Happy New Year's Eve

What a year this has been! Next year HAS to be better!

Rather than dwell on this year I am simply finishing it with a bang and promising myself that the new one will be much much better -- for me and everyone else.

I went to St. Louis this week for the first time in nearly two years. The drive wasn't bad at all and I had a wonderful time with old friends. I put my new platform bed together today, which meant taking the old one apart. I'd been dreading this for weeks, even thought about trying to hire someone to do it, but I did it!

That just goes to show I should never under estimate myself. It was physically hard, but I just took one step at a time and it is a done deed. I want to remember that this coming year.

One step at a time I can do almost anything I put my mind to.

And so can most other people.

Now I'm going to relax, sort of, and watch Alabama play Michigan State!

The right to

What makes us human? What distinguishes us from the other mammals?

I used to think there were more differences than similarities and that somehow it made us superior, but I am beginning to wonder if this is the down side of being human. Perhaps we have progressed to the point where some of us are headed the other way.

Those wonderful things that gave us an edge might not destroy just us, but every other living creature given enough time. I think the earth will be fine. She will recoup given enough time.

Our brilliance allows us to expose nearly everyone to information they might not have had access to in the past. So a city dweller can identify a shark feeding frenzy, or wolves tracking down their prey. We recognize this sort of group activity in "primitive" animals.  We understand how cowboys herded cattle along the old western trails.

Yet we don't see how the majority of us are being herded down the trails to second class citizenship and poverty by the modern herders. We just fall into line behind those screaming whatever we want to hear in order to make us follow them. We want to believe there is a shortcut to a better life and that shortcut involves allowing the top few percent to have more and more in return for their promises that if we only do away with the scapegoats they will give us more.

They talk us into carrying guns and even try to get us to put them in classrooms so some of us can sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. Imagine Star Wars ending in a huge fire fight right there in the theater! The good guy bullets and bad guy bullets flying over our heads . . .

They cut funding for education, use social security for things other than retirees, and well you know the rest.  "They" are whoever the poorly educated, nonthinking, reacting people choose to put in power --

These tactics work: for the top percent: for the short term: for now.

In the end?

It will end life as we know it and we are choosing it!

Old Friends

How often I have heard the words, "Life is short!"

How seldom have I truly embraced them the way I did the past few days.

Old friends, and I mean we, the truly old, got together and spent a very productive time enjoying life.

Playing our favorite Upwords game. Going out to eat and ordering what we love instead of what is necessarily good for us, pub hamburgers and pot stickers the size of nectarines! Biscuits and curried hash, sugared pecans and spiced cookies!

Meeting kindred spirits, enjoying good art, discussing everything with great abandon!

Realize that all the men are in their seventies and all but one of the women in their sixties. How that can be, I don't know. We don't feel that old, but when I look at the picture, we do look it.

When we look at each other, though, it isn't gray hair, or wrinkles we talk about, or even think about. There are discussions about artistic technique, texture, and performances; teaching harp lessons via Skype, where the next gallery presentation will be and what next year's goals are!

We are not some indistinct fading group of elderly people. We are just as alive as ever and maybe more! Years of creativity gather energy over time. No longer forced to let it dribble out around the hours spent working to pay bills and punch clocks, now becomes the hour to set it free and see what happens!

The golden ring

Occasionally, the merry-go-round slows down to let someone on or off and I realize that life is not as madcap or serious as I believed.

The golden ring turns out to be a hologram and the sustenance being peddled all around me is neither as good or bad as I have been led to believe.

On the whole my life is so much better than lives three hundred years ago, or even a hundred years ago. I am not as isolated as people in my age group, or position might have been thanks to computers and cell phones and television. There are places for me to volunteer that leave me feeling grateful and fulfilled. I can maintain a long term relationship with Bestest on a day to day, even hour to hour basis, whereas it would have been days by snail mail. I was born at the right time.

I think it is the human condition to always want to take things a step farther than what is the "norm" at any given time. It is as if we are driven to want more and be unsatisfied with ourselves and our lives if we aren't constantly inching forward. I suppose that keeps our species alive, but it doesn't need to happen all the time. It's okay to be content, or satisfied, or just pleasantly ensconced in what is -- without feeling the need to at least put on the show that I am reaching for that golden ring.

