There is a WHOLE lot of crazy in the world. There are things pressing in on us all the time, from everywhere that can lead to a complete nervous break down when you allow it. Things drawing on our energy, demanding our attention, taking up our time, swallowing us whole. Sometimes it feels like, at the end of "Ghost", when the shadows swarm up and start pulling the guy into hell? That is the feeling of the crazy taking control.
Stresses - and there are a BUTT LOAD of them aren't there? Family, financial responsiblity... shit, I got as far as that and stalled out. I got overloaded by ALL THAT ENTAILS. It's exhausting just thinking about how MUCH there is to stress about JUST in those two areas. So I'll let you fill in your own blanks in those areas and move on!
There are temptations - drugs, addictions, fun, parties, sex, glamors. All these beautiful things. Temporal things. Dangerous things.
There is LOVE. Love can make you crazy. In good ways and in bad. And when it is bad, it can be VERY, VERY bad.
There is MONEY and SUCCESS. If I just have more and more and more and if I had more, why...THAT would solve all my problems.
There is loss. Sadness and death and missing those we love. There are tears and darkness and desperation. All the things in life that aren't so good but very real.
There is all this...STUFF! Out there in the world. Pressing and pulling us. Making us jump at one thing or another.
I know whereof I speak. For you see, in my own time, I have been mad. I've chased the demons. I've lived in the dark. I've been overwhelmed. But this is what I know:
When you know who you really are, you find your center. Your path. Your core. Your true self. Call it what you will but you'll know it when you find it. It's the TRUTH about YOU. What makes you happy. What makes you sane. What puts you in a place where you can grow. Where your soul is supposed to be.
As your searching for it, you find it. You know...that day, where you are sitting in the sun, and you close your eyes and take a deep breath and you feel it. Or someone gives you a hug. Someone you really care about and in that embrace, there is that flash of light. Or you create something really brilliant. You can feel that whatever you were trying to achieve, you captured it and it made your heart perfect just for an instant. Or spiritual moments that pour over you and literally lift you up. Where...just there...just for a second...you might have glimpsed an answer. Those moments can be SO fleeting - so elusive - that sometimes we don't recognize them for what they really are.
But when you do start to recognize them and we start acknowledging them, the fragments start forming a complete whole. You start saving all those pieces and you store them away in your heart. After a time, they aren't little anymore. They coalesce into something big and real and solid. That is the CORE. THAT is the REAL YOU. Where you are your best and brightest. THEN, you can start adding things to the core. You can fill it up with all that is noble and good and pure and beautiful. The things that bring you joy. The things that make you want to be your best. The things that REALLY mean something in this life. Not the bullshit, not the clap trap, not the NONSENSE!
Because I know this, life is breathtakingly short. Our allotted days are numbered from birth and there is really so little time for crap. That is one of the "gifts" cancer has given me, (and they are few, so I must treasure every one!) the ability to see through bullshit! We surround ourselves with so much STUFF that DOESN'T MATTER. Our lives are full of so much clamorous, crucial, critical NONSENSE that we forget to appreciate those we love. Or we miss a beautiful sunset. Or we refuse to acknowledge goodness because we are just too wrapped up in things that have no WORTH in the grand scheme of things. Shit in our head telling us we aren't good enough, or we aren't happy enough or we aren't stimulated enough, or we don't have enough, so we must chase more and more and more shit to make us happy...meanwhile the happy slips through our fingers.
The core is always changing. Mercurial and shifting, because we must be flexible in life. Things come and things go. Something that once made us happy, can make us sad. Sometimes things have to be replaced in the core. Sometimes they have to be removed. Being flexible is part of the core's best magic. As we change and grow, the things that make us happy and that make us the best "us" changes. New things replace things we don't need anymore. People come in and out of the core. Dreams that made us happy in one phase, don't in another.
When you stay near the core, you have a better chance of the crazy not finding you. When something starts to drag you out of the light, you have to embrace that core. When one of those pressures starts to consume you, you need to let go of it. Drop it like a bad habit and run! Get back to that core! When you feel like you are out there on the edge, when all hope is lost, when you just can't take any of it for even one more second, you are NOT at the core of who you really are. You are not in control. You are allowing something else to lead you. Something that just isn't in that core. You know this because it isn't nurturing you, because it isn't lifting you up, because it isn't love or truth or goodness or just or pure or lovely. Those swarming shadows have got you and they are trying to drag you down.
You have to be able to fight. Your joy and light have to be more important to you then whatever crazy shit is trying to drag you down. You have to be able to refuse to wallow in whatever it is. Every minute that you give to the darkness - every second you let crazy take you from your core - is a moment in time that you have denied goodness and light and that is a choice. You can look crazy in the eye and say, "I know all I need to know about that". Then you can put it down and walk away. Whether it be an addiction, sorrow, people, bad choices, or everyday stresses. You have it in your power to say you don't need or want that anymore and choose the core.
I have discovered the secret to life! Are you ready? The secret to life is: there ain't no secret. All that really matters in this life are the things that bring you joy. The things that make you your very best self. The things that you store in the core. Everything else is a waste of time and energy. Everyday you have to get up and overcome your SELF in this world. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Cuz life doesn't stop. There's always something trying to suck your soul. The secret is not to let it.
The visual interpretation. Thanks, Sarah H.!
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Ephemera
This is what I know:
I can’t analyze why I hold on to it all. I don’t really want to. I’m sure it’s some sort of psychological hoarding issue mumbo jumbo. I get that the item doesn’t hold the memory and all that but I still feel that every scrap tells the story of me. Those things are the entire history of my life:
When I see a matchbook from a bar in Rapid City, SD, I remember our car breaking down there. Honey and I were stranded and we had the BEST adventure that night. The food was good, the music was better; the summer night couldn’t have been more perfect.
When I find the notes from the first time I studied Greek mythology, I remember being 20 – at the LIBRARY – reading everything I could on it. I went on to fall completely in LOVE with Greek mythology, so those pages are like the first notes from what became a very dear friend.
Flipping through an old playbill, I know exactly who I was with and what we were talking about. I love that feeling – that great memory.
Reading travel pamphlets from a place I’ve visited recalls the sound of crashing waves and the smell of the wind off the sea.
I also avoid it because sorting through it all, in this grand organization attempt, can be draining on an emotional level. Not every memory is a good one. There are love notes from old beaus – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. There are pictures of friends long lost. Journals and notebooks full of my own writing from dark and lonely times.
For the most part, looking at the whole, it is the story of a beautiful life. MY beautiful life. Full of all the people I have loved and who have loved me. A time line of where I’ve been and what I was doing there. Full of all the lessons I ever learned. Full of adventures in far flung places I may never see again. Like Mesa, AZ. I feel I’ve learned everything I need to know about that. When I start to think that the desert can be beautiful – because I find a picture of my camp at sunrise in 1999 - I can read on the back of a beautiful post card what I wrote to myself in 1986. How hell hot it was and about the scorpions and I remember that whilst, yes it can be beautiful, for the most part it isn’t for me.
So, if you need to find me, look for me in the piles and stacks of newspapers, football game guides, New Year’s Eve crowns and movie ticket stubs; journals, posters, genealogies and maps; graduation announcements, certificates of merit, birthday cards and packing lists. Beautiful things I have observed, words I felt were meaningful, and what I have found interesting. These things that were meant to be transitory and “lasting no more than a day”. That’s where I’ll be – all of me.
A) I'm terribly undisciplined. (Thus, no
blog in three weeks.)
B) I live like an explosion!
In consequence, most of my time is spent trying to tame, organize and
gain control of the explosion.
C) I addicted to ephemera.
~Definition: Ephemera
(singular: ephemeron) is any transitory written or printed matter not meant to
be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things
lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade
cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters,
pamphlets, postcards, posters, prospectuses, stock certificates, tickets and
zines. (Wiki)
I have no idea what a zine is but I’m pretty sure I have one
if it is on that list. I have everything
else on that list, going back to the fifth grade. Seriously.
