The Pain of Art

I am a firm believer in pain.  Not in its content but in it's potential value.  I think I am a masochist.

It could be because of my early years of Catholic schooling or the fact that I have had to find a way to excuse and forgive my own encounters with pain.  But in my special, warped way, I have chosen to view adversity as a necessary evil as well as a necessary good, insofar as the crucible it provides us to hone and refine the base components of our humanity.

I bought all those sayings, "No pain, no gain." and "Good things never come easily."  I have been cowed by the guilt factor which argues that unless something is labored over and suffered for; unless blood is drawn and courage is required, it will always be substandard.

Is anyone buying this?

I've found I must.  If I do not, I may have to do away with my entire family.  And if not that, then most certainly, I will have to leave home.

But as long as I stick to my theory that abrasive conditions and contentious attitudes are an asset to me and actually improve my artwork and my writing, then I can remain legally free and keep my backpack in the attic.

What is it about husbands and offspring that challenge the soul and require the patience of Job to survive?

Outwardly, they seem harmless and friendly enough.   Husbands can be invaluable on garbage pick-up day and once they learn how to boil water, there are a myriad of foodstuffs they can concoct when you are unable to start supper on time.

And the kids?  Well, they're just cute as buttons at birth, aren't they?  After that, we learn to see the good in them; and during their teens, well...we just stand by and pray a lot.

But I've found after long years of being heavily vested in the livelihood of both that they are truly at their very best when you are taking care of them.  As long as their individual needs are met, the love really flows.

I've also learned that when attention is diverted away from them, there is not a human alive who can withstand the petulant onslaught of familial umbrage that results.

Over the years I have been able to imbibe the precious nectar of creative self-indulgence sporadically.  I had time to myself during school and work hours and there was always the refuge of deep night in which to secrete whatever creative juices from my cerebral container onto a page or canvass.  It was manageable.

Right now I have only one remaining child still roosting in our cozy coop of clan dysfunction, but she is a tough one.  She is the baby of the three, and it is obvious that in her ranking as caboose, she has become the bloodhound of familial deficits.  She notices them all and has no qualms alerting you to her findings.

In the two weeks that I have been salivating over my discovery of O.S. and slaving to insert myself into this heady mix of word sculptors, I have heard from her only that I am wasting my time, that "Trust me, Mom.  No one is interested in hearing about your life." and my personal favorite, "Oh my God, Mom!  You are just SO overly-attached to your laptop!"  This, mind you, is coming from a nineteen year old who goes into apoplectic shock if she is separated from her Blackberry for more than sixty seconds.

In a couple of weeks I am doing a three-day road trip with the child as I drive with her in her little Nissan from Kansas City, Missouri to Scottsdale, Arizona where she will attend culinary school.  Please pray for me.

As for my husband, I think his long years of chronic sports watching and participation have rendered him completely unable to comprehend any life circumstance that does not involve some sort of ball and a jock strap.  He resents the time I've recently dedicated to writing and when he sees me tickling away at these computer keys, he'll holler out to our daughter, "Uh-oh.  Mom's BLOGGGING again." in a way that converts the word into a close-sounding facsimile of the fog horn in the harbor on Hudson Bay.

I've tried to share some of my blogs with him, naively thinking that it will somehow enable him to become supportive of my efforts, but to no avail.  I don't think he's gotten more than two paragraphs into one before he intones, "Look, I know you're a good writer because I don't understand it.  But can I read it some other time?  I'm missing the game."

If my theory is correct, one thing is certain:  I've definitely suffered enough for publication.

I figure another four or five years and I'm good for The Pulitzer.  Perhaps Poet Laureate?  (Hardships spawn a tendency to aim high.)

However, I'm keeping my options open..... and my backpack ready, just in case. 

Observation Platform of O.S.- What We Don't Know

I wasn't going to post anything today.  I've spent the past week heavily mired in the subjectively complex work of adapting to this new writing venue at Open Salon; and for someone whose general preference is to remain as sheltered from potential ridicule as possible, standing on the platform of this deluxe literary station was no small step.

For one thing, there are some impressive, erudite trains rolling down these tracks, which is intimidating enough; and although no one has yet ridiculed my initial efforts, I have read some pretty vitriolic comments about blog content on the pages of others.  Comments with the potential to turn a fragile, tentative train passenger into a jumper.

I know that freedom of expression is a necessary component for the success of any open dialogue and I realize that dissenting opinions are indispensable tools to hone one's discernment; but I am also aware that we don't really know each other here and it's what we don't know that could cause harm if the brakes of bitter judgement are not applied in time.

I'm not advocating coddling.  I don't believe that we should all receive ratings and be decorated with smiley-faced icons just for showing up.  I'm not even suggesting that criticisms should be entirely withheld.

But there are ways to critique and disagree that come significantly closer to respectful than some of the eviscerating, mean-spirited and wholly unnecessary diatribes of contentious slander that I've come across in these unfortunate comments.

I find it confounding and, obviously, disturbing enough to mention right now after only a week of train watching; even though it places me so close to the edge of the platform I can curl my toes around the tile.

There may be some among you now who are thinking that if I don't like it, why don't I hop on a bus instead or take a pleasant little compositional ferryboat to Storytelling Land where everything is light, everyone is supportive and every story has a happy ending?    Odds are you might be the very people I'm addressing.

Look, I'm just saying that this is a relatively new medium for all of us.  Never before have we had such vast exposure to the out there; to the other, particularly with such incredible immediacy or intimacy.  We live all over the world and come from every variety of circumstance imaginable, and what has become evident to me in startling dimensions after reading through a significant number of posts this past week is that many of us carry burdens of incomprehensible weight.  Burdens of pain, loneliness, addiction, recovery, abuse, loss, tragedy, failure or with a brokenness so weighted by darkness that its nature can only be implied.

But we all come here to write.

Some write about how their lives fell apart, some, about how they are patching them together or how they are surviving the daily slaughter.  Some write about anything but their troubles.  And for still others, this may be the only refuge, respite or moment of joy in their whole, oppressive existence.   How many  sets of toes are curled around the unsteady edge of the platform tiles as they write their insides out or as they retrieve the comments left on their blogs?

The answer to this is:  We don't really know.

Like many I am not unfamiliar with the rabid toxin of despair and self-loathing.  It has taken me most of my life to reach this point of clean comprehension when the sodden cloud of insecurity has finally lifted and my life is no longer compromised by inadequate perception.  I can see clearly and I now recognize the craven silhouette of the enemy.  I know when to run and when to fight.

At this moment I am fighting.  Not for myself, but for those who come here to find themselves, to reach out to others and to find a place on the platform where they can wait in safety but who, for whatever reasons, are temporarily drawn toward the edge.

They shouldn't have to fear us.  Offer them a place to stand.

