the world got broken
we weren’t sure that could that really happen
but it did and now
we’ll probably get blamed
JSmith 12/07/2021
The view from here…
05 Dec 2021 2 Comments
Overcast Sunday morning, but headed for the 60s this afternoon and Kim’s jonesing for a bike ride or some PickleBall… we’ll see what’s in the cards. But first a nice soak for the ancient bones.
The annual Fall Purge juju has hit and I’m primed to pare things down some more. Looks okay on the surface, but my brain remembers what’s stacked beneath. Cyber files, mostly, including thousands of photos, but there are still various bins and containers lurking, some of whose contents feel threatening to the touch during rough times. The psyche and I will get to all of it… sometime, at the right time. [Thx, my friend, for that convo this morning.]
And just when I was thinking it was safe to go back in the online waters, my Emotional Support Canadian resigned this morning via Twitter, pleading exhaustion. Says we’re on our own here. Didn’t even sound that regretful. Go home, America, you’re drunk – you’ve managed to lose goodwill from people who actually wanted to like us.
Soooo, what have I found for the disenchanted Sunday morning subculture that is us?
DISCLAIMER: I don’t identify as atheist, because who am I to say? And I don’t identify as Christian because I put in the time with them that allows me to have a say. In my 74+ years, life has taught me, humbled me, broken and remade me, caused me to call on all remaining brain cells, and given me incentive to stay the course. In terms of the universe, I know nothing except what it tells me, and this I know… whatever/whomever made/caused/set in motion the cosmos in which we find ourselves… we are it and it is us. Every molecule that ever existed is from a single source, which indicates a creator, either intentional or not. So… was whatever started this whole thing benign? Benevolent? Neither? Had a plan? Never gave a shit in the first place, just birthed a gigantic cosmos and wandered off? Did he/she/it do the whole thing as an experiment… or a taunt at an enemy… or did it hit a lever and OOPS?? Does it hate our guts, wish he/she/it could be rid of us? I mean, something keeps trying, but we keep insisting on masks and vaccinations and such…
This much I’ve learned…
- WE are the boogeyman.
- Nobody’s coming to save us.
- There is no Planet B.
- Kindness and cruelty are equally powerful – we choose.
- Earth would be healthier without us, but we persist. The least we could do is stop shitting in our own nest.
Not proselytizing for Abject Unbelief here, just a fan of clear-thinking approaches to all of life, so a little thought-food for the unfaithful…
DISCLAIMER #2: The above is neither a christian-bash nor a boast of any kind, it’s an invitation to all of us to be brave about truth. If it offends you and/or makes you want to shoot me dead, ask yourself why that is. Only you can say.
Deep thoughts…
01 Dec 2021 Leave a comment
Fall… holiday season… perpetual change… bring on the nostalgia. Happens every year, we survive it or don’t and then we put it back in the closet ’til next time. Just for the sake of novelty, I’ve been trying to do the opposite … take it all out of the closet, evaluate each component on its merits and keep or not, according to my conscience and Marie Kondo.
Over the past hour I’ve jettisoned almost fifty draft posts that are no longer at risk of ever seeing the light of day, thank the universe. Hoooo, babies, what I’ve spared you from over the years by not publishing everything I write! That draft folder was a dank place steeped in anxiety going back to 2015, a litany of woes, a broad sampling of idiocy, none of it well done. I have no idea where my head was with some of it… post-surgical opioids?? At any rate, the evidence no longer exists, nor is it a threat to anyone, and you can thank me at your convenience (I like chocolate chip cookies and Michelob).
Amongst the ruins there are treasures to be rescued, always excellent motivation for sorting and tossing…
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Men die wishing they could know for sure if they measured up.
Women die wishing they’d known how to own their lives from day one.
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There are people — the friends of your heart — who pick up on everything you don’t say — and they put it into a context that fits everything you know about them and everything they know about you. And that’s just real.
