Sunday, December 10, 2023

Reaching Out of Your Mind.

 Tis the season 

when sadness looms, when despair overwhelms, when the light is literally gone or going, when life becomes filled with dark, cold, empty spaces.

When many of us retreat so far into ourselves that the corridor has closed behind us and we are stuck in a place with no door, no window, and no way out.

All we can see is the can'ts, wont's, don'ts. 


We do not want anyone to know how far, how remote we've become. We pretend we're fine. We smile and make jokes when with others so they won't know how bad things are with us. 

It's a time of year for joy and love. For literal warmth. For family huddling together in their caves until the world grows back into light and warmth of its own. 


As happens when this season rolls around, there are many suicides and suicide attempts. Sometimes the mind collapses in on itself like a pile of so much rubble.

That Which Survives is buried, with pressure pressing all around. Pressing, pushing. compressing, making us smaller and more ineffective.


Recent suicides in my area have sprouted a lot of conversation on social media. 

The messages are, or should be, hopeful, cheering, encouraging, optimistic. 

For the most part, that is what they are --

to the ones not reduced to rubble in the dark places of their own souls. 


Depression is a disease with many forms, many and varied symptoms, and a whole lot of unknowns. We, as a society, are finally acknowledging the disease aspect of this, and we even think we know how to help. 

All the patient needs to do, is reach out, ask for help. Anyone can do that, right?


Well, no. 

No one expects someone with a high fever and delirium to be walking around and talking sense. 

No one expects the starving man or the thirsty child, so ill that any movement exhausts the energy in their muscles to the point of pain and unconsciousness, to get up off the floor and walk to the nearest kitchen and fix themselves. Shouting at a pneumonia patient to just breathe (or cough) is NOT going to make the air go in any easier or more effectively. 

Yet this is exactly what you are asking of the lost souls buried in the dust, pebbles, rocks, bricks that are the rubble smothering and shredding them into components.

You ARE wonderful, opening yourself to the ill and offering to be their go-to when they need help. All they have to do is ask, or tell you of their need. 

Their disease prevents them from doing so. It is a symptom. 

They cannot ask.

They cannot reach.

It is not a matter of will.

It is not something they can do. 

It is a symptom of their disease. 


If you want to help, to prevent, to heal, YOU must be the one to watch for the symptoms, to reach out, to do the asking.

And it can be a helpless repetitive job. 

You may not get answers. 

You may get lies instead of truths. 

You may be ignored and you will probably be shut out.

Darkness does not allow the admission of light, because when light enters, darkness is no more.


Look around you, at the people you live with, work with, deal with. 

Are they being more quiet OR more noisy than is normal for them?

Are they preoccupied or often not occupied at all?

Are they just not themselves

Ask them.

If they don't answer, or return generic answers -- "Just got a lot on my mind" or "it's been a tough time" or even "I'm tired; that's all. -- ask again. 

Tell them you are here for them. 

Then be there. Helping hand extended.


They cannot ask. The disease prevents that.

They may not be able to respond, and you are going to have to wield the shovel and shift the rubble. You are going to have to use an ice pick to bore a hole through a solid wall to let in the ray of light. 

You will have to administer the treatment.

And they may fight you. Resist by non-response. That first beam of light can be painful to eyes that have too long endured the black blankness. Effective antibiotics can make an infection seem worse by declaring war on the invaders, who increase their numbers until the drug cuts off their reinforcements.

Do NOT say, they could've -- no, they couldn't. Their illness does not permit this.

Pay attention to behaviors, words, attitudes. 

If YOU care, you must, must, must be the one to reach out. 



Sunday, October 15, 2023

The Seasonal Pause

Tonight's the night! 

Put on the socks, wrap a quilt around my head and shoulders, wrap my hands around a hot cuppa (for me, coffee) and sit on the porch.

It rained today, so the light is shimmering.

The lowering temperature has the air smelling so clean.

The clean smell of falling leaves and fading greens; of pollen-heavy goldenrod and foxtails, and all those plants. 

of long darkened evenings and darkening days and long nights ahead when warmth is the best aroma and even in our electric or gas or other technology age, the scent of warmth calls to mind woodfires and cooked food and family.

Too soon the coming cold will be tiresome. The wet, dark evening will be an annoyance.

We'll be over it.

the plants will die, the greens will brown, and the trees will be bare.

But for now, for tonight, we can enjoy the changes in the air. We can cherish the passing of the seasons. We can await the coming hours of darkness knowing that, one way or another, the light will come again.