There is room for everyone here.  Be kind.  You never know......

Bulimic Touch Seething between sin and scorn I swallow all I cannot mourn and smother what is scarred or torn THEN TRACE THE FACE I'M LEFT WITH I excavate and then remove This womb of rage no one can soothe A tacit gesture to improve AND TRACE THE face I'm left with These fingers are my anodyne Five tools that craft and realign the shadows all my fears define THEY TRACE the face I'm left with And hone this practice to deceive to suffocate what I perceive I guarantee you will believe the trace of face i'm left with I've been there.  Just sayin.......

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GAUNTLET

Today has been both ridiculously exceptional as well as filled with abject desolation.  

The heady exception came in the other-worldly conduction of sublime inspiration and pragmatic execution that seamlessly unfolded during the course of the afternoon as I was preparing a post in answer to the friendly challenge J.D. Smith set before me yesterday.  The challenge mandated that I reflect my thoughts in poetry versus prose and was one I was, at first, reluctant to accept given the deeply personal content of most of my poetry.

But after a fair amount of time and some reasonable consideration, I decided, "What the hell!  Why not?"

And so I gathered up a handful of some of the poems I had written over the years, ordered them in a way that seemed most appealing and logical, and then proceeded to preface them with an explanation as to why I was posting them and, particularly, why I had been so reluctant to share them in the past.

Being the obsessive curator of words that I am, it took me several hours as I labored over both the content as well as having to troll the bottom-most layers of my soul to figure out, even for myself, why this poetic receptacle has been so vital and so dangerously personal to me for most of my life.

It was good.  I mean, it was really, really, really good!  Possibly the best writing I have done ever. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.....

At this point, most of you veteran bloggers (of which I am not) are feeling a slight gnawing in your abdomen and a tightening in the back of your throat because you know where I am going with this having likely experienced it yourselves; and if your reaction to it was as layered with black thoughts as was mine, there is a good chance you might still be in therapy right now questioning the seeming lack of justice in the universe.

About an hour ago my brilliant, exquisite, intelligent post was complete and my brilliant, exquisite, intelligent ego had come out of seclusion and was heavily imbibing in a large carafe of  AM I F***in' AWESOME, OR WHAT?

The preface was profound.  It was candid and salted with just enough grains of humor as to not be maudlin or affected.  It was rounded out to the nearest whole qualifier of perfection with the deft execution of God.

But there was something not quite settled about it.  Something that lacked the fluent grace of heaven and needed an ever-so-slight adjustment.   One poem just did not fit the mix, and so I made the executive decision to delete it.

If I had any questions as to the nature of and emotions in hell before that move, I need question no more.  With the exception of the last three lines of the final poem, I had inadvertently deleted my entire draft.  The whole thing.  Gone. Voided.  Eradicated.  Eviscerated.  Expunged.  Destroyed.  Decimated.
O-Fucking-bliterated!!!!!!

Pardon my use of such a raw expletive but nothing leaner than a fat, crude, street-invective can adequately convey the radical implosion of my sanity at that moment.

After an hour or so of frantically searching the net and every blogger help site and post available in the English-speaking world,  I realized that it was hopeless.  My words were gone and now no one would ever know the mind-blowing spark of pure, unadulterated brilliance housed between my ears because there was no possible way I could mine that particular vein of awesome again.

It's time to move to another cavern of promise and get back to digging.

In the meantime, here are those lousy poems and I am definitely keeping the one that triggered today's cyber-psychotic breakdown OFF THE LIST!   Forever!

No preface this time.

And no turning back!

SELF INDULGENCE  Some things are never meant to be Those brittle limbs of misspent dreams Where consequence is always freed From knowing all that sorrow means The sweet allures of 'self' and 'choice' Obliterate the Sacred Mind Denying access to The Voice That speaks of 'fair' and 'truth' and 'kind' Instead we cultivate our plans To counterbalance discontent With lies that fashion and demand More recompense than we have spent We stake our pride in vapid ground To circumnavigate our trials And when no solace can be found We counteract by swift denials For every choice a price is paid A judgement, fair, for every hand But once the soul has been betrayed There is no Truth on which to stand Yet if we knew the somber cost Of trying to outwit our pain We gamely suffer any loss To earn the grace that it contained THE MARITAL BED Extracted from my sleep I disavow The conjugal mystique behind his bliss What alabaster prayer can stop it now; that trace of rage unfurled within my kiss? This life, with dreaming dormant through the day, has sanctuary sacred in the night Its funding of forgiveness strips away the rancor I exhibit as delight. But now redemptive pleasure takes me in and holds tomorrow as I hold my breath Recovering the mask beneath my sin I dance with silence like I'd dance with death.  THE LANGUAGE OF HIGH SCHOOL We were so vocal then  Bold and Fly-high-ing Marking with world with a language We invented Fast and incisive Taking corners on two syllables Carving our initials with loud vowels or invectives Deep into the commitment of unspoken trust Each one of us Rounding out words in those spaces between thoughts Fresh verbs that carried to resonance Codified lingo we lived by or folded into memory Our sentences Fully varnished In the common care Of friendship. Surviving The Plan Recovering a carefully labeled midlife My hours committed to blanching displeasure Preventing the truth from revealing the strife In language whose texture’s too common to measure The play of good conscience restores as it’s able The loss of our substantive need for each other It buries the facts of this misguided fable Dismembering dreams we will never recover Survival increases my lien on deception The debt of the hollow and human design It alters by count all the fractured perceptions That challenge my plan to perfect and refine It weathers this shallow, truncated devotion As need resurrects my expandable sinning By polishing myths that I set into motion With the lies that I spoke from the very beginning  Dead Ahead At seventeen we were mystics; peace reapers Posed in The Lotus on hardwood upstairs Walled in by paper columbines, sun-faded and fraying Gilting our innocence in Kansas with transcendental leaves Culled from Siddartha and Shiva Sung out with Hendrix, Jimi or Dead, Grateful The Blissfully OM Our language became a cathedral, fabled and fertile Expandable deities shingled with prayers Not anchored but hinged to forgiveness Funding forbearance with decorous chaplets Sounded out, poised In dead silence Religiously OM Choking on souls swallowed whole we would sing Strapped into denim, hip-high, urban-wide Aching to break from that Midwestern amble And stride toward nirvana..or at least The Coast Strung out on hope Not Dead. Holy. Supposedly OM Now as midlife bears down on light-seeking, we pray For a lightness to aging; rewinding the distance from then to deliverance As routine supplants revelation; and sanctity, Desperate and thin, is shameless like voices Screaming out in fear Of dead endings Repeatedly OM DARBY'S STAR Darby O'Shea longed to live on the star he saw in the distance while driving his car. His mind often wandered when traveling at night A salesman by trade is a pretty dull life. Though how we would get there was not very clear he somehow could sense that the answer was near. And as he gazed up at that beautiful sight, his car veered off left but the road angled right. Darby O'Shea now resides on that star, and he knows he arrived, indirectly, by car.

