Friends and Sweet Tea

Sitting with friends that I had met only moments earlier made me realize how special tea time is. In the normal course of a day, I would not have had time to hear about the reason for the scar that ran from one woman's neck to below the first button on her blouse. I would not have heard about the particularly devasting affects on the Black community of the terrible hurricanes that blew through Florida last year.

We were ten disparate women who had one woman in common. The birthday girl. I had flown in from Nashville for the weekend to celebrate with my friend Thelma. Her Tampa friends already had a celebration planned. The celebration was in a tea room and the only requirement was that we wear big hats.

We lingered over our tea and talked about the concerns in our lives. We talked about what we knew for sure--what we'd learned from life as we aged. We sat and talked until the next party arrived to take over our tea room. Then we took the conversations to the parking lot for another thirty minutes. We didn't know each other, but over tea we'd learned much.

To thine own self . . .

William Shakespeare's character Hamlet said, "To thine own self be true, and it follows, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man."

What does that mean to you? To me it means that if I'm true to myself I'll be true to everyone in my life. The problem comes when we don't know what the truth is. Or when we know what the truth is, but don't have the courage the face it? Do you have a talent that you're dying to explore, but you're scared to venture out? Be true to yourself. Find out what you truly enjoy, find your passion and develop it.

When things go wrong . . .

Have you ever noticed that when you're down and things are going wrong in your life, you feel like your whole life has always been gray? You don't remember the last time sun shined on you. But when joy returns, you hold on to it tightly, realizing that joy is fragile. You feel that jit is fleeting and will disappear like a wisp of smoke.

To remember how much you have been blessed, start keeping a journal now. Write down all the good and bad things that happen in your life. I'm sure you'll find when you review the record, that your good times outweigh the bad.