The Dog Days Are Over

Alrighty then...tomorrow is my 61st birthday. 


 There, I've said it.  What the hell happened??? Yesterday I was in my twenties and the world had no end as I know it.  Now?  Well, its a whole different story.




 I am, indeed, blessed. (blessed - highly favored or fortunate) Without getting religious, I know that God, through Christ (whom I have accepted as my God.....1. the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe) has given me more than I possibly deserve.  I am, indeed, favored by this God of mine.  I feel that, I see that. 



 Not that I haven't had my bit of hell either.  Believe me, I can imagine what hell might be like from I have experienced in my own self.  Hitting rock bottom was something I never thought would happen, something I never thought I would actually be thankful for, but it did and I am.  My little sister Sherry went through a similar hell. Hers, I am sure, was much more intense. 





 But she once said to me something to the effect that all she went through was a type of gift and she wouldn't change a thing. Before I actually went through my own hell, I thought she was crazy and I sure didn't want anything even close to her experience. Anyway, not to ramble, I am thankful for all that I have lived through; the good, the bad and the ugly.  I have seen the good prevail.  I have seen love as the "final frontier".  


My marriage:  FINALLY we have learned how to live together and love each other unconditionally.  I have such peace and I am happier in this relationship than I ever have been.  We have been married for thirty six years.  We never really had examples of how to live together on a day to day basis.  We have always had incredible "spark", incredible passion, we just didn't know what to do in between those intense emotions.  FINALLY we have learned.  It was nothing short of a miracle. 
 


My relationship with myself:  I remember a long time ago; it had to have been at least twenty years ago, I was lying on my living room couch and out of the blue..for no apparent reason..I said, "I am lost."  It surprised even me.  My husband asked me what I said and I was embarrassed that I even uttered such a thing. I'm not sure if I even replied.  But in retrospect   I see now that I was lost.  I lost myself to life, to the everyday things of being a mother, a wife and a part of society.  I didn't know who I was, what I was, or what I even liked.  However, I didn't give it that much thought then, but over the course of ten or more years, realized what that moment meant.

Now?  My relationship with myself is good.  With much counseling by one of the wisest, and gifted, women I know...(Mary Tyler)  I have learned to be my own best friend. There was time when many people thought I was being selfish, and I probably was, but I needed to be in order to love myself.  Even Jesus said that we must love others as we love ourselves. If we don't love ourselves we cannot love others. 


My thoughts on love: It never dies.  I have loved people, obviously, in my sixty one years, and I have found that it just doesn't stop when the relationship is over.  I still love those people...friends and lovers alike, I still love them.  Love really is forever, as imperfect as we love in this life, it goes on.  I believe the opposite of love is apathy, not hate. 



Family:  Wow...I have a "colorful family". Once, when I was showing a video of my family to my students, the speech teacher, and also a friend, came in to watch.  And that is what she said about my family and I think it is so fitting.  I am blessed that I had the mother I had, the father I had, the fabulous brother I have, and the wonderful two sisters that I have.  But also my children; they are my heart and my joy. 




 My beautiful daughter has been my joy and my the song of my life. For some reason, when I think of her, I think of accomplishment and yes, stability, not to mention beauty.   When I think of her I ache with this love that is like no other. I'm sure other mothers know exactly what I'm talking about.





 My handsome, wild son is a lot like me, thus I worry more about him than my daughter.  I was wild and would try anything, even though I would be afraid, there was this thing in my that would tell me to do it anyway, to experience it.  Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not so much.  In any case, he is NOT me and I need to remember that.  He is my heart.  I feel it aching outside of my body for him.  He is amazing, talented and wild...I like that about him.  


My sisters:  I have to preface this first:  I have an adopted sister, not by my parents, but by me.  You know sometimes that's the best kind.  Michael Ann is that sister. She came into my life about twenty years ago.  Little did I know how her love for me would see me through my rock bottom times.  She would laugh exactly when I need laughter...She would laugh when most others would think I was probably beyond repair.  She would laugh at such a perfect time that she made the term "comic relief" real.  I hope she will realize how grateful I am to her for love.  




