Still Crazy after All These Years

Oh, my... it is another gray, gray day here in Hancock, New York. Even though most of the snow is melted, what's left of the grass even looks gray to me or gray with a tinge of yellow. I don't why winter feels so horribly long this year but it does.

I've been trying to do the Heads or Tails Tuesday exercises - a place in your house - but somehow it was taking me to a dark place instead of a happy one. Don't get me wrong. I love my house. It's a sweet house and a miracle to me that I actually have a house of my own (well me and the bank are sharing it). For some reason the whole question got me wandering in the past. It's been a long journey to this house. Thirty-three years in my New York apartment ended by illness and the letting go of almost everything I owned. Eight years and six moves later I am settled in for life. There has been a lot of loss along the way - but also a lot of growth and gain. I want to write about it and I also don't. Mostly I just want to sulk, I guess.

And now I have figured out what's really going on. I'm mad at someone. I have a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hard time being angry with people. As my therapist pointed out to me just yesterday, I turn it inward. I make myself wrong for feeling hurt. In this case someone didn't do something, didn't acknowledge a gift I gave them. Intellectually I know that it's nobody owes me love or appreciation for something I've done, but it hurt my feelings. I then turn that into something that I'm doing wrong. I seem unable to stop myself from this craziness. It goes back to childhood programming. My malevolent (really, no exaggeration here) brother would do some cruel thing that left me angry or crying and my mother would scold me for being upset, explain to me that he was tired or tell me that it was my imagination or... any number of things. So when I get angry or my feelings get hurt it immediately warps into "whats wrong with me." The bigger the hurt, the bigger the self punishment. This was a big hurt so my self-punishment must also be severe. It's not that I do this consciously. It's a reflex. My therapist on the phone yesterday, said over and over that I was turning my anger back on myself. I heard the words but I didn't hear what he was saying. I just got it now, writing this paragraph.

I am hurt and angry and I must be punished. I have no right to those feelings. They are selfish. Something deep inside me thinks (feels?) that my pain - even unexpressed - will harm the person whose action/inaction initiated it. A normal person would have said "caused" it there, but I can't do that because even though this person has been inconsiderate, I can't get around the idea that he had no obligation to receive or like his gift so he didn't "cause" anything. It's all in my head, it's all my fault. On some esoteric level, this is probably true, but it's a typical misuse of some of the new age philosophies. I remember "friends" back in the 70s who had hurt my feelings and when I told them that, they explained to me that this was my problem that because we are all "responsible for our own feelings." It's a little bit like telling the person who's foot you stepped on, that they shouldn't have put it in your path.

I've never gotten why someone can't be sorry that they've hurt your feelings without being to blame for it. But of course we live in a society that is big on blame. As a society we don't deal well with anger. I have a theory about that and it's connected to that whole concept of blame. I think it's because we've been taught that anger is a BAD feeling instead of just a human feeling. Well since it's bad, when we feel it, by implication, WE are bad. If we don't want to add being bad to being angry, then someone else has to be responsible for the feelings. They did it to us - infused this uncharacteristic badness into us and we (well I) get stuck there. Because of course the poor sap who inflicted - innocently or with malice - these nasty feelings on us doesn't want responsiblity for them either. The thing is that there isn't anything wrong (PLEASE can I hear this down in the secret depths of my wounded psyche) with being angry. It's a feeling. Like happiness. Only with anger, instead of letting it move through us we get stuck in it because we are trying so hard to not feel it. It's crazy.

And alas, even though I know and understand a lot about how this works. I still get stuck in what is one of the areas of my personal emotional quicksand. I'll get out of it eventually.

My thanks to anyone generous or unwary enough to have come across these words and read them. It's a gift you give and it is much appreciated. I sure hope the sun comes out tomorrow - both my inner "sun" and the one outside. I am really over winter and pining for some sign of Spring.

The Alphabet Backwards: Xenophobia

Week three of the alphabet backwards brings me to the letter "X" and the word xenophobia. Merriam Webster defines xenophobia as fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.

Unfortunately, we seem to be living in a time of hate and fear. After the events of 9/11/2001, there was a brief moment when I felt there was hope for a collective re-thinking on the part of the people of the world. I don't think it was my imagination. It was there. And then George Bush killed it. Oh, he said politically correct things about how all Muslims aren't terrorists, but at the same time he told us via military invasions, color-coded terror alerts, and a constant, steady drip of "be afraid" messages - that have been used to justify eroding our rights, our sense of decency as a people and our economy - that he didn't mean it. I guess it was a three for one sale. We could be destroyed from within while blaming it on those nasty foreign terrorists.

Mix massive doses of fear with profound financial uncertainty and you have created a xenophobe's paradise. Can't pay your bills? It's because those terrible foreign people have stolen your jobs. The fact that this isn't really quite true is irrelevant. We need someone to blame and immigrants are easy targets. It requires less effort than thinking through complicated truths like the fact that the so-called "tax breaks" - those acts of pretend largesse to the poor aren't actually "breaks" at all. They not only line the pockets of the rich, but steal basic services from the poor and sink them and the nation ever deeper into the abyss. The pennies given back to the poor don't help their real problems and the uncollected money from those who could/should have paid in aren't there to fund things like Head Start, Food Stamps, Unemployment, or work on the Infrastructure (which also creates jobs).

I don't know why it's easier to hate than to think. Maybe it's the bully syndrome that exists in all of us somewhere. Illegal immigrants are even further down the food chain than the poor (well they are part of the poor but with less access to what help exists), so they are easy to target. Could it be that politicians like focusing our attention on the problem of illegal immigrants as a good way to distract us from the fact that it's really them picking our pockets? And as a way of distracting us from young men and women giving their lives in an unjustified and unjustifiable war.