HELLO, MY NAME IS SUSAN, AND I AM A WORD-AHOLIC.

Hello.  My name is Susan, and I have a confession to make.  I am a Word-aholic.


I don't know how it happened.  One word at a time, I guess.  But now my life is a mess; littered with split infinitives and dangling participles, raw vowel sounds and harsh invectives secretly stashed behind every tentative idea.  I want to stop, but I can't.

For years I had it under control; or so I thought.  I could sit for a brief stint at my journal then walk a way  without thinking much more about it.  But as time passed, I saw myself slipping into obscurity after a long, suppressed life of manageable, moderately recorded, verbal sobriety;  and I began to feel invisible.  Even to myself.

Oh, I had my family, my dogs, my artwork; but they were not enough.  Nothing was ever enough.  So, when I reached that point when my life appeared to be on the wane rather than full of promise, and my bouts with dissatisfaction came with more frequency and heightened levels of abject despair, I began hitting the words with much more regularity.  In fact, I couldn't go a day without hitting them.  It became an obsession.

Suddenly, I would find myself trolling the internet in search of linguistic content and literary sustenance in which to drown my repressed articulations and frustrations.....in the middle of the afternoon!


I couldn't help myself.

It is not something I am proud of and I feel such shame every time I think about the many journals I have; their pages stuffed with adjectives and verbs and countless run-on sentences, hidden under my bed.  I don't use them much, but I think about them all the time, and it is a comfort knowing they are there just in case I need a fix in the middle of the night.

Until a few months ago I had everything on a manageable frequency, and very few people were even aware I had a problem.  I was able to remain in my studio and work on my paintings or drawings or my mixed media pieces of found objects and copper wire for a few hours everyday before my compulsion to write drew my attention back to my journal or my laptop by early evening.

But that all changed when I decided to create a website for my artwork.  It was supposed to be a selling platform for my creative endeavors and for a few poems ONLY.  I swear!  I had no intention of becoming enslaved by my thirst for words or falling off the wagon any further than I already was inclined to do.

However, it was suggested to me by a few people who seemed to know a good deal about websites and e-commerce that I start a blog right away, before the website was even finished, in order to perhaps create a small following and draw attention to the site when it finally appeared.  I had never really considered blogging or even specifically knew what one consisted of, but I was desperate to hold my life together and attempt to cloak my increasing inner-dependency on words, so I complied.

That was when everything first began to fall apart.  It was the beginning of the end, and in a very short time I realized I had a serious addiction that I could not conquer through willpower alone.

Not being a hugely proficient computer-phile, I found a user-friendly blog site at e-blogger.com.  It seemed innocent enough and I was quickly able to design my homepage and figured out how to upload images of my artwork onto each post, which gave me the false assurance that I was still maintaining a healthy balance and honoring both my passions, the art as well as the writing, since I could justify each post with an appropriate illustration.

I even added a link from my website right to the blog, so that whomever wanted could have access to the entire me and see that I was not concealing anything; therefore, I could not have a problem.  Right?  It was a terrific foil.  I even duped my own conscience.

For a while emptying my words into those blogs was enough, but it wasn't long before it became obvious that readership on this particular site was difficult to attract and sustain and that my 'followers' consisted mainly of my mother, a few of supportive friends (still in ignorance as to my 'problem') and an odd spattering of random strays who found their way to my page by mistake or out of curiosity.  ( And a goodly portion of those came from other countries leaving me wondering if they even could even read English.)

Eventually, I added a statistics counter to the blog so that I could track how many visitors viewed the posts and see which entries they favored or how many times they returned for more views.  Of course,  this strategy only further fueled my addiction and increased my compulsion to share my words with others.  No one wants to write alone.  'Misery loves company,' you know; and as long as a handful of readers showed up to drink in my words, I was compelled to provide them with more.

Soon all of my convoluted schemes at trying to appear in control began to unravel because it wasn't long after initiating the first few posts in this new world of the blogosphere that I began thinking ONLY about what I was going to write next or slaving for an unconscionable length of time in rapt effort carving, culling, expurgating, crafting and parsing every entry I wrote; often spending upwards of six or seven hours just on ONE piece!  You'd think I was in the running for the Pulitzer, my passion was that highly charged!

By the time my art website was operational, it was already too late for me.  I was drowning in a dictionary of words and eagerly bailing them onto the paint-splattered screen of my little macbook as fast as my shaky fingers could scan the keys.  I could have cared less about the website and thought only about he next bundle of creative nouns that could spice up my increasingly abnormal dependency on semantics.

I've already taken much criticism from my husband and my youngest child (the only one remaining at home but within weeks of leaving for culinary school two states away!) who've noticed and become resentful of my chronically distracted state and the frequency with which I tiptoe off to another room or a quiet corner of the house where I feverishly indulge my out-of-control dance with my own internal dialogue as it falls from my mind onto the screen of my trusty macbook.

How many times in the past couple of months have they casually walked into my studio and caught me hunched over my drawing table in a deep, linguistic trance, frantically thumbing my way toward just the right word in my wretchedly overused thesaurus?  All around me are just-begun paintings, half-done illustrations and a work table littered with un-consigned ephemera just waiting for my impaired focus to finally shift and complete the picture of a well-ordered life of bohemian enterprise.

My reaction to their intrusive insertion into my word-funded revelry is immediate denial.  I will nervously slam closed my laptop, concealing my guilty indulgence and when queried as to my actions, I reply only that I was checking my email or tracking an order on Amazon.  Then I casually mop the perspiration from my graying hairline and mechanically begin plotting the next set of fabricated circumstances that will provide me the soonest opportunity to resume my wordy intoxication.

I have even recently invested in a lager purse to accommodate my laptop, which I now cannot be parted from for more than an hour before my normally sedate countenance becomes visibly wracked by the perpetual lusting in my brain to convert basic prose to iambic pentameter at any time of the day or night!

Is it genetic?  Possibly.  My father was an English major at Dartmouth, after all; and my mother has an elegant fluency with language that is obviously above par.  And one of my brothers has had an on-again/off-again collusion with verbosity;  however, when last I heard, he was squarely reformed.  So,  as far as I am aware, no one in my immediate family struggles with this same disproportionate preoccupation and highly-charged, chronic dependency on literary expression.

I am the sole possessor of this unfortunate depravity.

