éadrom

 

They live mortal lives and suffer mortal woes, but there is a people who are very much different from other mortals.

They are born to love and once they discover the love of their life, nothing will ever dissuade them from continuing on in a quest no one else in the world will ever understand.

These creatures are born amongst regular humans, sprinkled here and there like dew drops on a fairy garden, so that there will always be a hidden sparkle, a tinkle of laughter and a dash of joy no matter how hard their lives may appear to others, or sometimes seem to them.

They do not necessarily find their muse right away and even then it is sometimes possible that the object of their love will not respond with the understanding and behavior appropriate to being loved so much.

That does not change anything.

I knew two who did find each other. Young, forever and in spite of terrible odds, lived out the fairy tale almost until the end.

I know one who discovered his and faithfully supported, loved, honored, and adored her forever more while she stood unknowing and blind to the magic around her.

I know another who found a love out of time, but in the end that did not matter. The feelings were still the same and the ending is always the same, because . . .

Like someone else once said, "Everything will be okay in the end. If it is not okay, it is not the end."

They live authentic lives in authentic circumstances with indiscernible beauty.

Tipping the scales

 

I am a type two diabetic who is constantly trying to find something that works long term. Over the last ten years I have gained and lost the same seventy pounds numerous times. I have tried all sorts of modifications and nothing sticks. I am never going to be a person who can eat a lot of salad long term and forever more, and eating too much meat causes me to suffer from gout. 

Everyone knows that the solution to healthy eating is a balanced diet, but finding one that accommodates my health and state of mind is tricky. In my skinny years (20-29) I ate nothing and not particularly healthy nothings. Now that I'm older I can't do that.

Around Christmas I tried to cut down on carbohydrates, thereby lowering my glucose levels for the diabetes. I had a very difficult time, eating a lot of cheese and eggs and meat, but eliminating ice cream, most breads and crackers. It worked, my glucose generally runs well below what my doctor wants now.

I noticed I had lost a bit of weight, so then I looked at what I could do to encourage that. I added more vegetables and less cheese. Now I am working on lowering the salt, which means fewer frozen products. This is dangerous ground for me, because if cooking becomes too complicated, or time consuming I will lose interest in it almost immediately. And exercise is often minimal due to foot and ankle problems.

It can be frustrating having so many restrictions, but as of right now I am losing about one pound a week, keeping my glucose low and doing the best I can, consuming copious amounts of vegetables. Slow but steady and I hope something I can live with long term.

Debate or manipulate?

 

I grew up in a two parent family, but most of that time was spent with women. My father worked night and day trying to provide the means for my mother's preferred way of living and she surrounded herself with her family and other like minded people. Controversial subjects were candidly approached by my father, but since I seldom spent time with him, the majority of my life was spent avoiding those subjects. In my mother's family we simply did not talk about certain things.

I can't recall anyone ever saying outright that something was verboten, but there were subtle ways of enforcing those things. My great aunt sometimes whispered of things she wasn't supposed to, but no one else. Life was supposed to be a bright, primary colored, sunny representation of Dick, Jane and Sally.

Variety came in the form of homely things. I loved the story of the country mouse and the city mouse, especially the listing of things they packed in their suitcase. Rearranging the furniture was about as risque as it got unless my almost unknown oldest cousin appeared. She was from my uncle's first marriage and her mother (ahem, whispered, ran a bar!) Of course this one thing explained every failing she had and the occasional stories of how she danced on that bar as an infant were told with relish.

Other than that my life was full of morality tales. Hard working, self sacrificing, noble people who persevered in spite of terrible odds without any vices, sex, or murky blurs at all to mar their virginal heroic personas. We were the stuff Baptist Sunday schools were built on!

Except the world is not a Sunday school and even if my family was composed of these paragons, I found myself needing skills it did not foster. The ability to discuss opposing ideas in a rational, sane, open way was not something I learned at home. Instead I learned manipulation and I didn't know the difference for a long time. Manipulation is a backhanded way of getting what you want without allowing discord to interfere. Oh, there may be discord, anguish and a lot of other things, but you don't have to deal with them if you are a great manipulator. The one being manipulated might be an entirely different story though.

