March | 2023 | Playing for Time

Time to ante up…

31 Mar 2023 1 Comment

***

Last day of March, boys and girls, and the Bradford Pear and Red Maple trees in our neighborhood are blooming and leafing and already showing off because they can. When Kim walked Mass Street this morning before sunup it was a balmy 65° and humid, so maybe spring’s sticking around a while this time. Hope so, I’m overdue for the attitude adjustment and everyone will benefit. Ready for the early mornings when you can pull on a minimum of clothing, lace up your Tevas, and get outside. Hmm. Guess this morning would have been one of those, huh. Oh well, my dance card is already punched twice for this 24-hour segment, so we’re good. Nice, though, to feel the friendly air that smells like rain.

WARNING: 90-degree left turn…

Do you have sensory input/overload issues? Have you ever tried to explain what that’s like to someone who cruises through life as if they own it? How’d that go for ya’? It makes me think of the game Ransom Notes, wherein players have to describe a given situation in abbreviated form. Clear as mud? My version would go something like this:

Assignment: DESCRIBE SENSORY OVERLOAD AND ITS ATTENDANT FEELINGS TO A NOVICE

Ransom Note:

ROAR

PIERCES

PORES AND ORIFICES

MAKES BRAIN CELLS WEEP

Anxiety and excess sensory input are ever-present, as you’re well aware if you aren’t immune to such. And nobody outside it can feel it. Most people march entirely to their own drummer so they can’t imagine, for instance, what it’s like to hear and register every sound equally and be unable to instantly sort, assign, and selectively dampen the individual input in order to translate on the fly, keep sweet and quiet, and deal. All day, every day, until the hearing aids can be put to bed and the lights go out, the brain gets to rest (except for dreams, but that’s another day), and the tension drains from the body’s cells overnight. Being able to hear isn’t a bad thing, in fact it’s crucial, but when you add all the other input a day holds, keeping it together can get dicey, a big muddy mess. There’s interaction with other people, weather, the abominable state of human existence in general, the ouchies of age, and being hangry, among an endless list of possible angst generators.

People with raging anxiety are ridiculous and we know it, but the harder we try to stay quiet and peaceful on the inside the worse it gets. Like… any day that contains an appointment outside the house (or ONLINE, for lort’s sake!) guarantees that I won’t forget it for a second until it’s over. Okay, it’s how many hours away? So that means I have time for… well, no, don’t want to start that NOW, I’m too distracted by these never-ending deadlines. If the appointment is for a pedi or massage, that means I have to leave enough time to shave my legs, and shampooing this silver thicket on top of my head takes another three minutes. And SO MUCH PEEING, ALL DAY, OMIGOD!! All of that, hour after hour, within the brain of a lifetime perfectionist who has likely never once actually gotten it right, isn’t that the shits? Ransom notes indeed… somebody should rescue me from myself before time’s up, maybe.

Anxiety feels mostly like fear of loss… loss of security, safety, competence, choice, independence, respect, love, credibility, control, connection, relationship, anything and everything we value. And bless the people who question none of it, live life on their terms, and go on winning. We hope they know how lucky they are, amirite?

I know this much is true…

For the perpetually anxious, peace is all that matters finally.

And because I always like to leave us smiling, if possible…

Image by Judy Smith

Just another manic Monday…

27 Mar 2023 Leave a comment

***

For the past few years, most days have seemed at least 36 hours long, with more blank-feeling time than I knew what to do with. In my new gung-ho “let’s do ALL the things” mode, I signed up for two KU classes and whatever daily system I had left is already shot to hell. That’s okay, it’s not yet obvious to the naked eye so we’ll survive, and I was getting pretty tired of all that perfection anyway. Oh, I laugh.

This afternoon will be the second of my three “Invitation to Poetry” classes, and it’s gratifying to realize how much I’m looking forward to it. Tomorrow morning will be more Kansas history, and maybe one day this week I’ll have the energy to clear a wider path in our big Everything closet. I’ve managed to create enough chaos in that space, I either need to finish it ASAP or just call “College Hunks Hauling Junk” and make a clean break.

Moral support helps everybody, the more the better, and by reaching out you just might save a life.

Not every source of support proves to be this trustworthy… but never stop be-leafing.

… even when bitterly disappointed by the discoveries you make along the way.

However distracted we might be, we can’t afford to lose sight of what matters:

Have an astounding and properly-astounded Monday!

