I looked at life from both sides

The smaller the world, the fewer the options.  If everyone around me is a grandma raising grandchildren that seems like the norm to me. 

If I am simply trying to garner popularity votes I give children whatever they want.

"The norm" reflects my place in the local pecking order.  I can believe whatever I choose and justify nearly anything that is common where I live.

When I step out of this world and look back at life from the universe, things change.

It becomes less about me and more about everyone else.

My actions become less "self" centered and more thoughtful.  Each one has far reaching results that affect people for years, even lifetimes to come.

As individuals we have a huge amount of power. Knowing the difference between using that power for our own comfort levels and the good of those around us requires a little thought.

USPS

Today I confirmed what I already knew.

The people who deliver mail in our neighborhood don't even attempt to contact the person who needs to sign for it.

They simply drop off a slip and move on confident that most people here are at work, or school.

Then I have to set up a "time" to have it redelivered, which means at least two more days.  Or I can go pick it up at the post office in the morning.

I went there long after she had quit delivering in our neighborhood tonight and they claimed they wouldn't have it until morning, but that I could have it at 8:30 AM.  (We'll see how that works out.)

I have always suspected this is what happens, but this time I know because I was texting less than eight feet from that door by her time.  I did not go to the bathroom.  I did not have the television on.  I did not hear the doorbell.  I did not get my package.

Moments

Live in the moment.  Live in the moment.  Live in the moment.

This is the mantra of most ascetics and people trying to be more mindful.  I try to be that way too.

But it occurs to me that all time is made up of moments, so perhaps it depends on who you are -- which moment you choose to be in.

If your life seems awful to you, perhaps you prefer to dwell in other moments.

If your life is awe full, this one will do quite nicely.

Perspective.  It always boils down to perspective.  Looking past the all the "stuff" we carry with us and seeing a situation for what it's worth is an art and like all arts, one that requires some practice and skill.

It isn't always easy to see the truth when it's up close and personal.  And the beauty of truth can be lost in the discomfort of its recognition sometimes.  Comfort zones can create incredible camouflage.

I look in the mirror and see what I want to see, or expect to see, then wonder why the world reacts so much differently than I think it will.  Continuity depends on truth.

A moment is forever if it is painful, but understanding can bring a surcease of sorrow, a moment of clarity that will ease the way in the future.

Moments are life's greatest teachers.

Amazing Gracie

People tend to surprise me.  I think I know who they are.  Lots of people think they know, but they have no idea.

That quiet little woman who knits scarves and volunteers in her retirement has a whole life no one knows about.

She blows away preconceived ideas with the whisper of a breath. 

She embraces the dreams that come to her and allows them to grow.

She holds her secrets close, sharing them only with those who deserve to hear them, and lives the fairy tale others only dream of.

Her smile is not just that of a life well lived, it is the smile of a life lived now!

Soul searching

The dearly departed lies, hands folded, eyes closed in stiff formality.  She looks vaguely familiar but if I didn't know whose funeral I was at, I would not recognize her.

Most funerals are like this for me.  There is something really gone when someone dies.

It is not just flesh and blood and bone that make up a human being.  There is something very important about the battery that runs it.  Whether you call it spirit, or soul, or animating substance, that force that causes the autonomic nervous system to function on its own takes something besides life with it when it leaves.

I see that at funerals and it makes me wonder . . .

Does this force dissipate when the body dies?  Does it go to heaven?  And if it does, how does it get there, where is it, what does it look like?

What if there is an invisible sphere where loose souls go to rest until another invisible sphere connects it with another soul and they drop back into time -- as friends, or mates, or even one unique individual?

Recycled souls, old souls, soul mates, by any name, unique individuals with connections that surpass understanding.

It's not a new idea, but it is a fascinating one and great fodder for a story.

The essence of you

How often do I hear someone say, "Oh, you should have seen, or heard . . ."

Unless we are the only two people around I can barely process that.

I hear the words, or read them and I understand, but I don't really register them.

I am usually so wrapped up in the people where I am that everything else feels sightly surreal.

It's not that I don't care.  It is simply that I am intensely focused on the person I am with.

In that moment they are my world.

Long ago that could be interrupted by a child's scream, but I no longer have to worry about children most places anymore, so now I have the luxury of soaking up every bit of essence from the person in front of me.

That is my gift to me.

Acts of love

"I love you."  The words come easy. People say them all the time.

Given too easily and taken back again and again, these words can leave their object thinking they are as common as the snowflakes that fall from the skies. . . and just as likely to melt away.

But everyone should hear them said the way they were meant to be.  Nothing could be sweeter,  more beautiful, more enlightening.

They warm hearts that were formerly frozen.  They raise spirits so high that the body walks on air.  They bring light into the darkest places.

The acts of love are simple ones: caring, simple caring --  really caring.

The sweetest life

The music of Christmas sets the tone for the whole season.  It is the music of love in all its many forms.

I think almost everyone loves music, of some kind, but it has always had a special place in my heart.  My mother said I would only fall asleep to Burl Ives singing Big Rock Candy Mountain and Yankee Doodle as a toddler.  She played those little yellow records over and over.

I learned to play the piano and sang my favorite songs at the top of my lungs and later I learned to play other instruments.

My favorite music is that sung by the people I love -- in person, on CDs, or recorded just for me on my phone or computer.  As I am writing this I am playing Christmas songs played, sang and recorded just for me! 

Life can be so sweet.

Imagine

Oh!  The inexpressable comfort of defying all odds! 

The joyful abandonment of all worrying!

Imagine being fine with exactly who I am -- even on my worst day.

It took me a while to get to this place.  It really was a long and winding road.  There were no maps, no directions, no striving and really not even any arriving!

One day I just realized we were . . .

and are. . .

and will be. . .

and that was that!

How to spot an elf

 I have it on good authority that Santa's elves sometimes choose to retire.

Why?  I'm really not sure, but I have heard that elves work so hard and so long they have no time to start families of their own, so if they want to do that -- they retire!

Once retired an elf grows just a bit taller, but you can still spot most of them because they are always a little bit shorter and much jollier than other humans you run into.

And . . . they never out grow their love of Christmas!

No matter what else they do --  like marry regular humans, or get advanced degrees and teach school, or even have little half elf-lings -- retired elves celebrate Christmas like no one else you've ever met!

They decorate their trees from top to bottom  --  and twice in between.  They buy so many presents you have to take naps while opening them all.

And . . .I hear they run around the house wearing bells on their toes just because Santa will be there soon!

Once in a while, a very seldom once in a while, one of their elf-lings is born more elf than human and it is said they are quite charming.  These special little creatures love holidays more than even regular children.  They are cute beyond understanding, but full of impish little impulses and their mothers, teachers, aunts and uncles never know quite what to do with them.

Elf spotting is an art, but you can learn to do it -- if you really want to!

Drama

If a million heroes slayed a trillion dragons and conquered a zillion trolls, most of us would still find reasons to wear our smiles upside down.

Charmed  by television shows and movies and even fairy tales, people have become drama junkies.

Until the scales fall from my eyes, I will believe that sadness and other feelings come from outside of me..

But outside events are only the catalysts, the little diggers and daggers that prick me and set free those things inside that make me me.

Most feelings are picked out of the pot of gold lying inside my mind.  I pour them through a learned set of name tags and come up with all sorts of agony, but I could rethink this process --  rename these feelings and find myself much more content.

Drama is highly over rated.

Photographs

I take your picture and you take mine

both our smiles turn out sublime.

It's not the subject.  It's not the pose.

It's just the love bouncing off your nose!

Influence

I love what I do, but sometimes I find myself annoyed with poorly reared children.

All children misbehave.  That's why they are children!  They are still learning all the rules and regulations.  It can even be very cute.

Attitude is something else.  Parents teach attitude by the way they interact with and around their children.  It is not a child's fault if she is catty or feels entitled.  Not at the age I work with.

It is important for people to realize how influential they are in a child's life.  Teaching them to be thoughtful and kind, to be considerate -- is an investment in their future. 

Real self esteem does not need to be loud, or pushy, or needy.

Life is beautiful

Whatever I am born into seems the most natural thing in the world.

My values, my expectations, my whole belief system is neatly packaged and presented to me as the absolute.  To change any of it is unthinkable and yet . . .

I will grow and growth is sometimes disturbing, painful, enlightening -- it  is so many things, not the least of which is -- inevitable.

That tiny nuclear family I was born into expands and all the little seeds planted inside of me begin to grow until I am one unique and wonderful being among a whole world of other unique beings.

I need to remember that everything else grows too.  The possibilities are endless.  There are as many ways to live as there are people and nothing is truly impossible if it is meant to be.  In the words of a famous little fish, "Just keep swimming."

I keep falling into the most amazing situations and every time I think something is impossible I am proved wrong.

Life is beautiful.

Angels among us

There are so many stories of angels coming down to earth, especially at Christmas.  They come as beautiful women, old men, sardonic characters and sickly sweet parodies.

