Birth of a witch (A Halloween thot)

Old women (and women use to be old by 30) who lived alone (and women still out live men); who were no longer of breeding age, or beautiful, desirable, or desired; whose hygiene was most likely less important than growing, or making everything they wore, used, or ate, or taking care of their animals; who were most likely lonely and human as the years went by, so were glad to take in a cat that appreciated the warmth of a fire, a body and food and not averse to listening when lonely people treated it like a surrogate child, were called witches!

In a predominantly male world where men made the laws, wrote the books, imagined the religion and claimed superiority in every respect, an intelligent, older, less compliant woman was only a blessing if she was doing what you wanted and life was good.

Intelligent, self sufficient women who handed down recipes for healing, were easy targets when the world needed a scapegoat, because ignorance has always bred fear and intolerance.

Witches might have been the first liberated women - for VERY SHORT PERIODS OF TIME . . .Mwha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaa.

Fairy tales do come true . . .

Movies and books seem chocked full of adventures and tales we only dream of. Most of us consider ourselves painfully aware that they are not about people like us.

But they are.

We are the leading roles of tomorrow's movies, the heroes of tomorrow's books. Life condensed into five hundred pages, or ninety minutes is bound to look more compelling than it does stretched out over seventy years.

The Cinderella story happens all the time, but I think it's generally limited to once per lifetime and that once may not seem like a lot -- except when you are in the middle of it.

The trick is to re-member these beautiful and meaningful and life changing times in our own lives and give them the credence they deserve. It makes living more like the fairy tale we may wish it is and also makes the struggles and ogres more bearable too.

There's nothing like a happy ending to make everything good. It's just that in real life our trials and tribulations don't actually look like the Green Knight. But then we won't be rescued by a fairy godmother either.

The fairy tale of real life is actually much more poignant when viewed from outside ourselves because it really does involve our own ingenuity and fortitude. Those ogres and princes are all alive and well and living in the castle of us.

All Hallow's Eve

What makes people want to be scared?

Carnival rides

Haunted houses

Ghost stories

Scary movies

It's almost as if we have a vestigial desire, leftover from our distant ancestors, to still conquer the unknown, or prove something?

Competence

Heroism

Adrenalin junkies

Could it be that we are such Doubting Thomases, such terrified self-preservationists, that we need to find proof of life after death -- even if it is not good?

Expectations

Expectations are the bane of my life.

I try not to have any, but it is hard to be human without considering what is coming up.

I am a natural born planner. Always afraid that I won't have enough to be gracious, I tend to over plan when it comes to preparing myself for others.

Terrified of being disappointed, I try not to set myself up for things where I have no control.

That can ruin the fun of anticipation, but it's generally worth the price for me.

Expecting anything, no matter how small it may be, can cause me to be really sad when it doesn't occur. I am too old to allow that, but it's a fact of being me that I have to deal with.

Soooooo . . .  expectations are the bane of my life.

My legacy

There has been much talk lately about the one piece of wisdom an elder can give those coming up behind. I've heard many things, but none of them ring true enough for me to choose them as my gift to my children, hearts of my heart, the joys of my life.

The gift I would give my children is my strength.

Not my physical strength, that has always been a rather doubtful part of my make up. And not the strength that I claimed in my youth because that was false. It always relied upon leaning on someone else's shoulders.

It is the strength that lies deep within me, that irrepressible spark that made it possible for me to make do, to go on, and to find enough joy in the moments, no matter how scattered they might be, to make my life more than just endurable, but ultimately a good one.  It is not something I can claim any power over.  It is just there.

It is the part of me that heard my mother's voice when she wasn't there. It is the part of me that heard you calling when you needed me. It is that part of me that finds the joy in amongst all the rest. 

It is your birthright given to you by every ounce of love I have ever felt for you.

The Fall

Winter is coming.

The long political process of choosing candidates for the two major U.S. parties coincides with the equally dreary slide of autumn crispness into the soggy quagmire that just precedes the colder months of winter.

It feels very appropriate that this dark, wet, blustery day carries these dark, blustery people in and out of the limelight.

The credibility of buffoons and posing egotists running for office against seasoned politicians frightens me. Are we seriously considering electing people who believe the things these people are saying?

Evidently we are.

Parties have taken Halloween customs to a new level of macabre terror as we are treated to tricksters trying to garner our votes by treating us to their views of how to handle women and those who murder school children. We are becoming truly disposable entities asked to sacrifice our lives to protect a few.