And then there are days when a memory shows up and brings Christmas with it… a card from 1955 when Kim was four years old and his sister Joy was five. 💙 Christmas happens in the heart, moment by moment, and I remember thinking last year that I never wanted to see another December like that one. It’s December 1st in the year 2021. The moments start now.
Sea changes…
27 Nov 2021 Leave a comment
Whether we’re true believers, hangers-on, or equal-opportunity revelers, the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Easter exerts power over all of us. It’s hyper-represented, and thus misses the mark every year, by which I mean world peace is yet to be realized, and peace almost anywhere has become a myth.
For someone who likes to imagine herself a communicator, I’ve clearly done a piss-poor job of it over the past ten years or so. I’ve sat here at my computer, thoughts preoccupied with the immediate, and watched the world change, moment by moment, event by event… observed while the prevailing mood of the country rolled from benign tolerance to annoyance, to resentment, to violence… and I still have a hard time believing where we find ourselves at the end of 2021.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve said “I don’t get it” in the past decade, I’d buy a lovely dinner for the first person who could map out a schematic of what’s happened, and why almost nobody wants to talk about it. I’ve had conversations with a few former stalwart conservatives whose thinking has morphed over the years, and without exception they’ve been happy to tell me what drove their change of heart… things like morals, ethics, concern for other humans, how people are treated around the world, money, greed, blurring of government and religion, crime at the top, and so on. On the other hand, no 2021 conservative I know has shown the slightest willingness to have an adult conversation with me about the world and their take on it. If I ask a question, I’m intrusive and threatening. If I answer one, I’m rude and aggressive.
“I don’t get it” is no doubt a huge tell in the age game, probably a thing boomers say. But I’m just being straight, I want to KNOW. I want to know why we ended up locked in this cage of solid lines, solid walls, a complete stonewall. Everything that happens in the world affects us from womb to tomb, and the past decade has been packed with trauma and upheaval, so why would we think life wouldn’t have changed us in the process as well? There are people I care about who are so transformed as to be unrecognizable, but I still care. If they’re close to me, or were before society started unravelling, I’ll ask them questions… because I want to know who they are NOW. It’s no secret that I’m not the same person I was twenty years ago – life happened and it set me off in all new directions, for which no apologies are owed. Okay… so I’m a different person, you’ve changed, talk to me about what took you down the road you’re on… human things, not statistics, not rants, not I’m-right-you’re-wrong… simply, here’s who I am now, and because I love you I’ll even tell you why.
Somebody a lot of people claim to worship said “You have not because you ask not.” I’ve asked to the point of being summarily kicked to the curb… or I simply know I’ve asked for the last time “Who are you at this age? Can’t we have a conversation?” and if I push the envelope one more time I’ll be locked out and blocked.
How then do we lower some of the walls, open some windows, figure out how to trust each other? I’m hanging out here in the wind, an open book, knowing my liberal friends and family have my back, and wishing those I love on the other side would be straight with me so our relationships aren’t permanently broken. How can a simple two-sided conversation be so threatening? After everything that’s happened, it seems disingenuous to pick up and go on as if nothing has been altered and pretend we still know each other.
Either I’ve asked the wrong questions the wrong way… the right questions the wrong way… or there was never going to be a right way to start with. Communication is by nature at least 2-sided, so I’ve obviously over-talked because what I’m hearing from the other side is crickets. People forget they unfriended me years ago for being liberal-minded, we make a chance connection, they send me a Facebook request, I say yes (oh, Pollyanna, girl… sigh), they see I haven’t altered my worldview since last time they disowned me, they confront me with what are later described as rhetorical musings (with question marks at the end), I answer (being an old bag with a heart o’gold), they take offense, and within three minutes I’m out on my ear again. Will I never learn? No, no I won’t. It’s just how I roll.
