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The magic and mania left me in 2018. My hopes for 2019 are to find a better sense of balance, to work towards a less distracted mind, and to continue to seek out more optimistic humor. These hopes are not only for me. They are also my hopes for everyone around me.

There were times in 2018 when I felt like a mere conduit for someone else’s words. These words came to me spontaneously without effort or editing. It was as if I was tapping into an external creative flow. My hopes for 2019 are to find a creative flow that feels like my own. I also hope to find the patience and determination to work at finding the right words to better express my thoughts.

My heart is still looking for the right story to tell. My hope is that I will find it this year.

Update– Today is June 24, 2024. I wanted to delete this post but decided it accurately represented my feelings at that time. However, my life has changed, and I have changed since I wrote the words above. Sometimes, I still enjoy writing, though it is usually done to record something in my life I want to record. I am beginning to read again over the past month or so. I went through a dry spell where I did not feel like reading any book. I would scan over the news and read here and there. I have been making significant progress in my personal life, and I am moving past a very strange time that started around the time of my parent’s death. Time can heal our souls if we remain open to new things. Things do have a tendency to cycle back, so I am not ruling anything out at this point.

The songs we choose to sing weave together the fabric of our lives.

Everything we say and do creates the song. We can’t edit our lives.

We can change its course, speed, and tone as we move along.

The feelings we share permeate throughout our songs.

Each of us has our own song we sing.

An equal society brings together all our songs to create the chorus of life.

When songs of hate outnumber the songs of love the chorus is doomed.

Love does not constantly look at the bottom line; it hopes to chase the high notes.

Love songs don’t need words to convey a feeling of love; our actions weave the melody.

In any public forum the feelings expressed by each individual’s song influences the tone and mood and can cause a viral spread.

Society’s song can be altered when hate is allowed to dominate or when love is allowed to flourish.

Both feelings compete for our attention.

My hope is that by working on the ground I can influence the songs of our youth.

These will ultimately shape the song of our future.

My hope is that more love will flow and hate will dry up.

 

 

 

Bridges have been on my mind these days.

Our country has fractured. There is one big divide.

Each side has further divisions.

Voices scramble to be heard, each hoping to demonize the other side.

Those struggling to be open and neutral are now being shamed into taking sides.

This is all happening across our media waves.

On the ground there are families struggling to raise children in this climate of hate.

Marriages  are hoping to bridge the divide, as gender differences have been magnified.

I don’t know the solution to this problem.

I keep hoping this pattern of hate can be transformed.

Love is needed, however, love is now viewed as a weakness.

How did this happen?

I want to run and hide and put my fingers in my ears.

The noise is so loud now; this no longer works.

The heat rises. Tempers flare. The cool comfort of reason is being erased.

I will vote, though in my divided household, no gain will be achieved.

Going Home

Going home can mean a return to God. I learned this over two decades ago when my  father-in-law, Walter, expressed this desire before he died.

More commonly it means a return to a dwelling place in the living world filled with family and friends.

It can also mean in a more general sense, a return to something familiar and long-standing.

I was intrigued by Kenny G’s use of a lone dancer in the performance of his song: Going Home.

The dancer’s interpretation is a celebration of self, and a celebration of life that overflows with self-confidence.

Life and death can both mean “Going Home”, depending on one’s perspective.

Both can bring peace.

These are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. This phrase can be generalized to mean the beginning and the end of anything.

There are 24 letters in the Greek alphabet. There are 26 letters in our English alphabet. Our English X is the 24th letter, and this seems fitting. To X out means to close or end.

Why did we add the Y and Z to our English alphabet is a question I now have. Could this be a tribute to our incessant human need to ask why(Y) and our human need to sleep (Z) at the end of our days.

It is interesting to note that when you add up all the letters of “Alpha and Omega” and all the letters of “The beginning and the end”, you will find that they are equal. I did this and arrived at 17. You could take this one step further and arrive at 8. However, I am inclined to stop adding up the numbers when I am left with a 1 in front (or to the left.)

My conclusion after all of this is that numbers are the universal language and all our letters have been ordered to follow suit.

