Happy Birthday

Today is a very important day. 

Ninety-six years ago a great man was born who would later become the father of a great woman.  He walked with me and talked with me and he will never know how much that meant.  Most of what I know about gardens, I learned from him.  Much of what I know about parenting I learned from his daughter.  Without him my life would be very different.

Thirty-four years ago today another great man was born who would walk into my life in a most unusual way and transform it from a dismal wasteland into the garden of youth.  He took my hand and led me back into an appreciation of literature I had almost forgotten.   He read my stories and made me proud of them.  He loved me in spite of myself and I was transformed in ways I thought were completely beyond the realm of possibilities.

The Way is filled with gifts.  Some of them come wrapped in pretty paper, but all of them come wrapped in love.

To dream

I dreamed I was back in college last night.  Well I only dreamed of dorm living, which is typical for me.  They told me I was in the buildings to the back, the ones with the tiled roofs.  It looked like a brick bunker with brown ceramic tiles on the roof.  Inside a young woman told me my roommate would be a guy this semester.  She told me this as she pulled the queen sized bed away from the wall and I told her it was okay as long as we could both get out on our own side.

I was still waiting for him to come when I learned that my first assignment was already due.  I needed to write the story of me and include lots of visuals.  At first I felt terrible.  I didn’t know how I could ever do this in time.  I didn’t know where to begin. 

Then I remembered that I really already had all of this in a scrapbook I had made by putting all my papers together with the rings from a three ring binder.  I went to find these papers and met our third roommate, a young woman who was very efficient.  She was trying to figure out how to put her bed in the room.  I found her much more daunting than the idea of having a male roommate.  She saw my stack of papers and wanted to look through them.

Suddenly they didn’t seem good enough.  I realized they were poorly organized and the information barely understandable from a term paper’s point of view.  I sat in the small kitchen, stacks of papers all around me and wondered how I ever got myself into this situation.

Here we were, a woman my age, a young African American man and an efficient young woman with a black ponytail, all living together in two rooms and going to school.  I thought that I was probably supposed to be the one who knew what to do, who had all the answers, but I knew it was really the young woman and I found that disconcerting.

A day in the life of me

Sometimes it takes a long time to become me.

I wake up after a night of vivid dreams and open the living room drapes to see a dim, cloudy day.  Bright and sunny, or dark and stormy, I can deal with, but not this in between no man’s weather.

I sink into the gloominess.  This quicksand for the soul pulls me down and I find myself too tired to get away, but too alive to give in.

Brush my teeth.  Wash my face.  Drink a cup of coffee.  Look in the mirror.  Maybe if I put on some make up I will fool myself into believing this is just a normal day.

I try to open the door and go walk, but my chair calls to me and I find myself held captive there by its big soft arms, so I open my book and finish it.  Probably not the best idea I’ve ever had.  The book’s ending is terrible, unthinkable, depressing!  Now I need to return it to the library, get it out of my house, so maybe it was a good thing.

Maybe it is this book and not the weather that has been dragging me down.  I dump it in the drop at the library and try to make myself walk, but I just can’t do it.  So I return a purchase to the store and come home.

Finally able to walk I lock my front doors and head off up the street.  The woman with two small children is at the park.  She is very outgoing and I think this is the time to make friends with her, but I just don’t have the energy.  If I stop and talk to her I will not be able to finish this walk.  I move on, smiling at the children as the little boy chases a white butterfly across the lawn and the little girl roars like an ambulance as she pushes a toy car down the walk.

At one I eat something, my first meal of the day and then Bestest texts me and we “talk” a while.  By three I summon the energy to go hit some tennis balls.  It was a good idea.  Now I have watered the plants and can finally write this thot. 

The face in the mirror looks more familiar now too.  Another day has come and gone and I have survived.  Tomorrow perhaps I will thrive!

The gift of you

Understanding makes the world less threatening.  When chaos reigns, or I feel like I am at the mercy of someone or something outside myself, fear takes over.

Rules are made to combat fear.  If I do this and this and this, all will be well. 

And while this is true to a certain extent, it is no guarantee.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you see it, we do not live in neat little rows, or thirty minute sitcoms, or rabbit hutches.  We may not all be world travelers and adventurers, but in our own little worlds the happiest among us are free to make choices.

I grew up reading the script.  I knew what was expected of me and what to expect, or so I thought.  I believed happiness was what I made it and it was also an extreme, not something I expected to have all the time.

I assumed I had the best I could get and because parts of it were extraordinary it was pretty good.  I didn’t follow all the rules, but I followed the important ones and maybe a few others I should have ignored. 

Due to ignorance and misinformation and a desire to follow the script, I missed something really important.  I found true love in my children and that was where I let the ball drop.  I should have seen the beauty of our relationship was that they needed me and I needed them.  We were symbiotic creatures whose lives were almost perfectly balanced by my providing the things they needed to grow up healthy, richly independent and self sufficient.  It fed me to try and provide these things and they thrived when they were available.