Of all the things we expect, or want, our "perfect" people must be bigger than life.  We need the grand slam, the big event, the experience that is accompanied by trumpets and drum rolls and rising crescendos.

Uniforms are optional, halos, wings, glowing lights, shimmering visages surrounding euphoric smiles.  Whatever it is that makes angels angels must be different from us.

We want them to be mythical!

But they are real and reality has no need to outshine my imagination.  It does not need to wow me with its grandeur, or grab the attention of the world by being special.

Opportunities to be and do wondrous things present themselves all the time.  It is up to me to grab the moment at hand and make the most of it.

Tiny acts done with great love out shine the most amazing super beings.

Gifts

The gift of people is a never ending fountain of wonder.

I look at the world day after day, but one day I look at it through the eyes of a five year old and suddenly there are miracles everywhere.

The mundane ceases to exist.

The world is sweeter, sillier, more dangerous and darling.

I am set free of the confines of sixty four years and once more the child I maybe never was.

Each person is different, even if they came wrapped up with bows on their heads it could be no more obvious.

I look into the eyes before me and Santa Claus smiles back.

A recipe for contentment

Measure the world in minutes, in single or double digits

In Christmas songs and laughter, in sounds of joyful patter.

Color it with looks, with understanding, love and books.

Divide it into distances, two arms and two hands wide

And tie it all together with the things you can confide.

Knoxville memories

Up and down the Knoxville hills
In misty mindful ways.
Slipping in and out of reveries
and the drama of today
A little boy takes his father's hand
Another his father's heart
And still another sorts out his part
On this hilly rainy walk.

Closeness

How close are we?

Holding onto someone tighter doesn't bring them closer.  Closeness is a feeling more than a distance.  I can be on the other side of the world and right in the middle of your heart.

Or I can be in your arms chaffing to get away.

Follow your bliss

Joseph Campbell said to follow my bliss.  That seemed like good advice, but I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

Now, I realize it is a progression.  Like a symphony building up to the crescendo, bliss starts out small and quiet and becomes an unavoidable focal point.  An inescapable, fundamental, beautiful way of living that simply takes over.

I am not manufacturing bliss, I am truly following it and it leads me into places I never dared to dream of.

Prince Charming

My thots tonight go back fifty two years to my first date.

It all began when I was eight years old.

I went next door to the people I called Aunt Jo and Uncle Ralph.  They had company.  I walked into the living room and there was a man with the whitest hair, the brightest eyes and pinkest skin I had ever seen.  He was gorgeous by my childish standards and his smile lit up my whole world.

I was in love!  I called him Uncle Mack and we had a pact.  When I turned twelve he promised to take me to dinner and dancing.  In the meantime, although his visits were few and far between he always brought me some little trinket like a dollar bill folded into a ring. Those were the treasures of my childhood.

Finally the day came when I was twelve.  By then I was self conscious and aware that he was a very handsome grown up and I was an awkward little girl.  He wasn't there long, but he did take me to dinner and it was magical.  I don't even remember what I wore, except for my first heels.  They were tiny inch and a half spikes.  But I do remember his eyes sparkling in the candlelight, the beautiful way he made me feel.

I didn't see him again until my wedding day eight years later when he gave me his mother's silverware and disappeared forever more.  The only picture I have ever had of him was taken that day.  He is the man sitting in the back of the room with his head turned away from the camera.

Years later I learned he worked for the CIA.  He was supposedly retired when his daughter disappeared and he went undercover to find her.  He never reappeared.  His visits were always so far apart that I didn't notice until it was way too late to even think about finding him, but I suppose that might have been impossible anyway.

He was the real Prince Charming of my childhood.

I'd like to teach the world to sing . . .

A man gets up and speaks to a huge room full of people.  He speaks carefully in heavily accented English, but I can understand him perfectly.  He tells how he brought his family here from the Congo.  He tells everyone that they were educated there -- in French.  Here, in the United States, it was difficult for his children. 

His words are simple, but the message is clear.  Unity does amazing work helping children assimilate into their community.  It doesn't matter whether the hurdles are language, school work, or finding useful interests, Unity helps children become the leaders of tomorrow instead of latch key kids lost in a confusing world.

Unity is what happens when a community is willing to work together.  A few qualified paid employees work with a whole town full of volunteers and everyone begins to sing  --  in tune.

If you'd like to read more about it, here is a link:
http://web.extension.illinois.edu/lmw/unity/991.html

Hibernation

I like my life simple and linear.

That is not possible right now.  I find myself dealing with many over lapping obligations and some very poor planning on the part of others.

The pen pal program that I am part of pairs retired volunteers with school children.  The deadline for my return letter was yesterday.  The first problem?  I have not received my pen pal's letter yet.  The second problem?  I will be leaving town and unable to receive it as of Thanksgiving.  They are having a Thanksgiving dinner for all of us tonight so they must have been aware that a holiday was coming up.

Packing for two different week long trips, back to back, is awkward.

I need to make sure I have enough of my prescriptions to get me through a very long time period. 

I will have a short time period to do laundry between these trips, Christmas cards need to go out in the not too distant future, and garbage goes out for the last time tonight.  Whatever I neglect to put out will be here a long time.

There are other little details to coordinate too.

My response?

Hibernation comes to mind.

♫ Now I'm 64 ♫♪

1967.  The Beatles release a song that will haunt me for the next 46 years!

It was written by Paul when he was sixteen, recorded in 1966 when I was sixteen and released in 1967, the year I graduated from high school.

Every time I heard it, and it came up more often than you might think, I wondered if the love of my life would still find me lovable when I was 64.

What I didn't understand during most of those years is that growing older leaves room for love to expand.  

What seemed like an exclusive little pond in the beginning becomes an ocean over time.

I guess that's the difference between 16 and 64.

Lifestyles

No one wants to be unhappy.  Right?  I used to believe that, but I am not so sure anymore.

Every so often I find myself feeling very frustrated and even angry when confronted by the lifestyle choices of others, going out of their way to create the very situations they moan about.

Every conversation goes back to the injustice, the terrible situations, the absolutely unbearable conditions they live under.  It is as if their identity relies on being used and put upon in order to impress upon the world that they can survive, even thrive, when life is so hard others might cave in.

If life improves, they sabotage themselves by going out of their way to recreate the old situations.  Then resume their old position of "poor me."

I want to help them, to show them that the energy it takes to retain the old ways could be turned around and used to make life better--even good!  They appear to understand, but soon they are fully immersed in the way it was.

Maybe I am the one with the problem.  Perhaps there is something full bodied and satisfying about savoring the dark side.

I prefer something different.

Life of me

This morning I woke up and there was no sinus dripping down my throat, no pounding headache hovering behind my eyes, no wheezing pumping out of my lungs! The allergic rashes are gone!  The diarrhea has disappeared!  My blood pressure is within human range!

It looks like I will survive.  The life of me will continue on.

One of the hardest parts of getting sick is the treacherous route through the doctor's office where, in the name of doing no harm, they force me down paths seldom traveled by a simple bacterial infection.

A bad reaction to the antibiotic was bad enough.  My Achilles tendons are still recovering, but the nuclear stress test was unbelievable.  Thanks to three weeks of unremitting coughing my muscles were aching, so over zealous nurse practitioners hustled me off to the emergency room where they kept me prisoner for six hours of ekgs, cat-scans of my head, x-rays, and ivs while the doctor ambled in and out looking at my blood pressure stats.  She shook her head and asked, "Are you feeling tense?"

This Thanksgiving I am grateful my doctor finally put me back on the medicine that works and quit trying to find something better. 

Six weeks of misery almost obliterated the light at the end of the tunnel.  There were times when I forgot how it all even started.  I began to think of myself as a heart patient, as an invalid, as someone who would go in for blood tests every ten days for the rest of my short and unhappy life.

But today I emerged from the valley of the shadow of modern medicine.  The life of me will go on.

Close your eyes: : http://locustsofegypt.bandcamp.com/track/close-your-eyes

I grew up thinking old age was people slowly fading away as their life became quieter and quieter.  My grandmother might have been the exception.  She started a new business very late in her life and perhaps I just don't know what was really going on in other people's lives.

My life seems to be growing more intense as I grow older.

It is not just that I am trying to cram as much as possible into what is left as much as the feelings that overwhelm me as I move through it all.  I wanted drama and emotion when I was eighteen.  Now I have it.

I met my best friend and soul mate in a winter spring relationship that has been one of the richest experiences anyone could ever imagine.  He brings out the best in me and offers me opportunities to do those things I always dreamed of but thought were lost.

Music floods my life as those I love write and sing the songs that melt my heart and bring tears to my eyes.

My love of reading and writing become dreams come true when I am able to assist someone whose writing turns into books read and valued by academia.

And I am able to give back in ways that are soul satisfyingly wonderful by working with young children in literacy programs nearby.