Debbie:  wow...we laugh a lot together.  I love to laugh.  But she also understands that vain, materialistic side of me the loves to be pretty, that loves to be thin.  No one else can understand that about me.  I so appreciate her love for me, and it's not just that...She has my back.  She truly has my back.  I love her and am soooo fortunate to have her.



Sherry: my little sister with the huge intuitive spirit.  She is almost too smart for her own good.  She was the youngest sister and yet she was brilliant.  She used that intelligence, (and still does) to change the world.  If ever I have to talk, if ever I need someone to understand the odd spiritual experience that I have had, she does.




Clyde:  My brother.  He, other than my husband, is my main man.  When I was separated from my husband I would call him when I need that male influence in my life. I am grateful to him.


Last but not least, my non human family...All the animals in my life have been ingrained into my soul.  If I could write a book, then that would be the fair amount of space for how much love these four legged friends have infused in my little life. 


SOOOOOOOOOOO...tomorrow, sixty one years ago, my mother brought me into this world.  I don't know whether to thank her or curse her....JUST KIDDING>...So far, it's been a crazy ride....
Now?  Here's what sums my life up now.....Perfectly!

Is the best yet to come?  No, the best is in this moment, right now.  

Love to you all.

Closer to the Big Day....My Birthday

So, I'm feeling a little nostalgic. My 61st birthday is a week from tonight and I must say, it's a bit anti-climatic.  Last year, at age 60, well, that was the "big one". 





However, I continue to feel as though I'm about twenty years younger, and I continue to want to do things that people my age probably don't do.  I have a theory though; I do believe that the next generation will age even better than mine.




  Already I'm seeing this happen and it pleases the hell out of me.  Stereo-types have been broken and new identity are already in the making. Honestly, the baby boomers are to thank for the fact that it's okay to re-create what things mean.  What does sixty one mean???




 Nothing really, absolutely nothing except that death is a little closer.




 Isn't that true with any age though?


There is a something on youtube called "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen".  It's been a favorite of mine for years.  It sums up so much that I could not even begin to articulate.  So, that being said, here it is...you can read the lyrics, or enjoy the the whole deal...Enjoy.......

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97,
Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term
benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis or
reliable then my own meandering experience.  I will dispense this advice....now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, nevermind, you won't understand the power and
beauty of your youth until they've faded, but trust me in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of
yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous
you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra
equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind: the kind that blindsides
you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts; don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy.  Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.  The race is
long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive; forget the insults. (if you succeed in doing this, tell me how).
Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.  The most interesting people
I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of Calcium.  Be kind to your knees -- you'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't.  Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't.  Maybe you'll
divorce at 40; maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary.
Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either.  Your choices are half
chance, so are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body: use it every way you can.  Don't be afraid of it or what other people think of it; it's the
greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance...even if you have no where to do it but in your own living room.
Read the directions (even if you don't follow them).
Do not read beauty magazines; they will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents; you never know when they'll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings: they're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in
the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but what a precious few should hold on.  Work hard to bridge the gaps
and geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you
were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old; and when you
do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children
respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you.  Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse,
but you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you are 40, it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.  Advice is a form of nostalgia;
dispensing it is a way of wishing the past from the disposal--wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and
recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me, I'm the sunscreen.





  Not much more to say, but I'm sure I'll write more on or before the big day.....love to youall

In Memory, In Love

It's been 43 years ago this month that my 18 year old boyfriend was thrown from the drivers side of his friend's jeep and died.  They say he died instantly and that actually helps to know that he didn't suffer.


I was so young; not even eighteen.  We were together for only two years, but those two years, when you're that young are very formative years.



Our relationship had been going downhill for a few months  before he died, but still, it was a young, teen age love.



 About eight years ago I finally dealt with a lot of issues in me that had to do with his death and my feelings about his death.  Little did I know that for over thirty years there was so much I hadn't dealt with.  It's such a sensitive subject and I wish I were better at explaining how one deals with these complicated issues. 



I met him at the bowling alley where  kids hung out. Honestly, I don't remember that day.  It happened, I know, because of a note from him  that I still have to this day.  He wrote something like this; "I remember when we first met at the bowling alley."  It continues to say how he "will always love me no matter what happens." 
 

We had troubles towards the end, we had a lot of troubles.  For reasons I won't get into now, I believed he "went out" on me with someone else.  




