Hope holds up

 

I am in that tentative place where balance is beginning to feel imminent. 

I could still fall and the fall would be pretty horrific, but it becomes less likely every day. I think I have weeded out the last imposter with the help of my Muse and the state of my financial well being is becoming very clear, also thanks to my Muse.

I am okay right now. Everything is okay right now. Whether that will stand the test of time, I don't know, but I don't feel that sense of doom hanging over my head I've felt most of the last three months. Of course I felt pretty good last winter, too, so feeling is not exactly a great predictor for me right now. My Muse tells me where there is life there is hope. I hope that hope holds up.

Yesterday I ran across a parking lot in a huge thunder storm. It was exhilarating. I heard from people I never hear from and worked on projects I have abandoned for the last five years. I'm continuing with my ocean paintings. This time with a wave and a surfer in it and I have the eye of someone who knows these things to help me try and see the reality of it.

For all intents and purposes my life is very good in this moment, so I guess that is how I still cope. I live in this moment and hope it holds up.

Child of the old gods

I cannot imagine writing without a muse, but that term is so often misunderstood by people. Traditionally a muse was one of the nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, but today it can mean someone who inspires creativity.

A muse can be anyone, a friend, a spouse, a lover, or even someone seen from afar and never spoken to, but something about them feeds my creativity. They ignite the ideas that make stories and paintings come into being. They are that link that taps into the old gods, the ambrosia and nectar that sweetens life and gives it meaning.

My Muse inspired me with their own work long before they began to influence mine. I had been without a muse for a very long time before I realized that I had a new one, maybe the best one ever and in the end it was not their work so much as the tenor of their ideas that drew me in. 

Here was a person who embraced ideas I found profoundly appealing.  A well rounded soul who was both an activist and a creator. A person who was incredibly well groomed and exquisitely mannered while still being completely natural and tuned into nature, sometimes even scruffy. 

My Muse is truly a child of the old gods, who stirs my imagination until it is swirling around full of so many ideas I don't know where to begin.

In my head

 

Can you imagine being in love with an idea? 

My imagination never created a real imaginary friend, but I did intentionally imagine one for a while when I was eleven. We had moved to a new place and I needed that. 

Now I write stories or imagine what it would be like to be with someone I've never met in person. It's kind of like Anne of Green Gables meets Clark Gable, or the adventures of Dorothy and the Tin Man but with story lines Montgomery or Baum never dreamed of.

All strictly imagination, but not in 3 D thank goodness.

If I ever open the door and my imaginary friend is standing there I will have a heart attack. However I love these vignettes and they entertain me when I am walking or trying to go to sleep.

Fewer calories than Scotch whiskey and safer than drugs.

One moment in the sun

I have always believed we have a power over our destiny that we know almost nothing about. To explain it simply imagine being in a store searching for something in particular. You look and look, but it isn't there. Instead of stopping you just keep looking, certain that it must be there somewhere. And then it is! You find it where where you are, right where you thought you had already looked.

My mind is a mysterious place to me. It can drag me down into the depths of hell where things are so unbelievably bad I am ready to pack it in.  It can weave stories out of my own dreams that I love so much I write them down and read them over and over. It can imagine a painting that carries me away to Neverland where all my dreams come true. 

Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, a mind can make my fondest dreams come true. It may only be for a moment, but that moment is the brightest one I can imagine. It fills me with sunshine and joy and alters my life in unimaginable ways.

One moment at a time, that is all I need.

Conjunctio

 

I had no thoughts about my body as a child. I knew I was big and strong and actually probably thought I was bigger and stronger than I really was, but not as an adult. Once I was married I became insanely conscious of my body, keeping it sometimes twenty pounds below what is natural. And, of course, the more I fixated on this, the more problems I had with it. Eventually packing on over a hundred extra pounds. 

Why? That's complicated, but the bottom line is that I eat to fill emotional voids, not my stomach and those voids can be unending. 

This time when I lost weight, my body did not snap back the way it once did. That has been hard to deal with.

