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Posts Tagged ‘randy hasper’

Get On Down The Road

Posted: February 18, 2014 in thriving
Tags: how to make progress in life, how to overcome difficulty, how to thrive in life, randy hasper, slogging along, we get there a ltttle bit at a time

Life can be a bit of a slog.

I counted my calories again today on my iPhone app, MyFitnessPal. My pal allows me 1620 per day. I treasure everyone of them.

My Healthy Choice Premium fudge bars were helpful in keeping the numbers down (100 calories), and my Laughing Cow cheese came to my rescue, (35) and my popsicles (20) and all my lovely veggie friends pitched in too.

I got a few calories added back to my account by going to the gym this morning. MyPal gave me 105 for that. She’s kind of stingy.

The water heater broke this morning. Perry Plumbing wanted $1275 for a new one — installed. Yikes! I went to Lowes. They wanted $1025 to put in a new one; so I bought one myself for $529, stuffed it in the back of my Juke, and brought it home. A plumber friend agreed to put it in tomorrow for $200. Cool!

It’s interesting how it goes along.

I have three pounds to go to reach my weight goal, and I have a few hundred dollars to go to restore the amount spent out of my savings.

Slog, slog slog; choose, choose, choose; lose, lose, lose; restore, restore, restore and you kind of get there.

I watched the cross country skiers at the Olympics recently. They plod, slog, plough, and thump along a lot, and they pound through the snow up hill for a long time. It’s a lot of the same thing, over and over.

And that is pretty much the way most of reality gets along, time and space and the whole merry continuum — hopping along one nanosecond after another, one fresh birthed star after another and one dandelion seed after another too.

By just this kind of cosmic stuttering, this rampantly boring echoing, this gonging metronomic inanity — the world gets on down the road.

And so do I.

By each good food choice my body is healthier. By each thing fixed at the house I don’t live in a ruin. By each weight lifted at the gym and each step run on the elliptical I ward off weakness and loss.

To keep going, to make healthy choices, to not spend all we make, to step, bite, lift, slide, spend, save, run and choose carefully — by just this kind of inane, brute, slogified redundancy, we live and thrive!

Orange and Blue, Very Bright!

Posted: February 9, 2014 in animals
Tags: a fable, a fable about animals, a fable Bout human and animal interaction. randy hasper, a modern fable, modern fables, randy hasper

Once a large-conked, great blue snock found a small-conked, slightly orange felid on a wall. The orange felid’s eyes were swollen shut.

The blue snock picked up the orange felid and snoozled it, just a bit.

The little one put her flanges back and let loose a snoganeme.

The blue snock promptly took the small creature home.

The snock put some theracleanse in the little ones eyes, washed her body, put her in a small flufenhouser, made her a little round-a-soft and left her alone to fuzzifify. She turned a deep orange and began to make a light woozling sound.

The next week the snock left the door to the flufenhouser open, and the orange creature came out on her own. The following week the little one sidled up to the big one and arched her buffenwack and the blue one rubbed her fuzzafur. The big snock turned a deep shade of blue.

That night they snuggled up on the riffen together, the little one curled up on the big one. They slept there through the nicheway, and by nuufenstar both glowed orange and blue, very bright.

The next day the felid brought the snock a massive purple whale.

Together, they thunked it.

To read more of my fables, please visit http://www.antifables.com

Steadying Himself Upon a Phrase

Posted: February 6, 2014 in family, god
Tags: dumb before the divine, how to survive old age, living by words, my father, randy hasper, steadying himself upon a phrase

I glanced down at the end table next to his soft chair which sat under a light in the corner. He picked up his magnifying glass from the top of the end table. I noticed a black cylinder lying there.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That’s my light,” he said. “I use it to see the clock,” and he pointed to the wall clock across the room.

With his magnifying glass he was now going through a stack of three by five note cards.

“Here it is,” he said, and handed me a laminated card. On it was written a quote, in his crabbed penmanship that I knew so well. He had given me cards like this when I was little, with verses penned on them, to memorize.

I kept them for years, until my car was stolen. The cards were in the glovebox.