Image by Judy Smith

As the world turns…

21 Mar 2023 4 Comments

***

We have crossed the spring equinox and claimed the far banks of the Rubicon, so there’s no going back now, right? Winter’s finished, right? This morning’s rain is entirely made of springtime, am.I.right? Just say yes, I’m ready for the great outdoors in all its friendliness, aren’t you?

The first day of spring was also first day of school for this girl. I registered for two KU Osher Institute classes for seniors, one of which meets two blocks away, the other on campus, and the first 2-hour session was yesterday. I think there were thirteen of us boomers in the room, including the retired professor teaching the class, and the atmosphere was lovely. This one is called “An Invitation to Poetry” and seems to be everything I’d hoped it would be… comfy room, congenial people, teacher who knows his stuff in all the best ways. Twice he made tears pop into my eyes when he read lines from poems I didn’t know but want to, and he doesn’t even seem the type. I’d have guessed he taught history or the sciences, not the arts… and possibly the best part of all is the genuine love of subject that immediately comes through.

It was a happy start, and this morning I’ll begin a class called “Pioneering Stories from the Settling of Emporia and Lyon County, Kansas.” I chose this one because that’s where my grandma grew up, in a dugout/soddy/clay/stone challenge of a dwelling that included space for the livestock. She was born in 1889 and hard times accompanied most everything in her life, but she survived and thrived to the age of 96, a personal goal of mine. I’d never knock the living conditions, but neither do I want to try that mode at this point… it wasn’t for sissies:

Photo taken during a visit by family in the 1950s or so, the homestead having been abandoned long before.

So for three consecutive Mondays and Tuesdays I get to be a student again, and it feels excellent to be back in that quietly invigorating atmosphere. And yes, I’m scouring the course listings for anything else that might spark new synapses because this morning’s dose of NE Kansas history was intriguing and I’m ready for more. In two hours we covered the years from when Kansas was still a territory, to Quantrill’s reign of terror, including the (at least) thrice burning of the town of Lawrence. We aren’t Bleeding Kansas for nothing… it bought us the privilege of being Free Kansas, a heritage worth fighting for.

I saw the following piece of advice yesterday, have made a similar folder, and will tuck this graphic inside along with any and all encouragement that shows up in my life in coming days. That stuff’s precious and should be kept in a warm dry place at all times.

Now that spring’s officially here, it’s time to get back to making each consecutive day just a little better than the one before, so…

Image by Judy Smith

Hello Friday…

17 Mar 2023 1 Comment

***

Fridays will always hold a special place in my heart because they signal the arrival of Saturday and Sunday, the two days when I do even less than on the other five but suffer zero guilt for it. Over a lifetime I earned my weekends, and once they’re yours, they’re yours, so I squander them freely whenever possible.

This morning dawned bright and sunny, despite the fact that we had a mini-blizzard overnight. Precisely as the KU v Howard bball game tipped off, while it was still daylight and 58° outside, the air became filled with sideways snow. Slightly bizarre, but so very Kansas. Most of it made it to Amarillo by morning, but the grassy areas are still white, melting fast.

A Happy St. Paddy’s Day to one and all, says the girl in the lime(rick) green T-shirt bearing the word “sláinte” and a shamrock, gifted to her by her baby sister. Life is good, right here, right now. Celebrate and enjoy!

St. Patrick’s Day strikes me as an ideal occasion for bravery and self-certainty, because how else have the Irish survived? I’m proud and happy to claim a dose of emerald DNA from my mom’s dad… that heritage and my German stoicism have brought me this far and I trust will not fail me at this late date.

A complete poem in one sentence, and can we not all say the same in total honesty? It’s what’s meant by the solitariness of being human and it seems to be largely unavoidable.

Another precisely-stated bit of poetry:

Speaking from personal experience, never mistake small stature and a quiet demeanor for weakness or ignorance, otherwise, in the wise words of our ancestors, the road will eventually rise up to meet your face. That’s what all the little leprechauns want you to have as your takeaway today, don’t disappoint them. And easy on the green beer.

An appropriate slice of melancholy before I let you go enjoy your day and your weekend:

Image by Judy Smith

Freeing up head space…

13 Mar 2023 2 Comments

***

Feels like it’s time for a chummy conversation about what’s real… authentic, legitimate, valid… in the human realm. We spend so many brain cells and waste so many minutes either overthinking everything or actively ignoring obvious truths, we’d do ourselves a service by occasionally lifting the lid and airing out the ductwork. As a writer friend counseled me last week, “Let it out.” Sometimes we get so tied in knots by life, it’s tricky but crucial to get loose to the point of really seeing ourselves again.