Yes, winter is coming and it is going to be much worse than the snow and icy weather of the past. This winter may last for decades as the rich sit safely behind us in their nice warm mansions while we place our children between them and their enemies.

Used to limiting the disenfranchised to minority peoples and aliens, we are marching quietly up the ramps to the slaughter houses, thinking, "Isn't this lovely? Look at the wonderful words they are saying."

Fall into the winter of no return, vote for the sweetest treats instead of the bread and butter that has sustained us for over two hundred years and life will certainly be different. The winds of heaven will literally dance between us if we forge a partnership with the dark side.

Place

I never really gave much thought to place in this world. At least not in the way it was introduced to me today. It is as if I were suddenly given a whole cornucopia of thoughts, visions, and impressions of myself to look at from a different point of view.

I am used to thinking of myself as the person I want to be, or strive to be.  I generally think of myself as someone I have carefully tended and molded and engineered. I seldom, if ever, truly think of my actual roots; of the culture that spawned me whether I like it or not.

Reading these first two paragraphs I already see a sign of that culture, that place.  Cornucopia, the horn of plenty, the rural idea of a table filled with good, solid Americana, mashed potatoes and roast beast, green beans and bacon, Thanksgiving in the Heartland, the time and place where I was born.

The huge round oak table I sought out for my own home was really only an echo from the past. Generations of farm folk. Simple people with sturdy shoes and big gardens surrounded by flowers on the perimeter, but full of sustenance within. Butterflies and florabunda roses, planted in mass profusion along green lawns, not in formal gardens along prim walkways.

Miles of flat lands, dark and rich in the winter, highlighting the firelight that becomes the hub of life when it is cold outside. Verdant mazes of corn and soybeans overhung by red tailed hawks and big black crows in the summer, a reminder of nature's bounty and mystery.

Sweltering summer evenings spent swinging on a front porch swing in the swirl of aromatic pipe smoke and wistful dreams. Dreams that sometimes grew big enough to carry one away to a distant place and strange ways, but never far enough that the roots were severed.

Panaceas for everything!

Television is chock full of diversions for the bedridden, house bound, poor, and very young who cannot get out and do other things. It is also a wonderful way to relax and do nothing while being entertained -- on some level.

Although it is a relatively new form of entertainment, the people behind the shows have already learned many very valuable tactics:

It's not the words, it's the tone that matters when you are speaking to crowds of zoned out people opening themselves up like candidates for hypnosis.

Ardent religious shows cry out in sing song tirades, like snake charmers of old, implying deeply ingrained and heartfelt empathy.

Quasi documentaries seem to prefer a male voice that always drops slightly at the end of a sentence, so it feels very matter of fact and true.

Afternoon talk shows rely on canned laughter and audiences who are unable to restrain themselves from expressing their unrelenting joy by hooting and yelping and whooping to express their irrepressible feelings.

And everyone knows that stage whispers let us in on secrets no one else knows, or information not generally released to the masses.

It really isn't necessary to turn up the volume any more. Just stare at the screen and let the modulations of sound do their work. The cadence and stage worthy actions will take care of the rest.

All the world's problems can be solved in forty eight minute segments, or less and at the same time, we can teach impressionable folks how to respond to nearly every situation with ten cent psychology and pseudo science. Panaceas for all with the flick of a remote!

And that is where the danger lies. People without the resources to understand this stuff is all for money and ratings fall prey to an indoctrination that is frightning. They believe the "doctors" selling magic cures, the wealthy families teaching twenty first century etiquette, the buffoons espousing their tactics for running the world and the distorted stories who all have a slant.  The illiterate, the lazy, and the semi literate can carry enough weight to actually bring about changes they are bamboozled into making even when these are not in their best interests.

Very little television is fit for children. It is best viewed in the way we once did side shows and carnivals. It's fine to watch. Just don't forget WHAT you are watching and if you let your children watch it, be sure to discuss it with them afterwards. It should be a diversion, not a blueprint for living.

In the beginning

Creativity is an unfathomable thing.

Who knows where it comes from?

Or how it grows?

Or even how it knows where to go!

It always has a life of its own.

And whether it is considered good, or bad, by others, for me it marks the beginning of many satisfactory, happy hours.

The streets are lovely, dark and deep

Living on the edge of a small mid-western town gives me distinctly different routes to use whenever I need to go somewhere.