Piles of it, totes and boxes and trunks full of it, drawers and shoe boxes packed to the brim. Yes, even
an airsickness bag – WITH a letter written on it, circa 1989.
Photographs, scraps of paper with poems and song lyrics on them, notebooks full of class notes, drawings, Dew Drop’s hair and teeth, Bubbah and Mina’s art work and Scout projects. Postcards – you wouldn’t believe the postcards; CA, FL, OK, CO, WY, MT, ID, WA, NV, OR VA, ME, MO, KS, SD, IA, AZ, England, Mexico and Canada. I pick up postcards when I drive to Missoula! Bookmarks – I find them everywhere. Blank paper – reams of binder paper, black covered composition books, note pads, journals, spiral notebooks, post its. It’s like I’m afraid they will stop making paper. Calendars going back to the 90’s. Stickers, coasters, matchbooks, playbills, concert ticket stubs, band cards, etc., from every place I’ve ever been since 1981.
Books. SOOOO many books. I still have the first copy of Jayne Eyre I ever read. 1986. Of course, I NEED a copy of that and it’s nice that every time I’ve read it, it has been that copy. There is a note in it from a friend of mine, who has since passed away (much too young) and it’s special to me. I still have my RED BOOKS. From Jr. high school. People who went to school with me will know how WEIRD that is. Histories – heavy, scholarly histories – for every place I’ve ever lived and places I will never see. Books on fish and birds and ghosts and religions and poetry and music and cooking and gruesome serial killers. Classics and junk paperbacks, fairy tales and biographies, short story anthologies, dictionaries and encyclopedias.
I started a project back in…October? November?…to get all this stuff consolidated into one place. I figured, organized by year and packed neatly into totes; it wouldn’t be that big of deal, right? Well, three giant totes later, with plenty of it tossed into garbage, I’ve barely scratched the surface. Because I live like an explosion, it’s EVERYWHERE and the more I work on it, the more of it I find. I put it all away at Christmas because I realized I had really bitten off a big, ambitious bite and the piles were in the way of the holidays. I’m getting back to it now. Because the holidays are over...ya know, recently…but…terribly undisciplined, so… PLUS, I avoid it. Cuz tis a daunting task and it’s a drag.
Photographs, scraps of paper with poems and song lyrics on them, notebooks full of class notes, drawings, Dew Drop’s hair and teeth, Bubbah and Mina’s art work and Scout projects. Postcards – you wouldn’t believe the postcards; CA, FL, OK, CO, WY, MT, ID, WA, NV, OR VA, ME, MO, KS, SD, IA, AZ, England, Mexico and Canada. I pick up postcards when I drive to Missoula! Bookmarks – I find them everywhere. Blank paper – reams of binder paper, black covered composition books, note pads, journals, spiral notebooks, post its. It’s like I’m afraid they will stop making paper. Calendars going back to the 90’s. Stickers, coasters, matchbooks, playbills, concert ticket stubs, band cards, etc., from every place I’ve ever been since 1981.
Books. SOOOO many books. I still have the first copy of Jayne Eyre I ever read. 1986. Of course, I NEED a copy of that and it’s nice that every time I’ve read it, it has been that copy. There is a note in it from a friend of mine, who has since passed away (much too young) and it’s special to me. I still have my RED BOOKS. From Jr. high school. People who went to school with me will know how WEIRD that is. Histories – heavy, scholarly histories – for every place I’ve ever lived and places I will never see. Books on fish and birds and ghosts and religions and poetry and music and cooking and gruesome serial killers. Classics and junk paperbacks, fairy tales and biographies, short story anthologies, dictionaries and encyclopedias.
I started a project back in…October? November?…to get all this stuff consolidated into one place. I figured, organized by year and packed neatly into totes; it wouldn’t be that big of deal, right? Well, three giant totes later, with plenty of it tossed into garbage, I’ve barely scratched the surface. Because I live like an explosion, it’s EVERYWHERE and the more I work on it, the more of it I find. I put it all away at Christmas because I realized I had really bitten off a big, ambitious bite and the piles were in the way of the holidays. I’m getting back to it now. Because the holidays are over...ya know, recently…but…terribly undisciplined, so… PLUS, I avoid it. Cuz tis a daunting task and it’s a drag.
I can’t analyze why I hold on to it all. I don’t really want to. I’m sure it’s some sort of psychological hoarding issue mumbo jumbo. I get that the item doesn’t hold the memory and all that but I still feel that every scrap tells the story of me. Those things are the entire history of my life:
When I see a matchbook from a bar in Rapid City, SD, I remember our car breaking down there. Honey and I were stranded and we had the BEST adventure that night. The food was good, the music was better; the summer night couldn’t have been more perfect.
When I find the notes from the first time I studied Greek mythology, I remember being 20 – at the LIBRARY – reading everything I could on it. I went on to fall completely in LOVE with Greek mythology, so those pages are like the first notes from what became a very dear friend.
Flipping through an old playbill, I know exactly who I was with and what we were talking about. I love that feeling – that great memory.
Reading travel pamphlets from a place I’ve visited recalls the sound of crashing waves and the smell of the wind off the sea.
I also avoid it because sorting through it all, in this grand organization attempt, can be draining on an emotional level. Not every memory is a good one. There are love notes from old beaus – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. There are pictures of friends long lost. Journals and notebooks full of my own writing from dark and lonely times.
For the most part, looking at the whole, it is the story of a beautiful life. MY beautiful life. Full of all the people I have loved and who have loved me. A time line of where I’ve been and what I was doing there. Full of all the lessons I ever learned. Full of adventures in far flung places I may never see again. Like Mesa, AZ. I feel I’ve learned everything I need to know about that. When I start to think that the desert can be beautiful – because I find a picture of my camp at sunrise in 1999 - I can read on the back of a beautiful post card what I wrote to myself in 1986. How hell hot it was and about the scorpions and I remember that whilst, yes it can be beautiful, for the most part it isn’t for me.
So, if you need to find me, look for me in the piles and stacks of newspapers, football game guides, New Year’s Eve crowns and movie ticket stubs; journals, posters, genealogies and maps; graduation announcements, certificates of merit, birthday cards and packing lists. Beautiful things I have observed, words I felt were meaningful, and what I have found interesting. These things that were meant to be transitory and “lasting no more than a day”. That’s where I’ll be – all of me.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
And Then My Kids were Doing it...
I was talking with my Hita this morning. We have coffee via telephone about once a week. We were talking about how different and how hard it is to be parents at this stage of life. You don't have little kids anymore - you have these adults. And it's weird.
They are all independent and stuff. They don't have to listen to you or follow your rules anymore. You can't just say to them, "No! You aren't doing that. Why? Because I said so, that's why!"
They are OUT there, in the big, wide world living their own lives, making their own decisions and you HOPE that you have given them the tools they need to stand on their own, and do the right things. To make good decisions and be smart and be good and brush your teeth twice a day and don't spit in public and don't drink and drive and have safe sex and be careful and aware when you are out and don't drink too much and...well...the list goes on and on.
But when I think what I was up to and what I was doing at 16 or 20 or 24, I worry about "my kids". Because I have BEEN 16 and 20 and 24. And I know it may seem to some of you - the kids - that it was a loooooong time ago, I remember it like it was yesterday....
*cue the mist, the fade to black and the "Granny has a flashback" music*
Hita and I were 16. I had turned 16 in January and had the crappiest car - affectionately known as The Tank - in all of the Denver Metro Area. She was an ugly beast but she was mine. Hita had turned 16 about two weeks before the incident. It was spring break. It was 100% THIS time of year. RIGHT now. Only it was 1985, so our hair was big and the music was better.
