Blooming May
Bringing on the Warmth

We all have our stash, if only we could find it, check out how much is left, count...

Maybe if we shared we would be allowed more- who would you share yours with? There certainly are parents who would surely, gladly share some of theirs with lost children. What's left becomes more and more valuable- there is not an endless supply. Supply and demand. So simple a concept one would think it would have been articulated centuries before it was. We choose what we do with our remaining supply, whether consciously or by default- the supply keeps being used whether we are paying attention or not.

Click on the monarch butterfly photo at left for a few pictures of an unusual rainbow Jay and I ran across recently. Lots of rainbows this last month- I don't know what it all means, although Freud did point out himself that sometimes a cigar is, after all, just a cigar. So, anyhow, use your stash consciously as best you can- how big is yours? How many days do you have left?

Too many activities, and people, and things. Too many worthy activities, valuable things, and interesting people. For it is not merely the trivial which clutters our lives but the important as well.- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Love those New Yorker cartoons. The cartoon above links to their cartoon archive site. I could not find on it a BEK cartoon from the April 11, 2005 edition so I purloined a different New Yorker cartoon of a job interview situation and put in the line from the cartoon I liked...

Jay and I had a fun day Sunday- drove down to Seattle and saw a play at the Intiman Theatre called "The Mystery of Irma Vep". It was a great melodramatic spoof of romance, mystery and werewolf storylines. Two actors played all the parts, with frequent costume changes, and pulled this off with great aplomb. They threw in references to literature and other plays; the humor was entertaining.

A good outing. The picture links to information about the play.

If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?- Steven Wright

Oh yes... and so we saw that low, wide rainbow and we stopped to take a picture, then moved on. We ended up driving along a very beautiful piece of land looking out over Puget Sound. We take that drive from time to time on our way to or from Bellingham- we are very lucky in oh so many ways. This time we stopped and Cindy took photos again...

Click on the road sign that we thankfully ignored for those eye treats.


"A bird does not sing because he has an answer. He sings because he has a song."- Joan Walsh Anglund

Saturday, May 7, 2005
Pope outlines his vision of his papacy
By DANIELA PETROFF. ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

ROME -- Pope Benedict XVI indicated Saturday he will stick to Pope John Paul II's unwavering stands against abortion and euthanasia, saying pontiffs must resist attempts to "water down" Roman Catholic teaching.

..."Freedom to kill is not a true freedom but a tyranny that reduces the human being into slavery."

In Vatican teaching, the phrase in defense of life "from conception to natural death" refers to its bans on abortion and euthanasia.

Hmmm, interesting. No abortion, no birth control, no women allowed in the church hierarchy... is there a pattern here? Oh yeah, I forgot, women are dirty- really only living wombs to impregnate as needed. For God's sake, we must not allow women to control when they will have children- in defense of life. Allowing women to control when they have children, allowing women to use birth control and have abortions, entails allowing women to have control of their bodies and lives, and allows them to have and enjoy sex. That is unthinkable. Only men are supposed to have control, only men are supposed to enjoy sex. Consensual sex between men and women not for the purpose of procreation is bad, sinful in fact- particularly for women. The only approved non-procreational sex is between adult males and young male children- the Pope had a hard time figuring out why Americans were so bent out of shape about those revelations... These ideas about defending life seem to veer heavily into private sex lives- apparently the Pope's area of expertise. Is sex the main focus of life? Is there little else we need to concern ourselves with in order to serve God's purpose during this time on earth? I am confused, it must all make sense, yes, it must.

"Every time I look into the eyes of an animal I see life; the force of life and the beauty of creation."- Radar O'Reilly

The done and undone.
The makings of a life.

Free will and fate.

Other choices would not have
brought me my children;
they are precious to me.

Other choices would not have
brought me Jay;
he is precious to me.

Other choices would not have
brought me to the me
I am today.

I wish I would have been
a better mother.
I wish ...