I can zip out onto the interstate and fly around town at seventy miles an hour.

I can go through town to the belt-line road and travel a comfortable forty five miles an hour.

Or -- I can go right straight up my street, driving all the way through town at a leisurely thirty miles an hour.

The last is my favorite way. I love to look at the old houses and trees and flowers, the quaint little businesses tucked in here and there, and the way the light plays off of all of them.

While you might expect Spring, or Summer to be the best seasons to do this, I am surprised at how much more beautiful it is in the Fall.

The vibrant reds and yellows mixed in with the deep shadows and richer light of Fall remind me of the burnished crimson and golds in a Vermeer.  It is Brigadoon mixed in with Robert Frost and Rabbie Burns.  It's A Wonderful Life and Harvey and the Enchanted Cottage.

It is our town.

You've got to give a little

Life seems to be full of extremes.

There are dreams. There are expectations. And there is the reality of what actually is.

The closer these things are, the happier I am and the more content I am with my life.

Of course there are levels within each of these categories too. Health, love, family, career, each one has a huge effect on the others.

Picture a huge abacus balanced on a fulcrum like a teeter totter. The fickle finger of fate vies with my intentions and my actual actions, pushing those beads back and forth, trying to tip everything over and turn my life upside down.

I would like to think I am very zen about this; a Yoda character quietly proclaiming, "Balanced it is." Sometimes that is true, but other times I run around like the Mad Hatter trying to juggle days on a minute to minute basis.

The truth is I am always just a step away from everything. The only constant is the realization that there are no guarantees, no binding contracts with the future, no promises that can't be broken as long as I am human and interacting with other humans.

Unlike the abacus with its rigid frame and linear wires, I must be able to bend in every way to survive.

And I can.

If I try hard enough.

False pride

Living a healthy lifestyle is basically a choice for most of us.

The very poor, or those trying to feed a large family on a low income can find it a challenge, but that is only an excuse for many others.

What astounds me are the people who seem to be proud that they don't eat right.

Instead of trying to lean towards better choices, they brag about their poor ones.  Sometimes they try to use false logic to justify this style. They will say, "You eat healthy and you still have health problems."

This kind of thinking doesn't hurt me and it sure doesn't help them. If I die from cancer it won't make you any less likely to. If my heart gives out, that doesn't give you an edge. Even if we decide to be unhealthy together, it won't increase our odds of living longer. It just doesn't work that way.

The insidious thing about eating poorly, or being over weight for a long time, or not taking care of medical or dental issues is that the damage is like erosion along a beautiful river. Little by little things start to weaken until the problem becomes obvious and by that time it is a major issue. You might be able to fix it then and you might not.

The person who gambles on the belief that they have always eaten ice cream and sugary snacks and crackers instead of fruits and vegetables, so they can continue to do so until they die, may discover that dying is a much more unpleasant process for them than it is for those who tried to do otherwise.

They might not, but it's a hard way to learn if they are wrong.

Being trapped by a disintegrating body can make us old fast. Being stuck in a chair, or the house for months on end, or forever, is not fun at all.

The future depends on the past, there are no reset buttons, so from this day on I'm trying to do better.

The best unexotic life around

You might think if I came in from a necessary visit to my podiatrist and pharmacy and shoe store where I had to buy sensible, not fun, shoes, and, in that moment when my neighbor showed up to pick up her plants and share a bit of a visit, I would get an urgent call asking me to transform a picture of a document into the real thing, that I would not be happy.

You would be wrong!

The thought that someone thinks enough of my abilities to ask me to do something like this to help them makes me feel really good.

It's kind of like doing a puzzle in reverse and I actually enjoy it.

Whenever something I do helps someone out and is fun for me I am at that place in the universe where balance is exquisite!

Excess is best?

Growing up in the fifties, my idea of excessive living was probably the ancient Romans. I envisioned them lying on couches eating grapes and watching women dancing around them wearing provocative outfits. In my childish mind this was the age of decadence.

At the same time my family lived in an upper middle class home for its time. We had one bathroom, a toilet in a somewhat finished basement, and simple closets, probably five or six feet long with one rod in all the bedrooms, including the master. Most people had one black and white television, no dishwasher, and push lawnmowers (not gasoline powered.) Families generally had one car, one phone, and window air conditioners were considered a real luxury.

