Fear

Thursday, 14 November 2024

Nov 14, 2020 FB post

I have this thought that fear has taken over our ability to live and love with an open heart.

Fear of losing what we believe rightfully belongs to us. To which I have to ask, what does belong to us? What does belong to you? Belong; the property of. Property. You are not property. I am not property. Your kids are not, your spouse is not, etc. etc. etc. Maybe you belong to a church, a group, a community, but you are still not property.

So is it a fear of losing something that is inherently your own personal beliefs, yours and yours alone? No one can take that away from you, it is yours and yours alone. Celebrate it, but don’t hold it over another.

Here’s the thing. There are probably eight billion people in the world. So imagine how many of those who have beliefs that are not yours or even diametrically opposed to you. This is our world, this is your world. It is not a threat unless you open yourself up to the difference and see it as a threat. Freedom is freedom and to place your belief over another is a shadow over another their freedom. We have a lot of work to do in terms of equality. Lots of work.

If we replaced our fear with understanding, that while we may have a different faith or a different political affiliation, are we taking the time to understand the human and the heart of our neighbor, our co-worker or friend? Are we there to listen to understand and embrace the difference and not as a threat to our own belief?

It started early for me, grade school. When I think about it today, I feel that lump in my throat and it makes me sad. There was a girl in my many of my classes who because of her religion, her Mom came and picked her up for any and all holiday celebrations the rest of us had. Her Mom came picked her up and she left school. While I didn’t see it, I see it now like I had, she and her Mom walking down that long empty hall to leave her class because we needed to celebrate Halloween. Even then I thought, why are we doing something that excludes this person? Why do the rest of us have to be so arrogant that our belief, our celebration is so much more important that we allowed it to exclude her? She might have been okay with this. I just don’t know. Either way, still.

Some of you know me. Some of you don’t, really. What both of you have in common is that you do not truly know my heart. We haven’t had the opportunity to have that conversation. You do not know my deepest beliefs. I don’t know yours. You might think you have a hint or an idea because of something I put here. Or I might think I know you because of a post. But neither is knowing the heart.

Some of your shared posts that say, whatever, are generalizations that exclude your friends and neighbors and they have no foundation of truth. And actually are counter to what I think the intention is.

We are humans. We have hopes, dreams and aspirations. We all believe differently, even if we sit next to each other in the pew on Sunday morning. My belief, your belief will never be THE belief of a world full of billions. 

How do we come together in harmony? Let go a little of the fear, hold your truth and allow your heart to be open to others and celebrate the beauty of the differences. Our hopes and dreams aren’t that different.

Peace.


this, exactly this

Friday, 8 November 2024

This gentleman in the video below, in just a few minutes says some of what I’ve written over the last 8 years.  I write a lot, lots of words.  I share a very small % of what I actually write.  What I’ll ever do with all of it, I don’t know. There are enormous emotion this week among those in my world who are like minded. Want to know what I’ll bet on? That we won’t be storming the capital in January.

After this post I’m taking another break. When, if I come back, I will expect my Friends number to have dropped.  Go ahead, unfriend and block me because I won’t.  You’ll have to do that. As much as I absolutely disagree with your choice, I know it was your choice and for now we still have a choice.  We all deserve security, opportunity and freedom. We also deserve Black female excellence over white male mediocracy every day.

I see the harm that we have allowed and passed as acceptable. I see the harm that will come. Harm that I truly hope doesn’t touch any of you. I just doubt that it won’t impact all of us.  So much at risk.

If you feel any of this harms you, please check in with your Black, Brown and LGBTQIA+ friends.  Just don’t ask them to help you feel better. Consider their past and now their future. Make sure they are okay.


“What happened to the notion of not calling people names and being nice to one another? Just asking…”. Yes, I will ask this for her, for me and you, over and over and over again.


May you be safe.  May you be happy.  May you be healthy.  May you live with ease.


November 6, 2024

Wednesday, 6 November 2024

I try to analyze my tears.  Maybe I shouldn’t.  You tell me. Or don’t.

I feel, in my opinion of course, it is a loss of a hope that we were different.  Not in the way you think but in our ideals, our thoughts around morality, ethics our diversity, and as a friend asked a few weeks ago, “What happened to the notion of not calling people names and being nice to one another? Just asking…”.

Yes, I think I will forever be asking that question because of who asked it of me. Someone I’ve known since kindergarten who is a supporter of the candidate re-elected.

Some days I feel like the conservative. When you try to understand something that has no logic, no reason, no sense, there is no understanding. For some reason, this also made me think of Scrooge near the end of “A Christmas Carol” when he says to his nephews wife, “Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool for having no eyes to see with, no ears to hear, all these years?”. They have no eyes to see, no ears to hear. They choose to not see and hear.

Why do tears flow on this day?  Is it because for years I was able to hold them, to keep them to myself and not let others see them?  And can no longer do that? Is it a collective overwhelming loss, my parents, their decline, making that decision for them to leave their home for a small room in a facility because it was safer?  Is it because of the choices my brother made late in life, with no explanation, with the result of a long incarceration?  How to analyze the collective impact of all of that? What did one mean to the other? Where does it all sit? Sadness. Anger. Grief. Where does one put that?

And now the reality that friends and more Americans saw a better choice, yes in my opinion, in indecency over decency, dishonor over honor, disrespect over respect, division over unity, name calling and disparagement. White male mediocrity rather than black excellence, education, experience, decency and fairness.

White male mediocrity, how sad for all of us. This is who we are.  Racist, misogynistic and fearful of who we could be, so we embrace the worst of us. We embrace the past, what we think is a safety when it is far from it.

Waking up this morning to the reality, while expected, wasn’t welcome. Like a child covering my eyes to not see, I changed the channel to news to see the lower 3rd and what news it would reveal, ‘re-elected”.

Through some tears I opened Flip book on the iPad for a distraction. First thing I read after seeing the results;

What Buddhism can teach in this moment of deep divisions: No person is ‘evil,’ only ‘mistaken’. The author mentions the story of Angulimala. A new story for me.

