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  • I Could Use Some New Memories

    I Could Use Some New Memories

    Getting tired of the old ones. Stories told many times are wearing. Is there an “overtold” like oversold? Hmm. I’ve reached it, so I guess there is.

    There’s that other time that I … Never mind. Probably already blogged it.

    Do you get tired of your stories? I am sensitive to this stuff & have [too] many people in my life who repeat the same tale to me so that I can tell it, word for word. It’s a tape they trot out for emphasis which was lost on the fourth telling anyway. I regard my nails & try not to roll my eyes, keeping my head down so they don’t see me mouthing the words along with them. Why does this make me so restless?

    I’ve been much quieter lately I notice. There have been more changes which barely bear sharing. My boss & good friend is out of Unity now. QEII has her fiefdom. If she were Chinese & not Cuban, I would await the institution of the Kowtow. I know she’d love to put her foot on more than a few necks & press hard. Ok. Old story. Trauma carves a deep groove & the water running thru that never refreshes. I might need hypnosis to release it but definitely PTSD therapy with professionals I cannot afford. So…look down, look away, refocus.

    I love getting on Twitter & it asks me what’s going on. I don’t dare reply. Nothing much I say agrees with others. My beliefs are stranger than reality. My light in the sky is the Batlight over Gotham, not boding well for whatever is next. Or I’m in a state of what I call Ineffable Joy where I’m smiling through & through for no discernible reason except I feel like smiling. Perhaps there is no center anymore for me. Perhaps the dash to/from extremes is the reality high I’m searching for as I write lines about peace & delight in my 10 cent Christmas cards from the thrift with their chance-matched envelopes.

    Who else out there remembers Flexible Flyers? Can anyone tell me what was flexible about them?

    I spent Wednesday at my new job doing shred work. It was a fun to sit bent over the hard-working paper-eater, periodically stopping to empty the holder into a plastic bag with collapsing sides which meant sitting in a circle of rising white curls. Have you noticed paper goes elusive? It can escape a broom or vacuum with a swirl-a-whirl ease when you attempt to gather it up. It is so momentarily satisfying to get it all dumped into the bag before sitting down to find two more clumps under the chair. I got through the entire box except for about 1/4 inch which eluded my quitting time.

    So, that’s a new story for ya. That & the one told by that Flexible Flyer…

    An untold [very short] story: As a child growing up on a Jersey Beach, snow was rare & hills non-existent. One had to go to the boardwalk to find any downhill angle at all & the boardwalk-ramp ride was too short to be notable. One could not even raise a whistling noise in the ears before flattening out on sand which is about the most effective brake in the world for a sled. The End.

  • Today the Sads

    Today the Sads

    I’ve written a lot of that which delights me. Today I am accosted by sadness, by all the projects undone or not started, by the way my foot hurts from being stepped on in the dance.

    Obtaining a job online – it’s like computer dating – the chances of finding tall dark n handsome offset by the stupids: list every job you ever had, dates & times, titles, locations & reasons for leaving. Well, my job history is pretty long. I might could tell you my first job was as a dishwasher was with Fitzgerald’s Drugstore in Wildwood & I left in September 1962 for high school. Best of luck getting a reference.

    They want too much information & not enough of the right stuff, like I enjoy working. I am good at it. I get stuff done. I’m good with people. I’m a problem-solver.

    Unity is the second job I voluntarily quit in my life & I have worked since getting my “papers” & my social security number at 16. But today I feel as though I will never be worthy to work again. It’s like love, I’ll never be worthy again. Just to show you how twisted I am, work was my choice over love my whole life.

    Today is a loss day. I’m walking the dripping woods with a hobgoblin on my shoulder whispering what a loser I turned out to be.

    I hear that work is now a “hurricane” since I left. I get cryptic texts about “what is/where is/how do I” on my phone. I see the place upended like the butt end of the Titanic going down in all those old movies. The band members have already slid into the sea. One friend cries as she tells me I need to be there. Except I don’t anymore.

