Pain and being tired

I am getting better but I still feel tired when I go out to do some shopping. I also feel pain around my incision although not as much as I did a week ago. It is evident at least to my mind that I am having trouble moving around but some people really enjoy giving me a hard time and many others help me out. I have to move slowly. Some sales clerk at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore really was rude to me today. Needless to say, I will not be renewing my membership in January but it isn't because of her cold and impolite behavior. I just don't shop there anymore as I did in Redding, California. I shop far more at Powell's. I was there to buy a journal as Barnes and Noble have a better selection than Powell's.

I went to Grocery Outlet to get some needed supplies and there were no problems at all. I asked the clerk to find out if they had something for sure instead of guessing because I just could not hop around the store like I used to do before. They ran around for me and looked in the places they usually stocked certain things to tell me whether or not they had it. I was very grateful.

I got a land line telephone yesterday and except for a collection agency who is calling for someone I never heard of before, it is wonderful having the telephone. I called them back and they promised to stop calling after today. I have never been late paying my bills and never had an agency call five or more times per day. I had no idea they did things like that. I can't imagine such behavior would make people pay their bills sooner. I would think it would make people file bankruptcy. If I did not give out my new number, I would have asked for a new number.

I am back

I am out of extended care and it is wonderful being home. I was in a wonderful place after being in the Portland VA Hospital. The care at the hospital was good although some of the nursing staff had trouble understanding that it was my recovery and not theirs. The food at the hospital also helped me lose weight for I just could not eat it. One percent milk is very dismal for me although I drank it along with the coffee because as my mother always said, I have a great imagination. It is good to be home drinking my own coffee again.

The extended care facility had trouble with gluten free but they learned and everything was fine. The food was so much better there than the hospital. I lost less weight there. I am still overweight so I am not worried. The staff at the facility could not be more friendlier and helpful. I bought some more night gowns from a catalog that they had. At first, they put me in a room with another woman which was fine except she watched TV all of the time. After a while, I was going to go home because I could not sleep at night. I also learned what a waste land daytime TV is. They moved me to a room of my own and it was wonderful since it was a quiet part of the facility. Finally, my phone charger came from my son and I was able to listen to music off my phone using earphones. The view from the window was wonderful. I had my books and I was happy.

I am still not done with surgery, but the worst is over. I still need to lose half of my thyroid. I am on over the counter pain meds now. Before my stitches were taken out, I had to have some heavy duty medications. I don't need them and haven't since coming home. Again, it is so good to be home.

There are some problems at the Portland VA Hospital, but the doctors were great. The care facility was also a great place to recuperate.

TV watchers and non-TV watchers should never be placed in the same room. Staff members were sneaking in there at 2 AM to turn off the TV and I was in the lobby trying to get some sleep. Again, they tried to get special earphones for the lady but she would not use them as she said they hurt her ears. It did not take long for the facility to move me. I am very glad of that.

Nightmares

Recently, I have had a string of nightmares every night I have gone to bed. I know it is because of the pending surgery on Tuesday, September 27, 2011. My stomach was so upset this morning when I woke up that I was afraid to have my morning coffee, so I waited until noon. It felt great to be able to drink it.

One of the things I cannot do is change what is happening to me. If I want to survive a bit longer on this planet I must go through the surgery. I have done it before several times. It doesn't get easier when I have to face it again.

It is amazing(at least to me) how many times I have to tell my VA doctors what surgeries I have had over the years, but I do because they were all done at the VA and they are all in my medical record. It is in the computer. I have long suspected that no one reads anything. They give you these questionnaires to fill out and the last one I filled out I said to the nurse: "Why do we fill these things out since no one reads them?" She just nodded. It is all busy work meant to give the patient confidence that the doctors know what they are doing and not give the medical providers any trouble. I am going to make sure that the doctors know which lung to operate on by marking it with a magic marker. I learned to do that in California. I would hate to wake up and find out they took a lobe out of the left lung. It 's not that they can put it back.

The nurse in the pre-opt session asked if I wanted to see a priest before I went into the surgery. I said yes and was astonished that she asked.

"Is it possible?" I asked her.

"Oh yes, we will have a priest for you before surgery."

"I guess in Portland you can find a Buddhist priest," I said. "I don't care what denomination he or she is from. She can be a nun for that matter."

The nurse looked at me in puzzlement. "Buddhist?"

"Yes, it is written all over my records. I have been a Buddhist for almost 40 years."

As I wrote earlier, no one reads the medical records. I probably won't get a priest before my surgery although my hopes were raised somewhat.

The wind has died down outside which is a shame. I was enjoying it as it blew the leaves, big gold ones past my patio windows. I watched the squirrels running along the branches preparing for winter which as I understand does happen here in Portland. The crows were up this morning cawing and complaining about something that was happening in their world. I wonder if it helps to complain sitting on a branch and knowing only another crow understands and everyone else would throw something if they could at you. Maybe, another crow would not listen anyhow which is part of the complaint.

The only thing that makes me feel good is being home at the end of the year and both surgeries are over and I am getting well and there are no other procedures to do except recover. That would be nice. I have plenty of books, two computers, and a freezer full of food and some soup in the cardboard. The social workers at the VA seem ready to work with me which was more than they were at the other VA were I was at but to be fair I was at a rural one. Portland seems to have their "ducks in a row" better than Redding did on that score. The Palo Alto VA Hospital was the worst VA Hospital that I have ever been. I hope it remains that way. I want all of my nightmares to be ones I dream about at night and not ones I experience.

Fairy Tales

I just finished reading "The Ice Queen", a novel by Alice Hoffman (Back Bay: 2005) and it is obvious that it is heavily influenced by the fairy tale. The fairy tale is an important part of our literary history that began first as an oral tradition in all cultures and then later were recorded. Hoffman took the fairy tale that some may dismiss as unimportant and gave it the meaning it deserves as she applied the stories to people, the characters, in this wonderful novel.

This book deals with many issues including death, life and love. It uses fairy tales to spirit the story along as the vehicle about an Ice Queen who is like all ice queens in the fairy tales we have heard or read, if one is lucky, and then uses it to tell the story of how we are in this life to share love and meaning in a life that seems on the surface without meaning.

I heard or read somewhere that we are the product of the choices we made in our life. Sometimes in life we make choices or we think we make choices only to find out that we really did not know all of the facts and circumstances. We find that there is more order in the world than we thought. I wrote somewhere that when I took literature classes in college the professors would make fun of those who thought there were things in life that were important such as love, relationships, meaning and such things. "There is none of that." They would say at their lectures and like a good student new to college I tried to hard to incorporate this into my life; but down deep I knew this was not true to me. There is meaning in life or it seemed to be. The protagonist thought there no meaning but found also there was.