I exist even when I'm not on the merry-go-round. Life goes on even if no one sees me.

Ultimately, my life is for me. If it doesn't leave me feeling good about myself, what is the point?

It's good to serve others. It's good to be a civic minded person. It's good to do and be all kinds of things, but the scales balance out when I let myself feel good too.

The very young at heart

Only the young at heart can really enjoy anything.

The rest of us let the world dump its garbage on top of everything.

The umbrella of the young at heart shields them from all the anxieties, wants, and false gods trying to stomp out the joy of living.

If you want to have a beautiful celebration you need to be with those whose hearts are full of innocence and joy.

It's possible they themselves are the real gifts.

Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve turned out better than it started.

I spent most of the day making sausage soup and chess pie, but having tasted the soup, it was worth it!  We'll have it tomorrow which we are calling First Christmas this year. Second Christmas will be when my granddaughter comes home from Ireland and Third Christmas will be when Bestest and I get together in late January.

I got to feast on videos of my youngest grandchildren tonight. They are a cross between adorable and a stitch! I love their exuberance and innocence. Grandchildren are what Christmas means to me. Still young enough to believe -- in everything.

There is much to be said for believing. It speaks of hope and dreams, of love and all the good things in life. And even when all those things don't pan out, if you still believe in something there is still hope for -- well, hopes and dreams and love.

Maybe not the way I envision them now, but real all the same.

And on that note I wish you all a very Merry Christmas filled with the joys that speak to your heart. I am about to go to sleep to Christmas carols played, sung and recorded for me by Bestest. And who knows, maybe Santa Clause will come before morning!

The reality of Christmas

Christmas is supposed to be about giving, but it's hard not to have expectations. This time of year is great for those who have family close by. Traditional, storybook families, where everyone is happy and healthy and not going through divorces, or dealing with disabilities.

The cheeriest person trying to decorate the house on a budget, buying gifts with love and trying to make plans that leave no one out while stepping on no one's toes can find it difficult.

What I really want for Christmas is for everything to be the way it was last year.

Then there are those I bent over backwards for, worried they won't have a nice Christmas. I have been learning today that they will have to leave early, aren't bringing gifts, aren't really interested in more than coming, getting their gift and leaving. Christmas brings out the grinches.

I don't know if the joy I felt getting ready for Christmas was worth the disappointment I'm feeling right now, but I think it was.

I did everything with love and that love is still within me. I just need to let go of the rest. Things are what they are and maybe they will be better next year.

Shells

I almost always over react.

If someone doesn't call, or knock on my door, or text back, or write, I try to be rational, but soon I slip right back into my comfort zone -- which is to be innately uncomfortable.

I know as well as anyone who uses social media, or has friends, or is the least bit intelligent that looks are not a reliable gauge when it comes to judging people and I believe that -- except when it comes to me. I am sure that I am too tall, too fat, too plain, too uneducated, too almost anything depending on the moment.

It doesn't seem to matter how many positive experiences I have (and in this time of my life I have many every day) I tend to remember the few negative ones when trying to decide what is wrong.

And what is wrong is often only a misconception. Someone doesn't text back or call because they are very busy, or they don't answer their door because they simply aren't home. It really is possible to choose the wrong time to visit quite often. People have different internal clocks.

But somehow I have learned to blame all problems, imagined or real, on what I said, or did, or was.

I try so hard not to offend anyone that if I inadvertently do, I should be forgiven. The intent was never there. And if it happens often, then I am probably trying too hard. Life just gets too complicated. It is one of the reasons I need the truth. I can feel when it isn't the truth and that makes me doubt everything else.

For Christmas I would like Santa to bring me a harder shell and even if it doesn't work, I could hide inside of it when I needed to.

For Life

Children are for life.

I doesn't matter how old they get, how far away they live, or what they think, say, or do.

Once you hold them in your arms they are in your heart forever.

I want to hold your hand

Transitions are so hard.

Depending on what the transition is, it can feel unbearable.

Most of us go kicking and screaming into the dark night of moving from what we love into the unknown.

Sometimes it helps to pretend a little, but pretend what? It depends on who we are. Finding an idea, or dream bright enough to light our way is very personal. It's kind of like a child writing a letter to Santa Claus, only we are writing it to ourselves.