“This puzzles Angulimala. He asks for an explanation. The Buddha replies, “Angulimala, I stopped committing acts that cause suffering to other living beings a long time ago. I have learned to protect life, the lives of all beings, not just humans. Angulimala, all living beings want to live. All fear death. We must nurture a heart of compassion and protect the lives of all beings.”

After reading about Angulimala, this was the next thing I opened to read, Charlie Sykes opinion on MSNBC.

I fully admit to waffling back and forth. Sorting through my emotions, feeling what in my heart believes people voted for and voted against. Yes, emotions and feelings. Not ashamed to say that. And I’ll say it again, they voted for white male mediocracy, racism, misogyny and against black excellence, educated and experience.

Important words tonight from Sherrilyn Ifil.




Labrynth walk – Neahkahnie Beach

November 1, 2024

Friday, 1 November 2024

I decided to take a break from Social Media, IG, Threads and Facebook.   I go back and forth as to whether it is even a good space to be in.  We all have a lot going on in our lives and some days, if I could just not read the comments, I’d be okay and it would be a more enjoyable place.  Currently being an election season, doesn’t make it any easier.

The hate, the vitriol, the lies, the abuse, the attaches on every day descent humans from others, it more than I can bear some days with all that is in my life and has happened in the last few years.  I’m not here to corner the market on a ‘poor me’ scenario or say I’ve got it worse than other, I don’t. 

Most of you know me.  You know how I was raised, where I was raised and we went to church together.  Some of you may think that because I grew up in church, got a little radical religiously in high school that you thought I might have become a conservative.  Well, I’m pretty sure you no now that’s not the case if you pay attention or have paid attention to my posts here.  If you weren’t paying attain, SURPRISE!  I’m a bleeding heart liberal, life long Democrat.  Just like my Mom, my Dad and his father my Grandpa Green.

I know there is great division.  I know that there are differences today that seem or feel so extreme that there is no going back.  That our culture and our world is changing.  It is happening naturally and in some ways organically and in my opinion can’t be stopped any easier than the rotation of the sun.

We can live in fear, which I know many do because of how they have responded over the last 4-8 years.  Fear that has been manufactured far beyond any reality.

Earlier this week on the post of a friend from high school, I saw someone respond to someone on Facebook who unfriended and blocked me a month or so ago.  So I couldn’t see her comment but the reply was; 



So did she say that people hate her? Not knowing for sure or who “they” might be I had a thought.  Who hates who?  Is she projecting her own self hatred outward in an effort to ease her belief, her fear, how she see’s or wants to see the world.  When I think of the person I’ve known since kindergarten, who I thought she was, the person that is raging through Facebook is not who I thought I knew.  Fun loving, crazy, outgoing, smiling, laughing, what happened to that.  

She is also famously the one who asked the question on a post of mine, 

“Not racist and not a Harris supporter. What happened to the notion of not calling people names and being nice to one another? Just asking…”  

This question from a Trump supporter.  I didn’t respond in the way that I wanted to, asking her to go ask her candidate that question and don’t make me list the names he’s called everyone from family, former staff, Generals, etc.  Seriously?  Seriously she doesn’t in her vacuum bubble of news doesn’t hear him call everyone, stupid and a whole list of derogatory names?


This more than anything completely absolutely gob smacks me.  How can there be anything, any element redeemable with this man that I don’t hear the horrible things he has said and through the legal system found guilty of so, so many things that I’d hope that NO one wants responsible for the safety and security of our country.

The question that would never be answered, do you have woman, children, LGBTQ, Black, Brown, PEOPLE in your life that you care about?  There is nothing he stands for that in some way won’t impact every single person in American except, him, Musk and the Kushner’s. 

This is manipulations at its finest.  How did it not happen to me?  How was I not drawn in to his level of division and hatred of the US?  Fear.  I’m not afraid of tomorrow, my shadow or anything.  And even thinking about a potential second trump Presidency, it’s not fear because I have been listening and know what he will do.  I’m pissed.  I’m angry.  But afraid, no.  No fear.  

I actually think, as I sit here right now writing these words that even with him in office a second time and the few pulling his strings, I do think that there are poetical guardrails out there that we are not aware of and that there just aren’t enough riding his crazy train to let happen what could happen.  But that there will be damage done to the US internationally, economically and environmentally that will take years to repair.  

Side bar.  One day, maybe just maybe she will admit that she is a racist.  I still have work to do in that realm but have done enough to know, the goal the concept is “I’m not a racist”.  For me it’s I am a racist and I am and will do everything I can to learn and be anti-racist.

Day one of break

The Mother Jones headline, “Trump Called for Placing Liz Cheney Before Guns “Trained on Her Face.” But what about “Garbage”?  I’m 100% sure that even this will not deter some supporters and they will vote for him.  His campaign I think has already said that’s not what he said.  So then that video and audio recording of him sitting there next to Carlson, saying “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her,”,  He didn’t say that?  How is it that I heard that?  How is it that for me that is reprehensible, even for someone to say that about him, yet he can say it.

I follow a lot of people on Social Media.  I will admit more that align with my political viewpoint, but I’m not in a vacuum bubble either.  I read the other side as much as I can.  I have this thing in me that when listening to some, I can’t stomach it.  I can read into their tone and too often I just can’t listen.  I listen to people who reference history, tell the whole story.  Offer source’s and resources to verify what they are staying.  I’ve never taken anything at face value.  All too often it feels to me that TFG supporters take what he says, face value as fact and truth.  Rarely does the man speak truth.  And if you listen carefully, everything he tries to blame on someone else, he has actually done it and in many cases has been found guilty in a court of law.

Leigh McGowan said it better than anyone the other day.  Something I and others have been saying in different ways for years.  It is this; “I think it’s weird that we’re asking Kamala to answer for what Joe Biden said, be we’re not asking Trump to answer for what Trump says.”  All media has failed us since that day in 2015 when he ascended that stupid escalator.  