Eventually.

And the cuppa warms the hands, the nose, and the heart as surely as the socks and quilts warm the body

Magical Monarch Moment

There was some magnificence in today though. It was a beautiful day with a nice breeze. The birds, bees, and butterflies were busily enjoying all factors.
It's so nice that the small creatures of nature appreciate the work that I (and mostly my friend) put into creating a place for them.
It is also "nice" that I can sit at my desk and look out my door or window and see them going about their lives, adding their own color to the patchwork and their own movements to nature's dance.
I saw the little white butterflies that we called cabbage moths playing tag or chase, whooshing up an ascending breeze and drifting downward when it passes. They chased one another through the flower beds and across the yard for I don't know how long.
It made me laugh.
The magickal highlight today wasn't the white wingers playing tag together though. 

The highlight of the day was a single monarch butterfly.
This monarch, which looked to be as large as my hand, cruised in the center of the yard, away from the flowers and the weeds.
This monarch was alone. No companions; no playmates.
This monarch was in the spotlight -- I mean sunlight -- in the middle of my freshly mown yard, with the treetops tossing and the leaves cheering on.
And this monarch performed for it's audience.
(or was it only playing?)
Up and down it swam and soared and slid and sailed. Climbing and banking, or drifting in a straight(ish) line from one end of the yard to the other.
I swear I could almost hear it shrieking "Whee!" on several dives, and "Oooh!" during the climbs. I could feel the wind beneath its wings and the surety that came with that.
As I headed back inside, it floated toward me, rested for a moment -- I think it was smiling -- and then flew off in another direction.

Friday, August 18, 2023

Everywhere a Name! Everyone a Name!

"You (he/she/they) stole my baby name" is one of the most profound entitlements seen or heard every day. Titles -- another word for names -- are not subject to copyright for a reason. (They should also not be subject to trademark, especially now that some institutions are claiming possession of single letters, but that's another story.)

In most cases, the person making this claim heard, read, or otherwise saw the name somewhere else and really, really liked it. You'd think that this would make it self evident that the name had a previous owner, but it doesn't seem to be working that way.

The only excuse I can think of is that these name-owning people are all the poor children named Amber Nicole, or perhaps Tiffany, if female, and some variation of --aden or --axson if male. I do feel a great sympathy for those like-named persons.

But still, it is most likely that someone else had it first, and that you are the thing you are raging about.

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Gifted Gifting

Here is a little slice of my life for yall.

My indulgence for myself this month was 2 books on the PNW, the setting of most of my (full length) stories. A book about the flora and fauna and the geology of the area. The other was an adult coloring book of the same.

Do you know they don't have fireflies as we know them throughout that region? I'm so glad I researched that before I included them in a pastoral scene! I really was looking to see when they appear there, being that region is north of me, and happily saved myself from an inaccuracy. (So happy!)

Anyway, it made me think since so many of my stories are in that setting, I needed a good reference book at hand. (Google leads me down too many rabbit holes.) 
I thought the coloring book would help me become more familiar with the wildlife especially if I use the pictures in the other book as guidelines. Easier for descriptions and environments and other details.

So, I ordered the books.

Now, you may know I have a granddaughter.
This beautiful child (while I can still get away with calling her that-- she's about to turn 15.) If you've followed this blog, or looked at many of my pictures on Facebook, you have seen this child's work.
She is as gifted in her art as I am in mine (I say modestly)
Her art is not the same as mine.
I draw my scenes with words.

She actually draws her scenes.

For a long time now, she has mostly drawn people. Anime to start. Actually it was Sponge Bob to start, almost as soon as she could walk and talk, and hold a pencil, pen, crayon, or chalk. But she has advanced past sponge bob, and even passed beginner's anime. 

She drew a couple pictures of her mother, from photographs. So lovely.

She has tried landscapes. 

She can't help what colors and lines flow from her fingertips  any more than I can do more than direct the barrage of words that flow through mine. 


She was with me this weekend, and I showed her my coloring book, and while looking through it she seems to have fallen in love with the pictures. You could almost see her mind adding in the colors -- with her alcohol based markers, specifically. So she instantly knew the medium she'd use, and was applying colors as I arrange words at such times.

It's not often our gifts arrange themselves in such harmonious fashion., and those times will become even more rare as we both age.

Perhaps someday she will illustrate my books.
Or create backdrops or CGI images for productions of said books.
What a nice family connection that would be for future generations.

So
Happy Birthday (early) Hailey, and ENJOY.
Enjoy using your Gift with my gift to you. 