    I cannot work with a narcissist extraordinaire who makes accusation her #1 motivator & who insists on privacy while discussing my errors with peeps at lunch. She had a month to possibly rectify the situation, but chose instead to bring in a contractor (at twice my hourly rate) for 25 hours per week. She did this five days before my departure & told me to teach her everything she needed to know. That’s how little the “boss” – a card-carrying Unity Minister – thought of my work.

    There’s a little girl inside boo-hooing & snotty-nosed. She’s getting loose. Time to get the plunger & stuff her back. Or time to let her out & heal? My choice.

    My self-image has always been tied up with my work ethic. It didn’t matter if I’d forgotten to bleach my moustache if I got the report done on time. Or if I had an unnoticed stain on my blouse if I showed up & answered every question anyone asked me with a solid solution. I chose my work over my daughter, over my husbands & relationships.

    I’m worn out with stuffing things back. I have found it comes out in other ways.

    This time alone, not working, is to heal. It is time to allow the sadness of “failure” to out itself. Time now to root out fault-finding, to leave things behind, to understand that no one’s future, let alone mine, is assured or geared to success as all the markers have changed. The life I lived is no longer available for review or notation. Only the feelings remain – like all the self-help books say. “How does that make you feel?”

    No snack food will help here, no rubbing my eyes, no self-examination which seems to turn up scars when I cannot recall the wounds that left them.

    Today I stick my hand out from the pile of rubble. The other one is holding onto that child.

  • Angel Dialogue

    Angel Dialogue

    Dear Carol,

    Well, you DID it, Girl! You went & done QUIT! Your! Job! Woo f’n hooo! We were getting tired of pushing you toward the door! We’re sitting back, enjoying a Tall One. To you, Darlin’! To you!

    Do angels cuss?

    We do.

    Is this a dialog?

    It can be. Whatcha wanna know? And don’t you dare ask, What’s next! Just let that come to you. We were there yesterday at your party. We listened in to all the conversations – mainly they said how the place won’t be the same without you. But nowhere ever is once you leave.

    And By the Way, we don’t mind when you don’t greet us everyday. We know you know. Maybe now it can be different.

    Time went away with the Covid Scam. Part of it was to erase & upend time as you knew it. Time never caught up quite to its old standard of before that. Thus you’re neither late nor early in your life right [dare we sat it?] Now.

    Even tomorrow time slips a notch once more. Daylight Savings Time – Pshaw! What savings? Your world is lit up with so much artificiality, it’s ludicrous!

    So what do you wish to ask?

    Well, I was going to start with my future, but that doesn’t seem to be on the table,

    Nope

    Next?

    Have I achieved my purpose?

    Depends. What was it?

    Oh. I thought you’d know…

    And just how would that aspect of Free Will work, Carol? We’re here to observe & support. We’re not dictators.

    So, all the time I’ve asked you for inspiration, what’s been happening?

    Hey, we relay from the Big Tent, sometimes by megaphone, sometimes in a whisper down the alleyway. You made a bunch of decisions, thinking them divinely inspired, but think on that: You are your own Divinity!

    Oh yeh, that’s what all the books say.

    The very ones you no longer study since you realize you need to do this on your own. You’ve laid the track, set the barriers, striped the car parks. You’ve set the speed limits & chosen the destinations, too.  We roam ahead & behind, scoping out the routes & making sure the litter gets picked up.

    Leave only footprints, remember?

    Sometimes you get clear directions, sometimes you’re hearing echoes thinking these original & subscribed to you. But we’ll say at times it WAS us, hoping you’d heart-heed & heal.

    It’s been easier with you – this rendition – than with the other you’s. You’re pretty quick on the uptake, mostly ready for change. Pretty sharp until you dig in your heels & holler…

    When you block or try to stop the flow, things happen control & contrariwise. You’re learning.

    Be the screen door wishin’ on the breeze. Be the laid-back self we know you can be. You’ve SO got this, girl.

    We love you, CB, through & through.

    ~ R, C, D, A & M.

  • Samhain

    Samhain

    I am here.

    The beach.

    I left the apartment climbing a racheting of worry: I didn’t bring a …

    Whatever & all my civilized mind believes I need for an elemental day.

    Driving, I revisit one of the many conversations I could/would/should have had

    Yesterday.

    I open the car windows: blow the words away.

    That

    Is

    No

    More.

