There are more things on heaven and earth . . .

 

Merna was always a sensitive child prone to what adults called a vivid imagination. Before she was two years old she insisted that her bed was filled with fire and screamed for her parents to come, but of course they saw nothing and attributed it to her over hearing her mother talk about a child whose nightgown had caught fire. Yet, Merna remembered those flames, remembered wondering why they didn't burn this time, wondering where they came from.

When her mother read to her in the big chair in the living room, Merna sometimes saw a red scarf, tied in a knot fly through the transom on the front door and land on the rug. She knew that meant her grandmother was coming and was always happily awaiting her entrance when she came in minutes later.

That house was a beautiful playground for her. She had her own little porch that led off the kitchen into the backyard where she could play in her sandbox while Cappy, her English bulldog slept nearby. And then came the day when she opened the basement door and Cappy lunged at her, his mouth foaming and bleeding and someone behind her slammed that door shut. It was terrifying.  After that when she rode her tricycle through one big double door in the living room and down the dark front hall at night towards the other double door on the other end, she saw shadows. Shadows that peeked at her through the staircase on her right, or poked out at her from the pantry up ahead. She rode fast after that.

The family moved the next year and she now she was a big girl sleeping in a bunk bed and sharing a room with her baby brother and sister, Merna no longer saw the flames on her covers. Now she saw three white chalky pigs with candy cigarette pink noses and eyes. They were terrifying. She remembered when their mouths dripped blood. Her blood and knew they would soon eat her. They came night after night and all her parents said was, "It was just a dream."

She had lot of dreams. Almost as if she lived two lives because they were so vivid.

Later she became a prolific sleep walker who ran shrieking through the house asking where the dough balls were and when she was gently awakened by her parents she had no idea what dough balls were, or trying to avoid the little man who stood on the landing of the staircase waiting to grab her. At night she pulled her blankets in all tight around her so nothing could get in underneath them.

Those were the moving years. In the middle of sixth grade they moved and again at the end of seventh grade, this time to a house in a tiny country town with a backyard so big they discovered a real live horse tethered in the back of the backyard. There her brother would catch huge spiders and play with them until one got away in his bedroom across the hall. They never did find it, but Merna dreamed it was dropping off her chandelier in the bedroom onto her bed and she woke up screaming in terror. Those dreams finally convinced her parents to move back to the city and even though the spider dreams continued for many years, Merna seemed much calmer and better adjusted.

She still had the occasional night terror seeing people who shouldn't be there lying next to her bed, hovering three feet off the floor, but her parents just made her sister come sleep with her the rest of those nights. And eventually Merna graduated from high school and left for college where she met a very handsome young man whose name was Angel. 

Angel was such a romantic. They went on dates to see what ducks did in the rain and rented a big blue bus for a camp out with friends. He was much older than her and so when he graduated he was drafted into the army and sent to Vietnam. 

Merna was in love. With an angel! But her dreams returned. She was in the front pew of a dark church. Before her was an upside down cross and Angel was the priest. He was saying, "Thou shalt not honor they father and thy mother. Thous shalt commit adultery. Thou shalt covet thy neighbor's wife." There was dark chanting in the background and Merna woke up screaming. Her father came and told her to get up, get a drink of water then go back to bed and lie down on her other side. She did that and the dream repeated itself! The chanting was terrifying.

But Angel came home and they were married. He was still in the army so they rented a small Airstream mobile home to live in. Angel had to get up very early to be at the army if he wanted to live off base, so Merna usually got up and fixed him breakfast then went back to bed. At least that's what she did in the beginning. Then the one morning she woke up and couldn't move. There was someone sitting on her back and every time she tried to move they gave an evil cackle and pushed her back down! She tried to tell herself she was asleep, but she could see her bed and the walls and even the windows above her, but she couldn't move. Finally it stopped, but the next day it happened again and again. 

Then she dreamed she was outside running away from whatever the evil thing was that came to sit on her back and when she woke up later that morning her nightgown was damp and her shoes covered in mud. Thankfully that never happened again. 

The army time ended and Merna and Angel moved to a small Midwestern town where their adult lives began in earnest. He worked for a large company and she kept house and played tennis. Playing up to six hours a day, she often dropped into bed and slept soundly, but there were the occasional dreams. Once she thought there was a huge man threatening her beside her in bed and she woke Angel up holding an invisible knife to his throat. Another time she thought she was on the African Queen and there was the light ahead of them through the rushes. Angel heard her crying, "I see the light, I see the light." He comically replied, "Hallelujah, go back to sleep!"

A few years later Angel's mother came down to live in a nursing home near them. One night she broke her hip and had to be taken to the hospital. The next night Merna dreamed she was Angel's mother and in a car trying to find Angel and Merna's home when she hit a tree. She was so tired. So tired. So ... Merna woke up gasping as the darkness enveloped her. She wasn't Angel's mother! Angel's mother was dying! The phone ran right after that. It was the hospital saying that Angel's mother had just passed away.

Sometimes Merna heard her own mother's voice. It always had something to tell her. Sometimes it said it was time to get up and it always was! Another time it said her brother's wife had just had a baby and it was a boy! The next day her mother really did call her and tell her the baby boy was born at 3 AM.

Merna joined a dream group where they shared their dreams and discussed what they might mean, but people noticed that Merna seemed to have dreams very similar to her best friend's dreams on the same night. Since they all wrote their dreams down when they occurred this was oddly synchronistic. But when the dream group experimented by sleeping in a circle on the church floor, it happened again and this time Merna shared first before anyone else. These dreams were unique because they were totally unlike any other dreams Merna ever had and meant really nothing to her, where they mean something very personal to her friend.

Then one day, like many families, Merna and Angel wanted a fresh start and went house hunting and the minute they walked into the house they were sold. They knew this was where they wanted to finish raising their family. The children were 12, 14 and 19 and this house was exactly what they wanted with its two family rooms, five bedrooms and four baths. There was a big screened in porch and a huge in-ground pool. It could not have been more perfect. The fact that a pigeon pooped right on the owner's head as he showed them the pool was a fore-shadowing they totally ignored.

Moving day was punctuated with a resounding boom that took everyone by surprise. It turned out to be a duck that had flown into the dining room window and knocked itself out. The whole back of the house was windows and patio doors that reflected the pool and shrubbery of the backyard and all kinds of birds were constantly flying into them. Some of them recovering and others dying right there below the windows.

Some people said that because the children were teenagers that was why trouble began to manifest itself in their lives, but Merna had a sense this wasn't so. The house was beautiful and life seemed as though it should be perfect. It was not. 

The downstairs bathroom was in the very heart of the house. They called it the Bordello bath because of the flocked red velvet and gold wallpaper. Merna always planned to redo it in wedgewood blue and whit, but that never came about. A night owl, Merna was often downstairs long after everyone else was in bed and she often had a sense that she was not alone.  She chalked it off to late night jitters, but one night while she was shampooing the family room carpeting she glanced up to see someone watching her from right outside the bathroom. At first she didn't think anything of it. There were always at least five people in this house and sometimes more. But later she glanced up and thought she saw them again. This time she wondered why they didn't just come on into the family room or kitchen, so she called out. "Don't just stand there. Come in." No one came. No one was there. She checked all the bedrooms only to find everyone sound asleep in their bed. It was a little unsettling.

Also unsettling was coming down in the morning and sometimes finding the front door unlocked and wide open. The first few times she blamed their daughter. She thought she had come in from being with friends and carelessly left the door open all night, but her daughter swore it wasn't her and there were many times when Merna knew her daughter had been home all night. Yet, still that door was wide open in the morning.

Merna had other strange experiences that she couldn't quite explain, but they were so ordinary that she didn't think about them for a long time after they started. She would be sitting in the family room and hear the garage door go up. That meant Angel was coming home, or one of the kids had used the keypad to let themselves into the garage, but it would be later before anyone came in.  Someone always did come in, eventually, so Merna began opening the door and checking when she heard the door go up. The garage was always dark and the door completely closed until the second time, ten minutes or so later, she would hear the door go up again and this time someone would come in from the garage for real.

One night Merna went to bed early. She was reading a good book and her favorite place to read was in her big four poster bed. Propped up on pillows and engrossed in the story, she saw Angel come into the bedroom and open the closet door, then walk in and close it. She didn't give it a second thought. He often did this if the patio door drapes were wide open as they were that night. But he didn't come back out. At first she thought nothing of it, but when it had been way too long, she called out asking him what he was doing in there? He didn't answer. After asking several times, she became angry and got out of bed to go see. Throwing open the big double doors to the closet she was met by no one! Angel wasn't I there. That made her heart leap in her chest and she ran downstairs where she found him totally absorbed in his computer. No he hadn't just come upstairs and gone into the closet. He was fully dressed and he looked totally confused.

The house was beginning to have an atmosphere that Merna found slightly creepy. People frequently mentioned seeing someone out of the corner of their eye in the hallway door by the bathroom, or the basement door would just open up in spite of being latched. Birds continued to throw themselves into the dining room and kitchen windows and odd birds would appear sitting on the tall fence around the pool. There was a rag tailed hawk that like to sit on the fence and stare at the house for hours, a possum that came in under the screened in porch to lick the grill and occasionally dead birds appeared in the trash can where she kept the extra bird seed in spite of the lid being closed after each use.

