Category: Blogs

Dreaming Change (Happy 4th of July!)

Have I dreamed this sea-change boiling across America? It’s a kind of Stadium Wave happening across our country as one group stands up, thrashes about, & another sits down.

In Hawaii & other places, land forms & rearranges itself, heaving from unknown depths in an incredible brew of white heat & black rock. Mountains slide sideways & crush nascent dams. The sun seems to fracture its light or appear as a shadow behind itself. Shorebirds land far inland as their photos appear all over media. Bears move onto porches to reside next to the woodpile. Whales beach themselves in unprecedented numbers. I certainly am not dreaming this.

We are threatened with 5G technology, a weapons-grade “helper” which is proven to confuse minds, cause headache, scramble thinking, sadly being installed in schoolyards. No way I might have made that up. What have “the powers” got against us? Why do they hate us so, to spray Round-Up on our fresh foods before releasing these to market, to redesign vegetable cells & redraw gene structures? I don’t want drought resistance laddered into my tomatoes, or insecticides rendered into my smoothie strawberries. I would love for the corn I buy to be corn & not engineered fuel.

I read about MK-Ultra-driven shooters, each with his own therapist/handler to bring out the worst prior to setting him loose in the populace. I don’t want to meet any Montauk boys – or girls for that matter, during the course of my day.

Information bears many prefixes: mis-, dis-, non-…but all I want is the straight story of events, their causes, their outcomes & how they are being addressed. What happened in Las Vegas & why do we hear no more about it? Were the men in black Kevlar at Parkland School unworthy of notice or comment by mainstream media?

I see short-sightedness & stupidity visited upon my neighbors & friends as a form of friendly fire masquerading as guidance. The skies twist in places, braiding clouds to bruise the logical mind. Groundwater disappears overnight, while downpours loosen rocks, in turn eradicating roads.

Whole populations rise from what they perceive as stinging insult, but instead of simple rhetoric, they line up cannons. Today I saw a star-spangled top on a woman while her significant other wore a sage green tee with a black automatic weapon stenciled on it. I actually wondered which was more representative of America at present.

Huge lines of people are on the move elsewhere & then become the butt of argumentative behavior wherever they try to arrive. I’m well aware not everyone is who they seem to be in these groups…no vetting has been enacted, the children with them may not be theirs & the Four Horsemen often ride alongside them, witting or no. But while we may wish them to return to their roots; this is an impossibility since the divide & conquer mentality of politicos has rendered their homelands deplorable. We created the problem we complain no one can solve.

We close borders to them, while our own destabilize, the very land humps & shivers, children disappear, economy spirals into the gray on the dollar bills, downgrading the green. We’re in an interactive system & need to recognize it’s a closed loop – atmosphere, nation-building, health – all connected in an intimate dance of creation & flow.

We have indeed released the Kraken we were assured might be controlled if only this, that, or the other happened. It rides the crest of the sea-change we experience, tentacles lashing out in fury.

The lies need to be refuted & remedied from both sides. The power to exercise global change must first bear some resemblance to what we wish the change to be. We straddle worlds so divided we cannot conceive agreement & attempt to enforce transformation. This clear & present danger to our individual selves & souls must be brought into order. At last glance, the Kraken was gaining, making this difficult indeed. The whole setup never came with an instruction book, tho many agreed upon what they perceived to be one in the Bible. Unfortunately, rules no longer apply & oratory serves no purpose.

Dissolving each boundary that is set, whether personal, political or perceptual, is sorely needed. Certainly, the world itself seems bent upon dissolution. But ours as humans came first. When promised heaven, what can we do with being delivered to hell?

Indeed, the storm is upon us & before its rage, we race for safety. It takes interesting people to live in interesting times, to counter the curse & give birth to amendment so enormous it is soon obvious we took on too much too fast. I don’t know where life’s demarcation occurs between forgiveness & right action, but I walk that thin line of light every day, in every encounter.

We each need to be great again as individuals for the country to be so. We need to curb the absolute power each one of us thought it so easy to handle. We have worn out the rule of law by applying it with force. Let us now try to administer it with love. It can be done. It is so quiet when we stop screaming. Change becomes possible, when love is used as the unerring power source to stoke its engines. Love is the only leash the Kraken will bow its scaly head to, rest its whipping limbs within, close its bulging eyes to rest upon.

Dig up your individuality, dust off all cliché it has rested in. Move your heart to the forefront, stop trying to think through unthinkable times. We must stop the harm out there to stop the harm being visited upon us. Do it now, as it’s unlikely we will ever have the full story!

Give the impossible its due: our hearts are online now, networked, hooked up, tuned in. Put the children in the center of the circle for protection, remove them from harm. With your eyes open to the future, attend to the present. Declare nothing to be unbelievable, even Peace in Our Time.

 

1

It Rained All Night

Such a commonplace event, rain. Unless you live in the Chihuahua Desert of New Mexico’s southwest where we’ve had no real rain since February when we had a day of windy-wet weather.

What resulted from a faraway “tropical depression” caused exultation here. A mothering rain fell all night. I woke at 3:30 a.m. to the gentle pulsing flow, swinging my legs from bed & rising with an energy I haven’t felt so far this summer.

I had left the doors & windows open, hoping for a breeze from Turtleback to breathe through & dissipate the built-up heat. To my delight, the chimes slowly named their notes from the yard pole as the rain began. The soothing sound of its fall, the distinctive aromatherapy of a desert releasing heat & sponging in moisture brought me straight downstairs to sit by the door.