     = = = = =

    The sandpipers only may run back & forth

    Circling one another as my thoughts

    The parking places are 9’ high with hurricane sand

    I pull into one of the last seven left

    I carefully scan the meter structure:

    Oh good! I am clear until 10 and it is 8:12.

    I keep my sandals on to walk to the waterline,

    Distinctive sounds of crunch/slide walking

    I eye the knotted trash bag, hoping for a conch

    But conchs don’t bear logos.

    There are few shells, many fragments.

    My breath becomes as deep as the beach

    My shadow grows as the sun takes heed, uncovering itself in light

    I put my old lady jacket on the back of the chair as I sit.

     = = = = =

    I momentarily have no words, but I’ve come here to write

    Higher Self prepares to scrawl a renewed prescription for this life.

    Yesterday I left my job to a rousing sendoff of friends at a luncheon.

    My boss says “I never intended to let you go” & runs thru her too-familiar

    Litany of my faults

    My heart shrank, my stomach heaved…

    This time I could walk out the door.

     = = = =

    People asked, “Where are you going?”

    I shrugged, I’ve not thought that far

    Only knowing I would be at the beach today.

     = = = = =

    Growing up on an island means I return to my roots

    Ironically in the place where none will ever take

    I am movable as the sea, like the sea.

     =  = = = =

    I wear no makeup: I took no shower

    I wear ocean colors, cloud colors

    I am invisible

     = = = = =

    I am awake

     = = = = =

    I dreamt a dog climbed onto my bed

    My throat too clogged with words to say them

    I accepted its warmth & quieted.

     = = = = =

    I will find a bakery when I leave

    (Why must plans intervene?

    Why follow a path in front of the biggest mystery I’ll ever know?

    Why not be random, erratic? More aware of shadows than what creates them?)

     = = = = =

    On this day, I begin a journey unfathomable to many, my plans

    For far more than a bakery

     = = = = =

    I have been here before

    But usually this feeling aligns with making 350 miles before dinner.

    My dead vie for control of the pen begging, “Write me immortal! Re-create me

    Anew in three dimensions!”

    I thank them & write on.

     = = = = =

    Tomorrow is November: Tonight Halloween

    Church bells ring: An omen?

    The waves chase each other

    Churning sand to drag back in their retreat

    Nowhere else to go, they tag the shore, melting.

    The sun decodes me, pushing my personal shadow to one side

    ”Let me look at you,” she says

    “Hey! I like those earrings!”

    “Hmmm, no makeup today?”

    “Good to see you, Carol, been awhile, but I remember.

    I’ve watched you every day & while you think your life is long,

    I know that body as a blink on my horizon.”

    “I see you like one of those sandpipers,

    To & fro & back again, snatching at the ground for nourishment

    Flickering wings catching breeze,

    A black & white life you lead,

    Stark with words.”

  • Not Sure on the Worst of the Worst

    Not Sure on the Worst of the Worst

    Well, my sarcasm meter has embedded itself in the red. The crimes against humanity out there in the world are echoed in the small crimes committed by those who “should” know better. Take my job, for example. Take my job, please.

    I know the paradigm shift is the background against which all this is being played out. I know I am divinely protected & fulfilled on the broadest measures even as others suffer madly at the supposed randomness of weather & money fluctuations. Governments can’t help in this suffering. They cannot render justice to balance any scales – to expect them to do so is just plain silly. Besides, by the time they’re involved/invoked, the suffering has been maxed.

    Human nature is indefatigable. We rise. And still we rise. For many who are beaten down, there are more waiting to take an upper arm & lift them back to their feet. The stories I can tell have all been told in Greek, in Latin, in Aramaic, in all languages & time perpetuations. The emotions fit a spectrum fading off into the ultra on either side – all the way from & to the zones beyond our hearing & sight. The repercussions echo faintly from the hidden places above, below & to either side. Where does this leave the regular humans? Smack dab in the middle of each individual strand: in joy, in sorrow, in the “meh” factor, cuz we are burnt out or in, burnt up or down.

