Existential pumpkin

Pumpkin pumpkin burning bright
On this your only Halloween night
Did you know quite what would be?
Were you aware what you gave to me?

I brought you home so sweet and firm
Scooped you out and made you burn
Carved your face and  pointy teeth
Then a soul I did bequeath.

Once a gourd born in a patch
Who only dreamed of hay and thatch
Whose only hope was to be canned
And live immortal in this land.

I gave you glory! Face and bone
So you could guard my hearth and home.
Now your sagging eye and cheek
speak of life lived in a week.

Pumpkin pumpkin burning bright
On this your only Halloween night
Did you know quite what would be?
Were you aware what you gave to me?

The gift

The purest thing that ever touches us,

Limited to no body of any sort, not human, nor pet, nor plant,  nor any other thing,

Diluted by nothing, not time, or place, or words, or event,

Needing nothing, not feeding, or holding, or owning, or being,

Not happiness, nor pleasing, nor any selfish thing,

Given, not earned, or bought, or perhaps even recognized.

Is my apartment haunted?

I am awakened in the night by loud bumps that seem to come from nowhere and most especially not from the apartment above me. No, these bumps come from somewhere inside my apartment and they even wake Annabel up!

I will leave the house with everything in order and come home to find pictures askew on the walls, boxes moved on shelves, single books knocked out of the bookcase!

My Iphone will be unplugged in the morning, the water in the bathroom lavatory is found on at odd times and last night I found the toilet paper all unrolled and on the floor.

Is my apartment haunted?

Well, the loud bumps turned out to be ice landing in an empty ice container in my freezer.

The rest is more terrifying than that!

I have a cat!

Egoween

Halloween costumes are the stained glass windows of the soul.

Allowed to choose whatever they dream of being, or fantasize about in the name of a holiday, or party, people make some interesting choices. Of course some people pick what they think they are supposed to pick, but even that tells me something.

I have had two go-to costumes over the years and although I tend to wear them because I have them, they still reflect a lot of my personality.

Raggedy Ann, the big floppy, comfortable doll with straight ragged hair, big blouse-y bloomers and a silly smile is who I am on a day to day basis. I like being comfortable, friendly and creative. I love being loved in that toddler huggable way Raggedy Ann is treated. I am Raggedy Ann.

A big black cat is my other costume, because it only requires attaching ears and a tail to a black sweatshirt. Yet, it is also part of who I see myself as. I like being a little unpredictable, playful, perhaps a bit sophisticated and sometimes even self-centeredly sharp and feisty. Yet, underneath it all, is still that soft cuddly thing that likes being cuddled.

Who are you?

Small town America

Small towns are often romanticized in homogenized, pretty little tales that have nothing to do with reality.
 
Moving in as an outsider is certainly not easy, but growing up there and never leaving cannot be easy for people who actually think about what is going on.

People tend to settle into comfortable ruts that go unchallenged for generations.

Who you know counts more than what is legal, or right.

If you have money people believe you really know and that money carries a lot of authority.

Decisions are made, politics decided on, and prejudices justified by generations of traditions.

The local newspaper is more concerned with keeping people happy than printing the news.

Libraries, especially school libraries, are censored by a few self righteous know-it-alls, as are teachers.

There are unspoken legacies that are nearly sacred. Cheerleaders, football and basketball players, class presidents, and The Ladies League leaders, fall deeply into this abyss.

And it is all so widely accepted and praised that to defile the fantasy is the worst crime in the world.

The musical

Scene one will open with the people gathering and moving toward left stage. There will be young men carrying all sorts of guns and a few more arcane things like knives, pitch forks, etc., wealthy old men with decorative canes and three piece suits with cigars clamped between their teeth, wealthy old women dripping in jewelry and a few militant women chewing gum and carrying an assortment of weapons.

They will all have somewhat vacant eyes, hard faces, loud strident voices and a flush on their face to match their gleeful smiles.

