Convo Completed

It really hit me exactly what it is to be without you, when I talked about you being part of the essence of who I am. If you think about it, we knew it was going to be awesome, that it was going to suck, we knew this would be telling, just not sure how awesome or sucky or what we would discover through the experience. The old adage “You never know til you try” comes into play here, and I think that is what makes living. If you only did what you knew then you would only get what you already had. Sometimes getting what you already had is nice, you know? There is nothing wrong with a speck of predictability, but going through the motions of the day is life- just life. It’s not really living.

 

If you keep asking “wouldn’t it be nice if…”, then status quo quickly becomes insufficient to satisfy. Not everyone asks that question though. Like my mom. She doesn’t question status quo, in fact she likes status quo and very clearly doesn’t feel the desire to rock the boat. In fact she definitely wishes I didn’t either. Funny thing about people like Mom… having children like me almost forces them to live. I would need to make it a point to apologize for that.

 

I think we can never be certain of the events of the future. How things will pan out, what things will look like down the road, how people will react to whatever it is we are doing – these uncertainties arise all the time. I think that lack of certainty (theory), when exposed by the elements of living (practice), is what makes it sting or soothe whenever it pans out, however it pans out, whether the pan out was expected or not.

 

One of my favorite quotes by Nietzsche explains that whatever we are thinking about no matter what can’t really compare to what we actually feel when we experience it- “Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler.” So when someone asks “Did that tattoo hurt?” and I have a hard time recollecting what it felt like exactly, I always just say “Yes it hurt.” Cause logic tells me that 13 needles attached to a machine jamming themselves into you really probably has to and I remember thinking it hurt at the time.When I say to my love “This is harder than I ever could have imagined.” I really could not have possibly known the exact feeling of forced separation. Recollecting and predicting will never be the same as experiencing- they will, at best, be the not digitally re-mastered versions of living.

Insert yourself in this picture and decide what it would be like in person- I guarantee it doesn't compare to the way it feels to be there!

 

Life’s Simple Lesson – Slow Down

It has been a long time since I have taken the time to write on impulse. It seems my life has become so full, that the few things that used to bring me the only joy I had, now have to share space with all of the new things that bring me joy today. Sadly my writing which requires peace and solitude has taken a side seat.

Up early for opening the fast for Ramadan, I found myself with a little time on my hands. Pre-sunrise breakfast had been consumed, and I was left with a cup of coffee and one slobbery tennis ball dropped at my feet. I looked at the goofy chocolate lab panting in front of me and said “Alright get your ball. We’ll play.” With a single motion Valo had scooped up the ball and bounded out the back door. Gus, being my dog through and through, yawned and stretched with such purpose his toes spread out in front of him, nails snagging the carpet as they retracted. He mosied behind Valo and I to a nice spot in the grass out of the way of the game of fetch already in progress.

“It is so peaceful, and the temperature is perfect today.” I mused as I mindlessly chucked Valo’s ball. Just as a thread of light broke through the night’s sky, I inquired if my furry companions wanted some breakfast. Once inside I poured food in Gus and Valo’s dishes, and gave pause to the tug I was feeling from beyond the closed door of the backyard. “I’m going to go out front and watch the sunrise.” Watching the sunrise has a whole host of emotions that come along with it. Peace, well peace isn’t really an emotion is it… it is more of a state of being that allows you to feel some emotions that get lost in the harried workaday world. Allowing this peace to settle I marvelled at the sheer size of the Texas sky, made note of several cloud varieties, and stared in the direction of the eastern horizon with anticipation. I began to wonder what colors I might see, and how long would it be before I saw the pale dawn transform into the brilliant day.

I really committed to greeting the sunrise every day the moment I realized I was sitting, admiring God’s handiwork and being impatient for it to show itself. I guess that is a price we all pay for the lifestyle we live. Always rushing from here to there, finding that the only time we get peace is when we are away from all the “noise” in our lives. It seems that a Sunday morning game of fetch transported me away from the “noise” just long enough to move me to take a time out. The sunrise only lasted about ten minutes, but it showed me that I have time every day to sit and watch the sunrise with my dog and start my day with ten minutes of peace.

Sunrise on the way into work

 

Journey to the Center of a Human

In a dimly lit room you called my name
Disarming my defenses you led me from pain
Revealing in an incandescent moment
Through a small window in an instant
Everything I am and everything I am not.

While your eyes caught my heart
Gently you opened the gate
Leaving my soul to fate
I was freed by your honesty
Only to be captured by your sincerity.