    I hear so much – a symphony of lives playing out the background. My cynicism enlarges as does my laughter as, overall, this is so far from where we should be, it’s laughable. I am not the most balanced individual – had two bowls of ice cream for dinner last night. But I’m not the most un/imbalanced measure on the cosmic scales either. Ever note that cosmic minus one letter = comic?

    What is happening at my job is not to be believed if you count upon sanity as a rule. It is based so totally on emotion, on perception, on cosmetics that there’s no recognition of what will happen when the truth is gold (a telling typo made twice there.)

    This song struck me years ago & has just resurfaced in my life with deeper resonance. What do we expect outwardly in the world when our inner realms are so out of true?

    As to my work, it’s Local Gossip. Our former minister – I work at a church – mentioned the property is built on a native cemetery. Now that’s a mentionable cliche, yeh? But let me tell you, Sons of the Pioneers, the inexplicable & illogical & irredeemable happens there every day. The caretakers dither in the wings as the main production tanks. Afraid of nay-saying themselves, they propose a no comment policy which will ultimately unbalance the entire effort: buildings, grounds, Sunday population, current staff. All will suffer – but only if they choose to accept it as suffering. Is this the big-school lesson always talked about? That Earth-Is-A-School Meme carried to fruition? Or is it just a series of egregious errors compounded by the Board & exaggerated by their choice of ministerial leadership?

    Aw, hell. I’m skewed on it. I work there. But only til the 30th. By Samhain, I’m into the New & the void looks mighty attractive at this point. I’ll be someplace else soon with a laundry list of the same things but a chance of doing them with a measure of fun & fulfillment, not negation & nihility. I put in to remove my name from the website as of that date & the webmaster (who is purportedly taking over my job) has already erased me. Did I say I work at a church? She’ll fit right in!

    Am I upset? Nah. Surprised? Yeh. Some propriety needs to be kept, I feel. It’s probably an honest mistake of not reading the end of the sentence, the part that says as of 10/30, after the remove me from the website. And this isn’t about that particular item, in fact (fact=truth?) Is jumping the gun the same as jumping the shark? I always say when the series runs out of good story-telling, they bring in the dinosaur threat. There’s a velociraptor in the back ministry office & a t-rex in Fellowship Hall. Truth be told. But truth is way subjective & develops a quick rime of mold when exposed to the air.

    The fun part will balance the heavies here (one letter short of ‘heaves’) & do so soon. I can’t stay down that long & it’ll take a longer time to assert balance here than I have time for.

    I might be a Cassandra, “cursed” with foreknowledge only to be expressed in cynicism. But as Mammy Yokum always said: “Ah has spoken!”

  • Poet’s Morning: Staring Down the Storm

    Poet’s Morning: Staring Down the Storm

    good morning, Muse.

    Stopping by before the storm?

    paying a visit?

    slapping down your hand on the table asking for some of that cooked-ahead-of-time flounder, and burger, and panko-zucchini, that tuna steak chunk…that beef fajitas strip-meat?

    you love the fried food as I do & we grin, cleaning up the kitchen together.

    will you help me pack the bugout bag?

    will you watch the videos of North Carolina over my shoulder with me?

    Will you put your hand across my mouth when I shout my truth out loud …

    that truth few seem to wanna hear?

    you & I know I can’t keep it to myself.

    come with me, let’s open the door

    to the peace of the held-in breath

    soon the world will crack open

    with rain, with wind, with trees bending to the will of fury

    ginned up by the ill will of darkness.

    Grab a chair, Lady, let’s stare down the storm.

    = = = =

    this is a Florida morning, not a mountain in sight

    insight

    this is a day like no other

    unique in a dawn promising way more to come in terms of

    the adventure of life.

    no idea how I got here

    it was just an idea: this life

    it was diving into the body that would (heh heh) expand with use

    grow outward with caloric intake, enlarge even as my mind slims lean

    simmering

    with thinking about love, with leaning into Love.

    i have sat at every table.

    i have partaken only some of this & some of that.

    sometimes dyspeptic but mostly dipping it into oil & frying it with spices

    i can taste.

    (seems an irony too big to bear to be unable to taste anymore)

    but hell, I know what’s under the Masterpiece is a masterpiece of cellular

    structure becoming part of me

    exchanging Grace out loud before digging in!