And the insidious truth of such an upbringing is that one does not even know it exists unless he or she happens to have a lucid moment somewhere else. Realizing your format for living is flawed is infinitely uncomfortable. Turning a blind eye does not eliminate the problem and so the problem shows up twenty years later in your offspring who were sent out into the world totally unprepared for reality.

Going away to school when I was seventeen saved me in many ways, but there were leftovers that still affected my children. I am hoping their children experience fewer ripples of perfect family syndrome and more tolerance of reality without losing their ability to be positive thinkers and creative problem solvers along the way.

Now and forever

 

I was reading the news this morning and came across an article about an antisemitic flyer going around in Florida right now. My first reaction was, Jesus was Jewish too, folks, but then I stopped.

Most of the things people are ready to stir things up and die for are things they made up! Things that only exist in their heads! Myths and folk lore, prejudices and boundaries brought on by illiteracy, meanness and frustration.

These people are like the QuAnon folks that stormed the capital. They are unhappy, angry, ready for a fight and if they can't find a legitimate cause, they will fabricate one. Doing anything is better than doing nothing. And once you step into that ring, it is hard to step back. Ego and hard headed-ness go together.

So history is woven with wars based on invisible gods who rule the earth, the different colors of a human's pelt and the rights each color deserves, and which male or female is better than the other.

These are not debates. They are sacrosanct ideas implanted in the heads of the most vulnerable among us. Many based on the idea that this is the way it has always been, now and forever, amen. Of course forever varies depending upon the moment.

I cannot see a future devoid of chaos as long as people confuse education with indoctrination. Being right is as important to people, especially angry people, as breathing. Eden will not come to the earth when we have enough food, water and medicine for everyone. I suspect we already have all those things. 

Peace on earth will never reign until we stop herding scapegoats for a living and give up trying to be the hostess with the mostess. The solution is not conquering other people, it is reigning in our selves.

A breath of life

 

When I finish a book by Elizabeth Louise Mertz, writing as Barbara Michaels, I feel a sense of fulfillment I find in very few other places in my world.

She writes to my soul. Just enough mystery and drama, not too much romance, but what is there is believable from my point of view, with a little touch of the supernatural that fits nicely within my own experiences. Everything could be explained rationally, but the doubt is richly embroidered along the edges.

I know I will not be disappointed, or depressed by the ending and I am never bored by her words that draw me so deeply into the story I feel more like a visitor than reader.

I have always been an avid reader, but I have never found any other author as satisfying as this one. At first I thought she was my age and that explained it all, but it turns out she is my father's age. She is from Canton, Illinois, a town slightly north of here, a town tied to me by several extended family members, but not her. She has a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago, a subject that has always fascinated me, but there our similarities end. I am not even a fraction as educated and successful as she is. She is a prolific writer and imminently successful in several genres, including two books on ancient Egypt that have been continuously in print since they were published.

She is everything I ever aspired to be and more.  Once I finish her Michael's books I will start on the Peter's ones and when I have read them all? 

I cannot imagine what I will do after that. Her books have given me a vicarious reason to be that is one of the greatest gifts I could have found at this stage in my life.

Seeking

 

All of us have things that we do better than other things, but our aspirations in life don't always start out seeking to optimize those things.

Designed to learn by copying, the first thing we do is reflect who our care givers are. Ducks want to learn to waddle, swim and quack even if they are born without a voice or have one leg. 

The secret to success is learning to want what we do best. Focusing on the swim can seem impossible if we can't waddle to the water and heaven forbid we should want to sing opera! Unfortunately many of us balk against advice that does not jibe with our desires and I think we need to be given permission to fail on our own. Of course one in a million, or maybe even ten million do learn to quack some sort of opera, but there are an awful lot of people and choices in between success and failure in one particular area.

It is the journey through what seems like failure that can discover the path to success if we are only open to it. 

And, we are not only hindered by our weak spots, we can also be hindered by our strengths. I know, at least, one person, who is above average at everything he tries, except possibly very close personal relationships. How does a person like this find what he both loves and enjoys enough to make a career out of it?