It never occurred to me that the other relationships in my life should be the same if I truly wanted the best there is.  I have certain things to give and giving them enriches my life in immeasurable ways just like rearing my children did. 

People who need these things I have to give feed me in ways no one else can.  Their needs become a gift to me, and my needs a gift to them.

Finding these people leads me into a rational world where reality reigns over scripts and is a much better place.

Shining through

I remember having what my mother called growing pains.  They were intense leg aches that kept me awake and crying for long hours some nights.  My mother would rub my legs in an attempt to distract me, but I don’t remember it helping very much.

I tend to be a sort of loner.  The people I do associate with on a regular basis are mostly close friends and family.  Other people are simply part of the landscape that affects me, but doesn’t really touch me that much.

The problem with this is that close friends and family are not being brutally honest all the time.  I think they tend to be kinder and more loving, which believe me I really like!  However, everyone needs to know the truth and if acquaintances are discounted, close friends and family are the only resource for that.

As I come into what is probably the closest I will ever get to full maturity I find myself expounding more freely on what I think.  Then I spend hours rehashing those words in my head as if I can edit my life the way I do a story.  The problem being that once said, the words coming out of my mouth, or computer, are as good as carved in stone.  They have hit their target.  The damage is done if there is going to be any. 

I used to keep most of my opinions to myself, but lately I have noticed I am less reticent.  I suppose it lets the real me shine through.

But what if the real me is cruel or unkind or narcissistically focused on just my own self?  Whether that comes from the genes I was born with or the way I was brought up doesn’t really matter.  It is the actual behavior that counts.

Whatever it is and wherever it comes from I am finding it very painful at times.  I wonder if this is just another form of growing pains?

Split aparts

Imagine always reaching out for something that is not there!

Life is full and rich and whole, but something is missing.

All my life I have had these feelings.  Sometimes they fueled my imagination and my writing flourished.  Sometimes they just left me feeling alone and misunderstood.

And then about two years ago the transformation began.   A simple appreciation of something I wrote blossomed into a friendship rivaling that of Damon and Pythias.  It started so simply and progressed so naturally I barely noticed.

There is much to be said for a friendship where even my ugliest emotions are understood and accepted, because that clears the way for all the beautiful ones before, after and in between.  To be loved and understood is the greatest gift there is.

The Way is virtually the same

Virtually nothing is really completely virtual.  It is created by a non-virtual entity or used by a non-virtual entity. 

People have always day dreamed.  In the past those people without imaginations could lose themselves in a book to escape reality, but now it is not even necessary to be able to read to immerse myself in a make believe world thanks to movies and video games, television and the Internet.

Over using any form of escapism can be detrimental, but it isn’t a new phenomena.  Drugs, both legal and illegal, have been around since man first chewed on some weed and discovered it was possible to see funny animals.

Some people wash their hands every two minutes, others tally up column after column of numbers with some kind of relish only they understand.  It’s not the act; it is the reason behind the act, the intensity with which it is pursued that causes the problem.

Reality is harsh and it is not particularly fair.  In the beginning if a man failed to hunt or a woman to gather, they starved.  That kind of automatically weeded out most of the daydreamers.  Life is a little better than that now.  And that is thanks to the dreamers. 

Without dreamers there wouldn’t be zippers or photographs, or atomic bombs.  There is an up side and a down side to everything.

The secret is not to blame the spoon for being fat, it is to find a balance, a center point around which life gives and takes and revolves.  “A little bit of this, a little bit of that.” 

The way is always the same. 

Training

I was out hitting tennis balls in 100 degree heat yesterday and realized that I should not play tennis the way I raise children!

It is not even possible to do that!

It was just so hot that I had almost no energy and kept hitting the balls over the fence or watching them die as they hit the backboard.  It was when I thought, “Eventually they’ll get tired of this and bounce back.” that it occurred to me that I was out there to train myself – not the balls!

It must have been the heat because I honestly found myself also thinking, if I can just get these three balls in shape….and then I knew it was time….

Time to pack up and go walk in the shade before my brain finished frying in my head.  It turned out that it was even too hot for that.  I hit tennis balls for half an hour, walked for half an hour and went to the library where it was blessedly cool.

I was the right decision at the right time.  The book I wanted was out on the bookmobile, but had just been returned fifteen minutes before and the bookmobile was back in for lunch.  Not only did I cool down, I also got two books I had been wanting and had a whole afternoon to read!

Diving in

Spirituality is often confused with religion, but religion is born of man and the spirit preceded all things.

I visited an almost empty church not long ago and was awed by its magnificence.  It is probably one of the most beautiful places I have been inside of in a long time.  The understated elegance had a feeling of serenity and peace.  It was a very spiritual experience. 

