Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Latest Chapter


It occurred to me that I was both depressed and angry at the latest series of incidents involving my son and how I have been getting him to do what was needed around the house. I felt like I was backed into being his parent again. He is 38 years old. When do I get to retire from being the mommy? Am I being backed into playing a role I don't want to play anymore? How can a man almost 40 years old need a disciplinarian?

I picked up my phone and called my other son. He asked me what did I do to students in the classroom if they did not do the assigned work? Well, I said I gave them a failing grade and I sat them down for a talk and gave them a chance to get their grades back up. Then he asked me what happened if that student did not do that? I said then that student either failed the class or he was out of my class. Well, my older son said, it seems you know your answer. He knows what he has to do and you need to let him know again what the consequences are.

Sitting down with my younger son, I went over the original agreement that we had. He pays only the utilities and does $500 worth of work around the house and yard. He came up with the way we would determine it. It sounded good to me. At first my younger son wanted me to deal with his significant other but I said no. I will deal with him only. At the beginning of the month we will discuss what needs to be done and he has the month to get it done. I don't want to stand there and enforce the rules. If the work is not done, he owes me the rent. My other son agreed.

In the past, I did not lay down the law. I let their father do it. I made mistakes with my children. When they fell down, I helped them up. I cheated them out of the chance to take care of their own problems and the pride that goes with it when you do. That's how I learned. No one helped me.

I am no longer responsible for their behavior now. I can be responsible for me only. I told both of them that things have changed since I got back from Korea. When my younger son said he might move out, I said it was up to him. I know that I am leaving in a few years myself. The decision is completely up to him.

Doing things for our children is sometimes not a good thing, but when one of them told me it was my fault one of them was acting like this or that I refuse to accept it. Both of my adult children are near 40 years old. I am not responsible for their behavior anymore than my parents are responsible for mine. We have to stand on our own two feet and accept our actions as our fault so we can claim the power to change it if we want. If we think we are powerless, then so is the world and our ability to control our destiny. That is not the kind of world I want to live in, and I don't think it is reality.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Blue Skies


At last there were blue skies this morning. I had a medical appointment, but I decided to grab a sandwich and a Starbuck's coffee and head out to the lake and enjoy the sunny skies and the wonderful clear air. I was also having trouble with my hay fever and I never do up at the lake which is in the mountains.

It was wonderful eating my turkey sandwich and drinking my coffee while watching ducks and geese flying in and off the lake. Fish were jumping up ever so often or at least I hope they were fish but they looked so big. The lake is so full after all of the rain we had of late and all of the mountains are covered with snow. Normally, I would have turned on my phone to listen to some music but it was so beautiful there without it.

I feel asleep and discovered to my dismay that I left my lights on and called AAA who came out there and started my car. I discovered that I did not have any cables in my car and the people not far from me did not either. I need to get some. The young man made it a point of cleaning all of my connections which was very nice of him.

It was so quiet up there at the lake. There were few people up there as it was at the beginning of the week. There was one sail boat on the lake. I did some reading and wrote in my journal and went home. It sounds a bit dull I suppose but I had a grand time and felt so rested. I hated going back down into the valley where my hay fever kicked in.

I know a few people who think this sort of thing is so boring. They can't see what I see in being in the mountains and away from people. My grandson says reading is so dull. Sometimes life is so fast and there is so much going on that I can't hear my self think. I want to go somewhere that it is quiet enough for me to hear birds singing, the wind blowing through pine trees and smell the scent of that special breeze. I like seeing snow on mountain sides and tops and love feel the cool crisp air of a retreating winter and the incoming spring. I like to feel myself breathe easily. I like to watch the squirrels, deer and an occasional bear scurrying up a hillside or up a tree. I have even seen a cougar in that park. I have not been afraid.

About ten years or so ago, there was a public station that had some empty time in the middle of the night and had nothing to fill it up with so the engineer trained the camera on the large fish tank the station kept in the lobby. Their ratings shot up. They had to include it on their schedule. I feel the same when I sit in my car watching the lake and the trees and sky. I even can see eagles fly by and I enjoy it more than many of the shows on television.

It gets a bit odd when the sun sinks below the mountains up there that surrounds the lake so I headed home; but I felt so good after my day there.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Freedom


This is a continuation of the last blog post that I wrote yesterday. I have been writing in my journal about his subject and thinking. I remember writing last night in my journal that it isn't a matter of changing my sons' behavior. It was a matter of changing mine. I needed to stop deferring to my sons and to stand up to them and not freeze when they yell at me.

I heard lots of moving of furniture as I was working on my writing. I thought they finally moved the extra furniture out of my grandson's small room. I had asked them to put one of my old computers in there. It works well and can be hooked up to the Internet. My grandson is 17 years old and is in high school. He uses the computer in the living room but when the other grandsons are here, he gets thrown off and he has to sit in his room on his bed. He has no room to do anything else. His small room has a bunk bed and his double bed. His closet is full of other people's things.

I told my son that he needed to either move him into the spare room which is so much larger than his and put my computer in there for him or clear out the bunk bed and put a desk and computer in the smaller room for his use whenever he needs it. My son said it was none of my business but I said this was my house and he was my grandson. He works hard at jobs inside and outside the house. He gets a check every month from Social Security based on his deceased father. It goes towards the upkeep of the entire family. By the end of the month, he will have his own room. Then when my son started to yell at me, I told him to lower his voice.

I just could not see that high school student being so miserable day after day. He does put a lot of work in and gets no money for it. He often walks in the rain from high school. He also gets good grades in school. My son does not work in the house or outside. The grandson and his mother are the only ones that work in the house and in the yard. I can't change that since it is his family and the young man is her son and she is my son's significant other. At least I could change how the house is arranged. No one lives in the spare room. Friends come over to visit hm and there is no place for them to stand in his room.

Of course, I now think I don't have the right to demand those things of my son. I have made very few demands on him in the past (practically none). I can hear them discussing it among them. I am sure the battle is not won. Maybe I over reached myself. I certainly can't call his brother and ask his opinion since they are the same.

Well, they sent the grandson in here to say he wants things to stay the same. I told him that I won't let him out of it. They are going to move him into the spare room. My son said my threats are offensive to him and I said "Oh well" but I asked him to throw away the couch that is in the spare room since it is so worn out the frame shows. He refused. I can see that I will have to allow some compromise. Why anyone would want to keep a couch that looks like something from the dump is beyond me, but you win a lot and you lose a little. Such is life.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Being Who One Is


I am reading a biography of Truman Capote ("Capote: A Biography " by Gerald Clarke Carroll & Graf:1988), and I am in the first third of the book. It is a wonderful and readable book about a difficult and gifted writer that generated a wonderful film, "Capote", a few years ago. It was obvious to many people that Capote was a gifted writer but just as obvious it was noted that he was a homosexual. It was in the early years of this country and being homosexual was not accepted during the years after World War II. It was hidden and people wanted to hide Capote who was not ashamed of who he was although even his mother was. She battled him all his life and he won his battle with his mother. All battles to be free sometimes start at home.

Some people can conceal certain aspects of themselves. Capote with his looks could not nor did he attempt to stay in the closet as so many did during those years although it would have been difficult. He had charm and many people liked him and many disliked him for that very reason. He was portrayed in the movie very accurately by the actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman. The author describes many of the people Capote knew in his early years and the price they paid for living double lives.

