Do You Want To Know A Secret?

There are so many ways to live that I honestly don't know which one is best. I think most of us just do the best we can with what we know.

To me that means the secret is to know as much as possible. That way I have more choices.

I think there is one more refinement that is necessary and that is to focus on those things that make life better.

It is all too easy to focus on the pain, or the problems. They loom larger than life as I grow older, but they don't bring me joy.

Joy gets me out of bed even when I have to limp from one piece of furniture to the next. Joy lifts me up when the infirmities of life become frightening.

The bad things will make themselves known. I don't need to worry about forgetting them.

Focusing on the bright side of my life makes it worthwhile in spite of anything else. The secret is to find that bright spot, wherever it is and nurture it, groom it, allow it take over and carry me away.

If I do this the bumps are just that, something that I can get over and move past. I know there will come a moment when I can't do that, but perhaps then, with one giant breath, I will be able to make that final leap knowing my life has been as full of love and wonder and joy as I knew how to make it.

Truth

I want to know the truth.

Doesn't everyone?

Not really. Many people only want the comfortable truth. They want those thoughts and ideas that support and fall within the same frame work as their own. Ask them to really open their minds and consider something that is radically different and they will have a hundred reasons why it is not a good idea.

Common sense. Loyalty. Logic, although not real logic. Tried and true, proven beyond a doubt. All of these are "reasons" people give for not wanting to honestly and openly consider something that goes beyond their comfort level, but the real answer is Fear.

Fear is the reason people make up excuses for what they do and who their friends are. Fear is what makes people stand behind something when deep down inside they know it is wrong. Fear of revealing to others who they really are, or even worse, admitting to themselves who they really are.

Truth is often left in that gravel caught up in the net that sifts through thoughts before they even really become conscious.

I Wonder

I think everyone has a time in their life when they feel different, or even like the odd man out. I remember one of my children when he was very very young looking out the window of our house. I asked him what he was looking at and he asked me, "Mommy, do you ever wonder what everybody is really like? Like are they like us do you think?"

I think those kinds of thoughts might escalate some in our teen years and hopefully level off as we mature, but what would it take to convince you completely?

What would need to happen for you to believe that what you thought, no matter how strange it might seem to you, was really not so awful, or different by world standards?

If you wrote a book and sold a million copies? If you wrote stories on the internet that consistently had over 10,000 people read them every month? If you had a television show that became a great hit?

I wonder.

How To Grow A Child

Imagine if instead of learning how to teach my child, I learned how to read him!

Imagine being a child whose parents allow her to grow at her own speed; parents who provide encouragement and opportunities that feed a child's natural abilities and curiosity.

It's not a new concept. Intelligent and I'll admit, often wealthy, parents in the past often did just this. That is why some children learned Greek at three and algebra at six. It is why some composed piano pieces at seven and sang harmonies before they could read. It is why some children became exquisite lace makers and others natural healers. The cabinet makers and silver smiths, the bakers and even the most humble cooks who were allowed to develop their own interests and take pride in what they did often excelled in ways no one could imagine.

Not everyone knows right from left, or can march in rows two by two. By the time some learn the right from the left, the marching is over and they never even get the chance.

Our need and desire for money today often denies children the right to be themselves, to learn in a way best suited to who they are. As we have more and more labor saving devices we create more and more slots to simplify what needs to be done with great intuition and love. The sooner we dump our children into these slots, the less likely they are to have the opportunity to grow round and rich and diverse.

Once kings and queens put small people into oddly shaped pots and left them to grow there into fantastical dwarf like shapes. I worry that incogitancy, poverty, laziness and short sightedness in the world today is doing the same thing to many modern children.

One Point Is Forever

Sometimes I write and write, afraid that I will never be able to get all the stories out of me in time. In time for what? I don't know. I just feel this sense of a need to keep writing, to put things down in words even if nobody reads them.

And then I go into the other room and I pick up the book I am reading and I read the words. Right now I am reading Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Here is a moment in time when this man's thoughts were captured just so I can read them now. I know that isn't true. Agee never had an inkling that I would one day exist and read his books, but I feel as if I am in that moment with him when he wrote them. It is like sitting next to a kindred spirit who can somehow reach through time and space, lifting the veil to become one with the present.