I grew up in an household where parents did not read to their children. However, I had a wonderful aunt who took kids to the library. Ah, that was a wonderful thing to do for my parents did not do that either. She lived in Grants Pass,Oregon and the library was located in the basement at that time in a three story stone building that was the city hall. The library was full of old books and as I discovered full of books that had fairy tales so that the summer when I was 10 years old I read all of them. I remember feeling a degree of shame that at my age I seemed to need to read fairy tales although I knew there was no Santa Claus and no magic. And, I didn't just read them, I devoured them.

Growing up in the family that I did, no one took an interest in me. That seems sad as I took a great interest in my own children when they were growing up; but there are advantages for I was free to do what I wanted to do. In that old library, the fairy tales were in the adult section of the library, and I freely read whatever book I wanted to read. I had to read whatever book was available although in Grants Pass European tales were the vogue then. I now read folk tales from many cultures.

Reading Hoffman's book, I noticed the echo of many of those fairy tales in her book. She used many including other countries such as Greek mythology. I think I loved fairy tales because the hero was often female although the goal of the girl was to obtain the prince which did not sound completely true to me as I had reality all around me in the form of an alcoholic father who freely bounced not only my mother but us kids around. My mother talked about him in the past when he was her prince. The man married to my aunt was also a prince but he often hit her too. I did not want that for myself. Culture was still teaching us girls that the boy/man/prince was our only hope for a happy life. I enjoyed the tales but I was confused by them as well.

Hoffman reached down into the subconscious into those fairy tales that we were all taught either consciously or subconsciously and brought them into the light in this book. That is what a good writer does. She performed this task admirably. The reader doesn't have to agree with the premise of the writer but it has to be logical. Indeed, during my trip through the book I had doubts whether or not I would agree; but I did end up on the same page as the writer. I like the way the author resolved the issues in the book nicely. The choices of the characters also mirror those we all make in life. Those were addressed very well too.

When I think of fairy tales, I also think of Princess Diana and her end in a tunnel in Paris, France. Her prince turned out to be a dud. It is good not to take fairy tales too literally. I remember reading something by Joseph Campbell who said that if you read the Bible, you should view what Jesus said as a metaphor. He was a expert on fairy tales as well. I think that is what should be done on all stories and that is to view them as metaphors. Heavens knows, maybe the stories our kids tell us should be viewed as such. Some of those stories were duds but that is another subject.

I know I grew up angry with the world. It helps to know that there are old stories, tales to help us and guide us through the trials and tribulations on what befall us. I had rough beginning but I know others had a rougher time and others had it better. It is all relative. It's like climbing the stairs and noticing that there are handrails and that we can hold on to them to make it easier when we climb up. That is what those tales are, handrails. Sometimes, we have to adjust the things we were taught to believe in as we mature to fit the world we are discovering and the process of this never stops as I am learning now.

The main protagonist says in the book: "...The way to trick death. Breathe in. Breathe out. Watch as it all rises upward, black and blue into the even bluer sky." That is going to be one of my handrails on Tuesday when I have my surgery.

Getting Ready

I have been getting ready for my surgery. It has not been easy, and I still have lots to do. I have my mail forwarded to my mail box. I have been trying to do all of my wash. I have been trying to get my "Healthy Veterans" program going so I will know what my current appointments are because my mail is somewhere in limbo because of the mail change. I have arranged for a friend to pay my rent on time and gave him my rent checks. I can't use my banking on line services because I could be late and that is a 75 dollar charge. I am trying to eat all of the food in the house that is perishable. I have gotten books to read and my radio on line changed so I can listen to it on my android phone. I have my ear buds so I can block television sound should that be necessary. I hate television and never listen to it except for some news programs such as PBS. I am severely limited to how much I can listen to it anyhow. I have returned all library books and DVD's.

I am scared to death, but the surgery must go on. Usually, I have been rushed into surgery on a emergency basis. This is the first time I am not. Still, I don't know what they will find. I won't be able to blog as I won't have my lap top. Then when I am done with the lungs and fully recovered, I will then have surgery for my thyroid and lose half of it as well. Hopefully, by the end of the year all will be done and resolved. I will be home recovering and getting ready for 2012.

Three-Legged Blues

by Jane Hirshfield

Always you were given
one too many, one too few.
What almost happens, doesn't.
What might be lost, you'll lose.
The crows will eat your garden.
Weeds will get what's left.
Your cats will be three-legged,
your house's mice be blessed.
One friend will take your husband,
another wear your dress.
No, it isn't what you wanted.
It isn't what you'd choose.
Your floors have always slanted.
Your roof has paid its dues.
Life delivered you a present—
a too-small pair of shoes.
What almost happened, won't now.
What can be lost, you'll lose.

"Three-Legged Blues" by Jane Hirshfield, from Come, Thief. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Reprinted without permission but hoping it will be excused.

Temple Grandin

I saw a film about Temple Grandin the other day that was wonderful. It was called "Temple Grandin" starring Claire Danes as Dr. Grandin. It is the story of a woman who gained a Phd in animal husbandry and revolutionized the way animals are treated in the meat industry. She did it all using the prism of autism.

I first came across Grandin through the writings of Oliver Sachs. I then read her books. Even with that background, there was a lot of Grandin that I did not know about that was in this film. Although she had a lot of help especially her mother, family and teachers, Grandin was determined to carve out a life for herself and to open the doors that she saw in front of her. She became a role model for others with autism and for those who work with autism.

She designed a special "machine" that kept her calm when she was agitated by the rejection of non-autistic people. She had to learn how to get alone with them and to read their reactions and to interact with people in such a way so she could get along with them. The film also showed how mean people could be when others showed behavior that was different from the mainstream of others.

There are now books out there written by people with autism. Grandin was out there when there was no one explaining what this particular way of thinking came to the public attention. It even showed the earlier viewpoint that autism was caused by "refrigerator moms" which was never proven but repeated over and over again especially by experts. Grandin's mother was accused of not giving enough love and affection to her daughter. Her mother was also told to but her daughter in an institution which she refused to do. Those institutions for the most part do not exist anymore.

Those who are different from the norm have to fight to get a place among society and Grandin fought hard to become a function and productive member. This film shows it admirably. It won many awards for it and was released in 2010 and is available on DVD. I really recommend it.

Could Harry Potter Be a Girl?

I had a small get together at my place yesterday, and we all watched Harry Potter films although all of us had read the books. One question that came out of the small party was could the author, J.K. Rowland, have written the same series of books and had the same amount of success if she had made Harry a girl instead of a boy? The overwhelming consensus was no.

