“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” ~ Socrates Do you agree with this quote? Is this true for everyone? Is it human nature to never truly be satisfied? I wonder…are we always looking for…more? In one of my classes the other day, a student bragged that she can get all her music at such and such a place for $5, that she needn’t buy the music, that the entire album could be gotten for this cost. She bragged of the money she was saving, and I asked her: “But what of the artist who created it? Shouldn’t they be compensated for the amount of work they put into it? For their art?” And she looked at me like I was crazy. “Who cares,” she said with a roll of her eyes. Ironically, in another conversation I overheard, a physics teacher discussed jobs vs. careers with one of his students, saying that many of the “great” scientists had “jobs” to pay the bills but did things in the arts, the things they loved, on the side to be fulfilled and happy. Are, then, the arts and so forth, something that should be given away for free? Would we all be better off with “jobs,” contributing to society in a well-oiled kinda of way, the arts and music and writing be left to everyone to share with one another more freely? Would we all be happier this way? Of course, this is a more socialist way of thinking, but is money the only validation in life to success or happiness? Or is that only a capitalist's way of thinking?
And it got me thinking too, about selling books, the amount of time and effort that goes into it. Would I, personally, be happier taking all my books off the market, and simply sharing it freely, without the strain or stress of sales? Certainly, there are many writers who make a living off their writing, but the vast majority of us do not. I make, in a year, about what I can make teaching a couple courses. Should, then, the arts be something that is just freely given for the pure beauty of it? I’ve been at this racket for five years now, and some days, I really don’t know if it’s worth it. I’m fortunate that my “job” and my “career” of teaching lend itself to my creative side daily. But I’ve finally accepted that I’m a writer, that I am a poet. It’s a part of me, for better or worse. I do write for the pure joy…so why sell it then? And so, I look inward and ask myself what I asked you all above. With each small step to success, does it only make me want more? Does money, as a motivator, only lead to dissatisfaction? I suppose I’ll have to let you know when I’m famous beyond Papua New Guinea (inside joke—but those of you who have been following me for a while, may understand). For now, I try to find contentment with what I have.
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Do you ever feel like you don't exist? Like you don't matter? It hurts, doesn't it? Today, I share my thoughts from a few recent trips I took and an event that happened. As I traipsed the city of Minneapolis a few weeks ago, going out to different parts, exploring as I often do, the scooter my best friend, I realized how the United States has failed and continues to fail on the issue of homelessness. Some cities seem to hide it better than others, painting a false perception with a simple police baton, or some, like Portland, go in the opposite direction, even embracing it as a separate subculture. It's no secret we have a serious issue here, so I won't bore you on what we already know. That we need change. That we need more social programs. That we need governments who make it a priority. That we NEED. But in NYC a couple weeks ago, the problem was even more prominent. And I still wake up some nights with that sinking feeling that we must to do better. In a park one morning, sipping my too-expensive coffee, I noticed a cluster of people surrounding somebody. Of course, I tried not to stare, and of course, curiosity got the better of me. How appropriate as it centered around a cat. A woman sat with her cat curled in her lap on a hot and smoggy day, and people gathered to give her some money, some lingering, some simply dropping coins in a can by the sign that read: Please help me feed my cat. After a couple days in the city, you become a bit desensitized to homelessness. The first day, you find yourself giving money, smiling, doing anything to try to be...well...human. And as time goes by, you just don't know what to do. I'm not proud of this. I'm just being completely honest. We start to ignore it. We stop making eye contact. We have little voices inside our heads that say --"What will they do with the money?"--or "Jesus, not again?" As more time goes on, you just ignore it. We walk by. We try to pretend we didn't see. But we see it, damn it. And we can say or hear or make every excuse in the book, but we are suddenly looking at the homeless as a thing and not a person. As a problem and not a worthy living individual. As if this PERSON doesn't even exist. Why? How does that happen? But this woman wasn't being ignored. Instead, people cared. They cared, not about her, but about her cat. That was the sticking point. I heard murmurs: 'OMG. That poor cat.' And yup, stupid me, I started to cry. Maybe I was exhausted. Maybe I was hormonal. But the point is, no one cared about her. She wasn't important. But her cat? Her cat was important.
And the hardest part of all this reflection is that while food and hunger and shelter and all that is vital, it's the emotional part that keeps us living. I know. I have a dog that wasn't supposed to live through a week and with love and care, is going on 14! And I also know first-hand what being ignored feels like. It's awful. It kills self esteem. It can make us have moments of the darkness of feelings, of self-loathing. Imagine that feeling every day? Now imagine that feeling times 50 or 100 or 1000. Imagine being ignored by EVERYONE. Every. Single. Day. Yes, America. We MUST to do better. I’m looking at a nest precariously sitting in a tall tree, and the birds look like floating leaves in the clear, blue spaces between the branches. And hear them, even with my windows shut. Spring is coming! And it demands to be noticed. It feels…different. It’s as if your whole body reacts to the change, and something shifts. That heavy winter, the one that made you drag your feet every morning in the dark cold, where coffee wasn’t hot enough, now shifts to hope, like those floating leaves, and something says, deep inside you—Clean up. Get it together. Shake that baggage. Simplify. Become lighter! It makes me want to strap on my Converse and walk and notice and breathe. That’s what spring is. BREATH. It’s the conscious inhaling and exhaling of breath. And that does more for our psyche than any drug or substance. It is a physical and mental warmth. It’s a meditation, if you let it be. You put your head to the sun and let it warm you, and FEEL it, not superficially. You feel less harried. Less stressed. You don’t want to rush the way you do in winter. There is no longer a need to rush from house to car to car to building to car again to get anywhere but the cold, running to get out of the pelts of snow or wind. Instead, you feel your neck removing itself from your ears. You let your arms hang in a natural rhythm by your side. You’re no longer freezing. It’s quite fascinating when you stop and really think about it. That tension of pulling coats close and tucking scarves into necks so they don’t move as you walk is gone. You don’t even mind standing in one place. You feel each muscle unfurling, the tension and aches--gone. You can…think. That blue is brighter than any color you’ve ever seen. So what will you do to stop and breathe? What baggage will you leave behind? Sit for a bit. Watch the birds-- for they are "the secrets of living”—and hear them, even if it’s the first time.
