Category Archives: Beloved

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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.

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Memorial

The Tuesday Treasured Tidbits inspired this…..

I came to Austin, Texas for an old friend’s memorial.

He was the husband of a friend of my parents. She went to school at the University of Tennessee with my parents in the late 1950s. She has pretty much known me since birth. Both of my parents and my sister are dead. I lived with her and her husband and their two teenage sons in Madison, WI for a year while I was in college.

I learned things about George from his obituary that I never knew. They got married on my birthday when I was five. I knew that George had a master’s in Special Education and worked at a high school for 26 years, but not that as the Defensive Coordinator football coach the team won 10 conference championships and 2 state football championships. He is in the State of Wisconsin Football Hall of Fame and The Beloit Sports Hall of Fame.

I visited in August, and got to see his son for the first time since I was in college. I met his wife and three children. I hope to see the other son sometime in the next few years.

Joy and sadness, both.

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Feast

I took this photo yesterday because I am visiting friends in Texas. We had a memorial on Saturday and on Sunday we had a feast. I have perhaps tasted a single crayfish in jambalaya before, but I have never been to meal like this! Many thanks to the hosts and apologies to the crayfish: I am not a vegetarian…. So this is for Clare and Dean’s photo of the week! . I also am submitting it in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Fresh.” Fresh with claws…..

“I weep for you,’ the walrus said, “I deeply sympathize.”

With sobs and tears he sorted out those of the largest size

Holding his pocket hand-kerchief before his streaming eyes…

From Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter

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Thorns

Once, oh Best Beloved, there was a little girl. She went on a trip to the desert.

The desert was very different from where she lived. All of the plants had thorns. Even the trees had thorns in their bark. But just like home, there were birds.

She saw a little bird. “Hello little bird,” she said.

“Hello,” said the little bird.

“The trees have thorns,” said the little girl. She touched a cactus softly and it bit her. She pulled out the fine thorns and sucked on her sore finger.

“Yes,” said the little bird.

“Where do you live?” said the little girl.

“Here in the desert!” said the bird, happy.

“How can you live in the desert?” said the little girl.

“There is morning dew and delicious insects and nectar from flowers!” said the bird.

“But can you build a nest?” said the little girl. There were no twigs.

“Of course!” said the little bird. “Come see. My nest is in this tree.”

The little girl looked and there was the nest. The nest was built of thorns.

“It is thorns.” said the little girl, thoughtful. “If you live in the desert, you build your nest of thorns.”

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Little Blue Pill

Little blue pill
Little blue pill
Help me help me
I’m over the hill

Don’t wanna have sex
Nope nope nope
Little blue pill
Gives my husband hope

Can’t make a pill
Til we define the disease
Doctors would you
Hurry up please

Little blue pill
Little blue pill
Help me help me
I’m over the hill

Thought them hormones
Would make me hot
Doc was right
They did not

Hot flashes make me
Sweat and moan
No help from that
Testosterone

Little blue pill
Little blue pill
Help me help me
I’m over the hill

Doctor this
Is really no joke
My husband says
He’ll slit his throat

Can’t make a pill
Til we define a disease
They’re trying hard
Those drug companies

I think we’ll know
If they define a disease
Drug companies will plaster it
On tv

Doctor I found
Just the thing
A brand new stimulating
Clitoral ring

Don’t wanna have sex
Nope nope nope
Little blue pill
Gives my husband hope

previously published on everything2.com

the mushroom is from the olympic peninsula. we didn’t know what it was and did not eat it.

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Lift

I am writing this for both Weird Image Wednesday and for Ronovan’s BeWoW.. Be Wonderful Wednesday. The image is from 2010 from a synchronized swim meet in Washington State. The girls do the lift from under water, and they are not allowed to touch bottom. They do the lift with their swimming skills. This team is very young and probably novices, so the girls lifting have their heads out of the water. As they get older, stronger and more skilled, the lifters would do all the lifting from under the water, holding their breath. I have seen girls lifted out to their feet in more experienced teams. Everyone has to be in the right position under the water and the person lifted has to have the core strength to stay straight or stay in their split during the lift.

Isn’t that wonderful and amazing?

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Foul sweets

This is for the Ronovan writes weekly haiku prompt. The words are foul and sweet. I am at a medical conference where we are really delving into diet and how the high sugar/ high corn syrup and high carbohydrate typical american diet increases our risk of inflammation. Eat more vegetables! And here is the poem….

Foul sweets, treats greet us

Meet us, daily folly. We

growl at sweets, eat meat.

 

The picture is a mushroom growing out of a tree on the Olympic Peninsula.

 

 

 

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Off balance/balance

Plato’s Groove lovely poem from yesterday reminds me of Portia Nelson’s poem “A Poetic Interlude:Β  Autobiography in Five Short Chapters”. I wrote my own version of this back in 2005, about trying to change. It is hard. I also want to submit this to the Ronovan Writes BeWoW Wednesday, for Be Wonderful Wednesday. @RonovanWrites. I think looking inside and trying to change and changing is wonderful…..

Off balance/balance

Confusion
Makes no sense
React react react
Engage
Argue
Fight
Want to bite kick scream
Argue (control) argue
Icky tone of voice
Ugly
Confusion confusion
Told I am wrong
I am overreacting
I am invalid
Child again
Hide

Confusion
Makes no sense
React
Stop
Don’t react
Stop…..
Wait…..
Feel…..
Confusion ANGER
Let anger go
Confusion: Sad, Hurt
Sad feels lonely
Not engaged
Remember you are loved
Remember you are lovable
Sad is ok
Remember
Roses and violets and lupine
Spring from the path
Where your true self steps
Call true friends
Comforted.

Confusion
Makes no sense
Hurts
No react
Listen
Confusion not mine
Sad
Disengage
Remember
Roses and violets and lupine
True self
Comfort self

Confusion
Not mine
Step away
Comfort self

Comfort
Comfortable
I am loved
I am cherished
I am safe

June 11, 2005

previously published on everything2.com

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Love and self

When you love someone, do you lose your self?

I think that is the tricky bit about love. When you fall for someone else, do you fall or do you hold on to yourself? Where is that boundary?

I am in a flirtation. I am very interested in a person. I am interested in what he says and what he is interested in. I am learning quite a bit about some topics that really, have not been on my radar. I also often disagree quite strongly in the realm of politics. And I don’t really care that our politics are just about opposite ends of the spectrum.

I am interested in where we meet and where we don’t meet. Where we agree and where we very strongly disagree and privately think that the other person needs their head examined. I am not falling too far into the “really this person thinks like I do, they just won’t admit it” trap. Well, perhaps I am. Perhaps that is what love is: when we project part of our self and the ideal part of ourself on to the other person. They reflect and occupy some part of our ideal. That does not mean that they ARE our ideal or that they ARE the projection.

In this particular flirtation, he does not seem interested in much of what I am interested in. Well, particularly poetry. Occasionally this bothers me but mostly I shake it off. I am hoping that I have reached the age and level of cynicism where I do not expect the other person to like everything I like, to agree with what I say, to have the same ideals or ideas. I am watching myself and wondering how much of what I like in him is him and how much is my projection. Don’t know yet. The mind is a peculiar place. So is the heart.

But …. I am feeling much happier about holding on to myself at the same time as I fall and crush. I look at what he likes and wants but I also hold what I like and want. I am trying to give them equal weight, the needs and wants and desires of the two people present.

Hold and fall, at the same time.

The picture is of an etching by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway.

Shake it off.

Also published on everything2.com