Friday, November 27, 2015

Santa's Cookies

Family traditions.  Surely you have some.  I know I did. The proof is in the attic and on the very top shelf of my pantry.

It's late November and my head and heart are in conflict. It's an annual battle and the deciding vote has (until recently) been cast by my children. That vote being to decorate or not.

For a family where religion is an option, traditional celebrations must remain flexible to accommodate
and validate each person.  For years, we opted out of the religious component and it was a good fit. We  had a collective spiritual connection within our familial group. We served the community without the constraints of belonging to one belief or purposely limiting our service to others in a pre selected location or physical building.

Thanksgiving and Christmas ran together; sometimes spilling into the new year. In our family, the tree was erected after turkey dinner and my husband stayed out way after dark to finalize stringing the lights.  We had live trees and artificial ones on alternating years.  We mixed previous year's ornaments with new.  The ornaments  bought when our children were born were hung at eye level; each year a little higher to compliment the height of each growing child.

The few fragile ornaments passed down to me remained high on the mantle, out of harms reach. The lights were blinking some years.  Order and themed decor gave way to an eclectic mixing of favorites.  It didn't matter if nothing matched because everyone helped.

And then the day came when it all stopped. The anticipation of the holidays became overwhelming and I know that this came about at the same time I began my own business.  The days were long and unpredictable and the last thing I needed was to be uncomfortable in my own home.  Everything was "house beautiful" and unlivable.  It was like living in some one else's doll house.  The chairs were not where chairs should be, the table tops and piano top were covered with red and green, elves and reindeer. Someone had to be home all the time to ensure the tree remained erect and not become the latest chew toy for the dogs or scratching post for the cats.

So everything was put into boxes and stored in the attic. Everything but a very old serving platter in the shape of Santa's face.  That special plate was stored with old dog dishes and paper towels on the top shelf of the pantry.

I found it yesterday and finally realized it's purpose.

It's the only tangible item I have from my childhood and it didn't really belong to me until I was 40 years old.

It belonged to my mother's friend, Alice.  Alice was my parent's next door neighbor. She was their neighbor when home was a furnished apartment in someone else's garage somewhere in Seattle. When they were newly married and expecting their first child through adoption, Alice was the one who bought all the necessary items to furnish a nursery and surprised them by placing the items in the apartment before we came home. As the story was told to me,  the agency called to say that they were going to be parents one day and I came home the next. No time to go shopping, no time to get ready.  Who knew the seven year wait would end in such a whirlwind?

Our family of three moved to the midwest and correspondence with Alice came by letter and a single visit one summer. I received birthday gifts for many years from Alice and as she got older she sent me "unbirthday" gifts because she couldn't remember the date anymore.  I lost track of her somewhere in my high school years.

When I turned 40, our military life had us living in western Washington. For some unknown reason, I needed to know if Alice was still living.  I wanted to meet her again and share that Mom had died and ask questions that only she would be able to answer.  I found her excited that I tried to find her and she invited me for a visit.

On a crisp January day, my birthday present to myself was that long afternoon with Alice.  Questions were asked and answered, tea and cookies were served for a post lunch snack.  She baked the cookies herself stating that cookies baked with love and for a loved one were so much better than store bought.  She was absolutely right.  She shared pages from treasured photo albums which helped me put the pieces of my life's puzzle together.

Time with her passed much too quickly and it was time for my long drive back.  She was fussing about the house, remarking that I must take something; something to remind me how I spent my birthday. Something to remind me of her, after all she was my Auntie Alice.

Her demeanor sweetened and she said "Just a minute, I know the perfect remembrance".  She handed me the Santa platter; freshly washed and wrapped in newspaper because she didn't have any gift wrap on hand.

We embraced, and knew that it was the final visit.  I cried most the way home.  The dish sat on the passenger seat as a constant reminder of the unconditional love which had spanned decades. That love was genuine.

The paint on that beloved platter is beginning to crack and there maybe a chip on Santa's nose, but it's the only cookie plate I will ever use.

As for the holidays, perhaps it's time to bring out the elves and reindeer again and this year, the angel on the top of the tree will have a name - Alice.






Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Soul Train

I can't believe it.  It's quickly and undeniably approaching…my 60th.  I can almost begin the countdown and I'm not afraid. Used to be, but not now.

Thankfully the train hasn't pulled into that final station yet and I can pull the brake cord if I panic and need to take just one more side trip; maybe two more. Seems that I've been taking a lot of unscheduled
diversions of late. Just got back from one and planning another.  Under pressure to make up for lost time?

If memory serves me correctly, my time has been well spent. Whatever itinerary I've been following, time was not a factor. Well, leisure time was not a factor and that accounts for the inexplicable misplacement of six decades.  You'd think that the planning and execution of my life's purpose would have included some serious downtime.  Exactly WHEN did I catch my breath or am I still running on the original deep intake of oxygen? I sure could use a boost of that "second wind".

I am in a perpetual introspective state of mind.  My mother's journals are the source of my quietness.
Yesterday, I read her final entry.  She screamed, "let me die, the pain is too much"…I signed the release".  This last glimpse into her life was penned in early November 1987.  The remaining pages of her annual daily planner were blank.  I assume she just put down the pen and waited. It was a short wait, for she passed the18th of January 1988.

I was married that spring. That should have been the catalyst of a new beginning, but that new chapter was burdened by grief. That grief is still part of who I am.

I want a do-over.  Problem is that my web of relationships would have to accompany me and there are some I don't want to repeat.  Know what I mean?

Here I sit, wondering about my choices leading up to this pivotal moment.  I will be a senior citizen, not quite at the threshold of social security, but the world will look upon me with different eyes.  How will my vision be?

Most likely, still nearsighted.  That's a gift of genetics.  Let me rephrase:  How will my soul see things?

As the train navigates and winds through my life's landscape, there's a chance it could be derailed.
I am not in the conductor's seat, just a passenger fulfilling what the universe promises.  The whistle blows, the wheels turn, the tracks pass by at high speed, leaving me breathless and unprepared for
the next station; the next one and the one after that.  It's not a round trip, there's no stamp "return" on my ticket.

Do I have any say in my destination? The last time I checked, my opinion hadn't been solicited.
There's some internal force directing the route.  There's no time table for reference.

Optimism and capriciousness are my strengths.  I'm sure that there are counterweights because I stand pretty much middle ground.  I am balanced like the "Weebles" I played with as a child.  Knock me down, I stand back up.  Push me aside and I whirl around and return to a standing and solid position.

I learned that the ability to balance lends itself to occasional confrontations. I have battle scars. You'll not be able to discern where they are or how many I own. Resilience is my shield. I just keep on keeping on and my soul train carries me to my eventual reincarnation.  I hope it's just as amazing around the next bend.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Halloween's Obituary

I'm a rebel.  Started young… After everyone else had shouted "trick or treat", I'd be the one who chimed in "smell my feet, give me something good to eat"! Ah, the good ole days! I remember annual trips to K Mart for costumes and hoping that each year I wouldn't have to wear my ski coat over my selection.  Growing up in Colorado, it was guaranteed to be snowy and cold and readymade costumes had to be roomy enough for the warm layers underneath.

I shared my childhood between two neighborhoods.  The 31st of October was always a favored family event.  During the school day, Mom was room mother, always in costume. I remember her as a gypsy and a witch.  She was a consummate actress. It's a testimonial to her craft that I remember the details of her characters these 50 years later.

My next door buddy, Jimbo, celebrated his birthday on Halloween. All the kids on our street were invited to his party and dinner was always hotdogs and the cake was appropriately decorated in orange and black.  It was guaranteed to find some wax teeth in the goody bag.  Trick and treating was done en mass and near the 8:00 hour, my brother and I returned home and counted and traded candies.

Our family moved to another neighborhood when I started 2nd grade, I think.  Time for new traditions. We moved next door to my grandmother.  The sixty years age difference was perfect for us (she really was a child at heart). Readymade outfits were no longer the norm.  Costume shopping was accomplished in phases, from notions department at the local five and dime for material, buttons, snaps and zippers straight back to Grandma's house where she cut out a pattern from newsprint, to the sewing machine and finally to the arts and crafts store for face paint supplies.

