tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-159017772024-03-07T15:08:47.329-04:00Life on earth and other accidentsI am so listening. I am. I'm memorizing every word you speak and at the same time, I'm noticing that your socks are different colors and there is egg yolk on your chin. And this whole conversation you don't think I'm listening to will appear in my next blog. So you might as well forgive me now.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.comBlogger315125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-87834529925491981462011-04-04T10:10:00.007-03:002011-04-04T10:50:20.421-03:00DEPARTURE<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL-fkd4t5B2cFR1HMpEhAyGpBgwHYgK_6NGV79M2kt7XHQoENrLsdbHkWL2HUr9_QYsLyr0kBcRNIRm6_QfADVHN7PC-l9-cX4cT2ymMS6NhdqEDdVKjg1av09vf36muqss75W/s1600/Bubble.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL-fkd4t5B2cFR1HMpEhAyGpBgwHYgK_6NGV79M2kt7XHQoENrLsdbHkWL2HUr9_QYsLyr0kBcRNIRm6_QfADVHN7PC-l9-cX4cT2ymMS6NhdqEDdVKjg1av09vf36muqss75W/s320/Bubble.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591721853352974050" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go." </span> <span style="font-style: italic;">-Tennessee Williams</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />My doors remained open years after you left. Friends and lovers. In the doorway, a logjam of stories and memories of stories.<br /><br />The grandmothers in calico weeping for joy, a hermit uncle who died in the woods, a young boy fleeing Cuba, how mean the streets of St. Louis were to a country boy.<br /><br />“What color are your socks? What's in your fridge?" I was fracturing into insanity. Your writing exercises glued me back together. You stayed long after most would have left.<br /><br />“You’re my best friend, didn’t you <span style="font-style: italic;">know </span>that?” I can still see your expression, a little hurt, stunned that I didn't know. I thought then it would always be so...<br /><br />There, in one corner, your heart beats underneath my hand, sunlight spills over the bed. It's all I ever needed.<br /><br />There you are, marveling that I came “all the way from somewhere to nowhere” to see you. As if I could have stayed away.<br /><br />Flotsam and jetsam. The spillover keeps me here, awash in love that no longer has a place to be.<br /><br />I have tried everything.<br /><br />I have tried to blast you out…called up tornadoes, brewed hurricanes but it only stirs up more. Fragments fly out of corners and off window ledges....<br /><br />Look. You are all gone now.<br /><br />I will give each one of you, each story and each memory of a story its own bubble. Each bubble will float away, burst open and spill out glittering in the sun, dissolve in air. This is how I picture it.<br /><br />Letting you go.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-45989644034932864042010-12-21T11:27:00.003-04:002010-12-21T11:43:07.651-04:00Whistling past Christmas Past<span style="font-family:Arial;">Maybe your family will never be fit-for-prime-time or perhaps you've lost someone dear. It could be you've been laid off or diagnosed with an illness. You might be struggling with poverty, addiction or painful memories of Christmas past. For those of you who find Christmas difficult, I'm reposting an entry from several years back. I know how you feel.<br />Don't let the general merriment - and your lack of it - get you down. I'm thinking of you.<br />******<br /><br />Let’s say her name is Adrianna. She’s wearing beige jeans and a thick patterned sweater, underneath a jacket. A natural blonde and even taller than me, she’s formidable and impressive looking, in a Celtic sort of way. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I’m sitting on the wooden bench outside the college’s metal shop. I’m shivering in the cold and smoking when she wanders over, hesitates a minute, and then sits at the other end of the bench and lights her own cigarette. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“Well,” she says, exhaling smoke and giving me a sideways glance, “I suppose I’d better be happy, seeing this is a happiness zone.” Her tone is ironic. Someone has stuck a neat, typed label to that effect on the back of the bench, and she tells me one of her friends pointed it out to her when she sat there last week. “I had the flu and I was burnt right out, and I hate this time of year. Right. The happiness zone.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">She’s a student, of course. I’ve seen her around. We’ve smiled or talked once or twice. But we don’t know each other. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I say that everybody’s burnt out right now. Tired, trying to finish studio work and study for exams. But it’s the remark about the season that grabs my attention. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">There’s a comfortable silence for a minute and I tell her, “I hate this time of year too. And what’s worse is, one year someone gave me a Grinch head on a stick, and I felt like, fuck you, go ahead, knock yourself out, just stop making it mandatory for me to join you.” She nods agreement. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">We smoke our cigarettes for a minute and then I turn to look at her. “I’m not asking what or anything, but is there a reason – I mean is there an emotional trigger or a memory that makes this a bad time for you?” There is for me, and I’m curious whether it’s true of most people who find Christmas a struggle.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">She thinks for a minute. “I grew up poor,” she says, “I mean, people around here mostly can’t relate to what I mean when I say ‘poor.’ A lot of the winter, we ate potatoes and salt fish and game because there was nothing else.” She hunches forward.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“My mom is fifty…she’s an artist and she just went back to school and she’s trying to raise two teenage boys and she hasn’t got any money. I used to be better at it when I was young. You know, I pretended better.” She mimes opening a present. “</span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">Oh! Slippers! Thank you! </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">I’d be able to put on the surprised, pleased look as if it was the </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">big </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">present. As I got older I didn’t do so well.” She sighs. “I invested a lot of energy in being negative about Christmas. I’m trying to stop.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“Yeah. Me too.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“But you know,” she continues, “a couple years ago was a good Christmas. When I went home for the holidays, my mom said, ‘I have to make a decision. I have $200.00. Should I put oil in the tank, or spend it on food for Christmas?’ I thought about it and I told her, ‘buy food.’ So she put $50.00 into the tank and we bought a bottle of Rum and cooking supplies. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">We sat in the kitchen all day, drinking rum and cooking, with the oven going, heating the house up.” She’s smiling now. “And the next morning – my mom’s room is in the attic, so there’s no insulation. It’s so cold I’m sleeping with a hat on – we wake up and she says, ‘Are you okay, dear?’ and I say, ‘I’m just fine,’ and I can see my breath as I answer her. But it was good, laying there under the covers, talking. And there was no drunk there to spoil it. My brothers got ski-jackets – the really good kind - and all day, they ran around saying they couldn’t notice the cold because the jackets were so warm. It was a </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">good </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">Christmas.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">She tells me her mom is studying to be a therapist. I’m not familiar with the type of therapy, so she explains that it has to do with integrating the different personalities we have. “They use affirmations,” she tells me. “I’m not altogether </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">on side </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">about my mother’s therapy.” Wry grin. “But sometimes I use them and maybe they help. How they do it is, I’d say, </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">I </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">am an intelligent woman. </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">She </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">is an intelligent woman. And then you look in the mirror and say, </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">You </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">are an intelligent woman.” I nod. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“I think most types of therapy help people, some of the time.” It’s vague and noncommittal, but as close as I can come to what I really think. She seems to understand me. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“So,” she says, with a big grin, as we get up to go inside, “</span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">I </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">am not a nasty, cynical Christmas hater. </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">She </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">is not a nasty, cynical Christmas hater. </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">You </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">are not a nasty cynical Christmas hater.” We both start to laugh.