Day five, election day

Listening today, trying not to, to know where we will be going.  Forward or back.  Back who knows how many years, 50, 100, 200?


**

I just heard someone say, “being on the right side of history.”  Does history matter to you?  Does history have any impact on you?  If you say no to both, I’m going to try to be nice here.  If you answer no to both, I think that your right to vote to participate in democracy should be questioned and revoked.  I’m not the smartest person ever in any room, I’m not naive or ignorant.  To say that history doesn’t matter or hasn’t had an impact, ignorant doesn’t define it.

After the election of 2016, I felt my understanding of morality and ethical behavior wain.  How did this liberal all of a sudden feel like an extreme conservative?  How did my view of what was appropriate for the highest office in the land all of a sudden become a moral high ground that was beyond reproach.  Actually, I don’t believe that my moral compass is above or beyond reproach.  It is appropriate and oddly enough, I would have thought those on the other side would have been more offended or appalled than I was with there language, the innuendo, and the acceptance of name calling and trash talk.  


About 5 times a day I think of the question asked of me from a Trump supporter that I’ve known since Kindergarten. Yes I am repeating it because it’s beyond explanation or reason,

“What happened to the notion of not calling people names and being nice to one another? Just asking…” 

So do they not hear it?  Is their anger and hatred of diversity of humans so extreme that hearing name calling is selective?  Does a double standard impact your auditory factor? Oh how badly I wanted to say, fuck you!  Ask your racist misogynistic leader why the hell it’s okay for him to call ANYONE a name.  WTAF! I did not. I tried to be reasonable, logical, question it as well. A couple weeks later when I replied to a very angry post about an Olympic female boxer, some facts. I was unfriended and blocked.


I do think of this several times a day. Seriously, ‘not calling people names’? I honestly do not think that I need to list the many names her leader called, Hilary, Kamala, anyone who disagreed with him.


Shooting

Monday, 16 September 2024

The first shooter was said to have been mercilessly bullied in high school.  What about the guy this week?

I have this crazy, uneducated thought running through my mind since July 13.

I was lucky, I was never bullied.  I can only think of one time that I can recall that I participated in and the sting of it exists still today.  That was around early teenage years.  So I hope the feeling I had at the time that is still within me today, was my lesson and I didn’t do it again.

So I don’t know what it feels like.  I haven’t had to navigate people saying mean things to me or at me or hearing it indirectly.  I do for some reason, when I see it, hear it or read about it, interestingly more every day feel it. I feel it so deep within, the solar plexus, it radiates up into a lump in my throat and brings tears to my eyes.

What if they both were bullied mercilessly and their target was the perceived ultimate bully?

I had a Medium tell once that I take things in through the solar plexus chakra.  Then she said, “So the good news is you know what people are thinking and feeling. The bad news is, you know what people are thinking and feeling.

The job I had before this one that I am fully remote with, at first in was the office, Mon – Friday normal.  Then after a set amount of time, we could choose to work 2 days a week from home or flex, nine nines. Of course I chose 2 days!  There was no parking where I worked so the bus was the only way to get up on that hill.  My commute, depending on traffic was about an hour or two hours.  I was melting mentally every day.  Leaving my house about 6:30am, getting home 7pm.  I probably took in every emotion on that bus on the way in and on the way home.  Then ‘stuff’ happened and some trips I couldn’t hold in the tears even if I listen to music or a book.  Nothing would mask the energy around me.

Then COVID.  I was saved.  In a short few weeks, I embarrassingly felt better.  But I was, considering all the ‘stuff’.  But I digress.

Bullied.  Listening to the people who knew him, they spoke of the shooter on July 13 saying that he was mercilessly bullied in high school.

Was the shooter this week bullied at any point in his life?

I know everyone wants to blame this on everything but what it is actually about.  And I am certain, we will never know unless they find and release verifiable documentation that these people wrote saying why.  Where is that long drawn out congressional inquiry to find out why?

My take, the bullies want to blame the opponent.  Now here is where an unfriendly or blocks happens.  I think DJT is a bully and his running mate is his protege in training.  Actually, I think the training is or was complete.  

What if these men shot at who they perceived as the ultimate bully and decided this is how I take revenge on everyone who has bullied me ever.  


She wore bowling shoes

Saturday, 21 July 2018

©2009

She wore bowling shoes and carried a basket like Dorothy.  It was hard to tell if the plaid pants she had on were long Capri’s or short because she carried a few extra pounds.  But she didn’t care because the colors where coordinated.  Red’s, blacks and white.  Bowling shoes were not her only pair of shoes, but one of her favorite.  She liked them mostly because she, from time to time would notice people looking at them.  They rarely said anything to her about the shoes.  But often smiled or even giggled.  She wrote that off as her contribution to happy for the day.  People were so unhappy.  If her shoes brought on a smile, maybe it was the first in a long while.

It’s hard to imagine the hundreds of people you see every week or even every day.  Who they are, where they come from, what makes them happy?  Are they happy?  Sometimes you see someone and you know … or do you?

She got on the bus and sat down with a smile on her face.  She seemed happy and carefree.  But maybe I was the first person to see her in days.  Maybe she walked through life believing that she was invisible.  Maybe she had been invisible for so long that see grew to appreciate it or understand it.  Or just accept it as the way life would be.  After all, did she really need more than she had?

Life had not handed her a bad story.  Just, in her opinion, one with not much flavor.  She was born, went to grammar school and high school.  She went off to college with everyone and didn’t quite fit in.  It seemed that those around her is where stuff happened.  At least she knew some people that exciting things happened to.  Actually she was fine with watching all of it.  She didn’t really like much being in a spotlight or attracting the attention that other did.  She felt it was too much responsibility to be there and she wasn’t sure she could adequately deliver a worthy product.  So she was find with sitting back.

As she road the bus that day to fill her basket; who cared about childhood or college?  The mundane needed to be completed.  She needed four apples, three maybe four bananas and a yogurt.