It has taken control of my life.  Even right now, as the morning is only minutes away from becoming afternoon,  I am sitting in front of this cyber template filling the frustratingly small box with my HTML composition and completely putting aside the fact that I have yet to clean the house, workout on that damned elliptical (which, anymore has become merely another conduit for thought, an incubator of words and ideas for future blogs rather than the means to sustain balance between body and soul, as I  frequently dive off into a pool of compositional promise sometimes in excess of two hours!); and my morning shower must necessarily be now deferred to late afternoon once I reconcile the time lost.
Of course, there is still the matter of how to compensate for my afternoon obligations, which now also are at risk of being extracted altogether from today's agenda.

And for what?  All for the sake of WORDS!

Can I stop?  Do I want to?  The answer to both is a resounding NO!  Particularly now that I have fortuitously stumbled onto the Open Salon site and discovered that I am not alone; that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other blessedly obsessed Word-aholics who have both given themselves permission to live life in that state as well as to support one another through the blissful and sometimes torturous process of exorcising their demons of thought and emotion into concise and thoughtful verbiage recorded for all to partake and process.

It is a glorious literary and very real consortium of candid and captivating word-aholics that inspires, consoles, humors and satiates the need of all there to remain visible to and ineffably connected with one another in the highest and best possible sense through the language of their own unique and perfect souls.

It is the Salvation Army for the terminally verbose, and I am saved.

My deep and profound thanks to Scanner and J.D., Catherine, LittleKate, Thoth, CrankyCuss, JustCathy, Fred, and to all those of you only time now prevents me from listing who, in the short space of a few days, have welcomed me into this special circle of essential trust through the rare, genuine and gentle bond we all share in our precious addiction to Words.

I can't think of a more profoundly inspirational substance to abuse.

Cheers!

WRITING MY INSIDES OUT

There is no doubt my writings of late have been culled from the darker side of light, and while they have not been full-board litanies of disconsolate life relations, I can't escape acknowledging their unquestionably murky perspective.

Humor intrudes here and there like the designated driver you pretty much ignore while out partying and only fully appreciate the next day after you've been delivered home and have had a chance to sleep off the majority of your impairment.

In retrospect I am grateful for the automatic insertion of that steady blade of sarcasm in both my attitude as well as in my writing and can appreciate the full value of owning such a skeptical and hardened edge once all the whining has been sorted through and put to rest.  Nothing puts more of a damper on a pity party than a solid blast of comic cynicism.   It can be a real buzz kill.

However, closing each post on an optimistic note or peppering the odd paragraph with comedic allusions does not a resolution make.  There still remains a fair amount of slogging and purging to do, and I am going to do it come hell or high water....she says.

But for those of you who have expressed concern, don't worry.  I am far from suicidal and 'hopelessness' is not part of my vocabulary or considered an acceptable disposition.  And for those who have lamented the missing pulse of consistent and irrepressibly, light-hearted musings, welcome to the real me.  I'll still make you feel good, but you might have to do more than just show up to earn it.

 Having denied myself permission to publicly exhibit any signs of frailty, fear, frustration or expression of the f***-yous for most of my life, I have decided it is time to lift the ban (at least in terms of literary expression) and am now sifting through the fractured bits of a life designed to please everyone but myself in order to discover just who myself  is.  For the time being at least, Pollyanna has left the building.  Deal with it.

Earlier today I got a phone call from my beautiful mother who, after reading the blog, expressed concern over my untenable relationship with that damned elliptical saying, "Boy!  You must be really frustrated!"  Of course, we laughed, but then the conversation turned to one about the pros and cons of honesty and disclosure.

I brought up the personally cathartic exercise of challenging myself to withhold nothing (at least insofar as it does not intentionally expose or wound others) as I write my insides out, and she brought up the valid point that most people are very uncomfortable reading about the raw, un-retouched, dark or ugly sides of others because it might remind them of their own and not everyone is willing or able to look at themselves in that way.  Plus, it can be a real downer.  She also warned me not to fall into the trap of chronic negativity where suddenly nothing is without a problem and grousing becomes the proprietary filter through which all communications are sifted.

She was perfectly correct in her observations and comments, and I fully agree with them.  But I'm not writing for fun and profit here, which means I have no obligation to produce epistles of happy talk or to cater to the fickle preferences of an audience who would choose to engage life like an egg on teflon; keeping the charred, over-cooked or unappetizing bits from sticking at all costs.

In addition to making light and sense of a life that has more living behind it than it does in front of it, there is the aspect of accountability and conscientious examination that is of absolute necessity in crafting the full recital.  To leave those parts out would be like playing the Heart and Soul  piano duet with one person or one hand.  You might still be able to pick out the basic tune but the full melodic resonance would be missing.  It simply would not be as good or a fair representation of the actual song.

Nothing happens by chance or without purpose.  Nothing.  Even the ostensibly tragic things.  Once we can wrap our minds around that concept, we are closer to peace and the cynosure of all the truth in the universe than any marathon meditation or ring around the Rosary beads could ever produce.  And that is not to dismiss the real and powerful results in these methods and rituals, which are valid and necessary.

What I am referring to is a root-level acceptance of whatever we are faced with or without in life and that level of acceptance is hard to gain without endeavoring to establish a prayerful connection with the transcendent.  Meditation and prayer are certainly solid corridors that can lead one towards that kind of acceptance and subsequent peace.

But what is equally as crucial is a willingness to look at and be accountable for the elements within us that are not terribly pleasant or appealing.   We all know that these prayerful forms of passive union make us feel better, calmer, more in sync with the world and the universe.  That is a given because in addition to the metaphysical implications, there is also the physiological exchange of energy and a measurable shift within the body.  It makes us feel centered and rested.  But so does a good night's sleep.

The point being that these practices and rituals are just that: practices and rituals.  They have no value unless you can take whatever peace and feelings of sacred unity you've assimilated and bring them with you onto the crowed subway train at rush hour or to the inconsiderate neighbor who keeps backing his car over your newly seeded lawn when he leaves for work every morning or to your wife who nags you and is unhappy or your boss who expects too much and pays too little or to your friends or relatives who are addicts or alcoholics or otherwise ill or a nuisance.

In other words, you have to be willing and able to face and to live graciously, authentically, respectfully and discerningly in and among the dark and disturbing factions of all life; including those within yourself.

In many ways I am at that point right now and am allowing the acid rain of sub-par emotional intelligence to wash over me with the obvious hope that clarity will eventually be reached.  But in the meantime, I am sodden with regret over the sheer volume of lamentable revelations that are cresting on the surface of this existential puddle as it expands around my feet and am applying all the concentration I can muster towards the process of bailing lest I drown in a pool of unexamined ignorance.

Perhaps the fact that I am trying to flesh out the dysfunction at this advanced stage of the mortal game might provide an impetus for other mid-lifers to do likewise and not to mechanically devolve into a crystallized version of their surface qualities.

