Leader of the Pack

Intelligence is not always a great boon. My new puppy is very intelligent. Chauncey had premium food, but hers is supposed to be better. Whether it is that, or genetic, I don't know, but she is a handful.

Shih-tzus are not known for being easy to housebreak. In fact, that is not even a word to use around them. They are extraordinarily sensitive. They are house trained, if the spirit moves them, which it is bound to eventually. Eventually being the operative word. Yell at them, or abuse them and they are traumatized. However, they are dogs and they do need a pack leader.

I am determined to be that leader, but I need to be smarter, cagier, more creative. I am already perseverant and patient, or they would be outside dogs by now.

I spend my time trying to watch them as closely as possible and trying to come up with intricate and unique plans to make potty training a success.

They spend their time, I am convinced, improving their climbing, jumping and crawling skills so that the moment I look away they appear in places that should require tele-transporters to get there. No amount of watching, or tempting them can make them do it when I am in the room. I have a system of plastic fence sections that can be used in an almost infinite number of ways. I think I have used them all. Some keep Gabrielle away from the electrical cords that she finds fascinating. The rest seem to just be a waste of time.

Chauncey, who was a nice, civilized gent until Gabby came has had his moments lately. I think he and I have finally come to the agreement that he will once more continue to use his potty pad and he will not dig up the living room furniture.

God knew what he was doing when he made them, especially as puppies, cute, comical and adorable, because He knows they need all the help they can get if they are going to survive.

The Age of Innocence

Let me tell you a story of a child, without language, able to sit up, exploring his world with utter abandon.

He sits in the grass, balanced on his diaper clad bottom because he doesn't like the feel of the grass on his bare legs. His mother moves him to a blanket under a tree and he gazes up through the branches, big blue eyes open wide, following the shadows of bird wings when they fly over, watching an ant zigzag across the blanket in front of him and he reaches for it. Coordination not being very well developed yet, he kills the ant and it falls from his tiny chubby fingers.

Mother brushes the ant away and hears the telephone ring. She runs into the house and grabs the phone. Turning to come out of the house, she sees the child sitting on the blanket under the tree, big blue eyes firmly fixed on something else in his hand. Holding it up to the light, he opens his little mouth and to his mother's horror bites the head off the little snake.

The child is fine.

Atmosphere Around the Way

Viscous, undulating, lighter than air and more resilient than anything I can think of, the Silence wraps around me all the time. It is the atmosphere that surrounds the Way. I call it the Silence, or the ocean, but I really believe it is God.

I used to just think it was the pathway to God, but I no longer believe there is any separation between me and the Creator, or me and anything else. It is only my perception that separates us.

Shared Spaces

In the vast garden of my life I found myself planted between two extraordinary plants. One, a bramble bush, who asked what my dreams were and tried to make them come true, but was just too painful to be around. I could never get close enough to make that deep connection I needed so desperately. The other, a single rose standing in the silence, swaying gently in stunning beauty. Perfectly self aware, perfectly confident, perpetually sweet and loving, its single thorn kept us apart.

I know, now, that it is I who set the boundaries. I am the one who could not live with the pain. Another, more advanced soul than I am, might have found a way around these things. I could not. Yet, I am more loving for it.

Afterwords

I can't have that whole apple, but I really don't want it, or need it either. Apples make my throat itch when I eat them raw. Eat the skin too and my gums itch. I never tried to eat the seeds, but I hear they are not good for me.

I used to do a great story for groups of people where I was Johnny Appleseed. Afterwords, children's groups often made applesauce. I like applesauce. One of my good friends made it with me from apples on her own trees on the day we met in person. I love apple crisp, many people made it for my son's wedding from his grandmother's recipe.

As a child I had a choice. Caramel apples were a rare and awesome treat, but when I ate them I tended to just eat the caramel off. If I ate the apple too, the treat lasted longer, but I paid for it later by having what I now know are allergic reactions. No one ever believed me if I told them that. They just assumed I didn't want to eat the apple and after a while I quit telling anyone. I didn't even know it was an allergic reaction back then. I just thought something was wrong with me. Same way with raw carrots and celery, watermelon, cantaloupe, and many other melons. No one knows why I sometimes have bad reactions to these things and they are not always the same bad reaction. Sometimes I can even eat raw apples and carrots and celery, but not the others. I used to eat them anyway so I wouldn't offend people, but the last time I ate watermelon my mouth, both inside and out, was covered in layers of blisters.

Raw food is supposed to be good for us. It isn't all good for me. I don't know why, but I do know it. The rest of life is like this too. Some things just sit better with some people than others. Intelligence and tolerance need to go hand in hand in a world that claims to have both, but tends to have them in direct relationship to to their areas of familiarity.

Just use one of those fancy little cutters that carve an apple into eight little slices and let me nibble on one. I'll let you know if I can eat anymore. If I can't, that is just more for you!

The End Result Is Us

It is about me. Isn't it? It sounds like it was written for me. It speaks to me right where I am. It touches me deeply and profoundly. Of course it is about me.

I Am you. It is easy to forget that. If you are successful and saying those things I want to hear, it is much easier to believe it. If you are saying things I don't want to hear, or are down on your luck, or mean spirited, or an outright liar, it is harder.

