“Love has no claims. Love has no expectations. Most of us were raised to become prostitutes. We have the illusion that with good behavior, good grades, lot of awards, pretty clothes, nice smiles, we can buy love. How many ifs were you raised with? I love you if you make it through high school. I love you if you bring good grades home. Boy, would I love you if I could say my son is a doctor. You become a doctor or a lawyer, or whatever your parents never were able to become, with the illusion that they will love you more. Love can never be bought. There are people who spend their lives prostituting themselves, pleasing other people in the hope of getting love. They will shop the rest of their lives for it and they will never find it.”
–Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
honesty
Walktober (3)
This is an image of the amazing greeting view that met me at the Gate by the Tree of Many Faces. It is still there. It is still beautiful. I checked. The image does not portray the scene. Sometimes images don’t.
Which ones do we edit because they are not enough? Which ones do we edit because there is a shame that a thing will be seen as bad? I believe in a concept of things being bad and not good enough. I believe that the world is becoming a place where everyone is lovely, and that we all have to lie to ourselves to be such. Every effort is enough. Every action gets a reward.
But, does it get the right one? A sense of pleasure and satisfaction with the self, from the self and the spirit? If I judge a passion as a way to judge what is right, what about the person that takes up a hobby that is hard and different, because their joy is simply to try a new thing? I can have shame now at not being enough to notice that what works for me CAN mean that something else is false and wrong, or for taking too long to see another way. I am not at all ready to give up the fact that even the bench warmer gets an award. I wonder if competition and worthiness is not the same as a shame. Yes, Kathy I am pondering the shame post.
I loved the post. I didn’t love that I cried. I loved that I cried. So now, I ponder. I wonder if I am attempting to step back, to detach as some say. I used to have vast difficulties feeling or aiming to feel detached. I would shout, how does detached feel? You want me to be a sociopath? Oh! You want me to disassociate, I’m good at that, however the world says that is bad. So I am going to ponder and attach and detach and reattach someplace else until I am satisfied, and hopefully that won’t mean that I beat the tar out of myself.
I wanted to share all of the wonderful books that I got through Inter-library Loan. I have so many new amazing things to which I wish to attend fully, that I can’t choose. I am also having trouble with focus, fear and worry do that to me. I wonder if it is ok just to admire the heft of each one, the shape, and the feel of the pages. The dent of the text. It is for me.
I walked last night on a manageable loop through a park, around behind the Thomas Taber Museum, onto the Rail Place, through Park Home and back. I think that makes a Tree Place length and there are grasses and many trees and plants, both native and landscaped. It was a nice thing to do after dinner and made it simpler to overcome being stuck and unable to move. I enjoyed it very much, both the freedom from being stuck and the ground so close to home.
PSST! Unsure of how Robin wishes the links to the Walktober Project so,
Walktober (2)
I had all sorts of creative expressions and ideas this morning. I felt productive all day. Until, I spent the last two hours being told that neurology won’t treat my daughter anymore and to go to psychiatry, who won’t treat her due to the nuerology. Psychotic? Jail? No worries NO ONE will treat her yay NOT. TWO HOURS hopeless and despair, people getting huge salaries to not treat anyone. All of this was before I added in the type of insurance we have and the carveout to stoneaged incompetents even if we could be seen.
What does this mean? It means I am resentful that another of my days is consumed with crap. It means that it comes first even after the beautiful day and productive morning. So, let me see. My inner honest/snark, as snark it is often called when a person isn’t pretty but honest instead, thinks that another part of Walktober is not to share only coping skills, only honest moments of joy, but the entire package. To share what is real every day as I walk through my day.
I told me to go on and to cook supper while I cannot calm the inner shaking quivering tempest. I did. I made the buttermilk fried chicken and then, I thought it best to take a few more moments, thaw some fish and do those too ahead for another day. The dishes are done thrice and the rice is ready.
Here. have a picture from yesterday’s real walk (yes we are still stuck on the word ‘real’) at the Tree Place yesterday after my first post.
It is just a weed, but gosh it is perfect and it is beautiful and it takes my breath away to see it and to wonder about all its parts and its order in the universe and how each part that is beauty to me is mere service to it and to the things in the habitat near to it.
I walked through my morning readings, I got my meds and breathing treatment in and a first cup of tea. I smudged and used my candle. The morning went smoothly. The inner upset were waiting for the bad bits or to be startled into fight or flight mode. They were able to attend the readings. I think that I will make a bookmark that has a note to myself. Your treatments make you shake like using a jackhammer you are not anxious there is nothing to fix. I had a shower. I did my lower back and shoulder exercises and did some for my legs. I went to the tree place and was able to happily complete a very tiny bit of energy work. I have had a resentment about not doing that the way I like too. I keep telling me that I can’t do it when I am so angry and afraid. (this is partly a lie) I keep telling me to shut up and keep it simple breathe and admire…which will lead to grounding. I was able to get there for a short while, before the fix it police decided I was calm enough to tackle phone calls to psychiatry places. HA!