Each time I have had to give up something I thought I could not live without, another "something" has come along to carry me away on a wave of living that might appear to be contrived if it were a play -- except it isn't.  It is real.

Long apron strings

I am not perfect.  I have made so many mistakes in my life that counting them would be impossible, but my children are not one of them.

I like who they are, the adults they have grown into, and when they do something especially good I like to think I planted the seeds for it when they were still small.

Then there are the other things, the things I cannot believe they chose, or  do differently.  When this happens I search for the reasons.  What did I do, or not do that might have led to this?

I realize that their whole world does not revolve around me and my thoughts. I made choices both because and in spite of my mother.

Still, there is a tendency on my part to believe that a lot of who they are comes from what I taught them, so I cannot seek absolution just because they choose to do something I would prefer they not do now.

The hardest part of being a mother is letting go of those adorable babies who once sat on my lap and depended on me for everything, but their autonomy makes me proud.

I don't really want them tied to my apron strings forever, but I do wish I could reel them in for a hug a little more often.

Somebody's child

I have always believed that if the world were run by women it would be a more peaceful place.  Then I realized that women, like men, can do what I consider unbelievable things, irrational things, unkind, mean things.

In today's world where fathers change diapers, prepare meals, bathe their babies I have had some new thoughts.

The hands on experience creates a bond stronger than anyone who has never experienced it could ever understand.  Once you have held a life in your arms, soothed it, dealt with its fits and tears, taught it what you believe, you have had a taste of being a god.  It alters you.

I think the world needs to remember that feeling.  Elected officials who don't have that kind of background might be missing the most important truth of all.

Everyone is somebody's child.

Alphabet soup

 A set of symptoms defines an illness. 

If I have a, b, and c, then it must be this.  If I had d, e, f, it would be something else.

I have alphabet soup so they don't know where to start anymore.

The problem with this is that the medicine they give me to combat the guess of the moment often causes more problems.

Today I don't know if I am sick or just not dealing well with the medicine I took all last week.  It sure feels like sick either way, so this afternoon I go for more tests.

It seems to fill up all my creative space and leave me nothing to really write about.

Angels among us

There is nothing worse than living with someone who hates you.

There is nothing better than being truly loved.

Both redefine life in ways you cannot imagine unless you have experienced them first hand.

The worst relationships can drag on for years in spite of envy, jealousy, greed and just pure meanness.

The best relationships can feel surreal in a world where rational thinking, stability, and acceptance are relatively rare. 

Coming out of the dark ages into the light of someone who always goes the extra mile in both life and love takes some getting used to.  At first there is an incredulous doubt about their authenticity.  Later there is a great deal of doubt about having earned the right to be in their world.

But the truth seems to be that once you have found them they are as constant as the sun and the moon, always rising to the occasion, rewriting the old stories with bright new endings, creating new ones that are the stuff of dreams.

Perhaps these are the type of people who brought about the stories of angels among us.

Desperate times

Everything is an issue right now.

I remember when my children were small.  There were times when it seemed everything was an issue then.  I had to choose my battles.  Sometimes you just can't sweat the small stuff because if you do the big things get lost in the jumble.

Right now our country is a mess.  People can't find jobs.  Businesses who hire people have found ways to coerce them into working in unsafe ways.  Some of our elected officials are down right lunatics (and yet they were elected!) Our country ranks right up there at the top for health care costs and way down at the bottom for health care efficiency.  (That means we pay more for much much less and have for a very long time.)

People are frustrated.

Worse, people are acting out like angry ten year olds, shooting each other, hoarding guns, killing themselves, pointing fingers at everything and anything they can to ease their feelings of powerlessness.  {I heard an interview with a father in a nearby small town right here in the heartland  He boasted that he had over 35 guns in the house and all his daughters knew how to shoot them.  He kept the assault rifles locked up (except when he was teaching his children how to use them) and a hand gun on his bedside table.}  I would be terrified if he were my neighbor.

Desperate times require desperate measures, but consequences can be irreversible.   Those glorified old westerns from the fifties didn't begin to tell it like it really was when vigilantes and cattle barons ran their part of the world.  Most of us really don't want to go there.

I believe that church and state should be two entirely separate things, but I also believe that simply treating other people the way we want them to treat us is a very good idea.

Maybe it is time for this constant barrage of niggling complaints to be replaced by a barrage of positive ideas for change.

The Dream World

I go into the bathroom and my two little brothers are playing in the bathtub with their flip flops on.  I yell, "Mo om, the boys are playing in the bathtub!"

Mom comes in and sees them holding our baby sister by the feet as she giggles and picks up a balloon then drops it.  They are using her like one of those reach and grab sticks advertised on tv and there is water everywhere.

Our dad comes to the door and in order to get to him we have to walk through another bathtub right across the door.  It is half full of water, but everyone just tramps through it and into the hallway.  The boys scamper out and I yell, "John William, you come back in here and get your shoes.  He tries but they are wedged underneath the bottom of a door and he can't get them out.

I go out into the rest of the house and now I am a guest.  It is a Honey Boo Boo type house where the baby throws herself around the floor landing on the balloon and laughing.  The boys are playing with a mongrel dog the size of a pony and dad is sitting on the "throne" in the living room.  I still need to use the bathroom, but the only toilet is the throne in the living room.  It is up on a dais right next to the front door.  There is a wading pool in the middle of the room where the boys frolic when someone knocks on the front door.

It is the neighbor and she has an even bigger dog with a wooden snout almost like an alligator.  I am afraid of it, but the mom tells me it won't hurt me.  I push aside the plastic sheeting that serves as walls between the living room and hallway and the dog growls menacingly. 

I am so terrified I sneak out the back door and look for my bike so I can go home only when I look around I don't know which way home is and there are loose dogs everywhere in a barren landscape of yellowed hills.

Sad but true

A woman's husband is suing the hospital she worked for.  He says they worked her to death with long shifts, no breaks, unreasonable demands.  This is not unbelievable.

It is sad that people who are intelligent and well educated use their gifts to manipulate people into working beyond their physical capabilities and others into accepting less than good care.

Hospitals are not safe places to work and certainly not to be a patient.  Many of them are not much more than a facade for a sweatshop whose main purpose is to squeeze every drop of money possible from the patients and personnel who work there.

What a horrifying and sad situation it is when unemployment is so high and so many qualified people are available, but the people working have to work back to back shifts, or long hours, or miss their breaks in order to keep the place running.  On paper they don't have to do any of these things but in reality they do if they expect to keep their jobs.  Everyone loses -- except the upper echelon whose salaries go up and up.

Our society has made sacred cows out of places that no longer really serve us in the way we want to believe.

A Virtual Life

I woke up this morning after having slept for nine hours for the first time in weeks.  Getting out of bed I was astounded at how much my body hurt.  My ribs, my Achilles tendons, my back, I felt like I had been on the rack!

Still, I was breathing easy and I knew that my heart had passed all the tests.  I am going to live, which sounds like a silly comment, but is good to know.  I took my new blood pressure medicine, which I took an hour before I fell into bed last night and an hour later I was ready for bed again!

Not just ready for bed, I was fit for nothing else.  I cancelled my appointments for the day and sat back.

On the good side I dreamed a whole day in a place that was interesting and with a person I found fascinating, but even in the dream I was sleepy and trying to sleep! 

Sure hope I adjust to this medicine quickly.

Ya gotta have heart

Nothing weighs more than worry. 

Carry it around for a while and it wears me out, raises my blood pressure, blocks the light.

And then I learn there is nothing to worry about and my heart soars.

Suddenly everything feels doable.  I can deal with the rest.

Life is good and I need to get back in shape so I can live!

Better than

I grew up knowing I came from good stock, the best of the best.  Anything one of my ancestors did was above and beyond what other folks did.  My great great great great grandma was not just a Native American.  She was an Indian Princess!

If we were part of it, involved in it, lived in it, thought it, it was exceptional! 

Of course the flip side of this was the scorn we felt when anyone did anything unusual (meaning something not always done for the last two hundred years.)  Violating the status quo brought out the killer instinct in many of the people around me.  Our unsung motto was, "As it was it forever shall be."

I was pretty much grown up before I discovered most people seemed to feel this.  Obviously everyone cannot be this way, so I slid them into the scorn column for a while.

Then I moved away, left the absolutes of small town America and found myself floundering in a world of diversity.

I tried to maintain the comfortable patterns, but the tantalizing alternatives before me slowly pulled me in.  Unlike the hedonistic bedlam I had been led to expect I discovered a world of open minded intelligent people who were much more inclined to accept me for who I was than anything else.  I no longer had to fall within the narrow confines of inflated ancestry or conformance.

I didn't have to be better than.  I just had to be me.

A regular day

I feel so much better than I have in a long time.  My blood pressure is is much better, but I still woke up sneezing and coughing so I decided to super clean my room before shopping for my youngest grandson's birthday.

Nine trips up and down the steps to the basement, where the washer and dryer are, left me much tireder than I thought. I dusted all the furniture, cleaned the floor and went shopping.

