A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Every once in a while life hands you a rose.  It seemingly comes out of nowhere and is almost always completely unanticipated, however, you find yourself unable to ignore the other-worldly fragrance or to equate the gesture to anything other than as being a gift from the Heavens.

That happened to me recently in the form of a lovely and supportive email from an old friend whom I've long loved and admired even when he wasn't able to love or admire himself.  Of course, that was back in the days when we were of an age endemic to feelings of insecurity and prone to risk-taking and self-destructive behaviors; but the curious thing was that even back then I could see the light behind the haze of confusion and knew this guy possessed qualities fairly unique to all of us awkward creatures of earth and that one day he'd realize these things himself.  Once that happened, the world would be in for a treat.

I think it is happening now; the awakening to a renewed and deeper sense of value, purpose and grace. The fact that we've re- connected at this moment in time is no accident because we are both on the precipice of new phases that will bring us each into a long-awaited fulfillment in terms of recognizing and mobilizing the more enlightened options within our respective life plans.

This is an example of the 'collision of souls' that I referred to in an earlier blog.  Those rare and extraordinary bonds that exist before all memory and serve as a lifeline in the dense bog of our mortal incarnation.  They are a reminder that we are not in this alone; and, indeed, that we truly require the love and encouragement of others to succeed at our divinely-appointed sojourns here, especially from those who understand us.

I am sure there is a reason that these precious and sacred convergences are so uncommon.  Being prone to uneven tempers, imperfect actions and a general lack of appreciation, the only way we seem able to truly cherish such exceptional blessings as they surface in our pedestrian lives is by knowing that they are far from ordinary and may never come again.  It forces us to hold onto whatever light they bring to us and make the effort ever after to incorporate that incandescent beam of blessed consonance into everything that we do and not to squander the wisdom or misuse the supernatural boost it gave our soul.

Doing right by others is a mammoth responsibility.

That fact has been very recently brought home as the result of another different but fascinating and revelatory exchange of emails between myself and a former neighbor of mine a hundred years ago when I was about thirteen and had just moved to Kansas City from New York with my family.

 Reading his entertaining, well-written accounts and verbal re-enactments of the people, times and events that are now over forty years behind us has provided me with a much-needed sense of continuity as well as with the undeniable reminder that everything counts!  What we say and do in this moment and space in time has lasting implications and will eventually provide the material that becomes who and what we are as we exit this earth-bound arena at whatever point that happens.

I've also realized that often we are not in control of people's perceptions or of their subjective experiences of us, which can be unsettling; particularly if we are perceived negatively or judged falsely.

But the reality of that can also be oddly comforting because it encourages us not to get overly upset or distracted by those occasionally unpleasant corporeal interfaces, since there is little we can do to change them.  When the threat of despair looms I do as my sister does when faced with such odds:  She raises her hands up to the sides of her head and brings them gracefully down in a motion similar to what you might do to gently wave away smoke and she softly chants, " LET IT GO."


I have been fording my way through some profoundly deep currents of thought lately; brought about as they have been by these felicitous communications, as well as by those abjectly painful ones; and I can only expect that at some point I will understand more clearly why this is so.

 Although, today it is gloriously sunny and unusually warm, and I would like nothing more than to step out into the middle of it and disappear.  However, I did that last week and am now forced to forgo any thoughts of frolicking in the sunshine because I have work to do.  There is art to be created, paintings to paint and jewelry to be designed and assembled all in preparation for my once-monthly, three day commitment as a vendor in a magical place downtown called Good JuJu.

The website has been up and operational for a few weeks, but no sales yet.  My Web god, Johnny, says that it takes time and that I need to promote the site now.  I'll get to that as soon as I make the capital to do so, although I did replace some pieces I did not like with others made recently that I do.  I freshened it up a bit.  Whoever coined the words, "It takes money to make money." was evidently not kidding!  I am making some sales outside of the site at least, so I'll get there eventually.

And as I think I've also alluded to before, I'm discovering that I'm far more emotionally vested in the writing of this blog then the business of the website.  I suppose that comes from the awareness that well-crafted words have a far more powerful and providential capacity to uplift, enlighten, engage, encourage and entertain than does either a well-crafted painting, drawing or frivolous piece of jewelry.  Still, the world would be a loathsome and unbearable place without the visual transcendency of art and ornament.  Of course, I include music in the mix, however, I have no special claim over that domain other than the paltry ability to play Oh Susannah on the harmonica, so I tend no to dwell on it beyond my limited capacity as a devoted listener.

Now it is time to get back to work.  The doors and windows are open, the birds are singing, and the rose bush outside my door is just now coming into leaf.  How lucky, then, am I to already be filled with it's perfumed expression.  "What's in a name?  That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet."   Thanks, Mr. Shakespeare.  I think I'll call it,  "miraculous."

If Thinking Makes It So, Where Is My Poolboy?

John Wheeler, one of Albert Einstein's colleagues and the guy who invented the term, black hole, said that, "No phenomena is a real phenomena until it is observed."  Even Albert himself made the statement,  "The difference between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

What mystics have known for centuries, science is now just beginning to entertain and that is the fact that nothing outside of consciousness exists; that not one single particle of matter with any real properties exists until it is observed.

This truly gives some weighty importance to the saying, "Thinking makes it so."

So, if consciousness holds all the cards and can create either a Royal Flush or a Dead Man's Hand, I am wondering what the hell is wrong with mine that it has had me losing at Old Maid for half a century?  Go fish!

I wake up everyday to conditions that are less than ideal in terms of my personal happiness.  Does this mean that it is all in my head?  Are they trying to tell me that all the years of suffering, insecurity, aloneness, ineptitude, self-loathing, doubt and verifiable incompetency that I have lived through were a figment of my imagination?  What the hell!

I suppose I could approach this from one of two angles:  The one approach would be from the vantage point of the annoyingly tenacious optimist in me, who would interpret this as great news.  This would mean that all the menacing, disappointing, disillusioning and disturbing elements and incidents in my life, past and present, are not real and that I shouldn't have to worry about the future because it I simply refuse to observe negativity, it will never come into existence.

This would also mean that I am really still twenty-five and that I am intelligent, beautiful, holy, humorous, philosophical, perfectly healthy, incredibly gifted in all manner of thought and deed, and basically damn near perfect.

And I suppose it then stands to reason that the stains in my carpet are not really there, nor is any of the dust or grime or dirty laundry.  Not unless I say so, anyway.

Of course, the realist in me would point out that if, indeed, nothing exists outside of my consciousness and since I've spend over five decades bumbling around subjecting myself to accidents, injuries, heartache, imperfections and unfulfilled dreams; something within my consciousness must be deeply flawed.

And if this is true for me, then what about all the other people in the world?  They don't seem to be doing a heck of a lot better than I am.  Why do they still lose their jobs, break their legs and get fat?  Why isn't everyone who auditions for American Idol a winner?  How come some people have ugly dogs?  Or ugly kids?

