Embrace The Suck

"I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore ... I hear it in the deep heart's core." William Butler Yeats Dictionary.com defines refuge as " anything to which one has recourse for aid, relief, or escape ," and lists asylum, retreat, sanctuary, haven, and stronghold as synonyms. Other bloggers I follow have recently written about places of refuge - a porch, a garden, a woodsy path. Firebryd calls the porch she's been visiting " this sanctuary for my soul ." Sorrow says of her labyrinth, it is " my grounding point. My deep connection with self and with my faith in something greater than myself ." And Swallowtail wrote of wildflowers, " how tenacious their grip in the dry soil, how these beautiful beings support me ." All topped off by a photo on The Bedlam Farm Journal of a wooded path somewhere in eastern New York state. I think I am missing such a place in my life. I look around for a place to go to unwind and

"If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive." Eleonora Duse I was looking out the window this morning at my upside down, Topsy Turvy tomato plant. It's got lots of leaves on it but only a couple yellow flowers, which is about as many fruits as I ever get from my gardening efforts. I watched as jays and a woodpecker shared seed at the bird feeder. The woodpecker perched gently on the feeder, picking through the seed with his long pointy beak. Most of the seed flew over his shoulder and landed in the chair where 2 jays sat waiting for the goods to fall right at their feet! Then I noticed the Brown Thrasher at the bird bath. Every year what looks to be the same bird comes to our back yard to bathe - usually once a day. I haven't seen him lately and I have had choice words for the neighbor's

"Memories, light the corners of my mind Misty watercolor memories of the way we were ...." Barbra Streisand Preamble: Everyone in this family has heard stories about "Genie," the girl my father almost married. Yet none have ever met her until this week. On Tuesday we shared a reunion that was close to 36 years in coming. In 1973 my Dad went to Tennessee to bring my sister back from her first year at college. While there (with my mother's knowledge) he and Genie had dinner together. Other than that they had not been together since attending the Rose Bowl game in 1939. After he graduated from the Naval Academy Dad's ship, the U.S.S. Richmond, was sent to Honolulu for overhaul and that is where he met and married my mom. When he wrote Genie to tell her that he'd found another girl, she sent his Naval Academy miniature back so quickly he's thought all these years that she was relieved to be set free. Mom wore that ring for several years before "acci

“Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today." Seneca A lot has happened around here since I last posted about cleaning and fussing. To say I'm a whiner would be an understatement. To say if I would just keep things picked up on a regular basis I wouldn't have to go through the trauma of a major pickup would be a "Duh!" I'm reminded of a program Robert and I used to watch when he was about 2 - The Big Comfy Couch. If Loonette the Clown didn't make a mess in the course of the show then her doll Molly did. At the end of every show the camera would pan out as Loonette viewed her surroundings. She always had the same reaction. "Who made this big mess?" she'd ask, knowing that it had to have been her. Then she call for a "10 second tidy" where everything got stuffed under, into or behind the couch. I think if I had more 10 second tidies, I wouldn't be faced with 24 hour cleaning marath

"My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you? Erma Bombeck A little before 9 am ... I'm up and just folded the clothes I washed last night. Got that chore done ahead of time. I'm on a roll. Well, sort of. A little before 10 am ... I feel angry. Or maybe I feel scared. So far today I've broken lamp and the dog stepped on Sweetie's sore toe. He growled. The dog ran for cover. I glared. If it had been the other way around and my sore toe had been trampled, I would have been on the floor blubbering. Sweetie, I think, would have tried to soothe me. I doubt he would have glared. Being in this cleaning/angry/scared/frustrated, confused state is not my best side. I'm on a cleaning frenzy. I've vacuumed floor boards and headed for the front door. I don't remember when the threshold to our home was last cleaned. Obviously not recently. We live in Flor

"Speaking comes by nature, silence by understanding." German Proverb Someone I love has been having a rough time lately. Its so hard to know what to do or say and even harder to know when the time is right for either. On top of that I've been having some really weird dreams. Such as having to sweep up piles and piles and piles of dirty kitty litter; and everyone else in the dream but me seeming just a bit daft. I don't really understand the dream, but it became clear to me after a bruhaha with my Dad that anger might be the connecting thread. It's hard to guess why a teenager who lives like a princess would be so angry. Then I started looking at my own life instead of pointing fingers at someone else's. I remembered the girl I was at 14 and remembered how angry I felt. Then I remembered being 15 and being tied to my bed and locked in a psychiatric ward. Then I remembered more, and more and more. I wrote it all down in the form of a letter. Turns out I n

