meandering

I was looking at some old pics on the laptop and found this one that I'd downloaded from somewhere.  I'm not usually too much into adorable and precious things, but if this isn't sweet, I don't what is.

posted by: behindtheblink at 02:07 | link | comments (4) |

The laptop whirred on and on.  I tell myself I should have turned it off.  Electricity wasted, emissions emitted while I lay on the floor reading.  With the window behind me, stretched out on cushions, I read.  How wonderful to have returned to the mental peace where I can sit and read!  So much struggle, so much perceived suffering was then.  And now.  The fight is out of me, and I feel so much better.

I awoke to the sound of heavy rain and thunder this morning.  What was known as Hurricane Dean delivered lots of lovely rain here.  When you are accustomed to living in the desert, rain takes on a rare beauty.  At least that's how it strikes me.  I like to hear the rain rushing down the gutter and making a temporary flood on the gravel stones.  Only now at 3:15 has the sun begun to shine.  No matter because clouds, too, are a boon in this hot, dry place. 

Fear poked his head in yesterday just to remind me of all the scenarios of which I should be fearful.  I wanted to tell him to get lost, but his arguments sounded pretty valid.  So, I entertained fear for a bit throughout the day yesterday.  By afternoon, I was aware of how dangerous the liaison was and walked away for a few moments alone.  Yes, he will come again and we will have discourse again, I'm sure.  But fear is losing his powers of attraction as I recognize that I cannot afford to waste valuable reserves of energy these days.  Pride and ego are my daily companions, and I will never be rid of them.  The only solution is to see them for who they are: they are not my friends.  Neither is self-recrimination. 

Tried to work on a story I started a year ago about a little girl walking with a box under her arm.  Maybe I'll never find the ending.  It doesn't matter.  It would be satisfying to feel that I could complete it, but maybe it's not worth telling or not meant to be told.  I'll stop rambling now. 

posted by: behindtheblink at 01:46 | link | comments (4) |

I'm in the middle of Eckhart Tolle's book, "A New Earth".  About a month ago, I tried to read his bestseller "The Power of Now" but was too caught up in my own stress and found I didn't have presence enough to read anything.   Although his words on the destructive power of ego are not new, his voice and approach hold much depth and light for me right now.  At the crossroads at which I find myself, I'm glad to be reminded that my best-laid plans don't mean much if all I'm after is some illusion of security.  If I attain that so-called security (and it doesn't really exist), where does that take me?   No  place other than where I am now, as each now cannot be carried forward or preserved.  Old age looms, and I have to admit fear and occasional panic attacks.  The panic attacks appeared about 9 months ago.  They are lessening but still disturbing when they happen.  Disturbing until I see anew that my grasping, acquisitive tendencies carry me nowhere if not deeper into the source of fear and panic attacks.  The simple joy of being is always there, just hidden and muddied by attending to the concerns I have for where am I going, what am I doing, what happens if...., what if...?  Letting go (yes,I repeat myself from earlier things I wrote), relinquishing all that stuff that I want to control and flow with the Whole - that seems to be the way.  Stop trying.  Be practical and do your best, I tell myself, but stop grasping for the solution.  Then in those moments, I am at peace and safe.  In those moments, beauty shines out and whispers the truth from even the most mundane objects, events, surroundings as if to say "I was here all along but you didn't see".  An inner smile and I chuckle at myself for the blind fool I so often am.

posted by: behindtheblink at 19:42 | link | comments (10) |

My head aches from lack of sleep, but that isn’t the reason my fingers click these keys.  Something wants to be written...it’s there, maybe nothing profound, but something.  It’s risen from my murky subconscious and seems to float like so many little bubbles that having arrived at the surface bob about for a moment then pop.  Poof, now you see it, now you don’t.  So, just keep rambling and maybe some humid essence of that something will waft my way, through my nostrils, into my lungs, and by a mysterious osmosis into my conscious mind.  My mind goes back to my recent encounter with doves.  Nesting doves raising their two squabs (baby doves) in an old hanging pot on the patio.  One fell from the nest in the scorching heat, and I found him when it was too late.  Did he survive the seven foot fall?  Probably not, but I’ll never know, I guess.  I gently picked him up with a paper towel, cooed to him and tried to see if any life remained.  Papa dove looked on, four feet from where I stood.  (The male watches the young on dayshift and Mama takes over at night.  I learned these things online in the course of watching the doves for a few weeks.)  Papa’s unblinking eye fixed on me, and I cannot read any emotion there.  Just his direct and unblinking gaze as I hold the baby bird in my hands.  I felt so bad, didn’t know what to do, showed Papa that the baby was not moving and reluctantly decided on the best method of disposal.  In the extreme Arizona heat, I didn’t think digging a hole for burial was the best choice.  So, enough said on that score.  I found another option.  Two or three days passed before I saw that another squab was still in the nest.  My sadness lifted quite a bit, and I felt increasing gladness that Hope still lived in the hanging pot nest.  Yes, life is still good, and the sorrow of watching Death happen is balanced by the Joy of watching Life happen.  Over the course of the next two weeks, I made almost hourly visual checks on the baby bird through the patio door.  Looking for that little head moving, making sure he had not fallen out.  Obsessed I was.  I didn’t want to lose Hope in Life surviving.  Finally, the wonderful day came when baby flew from the nest.  A few days later sitting on an upper terrace, smoking a cigarette, watching the clouds and mountains, minding my own business, a dove lands on the rail feet from me.  I say, “hello there” quietly, making sure my cigarette moves slowly to my lips not to alarm said dove.  He sat and stayed for almost ten minutes there with me.  Was it Papa who knew who I was?  Was it Mama dove?  He flew to another dove on the concrete wall, stayed there for five minutes, then returned to me at the terrace for a five minute visit.  It gave me such joy to be trusted by him.  Sitting together like that reinforced the knowledge that we are not so different and separate as the common sense of reality tries to tell us we are.  Death is not beautiful to me, but maybe that is because Life is all I know from experience.  I am a child trying to grow up, and someday what once seemed bitter will flower along with the sweet into one simple bloom of understanding.

posted by: behindtheblink at 21:43 | link | comments (9) |

I've been absent for awhile.  Although life is happening and unfolding, I didn't feel able to write anything here.  As I may have mentioned, I'm back in the U.S. after living out of the country for 2 years.  I think my traveling and moving days are over - well, maybe one more move is coming soon.  I look ahead to a life that I choose to  (or at least believe I must for the foreseeable future) live without a significant other.  From now on, I hope I will learn to live every day and moment seeing all others as significant others.  Maybe I'm hiding from hurt, the personal kind, but gladly I'm learning to interact in a better way in the broad sense.  People seem to be reacting differently to me, and I think my face may be reflecting an openness and awareness that was not there before.  This is not about becoming something wonderful.  I'm just seeking to shed a lot of unhealthy mental stuff.  For any progress that may have happened, I credit only my yearning, willingness and the caring One who helps me.

posted by: behindtheblink at 18:49 | link | comments (5) |