November 13th, 2017 | Comments Off on phoenix rising reprising

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child…

It’s time to put the big boy pants back on.  I’ve been struggling, trying to regroup and regain strength with which to face all that is before me.  I’m at a loss to articulate the whats and wherefores, and I’ve found myself again in a place of internal anguish and exhaustion.  I find myself chasing restoration via a web of neovascularization; thought streams venturing out looking for nourishment in unfriendly terrain.

fractalleaf

now I know in part

Where is the healing for the healer?  Where is the guidance for the guide?   The answers are always given to me, when I pay attention and notice.  When I’m weary and depleted I look for ways to replenish and nourish my fragmented self.  Sometimes my efforts seem to fail and I’m left feeling even more frustrated and worn.  Sometimes, on days like this day, I just have to stop.

…the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof…

When I catch myself feeling frustrated, falling to the base emotions that I so heartfully want to overcome, I struggle through a barrage of thoughts along these lines: Why do I feel this way?  What do I need?  Why am I thinking ungraciously?  Why am I annoyed?  What do I expect?

I need to be gracious.  I can’t expect anyone to think as I think, see as I see, feel as I feel, understand as I understand, know as I know.

through a glass darkly

Everything is nothing and nothing is everything.  What if it’s all the same.  Or everything matters and nothing matters.  What if that’s all the same.  Consider the perfection of a circle.  The starting point is the finishing point.  They are one and the same.  It takes something external to provide a reference of distinction.  Time.  I can tell the difference between the beginning and the end when I introduce time, but the thing is, that point, zero degrees or 360 degrees, remains that point, whether time is involved or not.  Is it a beginning?  Is it an end?  Maybe it just is.

The reminder that came to me has everything to do with time.  Life as I know it is a journey, and we are all at different stages with different capacities, abilities, understandings and levels of knowledge.  Our world views are limited by our own exposure and awareness.  Ages and stages.  There is generally an order of progression with things.  I suppose that defines growth.  We are all at different ages and stages.

and yet show I unto you a more excellent way

I can’t expect anybody to understand me.  I’m not even sure why I have such a hunger.  Maybe it’s an existential thing.  Maybe if I felt understood, then I would feel valid.  As if I need a reason to be.  I certainly don’t want my children to think they need a reason to be!  So why would I think such a thing for myself?!

At this age and stage, I’m the grownup in the room.  I have to put the big boy pants back on.  Help is and always has been when and where I need it.  Everything that I need is available to me, when I open my eyes.  Life is a treasure, full of breathtaking wonder, a dazzling tapestry all around me, for my own joy and rejoicing.  I have all the strength and love that I need.  I am here.  Now.

October 20th, 2015 | 2 Comments »
a matter of perspective

a matter of perspective

Night time, alone, I sit in my bed with my thoughts.  Music softly fills the background.  I sit with my back against the leather headboard. Toni Childs sings The Dead are Dancing. I sit, letting thoughts of my life drift through my mind. Tears stream down my face. My thoughts are in parallel with unuttered prayers. What is expected of me, come tomorrow? Mother. I’m a mother. Yet here I sit, late at night, cleaving to whatever fragments of thought I can visualize that represent me.  My essence. My spirit. My soul. My self.  I take this moment to find myself, to honor myself.  Otherwise, through the day, I live from moment to moment to moment, consumed by the myriad tasks and responsibilities that never end.

Tears.

Tears.

Tears.

So healing.

Could I even do this, sit in silence with my thoughts and my tears, if I were married? How do people who are coupled survive? They must be able to find the moments they need, no matter their life situation. Or maybe most people aren’t like me.

Probably.

I suppose I’m a rare bird.

Part of me hungers and aches for the feeling of being wanted. It seems so ridiculous, to spend a lifetime chasing such a fleeting experience. As if I’m missing something. Does anybody else feel this? Why do I? I feel so alone. I always feel so alone. Why? I am NOT alone! So how can I feel this? Why do the tears continue to stream down my face? I wish I knew.

~*~*~*~

Coping. How do people learn to cope? How do they learn about coping? When I was young, I had lots of headaches and tummy aches. As in, every day. Every single day. My sensitive nature has been with me all along. As an adult, here I am, 50 years old, pondering the notion of coping. I have a gin with olives that I’m nurturing, and a playlist of some of my favorite tunes set on shuffle, keeping me company. The boys are peacefully retired for the night. The morning reality includes a commute — 1.5 hours realistically; 2+ hours if conditions aren’t favorable. It’s excruciating for the gentle soul that I am to face that in the morning. Daily. Its so hard for me. So I sit here, again propped in my bed, tears streaming, thinking of the word ‘cope’. I’m coping.