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“What’s your name?” </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“Adrianna.” She adds, pointedly, as if she’s a little insulted that I don’t know, “I’ve </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">been </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">here for several years.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">“Linda.” I reach to shake her hand and look in her eyes, “Yeah. But we’ve never really </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">met</span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">.” </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"> </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">I </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">am not a nasty, cynical Christmas hater, I think to myself as I head into the office grinning hugely. </span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">She </span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;">is not</span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">…</span></em>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-31858452611290013062010-10-14T09:22:00.014-03:002010-12-15T12:44:17.778-04:00What will you be doing when you're 80?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieL1Et4vl6if6BJxoL2c5pYqy7cLLi5PNqTHgXXdwdFXpXtXADLmR1DtPFuXfTXm5FGLZ_rtBGvLInb_zcqx8UEdKulsHcnHdhylwFM2HxcFEDdJJgh16QGDpUy6jx_ae3t1-W/s1600/Jim+3.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieL1Et4vl6if6BJxoL2c5pYqy7cLLi5PNqTHgXXdwdFXpXtXADLmR1DtPFuXfTXm5FGLZ_rtBGvLInb_zcqx8UEdKulsHcnHdhylwFM2HxcFEDdJJgh16QGDpUy6jx_ae3t1-W/s400/Jim+3.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527892039902077410" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"The degree of Civilization in a society can be judged by entering the prisons"<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">-Fyodor dostoyevsky, <span style="font-style: italic;">The House of the Dead</span><br /></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1MmVVKxAGz0t5WjYdJo1OkyLMZaOM3BGc7JgdB9zEaa4ceIRFCFUjX0wjhbD6cxOeVvC9cNUeh3Th8jEMbCYcwB27DP9JvkvHO2Hm-4PzlNlU9NTckXzl9ymkHa-FUCQlk1ag/s1600/Jim+2.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1MmVVKxAGz0t5WjYdJo1OkyLMZaOM3BGc7JgdB9zEaa4ceIRFCFUjX0wjhbD6cxOeVvC9cNUeh3Th8jEMbCYcwB27DP9JvkvHO2Hm-4PzlNlU9NTckXzl9ymkHa-FUCQlk1ag/s400/Jim+2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527880167071962450" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />As far as staying young goes, there is no surgical procedure, no vitamin, diet or exercise program that can beat passionate involvement doing something you love. Jim Chapman is heading for his 81st birthday. He's retired, which in Jim's case, means he only works 16 days sometimes.<br /><br />Jim works with and for prisoners and ex-prisoners (or as he calls the latter, "newly returned citizens). An introduction to a book he's writing compares the situation of a newly released person with that of an Untouchable in India. Finding housing and a job, for an ex-convict is not just daunting - it approaches impossibility.<br /><br />When someone has served their time and wants nothing more than to rejoin society and never see the inside of a prison again, they face employer policies, laws, rules, restrictions and societal attitudes that nearly guarantee that they have no access to shelter or work. Think of it: In the USA, as of January 2010, there were 1,404,053 people under the jurisdiction of state prison authorities. Most of these people serve their sentences and are released, so what does it mean (to them and to the rest of society) if they can't find shelter and have no means to make a living? What "degree of civilization" is implied by the fact that once a sentence is served, a person is punished by having the very means of survival pushed out of their reach?<br /><br />Jim is one of those people you won't see on the news. One of the many people who don't talk about what's wrong - but stand up and do what they can:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">P.O.E.T. SNARES ATTORNEY TO HELP RETURNING CITIZENS COMMUNICATE BETTER</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">By Chinta Strausberg</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /><br />If you’re late for one of attorney James P. Chapman’s classes, you may think you’ve walked into a movie shoot because it is a reality check for returning citizens who may not know how to sell themselves to prospective employers.</span> <span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /><br />Since 1954, Chapman was a trial and Appellate lawyer, and he has had a burning passion to help returning citizens for decades.</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">But his real joy is working in the communities with men and women in prison and those who are coming from prison. When asked why bother with returning citizens and those incarcerated, he said: “I don’t know.</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">“All I know is that if there is a higher power…if there is an angel, it touched me…. It is the most fulfilling thing I’ve every done and I can’t tell you why,” Chapman said.</span> <span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /><br />When I walked into his classroom, sponsored by the Cook County President’s Office of Employment and Training (P.O.E.T.) that is held each Friday from 10:30 a.m. to noon in Room 2260 of the 69 West Washington building, Chapman was directing two students engaged in a personnel role-playing skit.</span> <span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /><br />One student pretended to be a would-be employer at a Target store looking for an inventory control clerk the other was the applicant. When the “employer” asked if the applicant had ever been arrested, the jock job seeker quipped, “Yes, for racketeering.”</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">Chapman cringed at his answer and grabbing his hair warned the students: “You never tell a prospective employer that you were once arrested for racketeering” which he said could mean he was once involved in an act or threat of murder, kidnapping, arson, robbery extortion, drugs, embezzlement and the list goes on.</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">In the participant’s case, it turned out he had custody of his child and was trying to make the mother pay him for child support. Technically, his actions amounted to racketeering but Chapman taught them how to explain these acts in a softer and more acceptable way.</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">Myron Colvin, communications manager for P.O.E.T., played the role of a prospective employer with a volunteer from the class. The role-playing continued under the watchful eye of Chapman. “Some words are too harsh,” he warned.</span> <span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /><br />Chapman teaches a course entitled: “Life Transformation Through Communication” which is based on an interactive program where the participants speak, act and talk while learning the dynamics of effective communication. However, it is more than just speaking or writing.</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">“It’s how you enroll people in what you want…to touch, move and inspire people,” said Chapman. “Communications is much more than one of understanding your audience. It’s also how you speak differently to different audiences,” he explained.</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /><br />Chapman said those returning from prison often are prevented from getting meaningful employment. “The attitudes of the public of potential employers are so negative based on false publicity, a kind of hysteria about dealing with ex-prisoners particularly those convicted of crimes of violence that barriers are set up to meaningful employment.”</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">Part of the course, he explained, is dealing with those issues and how you can convince a prospective employer that even though they have been in prison they are now a changed person, prepared to work hard and will be an honest and good employee. “This is very challenging,” Chapman admitted.</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /><br />For the past five-years, Chapman has taught this course at the Stateville Correctional Center (located in Crest Hill, Illinois) he described as a “serious, old maximum security prison where people are doing very long sentences.”</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">There, he teaches 25 men once a week. “Even people in prison who are doing long sentences begin to learn how it is to have a more meaningful way of talking with other men in prison, with their families with people they are trying to get help from in the community,” he said....</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 255, 255);">***</span><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Personally, I'd be thrilled to find something half as meaningful to do with the rest of my life. And when the roll call of daily evils is delivered on the evening news, I like to think about James Chapman and all the people like him who are, against staggering odds, working to change things.<br /></div></div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><br /></span>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-33494805991521564202010-10-11T14:37:00.003-03:002010-10-11T14:57:07.999-03:00GOOD REASONS FOR BAD TASTE<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQIXi_Et1XcqYr7iTp8KuvKmx7nWmWitQfywmx9aTazUMojm7awp_9SK-3noMC1PyBJ_83-aGcoPnu4i6DtX0owmH3eFE-B9jCni6_MexZnKa6-ELEtiGUl6axq3b6Jvfk0bct/s1600/aurared.