BREAKING THANKFULNESS - Chapter 22: " I find it thrilling to discover that I have just awakened from what seemed a very long and less than cheerfilled sleep." Len

EARLIER CHAPTER: "I ran/run in life! Ready (again)! Fearless/afraid, hardworking/feckless, steaming/rolling/drolling but mostly clammouring for, and hoping for, more life-filled delights in/around/for me, me, me...this particular story has been about me."

HERE I GO AGAIN:  I am now 73+ years old and living into 2017 just fine...well, mostly.  Do you want to read this?  Hear this?  No matter, I will tell you anyway:  I've had another break-through.  It is true. I have not quite passed from my youth, my midlife crisis and into my viejo-hood...at least, not in my mind I have not.  I find it thrilling to discover that I have just awakened from what seemed a very long and less than cheerfilled sleep.  I think I've drifed away from the deepest part of me for well over a decade.  Who knew?  Not me.  Not me until a couple of weeks ago when I discovered every kind of passion lurking inside of my "being" and my body and my soul.  

My renewed passion for living and loving came as a shock to me.  Afterall, I am 73+ and I wasn't expecting to leap into the starting blocks of newness again. I didn't know I was going to leap out of bed, consider a proper diet and be extra enthusiastic about life again!  I will soon be going to the GYM again (where I spent much of my earlier life trying to be attractive for other people).  This time, I realize the gym results are for ME! 

I went for a long walk to sort things out on Sunday.  It was a gorgeous day for me to stroll around alone in my little town.  "Hola Don Gringo" they greeted me! After about an hour I came to the tiny park at the entrance to San Miguel Dueñas (center of the universe as many know it to be, including me)...the extra fascinating thing about this pointed park (a road splits at its beginnings) is that the big statue of San Miguel the Archangel is held up high into the sky by huge/painted cement hands...not your everyday kinda display of greatness and the holy...but here he is...our patron, our pal is being "glad-handed"...heavenly!

I think I have always been graced/blessed/touched/whatevered with an extra keen ability to sore high up into the sky without moving...I have always, since childhood, thought of God as everything and everyone around me...first my God loves me when I drink cold water on a hot day.  A very big high for me. Then God smothers me with joy when a dog passes my way...I am gifted by the divine with every zesty emotion that includes wanting to make love to the volcanos I see around me (there are three, what kind of love would that be?). I love loving people too.

How could this be?  How could my custom and fresh appreciation and lust for life be happening to me?  I am 73! I think I know. I have been stimulated by powers and people outside of me...I love to appreciate life and them deeply! I thought deep love had died away and been withdrawn from me.  No, I think it, love, will just be behaving differently...maybe. 

I accept my reality and I hope to live another ten years+ and paint with my heart, my delight with everything around me and with the help of my two associates. My studio is at the foot of the Fuego Volcano and we are active, the volcano and me.  Guatemala IS another land of the free...it has freed me. I have been called upon to express my love for life and appreciate the lives of others around me - more freely...I don't intend to miss the next part of whatever it is that I need to do or be.

Vamos a ver (not so secretly),

Thanks for being here, I love you,

Len/Leonardo
Sacatepequez
Guatemala
Central America
February 20, 2017

I REFUSE TO DIE FROM THE OLD MAN GRUMPY DISEASE: Saying no, letting go, ignoring bigots, avoiding blowhards, distancing oneself from self-righteous ignoramouses, greedsters and thieves! Smile!

I woke up in the middle of the night.  I just didn't sorta drift in and out of a deep sleep...I almost lurched bolt upright.  Thankfully I was covered with five (out of six) dogs that were sleeping in my room...the fan was whirling, the window open and all was well.  I felt immediately happier, just the presence of my dog friends does that for me.  I love dogs and I love human beings too (mostly, but reserve right of refusal) but I get VERY tired of the nonsense I encounter from some walking around REAL people who seem to have lost all touch with  reality/sanity.  Reality and its companion of common sense.  Grumble, grumble. Grumbling is what older people do?  I don't want to end up with a terminal case of the Grumpy Disease! I think it is cureable, vamos a ver.

I think common sense must be a dying personal quality/trait or you get more or less of it as you get older.  It is either that or I have been running into much in the way of out-of-control sociopaths, cutestriving opportunists, dodge and bobbers plus a few greedsters, a handfull (or more) grown ups whose Mommies must have told them they could have whatever it is they wanted (instead of accepting a more humbling ¨no¨ means ¨no¨ or live with  ¨maybe¨). Or, maybe their Mommies slapped ém around too mucho...and always said NO...who knows, not me!  My Mommie was sweet, pretty and wholesome as emotionally wholesome people can be.   Ask anyone in my family, I lucked out!

Throwback Thursday, Me and my Mom!

Anyway, after a short English/Spanish conversation with my dogs I decided to ¨let go¨ with the annoyance I felt for selective-humanity.   I think I am fine as long as I keep to my longstanding rule to behave myself, keep an keen eye on the sometimes overly-clever-in-me, and accept the often screwy behavior of others (as long as it doesn't HARM others or me - no playing pretend that IT doesn't or won't if it does/will)...it wasn't a bad dream afterall. I just had a middle-of-the-night spiritualike wake up spot-check-call that almost immediately turned into gratitude just for ¨being¨ alive, now and before now, and of gladness for having such a full-run-full-up-mostly-good in my life.   You see, I am just now 71 years old (it came upon me suddenly).  I have had a colorful/action/creative-packed life and I come from a loving family (who ate Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding every Sunday afternoon - proof if ever there was!). I have been loved deeply by friends and lovers who are/were dear to me/forever and I am loved still (in spite of creeping grumpiness disease). I LOVE, I love, I love those around me both living and not anymore (friends far away and some whom I have never met but thanks to the internet know quite well).

Thanks be to God (who I visualize to be a powerful force way beyond infinity)

I am one very fortunate olderdude who is very blessed and I know it!

Now, it's time to go down to my studio and paint!

Have a great day (be nice, and I will try and be nice too),

Leonardo RIcardo
LeonardClarkBeardsley
(at the foot of the volcan de Fuego, Guatemala)