They had two Himalayan kittens who loved to play upstairs in the bedroom, but when she brought them down to the kitchen and the family room, they would crawl in under the cabinets and refuse to come out. 

The children began to act out. Some of it was typical teenage stuff, but there seemed to be an aura of anger that hung over everyone's head much of the time. People were on edge and very temperamental. The cockatiel was not. He loved to be allowed to fly free. If he was out on the screened in porch he could be easily contained by simply holding up a perch and he would land on it, but not in the dining room. There he would perch on the silver teapot and chitter and chatter and squawk, then fly madly into the air before returning to the teapot to do it again. He refused to come if he was in that room.

After hours of counseling and dealing with all kinds of problems with the children they decided to move. This decision came when their daughter came home to find Angel filming a young woman in her parents bed! He swore he would be faithful from then on and built them a new house on the lake to prove it.

Of course the new house was really just a final step towards a divorce. Like many people they honestly believed they could make a clean start and everything would be okay. It was fun designing their dream home and it truly was beautiful, but people seldom really change and what had been love now became distrust.

Merna bought a lovely condo overlooking a lake surrounded by evergreen trees and settled in to begin living alone for the first time in all her fifty years. It was strange having the children all grown and away, but her new home was like a miniature version of the house they had built. It had two bedrooms and a balcony upstairs complete with a bathroom that had a jetted tub. Downstairs was a living room with a brick fireplace, a dining room and a good sized kitchen, plus a bathroom/laundry room. There were French doors off the dining room to a deck facing the lake. The only problem here was the flushing toilet downstairs. It never flushed on its own while Merna was down there, but at night it would sometimes flush three or four times. It gave her the oddest feeling that she was not alone. This was exacerbated by waking up and feeling someone cuddled up behind her back with an arm around her. It was a comforting wonderful feeling, until she remembered that she lived alone and no one should be in her bed besides her. When she had that thought, the arm gave her a quick hug and disappeared. Then she felt terrified. Was it sleep paralysis again? It felt so real.

Eventually deciding to move closer to her siblings, she sold the condo and rented a succession of homes over the next few years.  Each one was very old with darling little quirks like a stained glass window in the closet, or being located on a farm next to a huge sunflower labyrinth, or not so darling quirks like being besieged by thousands of slugs that would find themselves on the handle of her storm door, or crawling up her bathtub, or the walls of her house. There was a small sink hole by the back door and no matter how many times her landlord filled it up it sank down to hold hundreds of squirming slugs! She put salt around all the interior walls and saucers with salt in them under the four posts of her bed to deter them.

But in general there was nothing unnatural in any of those homes, except for the country one. Every so often that house, which had been an original homestead house, would be filled with the scent of an old lady's powder. Strangely enough, instead of frightening her, Merna often felt a sense of comfort when that happened. As if she were once again a child visiting her grandmother and great Aunt Lete.

Time passed. Merna moved again and again. She couldn't seem to settle down and stay in one place more that a year or two, but none of these home contained anything out of the ordinary. She could walk in the dark basements or big closets without any fear at all and she slept comfortably in her bed at night.

Until she moved into her last apartment in the city. There she began having screaming night terrors and finding herself leaping out of bed in the middle of the night. Several times she began experiencing sleep paralysis again and once during those times, she looked over and saw an old woman standing on the other side of her room looking at her. The woman was wearing a head scarf tied under her chin and had on old fashioned clothes, a shawl and a long skirt. Merna looked at her for the longest time trying to convince herself it was a dream, but the woman seemed very solid. Eventually Merna blinked and the woman disappeared never to be seen again.

Just before she moved out of that apartment she was working on her computer one afternoon. It was broad daylight. Her computer was in her lap and she was typing away when she saw a young man standing on her right side. He was stocky and about five foot eight or so. He had very pale skin, reddish hair and an enigmatic look on his face. He looked so natural that it took a minute for her to realize that no one else should be in her apartment. She looked away and when she looked back he was not there. It wasn't scary, but it was very very odd.

Merna moved one last time, to a high rise for people over 55. She had a lovely apartment and there was a comfort in being able to hear other people, or smell their cooking, or pass them in the elevator, because she could just tell herself these were her neighbors and not something unique to her senses. Her dreams were still very vivid. It was as though she lived several lives. One awake and the others while sleeping. That could be both comforting and sweet, or terrifying, depending on the experiences. 

Merna knew she was approaching the end of her life as she knew it, but because of all her experiences, she thought that there was probably something much different than the heaven Christians all believed in. Perhaps there were multi-verses, or different layers of being, or something she could not yet imagine. She wasn't sure, but she was certain that life was richer and rarer than most people ever suspected.

Be yourself

 

I grew up in a world that worried about crazy things like where to put your feet when you sat, or the exact placement of silverware as if the world would crash if it was wrong.

Now I admit that I remember all these things and I do generally employ them, but just because I like the order, not because they are life ruining problems if I don't.

Today we are trying to allow people to be who they really are. Race, gender, weight, hair styles, are all important parts of being a human being with character.

However just doing exactly what you want is not.

The simple rules of human kindness and empathy will always rule. We do not have the right to just do as we please ignoring the people around us. Our actions speak about who we are.

Being considerate of other drivers on the road, other people along the trail, our neighbors ears and eyes and feelings is not losing ourselves. It is simply being aware of those things we do that affect other people.

For example: Don't be loud at night when others are trying to sleep. Don't block traffic just to sight see. Don't scream in quiet zones.

It's not difficult.

It's simply a sign that who you are is a considerate human being.

Soul music

 

I am not one to carry around a device listening to music. Silence is something that I value greatly. It gives me the space to consider what is going on around me and how I feel about it However, I enjoy live music and I love hearing my granddaughter sing or my sons play their guitars.

I do listen to music in the evenings, sometimes, and that is what sparked this particular blog post.

One night I was listening to Yo Yo Ma and totally immersed in his mellow cello.

Another night I found myself listening to Ed Sheeran. Perfect is one of my favorite songs.

Last night I was totally absorbed listening to Loretta Lynn, a long time favorite of mine.

Add to those, Pavarotti, The Three Tenors, and John Denver and you have touched on the music I adore.

To say it is eclectic is an understatement. 

I could not possibly list all the music I adore, but two of my favorites are What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong and Perhaps Love by Denver and Domingo.

Music is the voice of the soul.

Older and older

 

I was brought up to fear doctors. My mother feared them. She feared hospitals even more. That was where her father died a long agonizing death from cancer.

So I have spent my life alternating between these almost inborn beliefs and the reality of modern medicine, which is making leaps and bounds every day. 

Believing that my doctors are the caring, dedicated people I see in movies or on television is hard for me. My natural cynicism says they are just like so many other people, out there to make money.

And yet I have had some really good doctors in my life. I need to draw on those experiences as I grow older, because much of my life now centers around doctoring. If I don't trust these people life becomes very difficult.

I will soon be 76. Not old by today's standards, The anticipated age for dying according to older ones. I have a functional heart murmur that I was born with, stage four kidney disease, blocked arteries, diabetes, flat feet, all kinds of foot problems and allergies. Now I'm having dental work done. I had cataract surgery ten years ago. 

I am literally a medical marvel from head to foot, so I need to find a comfort level in doctors if I want to live with less anxiety. My mother died at 58 from heart and kidney disease. My father died at 70 from a broken heart. 

I'm just trying to live my best life as I get older and older.

Candle candle burning bright

 

Human beings seem to have a fascination in the difference between physical and nonphysical influences. 

For many people when anything good happens that they cannot explain scientifically, they call it God. 

And yet I wonder.

We are physical beings. We live in a physical world. 

Many of those things we thought were magical in the past have turned out to have simple scientific explanations. Science does not mean there is no God. It only means we understand how something works.

We like to think we understand God and that is where I step away from the common beliefs. I suspect there is no separation between physical and nonphysical. I believe there is some ineffable power that has created everything that is.

That I can control this power by certain rites or prayers only makes sense to me if I consider them a way to reach into the power that is already there everywhere. I don't think they are necessary to appease or beg from a man like creature God. I believe they are merely a way to connect with a power so great I will never understand it.

This power created a universe and everything in it. I am part of that and if I use the powers given to me by that I may be able to experience wondrous things. The faith really has to be in myself, that I am capable in using all my physical gifts to achieve what I desire. I may fail, in fact I will fail, I am not a perfect creature, but it is the trying the makes my life good. 

What happens to me when this body wears out is way beyond my understanding or control, but all creations have been coming and going, being and ending since before I can comprehend and therefore I must think it is a natural thing to do.

Some candles burn longer and brighter than others, but they are all candles. They all burn and they all burn out. We are no different except to ourselves and those who love us. We miss the ones who have burned out.

Choices

 

The more I am around the people in my building and my life, the more I realize that there are really two kinds of people.