She loved Halloween and before the threat of treats laced with narcotics, broken glass, etc., you'd be offered a choice of freshly baked goods served from an appropriately themed platter. One year she surprised us all with caramel apples. My favorite memory, however, was the year she gave out money.

The Great Depression changed her generation. Survival skills were honed at their most raw and basic level. Those skills stayed with her. She was an expert of what we would call "up cycling"; always reinventing new from old, beauty from scrap and a weeks worth of meals from just two or three ingredients.

She collected pennies and when the collection jar was full, she would visit her bank and convert cents into quarters which would be given to her grandkids in presentation booklets at Christmas. One year, her penny jar didn't last until December; she decided to count out equal amounts, wrap the change in tidy little net packages (like rice to throw at weddings) and deposit one each to the children.

That year, I must have been approaching "preteendom", because I recall ending my run of the neighborhood and stopping in to help her. Maybe it was upon suggestion from my mother, or maybe it was because my brother had ditched me and I didn't want to go home yet.  None the less, I remember sitting in her formal living room with best view of the street and keeping an eye on her as she opened the storm door and chatted with all the little ones.  I can hear the excited cries of "Look, Mommie, look at what I got!"

Grandma was just as excited and was pleased that her savings that year was sufficient to include the very last trick or treater. It was a very busy night, so much so, that she commented to me "Oh, my,
this is the first year that I've seen so many children in the same costumes"!  Our subdivision had been the target of families living out of town who came by station wagons to get the really good stuff.  So, Grandma didnt't think twice about it.  Of course, we didn't realize it then, but looking back, the truth of it was the children figured out if they changed their grouping at the corner, they could return to her house and help themselves to more. It was a very successful Halloween.

My children carried on the tradition.  They had classroom parties, I was their room mother. I baked treats and entertained the class with homemade "boo bingo" cards.  They wore hand stitched costumes when they were very little and  their own fashion statements as they got older.  My husband would stay home to answer the door and I accompanied both kids to the very last house and helped them carry their overflowing plastic pumpkins back to the house. As they got older, parties replaced
trick or treating and soon, the bewitching hour became the normal curfew.

I don't do Halloween anymore.  The defining moment was the year the children on the other side of my front door were taller than my husband.  I knew these kids, they'd grown up with mine and I didn't believe that trick or treating was a right of passage to the high school experience.

So, for the last several years, our house has joined the "no porch light" group.  We've lived in this neighborhood near twenty years and have seen recent shift in the number of homes with young families.  I know some of the newest families  haven't been told of the no porch light rule and I fully expect someone to ring the doorbell and hope that the door opens.  Some of the less enthusiastic neighbors leave bowls of  candy outside, but I'm not in favor of this practice.

We just leave for an extended dinner and hope that our return goes un noticed and we gain re-entry to the garage without giving false hope to the last of the youngsters.

Maybe this tradition is waning.  Since when did this holiday become so wholesome?  Haven't you noticed the trend of "fall festivals" in classrooms, churches, fraternal halls and retail outlets? Maybe the event has finally come full circle; revisiting agrarian celebrations and perhaps touching on a cultural tone.  Could be? I could be witness to it's epitaph.  I don't give it much thought.

My memories will entertain future generations around the dinner table. I will be reminded of them each year when I tuck a bag of candy corn among the usual groceries. If I happen to move again, to a town which embraces tradition, regardless of it's origins, I will open my door and delight in the innocence of childhood and remember the ghosts of Halloweens past.



Friday, October 16, 2015

Finding My Tribe

I'm going tribal; rather I am committed to going tribal;  I am unsure just how, but I think I am going tribal. Confused?  Me, too.

My life choices have me living well enough in a serene and safe location and yet I am out of sync with those around me.  I've tried to belong here.  Circumstances have predicated that I make a concerted effort to raise my family here with all the benefits of clean living coastal style.

Well, I've done a bang-up job.  Kids are mostly on their own journeys and have had independent mindsets for years.  They're prepared.

I'm not.  All I feel is a longing to be elsewhere. My soul is restless and tired.  The me I am is not who I am destined to be.  I know this. The message from far beyond the rainbow has been delivered in triplicate now. There is a unified voice which speaks at every reading…I am stuck.  My soul is creative but repressed, partly out of fear, partly out of ignorance and partly out of the loss of control.

How did I lose control over me?  The answer would be that I gave it away. Gave it away to make room for other's needs.  Survival.  As a single woman, came dating and marriage. As a married woman, came parenting, post parenting back to marriage and perhaps in the event, my husband dies first,  I will navigate life on my own again.

I don't want to wait for any eventuality.  The identity crisis is now.

This wanderlust desperation is cumulative.  It has been shelved and second-guessed for quite a long time; perhaps approaching one-third of my existence in this present reincarnation.

I have had clues all along.  Having lived half my life in one place and living the other half packing and unpacking to support my husband's naval career, raise children, work and volunteer, I want to just settle.  And I want to settle where I belong.  My heart knows the place; it's familiar.

Having just returned from a short reunion in that place, I realized that my identity lies within its geographical boundaries.  My beginning is my destiny.  The place where I grew up is waiting for me to return.

I have been itinerant, displaced but grateful for the challenges along the way. Each person, whether chosen by or for me, has been gifted by the universe in order to teach and guide me.  I am the product of an enormous collaborative effort and I like who I am.

I will continue to like who I am becoming; I have no self-doubt. In the meantime...

It has been suggested that I find a new "tribe" (for lack of a better noun) and that was not my word of choice. It belonged to my intuitive. Seated in her private office, I was receiving my annual reading and no surprise, my guides were harping on my seeming predicament of being an unwitting prisoner of my present circumstances.  That's a very descriptive way of saying "what's stopping you?"

The conversation had been innocent enough, just why was I happiest elsewhere?  And, why was I happiest elsewhere by myself? My response to her direct question was "anonymity". Okay then, I wanted to be a blank canvas and experience life with no prejudice. Sounds healthy.

She said "They are bringing up Shirley Valentine. It was a movie, I think in the '80s. It's who you are now.  Maybe you can stream it or order it through Amazon." I ordered it.  They were right.

She was lost, I am lost. She was used up. I am approaching empty. She took a chance and found joy.
I know where my joy is.  Sometimes a step back is necessary in order to forge ahead. Sometimes the best place to get to know yourself is where it all began.

I'm not searching for a new tribe. There's no need...There's no place like home.









Messages

Life interrupted-
it happened today.
Deliberately pausing
my agenda in a way
that was so reassuring.
brought a smile to my face.
To gaze at butterflies
in pursuit at the time
and the place…
of my existence.

Yesterday's message
came by way of a penny.
At first, didn't notice,
being busy with many
things on my mind.
And today the same thing.
Different place, not surprising to find
for I was standing outside of my bank.
It could have been taken by some body else.
Now whom do I humbly thank?

Every now and again,
I am touched by great love.
It connects and reminds me,
that below and above me,
is the realm and the destiny
which my soul will embrace.

The messages will continue
through time and through space-
to encourage and comfort,
to empower and embrace,
to reveal my truth,
to share it's power.
and there shall be
no definitive hour of my earthly demise.

For the universe, of which I am apart
is endless and forgiving.
All the more reason
to look forward to living

One message at a time.



Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Self Reunion

I'm experiencing a strange emotion.  You'd think at my age there would be few unexpected mind versus heart conflicts, but I can't help feeling I'm in the wrong place at the right time.

Loss is not temporary.  It lies deep within the soul and is triggered when revisiting the places where ghosts hold the key to unlock memories.

Memories come quickly, all at once. There is scarcely time to breathe between them…and then they're gone and I am left depleted and unrecognizable. I am changed.

I knew that my visit home would be a balancing act. An opportunity existed and the timing was perfect.
"Me time" was all I could think about.  I needed it, I deserved it.

When reunited with my brother at the airport, I just burst into tears and knew something was about to
redefine who I was and the person I would become.  Just knew it, couldn't explain it and didn't make any attempt to avoid it.

I have been holding my breath apparently.  Last time I remember purposeful breathing was at Dad's funeral.  I had to remain composed and give the eulogy.  I had to remain calm and ensure all the attendees were comfortable, fed and properly thanked.