I've had a few strange things happen to me lately, regarding my health. And of course, WedMD and the like don't help with hysteria. After some blood tests, I'm perfectly fine. Chalk it up to some sleepless nights and stress, and our bodies and mind are quite in tune with one another. Sometimes, we need to put ourselves first. And while many people have no problem doing that, many of us do not. I'm not sure exactly what molds a person that way. I think mine comes from my childhood, something I've written about before, so forgive me if I sound like a broken recording. Growing up with a brother whose intelligence was way beyond mine, perhaps I overcompensated in other areas. That my accolades often came from "doing" rather than "being." The good daughter. The good dancer. The good student. It took me a very long time to get to a place where I understood myself. I'm still on that journey. Perhaps I will go to the grave that way. Maybe it's not about childhood at all, but just how we're born, wired. Maybe my work ethic, the way I like to stretch my body till it hurts, work until I see blurry lines in front of my face, stay up way past reasonable hours thinking and perfecting and sighing when I feel I'm not there, is just who I am. Maybe a little pain lets me know I'm alive. When a colleague told me, "We missed you at our meeting," I was reminded that I do love life but I'm not afraid to die. Why is it that people don't like to talk about that? Or mention it? I explained to her that I had to have some tests done. She was shocked. "I don't know anyone healthier than you." Yes. I am the picture of health on the outside. But our minds. Our minds have their own health issues. Show me any person alive, and I'll show you another world within them we don't get to see or hear the way they do. It's a whole universe in there. Alive and thriving some days; barely hanging on others. There are landscapes and dreams and color and black and white and roses and dirt; and sometimes, all at once. Maybe that's why writers must write. Or painters paint. Or dancers dance. Or singers sing. Or musicians play. We have two worlds, two lives. Maybe that's why we become exhausted, keeping up with both. I said: "Well...we all are going to die someday, right?" She was shocked and horrified and said: "Perhaps while you're at it, you might want to talk to a psychologist." I smiled, not offended in the least. "Perhaps I should. My mind certainly has a lot to say." But really. Besides being a notoriously rude person, she really didn't understand that I don't fear getting sick or fighting the inevitable. It's foolish. Haven't we read enough literature by now to know that fate cannot be avoided. As Shakespeare's Caesar's said: Of all the wonders that I have heard,/It seems to me most that men should fear;/Seeing death, a necessary end,/Will come when it will come." I'm not suicidal for goodness sake. But for all my romantic notions, there lives a pragmatist in me as well--sort of exactly like the two worlds that inhabit my mind within the same body. Maybe, I'm just an old soul with healthy, young eyes. I have always been creative, artsy, one might say. From fashion to dance to writing, my mind seems to see the world in images and art. It’s an odd thing, or at least I used to think so. What can you do for a career with that though? Being "artsy" isn't practical. I’d often hear. So when a certificate course of study was offered for high school students to finish with college credit in Interior Design, I jumped at the chance. Of course, nothing is as easy as picking out pictures and furniture or paint colors and style, and so it’s one of those things that never fully took hold. When I dated an older man from a bit of a wealthy background, I found myself dabbling for people, first for free, and then for small fees. I think he just wanted me to have a “career,” but I was only just in college then, finding myself, discovering who I was, making sense of my urges, and growing into the person and career I wanted. What I discovered is there wasn’t much that was creative about it. In fact, it stifled creativity. It wasn’t MY creativity. It was THEIR creativity. I’m sure that brings people much joy, to exact a plan to specifications, perfectly to someone’s expectations, to watch their joy about the completion and fruition of a vision. It can be. Do not get me wrong. But more often than not, it was just frustrating. My taste and style may not be someone else’s, and frankly, it didn’t matter. If someone wanted things I found repulsive, I followed through. After all, that was the job. And more and more, people would say they wanted a particular style or time period, but really what they wanted was a page out of Pottery Barn over and over. This wasn't about me feeling satisfied with art or beauty or creation; it was about basically doing what I was told. And I don't like doing what I'm told (unless maybe in the bedroom. :) But I digress!) This concept is no different when it comes to writing, especially poetry. A creative person needs to create. Not for pay. Not for someone else. But only for herself. There are people who write for others. Some prompts make me feel that way. Write about THIS. But I don’t want to write about THAT if it doesn’t inspire me or touch me or reach me. It’s artificial to me. Instead, I want to write about the sky or the weather or love or my dreams or my thoughts or my fears or my fantasies or my relationships or my experiences or my self-discovery or my stream-of-conscious rants; in short, I want to write about whatever I want to write about or feeling at that moment. It’s a burning urge that is almost impossible to extinguish. I have stopped trying. I create because I can’t do anything else. It comes out of me. It spills forth, whether I share it with someone or not. I write so much, so much of it I’m afraid to share, the darker moments of my psyche for instance, but I have yet to fall prey to writing for what I think an audience wants. Perhaps that is a mistake. Perhaps that is precisely what I’m doing wrong. But for now, I see the interior design of my mind, and I try to convey it with words. Sometimes I succeed; sometimes I don’t. But I never have to paint it orange when I want to paint it black. And perhaps that's not practical. But perhaps practical is overrated. In my profession, I hear this a lot: “Everyone needs a bachelor’s degree. The bachelor’s degree is the new associate's degree. Most companies/professions don’t even care what the degree is, as long is there is a degree, that someone finished a program, can show they have work ethic and drive and some common set of skills." I’m not sure if this is true. Ironically, college enrollment is down everywhere where I live (myriad theories on that, including that most families are smaller than they used to be), and there are always those who find great success without finishing a bachelor’s degree, my brother being one, a computer guru who makes a helluva lot more than me. And I’m seeing a lot of the younger generation, not all that removed from me to be honest, coming up with all kinds of entrepreneurial things. But can they be successful? Truly? Are they really setting themselves up for failure? Or do MANY people do just fine without a degree? A lot of the jobs that people used to do without a degree seem to be morphing now as society changes. While some of the past are still present--factory jobs for instance, some pretty damn traditionally good paying ones--are being lost completely, plastics as an example or outsourcing as we know it. But plumbers and electricians aren’t going anyway; police officers and firemen too; and it’s interesting to see other things cropping up: uber drivers and others like them, grocery deliverers that didn’t exist, all kinds of food trucks, youtubers, online start-ups that never existed, writers (😊 ), poets, musicians, artists, and the list continues. People are different. People learn differently. But is a high school diploma enough to be well-rounded in things like the written and spoken word for most people? I teach in a field that doesn’t necessarily prepare anyone for a career, but instead, is supposed to prepare them to work hard, to think critically, to research, to discern credibility of information, to understand different cultures, to look at ideas and problems and issues from different perspectives and points of views, to be free thinkers, and so on. Isn't college supposed to be much more than the job it gets us? Shouldn't it be more? I think it’s important. Very. But how important is a college degree to getting us there, getting us to think? I, myself, don’t really know any different track personally. I didn’t stop my education until I became employed, and I’m still going! But wouldn’t traveling fulfill the same goals? But aaaah…that damn thing called money. How do you travel without that? Is college for everyone? Are we really doing so many people a disservice if we think this way? I think we are. Every day I see that it isn’t for everyone. And every day I wish I had answers. SHOULD it be for everyone? And is that just it? The way it’s set up, it isn't. And is that the crux of the problem? Are our educational institutions too traditional? My dad didn’t complete high school, and he managed to create a business that made him a wealthy man. Does it really just come down to drive? And work ethic? The desire to succeed? To have a dream and to follow it? I wish it were that easy. So many don’t have a dream, have no clue what they might find to feed their soul. In anything! Some days, I think I'm still trying to figure that out for myself. Do dreams always align with reality? And that is another issue in itself...
And so I ask you? Where do you land on this spectrum? And are you happy with the exact path you have taken? -I love to write blogs, and I still love to read them! It brings life into focus for me. I still peruse the internet looking for blogs that interest me on numerous topics. I enjoy it. I started writing my own blogs, because I needed a voice to record my thoughts as they were happening to me. Events of the day. Things people would say to me that made me want to scream or rejoice. Feelings. Relationships. Emotions. Basically in a word: Therapy. Or in another: Health. I found that writing down my feelings and thoughts, much like a journal, help me process. Lets me move on. Forces me to think, deal with my cauldron of demons, and exhale or heal or make sense of a world I sometimes can't. And maybe it helps someone else. I never thought to publish them here, like I have been regularly. Who cares? Who would read them? Most of the time, they're stream of conscious type rambles that I think will be about one thing and morph into another. It was friend of mine who said: "Publish these. And not just on your website." I'm still debating that. Probably not. But as I learned of a new feature here on my website, Categories, I started to update my posts into topics for people to find easier, and I realized, I've written about a lot of topics (see right-hand column), some more meaningful than others. From poetry and philosophy... ...to goals, religion, and sexuality... I've got shit to say! But who's reading them? Am I wasting my time sharing them with you, maybe a handful of people who might click over and see what I have to say? Again, I ask myself, "Who cares? Do people even read blogs anymore? Is blogging a silly thing of the past? Is blogging dead?" A co-writer recently said: No one reads blogs anymore. Stop spending your time of this crap. It's not like it's driving sales... No. It's probably not. But I guess it doesn't matter. I write these for me just as I do my poetry. I write them because I'm an emotional person. I write them, because if I don't, I might carry things with me far too long, and that's not who I am. I write them to forgive. I write them to love. I write them to discover who I am. Plainly, I write them, because I'm human, and if I didn't, I might implode. Does it matter if people read them or praise me or any other reason? I would love it if they did. But I've realized that's not IT for me like it might be for other people. It will NEVER be the reason I write ANYTHING. Fuck that.
