Alfred Hitchcock Crossed My Mind For a Minute...

One of those little gifts from a loving God who sometimes likes to play fun games to shock you back into the moment.

Yesterday,  I left the house at about 6:30am.   It was dark and deathly quiet.  I was thinking how odd it was because for working people most people are up and going around that time so it was weird to me that not one other person was out walking a dog or starting their car.   I walked down the three floor walk up and then down the walk toward my carport.   I  stepped off onto the parking lot and hit to auto unlock button for my car.  It doesn't make a sound but it flashes the headlights.    Now behind my carport runs a long line of very tall trees.   Suddenly,  as the light flashed all of the trees became alive with sleepy startled birds.   I don't mean a couple.  I mean at least 100 but probably a million.  Cheeping, not chirping....  (my comparative as to the emotion of the bird.  Chirping is lilting and happy,  cheeping is a birds version of screeching WTF? to me)  and then there was the sound of flapping wings and the trees came alive with movement as they all took to the sky,  probably bumping into each other and branches and heaven knows what else.   I would liken it to a newborn's strong startle reflex.   8 full trees,  in sudden chaos.        I jumped out of my skin and yelped (my sound for WTF?).  Then stood,  watching their outlines against a slightly lightening sky.  Once I realized I wasn't going down in some random angry bird attack,  I began to laugh.   Loud.   If I had been seen on a video monitor I am sure my initial reaction would have been hilarious.   I kept laughing...  I laughed because it was funny.  Then I laughed because I was laughing all alone so had anyone seen me they would have surely thought I had gone round the bend. The birds were gone,  ain't nothing funny here lady, WTF?   I felt joy in the simple act of laughing.  So I laughed more.   I think perhaps it was a little bit of the following days heavy sadness still leaking out in a different  form.   I had tears in my eyes and giggled all the way to the interstate.

That was a definite double header...  WOW!  and THANKS!    It was a very unique way to start my day.   Much better than continuing on from the emotion of the day before.   So I hope everyone get their own tree full of birds moment when they most need it.

Help! Wow! Thanks! and...

Help!  again as i try to lay myself down in peace,   i leave with a a request instead of a thank you...  i wonder if its okay to cycle through so quickly...   please loving God,  please have enough energy to keep up with me...

i pray, please soften the hearts of those who may not even recognize that they are not putting their childrens needs first.   please pass your hand over them and change their hearts...

amen

and so the arrow flies....

Without exact expectations, which will kick you in the pants every time,  the arrow is released in it's correct directional path.  Still on target,  going the right way,  forward.   My arms limp by my side.  Tired from aiming for so long but blissfully achy.    She kissed me goodbye and got out of the car just like she knew what she was doing.   Of course,  she does know what she is doing, she has been doing it for 8 years now.   Now I begin walking to find where the long arcing arrow lands.  Make necessary correctional coordinate changes and once again raise my bow, one finger above, three fingers below and aim.  This time without the monotony of lengthy anticipation.

The Archer's Prayer

In powerful prayer

And wing your wishes

On the air

Towards

The tantalising ten,

Again, again,

Again, again!

O, bend the bow

In praise of gold

And tens and tens

And tens untold -

Towards that blessed

Heaven's Gate,

That lies within

The blood-red eight.

And when the day

Is shot and done

And shadows

Mark the setting sun,

Then pray

That days will come again

When shafts are shadows

In the ten.

- David Hulme

Imitating the Action of the Tiger...

Stiffen the sinews

summon up the blood...

like greyhounds in the slips .
The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge:

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

The archer still stands, poised and ready...  a quiet prayer to a listening heaven, looking around at surroundings which will never be the same,  what is almost not to be again, forever... keeping an eye on the target, no quiver nor regret, she waits with one finger up and three fingers down cradling the future...

Deafeningly Loud Silence

Its been like this for a while.  I have been developing theories as to why it is.   I have been thinking that perhaps it is so quiet because everyone in Boise is trying not to breathe.   2012 will be the year that drs will be diagnosing us with Boise Black Lung, I am sure of it.    I have healthy lungs and I am hurting all the way through to my back.   Moving around too much causes a cough that sounds as if I am going to  keel over.   I can't imagine how people with compromised lungs are coping.   The smell is in my nose, my clothes and everywhere you go.     But I digress,  I thought it might be the collective not breathing but then I started reading other people's blogs and posts and they too are feeling a very odd silence.  They aren't in Boise so it zapped my theory out of the water.   Someone suggested that the world was just taking a moment to pause before it turns its page into Fall.   I love that idea and it appeals to my sense poetry.    The blue chair has suggested the reason it seems to be resting so heavily on me is because of the how long the time has been for me since I realized I had gifts and possibilities.   It has been a long while,  it takes time to get all your ducks in a row,  and your arrow pointed in the correct direction.  So I have been "hurry upping (its a word cuz i said it is)" and then waiting.   I need school to start.  Routine to start.  I need new faces and conversations.  New ideas to bat around in my head.   I am ready and have nothing but time.   I have settled my arrow on its rest, lifted the bow and begun to pull back...  the tension getting stronger,  containing more and more energy until my bow is bent to its maximum.   With one finger above and three fingers below, I am cradling that arrow.   That arrow has every thing it needs except release.

I am just sitting with this moment,  there is a lesson in it for me or I wouldn't be uncomfortable.   I am finding this to be the rule rather than the exception.  If I am uncomfortable its because there is something I haven't learned yet that needs to be learned before I move on.   The tension in my bow is both painful and delicious.   And I keep running the moment that I remove my fingers from the string over and over again imagining what that release of power will feel like to me and to all the world around me.

The Bucket List meets "Before the Age of Majority" List

My girl continually hears of all of my would be adventures.   She decided she was not to be left in the dust so she told me she was making her own bucket list...   I told her she could absolutely not call it a bucket list because 1- it wouldn't be fair because she has longer to live than I do.  2-  well anyone under 18 who is as healthy as my kid cannot use that saying.   Its my house, my rules.   God I love being the parent.  So we renamed her list as the "Before/At the Age of Majority" list.

