Thanksgiving is done. Preparing for Christmas I’m going through and sorting out dishes and the detritus of thanksgiving. I pile leftover plastic cutlery and notice a lack of forks and a plethora of spoons.

Spoons everywhere. Even more than knives.  But the forks, they are few … I am the fork.  Used up, moved from plate to plate, turkey, dressing and then dessert.  Not yet done, a second
plate, sandwich with cranberry sauce and gravy, scooped up between my tines, some sustenance lost, but not all.

Dinner is done, some forks find their final home in the trash bin, others make their way to the sink to be washed and reused.  I sit in the drawer, my plastic sides scarred, one tine chipped, but still serviceable … until I finally join my companions in arms … a new life.

Well it looks like I have a lot to work through this month.  Trying to figure out why I am stressed I came up with the following list.  Maybe y6our list is longer than you think too.

My grown daughter Lori has moved back home after ten years living in California.  Glad and cautiously optimistic.

I discovered that wanting to be included in an event does not necessarily mean I want to attend.

I'm trying to finish my screenplay but not motivated to do so.

I'm motivated to work through my poetry but partially blocked.  Unwilling to work through it … there's something there.

I finally reorganized my old bookroom (a new guestroom) and my new bookroom.

Reading a book on reprogramming your brain … involves working through issues.  Not everything is about what everyone/anyone else does.  Some of it is mine but it's tangled together.

I'm going to Israel next month.  Anxious and nervous about traveling after a stroke and with new memory and physical issues.

I'm having communication issues.  What I hear is sometimes garbled.

It's hard to determine what stresses me out, I'm used to avoiding what I cannot fix or feels overwhelming.  Right now everything seems overwhelming.

My friend's mom just died and I have a memorial service on Saturday for a man I used to work with.

I'm insisting on transparency from the companies I do business with.  Should I not also require that of myself or I would be a hypocrit.

Death is such an integral part of life.  As I approach 70, time seems peppered with condolences, memorials and funeral services.  I don’t expect it will slow down much at this point.  At first my question was “Where are you?”  Followed by, “What are you doing? Who are you seeing? Are you at peace?”  My friend Julie started this grand exodus.  After our trip to Ireland.  I got my news first followed closely behind by hers. We shared stories of chemo, rads, and surgery.   A year later her diagnosis turned.   The last time I saw her she had very little time left. She showed off a new size 2 wardrobe and an iPhone ... early 40th birthday presents. We giggled and shared funny stories.  She got serious as it was time for me to go.  “No offense but it’s not fair”, she sighed.  “I’m going to die and you’re not.”  I thought for a moment and replied, “No, it’s not fair at all.” She was only 39. I was 62, and no,  it wasn’t fair.  We hugged and I left.  A few weeks later I got a message from her mom and a call from her husband.  She was gone.

Sitting in my book room that night I went through the pictures of our Ireland trip to put an album together for her husband.  The last picture was her walking towards the waiting train in Dublin, backpack slung over one shoulder, half turned, calling me to hurry as she ran to the open door.  “Where are you,” I whispered.  The still air held no answer.  Just gone.

Looking at a recent article about "The Tyranny of the Ideal Woman" I can see that over the last 50 years not much has changed.  In other words, there really is "Nothing new under the sun."

The Ideal woman is portrayed as a physical manifestation of what some men and women perceive as the ideal woman; perhaps based on what their personal desires are for themselves.

So here is my perception of the ideal woman.

1.  She does not exist.  We are women who do the best we can under our own circumstances.  So having said that, may I for a moment, encourage all of us to:

Be comfortable in our own skin
Accept ourselves as we are, uniqueness is a gift.
Accept others as we accept ourselves
Explore, discover and use our gifts in any/every w
Never hold a grudge ... it always backfires
Turn away from the past, pain, hate, anger and disappointment
Look to the future, ever day is our future
Not worry about who we are, just relax and be; that's who you are
In the midst of turmoil and stress
Love
 

Using the largest text makes me feel as though I'm shouting.  That's weird.

