Love and Forgiveness

I think most of us, at our core, just want to find a way to live where we can feel loved and useful and have a satisfying outlet where we can release our own love. I also think part of our ability to do that lies within our own ability to believe we are worthy of that and that it is possible.

I know the things that make me deep down happy. For me it is still those things I valued as a child, or even wanted as a child. Not some idyllic childhood where my life was perfect, because no one really has that, but where love and forgiveness rode so close together that almost anything was possible. Well, anything that really mattered.

I've been looking for that ever since.

I don't really understand cynics. Well, if I'm honest, I don't really understand most of the world. It seems that intelligence often goes hand in hand with things that make no sense to me.

I wish that it could stay in that place where innocence keeps its purity and love and forgiveness form the rest of a triad that create that proverbial garden of Eden, a place without the artifices of society, or innuendos that ruin things for me.

I am the same child who ran almost naked to swim with my brothers and sister in our backyard pool. I am the same child who slept in a bed full of other children regardless of sex and never gave it a thought. I have no hidden agendas, no ulterior motives beyond those I probably had at six, or eight. These things have caused me a world of problems.

These are the things I have spent my life looking for in other individuals: no hidden agendas, just a life based on love and forgiveness and a belief in real innocence.

I don't know

"What is existentialism?"

I ask my friend and he tries to give me an answer.

I have asked before. I will ask again.

But my brain will just not wrap around it

My mind chooses not to see its simplicity.

I read Camus. I read Faulkner. I read and read and read.

And everyone else's thoughts whirl around me like leaves caught up in the eddy at the foot of bell tower

While the bell tolls, and the sun glints, and I am distracted,

Birds sing and dogs bark, trees grow and brooks gurgle as they run downstream.

Babies cry and lovers love and life moves inexorably on

While I stand gawking and finally shut my eyes and hold my hands over my ears

But still I don't know.

There are so many things I don't know

Thank goodness they happen anyway.

Thoroughly Modern Shmoo

It's funny when I think of what I think.

I grew up wanting to be just like my daddy, or at least my idea of who he was.

I wanted to have a rack of pipes sitting next to an aromatic can of tobacco, a library filled with books in leather bindings and old yellowed pages, polish my shoes every morning, shave with an old straight razor, have a big brown desk full of important papers I was writing and students calling, or dropping by from time to time to discuss some weighty topic relating to literature, or history.

There are many reasons these things never came to pass. Most of them very good, but one very important one that has always bothered me.

Whereas my father was driven by some inner need to study, or I assume he was, he never said otherwise; I am often driven simply by curiosity, or my love of another human being. Someone asked me where my interest lies when getting ready to send me some of their work and I didn't want to say, "In you." But that was the truth. The central, uniting point, in our conversations was the person.

I am like a dog. I am loyal to a fault. If I love the person I am working for, no job is too much, or too menial. If I don't, I have difficulty even caring beyond not humiliating myself. Had my teachers ever really wanted to reach out and snag me, all they really had to do was make me fall in love with them -- and many did that. I am embarrassed to say that I am kind of like a shmoo whose ability to perform is terribly limited.

Still, my curiosity touches on the edges of academia's true quest and I often pass for almost literate.

And these are some of the things I think.

The Voice In The Ceiling

The value of want is hard to understand.

It is much easier to wax poetically over it if it isn't you doing the wanting.

Imagine being five years old and living in a two room apartment with your mother, father, sister and sometimes your cousins.

Mostly you have enough to eat, although it may not always be the most nutritious of foods.

The heat doesn't come out of vents, or little boxes on the floor. It comes from all those relatives crammed into bed with you.

Santa comes to your house, but he brings different things than he does to some of your kindergarten classmates.

You realize something is different and yet your world is still sweet.

You don't have cable tv, but at night, when it is dark and you can't sleep, sometimes you hear things.

Sometimes it is words that filter through the thin walls of your apartment building that you don't understand; people talking about faithfulness and robbing Peter to pay Paul when your only connection to faith is Sunday morning and you don't have a clue who Peter and Paul are.

But sometimes there are stories that filter through the ceiling. Stories told out loud in a quiet voice about other boys and girls who do things and have adventures and even get in trouble. You don't know them either, but still, you see pictures in your head that leave you with a need to make up your own stories.

Over the years the wanting will become so much worse, but if you become the voice in the ceiling, that want will slowly fade away and be replaced by a richness you never dreamed was possible.

It just depends on what you see when your eyes are closed and your heart and head open.

Going Home

Christmas vacation is coming to a close, but I go home renewed by the perfection of this weekend,

The turkey dinner, the tree, the love and friendship that never seems to change,

The turkey soup, the snowy days, old movies and snoozing together in the living room,

The required Upwords Tournament, the score was tied!

The fudge, the cheese ball, playing chase with Chauncey, but most of all...

A heart that is stretched to the limit it is so full.

Tomorrow I promise to write about something else, but it has been such a beautiful weekend.

The Spirit Of Christmas Now

The spirit of Christmas wraps around me this year from every conceivable direction. I am swathed in love and friendships that span both inches and miles. I think if you cut my heart open right now it would just burst into bloom.

It's hard to explain how sweet Christmas is when you are with people you love and who love you.

If there is anything I want right now, it is only to find a way to express the gratitude and joy, the love and absolute fulfillment of this moment.

How often can anyone say that?

How beautiful my life is!

Christmas

The fire burns brightly in the fireplace. The snow falls quietly on the lawn.

Chauncey plays under the Christmas tree and we are singing carols everywhere,

In the car, in the kitchen, in the living room by the beautiful Fraser Fir.

Old friends whose hearts are so intertwined the sweetness cannot even be touched by the Christmas fudge.

Memories and ties that blend and bind as many flavors as the cheese ball sitting on the nearby plate.

This is Christmas at its purest and best.

Silent Night, Stille Nacht...........

Insecurity Dims All Things

Right now I have everything I could possibly want and more. If you had asked me what I wanted for Christmas and told me it could be anything in the world, I would never have asked for all the things I have now, because I would have thought it would be asking for the impossible.

I don't want to win the lottery. I've had money and some of those times were the saddest in my life. There are so many things money can't buy, but when you have it, you feel like you ought to be able to take care of all your wants and needs.

I don't want to be young, or beautiful anymore either. There's a lot of unknowns and responsibility that comes with being younger and I never felt really beautiful when I was young before. I don't think that would change now. Insecurity dims all things, especially mirrors.

Besides I kind of like who I have become. It's sure not perfect, but it's a lot closer than it's ever been before.

In fact, it may be perfect for me.

I Have Room For That Now

How can anyone get lost in a two room apartment? Well, let's be honest it is two rooms with a small half galley kitchen, meaning I have all the necessities with no counter space.

Yet, I will be sitting at the computer, writing and think I should go into the bedroom -- where I already am. Or I will be in the living room thinking and think maybe I will go into the living room!

My imagination is so huge that sometimes I get lost in it, but I have room for that now.

I will be out in a country barn, or playing spider-man with a young friend, or carrying a five year old across the field piggy back and be shocked to look up and see my computer! I am seldom confined by four walls, or even a particular situation anymore. I am becoming my own holodeck!

I am living proof that no matter how bad you think things are, or how irreversible they are, anything can happen. It brings back the Mickey Mouse club of my day when Jimmy and Annette went to the big vault and said, "Mishca, Mooshca Mouseketeer," on anything can happen day.

I now believe that if you dream it hard enough, it can happen. I don't know, it may not be guaranteed to happen, or to last, or even to be real, but it feels real and the joy is real. Isn't that what we all really want? We want the joy of the dream more than the simple material things that might bring that joy.

All my life the two things I can remember always wanting, at least since first grade, were to be loved and to write. What is it you want?

Ride This Rollercoaster With Me

I open my eyes and the breath is sucked from my body in an enormous whish. As if I am on a giant roller coaster and the beauty around me just sucks me up and carries me away down one enormous hill and before I can get another breath, it happens again. This being is miraculous. That it IS and it works and I am part of it astounds me!

It is hard to explain, but Rumi comes closer to expressing these feelings than anyone else I know. He grabs the essence and puts it into words that speak to the viscereal part of me. I am once more a child, sitting at the feet of the grandfathers; caught up in the wonder of these stories.

Rumi was a 12th century Persian poet and John MacEnulty presents Rumi's poetry in ways no one else can with his vibrant readings and flute music.

I really don't think it matters if you are Muslim, Christian, or Jewish. I don't really even think it matters if you believe in God at all. If you believe in love and life and the unbelievable beauty that wraps around us every moment, in more ways than I have ever been able to count, I believe you will love Rumi's poetry.

It is about the ecstasy and wonder of a universe that is ineffable.

Here is a link to about 12 minutes of the Rumi Wedding Night Concert. If you want to hear the rest, it is here too.

You can copy and paste it into your browser.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DSsD6GJYCY

I Am Only Me

I am a writer.

If you really want to know me, read my writing. It's all here. Who I am. What I think and feel, love and hate.

There's only one thing missing and that is the rest of me.

My body, the way I look, the way I stumble from shyness, the fear in my eyes when I have to face real people.

I can talk to a room full of strangers, not easily, but I can pull that off.

But ask me to talk to one person, to a person whose opinion I care about, to someone whose feelings matter to me and I am twelve years old.