    = = = = =

    Rescue me, retrieve me

    i’ve seen the world from a wall of water before,

    from the top of the wave

    watching the ship go down

    watching the once upon a time spear of the mast

    sink below the blue surge

    i’ve breathed the water

    breathing out of my body

    escaping the sluggish movement

    of swimming limbs in cold/cold/colder

    to fly over the sea

    to find an island

    to sit on a limb

    to preen my feathers

    my soul hitches a ride

    to heaven’s before & after

    i join hands with All That Is

    as we laugh about everything that just happened

    saying, “can you believe that?!?”

    = = = = =

    I’m no braver than you

    my soul will never get this life together

    like yours n yours n yours

    my truth will not live to your standards

    but even under this burden of perceiving disappointment

    this little poem rises

    a bubble in the swamp

    a burst of iridescence

    fragile as a baby’s laugh

    fraught with joy wreaked from a poet’s life

    seeing the seeking as the only truth

    not the arrival but only the journey

    pacing down the world

    across the spheres

    bending a knee to none

    even the backpack slung under a tree

    to travel free.

    = = = = = =

    The recklessness of love

    choosing me as the object of its affection!

    my voice scrapes across the spheres

    to find a way to say how much love there is

    in this world, to know only love to chant

    under the breath of my mother

    putting me to breast

    to feel that love

    as the warm palm of my father

    patting my bottom: I sit upon his arm

    giggling in the miracle of being held

    the song rose then & stayed with me:

    that one moment raised me into a heaven

    too seldom experienced, yet known

    somehow familiar

    there was only that hallelujah of a moment

    imprinted on a tender heart.

    no matter a future of ashes & pain

    no matter the darkness rising again

    there’s always that music alive in me

    vanquishing fear underfoot

    my enemies are astounded

    i can summon it up

    breaking through their snarl

    to live so alive & on & on & on…

    = = = = =

    skipping on the lightning

    aiming for my feet

    i laugh aloud at the wreckage

    the detritus

    i bless the mess

    i’ve made; i see the next choice

    coming up – i grab that golden ring,

    holding it a moment to my chest

    before flinging it to the crowd

    the galloping carousel

    will bring me here again

    a grumble of machinery

    the painted horses sing

    i have only to reach

    to have that golden ring!

    = = = = =

    I am free again –

    have i said those words before?

    have i died again to a life

    of no nourishment

    no breath?

    yes, in deed, indeed

    i walk away in an exaltation

    of light, restored

    to my self: to the greatness God intended me to be!

    i bathe in the mercy of light

    i move the mountain along with me

    just to have a view.

    = = = = =

  • The Emergency of Truth

    The Emergency of Truth

    Sitting in my Henry-chair at 2:33, eyes a bit crusty. Checking the storm predictions flowing on Twitter & the news – those chipper Jihadi weathermeisters & their Cats 3-4-5. Well, partner, my cats all had tails & whiskers. I’m a Jersey Girl. We grew up with nor’easters. I do recall this one, though:

    Hurricane Agnes – Wikipedia

    In both Pennsylvania and New Jersey combined, about 43,594 structures were either destroyed or significantly damaged. In Canada, a mobile home was toppled, …

    A mobile home was toppled? 43.5K structures? Helene just sideswiped North Carolina & the bodies … the bodies … it must be a Civil War battlefield scene, era BBB: Before Body Bags.

    No matter who does or does not come to “SAVE” us. We are already in our next lives, regardless of lingering in this one to the fullest extent possible.

    This post is a ramble. The hour is not unusual anymore. By tomorrow night the Milton will be rattling the front door with rain bands. The boss wants me at work to “go over Sunday Service” today. I’ve got it done but forgot to send it to her before leaving, so I’ll head in. I’ll try to pick up ice if any is left in Sarasota & fill my roommate’s cooler in case of no electric. I’ll fill the bathtubs in the place. I’ll grab two extra gallons of her special filtered water at the Center.

    We just fixed the floors & walls there from Tropical Storm Debby – truly ‘Little Debby’ in light of these Cat 5’s lining up.