Life changed then for the second time.  Mom died eight years prior.  I was exhausted following her death and looking back, never really stepped out of the grief.

I retraced the paths to all the highlights of my younger years. Sometimes the paths had been untouched by time. It was joyful.  Other times, there was no tangible evidence of my ever having been there.  It was disbelief.  How could parts of my life disappear?  I felt betrayed.

I do not embrace change. I am in an uncomfortable evolution; living a parallel life with my memories. I exist on one plane and my truth exists on the other.  How do I combine my selves and stop the competition?

The answer is the 40th parallel; that imaginary line runs east and west in the city of my youth.  I grew up quarter-mile south of it.  Guess the real me never really left for I found myself still lingering there in the virgin prairie meadows at the base of the Rocky Mountains. I heard the morning song of the Western Meadowlark. Well, my heart heard them for they are extinct in my home town now.

I don't understand why my soul remained without the outer shell. Have I been living a lie?

I am not sure.

Walking hand in hand with my former self, I wondered what I was thinking of leaving such a beautiful place.  Who's hand dealt the cards? Who's the responsible one? Me? Choices and consequences...that would be my guess.  I'll leave the choices (formerly presented) part to the universe,..to that continuation of my soul's journey.  The consequences?  Well, that's undetermined.

I am not easily victimized, must be that capricious nature I was gifted. So perhaps lessons learned will tilt the scale in my favour.

The reunion with family presented an opportunity to learn and appreciate those who had been estranged from me for such a long pause.  The new memories danced around old ones and helped to solidify my longing to return there. This was not a sentimental journey.  It was the catalyst for my survival...on my terms.

The emotions which I had suppressed burst through the layers of years of living elsewhere. I had lunch with myself in the same place I had taken Dad to celebrate his birthday.  Sat in the same place and ordered the same meal.  I cried in my salad.  I visited an art gallery and stood reverent at the base of original art which spoke to me of the pristine beauty of the solitary Aspen tree.

The conversations, laughter, and tears shared with loved ones, filled me to capacity; so much so, that I could not eat.  Had I had the presence of mind and no fear of possible embarrassment, I would have spun myself in the middle of some field with arms stretched wide singing the theme song from The Sound of Music...the Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music,,tra la la.

I left me there again for life does not wait upon dreams.  I have obligations and situations which must be resolved before my final reunion.

That day is coming.  I am telling you now just in case you turn around and I'm not here.  I'll leave a map and if you knew me at all, you'll not be in need of directions.






Sunday, September 27, 2015

The New Normal

Yesterday, I got a glimpse of my future and it looks a lot like the present day of the much older lady, in perm rods two stations down from me, at the local college of beauty.

The last month has been a constant daily out of body experience; desperately trying to reinvent my self in readiness for a family reunion. The internal conversation, in my head,  has been dominated by the two strongest voices ego and denial. I can't remember when either appeared in that cerebral conference room but I'm guessing that ego has been in residence much longer.

I don't follow theological dogma; couldn't recite the ten commandments but I do have a basic understanding of the golden rule and try to pay every kindness forward.  My ego would be in agreement with that last statement. Living with intent…to put another"s needs ahead of mine has been the fuel which directs my feet as soon as they hit the floor.

My outer self has been neglected recently and that's no one's fault.  Life just gets busy. Competition for a glimpse in the bathroom or hallway mirrors is now between the under 25 crowd in my house.  I don't know, for certain, if the cats or dogs participate in this ritual.  They might, given I'm always cleaning every reflective surface in their wing of the house. Furthermore, I don't need to check myself in a mirror as much these days, the clothes are hung in coordinated pairings and shoes are mostly neutral so they go with everything.

My wardrobe is functional; I don't seem to mind.  My focus is on the task at hand rather than my appearance completing said task.  I am who you see and that was working very well until...

I realized I needed a vacation; on my own terms, by myself and I chose to go home. So I called my brother and invited myself to stay a week. Then I thought, well, I'll be within a couple hundred miles of my in laws, so why not extend a couple of days and include a visit with them.

That's all I could dream about a month ago.  All the details soon fell into play and now I'm just days from going.

I'm excited to go, my imaginary suitcase is packed and I just realized that my relatives remember what I used to look like.  The last vision they had was at my father's funeral and the tearful goodbye at the airport.  I was all in black, eyes red and teary, no makeup and exhausted having to take the red eye back.  My husband and children did not accompany me.  Didn't want them to. It was a very private affair.  I had just seen Dad two weeks earlier in his hospital bed and knew then that he was not long for this world.

Well, fast forward, as I stated earlier life gets busy. I have so many things to tell everyone.  A week's stay hardly seems time enough to share a decade's worth of living.

Re introductions, swapping stories and hurried memory making will all pass in the blink of an eye.  There will be photographs taken at inopportune moments and now my ego is waning and denial has me in a panic. I really don't look like this…DO I?

I had my bff on speed dial and sent her a message that I was en route to have my hair done. "Did she think a new style would be flattering"?  I followed that question with a personal observation:  I am so vain. Her reply: " You are normal".  Since when? lol " Well, there are aspects of you that are normal and I'm always surprised to see them".

My "denial" voice interrupts to inform me that my veneer has been penetrated. That the truth of the matter is I long for a change; something to get excited about, something to get me out of the comfortable rut I have been living in.  Well a family reunion might just be the incentive I need.

Okay, I'm normal. Hoping that her definition was not "free of mental deficiency" and rather, "conformity to a standard" or "usual", I began to relax. Nothing to be in a panic over.
It's just nerves. Silly really. I'm unchanged where it counts but just in case, my new hair do and an occasional glance in the mirror will help me celebrate the new normal me.



Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Gray Scale

I am just sitting here wondering about my life at this juncture and the details which define it. When did my life slide from the endless combinations on the color wheel to a palette of monochromatic tones?

It wasn't' planned that way.  I've been reading my mother's diaries and her descriptions of me, spanning 31 years of our journey, were never neutral. She didn't leave out any details and I'm embarrassed to read what she really thought.  Who was I then?  Who am I now?

It's all there in black and white and occasionally red and white (on the occasion of Christmas, when using a red ink pen was her tradition).  I've just started this review and completed three and one-half years, not in chronological order, but rather gathering volumes from the peanut packed box my brother sent me two years ago.  There's really no order, I suppose my father packed them away sometime between 1988 and 2003 after she died and he remarried.

Anyone who knows me now would wonder why I haven't organized the books in some logical timeline reference.  Don't know really, maybe I have decided to allow the universe to determine what I read and when.  There must be some point to it, I don't believe in chance. So on I go, sweeping away the styrofoam peanuts and old newspaper liners to rediscover me in layers.

I'm grateful for my second chance.  It is really because now I understand what events formed our relationship.  I understand the circumstances which formed her opinions of me.  Should I have had this insight when she was living, I'd be a far different woman now. Certainly, I would have learned empathy at an earlier age.

All the colorful, descriptive, accurate accountings of half of my life are now in my possession. I am discovering my truth through the eyes of the one person I didn't get to know.  Such a loss.

The pages flow in a poignant pattern of facts and emotional upheaval.  She was really not well prepared for the maternal role which was not entirely her decision.  She was barren due to a major surgery which weakened her back muscles from hip to shoulder.  My dad, having come from a large family of 6, wanted to carry on the family name.  My cousins, notwithstanding, apparently were not doing a good job of preserving the name, so as the youngest of 4 to marry, he took on the challenge.

My brother and I were adopted, three years nine months apart and from different states. Mom was raised by a single parent without the benefit of siblings.  She must have been overwhelmed when I came along.

So the years came and went, page by page.  Scattered recipes, poems, and obscure unidentifiable newspaper clippings are among the diary entries.  The address section changes annually and I don't remember the names, but it wasn't my diary.

Some of her memories are the same as mine, exactly the same down to the description of what I wore on what occasion and lists of gifts received for every birthday, holiday, commencement, etc. Funny, how those details are carbon copies. But then again, they were happy times.