You see a lot of that in homes for the elderly.  The complainers become withered fleshpots of carping and griping; the authoritarians are forever reaming out the staff and attempting to reorganize Bingo night; and the indifferent are, well, indifferent and have lapsed into a coma of complacency that requires nothing from them but compliance, which they readily abide by.  There is no hint of striving toward understanding the other in life anymore let alone one's self.  It is very depressing.

I'd rather question myself, my life, my beliefs and the world now while I'm still active and viable and can make the necessary changes and apply the accumulated wisdom rather than wait until I am dependent upon someone else to get me dressed and mash my food.

The fact that all this questioning usually leads to a few bouts with the blues or periods of despondency, feelings of detachment or disassociation from the norm, known, or familiar and even all-out anger is all part of the process.  The status quo is no longer acceptable.  I'll do whatever it takes.

And, yes.  I do wish I had gotten to this juncture much earlier than now, but it wasn't time.  I wasn't ready.  Even among the boomer generation, I'm probably one of the less progressive ones.  A late boomer, I suppose.

My dad always told me I had the classic curse of always being "a day late and a dollar short."

I think my day has come.

Anybody got a dollar?

A ROOM FOR MY VIEWS

Today is the third consecutive day of clouds and rain.  While it is not the sort of cast most people appreciate this many days in a row, I'm sure my neighbors in the home directly behind us are taking a small bit of comfort from being shrouded in this fine drizzle.  Yesterday their house caught on fire.

It was a fire that began at the kitchen stove, although I'm not sure of the specifics.  Beth, my neighbor, said it had something to do with what she had on the stovetop and a nearby candle.  However, within seconds there were flames too virulent to control and smoke filling the house and billowing out from all the windows.  Pat, her husband, was at that moment airborne on a return flight home after a business trip and, obviously, could not be reached...not that he could have done anything other than pray anyway, and she was home with their two small children and two dogs.

She did the only thing she could or needed to do and grabbed the babies, the dogs and her cell phone and exited out the front of the house to our small cul de sac where she called 911.  Being a very intimate enclave of only five houses we are all very aware of and friendly toward one another so she was immediately aided by all the neighbors who took the children and the dogs and comforted her as she tearfully watched what she feared might have been the end of life as she knew it.  

Within minutes several fire trucks, ambulance, police cars, etc. were crammed into the circle taking care of what, blessedly, turned out to be a relatively minor fire, all things considered.  They will need a new stove and some minor repairs to the surrounding walls and the house smells much like McGonigle's Meat Market on the days they have the huge smoker out in front of the store cooking ribs and chicken, but other than that, everything is fine and they were all able to sleep in their house last night.

My job is now to provide dinner for them at five o'clock each night until their kitchen is fully operational again.  I am happy to do it since I've got to make dinner for my remaining family anyway, plus I still remember the excruciatingly long eight weeks when my kids were all under ten and we were reduced to a microwave and mini fridge in the downstairs laundry room while our kitchen was being renovated.  I did the dishes in the downstairs bathtub -when our Newfoundland, Frodo, wasn't sleeping in it, that is.  And while it began as sort of a campy, quirky alternative to conventional living, the fun of it all went out the window within the first three or four days, as soon as the kids realized their persnickety cravings and favorite victuals could not be sufficiently satisfied under those conditions.

I don't want my neighbors to have to experience that any more than they are already bound to do.

Whether it was precipitated by the near disastrous events of yesterday or by some other subliminal yoke strapping a weighty claim on my unconscious, I can't say; but last night's sleep was riddled by nightmares of nomadic wanderings in all manner of dark places.  Caves, underground tunnels that served  full-scale trains rather than the expected subway cars, and above ground places where there was a supposed sky overhead but one that was so dark and thick it left the impression of being more like an inverted (and dirty) Mason jar.

In any case, there was nothing familiar or comforting and a vigilant regard was paid to being perpetually on the move.  I was by myself, but there were hundreds of thousands of others there with me.  I knew no one, although many of those around me appeared to know each other.  It didn't seem to matter because the mood was so somber that the only connections were those of commiseration, so it wasn't like alliances could have been forged to alleviate the heaviness anyway.

Even though there was this hard dread and physical evidence of uselessness, senselessness and despair in all the grim and abstract images of dead-ended beginnings and never-begun endings, I didn't feel trapped as it seemed the others did.  I was aware that it was a dream and would summarily end in time, with or without my complete comprehension or endorsement.

I was a watcher, yet at the same time I experienced a definite emotional accord with everyone and had a visceral understanding of all that occurred, all that was felt, all that was missing and all that could never be in this nocturnal confederation of the damned.

This wasn't my first visit to this place.  I'm taken there regularly by whatever force it is that captivates all those unspoken thoughts and caches of denial I subscribe to inappropriate or selfish behavior in my waking moments and then compels them to expose themselves deep in the unconscious night when all pretense and contrivance sleep soundly.

I think we all go there because we all withhold more of ourselves then we should in the staid rounds of our day, and were there no releases or receptacles for these untended particles of thought and emotion, implosion would be the chief cause of death everywhere on earth.

My conscious walk through the world at the moment feels not terribly unlike those sepia colored, stained containers of non-being my soul travels to at night, which is giving the stoic in me a pretty rigorous workout.  It's a good and valuable exercise I don't regret undergoing, although it would be nice to have a better grasp on what it is all about.

When I was a kid I had these All About books:  All About Mammals, All About Birds, All About Reptiles, All About Dogs.  I wish they had not stopped there.  What I wouldn't give for a book, All About Apathy or All About Where To Go From Here.

Many years ago we had our driveway asphalted by this buoyant and wise character named Delacey.  He could neither read nor write and for a time my husband, who is a reading specialist, tutored him.  But what Delacey could do was put things into perspective, and one of the things he said that has always stayed with me was said after watching all the traffic clogging the local highway:  "Nobody knows where the hell they goin', but they all goin' like Hell to get there!"

I'm not what you'd consider a 'type A' personality, but there have definitely been periods in my life when I felt that way; that I had no clue where I was going or why but that I was getting there on a souped-up bullet train of discontinuities.   Perhaps this is why I've come to such a screeching halt now?  I've used up all of my "get out of jail free" cards and cannot pass 'Go' without one, so the game has come to a stalemate.

But as I sit waiting for the bail bondsman of enlightenment to return me to the world of productivity and purpose, I am not idle.  My brain is working overtime and taking me to a non-linear zone where thought all but obliterates despair, as well as keeping reality enough at bay that it loses it's immediate relevance.   I suppose if you're stuck in jail, it's better that it is the one of your own making.  At least you know your way around and are on friendly terms with a couple of the guards.