Hita and I and Sidekick (the names are always changed to protect the guilty but you KNOW who YOU are) talked Sidekick's older brother into buying us booze. A fifth of Peppermint Schnapps. I'm not going to say that I didn't drink because I was driving, cuz I did - more's the pity - I sipped on that bottle 3-4 times...maybe 5-6. Hita and the Sidekick DRANK. Hita and Sidekick got DRUNK. I was a sober 16 year old girl in charge of two very DRUNK friends. And when that happens, there's no way things are going to end well. Sidekick was wandering down the dark street claiming she was going to walk home, whilst Hita was puking up Peppermint Schnapps all over the back floor of The Tank. And that is the gift that keeps on giving - candy canes have been out of the question ever since.
I got Sidekick home. (She was still ambulatory and for that, I have been forever grateful.) Safely into her own house. I got Hita out of the window well at my first husband's house. (which is an whole other story and I don't want to bore you with ALL the details) All I had to do was get her home. Only she'd passed out by the time we got to her house. I either had to carry her in or leave her in the yard. I was 16 but I knew that wasn't the right thing to do. I couldn't believe my luck! Her mom wasn't there! I had this idea that I would just put her in her bed and get the hell out of there. I had dragged her half way up the stairs when her mom (not so fortuitously) came through the door.
I can laugh now at what we must have looked like to her eyes but at the time NO ONE was laughing. She, quite understandably, turned into a dragon lady before my eyes. She yelled! She cursed! I jumped a foot and dropped my Hita. Thud-slouch-slitther-thud-thud back down the stairs. Still no laughing. Her mom screamed to get out of her house and I ran like a rabbit before she could get her hands on me!
When I was 20, I packed my bags and moved to Washington DC. Alexandria, VA to be precise but DC sounds cooler and seriously, it's all the same. I married my first husband. I'll call him Fred. Fred and I were in school together when we were 16. He moved back to CA with his family but we were best mates on the phone in the following years. Back when you had to PAY for long distance!
He had joined the Army and was stationed at Ft. Myer - in The Old Guard - Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetery, and all that - very prestigious. We hatched this plan to get married. I would live and work in DC and make my own life there. He would get to live off base and get a raise for being married. We'd be room mates and best mates; what could go wrong?! Hair brained but at the time, it all made perfect sense. I ended up staying there for...about four months. Then, in typical hair brained plan fashion, it didn't seem like such a great idea anymore and I shagged my ass back to CO.
When I was 21, I packed my bags and moved to Sacramento, CA. With a guy. We don't have to change his name, cuz he is loooong gone. CA was like a dream. I'd always wanted to live there! I was there about six months. I came back home with some life lessons, some stories to tell and the beginnings of a decade long drug addiction. Needless to say, I'd been up to no good.
When I was 24, I packed everything into a pickup and a VW Bug and moved to a wee town in Western CO. I had a better plan this time. I'd gotten a job with the BLM over the phone, rented an apartment sight unseen, in a town I'd never been to before in my life. Did I mention it was WEE? Population about 3,000 souls. One grocery store, two bars, 10 churches. It was like a setting in a book and I was the proverbial city mouse. A fish completely out of water! Still pretty hair brained but I came to love my life in Meeker. I became who I was meant to become in many ways. I'd been looking for my place in this world in big cities; I found it in the sticks. I loved my job. I loved my friends. I loved the area. I loved. Then I let that drug addiction take it all away. I fell back into my no good ways and I lost it all - the job, the friends, the place. I had to get out or go crazy, so once again...I went home. I did get to keep Bob. The one treasure amongst all that crap.
I've made so many bad decisions. For so long, every time I was faced with a choice, I chose badly. So when I look at "my kids", I see all the choices that are out there in this big, wide world. I see the traps that Satan has laid for them. I know how pretty and alluring those traps can be. I see CLEARLY how easy it is to slip and I know what it costs to swim amongst sharks. I see how I wasted so many years of my life; fighting against that slippery slope. I know what it feels like to live in the dark. To think of "my kids" - those bright and shining little beings, whom I have loved so well - making some of those same mistakes or falling into those same traps...well, it breaks my heart. It makes me cry.
It's hard to let go - to admit that they are adults who get to choose their own way. It's hard not to say, "LISTEN TO ME! THIS IS WHAT I KNOW!" Cuz they won't. They think what I thought at their age - "Old people, sheesh! I'm not stupid! Those things won't happen to ME! I'm smarter or faster or better than THEY were!" But you aren't. Trust me on this - YOU AREN'T. I'll tell you what else I know. There is no joy in any of it. Real joy comes from something completely different - from spirituality, from family, from nature, from love, from respect for and pride in yourself.
At this stage in the game, I have all this experience and know all this stuff and no one will listen. So, I pray a lot for my kids. All the time. They pop into my mind and I pray for them to be safe and protected, to be smart and wise, to be healthy and happy, to make wise decisions and build a brilliant future; to create today a past they can be proud of when they are 44 and looking back on their own lives. Not to waste ONE MOMENT of their precious time chasing empty things that will only bring them complications or pain or heartache.
And I pray for me. I ask for forgiveness; I ask for peace; and I give thanks for mercy and grace and second chances.
They are all independent and stuff. They don't have to listen to you or follow your rules anymore. You can't just say to them, "No! You aren't doing that. Why? Because I said so, that's why!"
They are OUT there, in the big, wide world living their own lives, making their own decisions and you HOPE that you have given them the tools they need to stand on their own, and do the right things. To make good decisions and be smart and be good and brush your teeth twice a day and don't spit in public and don't drink and drive and have safe sex and be careful and aware when you are out and don't drink too much and...well...the list goes on and on.
But when I think what I was up to and what I was doing at 16 or 20 or 24, I worry about "my kids". Because I have BEEN 16 and 20 and 24. And I know it may seem to some of you - the kids - that it was a loooooong time ago, I remember it like it was yesterday....
*cue the mist, the fade to black and the "Granny has a flashback" music*
Hita and I were 16. I had turned 16 in January and had the crappiest car - affectionately known as The Tank - in all of the Denver Metro Area. She was an ugly beast but she was mine. Hita had turned 16 about two weeks before the incident. It was spring break. It was 100% THIS time of year. RIGHT now. Only it was 1985, so our hair was big and the music was better.
Hita and I and Sidekick (the names are always changed to protect the guilty but you KNOW who YOU are) talked Sidekick's older brother into buying us booze. A fifth of Peppermint Schnapps. I'm not going to say that I didn't drink because I was driving, cuz I did - more's the pity - I sipped on that bottle 3-4 times...maybe 5-6. Hita and the Sidekick DRANK. Hita and Sidekick got DRUNK. I was a sober 16 year old girl in charge of two very DRUNK friends. And when that happens, there's no way things are going to end well. Sidekick was wandering down the dark street claiming she was going to walk home, whilst Hita was puking up Peppermint Schnapps all over the back floor of The Tank. And that is the gift that keeps on giving - candy canes have been out of the question ever since.
I got Sidekick home. (She was still ambulatory and for that, I have been forever grateful.) Safely into her own house. I got Hita out of the window well at my first husband's house. (which is an whole other story and I don't want to bore you with ALL the details) All I had to do was get her home. Only she'd passed out by the time we got to her house. I either had to carry her in or leave her in the yard. I was 16 but I knew that wasn't the right thing to do. I couldn't believe my luck! Her mom wasn't there! I had this idea that I would just put her in her bed and get the hell out of there. I had dragged her half way up the stairs when her mom (not so fortuitously) came through the door.
I can laugh now at what we must have looked like to her eyes but at the time NO ONE was laughing. She, quite understandably, turned into a dragon lady before my eyes. She yelled! She cursed! I jumped a foot and dropped my Hita. Thud-slouch-slitther-thud-thud back down the stairs. Still no laughing. Her mom screamed to get out of her house and I ran like a rabbit before she could get her hands on me!
