Drifts of love

 

I seldom listen to music anymore, but last night I listened to some that touched my heart deeply. 

For as long as I can remember hearing music, some of it has affected me profoundly.

It is as if my soul is tuned to these sounds and they make me ache for something I do not understand.

Listening to them brings up memories I do not have; of times I cannot remember, but still feel very deeply.

If there was a case for reincarnation in my life it would have to be this music.

Some people find music makes them feel romantic, or patriotic. It makes me long for what I cannot quite put my finger on.

When I first begin listening it feels good -- like coming home, but soon it turns into a homesickness that is almost unbearable.

Of course I love the music made by the people I love, Jim, Bobby, Corra, Andy and John. But that is music of the heart. It is endearing and lovely and something I never tire of. 

But the music I heard tonight is old. Older than I am. Older than my dreams. With it come drifts of love deeper than life itself, almost too painful to listen to.

Fear and frustration

 

I am sitting in the living room of the house on Douglas Street, a house I spent most of my growing up years in.

I am sitting in my mother's chair watching television, but I hear someone playing guitar on the sun porch. I also hear someone coming downstairs in the hall behind me. For some reason I am filled with fear.

My mother comes around the corner and she is furious. I tell her the guitar did not bother me. Then, thinking I needed a reason, said, "I think I got used to them when I was away at college."

We are hungry. My grandmother and aunts are here and we go into the kitchen to eat breakfast. Someone has set up those large brown folding church tables. Packed together into a huge square, they fill the kitchen so completely it is hard to sit around the edges to eat, but we try.

My mother is in the kitchen behind this kitchen, cooking. My niece, is eating on the floor under the table and my sister refuses to make her sit up on a chair to eat. I am furious. My grandmother sits at the corner of the table fake smiling and trying to make everyone else do the same. Keri keeps eating pancakes with her fingers, under the table.

I leave and go back where my mother is now cooking scrambled eggs and sausages like a short order cook. It makes me angry that she is not eating with us and I tell her that. We go back into the kitchen and all the tables, except one, have been removed. My mother sits down to eat now and my grandmother is still there. My sister is there too. 

I want to sit down but now I realize there isn't even any toast and I am, once again, furious. I get up and tell them I'm not eating without toast and I go to get the toaster, which is on the sun porch. As I walk out there, I know my mother is following me and I am filled with fear again. She is angry.

I step back to hide in the foyer and she passes me by still heading for the sun porch. I wonder what she will do when she gets there and I am not there. Then suddenly as she enters the door to the sun porch, her body is jerked back and falls on the floor. I am horrified to see her head land right in front of me! She has been beheaded and I immediately feel like it is my fault, but I know she walked into an electric cord so hard and with such force that it decapitated her. I wonder if I should call 911 for an ambulance since I know she is dead, but I don't know what else to do and decide that is the right thing to do. I dial the number and while waiting for someone to answer I feel like it is my fault my mother was beheaded. If only I had not dared to go get the toaster.

I keep waiting but no one answers the 911 number.

My cell phone rings and I wake up from this dream, maybe the worst one I've ever had. The feelings were real. They were the old feelings of frustration and fear and guilt, but the story is not a true one.

Empathy vs Reflection

 

There are people in this world who have no concept of empathy.

They have learned to respond to the feelings they see, but other's actual pain is unknowable to them.

They can only relate to their own feelings, their own pain, their own concepts of what is going on in the world around them.

I'm not sure why this is so. I suspect it is because as children they were taught the safest way to make other people happy was by doing what was expected. 

Therefore their own feelings were often neglected and they assume other people deal with life the same way.

These people often respond in inadequate ways when trying to help others. It is kind of like being in charge of a furnace, but never having a thermometer to measure the heat being put out. It could be too much or too little. It could even be fatal.

They are not easy to spot unless you see them quite frequently and they will never understand the difference if you try to explain it to them. That part of their reasoning atrophied many many years ago.