I pray to God that
my children find their way,
as I find mine.

If the fans don't wanna come out to the ballpark, no one can stop 'em.- Yogi Berra, as quoted by Joe Garagiola on the Jack Paar show, NBC 1963

Sigh. I am pooped. There is a little bug swimming about inside my body, perhaps it has mistaken mine for its own. It is disturbing my sleep, encouraging my hot flashes, fatiguing my body so that I am not exercising much this week... I am lucky, though, not a dire illness- still making it through the workday.

Life is pretty demanding, or weird, or maybe both. We base decisions and judgements on what we have done in the past, what has "worked" for us before, what we think we have learned, never knowing if we are compounding our errors, righting our errors, or simply waffling back and forth. What is this need of mine to figure things out? Why do all these questions and thoughts fill my brain? Why do I expect things to be right, to be just, to make sense? [Actually that last question is rhetorical as I do know at least part of the answer to it.]

I am not the center of the universe; I am but a speck of dust. Really? Is that so? Guess that deserves a double Yikes! Yes, Yikes! again. Ego is an interesting thing and I have still not figured out its place, or its reality. I am not all that sure I can conquer it, if I can leave the ego behind and join as one with the universe. If I was ever able to do that, knowing me, I would probably pat myself on the back for my accomplishment and be back at square one...

Luckily I have my own world, Cindysworld. Watch out, don't let the screen door smack you on the butt on your way out. Thanks for stopping by.

Many could forego heavy meals, a full wardrobe, a fine house, et cetera; it is the ego they cannot forego.- Mohandas Gandhi

I work with a wonderful partner, Mary Bradley. She is smart, likes to laugh, likes spicy ethnic foods, enjoys a good discussion, is compassionate, and is less anal than myself (she claims).

Mary is a nurse and, as it so happens, her birthday celebration coincided with the celebration for nurses this year- click on the chicken to see photos.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY!!

I always entertain great hopes.- Robert Frost

I set aside articles and books I want to come back to and talk about on my pages... the pile in the cubby of my desk is messy...

Let's see, yes, here is bit from AARP magazine, the May/June 2005 edition- with Paul Newman on the cover. The article is called The Care Dividend and talks about adult children shifting into the role of caregiver for their parents and discovering unexpected rewards and growth in the process. Hmmm, sounds an awful lot like social workey stuff- yes, indeed.

Anyhow, to indulge myself, I quote here a few lines that others too might by chance find of interest: "Sometimes this shift happens when the stress gets unbearable, but more often than not it emerges slowly because, in the process of doing all the day-to-day tasks of caregiving, a kind of intimacy develops that you've never before experienced... the preciousness of their life becomes very immediate. You stop holding back expressions of love, because you know there's not much time... Trust occurs when somebody's vulnerable and lets you in- and you show up... Caregiving is painful because you can't take away the other person's pain. You can't make everything okay. All you can do is love that person. And the deepest expression of love is paying attention... the more you're just being with the person, not trying to fix him or her, the more you'll be able to see them as what Thomas Merton describes as the divine that comes through all life".

Life's lessons learned come in expected and unexpected ways. Yes, just be there, completely present. Life, the present, is all there is- and that is everything.

"Take it away at once," stormed the Princess, stamping her tiny foot in its embroidered slipper. "I hate real flowers; their petals fall off and they die."- Hans Christian Andersen

We are experiencing some changes in management at work. Luckily I had recently read one of those Complete Idiots Guide books and was able to be psychologically prepared. Weeks before announcements were made I predicted our Regional Administrator would move out of his office (into a cubicle no less), that the lovely but shy Julie would take his spot and, further, that Linda Moss would get Julie's old job. One by one my predictions have come to pass- the last one announced today. Yikes, that is scarey...

These are good changes for all involved and I am expecting they will be good changes for staff too (despite a past indiscretion on the part of one party). This is the first time my ideas of what would be good as far as staffing moves have come to be... What's it all mean Mr. Natural?