"Chaos is something that interrupts the flow of life, that breaks into the expected rhythm, that forces us to stop and deal with its difficulty. The seriousness of the chaos depends on the gravity of the threat to what we value in our life. " Patricia Livingston I feel like I've been living in an emotional cyclone for the past few weeks. Maybe it would be more descriptive to say that I'm standing in the center of the storm, and many of the people I love are in the spin cycle. Since they are at their wits' ends this co-dependent caregiver is too. As I listen to tales of lost love, too much stress, and a teen gone berserk I long for the days when a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie, a glass of milk or a back rub could miraculously make things all better. Where is a good fairy godmother when I need one? All this chaos got me thinking about one of my favorite books. This Blessed Mess . I think I've written about it before. The author's premise is that creati

"I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright." Henry David Thoreau My writing group is going in a different direction over the summer. Instead of writing something new every two weeks, we're going to work on editing what we've already written. It has also been suggested that we spend time outside of our normal surroundings to gather new ideas and inspiration, to take notes and pictures, to let our creativity soak up what is going on around us so that when we come back together in the fall we'll be excited about writing again. Like a little kid being given too many choices, I'm not sure if that is expecting too much of my muse. Does she work better in a controlled environment (maybe not since I still have not produced April's essay on "Home") or one in which she gets to let her hair down and play? I guess we'll see at the end of the summer just how much oversight I need

"Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand." Sue Patton Thoele Words have power to heal or hurt. I'm learning the act of listening is also powerful. I must try it more often. Merry ME

"I feel like I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe." Author Unknown I feel a little bit like Winnie the Pooh when he stuck his paw in the honey tree and disrupted the bees inside. Although my last post did cause my Sweetie to LOL, in spite of himself, it also pushed a few sensitive buttons. Son of Sweetie let me know that their need to pay close attention to detail is not something they do because the are "clean freaks." Instead he told me earnestly "it's that we have ticks that make us do certain things." Ahhh, I said to myself. I know about ticks! I have a tick or two myself. Like the one that causes me to eat Kettle Cooked potato chips with wanton abandon. I guess we all have ticks. Which sounds really gross because I can't help thinking of tick as in a blood sucking insect instead of a quirk of compulsive nature. Let's face it ticks are just nasty. From here on out I'm going to refer to Sweetie's desire to have things just s

“I don't think he's anal retentive, per se. But he is very, very detail-oriented and very, very bright.” Gio Valiante The man I love, aka Sweetie, has been described by people who have known him longer than I as being anal retentive - think the TV character Monk. Although I agree he does like to have the pens on his desk neatly aligned, and his fork equally centered on his napkin, does that make him anal? I'm not sure. According to Google (what did I ever do before Google?) Freud first introduced the term anal retentive in 1908. Apparently the need to pay close attention to detail and being neat almost to a fault goes back to one's childhood. It has something to do with toilet training and the stinky delights your body can create. Personally I do not see the connection between feces and hanging all your lightly starched shirts in a straight and orderly fashion, with exactly 1.75 inches between hangars. That said, Freud opined that "people with 'anal characte

"To live in hearts we leave behind, Is not to die." Thomas Campbell [Note: I didn't get this post written last night because I was completely stuffed and could barely think. I tried but ended up falling into bed with in a Scampi-induced stupor. me ] 68 years ago a man and a woman were married in Honolulu, HA. He was a Naval officer, she was an island cutie with good military lineage. They were young and naive but like most couples who get married nothing else mattered because they were in love. If you look at the pictures of the bride in her champagne colored satin gown holding a bouquet of sweet smelling pikake blooms you can see the promise of dreams come true sparkling in her brown eyes. The groom all decked out in his starched dress uniform, stood tall and straight beside his regal beauty. Holding the crook of her elbow, he supported his bride in a way that eerily foretold the future. New duty stations mean new homes. The couple lived together and raised five daughter

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." Robert McCloskey Sometimes I fantasize about writing a book. When I am in that land of make believe I'm assured that my book will be a bestseller and I will end upon the Oprah show and we'll sit next to each other in those big comfy chairs and laugh about life and Oprah will reach over and touch my hand and say, "that was an 'ah ha' moment for me." In this fantasy I won't be stumped for words or crying. My hair will look great and the camera will show me at my ideal weight. I don't really believe I've got the "write" stuff to produce a book. I doubt my life is the fertile ground from which books blossom, certainly not an Oprah class book. But I've learned in my writing group that I'm far better at writing what I know than fiction. I think I have decided to call my [fantasized] book Mary, I