the risk of fully enraging my husband who just wants light and easy stuff to stay light and easy, I am about to ruin a perfectly good raunchy comedy by extracting from it a luscious bit of wisdom. Please join me in this meanness.

A couple of weeks ago, Handsome and I indulged in some vegetative relaxation by re-watching some old comedies. Among them was The Change Up starring Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds. If you haven’t seen it, the premise is this: Two life long best friends, now adults but leading very different lives, are suffering from respective versions of burnout. To remedy their angst, they hit the town for a night of revelry which culminates in them both urinating in a public fountain. While peeing side by side in the fountain, they make a wish simultaneously, I think just as lightning strikes? Or maybe it’s just at the stroke of midnight. Either way, their mutual wish, uncoordinated, is to have each other’s life.

Bam! Their mutual wish is granted, and the hilarious, predictable chaos ensues. Jason Bateman’s middle class, somewhat-happily married-with-children, upwardly mobile-white-collar-career, suburbian lifestyle is swapped with Ryan Reynold’s scruffy, ill mannered, sad-bachelor, rarely sober, disconnected-from-his-father, free wheeling, barely-surviving-but-also-very-free-and-promiscuous lifestyle. The connective tissue between them is the married guy’s house and wife. The men both float in and out of the domestic scene freely, and the wife, unaware that her husband and her husband’s best friend have switched bodies, well, it’s all so cringey. Lots of fun.

Here’s where I ruin the fun by extracting a message.

Somewhere past the middle point of the escapade, deep in the predictable and hilarious parts where each man is really sinking into the newness and novelty of his best friend’s exotic and unfamiliar, supposedly much craved lifestyle, one of them admonishes the other for not appreciating his life more. I can’t remember which one says it and at exactly what moment, but I think he says, “Respect your life, man!”

Respect your life.

Everyone in the world is susceptible to burnout, no matter how their life looks from the outside.

Most people will at some point wish for a different reality. It’s a normal and common human phenomenon. This shows imaginative pliability and an openness to growth, as long as we can avoid the sticky territory of envy and bitterness.

Respect your life.

This message was well timed for me. Every single day since we watched that movie, the phrase has hung in the air. I have felt more inspired to see the uniqueness of my days, the particular opportunities I have, and the weirdly beautiful custom fit between my talents, my responsibilities, and the needs I can perceive around me. Such a fast acting antidote to any comparison traps.

I have also tried to step outside of myself and see what I might be forgetting to notice, by viewing my life briefly as an outsider. That ones takes some effort, and who knows how effective it really is? But it’s a fun exercise. It invites me to dive more deeply into everything, and I love that feeling.

Respect your life.

Maybe you are familiar with the modern parable of the room full of crosses: A man issues a litany of complaints to God, that the cross he has been carrying in life is too big, too heavy, too cumbersome, too splintery. He is exhausted and wonders why everyone else has such lightweight, smooth, manageable crosses to bear. So God offers him a chance to exchange crosses. He ushers the man into a large room filled with hundreds of other crosses of varying sizes, materials, weights, and apparent difficulties. There are mammoth sized crosses that must have required the strength of armies. Ones made of rusted iron and spikes and ones so rough and shifting they were barely in one piece. Every option looked brutal and beyond his scope. The man scans his options, evaluating the various burdens carefully, and eventually chooses one. He finds a smaller one, a cross he can lift with a moderate effort, one shaped to his back and shoulders perfectly. It’s not smooth, but his shirt protects him just fine. He thanks God for the opportunity to trade down on his burden. God smiles and reveals that the cross he selected was the same one he had been carrying all along, that in His infinite wisdom, God had always known it was exactly what the man could bear safely.

Respect your life.

((Klaus tempting me with soccer on a snowy day))

If you feel weary of your life burdens, how could you reframe your thoughts about them, to know all over again, deep down, that you are not just capable of carrying them, but maybe destined to? That certainly you are the perfect person for the task?

If you are noticing the beauty in someone else’s life and quietly wishing it was yours, how could you remind yourself of the pain they might be hiding, of the sacrifices and responsibilities that come with their outward success? Better yet, how could you reinvigorate appreciation for the beauty in your own life?