The sun is a force of nature here. I joke the heat from the Trinity site (Alamogordo’s first atomic bomb) has revisited us since exiting outside is slowed by a solid wall of heat that stops all progress. I’ve lived here for years-at-a-time twice before, but this third time is exacting quite a struggle to stay cool.

Since I came from Delaware most recently, my memories are of north-facing French doors being sluiced by nor’easters, days & nights of drumroll rain, pouring water, bouncing drops, gusty winds all contributing to zipping up my Maine rain jacket & tying the hood tightly. The rain tossed itself against windows like someone outside was flinging buckets one after the other. Umbrellas were fruitless, turned inside out after two steps.

In T or C this year, the sun is different, intensified into a kind of microwave heat, immediately igniting the skin & clutching the lungs. Sometimes, I want to ask it what I did, it seems a personal affront when temps rush to 107 or 110 of a day.

It’s heavenly to wake to this gentle sound & sit by the screen to inhale moisture. The form & force of recent weather here has been argumentative & I’m so not in the mood.

This steady drizzle is an arpeggio after the crashing cymbal clang of relentless, raw, unnaturally white light. It is grace, softly miraculous, growing my sense of joy in the breaking morning. It’s a prayer answered, one from the people & the land together.

My poor garden fell victim to the unyielding heat. My water bill soared; I brought the containers to the local community garden with a sign saying “Adopt Me’ stapled to each. Many this morning will be offering gratitude that they need not uncoil the hose today & stand outside to relieve the powerful daily thirst of anything green-growing.

An uncomplicated enough phenomenon, this rain. I bow my head & accept heart’s-ease to its simplicity.

2

Carol’s Carousel

I don’t know what to think anymore. I barely know how to think. Anymore.

I have had to research bump stocks & look up Nikki Haley & John Bolton. I spend time poring over reports about McCabe & Comey to try to understand the current “political scene” when I want to scream at everyone in DC, “Will you just behave?”

I am one of a generation which may die off before the changes so looked forward to may even occur (NOTE TO SELF: climb aboard the good ship Hope & stay afloat.) I don’t claim to understand transgender issues, being certain that I am a woman who has never wanted to be a man. Having a penis would really get in my way. I don’t want to leave my stem cells for implants into AI computers simply because someone knows how to do that & thinks it might be a good idea. Hooah!

I don’t get violence. Having been in & around the medical profession for most of my earth-years, I understand physical damage from savagery of any kind: mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. I predict for myself a gradual fade from life after accomplishing as much as I can towards healing on all levels. I’m weary of fighting for the money to buy food for my fridge. I could understand paying taxes if the pothole at the end of the driveway ever got filled; but knowing my money disappears into fitting a fin onto a bomb is distressing. But tax evasion isn’t an option I’ll readily pursue – I don’t look great in stripes. I’m feeling some nervousness about making the monthly payments needed to assure some quality of life, although I have the strength & power within me to work the odd jobs I encounter to earn my way into fresh veggies.

After years of plugging along, pinning slogans like “Be calm & don’t worry”, of framing thoughts like “following my bliss”, or “doing things for the joy of doing them”, I’m slowing down. I’m not sure I’m ready to meet ET’s with golden triangle heads or blue feathers. I have stopped listening to my formerly intensely-followed gurus. I’m cautious about signing up for Starfleet Academy or manning bridges of any kind. Once anticipated, I no longer eagerly await what may emerge from the future to surprise me. I’m really happy to sit in the sun right now, to stay out of the unreasonable desert wind, to watch my little green tomatoes turn into little red tomatoes. Someone once mocked me for “watching the clothes dry on the line” but at this point, that’s quite a satisfying pastime. It indicates the privilege to be clean in a world where so many are not given this option.

I’m happiest when teaching…helping someone figure out something: how to use their cellphone, for example. I live in a town where everyone’s grandkids have recommended they have the latest tech when the “grands” only want to be able to call the kids on Sunday night. “What’s an app?” they ask me, “Can I get the words to come up when I watch videos?” “How do I stop all these advertisements?”

I’m planning to teach a class called “About Email” on Mayday, & the more I research carriers, the more I figure I’ll sound like some paranoid nut when I tell them what I understand about the collection of biometrics by nefarious one-world-government scions, the retention of data by people who are totally not entitled to know that I wrote my friend about how I feel, whether political or pleasurable. How do I help learners to preserve their privacy or get them to understand there is even a need for this in a world where the providers are all-pervasive about control & have the morals of cats in heat when it comes to selling us out? The State does not need to monitor our computers. Seriously, nothing on them is that interesting. For myself, I don’t expect anybody at the State Department to grok my poetry or wordplay. I only have one way to expand into the universe & it is with expression of my personal experience as such. And it comes out through language. If “they” consider RIDING THE LIGHT subversive, my tax dollars are totally wasted.

I know old ladies are disposable as rain puddles. It doesn’t stop me from working towards what I call The Good. It doesn’t hinder me from offering time & effort toward helping others learn how to function at the basic levels of courtesy, kindness, care & understanding, of actively paying it forward. I know at any time some doofus with a God complex can take control of my car & send me over the side of a cliff where others will be endangered trying to retrieve the detritus left by that push-button destructo-mentality.

I guess I can’t explain where I am in the present moment. I had a reaction today at our quite wonderful book club discussion where a totally innocuous book sent me into a red-rimmed rage for no reason I can discern. Reading the book chapters aloud brought me to the boiling point wherein I rushed home & stared wildly about for an hour. It isn’t even a book I admire, but a reaction of this magnitude of anger is totally foreign to me and/or what it should have engendered. WTH? Is it the sugary snack before bedtime that has me so reactive?