When I was 20, I packed my bags and moved to Washington DC. Alexandria, VA to be precise but DC sounds cooler and seriously, it's all the same. I married my first husband. I'll call him Fred. Fred and I were in school together when we were 16. He moved back to CA with his family but we were best mates on the phone in the following years. Back when you had to PAY for long distance!
He had joined the Army and was stationed at Ft. Myer - in The Old Guard - Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetery, and all that - very prestigious. We hatched this plan to get married. I would live and work in DC and make my own life there. He would get to live off base and get a raise for being married. We'd be room mates and best mates; what could go wrong?! Hair brained but at the time, it all made perfect sense. I ended up staying there for...about four months. Then, in typical hair brained plan fashion, it didn't seem like such a great idea anymore and I shagged my ass back to CO.
When I was 21, I packed my bags and moved to Sacramento, CA. With a guy. We don't have to change his name, cuz he is loooong gone. CA was like a dream. I'd always wanted to live there! I was there about six months. I came back home with some life lessons, some stories to tell and the beginnings of a decade long drug addiction. Needless to say, I'd been up to no good.
When I was 24, I packed everything into a pickup and a VW Bug and moved to a wee town in Western CO. I had a better plan this time. I'd gotten a job with the BLM over the phone, rented an apartment sight unseen, in a town I'd never been to before in my life. Did I mention it was WEE? Population about 3,000 souls. One grocery store, two bars, 10 churches. It was like a setting in a book and I was the proverbial city mouse. A fish completely out of water! Still pretty hair brained but I came to love my life in Meeker. I became who I was meant to become in many ways. I'd been looking for my place in this world in big cities; I found it in the sticks. I loved my job. I loved my friends. I loved the area. I loved. Then I let that drug addiction take it all away. I fell back into my no good ways and I lost it all - the job, the friends, the place. I had to get out or go crazy, so once again...I went home. I did get to keep Bob. The one treasure amongst all that crap.
I've made so many bad decisions. For so long, every time I was faced with a choice, I chose badly. So when I look at "my kids", I see all the choices that are out there in this big, wide world. I see the traps that Satan has laid for them. I know how pretty and alluring those traps can be. I see CLEARLY how easy it is to slip and I know what it costs to swim amongst sharks. I see how I wasted so many years of my life; fighting against that slippery slope. I know what it feels like to live in the dark. To think of "my kids" - those bright and shining little beings, whom I have loved so well - making some of those same mistakes or falling into those same traps...well, it breaks my heart. It makes me cry.
It's hard to let go - to admit that they are adults who get to choose their own way. It's hard not to say, "LISTEN TO ME! THIS IS WHAT I KNOW!" Cuz they won't. They think what I thought at their age - "Old people, sheesh! I'm not stupid! Those things won't happen to ME! I'm smarter or faster or better than THEY were!" But you aren't. Trust me on this - YOU AREN'T. I'll tell you what else I know. There is no joy in any of it. Real joy comes from something completely different - from spirituality, from family, from nature, from love, from respect for and pride in yourself.
At this stage in the game, I have all this experience and know all this stuff and no one will listen. So, I pray a lot for my kids. All the time. They pop into my mind and I pray for them to be safe and protected, to be smart and wise, to be healthy and happy, to make wise decisions and build a brilliant future; to create today a past they can be proud of when they are 44 and looking back on their own lives. Not to waste ONE MOMENT of their precious time chasing empty things that will only bring them complications or pain or heartache.
And I pray for me. I ask for forgiveness; I ask for peace; and I give thanks for mercy and grace and second chances.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Pseudo-Spring is in the Air!
Another week has flown by and here I am again.
This week, I am held firmly in the grip of pseudo-spring.
I am so blessed to have grown up and to live in the Rocky Mountains. I can't think of a more dazzling or enchanting place to called home. This time of year is a heartache. We all buckle down to face the winter. Sure there are those people out snowmobiling, skiing and ice fishing, but I am not one of those. I gave a hearty try to the snowmobiling thing and it's just a LOT of work. It seems like it would just be point the skis in the right direction and go, but it isn't. There are all these hills to climb and drifts to get stuck in. Then you have to dig and haul that heavy machine back where it should be; in parkas, snow pants, scarves and ski masks. And fleece long johns, wool socks, knee high Sorrel boots, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, two pairs of gloves and earmuffs. It's a LOT of clothes and by the time you are done, you are sweating from the exertion...in 20 degree temps...with sweat cycles in your hair. Not to mention, sometime during the day, in the woods, in all those clothes, you are going to have to pee. Girls, you see where I'm going with this. There are also all these skills to hanging off the side of the machine so that it won't roll down a cliff that it turns out, I just don't have. Upon much soul searching and contemplation of a few of the downright terrifying cliffs I'd been facing, I gave it up. It seems a complete blasphemy to say that I grew up in Colorado and don't ski. I gave that a good try too - cuz it seemed like I should - I'm just no good! It was a no go on ice skating, too. So during the winter, I do what most rational, not-so-athletic people do. I hibernate. Just like a bear. I stay warm and cozy in my house, wearing sweaters and slippers. I curl up with good books and mugs full of hot beverages. I make homemade soups and breads. I organize my house and rearrange the furniture. I make things. I watch the snow fall out the window and love it. It's a grand life!
Now though...things they are achangin'. You can feel it in the air! It's MARCH! St. Patrick's Day is this weekend! That is a sure sign that spring is coming to my little corner of the Rockies. The wind blows differently. Warm and chilly at the same time. Ice and snow are melting rapidly, leaving behind what I not-so-affectionately call, "Mud Season". And on that warm-chill wind is a familiar scent - an old friend of mine - it's the smell of where the wild things are. It's sage and mold. It's trees thinking about budding. It's dirt roads and fishing holes unlocked from the ice. Things are on the move again.
Of course, it's only March. Hence, the pseudo-spring. It's not really time yet. If you went out into the hills right now, you'd find more snow and all that mud. You still can't go anywhere. And there WILL be more snow! But things in the house change. Fishing gear gets hauled out and mended; cleaned up and organized. The boat gets dragged out of storage and sent for an tune up. The camping gear gets washed, replenished and repacked. Because it is time to prepare for the REAL spring and that glorious Rocky Mountain Summer! Held ever more dear because it is so swiftly fleeting. Sweaters and slippers get swapped for shorts and wading boots. Mugs full of hot drink morph into lemonade and ice cold beer. No more soup and bread, this is the time of year to cook everything on or in a real fire. I will abandon my house and give myself up to living in the forest. Books will be read in hammocks on the river, by that mercurial, erratic shadow-sun light that filters down through the trees.
There is nothing like a Rocky Mountain summer! Even when I was very little kid, I knew summer meant mountains; rocks, trees, rivers, lakes, cool breezes and thin, crisp air. Most weekends in summer were spent exploring - Central City (in the 70's it was the BOMB!), Nederland, Georgetown Lake - my dad behind the wheel, singing "16 Tons", always edging over to where the windy, two-lane asphalt dropped steeply off into a canyon, causing my mother to freak out and us girls to squeal with laughter. It was trips to Mesa Verde, Glenwood, Gunnison, Steamboat and Telluride. It was horseback riding at Trapper's Lake and fishing the White River. It was wading and rock hounding and making sandwiches on picnic tables covered in bird poo. It was running for shelter from sudden summer storms and rodeos on wooden bleachers. It was picking and collecting leaves and flowers under cobalt blue skies. It was tents and campfires on obsidian nights full of a million stars. It means the exact same things now that I'm grown, although a few things have changed. I spend more time fishing and the place names read different - Virginia City, Philipsburg, Seely, Gardiner, Livingston, Rock Creek - and I still go to Georgetown Lake! The places that are magical to me - old friends that you visit once or twice a year. And always new places that I will not fail to recognize because I see them in my dreams.