And since money is such a determining factor in whether a person can eat, have a home, get healthcare, clothes and material pleasures, why don't we all simply stop observing currency?   Would it all, then, go away leaving us with only those things we want to observe?

Obviously, I'm being facetious here.  The reality of and implications behind this truth are mind-boggling, and if I had the capacity to fully understand and initiate action on the theory in a physical and pragmatic sense, I would be sharing it on Youtube in all my glowing incandescence instead of blogging away with such strife-funded dedication.

As it is, I'm writing about that primarily as a way to distract myself from the escalating "dis-eases" as they  circumnavigate my life like karmic vultures constantly reminding me that my own choices and actions have converted me into this choice hunk of prey for the gods of recompense and retribution.

I guess I've been observing a lot of the wrong things.

However, I did survive a dinner out the other night in spite of the intestinal discomfort working against me due to my inherently shy nature and my distain of and impatience with 'happy talk'.  With the exception of the couple hosting the evening, the restaurant held a table of 'unknowns', which immediately clued me into my lack of power over the universe and observable intentions.

 Fortunately, I sat across from an engaging couple; he was a judge whose forte is adjuicating disability claims and she was an attorney specializing in family law.  They met on an internet dating site and seemed so perfectly suited to one another and so in love that I had to intentionally stifle my covetous reaction.

My other half spent all but about fifteen minutes over in the bar area of the restaurant where he had a clear view of whatever basketball game was life or death that night, as opposed to all the other nights.  He's usually the guy who is there but not actually.

 I frequently find I have to explain him to strangers before they arrive at an even less flattering conclusion about him on their own.  Probably not at all unlike the preface you might give to others before you show up at some affair or event with a relative you're hosting on a weekend pass from an  asylum.  He's not overtly hostile or dangerous and certainly has no pre-conceived intention of being rude, but his inherent myopia combined with an inability to cope with not having his way can sometimes pose major challenges in social situations with all but the most understanding and forgiving of people.

We all have our priorities.  Unfortunately, ours tend to be antipodal, but after twenty-seven years we've learned to operate outside the laws of natural physics just to keep the peace and retain a certain measure of cohesive functioning.

Relative to the whole business of consciousness and our decision those long years ago to inhabit the world as a unit, it does sometimes make me wonder, "What were we thinking?"   For my part, I justify the decision by clinging to the theory that opposites attract.

Consciousness aside, life is what you make it, and I suppose that if our collective consciousness' as a species were all that spectacular, we wouldn't be on this earth right now forced to discover our true divinity and holiness under such raw and volatile cosmic standards.

Relativity and intention in our flawed state of being have only so much power.  In theory almost everything sounds good, but since we are here and subject to the laws of our imperfection, I guess we'd better stop whining and get on with the task of bettering ourselves.

It reminds me of an incident I read about in the newspaper when we lived in Scottsdale, Arizona.  The city had recently installed several of those roadside cameras that photographed speeding offenders.  A guy received a speeding ticket in the mail along with a photograph of his vehicle in motion.  In response, he sent the police a photograph of cash money in the amount of his fine.  They, in turn, sent him a photograph of a jail cell downtown.

Enough said.

SPORTING FOR FUN AND SURVIVAL

I could be wrong, but I think I'm starting a campaign to exercise myself into oblivion.  The really odd thing about this relatively new development is that it is so antithetical to how I would normally characterize myself.

I am absolutely the cerebral type.  My chief residence has always been in my head with occasional get-away visits to my heart on weekends, holidays and when I'm running away from consequence.  The heart is a great place to retreat to when the oppression of trying to do everything right becomes overbearing.  It's a great place to find solace, as well, once you've realized you've done most of them wrong.

But lately I've been logging increasingly more hours on that damned elliptical in distracted and exhausting animation; galloping away like an old mare that has been stabled too long but still has enough wind left to course that open landscape one more time.

Or so she believes.

Lord, I sound like I'm dying.  My mother was alarmed at the title of my very first blog post for the same reason.  She said, "What do you mean A First Glimpse of the Final Inning?  It sounds so, well, final.  Is everything alright?"

Of course, everything isn't "alright," which is the reason I write at all.  If I had succeeded in finding perfect happiness, I would be out there enjoying it!

As it is now, I am able to function only after having established a sort of psycho/spiritual detente by employing my penchant for writing and my compulsion for being perpetually occupied and engaged.  Whatever sodden regrets and garden-variety failures I harbor now graciously give me time off for psychotic behavior as long as I keep telling their stories, and, unfortunately, I've got plenty of them.

However, if my workout sessions become anymore compulsive and lengthy, I might have to renegotiate the terms to include physical rehabilitation as well as heavy doses of mood-altering pharmaceuticals.

I don't know how it happens exactly.  I begin my routine with the same peevish reluctance and determination to do just the bare minimum ostensibly to avoid becoming overly bored; but after about fifteen minutes, I find I'm no longer in charge.

Once those sweat glands commence production and the adrenaline and dopamine levels have lifted the veil of my resistance,  I retreat to my mind and become like a battle-ready femme-fatal consort to the Titans or the true descendant of Cynisca of Sparta, who was the first woman champion of the Olympics and, ironically, the first woman to breed horses.

I wonder if she dealt with a lot of old, gray mares?

By the time I have either returned to planet earth or have physically exhausted myself to the extent that pain is registering between my beleaguered left knee and my consciousness, I'll have been at it for nearly two hours with my hair and clothing being almost as wet as if I'd just swam the Channel.

This may not seem like a big deal to any of those fit and stalwart souls who regularly pound out hours in marathon runs over hill and dale;  but I don't come even remotely close to either that level of physical perfection nor the mind-boggling endurance capacity it takes to accomplish such feats.

The closest to 'athletic' that I have ever been was managed in my youth when I spent my all of my summers swimming competitively on the team at Winged Foot Golf Club.  And that came only out of a need to impress my father who had been a swimmer and diver in his own youth; racking up medals at The Larchmont Shore Club, Deerfield Academy and Dartmouth College.  Not only was he a gifted athlete but a privileged, highly-educated intellect as well, which, upon meeting him is immediately evident to this very day.

Looking back, I'm not sure what I hoped to gain by my soggy efforts.  I was a great swimmer, however, educationally my name and the word remedial were synonymous.

So, even though I did manage to intimidate myself enough to become one of the top two female swimmers in my age group every summer, the whole mis-fitted endeavor also induced an horrific intestinal backlash producing gut-twisting stomach aches before each competition; a condition that continued to manifest throughout my entire life whenever a situation arose where I was expected to "best" someone else.

To find myself at midlife squarely centered in this bohemian den of self-imposed exile should come as no surprise.

But right now I have to reload the big guns of fraternization and prepare to meet eight people for dinner, only two of whom I know, and I can feel the familiar intestinal tensing mount in apprehension of the event.

From my perspective, as a life-long casualty of bewildering filial defections, the idea of opening myself up to a whole new gaggle of potential assailants is terrifying, but I am doing my damnedest to put aside my anxiety and defensive posture and let in what or whomever is curious or desperate enough to think of my company as a worthwhile adventure.