As the streets past and the numbers got smaller she wondered who she would see.  Feeling more or less invisible she didn’t often notice people around her either.  Well she might not have noticed them, but she was careful and always aware of their space.  It came as a second nature to move through the day like she was the only one there.  How often had someone stepped in front of her or blocked her view of something?  Like she wasn’t there?  She always thought it odd, but just moved over to another spot hoping for a clear view.

The basket was actually a bit bigger than that one that Dorothy carried and it didn’t have a cover on it.  But it was just right for what she could carry at any given time.  She didn’t originally get the basket for errands.  But on her way out one day she saw the basket out of the corner of her eye and was compelled to take it along.  That was 7 years ago.  She knew by now that if she was by chance seen somewhere along the way, she would be remembered for the basket if nothing else.

She knew that she was fine with this sort of life.  But what about those that she saw the she believed had that look about them, that invisible look.  She had all kinds of ways of spotting them.  She had been through it all.

Once she hadn’t combed her hair for two weeks.  At the time it was short, but it was all over her head with no direction or purpose.  And she didn’t think any one really notices.  So she went another two weeks.  The last two she decided not to wash it.  Still no one noticed.

She used to like to wear socks that matched her shirt.  But only once did anyone say anything about her matching of clothes.  And that was when she matched her shoes to her shirt.  She thought that kind of odd that being invisible someone would notice shoes and a shirt.  That would require some recognition.  Recognition that she didn’t think she possessed.  So from that point on she always matched at least two things she wore with color.  Shoes and pants, shoes and shirt or her actual favorite socks and shirts.

Over the last several years, most of her conversations where with people she didn’t know.  The woman at Safeway who checked her groceries, and asked if she wanted paper or plastic.  The bus driver who gave her a transfer and sometimes ask, “how are you today?”  She actually like the quiet of that.  It gave her more time to think and not have her head clutter with other’s business.  Which usually was a daunting story that drug her down for days.  Days of pondering and wondering how she could help.  Wondering how people get themselves in such a place and why bad things happen to good people.

After college, the first time, she had a friend who was wild.  Wild with a capital “W”!  Very often after a night out she would wonder if she would ever hear from that friend again.  She took more chances than anyone she knew.  But she also knew that she couldn’t tell her friend to not do the things that she did.  She had to navigate her life just like everyone else, on their own.

There wasn’t any particular incident in her life that warranted her choosing a life of solitude.  But that was where she was and she had learned to appreciate it for what it was.  Besides she had a novel to write and she couldn’t be distracted by anyone or anything!

But … how many times had she started?  How many pages had she written, sentences that didn’t connect?  How many starts that basically if she had continued would have landed in the same damn place?  What was it that she could not get past?  Was it a fear of success or commitment to pushing through the garbage.  What was it that stopped her?  What was it that she didn’t want to admit on paper?

Then she thought that’s crazy!  Fiction is fiction and that’s what I’m writing.  I can go anywhere I want and it doesn’t have to mean anything.  But it meant more to her than that.  Purpose was important to her.  Intent was important.  She didn’t want it to be frivolous.  If someone was going to pay her and then people pay their hard earned money to buy it.  It had to have purpose.

She appreciated the many books that many others pushed out about love and romance.  Or mystery.  That one really got her.  She never could imagine having enough imagination to be mysterious.  But where did all of that come from?  Agatha Christie wrote over 80 books.  Where did it come from?  What was it that feed her imagination to write that many story’s.  What where her parents like?  What kind of childhood did she have?  What kind of stories did she read as a child and who was read to hear?  Why did she write?

Writing seems like the best way to articulate your feelings when you are invisible.  After all she was for the most part invisible to those around her and she sensed the pain, the happiness even of those she didn’t know.  And she somehow wanted to get the word out that it would be okay.  Your pain can be eased and your happiness can be used to brighten the lives of others.  But she didn’t want it to be trite.

Even though occasionally she knew that the people around her thought, as their eye’s rolled, “WooWoo”.  She wasn’t really.  She was very serious and that was what she so desperately need to tell people.

Serious was in her DNA.  But she could cover it up with an acceptable amount of humor.  She was able to make people laugh.  In fact, that was what she missed in her isolation, that guttural laugh that she on numerous occasions produced with friends.

About her isolation, one has to wonder why.  To that moment when everything shifted.   Well maybe it didn’t “just” happen?  Sometimes things just evolve and are what they are.  They don’t have to have any great break trough or break down.  They just happen.

She knew that she liked being alone.  She was never lonely.  And she could go days and only interact with that grocery store clerk or the bus driver.  It was calming to not have to participate sometimes.  To not have to be present.  Because to not be present in a conversation or in a relationship, what is the point of either.  So she had always given 110% when it came to both.  Never regretting either or any.  But liking the ability to keep some for herself.  To store up if you will.

Maybe that’s where the story is or was.  Hidden or bubbling just below the surface.  Which makes her sound shallow.  Which she was never really accused of.  But it was a way to avoid it.

She kept herself so busy with others that she didn’t have to pay attention to herself.  She could give everything to those around her and then not have time or the energy to bother with anything else.  She didn’t mind that.  Kind of liked it.  But she knew she needed to do what she was meant to do.  She hoped that it was writing?

What if after all the thinking, contemplating and preparing to get herself perfectly aligned to write she had no real talent or ability to carry a story or an idea and she would forever just pound out words on the page.  Words that never went anywhere or meant anything that no one wanted and most certainly didn’t want to pay for!  What then?  Where was the idea that would stick?

That day on the bus was just another day.  The weather was good and without incident she bought her four apples, three bananas and a yogurt.  It was Wednesday after all.

