COME NOVEMBER

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November is not a good month to make changes, adopt new habits or to set the world on fire. It’s cold. It’s dark. My hibernation response is already triggered. I dream of eating and sleeping. I dream of snuggling up next to a fire with a hot chocolate.

Still, I am planning to do some changes, some renovations to the body and soul. But aren’t I always? This time around I plan to put my plans into action. I have already done a couple. I’ve upgraded my iCloud storage to 50G. Only cost $1.20/month. I hope I won’t have to keep deleting photos to make more space for awhile. Then I got brave and is installing the latest macOS – High Sierra on my iMac. I hope it will improve like they say and not create havoc.

I can’t say for sure if these 2 items will improve my life. They just might add to my wasting time habit, the thing I’m trying to eliminate. Life is full of ironies. I need to be on my toes. Focus. Be in the present moment. That is what I must do. The High Sierra is installed. It’s messing around with Photos. I hope I will like it. The Apple people are so smart. They have ways of making money every which way. In order to store all my photos in iCloud I will have to do another upgrade. I won’t bite on their hook.

Well, now I’ve identified some my biggest problem – lack of focus and addiction to gadgets. My mind is splintered in many directions. I have trouble listening to people, especially when they are giving directions. I feel as my ears are weak, sagging. Then they shut down. Or is it my mind? And how does one strengthen either? I wonder if YouTube would have an answer. That would mean messing around some more on the Internet. More wasting time. Egad!

I will chew and digest this for awhile. I can handle only small bites at one sitting. I will be back tomorrow- I hope.

NO MORE HEROES AND HEROINES

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It’s Tuesday but it feels like a Sunday morning coming down. My brain must be lagging behind. Too much stuff to process. What’s happening to me, to us, to the universe?

These are the 2 recent world events that I’m trying to grapple with. Less than 2 months before there was the shooting in Las Vegas where 58 people were killed. On Oct. 31 the truck attack in New York killed 8 people. Is it any wonder that my brain is stalled? It is a good mechanism. I don’t/can’t understand such atrocities of the killers. As to the greed and duplicity of the mega rich, I don’t want to understand. And how can the government say one thing and do another? Even the Queen is not exempt from greed and tax evasion. Then there’s Bono, Madonna….I don’t want to hear any more names. Are there no heroes or heroines anymore? And where is love?

My brain is putt putting this morning. It’s not depressed. It’s just a tad stalled. The sun is glorious, the air cool and crisp. We are happy and snug. I still feel hopeful despite everything out there. I will focus more locally – just within my vision. I cast about too much, distressing my self, losing precious energy.  I guess I will have to get into my phone booth and do a costume change. I will be my own heroine and do the right things.

BUT IT ISN’T MY FAULT

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I can’t believe I’m in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. How often have I felt and said that? The other day cleaning out stuff, I found some scribbling dated 1988.

  1. I have trouble cleaning my house. I accumulate too many things
  2. I have trouble trusting other people with my feelings
  3. Right now I have a negative image with my head nurse which stems from the past
  4. I find it hard to take care of my car properly
  5. I can’t cook
  6. I need more time to pursue my goals

The list was from a course called Adventures in Attitude. From where I am sitting now, I can’t really say that I was successful or adventurous. I am mostly talk. I am very good at taking courses and reading self-help books. As for applying the principles, I’m not so sure.  I’m still talking the same lingo. I still have that same problem of keeping my place tidy. I still have piles of clutter. I can’t seem get pass GO.

I am not a total failure. I have rid a few items on the list. I can cook now. I don’t worry about the car anymore. I take it in for servicing. I no longer worry about head nurses. I’m free of working and answering to authority figures. I have time and yet still not enough. As for trusting others with my feelings, I’m here talking, aren’t I?

Where to go from here? Seems like I need to work on #1. So simple and yet so hard.  29 years later, I’m still crying and whining about the same damn things.  I better read Portia Nelson’s poem again. Better yet, if only I could DO the clearing and cleaning.

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.

 

 

 

MEANWHILE THE WORLD GOES ON

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Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.