Haunted

 

In the deepest dark of night

when ghoulies creep and 

ghosts set flight

there is one haunted

whose child was bright

but beauty flaunted

set her sight

on things ephemeral 

that were not right.

And now that child 

is of the night.

Common sense

 

Some people love learning new things. 

For them life is a puzzle with an infinite number of pieces to put together and their job is to find the combinations that suit them best.

Other people hate learning new things.

For them it is intimidating and difficult and something to be avoided at all costs. Their lives are long sequences of repetition, making the same mistakes over and over again, because they refuse to try something new.

Mistakes are part of life. It's okay to make them, but they are meant to be learning processes, not ruts to be mired down in and cherished.

If something is not working, it needs to be changed. 

I don't need to repeat the old quote about people who keep on doing the same things while expecting different results. 

Common sense should prevail.

Depth

 

Everyone has their own ideas about how they want to live.

Depth of character is measured by the truth of those ideas.

If someone truly believes that what they are doing is the right thing, the best thing, then they must hold themselves responsible for the consequences of those beliefs.

To espouse a belief in something and then to complain about the consequences is asking people not to hold you responsible. Those two actions are in direct conflict with each other.

Each of us has the right to live the way we choose, but we do not have the right to expect other people to agree with that, or live with it, nor is it their responsibility to make us feel good it if they do not agree.

People can like us without agreeing with us. Asking them to pretend they do agree with us is neither fair, nor realistic, so sometimes it is just better to avoid those issues we know are in conflict with, in the name of peace.

Wanting everyone to like us and everything we do is a childish dream. As adults we choose what we want to share with those who are important to us and steer clear of those things we know we are in direct conflict with.

 The depth of our character is anchored on our ability to accept our own choices and their consequences.

Faith

 

Why must there be an authority figure that forces us to be good, or threats of damnation if we aren't?

Why does the word faith imply a belief in some kind of creed or religion?

Goodness is a part of nature that lies deep within all things. 

It is not always easy, or simple to access it.

True faith does not require anyone or anything to manifest it for us. We are the fishermen of our own souls.

Faith in simple goodness requires enormous strength of spirit, but that spirit is within us from the moment of our existence.

Finding it can be a life's work.

Forever

 

I have always loved my children so fiercely that it was sometimes terrifying. I had to cultivate a sense that they would be alright. That I had given them everything I knew to help them make it through this world.

I also believed that our connection was so strong that if they were to cry out for me from anywhere, I would hear them.

I was not always the best mother, but I always did the best I knew how.

If they did not come home on time, or call, I told myself that my worrying about them would not keep them safe. And yet I sent out signals to the universe to keep them safe, to help them find their way. Whatever that might be and for whatever good it did.

Maybe it was only good for me in the long run, but I tried.

It isn't easy to allow adult children to be who they are and find their own way. But love is so strong that anything is possible. Nothing can ever sever the love that ties me to each of my children..

Nothing.

They are as much a part of me as the heart in my chest.

Success

 

There is a natural order to everything.

Before there is success there must be attempts. It is not possible to win a race you never start.

Everybody fails sometimes, even many times.

Failure is a given.

Especially the person who never tries. 

If it is important enough to you, you keep trying. Try different ways, at different times, with different things and the  possibility of success becomes greater and greater.

Of course there are things that are impossible. You cannot turn a dog into a zebra, but eventually you will figure out something better to do. Then you do that.

And that is success!

Heaven

 

I have often wondered if the Christian idea of heaven were true, would that mean I am going to spend all eternity with the man I married?

That idea does not sound like heaven to me. 

We spent nearly thirty years trying to live together with very distinct differences of opinion that caused great anguish for both of us. I can't imagine that being heaven.

Last night I had a dream. In the dream my husband and I were separated and living in different parts of a large place. I had crammed all my things into a long corridor in between his place and my daughter's. 