The entries, I don't want to read, but are drawn to, are those which reveal the darker side of who she was and how hard she tried to cope.  I am finding that she was ill for many, many years before the cancers appeared.  She struggled to be that perfect faculty wife for my dad.  They were always attending conferences, at least he was and she had frequent opportunities to travel with him.  Back then, a wife on the arm did much for a man's chances of success in the corporate world.

I am constantly surprised with each turn of the page as to how she remembered to include such details as my lessons, temperature, and duration of fevers when I was sick, cost of my braces and payment schedule, names and addresses of all my friends and lovers, gifts that I gave her and telephone calls she eavesdropped.  It's all there; part journalistic and part confessional.

The written words are very colorful, but then she had a fine arts background so details consumed her. They were prominent in her wardrobe and her interior decorating, her Christmas cookies and her 700 plus elephant collection.  As room mother, her abilities to throw together classroom parties were without rival and she was a very popular volunteer in all things I was involved in.

My life was perfect. My life was a prism which reflected who she wanted me to be.  She did pretty well and then she died. She died weeks before my wedding. We planned it, together, from her hospice bed.

And that was the last chapter, I took over my life without her safety net. And just like her, my foray into motherhood was a leap of faith.  And now…

All the details are blurry because I did not keep a diary.  I don't have many memories, didn't think to chronicle my life from that day to this.  But, it's not all about me, actually, it never was.

The grayness of my life comes at a time when the contribution is parallel to the energy of the soul.
I have the energy for sustenance and opportunities which the younger me would have needed help to navigate. All is well, a little less colorful to be certain, but well just the same.



Saturday, September 19, 2015

Conflicted


If you haven't tuned your radio dial to NPR recently, you're missing out.  I mean the topics covered rival all printed material bundled together worldwide.  It's an amazing journalistic accomplishment which keeps me apprised, enthralled and in step with local and world events.

 I don't subscribe to the printed or online editions of newspapers, magazines, blogs or what have you.  I don't own an iPod, iPad, tablet, Bluetooth, Apple watch or curved HD television.  And yet, I survive.  My kitchen appliances are mostly second hand and the recipes which have been passed down don't need changing because the new and improved appliance is incapable of just whisking or stirring or sifting.

And now…I have learned that my last physical day on earth will not be my release. Techno-blunder. The memory of my earthly existence will not only remain with the living but my ashes will not absolve the universe from an eternal digitized unauthorized biography. I do not own, outright, the legal right to terminate my cumulative digital images and thought processes.   Unless I opt for my electronic signature on some document (an apparent option within my chosen social media account)-WHICH I DO NOT OWN, YOUR images and written accountings of MY life will be FOREVER preserved in the cloud. The retrieval of any and all digital likenesses will be left to the thoughtful executor of my vast estate.

Yes, I am conflicted and really pissed off.  Do I need technology to chronicle my contributions?  Oh hell no.

I am trying not to leave a legacy.  You can't find me on any of the more popular social media pages.
Go to google search and try.  I'm not easily located unless you know my family tree and then you'd just have to be satisfied to read that my name appeared in the obituaries of three close family members.  I suppose my high school yearbook is downloaded, but that was me before me and I really don't care.

There are, of course, attempts to detail my existence through public records, but again, that search is akin to a paper doll likeness; no real depth.  Nothing tantalizing, not even sufficient content for a grade school report on "your favorite person". My latest photograph is on my driver's license.

I never scrapbooked, didn't keep my own school pictures and my children's school pictures are in their possession. I am not the caretaker of the family history.

Well back to my tirade.

My life is chugging along, somewhat predictably and there is little fight left in my soul.  I don't want excitement.  I'd rather a quiet revelation, nothing to cause ripples against the shore.  Just let it be, John Lennon.

I heard a quote today on that favorite radio station, during their broadcast of the TED Radio Hour.  "The digital world cannibalizes time".  We are existing in string theory; real-time AND that experience which defines coexistence at your convenience.  Delayed tapings, texts which interrupt the moment, replays and such are tools which we think are necessary in order to extend the twenty-four hours which used to regulate our daily life.

Pair that with all those free-floating, in the cloud images of yourself and try to live your own life without commentary.  Not possible.

Footnote:  My husband just offered his understanding of this article thus far and said: "You are pissed off because you are not author to your own biography." THAT'S EXACTLY RIGHT. The possible imagery out there redefines me. It's a manipulation. It's catfishing on steroids.

I am trying so hard to gain a new perspective on how my life affects the universal energies…and now this.

I don't want my soul's journey to navigate the highlights and lowlights of this particular timeline. If my purpose is still undefined, let me continue in the shadows without reflection, without pausing to consider the "what ifs". And to that end…

I give full permission for all who own images of me, to release them into the universe. Give me the freedom to create and allow my gift to light the path I am on.

There will be no grave marker on that final day.  After the fireworks, my remains will fodder a young white birch sapling, high in the mountains of Colorado.  Come there to find me when the Aspens turn and know that I am with you. Preserve the reunion in your heart, where memories belong.




Thursday, August 20, 2015

Energy field

I am. You are. She/He is. They are. We are all energy fields or part of one. I learned this today.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life kind of day.  It didn't start that way.  Slept in, showered,  and ticked away the minutes to my first appointment with a Reiki Master/intuitive who had been recommended.

Thinking that I would blend in and not seem so obviously out of place, I wore my hippy dippy outfit, (long skirt and over blouse), all tie dyed in the red orange color family.  Wore shoes with no socks.

Comfortable but nervous, I filled out the requisite paperwork; a little bit health history, a little bit work history and a little bit why was i here.  Did I want a massage, a reading, a reiki healing session, all three?  Essential oils or not?

The other client in the waiting room had her feet in a foot bath with wires attached to some monitoring device and as I sat there, the water turned brownish green.  There was a color chart, but I couldn't read it upside down. A therapist came over and said "definitely kidneys…but there is some white over here.
I'll check back in a few minutes".

OMG, I hoped the white was good news.  The woman belonging to the feet didn't seem anxious.  Not my business anyway, but when my name was called, I was glad to leave the area just in case what ever it was was contagious.

I followed my Reiki Master into a quite room. A couple of chairs, massage table, a small round side table and soft messages of encouragement on paintings and plaques rounded out my first impression of the confined space.  Over head there were task lights suspended over the massage table and night light looking lamps scattered here and there. Everything I had hoped for and nothing to discourage an outpouring of my soul.  That's why I booked her. I need release, not diagnosis.  But too early to tell.
I am not a participant in anyone's health care plan.  I have the option, but choose not to inundate myself with unnecessary preventative care.  When I'm dead, the inordinate amount of wasted time in waiting rooms and exam rooms and laboratories will be a non issue, so I am forging ahead with the belief that obstacles will be encountered and resolved within the universal energies of which I am a part.

She sat and invited me to sit and remove my shoes.  "We'll just chat a while" she said.  Okay, it's obviously my turn to tell her all about me. So, off I went on a short autobiography of what I thought she needed to know.

Stress, anxious, migraines, no PCP, control issues, feeling alone (no biological roots)….I was mid sentence and she said "How's your vision?"  "20/20, had both cataracts removed in 2006f" I replied.  She said, "Your migraines are your escape.  You call them up to get away.   I see great whirling energies at your head.  And your heart is empty,  There is a place for it, but it's empty.  Tell me why".

I was stunned. No heart?

As the session continued, I was asked to respond to questions with a physical non verbal response.
She positioned my fore finger and thumb  together to replicate the "ok" sign, then told me to resist her attempt to open the ring which had been formed between them. She whispered questions and then attempted to pull thumb from finger. If my answer was "no", she would not be able to break the ring. She asked the questions, but they were not audible to me. Every answer was the same.   She couldn't break the grip. Well, at least I had conviction…

Theta healing followed and being fully in the present moment, I closed my eyes as she began the laying of hands. Questions flowed and the focus became the movement of energy from my head to my heart.
Compassion was missing.  How could that be?

She assured me that I was safe and that this overwhelming emotion was the manifestation from an unresolved childhood trauma. I don't remember any trauma. "I will invite well being and calm.
They are here". Who are here? "The angels".

And then the revelation…self compassion.  Deserving compassion from others. I had been on a one way street; taking care of others, being compassionate and sensitive to their needs and believing my purpose was cerebral; to solve, to fix, to inspire.