Finding truth within delusion
My pain subsided, you lifted my burden
Taking my heart and making it soar
Your safety and strength opened doors
Weak and defenseless, yet my heart wanted more.

In a dimly lit room surrounded by an incandescent glow
Through a small window, from half a world away
You gave me everything, and accepted nothing
Telling me I will never be left unprotected,
I will never be left alone.

 

Playing With House Money

Love brings true happiness. That is what I came to write after expressing what I felt Bertrand Russell meant when he said “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” The trip back to Mass for Gram’s funeral this past week was perhaps one of the best I have ever had. I had time to reflect about the choices I have made, and feel comfortable in my own skin. Reconnecting with my past, and calibrating who I was as a child, where I stopped for sometime as a young adult, and where I am today has really been a gift.I tend to write a lot about choices. I guess that is because even the choice not to make a choice is still a choice in it’s own right, and every choice we make takes to another point in our journey where we will again be faced with a new set of choices. Case in point: the choice to stay up late last night left me with a choice to wash my hair or not wash my hair. Neither impacted my ultimate end of getting up and showering and going to work, but the choice to leave my hair tied back did allow me to sleep an extra 30 minutes. Thank you very much.

February 2008 I had the right idea about choices. I wrote about participating in your life, owning decisions, walking lines, and following your heart. The missing piece that left my soul searching shallow and largely ineffective was eliminating the risk mitigation. I love to analyze. I am good at it. In fact it is my favorite part of my job, and being able to do it daily is ultimately what keeps me from putting down my papers, and walking right the fuck out of that shitty as process. I don’t take long to weigh pro’s and con’s, extract my emotions, and take an objective decision in what I feel is my best interest. Using my ability to analyze my life became a way for me to mitigate the risk associated with living. I had no idea that what I was doing to myself was actually running a business and not a life. No clue what I was missing out on by instituting caution as a best practice was eliminating my ability to experience the very best part of life- Living. In mid 2008, a good friend asked me if I had ever had “that rush” if I had ever “felt the world stop when someone walked in the room” or if I ever “just didn’t think”. I remember scoffing at the question, as if to say “Well yeah of course I have.” I then remember pausing as he walked away to ask myself ” Haven’t I?”

October 2009- the most pivotal time in my life, when I realized there was nothing I could do to make my husband be a happy person. I realized that try as I may, if he was unhappy, no amount of changes or risk analysis I could make or do would change how he chose to live his life every day. February 2010 -the second most pivotal time in my life, what the initial realization primed me for, was practically a stranger stripping down all  my facades and unlocking all my secrets, then forcing me to see myself for what I am, and in essence what I was doing to myself. Without the initial realization, I never would have been open to hearing about how every day that I denied the very existence of what makes me an amazing human, that chaining my heart down, and belittling into nonexistence any trace of sensitivity, was, in fact, breaking my spirit. Anyone who knows me, knows my dog Gus. He is quirky, funny, mannered, and over all a source of unending joy in my life. If you go on facebook right now you will see that his album is titled “The light of my life”.  It seems that it was ok for me to be soft and sensitive toward this amazing creature. I truly believe that his “love” for me, and my love for him kept that part of me alive for 4 years.

What I know now about life and love is that in order to truly experience these things you have to set down the Pareto charts plotting and graphing the potential risks associated to a choice or series of choices, and go “all in”. I know now that I can roll out of bed being the source of  unending  joy in someone’s life, and get all the love and appreciation I deserve for being that source without asking. I know now that being understood completely and without  exception is precisely what I always dreamed it would be if it existed. I know now that I don’t have to sacrifice any piece of who I am to get everything I never dreamed was never going to be available to me. I recently told my father, after him expressing concern for me “I just don’t want you to get hurt Katie”, that “I know what I am and I know who I am and I know what I want. I wake up every day happier than I ever thought possible. I am understood, and this feeling I hold in my heart is worth every associated risk. If it all ended tomorrow I would be devastated, but to know that I am capable of this level of emotion is irreplaceable. At this point I am playing with house money.”

 

Poetry Part Deux

World Inspiring the Heart
(With)

From his life we gain inspiration
With inspiration, gleans passion
From his passion we draw conviction
With conviction, anger mounts
From his anger we develop heart
With heart, faith forms
From his faith we mold perception
With perception, vision beholds
From his vision we dare to dream
With dreams, soul affirms
From his soul we learn to love
With love, teaching renews
From his teaching we gain inspiration

With his gifts to the world, we will change
the future. From his memory -inspired,
the circle of giving will live in the lives we
touch through his example.

