Today is “Evaluate Your Life” Day…

And my first response is, “Crap!”

My second response is bound to be more positive than that.  Isn’t it?

It is a divorce-stuff day.  I just spoke with my investment guy to see how to best give my money to Pat.  Fun fun fun.  We are going to finish our paperwork tonight so we can get it notarized before he goes to Florida for his birthday – he leaves on Thursday.  Our court date is a week from tomorrow.  I found out today that I’ve got about 6-8 weeks of work left, and then I’m out of here.  No salary, Cobra for benefits.  Time to start my own gig.

I feel sick to my stomach.

I’m No Angel, But They Do Exist

I have always believed in guardian angels.  What a wonderful thing to have, and what a wonderful thing to be.  Mine is my grandfather, who died before I was conceived, but who would have completely doted on me, never having had a daughter of his own.  I have called on him at some of the murkiest and lowest moments of my life and felt the comfort and solace of his presence.  He stayed with me for my first bout under general anesthesia, and I awoke in tears because I did not want to leave him.  He put his arm around me in my truck one day, as I listened to an NPR story about a photographer of the old railroad steam engines.  And he sat with me in Union Station one morning when I threw myself back in time.

Angels, although they may not be called such, are present in every belief system, which to me is evidence of their existence.   Or perhaps it is evidence of our innate need to believe in something truly good, and our yearning for someone to look after us.  But if it is true that we create our own realities, then it is true that angels exist.  We have created them.  We all have angelic qualities within us and it could be just the right meshing of energies that creates angels.

The word itself, “angel”, comes from the greek word for “messenger”.  Angels often appear, in whatever form, in times of crisis.  They can offer wisdom, guidance, protection, healing, but all of those are messages of love.  And what’s important to remember is that those messages, that seem to come from some other being, live inside you.  It is the connection with that universal angel energy that makes you aware of those messages.  Those message are knowledge, and that  knowledge is already in you – it just needed a little more energy to turn on the light so you could see it.

I think we all have at least one angel that watches over us, strokes our heads in sleep, blows away bad dreams, and helps us realize that our darkest hours can and will pass back into a place of light and laughter and peace.  There are other angels that come and go from our lives depending on circumstances and on the wisdom we need to handle a particular situation.   But they are all out there – or in there.  That in itself is a peaceful blessing.

(Image credited to the wonderful creativity of the artist here: http://teresasilverthorn.wordpress.com)

Hurricanes, Authors, Adventuresses, and Grouches

55 years ago today, Hurricane Hazel roared ashore right around Topsail Beach, North Carolina, where I have spent at least part of the month of August since I was 8 years old.  A Category 4 hurricane, coinciding with the highest lunar tide of the year, it caused an 18-foot storm surge.  You can read that as BAD.  Legend has it that the house next door to “our” beach house, which is oceanfront, was picked up off its pilings, and dropped by the sound, 4 blocks away, completely intact.  They just had to pick it up and put it back on its stilts.  They say that there are no cemetaries on the island anymore because when Hazel came, all the bodies in the cemetary in Surf City were washed above ground, creating a gruesome clean-up process, and making it difficult in some cases to tell fresh corpses from better-seasoned corpses.  Ew.

Hazel’s unusual pattern had her pass through Durham as a Category 3 hurricane, which I don’t believe has happened since (and hadn’t happened before).  My father told me tales of watching from his office window as huge old trees just flew across West Campus.  I wonder if he walked to work that day?

Here’s an image of the storm’s aftermath – a shame about that lovely car …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a much more pleasant note, today is my favorite author’s birthday!  He’s dead, or else I’d send him a card.  Yes, it’s P.G. Wodehouse, early 20th century British author best known for his humorous books featuring Jeeves and Bertie Wooster.  How did a small-town North Carolina girl fall into a passionate literary love affair with an aged English author and suspected German collaborator known as “Plum”?  Well, it all started on a bright December day on Markham Avenue.  I just happened to use my friend Tom Beckett’s bathroom and there was this book.  As one does when one can during private moments, I read a few pages, and found it hysterical.  When I emerged, I asked Tom about it. “Oh, that’s James’ bathroom book,” he replied.  His roommate always had a book that was solely and exclusively read in the bathroom.  Don’t think about the germs, okay?