My children grew up in a church family.  We found love, support, encouragement and companionship there among the other parishioners.  It was an extension of what we had at home.   Like so many things in this world it was a reflection of a reflection of a reflection, one more in a string of worldly things created by humans in an attempt to live in and thrive among everything else.

I needed that then.  It was a time of learning and building upon the foundations of all that had gone before me.  Part of learning is compartmentalizing, naming, remembering.  It is like looking at one of man’s molecules under a microscope.  Trying to understand, or get a feel for the whole man there is almost impossible.

Slowly the very things that drew me in began to feel like a curtain that was shutting me out.  Finances, building repairs, lawn maintenance, personalities, hung like holes in a fabric that felt immensely greater to me.

I was drawn out of this into something more incomprehensible.  I began to thirst for something I could not name.   The beauty and ritual started to feel like a distraction. 

What began as centering prayer became a step into the stillness.

For me it was like stepping off the dock into the mystery and I have been writing, dreaming, experiencing it ever since.

Pets

I am not allowed to have open flames or pets in my new apartment.  That is okay with me.  I have an electric fireplace that is very realistic and Bearnard, my teddy bear, is an excellent pet.

Bearnard listens intently to everything I say, cuddles with me at night and never barks at the neighbors.  He might bite someone some day, but without any teeth it is unlikely that it will be a problem.

Still, I had a yearning for something a bit more alive so I went shopping and bought George and Michael as well as their little brother, William.  George is a spider plant!  A wild mass of leaves and babies that takes up a whole corner of the living room.  He is a rescue plant I found burning up in a retail store.

Michael is a pothos and also a sort of rescue.  I found him cowering under a shelf in the half price section of a chain that probably would have dumped him next week.  He sits proudly on top of my refrigerator where he and George can see each other.  From a distance, but still, they are company for one another.

William is just a little waif, an orphan born in a paper cup.  He doesn’t come with any pedigree.  All I know about him is that he is a fleshy little plant with bright green rounded leaves whose parent was probably a foliage plant so he may not thrive inside.  But George and Michael fell in love with him so he gets to stay.

These guys increase the coziness factor of my apartment ten fold.  They sway in the fan, eat up the carbon dioxide and the two older ones are both pretty hardy and very dramatic.  If I forget to water them they will droop and moan and go to great lengths to get my attention.  That is sometimes necessary in this house and it increases their life expectancy by a lot!

So now I am beginning to reclaim the life I once had before starting over.  It takes a while to do things right.

Mysteries

Everyone loves a mystery.  The unexplainable makes me think that anything might be possible.

This morning as I sat down to record my weight and walking and blood pressure, something I do nearly every morning, it occurred to me that I am one of the biggest mysteries in my life.

My mind and my feelings live together in some sort of weird tug of war.

My mind understands facts and concepts.  It knows the rules.  It also understands that many rules are broken whether they were made for that or not.  My mind tells me that reality is often much less than ideal.  Concessions must be made in order to achieve some things.  Deciding what these things are determines my life’s path.

My feelings are much less rational.  They rear up like dragons from the deep recesses of my mind.  Pretty unpredictable, almost totally uncontrollable, they emerge as green-eyed misery and fervent, passionate heat.  All the babies in between simply give me time to learn the lessons necessary if I am to survive all this.

This balance of mind and feeling produces my writing, my status quo, my future!  It turns me from a flat paper doll into a real live power to be reckoned with.  The mystery is about where the pivot point is.  

I’m never sure.  Feelings can over ride rationale in an instant.  They can turn a cloudy day into a desert, or a day at the beach, and I can deal with the grittiness of the sand much better when the water is close by.

The dragons are much happier swimming than being force-marched down straight and narrow roads. 

The mystery is why they are sometimes forced to swim in the flooded gravel pits of resurrected thoughts and other times allowed the freedom to ride the waves.

The reasons never change

It seems I should be able to talk about things other than losing weight and the weather.  They seem like pretty mundane topics, but I suppose it is all relevant.

Losing this weight is a milestone for me and the weather is affecting everyone in the Heartland.  I heard that even if it started raining today and kept it up, the corn is gone!  The soybeans might make it because their main growth spurt comes in August – IF it starts raining.  The economy of our area depends on these crops.  This could be a disaster for the small farmers that drives out the last of them and makes way for the corporate ones.

It is scary to think I may one of the last generations to know life as it has been for hundreds of years.  I have stood on an old corn picker using my weight to hold it down while a friend drove his little red tractor across the fields.  I’ve eaten fried green tomatoes grown in a garden and cooked in the kitchen of a house that had no indoor plumbing.  I’ve sat in the shade of an old oak tree and scrubbed spark plugs with a wire brush.  The small farmer, the common man, who is pretty much self sufficient is quickly disappearing.

When I was growing up we walked almost everywhere, to school, to church, shopping, even to work.  Families had one car and the breadwinner took it to work.  Now walking is something I have to “work in.” 