When it comes right down to it, everything in life is a bit of a sport,  although the only really worthwhile competition is with oneself.  I just have to remain conditioned, do my very best and remember to be gracious with myself when I lose and not boastful when I come out on top.  Oh brother.

Swimmers, take your mark!

SENIOR (CITIZEN) DITCH DAY

This is going to be uncharacteristically brief.  Between last week's debilitating dance with influenza,  my failed attempts at bilocation (so to tend to the sixteen other 'fine messes I've gotten myself into'), and the languid pitch of my waning motivation resulting from the interminably long exposure to dank and dreary atmospheric conditions......well, I am WAY behind schedule.

Being that I am my own boss, I'm not sure how that will exactly play out insofar as a reprimand goes, but I have already docked myself any hope of future slack-time after my irresponsible antics this morning when I took my down-trodden bones on a walk to reacquaint my faltering countenance with the passively warm sensation of sunshine as it glints off my pale skin.

And that was after my customary torture on the elliptical, which just illustrates how desperate I was for the outdoor variety of refurbished air!  I'm not sure we actually have fresh air anymore or fresh anything, for that matter.  I can't even find a fresh clove of garlic for my linguine.  Everything comes in bottles or smothered in plastic wrap and I can't afford organic.  Only the wealthy can be comfortably healthy.  Do I hear another poem?

However, now that I have returned to hearth and studio, I am faced with a boatload of "barely-beguns" and"I'll-get-to-that-tomorrows", and whatever idiotic grin I sported on my doughy and distracted face during my walk has been deposed by the grim expression of a ditch digger whose labors have been undermined by an unfortunate pre-dawn landslide.

I shouldn't even be writing this right now, but the thought of completely severing the tie between my thoughts and their expression on this bright and blooming day is simply more than I can bare.

Who else will hear me if not the two or three misdirected internet travelers who find themselves at this spot quite by accident while researching Sandra Bullock's betrayal or that recipe for Linguine with clam sauce that we all saw demonstrated on The Today Show this morning?  Look, I'll take who and what I can get.  My sense of entitlement vanished the first time I changed a diaper almost 28 years ago and I've amended my strategy for fame and fortune to such an extent that I am just thrilled when I'm recognized by the manager of the supermarket.

And as much as I loath the idea of shutting down my loquacious meanderings and moving off to the drafting table or work bench, I'm gonna do it.  Somebody has to be the mature, responsible one in this one-woman enterprise; and I know from past experience that not one of the colorful voices in my head can be counted on to come through under pressure.  This leaves only me.

If I don't come back, you'll know I've been fired.

.

Did I mention I am not well?

LOST ITEM: ROSE COLORED GLASSES

Occasionally I find it astonishingly horrible about facing another blank, lifeless editing blog box.  It gathers first in my chest like a fisted hand gripping a dozen straight pins then slowly radiates a sort of tingly yet decidedly strained, prickly sensation out to my extremities until my heart feels drained and even the tips of my fingers seem stiff and nullified.

At this point my brain usually comes to the rescue frantically seeking diversions by seriously entertaining every possible alternative to writing that it can find.

 I realized earlier today that I'd taken a hard hit from my own apprehension when I found myself underdressed and sullen outside in our small backyard with a pail and garden shovel in hand, wading through the puddles of yesterday's unfortunate summer rainfall, mechanically scooping soggy piles of dog poop.

 Could this be any less debasing than pounding out my discontent at this keyboard even if only in verbiage drafted from the dark side?  I think not and question a brain that sees such a distasteful chore and my writing both in the same dim light.

What I fear most is not being heard, which is ironic since I've arranged my life to attract rejection and reflect convention; both of which quite naturally indicate moderate levels of emotional repression as well as heavily edited modes of communication.

You'd think I would have cultivated a more assertive, flamboyant persona and a cunning stable of tricks to make myself appealing.  Appealing people are always listened to even when they are wrong.

When I really stop and think about it, I don't actually know why I want to be heard or even specifically what it is I want to relate.  Nothing within me is fully-formed and the small bits that are remain largely dysfunctional.  I have a great deal of animated half thoughts and a mind bank of partial truths, but I've learned that you can get into a lot of trouble dealing in fractions.

Fractions are only of any benefit if they add up to a whole.  Although that rule would be voided if I were absorbed with the baking of cakes or postulating in the laboratories and halls of science or formulating in the field of mathematics.  But in my world halves of anything means 'not quite enough.'

 Sometimes for no big, overriding reason (but for a hundred small ones that shouldn't matter at all), I find myself lagging at the bottom of the top and barely able to hold my focus long enough to complete a single thought let alone an entire sentence. And even if I do manage a whole, comprehensible thought, I find no valid reason to share it.

But the tides will turn.

With the exception of the very potent ones every emotional ripple flattens out and conforms to the ocean at some point.  There are those histrionic or depressive waves that can often become tidal and tend to wreak a great deal of unhappiness and destruction before finally lapping into some newly formed gully or bay of reluctant adaptation.  However, I think that level of discontent may require restraints and serious medication.

Of course, there is always a risk when you let despondency hold your hand in a moment of weakness.  Your soul gets lazy and before you know it the two of them are necking in the backseat of your brain. By the time you've caught on, they've conceived a full-scale depression and drafted you into surrogacy.

If you're not careful, you'll wind up an unwed manic depressive dialoging with disembodied voices and men in white coats.

I can usually arrest this tendency in the gloaming between melancholy and clinical gloom but it almost always requires an even deeper, lengthier sequestering than is normal even for one so wedded to solitude as myself.  And because I have several crucial roles in this sentient production, I can't that easily bow out and lock my dressing room door without incurring the wrath of my fellow actors nor without some risk to the quality of the play itself.  At least as it is in its present revival.

But that's okay.  It's good to keep busy.  And as for the lifting of this malignant haze, it has already begun.  In the course of my long-winded whining, the sun has come out and with it, a glimpse of hearty rebounding. Who can remain tethered to tears and loathing as birds suddenly appear along with the smattering of green particles of new growth from limbs to lawns?

Alright, so I may be forcing it a bit.  The last thing that could possibly lift me out of any funk would be finding a resemblance between my own words and the mawkish refrains of a Carpenter's song.

I know from past experience that darkness always recedes eventually and in the meantime you just have to hang on to the idea that it is never too late to start over.  We've only just begun.....sing it, Karen....

Today, even that is better than nothing at all.

TERRESTRIAL EVIDENCE OF CELESTIAL PLAN - Part I

Now this is going to be a challenge, and it all gets back to what invariably occurs once I embark down the lane of deep soul-searching space.

It's that old 'ripple effect', and while it is an awesome process at the unfolding, it is rather difficult to encapsulate and articulate without sounding as though I am heavily dosed on Lysergic Acid Diethylamide; which I can assure you I have not ingested in well over three decades.

But like anything else, deep thought and introspection have their own protocols, which usually begin with an explosion of small, seemingly unrelated thoughts that don't have any immediately obvious bearing on the question at hand.

