Not quite sure why I wrote down this title. I have a book filled with such titles. If I hear a phrase and I like the rhythm and ring of the words I write them down. Thus far few books or articles have adjoined themselves to my titles. But Gentleman and Stuffed Animals came across my desk this morning and I thought about it for a book title.
It would actually make a good story about a woman down on her luck who seeks the comfort of gentleman who are generous with their money and for whom she does certain favors. Men bring her stuffed animals and she is treated like the little girl who never got treated like a child when young. As the story broadens into her young life and the life of a young woman, we see her morphing into someone who likes the company of older men along with their attention, their money and the gifts they bring. The oldest profession in dated history. Or is it?
To be continued.........
Monday, October 26, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Faxespagerscopierstextmessagescellphonestimersforthelaundryerrandsshoppingspinningoutofcontrolandotherinsanewaystolivelife
Sometimes I just want to turn off the machine that spins me around all day long. The faxes, the pagers, the oh-so-urgent-has-to-get-done-right-now items on my list, the doctor who has to be called because the prescription he sent in was written wrong and the pharmacist couldn't fill it. All the surprise errands that slip themselves between the normal daily tasks make me irritable and wanting to return to those halcyon days when I was playing in the woods on Mercer Island, outside of Seattle. Magic happened in those woods. I got to be quiet and relax and not have twelve dozen chores to do. Back then Nature was as healing as it is today. And I was never sick or tired because I had those woods. Each day I would run away and no one ever knew where I was. It was respite although I'm quite sure I didn't call it that.
Life hands us this stuff and we choose how to deal with it. Slow motion gets you there faster, Hoagy Carmichael once wrote. But there are those days when slow won't cut it. And you start feeling dizzy and tired, then sick and sicker. Then you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. And you want that machine to turn itself off.
Over the past several weeks, I haven't used the word, "No." I've said yes to some things I knew I had to say yes to and forgot to pace myself and say no to people who could easily find someone else. I finally had to resort to not answering my phone. That helped, but it was hard to do. I answer the phone at work all day long and love the refreshment of not hearing it ring at home.
While writing a book, working 40 hours a week and fixing and repairing things that need
to be fixed, I find myself slowly deteriorating. I don't eat healthy foods. I don't exercise and I end up looking like one of those Ruben paintings of a corpulent woman lounging in the altogether. So while slow is better, I need to choose my battles and errands and put off today what can be done tomorrow or next week.
I crave simplicity, peace and serenity. When they fly out the window, I get pissy. So I'm going to use the word "No" and choose those things I really want to do, like exercise and go to Whole Foods, like dating some spectacular men and surrounding myself with all things beautiful and serene. They're out there in abundance, those people, those architecturally perfect buildings, those symphonies, that art, the symmetry of life, all within a short distance of my own backyard. I want those beautiful friends and family members and places and adventures to bring back that childhood magic, the days when all there was was play and joy. No agenda, no lists, nothing to do other than have fun and create new worlds in my mind.
In a letter to my mother, my father once wrote: "We are noticing how magical Jean is. I even believe she is a genius." I understand that, because when I was a child, I was busy creating and writing music and poetry; and I was dancing, always dancing. Back then I was happy, playful and having fun. It should never end. We should all become as little children, even if it means we have to turn off the machine that spins us around.
Life hands us this stuff and we choose how to deal with it. Slow motion gets you there faster, Hoagy Carmichael once wrote. But there are those days when slow won't cut it. And you start feeling dizzy and tired, then sick and sicker. Then you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. And you want that machine to turn itself off.
Over the past several weeks, I haven't used the word, "No." I've said yes to some things I knew I had to say yes to and forgot to pace myself and say no to people who could easily find someone else. I finally had to resort to not answering my phone. That helped, but it was hard to do. I answer the phone at work all day long and love the refreshment of not hearing it ring at home.
While writing a book, working 40 hours a week and fixing and repairing things that need
to be fixed, I find myself slowly deteriorating. I don't eat healthy foods. I don't exercise and I end up looking like one of those Ruben paintings of a corpulent woman lounging in the altogether. So while slow is better, I need to choose my battles and errands and put off today what can be done tomorrow or next week.
