Growing Up

I am always amazed at the constancy of the real world and by real, I mean that base where the laws of nature take over and everything else is fog on the mountain.

I remember accompanying my Dad to his lab at school and being given some bar magnets to play with. North was so drawn to South that I could barely keep them apart. Likewise North was so repelled by his twin that the possibilities for playing with them were endless. (Hey, I was a little girl, all things were fed, washed and put to bed!)

Everything I dropped fell down. No matter how poetic I waxed, nothing in my world ever fell up.

I understood, at three, concepts some people never grasp. Then we got this thing called television with tiny people in it that my parents wouldn’t let me play with and I went to a thing called a movie where a whale as big as a house swallowed a talking wooden boy and he lived in there, building fires and everything!

My grandfather died. I heard about divorce and my world was shaken. No longer safe and secure in the happily ever after world where I squished in between my parents while they were kissing, I realized that life could take some nasty turns.

So I turned back to the magic I hoped could forestall all these things -- only to discover it couldn’t.

Onward And Upward

Just about the only thing I miss about AOL was the ability to suck back emails that I sent to other AOL members if they had not been read yet.

I am an impulsive creature, writing what I’m thinking in the moment and then mailing it off, sometimes creating an instant foot in mouth syndrome that I regret. Not that I don’t mean what I write, just that I might not write it if I had taken the time to reconsider it.

Of course it only worked on AOL and I only know a couple of people who even still use that, so I should have a file called “pending more thought” where I store things for a while before sending them out.

Fortunately for me, most of the people I write to are very kind, taking what I say with an understanding of who I am and allowing some of the things I write to drift off into the wild blue yonder….where they belong by the way.

Not that this is any comfort after the fact. It’s just the simple truth and I go onward and upward vowing never to repeat that behavior again.

And I don’t. Until the next time.

Universes Within And Without

She sat there, her knee propped up on the edge of her chair, her skirt pulled back so she could see every tiny pore, scrape and scar. Recently cut hair not a problem since it was too short to get in her way. Her eight year old eyes lost in a reverie so deep and so intense that she did not notice the pair of silk stockinged legs to her left.

The teacher stared down at this odd little child who had just cut her long curls off in favor of a pixie cut and whose mother was so distraught she came to school to find out if something had happened there. Miss Miller had only been teaching third grade for four years, but this one had been the biggest challenge so far. Three children in one row, who challenged every resource she had. She was beginning to wonder if there was something about this part of the room, but of course that was ridiculous. It must be something to do with last names starting with P. Perhaps they were all sent here to drive her insane.

Tapping the little girl sharply on her short fly away curls got no response, so she rapped harder and two big eyes looked up at her. Glaring down, she simply waited, saying nothing.

“Do you think there are universes inside of me? I mean maybe I am only an atom in some huge giant’s knee and he can’t see me either.”

Rolling her eyes, the teacher glanced over at the pictures of the solar system each child had made. They were neatly pinned to the bulletin board, a collection of elliptical circles with little colored balls glued to each one.

“I think you should put your legs under your desk and get out your reading book.”

“But maybe our solar system is only a big atom.” Began the girl.

“And maybe you would like to stay after school and make up for all this time you are wasting.”

In the trash that day was a tissue, crumpled and crushed, damp with tears carrying thoughts that didn't fit inside a teacher's head.

Lovers

I love loving people. I love people who are loving. There is nothing I would rather be part of, or watch, than people who really care for each other. I don’t think I am all that unique. There are millions of movies about lovers and they are extremely popular.

When I say “lovers” I mean people who love another person, not necessarily couples, but all sorts of loving situations, whether it is a teacher for her class, or a child for his friend, a parent for a child, or a musician for his fellow musicians, whatever the situation is that brings out that honest to god caring of one individual for another. These are people who want to go the extra mile for another person. People who aren’t afraid to say, “I love you.” People who interact on a deeply personal and sweet level.

I think this is the very best the human race has to offer.

Sentinels

The sun highlights a ridge of trees on the top of the mountain in the distance and they stand there like weary sentinels guarding their land.

I’m glad someone is looking over this land. Someone whose roots run deeper than a checkbook and who would help the people in Haiti even if there was no money. As long as there was food and medicine, clothing and muscles to move it all around. Why does everything come down to dollars and cents?

Hop To It!

I used to be able to suck it up and go on no matter how I felt. I remember running around with a bottle of Mylanta in my purse, taking surreptitious swigs of it as if it were something much better!

Not so much anymore. Some people don’t like the people they are. I don’t mind me, in fact, I’ve grown rather fond of myself after so many years, but my body is not so accommodating. My body attacks itself on several fronts at once now and it is getting to be a chore to deal with.