I am empty. My truth brought tears streaming and breathing came in heavy sighs  She counseled me to inhale and exhale as if a small coffee cup straw was my tool.

Time to listen, time to release.  I focused on the background music. Kept eyes closed.  The laying of hands was purposeful and strong.  "Think of waiting for a present, a very special present arriving now. The delivery was at my door, I must open my door. I have too many deadbolts on my door. 

Her hands did not move, she did not relent. One on my head and the other over my heart. Her breathing was intense, steady and deep. In my mind's eye, the brick and mortar facade of my house changed to a wooden framed building with no door, no glass windows and the draperies were sheer and caressed the breeze.

My energy fields shifted, the tension I had brought with me remained in some universal black hole.

Think of a glass full of water.  Pour more water in the glass to overflowing and realize that the new water remains.  Think of driving on a straight road towards the horizon and ignore the side roads and intersections.  Just concentrate on reaching that furthest point.  If you can visualize these examples, you will begin to understand the metamorphic transformation which occurred  in my body today.

She repeated the exercise with my thumb and fore finger.  Same questions asked, but this time, I released.  Each time she tapped my hand, she asked me to say "yes".  I said "yes" and my finger sprang from my thumb (this was my physical being saying "yes").

My energies are far from being in alignment. There is more work to do.  I am open to change, well at least as far down as my shins.  I'm not ready to put my two feet in that bath of water...





Monday, June 15, 2015

Completion



I just can't believe it.  She said "You look just like her".

Well, it's just about damn time...

My neighbor had stepped in to offer suggestions regarding the restoration of my mother's portrait. She is a portrait artist and I felt her expertise would send me in the right direction. I had discovered recent cracking in the seventy year old framed treasure, which hangs on a wall of my conservatory.

The relocation of it from the family room to the more private wing of the house was done on a whim several months ago. The portrait had been one of the collection of oils in the family room.  It was among dissimilar large originals, mostly landscape. But the pairing of it with an antique mahogany
desk was well proportioned and gave it prominence on the longest wall of the room.  Fifteen years residence in the same location was long enough.

I remember it all throughout my life; in my early years, hanging in the formal living room of my childhood home. It was commissioned by my grandmother.  My mother was twenty six.  The artist was very well known in the Green Bay area and that's all I remember except that the artist gave mother more exposed shoulder area than my grandmother would have preferred…

It's still radiant, the colors have not faded. She remains youthful with her red hair and bright green eyes.
There is no smile, however and that makes me wonder what her life was all about in 1947.

I suppose the excitement of newly married life and the move across the nation from Wisconsin to Washington was overwhelming for an only child of a single parent.  I can't know and I can't remember her sharing the details with me.

Her life sidestepped from bride to mother through a private adoption agency twice by the time she was 38. I don't know many of those details either.

As my brother and I grew up, we were introduced to relatives and eventually began to understand that a person's origins had nothing to do with the family tree.  Genealogy was certainly a factor, but there were both my name and my brothers name on the branch just below mom and dads so there was no arguing the point.

We had titles: daughter, son; sister, brother; granddaughter, grandson, cousin, etc. Eventually, we traveled to meet the "tribe" and that served many purposes; mostly solidifying  that we belonged right where we were.

It all changed when my parents passed.  The definitive moment being the funeral of my father.
The relatives did not come, excepting a second cousin.  A scattering of former neighbors and business associates were in attendance.  My father was the last surviving of the original four siblings. Mother had passed 15 years before.

After the grave side service, I sat alone on the front porch of my brother's house. The head of my family was dead. I was an orphan at age 49.

Change of mindset was almost instantaneous; almost freeing. I now belonged to that group of anonymous persons who could flow through time with no connection, no baggage, no labels. And so, that was me for most of the last decade.  I separated from the holiday card tradition and the birthday phone call group because those people were no longer welcome to my life.  It was nobody's business, where I was and what my children were doing.  I am still void of social media. Spontaneity is my friend and anonymity my calling card.

However…

Never having that biological name-tag can be overwhelming at times in a society which mandates group identity.No family reunions to bequeath to my children. They will have to research on their own if their future endeavors require the support of familial ties.

Strange that someone who has just met me (existing in that vast category of acquaintances) would sense unity between the ghost in the portrait and me. How is it that I could possibly resemble all the qualities which endeared my mother to me. My outer self is apparently a reflection of her inner soul.

Where I sit, I can look in the mirror, hung on the wall opposite her portrait, and realize that for a time, (thirty three years to be exact), I was hers. My identity sculpted and perfected within her heart ; for I was very much wanted.

The portrait is a visible clue as to my legacy.  I will search and find the one to restore it's fragile surface.
It will hang on the wall and keep me company and remind me that I am all I can be.  I completed her destiny and she is still completing mine. I had a wonderful beginning, the rest is up to me.












Friday, May 15, 2015

That "Eternal" Question

Nice and neat; everything where it belongs. I like a sense of order about me. Furniture just so, clothes just so, collections in well their respective collections and nothing randomly placed on walls or table tops.  Rugs where rugs should be and dogs on rugs.

Am I a reflection of some universal law about order?  Perhaps.  Is it an intuitive sense; a constant burden to deter me from an uncomfortable living in the moment? I can't live in the moment, you see because chaos lives in the moment.  I don't do chaos and try to prevent it's presence in the lives of those important to me.

Where does this neurosis stem from? Surely not in my present life; at least  not directly or internally.

Growing up, my family lived within expected limitations set forth by mom and dad; thought that was normal. We could have things as long as the things had a designated place.  When company came and the kids were uprooted and moved to Grandma's, the things had a second designated place; usually in a cupboard, cabinet or box in the basement.

There were boxes of past lives there which remained unopened my entire childhood.  The sheer quantity of organized boxes, crates, wardrobes and heavily duct taped parcels, stood guard and their usefulness lent to many games of hide and seek.  My mother died and the boxes remained unopened on their final journey to the dump.

I don't want my boxes to end up in the dump.

I don't even know if I have any boxes, I'll check the attic, but my whole life is pretty well where anyone
could view it.
I have stuff and a couple of remaining pieces of stuff from dead relatives. I married, moved across the nation and all the stuff I thought I would inherit fell into the hands of other family members who decided that I needn't be bothered with it.  I miss that stuff.  I remember that stuff and now I mourn my loss.

Sense of order is paramount to my survival.  I realize it's usefulness in any circumstance. I think too much and I'm not a risk taker.  Everything planned down to the last detail, even in times of crisis'. It's quite comfortable knowing how and when and what and where. It's the "why" that causes me to pause and formulate a plan B.

As my life expectancy flows from present tense to past tense, the sense of urgency has become the "why" in the equation.  The spans of unlimited time which used to define me in my twenties, thirties and even into my forties came to full stop and now I can't plan beyond a turn of a calendar page.

Never a good and faithful follower of the "rule book", I have practiced circumventing rules most of my life.  I know that my soul is wanderlust and ever searching for that answer to "why".

Why am I?  Other's phrase it more delicately: "Who am I"? My quest goes beyond the available options of "changing hats" of "discovering the talents, weaknesses and strengths" of my human condition.
I have a constant writhing in my gut. I awaken with it and it is my last conscious thought before sleep.
Why am I?

The clues along my journey have been missed.  Surely there have been clues…I just can't remember them.  Maybe it's an unending board game where the pieces evaporate and the pathway falls off the edge of the board.

Recently, I have discovered the truth of existentialism; a continuum of the soul's journey.  Lessons learned are rewarded, failed lessons remain until the soul succeeds and determines that there is no need to return.

Again, Why am I? What is my lesson?

Truth be told, I don't have much "sticktoitniveness".  I am not a patient person; this I learned in my first foray into college.  I asked for and received the opportunity to take a career questionnaire to help me choose a fitting college major and hopefully positive and lucrative career.  The results were devastating to me at such a pivotal time in my life…I knew what I did NOT like, period.

How could this be? How could I be so closed to life at the age of 19? I had been given a good beginning, enjoyed learning all the things my parents shared with me.  I loved being a big sister.  I loved the responsibilities to live with and care for animals.  Time with my grandmother provided me with memories to lift my heart decades after her death.

