Walk the dog

Sometimes I wonder who I am.

I do get hurt easily. A simple misstep can put me off my feet for weeks.

Yet, good health requires exercise and I have been able to walk with Bestest and Maddie the wonder lab this past week without any problems at all.

He is careful to keep us on level ground and offer me a hand up if I have to go up and down steps, but basically I just walked.

So, today, back at home, I walked! Fifty minutes on flat ground at a constant but not too stressful pace. It was about 2.23 miles for what that's worth.

I feel fine.

Now all I need to do is stir up enough ambition to do this every day.

Best and better

The strongest people are never reluctant to share.

They have nothing to prove -- to themselves, or others.

A real hero does not have to prove who he is.

He just knows it.

The surest sign of a hero, is someone who feels a sense of responsibility and takes care of it.  Anything else is only a facade.

The best of the best are not martyrs, or self effacing, or long suffering, or sadly resigned, or any other thing that draws attention towards themselves and away from those who need, or deserve it.

The best of the best, just do the best they can with what they have and assume everyone else is doing the same.

It doesn't get any better than that. That's the best there is.

Creatures of the heart

Relationships are fascinating creatures.

The more of them I have, the more I am surprised by their sameness and their uniqueness.

Love is such a binding factor. It lengthens the boundaries, strengthens the ties, enhances and endures and engages every single one of my senses.

Through love the most difficult relationships become endearing even as they try my patience, or sense of right and wrong. Love doesn't end because times are tough.

But also through love the best relationships take on an ethereal glow that feels fairy tale-ish through good times and bad. The baby seemed meant to be mine, the friend who is me, the archetypes come to life.

We are exotic creatures and we need to be among others of our own kind even when we don't know that's what they are.

The downhill slide

My life reminds me of an afternoon spent sledding.

Sometimes it has been a slow knee deep trudge, uphill, against all odds.

And sometimes it has even been a sludgy walk through thinly covered mud that seemed to go on forever.

But often it has felt like a wild madcap zip down a snowy hill on a sunny day. My children tucked in, in front of me, my family and friends scattered along the hillside around me, the dog barking merrily in the background.

The farther I get into this life the faster I go until the days and weeks and years are almost a blur.

 Contrary to what you might believe, though, it just keeps getting better and better!

Work for what you love

I am a lover of books.

All my life I have dreamed of having my name in one of the books I hold in my hands and revere.  That has come true in these last years of my life.

I am living the dream and I even have a title -- Editorial Assistant! It sounds so important!

My name is in everyone of the books Bestest has published!

I am so proud of that.

Catching the dream has turned out to be some of the hardest, bestest, funnest work of all!

Perfection

There is a tendency for me to try and make everything perfect.

I know there are cultures that feel that is competing with God or Nature and while I don't actually subscribe to the idea that God (or Nature) are jealous entities, I do believe perfection is not truly attainable.

Or maybe it is . . .

Maybe perfection is something real, not some obsessive compulsive thing that people have tried to remake it into.

Maybe perfection is the universe's constant re-balancing, Shiva's dance of destruction to make way for the new moment, a constant editing of something alive and growing.

For me it is savoring the richness of life as I learn to let go of old ideas, learning what really fills me up, making adjustments to fit a body slowly losing its physical form.

Perfection is making the most of what is, not dreaming of what it was, or could be. It leaves room for everyone to be who and what they are . . .

Perfectly themselves.

Spheres

It's really no secret that I live a charmed life.

Sometimes I sit in a room and think, "If only I could share this magical moment with my family, or friends."

Forty five years ago, no one could have told me that life could be so wonderful, but now I know, I would never settle for less again. This idea that there is only one person in this life for each of us is definitely not true. At different times in life, it is possible that different people are the absolutely right one.

There is not just one way for everyone in the world to live, but everyone deserves to be loved and appreciated for who they are and if that isn't happening then they belong in some other situation.