We drank soda very rarely, candy bars were small, eating out was also very rare and people were suspect of hamburgers that were cheap.

It makes me wonder when the age of excess began? When did it become necessary to buy two liters of soda pop at a time, need bathrooms for every bedroom, have closets the size of old fashioned bathrooms (or larger,) phones for every person in the family (even children in first grade,) televisions in every room, whole house air conditioning, riding lawn mowers in town, and consider fast food with its chemicals that made it resemble real food a viable alternative to meat and vegetables at the family table?

I think it began in the seventies when a generation of free spirits slowly moved from their parents bank accounts into the real world where they had to support themselves. The horror of caving into the system was balanced by indulging in amenities that made life feel more luxurious and easier.

The Depression era grandparents gave birth to the credit loving grandchildren. Facades beat out stability when it came to lifestyles and more was better, Better, BETTER!

It looks to me as if we are slowly moving back towards reason again as people begin to adopt a simpler way of living; looking at tiny houses, green living and whole foods.

Of course, down the road, there will probably be another growth of excesses, but not in my lifetime.

Just because it looks good on paper and makes us feel good

Sometimes I am positive . . . and sometimes I am not.

I don't like it when people point out how many children grow up neglected in poverty and abusive homes and became famous. It implies that they are stronger for having to face these disabilities. They may be, but would you purposely put your child in such situations to make them stronger, on the off chance that they might become an over achiever? I think not. If it is easy for you to let other children grow up this way by consoling yourself with the above thoughts, think again. For every child who becomes a brain surgeon, or rock star, or inspirational speaker, because of an awful childhood, there are probably thousands who died, or grow up to be mentally unstable. And no matter how you justify this it is simply wrong.

I also don't like it when people act like all old people are happy to sit around doing nothing and be treated like adorable incompetents. In the best of all worlds no one would go into a nursing home until they were in a coma, or unconscious in some way. Until then, everyone wants to be loved, needed, and useful, not like large stuffed animals, but as living, thinking human beings. I don't care if that means they sit and hold the babies, or guard the back yard garden from birds, there has to be a place for still living people besides Death's waiting rooms.

I also believe that most people forced to live on disability or unemployment for an extended period of time be required to volunteer at least a few hours a week. We could have buses pick them up and take them home and even provide meals if they are there all day, but there are hundreds of jobs for volunteers that could improve our children's schools and daycare facilities, our public parks and libraries and health facilities. Why not allow people to feel, and BE, useful? In our community many of these jobs are done by retired seniors, but there are enough to go around.

Not everything valuable in life should be about convenience and money.

There must be room for accommodating people with different needs and sensitivities, but not by hiding the unpleasant from their sight. Instead I would like to see us make better use of all the talents lost to poverty, disability, and feeling disconnected.

Like everything else it begins one person at a time. We need to conquer the, "that's the way we've always done it," because that isn't true. We haven't always been a nation of so many disenfranchised and poor.

And it might be important to note that all of us are going to become older everyday and the word "poor" is encompassing more of us every year.  In those still famous words, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Philosophy for a silver back

I am having a difficult time writing my thots lately and I'm not sure why.

I suspect it is because I am caught between the disappointment, and perhaps a tad of depression, brought on by continuing problems with my feet, but there is also the possibility that I am in transition again.

We know children move from infancy to toddlerhood and on into childhood, then the teenage years, and young adulthood. After that the years become more fluid.

Some people move into parenthood, others pursue careers more enthusiastically. Trying to do both brings up lots of questions: about priorities, how successful it can be, and who benefits or loses in each direction. It would seem it could be perfectly natural -- IF -- the whole community steps up and does its part. That might solve a lot of our problems because we would all be so thoroughly connected that hurting anyone would affect us all -- for real.

Right now. In this world. Life is much more segmented.

I was one hundred percent mom.  I have never been the quintessential grandmother if that means bustling around the house baking cookies and rocking babies. Now that my grandchildren are all up and talking I find myself much more fascinated by them.

I love to hear what they are saying, see what they are doing, know that they are busy, and active, and thinking! Nothing makes my day, or my life, happier than their smiling faces!

But, just like those growing pains I felt as I moved into my teenage years, I find myself occasionally conflicted about what I want out of this world I am living in now. Physically I do have to admit to more limitations than I once had. Mentally I am probably freer than I have ever been.

