OK, I am now officially falling apart at the seams. Maybe not even the seams, just sort of bursting out of the usual container. Metaphorically, that is not a bad thing. Realistically, and even logistically, it’s a bit unsettling. No, it’s a bit of a pain in the ass.

I’ve been dealing for the past nearly three weeks with this broken tooth and the resulting aesthetic that brings to mind a cattle call for extras in the movie “Deliverance”. This is not the rendering of a make-up artist, though – my teeth have literally fallen apart. They’ve never been all that great, and never been taken care of all that well, but damn.

The dentist did a whole lof of studying and contemplating and deliberation in concocting a plan of action, which involves another appointment more ten days from now. I suppose they had to order parts? This feels a bit like what happens when my truck needs repairs, and I bring it to some people who confer and do things I cannot understand. The problem is resolved, however, and I drive off unburdened of multiple layers of my financial security. That will be the end result of this dental journey – they will fix the problem by doing things I don’t understand, then relieve me of several hundred (or thousand) dollars, parts and labor included. And yes, I am grateful that I have the ability to have a solution, but again…damn.

This morning when I woke up, courtesy of the canine alarm, I reached for my glasses before getting up. And the left arm of the frames detached itself from the rest of the apparatus. I think it’s a question of a screw that has fallen out, but I couldn’t see well enough to make that out. So, here I sit peering through frames that fortunately still rest on my nose, but without a left arm. Damn.

As I write this, I am sipping on a fresh cup of coffee but fully aware that an aroma is wafting its way toward me. It’s not the fragrant aroma of freshly brewed coffee, however. It’s the fresh deposit of this skanky little mutt who delights in making regular transactions of this nature whenever she can. Even after having been outside. Even after having been fussed at, screamed at, forced to run cowering under the bed. Damn.

So, I am retreating into the recesses of my thoughts for a bit. Reality can wait a few moments for me to return. I’m not able to make a contribution at this time. I’ve got…nothing right now. So, I will drink my coffee and go to my happy place where there I really don’t need glasses and my teeth are perfect and my dog is well trained and obedient. Yeah.

For some reason, in the midst of all the logistical chaos of this morning, I had an unwelcome memory of the day my mother died. I had not even made it to her bedside yet, but that day was a certifiable nightmare. It was early morning, and I had arrived at the airport for the scheduled flight that would take me to the end of her life. There was a problem, however, a massive problem – the airport had shut down because of a power outage and it was just a mess. I was standing in a long line of people, in sever pain because my back and right hip were trying to go in a different direction than every other part of my body, and the gravity of possibly not making it to my mother before she died was crushing. I was alone, as usual, and I stood there crying silently in that line, defeated, and powerless.

After about an hour in the line, I had finally inched my way within arm’s length of the ticket counter, and there was some malfunction and we were informed there would be a delay. I vocalized, in my inside voice, a spontaneous but sarcastic comment about having all the time in the world for them to get things moving again. The man in front of me, a tall 40-something white guy, turned to me and said, “I know you’re upset, but we’re all having to wait, so … I mean you’re almost to the counter, but we all have to wait.”

Hmmm. I had no words for this icon of compassion at that moment. My thoughts were, immediately, “#%^@ YOU, ASSHOLE! My mother is actively dying, at this moment, so shut your insensitive mouth.” But nothing came out, and everyone was spared a hysterical woman in an Academy-award winning monologue illustrating the anatomy of homicidal rage stemming from grief and powerlessness. As usual, I knew that I needed to get on that flight more than I needed to kick that guy in the balls, so I remained silent. But it was difficult.

For me to remember this on at this point, on this day, when my mother has been dead since 2017, is beyond interesting. What’s even more interesting is that I cannot remember that guy’s face, but I remember that he was tall and white and a man. That’s what I remember. And he was quite surely an asshole. It intrigues me, however, that I remember his race and gender, and the memory seems to be somehow underpinned by that information. It’s a post-traumatic memory, and I remember the emotion of it all, but it seems important for me to remember race and gender. All these years later.

I don’t know where I want to go with this memory, not sure it means anything in terms of those points of remembrance. For some reason, it feels significant, though, and I have a feeling it will come to me later why it’s significant. Why I still have this pin in a map that says “tall white man, asshole” – not “insensitive guy, day my mother died” or maybe even “airport nightmare, day my mother died”. I will reflect on this a lot more, because the first things coming to mind are that I’m still holding on to an identity as a victim, as a racial and gender minority. This is where I go when I am powerless, it seems. I was powerless not because some tall white man said something insensitive, but because there was an accident on the Interstate near the airport that knocked out power to the entire area and shut down air travel for several hours. Interesting.

So, looking more at where I go when I am feeling powerless is somewhat interesting. Only somewhat interesting, because it feels like something fundamental, foundational, close to my core beliefs. I am not entirely sure I like that, but more importantly I am not entirely sure that doesn’t inform my reality on other levels that are seemingly not connected. That is a very wordy way of saying that I’m not sure I’ve dealt with my internalized oppression as well as I think I have.

While all this internal dialogue is going on, I’m listening to CNN in the background. They are talking about COVID, and the fact that Louisiana has the second highest infection rate in the nation, and there’s at least one hospital in the state capiral of Baton Rouge that is out of ICU beds. They are asking people in the hospital why they didn’t get vaccinated, because nearly 100% of the people hospitalized now are those who are unvaccinated. One guy said he didn’t have time. Another lady said she just wanted to wait for more evidence of how people would fare after being vaccinated, but she ran out of time. Sorry to say that I understand the “I didn’t have time” explanation way better than “I wanted to wait and see”. Wait and see WHAT? See yourself in the hospital?

We seem to give life ultimatums, and I suppose that is a way of believing that you have power. One of the tag lines in recover is “life on life’s terms”. Before I got into recovery, I resisted that with every fiber of my being. If the world told me “no”, I was going to show it that I could make it “yes”. This was a total illusion, of course, but it made me feel somewhat better in those days to feel that I was defying the odds, doing things everybody said I couldn’t do. Some of that was the hubris of youth, of course, but it was the hubris of an alcoholic youth. Addicts are notorious for bargaining with the Universe. We don’t want to see the life we know, the life that is not working, die. It’s a grieving process, in slow motion, and we don’t know we’ve already lost something.

When COVID reared it’s spiky head in the public consciousness more than a year ago, we had no vaccine. People cried out for a vaccine, for something with which to fight the scourge. Now we have a vaccine. And people refuse to receive it. What gives, folks? When the vaccine was made available, there was a great deal of angst and opinion wrangling and of course politics, but I went to every doctor I have and asked them what I should do. Without exception, they all said, “Get the vaccine. As soon as you can, however you can, whichever one you can.” So I did that. I don’t pretend this gives me immunity, but it’s the best chance I have. That’s it. Just like the flu shot – it’s mitigates my risk of getting a sever case of a virus that wants to kill me. I’ll take whatever I can get.

Aside from watching people in Louisiana fighting for their lives, and other people fighting tooth and nail to quell the vaccine resistance, people in Tennessee simply lost their minds over all of this. The governance in some counties looked at their infection rates, and decided the best course of action was to reinstate mask mandates. So they did. And people went out of their minds, making nonsensical charges about constitutionality and violation of personal rights. They went out of their minds, threatening officials who promoted the mask mandates, and even citizens who agreed with the mandates.

I cannot quite understand the rage that has resulted from telling people to wear a mask for some portion of their time in the presence of other people. Not when you go to sleep. Not when you are making dinner. Not when you are in your car. Just when you’re interacting with other people you don’t live with. It’s a piece of fabric that covers the nose and mouth. It’s not a weapon of mass destruction, and it’s not permanent. Get a grip, people. Chasing someone out of a public meeting because they believe that is a little over the top. Screaming at them “We know who you are, and we know where you live, and we’re coming for you!” is, well, just nuts.

“We’re coming for you” is a lot of the rhetoric that was hurled at the January 6th insurrection, apparently meant to instill fear in the hearts of politicians they’d named, those who disagreed with their view of what should be happening in the country. “We’re coming for you”. Coming to do what? Coming to kill? Exactly what are you coming to do? Be clear. You can’t kill everyone you disagree with – just like I can’t. There will always be more. You can’t kill an ideology, or passion, or a way of thinking.

The attempts to wield power by intimidation and murder have been been going on for centuries. The Crusades, the Holy Roman Empire, Attila the Hun, Adolph Hitler, Sadaam Hussein, Idi Amin. It’s about power. It’s about do as I say, or I will simply kill you. Conformity and compliance is worth far more than your life. You should know where you stand, and where you stand is only important to a political system as far as it serves to support the system. It’s not personal. The agents of the system ay seem to be personality-driven, but it’s only the system making sure that it survives. We’re living in the Hall of Mirrors, and things are not as they seem.

People are born and die every day. Every single day. How they are born and how they die is really irrelevant to the overall population. Our personal ties to the living and the dead notwithstanding, organic functions like viruses and bacteria know nothing about the lives they take because they are not sentient. Every living thing has one purpose – survival. The only reason there are variants of the corona virus that causes COVID is because the corona virus is surviving. That’s what it does, no more and no less.

We humans are a consortium of cellular functions, and we have the same goal – survival. We like to pretend that we are very far above that base level of existence, because of our higher sentience, but perhaps we are not. I think out sentience merely complicates our efforts to survive. When people commit hate crimes, there is some level on which they feel their survival is threatened. Whether that’s reality, or not, is irrelevant. They believe they will somehow be destroyed, cease to be, by the object of their hatred. I get it.

When Dylan Roof shot nine people in that church in South Carolina, he told the victims that he had no choice. “They” were killing and raping people, presumably “his” people, and he had no choice but to stop them. It made no sense to most of us because the people he killed were not doing anything but reading the Bible, and many of them were older people, but the threat had been implanted in him and it wasn’t going to respond to reason. Timothy McVeigh made a similar decision when he bombed the Federal building in Oklahoma City, saying that he was acting in defense of American liberty and resisting a government that was becoming tyrannical. The September 11th terrorists were in pursuit of a higher ideal, one that was embedded in their religious ideals of how the world should be.

