Wherever you go, There you are!
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Monday, February 7, 2005
A quick update:
Life is OK. Good times with friends :-) Keeping up with the laundry (now that the dryer works again). Projects are coming along pretty well. There is hope for the jobsearchers among us, for the first time in a long time.
Still, some sad news from some areas :-( People I care about are having tough times, and very likely, people I don't know at all or not too well are also having tough times....
The president is kind of a narrow minded fool with a penchant for throwing his power around - unfortunately that takes us all along even if we would prefer not to go.
Yet, I seem to be able to retain the still center and meet all challenges with calm strength and confidence.
Happy Trails All!
Current mood:  calm Current music: Hey Jude, echoing in my mind
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Sheesh! It has been forever since I last wrote anything. Life rambles right along and one thing leads to another and next thing ya know huge chunks of time have gone by and ya haven't even noticed....
In two days it will be 44 years since my parents were married. Of course, Daddy has been gone now for 25 years. And still I miss him. And still I call him Daddy as if I were a 10 year old. And still I remember their anniversary more easily than most of my friend's birthdays. I think I'll give Mom a present that day. I won't tell her what it's for.... in case she feels weird about it, but I just feel the occasion should be marked somehow.
It makes me sad to think that my nephew will never be able to know from firsthand experience how fun and interesting a person was his Grandfather.
On a more positive, less memory laney note: The second InuYasha movie rocks!
Also, Adult swim has put Big O back on 3 nights! Yeah! Now maybe I'll get a chance to figure out what's going on...
I am thinking about getting some fish. I have always loved aquaria and since my little cat died last april there is no particular reason to not have fish. She would have enjoyed them, but I never felt quite right about getting fish, only to have them threatened by the cat on an hourly basis.
I'm not in a rush, I want to look into it a bit and put together some different types in an interesting way, sort of like art with living color. More info as it becomes available....
Oh Yes, the weather. Enough snow already! I give up!
It *is* very nice, fluffy, sparkly snow and it brings a blanket of sound muting that I always enjoy, as well as a nice level of light reflection - a full moon reflected off all that snow turns night practically into day! You could sit out there and read a book, well, if you could stand the frigid temperatures.
So, I LIKE the snow, but I've enjoyed just about as much snow as I can. I wouldn't even mind more at some point after this stuff has all melted away during a week of temperatures in the upper thirties and low fourties. Ok, enough complaining about the weather.
Hmm.... not a very profound post... Eh, whaddah ya gonna do? Hope all who are reading are reasonably well and happy :-)
Current mood:  as usual Current music: Snowplows Scraping By
Sunday, January 9, 2005
The second InuYasha movie is now in my collection! I haven't really had time to watch it yet and, in a way, that is a cool feeling. Knowing that there is a new story I've never seen just waiting for me to watch it! Fun. One of life's little pleasures. A blessing in a way... So I'm counting it: 1 and there are more:
2. A good productive meeting, many new ideas generated.
3. A nice dinner with good friends
4. By chance, meeting a lady whose husband was a good friend of my Dad's and hearing her talk about what a great guy he was.
5. My mechanic, who is one of the nicest people I know, and a skilled mechanic
6. My mom, who seems to actually understand me now and is supportive and wonderful
7. The great kids I have watched grow into smart, strong, clever, and loving people
8. My oldest, who will turn 22 later this month and who has grown into a fine person
9. Dark chocolate. (well, it does make life just a little happier)
Just nine for now.
Plenty enough to remind me just how good life really is! Despite the occasional negatives, on the whole life is good and I am lucky and happy to be alive. Here's hoping that anyone reading this can find nine things that bring pleasure, happiness, and joy to their lives..
Current mood:  Maybe? gotta look it up! Current music: Good Vibrations
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
And here I thought I'd be able to update more often after the holidays ...
Life is continuing along at it's usual Waytoomuchstuffhappeningatonce pace. Sometimes it threatens to be too much... I feel as though I am operating in a world where everyone has sensory impairments but me.
Kids suffer because parents are so dysfunctional that they can't see that they are using their children as pawns and shields in a war between them. Sad thing is no one seems to see that it changes the kids more and more as time goes by and the war goes on. Creativity suffers, self expression suffers, I see kids who are just drowning, their personalities becoming more subdued, their feelings of the joy of life ebbing away leaving cynical, self doubting, depressed people who don't know what to believe or who to trust.
I do what I can to try to wash and bandage some of the wounds. I try to offer comfort and some reassurance. I let them know I'm here, that I'll listen, take their pain seriously. Yet even as I do those things I constantly wonder if it will be enough, if it is too late, if some of what they might have been is already gone before they even had a chance to know what it was or that it was there. Still, I continue. Believing that kindness and support can only help, even if it is only a little, in some cases it might be enough.
I remember my childhood and adolescence in quite a bit of detail, probably more than most people. My parents were kind and gentlespirited people for the most part, but no one is perfect and everyone falls under the sway of their personal demons from time to time and cannot help but display them, occasionally, to their children. I saw my parents demons, and I resolved to never inflict my own demons on any child in my care. Instead I faced the issues, worked them out on paper or in conversation, or imagination, I made peace with them, and slowly they faded, losing control over my feelings, attitudes, and actions. I am not perfect, but I have worked hard and I think that I have, for the most part, done well. I hope.