Each of us projects various parts of ourselves, the parts we are proudest of, or the parts that seem to take us over, it changes over a lifetime and sometimes on an hour to hour basis. What comes to the forefront is the perception the world has of us, but we are so much more than that.

Imagine all the combinations a computer could come up with using the same data. God is much more creative than that. How much more? I have no idea, but whether you believe in Adam and Eve or evolution, the end result is us and we are more alike than some of you might like to believe.

The Trick Is

Life can be traumatic, or ecstatic. It can be mournful, or content. It can be all sorts of things, but mostly I am discovering that it just is.

The trick for me is to get the bills paid and learn to live at this new low income that I acquired in June. That hasn't been easy since my move turned out to be surprisingly expensive and having a new puppy was certainly not cost efficient, but she is good for my soul. I love holding her and Chauncey and watching them play together. Someone once told me you should never have just one Shih-tzu. I didn't understand then. I do now.

I am coming to realize that this is where I have been longing to be since I was a little girl. I even look like the people I used to draw back then, all round faced with big eyes and dark tousled curly hair. I like having everyone close together. It feels cozy and warm to me. I like living under my son's home. It feels safe and right. I feel as if I am part of the mountain tucked in underneath this great big cement house surrounded by trees and grass, flowers and bushes.

I wonder why it took me so long to find all this? I have had so much more money and stuff and all that goes with those things in the past, but here I am, poor, living independently, growing toward serious old age and I am happy.

I haven't seen the bear...

I am once more babysitting the big dogs and the fish and the cat and I am learning more everyday. Eben, an Australian blue heeler was an only child. She predates all the other dogs and the baby. She is smart, but she is also very sensitive. She keeps me on my toes playing mind games with her to get her outside when I want her to go out instead of when she chooses to go out. I tried sitting down with her and having a talk, telling her that I live downstairs and therefore cannot be relied upon to come when she needs to go out. She turned around and walked away. She knows where the treats are and would help herself if she were just a bit taller. She also knows that I am using random reinforcement to get her to go out without a treat every time. We pretend she doesn't. We also pretend that I am smarter than her, but sometimes I think she is just bored and tired of playing games. I know I am afraid not to rub her belly before I leave every time, because if I insult her too much she will retaliate and pee on something.

Duke the old male who was so badly abused is some sort of very large, very big boned, English Spaniel. He's either very elderly and very wise, or just a duffus. Either way, he is sweet and lovable and soooooo eager to please. He's been here a pretty long while and he knows what treats are and how to snap them out of the air. He can also, almost, sit down and take them gently from my fingers, if I am very brave and he isn't dancing too much when I offer it. He is just so pathetically grateful that I usually give him a scratch on his back just above where his tail starts. He almost groans with joy. How can I not appreciate that?

Joplin, some sort of short haired, large hunting dog is the tallest and newest of all three. She was dumped on the highway after having puppies somewhere. It took her a while after she moved in, but she has finally assumed her place as the dominant female. She is thrilled to see me when I arrive, jumping up on me, almost knocking me down in her excitement, but she does not really understand dog treats. She must recognize human food, because if I have cheese, or peanut butter, or something like that she will scramble to get hers. Unlike the other dogs she cannot seem to catch anything in the air and if it turns out to be a dog cookie, I actually have to watch out to be sure the other two don't take hers before she figures out what it is. Don't get me wrong. She is sly. When I enter the house, Joplin is the one sitting with Duke, licking his nose, or cuddled up next to him. She tolerates Eben, but only on her own terms and out in the yard, wherever Eben pees, Joplin pees right over it. No doubt who the alpha female is in this family.

Pumpkin the cat is now ensconced upstairs for the winter. She has her food and water on the steps and comes down after I put the food in her bowl. I think she is just glad that there is a place to go now that I am living in her apartment.

The fish? The fish are not doing so good. I had to scoop one out yesterday night and it was a mess. He died under a huge rock formation in a fifty gallon aquarium and I finally had to use one arm almost up to the shoulder to move it, so I could get a net around him. I wrapped him in two plastic shrouds, said a few kind words and dumped him into the tallest trash can outside that had a tight fitting lid. He's way too big to flush and the garbage man doesn't come until Monday and the dogs ripped the back out of the last can that smelled good.

I haven't seen the bear that several others have seen around here, but it gives me pause when I go up at night. I doubt he would hang around when the dogs are out, but they aren't out until I get there.

Life goes on and right now I am really enjoying it again.

I Need To Do Better

I remember trying to help my Dad after Mom died. A man the State of Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction once called the most intelligent man he had ever met, could not seem to be able to find a job. Virtually penniless because he had been a teacher most of his later life and had pulled his retirement money out of that to try and pay for Mom's medicine and those final horrific bills, he was desperate.

He could not teach unless he repaid the retirement money, which he could not. He could not stand long enough to do the simple jobs that are always available. He finally got a job with the FBI doing clerical work. It lasted long enough that the stress made his inherited tendency to diarrhea reappear so violently that he had to quit. There I could help him. I bought him a bottle of acidophilus tablets and within days that problem calmed down. He was amazed, his problem had actually ruined the lives of relatives before him.

