living with less rules.

"Oh my soul and body!" CoraLouise exclaimed as she looked out the window onto a bush that spilled over with hydrangeas. When she said it, I knew she meant it - she loved those flowers. CoraLouise has what we call Chutzpah. She is who she is, through and through and doesn't let anyone tell her otherwise. She is not afraid of who she is and throughly enjoys her life in all that she does.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of enjoying her company and fiery personality at the lake. At one point she was wearing the baseball cap of her granddaughter's husband, all of course while laughing and telling us the story of the 80 year old springs that she has under her mattress. If you knew Cora you wouldn't need any evidence of the ferocity with which she lives life, it is written all over her at every minute of the day. But, by way of example: Cora has squirrel paraphernalia all over her cabin and apartment. Why? Because a few years back Cora single handedly killed a squirrel, with a double edged axe. Chutzpah.

When I was spending time with Cora this weekend I couldn't help but think of a line from a poem that the Red Hat Society has used as a battle cry of sorts:

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple. With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me."

The poem goes on to talk about all these things she will do in her old age, because she can't do them now. Now she must be responsible, adult like. She has rules to live by. But it ends with the thought that maybe she should do them now. Miss CoraLouise inspired me to do that just by the way she lived her life.

What if I didn't wait for old age to free me from the bounds of expectation and rule?

I want to live like Cora does, with passion and vigor and life. Not to go Paula Cole on you, but I don't want to wait for my life to be over, to live it the way I've always wanted to. I think CoraLouise would agree with me in this: let's live life today without the silly rules and pretense that so often holds us down.

Gather up your courage and go live the life you actually mean to live, today.