Tag Archives: love

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The Extroverted Feeler’s haircut

My son was an Extroverted Feeler when he was little. Let’s call him EF.

We move in the middle of his first grade. From Colorado to the Olympic Peninsula, arriving on December 31, 1999. Y2K. The computers do not stop the next day and the world does not implode. My mother has recurrent cancer.

He starts school. He is in a three year class in public school with two teachers. It is a first, second, third grade mixed class. There are fifty kids and he is starting in January.

His mother is bananas because she is trying to learn a whole new set of patients, phone numbers, specialists and local medical slang. His father hates moving and lies on the couch. His grandmother is not doing well. He doesn’t have any friends yet. He misses his Colorado friends and his teacher. He is gloomy.

His father takes him to get his hair cut.

They return and I nearly swallow my tongue. The EF has a triple mohawk. A central spike of hair, shaved on both sides, and then another spike on each side. He and his dad thought it up. I tell myself: it’s just hair, it’s just hair, it will grow back! Horrors.

Two weeks later the EF is cheering up a bit and has a friend. Why? Apparently the haircut garnered attention. Within a week, not only does every kid in his class know his name, but most of the parents do too. “Who is that kid with the triple mohawk?” The EF is very pleased.

He gets a triple mohawk once more. By now I am ok with it.

After that he gets normal haircuts. His grandmother dies, but he has some friends now. His mother is less bananas over time and his father knows the name of every checker at the grocery store and all the coffee shops and the golf pros.

There was a cartoon where a mother is telling her son not to stare at a person with a mohawk. “But mom, don’t they get mohawks so that people will stare?” Uh, good point!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: mohawk.

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Junction

Sometimes paths meet and we walk together for a while.

Still we are separate. Promises made, friends forever

and yet the path diverges, one person leaves. We

can’t see that in the future. I am wary of always and

never, I try not to use them. I will not promise friends

forever: addiction could drive me away or lies or betrayal.

I might still love. I might return to be present for death

but still, I will not say forever.

Because that is a lie.

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I took the photograph yesterday blind. We were on Marrowstone and could not see what was out in the water. It changed shape though. I took this zoomed all the way out and then still couldn’t see what was there until I downloaded the photographs. We thought it was a stick. Or a turtle. Then we wondered if there are turtles in the Salish Sea. I googled Salish Sea turtle and get this: https://www.epa.gov/salish-sea/marine-species-risk. That’s a bit sad. Read on down, though, because it lists seven things we can do to help.

No Salish Sea turtles though.

What about the Olympic Peninsula? Here: https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/amphibians-and-reptiles.htm. Not an ideal climate for reptiles, it says. Well, no, I agree. No turtles listed, but there are some other reptiles.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: junction.

And still, people are being found under the rubble alive, though far more dead. Prayers and praise for the searchers and the victims and families. A song for them:

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Sand and crabs

Let’s see: sand. We have lots of sand, but the beach here is mostly cold. The water temperature is 45 degrees F today. It ranges from 45-55 here over the year. Wetsuit, drysuit or well, my daughter and her friends would go in. Brrrrr.

I love walking the beaches here though. We can walk 6 miles from North Beach to Cape George if we time the tides right. Marrowstone Island has miles of mostly deserted beach as well. Sand and agates and rocks and eagles and great blue herons and coyotes and sea lions in the water.

Not everyone likes sand though. Here is an example:

And while we are at it, another sea ditty and a favorite: The Crabby Song. I used to sing it at work under my breath. Very professional, right?

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Rules

On each new site we read the rules anew.
Check that we are not a bot and real.
Check that we will not link to porn or views
traumatic, that we promise not to steal
others work or game or avatar. Why is it
that in each site of any and every ilk,
someone has to watch and delete the bit
where the rules are broken, spilling milk.
The truth is we’ve learned how to behave
or rebel in neglected or violent homes.
I wonder if humans should be saved
when again the trolls must be stoned.
We think that humans should dwell on Mars.
We’ll need rules and moderators in the stars.

Sonnet 12

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Preparedness

I am at a friend’s: she doesn’t have matches.
I am at a friend’s: she doesn’t have bandaids.
“You need a tsunami kit,” I say. “Now!”