At the same time, I am tired of being a spectator; I want to participate in life. I want to travel to see wonders of geography, I want to sit at the feet of a master & take notes on keeping my mind in discovery mode. I want to pay my debts off so the nervousness can re-settle into a joy of life so daily I take no notice of want of any kind. Bread & circuses haven’t interested me in years. It is time for me to expand my thinking to encompass God & the Youniverse to a mystical, uplifting, soul-thrilling vibration. I want to thread that needle spoken about in Scripture, so I can pass through it into either the grace of comprehension or Comprehensive Grace. Isn’t that my birthright?

I am so over Darwin & his purloined theorem about survival. I once read that the word “love” was mentioned 96 times in The Origin of Species, while the phrase “survival of the fittest” appeared thrice.

I once felt I could get closer to the answers of Life’s Questions as I aged. I foolishly thought the world would become more logical, the weather more habitable, my life more accommodating to happiness. I thought I would have friends, if not family, who looked at me with love shining from their hearts through their eyes. But now I rely on the comments of strangers to lift me through the nights. Now I have no ties to what is considered Reality. I opt for helping some with cleaning their houses, offering a class now & then to aid others in understanding the new tools available & coping with their use.

I often tell people I’m allergic to TV, but I still find myself drawn to videos on the computer which show the exotic Cirque du Soleil acts, dancers who can move their bodies as I no longer am able, political commentaries which contradict each other one after the next.

I am as confused as any teenager about my current identity. Who will I be tomorrow? What will my achievements count for…or against? This life made of chapters cleanly divided by time & (at times) geography, by the borders of marriages, the maps of spiritual pathways, the fulfillment of dreams. I’m acutely aware too many of the paragraphs in this blog start with my most personal pronoun. I need to be led into divinity somehow & overcome this tendency to consider myself only human. I used to be able to do that better. How come I’m losing the knack?

The last frontier is never that. Horizons rise & fall regularly. I’m alive so long as I keep moving – even if it is in a circle while the calliope plays corny music. Cuz I don’t know anything, anymore.

4

Murder Disincorporates

Something interesting happened yesterday as I observed. My friend giggled about a story her husband had “made her listen to” of a woman witnessing a blood sacrifice in the basement of the Vatican. The gang laughed it off with head shakes & grimaces. Everyone “knew” her husband well: he’s a town character. I opened my mouth to begin the long tale of Reptilians, Annunaki in mitre hats, Vatican alliances with evil, ritual sacrifice…& slowly closed it again. Across town, there’s a discussion group where this topic would’ve engaged animated, interested debate. But I was at this coffee, not that one.

I continued sipping my smoothie silently, nursing my own thoughts. I know what I believe. I am interested in hearing their beliefs. What’s the level of disclosure to be reached here? Can conspiracy flourish in a group of upstanding “Christian” believers who entertain discussion with Jehovah Witnesses at the front door while pressing their literature into the trash as they close it?

I’ve learned to choose my battles. I want to see where the line of “getting along” divides & where I might tiptoe over. I’ve defended ideas in this group before. It can take lots of energy to get past the double-sprinkle donuts & open, yet strangely exclusive mindsets. Global nightmare is possibly not to be addressed in a friend’s living room at 8 a.m. over banana bread. But the converse continued on to gun control & how, since we knew no one personally & tragedy has not happened intimately, might be a topic dismissed with a trite, “what’s this world coming to?” platitude.

But really, I see both sides as being of paramount conversational importance…we are not a diverse group, but we are all seniors who have seen war, peace, history & we follow the current news, though not avidly.

We all know on some level that situations mirror each other. I look for “teachable” moments where I can cross over the acceptable lines to engage in fencing ideas with others. We did get to talking about how society seems to be going “kablooey” with opiods (causing mental illness), lousy nutrition (causing physical problems resulting in the “need” for opoids), consuming adrenalized beef products (causing increased aggression), demonic influences (causing claims “the devil made me do it!”), Mercury Retrograde & more.

The only real item of note; however, is how the story ends. Death is a disincorporation – a removal of the physical as the energetic lives on, Too many claim the power of death over life because they own a gun with which they only plan to defend themselves. Violence begets more of itself when viewed in the long-range. Just as many here would attribute the power of handling firearms to only those authorized to bear them. These individuals are supposed to be wed to the idea of defending life through the capability to deal death. And there has been much of note recently as to how this power is brought forth in society, whether amok in demonstration or peacefully marching down Main Street. The results can be dismaying in their sameness when guns are in the extant crowd, no matter the hands or hip holsters in which they reside.

The boundaries become indistinguishable when subsumed into the power of dealing death with the crook of a finger.

There used to be a largely acknowledged absolute that said, “Thou shalt not kill.” But that already was weak in a society that slaughtered animals for food. And yes, there are any number of rabbit holes to travel down with a statement that general. But it does involve a death which comes under the topic of discussion here.

Killing of any kind will never be a viable response to continuing to live well – individually or as a society. Dealing in death doesn’t pay off in affirmative life. But I nibble at this gargantuan topic with a toothpick & a salad fork. It just gave me pause for where I engage life, how much I am given to do so, why I choose my belief systems & how each individual fits into an overall scheme fringed all about, ultimately, with death.

2

Nods of An Approaching Dream

My fears have left me, one by one

Waving farewell over sharp shoulders

Each attached to a dream instead

Rendering sleep the final exploration.

There are cats in my dreams now

And family

People walking carelessly by

As I point at their shoes.