I remember the wringer washer my mother had in our basement and how I caught my fingers in it one time.  She popped the new magical release bar on the top and saved my arm.  I remember carrying the basket of clothes pins while my grandmother hung clothes out to dry before going to work in the morning, then helping her use the tall poles that pushed the lines way up high so nothing dragged the ground.  Now I moan about walking to the basement and tossing a load into the automatic washer.  

But the one thing that hasn’t changed are the connections to family and friends.  I can still spend an afternoon with my sister, running around town, playing and I still end my night saying goodnight to my best friend.

I suppose the way things happen is always going to change, but the reason for them stays pretty much the same.

 

I think I can

I can’t believe this weather!  I get up and amble down to the park.  Once around the whole thing and then I go up and back each of the walks that bisect it and home.  It takes me forty minutes.  It is four tenths of a mile around the park, a tenth of a mile between my house and the park, and I figure the total distance is approximately two miles.

I come home soaked!  Honestly I look like I’ve been swimming instead of walking.  I am not used to this kind of heat and humidity.  For the past thirty years I have spent my time on screened in porches, in pools, or comfortably ensconced in air conditioning.

Part of me is proud that I can do this, but part of me wonders at the sanity of a woman my age who suddenly subjects herself to so many things she really isn’t fond of.

I have always wanted the quality things in life.  One nice thing has always drawn me more than ten shabby ones and this attempt at changing my lifestyle fits right into that sort of thinking.  “A healthy mind in a healthy body,” that is the ultimate in a quality life.  Without it everything else is a bit tainted.

I’ve lost fifty-two pounds and shed five clothing sizes.  I can indulge myself and go hit tennis balls again.  And last, but not least, it feels good to know I have been able to keep up with this for over five months.

I don’t respond well to extremes and I especially do not respond well to things that are forced upon me.  And…I don’t think most people are really any different.  It might make a good television show for some to watch when they see morbidly obese people doing extreme things, having extreme feelings and generally appearing to be miserable, but I don’t think it is something that is truly effective for the long haul.

The secret is to find success; even the tiniest bit of success will encourage me to continue on with something so I break all the rules.  I weigh myself every single day and my doctor finally admitted she does too!  That scale is a gentle nudge or a wondrous reward that keeps me jumping back on the horse every time I fall off.

I don’t try for a certain heart rate.  I just do the best I can in any given moment.  I do not go for a certain distance; I only go for time so my body can choose it’s own level.  These things work for me.  I am the little old lady who thinks she can!

And that is my mantra.  “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…..”

And I do.

Alternates

I have been seeing things at the park! 

Last week I saw my oldest brother walking across the street from me.  He wore the same clothes my brother wears, walked just like him, even had his face!  Only a tattoo on his left forearm was different.  I wanted to run over and talk with him, only I know he wasn’t my brother!  My brother is far away and would never come here without stopping to see me, not to mention is health is too poor to really walk much anymore.  I wondered if it could be a Doppelganger?

This morning I saw my other brother riding through the park on the diagonal walk that crosses west to east.  He was on a bike and he grinned at me as we passed.  He wasn’t a dead ringer, but the resemblance was so close it gave me goose bumps.

Of course my family has lived in this part of the state and traveled through it for many years.  It is entirely possible that I do have relatives I don’t even know about.  It is also possible that people just resemble each other sometimes, or I am looking through eyes that want to see similarities.

But I like the idea that behind the trees and tucked into the shrubbery are little passages into Narnia or other alternate realities.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if my park were a gateway between two contiguous universes?  The possibilities pass the time while I take my morning walk.

Beauty and the Bestest

Many people have commented on the way I look right now and I have to admit I love that!  It is wonderful to hear nice things about myself, but there was a time when I wanted to look nice because it would bring on those comments.

Everything in my world seemed to indicate that if I could look like Marilyn Monroe, or Twiggy, or some other popular icon, I would be okay.  Even my father who obviously admired and respected many learned women led me to believe that a woman’s looks were equally as important as her accomplishments.  Most men had only to be clean and neat and intelligent to be exceptional and my mother reinforced that fact by the way we lived.

When my father was home we ate in the dining room.  When he was sleeping we waited for breakfast.  Meals were much more involved if he was there.  He was the only person in the house that had a room specifically designated as his alone, his office. 

I wanted to grow up to be my father and look like my mother, neither one of which was remotely possible.

I did grow up and I became a mother and those children were the best thing that ever happened to me.  They were the best teachers I’ve ever had.  Love is a powerful force.  They loved me because I was their mother and I loved them because they were my children.  Simple.  Plain.  Perfect.

And then, as I entered what were supposed to be the twilight years I met one more child who chiseled away at the shell I had grown over the years to reveal a new Pygmalion statue or Pinocchio, or perhaps just another Velveteen Rabbit.

It turns out the old stories are true.  Love makes us real and beauty does not exist to make us lovable, but love exists to make us beautiful.

Heavy

I want to be a collector of feelings, not things. 