My daughter made a tsunami kit for college
with a life straw, an emergency blanket, ace wraps
and bandaids. A leatherwoman for tools with a knife.

Watching after the earthquake, it’s the crowbar I think of.
It is in my back yard, under the apple tree.
If we have our earthquake, I should be able to find it.

Or if I can’t, you know where it is now.
Please, take it to help someone
if I can’t.

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Spring?

It was cloudy most of the day yesterday. I went to the beach when the light was fading, so at 3 pm, and the sun was peering underneath the edge of the clouds. Groundhog Day, so does that mean we will only have five more weeks of winter? Or four? Or mixed with the sun peeking through?

I found my first moss agate, too.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: optimist.

This is not a short watch, but they are where I go when I am worrying.

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Disorientation

Oooo, I put orientation up as the Ragtag Daily Prompt today. Then I wondered if disorientation is a word and it is! A mouthful!

This is a series of poems or meditations or arguments I had with myself last week. I was thinking about love and how to handle people that I love that have stopped behaving in a loving way or have actually been cruel or cut me off. Do I stop loving them and hate them? Do I love them anyhow? What would that love open me to? Abuse? It is disorienting to think about. Here is the series.

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The Fall

I am small. The adults love me and give me away. I grieve each time. It doesn’t matter if I behave well or not: they leave me. I decide that the adults are confused. They do not know how to love. Why don’t they know? I want to understand! Babies should be loved! We are innocent!

All babies should be loved and protected. I do, with my sister. The adults continue their mysterious crazy doings. I recognize that alcohol does not help, nor other choices.

All babies should be loved and protected. All adults were babies once. Sometimes they were not loved and protected and they are damaged. I train and then I doctor them. Healing is slow.

All babies should be loved and protected. All adults were babies once. All adults hold a baby that should be loved and protected: themselves. I try for a long time.

All babies should be loved and protected. All adults were babies once. Each adult makes their own choices, to heal or not. To grow or not. To love themselves and the Beloved or not.

All babies should be loved and protected. All adults make choices. The Beloved loves them all.

I am not the Beloved. Nor an angel. I dream of falling.

I am not the Beloved. I let go. I fall.

I do not love them all.

Rise

Yesterday I fell. I let myself dislike four people that I loved.

But no, I choose not. Angels fall and rise again. I choose love. If that means distance, then I choose distance. For now I will love the cruel ones from a distance. No contact.

The Buddhas laugh at the needy ones, the angry ones, the ones who press. Some will be enlightened, some wait for the next life. The Buddhas laugh because they do not control it. It may be the quiet one who says nothing who rises, while one who wants and wants and wants may have to want for longer. Why, Beloved? Isn’t wanting you enough? Isn’t longing enough? How much must one want? How deeply must one long?

I choose love.

Prayer to Kwan Yin

Kwan Yin, I am sorry. I cannot be a Bodhisattva. I am tired. I grieve. I want to love everyone. They hate it. If I love the small child within they are reminded of the hidden hurts and they lash out. I am tired. I don’t want to be the target of that. Kwan Yin, how to do you return and return again, loving these? I am not strong enough. I give up. I throw myself on your mercy, I bow to your infinite love and strength, I abase myself. Forgive me, I am not strong enough. I give up. I do not have enough love in my heart and I am so tired.

Beloved, I am sorry. I tried.

Every Being (Sonnet 9)

Keep the cruel ones at a distance far.
Hold your enemies close in love’s embrace.
None to hate, yet cruelty glints like stars.
I hide quiet with cats in this home space.
My heart opens like the universe.
Projections batter me from head to toe.
Why tear at me with their deep hurts?
They project their pain: inside they know.
They know, don’t know, choose not to learn.
Dark rooms and texts and staring at the screen.
My skin scalded, heart black with new burns.
I think they’d like me too to turn out mean.
I will hide here with Beloved’s dove.
Each tear I cry sends every being love.

In spite of want

Sol set in my heart and rises again. I can love whoever I want. There are no boundaries to love. But I will not be abused or used, I will love quietly and silently and without letting my love know. And I will love who I want. No, I will love in spite of want, though I do not want to, though it is not deserved. But I honor my stubborn heart that does not let go of love.

Blessings, Beloved.