I am so in love with my children that just a simple phone call can make my day and I am so enamored with my grandchildren that every picture and video is the ultimate gift (except, perhaps, seeing them in person.)

I have great siblings and friends, and Bestest in the best friend, teacher, soul mate anyone could imagine.

Love is one of those ineffable things. If I had to try and describe it I would say it is more like a sphere than anything else. In the best of all worlds, we float near each other, intermingle to different degrees, share, support, and enhance each other in at least five dimensions.

Gramma in animal- land

I began this adventure yesterday when I ran into a mermaiden.  Actually I waited outside her shell while she encrusted her eyes in shiny pink glitter that overflowed onto her long thick eyelashes. Afterwards I spent the night in Shi-Tzu castle well guarded by two little lion dogs.

Then this morning I was on my way down the interstate when a most charming rabbit popped up. He ran out from behind an overpass, stopped dead and stared me straight in the eye. It was such a direct look, so knowing, so beautiful and it broke my heart when I hit him, but the moment was too fast, too startling to do anything else.

I had barely recovered from this tragedy when four deer walked out into the road, a mother and three almost grown fawns. These fared much better than my poor rabbit and I"m sure they are now happily munching grass in some forested field.

Soon I saw a field undulating and for a moment I thought my blood pressure had gone awry again, but it turned out to be hundreds (maybe thousands) of Canadian and Snow geese eating something off the ground.

Then I passed a wren farm, or perhaps they call them colonies. Row after row of wren houses on poles, each with room for several families at once.

I was so amazed at this collection of creatures that included hawks and crows and long horned steers, that when I saw what appeared to be a wildebeast, then an ostrich and a zebra, I knew I was on the wrong continent and I wondered at my sanity! Shortly after that I saw a sign that said Tennessee Safari Park.

I saw other signs too. Memory Lane, One finger road and a huge old Buffet whose sign said, Hours: Open to Close!

I stopped at a rest area that was on The Trail of Tears and one where a famous Civil War battle was fought . . .

In nearly eleven hours I drove from the cornfields of Illinois through the wonderland of western Tennessee and into Big Al territory in Tuscaloosa where I was met by a beautiful princess, Maddison the golden lab!

Just thinking

“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” 

Winne the Pooh, my idol and Bearnard's favorite author.

Obviously I had to check out his words before I begin this adventure, but there are other ways he and I are alike.

 

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.” 

It helps to have a child like faith in the universe. In fact, I think it may be an absolute necessity.

 

Within time

Life seems to become more extreme at times. The stakes are higher. The feelings sharper. It takes on the the traits of a fairy tale, or myth.

While luxuriating consciously in the beauty of this, it is also important to remember that reading about something and actually living through it can be totally different experiences.

In Sleeping Beauty the princess sleeps for a hundred years.. In real life, one year can be a very long time. In real life, an hour can be a very long time. Amazing can be intense.

Many tales involve fantastic creatures who come to save, or lead the way, but should a real dragon materialize out of the snow in our front yard, we might be so traumatized that the beauty of it would be lost.

Living the fairy tale requires the sort of person willing to live beyond the norm. It takes both luck and courage. 

The dichotomy of being content on a day to day basis while embracing the expansive joys of something more requires not just being offered the chance to step into a bigger than life experience, but also the ability to live floating between the two worlds  without losing the focus that brought you there.

Rare, and even more rarely seen by outsiders, it then becomes the most exquisite gift of all.

Nothing

Occasionally there is nothing to say.

When that happens the wisest thing to do is nothing.

Terror

I find doctors very frustrating.

I have had the same tests done over and over for the past five years, by nurse practitioners, primary care doctors and specialists. They don't find anything wrong, except that my blood pressure is always a problem.

Eventually each one decides on an approach and sticks to it, but the blood pressure problem gets better and worse in seemingly random ways.

A medicine will seem to be working and then suddenly everything runs amok. What has worked (a little) for several months will suddenly start to deteriorate. The doctor will make a change in prescriptions and after three doses I find myself with my heart throbbing in my ears and my blood pressure almost too high to measure.