Over the years I have noticed that the search for the perfect shirt is much more satisfying than the shirt itself hanging in my closet.  Later on, wearing that shirt might make me happy in tiny doses here and there, but usually it is what is in me more than what is on me that brings me joy.

The acquisition of stuff is a national past time.  If  I can buy just the right piece of clothing, or car, or house….  If I can find just the right medicine to alleviate all my aches and pains…..  If I can bring just the right people into my life…..   If I can find God, or reach Nirvana…  I will be happy.

The dreams of it all generally bring more happiness than the culmination.

The carrot is always out there.  Even if it is giving something away:  money, time, goodwill… We are creatures whose feet are firmly planted in seeking and doing.

In the end I have discovered that it is not the act that brings me real joy.  It is the contemplation of its implications, the savoring of its possibilities, the manipulating of my own desires that truly turns me on.

The concrete things are too heavy.  They weigh me down.

My feelings, on the other hand, often allow me to soar.

Exclusively Ours

I was taught exclusivity growing up, one man, one woman, one family, one united and unique group that no one else could penetrate except by very precise rituals under very stringent conditions.

I was taught to think and to question, but only within a certain framework.  Anything outside that was dangerous, forbidden, bad.

It was a fear-based culture whose premises centered on control.  One small cog out of step with the whole and the entire machine locked up.  The key to it all was love, but that love was conditional from the top right on down.  Instead of being the warm rushing river I know now that it can be, it was the stern, unyielding shell that promises the river but never quite produces it.

There are really only two ways of dealing with that kind of situation.  You conform, or you leave.  Many in my generation left to the utter dismay and confusion of our families.  Others were sent away.  Nursing homes sprung up to care for the deserted.  Welfare systems blossomed with the discarded.  Travel and money became the new goals of those who would never receive a gold watch.  Chaos reigned.

Change is like a yo-yo.  It bounces way out in one direction then way out in the opposite one.  For each action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Everyone scurries around trying to figure out what to do when freedom rings and everyone has their own idea.  If they don’t there are plenty of people ready to teach them an idea.  “Four legs good, two legs bad.” 

Beware of simplicity!  One size does not fit all.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether (our) nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, (to the ideals we profess to care about) can long endure.”

Exclusivity still reigns, disguised in a million little facades, but there is no turning back.  Maturation is a relentless force and these are the adolescent years of a powerful and dangerous people. 

Dancing on the head of a pin

Once in a while the world becomes very bright, like someone turned on the light, and the beauty around me becomes almost palpable.

In those moments I have a sense of oneness that is ineffable. 

It is almost as if I can sense the atoms dancing between us.

Scientists, priests, witch doctors, gardeners, mothers, fathers, small children – we are all trying to talk about the same thing.  The stories are all different, but it is like the blind men and the elephant. 

We want names!  Human beings find power in names!  Give me a name to call you, a name for my disease, a name for your culture, a name!  A name!  A Name!  As if by knowing that name I am better able to pray to you, or cajole you, or manipulate you in some small way that makes me feel less helpless.

A name points to understanding, but each little bit of understanding is so miniscule compared to the reality. 

Can an atom even conceive of a leaf, or a drop of dew resting upon a leaf?  Does it have any concept of roots or how they reach deep into the earth for security and sustenance?  Does it ever really grasp that it is part of this thing called a tree by some and that this tree is part of something larger?

My mind reels.

 

Paying the piper

It is hard to live the fantasy and real life at the same time.  So hard, in fact, that most people don’t even try.  They give up the fantasy altogether.

I can understand that.  It doesn’t pay the bills, or cut the grass.  It won’t walk the dog or vacuum the floor.  And maybe most important is the way it hurts when I have to leave the fantasy behind and re-enter the work a day world called reality.

A quick foray into daydreaming is like a fantasy snack, but on those rare occasions when it is possible to drop out and immerse myself in the world of my imagination for days at a time?  Coming back from that is painful!

Leaving the freedom to be whoever I really feel like behind, abandoning the chance to do the unusual, and especially biding farewell to my comrades in fantasy is kind of like stepping out of a Fantastic Four movie and into State Farm’s Corporate Headquarters.

For days I can get lost in the black and white world that seemed wonderful before.  It is difficult to get back into the old routines and find the old perspective.  But eventually the color comes back and the magic of the trees reaches me once more and the sound of the wind singing my song becomes a bit louder and one morning I wake up back in the beauty of today.

I will take another trip into that other place, but I do it knowing there is a price so it has to be worth it.

A walk in the park

Everyone has heard the phrase; it’s a walk in the park, meaning it is simple, easy, no big deal.  That isn’t always true.  An actual walk in the park is just another one of life’s adventures.

I am certainly no recluse and yet I find myself not wanting to run into anyone who wants to talk when I am walking.  Part of that is an inherent shyness that extends to the feeling they may judge my reasons or ways for walking so I don’t want to risk it.  Another part is that any connection will engender a need for further connection each time we see each other and interfere with the reason I go to the park – to walk forty minutes.

