My Name is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die or DIY:Bucket List- 5 Things To Do Before You Die

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." 

Come on! Is that the greatest line ever or what!? But seriously, if someone told you to prepare to die- you know, without the whole threat of immediate death- what would you do? What would you do that you haven't done till now, because "after all, tomorrow is another day!" (never did like Gone with the Wind- aaaand I can already feel the hate mail.)  What would you do if you knew exactly how many tomorrows you had left?

It's hard to think about something that concrete when for most of us, death is pretty abstract. If it hasn't happened to someone we know or love, death can feel pretty distant. Think about it- what would it take to make sure that you were completely satisfied with the life you had lived, the direction you had taken? All most people ever really want is to be happy- but since most of us don't know how to make our way to happy, we settle for being content and just gliding through life- like driving aimlessly along a country road until you crash into an embankment that says Road Ends Here. We're always surprised when it comes like death isn't an inevitability for all of us. Perhaps we're not just woefully ignorant, but willfully ignorant. We don't want to see the end coming, though it happens every day. 

If I had to say,  I think that my Bucket list would be pretty short. All I've ever really wanted was to have a meaningful job- something I was passionate about. A family that I can love and take care of. To travel and see new things. To have something of my own. Right now I'm thinking about maybe, one day, running a bookstore- having healthy, happy kids running through the aisles, along with fat happy pets, and a fat (well, not  too fat)  happy husband. To talk about books, stories, the world with the people who come in through my doors. One day. But one day is closer than it looks- one day closer to death with the things I want to achieve undone. Today is the day to dream, to plan and to execute- to get off the pot, as it were.  So here's my Bucket List- and I hope you make one too. Not only make one but achieve everything on it, and then start again. Do it all. Live it all. Just do it. 

Dee's Bucket List

1. Learn to dance-  the waltz, the tango, salsa- whatever. 

2. Go horseback riding on the beach- like on the cover of a romance-

      preferably with a guy with ripped abs in a poet shirt open to his navel. (grrrowl!)

3. Write a book- on anything. Just finish one. 

4. Travel to every continent at least once. Preferably more than once. (and buy lots of tacky souvenirs.)

5. See an opera.  (Not the Gotterdamerung- too much Wagner isn't good for you.)

6. Read my poetry on stage -without collapsing in a puddle of sweat. 

7. Adopt-even if I'm sure I'll suck as a mother (though I have a pretty good role model. Hi Mom!)

8. Sing once in public- again, without melting into a puddle of sweat.  

(I do a pretty good Tina Turner- "polite snickers in the background"-    ok, fine, maybe Nina Simone?)

9.Buy a motorcycle- or at least drive one on my own. 

10. Start my own business- and get some good advice so I don't run it into the ground. 

11. Learn to shoot a gun- and hope like hell I'll never have to use one. But at least I'll know how.

12. Fall in love at least once more- and this time really pay attention,   

 instead of just drifting around in a  rose colored fog. Those memories might be all I have one day. 

  (okay- maybe more than once- if at first you  don't succeed and all that.)

13.  Wear an itty bitsy teenie weenie bikini- but not yellow or polka dot. (Polka dots make me gag)

14. Go to a really great party- I mean a New York at midnight on New Years party,  

a Mardi Gras or Carnivale in Brazil type party- a   party and don't stop till three days later party. (and it goes without saying, be the life of the aforementioned party. Body shots anyone? )

15. Write a love letter- and get one in return. 

That's a pretty good start don't you think? Sometimes all it takes is to have a dream and  before you know it,  your dream starts coming true. I'll let you know how the list goes. Wish me luck.

“Somebody should tell us, 

right at the start of our lives, 

that we are dying.

 Then we might live life to the limit, 

every minute of every day. 

Do it! I say. 

Whatever you want to do, do it now! 

There are only so many tomorrows.”

 Pope Paul VI

Five Rules For Life or DIY: CHALLENGE!