Potter was a boy that his parents sacrificed their lives to protect and other people have gone out of their way to teach and nurture as he grows into a man. He has many trials and he excels at all of these road blocks that life puts in his way. He defeats the powers of evil and grows into the man who knows that he must avenge the man who has killed his parents. People follow him and he has others who believe in him and stand behind him. Some of them even lay down their lives to help defeat the powers of the Dark Side. At the end, Lord Voltemort lies dead and good wins. Would everyone have done that to follow a girl?

Harry Potter by virtue of his manhood has the authority to instill in himself the power of his right to take on the fight to defeat evil. No one questioned his right to do this. After all, He Who Must Not Be Named killed his parents and had been trying to kill him from the beginning of his life. A girl would have to find a champion to stand by her and to protect her from the powers of darkness; yet, there would not be anything different between a Harry or Harriot Potter. So, what makes those two different? She can be strong, a capable warrior but she would be a girl and a woman. It would not work in fiction.

The Harry Potter series is a coming of age story of a boy. What is a coming of age story of a girl? Is it a girl who grows up, maybe goes to school but gets married and becomes a mother and wife? Harry eventually gets married and becomes a father but it is not the most important part of his story but in a girl's life it is. Can there be a story of a girl without a prince charming? In real life, there are plenty of stories of girls who get fooled and find themselves alone with a child and shunned by everyone. It is a girl's shame to be unmarried and thrown aside by someone who had loved her and walked out. Barack Obama's mother had to raise her kids by herself because her husband walked out on her. Bill Clinton's mother had to have her child on her own because her husband walked out on her and she married again to someone who beat her. Fairy tale stories are often in fiction and not in reality. Why is it that female heroes rarely in fiction? Why is it that a woman does not find fulfillment unless she finds a man? How come Harry Potter could never be Harriet Potter?

You would think that the small party at my place yesterday was full of women. Not so. There were men and woman there. At first, some did not think it made a difference if Harry was a man or a woman. The more we talked, the more it was evident. In today's society it makes a change in the dynamics in the plot and in life too. Someday, maybe it won't.

Nothing Happens To Me

In the first part of the new Sherlock Holmes series," Study in Pink", Dr. John Watson is being told to write his experiences in his journal by his therapist. She says: "John, you are a soldier and it is going to be difficult to transition into a civilian. You need to write down everything that happens to you." John looks up at her and says: "Nothing happens to me." This was just before he meets Sherlock Holmes.

Sometimes in reality, the same happens. When I started this blog, I would have said the same. Nothing really happens to me. I thought the adventures were over for me. I was wrong. John was wrong. The adventures just keep happening. Of late, I have moved to Portland, Oregon. I am now fighting cancer on two fronts. I am scheduled for surgery this month and will be going to the hospital and a convalescent home for a while. Who knows what will happen next.

Is There Meaning In Life?

A friend of mine named Ted who I have written about is reading a book I told him about, "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Muriel Barbery. He is a smarty pants and is reading it in the original French.  He was in New York City and bought it in a bookstore that specializes in books in French.  I finished the book last night to my sorrow for I did not want that book to end.  I loved it.  Ted is still reading it.

He gave me a call this morning to asked me a question that the book asks:" is there meaning in life?"  That stumped me.  I had to admit that life has meaning for me but whether or not it has for other people I don't know.  I had never given it a thought.  I used to believe the stuff professors in the universities I attended  taught that there was no meaning in life and that anyone who thought so was deluded. Later,  I discovered that for me there were plenty of meaning.  I guess I got so turned off by the professors that I became reluctant to ascribe meaning to anyone life. Ted agreed for he said he found meaning in his life through the 12-step program and had been told by many "New Atheists" that what he was seeing as God and meaning was illusions. He said if they want to see God as an illusion in their life they are certainly free to do so but he is equally free to see God and meaning in his life.

On the other hand, Ted says, when he has book signings, he has to contend also with Fundamental Christians who feel he has the concept of God and the meaning he puts into his life all wrong.  He has been picketed several times by some who are angry that he feels no shame for being who he is and that is gay.  But getting back to the subject does life have meaning or does it have meaning if we want it to have meaning?  I mean is it an option?  Neither one of us knew.  Again, both of us are very reluctant to ascribe a certain kind of reality to others that we find works for us.  Can life be different for each of us?  Can it have meaning for those who want it to have it and not for those who don't?  I found that the godless stark black and white reality of some people's vision just did not exist for me.  I find life to be very beautiful even during the worst of times.  I have had people who threatened me with anger and wanted to knock off my "rosy sunglasses" off.  Goodness.

Sometimes, I write these posts and conclude at the end that this is my answer,but I don't have one except each of us have to find their own answers and not jam something down someone's throats. Ted said that is true.  It took him a long time to find his joy and peace and he is happy that he stopped looking in a bottle or some other chemical high.  Life is good these days, he concluded.  That is not to say that he doesn't have those down days, he said.  When he does, he gives himself permission to be sad and then finds out why and then goes on to something else.  The last time he was sad was when he found out he was going bald a lot faster than he expected.  He is one of those people, he said, that does not look all that great bald. Not everyone looks like Patrick Stewart. Then he had to look further and find that he was really sad because he was growing older and that someday he will die.  That really shook him up.  Then he said he had a great espresso at some coffee shop and met a friend there and went on with his life. The meaning of life is a great espresso.  For me, it is watching autumn come in the trees from the window as I sit in my recliner in my living room.  It's different for everyone. 

Beautiful Day

I looked out the windows of my place and thought how beautiful it looked. Autumn is definitely in the air and I thought with the breezes and the falling leaves it was fun to watch the passing of a late summer day. Children and adults with their swimming suits were going up and down the stairs in the distance on their way to the apartment complex swimming pool. Luckily, it is heated for it never got above 70 degrees F. here.

I got a call from the Veterans Hospital in response to my phone call for information about my phone call asking for results about my needle biopsy of my thyroid. No cancer cells were found but the radiology doctor said that this result was not a guarantee that I do not have cancer. They would have to take out half of the thyroid that has the mass and do a study of it to know for sure. I asked if it isn't do they put it back and she said no. I knew the answer, but I agreed with her recommendation that it needs to come out. I have been getting cancer since my discharge from the military. I have no health issues except for the small cancer in my lung. Maybe they could do both at once.

Looking at this day, it is full of life. It is full of the promise of a longer life than this year alone. I have a feeling I will survive this particular trial. Someday, I will run out of track. I have my fingers crossed. I stopped trying to control what is going to happen each day and just take it one day at a time and let what happens, happen. I have a close relationship with my Spiritual Center and nothing will change that, not even death. I have been dead before as we all have been before we were born. I can do it again.