I looked over at him; he wobbled just a bit, and then steadied himself by reaching out and touching the back of the chair. I glanced again at the end table. He had told me just this morning that he usually got up about 4 am, sat in this chair, went through his cards, mulling them over, memorizing the quotations written on them.

I could easily imagine him there with the dark all around him, sitting under his one light, his magnifying glass in one hand, his notecards in the other, peering into the words he had copied down, trying to take something from them.

This corner, this devotional bay, this small end table, the black satellite radio there on it, the stack of books, the cards, pens, notebooks, flashlight — this was his holy alcove, these his sainted relics, and he himself the living statuary within it.

I looked down at the card and read it.

“Lord, before the mystery of your dying I am silent dumb, I do not know what to say or do. All I can do is adore silently, without words, without even emotion. And yet Lord, I want to understand more deeply and love more fully. But somehow I am empty and drained of feeling. Accept then my dumb adoration and silent offering of my self for this is all I have to give.”

I looked back up to him.

There he was, my father — eighty-six years old, stricken with the shingles, missing his natural teeth, in need of a new pacemaker, tottering on the edge of the end, drained almost to the last dumb drop but doing what he has always done when he has been silent before the divine — he was reaching out and steadying himself upon a phrase.

A Continuous Seam; Ironed Smooth

Posted: February 4, 2014 in family
Tags: Hasper family love, heirloom love, Lois Hasper, randy hasper, the beauty of a loving mother, the Hasper family, what is passed down

“When I was little I never had a store boughten dress,” my mother said, “but my dresses were prettier than all the other little girls. My mother made all the dresses for my sisters and me, and she added little embroidered flowers, ruffles, gatherings and special touches to them all.”

My mom paused, and as if peering through the soft haze of many years, went on, “Your grandma had a hard childhood. Her dad died while she was an infant; her mom died when she was twelve years old. She was sent to live with an aunt but she was molested there and moved to another relative’s home. When she married my dad, he was thirty-six and she was eighteen. His wife had died and he had three little girls. That must have been a challenge for such a young mom.”

I looked at my mom. She was bent over her iron, eighty-six years old, beautifully dressed, at her work, making order, making beauty.

“Your grandma was a petite woman. She was very artistic,” mom said. ” She loved my sisters and brothers and me as children.” She paused and then looked over at me. “She was very artistic, you know.”

I looked at her and smiled, then at the wall where mom’s own paintings decorated her room. I looked back at my mom, ironing there in her beautifully furnished and decorated room, making her clothing, and my dad’s, into perfectly flat surfaces.

“I like my clothes ironed,” she said. “No wrinkles.”

I glanced behind her, into her walk-in closet. There was her perfectly arranged wardrobe — the fourteen purses on one shelf, the thirty pairs of shoes in cubicles, the fifty or more nit tops stacked neatly by season, the rows and rows of hanging jackets and pants and tops rich in color and lavish in texture.

“My mom loved her children,” mom went on. “She took really good care of all of us.” She stopped.

“Oh your dad tore his pants,” she said, and fussed over her work. “There is a little hole here,” and she pushed at it with her finger. Then she folded the pants along the seams and laid them in a drawer.

Driving home I from Los Angles that afternoon, I mused about my mom, Lois Hasper, a lovely woman. She learned some things from her mom, and she passed those on to her children, my brothers and I, and we passed them on to our children, and some of them are now passing these things on to their children. There is a photo in my mom’s room that caught my eye today. It is a picture of a great grandchild; she is in a pretty dress.

My mom tells me she is really old now, every time I see her, several times, “Your dad and I are really feeling our age now.”

She is old, but she is not done yet, and though she is tired, and ready to be done, she is even better in some ways now than ever before. I think she has softened in the last few years. Always gentle, she has become more gentle, and sometimes, with her short-term memory loss — which she told me again today, “is so frustrating” — she seems to me again a precious little girl, in a pretty dress, loved by her mom and her sisters, with rows and rows of beautiful dresses in the closet behind her.

What is it?