In the nature of dreams, lots of events occurred that had nothing to do with him, but eventually I was so exhausted we met in the space next to my room.

He stood there tall and strong and I let myself fall against his chest, My ear to his heart found comfort and total peace. We decided to get back together.

Of course this man was nothing like my real husband in anything but name. He was taller, kinder, more empathetic and exactly the kind of person I could easily love. 

Maybe that is what heaven does?

Morphs the monsters in our lives into our dream person?

Somehow . . .

Rat mazes

 

As I wander crazed and lonely 

through the dark hours of the night

I ponder deeply on the causes

of my fate and personal plight.

Simply showering in my tub

billowing curtains hug me tight

I need weights to make this doable

but the prospects are not bright.

Magnets from the fridge are handy

But their strength becomes a fright

Now the magnets hug each other

Stuck together what a sight!

I turn to Amazon, who else?

Pricey magnets a delight

Now at least I shower better

In the rat maze of the night.

Miracles

 

Miracles are convoluted things. Beyond the understanding of mere mortals.

Born of light, bursting with power, not bound by time or place, they might as easily be missed as marveled over.

It requires an understanding of indiscernible things to perceive a miracle, let alone understand it.

We want miracles to be glorious showy things, granting us our deepest wishes or validating some religious concept, and if it were up to fairy godmothers and good witches that might be the case. But those are mythical creatures and miracles are a force of nature! Maybe greater than nature!

The simple miracle of existence is beyond our true grasp. Imagine how much more complex the finer tuned ones are.

And still, the world is full of miracles.

Time to re-root

 

I used to love to grow flowers and plants.

My gardens were full of bulbs, seeds, and bushes that bloomed at different times of the year, but indoors I liked to experiment.

I discovered that if I broke off a piece of my favorite coleus it would almost instantly send out new roots into a glass of water, creating a brand new plant. Later I could take that plant and do whatever I wanted with it.

I think my life has been a lot like those shoots.

I do something with my whole heart, put my entire being into it and when it is over, or fails, I take that piece of me that is left and try to re-root it somewhere else.

It would be easy to give up, to say I have failed at those things I loved in the past, but I don't think that is really true. I just took them as far as I could and then had to yield to fate or whatever when it was time.

I am once more sending out roots in a new place, a new way, a new life and even though I am nearly three quarters of a century in age, I don't believe it is too late.

A beautiful life

 

Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the love and joy I feel when it comes to my children and grandchildren.

You might find that odd since I almost never see them in person at all. They live all across the country, from coast to coast, as far from me as it is possible to be.

And yet they fill my heart with the bits and pieces of their lives that they share with me.

My eldest is getting married next June and she just bought her dress. I was able to see this via video calls.

My older son just performed on guitar with my granddaughter with both of them singing, "Alleluia" and it was heartrendingly beautiful.

My youngest calls me nearly every day on his way home from work and we share our day, our dreams, our lives.

These are the moments that define a beautiful life.

Simplicity

The simple pleasures of not using up the gas in my car, or spending money on anything cannot be expressed in plain words.

Fully experiencing them requires eating eggs for the next two days thanks to a mistake by the water company who billed me twice and having to double up on the rent for one week then pay a deposit and this month's rent on top of that. Add the new bill for internet in my new apartment and life is rich.

But poor.

Thanks to all these fortuitous events I am not required to grocery shop or go anywhere until Wednesday when social security once more fills my coffers.

September will feel as if I have won the lottery!

Beautiful concept

 

Looking for love was something we were brought up to do. My generation often went to college to get that infamous MRS. 

The world was full of movies on love. West Side Story, Romeo and Juliet, My Fair Lady, Camelot, the list goes on and on, but real love isn't that cut and dried. 

Romance is easy. A girl can fall into romance so easily. She can write her own love story and fill in the details.

But it takes two for true love and I don't think I ever met the man who was meant to be my true love, my now and forever love, the one and only person willing to know me and share himself, who was worth walking through fire.