Sometimes I am skyclad

Uncaring as I should have been awake

During daylight I dwell in my home

Neat as the proverbial pin

While my dreams stack in errant piles

Rising as my eyelids fall.

—————–

The me reflecting in you

Is not the one in my mirrors

Or my mind…

—————–

There are no borders, no barriers

To living this adventurous life

There is me upon the shoreline

Of an ever-shifting sea

Or me, blown before desert winds.

The news lays its crumbs into my blender

I have dusted these from sore fingers

I favor the surprise now, shedding

The peremptory of unknowns

For even the news is familiar from my dreams

Ever the known, unloosed & traveling by rail,

The windows scrubbed with sunshine

And the light behind my eyes.

—————–

Local journeys for a local girl

I only need hold the rails of life’s Ferris Wheel

To be lifted above perception

To be found by angels entertaining unaware.

Life circles ‘round, cycles seem uphill mostly…

On coasting down, the mileage varies

Everyone must master the Dances of Transition!

——————

It feels increasingly good

To close my eyes now

A moment of distance

Is a reverie by any other name.

The house responds to wind’s awakening

I no longer react,

Letting silence pool in my ears

Slipping through the backdoor of that dream

Just to look around.

——————–

The front door is left open

The tan-white face of an artificial Siamese

Stares unblinking, from directly across the room

(I named him Mitts.)

He has inquisitive ears, he tilts his head

As we each await the other to speak.

—————–

Blessed is the silence.

The hollow stairwell

Offers no fixed direction

The hats hang from hooks below

The single bed is still made above

All locks engaged, safe in the Gratitude

I sleep.

——————-

I said yes to the soup

Behind my fluttering eyes

To the dream that was that close…

I never noticed there was no spoon.

This page is spotted in dots

From my nodding pen, my nodding head

A tired hand holding itself up at end of day

Pecking at a poem.

1

Wishes (An Effort in Circular Thinking)

We all hope our wishes come true. Sometimes, tho, we don’t know how to handle it when they do. Recently, I told a friend I’d like to do a container garden in my arid backyard. Now that the light is changing, with the sun rearranging the shadows, I find there is enough light to do this. The best spot would be by the gate, but that won’t work since I need egress. It was a lovely bubble of a thought, but little more than that. An idle wish.

Of course, the entire idea is made more speculative since I know zero about container gardening in specific, & gardening in general. Everyone tells me, “Oh! It’s easy!”

My friend found a huge tub at Tractor Supply & happily gifted this to me. Now that I see the “container,” I’m even more tremulous. First, I’ll need about 60 pounds of soil. This means putting the tub where it will not need to be moved Ever Again (unless I buy a tractor from Tractor Supply & I don’t think the yard’s that big.)

So, choosing a spot comes first. Then the fill-er-up. Then seeds or plants. I checked ‘container gardening’ online & the search turned up beautiful flowerpots trailing pansies & vinca vine along patios upon which Home & Garden subscriptions have been lavished for decades. My yard is layered stone-on-dust & somewhat anti-lush while being dry to the point of acrimony, not to mention uneven. The desert sun cooks growings to the same effect as a microwave melts plastics. Besides, I want to grow edibles.

After these decisions…seeds or plants? I love the thought of a fresh salad, leaves moistly green, plucked from the backyard pot with a few cherry tomatoes & maybe sun-warmed stringbeans…but out here ants eat seeds, as do deer. They contain moisture.

T or C does have a community garden by the library. I’m not serious enough for this league of growing among experienced amateurs. Plus, we have one guy who spritzes his plot with what is suspected to be Round-Up, of recent cancer-producing fame. When confronted, he says, “It’s mostly water.” Before adding, with a scowl & a pointing finger, “You name me ONE person who died of Round-Up!”

I guess even if his plot is clear, he figures those nearby could use the public service of a spritz or two, including the rigorously organic patch farmers of T or C in the singular favor of his Rescue Efforts. I figure he’d be gardened to death & used for fertilizer if the participants found him out.

When your plants are in his Zone, although the consensual farmer’s agreement is never to use such chemicals, the finer points can be lost. It’s rather like Monsanto suing nearby ranches for growing the GMO crap they manufacture because the wind blew their seeds over the fence. One must ask, “Cui Bono?”

But, back to my tub. The expense & labor of toting all that soil, finding seeds/seedlings, plus the need to borrow an oil rig to put drainage holes in this heavy-duty plastic are beyond my budget in the moment. Now, I understand most wishes can be expensive – otherwise it’d be so much easier to make them happen, right?

I like little wishes that are simple enough to easily manifest: Here’s an example of one such happy ending. In the 80’s, I listened to a show called “Echoes.” It aired late at night on the university station & featured unknown, esoteric, mildly weird music (which I now refer to as “massage music”). I longed to buy the CD’s from the show, but at $25 + shipping, these wouldn’t fit my wallet. Recently, some local has been divesting himself of a collection of “Living Room Concerts” as they were called, at our local thrift. I have gotten Volumes 1-7 for twenty-five cents each. The music is just as good now as then, still unearthly, still eclectic.

So, you can see I am enamored of wishes coming true; however, timing has much to do with it. I wouldn’t, for example, too much appreciate getting a pony for Christmas anymore. Nor could I afford the gas it would take for a plum Challenger. A house is off the List: I’m not allowed any pets here. So, the Wish List is entering the Reader’s Digest Abridged Version in honor of practicality, space, time, effort & cost.