I put the clean pillow shams, sheets and bedspread back on the bed, took a shower, washed my hair and ate dinner.

Now I am almost ready for bed. Just a regular day!

It's a beautiful world

I come from a father who loved the finer things in life and a mother who loved nature.  My youngest memories of a vacation were on a lake in Minnesota bailing out a large wooden rowboat stained in deep warm browns and forest green using an old rusty coffee can with my grandmother in the early morning.

Strangely enough I am more like my father.  I am not an outdoorsy person.  I am touched to core by the thunder of Beethoven, the haunting pertinence of Debussy, the sweet order of Mozart.  Yet I find myself enraptured by Johnny Cash and Roger Daltrey.  Pavarotti enthralled me, both the man and his voice.  Old country folk songs wring my heart and nothing touches me like live music, especially if it is played just for me.

The first time I saw an original van Gogh I burst into tears.  Monet's Giverney holds my attention for hours.  The pictures my granddaughter sends me fill me with joy.

Yet, when my children came along I wanted them to see the majesty of a world created by the greatest artist who ever existed.  I wanted to give them the umbilical to nature that has sustained me all my life. We took long, not always fun, vacations to National parks and out of the way places where it snowed in July, or the wind played beautiful music through ancient ruins, places where we experienced the terror of a fresh grizzly kill, or the beauty of sniffing trees that smelled like butterscotch.

When I stand next to a tree, I feel the relevance of my being in the grand scale of things.  Water amazes me.  I wonder if the raindrop touching my face has touched yours in the past, if it washed Monet's hands, or once lay in the river Jordan?  The miracle of the tides rising and falling intrigue me.  The warm brightness of the sun, the cool glow of the moon, the fact that a redwood grows from such a tiny seed -- these are the things that tune me, that bring me into a sustainable relationship with everyone and everything around me.

Stress

It always amazes me how much my emotions manifest as actual physical things.

After weeks of mismanagement and I can't remember how many different tests, everything culminated today in a bunch of big tests.  I have been injected with radioactive isotopes, had  sonograms of my heart and pictures of my arteries.  I met a doctor who looked like Spencer Tracy and lots of technicians who seemed very cheerful and caring and helpful.

My blood pressure plummeted fifty points simply from surviving the day and now I can take my medicine so it should go even lower. 

Things are looking up and I am totally worn out.

This has been the most stressful two weeks of my life.

Be prepared

There is nothing harder than trying to be positive when all the facts point to problems.  And there is nothing more difficult than dealing with arrogant people who think they know what I am thinking, feeling, and saying.  The chances for mistakes rise in ways I am sure I still haven't completely imagined.

For over a month I have been treated for heart problems when I have a respiratory and sinus problem.  I have had bad reactions to the drugs, been prescribed other drugs in error and suffered side effects that leave my Achilles tendons stiff and sore.  I may have heart problems on top of it all, but being sick so long can't be good for that either. Now that I am completely worn down they are going to do a stress test and even that was ordered incorrectly the first time.

If I had five weeks to prepare someone to fail I cannot imagine doing any better than this!

Raison d'etre

I love people who live passionately.  I know they may not be the healthiest, or the nicest, or the "est" of anything, but they are the most interesting.

It is not necessary to use drugs or alcohol, or any other sort of stimulants to get high on life.  It is only necessary to dive in and live!

Do I want to live a hundred years worrying about the bad things that "might" happen, or simply deal with them "if" they happen.

So many people are invested in keeping others alive and safe within the confines of mediocrity and if that is where they derive their joy, if that is their passion, then I wish them the best.

My passion, my joy, my raison d'etre, requires me to push the boundaries.  Without that I become depressed.

I had a depression in my yard in Taylorville.  It was full of slugs.  I really hate slugs.

One best friend is worth a bus load of medicine

A good best friend is worth a thousand times his weight in medicine.

My doctor treats my pneumonia and sinus infection like a heart attack, running tests, changing medicine, leaving me totally depressed and still sick after over a month.  The final straw?  Now they are going to do echo cardiograms and a stress test.  

At least I have finally been given the right medicine to treat my sinus infection, my ear ache, my sore throat -- after a month!  That alone makes me feel better, lowers my blood pressure immediately.

My friend catches all the flack of a super stressful month.

Some people would react with defensive tactics.  It is what I expect after being in a long and unhealthy marriage.  I guess that is how I know I have the best bestest in the world.  He understands immediately what is wrong.  He reaches out with compassion and understanding, offers me a loving ear.

I go from the depths of depression, the terror of the unknown, the self doubts and health doubts to a calm that is amazing.  My blood pressure drops into normal range like magic.  The future looks not only manageable, but even fun.

Modern medicine forgets everyone is different.  I am not a test tube, or middle of the road test case.  I am a complicated biological creature affected as much by my emotions and quality of life as I am by things they can measure on their instruments.

Jenga

Today I realized that I am more like a Jenga game than I ever wanted to believe.

I am that space inside defined by all the little pieces holding up the tower, the illusion of who I think I am.  A dark secret little space that no one thinks exists, fooled into thinking that the pieces surrounding me define me.

But when everyone starts pulling out the little sticks, one at a time, reality strikes.  Eventually the tower will collapse.  Then who will I be?

Hospitals

I wonder how many hospitals inadvertently harm, or even kill, their patients.

The ER cardiologist had my records in hand when she asked me about my blood pressure medicine.  I told her what she said was not what I was taking, but she assured me they were the same thing.  We went through this routine three times while I was there and when I went to the doctor today I found out she prescribed an increase in my dosage based on a drug I was not even taking.  She hadn't paid any attention to what I said at all.  Obviously she had also paid very little attention to my records.  My doctor wanted me off of the new dosage immediately.

When my son was very young he had an asthma attack that left him turning blue.  The ER gave him the epinephrine he needed and then prescribed another drug for me to give him at home.  I had enough experience to question that because it was a different form of a drug he was already taking.  I had been told by both our pediatrician and pharmacist that you never used two forms of this same medicine.  When I questioned the ER doctor he indignantly told me he knew best, but I persisted and he finally went to recheck it.  Had I given my son the dose he had prescribed, he would have died.

I was just scheduled for two heart tests and when I talked to the people at the hospital they brushed me off saying my doctor had requested the exact test I had asked them to avoid.  So, I called the doctor's office who said they only said that test was okay if the first was impossible.  I asked them to call the hospital and clarify that.

Hospitals are set up to make money.  They are not set up to take care of sick people.  Their routines have almost nothing to do with patient comfort or care and evidently good doctors are not the norm anymore.  I am very nervous about going back into that place and allowing them to play with my heart.

Carved in stone

Some things are carved in stone.

It really matters what they are.

Transformation

Nothing lasts forever.

All those happily ever after stories I heard, or read as a little girl, were probably the most misleading things in the world.  Right after that came television where everything was resolved in thirty to sixty minutes (Maybe two hours.) 

Everyone I knew was waiting for some kind of final scene.  Most of them were these euphoric places, but even my mother who lived in fear of Armageddon believed in some kind of end.  No one talked about the "journey" until I was middle aged.

Ultimately I believe the "journey" is the only sure thing, but there is a more beautiful, more calming, sweeter way than even that. 

Take a walk in the woods, go look at the ocean, take a hike in the mountains, work in a garden.  Change is constant and continual.  It is part of living, part of dying.  It is simple transformation.

Things only seem to disappear.  Birds eat seeds.  Trees shed leaves.  Animals eat each other.  But all of these things are recycled through their disappearance into different forms of life that build upon each other and become part of something different, something that is sometimes bigger, or more beautiful, or more peaceful.

Matter is neither created nor destroyed.  I find great comfort in that.  There may be more to it, but that part is measurable.  You will never leave me.  You only move around and change.

Tricks or treatment

Yesterday was Halloween.  I dressed up as a sick person and went to the clinic.

They couldn't decide if I was a heart attack victim or someone with a brain tumor, but I must have been convincing because they hustled me out the back door and into a large black truck!

The truck drove me over to the ER and dropped me off at the door with a handful of papers.

Eventually someone claimed me and took me to a little room where they asked me why I was there.  All day long people asked me my name, my birthday and why I was there.  I was really hoping this was policy and not legitimate questions on their part.

They attached wires to me, poked holes in me, put me in a machine I thought was gonna bite off my head and finally x-rayed me.

I had left my phone in the car and the only number I could remember was my friend who has had the same number for over 43 years!  Thank goodness she lives close because, many hours later, when I was ejected into the cold and rain far from my car, I didn't know what to do.

Her husband came and rescued me, took me back to the clinic, my car, my phone and I was able to come home.

It was the scariest Halloween I've ever had!

Coping

I have lived in a world mostly populated by women.  My grandmother was widowed when I was less than a year old.  My father was a revered guest in our home when he wasn't working three jobs to make ends meet.  I always wanted to be him when I grew up.

