Safe at Home

I am safe here, in my comfortable home. This home that blesses me even as it surprises me, for I really had no idea where I would end up and what my life would become. It has taken years for me to get to this place and back to a mindset where I could write, must write, all that has happened and what has become of me.
Perhaps it is easier to start at the beginning for you to follow my story logically, but in truth I must start from where I am and understand it myself-even as I explain it to you.  I am home. In my first home, in a manner of speaking-though I don't own it and I have rented many houses before but this, this one is different. From the beginning it was mine alone, completely and without a doubt. The decor, the mess, the labor of love that brought it into its current state.
I am safe. I am home. I have all I need. These are the things that I tell myself even as the world is in a state of unprecedented terror. A pandemic that no one really has completely wrapped their mind around. No one knows how this will all play out, but I am home and safe and very, very alone
Today the governor of Colorado had ordered everyone home....it's a frightening idea but in truth I stopped going out weeks ago. Forget social distancing, I chose isolation because I don't need any more illness and I dismiss the insanity that seemed to take over otherwise regular folks here in Colorado and across the nation, perhaps around the world-but I don't have reliable information about that so I won't speak of it here. I have enough of my own experience to fill my head in swirls and tangles. Waves of fear, anger, sadness, and grace hit me in turn. To return to myself, I remind me of who I am, where I am, and what is happening right here, right now. My world as I experience it. Not what the news says, not what the political parties or the fear mongers say, what I know to be true. I have a safe place to live. My refrigerator is full. My lawn is beginning to green. My bills are paid, for now, and I am no more or less broke than the last week of any month in recent memory.
I do not have a stockpile of anything, I bought what I always buy, a month's worth at the beginning of the month and it should last me because it always does. I am calmer now. These simple pieces of reality bring me back to myself. I am home, I am safe, and as far as I know, my family and friends are also safe and well. To be able to say that as the fear flies is a testament to true wealth, so I am also a wealthy woman. Ha! That certainly was not my impression as I began this post, but I choose this reality-for it is real.
It is always true that we choose our reality. None of us can absorb all of the facts that comprise any particular day or situation. We choose which ones to keep, which ones we share, and which ones we hide. I am convinced that we all do all of that, at the very least. How else could we process our days much less our lives? So, in this moment I choose to remind myself that I have all that I need for this moment and I draw comfort from knowing that when I wake up, I will drink my tea, let my animals out into the yard, and begin another day of choice. I will not trouble myself with what I do not have, nor the people I am missing so desperately, nor will I distress myself about things that are out of my control. I will start anew. I will clean and disinfect and I will finish arranging my back porch. I am expecting to spend a lot of time out there this Spring.
I hope that you, also, can comfort yourself with the realities of your life. Your riches that are so easily overlooked or taken for granted in these turbulent times. Choose to be at ease in your home. Choose to recognize how many of your needs are already met. Choose to tune out the distress, at least for a space large enough to catch your breath. Be well, stay well. Be safe, at home.

Keep Going

I have just finished reading this blog from the very first entry in 2010.  There were more than a few things I'd written about that I had no recollection of, and I was amused.  I realized that writing this blog, not the other four, did something for me, something that was valuable to me.

Just the title causes me to look for new understandings in my life, the entries cause me to put them in an understandable way, and these entries are a way for me to see my own progress, so I am posting again.  If my fans are I. Denmark, so be it.  Whether I know them or never meet them, I won't concern myself.

I haven't decided which night I will commit to yet, Thursday seems good - since today is a Thursday. I'll let you know when I nail it down.  If you are a follower, welcome back! I look forward to reconnecting with you soon.

Beyond Killing My Television

It was during Nixon's infamous "I am not a crook" speech that I first carried my heavy and cumbersome television towards the dumpster. Resting it on the porch railing as I contemplated whether or not I could make the shot from where I stood , my neighbor asked me what I was doing and happily took it off my hands.  It was some years before I had another.

About two years ago I finally relented and hooked up cable. I strongly object to paying to watch other people's idea of amusement but, I didn't really know anyone in Colorado Springs yet, couldn't really get out on my sore foot and found myself having read every book in the house.  Besides, I was so disconnected from the rest of my previous life that I was more than a little adrift.  Not having watched much television for a very long time (dare I say decades?)  even the old series were new to me.

I rather enjoyed NCIS, Burn Notice and Orphan Black, among others.  I discovered On Demand and developed a binge watching habit long before I knew the expression.  Now it seems that I have exhausted the reservoir of unwatched series and am left with either re-watching the same episodes or...or...or...rereading the same books.