And of course the xenophobia attached to the war - a war on terrorism, which can be anything, anyone, anywhere, any time - is to keep people frightened of Arab terrorists so that we aren't mortified that our own and other people's children are giving their lives so Bush and the oil barons of this world can wrack up a little more money and hold onto their power. It is obscene and it infuriates me.

Alas, I could rant on and on, but it's almost 4 pm and I haven't posted this. I now officially hate my Monday Alphabet Backwards brainchild. My last Alphabet backwards (yearning) was also an angst-ridden exercise in self torment. I suppose I could have picked some other topic - like xerox or xylophones or so maybe the problem isn't the idea but my penchant for making myself miserable.

Next week's letter is "W" and hopefully it will inspire some happy gambol-through-the-flowers word to present itself to me. Meanwhile, I apologize for today - not so much for the rant - this stuff makes me really angry - but for the half-baked incompleteness of it. If I got out all I want to say, though, I'd still be writing at this time next week. This will have to do.

One last thing - a little bit of vanity... I was living in Arizona when the 9/11 attacks happened and I had my weekly agoraphobia column. This is what I wrote. I'm still kind of proud of it.

And I still pray for a world in which the voice of love becomes stronger than the twisted whispers of fear and hate-mongers. I think that potential is in us waiting to blossom. I hope so.

So much for the letter X. Whew. I'm out of here.

One Single Impression: Circle

Here are my circling haikus and quasi-haikus for this week's One Single Impression. I keep saying (at least to myself) that I'm going to ignore the 5-7-5 thing and then I keep trying to do it.





Dreadful circling rounds
Frantic thoughts that never stop
Going nowhere fast






I offer my love
my wide open, naked heart
but you won't close the circle







we came together
a circle of loving hearts
and the angels sang





Mandala


swift prayerful fingers
meditate with colored sands
ephemeral art
it washes away
and yet because it's fleeting
we remember it





circular thinking
thoughts ramble vaguely onward
ending at the start





I can't stop myself
circle, circle, circle on
one last silly poem


I guess this was a bunch of circular (and confused) impressions instead of one single one. Have a lovely week, everyone.

I'M NOT IGNORING YOU...BROKEN KEYBOARD

My keyboard died during the night...it was apparently a painless death (for the keyboard...not so painless for me)....thank you so much for Kim, for posting this for me.

Be back as soon as I can!

Keep those wordzzles coming!

Caught on Tape: Tara Grace Not Doing Anything

AGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ok... if this works, it is probably video that only a "mother" could love. Tara Grace, who is so demure and quiet in this video normally barks at me like a longshoreman or like a gangster threatening a hit. Of course since this is her movie debut, she clammed up. She is sweet in motion, though, isn't she? I have some video that I took of Angel being naughty the first day I got the camera but it's kind of blurry so I think I'll wait until she's naughty again and see if I can get it in better focus. I apologize because this is way too long, but I haven't figured out how to edit things down yet. I've been trying to upload it since early Wednesday evening, have crashed the computer 5 times, finally figured out that I needed to download some additional thing and now hopefully will be able to get it posted, though it appears that it is still going to take hours and hours and hours to upload. Sigh. Pure stubborn, willful determination has now overridden good sense. I WILL post it even though it's too long and probably nobody will watch it. I will do it because. So there.

Here it is! Tara Grace's debut! Please don't become so enthralled watching this that you miss out on the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge...

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 4

Well, here we are at week 4 and things are picking up a little bit. I'm still working on the logistics. If we get enough people participating, I'll spring for a Mr. Linky, but in the meantime, please either share your links in the comments area or, if you prefer, email me with your efforts and I'll add them to the week's post.

Thank you so much to Dianne and Snoopmurph for your enthusiasm. Snoopmurph was so enthusiastic that she posted this wonderful response to today's challenge right away last Saturday.

My keyboard (see post above) had a miraculous recovery (yippee!) so I thought I'd add the links of others participating today.... Here they are in no particular order. My apologies if I have missed anyone.

Dianne

Kim
Akelamalu
REH
Snoopmurph
Karen

Another new player, Jay Cole Simser has created a new category for his first effort. I don't know how he managed it, but he created a Megawordzzle by combining the regular and mini challenges. Very impressive. Here's what he sent me. I'll highlight the mini and mega words in different colors. Way to go, Jay! Awesome.

(Just as a reminder, the words/phrases for this week's regular (10 item) challenge were: Bolivia, Green Goddess, virtual reality, laundry, ample evidence, matches, your mamma don't dance, sugar, saucy, sofa cushions and for the mini (5 item) challenge they were: olive groves, paraphenalia, sausages, moose droppings, store front)

Here's Jay's masterpiece:

Please pass the Green Goddess dressing for my salad”, I said with a saucy flavor to my voice. I was waiting by the virtual reality waterfall here in Bolivia while doing my laundry (and there was ample evidence that it needed to be done) when a small person (probably a pigmy) crawled out from under the olive groves, and handed me a plate of sausages which looked like moose droppings and upset my digestion. I looked at the little being and invited him to sit beside me on the sofa cushions while I got out my matches which I had purchased at the Your Mamma Don't Dance storefront and said “also, please pass the sugar.” I will need it for my drug paraphernalia. “Now, how about we party!

