life experience

Upon considering Breakfast…

/ autumncircles / 1 Comment

Don’t we all have some Holly Golightly in us?  The incessant race to get away from ourselves into the imagined person we want to be?  Running away from love to find more misery and reason to run instead of staying where we can find comfort and joy?  Is it the fear of not finding that comfort and joy to be enough that keeps us on the run? What if we were to find the love of our lives to not be all that we had ever been told to dream?  Or the happiness we are taught to spend a lifetime searching for to be a let down when we arrive there? Better to run from misery to misery, right, they never disappoint do they?  Sadness and despair are determined to not fail at their success.  But love and happiness – we have tricked our minds and hearts to believe they may not be real or lasting.  Do we ever believe the same about despair?  We all to often convince ourselves we will NEVER feel different, that we will always feel miserable.  What if we could swap out that same old fucking formula?  Trade out misery for happiness?  Keep sadness at bay rather than joy?

As deeply as pain can grip a hold of our hearts so can contentment and peace because they are our true selves.  We are born happy, unmarred, innocent souls with a treasure trove of laughter and acceptance and oneness.  It is only as we are aged by grownup time that we begin to filter out our original nature and retain the fear we are taught.

I did not know I was afraid of the dark until someone brought fear into my darkness.  I did not know how to be sad until it was told to me that must be why I cry.  I recognize this now that I have children with whom I have unknowingly taught fear much like it was taught to me.  That can be the only explanation for a grown woman to be afraid of a smile so all encompassing that it could lift me off the ground into the waiting arms of my spirit who unconditionally loves every molecule I am made of.

Should we never fear anything?  No.  Should we accept all that exists in our lives?  No.  Is it always up to us to find our happiness?  Yes.  Is this where the limits of my capabilities to stretch beyond this concept end?  Yes, for now.

I allow the din of many other voices to crowd my heart until it may burst into a million pieces.

I must let go to allow the symphony of the fugue fill my being until it pulsates with the life force that maintains its beauty.

But sometimes, I foget how to get to Tiffany’s…

Why does it have to be?

/ autumncircles / 2 Comments

I heard someone ask on Inauguration Day “why does it always have to be about race?”

Hmm.

Let me think about that for a second.

[At this point, imagine a runner at the starting line with an Olympic-style torch.  The gun goes off and she begins to run very fast towards giant soap box that she is about to set ablaze.]

Deep cleansing breath.

IMHO:

Well, if we ever have forty-three black presidents in a row who won’t stop talking about what it means to be a person of color elected to the highest office in the land, maybe I’ll ask that same question.

Or, if it hadn’t only been a mere few generations ago where one color enslaved another color in our country, I might wonder why the infamous “card” keeps getting played.

If there were not still people alive today who survived being segregated, kept back from a decent education or job, held out of restrooms, bus seats and restaurants, and seen loved ones hanging from a tree, then perhaps I would lean on the side of caution when bringing up my color.

Or, if there wasn’t still discrimination, bias and prejudice that either silently or overtly exists in the hearts of so many – I could possibly be persuaded to think it is inappropriate to discuss the triumph of the “first time in history” type of election.

The tables are not turned where white in this country has had to endure what black has.  The tide has not yet fully receded on hate and bigotry.  And the thought that someone who has not had ancestors kidnapped, sold and enslaved, or parents and grandparents beaten or looked over because of the color of their skin, simply refuses to see yesterday as one of the most historical moments in defining our country’s history – totally baffles me.

It would be like a man saying to a woman, “Look, I know I have never physically given birth to a child but would you stop sharing your bodily trials and triumphs after having one?  Even if it is your first?”

Would parents who only have healthy, living children dare to say to parents who have lost a child that even though they can only imagine what they must be feeling, could they please stop bringing it up because it makes them uncomfortable?

Is that what it is?  Because it makes some people uncomfortable and not want to remember or acknowledge the truth of our not so distant history?  Is there some deeply recessed shame that some feel for knowing what happened was wrong and instead of bringing it into the light of day where we can deal with it and heal, want to squash it deep down where it only comes out in tasteless jokes, inept interactions with others who are different, or worse?  Much worse?