Hannah's Age of Majority List

1. Learn to speak Japanese (started)
2. Save enough money to go to Japan with her friend at graduation. (started)
3. Eat a hot dog from a street vendor in Boise on a kickin' Friday or Saturday night.
4. See Katy Perry in concert.
5. Start her own babysitting business.
    (She has already become certified in CPR and the use of an AED)
6. Ride in a hot air balloon.
7. Sing as a part of a choir.
8. Learn to play the piano.
9. See the Solar Eclipse.
10. She wants to see the entire TV drama of ER.  It was one of our video binges we indulged in, in the beginning of the year, when she needed distraction and wouldn't leave my bed for fear of the silence, the suspension of real life for her so she didn't actually have to sleep alone in her own room alone.   Luckily, I was between temp jobs, by the grace of God, and we would wear her out with drama, Noah Wiley and I would sometimes talk about how this show used to be "date night" for my ex-husband (her father) and I.  I would tell her little things about that time in our lives when she was a baby and we would settle her down before 9pm so we could spend just a little time alone together.   It comforted her because she remembered what peace lived inside her blueberry home.  She didn't know the future.  Hell,  none of us knew the future.  So perhaps,  besides Noah Wiley, there was an internal calmness that she had forgotten about growing up in a functional home.  Growing up with a father that she didn't remember as  loving and kind, like the father I would tell her about.  We would watch 'till our eyes hurt and then we would turn off the tv and try to sleep.   She crawled in close to me,  we would whisper thoughts as they came to us.   One night, she and I talked about the last night I tucked her into her blueberry bed.   She knew I was leaving for a different house.  I knew I was leaving to a different house.   Neither of us wanted it to happen.  Although, being the grown up,  I knew why I had to.   A heartbreak I thought only I  would remember.  I was wrong.   I remember lying there in the dark with her and apologizing for having to leave.   I told her that I had no choice but to leave because I would have been living a lie if I stayed.  I was a lesbian and I had to leave.  I told her about the horribleness of pretending to be someone I wasn't and that I just couldn't do it any more.   We were both tearful, laying there whispering in the dark after our long evening of ER.   I told her I was so sorry for having to leave her there, tucked tight in her blueberry bed.   I thought she would say something like,  "I forgive you"  or "Its okay mom"  but instead,  she whispers,  "I know exactly how you felt now mom,  pretending, always pretending to be happy, and perfect and having no one know the truth."   I remembering reaching out to stroke her cheek. I missed and poked her eye.... we giggled but I felt her tears.  I wiped them away.  She reached out and fumbled for my face as well.  She found and wiped my tears away too.   She and I watched every episode of ER we could find but they are scarce... we didn't make it to the 3rd season.   I need to find the entire set of ER for her for Christmas.   I have seen it on Ebay.  I don't know where the money is going to come from but she and I need that.  It was our safe place.

We will update this list as it grows.  And it surely will.  She has only had a few months in which the world of possibilities has been laid before her and I told her the secret...  she can dream.  She can make anything happen she wants to.   She doesn't have to be perfect to be good.  And its okay to fall flat on her face, or change her mind.   It isn't something that she has been used to hearing in the silence of her room.  In a quiet house.  With no one to talk to.  

How exciting it is to be learning from the things I teach her.  How exciting to see her eyes light up when she finds there is no reason not to create her own experiences.

Wow!  Thanks!

holding at Wow, will wait until bedtime to get further into Thanks...

Anne Lamott has a new book, soon to be released as i hear.... called Help. Thanks. Wow. Three Essential Prayers....    now I have no knowledge of what is inside this book so don't begin to think I know something you don't.    But just with this title I have to tell you that this is how it worked for  me today.

I learned HELP!  a few years ago while reading Traveling Mercies, I believe.  So I try to remember to use it before I do something that would not be productive for anyone.  Its simple.  Its to the point and God really doesn't need an explanation.  He has been walking through the muck with me the entire time waiting for me  to ask.

I have been screaming HELP! to a God who surely wishes I would lower my voice, for days now.   It is amazing how hard it is to remember.   To me, its like a "safe word".  (sorry Lord)  but you can be in deep doo doo if you forget your safe word.  If, you are, of course, in a situation where one would need one.   Forgetting a safe word is a major problem.... I hear.      Why I let all the other things run through my head first before I ever think of HELP! is a mystery.   Perhaps I am just not in the habit yet.   Perhaps, I don't believe it can be as simple as that.  One word.   No essay, no application no confession or hair shirt.  Just HELP!

Its been more than a few days really.   Its been almost 2 weeks, that is 14 days... wow when I put it that way, seriously?  I have been in spiritual turmoil for 14 days?  How embarrassing...  it feels like much longer.  It always does.   I could have never been Moses.

I finally said it,  today.  HELP!   I actually didn't even say it out loud.   I wanted to find somewhere to scream it and throw rocks and empty pixie sticks, anything really...  I wanted the physical world to hear the sound of a soul in desperation.  But logistics just weren't happening.   I needed to be completely alone and surrounded by excellent scenery of parched ground, emptiness, candy wrappers and rocks... lots of rocks.  Oh and a professional movie sound team and of course, the cameras... and maybe Ron Howard.   But mostly,  I needed to be alone to scream out loud in front of all those people.

"HELP!" inside I said,  and ad libbed a little bit more,  "I am going crazy.  Make it stop PLEASE?!"

I am have been rendered ineffectual toward some of the situations in my life and have been now for (I promise) more than 14 days.   3 years.  Still not Moses but enough for this girl.

I got home from the futile dance I do every two weeks.   Even knowing that in December someone who can change things, save children, make grown ups act appropriately,  will come, its just getting to be too far away. The closer it gets the farther away it is.    I have absolutely no control over it.

Where the hell is Ron Howard?  I thought as I pulled into my apartment house.   Instead,  my loving daughter starts dinner.   Wonderful tacos, as I sit down to my email hoping for.... what?   HELP?   And there it was,  HELP :-).   My son, my beautiful son who is out in life, living happily, honestly and lovingly,  shows up in my email with a shout out with a new phone number and then an actual phone call.   His voice,  his stories of what he has been doing, and blessed reassurance that he too, loved his mother.   He is exactly who he wants to be.   I couldn't ask for anything more than that from a child.  Be happy.  Be healthy.  Have plans.  Be in the moment.   After the heart to heart, and the sound of the phone disconnecting, I sat on the side of my bed.   Wow,  I thought.  Thanks!