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 187px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQIXi_Et1XcqYr7iTp8KuvKmx7nWmWitQfywmx9aTazUMojm7awp_9SK-3noMC1PyBJ_83-aGcoPnu4i6DtX0owmH3eFE-B9jCni6_MexZnKa6-ELEtiGUl6axq3b6Jvfk0bct/s320/aurared.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526844372057537922" border="0" /></a>Picture this: a poster showing a skinny, mean-looking cat glaring over its shoulder with the caption,<br /><br />“I’m out of estrogen and I have a handgun. Any questions?”<br /><br />It cracked me up when I saw it years ago. In the same spirit, I laughed at the quote below, which I copied and pasted from a friend’s FaceBook page onto my page.<br /><br />“"Studies show that if a woman is menstruating or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape over his mouth, a spear lodged in his chest, with a bat up his ass, while he is on fire."<br /><br />I laughed. A lot of women laughed. And one lone man commented, “Wow. Chilling.”<br /><br />Then I began to think it over. It’s harsh. It<span style="font-style: italic;"> is </span>chilling. I began to wonder why I thought it was okay to post it. Why we women found such a brutal joke funny. And then it occurred to me - men have been putting us down with comments about our screwy hormones for years. Any time a woman is irrational or angry or emotional, she runs the risk of being asked if it’s her time of the month. And of course, sometimes it is. But sometimes we have good solid cause and it’s damned insulting when someone hints that you’re dealing with a bout of temporary insanity.<br /><br />I wanted for a minute or so to explain this to the man who commented. I would have said, “You notice this is not really <span style="font-style: italic;">about</span> men. It’s about how <span style="font-style: italic;">we</span> feel sometimes and it's exaggerated for effect. There’s no direct slur here.”<br /><br />I thought about what author Eckhart Tolle calls, “The Pain Body.”<br /><br />If you’ve ever investigated complimentary healing practices of any kind, you know that energy is only invisible to the human eye. Other than that, it’s as real as the keyboard I’m typing on. It can even be photographed using Kirlian photography…colors and light surrounding every inch of us and extending outward.<br /><br />Even the most skeptical of us can understand that energy is <span style="font-style: italic;">felt</span>. You get it if you've ever been in a meeting where one person is really angry and found yourself getting tense and upset too, even when nothing about that person’s mood is personal to you. You get it if you've seen how your mood can even out when you’re around someone who is centered and happy - or you've come home from a boisterous social event feeling like you need to retreat quietly in a nice dark closet and let the rattling in your head subside.<br /><br />We may not touch someone else or talk to them – but that does not stop an energy connection, for better or worse.<br /><br />Tolle claims that as well as having pain bodies we’ve grown from our personal hurts, group pain bodies are passed down, generation to generation, too. For example, races and religious groups who have been oppressed have a shared pain body. Women, after generations of patriarchy, have a shared pain body. That is why such a cutting joke is funny. Darkness buried, is darkness festering. A joke, even a very sharp-edged joke with a graveyard underside can alleviate the festering.<br /><br />Laurence Fishburne said, in an interview on <span style="font-style: italic;">The Actors Studio</span>, that he once acted in a theater troupe called, “Kill Whitey.” It’s rage toppled on its side and turned into a joke.<br /><br />Is it politically correct? No. Is there enormous pain underneath? Yes. But these kind of jokes, the incorrect, visceral and dark are escape valves. I winced when I heard Fishburne say that.<br /><br />But then I laughed.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-9423402389279773352010-08-17T21:32:00.003-03:002010-08-17T21:55:31.069-03:00Keeper of the day<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFL0_Vuy8IjNSE4Gama7_lAXwXYEQnBgnXHk4tJHrNRy57gQhTTMe9AJw4rogZUKig6TXzfILmSwXqrdA37LbPFDSYpze9ckHQYqABm4vkoWSmctWN1I_5E6M3MRwTJ33NMXMP/s1600/Sean+%26+Anita+Wedding+010.JPG"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 276px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFL0_Vuy8IjNSE4Gama7_lAXwXYEQnBgnXHk4tJHrNRy57gQhTTMe9AJw4rogZUKig6TXzfILmSwXqrdA37LbPFDSYpze9ckHQYqABm4vkoWSmctWN1I_5E6M3MRwTJ33NMXMP/s320/Sean+%26+Anita+Wedding+010.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5506541343503216274" border="0" /></a><br />I'm sitting in the courtyard on Granville and hail my friend as he drifts by today. "How's married life?" I get to ask this because it's his turn to get hammered with that inane question and I'm not letting him off the hook.<br /><br />"About the same as single life." He and his girlfriend have been together for a few years now. We talk a bit about the wedding and then bitch about work until his ever-present cell phone rings. He picks up and I pantomime that I'm late and have to go back inside and as leave, I catch, "I'm not sure if I'll be there then, I have to pick my son up..."<br />Before it was "My girlfriend's son" or the boy's name. Now it's "my son."<br />Suddenly I'm tearing up and there's a lump in my throat.<br /><br />My friend had a good father.<br /><br />That's all. Except - here's to good men and good fathers - and their sons, who become good fathers too.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span></span></span></span>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-60644088842489211402010-07-30T11:53:00.006-03:002010-07-30T14:30:51.148-03:00The Hermit<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rc7wthscTNT-n-TTkdTAE3kD8Zju32TTq0xd-OMVwJ2gtR3v55-8e9a85LhT9oxJyEe64MzTTJ08TKHqJcCSxe6gRvPfEV8LpDiNNPIk0BKFhhozJ_57nUNZqDGKeMZ5ViKr/s1600/major_09-ix-hermit.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 193px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rc7wthscTNT-n-TTkdTAE3kD8Zju32TTq0xd-OMVwJ2gtR3v55-8e9a85LhT9oxJyEe64MzTTJ08TKHqJcCSxe6gRvPfEV8LpDiNNPIk0BKFhhozJ_57nUNZqDGKeMZ5ViKr/s320/major_09-ix-hermit.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499712748948825538" border="0" /></a><br />Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I'm a bit of a loner. More socially active people sometimes read this behavior as negative, sad - It must be lonely or mean I don't care for people much. And that isn't so.<br /><br />Some of us just need to go to the mountain on a regular basis. Some of us need to leave the clatter and incessant buzzing of the world behind in order to think clearly, to stay grounded. I'm introspective by nature and need time and quiet to hear my own thoughts. Stuff my schedule with too much face time and I begin to feel like a pinball careening wildly out of control.<br /><br />When my time is my own, it's not unusual for me to have a three or four day run when I don't hear a human voice. The quiet outside seeps inside. It leaves room for whatever the universe wants to toss my way.<br /><br />This morning on Granville Street, it tosses me a present.<br /><br />I spot Charley in his usual spot outside the Split Crow Pub. Short and sturdy as a fire-plug, a hard history imprinted in the lines in his face, Charley is one of my morning beacons. His presence lends a kind of reassuring certainty to my day. He and I have been smiling good morning at each other forever but we've never spoken. For some reason, today, I break the routine.<br /><br />"Mornin,'Charley! Let's hope this fog breaks, huh?" Charley grins and nods.<br />"Yep. Kinda damp, ain't it."<br /><br />We stand side by side, smoking our cigarettes in companionable silence and then Charley asks,<br /><br />"Do you like to read?"<br />"Why yes. I read all the time."<br /><br />Charley fishes a crumpled photocopied pamphlet out of his pocket. I wonder, before I open it, if maybe Charley is born again and I happen to look like I need saving.<br /><br />"It's my wife's," he explains, "she made about a thousand of 'em."<br /><br />I open and read. It's poetry, painfully, clumsily rhymed. But the first one is for Charley. It begins:<br /><br />This is the man I love<br />Who is above<br />All the rest of the men I had in my life<br />For this I am proud to say I am his wife<br /><br />"Sounds like you have a happy marriage. This is <span style="font-style: italic;">nice</span>, what she wrote for you." Charley beams.<br /><br />"Yep. Nine years," Her first husband, he beat her something awful." I let that sink in.<br /><br />"Well," I say, "maybe the only good thing to come from being with a bad man is that you appreciate a good one a hundred times more..." Charley nods and his expression brightens.<br /><br />"We comin' up on ten years in the fall," he tells me, "I got her a surprise she never going to expect."<br /><br />"Okay, now you <span style="font-style: italic;">have</span> to tell!"<br /><br />"I got her a $14,000 diamond ring." He beams. He looks like he's still shocked at his own extravagance. I gape at him, suitably gob-smacked. That could be half a year's pay or thereabouts.<br /><br />"Well, Charley - you <span style="font-style: italic;">have</span> to show me the poem she writes after that anniversary."<br /><br />With that, I admit I'm late for work and we both head off to our respective jobs.