I want to remember.  I want to acknowledge the painful past mistakes our country has committed so that we don’t ever repeat them.  EVER.  Does that mean I want to live in the past and make all of my decisions based on how our country used to be?  No.  I want our country to move forward as one people, one nation, under whatever God (or not) we believe in.

When it came time to pull the now proverbial lever on who I thought best suited for the job as President, I compared beliefs, records and policies.  I did not have skin color or religion or even genitalia in my list of criterion.   My vote was for who I believed to be the right person for the right job at the right time.

And, as it turns out, I am extremely happy with my choice and the opportunities President Obama gives all of us.

[The soap box flames have dwindled to a small smolder now.  The flames are not so hot, but lingering coals and plenty of oxygen promise its rebirth on another day, another topic.]

BTW – would there have been no less mention, discussion or celebration had a WOMAN been inaugurated as President?

I know I will cry just as much, praise just as long and celebrate just as hard the first time we finally, finally elect the next right person for the job of President who also happens to be a woman.

Meant to be you and me questionaire

/ autumncircles / 2 Comments

At what point does a reason stop being a reason and start being an excuse?

For example, I have hormones currently regulated by mother nature and let’s just say that the old broad ain’t so consistent in either timing or intensity.  This is the reason for my periodic and sometimes drastic mood swings – not because I am a loser or a bad person or an untimely bitch.  There is plausible proof of some internal body electrical misfires.

I may or may not have consciously known this over the course of my thirty years dealing with an “electrical” cycle.  However, since having my “junction box” removed last year while retaining my “generators”, the whole issue has been more in the forefront of my daily cognitive functions.  (Please note:  blogger apology for the crude metaphor – I didn’t want to scare off the men who may possibly be reading this with words like menstrual, uterus, or ovaries – ;o].)

Do I still have reason to let these power failures affect me now that I am more self-aware?  Or do I use them as an excuse for my behavior thereby circumventing the implementation of actual adjustments in my life – regular exercise, strict diet, and possible HRT resulting in a more than moderately different person?

Like I said, it’s been thirty years – surely I am supposed to have dealt with it by now, right?  What if it were a different ailment – one not so illusive with more apparent physical signs and reactions like cancer?  Would the deadly ramifications offset the attitude and thereby provide some leniency?  Or MS?  Are those complications severe enough to warrant a hall pass on likability?  Or leprosy? Could the skin lesions alone grant me access to Barbara Walters’ ten most fascinating people regardless of my sporadic inability to be kind?

What if the malady was even more slippery and less socially acceptable to discuss like MPD?  Could I continue to blame the evil Mary Kate for my tantrums and outbursts indefinitely?  What about alcoholism?  Which program step is it that forces me to stop attributing my behavior to the drinking or alcoholic tendencies?  How about a deeply painful and repressed sexual abuse from childhood?  How long could I continue to live my life in reaction to such an abuse before the universe tells me to get over it?

In other words, to morph some extremely tired cliches, when do I stop sitting around calling a spade a spade and pick up the damn shovel to move enough dirt to turn the freaking mountain into an oasis?

Would that depend on the inherent caliber of person I am or am perceived to be in the greater era of history?  Who and what decides that?  Would I let it affect the person I am meant to become?  Or would I become that person because of it?  Which came first – the saint or the miracle?

Would Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu have become Mother Teresa had she also had to battle cancer her whole life?  What if Gandhi were an alcoholic?  Would he have become the humble giant of peaceful leadership we still hold in highest esteem today?  Suppose the Buddha was a leper?  Would the isolation have hastened his reach to Nirvana or prevented it?  How about Jesus?  What if he’d been abused before a section of humanity realized he was their Son of God?  Wouldn’t he have still grown up to be the Messiah for the two billion Christians in the world today?

My hormonal swings are clearly dwarfed by these larger and possibly offensive comparisons I have attempted to develop but they are currently my albatross with which I have to decide how much longer I am to let choke me.

The list is long of people in history, religion and our everyday lives of those who have eclipsed these seemingly minor to literally earth shattering situations to become luminaries, spiritual centers and generally happy individuals.

Am I willing to join them?

Are you?