Red faced and shy, afraid I won't measure up. I lose part of myself and only a piece of me stands before you.

Pieces aren't enough for grown-ups, they want whole people, they want the writer and the person they imagine that writer to be.

But I am only me.

?

If you live long enough, it becomes obvious that everything's been "thunk" before. That if I really believe my ideas are novel and new then I am just not well read enough and need to go back, read something new.

At the best, I will learn something. At the least I will convince myself that I am in good company because I, too, had these thoughts!

Nothing much right, or wrong with either of these. It turns out even they are not original to me. Most people eventually think the same things in one way, or another.

Some people just have more nimble tongues and others sprightlier brains and others simply know when to keep their thoughts to themselves.

If I'm not careful I'll convince myself that there is no more reason for me to write these thots, except that I don't really write 'em to wow you. I do it to find what I think of myself.

Some nights that's more than others.

Improbable

I am alone and yet it does not feel lonely. It feels to me as if the world is growing closer, as if all the lovers have become one and all the thoughts united and all the faces a blur of one face and that face says I am stunning and I am certainly stunned by it's stunning face which is truly the face of love.

The improbability of this moment is beyond calculation, beyond the odds of any one whether mathematician, or poet, or pyschoanalyst, or even realist. There is nothing real, or realistic, or rational about this moment. It is the fairy tale without the glass mountain, the fable with no hidden threat. It is the green knight after he has returned and carries his lady's favors forever more.

Here is where the music climaxes and the french horns soar into an ecstasy that brings tears to every eye. Here is where the sun highlights the world in deep dark shadowy light. Here is where the alpha and omega discover their origins and here is a place where every answer is a question.

This is the first place, so long disguised that no one ever believes that and the last place, though no one believes that either.

I am here for you. I always have been. I always will be. We are so much alike no one can tell us apart

Not even me

Adorable

There was once a creature name Sweetie Pie who had every reason to believe it was a Shih-tzu. It had never been called anything else, except Sweetie Pie, of course, so there was no reason to believe otherwise.

Sweetie Pie played with the other Shih-tzus and it was okay. Not spectacular, or outstanding, but who's to know what causes that?

Of course there were other things that went less spectacularly. When Sweetie Pie entered a church and tried to talk to them, he was escorted out the door without any fanfare at all. The same thing happened in another church and another and every other one he entered. Once he began talking, they seemed to realize that a Shih-tzu could not be one of them. They just didn't understand him.

That brings up another subject. Sweetie Pie had always been called a he, but he had no real affinity for other hes, and really not for most she's. He found this rather difficult to discuss this with anyone who might really be able to explain it to him, so he just assumed he would eventually figure out what he was.

The one thing he really wasn't, was happy. He wasn't always unhappy. He just wasn't kick up your heels, let your ears flap in the wind ecstatic! He began to think of himself rather as a loner and did discover that he was happier being alone than feeling at odds with whatever else was going on. There is a certain amount of pleasure in peace no matter the cost.

So it was that one day he was walking through the tall grass when he heard a voice telling a story. Sweetie Pie listened to the story and enjoyed it very much, so he got into the habit of going back to listen more often and one day he even ventured to add his voice to the silence that followed the story and tell a story of his own.

It was the beginning of a very strange and very satisfying friendship. Sweetie Pie never told anyone about it because everyone would tell him that Shih-Tzus needed to hang out with real Shih-tzus and not some disembodied voice, but as time passed he realized he was actually quite happy. He and the voice began talking about all sorts of things and eventually the voice told him it was a rabbit! Sweetie Pie didn't want to tell the rabbit he was a shih-tzu, but to be fair, he finally did and it didn't matter at all.

They went right on telling stories and sharing their thoughts until one day Sweetie Pie frolicked out into the meadow while telling his story and there was a very nice looking rabbit. Now he had always been told that rabbits ran away from dogs, but this rabbit didn't. It just sat there looking at him with a shocked expression on its face, until it finally asked, "Are you Sweetie Pie?"

Nodding, he still waited for it to run away, but instead, it ran right towards him! "Sweetie Pie! It's me! It's the Disembodied Voice!" Then rolling on the ground it giggled and wriggled its nose.

"You?" Sweetie Pie was astounded. He had never seen anyone so sweet in his entire life, but he asked, "Why aren't you running away from me?"

"Well, why should I do that?" Asked The DE.

"Be....because...I'm a shih-tzu." He blurted out the words very quickly then prepared himself to feel sad when The DE left.

Only he didn't go anywhere. "You are?" The DE cocked its head and looked at him closely. "I think you are a rabbit. A very sweet, rather homely rabbit, but a rabbit none the less."

"I don't think so." He stated, a bit uncertainly.

"Well, I don't care anyway." Giggled The DE. "I don't care if you're a rabbit, or a dog. I don't care if you are a he, or a she, sad, or gay, straight, or as round as the sun. Whatever you are, you are my bestest friend in the whole wide world."

"I am?" Sweetie Pie felt all warm and quite happy, but he wasn't sure what to make of all this. Finally, for lack of anything else to say he asked, "Well what's your real name DE?"

"Adorable!" Shouted his friend and they both frolicked around the field giggling and kicking up their heels! And they did that forever more.

Now if I had to come up with a moral for this story I guess it would be: It doesn't matter what anyone else says you are, it matters where your heart connects, but maybe it's just as simple as this too: Best friends don't have to be anything -- except happy.

Touched

No matter what you believe, or don't believe. It is a sobering thought. A sweet thought. One that kind of blows my mind on every level. One that makes me imagine I am only dreaming and that all the other incredibly beautiful things that are happening to me are all some figment of my imagination.

I remember being three years old and contemplating death. I'm not exactly sure why I was doing that at such a young age, but I do recall that I was afraid I wouldn't know anyone there and I would be alone. I have thought many other things since then, but the idea that someone wants me to be there for them in their version of heaven?

Nothing may ever touch me more than that. Somehow that validates me in ways I can't explain.

Ways that really make no sense at all and yet make a difference.

Split Apart

I am sitting here, for how long I don't know, so I better write quickly. I should be with my sister. She is having a tumor removed early in the morning and I was supposed to be with her, but I woke up too sick to even get out of bed and that is where I have been all day. Tonight I felt good enough to move from my bed to my big chair where I watched a movie and cried.

I cried partly because the movie was sweet and partly because my life is so sweet. Sometimes I think I will just split in two and all the sweetness that surrounds me will escape into the air. What a silly fantasy...and yet.... not so silly at all.

It seems most stories and movies are written about people who are bad and then do something good, but my eyes and heart have been given the amazing gift of knowing people who are just plain good. Sweetly, genuinely, heart shatteringly good and I wish I could share that with all of you.

So I sat here in my big chair and just cried and cried and at last I feel like a teapot whose steam has finally been released, leaving me warm and bubbling with joy. A life is filled with so many moments but mine seems overflowing with a disproportionate number of good ones.

And now, I need to go back to bed.

Three Giant Steps Backwards!

Recipe for Fountain Of Youth Elixir


Two large mugs with good sized handles

Two computers hooked up to Internet

2 Open minds

Bottle of milk

2 Imaginations

Pinches of Courage

Tablespoons of Honesty

Bottle, or can of chocolate syrup

Joy to taste

Two Childlike people

Whipped cream

Turn on the computers and connect to the Internet. Depending on your speed, while this is happening, take the milk and chocolate syrup and pour them into the mug, stir thoroughly, heat in microwave, or pan on stove, then add a large dollop of whipped cream.

By this time the Internet should be up and you need to call up the form for a new email.

The designated bravest writes first, using as much imagination as his courage allows, along with some honesty and lots of joy. While he writes the other can slowly sip the hot chocolate in the mug and dream about writing back.

As soon as the first person sends his email, he may also sit back and just enjoy the hot chocolate while waiting for a response.

The responder does the same thing the original writer does, except he, or she must also respond in part to the first email.

This may require a few months to really take hold, but once it does you will notice great leaps backward in thought, word and deed!

Like all good things, as it ages it will take on a flavor of its own and become richer each time.

Enjoy!

Super Heroes

A hero must prove himself and according to the storybooks he does that by fighting dragons and arch villains, but then those are only imaginary heroes.

What about the real ones? Those who begin life conquering impossible foes like dyslexia and attention deficit disorders? Those children who appear to be lazy and negligent but are really working ten times harder than the average child for half the recognition, or achievement? What about those children who survive incredibly abusive step parents and still manage to get good grades and go on through high school to graduate? Sometimes they are even the ones who discover they are not run of the mill gender specific kids who then have to face society's condemnation and misunderstanding too. How about these same kids who sometimes manage not only to make it through college but get advanced degrees?

These children, who have never had it easy, tend to be some of the sweetest ones around and they turn into teachers of the highest sort.

These are the real superheroes in my opinion.

No Excuses

When I write something that bombs I am so embarrassed! I want to hide my head and beg everyone's forgiveness and take back what I wrote so no one else can read it. In short I over react big time. It's my perfectionist nature sneaking out to torture me.

It's the surest sign I have that there is still work to be done. Not just on what I wrote, but on me. Me, that person who is quick to overlook any of your quirks and try to buoy you up when you feel you've failed. What makes me think I am any different than you?