I wondered about that when I was younger. I had this strange feeling that I could not carry a pregnancy because my body considered it a foreign body, but I didn’t know it was true. My body even attacks its own skin sometimes and my joints, which ached even as a child, now act up much more frequently.

I have been on a diet excluding gluten for the past week and actually think I saw some improvement, but I am so weak. My son made chocolate chip cookies and Lennon and I shared several. I ate a meatball sandwich on a big crusty bun and could not resist toast with my eggs. I have to learn things the hard way and I paid dearly for all of that the last two days.

Other than crawling out of bed to get on the computer for a few minutes at a time, I have done very little since yesterday afternoon.

I see young children dealing with these same things so much better than I do, but it looks like the time has finally come when I have two choices. Suffer, or hop to it!

A Manly Thing

My brother and his son have always been very close. From the moment of birth until now, as my nephew awaits the birth his own first child, my brother has been very close to him and done his best to make sure he has the skills he needs to really succeed in this world.

I always dreamed of being that way with a daughter. I thought it might give me a chance to really bond with and understand another female, but that was not to be. I am very close to my sons though. I look at the men they have become and marvel that once we were once almost one creature. I carried them with me everywhere I went, heard their slightest cries no matter where they were. The touch of their breath upon my neck assured me that all was well.

To see a baby bonding with his father, is a beautiful sight. Those tiny arms don’t even fit around a neck that could someday be their best friend. Those kisses that were once the exclusive right of a mother are now shared by lucky fathers and sons and it makes them both stronger. It makes our world a better place when our men know real love right from the start and understand it is a very manly thing to know.

Recessive Traits

What part of a human being reaches into its deepest, darkest part and instinctively attacks weakness? If it were in a dog, it would be a recessive trait I would want to breed out. Yet, I know that some breeds still have it. Dobermans, once they draw blood, are like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Pit bulls have been known to turn on a dime and attack the children of those who love them. All good dogs in kind loving homes.

Are people no different? Are we a breed that will be eternally dangerous?

I am afraid so

The Emptiness

I am caught in the emptiness tonight. My thoughts do not want to coalesce and become this thing called, My Thots. This place is usually rich with ideas, needing me to simply sort through them and put them into some sort of order. The chore is often in the choosing, not the finding.

That is not the case tonight. It is as if my mind is wrapped in cotton, padded and protected and totally inaccessible. Usually the emptiness comes to me surrounded by gates, each one leading backwards, or forwards, to an experience, or hope, or dream, but not tonight.

Tonight I sit before my keyboard and I feel things of course. I always feel. It is perhaps my strongest emotion, the one that drives me to do the things I do. But the good judgment that always hovers over my actions has put restraining tethers on my ability to write about these feelings tonight.

In fact, I feel the emptiness becoming charged with feelings. Filling up with thoughts of you and how good you are, how creative, and cute you are. Flooding with thoughts of your beautiful relationships and the way you spread these things out into a world that barely understands.

Everything about you draws me and that is why I think there is nothing for me to write this night.

Refracted Reflections

A friend sent me an email attachment about a boy who was walking along the shore throwing stranded starfish back into the sea when a man came along and asked him if he didn’t realize what an impossible job it was. He told him there were so many starfish that what he was doing wouldn’t really make a difference, but the boy reached down and threw another one back and said, “I made a difference for that one.”

Sometimes I think I can see that starfish plain as day, but this tide pool is too deep and the light is slanted and no matter how I reach for it, I miss it. I may grab an arm here, or there, but in the long run I am only pulling and bruising a creature I cannot clearly see. Then it is best for both of us if I stop.

I turn and walk away. I have learned to do the impossible no matter how painful it is. My heart still aches. My mind still plays the old tapes where everyone lived happily ever after. Reality is a harsh teacher.

Behind me I hear the echoes. They will haunt me for a long time. “N ma…..”

Read The Warning Label

Lennon and I watched a cartoon called, Avatar, which he explained to me was in Japan. I was impressed that he knew that, but the show was actually thought provoking too. The main characters went to the theatre where they saw themselves portrayed in a play. Their reactions were very much what mine might have been in the same situation.

I wonder what most of us would think if we saw ourselves as others see us? As the family photographer for the past thirty years, I have avoided having my picture taken whenever I can. Last year when someone asked to see a picture of me, I realized just how big a deal it was. I have spent almost a year dealing with this on many levels.

This is really only looking at myself from my own point of view. I realize that most of the people in my life see me all the time. It isn’t the shock to them that it is to me. Teaching preschool was often an eye opener. Most three year olds have not discovered tact, for them life is what it is. I heard a little girl breathing very hard one day when she was playing in our large muscle room. Thinking something might be wrong, My co-teacher asked her if she was okay. Her answer? I am Mrs. Angell today! I don’t know why I had been breathing so hard, but after being made aware of it, I consciously stopped.