Survival. If you believe your survival is threatened and you feel powerless, you’re going to do whatever you can to bring yourself into power. If you’re a certain personality type, you may act within the confines of the social contract in which you’re contained. If you’re another personality type, you become a pilot and hijack airliners to crash them into commercial buildings. We’re coming for you. We know where you live, and we’re coming for you. These should be chilling words coming from the mouths of Americans, and directed to other Americans.

If anybody should be coming for anybody else, maybe we should be coming for ourselves. Where have we gone? It’s very easy to lose yourself in these days of non-stop sensory input. It’s very easy to lose yourself in someone else’s web, in someone else’s vision. It’s very easy to lost yourself and all that you’ve known when you feel powerless and devalued. We need to be coming for ourselves. We know where we live, and we’re coming for … us.

We can do this. We can restore civility, and compassion, and sensitivity. Incivility, insensitivity, and lack of compassion are not relegated to one race, or gender, or ethnicity but we often become distracted by those attributes. I contend that our distraction serves only those who seek to destroy us. We’re not really contributing to our own survival as a species by killing each other. That’s pretty simple. VIruses are not terribly intelligent, because they kill their host. They survive as a genus only because they mutate, evolve, and infect other hosts. Because they’re not sentient, viruses don’t have debates about which of their strains is more desirable or more representative of what they believe is the original and most superior strain. Seriously.

I want to say to the world, just hang on, give me a second. I’m just over here trying to reinvent myself. It’s not easy, and it’s gonna take a minute. So back off, and quit tapping your feet and drumming on the desk top.

I’m not sure I know what I want to be when I grow up. Sue me. The point is … I don’t want to grow up. This responsibility crap is highly overrated and much ado about nothing as far as I am concerned. I have a t-shirt that says something to the effect of I will not play by the rules only to wind up at death’s door well behaved. I’m already feeling as though I’ve wasted far too much time being a (mostly) good girl.

Truth be told, I was a good girl only to the extent that I hid from life. I wanted to be a bad girl, but I was too afraid to go out on that limb. I preferred talking that talk but not reallly walking that walk, just talking it. Pretending. Bluffing my way into the same misery as though I had done the deeds. An articulate script full of sound and fury, bright lights and bass beats, smoke and mirrors.

I feel as though I’m a fraud, and it won’t take very long for the world to figure that I’m all talk and not much substance. There is something in the DSM about “imposter syndrome”, and maybe that’s my gig. It doesn’t much matter if there’s a label for it, but I’ve always felt like a fraud, like people were going to find out I’m just bullshitting my way through just about everything.

One would think that if I believed such things, I would not have very much to lose. But I do have a lot to lose. I have the illusion to lose, the delusion even. I have the fantasy that somewhere in there I know what the hell I’m doing, that somewhere inside me there’s a viable life.

In all honesty, I do feel my life is viable, but a dime a dozen. There’s nothing particularly special that I feel I can bring to any table. Perhaps I am chasing dreams of terminal uniqueness once again, as I did in early sobriety. Sobriety is one of the only things I feel that I’ve done more or less correctly, although from time to time I think I’m just faking it all. But the truth of all truths is that I do not drink, and I am not the same person I was when I did drink. And that’s the facts, Jack.

Today, I went to the un-church and it was fine. I didn’t go for the service, although I wish I had since my minister friend was speaking. I’ll catch it later on video I suppose. The only reason I went was for a meeting that I was supposed to lead, and only two other people showed up, one remotely. I would have been very content to have stayed home and done the meeting virtually, but we had agreed a month ago that we’d do it in person this month. Whatever. People do what they want to do.

I don’t always do what I want to do, I frequently do what I feel is expected and what I believe to be the correct answer. So much for freedom, truth, and the American way. These days I do make an effort to speak truth, even when my brain is telling me to make up a story. It’s much easier to be truthful, especially at my age when I can’t remember all the stories. What a pain in the arse to be wondering who you’ve told what, and in what order. Sooner or later I’m going to trip and fall on my butt with all that, so why bother.

Over the years, I’ve wondered why it is that I want to lie about things. Usually it’s because I’ve made a mistake, or a blunder, or screwed up something and want to hide it. Usually it’s wanting to reinvent the past, which never works. It’s not a rational thought process, though, so I can’t expect it to be effective. Even if I get caught in the lie, the real damage is directed inward, knowing that it’s not ethically or morally correct to lie but doing it anyway. That’s the kind of stuff that has always eaten at me from the inside out and makes me want to crawl out of my skin. So…let’s just leave the lying where it’s lying.

Once upon a time, I truly believed that reinventing myself was a sign of failure, a signal that my original format didn’t make it and I needed to come up with something new out of necessity. Over the past bit, however, I’ve been introduced to the concept that reinventing myself is not a failure but a process of discovery, of becoming. I suppose I reinvented myself when I got sober, and that was a very good thing.

It seems that I’m wanting to reinvent myself again, but it’s taking a bit too long for my liking. Maybe I’m just supposed to jump and take a risk, go on a wing and a prayer, and sort it out further after I’ve taken the leap. That’s just a bit terrifying, however, so before I fledge I think I’m going to do what the eaglet is doing, jumping up and down and flexing my wings to build strength. Taking a few very tiny stabs at hovering in the air and practicing. I suppose I don’t have to have a destination in mind to do that, only have to know that I’m going to fly in the near future.

There is a part of me that’s feeling annoyed because I don’t think it should have to be this hard. Maybe it’s not that hard, and I’m overcomplicating things. But maybe not. Maybe it is this hard, because sometimes life is hard and this is life. It’s my life, not somebody else’s life. So comparisons are really useless, especially when I don’t know the whole story that’s behind people I see who have accomplished things I’d like to accomplish. Recovery calls that comparing my insides to other people’s outsides, and that’s apples and oranges. Or something like that.

I have been thinking lately about someone I once loved, and don’t acknowledge any longer. Mercifully I don’t see her at all these days, but I still think about what happened to break the friendship. It wasn’t a friendship to me, because it was so much more than that. It wasn’t a friendship to her because it was so much less than that. I don’t even know what it was that I wanted, but I certainly wasn’t getting it. That’s usually the story of relationships where I have insanely intense feelings for someone, and come away feeling used and disrespected. I don’t even know if that’s true, but the feelings are real.

Whatever it is, I find it sucks mightily, and I don’t want that outcome any longer. I am very content to intentionally stay the hell out of everyone’s way at this point, and not entertain the prospect of forming new friendships. It’s simply not worth it. I feel things too deeply and cannot recover from a feeling of betrayal, or being treated as some trivial afterthought. A guy I knew once said he was having a similar experience, and couldn’t understand why he was viewed as the village priest – someone good to talk with and a lot of fun but never considered for a serious relationship, for romance, for partnership. I got it immediately, and I’ve never forgotten that. Village priestess is equally valid, and sucks equally as much.

So, all that aside, I am beginning to believe that I don’t have to draw up a set of engineering drawings for this reinvention process. That’s where my brain wants to go, into a design phase that is closely followed by an implementation phase and then a testing cycle and finally production. Goodness. Will I never shed this workplace mold? I don’t want it, but it seems to be self-aware on some level. Perhaps it’s just the cage, and the gate is open. But I digress.

Life is possible, however I choose to walk through it. Reinvention is possible, however it turns out. The past is the past, and I don’t need to fix that. I know that I can start fomr this point and create from here. I have a blank canvas, but I bring to it everything I’ve accrued from experience. Why is it so difficult to make the first mark, the first brush stroke? I am living in a black and white world, and I know there’s a world of color and texture and many dimensions. The Earth is definitely not flat, unless it becomes more important to control it than to be in it.

I think my instincts are correct, that it shouldn’t be this hard. It shouldn’t be this hard to live, to feel like I belong in m own skin, like I have a right to be here. It shouldn’t be this hard to feel that I’m not lying when I’m truly not lying. It should be this hard to feel happiness and security and satisfaction. It should be this hard, so why is it this hard? Maybe it’s not. Just maybe it’s not.

Yeah, well, I’m going to go to my un-church for the first time since the recent unpleasantness began. They are still distancing and requiring masks for indoor functions, which is just grand. I believe there will be children running about, so maybe we’ll need two masks. At this point, who knows. As one of my doctors said recently, when asked about reasonable precautions as people begin to gather in-person, you do the best you can and don’t take unreasonable risks. So, I’m doing the best I can.

I have a meeting scheduled there, and one of the invitees has already copped out because she has a runny nose. I’ve been knowing this person for years, and she frequently has a runny nose. I smell a bit of why the hell do I want to leave my comfy house and go down there for a couple of hours of possibly contentious deliberation about social action strategy? Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t mind staying home either, but duty calls.

I am still half-assedly looking for a job. In many ways, my horizons have broadened since I realized that I don’t have to eliminate technical opportunities from my search. I came by the skill set honestly, mostly teaching myself what I needed to do, so I can pick up that stuff again with practice. And YouTube. You can learn anything you need to learn on YouTube, including bad stuff like bomb making and where to get a ghost gun. I even learned how to hack my Keurig machine a few years ago when Keurig made the insane decision to require their branding on K-cups. Non-branded K-cups simply did not work in their new version that year, which I believe backfired on them, but…there’s always a hack.

My doctor wants to do another sleep study on me, to see if I have sleep apnea. I had one done in 2012, and the results were borderline for apnea. I stopped breathing a mere eight times per hour, so that wasn’t drastic. They noted that I never descended into alpha-wave sleep, which was entirely understandable – I was sleeping in a strange bed with a huge camera on the wall and my head wired up like a sci-fi movie heroine. Who the hell can sleep with all that going on? Then, incredibly, they woke me up at some ungodly hour when I might have fallen into a deeper sleep. Whatever.