In reality what I wrote is just as good as anything else I've written, but maybe not appropriate for the audience I presented it to. That's what I'd tell you if you were in my position and it's true.

So, I'm not going to apologize for it, or make excuses. I'm just going to admit it isn't something that is very popular and get on with my life.

Today

When something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Or is it really?

All those stories about mean stepmothers and wicked witches and evil queens, is it possible they are all based on the same bad woman as seen by many different people?

All those times when the goodness turns out to just be a trap and not real goodness at all; could it be one story told a million times?

When life is too good I become frightened and some nay say-er is always there to pat me on the back and say, "You're right. This can't be happening to you." Sucking all the joy out of what should be mountain top experiences, what are in reality perfect moments, except for my lack of faith in my own judgment.

Why shouldn't something feel too good to be true? There is absolutely no reason at all for me not to find the purest kind of joy in living. If I expect nothing except the joy, it is usually here for the taking.

It is all those other expectations that weigh things down, make them messy, dull the shine of beautiful moments.

This moment is not tied down to tomorrow. If tomorrow something else happens, it will be up to me to make what I can of it.

Today I am surrounded by joy.

The Good Life

I think it is human nature to always want a bit more. It's probably what has helped us evolve into the top predator on this earth, but what is human nature is not always something to be encouraged.

I don't want to be the top predator. Eating my neighbor is not high on my list.

Neither is being the richest, or the tallest, or smallest, or fattest, or skinniest, not even the smartest, or nicest. I can leave the extremes to those who mostly have no choice. They need all the help they can get. All those "ests" often come at a high price the rest of us would be shocked to learn about.

What I yearn for is a simple life where I can take care of myself, pay the bills, buy food, find something useful to do and enjoy the company of like minds.

It hasn't always been this way. I came to this place via many years of trying out other ways. They simply don't suit me. I have no problem with others wanting more, especially the young, as long as it is tempered with reason and compassion. I don't have any great plans for improving the world, most of the ones I have seen, or read about don't really work all that well anyway.

Living the good life seems to require a lot of improv. Start by defining it and continue on to the best of ones ability and there are still bound to be huge errors along the way. Mainly because we all seem to define it differently and by the time anyone has it figured out they are probably too old, or too close to the end to convince the rest of us they are right.

That's the problem with being top predator. Snap decisions don't leave many alternatives.

Adult Children, Endangered Species

Special care must be taken with children of any age. They are precious creatures, almost a different species from the adults most of them grow into.

It is one thing to be childish. It is something else all together to be a child. Children have an openness, a vulnerability about them that means they are still growing, still being molded into the man, or woman who might someday emerge from this lovely creature who exists right now.

There are a few who never make that transition. They are not peter pans, nor are they childish, they are just adult children. They are no slower as adults than they were as smaller people. Some may be doctors, or teachers, or firemen, or even writers. Some may be waitresses and some may be dancers. They are what they are.

Why this happens I don't know. Some people think it comes through traumatic events that halt development at critical ages and perhaps that is true, but it isn't that easy to put a finger on.

It isn't even easy to identify adult children if you are one. There is no formula, no pattern, no descriptive checklist that I know of and they are relatively rare.

They do not seem to lose the intensity of childhood, the idealistic hopes, the sweetness, or the occasional tantrums. They seem to be creative, but then aren't most children?

I only know that when one adult child stumbles into the presence of another, there is a bond that seems to form quite naturally. It is a deeper bond than many people ever experience, because here you have two very open, very idealistic, very loving individuals who lack the inhibitions and restraints most people grow into in order to survive. I am talking of deep connecting friendship, not necessarily sexual relationships, they also tend to have a naivete that carries through.

That makes their survival somewhat problematic too. They do best in safe environments where they are protected from some of the worlds worst hazards, even finding mates who serve as surrogate parents, or support systems that help them cope.

It's Not Always Just A Dream

Amazing how time waits for no man, how the sun rises and the moon sets, the months march forward and the years fly by and I, standing here in my own little moment am part of it all.

The present, the past, the future, they're all inside of me, all holding my face in their hands and gazing into my eyes, saying, "Take me, I'm yours!"

So I do.

I have learned to embrace them all, to love them and hold them close to my heart and lay my head upon their chest to hear the beating of each heart. Snuggling in close so I can feel the breath of their inspiration upon my face and the warmth of their fingers close upon mine.

Leaping false barriers in a single bound I imagine myself the super hero of the mystics, sitting at Merlin's feet to learn the wisdom of the mages who came before, dancing in daring dervishes with Rumi, or walking with a Jewish Rabbi along the shores of a long dead sea. My dreams carry me to places I have dared to dream of.

I am a child by this universe's standards and so I dare to do childish things and free myself from the burdens of man's somber thoughts tonight. One moment at a time I discover the wonders of being and so each one becomes a revelation worth the risk.

"To dream the impossibile dream....." It's not always just a dream.

Ideals

The fire is roaring in the hearth and the candles flicker on the table. The tree stands brilliantly in the corner of the room, the angel on top elegant and the skirt at its feet equally so. There are Christmas cookies on a plate near the tree, hot cocoa in cups topped with whipped cream and Christmas music piped into the air like spring rain on a sunny afternoon when rainbows arch over fairy tale skies and small children giggle quietly in corners.

It is only a picture that pops up in my mind when I try to write about Christmas. I suppose it is the ideal Christmas we are all taught to yearn for and want, but the reality is actully much sweeter.

No tree gave its life so that I could enjoy it for a few short weeks. A star shimmers above my fake little tree, symbolic of the beauty and order in our magnificent world and the music that flows through my mind is so sweet that I hum along with it.

Joy comes from what is and my world is full of it in this moment.

Tis the season to be grateful for the peace that is, the food that feeds the hungry and the rain that continues to fill our ponds and lakes. The laughter of joyful people, the light that shines from their eyes and the love they share are the gifts that will endure. Anything more than this is only the tinsel and garland that adds a bit of sparkle to an already lovely moment.

A Good Place

My Internet was down last night and most of this morning and I realize that I am definitely dependent on it for so many things it is a bit scary. It is my preferred way of connecting with most of the people in my world, outside of actually seeing them in person of course.

I cannot imagine what it was like to wait weeks, or months, maybe even years to hear from people over time. I do remember when letters took several days and return letters a bit longer because folks needed time to hand write and post them. I also remember when telephone calls were long distance and a few minutes cost precious money I didn't have. We have come so far.

I am at such a good place in my life right now. The young people just starting out are dealing with all those things I remember, no heat, living disconnect to disconnect, well I never had to do that, but I did live one winter with a bare minimum of heat, counting on blankets to keep me warm. Now I can't afford to waste anything, but who would want to do that anyway? Still, I don't have to be cold, or hungry and my health is taking a turn for the better.

I have the luxury of movies streamed straight into my home, coffee steaming hot and ready whenever I want it, and a chance to wallow in my desire to be creative that is the best reason I have ever had for being alive other than the people in my life.

I think that is the one thing I have that young people sometimes don't get until later on. I have found my place!

And I love it!

Perfection

What is perfection?

Is it a beauty that stops people in their tracks? Smooth, glowing skin, twinkling bright eyes, a demeanor guarranteed to look adorable and loving?

Or does it come from within. Are all those outward signs simply illusions projected by a personality and soul so gentle and good and loving that everything around them glows with a magical radiance seldom found outside of children's books?

Perhaps it is even a combination of the two, that occasion when the best of all worlds manifests in one place and those fortunate enough to be there get a glimpse of those rare ones who myths and folk tales are modeled after.

Whatever it is, I only know it exists and I am blessed to have touched upon it.

I Love These Nights

It takes a bit of planning to create fun family get togethers, but we don't have them very often.

My children are scattered all over the country and whenever I see them, let along get two of them together with their families I am in heaven.

Tonight was one of those nights, a night when my oldest granddaughter held my youngest on her lap. They are sixteen years apart!

My beautiful red haired granddaughter sat elegantly on the couch in her white dress and scarf, a true little diva in her own right.

My grandson was the only grandchild not here tonight. He is home in North Carolina celebrating his fifth birthday, but I called and sang happy birthday to him earlier in the day.

We met at my daughter's home where the ambiance was perfect. A Christmas tree sparkled in front of a fireplace whose stockings were hung with extraordinary care. There was traditional lasagna for the carnivores and vegetable lasagna for the pescatarians, garlic bread and salad and apple crisp for all.

When it was over we trooped out to the car to discover two inches of snow on the ground and the air still floating full of big fat flakes drifting gently down.

Tonight we were one big family united for food and fun and a chance to express that love that binds us all together no matter how far apart we might live.

I love these nights.

In That Moment

In the solitary silence of the night I hear the world whispering to me. Words not quite distinct that I strain to hear. Words I yearn to hear. Words I faithfully scribble down, one after the other, knowing that in the end they will rearrange themselves into the order that was proscribed by the daylight as too...too much, too loud, too emphatic, too.

Words too loud for the morning, too garish for an afternoon, too subtle for the evening. Words whose meaning is only apparent in the twinkling of the stars, or diffused by the moon's cold light. Words whose empathy knocks the feet out from under those who stand too solid, or drowns those already too heavy when submerged by all the emotions that flutter around on a sunny day.