So, somewhere in my preexistence I got stuck in a gerbil's wheel and remained unfulfilled.  The challenge is still unidentified, the purpose waning as I am three quarters the distance to my next reincarnation (basing my equation on the current life span statistics).

Maybe it's all about perception. Ask those who have entangled their lives with mine, and I bet they'll tell you that I am a problem solver and a force to be reckoned with if I believe the cause is justified. I create and release artistic endeavors. I avail myself to those who need a shoulder during their crisis'. I believe in the goodness of others and the unlimited universal energies which guide my destiny.

I shall try the uncomfortable choices. I will write my own obituary. I shall quiet the turmoil within and meditate. The "why" is not mine to question; the beauty of it is that "I am".

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

For The Love of Humphrey

I have always been more of an animal person.  People seem too opinionated, always at the ready to share unsolicited points of view.  Don’t get me wrong,
I have lived with people, have given birth to people, worked and volunteered with people, traveled with people and the list goes on.

Somewhere in my journey, I opted out; probably more for self-preservation than for any other logical reason.  Although during the transition from gainfully employed by somebody else to gainfully employed by me, I needed the select group of people who shared their homes with animals.  Some coined the phrase “pet parents”.  I didn’t really like that (for if you know anything about animals, the parenting of one is not, in any sense of the imagination, possible).

I became a pet sitter. Started small and ended that career after a decade of living in my car between the hours of oh my God thirty and the bewitching hour. Daily, (holidays included), I would pack for the day and maintain a driving route which repeated in 3 hour intervals.  Mostly dogs and cats; birds and rabbits were an added irritation, but not my call.  I had only three exceptions:  no snakes, no puppies and nothing that crawled both vertically and horizontally. 

I am still a pet sitter, but the club is now so exclusive, that I no longer live in my car and can say no just because.

In my home, I live with animals.  It would be absolutely naked without them (the house, that is). We get along without expectations and the few rules are flexible.
As the new ones join us and the old ones leave us, the commotion is my refuge.
Sometimes a guessing game ensues if I have been away too long.  The culprit is not always easy to spot…

Occasionally, my life is lived outside the parameters of my cozy abode.  When opportunities present themselves, I travel. When I travel, I find an excuse to be with animals.  I will book an excursion to commune with a wolf.  I will plan a short vacation around a zoo or aquarium. Other options are animal shelters and those are the most difficult for me to visit for obvious reasons.

I am just back from a visit to San Antonio.  It was a reunion with the city of my early married years.  I can’t remember exactly when I left, but gaging that my youngest is now 22 years old, it must be at least two decades absence.

I traveled with my husband, Jeff, who informed me that I had been places and had done things I couldn’t recollect.  We were pretty evenly matched, because I countered with the same logic.  That repartee allowed for long lunches and a little too much drinking.

I didn’t remember the zoo. I remembered going to the zoo, but the layout was unfamiliar and the species were somewhat not the collection of my original visit.

Those details were inconsequential because I was expecting a thorough education and heaps of joy.  The morning was cool and the parking lot was unoccupied when we arrived.  A shady spot beckoned and we accepted the invitation so that the rental car would be bearable inside at the hour designated for us to leave and lunch.

Prices had gone up…that I remember. Thankfully, the gray hair prompted a smile and a discount. Map in hand, my husband headed that-a-way and I tugged and suggested that we head another direction. 

After about an hour of nose to glass exhibit gazing, we rounded an enclosure of tropical birds, Koi and native ducks.  The keeper was busy adding sand and a layer of hay to the few covered nesting lairs. Cushy life, I thought. As we approached the pathway to another enclosure, I read the sign “Giant Anteater” and I stopped.  I was immovable. I was over joyed and the tears started.  The keeper said that “they” would be out shortly.  I waited. My husband waited. We found a bench and waited. I asked again and was told the same thing. I walked around the exhibit for the umpteenth time and the keeper kept his focus on his task at hand, but his peripheral vision kept me on the horizon and he said “the trainer just passed us, they will be right here”.

I wondered where they were now. I followed the trainer. She shut me out. I couldn’t see anything.  She took too long. While I stood vigil, Jeff moved just to the other side of the enclosure and shouted “Here he is”.  I couldn’t get to the viewing spot fast enough and I needed to ask questions of the employee.  Thankfully she didn’t step back out for a minute so I had a quick peek and my heart skipped a beat and I exhaled. 

His name was “Humphrey”, he was two and part of a breeding pair.  Her name was “Sprout” and she didn’t like him and was generally a trouble maker.  Humphrey was allowed out during the day and she was allowed out at night.  I learned that they were good swimmers and that their diet was not restricted to ants. His bowl was filled with freeze dried insect pellets, avocado and orange slices.  He was magnificent! I introduced Jeff and myself; don’t know that he realized the magnitude of the moment, but he lifted his head to investigate and then went about forging a path between the ducks and the fence line to the enclosure.

I followed him from my side. He was so close; we were in harmony.

Let me interject and inform you that Humphrey was not my first Giant Anteater. I have seen others in my travels.  Yes, I have seen maybe half dozen of the specie, but I didn’t fall in love until now.

So deep was the bond, that I (and Jeff by default) became sponsors.  I think the contract referred to “adoption”, but the wording doesn’t matter.

Our visit had a hidden agenda, I didn’t realize it then. I came as a spectator, ill prepared for the fork in the road which led me to unexpected resolve. The uniqueness of him allowed me to make sense of the world.  I don’t know a better ambassador of the splendor of nature.  He is my guide to all things peaceful and possible and joy filled.  It is predestined to journey together and I will share the horizon of my life with Humphrey, one ant at a time.









Monday, April 13, 2015

Artist By Design

Here I am, avoiding another task.  I have to critique another’s writings for class tomorrow.  And I don’t want to.  I must, but not at this moment.  I have finished one critique and it was tedious labor of I don’t know what.  I’m not a published author, want to be though and understand my membership in this informal “Meet up” social group requires that I give and take helpful pre-publishing advice from total strangers. 

Purpose of joining is to expand; socially and professionally.  It’s been too long sitting on the fence of what to do next.

So while I am avoiding my promises, I hopped on the internet and searched framed art for sale.  It’s a totally cheap, neatly arranged package of endless inspiration.  Don’t even have to change out of my moose slippers to view the world’s contributions.  My current address limits my ability to physically travel to galleries and museums within a reasonable day’s driving distance.  How fantastic to be able to point and click.  Even the few local collections can be visited 24/7 from my computer screen.  Occasionally, I still tune in to see what television programs offer when needing a more personal or guided tour of exhibits.  Haven’t gone so far as to rent a DVD though, but just might.

I remember “Kodak Presents” travel presentations…went with my grandmother.  Always held at the university’s auditorium, they were an annual highlight for us.
She always planned excursions.  Loving all things educational, she perused the newspaper, clipping out advertisements and making lists of upcoming events. If the subject matter was appropriate for a preteen, she’d extend an invitation.  Now, her definition of appropriate might have been questioned, because one time, we ended up in the campus theatre watching an Italian foreign film about the Crucifixion. Thankfully, there were subtitles and I read most of them when not hiding my eyes.

So, growing up I had unlimited opportunities to see what’s out there and I am thankful that those memories keep me in constant forward motion in the hopes of continuing my informal education.  Daughter of an educator who married an artist and said artist had an interest in Chinese history, I had no chance of missed opportunities.  It was almost normal for our home to be filled with interesting people who had been to interesting places.

Art, in my opinion, is present always.  It’s in the deliberate design of slippers at bedside.  It’s in the positioning of the toothpaste on the brush.  It’s in the collage of dogs within the border of the rug at fireplace’s edge. I’m surrounded by it. It is my joy.  The natural world is a gift of art from a higher power.  The manufactured and intentional art is a gift of that same higher power. I am lost and unfulfilled without it.

In my home, I have inspiration drawers and closets and once empty spaces between cabinets on the floor.  All projects for someday.  It’s a modest collection and I’m not going to expand its size beyond my estimated life span. No one else, here to named in my Last Will and Testament, will ever be able to understand my reasons for keeping the varied collections.  So I promise to complete them as soon as I can figure out why I bought them in the first place.