I recently found a cool website called FiveRulesForLife.blogspot.com. The idea is that people from all walks of life post the five rules they think are most important for living a fulfilled life. You can agree or disagree with each set and there's a new set every week sent in by readers. And, of course, you can submit your own rules. Rules are posted at the discretion of the siteowner- which means if, as he says "I (we) like it." So I decided to take the challenge- and I hope you will too. If you're living a fulfilled life, and you've got some wisdom to share- or even if you don't, (who knows- you're probably way more insightful than some "wisemen")- try it out. Well then, I hereby present my

Five Rules for Life
1. Keep onnnn moving. (keep on moving, don't stop, no- Soul II Soul, folks. great song)
Despite the despair I sometimes feel, I know that as long as I keep moving physically, mentally, spiritually- I have a chance for something good to come to me... as long as I'm moving to meet it.
If I fall by the side of the road - no matter if it's a few feet or miles from my goal, then I've lost the race. I don't have many great attributes, but I know from experience that I can endure. If I just keep moving, I can win.

2."Keep Watching the Skies!" (Thing From Another World- for sci fi fans)
Keep your head up- literally and figuratively. I have found that every time I walked through life with my head down watching my feet, I have missed something beautiful and meaningful. But when I walked with my head high, even if I was depressed, even if my eyes were filled with tears (sometimes especially) -without fail, something magical would come into my sight, be it a friend, nature or simply something I had seen before and never noticed. This morning I woke up and wasn't really sure I wanted to be here. I walked to work with my head down and just as I reached the gates, I looked up and saw someone waiting for me at the gate with a smile and a hello that I knew was just for me. Sometimes I have simply looked up and seen a drop of dew in a flower, or a butterfly that shouldn't have been out in the cold and knew that I was meant to see it- that no-one else would see that same sight. Life is filled with tiny miracles and the more I see, the more there is to be seen.

3. Keep learning and wondering- the more we know the less we understand- and that's a good thing. It leaves room for Mystery (yes, with a capital M) to come back into our lives. In this day and age when we can get (mis)information in an instant,but usually can't understand all of it or even absorb it because there's so much- it's good to keep learning and to realize how much there still is to learn. Not facts but simply that the world is bigger, stranger and more wonder-full than we know and that we have not come to the edge of our world because there is still so much more beyond. Believe it or not- but Here There (still) Be Dragons.

4. Keep loving- love till it hurts-and be glad that you can feel.

 "I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, 

then there is no hurt, 

but only more love." 

Mother Teresa

Love is a many splendored thing- it can also be a right b****. And it's necessary- in whatever form you find it, or make it. Without it, like water in the desert, we dry up inside. While I've been hurt by love in the past, I have gotten better in time. Better at knowing who and how and what I love. More empathic for those who don't have it and more determined to find my own. 

5. Keep laughing- finding joy and creating joy is important in a world where it seems there is less and less. Joy should be a fountain burbling  (burbling- I like that word ;>) in all of us. Research says that laughing, smiling, even when we don't feel like it  can  help us to feel like it. Smiling in a mirror, laughing yoga (look it up- it's really interesting), the instinctive return smile of a baby to a smiling adult- we know that it works to enhance our moods and our lives. Snicker, chuckle, guffaw- what have you- just laugh, cause Lord knows, the world is inherently funny. (Just look at us!)

So there you have it- my Five Rules for Living- not the Ten Commandments or any knowledge handed down from on high- but simply my own observations when it comes to the brief moment in time we call life. Test them out or write your own and remember  that

"The golden rule is that there are no golden rules."

George Bernard Shaw

Turn on, Tune in, Drop out or DIY: Zen and the Art of Self Maintenance

It occurred to me recently..-er, um, scratch that. I've used that opening a bit much recently. How to start? Ok, how about-two monks walk into a bar...ummm, nooo. Totally un PC.  "Deep breath."
Ok-let's try this.

I don't know where my head's been at recently. I've been battered by thoughts both disturbing and enlightening and it's all because I've been thinking about my future....and my past. One of my favorite Zen sayings is

  "watching unruly thoughts come and go is the essence of meditation." 

(Have no idea who said it or if I quoted it right. Let's just go with it.)  

Well lately, unruly thoughts have been coming at  me left and right, and completely swamping me in their wake. They revolve around "where am I going?" , and "where have I been?", some "what's the point?" and lot's of "I can't handle this!!!"    And when it got to the point when I found myself thinking, "It would be so nice not to have to think sooo much" or "Sometimes I just wish I wasn't...here", I decided to step back from the edge and find a way to save myself. 