He seemed to be feeling a little better, reconnecting with old friends including two fraternity brothers from college, when he got a call. One of them, a prominent editor with a publishing company, the father of two sons, one a surgeon and the other just months away from being a surgeon, had died. The official story was cause unknown. The truth? It turned out that his son, under the stress of his final exams, had an epileptic seizure and now could not be a surgeon. Then he discovered that his wife of many years had once had what might have been a seizure when she was sixteen. The final blow came when his son, already a surgeon, had a seizure. He felt betrayed by his wife and the universe and killed himself.

My Dad sat down after this call and must have dozed off. He awakened at six thirty in the evening thinking it was morning and went to get his newspaper. It was not there so he called the paper, then he called the woman he was engaged to before he met my mother, she was also a former colleague when he worked for Title Three in Education, and talked for six hours. Both the newspaper and Nadine called my brother and said something was wrong. Dad was sixty years old, brilliant and totally worn out.

He had holes in his soul, empty pockets, nothing to look forward to except dying and joining my mother. Here was the sixteen year old who went to college and graduated with a masters before he was twenty one. Here was a man who read classical Greek and German and Latin, unable to communicate with anyone coherently. Here was the beloved teacher who had helped so many students on both ends of the spectrum succeed. Here was a man who had once worked four jobs to make ends meet for his family.

He finally got a job with the Association For Retarded Adults, helping people make a transition into independent living. It lasted a few more years and he seemed to enjoy it some. He was a born teacher, but eventually he just withdrew from the world until he died.

I adored my Dad. I loved him so much. I never thought I would say this, but I need to do better.

A Gift

Barbie's Grandfather died today. He was her step father's father, but they were close and I am so glad she was able to visit him just a few weeks ago.

I know from personal experience that the quick, unexpected death makes it hard for those left behind, but it is never easy to watch a loved one suffer either. I suspect nothing ever really prepares us for the loss of someone we love.

There is always that last conversation we didn't quite finish, or those little scenarios that might have gone better. For me is denying my son the chance to play "Heart and Soul" with me on the piano for his Grandmother. She wasn't feeling well that day and we never even dreamed that she would die shortly thereafter. He was eight years old and has never mentioned it, but I remember.

Memories like this can pop up at odd moments and bring up the same feelings that were there the first time. I find myself sharply inhaling, clenching my muscles, feeling my stomach flip flop and then, mercifully, I remember it was long ago and this is now. That is a gift I haven't always had. I have never been able to stop poignant feelings from fluttering back now and then, but I used to agonize over them as if they were still new. I don't do that for very long anymore.

Part of me would like to share these things with Barbie, but I know she is a sensitive soul. She needs to grieve in her own way, find her own paths. In my saddest moments, no one except my children could ever really touch me until I was ready.

I Wish

I wish I understood what makes some moments in my life so easy, so simple. These are the times when it is no big deal to brush my teeth, pluck my eyebrows, cook something to eat. They can even be the times when mowing the lawn is just that and not a chore. I have had more of these moments here in my new home than I have had in a long time. I have vacuumed and mopped like the person I was when I was twenty. I have brushed the wee beasties and washed their eyes in the morning without it being a huge deal. I even manage to get dressed when I am not going out to shop, or having company, sometimes.

It is the very act of doing these things that makes me realize how different the other part of my life is. I cannot put my finger on what it is that makes these same things almost unmanageable the rest of the time. Sometimes I can stay up all night, washing dishes, dusting furniture, playing the piano and then sometimes I sleep almost straight through a day, a night and another day.

It does not feel manic and depressed. It feels normal and very tired. I appear to function because I have long years of experience doing the "right" things out of fear that I will be criticized, or not excel. That need of mine to be at the top has probably served me well, keeping me from being at the very bottom. Most things come easier for me than other people when it comes to learning or remembering, so I am labeled a bit eccentric instead of lazy.

I don't think I really care so much what I am called anymore, but I would like to find a way to stay in the good place where I have the energy to cook an omelet rather than eating a sandwich just because it is too hard to crack the eggs.

Patriotism

"Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched." -Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist (1850-1893)

I realized today that I am almost afraid of patriots and that is odd, because I have always considered myself very patriotic. I am proud of what my country can be and has been. I am proud of the strength and goodness that comes through so many of our people in so many ways. I am proud that our flag stands for the basic freedoms and rights of humanity.

But, after perusing this for the better part of a day, wrapping it around all the other things I did, like building a Lego castle with Lennon for his toy super heroes, I realize that I am afraid of anything that is too passionate. I can be very much too passionate. I know what it is like to see something from only one side and that a glaringly optimistic, hero worshiping, blindly loving side that sees no wrongs, or misdeeds in it.

Fanatics are at the far end of the spectrum, but there are many others almost as close and just as dangerous. Young people are often fanatical, or perhaps not quite that far, they can be so innocent that they are beautifully naive. It is one of the things I love about them and those who are like them. They are the idealists, the ones who pull the cynical and soured side away from totally annihilating the world. Both ends can be dangerously close to achieving the same end under different names.

There is such a difference between experience and wisdom. Wisdom has taken its experiences and honed them down to tiny increments of understanding. Experience knows, or has a vague idea, how it won, or lost particular things, but the exact pathway is not that clear. I have experience. I know how to do many things, but most of the time I cannot just tell you in detail how to achieve those same things so you will get the same results I did.

