Winter has come

I do not usually look forward to winter and I didn't this year either, but it brought some unexpected gains in my life this year.

I adopted a four month old cat in August. She was deceptively sweet and cuddly at the rescue place.

Once home she let me cuddle her when she was asleep. I mistook this for a kitten's need to be up and about playing when she was awake -- for a while, but eventually it became clear that the more mature she became, the more determined she was to set the guidelines for our relationship.

For a few months her only contact with me was shredding my skin with her teeth and claws when I least expected it -- like whenever I passed by s hiding place, or went to sleep.

Later she took pity on me and left fewer scars if  I played with her enough, but now that it is winter and I can turn the heat down to 68 degrees she is becoming downright cuddly!

Two weeks ago she began sitting between my legs whenever I reclined in my big chair. Then twice this week she actually sat on my lap when I put the chair down and the footrest disappeared.

Today she allowed me to pet her while she sat on my lap - for a while - before she bit me and jumped down, but right now she is sitting between my feet.

In front of our space heater that I turn on me when I am home.

I think we are coming to some kind of understanding!

The barrier

What if God saves you by the way he designed you?

I don't believe we utilize a fraction of our abilities -- except in extreme circumstances where we reach deeply into ourselves as a last resort and find the God implanted within.

I believe it is always there, but I just don't know how to use it.

It is my lack of belief, or faith in it working, that keeps me from tapping into this. My belief is how I connect to this power. It is the only way. Belief.  (Even if I believe some faith healer, or magic object does it, it is still my belief.)

That is tough, because I can convince you of things, or say I believe in something, but I can't fool me.

I really do believe that within each of us are many wonderful abilities to heal and hear, think and act and receive, but since I do not know exactly how they work it is very difficult to believe in them.

Except in those rare times where in desperation I have reached out beyond the barrier of myself and felt the miracle of God within me.

The company of women

I used to think I didn't have much in common with other women. Even when I was a stay at home mom taking care of three small children I always felt at odds with other stay at home moms.

I liked what I was doing.  I really liked being a stay home mom. I didn't do it because I didn't have a choice, or wasn't qualified to do anything else. I did it because I felt what I was doing was one of the most important jobs in the world and I loved it. Of course it turned out that when I did work, it was teaching preschool, so small children were right up my alley.

Tonight was book club night and I found myself with five other women, four professors from four different universities, one CPA, and a railroad safety engineer. We just read Essentialism and in the process of discussing it, I discovered something important about myself.

I listened to these women talk about what they do and we discussed how we might change things after reading this book. I knew I had already changed things.

But what I really learned was I just can't do something I don't love for any length of time and I have been lucky to have lived most of my life loving my job, whether it was being a mom, a preschool teacher, a floral clerk, a library volunteer, or an editing assistant for Bestest. My office jobs were different. I never really liked them and I never was able to stick with one for more than two years.

I think that was what I didn't have in common with many of the women I have known. They got together to complain about their lives and jobs. If I had to work at a job I hated that much I would not have survived very long. The only thing in my life that really didn't work for me was my husband. We had nothing much in common after our children were born and sticking out that marriage as long as I did  was probably the biggest mistake I ever made -- but who knows.  Life is not linear.

For the first time in my life I found myself truly enjoying the company of a group of women.  Discussing our lives and the way the book might pertain to them was fascinating. I have to admit I felt humbled by these women. They all have a lot more education than I do and they all have jobs that make a lot more money than I ever did, but they love what they do and that was our common denominator.

Pro Life

I suppose it makes sense in a world where alternative truth is promoted by the president of the United States, but most of the pro-lifers I hear talk really just mean anti-abortion.

Pro-life would assume that those babies born would be guaranteed good medical care, quality child care, enough to eat and quality education through college age and finally jobs they could support themselves on by working full time.

Anti-abortion doesn't even guarantee they will survive the mothers who didn't want them and will forget to feed, or watch them when wiped out on drugs. It won't stand between them and the people who will abuse and use them before they are even old enough to think of asking for help.

These rallies are more about posturing and pretending to be part of a culture that really cares, but is either too callous, or ignorant to realize it doesn't.

Comings and goings

Money can buy power and businesses, clout and audiences, yes-men and even the ability to misuse and abuse people.

But

It cannot buy respect.