I can get $5 rebate on my Walmart bill, though, with one more credit card purchase before the end of this month. That’s at least one bag of soil. See? This is how my mind works. And after three husbands’ worth of pointing out illogic & inconsistency, it is still how my mind works.

So maybe I’ll just go check their stock today. Maybe I’ll bring home a couple of bags of seeds. Maybe the landlord will lend me his heavy-duty drill. Maybe I’ll even invest in a jar of poppy-seed salad dressing to keep the dream alive.

Fresh food will give me the energy I need to earn from my odd jobs to pay the credit card(s). As one hand washes the other, I’ll wind up with an immovable yard decoration full of dirt all winter. But rocks are free in the desert. And I’ve always wanted a really nice rock garden.

 

4

Adventures With Cars – Part II

I would tell it from the beginning, but the beginning is rapidly losing itself in an ongoing saga. But, best shot here: the Beginning was when the engine light came on in my Volt. Diagnosis showed the battery was overheating. Headed to Bravo Chevy in Las Cruces where there is a resident Volt tech – a true rara avis of mechanic breed. Chevrolet Central has twice sent them the wrong battery. I believe they use short-armed men from China to row these over because it’s been just about a month, now.

That was early February. They gave me an innocuous loaner, a Malibu, which I describe a bit in my prior post. What I didn’t mention there was that the second time I drove the Malibu, headed out of town to visit a friend whose sole connection to the grid is a shared telephone line, the Malibu’s engine light came on. It was 4:45

This conversation ensued:

Me: Ray, the engine light just came on in the Malibu!

Ray: Oh no, Miss Borsello. Just stop driving it!

Me: Ray, I’m halfway up a hill heading south out of town, and…

Ray: No, no! get it to a dealer right away.

Me: Well, it’s the “stabilitrak” light that came on, with a little wrench beside it. Are you sure I can’t just keep driving?

Ray: NO, no! The car will start going 30 miles per hour because the engine light is on.

Me: We have one dealer in town – Whitehead Chevy – the ones without a Volt tech. Ok, I’ll turn around & bring it there.

Ray: give them my card, we will take care of everything, no worries.

Me: Y’know, dear, I’m not so much worried as getting a little excited about the fact that I need a reliable car right now.

So I tuned around, drove 30 mph to Whitehead & hitched a ride home. The next day, I waited until about 4 to call them. Was it THAT serious, it took all day? Was I going to have a car at all? WC said they had had an exciting day; their service manager’s last day was two days ago & they are really catching up on things…so they just forgot to call me. They would come out right away to get me. The did. The Malibu needed to have something beeped at it to turn off the light. There was nothing wrong.

I overran the Malibu’s 500 mile allowance, but the next car – the Impala – was a dream &, like all dreams, it has faded already into something expensive & pensive both. You see, they were giving me 500 miles per loaner vehicle. But most loaners go to folks living in town. They don’t have 200 miles used of that 500 allowance just getting back/forth to the dealership. I need a large reserve which is difficult since some of my jobs are 60 miles round-trip from where I live. Or 20. Plus regular back & forth here to friends. I drove like Danica getting the Impala back to the dealer before their 5:30 closure time. I had to thread in & out of legal traffic with two Texans who ignored the speed limit like it was a noncommittal fantasy…Now there are two theories that go with this risky business on my heavily-patrolled highway: One is that if both in front pass the trooper, they will scout him or her out, lights flashing, sirens playing Doppler – while I get to slow down behind. Two is that I’m the last one of the three & I get the Statie on MY tail as (s)lowest fruit hanging. But I was game. I made it to the agency at 5:18.

Ray got me over to the Hertz agency where I waited for others to finish sobbing their stories about not enough on their debit cards to rent anything. (Not a joke this, b/c there’s a $200 deposit & a car might cost $238+tax for four-five days…) The young feller finally turned to me. I handed over my license, insurance card & a $50 bill. That was my day’s pay. YF slipped the $50 right back, gazing up innocently from under his billed cap to say, “We don’t take cash here.” I handed over my debit card instead (rent due tomorrow & I have $3 over the rent in the bank, O Lord)… I refuse to worry. Spirit has my back on this, I can only hope they have my wallet as well. I noticed a sign placed high above a door, clear out of sight for most customers, that said: “You fill it, $2.39/gallon. WE fill it, $9.99/gallon.” I shuddered & took a mental picture. “Good, I thought, “everyone must fill them before bringing them back. I’ll do that, too.”

After “topping off” the Impala with $30 in gas (remember, I only earned $50), I asked him for an economy car, but not a subcompact. Most drivers in NM drive F150’s if they don’t have vans or SUV’s that scrape 15’ high road signs. I want something that will at least show if it gets tangled in their wheel wells.

Now, YF had asked me if I wanted insurance. I innocently replied, “Well what’s the coverage?” He said, “Full warranty, bumper to bumper.” I said, “That sounds like enough.” He reached again for my debit card saying, “OK, it’s only $21.99 per day.” I gripped his hand with my massage-hardened fingers & slipped the debit card from under it in a smooth movement, hissing, “Can’t you see the notches in this already? I meant what’s YOUR coverage?!” He replied, “Your insurance.” I said, “OK, good enough.”

He said, “I’ll drive it to the front of the hotel, just go out that way.” So I did.

Another gent was waiting outside while his wife arranged for their room. We talked about the wind picking up, the dark closing down, the huge full moon. When I spotted a cute little silver minnow cutting around the portico, I inadvertently murmured, “Lord, I guess they didn’t have any whole cars to give me.” The kid tossed me the keys, reluctantly came back when I asked how to open the gas cover (which has been a challenge in each & every car)… He pushed a button, flashed a grin & sped through the heavy glass doors of the building. The kind gent helped me turn the lights on (embarrassed to say I didn’t remember how to do this as I’ve had a car for three years & loaners for a month which had lights on with ignition.)