All my life I have dreamed of these moments and now they are here sometimes I step back and think how brightly this candle burns and how often that lovely flame, that mysterious brilliance that causes a life to look like an idyllic child's tale of once upon a time signifies a brilliant crescendo when the music is so glorious it makes my eyes water and my heart ache. A point beyond which everything else is okay no matter what it ever will be.

False Gods

I am having a difficult time writing my thots without writing a rant. I'm tired of people who take advantage of others, who are rude, who live excuse to excuse.

I'm tired of people who walk over other people to get what they want. I'm tired of elected officials who have the charisma of snake oil salesmen and I'm tired of a society that believes money is the be all and cure all for everything.

People aren't dying for lack of food and medicine. People are dying because we don't want to feed them or give them the medicine. We've created such a false hierarchy that people really believe the present system is gospel and that boggles my mind. People need medical care, but it costs too much without insurance and they need insurance because without it the doctors and hospitals charge them more for the same services those with insurance get cheaper. Doctors need insurance to protect them from being sued by patients and on and on it goes. What it all comes down to is everybody's need to make a buck and they are willing to let people die before they give up that buck.

We aren't talking about lack of resources. We're talking about lack of access to these resources. There's something wrong here folks.

Anonymity

I am amazed at myself when I'm not me!

That other person does things I've only dreamed of, things I could never do without a little anonymity.

Sometimes I think my parents must have given me the wrong name, because if you call me Sam I can think and write and paint pictures that are far beyond my ken otherwise.

Dress me up, or down, and take me to a place where I don't have a name: where my face is someone no one knows and I can do things I never thought it possible to do!

I remember hearing that little song about not hiding your light under a basket. Well, if I could hide under that basket, I'd be the brightest little basket around. I'm the original ostrich, if I can't see you, then I think I'm alone. Alone makes me feel strong like I have nothing to lose.

It's not that I'm afraid to do things. It's that I'm afraid of failing those I love and I wonder why that is?

Because if you fail, I only love you more.

Grandma In Training

I have been able to get out and walk Chauncey two days in a row now! Last Fall we were walking three times a day and it was awesome. I felt good. He acted good and I was getting some of this weight off. Then the joints began to go. First the toe, then my knee and by the time my sister came up to take Chauncey home with her my hip was gone too. I spent three days in agony and have not really been able to get back since. The latest problem felt like a bruised bone, but I think it is something else because exercise helps it as long as I don't walk on hard surfaces!

I've long thought that I was not made for this modern world. I can walk in the woods, or on grass so much easier and that is what is making now the perfect time to try and get back into walking mode. The snow is pretty much gone. The ice is gone and there is a lot of damp soft ground to walk on around here.

I've got to build my strength up for next week when I get to play grandma again and I can't wait!

Someone Changed The Water

I often wonder just where to draw the line.

How many forms are just one too many? How much time is too much? How much money is too much?

Where are the limits? Are there any limits? Is there a point beyond which anyone will finally say, "Enough!"

In my experience there always is.

I think it will never be me, but I have been wrong about that before. I just don't want to create false limits, the kind that are only there for effect, or to manipulate. When I say enough! I mean enough, not enough unless you change this or that, or enough unless I can get what I want. I mean I am through with this perspective, this part of my life is finished. I've outgrown this behavior, thought, way, feeling.

When I get to that point, it is like I am transported to another world, one where the first option was never viable to begin with. The slate is clean, life goes on.

It is not outrage, or revenge, or even condemnation. It simply ceases to be an issue -- like wearing a coat in the winter. After the first month or so I don't even think about it. I just wear the coat.

This is kind of a scary part of me. It's like someone changed the water in the fish bowl. The old algae is gone, it simply no longer exists.

Why am I thinking of this tonight?

I don't know.

The Best of the Best

My father was a teacher and practically a professional student. He definitely would have been one had he been able to manage that and our large family, but he taught me to appreciate those people for whom learning, not the grade, is the goal. Of course some people can't tell them apart, because these people also get the grades, but they work for them.

I have an email from a young friend that says it all: If I could, I would be a life-long student. I would take and teach classes for the rest of my life. There are so many things I want to do and know about. I never want to leave the academy, because there is no better place to be than a campus in the hive of learning.