With freedom comes responsibility and even some conflict. The transition into the retired adult has few role models for my generation. Most of us are still healthy and eager to continue on in the pursuit of whatever it is we love, but how we do it still has to be decided.  All in all I find life to be an endlessly intriguing journey -- just not quite as cut and dried as I once hoped.

Setting limits

In the land of eternal repairs, my body is learning how to keep on going even when it cannot stand on its own two feet.

Perhaps that is the new lesson: asking for help when I need it.

I managed a birthday dinner here with the help of my daughter and granddaughters and I can manage my volunteer jobs with the right amount of adjustments and help.

I have to shuck pride and do what's necessary, but if I don't I will be stuck at home, maybe for the rest of my life. What is the point of living if I don't live?

So . . . I use the walker, or my cane. I set limits like not shelving books. I ask for help when I need it and life goes on.

And it actually goes quite nicely once I get the hang of it.

Knights in t-shirts

I always want to think the best about people, but sometimes the best is a little disappointing.

Of course there are other times when the ordinary is very surprising, so perhaps things even out in the end.

Most of the time truly great people seem to be the most unassuming. They go about their business doing just a little bit more, a little bit kinder and a little bit better than the rest of us and don't seem to be aware that they are doing anything extra.

These people make difficult tasks look effortless when I know they're not.

That inspires me more than any listing of accomplishments could ever hope.

Other people do very little and talk about it quite a lot.

That inspires me too . . .

I try hard not to follow suit.

The flashy suit of armor worn by Sir See Me Alot is often just a distraction that keeps people from getting in the way of more accomplished doers!

He lived

He was the third child born to Ruth Francis and the first son born to Thomas Edwin after their marriage. He had an older sister, my mother, and an older half brother. Later he became a big brother. He was a much loved, very gentle little boy who performed a very accurate appendectomy on his teddy bear after emergency surgery at age five.

He married my aunt 62 years ago. They went to Germany while he was in the army and then the University of Illinois while he got his degree in accounting. They had four children, my cousins, who are wonderful, talented, good, people. It doesn't get much better than that.

He was a walking, talking, living man of grace and love whose contributions to his family, neighborhood and the world were consistently extraordinarily far reaching, and constant.

He died yesterday having lived a good life and you just can't do better than that.

Choices

Life is a journey defined by choices.

Of course there are things that I did not choose, or could not choose, but if I am honest a huge majority of things are choices.

I may make the wrong choice out of ignorance or from lack of experience, but then I have the choice of changing whatever I can to either remedy that, or move on. It is my life and my choice.

If I choose to do something then I am also choosing to accept the consequences of that choice. If I think I don't have time to brush my teeth for two minutes twice a day, then I may be choosing to have yellow teeth, or bad breath, or maybe even no teeth! Looking back I might see that I could have spared those extra minutes a hundred different ways, but at the time it didn't seem important.

The choices I make for me are okay. I am an intelligent adult, but children should not have that option. They have neither the knowledge, nor the experience to make most life decisions. Of course they can be taught how to make good decisions. "Do you want to brush your teeth now, or in ten minutes?" Or, "Which book do you want to read first?" It is the caregiver's obligation to make sure the child's choices are good ones.

I don't like all the choices I have made so far, but I AM aware that they were mine to make, so now I'm trying to make the best of them and the rest of my life.

In God's name

I see so much Muslim bashing on Facebook. I grew up hearing people blame the Jews for almost anything and everything. It's strange, but I seldom hear about all the bad things Christians do, from burning people at the stake, to The Crusades, to burning books, or killing people at abortion clinics and so on.

Evil done in the name of god always seems to feel justifiable to the person doing it.

It gives religion a bad name.

Imagine god creating all this beauty simply so he could have it destroyed in his name. It would be like Van Gogh wanting people to take knives to his pictures, or Monet wanting people to submerge his water lilies in the backyard pool.

All these angry invocations that are supposedly attributed to a power so great it created us seem a little short sighted and petty. Any two year old throwing a temper tantrum thinks his daddy would do the same thing if someone took away his toy.

If people want to invent god in their own image that god will be very flawed and limited, because most of us cannot possibly discern this power we call God.

Great relationships

My granddaughter just posted one of those little sayings people do on Facebook and it really made me think. This one was about not giving up on great relationships when you have problems. It says both people have to be willing to work to make it work.

It was like one of those little cartoon bubbles appeared over my head! An aha moment!