I hate to admit it, but if someone were to threaten my loved ones, I was almost certainly fight back, maybe even shoot someone if I had a gun. Yet, I do not believe that wars solve anything in the long run and I abhor guns. I truly believe that force mostly pushes the weaker antagonist underground until it is strong enough to come back and fight for what it wants and believes in.

People whose eyes are fixed on only one goal may not notice the burning coals beside the path, or the bogs hidden in the middle of the road, or the blind child right in front of them who is about to be mowed down. Knowing only one truth and forging ahead to fight for it is almost as destructive as not knowing any. Everything is sacred. Everything is precious. Instead of wiping out the entire village to stop the horror, perhaps it would be better to find alternative paths away from it.

Who am I to decide who is disposable? What is the best way to eliminate serious problems? What about this old idea of an eye for an eye? Maybe that doesn't mean if you put out my eye, I can put out yours, because if we all got going that route, pretty soon we would all be blind. Perhaps what it means to the discerning person, is that if you put out my eye, then you must become my eyes and vice-a-versa. That makes sense to me, not very likely, be at least sensible.

The overly passionate, the fanatics, the far ends, leave little room for stepping back and honestly considering a subject from every angle. Patriotism bearing baskets of food and medicine and tolerance is much different than patriotism in the burning eyes of a frightened and inexperienced person carrying a gun.

Once Upon A Time

I think deep down inside, we are all looking for reasons. Reasons to be proud. Reasons to justify what we are not proud of. Reasons to explain our suffering, or our guilt. Reasons to explain our joy and our awe. We are born curious little creatures with a need to know that helps us survive. I doubt that ever really goes away. In fact, it is considered a good thing to be reasonable. : )

We have stories that tell us how the monkey got his tail, or why the dove coos, or how the earth came to be. We have other stories based on facts, some no more than another how to story and others based on what seems to be a reasonable chain of events. The young need these stories. They help them expand and think. I need them too.

In the end, I am not sure any of it matters, but it matters to me right now. I am so young compared to the trees and the mountains, the earth and the sky, the sun and the universe. I do not understand the thinking behind creating me, let alone all the rest of you, but I am certain that it is reasonable to be in the moment. Anything else is overwhelming.

Once upon a time, there was a big ball of play dough. It was filled with feelings and thoughts, stories and other stuff and then it was divided into trees and people and dogs, and other stuff, but in the end, it was all part of the same big ball.

Just A Simple, Marvelous Day

Today was just a simple, marvelous day.

I went for a walk with Lennon and my son, just up the block and back. A big red apple fell off of a tree and rolled down the hill to us. Lennon spent the rest of the walk getting the apple to roll farther, tossing it out each time it came to a stop by the curb. He filled his Daddy's pockets with acorns and one large green walnut and walked on every stone wall we came to.

Daddy went to work and Gramma and Lennon spent the rest of the afternoon, spinning acorns and the walnut, flipping them through a red paper tent we made, using the walnut to bowl down the acorns, putting on acorn puppet shows. Just your usual gramma and two year old stuff.

Mommy came home from work and I went downstairs to let Chauncey out. I allowed Gabrielle to go outside in the yard for the first time and she was so funny. At first all she wanted to do was eat everything that she could get her little mouth on, which is one reason I haven't let her out. Later, she began to run and roll in the grass, chasing Chauncey so hard the she ended up running over, or under him, or being tossed to roll head over heels down the little incline. Her romping and pouncing were more rabbit like than dog.

It was such a beautiful, cool, sunny, Fall day and I am so grateful to be part of it.

Quest?

Sometimes I am filled to bursting with feelings that are indistinct, but potent. Left to their own devices, they do not go away, or become any clearer. Instead they just become heavier and heavier, creeping out to fill up all the available spaces inside of me so that everything looks gray, sounds like it is coming through cotton and threatens to turn me into some sort of stone creature who only looks like she is human.

It is nothing new. I cannot remember a time without the threat of these gremlins hovering on the outskirts of my joy; ready, willing and able to leap into the circle at the most unexpected moment and douse the fire. It doesn't matter who their birth parent was, or how their seeds were planted, I am their designated caretaker and I have developed different ways of dealing with them.

The most obvious is to remember that they exist, which, instead of throwing light on a subject, often throws doubt on my reality. Knowing they exist makes me question my judgment and even my real feelings.

The next depends on how far they get before I realize they are back in the game. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I meditate, or pray, or listen to the Silence. Sometimes I play my Native American Flute and sometimes I play the piano. The secret seems to be to put something else in their space that forces them out, or perhaps just lifts them up and moves them over. Or, maybe it just lifts me up above them so I can breathe freely, see more clearly and hear the truth. It sounds so simple, so mundane or dreary, but sometimes I think it is my quest in this life and if I ever figure it all out, who knows what could happen?

The Swing Set

My brother bought his wife a brand new glider a few years ago. It had it all, a canopy to keep the sun off, padded cushions to cushion your seat, and all done in lovely colors. They put it on their deck and watched the squirrels tear it apart. Now they love squirrels. They feed them so well that the squirrels on their deck knock on the window when they want more and never even bat an eye when someone walks within kissing distance, but my brother did not buy this glider for them no matter what anyone says. He bought it for his wife, who, it turns out, hates mosquitoes. By the time the squirrels were done with the glider, my brother tossed it out in the alley behind his house for the trash man to take away.