I grew up watching strong women get things done.  I grew old doing the same thing.  That was empowering and sad at the same time. 

I learned to be passive aggressive because women are supposed to be kind and sweet.  There is nothing scarier than a seething smiler.

I learned to throw fits because it gets attention.

I learned to use words as weapons because they were my strongest defence.

I thought calm, straight forward and rational was for men!  Or at least the men I saw and admired.

It's hard to change the child within, but I have spent years trying to do just that. 

I have learned that men have their own demons to conquer.  Neither sex was really taught many great coping skills.  I guess those are what we choose to learn later on.

I'm getting close to the end now.  If I don't get it right soon, there will be little point in it, but I'm doing much better.

I may not be a sweet little old lady, but I will be the best I can be.

Not knowing

The is very little worse than not knowing.

Knowing even the worst news allows me to prepare for what is coming.

Not knowing leaves me in limbo.  It is perhaps the cruelest thing a human being can do to another.

One by one

I like simplicity. 

The simpler things are the happier I am.  Although I do like change.

I cannot remember a time when I didn't dream of having everyone close in a self contained situation where we were all safe and secure.

High quality, sturdy things appeal to me.

I love the idea of mazes and huge buildings full of extra rooms and secret places, but even f I lived there I would hole up in a confined area.

Jeanie's bottle and inglenooks call to me.  I thought the seven dwarf's house was perfect, so my current apartment, while a bit old and decrepit appeals to me.  It's floors make living here something like Captain Hook's ship.  They list and lean, rise and fall in all the ways you can imagine in a house over a hundred years old.  The ceilings are beyond my reach and the woodwork is big and solid.

I like the big scale in the confined space.  One of the banes in my life are small or flimsy things.  I hate shopping when I can't find clothes I like in my size.  I don't want to bend over to reach my counter tops.  Growing up I liked the feeling of being five in a world of adults.  It feels sold and secure.

I don't want to worry that my couch won't support my lifestyle, or my floors survive shoes.   I would rather pick different things than walk carefully through my life.  In nature I love rocks and stones, mountains and oceans.  I am not the person who collects knickknacks, or grows orchids.

The things I want to focus on, to nurture and cherish are the people in my life.  And even here I tend toward smaller.  One on one I love to talk to and listen to, touch and savor each and every person I am blessed to spend time with. 

This is me in a nutshell!  A large sturdy nut.

The love of your life

My job, whether I choose to accept it or not, is to be the most whole person I can be.

This idea that people need another person in order to be complete is a problem.  I see mothers already pairing babies up, or asking toddlers who their girl friend is.  It gives the impression that the most important thing in life is to pair off -- after that everything will be perfect.

First of all, the more people involved the more complicated life becomes.  Just glomming onto someone makes you both off balance and awkward.  It takes two committed, mature, hard working individuals to make a relationship really work for both of you.

Secondly, no relationship can be stronger than its weakest link.  If you want to be part of a successful, outstanding couple, you need to be a successful, outstanding person all on your own!

Think of it as a birthday cake.  All the fancy frosting, no matter how talented the icer is, will melt down in a second if there isn't a big, hefty, wonderful cake underneath.

Develop the skills that are unique to you.  Cultivate your hobbies and dearest dreams and when you wake up happy with who you are and your life the way it is, you will find the love of your life.

Let's abolish fund raisers

Tradition mandates that we honor the wealthy, the kings, queens, business magnates, doctors, and administrators who control the world around us. You know who they are, the people who live in mansions, who wear single outfits that cost more than an average family's grocery budget for a week.  As Tevya, from Fiddler On The Roof, says, "If you're rich they think you really know!"

The idea that nobles will care lovingly and compassionately for their serfs is perpetrated by the wealthy to preserve their life style.  Only many nobles are not so noble.

They hold the sick hostage, refusing them medicine and care in return for the money that feathers their nests.  They organize huge systems designed to keep the common man from reaping the benefit of his own work.  They rely on our ignorant acceptance of their high handed mistreatment of good people who simply want to work hard for a decent living.

But do not give up!  There are people in this country who are taking back the right to work for decent wages in decent conditions.  A mayor in Richmond, California is organizing a system that allows people to keep the homes they have been working and paying for.  A free clinic, staffed by caring professionals in Bloomington, Illinois exists solely for the purpose of caring for the sick.  Workers in Chicago bought the company that was mistreating them and turned it into a viable business.

One step at a time, good, hard working people, are proving they are not less important, less valuable, less human than those who like to think they are above us all.  Rather than the token child saved by a great fund raiser, isn't it time that all people have access to the same services available right now, but only to the very rich?

Put on a happy face

It takes a while to get the hang of living.

I grew up doing what I was told.  Somehow it never occurred to me that there was purpose behind the craziness.  For a bright child I guess I was awfully dense.

I knew I was supposed to learn to read and ride a bike and play the piano and even give speeches.  I had no idea I was supposed to learn how to be happy -- to find out what satisfied me.

I was the least of my concerns.  I thought life was the stage where people performed for other people, an endurance game of subtle manipulation seeking approval. 

If you smile -- I must be happy!

Of course it is gratifying to make others happy, but the real art of living is finding out what makes me wake up smiling.

There's no fooling me then.

Play the fool

There is an over abundance of eternal optimists who find some kind of satisfaction in doing things, not just badly, but proudly.  People who regale me with stories of their misadventures, want me to applaud them, but it usually makes me cringe.

The downside of these home grown videos and stories are the real people and animals who lives are in jeopardy because another person didn't really think. 

I suppose it is kinder to laugh than reprimand someone who doesn't really understand that buffoonery destroys the quality of life for those who have to suffer this sort of abominable treatment, but kinder to whom?

The child whose hand is burned because he was neglected, the dog run over because he got loose?  Charlie Chaplin was funny because his actions were orchestrated -- not the haphazard thing we like to imagine.

Our society pays people to play the fool.  Not well and not often, but just enough to keep them at it.  It would be kinder if they did not.

In a ghetto

I knew where to find him; in a Cambodian ghetto, a winding maze of dark narrow hallways with grottos carved out of them, places where people huddled in hopeless anonymity, fearful that they might be discovered.

He lived there with his wife, had lived there for nearly forty years now and most people thought he was just another old man scrabbling for the rice seeds that gave his bones some definition, but I knew who he was.

I showed up with my American bravado and marched down the street like I knew what I was doing, totally oblivious to the fact that I was the truffle hog, the messiah of the end.

Behind me came the men in gas masks and uniforms, the men carrying huge gas cans, splashing white death along the walls, claiming to be there to rid the city of vermin.  But of course they didn't have to claim anything.  The only ones who saw them would soon cease to exist and I had to get them out of there.

The horror that was about to explode around me made my heart pound in terror.  I could already feel the heat.  My sweat clung to me like a thin shield and I wondered if it could possibly save me like it did the feet of fire walkers as they danced across coals.  I began screaming, "Get out!  Get out!"

In English, of course, I could not speak their language, but he understood.  He understood the moment he saw me coming down the street.  It was the end of an era.

Later, as we huddled in a filthy bathroom between the toilets and the tub I tried to wash the excrement off the shower curtain as we talked.  "They have a new method now. "  I told him.  "You have to leave your thumb print on the post it note and they attach it to your pictures."

He frowned at me even as he pressed his forefinger onto the small square of waxed paper, watching as it was then affixed to his papers.  I wondered what I had done.  My intentions had been pure.  I only wanted to find him, bring him back into the world, make it possible for everyone to enjoy his work once more.  Such hubris.

And then I woke up.   This dream clings to me like the old gray film attached to my living room windows.  I wonder where it came from.

Heaven

One by one I discover that people appear to know the difference between what is truly good and right and what is not.

Face to face, one on one, soul to soul, they know the answer.

So why are there so many inhumane, coldhearted, decisions made?

I can understand how people choose to do the thing that makes them feel good even if it really hurts someone they love in the end.  That is basically selfishness and ignorance. 

But . . . how do people turn their heads away from those they know are abusing others?  Why are there children still hungry in a world of plenty?  How come people are still dying when we have the medical means to save them?  Why are we killing people in the name of peace?

We live in an almost utopian world.  The earth provides enough and more.  The worst thing about living on earth are its people.

How can so many good people do so many bad things?

I think it is the herd instinct.  Our basest side believes that no one will notice us if we hide among so many others also doing these things.  Eventually nature takes care of itself.  The earth is patient.  She has outlived many other herds and infestations and she will outlive us.

I just wish that instead of strutting and fretting our hour upon this stage, we might, for once, simply walk side by side in wonder.

Progressive

I remember when my grandmother bought an aluminum tree.  She considered it a very up and coming gesture, a thoroughly modern Ruthie sort of thing to do.  I also remember the white leather chair she added to her Victorian living room.  That was more of a nod to comfort I suspect.  She was older then.