I believe pretty deeply that the life situations into which we are born and the uniqueness with which we are each created are exactly the magic raw materials each of us needs to slowly and deliberately imagine, form, and refine a living masterpiece. Wishing for someone else’s life not only invites burdens we might now be able to handle; it also leaves our unique offerings on the table.

Respect your life.

And watch a lightweight comedy with me at your own peril. : )

“Be yourself.
Everyone else is already taken.”

~Oscar Wilde
XOXOXO

2 Comments
Filed Under: thinky stuff, UncategorizedTagged: carpe diem, choose joy, gratitude, love, wisdom

adieu to the queen of hearts

January 12, 2023

She was our brush with royalty.

((Little Lady Marigold, January, 2023))

She was diminutive, self assured and confident, fast as a cheetah, and studious. She was picky about who could touch her and gluttonous about food. I once couldn’t find her and thought she had liberated herself (again) from Retirement Village but found her buried, head first, inside her paddock’s enormous round bale of hay. She had burrowed into it by eating! She literally ate her way, all the way, to the center, and I just respect that so much. When she heard me calling, she casually backed out and popped her happy little head into the sunshine, all matted with hay, still chewing, and she looked at me. Nonplussed.

She hated being sheared but allowed it. Maybe she was smart enough to understand the relief that would come with a freshly shorn body, mid-summer. And her body was small! Startlingly petite without all that wool. She also hated fireworks but seemed to gather near to a bonfire.

She knew Klaus apart from all visiting dogs but still gave him a gentle little Stick Leg Treatment when he was being spicy. She knew to hide behind the legs of the tall bachelors, perhaps thinking her round little body was invisible, but most likely not caring, just calculating her next sprint around the back field.

Her name was Marigold because the day she came to live here, in June of 2020, was the first day that our French marigolds bloomed that year. Little Lady because, well because that’s what she was.

Her eyes were domed, always glassy and clear, with perfectly straight, slotted pupils. She had an honest, private gaze. She had hooves like little high heels and intense little legs. Solid black. And she chewed with a slight sideways grind that frequently made me hungry. After a long while and many pep talks, we got her to wear a little yellow halter, just to make capturing that much simpler, and I loved how it looked on her, with her floofy gray and white wool exploding in great clouds all around it. The day she got sick I removed her halter to make her as absolutely as comfortable as possible and it left a slight indentation in her face hairs. She let me massage it and sing Norwegian Wood.

She had triangle ears, soft and black and attentive to every sound. She was fond of sitting out in the sun or out in the moonglow, often staring downhill. She was impervious to snow. Her pasture mate, Romulus, is equally stout and contemplative, so they made a great match. The day she died, he watched over her and observed her removal solemnly. He lost all protectiveness. His guard had fully dropped.

*reigning queen of kicking rambunctious puppies*

Little Lady Marigold was a Suffolk sheep, a stunning fifteen years old this year. She was vivacious and low maintenance in all conditions. She ate well and drank well too, as evidenced by the little rainbow sheen her lanolin fleece left on the surface of her drinking water. We never knew her to be sick or even slow moving, not once, not until this week.

This Monday morning when LLM would normally be bleating and running left and right along the red steel gate for her breakfast happy to tell Romulus she was first today, she was downhill instead, and quiet. She was standing upright but would not come to me. I took a deep breath and said a prayer, heavy with that familiar sensation of this is bad. She let me approach and hold her but would not eat. Her breathing was a little challenged, a little shallow, and she just seemed… sad. She had lost all of her bounce. Gradually she walked around more, and I was too encouraged by that. She sought the sun on her face. She napped. She sipped water. And she hid herself away in her shelter.

The next two days were quiet for our regal little woman, and the gentle January weather was a blessing. It made it easier for me to make sure she was dry and softly bedded down, surrounded by eating and drinking options. I stayed with her most of those two days, only touching her when she said ok. My husband started her on a round of penicillin just in case she had a respiratory illness, but deep down we already felt she was just dying gently. Our friend and mentor, Maribeth, who was Marigold’s first farm mom, reminded me of LLM’s age and how very far past life expectancy she already was when she came to the Lazy W.