I doubt if anyone ever gets married thinking they will get a divorce and I especially never magined myself in that position. I met my husband to be in my freshman year of college and from that day on, if we weren't together we wrote to each other via snail mail. He was sent to Vietnam and I wrote everyday and sent audio tapes too. We were married and set off across the country hauling everything we owned in a teeny tiny U-haul behind our second hand Toyota only to discover there was no place to rent near Fort Riley Kansas where he was stationed. It didn't matter. We were in love and went door to door asking people if they knew of any, ANY, place to rent. Finally ending up in a dumpy two rooms of an old house with paper curtains and a peephole in the bathroom between us and our neighbors. It was awful and we loved it! We made do, met the neighbors, I did laundry in the bathtub and hung it on the community line when I didn't have a way to the laundromat, burned off all my eyelashes and eyebrows lighting the stove one day and spent my free time spit polishing his uniform dress shoes. I still hadn't learned how to cook for two, since I grew up in a family of six, so we had lots of company for dinner, dodged the mean dog living beside our house with her puppies and played house.

Life moved on. We lived in nicer and nicer places. I learned everything he did as I helped him qualify for Sergeant of the Guard and later on CLU, CPCU, etc. We were active members of our church, led the youth group, were members of a gourmet club, played in couples, duplicate and singles Bridge clubs, rode bicycles and played tennis and backgammon. Life was good!

In fact it was almost perfect except that we couldn't seem to get pregnant. So we became foster parents, then adoptive parents, then, finally, after miscarriages, we were expecting a baby! It should have been an even happier time in our lives . . . but it wasn't.

For the first time in our lives we had problems. The stories my father had told me about loving my mother more than ever when she was pregnant did not apply to us. I was an embarrassment. He retreated into his work and never again really had the desire to do the work that was necessary for us to make it as a couple. There were a lot of reasons for this, but mostly he never truly believed I could love him and still love those babies as much as I did. The idea of us both loving them that much just didn't register as a possibility in his thought processes.

From then on, he would make an outward show of doing the right thing but his heart was seldom in it and it would show when the tension became too much. He would issue ultimatums and use money to wield control over what was not the real problem . . . which was that he could not believe a whole family could love each other as intensely as we had loved each other.  He simply no longer cared whether we made it or not and retreated into his own dream world of what his life could of, should of been.

We stuck it out for another 18 years, but the love died long before that. Those were the happiest, saddest years of my life.

White coat syndrome

It has become obvious to me that I am my own worst enemy when it comes to my health.

Not only do I struggle to eat the right things in the right amounts, but I am beginning to believe that I may have more influence than I ever dreamed of.

Some people have white coat syndrome. Their blood pressure is higher when they go to the doctor. Mine begins to increase the moment I pick up my machine. I actually hear my heart pounding in my ears.

I have a need to control that reading. If I could Do something I think I might do almost anything, even something madly desperate, but that doesn't work. In fact it is just the opposite.

I have tried meditating, but my body is smart. It knows when I am taking my blood pressure and my attempts to focus on something else are continually brought back by the tightening of the cuff, the sound of the little motor. By now I recognize when it takes longer than the best readings and my mind keeps flipping back, wondering how high it will be this time.

It's a self fulfilling  endeavor. The more I want it lower, the higher it tends to go.

So . . . I trick myself. Try to surreptitiously move the machine onto my lap, slip on the sleeve and wait a bit until I think I am ready.  Once in a while, especially later in the day or just before bedtime I will be relaxed enough for that to work. Then my blood pressure can be more than 40 points lower on top and 10-15 on the bottom and my pulse can be 35 beats slower.

One wrong thought, one fleeting moment and all is lost!

If I can't do this at home how will I ever do it at the doctor's?

The path undreamed

I am once more stuck resting an injured foot. The other one this time, but for the same reason and it occurred to me that I am outliving my body.

My soul, my mind, feels as though it is just starting to mature.

Those youthful dreams I had while raising my children are coming to pass. Not in the ways I believed they could, but still they are taking on the form of reality, and proving once and for all that I was not wrong.

I believed in love, in true goodness, in a way of living devoted to learning and teaching and helping others that I wanted to share. I wanted only to love my children and share that love with someone who could match me moment for moment. I dreamed of people living in a world that was good and honorable and sweet.

It is possible to make mistakes, to take a path that only runs parallel to the right one and then one day . . . to be thrown from it, think you are lost forever and alone, only to discover down the new path that life can be what you dreamed.