There on the ironing board, here in this quickly-passing lovely-fading world — there is a line, running through our family, a line passing from my grandma to my mother to me and to my brothers, a continuous seam upon which we have all folded our lives, a colorful edge, a loving row of stitches, a doubled fabric, ironed smooth.

It is love.

Dipping Deeply Into the Bottom of the Jar of Satisfaction

Posted: February 1, 2014 in gratitude
Tags: how to appreciate life, on being thankful, randy hasper, the definition of gratefulness, thriving, what we have

It’s evening.

I like it.

It’s grown dark, but my family is safely at home, and we seize the opportunity to dip to the very bottom of the jar of satisfaction.

If one of us were missing how terrible that would be, but we are not missing, and because of that we are not traumatized.

I am in my warm house; the heater is on; my family is hugging me.

I like the safe, warm, tingle in these cheek-to-cheek encounters, so very different from not being touched, so different from no warm skin-on-skin contact, so different from unsafe and cold and lonely.

We eat chicken stir fry. We have enough, and it fills us up, and it is so not like being hungry, not like the weak, tired, empty, gnawing pain of want and deprivation.

We are deep in the jar. We sigh a satisfaction. We lick our fingers.

I lie on the couch and watch TV; my cat comes and sleeps on me; she purrs. This is so different from nothing to entertain us, from lying on the ground, from having no lights to turn on, from having no pets to snuggle with.

We dip, we lick our lips, we feast on the familiar. These provisions, by which discomfort and dissatisfaction are warded off, surround us now.

There is no medical test tomorrow, no scheduled surgery, no cancer treatment, no soul racking, sobbing loss to wake up to.

We luxuriate within the jar. Satisfaction deepens through the awareness of its opposite.

It won’t always be like this.

I know that, it makes it even sweeter, and so I savor it now.

I savor the deep, rich, delicious, astonishing, provisioned, universal-particular present tense. I dive into it; I suck on it; I down it.

I call to mind the desperate, terrible, dehumanizing opposite of all my mundane and astonishing satisfactions and in doing so turn my jar upside down and pour it down my throat!

Smart Shopping

Posted: January 28, 2014 in money
Tags: consumer wisdom, how to shop wisely, randy hasper, smart buying, thoughts on consumption, wise consumption

Yesterday I bought new tires for my Nissan Juke — 235 50/R17’s.

I had researched this purchase for three weeks. Upon buying, I experienced the thrill of the purchase, and the agony of the bill!

I upgraded to wider, quieter, safer, longer-lasting tires — less roll resistance, better gas mileage, and better traction on water, but afterwards I brooded, “Did I just pay too much for the wrong tires?” They weren’t the most expensive offered me; they were also by far not the cheapest.

Stuff is tough, on me! Then again, later looking at them sitting under the car — wide, stabilizing, sports-car aggressive, more efficient, safer — and feeling the improvement in ride as I drove and turned the car, I knew I’d made the right choice. There is a significant improvement in ride, handling, safety and quality.

I had passed safely through the rugged terrain of the buyer’s high and the buyer’s low. I bought the right shoes for my car.

Consumption takes some gumption, for it exists within our emotions; both anxiety and hope rule the attribution of value.

I venture ahead into the world of consumerism with a bit of nagging uncertainty (that’s weird, but so human) and a bit of loving confidence; I pick my way gingerly through the landscape of consumption.

The ability to purchase wisely — it’s hard!

Smart buying requires accurate knowledge, good judgment, some risk, some caution, the good sense to stay within our means, the equally good sense to sometimes upgrade to better, smarter and safer.

Yesterday I called my cable company. I did that because I had just come from Best Buy where a representative from another TV service offered me a better deal. I didn’t take it. All the reviews on Yelp were negative — lousy costumer service and poor quality.

I’m glad I didn’t jump on that deal.

But the option gave me the idea, the energy and the motivation to negotiate my current bill with my current company, and so I did. It took three phone calls until I got the representative that knew what I could do, and through her I dropped everything I don’t need. I dropped my land line phone. Who needs a home phone when the whole family has smart phones that far surpass the house phones? I dropped some TV stations the family never uses. I kept what my daughter wanted — the ability to see her beloved San Diego Padres.