I've written them because I don't have a choice. I've written them to improve. As a writer. As a person. And as a thinker. There are too many days I want to give up because of something someone else tells me. I didn't think I'd write a blog today, "too busy," I said to myself...and then, I found myself writing, without even a conscious decision to do so! And here I am, finding a way to process things on my mind. It's helped me work out my demons. And what I really discovered is that being a writer is happening all day long for me. It's a part of who I am. I can't shut it off even if I wanted to. I have a voice. We all do. And this is what I do. I write. So even if blogging is dead. This little ol' blogger is alive...the tree really does still make the noise, even if no one is there to hear it. It’s that time of year. Giving and receiving. Returning and repurchasing. Finding time to get together with family and friends. Spreading good cheer and love…And STRESS! This week, I’m pondering the phrase, “Merry Christmas,” which as we all know has caused a lot of controversy in schools, in our everyday interactions, and Starbucks coffee cups! Oh, the horror. But seriously, I ask you, and I don’t mean this to turn contentious, what is your feeling on using the phrase? Do you still use it? Do you feel political correctness has gone too far? Or are many of us being short-sighted and not empathetic enough, thinking only of our narrow existence? Is changing, “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays” really that strenuous? If it includes more people in this feeling of good cheer and love I mention above, is there harm in changing a few words with the same message? I’ve thought about this myself. Being an educator, I must continually think about the words I use. How I make people feel. I care about that stuff. I want every student sitting in my classroom to feel accepted. To feel understood. To not feel ostracized to the best of my ability. That they matter. That their voices matter. I have differing races, sexual orientations, socio-economic backgrounds, learning levels…in short, I have a cross-section of America and an international world. It is a microcosm of the world we live in. It extends well outside of my classroom. It extends to all of us, in the US or globally at large. Over the course of several years, I’ve used both phrases. I used to be very careful to only use “Happy Holidays.” I felt it was important. Not everyone is Christian or celebrates Christmas. Many of my colleagues are Jewish or hold other beliefs, and I’ve been schooled one too many times not to realize I’m assuming a helluva lot when I say: “Merry Christmas.” But here’s the thing for me. And I may change my mind again. Who knows! But to me, the phrase isn’t about Christ at all, believe it or not, even though that’s the root of the word. Let’s face it. Christmas has become less and less about “Jesus,” the figure and person, than it is about a “feeling” and a state of mind in its purest sense. (And to some, it’s only about presents and that’ the most troubling of all.) Most of us realize the date has nothing to do with any real birthday, that it fit the timeline of the clashing paganism of the time. The whole thing is fabricated. Come on! Right? For those who still believe, that is fine and wonderful too. Let it be. I have Christian values in my heart but without the institution of religion. In fact, I don’t believe in a traditional god in any way. (You should all know that by now!). And I am not offended when someone says, “Merry Christmas” to me, even though I am not a practicing “Christian.” I understand that isn’t the issue anyway. That what offends me isn’t in question necessarily, but that it MAY offend someone else. And if I care about other people, I should care about whether or not I offend them. It’s that simple for me. Just because it doesn’t offend me, doesn’t mean that is the end of it. That, frankly, is selfish and egocentric. So when I continue with my thoughts below, I’m not being insensitive to the reasons behind the controversy. I have come to take a side on this, even if not popular. When I say, “Merry Christmas,” I look at it as my language of saying: Goodness to you. Happiness to you and your family. Prosperity and luck and love. It means all those things to me. If someone says a phrase in their language to me, a simple hello or thank you or best to you or anything that is a term of good will, I accept it as just that. Their way of saying: “I wish you well” or “I want happiness for you.”
There are many languages and many ways to speak to people. Just because I may not practice or know their language, I gladly accept and understand it’s simply an extension of who they are. Therefore, while I do understand where the animosity stems from, I have chosen to bring Merry Christmas back into my lexicon. Because to me, I wish nothing but the best, heartfelt wishes of health and happiness to those around me, and that is the way I choose to say it to people this time of year. Any phrase that is a term of good will and love, shouldn’t be censored. Christmas should not be about presents. Or commercialization. Or greed. And sadly, it seems that is all it has become for many. And that is the only offensive part. So to you all, I say, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I hope you understand, that when I say it, I am simply wishing you a season filled with love, that feeling of giving and filling our souls with that which is not about us. And I do hope, you won’t be offended by that. xo Today I ponder Thanksgiving. How many of you celebrate? Or something similar? And do you love it? Or do you loathe it, the holiday of American gluttony? I know many of my American friends love it: Football, feasting, family, and all that jazz. But for me, it’s hard to pinpoint when I started to hate it so much, this obligatory holiday, where we celebrate things we really shouldn’t be (I won’t go all politically correct on you, but you have seen Peter Pan, right?), and where most have come to celebrate it as just a simple time to be with family and friends and pause and breathe and reflect on the gratefulness of our cornucopias aplenty. I think I can pinpoint it a few things. One was the realization of what a turkey is. Interesting, the birds are still called what they are whereas beef and pork are not. I get it, you can’t lie down and snuggle with a pecking chicken, but you sure can with a baby calf, and even the most enthusiastic meat-eater agrees. There’s something unethical about that eating that with which you can love so tenderly. Still, friends of mine who own farms now will tell you that you can, in fact, hang and enjoy the company of our feathered-friends, even the ones you choose to eat. Either way, it’s a very difficult time in most children’s lives when they learn the truth. Most can get over it, having been raised to enjoy its flavor and not having to do the deed him or herself. I just couldn’t seem to. Of course, no one says you have to eat any meat. There are plenty of options, make no mistake, from gourds to cranberry sauce to pies, no one is forcing us to wear sweatpants and unbutton our pants. And I do have very fond memories of being with my Nana, the woman I derived my name from, my tea-drinking buddy, the woman who introduced me to Twinings and Darjeeling and quiet moments where we’d go sit alone out on her enclosed porch and just talk and sip and where she told me I was beautiful, and I almost believed her. So I think I’ve pinpointed it to being an adult. There is something "unmagical" about Thanksgiving for me. It screams time-honored tradition of stereotypical roles, where the women cook and the men watch football, and where the main chef doesn’t rest, rising at 4:00 am to stuff and cook a bird so everyone can gorge and complain later about how full they are, and where she must clean up the mess everyone has made afterwards, barely having a moment to eat herself, all her hard work, cold and dry, by the turn of the setting sun as everyone leaves ‘grateful’ to be full.
And really, it reminds me of my mother. My poor mother, the cook, the forever-traditionalist who refused paper plates or plastic, slaving for the happiness of everyone else around her. And then I begin to miss her and lament at all the times I stayed at my high school football game with friends, procrastinating, not grateful at all for what she was doing, but complaining with my friends, and doing things I shouldn’t have been doing. Then comes the guilt, at not only that, but at the fact of how much I had to be grateful for in her when she was alive. And then I just get sad…because I miss her. And though I respected her greatly, I didn’t appreciate a lot of things she did. Sigh… I cooked Thanksgiving dinner once. After that, I refused. I won’t do it again. If someone else doesn’t host it, my brother and some family and close friends go out to a restaurant, come back somewhere to play games, and to have desserts only. But we don’t need a made-up holiday to do it. Or to say what we’re thankful for. Or to drive or fly on the busiest, most inane holiday there is. And so, we don’t. Often. And I? I--am thankful for that. And I wonder if someday, I realize how much I wish I had the people I love surrounding me on the Thanksgiving I once loathed. I love Halloween. Do you? What has made you love or hate it? I seem to hear a lot of mixed feelings about this “holiday.” And it makes me reflect on what is it that makes me adore it so much. I’m not sure when my love for it began. Perhaps it was when, early on, it was an excuse to bob for apples and have parties with my school-age friends, eating and drinking whatever we wanted for once. Perhaps it was being raised Catholic, and the spectacle of Halloween was somehow a bit of accepted sin and mystery, wrapped in fiction and stories and movies and tall tales spun by bonfire and candlelight, one where being safely scared was highly guarded. Perhaps it was because it hearkens back to the night I lost my virginity on a porch in our neighborhood, both thrilling and taboo, where he quoted: “If the stars refuse to shine. I would still be loving you. When mountains crumble to the sea. There would still...be you and me.” Perhaps it was because my brother always had the best ideas for costumes and executed them with such aplomb for the both of us my whole life, even in college, that it sealed the everlasting awe I still have of him to this day. But perhaps, it is truly because it happens to fall in the month of change, where we watch each leaf take its leap into the unknown of this thing called death, and we see ourselves in each one of them. One by one, they each fall, some gracefully, accepting the inevitable respectfully, maybe even hopefully; and others, fighting to hang on long after their time is up, not going “gentle into that good night,” forcing us to ask ourselves if they’re fighting on purpose or if they simply don’t know what’s in store for them until they sit on the earth to be taken away with the wind to who knows where, they, our mirror image. And it makes us ponder why some people fight and grow and rise above strife in the same exact circumstances while others crumble and lash out and give up, our fates all the same in the end. Halloween is that one time a year, it’s about us. No obligatory presents or killing of perfectly vibrant trees or endless wrapping of paper to waste and clog and destroy our environment after. No obligatory family gatherings or meals or meaningless football games. No obligatory drives far out of the city to sit and gorge on things we hate and conversations we loathe, only to drive home miserable. But instead, perhaps it’s that we get to focus on just ourselves, mostly, selfishly for once, surrounded by like-minded individuals with the sole purpose of levity and kinship, and where we get to put on a mask and be someone we wished we could always be but were too afraid to…and reflect, that maybe, just maybe, this year, spring will