I was a member of this human race when everyone decided to cover their couches, chairs, and car seats with plastic, saving the actual upholstery for the rats in the junk yard I guess.  To be fair I was too young to do more than burn my behind when my shorts did not cover my eight year old legs. 

I remember when the glass man convinced my parents the best way to replace a cracked antique glass door was with a swirled amber plastic sheet that made our living room look like a mausoleum.  It was kind of fitting at the time because my little brother had just learned about taxidermy and was fantasizing about having mother stuffed and kept in his living room when she died.  The best thing I can say about this is that he was very young and she was very healthy.  They both outlived this phase.

I now live in a house that predates the  last mid century rush to do away with windows and build enormous heating and cooling machines into houses.  Unfortunately my enormous windows did not escape entirely.  Someone coated them in a dull plastic film guaranteed never to completely peel off, but doomed to long streaks that will forever imitate grime.

Progressive attitudes are strange things.  They seem so right at the time and so unbelievable later on

Kite sailing

Yesterday I met my sister, bought lunch at Subway, and went for a ride down to Clinton Lake.  We didn't have a particular spot in mind, just some place to sit near the water and reap the healing benefits of Nature in her finest.

It turned out that there were no picnic tables anywhere we went, but there was something better.  Pulling into the marina we saw the usual assortment of inboards and out boards, sail boats and fishing boats, all moored neatly in their places.  Out on the water we saw some dancing kites.

Well, not exactly kites, they were more like a combination parachute and kite.  We drove down the crunchy little rock road and over towards a dock where some jet skis were parked and that is where we parked.

There was a beautiful ballet going on out on the water as the kites dipped and swirled, followed by small figures in wet suits on boards.  From where we sat it appeared they must have biceps of steel, but we found out later the men wore heavy belts with big stainless steel hooks that connected them to these kites.  All they really had to do was steer.

And yet steering was quite an art. We watched as they zigzagged and spun, dipped and nearly flew, at times actually being air borne and seeming to fly over the water.  All of this strictly wind powered.

As we watched the four on the water, another man came around the peninsula carrying his kite all packed up.  And that is how we had the chance to see how they got going.

One of the men on the lake came in and the man on shore traded with him so we got to watch as he made his way out onto the lake.  The man who gave him his kite came over to talk to us.  They were surprisingly old, probably in their fifties and he had a British accent.  Last week they were kite sailing off of Cape Hatteras.  Today they were teaching a fifteen year old friend how to do it here in Illinois.  He showed us the gear and explained how it worked and then sauntered back to his truck.

We watched for a little longer, finished our lunch and drove home, but it was a beautiful way spend an afternoon.

Consequences

Consequences teach me which things are worthwhile and which ones are not, but there is a problem.

Most consequences are cumulative; unlike purely bad things, I don't drop a bomb and see the world explode before my eyes. 

Consequences are more like ocean tides.  They creep up dampening the sand, bringing in a few little treasures, like pearly shells and bits of shiny glass.  Then they creep in a little bit more and here come the little monsters, a stranded octopus, or dried up squid, a tube worm or some other creature that makes me shiver.  And yet, the shivering is surrounded by curiosity.

I find myself thinking about where these things come from, what it is like to live in a murky muffled world unlike the one I inhabit.  Novelty draws me in and mutes caution.

At some point the consequences pop up like jack in the boxes and I have gained thirty pounds, or my allergies have out grown my breathing capacity, or the car can no longer run without a real mechanic looking at it, because consequences are real.  Ignoring them is like pretending the yellow light means go faster.

Eventually reality wins.  Sooner or later I reap the consequences of my actions, good or bad, and life moves on from there.

Temper

If it's not one thing--it's another.

That is about the best motto I can think of right now, but it is really almost always true.

Life is a set of challenges; all of them relative, all of them doable in some way.

It is just a matter of figuring out what to do.  The thing to remember is that they aren't all going to turn out the way I want.

When they turn out dead wrong, I need to learn how to cope.  That is doing too-- just from a different angle.

Sometimes coping is more important than success.  It is like tempering, or in other words, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

I think I don't want to be any stronger, but that's not true.

Genuine writing

I look at things all the time.  I look out at them . . . in at them . . . up at them . . . and I am sorry to say, sometimes down at them.

The biggest hurdle is my own perspective.  How I write about something cannot go beyond my own understanding of it.  So, it would seem the best way to get around that is to broaden my experiences, which helps but isn't the end all and be all of the problem.

I cannot go back and alter the experiences of my childhood, or fundamental life style.

Living in a dirt floored shack, eating buggy rice and knowing I could die from an infection that could be cured with soap and water would only be an experience for me -- like going to camp.  I would always know I could step away from that.  That changes everything.

Experiencing extreme poverty with no hope is as beyond my actual reach as is life in the top few percent who have never really worried about money.

Most writers seem to write about things, but the ones who have moved me the most are the ones who write from things.  To write with the perspective and candor of a child with the fluency of an adult is the stuff of Pulitzer prizes.

How I would love to tap into that sort of genuine writing.

A reason to be

Housebound for the past four days I am beginning to really feel the isolation.  And that is with good people going out of their way to call me and keep in touch. 

I have had good books to read, time to draw, time to write--it would seem like heaven to some, but it leaves me too retrospective.  The medicine I am taking as well as the coughing keeps me up until total exhaustion allows me to sleep either sitting up in my recliner or propped up on four pillows.

Then I dream!  Scenes from my childhood mixed in with scenes from the books I am reading, combine with the present to create themes that are both comical and depressing.  I have rescued so many injured turtles and found so many odd animals in unthinkable places it makes me wonder at my sanity.

But all that's really wrong is that there is no real purpose to life lived this way.  I never realized it, but I do need a reason to be. 

So it is a godsend to have some transcribing to do even as I squint at the chicken scratches that resemble words and the prospect of going back to my kindergartners hangs like a carrot calling me through these days.

I cannot imagine living like this for months, or years.  And I cannot imagine a time when I will have nothing to look forward to. In the coming months I will be going to Denver, Knoxville, Tuscaloosa, Canton, St. Louis, maybe Austin, so compared to my grandmother who only left Illinois once or twice in her life, I am a world traveler.  In between I will write letters to my pen pals, watch children take their first steps towards reading and the books that enrich my life so much, and count the blessings of a life that has allowed me to be healthy enough to do all these things.

No birds!

Watch enough house shows on television and the novelty of going through house after house wears thin, but I need to do something when coughing keeps me awake.

I watch hours of people who want to "give the children a chance to grow up in another culture" but without sacrificing all the extras they have become accustomed to.

I see people widening their eyes in great self satisfaction, proud that they noticed the adjacent construction site all their own -- as if it were hard to hear the roar of backhoes and gigantic cranes right next to the patio.

After a while it becomes clear that whatever was popular ten years ago is totally unacceptable to today's buyer who cannot imagine the horrors of living without stainless steel, or granite counter tops.

One woman fixates on birds.  She doesn't want to hear birds near her bedroom.   And if all else fails there is always something really terrible, like the color of the walls, or the fact that the fourth full bath only has a shower.  Or closets!  There are never enough closets, nor are they big enough for all of the diva's costumes.  We are so proud of our excesses! 

The favorite phrase seems to be a "happy wife means a happy life."  It makes me ashamed to be a woman.  And still I watch .  . .

Why? Because I DO like to look at houses and the alternatives are the weather channel, reality shows or excessive recapping of the news on all the other channels -- and reruns.  Always reruns.

And this incessant coughing.

Between the pages

Immersed deeply between the pages of a book,  I sometimes find myself hiding behind the words wishing I could say it so clearly, terrified that I want to.

Things we could never say to each other are written by people with a flair for mining up memories most of us are too terrified to even admit are there.  Maybe they aren't there for lots of people, that's why no one brings them up.

Chimeras wind in and out between the stick fences that divide the thens from the nows, getting lost in the natural shadows of everyone's childhood, taking away the credibility of those who saw them.

So when I read a book that is unspeakably beautiful, or equally unspeakably haunting, I find myself not feeling as alone as I did before I read it.

Upbeat or downbeat?

When I was growing up there were African American people all around us.  They babysat for my parents, did our ironing, drove my grandfather around, cooked at the restaurant.  None of us considered ourselves racist.  We loved "our colored folks."

We'd drive half an hour to their neighborhoods to pick them up so they could do these things for us.  We found the music emanating from their church windows exotic and passionate.

I am from the North which seems like it would never have been called that if there hadn't been a South.  The North prides itself on being non-racist.

When I went to college in 1967, my roommate and I discovered just how nondiscriminatory the world really was.  I went to a  small northern college and lived in a dormitory where you had to fill out form before school began saying whether you would room with a person who smoked, or was colored.  My roommate was an honor student from a small Catholic school near where I grew up.  We got along great.

We enjoyed many of the same television programs and authors.  We both loved the color red.  Our taste in music was similar, but our dancing was different.  She explained that I danced on the downbeat and she on the upbeat, but in the end it turned out that no matter what we did . . . if we did it together, we had to do it alone.