Sexual orientation identity is not the only thing that people can hide. There are books out there by people who hid their race and even their sex in order to fit in the population and to obtain the freedom to do what they wanted to do without hindrance. Of course, there are the con men and women who pretend to be people they aren't for criminal reasons, but there are people who pretend to be from families they are not because they don't want anyone to know they are from families that are not socially acceptable. In the USA, it is possible to move up the social ladder with success in certain fields especially if it results in great financial rewards. In some societies that is not always possible. In the past, a Western peasant would be hard pressed to move up the ranks into the aristocracy without some really rare occurrence such as a direct intervention from a king or emperor. Now, this can be done with the simple act of marriage.

On a smaller scale, people often pretend to be people they are not. If you work with the public, you smile when facing rude people and not say what is on your mind. You can lose your job for that. I have seen many public employees face incredibly rude behavior with just silence and a tight smile. I have been there many times. I have been called names and could not say anything back but continue doing my job. It would have been nice to have been backed by a supervisor but I wasn't.

In social situations, it is the same. Although sexual orientation is not hidden away as it once was it still depends on where you are. I live in Redding and a very popular and friendly couple were murdered in their home because they were gay a few years ago. It is still not safe to be openly gay here but certainly it would be in some of the larger cities. The majority of the churches in Redding are not open and affirming or you can come to their church as long as you are not practicing who you are and this is after the horrible example of murder was committed in their midst. Oh well.

Women must play a role that is acceptable and it is very difficult to divert from the prescribed role in most societies including this one. This year in the US House of Representatives instead of dealing with the real issues of lack of jobs this body dealt with the medical issues having to do with women and their wombs and same sex marriage.

So, one is wondering where I am going here. I am saying that to play different roles in one life is not a healthy thing. Capote accepted who he was and never was ashamed of who he was. He also knew he had tremendous gifts as a writer. He never went to college but learned his craft on his own. He was a quick study. Accepting who you are and not pretending otherwise is a very healthy thing to do although in some situations it can be dangerous.Pretending can be very stressful. He lived in the big cities and he did become successful early in his life. When the press hounded him, he just enjoyed it. He wasn't always was happy in his life, but he was most happy when he didn't hide who he was.

I have had to hide who I am all of my life although not for sexual orientation. Most of us do. I remember being told by the head of a state office that I was too masculine when I told her as a representative of the union that she could not do what she was proposing to do. It was against the contract. I was suppose to demur and giggle and say something feminine and call the representative who was a man and he was suppose to tell her that she could not do that. I looked around the room at the others sitting there. It was a very sexist thing to say but they were not going to protest. I told her she was out of line. I was representative of the union and not speaking as an employee of the agency.

Growing up, I affected the feminine act and knew I was doing it. It was what was expected. I learned early in my family of origin that if I didn't I could earn a slap in the face from my father. As it is I got my jaw broken once. I learned not to be direct and never to express anger and to never say what was really on my mind. Not every girl and woman has this extreme situation but many do.

It is important to be who you really are. Somehow you have to do this in the context of where you live and with the people that mean the most to you. Sometimes it means taking chances with those people that they will accept the real you and if they don't then you have to let them go. This is a new lesson for me. Freedom to be me is one of the things I have learned of late and it is one of the most precious things I know. I need to be safe, but as in all things there must be balance. People are fighting all over the world for freedom and what I am fighting for is not the same as what others are fighting for. It is always personal and individual, but it is still important.

Right now the arena of freedom is solely in my family. I have two sons who feel that I must do what they tell me to do. No, that is not the name of my game. I am still in charge of my own life. Again, it is different for each of us and it is very difficult for me. It won't be for some and too difficult for others.

A case in point: My son saw me carrying two salad plates to my room where I live from the kitchen. He rose up off the couch and in a commanding voice said: "You are not to take salad plates into your room. You will use saucer plates. "

I turned to him: "Dave, you are in charge of your family. You are not in charge of me. This house is my house. These dishes are my dishes. I will do what I want to do with them. "

He answered: "You have too many dishes in your room. I am tired of it. They are disappearing into your room. "

I said nothing and went into my room. I did not answer because I did not know how many dishes I had in there. I looked and saw three. I used those three for my grandsons. I bought some additional dishes lately for my tea and the three I use for coffee I bought recently as well and clean them in here. They were just in here looking for dishes to wash. I said I clean all of the dishes in here and said "no dishes to wash".

I went back out there and said: "I could not believe you said that to me. I will run my area and you run yours. I do my own wash, clean my own room and I suggest you do the same."

It make seems as if I am making a mountain out of molehill but I have never talked back to my son Dave. I would have just gone into my room and locked the door. I do pay the mortgage and taxes of this house. All Dave has to do is pay the utilities and he has the run of the house which is very large. I have this room and my own bath. I only use the kitchen ever so often since I have my own icebox and microwave in here. It really upset me to do it. It is not exactly a riot in Egypt or Tunisia or even in Wisconsin. Most of the time, I take off, but it is raining and I am tired of going to the lake and sitting in the car. My room is also my office. He often criticizes me on other issues as my other son does and I try and defend myself. I usually freeze when they do that.

In order to be me and to carve out freedom for myself I have to learn to stand up for myself and not just run and hide. When I lived alone, I would hide in my house. I don't live alone so I would hide in my car. I am done hiding. No one is going to hit me. No one is taking my money. All of the bad behavior that has taken place in the past is just that, in the past. In order to free, you have to get up and demand it and take the consequences of your actions. It might be a small battle but some battles start at home.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Getting Involved


Last night in Redding, I attended a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters regarding transparency in government. The reason it belongs here on my blog on getting healthier is that part of being healthy, I think, is an involvement in public affairs and one could not do better than to attend any and all meetings of the League of Women Voters who have no particular political point of view except to be involved.

The Forum: "Open Government: Where Do We Draw the Line?" was very informative and to the credit of the League addressed different levels of the audience. Efforts were made to educate the audience on what the basic premise of the The League of Women Voters were about and the principles of open government so that everyone could understand the basic arguments that the speakers would bring up. That was done admirably.

The three speakers were Mr. Doug Bennett of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Mr. Rick Duvernay, a city attorney for the city of Redding and Mr. Walt McNeill, local attorney.

To be honest, the speakers brought up information and ideas that I had not considered before especially Mr. Walt McNeill who has represented the local newspaper, The Record Searchlight, in the obtaining Freedom of Information requests.

The League did a good job in balancing the three speakers in that there were pros and cons regarding where the line of privacy vs. government transparency is drawn. The city attorney in expressing his own personal opinions that public employees live in a fish bowl atmosphere and that too much transparency would interfere with good judgments being made while the other two speakers disagreed. Mr. Bennett was the only speaker who was not an attorney.

It was evident that Mr. McNeill was the best prepared although Mr. Bennett had only arrived from Los Angeles. All three were able to express their opinons clearly and the period of time in which questions were addressed went well. They discussed the Brown Act which is the center of the transparency issue of open government.

I like best the statements of Mr. McNeill who said:"You get the open government you settle for. The law is on your side." He encouraged everyone that if they have questions or issues they should make the governmental bodies respond to their questions and issues according to the laws laid down in the Brown Act.

All three speakers gave resources to contact if they think their local government are not obeying the Brown Act. One was Californians Aware: http://www.calaware.org/home.php

Before I went to Korea, I had withdrawn to myself completely. I did not see a problem with that as I was a writer and we thrive on solitude or do we? While I was in Korea, I could see I was doing better as a person when I had friends and became involved with people again. I still need time to do what I love which is reading and writing. When I returned to Redding, I continued to be involved with the community and met again someone I had known a while back. She suggested that I try the League of Women Voters. I am glad I did.