 

Self Perception: The not so free admission funhouse inside your head.

We all see ourselves differently than others see us. Perception is reality, as the saying goes, but what of the perceptions that exist due to “Funhouse Syndrome”?

Over the last three years I have been transforming- physically, emotionally, and mentally. I can say, resolutely, that I am a completely different person inside and out than I was 6mos ago, a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago. The stages are recalled so clearly, it is as if I have cataloged my mental and emotional state through this whole journey. This mental and emotional transformation, I believe, perpetuates my physical evolution. Mentally I am more fit then I have ever been. Emotionally I am stronger and more confident than I ever thought possible. Physically I am effecting the changes needed to project to the world who I am mentally and emotionally- stronger, more confident, and more fit than ever.

It seems there is a part of the human condition that naturally self-deprecates. Despite all of the positive changes I have made inwardly and outwardly, I still find things about me, that force me to take pause and sometimes even wonder if my mind is playing tricks on me. My favorite analogy for the human condition that allows someone to wholeheartedly believe something that just isn’t real is the bikini. Just because they make a cute two piece in a size 20 doesn’t mean that the size 20 individual who will inevitably purchase and wear the bare-all garment will look cute in it. There are people whose brains distort their unhealthy bodies into long lean sleek machines fit for a cute leave nothing to the imagination two piece, much like a funhouse mirror. While on the flip side, there are perfectly healthy individuals who have long, lean, sleek machines to call their body, that will put on a knock em’ dead bathing suit only to throw shorts and a tank top on, while professing that more work needs to be done before they could possibly pull off something so revealing.

If our mind’s eye is much like our physical eye, with concave and/or convex abnormalities, causing a distorted self perception, how do you fit corrective lenses to something metaphysical?

The power of self-talk has been studied and documented by countless medical journals. If self-talk is the metaphysical equivalent to a pair of spectacles, how does an individual prescribe the proper bent in the lenses one fits the “self” with? Through soul searching, meditation, and practical evaluation, a reasonable level-headed logical person should be able to take the perceptions given to them, as rendered by others, and apply the necessary filters to see the “self” properly- or as properly as one is able. Utopian? Probably. The reality is that there are fewer and fewer people arriving into maturity equipped with the tools necessary to prescribe self adjusting metaphysical spectacles.

So what is the remedy for those afflicted with FHS? It would depend on the severity. For those who contract FHS early in life- and let it go untreated- years of therapy, antidepressants, and often times constant self sabotaging behavior bring the individual to rock bottom which then sets the stage for the difficult, dare I say near impossible, climb to the top of Self-perception Ravine. The moderately afflicted have proven to benefit from something as simple as surrounding themselves with positive, but truthful, comrades. While the least severe cases of FHS suffer under the debilitating need for attention, and will generally display a behavior affectionately dubbed as “fishing for compliments” to fulfill their need for acceptance. Generally for all cases of FHS having someone who believes in them and climbs down the ravine, shows them the way up, and supports them through the worst of the journey is just the ticket to earning a doctorate in Self-Perspectometry.

The beauty is in the balance. If you climb up the mountain side of Self-perception Ravine you may just find yourself at the top of Mount Delusional-lonely and alone, a size 20 sun bathing in a two piece or a size 2 who needs to work a little harder before removing the baggy T-shirt cover up on a 100 degree day. While my article today discussed those with Physical FHS, the same principles apply in the attempt to remedy Mental FHS. If you find you suffer from any type of FHS- talk to someone about it. Find a mentor, and get on the path to the Emerald City- your hot air balloon home to a happy life is waiting for you!

 

In Response to ” Commentary: Pope wrong on condoms”