And here's my own offering for the main challenge:

It was Chauncey Smythe's worst nightmare. He wished from time to time that it was some virtual reality from which he could come and go, but it wasn't. It was real. The cramped, cluttered, dirty, laundry-carpeted hell hole in which he found himself was ample evidence that he had fallen through some rabbit hole into a parallel universe from his staid English beginnings. As if to re-inforce that thought, the radio in the next room started blaring "Your Mamma don't dance," so loudly that he was sure the deaf farmer a mile away must be hearing it. Hands shaking, he began fishing between the ugly, worn sofa cushions on which he sat seeking the matches that could usually be found there and was not disappointed. He knew he should quit smoking, but frankly, he didn't want to. It helped him cope with this life he was so ill-suited for here in Bolivia. All that said, Chauncy was not really all that unhappy. "Chauncey-wauncy, Sugar-baby, breakfast is ready" a woman's voice called from the kitchen. The sound of his beautiful, saucy Carmelita's voice was like sunshine in his heart and suddenly the room didn't look seedy any more but lived and loved in. It didn't hurt that besides being incredibly beautiful, his wife's cooking was so good that men fell in love and women wept when they tasted it. Heart leaping with the magic of love and hunger, he tamped out his unsmoked cigarette, leaped from his chair and headed for the kitchen. "Coming my precious Green Goddess," he called, feeling for all the world like a very lucky man.

and for the mini challenge, I came up with this:

Surrounded by the paraphenalia of short a short-order cook, Magnolia Rivington sat alone in her empty store-front coffee house, waiting for the first morning customers to arrive, the smell of coffee and freshly cooked sausages wrapping her in their homey warmth. Lost in thought, she sat leafing through the piles of travel brochures, dreaming of sunshine and blue skies. Snow and moose dropping might be piling up outside her Alaskan wilderness home, but in her mind she was walking through the olive groves of sunny Italy, exploring ancient marble buildings, basking on a sunny beach on the French Riviera. Startled from her dream by the sound of the cafe's door opening, and the "Hey, Mags, what's cooking," greeting of the day's first customer, she quickly slipped the pamphlets into her apron pocket. Back to reality for now, she sighed, but one day she would see Italy for real.

It's probably pure vanity (an unfulfilled writer's desire to be read), but I'm sticking with sharing an old example from my past. Anyone who prefers can choose these words for their weekly effort. (I really hate rules in case you haven't guessed.) Here's this weeks vanity toss in.

WORDS: Silver, having untied himself, language, disobeyed, careful, Lao-Tse, 7 million, tinkling, resistance.

Having untied himself with ease, Fred, who in this particular dream found himself to be the Lone Ranger, leaped gracefully onto his faithful horse Silver and rode in the direction of what sounded like the sweet tinkling of hundreds of tiny bells. Tinkling was perhaps the wrong word for the bells, as the sound was quite awesomely beautiful and rich, both small and enormous beyond imagining. Their call could not be disobeyed and any resistance he might normally have felt to heading so boldly into the unknown, simply faded away. The closer he and Silver came to the source of this music, the more beautiful the landscape around him became and he was overcome with a feeling of such peace that he felt he might very well float away. All around them were blossoms in every imaginable color and shape and butterflies in every color of the rainbow. "Careful, Silver," he whispered quietly in the horse's ear, "we don't want to disturb anything." And the horse seemed to understand, for he slowed to a delicate walk and nickered softly in seeming agreement. Moving on, they at last came to a clearing in which were seated at least a hundred beings of light and wise souls. Even at a quick glance he spotted Jesus and Buddha sitting in quiet conversation and at least a dozen angels and arch angels. Off in a corner in a pagoda of his own sat Lao-Tse. And the Virgin Mary smiled a warm welcome to him as a young cherub led Silver off to be fed and watered. This space was lit with what seemed to be 7 million candles, yet there was no glare. And though there were hundreds of voices speaking at once - the sound he now realized was not bells at all but the voices of these divine beings - all was quiet and peaceful. And although each being spoke his or her own language it seemed to him all one and perfectly comprehensible. He could have stood forever wrapped in the beauty and the peace of that place, but at last he asked, "Is this Heaven? Am I dead then?" And as they turned to smile at his question, there came another sound - as worldly as they come - as Max, a hungry kitty who cared nothing at all for mystic visions - swatted and howled him most unceremoniously back to his bedroom and the waiting day.

NEXT WEEK'S CHALLENGE

Guess that's it except for the words/phrases for next week's challenges: horse shoe, antique chest, marigold, lunatic, science fiction, Oregon, previously, 10 billion, google, tree hugger

And for next week's mini challenge: pardon me, feather duster, gathering storm, furthermore, magnolia blossoms

Anyone who wants to emulate Jay's amazing example can try merging both challenges and make another megawordzzle. I don't think I have the courage, but go for it if you think you can.

I would LOVE to have suggestions for words/phrases from other participants. Also any advice/suggestions on how to make the process easier would me much appreciated. I'm new to the blogosphere and still clumsy at navigating it in some ways.

Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.

Enjoy! See you next week.

The Cranky Blues

I have the blues this morning. Big time.

I think I forgot to take my sam-e for the past couple of days. I have a slight cold. I'm tired of winter. It's not so cold outside today but it's gray and gloomy and looks as dismal as I feel. I'm still trying to upload some stupid 5 minute video of Tara Grace looking pretty and not doing what I want. So far I have spent about 30 hours on this project and I'm back at square 1 this morning, irritable but determined. It was almost finished uploading early last night (about 24 hours and 5 computer crashes into the project) and then I opened up some other program and apparently the whole thing got dumped and had to start over from start. I'm giving it another try this morning. It's not that this is great video. It's not, unless Tara Grace is your cat and you love her and you think it's cool that your new camera makes moving pictures. It's that I started this project and I'm damned if I'm going to be defeated. I WILL get it uploaded.

