Bifurcation

The most terrifying thing in the world is to see the evil or mean side of a very good person, someone you love, someone you need to trust.

Passive aggressive smiles make me tremble with fear. Like Cheshire cat smiles, what you see isn't what is really there. It's like glimpsing evil through a veil of love.

Reality verses what you want to believe, challenges faith. Faith in reality. Faith in love. Faith in goodness. If someone really important to you, like your mother, is not exactly who she seems to be, underlying your love for her, your need for her is your fear of her.

You cannot live without her to protect you, but she is irrationally unpredictable.

She brings you all the safety and sweetness, all the creativity and joy and she brings you nightmares of fire and pigs with red eyes. She is the werewolf whose finger snaps and creates fire, fire that burns you alive.

The beautiful auburn haired goddess with the sparkling green eyes can turn into a banshee, throwing lightning strikes with her hands, splitting heads from across the room, cutting your joy out with a few concise words.

Yet there is no one else to heat the washcloths for your earaches, make you soft food when your throat hurts. There is no one who does more for you, or tries harder, to make you happy.

It is like one of those dolls you can flip upside down. One way she is an angel. The other a demon.

Both extraordinarily ferocious.

And she flips in a moment.

Here, in this moment

I approach nostalgia like dark earthy bogs.

I imagine there are hands in there that will pull me in.

Muddy my world.

Make it impossible for me to breathe or see the light that I cling to almost desperately.

I love crisp new horror movies, brilliant new adventure movies, lovely new cartoons.

I love rearranging my apartment into new configurations because new speaks of hope to me.

As long as things keep moving there is less chance of them settling into dark, or sad, or bad.

When I do slip down Memory Lane I am ever watchful for the darkness that creeps up through the petal strewn gardens of the past.

Who are the people in your neighborhood

I often look at pictures on Facebook and think these pictures might be appropriate advertisements for Bedlam.

Tongue sticking out, arms spread wide as if bowing for some great accomplishment like drinking straight from a bottle of booze, does not feel like a particularly laudable lifestyle.

It seems to me that if I were advertising my best self for the world to see and applaud I could do better than that.

Even worse, are pictures of the parents doing similar things. Bragging about how much wine they need, how hedonistic they are after work, feels like it is misleading to offspring who may never have the education, desire, nor money in a future being built on these straw foundations.

I am all for loving each other for who we really are, but a more realistic view of the future means I want my children to know how to do more than be codependent.

Teenagers are young, ignorant and under many misconceptions. They may equate a speeding car with skill, when it only means they know how to put their foot down. The same is true about making faces and guzzling booze from a bottle. Any child given the chance can do these things. It requires nothing. No skills. No creativity. No anything.

People deserve to know they can do better than that.

Who can ask for anything more

I think I have reached that stage in life where excitement and drama are mostly unwelcome in my life.

There is much to be said for contentment and peace of mind.

I don't need to be the heroine.

I don't need to be rescued.

I don't need anything except loving people and thoughtfulness right now.

This is once upon a time and in this moment everything is happily ever after.

It won't always be this way, but now I know it will occasionally come around again:

Who could ask for anything more?

Last retorts

With the prednisone done I was frustrated to feel itchy again yesterday.

Now I have gone the last mile I can think of.

I turned off the furnace and blower and have resorted to using my infrared heater.

It seems up to the task, now let's see if it works.

This seems like a poor subject for a thot, but sometimes one really must get down to the very basics.

Christmas Tea

Yesterday I went to a tea house with six other women and it felt so right. Three of these women will spend Christmas day alone, but they are okay with that. There was no mad need for anyone to take them in as if there was something wrong with them. One woman was there with her daughter, home from France for a few days. Another was expecting her first child and she and her husband had just bought a larger home. I am expecting to go to my daughter's late Christmas day and bring my grown granddaughters with me.

It was a moment in time where I truly felt like I belonged. I savored every part of it.

And yet, back home I feel like it really isn't Christmas. I'm not sure why.

All the decorations are here. The tree is adorable and exactly what I love. There is a Charlie Brown aspect to the way I set it up, but with an elegance that is only me. The presents are wrapped and decorated with handmade ornament tags. My cards hang on a red ribbon down the length of my front door and jingle bells ring every time I go in or out. My stocking is hung from the silver deer with care, but I know no St. Nicholas will soon be there.

I do all of this for me. No one sees my Christmas decorations. And still, it does not feel like Christmas.

What do I need to change that? I honestly do not know.

But I think it has something to do with the beauty of that Christmas Tea.