Well, I was captivated, but, being me, came back to Colorado and promptly forgot about it, until the following March, when I became very, very, very ill – and my boyfriend broke up with me.  Nice, huh?  Anyway, I needed some serious cheering up, so I dragged myself to the toy store and bought myself a teddy bear, and to the bookstore and bought the book “Life With Jeeves”, a compilation of three Jeeves novels.  I was too sick to go to school or to work, so I just stayed in the clawfoot tub of my exceptionally funky apartment and laughed myself well.

After that, it was a game for me to try to find Wodehouse’s books, as he was not exactly well-known in my generation, and Amazon.com didn’t exist yet.  I found around 40 of them to purchase, and more in the library, and I know there are still some out there that I haven’t read – I’ll find them someday.  They are, to this day, like comfort food for me.  When I get really down, or really sick, I start re-reading them, and must have re-read all of them ten times. 

(Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlestuffedbull.)

Wodehouse died at the age of 93 on Valentine’s Day after finally becoming a knight of the realm.  I hate it when my favorite authors die.  It means they will never write anything new for me to read. 

For more contemporary folks, you may be interested to know that the BBC produced a few television versions of some of Wodehouse’s Bertie and Jeeves stories, with the part of Bertie Wooster being played by none other than the actor who currently portrays Dr. House.  Quite a grand canyon between those two roles.

Today is also the birthday of Isabella Bird, one of the world’s foremost early female travellers and a personal inspiration for me, as she just went, on her own, and explored.  I love her attitude.

As a final parting thought, today is National Grouch Day.  Indulge your negativity if you want to – I’m afraid I am negative enough off and on right now without needing a special day for it.

The Weekly Wednesday Poem

Today’s poet – Pablo Neruda.  Guess he’s my favorite.

In My Sky at Twilight 

In my sky at twilight you are like a cloud
and your form and colour are the way I love them.
You are mine, mine, woman with sweet lips
and in your life my infinite dreams live.

The lamp of my soul dyes your feet,
the sour wine is sweeter on your lips,
oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!

You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon’s
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice.
Huntress of the depth of my eyes, your plunder
stills your nocturnal regard as though it were water.

You are taken in the net of my music, my love,
and my nets of music are wide as the sky.
My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning.
In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begin.

An Artsy Day – October 14

Today is the birthday of Lillian Gish, first lady of the silent screen, whose career in films spanned 75 years.

Pretty little thing, isn’t she?

One of the many wonderful things about having parents who were somewhat older was that they were raised in such a different era, when movies didn’t always have sound, automobiles were a unique luxury, and corncobs and pages from the Sears catalog were sometimes used as toilet paper.  While I don’t recall our discussions about it (though I don’t doubt we had them), my parents were both aware that some of the things they had and had experienced growing up were things that we (their children) would never experience unless they made a conscious effort for us to do so.  Classic movies and legendary performers were some of those “things’, if you will.

While neither was raised in a particularly sophisticated environment, to say the least, they both had an appreciation for great talents.  That may be in part because it took so much more effort to see great performers and much more effort on a performer’s part to be seen.  No YouTube or e-books existed.  As a child, I can recall my parents taking us to airings of Charlie Chaplin films in the basement of the Physics Building at Duke.  We also saw Charlie Chan movies(which put me to sleep), several classic Japanese films – I mean the realclassics, not Godzilla, which was a different kind of classic – and many others in that white room with the uncomfortable chairs.  At the time, some bored me to whininess, but as an adult, I recall and appreciate the experience most fondly.  And more importantly, my parents passed on a piece of their history, their generational consciousness to us, through those films.  Lillian Gish was one of the actresses we saw in those series of journeys to the past.  (On a side note, we also saw live performances by Dave Brubeck, Marcel Marceau, Judith Jamison, the Clancey Brothers, and others too numerous to name – all treasures of artistic history.  And I can still remember my father waking me up and bringing me out into the living room to hear Marlene Dietrich sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” live on the TV – it must have been the Ed Sullivan Show – because she was a legend and she was ancient and I would never have the opportunity again.  It made me cry at the wistfulness of it at the time and has haunted me ever since.) 

It is also the birthday of e. e. cummings, a poet famous for his unorthodox use of capitalization, line breaks and punctuation.  He was an accomplished painter as well.  Following is a poem in honor of his birthday (yes, today you get two Wednesday poems for the price of one!)