My current doctor, a kidney specialist, realizes that he cannot measure my blood pressure accurately in his office He relies on me doing it at home, but before we settled on this method I was removed from a drug that had worked to some extent for years.

After having two terrifying reactions to medicine during the past four months I wish I was back on my old medicine, but he is unwilling to try it.

So tonight I am once more getting ready to try the second dose of a new medicine and wondering if an hour later I will find myself with a reading of 226 over 116 with a pulse of 126. That fear alone can be part of a self fulfilling prophecy.

At this point I have almost zero faith in any of my doctors.

Gordian Book

I have always loved puzzles, and word puzzles are my favorite.

Scrabble, Upwords, Words with Friends, and crosswords, are my idea of fun.

I have felt lucky to be able to hold and transcribe the handwriting of a venerable author.

But today I may have found my nemesis.

Today I spent eight hours sorting, sifting, and sighing through pages edited by several people and it made a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle look like preschool work.

If there is a Gordian knot of literature I think I have discovered it. And if anyone ever unravels it, we may have a book!

The philsopher's nutshell

The meaning of life . . . is different for every individual.

Then comes the truth. The meaning of life deep down inside of my soul where my mental health and physical health merge into this creature called me can be one thing and the one I espouse, or present to the world, can be another.

I may not even know the difference.

Some of us plod through life feeling like victims, even elevating martyrdom up to heavenly standards as a way of adapting to this.

Others, struggling to take care of the basics, see something brighter in the near future if they hang in there and do the right things.

And still others figure life is more about following their instincts in the moment.

But for all the talk about living in the moment, the meaning of life, generally focuses on the future.

Or as one social network picture said, "Studies show that people who have more birthdays live longer."

I think that, in the end, the meaning of life is to live! Without that there isn't much to discuss.

The face in the mirror

It's one thing to be strangers in the night, but being a stranger to ourselves is a peculiarly human delusion.

People have been searching for themselves for eons, but I suspect the stampede didn't begin until they had climbed high enough up Maslow's Hierarchy of needs to realize there was more to life than being. And being human, the instinct to follow the herd, to try to control anything and everything controllable, and force others to follow in their footsteps, sent them raging against nature because it was more acceptable than raging against god.

A little money, a little more imagination and a streak of cruelty built upon the frustration of unhappy souls, allowed them the freedom to consider molding the human race, or that part of it they could grasp, into something that fed their egos and lifted them up closer to god status.

Civilization was born. Enlightenment. Illumination, Refinement. Breeding. And the logical place to begin with was small children, those apparently blank beings just waiting to be brought to fruition.  Using those terms humans love, they were housebroken, saddle broken, trained and taught that trusting their own senses, tastes, predilections, desires and yearnings was unreliable. And having been severed from themselves, they were reprogrammed to fit the church, society, or whatever great movement of the day was currently in vogue.

If the job was considered well done, many of them would never again seek their old selves, or wonder who they were.

Others would wonder what was behind that strange indiscernible feeling that crept upon them in the middle of the night and on gray cold days.

The face in the mirror with the haunting eyes looking out, calls to someone many of us have never met.

Only a few escape this decapitation of body from soul by the time they go to school.

Practically perfect people

In the garden where life began Adam was an intellectual giant with the heart of a lamb and Hera disguised herself as Eve.

Adam did not believe in gods or goddesses unless it was Hera, but he did believe in her. He loved his children, but he worshiped at Hera's altar.

Each child's assigned role was clear at birth. Child one was the father's child. So much so that she often wondered if she belonged to Hera at all. (although as she aged one could quite often see Hera looking back through her eyes.) Her mind was nurtured, but it was also trained. A woman was first and foremost a wife.

Child two was the cute one, the pretty one, any intellectual arts she may have had were downplayed. Her role was dropped over her head with her crinoline petticoats. There were no great lines written for her -- only great presentations.