Very few of us have any idea how we appear to others on a day to day basis. I really only know one person who consistently sees himself acting and reacting to his world and the people in it and he appears to accept himself exactly as he is, which is quite a gift in my opinion. Of course, he is also one of the most delightful people I know, kind, caring, funny, sweet, and very real too, not afraid to show his anger, or his tears. Most of us aren’t quite so accepting of ourselves, but we should be.

Accepting myself for exactly who I am is not a fool’s errand. It comes with a warning label that should be heeded. Proceed slowly, with love and great care, human heart involved

Our Song

I spent the first eighteen years of my life learning the mythology of my existence. Memorizing the words and tunes, how they were sung and what actions should accompany each set. I knew it was imperative that I get them right. It never occurred to me to ask why.

I have spent the rest of my life figuring out that these were only nursery tales, stories told to children to make them fit, conform, be part of the particular fairy tales they come from. There are no guarantees that anyone else, anywhere else in the world, will understand these, because personal mythologies are not written down anywhere. They are transferred generation to generation blow by blow and word of mouth, sometimes changing in an instant, depending on the singer.

I admit I shared a great many of these with my own children, but little by little I began to see through the symbols and situations and start to write my own stories. It is a hero’s quest, because as the old stories disappear there are not necessarily any new ones waiting to take their place. A great void appears and only the bravest, or the most terrified, step into the void and allow it to have its way.

It was while floating on this great undulating sea that I dared to look over the side one day and saw a whole world reflected there! One great canopy that included every single thing within its magnificent embrace and as much as all of these things were different, they had so much more in common that I was stunned.

Ever since then, I have been looking for the new words, the new actions, the new tunes I need to tell this story.

Throw Backs

Anyone can make a mistake, most of us do once in a while, but some people don’t make mistakes doing some things and those are the ones that make life interesting. I received an email today with a curious attachment and it made me think.

Children need role models, everyone realizes this, but so do the rest of us. I used to think that when I grew up I would be “finished.” You know, all done, like after finishing school. That point where the world says, well done, you turned out nice. Or whatever.

This morning it occurred to me that we are never “done.” We are not pot roasts in the oven, slowly turning tender and tempting. Nor are we flowers in a pot sitting in the light until we bloom. Thank god this is so, because I do not want to be gobbled up, or snipped off in my prime and dunked into a vase for a few hours before being tossed in the trash.

To be adored is a heady experience, but hardly sustainable. Like the pot roast and flower, being adored has its price. Eventually the novelty of adoring wears off and the adorer either backs up, or moves on to a new adoree. That’s when reality sets in.

One way of thinking through this, is that life has a beginning and an end, so the closer to the end I am, the less I need to worry about what comes next. If it’s been good so far, I’m ahead of the game. I should be thankful and just sit here quietly without exposing my aged and imperfect self for what it is.

Another way, one that hadn’t fully registered until today, is that life is Life. It’s not over until it ends and the possibilities really are endless. I just need new role models as I go along to show me that others are doing it.

Now those “others” need to be somebody I can relate to. For example, a woman. An older woman. A woman who is a little better padded than average, intelligent, loving, funny, sweet and oops! I digress, but you get the idea. I need a “good” role model, one who makes me realize that I am not an oddity in this continuum.

I am simply uniquely me, a throw back in this world who does not need to sit around watching those last drips drop out of the bottle. I need to get down there. Catch them and savor every last one.

Cool Cats

I never liked the Cheshire cat. I still don’t. He is the stuff of nightmares as far as I am concerned. The trickster who has no endearing qualities, because whatever appears endearing is still suspect.

I like straight forward people. I prefer to insulted rather than fooled. My feelings can never be hurt so much as when I hear a disingenuous compliment. I don’t mind kindness, but pretending kindness in order to be sarcastic, is to me the worst kind of behavior.

The first time I was aware that people could appear to be one thing and really be another was well before I was five years old. My mother was tired of me misbehaving and informed me that Santa Claus was watching everything I did. I responded with some form of, “I don’t think so, I don’t see him around here.” To which she replied, “You don’t know who I am. I could be Santa right now and you’d only think it was me.” And she smiled. What a terrifying thought that was! The person I depended upon for nearly everything was not really who I thought she was. For the rest of my life those comments would cause nightmares.

And that grin? My mother’s youngest brother, my uncle, was about nine years older than I was. He had that wide, cheesy grin that always appeared just about the time he was going to do something kind of mean, or sneaky and I learned to dread it. Looking back, I suspect he was really just trying to look cool, or smart, but to me, it was scary.