be different. It’s that time of year. Halloween is upon us. That mischievous feeling (just how do you pronounce that word anyway?) is in our blood. We remember our childhood antics and everything seems to be in tune with what is about to happen. The wind is cool. The leaves are falling. And the branches brace for the change of time. And so do we. The other night I was driving, and the moon, a rather plump moon, more half than whole (I’m sure someone could tell me its phase), was playing a game of jump rope or hide ‘n’ seek or tag, lighting my way as I sped down the road, first bright on one side, then on the other, and I smiled big as it played its game with me, smiling its big smile back. I have these moments where I want to believe it’s my dad somehow, and it’s impossible not to when I think back to his tale: “Look. The moon is following you,” and for a moment, I remember a simple time, a time of childhood and carefree bliss. No bills. No worries. No fear of acceptance or success. Just simply one goal: To get that moon not to turn its back on me, to keep following me as we bumped along, not understanding how, no matter how far my dad drove, that moon still followed. I would prop my body around as best I could in the back seat the whole drive, craning my neck uncomfortably, to see if the moon was, in fact, still with me, ducking his face occasionally behind a building or a tree, causing my heart to race until Dad would yell: "There it is again." I was amazed by it. Enamored. Mystified. Felt special. And I believed...in magic. Nothing else mattered. Time gets us all to the same place, and the ride best be ridden with bright lights on our sides. A friend keeps telling me to pay attention to events and things that happen around me. That all of it collectively speaks to each one of us. I’m not sure I believe her. I’m a skeptic you know. But it’s hard not to notice when the weight of everything at once all add up, and we feel ourselves drowning; and then something like this happens, impossible to ignore. Perhaps it is simple coincidence. Does it matter? For in that moment, I remembered the feeling of unconditional love in the light of my dad’s memory, and all my troubles faded to jump rope with a moon. How do you feel about bumper stickers? Are they something you own personally? Do you cover your car in them? Have one or a few? If not, do you like reading them? Is there a limit? Are too many too many already? As I was driving this morning, I was running a little late, and of course, there was a car driving on the highway at a ridiculously slow speed, causing all kinds of insane driver responses of weaving and honking and waggling fingers and, I'm sure, huffing of choice obscenities through clenched teeth, trying, desperately, to go from Point A to Point B without getting into accidents. I was slightly furious: "The left lane is for passing! Move over!" I screamed in my head. At long last, the slow driver put on her blinker and slowly moved to the right lane, and we all got ready to finally pass, making it to our destination a whole minute sooner! As I got closer behind the car, I noticed a bumper sticker and around it, smaller, a few others, all related to the same topic, and when I went to pass and make eye contact, the driver was smiling, apparently oblivious, singing whatever was coming from her little Subaru, and for the briefest of moments, I smiled too, and shook my head at myself. Why was I in such a hurry? And I wondered why the driver was so calm and so happy amidst all the aggravated energy. It got me thinking about those bumper stickers on her car. I liked them. And that, too, made me smile. "How can I be mad at someone with the same political views and humor as me?" I thought and forgave her on the spot. But it made me think further: Was there any correlation between her attitude and her bumper stickers? Who puts bumper stickers on their car? Do people with bumper stickers plastered on their car actually worry less? Could it be that people who don't take themselves too seriously also put bumper stickers on their car? It's a strange theory and doubt it will hold up if I were to research it, but it did make me wonder: Is it the the carefree, the angry, the passionate, the crazy, or the every man who puts bumper stickers on his/her cars? I grew up in a family very anti-bumper stickers. It causes fights. It ruins a piece of property we should take pride in. It will hurt the resale. And more times than not, it's political, and with road rage at an all-time high, do we really want to be espousing our political and religious views driving in a congested city, full of angry, late, and impatient people? Would my smile have turned to something a bit more sinister had the bumper sticker said something that infuriated me or disparaged causes I care about? There is one, in particular, that really bothers me. Living in a primarily liberal state, I imagine it pisses off a few people. So do bumper stickers made sense? Is anyone going to change their minds about ANYTHING from a bumper sticker? The government makes lots of laws about driving. Mandatory seatbelts. Speed limits on highways. What we can and can not do while in our own cars (some of which make a helluva lot a sense). Should bumper stickers be put in that category? Are they too distracting, or worse, provokers of anger and road rage? It's their job, isn't it? To get a rise out of someone? A laugh. A clap. A honk of approval. Something to ponder. Think on. Read a few times. And of course, to incite action and in some cases, provoke anger. And to read them takes our attention away from the road, doesn't it? Or are bumper stickers simply an extension, as anything else is, of our personalities just as a t-shirt we wear or sign we put up in our yard or a button on the bag we carry?
I'm all for free expression, but should bumper stickers be relegated to places where safety and accidents and poor driving won't be compromised? I'm not sure of the answer...but I do know this. Today, I was grateful for one, because it taught me to remember that all the things I needed to get to would still be there when I arrived; and in fact, they are now over. Every moment is that way...so take your time. Are people moving too fast? Is no one having a real conversation anymore as a result? Is there any way to turn back? Or are you happy this way? Is this fast-paced world causing more and more disorders of anxiety and panic attacks and even agoraphobia? In one of my classes the other day, a student lamented that she was “docked” at work for not getting the customer’s order to him in a timely 60-second fashion and that if it continued to happen, down would the ax come, clean and swift. After all, the customer shouldn’t have to wait. It’s “fast” food for a reason. And heaven forbid, we can’t stuff our faces or slurp our drinks the moment we order them the way we can find out every ingredient that went into that drink within a 10-second swipe of our fingers across our phones. Weather today? One second. Top celebrity break up? Two seconds. Country with the lowest population? Maybe you’ll have to wait three whole seconds for your answer, but it certainly isn’t close to sixty. Slow Wi-Fi? Call in the National Guard! It’s a crisis! I thought about that today getting my coffee through the drive-thru and how recently I’ve been stressed out about finding my credit card or cash fast enough, wondering if the 18-year-old under the gun to get my order out in the fastest time possible, not bothering to make eye contact with me, would actually drop it onto my lap, thinking I’m holding it already when I’m not, and me making excuses to her (Oh, forgive me, I just need to find my credit card), because I can’t seem to get my act together fast enough! Worse, even, I begin to panic that the car behind me will start to honk its horn, forcing my credit card to sprout wings, fly into the air and onto the car’s floor, where I feel around to, desperately, find it in time all the while looking in my rear view mirror to make sure no one behind me is uttering obscenities at how slow I’m being! (And breathe.) It’s absurd. I, myself, will pull over to make sure I have everything ready to go, lest I be penalized for taking more than the allotted minute and hold up the line. Clearly, I’m not just discussing fast food. I’m discussing that we are now a society of fast food. We want it. We want it now. We don’t want to wait. We don’t want to take our time to enjoy things or learn. And we hardly want to think. We want our news in 280 characters of fewer, our poetry to fit on Instagram squares, and our god-damned purchases the next day damn it. Amazon is kicking everyone to the curb. I hear it everywhere. Well, Amazon can get it to me in two days. Why would I wait for the same thing elsewhere? Yup. Why wait when you don’t have to? The problem is…some things take the wait. Some things only happen with perseverance. And some things need tilling and nurturing to be the best they can be. Not everything can be "got" through a fast-food window. Some things are actually better when done a bit slowly. Love. The perfect apple. A sandcastle. A friendship. Music. Walks. A great play. And some things worthwhile only happen with hard work. We learn by going a bit more slowly. We make lots of mistakes when we rush things. And I’m seeing every facet of life hurt by our fast-food culture. Student writing. My writing. Conversations between people. Patience. Debate. So much thinking is regurgitation. Repeats of tweets. Black and white ideas vs. discussing the grey areas, seeing other point of views, that old thing of the past called listening. I’m not sure what we do about it. And it scares me. It actually scares me. And I wonder if we just need to blow ourselves up like the dystopian tales of the past to start over. But would anything change or are we cursed to suffer the same fate into infinity? I don’t have answers and perhaps that’s what scares me so much. So. I sit, cross my legs, take a sip of my maple pecan coffee, slowly, making that ‘ahhhh’ sound after I swallow, and I write an expanded moment, like the ones I try to teach my students…and I take my time... Today I ponder happiness. Is true happiness attainable? If I were to ask you this very moment, “Are you happy?” What would be your answer? Sometimes I wonder if happiness exists, wholly or truly. Many will say that in order to feel happiness, we must feel the pain of its opposite. That THAT is one of life’s great paradoxes. The myriad colors of emotion. I hear that sort of reasoning often. But I can honestly say that I know feelings without their opposites, love without hate, for instance. And so, that theory doesn’t often hold up, even though it’s comforting and makes perfect sense to me. Is it just a way we keep ourselves from going rogue or crazy or off the deep end? That we must always come up with plausible explanations for things that often can’t be explained. I can’t think of a time I’ve ever “hated.” I’m being quite sincere here. Maybe it is because our parents always told us NEVER to use that word: “Rosemary. You may dislike something but you never say you hate.” Sound familiar? I’m starting to think there is no lasting happiness, that maybe from a young age, we've been sold a bill of goods, and maybe that’s the thing. Maybe nothing lasts but we have glimpses of it. Does it mean I’m unhappy? Or is it just another word. Sad. Disappointed. Unfulfilled. Bored. And are they only moments, like every moment is? No moment lasts, and therefore, no feeling lasts? Like this one, right now, already gone with each stroke of my keyboard. Poof. Like childhood, gone. Maybe it’s just about change. And maybe change is a form a happiness. And maybe without change, we feel ‘unhappiness.’ Maybe it’s time I think about a change. Or perhaps we’re always chasing happiness. Maybe happiness is nothing but a hollow, chocolate bunny. There’s nothing inside happiness. It tastes sweet, but maybe it’s just…boring. Empty. Superficial. You know?