Imagine taking it a step farther. Being willing to drive half way across the country to interview for a job with a school and then later driving another ten hours to go to a second interview that lasts all day and into the evening. In between there are papers to publish, books to write, classes to teach, songs to sing and games to play.

These "professionals" work hard and they aren't over paid. They teach students who mostly take them for granted, but they still go out of their way to find a way to snag these students while also giving the ones who want it the opportunity for a superb education. They really believe and care about what they do.

I think teachers like this are the unsung heroes in our world.

Doggie Dreams

I wonder if animals have imaginations?

I know they dream. I see Chauncey twitching his paws, even whimpering in his sleep as if he might be, well, doing whatever it is that shih-tzus do when they are off exploring the world unencumbered by their humans. I would think it takes an imagination to dream.

My dreams are all over the place anymore and I can understand that. More than at any other time in my life I am alive and active. Not just running around like a crazy person active, but busy doing things I love doing, things that are important to me.

My volunteer jobs are in places that I really care about. My interactions with family are warm and wonderful. My hobbies are turning into rich fulfilling labors of love. I have friends who seem to love me for who I really am and I have Chauncey who keeps me grounded.

There is nothing like being responsible for a living creature who has the ability to drive you nuts. Just when I think he's finally grownup he will do something like break out of his collar and run off, or leave me a surprise in the middle of the night where I won't see it until it is too late. He barks at things that aren't there and likes his water fresh and cold. It is his one big Lassie trick.

You know how Lassie would always go and get help if someone needed it? Chauncey will bark until someone figures out he wants fresh cold water, no matter where he is. But about the time I think he might be more trouble than he's worth, he'll snuggle up and steal my heart away.

The more I think about it the more I do believe he has an imagination. I think he's probably dreaming of the day when I finally am bright enough to do what he wants on the first command.

A Life Of Their Own

Attachments are the bane of the living. They come so naturally, so easily. In some ways they are our most natural defense against annihilation. We attach ourselves first of all to our mothers or fathers who feed us and care for us with a ferocity that is stunning. As children we transfer those needs and loyalties to friends and often carry it over to our partners as adults. Citizens band together, countries join forces, and someday I am sure universes may do the same thing.

It is our nature to preserve our fragile human bodies by joining with either like others, or greater ones.

I suppose it is natural that this attachment carries over into areas beyond physical preservation, because what is a body without feelings?

In the best of all worlds these feelings would only rise up like dandelion seeds in the wind, blowing out across the plains to reproduce themselves and never giving a thought to anything more. I suspect that if they only did that we would miss out on many of the great masterpieces that color this world with passions both satisfied and left wanting, because it can be the wanting that drives me to do my best work. And it is the satisfaction that produces my sweetest.

If only I could choose where these attachments took root and began to grow, life would be so much simpler.

It just doesn't work that way for me. It seems that some relationships have a life of their own and even though they are born gently and bloom magnificently, there are no guarantees that they will last forever. I tremble when I realize what I know is simple truth: what is born dies.

Yet that cannot be the deciding factor in the way I live my life.

I know there is more.

Because You Do It

Today I turned on the radio in my car and listened to Catherine Coulter playing her flute from outer space! Can you imagine that?

Another time today I turned on the radio to hear a cello playing with a quartet and was trying to figure out what they were playing. Three separate times I thought I picked up on a tune that made me believe I knew what it was and I was wrong. I never did find out what it was, but it was beautiful. It made me think. What would it sound like if I took the tunes from some of my favorite pieces and combined them? Could I make a viable song out of them? I think I probably could as long as I kept the instruments the same.

I don't know though. I never know how creative I can be until I just get in there and do it. I wonder if that is the secret to creativity. Like anything else it is more a matter of subtracting than adding. Take away a fear of failing. Take away a need to do something specific. Take away all preconceived ideas and take away all control. Just start doing something and see what happens. Who knows?

Dr. Seuss, Picasso, ee cummings, even James Agee, there were times when people didn't like what they did either, but they did it anyway. I never know if what I do is good or not, but if I have fun doing it, if it brings me some sort of satisfaction, or even joy? Then it was worth doing even if it goes from my hand to the trash can.

