ABC - Jackson 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-aSjHnbw18




This song is one of my earliest of my own choosing.  Up until ABC, my music was that which was passed to me by my parents.  I owned the 45 and knew all the words.  This song takes me back to a very carefree period in my life.  It never occurred to me then, that I would have to learn to know who I was.  My life is more complicated now.   To help me sleep at night I have been making lists in my head.  I recently started trying to make a list of my top 5 movies.


I have had the most lively debate in my head, paring down a long list of favorites.  It would seem making the list taught me much about myself.  Well, four months later...I have a firm top 5.


 I have had a good time with this endeavor.  I watched several of my favorite movies again.  It has helped me be my own friend.  I have dissected what I loved about each.  It is as if I have written an essay in my head about the themes, music, places and people in each.  I have championed the cause in each movie and I have felt privileged to watch the stories unfold. 




After much thought my top 5 are as follows:






1. Out of Africa.  I have loved this movie since I saw it when it opened in 1978.  Now that I have been to many of the places in the movie...I love it more.  I have a love for Africa because of this movie.  It gave me the courage to see it for myself.  I plan to return there as part of my retirement plan.  I loved the strength of the main character.  I felt her flaws as my own.  I had no idea the day I saw this movie for the first time, that I would fly to Africa...all by myself...and live an adventure. 






2. The Color Purple.  I love a tale of strength among women.  I love their loyalty to each other.  I love the narration.  I admire the hope that the women have in the face of adversity.  The way the story is woven, I  witnessed women making their own peace in their souls.  It made me realize, I could confront my own, albeit lessor challenges.












3. The Shawshank Redemption.  This movie was all about the relationships of men.  That is a rarity for me.  I tend to gravitate towards movies about women, strong women.  Ahhh, but I loved this movie.  I will say I love their loyalty, their bond.  They were men living in a tough environment, but they related to each other with all the love and strength of women.  I loved the narration in this movie as well.  I loved the audacity of hope... the humanity in such an abrasive environment.






4. My Cousin Vinny.  You can't go deep with this movie.  It made me howl.  There are a million little plots in this movie.  Sometimes, you just need to be dazzled with witty-sharp dialogue.  For good measure there is the hairdresser-car mechanic heroine who saves the day.  What is there not to
love.





5. The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio.  I think I like the story this movie tells the most.  I think it is important to remember why women fought for equal rights.  More importantly I was proud of way the mother fought for her cubs.  The mother was a gentle giant.  I was watching this movie and heard a line that made me lift my head in attention.  The mother tells her husband..."I don't need you to make me happy, I just need you to leave me alone when I am".  That line describes the state of my marriage, just before it fell.  We all think we want someone to make us happy.  I don't think that anymore.  I want someone who won't make me unhappy.  I am responsible for my own happiness.






I know this list is a trivial thing of little importance; but I enjoyed this journey.    I have been thinking about what I do in life that makes me happy.  Looking at these stories I thought of the days I was taking classes in literature.  I love looking at the mechanics of a story as much as the story it's self.  I would love a degree in women's studies, for no other reason than the joy of doing it.  Do I have a new bucket list item?  






Sometimes you have to spend time with yourself.  I found out mundane thoughts gave me a good look inward.  Sometimes in life, you can be your own best friend.   It is as simple as ABC, 1 2 3.

Love Is A Verb

Love Is A Verb - John Mayer

 

 

 

 

You can listen to this song, sing the words a 100 times, yet never really hear it.  Well at least I had done just that.  Then this year went into a tailspin.  It was an ah ha moment when I saw love actively being lived all around me.  It was actions big and small. The love around me wasn't spoken, it was kinetic.  People were with me 24- SEVEN, looking out for me when I was not present.  I have a month of my life that is known to me only by their words.  They fought the battles, they held my hand, kept my dog, watered my plants, helped me stand, bathed me, eventually took me home, took me to the grocery, to doctor after doctor, and brought the world in to me for the weeks I was homebound.

 

Love is a verb, it ain't a thing.  I needed all the verbs you can name.  It was a hug, a phone call, a shoulder to cry on, an arm to lean on.  My friends, my family all showed me, love ain't a thing, love is a verb.

 

So I think I will ponder a while...is the love I give a thing ........or a verb?