I think of that walk, an ambling but constant sort of stroll, as winding up my body, or maybe winding back time.  Breaking interrupts the timing, the cadence of both muscles and thoughts.

I do enjoy perusing the people and houses and dogs and trees and even the bees and butterflies as I walk.  Over time many of these things begin to present their own stories and I sort of prefer learning them from my own point of view.

There is a short man with his arm in a sling who brings his huge shaggy black and white dog and turns him loose!  My fear of dogs makes me instantly dislike him and his apparent belief that for some reason he is above the leash law or that people don’t mind his dog gallumping up to them.  Knowing this I watch him from as far away as possible, trying to stay out of the dog’s path and also trying to convince myself that this dog is just a big friendly pet, which it really is.  I try to give him the benefit of the doubt and I can do that as long as he stays away from me.  Another part of me says if I made friends with the guy and got to know his dog I might like them both very much—at least the dog.

There are all kinds of trees and I love that I can name a lot of them.  There are three kinds of stinging things, two kinds of bees and some wasps, but they all tend to leave me alone and when they don’t I use my brother’s old bee charm:  my voice!  I simply say, “Bees go away.”  And they do.

And then there are the various and sundry people who come like I do, just to be there.  They swing their babies, read books in the shade, bring office work in big blue totes, drink out of brown paper bags, pick up trash and ride bicycles through the paths to get to the other side. 

I love this place.  It is a real city park.

Biographical dangers

Sometimes I wonder what my story would look like if I were to write it.  Would I be bored, or impressed, stunned or shocked?  There are surely people in my life that would feel all of those things about some parts of it.

I am a person who walks with both feet firmly planted on the ground most of the time.  I can be realistic to a fault, even hard core realistic and seemingly cruel.  I believe that life walks within the boundaries I set most of the time.

I know there are many things I have no control over – at all.  I try to think of these as lessons, opportunities to grow and learn.  These are the things that make me stronger.

And that sparks other thoughts.  Real strength is not being able to force my ways onto others, but in finding enough light to stay on a path with some redeeming qualities.  Real strength demands compassion and kindness, gentleness and thoughtfulness.  Anything else is mostly a defense mechanism elicited by a false sense of danger.

My body may be at risk of coming down with an illness, or being hit by a truck, or even eaten by an animal, but the rest of me is much more vulnerable.  My emotions go belly up so easily.

I am a jellyfish awash in a sea of emotions, always quivering at the impact.  How do you express that in an interesting cogent way?

Standing on a little piece of mind

I love to read.  Not just biographies, or history, or current events, but fantasies and fairy tales both childish and grown-up.  I also love movies and television in all the same ways, but sometimes I think the latter makes life harder.

There is a sense of time that can be conveyed so much better in a book than it can in an hour television program broken up by commercials every few minutes.  The same goes for a movie.  Hard times can seem interminable in a two-hour movie, but basically it is a foregone conclusion that the tension will be broken soon.

Real life can be tougher.

There are no guarantees for a happy ending, at least not a traditional one.  There are no time limits for tension producing moments.  There is not always an avenging angel, or charging hero, or even a solution to make things better.

It is simply one foot in front of the other.  Keep going.  Try to make rational choices.  Reach out now and then for a friendly hand or even a nod from passers by.  There is no sound track that rises dramatically when something good happens, or thudding beat to warn of impending danger. 

Life is breathing in and breathing out.  It is finding the feelings inside of myself that carry me from egocentric infancy to what can be a beautiful old age.  The more self sufficient I can become, and remain, the simpler life is.

Standing here waiting for someone else to do something, or make a decision that affects me is fodder for helplessness and for me that leads to depression. 

It doesn’t matter if that something comes from a sweet kind source who is happy to wash my clothes, and drive me around and even buy me things, or a mean ogre who begrudges me every breath I take – relying on others takes away my peace of mind.

Play to the audience

I just spent a week inside with virtually no exercise at all!  In defense of this I must say the temperatures have been horrendously hot this week!  Over a hundred degrees does not lend itself to cavorting around outside anywhere except a pool, but no matter how good the reasons are, I begin to get depressed after a period without any movement at all.

This morning I woke up feeling sad and lonely and ready to eat to assuage the pain.  Instead of eating I began writing.  That is usually a very good thing for me to do and I have been working on a story lately so it was a pretty easy solution.

Until the middle of the afternoon when I just had to do something!  I decided to go hit some tennis balls.  The weather was a little cooler and nothing ever makes me feel much better than getting out on the tennis court.

I was lobbing balls off the backboard when a young couple came out and began playing two courts over.  A few weeks ago this would have chased me away, but I have learned that no one who is any good ever plays on these courts.  They have a strange playing surface that suits my feet very well, but is not particularly good for accuracy.

