Genius is the real Breakaway Civilization. It’s not the place where the rubber meets the road, it’s the place where the tires leave it, fold up under the vehicle and you hear that Star Trek sound track as this fades into a streak of meteor. I never liked that piece of music. I remember once reading how someone thought “boldly go” was the name of the destination streaked to. I didn’t understand how such a cool show could have such a poor scant of music as a theme.

I digress.

Genius is the point of the lever where the world turns, tips, tilts. It is a scream in the psyche as an idea takes off or lands in the same nanosecond. It’s where nothing really matters besides being a human at the top of your game & realizing everyone else really IS following behind, dragging little red wheely suitcases. It’s an old golf joke – “hit the ball, drag Charlie.” And the sound track behind you is the one you associate with the monster coming closer, the limp-gimp of a simpering squeaky wheel sounding the inevitable.

I am ready for change. It comes upon me suddenly, does change. It takes a breath that won’t release & chokes off the chance for future air. It tunnels vision, limits thinking until let go. It demands every scintilla of attention in an arc of trajectory that sucks the body after – grabbing mind & heart first. The rest must somehow catch up, blurring into elasticity, some cartoon of impossible Gumby proportions. It’s unexpected (to say the least). It sometimes never does reunite into a single being & part of me is left behind forever, a note hanging, an echo from a room away. The suspense is excrutiating. The relief of the end goal divine.

I am finished with this job. It served me for a year. I helped it get on its feet, patted its little behind, tickled its curly scalp & now, with it barely standing, I realize I can take no more. It’s a job where they consciously reject change, deleting the better they can do to serve in favor for what has already proven trite. It scales down thinking & smashes any attempts to improve with sure, strong strokes like pummeling bread dough.

I don’t have to fit any mold any more. I can wipe the webs from my face, I’ve made it through the darkling forest & into a clearing where nothing shows beyond the sky. This is the place where wings dance & possibility bubbles into its opposite number.

I will watch them shrink into a distance as they fight hard to maintain small rather than mainline growth. When I move into this grace where the limitless opens a side to the ship’s skin, I will walk through & claim my own wild ride, turning in that ticket of a year in seatbelts for one deep breath.

I will never exhale!

I want to visit a prisoner of a relationship of war

A victim & perpetrator in a crime of passion

For which he suffers incarceration:

A young man who never integrated his freedom

Who took blame by the elbow & made it a confidant

So now he lives with it (if his sentence truths out)

For ten years more.

Who made his prison?

Does he know he has the tools to escape?

Being a handyman, he knows tools…

Oh, he tried. I saw him trying. I heard his “no”

Echoing in her matrix of sensuous “yes!”

Who took his body on that wild

Nightmare of a ride through rage & pain

Of hurt & ill-wishing

Of all the darkness of a 2 a.m. vendetta?

What occupied his mind as he ran

From the scene

Shirtless, reeling with fever?

Did he try to think himself back to innocence

To that hour before vengeance overtook his mind

Overpowering his soul?

How could he know in that moment of lighting

The match he used for the pleasure of tobacco

To a world of merciless man-made justice?

Who is to say he should not pay, this youth

Made of abusive put downs & unmanned

By his own son’s cautious return into his life?

He, who will know little now of light

Bored beyond numb, attacked on all sides

Caught in unending scream, this

Boy-man snared by untrue love

By masquerade of truth

By the Jezebel of his own choosing?

And what of she … but I cannot admit her yet

Only knowing part of her soul squeals as only a

Trapped woman can.

I have no mercy upon her now, no cooling

Forgiveness for her unending miserliness

In wishing him such as he suffered at her hands.

I give this to Mercy with no words of intercession,

Only the mute knowledge of a mother

Wanting only to spare this son

His punishment.

I give this now, knowing full well the law will

Extract many pounds of flesh

Until it reaches bones & gnaws these to salt.

All for an “I’ll show her!”

He’s foresworn an entire lifetime

He might have spent in living

Had he spent a moment in thought.

I cannot end this here

Yet there are no more words to say.