Cheshire cat people with their sarcastic grins, fading in and out of the darkness of the unknown still leave me cold, but a friend commented that these could just be nervous grins, reactions to the discomfort these cats are feeling themselves. I’d never thought of that. Next time I’ll pay more attention.

About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

-- Herbert Hoover


There are people in this world who are hungry tonight. People whose children cry because their mother’s milk lacks enough nutrients to satisfy their tiny stomachs. Good people who work hard, but cannot make ends meet.

How do we help them? We evict them from the places they live, ticket them for driving without insurance, fine them for expired license tags, garnish their meager wages and then point our fingers at how they are failing.

It is so easy to say they could make it if they really wanted to. I know they want to. Minimum wage jobs do not pay a living wage and if you have no skills, that is all you can do. And there are more people who need them than there are jobs. And if you get one of these jobs, how do you get to work without a car, or gas, or money for the bus, assuming a bus line runs out there? How long must you walk before starting a grueling day on your feet?

There are children who do not eat until they get to school and are fed breakfast and lunch there. These children don’t throw away those dried out baloney sandwiches and little tubs of applesauce. They know they will not eat again until tomorrow morning. When they put their little clothespin on the snack basket, they gaze longingly at the food some children turn their noses up at.

There are so many excuses, but the bottom line is that while some of us get fat, others are starving.

What is wrong with this world?

I Write The Stories

Expressing one’s opinions is done differently by different cultures and different people. My great grandfather was English. If he was in agony, he would still say things like, “It is terribly unpleasant.” Talk about understatement.

I had a friend in college who had been a prisoner in Viet Nam. I knew a little bit about what had happened to him, so imagine my surprise when he told a group of people that “They have some strange welcoming rituals for new prisoners.” This was no game he spoke of, he had been terribly tortured. He just didn’t want to share that with everyone.

I have learned to read between the lines. I am a curious creature and I pay attention when people speak, but I try never to pry beyond what they want to share. There is a fine line between caring and curiosity. Who would want to embarrass, or upset someone they care about and make them relive a past experience that obviously has had terrible repercussions?

The mother bear part of me wants to gather them up in a big bear hug and growl at those past tormentors. It just wouldn’t do any good, so I simply share some of my own experiences. It’s the best I know how to do.

Then for my own peace of mind, I write the stories I don’t know.

A Bird’s Eye View

Looking at relationships from a distance is an interesting hobby. Kind of like bird watching. I can identify the creature I am looking at, tell you it’s main characteristics and even give you a name.

What I cannot do is tell you what it is thinking, but then that is what the word relationship is all about. In any sort of relationship there is communication. How much communication describes the intensity of the relationship.

Acquaintances - recognize each other by some trait that is common to both. There are passing acquaintances, nodding ones, or perhaps simply fly bys. They just know each other enough to acknowledge they both exist.

Friends - may be somewhat a like, or even totally different species. They just have an affinity for each other.

Pairs - are sometimes so close they can’t tell the difference. One may think the other is just a reflection of him, or herself.

Birds of a feather - not only flock together, they think alike, have similar characteristics, but still stay far enough apart to recognize each other’s individuality.

That last group is hard to describe. Their differences are often huge and their similarities obscure things that birds of another feather might not even comprehend.

Fountain Of Youth

There are folks who do drink from the fountain of eternal youth. It’s exact location is still a secret, long kept hidden from the common folk and even from those who have reached in and drunk deeply.

Successful people. Amazing people, identifiable only by those moments when their eyes twinkle and their faces contort with the sweet shenanigans of the very young.

There are other signs, but they are so well hidden that many people never see them unless they are granted a look at the inner sanctum where these adorable creatures live.

Here they do those things mostly done by the very young, things that most of us outgrow before we become old enough to really make them matter. Here they laugh and smile, hug and reach out. Here they sometimes cry like the children they are and touch my heart like the grown-ups they are. These are fragile creatures whose hearts are their most vulnerable part. They’ve been known to give things away until there is nothing left for themselves. They will walk a country mile just to help someone out and they can be unmerciful teases.

These are the folks who are often still as cute as can be, because they know they are loved by those around them. Three year olds in fifty something bodies. If you know one, you understand how special they are.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier, and simpler

Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher


Poetry is one of the best ways I know to express my thoughts and also one of the more difficult. Writing poetry is baring my soul. It takes time and requires exact words to show the nuances of my feelings. Trying to do it in anything other than my mother tongue is unthinkable for me.

