Elusive Abstractions

Stinky, Stinky, Stink

2012-01-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

Hub and I go into a shop in town. Rather quiet in there. Only a couple of clerks -- one behind the till, another washing the floor with a mop.

A smell permeates the air. A floral, lemony, breezy, freshy smell with a kind of soapy tang. It tingles our noses. Maybe we unconsciously screw up our faces a bit.

With a sniffle, the clerk says, "I know. I know. Too much 'clean stink' in here for anyone!"
___

I pay for a few purchases and Hub and I go the the vehicle. I toss my shopping bag on the console.

"What did you buy?" Hub asks

"Warm mitts and gloves," I reply.

"Oh for cryin' out loud," Hub says. "That wasn't necessary. There is a box of gloves and mitts in the basement."

"I know. But for so many of them one is missing and those blue gloves I've been wearing? Those stupid thinngs are both for the same hand. That's why I bought new ones."

"Don't you know how to fix that?" Hub asks.

"Well, yeh, I guess. I can wear them anyway. Up to now that's what I've been doing but I find it annoying and uncomfortable to wear two gloves for the same hand."

Hub laughs. "Don't you know if you turn one inside-out, it will fit the other hand?"

I sniff. Maybe unconsciously wrinkle my nose a bit.

"Too much 'smart stink' in this vehicle for me!
____

So with a slightly different take that obliquely parallels what my mother used to say after a lovely meal...

That was stink enough to leave me sufficiently suffonsifized to the point where anymore would be superfluous.

The Scrabble Enigma

2012-01-12T03:05:00.000-07:00

Since childhood, I and my clan and many of my friends have engaged in Scrabble games. And since time immortal we have done so on the old cardboard game board. And what grand visits and conversations we had while doing so.

Even though there are scores to calculate and record, a bag to be passed, tiles to be drawn, (and counted while doing so). There is the to and fro-ing of the dictionary to look-up words like “cwm” or "udo" to see if such a bizarre combination of letters could really be words.

And then there is the outrage of “Roll up your sleeves for pete’s sake!…following by a gasp and sigh and then the concerted brainstorm among all participants to return the tiles to their original positions.

And this is generally followed by a tutorial to demonstrate the difference between a sleeve roll-up and a sleeve-shove.

And so we are busy, very busy it would seem, but still amazingly in the midst of all this other activity, the game goes on at a steady and stimulating pace.

____

And so when opponents come to visit, I say to them…

“Would you prefer to play on the computer or on the old-fashioned board?”

And for a very few times, they generally say “Let’s play on the computer -- it’s probably faster. We won’t need a dictionary and no one has to do the abominable task of keeping score.”

And so we go to comfortable chairs at the computer and Hub even sets up extra mice so each player will have their own.

But this is where the insidious and mystical thing happens. The participants seem reluctant to visit. The game is played in some kind of reverent, or should I say, irreverent silence.

All those things I mentioned previously (i.e. passing the dictionary round, drawing letters, counting tiles, sleeve tutorials, scoring, etc.) are not interrupting our game and the game is going smoothly --- but oh so silently.

Yet amazingly, either way the game seems to go as quickly.

But when the grandchildren come, they like to play Scrabble and yes, although they be tied 24-7 to their electronic hand-helds, they shut them off, put them aside, and positively insist that we play on the board rather than the computer.

And this is where, in the midst of some kind of magical trusting openness, I find out so much about their moods, frustrations, school, and their day-to-day lives.

I think the silence of a computer-game is embedded in the insidious psychological effects of electronic devices overall. But I am mystified, and as yet have not encountered the research paper that seeks to explain it.

Perhaps you might?

Toilet Paper Management 101

2012-01-06T14:14:00.002-07:00

As you are, by now, well aware -- Hub and I are retired, we live in the country, and many days there is nothing that occurs in a 24-hour to pleasure our senses. This can drive one to derive pleasures from things in ways that to others, in a more active and stimulating environment, appear completely immature and idiotic. And that is what leads to this next story.

Now it just so happens, that Hub sometimes goes to town thrice in one day. For fuel, tire, batteries, …or just to take the puppies for a drive, but despite the oft-taken trips to town, Hub will not take with him even the shortest list of food or cosmetic items I may need. He will pick up a prescription, or gladly fulfill a 23-item list of mechanical or hardware items. He might even grudgingly go to the bank or pick up the mail, but groceries or cosmetic shopping is out.

But this week, the need was critical. When we were in town together I went to the grocery store, while he went to the drugstore to pick up a prescription. Before he went his way and I mine, I told him toilet paper was on sale at the Drugstore and we needed to get some. “So while there,“ I said, “could you just grab a couple of packages.“

He grudgingly said he would.

But, of course, when we got home, I discovered he had not bought the T.P.

Yesterday, when I opened the T.P. cupboard in the bathroom to get a new roll, there were only three rolls left, actually two after I replaced the empty roll.

So when he announced, a short time later, that he was going into town to check out some hardware on sale I said, “Oh, good. And while there you can pick up the T.P. you didn’t pick up when we were in town the other day.”

“Okay,” was his response.

Now Hub does have my sympathies. I know how frustrating the paper-aisle can be. With shelf tags that one can never be certain if they match the item above or below the tag. And each brand making 23 different kinds -- lotion laced, unlaced, double, mega, regular, big carboard centres, small centres, quilted, pillowed, woven, etc. etc.

So, I was sympathetic and not too surprised when Hub came home with a 12-pack and said, “I don’t think these were on sale though they were above a sale tag. I think someone just deposited them there by way of exchange when they noticed the sale stuff. I paid an arm and a leg for these. Probably averages out to $3.50 a roll.”

I was only half-listening to this rant cause I know how frustrating the paper-aisle can be.

Now this morning, I checked the cupboard to see if the T.P. was properly put away and in doing so, I remembered what Hub said about how expensive that T.P. was and reached out a figure tip to feel the texture of the T.P. he had bought.

Something that felt like an electric current made me quickly pull my hand back. And something else made me reach out and touch it again.

I came to the kitchen for coffee.

“You know, Hub, I have to tell you something about that T.P. you bought. I felt it this morning -- well you know, just to see how it felt. And you know that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you are totally overjoyed, or that tingle you get in your spine when you hear really fine music? That’s what happened when I touched that T.P. Fine, mighty fine.

So now, since you are going back into town today, you will need to pick up something else. Go to the Drugstore and see if they have regulatory pills, meaning pills that will ensure we only need to go once a week. You know, something, that works like those birth control pills that allow women to suspend their menstrual flow until after the beach party.

And since they are always advertising pills for people who urinate too often (maybe get some of those while you’re at it)…they must have something for those who do the other too often. In the meantime, the eating of cereal or yogurt with enzyme-activated biotic cultures are suspended.

And we are both on a diet of strictly rice and cheese until the all-too, way-too, expensive T.P. is used up.

Where are the WBS's?

2011-12-30T14:28:00.002-07:00

First, Happy 2012 to All -- and now my Exit 2011 Story....

Where are the WBS's? That would be the Walnut Butter Slices.

Obviously, she should know, but she doesn't. The reason? A bit of memory loss.

Evident, without medical diagnosis, because didn't she recently find the missing carton of coffee-creamer in the microwave instead of the fridge? And didn't she, the same week, find herself dialing some friend on the remote control instead of the phone?

So of course she knows. But nevertheless one must carry on and do as best they can.

And so, compelled by society, tradition, relevance, dignity, and God knows what else, she did some Christmas baking. Quite a lot, actually. And then she tucked that baking away in safe places, out of Hub's reach, so that when visitors came by, she could serve delectable homemade dainties.

Sweet.

__________

And so the company started coming. And with that company, frozen pies were thawed and eaten. As were the butter tarts, the lemon tarts, the spice cookies, and the carrot cake. But never the WBS's (they were still in hiding).

Each and every social gathering, and of these there were many, she arranged and served trays of baked goods. And each time she found herself thinking that now only WBS's were needed for the tray to look perfect. But it didn't happen. She couldn't for the life of here find those damnable WBS's.

She and Hub went to several Christmas fetes. Each time her expectation was to take a hostess gift of WBS's, but they could not be found.

She went through the deep-freeze, till her hands were numb with cold. Several times. And then she put on heavy gloves, removed all contents and went through it another time. Still no WBS's.

Hub said she could be looking straight at something and still not see it, so twice she went through the contents of the rest of the refrigerator including meat and veggie drawers. Hub even joined in the search. Still no WBS's.

Then the thought occurred to her to search the long shelves in the basement next to the deep freeze. The shelves where she keeps plastic, tin, and cardboard containers to freeze goodies so they wouldn't be crushed by the heavier packages of frozen goods. Maybe she stored the squares in a can or box and then forgot to put them in the deepfreeze. So now, every container on those shelves came down and was thoroughly inspected. Nothing. No WBS.s.

So now she really wracked her mind. Did she make some? Yes, she did. Shortly before Christmas. 21st or 22nd -- some where around then. Two large pans in fact.

But wait. There was something else. The recipe said there was no need to freeze them. Said they would keep nicely in a cookie tin for up to two weeks. That gave her mind a turn.

She had fully expected the slices would be eaten in four to five days. At the same time was the cookbook trustworthy especially for something with a egg meringue base?

So to freeze, or not to freeze? The lengthy moment of indecision, she remembered. The choice she made, she could not recall.

Maybe she didn't freeze them. So now the pantry was checked. The spare closet that stays relatively cool. Kitchen cupboards. Basement cold-room. Still no WBS's.

Oh well, oh well. Is this what they mean by, "You win some, you lose some"??

Guess they'll surface when her and Hub sell the house and move to town.

But then today, oh yes, today, she goes downstairs to the old fridge that contains those jars too cumbersome for the upstairs fridge - the gallon jugs of maple syrup, pickles, and ketchup. And guess what she finds?

The Walnut Butter Slices!!

She should have froze them. Because now she has doubts, despite what the cookbook said, about how good they might be. It is after-Christmas-quiet-time and the neighbors will not be stopping by for a week or so. So at this late stage of the game, she will not be gaily serving not-so-fresh WBS's.

For a time they languor in the upstairs fridge in their little round glistening boxes with lovely floral and snowflake designs. What is to become of them? They were so fine. So worthy. Too good to throw out? Maybe. She can't be sure.

This morning the garbage bag displays what appears to be not-yet-unwrapped-decor-embellished-hat-boxes. Appearing rather out of place. There must be some mistake. But nah, there's no mistake. After another one of those overly long moments of indecision, the decision was made to say a painful good-by.

So now, if there is a lesson or moral to be found in this overly-long rant, she guesses it would have to be that if you have obvious, though perhaps only occasional, symptoms indicative of memory loss....Don't make WBS's for Christmas!

Living an Inspired Life

2011-12-19T12:17:00.001-07:00

I truly like living the inspired life.

I like having no fixed agenda and no hard and fast commitments. It’s one of the few glories of being retired and being an elderly. No more alarm clocks, no more merry-go-round. I take my ease and do as I please.

Nevertheless, I do have fixed daily routines – dishes, beds, meals, showers, laundry – those things – but anything else? If I don’t get it done today, there is always tomorrow. One of the reasons that lately my blogs are so few and far between.

But mostly, whatever I do, if I want to be happy while doing it and completely satisfied with the result, it must be done, not as a chore, or as an obligation of dignified living, but rather as an endeavor fueled by ‘inspiration’.

Cooking the most intricate of dishes will not fail if done in a moment of inspiration. The house will be as clean and neat as I could ever wish it to be if the job is done in a moment of inspiration. The card I send will have the right words to express the best kind of wishes if done in a moment of inspiration. Even shopping, when done in a moment of inspiration, brings better choices and greater satisfaction. And if my blog is not fueled by inspiration, which it oftentimes isn’t, it can be such a drag for both writer and reader.

Now, for the most part, my inspiration serves me well enough. It kicks in come spring when gardening should start. It kicks it at harvest time, and fuels my days well when I have guests. It kicks in for extra baking on cool and rainy days. It even kicks in when walls, curtains, floors, or windows need cleaning. So with my inspiration, I really am not just an eternal procrastinator and ruddy slouch.

But oh, but oh. When Christmas is coming my inspiration is so oft times tardy, and when it does kick in, so bloody sporadic. That’s when I dearly wish that I lived the life of the self-disciplined, and organized individuals, who know what needs to be done, how soon it needs to be done, and by God, come hell or high water, they will get it done.

At no other time of the year do I envy these people. They take life way too seriously. For the most part I feel quite sorry for them, and oft think that on their death bed, in that final hour, they will bolt upright in bed to tell someone to please ‘do the front window before the surviving members of the family come for visitation’. And they meant to ask, but the light went out too soon, for someone to polish their Sunday shoes.

But as for me, right now, my inspiration is to wish you and those you love, a bountiful, meaningful, and joyful Holiday Season! Be inspired and delight in it!

PRIVATE AND PERSONAL

2011-11-02T14:44:00.000-06:00

While bumbling about on the Internet, looking for some sorely needed blogging inspiration, I stumbled on a blogging rule -- Don’t write anything that you wouldn’t say out loud.

What a bunch of crapola! I’ve been blogging now since 2003 and 80% of what I’ve told you I would never consider speaking out loud. At least not in a social conversation at my kitchen table or any other oral interactive venue. And the reason I wouldn’t is because so much of what I reflect on and explore is too intimate. Not as in sexually intimate, not as in real life drama intimate, or as in vulgarly intimate. No, none of that.

Intimate in the sense that if what I so often write, were to be openly spoken, in a regular neighbor-to-neighbor conversation, I would be strait-jacketed, locked up, and the key ground into powder. I guess the closest allegory to what I mean that might help the reader to understand is that what I say to you on my blog is too often similar in content to a seriously spoken tale of alien abduction.

That does not mean what I write are bold-faced lies. They are not. The happening is true, and so is my reflective exploration of that happening. But the reflective part is often so far out of left-field that it does sound like someone who not only could tell a tale of abduction but quite possibly might still be in that abductive stage without consciousness of it.

Now that I’ve got you thoroughly confused, this is what I am really trying to say.

Society, in general, now consider themselves so uninhibited, so out there, so with it, so conscious of all things to do with the intimacy of sexual relations, preferences, mind workings, etc. etc. We proudly feel we are modern, fact-based, uninhibited by Victorian rules, or naivety or the once held honour and magnetism of ‘innocence’ in the form of the blushing cheek or quivering lip.

We speak vulgarity without flinching. Movie characters engage in flippant, snippy, and cheeky language with children and peers that for the sake of common civility, I can’t believe could be so casually spoken.

Even commercials. There’s the commercial for a gravy mix where the hostess snips at a guest in the kitchen about when she’s going to bring in the gravy. Meanwhile she is simply taking a wee taste. And the one for a business that is not on line, ends up with some smart ass telling the ‘proprietress’ for a lack of a better term, that if she does not have her business on line, she doesn’t exist. And when she courteously asks, “Are you leaving now?“, his snippy response is “Was I ever here?“

Somebody should slap those kind of unnecessarily brusque individuals.

But, oh yes, we are there. So accomplished in our tolerance, and understanding, and intimacy that discussion of it all, exposure of it all, knows no bounds.

But intimacy has become so intertwined with things of a sexual nature, we have forgotten the real meaning - i.e. personal considerations within a quiet and private atmosphere. It is not, as so many tend to think just about sex, crotch shaving, and arm-pit hair. Somehow the true and real meaning of ‘intimacy’ has fallen by the wayside.

We no longer contemplate or consider the spiritual intimacy we had and shared before God died. And it matters not to me whether he died or not. That point of intimacy still exists but is never discussed at least not at the raw spiritual level. And by that I mean, it is never discussed by laymen, only those trained to think along a specific formula within a specific trench.

I want an intimate exposure of how people feel within themselves when dealing with broken relationships, health issues, old age, and great loss. I don’t want the language of programming. I want the real raw stuff. The casting about in a raw mind for a raw solution, and a raw sense of comfort.

The most and deepest intimacy of their souls. But seems to me we have cremated and discarded it as we tend to do with anything too puzzling, unpleasant, enigmatic, or mystifying for a fact-based scientific mind.

In today’s society, running through the public square buck-naked is easier than having to reflect on the intimacy of the soul, the spirit, and the moral fibre and all these other things we were born with, rather than taught, buried subterranean-deep within all the over-wraps of modern sophistication.

Can you not share with me the deepest intimacy of what you believed before you believed what you believe now?

[Despite the blogging rule of ‘not writing anything you wouldn’t say out loud’, that is a an utter falsehood. Blogs are exactly meant for writing what you cannot speak.]

MAKING DO

2011-10-31T15:35:00.002-06:00

When the elderly reminisce about childhood, there are always those of us that had to walk miles to school – uphill both ways. And then there are those of us, who with too few resources, learned long and early to ‘make do’. That is where I come from.

As a child, if a thing was needed and couldn’t be got, my parents made do through resourceful substitution of unrelated materials – a practice newly renamed ‘recycling’.

A quick and simple example is the bits of horse harness leather my Dad used to repair the plastic straps that so quickly broke on my new sandals.

And I laugh remembering the day, as a youngster, I mixed up precious sugar, and butter, and flour for cookies – and then, when I went to add the eggs – Oh My God, there were no eggs.

What to do. What to do. There had to be a fix. No one could for one moment consider throwing out those costly ingredients that I had already so deliberately blended.

I was sick, and yes, I was horrified.

But my Mother remained her usual calm self and simply scooped a cup of snow from a fluffy drift by the outside stoop and added it to the ingredients.

“Do we need to pray for a miracle?” I asked immediately reflecting on the Biblical tale of the water that turned into wine.

“It probably wouldn’t do any harm,” she said, with a laugh.

I didn’t consider praying about it, but maybe my Mother did. Maybe she prayed for a ‘water-wine’…I mean ‘snow-egg’ miracle. I’ll never know cause I never asked. Still irregardless, something special happened that day because those sugar cookies were some of the best that I have ever made.

And so, raised in this environment, I quite smugly consider myself a journeywoman in the industrial art of Making-Do.

And this Halloween, I needed to be.

Last week I made the dreaded trip to town to buy a pumpkin. Usually grow my own but this year, I forgot to plant pumpkins.

And so, for probably the first time in my life, I was on the hunt to find and purchase a lovely fat orange pumpkin.

But all I found was one store with a bin of about 8 pumpkins. They were not orange, they were dusky brackish brown. On many stem root was so advanced that the wizened and blackened stems has committed hari-kari by diving into the mouldy and blackened interior of their relevant pumpkin cadavers.

With Halloween a week away, there was nothing in that bin with a hope to retain the slightest semblance to a pumpkin for five days – so back home I went – empty-handed.

But we can make do. Yes we can. So here is my Halloween display for this year. It’s not all I hoped it would be, but then, Halloween is supposed to be a bit morbid, but not quite so morbid as those pumpkin cadavers they were selling in town.

Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself!

2011-10-10T10:53:00.000-06:00

I am done with it. I’ll have no more of it. I am finally old enough to freely think, openly speak, and indiscriminately choose my own course of thought and action. And that means, at long last, I can finally, without guilt or impediment, feel sorry for myself. As sorry as I want to feel. Oh yes, I can and I will.

Though having avoided such an exercise for a lifetime, when I test this new thing that I avoided doing in my past, how shall it be tested, developed, controlled, and instated? Am I suppose to weep, wring my hands, get a monster lump in my throat, or just do a mental laundry list of everyone’s injustices to me? I really don’t know since I’ve never been here before.

And if it is a good thing, and I somehow think it is, should I find comfort and recovery in it? I expect I will because I’ve never felt comfort or recovery in not feeling sorry for myself -- just utter frustration.

I still remember my Mother forcing me to have an afternoon nap when I was just a toddler. I ranted and roared, balled up my quilt, and fired it repeatedly out of my little bed, crying and loudly wailing all the while, “I am NOT tired. I do not need a nap.”

And her response was, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You are going to have a nap.”

What did she mean by that silliness? It had nothing to do with anything. The only thing that had something to do with anything is “I did not need a nap!” For all I knew maybe when you ball up your quilt and throw it on the floor, you are feeling sorry for yourself. Well, if that was the case, why didn’t she say so?

That’s when it started and I’ve heard it at every unfortunate moment in my life ever since. Whenever, as a child, an adolescent, an adult, even as an elderly, I have expressed a strong and true desire to do something that did not fit within another’s framework, [i.e. to nap, to leave the party early or avoid it all together, to eat, to knit, to withdraw], I was accused of feeling sorry for myself and badgered with the same old meaningless jargon -- “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.“ And I no more understand it now than I did back then.

I can only assume that if you feeling really bad and bite your lip, you are not feeling sorry for yourself. But, on the other hand, if you are feeling really bad and say, “Oh woe is me,” you are engaged in an activity more disgusting than playing with yourself.

The experts say that feeling sorry for oneself can lead to depressive and dysfunctional behaviour. Of course any sophisticated learned academia would never allow themselves to go there, so how could they know?

What could be worse than a depressed and dysfunctional academic? Particularly when splashing about in a puddle of their own specialty and expertise. God forbid.

As for me, I’ve never been there in that supposedly quicksand bog of feeling sorry for myself cause no one would allow me to be. But guess what, this is as I initially said, not going to continue. I am going to feel sorry for myself, because not feeling sorry for myself is exactly causing, you guessed it, depressed and dysfunctional behaviour.

Experts must be wrong, they have to be because they are theorizing these things, but I am living them and have been living them, this often woeful life without self-pity for more than fifty years.

And with that (my out loud confession of a ‘woeful life’) I slip into the comforting and nurturing halls of self-pity. It’s very nice here -- warm, comforting, nurturing. I think I’ll stay awhile.

I might even let you know next time we talk, how it’s working for me.

D.O.G.'s Bad, Bad Day

2011-05-11T01:27:00.002-06:00

It was not a good day for Dough-Gee Dog.

Now D.O.G (slow pronunciation Dee-Oh-Gee, fast pronunciation Dough-Gee) only knows two tricks. That is all I’ve taught him.

What he knows is “No Bites” and “Come here”. Seemed to me like the most important things for him to know being that he is a cross between a Bassett and a Rottweiler. With a monstrous Rottweiler head and jaws attached to a less impressive Bassett body with short crooked legs.

Today’s unfortunate accident occurred when D.O.G. was out for a walk with Hub. That incredible hound-scenting-ability told him an interesting critter was harboured in a large brush pile. Hub had seen the creature there a few days before so he knew what it was. A porcupine, no less.

So frantically he called D.O.G. to ‘Come away’ but for D.O.G., the beast within was too excited to respond. The command was ignored.

Then a blood curdling D.O.G. wail and next thing we knew here’s D.O.G. coming across the meadow with a brush of porcupine quills in his nose. We were a distance from the house so D.O.G. pushed and scrunched his nose in the hard dirt to try to rid himself of all those painful thorns to no avail. Then quickly he sped home.

He came immediately to Hub and I for assistance. It is spring, all farm animals are birthing, so the vet was out on call. Evidently this was a job Hub and I would have to do on our own. So Hub got a pair of pliers and we quickly wrapped D.O.G. tightly in a blanket so we could keep him laid out on the ground. Then I held D.O.G.’s body still while Hub extracted those quills from inside and outside that dog’s mouth with pliers and his bare hands.

How trusting that dog. He at no time tried to bite Hub although I can’t imagine how painful that operation must have been. Hub removed at least twenty quills. As many well back inside his mouth as there were on the outside. I thought D.O.G. would pass out or go into shock. I wanted him to, just to relieve his agony somewhat. But it didn’t happen.

We turned him loose within perhaps 15 minutes. I thought he would make a run for it. But he didn’t. I brought him a pail of ice water to drink. He rested and as we walked about him, Hub still carrying pliers, he made no evasive moves.

He relaxed for about an hour, but we still weren’t done. There was six or eight quills still remaining. Again we wrapped him in the blanket and removed the rest. By then I was so stressed my hands and body were quivering. Finally we were done. Poor puppy. So much pain, so much discomfort.

I went to the house to wash my hands. To breath a sigh of relief. To calm my anxiety. And then looked out the window.

There was Hub lying on the lawn beside his Dough-Gee Dog, rubbing his ears, scratching his stomach and telling him what a brave and good dog he was. Dough-Gee looked happy and at ease.

Now Hub is talking about getting his gun and going porcupine hunting. “No,” I say. “Please don’t. Porcupines are cute in their own way. And they only reproduce one babe every two years. Far too many are killed on highways. And they have such cute little paws. D.O.G. knows better now. He won’t be doing that again.”

“But dogs don’t know better. They get nasty scratches from cats and still won’t leave them alone and porcupine encounters are no different.”

“But D.O.G. is different,” I say. “Dogs can learn up to 35 commands according to the experts. Dog only knows two. I capped his lessons at number two so there would be no confusion. So ‘avoiding porcupines is only 3 out of 35 so we should be okay.”

“Don’t count on it,” Hub says. He forgot the business of ‘come here’ when he first discovered that porcupine in the brush pile. So he may well forget lesson number 3 to leave porcupines alone.”

Hub makes a good point but still the porcupine is not and will not be harmed for now. God, I hope I’m right. Dog doesn’t need another day like today -- and neither do I.

The Big Weep

2011-04-12T02:46:00.000-06:00

Sometime around the time that I became an Elderly, I shut down the conduits of emotional weeps. I decided it was all for aught. And granted, although I still might get watering eyes when in severe physical pain, through some process outside of my control, I decided that emotional weeps help nothing, cure nothing, do nothing, so why bother. So I’ll not do that anymore.

And, surprisingly, with that avowal, I’m managed to keep my emotional weeps in check. When I have lost dear ones, I have simply stated, within my mind, ‘This is the way of life. This is it’s cycle and this is what is to be expected.’

Now prior to this time, I used to go out on my deck in the cool of the eve and contemplate constellations, wondering how amongst a limited number of misaligned stars in the heavens, I was supposed to see a helmeted warrior with a novelty belt and sword strapped thereto, and a bear, and God knows what else. I am imaginative. I have always been imaginative, but really. How could anyone see these exotic impressions in a very few star-to-star dotted designs?

But I digress. What I wanted to tell you is that of late, I have lost many dear friends and many dear neighbours. It’s what happens when you live in a small community. I somehow think there wouldn’t be so many if I lived in a large metropolis. I would only be aware of so few. But here, even those I don’t know intimately, or even conversationally, I still know. People say to me, “Did you hear so and so passed away?”

I say, “I don’t think I know that person.”

And they say, “Of course you do. She is the red-haired lady that always grocery shops late on Friday nights, and is in the beauty salon every Wednesday.”

And then of course, I realize that I do know her, have occasionally spoke with her, and she is like so many others, except the odd newcomers, that are an integral part of the familiar landscape in a small town. In a small town there are few that one doesn’t know, albeit in a casual way, enough to feel a vacancy when they are gone. And lately there are many. So very many.

Anyway, this among other emotional traumas, are things I no longer weep about having matured enough to fully understand we all come the same way and leave the same way.

But out on my deck in the cool of the evening, something is happening that I really don’t like one little bit. I don’t like crowds but when I sit on the deck after nightfall it seems so crowded. With a silent crowd. Yet a crowd that is wanting something from me in a restless kind of anxious way.

And though I vow not to feel bad enough to weep, I sit out on my deck in the evening and find myself thinking, with much loneliness, of the many I once knew that were such brave souls, such fine people, such lovers of life, so sturdy and brave and kind; but now they are gone. Yet I feel their presence out on the deck.

A restless kind of presence. They touch me not, but they harass my mind and they are as clearly present as the pictures the constellations hold in such an oblique way.

And finally, finally, I realize I cannot deal with their ghosts any longer although I am glad they are there, but at the same time would rather just sit there mindlessly on my deck for an hour or so before turning in for the night. Does it make sense? Me wanting them there, but yet wanting them to be calmer, quieter, more transparent, more settled.

And finally, I give up. I open up the conduits of salt and water mix and let it flow. I think it is such a stupid exercise. It changes nothing. It alters none of the hard cold and grey facts of what life and death is about. But yet, amazingly, the crowd on my deck slips into a happier venue and they do become warm and transparent and okay as if bathed by my emotions.

Why, or how, I have no idea. Cause despite what I have done, that great big weep didn’t change anything in a concrete way, but in the world of abstraction, it did a beautiful, healing thing.

Just Get Me A Chair

2011-04-06T11:25:00.002-06:00

I have always hated it. Those social gatherings, with all chairs removed, wine and grapes and cheese laid out on long tables, for an afternoon or evening fete.

The notion in standing, strutting, plying, one’s way about the room was that people would mix. But they didn’t. We came from a variance of social strata that cringe from each other and would not even mix if thrown into a high-speed blender. It just wasn’t going to happen.

Now I’m not much good in social situations at the best of times. Especially if most of the people in the room are strangers to me. And furthermore I cannot think on my feet. I have a process. A convoluted internal process that in conversation, takes a relaxed chair-position to execute.

I must, with much diligence, take what is said to me, turn it over, contemplate how meaning and source is to be interpreted and examine a collection of possible comebacks in a search for something light, graceful, humorous, or witty, that won’t sound utterly stupid. I’m slow that way. Very slow.

And further to that, I have not the physical grace to carry a glass of wine, a napkin, a small plate with four grapes, and three cheese chunks around and at the same time think about what to say or do next.

But for some stupid reason, when sitting (with a ledge for my stuff), I manage rather well. Speech comes easier. In a more fluid, self-assured way.

Maybe in my soul there is too much intuition. In the same way that I can walk into the dwelling of two people and know without any external sign that a grand altercation is going on, I can feel the cringe of the social stratification barriers. And so at wine and cheeses, I have more difficulty, than most seeking out conversation with others.

I want the comfort of a chair. Even if I have to hold my stuff on my lap, I am good with a chair. A chair can hide a wrinkled skirt, a run in one’s stocking, a wet coffee stain, one’s insecurity, stupidity, over-thinness, over-thickness, even one’s social stratification. A chair by day is as good as a blanket by night.
____

But having said that, I am reminded of the silly notion I heard year’s ago about elementary classrooms no longer engaging in playing Musical Chairs. Apparently the lonely soul left at the end of the game without a chair could suffer life-long trauma over the rejection they could feel because of ending up odd-man-out. As comforting as a chair is to me, that is utter silliness.

It is not as bad as the teacher, and for some reason, these teachers are usually men, that stand at the front of the class and say things like “and the earth is _____ miles from the sun“, while pointing at some unfortunate soul who doesn’t know or even have a clue. That kind of crap is what causes lifelong trauma.

Women teachers on the other hand are more likely to say, “Can someone tell me how far the earth is from the sun, if so, please raise your hand.” Good, that is good.