<br /><br />Hours later, I'm still hugging the memory. It's not about the quantity of contact. It's all about the quality.<br /><br />Who could be lonely with gifts like that?LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-48933455635521354242010-07-22T12:19:00.003-03:002010-07-22T12:28:03.174-03:00The Ruby Dee PrayerI wake up this morning feeling like I am made of badly-cobbled spare parts. It is the kind of morning that metaphorically misses a step on the staircase and flails gracelessly to regain balance. The kind of morning when unremembered dreams have clung to the edges of consciousness just out of the grasp of recall.<br /><br />it's as if I had swallowed gravel along with my morning cereal...as if emotions had lodged in my stomach, undigestable, a little gritty and sharp around the edges.<br /><br />I try to reason it out. The first thing that comes to mind is that I was one of many who disappointed a new Native American friend by remaining silent when she commented on a recent injustice. Even though my subsequent apology is graciously accepted, my mind can't let it go. I keep thinking, "All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing." Or good women. Doing nothing, facing nothing, is the great sin, in my estimation, of the middle class. Figuring all of it is someone else's problem is a universal form of denial. To watch the news, to read the newspaper is to drown in bad news. It's overwhelming.<br /><br />So what <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span> we do? We good men and women who are disturbed and saddened by injustice, racism, pollution, war? What do we do when we realize that just meditating on all of it, just holding positive thoughts is not enough. What do we do when we see, at the same time, angry measures create stronger polarities that drown the voice of reason and erase all hope of cooperation?<br /><br />In a time of escalating tumult and chaos, from the economic to the environmental to political - what is the responsibility of "good" men and women? It's our world. And the scary thought occurs to me that if we don't participate in change, we deserve the lack of change we get.<br /><br />So, when an opportunity arises to speak or act - next time I'll stand and be counted.<br /><br />And I'll accept the gravelly discomfort of this morning with gratitude. It's an answer to the Ruby Dee prayer: "God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear."LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-42269989004125504532010-01-15T15:00:00.006-04:002010-01-17T14:35:14.548-04:00NosorryWe walk by him twice. First, going to lunch at the Carleton House and then coming back.<br />"Spare change?"<br />He's tall and achingly thin, with a scruffy beard and beat out clothes.<br />Krista says, "I'm sorry, I have nothing."<br />I say, barely looking, "nosorry."<br /><br />Later, when I run out to pick up coffee at Sam's Macchiato, I pass him again, and he asks again.<br />"nosorry," I say. But a foot or two later, it bothers me. How the two words have grown into one, and how I don't even look.<br /><br />"Wait." I fumble in my purse and pull out a one and two dollar coin.<br />"Thanks," he says. His smile is genuine and a little shy. "You know, I was schizophrenic all my life," he tells me, "and I've got new meds now. I used to think people were talking about me all the time. And now that's gone away."<br /><br />He sighs happily, "Reality," he says, "is so much quieter and easier."<br /><br />"I'm so glad for you." I look into his eyes and smile and speak the words one at a time.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-36698742763847971102009-11-27T11:09:00.004-04:002009-11-27T11:26:28.602-04:00The door<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHe6YTFMIjx0KztutbYHQR5SV4BammvWwDhCcNiuI_7WSF-vZKsKftdBDRQHWbGZ67csypelEGp_3CfQSLF9N24kyS7sJO8w7KIUH7g3pF9MVgWHW_R_LclO94JDfJeTGdNAno/s1600/revolving_door.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 289px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHe6YTFMIjx0KztutbYHQR5SV4BammvWwDhCcNiuI_7WSF-vZKsKftdBDRQHWbGZ67csypelEGp_3CfQSLF9N24kyS7sJO8w7KIUH7g3pF9MVgWHW_R_LclO94JDfJeTGdNAno/s320/revolving_door.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408803552402008914" border="0" /></a><br />White sky and rain, day three. An hour ago, I threw on Capri's and a linen shirt, yanked my hair into the habitual ponytail, washed my face and scrubbed the green and blue ink off my fingers. Earlier, I was in my ancient navy housecoat, molding inked and gold-leafed polymer clay into a cover for a screw clasp and generally making a cheery mess in my studio.<br /><br />Energy. Mine comes and goes like something connected with faulty wires. I never seem to know when it will connect. Today it's working and as usual, I'm a little frantic trying to do everything I've left undone - last night's dishes, the shopping list, the everlasting tidying of the coffee table, finishing a necklace I've worked on for days. Oh yes, and taking photos of the necklace too.<br /><br />I've had words with my significant other. It's left me with an uncertain heart, a question mark. Stasis again. A void. He is incommunicado, thinking things over.<br /><br />And during this silence, months since I've heard from either of them, my ex-husband and ex-lover call contact me.<br /><br />It would be easy to dismiss this as a random happening were I a person who believed the universe to be random. As it is, I wonder if I'm being reminded that people come and people go as if my life was a slowly revolving door. And that for all my trying to jam a foot in that ponderously, relentlessly turning door, I don't even slow it for a second.<br /><br />The universe regularly announces,"You are not in control." Control-freak that I am, I nod acknowledgment and go right on battling that door.<br /><br />Today though, I'm just going to run with the energy. Step away from the door entirely.<br /><br />As my ex-husband said, "You just get to the point where you realize you do okay on your own."<br /><br />That's enough truth to do me for today.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-46741927523650505652009-06-16T13:13:00.002-03:002009-06-16T13:20:35.897-03:00With dream comfort memory to spareI envy writers who can summon the memory of every item in their childhood bedroom and the names of each child in their fourth grade class. My own memory is more like badly spliced 35 mm film stored in acid cardboard and run through X-Ray machines. Bumpy, faded, streaky, erased entirely in places.<br /><br />I don’t recall dates or names with much clarity but my emotional and sensory selves have a kind of substitute for memory. I can’t tell you when I was married or divorced but I can recite most of “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” because it seared my soul when I read it.<br /><br />And there’s music. Offhand, I don’t know what year I lived in New York on the streets of the Village, one of thousands of runaway kids. But I can recall with perfect clarity that “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel was piping out of the speakers at an Orange Julius one night when I felt particularly lonely…. I can date times of my life by music. I was 17 then.<br /><br />Forward on the rickety tape of memory to deep summer in Sudbury, Ontario. I am lounging happily in a downtown park with two musician friends. They mention Buffalo Springfield but somehow, I’ve missed that part of Neil Young’s career and have never heard “Cinnamon Girl.” Rick and Digger, who are sprawled on the grass, shift into sitting position and softly sing the entire song to me. Deeply emotional, vividly intimate to be sung to. That is my first Neil Young moment.<br /><br />A year or so later, a Sunday in January - I am vulnerable, cocooned inside myself. I’m walking to karate practice, getting on with life pretty much on auto-pilot. The sky is a clear pale blue and the snow glitters with light. January steals my breath, freezes it in my lungs. . My steps, the only sound at all, crunch thunderously on the snow as I plod along.<br /><br />The dojo sits alone at the top of a hill and on the other side of the road is an open field, with an equipment shack in the center. I am 50 feet from my destination when loudspeakers in the shack turn on and Neil Young’s voice floods into the cold stillness,<br /><br />“There is a town in north Ontario/With dream comfort memory to spare, And in my mind/I still need a place to go/All my changes were there…”<br /><br />Until the song plays to the last word and note, I stand transfixed, listening, looking up at the vast sky, heart pounding.<br /><br />To this day, I cannot hear Neil Young’s “Helpless” without a chill running up my spine. And if I am in a public place, I try not to weep.<br /><br />Total recall. But only of the parts of life that mattered most.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-11614527984205566982009-06-11T19:36:00.003-03:002009-06-11T19:56:56.691-03:00The PhoenixThe girl with the turquoise hair and face jewelry squeezes into the seat beside me. She’s wearing black steel-toed boots and an over-sized camouflage raincoat.<br /><br />“Sorry about the coat,” she says. She sniffs and wrinkles her nose.“I just got it and it smells funny. It’s a really good one though. Got a beak on the hood and everything.” It's pouring outside. I assure her that there's only a faint rubbery smell.<br /><br />She has fine, perfect features and astonishing green eyes fringed with dark lashes.<br /><br />The whole ride home, in a voice so soft and even I’m straining to hear, she talks to me.