When I, around age 14, was a candy striper volunteer at the hospital, I had the sensation of looking out my eyes as if I were in a shell peering at the world outside. In that moment I knew the real me was separate from this body. That experience was brief, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

My real me, my soul, or whatever it is that I am, is still much the same as always. I have always lived on the edge of reality. That is why I love being creative. I would like to tap in on this feeling that there is so much more to life than people understand right now. 

I think we are creatures of light and energy who barely know our capabilities and most of us wear out our bodies long before we figure out what to do with them.

Life goes on

 

This morning I went out to the woods and lake for breakfast. There, surrounded by birds and trees, and even frogs and a snake, I walked up hill and down. I crossed two bridges and marveled at the sun spotlighting things for me to see.

I went accompanied by the camera on my phone, taking pictures, looking at the world through the lens of a camera, one of my favorite ways to be. Once I would have lugged a big camera and a case full of lenses with me, but this phone is awfully good and just fine for what I do.

I didn't hurry. 

I did use Map My Walk, but I paused it here and there. I took time, not to smell the roses, there weren't any, but to watch the frogs leap out of the muck and the snake to swim across the lake. I wouldn't want to touch these animals, but watching them out in nature is fun. 

I saw deer prints and raccoon prints, even a horse hoof print, but thankfully no big cats or coyotes. The nicest thing about nature is that most of the time the animals are as content to watch you from a distance as you are them. Unlike in town where the dogs run out at you.

But maybe the best part of this morning is that I felt whole and happy and normal.

Authentic

Probably the most difficult thing in the world for most people my age to be, is authentic. 

We were brought up to be polite people pleasers and conflict avoiders. The motto, if there had been one, would have been: Be passive aggressive! In other words, say what the other person wants to hear then quietly sulk or feel angry because it is not what you believe or feel or want.

The problem with that is it avoids conflict in the moment, but builds resentment over time. That resentment is hard to deal with because it involves so many things that it is difficult to really figure out what caused them all. In my family people will then talk about these things whenever they are not around the person they are conflicted with. Thus, paranoia can be rampant! And justified! It's not your imagination, it's a fact.

Learning to be authentic, to say what you really mean and not offend others isn't always possible. There are people who just have to have it their way or they are upset, but if they can be a bit open minded, there is plenty of room in this world for different opinions and ideas and ways of being and it's kind of nice to know where you stand and where the person you are with stands. You can then practice negotiation, or sharing, or taking turns. All kinds of positive things.

Being authentic doesn't have to be rude. It can actually build much closer relationships.

Normalcy

 

My life is slowly returning to normal and while I used to kid about living in a town actually named Normal, Illinois, I am grateful for this return. Yesterday I had coffee with a friend I've known for a very long time in a place I used to hang out all the time. Today I will go to lunch with my brother and sister and later to a concert in the park with my granddaughter. These are time honored parts of my life.

My apartment looks like home. It is no longer quite as minimalist as I thought I once wanted, but it is now gently cluttered with the stuff of my life. I have a life! I want a life! That is a welcome return to normalcy.

I have pursuits! 

Thanks to a kind and persistent Muse I am writing, painting and playing music again. Another part of my life that screams normalcy for me. And I seem to have added one more important thing to my life. Whereas I used, long ago, to play tennis, now I walk nearly every day, so my life is no longer quite as sedentary.

And I meditate. That is another part of my normal life that I have practiced for many many years. I am still striving for living in the moment, but that is returning too. 

I know progress ebbs and flows. That is part of the normalcy of living, but right now I'm feeling hopeful. I have no idea what the future may bring. A great love affair and being successful by world standards in one of the things I love would be nice, but I can live with this.

Right now. In this moment. Normalcy feel imminent and good.

Understanding

 

Mysteries abound in this world. They can make life more interesting, or they can actually ruin it.

Why someone appears irrationally angry or upset can make all the difference in the world.

Most of us have something that triggers a so called, gut response, one of those reactions that occurs before we have time to think about it, or adapt it to the situation. Fear is usually at the base of these things, fear for ourselves or those we care about. 

Immediate anger can also be a powerful deterrent, a memory maker, a way to teach a lesson someone won't forget too soon. Followed by forgiveness it can be acceptable, but it is often traumatic.