Child three was the mother's son, but he had his father's heart. He was doomed from the beginning. Ordained to fight the family demons without armor or weapons of mass destruction. His battle scars were immense.

Child four was the last chance for redemption. Force fed on tall tales and family myths he set out to do all those things everyone else missed.

Hera's pride and joy was the fact that all her children were unique. She believed it was the final proof of great parenting.

Adam and Hera had a great amount of love for their children, but an even greater love for each other. Adam willingly gave up anything and moved anywhere in his attempts to make the proper sacrifices at Hera's feet. Each child grew up believing that was their purpose in life too. The family came first and Hera was the family.

She helped them to rely on her in every way. She was there to hold their hands and type their term papers. Her job was to plant enough fear to keep the family centered and close forever. Only one child ever dared leave the fold and she nearly died of homesickness; then spent the next twenty years trying to rear her children in Hera's image as penance.

The beauty in leaving was that eventually it was discovered that love is strong enough to weather distance and even individuality, but that took most of a lifetime. 

Don't get me wrong. One in four isn't bad and they were all successful in their own way. The others just had to do it while wearing the chains of a long line of practically perfect people whose strongest assets were bottling up their  independence and "faults" until they exploded out of their hearts, or leaked out of their minds. 

Like Adam said, "Humans don't eat their young, they just nibble away at them forever more".  Or as Hera said, "I could just gobble you up looking for the good sugar!"

Smiles

I love the whole body smiles of infants and the genuine grins of the young at heart.

That being said, smiles often give me the creeps.

There is the predatory smile of Trump and cartoon characters just before they pounce. The mocking smile of the uber sophisticates looking down their short sighted noses. The supercilious smile of fashionistas bolstering their own insecurity.

But the smile that hurt me the most was the bland, impenetrable smile my ex used.

It was his armor against the world.

That smile stood between him and my sanity. It was what separated him from all feelings of compassion, love, or generosity.

That smile signaled the end of possibilities. It was the nuclear bomb that destroyed our marriage.

The paradox of smiles meant to destroy or avoid interaction is the stuff of nightmares, as much as the spontaneous beauty of sincere smiles often feels like a glimpse of heaven.

So much power in a simple moving of the lips.

Likable bad guy

Snape has died! The Sheriff of Nottingham is gone!

Alan Rickman died today and I will miss him. Although he was great as Colonel Brandon, he was the perfect "bad guy" in my opinion.

I loved his dark good looks, his twinkling eyes and that sort of aside smile that accompanied his great one liners!

I fell in love with him in Robin Hood. There is just something about an evil, likable bad guy. As much as I didn't like him, I wanted to make excuses for his behavior.

I never missed a chance to gobble up any movie where he had a part. That style! He was an actor who always tickled my fancy.

Growing up

I thought I was normal until I became a mother.

Mothers are supposed to be adults, grown-ups, people who really know. And knowing that I didn't know I reached back into the archives of my childhood for those instructions the world seemed to believe were there.

And they were, as much as they ever are, but the irony of life is that we don't fully understand each part until it is over.

Glorifying my childhood the way I had been taught to do, I then echoed some of my parents' mistakes, magnified others and condemned some more harshly than was necessary.

In between I fumbled along with infinite love and undying good intentions doing the best I could.

Believing my husband was doing the same I didn't realize he had no interest in doing anything differently than his parents and they were the age of my grandparents.

It was like rubbing two pieces of corrugated cardboard together and hoping the ride wouldn't be bumpy. Except that these two were made out of different stock and neither understood that they couldn't even communicate.

My survival skills were learned at my parents' knees and they were fairly primitive in many respects. My children's were learned in the midst of the chaos we called family, were finely honed and are now being translated by them into the memories their children will have.

The only consolation I have is that the love was, and is, real and love is powerful magic.

Love

I have a little plaque that says, "Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love comes along and brings you a fairy tale." I used to think that was true, but not anymore.

Love, like light, is not something you can easily contain. It seeps into dark crevices, falls guilelessly in random places, and has an intangible warmth all its own.