This brings you to the point of my story…a small collection (maybe 7; always odd number) of keys.  One of them is a working skeleton key (to someone else’s door),
some are from the charm and jewelry section of a local art and craft store and the rest are from the only designated junk drawer in my house, so they’re definitely mine.  The collection has been carefully chosen for a framed shadow box.  I changed my mind…the collection has been carefully chosen for a painting of a framed shadow box,  I think.

All the keys are together in a zip lock bag in a drawer of my desk. So now I need a background for the grouping.  My current choices are: newspaper, a page from Merriam Webster, fabric, painted canvas, sketch, photograph, stained glass, wood,
decoupage, dried flower arrangement and any and all borrowed inspirations from the recent internet search. Well, now that I think of it, maybe the arrangement of the keys will dictate which background to use.

I can’t go forward in my creativity.  I’m stuck with my current train of thought; which is why “keys”? What is the significance? It must be a pertinent and deliberate answer to my ongoing search for purpose.

Keys are tools. They’re no use on their own they must be paired with locks. So the mystery evolves.  Why locks? Subconsciously, I may be repressing something. I generally do not lock anything; not my house, not my car, not the cabinet where I hide the M and M’s.  I don’t want to delay access by unlocking.  Now, if I were to be responsible for something of yours, which you normally lock, I would comply. My life, however, is no secret - hence no need to keep you out. My things are just that and if they disappear, the memory of ownership will suffice. I have no use for delegation to future generations, if their respective memories want to include things I had, so be it. 

Keys are also an explanatory list of the symbols on a map or chart.  Ok then,
now I am a map; road, world, atlas, bike path or trail? The endless combinations here are sufficient to entangle the left (logical) side of my brain.

Another definition is something that allows someone to achieve a desired goal. This would include the intangible variety of keys. Education comes to mind or perhaps
invention; maybe sheer dumb luck. Goals at any age are a good reason to get up in the morning. Short term (more appropriate for the over fifty crowd) and long term are the choices. Let’s see, my short term goals include creative expression.  In my bucket or (on my bucket list) are a gallery showing of my paintings, complete memorization of any Rachmaninoff composition, learning flower designing and/or interior design ( to the point of earning potential) and inviting old hippies to share nirvana with me.  Long term?  None at present.  My comfort zone is in the here and now.

So let’s go back to just keys and locks.  But then again, there are endless kinds and sizes of locks; doors (interior, exterior, jail cell, root cellar, and car) and padlocks (big and tiny), ones to gain entry to diaries, windows, lockboxes, munitions lockers, guided-missile silos…Oh my g…..

I don’t think I really know why “keys”.  I think I’ll let the artist within struggle with the bigger picture or let you see the finished project and pass the responsibility of interpretation on to you.  In the meantime, I’ve got details to contend with and no time to consider my choice of the subject matter. The elements of design within the art form will reflect who I am creatively.

Spirit has delivered the following message: “You a creative soul. Take your gift and let it shine.  Share joy….for it is the key to your divinity”.

Ah, now I understand.














Friday, March 20, 2015

Leaps and Bounds

Being the age that I am, I thought building blocks, Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and other manipulatives were stored in my attic for future generations.  Who knew that I would still be building towers; although this tower is an imaginary one dictated by Mother Nature and my connection to her.

The animal totem is a surviving symbol of ancient cultures.  I believe it’s a tool which represents a bridge to the natural world. I believe the spirits of the totem are personal and deliberate in the several messages derived by the embodiment of carefully carved likenesses.

For me, I have a two-tiered one, but I’m newly on my spiritual journey and in hopes of discovering more.

The base of my totem is a toad.  Well, I think it’s the base because it was the first spirit to cross my path.  It represents change.

Earlier this week, a rabbit appeared and it was not entirely out of place given its early spring, my lawn is overgrown and it was apparently hungry. Maybe I got it wrong and it wasn’t the rabbit appearing, but rather me, from my car.  There aren’t choices of pathways from my driveway to front door, unless you count going around the front of the car as opposed to the trunk end.  I guess I could have gone through the garage, but that’s not the part of the house I wanted to enter.

The evening had been spent out of town with a group of published and soon to be published, local writers.  I found them on a social network and hoped to connect with like-minded creative persons.  The primary focus of the group is to offer critiques, insights, comments, direction…and all things positive to encourage our inner voice permission to speak.  Putting words to paper is a thoughtful and sometimes tenacious process; at least it is for me.  I spend as much time hitting the “backspace” and “delete” buttons as the other 70 something possibilities on my keyboard. So now, I’m engaged in the process… with witnesses.

Returning home, I was full of hope and planned to sit awhile and edit.  I don’t know why I looked down, but I did and the rabbit sat motionless as if it sensed my person to be a threat.  I’m not a threat unless you have grown 6 other legs or don’t have legs and slither.

I passed it, turned around and gazed at it and came inside to call for my daughter to come out and validate my sighting.  She did.  We stood.  We smiled and she knew instinctively to go and get the book “Animal Speaks, by Ted Andrews, as surely I would want to know why it was there.

Here’s what I read (in summary).  The rabbit or hare represents the concept of being according to the Greeks.  It is one of the 12 Chinese astrological signs and embodies the power of the moon. If a rabbit totem shows up, you can begin to see a cycle of 28 days beginning to manifest in your life. (The cycle of 28 days is all things lunar). It can lead one unknowingly into the realm of the faeries. It procreates and its fleetness is a virtue of survival. The hare has an innate sense of defense…it creates forms to hide and never foreshadows its movements, being aware of predators. They shift from freezing to great speed and this skill should be gleaned by those with this animal totem as it will enable one to take advantage of opportunities which may only present themselves for brief moments. They are still, they listen and they are intensely in tune with the environment.

Now, what to do? Again, I find that my life is being orchestrated from beyond. Thankfully, I am availing my soul unrestrained direction.  Responsibility is another person’s burden.  Not mine.

Can I just be?  Shall I engage to strip all my senses of what I perceive to be truth? Is it time for the universal truth to redefine me? I think perhaps it is.

I will quite my soul and follow the hare.  His presence was a gift to remind me of endless possibilities.  His presence gives me the courage to take chances; for survival is not predestined, it’s a quest taken in leaps and bounds.









Monday, March 16, 2015

An Agnostic's Retreat

On the way to a Memorial Day family outing, I posed the following question to my companions in the car:  “Is there a monastery for the Agnostic?”  Silence ensued as they tried to figure out where, in left field, did this question come from…

Well, I was just thinking that I need to get away…far away…maybe another planet somewhere.  My life is complex, complicated and I never can catch my breath.

I should be feeling free and able to focus, seeing that I just penned my resignation letter to the Hospital Auxiliary.  That one less item on my daily agenda should have allowed me time to regroup as I have volunteered too many unproductive hours in the past two and one half years.

I have a flaw…just realized in the first person sense.  Others have tried to explain this personality blemish, but I was not ready to receive the diagnosis.  Now I realize that I can’t see the forest because of the trees. I am forever detail, detail, fix, more details to sort, etc.

I can’t seem to just do what I can and let the rest go…flow into the streams of the unimportant and insignificant details of life.

Blaming my way to early introduction to Astrology and learning all about capriciousness and Capricorn ways, I always prided myself in solving the minuscule errors in others. Rules, rules, rules… I am all about the following of, establishing of and changing (if no longer applicable) of rules.  Maybe it’s time to stop.

My thinking is that if I remove myself from everything familiar and just exist, the cobwebs will clear, my heart will stop racing and peace will find a pathway in.
Problem is where to go?

A commune might be appropriate; everyone sharing an equitable part in the running of such an organization.  But there is that word “organization” which stirs the possibility of hierarchy and then my perspective on how well those in charge are really doing.

Well, how about an artist’s retreat?  That would be interesting at least and the shared excitement about the creative process would keep me focused. But the possibility of a well- intentioned criticism might prove to be the fly in the ointment.

Won’t attempt anything remotely religious, can’t be tethered to a limited view of the universe.  I already know my purpose…I am a creative soul.  I create and release, the reciprocal bond is inherent and unending.