And so I say to Hub, “How did you feel in school when the teacher stuck his finger in your face and said, “the sun is ____ miles from the earth”. Did you not feel too obvious, insecure, shamefaced and so stupid if you did not know the answer.”

“Of course not,” says Hub. “I always knew the answer”

“You did?“ I say, in utter disbelief. “What is the answer?“

Without hesitation, Hub replies, with a sneering snort.

“A great distance, a very great distance.”

That’s one for Hub, but he can think on his feet. I can’t.

What Does he know?

2011-03-30T01:56:00.000-06:00

Today was a beautiful spring day. Finally, finally, icicles dripped and water ran and snow melted. Oh, at long last. Could it be the last of winter?

But then, late this evening I went out for a stroll and there was a frigid wind blowing. The temp was around freezing which is to be expected at nightfall, but with the wind chill it felt like more miserable winter weather.

So I said to Hub, “What are we in for tomorrow? Did you listen to the weather?”

“Yes,” he said, “and the guy on the news said cold and blowing snow for the next three days.”

I pulled my longest fed-up-with-winter face.

“Don’t look so down,” Hub said. “What does he know? The guy is just a meteorologist. He’s not a weather man.”

Oh what good news.

P.S. I can only surmise from that discussion that a meteorologist studies weather patterns, but a weather man can construe weather more to Hub’s liking without any patterns.

The Ultimate Betrayal

2011-03-24T12:59:00.002-06:00

This is the ultimate betrayal in a once wonderful relationship. I’m talking about winter. And I will be as direct as I can be. We are no longer friends and will never be again.

Hub bladed out that long strip of snow in front of the house and for a few days the sun shone till bare grass showed through. And just when I thought I could use that lovely strip for a few putts, you plugged it up again.

You’ve even changed that dry crisp air, that I could muffle myself against on the coldest day with down jacket and three pairs of pants to a moisture-laden coldness that seeps through everything. That climbs right into the marrow of my very bones and now – even if I do no more than glance out the window, my teeth chatter and my blood gels.

I generally can walk away from a bad thing and wait for it to cool. But not with you. You are too cool for that kind of resolution. And so, rather, I simply have no choice except to be as bitter a fiend as you are.

And so, I want you to know, that I will never again walk on snowy trails and sing because even my voice in the still cold air has a sweet kind of clarity that surprises me. And I will never make fresh prints in your blankets of white and think about the wonder of newness and the glory of having walked where no one walked before.

I will never suck in your crisp cool air and think of it, as I so often have, as lovely as the bouquet of well-chilled wine. And I will never watch in wonder the symmetry of over-large snow flakes descending from the sky.

I will never smile again with pleasure at the flash of so many flawless diamonds in your morning glow.

Oh ‘tis true, on the outside, you look stunningly beautiful. But on the inside you are wicked, mean, and nasty, and completely capable of being the worst kind of villain. I am so done with you.

Friends? No. No more. Not ever, ever, ever.

I have learned to love mud. Gooey sticky mud. And rain, and thunder-storms, and flies, and mites. Even mosquitoes. I won’t even flinch when they all zone in. I can take it.

But what I can’t take, is anymore of you.

Today’s Eyes & ‘Oh’s

2011-03-12T10:25:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had eye surgery on my other eye which means less computer time for a couple of weeks. I’m happy it’s done and over with and seems to be going well. But Hub is even happier.

Tells all his Buds,
“Oh, it will be so much nicer living with Roberta now that she will be able to see whether or not I am happy with her.”

See how much sympathy I get.

A Winter of Endurance

2011-03-05T15:56:00.010-07:00

There’s an orb in the sky that I scarce can remember
That I haven’t seen since way last November.
‘Tis for me the last icon of the Fall season norm,
Before we were hit by the imperfect storm.
And, from that moment on, in that season of change,
Nothing would ever, be ever, the same.

Here came a winter with snow augmentation,
Antagonized daily by more trepidation.
A winter so fearless, too long, and so cheerless;
A winter of twice, and thrice, and suffice
Of snow and blow, and cold-moulding ice.

A winter of sadness and intimidation,
A winter of shuddering and chilled palpitation,
That held tightly captive the Canadian Nation
Buried helplessly deep in a reversed excavation.
With so many ice crystals whirling and twirling –
That one had to cancel both hockey and curling.

A state of alarm. And a state of much dread.
Stuffed up our noses, stuffed up our heads.
And to deal with our suffering with no buffering stop
We reached for the ‘Vicks’ for that chuffed-up nose-block.

Still all we could do was to fret and to fume,
When the fog of the darkness continued through noon.
We were trembling and quaking, quivering and stuttering
Still clouds overhead and more snowflakes a-fluttering.
All heightened and raised up to such an excess
Surpassing all history – the shock and distress —
Intensification up and at nightfall spurred on,
Till all thought of red roses and summer was gone.
Still winter lingers. It stays. It remains.
Hopelessness is all; we can’t stand the strain
Of a Season we wear, we share, and compare,
In Sub-Arctic temps that thicken the air.

What I tell you now, and I tell you quite true
I have ne’er been so sad, and ne’er been so blue.
And I’ve ne’er seen before such a seasonal storm
With hell frozen over and we thought it the norm.
And what I say now is with sturdy assurance
‘This winter was simply a Test of Endurance!’

But oh, sing with glad tidings of joy and of mirth
We have sunshine enough to warm up the earth.
‘Tis time, oh ‘tis time for a bewildered dance ‘round,
A BIG FAT WARM SUN is in the sky…
Shining down.

P.S. If the picture has you puzzled, this is the uncanny art that I found on the window in the back bedroom. This is an old house with old windows. Storm windows have to be manually put up each winter and screens removed. I never did put the storm up on this window. I'm rather glad I didn't cause isn't this picture truly lovely? And the tops of the ferns reflected upside down in the mirror pond, is that not totally awesome?

The Art of Cessation

2011-02-26T23:57:00.003-07:00

I was raised in the old school. In summary, it went like this:

Each day strive to learn something new. Do good work. Finish what you start. Keep at it and never give up. And no matter what the discouragement, strive to keep on with the keeping on.

Cessation? Wasn’t taught that. And when encouraged, it was encouraged in such an oblique way, who could possibly understand or apply it?

For instance, I was told I must stop stealing cookies from the cookie jar. But having no knowledge of how to do the cessation thing, the only method that worked was for Mother to put them on a higher shelf, lock them up, or physically chase me off with a paddle.

There was no heal. There was no cure. And there was no cessation of cookie-stealing as long as those cookies were within reach.

And of course, I was encouraged to cease biting my fingernails. But because I bit them owing to the guilt of stealing cookies, and I bit them even more because I had no methodology for the cessation of stealing cookies, what else could I do but continue to go on biting them?

These then were the desired cessations, but so few, so minor. Anomalies really. Because it went without saying that to cease anything when once committed too was a bloody shame.
____________

So now where am I?

Can’t cease anything. Can’t stop drinking too much coffee. Can’t deny myself cholesterol rich foods. Can’t ease up on the salt. Can’t force myself away from the computer.

So now, whose fault is that? Certainly not mine. “Cessation” just never was a part of my education. Not in primary school, or elementary school, or even high school. We were still doing the same old thing about getting started and never giving up.

And so, I wonder if that is why it is so hard for so many to cease drinking, gambling, drugs, radical sports, fast driving, and all the other foolishness that entraps people in ways that are harmful to life, limb, and health. And poor souls, without an education in ‘cessation’, there is no way for them to cease doing what they are doing. Rather there is just the push of that other thing of striving, striving, striving to keep on with the keeping on.

‘Cessation’ of anything pretty much runs contraire to that fast-held-to principle of just ‘bloody getting on with it’. And so ‘cessation’ was missed and I think it is still being missed. But despite all that, I feel that somehow there must be a positive methodology for ‘cessation’.

If I only knew what it was, I’d have my cholesterol count back within reason by next Tuesday.

A Euphoric Dog-Jog

2011-02-25T04:30:00.001-07:00

Old Dog was 17 years old. She was weak and palsied. And one leg was wizening up at a rate that was almost visible. She was stone deaf but had learned to respond to body language. We would beacon her with one hand or hold a palm out for her to stay and she understood all that very well. Her last couple of months she mostly slept. She ate little but seemed to not be in pain as she never whimpered or appeared restless.

Often in the last few weeks, I would have to lift her into an upright position and support her for a few steps before she was able to commence movement.

I felt the time had come so I said to Hub, “There is nothing for it, but to take her to the vet and have her put to sleep.”

Hub shook his head in disagreement and I could not understand as I knew we both wanted the same thing. For her end to be painless, and as humane as it could possibly be. So I just had to ask why he was not in agreement.

And that is when he told me the most surprising thing. Of all the magic ‘devices’ that make up a physical body – sight, touch, smell, emotions, etc., there is one too often overlooked. And it is the thing the brain does at the moment of death.

Hub was talking about the bright light, the warmth, the comfort, the peace, that comes at the very end. And although Hub (I think) holds no great faith in a paradise with harps and streets of gold, he is confident that at the moment of transition, our physiological bodies go into a transitioning mode that is as delightful as a sweet afternoon in the sun.

And his fear was, if Old Dog, was put down, shall I say, for lack of a better word, artificially, he feared that that loyal dog, so absolutely deserving of all good things, would miss the grand moment of euphoria, prior to that transition into --- nothingness, I guess.

I was amazed at this confession, but in pondering it I could not help but think that perhaps it was a notion with some worth. Many scientists are absolutely convinced that synapses in our brains do in fact deliver the magical euphoric visions that people with near-death experiences testify to.

But thankfully, if it be true, Old Dog was given that vision. She was given the bright light to guide her, the warmth and comfort of that light, and the peace it gives as well, because there she was one morning, asleep on the floor by the bed, and sometime during the night, she had followed the guide master sent to take her over to the other side.

We are sad because she has been with us daily for so long, life is not the same. But, at the same time, we are relieved that her exit was seamless for her.

And I am so much less sad, in believing what Hub told me, and thinking that her final dog-jog, was more than a well-lit, peaceful, warm, and comforting stroll. That it was, in fact, euphoric.

Piggy Puffs & Sardines

2011-02-11T15:18:00.003-07:00

[Some days I have little to write, but still I write, because I feel I must.]

Hub and I are in the grocery store. And we are on the prowl for something fat-laden. Hub gives me points when I suggest Piggy-Puffs. Oh yes. That would be perfect.

Seems like a grand idea because with pork rinds being the fundamental ingredient, we are confident there is no way a cardboard-clone could be struck. But doesn’t it go without saying that the principal comptrollers of healthy diets seem to have obliterated them. None can be found.

Could it be that for the kindly care and protection of non-educated heathens like Hub and I that fail to understand the principles of healthy eating, someone, somewhere has completely annihilated piggy puffs? Appears so.

So now we continue our prowl hoping to unearth something exciting. And that’s when Hub spots a lovely display of canned sardines. Like an unexpected magical vision. Same can, same color, same look as canned sardines have had since the beginning of time. We haven’t eaten them for years but we both remember how we mushed them up on toast with thin crisp slices of raw onion, when we were young and so broke.

We take three cans home and later Hub makes sardines on toast and offers me some. I am not interested, but he goes ahead and begins eating with sentimental and joyous expectation his so-long-ago, but still cherished in mind and memory, sardines on toast.

Now Hub, even in a completely objective assessment is a handsome man. But suddenly, his countenance radically changes.

His eyebrows are furled, his forehead knotted, lips curled, eyes glazed and tearing, cheeks caved in, and his mouth is moving in a slow agonizing manner. And amidst all that, with the look of a Gargoyle, his adam’s apple is bobbing up and down in jerking spasms. And when I look at him, I am quite certain that even piggy puffs made out of briskly dipped and fried toilet paper could not have wrought such a change.

“My God,” I say, “What are you doing? Are you sick?”

“No,” he says, “but as much as I hate the cardboard fat-free snacks they make nowadays, this is so much worse.”

“Then why are you eating it?” I ask.

“Cause I don’t want to waste food,” is his simple, but direct answer.

I am amazed, as I so often am by that unique species they call ‘men’. Why in God’s name doesn’t he spit them out? Why doesn’t he trash them?

I feel an agony of my own stemming from empathy and the sight of his miserable condition. Makes me feel I should kiss it all better. But I cannot, amidst such ugliness, touch those Gargoyle lips, or risk inhalation of that Gargoyle breath. Yuk, oh Yuk!

Hub bravely fights on, and eventually manages to force down the contents of that can without a retching return. After which, he rushes to the bathroom where he vigorously rinses his mouth and brushes his teeth.

He hasn’t completely recovered his good looks, but he is looking better when he turns to me and says. “They used to pack those little fishies in olive oil and that was good. But they just can’t leave well enough alone. Now it’s soy oil. Not because it’s better, cause it bloody isn’t.

And you know what else, Roberta? There just has to be a better way to torment one’s self. But right now, I can’t think of what it might be.”

The Chalk Line Between Provocation & Amusement

2011-02-03T22:17:00.002-07:00

I have no idea how academics see or explain the difference between provocative and amusing, because I am not one of them. But, believe me, there is a difference, a big, big difference; though this epiphany only just came to me through some recent reads.

First off, do you remember how in past rants, I so smugly insisted that the reason so many relationships fail is because, after the nuptials, too many women think that daily life will now be a flurry of fun. And their partner, for the next forty years, will continue to amuse them as adeptly as they did during the courtship interlude.

And, I have also insisted this is ridiculous. It won’t happen. Cause, the truth of the matter is that each person makes or breaks their own day by choosing to make or break it, and that this parasitic dependence on the other is neither fair, right, or just.

Now, if you can just keep that thought in mind, let me discuss, if you will, what I have been reading of late.

I have no new books to read, and with all my reading materials so sadly depleted, the only thing I could find that I hadn’t read before, was a Literature text published in October, 1930. And in reading it, I immediately felt unbounded sympathy for students of that day who were expected to develop a love and respect of literature by reading that crap.

It differed considerably from today’s Lit in that there were quite a few Biblical references. And yes, there were small excerpts from Shakespeare’s works. But beyond that it was bor-or-ing.

Dull. Big time. Though admittedly, I did applaud the worth of the frequent references to personal loyalty, honour, honesty, and respect for others.

Nevertheless, through all the dullness, I languished in a bitter state of mind until I came across an essay titled “A Piece of Chalk”. That perked up my hopes and my spirits.

Neat title. Does that not sound as if this could be a truly fascinating story? Perhaps about a common yet mystical notion, that is rock-solid one day and completely irrelevant the next?

But, oh no. Titles can be so deceiving. No magic or mystic stuff here. Only a long-winded geological essay about the history of chalk and its derivation from a deep-buried ravine in Valentia (?) — whereever that may be.

That was almost enough disappointment, but then the author carried on with the foolish assumption that anyone who read the story was as well acquainted with that particular strand in the earth’s strat, as they are acquainted with the reflection of their own face in a mirror. I ground my teeth with frustration.

I finished the book, nonetheless, to satisfy my mind that it really was crap and moved to another high school English text published in 1980. This book I read once before a very long time ago, and remember thinking how puzzling and incomplete the stories seemed to be. As if each of the contributing authors planned a grand and polished opening scenario and then, unable to bring the story to conclusion, just killed or maimed someone, to make the ending rise to a point of impact (climax), as stories are supposed to do. I was not amused.

This time, however, when I sat down to re-read the book, I did what I so often don’t do. I read the introduction.

And that is when I discovered something about the book and about myself. All my life, I have had the notion that a good story must first and foremost be amusing. But now I find out these stories were not written to amuse.

They were written to encourage students to quest for meaning and examine several possible interpretations. The stories were meant to be provocative, which is quite different from amusing. Amusing rants provide laughter and hilarity. Provocative rants, on the other hand, are meant to be stimulating. Perhaps, even confrontational.

And so, I continued reading, and found myself extracting the most amazing things from what I was reading, having erased the Chalk Line in my own mind that heavily marked my lifelong expectation that literary prose, in order to be worthwhile, must amuse!

And in taking this new enlightenment to heart, i.e. the understanding that all stories are not necessarily meant to amuse, I found remarkable the things that surface when one reads with an expectation of provocation.

And with that came another realization that it is amazing how delightful life can be when it is lived with a balance of provocation and amusement. Kind of like our appreciation for the beauty of sunshine, only because we have been in shadows. Yet each has a sweet value, shade for its coolness, and sunshine for its warmth.

But are we losing the value of provocation? I don’t watch a lot of movies but are any of the current ones put out there for provocation, or is the mandate forever and always, simply amusement. And is all that we read meant to be amusing, rather than provocative?

In fact, are we a society that wants no part of social engagements unless they are amusing (NOTE: Informative venues are not a part of this particular discussion). Do we consider conversations a waste of time if they are not amusing? Have we, for the most part, utterly forgotten the value of provocation? I certainly had never for one moment thought it could be a part of valued reading.

I would be amiss if I did not tell you the other thing I learned in all of this. I am fond of Hub and always have been. And up until now, I thought it was because he is so amusing. But now, only just now, I realize I appreciate in some oblique, yet endearing way, the provocative part of him as well.

But then, in retrospect, right from the get-go, after the nuptials, I didn’t expect provocation, while at the same time, I didn’t expect him to amuse me every day either. But this latest epiphany has revealed to me there is worth in provocation.

And so, on television, I watch news stories, investigative stories, crime stories, and comedy stories, and I only see one of two things — amuse, or violate. That’s all. Seems like ‘provocative writ’ some time ago quietly slipped away when no one was looking.

Snow Mass

2011-01-22T13:09:00.001-07:00

Snow and snow, and more snow.

Wraps wisps around obliques, thick leggings around verticals, and re-shelves narrow latitudes until they become fortress walls. Superimposes every inanimate representation till the essence within becomes a ‘higher form’ through the magnification of obesity.

Mortal man stumbles about inelegantly in multi-layered muffs and earthly frame. Up to the hips in a stupefying and terrifying abundance of snow.

Warm the air by sucking it in. Let imagination run wild. Mentally paint the landscape green and yellow. And even then, you will find no flavor of August in this day. Only a random arrangement of winter matter.

More, and more—tumbling, drifting, floating, and falling, into covers of instability. Snow-weaves of batting that like memory-foam-mattresses leave only imaginative outlines of what lies beneath.

‘Higher forms’ of a spiritual nature of what once was. Icons of holiness. With the crystal whiteness of altar cloths, lace, and silver chalices in place.

Listen. Do you not hear it? The Hymn of wintry solitude sung earnestly and soundlessly?
That song of consequent stillness, that sanctifies January. Its remembrance, and longer endurance.
Repeated utterance of the refrain and second verse, same as the first.

This is a January celebration of Vigil Mass on a white altar.
Vigil, as in waiting, and expecting more, and still more.

Politically Incorrect Fockers

2011-01-17T11:36:00.002-07:00

In this oh-so-politically-correct society, ethnic slurs must be guarded against.

And so, even those books that make us weep with empathy and understanding of the mistreatment of others like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, and some of Mark Twain’s writings, have to be either pulled from library shelves or rewritten.

I’m not saying this to judge whether that is a good, or a bad thing. But what is bad is the media portrayal of babes and young children. They are not misbehaving, noisy little brats.

They are a race of little people, deserving of all respectful consideration. They are, so much more so than wee baby puppies, cute, funny, darling, and the joy of life.

I say this because recently a new show has aired called “The Little Fockers”. I have never watched it and don’t intend to, but I’m assuming it is about children.

The name of the show, of course, has led me to believe that. And I don’t care if the show is witty, funny, or even complementary in every respect towards the tiniest individuals in our society. The name speaks differently. And such labelling should be considered a crime.

But when I expressed my concern about the name of the show, Youngest Daughter, simply said, “Oh, for crying out loud, Mom. It’s just the surname of the family.”

That doesn’t do anything towards excusing it, because as a TV show, that particular family could have any name they wish to have. And obviously there is a meaning intended that is not so nice. And so, if this show is about family, with children, this is an inexcusable slur against children.

And so are so many other shows (and commercials), that concentrate on children being sassy, forever whining, and disruptive, rather than the sweet and precious individuals that they are.

Politically correct is meant to eliminate the unfair judgement and detriment of others. At least, I think that is the case. So let’s have more of it.

Home Free! - Part IV (conclusion)

2011-01-12T11:55:00.002-07:00

The Worth of This Spiritual Exercise

This story has been one about trying to find resolve for extreme sadness. Sadness wedged solidly in my soul.

And so, with no place else to turn, I have been reviewing my past to see how such problems had been solved in my earlier years. And as I told you, being a tattle tale worked for a time. But eventually one becomes a teen, a mature woman, a mother, a fully fledged adult and then what does one do?

Not much of a solution to be found in my teen years. It was over-dramatization that helped me through that segment of life. Flung on the bed in a puddle of tears is where solace was found when I was a teen. But, as an adult that all seemed such foolishness.

So as a young mother and a mature individual I could no longer tattle tales, or swim in tearful wails, so that is when I slammed doors and went to my therapist.

My therapist had pale blue eyes tinted with a wash of extreme kindness. My therapist was rather plump, with gray hair pulled back tightly in a tidy bun. She always wore cotton flowered dresses that had the appeal of gaiety. And an apron that gave her the appeal of complete devotion to her designated tasks.

And so I went in to my ‘therapist’s office’ and flopped on her couch. And immediately the healing began. Did we talk? No we didn’t? Did I tell her what was breaking my heart? No I didn’t.

I simply flopped on my therapist’s couch and the healing began while she went on doing whatever it was she was doing—as if I wasn’t even there.

She went right on whistling, and bustling, and sewing, cooking, or washing dishes. And my healing raced along. Swiftness encouraged by water running, dishes clanking, a sewing machine humming, knitting needles clicking, the smell of cooking, or by nothing more that the soft rustle of her apron against her skirt or her shoes against the floor.

The mend was not the result of any discussion or great wordy interchange. It was in the aura of home, being home, the safety of home. A grand feeling of security that erases sorrow like a fine bottle of White-Out.

Reminding me with such intensity, how I used to feel when playing ball and racing, amidst such risk and danger, full-tilt for home-plate. And then, the grand moment of majestic glory, when my foot safely touched the home-plate. Dancing, prancing.

“I’m Home Free! I’m Home Free!” (nothing can harm me now).

Like home-plate, home was just a place free from harm, fear, care, or any kind of inharmonious interface. That’s all. Nothing more.

So obviously, in my present distress, that is where I must go. But it’s a bit too late for that.

I look for a place to run, the plate to touch so I can yell, “Home Free”, but I can’t find it. Like some old ball diamond, fallen into disuse, the home-free-plate is covered with leaves and turf and can no longer be found.

Yeh, it’s really a bit of a shake-up when there is no place of true comfort where one can run to and skid in there yelling, “I’m Home Free!”

Of course I no longer have a therapist, and it’s bloody ridiculous that I should be whining about this so long after the fact. But this whole rant has been a rigorous spiritual exercise that has been comforting.

Proof of the worth of self-reflection. It has softened the rawness. Eased the pain. And although I’m not “Home Free” …— going back to the analogy of softball, I’m not in a hot box between second and third either.

Home Free! - part III

2011-01-09T14:38:00.002-07:00

"Tattle-Tale! Tattle-Tale! Hanging on a bull's tail..."

And so, when I was a small child, telling on the perpetrator was what comforted a dismayed spirit. Particularly because I was the child, that wanted to do the caring and admirable thing.

I did nothing to become this wanna-be-good, self-sacrificing individual. I did nothing for the care and grooming of it. Rather, it came upon me insidiously (something modern society will most certainly fail to understand), through a religious upbringing that made the worth of a righteous character so much greater than my competitive spirit.

And fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whether one is the aggressor or the aggressee, from a child perspective, it seemed to me that God wanted most of all, remorseful and truthful confessions from evildoers.

And if they were not willing to do that, I was. And of course, all my tattle-taling was wholly and holy truth. I’m prett-ty sure.

And so, was it not like a ‘blessing’ for me to bring evildoers, through my well-articulated, third-person confessionals-on-their-behalf, into a state of guilty pondering? Perhaps even remission? Seemed like the righteous thing for me to do.

And so, I’ve said quite enough about tattles. Or have I?

Have I told you that because I was ‘a good little girl’, my parents and teachers were the backers of my tattles and so, as a result, it was rather serious when I told a sneering school-mate that I if they didn’t back off, I would tell on them?

Well your know now, and right about now, you’re probably saying that ‘this is the longest rant about tattle-tales that I have ever heard in one lifetime’.

Sorry about that, but you really must realize, if you haven’t already, that this kind of telling is at the very heart and nature of the DNA of a tattle-tale. The need to tell and tell and tell again.

But to bring this to a summation, ‘tis true, tattle-taling worked well for me in primary school but eventually that kind of juvenile reaction had to be discarded. And so with adolescence and eventually adult maturity, I moved on.

NEXT POST: Therapy and my oh-so-lovely Therapist

Home Free! (part II)

2011-01-07T03:18:00.003-07:00

Now some might wonder why I continue this whine. In seems quite unnecessary in the midst of a modern and sophisticated world with the fullness of understanding how to have and maintain ruddiness of body, soul, and oh yes, spirit as well.

Don’t we just hear it all the time? That if we eat the right foods, drink the right amount of water, run the right number of miles per day, stretch before exercising, love ourselves, and take time for ourselves, our spirit will be right on the blue dot. Exactly where our spirit is supposed to be.

Excuse me, but that is a lie. Though my body feels better after this kind of ritual, my spirit does not. My spirit does not thrive on nutritious food and a quota of exercise, and furthermore, my spirit is not insulated from woe by any watershed effect of these disciplined physical routines.

And the difference between my physical body requirements, and my emotional spirit requirements, is this. My body thrives on healthy nutrients without junk food. My spirit thrives on harmonious environments without junk conflict.

Now I’m not going to tell too much. Dumping it all will have me watering down this keyboard to the extent it most certainly will short out and permanently crater. I can only tell you that I have been separated from a precious someone I love, not by fate, but by stupid stuff that I fail to understand.

And no it is not Hub. Hub is still here.

Now in my search for some kind of comforting heal, I have thought of past states of crisis that were heartbreaking and how I fared through those trying times.

It was great when I was a child. If anything or anyone was not harmonious in their dealings with me, what did I do? I told on them. I told my mom, or dad, or the teacher. That fixed them. (smugness here)

And so I’m telling. I’m telling the one, possibly two, readers of this rant. But I know and they know that tattle-taling isn’t going to help me one iota. And so, the quest begins to find a new and better soul-salve for the rawness of my spirit.

NEXT POST: The search for healing.

Home Free! - (part I)

2011-01-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

You can’t describe this kind of Christmas. You can’t because there are no words to describe it.

Now I know my Old Dad used to say, and I’ve never forgotten it....”Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” And maybe feeling sorry for myself is what I’m doing, but how do I stop?

Truth is even long-standing addictions are easier to halt than emotions. Emotions are slithery and slippery things that can even crawl through blind-openings.

I mean…Think about it. There are other emotions that are not good, that should, and need to be stopped, but how do we fare with them? You can’t halt worry, or guilt, or regret, or sorrow.

And so, likewise, in an analysis of joy, can we neutralize joy so long as we remain in the midst of a joyful environment. Is it possible to say, “I’m not going to let myself feel good.” and succeed at that endeavor? Perhaps it can be done if one removes themselves from that joyful place and at the same time forces their mind to concentrate with hardened intensity on some negative situation as well.

But of course this is wholly speculative. There are no sample groups to study. So how can anyone know anything about the viscosity of joy or its dilution? Or the indices, weights, and balances of big joy, less joy, no joy, or slight joy?

Cause quite honestly, though the world be flooded with fools, what fool would ever attempt to eliminate joy when it pours down in a grandiose flood?

Now if I might deviate for just a moment, I remember when I was a child coming into my elder sister’s bedroom and discovering her sitting on her bed, her cheeks bathed in tears. I was shocked. Of course kids cry – they’re supposed to, aren’t they? But adults? What’s with that? When there are no visible signs of cuts or abrasions?

I asked her where it hurt and to this she replied.

“You won’t understand this now but someday you will. My feelings have been hurt and when feelings are hurt, it is way more painful than a bump on the head or a skinned knee.”

I thought that bloody stupid. If it don’t bleed, if it don’t smart, if it don’t need a band-aid, it don’t hurt.

Of course, I now know better. It was so solidly reaffirmed this Christmas.

NEXT POST: My sorrows diplomatically revealed.

Stupid Christmas Tree

2010-12-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

I gave it a lot of thought. I really did. That was after I hauled Hub out of bed to investigate the lonely cry for help of – I don’t know – maybe a cow, perhaps a moose, maybe even an elk.

It was not just some bovine creature saying ‘Good Morning World’. Of course it might be a hungry or cold cow among the farmer’s herd down the road, but if it is, there is nothing I can do about it. It can bawl, it can cry, and if I go down there, it can look at me with haunted worried big brown eyes with tears in them, and still I can do nothing. If ribs aren’t showing, if emaciation isn’t extreme enough for a few of the herd to have already succumbed, it will simply have to continue being cold and hungry.

I really hate the way critter cries dig down so deep inside of me and makes me feel responsible. Where in God’s world did I get this annoying notion that if I have the ways or means to fix it, I must – even if it is none of my business and I know it.

I suffer, man do I suffer, when the farmers in the area wean their calves. Babies crying, mama’s weeping. Makes me heartsick until it finally stops. But then I think ‘oh well, now that it has finally stopped the mom must have gone off to the slaughter-house or the calves to the auction mart’ and the sickness of too much concern over what is none of my business starts all over again.

But going back to this morning’s events, you know, of course, what happened after I rousted Hub out of bed to investigate that brutal cry for help I was hearing?

Nothing. Suddenly total silence. No more calls for help. Just utter silence. And with the breeze and the way currents of sound are magnified in the cold air, I have no idea exactly where the call was coming from originally, so that was the end of that.

Except for me admonishing myself in a sad and sickly way with the thought that I should have rousted Hub out of bed sooner so something could have been done.

But how did I get here in this rant? This was not what I intended to tell you.

What I intended to tell you is I have given it much thought. And eventually decided that I am not going to haul that tree upstairs and piss around with it just so a few of the neighbors and a few of my family members can give it a casual glance before I do the worst of that chore. The horrendous and totally despicable task of putting it all back again for another year.

If the kids were coming home for a day or two en masse, I would do it, but this year that is not going to happen. So the tree can stay in the basement. I have enough other stuff to do to get ready for Christmas without that carry-on…i.e. tangled lights, bulbs that need to be replaced (if I ever can find which one needs replacement), missing hangers, crushed garlands, etc.