    Lots of speculation on my part – did they pick up enough quartz crystal on Siesta Key’s famed beach to fuel steering Helene? Will a bit of my friend’s floated-off trailer home churn the EV engine on the next Volt? And stop nattering about mobile homes – normally you don’t need much more in a tropical environment so standards were met. It’s another case of needing new conspiracy theories cuz all the old ones have come true.

    Truth seems to be “they” are not through with Florida yet. Like the Conquistadores, they’re after the (now) indigenous population but I don’t think there’s lithium here for reward… maybe they need new alligator shoes.

    In keeping with irony, yesterday I found an oldie by Richard Bach – a long-favorite author – called Running for Safety. HA! “Nowhere to run to, Baby, nowhere to hide” says the song.

    I expect our apartment complex to weather this well. Debby did a good culling of branches but the piles are still on the grounds & a dead tree can be as lethal as a live one being stripped down in the moment. I have said I’m comfortable on both sides of the Veil & might get to experience the flip tomorrow night. But I’ll probably sit in Henry, listening to the wind & supposedly caring about Sunday Service.

    I’m out of there soon, anyway. With how that building aged, there might not be anything there come Sunday! My time might be better spent cooking the flounder in the freezer.

    There’s only so much I can take: being prodded at work, blogging at 3 a.m., checking on X for weather updates. The only “whether” I have going on is if my kid has enough info to get the little bit of money I have saved – she can donate it to the Florida Relief Go-Fund-Me, yeh?

    Me? I’m always at the beginning of something. It’s what I’m best at.

    Love,

    C

  • 76 & Counting

    76 & Counting

    Tossed madly from sleep’s sweet dreamlight

    To pebbled shores where it hurts to walk

    Returned in a heap, sodden with that ridiculous logic of

    Slumber’s illogic

    Stumbling sideways, a hard-shell crab tossed onto

    Morning’s beach of dark-to-light

    The home shore, the other life, the place where

    The real is more puzzling than the dream.

    Bringing faith with me, I lie, for a moment, stunned

    With changing worlds. I draw myself up, blinking

    In sudden sun flashed from sea

    I believe in me once again, as separate

    From all I rise to walk, not fly

    To clothe self in this mad world,

    More sodden than still, shivering with

    Separation.

    Superheroes only may apply

    Themselves to this,

    The saints all stay behind, whispering advice

    On how to live when they don’t know the half of it.

    = = = = =

    We rub noses, dreams & me,

    Wet & chilly, streaked with salts

    Of life in saline blood, of electrical currents

    Reassessing worth & width.

    We run about, hiding behind each other

    Knowing tomorrow is yesterday reconsidered.

    We sneeze & move apart, foraging our quests

    & questions while answers skip ahead, just beyond the pale.

    = = = = =

    HEALING ONE WOUND AT A TIME

    Not quite ready for death’s respite

    Not quite permitted full life in living color

    But hedged about by quality & cause,

    We lick what hurts most, long strokes of raspy tongue

    The cleansing salt, softening edges of scar,

    We straighten up, ignoring pain, mistrust,

    We trust the loss & betrayal to bring us somehow to joy

    To existential trust

    In a system based on malfeasance alone.

    Yes, we are crazy & crazed with the smells of life

    That which causes us to grow beyond the worst of it.

    = = = = =

    SHE VISITS

    Padding up from behind

    I don’t always feel her coming.

    She throws a casual arm around my shoulders

    For a moment I nestle there

    In that sweet hollow next her heart

    So richly beating.

    Some days she blends with me, we share  the cape of Knowledge

    Ironed in understanding.

    Some days she covers my eyes & takes me into her spaces

    Crowded with life, with love, with pulsing ever-afters realized.

    Some days she drags me into chaos, the crowd, the market of

    Rotten decay, handing me money, urging me to street food.

    Some days find soft meadows rimmed by trees.

    These are my favorites.

    The days she touches my forehead & pushes me into

    Stark reality are harsh

    I make my way alone, unwed & stumbling through

    Tomorrows all starting again.

    = = = = =

    WALK ON

    I do this all the time, my Warrior before, behind, below

    Winking from the path

    No longer slowing me down

    With caution, no longer testing the air for enemies

    Retracting her claws, allowing me safe passage

    Through safer lands rendered still by her presence

    Just within, shining from my skin.