Then I adjusted the seat so my nose was a bit above the horn, turned it on (a key? Really, you use a KEY?), drove ten feet into nearest parking space & looked around in wonder at this darling miniature vehicle. I found controls for the windows and the mirrors. I guessed that the eight buttons on the steering wheel had to do with cruise & some other things. I gingerly pushed every button in the car since it was blowing heat from the third ring of the Inferno out all available ice-cream-cone-shaped vents. Maybe YF was trying to overtake the bad perfume of the last driver permeating the vehicle. Turning on the a/c slowed the engine alarmingly. I heard the hamsters under the hood exchanging cowboy boots for Keds with tiny squeals. I pushed the defroster button & two or three of them started chanting: “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Fortunately, we don’t have moisture enough to need a defroster in NM, so I turned that one off as well.

I mounted Betty Lou, my faithful Garmin GPS unit on the dashboard. I realized it took up a good quarter of the available window space, so moved it lower by the gearshift. I wanted to get to Olive Garden for some salad before hitting the road – something between breakfast & home right now would be good; it was 7 p.m.

I hoped that since half the Nissan is “Missan” (I will only apologize once for the bad puns this car has induced in me, so here it is.), I’d get good mileage. It had some pep. We made it to the light for my left turn to I-10. Across the street from the intersection, a train horn was rising in volume. All traffic was stopped on red lights as the arms floated down. I watched in jaw-dropped amazement as one of those F-150’s NAILED the accelerator to the floor, making it around the corner & over the tracks as the arms struck sparks from his truck bed & the burnt rubber rose about him in a demonic shadow. I even timidly backed up a little in case anyone else wanted to perform any similar maneuvers. I counted 110 train cars & two more red lights before I got an arrow, but believe you me, I was not about to move until I got that.

I was unsurprised to find Sirius radio available & happily spun the dial looking for Classic Vinyl, Deep Tracks, Bluegrass or Classic Rewind. I hit on Tom Petty station & noted the screen wasn’t even big enough to put up all the letters. “It’s Good To Be K” said the screen, by “Tom Petty & the Hea.” Ok. Economy, I get it.

When my sneakers began to smell of burning rubber, I figured it was time to locate the heat button to turn it down. That took a couple of miles. Olive Garden was well in the rearview mirror as I just wanted to go home now. “Home, where the h” by “Simon & Garf” was playing. It made me sentimental.

Once well onto the highway, with only 60 miles of pretty empty road, I lowered my right arm onto the .. the … what? No hump there in the middle to rest my arm? I could hang it so my hand fit into the tiny cupholder (no jumbo drinks in here, Ma’am). Back to ten to two position. Just nail the sucker & go home for God’s sake.

One thing YF said that I did hear loud & clear was “Unlimited Mileage” so I took advantage of the fact to plan a drive to Socorro to my favorite market today. (Socorro is about 70 miles north.) I turned on the car and an engine light came on. (No, I am not kidding.) Fortunately, this one was simple. I drove to Whitehead & got the guys to adjust tire pressure. Then I hit I-25 & headed north, did my shopping, got some lunch & headed home. I had found a wonderful relaxation CD for 25 cents at the thrift & plugged that in, humming softly.

About 35 miles out of Socorro, where there are no towns whatsoever & no services to be had, the cute little gas pump light came on. I called Hertz. I asked the Other Young Feller on for the day if they tank up the cars when they release them. “It all depends on the car,” he hedged. I said, “At $10/gallon, you don’t take advantage & refill the cars?” “As I said, Ma’am, it depends on…” at which point I cut him off to rumble, “It depends on how much you want to weasel out of this call, you coward.”

I hung up & hung onto the wheel. Now what? I have AAA. I was not worried. I had food to eat if it took until full moonrise to get a truck to me. I was thinking of how to make room in the glove compartment for a peeler & a can opener. I read each sign avidly – T or C, 41 miles, San Marcial one mile. (San Marcial is a farm.) I found out that turning up the relaxation CD to full volume does nothing for relaxation. And then a blue sign with a gas pump on it. OMG. My angels are on overtime & I will gladly put feathers in their tanks on demand! This is the ONLY gas between T or C & Socorro & I [literally] stumbled into it.

The gas station had two pumps, just tagged for pickup by the Smithsonian (or the hoarders, whichever arrived first.) See photos below. I believe there are two burros underground hoofing a tight circle to actually pump gas into these antiques. We aren’t talking including the “M” of Modern here, just the “o dern!” But it was gas in the desert. I waited for the septuagenarian at the pump ahead of me to move her truck from dead center of the two available pumps, which she kindly did & returned to filling up her eight red gas cans. I charged into the store & paid $15. The gal said, you need to move to the other pump because the one you’re at isn’t working. Now, there are only two pumps here with three hoses each, two sides of each pump. And the dance continued. After four tries & with the help of two others, I got gas into the car.

I’m home; the groceries are stashed, the blog is written, the photos mounted. Later, I need to drop off some picked-up items to a friend. If you hear a loud boom in a bit, it’s because an engine light came on when I started it up. You might want to cover your ears.

 

 

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1

Look Both Ways

At the two ends of my days, I still my mind & whisper inside it, “Thank You!”