Later that day while on the streetcar she noticed a nicely dressed young man.  Maybe thirty, not much more than that.  She noticed that he had a map of the streetcar out and unfolded.  He was looking at the map and then up at the map in the streetcar.  As she looked closer she realized that the map had been laminated.  She had never seen that map laminated before?  Had he gotten it that way?  Or did he do it himself.  She then noticed his brief case.  She thought that he must be either very successful or very important.  The briefcase was one of those very sturdy ones, aluminum maybe?  But it was a light color of brown.  Very nice, she thought.  She watched as he folded the map and opened his briefcase to put the map back.  As he opened the case she noticed that for the most part it was empty.  Except for 3 other laminated maps.

Her father had a briefcase when she was a child.  He was very important and she only saw him on Sundays, sometimes during the week, but rarely.  He was a gentle and quiet man, but very busy and very important.  She knew he was important because of the crease between his eyebrows.  He was very serious all the time.  He was also gone frequently, traveling on business.

She didn’t see much of her mother either.  She was busy planning party’s, at the club or traveling with her father.  So mostly she saw the maid, the cook and her nanny.  And while well cared for and watched over closely she was left to do just about what ever she wanted.  As long as she went to school and made good grades, which she did.

The house they lived in was big.  Not enormous, but big for the town that it was in.  It actually was most of the town.  Close to 800 acres.  There was a stable for the horses a green house, a church and houses for the people who worked the land and building for her father.  Many of the people who lived in the town worked for her father.

When her father was home on Sunday’s breakfast would be served on the sun porch.  They would walk to church then back to the house for reading, maybe a game of cards and supper.  Sometimes they would have company for supper.  None of her parent’s friends had children.  Well they had children but they were older so none of them really cared to play with her so she was once again left to her own imagination.

In the summertime she had lots of land to play on and explore.  But she spent most of her time by the small lake.

Today the lake is part of a large housing addition, but the flavor of the land is still there.  And most of the land is now a large lake build by the Core of Engineers.  There is at least one house still standing, or at least it was left standing when the water came in.  One early summer day by this lake she met her new friend Mowana-Winky.

Mowana-Winky lived in the jungle, with not a care in the world. Life was very simple. Nothing controlled Mowana-Winky. A day would begin with a stretch. Since no real duties go with the days events, hunger is the only guideline to action. Unless of course… it’s raining. The rain cleans and refreshes. Mowana-Winky liked rain. It was assurance that things were normal. And, time to laze away. The one aspect of Mowana-Winky’s life that was of the utmost importance was – the ocean. Being in the water calmed and put Mawana-Winky at ease. Water is a life force, a source of all potential. What was it about the water that drew Mowana-Winky? Something deep in the soul, in the unconscious. A mystery but a comfort.

She could be quoted later in life saying, “if it weren’t for my imaginary life I’d have no life at all.”  She always said it with a smile.  Because she did have a life, but she just wasn’t sure where she fit in the life that she was born into.   And she wanted to make sure that the people in her life didn’t feel discounted or that they meant any less to her than they felt.  Feeling a part of something was important to her so she knew it had to be important to others.

Mowana wasn’t that type of friend that they called “imaginary friend”.   Mowana wasn’t created because of a traumatic experience.  She was kind of bored one day by the lake and the name Mowana-Winky popped into her head.  She thought that Mowana should be like her.  Life seemed simple, she liked water and liked looking at pictures of the ocean.  She hoped to see the ocean for real one day.   Maybe she would get to go on one of her father’s trips and see the ocean then.  She had her father to take her on one of this trips and he always said, “not this time Fish.”  Yes he called her Fish.  Since she was a baby she love the water, loved being in the bathtub, floating and listening to the sound her ears made under the water.  Researchers say that imaginary friends are common and are not a red flag like some have thought.

You might be wondering now if those banana’s she was off to get that day were for Mowana.  That day she hadn’t thought about Mowana.  She thought  about almost everything else that day.

That day she couldn’t get that nice young man with the brief case out of her mind.  Why did he only have maps in his case?   She thought, maps can give you a sense of purpose because you can see where you are in two ways.  Once on the map and once as you are in that very place.  It has to feel comforting in a way to be so sure where you are.  To really know where you are.  Now if you could have a map that helped with who you were.  Parts of who you are aren’t hard.  You’re young or old, tall or short, skinny or not, male or female, but who are we?

Sometimes people will say, “I’m Ben Franklin”.  Well that’s your name, but who are you?

Okay, back to the bananas.  Wednesday was just another day.  Now before we get to much further it needs to be clear that she doesn’t live by any kind of regiment or schedule.  It is what happens to hit her at any given moment.  Except for bananas on Wednesday day.  So don’t make a big deal out of it alright?!

Okay, so she thought about the care and thought that must have gone behind the reasoning of laminating maps.  Sure it keeps them clean and they don’t rip at the folds.  But that’s what makes a map cool.  The wear and tear of the paper the diminishing lines that mark the streets and towns.  The disappearance of places just like in real life.  She worked with a woman once whose brother-in-law was a mapmaker.  She never asked but wondered if he worked from an airplane?  After all how could you really do a good job with out seeing the entire thing?  There had to be pictures at least.

Mowana-Winky popped in and out of her life from the day she met her.  Mowana was quiet like she was and didn’t need a lot of taking care of.  She for a young one was pretty self-sufficient she thought, even for an 8 year old.  But a close eye was always on her.  There was a lot of land and trees to wonder and get lost in.  Even thought she never went far, usually to the lake, someone was always near.

When she was ten she was allowed to use the small boat that was on the lake.  But she had to take lessons on how to be safe.  She thought that kind of odd since it was just a lake and not the ocean.  It didn’t have the big waves like the ocean and you could see the other side of the lake unlike the ocean.  At least the pictures she had seen of the ocean, she was never able to see the other side.  So she knew that it was big.  She thought it would be great to just row out and lay in the bottom of the boat and watch the clouds roll by.  And listen to the water slap the bottom and side of the boat.

Lessons were fun and easy.  Fun because her father actually was the one who taught her to use the boat and took her out three days in a row.  Now as she thinks back it his lessons where easy and not complicated at all.  And he spent more time just rowing around the lake than talking about how to be safe.  It was then that she knew her father liked the water as much as she did.  He started to tell her stories of ocean liner’s and big boats on the ocean.  He told her about the ocean liner he went on when he was a little boy.  When he was eight his mother’s father passed away and they left New York for England on the Queen Mary.