Sunday Moring Coming Down

Sunday Morning Coming Down - Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson

 

 

 

 

Well first I love this song, but it isn't Sunday morning coming down the way I like it.  I am a morning person. I am not hung over or lonely.  I like to wake up, have a cup of coffee, listen to some music and just love the possibilities of a day yet to be lived.  Sunday mornings are best.  It seems that on Saturday I am still in a grind mode.  There are things to be done and you're still a little shell-shocked from the work week.  Saturday you dis-engage from labor.  On Sunday, you re-engage yourself.  By Sunday I am ready to just meander quietly in spirit.  But I don't usually get a Sunday morning

 

I spend Saturday night away from home.  I wake up in a different bed on Sunday mornings.  It is at the home of another and they sleep late and the house is small.  So I usually just lay in bed and read or do computer work.  Ahhh but thanks to a change of in routine, I got to wake up in my own home, with my guest in a back bedroom and me able to just meander.  I sat in my chair and watched a movie, while I enjoyed the most delicious cup of Vietnamese coffee and a bit of blackberry cobbler.  I listened to music on my I pad/ portable speaker in the sun.  I cooked dinner in my fire pit.  I wrote some letters.    It was a divine morning.  The first Sunday morning I have had at home in a couple of years.

 

I treasured it.  I have decided to see that I get a few more Sunday mornings at home. Funny how such ordinary things can be so defining.  I felt like I woke up a bit today.  I realized I had given away something I love.  Sunday mornings have a purpose for me.  Today, I made the decision to make more Sunday mornings come down my way.  Thank you 2014 for my first gift.  

Time Passages

Time Passages - Al Stewart






I feel nostalgic tonight.  I am not sure why the past is on my mind but it is.  Not a melancholy sort of thing, but a question really.  I find myself wondering tonight why I didn't notice important events.  Why when you live life do you miss the big, little moments?

My children are grown, not a part of my daily life for years. I wonder how did the last time I packed a diaper bag go un-noticed.  When did I last tie a shoe for them.  With our roles reversed this summer as they cared for me, I realized for the first time ever, I was not the leader.  It occurs to me that I let go of little pieces of my leadership role one piece at a time...yet I don't remember doing it.  When did I rock them each last?  In that moment that I didn't conceive .... did I appreciate what I was about to give up?  I mean was I connected or was I worried about dinner. 

So it makes me ask myself today...what might I regret not noticing in my life currently?  I am going to think about that!

Tell Me Why - Norah Jones

Tell Me Why

 

 

 

 

 

The first line in this song describes my life. "Sailing hardships through broken harbors out on the waves in the night"  I am still trying to make my way back from 5 weeks in ICU with a ventilator stent thrown in for good measure.  To be honest I have done well.  It has been a slow steady progression back to normal.  No real one step forward, half a step back sorta thing.  I am in my 4th month of healing and most things are working well...except my energy level sucks. 

 

This is starting to sound like a terrible post...but be patient.  You can't join the celebration if you don't know the climb. 

 

So my energy level sucks.  I am used to being able to pull anything out of my ass.  Little sleep, no big deal, I will sleep later.  House needs cleaning...I will sleep a couple of hours and get up at 2 am and do it.  Let me get up and go hike with my club 8-10 miles then go out with Superman for a late date.  Hey life is short live it.  Well that sounded good, always worked before.  Why change horses in mid-stream? 

 

Sometimes you change horses when you get knocked off the one that brung ya.  So that is where I found myself, dilapidated and with little horse power.  I still don't work full time.  My yard is a mess.  My house has always been kept better than it is now. God Forbid there is clean laundry in baskets in my house.  I have never done that. Gulp.  I just don't have the energy.  So I just growl at the various undone deeds and murmur to myself.  It has been all I can do to work part time and keep my house chores in the nose-above-water level.  ahhhh....but this is a good blog!

 

Today... I actually had a bit of energy to spare and I walked on my treadmill for 3 songs.  One of them 5 min in length.  So I figure I walked about 12 or 13 minutes.  That is a big fucking deal....I had some disposable energy today!.  It is like every day I start with so many energy units and when they are gone I power down PDQ.  I recently went out to dinner with some girlfriends and fell asleep at the table. BUT today, I worked and still had a bit of energy left over.  That is so crazy good.  I wish someone would get that.  I am all ready to do a high five dance, but got no body who could wrap their head around it in my vicinity.  So I will just woo-hoo solo.

 

 

You've Got to Hold On!

Alabama Shakes

I have had my own reasons to "hold on" of late.  Some days I hold on better than others.  My recent trial has been a health challenge that ended up with 5 weeks in ICU, a ventilator and the understanding I do not fear death.  But I am ahead of myself. 

I guess the point of this blog is to process the things I have come to know during this struggle.

I am a tough old bird.  I didn't die, I fought hard through some bad days, some hard pain, some lonely lost times...to live.  I still fight, I know, it, me, life is worth fighting for. I dream of Key West with Superman, it will be sweeter than I ever thought it might have been before all of this. It is so crazy good to plan this trip, knowing I will feel better by then.  I have hope, future, anticipation and adventure yet to come.  I KNOW I APPRECIATE my toughness.

