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.