    Some days are all challenge while some are all belonging.

    My step does not falter: I am the Journey

    Both me & anti-me fumbling fabric for the water flask.

    = = = = =

    The faraway roads once beckoned

    Now I wear out the path between here & there

    In no seeming rush except for what is inside pulling,

    With no outward drama, dreamed by softer beings

    Who work with surface only

    Not knowing the turmoil of an unsettled heart.

    = = = = =

    Love tapped me awake

    Spirit woke instead,

    Taking the proffered hand

    We had our tickets punched at check-out

    We grabbed some water

    And headed out, grinning

    = = = = =

  • Letter To A Friend Feeling Boo-boo Blue

    Letter To A Friend Feeling Boo-boo Blue

    Aw honey – you are an old fart. Accept it & toot away. Remember, they can only get to you if you let them. THIS SITUATION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU! It sounds like my job, as a matter of fact. I can’t ever be a hero there cuz I make mistakes. Never mind the 103 things a day done rightly. 

    Insert song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRCrmuALDEE

    You have the capacities for great joy & sorrow, for turning things around & helping others, for allowances & freedom. You’ve been independent for how long now? And they don’t believe in you anymore? I call FALSIES! 

    I’ve just come thru all this on the job myself. Tired of not being heard or understood when things are not explained properly in the first place. Gonna stand up to it now & take notes.

    Had a Dental Day. Two.5 hours there. Just before going in, a filling exited upon flossing, leaving Grand Canyon spaces I offered for rental… Storage! I thought flossing was a good thing! Imagine!

    So Dentist fixed that one instead, saying she changed her mind about the tooth I went in for. Then talked to the lab who said, forget that, fix the damn tooth she came in for. (Not in so many words.) So that’ll be soon. If I want the bridge, they want to be sure the anchor tooth will hold. Sigh. It’s only $1900. I LAUGH at $1900! My name is Inigo Montoya. Prepare to die!

    So I went to Circus Walmart & bought cheap malt balls, plus chai & no gallons of water as my cooler is almost on empty as I call in for my next 15 gallons. Oh well. City water can be boiled. 

    Hurricane Hasties here in Florida. The Weatherman Jihad begins! Rain! Wind! Destruction! Boil! Sandbag! Hide projectiles! Stock canned soup! Etc. People pushing carts with enough bottles of water to supply Rhode Island or maybe Manhattan… Clerks looking perplexed at a 60′ of empty shelving where the water they loaded this morning shows as a couple of drops & a loose label on the pallet. Lines with huge carts either full, or like mine, with four items of munchies cuz i got a craving for chocolate. 

    Have Thurs/Fri off!! Yay!! I don’t care if the world ends – I’ve got time off! Having today was grand. I didn’t even worry cuz I don’t care anymore. And I can’t get onto my email until I get to work for the password cuz my memory isn’t Google’s. Might have the weekend off too if QEII so decrees. 

    Love it. Have books, chocolate, chai, maybe movies on demand if WIFI doesn’t conk. Not too shabby. Have food, enough fruit to guarantee regularity for a couple of months, a new Magic Bullet from Target to liquefy it. It ain’t over & no one is at the mic anyway, the fat lady was in aisle four with the cookies.

    So let it go if  you can, suffer if you feel you must, shrink into that 8 x 8 room or put a chair in the garage & enjoy the view. We are all victim to something. It hurts. But so does seeing the women standing in intersections with cardboard signs saying “help.” I drive by in my 2023 Buick, music on, lights winking/blinking. Power down a window with a $5 bill & a blessing. Keep a few in the middle holder for this cuz they hunt you down & stare like waifs at a Christmas FAO Schwarz display. 

    Believe in yourself, dear one. This is not the hill you die on. If it’s only the dogs who still love you, bribe them with treats cuz they know what’s right. 

    YOU HEAR ME?

    Love,

    Carol

  • Truth: Yours, Mine, Ours

    Truth: Yours, Mine, Ours

    Awake at 3 a.m.

    Impossible questions surging thru dreams

    The book too complicated to read; only a poem to write will suffice.