I think a better word or phrase might be peace or peace of mind. Contentedness. But then does that mean we become complacent? Perhaps that’s just it. We want the chocolate. It tastes good, but after we have a taste or worse, become satiated, we ‘feel’ the most unhappy? Are feelings even real? And so, I circle back. Maybe happiness is just an illusion. Maybe happiness doesn’t exist. Maybe we don’t want it to, because maybe, just maybe, happiness means we’re dead. You’d think summer would be my favorite season, having months off to write and swim and sleep late and eat the best of garden veggies, and it is, but there is something about fall that brings waves of nostalgia like I can’t describe. Fall makes me feel, as does each season, but fall is in a class all its own. It might be that it always makes me feel like I’m still young. I’m still the teenager Rosemary. School starting. Back-to-school shopping and tights and sweaters and UGGs. Halloween afoot. The colors and smells of pies and apple picking and pumpkins and cool, brisk air that lets you know you’re alive. Maybe it brings me back to days of first loves and leaf fights and innocence and innocence lost. Bonfires and football games and cheerleading and back-to-school dances. Maybe it’s because I teach and those things haven’t changed all that much. I really don’t know why, because it’s this strange feeling I get when fall is on the horizon. It’s such a strange emotion, I can’t even describe it. It’s an anxious excitement. It’s not all good, and yet, I clutch at its strength, its power. It’s like every sense is reawakened somehow and every emotion on the spectrum. Maybe that’s why. Maybe summer is too ‘easy.’ Maybe there isn’t as much meaning in easy. Maybe it reminds that I don’t like standing still. Maybe it reminds me of how easily I get bored. But often, and probably as long as I live, it will remind of my mother and the difficult relationship we had. (CLICK HERE to see a former BLOG about my mother.) It’s not only because of the anniversary of her death, but it’s remembering our “fall” fights. We fought the strongest during those early fall months. We couldn’t agree on clothes or hair or make-up. Dance classes would start up again, and the insecurities blossomed bigger, the pressure ever heavy, even as I needed to dance just as I needed to breathe. We loved each other under the most complicated of terms right up until her death. But it was love. Maybe falls reminds me that some days, I wish I could do a redo. And maybe every fall reminds me that I can’t. I CAN, however, do right now…and I better start figuring out what RIGHT NOW looks like. Maybe I need to let go of what others think I should be, and instead, let all my worries and inhibitions fall, a leaf from a tree that realizes when it's time to let go. Maybe “to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose” is true. And maybe, I need to start living as I was meant. Me. My season. The purpose I divine. Today I ponder what we eat. How many among us are moving towards a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle? Why is that? Why do many of us still eat meat? Is it simply because it tastes good? Is it a way to get the most nutrients and proteins as easily and quickly as possible? Do we HAVE to eat meat because of our diet restrictions as some of my friends tell me? Where do you fall into this spectrum? And why? My thoughts stem from a conversation that started with a “friend” of mine who used the word “fat” to describe someone at an environmentally-conscious-eating-healthy-and-organically event for lack of clearer description. When he used it, the whole table hushed. It was as if the word fat was a swear word, that to use it was offensive, insensitive. I remember as a child my mom saying once when watching a dance recital video back of mine that she couldn’t attend: “Who’s the fat one?” She didn’t care how graceful or perfected her form was…ballet dancers aren’t supposed to look like THAT. I’m not sure our perceptions have changed all that much. This friend (really friend of a friend) said it matter-of-factly, and people, after the hush, started to berate him as being judgmental, that he was being discriminatory against a group of people. He quickly rose to defend himself. He argued that being fat was a sign of unhealth. That it was a choice one makes. That “his taxes” were paying for "their" ailments. As the discussion got more heated (it’s a wonder, really, we all stayed seated at the table), we got onto other topics, topics of poverty and how our country makes it a luxury to be healthy. The impoverished communities having to rely on fast-food and cheap eats, and the rise of inner-city co-ops, which are a great idea, but which aren’t sustaining themselves, sadly. (at least not near me). That organic food is damn expensive. That eating healthy costs bucks. That THAT is the issue… The discussion progressed, morphed, spiraled, and it really made me think. This event I went to was all about gardening co-ops, healthy lifestyles, vegetarian eating and the alkaline charts, and living naturally with and on this Earth...and I heard a child ask: “But Mom, aren’t we killing plants too? Then what will we eat?” I stopped dead in my tracks as I often think about that too. The flowers in my vase, the many living things we kill for our aesthetics. But I thought on it and wondered how the mother might have answered. When we kill an animal to eat, that’s it. We take their life, and still, in some instances, in brutal, slaughterhouse, disgusting fashion. That's not about affordability. That's about greed. And we have evolved enough to know the intelligence and feeling capabilities of our warm-blooded friends. The pig. The cow. They cuddle. They think. They love. They feel. They are “sentient” beings. Plants are not, and science backs this. But further, some of our plant friends can bear us fruit year after year if we tend to them. That peach, for instance, grows back for us every year. The apple orchards, if tended, produce and continue to bear us fruit. And that rose oil can still bring us health benefits from afar as long as they are tended, preened, and fed.
It’s harmonious…and that, if it were my child, would have been my answer. Besides all the health benefits of going towards a more vegetarian life, it’s the ethical ones that have guided me towards my goals. I’m not hear to judge or have a contentious debate…I’m here to live my own life with my own conscience. And I ask you to think about yours consciously…after all, we're all here to grow. Do you think money-making is the new morality? Or am I naïve to think that this is something new, that in fact, it has always been this way? Are humans, by our very nature, good or bad intrinsically? Do we need to fight our urges constantly? I have no idea the answers to these questions. I like to think I’m good, not perfect, far from, but ‘good.’ That my conscience tells me right from wrong. But I ask again: Is that simply naïve? Is there no such thing but only what we’ve learned from birth onward? Our environment and upbringing shaping us? Or is it a combo of genes and environment? I’m an indie author by choice, but lately, I’ve been rethinking this. Lately, I’m disgusted. And lately, I think I’ve had enough. Let me tell you something. If you think supporting cheaters and liars and piss-poor writers is a good thing, I neither need or want your friendship. But perhaps you don’t know what you’re doing, so I give you the benefit of the doubt and, at this point, feel it a duty to tell you. If you haven’t heard, there are several authors (okay MORE than several) who have been cheating the Amazon system. I’ve been hearing about this for weeks. I try to keep my nose clean. Stay out of things that don’t affect me, e.g. MIND MY OWN BUSINESS, do what makes my heart sing and my soul soar! Fuck what everyone else is doing. I’ve got books to write. Poems to bleed. Friends to support. But I can no longer remain silent. Part of being that “good” person I spoke of above is doing the right thing. And the right thing is saying something about this. I will not be a passive supporter of this crap anymore. I kept silent because I knew not of the truth or fabrication of accusations. I’m not a torch blazing witch hunter. I need facts. I do research. I’m not a bandwagoner. If you know me at all, you know this already. But now I know. Some (I’m sure not all) of this BS is 100% true. What am I speaking of? It’s complicated to those who may not understand the system. Here it is simplistically: An indie author who chooses to enroll their books into an Amazon program called Kindle Unlimited gets paid not only from book sales but from page reads. This means, a writer who has readers enrolled in this program get paid for every page a reader swipes across with eager fingers to get to that much-anticipated ending (I am a reader as well as a writer and pay for this myself to read thousands of books a year). Following so far? More simple: For every page a reader swipes past, we writers get paid. Seems pretty great, right? I used to think so. Sadly, some authors are abusing this system. They are “stuffing” the beginning of their books so that readers have to swipe furiously to get to the “new” material. We’re talking CHAPTERS upon CHAPTERS of material before they even get to what they are trying to read. But it gets even worse. Some authors even put GIVEWAWAYS or FREE things but only by SWIPING to the end to get there. And so, as you’ve deduced, the more swipes, the more the author gets paid. Again…seems pretty great for everyone, right? Wrong! And here’s why. This affects me. This affects you. For every swipe and read, Amazon calculates our “rank” and our selling “status.” The higher our rank, the more visibility you, the reader, will see of authors at a higher rank when you shop or turn on your kindle. What does this mean?