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
    I fear no fate
(for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

 It’s Be Bald and Free Day, which cummings would have appreciated, considering his hairstyle:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My father would have appreciated today as well.  He lost most of his hair in his 20s, and I recall him sitting in the Daddy Chair shaving his head with an electric razor at least one morning a week.  He walked to work daily, and went through a ‘Kojack’ period, when he would wear mirrored sunglasses and suck a lollipop to amuse the students on the shuttle buses between campuses.  In stark contrast to “Bald and Free”, one of Kelsea’s and my gifts to Pat last year was a “hair hat”  – a baseball cap that looks like a visor with fake hair, that so perfectly matches his own shade and texture that he likes to shock people at the poker table by taking at off, as they frequently mistake it for his own hair.  (Kelsea swears she saw a football coach wearing one on a nationally televised game last weekend, and I’m not sure she isn’t right.  It looked pretty suspicious.)

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of Errol Flynn, who died at age 50 – a true Tasmanian devil if there ever was one, and one of my favorite actors in his heyday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 That charm, that smile, that swash, that buckle.  That laugh that Pat and Kelsea both love, particularly in “The Adventures of Robin Hood”.  Pat was suspended for reading Flynn’s autobiography, “My Wicked Wicked Ways,” when he was in junior high.  They confiscated the book and never gave it back, so I searched high and low and got him a copy of it for our first Christmas together.  He was very pleased.  Though I still don’t think he’s finished it.  If you aren’t familiar with Errol Flynn, do check out some of his films.  Off screen, he was a total scoundrel, who died in an Elvis-esque fashion – bloated, dissipated and addicted to drugs.  A sad, not-so-glamorous ending to an exceptionally vivid life.

And a very happy anniversary to the 6,000 couples, all members of the Unification church, who wed on this day in Korea in 1982.  Your wedding picture is below:

Facing Your Fears

Today is the birthday of British actress Lillie Langtry (aka the Jersey Lily), mistress of the Prince of Wales, Edward Albert, in the late 1870s, and life-long obsession of Texas judge Roy Bean.

 
It is the 39th anniversary of the Miracle in the Andes, in which the  Uraguayan rugby team’s plane crashed and the survivors were forced to resort to cannibalism, all well-documented in the book “Alive!” by Piers Paul Read.

It is also National Face Your Fears Day.  That’s an interesting “holiday”, isn’t it?  Since my teens, I’ve considered myself a pretty courageous person.   I can clearly remember times when I felt I was no longer brave, and I always took steps to do something to reassure myself that I was indeed brave.  Like exploring New York City or going to the Caribbean on my own.  It’s a good feeling, to feel your own bravery in your soul.  It makes you proud of yourself. 

I have some of the standard fears:  heights (which developed in my late 20s and now is abating), mice (I don’t fear them as much as they creep me out – being the quick, jumpy, unpredictable little things that they are) and the parental fear of something happening to my child.  I also have the unusual fear of yeast.  Yes, yeast.  The stuff they use to make bread.  Don’t know why.  Just is what it is.

Kelsea has a fear of clowns and garbage disposals.  Her friend Morgan is terrified of spiders.  Tug was afraid of long stick-like things, such as brooms and fishing poles.  He being a shelter dog, there was probably a reason.  Pat is afraid of snakes.

But these are all fears that we can name, and so we can process them in one way or another, whether through avoidance behaviors or trying to confront them.  The scariest fears, in my opinion, are the ones you can’t name. 

The nameless, faceless fears.  

J.K. Rowling did an excellent job of portraying these fears as dementors in the Harry Potter series.  Things you can’t quite identify, but which can take all the joy out of your soul, leaving you hollow and dead inside.  I have written before about “Personal Dementors“, but then, I was thinking about living, breathing human beings.  Now, I am thinking about the thoughts and fears with which we torment our own selves.

If you name something, I think it loses some of its power.  It becomes more of a “known” and therefore holds less of the fear associated with the unknown.  In transitory life times such as these, it’s a daunting task to name everything I’m afraid of, and it exposes my vulnerabilities.   That’s hard to swallow.  But I think it might be helpful.  I looked back at an old entry in which I listed things I could control vs. things I couldn’t control.  It’s much the same thing.

So let’s get started, shall we?

Fear of being alone:  Monophobia
I do not fear solitude and I am not afraid when I am alone.  I am afraid of never having romantic love in my life again.  All those statistics echo in my head about a woman over 40 being more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to get married.  Well,  I don’t want to get married again, but it would be nice to have a partner.  Not having a partner – that’s the root of my monophobia.