Then there's the whole thing with Governor Spitzer here in New York having to resign. I don't understand the insanity of this country which is pretty much throwing another talented human being away for sexual stupidity while we allow thugs and criminals to roam the halls of the White House and Congress unchecked breaking the law and committing acts of profound violence at home and abroad. So they are mass murderers. Big Yawn. Did you hear that Spitzer saw a call girl? Well apparently Dick Cheny has a history of doing the same thing but I guess it's not a crime when a Republican does it. Arrrrggggggh. And the Democrats are busy eating each other's young and giving the press fodder to make fools of them while the demented John McCain gets good press for not dying 40 years ago. I give him points for courage but that doesn't mean he's sane now or that he would be a good president. As far as I'm concerned he sold his soul to George Bush 8 years ago and with it any respect I once had for him. He's not only claiming that our invasion of Iraq was a good thing, he wants to keep it going forever. Is this the twilight zone? It can't be the real world, can it? When do I get to wake up from this nightmare?

I feel so bloody (I really wanted to say something else) cranky that I can barely stand being in my own skin. And I feel depressed. (Aren't you glad you popped by for a visit?) I know this will pass. I'm going to practice some of what I preach. Going to focus on Angel and Tara Grace. They always make me laugh. Maybe I'll try reading a book. My niece Cindy sent me the Kite Runner a while back. I started it and it's beautifully written but then I got side tracked by a bunch of mini crises and I haven't gone back. I hate getting interrupted with a good book because I always feel like I should start over. Hmmm. Back to cranky, aren't I?

So anyway, when I wrote the Blues down for the title of this morning's piece, I though maybe I should look for some things that are beautiful and blue. Turn the meaning of the Blues around. I have a little figurine that someone gave me years ago. I call it the blue bird of happiness... it's rich dark - I think they call it cobalt - blue. Then there are blue bells. I have a picture of my youngest niece, Diana, sitting in bluebells with her dogs. It always makes me happy when I look at it. It cheered me up just thinking about it and she has given me permission to share it with you. I don't know how anybody - even if they don't love her - can look at that picture and not feel their mood lighten. They look so beautiful and happy and the bluebells are so bright and dramatic against the green of the grass. I love that picture.

Thinking about the picture reminded me of a gift that Diana gave me a few years back. It's called an Akua'ba and it's an African fertility doll. When I was way young and my sister's kids ranged from about 3 to 7, I think, I worked at the Museum of Natural History and of course I visited their gift shop with some regularity. Too bad they didn't pay me enough to really shop there. Anyway, I fell in love with the fertility dolls. I loved the look of them. I wore a gold colored replica as a necklace (to fertilize my creativity) all the time and my sister's kids were fascinated by it, so I bought big plastic ones for each of them. Seemed to fertilize their imaginations: for them they were everything from microphones to - who knows... They made me smile then and the thought of them makes me smile now. A few years back the beautiful Diana of the bluebells sent me the sweet black carved akua'ba pictured below. I told her - because it's true - that when I look at it, I feel like I'm getting a hug from her. And I do. And that always cheers me up.

So... I'm not exactly radiating sunshine yet, but I'm a tiny bit less grouchy than when I started. Thanks for listening invisible people out there.



I hope those of you reading this are having a better week/day than I am. Whether you are, or you aren't, the little fertility guy and I are sending out a big hug to everyone. It's our act of kindness for the day - to ourselves as much as to anyone who chooses to receive it. May your day be full of sunshine (even if it's only of the heart), bluebells, beauty, hugs and lots of love.

Oh, and don't forget that tomorrow is the Saturday Wordzzle Challenge...

Poem(s) of the Week: A Birthday Tribute

Today is my nephew Matthew's (age undisclosed) birthday. It still astonishes me that any of my sister's children are not still toddlers since I don't feel any (well maybe a little) older than the day they were born. I know exactly where I was when I heard the news that I had a nephew. I was a senior in college, having a very hard time on many fronts. And then a miracle was delivered. I sat right down and wrote a poem and waited eagerly for the day I'd get to meet him. He was - and is - magnificent. I wish I had all my old photos scanned into the computer but my scanner died on one of the 5 moves I've made in the past 6 years. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Alas, I'm so disorganized that I can't find the poem I wrote for him the day he was born. I know it began something like "Oh now I have a nephew... " so you aren't missing much, except for maybe a sense of how thrilled I was. If I can find it later, I'll add it to this post.

When Matt was about two, my sister told me he had a monster living in his closet. I think it was named the Booda Asooda. I wrote this poem for him. I don't know if it helped, but I had fun writing it.

THE MAGUDDA BOODA
for Matthew

The Magudda Booda, headless fellow
Is in my closet eating jello
Being naughty day and night
But sneakily, away from sight
He laughs and giggles, howls and shrieks
He makes the walls and floor boards creak
He jumps and runs and makes me scared
I'd get him banished if I dared
Or thought he'd really stay away
And not come back more tricks to play
Alas, I think he can't be chased
Nor from his closet home displaced
So I just close the closet door
And check it twice to make quite sure
He can't come out while I'm asleep
And round the bedroom wildly leap
To spend a night of wicked play
And disappear at dawn of day.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Matt and I used to talk a lot. We argued politics. Much to my deeply Democratic, fanatically liberal dismay he is a libertarian. He believes in objective reality. I believe everything is subjective. We've had some pretty good discussions. I adore him. I'm so very proud of him. He's brilliant. A computer genius among other things. He probably doesn't remember this, but I always told him that he had an inner poet waiting to come out. About six years ago (I think) - he let his inner poet speak. Now he is - his sisters both wax poetic on the subject - a master chef, working to start his own restaurant. It's coming soon to Portland, Oregon and will be called The Fat Cat Bistro. When it opens, food lovers from around the world will be lining up to get in. I know this.