Music also helps, and Friday night I reveled in a live dose of it delivered as it was from the recording- studio basement of my stellar rocker friend, Chris; where I was treated to healing decibels of jams between four solid musicians and friends.   I even got a playful stint on the drums, which is something I have not done since the seventh grade when I decided that pursuit of the male species would be more challenging and less redundant than seeking proficiency even on Ludwig's best percussion set (although I later and regularly question that assumption) and was prompted to abandon my drum lessons after only three years.   But let it be now noted that while vodka can substantially loosen inhibitions, it can also impair coordination; although I managed to hold my own, albeit not without backup.

However, my favorite spot was sitting on the floor with Chris's old dog, Duke, where I could happily scratch behind the the old boy's ears and drift away on rockin chords of possibility.  It was an absolute Be Here Now evening that I am grateful for.

And now that I have returned to this odd place of indeterminable boundaries, I am thankful that my neighbors still have a house with walls.   Beyond that, today not much else matters.

I'm confident that at some point form will again be apparent in my life and around me a structure of clear perspectives and sturdy objectives will once more provide shelter for all these quaking doubts and finally put them at ease.

 I don't doubt that the process of building a whole new exterior attitude on a house without any interior walls is going to be challenging.  What will this new building resemble if it appropriately reflects my thoughts?  One thing I do know is that it must have loads of windows without any locks.  I've had enough doors slam on me to recognize the value of open windows and fire escapes, and I want to ensure that plenty of air will be circulating opinions and ideas from the outside intersection at the corners of Conventional and Dissenting.

In the meantime I've got a foundation to put down, which could take quite a while to put together given the importance of making certain that it is a solid one; and if I remember correctly, the first step before laying any foundation is to dig.

If I had a hammer.....and some nails, some two by fours, a rotary drill, reciprocating saw, self-leveling concrete....

HEAVY MENTAL

Over the past few days I've established a tentative truce with my soul:  It will no longer sustain such lofty ambitions with its cloying and relentless quest for goodliness, cultural valor and artistic recognition, and I will no longer hold it responsible for screwing everything up.

 It is a treaty only two days old but bearing up well considering the odds for successful transpersonal mediations are rare, particularly if done sans the aid or blessing of an accomplished guru or highly-paid life coach.

However, I've yet to test drive it in the real world as I'm still clinging tightly to that boulder of compromise while remaining mired in the quickening sand of afterthoughts; and as of this moment, I still have no plans of climbing out.

It is surprisingly warm bathed in the thick, slightly coarse sludge of mental and emotional despondency, and I find a fair amount of solace in being held above muck-level by the finicky physics of raw anxiety and non-clinical depression. Besides, I am fascinated by the uncanny strategy in their collaboration to outwit the gravity of apoplectic despair by merely shifting sides.

Anxiety drills hard from the inside and creates a sort of neurotic buoyancy that elevates my mood through chronic activity while the soft grinding of apathy provides a kind of stationary landing that holds the body steady and prevents the head from slipping completely under and drowning in the grasping mire of non-being.

Of course, my daily dual hours on that damned elliptical have ameliorated any excessive physical frustration as well as taken up a handy chunk of my mornings, which leaves me fewer daylight hours in which to brood or slam the world with bursts of misplaced anger.  It's all good.  Theoretically.

Now, if I could only get out of my way enough to just work for work's sake, I would likely be further along than I am.  Apathy is absolutely my worst enemy.  It underscores all creative musings with the broad black stroke of what for? and leaves my senses to idly scan the room for clues of purpose while those naysaying nodes of thought race to my frontal lobe with objections to every possibility no matter how lame.

But I'm not panicking.  I've been at this place throughout my life in routine doses and durations (although the timing can be fairly random and unpredictable) and I know historically that my karmic addiction to change precludes the permanency of any disposition; maudlin or otherwise.  The only constant is change.  The only constant is change.  The only constant is change.....  I wonder how redundancy feels about that?

What really needs an adjustment is my resolve, as it appears that dredging up the resolve to bring forth better days is the first step in the transformational process.

If only I just weren't so full of  f***-you's,  I'd stand half a chance of willing myself to take in the world from a point of acceptance instead of from this hastily-crafted divot of marbleized regret with all these veins of bad habits, poor choices, wrong turns, unfinished business,  broken promises, useless undertakings and all-out failures converging to form a solid slab of Who-gives-a-damn.


I could pave an entire city with that slab.  Perhaps I have.

There is also the strong symbiotic collusion between the elements and the soul to take into consideration; which, if you examine the unusually lengthy rainy season we've been subjected to here in the Midwest,  it provides my present dark night with a plausible foundation.

As if the continual injury of heavy winter snows was not enough, there comes the additional insult of all this spring rain.  Perhaps they've adjusted their attitude meters for such a dismal meteorological pallor in Seattle and are able to thrive in spite of the relative lack of sunshine, but we've been given no choice nor preparation time in Tornado Alley and can't seem to shake the idea that we've been sucker-punched by Mother Nature in a big way.

I'm not the only one trapped far to the left of happy around here, and you can tell the level of desperation on the infrequent warm and sunny days when everyone with an independent option and half a brain is spending as much time out of doors as possible.  The parks and sidewalks are so dense with pale denizens- clearly exhibiting signs of deficiency in vitamin D- that it looks like a city under siege after a long drought.

There are definite needs not being met by nature, by me or by man; and God is not nearly as comfortably close as I'd like Him to be.

But tomorrow is Friday, and for some ridiculous reason, in spite of the fact that Friday- and weekends in general- have long outgrown their significance for me in terms of being days of respite and reverie quite different from the rest, I still feel those tendons of residual hope tense in my heart at the memory of it all and that unoccupied seat of freelance abandon begs for a willing rider as much now as it ever did before.

I suppose that the learned patterns of joy are just as tenacious as the acquired experience of sorrow, and if the constitution of hope is more resolute than that of pessimism, then the short odds are that I will get my mojo back soon; or at least retrieve enough of it to rejoin my imagination and create again, as well as resume a more reasonable regime with that damned elliptical.

For now, however, Friday also signifies garbage day, which means I have to trudge through the soggy, backyard terrain with my trusty bucket and garden shovel to pick up the dog poop, collect the trash from all the indoor containers, cut up the boxes for the recycling bin and gather and tie the large, black plastic bags containing another week's worth of our detritus.  As much as I distain the mediocrity and drudgery of these pedestrian waltzes with normalcy, they are also providing necessary distractions from my temporary march with the f*** you's, and I'm trying not to hold too much of a grudge.

The other day I received a very unexpected but lovely Mother's Day card from an old and dear friend I don't often see or hear from much anymore in these days of newly-redefined filial demonstration; and in the card was a holy medal that had once belonged to her deceased mother; a terrific woman with the resiliency of the tides.  My friend wrote that she had wanted to pass the medal along to me in the hopes it would help me in my challenges with my son.  It could not have come at a more appropriate time, and I was deeply moved and filled with gratitude for both the gesture and because of the significance.