In the beginning the hardest part might be admitting that what was, is past. It is hard to let go.

Given half a chance and enough time, this darkness will become part of the past. Part of the foundation for who we are, but not the whole of us.

People can hold our hand, not to lead us through the darkness, not to take us to a new place; those are things we have to do ourselves, but just to reassure us that it is possible and that they have confidence in us. 

Carrots and straw and gold

The future gives us more than many philosophers would have us believe.

It may not be here yet, but without a little planning,  it is going to be a crap shoot. I know that is not the popular thing to say, but it is the truth. There was no doubt about it a hundred years ago, or so. If you didn't plant the food, weed it, water it, harvest it, preserve it in some way -- you didn't eat the next year.

Bad diets lead to bad teeth, bad bones, unhealthy immune systems, inferior growth, uncomfortable living. Food is just one example of how important it is to plan for the future. Poor education, or planning, often influences our future job satisfaction and ability to live life in a way we find more compelling than just existing.

It is possible to be content with what is, but that is more true when what is -- is nice.

In my life I have often felt content with what is, but that has also usually hinged on the fact that I believed the future would be better.  Being landlocked by snow in 2009 for five days, alone, with no heat, power, or phone, was only bearable because there was the constant possibility that these things might be fixed at any moment.

So, as much as I try to live in the now, it is the carrot, the future, that often makes a difference. My job is to find the right carrot.

I cannot spin straw in to gold, and believing some little gnome is going to appear and make everything perfect is not realistic, but there are lots of things in between straw and gold that have value and if I can find the one to focus on that will bring me the most satisfaction, or joy, then life usually has more purpose and more pleasure.

Listen children

Sometimes the youth of the earth overwhelms me. As an old preschool teacher I recognize the temper tantrums, the petty jealousies, the selfishness of a world who seems to be isolated from her parent.

Countries dash around trying to prove who has the most toys while knocking down the buildings and societies of others.

Religious fanatics think their mommies and daddies religions are the bestest and only ones that should be allowed.

No one seems to understand that allowing one child to starve, or die, or suffer,  hurts all children.

Like little magpies these toddlers hoard the gold and shiny stuff, believing it has some intrinsic value all its own.

And all the littlest people believe the bullies and rich kids really know . . .

What? No one knows, but maybe it's time for a nap.

Memories

Memories are not just nostalgic wonders, filled with good thoughts and warm fuzzies. They are not just horrific experiences that send us into years of therapy. They are ephemeral things that we now look upon in ways society has highlighted with books, and movies, and radio talk shows.

But none of those things, books, or movies or radios, existed when we were created. We evolved into bipedal creatures because it is the way that worked best for us to get around. We have a nose that is geared to work on land, but is constructed so that we can still swim. Everything about us has, or had, some kind of purpose.

Memories do too. They make the past a classroom for the future. Memories are the blueprints that tell us which things worked, which ones failed and which ones had the most promise.

The better we recall and read these memories, these blueprints, the better our chances are for creating a better now and tomorrow.

Knowing things went bad will not make tomorrow better.

It is necessary to understand the what and whys of that failure and memory can be of service here too, because it can show us what DID work. It is the analytical process along with an intentional desire to understand and do better that is our hope.

Memories are the history books of day to day living and the better students we are, the better tomorrow can be.

Competition

There is a tendency for people to think American Christmas is the personification of greed, but I don't think that is true. Of course the people who are the crassest examples always make the news, but Christmas is whatever you want to make it.

I see a lot of legitimate love and caring. People who do good things, loving things for others for no other reason than it feels good to do these things.

Take the competitions, the BEST house, the BEST present, the MOST gifts, the MOST EXPENSIVE gift, the BIGGEST diamonds, out of Christmas and you have the possibility for so much joy left.

Those sloppy Christmas cookies decorated by chubby little hands, the crooked tree with home made ornaments, the eyes of children seeing Santa Claus, these are some of the joys that only come once a year. They don't start at Target in August. They can't be bought. They are impossible to commercialize because they require real children, real experiences, real love and patience, really being there.

This is Christmas with a capital C. It is love made real. The birth of goodness into a less than perfect world. It is a time ripe with possibilities that can carry over into the rest of the year.

