Don't Ask, Don't Tell or The Colonel Comes Out of the Closet

After 20 years of what I thought to be a solid and loving marriage Larry and I were laying in bed watching Obama when he turned to me and said “I’m in LOVE with him.......I’ve been waiting my whole life for him!” Geez, I thought I was the one and only when in reality it looks like any good looking, sweet talking, intelligent, liberal could set his heart aflutter................

Strangers

When Zoe was little we had given my parents a set of grandparent memoir journals. I had completely forgotten about them until they arrived completed last week with her birthday gift. It was a really a nice gesture on their part because opening up emotionally is not something they are usually comfortable with. I hope someday when she’s older and curious about “her people” she will sit down and be moved by them. They wrote things that despite 18 years of living under their roof I did not know..........and some entries that sounded all to familiar. Still it got me thinking about all of the strangers in my life. Larry, who I’ve only known only about half of my years on this earth, I feel permanently bonded with. Zoe too. They aren’t strangers. Probably the person I’m next closest too is my sister. I come from a large family, most of whom I would no longer recognize if we were face to face.

About ten years ago while living in Kansas my dad’s brother became critically ill while vacationing not far from us. He was hospitilized and required an immediate triple bypass which was successful, and thankfully he’s alive and healthy today. Before that I hadn’t seen him in years and was shocked to walk into the hospital to see the spitting image of my dad looking pale and uncomfortable, fresh out of surgery. I had spent practically every Sunday evening of my childhood with this man and yet had never known how much he looked like my father. Physically, they’re almost identical. Later that week, my cousin Billy came in from Michigan to make the flight home with my Uncle. I would never have known him on my own. But a couple of days later while driving to the airport together I was listening to him talk and I recognized him. Not as the older teenage cousin who’d I’d last seen 18 years earlier, or as the balding physics professor he was that day. What I recognized was myself in him. It was surreal to hear how much alike we were in some ways; affirming for me that we humans are in large part a product of our genes. I haven’t seen or talked to Bill(y) since. I may never talk to him again for all I know. Like most people that have touched my life, he’s a stranger.

I have an old friend who collects people. She ravenously hoards them, seeking out their friendship as if she’s working her way through all of humanity’s population in hopes of eliminating strangers all together. Someday she may well know everyone. I’m not like that. I “know” few people. There are people I have “known” for 20 years. But I don’t know their names. There’s the older lady with all of the great hats who I wave to every day on the way to the post office. There’s Freckles and the friendly man who walks him. I wave to them every day too. There’s the woman who checked my groceries out this morning who made me smile when she asked if I was ready for Halloween. I responded “Yes, but I’m even more ready for next Tuesday to be over.” “Oh” she inquired “What’s happening next Tuesday?” I could go on and on. I have stranger relatives, stranger neighbors, and stranger friends. And then their are all of you. The irony is that perhaps we share as much, if not more, with each other through technology than people I’ve known my whole life. I like that too.

Happy 13th Birthday Zoe!!!

I Love You!

EEK........It’s Y2K All Over again. Are You Prepared???

Has it slipped your mind to inventory your fire arms before George and Dick leave office? Wyoming Public Radio ran a story this morning about how a potential Obama presidency has inspired a run on assault weapons. So, just in case you lack such valuable and straight forward reporting of collective lunacy, and want to be prepared for life’s uncertainties, I thought I’d let you know.

P.S. To the yahoo on the other side of the woods who spent last weekend celebrating the opening of hunting season by firing upon us; it’s enough already, we’re unarmed & WE SURRENDER!

This Just Isn't Working for Me.........

I don’t know if you’re like me or not but I’m one of those people who’s equilibrium is easily upset. Like right before laundry day when my last pair of clean underwear are those annoying purple lacy ones that don’t quite fit right and by the end of the day have literally become intolerable. I know, I really need to buy more, but have you been underwear shopping lately??? To find the right size with good fabric and no scratchy lace, thong, or brazen animal print is disconcerting enough to inspire me to just deal (or at the very least to try and remember to do the laundry more often). Any ways, I’m fussy like that; even my socks need to be perfect or they drive me nuts. Zoe’s the same way, she won’t wear socks-ever (and we live butt deep in snow 6 months out of the year!). Any ways, I’m veering away from my original point which is that a few weeks ago I decided to focus my blog toward personal journaling but, like those silly purple underwear, documenting the banality of my days isn’t quite the right fit for me (which is why I haven’t really done it!) and I miss all of you. The part about you is a bit of a surprise to me because I have spent the last 20 years living happily as a hermit. I’m not sure what's changed but I do know that you guys have in some small way changed me. So, forget the journaling, I’m just going to let this thing flow wherever it wants, whenever it wants, and I’m sure eventually it will feel just right.