Defining love, trying to force it into some easily recognizable, finite shape, only denies you the experiences that fall everywhere else.

Instead, it is better to become a window, whatever sort of window you are, picture window, transom, double hung, Gothic, garden or any of a million other sorts. You may have one pane, or twenty and they could be square, round, or diamond, but the point is they all let love shine through them.

When your eye falls on a precious face or object, your ears hear a beloved sound, and your heart is warmed by the beauty and grace of love perceived clearly and freely, you are blessed. Even your nose is captivated by the beauty of nostalgic odors, foods, warm mornings, ocean beaches, perfumes and after shaves, wet babies and dirty dogs.

Recognizing love in all its forms probably exceeds a lifetime, but it will be a multi-dimensional journey worth the effort.

Angells and demons

Sometimes you've just got to be grateful for the small things, because it turns out they might be the biggest ones of all.

After spending nearly seven months dealing with my feet I don't take walking for granted. It's still a wonder for me when I take out the trash, or shop for groceries without pain.

Being able to vacuum, clean the bathroom, work on my hobby, all fall into the same category in many ways.

Maybe that is one of the paradoxes of growing older.

One careless misstep and, BOOM, the grim reaper lurks, waiting for the fall, the stumble, the stubbed toe, ready to leap upon me and steal the rest of my life.

Without mobility life speeds up. Every moment spent tied to a chair sucks the vitality out of me, so I glory in the smallest victories.

Going for the gold means being mindful.

Time

Today feels like New Year's to me.

Last night we had Second Christmas and I enjoyed it on so many levels. Watching the face of my granddaughter when she unwrapped her present and then as she closed her eyes and cuddled into it was probably my favorite moment. But it was followed closely by so many other things. I loved watching the way all the children just fell into their best company manners, using the china, silverware, real napkins and conversation so beautifully. Everyone was so relaxed and so entertaining, it made my heart swell with pride.

I feel like we stepped back in time to when people made gifts for each other and so there were framed pictures, books, scarves, hats and other useful things. There was joy, unconscious caring and no artifice.

When everyone left I was tired, but everything was cleaned up except for loading the dishwasher. So today I took down the tree and cards and put them all away. I sorted through my keepsake box since 2010 and kept only what was important to me, then carried a trash bag full of detritus along with a few boxes out to the garbage.

Once more my life is simplified and orderly. It feels good.

I sit down to enjoy it and different people text me. I was born at the right time!

Second Christmas

I started cooking last night when I got home from school and I am just now taking a break. Dinner is between 5 and 5:30, so I will begin the final part around 4:30.

I love these dinners! It gives me a chance to set up the table, pull out the table cloth and play house!

I admit I wouldn't want to do them every day, or even every week, but every once in a while it is fun.

This is our Second Christmas, the day we celebrate with all of our local family because the oldest granddaughter is now home from Europe. So the tree is still up, the cards are still on the door, the dollhouse still decorated for Christmas and this one will have snow!

Nature has seen fit to grace this Christmas with the first big snowfall of the year.

Now, if it just doesn't make it impossible to get everyone here!

My my my

One of the things I notice in other folk's homes are books. Do they have any and if they do, what are they. I know a woman who has a shelf filled with books on healthy diets and doing away with the clutter in your life. She eats mostly processed food heavy on the sugar side and is as close to a hoarder as anyone can be without actually being one.

I, on the other hand, appear to have no books because mine are all safely filed away in my kitchen cabinets where they won't get dirty or dusty.

I have four things hung on my walls. One is a photograph of a real scene copying Monet's garden, another a signed poster from an Oscar winning film and two are pictures of family, both old and new. One hangs on magnets and hides the circuit breaker panel.

The tops of my cupboards serve as mini museums of my life's collections. Everything else was culled out on a cross country move six years ago.