I worry about the future..a lot.  I worry about the past and the mistakes I've made. I worry that my wants are selfish, that I don't have enough ambition, that I'm not loving enough, and will never find a love of my own. I dream restless dreams and wake up tired and glum. My thoughts are a terrible, weighty burden and quite frankly, I've grown sick of them. So how to turn on, tune in and drop out?  Take a page from a Zen master (not me)- and feel the Ohm.

Rule #1- There are no rules     
(but if you insist)

1. Be still- "We cannot see our reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see." Being still is so hard... and so worth it. We constantly feel that we have to move at the speed the world is moving. We don't - if you stop and sit, the world will keep spinning- and believe it or not, you won't fly off. 


2. It's okay to doubt- "Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening." It's okay to question- the world and yourself. Just don't disappoint yourself by insisting on an answer. 


3. Know what you're looking for- "Only the crystal-clear question yields a transparent answer." If your thoughts are cloudy, your life will be messy. Don't confuse the issue- I'm lonely doesn't mean you're worthless- it means you're lonely. Ask the real question and again- don't look for the world to answer.  That's your job. 


4. You have the privilege (not right- note) of  feeling bad- "Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, but never withdraw yourself from them." Don't fake the funk. If you feel bad, feel bad. And don't let people cheer you up if you're not ready. Don't be a secret martyr. Get it out in the open.  Then get over it- because, conversely-  you have the privilege of feeling good. (And let's face it- generally, that feels  a lot better.) 


5. You're not in charge- and that's a good thing!  -"If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are."  If you figure out your life's path in an instantaneous flash of explication (look it up) that's great. If you don't,  the planet will not explode. You'll just keep going until you do- or until you realize that sometimes it's simply enough to be on the path, never mind where the end of said path is. 


In those moments when you want to scream, to cry or to die- you have to realize that the maelstrom is not all there is. That life can be a burden, but that you can put it down sometimes and take a breath. That sometimes all there is to life is that one breath, and the next and the next. You can do it- you can breath, and walk, putting one foot in front of the other, putting all distracting thoughts aside for one moment, and in that moment lies eternity. Don't think----breath... and live. 

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.
 the Buddha

Presto Chango, Now You See Me, Now You Don't or DIY: Unmasking the Superhero Within

I occurred to me recently that it's not easy being green... or just being me.  Especially when I don't always know what being me means. I play so many roles- and I do mean play, because none of them really feel like they're me. They're easy masks to slip on- even when I don't want to...maybe especially when I don't want to. It's gotten to the point that I can't tell what my honest response to a situation is.  My mommy role is easy to play- I learned from the best after all! (Hi, Mom!)  It's easy to give advice, clean up after people, and when my knees are feeling stiff, it's easy to be cross with eager beavers and whippersnappers. (Don't know what those are? Then maybe I really am just that old. "Sigh")
It's easy to be a flirt, especially when I just don't care how someone will respond. (There's a lesson to be learned in that somewhere, I know.)   It's easy to be the nice friend who doesn't mind being the butt of a joke. (Wouldn't want to let the lion out of the closet and scare anyone, would we? Would we?) It's easy to be  the professional and hide behind a desk, a laptop or a cup of coffee.

It's easy to be separate- to observe through the eyes of the mask.  That's why superheroes wear them after all. It's easier to play a well defined role than to have to make decisions and react on our own or be responsible for the decisions we refuse to make.  But I'm tired of masks slipping across my face without my permission. (Sounds creepy, doesn't it?) Perhaps, the only role I'm truly fit to play is my real one- the one that is scared, and unsure, but deep inside, ambitious and dreaming. I need to know that my thoughts are my own, and aren't filtered through the eyes of whatever mask I'm wearing at that moment. I need to know that my principles, my philosophies and most deeply held beliefs aren't interchangeable-fluid maybe, but not will o' the wisps flying from here to there. I need to know that I am not a stereotype, not a silhouette, not 2-D- but a fully fleshed out, often troubled, often wicked, but sometimes strong heroine all on my own (sorta like Mae West, but, you know, not.) 
[Don't know who Mae West is? Sigh. Don't worry about it.]

