Category Archives: joy

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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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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

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Sophistocated Noder

The picture is my daughter years ago. But hey! That’s how I am feeling at the end of the Blogging 101 class! I am a sophistocated noder! I know stuff! I know a lot more than I did a month ago! I have met other people! I have made another page! I have Big Plans!

And…. I am still a clueless newbie really, but it’s been very fun.

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Many thanks for Blogging 101

The photo is the wrong season, you think. Well, yes, but I like it and I am putting it up as a thank you for the wordpress.com blogging 101 course. It has taught me a lot, I feel much more comfortable maneuvering around the wordpress sites, plus I have gotten to meet some wonderful people virtually! Hope to meet them in “meat-space” some day, or at least some of them.

I always enjoy getting this creche out. The other figures are paper mache and turned up this summer, and I thought they fit. They are much thinner than the three kings, and probably quite poor. I hope that they survived….

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The introverted thinkers and the fox

The fox went out on a chase one night
He bayed to the moon to give him light
He had many a mile to go that night
Before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o
Many a mile to go that night before he reached the town-o

My daughter and my father and I are all introverted thinkers by preference.

When my daughter was in Kindergarten, she had a week where she was the child in focus. During that week she was to bring in a poster about her family and the child could choose activities.

We chose “The Fox”.

My father crossed from my house to the school two blocks away. I noticed that he was short of breath on the flat just carrying his guitar. Fifty five years of unfiltered Camels, two packs a day, will do that. I wished he was not short of breath.

We had a poster with photographs of Camille and her parents and her brother and friends and cousins and grandparents. We also had a poster with the words of “The Fox.” We introduced the song to the class and my father played guitar while we sang it. The words were on the poster. I’ve had it memorized for as long as I can remember….

He ran til he came to a great big pen
Where the ducks and the geese were kept therein
“A couple of you gonna grease my chin
Before I leave this town-o, town-o, town-o
A couple of you gonna grease my chin before I leave this town-o

My sister said that when she was little, she thought that a town-o was one of the brass ashtrays that my parents had. The ashtray was completely round on the bottom and would rock at a touch. She pictured the fox riding down a hill in the brass ashtray.

He grabbed a grey goose by the neck
Throwed a duck across his back
Didn’t a mind the quack quack quack
Or the legs all dangling down-o, down-o, down-o
Didn’t mind the quack quack quack or the legs all dangling down-o

I remember not knowing what “grease my chin” meant and also wondering whose side I should be on. The fox’s side? The goose and duck’s? Old Mother Flipperflopper?

Old Mother Flipperflopper jumped out of bed
And out of the window she stuck her head
Crying “John, John, the grey goose is gone
and the fox is on the town-o, town-o, town-o
John, John, the grey goose is gone and the fox is on the town-o

And there is that town-o again.

Johnny ran to the top of the hill
He blew his horn both loud and shrill
The fox he said “I better flee with my kill
Because they’ll soon be on my trail-o, trail-o, trail-o
I better flee with my killΒ  ’cause they’ll soon be on my trail-o”

Every day my father and Camille and I sang the song with the class. By Friday the whole Kindergarten classΒ had joined in and could sing the song or at least part of it.
Camille had not been sure that the song was a good idea, but the class liked it.

The fox he ran to his cozy den
There were the little ones, eight, nine, ten
Saying, “Daddy, daddy, better go back again
‘Cause it must be a mighty fine town-o, town-o, town-o
Daddy, daddy, better go back again, ’cause it must be a mighty fine town-o”

At the end of the year, they had a KindergartenΒ graduation ceremony, with little white hats, at Chetzemoka Park. The teacher and the principal were there and parents and grandparents. The class had a surprise for all of us: they sang “The Fox” again.

The fox and his wife, without any strife
Cut up the goose with a fork and knife
They never had such a supper in their life
And the little ones chewed on the bones-o, bones-o, bones-o
They never had such a supper in their life and the little ones chewed on the bones-o

We didn’t discuss the ethics of the song. The fox is hunting for his family. He is stealing from people and he kills a goose and a duck. The people try to hunt him. His children think town-o must be wonderful, but it is dangerous for a fox to earn a living. And the little ones are fed. I think it is a teaching song.

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What would a sufi do?

I dreamed about a door all night last night.

First it was a door into a car. Over and over. I was not sure where the car was going, the driver wouldn’t listen to me, it was a race car. There weren’t any people that really had form in the dream.

The car was my friend Dave’s. A 1978 or a 1979. I don’t remember. He would care, I don’t. He has a racing harness instead of a regular seat belt in the driver’s seat. He can drive it like a race car, or close enough to fool me.

My daughter sat in the passenger seat and didn’t move when he drove. I sat in the back and went “eeeeeeee” and my right foot braked the whole time.

The last time I dreamed it there was just the door. A car door still. Lying in space, in the stars.

I woke up and thought about my say yes poems. And I thought, ok, Beloved, I don’t know where it’s going or what it will bring or who is driving but yes, I will go through that door.

And coming down the stairs I was thinking that I’ve been trying to communicate something to Dave but he doesn’t want to hear it. So I am not being a sufi. The sufis only taught the student who wanted to learn and who was ready. WWaSD? What would a sufi do? Stop butting my head against a wall.

I think that was the door.

I think of my consciousness at times as a table, and different parts of myself come to the table. There is the very small injured child, who gets healthier and healthier. She is healing. Somehow Dave has called up a sullen teenager who glares at everyone. The adult woman is annoyed and mutters “boys, toys and race cars.” The trickster sits and laughs. The doctor/psychiatrist is very interested in the whole thing and is mostly sitting back and watching.

Now perhaps a Sufi will come to the table. Or someone else. A fence is being built around my house. I envisioned a picnic table in the fence, on both sides, but it kept looking like Lucy’s psychiatric booth from Peanuts. I wanted to put up a sign: lemonade or the doctor is in, depending on my mood.

The fence is being built because someone stole our picnic table from the front yard while we were on vacation. I had bought it second hand and it was made of two by sixes. It was brutally heavy. I hope the theft weighs on them. Over 14 years we’ve also had a blue gazing ball stolen and two plastic pink flamingos. A bike was stolen from the back yard.

So now a fence. The picnic table/lemonade stand/psychiatric booth has morphed into a bench that goes through the fence, so that someone can sit on each side. And beside it in the fence is one of the little library boxes, for me to leave books and for others to trade or take them. It will have glass doors. We will have a pool on how soon they will be smashed. We are not cynical, are we?

Fences and doors. I think that I should put a sign in the yard, but perhaps I don’t need to. The new person at the table is the crone. I have gone through the door and I will think about doors all day. The crone introduces herself to the others at the table. The table gets more interesting every single day.