Their room was one of the bigger ones and had a door that went outside.  He told her that he stretched out as far as he could so that he could watch New York get smaller and smaller.  He hoped that he was able to see London as they came into port.  He told her stories about the people on the boat.  The fancy dinner’s the games played during the day and how people walked around and around on the deck.

But mostly while in the little boat they just floated and rowed around the lake.  She never asked why her father was home for three days in a row.  She just liked being in the boat with him and it didn’t matter.  It was cool, peaceful and relaxing.

One day after her lessons when she as allowed to go out on the boat by herself, she was laying in the bottom of the boat looking up at the blue sky.  It was the perfect summer day.  It was warm but the breeze was just right.  What she really wanted to do was be out on the lake at night to watch the stars.  She knew she would have to be older to get to do that.

She closed her eyes and thought about the water.  Wondered what it would be like to live under water.  Not inside of something under water but under water like a fish.  She thought that it had to be the most peaceful place on earth.  And because the water surrounded you like a blanket it had be feel safe and comforting.  But then she thought about the temperature of the water.  Did fish get cold?  She knew the water had to be cold in the winter because last winter it actually froze over a bit it got so cold.

What would Thursday bring?  She still had the image of those laminated maps in her head and wondered if she retraced her steps if maybe she would see him again. Maybe she would ask him where he got the maps.  She didn’t want to embarrass him by asking about the lamination; she thought just asking where he got them might reveal how they got that way.  But it would be totally out of character to ask or even approach him about it.  She would talk to others when they initiated the conversation, but she was never the one to start the conversation, especially with a stranger.

She didn’t think that she was interesting enough to engage other in conversation or banter.  So felt that if they were compelled to talk to her or ask her a question she was more than happy to oblige.  It made her a bit uncomfortable to put herself out there like that.

She was actually fine with just wondering and making up her own story of why or how the maps came to be.  Maybe he was allergic to paper and had to have it covered so that he could hold it.  Maybe he was one of those people who ate paper?  So lamination kept him from eating it.  Maybe he had a crazy aunt who gave him a laminating machine for his birthday and he hated not to use it so he did.    Maybe she would get a laminator.

When she was 15 her father asked her if she would like to go to school in Europe for a year.  She had never thought about going to school anywhere but where she was.  She didn’t even know you could do that.  Why would she do that, she asked.  Her father explained that it would be a great opportunity to explore, me people from other countries and cultures and cross the ocean.

He had all kinds of articles for her to read, books brochures and magazines.  As she read and flipped through looking at all the pictures she thought about all the places she would see.  She gave a passing glance to all the pictures of girls in uniforms sitting in classes, walking around sight-seeing and looking at painting in the Louve.  She was of course interested in the land, the water and the landscape.

She thought about it for a long time.  She thought it might be interesting, but yet she didn’t see herself there spending much time in school.  So she asked if maybe she couldn’t just go to Europe and travel.  That could be arranged her father said.

Oddly enough, she never went to Europe.  Oddly enough it didn’t interest her.  She thought she might like seeing the land and all the castles.  But you couldn’t stay at any place for very long so what was the point.  Think about it.  Wouldn’t it be great to spend weeks or even months in a castle, or days and nights in the Louve?  The images were fleeting just like the time she could spend at each place.

Like writing she realized that there was a place you had to get to go beyond the normal understanding of a concept.  That there was a place that you could break through and get to that place that had been hiding for year.  The truth, the reality of what was going on or going to happen.

How many stories had she started and then stopped?  Maybe she was destined to be a short story writer.  What would be so bad about that?  The same could be said about how many different places she would write.  This computer or that computer, this notebook or that notebook.  She couldn’t finish a paper journal either.  She would get several pages in and then stop.  Or find a newer journal that she liked better.  She didn’t want for a place to write.  She just lacked the ability to get past a certain point.  Sometimes a paragraph, sometimes more, but novel?

She could finish things.  She graduated from High School.  She did leave college once, but returned a few years later and finished with a degree in four years.  So she knew she could finish things.  Although she did lose a bit of steam her first year she finished and did okay.  Sometimes family just doesn’t know when to wait to have a melt down.  And her first year back at school it was a big one.

She once thought that if she had a way to record her thoughts that would give her an advantage.  Sometimes while driving or being in a place not conducive to writing so many great thoughts would run through her head.  She started carrying a mini tape recorder with her.  But that almost seemed to create some kind of shyness.  Like her brain knew that it was there and it wanted to hold those thoughts and not let them be noted for future use.

She tried her hand at a fairytale in college.  She did okay.  The comments from her teacher were good.  But her teacher also said that she was capable of much better writing.  She didn’t mind that comment.  But she wished that she had asked what she meant by that.  What was it that the teacher saw in her or heard from her that made her think that?  Was it a sentence or the idea?  Or was it just the teacher’s way of encouraging her to do more.  Again, her imagination only took her so far.  Where was the break, the mark that allowed her to go deeper than ever before?   Had she had enough life experience?  Her relationships had been short and in some cases lacked depth.

To be honest she didn’t really feel that she lacked depth in a relationship, but the reciprocation of that depth maybe was lacking.  But should that really matter?  Feelings are feelings.  And to commit a certain level of emotion to a relationship is a learning experience.  She didn’t think that she had held back.  But then there was that invisible thing.

She believed that a person should be judged by how much they love, not how much they were loved.  She was sure that the people in her life that were there for her to love were more than enough to insure the richness of her karma.  She also felt lucky that she hadn’t had people in her life that challenged her beyond her ability to be decent and honorable.  She never understood the need to or the idea of not liking someone.  She got that you won’t like everyone, but do you need to be mean.  Does one need to create turmoil and tension?  And no one should be discounted.