Fear of making changes:  Metathesiophobia
This has always been a big one for me, one of those things that every boss I’ve had has commented on — that I don’t adjust to change well.  I’ve never really believed that about myself, although I know I’m like my father in some ways, and he was NOT one who cared for change.  Perhaps what all those bosses have seen is that I don’t adjust to stupid, irrational, pointless changes well.  Frankly, they piss me off and they are all too common in the workplace –  and often just a way for someone else to flash how “powerful” they are..ok, enough of that rant.  Back to the point. That said, it does take me a long time to make big changes.  I, like my father, want to be sure I’m doing the right thing (see “fear of making mistakes” below) and the bare fact is, there are no guarantees in this life. 

Fear of cold:  Frigophobia
While not a severe fear, this is growing in me.  The whole cold, gray, lack-of-sun thing, that makes my hands hurt is something I am coming to fear.  I need to be somewhere warm and have the choice of coming back to the cold from time to time.

Fear of being wrong:  Atychiphobia
Aren’t we all?  Yes, but usually, the decisions aren’t life-altering.  I’m in the process of making decisions that alter not only my life, but the lives of others.  What if I screw it up?  What if  I destroy Kelsea’s life?  What if I can’t provide a home for my dogs and cats because I want to live in the Caribbean and Pat decides to waltz off to China to be “da man”, leaving me to take care of everything and give up my dreams (again)?  The quote comes to mind, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  I know I’m not wrong in trying to move on.  It’s just, as LOLcats would say, “Iz I doin it right?”

Fear of dependence on others:  Soteriophobia
This is an interesting one.  I am so unaccustomed to depending on anyone other than myself, and have had such a bad time with trusting men who have let me down, that I’m not sure if I’m afraid of depending on others or if I’m afraid of NOT depending on others.  I’m not sure if that makes sense?  I want to.  I want to trust.  I don’t want to go back to that place where I have lived for years of  “Everybody hurts, and everybody leaves.”  I think that comes back to having a partner.

Fear of failure:  Kakorrhaphiophobia
A lot like fear of making mistakes, but bigger.  I’m not really afraid of being a hobo.  But I am afraid that I’m going to find myself working at some fast-food restaurant if I can’t do anything with my writing and I can’t find another job that I like enough to stick with.

Fear of new things:  Kainolophobia
This is more fear of the unknown – I actually like new things.  It’s just, what if I try something new, and I fail?  Clearly, tied to fear of failure.  And perhaps fear of change as well.

Fear of poverty:  Peniaphobia
See above – fear of working at a fast-food restaurant.  I don’t want to be 60 and eating cat food, living in a shitty apartment.

Fear of neglecting my responsibilities:  Paralipophobia
How will the universe judge me if I move to the Caribbean?  If I take a year off?  Do I deserve that stuff?  I don’t want to neglect Kelsea or the animals.  I am afraid that I am going to have to (once again) pick up Pat’s slack.  I won’t let those I love suffer just because he doesn’t take care of them.  (And I’m not abdicating my role in taking care of them.)  But that’s the same trap I’ve been in forever.  I won’t let them be sacrificial lambs for his learning, because if he doesn’t care enough to care for them, he doesn’t care enough to learn the consequences of his not caring for them.

Fear of being ridiculed:  Catagelophobia
This is my fear of putting my creativity out there.  I’ve written about this before.  It also ties to my fear of failure.  And a definite holdover from my shy childhood.

Fear of being trapped:  Cleithrophobia
The trap of staying in an unsatisfying life because I refuse to neglect my responsibilities.  The ultimate trap.

I may speak of these more later, but it’s been good to delve into them a bit today.

 

 

Breaking Point

Today is, most appropriately, International Moment of Frustration Scream Day, and I am at another breaking point.  How can one person have so many breaking points?  How broken can I be? I am just freaking myself out, that’s all.

Between hormones (mine and Kelsea), depression, cold air, grey skies, getting behind on everything at both works, and fearing for my future, I’ve had it.  Going to work this morning and not having my docking station work was bad enough.  Being told I have to call the Help Desk in frigging Costa Rica to get someone in my own building to come and help me was my last straw. In the meantime, I can’t get onto my own computer.  Screw it.  So I am working from home, trying not to finish the remnants of a bottle of rum, or blow a blood vessel in my brain.  I am actually tired of working from home after last week.

I am so sick of my life.  I am so sick of the emotional roller-coaster.  I am so uncomfortable with the un-knowing of the future. 

What am I going to do?  I wish there was somewhere, someone, I could turn to for help, advice, comfort. 

I am so very tired.  Scared.  Tired.  Broken.

Why Explore?