It may not be the way you thought you wanted it, but in most ways it is even better than you ever dreamed it.

That is the beauty of Everland, of the blessing I was never capable of believing in, of living life in a light that is barely discernible to one not living it.

There is a richness, a sweetness, a feeling of contentment I never understood existed until now. It is not quite perfect, but perhaps that is the nature of perfection . . . it opens the door to possibilities.

Peace of mind and beauty really do come from within

Dieting! That's probably the biggest catch word around. Everyone seems to have the perfect way for me to lose weight. I have probably attempted most of them at some point in my life and most of them worked for a while. That while translates into two days to two months and then they all either petered out, or died in an explosion of frustration.

Bestest lost a lot of weight by choosing to eat healthier, a lot healthier and I thought that was a great idea too, but I quickly devolved from healthy to obsessive. Instead of fresh fruits and vegetables I migrated into frozen entrees labeled lean or healthy. I did lose the weight, seventy pounds! It just couldn't stay off because these "healthy" meals were high in salt and low in so many other things.

People try to be supportive, but for me the most destructive thing anyone can say is "Don't lose too much now." That is like a get out of jail free card on a bad day. It's the perfect excuse to go ahead and eat -- whatever it is, in as big an amount as I want, to soothe my feelings.

There are no magic foods to help me lose weight, no magic beans to skinny land, no tree of eternal weight loss whose seeds will keep me from consuming too much. I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul, the only one with enough power to make this thing work.

First of all I needed to decide exactly what it is I wanted. Even a doctor can only suggest what is necessary. If I don't believe it right down to my very core, I won't be able to carry it through.

So . . . I am doing a little of everything. Incorporating more fruit, I started with the only uncooked fruits I could tolerate until I slowly began to love them and branch out using little tricks that made them palatable to me, or even a treat sometimes! I am doing the same thing with vegetables and my signature love, chicken salad, has fit right into this plan too. I really DO believe I can continue THIS way for the rest of my life. I actually managed to go out to eat and stay within the confines of what I call healthy eating.

I started actually walking, very slowly, just five minutes at a time in the beginning and it is working its way up. Yesterday I logged in two miles. Tomorrow it may be more or less.

No one knows how I feel better than I do. Most of the advice I received in the past, from well meaning nurses and doctors and books and articles honestly turned out to be destructive for me. Everyone has a point of view, but it is necessary to consider my own body's needs, not just the things "they" gave up. I am unique.

And you are too!

Seasons

I fall into Fall like the leaves dropping from the trees.

Last night I slept like a baby (one who is sleeping through the night.) I woke up to go to the bathroom, this baby is potty trained, and turned off my fan. I woke up once more and reached out to roll the window closed, then pulled the other half of my blanket over me, tugged the extra pillows closer and never opened my eyes again until 8:30 this morning! What a gift that is!

I look out at the bright blue sky, the sunlight warming chilled houses as the day wears on, and the contrasting trees, some of which are turning faster than others. It is glorious!

I have the same feeling I remember having as a six year old anticipating Fall -- new clothes, new friends, new possibilities galore! It is exciting!

People begin cooking those cold winter meals, those comfort foods that my mother made and my mouth waters with anticipation of dinners long ago.

I pull out my warmer clothes, the ones that wrap around me in cozy comfort and the security just oozes out.

Yes, Fall is here and it is my very favorite time of year. While others may find fulfillment in the new shoots of Spring, or the lushness of Summer, I find life more beautiful, more brilliant, more joyful when the entire earth rolls into maturity, shedding the old, putting on its finest colors and cleaning house of the old musty over abundance that reached it's peak in August.

This is my time!

Cozy

I suspect everyone has their own idea of cozy.

Inglenooks are lovely for some and claustrophobic for others.

Some people want firelight and shadows. Others want rain and mist.

For me cozy is . . .

It is looking across the fields at night and seeing that old yellow light shining through the windows of farm houses.

It is walking down a street in the old part of town and imagining the families gathered within.

It is overstuffed furniture and snapping logs in a roaring fire on a cold night with a room that glows in the center and fades back into deep dark shadows.

It is the smell of burning logs and hot cocoa with deeply toasted bread drenched in butter.

The sound of rain pounding on the roof and perhaps thunder in the distance.

It is the feeling that now, in this moment and this place, all is well and all is very well, and my world is complete.

That is my idea of cozy perfection.