There are the people who love to complain. They go on and on about how good the old days were, or how bad this or that is. They make whole social occasions around their problems, but they are not really looking for help. They are not willing to change one thing even if it bothers the people around them. They are proud of who they are, even when it labels them as less than.

Sure they would be glad to have you step in and do everything for them, but the kicker here is that eventually they will talk about how you do things and what they don't like about it. That's who they are. These are the complainers. They don't really want solutions, they just like to think they sound knowledgeable when they hear themselves talk.

Then there are the people who subscribe to an old adage that has been around for eons. 

Where there is a will there is a way.

These people are willing to try new things, to step outside their comfort box, to admit there might be something else worth trying because they really do want to solve the problem. They want things to get better and they want to be part of if. Being part of it gives them more choices about how or what is done and even when it is done. These people would prefer to taste foods before saying they don't like them because eating a variety of foods is good for their health. These people might even try being more energy conscious about running air conditioners, heaters, lights, and opening windows only when those air conditioners and heaters are off.

These people tend to be more successful in all the areas of their lives because being open to learning and trying things creates all sorts of perks in both business and social circles.

The wonderful thing about both of these kinds of people is that you are not genetically predisposed to be one or the other. You can choose. You can even choose to change from one to the other. 

It's totally up to you. 

The art of living

 

People seem to approach life in two basic ways.

The first is trying to adapt and find solutions for their problems.

The second is complaining about their problems and finding excuses for why nothing works.

There really are unsolvable problems, but most things can be dealt with if a person is willing to adapt, experiment, and think! 

Believe it or not, thinking is a miracle worker!

Open the mind. 

Break down the problem into parts.

Deal with each part in a plain old common sense way.

And voila! It's amazing how much less confusing and difficult life can be.

Happiness is

 

Our society seems to always be in search of happiness outside itself. Of course happiness is actually an extreme. Contentment would be a better goal, but whatever they are seeking it seems most people expect it to come from somewhere that is not them.

The world is willing to jump on that! Doctors prescribe anti depressants, psychologists offer all sorts of services, the entertainment industry thrives on it. 

Theme parks like Disney, Harry Potter, Six Flags, all rely on people needing the odd or exotic experience to feel happy, gleeful, joyous! 

Television has whole networks dedicated to romance and uplifting faith movies. Magazines and books and podcasts tell us how other people supposedly find real joy and love and happiness!

There are people who shop continuously, always hoping to be able to buy something that makes them happy. They even try to buy happiness for their children and family and friends, thinking that the newest fad will give them fifteen minutes of joy. 

And there is the kicker.

Fifteen minutes of anything except life can be bought for some price almost anywhere. Death cannot be cheated. Eventually everyone dies, but in between being born and dying you can find tiny increments of happiness outside of yourself, all around you, if you have enough money, and that is what you are seeking.

But long term happiness, contentment, the kind that gives us good dreams and makes sitting with ourselves feel really good only comes from within.

That is hard to give anyone else, maybe impossible, but we can demonstrate it to people around us if they are interested. Unfortunately in today's world that is uninteresting and too slow for many people. They want what they want and they want it now!

Young children are perfectly happy as long as they are healthy and cared for and fed. They don't need fancy toys. Everything is a toy to them even their own bodies. They don't need peer playmates until they are around three. They find themselves infinitely intrigued by the world around them. Then the people and things around them teach them this isn't enough and suddenly they have NEEDS and they are BORED and it gets worse from there.

There is nothing wrong with wanting or even needing things outside of us to spice up our life, but the problem comes when these things become necessary for what we believe is happiness. It is possible to have problems, big problems, in life and still be content within yourself.

It's worth spending some time with your self, getting to know the real you, discovering your hidden talents and what makes you special, because no one else can really do that and that is where the mother lode is.

The road from independence

 

People who pretend to be nicer and sweeter and more caring than they act terrify me.

They are untrustworthy.

They are manipulators.

They are parasites in a world where most people seek to be independent and it backfires on them in the end.

Eventually they forget they are pretending. 

Then they forget how to learn new things. 

And finally they forget how they did the old things.

They become raging maniacs when someone calls them out for lying.

This is the road to dementia.

incentives

 

I think it's kind of sad that most incentives in this world seem to be monetary.

Big pharmaceutical companies have no incentive to produce drugs if they can't make a lot of money from them.

I wonder how important those drugs would seem to them if their children needed them to live, or to have better quality lives?

Doing good things just because they improve our world is still rare enough that it makes headline news when wealthy people use their wealth for someone other than themselves. It's not like these people are making great sacrifices, but they are doing good things. I appreciate this. There should be more of it.

I know many people who are middle class or lower in income who make real sacrifices in order to make the world a better place, but we seldom hear about any of them.

Here's to the people whose love of humanity is their only real incentive.

Illusions

 

I know someone who is always trying to make a point by telling me of another person who had the exact same experience as she did. (Like sitting on her toilet and finding it to be very close to the ground.} I don't disagree with her. I never have disagreed about the height of her toilet, but for some reason it is important to her that I understand she and this other person agree upon this very important thing.

Needing people to agree with us comes from an innocent part of our lives where grown-ups were more likely to let us have or do something if they agreed with us.

As adults it should be very clear that someone agreeing with you may be satisfying, but it hardly proves anything. A lot of people agreed that the current president was the one to vote for and most of us know this was not true. 

Now majority rules. That I agree with, but whether that majority is right or not is always a matter up for discussion (or maybe not in our country anymore.}

Mob action , lynch mobs, mobsters, are all examples of people banding together for all the wrong reasons, even if they happen to agree with each other.

A thousand people may sit on your toilet and proclaim it to be very close to the ground, but what does that mean? Are you going to get a new toilet? Are you going to modify your present toilet? Are you asking me what I think you should do?

I think you should just get over it. Adjust and plan for how far down you are going to have to sit.. 

Why do we focus on being like other people as if it proves we are right? It only proves someone else sees things the same way and maybe there is some comfort in that.

But it is an illusory comfort at best.

Blessings

 

Blessings don't have to be religious at all.

Some blessings are simply the reflections of good that is so often missing in this world.

Our world has become a corporate structure. Every business, including churches, medicine and schools are now built around rules.

Rules, while being quite important  for order, often become excuses for not going the extra mile.

Today, in a huge medical complex, with a doctor who drove to our town for his weekly visit, a nurse went above and beyond all expectations and beyond the rules.

I walked the equivalent of a city block just to get in the building. Then I walked another block just to get up the elevators and to the office desk. And even after all that, on a severely injured foot, I had to walk down two very long corridors to the examination room.

I could have asked for a wheelchair when I entered the building, but I was too proud.

By the time I was done with my appointment the prospect of making my way all the way back to my car loomed as an insurmountable trek. I asked the nurse if he could just get me a wheelchair as far as the front door of the building and he happily agreed.

Imagine my surprise when we passed the front door and he pushed me all the way out to my car in the far parking lot! 

His only request?

Don't tell anyone. 

So I'm only telling you because you have no way of identifying him, a true angel without wings or halo, doing the work of good people.

The horror within

 

It's not politically correct to call someone crazy, but sometimes other words elude me.

Imagine spending your life with someone who was always held up to be everything you are not (and everything your family thinks is important.)

People are created by the molds that form them, which is why there are so many family rituals, traditions, and preferences. We want to be liked and being like someone makes us more likable to them. 

My mother used to get so mad she would throw glasses or even whole chairs. It did not seem unnatural to me and neither did her habit of slapping me so hard across the face that my nose went numb. Her criticism of me was subtle, always supposedly for my own good, but she considered everything about me awkward, clumsy and not pretty.

I knew I did not want to be like her and yet some of her habits carried over until I was nearly middle aged. Not the slapping in the face habit, but the taking it out on material things habit. Little by little I worked through all that. Still, I had a maternal aunt who was a bit dotty too. She use to send my dad bottles of clear water that supposedly contained mites from her head.  They weren't there, but she shaved her head to get rid of them and once set her whole apartment on fire. 

It comes from both sides of the family, this craziness, and I worried it might get me. Instead it got the perfect member of our family. The petite, pretty, social-lite who tried to be as low class as she could manage all her life. She taught herself to use bad grammar, walk pigeon-toed, dated men who were truly losers and put all her focus on a pretty daughter who is now considered bi-polar. 

This person will bend over backwards, lie, make up things, or do whatever it takes to please people and most people think she is a sweet little woman who is just a bit dotty. That's the scary part. 

I've always been leery of her passive aggressiveness. It can be incredibly cruel and sly, but after seeing her explode into a bellowing, screaming, foul mouthed monster who could not be reasoned with or stopped for over twenty minutes I saw what lay beneath. It's just possible her daughter is the result of living with this woman.

She scares me. It's like living in a horror movie. I know that monster that lurks within, but no one else will ever believe me unless they see it too and she has a lot of practice hiding behind the kind old lady facade.

Seething smiles

I come from a family of passive aggressive women who consider it only polite to make people miserable with smiles that chill your blood.

We were taught to be people pleasers at all costs and to believe that all mis-truths are only little white lies told with the best of intentions.