<br /><br />Native father, white mother. The father gone, the mother a suicide only a year after she, the girl with green eyes, survived a fire that burned her out of her home. Life on the street, abuse, beatings, tragedy running back generations, “youth jail,” and finally, her love, her daughter, Amber. Baby’s daddy didn’t want her – didn’t want a kid with a part-white, part-native girl. The grandmother has her now but the girl goes to see her every chance she gets.<br /><br />She’s in a program and going to school in September to become a counselor. And maybe after a while, she thinks, she’ll go for a degree in psychology. She wants to help people. “These,” she gestures at her lip and nose rings, come out.”<br /><br />“Do you know about the Ark?” she asks next. I do.<br /><br />“I want to start a place like that, only where kids can stay over. They don’t have money for that, the Ark.”<br /><br />“The <span style="font-style: italic;">smell</span>…” She’s sniffing the sleeve of her raincoat and rubbing her arm. “I’ll have to wash as soon as I get home. You’d think they’d make sure this stuff is clean. And it’s not my boots, either. I wash all the time. I take care of my skin – and I don’t drink or do drugs. I don’t know why I have these dark circles under my eyes.”<br /><br />She asks how old I think she is.<br />I study her, glad for the chance to look directly at that stunning face and those lovely eyes.<br /><br />“Twenty-three, twenty-four.”<br /><br />“Thank you,” she says, “I’m twenty-seven and somebody guessed thirty-five. <span style="font-style: italic;">Thirty-five!</span>”<br /><br />I smile. Oh. The tragedy. Thirty-five.<br /><br />“You won’t look much different when you’re thirty-five.”<br /><br />"I feel so old sometimes. Real old."<br /><br />"You've had a tough life."<br /><br />She switches topics and tells me about her mother. We jump from there to possible new colors for her hair. She comes back to the course she'll be taking at school and then tells me about the babies she couldn’t save from the fire and the little boy she did save. Her eyebrows burned off and her eyelashes and her lungs were burned for months. At first, she couldn’t remember much, but it’s coming back in bits and pieces now. “It was in Truro, six years ago. It was in all the papers. You might have seen it.”<br /><br />She rubs at her wrist and arm. “See these?” She pulls up her sleeve. There are burn scars the size of dimes and quarters splattered along her wrist. “They go right up my arm…from the fire.”<br />The rest of the scars, the ones hiding behind the perfectly clear green eyes, go right into her bones, I figure. The tics and apologies are a song of sorrow and self-loathing.<br /><br />I tell her, “You heal well. You have good skin. I’d never have noticed them if you hadn’t told me they were there.” She smiles a little.<br /><br />“I don’t mean to sound….you know…all poor me.”<br /><br />“Like I said, you've had a tough life, a lot of sadness.”<br /><br />She sits up straight and smiles. “I’m strong for it, though,” she says.<br /><br />She seems to know that I am genuinely listening and although I don’t know if some or all or none of it is true, I am not a stranger and it doesn’t matter. <br /><br />When I get home I recall the quiet flow of her voice, how it’s a lullaby in which the wind always blows and down baby comes, cradle and all. A lullaby... and a litany that tells her she survived. She is some kind of wonder, by God, right there on the number twenty bus. A lovely, green-eyed Phoenix still not quite out of the fire, but trying. Trying.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-33901893031589484982009-01-18T15:53:00.001-04:002009-01-18T16:04:40.901-04:00Sleeping and waking<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-OJZlnq4cmBtvVE-7ShXC70lAgoh0t7HuDXAnF_pUCQu7BzcJIGZZhiTvUj3ikvgsbGiKqrM4yIEPKNJj515gOZakKfkKZJXZmQPIdMupwDnwd6kimPu3NN_Xc7eMxowYxgp/s1600-h/bruchglas.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 273px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-OJZlnq4cmBtvVE-7ShXC70lAgoh0t7HuDXAnF_pUCQu7BzcJIGZZhiTvUj3ikvgsbGiKqrM4yIEPKNJj515gOZakKfkKZJXZmQPIdMupwDnwd6kimPu3NN_Xc7eMxowYxgp/s400/bruchglas.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292727148568125570" border="0" /></a><br />Fine, thanks. That is, for months now, calm and creatively engaged. There are <span style=""> </span>periods of unrelenting cheeriness. And were it not for the dreaming thing, I’d have to say that life was heading in a distinctly upward direction.<p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Waking, I shake off dreams of being enrolled in a university class and trying to explain that I’ve lost my purse to the professor, who simply keeps assuring me with enormous heartiness that I’ll do fine, just fine in the class – look, I’ve already made friends, apparently. It’s as if I’m speak in Farsi. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I search for my purse in a cloakroom festooned with coats and red purses. My purse is black. And I know that somehow, at lunch, I ended up on a slippery, snow-covered red plastic bridge only 3 feet wide. I look down at the far-below traffic and realize that I have no idea how I got there, and that I’m in danger. I shinny down on my stomach, gripping the edge. And now? I leave the classroom and set out to find the purse…my ID, my money…but I’m standing on a hilltop in what seems to be<span style=""> </span><st1:place><st1:city>San Francisco</st1:city></st1:place>. It’s cold and snowing and I don’t know the city. I can’t remember how to retrace my steps and I’m desperate.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Or I’m about to sing at a concert with a Very Famous Person. I have complete confidence in my ability to sing, only I can’t remember a single song or lyric. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I am lost or don’t know how I got there or missing some crucial piece of the puzzle…struggling to keep the ground under my feet, some control over my life, some sense (for God’s sake) of knowing what is next.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But I don’t. Know.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think most of us embrace the illusion that there is an AHA moment coming in our lives…an age, a stage, when we begin to understand. When life becomes easier, or at least or resistance to the tide diminishes and we can flow. Certainly, speaking for myself, I hadn’t expected to be approaching 61 with the feeling that my biggest question is “what the….?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So I’ve booked an appointment with an excellent astrologer. Recently, he suffered a devastating stroke and lost just about everything but (and I quote) his mind and consciousness. I told him what my big question is. And he still took the appointment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ll let you know…</p>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-56383491216531015322008-12-04T14:20:00.001-04:002008-12-04T14:21:47.890-04:00Linda is...<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUTSBjfxeIcuPffWBFraH1ZiPIv8QCHUVxCJ8O2iq2_kUOA8QnMTMMWU4RhsjTiK0EQZlAWpeBk1HSSYCJu4utKODT8qFEnl9xhzqrsoYAwB5SceKCV7mp_a1dhrqTWbBfGiri/s1600-h/IMAGES+LIB+SIGNS1.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUTSBjfxeIcuPffWBFraH1ZiPIv8QCHUVxCJ8O2iq2_kUOA8QnMTMMWU4RhsjTiK0EQZlAWpeBk1HSSYCJu4utKODT8qFEnl9xhzqrsoYAwB5SceKCV7mp_a1dhrqTWbBfGiri/s320/IMAGES+LIB+SIGNS1.jpg" border="0" /></a> </div><br /><div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8pfOCtbP5niryG784C9AmSa8BOF5U47xSL51kLklhLDydCmf840uDpZMRF0krJjk6JcQt5bpvVXZf_rlB0vZCnZn1-qLSA7YeGkOpQIyv4sjOsVzAhhGHWY2yiXH5xd9uvuYv/s1600-h/MISC.jpg"><img alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8pfOCtbP5niryG784C9AmSa8BOF5U47xSL51kLklhLDydCmf840uDpZMRF0krJjk6JcQt5bpvVXZf_rlB0vZCnZn1-qLSA7YeGkOpQIyv4sjOsVzAhhGHWY2yiXH5xd9uvuYv/s320/MISC.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />thinking in images again.<br /></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-54538665768306172862008-08-26T18:48:00.002-03:002008-08-26T18:50:57.605-03:00Mom comes home circle dance and rug flop<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SDHsLhq23u3tXx7y1EGlhA_iF0paDHmE9vK2wtMMI4miz1nHV8t1uqXjLYkaZswtl-59kSRvV3Nu-4pTbihW_orfrMvDLaIVZJyNaL0opAMADwU4994dnKDqUQMq4GnBjUsq/s1600-h/Mom's+Home+Circle+Dance.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SDHsLhq23u3tXx7y1EGlhA_iF0paDHmE9vK2wtMMI4miz1nHV8t1uqXjLYkaZswtl-59kSRvV3Nu-4pTbihW_orfrMvDLaIVZJyNaL0opAMADwU4994dnKDqUQMq4GnBjUsq/s400/Mom's+Home+Circle+Dance.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238947159162335778" border="0" /></a>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-26909330213029123862008-08-22T12:06:00.002-03:002008-08-22T12:11:57.752-03:00Blithering Friday<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9EwbDm10FMhYsIlaZDHrfFRccgtpycBlJT6XuanvI1goyHg99cACU3YyphvTwJNkuAdRfO4n2usipGt1XLYwyRg6jXevyn8rfW551idj3I-qxjQfTze0q1yflVqE5UznhHgux/s1600-h/exhausted.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9EwbDm10FMhYsIlaZDHrfFRccgtpycBlJT6XuanvI1goyHg99cACU3YyphvTwJNkuAdRfO4n2usipGt1XLYwyRg6jXevyn8rfW551idj3I-qxjQfTze0q1yflVqE5UznhHgux/s320/exhausted.