I lived a good life.  I had no epiphany thoughts of how I was going to change the way I was living.  I was living a full and happy life.  I had good job, partner, friends, adventures, truth, peace and appreciation for my life.  I still want to live in Nicaragua, but that was and is in the works and this trial only reaffirms that life is short.  I knew that.  I really know that better than most.  I think it is part of my not fearing death...I fear not living while I am alive.  I have learned I am LIVING and have been  That is an awesome thing to know.

I am loved...OMG how they helped me hold on.  I have lost spaces, weeks, memories, strength, will, reality, and self, yet they held me.  Family and friends and special ones, and sons and ex-husbands and their fiancé, and a dog, all held me. One even stepped in as an illusion of my mother and turned me round in a fog that had consumed me.  Such love from so many places.  There have been pennies from heaven ...Thanks Moma and Daddy....gone so long, yet here one more time.  I have had abundance, grace, love and support.  I have so much to hold on to.

Yeah, I am ready for all this to be over, but only so I can get back to living the life I love.  All of this has helped me remember I just need to hold on...

"You got to hold on...
Bless my heart, bless yours too...

Amost Cut My Hair - My Conflict with a Loss of Freedoms

Almost Cut My Hair - CSN&Y circa 1970

I have conflict in my soul about the world around me and my response to it.  Recently we have had yet another horrific news event- The Boston Marathon Bombing.  I know these happenings are not one dimensional, they show us at our worst (who does this stuff ) and our best (who raised the beautiful sons and daughters that stopped to render aid without thinking of self).  These events pop up and unsettle my soul.  How vain of me to only see it in sense of self.  How telling my response. 

I have lots of feelings about what has happened.  I can't process them really.  So I focus on what I can.  I think about what I want.  I think about what I have had.  I mourn the loss of outrage on some level inside my quiet moments. I feel guilty that I want to not think about it.  I want to not fix it.  I feel hopeless, lost and sad. Then, in a moment I feel determined with strength to change what I can, accept what I cannot and to understand what falls in which category. Then I feel guilty for seeing a solution that only changes it for me.  Let me explain.

My current fixation on this whole mess is about how the men where caught.  Let me start by saying how glad I am that they were caught.  Let me follow that with how conflictual the method of their capture was to me.  Let's face it, it was surveillance cameras that were vital as well as observers using their phones.  It was brought up right away how government placed camera's (Big Brother) in Europe have swiftly answered questions of who did what when.  I get that more and more camera's are going to be installed.  I am not a radical zealot, I am a liberal.  I know, I am terrible.  I know people lost their lives, limbs, loved ones.  I can't fathom all of that yet.  Please don't judge me too harshly. What I can give thought to, what I can grieve for is the loss of the life I grew up with.


1970 looks like the Wild West from today's point of view.  In 1970 you could drop out, travel across the country.  You could get a hotel without ID.   Cell phones didn't track you.  You could do anything with cash.  You could get a job.  You could go off grid in the middle of New York City, if you chose.  You could lose yourself even further in Alaska.  You didn't walk down the street fearing an out of place backpack.  I can't, don't want to wrap my head around this new way of living.  I feel powerless to stop it, change it, understand it.   I want a more peaceful life.  I want to worry about what is right in front of my face.  I want to tend my own garden and be present in my own life.  I just can't keep slicing off pieces to care about the many ills of this world.  Then I am sad.

I am sad that I no longer feel the wisdom of fighting ... for what is right.  What is right?  Who decides?  It is my belief that I have one life, this one.  My point of view does not count on a "heaven"to make this life palatable.  I am not counting on a chance to double down at a later date.  I see the best in myself, one of self-acceptance.  A life where I do not feel responsible for all the wrongs of the world.  Ah, but that sword cuts back on me.  My worst being that I don't feel responsible in some way for these wrongs.  Aren't we all responsible?

Call me Chicken Little, but I want to move to Nicaragua (or somewhere a little less "civilized") and put my head in the sand before the sky falls.  I want to help in whatever way I can, while I live a little further from the fray.  I know I am just wanting to run from all of this.  Doesn't anyone else feel like they sometimes can't feel anymore?  Or am I just choosing not to feel?  As usual, I chase my tail.

How much time, thought, energy do we give to something we feel powerless to change?  Is it okay to say enough already and leave someone else to figure it out?  If this is my only time, does it make me a bad person to "retire"from living in conflict?  Is it a wise and mature self that accepts that a Zen life is the answer?    Is a Zen point of view the pinnacle to achieve or the arrival at the intersection of Sell-Out Lane and Apathy Drive? 

Like David Crosby sang....

"When I finally get myself together
Get down in some sunny southern weather
Find a place inside to laugh
Separate the wheat from the chaff
Cause I feel like I owe it to someone"











who makes people who know nothing spew the most vile hatred without a hint of compassion, just playing like a stuck record)