Early Wednesday morning, we discovered that Marigold had passed in her sleep. She was never in acute distress as far as we could tell, and she had curled herself up neatly, hopefully feeling safe and cozy and loved. Gosh she was loved. We wrapped her in two floral bedsheets and buried her gently, in that meadow behind the yurt. We gather there frequently to pray and be reflective, so she will be near lots of loving energy forever. I plan to grow a thick patch of French marigolds for her there, and BW has designated a gorgeous old tree stump as her grave marker.

Romulus and the other three bachelors watched from a distance, and Klaus stood with us. He got to say goodbye up close, and as he did so we gave thanks for Marigold teaching him how to gather and collect an animal safely. A shepherd, after all, he did this with her as needed, maybe a handful of times, and it was amazing. He was swift, gentle, and smart about it. She was an excellent teacher, and held a grudge of course, as was her right to do.

We already miss her so much. She was a singular presence here at the farm, a vibrant energy with an irreplaceable voice. If you have ever visited and heard Marigold “bleating” you know what I mean! It was a heavy handed, guttural sound that in no way matched her sweet appearance!

I would never have thought to myself, “You know what I want? An elderly Suffolk sheep!” But now I cannot imagine not having known her. Now, I see that she was gift, a beautiful, low, round, bossy, affectionate, introverted, brilliant little soul, and we will never forget her. I will also never stop giving thanks for her peaceful end, for the void of tragedy in her long, lovely life. She was a Lady, the Queen of Hearts.

If you grow some French marigolds this, year, please think of her.

“I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.”
xoxo

4 Comments
Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: animals, farm life, grief, little lady marigold, loss, love, memories, sheep

i love people who… (january edition)

January 6, 2023

I love people who continue to wish each other “Happy New Year!” several days past the big party. Keep it going!

I also love people who greet you for the first time since December and say, “Feels like we haven’t seen each other since last year!”

I love people who allow a few sparkly holiday decorations to linger through January, because we often need a little boost as winter persists. That said, I respect people who clean and scour their homes as soon as possible.

((Jess on Christmas morning, 2022))

I love people who openly share their resolutions and their big, bold life plans. I also love people who choose theme words for the new year and tell the stories behind those.

I also love people who laughingly reject the idea of “new year, new me” and instead chip quietly away at their goals, building their lives slowly and behind the scenes.

I love people who, within five minutes of packing away the last of their Christmas details, begin flipping through the earliest arriving garden catalogs.

I don’t know much about football, but I love lots of people who do, and this seems to be a key time of year for them. I love their excitement and seriousness.

I love people who don’t like winter much, so they busy themselves making plans for when warmth returns. They comb the internet for local events in April and beyond, and they talk about plans for summer vacation to keep their mind afloat. These people need extra cuddles and warm treats right now, and I am here for it.

I love people who are very good at hibernation, people who embrace the season. They make it into an artform with layered beds and cozy living rooms, perfect lighting, maybe a fireplace blazing and a stack of great books or a queue of movies. They wear lots of soft clothes and eat comfort foods and let their cats and dogs join the cuddle. They keep the kitchen stocked with everyone’s favorite snacks and winter meals. I love people who love staying home.

I also love people who remain active outdoors despite the weather. Either for work or for play, they layer up and face the cold and the wind. They feed themselves extra nutrients like egg yolks and soups and dark leafy greens, and they know the cold is good for them and the morning sun is too, no matter how pale and distant it seems.

((January 2014 snowfall and cold sunshine at the farm.))

I love people who take extra measures to keep our homes and our vehicles safe and running smoothly throughout winter. They check the antifreeze and oil and tire pressure, they eliminate drafty spots and clean the vents and make sure vulnerable plumbing is always protected during bad storms. They trim tree branches away from power lines. They stack firewood and fill propane tanks and make sure the bills are paid.

((night snow, moonglow, & flashlight path))

I love people who know when the next wintertime full moon is and what its Native American legend teaches. I love people who follow the season with the animals’ behaviors and with the gardens’ changes and who can estimate the return of spring.

Mostly, I love people. I love all kinds of various people who see the day for what it is and why it is unusual and special. I love people who know that seasons shift constantly, a little at a time, then all at once, overnight. I love people who don’t wish anything away ahead of its appointed time. I love people who live fully even when things are not precisely as they would have them.

I love people, and I love YOU.

What kinds of January people do you love?