Tails required

Tall, dark and handsome, he flies in just for dinner.

A connoisseur of only the best, a highbrow dressed in tails who prefers to wait rather than eat at the local bistros.

He waits patiently. Only the juiciest meats, the saltier salads, the marinated veggies, line this buffet.

Here the beverages are steeped for days, in exotic flavors -- and aged to perfection.

Proud, patient, stately, head held high and eyes gleaming, he nods knowingly as he partakes of the finest food around. Then, his leisurely feast over . . .

He lifts his wings in benediction, throws back his head and gives a mighty, "Caw!" before flying away from the esoteric delights of Chez Gutter.

Exhausting blessings

Today, for maybe the first time in my adult life, I felt like I had the energy to do all those sorts of things other people have always seemed to do.

I did all those things mothers do when my children were growing up, balanced meals on the table, clean laundry, help with homework, cub scouts, sports, Sunday school, PTA school work, homeroom mother and after the youngest was in school I also worked part time while doing all the other.

I even made a lot of their clothes so they would match, and costumes for the community theatre, and Christmas gifts for teachers so we would have something unique. And I thought everyone went through life totally exhausted.

I enjoyed it. I wanted to do it. I wouldn't change a minute of it.

Except that I would like to have done it the way I did things yesterday morning and today -- with energy and not with the feeling that I was always dead tired.

This weekend I experienced energy that wasn't faked. I did some of the things I haven't done in many years without a thought and it was amazing! Had I ever felt this good before, life would have been so much easier.

Of course I was only that full of pep for about five hours, but even that was a huge gift. And afterwards I was so exhausted I dragged myself into my chair, but it was still wonderful.

What's different? My blood pressure is lower. I am eating almost entirely unprocessed and healthy foods. I am trying to follow a healthy routine, but really I am not doing anything that radically different, except feeling better.

That is why I am writing this thot so late. I guess I'll just try counting my blessings instead of lamenting the past.

I have company

I have visitors!  For the next month they will be staying with me. Drinking my water, showering here, warming up in the sunshine that comes through my window and brightening up a corner of my apartment.

At first I wasn't sure where to put them, all three have pretty specific needs and definite predilections.

One is deeply rooted in tradition and although he showers daily, only takes a bath every week or so.

Another is terrified of showers, but likes to soak her feet on a whim, so there must be water available at all times.

The last is rather a show off. He spreads out, draping its arms over all the others, slurping up water until I fear for my carpets, but his radiant color makes me think we'll be okay.

For one month I am the caretaker of three prized plants, each one symbolic of something very special to their mother and I hope I am up to this task.  I only have northern light, but I have them settled on my library ladder, a small little staircase like thing that was evidently waiting years for this to happen.

I find it rather amazing how much they add to my room.  Bits of twigs and leaves, feet rooted in dirt, reaching out for the light . . .

For one month I will share in their silent meditation as they sit here making do with what they are given.

Why us?

We had air raid drills when I was a child. We went out in the hall, or sat under our desks with books over our heads. People built air raid shelters. We worried that the bad guys, foreigners, usually the Russians were going to bomb us and kill us.

Now we have code red drills in our elementary school. We lock our doors and hide the children to make them as inaccessible to see as possible from any doors or windows in our rooms. Now the enemy is a person from the neighborhood who decides to go out and shoot students.

That is terrifying. Worse than those faceless communists, in my opinion.

The person who might kill your child is someone who lives nearby, who seems like that quiet shy son of that nice Mrs. So and So.

Why? Because he went off his meds? Or? Almost any reason that seemed viable to his messed up mind.

We have had 45 school shootings in this country this year! And the one uncontroversial, inescapable common denominator is that each one had access to a gun or guns.

No other country in the world has this problem.

Myself

Frustration is probably my most destructive habit.

I know it's a feeling, but I have a habit of feeling frustrated.

When I am doing everything I know how to do and something still doesn't work I find it frustrating and it makes me angry with myself.

I am used to failing because I didn't do something: eat healthy, go to bed early enough, didn't allow enough time, but I am not accustomed to failing when I really try.

Still, there are times when I do and there is nothing worse than being mad at yourself for something you just can't do. It makes no sense -- that I am failing, or that I am upset with myself, but that doesn't matter. It still happens.

Of course that just adds insult to injury and makes everything a lot worse.

So now, my new goal is to be kinder and more understanding -- of myself!