This poem is written by an 18 year old young man whose native language is Dagbani. We are friends who met through one of my blog sites and communicate through email. Nma, means my mother in his language.

this is for you Nma
the one person i can tell my soul too
Who can relate to me like no other
Who I can laugh with to no extents,
Who I can cry too when times are tough,
Who can help me with the problems of my life.
Never have you turned your back on me
I don't think you know what makes me happy
whenever i read your mail it makes me feel happy and smile and it is true
I am always here To listen to you and i promised to be a good son to you.

Basit

Although I have written poems for many people, very few poems have ever been written for me and I am touched to the core by this one.

Megazords And Ice Monsters

I am the Lily, the Yellow Power Ranger. I don’t really know a lot of details about myself, except that I am the cheetah on the Megazord and when we play, I hang out with the Orange Power Ranger most of the time. That is because Lennon is the Orange one, a unique character who is the most powerful one of all. Today Dai Shi kicked the green Power Ranger in the face and I thought he’d broken his jaw, but I was wrong.

Now comes the part I really can understand, the way it was explained to me by my four year old grandson.

‘You see, if Dai Shi broke a helmet, or a jaw, it could be fixed. Just like Uncle Drosselmeyer repairs the Nutcracker’s jaw when Clara’s brother breaks it. We could just tie something around him and he would be okay.” Power kicking and ballet, don’t they always go together?

I don’t get to do a lot as the Yellow Power Ranger. I make a lot of hot chocolate, coffee and waffles, but sometimes the Orange Power Ranger charges me up and I get to go fight really bad guys like the Ice monster or Fire creature. Today I tricked the ice monster into stepping into my fire and melting, then the Orange Power Ranger and I hauled him off in buckets to all parts of the earth so he can never reunite his parts.

While my character is busy cooking, or sleeping, or hiding, I do other things like standing up Power Rangers who have fallen over, or putting them on motorcycles, or assembling the Megazords. I am a combination girl and god in our adventures!

What is the point? Communication! Imagination! Fun! Who wouldn’t want to play with a bunch of teenage super heroes orchestrated by a four year old Power Ranger who dances like Baryshnikov?

Life

She said:
We love our old Mercury Villager van. John's been looking at new van-type vehicles, but they all have some kind of big ole console between the front seats. Our old van doesn't have that, and it is one of its special charms - a wonderful space to use for all kinds of things, including a John-made holder for drinks which is superior to any you can buy. Give me a bench seat any day!

When John put duct tape over the hole he made in the van by pulling at some loose paint, I decided we must be red necks. Now our back storm door has a piece of string and a dowel for its handle, and I'm sure of it! HA!! Apparently the latch must be something that has broken on other folks too, because the people who make it are giving us one free - we just have to wait for it. I can't say I miss it going out the door. Sure is easy just pushing. But coming in is a little trickier when I've got my hands full. Isn't life just a bundle of fun adventures!? HA HA

I said:
If you want to see rednecks-- no, wait a minute-- that's hillbillies out here....... I live with all unfinished drywall ceilings, two with openings in them that need to be re-drywalled before we can paint, one that allowed a dead mouse to drop through onto the floor last week~~~~~shudder. My backyard will go through the winter about eight inches tall with accompanying "things" around the fences a bit taller, like two feet? The kudzu did die when we sprayed it last summer, but so did a large 8x8 square of everything else. The old garage filled with building leftovers like old chandeliers may actually manage to tip over next year, but is very scenic under dark skies right now. (see attached photo. :-) My carpeting being gone in the back two bedrooms helped tremendously with the humidity problem, but looks like the bathroom of an old grade school now. My car's glasses holder slips out on the left side and only requires a tap to replace it in the ceiling of my car. The hole Bobby burned in the seat doesn't show as long as someone sits in the driver's seat and who gets in a car without a driver anyhow? The back is filled with baby seat, dog seat, a stack of books that fills the floor behind the driver's seat, a pair of crutches, a blanket for winter and what's left of the atlas Lennon props his feet on when he gets bored.
You were saying?????

She said:
hahahahahah I love it. I love it. And you know what? Who cares!? As long as you're fairly warm and dry and protected from the elements, there's so much love in that house nothing else matters!
　
And I say, life is pretty much what you make of it.

Let’s Get Real

You need to close your eyes and imagine your mother, or grandmother lying on her bed, fragile hand reaching out to pat your face. She loves you as only she can, but she is dying. All people die, but she is dying faster because she does not get enough to eat.

Beside her sits your little brother, or sister, or child who is also hungry with no prospects of relief any time soon. You want to help them so desperately. You are their only hope.