I think everyone should get out of the house ever so often. When I attended the Healthful Living Classes that the Public Health Department of Shasta County had, I met several women were doing the same thing I was doing before I went to Korea. They were staying in their home and not going out except to do some needed shopping. They even acknowledged that this was not a good thing. I agreed and it was in that class that I met up with the friend I met years before. Other friends have been returning to my life. The middle path means not doing too much of one thing but taking a little of the extremes and following a pathway of moderation. I recommend it but with the style that fits one's own personality. Maybe being a hermit can be healthful for some, it certainly was not for me in the long run.

There is another side to all of this. I have mentioned a friend named Ted. He sent me an email the other day in which he said he wrote his latest chapter on the book he was working on that was funny. I read it and cried and got mad at him. I sent him an email demanding how being burned by cigarettes by his father as an infant was funny. He said it was all my fault because I was always asking him about the scars he had on his shoulders.

Anyhow, he said something to me on something else on public involvement that has always stayed with me. He said when you live in a democracy, you have to fight for it everyday and that means small battles. You have to make sure the press stays as free as possible and we are lucky in that it is relatively free and you have to be involved so that when you see something that is not right you have to speak up even when they slam you down for it. I been slapped down for those small battles which is why I withdrew from contact with people when I retired from my day job. I was tired. Well, I rested. Now, I need to be involved again because that is the way democracy works. I am registered to vote and I stay informed and I got to meetings and keep myself active although not overly so as I have other things that must be done.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Life Happening


"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

I got a phone call today from someone that I have not heard from a long time. She was very lonely and took a chance that my son would give her my phone number, and he did. Her son and mine had kept in contact over the years. We were friends when we lived in the Midwest. Her husband of many years had left her recently. She was devastated. We talked for over an hour and exchanged email addresses and Facebook addresses.

I remembered that she lived in a large house at a lake. She explained that they sold it a few years ago because her husband said he did not want to live there anymore. Slowly he sold everything and put the money in markets he thought for sure would prove to increase but he lost everything. Then one day he closed the bank accounts and just left with in one of their cars. He had sold his business unknown to her. He took every single cent with him.

Their children were in college but his parents agreed to help pay for their tuition and living costs as his husband's father was a successful retired attorney. She still worked as a special education teacher and now lived in an apartment close by the school.

Then the news came that stunned her. He had not invested the money as he said he did from the sale of the house. He had put it in another bank and cashed in his retirement including her half of the house sale. It was his parents that told her the sad news. Their son had a girlfriend and they wanted to travel. He also took the sale of the business.

The friend was calling everyone to tell them what had happened. When I knew her she was a friendly nice person who attended the same graduate education classes I did. I really didn't know her all that well as she was so involved with her family that she did not have time for anyone outside of the classes we were taking. I knew others in those classes and all of us often went to other functions that interested us such as art films, concerts and such but she could not find the time. She got her master's degree and was working with autistic children. To be fair, she was the only one who was married. The rest of us were either single or divorced.

She was surprised to hear that I had quit working at a regular job and just worked at home. She was still teaching especially since her income now was the only income that she had. Her retirement would be also her only income she would have. What really scared her was that she would be alone now. She had been married for so long. She was so happy she never quit teaching.

She had already talked to others that I knew back in school and was trying to re-connect with those she had not been as friendly with as she was so involved with her husband. She said she regretted it as he just dropped her when she got older and left her for someone younger.

This is not a real unique story and I was surprised that she remembered me to call me. She was trying to feel better by reaching out to people and in time she will. Getting a divorce is really hard, but it is really hard when someone who love and shared so much with including children does something like what her husband did. It is life that comes around and slaps you but my friend has a job and the support of her husband's family to help with her children's education. She will see in time, she really is very lucky in that.

Life is sad sometimes. I can still remember the sadness in her voice and even the anger. I have always known her to have some bounce too. I seen her with the students she works with. I remember her fighting the school administration for the right of her students to get a decent education. The school didn't even give them books as they were convinced they could be taught to read. She had to buy them herself and the parents cried when they saw their children begin to read and learn to write. They brought anything she wanted or many of them did. She will be alright. As for her husband, I am not so sure.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A Good Day


I had a good day in which I discovered that the vitamin that I have been buying was of a higher dose than the last bottle and I have been taking too much of it. No wonder I have been sick. I thought it was my hay fever medications. I took some hay fever meds today and felt decent as I have not been taking any.

I had lunch with a friend and it poured outside as we talked about different things. It is always nice to visit with friends although I am getting a bit tired of the rain. I think I have fungus growing on my body with all of the rain we have been getting of late.

Today is Senior Day at a discount grocery store and I bought some orange juice that was already cheap and paid even less than that including some yogurt. I bought some decaffeinated coffee although I was not out but getting low. It is rare for the store to carry good decaffeinated coffee. I drink only one caffeinated cup of coffee a day and the rest of the time I drink decaffeinated coffee. I no longer drink carbonated drinks at all. They are not healthy for me whether they are diet or non-diet drinks.

I have switched to condensed canned evaporated milk. Someone asked me if I did that as a precaution against radiation which it is, but I do it because canned milk does not spoil and at 79 cents a can it is cheaper. When I have milk in a carton, it is a race to drink it before it gets spoiled and have to go out and get some more. I also never know how much hot chocolate the grandchildren will drink. I always use milk to cool it down and then put whipped cream on top. I already have sprinkles.

I am old enough as well as the lady friend that I had lunch with to remember Elizabeth Taylor and so we talked about her. The lady's husband called Taylor a "slut" and so did my father. It was from the scandals that happened years ago when she married Eddie Fisher and then later Richard Burton. Taylor always said she married the men she had affairs with. I think many men are afraid of women who sleep with men they want to. Men who have affairs is no big deal but women back in those days were not supposed to have those desires.

I talked about the movie," Butterfield 8". The character played by Laurence Harvey breaks up with the character played with Elizabeth Taylor when he finds out that she had prior relationships. I just did not understand that movie. I am sure he had prior relationships with women. What was the big deal? Maybe I was too young. She did a lot of good for different groups such as those with HIV.

Rain is supposed to continue. I am going to a League of Women's function tomorrow evening. The Tea Party is supposed to make an appearance, but I think the movement seems to be running out of steam. I am thinking of attending one of their functions since I have never been to them. I am so glad I went to the lake yesterday because it is far too rainy to go now.

I will try and go to the gym during the early hours tomorrow, but the rain has been putting me off although to be honest anything puts me off. I hate exercising on equipment. I would rather just go for a walk and would if it did not rain or if there weren't so many dogs running loose.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Not Wanting to Go Home


I went to a League of Women Voters this afternoon and had a grand time. I really like this organization. I will be joining it after my theater trip in April. The men and women who come to it are very civic minded and active in the community. The guest speaker was the head of the county public health department and he gave a very good talk about what causes some of the deaths in Shasta County. I did not know our county had some of the highest amounts of lower respiratory deaths in the state.

When it was over, I just did not want to go home. I grabbed some coffee from Starbucks and some cookies from a nutritional store. I went up to Whiskeytown Lake. Although it would rain now and then, the park was stunning in its snow capped mountains and full lake. There were birds everywhere and few people. I think it is the best time to go there. I had stopped by the library to get a book that they were holding for me. I did some writing in my journal and enjoyed the clean and clear air as I never have hay fever problems there. It must be high enough for whatever ails me not to grow there.

At one point, I took a nap and slept so well that I forgot where I was until some rain fell mixed with hail and it's sound on the car windows woke me up. I grabbed my cup and the coffee was still warm as I had put one of those green stoppers on it that Starbucks will give you if you ask them for it. Ah, it tasted great. I listened some New Age music from my phone and just watched the sun break out on the mountain sides across the lake.