This all took a change in thinking for me, and a bit of assertiveness with the cable company, but in the end, I think it was a wise financial decision. With less TV and less phone. I’m saving about $500 this year! That helps me feel better about spending so much on tires!

A few thought on wise shopping.

Think, process and plan before you consume. Don’t buy impulsively. The tire purchase; that was my second visit to the tire store to discuss the options. I researched for about three weeks before buying.

Avoid debt if possible. I do have a car payment and a house payment, but no other debt. I put the tires on a card, but I will pay for them out of my savings account when the bill comes. I save, so that when these bigger, less frequent expenses come — the tires, a broken washing machine, the dental bills — I can pay without paying interest. Not everyone can do this at every point in life, but it is something to aim for. Savings lessen stress and allow for the extra expenses to not take from us in interest what we can have for ourselves by some care with spending and some pre=planning.

Rely on the wisdom of the community of shoppers. I read numerous customer reviews on the tires and the cable and TV service providers before I pulled my wallet’s trigger.

Don’t be afraid to risk. It was a risk to buy better tires. It was a risk to drop my home phone line. I’ve had a home phone all my life. No more! No more political and sales calls!

Decide with your head and your heart. Emotions are fine, wanting something is normal, desire can lead to improvement in life, but the heart must team up with the head to make smart decisions. It is with our minds that we can best please our hearts, over the long hall.

Don’t forget that you also want to give back. I make my financial decisions with the constant check that I am reserving something for others. I save, shop, spend, and don’t spend with it in mind that charity is not an option. I will only spend if I also leave something to give. Why? I want to be able to give to others. Last year I bought tires for my daughter’s car. I paid for kids to go to school in Mexico. I gave to my church. I like myself when I give. My goal is to give away at least ten per cent of what we make. That seems fair to me. The good life is not spending all I have on myself.

Lastly, remember that it is a privilege to get to decide. Much of the world does not have the luxury of driving personal cars, upgrading tires, owning cutting-edge technology, having access to consumer information. I won’t always be able to do this either. We should always consume, when we do, with a great sense of thankfulness that we are alive, privileged and resourced enough to consume wisely.

How very cared for we are when we have the power to care for ourselves and others wisely.

A Quiet Heart

Posted: January 25, 2014 in becoming
Tags: how to calm down, how to live more wisely, how to thrive, not trying to control others, Psalm 131, quieting our hearts, randy hasper

The tendency with humans is to force stuff.

We force our spoons into our mouths, our expenses into our budgets, our bodies into our jeans and our ways, our opinions and our solutions onto the people we live with.

Push, push, push. Force, force, force!

But people don’t like it.

Psalm 131 offers a good alternative.

God, I’m not trying to rule the roost,
I don’t want to be king of the mountain.
I haven’t meddled where I have no business
or fantasized grandiose plans.
2 I’ve kept my feet on the ground,
I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.
Like a baby content in its mother’s arms,
my soul is a baby content.
3 Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.
Hope now; hope always!

Not ruling the roost, not meddling where we aren’t wanted, not fantasizing about what we want that will never happen (and even shouldn’t happen), not flying away from reality — it’s best. We would do well if we attempted to control less.

The child content, with its mother, not with its mother to get something, but just content with her, calm, secure — that is the model of the soothed soul before God.

To just accept people, without trying to control them, would bring more peace to us and them.

And to calm down our discontent by placing our hope in what God will bring in his time and way — that’s what it means to have a quiet heart.

Enough

Posted: January 7, 2014 in success
Tags: an essay about trying, how to combat shame, how to keep trying, how to keep trying in life, randy hasper, why write, writing for its own sake

I received several email rejection notices recently.

Some of my soliloquies and anti-fables — ones I had sent out for consideration — were rejected by literary magazines of some repute.

This stung, but it was also bracing, a little bit, in that way that serves me notice that I’m out there, risking and scraping for a voice. I’m still offering, after all this time, some thin, cracked, painted shards of myself to the world.