There is guilt if he doesn't pick the one that makes the most money. Doesn't he owe his children that kind of a life style? There is frustration if he cannot make a living at the one thing he loves the most (possibly because he actually loves his children more, so there is a hidden conflict.) And, because he fails at almost nothing, failure feels like a tragedy no matter how trivial it is.

Seeking our own level in life, that fine point where we are satisfied, happy, and still eager, is not easy for anyone. It takes a lot of work, whether that work is in discovering our goal, reaching our goal, or maintaining the feeling we want upon reaching that goal.

We are seekers.

Life is not a dream

     

I've experienced sleep paralysis several times in the past. They are terrifyingly real experiences where I think I am totally awake, but cannot move and twice I even heard an evil cackling from someone who seemed to be sitting on my back. Once it felt like a hug just before it went away. All three were times were when my eyes were open and I thought I was totally awake.

Lately, though I have had a different experience. In my dreams I find myself unable to move or speak and I am terrified. The first time was a week or two ago. I finally woke up calling for my mom and dad to come help! They both passed away long ago. 

Today I fell asleep in my recliner, covered in a blanket and in the dream I was in my grandmother's little house sitting on the couch. I was cold and tired, so I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders like a shawl and dozed off. My ex husband, who I have not seen nor heard from in years walked in and lay down on the couch, putting his head in my lap. At first I found this sort of sweet, but then I realized I couldn't move. I tried to tell him, but I couldn't make any words come out. He finally sat up beside me and I heard my cousin walk into the room with a friend. I tried to call for help, but all I could do was whisper, "elp." It was almost impossible to do that. I struggled trying to move my hands, but they felt trapped by the blanket and my feet wouldn't move. I kept gasping, "elp" in my ex's ears and he seemed to be asleep.

Then I heard my cousin walk past me and out onto the front porch. I screamed, "elp" as loud as I could. I knew my ex could hear me now, but I realized he wasn't going to help me at all. It was so terrifying. Just like the last time this happened, I thought if someone would reach out and pull me up to my feet by my hands, I would be okay, but no one did that.

My nose began to itch and I realized I couldn't even scratch my nose. I began to madly struggle and after what seemed like hours, I woke up! Just before I did that I thought, "This is a stroke. I am going to be like this for the rest of my life."

Wide awake I was fine. I could move, scratch my nose, and talk. I was still traumatized. I looked up sleep paralysis and it referred to people being awake while it happened. I only found one reference to someone experiencing it while in a total dream state. 

I feel rested, but lately I have been dreaming that I am sleeping. I am so comfortable in those dreams and I thought it might be because I have a new super comfortable mattress and pillow. I don't know what caused the paralysis, I was in a chair, not a bed, but it makes me leery of going back to sleep.

Pity

 

Long ago when my husband and I went for marriage counseling and it was not working, my husband refused to continue. I don't remember what I said to our counselor, but I remember what he said to me. "You don't want people to pity you."

I also remember being surprised. I didn't see anything wrong with being pitied! It meant you worked hard and were loved, right? Growing up in my family we all felt pity for Grandma because she got up at the crack of dawn, no matter what, and worked around the house until she left for her paying job. We especially loved her when she tied a rag covered in Ben-Gay around her head so she could trudge on in spite of her headache. Being sick and vulnerable made you especially lovable in our family. It was expected. My mother often told me, "Nobody feels good in the morning, you just get and go anyway." My sister defined herself by having asthma whenever she was upset (except for the couple of years she had a cat and my mother told her that the cat had to go with the first asthma attack.) One of her nicknames was Pukey, or Pookey, it spoke to how fragile and lovable she was, totally dependent on my mother to survive. If you were small, weak, fragile, sick, you were lovable because you required extraordinary care. One of my brothers was going to die before he was three, or soon thereafter. He did die - at 65.

I have often wondered what his life might have been like if he had had structure and been taught to follow directions instead of being coddled and made excuses for (like he is so brilliant, he just chooses not to follow directions! What an amazing boy, he marches to his own drummer.) He died from excesses and untreated diabetes. He refused to adhere to a diabetic diet and he smoked.