Besides the food is much more important. There must be turkey, fresh buns, and pies, and cranberry sauce, and truffles, and the best-ever carrot cake with toasted nuts (not just nuts tossed in out of the nut-bag). There must be hand-made cards for the few I give cards to, because that is what I get from them, and they are far more meaningful than store-bought. And all the corners in this house have to be thoroughly mucked out, the furniture polished, the windows and floors gleaming, and table-cloths laundered and starched. Is it not enough, without the Christmas tree routine?

And so, the decision is made. Only our little gift exchanges and our hearts will signify it is Christmas. There will be no Christmas prompts or add-ons like a stupid tree. My mind is made up. I’m very grateful that I am old enough and mature enough to make this decision without sanctification by others. The tree will stay in the basement. And I am much relieved that it will.

But now, oh yeah, always in the crowd there is some impertinent entity of one kind or another who would press for an alteration of that decision. And that is what has happened here.

That stupid Christmas cactus that hasn’t even thought about Christmas or blooming for six years is blooming all over the place. Screaming at me in desperation like that creature down the road this morning. “Christmas is here. Christmas is here. Better get that tree out of the basement. I can't do all this Christmas-ambiance-stuff all by myself!”

“Well, fine and dandy, then. Anything to stop the whining. So there you go. Here’s a tree if you insist. Now I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

The Fight for Light and Night

2010-11-28T11:55:00.000-07:00

Cirrus cloisters, stratus strips,
Fomenting fogs with blacking kits.
Scowling shadows, hoary hinges,
Like savages on drunken binges.
Barb’rous troops, annihilating;
Ghoulish gargoyles, regurgitating.

Puffed up paunches of nimbus naughties,
Wasted wantons, woolpack haughties,
Nebulous nymphs, cumulus hustlers —
Seek revenge and flex their muscles.

Spirited scuds of nautical speed
Shoving and pushing. Nasty indeed.
And the twisting pursuit of a funnel turbine
Wraps all unapparent that won’t fit in this rhyme.

Oh, ‘tis a sturdy force discharging the night,
Against the campaign of that last arc of light.
Victory, too soon, comes to the stronger—
‘Twould be a grand thing if the fight could last longer.

But, ‘No! — all too soon — the death of the day
A brutal fight? — Yes.
But one lovely fray!’

NOTE: Admittedly this poem is a bit rough in spots, but come-on-now, I was writing it in the midst of a battle. All that aside any editing suggestions to smooth the rough spots would be most welcome.

Winter Garden

2010-11-16T09:02:00.001-07:00

Winter gardens...what a sight!
Respectful, subservient,
Humble, contrite.
With textures softened and
Colors subdued
An invitation to
Coffee-tea-hues –
That’s how we like it –
Gently steeped and infused
And delicately splashed
With pastel winter blues.

Sky Ways 2.

2010-11-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

THEOLOGY OF LOVE AND LIGHT

Trespass again; disguise of night
Lift your shadows to hide the light
Night after day, ‘tis totally trite
Yet, I can’t look away.

Seems that other regions pass
Day is shattered like shivered glass
Monsters appear from a dark crevasse
Yet, I can’t look away.

Purgatory –– there’s its bluff
Paradise — in golden rough
Sacred hills — newly stuffed
I can’t look away.

Woolly fold and sculptured frieze
With honeyed middle interleaved
Replete with soul-thought in the weave
I can’t look away.

On hallowed hillock; a golden pillow
And near-to-by –– a burning willow
Waves of glory, seas that billow
I can’t look away.

Now the night is in full bloom
Hung up high –– a silvery moon
Heart-swell for loves who want to
spoon
–– I look away.

NOTE: What can I say about this poem except when Pauline told me my inspiration to write sky poems was a “brave” endeavor, I broadly interpreted that as a challenge and immediately snapped another sky photo and grabbed my poetry stylus.

Sky Ways 1.

2010-11-04T20:35:00.000-06:00

Pastel origami
Inter-folds of
Luminosity
Withered and prostrated.

Breathless tide
In a river lock
Without perfume of
Tangle, or wrack

Fermented rills of foam
Agitate the borders of
A sandwiched abstraction.

Painted in frolic
By a terrestrial artist—
With medium of
Atmospheric suspension,
And a soft brush of light.

NOTE: This poem (and my previous post), gave me an inspiration to try to write a Sky Poem once a week inspired by some changing cloud formation. But to be totally honest, my inspirations, though passionate initially, are usually short-lived (and I no longer do commitments). Still…who knows?

Want to join me?

Moving Mountains

2010-11-03T01:48:00.000-06:00

I still remember how fascinated I was the day my Mother talked to me about faith that could move mountains. She who knew all things, believed all things, hoped all things, endured all things – my mom – told me that if one had enough faith, one could say to the mountain, “Be thou moved, and it will be moved.”

I was about seven years old at the time and that was pretty impressive stuff but coming from my Mother it was not to be doubted. Not for one brief moment.

But there were a few hitches. To start with there was a lot of stuff about readiness to give such a command. You know, stuff like faith. Not superficial faith, but real deep-seated-without-a-doubt faith. And of course one had to be humble. And one had to love God more than life itself. Oh, and that faith, had to be so good that you were praising God for moving the mountain before he moved it.

So I totally geared up for all that. Broke no commandments for over a week. Stole no cookies. Was excessively kind. Prayed without ceasing. Chanted faith into my mind to sink it deeply and solidly into my being. Then I looked out on the landscape at the big hill far away on the horizon and said to God, “I want that mountain moved. Please move it.”

It didn’t move. A few days later I said to my Mother, “That hill over there. I asked God to move it. I believed he would move it, but he didn’t.”

Then came the excuses that always come when people want to believe there is no conflict in their convictions, and no falsehoods in their beliefs.

To my dismay this is why God did not move the mountain according to my Mother. I lacked sufficient faith. It was my desire, but perhaps God saw no purpose in it. Oh yes, I almost forgot. There is a time factor when you pray for something. God answers prayer but in his own way, in his own time. And if my longing to move the mountain stemmed from a sense of power or pride, it of course would not happen.

But it should have happened. I was humble, seeking, contrite, prayerful, and exercising faith that I had never had before or have ever had since. And that mountain did not even tremble.

Anyway, children being what children are, the attempt to move that mountain was a radical disappointment and truly puzzling.

I eventually forgot about it, dismissed the situation as no fault on God’s side. Obviously, some flaw in myself caused the request to fail even though all my intensive internal inspection revealed nothing more that I could do. Which only furthered my confusion because I had also begged during my readiness period for forgiveness for any impure thoughts or unkind acts that I might have committed unwittingly.
____

Now when I was a child I lived way in the North Country of this area and the mountain, or rather very large hill I commanded to move was visible at a great distance from our home. I now live in the Far Western Part of this area, a goodly distance from my childhood home. This is flat country, there are no grand hills here.

Now yesterday, late afternoon, I was out on my deck and I looked out across the landscape, and you’ll never guess what I saw. My mountain had been moved. It was across the field looming on the landscape in my back yard. I examined it closely. Yes, this is the same hill. It has the same contours, the same shadows, the same shape, and boundaries.

Mother had said God would pick his own time. Who would have ever thought it would be some fifty years later? But I needed a miracle today and I got one. The mountain I commanded to move so long ago, was moved.

Hub and I woke up a bit dismal the other day. We laugh today, we laughed yesterday. My neighbour laughed as well. We laugh, we find joy, because the mountain did move. It absolutely did. And just in case you don’t believe me, here is the proof. See it for yourselves.

This is the usual appearance of the landscape from my deck.

And this...is my mountain -- the one I commanded to be moved!

Boogeymen in the Closet, Poltergeists Under the Bed

2010-10-30T11:52:00.000-06:00

Today I must review my Halloween candy situation and get bags ready for the tricksters and treaters that will be arriving at my door tomorrow night.

Naïve, I am. Long ago I dismissed the fanciful thoughts of boogeymen in the closet and poltergeists under the bed, but wait, not so fast. They were real and they were there when I was a child and they still are.

I know that for a fact because the boogeymen in the closet are stealthily opening boxes of chocolate bars, and mini bags of chips and cheezies, like children do with Christmas gifts. Small discrete tears and carefully cracked seams that make the damage as close to invisible as possible. But big enough that stealthy hands have extracted a large number of treats.

With the closet door tightly shut, who, what else could it be — except boogeymen in the closet.

But that’s not the all of it. While the boogeymen are busily depleting my stash of Halloween treats in the closet, the poltergeists under the bed are chanting whispered spells that have Hub in a restless and wakeful state of terror interrupted by four a.m. screamer nightmares (and sometimes stomach pains) for the past week.

Oh God, I hate this. It’s not enough that Hub is being tormented at night in such a merciless way, but now I’m stuck with having to make the dreaded trip to town for more treats!

Easement

2010-10-26T13:40:00.000-06:00

Seven years ago I began blogging. And for some considerable time I wrote daily, then every second day, then twice a week, and then once a week…and then I stopped writing altogether several months ago.

I knew and more than once mentioned why I wrote that blog. I wrote it to circumvent brain rot and I wrote with the expectation of forcing myself into a disciplined and self-challenging act that would improve my writing. I think in many ways my writing did improve but what I didn’t realize until now is you can’t keep doing that. Expecting more and more of yourself without eventually burning out. And so I burned myself out and quit blogging.

But now there is something happening that is forcing me to reconsider whether the halt of my blogging is more bad than good.

I am now an elderly – no longer on the cusp, no longer near but yet so far – I am an elderly. My neighbor gets short with me and tells me “you are not elderly!” –but she is wrong. She is as much an elderly as I, but she lives in some kind of material world and technological time, that allows her to circumvent elderly with a little more bling, the latest fashions, the latest internet jokes, and frenzied gizmo aps.

While she endeavors to keep up with this merry-go-round of changes, I do traditional elderly things – writing, knitting, reflecting, spiritualizing, watching the news and ceaselessly groaning, as my mother did, and her mother before her, and her mother before her, “what, oh dear what, is this world coming to?”

And while I thus groan, my neighbor with much excitement and much animation tells me of the latest starlet, the latest song, the latest movie, the latest diet, the latest texting acronym, and the latest bow-flex, stationary bicycle, or stair-climber craze.

So blogging may continue, but it must take on a new face. It will be scrambled writing – no more that concerted effort to make it fun, witty, or wise. That is what led to my burn-out.

So now it will be scrambled, non-cohesive, dull, and often quite foolish, but that is because I now write for only one purpose – to avoid brain rot. No more writing to impress. No more writing to draw in a visitor or two. Because I am in authentic day-to-day reality, not virtual reality.

And in my day-to-day reality, there are far too many senior acquaintances of mine enveloped in dementia, or teetering on the edge of it for me to sit here and ignore how easily it can develop once the forgetfulness and dullness of mind sets in.

And so I return to blogging, but all that aside, a final thought about the distressing what-is-this-world-coming-to groaning I do. ‘Tis sad, but it’s okay. In fact, I’m thoroughly convinced it’s part of the greater plan—an easement as it were that makes the eventual leaving a somewhat welcome event. If all were as it should be I’d be so angry and heart-broken to leave the Garden of Eden.

But that is not the case. And the truth, if we can bring ourselves to admit it, is it’s much easier to depart from a place that is diabolically disappointing and distressing even if the way out is pitch black and sinister.

My Big Blog Discouragement

2010-06-04T10:57:00.000-06:00

My big discouragement at the moment with blogging is my lack of freedom of speech. It is not that I want to be vulgar. It is not that I want to be crude. I just want to out that which strikes me as the fabric of a striking story.

And what is most discouraging about it goes back to the debate of ‘character’ versus ‘writer’ and the reader perception that what a character does in a story defines what the author would do, particularly when the writer writes in first person as I prefer to do.

So how does one resolve this dilemma? The ‘id’ of who I am, and the “I” in the story? Must I re-christen the character in my story to Jack or Jane to escape the interchange of me with them? I have tried that but cannot do it and still retain the conviction of what I am trying to say. It is only in first person voice that I am able to make the essential part intimate, conversational, and multi-layered. Besides which, switching to another voice is like converting, what to me are fluid thoughts, to some other kind of clumsy dialect. And yes, I could alternatively switch to satire, but that too can easily lead to misunderstandings even more extreme. Particularly since, in an age of texting, no one any longer understands what ‘satire’ is.

But that is not all. The other thing, so difficult to explain, so hard to wrap my head around, but yet it is true, the honesty of the writing is hampered by such glitches in readers’ perceptions.

For example, right now, though seeming quite removed from this discussion, I want to express my dismay over why army troops in a sexually sterile environment want to have the right to be “openly-gay”. To what end in a place where no fraternization, not even hand-holding is allowed? Can I rant about how I explore this question in my own mind?

No way. Too political to write. The slant of the discussion must be politically correct enough not to stain the author. And how can that happen if the reader generalization of the character’s dismay creates a perception that “I” am too close-minded to understand and support the bravery, sacrifice, and efforts of the men and women engaged in war?

In contemplating this, and other situations of the here and now, I realized the other day, I have still so much stuff to write. But it is stuff that will be, (if the “I” is me), self-deprecating to an extreme. And (if the “I” is me), it will be unjust. (If the “I” is me), it will be so arrogant at times that it will make readers want to puke. And (if the “I” is me), I could end up on Court TV trying to explain my warped thinking. And (if the “I” is me), so innocent at times, it will make readers feel too corrupt to ever wear white again.

But I can’t write this stuff. I simply can’t. Not here, anyway.

In the meantime, I am oppressed, anxious, and ill at ease. I need to openly-out controversial writing inspirations. But this is an environment where, in present time, like openly-gay soldiers in the midst of war, to do so would serve no good purpose.

So I am discontinuing this Blog and these are my excuses.
Thank you for the time we shared.

I guess all the rest that I feel so compelled to write will have to have to be shoved under the bed and labeled “Posthumous Papers”.

Total Intellectual Nonsense

2010-05-21T11:28:00.000-06:00

Now, wouldn’t you agree that being flattered for the wisdom of one’s mind is indeed a warmer thing than being flattered for one’s beauty?

But here we run into so many problems. The intellectual mind is too conservative to be publicly displayed. And though intellect is a grand collective of sense, of the greatest quantity, and finest quality, yet there is no way to hand it over to others to touch and marvel over.

I suppose one could say, if I was an intellect, which I am not, that I could reveal the extent of my wisdom through new discoveries, grand oratories, a book, and the like. But without one great lot of public exposure, that kind of revelation could take forever.

It all sounds so impossible, finding a way to ‘show off’ intellect. But, amazingly, there has recently developed a solution that bypasses all the difficulties I have already stated. And this solution I have derived from the blessedness of idly watching television.

What I have noticed is a new form of ‘suffix-ality’ used to display intellectuality. I might not have noticed but the effect is a kind of ‘grammar tic’ that pains the ear and interrupts straight talk like a sour note in music. But at the same time, these are interjections that provide inarguable evidence of intellectual prowess.

For example: ‘Carnal’ becomes ‘carnality’. ‘Function’ becomes ‘functionality’ ‘Constitution’ becomes ‘constitutionality’. Words like this have no greater or lesser meaning than the original root word, but the shorter word cannot form the desired perception of wisdom beyond that of men or women of commonality.

So there you have it. Problem of show-casing intellectuality completely resolved. Who could have ever imagined that it could be so easy? Mentality transported with such swift verticality by simply discarding oh-so-dire plain English and replacing it with a new sophisticality of lingu-ality.

All together now in the midst of our happy dance…

Eurekus-ality!

Baby Business

2010-05-10T15:39:00.001-06:00

My apologies for blogging so sporadically, but it is a busy time of year.

With gardening threatening to take up all my time very soon, I had to rush to complete another task. I wanted to make a welcome gift for a new little resident expected in our community in early June.

It has become a tradition in this area, that when a new wee resident moves in, Roberta makes that new babe a quilt. And so for this latest expectation in early June, I did just that. (unfortunately the picture is not as clear as I would have liked).

Now I found while shopping for fabric I couldn’t resist a flannelette of cute black and white sheep. But when the quilt was finished I felt it needed something to make it, you know, a little bit special. More special than just a repetition of black sheep bodies and white sheep bums.

So when assembling the quilt, I used white yarn and made quilting ties at the neck of the sheep. Worked okay but still that quilt lacked some special adornment. Unable to come up with anything, I asked Hub what to do.

I laughed at his suggestion and I continue to laugh at the result. He suggested I give one sheep a mouthful of green grass, and so that is what I did. Is it not both cute and funny?

Sating the 'Exploratory Palate'

2010-05-05T14:53:00.000-06:00

This wee blurb is addressed to those with exploratory palates that yen for foods not yet tasted, not yet tried.

You don’t have to attend those exorbitantly priced restaurants springing up across the globe (that I heard about recently on the news). – with a mandate “To provide indulgence and satisfaction for those with an exploratory palate” through culinary offerings of braised, basted, and butchered emu, ostrich, kangaroo, monkey, snake, zebra, and even giraffe.

Bah, on that. If you want to sate an exploratory palate that yens for something new and untried, you can come at a bargain rate to my cabin in the woods. There we can feast on cornmeal mush, oatmeal gruel, and a warm chunk of char-basted and ash-anointed hard tack. Have you eaten any of these exotics? Have the like ever touched the sensitive part of your exploratory palate? I expect not.

With the utmost humility, I must confess that this is only a wee sampler. There are virtually an endless number of other innovative culinary surprises I could dig from historical archives and prepare for you as well. But that is not all. There are other enticements as well – beyond the sating of your exploratory palate.

The ambiance is just right and quite likely untried, as well.

Where have you previously dined in the cozy surroundings of an old wood stove, braided rug, and humming kettle? With squirrels peeking in the window and a large woodpecker overhead beating out a rhythm to a hummingbird’s fluid and flighty dance at the feeder.
__

Now you know, and I know, how much today’s society frowns on the needless death of animals for the sake of snakeskin shoes, a fur coat, or a leopard purse. A sensible rule it would seem to me though I can’t say I am in agreement with the degree of reactionary shunning and deliberate sneering that take place when an individual in such attire (perhaps only through an act of charity), encounters on a busy street. This, despite the fact that that same individual may be, though poverty stricken, of a true and noble heart.

But the other rule, the rule that allows the massacre of animals for the sake of food has always seemed an acceptable rule as well. But don’t you see, this rule is only valid when there is a real need for sustenance, rather than simply an urge at the back of the throat for something untested and untried. The rules are sound when the fox fur is the only coat one has for warmth and zebra is the only thing of sustenance one has to survive. But these rules fully unravel, become N/A, when the only purpose is exploratory desires.

Makes me shun and shudder with dismay when I consider that the force and fulfillment of the ‘exploratory palate’ could ultimately evolve, when too many exotic animals have been harvested, to something even more extreme that I cannot bring myself to say. You know, the ‘C’ word! – big pot, big water, blazing fire.

But that is not to say that you don’t have the right to sate your ‘exploratory palate’ in a less negative way if that is what you need to do.

There are such a host of untried delicacies to choose from that eliminate the massacre of exotic animals. All you need do is come to my cabin in the woods and sop up your after dinner ‘Cornflower Blanc-Mange’ (cornstarch & milk, cooked and cooled), or your Potato Paste entree (potatoes, butter, and an egg), and drink your Dandelion Tea.

And to that repast I say, “Amen and Amen.”

‘Tis all well and good as long as you turn your plate upside down, leave your napkin wrapped utensils untouched, and keep your big mouth clamped shut when it comes to exotic animals.

Budgeting That Which Needs to Be

2010-05-01T14:05:00.000-06:00

It has pretty much always seemed to me that life is a long stretch with plenty of time to lolly-gag and putter aimlessly about. And procrastination isn’t a crime as long as it causes no inconvenience to others. Always there are tomorrows, so many tomorrows, endless tomorrows.

And how did I come to this conviction? Easy enough. My sixteenth birthday may have happened in sixteen Gregorian Calendar years, but to me it seemed more like sixty years. Likewise the ten days proceeding Christmas on the Gregorian Calendar are actually more like fifty-four. High school Graduation didn’t happen for about forty-four years, and first job took forever, and marriage took forever, and career advancements took forever.

So of course I had to conclude after all that, that life is more a waiting game, than anything else. Everything is in slow mo, and so with so little time actually usurped by necessity, there is much time to burn.

But eventually all things ripen and as my elderly time of life approached, rather quickly, I must say, compared to my other milestones, I came to a puzzling alter-realization that not only is time sparse, but it moves at breakneck speed.

And so that is when I realized as well that I must move from my haphazard way of reckless burning of that irreversible duration that flows in synchronization with clock and calendar, to a stringent budgeting of time. That is, if I expect to realize any of my outstanding wishes, hopes, dreams, and endeavors. Or even, if I have any intention of completing the half-finished quilts and crafts in my basement storeroom.

Now if one takes the time to find out, there are a whole lot of things seniors should concentrate on. Though it seemed to me, in that which the experts advocated, I found very little scope or understanding of my own particular character, life, and situation. For example, I am the iconic symbol for how to bumble through half a century of living without planning or organization. And so now, what is step 1?

Critical and fundamental is this first step – to “set goals” and “get well-organized” (?).

And from thence, one must speedily get documents in order. Then examine investments and work out solid money plans. And also of critical importance, one must document ‘their wishes’ in some new context that falls outside of my long-understood, and your long-understood original meaning.

Are not “wishes” heartfelt longings? Not in this instance. They are called ‘wishes’ but even the simplest-minded can see that in this context there is some new cast of meaning that falls way outside of the realm of hopes, desires, endeavors, and…heartfelt longings. That is rather perplexing.

And what perplexes me even more is now, with more than a half-century of living-experience under my belt, of a sudden, I now find friendly-advice coming at me from every quarter (not just from the hardware store).

And not only that, when my advisors realize I have not faithfully, and diligently attended to the matters I have stated above, I find my reputation besmirched for side-stepping these ‘important issues’ in favor of doing other unrelated things. Like writing, blogging, crocheting, reading, and knitting.

But if I may digress—I need to tell you that gratefully, despite the nasty criticisms from outside advisors, I don’t have any of my kids sending me planning guides for ‘my wishes/longings’—or other unmentionables such as track-shoes, or exercise equipment, which is damn considerate of them. I don’t mind telling the world that if they did, I would be greatly offended.

But now, returning to our original topic, it seems to me that this is not a time to budget my meager monies, or a time to plan and organize papers, or a time to make wish lists –of a kind I fail to understand. How practical is that? The practical thing is to budget time, cause like I said before—I have too many projects to finish to ignore the compression of time.

And so, I have no time for fantastical ‘wish lists’. Instead, on a restrained budget of time I sit and knit and listen to the clock rampaging off the minutes.

But that is not to say that all that outside advice doesn’t cause painful guilt about whether this is the seasonable and profitable thing for me to do. Especially when I consider that the child’s socks I am knitting can be easily purchased ready-made for about $1.20.

I’m supposed to be on a budget and here I am running all my time-statistics into the red by doing such a stupid, impractical thing. Especially since I haven’t even contemplated the more important task of my ‘wish list’.

I see you nodding your head in agreement. You do agree, do you not?

But wait, not so fast. I have one more thing to tell you.

Last weekend, I had my two-year-old grandson stay with me for three days. When he came he had on the little woolly green socks I knit for him at Christmas time. He wore them on the first day. He wore them on the second day. And so on the third day, when I was helping him get dressed, I said, “Oh my goodness. You need some clean socks.”

I reached into his little overnight bag and got him a lovely pair of store-bought blue socks and slipped them on his little feet. (Amazingly at the age of two, Grandson already knows basic colors).

“Blue socks, no good! I don’t like blue socks!

And with that, he ripped them from his feet and adamantly stated. “Green socks good. I wear green socks!”

So now, say what you will, say what you may, about me being occupied in a tight budget of time on what is really important –getting papers in order, wish lists, etc. etc.

I am doing the most significant and important stuff I have to do despite tight timelines. I am in my chair, rocking, and knitting little woolly socks, while the clock ticks away at warp speed as freely as it pleases it to do.

I am engaged in the most worthy of occupations that fulfill wishes/longings (in a context that I understand), of a grandma and her precious little grandson.

For The Birds

2010-04-11T02:46:00.000-06:00

Day before yesterday, winter returned with a vengeance. And for about 48 hours the wind reeked and roared. Snow whipped about the windows and deck like heavy surf in an ocean storm. I heard trees snapping in the woods. Hub never ties down the barbecue cover and it is gone. With the madness of the storm I have no idea which neighbor to call to see if they sighted it – the one to the north, south, east or west.

Anyway after a delightfully mild spring, we are now well snowed in.

And so this morning when Hub looked out the window, he saw a frenzied mass of tiny birds battling over the bird feeder. Hub could readily see that there were too many for one feeder, so he scattered some extra seed on the ground.

Now you’ll have to forgive me cause I’m not a bird watcher in any serious sense of the word, so I don’t know what kind of birds they were, all I can tell you is that they were all tiny birds of the same genus and species.

But while watching them rally about the feeder and the scattered seed on the ground, I suddenly realized I wasn’t just seeing birds. Hub noticed it too. We were seeing little personalities. We were seeing in the mix birds of various constitutions –nasty birds, frantic birds, timid birds, and placid birds.

There were greedy birds that had eaten their fill. But despite that, they stood firm at the feeding station, flapping their wings, and threatening with their beaks, in a bid to make all the rest think they were elected as CEO’s of all feeding activity.

There were birds that darted around the food with such reluctance and fear. And there were other non-aggressive birds, but nevertheless sturdy enough in constitution to not be put off by some bully approaching them threateningly.

I noticed there were even birds dashing about in fright, and fluttering away in quite a panic. Yet to the rest of the flock they were invisible.

None cared they were even there cause with such skittishness, it was quite evident, even to me, that if they were to scavenge anything, it would only be the less tasty debris (or empty hulls) because they obviously felt undeserving of the large buttery sun flower seeds in the mix.

Those choice morsels they left for the authoritarian birds of the hierarchy. But still, despite their humility and mannerly patience, this same bunch ate with such a constancy of terror that they could barely manage to get any food down. The drama of it all put me in mind of another occasion many years ago.

It’s not often, but I occasionally tell people about the ‘happy chickens’ Hub’s mom had years ago. Chickens that ran to her, with long proud necks, bright eyes, making soft clucking conversation to her as they perched happily on the edge of the grain pail she carried out to the chicken yard. People blink at my story with the same blankness that you might see in the face of a ‘stupid’ chicken. But those chickens convinced me that chickens have more intelligence than they are ever given credit for.

But because my story usually is treated as a ‘gaffe’, a story lacking any true sensibility, I no longer tell it. And furthermore, I remind myself every time I think of hens housed in small tight cages, without soft nests, and with lights on night and day so they will lay without ceasing, that it is all of no matter. I am the stupid one to feel so foolishly sad.

And so then, because of others reactions, I begin to think I am such a fool. Chickens are nothing more than chickens. So what if they are mistreated. Their brains are too scant for them to know the difference. And if I worry about such stupidity, I am about as stupid as a ‘stupid chicken’.

But no, I am not stupid and they are not only chickens. Admittedly in recent years I almost had myself convinced they were only chickens and that the day I saw ‘happy chickens’ my imagination was simply working overtime. But no, I had to reconsider after watching that bird-feeding episode in the front yard today.

Those wee creatures, with their wee small brains, are not just warm-blooded guts-and-gizzards with feathers. They have feelings, hopes, manners, or lack thereof, and they are able to demonstrate appreciation and happiness.

I hope some day Animal Rights Groups will understand that if you can’t treat seals and whales like that for the sake of dinner that you also can’t treat chickens the way they are treated for the sake of breakfast.

Award Winners and Presentation

2010-03-22T02:20:00.000-06:00

I think my blogger friend Joy has been following my blog for so long she can read between the lines as well as on the lines. She must be able to do that, because she always seems to know when I am truly in need of encouragement. And that is when she sends me just that, either by e-mail or as a comment on my blog.

And today, (when I really needed it), there she is again. Giving encouragement, an atta-girl patty-pat, and encouragement to continue writing. And this time the encouragement came in the form of this beautiful award.

And in response I have been asked to write a quick list of ten things that make me happy – so here they are:
It doesn’t take much…

1. A blogger friend like Joy
2. The sound of rain on a tin roof
3. Soft cotton sheets to cuddle into that have been dried in the fresh air of Spring on the clothesline (Mmm – love that smell).
4. Piano music – alone, only piano – no other instruments interfering
5. Liquid chocolate – I don’t want nothing to dip in it Keep the chocolates, or cherries, or strawberries. I just want to dip a really BIG spoon in the stuff.
6. When Hub drives slow
7. When Hub sings (...in the garage)
8. Sunsets, sunrises, storm clouds, and rainbows
9. When I can write as long as I like...undisturbed
10. Getting encouragement exactly when I need it as much as I need food, shelter, and other of life's major requirements.

Now the other thing I’m supposed to do is pass this award on to ten people. So which 10 will it be?

Well, I see it this way. It is as pleasant to receive as it is to give, so any one who reads this blog is elected. Collect the award, put it on your blog. Reveal where the award came from and list ten things that make you happy…

We’ve got a positive moment happening here so help the moment endure…and pass it on…

Thank you again, Joy, for the very lovely Bloggy Award!

Foot Pain

2010-03-14T14:13:00.000-06:00

If your feet are size 9 or smaller, get out of here. I don’t want you to read this. I am cranky, I need sympathy and I’m not going to get it from you. Besides, you annoy me. You have always annoyed me.

Annoyed me because I have big feet. Really big feet. For an entire life I have gone to parties, to church, to socials and seen your tiny delicate little shoes lined up in the foyer. Man, they irritate me. So small. So exquisite. So dainty.

Disclosing a delicacy of foot that for a certainty is connected to modest limbs and diminutive stature. We may not be dancing today, but I know how your little feet look and act on the dance floor. Floating above the sheen of the floor rather than clomping around.

And when sprawled on beach sand, I’ve seen your small feet tread by, so close to my vision, right there, right in my face. Lithe, sexy, tanned and way too cute. Little feet, with painted nails, and flashing ankle bracelets prettily skipping past me.

When I see tiny shoes, I want to run, I want to hide. When I enter a house, I stash my shoes under the edge of a rug or behind the door. Too many times, some late arrival has yelled out from the entryway. “Whose monster shoes are these?”

And of course, some wit always replies. “Which shoes? Let me see.”

And so the shoes are brought into the front room amidst a large circle of individuals and passed about and examined. Is that not too much already? But then, you must know too, the shoes, though my best, look oh-so-shoddy. Because overly large feet stretch shoes, scuff shoes, warp shoes, and in general make the best pair of shoes age at 10x the rate of tiny feet.