I have a step in closet. (That is smaller than a walk in and larger than one where you can't get your foot in the door.) I can get my whole body, a cafe table and two chairs, a walker, a cane, an extra comforter, two suitcases, a sewing machine, three coats, two jackets, a Halloween costume, a Christmas sweatshirt, a teddy bear box filled with mementos, the vacuum cleaner, and most of my clothes in it.

I have a desk that triples as a desk and a storage space for my camera, stamps, and all my underwear!

I have a chest of drawers that doubles as a tv table and place for my pajamas and turtleneck shirts. It has a secret drawer!

The bathroom hides a shower chair, which doubles as a dining chair, when I have more than three people over for dinner. And I store my medical bills in a stylish Ransom Center Library bag, hanging on the back of the door.

I even have a hobby that requires approximately 48 cubic feet of space, tucked onto a bookshelf and my kitchen island, but it hides under an elegant scarf and never gets in the way of cooking dinner.

My dining room table can be folded up and tucked away beside the refrigerator or left out to sort laundry from the stacked washer and dryer tucked up in a small laundry closet. Holiday decorations are packed away in a low under the bed box on top of that dryer.

I keep wrapping supplies, DVDs, and a rather nice purse collection hidden under the bed. 

Now, even if you saw all this, or knew all of it was there, there are still lots of surprises tucked away here and there. It's hard to be private in such a small space, but totally possible. Everything in my world has more than one purpose. Even my printer serves as a display place.

My neighbors are an interesting mix of nationalities, students, retirees, and big foot who lives above me with his pet Bam Bam.  I have never met the last two creatures, but they keep me apprised of their whereabouts by an easy to hear Morse Code on my ceiling.

And the good news is that people here tend to come and go in six to twelve month intervals that I don't mind at all.

My thots, my world, my way . . .

Feeding my psyche

For the first time in years I am still thinking about a movie I saw yesterday. Although I have seen many movies, Star Wars has reached deep down inside of me and tweaked many many parts of my entertainment desires.

It may not be perfect by someone's standards, but it came pretty close by mine. I realize it followed the old movie's form pretty closely, but those things happen in real life too. Children often follow in their parents' footsteps or turn directly around and go the other way. Old friends drift apart and come back together under unusual circumstances. Love is so much more than madcap adventures followed by falling into bed for explicit sex.

This movie feeds my imagination and feels plausible to me at this stage of my life.

I love Rey. She is a hero of gargantuan proportions. She doesn't need to be brash or crude to be strong. She is vulnerable, but not weak. She is the woman I dream of being. Finally, there is a woman character I wouldn't mind my granddaughters loving.

It's hard to talk about her without bashing most of today's heroines. She is elegantly wholesome with the sexual appeal of a strong confident real woman. She doesn't transform. She is.

And what better thing to show our children than to find who you are and just be it; without resorting to bizarre trappings or behavior or any other extreme striving.

If you nurture your own strengths, the extreme will find you.

I am still basking in a few hours of good music, story and characters whose nostalgia, depth and humor tapped into my deepest psyche.

Belonging

The new Star Wars movie is awesome. I saw it in 3D Imax today and that is an experience!

For a little girl who saw her first moving picture on television in black and white at the age of three, this was truly futuristic.

I was there! I flew through space and felt the engines of the craft and explosions and everything else! The only sense not utilized was smell, but maybe that is a blessing.

I don't actually go to a movie theater very often, but if all my experiences could be like this I think I would step it up.

There was so much I loved, but one line by Maz Kanata struck home when she said it. Now I cannot find the exact words anywhere. I suppose that means the world did not find them as important as I did. It was the idea that belonging is in the future.

Most of us connect our belonging to the past, to families where we were born, or places we lived during childhood, or some other formative experience. I think our real belonging comes from the life we build for ourselves over the years, our families of the heart, the energy we invest in our heart's desires, the things worth doing and dying for.

To me that is pivotal.

The power of belief

I think our ancient forefathers were more savvy and intelligent then most of us give them credit for. We may have more techniques for doing things, but the basic tenets of humanity are probably still the same.