Getting up

I read an article about a study of women who sat for 7.5 hours a day. All of them were diabetics and the ones who never got up had their normal glucose levels. Those who got up and walked had readings about a third better and those who simply stood up were not far below that. Evidently it pays to get up out this chair, so that is my new goal. Although I am not diabetic I am going to get up and walk five minutes every half hour.

At first I set the timer on my phone and every half hour, when it went off I got up and walked around my apartment. It is surely not the same as a brisk walk, but I'm not taking brisk walks. My feet are still recovering from the past seven months of almost no walking. This seems like it might be a good way to start again. At the very worst I am moving more than I was.

Five minutes goes quickly. I have discovered that I am surrounded by things that please me! As I walk around this apartment my senses are filled with things that I love. Often on three levels at a time. The pictures on the walls were each carefully hand picked by me. The Christmas cards hanging on the door remind me of friends, the potted plant blooming in a cheerful green bouquet was rescued out from under a table in the grocery store, my bedspread, Bearnard and his friends, my hobby all by itself takes up three separate layers on my counter top. Even the top of my kitchen cupboards sport specially chosen pieces of art work that I cherish.

This is turning out to be an appreciation walk, one that reminds me of all the blessings in my life and raises my spirits as well as my body.

And if my interest in all these things ebbs, there is still the television.  I figure if I walk every half hour for eight hours I will have logged in 85 relatively painless minutes!

Faith

The fairy tales, the legends, the lore, always point to something greater than me. Whether it be for evil or good, the idea that there is a power that can be manipulated in some way is very appealing.

Of course it always depends on the eye of the seeker. To the primitive tribes of South America everything we take for granted seems magical. In the same vein, many of the miracles of the past are now easily understood and explained by modern science.

Even the Christian belief that man is made in God's image seems to point to the idea that we are wondrous creatures capable of much more than we have yet discovered. A truly paternalistic, creative deity would want his children to be independent, creative, wondrous progeny.

Believing we need objects and places to achieve what we call miraculous seems to me like the baby holding on to it's father's fingers until it learns to walk. The ability to walk was always there, the baby just needed to have faith in its own ability and practice using that ability.

My point is that faith and science need not be at odds, nor do they need to be dependent on each other. One is the finger pointing the way. The other figures out how that way works. When all is said and done it is really not necessary to throw virgins in the volcano, or burn goats on the altar.

Truly believing we are the living image of a god should be an empowering infinite belief in ourselves. Everything else might simply manifest as gratitude. Both the credit and the blame is ours to own.

Quality and quantity

Human beings have always had the burden of wanting a certain quality of life and it comes with strings. Life is not always a fairy tale. There are bills to pay, chores to do, errands to run, and just "stuff" to deal with. With freedom comes responsibility.

But there is time in between all the rest of it when there is a choice. Pragmatists use this time one way. Romantics another. Which way is best depends on your needs.

My needs require a certain amount of creativity, joy and sunshine. I am willing to give up a little security and even a little freedom to have these things. They are that important to me.

In fact, I'm not sure I really even have a choice. My mind just normally goes in certain directions and my body follows happily along, a puppy glad to have someone throw the ball in that direction.

Knowing and accepting what makes the quality of my life good for me, makes everything easier and in this world that can be a biggie.

Christmas carols

I have had a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit, but the night before yesterday I started trying to write The Twelve Days of Christmas in little icons on my phone and yesterday morning my friend Teamaker showed up unexpectedly bearing gifts.

Probably the best one was her hug. Bearnard is good to sleep with, but he's not much for giving back bear hugs. Teamaker also made me an ornament called a German bell! It's an elegant three dimensional beauty and the thought that she made it for me, makes it truly special. I'll hear the bells on Christmas day.

I turned on Alabama's graduation and watched Bestest walk in all his finest regalia while I decorated my little tree. Then, just as I finished, I found out my grandchildren got to go see The Nutcracker.

Christmas cards here are hanging with glee and sugar plum dreams are coming to be . . . Christmas is coming and I am getting fat . . . Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

Competition

He knows when I am happy. He knows when I am sad.

He knows when I am playing games that only make me mad!

So, I better not cry. I better not pout.

Cause I'm turning into, a grinch no doubt

And the fun now seems to all be seeping out.

I know when it's time to quit. I know when it's time to play.

I know fun is never something sad that darkens my whole day.

So, I better step out. I better concede.