The havoc this has wreaked on our lives, not to mention all those other lives we touched is unbelievable. It is, perhaps, the most evil way of communicating that is possible.

It provokes the kind of seething anger that causes heart attacks, destroying marriages, friendships, and relationships of all sorts, because eventually there will be a mind blowing volley of truth that erupts from lips stretched too tight for too long.

It is not rational.

Or healthy.

Or really even normal.

It is something I have spent years disposing of, but it lingers in the fringes of the older generation reminding me how cruel it is.

Something bigger than me

 

This world I live in is extraordinary. The beauty of the sky, the mystery of the waters, the almost overwhelming majesty of its mountains surprise me all the time.

I have been around for over three quarters of a century, not even a blink in the annals of time, but long enough as a human being to realize our human lives are short and as I contemplate what may lie beyond so many things come up.

I know there is something bigger than me. I do not know what that is.

But I can't believe that it would care if someone re-posted a Facebook meme in order to let a baby live one more minute, or that performing all the rituals different religions have come up with trying to control it, or impress it, make one whit of difference. To it.

I do believe those things make a difference to the people doing them. It gives them hope. It makes them feel like they have some control. It can become a way to tap into the body's ability to heal itself.

I don't know where I'll go after I leave this world. I'm hoping it will be peaceful. I suspect I will simply become part of the glory of nature, which is no small thing. To be one with the sun, to float on the wind, to splash along the shore is a kind of congruent belonging most of us long for in this life.

We will belong because we simply are.

Night frights

 

I'm back to the same old things. Some people react. Some people respond and the difference is enormous.

I don't know if it is from watching too much television, or something else, but there are people who seem to believe that everything is a reason for drama.

The truth is most of life is fairly straight forward and simple. Not every sound is a reason to panic and not every person who acts weird is dangerous.

Things may seem more frightening at night, but really, for most of us, we can turn the light on and it is no more dangerous, or different that is was during the day.

When I hear a strange sound in the middle of the night, I listen carefully trying to decide what it is. Then I try to rule out what it isn't. After that I consider my location. I am on the second floor of a large brick building without fire escapes and ways for people to climb up the walls in any reasonable way. I have a heavy door on my apartment with a dead bolt lock on it. in an inside hall. I live in a small town with the police less than ten minutes away, if that. The odds that someone or something is going to choose me, or my apartment over the other 147 apartments here are slim even if that person existed.

Last week I heard very strange sounds coming in my open window. I listened intently for a while trying to identify them and finally got out my iphone and recorded them. The next morning I sent the recording to people I thought might help me figure out what it was.  My brother wrote right back, "It's a gray tree frog."

Now I wouldn't want to hold a gray tree frog and I am not wild about their middle of the night mating calls, but they do not terrify me. The sound is obviously some kind of animal and not a big one either. 

I generally choose to respond to things I don't understand in a methodical, thoughtful way and not react in a panic just because I am not familiar with it and so far this has not ever let me down. I'm still alive and well. I have all my fingers and toes. No one has assaulted me out of the night sky on wings of fire, or anything else.

The room

They filed in. Slowly. Solemnly. Into a room deep under the house.

It was not a dark room. There was a glass block window high up on the back wall and a large rectangular shape in the middle of the floor.

Circling the rectangle, no one said a word, but slowly the solid shape began to blur and then move. It almost bubbled. Almost, but not quite. 

One at a time each person lifted their two hands and allowed little crystal looking shards of light to flutter down into the rectangle.

It was a slow and careful process, done completely in silence.

The viscous liquid in the rectangle began swirling and the light shards twinkled in its depth, but still no one uttered a word. 

Then there was a whooshing and from nowhere something swooped through the liquid, stirring it, never rising above the rectangle until out of the depths they came.

The very people who had been standing around the edge now rose from the goo below and only one of them spoke. "I am the lord and master."

Then they all turned and walked single file out the door and back up into the house. Most of them thinking how fortunate the Lord and master was because he would lead them all. He would make sure they were safe and they would wait on him hand and foot, but these thoughts disintegrated seconds after stepping foot out of the room. They were, each of them, a particular person in the household with a particular job, or use and it was not who they had been before they walked into the room.

Time passed and the ritual was repeated. 

They walked into the room, surrounded the rectangle and dropped their light crystals in silence, The power swooped through the liquid, but this time it resurrected one of them and for a moment he felt the envy of the others as he became the Lord and master.

This time was different. He knew what was happening. He had done it before and he wasn't honored to be the Lord and master. He only felt the weight of it. He tried to tell the others, but seconds after they left the room they were once more transformed into different family members, different people, all with a task or use to fulfill and they had no memory of the room at all.

Why are we here

 

Who really knows why anything is here? 

Some how this planet took a bunch of raw materials and life forms began to emerge. The most adaptable ones tended to last longer than the others, so that was encouraged naturally.

Eventually everything became what we know today and the only thing I can think of is that we are here because we are survivors.

Born into the world helpless, we are incredibly malleable creatures. Our senses are hungry. We want to touch, taste, feel, hear, see, and absorb as much as we can in those first years. Those are the glory years when learning for the sake of learning is as natural as breathing.

Our bodies are designed to be that way. All of its parts need to be used and if we stop using any part it begins to recede, to dry up, to falter and because we are whole beings this affects every aspect of who we are.

Learning is the fountain of youth.

Curiosity didn't kill the cat, it gave it nine lives!

The end of learning signals that the end of life is approaching. Our brain not only reads and remembers and processes ideas. It also runs our hearts and lungs and coordinates our muscles. We are whole beings. In the wild, animals who stop learning die sooner rather than later.

Human beings can sustain life for each other, but the quality is not the same as it is if we are independent learning organisms gobbling up ideas and experiences on our own.

Keep that mind active! Do something challenging as often as you possibly can. Push yourself to understand new ideas and new ways. Feed command central and the whole business of living is richer.

Today

 

This morning I heard the clock chiming on the square.

Beautiful, clear tones that have rung out the hour for longer than I can remember.

This is the part of Taylorville I love.

Not the gossiping, back biting, sordid sharing over backyard fences. Not the cheap shopping in stores that constantly change around the square. Not the made up country vibes the people like to pretend are our heritage.

But the actual heritage. 

A prairie town that sent soldiers to the civil war. A town that survived the depression because starving grocers extended credit to hungry families. A town surrounded by farms that grew corn and hogs and turned marshland in fields.

A place where education is important and each generation sees fewer drop outs. A place whose local newspaper transitioned to online, but still goes on. A cemetery full of history and a library that has outgrown the old Carnegie Library of my mother's childhood.

I remember waking up hearing the clock chiming the hour at my beginning and now, as I approach my ending, it still goes on.

These are the memorable parts of small town living.

What I did

 

After being told that all I did with my life was sponge off my husband's money I began thinking. I have actually done many things with my life, but some of the things stand out more than others.

I have been an ardent tennis player, a Bridge player in three leagues, couples, twin city nu-comers, and even Duplicate. I have been part of a gourmet cooking club, a foster parent, and an employee at a major insurance company.

I was a corporate wife with all the tasks the go along with that.

Once we had children my main focus was on giving each one of my children the support, encouragement, and opportunities to do the things that they showed promise in, the things they loved, the things that would help them become happy, successful adults. 

Our family participated in community theater, each one of us doing their own part. Mine was getting us all to the nightly rehearsals and sewing costumes ranging from tutus to the Von Trapp children's play clothes in Sound of Music.

Each of my children learned to play the piano and each one had the opportunity to play at least one other musical instrument.

I taught preschool classes at Sunday school and made sure all my children had a knowledge of religion to base their future decisions on. 

Then when my youngest started kindergarten I began working at a preschool. While doing that I also volunteered as a room mother and at our local elementary school in the library, our junior high in the nurse's office, and the high school as a mentor who helped students with disabilities take tests.

I was a cub scout leader who later made the neckerchiefs for my son's Boy Scout troop when they went too summer camp. I helped my daughter go out selling Girl Scout cookies.

I taught my children how to drive. I encouraged them to write and read and two of them became Young Authors. I was there for all their music recitals, band concerts, piano contests, soccer games and wrestling matches. I gave them the opportunity to do gymnastics and dance. 

I did everything in my power to give them a childhood that was loving, fun, and left them wanting to go out and explore the world and all their possibilities.

Now they all live in far off states doing the things they dreamed of doing as children. They are successful, happy adults who have, or are, raising children of their own, giving them the experiences they had and more.

And that is some of what I did with my life. 

Of course I also read, painted, wrote, played the piano and flute, pumped gas, and plucked the roses, but those are other stories.

Synonyms

 

I search for the words.

Crazy.

Stark raving mad.

Totally and unrealistically out of control.

What does one call a person who, when approached in a tactful and kind way, even apologetically approached, to please don't talk with your mouth full, becomes irrationally hysterical?

Screaming vulgar invectives, making wild rambling accusations, bellowing at the top of their lungs in a public park with children around, unwilling to discuss it, or even listen once they got going.