And so, with little else to cheer me, I attempt to find comfort in that old adage my Mother so often cited to me. “I complained about my shoes until I met a man that had no feet.”

But the moral in the proverb is too pungent, even objectionable to my situation. Truth is, I don’t want my annoyance erased by this kind of wisdom. I want to dwell on it, and in dwelling on, learn to deal with it in a sportive way. Besides my Mother could well cite this with good humor—her feet were only size seven.

As for me, in my selfish and woe-begone-state, I cannot look at my feet with or without shoes and feel gratefulness. Not when everywhere I look there are tiny shoes and tiny feet on display. Small shoes couldn’t be more in my face if they rained down from the sky for an hour and a half every afternoon of every day.

Still I can’t help loving shoe stores. But I don’t go in them, at least not as a tourist. Like pet stores, there are too many lovely tiny shoes begging to go home with me, but like the tiniest and most vulnerable pets in a pet store, I cannot adopt them. There is no way I can give them consideration. Yet, I want them—though the thought be totally senseless.

But there they are. Top shelf, right in my face, a painful display of bright straps, delicate imports and exotic leathers meant only for others – not for me. I feel as depressed as a diabetic in a candy store, and if I inquire about a pair in size eleven, I always get the same response.

“We only have those Italian imports in Size 9.”

I want to slap them, but I don’t. It’s not their fault.
I wonder if it hurts very much, or if it bleeds terribly much, if one snips off their toes. And, I wonder too, how good life would be if I just had tiny, cute, totally sexy, delicate little feet.

It’s just not fair that others can get bigger busts, fatter lips, smaller noses, flatter stomachs, but I can’t get smaller feet. And that’s my ridiculous whine for today.

What this rant should tell you, is that life is as good as it gets, and I have little to complain about.

(Size 9 1/2, or larger, only need reply).

The Pewter Pitcher

2010-02-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

THE PEWTER PITCHER

Pauline passed the word to me from here, and so with little else to inspire me I decided to write a poem about a pewter pitcher.

But I should tell you that right now I am creating a nursery rhyme book for my 2-year old grandson and so with my mind entrenched in that arena, my poem may sound a little bit silly and a big bit juvenile.

THE OLD PEWTER PITCHER

That old gray pewter pitcher
Is what we use at tea.
But Grandma’s pewter pitcher
Is more than what you see.

The handle curves like her gentle hand
With soft and grazing touch
And overall, sweet simplicity,
Like that dear one, loved so much

And in the delicate laurel wreath
The circle of love we sustain
And in the pursed pout of the lip
Want of kisses seems so plain

And in the gloss of this holy grail
There is a fogged reflection
Fossilized blurs of yesteryear
Curves of the same connection.

(She takes it from the wooden shelf
Sets it on a cloth of lace
Then with a rough, and work-worn hand,
She waves me to my place)

Yes, there are pipkins on the shelf
More polished and more sleek
But only the pewter pitcher
Speaks a language so unique.

‘Cause Grandma’s pewter pitcher
Is more than what you see
That beautiful grey chalice,
Brings crème fraiche and love to me.

What Do You Do With Wonder and Awe?

2010-02-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

What do you do with wonder and awe? How do you release the inner tension it creates? How to you ease the reverence, respect, dread, and weakness of heart that grips the soul in a gridlock of conflicting feelings of sadness and joy?

I have this sense of awe and wonder when I see my grandkids coming up the walk. But thankfully it is easing by throwing my arms around them and their gentle kisses on my cheek.

I have this sense when Hub gives me an unexpectedly card or bouquet, and I ease it with a blend of smiles and tears, mutual joy, and his hovering presence. I have this sense when my double peony blooms, but it eases as the blossom over-ripes. And so, for such situations, there is a way of escape.

And that be all good and well, but the tension and tight grip of awe and wonder is not so easily resolved in other situations. There are many for which there is no release.

I remember when Hub and I went on vacation one fall. I remember seeing snow-capped purple mountains shoed with golden russet trees bordering a glistening turquoise lake in west coast country. I remember how it was and how the tension of wonder and awe gripped my heart and mind and soul. So tight that it was racking, throbbing, and tormenting.

I feel the agony and ecstasy of that tension again, when I recall the loveliness of it all. But there was no way to release the tension when it hit.

I recall at the time when Hub and I stopped at the edge of those emerald waters how driven I felt to fling myself on the grass, and pound my fists on the soil, and kiss the ground, and weep. All of which I could not do, must not do, as such a reaction would inflict Hub with an even greater torment and tension—over the well-being of my mind and health.

But there just has to be a way to release the tension of wonder and awe. It comes upon me with a gentle wash that ever increases in temperature and duration till I feel scalded, but yet there is no escape. No release—from the joy coupled with dread. I almost hate it. It leaves me in spasms of sadness and gladness interchanging at breakneck speed—like a Drop of Doom roller-coaster ride.
____

Now it’s been years, close to eons, since last I read “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I read it again last night. I wept with sorrow, then cried with joy, as I did that first time I read it as a child—the line that I love, that breaks me so into pieces is that gentle, sweet, most lovely line— “and when I awoke, it rained.”

And now, from that reading, this morning and through the night, I have been racked with the painful conflict of heart-sorrow and head-joy. And rather than abating, the tension of wonder and awe goes on and on. I am as close to the brink of frenzied hilarity as I am to the brink of a grand and copious wash of tears.

The tension is as like to a dead albatross around my neck as anything can be. In fact, I think this poem mirrors the tension of awe and wonder and in doing that, only increases my awe-and-wonder tension. God, I almost wish I had a toothache or a pulsing migraine to distract me from the absolute beauty and total horror of that poem that I so recently read.

But how can I find release? Hug the book. That isn’t going to work.
Kiss the page. That isn’t going to work.
Erase the poem—can’t do that either.
It is emblazoned with permanence in my mind.

I want and I need to be free of this tension. It is hampering me. It is crippling me. It is tormenting me. But how, pray how, can it be done?

Maybe if I read the poem three more times. Do you think?

The Ways of The Elderly 4.

2010-02-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

WAY IV

And what are Valentine-like-loves? They can be of a Romantic nature but often they are not. They are simply people I have known throughout a lifetime that gave me confidence, courage, comfort, and worth.

Simply put, what you might call easy friendships with the kind of people that always, and forever, give comfort and security without a trace of aggravation or qualm.

I came to realize this Valentine-like-love representation only this morning in discussion with a friend who dropped in for coffee. In our conversation a name came up so familiar to me because the name mentioned was a fellow who lived near my parents’ house throughout my childhood years.

The name was Mr. Jolly. One of the friendliest, jolliest people one could ever hope to find. He lived alone for many years but eventually when I was in Junior High, he married a dear, sweet lady, as jolly and friendly as he. Wonderful people they were in every respect.

But after I married and moved from my childhood home district, I seldom saw Mr. Jolly and his jolly wife. But nothing changed. Even at that, he and his wife forever remained as friendly and jolly and open to chatting with me as they always had, despite geographic separation and infrequent encounters.

Now I was quite taken aback this morning when Mr Jolly's name came up in a coffee conversation. Surprised that a neighbor in this area that I now live in also knew him. Immediately I expressed in glowing terms how much I honored Mr. Jolly's goodwill and generosity. My coffee-friend listened and heartily agreed with my assessment, but then…and that’s when…she asked me if I was aware that Mr. Jolly passed away some years ago.

Immediately I was so deeply saddened – my soul awash with dismay, loss, and even a kind of isolation. But then slowly, I came to the realization that I knew that. I did. I already knew that. But with that blessed failing memory, I had forgotten and the forgetting was truly sweet.

I have thought and continue to think of the Jolly Man and his jolly wife so often. And when I do I smile and I am so happy when I think of them. Happy because I remember them only in the present tense. How lovely they ‘are’, and how lovely the discourse in my mind of their easy friendship, easy pleasantness, and jolly nature.

It is so nice to be comfortable with present confidence, and unmindful that Mr. Jolly is gone and she in a retirement place. I prefer it that way. Sorrow and loneliness eradicated. All that so direly chills the heart with the loss of good friends tucked away out of mind.

I am well aware that to others, this is a derogatory thing, this living a life of ‘fancy’ rather than ‘fact’. All I say to that is, “Excuse me, Sophists of Society, insist if you must on factual and scientific data for youthful years, but not for the elderly. Being old is not an easy path and in treading it, fancy is what softens the pains of physical and mental impoverishment.

____

And so, in conclusion, in Way IV, I give you only this one small sample of February comforts and Valentine-like-loves. There are more. Many of my dear friends are gone, but I forget that as I ponder special times we once shared when we conducted heart exchanges like Valentines.

And so what I am left with is a discriminatory memory that allows me to ponder what lovely friends (in present tense) I have. How fond I am of them, how strong and comforted I am because of them. How fixedly they remain an immortal abstraction within my heart and mind.

And so, I wonder if perhaps, in some oblique way, that here, in Way IV, we factually and scientifically found the fundamental cause of the oft-found-conviction of after-life immortality in the hearts of the aged because long-term memories are immortalized and short-term memories die such a premature death.
____

So Old Age? – Bring it on! In as many ‘Ways’ as there may be. And in that, let me be short-term-forgetful, as long as with long-term-memory, I retain the immortal companionship of all my many Valentines.

[“The Ways of the Elderly” could, I think, be a rather grand epistle. I invite you to do a “Way”. There is nothing sophisticated about my blog so if you have thoughts to add, post them in my comments section and I will pull them out and add them to the other “Ways”. Or post them on your own blog and let me know.

I say this half-jokingly, half-serious, because I don’t really know if anyone will use this prompt to divulge the secrets of present time and place that the Elderly are so disinclined, or unable, to tell.]

The Ways of the Elderly 3.

2010-02-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

WAY III

What seems to have really intensified since “Way I” and on through “Way II” and now into “Way III” is forgetfulness.

I know I am forgetful. Hub knows I am forgetful. And my children and neighbors know it as well. They have too often seen the missing pepper grinder in the fridge, the fresh lettuce blasted in the freezer, and the missing cookbook in the knives-I-no-longer-use drawer. But one small comfort is my long-term memory is reasonably in tact.

In light of that and assuming that this is common among seniors, could this explain why seniors are so secretive about the present? And why they cannot divulge out-takes of present time and place? Maybe there is no present because as quickly as it comes it dissolves into forgetfulness. So quickly that there is no time to take it up, turn it over, and have a good look at it.

But I digress. In my particular circumstance so far, all that occurred in Way I and Way II was so self-deprecatory and depressive. And so I begin to wonder, ‘Is there not an upside to this elderly stage of existence?’
____

Oh yes, there is. Very much so. But only just today, I came to that realization and I must quickly get it down before it escapes from memory.

Now I already know from blogging and reading others blogs that some kind of aura exists that directs commonality of mood and thought of humankind according to calendar times and seasons. While I was writing this I found a surprising number of other blogs contemplating similar subject matter, although from widely diverse perspectives.

But, unfortunately, contemplation of aging can be somewhat depressing to those of us nearing the climax of life. And then, if you add to that, the dreariness of February, that desperate time when Spring is too far away to look to the future, and Winter too fixed in place to look to the past, the whole conglomerate of it all becomes rather debilitating.

But be of Good Cheer because between the Dumbo ears, behind the bulbous nose, and above the skin-wizened neck, there is a bit of a G-Spot, locked between long-term memory and short-term forgetfulness. To explain further, this is the spot that magnifies, amidst all the awful changes in appearance, something to be truly grateful for among the ‘Curses of the Fullness of Age’. A tiny spot stimulated to a frenzy at this time of year by, what I choose to call, Valentine-like-loves.

NEXT POST:...Way IV

The Ways of the Elderly 2.

2010-02-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

WAY II

The first elder realization came about two years ago. That awful day I woke up to find, when I gazed at my mirror reflection, that my smooth and delicate ear lobes had suddenly transformed into monster blobs—without cause. There was no malady, no infection, no chaffing, no heavy embroidery on my pillowcase, in fact no exacerbation of any kind.

But nevertheless, I had seen earlobes like this before. Oh yes, now I remember. They flagged the drooping heads of so many of the dreary souls I had once seen at a rest home. That’s where I had seen them.

I was so—not pleased. This new outgrowth was in no way comparable to the slow, creeping pace of outgrowth in my 13th year, and 14th year, and 15th year, that finally, finally, in my 16th year, resulted in sweet, flattering, and lovely swollen breasts. The ear-lobe-happening was a quick-take in no way comparable to that tardy breast transformation.

With the ear-lobe thing, there was no wait. I hadn’t yet reached any point of expectation and already it happened. I went to bed with delicate ears one night and woke up with Dumbo ears the next morning. Egad!

But as awful as it is/was, I am truly glad that I did not in my youth, wear those great honking ring-implants in my ears that I now see some young people wearing. What will become of them, when they reach “Way II” of their senior years and their earlobes explode?

But, all that aside, within “Way II”, the education has only just begun. Cause yesterday, just yesterday, I took a peek in the mirror to see if I was okay for the dreaded trip to town and guess what?

Now my nose has exploded. It is no longer the angular delicate silhouette it has always been. No longer the reserved profile of a perfect balance within the spectrum of once-large-eyes, no somewhat reduced, and once-full-lips, now somewhat reduced, and once-full-face, now somewhat reduced.

Yeh, you guessed it. Now I have this gawd-awful nose, that obviously happens as one ages, whether one avoids alcohol, steroids, cabbage, jumbo onions, or boils lexicons with cosines and drinks the reckoning warm without sugar.

And, so now, the conclusion formed within the context of these latest circumstances is that within “Way III”, or should I say a week or two, I will find a great honking coarse black hair growing out of this bulbous nose with all good will and dedication.

NEXT POST: — we continue on our way — to WAY III.

Ways of the Elderly [Way 1.]

2010-02-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

WAY I

In ‘Way I’ of this series, I first want to reflect on my own peculiar attainment of an understanding of life realizations.

Suffice to say that at a young age, through diplomatic conversations with my mother, and less diplomatic conversations with older sisters, I found out that within my lifetime, I could expect several stages of change.

There would be a stage of adolescent change, and soon after stages of love, marriage, childbirth…and then…little else. Nothing actually. Because after that, life-stage-instruction fell off, as it were, into a deep chasm. There was no discussion from Mother or siblings of what I might expect in that latter period of my life.

And so the learning was hampered right from the get-go with a kind of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ kind of thinking, not only from my Mother who maybe as yet didn’t know, but also from Elders in the neighborhood. And so that silence made old age seem so irrelevant. So unrelated to me—my life and my own physical and mental development.

Sure I encountered a few old people, some very old indeed, but ‘twas said about the town that ‘they are totally senile’, and indeed, they appeared to be. It was obvious even to me in my tender years that they all were so-of-another-mind, and another time, and another reasoning, and a square-and-unyielding-lack-of-acceptance of the magic of modern-day thinking. So much so, I concluded they must be no more a part of my phylum or sub-species than a rock or a tree.

Appearances alone supported this conviction. So many of them had hunched backs, a shuffling gait, bulbous noses, over-large earlobes, and folded sagging necks shaped in all respects like that of turtles. None of which physio-features I possessed.

And furthermore, when I engaged in conversations with them, like turtles they withdrew from present time and only discussed with me times of their-now-distanced youth.

They were mum, in fact, secretive of their own particular thoughts and feelings in present time. Even my own parents became secretive in that respect in their elder years. Pretending, as it were, that they were still in a youthful space. Dipping only into circumstances of the past. A kind of pantomime acting out without the modern-day stage costumes of jogging outfits, face-lifts, tanning agents, hair coloring, and only God knows, what else.

So, despite even one-on-one discussions, the ‘stage of elderly’ remained a complete blank slate—and my understanding as limited as that of a something as inanimate as a rock or a tree.

And so, with no knowledge of what to expect in my elder years, I likewise gave no contemplation to that stage of life. But eventually realizations came. Not gently, but explosively.

Next Post – you guessed it – WAY 2.

The Root Cellar - Part II

2010-01-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

2. THE EDGAR ALLAN POE NIGHTMARE

[In Part I of this story I told you how my brat brother played an evil joke on my Mother, and for this he was thrown into the root cellar and the cellar door shut tight…]

And so, now as I write this, I wonder. ‘What would today’s psychologists say about a child that would play that kind of nasty trick with a rope tied to a rock in the well? And would root-cellar-discipline head the discussions for weeks, even months on prime television?’

If there were to be any media discussion, it should be no more than three minutes. After all, Brat Brother got no physical beating. He simply got modern-day sanctioned time-out. And boy, did he get time out. I’m certain sure he would have preferred a good thrashing. I know I would have.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I did not have to press my ear to the cellar door to hear the muffled cries and sobs from that cold chilly ethereal pit of hell. My brother was trapped in an Edgar-Allan-Poe-nightmare with only darkness and the beat of his heart. And I was glad, so very glad, it wasn’t me.

But still, I couldn’t in my wildest imagination think how scared my brother must be. And although I so often told him that I hoped some day he would be so far removed from me that it would cost a thousand dollars to mail a letter, I did feel truly sorry for him and begged for his release.

But Mother was adamant that he would remain there for a time (long enough I guess for remorse to set in because remorse is important). But, of course how could he even for one New-York-second consider the weight of his actions in a place that so seriously threatened survival. Was there sufficient air? And I know he was thinking, ‘If I mold and die in here, they’ll be sorry.’

And so after hopeless raking and clawing at the root-cellar lid, and screaming until he could scream no more, and crying until his face was thorough soaked, he moved to the more dire thought of what would he eat. The eating part, to Brat Brother, was the most fundamental of survival. To survive one must eat, one must eat much, and one must eat often.

And if the experts are right, that eating is a remedy for other distresses, Brat Brother’s distresses at the moment were overwhelming, and so his next clear conviction was no matter what else, he must eat.

And so he felt around in the blackness of the cellar and had one flash of relief when he found a tin can with a lid. He managed to pull the lid off. He felt the stuff. It felt like jam. He tasted it. It seemed to have a weak sweetness. It was hard to know for sure what it was by taste, but because it was stored in the cellar, it could only be one of two things – pork lard or jam. And though questionable which it was, that weak bit of sweetness convinced him it must be jam.

And so, he commenced dipping and licking his fingers. Taste was of little matter. One MUST eat.

Now I expect my brother was probably in that cellar no longer than ten minutes but I’m sure, and quite understand, how to him it must have felt like many long hours. He was in survival mode and so he was eating jam. Unfortunately when the cellar door was eventually cast back and he was released, he found to his dismay, the meal he had partaken of was in fact, finger servings of, what was called in those days, axle grease.
_____

So this is where we’ll leave this story, but now as I watch Court TV, and see so many suspects of child murder and abduction refusing to talk, I am so dismayed. Seems to me that within the Geneva Convention and the Fifth, the authorities have no way to force confessions, and no way to get to the truth – though that truth might redeem an innocent child.

But wait, maybe there are acceptable ways of making people talk. And it is not by locking them in cellar-holding cells in Remand Centers with painted walls, air-conditioning and concrete floors. These conditions are totally false misappropriations of what a cellar is.

The Geneva Convention and the Fifth (which admittedly I know little about) must be upheld, even when childrens lives are in danger. But, at the same time, society accepts without protest or qualm the new discipline of Time-Out.

So for those who refuse to talk, why not time-out in a damp, fusty, funereal, black-mold-lined, dirt-excavated cubbyhole five feet square and four feet high, piled with rotting carrots, potatoes, and turnips, inhabited by fungi of all slimy convictions, and misty demon-like poltergeists...crowded into a darkness as thick as black-strap molasses?

And if that be not enough to make them talk…
Dry bread and axle-grease for dinner!

THE ROOT CELLAR - Part I

2010-01-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

1. HORRORS SPAWN COURAGE

It was a secret door, almost secret, except for the metal circular ring that lay flush with the floor in a round shallow cut of the same size. You had to bend and look closely, within a certain line of light to see in the lino, the outline of the little square door that led to the secret passage.

When the ring was lifted and the small door pulled open, nothing could be seen but a few steps and a hole of black darkness. The coolness was such that when the door was opened, spirits rose from within in wispy transparent death-dress. Hell’s hole. Pretty much. But still, t his is where my Mother sent us for carrots, potatoes, and on one occasion — for disciplinary measure.

The root cellar smelled earthy, fusty, funereal. The five wooden steps were slick with black mold that made their sturdiness questionable. And when I descended gingerly with pail in hand, I shivered with horror and a definite foreboding. Multiple times, I offered my services to do another’s chores, or my small monthly allowance to a sibling to avoid the split-second task of getting vegetables for dinner. Descent into that tomb? Not if I could avoid it.
_____

Always my greatest horror was someone would shut the door before I was resurrected to the light. And it would bind and stick as it so often did. And I would thus find in my crouched position on the upper steps a law of physics that in my mind was already suspect. That without methodology, instruction, or Newton-theory or Einstein-understanding that ‘an upward pressing force is far less efficient than an elevating lift’ –particularly if some stupid fool is standing on the door and cannot hear the pounding of my fists on sodden moldy wood or my yells to be released forthwith.

Monsters under the bed? So what?
Boogie-Man in the closet? With one eye in the middle of his forehead, and a pitchfork, and a black stallion for quickness of movement? So what?
In these matters I can be so brave because all of it and none of it was comparable to the horror of the thought of being trapped in the cold cellar.
_____

And so a day came, when these theories were tested.

In one act of parental desperation my brat brother was put in the cellar and the door was shut. On that particular day, he chopped a hole in the ice in the well with an ax. He then tied a length of rope to a large and heavy rock. And when I disappeared for a time in the quiet of my upstairs room with books and dolls, that was the opportunity he was waiting for. That meant it was time to perform what he thought was a wonderfully witty joke on my Mother. And so then, while my Mother busied herself in the kitchen, from outside my brother sent up a terrible howl from the yard.

My Mother ran to the door to see what the problem was. There was my brat bother holding a taut rope some twenty feet from the well.

“Help Mom! Oh Help!”, he screamed. “Roberta is in the well and I can’t get her out.”

Without donning shoes or coat, my mother ran to the well leaping through the snow in bare feet to the bottom of a hill as fast as her legs would carry her. Meanwhile my brother was screaming, “The rope is slipping. I can’t hang on. The rope is slipping!”

And then, just when my Mother got within five or ten feet of the well, my brother let go of the rope and there was a horrendous splash as the rock he had tied to the end of the rope descended deep into the well.

By now, I heard the commotion and came running from my upstairs hideaway to see what all the hullabaloo was about.
_____
Now my Mother was a very patient and kind woman. I don’t remember what was said, I know my mother wept loud sobbing cries of relief when she saw me. And then my brother, grinning sheepishly, was firmly grasped by one arm and tossed into the root cellar and the door was slammed shut.

That is the only time anyone was ever in there with the door closed that I know of.

(to be continued...)

NEXT POST: 2. The Edgar Allan Poe Nightmare

January Desperation

2010-01-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

Do you remember how fast time was flying from December 1st to January 1st?

It was speedier than Hub’s most frenzied driving. The G-force drove my hair back and pressed my lips and nose into flat tight lines. And then, before I knew it, before I was even ready, New Year’s Day arrived and it was all over.

And then the world stopped spinning. Time stopped. Even the sun no longer rose and fell in the sky. It didn’t seem worthwhile for Old Sol to climb so high, so slowly, with no height of day to rest before a return to hiding on the western horizon. Days dragged in 2-second increments with the sun in hiding and the sentry of night and day nothing but a cloudy moon. A cloudy moon that permitted no differentiation of night from day.

And still January progresses at a pace too slow to know, see, or observe. It seems a drag of too many minutes and too many hours; too many monotonous days, and too many monotonous nights. Nights that are far too long for restful slumber.

In the space of the Christmas rush, this is what I longed for, but now it is far too extreme, in reverse, to be appreciated.

And so what must be resurrected is a sense of humor. Oh yes, easy said, but not so easy done. Hub and I have just gone through whirling days of phenomenal feasts, grandchildren chatter, arrivals and departures from the front door, and lovely surprise offerings under the tree.

We have gone from Christmas carol-bells-ringing, tinsel glowing, lights glittering, endless and very busy activity to this dull, slow-crawling, and meaningless creep of time.

And so there is a new kind of desperation for humor. I didn’t realize how desperate until the situation of Hub’s lined-jeans-exchange. Hub was so happy when he got a pair of lined jeans for Christmas. He loves lined jeans because they eliminate the need for donning underwear. But the new pair was snug so yesterday he went to town and exchanged them for a larger pair.

Now the wee bit of disappointment for him in that exchange was that the original jeans had blue flannel lining, and the larger pair he brought home yesterday have red flannel lining.

So this morning he puts on the larger pair and says to me, “I wonder why these jeans have red flannel lining instead of blue? I’m not sure I like that.”

Of course, my response, (while thinking to myself – ‘silly old fool’), is…

“Why…?”

“Because,” says Hub, “when I am out in the snow I might get them wet and they will turn my legs red. And then people will laugh and poke fun at me. They will taunt me. I can hear them already.”

‘There goes red legs. Ha-Ha! There’s that old boy with red legs again!’
_____

If you didn’t laugh, you better. You were supposed to.

This is Motif 1 in Hub’s desperation (and mine), to find the sense of humor we had before the laggard tempo of January 2010 virtually stopped the clocks.

The Ejection, or should I say Rejection? (III-IV)

2010-01-11T09:59:00.001-07:00

Part III – The Search for Redemption

For three days I punched every link I could find. I tried search engines from every possible angle and direction. I even went through these rituals on all three computers, but no luck. Yes, it was all too true. I was solidly shut out. No way to crash this party with that kind of 24-7 security.

Now I had one wee bit of fragile hope in all this. Hub and I are here alone most of the time so when my computer stalls, or cycles some kind of stupidity, or takes to flashing nothing but pop-ups, or refuses to be cooperative in a thousand other ways, I say to Hub, “I am having a problem with this computer. Will you have a look at it?”

And so Hub looks at it and always says the same, “What the hell did you do to it? You must have changed something. This wouldn’t be happening otherwise.”

And of course I say, “I didn’t touch a thing. Honestly I didn’t. I changed nothing.” And it is the truth. I didn’t change anything.

Then Hub, who fully understands computer hardware, virus control, and all the other behind the scene aspects of computers, goes to my computer and does his bit of magic, and we are back up and running in good form. Sometimes it is simply manipulation from the keyboard, sometimes it is installation of a new bit of hardware, but when he attacks a troublesome computer, the trouble is normally short-lived.

Now one of the truly most enviable things in the mind of a computer is that, if it royally screws up, or gets a really nasty virus, Hub can subtract the computer’s moments of irresponsibility or disease and reduce its life to only the good times. He can erase the errors, the mistakes, the blight, and actually subtract from that computer the memory, and all of the segments of its irresponsible past that interfere with its performance.

I so often think now nice it would be if human beings could do that as well. This day it would be particularly nice to be able to so easily recant something I may have said.

But Hub tells me that being shut out from anothers blog cannot be cured in that way. That is their right, that is their choice, and without an e-mail address, there is nothing that can be done to re-establish contact.

Part IV – The Come Back

I am so utterly heartbroken. I cannot believe how heartbroken I am. It is stupid, utterly stupid, how sick at heart I am. At the same time I am so techy-dumb, dumb, (and forgetful as well), that I wonder if I could have changed something on my own page that caused this?

Anxiety over all of it plagues me like a nasty head-cold stuffling my mind. And then, a few days later, quite by chance, I notice in my archaic tracking system that although I can no longer visit my friend’s site, my friend had visited mine. Now I know, though I seldom do it, that if I highlight the site that visited me, occasionally that will take me back to their place. And so I try, and oh glory, it works. But now what?

The site name was not altered in any way, but nevertheless, I cut and re-pasted it on my links and suddenly we were back in business. No door slams in my face. No barred threshold or virtual voice screaming, “Get away, get out of here, and don’t ever, ever come back!”

But that is computers for you. They screw up and Hub thinks I did something to make them screw up. And as for me, I suspect he inadvertently did something to make it screw up. But he is as persistent that he didn’t change anything as I am.

So I have to accept that computers, like myself, are not always lucid. And within their incredible brains, they sometimes reflect in ways that cross signals and alter synapses. And in doing so wrack horror and rawness on people that is beyond belief.

And so now, as a final thought, if my friend really did want me out of there (which I am quite certain was not the case) – then all I can say is that, like the Salahis' at the White House Dinner, I too, have crashed the party.

But my mind is at rest that all is well. Since that horrible time, we have spoken often, and our conversations are as delightful and openly friendly as they ever were in the past. This was obviously nothing more than a friendship thwarted by some kind of inexplicable computer interference.

The Ejection, or should I say Rejection? (Part I-II)

2010-01-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

Part I – The Nightmare Begins

To begin with, I’m a strong believer in good courage. Of chucking one’s chin in and getting on with it. With the belief that things can only get so bad before they have to get better.

Still the courage I have is not always so deep-seated as I may lead others to believe. The self-confidence I have is not so deep-seated as I may lead others to believe. And the goodness I want to have. And the faith, appreciation, and strong work ethic, I want to have. I guess we’re all like that to a certain extent. If all our attempts to be all that we would like to be are not sufficient, we apply a bit of make-up to more than just the face.

Now I’m telling you this because I had a really raw moment a few weeks ago that I wanted so much to tell you about. But I hesitated to do that, because the rawness I felt at the time completely reduced to rubble the embodiment of courage that I need, and feel obligated to maintain.

And when I write in the moment of that kind of conviction, I can spread rawness like a wildfire, because rawness is pouring out of every cell of my body. And when that is the case, I feel like I could literally drown my readers in my own sorrow. But I am no longer saturated with that rawness and so I am finally ready to tell you what happened.
___

Part II – Me, and My Big Mouth

I have been blogging since March 2003, and since that time many blogger-friends have come and gone. Quite often there are clues in their final post. Some simply need to take a break. Others find a new significant other, move to a new job or locale, and suddenly fall silent. But the little clues of what happened to them are enough that I can deal with it. And yes, a few discontinue because of health reasons and when that happens I am very sad, yet all of it is understandable enough to accept.

What is harder to accept is what I am unable to understand. And so I was less able to accept the situation of going to a blogging site, that I frequent more often than most, only to find that I no longer had access. When I hit the link on my page, I got a message that said, “No Access”. When I googled the site, I got the same message – “No Access.”