Cause this game is something I no longer need.

And I've got books that I would rather read.

Horror story

There are people in everyone's life who ended up there because we knew someone who knew someone. Hybrid people. People whose life and lore are the stuff of legends.

If life were a comic book these people would be the super heroes or arch villains.

They fly into our lives with tales that make our hair stand on end, our hearts bleed with the rapture of goodness run amok, and we are awed.

Our imaginations wrap themselves around the idea of such friends. Our egos are pleased to be associated with these free spirits, and for one short moment in time life is amazing.

Life in the realm of caricatures and fantasy, falling over into real life is exciting until the shadow gloms onto us and there is a tug of realization. We have attached ourselves to a virus!

It shows up at our door when least expected. It spreads into our family life and friends. Its zeal and imagination spread like an ink blot over every part of our life and what was once fresh and exciting is now the stuff of nightmares.

Still the same affable, but pernicious, thrill monger it always was, we are loathe to hurt it in any way, but now instead of trying to figure out ways to be together, we try to think of ways to avoid it.

Once revealed, the loneliness and desperation that drove the hybrid to act out, makes them so much less appealing and so much more in need of us that the need to escape them feels almost unthinkable.

And that is a true horror story.

Dancing leaves

Perspective is probably the most magical of all my senses, although it may not be the most dependable.

Yet, perhaps it is the most reliable of all, because it uses my heart more than my head and is devoid of most of my more contorted views.

My perspective has turned a white trash bag into an elegant swan. It sees leaves dancing in December and hears the Nutcracker Suite. It looks upon the faces of those I love and they are forever beautiful.

Sometimes I try to step outside this protective coating and envision the world the way others might see it. The way people not in love with my life and my views see my world.

I wonder if they see it as distorted, or shabby, ridiculous, or sad. That bothers me for less than a microsecond because I soon step back into the place where I live. The reality of my life. The thoughts and belief systems that have made it worth getting to where I am now.

I'm not sure I had anything to do with my perspective. Whether it is a cultivated way of living, or a contrived coping mechanism, I honestly don't know. It's even possible it is hard wired into my being, but whatever it is, I'm glad it's mine.

It serves me well.

Pride and competence

Some of my favorite presents are the songs Bestest records and sends to my phone. They are played on his guitar and sung by his voice, so this is legal, but try telling my computer that. I always lose these songs when I change phones, and . . . I only know how to save them as voice memos on my newest phone.

I tried the helpless act, but no one I know could, or would, burn a CD of these songs for me. I thought I was going to have to go to voice memos and play each one separately for the rest of my life, or until I got a new phone and lost them again.

Bestest mentioned that he was able to email voice memos from his phone and voila, I figured out how to do that too! I even downloaded the songs from the emails to my computer!

Then I had to find out where my computer hid these downloads. Once I found them I tried to move them to my music program, but my computer prefers professional music and I had to beat it with my cursor to get it to accept these songs!

I won.

Next, I tried to put it on a list. That sounds intuitive. It was not.

I ended up with three lists, none of them complete and none of them willing to be deleted, or altered. At one point I had five copies of every song except Silent Night on one list. Evidently my computer does not like Silent Night. 

It refused to move it. It changed its location so it played under another name as a copy. It erased all of the songs on my list (several times) and then, for some reason I may never know, I had a list with all my Christmas songs on it that I can play from my big computer's start screen!

The job is done!  I may never be able to add another song (or I might. I just never know, I think it depends on how docile the computer is on any given day,) so it isn't exactly competence, but I am proud!

I keep going back to look and see if they are still there!

So far so good.

Normal

I remember longing to be normal in seventh grade.

What is normal?

Back then it meant someone who wasn't always the new kid in school. It meant not having to miss choir because I was in band and not being singled out for advanced classes in English, history, and math.  It also meant wearing Capezio pumps and matching sweaters and skirts instead of holey-soled bargain store shoes and cut down hand me downs.

It's not that I was bullied or mistreated. I always had a best friend, but when we walked home, she wore her matching sweaters and skirts with those damnable matching Capezios and I carried a ton of books and a violin.

My teacher wanted to nominate me for student of the month one time, but she asked if I had ever gone to a school dance. I hadn't and evidently it didn't count that I was in the chess and astronomy clubs. She told me she felt bad about that. So did I. But I didn't go to the next dance either.