If I know someone very well I can handle almost anything they throw at me. I am adaptable, but while we are still in the getting-to-know-you-stages these things become red lights for me. I once knew someone who accused me of the most irrational things, who often made me feel bad for things I didn't do, and yet in between was the most loving person you can imagine. That person turned out to be a true narcissist and they are terrifying.  A narcissist has to be very charming, because in between the charming they can be scary. A charming person is hard to resist.

My favorite way to get to know someone is writing. My best friend and I wrote to each other for over a year before we actually met. By then there were very few unknowns, but not everyone is willing to do that. Especially in this day and age of instant gratification.

I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to wanting what I want now, but I've learned that most things worthwhile will survive time. In fact, talking about mysteries, there are things that appear to survive everything and as rare as they are, they are worth finding.

Secrets

 

It is so hard for me to keep a secret! I am such an open person that keeping any secret is hard for me.

But it is not impossible. 

I can do it.

If the secret is precious enough

and important enough 

you will never know it ever existed.

It is a nonexistent event, a ghost, a whisper that never came to pass.

Bits and pieces

 

I have just finished, or probably finished, another painting and I am in love.

I have done creative things all my life, but never before have I found something that I actually loved after I finished it. I've written things I thought were funny, but I didn't really love them. 

My paintings are different. I know they are crude and not professional, but they are expressions of me in the moment I do them. The colors, the shapes, the places, the themes are all me. I am that painting and it is a part of me I like.

If you want to know who I am, look at what I paint. I am hidden in the conglomerate parts of them all.

Do I wanna be you

 

I have a very active and vivid imagination. I can entertain myself for hours with nothing but my mind, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be someone else.

I already know how to be someone else in the moment. When I am doing something and it is difficult, I often imagine myself as Patrick Jane, or Sando, or Travis, or even the man himself. I have a small group of characters whose strength I admire and I call upon their experience and strength to see me through that moment, but these are fairly short periods of time.

If I had the chance to be anyone else, is there someone I think I would really like to be? Someone whose life I imagine is so much better than mine that I would be willing to trade for more than a week?

I would like to be courageous and sure of myself. I would want to be physically active and strong. I'd like to have a wry sense of humor and the intellect to be compassionate with those less fortunate than me. I'd like to be a little bit more daring and less self-conscious.  I know it is banal, but I'd also like to be good looking with beautiful eyes and a sense of timing that allows me to be graceful.

I have so many fears. One of them is a fear of letting anyone know I have these fears. When my sister learned I was afraid of worms she gained a terrible amount of power over me. I try not to let that happen now. I would generally rather take a chance and face my other fears rather than make myself vulnerable. You would not believe how many things I do with a smile on my face while I'm quaking inside.

Still, I think I'd rather be me than even my heroes in this world. It's that old fear that I should be careful what I ask for, because I might not realize what that truly entails.

Dancing in the park

 

The first Franklin Park Band Concert of the year was last night and I went by myself, but my Muse kept me company until it started. Then I turned off my phone.

The music was superb. It always is. A lot of our volunteers are music teachers and the rest are just great musicians. There was a trumpet duet that left tears in my eyes. I don't know if it was their amazing dexterity, or the 1899 piece of music itself.  Probably a combination of both.

There was a huge crowd last night but one older couple really stood out. The man was very tall and slim and very dapper in a yellow fedora that matched his shirt and a bow tie. She was demurely dressed in a nice blouse and slacks with beautiful gold jewelry sparkling around her neck. During one of the livelier pieces they got up and began to do a sort of polka on the concrete by the planter! No one dances in the park, but these two were both amazing and sweet. As the evening wore on they strutted and twirled and swirled like professional dancers. No one dances in the park during a band concert, but they did last night. Did I mention they were probably in their nineties?

We heard our typical Sousa march even though the woman who requested them every year died last winter just before her 102 birthday. We heard a very dramatic piece commissioned just for this band and it was only the second time the world has ever heard it. There was music from Star Trek and even Oliver! 

And of course it always starts with The Star Spangled Banner and ends with Amazing Grace.  With just the right amount of variety in between, there was something for everyone.

I love these nights so much!