It is a beautiful, contemporary medal of The Blessed Mother, and I immediately placed it on the chain I wear and never remove that holds a few other very precious medals and charms I've received from friends and family over many years; all of deep importance to me.

On the back of this one is inscribed:  Our Lady of Mental Peace.


Who says the universe never hears us?

Everything is going to be alright.

THE QUICKSAND AND THE DEAD

I've noticed lately that my blog posts are coming fewer and farther between while my time on that damned elliptical has increased exponentially. I am now remaining on the bloody thing in excess of two hours daily and am reluctant to dismount even when that respectable milestone has been met.

This might indicate a couple of things:  1.) I have nothing more to say, and  2.) I am running away from home.

Of course, my leave-taking is purely theoretical, as my body is the only part of myself given permission to actually do any running.  Yet it is definitely being egged on by my mind, which got the idea from my emotional state because, quite frankly, I'm fed up with trying to manage them all.

I'm fed up by many things these days.

Perhaps I should rephrase that.  Stating I am "fed up" implies that there has been an erosion of patience brought about by the million small inconveniences and adjustments I've had to oblige and make room for in a soul already crushed by the weight of its own shortcomings.  That isn't entirely accurate.  Not entirely.

Those millions of small hurdles are normal and perfectly acceptable especially given the lengthening bones of clarity and understanding they lend to my psychological stride once I make it to the other side of enduring.  Who cannot wade through a lifetime of pedestrian near-misses and patient side-stepping and not emerge having developed some level of passive assurance that it will all make sense in the end?   You almost have to or the alternative option of an early check out would be overwhelming.

No.  I'm not fed up.  I'm foreign.

Suddenly, I have forgotten my own language.  My thoughts pass through the same portals of interpretation as they have for fifty-four years, yet I no longer understand what I say to myself.  It is almost as if I've been summarily saddled with a Mandarin guide for my English-speaking psyche.

Even my body, once so patently reliable and subjectively native, lately functions more as an extrinsic vessel of questionable origin whose operational capabilities seems less internally orchestrated but instead are responsive to some remote organizational force with which I have no real communication.   It would seem I am no longer present in my own skin.

Last week I lived in the world as me.  This week I am a foreign exchange student from another dimension wondering just how long this midlife inculcation will take before I will finally be able to communicate through more than my eyes and exaggerated gestures alone.

There aren't very many reasons to continue manufacturing dialogue when the only one listening is you and you can't understand yourself anymore.  I've gone quiet for lack of interest; self or otherwise.

Ironically, during my protracted galavanting on that damned elliptical, my mind never ceases producing words and trying to string them together hoping for a yield of useful thoughts and concepts.   It is done mostly out of habit and while it produces little that I have been able to successfully translate into my former tongue, the effort remains sincere and steadfast.

After two hours I usually come away with the faint skeletal etchings of at least one poem, two blog posts, a half-dozen correspondences (to people I no longer know but will never forget) and one suicide note just to remain in touch with my edgy, tortured side.

While my insatiable curiosity as to how this life will all turn out prevents the consideration of suicide as a viable exit strategy, I find it important not to thoroughly dismiss the commotion generated by those prosperous inhabitants in the dark corners of possibility or they are likely to well up into probability.  I learned when my son played football that the best offense is always a good defense, and there is no tactic quite as disarming as to engage an attentive ear.  Just ask Julius Caesar.  "E tu Brute?"

What can I say?  Lately these maudlin toads of dark sentiment and emotional dysfunction have been beating my ear.  But I'm polite.  I listen, and even though my ability to interpret much of anything is presently stymied,  I understand enough morose-ese to have momentarily succumbed to the hard blow of failure and temporary confusion as it shoves me into the quicksand of apathy.

 At least I'm not so clueless that I don't remember that as with any quagmire, earthen or otherwise, the best resolution is non-action because the more you struggle, the deeper down you will go and so quickly you won't even know what happened to you.  A lesson learned through experience as well as observation.

So while the surrounding inhabitants of the moors sleep soundly under the moonlit wash of a night sky and wake expectantly to the warm swagger of promise in another day, I remain motionless; wedded to the lone boulder of compromise that will eventually be my method of escape as soon as I recapture my resolve and restore my mental footing.

For the moment, however, I'm forced to consider anything beyond breathing as a liability.

Where the hell are those Mandarin guides when you need them?

RELATIVE BEAUTIES

I grew up surrounded by great beauties: my mother, her mother and my sister.  I look like my dad, which is perfectly fine, except that I have always been aware of the difference, particularly after stumbling upon the photo album of some of my ancestors on my father's side of the family; most especially the women on those branches off my Great-grandmother's limb.  Putting it bluntly, if strong underbites were correctable one hundred years ago and I were a plastic surgeon, I'd move to Fall River, Massachusetts where I'd have enough money to retire on just from this one family.

Fortunately, I was spared that specific feature; however, not so the round, soft-edged, ruddy-cheeked, moon-pie visage of my Irish ancestry with its marginally comely but very indistinct impact not unlike that of vanilla pudding.   Everyone is indifferent towards vanilla pudding.  If it is in front of you, you'll eat and enjoy it, but otherwise it is an entirely forgettable experience and one you seldom find yourself repeatedly craving.

However, growing up with these extraordinarily attractive women alerted me at an early age to the beguiling and mesmerizing power of beauty while at the same time making me cognizant of the danger in accepting physical comeliness as the standard of beautiful.  Not that any of them were vain (well, my grandmother was, but it suited her larger-than-life, operatic presence), but I saw that, from most people, nothing more was expected or required of them.  They were easily accepted because they were easy to look at and in most cases, popularity was a given.

With my younger sister I was aware from the moment she was beyond drooling that there was a definite visual disparity between us based solely on the response she elicited from the friends of my parent's and even passing strangers.  In point of fact, she was usually readily noticed while I was regarded more like a beige carpet in an all-white room, if I was regarded at all.

My sister was more apt to be feathered with fascinated fingers; fawned and cooed over with gooey delight in a seeming uncontrollable response to her considerably ample adorableness.

In those awkward times when recognition of me was obligatory, it was all very polite and was often accompanied by a remark of vague neutrality like, "My....um... you've grown!"

This dynamic held throughout our childhoods and adolescence, (although the cooing was eventually replaced by deep, heavy sighs) and while we are quite different, in some ways, it remains the standard even today.  However, my sister is a very kind woman and did have the great charity to move to England many years ago, thus sparing me the frequent indignities of direct comparisons.

Actually, I remained emotionally scar-free until our twenty-one-month age difference placed us in the same high school simultaneously.  Then with the predictable burst of teen angst, I became officially bothered by this genetic injustice.  But that goes with the vapid and tentative emotional terrain of high school where vast quantities of otherwise healthy egos are consumed, so that, with few exceptions, by graduation day what remains are gilted facsimiles of peer pressure in corporeal form; all with an attitude.