In the stillness of the moment, those who lean a faithful ear close might hear the sound of a million hearts beating as one when the mind is not engaged and the ego is firmly under wraps; a moment when time stands still and silence sings the secrets no man remembers later on.

But the words mingle with the wind and the rain and the breath jumbles them all together so that the old familiar patterns become unrecognizable and I believe they are new.

A Dream

What do I do when love burrows into my life in the middle of the night, invading my dreams, writing love stories on the backs of my eyelids and singing songs that make my lips smile when they don't even know they exist?

How can something so ethereal be so satisfying real?

Filling my arms with sensations of love, leaving imprints on my shoulder of a face that never lay there, warming my neck with the soft breath of an invisible entity.

I sigh and my heart beats softly, tha thump, tha thump, tha thump, and I never want to wake up.

Yet when I do, I leap from my bed, filled with joy and ready to begin a new day.

Eager to write the stories and read the words that will fill the next night so sublimely.

Perfection

I wanted the world to love my love, so I began by lopping off the things that made it lopsided.

Then I ground away all the smaller imperfections.

I filled in the chinks, spruced up the color, spiffied up its persona and buffed it until it shone.

I only wanted it to look perfect when the world saw it.

The world saw it and judged it and deemed it imperfect in so many respects.

My tears fell in raging rivers as I sat there, humiliated and depressed.

Until my love held me close murmuring sweet words into my ear,

An ear that was lopsided and attached to great imperfections, on a woman full of chinks with faded hair and dulled skin.

I learned about perfection in that moment.

Keep Trying

Kids are so much smarter than we grown-ups.

If a kid likes to swing, he'll stand by the swings, or if he is lucky, he'll be swinging in one himself. That's where you meet swingers.

If she likes to slide, she'll be in line to go down one, 'cause guess what? You got it! That's where you meet sliders!

Once in a while you see a kid standing by the sandbox. Those kids don't like sand or they'd be inside, but they don't want anyone feeling left out. That's okay too.

The point is, if you want to be happy, you've gotta go where you are happy to begin with.

Just keep doing that, even if you change your mind about where you want to be.

It's the wanting that's important.

Listen To Mom, Well, Some Moms

Speaking to people in ways they can understand is the first and most important part of playing well with others.

You have the right to call god by whatever name he gave you, or to simply express the feeling in your heart that this world we live in is so utterly magnificent and well ordered that it precipitates a feeling of awe, or to even not think about these things at all.

It is when people start believing that burning people at the stake, or stoning them, or shunning them, or bombing them is an act of some god that it becomes incomprehensible to me.

Reaching out with a helping hand, feeding the poor and caring for the sick, these are universal signs of good will all people understand when they are not blinded by hate and fear.

We are all in this together whether we like it or not. Remember how your mother used to say, "You will all learn to get along, or else!"

She was wiser than you might think.

Bits And Pieces

I brought one Christmas ornament to Illinois from North Carolina and today I bought it a tree!

Life is like that sometimes.

I start out with a whole and add bits and pieces to it, or I start out with a bit and had a whole to it, which of course makes the whole just a piece of the bit.

I tend to think big things are whole and the smaller other things appear to be, the more likely I am to consider them less than whole, but that definitely isn't true.

Each thing, each person, each thought is always part of something larger even as it is a whole concept unto itself.

I am me. Add me to the siblings in my family and I become a part of that whole. Add us siblings to a family with mom and dad and it is part of another whole and on it goes.

It goes the other way too.

My nose is part of me, but when I cut it off to spite my face, my nose is a whole missing part, as would be a finger, or finger nail.

We are not simple celled creatures, but even those can be broken down.

Isn't this world amazing? It's kind of like some giant hand began crocheting, or knitting DNA and RNA and what all and just kept going and going and going.

Does that mean if the right thread is pulled, it all unravels?

Close Encounters Of The Worst Kind

I was at the laundromat when a woman sat down at the counter across from me. I was reading Sanctuary by Faulkner, yes I'm trying another one of his books, she was reading the editorials and interrupted me to point out a political cartoon. I thought this was a little bit of a strange thing to do with a stranger, but I politely looked at it and smiled. It was okay. She then tried to start a conversation with two women doing laundry across from us and when they left soon after, she turned back to me. I thought, okay she is lonely. I can read Faulkner later.

Big mistake.

What seemed like a play for attention started out talking about our children. Nothing wrong with that. In fact her oldest daughter was about the age of my daughter, but she still had two at home and one who was a freshman on full scholarship at a very strict Christian college. I was sucked in and before I quite understood what was happening realized we were engaged in a very subtle game of one upmanship. I honestly wasn't even aware of it at first then I noticed this uncomfortable feeling of wanting to impress her. I asked myself why?

She told me how perfect her daughter was, good grades, great athlete in several sports, full scholarship to this perfect college, and never even thought about sex or dating, but, well, she had a messy room at home. That was it! The admission of a minor fault in order to impress me with how impossibly perfect this child was. Since I could see where it was going I tried to hold back. My kids are grown. I'm through. Whatever they do now is up to them and I am completely happy with where they are. Some of that is my influence, but a lot of it is their own hard work and I don't get any credit for it at all. I just mentioned my children were all grown and out of the house.

She went on to to tell me how they adopted their son from her sister and how he was only going to junior college and might have to work a little harder, but then he was adopted. That kind of blew it. I jumped in with both feet and buried myself. I said two of my children were adopted and one was a lawyer. She immediately said her older daughter was a lawyer. I said that was great, but I wasn't feeling good, I was still feeling very annoyed, so I fell hook, line and sinker into her trap and said mine was a public defender who opted to become a stay at home dad with his new baby. She countered with her daughter, who could have become a trial attorney, in fact was at the top of her class and probably should have, but she didn't want to spend her life setting criminals free!

It was about this point in the conversation when I realized what was going on and opted out, but not before one attempt at reason. I said not all people charged with a crime are guilty, that our whole system is predicated on the idea that we are innocent until proven guilty and didn't she think people needed attornies for that? Of course not, she said, most people are guilty, or they wouldn't even be suspect.

What did I expect?

Before I committed the crime of throttling a middle aged housewife in a laundromat and ended up needing a lawyer myself I backed up and simply asked how old were the other children. She began going on and on about them and the fact that one was a wrestler, working out as we spoke in order to lower his weight a half pound before the match coming up. He walked in somewhere in the middle of her discussing him and she went on to tell me about a girl who wrestled on his team and who embarrassed the boys and even undressed in the locker room. I wanted to say that it took a lot of guts for a girl to undress in a boy's locker room, but the kid was turning six shades of red as him mother talked about how the girl seeing him stark naked because he forgot she was there. Of course I really do realize how difficult it can be to have a girl on a wrestling team, especially when the kids are 14 and 15 years old and why anyone expected them to share the locker room is beyond me, but I had the good sense, and really a lack of opportunity to even talk about that, because she was off talking about other personal things as if the boy was not sitting there with us at a counter in a public laundromat while his mother aired all their dirty laundry for anyone nearby.

I usually enjoy talking to people I don't know, but I will be more careful in laundromats. They seem to bring out the worst in us.

Outside The Inner Circle

I spent most of my life "at home." It was a choice I made consciously and adamantly and I am not in the least bit sorry for that, but now I wonder if I might have also done a bit more along with that.

Not just a job. I had a great job once my children started school. Teaching preschool is something I enjoyed immensely and was well rewarded for in so many ways. I just look at the people who seem the happiest and they are those who are the most secure and independent.

It seems that the broader the base, the more likely people are to be satisfied. Today my base is much broader than it has been for my entire life.

I have several different irons in the fire that bring me satisfaction and it is that satisfaction coming from more than one, or even two, places that makes me feel I really deserve it. I no longer am just a good teacher, or just a good mom, which sounds funny because those are no small things, but I am also good at some other things and I see that in many small ways.

Of course that is true no matter what we do in life, but when those sources come from outside the inner circle, somehow they feel more validating to me.

I guess variety really is the spice of life.

Happy Thanksgiving

I have been at Thanksgiving dinners where they go around the table and ask everyone what they are thankful for. I like that idea. It kind of preserves the reason for the day in its highest form in my opinion.

I would have a hard time knowing what to say now, though. I am thankful for so many things in my life and they all seem to link together into one long continuous chain of security and joy that surround me as I enter my sixth decade for real now. I used to wonder if I was middle aged, but now I have to laugh, because I think I somehow missed it altogether and went from young to old. I mean I don't feel old, but if you just look at the years I've racked up, there are a lot of them.

I am thankful for my tiny apartment. I finally found a place just the right size for me. It is what I've dreamed of for years. Just enough room to do those things I do and small enough that I don't waste energy or money heating, or cleaning it.

I am thankful that I am still useful and can be a contributing member of this world.

I am thankful for my family, children, grandchildren and friends, and even one special friend who all make me feel loved and glad to be around.

I am thankful for my little dog even when he is a nuisance, because his love is always unconditionally huge.

I am thankful that I am finally writing and people are reading what I write, it is more satisfying than I ever imagined it would be.

In a world where people are still suffering and starving and worried about so many bad things, I live in a world that is almost fairy tale perfect. A world where little boy cuddles come in jars that can be pulled from shelves whenever they are needed and dreams still fall from the sky like waterfalls of stars.