So Today I'm looking inward.  Yesterday I was looking for affirmation in a conflict I have with my youngest sister to a friend I trust. Instead of affirmation I got a different perspective based on my friend's problem with our relationship, the fact that I'm untrustworthy when it comes to keeping  scheduled appointments.  I bail.  I don't know if I can trust her advice because as we talk it becomes evident that her advice is colored by her disappointment with me but her perspective gave me interesting insights.  One insight is that I hate disappointing people so I say yes when I really should say no and then I hate bailing so I wait until the last minute.  One problem heaped onto another.  Yes, I am codependent.

My friend suggests that my sister is right to avoid me since my co-dependence is unhealthy for her.  Unhealthy for me too; because it leads to my sister's pattern of anger and disappointment, leading to blocking me, leading to reuniting with me in hopes that I've changed, leading again to anger and the cycle continues.  My friend has opted to accept my inconsistencies, although she admits that my habits of being late and bailing would have ended our friendship when she was younger. 

How am I feeling about this?  Depressed and frustrated and not sympathetic or empathetic at all.  After all, shouldn't my good qualities measure against my failings?  And as Christians we are commanded to love ... she says she loves me because that's the command but she doesn't like me and she doesn't have to like me. She's only human ... but so am I.

So today I went online looking for information on people who don't feel empathy.  I don't think I'm an empathetic person.  According to the quiz I am.  So I looked at more quizzes.  

The next quiz was on mindfulness.  I ranked in the middle, kind of mindful but needs work.  It hit me that I am actually not mindful at all when it comes to being aware of how other people feel or rather life from their perspective.  Not their point of view but how life looks through their eyes.  I just don't see it.  I've never thought of that before.  It was kind of shocking.

The last one was on relationships.  I chose to focus on my husband.  Although I trust his faithfulness I'm not sure that he cares for me in a way that I assumed he did.  But not like my family where it was 'every man for him or herself'.  So I search on, what is the healthy way?

So a bit of history.  I grew up in an alcoholic family with PTSD and abuse thrown in as chasers.  The second oldest of four girls, I learned how to be hyper-vigilant to stay safe.   My world revolved around taking my family's emotional temperature and watching for any signs of my father's impending rage, any evidence that his  good mood was going to turn sour.  I learned to pay constant and close attention as I watched how anger always led to violence.   I tried to do whatever I could to control my family's feelings to protect myself.  I became codependent.

I graduated and left home but took with me the codependent lessons I had learned.  I learned to ignore my own needs and take care of the emotions of others ... my survival had depended upon it.  The moods of others continued to  dictate my emotions; it was exhausting.  When anyone was upset, especially with me, I couldn't relax until they felt better and I felt safe again.  I had to fix them in order to de stress.   But fixing them often didn't work and even when it did, it was only temporary.   I felt let down, unappreciated and then angry. I heard about recovery from codependency.  The first step was to be aware of what's known as the 'drama triangle', how I was using survival techniques that were no longer necessary to survive.  

I needed to change my response to the feelings and needs of those around me.  In the first part of the triangle as soon as I felt someone close to me was getting angry or upset, I would try to rescue them ... a fight or flight response.  It could be from their own responsibilities, troubles, issues, etc.  I would try to fix the problem which would fix my problem (fear and stress over their problem).  It often didn't work.  Moving to the second leg of the triangle, I would become angry because in order to fix them I had often agreed to do things I didn't want to do, ignoring my own wants and needs.  The person I helped not only didn't appreciate what I did, they got angry at me.  I would then move on to the third leg of the triangle; I became the victim where I felt used and sorry for myself, I felt like a martyr.  

To stop the process I had to be aware of what I was doing.  I had to change my response.  I needed to start saying no.  I needed to address the fear that saying no would make them abandon me.  I had to stop trying to manipulate people in order to protect myself.  I had to stop trying to guess what other people needed and offering it before they asked.  So I also had to stop expecting others to know what I want.  Finally, when I'm feeling overwhelmed I needed to ask myself what I need to take care of myself, and then do it.  

It means I needed to be in tune with my thoughts, feelings and needs.  I needed to take my attention away from what I think I need to do to meet the needs of others in order to protect myself ... a habit that has long outlived its usefulness ... and put my attention back on what I need.