I wrote this poem as a birthday gift for him. I hope he'll like it and feel the truth of it.

FOR MATTHEW

beloved stranger
nephew
child of my heart
I treasure you
always and forever
my pride in you is fierce
awestruck as I was
by the wonder of your tiny baby self
I have watched you grow
baby to toddler
toddler to little boy
little boy to self-conscious teen
teen to young man
young man to talented adult
we've had our debates -
(that darn Republican streak you got from your father)
and even arguments
about silly things (as arguments usually are)
some of the life mistakes that trouble me the most
I made with you
I'm not an easy aunt to have
fat, a little crazy
an airy-fairy nut to your grounded pragmatist
my fear of the world kept me from being there
when maybe - even if you didn't need me -
I should have been, would have been if I could
If nothing else, I hope you know how much I love you
like your sisters, you are one of the wonders of my world
the laughing baby boy
has grown into a fine man
a creative, passionate chef
but more than that
a loving supportive brother,
a true friend, loyal to those he loves
no matter what else,
know that I love you
with a heart that wraps around you always
even if distance keeps my arms away

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Happy Birthday Matt.
I Love You.

Wordless Wednesday - Light and Shadow

Wordless Wednesday

Heads or Tails Tuesday: Anything Green

Ok. I'm up for my second adventure with Skittle's Heads or Tails Tuesday. Today's topic. Anything green. Hmmm.

Green is one of my favorite colors. Of course at any given moment almost every color is one of my favorites, but I am quite partial to most shades of green. When I've had carpet (that I bought for myself), it has always been green. One of the first things I did for my little house was to turn it green - I brooded, pondered, mused, and pored over the colors at Sherwin-Williams' cool color Visualizer thingy. They seem to have discontinued my beautiful color. It's a very soft, sage color. I didn't realize what a difference it would make. It turned my sad little house - the midget on the street - from looking to me like sort of like a shack - to looking sweet and revived. It made her mine too, in some way. The very kind young couple who painted it for me tried to get me to compromise about the color since they wanted to use a different kind of paint. For some reason it felt SO important to me to hold true to this color that I held true to myself for a change. Turned out their paint brand was a Sherwin-Williams affiliate and all I had to do was get the formula. Their conviction that it was impossible turned out to be mistaken. With her new green face, I think I really fell in love with my little house and truly felt for the first time that she was mine.

Other green things. I have quite a lot of rocks. I love rocks. Here's an interesting green one. I used to know what it was, but I have forgotten and I'm too lazy to look it up. It's pretty, though, isn't it?

Green art work. Here are a pair of water colors my mother got years and years ago. They aren't literally green, I guess, but they feel green and soft and cool on the eye to me. I'm not sure how to spell the artist's name. Aral Raj is what I have in my head. I know the Raj part is right.





























Even though I'm very fond of green. I do have my limits. I have never understood the idea of drinking green beer on Saint Patrick's day. Yuck.

Oh... I knew there was a really important aspect of green that I forgot. Trees in summer, of course, but right now, in winter, I am particularly fond of the green that comes through as snow melts. It gives me hope that Spring is on the way.

The Alphabet Backwards: Y is for Yearning

Who'd a thunk this would be such a difficult topic. I just erased about six frustrating paragraphs. Yearning is a natural human instinct, right? Not in my world. I think I need the length of the novel I will probably never write to explain how much difficulty I have with the concept of wanting or yearning. I started writing this - trying to write this - at about 11:00 am this morning. It's 3:17 and I'd be just as lost as when I began if I hadn't just talked to my therapist on the phone.

My mother meant well. I know she did. She was just very wounded and in her wounding - I won't go into details - I tried that in the first draft and it's too hard to explain - so let me just say that out of her own wounding she created in me a fear of wanting. Truth is that until my sister was murdered, I was totally disconnected from pretty much all human feeling except a kind of pseudo happiness. The smiling twinkie twilight zone in which I had protected myself from the insanity around me was already cracking at the edges before she died, but her death shattered it completely and though the journey has been painful, the murder which stole my sister from me, in an odd way gave me back my self... or at least opened the door to me finding myself.

What does this have to do with yearning? I don't know how to do it. It involves lots of forbidden and uncomfortable feelings. Well, my therapist - Hi, Dr. Jim! - says that I do, but that I'm so afraid of it that I stop myself. He's very wise so he's probably right. I associate wanting/yearning with guilt and punishment. He suggested that I yearn to walk without pain and to leave my house. I actually argued with him! But of course I yearn for that. And I also fear not being able to cope with it. Disability may suck but it's predictable and I can feel guilty 24/7. Another place my therapist suggested that I allow my yearning to leak out is my perpetual quest to win the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. That's true, but I detach from even that because I make a joke out of it.

One thing I am good at is surrogate yearning. I yearn passionately for the happiness of my nieces and nephew and my friends. I yearn passionately for a house for my friend who is struggling to escape a bad relationship and an unsafe situation. I yearn passionately for all my friends' wishes to come true. As I write this, I realize that I also am able to yearn passionately for things like world peace and Dennis Kucinich (or someone like him) for President. It's when it comes to yearning for myself that it feels as though that piece of my heart was cut out by my mother and my brother an eternity ago. As Dr. Jim pointed out, it's still there, it's just that my reflex to detach from it is so swift and reflexive that I disconnect from it almost before I can feel it. When I do feel it, I get pejorative and/or frightened. Who do I think I am? I don't deserve whatever it is - be it a camera, a house, enough money to pay my bills, freedom to walk out in the world without panic. Even love.