And I'm gonna buy another coloring book. 

Sunday, May 21, 2023

Chasing Water

 I love waterfalls. 

They are beautiful, shiny, wet, and wild, and wonderful.



I've seen big waterfalls -- I've been to Niagara. 


I've seen mostly smaller ones. 

I've seen bright waters arcing out from a narrow opening in rock, and I've seen the water dripping, seeping, and pouring and running down hillsides of rock. 

I've seen from one extreme to the other, but I've not seen it all.


More than the visual appeal, there is power in these falls. The falling water somehow scrubs the air. You can feel the friction in the air. You can feel it bristle and rub against your skin. You can smell and taste the freshness. Something to do with ions and an exchange thereof. 

It is electric. 

Water, falling, with power, speed, and mass practically begs us to -- do something with it. 

Make electricity.

Grind wheat or corn, or boulders into pea gravel. (That's how nature often does it, after all.)

Operate machinery. 

Cleanse ourselves, our souls, and our environs.

There is nothing that compares to the free-falling of free-flowing water. 


But, for all the magic and thrill, and ionic-exchanging fresh electricity, we must remember that power misused or misdirected has the ability to destroy. That same roaring rush of 'might' that lights your home can also send it spinning like a rubber raft on the ocean in a hurricane. 


I love waterfalls, but I have a dread of floods, but in a way, a flood is a horizontal, not vertical, waterfall. The beginning of most floods, as they breach a dam or slam into a bridge uses that same power harnessed and misdirected as a vertical fall down a hillside. 

Of course, flooding can also be sneaky. That compares to the waters that drip, ooze, and fall over rock walls and fallen trees. The water level can rise, and spill over in increments, and before you know it, you are knee deep, hip. deep, waist deep in sapping, sucking insidiously flowing waters.


I suppose, in conclusion, that the leaping, roaring waterfalls are inherently more honest than flooding. They excite and refresh me, mentally, spiritually. and physically. They thrill me, in so many positive ways.

I seek them out, in my own small way. 


I avoid, or try to, the floods, and I fear them.


Power is power, and it is a personal choice how we see it.

How we use it. 

But we should always be aware of it. 

We should remain in awe of it, not differentiating between horizontal and vertical. As power is power, so water is water. It is for each of us to decide how we see it.  

Thursday, May 4, 2023

Amidst the Mysts (The Bridge2)



The man was sweating lightly, feeling trembly. He remembered.




He remembered.       


He had been walking from the shop to the farm, where his son was to bring him his lunch. His wife always wanted him to have something fresh, and since he liked her cooking, that was fine. He never knew what combination of his children would show up, and he usually made bets with himself on who and how many it would be. Since school was back in session, it was usually just one or two of the older boys.

He had stopped to check out the balsams – something wasn’t looking right about the three year olds. He didn’t see anything – no insects or growths, and he made a note to have Jamie or Jon to check the soil. They may have been placed too closely, now that they had grown and spread out. They didn’t look crowded, but you couldn’t a;ways tell by looks.

Ne bent a needle, and put it to his nose, then grimaced at the sharpness the scent sent through him. Oh well. He’d best get to the office at the Farm, and get his lunch. That should fill up the hollow place that was starting to ache.

It had been a long and busy morning up yonder.

He ambled on, passing into the spruces. They were his favorites, for shape, for scent, and for color. They were ready for harvest this winter, and he was already getting gentle inquiries for bigger orders. His brothers still thought people were crazy to buy cut trees to take into their house until they were fire food, but they were renewable and profitable, if only for about three weeks a year. But what a profit!

Whew! There was the office! Sure seemed like it had taken a while to get there today. He was exhausted! But then, he hadn’t exactly been in a hurry, and he couldn’t be late since his lunch wasn’t there yet.




By the time he got to his desk, he was sweating lightly, and trying to remember what he had been lifting up yonder the was making his shoulders ache. Probably cases of books, although he didn’t remember any specifically. It was just something that usually happened when he was there.




He sat at his desk, literally pushing papers from one stack to another. There was nothing that needed immediate attention. Nothing that really needed his attention at all, besides maybe soil samples from around those balsams. Jamison could take care of that. He wrote a note so he wouldn’t forget, then smiled as he heard someone approach whistling

It was Jamie. He’d know any sound that boy (young man, not a boy for a while now) made anywhere. And it sounded like he was alone, too, which was rare enough for either father or son, let alone both of them.