Shaking things up, bucking the system, breaking all the rules, doing things differently, will make a difference.

But

Probably not the one you want.

Pissing off most other governments in the world, throwing your weight around, withdrawing from all organizations that promote collaboration in the free world will isolate your country.

But

That leaves no one to turn to for help when things start to get nasty -- and they will if the largest power sets that tone.

Calling Social Security an entitlement lumps it in with all the congressional benefits our representatives take for granted.

But

Why not start at the top and work down? Cancel that entitlement package congressmen and women get first, before we cancel the retirement our hard working citizens have paid into.

The comings and goings in the White House change by the hour.

But

Our freedoms, morals and ethics are being leached by the minute.

Respect

Great teachers are probably born, but the ones who realize that respect is never really bought, or forced, are the greatest of all. Wisdom cultivates both intelligence and kindness.

A truly great teacher understands that actively listening to an unhappy, confrontational person can work wonders. Follow that up with a genuine conversation and you may have done the unbelievable - made a silk purse out of a sow's ear. At the very least an unhappy person had a chance - to express their opinion, state what was bothering them, and perhaps discover that the world isn't as bad as they thought.

This is conflict negotiation. It is not giving in to bad behavior, it is creating a common ground, a space for growth, a place where chaos doesn't cloud the issues.

Respect is an art.

The American Dream

It's Star Wars, Once upon a time, and Reality television all sewed up in one.

The truth is silent. The scientists are gagged. The earth is being tied to the stake and the torches are lit.

Imagination is king. The American Dream has become a nightmare. It is an American Horror Story.

If poor people can't make a living on fify hour work weeks, let them imagine better things. If refugees are being slaughtered all over the world, keep their blood out of sight and not in our country. It we don't believe in global warming then the ice bergs won't melt and if we just pretend the right to bear arms is more important than the children killed in schools across our land, all will be well.

First we were regaled with tales of glory and success. Now our rights and freedoms are being siphoned off for our own good. What will happen to those who defy the gag orders and try to preserve freedom of speech, the freedom of the press? How much more news will be manufactured to fit the script?

Was tomorrow's news written last night in some secret room in a White House that no longer represents a majority of our people?

It's a mad mad world and the king is the craziest one of all. He doesn't know he's the president of the greatest most powerful country in the world -- and soon he won't be. Our slide began in earnest on January 20, 2017.

This is the first thing

The road to success is focus.

When you do something, focus on what you are doing. Pick one small part, the hardest, dirtiest, most difficult part, and do it first.  Get it out of the way! Don't jump from task to task. Just do a good job on that one small part. And when that one thing sparkles, or is read, or written and everything adds up, you are finished and can go on to the next hardest part.

The same is true for everything you do. Multi tasking is highly over rated. Every additional task you add takes something away from your main goal. When you drive, drive. Know who is behind you, beside you, ahead of you. Pay attention to what you do. It isn't funny to miss things. It's dangerous.

Of course we can all multi task to some extent. Some people better than others, but all of us do things better when we put our whole attention into them. And if something is not worth our best - maybe it isn't worth doing at all.

Learn that it's okay to say no.  Sometimes it is the kindest thing to do, because resentment often follows a reluctant yes and people can sense that even if they don't realize what it is.

Focus on doing the things you love, the really necessary things and leave the rest for those people who find them more important. Being a people pleaser is a thankless job. Unless the person you are trying to please is yourself you'll fail more often than you know.

Just pay attention. Know what you can do. Do it to the best of your ability and move on. Everyone will thank you in the end. (And the ones who won't, won't be any happier with the real you anyway.)

Focus on what you love. Love what you focus on and life is so much simpler.

Living the dream

My work is so intense, so engrossing, so fascinating that a typical time for working is three hours that pass unnoticed before muscles start to cramp and I look at the clock.

I listen intently to the recorded voices of two people I respect and admire very much and even though at times they talk at the same time, or laugh so hard they blur each others words, I feel honored to be listening.

I am transcribing these words. Words that help one write a book about the other and I find myself amazed at their knowledge, their easy camaraderie as they talk about things I have to look up just to put down on my computer's screen. The language is sometimes so heavy and complicated that I feel a thrill to be hearing them bandied about so easily and un-self-consciously.

In the end, a book will emerge so well written and so concise that it will be in many libraries used to educate our future writers and teachers.

And I will have been allowed to be part of it.