Just the two of us was fine, but the world wasn't ready for us together.  I'd like to say it was because we were real characters, but it was only because our skins were different colors. 

Sometimes when I step away and look back I realize what an odd world I lived in.

Cable

Living has gone full circle once more.

Television now replaces the loud, obscene arguments that once poured out of upstairs kitchen windows.  It rounds out the tenement atmosphere as Ted and Alice's bed pounds, not against my bedroom walls, but within them.  It makes it possible for me to hear a hundred little Kathy Sue's caterwauling while her bff plays the piano.  Even Fido has been replicated, not by Lassie and Timmy, but by some dog who eats his food off the good china and doesn't shed on my couch.

Those things I once would have paid to get rid of now cost me a fortune every month.

Virtually everything the upwardly mobile person of the 1950's wanted to get away from is now considered entertainment.

Is this who I really am?

Weight loss

Life is what happens while I am worrying about my weight.

So what will my tombstone say?

Here she lies looking down so light and free?

A pound a day keeps the fun away?

Soon I'll be thin enough?

Or will heaven be a place where I will finally be free of this body I have obsessed over for the last sixty odd years?

Magic mirror

I am convinced that if someone could take me and put a different face on me I would not recognize myself.

I'd like to think I would, but watching people has pretty much convinced me that most of us do not see the face we present to the world.

I saw a woman in a car ahead of me today.  Her nails were immaculately manicured.  Her hair looked great.  She was puffing a cigarette with a flair that rivaled a nineteen fifties movie idol and chomping gum like a cow who knows its last chance to chew that cud is quickly approaching.  I am sure she saw herself quite differently

We all grow up imprinting on something and spending the rest of our lives trying to replicate it.  Some succeed; others only come up with a caricature.

I don't know if Nature is kind or simply has a sick sense of humor because this blindness to our own reality is often our greatest obstacle in life.

If I had a magic mirror on my wall I would be asking it how I appear to the world at large.  That wouldn't answer all my questions, but it would answer enough.

Bullying

I hear about children being bullied nearly every day.  I see movies about it, read articles about it.  It appears to be everywhere.  What I don't see are the parents of the children who are bullies.

It is good to teach our children how to deal with bullies.  It is good to teach their parents how to deal with it too.

Yet, it seems it might be very effective to go straight to the source.  Let's hear from the parents whose children ARE bullies.  Why not hold them accountable for the actions of their children -- before those children actually break the law?

Home is where we learn our first ethics lessons.  Home is where we learn compassion and tolerance and if that is not being taught then the bullies are at risk too.

Whatever the reason, when children bully, their parents need to share in solving the problem, because they are part of the problem.

Something frightening this way comes

October ushers in Fall in all its glory, bringing Halloween and homecoming and a creature of elfin proportions, a charming combination of vulnerable child and siren, a woman wearing a hat so large it nearly dwarfs her entire being.

Like all creatures she is put together in ways that will help her survive, keep her alive, promote the continuing existence of those of her kind.

Snuggling close, reaching out to wrap her arms around a willing neck, she bores her way into the heart of her host before removing the hat, revealing the gorgon's head beneath and paralyzing the victim with the venom of her love.

Charming words and a crisp wit dull the sting as this dark side of love, the jealous, insecure, hateful, side, systematically eats away at everything around it.

An entourage of stone still victims stand behind her, each well meaning set of arms frozen in place for ever more.

Up again

I am up again in the middle of the night because of a recurring nightmare.  First I dream I am trapped somewhere waiting on someone who said they would come and are hours late, or wandered off leaving me to wait for them to show back up.  Other times I dream they tell me they are going to do things they know they have no intention of doing, or make excuses for doing the same irrational things they do again and again.

These are real nightmares from real life, but they are as disturbing to me as zombies walking down the street trying to get me.

I used to believe these people didn't understand how their behavior affected those around them, but I know better now.  Perhaps that is what causes my nightmares -- good people doing really hurtful things.

I have tried talking this over, albeit in polite civilized ways, but it has never changed anything except sometimes make me feel guilty for bringing it up.  I have even tried rationalizing to myself why they do these things, but that is why I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, with acid reflux and a headache.  It makes no difference in the long run.

I am sick right now so I am more vulnerable to bad dreams than I might be otherwise.  The fever manifests as frustration and a feeling of being used by otherwise good, loving, people.

In the best of all words

We love our families, we love our brethren, but most of all. . .  we love our children. 

Every little wart, every little flaw, usually just makes them more endearing.  Occasionally that flaw lies a little too close to home and then the love also becomes a test, but a test most of us pass with flying colors.

They are "our" children and we want them to have every chance we did and a million more, so they also become our ticket.

For the sake of the children we deal with the trash from the past, recycling it into more positive things.  Giving up bad habits, learning new communications skills, appropriating all those good things we learned about after our parents had their shot at parenting.

With a little luck, and a lot of hard work, we bring up human beings who just keep getting better and better.   We want them to have half of our faults and twice our blessings . . .

and in the best of all worlds -- that happens.

Roll Tide

I turned on my television and there was the Alabama football game!  I had no idea it was on today, but this is the second time  I have inadvertently stumbled upon it so I figured I was meant to watch.

I was cleaning house so it was not difficult to leave the TV on as I worked.  This football team is like their English Department, great teachers teaching good students at The University of Alabama.

I haven't enjoyed football this much since the Rams won the Superbowl in 2000.

It is like this team was made just for me to watch!  I sat in my living room with my red patterned sofa and dark red drapes watching the Crimson Tide roll across the field and time flew.

I found myself cheering for touchdowns, holding my breath for kicks, not really cleaning house much at all.

When football is this much fun even I watch it.

Once upon a time

Love is a complicated concept, but not when you are three. My first experience with love gone wrong was when my parent's friends got a divorce.  The idea that families could be torn asunder terrified me.

I firmly believed that love was an umbrella that sheltered families headed by mothers and fathers and their mothers and fathers and all the children that followed.  Anything else was the stuff of nightmares.

Unfortunately I was totally unprepared for my part in this lengthening line of love and life when I grew up and got married.  My expectations were too narrow.  My skills, for dealing with the bumps and potholes of another human being whose life was so interwoven into mine, not nearly developed enough.  I had no idea they even existed!

In their well-intentioned desire to give me a stable and loving childhood my family chose to keep the realities of living a mysterious secret.  It was like they forgot to initiate me into the cult in time for me to learn the skills necessary for setting out on my own. 

I climbed up on the back of Prince Charming's charger and was shocked to discover we were not immediately melded into one single, totally enmeshed, creature whose every thought, word, and deed fit together perfectly.  I spent the next thirty years looking for the magic spells that would achieve that blissful state I thought my parents had.

Now I realize Camelot was mostly an idea subscribed to by people who were willing to give up an awful lot in order to perpetuate a page turner when, in reality, it was a long difficult dissertation on sacrifice and submission.

I don't know that I could have succeeded even if I had known the rules, but at this point in my life I have chosen another path, one that runs parallel to that mainstream fifties model. 

In order to achieve the peace necessary for my own well-being and sanity, I prefer to ride my own charger.  That way I can ride next to or gallop away from those companions who still fill my life to the brim, but no longer force me to ride pillion into misery.

This is my version of happily ever after.

The habits and foods of highly unsuccessful people

I was thinking about bad luck yesterday; how some people have lots of it and others almost never seem to have it.

I started thinking about the things that make my life difficult, the things that seemingly have nothing to do with me, but are just bad luck.

Then a scary thing happened.  I stepped back and took a long eagle's eye view of these things and realized that most of this "bad luck" is stuff I really could have avoided.

I was born with health problems, most of us have Achilles heels,  and knowing that, there are certain things I must do if I want to feel as good as  possible.  Sometimes it seems unfair and hard, but it is what it is.  If I smoke, or overeat, or exercise too much, or not enough I have lots more "bad luck" than I do otherwise.  My health is directly related to the choices I make.

The food I eat is all my body has to keep it going.  I wouldn't eat rat poison, so why would I poison myself with other food just because it tastes good?  I wouldn't expect my dog to stay up all night and then be in tip top condition to go hunting the next morning.  I know he would miss lots of little details and maybe even hurt himself because he was tired and distracted.

The habits and foods of highly unsuccessful people, lie in front of traps laid by advertisers that promise health, wealth, and beauty if I only follow suit.  The truth is: I can avoid the traps and much of the "bad luck" if I only make better choices.

I will never really find that perfect routine, the one that my life needs in order to run efficiently and painlessly, the one that keeps me perfectly alert, but the closer I get, the less "bad luck" I am likely to have.

Harmony

I remember sitting in my friend's kitchen listening to her play a ukelele and sing when suddenly what had been fuuny and cute became heart touchingly sweet.  Her elderly mother, sitting over in the corner had started to sing in harmony with her.