I know a little bit of literary publication success, and I also know literary disappointment. Sometimes in the moments of disappointment I fear not getting enough opportunity to contribute to the public discourse about life. I badly want to share — proverbs, soliloquies, fables, stories, essays, sermons, lessons and any other genre that fits me — in the conversation about reality and what is astonishingly mysterious.

Rejection is not fun. “Not accepted” is reality for many of us, and it can have damning effects, flushing us with shame, the shame of not being enough, of not being good enough.

I suffer this, along with the rest of the race, the I’m-not-enough experience of life, but not so much anymore.

I am finally beginning to do what I do because I cannot, not do it, not because it pleases someone else. I read and write because I want to, and because I have to, for myself, to stay sane, and to stay in tune with the muses within. Words are life, they are bread to me, even when they don’t provide bread. Words in themselves, as I discover them, as they uniquely proceed from me, are enough motivation for more words.

Last year I finished up either watching or reading all of Shakespeare’s plays. I couldn’t not! Shakespeare is one of my muses. No one gets it better than the shaker. He shakes and spears his plays veneers, and out falls human nature, human motivation, passion, eloquence, dark evil and bright good with a beautiful clatter and clamor that I cannot ignore.

Shakespeare inspires me to keep shaking the linguistic tree, until the literary fruit falls — or I do.

Here is the deal. We face down “not enough” with “enough.” I may not get enough recognition for my own writing, but I will write enough anyway. I will pour out my words in public talks, lessons, private conversations, blogs and micro-blogs.

All artists throwing paint, words, song or food might do well come to this, to not do what we do because we are receiving some kind of affirmation, but because we are giving a gift, to ourselves first and then to the universe, and because we can’t, not.

The doing of the creative things we were made to do is a reward in itself. There is no shame in being expressive. The artistry is often enough to maintain the art.

Rejection — it’s just a splash in my face as I throw myself down the crazy, wild, hilariously steep slope of the next thing I have to say.

Deep Rest

Posted: December 24, 2013 in recovery
Tags: how to deep rest, how to rest, how to slow time, how to stop pushing so hard, how to take a vacation from life, randy hasper, what is deep rest

Work, work, work; push, push, push, rush, rush, rush — that’s just what we middle-class Americans tend to do.

And after extended bouts of work, it’s hard to come down, even when we get a holiday break. I’ve been jittery lately — too many dead lines, shopping trips, meetings, duties and self-imposed, others-imposed, high flying, hard-driving expectations.

Yesterday, after weeks of working too hard, I went and sat in my backyard, with tea, and looked, at my pond, the sky, my plants, at nothing. I also took a nap, and wrote a new batch of proverbs that flowed out of my reflections.

I needed this kind of seeing and doing little, or nothing.

We all need deep rest. What is deep rest? It’s like deep sleep.

Deep sleep, also called slow sleep or wave sleep, alternates with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep in a regular pattern of 3–5 cycles each night.

During deep, body-calming sleep, good stuff happens — the body repairs and regenerates tissues, builds bone and muscle, appears to strengthen the immune system, consolidate new memories and secrete growth hormones.

We need deep sleep. We also need deep rest — rest while we are awake. Deep rest is found in wakeful but quiet, comfortable body postures, in cessation of activity, in relaxed observation of the environment, in quiet reflection, in quiet conversation, in rumination, in meditation and perhaps for some of us in reading, writing or prayer.

Yesterday I read in the Psalms, took a few minutes to let those wise words soak in and felt appreciative. Later, I went out to the front yard and gardened, and then, slowing time with my hands at my sides. I stood back and looked over my work. I laid-back on time, and with a deep-drawling, pause-pleasing, slow-slipping, soft-shoeing satisfaction, I rested.

Cats sleep 16 hours a day, or five years out of seven. We might do well to emulate our cats more, to cat nap, to cat rest, to cat-live, to slow-blink life softly down. After all, the domestic cats lead the good life.

To deep rest is to slow life down, not to stop life. It means to cook slower, eat slower, talk slower, think slower, react slower. It means to pick a slower wave, found in each life-washed moment, and to ride it gently and patiently all the way to time’s softly-lapping shore.

Rest — deep rest — it’s regenerative; it’s good.

Thrive!

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