I’m still watching the eaglet in Alaska, which is getting closer and closer to fledge. The bird is jumping around and flapping its wings, sometimes pulling off a bit of a hover while off its feet. A lot of “wingersizing”, as it stretches out those huge wings and flaps them to build up the muscles it will take for flight. It will be a little sad to see it fly off the nest and eventually abandon it. I’ve been watching this eaglet since before it could even stand, when it looked like a worn stuffed animal with the nubby sprouts of what became feathers. It’s been a fascinating thing to observe.

Eagles, and other members of the animal kingdom, just do what they do. They are driven more by instinct than intellect. There was a period of about 90 minutes yesterday when the mother eagle and the eaglet sat, facing each other, in almost total stillness. It looked almost like a painting. I could almost feel some kind of communication going on between them, however, and I want to imagine there was some transfer of instinctual knowledge. But then I have a vivid imagination, so who knows. But it seemed intentional, because mama eagle hasn’t been on the nest for that long in several days, and the eaglet has been bounding around and either preening or trying out its wings. It seemed significant to me.

I’m still looking for that spark, the spark that is counterintuitive and gives me energy that I don’t need to express. The energy that is fundamental and promises more but allows me to be content in the moment. Allows me to know that each moment is enough, that it is sufficient just the way it is. That’s not seeking perfection, but … serenity. Knowing that all is well, for this minute, and that it will change but that is not a threat but a promise.

I broke a tooth earlier this week. It’s a front tooth, so I look as though I came straight out of a holler somewhere in the hills, off the grid. What broke off is actually a crown that was bonded to the fragment of a tooth many years ago, so the jagged remnant of the tooth is still there tearing up the inside of my upper lip. Yay, me. I can’t see the dentist until Wednesday, so when I go to this meeting at the Fellowship in a bit I’ll be keeping a mask on. When I called the dentist, they said he couldn’t see me on Monday for sure because he is taking his daughter to college. My immediate thoughts were a) what does that have to do with me? and b) many of my dollars are tied up in that endeavor. Timing is everything.

The trials of the governor of New York have been on my mind for a bit. Everybody wants him to resign. Everybody except him. He says he’s got no intention of resigning, and there is more to the story. He’s been accused of sexual harassment, by at least a couple of former staff people, but he says don’t jump to conclusions. I definitely see a variety of perspectives in the whole thing, only because it’s politics. It is not lost on me that his serious problems began in the aftermath of him taking on the former President, and everybody knows that guy is all about revenge.

This governor has a few problems – one, the sexual harassment mess and two, whether or not he purposely manipulated COVID infection data from nursing homes to make his numbers look better. That part preceded the sexual harassment allegations, but regardless of the order, he’s in a world of hurt.

The women – almost a dozen of them – who have come forward to make claims that he touched them inappropriately and/or made them uncomfortable with things he said have interesting stories. One actually seemed to have run into problems on the job and had left under some pressure, then wanted her job back and tried to petition him to rehire her. He chose not to get into it, so there’s every possibility that she has a sour taste left from that.

Another allegation involves a State trooper who says he touched her in a way that made her uncomfortable, in public. His defense for this, and the rest of the allegations, are that he is “familiar” like that, he slips and calls people “sweetheart” and “darling” and this is just how he rolls. He claims to do it with men as well as women, and that’s more cultural than anything else (he’s Italian). There’s a part of that I find rings true, and I’ve know a few people who totally failed to respect my personal space, were overly touchy, and made me uncomfortable. My discomfort, however, wasn’t based on anything sexual or even physical, and I knew without doubt these people were just goobers and had no respect for the personal space for another. To me, it was the equivalent of chewing with your mouth open, and didn’t your mama teach you any better.

I do not want to discount another woman’s negative experience with a man – if a woman feels uncomfortable, that’s her truth and that’s unacceptable. Men treat women abominably in the workplace on the regular, and I do not condone nor ignore that. But again, this is politics, and I have seen facts be contorted for situations like this before. I can only hope the truth emerges and dictates the outcome of this whole saga.

Today, I want to do something that is not mundane. I will go to this meeting and get a few things done. I will socialize a bit and probably see people I have not seen in over a year. Then I will be left to my own devices, and then what? If I were a smart person, I would come back home and clean up a bit then get on with some job searching. But I’m not a smart person because I want to sit in a coffee shop or a bookstore and escape from reality. Oy vey.

I am wondering what it is that I want. This is always a difficult question because I don’t believe that I dream big enough. Someone told me that once – you don’t dream big, and you need to open up and shoot for the moon. Hmmm. I never know exactly what that means.

If I could have any job that I want, I wouldn’t have a job. I would do what I wanted to do, like engage in strategy for social change. Writing would be a big part of that, but I would not be dependent on any of that for economic survival. I guess that’s really what I want – to be independently wealthy and not have to do things I don’t want to do just for survival. Actually, I don’t care about identifying as wealthy but only have the means to survive at a reasonable level of existence. I don’t really care about the trappings of wealth, but want to not have to worry about necessities like food, shelter, health care, clothing, transportation. And the dog. (I’m also thinking about getting birds, but that’s another episode.)

If I could have anything that I want, it would be not having to worry about providing. Not having to worry about acquiring necessary things, not having the pressure of not having enough of something. Being able to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, like travel or experiencing something new. Right now, I don’t have the luxury of travel to places that interest me, like Iceland and the volcanos or Alaska and the eagles. Or Israel and all its history. I suppose that is freedom to me – being able to do what I would like to do without harming or jeopardizing myself or anyone else.

The planet is here for the survival of all, not the taking of a few. The concept of claiming land and resources because you are who you are is truly phenomenal. Colonialism is a brutal and selfish model of unsocial development. It always has been. Our most frequent source of competition has been over resources, but we have really lost that excuse. We can access just about everything we need from the planet, and if we had a better social consciousness we’d pursue synthesizing what has been exhausted. But there’s a dollar underneath all of those decisions, and that’s what is going to kill us all.

I want…to know that I can change my mind. I want to know that if I make a poor choice, I can survive it. I want to know that my feelings are not going to kill me, that what other people think of me is not reality, that I am a good person. These are all things I am frequently not quite sure of. I want to be sure. I want to be sure of myself, not the future. The future is dynamic, and varies with every breath I take today.

Sometimes I wonder about today’s reality, and which decisions or actions I took in the past have manufactured it. I cannot revise the past, but maybe I can learn from it. Or maybe I am trying to live in the past. I have been accused of that before, and perhaps it has been true, particularly when I want to escape the present. It’s a very tangled web, and sometimes I’m trapped in it like prey. That’s when I struggle, and make it worse.

No more struggling. I am tired of struggling, tired of trying to think my way into better living. I want to just live, I suppose. There are some things I want to modify, like the condition of this apartment right now, but that is just a circumstance. I don’t really want to transform myself spontaneously into a neatnik. I am who I am, and who I yam. So, cleaning up is an option, but changing my character is really not. I can be complete with my character and my Self just as it is. At least that’s what I believe.

I am sitting here, not wanting to get up just yet, but needing to. I have to take the dog out, get cleaned up to leave, and go to have this meeting. It will be fine, and worst case it will show me different wallpaper. It’s important to change my perspective, I think. Otherwise things are entirely mundane, and boring. I hate to be bored. Even though I do OK in relative isolation, owing to growing up as an only child, I am basically an extrovert. I get boundless energy from being around other people, especially if I think they maybe halfway like me, and sometimes get overexcited. That has its challenges, but it’s kind of how I roll.

So, off we go, into the wild blue yonder. Or something like that. Today, it may be the mild grey yonder or the blah hazy here and now, but off we go. That’s the royal we, and proud of it. I sometimes wonder if I was royalty in some other lifetime, in some other world. Unfortunately, this is the world I’m in so…reality sucks but it’s reality. I was taught about the importance of accepting life on life’s terms in recovery, and that’s a valid consideration. Today, life’s terms in my corner of reality are capitalistic and soul-numbing pursuit of things not our own, but those are the rules of engagement right now. No amount of kvetching about that is going to change it, so…bless my heart, and bless my soul….you got to hold on. (Thanks, Brittany Howard from Alabama Shakes, for that anthem of my spirit.)

I came of age as a feminist very early in life.  I believe I was about eight.  Catholicism was requisite for membership in my family, and so I was educated by Catholic nuns.  It was the 1960s, and they still wore the formal habits, with a square-framed black headpiece that covered their heads and cheeks, encased within a heavy black vestment that drug the floor.  We joked that they must have been bald.  They were large and slightly intimidating figures who dispensed our religion and discipline with the same unyielding crucifix.

The nuns were the first strong women in authority I knew.  The women in my family were…family.  I loved them, I accepted them as authority figures, but somehow the nuns were some mystical exterior force that must be obeyed, like the police or the priest.  You didn’t argue with the good sisters.

When I was in about third grade, I remember several of us girls decided we wanted to be nuns.  We’d knot our school sweaters over our heads to make a veil, and wore our rosaries around our necks, and clasped our hands under our chins in pious prayer at the playground.  The boys laughed at us but were just a little afraid.  We sometimes knelt in silence and imagined that we were married to God like the nuns had explained was their identity.

It was a way of showing our allegiance to women who had authority and power over our fledgling reality.  They could make our lives miserable or glorious, and that was real power in our lives.  Having a formidable nun wield a paddle over one’s backside was the epitome of powerlessness, and so we tread very lightly.

By the time I was a teenager, and going to another Catholic school with another order of nuns guiding the formation of my academic skills and my faith, I began to understand my unequivocal allegiance to women, and women’s issues.  I lacked the vocabulary to express my loyalty to women, but I felt it strongly.  The music I listened to, the books I read, the heroes I followed were all women.  I was consciously aware of it, and it electrified me to know that I gravitated toward women only.

By the time I got to college, I had figured out there was more to my predilection for women than writing styles and vocal range.  It was a time of the most awkward fledging from the life and orientation of my family to one that was more of my own making.  Out I came, into the bright light of day and the world of women who loved other women in that way of married people.  There weren’t any marriages in those days, but we still got the point, and we still loved.