Carol (for Brandon) 9/20/23

What does it mean to have no dreams? That blog before this one, where I made a wish? This is some years later in the writing…

I took a class recently “Aligning Inner Self.” Now, I am quite snobbish about taking classes. I teach them, right? I tried not to be judgmental. I went with an attitude of learning & so I did. I learned about balance, specifically mine.

Teacher relied heavily on movie analogies. “Picture this like the scene from that.” One of the exercises was to express a desire: a wish in fact. It was to discern a future where we wished our way in. What was for gain was to ping the 100% Happiness Button. He had us picture it in the form of a hologram held in one hand. I did not even cup my palm as the others did. I realized there was nothing in that moment, nothing in my life, I would change in order to have one thing else. I am at a point of perfect balance. How often this might happen is rivaled only by the number of times it is realized. My tiny hologram Princess Leia (his analogy, not mine) did not need to materialize.

When he asked what we had out-pictured, I said “I pass” & inclined my head to the next student. Later – and I knew he would do this – he returned to the topic, smiling at me as he asked was there anything around my not wanting to share? I felt defensive admitting I had no wish. After a breath, I said, “Well, nothing came into my mind as you asked that, so I had to honor that nothing.” He smiled harder, clasped his hands together in a Namasté. He inclined his head to me. I blinked. He was able to allow a student to be his teacher in this moment.

Later, I would worry that non-wish like a seed, trying to get it caught between two teeth so I could chew it up. I thought about how I could have seen a freshly-authored mile of books in front of me – or even just the next one – or being a celebrated author, renowned in several languages. I could have wished to be slim, but I would lose too much of myself.

These did not occur to me then. Then nothing stirred the well I was gazing into.

And since I’m getting pathological about sharing secrets (tho not with you, Dear Reader), I may not have shared whatever wish mounted the sub-basement stairs to peer into a ready-made Reality. I would have pinned it in a steely gaze, told it “Wait! Who are you?” Held up a hand to stop it… while my face said, “no dreams neded here, move along.”

I had occasion to go through a period recently of intense dislike of myself. It had no overt reason I could think … just was. I honored that.

It seems to have spun back onto itself & the space it left has filled with comfort.

This is all I need right now: you reading this blog, me writing it. If I have to meet the world reader by reader, I am ready to write.

Love,  Carol

“AND EVERY HOPE IS WORTH SAVING”                  TSO: The Lost Child

“There is a child that’s part of my soul.”                          TSO; The Lost Child

“Oh, to be so old & have your life just begin”                  TSO: The Lost Child

It Begins!                                                                           TSO: The Lost Child

I could not live well without hope. I live for it, within it, around it & for it – all at once.  I perceive the many levels on which life occurs, understanding I am not the highest nor the lowest. I am life expressing itself as only I can: an individual of worth & knowledge unduplicated in all the Youniverse.

The words “without hope” are not in my lexicon. I love to think every hope is indeed worth saving, and that somewhere in time/space they are. Maybe this is what St. Peter records, what the Akashic Records store, rather than the salt & ash of our fevered thoughts.

We must live as though nothing else matters. Our reasons for being surround us – possessions, ideas, inner urgings & outward expressions equally weighing in. Lately I see the phrase “where we go one, we go all” as a truism urging me to my best expression. Anything less would be inadequate to the privilege of individuated breath which I am in the process of becoming.    

If anyone had told me as a child, I would grow up into the person I now claim to be, I may have rolled my big brown eyes & formed the mudra to “avert evil” with my right hand. I was incapable of assimilating the hope of a better life. Indeed, for years in between the good occurred the experiences which now allow me to appreciate my level of homeostasis with grace & less yearning than ever before.

My biggest wish now is to find someone with whom to finish out this life. I know this, too, shall be granted. My inner child is at play in the fields of Love; she will accomplish all she has set out to do in the face of her wishes made upon stars which have moved out into a more grandiose space afar.

Every day I see with new eyes. Nor is all I see in its ideal space. Hope is the slippery grace allowing it to achieve this…an effort worth expending, an energy pursuing.