I know the love I have for my children and I have never experienced anything remotely close to that with another adult human being.

I think that kind of adult love is very rare, and I realize it is something that grows out of time, but I doubt if it is something I will ever know in this life.

Still, it is a beautiful concept.

Little steps

 

The last two years were a whirlwind of deceit. Exciting, romantic and ultimately devastating. It ended in financial ruin, a job that I loved, but that nearly killed me, and ultimately this move,

Waiting to find out if I could make the move was probably one of the most stressful periods of my life, but I am here now.

In the beginning all I could do was sit in my big chair with my feet up and try to take care of myself. Fixing food was a challenge. Showering was difficult. Anything else was almost unthinkable. Just getting to and from the bathroom was painful.

Every day now, I find myself doing more and more of those simple things I once took for granted.  Preparing food, standing up to shower, taking my trash down the hall to the chute, painting, making a birthday card for my niece and nephew, the things that add quality to my life.

It will be three weeks tomorrow since I got the keys to what may be the best move I've ever made.

God circle

 

I dreamed that my sister opened a tread on our staircase and we discovered the God circle.

It was a circle of old gods forty feet high, carved from sandstone.

The feet had narrow ankles and very wide toes that spread out across the base until they touched each other, almost like duck feet. The legs were simply a pillar and the top was carved to look like a shirt.

On the very top were smiling heads. One was John Ritter. Another was Woody Harrelson. Neither of those actors has any meaning to me that I can think of. I couldn't see the other heads, but there were at least six more.

My sister and I were trying to sleep on a fold out couch near a window in a trailer. We could hear a raging storm outside and feel the cool air from the open window blowing on us. The overwhelming feeling was one of fear. Where were our brothers, Tom and Henry? Where had Mom taken them?

In my waking life, both my mother and Tom have passed on, but Henry is alive and very successfully living a few miles away from me.

It seemed vitally important, in the dream, that I had discovered the God circle and that I remember what it looked like, but I have no idea why.

Why?

 

Sometimes the right words pop up at just the right time.

Because you are alive

Anything is possible.

Thich Nhat Hahn

This is the reason to keep on trying to eat right, drink enough water, move around more. Hope is an amazing gift.

Otherwise I tend to lean towards: I am already pretty old and my kidneys are pretty bad, so why try? Why bother to buy new clothes? Why think about redecorating? Why bother to fit in?

I've already made some progress.

Last week I grocery shopped and had to come home and go to bed sick.

Today I just had to rest a bit.

They said my brother would die before he was three years old. He lived to be sixty five!

That's why.

La dolce vita

 Isn't that what we all want in the end?

A beautiful sweet life where we can explore our most cherished dreams.

As long as there is breath there is life and every little second counts.

I have found a place I can afford to live more than decently and now I am figuring out how to settle in.

There are so many things to do when moving.

I have changed my address, registered to vote, figured out how to do my laundry here, even met a couple of people in the elevator and at a potluck. I have tried the local grocery stores and figured out things only older people need to figure out.

Now I need to regain some strength in my back and the journey continues.

Pedigrees of the past

 

We are all the product of our past, our family, the circumstances that generated our personalities.

The stories we heard growing up about our magnificent ancestors, the Indian princess, the student of Paderewski, the first woman doctor in Germany, the swashbuckling pirate? Those are the tales that families used to pass down. They were the pedigrees of the past.

The alcoholic father, the enabling mother, the compulsive obsessive grandmother? These are the things no one ever wants to mention, but they shaped us just as surely as those other glorious stories spun by hopeful people on hot summer nights.

Ultimately, it is not the stories we heard, or even the ones we tell that shape our lives.

It is our own determination, our own perseverance, our own grit and love and sweat and tears, that brought us to this place we are at today.

We have learned which family members are there standing behind and beside us and we are standing shoulder to shoulder with them too. 