The temptation is to dismiss them, but I've found that to be a mistake.  The older I get, the more apparent it is that absolutely everything in the universe is connected; and if that is the case, then the same rule applies to our thoughts.  It is very much like dreams that seem random and wild until closer inspection reveals a viable thread connecting one level of our unconscious thought to another in our conscious understanding.

And so my question is:  Why has there existed throughout my life the dynamic that not only places me outside the interactive loop of relationships in general but also ultimately implodes the rare and precious bonds I am able to cultivate?

In looking back over fifty-four years I realize that almost from the beginning of me extraneous circumstances occurred which set the stage for this specific outsider dynamic to play out.   At various times in my life I have certainly been aware that some force existed beyond anything I could orchestrate and execute on my own, yet it didn't occur to me that these were anymore than random interchanges or unhappy coincidences until well into my teens.

My tendency towards skepticism and cynicism was much more pronounced when I was younger, but it seems that with age I have grown tired of fighting the tides of evidence mounting against my argument that this is all there is, and I have become convinced that as stand-alone human beings, we could never get the job done; that we would never understand why we exist or what our purpose truly is unless some element or power or force greater than we are fed us healthy clues.

The first incident I can recall which infused my sensibilities with a permanent awareness that there was a much more reliable connection between myself and a world unseen happened when I was three years old.

It was winter, and I was appropriately stuffed into a thick, light blue snow suit replete with hood, clip-on-mittens and snow boots.  As warm as this getup was, it severely restricted my mobility so that when I slipped on the icy snow at the edge of the creek I was playing near and tumbled in, I could do little more than flop on my backside and literally go with the flow.

I remember lying on my back and looking up at the sky and the snowy bank through the icy lens of water as it rushed over my face but feeling no fear whatsoever.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  I experienced a peace as perfectly acceptable as falling asleep.  Perhaps I would have done just that had I not also heard the soft voice of a woman that said simply, "Not yet, Susan".

In that same instant a hand was on my arm, hoisting my water-logged mass to safety.  I don't doubt I was in shock, but even with my awareness temporarily stunted I was busy visually canvassing the surrounding terrain to locate the woman whose remarkable communications skills allowed her to speak to me so clearly under water.

Although I never found her, I  did know my rescuer, Mrs. Sarno, whose house it was that stood on the property.  As she told my mother, she just happened to be cleaning the upstairs bathroom, looked out the window and witnessed my tumble into the chilly waters.  Normally, I would have been playing with her daughters, but for whatever reason that day I was not.  For her to even be looking out that window was unusual since both of her children were inside the house.

But the moment I heard that calming voice, I had the immediate understanding that not only was there a choice involved about whether I should stay or drown, but that if I stayed, it was not going to be an easy ride and that it would often be a lonely one.  However, I also became aware in that I would not be without some avenue of recourse or form of comfort no matter how difficult the journey or how dark it would occasionally become.

How I internalized those complex options at that young age I do not know.  But I do know that immediately after that incident I began to feel an intense connection to this unseen realm, which was necessary because within weeks another accident occurred that signaled my official relocation to that realm 'outside' of acceptable.

It happened on a Saturday and just as any indentured offspring in 1950's suburbia, I was summarily forced to accompany my parents on their round of Saturday errands.

At some point we ended up at a hardware store with large, thick and heavy glass double-doors.

My parent's were at the counter making their purchases, however, boredom had gotten the better of me and I was loitering near the glass doors anxious for the fun to end so we could all go home and have lunch.

I don't remember whether or not I was wearing that cursed, light blue snow suit, but I did have on the horrible, clip-on mittens; and my hands were moist with perspiration and salted with the sandy residue of my earlier attempts to create a snowman in our backyard sandbox.  I was hot and impatient to both eat and play, so when another customer opened one of the doors to leave, I impulsively grasped the stationary door with my mittened right hand.

Big mistake.  Of course, the door slammed shut well before I thought to remove my hand, and it resulted in the quick dismemberment of the top portion of my right thumb.  I don't think I cried right away, but when I witnessed the panic on my parent's faces as they took notice of all the blood once my mitten was removed and discarded, the floodgates opened for me as well.

Naturally, my father drove us immediately, albeit somewhat recklessly, to the hospital where they promptly sent him back for the mitten and the missing portion of my thumb; the hope being that it could be reattached.  Unfortunately, thanks to my earlier sandbox exploits, that hope was dashed; but they were able to perform surgery utilizing skin grafts and after many months of painful, weekly bouts of cutting and sculpting at the doctor's office,  I was left with a pretty decent thumb.

It is decidedly shorter then it's left-handed mate and has a permanent divot at the tip that tends to crack and bleed when the weather gets cold or my hands get too dry, but it serves as a perpetual reminder that I am flawed, fallible and vulnerable and had better curb my impulsive behavior or I'm liable to lose an entire limb.  It was a blessing that I was able to grow a fingernail, and although it is a tad crooked and tends to fold over when it gets long, it readily masks the obvious.  Few adults have ever even noticed it.

Unfortunately, children are far more attentive to these sorts of macabre details then are adults, and once the word got around the kindergarten classroom of my appalling abnormality, any hopes I might have entertained about fitting in and belonging were dashed.  No one wanted to touch my hand and cootie shots were liberally dispensed whenever the teacher or the circumstances mandated someone do so.

The playground was another matter because there was no acting authority present admonishing the students to 'play nice'.   I grew to anticipate and loathe the rhyme, "tick-tock the game is locked and nobody else can play."

But it was during those playground sessions that I mastered the art of entertaining myself by initiating those deep, soul-space journeys into the vast cosmos of inner thought; and I accustomed my heart to the fact that, although the other kids were not opposed to speaking with me in class, sharing pencils and papers or even inviting me to their birthday parties; there was a line that I was never to cross and it involved physical contact, specifically as it applied to my right hand.  

 I'm not looking for sympathy here.  That is not my point.  I had a pretty good childhood and although my teens and early twenties were tumultuous at best, they were nothing I could not handle as evidenced by my sitting here writing all this today.  In fact, a good portion of the turmoil was completely self-appointed, and I take full responsibility for those lapses in sanity.

As you will see, if I explain myself clearly, the salient objective here is not to illustrate how sad it is to be placed on the outside of the in-crowd or to indict anyone else for ostensibly holding me there.

In fact, it is precisely the opposite.  It is to show that every single life has a plan, and if you truly want to know and understand what that plan is (or to accept what it is not), you need to be open to recognizing patterns and the deeper truths behind them.

I use myself as an example only because I have intimate knowledge of my own life and the patterns as they have revealed themselves, plus I have given myself permission to expose them. ( It is an unwritten contract but legally binding, which states that if I step on my own toes, I cannot sue myself for liable.  However, I am fully entitled to regrets and some harsh self-recrimination, if necessary.)

If I take my desire alone, I would say that overwhelmingly it indicates someone who not only aims to please but who wants to 'right' everything.  Growing up I was always bringing home stray animals from lost dogs to wounded ducks; and as I got older, I switched to people.