With typical twelve year old fervor, I dreamed of growing up to be a concert pianist. I could see myself dressed in rhinestone gowns sitting at a Steinway in Carnegie Hall, my blonde hair cascading down my back. The only hurdle was my horrific stage fright that preceded every single concert on every single instrument I ever played. (And my dark brown hair.)

I was a persistent child. I played paino, saxophone, violin, and oboe. Both of my parent's dreams of playing an instrument professionally were shuffled through me and quietly failed for the second time.

Mostly I was a terribly shy child who was so terrified during performances that I barely had any memory of them afterwards. I sensed this was a great disappointment to parents who saw me as a "healthy looking girl" with brown hair who might be on their hands for the rest of their lives.

I did eventually outgrow some of these things, but it wasn't until I read Leo The Late Bloomer to three hundred preschool parents, that I realized I might be the consummate late bloomer!

Now I live in Normal and that's probably as close as I'm ever going to get.

Growing up

I did something remarkable yesterday.

I put another small rug in my bathroom.

Now that may not sound special to you, but let me explain where I come from.

My mother took all our really beautiful stuffed animals and hung them around the perimeter of our childhood bedroom so they could be seen, but not touched, or dirtied, or worn out. Years later we threw them all out when bugs got into the sacks in the attic where they had been stored.

One of my children gave me coupons for Christmas and I was so in love with them that I saved them and never used them. What a disappointment to that child!

We had a formal living room we seldom used except for pictures and very special occasions so it would always look nice to other people.

I grew up with a "company" complex. Much of what we did, or had, that was special, or nice, was saved for other people to enjoy -- not us. It was the way of many people back then.

Times change. People change. I have changed.

I have changed in many ways, but yesterday I put down a beautiful little rug for my feet to enjoy after a shower and while brushing my teeth. Others may enjoy it too, but it is no longer carefully rolled up and put away until company comes.

That is a sign that I am still growing up!

Little boxes

We really are little boxes.  All stacked up waiting for people to place templates over us and make sure we fill up on the right stuff from the day we are born. Mostly very good people with very good intentions doing the best they know how.

But underneath all those templates are slots. Lots of slots in all different sizes, depths, colors and places and no matter how hard we try to use the templates, our slots sort out what we can use and what we can't and try to fill themselves up.

Growing up and growing older makes the templates either become part of our skeletal structure or it begins to thin allowing the slots a better chance of finding what they need.

It's probably never going to be neat and tidy. All those ducks in a row will surely have a few swans and geese and maybe even a skunk or fox or llama. Whatever the reasons are probably don't really matter because the slots are there and the better they are filled the more fulfilled we are.

As I've grown older I have been surprised at the way things happen. Seldom the way it looks, I have found peace in unlikely places and been miserable in the places that should have been perfect for me.  No one has ever been allowed to make me happy unless I let them. I think because happiness is only a state of mind. It blooms when more of my slots are filled than when they are empty and I don't even have, or need to know the why or how of it. Although when I do realize something, it makes things easier.

Sometimes I wish I could have known this at three, or twenty, or even fifty, but I still had great moments and hours and days and even months of joyfulness. The darkness is a like a Jackson Pollock painting, splattered here and there, sometimes heavy and sometimes almost gone.

My teachers, what some people call guardian angels, or guides, or just best friends, have been here at the most crucial times. In this way I have been blessed.

I wish I could share the process with others, but I don't think it's really possible. We are, each of us, so unique and our environments, even among siblings, even more unique, so that there is no one else in the whole world exactly the same.

The best we can hope for is to follow our way and try to learn from it as we go. The desire to learn is our most valuable asset.

T'is the season

Twas the month before Christmas and all through the house
Not a creature stopped shopping, especially myself.
The credit cards were laid by the computer with care
In hopes that the stuff would be cheaper on there.
The children were nestled all deep in their lists
Thinking of Yoda and Jedis and gifts
And Bearnard in his bear suit and I in my cap
Had just settled our brains for a Thanksgiving nap
When out in the road there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.
I imagined a turkey so lively and quick
Trying to avoid being served with some dip.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the crest of the highway below,

Gave a lustre of midday to cars on the go,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But UPS and Fed Ex and mail trucks quite near,

With so many people and some of them sick,

I knew in a moment I should help old St. Nick..