The initial song will be to the tune of We will gather at the river. But the words will be, "We are gathering for Trump, no matter what he asks of us . . . " The movement will be four four time, militaristic, but erratic in places.

Scene two opens with everyone wearing sheets, like the KKK, but each one will have a little orange fuzzy pom pom attached to the point on top. A large flat screen television will be hung high center stage showing actual clips of Trump pouting and shouting and spewing forth Trumpisms. The people will spontaneously respond, together, or singly, at times like an old time revival meeting. "Oh Yes!" rather than Amen! as they raise one arm high.

This scene will end with everyone marching off stage singing, to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers, "Onward Trumply soldiers, marching off to war with our fuzzy pompoms fluttering forever more!"

Scene three will again have the screen in center stage. This time showing soldiers shooting aging beauty queens, lynching people of Spanish descent, burning mosques, and factories filled with slaves working for Masters. There will be crying children reaching through bars for their mothers and at the end a picture of swimsuit models serving drinks to old men around a pool.

The actors will  be back in their scene one clothes, dancing madly around congratulating each other and singing, to the the tune of Take me to the river, "Take me to the good life," but there will be increasing confusion showing on their faces and fear on the older wealthy women's faces.  By the end of this scene there will only be the biggest, brawniest young men and wealthiest older men left on stage, the others having slunk away.

The young men will gather in groups around the old wealthy ones like football players in a huddle, giving grunts and shouts of solidarity in the field.

Scene four opens with the tv screen showing world leaders in a garbled conversation no one can really understand and a recreation of the oval office underneath. A man dressed to look like Trump will walk out, pick up his phone and grow more and more petulant until he finally takes a key and opens a drawer in his desk. He will pull out an over sized button and punch it victoriously, smiling from ear to ear! He might even utter, "Take that!'

Then he will cover his mouth with both hands and look wide eyed at the audience as he realizes what he's done and a huge white flash of light will fill the screen on the television, flash on the stage and everything will go black as an orchestra quietly plays, "America."

Are you serious?

You are gonna vote for who?

You're kidding of course.

You aren't?

Which of these words don't you know? Misogynist, bigot, racist, petty dictator, liar.

You know them all?

You say all the military people who count are behind you?

Who are they?

You don't know?  How do you know you're right?

You realize your granddaughters are girls and your grandson is half African American, right?

Why are you grinning?

Because they are going to build a wall? Our president is what?

Where do you get your information?

omg

A brand new way

Choice. Six letters put together into a combination that can change a life.

There are always choices. They may not be ones I want to choose. They may not be comfortable, or easy. but they always exist.

Sometimes the trick is to find them. A little creativity can be the start of a brand new way of living, because even the wildest idea might lead to a new way of thinking.

And thinking is part of making a choice.

Believe it or not there are people who choose to be sad for a number of reasons. They choose things that have always made them unhappy and continue on. Being sad and needy can be intoxicating to some people. They equate it with life and love, but that can change. Life is full of choices.

Choosing not to be miserable is the first step. Now I have to change something. I often choose my old Thich Nhat Hahn thing of focusing on one tiny moment using my breath. Even that tiny breather gives me a new start.

After that, creativity is my best friend. I can choose not to focus on the bad thing and find comfort, or relaxation, or even joy, in something else close by. It may only be a distraction, but it is a beginning. If I am consciously doing all this, a beginning is a reprieve, a chance to feel good enough to do something different and after a while that can become second nature.

This isn't Pollyanna-ish, it's common sense. Life is not only linear. It is three dimensional, four dimensional, even five dimensional! Why not take advantage of that and find a place that is more bearable, or perhaps even happy?

The misery might still be there, it just doesn't have to be the only focal point.

Brodie

Brodie came into my life about six years ago when he was two. I lived in an apartment on the other side of town and used to walk my little shih-tzu every day, rain or shine. Someone saw me and called to say they were getting married and had a bulldog, pitbull and another little shih-tzu who did not get along with the bigger  dogs. Would I take him?