So in Vegas we go from 117 to 99 and cloudy and rainy ... that is like my life lately.  One minute sunny and hot and the next cloudy and rainy ... the new norm.

I've been looking for joy.  Not fun, although I like that ... but joy.  The psalms (yes the bible) says that joy await us inside His holy temple.  Joy in the freedom of those released from the chains of guilt and shame.  Joy and freedom.  Not the freedom to do whatever we want ... that's not freedom at all.  We are just exchanging one set of chains for another.  The chains that bind us to money, to those who don't care for us, to whatever promises fun and freedom from God but there is no freedom apart from God.

When we grasp the freedom to do what is right we are released from the chains that looked like freedom but were not.  We are freed from guilt, from stress, from justifying what we do, from a life that promises but doesn't deliver.  Freedom to do whatever we want, what we desire instead of the freedom that will break our chains to 'fun' and offer the freedom of an abundant life free from guilt, anger, fear, pain.

So today, be free. 

Meanderings

I've been doing a lot of this lately.  Lots of changes:

Mini Stroke
Grandson moving out
Home renovations
Husband health issues
Issues with family members

Some of these are good and some not so good.  

So I was contemplating why I am so 'flake' and bail out after I make plans.  Yep, I'm one of 'those' people.  I did some research online to see where it would come from, the causes because all I know is that I make plans and then sometimes (not always) as the event is on my doorstep I want to run away and hide out ... so my fight or flight response causes me to ... you got it ... bail.  Now I don't always give in to the impulse to bail ... but when I do it's usually at the last minute which, understandably, pisses people off.

So my contemplation led to a relationship between bailing and being late.  I want to be perfectly on time, right 'on the dot' as it were, and that's nearly impossible because of outside influences.  So I'm instead, late.  Then there are the myriad things I have to do and the impulse to do them when I have an appointment.  There's my inability to correctly identify the right time to leave and the stress that accompanies it.  What would seem like an easy thing to accomplish so often for me leads to failure.

You might think, well leave earlier.  I have tried that, but being too early has such a negative connotation to me that I shy away from it.  Thus, I'm late.  You might also think that this seeps into other areas of my life and you'd be right.  I often would burn the midnight lights getting an assignment done just in time, but I tend to do my best work 'under the gun'.  That might reinforce waiting until the last minute.  

Conversely I am, ironically, a planner.  I plan vacations out in detail and follow the plan closely.  I was also, in case you wondered, early for my wedding.  The church wasn't even unlocked when I got there.  

I decided to be kind to myself.  I explain to people that I am chronically late; this seems to give me permission, strangely enough, to be on time.  When I'm late I call and let them know so it gets them off the hook.

As far as bailing at the last minute, it's worse now after my stroke, so I've taken to explain to people that if I don't feel well at the last minute I'll call and let them know I can't make it.  At this point that's the best I can do.

Thats it for now.

Something I wrote quite a while ago and I enjoyed re-reading it.  Hope you do too

A Response to Coleridge's ”Dejection: An Ode"

by Joanne Nakaya

Well! If that poet who penned

the tale of Sir Patrick Spence

was wise to the ways of the wind

then tonight, so quiet too, will not pass unmolested

by winds more demanding,

than those breezes that stuff clouds with lazy flakes

or that dull sobbing wind, that moaning, scrapes

hungry claws

upon the strings of this Aeolian lute

it would be far better if this lute was unable to speak.

For see, the new moon lights the winter sky

And covered with a soft light

A hazy light spreads over her face

Silver Rimmed and encircled.

I see the old Moon in her lap, predicting

Rain and fierce storms

And oh, I wish even now the gusts were swelling

With rain slanting down loud and fast.

That music of the rain that has often lifted me with awe

And sent my soul flying with the wind

Tonight, maybe those sounds again may stir in me

That habit of wonder and excitement, and

Might interrupt this mute pain and make it move and live.

My life

A constant grief

without a piercing pain, empty, dark and dreary

A restrained, tiresome, un-passionate grief

A grief without surcease

Oh harp, in this melancholy heartless mood

Even nature has failed to entice me

All this long night, calm and gentle

I have been staring to the sunset

And its strange flavoring of yellow green

And still I stare unseeing!