My desire to be involved in and to 'repair' what I perceived as broken superseded all logic, fear and sense of boundaries to such an extent that, if I were not forcibly remanded to the outside of the ring, I would not only have placed myself heavily at risk (not everyone is nice, duh), but it is a safe assumption that I would have gotten so embedded in the mire of humanity that I would have lost all sense of objectivity as well as have wasted a lot of time.

However, because throughout my life circumstances have continually dictated my placement being along the rim of relationships rather than in the middle of them, I've been in the fortunate position of being able to study and explore anything I wanted to.  Had I been more socially acceptable I would not have had the time nor the inclination to devote the hours I have to art, writing and all the various courses of study I've had the privilege to dive into.

And if I hadn't indulged myself in those areas, I wouldn't be who and what I am in this moment.  I would be living a more distracted, interactive life too preoccupied schmoozing, gabbing and filling the world with fluffy smiles and finger sandwiches to leave room for much serious introspection or spiritual exploration.  Not that there isn't room for smiles and finger sandwiches, those are always welcomed.  But I'd like to believe that my art and my words might have slightly more lasting and transformational potential then would a toothy grin and cucumber and creamcheese sans the crusts.

Look, living large in the outer limits definitely has its advantages;  one of them being that you can develop a talent for letting go and moving on plus an insatiable hunger for understanding and an appetite for wisdom that is often a natural consequence of being alone so much.  I think it is a cosmic law or something.

And I suppose that the lesson in the radical dissolution and redefinition of these more recent and important friendships of mine serves more as an admonition not to place too much emphasis or depend too heavily upon such relationships because, in the end, they might wind up being counter productive;
especially given my predilection for hyper-focusing and overkill.   In other words, I'd miss ten thousand opportunities for growth for the sake of one.

All I know is that every morning I wake up with a festering apprehension that I have nothing more to say or to paint or to write or to create, or to live for; and every day I am proven wrong.

In the end it becomes a choice to host optimism and to continue to listen to and trust that internal voice that still says, "Not yet, Susan."  As long as I can do that, I'm golden.

PHILOSOPHICAL FISTICUFFS

For those whose dissatisfaction with my friendship led to its dissolution, it's okay.  Yes, my feelings were deeply dented and my ego, heavily bruised; but I don't have a leg to stand on if I claim never to have dented or bruised the inner arc of love and trust within another person either, so I clearly am not wishing to appear martyred in any respect.

Perhaps had it not been the for hard reality of losing my three closest and most long-standing (or perhaps 'long-suffering?') friendships in such short order over the last three years and all in that remarkably similar and unforeseen bloom of sudden defection, I would not be feeling anywhere near this driven to exhume the root causes and examine the larger picture.

 One loss would have been devastating enough, certainly, but more easily compartmentalized and held within more reasonable emotional boundaries of grief.  However, circumstances being what they were, a scenario was created in that as soon as I had fully processed and adapted to the loss of one, I was squarely ambushed by the next;  and as exhaustively as I had believed I had probed and contemplated the underlying foundations on both sides of the relationship in question which might have precipitated that particular crisis,  the successive one compelled me to take in yet even more factors and sit on even more pain.

By the time of this most recent sad and surprising dissolution, critical mass had clearly been reached and consolation was much less likely to be found through logic,denial or even animosity.  The edges of my courage and confidence were markedly frayed and the temptation to pile on heaps of morose self-pity  was becoming dangerously appealing.

Of course, one avenue suggests I consider "What would Jesus Do?"  But fact, for fact, that doesn't work because Jesus seemed to have a knack for knowing beforehand just when to duck out of a potentially unpleasant situation and head for the hills and some healthy alone time (which only makes the sacrifice he made for us that much more remarkable).  While I, on the other hand, am apparently clueless until the ax handle is firmly in the executioner's meaty grip and leveled a inch or so above my thick skull.  And outside of Mary Magdalene and His Mother, I'm not sure how much time Jesus actually spent dishing with the girls, so I've got only His larger message to draw from.  Naturally, that works, although a bit more circumspection is required to perfectly adapt it to these pedestrian melodramas.

At this point I have really only two choices:  I can surround myself with bitterness and self-righteous anger and forever sport an invisible, whiny violin that provokes a pity-party whenever the names of these people are mentioned or a memory of them, resurrected; or I can stuff some kleenex into my back pocket and climb up out of the well of human drama and view the whole invidious interface from a higher, more objective vantage point.

I choose the latter, although admittedly, it was not my first nor a reactive choice.  The ego is a strong machine and it yearns for attention, drama, and to win what it perceives as its due rewards.  It clamors for vindication and salivates over revenge, and it thoroughly enjoys playing the victim; a role we have unfortunately featured in this 'me-go-centric' world.

 And given our propensity today to overly laud and praise the worldly achievements of our race, as well as our protective/defensive practices of dividing the winners from the losers based on our own subjective, temporal and fickle standards; it becomes a major challenge not to follow the misguided examples of our bipedal ancestry and feel fully justified delivering a knock-out blow once we've been sucker-punched.  The old, "Eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth" mentality, you know?

I really had to go deep and try the best I could to divest myself of my excessive emotions and sense of betrayal regarding these losses and to see if I could recognize a greater pattern here that might help to both explain why this sort of platonic de-combustion and resident outsider status have been the norm for me to a greater or lesser degree for my entire life; as well as to aid in redirecting my tendency to hold onto my resentment and to chafe at the idea of complicity on my part.

It was like going from kindergarten to grad school in the space of a month.  To go from the knee-jerk, ego-based reaction of "Gimme all my stuff back!" and the histrionic outcry "How could you?  I've been such a loyal and generous friend!" to "Thank you and bless you for the gift of yourself and of this valuable lesson." and "Forgive me for not being more sensitive to and aware of what you were truly feeling."

Whoa.  If I were an odds maker in Vegas, my money would probably be on the other guy.  But the bout ain't over yet.

As is usually the case when deep thought is applied to any single area, there is often a ripple effect.  You don't notice it at first, but slowly you become aware that you are no longer defining your thoughts by one, small issue nor are you confined in your awareness of what it all means.

Suddenly, there is the realization that something quite beyond the scope of your stunted and prejudicial nature is enlightening you to great and noble truths.  It didn't come from you, but it exists within you; and it is only through the good sense you have to remain quiet and open that you actually notice it is there.

I believe in our vernacular 'it' is referred to as an "AH-HA" moment, or, in more classical terminology, an "EPIPHANY."  Either way when it happens it always brings a profound sense of peace even if the miraculous understanding comes bound in anguish.  The only significant challenges that result from these epiphanic episodes is to take whatever knowledge or understanding was gained and run with it.

I've had quite a few of these startling epiphanies recently, but not by accident.  I am not one of the blessed among us who walk with such a high and sparkling level of Grace that they see more with the eyes of their soul then with the ones lodged on either side of their nose, but I do have my moments and I don't mind at all that I have to work so hard for them.