I don't have to play a role-but I have often chosen to do so, simply to make life easier and less stressful, for others as well as myself. But life really isn't about easier, is it? So let's go for the gusto, and accept the challenge. Let's be who we really are- in each moment, and thought. 
I am  not a leopard- I can change my spots, spread my wings, and spread my message.  I am not a profile, a stat or a number. I can change my programming, change my voice,change my life and be my own hero with a mask or without. And even if my responses to what life throws at me next are just what those closest to me "knew" they  were going to be, at least I'll know that  this time they were authentic.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.  ~Kurt Vonnegut

This is me in my dreams-maybe soon in reality too. Like it? 
Make your own superhero at www.heromachine.com and join the League!

Sistine by ~psalm16 on deviantART

I Know This Much Is True...or DIY: B****Slap-"The Truth! You Can't Handle The Truth!"

I know that what I believe and what is true are not always one and the same. Sometimes, not often, the two converge and they might even travel alongside one another for a while, but eventually they always diverge, because what is true and what is real always depends upon perspective and my perspective is definitely skewed. Some issues ( and people) you can't take at face value or you can't face at all because they are too personal, too intimate, too connected to the way we see ourselves and the way we want to see the world. The world is what it is, but some of us choose to believe that, like Schrodinger's cat - if I don't open the box , nothing will change. (Poor kitty- what kind of guy thinks of experiments where you trap cats and radioactive materials, together, in a box!?) 


What I mean is- that while I know that reality is flexible, and I believe that thoughts create action, reality does have rules which cannot be refuted. There is an underlying structure or measure against which human ideas, and  will must be tested.  It's kinda like a beach head- if your belief were a stranded whale. If you're strong enough, maybe you can get over it, but most of us just drown in the surf of ordinary life. You can believe in magic, and still know that you will never see it because in this reality it doesn't exist. But that's not so important as long as you believe that it exists somewhere. That can be your truth, even if it's never acknowledged or proven by anyone or anywhere else.  You can believe that you are ordinary if that's your truth- even though you are not. By virtue of being human, we are extraordinary...but, you can downplay it if you want.  You can believe that this universe, this life, this experience, is all there is -if you want.  And when you depart- life, the universe and everything will keep right on truckin'. (And boy, won't you be surprised when you take your next trip around the wheel!)  


The rules are there to give reality structure- but they're also there to be overcome.


What I believe is not pure or right- not the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth-it's just what I believe.  And it can change- from year to year, day to day and minute to minute. I can eke out evidence for the craziest of theories from the most miniscule of clues and be depressed, happy and philosophical more times in a day than some people experience in a month. I can believe that someone dislikes me easier than I can that they they respect or admire me. I can believe that someone is judging me, when the truth is I am my own harshest critic- (but won't deny, I'm judgmental of other people too. I'm such a terrible person!)
[note: see what I mean?]

I can believe many things and most of them will have barely, a glancing resemblance to the truth. The truth is, Truth Is- that's all. But, if you want a clearer (and just as probably wrong) definition, then here it is:

These Things I Believe-

 that truth is, like reality, 

indefinable, 

deeper than we think, 

more fluid than we know 

and ultimately, 

determined by each of us alone. 

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

Oscar Wilde *  **

*Ain't that the gospel truth!

**The truth is, my friend P wanted me to name a blog B****slap- 
     she supplied the title, I supplied the text. 
    This one's for you, P!

Random Numbers

I have never understood what goes on in some people's heads. Or my head. Really, anyone's head.  I know that I am a (supposedly) conscious, rational being, but there are days when I don't really understand how I remember to walk, let alone feed or clothe myself.  At some points there are so many thoughts rushing through my head that I feel physically dizzy, and sometimes the nothingness in my head rivals that of the nearest black hole. Think I'm being reflective when I nod during our conversation? Yeaaah, no. Probably thinking absolutely nothing...maybe with a soundtrack- Come Sail Away or Up, Up and Away-( I love the Fourth Dimension).  At any rate, for those of you who already believe that I write airy nothings here, you're (occasionally) right. (But don't get cocky.) 