Trying to recall when I wrote this. I would say 2019, fresh from Samurai Roads by a year.   Cb

This day begins!

Tho I don’t feel that exclamation point – I don’t feel like much other than sitting still with this computer on my lap, typing my thoughts.

I am enamored with beginnings, always loved ’em. I am reading a novel & the hero has just related how he came to be where he stood: in front of the Elf-King & Queen, in their Hall of Meeting. The line catching me is, “the act of confession left him both weightless, and ready for whatever came next.” That’s how I feel this morning: mentally weightless & ready for that which will come next.

I have not had other than a Saturday off for eight months. There have been tasks & work every day except Saturday, & that day I do my own tasks & chores. I have claimed a day like a prize, a blue-ribbon-Monday. I hold it aloft like the gift it is for me: a space where nothing is owed, claimed, rewound or expected. This day will nourish me for the next eight months … I love what I do & claim much sustenance from that. A change is always a time to regroup & refigure, replenish, re-form & re-place.

I have gone from good wife to divorcée times three. I have lived on the beach & in mountains. I have traveled far in miles both mental & physical. I am arrived here, now, to this place where “whatever comes next” may take place.

I am no longer a healer tho I considered myself one for years & greatly prided on those rising from my massage table refreshed & relaxed. I am a fortunate individual with the ability for deep thought & thoughtful leadership. These only seem secondary to the simply practical tasks I accomplish. They take the fore by necessity & because this is who I am. But I no longer wade into battle flourishing a sword. I suggest & I prod. I push & I allow. And when it is time, I establish my way whether it agrees with others or not. Most of the time,  however, I simply choose what will work for me & slip that into the mix.

I don’t rail against fate or circumstance, an automatic lightener. I do what I can & allow another breath to let me go where I feel I need to be. Others can shake heads at my behaviors. Once I’ve taken action, I don’t look back. Why would I? I will deal with consequences of others’ reactions soon enough. Might as well look forward & walk on.

I had so many ideas when I was young & they lasted long enough to shape my life into that which it is. It is never too far away, this Change. It is a constant current in all I do, all I produce, all I am. It is a ready flavor & a faraway perfume of enticement. I ride the suspense of its being with no expectations. I wait for endings without rushing in to make the save. I owe & I go for paying debts is important. I offer & am both advantaged & taken advantage of in the act.

I know what it is like to carry the baby both internally & externally. Now I lay it all down & I wait.

The world could go either way: its ascent or descent is not mine to predict nor to perhaps even share. I have no strong feelings over staying or going. Heaven may claim me at any time, leaving a dog-eared ticket with the last number scratched off.

I may be the occasional thought passing over someone’s mind, “I knew Carol, she was so ______.” Whatever fills in the blank will be of no import to the Carol-Now.

I slept last night for eleven hours. I feel the need to sleep again. ,

Since November, Saturday, Next, Idea, Healer, Chore-meister, Member, Independent, Master, Minister, Memory.

It matters not if we come late to wisdom

Have we come early to joy.

As children we are content with puzzles

Which may become a confusion

Of intemperance beyond their expiration date.

If we outlive our productivity, we can still

Rest in that glow; warming to remembrance,

Its fainting profusion

Now a single blossom

Become ash.

It is only that we have lived at some time

To capacity.

Our stillness is given to action

At levels now awash in Time’s changing tides.

Even when there are no pictures,

There are memories yet alive & aglow.

Our beaches laid bare in detritus

Still own the perfect shell

That one white pearl where we were treasured

Only for being who we are.

These moments sustain & re-root.

A new leaf on a seemingly dead stalk

Is still vital & attractive.

We still contribute to life’s ledgers

For the sake of the positive.

We underline life with a curve of laughter

A smile at rain, a thrill of wind

A moment alone later shared in hive-mind.

If I have had one thought others may learn from:

One idea which, drawn across the match cover of here & now

Sparks a candle or a forest fire.

I thank you, Life, for choosing your manifestation

In me, of me, around me, about me, even in lieu of me.

Where would I be had I not chosen to be here?

Carol B

2/23/23