Whiskeytown is only 20 minutes out of town, but with the high cost of gas I don't go out there as much as I would like. I love the beauty of the place and the emptiness and of course the absence of my hay fever symptoms. I got a phone call from a friend and another from a printer telling me that my cards were ready.

I don't like to stay at the lake too late because strange things happen when the sun drops behind the mountains. People will play games up there that are different from what happens during the day and it can seem a bit creepy, so as it was getting a bit dark I went ahead and started home. There are a few marijuana patches in the park and maybe that is connected with what happens at night. The rangers clean them up ever so often but they always come back. I got depressed thinking I had to come back to my house until I remembered that I knew things would be hard for a while once I returned from Korea. I had the feeling that eventually if I stay on my own personal track and just do the work that needs to be done I will be fine.

I had a friend a long time ago tell me that you can only sleep in one bed at a time, drive one car at a time, wear one pair of pants or dress at a time and live in one house at a time. I know that is not original but sometimes we forget it and we want to accumulate a bunch of stuff. I live in one room with one bathroom and it suits me for right now. My propensity to hoard has gone and I really am glad of that although I still mourn for my books. Checking them out of the library is fine although I have to read fast. I can only live one day at a time.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Undoing the Past


There are advantages and disadvantages to everything. I don't have a large readership so I feel free to say whatever comes to mind or at least I am trying awfully hard to do that. It is part of being healthy. One should always have a way of spouting off as long as it does not hurt anyone. Otherwise, I will be eating what is in the fridge, drinking my one bottle of wine, or trying to start smoking. I like to think I would still write it regardless of how many people read my blog posts.

It seems to me we start this life OK. We come out of our mothers with our past lives (I am a Buddhist so what do you expect?) safely hidden for the most part and then we learn core values and truths from our caregivers (parents, relatives or whoever takes care of us) and school and church or religion directly or indirectly and so on which is from the culture and society we are born into. Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out what is really us and what is the silly stuff poured into our receptive minds and then trying to get rid of it. Heavens knows there is so much junk we are given.

When I was first introduced to my kindergarten class at Chesterton Elementary School, we were allowed some free time to play and our teacher pointed out some toys. I made a bee line to the trucks and cars. I remember the girls whispering: " No, don't go there. They are the boys toys." I can still feel the shame. I had to play with the dolls and other such things. I hate dolls. I learned that trucks and cars were for boys not girls. Why? I have no idea but that lesson was internalized as it was the teacher who had separated the toys. It was reinforced by my parents who gave those sort of toys to my brother and those stupid dolls to me. There was something wrong with me because I wanted to play with things with wheels. I wanted the blocks and building toys my brother had. I did not want a pretend stove. I would often steal my brother's toys and play with them in the dirt, making roads and drive around. My brother didn't mind but my mother did.

I am not unique. Lots of us work very hard to unlearn the silly sexist things we were taught as kids. Children of color were taught they were not as good as white children. Some of the tests done during the trial of Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education in which school desegregation was overturned showed that clearly. When black children were shown black and white dolls, black American children overwhelmingly preferred white dolls. They have learned well. They weren't born that way.

Boys are taught they are the ones that lead and that they like girls and will marry them someday and have children. Trouble is some boys don't want to be the leaders but would rather follow and some boys like other boys. Not everyone wants children.

One of the healthy things I do for myself is deconstructing what was taught to me as a kid. As everyone knows, some of those things are very deeply ingrained so we don't even know they are there. Hypnotherapy helped me do that years ago and writing meditation does that as well. Still, it is difficult to uncover experiences that defined certain beliefs when both are hidden deep in the unconscious. Some people don't try and that is their loss.

There has been a lot of people who had trouble accepting a president who is a Afro-American and the large amount of racism that came from that was shocking to me. I had trouble accepting a woman as president and had to really dig deep for those prejudices and to come up with more realistic beliefs. I had no idea that I had sexist ideas and had to face that possibility during the last presidential election. I am glad I did. I still don't like some particular women running for office but I like to think it is their lack of qualifications or ideas that disqualifies them for me and not some hidden prejudices.

I fight everyday, it seems, to uncover some so-called core truths that are not true at all. I am reading a biography of Truman Capote by Gerald Clarke and I have always been amazed how this writer, Capote, caught on early to the reality of this world. I wasn't so inclined. I think the culture and this society spends far more time acculturating women to fit certain stereotypes in the world than they do men. I am not excusing myself. Capote has always been for me a very gifted and intelligent writer. I think I have read all of his published writing. I think he was able to do some inner questioning earlier than I was and reading about his early life I am amazed that he did it so well.

Many of our false beliefs make us very unhappy. The Dali Lama said that he has been amazed to how much Westerners have so much self-hatred. I can understand that. We are taught in the Christian Religion whether we are of that religion or not that we are worthless individuals and full of sin. I know I was and I am can still feel the effects of those lessons although I am not a Christian. I am not saying that Christianity is a bad religion. His Holiness wasn't either. Everyone has a different pathway to follow and that is all. It's just those things many of us were taught give us so much grief and unhappiness. It was someone who said a very long ago that the attachment to the past is what gives our life, sorrow. We need to let the sun in on those false and dusty beliefs and see them for what they are and then expose them to the air. Well, at least that is what I am trying to do.

I am tired of being unhappy. If anyone has been reading my blog, it is this attempt to change my point of view that I have been occupied with of late. For me it is remembering those beliefs and that can be difficult because they are buried deep and then digging them up and seeing where they came from. I remember once being taught that none of us have the right to be happy. It is our duty to suffer. When I dug that one up, I laughed good and hard. Not only do I have the right to be happy but I have the duty to be. I threw that one back to the relative that gave it to me although I loved her and she is now deceased. I can still love her but think her opinion was loony. Hopefully, she knows better now.

Rebellion is one of the great theme of Western Literature according to V.S. Naipaul in his book, "A Writer's People". It is what people in the West do best, we rebel against established order. When the individual questions the truths that have been given to each of us, he or she is rebelling against not only the past but the establishment itself. We have a long tradition of doing this. It is good and healthy that we do this. It is not what so many cast aspersions to as the "Me Generation" but an effort to be who were meant to be in the first place.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Over


'Over' is one of the writing prompts that "Writing Prompts" sends out everyday on Twitter. I guess you make what you want from it. I do like the word and it means to me that something is finally over. There are a lot of things and events I have wanted to be over in in my life. For example, today winter is finally over for 2011. This is the first day of spring.

I was married a few times and I am very glad those two marriages are over. I am not going to beat myself over the head on why I married those men. The first husband gave me two great sons. I can't fault him on that. The second husband, well, I learned that I could walk away from the same things that my mother couldn't and that was physical abuse.

I fell in love for the first time when I was a teenager and when it was over I thought I would never survive. Now, I can chuckle over that experience. I am glad those feelings are over. I lost my best friend in those same teenage years and that was really awful and although I still think of her I don't have those same dark feelings that I had right after her death. I am glad that is over and I can celebrate the good times we had.

Over is a kind word or so it seems. It means one is over something that was at the time really awful and unpleasant and later when you are over it, it means settling down with it as a memory. It is disappointing, embarrassing, painful and so on. It also means what was the greatest tragedy of one's life was only one more turn in a life of twists and turns. It could also seem to be a blessing in disguise as when I did not get my contract renewed in a small town in Kansas and moving to California which was the best thing that could have happened as a got a far better job and a better life.