It's hard to think that some of our more sacred beliefs might have initially had less than altruistic beginnings, but that does not necessarily negate their power or value.

When it comes to powerful "things" faith is right at the top of the list. Believing in something is often an extraordinarily efficient way to make it work. If I believe I will find this or that, I am more likely to succeed. If I believe this medicine works, chances are pretty good that it will as long as it doesn't actually hurt me.

Our bodies, our minds, our makeup, are all set up to be very suggestible. Many illnesses are caused by the same thing that cures them.

We are miraculous creatures and it's important not to destroy that.

Believe!

Hope

Every so often I find myself in awe of someone.

People growing up in some situations seemed doomed to have problems. It can be physical, mental, or emotional, but some of these problems would drag most of us down.

Many people find a way to deal with this later in life, but when someone does it in their early twenties it is amazing.

Imagine being twenty one, totally self supporting, working a fast food job, helping to care for a younger sibling, and not only sending yourself to college, but also to Europe!

Anyone who can do that, can probably do anything!

Who are you

People can be annoying. It's a fact, but how can loving, well meaning people do this?  Sometimes I find myself feeling vaguely irritated with someone when there doesn't really seem to be a reason.

There are people who brush this off as projection. I am feeling that way and projecting it onto the situation, or person, at hand.

That may be true sometimes, but today I had one of those aha moments! I was redoing the bed. Not just changing the sheets, but completely changing the way I am going to sleep for a while. It occurred to me that people are always changing things, especially me.

I come from people who do the same things year after year after year; who even pride themselves on not changing, but they really do, whether they recognize it or not. Whether it is good or not good to change is irrelevant. It happens.

And that means you need to really pay attention to people when you are with them or you are basing your thoughts and perceptions of them on faulty cues. I find people fascinating. That is one of the reasons I like to spend one on one time with them. I am constantly reassessing, realizing new things about them, re-evaluating our relationship.  I may take it to the extreme, but for me it works.

Sometimes other people, thinking they "know" me do not do this and that is what irritates me. They think they know me. They assume things no longer valid. I am so used to this that it never occurred to me that this is the one thing about them I find intolerable. I feel like I am not important enough to them for them to pay attention to me in real time.

Our phone conversations have a surreal feel -- like it is a one sided conversation with an old picture. Pictures are supposed to capture a moment in time. People need to be present.

A lot of what is construed to be extraordinary intelligence and even esp is really only paying attention. It is important not to devalue any moment.

These are the times

Are you impressed by the finagling, the posturing, the well-dressed actors and politicians designing your future?

Are you willing to give up your rights and the rights of others just to satisfy some vaguely expressed loyalty to religion?

Do you believe that a person's body belongs to the government?

Do you want to gamble your grand children's future ability to breathe and live in a healthy environment on your choice of spray deodorants and lazy dumping of toxic garbage?

Are you comfortable knowing that anyone with fingers can pull the trigger of a gun because that is their right?

Are your heroes lives so distant that you have nothing in common?

Are you a fan of birthing every child conceived and cutting welfare so some die of neglect?

Do you believe a good education should be limited to those wealthy enough to pay for it themselves, so the poor are kept relatively uneducated and ignorant -- and powerless?

Then baby, these are your times!

The find

It seems people are always talking about redefining themselves as if they are outdated rooms in some HGTV show.

Ideally no one does this.

Think about it. Redefining is really just relabeling something that is dressed up in different clothes when real change is far from that simple.

We aren't buildings that can be torn down and rebuilt, or gutted and redesigned.

We are real life, living, breathing works of art in progress.

Like clay we can be tweaked, or molded, fired or painted, but deep down inside we are the same sweet souls born into this world at the beginning of our time. If you want to find your potential, look at the young children all around you.

The little girl with an arm around her littler brother, shepherding him through the mall is the ideal. We all have that inside of us. That sweet, loving person we used to be is sitting quietly in our center point waiting to be rediscovered.

It takes a lot of courage to excavate that part of us, but I think it's worth the effort.