    There is no future in “wherein” & “whereupon”

    Sandpapering the mind, with thou shalt not

    My eyes so tired

    May I sleep soon?

    No mother to answer nor question

    The questions just hang, midair, pulsing

    Even the pendulum is still in my fingers.

    ===

    At times I am a broken chair

    Lying beside the road

    No Jesus-Carpenter to mend me

    I’ve not passed my time of supporting

    But hold less weight than I could before –

    A castoff castaway

    Melting into the moss.

    Haunted with dreams

    Of sitting beside windows

    Watching fate unfold on a windmill.

    ===

    Existential poems: metaphor & sigh

    A breath never breathed back in

    Rife with cancellations:

    Never said that!

    Never did that!

    You’ve got it all wrong!

    My memory is clear,

    Either I made it up

    Or I’ve already jumped the timeline.

    = = =

    Maybe there’s profit in spinning webs of hissing defeat

    I mistook for grace in action at the time…

    Your lacking memory does not erase flat fact.

    Your drawing the blinds does not erase the view.

    What profit being right? I am as unknowing as the next day

    What life is.

    It unfolds as I peek in.

    = = =

    “Wiseth up!”

    Real denial takes two

    The committer & the committee

    That word: “never?” that word in a sentence

    Dooms it immediately

    Cancels any future

    Negates presence

    Never is a scare-word

    Let’s not use it anymore.

    = = =

    I cheer my certainty: God Is!

    I see everyone circling the belief

    I sit in like a comfortable chair.

    Others are wolves circling blood-scent

    Unbelief writ large, propounded loud

    To what profit?

    It’s my choice to think “God wins!”

    = = =

    Of all places where God is,

    Should be a church

    And yet there is more politik

    Less politic

    What happens in the parsonage should stay there.

    Denial & despair have no place here

    On Sunday mornings

    Why are they present on other days?

    = = =

    This defeating unforgiveness

    Slacking the tow rope of heaven’s compassion

    So we bump along

    What should be smooth sailing

    Cursing & carrying all that was to be left behind

    When we got here.

    = = =

    You don’t share my God; you’ve cobbled together your own

    That’s fine, it’s just not me.

    The unbelieving clergy writes doubtful liturgy

    Narcissists write their own Bibles

    Create their own miraculous.

    I am by no means humble

    How could I be when God has chosen me

    To work through?

    I surrender, putting up my hands

    You are most certainly entitled to your belief system!

    Have at it! Enjoy the show.

    I sit a tinier throne.

    My God just is. Nothing more needed.

    = = =

    There’s a lesson here somewhere, damnit!

    A more polished meme to be had

    Generated by AI, bolstered by its words

    Not mine.

    I write what I want to say.

    You get no portals to my world

    If uncreated by invitation.

    Bring it on!

    Meet the adamantine heart I bear face-up, head-on.

    We will talk togetherness from there.

    = = =

    Doubt on your horizon

    Is surety on mine

    Somehow, we exist in the same world

    After the same goals:

    Balance / harmony / joy

    We just go about achieving them differently, yeh?

    = = =

    I tie my beliefs up in a hanky, four corners

    Tied to a pole

    Hoisted left-shouldered

    To keep my right side free

    For the walking stick of Journey.

    To garner more to carry or give it all away.

    I have no answers you don’t.

    Ask no questions here.

    Try not to trip on my beliefs

    It’s a hard fall waiting there.

    = = =

    Returning to the wilderness

    Does not mean befriending alligators

    But questing dragons.

    = = =

    I refuse to be dizzied by your spiraling beliefs.

    I stand on my own now as for my life

    I hear & I obey

    While keeping mine own counsel

    While living apart in my mind

    A violin in the distance

    Haunting as a church bell

    Tolling out prayers.

    = = =

    SUPERMOON

    Presiding over presentiments

    Taking no sides

    Silent.

    Void of answers to rising questions.

    Footprinted with ideas, not industry

    The scenic view of Earth its only occupation.

    The silent moon which cannot be still

    Which changes sizes with every quarter

    Preoccupied as a blushing woman

    An illusion of a tale untold

    Of dust & ash & self-reflection.

    CAROL BORSELLO