I said no. Shih-tzus are high maintenance little dogs and I didn't think I could afford two, so I called my sister and she decided  to adopt him.

Right off the bat it became apparent that he had some peculiarities.  He peed on furniture, shed and was a little jumpy. We think he might have been mauled at some point, but my sister fell in love with him and he stayed.

Later, when I couldn't get up and down the steps to take my dog out, she adopted him too.  I paid the grooming and vet bills till last year to help out.

Today I drove my sister and Brodie to my old vet in a small town nearby. They had an appointment and I was along just to help out. Brodie had sores all over his body that would not heal. Some were open and raw. Others were like fissures, but none would go away no matter what they did. Brodie would dig at his skin and chew out big bloody holes. He began peeing blood and we were there to put him down.

My sister couldn't do it, so she paid the vet and went outside. I held Brodie while they gave him a post op shot then they left us alone in a small room. He sat on my lap a while, then wanted to get down and walk around, so I let him. A few minutes later he looked like a tired puppy.  His eyes were droopy and he was listing to the side. I picked him back up and he snuggled into my lap and fell asleep. He drooled a lot, but he was very relaxed and in no pain. When I whispered to him and scratched his ears, or patted his back,. his tail wagged a bit at first. The he was sound asleep.

I stood up and put him on the pad of towels on the table and continued to pet him and talk to him just in case. I looked up and read this poem:

he Last Battle

If it should be that I grow frail and weak
And pain should keep me from my sleep,
Then will you do what must be done,
For this — the last battle — can't be won.
You will be sad I understand,
But don't let grief then stay your hand,
For on this day, more than the rest,
Your love and friendship must stand the test.
We have had so many happy years,
You wouldn't want me to suffer so.
When the time comes, please, let me go.
Take me to where to my needs they'll tend,
Only, stay with me till the end
And hold me firm and speak to me
Until my eyes no longer see.
I know in time you will agree
It is a kindness you do to me.
Although my tail its last has waved,
From pain and suffering I have been saved.
Don't grieve that it must be you
Who has to decide this thing to do;
We've been so close — we two — these years,
Don't let your heart hold any tears.
— Unknown

The vet returned and gave him another small shot to stop his heart.  He never flinched, or even breathed hard. His little tongue just slipped out of his mouth and he was instantly gone.  It was very sad, but very peaceful and I'm glad I stayed with him.

God is not dead

What if god isn't dead?

What if the power that created us just threw up its hands and said, "Like the foxes and wolves and other wild creatures, man will not be tamed?

Realizing that after thousands of years we were still using most of our power and god like attributes for destructive and greedy projects, it saw an experiment gone bad.

Then, with the compassion we show for the wild and dangerous beasts we cannot control, it simply contained us and went on to create another Eden in another part of the universe?

Perhaps god is not dead, but now it's up to us to prove our worth.

The good people

I know little old ladies who claim they hate violence, but I find them watching programs such as, "They locked me in a box under their bed for two years," or watching shows where people fight over who the father of the baby is. Even more tantalizing is the real stuff in their lives, the divorces and gory details of botched operations and failed businesses.

Our priest used to tell the story of woman who always came to church on Good Friday and sobbed hysterically. He said he wanted to tell her she should come back on Sunday, that the story had a good ending.  She never did.

Religion is full of death and destruction, revenge and retribution. There would be no Christianity if Jesus hadn't died a slow agonizing death on the cross.

The joy of those who hand out the free turkeys on holidays is seldom dulled by the angst of those forced to receive.

There is nothing like a little darkness to warm our hearts and make us thankful for our blessings.

Mankind's creativity blossoms in torture chambers.

Attendance is up at races the year after bad accidents. Death row killings became a bit more humane when they were no longer spectator sports.

No wonder Trump has a following.  Unrestrained human proclivities are terrifying.

Extremes

Halloween is child's play compared to reality this year.

I can watch horror movies on my roku and find them tame compared to what is going on in our country.

We have a petty dictator running for president under a major party.

Weather men speak of high temperatures threatening and rain besieging.