 As my grandmother would say, "Struggle builds character."  Although she also convinced me not to alter my crooked tooth in spite of the way it photographs as a black void when I smile giving me that "Ma Kettle"-look because, she said, it gave me 'character'.  I suppose she was right if you like that back-woods-no-account-down-and-out appeal.  I think she must have meant that it would keep me humble and thereby create character.  I should have listened more closely.

But the process of finding and building character is universal.  It begins with our fallibility and that leads to mistakes, which bring on pain, that opens up wounds, which demand reckoning, that is either of human design or divine inspiration, which defines who we are, and it either builds character or propagates more mistakes.   The choice is always ours.

Right now my choice is to continue this in another blog, attention spans being what they are and all.  Hopefully, you get the idea being that I've been involved in a boxing match between growing up,  grasping wisdom and getting over it and the local earth favorite, getting angry and getting even.  I wish I could state unequivocally that the odds are in my favor, but in spite of my advanced years I still struggle with that impetuous, immature little bully whose taken too many blows to the head but still refuses to go to her corner of the ring, and every once in a while she lashes out with a left jab to sensibility and inner peace.

I'm working on shutting her down.  In the meantime, I'll continue training for the next round.  Maybe next time I'll see that right hook coming.  Then again, maybe I benefit more when I don't.

TRUE FRIENDSHIP, And Other Impossible Dreams

"Friendships are complicated affairs.  They are so richly layered and textured with emotion and supply such a smooth and subtle stream of underlying gratification that they often go unnoticed and unappreciated.  We tend to think of them as a kind of backup support for the mainstays in our lives like family and career, and because so much of the time we are focused on ourselves within these seemingly more prominent domains, we tend to underestimate their influence and their importance in the overall design.

And like any type of relationship some friendships have far more depth and power than others.  Occasionally, there comes along a person who seamlessly folds into your life so completely that it is difficult to recall what life was like before they arrived or to imagine what it would be like if they were ever to leave.

These are the ones that exist at a level that is utterly ineffable.  While it is true that they are still subject to the necessary and unavoidable shifts and passages that we experience as we live, age and grow and have definitive waxing and waning effects; if at the core they remain solid, those temporary lapses are easily accepted and readily forgiven.  There is never the concern that the friendship will fail because, aside from committing an outright, egregious and conscious betrayal of trust or respect, there is the sure knowledge that nothing in this world can prevail against the bond and cause it to rupture."

That was how I began my response email to one I received a few months ago from a woman I was under the impression had been my closest friend and confidante for the past quarter of a century.  In her email to me she basically stated that, not only does she no longer feel she has a connection with me, but worse still, that she began feeling this way nearly fifteen years ago!

Of course, I don't fully believe her, and I have reams of emails, memories of phone calls and visits, and hundreds of letters between us over the years that tell a different story, but the bottom line is that she believes it or at least that she wants to.  Faced with that, I've precious little leeway on my regular route, 'Overlook Highway', and so I am forced to acquiesce and coast over a few lanes onto the off ramp.

Now, as hard as this was to take, it was not the first out-of-the-blue-pink slip I'd been handed.  A couple of short years ago I was given the old heave-ho by yet another dear compatriot whose friendship extended back to our early teens.  This platonic armageddon ostensibly resulted from a differing of opinions regarding the state of world affairs moralistically, but again, it was not the stuff to prompt a radical dissolution and so it came as a complete shock when it led to that.

Both of these heartbreaking implosions of amity have something in common in that both were ignited by the same combustible vice, and I don't know whether to characterize it as competition, envy, covetousness, or a combination of all three. But at least in one case there was a forthright admission that ' ludicrous levels of contempt' played a huge role in the schism; and as difficult as that was to learn, I was grateful for the honesty as it enabled me to put the pain to rest and slowly reconfigure a more realistic dynamic between the two of us once tenable amends had been made.

But it was these two startling and painful platonic breakups  (along with other, unrelated but equally rattling situations and circumstances),  that have prodded me to further examine what it is in me that can neither see nor predict sincerity when it comes to friendships with women.  Even more, why is it that when I am aware of disquieting elements, I choose to ignore them?

I mean, I have spent decades reading books on and taking courses in the study of graphology as well as having read countless books on body language and face reading.  When I was fourteen I began intensely  studying the Bible along with the teachings of the ascended masters; and later on, astrology, numerology, lives of the saints, and tarot among many other things.   One of my favorite pastimes is reading books on psychology and Quantum physics as the theory relates to spirituality as well as the universe - not that I totally grasp all of it, mind you.

 I am proficient in most of these areas and have a better than average knowledge of the others, and yet I repeatedly set myself up for betrayal and disappointment when it comes to my friendships with other women.  How can I chase all that psycho-spiritual, esoteric wisdom and still be at once so appallingly ignorant that I either cannot tell or will not accept that every bone in my foot is being pulverized as I have it firmly planted on the threshold of the friendship door while it is being violently slammed shut?

Come to think of it, I have a very real and graphic memory of that exact situation going back to when I was four years old and my younger sister, Colleen, and I had been sent to stay with a family with five (or was it five-hundred?) older kids for a few days while my mother was in the hospital giving birth to our bother, John.

Unfortunately, the miscreants in this clan had a decided preference for my adorable baby sister and they expressed their preference by making dunce caps for me and place them on my bed in the middle of the night or intimidating me into eating the raw cake batter that had been stirred with Lincoln Logs from their grimy little Easy Bake Oven set in the middle of the day.  (Of course, they also wrote my name and other disparaging things on these paper caps, which made them look considerably more ignorant than I, since I could not yet read;  a fact that later served as some small consolation.)

 But  one day I was following my sister into a room where our juvenile hosts were gathered around the television.  One of them came to the door, hastily plucked my sister from the spot and then just as quickly slammed shut the door on me catching my big toe and ripping off the toenail.

However,  I said nothing to anyone about the incident.  I just went into the room I'd been assigned and rocked back and forth on the floor.  I don't believe it was until I had been returned to my parents that the injury was discovered and bandages were applied.

 Unfortunately,  no bandages could fix what I retained from the experience, which was that for some reason completely unknown to me I was not worthy and had better keep a steady supply of Bactine and Bandaids on hand at all times.

What this appears to illustrate is that from the very start I didn't know how to handle the barbed edges that come naturally to us in life.  I could neither consciously anticipate nor adequately refute them.  And it is a theme that has reiterated that same message right up to the present day; although up until these most recent and sudden drop-kicks off the friendship train, I had rejected it's validity.

I think I must have been frequently dropped as an infant because none of my siblings suffers this appalling deficit in their abilities to read social cues and recognize insincerity when confronted with it.  In fact, they were and still are very popular, well-loved individuals with cache's of good and loyal friends on several continents.

 My sister has lived in London for a couple of decades, and when she turned fifty her friends organized a luncheon for her that my mother flew over to attend.  My Mom was deeply moved and delighted to find over forty women at that luncheon celebrating my sister's presence in their lives, and was moved to tears as they went around the table with each woman relating a story about my sister and her immeasurable value to them.