XOXOXOXO

1 Comment
Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: carpe diem, choose joy, i love people who, wintertime

mid-December and definitely choosing JOY

December 16, 2022

Friends, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences with “toxic positivity.” Your comments on that blog entry and long exchanges on Facebook and Instagram have had my wheels turning all week. I am thankful to be surrounded by people who place a high value on authenticity as well as deliberate hopefulness, joyfulness, and faith.

((my first amaryllis are blooming!!))

The week before last week we were finishing up a fun little seasonal cold or flu or who knows what and scraped together enough energy to dive headfirst into Christmas. Our house had been decorated for a festive winter since right after Halloween, haha, including dried citrus garland everywhere, paperwhites potted up, and lots of plain evergreens with white lights; but as soon as the Thanksgiving feast was cleared away we surrendered it all to truly Christmas, and I have been adding fun stuff daily. Handsome surprised me one day while I was out running by adding the house lights and constructing our Santa sleigh, inflatables, you name it. Every year he does something new and festive, and I love it.

Christmas activities have kept us busy already, too.

Early in the month, with our friends Rex and Cathy, we tried a local fried chicken spot that was built in what used to be an actual feed store and lumber yard. In fact it was the first place we ever bought farm supplies when we moved here in 2007. After a delicious, greasy, filling meal the four of us watched the Harrah Christmas parade and let that really cement our holiday spirit. Then our three pups exchanged early gifts, ha! They are like children, no joke, ripping through wrapping paper and wrestling around the living room. Pure joy!

On a different morning, we took Klaus to our traditional Cowboy Christmas parade in Cowtown. We shivered and chattered our teeth and waved our cold, numb hands at all the heavily festooned float characters and “reindeer” horses, not to mention the state’s best Santa. Our friends from the Jedi OKC group had entered a float for the first time, and when everyone saw us they waved and screamed Klaus’ name, ha! So fun!

This past Sunday night we hosted a perfectly ridiculous Christmas party for friends, opting for a Griswold family vacation movie theme. Ha! I am married to the Clarkiest of Clark, after all. It was silly and lighthearted, a great release of tension for everyone in the midst of a busy season. Everyone brought delicious treats. We played a couple of dumb games. Old friends got caught up and new friends got acquainted. We even surprised the newlyweds in our friends’ group with a one month anniversary cake! They had eloped to Vegas exactly one month before the party, so it was perfect. High fives and big cheers for random, laughter filled parties that eschew tradition a little bit.

One weeknight after work we drove to Oklahoma City to hear Chloe, our oldest niece, play her violin. Her school orchestra has performed every December for several years, and it always sets the holiday tone for me. Our entire local family tries to attend all at once, and we take up a long row, usually right up front. I can hardly stand to think of one or two Christmases from now, when she will have graduated high school and there is no Christmas concert to enjoy. This year they were invited to play at the Oklahoma City University performing arts center, and they treated us to a nearly perfect rendition of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Stunning! We all had chills. Great job as always, Chloe!

On another night, Cathy, Jessica and I piled into my car to drive to the Community College to watch our youngest niece Kenzie dance a hip hop version of the Nutcracker. If you ever have a chance to see this, friends, secure your tickets and do not look back. How awe-inspiring to watch these talented young people dance their hearts out! And the hip hop was a great twist on a classic story. We loved it. As a bonus, the night we attended was narrated in full Spanish. I am actively relearning Spanish for Jess and Alex, so that was a fun challenge to keep up with what was being said!

As I write this, most of our gifts are wrapped, leaving only the stockings to be stuffed with treasure, plus some baking and a few easy gatherings still to enjoy. I am luxuriating in the freedom to slow down on weeknights and make fun plans for us on weekends, to enjoy the holiday season for all it offers. The fast, the slow, the loud and glittering and the soft spoken and cozy. I am staying home as much as possible, taking time every day to stay centered on the Nativity and really sink into the cold and the dark when it comes. It’s all a gift. And the invitation to be still and accept the gift has never pulsed more vividly.

Do you feel Christmas miracles brewing in the distance? I really do. I feel lots of them building steam to get here at their appointed times, so much so that the traditional gifts and cookies and music are just set dressing. Beautiful decorations for our spirit, to invite us to Enjoy. Rejoice. Choose Joy.

All of this goodness, all of this Soul Cake, already in our bellies, and today is only December 16th. We have so much December still to feast on!