I make enemies because I care and I won’t shut up. I lose people from my life because I talk to almost everyone the same way… I say my truth and I don’t dilute it to a ridiculous degree to keep from offending. What I should have been saying to people I love is “Don’t talk to me about your politics or who’s done what and how much you hate it. Tell me what you care about, what keeps you getting up every day, what life means to you now… and talk to me like you want to be there. I’m not being confrontational, I just miss you.”
And then I remember that I’ve done it too… I’ve dropped people like they were hot after the second time they slammed me in front of the gods and babies on Facebook… and I doubt that felt right to them either. Doesn’t seem quite like comparing apples to apples, but I’ve been impatient and unkind plenty of times during this challenging era.
From birth we know who we feel safe with, who we want to be around, who our people are, where we find comfort and peace. We of course also know who we don’t trust, who makes us clam up and be an observer, whose views scare the daylights out of us, who makes us feel less-than… and ain’t nobody got time for that.
You wouldn’t think a person would forget a thing like this, but it slips my mind that there are fellow humans who genuinely dislike me, disavow me, and have no interest in hearing my name again in this lifetime. None of what I’ve said is about those people… they have personal freedom to stay off the path I’m on, and that’s how that works.
The world has shifted under our feet and relationships we once thought couldn’t be broken are in ashes. It feels necessary this morning to acknowledge that, accept it, and keep moving. I’m sorry for my part in the brokenness… but I don’t give up without a fight when something matters, so I’m sure I’ll continue to annoy and disgust people I don’t even know are looking.
For now… let’s think about holiday lights.
Thankful…
26 Nov 2021 Leave a comment
Holidays now are ghosts of traditions past, but yesterday felt right. Rita and Kim did the cooking, kept it simple but delicious, and all the feelings were mutual. Three people in one room on the same page makes for a relaxing observance and we enjoyed it all.
In the afternoon, Rita went to a movie with friends and we flaked out with football, isn’t that how it’s done? We missed getting a picture of Kimmers, but he snapped one of us for posterity since the hope of “next year in Jerusalem” is never guaranteed.
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And oh wait… here’s Kim on yet another beautiful day this November… 💙
We hope everyone’s gathering was peaceful, all hearts grateful, all ties intact. That’s a lot.
If wishes were fishes… page 142
24 Nov 2021 2 Comments
Reprinting a page from my COVID Diary about this time last year…
Day 248 – 11/18/2020
It’s a blustery day, sunny and windy. Parks & Rec installed tarps on the north fence of the PickleBall courts and every morning since then the wind has blown from any direction but north. They’ll hit it right again one of these days but had to give it up after a half-hour this morning.
Kim’s making banana bread mini-loaves, a bi-weekly occurrence, which he shares at PickleBall and tucks into the little food pantries on Mass Street. Makes the house smell amazing.
I’m scouting out good stuff today, like this picture Rita found from our wedding reception when I was still under 100 elbees. We were in the wonky kids’-church area and it makes me laugh that Kim had a door handle in his neck and never even felt it. “What, me worry?”
What we hoped would bring an end to the chaotic limbo hasn’t, and the charade continues unabated while the world falls strangely silent. If I had a time machine I’d go back and talk with my Great-grandma Salome Wagner, who lived through the Civil War in southern Indiana and was forced to quarter Union soldiers on her farm. I’d ask her when she first began to realize that the United States consisted of two nations… and how she kept her heart from breaking. No time for such foolishness, then or now, but it comes to us anyway… the disbelief, the denial, the anger, the senseless bargaining, the overflowing grief. I’d ask Grandma Sally if she reached acceptance before she died, and if neighbors ever trusted each other again in her lifetime.
I’d hop in my ride and go see my Grandpa Reese for a while. He could tell me about fighting hand-to-hand in WWI at 17 and coming home to the gratitude of his country. Same with anyone who made it through WWII – nothing but appreciation for a job done. Korea, too, as far as I know. Maybe things started south during Viet Nam and we’ve never really pretended to be one nation since we brought our military personnel home to derision and contempt. This pacifist is of the opinion that if we send them, we support them.