One of the early realizations I had in therapy was that - for whatever complicated set of reasons - I felt like my very existence was a crime against God, that I had somehow stolen a life and space that rightly should have belonged to someone else. Who, I don't know. The radiant me who lives inside, who craves love and attention, maybe even fame - learned to keep a low profile, lest God take back her forbidden life.

As I write this, I realize that she really IS in there. And she is yearning to break free.

I know this isn't my best writing. It is jumbled and disjointed. It's incomplete. I'm going to post it anyway because it's the best I can do on this subject. That I am talking about yearning at all is enraging some terrified part of me. I can almost literally see a hand with a bloody blade poised to attack. That's how intense my fear of my yearning is.

Which I guess is may be a sign that the part of me that yearns really is alive and well. And she really IS yearning to break free. And that scares me. But it makes me happy too.

One Single Impression: Kindness

Haiku is not my natural impulse, but I thought I'd try to write a few as part of the One Single Impression's weekly prompt. I'm fairly new (2nd week) to OSI. I don't think they hold participants too strictly to the haiku (5-7-5) form, but I decided to try that anyway. I'm not too happy with the results, but I'm posting them anyway. My inner perfectionist be damned. Still, I feel a need to explain them, which is always a sign that I don't think they quite speak for themselves.... sorry.

The first two are dedicated to two of my neighbors. I am profoundly agoraphobic and I have difficulty walking, so I pretty much haven't set foot out of my house for the past two years. As a consequence, I don't know my neighbors very well, though they are quite kind and sort of look after me. One neighbor in particular is also disabled. He is often in a wheelchair but is able to drive and get around. I spend most of my day sitting here at my computer and he and his wife wave as they come and go. It means a great deal to me. It makes me real. (Ok... I wrote the second not 5-7-5) based on that sentence and I like it better than the rest.... guess I'm just not a true haiku-er....

stranger and yet friend
you temper my solitude
and wave as you pass

***
acknowledging me here
you make me real
with your simple act of kindness

***
No explanation for this one... just what it is....

her kind word and smile
paused him in his quest for death
and she never knew

This last haiku is dedicated to my friend Dianne who wrote an exquisite post this morning on the subject of "everyday kindness." I hope you'll take the time to read it.

she did not strike back
the bravest kindness of all
to meet cruelty with grace

ok... one more... inspired by the kitty in my arms.... this is kind of addictive.

kitty in my arms
rumbling Angel hugs most pure
a treasured kindness

This is making me very anxious for some reason. Most of the poetry I've posted here at Raven's Nest is old and I have made friends with it over the course of time. These are hot off my fingers. I am awash in angst. I know you will (heck, it's the theme of the day), but please be kind.

Spiders and Butterflies

Well, I was going to moan about talking heads but my tiny collective of readers is going to be spared. PBS (which I pretend means I'm watching more elevated talking heads), is having pledge week, so instead of swearing at the TV and muttering under my breath, I'm going to listen to Wayne Dyer talk about Change Your Words, Change Your Life. Hmm. Message from the universe? Wayne's the butterfly (more on this later). The spider was, alas, real. I guess this means that Spring is in the works somewhere underground even though it isn't really showing yet.

I have a conflicted relationship with spiders. When I was very young a spider decided my face was a good place to land. I was not that good with crawly things to begin with and that pretty much sealed the door on my spider fear for a long time. Then, I was - very briefly - a camp counselor. Anyone who knows me, even those who knew me back then, will appreciate the ludicrousness of ME being a camp counselor, but I was one for a very brief two week span. I was probably 18 or 19. The campers were about 8, I guess. But I digress... back to the spiders. When we first got there and went into the bathroom cabin, it was my worst nightmare. It was crawling with (literally!) daddy long-legs spiders. The girls screamed. The counselors screamed. Terror was afoot. Desperate times, however, sometimes bring out the best in me. Something had to be done. What mysterious power moved through me, I don't know, but I walked over to a sink, picked one of these creepy spiders up by the leg (eeeeeeeeek!!!!) and said with as much conviction as I could muster: "Now look. There is absolutely NOTHING to be afraid of...." Miracle of miracles. I left, the girls cleaned the place up. Life lesson learned.

Since then spiders and I have a kind of truce relationship. In Native American and other traditions, spiders are creators, carriers of great wisdom and often represent creativity and the web of life. Here are some wonderful stories that may help some of us spider phobes (hi, Linda!) to shift our perspective on these amazing creatures. I especially like the first one.

This is a wondeful Choctaw story about How Grandmother Spider Stole Fire

And here's an Osage perspective on this odd creature, called The Spider and the People.

I found this very cool website on symbols and this is what it has to say about Spiders.

Another thing that helped shift my behavior around spiders is that I read somewhere years ago that spiders in your house bring luck. (I confess to being a touch superstitious - or at least to erring on the side of superstition - just in case.) If spiders around your house are any indication, I must be very lucky. This seems like the spider kingdom to me some days. I don't so much like killing them any more, so I try to negotiate with them. If they stay in their corner, I will leave them be, though I keep my eye on them. An area where spiders and I have yet to come to a true meeting of the minds is my shower. It is one thing for them to be off in some corner by the ceiling... quite something else for them to be hanging around taunting me while I'm wet and naked. That is a death sentence as far as I'm concerned. There are limits to my enlightenment.