The tacos were amazing.   The peace is amazing.   All I had to do is remember my safe word.   HELP!?   Perhaps,  I need to remember it sooner.  Or ask before I start looking for Ron Howard to direct my complete breakdown.  Perhaps,  I can do it differently.   Perhaps it should be a waking prayer.   HELP?!     Then the recognition in the middle of the day of WOW!  and then the sacred time at night when I can give thanks, THANKS!  seems so much easier than what I have been doing.

Volunteerism

I have carried 5 children to term.   I gave birth and breath to 4.   The first two came with breath were in 1990 and 1992.   I learned then that it was not just the beautiful, serene experience you think life is going to be after you bring them home.   I want to say that "they" didn't tell us stuff we needed to know but I am not sure now if "they" held information back or if "they" just omitted it because either they had been so traumatized by the experiences that "they" buried it somewhere deep in their psyche that "they" honestly don't remember or  "they" never once encountered the "over achiever of the school age children's mother" syndrome. Or "they" WERE card carrying O.A.S.A.C.Ms themselves and wouldn't admit it or never came to terms with their embarrassing, bullying, one-up-womanship which turns grown women back into the manipulative children they once were.

I know of what I speak, really.   Try providing the most perfect dessert for a class birthday party,  just once and feel what it is like to have the others look at you like they could have done much better and provided the entire cast of Sesame Street to serve each child a treat on a platter of crystal.   Seriously.   You KNOW I am.   I gave up.  I remember when it was too, crystal clear, like the plates I never brought to the damned parties, ladies.    I was going to make Witch Fingers out of pretzel dough and an almond for the finger nails.   I worked days to get it down right.   Me and Martha Stewart before she started day trading...   The day of the party,  (back when they were allow to, 1- have Halloween parties, 2- bring homemade snacks 3- have a nut involved.  and no, haha, I am not talking about me)  we got to school and my kid who was sitting in the back seat with Witch Fingers decided to help by pulling them out of the car and handing them to me.   They where heavy.  6 million dozen Witch Fingers are heavy.  I distinctly remember saying, "Oh no hon, let me get them.  They are heavy and it is slippery..."   They also made an indelible statement as they, in slow motion, I swear! slow motion,  fell to the ground into a puddle of last night's effort to snow, better known as slush.   Dirty parking lot slush.   Now I admit for a second I was thinking I could save at least 3 million dozen if I carefully picked up the ones that were piled onto the more unfortunate ones.  I did!  I confess!  But I realized that my kids could have never not said something about it and then there would have been hoards of   O.A.S.A.C.Ms with torches hunting me down like an ogre in a forest.   My kid was devastated.   Yelling at kid, didn't help.   I instead, stepped over the devastation and hugged kid and reassured her that it didn't matter.   I could go to the store and get more snacks for the party.   We cleaned up the tears and left the mess next to the car and went inside.    I told the story to the teachers about how I had slipped and lost control of the 100 billion gazillion dozen Witch Fingers and they were now toast. Really damp toast.   I saw their disappointment, first in not seeing the Martha Stewart perfection, then the oh no it was our signature treat! then to panic and a bit of suspicion that I either did it on purpose to make their lives miserable or never did it at all.    I told them I would go to the store and replace the treats with whatever I could that was Halloweenie and have them back to the school in an hour or so.   They nodded in understanding and major disappointment.    When I made it back the other mothers had started to assemble and I did the walk of pre-made - discounted bakery ware cupcakes with a plastic oversized toothpick thingy with a Halloween theme in each, walk of shame.  The cupcakes were coated with more dye than what would be needed to paint the center line of the interstate.  And it was cracking...  why else was it on sale?    I sighed.   Put them in the back part of the room and watched as the eyes of the  O.A.S.A.C.Ms follow me out the door.    And to quote this Cupcake Mommy,  "never more..."

I thought about this story today as I came back from registering my 13 year old for school today and I was handed the volunteer opps paper.   It comes back to me now in exaggerated hilarity and hurt... I am not sure how exaggerated the hurt is honestly.   Mean girls can choose to be mean always.  Only when they are older they have better ammunition.   No, not better, just different.  Motherhood is sacred beyond all other things.   Although I can laugh my butt off now at the actual facts as I know them,  the end of my career as a Cupcake Mommy saga... good times, good times.   Now mind you,  it wasn't the epoch failure that stopped it.  It was the general aire of the volunteer mommies in general.   I was not meant to be one.  I was not meant to fit in,  with the gossip, with competion , with the "oooh oooh like me best teacher-of-my-child" mentality.    I quit feeling bad about it.   Some mothers barely make it to Parent Teacher Conference Night.  They spend their time via email and extra time in conferences with their child's teacher.   For whatever reason, be it a busy career or a severe aversion to the Cupcake Mommies.  They are there when they are needed.   They are mom.   Good enough.  More than so many get.  Bravo to the members of the NOT O.A.S.A.C.Ms.

I timidly looked over the volunteer sheet and realized that it had graduated into other realms that I was so much better at.   First,  I didn't need to have contact with any of my student's teachers outside of conferences, so I would not have to feel the icky expectation of or watch as others fall to the gravitational pull of ass kissing for popularity.  I am excited about the opportunities available.   Most of the volunteer positions are those I have spent in salaried positions in my former life before children.   Most of the volunteer positions do not entail cupcakes.  If someone, who doesn't read my blog asks me to,  I will tell them the cautionary story and let them decide if I am the right candidate for the mission.

None of this has anything to do with Donald Shimoda.   Don may or not be a fictional character.   He is a character in Richard Bach's book, Illusions.   For all I know Richard Bach's status as a fictional character is still up in the air as well.  As is the book I am holding in my hand.  And as the blue chair continues her onslaught on me, I believe my status is also...  hers although,  is more ethereal.    However, ethereal really isn't that far from fictional.  Depending on your predisposition and physical perspective and willingness to bathe in existentialism.   Perhaps the blue chair, the tree outside the window, and I are almost or completely and  delightfully fictional with a more substantial purpose.  All the while trying to reach and maintain groundlessness.

"If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats."

-Richard Bach (Donald Shimoda) is that either of you?-  Bueller?

Later on in the book however it does connect with volunteerism.   Chapter 13 to be exact.  It states,

 "Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.  Listen to it carefully."

Paraphrasing,  Don says to Richard that we are all free to do as we choose.   Richard trying to out smart his spiritual teacher tries to correct him.    "We are all free to do what we want to do, as long as we don't hurt somebody else, I know you meant that, but you ought to say what you mean"

Same situation in the blue chair instead of a campfire, juuuuuuust yesterday.

