Lessons from My Cat

Live in the moment. Don’t anticipate.

Speak up. If they don’t understand, or don’t get it, say it again. If you don’t repeat yourself, they may think you are happy, or content with the way things are.

Bring gifts. Even if they don’t appreciate them and throw them out when you aren’t looking. Even if you have to go around looking to replace the gift that got tossed. Bring the gift back. Show them how good your gift is (even if it is a half-eaten mouse).

Make someone happy by letting them pet you. The right way. Purr in appreciation. They may pet you more.

If you don’t like the fake mouse, ignore it. It will go away. Or hide it. It will go away faster.

Give in a little. So they know you are still on their side, even when you do speak out. Allow love to enter your heart. After all, you need them.

Go ahead and find the best places to sharpen your claws, you are just showing how happy you are to be there in the spot(s) you have claimed are yours. “I am a part of your world.” Mark your territory. Kilroy did. You want to be remembered. Do not cave and scratch the provided post. It shows your willingness to conformity.

Leave when you need to. Hide, if you have to, do what you have to do to be safe. Instinct is sometimes better than reason.

Regaining Control

There are 5 human basic needs, according to Choice Theory. The five basic needs built into our genetic structure have been identified as survival, belonging, power, freedom, and fun (Glasser, 1998). (Borrowed from Wikipedia)

This is a testimonial to Power.

We have all been almost powerless over the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have lost their lives, many sit at home, waiting by the door, waiting for the lockdown to end.

In the midst of all this, I retired from the workplace. Retirement isn’t as easy as it seems, there is a great deal of homework to do. I had to figure out Medicare, Social Security, and what to do with all the time I now have at home, simply because I cannot go anywhere, or do much of anything. I spend my days on the (new) computer. I have been able to do a little extra for my former boss, and that helps, even though, for a moment, I feel tied back down (some days it’s a pretty good feeling).

More recently, in the area of medicine and physical conditions, I was able to become brave enough to transfer all of my medical needs to one system. That system allows me to view all of my charts, all of the interactions, and it allows my medical community to see what has been accomplished all in one chart, shared by that community and me.

A timid person at this stage of my life, I finally worked up the courage to contact a previous provider to obtain a medication they had for me. It had been a long ordeal, and I am finally moving on. I called to see if I could just “pick it up.” They said, “sure.” I got there, they handed it to me, they gave me the packing slip. I can move onto the other specialist now.

I went back to the car and sat for a few minutes before starting the car. Suddenly the old me was back. Independence, decision making, power. I can be in control again. Glasser’s words came back to me. I know that, when one of the five basic needs is not being met, we weaken, we feel crippled. This one action, brought me back to the swing set, I had power once more. This gives me a fresh sense of freedom.

Suddenly the cold, pouring rain did not matter anymore, the sun shone in my heart. I moved on. I went to the fuel pump, got my gas. I went to the doctor’s office, that was over in a few minutes. I passed onto a young woman a cat toy my cats rejected (so much for entertainment–her little cat loves it, by the way). I did my grocery shopping for dinner–in and out really fast. We enjoyed at home. I announced to my partner: “I had a really good day. I regained my power.”

It takes only one decision to regain your power. One thing. You will feel better.

Brave New World

As the world turns…how do we relate? We are stifled physically by a pandemic. We are stifled emotionally by a government that leads by a double standard. We receive our next stimulus check via debit card. Oh my…the reward for staying at home. Oh wait, those that don’t comply get it too…I have to rethink that one.

The most recent topic is that of Governor Cuomo and his inappropriate behavior. I totally agree, he was completely out of line. If he’s that lonely, and is attracted to someone, don’t ask your employee for her opinion on sex or it’s behavior, take the woman out on a date, woo her, marry her, give her a life of respect, or respect her for being who she is. Don’t just sit there and creep her out by repeating over and over again words out of her mouth of a struggle she has to live with her entire life. That’s just wrong! Let’s take this one step further though. Joe Biden. He has had his hands all over a lot of women, when he was Vice President, he was avoided by many, his hands and lips couldn’t be contained (the victim literally had to run away). My point? If you are the Golden Child of the Democrats (aka the one they have chosen for the next president), you get away with it. “Oh My! I didn’t know I was offensive!” Really? Or, you did not care? You assumed your position kept you safe? And now you are safe. Old Joe is President. Back to today though. Governor Cuomo. You were everyone’s hero, until they found you out. You scared your employee. You scared her to death, almost. Shame on you. You need to go to her, with witnesses, and apologize profusely for your illicit behavior. A lesson here–no one wants their history, especially a painful history, brought up over and over and over again. You lied about the numbers that have died from COVID. That’s not nice. We aren’t going to condemn you for honesty, but we will for lying to make yourself look better. Okay, everyone stretches the truth, we all want to look good, me included. But not when you are a public servant. Yes, that’s what you are. A Servant. Double standard though, look at all the characters that have gotten away with it: Clinton, Kennedy, Johnson, etc. Too many and we whine about Kennedy’s Camelot and why can’t things be back as he wanted them. Do some reading. I have been mindful because I totally related to Caroline, only a year younger than me, and I still fiercely want to protect her. But facts are facts, sad to say. Corruption well hidden by a promise a magazine made to a grieving widow, in her effort to keep the fairy tale alive. (It worked.)