2.5 million

According to one source, over 2.5 million people around the world joined the protest today.

This is the brightest light, the best sign, the most promising news I have seen in a very long time.

It proves that ignorance, greed and gross bigotry have not won anything more than a single election at this point.

I suspect if we held another election tomorrow the results might be very different. People who thought "it" could never happen. People who thought their vote didn't matter. People who wanted to rub our noses in their anger and people who simply didn't think -- might have more to think about this time.

Every election is vitally important now. Every single Democrat governor, senator, and representative elected puts us one step closer to some semblance of sanity.

I'm not saying we aren't about to step back into the shadows of our past shame, but I do believe today had to raise the awareness of many more people and those people can help hold down the damage.

Terror in the ward

A good physician does not treat the disease. He treats the man who has the disease.

I heard this in a movie today, but it is something I have known myself for a very long time.

Many of today's doctors DO try to cure the disease, because they do not really know the man who has it. They treat symptoms.

In medical school they learn what to do for fevers, or aches in certain parts of the body. They learn that a certain set of symptoms often indicates this, or that disease and those with little experience, or large egos assume that they know better than the patient because they went to medical school and treat lots of people.

But patients are all different. They are not just bodies, or aches, or fevers. They are minds, and fears, and life styles. The human body is a miraculous thing, but not all the miracles are for our own good.

I went to a clinic that treated me for high blood pressure in spite of the fact that I told them it was fine at home. I even took my machine in to them and they continued to look for the problem. I told them I have white coat syndrome, but they did not listen to me. One of the drugs they put me on caused kidney problems and eventually gout.

Two doctors and one kidney specialist later I have a doctor who listened. Now, after two years she can take my blood pressure just before I leave her office and it is fine. I have other little quirks that cause me problems too, but now she and I are dealing with them.

We need more people like her, otherwise a doctor who treats a nameless, faceless disease can be the biggest liability in the room. My brother would be dead tonight if he had not refused treatment for all the various and sundry things hospital interns wanted to do today.

His doctor retired and the new one sent him to a hospital without paying attention to the old doctor's records. It was a terrifying day. The medical profession does not take kindly to people who question their snap decisions.

Be that candle on the water

On the eve of an unknown and frightening new era it is important to remember that we do not have to stoop to the level of those who will try to lead us into the depravity of greed, racism, bigotry and all the other evils that like to parade themselves as power.

We will all be given the chance to prove our goodness, our love of our fellow human beings and our world, and the ultimate belief that kindness is an art worth cultivating.

Opportunities will abound for proving ourselves worthy of being the kind of people who can make changes that benefit us all.

Every time we refuse to act in unkind, or unloving ways, the world takes a step out of the darkness.

This world that believes suffering will make people better will eventually collapse in on itself. Then the rest of us will be standing in the wings ready to rush in and do better.

We have made great strides during the last eight years, so even if these things are taken away from us, we know we will eventually get them back.

Just keep going. Keep believing. Keep working towards what you know is ethical and right and loving.

Allegro, accelerando, adagio

Life is a series of notes, dripping across pages, floating through the air, ripping out eardrums, soothing hearts, dredging up courage, pouring out misery, giving love substance.

Unending sound tracks to immerse myself in from the velvety warmth of lullabies, to the gritty notes of the blues.

I strain to hear each instrument, laughing saxes, wailing violins, plaintive oboes, booming tubas, sultry clarinets, jazzy trumpets, and of course the piano and guitar.

The piano that grew with me, carried me through my darkest hours, allowed me to be creative, to wile away years of loneliness and  joy, weariness and meditation and love. My first instrument and the one of my heart, nothing listens to me like a piano.

The country, western, and classical guitars that played my childhood slid seamlessly into the music of my children and I hear their hearts played on those simple strings stretched over a soundboard so versatile and creative.

Even the silence has a sound of its own that sings to me in mute wonder.

Framed

There is a fine line between letting something go and forgetting it.

After all, the past made us who we are today. Forgetting all the lessons, both good and bad, would leave us empty. Hollow. Mere shells of the rich, complicated creatures we have grown to be.

Still, carrying the past around with us takes up a lot of room that could be better used for new experiences and while they cannot be completely untainted by our past, there is no reason they should be weighed down and dulled by them either.

So how is it possible to let it go without forgetting it completely?