"I just want her to be happy."

"Why do you want her to be happy so emphatically?"

"Because I don't wish anyone ill will or a bad life."

"Well I know that about you.  You are about the big picture,  the extended family, the "Rodney King" wish for the world.  I get that.  I like that.  If  every one could be like that it would be so healing.  That is all fine.  But why do you personally want her to be happy so emphatically that you continue to sacrifice your well-being, when you already know the outcome,  after 3 years of the same behavior, nina you KNOW the behavior,  you are certainly not clueless,  WHY is it so important that she is happy?"

"I just want her to be happy."

"We are out of time but I we will talk about this next time.   This part is about you, not her."

Don, being Don, could do nothing else but to be Don.  Teacher with props.    Suddenly, Richard sees through the darkness, a dark wretched  thing,  speaking with a thick accent.  Czech or maybe Russian?  Black cape lined in red satin.  As I recall he was sensitive to the light of the fire.   Richard asked the stranger if he could help him and he told him that if Richard didn't let him drink his blood,  the stranger would writhe in pain and eventually die a horrible death.   Richard wasn't about to let this stranger drain him of his life so that this stranger could live happily and comfortably.   It wasn't the strangers fault he was a vampire,  it wasn't wrong for Richard to say no to the stranger.   As it all turned out Don just created this imaginary person to teach Richard that you don't have to give someone what they desperately need if it will do desperate damage to you.   You are not bad to say no.  To walk away. To ignore forever... "even if"  because it is our own individual choice to be hurt.  We can choose to be hurt.  We can.  But once you understand it is a choice, you can no longer cry,  "I had to or they would be ______  (unhappy?).

Chapter 14 begins with a quote that mirrors the previous lesson. So I will add it here:

"Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there.  What you choose to do with them is up to you."  -Illusions-

I called the blue chair expecting her voicemail but instead of Memorex, she was live.

"I am a liar."  I said.  Then I back tracked a bit to make sure that she knew that I really did want harsher punishments for parole violations and.... world peace.

"I mean,"  I stuttered,  "I don't want her unhappy, but the reason I want her happy so badly is because as long as she is happy,  she disappears and leaves me alone."   "I am being disingenuously selfless, when I say that I want her happy just for her."  "I am full of shit."

"I was going to get to that next time we talked but you got there first."


I just don't know what to do with this yet.

no intentional breathing in and out tonight....

Seven

I stood on my balcony tonight alone and watched the heavens, breathing in the fullness of universe and breathing out the empty that resides inside me and I watched as the meteor shower displayed it's glorious performance.   Seven.  I counted seven in the half hour I gave myself.   Breathing in the fullness,  breathing out my disappointment of regular life.   Breathing in more deeply as the meteors shot across my head hoping to consume stray stardust to fill me up with the very elements which I am made of.  The basics.   The basics that wear down and become lost as we turn our attention to frivolous concerns of our life.   Frivolous memories that, if not kept in their proper proportions will become too big for us to hold in our hearts without them breaking.   Breathe in the fullness,  breathe out the pain of everyday emotional life.   Breathe in the chaos of the universe.  Breathe out control.

As I breathe, I pray for sleep with out the physical pain that follows me everyday.   I pray for sleep without the mental merry go round of reproach.  I pray for permission to allow myself compassion for just being human.   I pray that I remember to say  "thank you for giving me one more day to get over myself and to get out of my way"  before sleep comes and the stardust has settled into my DNA.

I pray I dream of groundlessness.

59 Pithy Slogans.... how do i pass that up?

I have been reading

The Places that Scare You by Pema Chodron a Buddhist nun

So after struggling through 4 chapter I came across this written on the first page I burst out laughing and found that I was more open to the rest of the book.   Now that I am done, I have to start again.   This time becoming more aware of each process.   Buddha was an interesting teacher.   But was never one to rush through a lesson.  Years can go by.  Years do go by.

I have been working  with Tonglen lately.   It seems to bring other things into better view.  For today my suggested reading of the 59 Pithy Slogans is #31.   It seems to be a current and relevant lesson.

Lojong Slogans:

1: First Train in the Preliminaries
2: Regard all dharmas as dreams
3: Examine the nature of Unborn Awareness4: Self-liberate even the antidote5: Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence6: In postmeditation, be a child of illusion

Absolute and Relative Bodhichitta

7: Sending and taking should be practiced alternately. These two should ride the breath
8: Three objects, three poisons, and three seeds of virtue
9: In all activities train with slogans
10: Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself
11: When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi12: Drive all blames into one13: Be grateful to everyone
14: Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata protection
15: Four practices are the best of methods
16: Whatever you meet unexpectedly, Join it with meditation
17: Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions
18: The Ejection of Consciousness
19: All dharma agrees at one point
20: Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one
21: Always maintain only a joyful mind
22: If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained
23: Always abide by the three basic principles
24: Change your attitude, but remain natural
25: Don't talk about injured limbs
26: Don't Ponder Others
27: Work with the greatest defilements first
28: Abandon any hope of fruition
29: Abandon poisonous food
30: Don't be so predictable
31: Don't malign others
32. Don't wait in ambush
33. Don't bring things to a painful point
34. Don't transfer the ox's load to the cow
35. Don't try and be the fastest
36. Don't Act with a Twist
37. Don't make gods into demons
38. Don’t seek others’ pain as the limbs of your own happiness
39. All activities should be done with one intention40. Correct all wrongs with one intention41. Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end
42. Whichever of the two occurs, be patient
43. Observe these two, even at the risk of your life
44. Train in the three difficulties
45. Take on the three principal causes
46. Pay heed that the three never wane
47. Keep the three inseparable
48. Train without bias in all areas. It is crucial always to do this pervasively and wholeheartedly
49. Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.
50. Don’t be swayed by external circumstances. 
51. This time, practice the main points. >
52. Don't misinterpret.
53. Don't vacillate
54. Train Wholeheartedly
55. Liberate yourself by examining and analyzing
56. Don’t wallow in self-pity 
57. Don't be jealous
58. Don't be frivolous
59. Don't expect applause

Dei ritiro bagagli italiano

The blue chair took that tone with me,  as pointed out in group,  "the one where she calls you on your shit?"   yup.   The blue chair has her limits,  she told me to step aside and get out of my own way.   I told her to shut up.  In that loving way I sometimes do.  Just so she knows I got it.   Somehow saying, "point taken"  just doesn't fit my style.