They have silenced Dr. Seuss. Even Gayle King thinks it was wrong. While I haven’t read all of Dr. Seuss’ books, Dr. Seuss was all about rhyme, poetry, children’s style. He wasn’t teaching prejudice, he was enhancing our imaginations. But, along with banned books, throw these books on the funeral pyre, burn it, bury history once more. Yes, he is a part of our history. See The Lopsided Poet for the most recent “Silencing Seuss.” This author’s attempt at bad poetry.

As a part of our Second Winter of Discontent (aka isolated by COVID), we have started jigsaw puzzles. Our first was the human body, second and third were houses and yards, the fourth is The Civil War. This was a particularly interesting puzzle. Around the border are all the museums we have had, then it is surrounded by the generals, the presidents of both nations, and battlegrounds. I thought we’d give up, but it only took us two and a half days. I want to see some of these. It is history. A culture gone down.

Sitting is the new smoking, I read. Oh my. Here we are, cramped inside, and we aren’t supposed to be sitting (as I sit in front of my computer here). The need to write, the need to record. The need to exist.

One final thought. My goal was to become an author. I have had many books, written in my mind. I generally struggle beyond chapter two, which is why I sit here, blogging away, instead. People don’t read that much, they want the instant, so I try to give it to them. So they will want more of me.

Okay, I’ve woven enough today.

A Writer’s Inspiration

I’ve started. Back to the basics, to prod me once more.

The preface has already juiced my brain.

I encourage us all.

Thank you, Natalie Goldberg.

Thank you, old used bookstore in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Quarantine, Day ? Reminders of Avalon

From Crossing Over to Avalon, page 267:

The inner world of imagination becomes a sanctuary of hope and promise, a place of retreat for feelings and thoughts, where seeds of individuality and creativity incubate.

And then, “Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.”–Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD

Quarantined April 16, 2020

I started the day with my usual, now for the new “usual.” Padding across April snowfall, just enough to clean up the mud look, with a second coffee cup, a bottle of wine (no, not for now, but the rule is you can’t go to the new house empty handed), and today I remember my flashlight, I entered my new home. Already the concept of 5 am coffee, based upon impulsive behavior on my part, is tiring.

But, here I am, my journal, my pen, my sacred book of prayers I write when I need them. Here’s one: “Sit with your feelings, letting them say what they have to say.” Now, quite often, when I have the negative thoughts, mostly replays of the past and mistakes that were made, I wallow and push them away, embarrassed that I was so beyond stupid. Today I interpret it as “allow them. It’s okay to face them.” This is all a part of who we are. I have learned, recently, of the need to accept even the negative, to allow myself to love myself, in spite of me. It’s who I am, no need for shame. Yes, it’s still a tough lesson, because I don’t really like that part of me, so I want to bury it so no one else sees it.

Remember the rules I started the other day? Rule 4 is Quit getting lost in the past or future. All that really exists is now. So I can quit worrying about judging myself, and I shouldn’t worry too aggressively about the future, I need to enjoy TODAY.

So, here are the “rules.” For further investigation https://lonerwolf.com/inner-peace/

Enjoy your today.

Days of our (Isolated) Lives

I really meant to write on a daily basis, but the days have become mundane creatures and we are now trying to figure out which one of us is eligible to go to the grocery store, before giving up and saying “well, maybe we will go tomorrow.”  Let me add right up front that I enjoy living a rural life.  Less people (until trying to go out midday and almost collapsing from fright at the number of people out there that certainly don’t look like they are isolating, but probably are, you all are just out at the same time.)

Meanwhile, I have been doing essential things for my employer while at home.  It helps to be useful, and essential!  Sitting for 5 hours at a time (every once in awhile taking a trip around the living room and kitchen), before I need the break.  But I have been doing very well (reaching around and straining here to pat myself on the back) at being consistent in rising, exercising, showering and getting onto the computer at 8 a.m.!