But yet I had a rather strong confidence that this was not the type of person that would just disappear without a ‘fill-in’ or friend letting readers know what was going on. This was a person to ‘into blogging’ to just erase and shut down his/her rants. So what does that mean? It must be me. Me—and my always-at-an-obtuse-angle-big-mouth.

It must be something I said that was too sassy. I mean all I say in good humor, but what I say is easy to misconstrue. I must have somehow inadvertently put one foot in my mouth and the other over the line where enough is enough is enough.

I raked my mind and could think of nothing offensive that I might have said that would drive a person to such a radical reaction. I tried again and again to stop by, but it was like getting a door slammed in my face again and again. The discard of friendship and the bolted passageway hurt. And what also hurt was the foregone conclusion that I was not welcome there. Not wanted there. Like – “please leave and don’t ever come back!” There was nothing for it except my strongest suspicions that my ‘friend’ was still out there, but they were absolutely, completely, unalterably done with me.

I won’t tell you that I wept bitter tears. That sort of thing is too intimate and private to tell. I will tell you that I said to myself, in my extreme disappointment, that if I was so careless that this could happen, I best not blog. ‘Twould be best for me to shut it down, and go back to the furnace room and write only for the sake of writing, for myself, and no other.

To be continued....

Too 20th Century

2010-01-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

Now you just can’t take someone as reclusive as I prefer to be, and have been for the last three years, and yank them away from familiar things and redeposit them in the fast lane without some thought, consideration, and re-orientation.

Now Christmas usually gives me a jolt. That’s when small discoveries and new discoveries are revealed to me that can be most puzzling.

The grandchildren come wrapped in tiny wires with little boxes with buttons and sometimes ear phones, maybe heart monitors, for all I know, and yatter at high speed in excited voices about the new gift. But despite all their garbled speech of excitement as they wave it in the air, I have no idea what it is, what it does, or what is so entrancing about it.

They rush past me at the stoop, head straight to my living room, seat themselves in a chair, plant the thing in their laps, and then go into a trancelike state. I can’t help but wonder if what comes up on the screen is nothing more than a hypnotizing silver ball on a string swinging back and forth and a low beep whispering in digitized voice, “You are getting sleepy, very sleepy….”

And there they stay in their trance-like state till dinner call. And when I ask, no one got a doll, no one got a truck, no one got a book, no one got a watercolor set, in fact no one got a thing that looks like anything from the 20th century.
___

I tell you this just so you realize how out-of-the-loop I really am. But I guess that is to be expected for someone who has avoided public places, shopping malls, and the whir of the city for several years now. It is enough for me to make the dreaded trip to town every two weeks. It is enough for me to stop on that dreaded trip at the one-person post office, the 2-clerk drugstore, and the 3-clerk grocery store.

But on New Year’s Eve, all that changed. Hub and I went to the city to stay with Youngest Daughter (YD) for a few days. Her house was quiet, warm, peaceful, like my own so I was grateful that for the first couple of days YD and Hub left me at home while they went on cruise about, gad about, shopping trips. But they are schemers and behind the façade of quiet submission to my desire to maintain the reclusiveness I am used to, they were scheming to get me out and about.
___

The sessions of re-orientation to get me back into the swing of modern life and the real world started New Year’s Eve with an introduction to the World of Wii. YD and I played Wii golf, tennis, bowling, and even jazzed for a while with Wii rock band with guitar strapped to my chest.

It was fun at the time, but when our performance wound up, it was a bit discomfiting for me. YD was loudly applauded for her singing, while I was rudely booed off stage. They said it had to do with my guitar playing – it most definitely did NOT!!

They’re a bunch of dummies. The notes I played are important and add depth and a sweet resonance to the music and I played them for that very reason. Though other band members skipped over them. I played Minor chords at mostly appropriate times. And Minor chords are not so 20th Century as the younger crowd may think!

In the Wii World, the Sporting Wii World, I paid little attention to the avatar gawkers watching our games. I was too involved in technique and accuracy to worry about those little people scurrying about me. They probably poked fun at me then as well (because I’m old and less than graceful of movement), but I was oblivious to their disdain.

Then we went to a Wii Village and hung out. I thought that would be nice. In my youth I always liked sitting in a food court in a busy mall and people-watching and that is more or less what we did.

Watching the avatar inhabitants, I noticed that they wore brightly colored clothes (rather out of vogue with fashion in the real world) but none wore lovely plaid or paisley. I noticed they did not cluster with close friends as real-life mall-crawlers do. I also noticed they walked about with determination, like persons of independent will, strong mind, and strong purpose. Clusters only happened by chance when walkways were overcrowded.

I smiled cause I could tell they were happy little villagers. Friendlier, in some oblique way, than people in real life. Though not clustered in gangs, or hand-holding couplets, they happily looked about them for reasons to approach and interact with others.

It was, for me, quite comfortable mingling there. More so than in real life in a crowded mall or airport. I had no underlying dark suspicions of them, or they of me. I fit in so easily. I had no fear of being followed, harassed, or having my open purse rummaged behind my back. It was a nice place to hang out. Really it was. And I had a comfortable feeling that here friendships could be easily formed.
___

The next day Hub and YD started a marathon of cruise about, gad about, shopping trips and sight-seeing tours. They took the puppies to the park, and came home from their frequent circuits full of gay laughter and adventure.

But then, oh yes, on the third day, having run out of excuses why I should, and could not go, I was compelled to leave the house. So that is when YD and Hub dragged me away for a dreaded shopping trip. I bumbled after them through parking lots and crowded aisles, (where did all these people come from?), with panicky fear that I might get lost. Of course neither would hold my hand – that would be too 20th Century!

Eventually we went to an incredible shop with every nature of kitchen appliance and furniture ever invented. Then as I followed close behind, YD paused by a large black recliner and told me to sit down and relax for a moment or two.

I leaned back in the comfy chair and as I began to unwind, something, or someone gripped both my legs firmly with a warm embrace. And then knuckles crawled up both sides of my spine in a rolling, circular movement.

When they reached the back of my neck, the knuckles unfolded and paddle-hands gave my shoulder blades and neck a patty-pat like those given in family hugs. They caressed the back of my neck at the sides slowly first, then rapidly, but still gently. They patted and circularly stroked my back some more.

Meanwhile my legs were compressed in spurts that put me in mind of a forward making a pass at me under the table skirts in a crowded bar. My feet were elevated gently and then lowered. I felt the warmth of the other body caressing me. No pinch of the thigh, but a gentle rub and firm nudge rather than pinch – and yes, it was located on the fleshy part of my upper, outer thigh.

After a few minutes, the chair released its grip on my legs and pulled away and I knew my lover had left. I wanted him to come back. I wanted to oil my body and sit naked in that chair. (Did I say that out loud?)

Now maybe another day when tempers are worn thin, I might not have reacted as I did. But today was a particularly good day. I was so enjoying the company of both YD and Hub once I realized they were not going to allow me to get lost. They were both so affable. In extreme good humor and so mindful of my comfort that when we exited the shop, I looked sideways at Hub and grinned.

I had no wish to purchase that chair. None at all. And I knew that back home no dogged and unsurpassable niggling yen would rear whispering without abatement, “I want and need that chair.” That isn’t going to happen because I have all the delights of that chair in easy reach – though so 20th Century it may be.

I have the comfort of such caresses without spending in excess of two grand to get a warm hug, a patty-pat and a wee nudge in the fleshy part of my thigh. The chair is good, but somehow it still lacks something in the ambiance, though I have to admit, what it lacks is not easily understood or described. And seems to me, without a strong sense of inner soul, and spiritual intuition, one could too easily supplant the delights of one with the other – and perhaps find warmth and human comfort as much in a chair as in a physical embrace.

But I think you now see what is happening here. Through all these experiences I am getting up to speed. Getting back in the loop of life outside of my own reclusive world of reading, blogging, and weaving in knit stitch, crochet stitch, and tatting stitch, threads of 20th Century nostalgia.

And so then we went to another shop. Here we looked at virtual gardening lamps and plant trays. One growing kit was half-price although there was only one left. We bought it. Hub and I brought it home. Seeded some tomatoes in the magic, dirtless, compounds of nutrition, stabilizer, water, heat, and light. I picked up the empty box to discard it and saw written on the box, "Dirt is so 20th Century”

So despite all that I have done, despite all that I have seen, despite the avatars that sought to draw me in, despite the chair that wanted to love and comfort me, sadly I choose to remain in the 20th Century. I happen to like plaids and paisley, minor chords, flesh to flesh patty-pats, and dirt. But I wouldn’t mind having a few avatar friends if they are as dear to me as my blogging friends are!

Ships in Bottles

2009-12-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

I have always been completely fascinated by Ships in Bottles. I’m certain the very first clipper ship I ever saw was a miniature in a bottle.

I saw it at a house my parents visited when I was but a child. But to me, it was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. I never forgot how beautiful it was with its wee sails and rigging and every detail so exact. And yes it was on a blue ocean and there in front of a window, with bright sunshine lighting the interior of the bottle, it seemed all too real. And then, of course, the most fascinating enigma of all, was “How did they get that ship in that bottle?”

And so now, for Christmas, I found a very simple kit for building a ship in a bottle and bought it for my 7-year-old grandson. Now just because I have a great love, and fascination, with ships in a bottle will not mean that he has. There is no context in his experience to give him the same fascination.

So I wrote a wee book for him with ship poems, ship-in-a-bottle history notes, and my own story of my first encounter with the ship in a bottle when I was a child. I will spare you the reading of the entire book. I only want to share with you a silly poem I wrote for his little book.

SHIP IN A BOTTLE, SAIL SAFELY AWAY

They were sailing, fast a-sailing
In a sunbeam on the shelf
Sea a-foaming, sails a-billowing
Captained by a tiny elf.

They were rum-mied up and jolly
Singing songs of sailing fame
And I could not help but want so much
To join them in their game.

To face the sea from the upper deck
And see flat waters with a curve
They call’d to me, “It is your watch.”
I thought that quite absurd.

The tiny ropes were coiled up tight
Lifesavers in their places
The main sail billowed like a flying kite
With the ocean spraying traces.
___

I could not stay my little hand
The sea called out to me
So I took the ship down from the shelf
To sea what I could see.

I turned it over in my hands
To have a better look
And yes, I saw the captain there,
And I think I saw the cook.

I pulled the cork out of the bottle
Looked in that porthole small
Then suddenly the bottle slipped
I saw it bump the wall.

I scooped both hands so quickly
Down near the hard slate floor
And in a nick of time I caught
And saved the Misty Moor.

Tiny voices rummied up
All danced and cried with glee
And in that careless wreckless dance
They fell into the sea.

Before I could cast my tweezers
Down the tiny bottle-neck
I saw the cook throw out life savers
And say, “Get these round your neck!”

They grabbed the tiny lemon candies
The LifeSavers that were chucked
And so managed to keep a-floating
Till with tweezers they were plucked.

I pinched their trousers in the backside
And pulled them up on the deck
And again I heard that same small voice
Muttering, “What the heck?”

So now they’re back there in the cabin
Of the tall ship, Misty Moor
And I am very grateful that
With my help, they did endure.

When ships are built in bottles
The crafting lends a charm
That will safely keep the real ship
Forever free from harm.
____

Later on the radio,
I heard something very odd
The real Moor was so embattled
Only help could come from God.

They said she clashed with giant waves,
Round the coast of Cull Eldees,
There was little hope she could be saved
In those rough, tempestuous seas.

But a miniature in a bottle
Made with patience and with care
Gave salvation to the Big Ship
To escape the wild sea’s snare.

Because that mini-ship was bottled
The Big Ship was safe that day,
And the Misty Moor, at nightfall
Docked safely in the bay.

2009 Roberta Smith

Hope you enjoyed the poem.

Have a Very Happy Holiday Season!!

Untitled Thoughts

2009-12-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Today I write recklessly thoughts as they come. Too inebriated with concern to care how my thoughts are perceived. And what I’m so concerned about is ‘my golfer friend’ (may I call him that even though I don’t know him personally), and his wife. And what concerns me most is that adultery may not be as destructive to their two lives, as the media may well be.

Digging for dirt, digging for more dirt. With all that dirt flying reporters are missing the obvious. And the obvious, to me, is that any woman who would pursue her man in anger, with a golf club, and smash windows out of his car – cares. Very much cares. If she didn’t, she would simply fill another bowl on the coffee table with trail mix and settle down to watch a little television.

The two of them have money, and they have luxury, but what they don’t have is time in their busy lives for bonding and more importantly self-reflection. And in that self-reflection, that there is no time for, the understanding of responsible behavior to protect and uphold each other.

And because they don’t have that self-reflective time, neither can find within themselves the realization that despite what has happened, they care deeply about each other. That the livid rage stems from caring. That the heartbreak stems from caring. That the tree and the smashed window all stem from caring.

And furthermore, how can they know any of this when everyone is advising wife, that in order to preserve her good name, and her self-respect, she must leave him? And he, to preserve some slight semblance of dignity must scream from the rooftops what he has done. Neither of them need advice, review of past sins, and more advice. What they need is quiet time with their own thoughts. He needs time alone in his cave to realize the gravity of his actions, and ultimately, the realization that has not yet hit, that she is integral to his life and the well-being of both he, and his children.

Decisions need to be made, but they are decisions of the heart, and thus cannot and should not be based on society’s perception of fashionable dignity. No one, absolutely no one, knows the intimacy of another’s heart, or even their own heart, if they take no time or thought for critical examination.
____

I am drunk with worry. Seriously inebriated. But in this state I am a cranky drunk. Yes, infidelity is evil, no two ways about it. But one of the media persons that is all over the evils of infidelity, the lack of respect, etc. has a story of her own. She was married for a time to a great husband, a lovely understanding person, (who is still a close and dear friend), but she left the marriage because of a change in sexual preference.

So then, I begin to wonder theoretically. What led that individual to this new enlightenment? Would it be too much of a stretch for me to think that a hetero, could know this, could perceive this, have a certainty in this, without participating in a homo tryst? And if so, is that not infidelity? Or is such infidelity not considered infidelity because it is a seamless blend of a homogenous mix?
___
I know we have too many laws, but still we have not enough. There should be a law against all commentary of personal matters of the heart. It is every bit as necessary as a law against uncontrolled police pursuits. This is an uncontrolled pursuit and parallel in everyway to a police pursuit, that so endangers innocent bystanders, in this case, the children.

Famous or not, my golfer friend and his wife, have a right to examine, without interference, where they choose to go from here and be damned the issues of self respect, dignity, etc. in a society that thirsts more for blood than manna.

It seems to me that this harassment of their personal lives, only fuels the heartbreak they are already dealing with. In my mind, these two people, may well have hidden in all the turmoil, a deep affection that needs to grow, that needs to mature, and that needs to heal, and possibly could, if they allowed only their own hearts to advise them the path to take. But the media has buried all that in a mountain of dirty ‘good clean advice’. Even the uneducated man or woman on the street knows that in these situations, you don’t give advice. You simply listen and lend support for strength in the moment.

But in this instance, with all the advice being dished out, the divorce lawyer is too soon on the line.

Sufficient for Any Season - III (conclusion)

2009-12-14T03:02:00.000-07:00

Wounded Enough to Smile

Now all that I have told you so far is a multi-layered thing. And it is only now, in the writing of this, and in present reflective contemplation of my past, that I attempt to peal back the layers to find what drove me to be the kind of person I was.

And regrettably, if only somewhere along the way, I had done the level of inner reflection I now do, I could have done so much better. I could have been, in my youth, so much more the optimist, more the happy, more the dispenser of (sincere) smiles.

But all I can do now is discuss the experience and ponder over what might have been. A useless exercise so many will say, but if there is a story in it, I am a story teller, and I will tell the story.

And so, from that point on, rather than smiling, I took on a wounded countenance. As a teen I used my wounded countenance to flirt with cute boys. Of course it was a wounded countenance with sad, sad, eyes, and no hint of a smile. That proved to be a delicate exercise to get just right, the wounded look, without a scowl.

Now I can hardly bare to write this next sentence – in retrospect, it was such a dumb philosophy, but all I could calculate as a worthy measure at the time. The theory when it came to flirting? Make them feel sorry for you and they’ll ask you for a date. Be humble, be quiet, reserved, and act wounded.

But now I’m going to leave that and fast track ahead to one brief period of enlightenment along my long road of, for lack of a better word, stupidity. Not too many years ago, I encountered an old flame whose looks are now charred, as mine are, by gray hair, wrinkled skin, and the physical wasting and weakening ravages of time.

Now way back then, he was a prize, or so I thought, and so I looked him over and wondered what drew me to him. And immediately I realized it was his smile. His perpetual smile.

And wouldn’t you know it? Right then, in that chance meeting, so many years later, he handed me the gift mentioned in the beginning of this rant – that old familiar smile. And I felt the joy that the gift of a sincere (though somewhat foolish), smile can give. Jolted me back to the original story we discussed at the beginning of this rant.

So now I’m back in a space wavering between smiles and wounded looks. The wounded look cannot continue. I am forced to return to the original act of dispensing with unlimited generosity an abundance of smiles. Not smiles of big God grace, or movie-star pasted, or ‘see my nice teeth’ (though my new dentures are very nice indeed), but smiles of absolutely nothing more than true sincerity. Fundamentally because I have reached a point where I have nothing else to flash that will create a gift-exchange of joy equal to that discussed in a small classroom so very long ago.

And added to that, life has a fragility now that could cause it to so easily break, that it is silly to take it too seriously. And furthermore, I have so many more reasons to smile than look wounded. Because even without the beauty of my youth, and even with the pain of rheumatism and the discouragement of the sameness of routines and the bothersome chores and difficulties of each day, I have reasons to smile.

I smile now because the sky is so beautiful, the season so precious, the snow so white and fresh, and the weather all that it promised to be and more (Brr…). I smile because big scary global warming is happening, but not where I live.

On top of that, I smile because I have the comfort, security, and confidence that I understand where I once was, and where I am now. Truly, that is a reason to smile.

I smile too because compassion is no longer a happening. Try as I might, I can’t even put on a wounded look anymore. You have to be fresh and vibrant to do that.

A failing thing cannot apply a wounded look sufficient for anyone to notice.

Sufficient for Any Season - II (cont'd)

2009-12-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

The Wounded Look

In my analysis of other people, which I have been doing for a lifetime, more so than analysis of myself, I realized early on that sincerity coupled with wholesomeness has great appeal. There is no denying that. And so I returned to an examination of other facets of righteous, forever smiling, beautiful people like those depicted in my Sunday School paper.

And what I came to realize is that Godly people, (and perhaps even the un-Godly), if they are sincere in their role of a beautiful person, must, as part of that dedication to being a ‘beautiful person’, be compassionate to the nth degree. That is a necessary requirement for the ‘beautiful person’ commitment.

So in my struggle for popularity, acceptance, and joy in life, why not forget about the foolishness of smiling and instead simply reveal my need for compassion. Life is too worrisome to smile all the time, so why not put on a glum, serious face, and in doing so, buy into the compassion of the beautiful smiling people?

After all, my Father is a beautiful person, and he is compassionate when I am sad. My Mother is a beautiful person and she is compassionate when I am sad. Even my siblings, though not exactly beautiful people, become compassionate when I, for a certainty, am sad.

The bottom line is if one must smile with insincerity or foolishly, for the sake of a smile exchange, wouldn’t it be better to adopt a wounded look that invites doting compassion. And then smile with true delight while bathed in the compassion of others? Somehow, that seemed like a loftier perch than the equanimity of foolish and rather meaningless smile exchanges.

Seeking compassion, and receiving it, it seemed to me, could create a situation touching for all, and for me, only me, a dramatic saturation of joy in all my emotional hot spots.

And so, with that realization, I took on this wounded countenance. This glum look. This unsmiling look. This look that begged for compassion. And soon it became a way of life.

NEXT POST: Wounded Enough to Smile

Sufficient for Any Season - I

2009-12-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

1. Beautiful People

Today I’m thinking about a story told by my teacher (when I was in first grade), and a fascinating story it was. A story about something we all have in abundance. That caught my full attention because in my childhood the only thing we had in abundance was ‘want’. Want of money, want of food, want of warm clothes, and want of enough coal for the long winter.

And more surprising, the something in the story, though precious, was meant to be given to others fast and furiously, yet it could never be depleted. Because always as much as one gave away, the same, or more, would be returned. And the exchange, whether giving or taking, would bring much joy. How amazing is that!

Obviously, ‘This is either a new fairy-tale, or a pretend situation similar to the trick of my Dad pinching my nose and playfully extracting it between two fingers and putting it in his pocket. A story, like the extracted nose trick, that requires me to pretend something is real, that isn’t real.’

Pretend or not, the answer was eventually revealed, and the answer, of course, was ‘a smile’.

I was a wee bit disappointed but still I smiled at the story and so did my classmates and as we glanced (and smiled) at each other, for one quick moment the joy that the story promised for ‘the exchange’ was felt. True to the tale, but the recompense rather short-lived. And so I began to give much thought to the worth of smiles.

And that is when I noticed that in Sunday School papers there were always children who ceaselessly smiled. Children with ruddy glowing faces and great broad and beaming smiles.

I envied their beauty and could only think it was because they were wrapped in pure thoughts, silver notions, and God-possessed grace. The orphan child’s face, the forgotten waif’s, the thin hungry child – all of them – depicted with beaming beautiful smiles. It mattered not that they faced such obstacles. Regardless of their many trials, they peeked at me from those pages with optimistic delight. I guess if you have enough discipline, self-confidence, and righteous grace, it is not possible to be ruffled by want or cruel misfortune.

And so I envied their happiness. I envied their happiness when they had reasons to be happy. But I envied even more the individuals who were happy when they had so little to be happy about. It never occurred to me that their flat world of printed and color-washed sketches was too vastly separated from my reality to even have relevance.

I reveled in their glowing faces and broad smiles that made them so stunningly beautiful. That is what I wanted as well – to be that beautiful. So I tried desperately to clone the personalities revealed in the stories that surrounded them. I tried to clone their purity, grace, patience, forgiveness, and staunch self-confidence in their own righteousness.

But it was not so easy. Classmates taunted me for my valiant goody two-shoes efforts. Even my teacher became impatient, as did my parents and siblings, with this great and wonderful righteous thing I was trying to do.

___

And so, before long, I had a different take on the perpetual glowing smiling face. I was still a pre-adolescent when I realized that life is not something to be taken that lightly. Life is a struggle. A struggle to do well in school. A struggle to make friends. A struggle to feel good about wearing hand-me-downs, that are neither fashionable, colorful, fresh-looking, or warm. All of these obstacles added up to too much embarrassment and degradation for me to pass around smiles all day long without reservation.

Furthermore, as time passed, I met too many people that smiled too much. There was the nurse my Mom knew whose face was forever flushed with an ironic smirk-smile. A smile that deviously attempted to mask her distaste for all of life and the inhabitants in it.

And there was the Sunday School teacher that smiled too much in an attempt to clone wholesomeness beneath a private wealth of sins. And there was the School Bus driver that smiled too much in an attempt to always look professional (I guess). And there was the man and his team of perpetual smilers who walked the streets shaking hands and knocking at doors for several weeks in order to gain support for a local upcoming election.

There was the half-wit in town sweeping the sidewalks and perpetually smiling at some nonsensical nothingness. There was the neighbor who smiled all the time but in all things was such a failure because his smile was a cover for all he did not understand about finances, farming, or the seriousness of life. I began to think they were a bunch of fools. Foolish people smile all the time. People too foolish to realize life is serious business and all applications of it, serious as well.

Obviously, with these observations, I could only conclude that the value of a smile is both overstated and overrated, and so it quickly became a shabby accessory in my books.

_____

Cont’d: Next Post: The Wounded Look

The Evolution of Correspondence

2009-11-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

I see them everywhere. The many who so totally thrive and seem to be nurtured in some strange way by ‘word correspondence’. And yes, although my neighbours are all socially polished enough to ignore the newspaper on the kitchen table when they come for coffee, at the same time, in one short hour they will whip out cell phones every four minutes for a brief ‘read’ or more amazing yet, to write.

It is all, to me, such an amazing phenomenon. When did ’writing’ and ’reading’ become such a passion, such a delight, such a part of humankind’s existence? I would never have expected our species to come to this.

I remember my Mother nagging us when we were kids to send a note to Grandma to thank her for the new doll, or a note to Aunty for inviting us for the weekend. We cringed and wailed and held back hoping she’d forget it. She had to be kidding. Expecting us to go to school everyday, and write all those words and figures and then on an evening or weekend to be expected to send written correspondence to someone. Yikes.

Eventually, with all the nagging, the girls in the family might eventually send an un-inspired floral card. But with the boys, it was a useless battle, like expecting them to wash their ears once a week -- Not going to happen!

And yes, we were all keen to have a pen-pal. I enlisted several. Did I write to them? Not so much. A couple of grand epistles and that was the end of that. And even dear friends that moved away. The written exchanges dwindled away rapidly.

And I remember in school when the English Lit assignment was a short paragraph. An audible sigh of objection swept through the classroom that mimicked that same collective sigh heard when the health nurse arrived and we were all advised we were going to get a shot. And if the assignment was 200 words, the wail was a grand duplication of anguished souls in a great pit of fire.

Nothing was quite so degenerating as a request to write something down. We object, we scoff. We know full well what is, or isn’t, a waste of time. And written correspondence is a complete waste of time.

Reading, likewise. But without the luxury of television, we will read comics of a Saturday morning. Yes we will. But assigned reading? Not so much. For the book report, the art of it was to read a bit of the introduction, a page in the middle, and the final chapter all of which sufficed for that assignment. But even that was too much for most of the boys. They shuffled their feet under their desks, they agreed the book report was due, but even at that, no such attempt ever saw the light of day.

Hub was in the same Lit class with me when we were in school, and I know it is true, when he says he did not submit one written assignment during the entire year. He did not, nor did other boys in that class of the same ilk. In those days there were no bigger nerds, than the savages that devoured text or spit it out for love of it. No fashion in it, no style, no sophistication, no class, no koolness.

But now, look around you. Texting, texting, everywhere, without a chance to think. Talk about a savage perusal of written language. People, both young and old, of all genders, are tweeting, twittering, texting, like fiends out of control. And the necessity of doing it ranks right up there with the need for food, water, and shelter.

Texting is totally swank. Written exchanges are welcome and heartily engaged in whether one is eating, sleeping, driving, socializing, sexing, or on the john. When and how did this all happen?

And the amazing thing is the art of texting parallels, in a crazy way, that of the book report aforementioned. It has less to do with content and more to do with speed, terseness, compaction, and overall efficiency.

But even more an enigma, is my position in this new clime of correspondence. I don’t text, but I’m in there. Doing the trendy thing with my writing and blogging.

Yet, even in this new clime, among my circle of friends that are texting someone, somewhere, every four minutes. And same friends that are simultaneously aware of my passion for writing and aware that I have a secret blog. These same, reportedly, among themselves, with sadness that precipitates dewy eyes, express an ongoing and painful concern about the mental deficiency that drives my passion for written text on a daily basis. Go figure!

The Roberta Speaks to You of ‘The Inequality”

2009-11-19T01:48:00.000-07:00

Lend your ear. “The Roberta” has something to say.

To start with it amazes me how we beat away at the pendulum of racial bias, social injustice, political incorrectness, etc. and seems the more we beat it, the farther out of whack it becomes.

We push it and push it away from the bad, towards the perceived good, never mindful that it can be pushed too far the other way. And then, in the end, there is no balance, no sensible sway, and it is way out of perpendicular.

But one thing about it, it has left us all with a truly refined understanding of social injustice and discrimination. No one can deny that. The media daily reviews and renews our understanding of inequality and injustice. And the schools incorporate this mind-set into students whether the discussion be centered around communication, living skills, history, or anti-bullying.

Should be good, should be well. Should make all of society the best it can be -- should it not?

But now, there is a new style of discriminatory address, nomenclature, that I feel compelled to discuss. Saw it on television two days in a row. So, seems to me, it is catching on fast.

First it was Donald Trump. In case you are unaware, Donald Trump is no longer Donald Trump. He is now “The Donald”. And furthermore, Oprah is no longer Oprah, she is “The Oprah”.

And so, why should it matter? I’ll tell you why it matters. It creates a status, a bias, a separation, an inequality of these people with the rest of us. Maybe not in a negative way for them, but in a negative way for the rest of us. Why? Because “The”, (simple word that it is) means very distinct, unlike any other.

The distinctiveness of ‘the’ speaks of a uniqueness unequalled. Even titles of “Queen”, “President”, and “Duchess” are less powerful or separating, because there are more than one of them. They belong to a group, a rather large group if the history of the world is taken into account.

But with “the”, there is no group, no fraternity, brotherhood, or even clan. “The” specifies something completely unique. Simple example would be if I direct your attention to ‘the pen’ I hold in my hand, ‘the’ signifies no other though there may be many pens equal and alike in every respect.

___________

Now I don’t know Donald Trump well enough to know if he could ever get it. His forte, according to him, is being able to spot a beautiful woman and “inappropriate” speaks to him of a sexual act rather than anything else. With that kind of restrictive thinking, I don’t think he would get it.

But Oprah? That is a whole different story. She has heart and spirit and human understanding, and I am truly disappointed in her if she can’t see that this kind of thing speaks of discrimination and inequality of persons. I would have thought she’d have no part of it.

And that’s ‘~~The~~ Roberta’s’ spiel for today.

Another Strain of Influenza

2009-11-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

In “Little Dorritt“, Charles Dickens makes some surprising observations about a strain of Influenza, still spreading, still infecting, that humankind chooses to ignore. Dickens explains it here:

“…it is…as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical one…
…such a disease…will spread with the malignity and rapidity of the Plague...
[and]…the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most unlikely constitutions…
[this is]…a fact as firmly established by experience as [the fact] that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere.”

And from there Dickens goes on the say:

“A blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind, if the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent disorders are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in close confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is communicable.”

Of course, even though the disease is far more rampant today than it was in Dickens’ time, ‘smothering’ is not the kind of archaic cure that modern society would ever consider. We have only those few local governments that still call for a death penalty for the sickest of the sick. For the rest, a shot in the arm, immunization of the yet still uninfected, is all we can hope for, to effect a cure.

But the problem is, that for scientists to create a vaccination, they need weakened or dead vestiges of the ‘organism’ that initially caused the disease, and where can that be found?

Certainly not in woods or fields. Certainly not in fowl of the air, or fish in the sea. There are no creatures of land or water or air who have the self-same evil strain of the moral influenza flagrant among people.

And in humans, the murderers, perverts, and predators, never fully recover enough (despite rehabilitation programs), for the microbes within to weaken or die in order that these same microbes can be extracted from framework or phlegm and used as an effective base for immunization.