Police  are shooting people, because they are jumpy and scared.

People are toting guns everywhere, at Walmart, in college classrooms, in restaurants, anywhere they like. Toddlers are shooting mothers. Children are killed in classrooms. And this is not the top concern?

Pharmaceutical companies hold drugs for ransom so they can live the good life themselves.

The terrorists come from every religion in this country.

People talk about voting third party as if that will "show them." Who is this them?  Even if you hate both major candidates, one of them will be elected, so it would behoove you to vote for the one you have the least objection too. There is no smiling teacher, or nodding mommy to pat you on the head and say, "Good for you! You voted your heart," because no one will know or care. (Except maybe you when you find yourself living the nightmare that could be our country in the future.)

 

Command central

Modern medicine does many wonderful things, but it is also responsible for many terrible things.

Mistakes have high consequences that are easily passed over as simple errors that are to be expected from such a high volume of tests, operations, and human interactions. It is understandable, unless it is close to home.

I recently spent a considerable amount of time and money on a kidney doctor I was referred to for blood pressure control and he did me no good in the long run. In fact left me with soaring blood pressure readings on four occasions. When he re-prescribed the very same medicine he had already ruled out, I left. In the end I found my own way to lower my blood pressure over thirty points.

Thirty four years ago I had a similar experience with a dentist who referred me to a gum specialist. They both told me I would lose all my teeth due to gum disease if I didn't undergo a radical cleaning that meant exposing all the roots of my teeth and going through years of therapy with them. I didn't do it and my teeth are in great shape.

The health of my body is a holistic endeavor and I am in the very center of it all.

A death in the family

Halloween and heaven and rituals, oh my.

Most modern religions claim to believe in an after life with God that is the most wonderful thing ever, something they are living to die for and yet . . . people are angry, sad and totally distraught when someone they love dies. 

Believing I was bringing my children up as Christians, I had to tell them something when we lost both their grandmothers while they were still very young. My son asked lots of questions. 

"Why doesn't she look like grandma now?"
I told them that the part of grandma that had loved them, laughed with them and played with them had gone to heaven to be with God. All that was left here was her shell.

"Why are you so sad if grandma is in heaven with God?"
That was an eye opener. I finally decided it was because I would miss her so much.

Then there is that weird thing following a death in the family where people who haven't seen each other for ages eat, drink and get emotional. As a young child myself I found these gatherings so similar to weddings that, to this day, I will use the words funeral/wedding interchangeably without realizing it. Lots of food and drama followed by a long line of cars following the person or people down the street past my grandmother's house.

This is the time of year I am most often assailed by conflicting thoughts of All Soul's Day, Holy Days, Holidays,Heaven and Hell, superstitions, and the rites and rituals jumbled together in our bag of modern coping mechanisms.


 

Lost in my head

I used to worry about what would happen if I ever got trapped in my head by old age, or senility, or something crazy, but my dreams are taking on cinema scope qualities.

This morning I dreamed I had agreed to marry a person from my past. (In real life I never dreamed of doing that.)

I found myself with him and his big extended family (think Alaskan Bush People) living in Australia as we prepared for the wedding. I was a younger thinner version of myself wondering why I had agreed to this wedding and wondering if I could love him enough to give him the marriage he deserved, because I knew I wasn't in love with him.

One of his brothers came to me and presented me with a sterling silver axe head inscribed with our names and the date of our marriage. It had no handle, was very sharp and although I was touched, it made me wonder even more why I was there.

His mother took me to see her very upscale galley kitchen, but I was too fat to walk through it. Their house was enormous. Think indoor football field big with tons of stuff packed around an empty center. Almost like hoarders on the edge.

His father took me downstairs where the wedding would be and I remember hugging my fiancee and  thinking he was so much smaller than I remembered, except for his leg braces which were just as big and heavy. Again I wondered if I was doing the right thing, but my son appeared for the wedding and I was so happy to see him.  I thought I would never see any of my family again now that I was in Australia.