At first I was acutely aware of these people, but as they began to shag balls from all over the enclosure I realized that I was hitting better than ever!  Suddenly I was doing what I used to do, playing better than ever because I felt like I had an audience!

Now I really don’t know if they were paying any attention to me at all.  The notion that everything is about me is an old one and one that I have often discovered is not at all true.  Everyone is usually out there worrying about themselves – not the people next to them,

Ego is amazingly strong even at my age!  Of course the sad truth is that I don’t play that well anymore and when I do it wears me out almost instantly.  Soon I was shagging balls out of the back forty over the fence and finally I finished up my half hour.

I limit myself to a half hour because if I really play like I want to, it is all my right arm can handle, not to mention my ankles and feet, but today I wanted to play more!  I was really liking the idea that someone else might be noticing how I was doing!  Nature took over.

I hit a ball and it stuck in the fence way above my reach.  Undaunted I immediately hit another ball!  And it immediately lodged itself right next to the first one!  I was through, finished, kaput!

I could have used the can of new balls in my trunk, but by the time I walked over there and packed away my racquet and my sweat rag, common sense had a firm hold and I got in the car to drive home.

There was a reward though.  Just as I got in the car I received a text message sent late last night.  Such timing!  Life is good!

Auntie Mack Can

Angry birds float in a sea of sky blue, eyebrows scrunched together in Marx-ian angst, tails attached like tiny propellers!  Flying fiascos flung across the screen on slingshots at pigs posing in impossibly funny situations.

The stuff of nightmares, evoking warm smiles and sweet feelings, tucked up carefully by well meaning hands to make a bed.

Loving gestures, sharing sheets and pillows, stuffed animals and toys, the universal sign of innocence and friendship.

Go to visit Gramma, or Uncle Connie, or Auntie Mack and a car ride becomes a storybook experience, go swimming with the dinosaurs, or sleeping with the monkeys and everything is wrapped in love and giggles.

The magical moments of childhood should never be lost or put away for good.  They are the true elixir of youth.  

Auntie Mack can....make the world taste good!

Waiting

Route 66 still snakes across the prairie, hidden in the folds of Interstate 55 and steaming into the same places like the tired old piece of history it is.

Rearing its head in the parking lot of the old Dixie truck stop it finds a familiar line of rumbling behemoths.  Their great hulking bodies dark and trembling as the truckers inside sleep hidden from people in the parking lot by locked doors and generated air conditioners.

At the end of this line stands a European style, double-decker bus full of people whose bodies are slick with sweat and whose eyes sag with the weariness of temperatures well over a hundred degrees on a hot July night.

Across the parking lot is the shuttered and now defunct gift shop, that old purveyor of stale pecan candies and cheap knick-knacks that once lined the highways of every major road between New York and California.  Next to it are the remains of the Dixie Café, the original place for truckers looking for a good meal where they could rest and call home.

Under a huge orange moon, heavy with humidity and ripe with a fecundity peculiar to a midsummer night in the heartlands is one old pick up truck blasting hot air on the wooden park bench leaning against the wall and sitting on that bench is a single figure. 

Straight back not touching the bench, feet together and right in front of her, she clutches her purse tightly in her lap.  On the ground beside her is a small suitcase and wedged between her and the cast iron arm of the bench is one slightly out of place nod to the modern age, a computer case, neat and black, its canvas sides protecting a laptop.

The bus pulls away leaving her alone in the night and her eyes scan the horizon.  She isn’t really worried; this is just one more adventure to add to all the others in her repertoire.  But she is vigilant as the moonlight glances off her silver hair as she tries to look less tired than she is actually feeling.

 

After a while a lone white car pulls almost silently into the lot and seeing the old neon sign glowing over the shadowy figure, pulls up in front of her.  A man gets out of the car and the woman pulls her suitcase over to him.  He lifts it into the trunk.  She lays the computer beside it, and then they get into the car and drive away.

Route 66 is left lying in the shadows, embracing the familiar sound of sleeping semis as it slurps up the light of the juicy orange moon.  It could be 2012, or 1958.

Time

Time.  There is never enough of it and yet it never runs out.  How can that be? 

I spend time doing the things I love and loving the things I do and it honestly doesn't get much better than this.

Time present is full of time past and that's the truth.  Tonight we re-membered those actors and programs that filled our childhood and developed the senses of humor and right and wrong and exciting and even philosophical nuances that still hover around us.

In the space of three hours I rode with Sky King, Fury, Sargent Preston of the Yukin and Jungle Jim.  I laughed at George Gobel, Imogene Coca, and Jack Paar.  I sang with Roy Rogers, Buffalo Bill and Gene Autry.

And then I learned how to transpose a song and listened to the music of my friends with both my heart and head.

There was a mind meld tonight when the past and the present sat together and sang the old songs.

Happy 4th of July!

 

Memories come knocking at the door, bringing old friends in to share Hebrew hot dogs and Native American drums. 