The mornings sing with promise & the evenings with premise. When I have slept & awaken to the expectation of another day, I choose to have it be orderly & full of life. When I lie down to sleep, I breathe in the now-deflated activities to bestir them once more. In that minute, I can see the what & how of my day’s deeds. Usually I achieve clarity on situations which set of the railroad crossing arms, clanging internal bells, & bringing down barriers in the moments they unfold.

This is where the proverbial “shoulda/coulda/woulda/if” dragon rears to flicker its tongue inside the brain. The witty reply you should have made, the idea you could have brought forth, the best possible behavior you would have taken to settle all once & future doubt…we don’t even have to consider the “if” because you have already experienced it as you’ve mentally closed out this sentence.

A recent example of this is a fella I met who told me he felt the people he met here in T or C did not get when he was being “jocular” (his word.) My midnight consideration of this pronouncement brought up his continual smile. Do you assume someone is joking when they only smile? Is that accurate? Perhaps as accurate as his feeling we were all too serious. My midnight consideration put together many later facts that emerged: He grows marijuana & makes a living selling it. The rapid speech, the soft voice, the simple grin were probably all indications of his being under the influence. Am I wrong? I could be; but this made the most sense to me in my retrospective of the situation. I have little respect at this point of my life for dope dealers. They interfere with life.

The shadow & the light are at play right now, as in some cosmic tennis match. We are served illusion & disinformation as a matter of course. I keep hearing that I should be discerning, but I’ve lost the meaning of the word. Each time I tune into something in which to believe, an equal, opposite case is made. So, I reserve judgment, observe my perception of reality & live by my truth.

In the movie, “What The [Bleep] Do We Know”, Joe Dispenza introduces his idea of creating your day. Here’s a link to a transcript: “I Create My Day” (Joe Dispenza)

If you don’t care to read all the words, a video interview is available: Interview with Joe on topic.

Singer/songwriter Peter Mayer says, “the gift is to realize that everything is a gift.” This is neither simple nor easy to do. It takes a suspension of current events (kind of similar to what it feels to smoke marijuana), to reinvent the world into Divine Order. Or it takes simple faith. Faith can be impossible until you are no longer hungry in body, mind & spirit. Hunger in any of these inhibits that cosmic flow we are to go with.

It seems that society itself is “jumping the shark” – a phrase I had to look up today online as I was not familiar with its true meaning. It means a kind of exaggeration to the point of losing the point. As soon as I read the definition, I realized it was familiar: I used to call it “bringing in the dinosaurs.” When the story line ran out of plausible situations, dinosaurs were written in & it was time to surrender the series to rightful oblivion.

Don’t let the dinosaurs get to you. Don’t let situations become so unstable & ridiculous that you are squeezed out of your own reality. Have that faith in what you have created. Investigate the causes of your emotional switchbacks along the mountain. Observe your thoughts. Did you think these before? Are these what you surround yourself with daily? You may be living yesterday today & offering up your tomorrow to the same discomfort.

Break the routine of being yourself once in a while. It pays off…and if the new becomes more fulfilling, you’ve won big.

I try to do this though I love my comfort zone like Wimpy loved hamburgers. (Remember his line: “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”?)

I highly recommend the video “Stroke of Insight” on YouTube as an example of a singular, incredible example into change.

Let’s go for the new thoughts together & re-create this old world into the reality most satisfying to ourselves, most productive for all, most protective of that which is precious & most loving in sheer gratitude for what it can be, as we make that what is.

A Blessing:

“For food in a world where many walk in hunger

For friends in a world where many walk alone

For faith in a world where many walk in fear”

And so it is.

 

 

1

Cast in Stone (No Rewrites)

Times are, when no one believes in me; I cease to exist. I become invisible to the naked eye, such a marathon of years mapped across my face, no one sees me clearly. Or if they do, they take in the gray-blonde sand of my hair & wander away from greeting. I’ve said it before: to go gray (as a female) is to go stealth in life.

“Another old woman; another useless eater,” I almost hear the thought. No longer fecund of body, no longer generating taxes for a ravenous System, I am a bean in the bean-counter’s world. Into the slot of disposables I go, but still being alive, I vociferously protest the disregard.  

If you’re going to dismiss me, you’ll have to put me in the red bucket, the one with the radioactive syringes, the impossibles, the distortions in the fabric. Put me with the zippers that won’t close, the dress with crooked sleeves & a pulled hem. I’ll never fit your mold.

I cannot sit with a TV remote in my hand, watching dreams in which I have no place, no time, no empowering feelings. I don’t have a favorite show anymore. My internet radio features some two dozen channels I wander among. My values are invaluable & unsettling to the crowd. Everyone looks quizzical when I announce my decisions. Many ask for explanations I cannot give, for my value system is not theirs.

Some reach out to fondly pat my hand. One accused me of having a non-working brain, which so hurt I snapped immediate walls up against her. Many friends melt into a landscape where I can walk no longer; somehow discernment has barred my path. My hours are no longer stolen from financial productivity. But I’m not like B, walking her dog seven times a day because she’s forgotten she walked the beast as he manipulatively pants by the back door. I’m not like G, who sits smoking on her porch among the refilled oxygen tanks. I’m not like R & K & C who work every day for earnings, putting dreams on a ticking blinker hold. They may never take the call, and this frightens me for them.

I’ve answered too many calls! I’ve moved too many times, I’ve worried too much about how I can do things just before I did them because the worry was so fractious to my heart. I’ve run out of money & watched as sometimes it flooded back & sometimes trickled, but there has always been enough.