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5237359882292288594" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal">I am sitting on my wobbly green steno chair which is currently inside a wobbly box-like structure made up of a desk stacked with file folders, <span style=""> </span>book carts and books. The walls of my box are in one or another stage of processing for course reserves…coming down from summer term, going up for fall term. Someday. When the system is online again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“The system” is our name for the software from hell which, on a more-or-less regular basis, screws us all by failing to operate or requiring extensive downgrades (referred to as “upgrades”) that make simple tasks impossibly complex. For example: I need to hammer a nail. For this, the system provides me with an approximation of the space shuttle. It can defy gravity and vacuums. It will orbit distant planets and record scientific data. What it will not do is hammer a bloody nail. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Outside my box, where I am not working as my workload piles, my student assistant is slumped at the circulation desk. Her eyes are not quite open and her mouth is not quite closed. You could be forgiven for thinking she has smoked a nice fat joint before arriving at work, but she’s stoned on Neo Citron. Stand there a minute and she’ll snuffle for you. I have a sneaking suspicion that the same virus partying in her respiratory system is about to host a fiesta in mine. I’m pretending to myself that it’s only…</p> <p class="MsoNormal">that <i style="">just</i> as I drifted off to sleep, the muscles in the arch of my left foot went into spasm. I tried, oh-god-i-tried, to relax the cramp without getting up, without fully waking up. And I was rewarded for my efforts by an additional cramp starting on the top of my foot. Nothing to do but get up, walk it out, drink water, wait, walk etc. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fine. Okay. Back to bed. Only to wake twice for trips to the bathroom…stumbling out of bed still half-in, half-out of a series of hideous dreams. Nothing I clearly remember…except one detail I repeated aloud to myself. I said, “artist holocaust.” Miles of dead artist bodies. Thank you, subconscious, for the memories. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">At <st1:time minute="10" hour="5">5:10 a.m.</st1:time>, Cat was possessed by the devil. Instead of his habitual early morning activity (dozing beside me, taking up more than his half of the bed) he launched a running leap from a few feet off and galloped violently across my back and shoulders, howling. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="">I sit in my box. Eyes not quite open, mouth not quite closed. Praying for <st1:time minute="0" hour="16">4:00 p.m.</st1:time> to come.</p>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-6868161131295598252008-08-07T21:43:00.002-03:002008-08-07T21:47:50.112-03:00A mind undarkening<p class="MsoNormal">I always called Ben, “D.” In my last letter, I told him it stood for “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">darlin</span>’.” “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Darlin</span>’” is my name for people towards whom I feel a rare maternal impulse.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now and then, while he was online with the blog, before his arrest, we exchanged emails, me pleading with to him to believe he was more than the hallucinations, loneliness, anger and dark fantasies, him assuring me in turn, in his matter-of-fact way, (and in exasperation at my thickness I think) that really he <i style="">was</i> crazy,<i style=""> totally </i>around the proverbial bend, hopeless. I would write back agreeing with the crazy part. But I was never afraid of Ben. And even when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Darkmind</span> was at his darkest, I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">couldn</span>’t forget his self-honesty, his intelligence, his insight and the compassion he claimed not to feel. The curse and the blessing of Venus in Pisces is that, although you see who people are, you hone in on their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">possibilities</span>. I’m not sorry to have done that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And now it’s time to update for those of you who might have read him. I guess it was worse than bad<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"></span> after his arrest. He <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">didn</span>’t really plan on making it through the arrest, matter of fact. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But now, he says, he’s glad he did. After months of near catatonia, not eating, getting crazier and crazier, someone in the justice system realized he was truly ill. As Ben says, in his accustomed cryptic tone, he <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">didn</span>’t know what gave him away – the paranoid tics or the 70 pound weight loss. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">He <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">hasn</span>’t been sentenced yet. But he’s been diagnosed and the description, when I check it, fits everything he talked about and couldn't get help for... The visual and auditory hallucinations, the paranoia, the horrifying emotional, uncontrollable mood swings, the lack of sleep – the almost autistic disconnection. If his blog was full of hellish visions, it’s because his chemistry moved him into the heart of the neighborhood. He’s getting anti-depressants and anti-psychotics and therapy now. And he’s glad. He’s glad for the help. Me? I’m over the moon about it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And he’s still Ben. Or maybe he’s finally Ben. He’s funny and cryptic still – unflinchingly honest. But there’s a little soft showing, somehow. And god, that’s so good to see.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The prosecution <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">isn</span>’t going to cut him any slack. Even with three psychiatrists concurring on his condition they won’t accept “diminished capacity.” <span style=""> </span>But he has no violent criminal record, so I’m hoping, hoping. And I’m asking the universe to give him a chance. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Please.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-58404376357605266182008-07-26T16:10:00.004-03:002008-07-26T16:17:05.592-03:00Hobbies one should not admit to and dead plant life<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXpofHye73w5DAwjTTTj5SNlGO2cg07t-mzeHPofhHOc5TiEQgdlOk13_Orpx-Fm7ERn88T3q2ATNUY3G8KtXKn-JHXx1sRgQ3cGsdiCJMrfPLq5qa3ZKPeZlyLU0GNf2tsI4J/s1600-h/IMG_0633.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXpofHye73w5DAwjTTTj5SNlGO2cg07t-mzeHPofhHOc5TiEQgdlOk13_Orpx-Fm7ERn88T3q2ATNUY3G8KtXKn-JHXx1sRgQ3cGsdiCJMrfPLq5qa3ZKPeZlyLU0GNf2tsI4J/s400/IMG_0633.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227403602523067826" border="0" /></a><br />This is a dead tree. Specifically, a dead Ficus Benjamina, a weeping fig tree. I nurtured it, coddled it and feed it nutritious tree food. And did it appreciate that? No. The Ficus is a drama queen, a professional victim. If a breeze comes within 10 feet of it, if a person (god forbid) brushes against it, it sheds leaves like a martyr shedding clothes to take in the burning desert sun. The wimp. I pampered it and replaced its soil. And finally<br /><br />in the dead of winter, I put it on the balcony. But not, let me add, until one mutant very long branch poked me in the eye. A branch bearing 3 of it's scrawny collection of 14 leaves.<br /><br />Now it lives on the balcony. Weedy thinks it's kind of cool looking. So. I'm beading it.<br /><br />I think I've officially been working on the Etsy shop site for tooooo long.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-78639963953782139812008-07-11T18:01:00.001-03:002008-07-11T18:01:54.421-03:00Push Pull<span style="font-weight: bold;">Hurry up</span><br /><br />It only takes seconds to establish a few pertinent facts about the man at the counter.<br /><br />1. He wants someone, anyone to hear his complaint about a bad landlord.<br />2. He's the kind of guy who hates trouble but finds it everywhere. The dejected slump of his shoulders suggests that he expects to lose. Again.<br />3. His complaint has nothing to do with the Registry of Joint Stock Companies.<br />4. In spite of number 3, he isn't planning to vacate the premises anytime soon.<br /><br />The clerk is kind. She doesn't rush him. Her answers are quiet, respectful. I imagine that simply talking to her, even though it won't solve the problem - will restore a little of his sense of dignity.<br /><br />Two of us are waiting our turn. The man next to me, sporting full sleeve tattoos and a profusion of dreadlocks down to his waist, is slouched bonelessly in his chair. He's following the exchange at the desk with easy interest. Then there's me - perched on the edge of my seat like a runner waiting for the starting pistol, spine rigid, teeth clamped in frustration, checking my watch a little too often and exhaling pointedly.<br /><br />Mars and Saturn, the push-forward & hold-back planets, are conducting battle in the territory of my natal Mars. Every push is met with equal-force resistance. The civil war in my head projects itself to the outer world. It's 95F in the office and so much hotter on the bus one particular day, that the driver succumbs to heat stroke half-way home. We passengers pile onto the steaming concrete to wait another half hour for a replacement bus. An ambulance comes and goes.There is no shade. Hurry up and wait.<br /><br />Business documents, mailed to me weeks ago, vanish in some Canada Post limbo. Hurry up and wait.<br /><br />I'm angry. I'm desperate.I wonder at the fact that I haven't yet ground my teeth to veritable stubs.