Labyrinths are scrutinized, workshops utilized, genomes and nanotechnologies discussed, Dwyer and Rumi, are mixed together into a salad of adventures and thoughts.

Add a little reminiscing, some curry powder and strawberry shortcake and we have a fourth of July to remember when the rockets cease bursting in air.

This is my country!

Bees in a birdbath

 

Gathering, circling, pro-cessing

Tiny druids dancing, reflecting

Intoning

Ancient melodies older than time.

Their one monolith floating

Dimensionless in the nectar of Gods

Whose presence defies understanding.

 

Intricate rituals flawlessly performed

Dancers upon this eternal stage

Swimming

Drowning in the body and blood

One pure and perfect sacrifice

Serving salvation of the whole

In mindless obedience.

 

Observed, scrutinized, studied

Curious being separated

Meditating

On that ever present garden in time

Creation of one or One

In the beginning of the beginning

Again and again and again.

 

 

Life is sooooo good

The Mega Bus is a great way to travel, simple, direct and cheap if you book ahead.  I rode it to St. Louis yesterday and somehow we made a three hour trip in less time than it takes me to drive!  And that included an unexpected layover of thirty minutes at the historic Dixie Truck stop on old Rte. 66.

I had a wonderful seatmate who went in and sat at the old ice cream counter with me during that layover and who made the trip comfortable and easy.  It felt like old friends reconnecting even though we just met.

If my blogs seem a bit uneven this week it is because I am on vacation, visiting with my family away from home and all schedules are off until further notice! 

Life is sooooooo good!

Melting into the light

I am often anxious about doing the unfamiliar and yet I force myself to do it all the time.  My comfort level would be much more even and, well comfortable, if I stopped doing that, but that makes me more anxious than the other!

To stop pushing myself into new frontiers might mean I was becoming old or falling back into ways I have seen others use and I don’t like the way it affects their lives. 

It might mean settling rather than choosing and to choose to settle sounds like the worst choice of all to me.

Settling sounds like a house slowly sinking into the ground.  The mud comes up around it sucking out the light in first the basement windows and then who knows where?

I would prefer to soar until the day the sun melts my wings and I plummet gracefully and finally into the light.

Long damp summer

I finished walking by seven this morning and it is a good thing.  The air is so humid that even at 6:20 AM I was uncomfortable.  I can’t imagine what it was like in the days before air conditioning and yet I remember them!

The summer of 1958 I was eight years old.  My siblings and I woke up early and played in our bedrooms before going down to sit in front of the pattern on the television downstairs.  Cartoons came on later in the morning; probably around seven if it was Saturday and our mother came on a bit later than that.

She would come downstairs and sit in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading the paper while making tall stacks of cinnamon toast that we were allowed to eat on the living room floor.  At eight o’clock my dog, Snorkel, a Scottish terrier, and I would burst through the front door and dash for the break in the bushes!  A few minutes later we arrived on the porch of my best friend and rang the doorbell.  Janet was two years to the day older than I was.  We shared a birthday.

While my day was two or three hours into it, she was often just getting started, but I would be allowed in to watch her eat a soft-boiled egg with a precision that fascinated me.  Then I would follow her around, even into the bathroom, as she got ready to play.

Sometimes we put a broomstick across the steps of her front porch and turned the smooth concrete there into a roller rink.  Sometimes we dragged her toy kitchen down to that porch and played house and other times we played cards on the chaise lounge or rode bicycles, or jumped on her pogo stick.  She taught me to play jacks and give the secret call, “Key Oh Key” whenever I rode my bike up a driveway, important things to know when you are eight years old.

In the afternoon I had to take a nap, or at least lie on the couch on my mother’s sun porch for an hour.  Those were the days of polio and summer strep and no one wanted to take a chance.  Then my mother would fill our wading pool and all of us would tear out there in our underpants to pretend we were dolphins and turtles, or great world-class divers like Lloyd Bridges in Seahunt.

 

Afterwards a shower in our basement and we would be put down to watch the Mickey Mouse Club, proudly wearing our ears and mouthing the words to the songs along with the Mousketeers.  Dinner was a late but formal affair in the dining room when my father came home and then we were back outside for the evening routine.

As my mother sat on the neighbor’s back patio visiting, we played Mother May I, or caught lighting bugs, or simply spun in circles until we fell dizzily to the ground in gales of giggles.  Sometimes our neighbor, who used to be a performer, sang us songs like “The Donkey On The Golden Staircase.”

And eventually it would be time for bed.  Time to go upstairs, put the jar of lightning bugs away with hopes that I might be able to read by them this time and climb onto sheets that were soon wrinkled and hot from the heat and humidity of a long summer’s day.  My mother would place an old black fan on a wooden chair in the middle of the room and it would laboriously grind back and forth pushing the damp air around, doing little good until I finally took off my pajama shirt and tucked it under my pillow.

I think that was the only time I really noticed the heat back then.