"I'm delighted that the future is unsure. That's the way it should be."- William Sloane Coffin

We went to a concert in Seattle last night at the Paramount Theatre and had a wonderful time hearing John Prine in person for the first time for both of us. If you are not familiar with John, take the link to a site about him and I think you will discover that you actually know at least one of his multitude of songs, maybe one played and made well known by another artist.

John Prine has a wonderful way with words- one of his new songs talks about feeling unwelcome like a new Walmart Superstore. John was a mailman, I think in Chicago, and wrote his early songs before leaving that gig. He introduced one of his oldies by saying that he played it a lot from 1968-1978 and then put it up, framed, above his fireplace- dusting it occasionally with lemon pledge. It stayed up there until last year, when the President of the United States invited him to start playing it again. Who could ignore such a request? John said he dusted off this song from an earlier era, figuring the President "had it coming". Yes, I like the man... he has some great songs. Click for lyrics and notes to a couple of songs. I got these from the fan site you can go to by clicking on the picture of John to the left.

I remember when I was younger, and even more naive than now, thinking that lyrics like those in John's Flag Decal song could change the world... Alas, it has not been so.

"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another."- Frank Zappa

"What are you running from?" he repeated when I told him that, in the past six years, I'd lived in twenty-six different locations. The question insulted me. I wasn't running, I was a seeker, there was a difference. The way I saw it, seekers were heroes, while running was a cowardly act... [I explained I had] spent the next six years seeking answers and training from teachers and priests, traveling in Europe and India, immersing myself in spiritual texts, believing that only a higher power could fill this grim emptiness inside me... [Then] he asked how I'd come to believe that meaning was something that one had to search for, as if one's essence, one's life, were elsewhere.

"I'm talking about enlightenment," I said, thinking that he didn't understand. "Enlightenment with a capital E."

He looked at me through the flickering candlelight, pausing a long time before he responded. Finally, he asked, "Do you mean kindness?"

Kindness, indeed, I wanted to spit- as if the glories of philosophy could be reduced so plainly! I wanted to put Louis in his place; instead, I shut my caustic mouth and felt completely humiliated. Clearly Louis had hit a nerve, seeing through my sacred blather to the heart of something I did not want to admit. Somehow, in all my compulsive seeking, I'd forgotten that enlightenment started with love.

This passage is quoted from a book I just finished called The Boy He Left Behind by Mark Matousek. It is a very good book; a brutally honest and compassionate autobiographical piece in which the author describes his memories, thoughts and feelings as he searches for the man who fathered him and left... The back cover displays quotes from people, who seem to be famous, recommending the book. Among these is a quote from Lucy Grealy, whose book The Autobiography of a Face I wrote about last January. Mark Matousek's book could be painful for people with abusive or neglectful childhood issues to read, but I think it offers some healing properties at its core.

I picked this book up at the dollar store, a left over from someplace else... a diamond in the ruff, a found treasure.

"It really doesn’t matter if the person who hurt you deserves to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. You have things to do and you want to move on."- Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, July 7, 2003

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDA!!

Today, May 29th, is my sister's birthday. She plans to celebrate it by spending a quiet day with her sweet husband, Jerry Cobb.

Linda continues to run a program for developmentally disabled adults in Eaton County, Michigan and puts a great deal of effort into their bowling and Special Olympics activities. I know they appreciate her more than she imagines.

We grew up out in the country and spent a great deal of time together. Linda tended to be in charge and liked to play school and be the teacher. I remember all of our cats and Linda liking to play with them, and raking up leaves in the fall, using them to outline a house to play in- we were very traditional young women apparently.

Life moves on quickly. Linda and Jerry are working on their house and yard this summer and enjoying some time together during this first year of Jerry's retirement. Best wishes for a great year Linda.

"Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory." Susan B. Anthony (1820 - 1906)

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