Because when I sit down to write, I usually have no idea what's going to come out on the keyboard. When I make major life decisions I sometimes have no clue about which direction to take, unless off a cliff is a direction. There's a scientific theory that states that humans are rational  only in that we rationalize decisions. We don't really make decisions in the first place. We choose emotionally - and then we create reasons  why we chose as we did. It all has to do with the ego-we're more likely to do things or take  actions that make us feel good- for good or ill. Why do we eat cake when we know its bad for us? Because it tastes good. And we shouldn't let it go to waste. (No, really. You should never let cake go to waste.) Why do we like people we know aren't good for us? Because we like challenge.  Why do we buy things we don't need? Because it makes us feel special. Every choice we make has to do with satiating the ego. Screw the rest of the world-we want to feel good, and if we can justify our behavior by saying we're doing the right thing, that makes it even sweeter. (Sorry, cake on the brain.) 


People are, by and large, still controlled by the little reptile brain that our forefathers had, wrapped in layers of rationalization, and societal conditioning. We believe things because that's what we've been taught, (but which, usually,  we haven't actually observed). We act in certain ways because we believe that they will help us fit in (with all the other lemmings).  We work so that we can have - (not because working is good or because working together is valuable.) At heart, many of us are still that caveman who wants the biggest piece of meat, the warmest part of the fire, and the biggest animal skin all for himself.  


That was all to explain why sometimes, (most of the time) I have no idea what is going on in my head or yours or anyone else's I meet. I know that I have deep thoughts (ahem) , but sometimes they're so deep they take a while before they surface and I notice them.  It can be days before I realize I'm angry with what someone said or how they treated me.  I think I rightly fear looking too deeply into my own heart, for fear of seeing the blazing hell pit it must really be. Or how soft and wounded it is.  In many ways, I think I don't want to accept how I really feel because then I have to be responsible for my actions, spurred on by those feelings. I want to have plausible deniability in the court of my own thoughts.  I want to believe that my decisions are not always my own, that my will is the equivalent of a pair of dice rolling out random numbers. Roll a six- eat the cake, sleep with that guy, quit your job. I rolled the dice, but fate gave me the snake eyes.


 But if I did that... believed that- I would have to believe that I am a puppet of the universe. And while I believe the universe finds me vastly amusing- I don't believe it takes that personal a hand in my mistakes. I do perfectly well in that area  all on my own. So at some point, I have to take a stand, and then take responsibility for the thoughts which lead to the actions which direct my life. No more random numbers, but a distinct pattern of choices will lead me to glory or to my demise. I cannot afford to not know myself, to not judge myself-not if I want to live a life that isn't meaningless. So into the rabbit hole I go- to find my center, myself. If you see me looking off into the distance, don't be too concerned. I may be lost in my thoughts, but I'll find my way back eventually. 

“We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears. Intuition tells us that that is true also of our fellows and of the higher animals. We all try to escape pain and death, while we seek what is pleasant. We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organised that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race. Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual's instinct for self preservation. At the same time, as social beings, we are moved in the relations with our fellow beings by such feelings as sympathy, pride, hate, need for power, pity, and so on. All these primary impulses, not easi ly described in words, are the springs of man's actions. All such action would cease if those powerful elemental forces were to cease stirring within us. Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much aloke in them and in us. The most evident difference springs from the important part which is played in man by a relatively strong power of imagination and by the capacity to think, aided as it is by language and other symbolical devices. Thought is the organising factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions. In that way imagination and intelligence enter into our existence in the part of servants of the primary instincts. But their intervention makes our acts to serve ever less merely the immediate claims of our instincts.”

Albert Einstein  Whew! - long quote. That could really have replaced this post couldn't it? Hmmm....something to think on!

Red Thread of Fate or Tangled Up in You

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,

regardless of time, place, or circumstance.

The thread may stretch or tangle,

but it will never break."