That was horrible for a jealous little girl like me. And then, about eight years ago, the girl who I thought was with him(now of course, a woman) saw my sister.  They had superficial  chatting and then she asked how I was. She told my sister, "she (me) always thought Dave and I were together, but it wasn't true.  The most we did was just talk. We were only friends."  That was so odd,almost forty years later this happens, this is what she said, it was so nicely odd and it made me feel like a load I had been carrying for years had been lifted.

My young boyfriend always had great cars but he had a motorcycle that was his pride and joy.It was a BSA 650 which they don't make anymore.



Sitting on the back as we rode down the highway was always fun and felt so free.  There was a lot that we did that was fun and memorable.  For years I wouldn't let myself think of the good  times we had together because of the "what if's" involved. What if it would have actually worked out with him and myself?





  Looking back it seemed he must have known what my love language is; among other things, I love gifts.  Once he bought me a diamond band, another time, a brown velvet suit. I still have the gold bracelet he bought me, I wear it often. 

Right after he died I had a dream, a very, very vivid dream, where I was at the bottom of a hill. The hill was beautiful and grassy. It was so brightly green; as green as green can be,





sun shining, and the clouds a perfect shade of blue.  I was at the bottom looking up to the top and there he was, walking with his back to me.  It was so real. I didn't feel that I "woke up".  When I opened my eyes, I was alert; as if I hadn't slept, it wasn't as if I had been asleep.  My body didn't feel the way it does when I usually wake up. 

Then, a few years ago, I had a another dream:  I was getting ready for some formal event.




(I went to my junior and senior prom with him.) As I was getting ready I remember thinking or saying or however things are during dreams, that my arms looked fat. ( Random! ) Then, a limo came to pick me up and take me somewhere, I didn't know where.  As I got into the car the driver communicated to me that we were going across the ocean. It wasn't in "words" that you can hear...it was just a message. I told the driver that it made me nervous because I couldn't swim, and we were in a car etc.  He communicated back, "don't worry, we'll stay by the shore; the shallow part." 




 Next thing I know, Dave, my boyfriend was in front of me.  He was as clear as day, but only from the chest up.  He was wearing a baby blue v-necked sweater, one he used to wear all the time,  and he was looking directly into my eyes. The blue in his eyes was as bright as a summer day, but they were also intense as fire,intense and clear. With tousled, curly brown hair he looked just as he did all those years ago. Nothing was said, nothing happened. It was what I felt that has left a lasting impression on me!



I think he may have had his hand on a door knob.  I didn't see anything but him really.  The thing that was most impressive was the way he looked directly into my eyes.  Waking up right after my dream, I felt so happy, so peaceful, as if I had seen him again after years and years of seperation.

My son sent me a song called "Little Talks" that made me think of Dave.  The tune, lyrics and video are all  so awesome!

I don’t like walking around this old and empty house

So hold my hand I’ll walk with you my dear.

 The stairs creak as I sleep,

It’s keeping me awake

It’s the house telling you to close your eyes.

Some days I can’t even dress myself.

It’s killing me to see you this way.

 ‘Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safely home.

There’s an old voice in my head

That’s holding me back

Well tell her that I miss our little talks.

Soon it will all be over, buried with our past

We used to play outside when we were young and full of life and full of love.

Some days I feel like I’m wrong when I’m right

Your mind is playing tricks on you my dear

 ‘Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safely home



 Hey
Don’t listen to a word I say
Hey
The screams all sound the same

You’re gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear.
All that’s left is a ghost of you.

Now we’re torn, torn, torn apart,

There’s nothing we can do

Just let me go, we'll meet again soon.

Now wait, wait, wait for me,
please hang around

I’ll see you when I fall asleep (mumford and sons)

It's been 43 years and one thing I've learned; love never dies. I am married, have a family, I have a husband whom I love dearly and who loves me, I have kids and grandkids...yet I still love him, he will always be a part of my life, but it's the 18 year old inside of me that loves him. Or is it?

Politics, Frustration and Aslan

I tried, I really, really tried to stay out of politics.




I tried not to comment on facebook, I tried not to respond to people's hateful comments about opposite parties, but now, I can't hold back.