In group, a beautiful soul with a tray conveys how she is learning to keep balance in her life.
It was so perfect.   Just like ABS, we all walk around with so much on our tray.   We work hard at balancing the stuff until it is perfect.  Until we got it.  We go about our way.   We always, daily, hourly sometimes, come across stuff.   Other people's stuff.   They want us to pick it up and carry it for them because, well it is easier... for them... anyway.   But we have worked so hard to be balanced.  If we are expected to carry more,  especially if it is not authentically "ours" is going to throw off our balance and take time for us to rearrange the rest of the stuff so we can manage.    And then we have to decide if carrying someone else's stuff is really worth our time and effort.   Where the hell is their tray anyway?  I will always remember that story because it came right when I needed it.  Just like the blue chair and "the tone".

I fell asleep that night without any provocation from benedryl which doesn't happen.  But I was suddenly so tired.  Without regard to the high 100 degree weather lingering in my bedroom I laid down and closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew, there were footsteps in my house.  But I looked around and it is not my real house.  Not a house that I had ever even lived in.  Nothing recognizable.  But it was a comfortable place.  Old, rickety but not in disrepair.   All the nooks and crannies that old houses from that period had.  I immediately loved that house.   As I looked around, it was full of things.  All of my things.  But it wasn't as if I had arranged them for living.   They were just around.

The footsteps were all around me and it was then I became cognizant that there were people taking things out of the house.  My things.   At first I panicked.   Stop, no!  I didn't ask you to do this!  They smiled at me and I was instantly soothed.   Like a child being softly smiled  at by a loving mother who has stepped aside to let the nurses give the inoculations needed to protect and guarantee a healthy life for her child.  It was still uncomfortable and confusing but mother was smiling, steady and confident  and the child knows it will be okay.

They were all men.   They were all dressed in white.  They were all Italian.   It was as if the entire male side of the family of Carlo's Bakery had come to move my stuff.   They were so gentle with everything.  Constantly making eye contact with me as I watched them go in and out of the house.  They were everywhere.  I went sneaking about the house trying to hide things.... weird things that I do not, nor have I ever owned. Sparkly things,  bright polished things.  Old things that had dust but still displayed or tucked away somewhere that even I didn't know they were there.   They would always find the things I hid and I knew they would but I kept trying.

They cradled everything as if it were the lost treasures of antiquity.   They would pass by something on their way to somewhere else in the house and they would stop dead in their tracks.   They would gently touch whatever it was as if the item was as precious to them as it was me.  I could hear them say,  "Oh look!  It's this blah blah blah..." And they would recount its specific memory and who it belonged to and why it was so important.  They would both agree... and would linger... lovingly nodding their heads.   Then as if they were already on a mission to retrieve something else, they would put it down and head off to somewhere else.   I would breath a sigh of relief that the item was still there but I knew it was leaving, I just knew that there was something else that needed to go first.

I didn't continue inside the panic.   I was surrounded by all these loving people who loved and appreciated the history and the meaning behind all my things.  I knew they loved me.   They moved slowly and precisely.  They didn't bump or struggle with anything.  Not once did anything bump into a wall marring either the wall or the item.   When it left the house I could hear the screen door swing shut.  Not annoyingly.  Not like we did to our mothers as we ran out of our childhood home.  Crank the handle, push hard and clear the steps before you would hear  "DO NOT SLAM the d....."   SLAM.    It was as if the screen door was lifted slowly by a breeze that then invisibly closed it just enough so you could hear wood on wood as it closed.

I don't know where "out" was.  I never saw where all these treasures went.  I left before they did or perhaps we all left at the same time.  It is possible I woke up in my bed before they were finished.   Perhaps because of the immense empathy and respect I was surrounded by, I was sent home before it was completely done because they knew I wouldn't wake with desperation.   If so,  I know they stayed until it was finished.  I know that they remained as respectful of what was left.  But I woke up.  With a headache that felt as if I had been busy all night instead of asleep.  My body was being pulled by gravity more than usual as if I had been up all night walking around instead of laying peacefully in my bed.   I was physically and emotionally spent and it was 6:00am.   I laid there.   I felt odd.   I could recall all the empathy.   I could recall all the things I saw and held and hid.     I smiled as I saw huge Italian men cradling trinkets and memories as if they were newborn babies.  But mostly I could feel the presence of those spirits just helping me get out of my own way.

she said to be careful...

As I continue to move through my struggle to climb higher up Maslow's diagram it has continually been pointed out to me that I need to be careful of what I ask for.   Asking for something from the universe is sure fire way of getting it.   But being cognizant that Physics won't be fucked with helps when you find yourself with a gift. Repeat after me,  "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction..."  Your gifts aren't always going to make you feel good.  Well maybe for a while but within the gift, there is also a test or a lesson that needs further action.  If you don't want the next uncomfortable thing, don't ask for the gift.   Simply awful.  I always assumed that enlightenment and empowerment would always feel light and powerful.  It simply isn't so.   I am in a place today were I relate my internal frustrations to Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin:

See, I did join the army, but I joined a *different* army. I joined the one with the condos and the private rooms..."

"My name is Judy! J-U-D-Y Judy and I'd like somebody to call me by my name! Oh, okay I took my life in my own hands, I made a mistake fine I'm sorry! I'll never do it again! I wanna wear my sandals... I wanna go out to lunch. I wanna be NORMAL again!"

Too late Judy, errrr N-I-N-A...

the theory of subtraction....

A Deeper Longing
The Dark Night of the Soul 
Gerald G. May, M.D


"In the passive night of the senses God is freeing us from the idols we have made of possessions, relationships, feelings, and behaviors.  As always in the precious process of the night, this divine liberation takes place in ways that are obscure to us.  sometimes we may experience it as an inner relaxation and letting go.  At other times it may feel like something we cling to is being ripped away from us.  Either way, the freedom comes only through relinquishment.  The actual experience may feel like delightful liberation or tragic bereavement, or it may happen so deeply that we are not aware of it at all.  But one thing is certain: the process of freedom is one of subtraction.-- we are left more empty than when we began."