Typically I will agree or at least be able to reasonably accept Ronald S. Martin’s point of view on any number of subjects as a well thought out and intelligent argument, but his article posted today on CNN.com, ” Commentary: Pope wrong on condoms”, is just lunacy. In this article Martin presents the Catholic church’s steadfast resistence to the condoning of the use of condoms as a catalyst in the spread of HIV/AIDS. I cannot describe to you all the epic head scratch that commenced about a paragraph into reviewing this.
Martin calls the Catholic Church’s resolve an “ignorance of reality”. I call his article ignorant. Part of the very foundation of the Christian religion is abstinence from sex outside of marriage. The Pope’s job is to preserve the integrity of the Catholic Church and set straight any questions that may be challenged by an increase in demand for religious modernity by the community. The Pope is responsible for the interpretation of the Scriptures as they apply to the congregation. By asking the Holy See to make an exception to the rule on contraception is asking him to condone blatant disobedience of God’s Will.
Martin says the Pope has “sparked outrage” in Africa, “where Catholicism is spreading like wildfire”. He quotes the Pope as responding to the outrage with:”You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.” The Pope is correct on all levels. As he is the religious true North for Catholics, and an example for all, for him to compromise on a fundamental is the stuff heracy is made of. The church murdered for less blasphemous rhetoric. By condoning the use of any contraceptive under any circumstance, the Pope would be opening the door to further corosion of the faith. The Pope is right to continue his sermon on abstinance.
Further into the article, Mr. Martin attempts to substanitate his stance by likening the corrosion of a fundemental to that of not recommending the use of a seat belt while driving or not hiring an accountant to keep the records of offerings made to the church. Wearing a seat belt is the law of man in many countries, and wearing one doesn’t contradict an order from God. Having clean and tracable records of manetary dealings is a requirement of doing business legally. Abstaining from sex when you are not married is God’s Law, not man’s.
While I agree that the spread of HIV/AIDS is tragic, and a global humanitarian burden, I cannot, will not, berrate the Pope for remaining true to his faith and requiring that all persons wishing to claim that same faith as he follow the rules set forth by his God as interpreted by his successors and by him. The Pope is meeting with modernity on a vaild issue of infected people that are married being able to use condoms. These are the issues that are able to be compromised upon for the greater good- the welfare of the spouse and the potential of bringing more suffering into the world through infected pregnancy. If the people that Martin is campaigning for want to continue to disobey their God’s Will as interpreted by the Pope(who is the leader of their chosen faith), and continue the spread of a devastating disease to meet a selfish end (lustful satisfaction), then they need to find a different interpretation of their God’s Will that does allow for contraception and pre-marital sex. The fact that infected people are not behaving responsibly is on the conscience of no one but the individuals themselves.

Link to article:  http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/18/martin.condoms/index.html

 

Watchman

Watchman

 

Duty, Honor, Admiration

I work to fulfill.

If not me then who?

If not now then when?

No child left behind,

Said who?

 

 

Fear, anger, disgust

I make a plan

Unveiling the misguided man

Standing to fight & unite

Living with purpose

I ignite.

 

 

Who will champion

To right the wrongs & strive

To build love in their lives

I can never tire

Living with purpose

I desire.

 

 

Paralyzed from the infirmity

Those who cannot speak

Have been forgotten & forsaken.

Are we really that weak?

Living with purpose

I restore.

 

 

More, Better, Stronger

We must be

To realize all they see.

With understanding & a spark

Living with purpose

I leave my mark.

 

The right stuff

Stuff is a funny sort of word. It can be whatever you want it to be, but for the most part we use stuff to mean things, both the tangible and intangible. After being tossed a life lesson by the KG’s, packaged up in the form of the most complex and secretive person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, I am beginning to understand stuff, the intangible stuff we are all said to be made of. We have seen movies and read books that illustrate this stuff that I am talking about. The heroes are always made of the ‘right’ stuff.

The best example of the right stuff I have run into low these many years came to me in the form a man somewhere in his 20′s. I don’t know his exact age, or really many details of his life at all. See he works on a need to know basis, not a nice to know, or a good to know. If he feels the need to let you know then he does, otherwise he pretty much keeps to himself the specifics of a life less charmed than most. Intrigue has plagued me since getting to know one of what I imagine to be the many facets of this person. I don’t ask him much, because he would have told me if he wanted me to know. Could I be glorifying his secrecy merely out of a need to fill in the blanks? Sure, I suppose I could be. Not like I haven’t before, but this person allows me portholes into his life that have allowed me to think otherwise. The only time I sense he is completely comfortable talking about himself is when he is discussing his time while in service to our great country. His recounts of the time he spent in the military and the emotions he experienced have such range that I can only imagine he must be tired of feeling. I know I would be.

To have the ‘right’ stuff it is said you must have courage, honor, discipline, honesty, bravery, and a host of other attributes that make heroes heroes. The military gives the vast amount of its enlisted an opportunity to test their stuff, allows them the chance to see if what they are made of is enough to get them through. I am jealous of that test. I want to know if my stuff is the right stuff, enough to get me through. In my world my stuff is strong and resilient. In a world where Oreo cookies are not at a premium, I have a varied diet, insects are never thought of as food nor game, and fighting for my life and the lives of my comrades is not even conceivable I stand in wonder to think if I even have the right to say I am strong or resilient.