Listening to the radio on a short car trip the other day I had a similar experience.  In the middle of all the instrumentals and singers there was suddenly a song where a man and a woman took turns singing and then slipped into a breath taking harmony.

I am always in awe of people who can do that.  There is something sensual about two voices mingling that way.  It sends chills down my back, raises the hairs on my arms.  In some ways it feels more intimate than anything else two people can do -- as if their souls come forth into the open and join together in something very sacred.

I am not just talking about great operatic productions or church hymns, although it can be found there too. It happens everywhere.  I don't hear it every time two people sing together or harmonize.  It's astonishing rarity leaves me wondering exactly what it is. 

Whatever it is, it speaks to me of true beauty, of perfection.  Perhaps it is the face of God.

Classical fiction

Once in every blue moon I read a book that reminds me there is a real difference between good fiction and classical fiction.  Not that I have any real credentials for deciding these things, but I have a great teacher who puts into words those thoughts rumbling around in my head like some kind of  stew that is rich and thick and robustly real.  I take notes:

This book is powerful and unblinking.  They never look away from the things that you normally look away from.

Its a reclamation of a disposable identity in so many ways: class, sexuality, family, race, gender.

Love can be completely intoxicating and make you forget yourself and your responsibilities.  It's like a fire that can cleanse you or destroy you.

Be careful how you love and why you love cuz it can envelop you -- and counter to what we've been taught about love's redemptive power.

I want to remember these words, these ways of saying what I felt, but couldn't put together so clearly.  I feel a kinship to someone who seemingly has little to do with me.  I internalize her feelings until I can taste them as clearly as that coppery iron taste that flows across my tongue when I have a nosebleed.  My body dredges up memories from a river of feelings so thick and deep the sludge overflows into my dreams.

This book was like a probe reaching down into me and touching nerve after nerve.  After all these years I am starting to understand the power of really good literature.

Naming

Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. If it exists we want to name it, put a label on it, and tuck it neatly into a little box somewhere.  That clarifies things -- to a point.

We have special ceremonies for naming and books that tell us the meaning of names in different languages. Our specific name for God tells others who we worship.

There is incredible power in a name.  Some people in the past kept their real name a secret because they didn't want to give that power to just anyone.  Our good name is important to us.  Families die to protect their names.

But what about those informal names, those nicknames, those cute, or not so cute, things we burden children, (and others) with out of love, or meanness.  Sometimes they are unintentional, but their power is not lessened by that.

Mommy's little old maid, Daddy's bulldozer, hyper, sissy, dumb bell, stubborn . . . each and every name we put on a human being affects them. 

I think it is important to separate actions from names and maybe even more important not to dissect people who are still alive.  Nurturing, bringing all the parts into a harmony and fullness that is uniquely one is actually much more important than naming.

Perhaps we should have nurturing ceremonies where we say what we will bring into a child's life instead of simply naming them.

Mad Hatters

The sum of all my parts is me.  Like an unsolvable algebra problem I know the total, but where did x come from?  How did I learn y?  Why do I think w, or feel z?

Are there things so amazing they cannot possibly be remembered, so dark they must not be remembered?  Do heaven and hell converge somewhere deep in the unconscious creating squeaky little facades that don't even hint at what is behind those covers always on the verge of slipping?

One plus one only add up to two when they are written down in cold cramped little symbols devoid of passion and feeling.  Set them free in the world and suddenly they become so much more. One hand plus one hand equals ten fingers and then the possibilities become infinite.  Those ten fingers touch and type, shield and suppress, grasp and give in ways that alter perception.

Explosions and implosions make all things extrapolations.

Sitting in the eagle's nest above creation creates Mad Hatters whose eyes are burned by clarity and so I huddle far below shielding myself with order, with routines and schedules and only tiny little flights of fancy into the real world whose scope and intensity are far too great for me.

I know that if one of my fingers forgets that tea then the Mad Hatter becomes a mad hater.  The world is always on the edge of extinction.

Judas goats

Ignorance is one of the most dangerous things in the world, because when people don't understand something they fear it.

Unfortunately fear is often a learned response eliciting a fight or flight reaction that either doesn't solve the situation or makes it worse than it was.

People, who absolutely know better, take advantage of these things to further their own causes.  Instead of trying to educate people they encourage or incite them to react in violent or irrational ways, because it keeps them from looking at the real problems.

It is not enough to learn everything at your mother's knee.  Knowledge increases every day and mother may not be privy to the newest information.  Remember that once upon a time an atom was the smallest known particle and women were considered chattel.  We know better now.

We know lots of things now that we didn't know.  Don't allow yourself to be hand fed information by anyone.  Get out there and do some detective work!  Get several different sources, even go directly to the source,  so you aren't led like lambs to the slaughter. 

You absolutely cannot know too much.

every little bit helps

 I went to college in 1967 and we were going to change the world! 

There was an underlying anger in our need for change.  We felt like the older generation had sold us out, sending us off to fight battles we didn't understand or believe in, turning what should have been basic human rights into political ploys, using money as blinders to block out the misery in the world.

We did the best we knew how to change things, going overboard in some places and eventually capitulating and going over to join our fathers and mothers in their three piece suits and work a day world.

We failed, but not completely. 

Our children are the one thing that keeps hope alive. 

They also felt  that we had sold them out, that our misuse of power and money set them up for a life time of struggling.  They wanted to change the world and now some of them are giving up, capitulating like we did to the status quo -- except, like us they really haven't.

They will take the crumbs that we left and add them to the crumbs they managed to eke out as they turn to the task of bringing up their children.  One day they will realize they didn't sell out any more than we did and one day their children, my grandchildren, will go forth into the world with a need to change things for the better.

Evolution is a long process.  It takes a long time to change the bones, the infrastructure.  Over 313 million people in our country, over 7 billion in the world, and each one has a mind filled with their own ideas and needs so that any attempt to bring us all into some kind of harmony is colossal . . .

But not impossible.

Our babies take the steps that keep hope afloat.

Yodas of the world unite!

I am old by the standards of my youth, but other than not being quite as strong as I once was, most of the changes I have made are merely cosmetic.  I am not now, nor was I ever a flibbertigibbet.  I can be cute, or forgetful occasionally.  Everyone can, but as my hair turned gray it did not suck the sense out of my brain.

Women who buy into it the little old lady cartoons or the sitcom grammas and morph themselves into these crazy parodies of people make it hard on all of us. I think they feel it is what they are supposed to do, or that they have a better chance of getting attention if they are "cute" or "forgetful" or "ditzy" when what they are really doing is handing over their autonomy.

As nice as it might seem to have someone "take care" of everything for me, especially the disagreeable, or difficult, or complicated things, it leaves me vulnerable to whatever else they may feel, in their opinion, I need.

Beware!  That is a two edged sword.  Remember what it was like being a child, having other people make all the decisions, being at the mercy of people who mean well, but don't understand.

We really have come a long way and it would be a shame to give it all back simply because it is easier.  In today's world it is dangerous not to keep up with technology and the new ideas on health, wealth and welfare.  The world is changing, not always for the better, but changing none the less and the older generation should not give up their role as the Yodas, or wise men and women they are before their time.

That requires being an active, intelligent, believable source.

Balance

It's a new day.  Always a new day.

That is the mantra of the eternal optimist or the absolutely desperate. 

I am both.

I am also one of the extraordinarily lucky which may account for the first.

Titles, though, are simply labels.  They don't get me through the tough times, which are just as tough for one person as another even if they react to them differently.  It is really impossible to know what someone else is thinking, or feeling.  Some people are better at hiding their feelings and others need to let them all hang out.

I've always been afraid if I let them all hang out (yes, as much as I reveal on this blog, there is much more) that I will completely lose it.  I need that tight English rein I received from my father to balance out that wild Irish rush I got from my mother. 

I suspect life is always a balancing act.  Or like the song says, "a little bit of this, a little bit of that."  Variety is the spice of life.  It is also the staff.  No matter how good or bad things are, I know something will change.  Usually sooner rather than later.

My job, if I choose to accept it, is to roll with the waves, knowing I can't steamroll water but I can at least float.  And floating keeps me around for the next set of waves.

Taproot

I love discovering the essence: the place where something begins, the place where it can begin again, the very base.

It is like unwinding one of those mysterious balls that have little treasures tucked up into them.  I never know what I will find.

Some things, like dandelions, have a taproot, one place that is the source of life.  Although it grows from a seed, as long as there is a taproot, that dandelion will exist.

Other things, like words, have an etymology.  A way of going back and back and back to see where a word began, or what its origins are.

Of course almost nothing grows truly linearly.  This world is enormous and there are probably as many exceptions as there are rules. Even the dandelion is affected by how much rain falls and the temperatures around it.

So when I start looking at religion it is like discovering the never ending story again and again.  No matter where I start, the journey backwards goes into unlikely and unexpected places.  Finding the taproot is almost impossible, but the quest for it is one of the most fascinating.

If I follow the human line it only goes back as far as there were people.  If I follow the god line, who knows where it goes?