There are no weakened or withered vestiges of the evil that corrupts our government, theatres, television screens, churches, cities, or even isolated communities to be found. All causal microbes are alive and well.

So with immunization out of the question, see what a hopeless situation we are in.

Nothing for it…short of Dickens’ suggestion… “summarily (meaning immediately and without attention to formality) …smothering!”

Back to Blogging with a Vengeance

2009-11-05T00:39:00.000-07:00

Looks like I’ve completely run out of excuses. The garden is done, the yard work is done, veggie and fruit preserves done… I even have a brand new laptop that talks to both printers from the kitchen through some kind of invisible aura, but, despite all this, the blogging is not getting done.

In the knitting basket, there are socks getting done, and slippers getting done, but still the blogging is not getting done. There is Christmas shopping getting done, but no blogging getting done.

Hub is a bit dejected. Thinks I don’t appreciate the new laptop cause he can easily see the blogging is not getting done. And he knows that since 2003, blogging has been so important to me, and now of a sudden, the blogging is not getting done.

I think the real root of the problem is I am quite distressed by what is happening in this old world. The news I heard the other day has investigators, once again, looking for a missing child. This time a 7-month-old babe weighing, according to HNN’s newscasts, 10 pounds. According to the parents, the child went missing from their bedroom while they were sleeping.

Now as sad and distressing as these situations are, I find it comforting to know that the people discussing the situation on newscasts have more intelligence than I. I am comforted when they think of things that I would never think of to solve a case. But now I am quite distraught when, with this particular case, I realize they know so little.

In all their panels of expert detectives, lawyers, medics, newscasters, none zeroed in on the most significant up-front fact in this story. To me, the most outstanding detail in this mystery of the missing baby, described by her family as a little girl with a very big head, is that if a child seven month’s old weighs only 10 pounds, of course she will have a very big head.

And if she weighs only 10 pounds, it is obvious what happened to her. She physically faded away, before her body was hidden, taken, whatever the case may be. I would think any common-sense individual would know that unless a child has a serious hormonal imbalance that affects their growth, what child, at seven months, would weigh only ten pounds?

And so, then what distresses me even more is the realization that we seem to have become a culture that lives with a greater cloud of dread and fear of obesity, than our will and effort to promote good health. We have come to fear obesity to such an extent, that our children are bloody hungry. I see, in shops and on the streets so many babies that are so thin, so tiny, so delicate like porcelain dolls. I ask how old they are and am so shocked at how much older they are than what they look.

Doctors are not helping. Both of my daughters were told by their doctors not to feed their children any solid food until they were 5 or 6 months old. I am so grateful they ignored this advice. Their children got food at two months old and despite Nancy Grace reiterating again and again in the last few days that “babies do not sleep in”, this is not true. Babies can and do sleep in.

When they have had sufficient Pablum to hush hunger demands for eight hours, they will sleep ‘like babies‘ through the night at three months old.

I am just so offended that we do all those seatbelt safety checks, all that monitoring of childhood safety with toys, and bouncers, cribs and highchairs and rockers, and while all this is going on, children are not being adequately fed.

I know what hunger feels like. It is the most anxious, unsettling, empty feeling that one can have. A anxiety that is hard to label and understand. Especially when the child becomes a young toddler and parents are barking, “What’s the matter with you? Stop the whining. You had your supper!”

Meanwhile the clock says half-past midnight, and that very small stomach was last filled at 5:30 p.m. and of course by now is quite empty.
___________

Yes, I am disheartened, sad, and crabby. Anxious and unsettled with a great empty feeling inside. But it is not hunger that makes me feel this way. It is sadness for children who are so helpless, so wholly dependent on our care and good will. I don’t think that legally one adult can force another to diet without ‘permission’, but kids and babies, that’s a whole different story. You must keep them safe, and keeping them safe, is to make sure you never, never, never, feed them as much as they would like.

Ten Things I Never Told You

2009-10-28T02:18:00.000-06:00

I prefer curiosity that I am not in a condition to satisfy

I prefer markers of time lowered into deeper pockets
Buried and ignored

I prefer deviations peculiar to dreams --but still
I prefer to be found in my wrapper by my nightmare

If I cannot sleep, I prefer to cry myself better in a pillow,
(when I haven’t any tissue, And I haven’t any sleeves)

I prefer to give testy dialogue a grand poke in the middle

I prefer to name ‘Monday’ and leave the rest anonymous

I prefer the oblique separation of rain falling in slanted lines

I prefer a world dimensionally narrow

I prefer oblivion to the fact that I am out of place

Most of all I prefer the particularities and generalities of a gloomy life with bright glories of fancy.

Burrowing Deep - Part II

2009-10-22T12:17:00.000-06:00

A Holistic Conclusion

Now just in case you’re thinking, after reading Part One of this rant, that this is going to be another of Roberta’s sermons, advocating religion and God belief, let me assure you that is not the case.

You may leave ‘The Good Book’ on the dusty shelf, because there are other books that build conscience, (dare I say way more effectively than even that one?). But, like so many other things I have mentioned, these books too are collecting dust – no longer in vogue.

Foremost in my mind are Charles Dickens’ books. Charles Dickens is the strongest advocate I have ever read that makes me fully aware of the pain of hopelessness, poverty, bullying, and cruelty in all its aspects. I truly believe if his books were required reading in elementary schools, there would be no bullying, violence, or cruel taunting of other children. In surprising ways, Dickens’ books mold the best of an ethical conscience without Biblical reference.

Now I wonder if you will allow me for just one brief moment to deviate from the topic at hand. I have wondered and tossed around in my mind for most of a lifetime, whether it is fair to a critically ill or injured individual to let them know for a certainty that their transition is near at hand or if one should slide around the issue.

After reading about the devastating hopelessness of young boys in Dickens’ book “Nickolas Nickleby”, I finally have an answer to the question. No matter what the situation, no one has the right to take away, (or falsely add to) an individual’s hope, regardless of how fleeting or short-lived that hope may be. In that, I’m sure many would disagree, but I’m just saying that is the conclusion I have come to. Each and every separate individual must be allowed to keep whatever primeval and fundamental hope they have within themselves – without outside tampering. There is a kindness in allowing the primeval and fundamental hope within oneself to be left alone.

One of the biggest reasons it just isn’t fair to tamper with a person’s ‘hope’, is because ‘hope’ authors courage and wee moments of joy in the direst of circumstances.

Now with that discussion now concluded, let us return to the original topic. So while others seek ethical guidance in The Good Book, Dickens gives his readers a fuzzy soft heart without them wanting it, seeking it, or expecting it.

And so, now you may argue, “Is this so different from ethics taught through prepared flow charts, manuals, self-help books, and workshops?”

Indeed it is different. Because at no time does Dickens provide instruction. He simply provides for the reader an organic diet of the personal experiences of children, adults, families, and society as a whole, without ethical processing, refinement, or preaching.

If you are only aware of Dickens “A Christmas Story”, you probably wonder what I am yapping about. Well, to be quite honest with you, although the story touches on ethics of generosity and caring, it is the story I least like of all Dickens’ work. Just way too much fiction and fantasy in that story for me particularly because I was born so drenched and saturated in fantasies of my own.

But Dickens’ books are not the only books capable of doing what his books do – but his and other such books are no longer in vogue. The libraries have been pretty well cleansed of the books that tell raw and holistic stories of the hopelessness of the starving beggar, the orphaned child, the forgotten waif, or the betrayed love one. Discarded to make way for synthetic wizards and relationships of caricatures with generic souls and superficial conscience whose greatest trial is loss of flight or a spell convoluted by the unexpected interference of a purple haze.

And so my brain aches for some tiny miraculous sign from heaven or earth that we might find out way back to nobler hearts for the sake of ourselves, and the successors of the present generation. But I see nothing to give me ‘hope’ as I meander about soberly with head downcast to protect the magic wizard-like lens in one eye from the sun. And so I have decided to take off my glasses and look upward and allow the sun to magnify the heat in my brain the same way that the organics of the human mind have been artificially magnified by the application of technical and chemical interference.

And, as earlier stated, if what ‘they say’ is true, the magnified burn applied to my eye will reduce to ashes the anxieties in my brain. After all, the road I walk, is not so long that I need these dismal thoughts laboring there.

Burrowing Deep - Pt. 1

2009-10-15T10:34:00.000-06:00

Behavior Patterns 101

Oh, a blazing sun is a great rarity here, but today is as hot as a brimstone pit. I long to stare at the sky, knowing I should not. Knowing full well that the artificial lens transplanted in my right eye acts like a magnifying glass that could easily and quickly smolder a tunnel into my brain. But maybe, that is just what I need to do.

Since eye-repair surgery, I am no longer in the habit of staring at things overhead – sun, clouds, and sky. I don dark glasses with ritual faithfulness all days and walk about with bowed head looking at my feet. Staring only at ground cover, turf, leaf mold, and soil. But more so, each day, as an elderly with a rotting brain, fading memory, and a fuzzy mind, I want to look up. It’s beginning to seem that a hollowed-out brain, consumed by smoke and fire is of little consequence.

I want to look up because there are things in my gray matter that perhaps a bonfire could cure. Starting with that anxious deep-seated belief that the world is close to utter destruction. An odd sort of destruction – destruction of humanity, not by atomic or cosmic force, and not by flood or fire, or the hand of an impatient creator, but insidiously through the destruction of what we feel and how deeply we feel it.

I believe the days of Armageddon began when researchers began ripping apart the magic and mysteries of life. When they began burrowing into investigations of DNA, brain cells, pheromones, ascendants, descendants, etc. until in their polished wisdom they refined all human behavior and relationships as chemical interactions rather than raw and organic spiritual phenomena.

So now the manual for ‘crafting behavior patterns’ is a mixture of Science, Physics, and Math – minus – for all time – ‘fuzzy emotions’.

I don’t have to tell you or anyone that fuzzy emotions are no longer part of the mix. Fuzziness is out of vogue. So far out of vogue that our present generation knows nothing of fuzziness. They don’t know it, can’t feel it, and fail to understand it. It no longer even rates as a topic for jest.

And so no longer are marital intentions ruled by holistic fuzzy emotions. The new non-organic and highly refined process is ruled by what one’s intended eats, where they work, how often they exercise, what vehicle they drive, and the health of their teeth.

Marital intentions also have much to do with taught, practiced, and reviewed verbal expressions of sensitivity, and taught, practiced and reviewed rituals such as bouquets for anniversaries, and scheduled post-marital date nights. And through these lessons, fuzziness of the heart has been replaced in all its wondrous aspects by physical expectations and rituals, rather than the sweet tug of hearts and souls intertwined. But then, let’s face it, hearts and souls intertwined are no longer in vogue, or understood as well.

I guess this is what happens when behavior patterns are converted into hard learning through charts and data, rather than through internal, and oh-so-vital connections and convictions. Weird how we clamor for organic food and alternative and holistic medicine for our physical bods, but for the soul we only want a highly processed (and somewhat toxic) mix minus the organics of raw conscience and warm, soft, and fuzzy flavor. But then as I have already mentioned, touchy-feely is out of vogue and so is soft and fuzzy.
_________
And so, the loss of a raw and organic conscience and conviction is what happens when the mysteries of life are converted into lab language and reactions.

Yet, prior to today’s sophisticated and over-refined interpretations, when ‘unrefined behavior’ was not fully understood or analyzed from a biological perspective, when it was raw and organic, when it was such a great mystery and enigma, the strength of that monitor of behavior was so much more than it might otherwise have been.

I am witness to that. I saw with my own eyes when the organic conscience, that once was, could crush and break the hearts of wicked individuals with more writhing and pain than an electric chair. And I saw with my own eyes that same conscience, that once was, bestow bountiful joy and peace on those individuals who allowed it to gently guide their way. But that kind of behavior patterning is also out of vogue.

And so, today’s disfavor of violence, bullying, and cruelty; and alternatively favor of positive family intermingling learned from lessons without organic connection, lessons in an academic vein, generic, book learned, superficially planted in mind only, fail to truly alter disposition, or character.

And so such lessons (or should I call them calculations?), rather than burrowing deep into the spirit of individuals, and planting deep seeds of conviction, that can never be compromised, or ignored, are instead superficially splashed on an individual’s exterior, like moisture sprinkled on water-repellent canvas. ‘Good behavior’, manufactured or generic, is accomplished for the moment, but it can be shed at will. There is no inner saturation and so in the end, no certain or everlasting rendering of a delightful disposition of charity and generosity.

NEXT POST: A Holistic Conclusion

Fly Poopies on My Toast

2009-10-02T13:35:00.000-06:00

It’s quite okay that with aging my flesh has thinned and paled, my hair grayed, and that I have persistent and hardy curly black hairs descending from my chin, and the flesh on my neck is folding. I am not a vain person and I prepared myself to accept these changes with good grace…and I have.

But hey, there are other things going awry that I cannot so easily accept. And one of them, most annoying, most disconcerting is how something with a brain less big than an atom can drive me to such distraction. And how something can so rule my life. And so seriously challenge my sanity by squatting forever near me and casting its glossy eyes on me while rubbing its hands together with evil glee and sticking out its tongue at me with such obvious disdain.

And should I, for one moment, ignore his presence, he alights on my hair or flesh and walks about as if wearing hob-nail boots. He might be tiny, but you immediately know he is there – clomp, clomp, clomp.

So now this is what haunts every minute of my day and in the haunting has thoroughly crushed my confidence, courage, and control. For two long days he and I have been sparring. In my youth, I use to quickly take control of such a situation. But I am now an ‘elderly’ and I can only think it is because of that that I constantly and clumsily and fruitlessly misfire the fly swatter at that one annoying housefly.

No one ever told me that the ultimate curse of being an ‘elderly’ would be the sad day when I would have to give up in frustration on the killing of a housefly. And that someday I would become, in this combat, the weakest link, leaving me with only one ultimatum.

To cover my toast with a napkin and cup my hand over my mug while meekly and submissively horking down my food and drink as quickly as possible.

Sucked in by Another Addiction; Drowning in Another Passion

2009-09-25T14:09:00.000-06:00

Yahoo! Anybody there?

Yes, I’m still here. Not often though. Another passion has taken over with burning fervor. I keep hoping (and so does Hub), that I’m fairly close to burn out.

Some days I feel I’m very close. Other days, when the tiles are the best that tiles can be, I’m pretty sure not. But if, and when, burn-out happens, I know what I will do. I will do what I have always done since I lost the competitive spirit of my youth.

I will eventually leave. And on my day of leaving, with no real destination in mind except the comfort and familiarity of places I have known, I will tread the circular pattern of someone lost for a time in life, ambition, and spent passions, but eventually returning to the comfort of my Blog.

But right now, I’m kind of stuck where I am with this feeble excuse. I’m not often going back and forth, because one cannot go ‘back’ without first going ‘forth’. And so in the meantime, despite a heavy ‘nebula’ (Note: good Scrabble word) of guilt, I am hanging out way too much at “Word Biz.com”, my pseudonym is “Keat”, and I am busy, very busy, playing Scrabble.

So if you’re missing me, like I’m missing you, come play a game or two with me. Just ask for ‘Keat’. We can drink coffee, play Scrabble, socialize, and tweet, rather than twitter. And perhaps some new word or bit of tweet will lend itself to the subject matter for a new Blog-rant.

Or, if you prefer to be helpful in another way, Hub would much appreciate any hints, or solid 2-step plans, to cure my latest out-of-control addiction before it drives him to complete distraction. Escape is complicated when one is trapped in an addiction that clutches most firmly lovers-of-words.

The Inspirational Phenomenon

2009-09-10T13:47:00.000-06:00

Often I find that writing inspirations are born in my mind, at an ungodly hour, with such intensity they arrive kicking and screaming. Minuscule in size, but with the strength of Charles Atlas (or the strength of that other guy that holds up the world with slightly folded legs and hunched back under the strain).

And so, when inspiration comes with that kind of intensity, I am certain the newly birthed, crudely formed Phenomenon in my mind, when bathed and the umbilical cord cut, will be an utter thing of beauty and wonder that will live forever.

And despite the torrid slime of birthing fluids, even in its naked rawness, the Phenomenon looks good, sounds good, and is bright with an aura of thought provocation. I am certain, that it is a notion so inspirational that it will fit nicely into my own lifetime legends and equally as nicely into the external long-term consciousness of society as a whole. No doubt, when properly groomed, and securely kenneled, it will hold forever a shining place in my catalogue of writs (or should I say 'wits'?).

And when I blog this new inspiration, even come-by-chance-flat-minds will read my rant with blasé-ity, and in the midst of that read, the flatness of their conscience will be whipped into 30-foot-swells that will leave them forever mindful of the new notion—with a magnitude that renders a zealous wonder-dipped combo, of brutal soul-ache and singing joy.

Already I am imagining, some time in the future, the finely-dressed-in-text Phenomenon taking up a space on Book Store shelves reserved only for works, once so sophisticated, but now so much less formal than mine, of Billy Shakespeare, Jeffy Chaucer, Johnny Keats, and of course, my close friend, Chuck Dickens. Obviously there is no time to lose. The Inspirational Phenomenon must be penned, texted, and shared.

So 30 minutes later, after the birth of the Phenomenon, I run to my computer.

But already the prose composition, that the infant thought was going to form, is pretty much de-composition-ed. And though weak and fading fast, the Phenomenon still has strength enough to shun (though I apply with mighty force) attempts to manage and check its struggles with a sharp pen (usually so efficient) and close iron-meshed text—but alas, to no avail. The Phenomenon is too intent on plunging free and unfettered—for me to hold it, for me to pen it. And so it slips out of my grasp in its rawness and still unrecognizable form, to some other individual hungry for inspirational thoughts.

And, of course, we know what will come of that.

Again it will pervade a mind, and play the ‘Provocative Phenomenon’. Again, by another’s hand, a penning attempt will be made. Again, it will kick and throw verbs and adverbs, similes, even rhymes about, with a force phenomenal as itself. And yet again, with unequaled strength, it will blunt the pen, knock down carefully meshed walls of text, and rage away, until escape is managed, though it be weak, broken, and now of no particular matter or interest to anyone.

That Which is Fact and That Which is Fiction

2009-09-01T11:49:00.001-06:00

It’s easy to believe that touching a blue spot on paper each morning can put one in protective custody for the rest of the day. And that a bowl of oranges on the table can provoke congeniality within a household. Or metal bracelets can relieve physical distress, or potions of the most unlikely mixes of raw ingredients can relieve pain. Or practicing mental stretches of thought can provoke a life of wealth and success, and vitamin supplements of unknown origin can extend earth life, and a dab of frog-sweat on the epidermis can cure skin disorders.

Yet, in this mix of unscientific and trumped-up unproved convictions, why can’t we wrap our silly heads around a belief in a loving and supreme creator though it seems to me, in light of these other convictions, it should be easier than easy.

But of course one has to understand that if our magical and mystical potions do not work, there are good and valid reasons. Most obvious is probably because our biological make-up is too alkaline or too acidic. Other easily understood reasons – the blue spot is too dusty, or the metal bracelet was too close to an electronic device that drained its power. Or the potion was contaminated with a metal spoon, or our mental stretches were too fragile, or the frog sweat was collected prior to sunset, etc.

But really, there’s no problem when these things fail. It is easy to accept that such therapies waver in heat, and cold, and light, and temperature. And of course, it is understandable, as well, that these are therapies that only work for some of the people some of the time.

Still, let me remind you, that these are convictions about potions and rituals that are regularly and forever collaborated in a reasonable way by others in the group who have been cured and cleansed of a depressed mind and ill-health by following the prescribed regimen with dedicated resolution. And furthermore, small moments of doubt, of faltering disbelief, are usually not long-lived. Not with a common sense approach that sets a proper context for standards. When these remedies fail, so what?

It is undoubtedly our own fault. We obviously erred in the application.

On the other hand, when it comes to the God-thing, we are intellectual and reasoning realists. In light of that, we are totally unable to accept a fairy-tale God without solid proof. Since the Big Bang Theory, drop it. There is no collaboration in the God-thing provided by trees, breezes, flowers, and sunsets.

And of course, if there is a God, he/she is unquestionably obligated to benefit our being ALL of the time – with unsurpassable perfection and profuse blessings. We can’t have none of the wavering that accompanies our other collection of deeply embedded and ever expanding convictions.

What excellence in critical minds, rational minds, thoughtful minds—like ours, that have sufficient wisdom to so wisely filter out that which is fact and that which is fiction.

Proof There Still Exists Obliging (and Efficient) Clerks

2009-08-24T13:11:00.000-06:00

Now not all blogs are as provocative as I would hope. But still each is...in some miniscule way.

This story is about an obliging store clerk trained well in public relations. It started when an item caught my eye in this week’s grocery flyer – “Breakfast sausages thawed for your convenience” –at a giveaway price.

Now Hub and I might eat 2-4 sausages at a sitting, so I thought to myself, “I need to buy some of these. Not ‘thawed for my convenience’, but frozen.”

So I went to grocery meat counter and asked for the sausages on sale – “frozen, if you don’t mind.” The attendant rummaged the cooler.

“Truly sorry, madam,” he said, “but we have no frozen sausages.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Still thanks for looking.”

I turned to leave. The attendant caught at my sleeve. “Wait,” he said. “Are you able to come back tomorrow?”

“Certainly,” I said. “Will more be coming in tomorrow?”

“No,” he said. “But I will freeze some for you tonight and you can pick them up tomorrow.”

Not too many employees in retail outlets that obliging, are there? Also not too many butchers so poorly trained in fitting ways of handling fresh meat.

Commiserations No. 2

2009-08-15T14:33:00.000-06:00

Still here. Up to my neck in beets, beans, and chard. Picked high bush cranberries – made jelly. Picked saskatoons – made jelly. Made borsch, beet pickles, and mustard bean pickles. Tucked in the tomatoes last night after frost forecast (in the middle of August, in the middle of global warming ???, no less.).

Thankfully my garden escaped the frost as it is well sheltered by trees, but a chilly 2 degrees Celcius around 4 o’clock this morning tells me there was frost in some of the surrounding areas. And that will mean a lot of my neighbours will not be so lucky. Only exceptions—the ones whose gardens have already been picked clean by the locusts.

Gardening has got to be something to love to hate and hate to love. It brings personal-satisfaction, personal rejection, joy, frustration, inspiration and exhaustion all in one sometimes dragged out, sometimes condensed, little disassembled unit. I’ll be glad/sad when it is all over for another year.

Meanwhile my new garden potatoes, wrapped in heavy cream, and fresh dill are calling me for lunch.

The Book of Common Commiserations – No. 1

2009-07-28T12:55:00.000-06:00

My newest writing effort is a book of commiserations. I will only know how many I have as we proceed. I call them ‘Commiserations’ because they are laments of common, rather than uncommon situations, that I share in order for others to feel their own common laments are shared and understood.
___

I can’t believe how numb men are. Numb, I said, not dumb. Hub cannot feel a mosquito on his neck or a stroking touch on his back or arm. Not too surprising because when he comes in from the shop he often looks as if he has been physically assaulted. Deep cuts on his hands, sizable abrasions on his arms and extensive bruises on his legs. I examine the damage and worry about infections. “These wounds need to be treated and bandaged,” I say.

“What wounds?” is his response. He usually doesn’t even know he has any.

But this morning he is in a real flurry.

He yelled for the wife, the needle, the light, the tweezers, the gauze, and the alcohol, than twisted his hand 340 degrees around so the small shaft of sunlight coming through the window shone directly on the inside of his pinky finger. No it was not that he imbedded a 3” screw into his hand – he had a sliver. With those rough, I won’t say work-worn, but generic work-worn hands, I could not believe he could even feel it. With my new bi-focals, I still couldn’t see it. I could have zeroed in on a small red pimple of infection but there was none.

Still the pain, oh God, the pain – must have been akin to child labour. One hand on the table in the shaft of sunlight and the other gripping the chair with white knuckles and feet braced so firmly on the floor, he occasionally levitated. He tried to remain still, while his torso writhed in agony and his breath came in fast sharp pants. He tried to be brave as I rotated the needle over, as in above, the ‘injury’ and waited for him to calm a bit.

A couple delicate picks of the needle, and there it was. The relief on his face surpassed even that of seedy individuals I sometimes see standing amidst an ever-fading, while enlarging, yellow bloom of water in the public swimming pool. (And I was so certain nothing could surpass that look of relief).

We of course had to disinfect Hub’s bloodless, microscopic wound seven times and sympathetically suggest that he might want to take it easy for a day or two.

Oh, and the sliver. You must see the sliver. Here it is…right here (at the tip of the arrow, but for God's sake, stand back! I don't want it to poke ye in the ey!!) --->

Of course now we understand, don’t we – how brave and courageous Hub is!

Fresh-Cut Flowers in the Hall

2009-07-20T00:15:00.000-06:00

I remember how difficult it was, when I was a child, to avoid picking all those flowers, spread at my feet, there for the picking—lovely, delicate, easy to grasp, hand-height for a little one, and as a result softly brushing my fingertips, and so easy to uproot (if the stem did not easily give way). I found it hard to ignore a thing so fragrant, so colorful, and so delightful.

So yes, I am the guilty one. I picked way more tame flowers than I ever should have. My mother thought it was an incurable obsession with me. She thought I was a flower-picking-addict.

But with so many reprimands, reminders, and a bit more maturity, I finally quit ripping up other’s flowers. In fact, somewhere along the way, I came to view cutting domestic flowers as a sin of damnation. And so, with that awareness finally soundly instilled within my mind, flowers were left in the garden. The only few that made their way into my house were the broken off, or over-weighted, or the lying on the ground, or those sure to suffer an early death by an untimely frost. Occasionally wild flowers, and of course, in addition to that, those ‘few’ bouquets that came from a flower shop for a special occasion or to sooth a particularly vicious attack of PMS.

But now, more recently, I’ve come to realize that flowers have a sharing purpose that mimics the sharing joys of steadfast friends. As a child, summer visits with friends, were always accompanied by a leisurely stroll in the garden. This was the entertainment…the sharing…the happening…the event of the visit. It was assumed, and I guess forever it has been, that the purpose of flowers is to allow the gardener or grower to ultimately partake of the beauty, fragrance, color, and exquisite form of the flowers with others, in a shared setting. What other good reason to plant and maintain a flower garden?

For those who grow them, for those who tend them, can there be a greater compliment than the visitor who says, “After tea, may we take a walk in your garden?”

I remember those strolls in gardens with my parents and their friends when I was a child. The fragrance, and the most pleasant of conversations. Almost as if the verbal exchanges were set to a rule like some other rather humorous rules we had. ‘No singing at the table, no laughing in the kitchen’, and when visitors came ‘no gawking out the window’.

And, in the garden, a rule as well – ‘no ill-speaking or gossiping allowed’. A rule never given voice, as the others were, but still always given respect.

It was as if, through some magical aura in the garden, even the tartest of individuals skirted their normally chronic desire to gossip or be critical of others. Here it was as sacrilegious to gossip or put people down as speaking out loud during church. And there was no vulgarity. Here conversation clung like sticky burrs to a graceful protocol. (Not always the case when Hub and I plant potatoes together, but we’re talking flowers here).

But now, what I’m finding more and more, is that fewer visitors respond with enthusiasm to an invitation to walk in the garden. A large number of superficial concerns come into play – some real, some imagined. They might step in doggie-do with their new designer shoes on the way there. Spiders might parachute down onto their stylized tuffets. Insects might attack exposed skin and leave unsightly welts. Allergies might be provoked. Burrs might cling to their slacks.

And unfortunately, there is no way, in these conditions, to resurrect the enthusiasm that once was so potent in garden ramblers. No way to conquer the foreboding. And so, without a garden stroll, my flowers are not being shared. And without that, those same flowers have little purpose – like a friendship without a friend.
Or a special happening with no place for the event.

So I’ve returned to plucking flowers – from my own garden, that is. Without conscience, I cut them when they bud, before they bud, unmindful of their private progress. Yes, I do. I chop them off and put fresh-cut flowers in the hall. They blush at each passerby and sweep them with a dusting of delicate fragrance, without the dreaded garden walk-about.

And so, yes, I have fresh-cut flowers in the hall and as warped as it may sound, since I put them there, I swear coffee and dinner conversations are more gracious. The topics are more pleasant; the mood of visitors lighter. And troubles and vexations, perched on lips, fully meant-to-be-told, are discounted and dismissed.

It’s the kind of thing that happens during garden strolls…or when there are fresh-cut flowers in the hall.

Update

2009-07-15T15:46:00.000-06:00

For the next few weeks I have houseguests from Australia and so with sightseeing, visiting, cooking, eating, socializing, etc, I will not have the luxury of blog time. But hang in there, I will get back to you very soon.

This update is to let you know all is well with me and Hub though silence may reign. In the meantime, if your looking for us, you'll probably find us in Hub's cabin having "bickies and tea".

Three Ha's

2009-07-07T11:04:00.001-06:00

It is a silly little thing, hardly worth discussing, but still I want to discuss it.

So this is the theory and it has to do with the meanings of ha, or ha-ha, or ha-ha-ha.

A one-syllable ‘ha’. What does it mean? I hear Hub say it a lot. He says it when he is working on a problem and in the process something positive is accomplished or discovered. ‘Ha’ is a good thing.

Now think about ha-ha. Another positive meaning—something amusing.

But ha-ha-ha. Do you remember hearing that in conversation? If you do, did you notice the negative meaning? That three ha’s usually signify a kind of sneering contempt?

And of course, remember when you heard ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Magically that lengthier repetition gives ‘ha’ a positive meaning of total hilarity.

So now that is the theory. The negativity of three ha’s is something I came upon recently in a book. I believe it was in “The Curiosity Shop” by Charles Dickens. (Don’t quote me on that though, because I finished the book a couple of weeks ago and was unable to relocate the page for reference.)

But going back to our original conversation, I have to say that when I think about my own experiences, I recall many times in conversations with friends, if a joke fell flat, the response from the audience to the joke-teller was invariably three evenly spaced ha’s. And other times, when a joke was very funny, the audience complemented the teller with four or more ha’s. So as silly as the theory is, I think it is true.
____

And so now, if the theory is true, why does the exact same syllable render such conflicting meaning dependent on the number of repetitions? Those three ha’s seed and expand an aggravation within similar to the aggravation of listening to a musical performance punctuated by errors.

And so, with this new enlightenment, I begin to wonder if one shouldn’t be mindful of syllabic rhythm when composing a love sonnet, or a poem honoring the beauty of nature? They say the magic in poetry is the coupling of the words with a hypnotizing rhythm and that might be more important than even the content of the text. So in light of the theory expressed in the foregoing paragraphs, it might be well to stay away from three-gaited syllabic lines or meters.

