There’s a Ren & Stimpy song where they sing of too many candles on the cake for a birthday, of the fire department standing by. Were I to have a cake with candles, I’d need a sheet cake so as not to be a fire hazard & somebody who counts higher than I dare these days.

I wrote this back on my birthday which is already more than a half-year ago. Happy Birthday, Me! Indeed, happy birthday from my island in timespace, from the celebratory bundle of cells & thoughts that is my Be Here Now.

I was told recently I am quite immersed in power & force. Funny that this might be a fresh insight & not one anyone has heretofore shared to my face. Now I could go a bit irritated or even drippy with insult. On reflection, I see it as a good insight & depiction of my need to have it my way. But anybody out there who doesn’t want it their way can stand in a very short line, yeh?

I’ve described my own self as “imperious.” As a child, my Mom called me “Queenie” and meant it. No nobility of note here…just an American woman of Italian persuasion. I love laughter, good conversation, great food & the sensation of travel. And I’ve arrived here at 71 with limbs intact, a cheerful demeanor & a plethora of skin tags.

I know the Power & Force thing about me to be true, tho. It fit right into an open slot on the description board. It explains so much! Yet I started as an Independent in a nest of Catholics, a spirit malleable only to a point. It wasn’t easy, but they never penetrated all the way into my soul tho they knocked it about a bit.

I thought I was offering a bare-knuckle friendship. But more than once I was stirring a fishwife stew, hollering at him as though I had a relationship involving a ring.

So what’s the problem with Power & Force? Should I give in to the black pearl of life alone & despairing? There are times this terrible beauty is most attractive. Should I stop helping or offering the graces I also otherwise possess? No, not happening. And if my lifestyle of success, blessing & laughter doesn’t suit you, go dress somewhere else.

Yeh, I’m my own Cult. Yeh, I’m aggressive & righteous for my personal brand-name. Yes, I’ve dared the fields where angels feared to roam. I was loved into life, appreciated by others who dared to do so.

I’m a real woman, imperfect of sight & bearing. I do Tinkerbell as a nuclear device. I accomplish what is mine to do (once I figure it all out.) I learned early to dog-paddle & never surrendered it for swimming aloud. I can tuck Power & Force into my superpowers pack & move on.

Wish me tame trails & New Mexico skies, the suggestion of rivers at a distance, of life beneath the life on top. Your qualifications to handle power & force are your own; I won’t disturb these.

Come, my Kingdom, my mismatched blessings! Come lovers & liars, I will rock your world!