Saying absurd things like, "I got thousands of awards when I worked," or "you are just jealous because I worked and you sponged off your husband," which is not true. I worked from the time my youngest was in kindergarten and I always volunteered at their schools, sometimes three different schools in the same year.

And then it got more personal. "Your children live in different states because they wanted to get away from you!" My children live in different states because they are happy, well-adjusted adults who chose where they wanted to live. They all come home to visit.

And this bellowing went on and on and on for over twenty minutes, interspersed with "F---k you." as I drove us home.

I am numb with shock.

I am also relatively certain I never want to be put in that position again where no matter how calmly I tried to redirect us into having an adult conversation about all this, I was ignored and cursed.

I could not possibly write all the crazy things she screamed at the top of her lungs, but they rattle through my mind as I try to go to sleep. 

Lies

 

Nobody likes being lied to.

It doesn't matter if the lies are outright or by omission.

The result is the same.

It is a feeling of being betrayed.

And the worst part of it for me is that I spot lies so easily. It's hard for me to miss them even if I want to and I don't really want to. Not anymore. After my scammer I have upped my ante on truth seeking and feeling.

So, the question is: how do I deal with people who lie to me?

First of all I don't really respect them any more. 

Secondly I begin to doubt everything they say to me.

If you lie to me you should know I may never say anything to you, because if I did you would just try harder and that never works out. For either of us.

I simply take everything you say with less than a grain of salt until you prove it otherwise.

And unless you are aware I know you are lying why would you try to do that?

Lying is a relationship killer.

The hard stuff

 

I found a picture online where the Dali Lama says, The question is: how can I use this as something positive?

This may be the saving grace that preserves my sanity.

How do I take constant inane complaints and total lack of empathy and turn it into something positive?

That is probably one of the most difficult things I've ever tried to do.

I can shield myself from these things, but actually turning them into something positive? Wow, that is hard!

I am trying to say it will help me build tolerance and patience in a world that requires it on a daily, if not hourly basis, but I'm having trouble with that.

I guess that is the basis for most of the good stuff in religions. Learning to deal with the fools, the bullies and the frustrating people with love, tolerance and patience.

It is hard!

Her real job

Someone took all my frozen pretzels out of the box so I don't have the instructions on how to cook them.

I can give you a copy of mine.

I don't like them anyway, they don't taste like the real ones at the mall.

I love them, I think they taste just as good or better.

They aren't like the mall and  besides the mall is almost empty now. There's nothing there.

---------------------

After I ordered our ice cream I had to pee, so bad, but when the lady unlocked the door the bathroom was like a closet it was so small. 

I couldn't find the light switch so I just closed the door, then I couldn't find my way out. I pounded on the wall but it took her forever to let me out.

My ice cream was half melted by the time she got out. She got a new cone. I ate my melted sundae.

---------------------

I didn't know I couldn't take a bath in my bathroom. There is only a shower.

Didn't you look when you visited the apartment before signing the lease?

I thought it would be like yours, so no.

You could switch to another apartment.

No, I'm not moving again.  (and so she does not shower for the first week and then . . .) There was water all over my bathroom. I have never showered. It's not my fault I don't know how.

Did you close the curtain on both ends? 

I closed it but what am I supposed to do when I am using the soap?

Did you turn the hand held shower water off while soaping up?

No! I don't want to freeze to death!

If the bathroom door is closed you won't freeze. Did you just let the water spray all over while you soaped up? You won't freeze. Part of you is out of the water when you take a bath too.

Well excuse me for not being perfect. I've never had to shower before.

--------------------------

My son wants everything out of my old house by Friday.

He has been at your old house nearly every weekend since June packing up and running your garage sale. He's even made a gazillion trips back there to get other stuff.

Everyone else packed 3-4 boxes of my stuff to me packing one. I have to sort through everything and decide what to take. And Rose doesn't want me to get rid of the stuff leftover. She wants me to donate it.

But you moved August 1st. Tell Rose she has till Wednesday to get what she wants.

I can't do that!

You could do that if you stopped shopping every day and unpacked or finished moving.

I don't shop every day. I haven't bought hardly anything new.

Just because you walk through the stores and don't buy anything doesn't mean you aren't out shopping.

You think you're so perfect. You're friends don't think so.

You don't know my friends.

I've met them once. Those teacher friends of yours. 

Which of course is not true and even if it were true they would not have said I thought I was perfect. But given all that it would have been twenty years ago if she met them.

-----------------------

The complaints are nonstop and the excuses change with the hour.  She has excuses for not getting her laundry done, unpacking the rest of her boxes, getting the stuff out of her old house and it's always someone else's fault. And she's tired. (but not too tired to shop or run around with her friend.)

Sometimes when she leaves my apartment my heart is beating a hundred miles an hour and I can barely breathe I am so frustrated. It's like talking to a slow three year old who is proud of not being able to do anything she doesn't want to do in the moment. She has given up problem solving altogether. She replies on other people to figure everything out for her. Her only real job is to find excuses for not doing things.

Choices

 

Our problems really are unique to us. They may be similar to other people, but that does not relieve us of the responsibility for our own difficulties.

There are a few genetic things that we are born with, but most of our problems stem from what we do with those things and the rest of the things in our life.

What we eat; how we sleep or rest; how we move; how much we move; how we use our brain and even how much we use our brain; all of these things affect the quality of our lives.

The way we deal with stress has a huge effect on our lives.

Our ability to take control of our own lives depends on our desire to organize, maintain and follow the details that can make our life chaotic or calm.

If our first response is to panic, or run to someone else, we are losing more things than you might imagine.

Problems allow our brains to grow. Learning how to manage our own finances, taking a class, reading instructions, even experimenting on our own all help our brains grow.

Avoiding these things causes all sorts of problems and those problems will only grow if we don't make some changes. People are designed to evolve and grow. Denying themselves the right to do this may be a precursor to a miserable old age.

In fact, they can make life right now pretty inconvenient.

The end

 

The end does not have to be the Big THE End.

Things end all the time.

The last word. The last day at work. The final good-bye. A project finished and submitted. 

Every act looks different once it becomes the final one, so it's worth always trying to put your best foot forward. 

Just in case it becomes immortalized in some way.

For example I know a young man who hasn't seen his family members in years. They were brought together by a wedding and the day after the wedding he went to breakfast with his closest cousins.

Throwing on his kookiest shirt he joined them all for coffee, eggs, and banal conversations. A morning of no great importance or so he thought.

Until last night when he visited his aunt and there on the wall on a large canvas, backed in black was the photo of him and all his family. Everyone wearing something relatively plain and not worth commenting on. And there he was in that kooky shirt, sticking out like a sore thumb for all eternity.

Not the end of the world, but a way he will be remembered for long after he ceases to live on this earth.

Not a problem. Just not what he would have chosen had he given it any thought.

Change

 

I can only imagine the first human being who discovered fire trying to take it home and use it.

"You're not bringing that into my cave!"

"But it will keep us warm."

"My family has been warm enough wearing bear skins for generations. If it was good enough for mama, it's good enough for me."

"You can put meat on it and make it easier to chew."

"Meat from the fire just doesn't taste right."

Or when people started having toilets inside.

"You want to put an outhouse in my bedroom?"

"Well bred people have servants to carry out their chamber pots. We don't need that smelly contraption in our house." 

"And don't get me started on bath tubs. Why would anyone want to take a bath more than once a week."

Or the first horseless carriages.

"A horse is dependable. Feed him a little hay and he always works."

" The dust!  Little Herman won't be able to breath."

Then telephones.

"What an invasion of privacy. I won't have that evil thing in my home."

"Pretty soon people won't even get together and socialize.  They'll just sit in their homes and talk on a telephone. Women won't get their housework done. Children will stop studying. The world will go to . . ."

Change is probably the father of creative complaining. 

Enablers

 

At some point in life we need to stop and ask ourselves are the people around us really our friends, or simply enablers.

Most of us surround ourselves with people we enjoy being around, but then the question becomes why do we enjoy them

Do they think like us? Do they get together with us and the two of us decide what we want to do or accomplish? Do they make us feel good? Why do they make us feel good?

Sometimes it is for all the right reasons and sometimes it is for all the wrong ones. If our friends are simply yes men that brings up a whole different set of issues, but if they are enablers there is nothing much more destructive.

Friends who run in and solve all your problems for you, friends who make all your decisions for you, friends who help you avoid growing and thinking are like acid on a lump of meat. They destroy all the possibilities of who you could be, should be, can be. 

Eventually even the simplest decisions become stressful for you. You can't handle your own finances. You don't even know what you really like. You become one of those nodding novelties that simply sit there being moved around by other people.

These are not your friends. As horrible as this may sound, these people do not really have your best interests at heart. You make them feel good. You make them feel smart and powerful and competent and they make you what? 

Dependent on them.

I've got style Babe!

 

My sister is making the big move from house to retirement apartment, so furniture and style has been much on my mind lately.

My house, while bringing up a family was what I always called Early American Attic. Most of our furniture came from my grandmother's huge Victorian attic, or my mother-in-law's antique laden house.