2008 MacArthur Fellow: Will Allen ~ 2 minutes

A Pulitzer Waiting to Happen.......

This was written by Zoe's friend and posted on her blog. She was home schooled during grades K-5 and is currently a freshman in High School. The beauty and maturity of this piece just blow me away.........can you believe she's only 14?!

Our life is never just ours. Everyone one of us has some piece of everyone else inside of them. We all know how everyone else thinks, and what they think. There are no secrets in our lives, which makes them blessedly simple. We never would want to lie anyway. We are so closely interlocked together that we think as one body, and only sense different things. We don't fear our deaths, for we are each other, and when we die, we still live on in our world. There are some among us who are practically immortal, and even a few of us come from less fortunate places, where the only way to survive was to join a new colony. Although that in itself is almost unspeakable. But at times, we take in new bodies, when we pity the destruction of their colony. If we all die, we lose everything, and if only one lives, we lose even more.

We lift our faces to the sun, take in the warmth, bless its existence. The clouds swirl around us, and if we listen closely, we can hear the birds, the hum of the crickets, and the singsong voice who dances into our conciousness. We do very little, but we never tire of our lives. Outsiders might say that our life is drear and bleak, but for us to live any other way would take all the color and vivacity out of our world. This we know for certain.

Today it rains. The soft carress of each droplet invigorates us, and we can almost taste the fresh scent of the air around us. The sun shines while the rain falls, casting our valley in sparkling diamonds, filling it with beams of light. Our spirits lift, and the breeze catches us up and we sway gently to some foreign rhythm.

The clouds float away, and our valley bursts open in sunlight, and the water trickles into the dirt and invigorates us. We go about our daily routines, preparing our food, taking in sunshine.

Most days, something comes and steals some of us away. We do not mourn, they still live with us, and we have many more in our colony. We will not lose and die away as easily as our brothers and sisters did. Our predators do not frighten us, but we respect and almost love them. They need us, and we have never been selfish.

The sun begins to droop. Long shadows begin to appear. Shadows that I know well, and yet some are different. Longer than us, but not surpassing our trees and hills.

Yes, these shadows are different. They are moving, awkwardly. One jerks strangely from one side to another. Shrill cries seem to come from their direction. They trample some of us, and our petals float delicately, if not indignantly, to the ground.

The shadows stop by me. The one seems to go limp, almost. A piercing, drawn out scream enters every cell of our being, and every atom in me is fiercely crying to stop.

The larger shadow's hand, arm, comes up and then down in a swooping motion, and the one being restrained suddenly stops screaming. A helpless, choking gurgle fills the valley, and then it is all silent again.

The shadow tramps away again. We pull back as far away from the other as our bindings will let us.

The sun is nearly down now. We remember our task at hand, and put the shadows out of our mind. We hardly have to, for they are almost gone as it is.

We raise our faces skyward, and continue on.

©The Author.....name withheld

Last Duck Standing

(Sweetheart this morning)

A couple of weeks ago a stray dog came out of the woods and killed Malfoy. He was always the dominant of our two ducks and I like to think that he took the bullet in order to save Sweetheart. Larry and I flew down the steps and were outside within seconds but it was too late. Unfortunately that was the same week that a predator (we're guessing a raccoon or badger based on his scat) raided our pigeon coop twice making it an unusually bloody few days around here. Since then, we've predator proofed the pigeon's cote (even though all but 3 birds are so traumatized that they refuse to reenter it) and the mysterious dog hasn't been back.

(Malfoy & Sweetheart last spring)

Both Sweetheart and Malfoy were old ducks who came to live with us 3 years ago when their previous owner was going to put them down. I'm at peace with losing Malfoy; we gave him 3 years he wouldn't otherwise of had.

(Sweetheart, Moonbeam, & Kitara this morning)
And Sweetheart seems to be adjusting to his new role as our third goose.


R.I.P Malfoy

An Icicle and a Quote

(Zoe last night)

I found this quote by Jo Coudert at another blog and wanted to post it as a reminder to myself that self actualization is the most direct route (for me) toward wholeness, "god", peace, love, and truth*; and that through it's pursuit I hope to become a positive participant in, and observer of, this universe. Here's the quote:

“You do not need to be loved, not at the cost of yourself. The single relationship that is truly central and crucial in a life is the relationship to the self. Of all the people you will know in a lifetime, you are the only one you will never lose.”

~Jo Coudert

*acknowledging of course that all truths are relative

Today: Vacuity..........

(Hanging Horn before I brushed him off.)

The problem with journaling your thoughts every day is that there are days like today; thoughtless days, blank days. I imagine Loring good-naturedly accusing me of just taking up space on days like this........and he'd be right. In my defense chores were done, groceries bought, and errands run. Still, I'm thinking my main accomplishment of the day was dusting the snow off of Hanging Horn.