You are a very bright person, one of the best students in your school and you know that an education is the only way out of this predicament, so you work hard at it and you pay dearly for it. Schooling is not free in your world. You walk over an hour to get to school, across ground where the thorns sometimes pierce your feet and make you late. You work for less than 19 cents an hour in between studying and going to and from school, but still your loved ones are suffering. You cannot do enough. It is impossible.

Wages are low. Prices are sky high.

You are young and eager and proud, but in this country you live in, orphans are disposable. The average man eats one meal a day and you are not yet a man, but you have a man’s responsibilities.

It is one thing to be in awe of what people can over come. It is another to try and do it yourself.

Wish

“Starlight, star bright, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I make tonight.”

“Blow out all the candles and make a wish!”

“Rub the lamp and the genie will give you three wishes.”

“Throw a coin in the fountain and make a wish!”

Perhaps wishing is something we grow into. Like learning to talk, or walk, or any of those other things that evolve over the course of a lifetime.

I remember wishing for a particular new doll, or tickets to a concert. I remember growing older and wishing for world peace and an end to hunger, but there was that niggling little part of me that thought this was what I was supposed to wish for.

Along with the suppose-to wishes came the knowledge that wishing on stars and holes in the ground is sort of silly….and pointless. Those wishes almost never come true.

Lately I have noticed the little thoughts that pass through my consciousness almost unnoticed. Not grandiose things like wishing for peace, although that would be nice, but more heartfelt things that are closer to the kind of wishes I made as a child. It is just that I don’t believe in wishing now, not so much anyway, so I don’t look for stars, or throw coins into fountains and I don’t want dolls, or concert tickets anymore.

Now my wishes are just those thoughts that people think of when they don’t believe they are wishing at all. Things like, I wish I could just wrap him and his family up in love and keep them warm and safe and happy forever. Or, I wish I could really do something that mattered with the rest of my life. Or, I wish he knew how happy he makes me just by being who he is.

Those are wishes from my heart. Wishes that become the background for all the little stories I imagine, or write.

And those are coming true right and left.

Stirred Up

What can I say, I am a romantic. I like happy endings, sweet beginnings, and all the cute little things in between. I like them in that order too! Then I always know it’s going to turn out good!

I’m one of those people who picks up a magazine and flips through it from the back. I don’t mind spoilers on movies, otherwise sometimes the tension nearly kills me. (but I watch anyway.) I don’t like spoilers in books though. Once I read the last few pages my chance of reading the rest of the book is almost nil.

I have to be free to get into whatever I am doing. Anything that holds me back ruins the experience for me. This soap opera called life is a hundred times more entertaining than most people believe. All I need are a pair of tin snips to cut down the barb wire fences that age puts up between me and what is going on. Then I step over and participate in a lot of lovely little dramas that keep my life interesting.

In today’s world there are so many invisible fences, but they are only barriers if I allow them to be. They are designed to keep me in line, to keep me on the beaten path, to keep me from straying onto unfamiliar ground. I have boundaries, but they are the ones I put up myself. The rest are almost beacons beckoning to me to come, take a look, see what is really going on.

Sure, I get a few nicks here and there, but I’m careful. I know how to think and I’m not afraid to do it. I finish watching films and find bloody nail marks on the palms of my hands. I take on projects that sometimes break my heart. I listen to people who bore me to tears and others that make my heart beat fast with excitement. Both of them stir me to do something and I need to be stirred. It’s what keeps me alive.

Power

Happy New Year! What is so great about this man-made point in time? The earth does not shift on its axis, nor do the stars in the sky shine any brighter. As far as I know the tides still go in and out with a fair amount of regularity and the sun still comes up in the east. I’ll bet there are even places where they have no idea this event even occurred.

But not here. Here, checks are late, business is held up and slower than I can believe. Emails lie waiting in cyber bins for people to get ready for this new year, as if it had to be fed, groomed and educated before it is ready to assume its rightful place on the throne.

Of course, fiscally, it is important. Uncle Sam is now entitled to another big chunk of my meager little pile of money and without a way to mark off time, how could the big insurance companies and little flower shops stay in business and know when to send us bills?

As you can see, I was fairly stressed out by all the hold ups this week, but I’ll get over it. Today everything started to settle back into place. In fact some things are better than ever. According to one friend, a mutual friend is, “About the best he's ever sounded with me over the phone.”

But, that is not because we just celebrated a happy new year. It is because of that age old thing that’s been around since way before people counted time. And do you want to know what that is?

Love! That wonderful rush that comes when we find a special someone. Love! That amazing thing that wraps around us when we are surrounded by family and friends. That beautiful be all and have all knowledge that all is right with the world and we will not be cold, or hungry, or thrown out on the street because people care, really care about us.

You can’t count that, or store it up in bank vaults, or print it out on calendars, but it sure is powerful.