And with shitty writing comes a shitty perception of what it means to be an indie author. It equates over and over and over that indie writers are not “good” writers. And I’m here to tell you: The only thing it shows is that some people have class and morals and standards and some are just greedy manipulators who will do anything to make a buck. I equate it with my students who cheat. I can’t change it. They have lost their moral fiber and compass, maybe never having one at all. No one wins. We just get dumber. And EVERYONE—you, me, society-- pays in the long run.
Please stop supporting this as a reader. If you open a book to find this nefarious practice, don’t be a part of it. Don’t do it. Shame on you if you do it knowingly. But as a wise man once said: Ignorance is no excuse. And now, you can’t even claim that. Is social media killing our interpersonal skills? Our flesh and blood lives? Are we spending too much time on the virtual rather than the real? It seems more and more of my friends are making decisions to leave Social Media (SM), or at the very least, put it waaaay in the background of their lives. As a writer, and a published writer trying to sell books, it’s hardly an option for me to leave altogether. Or is that a lie I’m telling myself? If I were to leave it, would my sales suffer or remain the same? So I ask myself: What am I getting out of SM and is it worth it to stick around? By the very nature of the term--Social Media—it seems just that, a place to socialize, which is fine. New ones are popping up, like MeWe, but from all accounts, that is very “social” and perhaps just another time-suck void, a place to "pick up" someone. I'm not interested in that. And what of those of us who use a penname of sorts, completely separate life from our non-virtual world, filled with a completely different set of friends and acquaintances, another universe entirely? Where do we draw the line? If SM means to use “media” to be “social,” where do we distinguish our “real” lives from the ones in cyberspace? How “real” is this virtual world and are we living in a place that doesn’t really exist? Are we creating a fantasy existence we simply don’t have in the outside, flesh and blood world, living our lives here, as if in a dream we can create? Do the lonely need social media the most? Lost in the real world? Unfulfilled? We sure do get caught up in it. We spend an inordinate amount of time here, scrolling, liking, commenting, posting…only to look up at the time and think: Well, where the hell did THAT go? People run the gamut from falling in love to backstabbing on the daily. It’s like living in a video game I think somedays, where we feel more alive and real 'there' than 'here.' My circle of friends are primarily writers (and of course readers—I hope—or this whole thing becomes Theatre of the Absurd). Is that why we like it here so much? Because we are creating, the very fiber of what being a writer is? Are we, then, writing our own stories in essence? Maybe the story we want to have? Isn’t that what a writer does? Write stories? I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’m asking them. I’m watching it destroy people while lift and free others. Where do I fit in? Is it slowly killing me or is it helping me to live a life of creative freedom, one I may not have otherwise? Or is it like any addiction where we ask the same questions: Is it affecting my real life? Is it ruining parts of my life? Am I ignoring things that should not and cannot be ignored? But then without it, addiction or otherwise, I would ask: Is this the place I NEED to spend time to write, to create, to live out fantasies? Is that just the curse of being a creative being and that this modern-day venue, almost a romantic throwback to a time of love letters and waiting for the touch of someone while basking in it at the same time, is actually a gift to stay alive? There is something so paradoxical about it, isn’t it? It’s so modern and so evasive but is it really any different than old—school paper and pen? Our letters we write to the world? Is social media really just that for writers? Our journals? Our stories? Our poems? Us? I guess I must really answer these things, for me, personally, and through the lens of my existence as a writer. But I will end with this. Either we want to share our work as writers or we don’t. It’s really that simple. If we want to write for only ourselves, there is absolutely no reason to stay on social media. None, except to be "social." And I fear too many writers are using it for only that. But even as I write that, I almost disagree and could argue that social media has made writers of us all…for every post we write is a form of just that, writing. We are human. We want to be heard. But is our quest of wanting to be “liked” slowly destroying our humanity, our true capabilities to love one another? Is it a false love? A façade? A meaningless void of nothingness?
I’ve said it before: I write. Therefore I am. If I cease to write for others, will I, myself, cease to exist? I will exist just as sure as I'm watching the clouds scroll across the sky right the way I'm scrolling my words to you right now. But I think I'd be dead. My post today comes from a conversation I had with an old ‘friend’ from my past the other day. I wasn’t going to write about it, but it’s gnawing away at me, so I must. You know when you think you know how you feel about something or what you believe and then someone challenges that, and you may change your mind or at least THINK about things differently? Yes. That. BDSM. What is it? Where/how did we come to like certain things in the bedroom and beyond? I'm not going to use this post to explain what the acronym means or all the varied nuances of BDSM. It's too varied and that's not my point here. My advice is : If you don't know? Do some research. But it used to be a long-held misconception that something “bad” must have happened to us or “traumatic,” and this is the “why” of why we like certain things, sexually or otherwise. I don’t doubt our pasts shape our present in so many ways (and our future). But must it be traumatic? No. It might be the evolution of discovery. Our journey. Someone may have asked: Hey, wanna try x, y, or z? And you say: Um…Okay. And then you discover you may like something (or not). The BDSM community spends an awful lot of time talking about consent. And it’s confusing when there are books and movies and dark romances that thrive on non-consent or dubious consent—usually, in these tales, the person “victimized” secretly likes it though, wants it, and just needs to discover it…so is there really any non-consent at all? It’s quite confusing in a world of “no means no,” isn’t it? It turns some of us on. And even in real life. It’s not always just fantasy. And, “So what?” I often said. Who cares? It’s not my business what turns on another. But maybe I’m wrong. That friend said to me: “BDSM is nothing more than consent to abuse. Period.” What? I screamed. No. You just don’t understand it. And he paused, let me rant, and then picked right back up. He said: “You misunderstand me. I’m not judging. I’m just stating the obvious. It’s EXACTLY like an abusive relationship. But with consent. You slap someone around. Or you emotionally destroy them. Or you take away their power. And then you give them pleasure after. And then comfort. The only difference is you don’t apologize for the abuse, because it’s consensual. But it’s the same, exact cycle.” (I’m paraphrasing here). For anyone who’s ever been in an abusive relationship, physical or emotional, you know the pattern. You fight. Maybe hit. Get ignored. Or “punished.” Then the “abuser” apologizes, maybe on knees, brings flowers, begs, and then, sometimes, the make-up sex is out of this world, blinding orgasm and bliss may ensue, and a time of calm enters…until…it happens all over again. Damn it. Does my friend have a point? I don’t agree with my friend. I don’t think. But then again, he does use the word consent. Is that what matters? I’m not sure. It’s why I’m writing this. I’m working through it. Some argue BDSM can be equated to being gay. It’s not a choice. It’s our make-up, something we’re born with. Maybe that is true. Or maybe it really is formed from our pasts. Or maybe it’s a combo. When the BDSM community talks loudly about consent, it makes me wonder about some of the stories I like to read (and write) and my turn-ons. It also makes me think of the BDSM Library (if you’re familiar), where most of those stories, dear god, are anything but consensual, and yet, it’s called the BDSM Library. (Not my cup of tea.) And yes, I cannot end this post without mentioning 50 Shades, and all those who call it abuse. I don’t follow that train of thought on that. But, if my friend is right, that much of BDSM is just consensual abuse, the oxymoron, suddenly may make some sense. And damn it, here I am, full-circle ending, thinking... Do you believe in Karma? Whenever I get up to my lake house after a school year ends so I can exhale among the stars, my mind often goes to philosophical ideas. It’s hard not to when surrounded by the beauty up there and the quietude. There’s just so much about the universe we don’t understand, CAN’T understand. And why do we have to? There’s so much written about being in the moment, but of course we can’t just BE in the moment, because it’s too fleeting. The next moment has already started before we can be in it and ends before we can take our next breath and so it goes, over and over. But we can be MINDFUL in moments. We can be mindful in what we eat. How we treat ourselves and others. How we speak to ourselves. How we temper judgement. How we pause to think before we speak. I sit on the beach and try to do just that. I look around me, and I see so much beauty, this moment of sun on water that seemed as if I had faked the photograph, the glitter on the water so surreal it looked like a trick of the camera. It’s hard not to pause at moments like that. It’s funny how at that moment I snapped the picture, I was battling with a persistent spider, none too large, I might add, and I know most would squish it…but I didn’t and rarely can. So what? It’s a spider and tiny and who cares, right? But it lives. As do all insects, the mosquito the only one I wage war with. And so, I let it be and marvel at its tenacity and strength as I will a few minutes later with the industrious ants whose homes will soon be destroyed by summer laughter and excitement in dancing feet. I don’t know where or why I’ve grown to treat these infinitesimal creatures as if they’re human. I have a memory of a childhood friend’s mother who taught me about nature, who espoused often: “Spiders are our friends,” and I hear myself echoing that. No one had ever talked to me about those kinds of things before in my household. No one seemed much to care about that. Of course, there will be casualties, but my knee-jerk reaction isn’t to kill them. We need them more than they need us. For we are all connected with pollination and plants and oxygen and the whole lot of it. But I don’t do it out of some great cause or a belief in karma or fear that I might be a spider in my next life. No. And herein lies my question I posed at the beginning. Do you? Do you believe in karma? And does it only apply to humans in your view? I hear so much about karma. That what you do will come back 3x to us, as if that will somehow even the score and give us the motivation to do the “right” thing, to be kind. What a lovely thought to think, that if I just do right, good things are inevitable and even deserved. You can imagine, knowing me, what I think. I think it’s a load of rubbish. I don’t beat down those who believe that. Just as I don’t beat down those who believe in god or gods or whatever they have come to accept as true. But what I don’t like is that it presumes that when BAD things happen to people that it must be deserved. That’s the problem I have with these belief systems. They are so heavily unbalanced that it makes little sense to me. Certainly, the atrocities of the pasts, the Holocaust for example, tells us this simply is not so. And it bothers me. It bothers me a great deal, because people have tried to use those excuses to explain evil, even applying it in that case. And we’re better than that. I don’t care if there’s karma or a god or not. I live a life that feels right in my soul, in my conscience, in the pit of my stomach, my gut, whatever you want to call it. Whether I’m rewarded or not is of little consequence to me. I am not here to say I’m perfect. Please. Who is? But what I do believe is that there is intrinsic good that exists, outside of anything we can possibly understand, just as there is bad, not because of laws, but because it just IS. It has no beginning and it has no end. I feel it. And that’s all I need. I don’t care to understand or have answers to the rest. Instead, I think I’ll just be quiet, and continue to let this moment--head back, mind open, and face to the sun--be enough.