These are the building blocks of success. The stories are just food for thought, something to feed our imaginations and add a little spice to the things that truly sustain us.

Once upon a time

 

Peter Pan goes by so many aliases. 

Right now he is hiding out in the trees of Appalachia, surrounded by his band of boys who do a lot of carpentry work when they are not kayaking, rafting and canoeing.

Wendy is making leather crafts and weaving fairy hair when she is not with the  boys.

The youngest Darling has been returned home where he plays video games near his attic window.

And the crocodile creeps around like a ticking bomb looking for things to destroy.

While here in the Heartland Alice has awakened in Wonderland where most things are wondrously white and shiny and the air conditioner keeps everything cool.

The world lies at her feet, waiting to be painted in dreams and memories and served up with tea and cookies.

Everywhere you look the familiar fairy tales are replaying themselves with new faces and old stories told time and time again.

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows

 

Thanks to the untiring help of my family and friends I am moved! In fact, I am completely unpacked, which is not to say I won't rearrange in the future, but I am as settled as you can imagine being in four days time.

Everyone has gone out of their way to make this easy on me, including the staff of our building.

I have been to the local MacDonalds to use the internet until it was installed yesterday. I have been to the local Walmart and the local Kroger. I have even been to dinner at my brother's house already!

I have unpacked in between bouts of sitting in a chair with my feet propped up and a heating pad on my back, but it has still been fun. All my boxes are torn down and out for recycling.

Tomorrow I go to a potluck to meet some of the other people who live in this building and I'm looking forward to it.

After so many months of worrying about money, struggling to work, and trying to persevere until this happened, I can hardly believe I am here.

But I am!

Cobbling

 

Yesterday I had a doctor appointment after which I filled the car with gas and went to the grocery store for a couple of necessities. Then I went home exhausted!

Today I am resting. My back is still very problematic and I am not feeling great. I think, maybe, I am just scared. Of what? Scared of a move that is taking me away from the town I love and a life that is over into a new kind of life that may be my last chapter.

I am cobbling together all the resources I know of to make this possible.

Some dear friends sent me a large check in April to help and it is one of the main reasons I can do this. My niece and nephew found the place I am moving to and they are moving all my things there at the end of this week, but tomorrow I drive down to sign the lease.

While I am there my brother and sister are going to unpack what I already have in my car and then take my brother's dolly over to my nephew's house, so they can use it Saturday.

I am trying to rest as much as possible and still have things ready to go. Most of the apartment is long packed. Most things are clean. It is only my peace of mind that keeps faltering.

I am striving to be positive.

Jaded lessons

 

It is only in the great open spaces of a starry night that I hear my lover's passion,

Feel the unbearable aching deep within some part of me that knows more than this.

Fulfillment so satisfying I shall evermore seek its presence in corporeal moments 

No longer existing upon my plane? 

Or perhaps they never existed. Perhaps these are the memories of another space, another time, another place that has imprinted upon my soul, or whatever it is that is the real me, the everlasting me, the infinite me.

Yet I know it is real. I have always heard the echoes of its whisperings, remembered its impossible touch, known the all consuming ecstasy of its being around me.

A lifetime of searching has only brought me jaded lessons from imperfect lovers impersonating the impossible, the perfect,

The one true love.

In and out

I am struggling to find my center.

It is easy when everything goes along smoothly, but when there are  thousand moving pieces and they include both my body and my belongings, it gets trickier.

My kidney doctor keeps changing my blood pressure medicine and that affects my blood sugar as well as my hearing and energy level. 

My back and feet and knees were totally stressed out when I tried to go back to work and are just starting to recover. In order to protect what is left of my kidneys I cannot use most anti-inflammatory drugs

Financially I think I'm going to squeak by thanks to some very good friends who sent me a huge check this spring. I've been able to hold onto it for this move.

I know this move is necessary and actually a blessing in many ways, but trying to let go of the nagging voices in my mind that keep warning me something bad may happen is not easy.