I believe we who choose,  have spiritual journeys that are not always one of angels singing and life all falling into place.   Or happiness at all moments and guaranteed tickets to the table of Jesus at the next Roast.   However,   I can see it now...

Saint Philip Neri walks to the microphone:   Good evening ladies and germs...



Two priests died at the same time and met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter said, "I'd like to get you guys in now, but our computer is down. You'll have to go back to Earth for about a week, but you can't go back as priests. So what else would you like to be?"
The first priest says, "I've always wanted to be an eagle, soaring above the Rocky Mountains."
"So be it," says St. Peter, and off flies the first priest.
The second priest mulls this over for a moment and asks, "Will any of this week 'count', St. Peter?"
"No, I told you the computer's down. There's no way we can keep track of what you're doing."
"In that case," says the second priest, "I've always wanted to be a stud."
"So be it," says St. Peter, and the second priest disappears.
A week goes by, the computer is fixed, and the Lord tells St. Peter to recall the two priests. "Will you have any trouble locating them?" He asks.
"The first one should be easy," says St. Peter. "He's somewhere over the Rockies, flying with the eagles. But the second one could prove to be more difficult."
"Why?" asketh the Lord.
"He's on a snow tire, somewhere in North Dakota."


back to subtraction... of letting go.  I have recently used the story of how as children we would swing as high as we could, knowing secretly that we were going to jump no matter how many broken bones would happen according to our mothers.   We would lean into the swing...  pumping our legs and dreaming of touching the sky.   the voice says, "Now?"  but we hold tight, "no" we say, we regroup, backward we go and then lean again into the upswing, the voice says, "Now?"  but we hold tight yet again, "no" we say again.  Back swing....  We would see in our minds us letting go and flying...  we would hear in our minds our mother's screaming...  resolute... we would begin the journey to flight.   back swing, gravity bringing us down and our spirit raising us up higher and higher... then the back swing... small detectable slack in the chain, gravity begins to pull, we pull our legs inward as to not to hit the sand, we lower our head, perhaps in unconscious prayer, our back to the trees, our back to the sky, and then we raise our head to purvey the possibilities in front of us... mother giving us that look, the horizontal bar of the swing finally aligning with our chin  as we reach our zenith,   then a silence from somewhere inside.  We go in faith and as if magic, there is no questioning,  we feel our fingers release our grasp.  We feel the seat swing away from us as we fly in faith...

just sayin'

I borrowed it, I didn't steal it... I promise....

I find inspiration from every direction and try to use it in my life in my words and writing.  I have a teacher who absorbs so many movie quotes that she no longer realizes that she is a living breathing quote generator.   She even gives us candy if we can call her on it and name the movie.   I am like that but I don't give out candy.

Recently, between the millions of "Hate Chicken" and "Hate Chicken Haters"  on FB I saw an inspirational post on comparing human spiritual growth to a bow and arrow.  It rang true and I put it in the back on my head for later.   AL carries around recipe cards so she doesn't miss the exact sentence or moment.  I have not yet evolved to that point,  besides I didn't have pockets.  I have many other excuses if you care to sit and listen.  My point to all this is that I will fall back on the saying,

 "There is nothing new under the sun"

 I got sick of hearing it from my parents as I was growing up.  Perhaps it is disingenuous to use it after mocking it all that time...

1- I  realize that the bow and arrow FB thingy I saw, is brewing.
2-  Thanks to the blue chair's full moon emergency session in which it was pointed out to me that when things start to wind up or begin to feel really uncomfortable and the tension in your life, spirit, thoughts are at their apex, it is a sign that change is coming.
3-  And then there was the woman at the store today.  She was the wine pusher, as I like to call them.  "Have some wine?!"  she said, as I walked passed her table.  I stopped and smiled and started flirting... just a little bit.   I know it must be the full moon causing this,  I have many other excuses if you would you care sit and listen.   "You mean its legal for me to stand here in public, in a grocery store and drink wine with you?"  and grinned.   Yes,  I knew it was legal.  But she returned my smile and was so friendly.   We exchanged memories of  when anything with alcohol wasn't even sold in stores.  "So what type of wine do you like?" she said.   "I am a red wine girl and I don't like it unless it bites me."  I said, grinning again.  She grinned back and her eyes sparkled as she poured a taste of something and handed it to me.   It bit me.  "Was that hard enough?"  she said, as she poured a different taste of a different type.   I felt as if I were in a play.   We somehow started talking of how dramatic life was feeling in the last few days and she began to tell me that she was feeling as if she were being physically pushed and pulled uncomfortably and that she agreed with me that the full moon was especially strong this cycle.  She told me that she uses what she called "cold baptisms" for herself to help when she needed renewal.  That she prays in the shower with the cold water running and her kids think she is nuts.   I really started looking around for the cameras then.   My jump is tonight.  My jump into the deep, cold, darkness to shock my system into submission.  I told her about that and she touched my arm and her cool air conditioned hand lingered on my forearm  and said that she felt as if our connection was strangely strong and giggled and added that we had indeed shared a moment.   She might have been being completely honest with me or she, herself may have had other excuses as well.   I did buy the bottle of wine from her that bit me the best.  I don't drink wine.


Mix all of that together in my head and something will be born from it.  Because it is a good description for what is happening right now for me.  I feel the winding up of the universe.  I can hear something far off that sounds a bit like the turbines that roar in the Hoover Dam.  I am feeling like Stretch Armstrong (if you are much young than me you will have no idea what I am talking about).

Is that a black helicopter or are you just happy to see me?

When I checked my blog today to edit in some pictures of my two youngest kids to give a visual of their growing separation (and because they are just dang cute),   I clicked on my stat counter and I was suddenly fear stricken and amused all at the same time.    I see that the US Defense Dept has been perusing my blog.   Unsettling to say the least. But oddly fascinating too.   Only I would be so intrigued that I would be taking mental notes for a new blog post later on down the road while being stuffed into a black Lincoln and driven away to an undisclosed location.   I wonder how long it would take me to come to my senses and realize they were putting me on a terrorist watch list and I would never fly again.