<br /><br />At this moment, I recall with hallucinatory clarity how it feels to have the grace and patience of that government clerk. But I can't get there.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The evening before: why hurry?</span><br /><br />I've stopped for one whole night. Every other evening this week, I've made the base for a new bracelet. I'm going at it like it's the Olympics of beading and I'm going for gold. What I'm actually trying to do is get out of the day job for real. Another year? Can I save enough? Can I sell enough? Teach enough?<br /><br />I'm far past my best-before date at the day job. If my attitude assumed material form, it would match the potentially deadly science fiction growths forming inside tupperware containers at the back of my fridge. My boss of 18 years, the saving grace of my department, retired early. Now, I can't decide whether "utterly dysfunctional" or "toxic" best describes the atmosphere.<br /><br />Added aggravation: my unit of the union is owed five years back pay and although there are now five administrators, fund raisers or administrative assistants for every staff member on the ground, the employer seems curiously uninterested in negotiating in any meaningful way with people who actually keep the place running, day-to day.<br /><br />Work days, I greet the mornings with feelings of dread and battle my way up to resigned stoicism. Walking a picket line has become one of my more joyful fantasies. Really.<br /><br />On this, my one night off, I'm angry and I want to stop being angry. I'm scared and I want to stop being scared. I feel utterly disconnected and alone. I'm fighting for survival with no help coming. I'm so tired, so very tired of the long, long hours and the constant feeling that I have to apologize for my self-imposed work schedule. I try to hide my desperation because I don't think anyone understands it. I'm tired of that, too. I realize, in the way I often realize a thing days and days before it leaves the uselessly abstract territory of my brain and makes its way to my heart or gut, that although all the work issues<span style="font-style: italic;"> are</span> problems, they are not <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span> problem.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The</span> problem is never out there. Wait for those kind of problems to stop and you'll die waiting - probably sooner than necessary. I know that in my brain. I am waiting for it to reach my gut, where it will cause a meaningful shift. <span style="font-style: italic;">Let go.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Let go,</span> my brain orders my brain - which is like the police ordering an investigation of the police.<br /><br />It'll take the time it takes. Hurry hurry hurry up. And wait.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-66624287850456069772008-06-22T11:00:00.004-03:002008-06-22T11:16:38.937-03:00My name is Linda and I'm a...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU-qlD_NhoTe8tR9t9b3NBeQ_9c_MxsHimMBVtyBBY1q1pklLr0b5Yu119Kc5ac_A-NZf_bwh3HxjkCT2x3ThlBCAcq-_TtYILg4ktmV-HtmWHVNy9jt_OFPG6LT7jRlP6Y1-h/s1600-h/cupid07.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU-qlD_NhoTe8tR9t9b3NBeQ_9c_MxsHimMBVtyBBY1q1pklLr0b5Yu119Kc5ac_A-NZf_bwh3HxjkCT2x3ThlBCAcq-_TtYILg4ktmV-HtmWHVNy9jt_OFPG6LT7jRlP6Y1-h/s320/cupid07.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5214706309262722210" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal">It is Friday night or Saturday morning. Someone from my past is writing and calling again. His first letter sounds so sincere. Thanks, he says, for everything you did for me. He misses my friendship, he says. But when he calls, he seems to be pining for the woman I was back then – and not the friend, although I was always that too.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The pleasantries are barely observed when he steers the conversation in the direction of what-are-you-wearing. I tell him: <i style="">capris and a big…thing. I don’t know what you call it. A baggy top that I’m wearing because it’s Saturday and I don’t care what I look like.</i> In the time he’s remembering fondly, I would have cared. I worked my ass off to keep romance and interest going, to keep his ego stroked. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But now, instead, <i style=""><span style=""> </span></i>I offer an excited summary of the Prime Minister’s apology to Aboriginal and Inuit people and tell him about the Powwow last week, the pictures I took, how beautiful the day, the dancers. The impatience at his end is palpable. He takes another run at arousing some sense of romance. He hits another wall. And so it goes until I say, <i style="">I’m hanging up. Really, I’ve got nothing more. Write me, why don’t you? </i>There’s zero animosity at my end, I just have better things to do than counter his moves. Want a friend? I’m in. But otherwise…</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m a Romantic in Recovery. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I have company. Me and my friend, Drifter, have our own little 12 step program.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Drifter and me have been “undating” since March. We decided to call it that because both of us were still crawling through the broken shards of our last relationships. Drift had lost his brother and his love almost at the same time. I had been trying to brazen it through missing my lost love by searching for someone new. Too soon and through the internet. The results were predictably catastrophic. We knew that neither of us could even contemplate launching into another relationship, but neither of us wanted to sit at home intoning the Poe mantra, “Nevermore.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We’ve been keeping company, in our weird quirky way, for over four months. We talk on the phone nearly every day. We’ve considered, both of us, that “things” might develop. It seemed logical enough. We find each other attractive and interesting. We understand each other very well – and we are nearly at the same level of introversion, give or take… </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But…</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly, we’ve realized that we just aren’t that needy anymore. We don’t have to have a partner. We’re happy with our lives, more often than not and happy to have a real friend of the opposite gender, someone honest and fun to be with. <span style=""> </span>Someone you can call every day and no matter what the mood is on either side, it’s fine. Someone who understands you and values you. No eggs to walk on here. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>It’s as if a lifetime of grand love affairs and being swept away has amounted to a vaccination against that kind of romance. It’s a heady thing, that feeling – like being perpetually drunk. Sure, there are the deathly hangovers and your life is out of control but isn’t it wonderful when you’re up there at the top of the high? </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And isn’t it wonderful when the illusion shatters, when you stop pining for it, when the real becomes more valuable and precious than the ideal?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yes. It is. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-17442971624945166102008-06-14T20:27:00.008-03:002008-06-14T20:37:52.893-03:00PowWow at Point Pleasant Park: Halifax<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW8Vai4Y7cE0EEEWItQ-SKvWb4zQV0PLMcjFK3vko4Cj5tHnJ7fjBwBszuDETGaAAQe1lXQhy94j8v7S2RuaDNFS9vzwx7Ba54NiDj0xZthdXaASk37E96DVus2oqJX2fnVY5y/s1600-h/Powwow17.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW8Vai4Y7cE0EEEWItQ-SKvWb4zQV0PLMcjFK3vko4Cj5tHnJ7fjBwBszuDETGaAAQe1lXQhy94j8v7S2RuaDNFS9vzwx7Ba54NiDj0xZthdXaASk37E96DVus2oqJX2fnVY5y/s320/Powwow17.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211885492949305890" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhEnUUE9ShoncuE355FtlalPXxsSoyePZa4yL-CIwGCfI77-VJl2M2zfVxgqa3NA2K5a64CPOUGvacff9FQi1WY02DmZorapeSFWYuoy7Y_Vttb4AGnuXze1AdkVlOsltstTnU/s1600-h/Powwow16.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhEnUUE9ShoncuE355FtlalPXxsSoyePZa4yL-CIwGCfI77-VJl2M2zfVxgqa3NA2K5a64CPOUGvacff9FQi1WY02DmZorapeSFWYuoy7Y_Vttb4AGnuXze1AdkVlOsltstTnU/s320/Powwow16.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211885377028666946" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9lnQy2QDAb3K151T7qIuXlTzHYL9jWQoJniRv8NZ1g010GTXXHqajX2esGaZXWX9SGAMcUoJ-SXGwTc8Hqr62gW0SCLVhx2ueVP5GEOJb63YuUimcB3BjEZh2CvZQiytqimqT/s1600-h/Powwow33.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9lnQy2QDAb3K151T7qIuXlTzHYL9jWQoJniRv8NZ1g010GTXXHqajX2esGaZXWX9SGAMcUoJ-SXGwTc8Hqr62gW0SCLVhx2ueVP5GEOJb63YuUimcB3BjEZh2CvZQiytqimqT/s320/Powwow33.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211884142806424018" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirDs2kW6W1FyEP3vsjknJb2r0ZS3GaFr0bWS6BK7VZF_8nn-uk2SKdXQsIqt_5CaLCxJQAzGRN-y2ilqZeTz_w0fidS6aYgOEpTvo8VhK-qR5ZW4OsStbQGLnu0AVnTlfAqJoT/s1600-h/Powwow14.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirDs2kW6W1FyEP3vsjknJb2r0ZS3GaFr0bWS6BK7VZF_8nn-uk2SKdXQsIqt_5CaLCxJQAzGRN-y2ilqZeTz_w0fidS6aYgOEpTvo8VhK-qR5ZW4OsStbQGLnu0AVnTlfAqJoT/s320/Powwow14.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211883961256142722" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlCiyhVwIRDiLcGRyz-BvB718Dc3acfr1Wp5qA1FoU5V6yArwCnrwiqTXEkTGp5RkbITYr-gQbW-c8zx9PV1QBsYUfN5h0hylL-LHFGZ5Oh23ZRkveq-q31RiRzog4SBItkZMq/s1600-h/Powwow6.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlCiyhVwIRDiLcGRyz-BvB718Dc3acfr1Wp5qA1FoU5V6yArwCnrwiqTXEkTGp5RkbITYr-gQbW-c8zx9PV1QBsYUfN5h0hylL-LHFGZ5Oh23ZRkveq-q31RiRzog4SBItkZMq/s320/Powwow6.