She didn’t necessarily think that this was why she spent more time alone than with people.  But she did realize that even though she had some stress in her life, it seemed pale in comparison to those around her.  What was it that happened to these people that made them so angry or tortured?  And what did they accomplish by taking it out on those around them?  Was it a feeling of getting even?

She might be naïve about it, but she is certain that to date there is only one person who doesn’t like her.  But in the grand scheme of things this is inconsequential and bears no meaning to her.  Sometimes people’s emotional age just don’t match their chronological age.  And she is pretty sure that this is no great loss and is keenly aware of other’s who might feel the same about this person.  It is sad though.

Looking back over her life there are gaps where loved ones have been distant.  Gaps that on some level in her thinking are as wide as the Grand Canyon and still haunt her for the time lost.  Time that can never be regained or gotten back, lost to unfortunate circumstances.  Circumstances that didn’t make sense at the time and still don’t today.  She does think about it.  Less and less these days, but still on occasion wonders what she could have done different, what could have been done to avoid such a loss.

For her it was at a time in her life when change was happening at lightening speed.  A time of evolution that she loved and wanted to share with those she loved.  But not all were present or available.  She was doing what she had wanted to do for years.  She was finally in a place to express herself and create.  That may have very well been the catalyst for the shift.  In other words, I’m going to change and you need to stay right where you are so that I don’t have to worry about seeing what I have neglected in myself in you.  I’m settling for something and for you to become more, evolve into who you were meant to be is to painful for me to be around.

What does it mean when we settle for or on something.  What do we give up?  And how often to we all settle for something.  She decided that she had never married or had a relationship long enough to consider marriage because she would have had to settle for something not quite to the level that she deserved or truly wanted.  She also believed that because of her curiosity of life, people and the things around her she was constantly evolving.  So how could she stop long enough to be with one person for an extended period of time?  What if they didn’t evolve?  What if they stayed right where they were?  Stuck like so many others around her.

She often thought about this but then felt like she didn’t have the right to judge someone else’s evolution to a new place or new being.  Who was she to judge another?  She just knew that she didn’t want anyone holding her back.  She did that enough herself, she didn’t need any help with that.

She sat on the beach years ago after visiting her family and pondered the word “thank you”.  She thought how people don’t take the word seriously and use it infrequently with meaning.

After dinner one night, cooked by her cousins’ step-father, her cousins then boyfriend said, “thank you for the great meal”.  It certainly wasn’t out of place or out of character for that matter.  But how often had she enjoyed a good meal, appreciated it and not said, “thank you”?  She was certain that her appreciation was shown in love for the person, but had she said, “thank you” enough?  And if those two words were used with more frequency and intention would we be a better place.

Saying “thank you” takes nothing.  It’s not even a second, it’s barely takes a breath.  Think about it.  When someone does something for you no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, say “thank you” and see how that evolves and how it affects your relationship with that person.

We’ve all heard it before or even said it before.  There is goodness in everyone.  But sometimes that goodness gets side tracked.  It is there if we took just a moment to acknowledge it and embrace it.  She was and could be just as guilty as the next thinking that someone was evil or mean.  But in her action she worked harder at not showing those feelings than almost anything in her life.  She had been hurt a few times or had in her mind disappointed others and that devastated her.  She hated how that felt and didn’t want anyone to ever feel that.  She realized that as small as her hurt was and as bad as it hurt there were many who had much darker and more devastating damage inflicted upon them.  She could not imagine it.

She didn’t really think she was unusual in hoping that everyone around her could be nice, decent or at least nice enough to not create tension.

She can’t honestly say that she has liked everyone she has known personally or professionally.  She worked very hard to behave in a manner that was a fair and as decent as anyone could be.  And after that time with family she said, thank you at every opportunity.

There is a reason behind the number of bananas she picks up.  Once while shopping she realized that there were lone bananas being left.  You know, you’ve done it.  The bunch is six or eight and you only want 2 or 3 so you split them up.  Occasionally, the best looking ones are four or five and you only want two or three.  So you pull what you want.  Leaving two or God forbid one.  So she started picking up the strays.  Giving them purpose and a home.  After all they were perfectly fine bananas, just too much for the last person who was there.

She was a bit of a worrier when it came to one off’s.  Several years ago she lived in the northwest part of town.  She lived on the third floor of a small complex.  Acoustically it was at the right height so that everything that happened on the sidewalk sounded like it happened right outside her window.

The northwest part of town is dense and people live on top of each other.  There is no parking so you if you own a car you circle and circle to find a place close to your house but usually end up blocks away.  People would put bumper stickers on their cars that would say “Visualize Parking”.   She didn’t have a car so it didn’t matter.  The neighborhood had all she needed so a car wasn’t necessary.  When someone did get a parking space sometimes a car would be in one place for days.

She wasn’t sure if it was people who didn’t have cars or people who just bought too many groceries.  But you would see shopping carts randomly parked around the neighborhood.  Sometimes they would be there for days.  There were two groceries with in five blocks she just made several trips a week and rarely shopped using a cart.  She never bought more than she could carry, what could fit in a basket.  A reddish orange truck would drive the neighborhood each day, collect the shopping carts and take them back to the store where they belonged.

Then one day she started really thinking about those carts.  She thought if she had a camera she would make a video about these abandon carts.  Think about it.  You are a brand new cart, you just came off of the assembly line were loaded on a truck to be taken to your grocery store.  Your wheels were straight, you cage was shiny there wasn’t a nick or scratch anywhere.  You are nestled inside another and one is nestled resting gently inside you.  You get to the store you are unloaded from the truck and carefully lined up just inside the door.  The lights go out and it’s dark.  All of the carts are there, waiting in anticipation of the next morning when the doors are unlocked and customers start coming in.

Then the unthinkable happens.  The new cart gets his chance.  He feels the warm hands on the handle.  His wheels are smooth and silent.  And as she pushes him he understands what his purpose is as the light shines on his shiny new frame.  Isle after isle more and more gets put into the cart.  He can feel the cold go to warm as they leave the produce section.  Then colder as they enter the frozen isle, that actually feels good.  He breezes through the isles and proudly carries fresh vegetables, fresh loaves of bread, toothpaste, soaps, it all fits perfectly.