Mary Oliver sure can wrangle them words. Wish that they were mine! Meanwhile the wild geese fly. Meanwhile I’m tapping out my words, my distress. Yes, I have been listening to someone’s despair again. Not that they would have call it such. But what would you call it – the losing of one’s identity, job, home, life partner?

I have no need of telling mine. I tap it out here on the page. It does me more good here than recounting out aloud to someone. Then I would be just begging. Oh, please, feel sorry for me. I have suffer so!  I need no such sympathy or pity. It would only make me wallow deeper in my misery. I am listening to the tapping of my keyboard. The cadence is soothing on my frayed nerves. I’m comforting myself. I wonder if cutting or flagellating oneself have the same mechanism of relief.  It’s good that I don’t have to physically hurt myself to do so.

There! I’m almost myself again – soothed and smoothed.  I’ve listened to too much despair and sadness. I’m not willing to do so anymore. I will offer them Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese instead.

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

THE PLACE CALL HOME

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I think too much. Today, I’m thinking about the place call home. Where is it for me – the China where I was born, Maidstone, Saskatchewan where I took grade 1-12 or here, in Saskatoon, where I have lived since?

Was it Thomas Wolfe who said you can never go home again?  It’s true. On a trip to Hong Kong, I tried to speak Chinese to the store merchants while shopping for souvenirs. They could not understand me. My travel mates told me to speak English for heaven’s sake. I was crushed. On another trip to China, I tried to find my way back to my home village. No luck for various reasons. On my return home, my mother informed me that our cousin laughed about my clumsy Chinese when I tried to talk to her on the phone. More crushing. It’s not for lack of trying but lack of appreciation by others that I couldn’t find home.

Is home a place then? I spent most of my formative years (12) in Maidstone. I always refer it as my hometown. But is it home? We owned the house we lived in. My father and his cousin owned the Rex Cafe they operated together. I knew the teachers and most of the kids in school. The year I finished grade 12, my family moved to NYC. But even before the move, I sensed that we were really not part of the fabric. We were one of the 3 Chinese families in town. We had the cafe.

My parents didn’t belong/participate in any community groups or activities. My mother had only a spattering of English. I had never felt the aloneness and separation of homelessness till that end of that summer. I came back to Maidstone to pack up for going to university in Saskatoon. We had not yet all moved. My father was still in the process of finalizing the sale of the house and cafe. My grandparents were still in the house. But already I was feeling gone and invisible. It was as if the town had shifted and filled in the spaces we once occupied.

For me then, home is not so much a place as the warmth of feelings, the rushing arms of a welcoming. Home is the moment that Sheba runs out the door, tail wagging and squealing with delight after just a couple of days away. She gallops back and forth, unable to contain her happiness at seeing us. We watch her antics, misty-eyed and hearts full – owners and dog sitter. We were all home in the moment of pure love.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH ME

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The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

The words of William Wordsworth published in 1807. They very much describe what we are experiencing today. How strange that Wordsworth felt much the same – way back then!

The world is too much with me. It follows me wherever I go – all the news, good and bad. They seem to find me, no matter where I am, from every corner of the globe. I have no time or space to rest from all the restlessness of the world. I am connected all the time. I hear the good, bad and the ugly. I hear truths and I hear lies. I like to turn it off but I am addicted. I want to be in the real world, to be grounded and rooted like the big tree across the street.

But I am hooked, addicted to my little gizmo that glows in the dark. It vibrates though I thought I had shut it up. It wants to tell me everything. The world is too much with me. My brain is on fire with too much information. I see and hear all evil. I want it to stop. How do I start? What gods do I call up to give me strength and the will? Can I beseech the moon and the stars above or do I JUST DO IT?

 

HOOKED ON WILD

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This is the thing. I get hooked. I see these free courses on Facebook. I can’t help it. I investigate and sign up. Doesn’t hurt anything. They’re free, right? I sign up for Laurie Wagner’s 27 Wild Days of writing to be delivered right into my mailbox. Each day contains a little video where she reads a poem. Then she chooses 2 lines that would make great prompts. It sounds too good to be true – 27 free days. And it was.