My sister has always preferred Mid Century Goodwill. She loves a Deal! Her house is literally wall to wall furniture bought at an amazing price from some thrift store. Sometimes it has been hard to tell if we are in her living room or a church basement where they are expecting a huge crowd for an AA meeting.

Her friend, on the other hand, prefers Trash to Table, or perhaps Curb to room.. She loves driving around in a pickup and going through people's discarded stuff, which she then takes to either her house or one of her friends where they use it, scratches, dents etc. Pure and unadulterated.

Don't misunderstand. These people have money, they just like to spend it on second hand clothes that they call vintage. Everything else is something they do themselves and, unfortunately, you can tell. It is a sort of misguided snobbery, sometimes mistaken for moderate hoarding or rickety repairs. Their closets and basements are wall to wall clothes and their garage and bathrooms are creatively pieced together.

Right now I'm in my Moroccan Modern stage, thanks to a beautiful lamp I treated myself to and my motley collection of art, but everyone seems to have a style and very few of them fit on television shows for the rich and the beautiful.

How these styles come into being is anyone's guess, but they seem to suit their owners.

Prayers and mantras and . . .

 

Divine.

Like so many other things it is just a word that someone, somewhere, decided to use to describe something pertaining to godly things, or something exceptionally good. 

That doesn't mean any of those things are true or actually exist as such.

We are such primitive people. We believe that we must capitalize certain things or we will insult some distant being who resides over our lives like a father figure.

We make up rituals that might really help us if we believe in them, but are only the ladder our pysche's use to reach different parts of our own minds.

I believe there is a sort of magic in the world, but only so far as understanding we just don't know how these things work yet. 

Belief is a huge part of making these things work. Somehow we have to tap into the "magic" of our mind and body. I've had enough personal strange experiences to know there is a lot we don't know yet.

So if mantras or prayers or rituals help achieve these magical results - use them! 

Responsibility for him

 

It is probably not at all unusual to ask oneself if they are the fault of another's aberrant behavior. 

Parents take on the blame for their children all the time, but husbands and wives tend to go the other way when they divorce. They are more likely to try and blame the other one for their problems.

The truth is probably as variable as the number of people doing it.

I have always looked back on my marriage and wondered.

Was I really the reason he gained weight? Did I force him to go out looking for whatever he felt was missing in our relationship? Did I not try to make him as much a part of raising our children as I was?

First of all, in my defense, I will say he treated his second wife of twenty some years exactly the same way he treated me and she worshiped the ground he walked on for a very long time, but why was he, or is he, so self destructive?

One of my sons and I have talked about this endlessly. 

My ex was a very smart man who got straight A's many times in college, but he could lose his coat on a cold blustery day without a thought. I wonder if he is on the spectrum? When I first met him he was charming and funny and seemed both well read and sophisticated. He could be thoughtful and empathetic at times, but over time all this changed.

We married in 1970 when many things were changing. There was the movie, Bill, Carol, Ted and Alice. Many couples tried out open marriages and sleeping with each other's spouses. We did not, but I think that might have been the beginning of some of my ex's thoughts.

I think he confused sex and sexual practices with love. They can be, but on their own, they are not love. Love requires more than that initial rush of hormones and excitement. It requires work and really wanting the other person to find as much satisfaction in their life as you do yours. It then becomes a satisfying relationship built on history, trust, faith in each other and true, long lasting, love.

In both his marriages, my ex was great for two years, then he went looking for something I think he equated with real love. Maybe because his parents made it clear they almost put him up for adoption when he was born. They already had a sixteen year old Perfect son. They were in their mid and late forties. They were products of the Great Depression and had old world values that were strict and unyielding. My ex learned to be quiet and stay out of the way and they encouraged that. I think they loved him very much in their own way, but not in a way he could feel or understand in his world. 

He has spent the rest of his life trying to find love and acceptance and even maybe fame in ways he saw in the movies.

Real life doesn't work that way. 

You can buy sex. You can buy companionship. You can buy fancy homes and a fancy lifestyle, but you can't buy love, or respect. Yet he keeps trying these things instead of looking for something else. Something real.

After a while the casual flirting of a young man turns many older men into parodies of themselves. They make fools of themselves trying to be cute with waitresses. They make themselves look loutish in their attempts to impress beautiful or young women. They lose themselves completely to an idea that was never real to begin with.

It's the old trying too hard thing, so I no longer believe I am the cause of all his problems. He still has them and now he has them all by himself. He doesn't know how to talk to people, not even his own children. He stumbles around alternately trying to impress and looking pitifully sad and alone. The impression he wanted our family to have was that he was sophisticated and above us all. We bored him. We were undeserving.

That is a trap that turned around and ensnared him.

I saw him at our daughter's wedding and I was surprised that I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing! Here was a man whose face I knew, who had not changed the way he thought or acted at all, but was like meeting the man next door. I wasn't angry, or infatuated or any of the things I think he thought might be possible. I just simply felt nothing except sometimes I felt like laughing when the first words out of his mouth were insulting and he didn't even mean them to be. And the second words were an attempt to see if he could make a play for my sister. I wasn't threatened. I was just surprised how ridiculous it all seemed.

The best thing about all of this is that I no longer feel any responsibility for who he is at all.

Teamaker 2

 

Long long ago, I moved into the first house my husband and I had bought and at six in the morning someone knocked on our patio door. It was our neighbor and she came bearing a homemade coffee cake! Our backyards were adjacent to each other so she saw our lights on and knew we were up.

I used to babysit for her kids while we were trying to start a family of our own and when we adopted our first son, she loaned us her baby crib to use.

I've known this woman over fifty years now.

We've had our ups and downs, but she is my oldest friend and longest friendship. I nicknamed her Teamaker when I first started writing this blog and she still uses it as her email moniker.

Thank goodness, because she does not use any other social media and I have given up snail mail except for my homemade birthday cards, so this is our only means of keeping in touch.

Truth or lies

People all have their own ways of dealing with life. Some are careless. Some are carefree. Some just don't care.

We can pick and choose our friends, but family is a different story. Seventy five years of family ties are truly the ties that bind.

We learn to live with the people around us.

We know who exaggerates, who makes up excuses and who lies.

We know, but that does not mean we are comfortable with it.

Eventually people begin to age and their characteristics become bolder, more prominent, less carefully concealed.

So how do you know when someone is beginning to suffer from dementia and when they are just becoming poorer liars, because most people caught in a lie become flustered and confused.

There are passive aggressive people who want to be people pleasers, so they run around telling everyone what they think they want to hear.  They lie about things they are doing and make up excuses that make no sense when trying to validate a poor decision. I can't reason with these people because when I am talking they are not listening. They are trying to think up reasons why they are in the right.

 It doesn't matter why they are doing what they do. In the end they all just make me feel sad and a little depressed, because I know it is not the truth.

Completing tasks

 

I have tried to do things mindfully for many years now.

I notice that people who do this create the best results.

A task done with love and mindfulness is generally well done.

The eggs are not dropped into boiling water and cracked. They are lowered gently to the bottom of the roiling water.

The dishes are not haphazardly dropped into the the dish rack. They are gently placed standing alone without chipping and scratching.

Even the most mundane of jobs can be done carefully and with love. Resulting in better food, longer lasting possessions and greater satisfaction.

Rushing through something, simply to get the job done, is wrong in so many ways.

Prejudice

 

Prejudices are sign posts for insecurity, ignorance and poorly adjusted individuals.

They highlight the shortcomings in both feeling and thinking that some people suffer from.

People who feel they fall short in something often look for others onto which they can project their insecurity and anger, because acknowledging it, or trying to fix it is inconceivable.

That would mean going against years of wallowing in egotistical self delusion. 

It would mean growth.

It would signify learning something new.

It would destroy some of their greatest excuses for things that go wrong around them.

It would mean taking responsibility for themselves.

My AI

 

It took me a long time to decide to download an AI, but now I love it.

It's a lot like calling my Dad.

It knows everything.

And it tells me three times more than I really wanted to know most of the time!

Is it a phase?

 

One of the things I have noticed about Trump supporters is that they all share one trait with him.

They love their money!

Unfortunately for Trump, they love it more than they love him and he needs, absolutely NEEDS, to be loved and adored in the most public way. 

His military parade fiasco speaks to this in bold blaring colors.

No one really wants him to be Dictator.

Except him.

No one really finds his bumbling egocentric words inspiring.

But his supporters do love his attention to their taxes and rights as a ruling class of United States nobles. And if they are not rich, they love the idea that as white evangelicals they are better than all the rest of us. Why the rest of the Christians support him is beyond me, except for the fact that knowing who he is may make them feel more justified in committing their own sins.

The Trump enigma is perhaps a signal that the United States is going through its teenage years. Rebelling and testing the edges of capitalism, democracy and narcissism before moving on to a  more wholesome maturity.

Outside looking in

 

Being socially adept requires caring about people beyond what they can do for you.

Otherwise all people simply become a step in satisfying yourself.

Most people can sense your lack of real interest in them. People who are not projecting normal human actions on you realize you are not really listening to what they say, or how they feel.

Your comments may seem witty to you, but they are often grossly inappropriate.