Surviving the holidays

Holidays are often difficult times.

We want everything to be fairytale perfect. Popular culture leads us to believe that is the norm, but it really isn't.

People are still alone and sick. Money problems are actually exacerbated by expectations of a mythical little elf providing all your dreams on Christmas morning. Sorrow can be held in a parenthesis of cheerful attempts to fit into the season, because everyone knows, "Tis the season to be jolly."

Sometimes the best thing to do is simply count your blessings. Try not to have expectations. Focus on what is good now.

Almost everyone has some of those. No matter how small, they are the beacons to look for.

The hardest thing

Today I am very concerned for the sweet dog I babysat last Fall. She is a lab and having surgery for tumors first thing in the morning.

I have never known a finer dog, nor a sweeter one. I just can't say it enough. Maddie is sweet. Sweet!

Her big brown eyes melt my heart. Her gentle ways make me not afraid of her. Her cute way of smiling when she's bringing back a ball is just indescribable.

I know that no matter what happens to Maddie she has the best people in the world loving her. She's has a wonderful life. No dog could ask for better people than her owners.

My heart is with them now and tomorrow and forever more.

Love is the greatest thing in the world, but it can also be the hardest.

One frog in the pond

It is one thing to be sad and to mourn. It is even understandable to believe someone is acting out in frustration and anger. These are reactions to grief.

The pond is full of life, dancing in the light, sparkling and sprinkling, bumping up against and rubbing sides with every other entity that is there. Each ripple creates hundreds of new ripples so that the pond is one undulating rhythmic symphony of sound, feelings and motion.

From the dark murky comfort of the mud below to the least bright drop of dew above, it is all connected.

One frog croaking on his lily pad can add enough dissonance to make every other part of this scene less than the idyll it could become.

Blurring the light, fracturing the ripples, destroying the beauty and peace of a wonderful pond will not bring back the bloom that once held him in stunned awe, but has now disappeared.

No matter how many times he pushes pebbles into the water; no matter how many angry plops he makes leaping in and splatting down on whatever he can hit; no matter how strident his song becomes: the lotus that is gone forever will not return.

He simply makes it harder for any others to rise from the depths below. He denies himself and others the blessings lying in wait, trying to rise up into the light through unremitting darkness.

One frog in the pond can make such a difference.

A movable room

I woke up this morning and (Sounds like the start of a country music song, right? But then it gets real.) my eyes were itching madly. My neck was too and my face was burning. I think I am allergic to something in my bedroom and I don't know what it is.

I have been sleeping in the living room all summer because it is cooler there, but I moved back to the bedroom at the end of October, about the time this started. Also about the time I bought the lettuce leaf fern. Maybe it isn't the ferns. They are gone. I have cleaned and cleaned and things are not better.

Sooooooo

At 6 AM I moved the bedroom back into the living room! And after all the chairs, plants, bed and so forth were moved, I washed all the sheets and blankets and bedspreads.

But tonight I went to a Murder Mystery dinner at the Mackinaw Winery.

Fairy tales do come true

Once upon a time a little girl grew up like many little girls, reading fairy tales and happily ever afters, dreaming of saints and miracles and all kinds of wondrous things.

She just never out grew these things. Deep inside of her was a little seed always ready to bloom at the first drop of love and life and possibilities.

People warned her. They said you must grow up and give up these childish things, so she tried, but it is like telling a peach to grow without its pit. Impossible!

You cannot be what you are not and she was born to live the fairy tales and mythologies that other children gave up long ago.

And because of this she has met knights in shining armor, Peter Pans, Brave Queens and kings and famous wizards -- all disguised as everyday human beings.

But she has also been locked in a dungeon, bludgeoned with words, shunned, and fooled by tricksters so evil they can do almost everything.

Except no one could take away who she was, so it was all worthwhile. The wonders, the joy, the love is so much brighter and bigger and deeper than the evil it all balances out on the good side.

That is the price of living a fairytale. Everything is so much more!

Midnight meanderings

Second night in a row I cannot sleep because of the prednisone, but I'm sure my body will sleep when it needs to. Right now nothing will change that. Not Benadryl by the handful. Not even this glass of merlot,

But the merlot is soothing and my book is good, the Christmas tree is lovely and I feel more at peace right now than I have in a very long time.

I cannot bring myself to worry, nor care much about the blood tests, or family dissension, not even our less than illustrious president. There is nothing I can personally do right now to change any of those things, so I have to concentrate on the things I can do.