I’m excited. Love the poems. Love Laurie. She is so vibrant. The prompts lines are great, propelling me into writing and writing for 15 minutes. On day 3, I’m wondering why there are 2 videos.  The first video she talked about the exercises and her program which I’ve seen already. What I haven’t seen before was the  sign $49 to sign up. It puzzled me a bit but thought it was for a more in depth program. I was okay with this short one so I moved on to the poem. Another great one for wild writing. I was ecstatic. I was productive.

This morning I was pumped up, wild and eager, looking forward to another wild writing. I opened my mail for another video and poem. I scrolled and scrolled. No mail from Laurie Wagner! I scrolled some more. Nada! I went to YouTube. No day 4 video, only the end. I realized then, that I was teased and dazzled by a sampler. I wished that they had been more upfront. Had I misunderstood, overlooked? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t find the original pitch on FB.

I went through a bit of withdrawal – gnashing teeth and clenching fists. I thought about signing up. $49 US is not a lot of money. I am worth it. It would be worth it. Then I thought of my year-long online art class. I’ve abandoned it after 5 months. It’s still there for another year for me to access.  It was a great starting point for me. It was worth it. Then I thought of the ebooks on writing on my Kindle app. I’ve barely glanced at them. I’ve had them for a few years. Maybe I could read them first.

I’ve decided that I will try to be wild on my own.  I will find my own poems and inspirations and those great opening sentences. I can experiment my own brand of wild writing. Emily Dickinson is an intriguing person. But her poetry doesn’t do it for me. I will check out Leonard Cohen and Mary Oliver. Suggestions, anyone?

WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW

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Bear with me. What I really want you to know is I hang on to stuff, afraid to let them go. What I’m afraid of is that if I let go of anything, life as I know it will be lost. Sometimes I’m afraid to breathe. What if I breathe wrong? Everything would go amok. So I hold it until I have to let go.

Last night after getting out of my bath, I was brushing my teeth, doing this and that. I saw on my vanity glasses filled with this and that. I saw one filled with various sizes of makeup brushes. Brushes years and years old. But they were still in good shape because I hardly used them. I thought: why do I still have them? Of what use are they? They are just collecting dust.

It took some moments before I could trash them. I could/might start using them again. What a waste throwing them out! Such thoughts passed through my head. Then sense prevailed. I haven’t used them for at least 15 years. Why would I now? Into the garbage they went,  all 4 of them.

It was not painless. I felt uncomfortable, a sense of loss. As if a few makeup brushes could make or change life as I know it.  I think that’s why we hang onto things/thoughts/habits. We are afraid that we/life will be less without them. We are not emptying/ridding what is passé to let in new life.

I will sit here for awhile with the discomfort. I am okay. It will pass. I will go on.

 

MATHEMATICS, EINSTEIN AND WAYNE DYER

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It’s another morning, another day. I’ve gotten up, dressed up in my day clothes and have I am. The mornings are still very dark at 7. There’s snow on the ground, on the spruce and on my lettuce bed. The buddhas sit unperturbed beneath their canopy. Their placidness amid all weathers is admirable. It’s what I strive for each day. I don’t always succeed but seeing them each time is a reminder. I try again and again.

Each day I get a new opportunity to try/do at what I yearn and have yet not achieved. How awesome is that? I need not dwell in the pit of self-pity and failure. Each day I can try something new, go down a different path. That’s what I have to remember. There is no point in keep doing the same thing, expecting different results. That’s wrong mathematics or insanity as Einstein and Dr. Phil would say.

I am a fan of quotes. They contain so much wisdom and truth in a sentence or two. Einstein said: “Nothing happens until something moves.” Wayne Dyer: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” I’ve been putting these quotes into practice over the last year. Change is slow as it is difficult to be awake and conscious. I’ve been mesmerized and swept along the routine of everyday life. Sometimes I forget to stop and smell the flowers or the coffee though I love that quote. I’m trying again – stopping to notice, to smell, to document.

Now I have to move and do something else.