I think of it as an art gallery. I can stroll past all those things that hurt me and remember the pain without actually feeling it. After all, a picture is two dimensional and contained in a frame. There is no reason, or really any way, I can step into it and become part of it again. I simply take what I learned from it and move on. I don't actually forget it, but I can leave it behind unless I feel the need to re-visit it.

There is power in that.

And it frees me up, gets rid of the darkness, fills up the potholes, so I can move into the present whole and ready to deal with what is, instead of what was.

Lamplight memories

Sometimes I yearn for yesterday's yellow lamplight.

Puddling over a full living room where people spill off the furniture and onto the floor.

And an old German Shepherd lies shedding on the carpet, his tail sending hairs flying through the air.

Where my brother sits tangled up in my mom's lap, his shoulders crunched up against hers in the wing chair in the corner.

And my dad slouches from chair to footstool, reading his paper and smoking a cigarette.

My sister and cousins perch on covered radiators and thread bare carpet while my other brother defiantly takes up the couch, his head pillowed on one arm crooked up underneath a smocked corduroy cushion

And I sit tentatively on the lap of my date in the last chair, showing off in studied silence.

All of us tethered to a television whose revolving horizontal lines on black and white pictures measure the rage of a snowstorm on the Illinois prairie.

A little light here, please

A wondrous thing happened today.  I had the energy to rearrange my apartment.

I didn't do it because I was sad, or because I was unhappy about my life. I did it for just the opposite reason.

Left to its own resources my mind can come to terrible conclusions and then I convince myself that there is realistically nothing I can, or should do about it.

This is not being loving. It is being a defeatist.

That is where a Bestest comes in. A Bestest is the safest person in the world, one who can see the truth with all its ramifications almost immediately and present them in a calm logical way that I can hear through my despair.

Then the darkness lifts and I wake up energized for the first time in a long time feeling like Sleeping Beauty rejoining the world.

Today I rearranged my apartment. I moved all the boxes under the bed. I even moved the bed, discovering yet one more way to put a simple eleven by thirty foot room together. It's amazing how many possible combinations can fit into the light.

The space between

A Bestest is an experience rarer than Bismuth crystals. I suspect most people go through life never knowing they exist.

I suppose there have been other people in the universe who have experienced the anomaly of such a unique and beautiful experience, but I doubt that there are too many.

It is not mutual admiration, or lust, although I suppose that could be a part of it.  It is not idyllic worshiping, or putting someone up on a pedestal, although I can see how that might happen in the beginning.

It is not so many things, but it is easier to explain what it is not because we all have experienced those things.

It is a connection that goes beyond intuition, beyond want, beyond understanding. It is a wholeness that has nothing to do with being one. It is loving yourself for all the beautiful things you find in the Bestest, because you understand that, at some level, they are also in you. It is loving each other, not just for the light that flows through you, but because of all those amazing little chinks of darkness that make you vulnerable and needy and adorable.

Nothing is more whole than the space between a Bestest and Bestest. It is trust personified. It is the void in all its spectacular wholeness. It is the freedom to be exactly who you are with no fears whatsoever.

It seems too good to be true because it is so rare, but it is truer than anything else I've ever known.

Twitterbahn

I met President Barack Obama in a small rural parking lot long before he ran for President of the United States of America and I believe history will see him as one of our best presidents, one who accomplished more than could reasonably have been expected given what he had to start with and the Republicans he had to deal with during his presidency.

Now we enter a new era where ignorance, fear, impatience and the entitlement of those who view people with less money as less human will try to carry us back into the racist, bigoted, elitist quagmire we were just starting to rise above.

The people who barely concealed their disdain for us regular people during Bush's administration are now out in the open. They don't care about justice, truth, or even science. Truth takes on a new meaning -- it is whatever is needed in the moment to get whatever they want.

Reality will persevere. Even the nouveau riche cannot buy reconciliation from the universe; and actual truth is not something that can be written, and rewritten, every five minutes on Twitter.

We are about to embark on the most unbelievable ride of our lifetime and I for one am not looking forward to it.

The valley of shadows

There is magic in the world.

Not abracadabra magic, but real magic. The kind that says, "You may only choose from the choices given to you, but that counts, so choose well."

The magic words are often quite ordinary, but it is their timing and intonation that make them work.