I mean, truthfully, wouldn’t we all be a little chagrined, if door bells went ding-dong-ding, and clocks went tick, tock, tick? My beeper alarm clock goes beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep and God help me, let’s not even go there.

I don’t know enough about musical bars, beats, and measures to analyze the syllabic beats, but I wonder if pleasant or disagreeable melodies are tied to this same theory? If the theory is correct, then perhaps the triple lilt is the flaw that splays emotions all over the back fence when seduction is what we had in mind.

So maybe it would be well for us to pay attention to the beat cause it might be sounds in our environment that layer distress in our minds. Maybe it’s not situations in our day-to-day lives. Maybe the real cause of our distress is syllabic triplets in the beat. I’m just saying.
___

And so, now in conclusion, I have given this a lot of thought in the past few days. And then just when I decided to dismiss it all, an eight-year-old from next door asked me if I wanted to play “knock, knock, knock”.

I immediately felt that flash of edginess that three ha’s engender and without thinking snapped, “I know whose there. Someone who can’t count!”
___

The thing I still remain unsure of is whether the aggravation is an uneven lilt or a three-legged lilt.

Happy & Content

2009-07-04T12:11:00.000-06:00

We just can’t come to a solid conclusion about what ‘happy and content’ is, can we? We look for it in other lives, adjacent to our own. We look for it within, and look for it without. We probably even Google it. And still don’t know what the real answer is.

But as for me, I’ve lived enough years I should be able to find, somewhere in my past, a day ruled by happiness and contentment in all forms, facets, designs, and configurations.

And so I say to myself, ‘It must have been the day when I was no more than nine or ten years old, when amidst all the faded and worn apparel in my clothes cupboard, my friend from the city loaned me her very best dress for the day. A lacy navy and white dress with a stiff airy crinoline that billowed out from my waist like a large cloud.’

And it just so happens, that was the same day I was sporting a new flattering haircut that made my hair shine and glisten without split ends. A magical trim that made my hair fall into place exactly how I wanted it to.

And that was the same day, with a distinctive and emerging confidence inspired by the beautiful dress, that I excelled beyond all my classmates in scholastic endeavors.

And that was the same day when my mother handed me those new red shoes from the Eaton’s catalogue (that took forever to come), that I’m sure were of the best leather because they never pinched or rubbed or felt too hot or too cold.

And that was the same day, when that little guy who I thought was so cute, finally noticed me. That was the day he hid in the playground behind trees, and tossed pine-cones at me shyly and discretely, and in a most gentle way, to get my attention.

So now, let me see, if that is true happiness and contentment, how do I fare if I reconstruct that day now?

A beautiful navy and white dress is still guaranteed to make me feel good. Maybe a more mature and sober style, but, still beautiful. Beautiful because I favor those colors best and they are colors that make me happy.

And a glossy mane of shining hair, behaving and settling into a flattering look, yes, that would be really good too. Particularly because my hair is now rather dry, dull, and colorless.

And to impress a group with some highly rated intelligence – coming from what I swear is an ‘Alzheimic’ mind, — that would be good too. Especially, if such intelligence, could somehow get splashed onto this blog.

And really comfortable shoes that make my tired old feet want to run and skip rather than bumble along – that would be a happy thing. And with a navy and white dress – red, of course!

And now, before this final bit of reconstruction, let me make it very clear that I am not flirtatious. And I will not allow you to accuse me of the indignity of flirtation at my age. But still, you know, to make the reconstruction complete I will need to have some old fellow, with remnants of the good-looker he once was, discretely tossing pine cones at me from shadowed recesses in the park to attract my attention. That would be good too. I might belong to Hub, but still it would be nice to know my navy dress, my red shoes, my shiny hair, and my expressions of intellect are appreciated.

Gee, I think I nailed it… the ‘happy and content’ thing. Cause no matter how I look at it, seems that is about as close as I can hope to come to that which might be still attainable in present time and space.

And for anyone, who Googled ‘happy and content’ and as a result fell into this trap…. Sorry, there’s no world cruise here… No grand riches… No great fame. Just some simple reminiscing and fanciful reconstruction, of a special time that served up a generous portion of H & C.
____

Watch out! Better duck or get your red shoes on and run with fluffy skirts billowing. Cause here comes another pine-cone!

It Takes a Village

2009-06-23T11:34:00.000-06:00

In a special little spot on Planet Earth, a small village has been established. I took this picture of it so you could see what I am talking about. It is quite amazing, and although I have lived in this country all my life, I have never seen such a colony. It is a village of wee towers, (there are many more than this picture shows), and in these towers live a vast number of jolly, dwarf-size bumblebees. One of which is peeking in the doorway of the farthest tower in this picture. And although it doesn’t seem so, the little towers look smooth and elegantly constructed to the naked eye, although in this magnification they seem so crude.

I frequently inspect the area. The inhabitants know when they are being watched. They sing loudly and dart about as if agitated, but they never attack so Hub and I assume they are non-aggressive. Either that, or they are too busy, far too busy, for a fight.

And so, I watch them work and wonder if each of them has, and knows, their own particular abode. I think they do, but they freely visit the homes of others. I saw one bee pop into several little towers before eventually descending into one where he stayed for a time. That final stop must have been his own wee hut, but the protocol of his cluster environment compelled him to stop to say a quick and cheery good morning to his neighbors.

Yesterday there were probably ten or more elegant towers in the village, but after a rain, although the construction is in a protected spot under a narrow eave, it looked as if the colony had endured an earthquake. Little towers tumbled over every which way and many broken. I felt so bad when I saw the destruction and quite puzzled at how such damage occurred.

I stayed awake most of the night feeling dismal about the carnage in the little village. Too early I was up to see if repairs were being done and how the work was going. I was surprised. There was the little village of towers looking as clean and neat as a pin. No towers toppled. None broken. All in excellent repair. I planned to take a picture but decided it could wait until after breakfast.

After breakfast I went out and to my dismay, again many of the towers were toppled or damaged. Still repairs were underway. One had a good quarter inch of new construction that was still wet. And then I had to wonder, ‘Could these little bees do that much repair in so short a time when the work they do is comparable to working with atom-sized stones fashioned from one microscopic drop of spittal and one grain of sand?’ Comparative, it would seem, to our efforts to build a full-size basement with a truck load of concrete and nothing to mix and move it except a two cup measure and a soup ladle.
____

Now I have torn down or burned more than my share of bee’s nests in my time, either for amusement, or for fear of being stung. I have never felt guilt or remorse about doing that. I have never let any thought occupy my mind about how much patience and diligent work it took to construct those nests. But when you see bee’s building homes out of mud, so representative of our own houses, their efforts become a lot more relevant. And also, there is another pattern of life similar to our own, when I see them forming small communities. And a pattern of life similar to my own represented by their tiny huts and narrow streets.

And so, when I see such a village, with goings on so closely patterned after my own environment, I begin to feel truly distressed about the work involved in the building, and the sorrow and heartbreak of the destruction of that long, patient, and diligent effort – by a few tiny little bees.

And so, now in summation, what I need to tell you is that as one ages, we toughen up quite a bit. Tears come less often. Discouragements, though sad, are dismissed with a shrug. But at the same time, deep within there is a new softness forming. And harbored within that softness, is more pathos – pity for the helpless; and more ethos – greater attempts to be a better person. It is the way of an aging heart and aging flesh.

And so, I appease my guilt in this particular matter, by vowing to never rip down another bee’s nest if there is any kind of slight possibility that we can get along. And to vow I will not harm those little mud towers (I screamed at Hub to get out of there with his shovel). And while I’m forming these new resolutions, I might as well include a vow to nevermore scramble ant piles.

Surely, for my own peace of mind, it is better to change the things I can, than simply assume that mistakes of my past cannot be altered.

Another Kind of Brain Drain

2009-06-15T13:24:00.000-06:00

Seems like our culture/society has a warped philosophy when it comes to education that each of us can 'be all things to all people'. But we can't.

And so, I have oft contemplated another approach. And that approach was first broached to me by one of my elementary school teachers. What he said is that Russia's school system is so unlike our own. In Russia, he said, rather than forcing a child gifted in Math and bored to tears by Literature to pursue both, such children are allowed to forge ahead in Math, and leave Language Arts behind. Perhaps this was fiction – I have never investigated it to see if it was so.

Still, I do remember thinking, “How enviable the approach to learning that allows students to sidestep all that memorization of irrelevant stuff. Stuff like the time spans of various Wars, the winners and losers, and the names of long dead Presidents and Prime Ministers, and the years of colonization and discovery of so many places and things. Without all that I could really ace the rest of my studies.”

But how can that happen within an education system that tries to force every student to ‘be all things to all people’? Or within a system that for me created such a drain-brain, that I couldn't focus properly on any one discipline?

History was bad enough, but then there was the Science stuff that made for an even greater brain drain. The memorization of Chemical symbols and properties and how positive ions react with negative ions, etc. And the considerable brain drain caused by the puzzling situations I had to resolve through the complexity of the Laws of Physics. And don't even get me started on the most irrelevant of all - the biological mysteries of amoebae and other one-celled thingies and their uncanny ability to skip gender issues by physically contorting their bodies into self-impregnating acts. And I have to pity kids nowadays because added to that is all the memory and recall needed to learn both English and French and manage all the new technology.

We think of 'brain drain' as being the migration of our great minds to another continent or country. Is this not the same?

The coercive and forced migration of individuals’ very personal and somewhat limited brain cells into receptacles for meaningless junk. Obviously the measure of data that impacted on whether I passed or failed each progressive step in school created a serious brain drain. I was handed a volume of stuff to learn and memorize that was beyond the bounds of reason.

In fact, one time in discussing the content of a correspondence course I signed up for, the Instructor told me the assigned reading was impossible to do in the allotted time. So he suggested I keep in touch with him so he could define what was pertinent. Hey, everyone, hold on a minute here. If there is more than a student can hope to read during the allotted time, then this course is broken. It needs to be fixed. It isn't working the way it is supposed to.

But all that aside, it was this encroachment of too much stuff on my hard drive that drove me to hurry up and finish school so I could get the hell outta' there. Too much of my brain was being drained into irrelevance for me to happily pursue with unimpeded passion those things that really interested me. The things I could have aced well enough to walk away with one or two prestigious awards without even blinking.

So if my education had not been a series of commandeered courses, so many irrelevant to my passions, where would I be today if it had been up to me? I'd be known worldwide as the "Foremother of Nifty Handwriting" and the Governor General Award-Recipient for the new Literary Genre of “Wild Fact and Windblown Fiction", plus other honorable mentions.

And I would not just be ‘Roberta’ I would be "The Roberta" and my Blog would be influential and spellbinding.

I might not know you, but you would know me.

The Deletion of Bags and Boxes

2009-06-08T14:16:00.000-06:00

There’s a rumor going around this small community that is disturbing. And, although here things happen at a much slower pace than in large urban centers, rumors travel at warp speed. And the latest rumor is that the B&Y Store, and the Magnate Store and the other Store are no longer giving out bags for purchases.

Now of course for ‘shock value’ none of the messengers of said rumors elaborate enough to say, that ‘yes, there will be bags available at a price if customers don’t bring their own’. That part of the story would water down too severely the intensity of such a shocking rumor.

So the original rumor, without the above qualifier, put me in a state of angst, and in that angst I remain. First, it was so shocking and unbelievable that I would cater to a business and then have to leave my purchases behind with no means to carry them to my car. The whole situation puts me in mind of stumbling on a lush blueberry patch in some backwoods retreat without a pickin’ pail. You cup your apron, and pick. You pick into your hat. And then you remove your high-top rubber boots and fill them because rubber boots hold a heck of a lot of berries. Still, the biggest and best berries are left behind.

So I think you can easily see how the rumor is so unsettling. I am both shocked and wounded. Isn't it enough that I am already paying deposits on milk cartons, juice cartons, and bottles, some of which have recycling value, and some of which don’t?

Of course I’m annoyed. We’re talking fixed income, here. Just getting what I need takes strategic budget planning without having to puzzle over which containers are refundable and the added cost of bags. The whole turn-around is a process so convoluted that I begin to question if it is a good thing or simply a circuitous way of attaching hidden taxes on food and other necessities? A strong argument cannot even be made that containers cost money for the retailer. I don’t put my car gas in a container, but I still pay an added fee for that as well.

And refundable containers hardly seems like a good thing when the drive to the recycling depot costs me more for gas than any costs I manage to recover?

So now, with this latest rumor, I begin to seriously fear that boxes and bags are becoming extinct. I truly fear they are going the same way as the unicorn and the woolly mammoth. Or tough men with macho gauchos and chest hair?

I knew it would eventually come to this, but still I was so unprepared. The last time Elder Daughter moved was a few years ago. That day, the day we were packing up all her stuff, ED scouted the downtown-area for boxes-to-be-had-for-the-asking from various stores. That is how moving has always been done. But there were no boxes to be had.

So that is when I began to realize that cardboard boxes were becoming extinct. When ED returned a few hours later with nothing but a couple of packages of large plastic garbage bags.

Truly, it is easier to pick blueberries in rubber boots than safely pack breakables and china in plastic bags. Still we did the best we could but it was one of the more difficult things I have ever done. And so, since then I treat boxes as things of value. Slicing them carefully along taped lines, folding them flat, and stashing them behind a craft table in my basement. Then afraid to use them because whatever came in those boxes, if it needs repair, or is flawed, cannot be returned to the retailer without the original box! And furthermore I don’t want to be the cruel heartless person that dispensed with the last of the cardboard box species.

But now bags? What the hell?

Always my one security is that no matter how much life may change one stable aside from food, shelter, and clothing, would be bag and box containers. Without them, whoever coined the phrase ‘thinking outside of the box’ was ahead of their time…a prophet, so to speak.

What we fail to realize is that a world without boxes and bags impacts on more than just the physical. Without the philosophy of the limits of containers, be it boxes or bags, humankind has no mental context for that notion in our consciousness that there are limits to how we think and act.

And without it, the whole world is going awry. Limits of containment, so plainly illustrated by the use of boxes and bags, are no longer understood. And so with that mental perception missing—without boxes (or bags), generations evolve that can only think outside the box, even the violent and criminal-minded and it is not good. That causes me concern as well.

But my bigger concern, as a hoarder, is how can I live with all my ‘things’ without anything to put my ‘things’ in. I didn’t save all those cloth scraps, canvas, buttons, tape, and lace, to sew bags with and then have nothing to put in them.

Bags and boxes sustain me and facilitate my everyday life. That statement does not mean that I am a villain. I do so understand environment. I recycle everything --- E-V-E-Y-T-H-I-N-G, but this ‘really good thing that I do’ cannot continue if I have neither a bag, or a box, to put my ‘things’ in!

What a Wonderful World!

2009-05-23T12:33:00.000-06:00

My greatest wonder in life has nothing to do with the mechanics of anything. That is Hub’s department.

What I find wondrous is nature, and life, hopes and dreams. But having lived in the same house with the same man for more than thirty years, beyond a new bend in Hub’s sense of humor, what new could I possibly find to wonder at in my home environment? The mechanics of material things change, which doesn’t impress me, but little else. Still, even at that, unexpected situations arise that tap into my emotions and leave me quite awe-stuck.

Take this morning, for instance.

Hub is in a funk and I am beginning to worry about it. He’s bored. He eats too much and sleeps too much. Seems restless and unable to focus on anything.

Added to that, the weather remains nasty, which doesn’t help. And so I am beginning to fear if the weather doesn’t turn, Hub may not turn either. Back to his normal happy and carefree self.

Still I do my best to try and cheer him, but all to no avail. So there remains little left for me to do except to remain quietly supportive and at the same time more attentive to Hub’s conversations in hopes of finding an opportunity to assist him, in some unexpected way, back to his normal good humor.

And so, for these reasons, I am immediately alert, when Hub says to me at the breakfast table this morning, “Do you know the words to this song?”

I perk up my ears and wait for him to hum a bit of the melody, but all I hear coming from his side of the table is a deep muffled rumble like a slipper tumbling in a clothes dryer. His lips are ever so slightly parted in a duplication of Mona-Lisa’s famous smile, and I can tell he is deeply concentrating while exhaling a soft sound, so I go to his side of the table and bend over and listen. An uncommon thing for me to do, because normally Hub talks and sings, so very loud.

As I bend near his face, I hear a rumbling hum that seems to be coming from inside one of the table legs rather than from him. I bend closer and peer into his eyes and see a look of such intense concentration. A look that leads me to think Hub may have quietly slipped out-of-body. It is a glazed look that tells me he has moved somewhere else—leaving me feeling quite alone. He is not immediately behind his eyes, as he should be. Normally I feel an intimate adjacency to the person behind the eyes, but when I look at him, it is like looking through 140X Binoculars across a great expanse. He seems so very far away.

But, despite that, if I am to render normality here, I must pay attention. I must listen and try to identify the song. And so I listen very carefully to muffled modulations of oblique sound that have spacing and rhythm that is vaguely familiar.

But the tune? There isn’t any. And that sets me wondering what is going on, because Hub, like most people, always attempts to jar my memory with bits of the melody when he wants to remember an old song.

This morning there is no tune. The sound is more like a liturgical chant. There is no melody. But that is not the full extent of the weirdness of the situation. What is even weirder is the sound I hear is, in no way, representative of Hub’s voice. Not his sad voice, his happy voice, his normal voice, or even his silly voice.

It is not Hub’s familiar voice I am hearing. It is another tone, another pitch, another pronunciation, another shade, another frequency. It is simply not Hub’s voice. But yet, there is something strangely familiar in this never-before-seen-or-heard rendition. The pulses of the sound are scattered but not random.

And now I begin to verge on a kind of panic with the dragging and quickening of bass-toned exhales and inhales, and again, I say, without melody. And furthermore, the sound is incredibly soft, because it is as if Hub is forcing from somewhere deep inside a sound outside of his own voice range.

I don’t know what is happening here but my inner gut tells me it must be way more serious than a high fever, a blood clot, or an aneurysm. And the eyes though still and unblinking, remain fixed on me in an imploring stare. Across the huge expanse I referred to earlier.

And then, by God, it suddenly hits me. I know the song! I know the song!

Not from the nature of it, but the mechanics of it. Hub was amazed I did it. But I was far more amazed at how ‘The Lord of the Mechanics of Everything’ (that would be Hub) packaged the clues to a musical piece into nothing more than the mechanics of the piece.

Now that I understand the virtual impossibility of what he was doing, of course his eyes veiled over with such intense concentration. It’s pretty close to miraculous when someone can deliver a memory of a song with little more than vibrations of E.S.P. accompanied by a rhythmic percussion of nothing more than the sound of a slipper tumbling about in a clothes dryer.

Now Hub can carry a tune. He knows if it is right or wrong. But as he told me later, he had completely forgotten the tune. He had forgotten the words as well. He had forgotten the name of the song, and he had forgotten the artist. But what he hadn’t forgotten was that the song was a happy song. That is the memory that led to the twisted Mona-Lisa-smile. And he hadn’t forgotten the timber of the singer’s voice or the rhythm of the song.

Now Hub is not an impersonator in any way, shape, or form. But the voice I heard, that was not Hub’s, but yet was vaguely familiar, was the deep voice, magical and dream-shaped, of Louis Armstrong.

And the song Hub needed to remember was “What a Wonderful World.”
____

Isn’t that totally delightful? When Hub wants that desperately, and needs that desperately to recall a song to sing this early in the morning, and that particularly happy song is the song he wants to sing, my heart is lifted and I know all is well. The weather has cleared despite the dreary skies outside the window, and I know Hub’s funk has flown.

Hub is out in his shop right now singing at the top of his lungs, in tune, and in his own voice with impeccable phrasing…

“I see fields of green, red roses too…”

Garden Rhymes & Nursery Whines

2009-05-20T10:59:00.001-06:00

Roberta, Roberta,
From chilly Alberta,
How does your garden grow?

With brush and thrush,
And quiet hush,
And fresh-pressed footprints
In the snow.

(for a bit of extra amusement, try reading the second verse out loud as fast as you can -- not easy is it?)
___

As I told you last post, my garden is seeded. One picture was taken during the snowfall and one after. By way of explanation, beyond the swing, a comfortable swing, that doesn't squeeze my hips or cause hip dysplasia, is my garden, and beyond the garden is the tree stump Hub planted upside down.

We haven't done it yet, but on hot summer days, we plan to drape ourselves in skimpy faux-fur body scarfs and sit under the stump. We will sip jars of cool lemonade and wave to passer-bys. A pretense it would seem of the lives of Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

So now you know. 'Playing cabin' is not the only game we play.

Garden Daze

2009-05-18T00:46:00.000-06:00

Flat and fragmented thoughts, which are what most of my thoughts are these days.

Hub cultivated the garden a few days ago. He started parallel to the road and when he got to my row of perennials, shrubs, and rhubarb, he ended up at a serious angle. Then he began urging me to plant it. But when I saw the rows running at such an angle, it wouldn’t do. I asked him to cultivate it again and run the rows parallel to my row of shrubs and perennials. I don’t care if my garden isn’t square with the road, or the world, I just want it to look like it is square within its own perimeters.

So grudgingly he cultivated again, all the time singing at the top of his lungs some made-up jingle about redoing a job that was already done, and why must he do the same labour twice when his rows ‘aren’t nearly as crooked as Brian Mulroney’ (You have to be Canadian to get the joke, or just Google the name and you’ll soon know).

And then of course deeply entrenched in my psyche is the old adage ‘waste not, want not’, which is not always a good thing. So first a neighbour brings me the excess of sprouted garlic that would not fit in his garden. Then another brings me two plastic bags with a bushel of soaked peas in one, and a peck of soaked beans in the other. And I also have all the seeds I purchased a few weeks ago to put in the ground.

Now I had no intention of planting garden yesterday, but what could I do? Soaked seeds generally have to go in the ground within 24 hours of soaking them. And of course, I couldn’t throw them out. Can’t be wasting them. So now I’m planting. Oh yes, I’m planting.

Enough peas and beans to feed a small village. I don’t pick peas, shell peas, or freeze peas. That is way too labour-intensive for me. Not when I can buy a big bag for about three dollars. I only plant a wee row of peas for the education of the Grandchildren. So they know where peas come from and what peas taste like fresh from the vine.

But this year, to fit in all those peas, I have two long double rows. And of course come fall, the Grandchildren will barely be able to make a dent in them and there I will be. On the back porch, like I was when I was a kid, shelling 5-gallon pails of peas for days on end.

But that’s not all, while I’m doing all this I’m thinking I shouldn’t even be planting anything when the soil is too cold to even step on in bare feet. But anyway, everything is in the ground, except the spuds and Hub will help me with them next week.

Now if it doesn’t all freeze - - - - I guess we’ll be doing okay. My neighbour tells me the seeds are deep enough that if they germinate in the next few days, the frost won’t get to them. As for me, I’m not so sure about that. This afternoon there were snowflakes again floating around outside trying to hide from view in a light foggy mist. But I saw them when they settled on Dough-Gee-Dog’s silky black fur.

And so now I’m wondering if the wood ashes I brought from Hub’s cabin cook-stove and sprinkled in the rows of radishes and turnips will stave off the bugs. I don’t know if it will work but it seems like a greener thing to do then using toxic insecticides that are so often years later pulled from the market because of risk to environment and body and blood and DNA.

The Death & Resurrection of Faith #2

2009-05-06T02:38:00.000-06:00

(To appreciate this story, you need to read Part 1, before continuing with this conclusion)

Come Take a Portion of Faith – Pt. 2

Now Bible Camp and in particular, The Tabernacle, is a place of revelations where unseen occupants of heaven descend and commune and touch those within. It is a place of revelations through miracles, faith, healing, tongue-speaking, and soul-changing blessings. Normally, that is, but the shavings on the floor have told me a different story.

The adults at Camp assumed they had a monopoly on these messages, visions, and all other forms of heavenly contact. They assumed children were excluded. But that was just not so. I received a message. The message contained within the ‘Parable of the Shavings’. I wanted desperately to tell them ‘my message’ but unfortunately, I had not the courage or opportunity to do so.

And so, I remained silent as the Minister concluded his sermon with an announcement that he had a special surprise for us. And with that, he nodded toward a dim corner at the side of the platform. Shavings rustled softly as a tiny woman moved to the side of the platform and made her way slowly and unsteadily up three steps with an old cane as crooked and bent as she. The crowd applauded with delight at a figure familiar, and so well-known to all of us.

It was Mrs. Rett, with her bright little eyes that always twinkled and her precious mouth that only smiled. Mrs. Rett was a black woman. Black as midnight. But in Bible-Camp circles, she was a camp-celeb – renowned for her grace and goodness, renowned for her unshakable faith. Faith sufficient to part the sea, or move mountains if she chose to. And if the color of her skin made a difference, the only difference was the keen awareness we all had of her special gift of faith and unwavering goodness.

Now this particular day was Mrs. Rett’s ninetieth birthday. And what you need to realize about that is we are talking about a time when life expectancy was probably no more than sixty-four years. And so now the Minister left the podium and Mrs. Rett steadied herself with feet spread and both hands on her cane in front of her.

“Friends, I am soon going to be moving to another place,” she said in a feeble voice, “and I wanted to say a special good-bye to all of you before I left.”

Here the pianist rippled a few soft notes, and Mrs. Rett began to sing.

“Some day the silver chord will break,
And I no more, as now shall sing…”

The chord, if there was one was already broken. And we truly hoped that she ‘no more, as now would sing.’ Her voice was squawky, raspy, pitchy, cracked, and brittle. In a way that made even I, though just a child, feel the embarrassment and concern we so often have when another human being is in a situation that perhaps it would be best for them not to be in. But then Mrs. Rett raised her head towards the orange-colored canvas overhead, where the golden sunlight was filtering through, and continued her song.

“…but oh the joy, when I shall wake,
Within the palace of the King…”

And suddenly the melody was sweet and pure – her voice steady and unwavering. The sound as silken as the smooth warbling of a nightingale. And all the time we saw, in the midnight blackness of her countenance, her bright eyes and warm smile.

“…and I shall see him face-to-face…”

And that is when the most uncanny thing happened. I know others saw it too. Mrs. Rett’s charcoal-colored face suddenly turned silver –as silver as a radiant crystal with an inner glowing light. And those bright eyes were no longer fixed on us. They were fixed on something else that broadened her smile even more.

And that’s when all that I had lost from within my longing, vacant, empty soul, came rushing back with a force that made my knees weaken. I looked around me, and I could feel it in the room. Hope and faith and unwavering belief flooded the tent with a force that loudly rippled the canvas.

And I knew in that moment that everyone in that room, every single solitary person – sinner, agnostic, atheist, or believer, seized hold of a portion of Mrs. Rett’s faith. And in that moment, every one of us had faith that could part seas or move mountains – if that is what we chose to do. I believe at that moment we had enough collective faith to even turn the shavings on the floor into tightly-spliced floorboards.

And so this is where my story concludes. There is nothing more to tell you except that bit which is simply a matter of fact.

Mrs. Rett died a couple months later. And who knows? There may or may not be a heaven, there may or may not be a hell, there may or may not be a God. But if faith can do all it promises to do, of one thing I am certain – whether the foregoing questions are answered ‘yea’ or ‘nay’.

The thing I am certain of (no matter how barren the fact, science, or truth) is that there is one wee mansion with one lone wee occupant straight up, overhead, right up there – beyond the sky!

The Death & Resurrection of Faith #1

2009-05-04T01:11:00.000-06:00

The Parable of the Shavings – Pt. 1

Some stories of my childhood defy my ability to tell a story, and this story about the mysticism of faith, is one of them. The story has meaning impoverished by only words. But still, with no other way to tell it, I hope I can find enough inspiration in a long-ago memory to make the meaning of the story transcend the insufficiency of the words.

The story is about Bible Camp – that ritualistic 4 or 8 or 10-step program dedicated to making kids the best they can be. But unlike other self-help programs, I didn’t have to first recognize I had a problem. I didn’t even have to have a problem. My Mother just assumed if I didn’t go, she would have a problem, so every year, I and my siblings, went to Bible Camp.

So now, let us first examine the camp-grounds. The original camp I went to had two granaries connected together that served as a kitchen and dining area. Another granary with too few windows sufficed as the girls’ sleeping dorm. The boys slept in a big tent and church took place in a much larger tent – orange-colored like a circus tent.

The once-circus-tent, now-camp-tent, was referred to as the Tabernacle, and inside were rows of crude wooden benches and at the front a wooden platform. The floor was sod of some sort, heavily layered with fresh, pale-colored, sweet-smelling wood shavings. And it is the wood-shavings I want to talk about, because that is where the story begins.

But first I must tell you that when nothing was going on in the Tabernacle, adults or children were still free to go there. And because, for the time being, the tent served as a church, we were expected while there to be quietly tranquil and reverent as is expected in any church. And so, one day, in the quiet tranquillity of the Tabernacle, I sat alone on a bench waiting for some friends, and quietly scuffling, with my feet, the shavings on the floor.

I had already been at Camp a few days, and of course with all the sermons, songs, and prayers, I was at a new high in my faith. Soul and mind overflowing with self-righteousness and resolve to be more kind, loving, reverent, faithful, and mindful of my spiritual wellness.

But as I examine the shavings on the floor, an obtuse thought came to mind. I find it rather amazing that although the remnants at my feet are the same fiber, the same color, and material, as a solid wooden floor – this is not anything like a solid wooden floor. It is only fragments of the original. Posing in a shameful way as a wooden floor, but not really a wooden floor.

And then that obtuse thought became even more obtuse. I began to wonder if the shavings were translating a message to me? The Bible relates stories of messages from God being relayed through simple things like the sun, a burning bush, tablets of rock, grass-dew and rain. Wood-shavings seem to fit that category, so is there a message for me in those shavings?

But at that moment a crowd arrived and seated themselves for the afternoon service. And, as generally was the case, the service commenced with singing and a few announcements. The singing was nice, but in a weak way. Relative, it seemed, to the shavings on the floor.

Now came the sermon. The minister gave dramatic inflection to every word. His body was animated. His eyes wept tears – of happiness one moment, concerned sadness for souls the next. Somehow, though, I wasn’t getting it. I was still too preoccupied with the shavings on the floor. And despite the Minister’s heroic efforts to make a solid impact on everyone in that place, I was more intent on understanding the translation within the context of the shavings on the floor.

And then came a dark realization. Perhaps the shavings signify a warning from God about my spiritual wellness and the authenticity of Bible Camp instruction. Maybe the counterfeit relationship between shavings and a wood floor is being paralleled here in the form of false spiritual instruction mimicking, in a similar way, something solid, true, and good.