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211883795863151234" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhioGSjtSBryBy22GaxkC1ltLRRIoL0V-sCsvzJoXRA_MZMMQTgCOauzFZSe3IzGK41KYkAX3XYIVko9CUvUS_q3sr9ElzAa6x1MMpnztsuBb3pdtk32d_Rgf3s-Rde7M_Df5zp/s1600-h/Powwow5.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhioGSjtSBryBy22GaxkC1ltLRRIoL0V-sCsvzJoXRA_MZMMQTgCOauzFZSe3IzGK41KYkAX3XYIVko9CUvUS_q3sr9ElzAa6x1MMpnztsuBb3pdtk32d_Rgf3s-Rde7M_Df5zp/s320/Powwow5.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211883645279748978" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxPcocDfzwLhpTHbm_IDOtbTKc0TZQGeisBTdyzcGaNnqV90rgaZv67BVdHyRGwAUMWNKPj_a8OP2LFgziILlP9ndjURhp-qEONPnWWFQwcufcexup9JMITVn2RAF7mG9OPJnd/s1600-h/Powwow1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxPcocDfzwLhpTHbm_IDOtbTKc0TZQGeisBTdyzcGaNnqV90rgaZv67BVdHyRGwAUMWNKPj_a8OP2LFgziILlP9ndjURhp-qEONPnWWFQwcufcexup9JMITVn2RAF7mG9OPJnd/s320/Powwow1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211883450218256626" border="0" /></a><br />Images from my day. A fill-up on joy. Please click to enlarge.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-8653187255524001512008-05-15T20:55:00.003-03:002008-05-15T21:03:32.437-03:00The girls is OK!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRmH3etTWw4_E6ZqULW89hbDl47Nrt1B9gWtR6e2kAhHq_wej-TbkaXgYiTZKV5ZFmjTZqHhCWq9n-SR8iGt52hokaMRUrKhWkUmMeIuPpuujBo8W2toyY2OAvgkE31xxdnmsQ/s1600-h/WORK+DESK+GREEN+CHAIR.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRmH3etTWw4_E6ZqULW89hbDl47Nrt1B9gWtR6e2kAhHq_wej-TbkaXgYiTZKV5ZFmjTZqHhCWq9n-SR8iGt52hokaMRUrKhWkUmMeIuPpuujBo8W2toyY2OAvgkE31xxdnmsQ/s400/WORK+DESK+GREEN+CHAIR.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5200757656871818162" border="0" /></a>The girls (find them about a third of the way up from the bottom middle - lower, I might add than they used to be) are OK. They are fine and dandy and taking a nice x-ray.<br /><br />Or as the Breast Screening Clinic writes, "Dear Ms. JONES (are they shouting or using a form here?)Thank you for participating in the Mammography Screening Program. (I had a choice? My doctor didn't indicate that it was optional.) I am pleased to inform you that the radiologist who read your mammogram (forget the scandal over Atlantic Province radiologists who gave wrong results for thousands of women recently) did not detect any evidence of breast cancer at this time."<br /><br />Good news. I'm not (at this time) dying of that. Pap test in July. They don't have to squash anything but my dignity for that.<br /><br />Life is good (at this time.)LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-18600507549963784262008-05-13T18:47:00.003-03:002008-05-13T18:52:47.478-03:00A word of explanation shouted into the void<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4ZidOTf-fsKWXfMmFnztXPgtdkIswzBCC6h288gxiQcJSX3yWnKArzGkx_HlzRoU_iY9Po1LVtd-UoHM-R38HieOASyk4C9Cu03BQgu7FuX9PYo3bNDOENcgT9qi-jORdFeP/s1600-h/Chair.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj4ZidOTf-fsKWXfMmFnztXPgtdkIswzBCC6h288gxiQcJSX3yWnKArzGkx_HlzRoU_iY9Po1LVtd-UoHM-R38HieOASyk4C9Cu03BQgu7FuX9PYo3bNDOENcgT9qi-jORdFeP/s400/Chair.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5199982707332666258" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal">I get up at <st1:time minute="45" hour="5">5:45 a.m.</st1:time> weekdays. <span style=""> </span>For half an hour I sip coffee while the cat twines himself around my ankles. Then days like this, I put in three days work in nine hours.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Twelve hours after the alarm goes off, I’m home. I’ve made it through ceaseless interruptions at work, a parade of other people’s problems and questions, computer freezes, software malfunctions and several hours of sheer, deadening mental factory work. I’ve smiled. Over and over. I’ve survived the number twenty bus, once again – but I confess, by the end of the trip when the seat next to me opened up, I stood up, preferring to be flung gracelessly back and forth with each break and acceleration of the bus than to have one more person sit next to me. Touching me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Closing the apartment door, I slam the radio off, kick my shoes off, pour a glass of red wine and sit down to listen to the cat sing throat songs celebrating my arrival. It’s all the activity and noise I can tolerate.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think about not writing. To anyone. But the need to speak is so strong and what needs to be spoken has become too large and formless to get out. It has become a vortex in my throat and chest, sucking words away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think I’m waiting to be heard in a way the human ear and heart is not equipped to handle. I think I’m waiting for whatever universal awareness might be out there to hear me. Or maybe it does. Thing is about the Universe, it doesn’t communicate in exactly the way I’d like it to… </p> <p class="MsoNormal">An email would be nice. A phone call. Or a sign – spelled, let’s say, in flaming letters against the sky. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">I’m voiceless</i>, I mention to the Universe. And, totally in character, the universe says nothing and the girl with the cell phone who is seated immediately behind me begins a loud conversation about nothing. <i style="">That’s it?</i> I ask. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="">I can’t feel anything much – except annoyance, sadness, </i>I add, <i style="">I’m wondering if that’s going to change sometime soon? </i>I imagine the Universe shrugging. Do galaxies die when the Universe does that? </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Soon, for no logical reason, I’ll crawl out of the funk. I might not write when that happens, but for a while, I’ll project a benevolent face on the Universe. Things will make sense. I will stop disintegrating, or at least stop fighting disintegration and imagine I see the wisdom of the whole thing. For a while.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Maybe, if the Universe is feeling generous, I’ll regain my sense of humor. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, to those of you I haven’t written – insert platitude here. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I would write you. If I could.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-19644357347100593812008-03-30T14:29:00.005-03:002008-03-31T14:08:46.325-03:00Apparently, I'm back.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisOIfRnqrGqwGP0TPkdQKnfgFcBoOC6rKZU1btVPQeRitM5pVDXoOBg8CelB_aYkhKaJiQrgg8Fk4zqUlttUVQWUpO-Tyt846u7NdWGpmQJXBudUjifqBZGznulN-SPVad-AkM/s1600-h/earth+day+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisOIfRnqrGqwGP0TPkdQKnfgFcBoOC6rKZU1btVPQeRitM5pVDXoOBg8CelB_aYkhKaJiQrgg8Fk4zqUlttUVQWUpO-Tyt846u7NdWGpmQJXBudUjifqBZGznulN-SPVad-AkM/s400/earth+day+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183588429775670066" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgne2tDOH6q7ultTjudc6aCZ0WdiZj4by81k6joren4lH8V9SdzXSXfws-AB4qu4woWoO7gqIjY8wNQMKEV_7Q3i48SDUnsWOsRqpciPHatydwcKYCCz4XPoO1XwwQoRV-AtzxX/s1600-h/earth+day+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgne2tDOH6q7ultTjudc6aCZ0WdiZj4by81k6joren4lH8V9SdzXSXfws-AB4qu4woWoO7gqIjY8wNQMKEV_7Q3i48SDUnsWOsRqpciPHatydwcKYCCz4XPoO1XwwQoRV-AtzxX/s400/earth+day+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5183588318106520354" border="0" /></a>Earth hour at my place. Not that I need an excuse for candles.LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-27560129143004772022008-03-27T14:37:00.000-03:002008-03-27T14:38:44.668-03:00Watch to the end<object width="480" height="392" data="http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf?mediaId=648644" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" id="revver648644120663937208616461"><param name="Movie" value="http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf?mediaId=648644"></param><param name="FlashVars" value="allowFullScreen=true"></param><param name="AllowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="AllowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf?mediaId=648644" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" allowScriptAccess="always" flashvars="allowFullScreen=true" allowfullscreen="true" height="392" width="480"></embed></object>LJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15901777.post-73715750928733399772007-12-20T18:33:00.001-04:002007-12-20T18:39:17.582-04:00Goodnight and Good Luck<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgysanPbSO3WT8J9m8o4FC_OJrtG2KrgdA5iyQH8TM3hvY47zuoRPbvsLAyN22G-acDvnk5fa2ISkqTM0zI9JYzTZ5k9FOBBH_BrN1N4Bc4d7iBl5KaW1N57qXY6sQMH7UTAFgo/s1600-h/LJ+SARAHS.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgysanPbSO3WT8J9m8o4FC_OJrtG2KrgdA5iyQH8TM3hvY47zuoRPbvsLAyN22G-acDvnk5fa2ISkqTM0zI9JYzTZ5k9FOBBH_BrN1N4Bc4d7iBl5KaW1N57qXY6sQMH7UTAFgo/s400/LJ+SARAHS.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5146187121050019698" border="0" /></a><br />I started this in 2005. The writing has been a friend - and I treasured the writers/friends I've found here.<br /><br />Everything has a cycle, though - and this cycle has come to an end.<br /><br />I wish you all peace, happiness, wisdom, laughter - and good writing. I'm only a click away if you want to find me.<br /><br />Be well, all of you.<br /><br />Namaste.<br /><br />LindaLJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03238060965921536507noreply@blogger.com9