Here have another image, I need one anyway!
I didn’t eat a bag of snacks today. I initiated and followed through to the best of my known ability on actions that I view as horrid. The house is calm and I am eating my own dinner. I have a window to read some of the excellent inter-library loan materials that came for me yesterday. I am going to revert to another thing that I used to have to use to help myself. Dear E, you have done everything that you could today to be healthy, to take care of the body and the mind and the spirit. You have taken one thing at a time. It is now time to stop for the day. All offices and businesses are closed and thus, your shift is over. Think of something balanced and healthy that you enjoy and go do that for at least 20 minutes. Love The GC
Look at all of those tiny things that make up a whole (thing, day, fill in the blank)
PSST! Unsure of how Robin wishes the links to the Walktober Project so,
Enthusiasm and Life On Life’s Terms
“Think on This…
. . . to meet the disturbing factors with as much joyousness as if they were bringing pleasure in the material sight, will alter . . . much in the heart and mind of the seeker. For that which is is a result of the thinking of individuals as related one to another.
Reading 610-1”
Hmm. I remember when I could do this and I could say this and I could really mean it!! I truly lived it. It wasn’t fluffy self-help garbage nor delusion. Today, as I read this in my inbox, part of me said, “YES!, Remember that!?! Yes! Do that!” Another part said, “Oh Bullshit!” It also muttered some choice curses. A part that I think is probably closer to the truth recalled how such things termed heavy now were pretty much the same, though different and I had that Joy, I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t as afraid. I wasn’t clinging with my teeth gripped onto a last shred of stability. I am smiling to have shared a few of these views today, out loud. I think that being positive also means sharing how things really are. I think that many of the nudges over the last few days from friends, strangers, and even enemies are my Higher Power nudging me a bit. I notice in my now kvetching to God about fruffy messages and all the hard work I’ve done meaning shit, IS AN ATTEMPT AT COMMUNION with my God. I am at my worst when I am out of that communion. I avoid it as I do not seem able to do it ‘properly’. THIS AVOIDANCE AND PERFECTION are danger signs for me. The invisible police attack and fine me. They tell me not to bother, and that I have other, perhaps better, or worse things to attend. I think God knows what I am screaming inside in frustration and in despair. I also think that I forget to ask. Forget to share–ok avoid sharing that which will seem like a rant, but is truly my real life. I can’t survive pretending it’s ok. I can’t survive by moving back toward the If Only This or That, THEN I will have joy, be ok, be grounded, have balance, find things that please me, fill in the blank.
The joy of seeing the nudges in the things that others write, allow me to borrow them, when I cannot do it myself. They remind me of what I did do, what I CAN do. They provide me with an open window that I cannot notice because I feel trapped inside a ‘house’ where I insist that the doors are all closed. I thank one and all for this sounding spark.
Finality
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Right in Your Face, Or Winter at The Tree Place Series, December 7th
Right in Your Face (Winter at The Tree Place Series---7)
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I have agonized all day about this one. I do not feel right. I am telling myself that no one cares. Just to post. But, I care. My intent on this project, I think–to the best of my abilities, is and was to get me out of the house and to The Tree Place. My intent was to attempt to move my personal tastes, perhaps to see and to view beauty in what was not. I thought to go out daily and get at least one image. The first day was amazing. I hadn’t gone for a bit. I was very pleased with the images and had a bit of trouble choosing just one. I was grateful for all of the visions granted to me to experience. I did not wish to diminish any of them. I felt some wonder while taking them. Wonderment that I could feel grounded and joyful just stopping along and taking images on purpose. For any who know me, energy strikes me, and I shoot. No energy, or no camera available, missed shot! I was excited that I went out on purpose looking for pictures and I actually got some.
I stopped, mid shoot, and I prayed and happy tears came, and I felt silly and glad. I held up the camera for a last amazing shot….and the battery light came on! I cursed and then I burst our laughing.
I cannot afford new ones for now. That part is fine. What bothers me is my own rules of commitment. I feel like I am cheating if I post shots from that glorious first day. I tried to convince me that it is all fine and that a shot a day is what I promised. But, I can’t lie to me. I’m glad for that. Though, it’s not good for a daily Winter at The Tree Place series.
In order to ‘fix’ this, I have decided to continue the Winter at The Tree Place series, doing my best. If my car is broken and I need to go out into the yard, I’ll tell you where I got the shot. I certainly can limit myself even by my own expectations. (facial expression that says I am aghast at this repeated ah ha moment)
PS. While choosing the image for today’s post, I was looking at it and noting that no matter how even when right in my face, I couldn’t get all of the object into focus all at the same time. Maybe the lesson might stick now? (ha!giggles)
Morning Trip (60)
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”
— Joan Didion (Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays)
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