Well, I guess this is going to be just about spiders. Wayne Dyer has a cool butterfly story but it's too complicated to talk about out of context. Butterflies are about transformation. Maybe the butterfly aspect of this little essay is the transformation in my relationship to my fear of spiders. Butterflies are pretty. I like them better than spiders, but spiders are fascinating in their own way. Their webs are so awesome and yet there is something terribly cruel about how they trap and feed on their prey. They do seem to understand patience and creativity, though. They are rich in life lessons if we can get past the fear they engender in our psyches. That said, I do wish I knew where that spider that inspired this mindless Sunday morning ramble has gotten to. Oh, dear.... Time to focus on Wayne Dyer and changing my thoughts...

Saturday Wordzzle Challenge - Week 3

Welcome to the next installment of my wordzzles game.

Thank you so much to Dianne for playing last week - and coming up with a positively brilliant solution. My incredible and clever niece Diana just posted responses for last week and this week in the comments section from my last week's post. Newcomers can also find additional information on how the game works and some hints for how to have more fun doing it. I'll let anyone who is interested check out what she came up with for last week's words, but I'll paste her solution for this week along with mine. Hopefully nobody will notice that the muse seems to have abandoned me just when I need her most because the muse is being very good to Diana.

The words for this weeks challenge were: Yowling cat, ink stain, fever, river bed, home improvement, laughable, motorcade, broken camera, crafty and bourbon
Here's my niece Diana's paragraph:

"Are you going to fix that damn broken camera? It's been sitting on the kitchen table for 2 weeks!"I didn't mean to lose my temper, but this is starting to wear on me. The list of home improvement projects is mounting. He wants to be more crafty and handy around the house, and I know I should encourage him. But it's laughable, really. The heater sounds like a motorcade every time it turns on, the poor yowling cat can barely get to his food bowl with the piles of kitchen tile laying on the floor. After last night's rain, our lawn looks more like a river bed from where he *started* to put in what was to be a lovely rock path. "Oh god, what have you done to the curtains!!! Is that an ink stain???" He tells me it's nothing that a little bourbon and seltzer can't take out. I think I need to lay down. Maybe I have a fever or something. I feel faint.

And here's mine:

The yowling cat stood proudly by the broken camera while the huge red ink stain spread slowly across the white carpet. This was his idea, apparently, of home improvement. Martha hoped desperately that the scene before her wasn't actually real, that it was an hallucination brought on by the high fever she was running. She could hardly believe that even Mandrake, the Governor's decidedly "creative" cat, could have managed such total mayhem in the brief five minutes during which she had sat down to rest her aching head. Now, with her head hurting far worse than if she had at least had the pleasure of drinking a bottle of bourbon to engender such misery, she would have to trap and lock up the crafty animal before it could do any more harm and then get the study clean and spotless before the gathering of dignitaries - due any minute - arrived with demands for food and drink. On some other occasion it might have been laughable, but not today, not with so much at stake from this particular meeting. Particularly ironic was the fact that she herself was responsible for introducing this four-legged nightmare into the governor's mansion. Yes, it had been she, nobody else, who had spotted Mandrake's then frail body barely breathing in the dry river bed and persuaded the reluctant governor to rescue it. It would be good publicity, she had told him, especially since they were struggling to get increased funding for mandatory spay/neuter and spay/release programs for their state. "For you, Mandrake, they should re-institute the death penalty," she muttered. At these words, with typical cat wisdom, Mandrake gave his sweetest "mew," looked up at her with the face of an angel and, purring loudly, rubbed his soft body against her leg. As though by magic, she felt her mood shift and her headache lift. "You should run for office, Mandrake," she laughed. " You know how to charm your public. Now get out of here so I can undo your art work before the governor's motorcade arrives. You are a love, you rotten cat. Now shoo."

One of Dianne's readers, requested a mini challenge so I have provided a 5 word challenge for anyone who preferred it. (Feel free to do both if you want. I did.)

Words/phrases for the mini challenge were: outer limits, Lucifer, automobile engine, monk's habit, peanut butter & jelly

Here's my mini-challenge offering:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich in hand, Frank Jones was so completely engrossed in the episode of The Outer Limits blaring on his TV that he didn't hear his wife's angry good-bye, didn't hear the automobile engine start up, didn't see her drive away with their young son. On the TV, Lucifer, disguised in a monk's habit, was "compassionately" giving bad advice to a young husband whose wife was feeling neglected. "Come here, hon," Frank bellowed obliviously to the empty house, "this show is great. You'll love it." Perhaps she would have, but he had called too late and she was gone.

I said in my previous posts that I'd share an old words exercise from my past just because I had so much fun doing them and because anyone who wants to can select those words as a third option for the challenge. This week's golden oldie is the very first one I ever did: Jelly beans, bowling ball, Dolly Parton's brassiere, Easter Bunny, mysticism, ice cream, apple pie, life, sequence of events.