I no longer expect understanding. I’m patient in the face of others’ doubts about me. No one else is walking the miles in my shoes, finding my opportunities, holding the pens I write with. Feeling lonely is redundant when I am society’s answer to becoming obsolete. I am no longer useful in the worldly ways I once was. I support no one, believe in an omniscient range of possibilities at which others roll their eyes just before launching into a list of why these are actually impossibilities.

But I’m not ossified or moribund. I’m not helpless in the face of change. If one thing does not suit, I’m on to the next with a blink & a nod to circumstance. In a world frozen in place, I bring the sun that cracks open the ice & frees the fish to swim. In a sky gray with worry & layered separations, I peek through a ray of the only light there may be that day. I ride the beam in delight & blessing.

There’s no question for me anymore about all this. I am not one to surrender & simply sink into a chair. I love to be a part of it all, but only on my own terms. If this is my definition, rewrite the damn dictionary.

My life energy is mine to spend. My coin is not of this realm & whether I am right or not about that remains to be accounted. Others can sing “My Way,” but I have a legitimate claim to the phrase, & the ability to write an explanation in fifty words or less. I don’t do shades of gray! My life is vivid with color, light, sound, fullness, creation & walking time around like a crow on my shoulder. It repeats, it requests, it demands, it prays.

What I collect cannot be pressed into books or slipped into glassine envelopes. I am who I am with an expectation of being more in every moment. So it may seem to the casual observer that I’m doing little, while I am actually rolling full steam ahead on so many levels.

Even with all this, people argue me: you have to charge for this, you shouldn’t think about that; you’ve got to love [fill in the blank], find a man, find a life, find a lost city of gold in the Peruvian rain forest & taste the fresh ayhuasca.

Leave it! Just take me as I am or put me aside for the next good deed you want to accomplish. Not much is gonna change here. I’ll never be a specimen you can pin down or predict.

But I’ll never be bitter, resentful, hateful or unmystified by all that/about all that life offers. I’ll always share the humor in any moment of blessing.

I’m tired of being disapproved, tired of being criticized & ostracized. It would be nice if someone else were in charge, but there’s only me in this life. I don’t know about the rest of you. Where would I begin to find out? But I can extrapolate how people have lived by what they’ve left behind. Just check the secondhand stores if you want to find out about that. Pretty few surprises here, but always something useful…no way to know if it’s the people or the stuff that smells so musty. Very likely both.

 

3

Runes

RUNES

Were runes the first secret alphabet of mankind? I associate runes with Vikings & what with Norse being a difficult language, they likely kept secrets in runes quite well.

If we think of runes as letters carved on tiny, flat rocks, it must’ve taken a Viking shipload to put together a note. Not to mention trying to glue these to the fridge.

Therefore, runes became symbolic – like using a heart icon to say like/love/dearie, etc. Runic shorthand is quite fun & was revolutionary in language learning, jumping the Norse ahead of the Chinese who scribed long before their northlander cousins, but used up much ink & wore down brushes, necessitating frequent trips to the pig bristle hut.

Runic tools lasted. Hammers & chisels hardly fit into pencil cases & must have been difficult for the children to carry to school.  While the Norse might stop along a coastline, it was mostly to steal sheep & hardly ever to replenish rune-writing supplies.

Many aboriginal cultures never codified words in writing. They used clicking & guttural sounds to speak. These conveyed meaning, carried through jungle undergrowth & cut tribal noise barriers in the villages. It must have been hard to whisper, though.

Runes & other symbols have gone through a difficult time lately. Witness the evolution of the dire warning of skull & crossbones indicating “poison!” into Halloween candy. Since runes dropped from favor & parchment plus bird-feather nibs have also eroded their market share, we have wound up with computers and spell-check. It is obvious that spell-check cannot spell, yet we continue to use it to mix homonyms into a language evocative of illiteracy plus one. This, plus people’s advanced inability to spell on their own has rendered written language somewhat comedic. Mixing words like “there” & “their” obscures meanings effectively. Is AI trying to divide & conquer or are we all so lacking in English skills now?

As to the spoken word, there are far too many verbal Tourette’s tics in conversation, like “y’know?” “got that?” [the ubiquitous] “like” & the ever-present, “um.”

Not me! I learned English at the end of a bladed 12” ruler wielded by a woman who wore rosary beads as ornamentation, probably had headphones blasting AC/DC under her wimple, purchased on my Catholic School March of Dimes money. The nuns I knew collected teeth for misspellings, cut off ears for talking in class & used arcane ritual in curing them to string under the habits. It’s been recently revealed on the Internet that they maintained the purity of the language through threat & the all-effective follow-through of nightly detention. The only thing worse than school all day was school all night, too. In all, what they DID achieve was a kind of immortality of race memory in a group of kids already burdened with confession, confirmation, & breathing chalk dust from clapping erasers.

So, while Vikings used rocks as language – cairns meaning, take a left at the fir tree forest to find more sheep, the Chinese rolled their Gone With Mist Wind manuscripts into thick scrolls & tied them with facial hair. Americans used to be fancy, but now we scribble/scrawl with the best of them. We use language carelessly, ignoring actual definitions, making up more words to misspell & randomizing spelling in general. I won’t even approach gratuitous besmirching of rules of grammar here.

Even as we attempt to simplify language, it becomes more complex. Imagine your average Norseman disembarking his elaborately carven boat to order a pumpkin mocha with turmeric… It was a different time to communicate for sure.

Now I must pull my tongue out of my cheek & I hope you will do so as well. I had to get this off my, um, chest.

Thank you.

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