I have grown children and grandchildren and 'over' for them is getting over breaking up with girlfriends as I have nothing but sons and grandsons. As a senior I don't have these affairs of the heart in quite the same way or at least I don't so far. Who know what is going to happen around the corner ? I have learned from starting this blog I don't know what is going to happen and what I am going to have to get over with.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Anger


Anger is one of the emotions we are all capable of feeling. Keeping them bottled up for long periods of time is not healthy. That is why I like changing my point of view to that of putting emotions such as anger and its accompanying emotion, fear and so on in little boxes and not living them in a day to day scenario as I had been doing.

I know someone who was raped by her father as a small child and she is still very angry at him and I think for good reason. She is 76 years old and he has been dead for some time, but she still reacts with anger to the world around her. This is a very difficult situation and luckily she can get therapy as she does have the means to do so. Childhood sexual abuse is, unfortunately, not uncommon. Many therapists have a full clientele who work with this problem. There are 12 step programs that have programs specifically for this situation and lots of books dealing with this issue. She does not take advantage of this but rants and rages against her father instead. This happened over 70 years ago. It is not healthy for her and the damage the he did to her happens to her every day. She tells me that he never suffered for what he did and her mother did not believe her which really was a shame. She said she would complain to her mother and then he would come into her bedroom at night. I really feel awful for her. It stopped when she asked to live with her aunt and uncle. They took her in. Looking at her I can see the anger in her face and the tautness in her neck and arms as she balls up her hands in fists.

I was angry too for a wide assortment of reasons and I think they were all valid, but what good was all of that anger doing me. One time I tried to picture my anger and I visualized the city I was living in flattened as if there was an atomic bomb. Some of the people who hurt me as the lady I described were dead too. I even thought of going to their graves and throwing rocks at their grave stones. One woman I knew who was raped by her father wrote him a letter saying how mad she was and then burned it. She said she felt better. One group of people visualized all of their anger into some air that they blew into balloons and they they let them go up in the air. I tried by using writing meditation and then I had that dream in which I could put all of my memories along with the emotions in chapters so I can enjoy the good parts as well as the bad parts.

Some women are angry at the way they are treated in this world including this culture. It has gotten better but it has not gone away. I have experienced this myself over the years. Sometimes it is hard to find someone to talk about these things since many women are in denial regarding this. Many women blame feminists for their husbands leaving them for other and often younger women. I have had married women who have been angry at me for not being married. I like being single. I did not realize that some women would be angry for this. The reason this is a growing problem is that many women my age have aging husbands and need to be cared for and this is a hard and difficult job. I don't have this problem and have the freedom to go anywhere I want. I also have my own income based on my employment and not on any ex-husband. I worked it this way on purpose.

I am a senior and we have health problems which I have as well. Many people are angry at having such things as arthritis and for aging. Being a woman I understand women who don't like what they see in the mirror. Heck, I don't like see the older woman in the mirror either. We all have parts that sag further south as we get older, but I don't get angry at that although I don't like it. Younger women can give us a bad time because they think we aren't worth much, but to be honest I did the same at their age. It comes with the territory.

I just don't want to feel angry all of the time and bitter at the way my life has turned out. Being old has its disadvantages but then being dead must have more. I am alive today and I lived all of those years and luckily I can remember them. I have wonderful chapters that may have some parts that made me angry but also some same chapters that created some laughter and joy. One particular dark chapter was my first marriage but it also contained the birth of my sons which was the greatest joys I have ever experienced, ever and the years in which they were growing up. I would not want to lose those memories although I would not mind not remembering their father as much. Still, he did save my life so that is not so bad but I would like to keep him in my chapters, thank you very much.

I am an avid reader and have been all of my life. I have also been a writer all of those years as well. This philosophy works for me, for now. It has made life much better, and I can box up all of that anger and be done with it and make room for the emotions yet to be felt.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Memories


A short time ago, I wrote about a dream in which was a outline about a philosophy on how to live one's life without the suffering that I seemed to be going through. I would remember experiences in my past and revisit the anger that I felt towards certain people or feel the embarrassment that I felt over my actions. I told a friend named Ted who liked it and called it a "Book Philosophy" and feels he wants to use it for himself. He told others and some people, a minister of the Christian faith even got mad at me because they thought it was a philosophy based on the Bible. It isn't. It is a way of viewing one's life like a book in which there are chapters of memories. They can be pictured like travel posters, places you have seen and experienced and enjoyed and then the chapter is over and a new one begins. No one can hold onto a chapter because a new one always begins.

Ted has been telling me that he has been modifying it to fit his life and he has been having fun with it as well. He is sorry about what happened with some of the people who were hostile to me about it. I think he was as surprised as I was, but I have not heard anything more about it. He is now in Seattle, Washington and drinking coffee at one of their numerous cafes. I have no idea why he is there, but I never know why he is at the places he goes to. He knows lots of people while I know few. He attends 12 step meetings where ever he goes. He says he has never been someplace that did not have any.

I brought up memories because I am reading a biography of Marcel Proust who wrote a seven volume novel called "Remembrance of Things Past". It is based on a narrator's memories. If the narrator picks up a rough towel, he writes how it reminds him of the towels he used as a boy when he would get out of the swimming pool and so on. It is a great achievement of writing. I have not read all seven volumes but only three and had the remaining volumes in my book collection which I lost while I was in Korea. The library evidently did not keep them for they have only one volume in their collection which is a shame.

Proust used things to remember his past while I like to put my memories in chapters to enjoy and savor although not all memories are joyful. One has to give permission to remember the unpleasant emotions and to leave them in the chapters during the time they occurred. For instance, I spent some time going to San Diego State University and had trouble with some of my classes and I was very poor and had some unpleasant experiences with people who gave me a bad time. One woman in particular tried to belittle me and instead of trying to burying the anger, I allow myself to feel the anger and remember that it was a long time ago. I have no idea what happened to her. Maybe someone belittled her before. I don't know. I leave the whole thing in that chapter and then I go to the next chapter which was when I lost my weight and left the state. I enjoyed that chapter.

Recently, I was taking hay fever medication that made me very ill and I stopped take them. I am in bed with the lap top on my lap and feeling better and watching the awful storm outside. Hail had blanketed the ground with white. I am looking at the world through my window and the lap top. It is a small chapter and one that is nice since I am getting messages from people I know. My friend from Ashland called and I enjoyed his phone call very much.

I am not saying that everyone should adopt my philosophy, but people should just do the best they can and not follow others or books or anything else without question. We are all unique individuals and some of use need to be guided by outside forces such as religious guides, radio hosts and the like and some of us don't. What I think we should all have is the freedom to be who we are as long as we are not interfering with our neighbors. I know one friend who does not give much thought to memories. She just lives in today. I remember asking her about people she knew as a kid who have since died and where she was going herself someday. I remember her eyes through her thick glasses in puzzlement as she looked at me. She said: "I have no control over that so I don't worry about it." Wow, I envy her with that philosophy although I could not do it. We should just do what suits us.

There are too many people out there who want to do that for us. I don't like that nor will I permit it. We are lucky in that we live in a society and culture that we don't have to put up with such control; however there are some people in the world who do. My memories are mine to do with what I want to do. I just don't want to wear a hair shirt anymore because of them.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Gratitude


As the situation unfolds in Japan, I am feeling a great deal of gratitude for the 50 workers who are going into the nuclear plant at great risk to themselves to try and manage the very dangerous situation there. Rachel Maddow said the situation at that plant is uncharted territory for the world. No one knows what is going to happen and what to do next. There is no doubt people are being exposed to high levels of radiation but no other group of people are exposed as much as those 50 people in the plant trying to manage the very dangerous situation that is happening there. They have had to leave at least once. Waves of radiations are being released in steam into the air.