My neighbor, Gary, who happened to live between my house and my brother's house, asked if he could have the frame for his swing and my brother was happy for him to take it. Gary hung a little wooden swing in between all the fancy hardware and he and his wife sat on it every night while he drank a case of beer. By the end of the year, Gary's wife had the house sided and new windows put in all around. She bought a big custom shed for the back yard and Gary had to drink his beer inside where the neighbor's couldn't see him. The glider frame went back to the alley, only due to the youth and lack of enthusiasm of its movers, it only made it part of the way.

During that same year my sister, who had a little metal swing that her ex-brother-in-law had given her, and which I had painted to look like an American Flag for her, and which she had hung on an old swing set frame, survived a terrible an ice storm. Unfortunately, the frame from her old swing set was not so lucky. The huge old sweet gum tree, which had only been dropping foot piercing spiked seeds for years, decided to drop half its bulk on her swing set. A neighbor hauled the frame out to the alley along with the tree limbs, but she put her little country swing in the cellar.

This year, when I had a chance to move to a place with both a view and a yard to see it from, I thought how nice it would be to have a backyard swing. I had a yearning and I had ideas, but I had no money, so I brought the glider from near the alley and the swing from the cellar and they lay in my backyard until one night when I went out and took off everything I didn't need, painted everything I did need and put it all together. I am now the proud owner of one backyard swing.

Father

Imagine someone taking us by the hand, down to the water, to the river, and showing us all the beautiful creations lying in the mud. Rocks, smooth as pearls, sparkling in the water. Others, almost iridescent in the water, but as plain as can be on the ground. A large hand holds our hand, scoops up a big flat rock and lets us feel how it is to throw a rock that will skip three times in fifty feet and then leap up onto the distant shore!

He shows us the water, how it tumbles around the rocks that were left when all the earth had washed away, how the sun glints on each drop making it look like tiny stars lay down among the rocks. Then picking us up in his big strong arms, he leaps nimbly from one slippery rock to the other until we are on a tiny rock island in the middle of the river.

There is no fear, only fascination and total trust.

This is the Father.

...but I don't WANT to!

Lennon saw that I had some scratches on my face and he pointed to the same spot on his face saying, "I like your marks."

A group of older elementary children passed us on the way to the tennis courts, he looked up and smiled, then waved and said, "Hi! I'm Lennon." He was disappointed when they didn't respond.

Yesterday he was in the car when he began crying and shrieking from the back seat. "I blest you! I blest you! I blest you!"I could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong until my son said, "He sneezed. He needs a tissue."

He has discovered communication is very useful. He wanted Daddy to come help him get on the slide and Gramma to catch him. Pretending not to understand, I kept trying to follow him up the slide. Finally he stopped, pointed at me and said, "You! Gramma Angell. Down there!" Pointing at the bottom of the slide. Then he looked at his father and said, "You! Daddy! Come up here. Now!"

He wasn't trying to be bossy. He was trying to be clear. Ask him to do something he does not want to do and he will insist very clearly, "but I don't WANT to do that." Daddy will tell him why we must (go home, eat lunch, take a nap, not hit the dog) and he will respond, "but I don't WANT to stop hitting the dog" He will do it. He just wants to be clear about how he feels.

Sometimes my son does something just because it is cute to watch, like giving him a whole, uncut sandwich just to watch him eat it, but he takes words so seriously that they have very few euphemisms. There are a few and the way they have re-emerged has been a lesson on why not to use them! But these are anecdotes for the baby book, not the Internet.

Remembered

The crisp cool weather calls to me with a whisper so quiet I cannot quite make out what it says. I feel the pull in my bones to do something, but what it is I don't know. This isn't knew. I have felt this same thing all my life. As a child it was a time of new shoes and new clothes and a new class in school, but there is something deeper than this that is buried deeply within my being.

I feel as if I am someone suffering from amnesia, as if I need to re-member my thoughts and experiences. I ache for the cold streams and deep piles of red and yellow leaves on the forest floor. I feel like an addict, or pregnant mother with a yearning for something I desperately need, but cannot find. Something so exquisitely precious, it has melted in my mouth and left a divine after taste that can never more be forgotten.

The wood smells pull me into reveries of orange red fires flickering in stone fireplaces and people huddled close to hear the stories and smell the apples baking on the hearth. I love the closeness of Fall, the feeling of everything and everyone pulling in, becoming cozier, wanting to snuggle under covers and quilts and cloaks in small places. The comfort foods of bread and stews cooking long hours and filling the world with their aroma.

Today I went and played my flute. It was just in my backyard, which is truly a reflection of Eden I am sure. I played from my heart, haunting notes and happy notes, familiar songs and tunes no one has ever heard but me and...for a minute or two...birds came to sing with me in the apple trees and overgrown bushes that surrounded us. Once I became aware of it, the magic was gone and no matter how hard I tried, I could not recreate whatever it was that called them to me, but it was there and is here and I think I remembered it.

Pumpkin

Once upon a midnight weary, while I pondered tired and leery,
O'er thots of haints and long forgotten stories of yore,
While I stood there, teeth still clacking, bones still shaking, knuckles cracking,
As some thing kept on bumping, bumping on my outer door.
"Must be my imagination," I quavered, "bumping on my outer door.
Please make it that, and nothing more."