I wasn’t entirely prepared for some of the nuances of gay life and was stunned to find racism well represented there.  It was still difficult to distance myself entirely from my Catholic upbringing, or my Catholic family.  There were…issues.  It was easier to internalize that conflict and drown it in alcohol.  Many of us did that because the well of pain within us was enormous and we needed respite by any means necessary.

Those were the days, my friend.  Some of us didn’t make it.  We died of alcoholism and drug addiction, of suicide and self-denial, and then we died of AIDS and the indifference of families and country.  We died. 

We still die, everyone dies, but not so much in the shadows of shame and abuse that seemed reserved for us.  Now we die in storied incidents of hatred and bias, our culpability still debated at the altar and in the public square.  The altar and the public square are often the same places, intersecting in bakeries and restaurants. My question remains the same – what does God need with a birthday cake?

In these days of instantaneous communication, including photos and video, I am frequently stymied by the question of certain high-profile members of the community who are somewhat problematic.  Because of their media stature, they are often seen as spokespersons for all of us.  That happens in marginalized communities, and that’s unfortunate.  My problem, however, is how to disavow the message and positioning of these folks without disavowing their membership in the community.

When I was a kid, still vowing to become a nun, I was taught that you never opposed other members of your community in public.  We had our disagreements, but you kept that behind closed doors.  You didn’t air the proverbial dirty laundry in public, outside of the community. 

But we did share those squabbles publicly.  It was too great a burden to keep silent, and so we discussed and processed and debated it all because there was no other way to form a cultural idiom.  We had to understand who and how we formed a collective.   Today, I struggle with Caitlyn Jenner.  I struggle with Candace Owens.  I struggle with Marjorie Taylor Greene.  I cannot support them, I cannot reconcile their vitriol.  They do not reflect my values despite being members of my identity groups.  I cannot support them, because they do not support me, but it does not feel good.

Self-differentiation seems to be a measure of maturity, or ethics, or self-knowledge, or something that displays that one possesses self-knowledge, that you know who you are.  That’s wonderful and highly desirable for many, but it is painful.  It often results in divorcing yourself from your culture, from others like yourself.  It can be a very lonely place to be.

I know that I am not the only member of the GLBTQIA+ community who feels conflicted about Caitlyn Jenner.  I know that I am not the only Africa-America person who feels entirely divorced from Candace Owens and her political stance.  I know that I am not the only woman who feels disenfranchised by Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Despite that knowledge, I still feel very alone in my struggle.

There’s no requirement that we all agree.  There is, however, a requirement that we all know why we do agree, or don’t.  I feel that I stand alone to a degree because I do struggle with these people.  It’s only by questioning their positions and examining what I share with them in terms of identity that I know where I stand.  I know why I don’t agree with them, and I know why they cannot represent me.  It’s about the intersections, I’m afraid.  There are simply no absolutes.

I am a child of the 1960s, who came of age in the new millennium.  Yes, I’m a late bloomer, but better late than never.  There isn’t one experience that I’ve had that could be eliminated.  I have needed them all to be right here, right now.  Every minute of my future depends on every second of my past, as painful as that was.  I can’t change the past, but I can pledge to not repeat the most painful episodes.  In doing so, I craft a future beyond anything I have known.  That’s how it goes.

Nobody ever said this was going to be easy.  Nobody ever said there would not be steps, missteps, starting over, and failure.  I am the one who says there will be a success.  I am the one who says let’s do this.  I am the one who says get up.  Cornel West spoke of something Samuel Beckett once said, that has resonated with me.  “Try again, fail again, fail better.” 

I hope that today I am failing better.

My friend Chris is a movement. He never lives in the same place for very long periods of time – he counts New Orleans as one of the places he’s been in the longest. He was there more than 10 years, I believe. He’s from somewhere around here in NC, but he’s live in the Pacific Northwest a couple of times, New Orleans, and elsewhere in the SouthEast I think. He’s in the process of moving to Hawaii right now, for work. That kind of fluidity intrigues me and scares me tremendously. I’m an both envious and stressed by the prospect of living that way. But nobody asked my opinion.

I could stay in the same place forever. Moving is nightmarish, in my book, and I usually have to prepare for up to a year before the final move. Purging is real, and I need quite a lot of time for throwing out dumspters full of trash, memories no longer remembered, remants of some part of my life that is being left behind. There’s the allegro, where I’m extremely motivated and getting a lot done. Eyes on the prize, as it were, following through with everything, quickly spotting ways to improve the process, lots of energy.

Then it’s down to slow, almost to a crawl. The denial The feeling that it’s not all that big a deal if I have all this stuff , and it’s really not that much. It won’t take all that long to whip up some order out of the chaos, so by all means let’s talk a drive, a walk, watch some more useless YouTube videos. I deserve a break today, and there’s always a McDonald’s that will be more than happy to elevate my cholesterol and fat levels. Live it up, why don’t ya?

The bargaining. The procrastination and the avoidance, the not-so-gentle sway of dancing with the past, a give and take of accepting the reality of it all. Realistic one moment, and running from the overwhelming acceptance of reality the next. It’s no big deal…until it’s a big deal. There’s still time, so don’t panic…but it’s not a LOT of time, so please DO panic. Panic is my specialty, even though it’s lost a lot of its appeal. By all means, however, shift modes by the minute and dance to the rhythm of switching gears.

Now, time is running out, so an all-out panic is definitely in order, and everything has to speed up to nearly hysterical levels. Moving quite rapidly, but accomplishing nothing. Running, but getting nowhere. Cranking, but not moving out of neutral. The state of no-productivity is a nowhere place to be. I feel invisible but deeply exposed at the same time. Haughty and vulnerable all at once. I am a mashup of emotions both out of control and numbed. I need a bit more cooking, because I’m not quite done yet.

This is how my life feels. A never ending series of modal transitions, some of them quite beautiful, soothing and meditative while others are quite hectic and stressful but still containing a measure of excitement and pleasure. I am all over the place and no place. Catch me if you can, but usually I can’t. It has always been difficult to catch myself as I’m streaking by like a comet, frozen in the center but molten where I intersect with tangible reality. What a tangled web I weave.

As I spin my web, I am beginning to realize that some of what I want to catch in its spires is…meaningfulness. I want to have meaning in what I do, in what I experience. I don’t want to feel as though I am wasting my time, don’t want to look back on a particular time in my life and still wonder what the hell it was all for, that it meant nothing. Sometimes I get confused between reason and meaning, and I’m not sure they are equivalent. For example, I don’t always see a reason for suffering, but I acquiesce to it having meaning. There is a cause, which is also no equivalent to reason, but not always a meaning that I can discern.

What IS the meaning of suffering? Does it simply mean pain, or discomfort? When I go to see the dentist, and something causes me pain, I don’t equate that to suffering. I equate that to a temporary experience of discomfort, sometimes intense, but mitigated by the knowledge that it has a finite span. Suffering brings up more feelings of hopelessness and inescapability, and the span of that experience is not fixed. The suffering is related as much to the emotional response as the physical reponse.

Physical pain and emotional pain both feel rather, um, crappy – often excruciating – but they are so vastly different. Either, however, can result in an overwhelming experience when protracted and seemingly intractable. People suffering from any causation may feel as though death is the only relief from the pain. It is difficult for many to understand the intensity of pain that makes one conclude that death would be the only imaginable end to the hurting. Having been there many times, I can say that since I don’t know what death is, it was eventually not entirely plausible that it would end the pain. In the final analysis, I figured that with my luck, death might be only a path to infinite pain. That seemed entirely possible to me, so I stopped the serious contemplation of suicide.

As I sit here contemplating my next steps, or at least what I might want to do to support myself financially for the next decade or so, I feel as though I’m in the slow movement of my own life’s music. Still wanting to bargain a bit, feeling a sense of urgency but not entirely willing to act accordingly. My experience tinkering around with that website the other day was exciting to me, I was learning, I was problem solving, I felt alive and … competent. I want more of that, but I have to get over my hesitancy to risk vulnerability and possibly make a mistake.

It occurs to me at this point that I am compelled to risk everything at this point. What exactly is there to lose that cannot be replaced? I can, of course, lose financial stability and tangible assets, but in all honesty, that was always the case. I could lose my life, but that is also the case every day that I wake up and venture out into the world to walk the dog, or drive to an appointment or get a sno-ball. There are no guarantees. I could lose my footing and fall, bang my head on the concrete and never wake up. A car might carren into me in a parking lot. Anything is possible at any time, so I suppose it’s all just a matter of comfort level and the illusion that I’m managing risk.

Yesterday, I left my little slice of canine heaven at home while I went out to run errands (including replenishing her supply of treats). For whatever reason, I had the idea of taking a long walk without bringing her along, so I did that. It’s a familiar place, and I did reasonably well despite misgivings of being so far out of shape that I’d need help getting back to my truck. I finished the entire walk, more than a half-hour, without stopping. That was a big victory for me, because I am THAT out of shape. But now I know it’s possible, and it actually felt pretty good. I didn’t try the same thing and expect a different result – I tried something different and waited to see what result I got. Amazing.

Today, I am feeling the need to be somewhat productive. I have a doctor’s appointment at 2:15pm. The weather is cooler than usual, so maybe another walk is in order. It would also be a good thing if I did a few job searches, with a widened scope that includes the IT work I did previously. So, we’ll see how that pans out. My energy level is higher than it has been in a little bit, so I’d love to take advantage of that. I’m grateful for that. It’s a drag to have your brain writing checks that your body can’t cash, as they say. So let’s not do that today.

Ya know, I amaze even myself at times. I can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on the regular, usually because I can’t leave well enough alone. I had a problem with a website I’ve volunteered to help with. It’s somewhat fun, until…it’s not. I ran into a problem last week that I thought I had caused, because I wanted to make something better than what it was. Noble intention. Disastrous outcome, because the whole freaking thing was brought to its knees, and there it remained for several days.