Brrrrr...Baby It's Cold Outside

I had to get my ice scraper out for the first time this year. It's cold up here in the north!

But I don't have to walk anywhere right now and my car has a heater and my heart is overflowing with joy, so, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!"

Actually it isn't snowing, it is raining, which isn't as pretty, but better since my children are on the road today driving in for Thanksgiving.

The dog is finally using his puppy pads, reluctantly and obviously as a last resort, but I'll take that. It works.

Emails are coming in with loving thoughts and wishes and that makes my day even sweeter.

It doesn't take much to make me happy and yet as I say this, I feel like I have so much that it is not a valid statement.

I don't know if my joy is relative, or simply the wisdom produced by years of not feeling happy, but again, I'll take it for whatever it is. It also works.

That I know is wisdom.

Right now, in this moment, my health feels okay, my heart is full of love and my life is fulfilled. I don't suppose I can ask for more than that.

A Taste Of Honey

In today's world many of us are dreaming of our ten minutes of fame and hoping it will actually be forever after.

It may never be that, but you may get tastes of it all the time and be so busy you don't even notice.

Wouldn't it be better to know it than to miss it altogether?

Think It Through

So you don't want to have a full body scan before getting on an airplane. Maybe you are one of those who wants to organize a boycott against this. People count on this kind of thinking. It is American arrogance.

Boycott unfair laws. Boycott ideas that you don't agree with, but be sure you realize what you are boycotting. You are not the only intelligent being in the world. There are others who realize if they can stop the scanning by getting you to boycott it, it opens the door for their own less savory plans.

They're willing to die for their beliefs. Are you willing to die for this particular one?

Even more importantly, are you willing to risk killing everyone your plane takes with it when it crashes, burns and explodes?

Is something like a body scan worth all this?

Bending Wills

I am trying to re paper train my dog. A big part of the problem this month has been that I should not have been running up and down the steps three or four times a day to take him out.

Well, actually if I had been able to run, things might have been different. I was barely able to hobble and consequently ended up injuring my knee, my hip and my shoulder while trying to keep pressure off my foot. My sister finally rescued me and took my dog home with her until I picked him up Friday night.

He prefers going out, but if we are going to live together, it is imperative that he learn to use his papers and be happy with that. I put the paper on a little tray by the front door, but he never used it. He finally left a little pile in the middle of the living room, but I have no idea where he peed. Surely he must have done that since Friday, right?

Yesterday I confined him to the bedroom with me. My computer is in here and so he is not alone. Still he has not used the puppy pad!

I realize I am going against everything he believes in with this process, but the alternative is unthinkable. That would be getting rid of him. I don't know how I would do that. Besides he was paper trained for three years before he started going outside, so it is not something he is unfamiliar with. It is just something he doesn't like.

Bending wills - not an easy thing to do, even for someone as bull headed as I am.

This Or Something Better

I know that if I am not enough for something in any way; not smart enough, sophisticated enough, pretty enough, thin enough, just not enough, then that becomes a wall between real fullfillment and me.

Over striving to breach that wall and make myself enough for whatever it is, is pointless, because I might be able to do it for a while, but not forever. There are innumerable ways to achieve satisfaction and joy in my life. I don't need to focus on the few negative ones.

So many of us grow up thinking there is a finite amount of wonder in life. We think we must grab the golden ring and hang on for dear life, because there may not be any more of them coming up. We trap ourselves with the first golden ring that comes along, or the next golden ring that comes along, or the only golden ring we are skillful enough to catch and we decide to make do.

What a travesty making do is! It is like wanting to play tennis and settling for one of those little paddles with a ball on an elastic band. Or craving pizza and settling for a tomato. Or wanting a great big hug and petting the dog. There is nothing wrong with any of these alternatives. They just aren't the full blown, hugely satisfying, wonderful solution.

Yet, people settle like this all the time, fearful that something just as good or even better might not be waiting for them.

I remember wanting things as a child. The wanting was so delicious it had a life of its own. Then, sometimes, I got something similar and so the wanting was over...kind of...but not really. It wasn't exactly disappointment, it just wasn't absolutely satisfying..

That kind of thing is the golden thread that ties me up and trips me up and keeps me from ever really having the opportunity to find what I really want and need. It is better for me if I remove my finger from the thread and allow myself to float free and find my own level.

That is where I belong.

In The Best Of All Worlds:

Love is defined for me before I even have a sense of self.

Those first cuddles and snuggles set the tone for the rest of my life and so do the next sixteen years.

If my caretaker is sensitive to my being, I learn so much!

I learn it is okay to have needs and expect them to be met.

I learn it is okay to express my needs without fear of retribution, or ridicule.

I learn it is okay to have ideas and to explore my world with great abandon.

I even learn it is okay to make mistakes and expect some kind of loving discipline.

The world is warm and loving and rational - in the best of all worlds.

It Feels So Good

In "Madeleine" I love the line, "We love our bread. We love our butter, but most of all we love each other."

And I think we love each other in bits and pieces the same way we love our bread and butter. It is always eaiser to love the parts I understand and agree with.

The rest? Not always so easy.

If I were to make two columns and label them, things I love about you and things I don't love about you. The second column would be more about me, than you.

Love. It is so simple and so intricately complicated.

It just feels so good. It's a shame to go on thinking it comes from somewhere else when the only place it goes is to your heart where it started in the first place.

Now I'm An M

I love the way children think. Left to their own devices they almost always put the best slant on everything. My grandson notices everything. He started dressing himself when he was around three years old and loved putting on his clothes and socks.

Why? Not because his feet were cold, or he was particularly proud of the fact that he could do it, but because they were "S's!" In his world "S" meant super as in super hero, superman, spider-man.

They came for a visit not too long ago and he informed me that he is no longer an "S" now he is an "M." I forgot to ask, much to my shame, but I'll bet "M" stands for Mega-tron, or something else big and awesome.

You and I may be small, medium, large, or even extra large, but he is more and so are most children. They haven't grown down into mediocrity yet.

Beyond Beyond

The center point. I must find the center point, beyond inside me, beyond my thoughts, beyond the rationale of my mind. It flows through me like the drop of a roller coaster on an old rickety wooden trestle. Taking my breath away, lifting my heart into my throat, dropping my stomach into oblivion, it draws me in.

Yearning, aching, like a hollow tube running through my center it connects me to something I cannot quite remember, a place, a feeling, a being beyond the veil that flows over me like the ocean at high tide, or the sun when it emerges from behind a cloud.

The ocean drips from my eyes and the light burns holes in me so that the scent of evergreens can invade my senses.

I am one with everything. I am more than one, I am an explosion of love, a blinding blast of feeling that makes my heart burn with need and if I don't connect to that place where the love energy flows outward, I will be immolated by this oneness.

I am cocooned by this nothingness, this aching, this place beyond beyond.

Come. Join me, because there are no words for this place. Walk into me and feel this oneness. Breathe for me and let me be your heart. Fall into this place with me and we will rise together, into the mist, the warmth, the void that fills everything.

Adorable

I am constantly amazed at the sweetness of people and the things they are willing to do for others.

Just about the time I decide things can't get any sweeter, someone does something else that is absolutely adorable and I wonder if I am just getting so old and jaded that I am over rating these acts, or if I just know amazingly beautiful people.

I think it is the latter.

Frills

One of the things I always liked about math classes was taking things down to their lowest common denominator, or most compact point. Sometimes I like that when I write too. It can be a challenge. How do I say what needs to be said efficiently and still keep it clear?

I like living this way. Getting rid of all the extraneous stuff so that life is as simple as it can be. There are just so many things to deal with in this world, why complicate it?

That all being said, there are things that simply enrich life. They may appear to be frills, but they are the frills that are somehow soothing and pleasing. The difference between just having air to breathe and air that carries the scent of a pine tree, or the ocean.

I suppose the need for these things vary from person to person. Not judging someone else's needs is sometimes difficult, but it's one of the secrets for playing well with others.

Amazing Personas

How often am I amazed at the difference between someones public image and who they are if I know them personally?

Honestly, sometimes I would not even recognize them as the same person if I didn't already know them as both.

I suppose that could be said of me, too. If you only know me as your teacher, or a volunteer at a public place, or one of my persona's, would you know who I was?

Watch small children role playing and I think you will understand more about what I am saying. We all have the ability to be who we are in the moment. It's what makes a name so important. Give someone a baby name and they will often live up to it. Give someone a highly formal name and they often feel responsible for acting that way.

I happen to like this phenomena. I have many sides and it is a relief to get to be some of them without all the baggage that being my public me comes with. Unfortunately, after a while I develop relationships with people in all areas and that in and of itself changes things. Once more I have a set of standards that I feel I must live up to.

For example: a teacher needs a bit of decorum and confidence that make it possible for her students to relate to if they are really going to accept and understand what she is teaching them. An on-line persona can be the silly, carefree girl that is always in here, but feels compelled to hide when people see that I am a mature, older woman.

Most of my choices are not particularly thought out, they really are pieces of me waiting in the wings for their time in the light. I just wish most of them had more time.

The Wreck Of The Me

"Down by the station, early in the morning..."

Uphill, uphill, uphill, I feel like the little engine who almost can't.

The train that follows my foot is starting to yield to all the creaks and cracks that comes when one part is not working right and the ride is too rough.