There’s a long list of people I’d call on in my time machine, people who could provide much-needed perspective and objectivity, and I really wish I could have conversations with them. I’d be sure to get some hugs and advice from my mom while I was out there…
On the silent days I miss everybody louder.
What’s the story?
23 Nov 2021 2 Comments
When we sheltered from COVID-19 in March of 2020, I took for granted I’d be staving off cabin fever by reading some of the many books from my never-ending list, but it didn’t exactly work out that way. Those months turned out to be very much like dealing with the death of a loved one, and instead of feeling energized by voluntary captivity and freed to pursue any and all interests, I found myself in grief mode, focus lost, drifting with the hours. I did try repeatedly to get into a book, but after the third or fourth romp through a paragraph I had to drop it every time.
Sometime this spring my damped-down psyche woke up and said “What’s to read around here, anyway??” and it’s been a steady parade since. OMG, welcome home, my BFF, I missed you like deserts miss the rain, please don’t do that again, ‘k?
Since once again becoming [TRIGGER WARNING: Buzz word] “woke,” I’ve read:
She Come By It Natural – Sarah Smarsh
The Year She Left Us – Kathryn Ma
11/22/63 – Stephen King
A Widow for One Year – John Irving
Women Talking – Miriam Toews
The 19th Wife – David Ebershoff
In the Distance – Hernán Díaz
American Woman – Susan Choi
After the Fire – Henning Mankell & Marlaine Delargy
All the Beautiful Girls – Elizabeth J. Church
The Beekeeper of Aleppo – Christy Lefteri
Alice I Have Been – Melanie Benjamin
Among the Missing – Dan Chaon
The Atomic Weight of Love – Elizabeth J. Church
The Bean Trees – Barbara Kingsolver
Current read is Billy Bathgate and the jury is still out, but all of the above I would recommend without hesitation. I’ve likely managed to leave out a few, but the joy is that I haven’t been without a book underway in months, and that’s progress I can respect. We’re in the thankful season, and I’m deeply grateful that good books are still part of my daily life, and that the thrill of aging and the joy of reading are still friends.
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There’s nothing more freeing than truth…
22 Nov 2021 4 Comments
The past week held a little of everything, which I’m still processing. Forward progress happened… news of the world disappointed and sickened us again… the daily goodness we depend on was all there… and we learned more things about the people in our lives.
I’m still abstaining from TV news and benefitting from that new habit. Reading the headlines for myself is a different animal from hearing them pounded to a pulp by the various talking heads, and it worms its way into my psyche far less. It’s all still happening, still every bit as appalling and life-altering… but when I walk away from the written word, my brain knows there’s far more hope in the world than we’re being led to believe.
The past couple of weeks have been a watershed… a time for facing truth. The bent of the nation and the world is a totally real thing… corporate fascism is bursting with energy and drive in the civilized world, and the peculiar ethic, the tenets, the morés that fuel it have by now filtered down to the man on the street. A 3-minute conversation is all it takes to turn a buzz-word into a breakup. Who we are is out in the open, and it isn’t who everybody THOUGHT we all were.
A long-lost relative drew me into a political discussion recently, which stayed civil until I asked him how he could align himself with one of the most heinous human beings on the planet. His answer, “You make it about him, an undignified coarse-talking buffoon of a personality. I voted for principles. I learned a long time ago to live day to day on PRINCIPLES ….NOT…. Personalities. So….Judy, if we can’t compromise in our relationship, then we have to do the next best thing. Cut ourselves loose from one another.” For the second time in 20 years, you mean, after a 3-minute conversation. I have yet to find a 2021 Republican who will talk with me… just talk, and listen, and talk some more, with thoughtful silences and an indicated willingness to consider any and all facts. Apparently it’s a guiding PRINCIPLE not to do that.