Long I stood there, knees still quivering, hair on end, skin still shivering,
Thinking thoughts I knew were true, of old ghosts from long before
Though my solace was unspoken, and the silence no longer broken,
I hoped the sound had been the wind, gone away, here no more.
But my mind could not be duped, something was there, just before!
I knew this, and nothing more.

On I flipped the ceiling light, just in time to catch the flight,
Against the window's wiry screen, a white and wooly beast did pour,
Like an earth bound manta ray, howling wild in disarray,
Claws engorged with desperate rage, clinging claws, sharp and sore.
Horrid yowl and yawning maw, on my screen, outside my door
T’was the cat, and nothing more.

Shadows

I seek to empty myself, to become so quiet and so peaceful that I become a prism for all the light around and through me, allowing it to be what it is. Allowing myself to see I AM in all the single oneness of being.

It is not easy for me, especially when I am focused inward, on all the myriad tasks of resettling into a new community. Finding the balance between what is necessary to survive in my ego world where rent and food and creature comforts seek levels that are perhaps higher than they should be, and the soul world, or real world.

It is the old eye of the needle story. Am I the rich woman with a rich woman's woes and a rich woman's worries? Or am I a poor woman in a rich country, trying to keep my head above water? Sometimes I just feel overwhelmed by feeling. Love that is too powerful, caring that is too much, fearing that which is too close. Like a rose buffeted about by a tornado, I am impaled upon my own thorns because I fear I will break otherwise.

The prism is too heavy for this poor traveler. I must first become a pine needle floating down a river. Surrounded by light and movement, the breath of being and the joy of freedom. It is a start, but the shadows are all around me. I suppose anything that lies between me and the light will create shadows, so they are simply a reminder of the work I need to do.

Confrontations

I dislike confrontations. I really dislike them. In fact, I will do almost anything to avoid them....but there are times when that is impossible. Today was one of those times.
I have a new puppy, Gabrielle, who is almost ten weeks old. Since I have moved to North Carolina I needed to find a new vet and since there is only one in this town, I went to him first, when she was six weeks old.

The first time I called I thought I was talking to Ellie Mae from the Beverly Hillbillies and immediately chided myself for being judgmental and prejudiced against a person whose voice modulations and accents were different from mine. She was very kind and very friendly though and I found myself warming to her, especially when I went into the office and met her, a woman about my age, well coifed, neatly dressed, seemingly efficient and very upbeat. In fact the entire office seemed very efficient and upbeat. Everyone fawned over the new puppy, one of the women swooped down and whisked the stool sample off for testing and soon I met the vet, Himself.

Himself is probably thirty years old, or so, gentle with Gabrielle, sweet and friendly. He made small talk with me and the puppy, informed me the fecal test was negative and gave us some Revolution for fleas and heart worm. I paid his cheerful staff and made an appointment for three weeks later, September 29th. Oops, on the day of my appointment I took Gabrielle and another fecal sample into the cheerful little office only to be informed that my appointment was for the next week. I explained that I needed it to be that day because she needed this puppy shot and again they were very accommodating. The same woman swooped down to do the test on the stool sample, but then it turned out that they had no record of us ever being there before. The beaming clerk, was full of confidence while she informed me that they often don't keep track of first appointments? Anyway, it wasn't long before I was back in the little room with Himself.

He checked out the puppy, gave her some worm medicine and her puppy shot. The same woman who swooped in on the fecal matter, swooped in again to hold Gabrielle with great finesse, so that there was no question who was in charge. She was. Gabby didn't really care and neither did I. As I was paying the happy people at the front counter I was informed that once again the test was negative. It wasn't until I got home that the irony of this came to me. Why give a dog worm medicine if the test was negative? Oh well, I assumed maybe it was routine now.

About eight hours later, Gabrielle went to the bathroom and there were tons of little white worms wriggling all over and around it. It was truly gross and not something I had ever seen before. I called the vet the next morning and Ellie Mae answered. I told her the test was negative, but they had given her worm medicine anyway. She didn't miss a beat. That was common procedure, not to worry. I then told her about the tiny white worms and she literally oozed authority when she told me, "Well see darlin' she needed that worm medicine then, didn't she? Those are just round worms. All puppies have them." I tried to explain that these just didn't seem like round worms and I didn't understand why round worms would not show up on fecal tests two separate times. She was kind, slightly exasperated and placatingly explained how normal it was again.

Four days later I called back to say there were still live looking worm pieces coming out of my dog and she told me, once more, that it just took a while to kill all those nasty ole worms. By now I was pretty sure these were tape worm segments. I know tape worms often don't show up on the fecal tests and I know regular wormers don't work on them. I also know the segments coming out are just squirming pieces of the main creature that are filled with egg sacks and dry up after they hit the air.

I also knew I was not going to get to talk to this vet and this woman was not going to pay any attention to me. So, I called my old vet, back in Illinois, who immediately confirmed that they were almost surely tape worms. I had a choice. Pick a new vet in some other town, when this vet seems competent behind the cocoon of office workers around him, or find a way to talk with him. In the long run, everyone will be better off if something around him changes, so I scooped up another pile of worm infested _ _ _ _ and called the office.