He stood up to greet Jamison, – and was forcefully thrown backward. By what, he didn’t know. Just that it was sudden, it was strong, and it had pushed him hard enough to topple him and his chair.




And then he was walking through the woods, following or seeking the sound and source of indescribable music.

As if the clear crystal air itself was singing, without words. Vibrating with sound. High pristine notes, low deep chords that could be felt maybe more than heard.

The harmony was perfect.

No, the harmonies were perfect.

Invisible strings strummed by invisible hands.

Notes, tones, and chords from the air itself, no words but those perfect harmonies.

He had to find the instruments and the music.




And so he had come to the bridge, with its singing, playing cables, but no song.




There were people coming and going on the bridge. Some ran forward to meet joyfully those waiting, some came away quickly from the bridge, eager for their next best thing.

There were people – masses of people, standing alone or in groups all along the bridge. Some were saying ‘hello’ and some ‘good-bye’ and some nothing at all, just watching.

Was there someone watching for him?

He slowed his walk forward to search the crowd. He saw–

He saw many faces, of different degrees of familiarity. Former co-workers and employees, never quite forgotten, but never a whole portion of his life. Casual friends, old acquaintances. He saw them, and they saw him, but any greeting or recognition was that od “used to be.”

He saw his mother (as beautiful as she used to be) and his father (as strong and sturdy as he had used to be) and they both smiled and waved to him, but they were surrounded by children (unborn and stillborn and too-early born, and too shortly living siblings?) and he could see that they –all of them – were content.

Happy and content, not sure why they were at the bridge just now, but they were together and so they were happy. They were there for him, but they were not waiting for him.

His eyes searched the crowd, looking and looking for someone looking for him, and there was no one there of that description.

He was approaching the Bridge, and there was no one there for him.




It was then, just before stepping away from the ground onto all bridge, that he became frightened, and turned and ran.




He would NOT go to where no one waited for him. They would be waiting for him to get home. His son was bringing him lunch. How had he come to this bridge? Why was he here?

This was not his place.

Definitely wasn’t his time to be here or – someone (did he know who?) – someone would be looking for him, waiting, if this was where he was supposed to be.




He took fright and he ran.

He had run and run and run, until he ran into the fog, and the more he ran the thicker the fog became and the more lost and alone he felt, until he had stopped to catch his tortured, ragged breath by leaning his hand against the tree trunk while he tried to solve his mysteries.


He opened his eyes and knew his truth. He had been the one looking for someone. His friend of many years. His lifetime friend; his forever friend.




The friend who had been beside him all along, but that he could only see by going into the Mysts.



His life, and his friend, were here.

His life, and his friend, were now.




The bridge faded, for a time, until time,into the fog, until the only thing before his eyes were the fog through the trees, and Love.




Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Amidst the Mists: The Bridge (1)



He opened his eyes and they looked out at the nighttime darkness of a cozy room, but he didn’t even see that.

The image before him was that of a bridge.

The most beautiful, unrealistic bridge he’d ever seen.

A fairy bridge. Made of lights, colors, and threads.

And he had seen it before.

He had run from it before.

That night…




He steadied himself in his mind. No more running.

Besides, what was frightening about a bridge? Even an unworldly one? Even one created by fairies and woven by spiders with spider-thread? Ones that caught the silver-and-gold light and turned it to dancing rainbows of dancing color?

He looked the bridge over carefully, in his mind.

He had seen pictures of bridges built that way, he knew with certainty. Huge steel behemoths, towering over waters, the bridging held up by what looked to be fine dainty fibers but were actually metallic cables somehow spun together to bear great weight, but with flexibility.

He thought maybe he had actually seen one, without the colors and the soft focus. Real ones. Or maybe only one.

But where? He’d had to travel, at times, but those times he tried to keep few and far between, and also short. He had never liked being away from home for long, even before he had married and started with the children.

Home was everything, and the best part of traveling for his work was when he could return home, whether as a success or a failure. It all worked out.

It always worked out.

After he got home.




It didn’t really matter where he had seen such a bridge (New York, maybe?), he just knew that he had.

There was some comfort to be found that an actual bridge designer, working with real and modern materials, had seen such a bridge and figured out how to build one. He’d made it real.

It was a real thing, in the world.

Not, he reminded himself, made of cobwebs and moonbeams, but still real. The cobwebs and moonbeams were for the future. Something for the young to aspire to.