The same relative told me, “I loved Robert and Judy Latta. This Judy Smith person I can’t deal with.” THE FACTS: Robert Latta died a violent death and didn’t come back, and Judy Latta, in many necessary ways, went with him. Judy Smith is who I am. You never knew me.
The division we knew was there, that we can feel building month by month, is too real for words. Until now we’ve been able to cover parts of it up and pretend it’s really nothing and it’ll smooth over. But people are finally saying outright “I don’t like you, please go away,” so I think it’s here to deal with for the foreseeable.
People don’t appear to want to talk, discuss, consider, think, instead preferring the lines to be drawn in indelible ink and never trespassed against. If the U.S. falls apart, it will be due in large part to the fact that most of the population can’t understand, and is not interested in, the differences between fascism, communism, democratic socialism, and democracy. The words themselves become the meaning and the power, and the human capacity for discernment and comprehension takes a hike – it’s all too threatening and complex to deal with.
The fact that truth is hard to come by in this era makes it a supreme challenge to keep the meaning in our relationships. What, we’re now asking ourselves, are those connections really all about? What makes them different from anything else out there? Why do we cling to myths and fairytales? Maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that one…
Despite my relative’s disavowal of The Former Guy, he’s still the de facto head of the GOP, still shaping its posture, still tainting whatever its values were. And as my chosen life coach John Pavlovitz wrote in September of this year…
“In this iteration of our nation, the elemental decency that should define human beings is no longer a universal requirement. The base-level expectations of those we live in community alongside simply do not exist anymore. There is no standard anymore.
For so many people here, it is no longer just about a sharing a difference of opinion on an issue or about voicing opposing political ideologies or even about the expression of personal or religious freedom—it is about inflicting as much pain as I can to people who I know nothing about and who have done me no direct wrong.
I’m not sure where we go from here, but I know that this version of America isn’t worthy of our or anyone’s children inheriting.
We’re going to need more good people becoming louder about what is and isn’t within the bounds of civilized society.
We’re going to need to name what is unacceptable and to demand decency and safety for all of us.
We’re going to need to collectively hold on to our souls or there will be nothing beautiful left to leave after we’re gone.
We have to do better.
We need to reverse the Trump Effect on America.”
Hope and spontaneous joy…
17 Nov 2021 Leave a comment
Hope and spontaneous joy… I said those words yesterday to a Facebook friend who brings me happiness daily, a fellow writer of words but about half my age, so a fresh perspective with every post. Interestingly, we were talking football… and the consensus was that whatever sparks real happiness these days, bring it.
“What if I couldn’t write it down… ” That’s the mantra that moves me outside myself on challenging days and puts truth in front of me. Write it, say it, erase it, or share it.
People who know me know that the highs and lows are what set me down in front of the keyboard. When life’s all chill I just live it. The great and awful days send me to this therapy chair every time.
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A message to the faithful… [unpinning, please read]
16 Nov 2021 2 Comments
NEW MONTH, NEW DAY, SO THIS ONE IS LOSING ITS PINNED SPOT, BUT PLEASE READ BEFORE IT GETS LOST… THX!!
Such a year, such a time, amirite? But the sun still shines most days and keeps urging me to finish things I’ve started. Before the pandemic broke, I embarked on a mission to improve access to my blog by making it a subscription page (always free of charge) in lieu of depending on Facebook membership. I knew where I was going and what I wanted to do, but the project fared as well as the 37 others I began or thought about during those limbo-soaked months. Welp, here we are, 2021’s nearly over, why not launch a great and mighty effort to go out with a bang or something.
Here’s my thought process:
1. My blog has been tied to Facebook almost from the start.
2. Meta/Facebook’s future is murkier than my own at this point.
3. I would be delighted for my blog not to be dependent upon Facebook for staying in contact with my readers.
So hear me out…
If you want to keep reading the stuff I post on Playing for Time:
- Go to “Follow Blog via Email” in righthand sidebar on blog
- Register
- Break your Meta dependence and assure delivery of new posts
I’ll be hanging onto my auxiliary FB page, eponymously called Playing for Time, for a while, but since I’d like to have a quiet farewell ceremony ASAP, I hope you’ll make sure you’re subscribed through the blog itself so I don’t lose you. That matters to me. It matters that you read this stuff. It matters that you’re here.
