Walks with Oprah

My friend Penny, gave me a bracelet that has the words:  Dream Dare Create Become, on it.  I love wearing it.  It reminds me that I should not watch The Kardashians.  Ever.  I should not watch Housewives of Atlanta, Orange County, Beverly Hills or New York.  Or Desperate Housewives.  Or any other kind of show that has Wives in it.  I will not watch Trading Spouses or whatever it's called.  Now they have Celebrity House- Wives Switch- thingy too.  Why?  Why I ask you, would anyone do this?  What would you do it..why would you watch it?  Yes, I admit that it is good TV.  In the sense that it makes you so damn thankful that you live the life you live and you are not them.   It makes good chip eating too.  I can polish off a bag of Doritos so fast when I sit down and watch one of those shows.  They make me nervous.  Hungry too.   Those ladies are so thin and botoxed and tucked and  ADD that it makes me eat for them.  That is why I will never have a reality show about me.  Hey look..Tina is walking the dog.  He look... Tina is checking her email.  Hey look...Tina just ate an entire bag of Fritos while watching a reality show about fabulous people.  Not too exciting.  No.  I give them up.  No fast food.  No reality shows about Wives from anywhere.  In a sense, those shows are fast food for your brain.  Quick fix.  Feel bad after consumed.  It's in your body and psyche now and will take hours before you feel better.

I still like Oprah.  I watch the OWN channel if I have a chance.  A few days ago, I sat down for a break and turned on channel 225.  OWN.  The Oprah Winfrey Network.   She owns a network...which features shows about truth, soul, harmony and kindness.  She is a pretty remarkable human, that Oprah.  Doing her best to put good in the world.   Using her gifts to bring joy to others.  She could have purchased and island, next to Johnny Depp,  and retired.  I could retire next to Johnny Depp.  I would set up a watch tower and just stare at him.  That's weird.  Sorry.  I am talking about soul and goodness and spirit..and my GOD is he pretty.   So, maybe that's why Oprah did not buy an island next to JD and decided to continue working instead.  Oprah and I are so much alike.  She and I could be good friends, I bet.   We would take walks and talk about the Universe and how everything is connected and how spirit is ageless ;) and our deep love for Johnny Depp.  But out of respect for Walt and Stedman, we would not talk too much about it.  Because they are our true loves and Johnny Depp is our crush-love.  Then we would giggle like 14 year old girls and keep walking and probably pick up and ice cream.   Then we would walk more because we ate our ice cream really fast and ordered another one and ate it and then felt a little bad about having 2 each.  Then we would realize that they weren't the low- fat flavors and then we would have to walk for about 3 more miles to relieve the guilt.  Then we would hug and be on our way back to our lives.  She would go home to be the mogul of the  OWN network and me, the mogul of Country Squire Drive, would go and pick up Luke from school.    Our lives are so similar, it's scary.  Stedman would ask Oprah how her day was and how was work and all.. and she would leave out the part about 2 ice creams.. and Walt would ask me how my day was and how my walk with Oprah was and I would leave out the part about the 2 ice creams and Johnny Depp and we would both (O and I)  revel in the light of the beauty in our own backyards.  I miss Oprah.  I wish we could see each other more often. 

So the show that I happened upon(on OWN),  was about Women, Food and God.  A book written by Geneen Roth.  It was an episode from about a year ago.  It was lovely to watch.  I had seen it the first time, but think that kids were running through the living room and between yelling and getting snacks,  did not have a chance to really let it soak in.  This time I just had one child asking for cookies and dog jumping on the kid that was asking for cookies..so I caught more.  What  I got was,  that we as women,  torture ourselves about our bodies.  I know..no surprise..but jeeze..LOOK AT US.  We are magnificent!  We are incredibly and Divinely imperfect.  We spend so much of our days feeling bad about our thighs, arms, noses, bellies and booties, that we waste precious hours being flat mean to that woman in the mirror.  I wouldn't be your friend if I talked to you the way I talk to me sometimes.  I know some men have this challenge, but I believe that we as women carry it more.  Society..magazines..blahblahblah.  Passing it down to our daughters.  Passing it along to our friends.  We are letting it seep through our gorgeous skin.  What should be confidence, passion and joy comes out as jealousy, envy and anger.   Gentle.  Be gentle.  Be gentle.  Be gentle.  Kind.  Kind.  Kind.  Love.  Love.  Love.  Men can only do so much to make you feel better about who you are.  Men can only do so much to make you feel worse about who you are.    You/We are responsible for making our insides feel loved,  our outsides feel nourished and our lives complete.  We are the ones who must lift each other up.  We must lift each other up.  I will lift you up.  You lift up your daughter.  Your daughter will lift up a friend.  The friend will lift up her mother.  Her mother will lift up her sister.  Her sister will lift up her cousin.  Her cousin will lift up her baby.  We will remind each other how easy it is to be gentle.   Guided by light.  Immersed in Glory.  Given this day to be imperfect. 

This is the stuff that Oprah and I talk about on our walks.  How to be imperfect in the most delicious way.  Come join us.  I would love to hear what you have to say.  Oh and yes, we will stop for ice cream.




Monday, January 23, 2012  Happy Chinese New Year.  The year of the Dragon.  2:42 pm


(oh and ..www.geneenroth.com   click on Women,  Food and God and watch the video.)