I was blaming myself for not leaving things alone, and trying to be the big hero who would resolve some of the pesky problems they’ve been having. Just maintaining what was there is all they were asking, but that wasn’t good enough for me – I had to “improve” things. I almost helped them to death. Fortunately, this is a non-profit entity, so there was no financial impact. But still, the stress level rose, and rose, and more.

As is my usual method of operations, I blamed myself and spent a good deal of time cussing myself out for being such a moron. When I talked to the person in charge of the agency, who is a fairly young and cheerful woman, she was entirely nonplussed. Entirely. She literally shrugged and said, well, we (meaning she and I) will see if we can find the guy who was doing it before you volunteered to help out. He will help, and then everything will be fine.

I was stunned, because I had been expecting a declaration of how bad the situation was if the website was down for so long, and how that was a very bad thing. I expected needing to explain myself, and what I had done to cause this, and was already concocting a story that left out some of the more important details because I had already decided it was my idiotic fault and I just needed to do damage control. But I got none of what I had become so accustomed to getting. She was thanking me for trying, and thanking me fore sticking with it for so long.

I tried again to be the guilty party, but she was having none of it. I said, well I shouldn’t have hit the “accept” button when it asked me to update some files. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and that’s when the trouble started. Undeterred, she said, “Well, it’s great that you were willing to take that risk! Nobody would ever have known how that would turn out unless you took the risk, and I think that’s a good thing!” Fortunately for me, we were on the phone, because my mouth hung open and my eyes were big as headlights and I must have looked like a really stupified puffer fish.

I couldn’t think of a word to say, and I was not in my body for a moment. What sponteously came out of my mouth was, “I adore you!” Really smooth, right? I did not immediately cringe, though, because it was really what was on my mind. This woman and I have become friends in the course of working with this little non-profit agency, which is somewhat affiliated with the UU Association. I could tell she didn’t understand why I’d had that response.

I knew immediately what was up, and when I blurted that out it was because I was letting loose the lump in my chest that’s been there since my days of working in the corporate cess pool of metrics and blame and being made to feel worthless because I was not perfect. It was soul numbing, mind numbing, numb numbing. I couldn’t feel much of anything after years of those abusive fuck heads (yes, I said that). But here was someone who trusted me to do the best I could, and who was grateful that I had even tried. I almost couldn’t believe it, and felt somewhat victorious and validated for the hell I had been through in the moronic stagecoach from hell.

We got in touch with the guy who had just retired from this non-profit gig, and had originally set up the website and worked on it for several years. He’s doing what retired people do, travelling and relaxing but he was willing to get on the phone with me and sort this out. He was quasi-apologetic about the problems I’d had, because he had not given me all the access rights I needed to really troubleshoot the problems, but he corrected that. He suggested a couple of things that I could do with my newly upgraded access, and I did those quickly. Presto! Website returned to the state it was in before the big crash.

Now, one would think I’d logout of that site and leave it alone until…whenever there was something more to do there. But no. I had to see if I could make it better. I had to go back and try doing some other things. To give myself a little bit of a break on the guilt, I was so excited with being able to learn new things about that system, and what happens when you change this, and what happens when you add that, and so on. I was in my element, and it felt really good. And then…I went a step too far and *blammo* back to the mat I went again. Site was down. Again. But i knew what to do, and I got it back up in record time, so *whew* all is well.

Then I did it again. Actually, I did it three more times. I’m sure the file server wanted to walk over here and bat me upside the head, with love and affection. I had been putting the whole thing through its paces for going on three solid days, and I’m sure there were error logs all over the place. What really intrigued me was how quickly I became literally obsessed with fixing and improving this thing, I couldn’t stop.

Just a few minutes ago, after I restore the website to its original condition, with pre-existing maladies from long before I touched it, I gave myself a good stern admonition: log off. Log off NOW. No, do not check error messages. No, do not clean up anything. No, do not touch another blessed thing. It’s all back up like it was before the whole thing went belly up the first time, so…Leave. It. ALONE.

So I logged out of everything, and I will not touch it again until we figure out what to do about it. The whole experience gave me a bit of information, though. I really did assume that I was done with IT, that I really didn’t care if I never did technical work again. They said I was incompetent, so I should just find some job that has no technical component and be satisfied with that. Dammit.

After my excitement and fervor at having a technical problem to solve, and educating myself on how to do that, I am no longer sure that I’m done with IT. I am, however, done with corporate IT and probably corporate employment of any kind. They don’t give a damn about people. You get paid for ratting on your co-workers, and even when you don’t realize it, you’re rewarded for showing them up. You’re given extra bread crusts for being a brown noser and grabbing as much of the work as possible. Whether you mean to or not, and sometimes you DO mean it, you are in the business of putting your co-workers out of a job. But as long as you go to church on Sunday and bring canned goods for the food drive, you’re a good person and the apple of management’s eye. Lovely, but you can keep that mess.

So much for the further adventures of a technology dweeb. I completely accept my nerdish side, although it pains me as per usual that I’m not exemplary at doing technical work. I feel very mediocre at it, as I do with most other things I do, so at least I’m consistent. Right now, I don’t really have time, or the interest, to figure that out. I’m too old and too tired of trying to make myself acceptable for other people. That has gotten me nowhere.

I am such a loser. While typing that last paragraph, I was entirely compelled to check that website one more time, just to make sure it had stayed active. It was fine. For giggles, I checked out the pre-existing condition to see if it was still not working, and amazingly it’s fixed! Hallelujah. I can lay down my light sabre and stand down for the evening.

So, now on to bigger issues (although the whole website thing was HUGE for me). It is incredibly hot and humid these days, hotter and way more humid than I recall. It’s been this hot before, I have to admit, but not with the humidity being this high consistently. When it’s this high, it feels like walking through a fine mist of warm water. All the time. I am very glad to have air conditioning in my truck. It’s great that I have no more oil leaking, but truth be told the air conditioning was a bigger issue for me. I do NOT do heat well – never have, never will.

My friend Chris is in town for a few days, and we had lunch today. He and I got pretty close when he was here a couple of years ago. We met in recovery, and hit it off immediately when he disclosed that he had lived in New Orleans for quite a while. It’s his favorite city, but he’s lived in a bunch of different places. He’s from around here, but he’s been on the move since his late teens. Just don’t wanna be tied down to any one place, I suppose. That kind of freaks me out a little, but he’s good at keeping in touch and keeping the friendship going. He’s now planning to move to Hawaii. Okey dokey.

It occurs to me that I am being shown different ways of being in relationship with people. I don’t have to be keeping track of them and in close proximity to them 24 by 7. I can trust that if they are doing their own thing without me, that doesn’t mean they don’t like me any more. Maybe this persistent haze of dysfunction is lifting. I certainly hope so.

The eagle in Alaska is getting pretty close to fledging. It’s HUGE now, and looks like a full grown eagle, except for the white feathers. It’s a bald eagle, and they don’t get the white head and tail fathers until they’re about five years old. The beak is still pretty dark, but will turn completely yellow over the next year or two I believe. It’s so amazing to watch that eagle family doing their thing, totally on instinct. The parents are no longer feeling compelled to hang around the nest all day and night, but they are never far away. If there’s a problem that might endanger the young ‘un, they are right there in a flash.

I’m also still watching the volcano in Iceland, along with some bats in some place I can’t remember, some black storks in Russia, and the most beautiful exotic birds in South Africa at feeders. I am still entirely enthralled with the volcano, because it is still spewing lava at a really healthy rate. The lava still fountains from time to time, but it’s now mostly a boiling overflow on a pretty constant basis. It’s been erupting for close to three months now, every day. I cannot fathom that much molten rock being forced up to the surface from beneath the ground. Earth is a really dynamic planet, and has incredible living things. How people can kill and destroy what is here just for profit is mind boggling.

The dog has been outside, and the time before the last time she got to see her boyfriend. He is always very happy to see her, and she curls up with him, even on the pavement. She was hot, and I was trying to nudge her towards i-n-s-i-d-e but she was having none of it – her man was lovin’ on her and she wasn’t going anywhere. They are such a hoot together, but it’s very endearing. He generally loves her, and whenever I joke with his wife about being ready to throw this little weenie out of the apartment, they both say they would take her in a minute. Bless everybody’s heart. Even my crazy dog’s.

I haven’t hear much about Simone Biles today, so I hope the media is giving her a rest. I did hear one little snippet about her just hanging it up entirely for this Olympic competition. I hope she does, because I cannot imagine the media attentions has made anything better for her. She is a brilliant athlete, and she has already won gold and many international competitions, so she’s got nothing to prove. I still contend that denying her the rightful degree of difficulty scores at the beginning of the Tokyo competition is what shook her, and that’s what started all of the “twisties” or “squirmies” or whatever it’s called when you don’t know where your body is in space. That’s dangerous for somebody flying through the air in their bare feet with barely any clothes on.

I am NOT going to check on this website again. I am NOT going to check on this website again. Leave well enough alone, play stupid computer games, go to sleep early. It’s not that hard.

Today has been the technology day from, oh I don’t know where – Hell is too mundane. Perhaps it was the day from Betelgeuse, which is probably in the process of blowing up now as we speak (although we won’t see it for several hundred more years or so). But yeah, Betegeuse gets my vote for the most technologically obtuse and nonsensical day ever.
I was trying to fiddle with a WordPress site for an organization that has the poor judgment to include me as a volunteer, and every single thing I even THOUGHT about touching blew up. Everything. I think 99% of that was due to upgrades with no notification, like let’s just sneak this mess in here right quick, and if we don’t tell anybody it didn’t really happen. Besides, next week we can charge everybody more money for the stuff that doesn’t work and explain how much they need to thank us. Yup.

I was just about ready to get into the web host’s site to see if they had anything to do with it, but that place was hermetically sealed with a double-locked stainless steel chastity belt. Lord. There are so many points of failure in the average website effort that it’s like navigating the information superhighway when the road is made of swiss cheese.