BOTTOM LINE: PLEASE SUBSCRIBE THROUGH THE BLOG LINK BEFORE FACEBOOK ACCESS ENDS
If you’re reading this on Playing for Time the blog, look to the righthand sidebar and do the thing. If you’re reading on Facebook, go to my blog, look to the righthand sidebar and… https://playingfortimeblog.com/
[Unless, of course, this is your prime chance to bail, in which case, thank you for checking the place out.]
If you have any questions about the process, please ask in the comment section that accompanies this post, or on Facebook.
***** One additional note: At the bottom of each new blog post is a “RATE THIS” box. No one, including me, sees who votes, nor how – your vote is completely anonymous. But it means a lot to me because it tells me somebody read the post and had a response to it. So thanks for clicking. Your comments mean even more, so never hesitate to say something before you leave. I sorta live for comments.
Life forces…
14 Nov 2021 2 Comments
No force on earth holds the power of a single word
spoken in haste from the human heart,
no blow strikes so sure
no arrow so deep.
.
I love you, says DNA, tho I do not like you
so let’s speak no further lest we uncover truth that will end us.
Mayhap someday this core we’re protecting will acquire a name…
a bold new label for the ages.
.
For now we call it personal choice, my world my rights, freedom,
as it divides and plows asunder
the stuff of life that won’t be regained once gone.
Labels will not cover it.
.
Becoming the predominant species has not in turn
prepared us for being fully human, for living, for crossing boundaries on our way home.
Our spirit of adventure has been jaded by the journey
and we settle for the dull, the well-worn… the safe.
.
As a winning animal we are shabby and embarrassing, an unworthy victor.
Octopi outdo us for sensitivity and gentleness…
Crows and elephants care more deeply for their dead…
Nurse ants lick the wounds of fallen comrades.
.
Humans have evolved beyond such weakness
and we are right or we are nothing at all.
The Proud are highly amused by our
acts of love and goodwill…. all weakness and lies…
.
No force on earth holds the power of a single word
from the mouth of one esteemed.
Nothing after will hold the power to restore what is lost
in that searing terminus.
.
No force on earth holds the power…
so we disarm the words by assigning better motives
cutting slack
dissembling…
.
… and surrendering our inherent dominance,
we let the words gouge, stab, wound, and defeat us,
while the power of unconditional love goes unspent, unused, unemployed
in the pursuit of happiness… and freedom.
JSmith 11/14/2021
Sifting sprites…
12 Nov 2021 Leave a comment
We are geologists, combing layers of life’s sediment,
scuffing our feet across forgotten expanses left behind
as sprites stir, sleeping off grudges just beneath the surface…
and they are not happy.
They like neither themselves nor what differs from self…
and they are not happy.
Life is too long and too brief to provide shelter and light
to zealous sprites who after long sleep exist in the world to
insure greatest maximum distress for earth’s other inhabitants,
because why should any existing thing find what sprites can’t have.
.
So we go in search of other worlds… pockets of benign welcome where
we finally drop the shoulders, unclench the jaw, and free our tongue
from the roof of our mouth.
We say the words that hold life and mean them… words that rescue the Happy…
and we are happy.
We find the ones who get us… and in knowing us, they heal us.
Valuable trust is carefully rationed until we find that not everyone we knew
has turned spritely…
and with all the world gone dusty and dry
a cooling rain shower to the heart regenerates what matters.
JSmith 11/11/2021
A confession…
09 Nov 2021 6 Comments
Boys and girls, in light of our ongoing relationship over the years, I’m obligated to inform you that I am armed, dangerous, and a threat to polite society, as evidenced by a whiplash experience over the weekend. Be forewarned is all I’m saying. It was one of those caught-off-guard, konked on the head surprises that we’re never waiting for and all we can do is absorb them.