I crave simplicity, peace and serenity. When they fly out the window, I get pissy. So I'm going to use the word "No" and choose those things I really want to do, like exercise and go to Whole Foods, like dating some spectacular men and surrounding myself with all things beautiful and serene. They're out there in abundance, those people, those architecturally perfect buildings, those symphonies, that art, the symmetry of life, all within a short distance of my own backyard. I want those beautiful friends and family members and places and adventures to bring back that childhood magic, the days when all there was was play and joy. No agenda, no lists, nothing to do other than have fun and create new worlds in my mind.
In a letter to my mother, my father once wrote: "We are noticing how magical Jean is. I even believe she is a genius." I understand that, because when I was a child, I was busy creating and writing music and poetry; and I was dancing, always dancing. Back then I was happy, playful and having fun. It should never end. We should all become as little children, even if it means we have to turn off the machine that spins us around.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
BUSI-NESS
Everyone I know keeps running, not toward something, but away from something. I've done it, muscled my way into one distraction after another, especially when I could see way off in the distance a familiar sight, my feelings racing toward me.
Loosed from others' opinion of me, I can now allow the spigot to flow. At the same time, I do use discernment - as I did at yesterday's memorial service - when the ocassion warrants it.
But society is still driving that steamroller: texting, emailing, paging, faxing, phoning, driving, ironing, exercising, housekeeping, shopping, eating, smoking, drinking, or drugging - all in an effort to keep the baby boomer tears away.
During a recent review, the supervisor at work tapped his leg in staccato rhythm, avoiding my eyes, answering emails and checking stats on the computer. I wondered what song he was listening to.
My tears cleanse me when the loss, the memory, or rigidity of control bubbles up to the surface. The release of long pent up feelings and tears not only clears the way, but also brings the loss or memory into neutral. Eventually, I can laugh. And when that happens, I am done and no longer have to run from myself or my tears.
We, sweet little human beings that we are, are recognized not by our ethics, values or physical attributes, but by our pathos, our ability to recognize the connection of shared emotions. Without this common thread, we are lost and alone. Physical pain we can handle. It's the emotions we don't want to deal with.
Running may be great for the physical body, but not when it means we are afraid of something. When our spirit beckons us to feel, it's an invitation to let our spirit catch up with our bodies, an opportunity to feel good, become whole, and finally come home.
Loosed from others' opinion of me, I can now allow the spigot to flow. At the same time, I do use discernment - as I did at yesterday's memorial service - when the ocassion warrants it.
But society is still driving that steamroller: texting, emailing, paging, faxing, phoning, driving, ironing, exercising, housekeeping, shopping, eating, smoking, drinking, or drugging - all in an effort to keep the baby boomer tears away.
During a recent review, the supervisor at work tapped his leg in staccato rhythm, avoiding my eyes, answering emails and checking stats on the computer. I wondered what song he was listening to.
My tears cleanse me when the loss, the memory, or rigidity of control bubbles up to the surface. The release of long pent up feelings and tears not only clears the way, but also brings the loss or memory into neutral. Eventually, I can laugh. And when that happens, I am done and no longer have to run from myself or my tears.
We, sweet little human beings that we are, are recognized not by our ethics, values or physical attributes, but by our pathos, our ability to recognize the connection of shared emotions. Without this common thread, we are lost and alone. Physical pain we can handle. It's the emotions we don't want to deal with.
Running may be great for the physical body, but not when it means we are afraid of something. When our spirit beckons us to feel, it's an invitation to let our spirit catch up with our bodies, an opportunity to feel good, become whole, and finally come home.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Preaching Nature Like An Apostle
John Muir spoke the words in this title. He was a writer and ardent naturalist. Moved to tears and enticed to write of the inspired beauty, Muir made inroads like no other naturalist.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Dance with Solitude
Not sure what mating call it was that lured me to LaGrange; what freak act of kismet brought me to the backwater of west central Georgia, but whatever latter day Scylla and Charybdis, I was summoned, landing smack in the middle of a pasture full of weeds. These weeds of ignorance and decay, of discrimination and entropy were not a welcoming sight. But the landlords of this pasture were welcoming, if only superficially. And so I journeyed here.