I have been allowing myself to play with different scenerios.   The first being that maybe my favorite writer is also on the same list that I believe I am about to be on.   If that is true then I really DO wonder how writers manage to live outside of their written words.   Obviously she walks everywhere she does go if she isn't able to fly.   And the dreadlocks...  you really must have went for it in the 8 years of W Anne pushing their buttons as much as possible.   I really had no idea.  You were/are a comfort to me in times I find myself in spiritual messes.    Perhaps it was just the mention of GWB on my blog or maybe a combination to both.  Perhaps they just were uncomfortable with the rock throwing.   I only mentioned in passing  that you didn't care for the man but were trying really hard to.  If anyone should be offended it should be Jesus, with his mother wanting to throw rocks at him as a teenager.  But I don't think Jesus has an IP address.   

My second is that there is a beautiful woman who is in love with me from afar who just happens to work for the Defense Dept and she spent her lunch hour reading mediocrity for fun.   I like this one the best because I would much rather have an admiring  reader than  find my name becoming a household word in the Defense Dept.  

So that is it really,  I find myself with the overwhelming need to barricade myself in my bedroom and just let go of the notion to change my party affiliation from none of your business to Libertarian until long after the election is over.   I swear I am not a subversive.  I'm just a 50 year old, chubby lesbian.  I promise,  I come in peace.

Moe

memories from a mother-written 10/24/04

I over heard a conversation between my 5 and 2 year old.  I had just picked up Hannah from Kindergarten and I had surprised them with the thought of picking up lunch at a fast food drive-thru.  Of course when I asked them where they wanted to go I got two different answers and the controversy began.  I told them that if they couldn't work it out between them I was going to make the decision for them.  My 5 year old suggested that they do eneey meeny to decide.  My 2 year old thought that was fair.  So Hannah begins... she is pronounced Moe.  There was a silence and calm that took over the car.  The choice had been made by the hand of fate.   On my way to Moe's choice, I realized that I was going to pass by the other choice and it wouldn't take any time to just get what each of them wanted.  So as I turned into the parking lot, my 2 year old begins to protest loudly, "Hannah is Moe mom! Hannah is Moe!"  She refused to let me get her anything from the place she wanted to go in the first place.  After all,  once Moe is determined, it is sacred and no one questions the outcome.  I found that quite remarkable for a 2 year old to be able to accept that she wasn't Moe and had fought so hard for her sister's privilege.

I miss watching my girls interact with each other.  They are now 10 and 13.   Currently, they are separated and I watch as my 13 year old becomes more and more like an only child.   It is idiocy.  They are losing such precious time with each other.  The bond that siblings make from the beginning of life should be the ultimate important thing.  Why I seem to be the only one worried about it is beyond me.   So the only thing I can do is to remind my daughter of stories of them growing up and we watch movies of them running around happily as best playmates.  And I keep hoping if I do that, she will remember her sister that way, any way at all.   Life is sacred and life goes by so fast.   They are losing time that is rightfully theirs.   A relationship that is rightfully theirs.   Amazing that it is treated so nonchalantly by people.

My Secret Lover

I have been spending a great amount of time with Anne Lamott recently.   Now, before you start tweeting news breaking un-truths, understand that she doesn't know anything about it.   I find her voice comforting and slow.  She speaks a lot like me.  I have been accused of being on drugs or  "just not quite there" before because I do speak slowly.    I find I have to think about the words coming out of my  mouth before I actually let them.    She and I say mostly different things, especially when she goes on about George Bush...  I want to scream and tell her how fed up I am with her praying to try to love him as a brother by the time she gets to heaven, and get back to  Mary picking up rocks to throw at Jesus, when in his teens,  he was certainly driving her crazy like any other teen does.    I close my eyes really tight and try not to listen until she backs away from politics.   After all, she is there to help me fall asleep.  I am finding nights to be rather quiet, long, scary and lonely.  If I can just get myself to lay down, I will pop in one of her audio books and she speaks to me of things that comfort me, almost always.

Recently,  Anne instructed me to write "really shitty rough drafts".   I found no problem there.  So if you come read something here and then come back again and it seems to have morphed its Anne's fault.  She would prefer I print out the first draft and take a red pen to it but instead I just keep coming back and reediting until I am either happy with it or sick of it and let it float in cyberland to die it's small insignificant death.   I would like to think she would be happy to know that I at least highlight in red the parts I really hate about whatever is here while I edit.  But I doubt I will ever have the chance to ask her.

I find myself resentful of her because she can just say things and her world doesn't seem to fall down around her.  I guess it's a love/hate relationship I am having with her.   I always fall back to a time when I was writing everyday.   Real "heart" stuff and ended up being crucified and complimented all in one week about a piece I had written.  It was even printed in a publication and it meant so much to so many people that I met.  Some tried to use it to as irrefutable proof that I was hopelessly incapable of being a good mother, let alone a good person.  Some others sat with me and told of their own stories from their own experiences with the subject matter.   They all were thankful for the piece but for such unbelievably (until it happened) different reasons.   The dichotomy of that week was so ridiculous.      That is why I am resentful.   As far as I know,  no one tried to take away love from her because she talked about her life.   The real one.  The life that everyone has even if they don't admit it.  The one where they pick up rocks they want to throw at Jesus or at someone or something else.   Granted, even George Bush.

I don't know how writers survive and have real lives outside of their written word.  I wonder where writers get the bravery to even go to the store, let alone, walk among the living everyday.

At least I didn't kill Ed...

It is about gratitude.   It is about fear of self.  The self you don't really know is there.  Or the self you know is there and you are too afraid to admit it.  It is about looking at life with a wider lens because if you don't you get to a place where you almost kill someone who just happens to be in your small line of vision.  It is definitely not about Ed.   Unless you are Ed and didn't know about your possible fate, sitting just inches away from me one Sunday.  If I were Ed,  it would be all about me.   I hope Ed never reads this.  But in case Ed, you do.  I apologize from the bottom of my heart.  I promise it really isn't about you.

I sat in the blue chair one day while I explained that I was horrified with what had almost REALLY happened.   What I had almost REALLY done.  For all intents and purposes, I considered that I HAD done it.   It got inside my head and then there was the fact that there was that second where I moved forward,  absolutely no one else could have seen it, it was so tiny, but every sinew of my body reacted and moved me a tiny bit forward before the rush of shamed shock and horror engulfed me.  True horror at myself.  And shame and embarrassment.

