Shower Door Messages and the Key to the Good Life

This is the view through my shower door. Just what you wanted to see! You’re looking out to a window and a light to the right over the sink. The other day, I looked not through the door but at the door. I saw the word:

JOY

“Joy” written in shower drips. “Look again,” I said to myself. I saw:

HAPPY

I kid you not. I had to squinch my eyes to see “happy,” but it was there.

I’ve never seen words in shower drips before and have yet to find any since. I don’t know if my mind or eyes or heart or brain was playing tricks, but I’ll take those signs of joy and happiness.

This brings me to the finest TED Talk I’ve watched. It’s based on a 75 year Harvard study of life. Promise me you’ll watch to learn the secrets to joy and happiness, which perhaps you’ve known all along. Thank you, Robert Waldinger.

Just Over Yonder: A Poem for Menopause and Other Times Too

As I went through The Great Pause, I kept asking older women about it.

“Menopause? That was ages ago! I’ve forgotten,” they’d reply cheerfully.

Their responses were happy but not helpful.

But…

Their forgetfulness inspired me to start this blog, so I could encourage others.

Yes, menopause, among other maladies, can bring on gloom and self-doubt.

But raise a glass to the tincture of time!

Sometimes, it takes patience. Ya just gotta wait.

A new you is sprouting!

I wrote this poem for my friend June Cotner. June, who’s the editor  of thirty anthologies and counting, sends out a call for submissions and that gets the words spinning. “Just Over Yonder” will appear in BACK TO JOY: Little Reminders to Help Us Through Tough Times  (October, 2014 by Andrews McMeel Publishing). Pre-orders of Back to Joy are available now.