At check out he wonders if the shopper even noticed that he was new or if the checker knows?  They have to, he is so shiny.  The shopper unloads the cart pushes it forward and the cart waits to be reloaded.  The checker is very neat, so the bags are fit in perfectly and sit snuggly next to each other.  Now his first trip outside to the parking lot!  Will they leave him in the cart bin outside or bring him back inside?  Oh it’s a nice day he hopes that they leave him outside, the sun feels good.  What kind of car does she have?  What color?  Where is it?

Then it happens.  She doesn’t go to the parking lot.  Ok, she is parked on the street.  Is it this car?  This car? This one?  She keeps walking.  Where is she going?  She is getting further and further away from the store.  Then she turned the corner!  He couldn’t see the store any more.  Where is she taking him?  He started to panic.  How would he do his job and be there for the next person if he is so far away?  He heard some rumbling the night before among some of the other carts but he didn’t pay any attention.  He figured it was an old cart.  How crazy to think that someone would take a cart to there house so far away from the store.  Then he remembered someone saying something about a redish orange truck.  He had to keep an eye open for that truck.  Where was it?  Oh no!  Another corner and further away from the store, he had to be brave.  Things looked nice so it must be a nice place.  Where was he going?

Several blocks have gone by.  It’s getting dark.  There are a few people on the street, but it’s pretty quiet actually.  Then she slows down.  There is a street lamp and the light is shining down on him.  He feels it bouncing off his shiny new frame.  One by one she takes the bags out of the cart and into the building.  There is one last bag in the cart.  This should be it.  She will take the bag come back and push him back home so that he can continue to serve the customers.  She takes the last bag and walks inside.  He waits.  And waits.

He doesn’t really have a concept of time.  He is a shopping cart after all.  But he is thinking that she is taking longer than needed.   Even allowing for time to put frozen things in a freezer and other goods in the fridge, she should be out again.  And it’s getting darker and darker.  How could this have happened to him?  His first run and now he is stranded and has no idea how to get back?

Wait!  The reddish orange truck he heard them talking about last night!  It had to come soon.  Was he going to be visible to the driver?  How did he make sure that he was picked up in that truck and taken back to the store?  He looked all around as best he could.  But there was no traffic.  Now it was really late and very dark.  She had forgotten him.

It would be a very long night.  There was some foot traffic, but no trucks.  Two boys walked by and threw their empty coffee cups in the cart.  He wasn’t a trashcan, but now he had trash.  He hoped that was all that he had to take on until that reddish orange truck found him.  He didn’t mind just staying in one place.  That was part of his job.  You couldn’t be assured that you would be picked by anyone to help with their list.  But he was too far away and felt useless.

Now if she just had a camera she could take it to grocery and attach it to a cart, fill it up, push it home and leave it out front of her apartment.  She wondered if her neighbor downstairs would let her put a camera in their window to shoot over the night for time lapse?  But like many other things it was just a thought.  She would tell the story a few times to friends but never produced the video.  It seems a bit traumatic maybe.  But really it is comical.  It’s a shopping cart after all!

The reddish orange truck did make its way to that street and picked up the cart and took him back to the store.  The cart was a little wiser and a bit more prepared for the next time someone took him home instead of leaving him.  But he hoped not!

She often wondered, literally.   And wondered how her life would be if she had been born to different people.  Then she would think that she wouldn’t have taken the form of who she is because those two contributors would not have been the same.  Who carries the more dominant gene?   Ok, this thought is way to out in that science fiction space to continue here.  But she did wonder from time to time, if her father married another and visa versa, would any piece of her be anywhere?

But she did wonder.   Not aimlessly.  Because of her father’s success it did allow her or afford her a certain amount of freedom that not many had.  She could have done anything she wanted.  Go anywhere she wanted.  Want she wanted most of all was to just be.  She had jobs here and there.  Graduated from college and from there let the course of her life guide itself.  Or so she thought.

Coming of age in a time when “coming of age” was a big deal, it didn’t really interest her.   It was too much about to little in her opinion.  She didn’t need the attention or the fuss.  Who cared really?  Thankfully her family wasn’t much into the opulence of such events.  Others and friends just didn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to have the big party and all of the attention?  That was just it.  She didn’t want the attention.  She was used to not getting much attention.  She had enough to carry her, but no one really doted on her.  No one fawned over her.

She didn’t mind the time she spent  by herself.  It was how it was.  She wondered if she liked being alone because that’s all she ever knew?  To say that makes it sound like she raised herself and had no one around her.  That’s not true.  But she didn’t have or get the kind of attention that some did or might have had.  Her parents where busy and had their own lives to lead, business to take care of and matters of consequences to handle.  Matters of consequences, she always loved that line from the book, “The Little Prince”.

She liked high school, or more appropriately the idea of it.  She was board and not interested in much of anything than a few friends.   She wasn’t a good student.  The traditional education setting was not a good fit for her.  Something that would take her years to understand and realize.  She thought it was just the way things were.  She didn’t think she was dumb, just not traditionally smart.

Her school from kindergarten to high school was in the same building with the same students.  She had friends in high school, but she didn’t have a best friend.  She never really knew if it was because she was a bit shy or because her father owned the land that the school was on and most of he students were children of the farm employee’s.  Even though her family had a lot of money, they didn’t put on errs’ or use their money to an advantage beyond what any other person should have.  Her father was raised modestly and he wanted his children to be raised in the same way.

She often wondered if maybe she should change her name then she would know for sure if people liked her just because they liked her.  No one ever took advantage of her.  But she did wonder if she would have been treated differently if she weren’t rich.  Well she wasn’t, her father was.  She guessed that she would be one day.  But didn’t really give it much thought.

Laying in the bottom of the boat, laminated maps or banana’s on Wednesdays were her thoughts.

©2009