Maybe this sermon, despite the dramatics of the Minister, is nothing more than a counterfeit and blended mix of shards of human-based and Bible-driven thinking, that can never provide solid transport for my soul from present life to an eternal place of refuge.

But how, pray tell, did I end up involved in such obviously complex and convoluted thinking? Truthfully, I cannot believe for one minute that it originated in my nine-year-old brain without heavenly assistance.

And so, that is how the Parable of Shavings formed in my mind, albeit in a more rudimentary way, and as it clarified, my heart and soul felt truly vexed. Hollow and empty of the usual warming convictions that had always come to me in the Tabernacle. And then as the sermon drew to an end, I felt an uneasy chill as a sudden final backwash left my inner spirit devoid of any previous convictions. And with that, a searing sense of abandonment that I expect only an orphan could understand.

I determined to look away from the floor, but by then not even the happy shouts of “Glory! Hallelujah!” or the magical gold wash of color that bathed all of us within those orange canvas walls could shake the impending agnosticism that now heavily bordered on something even more extreme. The “ath----” thing. I’m reluctant to say it, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

NEXT POST is about a broken 'chord' and faith restored.

Word Huggers, Write & Unite - 2.

2009-04-24T14:08:00.000-06:00

Taking Back the Words

Okay, let’s see now. Where were we? Oh yes, the blank page. Ways to fill up the blank page.

Last post I stared at my blank page and my blank page stared back. And then we talked about the practical outline followed by first writ and decided that wouldn’t do.

So then today, I tidy up the kitchen in good order for the invisible-visitor-strategy appointment at nine. But at the appointed time my invisible guest doesn’t even show. Foiled again.

Just then the phone rings. It is Middle Daughter (MD). Now I should tell you that right now MD is temporarily off work. She loves to write and has had several small articles published. So right now, although writing time is still compressed by household tasks and child-rearing, she is most anxious to use this time, not to practice the art, but rather to write worthwhile stuff that might lead to more published works.

First she tells me once again, how disappointed she is with another highly publicized book she has read. It has her distressed and her question to me is if she is going to make valuable use of the writing time she has available, what should she write about.

Now, as a Mother, I must have an answer. As a Mother I can’t say I don’t know, although in my mind I haven’t the slightest inkling. But Mothers, no matter how old their children are, must rise to every occasion some way, some how.

As MD expresses her frustration, I scroll through the TV guide with my remote and decide if that is what the public wants, neither her nor I can fill that need with any conviction. Things like action movies without story or plot. Reality TV, yuk. Starlet carryings on – as if. This is not subject matter for our quills (meaning hers or mine).

And then I don’t know whether it is Mother intuition or primeval instinct that kicks a thought into the frontal lobe of my brain. The thought of what happened in my efforts to snag popular books in the last few years. With best-sellers on my list of wanted books, obliging neighbors were on the hunt for them. Friends, and family members too. But what happened every time? I suppose things would have been different if I had passed out written details of title and author but usually I put in my orders in casual conversation by telling them the name of the book and nothing more.

And sure they found books referencing those titles. Scads of books. But all were nothing more than comments, critiques, interpretations, or background discussions of the original books. Occasionally the original book came later. But seems to me like every bestseller had a side book, or two. “The Secret”, “The DaVinci Code”, and some other popular book about a life well-lived or how to live the good life or something like that. Can’t quite remember the title and absolutely don’t know now who the author was/is. But that is what my bookshelves are full of – not the original, but some prefix, affix, suffix, or infix.

I know you know this, but it bares repeating in this discussion. Our tribe is an opinionated lot. I either like something or I don’t. If I really like something I must find words to describe it that will create such an aching longing in a reader, that they will choke up and weep. And if I despise a thing I must find words to create such contempt in a reader, that my words will lend themselves as therapy to their own dismay. Is that not what writing should do? Give the reader an earnest emotional jerk?

So now I know what to tell MD. Rather than write anything original she can interpret, recommend, renounce, or criticize the themes, characters, plots (if there is one) in other books. I think I will do the same. We will write volumes of imaginative interpretations –some realized, some disconnected.

And shouldn’t it then happen that our manuscripts will fit the trend, and be caught up, as it were, in the tail-spin draft of the original book. And when our stuff hits the bookshelves, all those rummager-booksters looking for the latest release sanctified by “Oprah” or “The New York Times”, who find the original too expensive, or out-of-stock, will buy our sidewinders. (I’ve unknowingly bought many of those damnable side-offerings myself, and I’m certain you have too).

We will not separate out too many literal quotes from the book. It won’t be necessary and besides that will create too much risk of plagiarism or copyright infringement. But of course, somewhere on those covers of those sweet-smelling releases, still warm from the printing, there will be a visible reference to the original book, a befriending as it were.

Within the laws of freedom of expression, I believe this strategy will work. And although sharing this thought with others may reduce profit from my own book-royalties, I have too few readers to think the market will be instantly flooded. At the same time, I’m willing to share this idea for important reasons that I will ultimately explain.

In the meantime, another blank sheet will soon be full. Just give me a moment while I retrieve that best-seller from behind the dresser where I threw it with such disdain last night. Then watch me rant.
___
And now my final thought. You think I tell you all these things as just another tongue-in-cheek exaggerated tirade. But there you are wrong. The fact that I shared this revelation with you should make you aware there is something more to what I have just said.

And the ‘more’ there is, in the telling of this, is that I hope to create a solid revolutionary movement – a clan and cult of artful word-lovers. I know from reading your blogs that most of you agree that it is time to take back ‘the literature’ – to return it to its rightful place. Because you know, as I also do, that good literature is closer to extinction than clean water, unsullied landscapes, or chemical-free habitats in our physical world.

Besides, the water, air, etc. are in good hands. Al Gore is looking after that. Meanwhile it is up to us, the wanna-be Shakespeares’, Chaucers’, Austens’ and Brontes’ to write with might so we can take back the words, the phrasing, the emotion, and the pleasantness of a really good read.

Writer’s, fight and unite!
Blank pages are no longer in vogue!

Word-Huggers, Write & Unite - 1.

2009-04-21T10:59:00.000-06:00

How do I write? Let me count the ways?

Oh Yeh! Oh sure! Here it is again. Like so many days. That blank page staring at me, ogling me as it were with its featureless, expressionless, poker-faced, sterile-inducing stare. Insisting I must write and it will be so inexcusable if I don’t.

But what? What will I write?

And so with mind as blank as the page confronting me, I review those propositions that induce others to write.

There are the literary rules of the basic approach. That starts with an outline followed by elaboration in each paragraph. Wonderful in theory: but for me, it never works.

I can only write the paper first and create the outline later. Cause, honest to God, when I try to do the outline first, I lose the conviction needed to write the paper and completely forget what I originally (and cleverly) planned to say for the sake of emotional impact.

Of course, I never let my language-arts teachers know that the writing preceded the outline. There was no point because all of my teachers were too entrenched in the ‘proper way of doing it’ to accept that some writers are too endowed with creativity and imagination to write emotionless stuff.

So now, for the sake of clarity, please allow me to call myself “a writer”. And so, my theory is, if writers don’t laugh or weep while doing the writing or a reading review, neither will anyone else. So if there are anomalies to be considered, that is the kind of anomaly I am.

I have not the ability to simply write a paper that adheres to literary mechanics for the sake of nothing more than a passing grade or another blog posting. That would produce something frightfully foul-written. Writing so foul-written that I promise you it would pain both writer and reader’s artful senses as deeply as auditory senses ripped by a three-hour-violin-solo with a resin-less bow.

But sometimes without an internal level of emotion to work with, writers still need to write. On those days, when shallow convictions are all one has to work with, I pretend I am having coffee with a guest as blank and staring and faceless as a fresh sheet of paper. And as we converse, with he or she being so shy, quiet, and introverted, I convert to paper what is said. The finished work sounds like ‘sermonizing’ and I guess it is, having flowed from a rather one-sided conversation.

____

But now I have a totally new writing mandate/prompt that I will tell you about in my next post.

Nibbling Mushrooms

2009-04-14T23:08:00.000-06:00

I don’t know how old I was when I first read ‘Alice in Wonderland’ but I do know it was only a very few chapters later, when I decided it was a truly silly book. It was too much fiction. Radical fiction. There was just too much nibbling, growing, shrinking, and magical change of venue without adequate movement or explanation.

But then, just the other day, I recalled some rather delightful poetry and word-plays in the book, and the story-teller, word-lover side of me prompted me to re-read the book. It occurred to me that obviously in that first reading, I must have missed something critical, because surely with the staying power of the story over so many years, there must be gems hidden there that sailed well over my head with my first reading.

And so, once again, so many years later, I began re-reading one of the silliest stories I have ever read. And that is when I discovered Marc Edmund Jones’ interpretations of the original book.

The interpretations are wildly imaginative, but imaginative as they are, I find I am in solid agreement with some of the concepts within Marc Jones’ interpretations. And so I want to share with you, extrapolations of what I read.

_______

A few of us live totally balanced lives. The rest of us have an intelligence and nonsense imbalance in our existence. I know I do, and if you read my blog, you also know I do.

Now Mr. Jones conceptualizes that society assumes that greater intelligence equals super-human entities, and lesser intelligence equals sub-human entities. But with none of us truly aware of who we are and why we are here, or even by what authority we should define 'intelligence', can such an assumption be accurately made? Particularly without the carefully conducted research to prove it is so?

Jones further suggests that we have bought into the assumption of who are the super-humans, because the academics say it is so. That leaves him wondering, in his own peculiar way, and I in my own way, how academics have determined without proper research that they have the best of redeeming qualities for the good-life.

Maybe in the context of life superbly lived and quality attained, simpler minds hold the ultimate redeeming qualities. Perhaps if we nibble on enough mushrooms to grow monstrous in our thinking we might come to a different conclusion. And if we keep on nibbling, perhaps we can expand the growth of our thinking enough to avoid the restrictions of material thinking. And perhaps we can even go beyond that to growth so exaggerated that all we can see is the broader spectrum of cosmic dust, evolution of matter, birth, life, death, and ultimately the affluent anti-matter of decay. Do you think then we might reach quite different conclusions about the ‘quality controls’ of lives well-lived?

It’s rather small thinking, it seems to me, that would have us assume that stuffing one’s head with facts about the earth’s radius, distance from earth to sun, speed of light, and factors of compression and decompression are truly conducive to excellence of life and all the apertures thereof. Particularly if the fact is that the excellence of quality we are discussing is more dependent on the simplicity of the beauty of a bird song, a sunset, or a stretch of sand and ocean.

____

More discussion later? Shall we?

Fresh Air and Sunshine

2009-04-08T11:13:00.000-06:00

How much is too much fresh air and sunshine (FA&S)? At what level does it exceed the saturation point? Surely all things, including FA&S, for the sake of a reasonably balanced existence, should be done in moderation.

But my life has been one of excess. With all the times, as a child, that I was kicked out of classroom or house for FA&S, I think I’ve had my quota.

I still remember being shooed out of the school during recess or noon hour for FA&S. But even more vividly, I remember the emotional feeling of ultimate and indescribable rejection that this act produced. It reminded me, at a point when I was just starting to feel a calming security in place and time, that my school was not ‘my school’, my classroom was not ‘my classroom’ and my desk was not ‘my desk’. A sensation that left me feeling weakened and undermined.

And, at home, the same story. So many times, when the house felt warm, comfortable, and cozy; in fact most often when floors were fresh-waxed and the house smelled of lemon-oil and baking. And when all I wanted to do was curl up with a good book in a comfy chair, and revel in it all—my Mother would eject me from the house. On with mitts and toque and coat to get outside for some damnable FA&S.

And then later, when I eventually married, now I had to contend with Hub. He, too, was forever at it. Winter, or summer.

“Roberta, you need more FA&S. If I was pale of countenance, that’s what I needed. If I was tired or weak-kneed, that’s what I needed. If I was impatient, that’s what I needed. And even when I was too silly, too carefree, that was still what I needed.

So year in, and year out, I’ve heard it spring, fall, summer, and winter. The damnable push from almost every living contact in my life for more FA&S.

Still, I’ve remained quiet and good-natured (and obliging as well) about it. But this week was too much. My good nature had a melt down.

Earlier this week a neighbor came for coffee. And didn’t he have the audacity to tell me I need more FA&S? I bit my lip but that is when the melt-down began.

And then two days later, another neighbor, began ranting like a lunatic about warm temps and sunshine, and having finished her lengthy prelude, wound it up by saying to me, “Roberta, aren’t go going outside today to get some FA&S?”

That’s when the complete melt-down happened.

“Yes,” I said, “I am going to do that. But I’m also going to put a clothespin on my nose, and a dark tarp on my head, because although I enjoy being outside, the very last thing I need is more FA&S!”

March ids, Ides, Odes, & Hares

2009-03-28T10:46:00.000-06:00

March, I do hope you will leave soon. I know you think you’re pretty damn popular sporting the first day of Spring – that priceless accessory that we all so ardently pray and long for. But you, March, might as well know how I really feel about you. I’ve held back way too long. To begin with you are not popular. I disdain the sight of you and so do most of my friends.

You think history has ingratiated you with glory of id, and ides, and odes, but that is a bunch of malarky. You have been too ugly, too often, for any of us to ever again see any appeal in your nature and manner.

Too often we’ve been bewitched by the mirages you flutter on the distant landscape of crocus buds and silky green fronds, only to find it nothing more than a false display. Yet, believing it might be true, when we rush to your sunny and shimmering display, you whip about and wield another incoming surf of winter horrors upon us compacted fifty-fold.

I try to make room, excuses as it were, for those who have your kind of deficiency. But there have been too many Marches like this in my lifetime to continue to be so forgiving. For me you have crossed the line. I’m ripping you right out of the calendar and I don’t want to ever see you again.

If you are so popular as you think, how come there is so little prose or poetry dedicated to your honor? No odes or eulogies glorifying your kindness or charitable nature. No March-Day trees, no 1st of March parades, no March balloon and fireworks celebrations, and no March 21st carols or hymns of joy. But then, I guess the truth is, March gets what March deserves.

You are mad, mad, totally mad. The pre-cursor of one figurative individual – The March Hare. Even he was a nice sophisticated little fellow with a gold watch and distinguished manners until you showed up at Alice and Company’s tea party and drove him and all the other guests to such distraction that they were soon speaking utter nonsense. And amusing themselves by trying to shove a helpless little dormouse into a tea-pot. If it had been me I’d have tarred you in the treacle pot, rolled you in feathers, and sent you on your way.

And on top of that you pretend that if you come in like a lion, you will leave as a lamb. That’s just more of your bloody nonsense. The antithesis of the lion and the lamb has nothing to your entry and departure. It has only to do with your inconsistency, willful confusion, and utter madness for the entire month, from start to finish. You do the lion and lamb thing every day for the 31 days of March with even the first day of Spring treated in that same sacrilegious manner.

This year you rained down sadness and grief that was way beyond reason. When your plans failed – the plans you made to spear individuals from overhead with those sharp silvery daggers that you precariously hung from every suspended-over-head plane, you still remained bent on causing the extreme of heartache and confusion and madness that you take such delight in.

When Shakespeare said, “Beware the Ides of March”, I’m quite certain he would have said more, but you are too ugly to fit into sophisticated prose or poetry or pentameter. ‘Ides’ is pluralized, while one day – the 15th, is singular. So seems something has been lost in the translation. Knowing you as I do, ‘Ides’ refers to more than one day. It refers to any March day, hour, minute, or any other fuzzy or foggy prospect of time between midnight on the last day of February and midnight on March 31st.

Weeks of your craziness have come and gone, but you are not done yet. I still hear in the barren branches outside my window, the evil cackling craziness of your wind song. Funereal with pitchy, screaming, notes that drive me to cover my head with blankets to muffle the sound.

Physically, you are a drag. No, not just a drag, a true hardship. And mentally, you are a lethal dose to counteract the gentlest of positive emotions. You grind optimism into icy patches under drain pipes, and buffet good cheer with gales of chilly rejection.

I cannot say it enough.

“Be off with you, March before I kick your id, and ides, and odes, and callus a-- into the middle of the next century!”

An Exercise in Exercise

2009-03-23T15:07:00.000-06:00

I’m so fed up with the constant drone of the message of good health through regular exercise. It’s a theory I remain skeptical about. And with my love of freedom, I have objections to an oppressive exercise regime that forces me to hand over lengthy irretrievable chunks of my lifetime to the most undesirable of activities.

‘Living longer and stronger’ is a questionable theory at best, if one considers the balance of input and output. It seems likely to me that if the accumulated drill time were mathematically tallied and subtracted from a fixed lifetime, the remaining ‘living time’ is more likely to be less than the foreshortened life of a couch-potato.

If quality of life means anything, wouldn’t it be better if more time could be carved out of a yet-undetermined-life-span for more pleasant indulgences? Like a cozy nap, a good book, idle thoughts, twiddling my thumbs, or basking in the sun? Shouldn’t I give preeminence to that, rather than to ripping great raw and ritual chunks of my one and only life-span to the long walk, the long jog, the long drill, and the long grind at the gym with tread-mill and bench-press?

I’ve often contemplated this kind of debate about gain or loss. But now I can finally sit up, clap my hands with glee, and wiggle my toes with delight. My good cheer today is a consequence of a report on Health News that the latest study has proven that compressed exercise can be every bit as beneficial as the extended sessions previously recommended.

So how elated was I to find that this new study suggests that equal benefits can be achieved with only 3 minutes of brisk exercise twice a week? How sweet to know that there is a way to sidestep the time-consuming exercises of the past that gluttonously devoured huge blocks of valuable and irreplaceable present-time existence.

The one drawback is that with the new condensed approach to exercise, there is a warning. The warning is that very few individuals will have sufficient zeal to get blood vessels flowing and heart pumping with the vigor needed to achieve the desired effect.

Still, it’s a warning that doesn’t apply to me. I examined my life style and found I fully meet the strait-laced and unbending requirements of the 3-minute program. I have vigor. I have zeal. In fact my routines go far beyond that requirement.

So now let me tell you how my personal program works.

Starting first thing every day there is the intense frolic of pulling myself out of bed including the repeated rocking to get a leg on the floor and my body off the bed. And then, combined with that, the effort to recover a wayward sock that slithered under the bed. An effort with such extreme stretch and intensity it gridlocks my neck in the search (oh pain!), but eventually the sock is retrieved. But now my bones are locked in a low crawl position and upright stance can only be achieved with as much effort as it would take a walrus to scale a telephone pole.

And so, when I eventually right myself, we move on to calisthenics with even greater intensity. Now, rather than sitting on the bed or bracing myself against wall, bed, or dresser, as I used to do, I dress free-standing in the middle of the room. Obviously dressing from the waist down is most challenging – i.e. underpants, socks, jeans—but I keep my balance, on one leg at a time, with a fast flailing dance imitative in every respect of keeping one’s balance in a slip-dance on keen ice. It can’t get more intense than that.

So you see, I haven’t even had morning coffee yet, but my exercise program is vigorous enough that I can cancel, guilt-free, gym visits or road jogs. The process may have swiped 20 minutes from my free-living time, rather than the optimum 3 minutes, but at the same time, I am well-ahead of the exercise game for this week, this month, this year.

And yes, I am exhausted and as breathless as I should be. All my muscles have been stretched, all blood-paths rushed, heart palpitated, and all cells oxygenated. And now I’m so ready for the couch.

An Open Letter to Anti-Bloggers

2009-03-13T12:59:00.000-06:00

Dear Anti-Blogger,

March 17 is my 6-year Bloggiversary and with that I decided it was time to let you know how things stand with me.

I guess my first mistake was when I admitted that I blog. You said, “Get a life. Get out of the house. Make some new friends, find some new contacts, or join a club.”

“Come with me,” you said, but what you didn’t say (but still I knew), was you wanted me to compulsively, and almost daily embed myself in clusters of animated individuals.”

And I imagined you might be right. So for three weeks I engaged in dinners, dancing, and your other social events with their ribald conversations and compulsory social rites that accompany the ornamental membership that insulates your life from mine.

Together we whirled and twirled. Out and about. But despite the excellent food, the delightful bouquet of the wine, the brocade cloth, set against symphonic background music, and tables set with fork number one, and fork number two, and fork number three, all seem linked to a gloomy insincerity. I mean, maybe it’s just me, but I find it just a bit unsettling when forks have to line up and vie for time and an appointment?

I find that somewhat representative of the mockery of real life – where society is so bent on individual rights in a world of cloned disposition, designation, and duplication. Despite these thoughts, I remained silent. I promised myself I would not wound your intentions, though you didn’t hesitate to wound mine.

“It’s an ego-thing,” you said, “that blogging business. Like busking on the corner. ‘Look at me! I’m here! Listen to my song and dance and then drop a comment or two into the bucket.’ ”

Okay, okay. I can’t deny that, because that part of it, I’m not too sure about. Maybe that is the case.

But there is more, and for me to explain to you would be asking you to recognize the improbable. How can I defend my position by saying that here I form alliances with individuals for whom I have immense fondness? If I said that, you would laugh, roll your eyes, and say that I either lie or exaggerate.

How can I expect you to absorb my conviction that there is preciseness to be found in my Blog-World of totally diverse, yet collective intelligence? And brightness to each day gleaned from complexity made simple and simplicity made complex?

That here I see stunning world champions of Beauty and Brawn embellished with nothing more than the glow of ideas. Or sincerity in oblique convictions cast from another side of the seas of life. Though separated by vast geographical distances, we express closeted thoughts and analyze only those bits of interchange conveyed by words. But as limited as our exchange is, it is enough to know who is of sound judgment, sweet heart, and sober thought.

Relationships here are not based on superficial visual-perceptions of worthiness that trick us into forming new relationships that progress at such a reckless pace. Relationships formed in one day, fast-ripening by next week, and showing bits of rot and deterioration in three months.

Bloggers form alliances at a much slower rate. But in the end they are relationships that cause us to be touched, ambitious, and mindful of each other in special ways. I know you can’t understand it, but in the end we are linked as soundly by mirror-matter of the soul as gregarious and indiscriminate individuals in real life are linked by hot-spots of the flesh.

So frolic in your pulsing, steaming, social immersions of breath and body, while I frolic with equal delight with dear friends in the rapid transit of word, and phrase—essay, poetry, and composition—letters, quotes, punctuation.

(Written in honor of Blogger Friends who visit, cheer, and ~~comment-~~comfort me.)

Another Stimulus Package

2009-02-27T01:29:00.000-07:00

The only thing missing amidst all the bickering about an economic stimulus package is creative thinking and common sense. So I will give you the ‘creative thinking’ and leave the ‘common sense’ to someone else.

Now first of all the carry on makes me wonder if Canada and America have never known hard times in the past. But I know better. There were the dirty thirties (which I missed out on) but times were tough when I was a kid as well. And one could hardly call the two large cartons of tinned meat of questionable origin that the government handed out a stimulus package. Still it was much appreciated and as we ate sandwiches we had time to ponder how to salvage the house my Dad built after the fire, from foreclosure.

We attacked the problem by ‘clustering or bunching up’. That, of course, was before privacy became a big deal and cocooning came into vogue. And before lawmaking erupted from government hill like an overactive volcano, melting and crushing the natural God-given empowerment of mankind’s own initiative and instinct to survive.

So long ago, before government legislation forgave us any responsibility for our own difficulties, homeowners falling behind on mortgages, cleared out the small space under their stairwell, where they installed a cot and advertised for a boarder. Others cleaned out basements or attics and rented them out.

This was the initiative of so many for a solution during depressed times. But you see, this was a time when more thought was given to practical needs that the thought of privacy. This was not a time of luxuries. Luxuries were not in season. And privacy was a luxury.

Returning to my father’s situation, he decided he would find a renter. And that is exactly what he did. He cleared out a corner upstairs in the boys’ attic-room and an old fellow who needed a place to live, moved in. Later, when the old guy died or moved out (can’t remember now), and the elder boys went to work, my father partitioned a corner of the living room for the youngest boy’s bedroom and made an upstairs suite that my eldest sister and her family occupied. Our living space was reduced and some of these quarters were quite cramped but the bit of rent was enough of an added ‘stimulus’ to keep afloat.

Others of our country-neighbors created small additions to house elderly parents, not so much to prevent the pains of separation, but because the small pensions their elders received served in like manner to stimulate their household economy.

Even before Hub and I owned a home and lived in rental quarters we often ended up with boarders of our own bunking on the couch. The sub-letting gave us a few more dollars that were sorely needed. And yes, there were annoyances and grievances that occasionally stemmed from this kind of clustering, but if nothing else, it was a great lesson in patience and tolerance.

So now I shake my head in dismay at stimulus packages being handed out so two people can retain a house with enough space and enough rooms to easily accommodate 30 people. In my math books, 30 (no. of people) x $1000 (conservative rent) = a monthly stimulus/mortgage assist of $30,000.

Unfortunately, although this looks so good on paper, we can’t go back there. Most practical reason we can’t is because legislation prevents home-owners from inspecting renter’s space without permission. And legislation prevents them from evicting the slovenly, dysfunctional, or irresponsible. And legislation defines a thousand other considerations to do with fire escapes, privates entrances, window dimensions, etc. that impedes such considerations.

The despair of it all is that there are virtually no responsibilities left up to the discretion of individuals. No affirmation by government that people are born with a drop of sense. And without that affirmation, is it any wonder individuals and business owners find themselves in Economic Sinkholes?

And so the ‘community cooperation’ that once saved us from ourselves, that kept us in the know as to what others were doing, has been burned on the altar of ‘our right to privacy’. The new order is, ‘I don’t care what others are doing that is cruel, vicious, or evil, as long as what they do does not impact on me and my right to privacy'.

And so suspended in our private space, not only are homes repossessed, but without omnipresent landlords, dysfunctional behavior can easily hide and we are not aware until too late that sickos are putting bodies in freezers and children are missing.

And so, for reasons of privacy protection (with a strong foothold that only continues to strengthen), we can never return to clustering. How can we when we know nothing of the character of people that walk down the front walk every day for years on end?
___

In conclusion, I am reminded of a thought expressed by someone, somewhere, that the greenest of green is being able to live with what one has rather than what one wants. That’s how people turned red to green (monetarily, and even environmentally) the last time hard times hit.

Happenings and Consequences

2009-02-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve never given a lot of thought to positive or negative mind control, except for some loosely-knit and conflicting notions in a dusty corner of my mind.

In a bland-thinking way, I’ve always thought that ‘if’ faith-healing happens, a part of that happening is the placebo of positive thought. Yet alternatively (though some doctors are avid proponents of positive thinking), I dispel the belief that patients can fight physical illness with positive thinking. Agreed, it is beneficial, but only as an add-on to medical cures.

Unfortunately, what the doctor-proponents of this belief fail to say is how many of the cases cured by positive thought are psychosomatic, and how many are not. But here the discussion becomes an enigma because patients don’t know, and doctors cannot say with any certainty, which illnesses stem from the mind and which stem from the body. It is no different than the argument about which came first – the chicken, or the egg? Did a distressed mind initially lead to the disease, or did the disease precede the distressed mind?

I’ll agree it is beneficial to be positive but I’m not convinced that one can create an imaginary army of warriors that can fight, without medical assistance, arthritic pain, a killer toothache, stomach flu, or even more serious problems. If that were true, it would make us all way too responsible for how we feel for me to accept it. (Especially since every one else has psychosomatic ailments, but not me!). Besides which, with my wild thinking, the imaginative cure would give me a bloody unfair advantage over others who only deal in reality.

This discussion is going somewhere, I’m just not sure where. But that last thought brings something else to mind that I must tell you. And that is how much I hate that old saying, ‘that everything happens for a reason.’ I just can’t swallow it. Or even understand the reasoning in it. I can accept that ‘some things happen for a reason’ but not ‘everything’.

I have seen too many innocent children and kindly adults go through horrors that are way beyond any reason. Maybe I misinterpret the saying, but to me this phrase, in plainer language, says, ‘Everyone gets what they deserve.’ And if that means bad acts get bad consequences, I’m okay with that, but if it means that bad consequences are a result of reasonable actions because down the road the whole matter will be reversed in a beneficial way, I have a serious problem with that. How much pain must one endure while they are waiting, within a limited lifetime, for the next flip flop?

I don’t know if you can make a bit of sense out of what I just said, but nevertheless we continue.

As for me, I don’t do astrology, and I am not superstitious. Although again, I guess I am – in a bland-thinking sort of way. So often bloggers are in a similar state of yen that I can only chalk up the similarity to the positioning of stars and planets.

Climate can not cause the phenomena, because of the variations throughout the globe. Calendar time has to be dismissed as a possible link if there is no direct influence at the time of a widely celebrated holiday. So what’s left to cause this duplication of mood and thinking, except ocean tides and planets? So I guess, in an oblique way, I do delve in astrology.

And I insist I am not superstitious. I do not walk around ladders, I don’t give black cats a thought or broken mirrors, but I do have an uneasy moment every time I check the calendar and find Friday, the 13th staring me in the face. I don’t become quivery or panicky, but you won’t find me on an airplane, or a long road trip that day, when I have 364 other days to choose from.

Now this prologue, I felt was necessary, before I say what I really wanted to say today which is very brief. I wanted to say it to you yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. I wanted to say it last week, last month, last year and the year before that. I wanted to say it this morning, this afternoon, this evening. It seems like forever I have felt the retching need to say it like a nasty vomiting urge, but I refused to say it. And I guess, truth is, I couldn’t say it because of positive-thinking reasons, astrological reasons, and superstitious reasons.

I just think by saying it, acknowledging it, I will make it chronic and give it everlasting life. I am leery to say it and that leeriness is somehow tied indirectly to all that I have just told you. To say it erases whatever good comes from positive thinking. To say it is to acknowledge that I am superstitious and have some kind of foolish superstitious-thinking connected to the admission.

But I don’t care. I bloody don’t care. Today I will bloody out with it. I can hold it back no longer. I just can’t.

What I’ve so wanted to tell you is…“I am tired.” Not physically unwell, just really tired.

And if this is happening for a reason, as in ‘everything happens for a reason’, then I have a problem with that as well. The obvious reason is I am getting old. The ‘happening’ is ‘tired’. The ‘reason’ is ‘old’.

So now, for the people that accept this phrase and use this phrase and believe in this phrase, is not your devotion to the phrase connected to a comfort that you draw from it? Is that not true? Well, for me there is nothing comforting about it.

Man, why did I do this? Now tomorrow I’ll be way more tired than I am today.