Female types the world over, except those who didn’t hear about it, held a celebration last week on Wednesday. We were allotted an entire day to remember and honor women, those incomprehensible creatures without whom the planet can’t survive. An International Women’s Day, think of it. It’s a reminder to stand where no one else will, and to reject the load of “NO” that was assigned to us somewhere along the line.

In order to be honest women, there are things that can’t be of prime importance to us. The same holds true for honest men, but we’ll talk about that on International Men’s Day. What’s that, you didn’t know? It is indeed a designated observance, but no organized celebrations issue forth from it, probably because it would look like unseemly overkill, but that’s just me. Whether you’re an acknowledged feminist or an incel, anyone who’s lived female-adjacent knows the world keeps a LIST, with which it stamps a big CANCELED across a lot of otherwise happy celebrations and personal objectives.

To which I say SCREW THAT and I’m thankful to be with a man who feeds all of me.

We know that we are neither made nor broken by the things that happen to us, but rather by our response to each of those events; thus, there’s a truth in there that has to be looked in the eye: Sometimes the worst things that happen outside our control also come bearing gifts, and STAY WITH ME BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS LIKE BLASPHEMY. I’m no longer an “Everything happens for a reason” kinda girl, and I can’t suspend disbelief long enough to be thankful for bad, awful, heartbreaking things, please know that. Despite overwhelming odds, however, I’m still a Pollyanna who looks for a discarded pack of bar matches in every dark alley, and there’s usually a dry one left somewhere. Our most devastating and challenging times can contain hope if we keep our hearts open. They have the capacity to uncover ugliness we need to be aware of, in ourselves or other people. Bad times can reveal where change is long overdue, and sometimes provide the impetus to make those changes. We can’t be part of solving problems we don’t know about, so a little awareness in confusing times goes a long way. I could go on, but you know there are other ways of turning unfortunate circumstances to your good.

A quiet thanks this morning to the men we live with, love, care for, befriend, exist among, for understanding as much as they can, and for wanting to even more.

That’s a lot to celebrate, I don’t care who you are.

Image by Judy Smith

OMG, look at the time!

11 Mar 2023 Leave a comment

***

We’re nine days from spring and the rain we need for the greening of NE Kansas has been showing up. So sweet and benign, all the soft water from the sky, and we hope it stays this friendly since Kansas weather is nothing if not unpredictable.

Of course, tonight’s the big night… it’s time to spring forward an entire hour and spend the rest of the year searching for that lost jigger of salt. Don’t forget.

The lost hour symbolizes every trauma, whether infinitesimal or overwhelming, we’ve sustained over the past however-many years now. We’ve lived through scary illnesses that had to be handled on our own because PANDEMIC. We lived through said pandemic… so far. We’ve survived cockamamie politics; over-the-top injustice; incomprehensible cruelty; the abject hatred of our fellow man; and every other thing that’s part of the human experience. Here we stand, damaged, wounded, but ever hopeful for better days. We’re pitiful but we’re all we’ve got, boys and girls, so hold hands and keep taking new territory. Trauma’s most powerful enemy is truth – use it at every opportunity.

Speaking of trauma… my new friend Erica and I worked on rooting out some more of it yesterday in my second hour-long massage. Her amazing hands know where pain lurks and she’s fairly merciless already… hurts so good, can’t wait to go back.

Small psychic traumas are gradually resolving as well, including a sense of rootlessness and lack of purpose. At some point after the lifelong nerve pain disappeared, my brain started working on the problem of “Okay, who am I NOW? I can finally do pretty much what I want… what’s that going to look like?” After a few months’ rumination on that question, it came to me one day not long ago that at 75 I don’t have to go out and reinvent myself in order to pay my dues as a resident of the planet. I already HAVE a life, here in this smallish space, that requires my involvement and TLC, and could take up most of my time if I wanted it to. This is good. I’m home. Having said that, I’ll be branching out a teensy bit in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

Everything that happens to us feels like such a big deal at the time because we’re hothouse flowers with intense feelings, so it takes time and perspective for our personal traumas to start turning loose of us. Sometimes we like them too much, which complicates the whole thing. Those hurts and slights and terrifying wounds tend to validate our existence, so they feel like our buddies rather than the thoughts and memories that will eventually paralyze us and shorten our lucid days.

I take Sir Winston to heart…

“This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” (whomever/whatever you perceive that enemy to be)

Above all, never lose sight of this befuddled truth, brought to you by the Society for the Proliferation of Crap Platitudes.