When I turned fifty, I had to plan and host my own party and scramble at that just to come up with an adequate number to qualify it as one.   And the one girlfriend I regarded as my oldest and dearest friend and who knew about the party weeks in advance announces upon her arrival that she had to leave early to attend the bachelorette party of a co-worker at a transvestite cabaret bar.  

Thirty-five years of friendship, yet I ranked lower than her acquaintances and singing drag queens.  That was a tough one to justify within the boundaries of ego because it was my ego that took the hit; but as always, denial waltzed in and took up the cause granting my grief a stay of execution.

The point of all this is that I should have seen the signs of disinterest or envy or anger or whatever it was that ultimately led these women to decide life was better and easier without me in it, and I didn't.

 Okay, that actually isn't entirely true.  I did see the signs.  Many of them.  I just chose to either ignore or make excuses for them.  It was easier on my heart that way, and quite honestly, I didn't want to believe that my friendship wasn't wanted or appreciated.  I do have some egoistic attachment, after all. But worse still is the fact that when I cannot break through someone else's outer shell or when I feel as though reciprocity is not being equitably expressed, I try even harder and give even more! 

Perhaps it is a result of my early Catholic school indoctrination, but I somehow got it in my head that this was the way to sainthood, and more than anything, I want to be a fair and charitable person who leaves behind a legacy of good in whatever form.

Don't get me wrong.  I know don't qualify for even the third string team of saints-in-training, but I still like to hold it as a realistic and worthy goal especially since I don't have any particularly outstanding gifts or talents to offer.

I mean, sainthood is an honorable aspiration and just loosely defined enough that it offers a fair amount of lateral interpretation, which is a plus for someone who finds authority and limitation a bit daunting.  

Several years ago I penned this little ditty for a drawing I did called THE DIET OF SAINTS.  It goes:

Don't be fooled by labels.

Count Blessings not calories.

Always remember to feed your soul first.

If you still feel heavy,

Give more of yourself away.

Listen, when I was about ten or twelve, I heard the song The Impossible Dream from The Man of La Mancha, and I took it as my lifelong creed.  I bought the whole message, windmills and all; quite missing one of the other salient points of the play being that Don Quioxte was nuttier than a fruitcake!

When my kids were little I used to sing them to sleep at night.  One song was that and the other, The Rainbow Connection, as sung by Kermit the Frog.  Those songs still brings tears to my eyes, and what is even weirder is that, although have not had small children in many years, I still listen to the damn things on a fairly regular basis!  I just slip them into the playlist on a burned CD and off I go chasing rainbows and battling windmills in my '07 Kia Sorento.  Someone should probably stop me before I start sprinkling fairy dust and cause a serious accident.

I'm like the embodiment of that old doctor's joke: Doc, how do I get my head to stop hurting?  
                                                                 Doc:   Stop banging it against the wall, Lady!  

I've been slamming my head against the wall of denial and ignorance for five decades, and boy, are my arms and head and heart and soul and spirit tired!

But I don't think I am alone in this.  I think that there are a certain population of us who simply are not as equipped to successfully navigate the world as are most others.  Perhaps it is the psychological components of healthy paranoia and skepticism that we lack, or the spiritual properties of discernment?  Or perhaps it is an over-abundance of hope and optimism that prevents the darker realities from being clearly recognized, understood or accepted?

I prefer one of these more sophisticated explanations than one of downright stupidity, but with my track record, I won't count anything out.

Alright, I've been about as candid as I can be without stepping on too many toes that don't belong to me.   I have my theories as to why I am this way and why others are, too, but it will have to wait.   I will say that I don't begrudge anyone the right to dislike or become fed up with me, and I hold no animosity towards anyone I've felt wounded by.  I have done my share of dishing out misery, and the walls of my glass house are not double-paned.

  They say that until you become perfect, you shouldn't criticize or judge others.  I think that part two of that is that once you are perfect, you won't want to.  I'm holding onto that one as my back-up goal.  

We all have our lessons to learn, and these incredible women (and they truly are)  are helping to teach me mine, as well as the other way around, I don't doubt.

In the meantime, I still keep an ample supply of Bactine, Bandaids and Tylenol around just in case.

BLAZING SANITY

A few days ago I made a pact with myself.

Oh, relax.

 It has no satanic overtones or underpinnings but is one that sits squarely in the center ring of probity and vows deep commitment to candor and self revelation.  It is the kind of pact best adhered to while under the influence of drugs or alcohol because without such excuses to fall back on, sanity comes heavily questioned.   Let it be known, then, that my sanity is on the line here.

I think it would be fair to say that in the past few years my inner life has undergone a transformation.  It came about innocuously at first, but quickly escalated into a major soul-renovation replete with carved, heart- rending finials and new esoteric plumbing.

 Prior to about four or five years ago, there was a certain reliable constancy at play that kept the waves from crashing over the sides of my empiric dingy, and I was managing the tides of change remarkably well by simply doing a lot of bailing.  But as dicey as those waters at times were, nothing then prepared me for the relentless series of storms gathering just due north of inner peace.  

It was almost like an extremely personalized, existential version of The Big Bang, and it led to the formation of an entirely new, reformatted sentient universe within my soul.  However, it didn't come at my bidding and never once made me feel much like God.  The chapter of Genesis in my bible reads quite differently:   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was:  DRAMA.

I'm not referring to the histrionic, screaming, shouting, flailing on the floor type of drama.  (At least not all the time.)  In most cases this was a drama that easily went unnoticed by anyone not immediately involved in fanning the flames in my mercurial heart, and since I tend not to share my darker side with most people (in my real life), it's a safe bet that a bare fraction were even mildly aware of my inner turmoil.

Exposing others to that buried mound of deep stress and grief goes against every sinewy strand of my genetic substructure in part because as I have probably mentioned before, I am a Libra, which supplies me with a disquieting need to please.  I have a Pisces moon, which instills in me an unhealthy aptitude at soaking up the emotional vapors of an entire populace within a fifty-mile radius; and I have Sagittarius on the ascendent, which gives me an optimism that would put even Polyanna to shame not to mention the rebounding capacity of the best NBA player ever to hit the court.

In other words, I am relentlessly hopeful and terminally pleasant.  At least on the surface.

Of course, it is not wholly my astrological makeup that gives me these annoying qualities.  I'm sure the jails and prisons are full of criminals with the exact same signs in the same prime placements.  However, it's a sure bet they are a milder, congenial brand of deviant.

They would be the inmates who help plan and execute the jailbreak but insist on holding a 'get acquainted' tea first just to make sure everyone is comfortably familiar with one another and that they are all satisfied with the driving-safety record of the guy behind the wheel of the get-a-way car.  In the world of a even a degenerate Libran there could exist no such thing as an inharmonious escape plan.

But I'm not a criminal and I've never played one on television.  I'm just a middle-aged woman; artist; writer (in my own mind....hey, this is MY fantasy, okay?); wife; mother of three evolving human beings; owner of four, unruly dogs; and daughter of great parents with three lovely, peripatetic siblings and their spouses and a bunch of nieces and nephews.  I'm staggeringly average.