In a few years, we’re all going to be aged people with microchips in our heads to keep us from destroying all the computers. We’ll be the last people who remember what it was like before. Before…this. When people talked to each other in full sentences and went about their work at a reasonable pace, not one that was inspired by Speedy Gonzales.
I am truly not sure where the hell we’re all trying to get to so fast, but if the guy across the breezeway from me runs up the effing stairs outside my bedroom wall one more time I am going to scream. No, the dog is going to scream and I am going to throw something against the wall. He’s not all that big a guy, but he walks like a herd of rhinos and runs up. I can hear (and feel) him coming from the first floor (we are on the third floor). I’m ready to block off the stairs and toss a rope over the railing, and tell him he can either take the rope or jump but no more stairs.

That volcano in Iceland is still cranking out massive quantities of lava. There are earthquakes there every day, several times a day. I don’t think very many people actually live in that part of Iceland, but still.

I am also still watching the eagles in Juneau AL getting close to fledging. Mama and Papa are still feeding it beak-to-beak, which is still really endearing. They mostly go out and bring home fish, and the young ‘in is just beginning to be able to feed themselves. Papa almost did a fly-by earlier today, came skidding into the nest and hurled down a fish, and then off he went. Eagle business, I guess.

Mama eagle is estimated to be about 22 years old, which is pretty good for an eagle in the wild. The park where these eagles nest doesn’t band the birds who have chosen their trees to nest and breed, so I suppose nobody really knows for sure. They do know for certain that she’s been coming to this nest every year since she built it in 2004, so that’s some indication of her age. In 2004 she was at least 5-6 years old because she already had the white feathers on her head, so…she’s an old pro. Such incredibly strong and beautiful creatures.

The bald eagle is our national bird, of course, but it always tickles me that Ben Franklin was overruled when he proposed to make the turkey the national bird. He said it was far more fitting and in line with our stated values. That would have been a hoot to have a turkey on the back of our currency, clutching…what? Maybe some cobs of corn, or a sweet potato.

Because I had my own distraction today, with the technology unpleasantness, I haven’t watched the news at all. Funny how quiet it seems. The television has been on in the background, but I haven’t locked on to it. I should have put on music, but I was nearly up to my armpits in frustration (and misspelling that word was entirely intentional).
The day before yesterday I got the guitar out and played for close to an hour. I need to do that way more often, especially because the callouses on your fingers have to build up again if you’ve not been playing for a while. That’s coming along…a little pain, a little pleasure, like everything else.

There is so much that I encounter that’s more or less polarized, and you have to take the good with the bad as they say. That’s just dandy, but who the hell raises their hand and says, “I want the unpleasant stuff. Yup, I’m the one who is standing here and saying bring. it. on.” Some people seem to get more than their fair share of hard times and pain and difficulty in life, but who is to say what’s a fair share? Somewhere in my spirit, I am thinking perhaps that sort of thing is unfinished business for a soul to learn from. It still kind of sucks, though.

I was on this Zoom thing last night, with a book club that I was invited to by a friend. It was mostly women and one lone man. The discussion centered around a book that Alicia Garza has out in the stores, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart (there’s not an easy way to underline that, which is really distressing me, but whatever). It seems like a really good read, although it’s long. I had not read even one page of it but found what amounts to crip notes online.

As I listened to other folks offering their comments about the book, and what they found meaningful, the lone man present jumped in. He lurched out some seriously stinky shit about how he could never understand why when he goes to marches and demonstrations the people who are directly affected aren’t there. “They” should be the ones doing the marching and showing up for all the stuff he’s been involved in. “Those people” aren’t there, and he just doesn’t understand that.

After I let the dust settle on his “those people” comments, I decided I wanted to punch him. Hard. Those people??/ At least two other women gently challenged him on why “those people” might not be present, like…oh, um…maybe THEY ARE WORKING? Maybe they don’t have jobs where they can take a day off and still get paid, or maybe they aren’t retired and have a lot of time on their hands. That’s the facts, Jack. Ugh.

But, the gathering was fine, and some of the women were associated with the Pauli Murray Center in Raleigh. I know enough about Pauli Murray to fill a demitasse and would like to know more. From the little bit that I know, she was entirely running up his all her life, and against the grain. She was an activist when that might be a death sentence, and she was an out queer Black woman when that could get you dug up from the grave and killed again. She’s no longer living but has left a wealth of writings and philosophical essays that I want to read. Soon.

Right now, I’m pretty tired. I worked for quite a long time on that website problem, and that is the kind of activity that requires focus and concentration, which always wears me out far more than physical activity. After a while sparring with those kinds of problems, it becomes competitive, and I have to win. I have to find the cause and correct the error. But today, I could not, probably because there are multiple causes for why the problem has emerged in the first place. Truth be told, I was initially so engaged in fixing the problem because I wasn’t sure that I had not done something to cause it. But the damned website had been acting goofy since I first logged on, and once again, if I even THOUGHT about changing something or trying something, it freaked out even more.

This is why people are on the edge. Every day. Everything is out of our control, and sometimes you feel like you’re at the mercy of people who function way above your pay grade. Well, that and the virus…and the vaccine…and now the Delta variant…and most of us know there are still folks being killed and treated unfairly (an understatement, of course) at traffic stops. But the news isn’t tuned to that right now – they’re obsessed with the anti-vaxxer crowd and the investigation of the January 6th debacle. But they’re on top of it. Yup.

I think I will sleep well tonight…for some reason, I woke up at 4:45 this morning. And I can’t blame that on the dog. I was just all of a sudden awake, for no good reason. Went back to sleep for an hour or so, until the dog realized she had missed her window of opportunity to get outside earlier than usual. She was a little snarky because her boyfriend didn’t come out and give her love. Spoiled little cur.

For some reason, I thought today was Saturday. That was really bizarre. At the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, I was having trouble keeping the days in order but have been doing pretty well lately. Sometimes I wonder if there’s a dark overlord of time who speeds things up and slows them down just so we are constantly off balance. Who’s to say the fabric of space-time doesn’t get a wrinkle every once in a while, and gets ironed out after the fact.

Who’s to say how anything works these days? The more we know, the more we know that we don’t know, and that’s always the way of it. I do think we’ve gotten collectively a bit more arrogant in espousing what we know, but pride goeth before the fall, or so I’ve heard. We shall see, said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw..

Posted on Facebook earlier today:

Feeling like going off about some things…First, it’s effing 91 degrees outside, and muggy. I left Louisiana for THIS? it wasn’t this bad during the summer when I first moved here, but hey – no worries. If the glaciers melt we’ll have plenty of water to cool off with, so shaddup already about global warming, ya pansies. (channeling the average climate change deniers)
When it’s this hot, I have learned to leave the public to play with itself and huddle up in my own space. That’s what’s happening today. Still, it’s a goofy day.

Second, I ordered a pizza earlier and they let me know when the driver had left the store to make the delivery. I don’t know what route they used to get here, or maybe no route at all, but 40 minutes later a lukewarm pizza was deposited in front of my door with a knock (as per request), and the driver had evaporated into thin air. Whatever. I ate it anyway.

Third, I watched the first day of the insurrection committee, or whatever they are calling it, and that was a lot heavier than I thought it would be. Congress-people crying, police officers pounding the table during testimony. I can’t say those emotions were inappropriate or unwarranted, but I almost can’t believe that people are having to go through all of this to document what everyone with any sense already knows – the former guy incited, or at least inspired, that riot and the rioters involved had been riled up so high they were out for blood. They were not peaceful tourists, they were not patriots, they were barely civilized…spraying bear spray and stuff on people. Ugh.

I can’t be confident that justice will be served for those directly impacted after this investigation is over, in part because no matter what kind of evidence is presented some people will not believe the truth. They are the same people claiming the current President is not legitimate, and that the election of 2020 was stolen from the former guy. I don’t believe there’s a shard of truth to such a tale of woe, but if anyone would know how to steal an election it would be the GOP. Just since I’ve been of voting age, I suspect them to have done it twice so far.

Finally…Simone Biles. She is an incredible athlete, nearly flawless in her execution of seeming impossible maneuvers, and she faltered. There should be no shame in that. We forget these are very young people, no matter how much physical prowess and athleticism they display. This is not the first athlete who has said “ENOUGH!’. Serena Williams said it. Naomi Osaka said it. Now Simone Biles is saying it. We’ve actually seen several other world-class athletes in this position over the years but perhaps didn’t recognize what they were showing. It’s not just women, either, but the whole Tonya Harding and Nancy what’s-her-name debacle a few years back – that wasn’t exactly stable behavior there. There have been a couple of NFL players and even a couple of NBA players who have gone slightly off the deep end. The ticket-buying entertainment-entitled public has shown no propensity for treating its entertainers like human beings.

Whether it’s show business or sports, we demand to be entertained by a paid commodity. A paid commodity, and not a human being. I wonder if we believe these are only semi-live performances that can be edited for special effects and crowd appeal. Well, that’s not the case and the people out there running and tackling and throwing balls and flipping through the air happen to be human beings with high-level athletic talent. Not robots, not artificial intelligence creations. Really humans who bleed if cut, who hurt when muscles are strained, and who are busting their butts to do the best they can do. Asking for help should never be a cause for shame, and it should never be denied. Why athletes don’t always have mental health resources readily available baffles me.

I commented earlier, after reading an article about Kerri Strug and the recounting of her coach telling her that “we” needed to do a vault one more time, even though she was already in excruciating pain from an ankle injury. She landed the vault and crumbled to the floor. The public declared her brave, and brilliant. The U.S. did very well in gymnastics that year, but Kerri Strug’s career ended just after that performance. The injury took its toll, but she did her “duty”, so all was well. We tell military personnel they must do their duty. We push them to go far beyond their limits at times, and judge those who can’t keep us as weak, or non-motivated, lacking the courage, and worse. How and why we presume that athletes perform in the same context is bizarre. It’s that hard-wired limbic brain, I suppose, in which competition and dominance are inherent.

