Why Don't You Write?

'Why don't you write?" they ask.

"I have nothing I want to say."

Everyone asks and the answer is still the same. Nada.  Nothing.

Nothing is as nothing does. 

Inspiration has not visited my pen.  Or my fingers. 

I am just not interested in researching anything right now.  I think about Moral Mondays.  Fracking.  Loss of civil rights.  How much more can we talk about that.  Because talk is all we do. 

In the sixties, we stood for humanity.  Animals.  Openness. Now it is Facebook and other trite social media that consumes people's attention.  I just can't, won't go there.  It bores me.  Sure it is fun to catch up on local news.  But how often can we hear the same thing over and over without doing something about it.

Complacency.  ipods, i this, i that.  i.  i the emptiness. 

A raccoon visits nightly now.  An empty bird feeder.  Paw prints on the pole that holds the feeder.  That is my world.  Feed and nurture.  The raccoon is hungry, too.  Like people.  People are hungry for sustenance. 

I like my little spot in the universe.  Nurturing.

Like I said I have nothing to write.  I have a lot to do.

To The Mother In All Of Us

This day is dedicated to the mother in all of us.  It isn't a biological thing, though the advertising industry may appear to make it that way.  It is a day to remember for all that nurture in a motherly way.

On a deeper thought, maybe it isn't a gender thing, either.  A child doesn't care who nurtures them, nor does anyone in distress.  We care that others take us in their arms and hold us tight.  We feel their warmth and their humanity.  They remind us to smile, to be easy on ourselves. To be present. 

I love Mother's Day.  I love being a mother.  On this day, I give gratitude for the honoring of being my children's mother.   For the honor of loving my friends and family.  Without one another, there could be no mothering. 

Happy Mother's Day to us all. 

What's It All About

There was a movie by the same name in the 70s.  It starred Michael Caine. But it is now 2014 and it doesn't matter what it is all about.  Did it ever?  We think it did. The fact is, it never mattered. 

There are no answers.  There are always questions.  If there is any advice I could offer folks it is that their thoughts are powerful.  Their thoughts are mostly random ones.  Formed at that time when the neurons began cutting ruts in their pathways.  Like bowling balls, they go toward the lowest point.  Neurons that fire together, wire together.  Unless you change your thoughts, you are destined to repeat them. Again and again.  A whole 95% of them.  Day in, day out.

Is that powerful enough for you?  That is one of the main reasons I encourage you to meditate.  Let go of these thoughts that are not a part of the person you are becoming.  Just let go.

Negative thoughts make you physically sick.  They tell your cells to shut down.  That there is a war about to erupt.  Conversely, positive thoughts tell your cells to open so that they may receive optimal nutrition.  Just let go.

Goodbye, Steven

Steven was one of four sons.  A military family.   Navy men.  Their parents grew them tough from what I was told.  After twenty years at sea, Steven was done.  He retired with a $400 something monthly pension.  Yes, for a lifetime at sea.  Protecting our waters.  Protecting our country.  He never asked for much.  A simple life.

He had a rough time with both of his marriages.  They ended in divorce.  Women were always challenging for him.  He didn't seem to understand them.  Despite his strapping six foot, body builder frame, women walked all over him.  I think he allowed that.  Even the last one who took up residence in his trailer home in the mountains.  He just couldn't say 'no.'  I guess he didn't want too.

I met Steven through a joint female friend.  An owner of a cafe in town.  He struck me as unhappy, competent, conservative and clearly had serious issues with women.  Especially confident ones.

He often flirted with me.  I didn't much like that and never saw us together.  Still, over the years he came into my life.  The second time was when he was working on a house above me.  He saw that I lived below and dropped his card by.  Another time we passed on the road.  A few times he ventured by and helped with some projects.  Never once did he ask to be paid.  I took him to coffee once.  Clearly, he was nervous.  His left leg kept tapping the floor.

When I moved to NH he came over with truck in tow to help.  We exchanged e-mails a few times and he dropped by to check on my vacant home.

I do better with warm and fuzzy folks.  Hard people have always been a challenge.  Maybe it is the sensitive Scorpion in me. My own sense of discomfort.

A phone call yesterday, late in the afternoon from a friend who moved away opened my eyes a little more. 

"Steven passed.  Did you know?"

"What?  No, I didn't.  I just sent him an e-mail February 22, asking if he wanted to do some work around my house.  He didn't reply, but he is always having issues with his e-mail, getting hacked and all."

"Steven was found dead in his chair at home."

What is a life?  There was no obituary in our local newspapers.  His family took him back to Virginia Beach, Virginia.  I don't know anything other than that. He was fifty-five. I do know I am not ready to lose any more friends.  A dozen over the past eighteen months is more than I can bare. 

Goodbye, Steven.  Thanks for all you did making your community a better place.  Rest in peace.

Goodbye

When Dixie was diagnosed with terminal cancer, I had just gotten to know her.  We shared lifelong stories.  Histories.  Her husband died of cancer five years before her second and final bout of the dreadful disease.  It is never easy to lose a friend.  Even a new one.

Dixie pulled away from all of us with her diagnosis.  Her spiritual sisters.  Often we would have a group phone call with her at her home nearby just to connect with her.  Always upbeat, even when she was dying she asked about us.  She kept up with us by phone until she no longer had a voice strong enough to speak.  Her funeral was private.  We all mourned in our individual ways. 

Just today, I learned someone I have known for years committed suicide.  They, too, received a terminal diagnosis.  This person did undergo surgery but when the surgeon said the cancer had spread and that his life was very short he made a decision.

Shortly after that, when he came home from the hospital, his wife had gone to the store. He got into his car, with his gun loaded and drove along the river.  He took his life instantly.  He didn't want anyone in his family to see the grisly details.  He even called the police letting them know what he was doing.  No family member or friend could be implicated.  He did the deed. He died alone.

Friends grieved uncontrollably because, like Dixie, they were not allowed to be with them during the final days.  For the community, there is a bonding being there for a dying friend.  A kinship words cannot express. 

For myself, I think people ought to make their own decisions about the end. Both of my friends lived the way they passed, on their own terms. As their friend, I just miss them.  Terribly.