The thing about the bridge – he studied the mental image once more. The bridge didn’t end. It arced, and it faded into the distance, the bridge lights mingling with the stars. The bridge wasn’t swallowed by fog, or obscured by scenery. It was there, and you looked as far as you could see, and it was still there, and then there was a point where you could no longer separate it from its background. The words ‘blur’ and ‘fade’ were inadequate to this great light-based phenomena, but they were the best he had.

The important thing about the bridge wasn’t its style or even its existence.



The important thing about the bridge was its load.

Monday, April 3, 2023

Carventure for the Knees: First of Three

Let me tell you about my carventure today.
It was great fun, as it always is, when I set out on my own, in my trusty rusty automobile.

First, I had to remove the blankets draped over the window that won't close. We had hella storms over the weekend and winds and tornado warnings and all the good stuff as kitten-cub March roared it's way out as a full grown bull-mad lion. So I had protected the car and contents as best I could. All that had to be undone before I could go anywhere. Blankets on the windows tend to limit the driver's ability to see out, and that's not really good in gray-day situations. (Although it wasn't actually raining by then.)

Next I needed gas. Well, my knees have been bad all week, and, it was, in fact, for my knees that I was going out, so I went to the gas station here in town -- hometown tradition; Wichard's -- where they will pump the gas without having to be informed of a disabled person's presence. We're just like normal people to them!
There appeared to be no other customers waiting, there were no autos in the service bay, and not even the stand-around chit-chatters (generally known in the service industry as the Liars Club. Every business has them.)
I didn't think the 'service person' was ever coming out.I was wondering if I was going to have to go somewhere else and DIY it. But, having worked as customer service, I know that the slow times are when you have to go do the extras in the back room (or equivalent,) and so I waited.

Finally.  
Got my gas.
And a light came on on the dash, one that I never even knew existed. One word, SECURITY in red (not orange) lights. Car was running; no knocks, pings, or heartbeat thumps. Brakes were holding well. Temperature gauge was reading normal, so I proceeded with my drive down to Five Mile Road.
Everything worked as it should all the way there. I did the safety stuff -- long stop times, staying back, not getting too close, keeping in the outside lane.
At one point my cruise control turned itself on. That was interesting, as I was approaching a stoplight in an interstate ramp area.
Got there with no further excitement, parked, went in, got a goopy and painful shot in both knees, and headed back out.
The security light did not come back on when the car restarted.
Going home, yay!
As I turned off the road onto the highway to home, that darned old low oil light came on and stayed on.
Same engine check; no pings, clatters, or thumps, no getting hot, no unexplained or unusual noises. So I continue on, thinking I'll stop somewhere for a nosh, and while there I'll see if the reboot -- I mean restart -- thing will work it's magic once again. So at an approximate halfway spot I did just that. Went to a drive-thru, had to turn the key off to be heard on the speaker (my car, like myself has some type of bronchitis and chronically breathes very loudly)
And guess what!
It did indeed work again, and I made it home with my lunch and to my ice packs and my bed.!
Whew!
What a journey to start my week.

Saturday, March 11, 2023

Amidst the Mists 7

He was still in the bed, but sitting up more and better. 

In other words, he was getting bored. 

Tonight, for several rare minutes, he had been alone, while voices and doors

and all the sounds of a full busy household sounded around him.

He watched out his extravagant window as the darkness fell, long and slow,

and the mists gathered off the lake and wandered down from the treetops. Winding,

whirling, dancing. 

He thought of the clean living smell, and wished he was out there once more.

“No, you don’t,” a voice said next to his ear and he looked around but no one

was there.

“You aren’t here, go away,” he said crossly.

“Now how can I go away if I’m not here?”

“I don’t know how you’re here when you aren’t here.”

“Temper, temper.”

“Oh shut up!”

His wife looked into the room. “Do you need something? Are you talking

to me?”

“No. Just – just talking, I guess.”

“My silly man,” she said, came in and kissed him on the forehead and

adjusted the covers around him, like he was one of the children. 

“Don’t,” he ordered, but then caught her hand before she could retreat. 

She waited. 

“Do you s’pose, ” he said hesitantly, “that I could sit in the window?”

“With night coming on? Do you think that’s – safe?”

“If it’s not, I have more work to do on the window. Besides, night air being

sick isn’t true.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah. I do.” He turned her hand over and studied it, then rubbed it softly. 

They were silent together, then she sighed. “Jesse and Jonny

are still here. I’ll send them in to help you.”

“Alright.”

“You have to let go of her hand,” the voice beside him advised him. “She’ll

stand there all night letting you hold her hand.”

He sighed, and let the hand go free.