This time of year is exciting to me! It's a physical and mental thrumming. Here come all the reasons I live in these sometimes horrendous western climes; my reward for lasting out another too-long, too far north winter. I need it like I need air. Thank you God, for placing me right where I NEED to be. For knowing just what my soul would always need and providing it in abundance. My whole life You have surrounded me with this slice of Your glorious creation. A gift, for which I am truly thankful.
Psalms 121:1 - "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."
Bring on THE SPRING!
Western Skies - Chris LeDoux
(This video is not mine. The music is not mine. None of the photography is mine)
These photos ARE mine.
This week, I am held firmly in the grip of pseudo-spring.
I am so blessed to have grown up and to live in the Rocky Mountains. I can't think of a more dazzling or enchanting place to called home. This time of year is a heartache. We all buckle down to face the winter. Sure there are those people out snowmobiling, skiing and ice fishing, but I am not one of those. I gave a hearty try to the snowmobiling thing and it's just a LOT of work. It seems like it would just be point the skis in the right direction and go, but it isn't. There are all these hills to climb and drifts to get stuck in. Then you have to dig and haul that heavy machine back where it should be; in parkas, snow pants, scarves and ski masks. And fleece long johns, wool socks, knee high Sorrel boots, a t-shirt, sweatshirt, two pairs of gloves and earmuffs. It's a LOT of clothes and by the time you are done, you are sweating from the exertion...in 20 degree temps...with sweat cycles in your hair. Not to mention, sometime during the day, in the woods, in all those clothes, you are going to have to pee. Girls, you see where I'm going with this. There are also all these skills to hanging off the side of the machine so that it won't roll down a cliff that it turns out, I just don't have. Upon much soul searching and contemplation of a few of the downright terrifying cliffs I'd been facing, I gave it up. It seems a complete blasphemy to say that I grew up in Colorado and don't ski. I gave that a good try too - cuz it seemed like I should - I'm just no good! It was a no go on ice skating, too. So during the winter, I do what most rational, not-so-athletic people do. I hibernate. Just like a bear. I stay warm and cozy in my house, wearing sweaters and slippers. I curl up with good books and mugs full of hot beverages. I make homemade soups and breads. I organize my house and rearrange the furniture. I make things. I watch the snow fall out the window and love it. It's a grand life!
Now though...things they are achangin'. You can feel it in the air! It's MARCH! St. Patrick's Day is this weekend! That is a sure sign that spring is coming to my little corner of the Rockies. The wind blows differently. Warm and chilly at the same time. Ice and snow are melting rapidly, leaving behind what I not-so-affectionately call, "Mud Season". And on that warm-chill wind is a familiar scent - an old friend of mine - it's the smell of where the wild things are. It's sage and mold. It's trees thinking about budding. It's dirt roads and fishing holes unlocked from the ice. Things are on the move again.
Of course, it's only March. Hence, the pseudo-spring. It's not really time yet. If you went out into the hills right now, you'd find more snow and all that mud. You still can't go anywhere. And there WILL be more snow! But things in the house change. Fishing gear gets hauled out and mended; cleaned up and organized. The boat gets dragged out of storage and sent for an tune up. The camping gear gets washed, replenished and repacked. Because it is time to prepare for the REAL spring and that glorious Rocky Mountain Summer! Held ever more dear because it is so swiftly fleeting. Sweaters and slippers get swapped for shorts and wading boots. Mugs full of hot drink morph into lemonade and ice cold beer. No more soup and bread, this is the time of year to cook everything on or in a real fire. I will abandon my house and give myself up to living in the forest. Books will be read in hammocks on the river, by that mercurial, erratic shadow-sun light that filters down through the trees.
There is nothing like a Rocky Mountain summer! Even when I was very little kid, I knew summer meant mountains; rocks, trees, rivers, lakes, cool breezes and thin, crisp air. Most weekends in summer were spent exploring - Central City (in the 70's it was the BOMB!), Nederland, Georgetown Lake - my dad behind the wheel, singing "16 Tons", always edging over to where the windy, two-lane asphalt dropped steeply off into a canyon, causing my mother to freak out and us girls to squeal with laughter. It was trips to Mesa Verde, Glenwood, Gunnison, Steamboat and Telluride. It was horseback riding at Trapper's Lake and fishing the White River. It was wading and rock hounding and making sandwiches on picnic tables covered in bird poo. It was running for shelter from sudden summer storms and rodeos on wooden bleachers. It was picking and collecting leaves and flowers under cobalt blue skies. It was tents and campfires on obsidian nights full of a million stars. It means the exact same things now that I'm grown, although a few things have changed. I spend more time fishing and the place names read different - Virginia City, Philipsburg, Seely, Gardiner, Livingston, Rock Creek - and I still go to Georgetown Lake! The places that are magical to me - old friends that you visit once or twice a year. And always new places that I will not fail to recognize because I see them in my dreams.
This time of year is exciting to me! It's a physical and mental thrumming. Here come all the reasons I live in these sometimes horrendous western climes; my reward for lasting out another too-long, too far north winter. I need it like I need air. Thank you God, for placing me right where I NEED to be. For knowing just what my soul would always need and providing it in abundance. My whole life You have surrounded me with this slice of Your glorious creation. A gift, for which I am truly thankful.
Psalms 121:1 - "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."
Bring on THE SPRING!
Western Skies - Chris LeDoux
(This video is not mine. The music is not mine. None of the photography is mine)
These photos ARE mine.
 |
| Me, my dad, my sister circa 1977-ish |
 |
| Me and Bob and Alice Dog 1994 |
 |
| Me, Bubbah, Dew Drop 2002 |
 |
| Bubbah and Dew Drop Racetrack |
 |
| Mina 2009 |
 |
| Mina's Fish 2011 |
 |
| Dew Drop & Newt 2012 |
 |
| Seymour Lake |
 |
| Rock Creek |
 |
| Fishing the Big Hole |
 |
| I'd tell you where, but then I'd have to kill you. |
Friday, March 8, 2013
My sisters and their kids
Today is March 8! That can mean only one thing in my heart and mind. The birthday of my nephew. We'll call him "Bubbah". Everyone HAS a Bubbah, right? I know right where I was standing and what I was doing on THIS day, twenty years ago. I was falling in love. Happy Birthday, my darling!
It has been with great delight that I have fallen in love with other people's kids over and over again. My own daughter, aka "Lil Dew Drop". My enchantment - whom I was fortunate enough to be able to choose for my child. I got me the BEST ONE. Plus, she's produced a son of her own who is the sun and stars in my sky They say grandchildren are our reward for not killing our children and they were right! But also children related to me by blood and a slew of 'em related to me by heart.
I have a sister - we'll call her "Maggot". You know, a sister of the "grew up with the same parents as you" variety. She is my best friend. The person I see every day and talk to on the phone all the time. She helps me keep my shish together when I'm sick and can't manage it all by myself. She's been changing my cat boxes for FIVE YEARS! Not many friends would do that just cuz they love you, but my Maggot will. She's the ONLY other person who truly understands how crazy my mother is! *Love ya, mom! XX* She has two great kids - Bubbah and Mina. It has been true love to watch them grow. I'm proud of 'em like they are my own. They are as familiar to me as my own.
I have a friend - Bean. We've been friends since we were NINE YEARS OLD. Like...best friends, talk all the time friends...for 36 years! She and I have spent at least 2 minutes together every New Year's Eve since we were 14. Everyone knows we are together at midnight. Bean is just GOOD. She does what she should because it's the right thing to do. She always has, even when we were kids. We grew up together, same as if we had grown up in the same house. We're sisters. Her kids have called me auntie all their lives - the first of their kind! It's been a privilege and an honor to be their Auntie.