The blue chair tells me that at least I didn't do it.  That I could choose to be grateful that somewhere inside of me I had enough humanity and knew right from wrong and could control myself even if murderous thoughts got so close to the surface.   I was not having any of it.  I remember tearfully saying how pitiful and small I must be if THAT was the only thing I could say about my character.   I was grateful I didn't  kill Ed.  I started to look for a rock to crawl under.  And waiting for the guilt police to come to take me away for the crime I almost REALLY did commit.   It didn't take long for guilt police to get there.  But instead of taking me away to my cell,  they stayed.  Settled in as if I had invited them over for coffee and a danish.

I, still in turmoil, sought out more counseling from my pastor.  She saw how stunned I was.  We talked about the safe places we all have and expect to always have and when it is violated it can be frightening and confusing for our spirits.  She also mentioned that I hadn't been the only one who had experienced a jolt in our spirit over the whole ordeal.   She mentioned that I should consider, once I had  brushed the gravel off my knees, that I should sit and share with Ed, the affect that horrible Sunday had on me.  She also mentioned that I might not want to explain, in detail, what could have happened to him had I been of a different constitution.  Good plan, we both decided.

I remember sitting there after having these conversations and I was still disgusted with myself,  I took a recipe card and wrote,  "I Didn't Kill Ed"   I stuck it on the long mirror in my bathroom.  This mirror reaches from one end to the other.  A huge space, yet this note card, as small as it was seemed to be the only thing I could see.  So big and horrifying, I couldn't even see my reflection for a long time.  It was there to satisfy my sense of irony.   My desire to beat myself up over and over again and to mock myself at how truly small and stupid my attempts at living a grateful life were.


“I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”   -Anne Lamott-

One Reason I Will Be Learning Advanced ASL

It is artistic, elegant and beautiful...

I am headed back to school the same week that my daughter is.   School is an exciting place for me, it always has been.  Wow,  that is a lie if I ever saw one.   I hated the early years and the forced assignments where you had to actually stand up in front of people and talk.   I hated that part of  school.  That and the fact that I was chubby and shy and people like to pick on people like me.  I hated that part of school too.  

When I went back to school in '08  I remember the fear that was rising up in me the first time I had to present my paper on Ethics in Health care.  I was suddenly 9 and needed to throw up.  I do not know how I got through it, unless it was the back pack my partner had given to me that possessed special powers.   It emitted a force field to keep me safe.   It worked and I have always been grateful for that gift.   I also realized that I wasn't 9 anymore and I began to really enjoy speaking in public.

  The school was a McSchool.  It took my money and in return I earned a A.S.S.   I love seeing that in writing.  It makes me laugh.  In all fairness, it did almost everything it said it would but it just didn't work out for me.   I am and will continue to remain a certified Cpht.   I have no idea if I will ever use it.  Because it was a McSchool none of my credits count anywhere in the "real" world.   I don't look at it as a waste of time though.  I learned a lot about myself that I didn't know and probably never would have known, especially if someone just tried to tell me.  I had to go through it.  Such is everything in life.

So as I said, I am going back to school.   This time a "real" one.   I am headed first toward Sociology and plan to wander around a bit.   One thing I know for sure is that I will be taking as many Communication classes as I can and I will study ASL for my second language.   I laugh at myself because the last thing I have been is a great communicator.  Past personal experiences prove that. That old saying about people who go into psychology, sociology, social work etc are the one's that need it the most.   And so it goes with communication for me I guess.   I plan to be a counselor when I graduate.   I tell people that I am planning a great career with a BA in one of the ology realms.   They nod kindly and take me off their list of possible relationships from the Mcdating site.  Oh well.

The Blue Chair

I pray there comes a time in every one's life when they are taken by surprise by their sudden and unexpected reactions to their surroundings or their thoughts and it is revealed who they are supposed to become.    The reason why I pray for this is because I certainly wouldn't pray for the way it has happened to me.  It has been a long excruciating journey for me to find a direction.  I wouldn't want anyone else to have to go through the confusion of 50 years before their compass finally started to work.

I have blathered on all my life about those people who profess to have grown up already knowing who they wanted to be and they talk about the one directional journey.  You know who I mean,  they are spotlighted on news programs.  But when I was pinned down once to exactly who these people where I couldn't come up with anyone I knew for certain was one of "those people".   I went for the joke then and said something to the effect of "you know, those people who say the grass is always greener,  a stitch in time saves nine, never leave the house without wearing clean underwear in case you are in a car accident..." . Then correcting myself because I realized the last one was not one of "those people" that one was my mother.   I found myself knowing most of us on earth are not pre-wired for one certain purpose.  I had been lying to myself, perhaps because the hard wiring, or for an excuse... to be less than. To give up. To date, the only one person I "know" who knew his role/destiny/purpose that I can really name as "cradle to grave" one directional, one intentional, is Jesus.

It was strange to realize that my disappointment with myself was just another unrealistic self-expectation I have carried around since childhood.   Another way to beat myself up for not knowing everything.  Its unsettling to have a pillar of your belief system crumble into nothingness.  It was never real in the first place.  Many pillars and walls disappear like that for me and it isn't an easy happening.  There were/are times I feel as if there is nothing real to prop me up.  It is as if a mountain of false belief has been rattled and it comes down upon you.  Everything you believed, or used to get you through, is gone.

It is such an opportunity each time these inside landslides happen.   It doesn't  feel like an opportunity it feels claustrophobic. It feels frightening.  We feel dangerous. We mentally, emotionally or physically claw for air and scream for help before we suffocate.  The super heated moment passes.  Some doctors say a panic attack only lasts about 25 minutes.  If you find comfort in this then hold on to it.   But if it is a deep seeded issue the "hang over" or confusion, and shame can last for a very long time.  And if you suffer you know just how long life can be.... no matter how short it is said it to be.

There are many treatments for the panic attack itself.   I do not have any public opinion about which is best.    I don't believe there is any wrong way to treat it either.   Only levels of "better"  for the individual.  I believe the only person who can decide "better" is the person clawing for air and living through the aftermath.  Personally though, I hope with all my heart that "ignoring" isn't what is decided.  It really is there to tell you something.  I ignored it for years.   Then one day, I sat down in a blue chair and firmly said, "I'm not here to goof around.   I need to understand why and the hows and fix it now.  I am 50, life is too short, no matter how long it feels..."

 Who knows how many times the blue chair had heard this from others.   But  it met me where I was and believed me.  Believed me and waited to see if I was lying...