 I've written so much about this I'm sure whoever reads this is bored and thinking, "whatever"..but I took the bait and there ya have it. Most of my family is pretty conservative..No wait, they ALL are, I'm not.  Funny, my mother was pretty liberal if you actually sat down with her and asked her opinion.  (Mom, YOU understand where I'm at right now then.)  My mother was such a lady.  I really should try and be more poised and gracious like she was.  But there's so much of my father in me and I don't think, at this age, I will choose to go to the effort to change.  Who knows though?

I use this blog to vent and vent I will.  I'm not sure why, but I have a lot of "friends" on fb that are ultra conservative.  My theory is that the extreme right has hyjacked christianity.

So, considering myself a Christian, I see in the Bible, the book of Jeremiah, chapter 22, verses 16 and 17, what the prophet is saying about how God sees if a King is righteous or not, is good or not: 


"He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.
¹⁷ “But your eyes and your heart
are set only on dishonest gain,
on shedding innocent blood
and on oppression and extortion.”"



I found these musings of Jeremiah on a great and thought provoking blog written by Craig Watts, minister of Royal Palms Chruch.  It's on a website called redletterchristians.org

So, someone suggested that I may be angry towards christians, or that "maybe it's a crappy attitude in general towards your Christian fb friends who don't subscribe to your opinions."  

hmmmm...food for thought anyway.  In many ways that person is probably right.




(Seriously thinking of getting rid of my fb account..gasp gasp)

So, I do strongly dislike myself when election time comes around because I see things differently from most of my  "facebook friends", and even my own family.  My husband thinks it's strange that I get so involved. That too bothers me, doesn't he know me by now?  Or did I marry myself?


Well, it's Friday and it's a new day. I think I'll look for Aslan and forgot the others.

Aslan safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the

To My Son On His Birthday

My first baby was a girl. I was hoping, when I found out that I was pregnant a second time, that it would be a boy. I wanted a boy more than I can say. As I lay on the operating table, wide awake, my belly cut open as my husband looked on, they pulled the baby out of me. For some odd reason I said "Is it a girl, is it a girl?" I knew it was a boy because they did the sonogram and told me. The room was ready with all the boyish decor. Why did I say that? the only reason I can think of is that I didn't want to be disapointed. Still, how odd.





And a true boy he was.  In those days we had dolls for boys and cars and trucks for girls.  It was a way of sort of breaking the stereotypical ideas of what boys and girls like.  Still, Ian, our boy, my baby boy, always went for the cars, trucks and building materials.




The first thing he did when I brought him home from the hospital was pee on my while changing his diaper.  You know, I slammed the diaper on his crotch to keep it from spraying in my face.  I think that was sort of a metaphor for his life from then on.  He was a thinker.  When he sat in the back in his car seat I would look in the rear view mirror and see him quietly and very still, looking out the window, pondering who knows what.  When he was old enough to talk, one night when his daddy was tucking him into his bed, he asked, "What keeps the walls on our house from falling in?"  Yep, my boy.


Of course babies grow up to be toddlers and toddlers to little boys and then little boys to big boys and boys to men.  Time: it waits for no one. 


When he was in grade school, at the end of one year, the teachers were to think of words that best described each of their students.  Ian's word? Determined. It fit so well, it was so true.  It still is.


So, this isn't going to be a blog about going down memory lane, it's just a blog to wish my boy, who is a man now, a happy birthday.  I won't be with him, but fortunately his sister and her family will be.  I'm really happy for that because they've always been close.


So son, here's to you on your 31st birthday...Your father and I are more than proud of you for who you are.  I'm proud of you for things like getting in your car and driving, and not stopping until you got to the ocean.  You are a determined man who will get what he wants, it's just up to you to find out what you really want. 

"A mother held her new baby and very slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she held him, she sang:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be.

The baby grew. He grew and he grew and he grew.

 

But at night time, she opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor, looked up over the side of his bed; and if he was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. While she rocked him she sang:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be.

 

He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was a grown-up man. He left home and got a house across town. But sometimes on dark nights the mother got into her car and drove across town. If all the lights in her son's house were out, she opened his bedroom window, crawled across the floor, and looked up over the side of his bed. If that great big man was really asleep she picked him up and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she rocked him she sang:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be. "

 

I wish you all you have ever hoped or dreamed for.  I love you!