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.