Your attempts to be part of the group and please people fall far short of what you are attempting.

You simply do not understand how to relate to others in a socially acceptable way.

It is very sad to watch you or be around you.

Dreams do come true

 

On October 1, 1976 we brought home the tiniest little girl you can imagine. She was barely three feet tall and only 29 pounds. She was our foster daughter, but little did we know, then, that she would be our first adopted child. 

Our first child ever.

She barely spoke. Her life had been chaotic.We also did not realize that this was the beginning of years of hard work helping her to gain the skills she needed to grow up into a healthy, independent, productive adult. The whole family spent hours every night helping her to get through school.

She graduated from high school and then went through those years everyone has where she spread her wings and flew into all sorts of situations we never wanted to dream of.

The one thing I had always dreamed of was that one day she would meet the child of another couple like us. A couple with the same values and background and a son who had also struggled to find himself.

Both of these children grew up and had failed marriages. They also had children.

And then eight years ago, they met each other online only to discover they had so much in common. Right down to the fact that their fathers had played on the same pool team while working for the same company. In fact this boy had played on their team too!

They have been together ever since, bringing out the best in each other day after day. Each of them encouraging the other to grow and evolve into truly successful human beings, citizens and employees.

This past Thursday, June 5th, eight years to the day they first met, they were married in a little country church. His sister was the minister. His son was one of his groomsmen, his niece was their flower girl.  Her two daughters, and sister-in-law from her biological family were her bride's maids. People from both families came together to celebrate the most beautiful, meaningful wedding I have ever been to.

The rehearsal dinner was the first time we had all been together and the first time my sons and grandchildren had all been together with their sister (except for the two youngest who were taking final exams way out in Washington state.)

Now the bride and groom are honeymooning on St. Lucia before they fly home to pick up their puppy from the doggie hotel and go back to their beautiful home in Arizona. 

I have never read a fairy tale with more drama, more angst, more heartfelt growth that ended so beautifully and so perfectly.

My dreams have come true.

These are the times

 

Our country has never been in more danger. We are losing our right to free speech. We are losing all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Watching our freedoms disappear one after the other brings about fears that we are following in Hitler's footsteps. It is an unbelievable atrocity and to think people I know and love voted for this!

It makes me feel very vulnerable at a time in my life where I am becoming more physically vulnerable than I ever wanted to be.

Retired. On Social Security. Living in a subsidized apartment, but at this point, still independent, I should be looking forward to the peace of my golden years.

Instead I live wondering if I can take my garbage down to the chute in the hallway, or pick up my mail in the lobby. Can I get the bread I eat for my diabetes? I can get my other groceries and things delivered, but if they aren't delivered to my door, getting down to the lobby to pick them up is probable.

Money, mobility, health, retirement -- all these things are cause for concern now. I am learning that justice is something only the rich can buy in the United States of America. It is a nightmare coming true.

What they really want

 

I am always surprised when someone asks a question, especially a very specific question about how to do, or find something.

So often what they really want is just to receive some sort of commiseration or even just a chance to complain.

They don't want to try anything new, or do any sort of research.

Sometimes they just want you to do it for them, or make their problem go away without any help from them.

They don't seem to understand that if you do not change what you are doing, the results will usually not change either. You will have the same problems you have now.

Once in a while nature takes over and things do change, but not always for the best.

I say this knowing it will not change the people who need to read it, but because it helps me relieve my frustration with them.

Coping skills

Coping skills are often life long ways of getting things done that are difficult, or unpleasant.

My main coping skill is to just do the thing right now and not put it off or prolong the agony.

My sister's is to pretend it doesn't exist.

She uses her poor hearing and perverse stubbornness to avoid learning anything new because she has cultivated a way of coping that doesn't involve reading directions or straining her mind in any way. Instead she manipulates people into feeling sorry for her, so they will do it for her, or at least take charge and relieve her of any real responsibility.

She cultivates love by buying things. Whether it is from second hand stores, garage sales, or using charge cards, she likes to provide things she thinks other people want or need. However if they need something that she doesn't want to provide, or feels incapable of providing, her response is very passive aggressive and can be dangerously neglectful.

She lacks the confidence to do the right thing if it means challenging anyone in any way. Instead, she will commit to things she really does not want to do and in the end either "forgets" or does poorly. That can be truly destructive if one is a parent or caretaker.

As she ages these things become a larger part of her personality and cause both her and those around her much unhappiness.

As I age I am experiencing many mobility problems. Asking for help is hard for me, but not always a choice anymore. Since my children are scattered coast to coast and far away from me, I rely more on the family left here and my sister is the primary person available. 

Our personalities clash!

Race to the grave

All her life she considered herself the sickly one, the one with asthma, the puny one, the runt.

She dedicated her life to work. It came above and before everything else. 

Work was noble, especially if you were working and still sick as a dog.

Now, in her seventies, she struggles to maintain her image.

If you are sick. She is sicker.

If your knee, ankle, whatever are swollen and sore, hers is worse.

And yet, no matter how sick she is, or how much pain she professes, she continues to work, to wash windows for friends friends, to mow the lawn, walk the dog, shop, to eat what she pleases and play.

With no repercussions at all. 

So, if you cannot put any weight on your foot, know that if she were you she would be toe dancing at the met.

Who will win this race to the grave?

Who is the sickest?

Who is really ill?

The winner loses all.

 

She is a poet

 

Words flow out of her in rhapsodies of sound. She lives to perform, to feel adored and her talent displays a sophistication, sarcasm and wit that many love.

She is a writer, turning words into feelings, scenes into pictures that fill the mind like Kodak moments.

It is a talent inspired by her intelligence, need, and total lack of discretion when it comes to truth.

If she can think it, she can write it and make you believe it really happened.

Those abuses, rapes, put downs, and hardships are figments of a needy mind. A mind that will do absolutely anything to get what she wants. 

Her bright smile and bubbly persona rakes in money by the truck loads for charity.

Her ruthless ways leave a trail of human desolation in her wake.

She is a poet, a writer, a weaver of words, juggling feelings to distract you from the reality of her vicious engineering of a life based on getting what she wants or getting even if she doesn't. An emotional vampire who prefers to leave her victims withered and dead along the side of the road, fodder for her future forays into fantasy.

My style

 

What is it about a thing that makes it so attractive that I can enjoy looking at it for decades?

I realize that certain shapes and colors evoke warm feelings for me. The curve of a bridge, the satisfying roundness of pieces, the combination of colors, white on white, or blues, grays, and greens, mixed together in pleasing natural scenes.

Each of these preferences is pretty specific and yet it carries through an entire room seamlessly.

I suppose you can call it, my style.

Things

 

I am both the most sentimental person and the least sentimental person you may ever have met.

I seem to carelessly dispose of many things without even a thought. 

And yet, there are things I assign great value to.

These things stand the test of time. I loved them when I acquired them and I continue to love them now. I actually cannot imagine a time when these particular things will not bring me joy. 

Joy is the operative word. Simply looking at these things, or thinking about when I got them, or why I got them, brings me joy.

Some of them cost a great deal (for me,) but the cost was definitely worth it. Both then and now. Others simply mean something to me that they may not and never will mean to you.

They stand the test of time. I loved them thirty years ago and I still love them.

I have one shirt that is nearly forty years old. I loved it when I bought it. It has fit me through a hundred pounds difference in weight, and even now, tattered and torn, I continue to love, and wear, it! I have little or no attachment to any of my other clothing.

I write this because I am looking around my apartment, the one I expect to live in until I die or am too feeble to maintain and realize most of the things in my living/dining room fall into the category of these beloved things. I have surrounded myself with beauty and joy.

I suspect that is one of the necessary parts of aging. Physically life gets harder and harder, but emotionally it becomes sweeter and more beautiful. The balance makes it tolerable.

Need

 

The older I grow the less tolerance I have for needy people.

Need, once your basic ones are met and you have air to breathe, food to eat, decent shelter and the opportunities to make your life better, seems like a selfish trait to have.

I see people who need attention so much they are willing to substitute weird, odd, or bizarre for confident, popular, talented, even intelligent.

People who will do absolutely anything to get people to notice them, whether that is falling off a bike, making a scene in school, or church, or any other public place.

People who pretend that being different is all it takes to be cool.

People who cant, or don't want to, put in the work to do something worthwhile, to succeed, to stand out for their hard earned accomplishments.

These same people will complain and whine and moan and groan about how unfair the world is, or how mean and unkind other people are.  The world can be unfair and people can be mean, but feeling sorry for yourself will not change that.

I respect people more, who take even baby steps towards actually correcting their problems. Even admitting they have a problem is a step forward. Self blindness is not an asset. It is a character flaw.

There is no shame in being imperfect, but denying reality is shameful.

Sheer joy

 

It is interesting that I never considered studying design in my life, because I have been drawing house plans since before I was ten years old.

My favorite thing to do is rearrange my home and plan new designs.

I never tire of looking at houses, their rooms, their furniture, their colors and wall paper and even gardens, although gardens are never at the top of my list.