I know I was born into the wrong decade…just a few years earlier and I could have satisfied my longing for nirvana in the 1960’s and joined in the flower power mind set.  I’m trying to do that now, but opportunities just don’t appear often in this Bible belt region of this country.

So, my effort will be ongoing.  I am displaced from myself and I feel it in my gut and aching and tenseness.  I am in the wrong place at the right time.

Sanctuary must be a wonderful state of mind.  Some people find it in the material offerings of society.  Places, buildings, writings, great music, artistic endeavors left by generations before mine offer respite to the weary.

If you researched the principal personalities responsible for the greatest works afore mentioned, would you be surprised to learn that they were tortured souls?
Centuries of men and women driven by inexplicable forces to create.  I don’t want that experience.  I don’t want to be used up and incarcerated in my own mind.

Where does the Agnostic release the constraints of social pressures?  Where does one exist and not become unnecessarily self -reliant, living with the beasts, wild and free?

The answer will come, at a future intersection of my predestined pathway. In the meantime, I will continue to rid myself of responsibilities to others and allow the gifts from beyond to beckon at my proverbial door.










Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Semantics

The Universe will communicate if you listen and do not anticipate timing as the key element of your messages.

In my journey, I am in flux as most are of my age. I find that I am in that category of the sandwich generation, waiting for the inevitable…children to leave with half my garage in boxes and the in-laws deciding their next move.

So while I muddle around, the current popular topic in conversations I have with myself is escape.  Runaway, leave, skedaddle, vamoose. 

To prepare for this, I must redefine and let go. No big deal, I tell myself.  I can do this in stages.  Formulate a plan, execute the plan, and congratulate me on the job well done.

In a roundabout and unexpected way, I received the first green light yesterday.
I was deep in retail therapy before joining my bestest friend, Diana for lunch.
Having just half an hour of free time, I parked at the mall and went in for nothing in particular, but as the minutes ticked by, I realized I needed bras and jeans.

Found jeans in a lovely dove gray and two of the other.  I was concentrating on cup size, color didn’t matter as I never buy panties to match. My shopping spree did not break my allowance, I felt energized and hurried to the restaurant.

Nice long lunch, where she shared that she found her purpose. It came to her in a dream Valentine’s Day weekend. She had read an article in a magazine about flower farming.  The details of her passion flowed and entertained the duration of our ninety minutes together.  She was radiant.  I was jealous.

The rest of my day was just awful. The message center “blew up” on the dashboard on the way home…said “anti- lock, service engine soon”. I had a cell phone in hand and called my service center and asked for a definition.  I was told there COULD BE A PROBLEM, COME RIGHT IN.

I was in the waiting area with keys in hand within ten minutes of my frantic call.
I was in the waiting area without my keys for the next 4 hours.  Stupid ass car.
The message center did not repeat for the mechanic even after 20 minutes of driving hooked to a computer. But they did find two problems, which if not attended, would leave the car unmovable for the duration of the lien against it.  I was offered five bucks, almost took him up on it.

Well, about dinner thirty, I pulled into the driveway.  Too tired to rumble through the fridge, I invited family out to dinner.  I was certain, that the car would make it to the restaurant…$800 in repair was as good a guarantee as I could ascertain.

Dinner was lovely, “Lobsterfest” and wine proved a much-needed distraction from the eternal afternoon seated in a room with strangers and car parts.

Home again, I started to put the new clothes away and that, of course, entails removing price tags, labels, etc. “Minimizer” the word caught my attention.  On one hand, I gloated over the fact that I had grown curvy enough to necessitate such a garment.  On the other, it was the single command I needed to begin my plan.

Minimize. There should have been fireworks or a tympani drum roll, or an excerpt from the “Hallelujah Chorus”. 

Finally, I am in sync with the universe!! I was giddy with anticipation. I celebrated my recent exit from volunteer work, not knowing then, but understanding now that that step was meant to be, but on my terms.

Now, I need to clear my life of burdens; mine and others.  I am discovering that wounds self- inflicted are just as life diminishing as those caused by others.  I am existing, not thriving.  I am in need of detox

My Dad once shared that he would much rather a rescue from me, during a crisis than from my brother.  I found that a compliment (rare from him) at an age when I should have taken college seriously.  I didn’t, not that I couldn’t but just didn’t. My brother did, twice. Anyway, Dad said I could always find my way out of a paper bag.  Funny comparison, but I understood him.

That definition of my life has been consistent. For those of us who must learn lessons through multiple incarnations, I can tell you it’s exhausting and not a favorable mark on the soul’s report card. I have been guardian and fixer of problems my entire life; since childhood, I guess.  I’m good at it, just like the Cliff notes which are an invaluable resource to the student. I adopted it as my own truth and have lived it, have proof of it, and now don’t know what to do with it.

So, the task of minimizing is at hand. I need to unburden my soul and release the pent up energies.  Once the tethers and restraints are gone, music and art (which have always been my companions), very old friends and some new ones, places to run to for momentary sanctuary and places which beckon me to stay will redefine me. I wish I could animate myself into a Renoir painting and just stay there.

Whichever the path to my destiny, my free will shall navigate direction.  Never the destination, always the journey and the beauty of it is that I will eventually discover me.















Saturday, February 21, 2015

The Right Frame

Change and embellish.  Those were the thoughts propelling me up and down the picture frame aisle at a discount retailer just the other day.  I found two possibilities, one decorated with silver highlights, the other multilayered but monotone.  The picture which needing reframing was a black and white portrait of my son. It’s stunning, it’s intense and it’s my favorite of all his childhood portraits. The current frame is wood, black and fades into the portrait.  The back of the frame is in disrepair, nobody really sees it unless they walk around the back of the coffee table, but I know it’s there. Well, I couldn’t decide, so I left the store empty-handed.

I asked my daughter her opinion and you’ll learn her reply a little later in this story.

It was one of those days with too much time on my hands.  I had actually run away from my life because of the death of my dog. 

The three remaining dogs and 4 cats vied for my attention and they, too, realized the significant loss within the walls of the house.  For me, it was a heavy dose of guilt as I signed the authorization at the clinic.

So now my days would never be the same; time for change. Start small I thought.

I’m not the only one having this conversation with myself.  My psychic counselor
started me on this path last week, Monday it was. I requested a life reading…it would be the fourth in a series of intuitive sessions.  Two previous visits within the last three years had been contact readings, but last week, I felt the need for redirection.

My message was two-part: first that my life, as I know it, is not authentic.

To begin the hour’s session my counselor shared the following (I am paraphrasing):
She has a sister who, as a small girl escaped a lot.  This drove their mother to
find a way to keep the little one happy and safe in the back yard so she found a rope and tethered her to the swing set with plenty of room to reach the back door to come in.  Her sister stood in the yard and screamed.

This is me in my present life.

I am tethered to this never-ending stage production, playing all the roles (including playwright and director). All I know is that I am repeating other’s expectations and fulfilling their needs while depleting my own.  Trouble is, I don’t know what I need.

Other message…that my end of life Karma will repeat in the next life if I choose to return.  We are reincarnated into similar circumstances if we do not change and grow.

I wanted to grab a suitcase and leave after the hour’s lesson. Well I did, the next day, just for a day. Drove a couple hours, checked into a lovely hotel and know what happened?  I became invisible.  I explored the city into the hours just after dusk; dined with me, shopped with myself, lost half a day enjoying the exhibits in the art museum. Almost had to look twice when I realized that I was in the presence of an original Norman Rockwell and then again when I stood mesmerized by an original bronze of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

No one knew me or cared. The pressure of keeping up appearances did not exist. I was totally me but in an understated way.  That’s what most people do when found in new surroundings.  Feel your way through.  Give and take, re- define and breathe.

Yesterday, I listened to the recording of my session.  Having had time to consider all the hidden innuendos one misses when in the moment, I realized that there was a pleading in her voice.  I realized the importance of the messages, the vital life-affirming messages there to guide me.

I want to tell you what my daughter said when asked her opinion on the picture frame.  She said, “get the plain one, it won’t compete with the subtlety of the portrait."

Maybe it’s time to shed the embellishments of my identity.  Opt for black and white; for within the realm of neutral, lies my destiny.

It all begins with knowing how to choose the right frame.