Performing is something altogether different for me. One little giggle, one little twitter, one small unsolicited criticism and I shatter like a rose that has been dipped in liquid nitrogen. You don't know that unless I tell you, so now I'm telling you. It's the least I can do since I love you -- tell you the truth.

But before I would tell you the truth about your art, I would stop and think. Is what I am about to tell you THE truth, or just my truth? If what I am going to say will really help you, I'll say it anyway, but otherwise, I think sometimes it's better to just nod and smile.

I love what you do -- because you do it.

A Popsicle of Possibilities

I hear the snapping, the cracking, the slow groaning slide of icicles taking the final plunge. No longer invested one drip at a time, they hurl themselves headfirst down into the snow they sparkled and laughed above before. No longer gems along the crown of my world, nor threatening spikes hanging over my head, they become chunks of glistening reminders that everything changes.

What was up is now down. What was long and sharp and of imminent concern is now mostly a memory, a decoration along the way.

So long out of my reach, now it becomes a puppy chew toy, a little boy's sword, a memento packed in Tupperware and stashed away in the freezer.

Next July it will be an object of delight, a rare and exotic curiosity left over from a warm cold day in February. A frozen rainbow, a snowman's jagged tooth, one candle from a snow cake, a Popsicle of possibilities that grew from a leaky gutter in the afternoon sun of a frigid winter.

Icicle. A simple name for so much magic, so much beauty and and wonder, so much fun and fantasy!

War Stories

Today I rode through the fields and back roads of the heartland to have lunch with a bunch of very old pilots and veterans and one man from Belgium whose life has united so many people who suffered through the horrors of world war II.

Talk about a healing journey. Imagine being a small boy crawling through tunnels in Belgium with your family to escape the horrors of war, of seeing your whole world blown apart from strange explosions that seemed to come out of nowhere, or riding in a box car from Romania to Austria with the hope that you and your sisters will not starve or worse. Imagine being another small boy, or girl in another country where they come into your elementary school and point out, "You. You. You and you come with us." They take you to trees, hand you a gun and have you climb up and your job is to shoot down enemy planes. You are only 12, 13, maybe 15 years old. You are so small your uniform covers your hands, your hat is too big, your pants are held up only by a belt cinched tightly around their folds. If you are scared, or refuse, you are treated as a traitor and will be hunted down. Worse, they may hunt down your brother and replace you with him. Sometimes a relative with a misplaced sense of loyalty turns in your name and you and your brother are taken away to support your country by working in armament factories, homesick and terrified.

The perception of these children is that each of the others country is a monster, because that is what they have been told and they dare not believe it isn't true.

Now imagine these children growing up to become the people I met today. People who search for planes from all these countries, who mark the places these planes went down, take pictures and gather up anything they can find using their eyes, metal detectors, whatever they have. Then they go home and begin to search archives for serial numbers on planes, on battery casings, on rings and id bracelets. They look up pictures, research family trees, going back to first one place and then another as families are contacted and ask questions. And sometimes they bring a man news that the brother he loved, who disappeared into nowhere during that war died in this place and even are able to bring that man his brother's id bracelet. Or they give a still grieving widow a story from a farmer who found her young husband and cared for him during his last moments on earth. They find the family of a little fifteen year old boy who dared to crawl out of the tree where he was supposed to shoot down planes and make his way across country where a farmer "adopts" him as his own and hides him until the war is over and then helps him escape into another life.

And in the end, all these "enemies" find they have more in common than they might have ever believed. These are the war stories I heard today as I held pieces of those planes in my hands and gazed at the pictures of soldiers who were not fighting a war far away across an ocean, but right there in their own home towns. I watched old men holding parts of planes that had carried them through the air and landed in fiery nightmares in foreign lands where good people took them in and helped them while risking their own lives and the lives of their families. I listened to a man who has spent his life helping people find loved ones no matter which side they fought on.

These are the real war stories, the ones where the people waited and grieved and loved just like you or I would our own children and husbands and fathers. The ones who had not only to endure the endless years of war and its privations, but had to go forward afterwords not knowing. These are the stories that point out how much alike we are no matter what we think.