Immersed In A Pool Of Light

A pool of light around a desk highlights someone working away on a computer and it feels very homey. It occurs to me to wonder why this is?

I remember coming home from trips as a child and the bright yellow light that lit the landing inside our back door. My parents would bustle us out of the car and, carrying the sleeping ones, shepherd everyone up the stairs and into the kitchen. The house would still be cold, but we’d be so glad to be home.

Even today that shade of yellow, no matter how far away, always heralds feelings of home for me.

Then there were the lights at my grandmother’s house. Bulbs clustered together where old gas lines once were, bouncing off the heavy old oaken woodwork of archways and newel posts and staircase. I would lie awake on my pallet when I visited, looking out into the front hallway and listening to the town clock chime the hour in the distance.

Dim greenish yellow lights in the back hallway, highlighting the dark mahogany of the back staircase and the coat tree chair that stood there holding the dripping raincoats and black umbrellas on cold nights, the personification of winter.

Library lights seeping into dusty old books, pooling around the only phone in the house, keeping the night away when I sat on a handmade oval rag rug and played cards with my uncle while grandma sat in the flickering blue gray light of the living room watching television nearby.

The glass encased reading light my mother hung from my headboard when I was in sixth grade, the water shadows from the aquarium lights in my father’s fish tanks, The fluorescent light framing his head while he made lesson plans, or read late into the night. So many lights working to keep the loneliness at bay, allowing a small oasis for playing and reading and sometimes even writing.

Lights can make me homesick for what is no longer accessible, or they can make me feel at home.

The Hard Truth

I have a pen pal in Tamale, Ghana. His writing, in my language since I can’t begin to write in his, is very poetic. Upon hearing that the Lennon had the flu, he wrote to me.

Am so sorry to heard from you that your Grandson had a bad flu, may the Good lord blow his healthy air on your grand son. Know that youre always in my prayers and there is a saying that with prayers everything is possible as well.

He tells me about his living situation.

I have 1 sister 1 brother but my sister left to sleep forever and i am living with my granny who is 81 years old now, she was a trader. She can't walk again, I am a student and the same time working on the street by selling Ice water for a lady to get funds to take good care of my grandmother and school but the my grandmother days are numbered she will soon join my sisters….now she is old so I have to make her happy by cleaning her urine and other things. As for today she can't work anymore and i have to also take the position to help her with the hpuse work, i will never stop loving my granny and will never forget what she did to me when she was still strong in live and I will keep loving her still her day is up

He says he is eighteen, but I believe he may be much younger than that. He is very small and his writing has the hope and hopelessness expressed by children who have not quite given up on this world.

Well, the name of my school is Bagabaga junior high school and it is located in the northern part of Ghana called Tamale and the name of my Headmaster is Manan Abdul Rashid. Yes i used my school computer lab computer to replied you back always. after my junior high school. i will be moving to the senior level where i can learn the course i want . But all my dreams is to be a Doctor in future, that all the dreams i have.

He wrote to me that he is trying to teach his little brother to read and write because he cannot go to school, but in the next sentence he writes that last night they slept with hunger. In another email he writes:

Today i just went to the city chop bars and eat the left over and my granny and brother is in the house with empty stomach.

His letters to me are filled with the things that he loves about Tamale and blessings flow from his words in the most beautiful ways, but his life lies heavy on my mind. I want to be absolutely sure he is who he says he is and I have written to the high school asking since the junior high address is not available to me, but I haven’t heard anything back yet. And, in all honesty, I don’t have much to share.

But I can’t do nothing.

The Absolute

What is the name of the wellspring of power?

Where do I turn when I feel overwhelmed, in either a good, or bad way?

What is the name of the pool where I immerse myself as I walk along the way through the conflicts and joys of this space in time I call my life?

Where is this place where I can stand naked and vulnerable so that light can penetrate my innermost parts?

Do I think of myself as a window, or vessel?

Whatever it is, whatever it is called, wherever it is; whether I choose to express it from a scientific, or religious, or psychological, or even allegorical standpoint, it is the same point for all of us, for everything.

It is the source whose face is infinite, whose depth is unfathomable, whose power cannot be conceived.

I do not have to understand it. I cannot alter it. Some would say, it is. Some would say, I Am. Others might say, I am You. All paths are it, thought, prayer, meditation, questioning, not questioning.

It is that point where existence is

My Very Late Thots

The piano rolls under my fingers, its moans those of a lover who aches to be touched, its body eager to be played upon, its soul pouring forth in a language only I understand because we are one tonight. I listen for the familiar tones, the deep and resonant tones, the sighs and sounds that only a lover knows.