Autumn

I have been watching the leaves falling outside my patio glass doors this morning. First, I saw two leaves fall and then a strong breeze pushed a bunch of golden leaves past the steps that are not far from me. The green trees now have golden streaks in them and for me they seem like gold for I now know if I did not move to Portland things would have turned out badly for me in Redding. I may have gotten my house purged last year but it created in me a need to leave and I would never have gotten the medical help I have been receiving here in Portland.

Yesterday, I learned that a medical problem that started about three or so years ago may be a sign of thyroid cancer. My doctor gave me some medication to control the problem but never investigated the cause. When the problem got worse, he increased the medication. The doctors here investigated the cause. I am going for a needle biopsy today after two other tests showed problems. Many people have survived thyroid cancer if that what it is. The lung cancer is in its early stages. Again, the problem was not looked into.

I am not saying that I got bad care there in Redding. They saved my life and caught ovarian cancer which is a big killer of women. I was exposed to Agent Orange in the military and I have had problems since. The Veterans Administration have done well with me on that score but I have had to be my own advocate.

The sun just came out. It is so beautiful out there right now. I can hear birds singing including crows who are cawing. Now, it is hard to see the golden leaves in the bright green leaves but I know they are there. September is hard on the heels of August. When I was growing up, this was my favorite time of the year. I grew up in San Diego and trees were not all that common especially when it was time for the leaves to fall. I had to look hard for the signs. Here in Portland, it is very apparent. The signs of life is also very apparent for me as well.

Meditation

Knowing I will get old, I breathe in
Knowing I can't escape old age, I breathe out

Plum Village had the above meditation chant on my Facebook this morning. It is a good one to use in formal meditation. No one can escape old age unless death intervenes. You say it over and over again so the self can accept this reality.

A friend told me that one of child's playmate's died during the week. She was trying to explain this to her daughter. It was a two layer thing as she had to explain that her friend had died and what death was and explaining death to a nine year old is not easy. It isn't at any age even an adult. Her family had the child in question over the house on many occasions so all of them had gotten to know her well. She was a delightful child but a troubled one. The second layer involved the reason for her death. Her father had killed her in a dispute with the mother. That was very difficult to explain to her daughter. How do you explain that a care taker, a parent had done such a thing? He had killed himself later.

This was not about old age. Yes, it was. For a similar thing happened to a childhood friend when I was growing up too. We all leave friends behind in childhood as this daughter of a friend was learning now. It is part of life to experience death and to experience many things such as aging. We all have mirrors. We will all watch ourselves age from that childhood to old age.

There is no way we can avoid it, but we can deny this truth for many years. We deny death as we deny many things. If we are men, we can shave with our eye closed. Not all women wear make-up. We can avoid the mirror. We can avoid the friends that are no longer there, the relatives that have disappeared. Then one day it hits us like a bolt out of the sky. We are old, our hair is grey, our joints and muscles ache. Sales clerks start giving us senior citizen discounts.

Wouldn't it be better to slowly ease our way into older age? We have all seen people fighting old age with heavier and heavier make-up, dyed hair, fashionable and young looking clothes and more time spent at the gym and still having young children calling one grandma or grandpa. I know people who instruct their grandchildren to call them by their first names. It all catches up with us. The constant questioning: "How old do you think I look?"

I watched an episode of Midsomer Murders and it was set in an convalescent home. One resident said that when you get old, you become invisible. When people started to die in the home no one thought anything about it because the residents were elderly in the first place. Even the doctor got irritated with the people who lived there and their complaints. Culture and society places a lesser value on the older citizen. That does not mean the individual has to. I can't change the world but I can change how I view myself.

There is a lot of life that happens every day we have to strive to accept. As a child, we see death coming in early to take our playmates, relatives and even parents. This continues to happen as we grow older. There is so much of life to accept on a daily basis that I don't want to accept everything because it means so much more. Growing old means the death of dreams of so many things, of endless plans of living in places beyond the horizon, of romance and being young and beautiful, of living in a thousand fairy tales that I am the heroine. It means seeing the end of things of what must of been in the eyes of that little girl just before her father killed her.

It is a rough life out there, but as a zen master said once to Joseph Campbell, life is just what it is and nothing more or nothing less, life is. I don't understand what happens everyday and I have to accept that. I have to accept the fact I don't know a lot of things but what I do know is that I am getting older and nothing will stop that except death. Nothing will stop me aging. Breath in. I know I will get old. Breath out. My life consists of this moment. It is a small room, this moment and it is all that I have, all I should have, all any of us will ever have.

Listening

I have both Facebook and Twitter accounts and because of that I tend to read articles and essays that I would normally not read. I read one on the art of listening and it was from Plum Village in France. It said that listening to other people was part of one's spiritual path. I had not considered that before or maybe I forgot.

I am also reading a book on autism, "Be Different, Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian: With Practical Advice For Aspergians, Misfits, Families and Teachers" by John Elder Robison (Crown Archeype: 2011). The reader might wonder why I brought this up but this book by an author who suffers from a form of autism explains why he had to learn to listen and have an imaginary stop watch in his head so he could listen to people and not tell people all kinds of interesting facts in the first 30 seconds after meeting them.

I am a writer and often spend time alone writing and sketching in a journal or writing on a laptop. A laptop does not answer back and is a very willing listener. I get used to just downloading what I have to say without listening to anyone other than myself. I miss out on a lot of things that way. I do listen to my grandchildren but I had trouble listening to one of my children because he talked about technical matters and I have zero interest in anything of a mechanical nature. He would get so frustrated talking to me. I had to learn the hard way that I was being unfair to him. I was his mother and I had no interest in what interested him the most. I am better now and listen to him more.

I listened to my other child because he talked about literature and the arts. I am fascinated with those subjects. Inadvertently, I increased the sibling rivalry between them. Again this was not a good thing and it was my fault. There is a natural amount of it between brothers and sisters in the first place. When I was growing up, my parents did not want to listen to me which hurt me but they did not want to listen to my other siblings either. My father did not want to listen to anyone but himself and even that he did not do a very good job.

Listening involves listening to oneself. Many people forget that. I am doing that nowadays. I am trying to do that as honestly as I can which means hearing what is really said and not what I want to hear. I also listen to others and look like I am listening when I do. It is not only polite to do so, but also a very compassionate thing to do. I remember times in my life when people really listened to me. As the kids say, it is awesome when someone really listens to you. I need to do the same to others.

I read a great deal and sometimes I think that if it isn't in a book, it isn't worth listening to. That is so wrong. I need to put the magic glue on my lips and listen to someone and ask questions if I don't understand some aspect of it. Of course when the conversation is so practiced that you know he or she has told this same story many times it takes great amounts of patience to stay with the talker. That is when I ask questions to break the sameness of it. That does not mean I have to stay with someone who won't stop, won't consider the listener.