More soon. Till then, happy December! I hope your are celebrating and carpe-ing every single diem to your heart’s content. I hope you are clinging to the miracles you need and crave. Here are a few Advent posts from last year, if you need them:

Choosing HOPE as a strategy

LOVE Week

Another post about HOPE for Advent

XOXOXOXO

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Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: advent, carpe diem, christmas, cjoose joy, family, farm life, memories

checking in on a dewy morning (and my lesson on toxic positivity)

December 6, 2022

Hello friends, and happy December! How was your Thanksgiving? How is your holiday spirit in general? How is the weather where you living out your life story?

((still rewilding the front field…xoxo))

Here at the farm we are enjoying dark, dewy nature walks and dense fog advisories, plus the luscious promise of more rain soon. We hosted a small, magical family Thanksgiving here, and our holiday spirits are high. From our nieces’ high school orchestra concerts and dance recitals to silly parties with friends and lots of simple weekly gatherings, we have more seasonal thrills and pleasures than we can count. I hope you do, too. I also hope that on the days your calendar is less full, you breathe deeply and rest. Soak up the nutrients of all those traditions and activities.

Do you have a moment for me to share a little lesson I learned recently?

Last week I ran across a simple passage about the value of letting people feel however they feel. Often I rail against charges of “toxic positivity” because, in my own experience, I have suffered greatly and fought hard for my outlook on life, so I see with unshakable clarity the fundamental and life-changing value of hope and optimism. For anyone to call me toxic because of that has so far felt hurtful and, ironically, umm, toxic? haha… A simple reminder shifted my perspective even on this: Denying anyone the space to fully experience their emotions, whatever they are, dehumanizes them.

OUCH. I would never consciously dehumanize another person, not even in an effort to help them. This was such a valuable redirection for me. Since reading this, I have noticed something beautiful. I am giving fewer pep talks to rescue people from sadness or despair, and I am spending much more time in private prayer. I ask for more miracles on their behalf but offer fewer bright sides and silver linings to gaze at. (Maybe I just offer encouragement to keep going.)

Many of those prayers are already being answered, and I know more answers are coming. I get to witness my loved ones enjoying not only better circumstances but also better outlooks, all on their own, without me possibly annoying them (or dehumanizing them) with the spiritual cheerleader bit.

Privately, of course, I am still free to maintain my own outlook and convictions. All by myself I know that life is good, that counting joys produces miracles, and that believing in Love means things tend to work out in our favor.

fog, lazy w, oklahoma, faith

Choosing to step back and allow others to feel their emotions fully and experience their days and perspectives means I get to do the same, whether anyone agrees with me or not. Seeing this also showed me that all along I may have had a grain of loneliness in my pep talks, something in my heart that needed someone “out there” to agree with me that things were going to be ok, in order to fully believe so myself. I guess that’s human. But now, it feels incredible to pray and believe in impossible things all by myself, with just that intense, private assurance that God is listening and acting behind the scenes. He has been all along. He has been showing me new and amazing power in my life story, and He is doing the same for my loved ones. Why would I deny anyone that beautiful adventure?

Advent 2021 post about LOVE

Advent 2021 post about JOY

A 2018 post about fractals

A different mustard seed parable than we grew up hearing

Count it All Joy

Witness Me

I want to be an encouragement but not a stumbling block, as they say. If you need me to pray and agree with you about a miracle you need, speak up. If you want a specific encouragement, let me know. Otherwise I will just be here, quietly knowing that things are going to work out. Probably in ways you have yet to imagine.

“Faith is the bird that feels the light
and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
~Rabindranath Tagore
XOXOXOXO

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Filed Under: UncategorizedTagged: advent, choose joy, encouragement, faith, love, miracles, toxic positivity

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Hi! I'm Marie. Welcome to the Lazy W. xoxo

Hi! I’m Marie. This is the Lazy W.

A hobby farming, book reading, coffee drinking, romance having, miles running girl in Oklahoma. Soaking up the particular beauty of every day. Blogging on the side. Welcome to the Lazy W!

I Believe Strongly in the Power of Gratitude & Joy Seeking

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"Edit your life freely and ruthlessly. It's your masterpiece after all." ~Nathan W. Morris

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