(A little patch of sky in front of our cabin.)

(Tunnel Hill again.)

(Our neighbor's clearing this morning. <----Our cabin isn't visible but is just to the south through those trees.)

Stillness

(photo of Tunnel Hill taken on Friday morning as the snow was just starting.)

Not as much snow as predicted, so far.

I awoke yesterday blessed by a brief feeling of contentment. Of course within the hour I had ruined it by dissecting it and subsequently trying to recapture it. But it was there, momentarily; the fleeting feeling that things were “right” just as they were, as opposed to my normal modus operandi of everything would be right if only: we had a new president, or world peace, or if Infinite Jest were just a little shorter, if the house were a little cleaner, if my creative vision and abilities were more in sync, or if I were a little younger, less vain, more attractive, smarter..............etc., etc. Last night as I was nodding off to sleep it occured to me what a curious thing it was that we use these little distractions as emotional crutches in order to avoid boredom. That as long as there is something to perfect, or to learn, or to experience, we can avoid facing ourselves and the present. It’s as if the thing that the psyche is most frightened of is surrendering to life’s stillness.

For a REALLY super post today check out Tara here.

Musical Doors and Talking to Myself.......

I’ve been mulling over this whole blogging thing lately and trying to figure out where I stand with it. You know, the normal questions of motivation and expectations within the larger context of my life, etc. What I’ve decided is that I really want to be using the blog as a mirror to reflect my days and thoughts back at myself; a personal journal type of thing. I understand the inconsistency of publicly journaling private days, but that being said, I really prefer the computer to my collection of dusty, unfinished & illegible journals. Out of consideration to my blog friends I’ve removed the comments from my posts. Most of what I’ll be writing will be pretty mundane stuff and not really comment “worthy” and no one should have to feel obligated to respond as I talk to myself. Still, it’s been REALLY hard to get started. I guess letting my guard down and quieting my critical brain is more difficult than I thought it would be............

TODAY

It’s in the 20’s today and snowing which is pretty normal for October here. We’ve started our annual game of musical doors with the cats. They seem convinced that dry ground, sunshine and grasshoppers are outside somewhere so they leave by the front door only to come back inside ten minutes later to try the back. It’s as if they’ve mistakenly taken a wrong turn into some Twilight Zone type hell that they’re convinced they can escape if only they can find the right way out. They don’t understand that although we are supposed to have 2 feet of snow by tomorrow, there is still a little time left before winter. After all it’s supposed to be 60 again on Wednesday. But they won’t listen, so I play along; me, six cats, and two doors on alternating and continual rotations.

Hey! I'm Plenty Neurotic

A study published in the September issue of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science characterized Wyoming residents as some of the most closed-minded and disagreeable people in our nation, albeit not too neurotic. Walt Scott a University of Wyoming professor of psychology explains that

"Wyoming residents don't have to be as agreeable as people in more heavily populated areas because there aren't as many people around to please or cooperate with."

I'd have say that I take exception to such simplistic pigeon holing and would like to state for the record that I'm plenty neurotic (just ask anyone) and that I have never met kinder, friendlier, and more accepting people anywhere, even if they are republicans! :)

Are Your Financial Problems Solved?

Earlier this week:

Larry: "I'm so glad we don't have any money."
Me: "Yeah, why?"
Larry: "Think how stressed we'd be right now if we did..............."

Gifts and Atrocities.......

Dear Megan,
I just wanted to let you know that I received your gift this morning. It was very clever of you to know that my first priority upon waking would be to riffle through yesterday’s laundry desperately searching for a pair of clean underwear. And while I am usually hungry first thing in the morning I wasn’t quite that hungry. Still, you are very kind to want to provide for me. I don’t want to seem ungrateful but you needn’t have gone to so much trouble on my behalf. I’m good, really........your sweet little predatory self is gift enough.

P.S. A very sincere second thank you for not bringing me breakfast in bed this time. I really, really appreciate that.

You Betcha!

I don't know which debate most of the pundits were watching last night but they seemed to have witnessed a far more lucid Sarah Palin than I did. I was beginning to wonder if they had all taken mind altering drugs whose primary pharmacological effect was the suspension of all rational judgment in exchange for polite (but ill-placed) praise. You know, like reassuring a small child that the lunch they've made for you really is delicious. Luckily, Juan Cole isn't so sexist or condescending as to feel the need to coddle the incompetent. Thank you Juan.

"..... one candidate is a ditzy nonentity cynically foisted on the public in the same way a 'reality show' is, based on a targeted demographic and without regard to quality."

"It was not a debate, and pretending that it was and judging "performance" is to fall into the trap set by the campaign spinmeisters and talking point pimps."