It was an emotional afternoon. No what I might think about wars, I couldn't help but be stirred by these stories coming from these men.

Inspiration. Where does it come from?

Sometimes I know exactly where my ideas come from and other times I swear I am channeling them through my fingers because I don’t have a clue until I start typing.

I have to admit that I have an overactive imagination. My mind comes up with stories about things I didn’t know I was interested in sometimes and even when I’m asleep it keeps on going.

Inspiration, like everything else, is not all the same quality. I wish it was. I wish there was some formula for reaching my Muse and coming up with quality ideas, but everything has its time.

I just received a phone call from a friend who has a history of extraordinary performances and gifts followed by a period of what appears to have been transition because now his time has come again. His world is once more filling up with concerts and projects that are both inspired and inspirational.

I guess it goes back to my ideas of waves. This way is an amazing place, never stationary, always ebbing and flowing. When it’s bad I think this too shall pass.

But when it’s good I am so glad I just hung in there! There is a fine line between not letting expectations get in the way of what is happening and not having hope and I hope I never forget that.

Inspiration, maybe it’s just knowing how to ask for it?

Combinations

It is mind boggling to me to think that the closer I look at something the more it looks like everything else and the farther away I am from something the more everything starts to look the same.

Imagine taking a bunch of molecules and jiggling them around. Freezing some, melting others, compressing some, stretching others out and somehow they begin to form combinations that become noticeable. Things start to shape up like a Thanksgiving dinner does, or a Monet painting, a child's diorama, an earth, a life!

And I don't know if I am a frozen bunch of things molded and shaped to be this person I am, or if I'm melting slowly, aging and withering until one day I'll be no more, or perhaps just more like everything else. How much of me is measurable and how much unknown? Is it that extra flick of the brush, the highlight, that adds soul to me, or is it the constant handling, the suffering and caressing that ignites the spark?

That ice cube, the oak tree outside my window, the automobile on the highway, even the wind, in some way we are all just one thing. I don't understand it, but that it is true hovers just out of my reach and I am amazed.

Searching For:

Unconditional love. A concept most of us have contemplated. Something I think most people would like to experience. An extreme that is for sure. Taken literally almost impossible and yet...

That infant I held in my arms, what wouldn't I have done for him? What wouldn't I do now? Did he ever fall from grace like the grown-ups fell when I turned eleven? Could that ever happen? I don't think so. I think that is about as close as anything I have ever experienced. Giving unconditional love, but I wonder, did it feel that way to him?

Was that sort of love ever given to me? It's hard to imagine even though I would like to think so.

Someone's been molding me, twisting me, trying to shape me and turn me into something "better" ever since I can remember. A better daughter. A better girl. A better student. A better girl friend, or wife, or lover, or friend. Even I am never satisfied with myself as I am. I don't think we really want unconditional love in our world.

Maybe we are afraid of it -- because if we get tired of someone and they're perfect what does that say about us? If we turn and walk away, or push someone away we want justification. There's always something lacking, something wrong, some imperfection that can grow up to fill the bill.

But I don't see it in that child. I love his foibles, his imperfections, his whole being. Change any of that and he won't be who he is.

I've always wanted someone to feel that way about me.

Now it seems possible, but the shameful truth is that now I am conditioned. I am trained. I know it isn't really possible. Eventually the truth will rise to the top and all my hidden imperfections will come bubbling up and I know no one could love those. Could they?

Maybe if I just don't change anything then everything will stay the same.

And maybe it will die of stagnation. Suffocate in fear instead of celebrating the moment and letting what will be -- be.

Unconditional love. It's not some extinct animal, some rare manifestation. It's a gift. One of those gifts that some people call blessings and others call an exaggeration. Still I want it. Not locked up behind some bars like the tigers in the zoo, but like that bear I saw ambling along beside the highway. Right there where anyone can see it, but free. Strong and real and unencumbered by fear or doubt. That's part of it. I want to be able to hug it as hard as I want and kiss it whenever I feel like it. I want to run around it without a thought and say the first thing that comes to my mind knowing that nothing will change, or if it does it will only become stronger.

Unconditional love.