There is a Star Trek movie in which Mr. Spock's mother asks her son: "What do you feel?" To break the stream of someone's story that has been told countless times I have asked what do you feel about that? It is usually enough for them to stop the sing song words and say what they are feeling about the story they are telling and some real conversation gets started. If not, then I go somewhere else.

I know someone who always asks the same questions in a conversation but it works. What did you like about that experience the most, the worst? I don't know if he is really interested in the answers but it seems as if he is. It usually gets the other person thinking too. Listening is part of a conversation in which there is an exchange of ideas and information. No one wants to be part of a one sided conversation. That was what Robison wrote he learned from his experiences in talking with people.

When I worked for the employment department for the state of California, I did learn that the best thing I could possibly do was to listen to the people who came in to see me. They weren't just looking for work but also they were in pain after losing a job. Some men burst into tears. I tried very hard to stop this because I was a woman and I did not want them to be seen in tears in public because they would feel bad about it later. I did want them to feel they were being believed, listened to sympathetically. It is scary to be working in one job for 19 years and suddenly lose it a year before they could get their pension. They would blame themselves but it was their employers who wanted to save money. Employees also feel hurt by the callous behavior of people and companies they worked for so many years. Listening was essential. Then as I left that job I fell out of that skill of listening.

It was Plum Village that reminded me that is was part of my Spiritual Path to listen because it was a compassionate thing to do. When you do compassionate things, you become kinder and gentler towards your fellow human beings. It is a cycle of good and it helped me to be a better person and in turn a happier person. And by listening, I learned things about people. I also became calmer and took things slower. I started to remember what I knew before about being an active listener. I was a reader which is a form of listening. I am trying to put what I have learned into use these days. I don't want to leave this earth a worse place than I found it.

#NeverApologizeFor

Every so often, there are a flurry of postings on a certain headings on Twitter. This morning was for "#NeverApologizeFor". I twitted a few things about not apologizing for liking certain things such as reading and listening to particular kinds of music such as classical. Most of call I think it is important to be who one is without apologizing.

I put down in my Twitter that one should own up to who they are. Some interpret this to mean their sexual orientation and it might mean that to them although it does not mean that to me. Some people think it means being rude to some people, but I don't think it means that for me. I like to not say things to people I don't mean. If people are gossiping about someone, I like the freedom to go somewhere else. I think gossip can be vicious and mean. It means saying things that are compassionate and kind as I did when I worked at a regular job for the state of California and getting criticized for it. I got awfully tired of being called a "bleeding heart liberal" for simply trying to understand why people do certain things. This is the way I am. I am not going to apologize for it. I just turn around and went somewhere else. I don't have to listen to it.

I love to read and television is boring to me. I am not going to apologize for it. I know there are many people who find my interests dull. So be it. I love museums and art shows interesting and exciting. There is room for all of us in this world and don't understand why some people have to tell others what they think of their interests. If you want to do things that I find boring to me, then do them and leave me alone to do what I enjoy. Heavens knows there are plenty of people doing things I don't like as there are people who enjoy being together that I don't like. I don't see why anyone should apologize for certain likes and dislikes.

I remember being on a train where one has to share the dinning room tables. The train was going through Nevada and I was seated at a table with a couple of senior citizens. I was on my way to a training sessions for my regular job in Denver, Colorado. I was astonished by the beauty of the mountains and desert. I said as much when I sat down. The senior passenger got very angry at me and told me that I did not know what I was talking about. Then the waiter was very nice to me as he gave me a very good breakfast and I tipped him. The man got mad at me for tipping and again told me that. I was in a good mood and was not going to be talked out of it. I told him that I always tipped the waiters, and I found the scenery beautiful. I just ate my breakfast and worked very hard to ignore him. The wife never said anything.

I don't think any of us should apologize for anything unless we make a mistake and err on the side of bad manners. I have done that. I have bitten someone's head off, so to speak, because I was low on sugar as I was the other day. I apologized for that. I still think I was right in saying that the person in question needed more training on her computer and never said I was wrong only that I should not have been so negative. She discovered the error herself and corrected it.

I love Twitter because of the chances we have to Twitter about different things ever so often. I rarely have the chance to add my own posting to a subject. I sometimes put down the name of the book that I am reading on Friday. Every so often they have something that is fun to add one's own two cents worth as they did today. I read what other people post. Others have posted writing such things as never apologize for telling the truth or being bigger than you are. I am not sure I understand all of the posts but it is fun to read.

Midsomer Murders and Art Fair

This past weekend I went to Silverton, Oregon for their Art Festival. The weather was perfect for it and I went with dear friends and had a great time. There were some wonderful artists and photographers who were displaying their wares. I bought several coffee mugs and one friend interviewed someone for a magazine. I met some very interesting people including the mayor of Silverton.

When I wasn't at the Silverton Art Festival, I watched several episodes of Midsomer Murders off of Netflix on my laptop. It got warm in Portland and I enjoyed the coolness of my apartment which never went above 70 degrees F. I had not watched it before. It is a series made in England under the wide umbrella of the BBC. It is a beautifully filmed series and they used very well done scripts. Each episode starts with a brief scene of the murder and the rest of the series is spent in solving who did it. I am in the early part of the series which has as its main detective, Tom Barnaby and his partner, Troy. There are plenty of red herrings to go around.

What I like most about this series is that the murders has many layers like life and all reasons are addressed and looked into until all questions are explained. Some of the plots were weak on explanations but that was rare. For example a elderly woman murders a man so a will could be found so an innocent woman would not be blamed for a murder and her unborn child not get his inheritance. There is no real connection between the elderly woman and the woman and the elderly woman except a sense of justice. The other scripts are far more stronger than that. There is also humor and some strong friendships and even love between Chief Inspector Barnaby and his wife.

I don't watch that much television but what I do watch must have the elements this show has such as wonderful photography, good scripts, good character development and excellent action. It has all of that and more. I love the English countryside. The homes both inside and outside look absolutely delicious.

New Area of Concern

Well, you know what they say, when it rains it often pours. I have another area of concern on my body. I was in for another cat scan today. The woman who was giving me the scan told me to be positive and I wanted to strangle her. I am already scheduled to lose one lobe of my lung. What else is going to happen? And she is in her early 30's and telling me to be positive. I suppose it is better than her being someone crabby.