In retrospect,  I was probably more comfortable than most with my own external shortcomings because I had never know anything else.  I was born into and could not escape the field of physical perfection that was genetically stamped on the women surrounding me and had no other choice but to find a way to individuate myself by other means, which I am sure was a major contributing factor fostering what became a full-scale, drug-fueled, counter-cultural rebellion throughout my teens and early twenties.

Yet even as I staked my claim to radical individuality, I was not unique.  My grandmother was not only beautiful but also a card-carrying eccentric as well as a matron of and participant in the arts.  She was a painter and a cabaret singer at Bill's Gay Nineties in New York City for many, many years.  Never one to shirk a challenge she then trained her voice for opera, and was a frequent performer at venues as well-known and respected as The Waldorf Astoria.

She was also a major drama queen whose insatiable lust for attention knew no bounds and often resulted in considerable residual damage being inflicted upon us, her only family; especially my mother, her only child.   But she was ours and that fact alone qualified her for lifetime benefits of unconditional love.

However, I noticed that among her wide circle of eclectic and eccentric friends; both celebrity and non, how willing they also were to repeatedly forgive her unbridled self-absorption no matter how often they had been cornered by the egocentric beast of her indifference to them.  It was obvious that, at least insofar as her friends were concerned, this forgiveness was more readily forthcoming because she was simply so beautiful and such a dynamic presence in the world.  Even so, I found it a confounding pattern.

My mother is different.  Her beauty radiates from a place of deep refinement and class and the older she gets, the more stunningly breathtaking she becomes.  She was voted the "Best Looking Girl" at her high school, and although now into her late seventies, she shows no signs of becoming less so.

Unlike my flamboyant grandmother, my mother's beauty is carried with an understated and perceptibly regal bearing that staggers onlookers almost to the point that you'd half expect them to ask for the privilege of kissing her ring or to bestow them with knighthood.

In fact, it is not at all uncommon for men or women to approach her when we are out somewhere and ask her who she is, if she is a celebrity, where does she get her hair done and comment on how beautiful she looks in the clothes she is wearing.

When my children were young and we lived in proximity close enough that we could occasionally go shopping at a mall or department store with her, I used to joke that I felt much like Quasimodo must have felt all hunched over slogging after Esmerelda while surrounded by these snot-nosed little gargoyles that passed for my kids.  It was a humbling experience, but also an extremely joyful one in that I was so proud of her and of the fact that I could also state, unequivocally, that I was not adopted.

But I was more inspired by the fact that she took herself and her appearance lightly.  She could have used her disarming beauty to manipulate and acquire whatever she wanted, but she never did, and I know she never will.  Of course, this humility makes her even more beautiful.  Darn it.

I remember when I was in high school complaining to her about the seeming inequity in the heart of God that he would place an average schlep like me in a family of favored graces like she and my sister, whereupon she would remind me of the story about the Ugly Duckling and how he grew to be a beautiful swan.

While I knew she offered this only as a helpful tether of hope to harness my woes to, I don't recall being much comforted by the idea at the time.

First of all, it was a fairy tale and everyone knows fairy tales were written to amuse, appease and morally instruct the masses.  They were a means to placate people into believing that there is always a chance you'll lose that frog face and take breakfast in bed with the queen (or king as the case may be) in that castle on the hill one day if you just keep a handle on that glass slipper, make nice with the seven dwarves, avoid indulging in gingerbread and steer clear of bad-tempered elves named Rumpelstiltskin.

Second of all, who wanted to wait for some unknown future date before they even found out whether they were in fact an ugly, life-long dependent of the Duck family or a truly long-necked Odette under wraps?

Everyone knows that high school is a short-lived, highly demanding time period without any do-overs, and from what I was told, beauty is fleeting!  I didn't have a very big window of opportunity there, so if the Makeover Fairy were going to visit my pain, I was hoping she'd get her ass in gear well before I turned eighteen!

Evidently, she took a wrong turn in Cleveland.

Oddly enough, it has only been since I've begun the half-century waltz with my fifties that I find myself suddenly being singled out and decorated with adjectives and accolades more in keeping with those I've heard directed at my mother and sister these many years.  It is purely genetic.

Rest assured, the irony in the timing of it all does not escape me.

I find it perfectly in keeping with my latent development to experience that blush of appreciation long after gravity has become a major shareholder in my future options.

To finally find myself on the receiving end of positive notice only now that gray hairs dominate blonde;  close observational demands require glasses;  and my abdomen has enough residual scarring from three C-sections and several surgeries that it looks like the switching yard of the Chicago Train Station, will not a narcissist make.

Honestly.  My body is far more tormented than toned, and the girth of future promise is notably eclipsed by the potential girth of my waist, should I ever decided to abandoned my resonant dance with that damned elliptical.  It is a blissful irony surely visited upon me for a reason.  Perhaps some ill-conceived life of hubris in the past or as a preventative measure against conceding to one now?  Who knows?

However, what is obvious is that this perfectly-timed system of checks and balances will ensure that my humility remains intact for the duration of my natural life no matter how wrinkle-free my complexion is.

Aging offers what no other consequence of sentiency can and that is the opportunity to drop all pretense and simply function as a mortal aggregate of all we have assimilated in a lifetime and as a dispensatory vehicle for all we have culled that is good.

Of course, this premise is valid only insofar as we are willing to deeply examine ourselves and rightly decide to end the game with more presence of mind and compassion than when we began, which is a lot easier to accept in theory.

In actuality, the lineage of egocentric behavioral models is long and wide and can be a much stronger opponent than our lilting altruism, especially in moments of weakness or faced with the prospect of one day melding into the faded and brittle-boned pit of geriatric anonymity.

Given the eventuality of our one day hobbling into that walker-laden realm of senior dimensions, it takes a whole lot of grounded focus and dogged introspection to refrain from wanting to lap up every last drop from the fountain of youth and cling to the worldly notion of beauty for as long as we can.

For the most part, I am very pleased to have reached this age and stage in life and don't begrudge the fact that experiencing the youthful, belle of the ball- status was not part of my earlier resume.  It granted my imagination and intellect, however limited, free reign in the experiential processing department and enabled me to discover some precious and invaluable truths about what beauty truly is; and, more specifically, about what it is not.

So, even though I may occasionally be graced with a compliment that has little to do with who I am, what I do or how I see myself and everything to do with what others believe they see on the surface, there is little danger of my assigning any great value to the observation.

And should there ever come a weak, indulgent moment of vanity when I am tempted to think otherwise, all I have to do is remind myself of one other reality:  They have never seen me naked.

Reality?  Check.