Having to potty the puppy three to four times a day, means going up and down staircases in slow agonizing steps as I try not to put any more pressure than I absolutely must on my sore foot.

Last night my knee began throbbing and refusing to bend correctly.

That threw my hip out of joint and it began to pound ferociously no matter whether it was standing, sitting, or lying down.

And, last but not least, my shoulder, which has been bad for a while joined in this tangled wreck and kept me up all night long.

Unable to lie, sit, or stand comfortably, I swallowed pain relievers that went down like sugar pills and worked even less effectively until I remembered I had a vicodin left over from my kidney stones, (what a pain this growing older is both literally and figuratively) and at last was able to fall asleep for a while.

This morning my sister drove up and picked up my dog so I can recuperate from this flare up before I destroy the rest of my joints!

"Chug, chug, toot, toot, off we go!"

The Fountain Of Youth

Long ago, in the mists of time, a little girl wandered up into the mountains. There she met an old woman who could not reach the apple she desperately wanted to eat, so the girl climbed up in the tree and got it for her. It was as simple a thing for the girl to do as it was impossible for the old woman whose joints were becoming gnarled and whose right foot was all swollen and whose every step was an agony.

To repay the kindness, the old woman told the girl about a spring hidden in a grove surrounded by huge boulders. There she could make one wish and then she must immerse herself in the spring and it would come true. The girl hugged the old woman and thanked her but really didn't feel she had done anything that deserved a reward.

She was curious about that spring though and went to great pains to find it. Then, standing right on the edge she thought about what she would wish for if this were a real magical place. While she was trying to think, her mind wandered as it was wont to do and she began thinking about how much fun it would be to splash and play in that water and that led to other things. She could see herself sitting in the shade of the nearby oak, loving her dolls and writing out little stories to share with her friends, thinking about how happy they would be. She imagined them hugging her and all of the adventures they could have together. She thought about how much fun it was to wander around in her small world, up into the mountain and down through the forests and she got so involved with her thinking that she slipped and fell into the water.

Climbing out, she was a little sorry that she hadn't made a wish first, but then she really knew there was no such thing as magic. And from there, she went on to live her life. Loving the water, watching the tides go in and out, the waves undulating in the sunlight, or raging in the storms. She married and raised a family, as happy as any mother could ever hope to be and when they were all grown, she began writing stories that she shared, but always she was on the move. Exploring her world and the world around it until one day she found herself on a mountain staring up at an apple that was just out of her reach.

Her bones too weary to climb any more trees, but her heart still imagining that anything was possible when along came a little girl, almost out of nowhere, who climbed up and got that apple for her. It was as easy for that little girl as it was unthinkable for the old woman. She remembered the spring and the gift an old woman had wanted to give her, so she drew the girl close into the shade of an old oak tree and spun her a tale of magic waters and wishes come true and sent her on her way.

Somebody Older

I remember reading a poem once whose point was the there is always somebody older than me. I liked that idea even then when most of the world was older than me. I still like the poem, but I am often one of the oldest people wherever I am now and I'm discovering it really doesn't matter.

We all grow at different rates and there is usually someone who got there before me. Maybe it's just because I am a slow mover, or maybe it is just because there are so many things to do and see, I can't do them all at once. Whichever it is doesn't really matter.

It mostly matters that I make connections with others and keep on learning.

I am learning that the real definition of old is a cessation of learning.

The art of living seems to be to keep pushing the boundaries and so what if one day I go over?

It's been a glorious ride!

Carefree And Easy Going

Remember how you used to share all your secrets with your best friend? Well, not quite all of them, there were some things we all just knew not to talk about.

My mother had a way of raising her long penciled in auburn eyebrows high up into her forehead and saying, "If you only knew."

Nobody wanted to know more than I did.

I used to try and imagine what she would say if I could get her to talk. I thought maybe it would be those same thoughts I had too and never felt I could share with anyone. Growing up in the fifties wasn't all Leave It Too Beaver and Mickey Mouse Club. In order to maintain that kind of easy going care free-ness there had to be a list of things no one ever thought about, or heaven forbid, spoke of.

The trouble was, I thought about them. That in itself was pretty traumatizing, but I was an intelligent child. I never ever spoke about them. If I had, I suspected that I would have suffered the same fate as the flies my grandmother chased down all summer long, always saying, "Filthy creatures," as that fly swatter swept in for the kill.

Grandma knew what was good and what was bad. If someone she loved did something bad, she would say, "That just breaks my heart." She didn't play cards, or drink and she had a picture of Jesus with his sacred heart stuck to the outside of his chest that caused me great consternation. One time I asked about it and she, being rather busy at the time, said something vague about things he talked about.

So, I grew up, not really easy going, and certainly not carefree, but alive and relatively unscathed by the flyswatter. Unfortunately I still had those thoughts and I certainly was not going to talk about them to anyone.

After over fifty years of not talking, I violated that sacred code and -- I talked! I shared those things with a friend and no great flyswatter descended upon me and my heart, although in my mouth for a while, was not ripped from my chest.

For the first time, I know what it feels like to be carefree and easy going!

Don't wait as long as I did.

Reasons Like These

It doesn't matter how old I am, if I have a reason to get out of bed, life is good. Remember what it was like to get up on Christmas morning, or your birthday, or any really special day? That is the feeling I shoot for!

It can be as unique as an email where someone writes, "How have I missed thee?!?" or as sweet as, "Oh how I cherish your sweet words." It can be funny like my little dog licking my nose then wagging his tail when I growl at him. It can be the sun shining in through the tree outside, or a phone call from one of my children.

I need reasons to get out of bed and my life has been supplying them for quite some time now.

I used to think people who had reasons like these were just lucky and that is surely part of it, but there is more to it than just luck. I need to cultivate those things that please me and make me smile. They are truly priceless.

Never taking anything for granted is a wondrous way to live. Not being afraid to let the world know how I feel can be embarrassing, but mostly it reflects back to me in heart stopping echoes.

You'd be amazed at the things that can happen to an ordinary life.

Just Be Yourself, It's Quicker

Striving to do and be things that I am not, or pretending an interest in things that are not truly important to me is courting disaster. Settling for "less than" when it comes to friends and lovers is an even bigger disaster. No one should be settled for, we all deserve better than that.

I'll admit that it is difficult for most of us to find someone who truly adores us and who we really adore back, but that is who should be in that very inner circle where our souls stand face to face. It is such a sensitive area, there may not be many people who ever really belong there. In fact there may only end up being one who belongs there.

So why be somebody you aren't when you already have so many people to meet and places to go and things to do?

What if you "settle" for something less, something that fits into the world's ideas of what is good and never find it for yourself?

Because whatever it is that fills you up to overflowing is the only thing that will ever make you truly happy.

It is your bliss and it is worth the search.

The only tools you need are honesty and yourself, whoever and whatever you are. Then just go out there and do your thing. The journey itself is absolutely amazing. Sometimes that's all there is and when that is true?

All is truly everything.

Parenting

Life is such a balancing act.

Somewhere between allowing the child to seek his own level and believing that as the twig is bent, so will the boy grow, is a fine balance we commonly call parenting.

It is scary to think that the only requirement for being a parent is a lusty connection that may, or may not have any thought behind it and for this act you are rewarded not with a gold cup, or a puppy, but a human baby!

That baby, as it was for you and I when we were babies, relies on his "parent" to teach him how to live in this world and our responses, whether they are carefully thought out, or mere whimsical reactions, can decide whether or not he will live, eat, play and love successfully, or struggle for the rest of his days.

Children don't need cool parents, or funny parents, or "in" parents. They don't need parents to be friends and pals and playmates, although there is a time and a place for all these things in a balanced life. Children need parents who teach them the real rules about a real world that will cut them off at the knees without any compassion at all if they screw up as adults.

This is probably the hardest job any of us will ever attempt and nobody seems to want to really talk about it. It isn't a popular subject. Children are not little science projects, or adventures in babysitting. They are real live, tiny human beings who will someday grow up to be parents themselves and what we give them will decide the ways many of them will suffer through depression, or face impossible work standards, or deal with huge health issues.

I wouldn't build a house without a good foundation, so why would I want to send my child out into the world without something equally substantial?

Everything Is Relative

If a millionaire had to pay $200,000 for every trip to the doctor's office, he might begin to understand what it means to those of us on limited incomes with no insurance. In other words, if everyone had to pay 20% of their monthly income for one office visit then maybe that would even things out -- or not.

Of course it really wouldn't matter because the millionaire, although he may have more eloquent and costly expenses, would never have to forgo food, or gasoline, or heat in order to get an antibiotic, or allergy medicine. First of all, money has privileges. Many very rich people can simply call their doctor and get what they want over the phone.

The other day someone asked me if I didn't have to have insurance now and since it couldn't be denied me, why didn't I have it? Well, having to have insurance, and being able to get it, and being able to pay for it are not the same thing. The insurance companies have a way of evening things out for those of us they consider un-insurable. If I could afford to put 25% of every month's budget into just the insurance, I could afford it too. That just wouldn't leave me any money for food, or the most generic of generic prescriptions, or actually going to the doctor afterwards, because insurance like that doesn't pay for office visits.

Everything is relative.

For many of us medical care is not really an option. We are the real middle class. We don't qualify for any help and we don't make enough to make ends meet without trimming out all the frills.