I do feel positive about the whole experience. If I did not move here to Portland, all of these areas would not have been caught at such an early stage. I am positive, but I just don't want to be told. That is all. It is my thyroid that has something suspicious. Again, I have no signs of any problems. The worst that could happen is for me to lose the thyroid and many people live without one for many years. I feel my neck and I feel nothing. I glanced at the picture that the woman is running and it looked like there was something, but I am not trained. The woman wanted to make sure if I don't hear within a few days I should call my surgeon. I promised.

Then I went to the Women's Clinic to find out why I have not gotten my prescription medication. I only get one, but I have not gotten it as yet. I am not out but I usually get the renewal about two weeks ahead. The receptionist told me that my prescription was not in the computer. I know it is for I have seen it. By now, I am low on sugar and I can feel it. I am surprised because I ate a sandwich before I left home. I am getting irritated. I told the receptionist that the other clinics that I have been at in the hospital have asked me about the only medication that I take. Then I said it looks to me that she needs some more training on the computer program she works with. I said it in a soft voice but that is not normal for me. I leave. On the way home she calls me on my cell phone and tells me she found it and let my doctor know it needs to be renewed. I apologized and told her that I was irritated because my sugar level was low. She said it was alright.

I went to Powell's Bookstore after I went to New Seasons Grocery Store where I could eat something that is gluten free. New Seasons is a wonderful food store that is full of wonderful things to eat and has many things that I can eat. I went to the bookstore and bought a few books and magazine and went home after stopping at Goodwill's Superstore for a few items that were on sale. I got a coffee cup tree, a filter for my vacuum cleaner and a picture for my bedroom.

Portland was not hot today, but the sky was blue and the sun was out. It got darker sooner this evening and I enjoyed reading and looking out at the trees through my patio door. Life is what it is and I am not happy about the new area of concern in my body. I have been lucky in that I have beaten cancer several times already. I think I will beat it this time. Someday, I will run out of track but I don't think I am there just yet. I am trying very hard not to be concerned about it.

I have several books that I am reading now that are enjoyable. My apartment is set up exactly the way I want it to be. That is pretty good considering I moved here in May with only a few pieces of furniture. The biggest worry for me in the past was getting a job that would pay the bills and support my children. I don't have that problem anymore. I have enough income coming in that my bills are paid. I don't have a writer's block although I am not sending anything out because I have pending surgery. I am getting things edited and ready to send later. I seem to be getting along with relatives and friends. I am living one day at a time.

Bar of Soup

I really thought hard about posting about this. If there are any readers out there, they are going to think I am mad; but because this seemingly harmless solution really worked for me and is harmless I thought I would put it out there. I called my son about it.

I suffer from leg cramps and pain during the night. I often can't sleep because of it. I read in the newspaper and on some Internet article that I forgot where about using a bar of soup. It is an old traditional way of treating this malady that many people swear by and doctors say that there is no reason that it would work. It has to be in people's heads. Well, I got tired of feeling the pain and scared about taking medication that really didn't work all that well. I went out to the store and bought an imported bar of milled lavender scented soap from France because I don't use hard soap in the bath. I use liquid soap. I was going to put it in my underwear drawer if it didn't work. Well, surprise it did work. I was simply astonished. It worked. You feel the pain and then rub the bar of soap on the afflicted area and the pain disappears. The pain did not return all night. I slept through the entire night and woke up at 9 am.

That is not the first time some old remedy has worked. I remember having some hemorrhoids problem years ago. I got some prescription medication that did not work all that well. I had a book that listed "old wives tales" and it listed a mineral you take in pill form. I bought for just pennies at the nutritional center and in 24 hours I was healed. Now if I think I am coming down with the problem, I take the mineral although I lost the book in last year's purge. I never have the problem again.

I remember someone giving me these band aids with magnets in them to help with joint pain. I just could not image them helping. They did but they were very hard to get and expensive. The band aids wore out and the magnets never did. They played havoc around computers. Now, I use soap at night but just rubbing on my muscles. Heck if I know why it works but it does for now.

I just thought I would pass it along. It is like baldness for women. Women's hormones will cure baldness in women and red heads who have this problem have tremendous problems with this. They can get relief from going bald by getting hormones. I have no idea about men but it works for women. I got that tidbit from a doctor. Sometimes, we use cannons for mosquito bites. A little old fashion medicine helps when that is all what is needed and the only way we are going to learn about these little "tricks" is from word of mouth so to speak. As I said, if it didn't work it would not have done any harm.

Tethered to a Phone

I don't have a land line but use a cell phone. These days I am tied to the Veterans Hospital and am tied to my cell phone. Because my hearing is not what it used to be, I don't leave the house during the week until after the hospital closes so I won't miss a phone call. Getting the Veterans Hospital to answer a phone call is very difficult.

I need light bulbs(I also need bars of soap which I just found out works wonders on cramps on the legs. No one knows why it works, but that it does. You just rub it on your cramping legs and the cramps goes away.), but I can't get any until after 5pm when the VA closes. I am sitting close by my cell phone while it recharges. If I leave during the day, I can carry the phone but won't hear it. If I do hear it I might be driving the car. I never carry my phone on my person but in my purse. Even taking a bath is chancy as I move the phone into the bathroom while I take my bath and hope it doesn't ring as I would have to get out of the tub in a hurry. So far, that has not happened. I love the weekends because then that is not a problem as the VA is closed.

I have a friend that calls me from time to time and I always look forward to his calls. I don't like the beeping when another call is trying to get in. I remember a time when phones could not do that. My android phone does. I am glad I can get calls for the matter is my health and it is important. When I used to take trips to the lake I could get the news and listen to music. Now, I stay at home and wait for phone calls.

Finally, Some Answers

I finally have some answers from my doctor. I will be having surgery again and this time I will be losing a lobe from a lung. Since getting out of the military, I keep losing bits and pieces of my body to cancer, however each time the Veterans Administration were able to stop it at that particular spot. Then, it is on to a new spot. My pet scan shows another area as well. Sigh.

I was thinking this morning that I am not as depressed as I thought I would be. I have already decided to live mindfully which means day by day. I am alive today and that is what counts. I still have a feeling that I will be able to survive this time and the new site that the pet scan found. I will be filing additional service connection with the VA for it but I am not hopeful. I am just grateful that they have been able to catch it in the early stages.

The doctor gave me this device to exercise my lungs and strengthen them for the upcoming surgery. It has actually helped me with my hay-fever and I really feel better using it. I cough less. I was tested for lung capacity and I am in the normal range.

Things change and this latest bout with cancer has changed me. I was behind this senior citizen yesterday coming home from the VA Hospital. He was in a brand new shiny Porsche and he was driving as if he owned the road. He didn't bother me at all and I just let him go on with his delusions. It wasn't that long ago I was smug in my own delusions(without a new expensive car, however) and feeling alienated from the real world as he is and I am no longer there. I am more compassionate towards my fellow human beings and I am more glad at that development.