We, humans, crave a good battle, and we’ll find it however we can. If it’s not sports, it could be music. If it’s not music, it could be dance. If it’s not dance it could be…playing checkers. WE rarely miss the chance to compete, and to the victor go the spoils and all that. The notion that one should go beyond physical limitations is cruel The human body responds with pain to let us know that something demanded of it is beyond its limits. Sometimes we push a bit beyond, and there’s always a price to pay. In the case of professional athletes, pushing too far can be career-ending, and for Kerri Strug it definitely minimized the length of her competitive career. That seems cruel, and not in her best interest at all. Is it worth all that? Many people believe that it is.

There’s a lot of money tied up in victory. In military service and war, it’s self-evident. In things like sports or music (or playing checkers) it’s based on the entertainment demand. The more evocative a performer proves to be, the more the audience demands further emotional response. It’s pleasurable, and people are willing to pay for that. Unfortunately, in the minds of some, that means they own the performer. Naomi Osaka says, um…nope. Simone Biles says nope. Serena and even Venus Williams both said no way do you won me. There have been others as well.

My question is – why do we expect the same level of selfishness from athletes as we do from military personnel? Do we see any competition as a duel to the death, as equivalently significant? I’ve surmised that competition is hard-wired in us, but I also contend that we can simply do better. We live vicariously through entertainers – they allow us to feel what we often cannot. Maybe we need to learn how to do that ourselves? Or at least realize that our enjoyment of a performance is not worth the sacrifice of the performer.

I don’t have answers for any of this, but at least I know that I don’t. I very much wanted to see Simone Biles wipe the floor up with her competition, but not at risk of any damage or harm to her. I’m not going to be leaving nasty messages on social media about her or finding a way to leave her nasty voice messages. I’m not going to trash her on social media or in a letter to the editor, and I’m not going to denounce her because she is less than perfect. She has given me such joy in watching her seemingly impossible feats, but she broke my heart when I heard that she wondered aloud if people would still love her if she withdrew from the Olympic events. What if she broke her neck and couldn’t compete ever again? Is that the only reason people gave a damn about her? If so, there’s something way wrong with that. Way wrong.

That is all. Go back to y our previously scheduled programs or whatever. Remember everyone is not having a good day, so spare a little goodwill for those who are not.

So. Yesterday a significant relationship ended. i said goodbye to someone that has meant something to me. Technically a professional relationship, but so much more. I rarely have the opportunity to have a rational, yet emotional, parting with someone in my life. This is one of those rare times when I’ve been safe to have the emotions, and the party of the second part didn’t take advantage of those cracks in my armor.

The emotions are still flowing, which is somewhat annoying, but I am simply allowing them to spatter about and cause me to gesture obscurely when necessary. I would rather nothing ever change, but despite comprehending that is simply not the way of things, I reserve the right to loathe it. Especially when it’s not my idea. Dammit.

I am not liking the feelings. They are messy and distracting and do not respond to my attempts to control them. These are not entirely new feelings, but this is a different experience because I am not angry. This was handled so gently, and despite my initial suspicion that I was being abandoned yet again, I was handled with kid gloves. My trust was restored. I had closure, in such an incredibly supportive way, and left with my dignity intact. This is a big deal. A very big deal.

So, today I am holding myself in the wake of this emotional flood, and coming to realize that I was treated as I deserve to be treated. Like a mother would treat a child. This is something I have rarely gotten in my life. Perhaps I have not been ready for it, but perhaps I have not been dealing with people who were capable of providing that. I will never, ever, ever forget this experience, or what it has changed. Something has shifted. Something big.

Twice in the past week I’ve been given the gift of nurturing, of being held by a gentle spirit like a frightened child. These experiences give me far more faith in my ability to navigate this insane world than anything else. They give me more trust in myself, that somehow I am indeed able to attract people who do not simply want to harm me. Maybe I am somehow competent after all.

So, I am immensely grateful for having this experience of closure yesterday. No drama, no rage, just gratitude. Now I must determine what I’m going to do with that. I have been taught that gratitude is an action word, not a thought. How will I continue in a manner that reflects that gratitude, and maintains a condition for which I continue to be grateful? That’s the question, and that’s what must guide me.

I watched the opening proceedings of the new Congressional Select Committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection. Four police officers, from Capitol Police and Metro D.C. Police, were on hand to testify. Their testimony was emotional for the listeners, and there were yet more previously unseen videos. One officer told of having a speaker thrown in his direction and eventually landing on his foot. Several bones were broken, and he received stiches where the skin was torn apart. He also injured his shoulder in the fracas, and may ultimately need surgery to repair a damaged rotator cuff. He may be in pain and recovery for at least another year.

That officer is a naturalized citizen from the Dominican Republic. He is not a recent immigrant, but told the committee he felt the rioters focused on him at one point and drew attention to his accent. They shouted racial epithets at him that showed they did not accept him as an American citizen. Another officer, who is African-American, told a similar tale of racial epithets hurled at him, and related that a woman in the crowd shouted to others, “Hey look – this nigger voted for Biden!”

What in the world makes these people so incredibly rageful and brutal? How do we reconcile those stories, those videos, those scenes that are now frozen in our memories with our shared national allegiance? How can these people be a part of us? They literally tortured law enforcement officers with pepper spray, bear spray, tasers, stun guns, wooden beams, flag poles, barricades, shields wrestled away from the officers, and anything else they could get their hands on. What kinds of people are these? It’s one thing to be angry, even enraged. It’s another thing entirely to be simply cruel.

Aside from this investigation of the insurrection, the Tokyo Olympics are proceeding, against the best advice of medical professionals around the world. There is no audience in the arenas, which has to be somewhat of a flat experience for the athletes. Regardless, these people are giving it their all, and then some. The pressure to perform, and represent your country admirably, is mind boggling. They don’t all make it through all of the trials, and today Simone Biles withdrew from team competition. She explained in a press conference that her mind was just no in an acceptable place. and she felt it was better for not only her mental health but for the team if she withdrew.

Simone Biles is an incredible athlete, and a very young woman. She had an uncharacteristically error-prone routine just before making her decision, and her face showed the emotional turmoil. Her body does things seemingly impossible for a human body, and her level of talent and competitive spirit is phenomenal. Her withdrawal is a terrible loss for this Olympic gathering. Previous gymnastics competitors voiced the utmost care and support for her, and many of them echoed her story of the incredible pressure experienced. At few of them voiced their sentiment concerning insufficient mental health support during these high pressure competitions.

Today, she pulled out of the individual overall competition. She maintains that her mind is “not there”, not in the optimal state to engage in this intense competition safely. There was a past champion on CNN this morning who affirmed that vociferously, saying the risk of injury when you are flying through the air and executing complex body movements can result in serious injury if you lose focus for even a second. Without exception, people considered expert in the field of gymnastics and athletic competition support her decision, and say that it’s impossible to judge it. I believe everyone is wishing her well, and wanting to see her incredible skills at some later time, when she feels safe and ready.

There are some things in my experience that I had no idea would be significant until much later. Other things brought about immediate emotional response, but there were layers of insight that emerged over years, even decades. I am the only one living in this body, so I’m the only one who can determine whether or not my mental state makes it safe for me to engage in anything, at any time. That’s not for anyone else to decide, or comment upon, or judge. If Simone Biles feels unsafe and vulnerable, and not in a place to offer her best, so be it. Everyone else can shut the hell up, and keep their opinions to themselves.

Many years ago, when I was about 9 or 10, my parents and I set out for Astroworld in Houston Tx. We stopped off in Lake Charles to visit with my grandmother, which brought such great joy to me that I remember spinning around like a top in the carport when we arrived. I took a long nap, and I think my dad did as well because he was driving, and then we hit Astroworld.

I don’t remember all that much about Astroworld, truth be told. I think I had fun, in that blase’ flat way in which dysfunction morphs one’s emotions. I believe my father had not been entirely jaded quite then, and I don’t remember feeling terribly anxious or afraid during that trip. It’s likely that I slept a good part of the time, because even now I am nearly hypnotized in planes, trains, and automobiles. I go into such deep sleep when riding on a vehicle in motion that it’s frequently embarrassing, since I snore raucously.

Perhaps I remember that trip, or at least the fact of the occurrence, because things had not deteriorated entirely in my family. My grandmother was still alive, my mother had not been transformed to a cruel and tempestuous Medusa-like form, and things seemed to be somewhat “normal”. My father had probably not met the 2nd wife yet. I had not entered puberty and the onslaught of homicidal hormones. The dog hadn’t begun peeing on my father’s leg. Life was … good.

Not all that long after that, that picture melted into some kind of surreal hell. I wonder what my parents were feeling during the metamorphosis, if they had any clue about what was happening. If my father understood that he wanted something more, that he was miserable in his marriage. I wonder if my mother felt that anything was amiss in her relationship to her husband, of she believed that his emotional absence and stoic silence was how every marriage proceeded. I am not entirely sure what I was thinking at that point. I believe there were simply more periods of grace and unencumbered times of just existing, without feeling that my very presence in the world constituted a failure of the divine.

Perhaps at one time I thought I’d want to go back to those days, but now I don’t think so. I suppose everything was exactly as it should have been then, until it wasn’t. I can’t reconstruct the past, whether I want to or not, whether I accept it or not. I have to live here and now, but I suck at that. I so totally want to fly, but I’ve forgotten and my wings are too large and I don’t quite know what to do with them. Perhaps if I could get my brain out of things, it could work – my resistance and hesitation are formed by what I know, what I’ve read, what I see, what I’ve been told. So much noise!

I’m still watching the eagles developing in Juneau. It’s huge now, almost adult-sized but it’s still learning. It doesn’t yet know how to jump up on a branch to perch. The other day, mama eagle crash-landed in the nest, and then plodded over to a branch and jumped upward to perch. The little one was mesmerized by her maneuvers, and stared with head turned quizzically until long after she was settled. I figure it won’t be long before it hops up there, and no much longer until it tries flying for the first time. I don’t think eagles stress over whether or not they are meeting developmental guidelines as established by expert authorities, though. When it’s time, it’s time, and not a second before. When it’s time, they’ll do what their instincts tell them to do. Amazing.