I would assume they have families who are worried sick about them. They have training in the area of nuclear energy and are trying desperately to try and stay alive and to keep the rest of us alive as well. If I could thank them I would. I am hoping they will not pay for this bravery with their lives although it is possible they might. No other country is as well versed in what could go wrong in living with high levels of radiation as Japan.

Thank you.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Ignorance


A friend of mine has a daughter who attends the Tea Party Movement meetings here in this town. She is a writer like myself but more successful in that a few of her books have hit the best seller list. Her daughter went to college but dropped out after one semester and has been going from one job after another. Her daughter and grandchild lives in one of her houses she owns. My friend who I will call Mira agreed to go to one of those meetings with her daughter.

Mira is about ten years younger than I am and she said many of the people there were in her age group although all age groups were represented. There were no people of color but Mira is white and again she did not stand out. But Mira who has a tendency to write books about romance and relationships was appalled to the lack of education everyone seem to have. Many spouted ideas in stereotypical phases and few had picked up a book or watched some of the documentaries that are on PBS. All yearned for a time in the past that never existed. If any emotion ruled the meeting she attended, it was fear of change.

I have never been to a Tea Party meeting although I have heard many of them talk. All of us have been exposed to the speeches some of them have made and I am not writing about them here. I am certainly not in a position to know. Mira admitted to me that she was like them afraid of change as much as they were except she thought she had more facts.

The older I get, the more I see change as more challenging. It is more scarier. It seems to me that change is happening without my input. When I was younger, I was on the front line of culture and social change. I felt a part of it. Now, I feel as if I am standing alone as it happens around me. I can understand the confusion and anger I see in seniors. I am a senior and I have to ask my grandchildren about different things.

Not all change is new. The Tea Party stuff is not new and it reminds me of the John Birchers of years past. Other things happening that are similar to that movement are happening that are not new either. There are hearings being held in Washington on Muslim Americans here in this country right now by a Senator King. I remember hearings on Communists here in America by a Senator McCarthy in the 1950's. If you lost, you could lose your livelihood which many did. In the early history of this country, there was the Salem Witch Trials of Salem. People lost their lives in those trials. In Europe, there was the trials and hearings of who was and wasn't a true Christian in the Middle Ages f you lost that one you could be burned at the stake or boiled in oil.

I figure there will always people who will resist change and the one thing that will always happen is change. That is a given. Some of it I really like. Many people don't like the Internet and I happen to love it. I like all of the innovations although I am running as fast as I can to keep up with it. I love my cell phone and my new one plays the kind of music I like and it does 24 hours a day as long as I keep it charged up. I am going to buy a extended battery so this will help. I love Facebook and Twitter. I love the fact that I don't have to depend on the three networks for my news. I can go elsewhere. I love the fact that I have choice on the books I read. I don't like electronic readers although I have one. That makes the paper ones cheaper for me to buy.

That does not mean I like it or love it. Life is what it is. Sometimes it scares me too. The earthquakes in Japan is completely uncontrollable but what is happening with the atomic energy plants isn't and it can effect all of us. That is within our control although not right now. I don't like that. Riots in Egypt, Bahrain, and other places of the Middle East and here in Wisconsin, Michigan to name just a few. There are times I don't want to read the news unless the news is happening here where I live.

To remain healthy, I have to read the news. I have to see what is happening out there although sometimes the unhealthy stuff might not be something I can do anything about such as what is happening in Japan. I can help when asked if I have it and keep up on what I can do. Keep doing what I can locally and personally. Meditate on my cushion and hope I can keep my toes dry.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Defining the Problem


In a post a few days ago, I mentioned the workshop on Healthier Living. I also mentioned that I got a lot of it including the need to change the way I looked at my life. What I may not have made clear was one of the things that was brought up in the workshop was that if one had a problem in dealing with issues having to do with one's health, the most useful thing to do was to define the problem. That was the single most important aspect that got me started in the right direction.

I started the workshop knowing that there were issues and that something was not right. I had no idea what it could be. I worked around it by trying to schedule my writing and exercises and to eat better and more healthier. I included more social activities in my life. Those additional changes helped but I knew something still was not right. I looked on those large poster papers that the workshop leaders had pasted up on the wall and the one thing that I could not answer was that I could not define what the problem was.

I did not define it until I had my dream and then like the old saying of the light bulb going off it did. The problem wasn't all of those little things although they were part of the problem it was much bigger. It was the way I looked at my life. I had to do a lot more than create or change my schedule. That is what I am attempting to do. It seems to be working for now.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Update


Lots of things are happening in the world so that I decided to take some time off and head off to Whiskeytown Lake for a mini-vacation from the world. I did get some of the news about the earthquake in Japan and the loss of life and the threat of damage from tsunami here on the coast of California. I grabbed some muffins from a nutritional store that has a gluten free bakery and got some muffins that may have been the best I have ever eaten in my whole life. They were freshly baked raspberry-lemon. I got a venti coffee from Starbucks and off I went under a blue striped sky.

On the way there I stopped to get some books that I had on hold from the public library and as usual I brought some books and a journal along with plenty of pens and colored pencils, pillow, and the softest lap blanket that I have ever owned. I have a place in the park that no one goes to and yet is safe enough that I feel comfortable as the Federal Park Rangers go by there all of the time. I see a wonderful view of the lake, mountains and trees. The reason no one goes there is there are no park benches or clear view of the lake. For the privacy, I can live with that. A bonus is that after 2 pm, it is covered with shade. Before 2pm, there are other places I can go but without the privacy. The number of people at the lake is still down, but there are enough of them there that I have some problems with them as many people do not put their dogs on leashes and dogs scare me.

I tend to be solitary and I am very lucky I live near parks where I can have this without much difficulty. I still have friendships and attend social function, but there comes times that I need to have some time by my self to restore the batteries so to speak. Today was one of those days.

The current batch of books that I have checked out of the library seem interesting. I remember when I first came to live in this town, the library did not buy one book that year. If it wasn't for the people who donate, there would be empty shelves in there. The library buys books now, but they have a large group of volunteers and a bookstore in the library that generates income for the library. Since, I have no intention of having a large library as I did before, I am taking advantage of this.

Nothing was better than reading in the park overlooking the lake, listening to music and doing some writing in my journal. I even took an hour nap that was very nice. Unfortunately, when I woke up from my nap, the blue patches in the sky was gone. It was late anyhow and I went home and found that my grandchildren, at least two of them, were there. I went out to dinner with one of them.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Healthier Living Workshop


I have been attending The Healthier Living Workshop from February 3rd to today, March 10th. It is a program that was originated from Stanford University:

Better Choices, Better Health™, previously named Self-Management @ Stanford Healthier Living with Ongoing Health Problems, is an online workshop and study given on the Internet. Groups of about 25 people with a variety of ongoing health conditions participate together. Workshops are facilitated by two trained facilitators, one or both of whom are peers with a chronic health condition themselves. Topics covered include: 1) techniques to deal with problems such as frustration, fatigue, pain and isolation, 2) appropriate exercise for maintaining and improving strength, flexibility, and endurance, 3) appropriate use of medications, 4) communicating effectively with family, friends, and health professionals, 5) healthy eating, and, 6) making informed treatment decisions, 7) disease related problem solving, 8) advanced directives."http://patienteducation.stanford.edu/internet/healthyliving.html

I found it very useful. I have included above the website of the program. The one that I attended was free and was sponsored by the Shasta County Public Health Department. It is also jointly funded by the California Collaboration for Chronic Disease Prevention. I met some nice people and obtained some useful tools in dealing with my specific problems.

I think this may have been the reason that I was able to see that it was not what I was doing that was creating problems in my life but my viewpoint. I had to re-think how I looked at my life and what I wanted to do.