When my mother died I was miserable. I had asthma for nearly five years, especially when I went back home to visit the family. Our way of coping was to be sick. To be pitiful.

Eventually I began to look at myself and how I felt. Pity elicited love, but it also made me angry with the person. Why did they resort to such damaging ways of coping with life? 

Why? Because we were all taught to be pitiful, the way rabbits are taught to freeze and cats to arch up and hiss! If we overdid things, over reacted, over worked, we must be better than everyone else, right? 

Wrong!

Living a joyful life is much better than covering yourself by remaining pitiful. Learning to cope with life's problems, finding creative solutions, and moving along, is a much healthier process than resorting to animal instincts eliciting pity. It's hard to change, but it is certainly possible.

Gray or grey, that is the question

 

I looked it up, because I wasn't sure which one was the color. It turns out both are, depending on where you live one is more popular than the other.

In my apartment it is the color that seems to be reigning and that brings up questions. I have always wondered if I love sky blue because that is the color of our sky, or if I just happened to love that color? Now I notice that without any preordained plan I seem to be surrounding myself with shades of gray. 

It has been gradual. I have loved the pale blue gray paint on walls since I was a child and my parents used it on our living room and front hallway. It was in fashion here a few years ago and I wished I could paint my apartment that color. This apartment has different woodwork, gray would not be the best choice, but my desk, end table and lamps are glass, chrome, and black and they look great.

When I moved in I bought a charcoal gray shower curtain as a temporary thing, but I've grown to love it's understated elegance and now realize I have matching towels instead of the contrasting ones I first bought. Yesterday I put the new duvet on my bed. You got it! It's gray and I love it.

I've worn gray more and more over the years, it compliments my eyes and now my hair, so I wonder.

Do I really love grays or am I just coordinating my world with my aging person?

Portrayals Betrayals

My generation often tended to portray women as lovable air heads. People who didn't really think about what they were doing, Lucille Ball in I love Lucy, a funny but accident prone woman, was one example, but there were lots of others.

I remember throwing chess games, and other games too, in order to "prove" my femininity in junior high and even later. Doing things carelessly and suffering odd mishaps was considered cute and funny.

Only these things are neither cute, nor funny.

Carelessness causes people to get hurt and while pratfalls may look hilarious on television, they result in broken bones, sprained muscles and other real damages. It is neither funny, nor smart to make the same mistakes over and over, especially when a little forethought, planning and just plain good sense could eliminate them.

Adult women need to act like adults.

Pay attention to where you are, how you are walking, what the conditions around you are. Repair things that are unsafe. Stop using poor, flimsy equipment when working on something.

Your world betrayed you when they made you think it was cute, or even acceptable to do stupid, careless things over and over and over again. You need to stop and think, then take control of your life. The older you get the more likely you are to get hurt when you do things without thinking, or try to be cute in an outmoded way.

You are betraying yourself in the worst way possible and you are worth so much more than that.

Happy New Year

Maybe it is just because they touch our hearts so much more deeply than other people, but it seems the best people have had the saddest year. 

A young man who was like family while he was growing up, lost his wife after a long nasty battle with cancer this year. He is left as the single parent of two wonderful children, both under twelve and he is coping by remembering all the joy they have shared through the years. This is who he has always been, but it is even more poignant now.

Other friends have lost their cherished dog, really their only child and I know their hearts are breaking.

It's been a bad year for dogs. Maddie, Chauncey, Brodie, Lucy, and Decatur, all crossed over that bridge into doggie heaven leaving behind an emptiness that cannot be filled by just buying another puppy.

On the other side, my children all seem to be finding their places in this world and I am grateful for that. A mother's heart is always connected to the love that binds her to her children and even though we have to let them go, it feels better when they are okay.

I am always looking at my life as if it were a novel. Wondering exactly what part I am at. I know it's not the beginning, but is this the climax, or the end? Are there more adventures coming up, or is this the first view of that sunset I'll be riding off into some day?

Right now the sorrow seems separated from me by a veil that softens everything and the light feels brighter than it has in a long time. My life is sweet. I have good friends, a great place to live and everything I need.