Mortality has its own pace & runs when we expect it to creep, creeps when we wish it would overtake & immortalize us in release. It begins early & continues late, we yearn for time to sleep & energy to avoid that. And life intrudes, interrupts, interferes with just every single thing we set out to do.

I am so good at blaming myself. Guilt is rarely comfortable & always unnecessary. I’m not a malicious person but I am territorial & almost scary in that. I have so much to be grateful about, yet find fault with myself for finding fault with others, especially when I don’t even know why.

Oh, I know all the answers to why but each cancels the other out. None of this world is my fault, but I made the construct. I live in my life as though it is mine, with no reality of a substantial nature. Each cell has its own intelligence & brain: I get involved in the discussion to rarely discover a conclusion.

I don’t even believe myself most of the time. I am not who I should be, but who I am. Scary thought, that. I am moving once again to another place with no assurance I will actually live there. Truly stepping into the unknown, with my bundle of sticks tied on my back in case I need fire.

Strength I pray for. Health I cherish. Love frightens me as I’ll likely not meet its conditions. I haven’t made it before but try I must & love isn’t easy but the simple way is not appealing if I can complicate, concatenate, camouflage the issues. Reality dreams a dream I do not share yet & my circumstances hold me under, yearning to burst free.

So one stroke at a time, I write my way to substance. Casting my life before me like a roll of dice searching the magic number, I walk on.

Love,

Carol

I have changed up my luck & my life many times, not being one to stay in place & talk while change happened all around. I’m at that lever point again where each choice takes me to a more fulfilling place.

Mark, 5:36 says “Do not fear. Only believe.” Whew! Good advice there! I’ve taken it on as a mantra & with gratitude for the “holy backup.”

I had no expectations on coming to Florida, really not knowing what I’d discover here. My new roommate did not quiz me on wants or needs to bring attention, I did not put expectations out there, except for it to be different from what I was/had/did in T or C.

These differences are astronomical. Yesterday in a meeting about literacy, we played a game based on Jeopardy & one of the questions was which state has the lowest level of literacy in U.S. I mumbled “What is New Mexico.” I was correct. Ineffably sad to me when someone cannot read or write, I am remedying this by joining the Literacy Council & training as a tutor.

I genuflected on going into the library – more of a church to me than all else. The staffers here everywhere are positive, helpful, genuine & creative. I’ve been able to afford new glasses at an optometry store – a dream of years but since last pair cost $500, seemingly far out of reach. I have a wall of books available in the Community Center here. I have a church family now to make laugh since that’s my favorite thing. And people are so ready to laugh!

Seems like pretty much everything is readily available here which was more of a rumor in T or C. All kinds of community facilities & events, long walks by water, Time & more to recreate my life & offer my unique talents to a place & an appreciative populace. For me, service is the essential of my being, as needed as all else.

For the poverty I saw across the country, the empty storefronts & sagging signs, from the fast-food-only offerings to fresh greens & meats, for lawns without rusted hot water heaters & garages full of bulging, mottled boxes, for the well-tended pets & the lack of hungry cats crowding the yards… It is an unexpected lift to my life-spirits to be in a place where it all I see is organized & tended. Of course there are still many living in their iPhones or intent only on passing the next car on the road. But these seem echoes faint & faraway to my observations. Florida is a state of mind as well as method. I anticipate establishing myself in the community & moving forward to a much higher & more loving state of knowledge, aiming for enlightenment.

My loving nature is expressed by all the writing I do. I bring to light stories about myself which will place them in the heart of a wondrous, organized universe that makes butterflies in larvae, that grows mighty sequoias from one tiny hold-in-you-hand “seed.” I live in a place where my now is for the benefit of others & the betterment of self. My stories help others achieve their goals, release their fears, understand more of what happened. All my friends & lovers are in a place of sending me joy & delight when they think of my name, my face, my voice. I return these tenfold, understanding that Love is the nature of the universe in which I dwell & have my being. I reflect & release any event or thought which does not fit into this pattern of affection, unfoldment & endorsement of my understanding of God & Divinity which showers upon me unceasingly with a blink & a wink & a blessing of smiling energy. And so it is!

My poetry Muse has gone to the nearby beach but she’ll be back. In the meantime I write prose & praise & power as I grow into this now, this new. Late in life for it all, this is, but here & now counts for far more than lottery winnings if you’re happy.

Be in love, people. If you’re not, take any train, boat, plane or scooter you can to get there. Then turn around & show everyone else the way.

Love,

Carol

I am in a twilight, bardo state. One foot is in an old reality, the other searching for the new, tapping the linoleum. I listen for echoes which grow faint, distancing gently to silence.

The apartment is two-thirds packed but not properly so, as in boxed up to be sealed. All is in a temporary holding, odds & ends protrude from the cardboard flaps. I’ve arranged for a loan of tables, put an ad in the paper about the moving sale. Daily I check all the rooms, perhaps to see if any possessions have sneaked back upstairs, looking for pictures which may have leaped onto their old nails still on the walls. I open closets to ascertain if the clothing has multiplied & I understand this is the next step: the pinnacle of a final sort to bring me down to what will fit in my Volt once I have the cat “environment” set up – those parts arrive Tuesday. I envision a three-sort, the third being the final one.

I will be left with some clothing, the cat, the car, some cash, a long journey which may lead to a longer one once at destination. I am heading to a state where I’ve only ever skimmed the border on a church weekend many years ago.

And all of this as the world changes into a place just as unfamiliar as my arrival will be.

I experience a layer of stillness – not of a peace, but rather a drawing-back to take stock. Then I get to moving between the boxes, rearranging the surface levels. Ideas emerge in a whisper which I tug at to discern meaning. I am withdrawing from one world but have not achieved exit speed. One more lap, then another, until the door opens in finality & we depart.