Breathing in I take in the calm.

Breathing out I smile.

The next generation

 

People who work for money sometimes seem to think that the people who don't are not working, but that is far from the truth.

There may be people who simply lie about and travel and eat and do nothing, but most of the people I know and knew, who stay at home, are doing the jobs that working people cannot do when they are away from home or working all day.

They are caring for the next generation of people, giving them values and experiences, taught by example, that take an infinite amount of time and patience. They are spending hours reading to their children, doing puzzles, teaching them how to control their tempers and let their souls soar. It is a full time job. 

They are volunteering in the classrooms and school libraries to help teachers who are already overloaded.

They are cleaning their own homes, doing their own gardening, taxiing their, and other people's children, to sports events, music lessons, art lessons, doctor appointments, dentist appointments and preparing healthy nutritious meals for their families. 

They do not have babysitters, nannies, or sometimes anyone else to help them when they are exhausted. 

Stay at home parents work hard!

Working away from home is hard too, but there are trade offs. It may not be possible to stay at home and raise a child and some people do not have either the patience or skills to do it, but never make the mistake of thinking they are just stay at home parents.

These are the people creating the next generation, the people who will run the world when we grow old.

Reliant

We have all told other people to call us if they need anything and most of us mean it, but also for most of us, it is a difficult thing to ask for help..

I am in the process of moving next week and my back is a mess. I moved some furniture and strained a muscle, or maybe pulled a tendon. I am okay as long as I don't stand up or bend over.

Now the true test.

I have had to call on family and both my sister's family and my brother's family are going to help as much as they can. They both live out of town.

Now the problem.

I have to really stay off my feet until then so even cooking an egg is painful right now. My sister is going to come up and bring me food I can quickly assemble so that is possible. It means an extra trip for her, but she is willing to do it.

I am so grateful for all the help.

I never dreamed of being in this position.

Remember the pain

 

Memory is an exotic animal.

I remember things that happened when I was two years old, but I forget to avoid the actions that caused me so much pain a day ago!

What is it that drives me to do things that harm my body? 

I know it is partially guilt.

I feel like I should be working around the apartment, packing, doing laundry, washing dishes, cooking a meal.

If I had a broken back and was wearing a cast, that might validate that I need to rest, but a strained back doesn't show and I am embarrassed by how little I am able to accomplish right now.

I have been to Prompt Care twice in nine days. The second time they gave me enough muscle relaxers that I could take three a day instead of only one. That really helped, but it leaves me feeling that I am healed when the pain stops and that is a false assumption.

Today I vow to remember the pain I am in when I get up and move around too much.

No matter how little that is.

Pain!

The day before yesterday I was in so much pain I was willing to die. Yesterday was not much better. I went to Prompt Care on the fourth of July and they would only give me enough medicine to partially ease the pain for a few hours each day. They told me to wait until Monday and go to my primary care doctor.

Today I seem to have it under control. What a difference that makes!

This is turning out to be a turning point in my life.

When I had to go back to work I thought it was worth it to stay here in this apartment. Now, after forcing my body to do things it was no longer able to do and catching a very bad case of Covid in spite of being totally immunized, I realize going back to work was the worst mistake I've ever made in my life.

I honestly didn't think I had much choice. Rent everywhere is outrageous and I'm on a fixed income, but thanks to family I found a rent subsidized apartment. I just hope it isn't too late. I am trying desperately to regain my health, but I think I was trying too hard.

Trying to balance mental and physical health is always a bit tricky, but once a body begins failing to stand up to its old standards, it becomes critical.

My family has promised they will move me no matter what. Even if I can't help carry things to the truck. I have already packed as much as I can until that day comes and it's a good thing, because I have barely been able to get drinks of water, or get to my bathroom for the last three days.

Today was better. The pain seems to be under control if I am very careful not to move the wrong way, or put any pressure on my joints for more than a minute or two.

I have never felt this vulnerable in my life.