More rapid than eagles the presents they came,

And I labeled and wrapped them and tagged them by name:

"Now, Grandpa! now, Grandma! now Auntie and Uncle!

Here, teacher! and, doctor who healed my carbuncle!

Hide them in closets! In boxes so tall!

Stash them away! stash them away! stash them away all!"

As gifts that before the Christmas lists fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up in the attic I hide quite a few

With some in the trunk and the neighbor's house too—

And then, in a twinkling, I hear on TV

The laughing and giggling of commercial glee.. 

Changing the channel, I turned down the sound,

My heart begins thumping with terror unbound. 

I learn of a Christmas toy I had not put

Or even considered that I had to look

Till I turned on the tube this fateful night

And my failure stands staring me right in plain sight!

But the beauty of Christmas that is started so early

Is that there's still time, so I cannot be surly.

I'll jump in the car and head for the mall

For last minute gifts to send to y'all. 

Cause I gotta broad face and a little round belly

That expanded from watching, way too much telly.

I'll fill all the stockings and not be a jerk

I'll wrap up more presents with bows that are pert.

And laugh when you read this, in spite of myself:

Cause Christmas allows me to feel like an elf!

Birds of a feather

Feathered friends might flock together for good reason. They need each other for support and survival, but unfeathered friends flock together for many of the same reasons and other less savory ones.

Mob mentality is a phenomena that can be terrifying. It nullifies intelligent thinking and rational actions. Simply bonding out of mindless frustration, or rage, can create appalling situations, because there is the strength of many without the logic, analysis, or reasoning of intelligence.

Mobs of any sort are dangerous, no matter why they are gathered together. People who find themselves suddenly believing the un-provable, the unpracticed, the formerly unsavory, are generally desperate and desperation is the road to ruin. It clouds the thinking. It allows people to give themselves permission to do erratic things they wouldn't normally even consider.

These are truly the times that "try men's souls."

Dimmer

Sometimes I wonder if it is silly to deal with "stuff" at my age. At least two thirds of my life is over, so why go through the work, pain, time, whatever it takes to keep trying to improve my inner side. I guess the answer to that is: quality over quantity.

Those mean little voices whispering in my mind, telling me things that were born of someone else's pain, have to be exorcised. Otherwise they are like fog on my windows, they make the sunshine dimmer.

And those voices are cumulative!

My mother's bad day is still traveling around the world with me. The narcissism, insecurity, and sadness of everyone I've ever known is stuffed down in dark little spots all over my thoughts. I need to recognize them so that I can remember they aren't my reality. Otherwise I become them. They will never become me.

I have a lot of health problems. Those voices from the past keep telling me they are my own fault but, my bones do not ache because I am a bad person; I am not allergic to almost everything because I did something wrong; I am not unlovable because I am not perfect.

It's time to get rid of the voices and simply deal with my health.

It's just so easy to forget about them when things in my life are going smoothly. It's like I don't want to think about painful things during the good times. After all, if I do that, I might dim those times too. So instead I let them go and then when other things become a problem, those old ones jump in and join them, almost drowning me.

Today is a good day. Today is a great day! Today I chose not to block any voices and  . . .  voila! One of those voices spoke up and I saw right through it!

That -- is a step forward.

I remember playing that song on the piano way back in 1966.

Little Things Mean a Lot by Kitty Kallen:

Blow me a kiss from across the room
Say I look nice when I'm not
Touch my hair as you pass my chair
Little things mean a lot
Give me your arm as we cross the street
Call me at six on the dot
A line a day when you're far away
Little things mean a lot . . .

Of course the song was written for lovers, but I've always thought the world should be full of lovers. People who love people and all those other sayings that may sound trite, but are also full of truth. Real love is so much more than the sex we see on television. 

It is the love of a parent for a child, a friend for a friend, a sister for a sister, or brother, or any of those people who figure so importantly in our lives.

A phone call where you really listen to what the other person says is a gift. A text out of the blue that says I'm thinking of you is a gift. A drawing made from love is a gift. A picture . . .

In today's world where the wish lists are full of things that can be bought, the most fervent wishes are seldom listed and most often granted by sweet surprises that just pop up seemingly out of nowhere.