Then the father and one of the older brothers took us to look at what was on the edges of the downstairs room and I saw fake houses and buildings and dioramas, that I soon realized had real people living in them and I asked if they knew this? The father said he did and took me into the one that looked like a snow scene.

We ran down a creature I thought was a yeti and it turned out to be Santa! There I was, lying on the snow holding onto Santa's boots when I got a text on my cell and woke up.

How disappointing!

Several times.

There are times in life when no amount of ranting or raving can change what is happening. Nothing is strong enough to bulldoze through the unfairness. For one reason or another, I find myself at the mercy of a seemingly impossible situation.

I have been there and the urge to kick something, or throw something is powerful. I've slammed a few doors, ripped a couple of hanging plants off the ceiling once and written endless pages in my journal about what I feel. What I would like to do. What I'm going to do. What I should have done.

And then, when all is said and done and time has passed, the fury passes. The frustration morphs into fatigue and that is when I invariably turn to Thich Nhat Hahn's words.

Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.

The simple truth of those words has changed my life - several times.

Just keep on living

Today was my daughter's birthday and as the family got together to celebrate, my sister called. It made me think about life and living and the women who have gone before me.

My mother's generation have mostly died too young and the reasons for this are many. Among other things they picked up habits their parents never had the luxury of trying. They smoked, drank, stayed up late and ate a lot of processed food. They were also some of the first people to drive more than they walked.

My grandmother's generation lived into their nineties. They did not smoke or drink because good Baptist's didn't do those things and they didn't eat much processed food until they were fairly advanced in age. They began as farm people and continued to garden and cook the old ways well into their middle years.

Both generations lived through the depression, but my grandmother's did it as adults. My mother grew up surrounded by stories of the end of the world culminating in hell fire and damnation. Terribly real and horrific thoughts to nurture a child on, especially during such a bleak period in history.

But I think the biggest difference between my mother's generation and my grandmother's was what they focused on. My grandmother was always looking ahead, planning on what she would do next, talking about being elderly, but acting young. Conquering dark times one after the other, from World War I when she was 18 and right on through war after war, watching men land on the moon, vaccines become available; I think they had a sense of being okay, of being in control to some degree, of feeling they could do whatever was necessary.

My mother's generation talked about death and dying. Old age beckoned with promises of release from the harshness of the world, death was terrifying, but still an escape from a world almost too hard to understand. They bought things with credit, had mortgages, televisions, the world called to them and left them unsatisfied with what they had. I think they gave up too early.

It seems to me that the most important thing to remember is that I need to keep on living. I will not be dead until I die, so there is no reason to go early into retirement homes and assisted living places. Give up paying jobs when they are too hard , but never stop working. Then it is time to do other work, to throw myself into hobbies and volunteering and art and music and anything else I think I might find enjoyable and creative.

No worries. I'll die some day even if I don't think about, but I don't want to waste good years sitting around contemplating that.

Over time

It takes a while to get used to sharing an apartment.

For everybody I guess!

Annabel, my six month old kitten has been here two months now and she has made her preferences clear.

The martini glasses are perfect for her food and water. In fact, when I used the old glass custard cups today, she refused to eat. They were fine a month ago, but I guess she's moved up in the world now.

Her favorite napping spot is between the pillows on my bed, but now she is shedding, I bought her a nice little bed. I put it between the pillows which is exactly where she wants it.

I am allowed to throw her mouse and she will fetch when the spirit moves her and she will sometimes come over and cuddle up next to me -- unless -- I touch her!

I am occasionally allowed to pat her back or perhaps her tail, but that's it!

I'm hoping we grow closer with time!

Don't fence me in

I think I must be having a bad dream and our forefathers are turning over in their graves.

Where is the dignity of a country when one of two major parties has let a man like Trump become their presidential candidate?

How did people become so short sighted and ignorant of consequences that they are willing to deny scientific facts and openly embrace racism, bigotry, misogyny and greed?

Our checks and balances have been off kilter for nearly eight years. The people at the top barely disguising their racism or ability to buy whatever they want.