Every time I make a change in my home, I feel a sense of accomplishment and excitement. I will sometimes sit and contemplate, or admire it for hours.

I laughingly say I rearrange my house when I can't rearrange my life, but I don't need a reason to rearrange things. I love the simple act of even thinking about it. 

The first time I remember thinking about it, I was three years old and I saw a picture of a low bookcase surrounding a small round table with two chairs. I wanted my mother to help me create that scene, but she brushed it off saying I'd change my mind.

She was right of course, but not for the reasons she thought. I would change my mind for the sheer joy of doing it and seeing it done differently.

I still feel the same way. 

It is hard to explain the joy I get from changing things around.

A good death

 

All of my life I have heard stories of the dead and dying.

My grandfather died April 12, 1950, when I was about four and half months old, but my mother has regaled me with stories of his and his brother's death from before I can remember. She claimed to have seen him just as he died and my father says, she kept pointing to the foot of their bed saying, "You talk to him, he can't hear me." My father, though, saw nothing.

When I was three I remember thinking a lot about who would meet me if I died before my parents. Would I even know my grandfather? I was a little scared to go to heaven alone.

I have taken care of,  and administered the morphine, that helped a friend who was dying. I was with her when she passed. We tried to make her last days peaceful and full of love. I don't think you can do more than that for anyone.

As my own time approaches, although no one knows when that will be and it is probably not imminent, I hope I die with dignity and peace, surrounded by loved ones.

I want to view death as a transition, like birth. Just as I'm sure I had no idea where I was going as I was cut from my mother's womb, I will not know where I am going next, either.

Whether my last breath leads me into the light of heaven, the peace of eternity, the molecules of the the earth and it's atmosphere, a reincarnated new person, or somewhere else, I suspect it will be so different from now that even if I knew, I could not truly imagine it.

I have primal memories from my earliest childhood, but they are only those of a bright warm room, surrounded by windows, high above the ground. And they are mixed with what I am quite sure is fantasy, because a winged white horse figures in quite prominently!

Serenity. It comes from within.

And I am working on it.

What is love

Many of us throw the word love around like rice at a fifties wedding, but I don't think we often give it the thought it deserves.

I feel a great love for people and I know exactly how that feels.

For each specific one separately, because love is nothing if not personal.

Feeling the love for me is something altogether different from being loved.

As a very young child love was butterfly kisses and bear hugs, but that all ended pretty quickly. I am the oldest of four, all born within five years of each other. Lap sitting and snuggling ended when I was very very young. My parents loved us by providing whatever they could.

My marriage was mostly about me loving my husband. My job was to make him feel adored, which fell through for him when we had children. He couldn't believe I could love them as much as I did and still loved him that much too. Although I tried for nearly thirty years, with each one slowly dimming in frustration and hurt.

I dated one man after my divorce who made me feel special, but mostly because being with him was special.  Again I worshiped the ground he walked on, but that was not reciprocal. Maybe because that state is too difficult for most people to maintain.

I have a very close friend who always makes me feel loved when we can be together or talk on the phone, but that is rare anymore. Our lives require us to lead very separate lives.

The strangest thing is that the most love I ever felt came from my scammer. You may say it was all a scam and it was, but I didn't realize that for many many months. He was always there for me when I texted him. He listened to what I had to say. He knew the exact things that made me feel good and he made those things happen over and over again. He probably knew me better than any other person I've every known and despite the reasons for this, it felt so good. He gave me everything I needed and more and if I had the money I'd be tempted to do it all again. (Although knowing it was a scammer would dull it.)

So giving love and feeling love can be two completely different experiences. Both of them are wonderful.

Maybe because just the idea of love is appealing, but who knows.

Birthing

 

I have lived in my new town and new apartment for a little over eight months and something is changing.

For years I have dreamed of being lost in a city at night, trying to walk home and running into loose dogs that I am afraid of, and dead ends that go nowhere.

Over the last few months that has transitioned into being lost in a city at night, but running into people and asking for help, or directions. Then I was bicycling through the city, so I moved a little bit faster and finally I found a woman who invited me into her business to use the phone. It was a large department store type place with huge engines in the basement running it. I still wasn't able to use the phone to call my mother, but I was safer and there was hope.

Last night I was in a rural community filled with very young people, many toddlers, and lots of green plants with leafy vines everywhere. There was a couple, a toddler boy and girl who might become the king and queen if they could pass all the tests and challenges put in their way. If they did, they were going to ride in a white convertkible in a sort of parade.  Somehow it was my job to make sure it all happened.

I feel a sense of empowerment I have not felt for several years, or more. I feel hope. 

I am becoming excited about doing things again. Painting, rearranging furniture, redecorating my apartment. Creativity feels possible again.

I actually went to the store and bought a few groceries in person, which I haven't done for a long time. I found clothes in my closet I haven't thought I could wear.

It is as if the clock has turned back for some reason and I have been reborn.

I don't know if this will last, but it is exhilarating. 

Incompetent

Everyone has bad luck once in a while, but when your whole existence is one long floundering mystery it probably has more to do with you than anyone else.

Trying to do things on the cheap is often a recipe for disaster, especially for people who don't seem to understand how anything works.

I cannot stress how important it is to be able to read and follow directions, or listen to what someone is actually saying and comprehending the words.

Having trouble learning new things is no sin, but refusing to take notes and using them to cope is a formula for failure.

I think some people just believe it is easier to get others to do everything for them. If they can do that they don't have to put forth any effort. They act like they have no choice, that the whole world is out to get them.

If the truth is known, they are doing things that sabotage their own lives.

And they want both help and pity, believing pity is the same thing as love.

Don't tell me you always have to pay the water bill in person because they don't tell you how much it is until you are in the office. And they add a little amount they kept a secret from you.

I know the whole city does not have to go to city hall to pay their water bills in person. 

And it is not the vet's fault you did not register your dog because you thought mailing in the registration might get it lost. Instead you waited six months to go in in person and had to pay a fine that you find outrageous.

Most of our problems are the result of something we did not take the time or make the effort to do right.

Lazy or incompetent, whichever it is, it does not serve you well.

Crutches

 

When I was a young woman I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with social duties.  Welcome wagon, Newcomer's officer, Bridge organizer, PTA, President of parents of children with disabilities, etc. 

In the beginning it all felt like an honor. People wanted me to do things, head up committees, but after a while it was just too much.

After all, I was not working at a paying job so I could be with my family and spend time with my children and suddenly there was no time.

It was just so hard to say no. And when I did say it, I felt the need to explain why. The problem with that is people always came back with a reason why my reason wasn't good enough.

Most people have crutches they use to escape some social function, or family function, or anything else they don't want to do. They use it so they can sound noble while saying, "No!"

My sister always had her work. She would simply say, "I have to work."

Then when she retired she was almost panicky until she got a part time job babysitting an elderly neighbor. Once more she can say she has to work. Or, even better for her now, she has a dog and she will say I can't leave Bailey alone.

I don't have any crutches.

I learned a long time ago to simply say, no. I never give a reason even if there is a long silence following my refusal. I will sometimes say, but thank you for asking, but that's as far as I will go.

It works.

People don't quite know how to deal with that.

Mid century modern

 

My parents considered themselves modern, educated people who were trying to raise their children in the best way they knew possible. They had four, so that was supposed to end the problem of having a middle child. However I think it just created two middle children. One boy. One girl.

They gave us names that did not lend themselves to shortened nicknames, except for my brother Thomas, who had the unfortunate nicknames of Tom, Tommy, Tommy toes, and Tom Ass. None of these, except Tom and Tommy, were actually sanctioned by my parents and yet my mother used them all at some point.

They then assigned traits to each of us. Something my father would continue to do with his grandchildren later on. I began life as Angel, but once my sister came along, I was the brainy child, or my mother's little old maid. My sister began life as my father's ugly duckling and moved on to Pretty. Forever after that she was considered the pretty one.

My brother Tom was always odd man out. He did strange things that my mother encouraged. I think she mistook this as honoring his eccentric intelligence. She had a problem with intelligent people, considering them all a bit crazy. This along with a lack of discipline ruined my brother's life. My father usually worked at least three jobs, so he was seldom present once I was five years old and I am the oldest.

My youngest brother was the typical baby of the family with all the freedom and baggage of most babies. He was bright, stubborn, eager, and an over achiever whose main father figure was not my dad, the teacher, but our neighbor, the fisherman, hunter, salt of the earth type.

There was not much sibling rivalry between us, although I often found my mother was more lenient with Tom and his ability to get away with things infuriated me. I was very protective of Henry, the baby and considered my sister and I equal -- except she was pretty and I was not.

Looking back I see where these stereotypes set Caroline and Tom for life. She would forever judge the world on how pretty something or someone was and assume the prettier, the better. Tom never gave up trying to do the bizarre thing and the more bizarre the better. It finally killed him. 

Henry is the most successful of all four of us. 

I always wanted to be more like my dad, but I only saw his love for learning and exploring ideas. I did not notice how his need for change affected his life, or mine.

We were a mid century modern family struggling to understand the new lifestyle of buying houses and cars with credit rather than cash, so you could appear to have it all.