Coping mechanisms

 

In times of trouble the people who really matter in life become more apparent. Like a lantern in the night they shine through the darkness giving me a point to focus on besides my problems.

There was a time when I would not have turned to anyone for help. I was taught that asking for help was a sign of weakness. It meant I was vulnerable and open to even more problems if I let it be known. 

Now that I am older, perhaps I am a bit wiser, or maybe I am just more desperate, but I do try to seek help when I need it. Knowing where to look can be the hardest part. 

My Muse is one of the safest places I know and somehow he always manages to make me feel better. Last night he sweetly listened to me playing my keyboard and I was surprised by how much better I felt afterwards. Music has been one of my coping mechanisms for my entire life, but it is a strange one.

I have a terrible performance phobia and yet, if I play with my headphones on so nobody else can hear, It really doesn't work for me, I don't feel better at all. I need that invisible audience I had when I played for the nursing home over the intercom system, or when I played in the dining room growing up with the windows open so people walking by could hear. I guess I like to be heard, but not held accountable for any mistakes and I make more when people are listening.

Knowing that is a step forward.

A dot on the map

 

I have spent the last 24 hours filling out paperwork and talking to people about apartments and it is bleak. I can live where I am for another year if I am very careful, but after that?

The best I can hope for might be to just pass quietly away in my sleep before July 2024. It sounds like a blessing right now.

Living means exercising and not eating the way I like and for what?  So I can live longer? Enjoying what?

Just to move to an inferior apartment next year without a washer and dryer for an exorbitant amount of money in a part of town that is less convenient and it will still take up almost all of my money. There is nothing good about any of that. 

It has been a grueling and disappointing day.  My two best friends locally have moved far away. My life is growing smaller. Soon I will be nothing but a dot on the map.

The prodigal buddy

 

Imagine two friends sharing many similar tastes. 

They love the same books.

They love the same music.

They enjoy each other's company and become very close until one friend decides she wants more space. She says she wants to wean herself off her dependence on this friend.

They separate and go their own ways and to her horror, she discovers she has made a mistake. She writes about him. She writes to him. She paints pictures with him in mind. 

But he is gone.

And then, one day, THIS DAY, he reappears. It seems he read the thots and emails. He saw the pictures, but he wanted to let her have her time alone. In a way he was never gone. She just thought he was gone.

But he has returned and she feels at peace once more.

The lovely linden

 

When I was walking this week I smelled something heavenly!

At first I thought it must be honeysuckle, but no one grows that in our neighborhood. Up in the mountains of North Carolina, where I used to live, the honeysuckle scent filled my home. It grew wild over the fences and bushes and anything else it could get hold of.

In this neighborhood nothing is allowed to grow wild. There are no sweet peas, no honeysuckles, no wild violets or bluebells covering the yards, just grass. And carefully planted hostas, or tulips with an occasional Japanese maple thrown in.

Each day the scent grew stronger. Soon I could smell it the minute I turned the corner.

And then I discovered it! A tree covered in tiny yellowish white flowers emitting the most divine smell I've ever smelled.

We once had a little leaf linden growing over our swimming pool. It dropped something nonstop all year. Leaves, petals, you name it, it was a terrible choice to plant over a swimming pool. Is it possible I missed this beautiful scent when it grew in my own backyard? I hope I was never that impervious to my surroundings.

Now I walk around the block anticipating this sensory treat.

Beautiful

 

This is really a paltry post, but it has been on my mind for a long time.

No one ever called me beautiful until I was in my seventies!

Not my parents. girl friends, boy friends, husband or anyone else. Not when I was dressed up for holidays, or special events, or even on my wedding day.

Now there is nothing wrong with not being beautiful. One of my nicknames, until my sister was born, was pretty, but then she became the pretty one. As the oldest child I was always bigger because I was older. That seemed natural enough, but when I look back at photos from that time period? I am a perfectly normal, average size child. Not some behemoth. I always thought I was the biggest person around.

It makes me wonder about the people who call me beautiful now. Do the standards change over time? Are these people disingenuous? My eyes are my best feature, do people see the eyes of an older person more clearly because the rest has faded? 

It is a mystery.

My daughter

 

I will never know the wonder of looking at my daughter and thinking, "Wow, that's me to a T at her age." 