We are all on our own spiritual pathways and each of them are individually crafted and engineered for each of us. I was able to take a step and understand some additional knowledge and as they say no pain, no gain. I am not even going to pretend to understand that man and his Porsche and how he is living on his spiritual pathway for it is none of my business. I am just grateful for mine. I just hope it lasts for a while.

The Timing of Comedy

Last night I watched the movie, "The Producers", with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. It has been a long time since I watched that Mel Brooks movie and I remember laughing until I cried. I still laughed when I watched it last night, but it was different. I found parts of it not as humorous as I once did. I had changed. I still found the whole plot line funny and the play within the play of "Hitler In Springtime" hilarious; but I have altered my viewpoint. I did not like what role Mel Brooks had placed women.

In the film, women were sexual excuses for cheap jokes. There was the Swedish receptionist who wanted to have sex all of the time and who's idea of work was dancing with grinding motions or elderly women who had nothing better to do than play sexual games with a fat producer and give him money for his Broadway plays. The real emotions were those played by men in bonding. Even gay men were not excluded from those same tasteless jokes especially transgendered men. it was all done for the sake of a joke.

When I watched this same film years ago, I did not see the offensiveness of this movie and I don't remember the current remake. I think I have changed in what I consider funny and it is possible Mel Brooks has as well. I watched a more recent Mel Brooks film and as usual found it very funny and far less sexist. I still think "The Producers" is a good film. It's just that I have changed.

I remember re-reading a Mary Stewart novel and was shocked to read of the protagonist being physically abused by the romantic hero. He twisted her arm bruising her wrist. She wore a bracelet hiding the injury. She found him alluring and certainly did not run away from such a brutal man or even file charges. She married him. At the time I read it, I found it a romantic story. Now, I am shocked that I would have thought so. I was a teenager at the time. The novel did well then. It is buried now. People have changed. Nowadays, people would protest such a story line.

There are other stories that I watched or read that I did not object to but find it shocking now. I find the "The Philadelphia Story" staring Kathrine Hepburn to be an awful movie although I loved it the first time I saw it years ago. Hepburn divorces her first husband because he was an alcoholic and somehow it is her fault because she did not trust him enough. Then in the film, Hepburn's father blames her for his extramarital affairs. In "Camelot" with Richard Harris, it is Guinevere's fault that Camelot failed. Lancelot is held blameless. When I first saw it, I was enthralled with the story and did not see the underlying "hatred of women" theme.

It would be a rare thing if comedy stayed funny no matter when it was performed or when it was written. Comedy is based on what was funny at the time. We are all products of the times we live in. I watch old movies and can see how much I and the current mores have changed. How people look at people of color and at women is so obvious in movies. I can see how the image of gay, lesbian and transgendered people have changed in recent years. The altitudes of people have changed along with it so that more people are in favor of same sex marriage than they were only a few years ago. When I was a kid, television was a small round screen with Eddie Canter dancing and black face dancers were common. That would never happen now. These changes are in my lifetime.

In television, when someone asks for a doctor or a lawyer one can encounter a man or a woman in that role and nothing is thought about it. I remember during my teen years when to be a woman doctor was a rarity. I remember engineers, scientists looking for work and not finding it because they were women and if they were women of color they could just forget it. I remember the demonstrations in San Diego when people insisted that bank tellers be hired that were people of color because up to that time they weren't. Unfortunately, they were men and they could support families and buy houses. Now, many tellers are women and buying houses on their income is uncommon.

Things have changed for me since the old movie, "The Producers", came out. I don't think Mel Brooks was a sexist and I still enjoy his movies such as "Young Frankenstein". He made movies that attracted the audiences and they certainly did. No one stays the same. Movies change. I was glad they did for I was getting tired of the Doris Day and Rock Hudson movies when the hero chased the virgin until she married him. It wasn't based on any sense of reality. I love Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers movies and watch them frequently. Many people do. Our tastes change in what we consider funny and on a personal level I change. One day, I will go into a movie house and see a movie that I love and still find very funny and the younger people sitting around me will be sitting stone-faced. It will happen.

What Do We Know of the World?

"What do we know of the world?"
This is a question that one of the characters asks in the book that I am reading, "The Elegance of the Hedgehog", by Muriel Barbery. It is supposed to be a question that has been occupying philosophers for generations if not hundreds of years. Even as philosophers view this question, they also have argued on how to address it: Can one answer it from one's own experience or can you use information outside this experience?

I remember as a child realizing that I was a unique being, that I was an 'I', and that there was a world outside of myself. I even remember walking on a small sidewalk in Linda Vista in a housing project that no longer exists. I don't remember my age except that I was under the age of nine. I have heard of other people making this same discovery.

As for the world, I just knew I wanted to escape the family of origin that I was in and live by myself and have control over my life. My parents were desperately unhappy and believed in spreading that unhappiness onto their children. Luckily, I had a great big make-believe world that I created aided by books. I stayed in this world for long periods of time. Maybe that is why I never really went into the problem of what is the outside world. I was too comfortable in my own one.

The character who brought up the subject in the book that I am reading described some of the philosophers and read their works looking for the answers. I knew of some of them from my own reading but I was never much of a reader of philosophers. The only reading that I did was in my education at the university and as it pertained to the evolution of how humankind viewed science. I was more interested in literature,poetry and history.

I mentioned in earlier blogs the book that I am reading and the one that I mentioned here has gotten me thinking about different subjects. Occasionally, I read into the science of Physics since it is part of my reading of the changes of how people view the world. I have been reading about the String Theory and find it fascinating especially the part of the different dimensions. I have always felt that time does not exist the way we as human beings think it does and that is why I have read different ideas in Physics since it is a science that deals with time among other things.

I have also wondered how real the world is in the first place. I read in other religions and Eastern thought as well. It is fun for me but I know if I did not turn the wheel of my car when I come to a curve in the road, I would hit the wall and really feel it. Speculation is what you do when you are sitting in a comfortable chair sipping coffee or tea in one's living room.

When I am visiting my grandchildren, I never consider the world not real for I love my grandchildren very much and they are very real to me. It is all relative. Maybe that is why there are so few women philosophers, mostly men in the field. Love and affection for our family and friends have a way of overshadowing everything. I am very much a loner, but I love some people very much. They don't have to be relatives either. There are some friends who I love and will always love even when they pass away. They are very real to me.