And that brings me to platform Number One on the express train to Truthsville:  If I am so utterly and devastatingly normal, why is it that for as long as I can remember (which, by consequence excludes a significant portion of my early teens and twenties spent heavily dosed on a variety of narcotics that gave a  lively twist to the present moment but totally eradicated all hope of recall), I have occupied a choice seat in the Caboose of idiosyncratic Outsiders?


Circumstances have compelled me to give this a lot of thought lately and for a few reasons:  One reason being my, as well as to uncover the cleverly obscured meaning of my life (Did I mention I am a late-bloomer?); and another, to figure out how a relatively intelligent person could unfailingly miss every single red flag when it comes to interpersonal relationships and especially friendships.

No matter how often or how hard I have tried to fit in, join up and belong; ultimately there comes the point when I am faced with the caustic facts side-swiping my loyalty and making it unmistakably clear that my best days were when I lodged my foot in the door of friendship and continued chatting away through the crack.  It was fairly easy for me to pretend I was actually in the house given my nature, which, as I said is like optimism on crack; but the fact is that eventually either that door is going to close leaving me with a life-long limp, or I am going to have to walk away.

The problem is I never want to give up on anyone or anything.  I simply refuse to believe that something is not possible or that people are not always what they seem or that there really is no pot of gold at the rainbow's end.  Facts don't deal in rainbows or excuses and they don't tread softly.

Facts are a lot like lightening bolts or summer tornadoes.  You never know if and when they may strike your  house or backyard, but when they do, there is no denying you've been hit by them; and you could live, oh, say, fifty-four and a half years before experiencing the full impact of one.


And so, within the past few years the facts have startled me and sent me limping towards an introspection that ran deeper than hades and burned twice as hot.  They materialized through the convergent battering of a devolving life-plan replete with broken trust, lost ideals, misplaced loyalties, covetous underpinnings, lies, loss and longing; and a realization that I have been complicit in the derailing of my life by cradling large doses of denial.

Sadly, it is all much too convoluted to explain in only one, little blog entry, although my compulsive introspection assures there will be others.  Besides, I've exceeded even my comfort level of verbosity, which is pretty scary.

This, of course, begs one more deferral, which I'm sure causes no real disappointment since probably the only dedicated follower of this blog is my mother, and she's heard it all before.  But for anyone else who might possibly read this, put on your safety helmets and goggles.  Things could get ugly.   As for now, "Hi Mom!"

PROFILES IN DIS-COURAGE

I am quickly discovering that one of the greatest challenges associated with blogging is the level of commitment to the blog and to probity.  At least from where I sit in my studio behind my paint-splattered Macbook surrounded by images of saints, angels, friends and family members all staring out at me like some sort of celluloid panel of judges in the Human Ethics version of American Idol.

The other day I could not bring myself to write.  Oh, I tried and words did materialize on the screen before me, but they were hollow and began to bore and frustrate me inside of a few minutes.

However,  I know that the writing itself is not the issue because I live, love and process the world through words and language.

Writing subjectively about myself, my thoughts and my slice of the macrocosm is not the issue because that is how I process the world; and having the opportunity to do so in a forum that forces my scattered mind to adhere to a contained structure only benefits the operation of writing and the process of processing.

Writing while suffering through difficult or challenging times is not the problem because; as I said, writing is how I parse the garbled, visceral language of being human that we all engage in every waking moment of every day, and I untangle it with serious reflection one word at a time on the page.

I've been experiencing a fairly moderate wave of difficult lessons over the past decade or so, and within the past four years they have escalated in intensity.  As with most life lessons, they almost invariably involve other people even in the case of a natural disaster or house fire; which, fortunately, I have never yet suffered through.  We don't live alone here no matter how much we may some days wish it so, and our responsibility to honor and respect the privacy and feelings of the people placed in our lives seldom waivers.

And so, my dilemma has become one of candor.  How much is too much, and if I choose to remain vague, pithy and loose;  at what point do I then become disingenuous?   At what point in my attempts to circumnavigate and reframe the bold truth to both protect myself and others do I begin sounding like a used car salesman or a  script writer for shows on The Hallmark Channel?

I had to ask myself these questions the other day because I still really wanted to write, yet I felt stymied by propriety and convention and terrified at what the next step would have to be if I really wanted a solution to the problem.

My reserve of and interest in writing generalized, fluffy, anecdotal vignettes is neither deep nor compelling and for as many humorously disturbing childhood traumas, over-wrought poems or encounters with myself in the shower, there simply isn't enough drive in this mid-twentieth century-born female model to spend endless hours tooling down a road of lame dead ends and 'One-way-only' signs.

Face it.  My life is more than half over.  Why would I want to spend the latter parcel of the earthbound experience channeling earlier versions of myself?  It sort of gives a whole other layering to the "been there and done that" frame of reference.  Time, illusion though it may be according to all the best scientific and spiritual minds in the world, is moving on and running out.  Meanwhile, I am just getting warmed up.

This results in an odd paradox:  Here you have a woman with a significant amount of life experience behind her, lots of energy, a boatload of curiosity, an ocean of observations, ideas and opinions; and someone who has arrived at a point in life where she has neither the time nor the desire to beat around the mulberry bush on this cold and frosty, midlife morning!

That leaves me right here on the literary precipice of deep-soul space knowing that what is required of me if I am to remain loyal to my heart and the prodding of my spirit, is to be unabashedly honest as I probe, purge and parse the gritty, grainy edges of the experiences I encounter and the people I engage.

Being a Libra sun and a person seemingly inscribed with a DNA that compels me to please everyone and maintain a healthy balance in all my interpersonal relationships, as well as a flawless complexion; it comes as no surprise that I find this next level of commitment to be a daunting and terrifying one.

It is not that I am afraid I won't be able to adequately articulate and express those deeper layers of honesty.  It is that I will.

At this point I've had enough experiences to know that often when you step into yourself with full authenticity and speak what you know from the bottom of your soul to be the truth as you observe and interpret it, you stand a better than ninety percent chance of pissing somebody off.

Being the Libran version of a human doormat - which is basically a clean, well-groomed, artistically-inclined person who sports a perpetual smile even as the boot soles are lathering her with mud and who will then, still smiling, make excuses for having been so violated yet be totally shocked when the same mud-scraping repeatedly occurs - it took me an unnaturally long time to grow a backbone and both stand up for and defend myself.  In fact, it has been only as recent as within the past five years, so you could say I'm still a novice.  But the good news is that my backbone is new and strong and eager for exercise, which ought to be right now supplying my heart with courage.



Ummmm......well, I'm still waiting, so it could be that there is some form of blockage or perhaps I haven't had enough glasses of water today.  I think I slept alright, so that couldn't be it.

Oh well, while I'm waiting for that courage to inform my heart that we are hooked in, online and ready to roll, I guess I'll just post this blog and give it another twenty-four hours.  I am older now, you know.  My brain and body don't seem to be quite as quick on the uptake as they once were.  Gimme a break......