My daughter and one of my sons are both adopted. They are just as much a part of my heart as my biological son is, but our DNA is different. My daughter is nearly a foot shorter than me, but other than that it is pretty amazing how much we resemble each other both in looks and actions. There is no doubt she is my daughter.

It makes me understand how much of a person is created from environment. I know that even our differences are mostly from nurturing and not necessarily nature. She has had to deal with some disadvantages that I never have and I hope I was able to support her enough for her to outgrow most of those. 

But, on the whole, she is more like me than not and I am so proud of the woman she has become. She's done better than I have and I'm grateful for that. 

Reason to be

I do my best writing when I am either in love, or have a Muse. Right now I am floundering.

I thought I had perfected the art of living for me, of knowing what made me happy, what made me flourish, but none of those things are working for me anymore. 

Once more the people closest to me have moved far away and I can start over looking for my place in this city or not. I'm just not sure I have the energy or desire to do that anymore. My dad once told me that people die when they are tired of living. I think I'm tired of living.

I am grateful for the things I have. I guess I can live without the things I have lost. I am doing everything they say to do if you are feeling sad. I paint. I write. I walk in the park. I play my keyboard, but without someone to share these things with, they become meaningless after a while. I talk to my son and Bestest nearly every day and often my sister and my brother too. I just lack meaning in my life. I'm even raising a flowering plant and I will admit it brings me great joy to see it and care for it, but not enough to change my life.

I have no complaints. I just have no reason to be that makes me feel happy or whole.

Preferences

To Tell The Truth was the name of a game show in the fifties hosted by Bud Collyer.  Three people would come out and a panel of judges would ask questions trying to figure out who the imposters were. It always ended with them saying, "Would the real (Name) please stand up."

Since last November there have been a procession of people in my life, all claiming to be my favorite actor. It is amazing how many of these people there are! Some, perhaps most, want to run a scam of some sort, but others just seem to want to be this person.

I understand that. He is a very impressive man who does many good things besides act and he is a very good actor. Most of his imposters are not. They speak English like it is a second language. They have belief systems that are at odds with the real man's purported religious views. And sometimes they even get the movies he was in mixed up.

A couple are very good. One may even be him and I say that because he does not seem to have endless amounts of time to chat with me. For a while I was willing to chat with all of them, but now I block, block, block, because they are lined up ad infinitum around the block.

Would my real favorite actor please stand up? 

Actually, thanks to the one who may really be this person, I have discovered we really have very little to talk about. He's not interested in talking about himself and barely interested in talking about me. The fantasy is so much better than the reality. I actually miss and prefer my Muse above all these others.

A mystery

 

I woke up this morning to see an Instagram notification on my iphone. I sleepily read it and now it is gone! 

No matter what I've tried there is no person who fits what I read on there and that is a shame, because I would really like to get to know this person better. Something about a female born in the far east. She seems familiar to me.

I've searched for hours for the name I thought I saw without any success, so if you happen to know it's you, please try again!

A pretty good life

Sometimes when life gets me down I wonder why I am still here. I am no longer taking care of someone, or working for anyone, so what is the point?

Today, while I was walking, it came to me.

I am showing my children and grandchildren what a woman, living alone, in her seventies can still do.  I still have interests and those interests change over time. I'm not stuck back in my youth, nor am I just sitting around waiting to die. In many ways I am as alive and vibrant as I've ever been.

I learned that attitude from my grandmother even though she and I have had radically different lifestyles, we have both embraced living. My oldest granddaughter will be 28 in two days and I am so proud of her. She has put herself through college while working and supporting herself. I think she knows she can do anything she sets her heart on. My youngest granddaughter will be 13 tomorrow and she has a great start. Both her parents are real go getters who encourage her to put herself out there and find her best life. I am so proud of her too. They make my life worthwhile even when nothing else seems to.

It has taken me nearly twenty five years to miss being in a relationship, but my life is still full. I enjoy my hobbies and while I don't have anyone to share my home with, there are plenty of people to share my life with if I choose.  

That may be as good as it gets.

I miss him

 

I am tired.

Tired of talking to people who are not who they say they are.