The power may work instantaneously, or it may take years, so wisdom and patience are mandatory.

Trust your heart -- not your wants. Listen to your own thoughts. Be your own person.

No one works magic in the name of others. Pleasing, obeying, following -- there is nothing wrong with them, but they can build walls between your power and you.

Find your magic mirror. Look at yourself in the light. And follow you all the days of your life.

You will walk in the heart of creation forever more.

Finished or not, here I come

The caterpillar probably has no idea how long he will be in the cocoon, or even what a cocoon is.

Perhaps that makes me luckier. I know what a cocoon is and what it is supposed to be for.

I assume that this is where I am and that it is different for everyone.

It is an unknown experience. A time for learning and growth, but I also know that some caterpillars simply dry up and die before their time comes.

Who or what decides this I do not know.

I try to just accept what is and allow myself to go forward with the faith of a child. I remember the song I learned on the radio when I was three. Que sera sera.

In the meantime I sleep -- and sleep -- and sleep.

Perfection

Never do anything you know you won't be good at.

Don't try the unknown.

Be sure you will succeed before you begin.

And you will forfeit one of life's greatest joys.

Just like a handful of salt makes a good stew, a healthy bit of doubt and fear creates a truly satisfying experience.

In fact, it may be the biggest difference between habit and art.

The path to the dumpster

Who deserves to know?

Who is the person we share the hard stuff with?

Do we dump it on our best friend, or our worst enemy?

Of course we all know the jagged shards, the sharpest nails, the blinding misery cannot be shared with our enemies, or our competitors, or even our acquaintances. That would be social suicide.

So we take the ones we love best, the ones who deserve only the best and fill their basket up with our agony until it becomes too heavy and they disappear underneath it.

And when they disappear, we wish we could take it all back, but of course we never would have shared it in the first place if we'd had any choice in the matter. So we start fresh. Again and again until we get it right.

Sometimes that means paying someone to be a dumpster until the most toxic stuff is gone; until the path to the dumpster is well worn enough that we know how to get there and what to leave there.

And sometimes we get lucky enough to find someone strong enough and wise enough to be our listener and mirror and lover all in one, but you can't count on that.

The eye of the beholder

Nearly everyone has heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but isn't everything in the eye of the beholder?

Given only an image, or a scent, an act, or a sound, isn't it up to us to decide what it is we see, or smell, hear, or feel?

The censor of our thoughts -- our past, our fears, our wants -- form the reality for each of us in the moment and . . .

It can stop right there. A gut reaction to an experience, or . . .

It can become a doorway into who we are, a learning experience that allows us to grow, to step beyond the confines of our infant selves, our pre-made, unthinking cells, and into a broader consciousness less encumbered by biases, prejudices, and simple reactionary existence.

Once the beholder becomes driven by the desire for truth, the eye becomes more discerning and beauty is burnished by a multitude of facets.

Lat nat this wrechched wo thyn herte gnawe. But manly set the world on sexe and seune - Chaucer

New Year is notably not my best time of year.

I have tons of poetry bemoaning the state of my psyche on New Year's Day and it looked like this year might just step up and walk bravely in those same old footsteps.

The past six years have all been good ones. Partly because I've learned to ask for what I need and make do with what I've got; and partly because I have people in my life who are empathetic and loving and not competing with me for who is the most pitiful.

Pitiful, pronounced, pity full, was something I grew up believing was desirable. As in, if I am pitiful enough everyone will feel sorry for me and love me. Of course that is not true, but old habits die hard.

They do die though.

I just spent the past six days moving between bed and recliner. Sleeping cocooned in my soft blanket in the chair while the television droned in the background. Sleeping tucked up in bed after reading a few of pages of The Great Santini.

It is pretty obvious how I was feeling, but I was in too deep to do anything about it.

As I dramatically prepared myself for a miserable New Year's, turning off my phone, and settling in for a long winter's mope, something happened.

I don't know exactly why, but I turned the phone back on, received and sent numerous New Year Greetings, listened to Auld Lang Syne, first sung and played by Bestest and then played by my youngest son for me over the phone followed by a long chat -- all of which made me glad I had turned that phone on.

This New Year will be another good one, making that a chain of seven good years following six not so good days. I don't know why I've been at sixes and sevens lately, but I'm glad it's over. I would hope that all my New Years will be good ones from here on out.