Books

I love my life. It is so rich, so full of things I have only read about in books sometimes it scares me. Sometimes I wonder if I am only asleep and will wake up to discover this beautiful dream is over. Then I think if that is true my real life must be even better if it produces such dreams.

I am grateful that I am able to read books, to know that there are places to go, things to do, experiences I would never have even dreamed of had I not been afforded this great privilege of being able to read. Books have given me the courage to choose that road, "less traveled by." They have held my hand and led me into the hanging gardens and to the top of Machu Picchu.

Books have filled my hours when I am lonely, sat with me during the long dark night, fed me when I was hungry for things nothing else could provide and been the icing on top of the cake. They inspire me to try and write my own words and even prepare me for other jobs that have enriched my life along the way.

Books are not everything, but of all the things in my life, they probably are the ones whose value I will never underestimate. Someday I would like to write one of my own.

Style

What is my style?

Intuitive.

Once I progress beyond that I get into trouble. I bog down with a sense of my own self importance. I get lost in the details that seem to explode like one of those ascending sticks magicians have that they tap and flowers shoot up, turning into a bouquet. I lose interest in my own subject matter and all spontaneity becomes a paranoid gap between the keyboard and my runes.

Yes runes! I have a little sack of rocks that edit everything I write. If they come out right side up, all is well. If they land wrong side up, I rethink, rewrite, sometimes scrap whole pages, whole days worth of work.

I write a sentence and pull a rune or I write paragraphs then pull a rune. There is no set pattern, no special time. Whenever I feel insecure about how something is going I need something to turn to for support and encouragement. I need it even more if something seems really good to me. I would drive a person nuts with this kind of insecurity.

I'm not gracious about it either. I shout at these runes when they give me answers I don't like. I've even been known to curse at them! A real person would have walked out on me years ago. Yes, they've been around for years and years.

Some people don't step on cracks, or drive down alleys when black cats cross in front of them. I don't send out anything I write without asking my runes if it's okay.

A Piece Of You

If you want to know who someone really is read their books!

Well, not really their books, although if they do write this is a great way to gain some insight into how they think, what they want the world to think, maybe even how they want to be perceived. I am thinking more of the books they read.

What feeds their mind? What tickles their imagination? What do they turn to when they want to kick back and relax? Where do they go when they need to be fed?

Some people do write like they really feel and think, but I think most of us have a retaining wall built in there somewhere that acts like a safety net, or filter, protecting our inner selves from the rest of the world. Poetry and songs might let the world closer, but there is still the thought, that others are going to hear what I write, say, sing.

The books I read are like mile markers, unchanging ideas and words, thoughts etched in black and white. I may not subscribe to them in this moment, but at some period in time they were close enough that I read them. Now, only the scent lingers, or the passing memory of a word in one paragraph on a single page, but somewhere inside of me that book still exists. It rubbed against me and I am marked by its existence.

I know that I can't know you by the reading of a single book, but I find pieces of you in different books and different words and the hunting is so interesting.

Reading Among The Lines

Sometimes the only answer is a story.

I try to explain how I feel, what I'm thinking and the only way to do that is by writing a story.

Somewhere in there, among the once upon a times and happily ever afters is a fragment of truth that comes straight out of my heart.

Heart words are sneakier than brain words, and softer than mouth words. They need to be read with the imagination and if our imaginations match then you will know just what I mean. It's like secret code for those who feel too deeply, a suit of armor that protects and defends without alienating everyone else, because anyone can listen to the story.

But only the enchanted ones will know the magic necessary to see behind it all.

Lessons

The Way of life winds inexorably along and it is easy to forget where something started once it has ended, but the truth is that nothing really ends. It’s echoes just become fainter and less likely to be heard.

That is just as well I suppose, because endings can be so painful they need to fade in order to be seen more clearly. Until finally it has been long enough that the echoes become simple sweet memories of times gone by, of experiences and lessons that were stepping-stones to today.

I remember standing in my window watching for the headlights of your Jeep, those two bright lights too close together to be any other car. It was the way my morning started, looking for you when you went to work.

I remember sitting in your lap, swinging at the park and going down the slide, happy to just be near you. Those times when wearing your shirt meant being that much closer to you. Thinking I would never survive if we were separated.

