January 2002- The Newest Year
Yes, Happy Another Year
The Circle Begins Again- Moving On and Forward...
Every New Beginning is Another New Beginning's End
One person said they think I am brilliant, another said I am smarter than I look, Deb said she didn't know I was "deep", who knows what others think? They might think I am weird, strange or unusual... Hmmm, why would that be? I do remember growing up in the country, and that strange night of the encounter...
Yet I can be very concrete and often don't even recognize what I would consider "hidden" meanings-- who would ever think that a loaf of bread could represent a soul after all? We are all smart in different ways, as Craig once pointed out to me.
I did finish reading Watership Down by Richard Adams. I read the book at the suggestion of my daughter Carrie- it indeed was a wonderful book as she had said. I would say that I am going to indulge myself and force a few quotes upon you, but you already know that all I do is indulge these whims. So here are two, with a couple more to follow in the coming days...
"Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss. They have a certain quality which it would not be accurate to describe as callousness or indifference. It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is now."
"Well, there's another place- another country, isn't there? We go there when we sleep; at other times, too; and when we die. El-ahrairah comes and goes between the two as he wants, I suppose, but I could never quite make that out, from the tales. Some rabbits will tell you it's all easy there, compared with the waking dangers that they understand. But I think that only shows they don't know much about it. It's a wild place, and very unsafe. And where are we really- there or here?"
They seem like good New Year's thinking thoughts to me...
"Why then do you try to 'enlarge' your mind?
Subtilize it."
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
Speaking of books, in September Margaret (my friend and co-worker from Russia) gave me her Kipling book to read, saying it is one of very few she has because she used to never have any money-- worked for $6/hr when she came to this country. She said, "I figured, why use my money for books when I can go to the bookstore and read the book there, and then I will have it forever" as she held her hands to her heart.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said,…"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
I went to an adult family home to see 2 clients last September, one was in her 40s and talked A LOT and was not really very interesting at that, the other one was an elderly woman, very short, very wrinkled face, wore a jacket and woolen hat inside. She reportedly has a foul mouth, gets agitated, spits on the floor, etc., but not because she is psychotic per se- she had a big stroke which has left her with receptive and expressive aphasia, but she jabbers nonsensically. I asked her if she would show me her room and between the nonsense I heard her tell me that I was stupid to want to see it, then she grabbed my hand and had me feel her cheek, then had me feel her scalp, then had me feel her face again. I asked her if she had a headache, she said yes. I asked her if she wanted some tylenol, she said no, and then between the nonsense told me basically that tomorrow would be a different day, that she would lie down and then it would be a new day, and her head would not hurt. I like interacting with clients that other people say make no sense. Anyhow, this little munchkin lady smiled at me, then she said goodbye by hugging me and saying "I love you too". Sometimes love is easy to find.
Lawrence Tree, Georgia O'Keefe
Over the billions of years, the only thing that we've found to make the loneliness bearable is each other. -from the movie Contact
Horsehead Nebula in Orion
Latest News from KIRO 7:
• Suspect in Deadly Police Chase Was Wanted
• Somber Eulogies at Funeral for Fallen Northwest Soldier
• Man Charged with Aggravated Murder in Seattle Stabbing
• Worker Injured in Fall in Man Hole
I was going to put in something about the first US serviceman killed in Afganistan (his funeral broadcast in its entirety here today) but, looking back at stuff I wrote in September, decided to simply include all the gruesome news for the day (above) because it is all pertinent to what I had written: "And so, how many times will life demonstrate that it is itself tenuous, as if we need to learn that over and over? Safety is an illusion that we must create in order to go about the mundane." The numbness of September has worn off, we have gone back to business, but the intensity more easily returns than it used to...
"The journey ain't over. We are all still alive. Dylan sang a beautiful song, the refrain stating, "Just remember, that death is not the end". Somehow I believe that, and almost feel I know that." - Anonymous Author
Yes, safety is an illusion that we create for ourselves so that we can function, can go about the tasks of life. The tasks of life and life itself are also illusions, hiding the essence of being alive, of discovering our self, discovering our soul, discovering our connection to meaning. Carol sent me an e-mail with "Words of Wisdom for the New Year" which included: "The only person who is with us our entire life, is ourselves- Be alive while you are alive... Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." As we go about working, keeping up our home, getting the oil changed in the car, and remembering our mother's birthday, we so easily forget to stop, consider what it is to be alive, consider what we are doing to learn the lessons we came here to learn. This year, remember to stop-- incorporate stopping into your life's schedule and make it, yourself, your number one priority. Unfold your self.
"He did look far
Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest: he lasted long,
But on us both did haggish age steal on,
And wore us out of act..." -- Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well
"He was part of my dream, of course-- but then I was part of his dream."
-- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
Red Canna, Georgia O'Keefe