Yesterday in The Nu Romantics, I asked a question about the color red. It went something like: Look wherever you are and find the closest thing to you that is red. What is it? And what does it say about you? and I discussed my red bag and its "baggage," both literal and figurative. It was fascinating to read everyone's responses, and those of us who embrace red; and those of us who do not. It says a lot more about us than we think. (Join our Facebook page to read everyone's responses). And at first, I thought it might be a fun activity, just to see what kinds of things people have around them, the small, the big, the deep and the superficial. And really, it sort of turned into a philosophical idea for me. In an earlier post this year, I wrote about the color pink (See Post Here), in the sense of breaking the stereotype about pink, that pink is not necessarily a “girlie” color, and that even if it were, what’s wrong with being a girl or feminine and embracing all those traits that come with it, like empathy and sensitivity for instance? And then, after I conducted the exercise in The Nu Romantics, I began to ponder the very fact that I own a lot of red accessories. Yes. I love fashion. If you’ve been following my new page and Fashion Fridays, you know that already. And I own a ton of scarves and shoes and funky jewelry so that any outfit can suddenly become spectacular, even when it isn’t. But I’m realizing something else about this. It’s really not that at all. Like pink, red comes with its own symbolic value. While pink equates to love and feminine traits by all accounts, red equates with a vibrant energy, one that is tied to sexuality and even lust. Read more on color and symbolism. I am a very sexual person –what was it I wrote in a poem the other day? I have a "broadhead’s sexuality"? (My poetry page)…and perhaps that is partly why I like the color red on my body in the form of clothing, but not so loud that it overtakes me. It’s just a "pop of color," right? Perhaps, too, that is why I love to wear lipstick in all shades of red, even naming my first poetry collection Ruin My Lipstick for goodness sake! I used to think it was because “it looked good with my complexion.” But really, doesn’t it simply match what swollen lips look like after a night of passionate kissing, our cheeks the same rosy hue during and after the heat of love-making? So okay. Red is a sexual color. And I am a sexual, passionate person. But why then only a pop? Why not go all out? We know why. I have repression issues. 😊 Don’t worry. I’m working on it. Perhaps I use it like a sign to let people know. Hey! I may seem sweet and innocent…but…you see this 'pop'?... All kidding aside. I have psychoanalyzed it further. (Why? Because that’s how my mind works!) And so, it’s much more than sexual energy sneaking its way into my world. It’s a life-long stifling from parents and society. If pink is my favorite color, is it because I think it should be? I’m a girl. Girls should act a certain way, right? WRONG! But growing up, that was the case. Couple that with a mother who told me: “You’re not a boy. Stop being loud,” I became a rather shy gal, easily embarrassed, that embarrassment I’ve written about before, where I can feel it right on the outside of my ears. And so maybe red, to me, doesn’t only mean sexuality alone, but instead, maybe it’s my way to rebel, to let go a little, to scream without screaming, you know? And if red is rebellion, then guess what? It’s starting to work, because I have never felt more alive and "seen" than I have these last several months. And so, as I get ready to re-release my Natalie’s Edge series, Edge of Torment (Title voted by you--thank you again!), why should I choose any other color than red for my cover? It’s bold. It’s powerful, and damn it, I don’t want to be quiet about it. I have ditched my first concept, because, for a change, I want to be completely and utterly red, proud, and out loud, for all to see. I think of all the years she protected me and to be kneeling now, taking the flowers out of my hair to plant in front of the soil of her grave, I worry the stone’s shade can’t protect them for long. Tears and sweat mix to blur my eyes from fully being able to read the engravement: Loving mother, wife, and Nana. I look up and watch a cloud, like my mood, move to the left to cover the sun, and the weight of my sadness imprints deeper into the earth. But then I think: Maybe she’s just trying to protect her flowers now. I smile. That would be just like her. Call today's post my closure on my mom’s death, something I think I had been avoiding…but have somehow found this weekend in a cloud. Yup. A cloud. All kidding aside. Nature does that to me. It speaks to me in this very strange way. I’m not sure if it’s because I stare a lot at it--a tree, the sky, the earth--but my mind goes “limp” in a way. It relaxes, like being in a hypnotist’s chair and being told to stare at a spot or a dot on a paper. It serves the same purpose, but it’s more organic. It’s us reflected in IT. I somehow have come to believe that. Maybe Emerson’s “Transparent Eyeball” really does exist. I certainly felt that way this weekend, and that poem came out above. I’m sure there’s not one of us here who hasn’t lost someone to that crabby and persistent dude called Death. It’s really just a fact of life. Like light and dark and good and evil and pleasure and pain and any other opposite, so too, we have life and death. But here’s the thing. Are they opposites really? What happened with my cloud was supposed to be a bad thing, but talk about opposite! Do you think death is a bad thing? A sad thing? It hurts, because we’re living still, especially if we loved that person, and they’re not. It’s almost a selfish thing when I think about it. That’s where the pain is. In our void. That we still have to live without them. We also don’t like to talk about death, and yet we must. We must plan for it. For everything else we plan for--retirement, saving money, etc.--death is really the only sure thing. Have you thought about what you’d like your funeral to be? Do you want to be buried? Cremated? I know. Morbid. But why does it have to be? I realized something about my mother’s death this weekend. I hadn’t dealt with it. Not the way I thought I had. In fact, I realized I hadn’t really gone through the proper stages of grief at all. It wasn’t denial. That is not it…it was just so compartmentalized that I didn’t deny it, I just didn’t want to look at it, face it, think about it in any way. If you read my share last week about my mom, you know why.: The topsy-turvy relationship between mother-daughter, between traditionalist and free-spirt, between stoic and emotional, between proper and wild. But I also realized something else. My mother planned everything. Her plot was bought, funeral paid for, her spot on my dad’s stone just waiting to be engraved, also planned. Everything was a blur, as if my body went through all the motions in a dream I watched from a safe distance, but wasn’t really happening, not to me. I hadn’t really had to do anything but show up and cater it…(that’s not entirely true, I realize, I did), and as I stood in front of her grave this past weekend, planting flowers, I finally saw her death and I somehow let go of so much guilt and resentment and fear and what-ifs. I exhaled it. Quite literally. Right out into the air. And now, I finally have the closure and peace of mind I’ve been searching for these last couple years. It's okay. We must learn to forgive ourselves. Life isn't a game of villains and heroes. It's much more real than that. And grey and all its shades, as my cloud taught me, can be a beautiful color too. We all dream. That much is a fact. But do you remember your dreams? Do you write them down after? Do you think there is anything to them? Is it our subconscious surfacing, or as Freud said, our unconscious minds, that are giving us our deepest answers to our true selves? Or is it complete imagination that has no bearing on, or connection to, our ‘real” existence? Is it actually an alternate universe, where we live for as many hours a day as we allow ourselves to sleep? And what of nightmares, the ones where you wake up in a cold sweat, struggling for air and breath, remembering and not remembering? What the hell are they? As a child, I always had the same recurring nightmare until I outgrew earaches. Gruesome and frightening nightmares, I’d rather not talk about. And last night, I woke, panicked, to believe that my significant other was having an affair with…wait for it…Britney Spears’s sister, a la Zoey 101. Gasp! It felt so real, so true, I woke, breathless, ready to give him a piece of my mind, until I began to howl in laughter. Really? Zoey 101? What the hell goes on during slumber? We all know the childhood urban legends about falling in our sleep, that we’ll die if we crash and actually hit the ground. Or the grandmother who told us that guilt is the cause of vivid dreaming and nightmares. Or the dream dictionaries that have specific meanings attributed to specific things, like if your teeth are falling out in your dreams, x, y, and z are true. Or even more difficult to swallow, that perhaps we live out our past lives in our dream world, which then, of course, would beg the question of whether or not you believe in past lives. In an article from Psychology Today, it states that basically all this talk, from ancient Egyptian beliefs of mystical revelations to Freud and Jung espousing the secrets of ‘self’ to today’s ‘online dream dictionaries,’ has been deemed very unlikely, that while we think we can unlock “secret codes” to glean meaning into our dreams, essentially there is NO secret code, but instead that dreaming is rather random. What do I think? Like many things, I’m content to say I don’t know. I’m not ashamed either. When my mind really goes down the path to make sense of it, I start envisioning Richard Bach’s novel One, of myriad alternate lives we’re leading, each choice, a new path. Or I begin to think that we live two lives and do not know it, the one that is me right now, and the one in slumber. Or that we don’t exist at all really, but that we’re just energy with no beginning and no end. And then, my brain just hurts. What is wrong with just saying: I haven’t a fucking clue? And in admitting that, I can find a semblance of peace…just as long as I never have to dream about Jamie Spears again. 😊 For further reading, click here: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/supersurvivors/201801/do-dreams-really-mean-anything