And then you went off to war. I’d heard that word before. I read about it in books, or saw it in movies and I didn’t believe in war. I still don’t think war is the solution, but I believed in you and it was hard. The tears poured silently from my eyes no matter how bravely I smiled and waved good-bye.

I didn’t know if I would ever see you again, but we wrote. Back in those days we wrote with pens and paper and mailed them airmail to far off places. We wrote everyday, you and I. Remember that big box of letters? So much love in one big box. I used to stand outside and stare at the moon at night knowing that same moon shone down on you too and thinking that maybe my love would be soaked up and reflected down on you in the middle of that god forsaken place they took you.

I remember my joy when you returned and we were together again. And I remember the day I threw that box of letters away, a harbinger of what was coming, what neither one of us ever dreamed could happen, but it did.

People grow up. They change and grow apart and eventually the kindest and wisest thing for them to do is to turn around and walk their own paths, but that doesn’t negate what went before.

It was a big chunk of life and I’m not sorry it happened, nor sorry it is over. Many beautiful and good things came out it. Many hard lessons were learned during it. I am better and stronger and wiser and happier because of it now.

Living life one moment at a time is a miraculous way to keep things in perspective and sometimes that means listening for the old echoes that led me to these beautiful new ones.

Who Could Have Thought?

Should I never go beyond this moment I have had it all.

Everything that is important to me, that I value deeply, that fulfills my deepest desires, has been mine.

It goes so far beyond the fairytales it is unbelievable.

There is so much more than happily ever after.

I have found a richness that no one ever led to me believe was possible.

Who could have thought?

Vacillating

I watched a film called The Road Home last night. It was interesting to watch even though the people spoke Mandarin and the subtitles appeared to skip all but one sentence in most conversations. I got the gist of it and it was beautiful.

I have now been in three separate winter snow storms, each one leaving me isolated and trapped to some extent. Each one in a different location and situation and each one eliciting different thoughts and feelings.

The first two were in small towns where my electricity was out for days and I was truly isolated, cold, and facing the withdrawal of both human companionship and Internet. This one lacked none of those negative aspects. The only thing I am lacking is my medicine and I am not yet suffering from that. If I can only get out today, all will be well.

I find it interesting to see how I spend my time with myself when it is extended and limited only by my own energy and inclinations.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that, I seem to vacillate between reading (in this case Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee) and writing with an occasional movie thrown in. The longer I am here, the less interest I have in most television, it seems to break the spell.

The World Is Growing Cold

The wind roars outside my window and I shudder to think of this huge animal shaking trees, whisking the snow off rooftops, turning water into snow and ice and who is, right now, on a winter rampage.

Where are the fantasy animals of yore? They are alive and well.

I cannot imagine the girth of this one, or the length of his stride. He is so massive that only his breath touches me. I cannot even see his face.

The anti-dragon, a creature who does not spurt fire down upon his unwary victims, but instead freezes them where they stand. Like Medusa, only more powerful, this one does not need me to look at him to keep me forever more frozen in one position. He isolates me, imprisons me in my tower like a modern day Rapunzel who has cropped off her hair and can therefore never hope to escape, or have company again.

I have outgrown the shell of femininity and yet the creature within cannot come to terms with this new body, the one whose inner workings far outweigh its outward appearance. I am learning to fly, to soar on these thoughts that can carry me away, but I need to trust in their ability to support me. I need to drop the chains that tie me to a world that lies to me and says only the young and the beautiful, the ones with gold and the hearty have a place here.

The north wind stalks me, speaking to me in tongues only my heart can translate, but when that translation is over will I rise to my full height and take control of my own destiny?

This is the hero's adventure, the quest for self, the determining factor in so many things.

Nothing Is Ever Quite What You Think

Wouldn't it be amazing to discover that earth is simply a huge activity ball in the sandbox of some cosmic school?

All the unusual giant hieroglyphics made by some toddler's finger at playtime

Earthquakes the result of children moving it around to play with another side

Tsunamis initiated by a little boy sitting on it and rolling it back and forth, back and forth

Invisible fingers lifting the living parts up and out of the little earthly dolls

The possibilities are endless

Until one day, along comes the class bully and kicks it out of the ball park.