Living among the weeds meant that everybody left me alone. While some tried to get rid of me, for the most part I was ignored. When your feeding tube is dependent on friendships, this makes life hard. Friends were impossible to come by in this land full of thriving, happy families. A single woman was regarded as suspect and thus unwelcomed. I noticed even single men had a hard time making connections.
But while I was bereft of the nourishment of friendship, I was not bereft of language, nor of the ability to dig deep down for the substantive emotion informing my heart. I also had an abundance of solitude which, for better or worse, enabled me to create joy and imagine worlds. Best of all, I had the good fortune to enjoy one hell of a romance with one good and intelligent man.
A homeless Navajo woman I once knew in Tucson told me, when my chin was pressed up against poverty and homelessness, that I needn't worry. She said, "All you need is the sky."
For me, the deep blue bowl above my head would have to do.
From: The Back Porch of Heaven
Living among the weeds meant that everybody left me alone. While some tried to get rid of me, for the most part I was ignored. When your feeding tube is dependent on friendships, this makes life hard. Friends were impossible to come by in this land full of thriving, happy families. A single woman was regarded as suspect and thus unwelcomed. I noticed even single men had a hard time making connections.
But while I was bereft of the nourishment of friendship, I was not bereft of language, nor of the ability to dig deep down for the substantive emotion informing my heart. I also had an abundance of solitude which, for better or worse, enabled me to create joy and imagine worlds. Best of all, I had the good fortune to enjoy one hell of a romance with one good and intelligent man.
A homeless Navajo woman I once knew in Tucson told me, when my chin was pressed up against poverty and homelessness, that I needn't worry. She said, "All you need is the sky."
For me, the deep blue bowl above my head would have to do.
From: The Back Porch of Heaven
The News
The day rounds itself into noon. A bird perched atop a light pole sings its melody in excruciating twills, the synchopation in counterpoint to a Mendelsohn adagio.
The radio announces that at 82 Frank Sinatra is dead. In 1942 he became a solo singer. As a teen he liked to hang around musicians.
Rioters in Jakarta burn buildings at shopping malls killing 120.
Vidalia growers in Georgia may lose their crops this year due to an immigration service raid on illegal farm workers.
One million dollars will be spent in the next three years on educational testing.
The mockingbird is gone and so is Mendolsohn. I'm alone and it's quiet. The day completes its course, slipping past me with wet heat into obscurity.
From The Back Porch of Heaven 5/15/98
The radio announces that at 82 Frank Sinatra is dead. In 1942 he became a solo singer. As a teen he liked to hang around musicians.
Rioters in Jakarta burn buildings at shopping malls killing 120.
Vidalia growers in Georgia may lose their crops this year due to an immigration service raid on illegal farm workers.
One million dollars will be spent in the next three years on educational testing.
The mockingbird is gone and so is Mendolsohn. I'm alone and it's quiet. The day completes its course, slipping past me with wet heat into obscurity.
From The Back Porch of Heaven 5/15/98
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Florida Keys
Sometimes beauty defies language. In an earlier blog I wrote that I wanted to surround my life with beauty in all its forms. This morning I opened my email and found this photograph in an email sent by Randy.
The photo reminds me of Marathon in the Middle Keys and I've been savoring the thought of moving down there.
There is so much I love about it there. It is quiet and the sky is so amazing, outdone only by the ocean. Seabirds, like Frigates, abound and so does the delicious seafood. I feel so at home there and look forward to the day I can pack up my things and move there. It has the meetings I go to, the stores I like and the proximity to shopping in Miami that appeals.
But it isn't a place for everyone. The Keys are about tranquility and serenity, about living a life of leisure and abandon, not the nano second, multi-tasking boisterous world of it's northern siblings. Boating, swimming, fishing and a room of one's own to write books and my mission would be well on its way.
In October I'll be traveling to Marathon, to show it off to my darling friend Nancy and to do my own research about the meetings as well as investigating the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon.
Ahhh, such beauty. I can just see the sunset and taste the loquats, bananas and Mahi-Mahi covered in a mango salsa.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
