Monthly Archives: April 2015

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Egg

E for egg and Easter egg. I was up very early this morning, excited about returning to work tomorrow, and am dying eggs. When my mother was in hospice in 2000, she said, “This will be the first time in 42 years that I have not dyed eggs.” My sister and I looked at each other and went to buy dye and eggs. My mother was staying in bed most of the time, but she got up and came to the dining room, to dye one egg. We hid the eggs and baskets on Easter and she watched out the window while her three grandchildren searched for the eggs. My daughter was two, niece was one and 1/2 and my son was seven. My mother died in May. I remember her every time I dye eggs.

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Daughters and dinosaurs

D for daughter and dinosaur. Here is a poem I wrote quite a while ago, though it is about my son rather than my daughter.

Dinosaur Dreams

The problem
With Intelligent Design
Is those old bones
Those dinosaurs

Also that of 10,000 dreams of creation
One would be right
And the followers of all the others
Consigned to hell
If so, I go gladly, clutching
Dinosaur bones to my chest
And will enjoy the diversity
Not the narrow heaven with a narrow
Small-minded deity

But is evolution right?

Well, I think it’s on the right track

But wholly done and all correct?

After all, think how often
Medicine has been wrong
Think of tobacco and vioxx
Think of Galen, over 2000 years ago
Thinking that evil humors built up in the uterus
Causing hysteria
External pelvic massage was the cure
For over 2000 years
For old maids, widows and nuns
Who had no male to cleave unto
Massage was a treatment into the early 1900s
And now we wonder about prozac too

Evolution is an evolving science

I think of when my son was four
And he watched “Jurassic Park”
Against my wishes
Because I thought it was too violent
He studied it carefully many times

One day he asked me, anxiously,
“Mom, is DNA real?”
To check that it wasn’t another of those Santa stories
I was able to reassure him
Yes, I think DNA is real
He was pleased

A few days later he announced
That when he grows up
He wants to be a plant and animal scientist
Extract DNA from amber
And grow those dinosaurs

A laudable ambition
For any four year old

If God left the dinosaur bones
Around to fool us
And they never lived
She has a nasty sense of humor
And my son and I will not forgive

I believe in evolution
And dream of dinosaurs

first published on everything2.com in 2005

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Cousin

A to Z and I am a little behind…..

The photo is me and two of my cousins, at Lake Matinenda in Ontario, Canada in the 1960s. I am the one on the left. We were in cabins or tents, drank the lake water, used propane or camping stoves, and had aladdin lamps for light, as well as flashlights. The mysterious padded garment that I am wearing is a life jacket. My sister and I had five cousins on one side and seven on the other, all within reasonable age range that we played together and still stay in contact.

I just went to stay with my mother’s cousin, my Great Uncle. He also went to the lake in his teens and told me stories about my mother, my uncles and my grandparents. It was delightful to see him and hear another set of stories.

Hooray for cousins and hooray for family.

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Lift blur

This is for the daily post photo challenge “Blur”. I took this photo at the National Junior Synchronized Swimming Competition in 2009. This is a team of 8 practicing before the final competition. Six girls are under water doing the lift and the girl doing the flip is lifted to launch into a flip off of the other girl’s shoulders. My daughter did synchronized swimming from age 7 to age 14. She said that they kicked each other all the time, because the tighter the formation, the higher the score. Synchronized swimming has Olympic scoring right from the beginner stage. These Juniors score in the 6.0 to 8.0 range.

I photographed with a zoom lens and an electronic camera. Because of the delay, at first I mostly had pictures of disturbed water. It took quite a bit of practice to be able to anticipate and time the shot.

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Beloved

B for Beloved. Rumi and Hafiz, the Sufi poets, write about the Beloved.

The Beloved is God and God is the Beloved.

I like thinking of God as the Beloved. That makes sense to me. God should be Beloved, most Beloved of all.

But sometimes I feel abandoned and lost and stressed and grumpy and it feels as if I am longing hopelessly for a connection with the Beloved. Rumi says in his poems that it is the longing itself that is the connection to the Beloved. Then my inner devil gets annoyed and sarcastic and says, “That’s stupid. That’s a Catch-22. So why is the Beloved Beloved if suffering longing is the way to reach Her or Him?” My inner angel gets involved and is all serene and untroubled and says, “Of course longing is a doorway to the Beloved.” Then they both get out flaming swords and proceed to fight. They can’t kill each other though they try. And I sigh and say to the Beloved, “They don’t behave.” Then the angel and the devil both turn on me and say that I should love each one of them best. “No.” I say. “I love the Beloved best, but you are both part of the Beloved so if everything is loved, then you are both loved best.” Then the angel and devil point to each other and say how the other one is just horribly wrong….. they just go on.

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Angel

I am in the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge and I am already late… that is, I did not post yesterday, my “A” day. I didn’t know what my theme for the month would be this morning. This morning, I am reading Micheal A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul and I found what I would be writing about.

I have written about my inner angel and devil before. That voice inside that talks all the time and makes judgements and gets excited about everything. Mr. Singer says that that voice is not us. That voice is like a roommate who talks constantly and is very dramatic. He talks about stepping back and watching that roommate and listening. If the roommate were a real person, we would cut them off. “Stop talking!” we would yell. But they won’t and they wouldn’t and we cannot get away.

So when that voice gets really irritating I call on my angel and devil to take over. They argue. The angel always says “Forgive.” The devil wants to whack the angel over the head with a hammer to shut them up. The angel forgives the devil for being nasty. The devil gets even more nasty and sarcastic and then I start laughing. The inner angel and inner devil are so over the top. Perhaps someone stepped on my toe and it hurt. The devil suggests what to say to them, where they should go, how to punish them. The devil is unreasonable and suggests punishments that are so far beyond the original insult that the angel appears and says, “Stop that. You aren’t being nice.” The devil swears. The angel says, “Well, your toe doesn’t hurt anymore does it and anyhow someone pushed the person who stepped on your toe so it wasn’t their fault and why did you come to a crowded concert if you can’t tolerate your toe being stepped on?” Then they may continue to fight for a while. At the concert I am laughing, inappropriately, because of the inner dialogue.

Today I want to thank that inner angel for all the times that she or he has calmed me down. Has stepped forward and said, “Stop reacting.” For being loving all the time.

Thank you, angel.

And here are synchronized swimmers, practicing before a competition. In the competition, they will not wear the swim cap or the goggles. This is a lift, remember, where none of them touch the bottom of the pool. It is all supported by the girls swimming. This is a team of eight, so four are supporting from under water, holding their breath. Trust and teamwork.