October 11 is “It’s My Party” Day.  Not so much for Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame, however.  Today is the 200th anniversary of his suicide at age 35.  While admittedly one of the great explorers and renaissance men of the age, he was also apparently bipolar, with mood swings, hypochondriacal symptoms, deep depressions and rumored substance abuse.  His remaining family (he left behind no heirs) argued for many years that his death was murder, not suicide, but no hard evidence of homicide was ever found.

What kind of qualities go into the makeup of an explorer?  Is a certain degree of insanity required?  Part poetic spirit, part romantic, part insatiable curiosity, part hard and fast pragmatist?  One who needs to see a place (or the truth) for herself, not just hear about it from others?

The word wanderlust comes to mind, but I discovered that it actually comes from two german words which, when put together, mean ‘a desire to hike’.  That’s not exactly the classic definition.  The classic definition is closer to the German ‘fernweh’, which means “an ache for the distance.”

An explorer wants to see everything there is to see, as if one life does not hold enough time to do it all.  It’s not just seeing – it’s experiencing.  And for me, though I don’t know if I have the courage to merit the title of explorer, it’s also sharing what I experience, whether it’s through writing or through photography.

The world before them is not enough – they must see what more there is.  It seems that different explorers had different intentions – some to enslave, some to educate, some to rape the lands they discovered, some to claim lands that really weren’t theirs to claim.

Some people just explore for the sake for exploring, for pleasure.  You can never run out of new things to see, new places to go.   And yet some people are content to stay by the hearth, happily, until the end of their days.  What makes some people wander and others remain where they are born?

I have no idea.  I only know which type of person I am.

Another Randomness Post – Saturday Commentary

I usually only offer up one Randomness post per week, but I’m still sick, so sick my teeth hurt and I can’t think straight enough to come up with a thoughtful, coherent, philosophical or otherwise piece of writing.  So this is what you get.  If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.  (Sorry, but I’m taking sick license.)

Today is Bonza Bottler Day (www.bonzabottlerday.com).  Bonza Bottler Day occurs monthly, when the day is the same number as the month, and most importantly, its mascot is a dancing groundhog.  Don’t ask.

 

 

Today is also the anniversary of the deaths of Yul Brynner (who was incredibly sexy) and Orson Welles – both great actors died on this date in 1985. 

It is the birthday of Emily Dickinson, and here’s a lovely poem (of hers) to honor her:

I Started Early — Took My Dog

 I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground – upon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Bodice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion’s Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –
I felt His Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle – Then my Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –
No One He seemed to know
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –
 

It’s also the birthday of Benjamin West, late 18th century American painter who described his style as “epic representation”.  In examining his body of work, he does seem to follow that trend of painters during this era (of which I’ve always been fond) in which ethereal beings are incorporated into historical scenes.  This concept is well-represented in his painting of Ben Franklin discovering electricity (below):

And finally, it is Tuxedo Day and Fijian Independence Day, but I doubt Fijians are wearing tuxedos to celebrate.

Kelsea and I are spending this freezing cold, snowy Saturday watching TV, and she is making sure I take my medicine and will be cooking dinner tonight.

So far, we’ve encountered some truly, truly bizarre stuff on the Hispanic channels (i.e., a woman setting herself on fire and a man wrestling a horse).

We thoroughly enjoyed “Lock and Load”, with its host, the former military guy who is uber-macho.  When his rifle recoiled and hit him in the bridge of the nose, his response was “Eh, not the first time, won’t be the last.”  We appreciated that he addressed us all as “ladies” at the end of the show, even though we knew what he meant – we just felt he was speaking directly to us.  And we learned a lot about how to slice watermelons with sabres and the impact of minie balls vs. round lead balls.

I always like watching Mike Rowe on “Dirty Jobs” – he’s practical, slightly self-deprecating, and attractive (though I hate to think of the amount of bacteria he must accumulate every episode – he must need a ‘Silkwood’ shower every day) – and he used to be an opera singer!  It’s interesting to see what others do for a living.  It gives me hope that I can find another line of work.  Even if it’s disgusting.

I wonder how I could make a living being a storm chaser?  That’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

I’ve always been curious how much you would spend if you were to buy everything you saw advertised on infomercials AND the various home shopping channels in a 24-hour period.

Kelsea is off attempting to make cocoa from scratch for us…that’s my girl.

Today is…

the day to ask your friend to lunch and eat nothing but moldy cheese and dessert.  Why?  Because it’s National Ask A Friend to Lunch Day, Moldy Cheese Day, and National Dessert Day.  As if you didn’t see that coming.