I’m reminded of a dream I had in the beginning of my number obsession. I woke up from a nap saying aloud: “I am one, I am 1, I am 1.”

The word “one” adds up to 34, and this adds up to 7.

I’ve been pretty successful at resuming my normal real life. My twitter dashboard still occasionally calls out to me, so I open the internet and check my numbers, and read some news and stories that are of interest to me.

It still irritates me when I see that the puppet master has fiddled with my numbers, adding or subtracting where no one else should have access. However, I have learned to shrug off this annoyance, and entertain the possibility that this puppet master might have my best interest at heart. The numbers are no longer strings to which I’m attached.  They do affect who comes into my twitter stream, and yet, I can still choose to seek out an account of which I’m curious.

The numbers are not recoding my life anymore, they are simply changing my interface when I open my twitter feed. It is like there is a rotating disc of portal windows allowing me to enter or keeping me out.

I’m reminded of my husband’s wry joke that he doesn’t want to be a member of any club that would have him as a member.

I’m old enough to have learned that you can’t force friendships. Humans have an instinct to dismiss or fear what they don’t understand.

I have also learned that the biggest barrier to friendships is not gender, race, religion, or education. It is wealth and neighborhood that divides us the most.

Wealth by itself does not make a person smart or superior, nor does poverty make a person lazy or stupid.

 

 

My dad was a no nonsense man. He lived by rules, lists, and time. He was never ever late for anything.

He struggled with color coordination. I think he must have been partially color blind. All oranges, reds, and maroons looked the same to him.

I would cringe every time I saw them clashing in his wardrobe choices. Over time I learned to enjoy this quirk of his. Now the memory makes me smile.

He did have a hidden creative side. He loved lights. He would place spotlights under our wicker furniture to create light designs on our walls. He made a white ceramic cut out ginger jar lamp long ago. I remember it lighting up our monkey pod wood bar.

This lamp is now mine. Every now and then I’ll turn out all the lights in our living room, and switch on this white ginger jar lamp. The cut out design has an Asian flower branch motif. I will sit and enjoy the beautiful light patterns that are created on the walls.

Thanks dad.

Father’s Day is June 17th this year. It has been five years since my father’s death.

He died on the 22nd day of the 6th month of the year. I was born on the 26th day of the 2nd month of the year.

This number connection haunts me a little bit. Every time I see the number 6 and two 2’s, I think of him.

He was exceptional at math, and I never was.

We were not very close. I loved him and he loved me, though I never felt like I lived up to his expectations. I felt like I was always a little too slow for him.

He died a slow death.

A couple of weeks before his death I finally got the courage to confront him with my feelings.

By this time, he could no longer reply.

When I bent down to kiss him that day he struggled with all his will to kiss my cheek in return. I couldn’t remember the last time he had done that.

I knew in that instant my words had sunk in, and he wanted me to know that he loved me.

Now, I’m left wondering whether he chose to die on a day that would keep us connected.

The letters have fallen off the page. The syntax and punctuation fled long ago.

They are now echoing loudly in the distance.

The pages are all unbounded and scattered in the wind. Everything had been numbered.

This might be useful and mean something to someone who knew the counting system.

Now all the imaginary characters in all the unbounded stories can write their own future, as they create their present.

The universe has no copyright laws. Individual fame gets washed away, and all the bits and fragments will recombine somewhere else in someone else’s mind at some other time.

A new thing will be created. It is intelligence transformed.

Memory of the old thing still exists  somewhere in the past. The trail is overgrown, most likely lost.

The new future is being written as I write. Time marches on.

 

To never grow up means to have non-stop flights of fancy.

“Peter Pan” boys revel in their freedom.

Girlfriends are disposable. The ocean is full of fish.

The boys cast their lines to see what wondrous creations they can catch.

It is all for play, no deep thought is reached or given.

Their true love is the state of boyhood. Their desires are all acts of a physical nature, from arousal to relief.

Feelings for others is not required.

Always on the move, always out for pleasure, always gone before they have to reckon with any consequences.

These boys range in age from young to old. The title “boys” applies to their mental state more than anything else.

 

P.S. — This post was inspired from reading tabloid magazines while my daughter got her nails done this afternoon.