I feel like I have come to some kind of peace with myself. I like being seventy. I like the sound of it. I even like the woman in the mirror more now too. She's done a lot of living and while life is not perfect, it is pretty close right now. (Minus these allergies!)

I feel like I have been waiting for this moment all along.

I know it won't stay this way forever. Nothing stays one way forever, but the flip side of that is the bad times don't either. Sometimes I have to just muddle through. But right now, in this moment, I feel complete.

Poison spores

I just shared the picture of my plants on Facebook and today the doctor confirmed that the rabbit's foot fern and lettuce leaf fern, as well as my poinsettia have to go!

That's the sad part.

The good part is that my daughter took them to her house and the prednisone is already starting to kick in. For the first time in over a month I am not itching! (too much)

Just in case you are wondering. Allergies to ferns manifest themselves as rashes that resemble poison ivy in nearly every respect. My skin is rough, red, peeling, itching and horrible. The skin around my eyes is puffed and swollen and I look like someone beat me up. The hives on my neck are nearly the size of pennies, but they are fading fast.

I was just beginning to think of my plants like little green pets, but it turns out I am no better off with them than I am pet dander.

I still have my peace lilies and pothos, an aloe and a spider plant, but even the spider plant is suspect.

As always I am on of the few. Evidently fern allergies are very rare. Whoopee.

True love

And if your hours are empty now who am I to blame

You think if I were always here, our love would be the same

As it is the time we have, is worth the time alone

And lying by your side, the greatest peace I've ever known.                               

Lyrics by John Denver that speak to the expectations of that first blush of love trying to carry you through the everyday doldrums that are part of living.

We live with the daydreams, hopes, and fanciful expectations of what it would be like in the perfect relationship and those lucky enough to find someone who seems to fill the bill are filled with bliss as well as hopes.

But bliss is an extreme state and it would be foolish to believe we can live there forever, so when life settles down there are chores to do, business to conduct, and just everyday tasks that cannot be avoided.

Love may make you a better person, but true love requires that you be a whole person first.  Love enchants and enhances, but it has to work within the real world.

Proud mom and grandma

My grandson, who is home schooled, just had his fourteenth birthday party and I think it was a ground breaking success.

First of all any fears I had about him not being able to socialize because of home schooling were totally put to rest. He invited ten kids his age and seven came to the murder mystery party that his parents devised.

It was a tremendous amount of work that forced his parents to work together if they wanted it to be a success. The house had to be sorted and cleaned for the first time in a long time, the food had to be made and my son had to write all the parts and make up all the clues then coordinate hiding them to make it real and fun.

There was a dead body, a risen spirit, mobius strips to figure out, chemical reactions, invisible writing, hidden clues and keys that kept all seven children in character and in high spirits throughout the party.

I have done a lot of parties in my day, but this was an extraordinary production and a resounding success.

Feeling a little pothos

I have always had pretty good luck with growing things. I have had a sunflower labyrinth with a 175 foot diameter growing in my back yard, the outside flowers reaching six feet or more. I had a pool in my backyard surrounded by roses, mint, bleeding hearts, a Japanese maple tree and blue delphiniums as well as other plants. And when I had a condo with an upstairs balcony I had blue morning glories cascading from flower boxes over the rails for privacy.

Indoor plants were something else. My zebra plant lived a long time, never having more than two leaves at a time that were fully emerged. My baskets of ferns were beautiful on the porch, but prompted my husband to ask if I was going to rake the living room when I brought them inside. The only plant I really had good luck with were spider plants which started outside and moved in in the winter. They were surrounded by tons of babies.

Now I have no outside to plant in, but the indoor plants seem to have finally taken to living with me. Except for the spider plant which had one baby one time period. But the peace lilies, rabbit's foot fern, lettuce fern and poinsettia that a friend gave me are thriving. The pothos is more than thriving. It is taking over! Last night I found it wound around my Green Tara who was totally tipped over and practically invisible.

Suddenly I had a picture, a horror film picture, flash through my head. No one hears from me for a week or two and when they come to check my apartment, there I am, lying on the floor next to my plants, totally engulfed in pothos vines! And all I have to say is:

What a way to go!

Just a little Christmas

Into each life a Grinch must fall.

Otherwise we might go right on living thinking life was good and sweet and reasonable and all the people in our life are that too.

But they aren't.

Some people are in too much pain to even pretend to feel good, let alone sweet, or reasonable.

And the sad truth is that most of the rest of us would do almost anything to make them feel better if we only knew how.

And I suspect they would let us if they could really imagine that happening.

But they can't, so they won't and it kind of puts everything else in perspective.