Simple thoughts

Did you hear the one about the old babe who had a PVD/Posterior Vitreous Detachment and then had a second one four days later?  Well, it seems that having that little heart thing a month ago, plus the joint pain, plus the nerve damage, and the high blood pressure was not enough to help her see (pun coming) that she needed to regain her healthy body and the general health that comes with it.

She needed to be faced with the risk of having the remains of her sight lost due to the little bleed-outs in her retinas and the detachments and the flashers before she was able to take all of this crap seriously.  Lordy.

The simple things in a life are what seem to matter the most.  Forgetting that is just a darn shame.  Big problems are reduced when a client keeps thanking you over and over and keeps asking to shake your hand just because of that little thing you did for them.

When the next client does a little of the same and tells you that you are a nice person and that you are the first person with whom he has felt comfortable in a very long time, well, that is the icing on that cookie and that cookie is one that you can safely enjoy without further assault to your vision.

It is a lovely thing when the person who felt most threatened by your volunteering has become one of your most ardent supporters, which is important in an increasingly uncertain, local government, economic environment.

That he has a larger pole up his ass than you do is an opportunity to mind your own hubris before it can come back and bite you in the ass.  Frankly, it is a blessing, and you get to be grateful not only for his transformation, but for the gentle reflection he offers to your own attitudes and behaviors.

So, anyway, there is this guy who comes into the library on a fairly regular basis.  I do not know who he is, but I see him there all the time.

Today he has a new haircut.  I see him walking towards me and I think, "Man, that is so cool...he is manifesting his inner Beatle."  The mop-top bowl cut is actually quite cute on him.

Then, we pass and I turn to look at the back of the new haircut and I think, "Man, do you not have any friends who are good enough friends to share with you that, from behind, your head looks like a furry penis?"

It is very sad, very, very sad, when a local organization, one dedicated to the needs of veterans, accepts the help of a good person in utilizing a significant part of their facility to bring in much needed funds, and then after learning from him, decide to eliminate him from the program he designed, built and successfully ran.

It would be fine if the reason for dumping the good person was other than intentionally using him to develop the program so that they could take over and run it themselves.  Had they been upfront about their plans, no one would have been surprised or hurt in the transition.  But, seriously, to use someone like that is just plain shameful.

I am dedicated to that organization and when I heard what had happened I went to the source, where the suspicions of the dumped, good person were confirmed.  Bad enough to do that, but how much worse to be so blasé, so matter-of-fact and unashamed about it.  I could not be more shocked if it had happened to me.  I am hoping that writing it down will help me to process what seems like a complete betrayal of principles, beliefs and honor.   I am stunned and see no future time when this is not going to bother me.  I have also severed my connection to them, which makes me more sad that I can even think about.

I want to be light-hearted about this, you know, how breaking up is so hard to do (feel free to sing along), but I thought that I could do my little, peripheral stuff there and it could be a sort of connection to my brother, and there just is not any reasonably light aspect that I can find, which is another disappointment for a positive view girl like me.  Heartbroken and a little scared that such a thing could happen.

I get to play with the babies and their mommy tomorrow.  She, the mommy, was ill last week and I could give her only one day.  Maybe she will feel well enough to play outside with us.  More likely, she will use the time to catch up on all the stuff that was put aside so that she and her babies could play outside every day.

She is a lovely mom and I adore her.  I think that we will surprise her with home-made pizza for lunch.  One of her favorites.

I am a big girl.  I can pull up my big girl panties and get on with whatever needs getting on.  Still, today's disappointment and subsequent split with one of my favorite organizations is so sad.  People get to be human.  I get to let them do that.  I get to accept people for who they are, because, you know, we are all simply doing the best that we can, here on this pretty, little planet.  I get all that.  But, if I really do, then why does my heart ache so much about something that did not directly happen to me?

I have to release this.  Holding on to it serves no one.  Besides, it feels as though I am giving some of my power away to them, and they do not deserve to have anything from me.  This totally and completely sucks.

Better here than there

Mostly because I am trying so hard to be the lighter version of myself.

So, anyway, this is how I feel.

I am a simpleton of the highest...or is it lowest, I cannot ever remember...order, and I have to wonder why anyone really and truly and deep in their own frugal, thrifty, earth-honoring, dedicated to making the planet a better place, higher selves, cares much about this issue.  I get the angst and the sense of feeling proprietary about something that holds great energy for you. I understand the feelings of sorrow and loss when someone wants to take something that you hold dear away from you. 

Sure, there will always be someone who will come along and manifest their puffed-up selves, having lost all perspective about what is important and how good people manifest in the world,  and try to take more than their share, heck even try to take the shares of other people. 

I am a child of the 60s.  I cut my social, political and public teeth on the conflicts of those times.  I lost my innocence there.  Until that war, I believed in so many things, patriotic and practical.  It fucking broke my heart.  It taught me that I have a voice, certainly, but, more importantly, that I have the will and means within me to release the past and move forward in my life  smarter, wiser (yes, they are different), more informed and more determined.