I have a feeling on these days when the sun slips away to allow the unusual balm of afternoon rain. I wonder if I am escaping just before the tiny world of Truth or Consequences shrinks to a pinpoint light & pops with a spit-hiss to go out. When I lived here in 1998, the people talked about being amidst a 25-year drought. Townies still describe it that way, taking no notice that another 23 years have passed & we are still in that same drought. Lately it has started to rain almost every day. But the town is scraping the river bottom for water, the Rio Grande is reabsorbing itself & once the irrigation gates close, will dry to a soupy grass, literally a wet spot with brackish edges.

Attention spans are short: nature is as close to eternity as the foibles of men will allow. My neighbors shower for 30 minutes each. Some still water lawns returning with the afternoon moisture. A cloudburst produces giant puddles which will provide many birdbaths before evaporating. The familiar dusty streets immerse. The plumbing never did get fixed although much-discussed. Instead they spent a cool million on electric meters. shortly after which the City Manager left town.

The weather & I coincide. Both in a hush of indrawn breath, we gather strength & purpose & continue on our way. T or C would be an easy town to miss. Two sawhorses & some cones would close off our either-end-of-town exits. Our two markets serving 7,000 bodies can only provide as they are provided & that could change far too easily. Who would miss us? City services dwindle; the departed City Manager brought a number of expensive contracts to the City Commission for signature about which few questions were asked… why? We had the money! It sounded like a good idea (though only the City Commission thought so as they staunchly shuffled papers while alarmists predicted this scenario, assuring no one took more than three minutes so they could head into Executive Session to approve purchases.)

Endings for one & all line up. I wonder if the town can carry on. New people move in, the Californians & Texans finding inexpensive housing, cheap land & just enough amenities to get by. I am reminded of John Mayer’s song “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.”

My ending will not precipitate that of the town’s, but I wonder just how far behind that is.

My neighbor walking a friend’s dog lost 43 pounds. I used to walk every morning, before not wearing a mask made me a criminal, before getting Covid left its strange symptoms like a dogpile in the front hall…can’t get past the forever smell. Shall I make this my defining event? Someone else can do what I said I would do & did not? Who’s more disappointed – my laboring heart or my shell-shocked brain?

Of course the disappointments I’ve caused myself are the most damning. I pass thru the same sin-detector every day: shoulda, coulda, woulda, if . . . the Four Horsemen of the English Language.

I understand why forgiveness is difficult – of course it is! I have often struck out across the Sahara of blame with no water & a too-short walking stick. I mutter & murmur & remind myself that without masks & lots of cameras on “record” & the fact I’m moving my mouth while talking to myself all remarks can be brought right back to those flapping lips.

I am inordinately fed up with the lack of civility, along with so many other losses in the society of my youth. We may have been brainwashed, narrow-minded, preoccupied with great guilt Catholics, but we said “thanks” when it was due even when grudged. We sat at the kitchen table whining, “Bur what should I say?” when told it was time to write bread & butter notes. Moms were enforcers as well as cooks & Mom’s standards were much higher, even if limited to one ethnic, cultural track. Why? She wanted me to be better than she, have more, define myself by enlarging, allowing standards.

I am an allowing person but I no longer deal with inefficiency, stupidity & downright prejudice. As a senior, I’m accustomed to keeping certain reactions muffled (except when muttering.) My brain is screaming like a siren a block away at times, but I can usually exempt myself from situations before it blows up & leaks out my ears. It used to be a validation to say something did not belong to me as I’d never do that…whatever it was. Now it sounds like a denial of guilt. How does the “innocent before proven guilty” assumption function here? Didn’t that used to be the standard?

I guess I didn’t consider I’d experience such societal devolution – the ability to drone people with accusations & misinterpretations from a world away. I don’t want to be bothered with trying to make the best of the situation – I just want it to be a good situation because it is, as it is.

I never thought to see blatant & rampant stupidity in print: men can get periods! men want to be women! What happened to the ultimate masculine insult: “you act like a girl!” Women, in turn, want to blare their denial of brave mortality on civil rights, wanting to be powerful, wanting to be the guy next door. I’ve no need to assume the lesser, baser qualities of either sex thinking it brings me power. Why can’t it be this simple? That we allow children to be children, babies to be born & beloved, men to open a door for us, ladies to be beautiful just as they are, men to be responsive & considerate. Instead I am looking at pics where I need to read the story just to see the teller – to figure out if they “identify as” man, woman, mineral or vegetable. Or animal.

If a guy came in the ladies room at school when I was a kid, it would have been about as horrifying as a monster movie from the first row… & the nuns would have marched them out to the flogging field behind the convent. But then guys I knew & grew up around would not have been caught on the feminine products aisle unless it was a hazing incident involving being blindfolded. I knew not one fella who’d march proudly down that aisle, snatching the last box of Tampons to brandish at check-out.

Well, I can’t tell you what happens next. I don’t think it will involve keeping my mouth still, so just point the camera somewhere else – maybe at the unicorn in the corner since the impossible is on 24/7 livestream, all news all the time, not so much reporting as attempting justification.

Never thought I’d be the last one in my family tho we were never close before we started dying off, so what’s the difference? Never thought so many things that every day is a journey into the macabre, victimized by spell-check. Guess I won’t be shutting up anytime soon tho selectivity of topics is narrowing more with passing time.

Letting go of victim mentality is something to bang your shoe on the table about.

Doing no harm is a potency to continue to cling to for recharge & new ideas to talk about.

Where’s love today? Time to pick up that journey-staff & go walkabout. I’ll keep you up on what I find, ok?