My best friend is called Hita (cuz we've never known how to spell hijita). It's what her dad called her - and often me - and it means something like little girl or daughter. THIS girl is my heart. We've been best mates since we were 12. And ohhh...the shenanigans! If I was in trouble or having the best times of my life, the story is always going to start, "One time, me and Hita..." The girl makes me LAUGH. NO ONE - in my WHOLE long life - can make me laugh like my best friend. She is the mother of The Three B's. That gorgeous pack of wildcat girls who have made long to be young again at all stages of their lives. They have become my friends; in their own right and separate from their mama.
My NEW old friend, I've known for 20 years now. We'll call her Bob - only because she doesn't have a nickname and the names must always be changed to protect the guilty. *wink* She can read my mind. She and I find the same things beautiful. We could talk together until the end of time. We survived the war together. She's sweet and smart and pure light and energy to my soul. Her kids were wee when we first met. Between 4-7. It's been a gift to watch the three of them grow and to see what kind of brilliant young people they have become.
My joy in all my Sisters is to have watched them go from girls to teenagers, to mothers and now to grandmothers. Which is hard to believe, I don't care how old you get! They know everything about me. We have jokes between us that are 30 years old! Everything I have ever done or ever been - anything that has ever happened to me, good or bad - has been witnessed by the four of them. Shared, counseled, deemed a good idea or ridiculous horseshit and they were always there at the end to say, "I told you so" or pick up the pieces. Every battle of my life has been fought with one or all of them by my side. They are the walking, talking repository of my personal history and I am theirs. "And my memory is looong." I can't even imagine WHO in this life I would BE if I hadn't had them. What would be funny? What would have meaning? What would be important and what would be pure gimcrack and bunkum, if they hadn't been there whilst I was growing and leaning what had value and beauty in this life? At EVERY stage of my life! We share a long history. THIS is love - all it ever was and will be.
So when I say my sisters, I can mean any one of them because they are more than my friends. And when I say my kids, I'm drawing from a highly populated pool of love - even though most of my kids aren't kids anymore. This is what I know - not everyone is so privileged. Some will never know stronger, braver, kinder, more giving woman then the women that I call my sisters and friends. Some people can go a whole life and not be blessed with ONE and I've had FOUR. Women who have raised fine, beautiful, and enthralling kids whom I love.
“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”
― William Shakespeare
There isn't a more charmed or fortunate life than mine.
It has been with great delight that I have fallen in love with other people's kids over and over again. My own daughter, aka "Lil Dew Drop". My enchantment - whom I was fortunate enough to be able to choose for my child. I got me the BEST ONE. Plus, she's produced a son of her own who is the sun and stars in my sky They say grandchildren are our reward for not killing our children and they were right! But also children related to me by blood and a slew of 'em related to me by heart.
I have a sister - we'll call her "Maggot". You know, a sister of the "grew up with the same parents as you" variety. She is my best friend. The person I see every day and talk to on the phone all the time. She helps me keep my shish together when I'm sick and can't manage it all by myself. She's been changing my cat boxes for FIVE YEARS! Not many friends would do that just cuz they love you, but my Maggot will. She's the ONLY other person who truly understands how crazy my mother is! *Love ya, mom! XX* She has two great kids - Bubbah and Mina. It has been true love to watch them grow. I'm proud of 'em like they are my own. They are as familiar to me as my own.
I have a friend - Bean. We've been friends since we were NINE YEARS OLD. Like...best friends, talk all the time friends...for 36 years! She and I have spent at least 2 minutes together every New Year's Eve since we were 14. Everyone knows we are together at midnight. Bean is just GOOD. She does what she should because it's the right thing to do. She always has, even when we were kids. We grew up together, same as if we had grown up in the same house. We're sisters. Her kids have called me auntie all their lives - the first of their kind! It's been a privilege and an honor to be their Auntie.
My best friend is called Hita (cuz we've never known how to spell hijita). It's what her dad called her - and often me - and it means something like little girl or daughter. THIS girl is my heart. We've been best mates since we were 12. And ohhh...the shenanigans! If I was in trouble or having the best times of my life, the story is always going to start, "One time, me and Hita..." The girl makes me LAUGH. NO ONE - in my WHOLE long life - can make me laugh like my best friend. She is the mother of The Three B's. That gorgeous pack of wildcat girls who have made long to be young again at all stages of their lives. They have become my friends; in their own right and separate from their mama.
My NEW old friend, I've known for 20 years now. We'll call her Bob - only because she doesn't have a nickname and the names must always be changed to protect the guilty. *wink* She can read my mind. She and I find the same things beautiful. We could talk together until the end of time. We survived the war together. She's sweet and smart and pure light and energy to my soul. Her kids were wee when we first met. Between 4-7. It's been a gift to watch the three of them grow and to see what kind of brilliant young people they have become.
My joy in all my Sisters is to have watched them go from girls to teenagers, to mothers and now to grandmothers. Which is hard to believe, I don't care how old you get! They know everything about me. We have jokes between us that are 30 years old! Everything I have ever done or ever been - anything that has ever happened to me, good or bad - has been witnessed by the four of them. Shared, counseled, deemed a good idea or ridiculous horseshit and they were always there at the end to say, "I told you so" or pick up the pieces. Every battle of my life has been fought with one or all of them by my side. They are the walking, talking repository of my personal history and I am theirs. "And my memory is looong." I can't even imagine WHO in this life I would BE if I hadn't had them. What would be funny? What would have meaning? What would be important and what would be pure gimcrack and bunkum, if they hadn't been there whilst I was growing and leaning what had value and beauty in this life? At EVERY stage of my life! We share a long history. THIS is love - all it ever was and will be.
So when I say my sisters, I can mean any one of them because they are more than my friends. And when I say my kids, I'm drawing from a highly populated pool of love - even though most of my kids aren't kids anymore. This is what I know - not everyone is so privileged. Some will never know stronger, braver, kinder, more giving woman then the women that I call my sisters and friends. Some people can go a whole life and not be blessed with ONE and I've had FOUR. Women who have raised fine, beautiful, and enthralling kids whom I love.
“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”
― William Shakespeare
There isn't a more charmed or fortunate life than mine.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Goodbye Pope Benny
WOW! It's all over the news today about the Pope's retirement. I'm completely caught up in every detail.
Let me start by saying, I don't have any religious attachment to the Pope because I'm not Catholic. Because I'm not Catholic, I don't understand the whole...idea of the Pope. I mean, I get that he's the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion people in the world and the ultimate head of the Catholic church. But I don't FEEL any personal connection to that.
Having said that, there are things I love about the Catholic church. I love the beauty and solemnity of it. The history, the pomp and circumstance. The 2,000 year old ritual of it all is wondrous to me. The corruption and the manipulation of religion for power and money ala Borgia Popes is riveting and important to history. Plus, they always seemed a little closer to "evil", what with the exorcisms and all, and that is fascinating to me. So I have a secret affinity for the Catholic Church. I've traveled to Rome and Vatican City and Saint Peters a hundred times in my mind because I'm spellbound. I'm enraptured with the idea of the Vatican City archives! Can you IMAGINE? *swoon* Count me as one of the faithful when it is time for midnight mass on Christmas Eve or Easter morning mass.
Pope John Paul II actually made me feel that he was a deeply spiritual person. He seemed like he had sought and found answers and it showed all over him. I feel the same way about the Dalai Lama. They exude devotion and virtuousness. They feel venerable. I was sad when John Paul died and I watched all the proceedings of the Papal conclave when it was time to choose his replacement. Black smoke, white smoke...they are in the SISTINE CHAPEL fer pity sake! It boggles the mind. After all that, what they came up with was Benedict XVI. And I felt nothin'. He just seemed like...an old guy to me. He didn't seem like he was "into" the whole being Pope thing. He didn't seem special or chosen. He just didn't do it for me. But I'm not Catholic, so it isn't important that he did. I just sort of...wanted him to. Because I didn't care for him, I immediately deemed him Pope Benny and sort of lost some of my romance with the Papacy.