Today I ponder looks and body image in today’s society and ask: Do you believe body image and looks matter less and less, that we are finally starting to see people and souls and energies behind the masks, or do you think it’s worse than it has ever been? Do people put too much stock into the way they look? Do you? I don’t know about you, but I think we all have body issues. Find me one person who is completely satisfied with the way they look, and I’ll eat crow. Perhaps it was something one person said a long time ago in childhood, or worse, during those awkward stages of braces or acne. For me, it’s always been my legs, that they aren’t dancer legs, long and lean, but instead, shorter and more defined. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to accept my perceived flaws a bit more. It’s a beautiful thing when you find love, and where those things you once dreaded or hated about yourself, say freckles for instance, have now become the focal point of affection, and suddenly, you’re quite proud you have them. And in a society where the Kardashians are “news” (gag), and where people watch this show like a religion to see what styles they will don now or what weight they will lose or what color their hair may be or what latest plastic surgery they can get to alter their looks, it’s hard to think we’ve come that far. Never mind all the book covers we see daily with perfect women or sculpted, perfect male abs. Heaven forbid a woman (or man) may not buy our books unless someone’s pectoral muscles are front and center. Show me a man in glasses reading a book, and I’m more likely to buy your book! But I know, I’m in the minority. I’m not naïve to think otherwise. Sometimes on social media, I find it to be a breath of fresh air in that many of us don’t know what each other fully looks like, and so, we base our decisions of “likability,” or as Facebook likes to call it, “friendship,” on not looks but instead, personality or work or behavior. A student made me rethink even that though. She proposed a thesis that stated: "Too many people base their self-esteem on the number of likes they get on social media apps where they can change their appearance to look different than what they are. I believe those false filters should be stated up front or banned altogether." I never really thought about that. I don’t have Snapchat and I only just started on Instagram, but I guess most people use it to show pictures of themselves and alter them, that the app allows that, to make prettier faces, cute bunny noses, hip sunglasses, and on and on. Still, I stuck to my guns regarding why people may “like” another. It’s their heart or soul, you know, that proverbial: “It’s the-inside-not -the-outside-that-counts mantra. After reading her thesis, I was reminded of when I went to see The Black Panther, and a promo teaser for the movie "I Feel Pretty" came on, and I wondered, as I watched it, if there would be backlash about it (of course, there is). I'm a huge fan of Amy Schumer --I must admit--and found myself laughing at the trailer and quite impressed with her candor to strip and show herself naked, with all her imperfections, unfiltered and unedited, that maybe we were getting somewhere, that maybe at long last, the quest to be the perfect size or to emulate the perfect look is a thing of the past. But in a NY Times article, it stated that the premise and message of the movie, that “looks don’t matter” is utter bullshit, a lie the media is trying to stuff down our throats, that looks matter more than ever, especially for women, today. Amanda Hess writes in the article: "The reality is that expectations for female appearances have never been higher. It’s just become taboo to admit that…This new beauty-standard denialism is all around us. It courses through cosmetics ads, fitness instructor monologues, Instagram captions and, increasingly, pop feminist principles. In the forthcoming book ‘Perfect Me,’ Heather Widdows, a philosophy professor at the University of Birmingham, England, convincingly argues that the pressures on women to appear thinner, younger and firmer are stronger than ever...Along with YouTube makeup tutorials and Instagram fashion influencers, beauty-standard denialism has exploded online...."
So I ask you: Is female appearance higher than ever as this article espouses? Or are the Dove-type commercials, and the like, slowly changing that stereotype? The NY Times article says no. Me? I’m not quite sure. Everything I wrote above could, very well, be what Ms. Hess has written in her article as “denialism.” You can read it in full here: Article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/movies/i-feel-pretty-amy-schumer-beauty.html Today’s post comes from a movie I watched the other night: The Shape of Water. Have you seen it? This won’t be a movie review. It’s impossible to write one without giving everything away, so I discuss the thing I loved about it the most, the eroticism of it. When it comes to sexy, we all have differing ideas. Just look at last week’s post on hair! Short. Long. Dreads. Bald. And everything in between. We all have different tastes and different styles. What about our reading or movie-watching pleasures? What do you find sexy there? Or does that depend on what you’re looking for at the time, your mood? If you’re looking to get aroused, perhaps to aid yourself in rising to “that” place, the big O, a quick, one-handed read? Or is it a long, angsty drawn-out sexual tease? Or perhaps you prefer more subtle, more sensual art and writing? Less erotic and more romance? What about no sex at all? Just straight romance? Really! I want to know. As I write this, I’m smiling because it started to snow, and so I am going to seemingly go in a different direction for a moment, but I’m not, not really. I always look out the window when I write for some reason, as if Nature herself will tell me what I’m thinking or what’s on my mind. You know that idea that to center ourselves we can place our fingers on our collarbone with our right hand on the left side of our collarbone, move it down just a bit and press? That is what Nature does to me. When I look out at her majesty and stop and let myself go and not think, that is when I think. Oh the irony! And when my mind quiets, I can write. What quiets you? Where are your thoughts? It’s the quiet moments of the morning where I write best, especially in the summer, when my mind isn’t going in a million directions. And the way the snow is falling right now, big, huge flakes, so light you know they would melt on your tongue immediately, their white beauty a direct contrast to the naked trees, brown, barely alive. And I realized I find it oddly erotic. Subtly so. The beauty of it is quiet. It doesn’t make a sound and yet it makes such a loud impression. This. This is what I like. And it ties into my thoughts today. I like subtle eroticism, even though sometimes I don’t write that in my own work. Like I asked you above, it does depend on my mood too. But the things that affect me the most, are not the in-my-face and graphic erotic, but, instead, eroticism that is there nonetheless, somehow a work of art, that I somehow find beautiful or sensual or erotic. I guess one would simply call it romanticized eroticism. Hmmmm…I wonder if that term has already been coined? Perhaps I should coin it if not, because yes, I do see the world that way. Things I truly admire or marvel at bring me to that conclusion. The Shape of Water does that too. Its director brings us a tale that is so rich with such beautiful, yet subtle eroticism, we suspend our disbelief about all of it. It strips barriers of stereotypes and what it means to be human and lets us just see living and love and hate and racism and good and bad and light and dark and greed and pride and science and nature and romance and the romantic and everything in between. It is no surprise why it won best picture. It reminded me that I do wonder, often, if we don’t really exist as we think we do. That perhaps we are all just connected parts of nature, four seasons, going through the cyclical inevitability of life. When I look up at the sky and pause and see its infinite expanse and ultimately question true existence and whence and how I came to be, I have no answer. Somehow, that too, is beautiful. And I realize, I don’t mind at all. I do breathe. I do feel. I do love. And that is all I really need to know. For I exist.
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I LOVE to write and read. I particularly enjoy reading erotic romance that has tons of emotion in it. I hope you will ask me questions and share your favorite authors and novels. I welcome all feedback.
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