I didn't ask anything. I told Ellie that I was pretty sure my dog had a tape worm and would like to bring a stool sample in to have the doctor look at it. She wasn't exactly thrilled, but she told me to come in. I did and there was the happy little twosome sitting behind the counter. I repeated what I had said on the telephone and one jumped up and grabbed the sac from my unsuspecting fingers. I grabbed it back. She looked at me, puzzled, and asked if I didn't want it tested and I told her again that it probably wouldn't show up this time either. I wanted the doctor to look at it and I would really like to speak to him if it was possible. She said, "Oh tapeworms are nothing. They don't hurt anything."

They all looked at each other with that look that says, how dare she, a common patient, be like this. Inside I was shaking. Outside I breathed quietly and said, "I'll wait." There was much running back and forth to little back rooms while I sat in the waiting room holding my little bag of worms and dog poo. It was not one of my finer moments, but on the whole I think I was being very reasonable. Soon the vet came running out full of vim, vigor and confidence to tell me my dog had spiro something or other and....oops was I not Dollie's owner? No, that was the guy looking concerned over there by the door, watching and listening to all the rest.

By the time he came over to talk to me, he was sort of ready. Well, he was smiling and being charming and trying to gloss over any unpleasantness, but I felt that after more than a week of worrying, I deserved to be heard. I quietly explained to him that I had called twice last week and been put off both times by a woman who appeared to have all the correct answers and simply brushed me off. He said he was sorry, but he didn't sound sorry. We then began a debate that I knew I was going to win.

I told him that I had to call my vet in Illinois to get a diagnosis, because I couldn't talk to him. He tried to tell me that tape worms were okay and I pointed out that each segment is filled with egg sacs that can be ingested by fleas and passed back around and besides, I cannot sleep with a puppy passing squirming little white worm segments out of its body. I said that I was sorry I was being so hard to get along with, but if we were going to have an ongoing relationship for the next 18 years, we needed to be able to communicate with each other.

He scurried back to his office and came out with a medicine bottle. Then he stopped and asked how much she weighed. I told him 3.5 pounds last Monday, but that I was sure she had put on weight this week. He smiled ingratiatingly and ran back to his office only to come out a few minutes later with a Praziquantel tablet. (That was a relief, because I know this works.) I paid his angry staff and told them I was sorry, but I couldn't live with the worms any longer.

I still feel wrung out. I hate confrontations, but whether it is a southern thing, a North Carolina thing, a Canton thing, or simply bad business, I have found this to be true across the board here. There is one mix up after another because the people who take care of the business don't know enough to do what they do and the one in charge is not available in person. I had the same problem with my Insurance agent, who is still trying to straighten out the mess he made when I transferred my business here, the bank, who finally got my checks ordered, and now the vet. Whatever happened to personal accountability?

Groundhog Night

Last night I had a nightmare within a nightmare. It was really confusing and frightening, kind of like Groundhog day in real life, only there was nothing funny about it.

I wonder if that is what it is like to be insane? Like a living nightmare where it is impossible to tell reality from imagination. In my dream I thought I woke up calling for my mother when Chauncey jumped off the bed only to discover he was still in bed with me and I was still calling for my mother. Later when I really did wake up it was the same way, only for a while I still thought I was somewhere else and I still called for my mother, wondering why she didn't come. I think I only dreamed the calling out, because the dogs upstairs were not barking and Chauncey was sound asleep.

I must have still been very groggy too, because then I was afraid my mother would come anyway, even though she passed away in 1986, and I was too afraid to close my eyes and go back to sleep. I have never been afraid of my mother in dreams. I often dream of her when I don't feel well and many of those times I have realized she couldn't be there because she was already dead. Usually I ask her how this can be and she always assures me that everything is ok. And I believe her.

Not this time, though. I turned on the light, turned on my fan, and made Chauncey cuddle up and sleep close to me. I woke up late this morning. The light was off, the fan was on and Chauncey was right there.

I hope I don't have any more dreams tonight. I think that perhaps I am just over tired from trying to keep this schedule for the dogs. Bobby and Barbie just now got home.

Ivory Soap

My Grandma was one of the most liberated women I ever knew. She was tiny and fussy and capable of doing absolutely anything she set her mind to. We are exactly fifty years apart in age and I grew up adoring her.

For some reason I did not understand until today, this place I call home keeps bringing up memories of the small brick house she built when she turned the Big House into a guest home for elderly ladies. The Little House, as we called it, had a huge picture window in the front, pink living room with up lights over the windows, and a huge eat in kitchen that had room for whoever showed up for the meals my Aunt cooked. Grandma was really not much of a cook. She made hockey puck hamburgers and, on a good night, opened cans of sweet peaches for dessert. Aunt Lela could make anything. Thank goodness they lived together.

But what I remember is the scent of Ivory soap whenever I came across the little T that separated the bedrooms from the rest of the house. Grandma liked Ivory soap. She never used anything else and unless she spritzed her Chanel No. 5 on, Ivory soap was her special scent. As a child I thought this was pretty uncool. After all, in our house we used Irish Spring and then there was Lifebuoy or Zest, but I don't recall how any of those smell.