It’s well-documented that I’m a liberal-thinker, it can’t be disguised or hidden, nor have I ever tried. It’s a part of me I appreciate most, no apologies. Over the years, as the lines have been drawn with an ever-finer marker and the ways we think about life have utterly diverged, about half my extended family has broken off communications, for which I don’t blame them – when you don’t share an inviolable worldview, what do you talk about finally?
A test of mettle arose this past week when I received health news about a relative who had cut me loose for my wanton liberal ways… or so I assume because he closed all avenues of communication and I didn’t hear from, or about, him for long years. After seeing the message I did the adult thing, scrounged around for a contact address, and wrote him and his wife a genuine note of love and concern, which… son-of-a-gun, opened that door right back up. He was ever so grateful and kind, going so far as to send me a Facebook request, which I validated… and that’s when the fight started, except that I don’t fight. He saw my posts, realized I was still that awful commie liberal witchy-woman he kicked to the curb all those years ago, and we had a conversation… calm and measured on my part, increasingly hostile on his, including a totally incomprehensible shaming for remarrying after my first husband was killed. This from someone with multiple marriages under his belt. And then he swiftly bailed and blocked me from any further contact. That’s twice, buddy, jeez.
Kids, I tell you this to let you know there’s no road through to the other side right now and may never be again. We speak two different languages, hold differing moral codes, and our outlook on humanity is terminally split. I’ve tried all sorts of ways to hold thoughtful exchanges with family and friends who abhor my take on life, and I can testify that it’s an impossibility at this point. As soon as a real conversation threatens to break out, they’re outta there every time.
So watch your backs… I’ve been officially declared toxic to the health of a family member; therefore, who knows what further mayhem I might get up to. I’m a small 74-year-old woman who has very limited contact with the world outside my door, and who will never show up on the doorstep of people who hate my voice, even if invited… the trip alone, at this point, would attempt to kill me. So what are people worried will happen? That I’ll expose a feeling they didn’t know they had and can’t acknowledge? That I’ll “force” them to talk with me like two adults? That I’ll ask a question they don’t know how to answer? That I’ll try to drag them into some mystical woo-woo place of real communication?
I have plenty of experience, but few answers… much heavy sadness, but few regrets. I’ve been transparent and dealt in truth as I know it. And life goes on, even as it’s perpetually ending…
Ravenous butterflies…
08 Nov 2021 Leave a comment
“She did not need much, wanted very little.
A kind word, sincerity, fresh air, clean water,
a garden, kisses, books to read, sheltering arms, a cosy bed,
and to love and be loved in return.”
starra neely blade
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I hope I told you
How much you meant to me
And
How much I would miss you
When you were gone
I hope I told you
I hope I did
by Athey Thompson
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The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things…
06 Nov 2021 Leave a comment
Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings…
The first Saturday in November arrives, cold and still. Some of the trees are looking dusty and stripped, but the show-offs are still holding their colors for all to appreciate. There are four of them in direct line of sight through my windows and they bring joy with every sunrise.
As temps begin to drop, we look for things that might keep endless summer alive in us, and the internet provides the greatest mining to be found, no question.
After wiping my spiritual slate clean about a decade ago, I started from scratch, building something real from the pores in, and the realest element is Karma… she visits me every day, keeps meticulous track of what goes down among humans, and is never late showing up. Also, she neither lies nor fundraises.
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I miss Robin Williams and other fragile souls like him… the world is poorer for lack of their tender hearts. In their company there’s safety for everybody’s inner child.
Of shoes… and ships… and tomorrow’s Sunday…
Welp, there’s my problem, right there… the internet has “a little bit of everything, all of the time”… so I’ll inevitably dig out sobering truths among the summertime goodies. Such is life…
Playing for Time 
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