“At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heaven, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever,” (excerpt Siddhartha by Herman Hesse) I imagine he has had this feeling, and my heart aches know it too. To feel so alone and utterly helpless to change your circumstances, but feel certain that through the worst of it you know who you are and what you are doing. To have that sense of self be so firmly soldered in place, that not even acts of war can take it away…

I must take care to not give up so much of what I know about myself in order to rediscover my stuff, as I may only find again what was already revealed to me through my life thus far. I must take care not to seek the approval of the people who have already validated their stuff, because the ‘right’ stuff is in the eye of the beholder. That beholder is me. I will probably never know if my stuff is good enough to get me through war, but as I journey through this life lesson, and spend my days unwrapping the gifts of knowledge given to me by someone who has validated their stuff, I will continue to hold out hope that one day I can have that undying sense of knowing that what I have is enough to validate for someone else I am worth knowing.

 

In Reponse to “A Funeral for a Cricket” by Paula Donnelly

I suppose you would need to know Paula to fully appreciate her declaim on the woes of a being fully and completely aware of themselves and their environment. While most of my friends do not know Paula, you can appreciate it as if it were coming from me. Paula and I are two peas in a pod, although she is the crazy pea way at the very end of the pod (cue “One of these things is not like the other….”). I am the pea in the center of the pod who, at times, desperately wishes to have her theme song (Space Oddity) played in tandum with the crazy pea’s. Here is my ode to Paula, and my response to a tirade against the blissfully ignorant and the Karmic Gods (coined by Paula and henceforth referred to as KG’s) who do nothing but fuck with us.

Paula quoted an excerpt from Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams by Sylvia Plath. Per Paula “Its a story about this woman, who works in a psychotherapy office and steals dreams out of the therapist’s notes for a bible she is creating for a made-up deity she named Johnny Panic.” (The quote could have been about the relavence of the milk mustache in childhood..but let’s translate that to : move on it doesn’t matter so stop wondering.) I read her rant to say that being intelligently aware is oft times as much a curse, as it is a blessing. A curse in that you see meaning in everything. While some of us have the ability to turn a blind third eye to these things when on sensory overload, there are times when what the world is telling us through happenstance just becomes to much. We become as paranoid and suspicious of the significance of someone we haven’t heard from or seen in years reappearing in our life, as we are of spotting a particular white rock amongst a bunch of other white rocks in a garden bed while on a walk.

Paula states in her declaim “Stupidity to me is like a cheap form of vacation. Beach-side property in La-La Land is prime real-estate and most people already own a portion of it. Me? I’m sitting on a tree trunk in the Yukon trying to figure out why Jack London felt the need to personify a dog in almost all of his stories.” I love that. I really do. I feel that too often I begin to ostracize myself in the most classic sense. Back in the ancient times of Athens to practice ostracism was to basically cut someone off socially for their own good. It was a way to diffuse a social discrepency before the discrepency even occured. Like when making a seating chart for a function, and sitting Grandma Jo clear across the hall from Great Aunt Jesse to prevent a quarrell. Just once in awhile I wish and hope for a whole day to go by without philosophisizing the role of the praying mantis on my car that morning or what purpose do the KG’s have for this person or that person in my life. I wish for the one day where I just don’t care about meaning or significance. I am wishing to invest in Boringsuckpantsville. So many people flock there everyday. There has to be something good about it. If Paula is on a tree trunk in the Yukon wondering about Jack London’s character choices, then I am slightly less focused but closer to home sitting on the dock of a bay pondering how an interaction may have effected Joe Schmoe’s life.

If only I could make the noise stop. Oh to be a decorative ball perched atop a fabulous candleholder which is stoically sitting on an oddly placed mantle which is only oddly placed due to the nature of the odd wall on which the strange hearth/additional seating was built in this 1980′s style ‘open’ floor plan. To have a sigular purpose in life, revealed to me by the sheer nature of my existence- to exist for the esthetic pleasure of my purchaser.

Are we peas crazy, hearing and seeing things others do not? To be perfectly aware of my surroundings is more than I could hope for. But there are times, increasingly more so, when what my mind’s eye sees and my soul hears is blinding and deafening. Paula, “you are not alone. I am here for you…” Here’s to sleepless nights, agonizing days, focus free musing, desparaging thoughts of the others, pining for that which we cannot have, restless hopes, impatience, and aphoristic statements of the world in which we live. May the KG’s throw pebbles at your window, and your world become as interesting as ours. Paula, you are the only one that has read this far, and for that I owe you.

And so let us go in peace.