When going to the doctor for gout is a luxury, you have reached our level.

The Real Way

Everything is relative.

No matter how good things are, I can find something to be unhappy about, but sometimes the scale does seem to be tipped in really frustrating ways.

I go for years trying to achieve some particular goal and when it arrives it is accompanied by baggage that has nothing to do with it at all.

I might expect a few gray hairs, or perhaps a wrinkle, or two. After all I am no spring chicken, but other things just seem unfair. There is that word again, fair. I know that there is absolutely no reason to expect fairness. There are many people all over the world who suffer through much worse things than I do, but my little world forgets that.

My world becomes accustomed to things being a certain way and I learn to deal with them. Just when I think I have things pretty much under control, something else pops up to show me how little control I really do have.

It is inconvenient. It is embarrassing and sometimes it is just simply painful. I suppose these are the "tests" that poems and literature write about all the time. Am I really as "whatever it is I think I am" as I like to believe? It all sounds much more romantic to read about than it feels in actual life.

There is so little romantic about real pain if I am the one experiencing it. The romance is all on the side of observation, whether that observer is me, or you.

Maybe that is why stories are written. When reality cannot be changed, then it is a sort of panacea to write about how noble, or sweet it can be to deal with it, and of course, it helps to sell the story if there is some romance too.

Fairness

Sometimes I wonder where human beings ever came up with the concept of fair.

It doesn't seem to be one of those things that really exists in nature. At least, not so that I can recognize it as a naturally occurring phenomena.

No where have I found the law of fairness. As close as I can figure out, it is a coping mechanism for living in groups, where weaker members are valued for something other than their strength, or cunning.

You can follow all the rules and still not be fair. Some might even consider it a weakness factor in the game to be top dog. Fairness requires judgment calls, compassion, intelligence.

Brute strength, monetary power, vicious cunning, all are tools of those clawing their way to the top. Look at herds of animals. The bull male dominates until he becomes too old to hold his own. Then he is virtually ostracized and forced to leave the herd, often being eaten by predators, or starving to death on his own. In a world where everything was fair, he would be given at least as much care as he had provided good for his herd, but that is not a factor.

Finding the value in working for the highest good is not an easy concept to demonstrate, or maintain. It requires an intelligence and vision that goes beyond today and maybe even a lot of tomorrows. It means doing the hard things for the right reasons and doing them under adverse conditions sometimes, often without anyone else noticing, or even appreciating what is being done. In fact, the fairness factor does not even guarantee you will not be persecuted, or ostracized yourself.

Fair is an evolutionary concept that fascinates me.

Finding The Dream

Sometimes it is necessary to stop dreaming the dreams I am supposed to dream and dream the ones I want to dream.

Of course I need to know what those are and that's not as easy as it sounds.

The day I was born, the world began molding me into the sort of person I was "supposed" to be. I'm not sure how it knew that when I hadn't even had time to voice any opinions yet, but it did.

It twisted and tugged, pushed and poked, shaping, not just my hair and my body, but also my mind. By the time I was three I already had a list of things I could not do because I was a girl and the oldest and was bigger than my younger brothers and sister. Before I was eight that list expanded to include things we couldn't afford, and things my body was supposedly not shaped right to do. By ten, the list was limited by the other things I had to do that took up the time and money that might have been there if the first things were not a necessity.

Sometimes people along the way would ask me what I wanted to do, but I knew there were certain things I should never aspire to, not even think about and, being a good child, and perhaps not assertive enough, I never breathed a word about those things.

So I lived a pretty good life and had three awesome children and always pushed most of those niggling odd dreams to the back burner where they wouldn't take the heat of a world that really didn't want me to color outside the lines, or make waves, or rock any boats.

Now I'm finally old enough that people figure I shouldn't have enough vim, vigor, or power to make any of those things a problem. They also think I am still young enough they don't have to watch over me.

I am free for the first time and it is glorious!

Filling In The Holes

I love the children of the world, those sweet innocents who find joy in the moment and look with big eyes at those who hurt them, not understanding why anyone would do that, but thinking it must have something to do with them.

Wonderful children who never really grow up because their childhood is ripped out from under them by harsh people who do not understand what children need.

Sweet children who function at some of the highest levels in an adult world when all they still want is to have those holes drilled into them spackled with love and filled up.

People who spend their entire lives trying to measure up and never understand that they have done it a million times over.

I struggle to find the words to express their beauty to them in stories they will understand. I ache, sometimes, to be a mirror of the magnificent creatures they have become. I write and write and write, because I never seem to find the way.... when all I want is to take their hand and lead them into the light of understanding where they can feel the love so strongly that there will never be any more questions.

Off Stage

The past reached out and wrapped itself around my heart this weekend. In the guise of faces long loved and voices whose timbre and power can carry whole auditoriums filled with people, carry them away into places most people only dream of. People whose eyes are filled with magic and whose every move is choreographed to draw you in. People that others stand up and applaud for.

But not this weekend.

This weekend, they wrapped each other and me in arms just as plain as those your mother used to hold you close. This weekend they told me stories in the light of a fire that barely matched the warmth in their faces. This weekend we sat around a table just like old times, eating chili and sharing pie and letting our shoulders rub close to each other for the first time in ages.

And when the fire died down and most people went home, one continued to play with an energy that picked me up and carried me away. Any little part that was left behind, latched onto the harmony that crept in and rounded it out. This weekend I went home, not to the place where I was born, or to the people whose blood runs in my veins, but to those who simply hold my heart.

You And Me

It is always strange to me to see what another's thoughts have done to my words.

Not just anyone, but someone whose job it is to listen and hear what people are saying.

The two could not be farther apart. If I did not know she was speaking of me, I would have no idea what she was talking about. And yet she writes from a place of love.

It is amazing that love can stand in so many places at once and each one looks down on a different world. Each one a reality that exists, if only in the thoughts of the one who sees it. No wonder there is so much discord in the world.

If these views come from those who love and care for me, imagine what comes from those who do not.

When you speak to me, I want to put myself behind your eyes, cup my hands to your ears, allow my feet to feel the rocks under your feet and maybe then I will have an inkling of who you are.

Worth The Wait

Perspective, perspective, perspective....it changes everything.

Ninety percent of how I feel comes from what I think in the moment.

And even the other ten percent is more up to me than I might want to believe.

It has taken me a long time to figure this out, but it was worth the wait.

I'd rather know it now than go on thinking my happiness only exists when someone else gives it to me.

The Moment

An old man sits, his long fingers wrapped around the cup of tea his wife has just refilled. It's warmth seeping into him, he begins to sway. In the distance a flute plays, a reed flute. Its thin high sound swirling, twirling, pulling him inward until he rises and follows the notes around and around. The skirt of his robes fly out wide and flat and he finds himself beyond time, beyond space, beyond that place where things were, or will be and moving into that place where I Am discards all worldly concerns. A place where fences no longer stand between man and man, or man and woman, or woman and woman. Where they do not even stand between a man and his soul. A place some call the center point and others do not have a name for.

Out beyond this place, in the world where mores rise like an obstacle course, keeping one soul from another because of things that do not even have a name in truth, stands an old woman. All around her stand others, but there is one far away, so far away his face is not even a blur. One who is drawn into this place that some do not have a name for.

Like two jackstraws caught up in the vortex of a dust devil, they are snatched up and spun around, whirling dervishes of love and soul whipped around like the chaff from grain and helpless to stop it. Until at last they reach the eye of this stormy world and settle into a stillness beyond all comprehension.

Here, in a field that bears no weight, stand, not a woman worn by time and a young Adonis, but two children. A girl, tall and slender, her eyes large and filled with love, her legs long and strong and her body not yet a harbinger of things to come. Beside her a boy, younger still, who clutches her hand, looking up at her with eyes both adoring and full of questions.

Where will she lead them? What arboreal bower will hold them in its arms? What rocky rills will they slip and slide in as their laughter echoes all around them?

She is the leader, the protector and he is a willing accomplice.

Joining hands, they too begin to spin, their bare toes digging in as around and around the flute trills bird notes and the light lifts them up and away. And the old man smiles, sinking down into a heap of white robes and spilt tea.

Faulkner

I am reading The Unvanquished by William Faulkner right now and that truly astounds me. That I am reading it, not actually the story itself.

Years ago, when I was taking an American literature survey course in college, I hated Faulkner, specifically, I could barely get through the story, The Bear. Of course I was seventeen years old and had many things on my mind besides reading copious amounts of literature and Faulkner's writing is filled with words, lots of words, and long, very long, sentences.

So why am I reading it now? Well, I have a friend who is a professor in Jackson, Mississippi and he is teaching an American survey course very similar to the one I took way back in the dark ages. Actually right now, they are studying Poe's poetry, but in his words, "I love Faulkner to death." I mean, he would. He is a passionate English teacher in a southern university.

I am a fast talking northerner who seldom reads anything deeper than a novel anymore. Still I can appreciate his point of view. We have much in common and he claims he can make me love Faulkner too. We'll see.

At the worst, I enrich myself a bit. At the best, I am embarking upon a new little leg of this journey along the way.

What Goes Around

I've heard the old phrase, what goes around, comes around for years, but it is coming around to me now in a very concrete way!

