Random Thoughts While Simmering

On this official first day of autumn, I stood at the kitchen counter mixing meatballs and forming them in my hands, chopping onions and garlic, snipping herbs, adding crushed tomatoes to the sauteed seasonings, and stirring the rich sauce slowly as it began to simmer gently on the stove -- mindless tasks, which lend themselves to quiet reflection.  I thought I would share some of the random thoughts which passed through my mind as my hands prepared our Sunday supper.

No matter how deeply you love someone, you can’t make them love you if they don’t.

Think before you speak – hurtful words may be forgiven, but they will always be remembered by the person you hurt.

Be quick to forgive, but don’t feel guilty if you can’t forget. 

Children are our future -- more than anything else, they need our love, our attention, and our guidance.  Material things cannot begin to take the place of a parent's consistent presence.

Everyone looks at the world from a different perspective and interprets things differently, based on his own life experiences.   Don't ever presume to know what another is thinking. 

Life isn’t fair – there is a cute little quote that says if we all took our problems and put them in a basket, we would take our own problems back, or something like that.  I don’t believe it.  Everyone has problems, but some people seem to have many more than their share. 

Everyone handles grief and loss in a different way – don’t be judgmental of others as they grieve.  Listen to them and be kind, and remember that we never completely "get over" the loss of loved ones.  The grief just finds its way to a quiet little place in our hearts where it resides forever.

Try to treat everyone with kindness and respect.  Life is sometimes a circle, and the people we thought we would never see again come back into our lives at some point.  Better they remember us for our kindness than our antagonism. 

Sometimes we meet the right person at the wrong time, and there is nothing we can do about it.  We must resign ourselves to holding them in our hearts instead of our arms.

No matter how strong your opinion is on an issue, always be willing to listen to the views of others – this is how we evolve as individuals, and is the basis for compromise in the larger world.

When the stresses and pain of life engulf you, let the rhythms of nature soothe you -- sit by the water, sniff the flowers, listen to the birds, walk along the shoreline, find peace in the gentle rustling of the tall pines --