Over the last couple of years I have become aware of Red Carpet Season.  This freaks me out, a lot.  It blows my mind that these extremely well paid performers get awards and honors as well as valuable gift bags in addition to their tremendous incomes. Why? I really don't get it.  It is a mystery to me why we would support or encourage such behavior, much less watch it for hours on end, complete with pre-shows and post shows.  It staggers my mind.

I have nothing against performers, in general. It's okay with me that they are well paid.  It's not so okay with me that other producer grossly underpaid.  Nurse's aides, for example- I know nurses, too but but a full time job emptying bedpans pays a quarter over minimum wage?
My mother was in a nursing home for years before she passed and spent more time with these folks than any of her many loved ones. They dressed her, fed her, bathed her, listened to her fears and complaints among other tasks. These people deserve awards and cold hard cash.

It isn't the only occupation that falls below our radar.  Some fields are quick to come to mind for being underpaid, whether or not they are appreciated like nurses and teachers-but some we don't even think about.  Okay, so I don't ever think about road workers or street light repairers. I recently learned that there are a half-million possible occupations.  A half MILLION? But, we're going to give three different awards to the actor that made a million dollars to begin with? There's no mystery to me why a night at the movies costs so much. It just might be time for me to get rid of my television again.

Not Nearly Normal

I was once told that I was two standard deviations from the norm, though I didn't know what it meant at the time. Now I do.  In layman's terms, I am not normal.  Wrapping my mind around this idea has happened in stages.

A normal distribution of data means that most of the examples in a set of data are close to the "average," while relatively few examples tend to one extreme or the other.   Robert Niles

First, I'm left handed, that's not typical though it may still be normal-of a sort. Then, I was a three dimensional thinker, not normal, but better, in a specific way.  That means I can see the back of something in my ind's eye that I only see the front of...weird, but cool was how I labeled that.  After a while, and in a completely different mindset, I realized that I was not normal at all, as the eighth of fifteen children, I had a very unique view and experience with the world. Then, I realized that not one person in my family was normal, by virtue of our family construction and dynamics, we never were and we never would be.

As time passes, and my life took shape, I had many insights into this non-normal condition.  At times, I craved normalcy with a passionate hunger, though it remained elusive.  Other factors emerged, my life experiences, inside and outside of my family. My medical history, which has actually been included in medical books.  The more I sought normalcy, the more aware I became of my lack of it.

Trying to quantify and value myself, I searched for other words to describe myself, something with a more positive connotation...then, I took statistics and learned what two standard deviations  meant and I laughed, because it was spot on and I liked the sound of it...not a devieant, but two standard deviations...I'll take it.  I might even enjoy it, if it wasn't so freaking weird.

More Than Different

It has taken me a very long time to accept that some of the people I love are so very differnt than I am.  Still, I suppose we have it easy. If this was the Civil War we'd be in opposing armies, pointing weapons at each other. As it is these days, we are in different political parties, we enjoy different things.

It could honestly be said that we don't like each other very much, if at all.  That was the insight for me, loving people that I don't like.  It gets me thinking though...what do I really know about them? What do they know about me?

Real love continues over time and distance, but we change.  We become what we wanted to be, or not.  We find God in a meaningful way, we lose our simple definitions about who we are and what the purpose of life is. Our bodies impact our activities, we stop drinking or we still party like teenagers, these things change us in definable ways.
How do we know we still love them in view of all this overwhelming and sometimes argumentative circumstances?  Well, I'd still give them a kidney, lend them money and that's more love than some people have for their current spouses.

If I Had Only Known

So many of my early decisions were made by default.  Unable to get enough perspective, and always so desperate,  I lived my life like a pinball, just trying not to go down the tube.  I did have goals and dreams, but living them-well, that I didn't do so well.  Still, I lived an absolutely amazing life!

 The people I met, stars and presidents, musicians, and all kinds of hard working folks who called me a friend.  If I had known then what I know now, I would have kept in touch with very many of these people, who brought my life such richness. Know I still love you, even if it takes a minute for me to recall your name...sometimes it takes me a minute to recall my own :)

If I had only known, I would have stopped holding myself back.  That will surprise the people who thought I already was quite out there-at times, I was, I certainly was. What I mean, is doubting myself, my value, my worth and what I had to contribute. Maybe, that's wisdom talking? I realized it later, but it is the point of everything.