Now, after only eight years, he's decided to retire. RETIRE? From being the chosen head of the whole Catholic Church? Who does that? "You know, I'm just tired of this whole chosen Father thing. I want to finish my life in a different way." It seems so weird. I mean, the idea of being the Pope is supposed to be...sacred and stuff, right? I can't imagine you'd been called to anything higher or more important. It all kinds of adds to what I felt from the start - he just wasn't IT. Now even HE is admitting it.
The last pope to retire was Pope Gregory XII.
"Pope Gregory XII (1406 - 1415) was elected as the legitimate pope at a time when there were two anti-popes: The Avignon Pope, Benedict XIII, who was supported by the French king; and the Pisa Pope, John XXIII, who was supported by conciliarists of the renegade Council of Pisa. (Please be sure to note that neither of these two latter mentioned pope were really pope.) Finally, at the Council of Constance (an official council), in order to heal the Church, Pope Gregory XII officially resigned, Benedict XIII resigned and John XXIII was deposed; Pope Martin V (1417 - 1431) was then elected as the legitimate successor of St. Peter, following Gregory XII." ( http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0786.html )
This guy was facing a TON of issues and a huge rift in the Church. It seems like it would have been the best thing for him to step down, get rid of all the "anti-popes", wipe the slate clean and start over. But Pope Benny isn't facing anything like that. He just seems to have gotten bored with the whole thing and decided to move on. Of course, we all know that the Catholic church has faced a lot of backlash for the involvement with child sexual abuse. Which is huge and ugly and should definitely, in my opinion, be dealt with swiftly and harshly. But it didn't seem to have enough presence behind it to justify a Pope stepping down. Maybe I wasn't the only one "not feeling" Pope Benny? Maybe a huge portion of the Church wasn't feeling him either? That would effect people who really ARE supposed to feel some reverence for him, wouldn't it? Do you think advisers came to him and said, "You know, you just aren't eliciting enough admiration. We're gonna have to let you go so we can find someone who will whip up some fervor again."? Or that he himself thought, "I'm ineffective. No one is buying me as Pope. I should move on so they can find someone to really LEAD the Church." That would be less self serving than, "I'm just tired of it."
It all seems very sketchy to me. It seems there has to be more going on. Some subterfuge or trickery. A manipulation of things by participants behind the scenes, which would fit the idea of the Catholic church controlling and running things. I almost hope there is because it might renew my old fire for the mysteriousness they represent. What I hope more is that, after going through the conclave (which I will definitely be watching) and choosing a new Pope, they actually elect someone that people can believe in again. Someone honest and sincere. Someone who wants what is right and just. Someone who elicits hope, peace and inspiration. Someone who brings about a change for good in the world. Someone even I can believe in.
Let me start by saying, I don't have any religious attachment to the Pope because I'm not Catholic. Because I'm not Catholic, I don't understand the whole...idea of the Pope. I mean, I get that he's the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion people in the world and the ultimate head of the Catholic church. But I don't FEEL any personal connection to that.
Having said that, there are things I love about the Catholic church. I love the beauty and solemnity of it. The history, the pomp and circumstance. The 2,000 year old ritual of it all is wondrous to me. The corruption and the manipulation of religion for power and money ala Borgia Popes is riveting and important to history. Plus, they always seemed a little closer to "evil", what with the exorcisms and all, and that is fascinating to me. So I have a secret affinity for the Catholic Church. I've traveled to Rome and Vatican City and Saint Peters a hundred times in my mind because I'm spellbound. I'm enraptured with the idea of the Vatican City archives! Can you IMAGINE? *swoon* Count me as one of the faithful when it is time for midnight mass on Christmas Eve or Easter morning mass.
Pope John Paul II actually made me feel that he was a deeply spiritual person. He seemed like he had sought and found answers and it showed all over him. I feel the same way about the Dalai Lama. They exude devotion and virtuousness. They feel venerable. I was sad when John Paul died and I watched all the proceedings of the Papal conclave when it was time to choose his replacement. Black smoke, white smoke...they are in the SISTINE CHAPEL fer pity sake! It boggles the mind. After all that, what they came up with was Benedict XVI. And I felt nothin'. He just seemed like...an old guy to me. He didn't seem like he was "into" the whole being Pope thing. He didn't seem special or chosen. He just didn't do it for me. But I'm not Catholic, so it isn't important that he did. I just sort of...wanted him to. Because I didn't care for him, I immediately deemed him Pope Benny and sort of lost some of my romance with the Papacy.
Now, after only eight years, he's decided to retire. RETIRE? From being the chosen head of the whole Catholic Church? Who does that? "You know, I'm just tired of this whole chosen Father thing. I want to finish my life in a different way." It seems so weird. I mean, the idea of being the Pope is supposed to be...sacred and stuff, right? I can't imagine you'd been called to anything higher or more important. It all kinds of adds to what I felt from the start - he just wasn't IT. Now even HE is admitting it.
The last pope to retire was Pope Gregory XII.
"Pope Gregory XII (1406 - 1415) was elected as the legitimate pope at a time when there were two anti-popes: The Avignon Pope, Benedict XIII, who was supported by the French king; and the Pisa Pope, John XXIII, who was supported by conciliarists of the renegade Council of Pisa. (Please be sure to note that neither of these two latter mentioned pope were really pope.) Finally, at the Council of Constance (an official council), in order to heal the Church, Pope Gregory XII officially resigned, Benedict XIII resigned and John XXIII was deposed; Pope Martin V (1417 - 1431) was then elected as the legitimate successor of St. Peter, following Gregory XII." ( http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0786.html )
This guy was facing a TON of issues and a huge rift in the Church. It seems like it would have been the best thing for him to step down, get rid of all the "anti-popes", wipe the slate clean and start over. But Pope Benny isn't facing anything like that. He just seems to have gotten bored with the whole thing and decided to move on. Of course, we all know that the Catholic church has faced a lot of backlash for the involvement with child sexual abuse. Which is huge and ugly and should definitely, in my opinion, be dealt with swiftly and harshly. But it didn't seem to have enough presence behind it to justify a Pope stepping down. Maybe I wasn't the only one "not feeling" Pope Benny? Maybe a huge portion of the Church wasn't feeling him either? That would effect people who really ARE supposed to feel some reverence for him, wouldn't it? Do you think advisers came to him and said, "You know, you just aren't eliciting enough admiration. We're gonna have to let you go so we can find someone who will whip up some fervor again."? Or that he himself thought, "I'm ineffective. No one is buying me as Pope. I should move on so they can find someone to really LEAD the Church." That would be less self serving than, "I'm just tired of it."
It all seems very sketchy to me. It seems there has to be more going on. Some subterfuge or trickery. A manipulation of things by participants behind the scenes, which would fit the idea of the Catholic church controlling and running things. I almost hope there is because it might renew my old fire for the mysteriousness they represent. What I hope more is that, after going through the conclave (which I will definitely be watching) and choosing a new Pope, they actually elect someone that people can believe in again. Someone honest and sincere. Someone who wants what is right and just. Someone who elicits hope, peace and inspiration. Someone who brings about a change for good in the world. Someone even I can believe in.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Best Laid Plans...
The plan was simple. Write the post, publish it on Friday. My new blog, up and running under a dead line. Only I lost the post. For some reason, when I opened it, it wasn't there. ??? Of course, this made me angry. For the better part of the morning, I've been saying, "Forget it! It wasn't meant to be." Only I still want to talk. Always.
Almost five years ago, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Stage 3. They say incurable - because "they" don't know who they are dealing with! Since then I have been coming to grips with my own mortality. In doing so, I've decided a have a few things to say. Things that I've learned. It occurred to me that I may not be around long enough to impart my wisdom when someone might actually NEED it. If I could, in one place, put down what I know about life, beauty, relationships, family, as well as books I've read, movies I see, trips I take and whatever else catches my fancy, I might be able to share a few of my hard fought lessons (and for me every lesson is learned the hard way. That is the only way something really "sticks"), it might be useful to someone and it keeps me entertained.