Through the thin clouds above, bars that imprison the sky

The stars revel in their dance

As they glide behind and now between them

Then bright, now dimmed but still apparent.

That crescent Moon, as unmovable as if it were alienated

In the sky

Belonging instead to some pure, untainted clime

I can see them all, so beautiful

I see, but cannot feel, how beautiful they are.

My cheerful spirits fail me again

They can they do nothing

To lift the smothering weight from my heart

It would be useless

Even if eternity locked her gaze

On nature as she lingers in the west

I know I cannot obtain from her

The passion and life that dwell within me.

Oh harp, can we only receive what we give?

Nature lives only as a distant memory

She has woven her wedding dress for our joy

her winding sheet twists our limbs

And if we could ever envision a higher purpose

Than this artificial world provides

To the anxiously searching futility of life

Oh not from nature but from eternity that

Sleeps within the soul itself that life must come

That light, that glory, like an eternal cloud

It covers the earth

No, from within alone must that voice be heart

A sweet prophetic voice, of the soul’s own birth

Of all sweet sounds of life and nature

Pure of heart, you don’t need to ask me

The name of this rough music in the soul

What and where it emerged,

This light, this misty circlet of light

This beautiful power that makes beauty glow

It is Joy dear harp, joy that belongs only

to pure, in their purest hour

Life and life’s spirit shower joy

Joy, Joy, that spirit and power

Which nature, at her wedding, gave to us, as a dowery

A new earth and new heaven

Unobtainable by the sinful and proud is joy,

Joy the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud

She Envelopes us., and we rejoice ourselves

And so flows everything that charms my eye or my ear

All song the echoes of that voice of joy

And all colors created from that joy

There was a time when though my way was hard

This joy within me only toyed with distress

And misfortune was

a dream in the midst of my happiness

(where fancy created dreams of happiness just for me)

For hope wound in and around me like a vine

And I adopted hope, that not my own, seemed to be mine anyway

But now afflictions drive me to the ground

I don’t care that they rob me of laughter

But oh each instance

Suspends that gift from nature

The Imagination that shapes my spirit

Leaving me one sole possibility

And so unfeeling still, and patient

I contrived to steal

From my very own nature

My only resource, my only plan

Until finally that small loss encompassed me

Becoming the killing habit of my soul

The future of deadly thoughts work within my mind

I live in Reality’s dark dream

I turn from this and listen to the changing wind,

A spirit she

raving unnoticed extracts my scream

Of agony made longer by torture

That lute sent forth! You, wind that fumes outside

Wild and barren nature

You hover near groves unknown to man

barren houses,

I think were better suited to you

Mad lutanist, who in this month of spring showers

Of ungrown gardens and hesitant flowers

Make a devil’s pact with Christmas worse than desolate song.

Blossoms, buds and shy leaves hide you,

You tragic actor

You mighty poet, frenzied and bold

What are you now?

Like the rushing of an deserting army

howling as they trample the wounded

groaning with pain and shuddering with cold

But wait, in a pause of deep silence

the noise of the madding crowd

groaning and shuddering, is finished

Now it will relay another quieter story

A less frightening tale

With some delight I recall it

As if Otway himself had written it

of a little child

a wild place

near home she has lost her way

And quietly wails in grief and fear

And then shrieks piteously hoping her mother hears

It’s midnight my hope of sleep fades

I hope you never share this, my vigil

Visit her, gentle sleep, with healing calm

may her storm be a mountain-birth

all the stars shine bright

Silently as they watch the sleeping earth

rise with happiness

Bright with fancy and cheer

Joy, lift her spirit, make her voice reflect her joy

May all things be alive to her, pole to pole

May nature’s life feed her living soul

Oh simple spirit guided from above

Dear harp, devout friend,

May you rejoice forever.

So I'm going to back up for a moment to give a perspective to my recent posts.  (Not garnering sympathy … I'm happy to still be here)

In 2005 I lost the vision in my right eye to repetitive detached retinas.
In 2010 I spent a year in treatment for Breast Cancer losing most of my left breast.
In 2015 I smashed my left elbow requiring extensive reconstruction.
In 2019 I had a mini stroke numbing my whole left side.