Wikipedia

There is a belief here in Japan that everyone is tied to someone else, someone important in their lives, by a red thread of fate. A bond that exists whether you are aware of it or not, and will eventually draw the two of you together- for good or bad. Tied to your smallest finger, this blood red cord connects you, ties you intimately with someone else and while it can be broken, it is dangerous to do so. Defying fate is a treacherous business. I don’t know if I am tied to anyone- I don’t know if the hand of Fate is upon me, but lately I have begun to feel that I am desperately in need of some direction.  From on high? Perhaps. From friends and family-thanks, but no. You’d have me spinning like a needle in a compass. From my own thoughts-? Maybe- if I could ever get them straight. At times like this I feel the need of something to tell me where to go, what to do. Something that would pull me toward my goal, like two magnets, pulled together through the power of attraction. But there is no one who can make my choices for me but me. And indecision is still a decision in and of itself. At some point, whether sooner or later, I will be leaving this place, this time. And I don’t know what I will be going to. I’ve traveled halfway across the world, cut all sorts of ties, cast myself loose....and I’ve experienced great things. Times of great beauty and terrible loneliness, and the awakening of my own inner strength. I needed to live this adventure- to be taken outside myself, to live a life bigger than what I was before. But now...where do I go? It’s one thing to travel away from something- to leave a too small chrysalis behind and to move forward. But what’s the next step? Where do I go from here? Who am I still becoming? A needle needs a lodestone to find a direction. A sailor needs a star to find the shore. I know the future is out there waiting, that something new, someone new is waiting too. I choose to believe that my red thread is real, connected to someone in a new place, waiting for me to be ready for a new life. It’s a tangled skein and I don’t know how long it will take to unravel, but when I do, I’ll be in the place I belong, living the joyful life I have dreamed of endlessly. I believe that. I believe that. So I won’t lose faith. Just, if I forget for a little while...if I get stuck and don’t know where to turn next,  I ask the universe, my family, my friends...don’t give up on me. We too, are connected by that precious thread.   I know. Just, every now and then...give me a little tug. I might be lost, but I’ll still be there, waiting to make my way to you. 

“Accept the things to which fate binds you,

and love the people with whom fate brings you together, 

[and] do so with all your heart.”

Marcus Aurelius quotes

Relationship 101-They're Just Not That Into You or DIY: Relationship Reality Check

“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they're trying to find someone who's going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” Anthony Robbins



Why is it that when we see a guy approaching we either assume he’s interested or worse, assume he’s not? Why isn’t he neutral? Why do we assume anything about the person approaching us at all? (And yes, I know I’m using the royal we, and yes, I’m speaking from a girl’s perspective- but this means you [guys] too!)

Ahem. Because. We’ve been trained to believe that how others respond to us is important. Men should be admiring, women should be bitchy- (which secretly means they’re admiring) if you’re a girl. If you’re a guy- other guys should want to be you or at least be your friend, and women should be throwing themselves at you. If we aren’t admired, it means we’re not worthy. If others don’t care, it’s because we’re not worth caring about. Has there ever been a truly neutral relationship between the sexes? Isn’t every girl-guy friendship just a tacit battle in the war between the sexes? If a guy and a girl are friends, the conventional wisdom says, it’s only because one of them is trying to get into the other’s pants. And how about the rest of your friends? Your BFFs- your “boyz” (for guys), your b*****s in friend’s clothing? Think they’re not in it to get something? While every relationship has its give and take, how many of us are in relationships where we give more than we take, but are afraid to leave because “they’ll talk about you”, or “you’ll be alone?” Relationships define us as human beings- who we know, who knows us- who acknowledges us and by their acknowledgement, gives us status. Relationships are about connections, and power...or are they?

I don’t know how many relationships I’ve sabotaged for myself, by second guessing myself. I didn’t know what I was offering to someone else- I didn’t know that in myself I was valuable, and that people might just want to know me- not take something from me. I thought they wanted what I could do, what I knew, who I knew- but it honestly never occurred to me that some of them just wanted to know me. I don’t even know me. I have not yet begun to plumb the dark depths of my psyche (nice use of alliteration, huh?) and couldn’t understand why anyone else would want to take the journey.