I am famous for giving things away, my furniture, my clothes, my Christmas decorations! Now this is not a particularly laudable habit. In fact, it borders on disturbing, or it did in the past. I often gave things away when I was feeling bad in some way and just unloaded "stuff" because I couldn't really unload my difficulties. Of course I had no idea that was why I did it. It was usually an act of passion, sometimes regretted later on.

Now I am reaping the benefits of this neurosis! My sister gave me back a table for my apartment and this weekend she gave me back some of my nicer clothes! We have both lost some weight and she can no longer wear my old ones, while I need smaller ones.

It is funny how much fun it is to get new things, even if they are my own old things! I guess I can kind of equate it with putting away my children's toys when they were younger and getting different ones out, then switching them around later on. Novelty is always the spice of life, at least for me, but this time it is also turning out to be very cost efficient.

I need some nicer clothes now that I am out and about more and I certainly do not have the money to go buy the kind I would like to wear. Now if I can continue losing weight, this story will just get better and better.

Not Here

Tonight I just want to reprint my edited and finished poem, Not Here. It is the best I can do on this rainy dark night preceding the funeral of one of my dearest friends.

Not Here

Death surrounds me. I know about it, read about it, hear about it.

Today it touched me. Filled me with emptiness and left me here.

All I can think about is not here.

Not here. What an incredibly incomprehensible thing to imagine.

It is everywhere, on my email, in my phone.

Its sweetness lies in my heart.

So rich, so beautiful, so alive!

How can so much leave me so empty?

Flowing over me like the sea, seeping in, engulfing,

Dulling everything except my pain.

Some day this will be as natural as the sun on the lotus.

I will lift my face into the light of my memories and bask in their warmth.

Today, I cannot imagine that.

Perfectly Imperfect

Wouldn't it be funny if one day there was some sort of big heavenly glitch that allowed me to see everyone else, or at least everyone I know, doing whatever they were doing, or thinking whatever they were thinking while I did similar things?

There I would be, under the guise of my pseudonym, writing away, or perhaps reading away, only to look up and see Great Aunt Margaret, or Bill Bailey down the street right beside me! I might just be day dreaming and there would be my eighth grade teacher dreaming the same thing!

I suspect we are all really much more alike than most of us want to believe. Everyone, well almost everyone I know, gets up every morning and puts on their clothes. Not just their pants one leg at a time like we joke about, nor even their politically correct cotton shirts, but also all those facades people wear depending on where they are going, or who they are trying to impress.

Politicians get caught like this all the time, but that is because they are in the public eye. I'm betting the rest of us are not quite so puritanically perfect either. And there is nothing wrong with some of that. We all like to put our best foot forward and there is just no reason for everyone to know every lascivious, or mischievous thought in our head. There is a time and a place for most things. In fact, if you don't have an occasional "lapse" now and then, I think I'd really wonder about your humanity.

It is also important for us all to have a place where we explore thoughts and ideas before presenting them to the world as our own. I think that is pretty human too.

What I don't like is people who force their ideas of perfection on other people, especially when they, themselves, can't really live up to those standards. Nothing on this earth, that is alive, is straight up and down and perfectly smooth that I can think of. That kind of perfection, if indeed you consider that perfect, is dead and dried up, or simply man made.

I prefer a little juicy imperfection myself.

Bad Dreams

Sometimes the unbelievable happens.

I don't know if I dream them into being, or it's simply fate, but sooner, or later I suppose anything can happen.

I am afraid of dogs. It is an irrational fear in most ways and a self perpetuating one in others. Dogs smell fear and it seems to annoy them.

I've worked out ways of dealing with this over the years. It's not a new fear, I can't remember when I didn't have it. Sometimes I imagine a beautiful wild yellow looking daisy flower I once saw blooming in the sand dunes of Colorado many years ago. It was such a strange and solitary little thing out there in the middle of all that sand that I took lots of pictures, but the ones in my head are just as bright today as they were back then. Other times I just try to pull inward and breathe through an experience until it is over.

I'm not afraid of your dog when you are there, or it is on a leash. It is only loose dogs, running wild that frighten me, or loose dogs who think they are protecting their home. I actually love dogs too, so it is a strange situation.

I do try never to imagine bad things of any sort happening. It just doesn't seem wise to tempt fate (well, unless I am writing a story, but that is different.) Yet, my imagination can kick into gear without any prompting from me sometimes and tonight was one of those times.

I was walking Chauncey, like I always do a little after ten PM and, as is frequently the case I could see two young men approaching us from the opposite direction walking their pit bull. There are lots of pit bulls and pit bull mixes around, mostly walked by young men and I don't think too much of it anymore. Tonight my imagination went to work and wondered what I would do if that dog broke its leash and attacked us. Just the thought made me shiver. Chauncey is so small.

I moved over off the sidewalk and began walking in the boulevard, giving them plenty of room to pass us when their dog began jerking on his chain and barking at us. Chauncey just froze at attention and I simply froze, but I really wasn't too worried. They were big boys and after all he was their dog. I figured they could deal with it, but he must have caught them off guard.

Suddenly he was charging toward us, tail down, ears back and my mind raced. I remember the dog whisperer saying not to pick your yappy small dog up in a dog park. It just encourages the big dogs to jump on you, but Chauncey wasn't yapping and I wasn't in a dog park and this dog looked like he wanted to kill us.

I grabbed Chauncey up and held him close as I turned my back and tried to pull as much of me in around him as I could just before this dog hit me in the back. Of course all of this happened in seconds and the guys were yelling at their dog and running towards us at the same time.

The dog knocked me off my feet and I tried to roll. In my mind I was thinking if I could get in a position like I would for a bear surely that might be good, but I couldn't cover my head because my arms were around Chauncey. We just sort of stayed there in a ball, nose to the ground and the men got their dog. No one was hurt, but I was surely shaken.

Typical of me, though, I jumped up and kept assuring them we were okay and sort of quickly walked away. I just wanted to put as much space between me and that dog as possible.

Once at home in my apartment I kind of fell apart. My hands are still kind of shaky and so are my legs. I think I will have to go out again before I go to bed and walk Chauncey once more right away. I'm afraid if I don't, I will be too afraid in the future and that is not an option. Usually, like with the snakes, doing something as soon as I am scared by it, helps me get over it.

This just tapped into one of my deepest fears. I still can't believe it happened.

A Certain Kind Of Handicap

All my life I have been slightly more than simply successful at most of the things I applied myself to. I tend to shine a bit, but never really make it as what the world would call a raging success. I doubt if I ever will.

For one thing, I simply do not apply myself religiously to anything for very long, with the possible exceptions of rearing my children and teaching my three year olds.

I can memorize, but when it comes to music, I don't do it in any methodical, or reasonable way that I can rely on. If I learn the music at all, it is because my fingers learn it for me. Should they falter, I am lost. Public speaking is the same way. I write out what I am going to say, make notes, practice, and then when I get up in front of people I mostly toss it all to the wind and speak from the heart. Fortunately for me it seems to work, but I almost never have much memory of what I said when I am through.

I seem to do my best writing the same way. I start a story and if it is going to work at all, it just flows out of me. Later I will spend hours cleaning it up, but usually miss many things that I don't see until it is too late. The unfortunate thing about this is that when I am very successful I have no way of replicating the process. It is like drawing water from a well. I cannot even start out with the idea that I am going to do something in particular, because when I do that the story is stilted and not very good at all. I don't seem to know if something is very good, but I do have a feeling when it actually stinks.

Perhaps I have an odd form of handicap. I have always felt that I write better than respond live. People can fluster me very easily. I am almost terminally shy and hate speaking on the phone most of the time. In fact, I usually dislike doing anything that requires me to be spontaneous in public, in person. I think in too many directions at once and it never comes out the way I mean it. I just need time to think through my responses and when I am around people I always feel rushed, no matter how kind they are.

I love people, though and really enjoy the time I spend with them, but they get what they get. The real me would rather be writing them letters!

Transformative Events

I am amazed at the slip sliding easy way truly transformative events often occur.

Back in the seventies, I was out riding my bike, taking my dog for a ride in the basket, thinking how great life was. Another day I was playing with my children, enjoying the beginning of a summer vacation back in 1986. This morning I was walking my dog around the neighborhood just wallowing in this beautiful Fall weather.

In each instance, as I was going about my everyday living, someone near and dear to me died.

Death surrounds us all the time. It is on the television and the computer, even in the local newspaper. Life ends for the departed, but for the ones left behind it is not so easy. How can someone I love no longer be here?

Not here, is an incredibly incomprehensible place to imagine. How can someone who laughed and cried with me, whose name is in my email and on my phone list, who fills my memories with thoughts of our disagreements and love, not be here?

Not here is a concept that spreads out like a flood on a flat plain, seeping in, surrounding everything. It seems nothing is safe from its touch and it is difficult to explain how something so full of sweetness can be so painful.

One day this flood will seep in so deeply that it will be as natural a part of me as the sun is to the lotus. I will lift my face into the light of my memories and bask in their warmth.

Today, I cannot imagine that.

The Listener

There are stories too sad for the telling.

And they need to be told most of all.

A story must be told.

It must be heard.

Tears fall silently,

Hearts break a thousand times

And still the story must be told.

Until hugs and love squeeze all the stuffing out

And it lies flat in the memory so it can be framed

And viewed without pain.