Tonight I am the one who plays to the moon and basks under the stars. Tonight I am the dew upon the grass, the thoughts within your soul, the warmth that creeps up your spine and spills over into a world few people ever hear.

Tonight the world is without boundaries, without walls, without limits. Tonight love, born on the wings of a dream, rises into a universe as naked and vulnerable as the day it was born.

And then ...... it is time to sleep......

Extending My Repertoire

I am practicing typing with my gloves on and it isn’t quite as hard as I thought it might be. I think it is just going to require a little practice. It is cold! My house is not really set up for this kind of extended cold weather. I have two electric heaters in this part of the house. One full time and one that I just use when I want a little eye candy in the form of a fake fire and need a little extra warmth nearby, but even these don’t work quite enough right now.

I have closed off the back half of my house by moving my bed into the living room. Of course it is a large room and attached to the kitchen so it isn’t much of a problem. I don’t know how cold it is in the bedroom, but the clock/thermometer died about a week ago. I checked the batteries. They’re still good. I think it froze to death. I do still have clothes in there, but I try to remember to get them out the night before. Hoar frost only looks soft and fuzzy.

Trips to the bathroom are kind of like going to the outhouse. I have a little space heater in there for showers, but it takes too long for anything else. I haven’t had to chip the ice out of the toilet yet, so I figure I’m still ahead of the game. Of course whoever plumbed this house hooked the toilet up to the hot water heater…well, that’s an entirely different story.

My son was given a hundred gallons of heating oil this year, which is a very good thing because the wood man disappeared for a couple of critical weeks and we ran out of wood upstairs. In the meantime whenever he turns on the furnace I get a small amount of residual heat in my house. Nice, but what kind of yayhoo installs heat vents on the ceiling? I suppose that goes along with the hot water toilet.

I imagine I will be tired of this long before spring, but it surely isn’t intolerable. In fact, it’s kind of cozy and fun right now. It also is nice and bright. I have eighty four inches of triple insulated windows in my living room, looking out at the beautiful Smokey Mountains and soon, typing with my gloves on is just one more thing I’ll be able to add to my repertoire of strange and mostly useless skills.

Rainbows Are Real

Not knowing rules the world.

One would think that not knowing would encourage education, but that in and of itself is no answer, because the quality and intelligence of the educator can change everything.

If I want to know why I don’t float away I can learn about gravity and if I want to understand more, I can look into the laws of science and nature.

I might, however, learn about gravity from some other source. Depending on the teacher and the place, I might believe that I will float away if I don’t plant three red beans by the western waterfall every month on the night of the full moon. Obviously it works, because I haven’t floated away yet.

I rely on my teachers to have pure motives and an honest belief in discovering the truth, but what happens when teachers don’t really know the truth, or perhaps worse, they are more interested in using my ignorance to control me, and/or further their own ways? Either way there is a hitch in the system, a blip that creates a labyrinth rerouting the truth into an almost indecipherable maze.

Plucking the color from a child’s mind and leaving only the black and white extremes is a crime against humanity. Rainbows are a natural part of life, stretching our thoughts into mind bending vistas that include water and the refraction of light and anomalies so beautiful that they must be explored. Rationally.

I have a beautiful imagination, but imaginations don’t create rainbows, or vaccines by themselves. They need to stand on the back of strong and credible truths. They need the orderly, but free flowing thoughts of people who understand that not knowing is just the beginning and that both a good mind and reliable compass are necessary if I want to find the real pot of gold out there.

From Pasadena To The South Pacific Via Vienna

Interesting switch in routines today. I am not much of a tv watcher, especially during the day, but today I watched the Rose Parade. I remember watching it with my mother when I was a child. Her awe was catching, but of course we didn’t even have a tv until I was nearly four years old, so being able to watch a parade all the way across the country was amazing. Anyway, I like to look at the bands, listen to them, see how they’ve changed, what music they are doing now. When my children’s band marched in the Rose Parade, marches were not in anymore. That’s just about the only reason I go to parades -- to hear the bands play marches. They are evidently back in vogue.

Tonight I watched the Vienna Philharmonic playing Strauss favorites. Every year I stumble onto this program and every year I end up watching the whole thing, mostly just to hear the last song. I love the Radetsky March. I could just listen to it on you tube, but still, I watch the show. If I could, some day I would love to be in that audience clapping along with it! I’ve included a link to the march on you tube here. I really didn’t care much for the way this year’s conductor performed it, so the link is to one I do like!

Later I watched a friend’s vacation videos. I know, those are things we usually try to avoid, but his are exceptionally good and I enjoyed every minute.

Happy New Year!

Copy and paste this link to hear the Radetsky March:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSKKLROWgOI