Why do human beings need attention so desperately?
What is it about us that needs to be recognized and known, appreciated and loved?
Why can't we be like the trees, tall and solid, stalwart and silent?
Or like water running gaily down life's way, rippling and sparkling without a care, or need, in the world?
I am like a flicker of sunlight.
When I'm happy my smile can light up a room, but the merest flicker of a shadow changes me completely.
No matter how desperately I wish for some things to be true, they will never be so.
I cannot bring the dead back to life, or turn one person into another.
And sometimes I can't help loving someone who is not good for me, but that doesn't mean I hold onto them and turn a difficult situation into a worse one.
Reality really can suck. It can really hurt.
But that doesn't change what it is.
Along the way I am mingled and mixed with all the archetypes around me. I am such a small part of this universe, but I know my part is integral to the whole. Even the tiniest thought creates a stir in the atmosphere.
Saying who I am, what I am, is not always easy. It is much easier to get caught up in what I want to be, or should be, or what you want me to be, but those things don't last. The real me is a force as real as light and gravity, wind and water. Not as large or powerful, but still with a certain amount of power.
You are the same.
We navigate the way thinking we are in control, but I suspect there is something greater here. Something that has a purpose no mortal will ever truly comprehend. Call it Fate, or Destiny, or whatever you like, but it is indiscernible.
In the end we are not much more than two little atoms bouncing off each other in the great expanse of space, but as long as I do it with you and with love, I am content.
The clock is chiming. Magic fills the air and every breath is enchanted.
Now is the hour little girls dream of and grown-ups know don't happen.
But it is happening.
Inside the chrysalis I am transforming.
I look in the mirror and wonder if I am imagining it, but I look brighter, clearer, blissful. My eyes shine with love. Even my skin seems to glow.
This is a journey of mythological proportions and I am on it! I can barely comprehend that.
I have barely begun, but already I am stunned by the magnificence of you and me when we are together.
Imagine standing on the edge of a precipice surrounded by light.
Joy is emanating all around me in waves so intense, so terrible, so awe fulfilling that even reaching out to take one tentative step is almost unthinkable.
I am one breath away from the realization of my most profound dreams.
One moment away from disappointment that might destroy me completely.
Do I have the courage
To fall into this future that lies before me?
Most of my life I have been with people I admired, loved and trusted, who seemed to need to denigrate how I looked. When it happened I accepted it as the truth. After all who was I to judge my own looks?
Lately I've had someone rave about my looks and a part of me finds it almost impossible to accept. They have nothing to gain by doing this, so I have been looking closer at old photos.
Firstly I believe that people who look through the eyes of love see things others do not, but at least three of the people from my past should have been doing that and they did not see me as lovely at all. Each one made at least one caustic comment that was branded on my soul and those scars are vivid.
I wonder why that was?
Because of this I have often looked at the so-called beautiful people and tried to figure out what made them so much more beautiful than I. Sometimes it is obvious. They are radiant. Other times I simply do not understand.
Whatever the truth, right now, thanks to a dear friend, I feel pretty.
If my fairy godmother suddenly fluttered into my bedroom one night and asked, "What is your fondest wish?" What would I answer?
Up until a month ago, I'm not quite sure, but now I think I would say, "I want to fall in love." Which is not exactly the same thing as being in a love affair, or even being loved. Neither of those are required to feel the overwhelming joy of simply loving another.
The fairy godmother would then turn on me and ask, "What is that worth to you? What sacrifices are you willing to live with in order to experience this love? Are you willing to risk your heart, because love like that can make you ever so vulnerable? Can you withstand the unbearable pain of that love not being returned, or lost, because there are no guarantees when it comes to another's heart? What is it worth to you to be blessed with that beautiful fluttery feeling of joy in every minute of every day, even for just a while?
These are not easy questions for someone who actually knows what a broken heart feels like. Trust and vulnerability are sacred parts of relationships and there really are no guarantees. But the greatest honors and greatest joys often require the greatest sacrifices.
"So what is your answer?" Asks the fairy godmother.
Tis the season for magic and memories. Chick flicks abound with girls turning into princesses and Princes mingling among the commoners to find true love. I am not a fan of chick flicks. I don't believe in them.
Happily ever after has never been a theme in my life.
I have struggled up some of the highest mountains only to find yetis living at the top. I have gazed into the center of the universe and found only myself looking back. Life, for me, has always ended up back on the ground finding joy in the moments, but knowing life is mostly what I make it. There have been no magic princes rushing in to save me.
I don't need saving. My life is beautiful just the way it is.
I do everything in your name my love.
When I walk around the park, each step is a meditation in gratitude for meeting you.
My hands on the steering wheel of my car are just a reflection of what yours look like in your favorite auto.
Even the way I walk is an almost unconscious attempt to walk as you do, with casual forthrightness.
I speak of the light and that means the way you make my soul glow.
I smile at strangers and it is only a reflection of your smile.
While other people bow before their idols I only smile before your image.
You bring me a joy so terrible I don't know how I will survive it.
Lessons, just like adventures, come in all shapes and sizes and each one impacts us in different ways.
I choose to carry the burden of these with me along the way, knowing their familiar weight, although possibly painful, is a reminder that everything simply is what it is.
I don't need to put any deep Machiavellian label on it. People do what they feel they must and that is simply the truth. My job is not to judge them or make their life harder.
My job is to take care of myself, to walk towards the light as honestly as I can and try to be a vessel of love along the Way.
Over ten years ago I bought a little plaque that said, Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love comes along ... and brings you a fairy tale.
My life, in general, often has fairy tale overtones, both evil and miraculous. Life is what I make it. Not that I can turn sorrow into joy, but I can get through it and find the light that follows most storms.
That being said, I allowed myself to fall into the rut of thinking a plain ordinary life was all I can expect forever more and I was wrong!
A mystery so huge I cannot even look at it too closely has come into my life. Within it lie treasures greater than any you might find in the dragon's lair, but it makes no promises. What fills me today must be enough and I must understand that fairy tales can crush you if they fall apart.
And still, in the way of fairy tales, it fills me so divinely that I would risk everything for any moment in this mystery. There will never be any regrets, no matter what happens.
Changes and choices abound
And my job is to be here
Believing in the wonder
Trusting the universe
Absorbing the beauty.
I love how you love me.
Does that conjure up memories of a song? It does for me, but I have only had it said to me, personally, once.
Having someone recognize that my love for them is real and sweet and fierce, is a gift. Such a person understands something about me others often miss, or take for granted.
It is a level of intimacy that makes my heart leap a little, because being understood is so amazingly rare.
Nothing feels better than being loved - except maybe loving.
Saying something is unlikely is a much more realistic way of looking at seemingly impossible things.
No one wants to be a fool, but to experience the so called impossible, one must reach out and take chances.
Friends will try to protect you and you need to hear what they say while doing what your own heart whispers. You can be cautious without negating an entire experience, because extraordinary things often require extraordinary daring and courage. There is almost always a sacrifice preceding the miracle.
The price may be a broken heart, but the prize may be living your wildest dreams. No one can decide that for anyone else. If you decide the risk is worth it, you accept the consequences.
I often dive in where no one else wants to go and each experience has made me stronger, wiser, and more joyful in the long run.
You will never swim with the angels if you don't dive into the light.
I wonder how often people are more of a projection than a reality?
I imagine who you are, create visions of you, and fall in love with that.
Not a bad thing, but for love to last it must be based on reality.
You are not who I think you are, but who you think you are. I want to learn to see that.
It terrifies me when I realize the reverse is true.
What a responsibility I am. My feelings, my actions, my thoughts, are all as important as the shirt I put on, or the pounds I take off. I can hide from anyone, even myself, for a while, but in the long run the truth bleeds through and it has to be enough.
It is enough.
Nothing can change that.
Getting to know people is both fun and stressful for me. My first instinct is to try and impress them, but I think that is why so many marriages fail after a number of years. Living to impress is a time consuming, energy sucking process that eventually dissipates.
Do I dare to be myself? Do I even know who that is? I was brought up to be a chameleon, a creature who anticipates your every need and fulfills it as quickly as I can. Fortunately, I am aware of this and I've had a long time to figure out who I am.
I am not great at anything, but I am more than passably good at many things. A jack of all trades, if you will, and master of none. I am in awe of people who have excelled at something. People who have creative careers. People who have written books, or seem to have an immense education coupled with kindness. But, like most people, I like people who like me!
There's nothing wrong with that, but it just cannot become a life's work. Trying to be liked is not a goal worthy of a whole life.
What is worthy?
Serenity, kindness, gratitude, basic human goodness. Not a facade, but the real thing, a deep abiding being that is not perfect, but is as perfectly honest as possible.
Every diet program starts out talking about making lifestyle changes and I read that like people read everything they are forced to read for their own good.
Quickly and with a grain of salt.
For some reason I always believe I am different.
It was the same way when I went to counseling. They say it is only possible to change yourself, yet I honestly went for validation that he was wrong. I wanted him fixed!
And then one day, at the end of my divorce I found myself in counseling with a very wise woman who asked me why I was there and in the ensuing twenty weeks I began a healing process that has continued for nearly twenty five years now.
I have finally realized that dieting is the same process. I started watching what I ate seventeen months ago when I came out of the Covid quarantine as a grossly overweight, type two diabetic woman. I've lost weight before, but always gained it back as soon as I reached my goal. I had a million reasons and excuses. Many of them valid!
I realize this is a lifestyle change that must not stop. At my age there are not going to be a lot more chances to stay healthy. I have lost almost a hundred pounds. I am walking more every day and I am feeling years younger.
I am treating my food addiction with a sort of modified AA mentality. My mantra is not, make me skinny. It is, I want to be healthy. Learning how to live in a world where food is everywhere and a daily challenge has a learning curve.
The fact that I realize all of this, at last, is a gift.
Be who you is . . .
Except when you want to be someone else.
Then Role Play!
There is nothing wrong with trying out different personas, as long as you know the difference between pretend and reality.
A rich fantasy life can add a twinkle to your eye and tons of fun.
In a way this is who you are too.
They say the truth is in the telling, but I think it goes deeper than that.
Truth is the only fabric that holds up over time. When someone starts snipping the threads, a whole relationship becomes weaker.
That's okay if it's a one night stand, a chance meeting of two strangers, or even the occasional connection of two souls in the night.
It's not okay when I begin to weave a tapestry that might frame my life.
Little moth holes become gaping flaws over time and what was once a thing of beauty becomes painful to look at, not something I want to hang on my wall.
Not impossible to repair, but time consuming and delicate.
Adventures come in all shapes and sizes.
Some fit in your pocket and some in a backpack.
A few only fit in your imagination.
But they are all valid
And they all require daring, trust, and wisdom.
Leave out any one and an adventure
Becomes a fiasco.
I really believe in positive affirmations.
I honestly do not believe in superstitions.
And yet, my life takes twists and turns most people would never believe.
I dream and sometimes my dreams come true.
I wish and my wishes appear as if by magic out of thin air!
Whether it is simply good luck, or my attempt to be real I may never know.
Either way my heart overflows with gratitude.
Mary's virgin explanation made Joseph suspect upstairs neighbor.
A mnemonic.
A way to remember the planets only I can't remember who the E stands for.
I think Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune
Who is this E?
I actually have to google it!
Isn't that the way of our world?
In my dream I live in a house up on a hill. Behind me is a huge cleft in a cliff and in that cleft are many many rooms.
Each room is something special. So special that other people come to visit and I allow them to go in. Some rooms have magnificent clothes in the closet, all for the taking. Others have unimaginable treasures like real babies in cribs awaiting parents, beautiful dolls, amazing pets. The furnishings are exotic and beautiful. Anything anyone can dream of is in that cleft somewhere and all you have to do is go in and take it.
It is yours.
But at the end of every day I have to go in myself and clean up. Everything has returned to the rocks, wood, water, atoms that they came from and I must throw them into the well to dispose of them. I throw in big dead fish, dried up clothing, ashy rocks.
Nothing is left in those magical rooms in the cleft until the next morning when it is once again a wonderland of joy and treats.
Mine, or yours, for a day, for one moment in time, and then recycled back into what they are made of, where they came from.
The universe is what it is and while I might not really understand it, I do know that it cannot be anything more or less than that.
The laws of nature are unyielding. Certain things are necessities. Others are a choice. You can't change the first, but you can screw up the latter.
Be what you are and accept others for what they are. Not what you want them to be, or think they might be, and especially not just what you expect them to be. In any given moment love demands that you accept. Preferably without judgement, but if that is impossible at least acknowledge that it is what it is.
Less than that is not love.
It is fulfilling your own needs.
People don't want to believe that. They want to invent fairy tales about the people around them, make them grander than they are, or worse, but that's impossible. People are who they are.
Anything else is all in your head.
And I don't want to live in your head.
I am approaching what is surely the last twenty five years of my life and I find that staggering! Asking myself what I have learned about living, whether there is some profound lesson that has popped up and guided me after all these long years, this is what came to me.
Life is mostly what you make it.
We can't help some of the things we are dealt like genetic illnesses, or bone structure, or the color of our skin and eyes, but even these can be dealt with in different ways and that makes a difference.
Choosing to make the best of as many situations as possible leads to a much better life than choosing to wallow in the darkness. This is not quite the same thing as living for show, although that is a start. I think embracing my own deceptions and believing has gone a long way towards making me a happier person.
I choose to live my life as elegantly as I can contrive to make it.
I don't want, or need, any scapegoats to blame for my shortcomings. They are mine as much as my abilities! Blaming God, or work, or the people next door for my problems doesn't solve anything and what I need for a good life are good solutions. Not excuses.
I do the best I can to eat right, sleep right, and do all those other things that help keep me healthy. I haven't always done that and I accept the consequences. I try to keep my mind open, clear thinking and curious. And then I just take what IS and deal with it the best I can, making my life as close to my fairy tale dream as I possibly can.
People invent gods to blame for their inadequacies.
It is a way of justifying greed, jealousy, envy, bigotry, even grief. If I can blame the gods, or claim I am only doing their bidding then I am justified in doing almost anything.
Of course then it stands to reason that I cannot take credit for any achievements either. It is always god's will, or god's doing that made me who I am.
It is a way of living in eternal childhood. Never having to be responsible for my deepest decisions or feelings.
Terrifying to think of a world where childlike adults are running free and in positions of power. People acting on their basest impulses and sanctifying them in the name of God is a reality I would rather not face.
The search for self is the longest and hardest search of all.
Hidden behind a veil of tears.
Laden with a thousand trials.
More ephemeral than a dream.
More true than truth has any right to be.
The self is the most difficult of all things to find because it hides deep within me.
Never far away, but always lingering on that edge that turns into nothing with a breath.
I seek it with fear and trembling.
Because I may find it and not recognize it.
Or not want to admit it is me.
People find it easier to blame others than to take responsibility for their own actions.
Life is work. You don't necessarily get paid for the important jobs you do. At least not with money. Parents are expected to take responsibility for raising their children. Not just feeding and housing them, but making sure they are equipped to live in a world that requires much more than money.
Owning things requires maintaining them. Whether that is hiring someone to do the work, or doing it yourself.
Good Samaritans who like to volunteer to help others are nice, but it doesn't mean they are off the hook. They are still responsible for their underage children's well being and the maintenance of their possessions.
It's the old tortoise and hare story over and over again. The hare runs madly around with no plan in mind, like a Mad Hatter, while the tortoise plods inexorably forward until things are finished. The hare might be more impressive, but the tortoise gets the job done.
In the end the hare loses because he just did not get the job done.
I am always hearing that I should learn to love myself, treat myself lovingly, embrace who I am. I think that is good advice and I try to get better at those things as I move along.
What I don't hear is that I must continuously strive to grow. Why? Because I will grow no matter what and if I don't do it in conscious ways, I might stray off the path into ways that are counterproductive to my best life.
Getting to know who I am is an ongoing process for me. I know that I love food. It is my go to way of dealing with life, so the past few years I have found comfort foods that don't pack on the pounds or add too many carbs to a body that tends towards being obese and diabetic.
Other people I know find themselves scattered. They start a bunch of things and finish none of them and somehow seem to find this part of themselves adorable. I don't understand that. It seems to me that life would be immensely better for them if they could find some way of teaching themselves to choose smaller projects and refuse to be deterred until each one is done.
One tiny step at a time. Picking my way across this rocky precipice called life, I choose care over falling. It may not be exhilarating in the moment, but it can be pretty heady in the long run.
I cannot tell you how many hours I spent in counseling, or with groups of people searching for my authentic inner self. The pain I felt made these things an integral part of my life for most of my life, but in spite of this I really had the wrong idea about most of it.
I wanted someone or something to blame. I wanted to be vindicated and pitied and have someone make it all better. I was looking for the universal kiss for my boo boos.
Only when I began living alone did I discover that the whole game is really in my ballpark. Oh there is trauma in my past, but blaming wasn't going to make it all better. A child is helpless, but most adults really do have choices.
Choosing to stay in a situation that makes me unhappy is my choice. Albeit the alternatives are sometimes pretty difficult, but there were, and are, alternatives. Blaming it on people, or work, or helplessness does not solve the problem. Is it better to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?
The best way I discovered for dealing with my problems is to realize I do not have to accept the way other people treat me as something I earned. It is not gospel. I have to face the truth that I cannot change anyone else either. If they chose to blame their job, or their children, or their situation for their problems and use that to enable their misery, it is their choice.
I can make other choices and I've gotten better at that over the years. I do not continue to engage in situations, or relationships that are unhealthy now. The exception is family, but even that is done with careful boundaries. Your self inflicted misery is not mine no matter how much I love you.
If a life is only a succession of ephemeral moments it is still the most perfect one it can be.
It is no sin to love being with yourself. As long as you are content, life is the best it can be. And if you are happy? That is above and beyond what many people ever know.
A brilliant imagination sets the stage for a life of fulfillment, joy and love.
The trials and tribulations will be there, Never worry about that. They are like potholes in an otherwise perfect tapestry, but letting them become the centerpiece is the fatal flaw. You must create a bridge that supersedes the hard times, creates a way over, under and through, so that you find whatever goodness might exist.
Don't be Cinderella, or Princess Somebody or other. Be yourself.
You are real. Your friends, even if you only have one very good friend, are real. Allow yourself to define your own existence and make it a beautiful one. There is no prize for being sad, or pathetic. There is no joy in being miserable.
Write your own story, paint your own pictures, create your own life and it will turn out to be an epic like you never believed possible.
Why do I do what I do?
There are people who really don't care why they do things as long as those things appear to work, prosper, and appear beneficial to their ideas of what life should be. I have found that not questioning usually means I am avoiding something. I am missing a chance to grow.
Life is a journey whether I like that idea, or not, and movement is seldom present without fluctuations. Avoiding questions usually means those fluctuations will ultimately be bigger, because, left unattended, bad things tend to fester until they can no longer be ignored.
Over the years I have discovered that peace is generally a time when the fluctuations roll like gentle waves. An adjustment here, a tweak there, and these minor uncomfortable times help me to be prepared for the reality of the changes in my life. I am motivated to stay up to date on my learning curve!
I certainly do not know everything and knowing that I don't know helps me navigate all the bumps in the road with less drama. I expect to have to change and realize that for better or worse I will be able to continue changing as life moves on. Not all changes will be the correct ones, but that is okay, because I will be able to make more later on.
The point is trying to be honest and open with myself as well as gentle. I will never be perfect, but I can be authentic and purposeful and even happy.
I don't believe anyone is ever really prepared for the grief they feel when someone they love dies.
Knowing that we all will die, or that someone has a terminal illness and will die sooner, still does not cushion the intense feelings that burst up around us like an all enveloping burst of steam when the reality of their absence finally hits us.
Knowing is not the same as experiencing.
Over time the grieving process bounces around from despair, to anger, to disbelief. How can someone who was here beside me and whose body I still see, not be here anymore? Where did they go? How will I survive the black hole inside of me? Grief explodes like Old Faithful over and over again in incomprehensible waves that must simply be endured even when it feels like it is drowning you and taking away everything you held fast to before.
Eventually the pain becomes duller, but that can take months, or years, depending on so many things. You simply have to allow it to run its course and be understanding of those grieving.
In the end the memories deep inside of us keep the beloved close. I believe a soul is kind of like the energy of a body. It moves into the world around us where both body and soul eventually become part of what they always were and always will be - everything.
This gives me comfort.
People are always asking, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
These questions start as soon as a child can talk and then a few years later people begin to influence that decision and impose limitations on it.
When I was growing up there were certain things women really shouldn't be, or married women should not be because they had to be available to raise children and follow their husband wherever his job took him.
Then there was the implication that to be something you must get paid for it with money. Therefore being a writer or painter only counted if someone bought your work.
People seldom respond, "I want to be happy, or kind." Of course most younger children will lean towards whatever Mom and Dad, are interested in. And it quickly becomes quite clear that to properly be something you must choose something that has a purpose. Teaching, doctoring, painting -- houses, or art, (but only if it sells,) librarian, priest, nun, whatever. Something that has a name and is definable.
After a while it becomes obvious that being is a complicated and dangerous process for those of us who are weighed down by the fear that we will never be enough to be considered successful in the eyes of all the people asking us this question.
I tried to choose one of these sacred cows for years. I considered several things from architect, to mother, to teacher, but eventually I mostly discovered what I did Not want to be.
I don't like getting up early and while I am perfectly capable of doing it, it does not inspire me. I don't find working for money especially rewarding, at least not rewarding enough to do things that seem meaningless, or painful.
I am willing to give up a lot to do the things I feel are important, including working for room and board, which is sort of what a stay at home mom does. Nothing I ever dreamed of being was even a fraction as important to me as rearing my children was.
Likewise, I enjoy just looking at my paintings and losing myself in the colors and scenes. I have no need, or desire to sell them. The same with any music I ever made. Of course no one ever offered either!
I have always found writing to be one of my most fulfilling habits even if no one was reading what I wrote.
So what do I want to be?
Exactly what I am. A mother, a writer, a painter, a designer, a creator of my life in a hundred different ways.
Everyone wants something different and that is a good thing. It is what keeps the world going round and progress occurring.
However, what I want and what is going to happen, or what is good for me, or what is good for the world, are not always the same things. Wants are not necessarily needs, or healthy, or for everyone.
For example, I want to eat lots of yummy carbs and sugar, but if I do I suffer from type two diabetes. My brother wants to eat bread and cake and rolls, but his celiac's disease prohibits that. My sister wants her daughter to be a normal person, but she is not.
In this world we all have to make adjustments for our own good and the common good. It isn't always a choice and may even be something we really don't want to do, but it may end up being the only choice. Then it happens, because logic says one must face the truth or suffer the consequences.
This is as cold and fast and true as the existence of gravity, or night and day. There are things beyond our control to change, so we have to change ourselves, our way of dealing with things must be altered to fit reality.
No one expects a ten year old child to look, or act, or want, the same things that a one year old child does. Yet, so many people seem to think that this all changes once they feel they have reached maturity. In movies, or books, it is easy to make things look like they last forever, but happily ever after depends on change.
Getting older does not necessarily mean becoming less than. We should all be getting better over time. We have more experiences to draw from, more knowledge to use to our advantage. Being a certain age means nothing really. Health matters, common sense counts, and maintaining a willingness to change is a great boon.
Treating ourselves like we would treat much loved children means buying shoes that fit and are comfortable, clothes that make us feel good about ourselves, finding hairstyles that make us smile when we look in the mirror, and continuing to age as gracefully as we did as children. Freezing a life at any age does not work. One isn't ten, twenty isn't thirty, fifty isn't sixty. Each age has its own ups and downs. Learning to roll with the changes makes life more satisfying and pleasant than trying to contort ourselves into some past ideal that is probably not really the way we remember it.
Don't let some younger person define you either. Cliche ideas about age, or grannys, or even women of the past are not stencils that still work. You are unique!
Be everything that you are and maximize your life's joy. Get rid of those baby toys and ideas and grab hold of today's pleasures for all you're worth, because there is really no going back.
I don't know if I believe in blessings, at least not in the way many people seem to look upon them, but I do believe in situations and I do believe that sometimes we have the ability to change these situations while other times we do not. Finding ones self in a good situation might be considered a blessing by other people.
I was fortunate as a child to always feel safe in my home with my parents and siblings. No matter what else was going on in my life, how many dogs I had to fend off on the way to school, or piano lessons, how many new schools I had to get used to, or how much I might have wished to have the brand name shoes and particular clothing that were the fad of the moment, I knew that I could go home and be, not just comfortable and content, but safe.
My mother had a few strange ideas about how to bring up a child, but even though I had some terrifying dreams about her, in real life I knew she was my best defense in a world full of some scary things. I wanted to be around her, especially if I was sick.
I thought my father knew everything! I had heard him called one of the most brilliant of men by people who knew and I had no doubts. If he had told me winter was warm I would have believed him, because he never lied to me, never exaggerated, and was always kind. In the middle of the night when I had screaming nightmares, he always came in and calmed me down before he went back to bed. If I had a question he couldn't answer he would research it until he found the answers.
My insecurities with my parents mostly came from my desire to please them, but I never had any doubts that they were both there for me and would allow me to be the person I expressed a desire to be. Sometimes this seemed so hands off that I felt a little lost, but it wasn't until recently that I realized how much worse it might have been had I lived with step parents, or other people without these characteristics.
Minus one or two big exceptions, I have always focused my life on the things I enjoy. It wasn't exactly a conscious decision. In fact, it is more or less a character flaw. I just cannot maintain miserable states for too long.
My marriage was one exception. It was not happy past the first five years, but I didn't really understand why. I tried changing myself, then I tried changing the situation. Like a lot of people I thought adding children would bring us closer. I was wrong. They were the beginning of a very long end. Thanks to the children my life was very rich and fulfilled in spite of the relationship I tried to forge with my ex.
Outside of this I loved working with preschoolers, loved volunteering in the school library, loved the dream work I did with friends, and all the things that came with being a mother.
I've never been good at staying with jobs I didn't enjoy. The idea that I could spend forty years getting up and going to work in a place that was soul wrenchingly dreary is too bleak to contemplate for more than a year or two. You couldn't pay me enough money to do this. At the very least I would have to switch to another unfulfilling job occasionally.
So when I talk to people who complain about their jobs, or what they have to do with their friends, I find myself feeling impatient and annoyed. I don't understand why they continue to do these things. What is the pay off for doing what you don't like and how can that be better than the alternative?
I often find myself at odds with some people. I know it is because we do not have the same values and I also know that my standards are pretty high, but there is more to it than that.
Today I think I figured it out. The person said, "I worked." Implying that I did not work and I answered, "I worked, I just did not get paid." All of these things are true.
The problem is not that this person had to work. They did, but the implication that I just sat around home doing nothing really rankles. I did get paid to work part time teaching, but my main job was my children.
I took child rearing very seriously. They were not just dolls to dress up and show off. I felt responsible for their outlook in life. I wanted them to be well rounded in not just literature, science and math, but also music, sports, and all around interpersonal relations. We had schedules designed to give them regulated sleep, healthy meals, exercise, and education, incorporating fun, and free time and it paid off. All of my children have pretty happy, healthy, productive lives. I was not just their playmate, I was also the coordinator in our family. I made things work and I worked hard at it.
I believe every human being has unique needs and a good parent tries to help them develop in the best way possible. Enabling them only handicaps them. If no one tells you, or shows you, alternative and better ways of doing things then you are more likely to grow up disadvantaged. Children do not necessarily know what is best for them. They do need parents, people who have more experience and are willing to share it.
Our world is complicated. That is why we give people twenty or so years to grow up. After that it is time to step back and let them experience success and failure on their own terms. Learning by doing is valuable too, once you have the basics down. A little help here or there is fine, but it should be judiciously given to encourage them to grow and be independent.
Some day the parents will be gone and the children will be parents themselves. It is important that they have the skills to pass on to their children otherwise it is possible that generations of struggling failures will follow.
I am always hearing that Walmart and Amazon caused the great stores and malls to shut down so we don't have them to shop at anymore.
I'm not sure I agree. People caused those stores and malls to shut down.
People who could not afford to shop there.
People who charged more than was necessary for goods.
People who did not pay their employees a living wage so they could shop where they wanted and not just where their budgets allowed.
Greed makes stores close. Owners who wanted that extra buck so badly they had to milk their customers and under pay their workers.
My sister is always saying she will retire when she is "all caught up." Then she goes out and spends more money. I remember times when I thought I could catch up, get out of all debt. Have everything I needed and wanted.
It never actually happened, or, on the rare occasions that it did, it never lasted.
There are plateaus in life. They are bigger for some people than others, but for me, as long as I am breathing and moving there is going to be change. I am almost always on the hunt for something. Trying to lower my blood sugar, to lose weight, to find just the right apartment, to build my dream house, become an author, a teacher, a mother.
Unfortunately once I achieve any of these goals it is anti-climatic, sometimes disappointing, and seldom lasting.
The thing that makes life worth living are the attempts to make it better. It isn't about being unsatisfied. It is about dreaming and creating and trying new things. I like variety and when all else fails, I rearrange the furniture! During the quarantine I had everything I needed. A safe comfortable home, computer access, books to read, groceries dropped at my door, all the entertainment a television could provide and for a while I was more than content. Then I began to gain weight and feel depressed.
I felt like an animal living in a zoo. All my needs were being met except that I had no goals, nothing to look forward to.
Now, even though I love stability, I really don't want to "catch up." When I die there will be ravelings hanging loose all over the place, but that is okay with me. A fringed shawl has so many more possibilities than a tight knit sweater.
I can't tell you how many times people tell me I have such a great outlook on life, or that I am, "so sweet." The truth is I am probably a lot less sweet than you can imagine, but I have been blessed with a relatively good outlook.
It's not that I don't see the bad stuff. I do! And if I am not careful that stuff can ruin my life. There are people, places, things and opinions that I really do not care for at all. Given a bad night I can lie there awake and obsess over them for hours.
But I discovered something a long time ago and that is that there are some things I cannot change. Not consciously and not by dwelling on them. If there is nothing really within my power that will alter these things, I have two choices.
1. Be miserable.
2. Find a way around them.
There are all kinds of ways to deal with a lot of the crap life throws at me besides fixing, or dwelling ot it. Sometimes it is possible to simply ignore it, pretend it isn't there, which if it isn't a fire or a flood, is often possible for a long time. The other is to find a replacement for it in my life.
A replacement doesn't have to be a concrete item. It can be a feeling, or way of dealing with undesirable occurrences. It is along the idea that if you want life to be great, you have to make it great. Once upon a time I thought this was simply avoidance, but honestly that's okay a lot of times. If it looks okay and feels okay, whose to say that maybe it isn't okay?
I can choose to find the (love, way, sunshine, happiness, whatever it is I am looking for.) Of course I could also choose to find the faults, ugliness and tension in the world, but on the whole I've never found that particularly productive. I don't encourage that.
My daughter is home visiting from Arizona this week and we have been enjoying a lot of family time. Growing up I spent a great deal of time with my mother, grandmother, great aunts, aunts, cousins and sister. My dad was always working away from home while the women congregated around the family business.
Although I spent much of my time with these women I never really felt a great affinity for women. I wanted to be like my dad. I'm not sure I achieved that in any great form, but it was my desire most of my life. Many of my best friends have been boys or men. They just seem to resonate with the things I like to read, watch, or do.
My daughter is just the opposite. She adores her daughters and never misses a moment she can be with them. She spends a lot of time with me when she is here in town and she spends a lot of time with her boy friend's mother too. They even vacation together in Hawaii or wherever the place is that year. She has great female coworkers and other good friends, all women.
She is a woman's woman and it has served her well.
I don't quite understand it, but I love it. I know that wherever she is, she will always be among people who love her and will care for her.
I am reading about doctors reluctant to work in anti-abortion states and my first thought is good for them!
I hope more doctors will refuse this idea of working in states where Big Brother lords it over the rest of us.
But then I realize that the people making these laws really do not care. They have the money and where with all to do whatever they want by flying wherever they can get the medical care they want.
It is the rest of us who are locked into places where the government tries to play god and lord it over the peons under them.
Of course this governmental god could care less about living growing babies and parents who lack the food, care and environment to grow healthy and happy people. The just wanna look good to those supposedly godly people who are so shortsighted they don't believe their god will see what they are really doing.
I remember my mother playing with me. Not a lot, I was the oldest of four children in five years. Much of what we did together was imitating adult work, but it was fun for me. I had a real iron so I ironed Daddy's handkerchiefs. I embroidered hankies in cross stitch. I "helped" with my younger siblings, but we still played sometimes and it was often make believe.
My fourth birthday party was attended by all my dolls and stuffed animals. Mommy and I cleaned each one up getting them ready and then she had each one knock on the door which I answered as they came to the party. Some of them played drop the clothespin in the milk bottle with us. It was a wonderful party!
I passed that on, playing with my children. Only I had more time than my mother did. My daughter was five years older than the boys who were 18 months apart. During their childhoods we built castles in the basement made out of old furniture, boxes and butcher paper on a roll. The turret was a high chair, the swings I hung from the rafters, rocket ships. We went on adventures and did amazing things.
Now my son just sent me a video of him playing with his favorite little person. They were on an adventure in space and the backyard was a universe full of obstacles. I watched the enthusiasm and joy in that little boy's face as he revved up batteries, leaped over monsters and got ready to take off in the swing and I saw how clearly we pass on the love in our lives.
I am constantly amazed by my children. I think most mothers are, but mine seem to get involved in things I only thought about when I was young.
I played in school orchestras and bands and my kids did too. Then they branched out to guitars and popular bands. Singing and playing the way I only dreamed of as a young person.
My older son majored in music (and psychology, and German, and ultimately Law) so it is not all that surprising that he writes, performs and plays now that he is an adult.
My younger son did not. In fact when he played trombone in junior high I often thought, "That boy has a tin ear!" This is no longer true. Now that he has matured, his voice is as clear and true as any troubadour. I could sit and listen to him singing and playing away on his guitars and ukes forever more.
All the children, actually our entire family, had fun with community theater when they were growing up, but my youngest son rubs shoulders with some pretty awe inspiring performers now and, unlike me, he is not fazed by coworkers who sing and dance as naturally as cardinals in the trees.
I doubt that any of my children will ever be world famous performers, but they have a love of music and performing that enriches their lives and those around them.
That makes me indescribably happy.
I love my apartment. It is nice, clean, safe, and in the right part of town for the things I do, but I am becoming one of the lucky few.
Housing prices and rent have soared in the past year. My granddaughter's apartment now costs over a hundred dollars a month more than it did last year and that is with no improvements. I just read about communities in the west where there are not enough affordable homes for firemen, teachers, small business owners and service people.
The upper classes have long had advantages the rest of us do not. They can afford to manipulate their taxes so they pay almost nothing. They live in exorbitant homes and hire people to do everything they don't want to do. If they paid these people a living wage things might be okay, but they also want to charge them usurious rates for renting homes, buying food, or clothing, or any other necessary needs.
I'd like to believe that eventually the poor will simply move away from these areas, leaving the wealthy with a shortage of service workers, but that probably won't happen. Instead the people having to live in third rate motels, garages, campers and cardboard boxes will slowly grow to include people who never believed it could happen to them.
I remember having to rewrite the Constitution in our own words when I was in school. I remember learning all the rules for respecting the American flag. I was involved in politics, that I remember, since age six when Eisenhower was president. I saw presidents come and go and even though our family supported some and not others during the elections, I never remember anyone not respecting whoever was in office. No matter which party he belonged to.
Never in my entire life did I expect to see a United States President attempt a petty coup like some South American dictator. It never occurred to me that a president in our country would try to takeover without winning an election.
A man who believed he could buy our country because he had bought everything else he wanted utterly destroyed my sense of security.
Politicians have gone from people who were always self-serving and self important to outright dangerous clowns. They play with lies and half truths, outlandish stories and craziness the way teenagers play Dungeons and Dragons. Except even teens know what they are doing is a game while many American people think the people they elected are being truthful no matter how bizarre they are.
2016 was the election that made me fear for our country's future.
I just spent several days with a very special creature.It is helpful, caring and always empathetic, but sometimes it is a little bit disconcerting.
One moment we are sitting, or walking along together and the next moment I am alone.
The Good Deed Fairy is gone!
Where?
The Good Deed Fairy disappears to take pictures for a large family eating with their loved ones. It flits over to tell a man he has left his flashlight on in his pocket and it is shining through the material of his pants. It saves a little boy from a very aggressive goose on a restaurant patio. It returns to find our waitress as we are leaving the restaurant and give her a huge handful of cash because she was so good and is due to give birth at any time.
This is the first time I ever spent time with a super hero!
The doctor told her to eat small meals throughout the day.
She ate flavored yogurt and honey nut Cheerios for breakfast.
Egg noodles in gravy on mashed potatoes and biscuits for lunch.
A cherry snow cone and a medium hot fudge sundae for snacks.
A cheeseburger and fries for dinner.
I'm pretty sure this isn't what he had in mind, but her weight never fluctuated for years.
On the other hand I ate three jumbo eggs with a slice of cheddar cheese, a vegan sausage, and a slice of sprouted grain bread with lots of real butter for brunch.
And a serving of meatloaf, a tiny serving of mashed potatoes and three servings of broccoli with cheese sauce for dinner.
Two slices of white cheddar cheese for snacks.
That probably wasn't what he had in mind either, but I lost 64 pounds eating it.
Eating is an insanely personal, emotional and physical balancing act.
What if you discovered that what suits "most people" according to social media, ads, and general rumor, does not necessarily suit you?
We have become so accustomed to authority figures like doctors, nurses, dietitians, and other people who supposedly "really know" that we don't question it.
Over the years nearly everything we eat or drink has been labeled bad, or a super food and then a few years later that is retracted.
I appear to be healthier right now than I have been for at least forty years and I am embarrassed to tell you what I eat, because of these standards. I have lost well over sixty pounds, lowered my blood pressure, A1C, cholesterol, and managed to rehab an aching back without physical therapy.
By doing what my body wants and tolerates
I know that sounds too easy, but it really isn't. I can't drink soda pop, or eat dessert whenever I want. I can't survive on the breads and rolls I love, but I don't have to eat salad or give up cheese or even meat. I just have to eat them in the amounts my body craves and not feed my taste buds. My tasted buds crave tons of food right after I eat, but if I put them off an hour or so, they give in and allow me to realize I am full enough.
It has taken me years to figure some of these things out. I am not a religious exerciser, but I do need to get up and move twenty to sixty minutes a day. I can eat two big meals a day and still lose a little weight. Not as much as I did in the beginning, but still, a little.
I had to learn to be nice to me. I like to read and sleep and socialize. I like to watch some movies and I like to be creative. There may be more, but it took me 72 years to get this far.
Give me time!
I have always had a weight problem. Even when I weighed 102 pounds which is nothing for a five foot, seven inch woman. There are lots of reasons for this, including a husband whose ego demanded I be tinier than I am, but it is something I have been trying to get over.
I am an emotional eater. I eat when I'm happy. I eat when I'm sad. I eat when I am disgusted with myself and when I'm in love - with me or anybody else!
The past six months I have tried to address this problem along with losing a significant amount of weight for my own health. Losing weight is not new to me. Keeping it off, is.
Now I am at the point where I can wear regular size clothing and I am not embarrassed by my size, but I would still like to lose a significant amount of weight. That is what I say, but what I am really thinking is don't let me put this lost weight back on!
This past month I started eating out with friends again and managed to lose one pound. That isn't much, but it is so much better than gaining five. Training myself to eat two meals a day and drink water has helped. So much of my eating was rewarding myself by eating and reading, or eating and watching a movie, so both books and television were triggers.
I suspect I will always be on a tightrope, trying to balance food with health, but I am hopeful that this time I am on the right rope.
People have gathered under the summer skies to listen to band concerts in parks since time began. It is one of those things I do with my granddaughter that my grandmother did with me. Different bands in different towns, but the music is pretty much the same.
Tonight it was even more so.
Maybe because I am older, but I felt closer to my relatives than usual. My great grandfather fought at the battle of Vicksburg, was wounded and lay under his horse for three days before they found him. Later he was an honor guard on the train that carried Lincoln's body across the country.
My great uncle was in the army during world war one. My dad was an engineer in the Navy after world war two when the German prisoners were still down in Louisiana. And my ex was in Vietnam in 1969. All those wars, all that death, all that suffering, but the music is still stirring.
I can imagine my great grandmothers and aunts listening to band concerts as they waited for their men to come home. Back then it was waiting that women had to endure. Tonight there was a woman marine who stood with the men when they played the Marine anthem.
Our band plays a song for each of the armed forces and the veterans stand when it is theirs. For some reason that touched me deeply tonight. The little girl who sat with us lost a brother in Iraq. He was 25.
What can I say? The music is beautiful, the stories time honored, but I never want to get used to the death.
All around the square they ride
dreams and hopes still living
High school football hero
tonight and a reputation
unending.
Crowned in glory, ascending she strides
Her future created in filming
Prom queen beauty
forevermore and her future
never beginning.
A great big truck
maybe a gun
and a house with a view
in the small town sun.
I dreamed about you last night
we traveled together to your friend's
who took us, in the back seat, in her car.
Stopping off at her house, you offered me your hand
pulling me out into mud up to my waist.
I lost my shoe.
I nearly lost my mind as your friend procrastinated.
Talking on the phone, laughing on the phone, visiting
while I searched for my lost ruined shoes.
My new shoes would never be the same
Unrecognizable in their filth, one lost forever
Until you pointed out that it was still on my right foot.
Your friend sent us on in her car, still in the back seat
Driven by her giggling children
to see a pumpkin factory making dishes out of pumpkins.
I wondered if it was worth it.
Being with you if it meant her.
I am a vivid dreamer. I remember my dreams as if they are actual experiences. Being part of a Jungian dream group for over ten years encouraged this, of course, but it also taught me to look for what could be behind the dream. The setting, the characters, everything in the dream comes through the focus of my being. I am director, producer, star and cast.
Imagine living in the 1840's duplex house my ex-husband grew up in. In this dream it is now an apartment with distinctive white woodwork and comfortable rooms. Downstairs are other apartments, but only in the dream, not in real life, that I can get to by going around the outside of the house and down some steps. I go down there to visit a friend and a woman from the apartment under mine comes out to call to me. She invites me in for a cup of tea in such a friendly, insistent way that I cannot say no.
The house in this dream comes from a time of innocence and gullibility. The idea of a basement in a dream often portrays working through inner feelings, or betrayals of the past. In this dream the woman was incredibly friendly, likable, personable, outgoing, and single minded. She kept me placated by appearing to do what she said she would, make tea, while manipulating me completely.
I was aware of her manipulation, but also so inundated by her words and actions that it was hard to focus on anything else. She showed me extraordinary things, antique bookcases filled with ancient books, elegant antique woodwork and a rounded snowwhite door painted bright red over rough wood. Through that door was a room filled with exotic treasures, including a gilded cage with a hummingbird in it.
She took the humming bird out and placed it in my hands and I was overwhelmed by awe and joy, quickly followed by confusion and fear as it appeared to morph back and forth from hummingbird to a black frog like creature with red diamonds on its back! I kept asking her why this was happening and she ignored me as if she neither heard me, nor saw it happen. Now I was very uneasy and she deftly maneuvered me out of that room and back into the bedroom where I noticed how much larger her apartment was than mine. How could that be when they were built on top of each other? Again she acted like there was nothing wrong.
Her four year old daughter drifted in and out of the picture and her young boyfriend appeared at the door. They both made the apartment seem much more modern and normal, but by now I was feeling very intimidated and trapped. I wanted out before it was too late! Too late for what I don't know.
I did get out, but once outside I could not find the entrance to my own apartment. Everything had changed. I knew this made no sense and by sheer force of will I found it and went inside only to find the woman sitting on my couch waiting for me. I was terrified and nearly hysterical. I drove her out.
I think this dream is remembering the times in my life when I have been gracefully and brutally manipulated by talented, narcissistic brilliant people who have had a single minded desire to get what they want at any cost. There have been at least two and possible more on a smaller scale. They used the things I admired and loved to pull me in and allowed me to think it was love.
Peering inside someone else's memories is both fascinating and dangerous. There is always the fact that no two people remember everything the same and there is always the possibility of things being misremembered.
Add to that the choice of remembering, what is important and how it happened, and you have a recipe for stepping on toes, or hurting someone's feelings.
Once you start writing memories down you also need an editor to look for misspelled words and names. I find the best way to edit is by reading something out loud. It slows the process down enough so that the obvious is not glossed over. This requires someone dedicated to providing the time that will take.
In the end, though, reading someone's thoughts can be a charming experience, especially if they are the thoughts of a loved one.
Father's Day somehow seems less celebratory than Mother's Day. The schmaltz abounds for mother's day. All our mothers seem bound for glory as saints they never were simply because we love or loved them. While fathers often just get honorable mentions.
I understand that. In my house the father was a revered person. When he was home we ate in the dining room. He always had an office lined with books and his presence was a time for better manners, more serious conversations, or the ultimate decision.
And yet I adored my father. I wished he would want to go out and throw the ball with us, or do something fathers on television did, but that wasn't who he was. It might have even been who he wished he could be, but he grew up in a formal household that left him feeling obligated to do everything with great dignity.
He succeeded at that. No matter what my father did, it felt noble and dignified and it felt like a great honor for me to be part of it. I wanted to grow up to be my father and I was a girl.
What if?
That is a question someone asks all the time. Does it matter if I don't love somebody, or somebody does not love me? Does it matter if things do not go the way I planned them? Does it matter if things don't turn out the way I expected, or wanted, or even needed them to be?
It does.
And it does not.
The Way is long and winding and filled with mysteries. Chances are the power I have over it is much less than I believe, but it is entirely possible that I am wrong. Maybe I have absolute power, just not my conscious mind.
When I am sad, time seems to stand still or drag by. The reverse is true when I am happy. Time is seldom relevant when it comes to endings, because endings are hard to pinpoint. Everything begins somewhere and it seems necessary that this must follow an ending, but maybe those are just times when the scene is being set, the Way cleared, or the ego is set aside to rest and grow.
"Wait and see." Words that I hated as a child. Words that still frustrate me, but the only true path.
I can facilitate what I want to happen and hopefully, if it is good and solid and pure, it will happen, But there are no promises.
What will be will be.
Every language has its own way of saying that because it is a universal concept.
Whether I like it or not.
Old habits are hard to lose.
I have lost over sixty pounds by eating right for months and yet I still find myself feeling guilty about over eating even when I have not.
There is a frame of mind where I will always be overweight and uncomfortable. It causes me to wake up thinking "Why did I eat that?" When I only ate small meals with very few calories.
I get dressed in the morning and my clothes fit just fine, or are even a bit big, but in the evening I find myself feeling like I've been stuffed into them and longing for my pajamas.
Driving my car , I see other women who are very chunky and I commiserate with them. I still see myself as one of the chubby ones. I really have no sense of what size I am.
I try to reason it out. My sister weighs a certain amount and I think she looks great, so I should look fine too. I know it, but I don't feel it.
I will never weigh 110 pounds again. I really shouldn't even want to be that at my age and height, but my heart wants to be back there again.
The truth is, I just don't trust my own eyes and perspective.
Part of that is because I see other women who obviously have no idea how large they really are. I don't want to be one of them. And, on the other hand, I ask myself, "What difference does it make?"
Dusty rose and cornflower blue, colors that I always find myself drawn to, but not my favorite colors. At least that is what I tell myself. I think my favorite color is a deep foresty blue green.
Pine trees and deep lagoons, sharp Christmas tree smells and cool forest darkness. These are a few of my favorite things.
But what is a favorite thing without accents, something to highlight and show off its fascinating depth? I think that is where dusty rose and cornflower blue come in. They are the highlights of my life.
Deep rosy memories steeped in old world wealth and simple blue skies soaked in sunlight at the day's end, times that grab me in moments so rich and poignant that they fill my soul with aching for what was and what could be.
These are the colors that surround me and bring joy to the present.
I often hear people described as childish, or child-like in a pejorative sort of way, but I think that it can be a very good thing to be child-like.
Children forgive easier and they are comforted so much easier. A treasured stuffed animal, a hug, or a favorite blankie can go miles towards making child-like people capable of surviving.
I'm not saying they actually heal faster, or better, although some do, but they can be comforted over and over again along that long road to healing.
In some ways I think children and child-like people actually feel things harder and deeper. They don't have the cushions adults have picked up along the way, but they just walk farther from the edge and they are more willing to accept help when it is there.
It is almost as if we are born perfect and that perfection is chipped away, or buried under debris as the years go by. When that doesn't happen it is both a blessing and a miracle.
Today my oldest granddaughter turns 28.
Way back in 1994 her mother was spending the night with us and suffering through what the doctor assumed were Braxton Hicks contractions. I remember giving her one of my geodes to focus and meditate on before I went to bed.
Suddenly, in the middle of the night, my teenage son woke me up to say his sister was feeling awful. I got up, her father called her doctor, and I told her to change from her "I dream of Jeanie harem pajamas," into something else. She put on shorts, which turned out to be very good later on.
We jumped into our mini van and headed for the hospital with her sitting in the middle of the back seat behind us. Just as we got to the stop sign across the street from her elementary school, she stood up and exclaimed, "Mom! The baby slipped out!"
I don't remember how I got to the back seat where my teeny tiny granddaughter was swinging out of the bottom of her mother's shorts from her umbilical cord, but I scooped her up into my hands. She was so tiny, two pounds, thirteen ounces and making mewing sounds like a newborn kitten, her tiny arms smaller than some of my fingers!
I do remember saying, "Welcome to the world little one, I am your grandma."
Thank goodness we were minutes from the hospital, because I wasn't quite sure what else I should do. I knelt there holding her in my hands until we arrived. Once there, attendants rushed out and carried both mother and baby in and I was left standing in shock in the emergency waiting room looking at my hands.
It was a miracle very few people ever get to experience and one I will never forget!
I grew up in a family where my dad was mostly working and gone, so our world was built around a group of women, Mom, grandmas, aunts, cousins, etc.
As a younger child I remember that my maternal grandma was wonderful, awesome, beautiful, smart, always on the go, perfect in every way. My paternal grandma was stiff, formal, snobbish, and uncomfortable to be around, but looking back I wonder.
These views were not from my point of view. They were impressed upon me by my mother. If you were like her, thought like her, dressed the way she liked, did the things she liked, or were from her family, you could do no wrong. You knew you were actually better than other people in so many ways and you had an obligation not to let the world ever ever ever think less of you in any of those ways. It was better to be silent and unseen than to make a mistake, or dare to err in any way.
If you were from my father's family, or anyone else who dared to be different than her ideal family, you were mocked, made fun of and looked down upon as someone weird. That went for everything from the way you wore your hair, to the clothes you wore, even the food you ate. If it wasn't her kind of food it was horrible, gaggy, no good, lousy fare.
I seldom spent any time with my paternal grandma which is probably a shame, because I suspect she and I had a lot in common. We both liked to read, paint, and sew. We made dolls, played Bridge, and enjoyed formal events just for the fun of them.
I was not encouraged to do these things. I was told if I thought I was pretty then I was not. I was told I walked like a chicken with it's head out front. I was constantly compared with my younger sister who was tiny, delicate, spunkier and better in every way - or so I thought then. I believed my mother loved me, so she must be right.
I do believe she loved me, but she had a twisted kind of love that covered up its insecurity by wielding power over those who were different from her in any way. I felt different and yet when I see photographs of me I look like any other beautiful young child with big eyes and a shy smile.
I am not the person she wanted me to be.
We just had a family photo taken while out celebrating my oldest granddaughter's birthday. Looking around that table I feel good about the smiling faces I see.
It is a simple photograph. No one is wearing makeup. Everyone is smiling in a big genuine way and no one appears to feel self conscious.
I am proud of these people. I would be proud even if they were wearing tons of makeup and very self conscious.
Nobody bought these people cars when they turned sixteen. They have managed to dress, feed, house and educate themselves and they have done a good job! They feel good about who they are and deservedly so.
All of them have had to face difficulties that might have left others feeling like failures, but these people just kept at it until they made it to where they are today.
There is a lot of love in our family. And a lot of respect too.
Life is a series of choices, so it stands to reason that those good at making choices will have a better life.
And that means we need to give children a chance to make choices early on and frequently, then allow them to live with the consequences for a while.
Otherwise how can they hope to build confidence in their decision making abilities?
I am sure some people are just born with the ability to consider all the options and make good decisions, but I see so many who don't have these skills as adults, that I wouldn't count on it.
I also believe it is better to feel you have more control over your life than it is to feel you are reliant on someone else taking care of you. There is nothing wrong with having a little backup around, but that's all it is - a little back up. The power to take care of yourself is a wonderful and important part of being happy.
All that being said, it is also important to know that living with the consequences of your own decisions is part of life. It is one of the ways we learn what to do, what not to do, and why.
There is a sense of power and pride that comes with figuring these things out and it develops a confidence and stability that is absolutely invaluable.
It is hard to find things to fall in madly in love with now.
Whether that is a sign of the times or my age, my attitude, or what I may never know. I only know that the heart pounding throb I have so often experienced in this life seems to be quieted.
I still love people, but I don't feel the urgency I once felt.
Some people might call it reality, but I suspect there is something else going on here and that might be the lack of the hunt. I am not looking for love in any places, right or wrong.
I know where love is now and what it is. I have found it, but I don't need to cage it, or twist my life into odd contortions to make it fit in order to feel secure.
I only need to breathe in and breathe out.
Love is part of me now and with that knowledge comes great peace.
Of all the sins in all the world, the worst one is probably betrayal.
First of all because no one can really betray you unless you trust them first.
Trusting someone not to hurt you is an important part of being around each other.
It is a little like looking at an electric stove. It is always there and when the burners are red, you know not to touch it, but what happens when the oven is on at 425 degrees? The stove looks the same until you lean on it, or put your hand on it - then you get a nasty surprise.
The fortunate thing about stoves is that if you are careful and hold your hand nearby, you can generally feel the heat radiating off of it and avoid it.
People are not as easy to avoid. One phone call looks like another until you speak to the person on the other end, but once you answer it you can get caught up in all sorts of betrayals. One of the worst of which is lying. In order to get you to listen and be sympathetic people have all sorts of ways of pulling you into their own personal situations and some people thrive on problems. They don't know how to live without embroiling themselves in bad situations.
These people cannot admit to themselves that they created these problems, but misery loves company and they are quick to share them. They want sympathy, care, enabling, anything but a real solution, because a solution often means admitting they are part of the problem. To them this is a normal way to live.
There aren't many good solutions for dealing with betrayers. Because the main way is to avoid them and most of us don't want to avoid people we love.
It is a last resort, but it is one answer.
After over fifty years of losing weight I can promise you one thing.
You cannot buy weight loss.
If you could there would be no fat rich people. You can buy quick fix tricks, but unless you are willing to repeat these forever more, you will eventually gain back your weight and maybe even more. I kept my weight between 102 and 126 for nearly ten years by eating small and very small amounts of food along with very high levels of exercise. There was a point where I was playing tennis almost six hours a day.
This is not a sustainable lifestyle if you have children, or other priorities in your life. Neither is it sustainable to do something that will get you to your goal quickly so you can eat the way you want and hope to maintain the weight loss. In the past fifty plus years I think I have tried all these things and more.
Bread and bread type things are comfort foods for me, but they are also full of carbs and sugar, so it wasn't until I became a full fledged type two diabetic that I gave them up. It has been hard. I used to dream of crusty loaves of bread, toast, buns, cookies, pasta, corn and rice. I have found sprouted bread which is better for me and even then I only get one slice early in the day. I don't get ice cream except on very rare occasions and that goes for any other desserts even canned fruit.
I know this is not just until I reach a certain weight. If I want to keep my diabetes at bay it has to be forever. My glucose averages 100 and my A1C is 5.1 and I want to keep it that way, or lower it. My kidneys, my heart, even my skin relies on that and at my age there is no room to fool around.
I have found a combination of foods that seem to satisfy both my body and soul. They help eliminate the cravings I once had and with a little bit of self encouragement they work for me. I still have a tendency to want to eat more right after a meal, especially in the evening, but I now know if I just wait an hour I will be fine. I am not physically hungry. I am mentally primed to eat.
Exercise is good, but it really does not maintain weight loss unless you do extreme amounts. I lose weight with a normal amount of movement and it works. My exercise is to maintain muscle coordination. It is a scary balancing act that requires lots of small rewards, but not food rewards.
I just had the most delightful tour of a British Pub House built in 1750!
Bestest is visiting friends over there and they agreed to show me around via Facetime on my phone.
I expected low beamed ceilings and fireplaces, but I did not expect all the rest.
Charming rooms with beautiful paintings, antique furniture and exquisite needlepoint hangings framed English elegance that looked out upon a garden filled with flowers, niches and shrubbery. I had the feeling that fairies might be fluttering just out of sight.
Every place I looked there was something eye catching and amazing, yet it all blended together in cozy perfection.
If I were to pick my dream house, this would be it!
Never challenge the gentle one. It is like feeding the mogwai after midnight.
Her sensibilities rise to the surface with a transformation that begins with tears and indignation. Armor unfolds in cold passive aggressive waves that will freeze you.
She trembles in rage. Her thoughts begin to jumble, and she turns to her enablers for validation and comfort.
If only the rest of the world understood her delicate sensibilities!
Her bag of tricks depends on fulfilling her needs and she needs to be needed! Drama feeds her vision of self, calling all those nearby to come defend her.
Against who?
Why reality of course! The long nurtured and carefully curated line of people who must need her in the way she chooses has altered over the years and now she is panicked. Her soul begins to shrivel and starve as her son attains independence. Retirement looms along with those needy patients and that awful job she has moaned about for years.
Her last bastion for pity and power comes from the child whose needs were never met. The pretty pet who was curled and dressed, shined and polished and kept on a leash just short enough to maintain mama's ego.
Yes, beware the Gentle one or she will eat you alive.
Every child is a piece of a mother's heart and no matter what happens, nothing can change that.
Losing a child is too painful to even think about, so it is easier to pretend only the best of things.
But sometimes the reality creeps up on me and my heart aches so fiercely that I know I will die if I let that feeling linger too long.
Love, unlike other things, never ends.
If you had asked me before this week, where is home? I probably would have given you some trite answer like home is where the heart is.
For most of my life home was where my parents were. We moved a lot, but home was always quickly accepted as the place our family lived and even after I no longer lived there, I still thought of it as home, so for me, home has been a house long since demolished by a angry woman after her daughter, my mother died. It did not exist except in my mind, but it still usurped all the other places that might have been called, home.
I thought of those other places as Caroline's house, John's house, Bobby's house, Jimmy's house. The turmoil in my own house kept it from ever feeling like the safe, nonjudgmental place I wanted my children to call home. I was constantly looking for that, always hoping to find it in a place with a family room, or a pool, or by a lake, but it was never really there. The possibility that it could be ripped from under us made it disposable.
Those last few years were a frenetic search for a place that could not exist and so I had never really given it any more thought until today. Today I realized that although this is the fourth year in the fourth apartment I have lived in back here in Bloomington-Normal, it is really my home!
I feel safe here. I am at home here. The decor is mine. The furniture is mine. The books are mine and I am in a place I love. When my daughter comes to visit in a few weeks, she will be coming home. Maybe not to her home, where she grew up, or where she lives now, but to me and the place I call home.
I often find myself feeling twinges of guilt when I should just be enjoying the moment. When I realize I am doing this I have tried to analyze it. Why should I feel guilty about feeling good?
Is it that old superstition about tempting fate or the gods by making them think we are trying to compete with them. In other words, do I have a right to feel heavenly?
Is it that old wive's tale that good times are just waiting for the other shoe to drop, just a precursor to something that could be unimaginably awful?
Is it because, like my devout Catholic friend believes, my suffering is keeping someone else's suffering to a minimum. I am suffering so they won't have to suffer as much and therefore when I am happy I am adding to their pain? Should we all strive to be saints buried alive, or living in some kind of torment?
Or is it just our Puritan roots coming back to haunt us. Miserableness is next to godliness.
I suspect it is all of those added onto the burdens passed down from ancestors who lived during the depression and think life is supposed to have a cloud hanging over it. The old, if I had to get up at the crack of dawn and work my fingers to the bone it made me a better person and by golly I'll make you the same way!
The idea that I am not entitled to feel pretty, or happy, content, or blessed without being "bad" in some way is one I am trying to get over. My head has always known it was wrong. Now I just need to erase these ideas from my subconscious.
I am experiencing frustration.
I am eating the exact, really exact, same food in the exact same amounts I ate to lose the last thirty five pounds. I am off the Glipizide and walking 20 to 40 minutes a day. All of this since May 1st. And I need to make a note that the food I eat is both low in carbs and calories (900).
I am not even close to a healthy weight and I haven't lost an ounce in seven days!
My body cannot tolerate any more walking without injuring my feet or back muscles right now. They are just not there. And I cannot eat any less.
The only loss I am experiencing is a loss of ideas. I have no idea what to do.
I have been eating basically the same food at the same time since December 28, 2021. Up until May 1st. I was taking diabetes medication just before both meals, but that began to make my glucose drop too low since I lost the last few pounds. For the past six days I have been able to maintain a good glucose level without any medication as long as I eat right and walk at least twenty minutes a day.
I don't have to walk hard, or fast, just stay upright and keep going for 20-50 minutes a day, often holding the handle of a shopping cart to take the strain off my back. It's a routine and normally I'm not good with routines, but this one is necessary if I want a quality life and it has taken years to figure it out.
It feels a little like magic, like a child's game. Step on a crack, break your mother's back, only in this case if I just don't break the spell, I can keep on going. The plus sides are many, but the one I am enjoying the most is that I've lost 55 pounds since this time last year.
The only problem right now? I have so much more energy, but my back is not strong enough to support me doing all the things I want to do. I have to balance out standing and sitting while those muscles get stronger. Otherwise I end up like I did a few weeks ago, at the prompt care.
Imagine. Me eating right, exercising intelligently and having energy to spare! It feels too good to be true.
There are two kinds of people. Those who think of themselves as wild and free and those who don't. When I was young I thought the people who ran around in groups, driving fast cars, doing crazy things were the wild and free ones. They did too. Many of those people still consider themselves in that group, or wish to be in that group.
The other group tends to be a little more reticent about what they do. We don't follow the crowd so much. We aren't the in-people. We don't always wear the latest fads, most makeup, craziest shoes. We might do all those things, but we tend to do them on our own time, in our own way. If we are out there dancing on the dance floor, it is because we love to dance, or we love the person we are with. The same is true for almost everything we do. We do it because it fulfills us.
Our lives are not for other people. We don't do things for show. We don't need adulation or recognition. We need to feel like our deepest selves are doing okay. And strangely enough, this seems to bring the recognition along with it more times than I ever expected.
I would describe myself as reserved with a taste for quality, not wild and free and yet I have never kept a job I didn't love, seldom worn clothes I didn't love, or been afraid to up and move half way across the country because it felt right. I've sampled life all up and down the spectrum in ways that would amaze some people and stun others, but it is my business and I hope you won't be hurt to know I don't share a lot of that with most people.
A friend once told me, "You only share things with people who deserve to know."
I believe that.
I've been on a journey since Christmas. In the beginning I knew right where I was going: to get as close as possible to the diabetic A1C one doctor wanted and to get my blood pressure as low as possible for another, both due to be seen in March. I didn't have high hopes for either one. In fact, I have recently realized that I haven't had any real hopes since coming out of the Covid Quarantine. I turned 72 just before it happened and that was the definitive age I had assigned to being old.
I had given up imagining myself svelte, glowing with health, active and attractive. In the last fifty years I have been unable to maintain any of those things for any considerable length of time. My feet and ankles have always been iffy, even as a child and they are worse now. Add modern medicine's apparently inept ability to do much more for older people than provide panaceas that don't really work and I had given up.
My first real step forward was when I was able to find the right shoes for my diabetic orthotics, in spite of my podiatrist's office four month failure. My next was finding food I enjoyed that fit into a diabetic diet in quantities I could live with.
Now fifty plus pounds lighter, wearing good shoes, I am trying to recover the muscle tone in my back necessary for doing things I enjoy. But what do I enjoy? Tennis is beyond me, at least at this point. Even walking in the woods is beyond me, but I need to walk every day. I can do that if I am holding onto a basket or walker and today I actually walked almost an hour without any assistance.
Walking around the block, or even the park, like I'm on a huge human hamster wheel is not going to cut it for me. I hate that. It's boring beyond belief and even listening to podcasts doesn't help. I'm in enough pain that I can't concentrate enough to enjoy them.
I do enjoy fixing up my apartment, so I have been downsizing even more. I have cleaned out drawers, and closets and cabinets. Then I go do what used to be called window shopping, but since we really no longer have windows to shop in, I go to big stores that have carts to push and buy nothing.
I love the hunt, but I don't want the stuff accumulating so I have a rule. I have to absolutely love anything I buy. I can't just like it, or find it useful. I have to be struck by it in some emotionally profound way, or I won't buy it. So far this is working out really good for me.
I've been to big box stores, specialty stores, antique malls, thrift stores and in the last month I have bought one coffee cup. It is a beautiful cup, exactly 12 ounces, made of porcelain, and a lovely color. When I drink my coffee out of it, I marvel at its beauty.
Some how all of this is clearing out my mind and giving me room for hope again.