So, now I'm half blind, and have totally abused my left side.

I said that so I can say this.  I'm so thankful that I can still see, I am alive, I can use my left arm and I can walk and smile and garden with both my left and right sides.  And I am still writing.

Today I played in the dirt at 7:30 am.  It was only 92 degrees.  I'm not out there long … 100 degrees comes up pretty fast in July, but I transplanted a mulberry tree that popped up next to the house.  I moved it over to the side of the driveway next to the Chaste Tree.  I love trees.  I planted three small bushes in the shade of my Arizona Ash in the front yard, I pulled three weeds, I propped the chair rail up against the side of the house so I will remember to paint it, soon, and put it back in the living and dining rooms.  It's now 10 am and 101 degrees so I'm done outside for the day.

My plan is to rest then go to the mall and walk my 1.5 miles.  I have a birthday party to attend tonight and a screenplay to finish.  The USB for my wireless mouse and keyboard has disappeared so I can't use my downstairs computer right now, so I drug out the old Apple laptop Susie gave me and I'm using that.  The battery won't hold a charge and it's bulky and heavy but it's portable and easy to use, so I'm loving it!

With my generous watering system in the morning (hose and drips) I now have butterflies and a mocking bird living in my back yard.

Mockingbird sing
whistle a song
crooning and calling
dawn to dawn

skipping down rooftops
and skirting the trees
crooking your head
sipping with bees

you watch from the wall
as the dogs madly rush
then skip quickly away
as they jump and they thrust

soft muzzles sharp teeth
that never can find
your tail feathers flow
and they're left behind

mockingbird mockingbird
stay for a while
and sing through the leaves
that shiver through my smiles

Life is just more and more interesting.

I'm now mall walking because it's just too hot to walk outside.  After all, Las Vegas is located in the desert and it's July so the temperatures rise to about 120 during the day … hot.

Mall walking could be boring … one mile is once around the 2nd floor and once around the first floor … and the stores don't change daily … but interesting people are everywhere here and many of them love to stop and chat … maybe they find it as boring as I do.

Anyway, chatted with a woman dog sitting a chihuahua … a shop keeper for a tee shirt shop that she loved showing off … watched the woman from Cinnabun frosting cinnamon rolls … chatted with a woman in an art gallery … and a man in another art gallery … and then went home … one mile accomplished.

Tomorrow I'll look for more interesting people to talk with …

The rest of my day looked like:
  Coffee at Starbucks with the guys I used to work with
  Watered the veggies in the front and back
  Moved some pots around
  Ate breakfast and watched a murder mystery with Jerry
  Walked in the mall
  Fixed the Apple laptop so I could login (I always forget the login since it's not originally mine)
  Writing

More tomorrow …  carry on

Playing Catch up

I've had this blog since 2005 and it's been my favorite place to set my thoughts in prose and poetry.  It's been an ideal way (for me) to solidify what's going on in my life and identify it; but not niche it.  I don't like niches.  Dust ridden dead spots that hold ideas that have outlived their usefulness.  Not always accurate either, they seem anachronistic, unusable and ignoble too, somehow.

At any rate, it's 2019 and it's not even January or close to the first part of the year.  July, it says and utter silence since the previous January.  I've decided that if I'm going to write again I will return to the space that first enticed the words in my heart to jump onto the page and cavort, to dance and sing, to moan and writhe, to live.  So here I am and here they are.  They've been patient you know.  They've waited past family drama, cruises to far away lands, explorations of exotic places, then, more recently through tumultuous changes and challenges in home and heart and culminating in a tap on the shoulder reminded me of my own humanity.

It wasn't all fun and games but still it was exciting and new and frightening and somehow invigorating, and still, here I am.  I did finish my first book, yet published, and have pulled my screenplay out of dry dock, hoisted it onto a deck to check for barnacles and will soon turn it over to my editor who, with loving, devout and deviously sympathetic hands render it suitable to send out into the world of paper prose.

And yet, here I am, not searching for nouns, verb, adverbs and the like to pepper my play but instead decided to begin my continuing saga as a writer by giving my muse-driven fingers free reign.

It's good to be back.