But there is a light in all of us that draws us to each other. We learn lessons from everyone whose life we touch. And sometimes we just want to be close to one another’s warmth when we feel most alone. And sometimes we just want to be close to one another’s light, because "joy shared is multiplied."  (Spider Robinson)

It can be hard to find someone you want to be close to, when you can’t understand why they would want to be close to you. But like all relationships, sometimes it just takes a leap of faith. It takes believing that another soul can see your light and want to come close to it, and admire it, without taking anything away. Now, don’t get me wrong- there are light suckers out there (suckers-“smirk”) who will come close and try to drain your light and joy away. The only way to get rid of these parasites is to burn them away with more light than they can handle. Don’t let Debbie Downer make you sad- be happier than you were before. Find something that makes you happy on a bad day, and do it until you feel better...then keep doing it. While bitter people are attracted to happiness like moths to a flame, they burn just like moths and they won’t, can’t trouble you for long, if you keep being happy. Recognize the poisonous people and relationships in your life- recognize that your own assumptions may be keeping you in those relationships and away from happy ones. Recognize that the relationships in your life should only define you if they are making you better, healthier and happier.

Give the stranger on the street a fair shot- give the people in your life a hard look, and give yourself a little credit. There’s more to you, and them, than meets the eye.

To Everything There is a Season, Turn, Turn, Turn or DIY: Getting Off The Wheel...Of...Fortune!

"I know I am deathless. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before. I laugh at what you call dissolution, and I know the amplitude of time." —Walt Whitman

Someone told me recently that they thought I must be an old soul - which flabbergasted me, since I’ve always felt like a new soul, albeit one that is sometimes incredibly tired. If the purpose of life is to live, and to learn, to grow in wisdom in each phase of our lives, then I am forced to believe that this is my first turn on the wheel, since life continues to awe and terrify me with its constant changes. I constantly feel like I don’t understand what is going on, and I can only hope, pitifully, that life will be kind to me as I learn and stumble on the way. And for the most part, it has. I have learned lessons that have broken other people’s hearts, but I’m still here. I have learned both how insignificant I can feel, and how powerful my connections with other people are. I am amazed that people from my past remember me completely differently than I remember being, and that people in my present see me more positively than I can understand. I know I’m f*cked up- so it constantly amazes me that people want to know me. (And yes, I know that ‘s a self esteem problem. Come on, anyone who writes to the world about their private life knows they have a self esteem problem. My only consolation is that mine seems to at least be amusing you folks. And, this is cheaper than therapy.)

Some days I believe in reincarnation- if only because I cannot believe that this is my only chance to make a big impression on the cosmos – and I’m well aware of how perilously close I come most of the time to blowing it. I want to live an inspiring life, if only to me, but I sometimes get the impression that in this life at least, my job is more to observe than to participate, as it were. If you believe in reincarnation, or past lives or anything like that- you’ll know that there are lots of theories about our roles in life. Each experience is meant to teach us something new about ourselves. For women, we play the usual three roles- maiden, mother, crone, or sometimes warrior, matron, wise woman. Or sometimes, lover, martyr, goddess. ( Sorry guys, I don’t know anything for you! Future research perhaps? Ehh, never mind. Let’s get back to me.)

I sometimes feel I’m in my martyr stage- feeling sacrificed on an altar –to what I don’t know. I can’t help but feel estranged from the rest of humanity, who is constantly bustling, boiling over with emotion, falling in love, falling out of love, hating, being passionate- and I just don’t understand you. I watch, and observe, and sometimes offer “wisdom”- but I never quite feel that I feel what the rest of the world feels. (Too many feels? I don’t know- can you say it any better?)