What do I know of the world? Not much. I have never been interested in grand conspiracies that some have spent a great deal of time and money on. I worked for the government for years and learned that the right hand usually did not know what the left hand was doing. I just can't imagine any organized human activity that would perform the sort of thing as direct certain crimes although I can see corporations doing all sorts of things to make sure they turn a profit. I can see culture as having a superego as one anthropologist speculated once years ago (Krober) so a certain set of beliefs would live beyond the life time of its members. People often adopted these set of beliefs without conscious thinking so it would live in the minds of people in the form of archetypes (C.G. Jung). These things still change but slowly as people become aware of these things.

To become more understanding of who we are and to question is the specialness of this book. We as human beings are, alone, capable of this and then to record those questions is truly wonderful. The character said of all of the philosophers who tried to answer the question, not one came up with an answer. It was the asking that was important. I am sorry to say I did not ask all that much, myself. I just asked, "who am I?" I answered similar to Descartes, "I am, therefore I exist." I thought that was enough. Evidently, I did not go far enough. How interesting to speculate further. I think Barbery is a very good philosopher for she encourages the asking.

Reading to Learn

Yesterday, I wrote about how a book, "The Elegance of the Hedgehog", by Muriel Barbery was changing the way I looked at my life. This was not the first time books have changed my life. Books have changed my life many times over the years.

Sometimes, I went looking for answers in books and found them and other times I found both the questions and the answers. Sometimes, as in the above book, it was a new way of looking at an old problem. Sometimes, the book that I was reading was my own journal as I sat there not knowing what the problem was and I would write aimlessly as in writing meditation and before my eyes the issues appeared. That has happened numerous times.

In journal writing, we touch the resources within, the unconscious where an enormous amount of power lies but it is also unknown and it can be a bit scary at times. You never know what is going to appear at the end of one's pen or on a computer screen. It can often be something you have been trying to avoid for years. I have learned when something ugly and awful appears it is worthwhile staying with it because the other side is almost always a rainbow. It turns out what the self is dreading, avoiding is not some awful truth of oneself but some aspect of reality that has no one to blame and a black shadow dissipates into the sunshine of mindfulness. It is really quite lovely.

I have known people to write through grief and sadness and to read through it as well. Ignoring it or even self-medicating it through drugs or alcohol makes it far worse. I have a friend who learned the hard way that if he wrote about it, he did not have to drink the alcohol he was drinking to escape and he found he could make a very lucrative living at it. I read a review this morning of a woman who read a book a year to get over the death of her sister ("Nina Sankovitch, Allaying Grief Through Books" New York Times) and then wrote about it.

I went through a rough patch in my life when I was in my 40's. I had moved to California from the Midwest and was working as a teacher but with adults. I felt I was in a dead end. I was a professional teacher with credentials but working with others who were not. My marriage had ended and I felt at a loss to what I was going to do with my life. I went to a discount bookstore and there was a sale of books written by women from Australia and New Zealand. I bought books by authors I have never heard about. I did not so much read as I absorbed them in which the books were about women who were in similar places as I was. They did not find a new romance as many books that I had found in the bookstores by American authors but different and unique ways of coping with the changes in their lives. A new romance with a new man wasn't going to fix what was ailing me. I had to find new ways of coping with life. I always thought that I was able to sidestep a breakdown and to look at new and different ways of fixing what I thought were intolerable things in my life. I did. I got a new job in a professional setting and started living a life that I wanted to live. Those books that I remember lined a wall in my bedroom gave me the breathing space to come up with ways of dealing with my current problems.

I don't think I am writing down here a cure-all for everyone. This was one way I did it. I was able to remove myself from the situation I found myself in and detach enough to figure out what I needed to do. I did it with reading and writing. My journal was very important during that time. Sometimes, as in the example of a friend of mine, a spouse can provide the support and guidance the other needs. We don't always have it. Sometimes, a spouse is one's worse enemy as in the case of one friend. Sometimes, it is one's fellow girlfriends, the ones who grew up with. I don't know if men bond with other men quite like some women bond with other women but I have not heard they are as intimate with each other as women are. Some people have gotten the same results with religion. In years past, there would not have been books so readily available and certainly pen and paper for all to use nor event he skill to use them effectively. I was reading the history of books and often a library in the distant past would have been only one shelf of books. Many people would never have even seen a book let alone have some in their home. We can thank the printing press for that phenomena.

Whatever the method that is used, the greatest resource for solving one's problems remains and will always be the self. Even religious leaders have gotten their greatest revelations by going into the wilderness alone or sitting under a Bod-hi tree alone. We can do worse but reading a book or by recording our problems in one, the journal. I would rather trust my self than depend on someone else to find my answers. It is certainly cheaper. When I was starting my life as a young adult I was very poor and it was far cheaper to read a book about my problems than to go and see a therapist who I could not afford. Over the years, I was able to see therapists but it was the books whose author's words have stayed with me over the years and of course the explorations into one's inner worlds that have done the most good.

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog"

"The Elegance of the Hedgehog" by Murel Barbery Translated from the French by Alison Anderson Europa: 2006

I often get a new and fresh viewpoint from books, but I never expected the perspective from the above book. It is not the plot so much as the way the author looks at the world through two of her characters, a girl and a 54 year old woman. It is not their vision of the world that is breath taking but the way it is done with such freedom and uniqueness that gives the reader the freedom to perform this free flying task oneself. Otherwise, can each of us look at the world on our own without linking our senses to what others have seen before we opened our eyes. The answer is this manual on how we can do it too. At least this is how I am taking the reading of this remarkable book.

I started to question the beginning of the day and to everything that comes across my mind. I saw the beauty of the clear beginning of the sunrise and instead of ruminating of what was not done this morning, I threw the whole thing out. Certainly, a clear day in Portland does not happen all that much and I just enjoyed the sun. Growing up in a Christian household I was always taught we were sinful beings and full of original sin we inherited from the Garden of Eden. I had rejected much of it when I converted to another religion but still felt bad about what I did not do yesterday. No, I am determined not to play that card. It is a wonderful day and I am starting fresh. Why should I slap myself? I did the best I could. That is all any of us can.

There is so much life that comes our way all of the time we often don't see because we are lost in the past. Instead of looking at the crows playing in the branches outside and listening to them cawing in the summer air, I am thinking of what happened years ago or what I had inadvertently said to the apartment manager yesterday. There are zen masters living among us who live mindfully all of the time but I am not one of them. I have to remind myself to skip to the present as I do in meditation. A friend of mine felt a Buddhist nothingness twice in his life and counts it as a precious time. I understand some feel it more. I am not going to beat myself over the head because I don't feel it all of the time either. I just keep trying. What I am going to look for is the squirrels that are playing on tree branches, kids that play on the playground equipment, flowers that are everywhere and those special books that come by every so often.