The cats (or as we call them “the kids”) keep wondering why I float around the house.  I actually pulled a padded stool next to the computer desk so they can participate in “take your child to work” (IOW be petted).  The games they play.  Morning they hear him going to make the bed and race in to jump up to “help.”  The evening I go back to turn on the bedroom light in the corner (a sign it is evening for me) and they race in and jump on the bed, they are READY to go night-night.  No, not yet.

Afternoons are a little bit different, life can get very boring.  Yes, I could use this time to reflect, read, play computer games. Actually, the computer games are sort of in hiatus.  I can only do so much before losing my mind.  I tried to post on YouTube how to play Double Deck solitaire.  It needs revision badly.  But every time I attempt to do the video I have to dump all pictures from the cloud and the phone, because it takes too much memory.  Don’t worry, those of you solitaire enthusiasts,  I will get there, maybe this weekend!  I do pepper afternoons sometimes listening to old music on YouTube.  John Denver happens to be my go-to, but I do enjoy anything British Invasion!  I tried to YouTube learning sign language, only to discover I don’t have that kind of patience.  I always thought I did.  Maybe, just not today.

Our house has finally been approved for occupancy!  This has been a very long time coming!  The construction company we went through kept telling us six weeks, and we were silly enough to believe them.  How about “6+ weeks!”  The lesson learned is to a) read your contract thoroughly, and b) insist on a finished product date.  My partner keeps telling me “yes, but things do come up” and I sit here imagining my breath coming through my nostrils like the bull in the cartoon, as he is getting ready to CHARGE.  Anyway, disaster averted, it is April 10th.  April 8th we were approved.  So, you’d think we’d be running our stuff right over into the new house, right?  Wrong!  Major cleaning has been in the works (oh my goodness, so much to clean).  Dark laminate flooring.  Bad move on my part.  Shows literally EVERY FOOT PRINT.  But it is really really beautiful!  I will commit to a world of Swiffer mops when all is said and done.  But, and this is the big BUT at the moment, we are living in a world of April mud.  Having no lawn after this past winter of mild winter makes no difference in the condition of the current lawn status.  So, instead of walking across the lawn yesterday with a chair (so we can sit and take off our shoes at the entrance), I took the long way and walked down the road, into the graveled driveway and then there were only 10 steps in mud, as opposed to 20 (we really do need temporary stepping stones, you think?).  In conclusion on this moving in topic, it is a good activity for me and him.  We put the new antique sleigh bed together.  No mattress yet, we aren’t ready for that step (and besides, what if it gets dropped into the vat of mud we call a yard?).

Entertainment.  I don’t do so well with drama, television is supposed to be entertaining and, therefore, I am entertained, I choose comedy, life is short, after all.  So, after the Evening News with Norah O’Donnell (“Breaking News” ALWAYS), I gather the highlights from ET and it’s onto my Apple Box, where we have found apps with television we love:  our choices currently run:  Cheers (watching it from beginning to end, we just started and are still in Season 1), The Good Place (this is a new one too for us–a bit more mindless than Cheers, but a Ted Danson show as well, which we get a kick out of), and then, for “serious” we are in Season 3 of “Once Upon A Time.”  Friday night we take a break and go in search of a movie.  Randomly, “Flipped” was very very good, and more recently “Lars and the Real Girl.”  Simple, poignant.  Well done, in my opinion.

BREAKING NEWS!  I just heard on the news (it is 5:56 a.m. Friday April 10, 2020) that air pollution is down 30% due to the COVID-19 shut down.  Maybe this is what the earth has needed.  

Running on and on, I will close this off for now.  Stay tuned.  I am doing Inner Work and that should be a good topic:  first lesson is on expectations.  See you later…

 

Fear Reigned In

I have thought about this while this pandemic hit and in these disclosed weeks.  Somewhere, in the back of my mind, was someone whispering “Fear works fast.  Don’t let it work you over.”  Further thoughts and I realized I had copied and pasted a document in my files from author Jon Katz, who has given me the wonderful privilege of sharing those thoughts he wrote so very long ago (Thank you Jon Katz).   The following is a few paragraphs excerpted from his blog on Bedlam Farm Journal (dated approximately June 2014).

Chronicles Of Fear

I’ve entered a different and powerful phase of my lifelong experience working to understand and control and shed fear, and it has been unusually difficult for me to write about it, as it is intense and disturbing and confusing sometimes. I am writing about it, as always, in the hope that it might be useful to others working to deal with fear and also because it is central to my creativity and my identity as a writer and a photographer. And because it helps me to understand it. Fear has shaped every element of my life and work, for better or worse.

Fear is as much a part of me as walking, I cannot make it disappear.  But I mean to control it, and not let it control me.

– Fear is a gift, always. Every racing heart, every awful thought, every discouraged heart is a gift that teaches me, challenges me, defines me and helps me grow.