What was nice is the fact that I got a call from the Veterans Administration that I am being set up for an appointment next week at the exact same time as this class that I just finished. I am optimistic that I will be able to get some help in getting my finances in order.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Another complaint


I normally don't post anything more than once a day, but I just got through saying good bye to the minister and his wife of the church of St. John, The Divine. I really must say something to Ted. They are upset about what I am saying about the so-called Book Philosophy. They heard about it from someone who heard about it from Ted. They are under the impression that the book in question is the Bible.

Father Smith (not his real name) was a older gentleman who is a retired U.S.Navy Chief who was recently appointed to the church that is near the Sacramento River. He has several writers in his congregation and they are very interested in studying this new way of looking at the Bible. I told them that I doubted if they were talking about me as I only had just wrote about it a few days ago and it had nothing to do with the Bible. I also explained that I am not a Christian and that Ted and I were only talking about having more detachment in our lives. It was a personal thing with me. He told me that only the blood of Jesus Christ can absolve sins and I was talking about absolving it myself. I don't think I got through to him that I did not believe in sins and that I did not believe there were a bunch of laws that people had to observe and if they broke them they would be guilty of a terrible wrong. I am of a different religion. He actually yelled at me and left with his wife in anger.

I still don't quite understand my dream and it is slowly coming through to me, but I do know that Ted is far more persuasive than I ever gave him credit for. I am sure this will blow over and still do not understand why this should concern anyone really. After all, Buddhism and Taoism has been around longer than Christianity and there are monasteries not far from here.

Complaint


I got a complaint about my conversations about the dream I wrote about and the conversations I had with Ted and the new way I wanted to view my life. I am not going to change and that is it. I am not going to promise I will stay forever in my new philosophy because no one knows what is around the corner, but it was a very angry response to what I had written.

You might remember that my friend, Ted, who is a writer friend of mine who writes memoirs wanted to try it himself. He wanted to call it a Book Philosophy and that one should look at one's whole life as a book with many chapters, each of them not more important as the other but just that a chapter. The chapter goes into the book and although you can go over it, you don't become overly attached to any of them. You look forward to the next one. It is like you look at your life as you are reading a book and that is why he said he wanted to call it the Book Philosophy. He told Candy about it since she is a writer too.

Candy is a cookbook writer and writes cook books based on ethnic flavors especially formulated for those with allergies. Her readership is growing and she does rather well. She lives here in Redding and has a kitchen that is the biggest and best I have ever come across ever. I get hungry just thinking about it. She started her writing career when her husband first started his CPA firm and when he spent so much time at his business she wanted to do something at home since they had several kids. First, she did a cook book for creating recipes that the whole family would like that was healthy. She found that area of cookbooks to be rather competitive and went into allergy cooking when her niece was found to be allergic to peanuts.

It is odd that she is friends with Ted as she is a super strong Christian and belongs to a church in town that is well-known for its size and its fundamental message which is why I am not putting her name down. I think that is why we have never caught on as friends because when she invited me to her church I told her that I was not a Christian and never go to them if I can avoid them. I think I was in a bad mood that day. Ah, karma because we have never got along since then. Ted is a Christian but not the type to go to that church since his open affirmation of his sexual orientation has been a cross that Candy feels she must bear to be his friend and his success as an author helps. Ted uses her husband for his taxes as almost all writers do in this area of the state.

Candy was furious with me for telling Ted about my philosophy because she says it directly contradicts that of self-responsibility. In this world, we are responsible for the sins we commit and according to my philosophy there is no reconciling this to the principles in the Bible. I have set myself above God. That is blasphemy.

That set me back. I did not think I was setting myself above God. Now, it is true that I do not have the concept of sin and told that to Candy since I am not a Christian. I deal with my karma every time I meditate. I really do not believe anyone burns in a place called Hell nor do I think there is this person on a throne that consigns people to that place to suffer. I think of karma as an tool so we can learn from our mistakes since all of us make them. Karma is not a tool of vengeance. It is not good or bad. It is just what it is. If I have already learned from my mistakes then it makes no sense to keep ruminating over it. The wearing of hair shirts makes no sense at all.

I think it would please our Spiritual Connection if we can enjoy life as much as we can considering how much sorrow that comes our way. I just think we need to let it go and just look at it as a chapter in this wonderful book that is our lives. Candy said that the only person that can decide if our lives are good or bad is Jesus and his father, God. The decision is not up to each of us. I had to admit that my philosophy is strongly influenced by my decision to follow the Buddhist path as well as that of Taoism. I am sorry that it upsets her, but I don't see many people running to my doorstep embracing it and besides it is Buddhism in a way anyhow.

Candy seemed appeased by the statement that my new philosophy isn't so new after all but a way of looking at life in a Buddhist way. She thinks I am trying to swing Ted over to my religion but Buddhists generally don't do this. Ted is happy as a Christian and is an avid 12 stepper. He doesn't go to her church as it is not open and affirming to the gay and lesbian population. He does go to several others that are.

I did enjoy the conversation though. It gave me thought. I did not think it through enough to realize that there was a Buddhist component in it. That is what debating a point of view does. It gives someone a fresh look at something. I am still sticking with it. What looked like a brand new way of looking at something isn't so brand new after all. For that, I am grateful to Candy although I don't think she would be happy to hear that so no one please tell her. She never reads my blogs so I am safe.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The New Philosophy


I am still looking to change how I look at life based on the dream I had a few days ago and so far it is working although I keep falling back into the old way of looking at things. Ted called and said he was surprised at our last talk and how much it had an effect on him. He wanted me to tell him again about my dream and he forgot I wrote about it on my blog and went to re-read it.

He was not in Redding so we talked on the phone. He said that he wanted to call it the Book Philosophy since it was based on looking at life as if it was a long wonderful book and that each part of our life was a chapter and not some huge defining part as in a novel but a biography or a memoir. Well, I told him that my inner monkey mind kept telling me that it wasn't based on reality. We both agreed that neither one of us knew what reality was. There is a tendency to make one part more important than the others and our lives are really just one long stream of events, experiences, memories that parade in front of our lives, of people weaving in and out, of things that we think are real one moment and unreal the next and so concentrating on one particular chapter really doesn't make much sense.

I like it for now and don't spend so much time hitting myself over the head. Ted said he was going to run with it for now and ask if others that he knew might try it. I said it wasn't mine since it came in a dream. I was writing in a journal and I asked my inner Spiritual Center that the agony and sorrow that I felt from time to time when the calendar days kept going past had to be the way I had to live. I did not want to live trying to hold on to those days anymore and I wished I had a better way of living. Then I had the dream. I think each of us has a link with the Cosmos and it is responsive to our needs and wishes.

Well, I am continuing to evolve and change. Life is better since having that dream. I am glad one other person found some good out of it as well.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Dream


I had a wonderful dream last night. I knew I was dreaming and tried to remember it as it contained a philosophy that I wanted to adopt for my life. I wrote it in my journal after I went to a lecture I was supposed to go to today. I thought it was the most amazing thing I ever heard in a dream, but as everyone knows what is in a dream may not translate very well into the reality of everyday life.

I was in a room, not unlike the apartment I had in Korea. I was sitting on the couch that made into a bed that I had. I was able to draw upon a series of travel posters that would appear and fix themselves on the wall that were scenes from my entire life. They were from different phases or times such as the time I went to the University of Kansas for my undergraduate degree, working for different jobs, dreams of the ocean, going through different likes and crazes for books, fads and people and there were no real set of guidelines except they were things I went through, chapters as it were as I sailed through my years up to now. None of them appeared as bad chapters but as times I went through and neither good nor bad but simply what happened. They felt good to me as I enjoyed all of them as an expression of my life.