Protest if you are moved to do so.  Standing up for what you believe makes you and your world a better place, but always remember that no one, no entity, no government or legal battle or maneuverings can take your beliefs, your practices, philosophy or standards away from you.  They cannot even, no matter how how they try, take your words.

They are just words and every single one of us is more than that.  Fight this?  Some will, but no matter what happens, no one can take us from this life.  We get to go on and have lives that sustain ourselves, our families, the whole damn world, and all they get is a couple of words.

No big deal.

Babe Time

Gallery sat today.  Took along my ornaments for this swap thing, for something else and for one other thing.  If I find some time and energy, I will make some for my friends, too, but that has little chance of happening.

So, anyway, only one person actually came into the gallery today and it was a friend.  Several town people walked by and waved, but kept on going.

I got lots of hand sewing done in those six hours.  Sweet and icy nice.

On the way home I decided that I simply could not eat curry one more day.  I cannot remember exactly when I made it, but it was at least six lunches and dinners ago.  It is yummy, but I knew that the last three portions were going into the freezer.  So, that means stopping at the market for food and, gosh, I did hardly anything physical today and was just plain exhausted.

The way home, just a few miles before I leave town, passes a Chinese restaurant that I especially like.  Forty minutes later I was on my way again, with enough food for taking me right through to Monday dinner.  Yum.

Whilst waiting for my food, there was a steady stream of people coming in and going out, as well as the delivery driver.  Someday I will write about that very weird, although probably just as interesting as it is weird, situation.    Really, just plain weird.

A woman came in, and it was clear that this was an unexpected stop for her as well, because she had to pick up a menu in order to order her take-out stuff.  In the middle of ordering her order, she forgot what her husband told her to get for him and was going to leave to get her telephone from the car to ask him.

I offered her my phone and she took it, asking a couple of times if it was really fine with me.  I told her that as long as she was not calling Tunisia, that we would be fine.  Really.

When she finished her call and the order, she sat down across from me and we talked.

Now, I have to share that I love talking.  Hell, I will talk to just about anyone, despite being a painfully shy person.  There is something about people, in person, that makes me able to have conversations with strangers, which I guess are always people, except when it is a stray cat or crows or something, so I wonder what it is that allows me to do this random, easy talking to people that I do not know, but keeps me from going to to-dos at the homes of friends just because there will be people there that I do not know.

I am really digressing here, but a couple of weeks ago we hosted a traveling poet and a local poet at the gallery.  We have, host and offer public events all the time and I go to and often facilitate the daytime ones, but if it is in the evening, I just quail and end up staying home.  Sometimes I feel compelled to promise that I will show up for one of these things, but I almost always break those promises.  I know that I will do that when I make the promise and those who know me know that I will most likely break the promise, but they keep asking me to make them and I keep breaking them and it really is embarrassing and pointless.

But, I actually went out, in the dark, to this poetry thing.  It was nice, wonderful really, and I enjoyed myself.  The traveling poet is very much in the reality story-telling process, much like Billy Collins, whom I adore because he is the first poet of that discipline that I ever experienced and also because it is the kind of poetry that I have always written, except for the times when someone forced me to rhyme.  Bastards.

So, there I am at the poetry thing and all is going well and I am not panicking or anything outwardly visible, but I know that I have reached my limits, had endured entirely enough of late-night, O.K., early evening, sheesh, grown-up fun and I know that I should just pick up my stuff and leave before anyone notices.

But, nooooo, I have to be a big girl and stay and do grown-up stuff with the grown ups.  It did not take more than ten minutes for me to manifest how truly socially inept I am.  Man.  Even now, this moment, I can feel myself flushing and blushing and I am right back there, feeling that desperate need to just get the hell out of there.  Seriously, what is that all about?  Especially at my age.  I am already old enough that I will likely not ever, as in never, be able to figure out this sort of thing. 

And, then, there I am, sitting in the take-out chair, talking to another take-out chair sitter.  And, having a really nice conversation, and I am not feeling the teeniest bit shy or retiring.  Same thing happens when I teach or give workshops.  Maybe it is the total stranger part that makes this easy.  Maybe less threatening.  I do not think that I could do that with a man.  Too many cultural barriers.  Besides, despite how much I love men, and even though I have some wonderful men friends in my life, that direction is where most of the pain in my life has come.  You know, sometimes I really hope and wish that there is reincarnation and that I will have a chance to develop good, safe, wholesome and loving relationships with the men in my life.  A father who, well, that is not important to these musings.  But, a husband who could love me even a little bit for who I am, oh, that would be so nice.  I would really love that.  Next time in the flesh I hope I have that.

Whatever the dynamic, it was nice hanging out for that bit of time, talking to another woman and just, I do not know, being able to trust in the process.

Babe time.  It was really great, and I had a wonderful dinner that I did not have to cook.  Even better is that tomorrow is Saturday Coffee.  Life is so good.