Image by Judy Smith

Rain, rain, love you, mean it…

08 Mar 2023 4 Comments

***

It’s a Day in the Doldrums, silent outside, fog hanging in the trees, everything a little drippy and chill. This is the kind of day that lifts me right out of the muck because its expectations are clearly bottom-basement, causing me to feel no pressure to meet anybody’s standards but my own. So, inspiration having been recognized, we’ll see how it all plays out today. As a precautionary measure, a hint to any and all who wander into my space:

Simple perfection, is that too much to ask?

As the planet continues to be a cockamamie place to live, my intention every day, after that first savory taste of coffee, is to de-stress in all the ways open to me. To allot the first hours of the day to positive thoughts and a mental list of “foment progress” bullet points. To let the day’s headlines, good, bad, or ridiculous, stew in their own juices for a few hours before trying to sort truth from fiction. There are a lot of big stories I’ll probably never read or absorb in any detail… the Murdaugh murders, the Iowa campus killer, the Theranos thing, countless others… because it’s a lot of stuff I don’t need to know about. It’s extraneous angst… it isn’t that I don’t care, I care too much about things I have no power over. At some point we have to be afforded the means to bring about change, or else bury the compulsion and stop looking at it. These days I opt for peace in most situations, perhaps more than my share, because the “pick your battles” admonition means nothing to a feeler… they’re ALL ours, unless we turn them over to someone better equipped to win. You can’t win ’em all, and that’s a lesson straight from life.

For old and young alike, the world just IS a crazy place… unpredictable, unfriendly, uncontrollable… and the inherent frustrations are very efficient at producing anger, the monster that destroys us. Anger is self-feeding because it draws from an endless array of sources and is a master of disguises. Sometimes we think the heaviness of anger in our spirit is depression, but no, not yet, it’s still a simmering cauldron and needs to be dealt with STAT. Very destructive, that simmering rage… soothe it with honesty, love, and understanding, ASAP.

A big challenge as the years and experiences accumulate, is that of keeping our hearts soft in the face of an uncaring environment. Feelers rack up every event until we’re full of shards on the inside and sheathed in tungsten on the outside. Fortunately, life marches through on the regular and plows everything up for us, no crustiness allowed, get back in the game, keep that heart tender in spite of the odds, and insist on being your own weird self every damn day, including this one.

I only share these things with you because they’re vitally important and it’s taking me a lifetime to learn them. The simplest facts about being human are the hardest to master, so hints are good, right? I share stream-of-consciousness because I know there are other people out there… and some of you are dear friends… who experience all of life on a personal first-hand feel-everything basis and don’t always know what to do with that… just like me. It’s a colossally lonely feeling, so maybe we should stick together… you know, inasmuch as angsty introverts are capable of doing. I know you’re there… I feel your heart.

Image by Judy Smith

Feeling the love…

06 Mar 2023 8 Comments

***

For humans who feel everything, every tiniest thing, there are days on end too dark for words. And then the sun breaks out again and some of those humans feel a little sheepish about all the inner angst. Oh well. That’s just how it is, and hello sunshine. I’ll play nice if you will, world.

Things you learn along the way:

Staying childlike, that’s the trick…

I rolled up on this during my coffee reflections this morning, and felt it deep. Just one would lend legitimacy to this steady stream-of-consciousness…

Image by Judy Smith

A random Thursday…

02 Mar 2023 2 Comments

***

A weekend state of mind settles down upon #lfk by 5pm on any given Thursday, providing a quasi-4-day chunk of R&R out of every seven. Something about bars, restaurants, sports, and living in a university town guarantees this laid-back state of mind and I take to it like a duck to water, if mostly as an observer.

It’s a happy week here, with our Jayhawk boys winning the basketball conference title for the 20th time in the league’s 24-year existence. Their statistics are off the charts this season, and it’s beyond fun to live in the midst of the celebration. FACT: Winning feels better than losing. My love of well-played sports puts a little wedge between me and a few of my friends, who find it at odds with my core pacifism, but there will be no justifications forthcoming – I’m that girl, and other people’s thoughts are none of my business.

Also this. Says the same thing as above, and covers all bases.

Speaking of bras, I’m pretty sure Oklahoma just banned Dolly Parton:

That’s your semi-regular load of random, boys and girls, do with it what you will, and make good stuff out of the weekend. Try to fare better than the Peeps – in which the key is “Don’t Be Fake.”

Image by Judy Smith

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Playing for Time

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I choose favorites …

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