So tired that when I had the chance to talk to the real man I almost turned him down.

And then I discovered I didn't have much to say. I already said it all to the imposters.

I miss my last imposter. We had so much in common. We read the same books, liked the same music, and they just seemed like an all around great person, but they felt I betrayed them and they are gone.

Forever I guess.

Will it be as satisfying to talk to the real guy? I don't know yet. I hope so, but I doubt he will ever have as much time to devote to me as my sweet imposter. The Man Himself is very kind, but I would love chatting with my old imposter even if his name was something else.

I miss him, or her. Whoever they are.

Love From Ground Zero

 

Thirty seven years ago today, my mother died.

It was the last day of school. I had just washed a bunch of play clothes. My husband came home from work when the phone rang.

"Come quick, they just flew Mom to St. Louis University Hospital.!" It was my sister's voice.

I threw the clean clothes from the dryer into a basket thinking there must be something for everyone in there. I threw bread and lunch meat into a bag and the kids into the van and we were gone in minutes. It was a 90 minute drive to my Mom's hometown where we dumped my kids off without a second thought with my sister's best friend, then another 90 minutes to St. Louis.  When we got there is was dark, but my brother was standing in the parking lot looking for us. I don't know how long he'd been there, because we didn't have cell phones back then.

After all that I got to see my mother for less than two minutes before I was ushered back out to the waiting room. There I sat. There we all sat, because people kept coming. My Dad, Grandma, my mother's mother, my aunt, my mother's best friend, my brothers, their wives, my uncle. We sat. 

And sat. We sat all night long, upright, in straight back chairs, in a hospital waiting room. Afraid to breathe. Afraid not to pray. Afraid to think, but I did think. I imagined her making it and I imagined her not making it! I knew how scared she was, because she hated doctors. They terrified her. And finally morning came.

We lined the hallway on both sides as they pushed my mother, on a gurney down that hall, between all the love we could pour silently out of our hearts and minds . . . and that was the last time we saw her alive.

Tonight I watched Love From Ground Zero and I remembered all those feelings. The shock. The fear. The presence of family that suddenly was so precious. I remember my Dad hugging me, my grandmother's wail of anguish, the utter disbelief that this could have happened. I looked at all these people who loved me but it was not enough.

Those people who hold our hearts while we grieve are never forgotten.

Raising the rent

 

I just got my contract for next year's lease on my apartment. I knew it was coming. Usually I have two year leases, but they are stopping that and the reason is clear. They are being kind this year. If they were to rent my apartment out to a new person they could get a couple hundred more a month, so I only get a one year lease and the raise is less than half what it could be.

That still puts me on the edge. I might be able to afford this rent for the next year, but after that I will be forced to move. 

And so the looking for options begins. Smaller towns? Not unless I'm willing to move 90 miles away and give up all my present doctors, dentists, parks and bank. Local? There are no local rentals with a washer and dryer in the apartment at a lower rent. So, do I start hauling my laundry out again, or do I find new doctors and parks? There is the possibility of moving in with one of my children and helping them with their finances if they go through with a divorce, but that is a sad thought. 

Life just got complicated.

I need to get creative.

Not just me

If we are here to simply satisfy some biological need to reproduce ourselves then the world has it right. I am the singular most important creature that exists and my every need, want and dream should be granted!

However, we exist as a collective. It is not possible for me to have all these things I value without other people to man the farms, the factories, the labs, and learn all the different trades that keep me alive. So it would seem to make sense that I value them too and not just me.

Each one of us has a purpose that relates not just to ourselves, but to the others around us and what may seem like the lowliest task is just as important in the grand scheme as the one who considers themself king. That kid who mops the floor at your local fast food joint is as valuable as the senator who refuses to eat there, because without a clean safe floor there will be more germs, more accidents, more problems. And those problems will create other problems down the line. Let your imagination soar here.

The tiniest vibration in the web may take a while to touch me, but eventually it will. It may only touch my great great grandchild, but would I knowingly put that child in peril? What I do, how I treat other people, the way I value all life, the way I value our earth, makes a difference. It makes a real difference!

The answer is simple. Be mindful. Be respectful. Be kind.