Today most of us use bottled soap, so there is not much to smell. Instead they sell all sorts of bathroom sprays and fresheners. When I first moved in here I didn't have enough money to buy anything extra, which hasn't changed much. So, when faced with putting some sort of soap on the bathroom lavatory, I dug up an all natural, inexpensive soap I had stashed away some time ago. That is what I smell. Simple, ordinary, clean, old soap. Imagine that! It is nice...and it reminds me of Grandma.

THE RULES!

Growing up.

A misleading and over simplified term indicating that there is some point where I will be "up." It starts when parents get a book on how to care for their newborn children that says, "Guidelines" which most of them take to mean, THE RULES. If it is in a book, especially a book that fits in with my own expectations, then it must be like the Ten Commandments, right? I actually hung a thermometer on my first baby's crib to be sure the temperature stayed at seventy degrees!

At some point we go to school, or preschool, or daycare and then there are more rules for how to feel and act and interact, and while everyone says this is just to get an idea if there are any problems, beware. We are so afraid we won't measure up that now people are seeking relief in labels like autistic and hyperactive and learning disordered. A child who is slightly out of step is a threat to busy parents' egos and fears and confusion. Better to be the parent of a child with problems. Then we might look noble and self-sacrificing.

Of course none of this is done intentionally. We love our children, but with all the media telling us about Baby Grace who spoke Classical Greek and did calculus at three, there is tremendous pressure to have our child be a super child too. Like my son said the other day, when Lennon began rattling off facts and figures about his superhero dolls. "I feel kind of bad, now that I introduced him to superheroes, maybe I should have picked presidents or something like that."

When I was a preschool teacher, I had a marvelous little boy who was reading and drawing pictures of Japan in the Pacific ocean at three. His parents asked what we thought he should get for Christmas and we suggested a tricycle. This little guy was a wreck when he had to change rooms for playtime, or sat next to another child instead of an adult. He simply didn't know how to react.

He was not behavior disordered. He just needed experiences and time. Some of us need more of these than others and if the process of growing up is complicated with feelings of inferiority, or pressure to go beyond where we are, life is unnecessarily hard. All of my children are now successful adults, but I see them continuing to grow every time I speak with them, or see them.

God bless the people who want to keep learning and growing. Up isn't a destination. It's the Light at the end of the tunnel. If I start throwing out the extraneous stuff before I even know what it is, there might be a gold mine buried in the slag pile.

It's No Balancing Act

I sit on a teeter totter, high up in the air with love and gratitude, looking at my other side. She is down there, almost on the ground, glaring at me with uncharitable hostility. How dare I ignore her and choose to live in this beautiful moment? How dare I fill myself with light and love and leave her full of weighty issues that must be solved?

I know she would like to get off, but not because she has something better to do. She would like to see me plunk down from my lofty height and land with such a jarring thud against the ground that my teeth rattle. It seems to be her job to manifest a lifetime's frustrations and disappointments and miseries and she is pretty good at it. Sometimes she will rush in front of me when I look into a mirror, or grab my hand when I am paying bills, or sit up and talk to me all night long so I don't get any sleep.

But not today. Today I am enjoying it up here. In fact I am going to go swing on the big swings until the wind blows my hair straight out and the clouds kiss my toes! I start to plan how I will get from here to there without letting that dark creature down there jump on my back and go with me. There..... really doesn't seem to be any way. She has a lot of years to practice. She is like a little cosmic vampire, clinging onto my thoughts with a ravenous desire to feed upon the light I have and devour it with her darkness. She is too ephemeral and insubstantial for me to plunge a stake through her heart and for that I am grateful. Once I do that we will be one and I will never find her again.

Climbing carefully down from my lovely high, I walk over and take her hand, pull her with me to the swings. Today I will hold her close, hug her with both arms and take her swinging with me.

Love Will Always Prevail

The crucial question for all of us is: What Stays when all of that is gone, what doesn't suffer from the law of impermanence?

A friend wrote this to me and it is the clearest advice I think I have ever had. Not that it is new. I have heard the gist of it many times and it makes sense under anyone's ideology. It is just that when under stress, I tend to forget the Truth and that is supposed to be a capital T.

The Way is not an empty road designed just for me to get from here to there. It is a thorough fare filled with every imaginable situation. I am going to get from here to there no matter what I do. How I do it, has more to do with me.

I cannot avoid coming into contact with some disturbing, or even painful things, but I can keep my perspective when this happens. I always go back to Thich Naht Hahn's "in this moment all is well."

Except that sometimes I forget that and need good friends and wise teachers to lift me up, give me a hug and say, "It's okay. The crucial question for all of us is: “What Stays when all of that is gone, what doesn't suffer from the law of impermanence?"

What doesn't suffer from the law of impermanence? Ah, that is the Truth, or God, or the Light.

Or as my friend says, "Love will always prevail, honey because LOVE is all there is."

No Croquet Today

I have it on good authority that Alice washed the tea cups and the white rabbit was so appalled he lately threw them all away. Some of the shards landed in the Mad Hatter's hat and he tossed that hat out with the pieces. Landing in a tree, it fell upon the Cheshire cat who stopped grinning long enough to cover it with hair and pass it along to the Queen of Hearts who, it is said, sneezed so hard she blew all the feathers off her croquet mallets.

A day like this should be dismembered and I suggest a good rollicking Zen morning laugh for a start.