Part of who we are is in our genetic inheritance, but part is also in what we experience as life goes on pulling us along with it. That is why the whole "nature vs. nurture" debate leaves me cold. At the least, nature and nurture both contribute to who we are... but I think there is another factor that is not given much press. We also get to decide what to do with our nature and how to view our nurture and how we want to integrate those things and in so doing, sort through and discard stuff we don't want and absorb into us things we have observed in others.
That is the key to overcoming the bad stuff. We get to decide how to live. No matter what we get to start with we have the power to make it work for us. May not be easy, but having the possibility is crucial!
Well, I have gone on too long.
Current mood:  pensive Current music: the ticking of the clock
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
The next three weeks are likely to be the busiest times of the year, what with Christmas fast approaching, family birthdays (3 this month!), a wedding anniversary, and New Year's Eve, there will be more things to do and more social occasions to navigate (and, at times, I will be the one giving them!), than in the whole of the rest of the year combined!
Now generally busy=happy but I find at this time of year, my more introverted tendencies do not get enough time or attention. I have always had this little war going on inside between loving all the flurried activity that makes life fun, and truthfully, possible (even all that drone-like stuff: paying the bills, laundry, grocery shopping, changing the bed, home improvement projects, etc. NEED 'em so might as well really GET INTO 'em and enjoy 'em!), Yet in opposition to that, I seem to revel equally in my alone time: time to reflect, think, meditate, come up with detailed plans for new projects, read the newest info on all my various science interests as well as pulling that and other info together to see if I might even come up with something no one else has thought of yet (it happens, but someone usually catches up and make a formal announcement soon after my feeble intellect comes upon it)
So I do this balancing act fairly well most of the time ... but at this time it seems there are too many demands on my "extrovert" activities and skills so that my "introvert" needs go wanting for a while. It has happened this way for most of my life (since I was about 7. That was about when I started having, and caring about, a social life outside my immediate family) and I have to say that I am MUCH better at dealing with it than I used to be. Nevertheless, it is still rather stressful.
Now that I am talking about these opposing needs it comes to mind that much of my life has the same kind of dynamic tension between two seemingly opposite impulses in many different areas.
For instance: I love to travel, to explore new and different places with novel experiences of life to offer, in fact I NEED to do this .... BUT .... I NEED the feeling of being home, where things are the way I make them, where I create the order to suit myself, where there are predictable, unsurprising things day after day. I want both, I need both and although I may prefer one over the other at times, the best way would be if I could have both at most of the time. It would be really tedious for me to go on listing examples.
Suffice it to say that I feel very strong pulls from at least two sides of anything that has at least two sides!
I am a tightrope walker? No... Walking the edge of a blade? Not quite... Perhaps I am more akin to a large colorful hot air balloon, held by many tethers pulling with equal force, not damaging me, yet not allowing the freedom of flying off into the air in one direction or another. That is closest, yet not even that is quite it... I'll have to think more about the analogy.
I have been convinced, from an early age, that many people are not quite so aware of what is going on within them. Part of what convinced me are the reactions I have gotten when I have been either so young and impulsive, or pressed by some well meaning adult who regards childhood as a blissful time with few demands, as to share my internal "agonies" with people. I've been told I was "making mountains out of molehills" or that I "think too much" or "worry too much" and such. Imagine being an intelligent, self aware kid and sharing honest concerns and then imagine getting laughed at and not taken seriously and having your honest concerns dismissed as some sort of aberrant excess of thought. Didn't take long before I stopped sharing.
Well, enough introspection for today.
Current mood:  thoughtful Current music: The Sounds of Life in the Suburbs
The North High School Holiday Music Performance was last night and as I know many people in the band and even some in chorus, I had to see it! Mainly, I was wanting to support someone in particular who is a wonderful person dealing with some difficult situations in life.
The performance was ... well, exceptional! Every person who participated can be pleased and proud to be part of it!
I was very happy to see and hear it and I found that the experience was very uplifting, actually kind of spiritually filling, I left happy and, selfishly, wishing there were more than two concerts per year!
I especially enjoyed Chatauqua (sp?), Voice Dance, which was Acapella, and a number whose name I can't remember ... a lively tune accompanied only by two people playing drums (very captivating! and the drumming was excellent!)
There was a young man in the chorus who despite being perhaps the shortest, had a tremendously fine deep voice that occasionally rose a bit above the others, much to my delight :-) Sadly, this young man was not given a solo part. Maybe in the spring concert?! I would enjoy hearing his voice alone and I wonder if music is a consuming interest for him or only a fun hobby.
Guess what I'll be doing tonight? There is a Jazz concert tonight! You can be sure that I will be there early to get a better seat!
Current mood:  enthralled Current music: The Rhythm of Life in the Suburbs in Winter
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Here it is: The very first update! How exciting! How overwhelming .... writing in journals all my life has just not prepared me for this - this is not a little blank book to be filled with my thoughts and only available for me to read - this can be read by anyone who cares to look! Even, perhaps, by those who accidentally end up looking at my less than impressive words of, well, maybe wisdom occasionally, but more likely some kind of inane babble about the trivialities of my everyday life. Things that I might find tremendously compelling but that the vast swarms of humanity will probably find boring or possibly even incomprehensible. But, Oh well, Away we go ........
Current mood: accomplished
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