– Disrupt fear. Fear is a pattern a rhythm, a tradition, a habit, the way we learned to think, usually from our parents or when we were young, from siblings, relatives, thousands of things. It is mostly a response to trauma, psychological or biological. Changing patterns is important. When fear strikes, I get up. Take a photo, sing a song, make love, take a walk, post a message. Fear is confused by different patterns. Patterns can change, even when fear does not.

– Slow down. Fear is fast, always. Slow the mind. Meditate. Drink a glass of water. Take deep breaths. Think sweet thoughts. Fear is confused by a slower mind. Like a big army, it doesn’t change the way it works. I can change the way I work with it.

– Distract fear. Read a mystery. Listen to a CD. Call a friend. See a movie.  Paint something, write a poem. Fear needs one’s full attention for fuel. It can be starved a bit by distraction. Our world is full of distractions, use them.

– Starve fear. Fear is hungry and in our country there is plenty of fuel. Doctors spread fear and so do lawyers and politicians and journalists and forecasters and friends and neighbors and corporations and insurers and  bureaucrats and producers. There are few institutions in or world that make money offering safety and comfort and so fear is everywhere. We are porous, we absorb it. Think of how many people you know who watch cable news or other media who are angry and fearful. Or who have doctors who make them feel good, not bad. What does the news really do for us in our time? Inform us, or frighten and enrage us? For me, every interaction with peddlers of fear and anger must be considered, weighed, understood, even when the universe around me is moving in a different direction.

This is called awakening.

– Confuse fear. This is a battleground of the mind, and the mind is my friend as well as my enemy. Fear begins with images of trauma and danger – past, present, future. Our weapons are other images. When fear comes up in me, I think of Maria. Or of the meaning of my life. Or of books I want to write, of the dogs and animals, of my ambitions for myself, of my creative spark. I feel fear shift then, get confused, perhaps unnerved by these new and different images. It blurs, weakens.  If I think of them often, they enter my consciousness too.

– Crowd fear. Fear fills the space it is in. Meditation is the most effective way for me to plant other ideas, other thoughts, to crowd fear out. It is not the only thing. Meditation is not a woo-woo thing, it is a powerful, even disturbing tool and for me, needs to be applied knowledgeably and thoughtfully. Because I can’t always control what comes up there.

So a conflict of small changes, different thoughts, new habits and traditions. Like the old guerilla fighters – Mao, Ho Chi Minh – always preached. Fear wins when we surrender to it. We win by surviving and transcending it, small battles, important battles, every day.  Be small and swift, be agile and determined. Be patient and brave. There is strength in that, and strength is the great enemy of fear.

This is an abbreviated version of his article, I have posted this for whatever you, the reader, is afraid of, to repeat the words of Jon Katz, words he permitted me to pass along.   Disarm fear.  Not only with the pandemic, but in all of those things in life that beseech you, that try to claim your happiness and your peace.

For those of you interested in reading more of Jon Katz, it’s Bedlam Farm Blog Journal, or bedlamfarm.com.

 

Change

No, not the kind in your pocket, but the change can make the change in your pocket maybe grow a little bit more.

I was reading an email from my laundry supplier, promoting the earth friendly detergents and products

Their email instructions I’m doing a copy and paste for you:

Simple changes like…

Proper sorting of your garbage, recycling, and compost.  (Trying hard here, bought a compost bucket from Bed Bath & Beyond and use it FAITHFULLY)

Asking for wooden utensils when eating out or carrying your own cutlery set.  (Oh my gosh!  I have been there and been doing that, and adding my own plates.  So what, I have to take them home and wash them!  It’s one less paper plate, or foam plate, to be trashed.)

Making an effort to buy second-hand clothing when you can.  (Doesn’t always work with me, and some things are just necessary to be new, but when I can, I do locate clothing that lasts me years longer than their original owner.)

It’s not about perfection when it comes to living a more sustainable lifestyle.

Sometimes you’ll forget to bring a reusable coffee cup to work or forget your produce bags at home… and that is okay!

Do the best that you can and continue to make those small changes in your life.

Because it’s those small changes that are going to have a massive impact in the long run.

I like this idea.  Help in small numbers.  Staying so local it’s almost crazy.  But worth it.  As we age, actually, our world grows more local.  I suppose you could say the world “shrinks” again, but I don’t think so.  I think global is here, at least, until Armageddon.  I wonder how much money will be saved by businesses now that most have left the 24 hours OPEN sign off?

Like Dorothy stated (In the movie The Wizard of Oz)  “if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with!”

 

A Little Girl’s Dream

Okay, so the little girl is in her 60’s here. She’s still a child that enjoys her dolls.