I did not feel any negative feelings and the feelings of regret as times sped by were gone. I did not want to grab onto the good times and throw away the bad times. I just saw each chapter as what it was, a chapter of my life with more chapters to come filling my life with wonderful adventures. In the dream I looked forward to so much to come and to filling my life with so many exciting chapters and I felt so lucky to have them. When I did that I could see the reality of the life that was in front of me and the magic that was everywhere. I could see that I had no idea what was coming around the corner and what would comprise the next chapters.

What a wonderful dream. What a great philosophy. I don't know where it came from, but I want it for my own. I hope I can keep it. I hope the image stays with me.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Believing in oneself


"If I believe I can't do something, I am incapable of doing it. When I believe I can, I acquire the ability to do it" Gandhi

I was writing in my journal in the park that is next to the Sacramento River yesterday. I was feeling a bit down as I had felt that I did not accomplish all that I meant to do yesterday and in my whole life. As I started to write in my journal, I began to remember my father who was a man who had gathered within himself and twisted in agony as he considered himself a failure. He went to great lengths to avoid these feelings and of course could never distance himself enough and found temporary relief only in such things as alcohol and sex. I have seen it many times in others.

The more I wrote, the more I saw that these feelings were from a mindset that was not necessarily set in reality. I had done well with my life. Ironically, the ways my father had felt the most failure were for things he had done well. He had been born in the Ozarks and had started with nothing and ended up with a decent life. It was the things he did to stop feeling like he was a failure that he did things that made his life a long parade of deplorable events in behavior. Luckily, I did not have those things in my life.

Later that day, I was talking with Ted who is my friend and is a successful writer and he knew exactly what I was talking about when I described what I put into my journal. He said he had a terrible problem with alcohol and drugs trying so hard not to feel like he was a failure as his father called him one on many occasions. Luckily, he had gone into recovery from them five years ago. His father was a college professor and taught for many years for a big university.

Both of us agreed that the habit of measuring ourselves by our parents were doomed. There was no way we were ever going to be successes by their standards although I was looking at myself as a failure by my own standards and not by my parents'. Ted said that his last book did well and his agent and publisher was pleased which pleased him for five minutes. Then he got a phone call from his father. The next five minutes, his father told him over the phone that he could have done better and at least sold more copies and had some intellectual content instead of pure memoir as Ted's book was. his father went on and on how he would have put some research in it and made it important instead of a book filled with gossip about a family that did not exist except in his son's head. Then later, Ted said he took himself to task for not producing a book that would live in the canon as a classic instead of what he had written. The rest of the day was spent in a black gloom because he felt like a failure. He told the truth in his book, but he secretly felt he lied when his father accused him of fantasy.

"Ted," I asked him. "Did your father write a book that sold decently?"

"Well, he wrote a book at the beginning of his career that was published but it sunk somewhere. It was his doctorate's thesis. I think a few people bought it, maybe relatives. I don't know. "

"I can't see how you are considering what he says about your books. Just one of your books sold more than his one book."

"You are right. I have told myself all that many times, but as soon as I think it is all settled in my mind the doubt sneaks in. "

"I think this whole way of thinking should be thrown out. It is so counterproductive and no one will ever get the better of it. If the Democratic Party decided to elect you president instead of Obama next election, he still won't give you credit will he?"

"Does George W. feel like a success?"

"Probably not. Bad example. What I am saying is nothing you can do will please your father and nothing you can do will please yourself and nothing I can do will please me. Let's throw out the whole thing."

"Ok. Sounds good to me. All we have to do is figure out how to do it. "

"We ought to give it a try though. Instead of both of us wearing these hair shirts, we ought to be trying to get rid of this way of thinking. Remember, I told you when this guy at work woke up during one morning during his divorce with the realization that there was nothing wrong with him? From then on, he started to get better and stopped beating himself over the head. We should just verbalize what unconscious messages we are bringing to the fore. There is nothing wrong with me. I am doing the best I can and this success or failure is pure bunk. Then we can get on with the work we want to do in life. "

Ted said: "Being writers, both of us, we can at least write it in our journals. Tell the monkeys of the mind that they can get off our backs because the message we internalized years ago is not real. That is a beginning. Make a mantra out of it. I mean not say I am a success but that whole way of living one's life is stupid, not real and not valid. If we tell ourselves enough we are failures or we can't do something then we can't. "

"Oh, that sounds so good. It is true. It is not real or valid."

I am trying to do this since I talked with Ted. I have not talked with hm since then. His father is a piece of work. He is also an alcoholic and is not in recovery. My father was an alcoholic too and never went into recovery. My mother denied he was one and would only say he was allergic to the stuff. Yeah, right. Too bad he never talked to himself. Ted does that a lot especially when he is writing another memoir. I do when I write in my journal.

My father used to say certain people were his enemy and my ex-husband has a long list of people (it includes me) that he has grudges against. I think in reality, the only enemy any of us have is ourselves. We need to believe in our own self worth and like Ted said voicing those negative self messages is a good beginning in seeing that we are really worthwhile individuals that have really accomplished quite a lot and the judgment of that should not depend on anyone even ourselves.

Thinking along these lines is not based on reality. When I am thinking this way, I can't do anything. I am convinced I am a sorry mess. Ted said he knew a model who was making a lot of money until she became convinced she was ugly and she cut her hair off and ate too much so she did become ugly. Then she stopped working. He is well aware of the danger in believing he is a bad writer. I don't want to believe I am a bed person. I'm not and neither is anyone else. All I can do is keep writing these negative beliefs in my journal so they become conscious and I can see how unrealistic they are.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Facebook


The Veterans Administration has contacted me yesterday again regarding another message that I put in my Facebook account. I am still surprised that I can now get action from the VA in this manner. My son who works for the State of California said it made sense to him as I was writing a complaint that the whole world can see as the world saw what was happening in Egypt lately. Mental Health now wants to work with me or at least is making an attempt to do so.

The same person called me and said she had forgot that I came in and requested help in dealing with my financial situation. She did not apologize but did say she would bring up the matter at the next staff meeting this Wednesday. This time, I have no doubt she will do just that. A doctor who is also a friend had looked up the notes of this person and noted that she made no indication that I even came in that day over three weeks ago.

It is amazing that this happened or at least to my mind. When I worked with disabled veterans, I noted many times to myself that if a veteran was really disabled he or she could not manage this on their own. They had to have an advocate to hold the VA's feet to the fire, so to speak. I am asking for help so that I can be more independent and be more able to take care of my own financial affairs. When I was in worse shape and could not function as well, I was working at a day job that permitted me to pay for my own therapy and did. It cost thousands of dollars and had found someone who let me run up a bill that was very high; but I paid him off. That is not a possibility right now, and it is the VA that is threatening me to take away my rights to manage my financial affairs. My son who is doing this for me now and is in favor of the VA giving me the help I need and then turning it all over to me. I am lucky because my son is totally trustworthy. All of my funds are there in my checking and saving accounts. Nothing is missing. He sends me reports of what he does. That was never the problem. He gives me an allowance and any money I make from writing belongs to me although I save that. Many seniors have relatives who are taking advantage of them.

There is a movie out there that has won awards that tells the story of Facebook. It has been instrumental in helping people fighting for their rights in the Middle East. It certainly has been helpful to me as well. It brings attention to the plights of individuals when they are facing bureaucracies and despots. Facebook brings light or as one friend termed it, the sunshine of justice to people who would never have it otherwise. Thank you, Facebook.