We better pray those checks and balances come back into play soon, because we are beginning to look like one of those countries where petty dictators get up and strut around shouting, "Off with their heads"

Then everyone will be on the wrong side of someone's fence.

Routines - a Halloween story

She was born in 1890 on the day her mother died and she was so tiny her grandparents placed her on a bed of cotton in a cigar box in their kitchen cook stove. Her father, devastated by his wife's death abandoned both her and her brother in his parent's care and left.

No one expected her to live, even healthy big babies died back then. She did live, though, and both she and her brother were raised by grim Victorian grandparents who neither wanted, nor could afford them.

She had a dolly that she rocked in a little rocking chair until she was six years old when  her grandparents took that away from her because she was too old and gave her a thimble for her birthday. It was time for her to put away childish things and begin the routines and duties of a female in the late eighteen hundreds. The horror of seeing her doll burned in the same cook stove that had saved her life never left her.

Hemming hankies and sheets, making biscuits and learning to keep house made school seem like a holiday, but she was not good at her lessons. When her period started during class and embarrassed her by ruining her white dress, she was taken out of school for good. Life settled into the routine of cleaning house, cooking, the occasional taffy pull with church friends and her grandfather's whip whenever she stepped the least little bit out of line.

It is not surprising that when she met my great uncle, the family bad boy, and he paid attention to her, she fell madly in love. His parents, my great grandparents were not happy about this. They envisioned a better match for their bright, but mischievous son, so it wasn't until his 21st. birthday that he sneaked her out of the house and onto a train bound for St. Louis.

In between picking her up and boarding the train, they were married. He in his best Sunday clothes. She also in hers, but with a brand new pair of shoes she had managed to buy and hide away for just this occasion. Size two heels the shoe store had bought as samples for their window. New shoes for special occasions became one of her life long routines. Dutifully married and feeling quite pleased with themselves they boarded the train only to find his mother sitting there waiting for them!

Instead of going to St. Louis they went back to her house where they lived the rest of their lives. He driving a truck for, or working in the family business. She working in the hospital nursery caring for new born infants. It wasn't a bad life. They had their routines like on Friday night when they would walk downtown to the show and buy a nickel beer. The family was slightly horrified, but it wasn't forbidden.
 
Both of them loved children, but they were never blessed with their own and adoption was frowned upon by her new family. And so it was that a new routine was started. She was the one called on to stay with her new sister-in-law during her lying in and since they all lived in the Big house together, she continued to love and care for those children as they grew up.

Later she was called upon to do the same with the children of those children, (me) and finally with me and my children. Of course she didn't live with any of us, but she came and rocked the babies, played with the toddlers and watched over the older children as if they were her own. It was a routine that spanned over sixty years.

Sixty years uniting a family with tales of her own childhood and the childhoods of all the children she had loved and cared for. Sixty years of changing diapers, playing school and penny poker on the library rug. Sixty years of telling real ghost stories that tingled and terrified -- until she herself joined that ghostly specter who had rescued her from Victorian grandparents when she wasn't much more than a child herself.

Behind the mask

Donald Trump's actions should be a reminder to women everywhere. If they haven't figured it out by now, perhaps this new information will catch their attention.

I remember when it was okay to "push a little harder" when a woman said no. And even now, a person I know brushes if off by saying, "It was a different time."

It was.

And it will be again if men like Trump are allowed to continue making remarks about us as if we were things instead of equals.

Hiding behind your religion or political party does not exonerate you unless you are cognitively challenged and don't understand that abortion rights are just topics conservatives drag out for leverage and then after the election is over are carefully stored away for the next election. Or you don't understand that hate is hate whether it is shouted from the podium of a Republican platform, or insidiously hidden in the racist rhetoric of bigots everywhere.

We are heading toward a permanent Halloween if people don't wake up and Trump is the scary thing behind the mask. (And even the mask is terrifying.)

Believe

Imagine a body so divinely made that all it needs is the right word to access its own power.