What I want is to evolve into my lover stage, or goddess stage- to feel passionate about something, or someone, to feel powerful, to feel connected. It is a powerful thing to love others, but let’s face it- it is also a powerful feeling to have others reach out to you, to acknowledge you, to want you, to love you. (Anyone a Grey’s Anatomy fan- “Choose me, love me!” Oh, well. ) It’s a feeling I think a lot of women (people) have- and if there is anything useful I’ve learned from this particular phase of my existence , it is that wanting to be loved is universal. Being loved is not. And people are willing to do an awful lot of stupid, and dangerous things to be loved. After watching people for so long, I think that I may finally be learning the lessons I was meant to. It may be that I’m almost ready to be loved the way I want to, and deserve to be, having watched other’s mistakes and having made my own. Maybe I can finally stop being a martyr, stop feeling attacked, and insignificant and begin to feel loved. Instead of waiting for the wheel to turn, maybe I’ll spin it myself. Maybe I’ll get off the wheel entirely...and go for a journey all on my own. New soul or old, as far as I know, I’ve only got this one chance. I think it’s time I make the most of it. If you want to feel passion, you have to be passionate. If you want to feel loved, you have to love. If you want to be exciting, you have to be excited. I can see this. Now I just have to apply it. To everything, there is a season. It’s time for me to step into mine. Maybe I’ll see you next lifetime-wiser, a lot more loving, and ready for the next phase.

"The soul is born old but grows young- that is the comedy of life."

Oscar Wilde

 

 

God Is An Iron

If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, 

and a person who commits a felony is a felon,

 then God is an iron." Spider Robinson

Throughout my time writing this blog, I have been in turn, depressed, excited, lovelorn, sarcastic, punny and witty (at least in my own estimation. You can keep your estimations to yourselves.) It is supremely ironic that this journal has turned me into what I once most wanted to be and most feared- a writer. A writer who must write- because, damn your eyes, you people keep reading! And... you know.... it feels kinda cool to have an audience. For most of my life I have felt like I didn't have a voice- or at least not one that anyone wanted to listen to. In fact, I often literally, (though subconsciously), lowered my voice in conversation to the point that people usually told me to speak up-which because I'm shy and stubborn, didn't work.  It must be confessed though,  that sometimes,  I  didn't really have anything to say. Or at least what I wanted to say wasn't something I could say in words.  I still have dreams where my mouth is full of tuna fish, or oatmeal, whatever the dream demands- and yes, I know the symbolism there, folks. I wanted to say something important. I wanted to say something that would force the world to pay attention to me, even though I didn't know if I was ready for that attention. I was young and stupid, and while I am now old (sometimes still stupid, but ok with it), in age I have discovered that, there is indeed, wisdom or at least irony. 

The things I have to say in this blog have already been said by countless others more worldly and wise than me- Khalil Gibran, Gandhi, Matt Groening- (Hey, I think the Simpsons is full of timeless wisdom! If you don't, get your own blog!),　but they have never been said by me. And if I have learned one thing in writing, it is that my own understanding and experience is ...my own.  While you can learn at the feet of the masters, at some point you have to get on your own feet and really experience life. When I couldn't speak, it was because I didn't have anything to say. Now that I can, I have a whole (virtual) world to speak to. I'm living a new life here abroad, but more important is that I'm living life- mentally, physically, and spiritually. In a lot of ways, I was oblivious before. I drifted through life, through relationships, through the years,  and I was never happy about where I was going, but I never chose my own direction.  There is a saying that even a bad decision is better than indecision. At some point in my life, I decided to choose something different- and I can't tell if it will be for better or worse, but at least I've found a direction, a North Star if you will, to follow.   It's not that I'm now happy every day, but....it comes more often than it used to. I speak more forcefully than I used to, assured that I have something worth saying. I think just as deeply as I used to, but I also act more spontaneously. I am not afraid (or at least, less afraid) to give myself over to things I can't control. I am less afraid to love, knowing that even if that love is not returned, it does not mean my efforts were wasted. I have learned to be just so- a steady point in a gyrating world, without losing my direction or focus. I have learned to write just so- a single voice in a babble, speaking a truth, my truth, if not The Truth. I have learned that irony can be a good substitute for wisdom- which I sometimes pretend to have, but which I am, just like you, still acquiring. One thing about  both irony and wisdom, is that they require a sense of humor. But that,  like love; like time, we have in abundance. I hope I will continue to grow in all those things, and that you'll continue to come along with me on the ride. So, thanks for putting up with the snark and giving me a place to write and someone to write to. Oh, and a brief shout out to God, who gave me my troubled years just to see what I'd get up to. God's got a great sense of humor and the joke's been good so far.   Can't wait to see the punchline to my life!

Irony is wasted on the stupid*

*No, that doesn't mean you. You're brilliant- I mean, you read this blog right? ;>