HAVE YOU HEARD THAT THE STURDIEST LIFE RAFTS ARE BUILT OF SELF RESPECTING HUMILITY?

 “Everyone has a life story—in fact, several versions of that story, all of which are true but might differ in detail or emphasis. ”

Excerpt From The Best of Us by Robyn Carr

Each chapter in this series of novels by Robyn Carr begins with a quote that speaks so clearly to my heartfelt belief in lasting love that I have to restrain myself from copying and pasting all of them to my posts.

Once I complete this series of interrelated novels concerning embracing the compassionate expansion of family life, my plan is to reread Yellow Raft in Blue Water—a story, written from three points of view, offering three different perspectives concerning the family life of three generations of Native American women (granddaughter, mother and last of all, the grandmother), whose shared and separate experiences (leading to harsh misjudgments), influence the development of their relationships.  And sadly, only the reader comes to know each woman as a whole. 

Generally, compassionate attitudes must be cultivated as if insults are weeds in need of plucking out by the main root of the cause of resentment if one’s Eden is to be made up of solidly grounded, perennial loved ones whose hearts feel so well tended as to naturally raise their faces toward the sun so as to burst into colorful bloom repeatedly once winter has come and gone, suggesting the mutually supportive resilience of true love through thick and thin—and like cats with nine lives, both partners sense need to forgive each other’s past transgressions so as to strive forward, together, toward thriving through life’s most difficult challenges shared with a partner whose essential kindness learns to grow toward gaining an expansive, more deeply perceptive perspective based in embracing a heartfelt sense of positive focus after shedding a thorny cloak of defensiveness, which had pierced one’s own vulnerabilities, most of all.

Who shall accept (not usurp) the role of leadership in your family with the grace inherent within humility and self respect so as to convincingly consecrate communal need to build a life raft sturdy enough for all to survive each ride through the rapids every time some aspect of life proves so turbulent as to threaten your love for each other with the panicked pointless notion of jumping ship thus leaping ever so blindly into the jaws of death with no sight of the support system longing to hoist you back onto the deck where the strong arms of emotional safety welcome your need to rest your wearied head until your underlying despair, having been correctly identified, named and tamed is no longer a subconscious tbreat empowered to sever your mind’s forever connection to your spirit’s well healed love of life.

Can you see why I yearn to relate the saga of our marriage once my unidentified resistance has been named and tamed?

Annie

Who could ever forget the outpouring of love after the untimely death of Diana …