Conditioned not to believe in ourselves from the day we are born, we hand our power over to all sorts of authority figures. Our Belief is moved from us to them or to God.

That means we believe that the source of power is always someone else and outside of ourselves.

Religion tells us to blame ourselves when something goes wrong and thank God when it goes right, but what if we are the ones who do things right as well as wrong?

Empowering ourselves with belief in our abilities is not necessarily sacrilegious.  Why wouldn't a god, who made us in his image not give us the power to be god like and heal ourselves? And if we don't believe in god, why not believe we are biologically capable of healing ourselves?
  
The problem might be a lack of faith, but not in the way you might think.  What if all those miraculous hands on healers are really just allowing us to let our bodies heal themselves?

Placebos work because people believe in them. Perhaps belief is our magic word and God becomes the password that gives us permission to use it.

Let it go

Sometimes things happen just right even though at the time it doesn't seem that way.

I make plans, good ones, just like I always do, then something feels off.

I try to get my best friend to join me, but he can't, so I forge ahead.

Then, at the last moment, after I leap every hurdle between me and my plans, fate steps in and squashes them flat anyway.

It's over. Plans, or no plans, nothing is going to happen. At least not right now.

It can be a huge disappointment, but when that many things go wrong, it's probably better to let things go and reschedule. Who knows what might happen next?

I could forge ahead with the idea that nothing will stand between me and what I have decided to do, or I could sit down and rethink things.

Once in a while it is good to trust my instincts and maybe cut my losses, because very few things are truly one shot chances.

Children

All things have to be bearable in this world because we have no choice.

But some things are more bearable than others.

And some things become the bridge that carries us over all the rest.

Go figure

Medical tests are supposed to clear things up, but mine leave me befuddled.

I spend three months eating worse than I can remember eating in years and my blood tests are all a tiny bit better, except for one.

How that can be I don't know.

Only one was worse and it is concerning because there is no logical reason for that either.

Unfortunately, there is so much room for improvement that I can't really celebrate.

But I can meditate on the paradox.

Losing proposition

There is no doubt in my mind that I have a direct effect on my life. In two days I can lower my blood pressure over thirty points simply by cutting down on salt, on calories and drinking beet juice. Add a thirty minute walk and it's even better.

That being said, if I lose enough weight I don't need to do any of those things.

I know what to do. I've pretty much always known what to do, so why don't I do it?

The general rule of thought is that I am morally deficient in some way. Knowing what to do and not doing it.

I know all the reasons I overeat and do unhealthy things. I am often aware when I am doing it, but choose not to stop, which makes it all seem even worse.

For over 38 years I have struggled to lose nearly a hundred pounds -- over and over and over again. I began trying to go from 140 to 115. Now I vacillate between 165 and 240. Obviously it's been a losing proposition and they say it is unhealthy to do that too.

At the same time my doctor at the time will still encourage me to do it and I will eventually buckle down, starve and struggle and make myself miserable and do it again, only to creep right back up later on. Once I went almost ten years before I gained it all back plus a little more!

Tomorrow I go back to the doctor. I was supposed to lose 18 pounds. I lost ten then gained 22 when things got tough for a while.

It is difficult not to think of myself as some sort of failure, because I have in fact failed to lose weight. If I define myself in other ways I am certainly no failure, but that never seems as important.

It often seems to me that the world is designed to make life miserable and the biggest win is not to let it get me, but in the end I go around apologizing for being me.

Fall Day

I came across it today.
The first body, a forerunner,
perhaps a scout.
Lying on the sidewalk limp
and damp. Finished by time.
Vulnerable to the shoes and boots
of those who barely notice it is there.
Far ahead of those who still cling
tightly to the only home
they've ever known.
Bach's prelude in C minor
played by the wind and rain
accompanied by these
pagan dancers of death
who swirl and flutter so
elegantly on this dark day.
The harbingers
of life to come, of hope
and trust and knowledge
that the tree will live
because of their sacrifice.