With that in mind, the idea of this blog has been running around in my head for some time. There are a few things that I am still negotiating getting past. Number one of which is the diverse nature of my acquaintanceships. Without going into a whole, "in the beginning I was born" saga, suffice it to say that because of my upbringing in church and Christian schools, I have many friends who are strictly religious. Actual ministers. However, having the nine lives of a cat, that is not the be all, end all of my existence and I have other friends who are...well...NOT religiously adherent. My problem has been, how do I incorporate all sides of myself into a blog that everyone might be interested in reading, without insulting anyone? Here is my confession -I'm disgustingly honest and I, at times, have a foul mouth. I couldn't reconcile myself to censoring my language in order to please everyone. So my very first post comes with a warning: Everyone is probably going to be offended by me at some point or another. I'm OK with that, being who I am. I only wanted to put out there that if you can't accept that some days I'll be cursing and other days I'll be quoting scripture, this probably isn't the place for you. Because this is the place for ME. Where I get to say what I want and you can take it or leave it, as you will. I hope you'll at least give it a chance - because seriously, the whole blogging thing isn't any fun at all unless people are reading it and sharing it.
Thus arose the idea of being HONEST and TRUTHFUL. Me, coming clean with you all about my potty mouth, and the inspiration for my first blog entry. This is what I KNOW - I can't be less honest about myself. I've been working for years on becoming the most sincere form of myself that I can be. When I was 17, I had a lot of heavy family stuff going on in my life and I swear to you that I honestly thought, "I just don't have it in me right now to pretend to be something I'm not." At school, at home, just in general, I gave up the whole premise of trying to be cool to be popular, or trying to achieve some sort of glib nonchalance with the world. I sort of just put my head down and focused on what was real and good and important.
Then I couldn't go back. All around me I saw people being...liars. Pretending to do or say one thing and then actually doing another. Saying with their mouths that they were a certain kind of person, then proving with their actions that they were NOT that kind of person. I was getting suspended from school for the same things everyone else was doing (I told you, parochial religious school) because I wouldn't lie about what what I was up to. I messed about in my 20's with not being 100% honest. Mostly for the sake of whatever relationship I was in. All that is another story - but I'll tell you what I found out from my research in that department - those relationships didn't work out. How could they? I wasn't being my true self and how could I expect someone to fall in love with whatever it was I had created? With something that wasn't completely HONEST? By the time I moved to Montana, I was 28 and completely finished with being something I was not. Which has led directly to the lippy broad you find here. I don't care what people think. I care that I am trying to present the most honest interpretation of myself that I can put out into this wide world.
Because of that religious background, I honestly believe it is IMPERATIVE to be honest and true. I'm not hiding from GOD who I am and the rest of y'all don't matter after that. If I curse, if I smoke, if I drink while listening to rock and roll in front of YOU, what is that? Nothing, but me being who I am. I also feel, religiously, that this may be the ONE area where I've gotten it RIGHT. Not bragging, not trying to paint myself in any way as "better" than anyone else, just putting it out there that I'm pretty happy with what I've learned in this area and with the results. I KNOW that when you aren't being who you really are, you spend a lot of time trying to be someone that you aren't. It's exhausting. I suggest you not even TRY. That is what I've done. Some of you may find that shocking. Others of you are thinking, "why is she banging on about it? We all know she's hideous." Just me reconciling all parts of myself into one lengthy and probably unnecessary introduction.
I'm glad if you decide to stay and read more ramblings from an often incoherent mind. If you find you can't follow me for one reason or another, that's okay too. Love and light and all that. It should at very least be entertaining...for ME anyway.
Welcome to my blog!
Almost five years ago, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Stage 3. They say incurable - because "they" don't know who they are dealing with! Since then I have been coming to grips with my own mortality. In doing so, I've decided a have a few things to say. Things that I've learned. It occurred to me that I may not be around long enough to impart my wisdom when someone might actually NEED it. If I could, in one place, put down what I know about life, beauty, relationships, family, as well as books I've read, movies I see, trips I take and whatever else catches my fancy, I might be able to share a few of my hard fought lessons (and for me every lesson is learned the hard way. That is the only way something really "sticks"), it might be useful to someone and it keeps me entertained.
With that in mind, the idea of this blog has been running around in my head for some time. There are a few things that I am still negotiating getting past. Number one of which is the diverse nature of my acquaintanceships. Without going into a whole, "in the beginning I was born" saga, suffice it to say that because of my upbringing in church and Christian schools, I have many friends who are strictly religious. Actual ministers. However, having the nine lives of a cat, that is not the be all, end all of my existence and I have other friends who are...well...NOT religiously adherent. My problem has been, how do I incorporate all sides of myself into a blog that everyone might be interested in reading, without insulting anyone? Here is my confession -I'm disgustingly honest and I, at times, have a foul mouth. I couldn't reconcile myself to censoring my language in order to please everyone. So my very first post comes with a warning: Everyone is probably going to be offended by me at some point or another. I'm OK with that, being who I am. I only wanted to put out there that if you can't accept that some days I'll be cursing and other days I'll be quoting scripture, this probably isn't the place for you. Because this is the place for ME. Where I get to say what I want and you can take it or leave it, as you will. I hope you'll at least give it a chance - because seriously, the whole blogging thing isn't any fun at all unless people are reading it and sharing it.
Thus arose the idea of being HONEST and TRUTHFUL. Me, coming clean with you all about my potty mouth, and the inspiration for my first blog entry. This is what I KNOW - I can't be less honest about myself. I've been working for years on becoming the most sincere form of myself that I can be. When I was 17, I had a lot of heavy family stuff going on in my life and I swear to you that I honestly thought, "I just don't have it in me right now to pretend to be something I'm not." At school, at home, just in general, I gave up the whole premise of trying to be cool to be popular, or trying to achieve some sort of glib nonchalance with the world. I sort of just put my head down and focused on what was real and good and important.
Then I couldn't go back. All around me I saw people being...liars. Pretending to do or say one thing and then actually doing another. Saying with their mouths that they were a certain kind of person, then proving with their actions that they were NOT that kind of person. I was getting suspended from school for the same things everyone else was doing (I told you, parochial religious school) because I wouldn't lie about what what I was up to. I messed about in my 20's with not being 100% honest. Mostly for the sake of whatever relationship I was in. All that is another story - but I'll tell you what I found out from my research in that department - those relationships didn't work out. How could they? I wasn't being my true self and how could I expect someone to fall in love with whatever it was I had created? With something that wasn't completely HONEST? By the time I moved to Montana, I was 28 and completely finished with being something I was not. Which has led directly to the lippy broad you find here. I don't care what people think. I care that I am trying to present the most honest interpretation of myself that I can put out into this wide world.
Because of that religious background, I honestly believe it is IMPERATIVE to be honest and true. I'm not hiding from GOD who I am and the rest of y'all don't matter after that. If I curse, if I smoke, if I drink while listening to rock and roll in front of YOU, what is that? Nothing, but me being who I am. I also feel, religiously, that this may be the ONE area where I've gotten it RIGHT. Not bragging, not trying to paint myself in any way as "better" than anyone else, just putting it out there that I'm pretty happy with what I've learned in this area and with the results. I KNOW that when you aren't being who you really are, you spend a lot of time trying to be someone that you aren't. It's exhausting. I suggest you not even TRY. That is what I've done. Some of you may find that shocking. Others of you are thinking, "why is she banging on about it? We all know she's hideous." Just me reconciling all parts of myself into one lengthy and probably unnecessary introduction.
I'm glad if you decide to stay and read more ramblings from an often incoherent mind. If you find you can't follow me for one reason or another, that's okay too. Love and light and all that. It should at very least be entertaining...for ME anyway.
Welcome to my blog!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)