Margaret's bowling ball dropped with a thud, tottered slowly down the alley, and trickled feebly into the gutter. "Good one!" guffawed Blanche Smith. Margaret, smiling sweetly, whispered, "Stupid Bitch" under her breath. "Cow." Just because she had breasts so big she could wear Dolly Parton's brassiere, she thought she was some kind of beauty queen. And now she was a bowling critic. Bitch. Margaret hated her life of squalling kids, dirty dishes and laundry. She hated her Mom and apple pie husband and his nice 9-5 job. She hated schoolteachers, peanut butter, Christmas trees, and the Easter Bunny. She hated chocolate cake, hamburgers, French fries, frozen yogurt, and, oh, how she hated jellybeans. If she found one more jellybean in someone's pocket or on the floor or in the bed, she'd scream. There'd been jellybeans in her bowling bag, for God's sake! Pretty much, she hated everything about her life, Margaret decided. Except ice cream. No one, not even Margaret, could hate ice cream. Ice cream was love and serenity and inner peace. It was a religious experience. And again, she cursed the sequence of events that had led her to this frantic, empty, frazzled life where there was no room or time in which she could comfort her lonely, hungry soul with the food it needed to survive: art, writing, Yoga, an hour of meditation, the study of Eastern Mysticism, or even a moment or recognition in her husband's eyes of who she was. A person. Not a Mom. Not a wife. Someone with a self. Margaret! She was Margaret! She had rights. She deserved more than she was getting and it was time she demanded it. She smiled. Good old Chuckie had a few surprises coming. "You're up, Sweetie," Blanche bellowed. Margaret rose quietly and in a swift sure move, rolled a lovely, perfect strike. "Top that, Bitch!" she breathed with a deep, contented sigh. Yes! A new day had dawned.

Guess that's it for this week. I look forward to seeing what people have come up with. I continue to invite suggestions from participants for words/phrases so I don't have to make them all up myself. Here's what I came up with for this week. I try to just put down whatever comes into my head first. This week, that was not such a good thing. I dread coming up with a solution to my own puzzle. Sigh.

Next week's challenge: Bolivia, Green Goddess, virtual reality, laundry, ample evidence, matches, your mamma don't dance, sugar, saucy, sofa cushions

Next week's mini challenge: olive groves, paraphenalia, sausages, moose droppings, store front

Have fun!

Camera Junkie

Well a week and a half ago, Tara Grace apparently got tired of hearing me whine about how envious I was of everybody else's cool mega-pixeled cameras. My little HP was very old, dating back to the dawn of digital cameras - and cheap digital cameras at that. It had only 1.5 paltry little megapixels. It could zoom a little bit, but barely enough to make it interesting. It was really, really slow.

Everyone I know has a new or newish camera with lots of pixels. Their pictures are sharp and clear. Their cameras zoom as much as 15x. Gloryosky but I was jealous!! Even though I'm not normally an envious type of person. I have been struggling with serious covetousness. Not that I grudged others their cool cameras. I just wanted one too.

Tara Grace apparently decided that enough was enough and that all that whining - interior and out loud - had to be stopped. In an act very uncharactaristic of her, she pushed my faithful little 1.5 pixel HP to a many-small pieces death. One expects such things of Angel. But Tara Grace? I can only think there was divine intervention here. Could I have willed it? I tried to be sad, but truth is.... Anyway... My credit card, which I have been trying very, very hard to pay down is back up a notch, but I have a really cool new camera that I got for a really, really good price from Amazon.com. It's got 8.3!!! - yes 8.3!!! - megapixels and it can zoom to 10X!!!! It takes moving pictures. (They are awful and I can't figure out how to share them, but they move.) And it works fast.... and you can see what the pictures look like and save or not save with genuine ease. And it's got rechargeable batteries. I am in heaven.

I'm still trying to get a really good picture of Tara. She's difficult to get to begin with and very uncooperative. Unlike Angel, who happily poses for me, Tara sees the camera and turns her back, grooms herself, moves constantly or just leaves the room. But I ramble. Here are some first efforts with my new treasure. They aren't great art, but I'm having fun and I didn't have to move from my desk to take any of them. How cool is that?

Poem(s) of the Week

This week, I thought I'd post a few very short poems.... I suppose I could post just one, but they seem too short for that, like only one would be cheating.

I chose the first one to help honor my One Million Blogs for Peace commitment. The other two I chose because they are short and just because.... The third poem is my contribution for the theme of "change," this week's One Single Impression prompt.


ON LOVE AND WAR






The call to arms is deep

Strong

Lonely buglers

Trumpet sad melodies

Of unborn dreams

Into the bellies of weeping women.

- Katherine E. Rabenau



EAGLE








Such flight must surely be magnificent

Must loose the soul to higher worlds

It is too beautiful to be merely practical

Look how he dances, glides and swoops

Within the endless depth of sky

So certain of his power

So easy on the wind

Look how the heavens carry him about

Above the rugged spires of a dying world.

- Katherine E. Rabenau



AWAKENING
October 1, 1999










Live as big as the sky, she said

And I felt my heart awaken and take note

As big as the sky? it asked?

Can I do that?

I don’t know, I said,

Liking always to be truthful.

But we can try.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

Wordless Wednesday

Sunrise

Lake Huntington, New York

Wordless Wednesday

Heads or Tails Tuesday

Well, I was determined this week to participate in Skittle's Heads or Tails Tuesday. Of course since I'm new at this game, this week, it seems to have appeared on Monday and have no tail. This week it is list 7 things, (isn't it? is that right?). I browsed around and decided I'd list seven movies that I have really, really loved. So... here goes.

1. Babette's Feast - probably my favorite movie ever. I cry at the end every time. It's subtitled. The music is beautiful. I love the faces of the actors and the subtlety of the performances, especially during the dinner.

2. A Passage to India

3. The Shawshank Redemption

4. Bend It Like Beckham

5. Monsoon Wedding

6. The Dead Poet's Society

7. Chocolat

There are probably other movies that I have liked better than some of these. Babette's Feast will probably always top my list.

So this is my first tail-less (headless?) Head's or Tails Tuesday. Thanks for inviting us to play, Skittles.