Why am I not shaking my fist at the sky and triumphing? Why am I just coping? Everything is SO GOOD.

SO. GOOD.

My life is truly GOOD! So why am I struggling so? Will I ever make peace with myself? Is it all about me, when it boils down to it?

~*~*~*~

I don’t mind being raw. I don’t mind being vulnerable in writing these things that represent my moment, my now, my thoughts and emotions as they travel across the landscape of my mind and my heart.  Truth is truth. It’s courageous. I rock! I say what others might not have the courage to say.

And the dead are dancing again. Probably it’s meant to be, the way the music shuffles and certain songs repeat. All things have a reason.

Love. <3 I’m writing love everywhere. <3 Leaving love everywhere. <3  Cuz that’s all I am, when it boils down to it. Love.  <3

~*~*~*~

I don’t mind being raw. Truth is truth.

June 18th, 2015 | Comments Off on memories, associations, and deja who?

I have a LOT of time to think during my commute.  This morning I was watching my thoughts and my emotions as they swirled about, playing with and against each other.  There was nothing concrete; it was all very nebulous.  I noted that thoughts and emotions are completely different animals, so it’s almost futile to even attempt to manage or  understand them in the same manner.  Thoughts can be concrete and follow reason, so they can be grasped, given the effort.  Emotions,  however, are entirely different.  They are a form of data that requires a completely different translator.  The same rules of analysis don’t apply.

I’ve been wondering why certain emotions are surfacing.  Logically, there is little to no reason for anything but giddy happiness.  Life is so GOODMY life is so good!  Yet these emotions are surfacing and overtaking me.  Just when I think I’m all sorted out, grounded, steady, solid — BAM, tears are streaming from my face and my heart feels as though it’s clenched by an iron fist.

For some reason, I thought of PTSD.  It’s not reserved for battle scarred war heroes, you know.  Not that I want to assign another disorder to the list of labels already attached to me, but the words themselves –post, trauma, stress– align well with the emotional experience that I’m trying to describe.  I also thought of memories and associations.  So many associations stir fragments of memories that evoke buried emotions.  A song, the color of the sky, a turn in the road, the sound of a voice –so many random things in any given day can stir something up.

Memories are things of the past, and the experiences are over.  Any traumas and stresses were overcome, because they are in the past.  I am here.  I am healthy.  I am strong.  So why and how can an associated memory bring me to my knees and knock the wind from me and rob me of my now?  As I was pondering this, I wondered in terms of PTSD.  Maybe at the time I couldn’t actually process or deal with whatever it was.  Maybe survival was the only thing that I had the bandwidth for (and may the gods and my departed dad forgive my overabundant use of stranded prepositions).  Maybe, when caught up in the fray of whatever drama I was caught up in, all I could do was stay afloat and suppress rather than address the emotions and stresses du jour.  So maybe, because I’m no longer in sheer survival mode, the associations that stir memories release those emotions as though they are fresh.  BAM!  Ouch!  Me no likey.

I wanted to write these thoughts down, and I thought I’d entitle this post, “memories and associations” — it has a certain flair.  But it also rings a bell (hello?  how many things are endless repeats in this blog?), and so it happens that I’ve written at length about memories and associations before.  I re-read that post and thought, oh shit.  More tears.  I really needed more tears.

So here I am again.  I wish I knew a healthy way to address the emotions that overtake me.  I wish I knew how to pick and choose which emotions could overtake me.  I’d love to keep the giddy highs and dismiss the dark lows.  I bet it’s possible.  I just need to find the right decoder ring.

October 27th, 2009 | 3 Comments »

This time every year the waves of sorrow return.  Not only memories of my brother, thoughts of his children and how they are coping with this day and their own memories and sorrow, but also the memory of one of my dearest friends.   October used to be my favorite time of the year.  The glorious colors of the leaves on the trees.  Bright blue skies, puffy clouds, crisp cool air.

Now, when October comes, there is the exhilaration I’ve always felt with the changing of the seasons, but with it a melancholy.  Wisps of sadness for lost lives, lost loves.

It’s been four years since my brother’s sudden and tragic departure.  One year since the unexpected loss of my friend.  I think of them often.

I miss them.

~*~*~*~*~

And now for some super cuteness.  How can anybody be sad for long when they can get lost in these pools of grey-blue that go from forever to forever?  Or nibble on the deliciousness of that perfect little face.  My little boy wonder.  He’s growing so fast and is hardly a baby any more.

20091027_213lb

Posted in sorrow