I will never forget my longtime provider who retired yesterday. She was my psychiatrist, but she got me. During that last conversation, I mentioned the eagles, and she said they would teach me everything I need to know. I think she’s right, because over the past couple of months that I’ve watched them, I’ve had an incredible amount of insight into love, relationships, family, nurturing, and balance. I would never have thought to Google “eagle nesting” or “eagle’s development” on my own, but I stumbled on this site in a purely unintentional way. We bring to ourselves what we need at times.

The concepts of requiring an open heart to maintain gratitude sticks with me. At least for me, it may be that my heart needs to maintain not only an open heart, but an open mind. My resistance is so often based in thought exercise, and the construction of past events with present events. Sometimes there really is no connection, or more importantly, if there’s’ a pattern I can just stop doing things that get me to the same place over and over and over. I suppose that’s too simple for my advanced brain, but…still I try.

Today it’s hot, and muggy. I took the psycho-dog outside, and she barked at nothing for quite a while. Her barking may well have manifested things to bark at later, because someone appeared to wash their car, and a couple more people appeared walking their dogs, and the landscaper rode by on his mower. She was nearly hysterical. But in is good way. At one point she got so excited that her tongue was hanging out sideways, and she was breathing like a fire engine. I told her to calm down because she was going to have a heart attack, or cause me to have a heart attack, or there would simply be heart attacks in the general vicinity of her excitement. She gave me the standard look of , “You moron. You still don’t quite understand that I have no earthly clue what you are saying, and if I did I really wouldn’t care.”. Oh, well.

Oh, yeah – I got the new FitBit yesterday…it has a couple of snazzy new features that I will probably never use, and it’s a touch-screen model. The screen is less that two inches wide and three inches high, so my chubby fingers aren’t going to be navigating a whole lot in that tiny space. As long as it tracks steps, I suppose that’s all I can reasonably expect, because a couple of their more enticing new features will cost extra money, so…just track the steps, darlin’. Just track the steps.

I was struggling – yea, struggling – to synchronize my iPOD today. It’s an iPOD Classic, with something like 160GB of space for downloading music. I have more than 140GB unused. This particular one is a used device, because the last new one that I purchased was laundered. I left it in the pocket of my shirt or pants or something and it went through a full wash cycle. In a big middle finger to the Universe, I purchased this duplicate, although the model had been discontinued entirely by Apple. That’ll show ’em.

The iTunes app is no longer working optimally with this dated model, but whatever. I don’t know if I’ve gotten everything updated properly, and don’t much care. It occurs to me that I should just load everything I have onto this thing, whether I listen to it or not, just to make some use of the space I have available before the whole thing crashes. Technology is a wonderful thing, right up until it’s not.

I was contemplating my choice of music lately, because it’s occurred to me that I’m turning into one of those middle-aged retro-hippie types, shaking my head at the “new” music and paying homage to the “real” music of my younger years. Who knew I’d be one of “those people” who shakes a wrinkling fist at the sky in defense of the “old days”. I’ve always been a late bloomer, or somehow out of my own time, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

I had occasion to have dinner with a friend of mine night before last, and I had been looking forward to it, although with a little trepidation. She initially wanted to pick me up in an Uber ride, and I said yes spontaneously. I hadn’t talked to her or seen her in many months, and her mom has just moved here and I wanted to meet her, so I gave no thought to accepting the ride share invitation. A few hours later, though, I had second thoughts due to pandemic concerns, and texted her to ask if she would be offended if I wanted to just meet them somewhere. That was fine, and that’s what I did.

The restaurant was fine, although nobody much gave a thought to masking. Diners weren’t piled atop each other, though, so I felt comfortable with that. We had a great time, and her mother is just lovely. I enjoyed her no end. She’s 75 and I look older than she does. Very, very nice lady who I know has been through more than a couple of changes in her life, but seems very comfortable in her own skin. She is very kind, and just has a very healing energy that I gravitated toward.

My friend started getting a bit antsy for some unknown reason, so we didn’t linger long after the meal. She lives within walking distance of that restaurant, so I left my truck there and we proceeded over to her place. I got to meet her gigantic Malamute mix of a dog, who growled at me off and off for most of the time I was there, while not sniffing me from head to foot. Beautiful dog, though, but slightly intimidating. I paid him no mind, regardless. Never show fear.

Regardless, we sat around for a little while at her place, with her mom, and I noticed her guitar sitting around. I’ve noticed it before, but had never touched it. Since she was having some kind of obsessive quest to discipline the dog and get a drink from a store across the street, I chilled with Mom, and picked up the guitar. It was abominably out of tune, and the strings were practically rusty. I managed to get it into a passable state of tuning, and just fiddled around with it for a few minutes, really just passing time. I haven’t played in a while, so it was no big whoop.

My friend and her mother were mesmerized, and made all kinds of noise about what a great guitarist I was. They want me to play stuff they could sing, so I managed to eke out “Amazing Grace” and “Me and Bobby McGee” and just some other improve finger picking, and they were ready to follow me anywhere. Well, that’s a bit exaggerated, but they were honestly enthralled. Not that I’m quick to praise my own playing, but this was LITERALLY no big deal…I managed (especially after the instrument was tuned reasonably).

The reason I bring that up is because I realized how long it’s been since I had an audience for any music that I make, and it felt good to give some enjoyment. Having an audience makes all the difference when you’re performing – whether you perform for a paid audience or at the proverbial campfire. Whether you’re a concert master or a beginner, having someone to witness y our product is invaluable. It’s about the exchange of energy, and when something comes from your soul and hits the air, having a witness for that is everything.

I need to play more. It is part of who I am, prowess and skill level regardless. It doesn’t matter how good you are, it just matters that you get the song in your soul into the air. The vibration is important. It can change things in the world…first, there was the Word. Then came Light. The Word, to my understanding, was the vibration that stirred life and shook things into random connection and started the whole sequence of life as we know it. The Sound that shook the world into being. Sound is energy, energy is life, life is art. We are always creating, always rearranging and recombining. We just forget.

Creation. We need to create. I need to creat. Because I am who I am, I have been focused on the wait for some grandiose creative product, but I am feeling at this moment it doesn’t need to be such a dramatic endeavor. My innards are telling me to just move from one place to another, not a long journey, just a shift. Me playing those few mediocre tones the other night was a shift, a shift that allowed me to trust people for a few minutes and not put so much emphasis on being perfect.

I am thinking I could play a bit more. I am thinking I could simply make a joyful noise, and let go of the ridiculous people who I allowed to put me down for not being professional grade. I did that. They were simply clueless, but I let it matter more than it ever should have. It’s my music, not theirs. If they don’t like it they don’t need to listen to it. Artists create because that’s what they do, no more and no less. It’s great if you’re one of the ones who makes a lot of money doing it, but people who make not a dime can no more stop the creation than a plant can stop photosynthesis.

I need to be who I am, no more and no less. In my life, I haven’t always done such a good job of that, sometimes trying to be far more than what I am, other times far less. I never understood exactly who I was, I think, and perhaps I still don’t but I suspect I am closer than ever. Maybe when I come to fully understand all of it, it will be time to go. When i have learned all that I can here, I will move on to some other proving ground, or something like that. I guess we’ll see.

Tomorrow I have the final session with my psychiatrist, who is abruptly retiring. I feel a little better about having the opportunity to at least close out the relationship with her, because for a little while it looked as though she would just go *poof* and disappear in a puff of smoke. I finally got a letter she’d sent announcing the retirement, and it began with “It is with mixed emotions that I am announcing my retirement.” I hope she’s not ill, or that some tragedy has not befallen her or her family. Despite my disappointment at how this was handled, I did wonder if there was something out of her control that had come up. Maybe I will find that out, maybe not, but at least I can say my farewell and all that.

Someone asked, at a virtual workshop yesterday, to describe the world I was working to create. They gave us only a few minutes to reflect on the question, then discuss in small groups. My response had to do with a world that allowed me to just be, without explaining or justifying myself, without having to look over my shoulder and remain hypervigilant all the time. In so many words, I want a world in which I can feel safe and not judged on the basis of my appearance, or resemblance to others who appear to be similar. I want a world where I feel safe, where I can explore and feel as though I have a right to be anywhere I happen to land. That’s a tall order.

I had a blink of that when I was sitting there plinking out a few notes in my friend’s house, with her gigantic dog who doesn’t quite trust me yet, and her mother who proved to be so accepting it almost made me cry. Why should that be such a rare thing to experience? There was no pretense, no putting on airs, no judging whether or not anyone used the correct language or had the correct thoughts. It was just three people enjoying the moments they had together and taking them for what they were. I felt at peace. That is rare these days.

Having such an easy evening caused me to realize that it’s not that hard to have times like that. All you need is people who are not so full of themselves that no answer is correct, who are not so insistent on control that no effort is good enough. You just need open hearts, I think, ones that invite the stranger and whatever she has to offer. Everyone’s offering is rendered into a new creation that reflects the whole ensemble. This is the world I dream of, this is the way I believe it should be. Rigidity just has no place there. I often feel there’s so much rigidity in the world as it is now that it just might break when the winds of change get stronger. If it breaks, I guess we’ll have to sweep up the pieces and figure out what to keep and what to empty into the trash heap. But let’s get on with it, for the love of all that is holy.

I had a sno-ball yesterday. I think I ate it too fast, and I fiddled with combining flavors and had a topping, and that didn’t go so well. It could have ushered me into a sugar coma, or something, but it didn’t feel particularly golden. So, I’ve been laying a bit low today. I was at my 12-step home-group meeting last night, and they were talking about stuff that had gratitude mixed in, and I was reflecting that I can’t just keep saying that I’m grateful for things and not take any action to maintain them. I was taught that gratitude is an action word, so I need to not forget that. I need to be grateful for the gift of flight, and then I need to be about whatever actions support keeping me aloft. Maybe it’s the action part that I’ve forgotten.