The procrastinator’s mantra: Tomorrow’s another day.

It’s the close of the second day of a new year. In my twisted way of looking at things, the very first day doesn’t really count…it’s intended as a day of feasting accompanied by a relaxing day devoted to ‘re-adjustment.’ Far be it from me to break tradition…sometimes. Besides, it poured rain most all day yesterday so there wasn’t much of anything more appropriate to do.

Today, the sky was clear and the sun smiled upon us, though the ground remained a muddy SOUP. Since I could not get to sleep last night (er, this MORNING) till around 5am, I slept in till 11am this morning. Took another good hour-hour and a half after rising for the residual fog to clear. By the time I felt that I might still be alive and able to function, the day was over half gone. So I opted to hang out indoors again and try to get some much overdue computer work done, among a host of other things, most of which did not get done. Not sure WHY so little was accomplished, as I’ve not been UNbusy all day, since regaining consciousness. Perhaps the day seemed unfruitful because the day was over half GONE before I got STARTED?!

Tomorrow’s a new day, another new beginning. Like the new year, a new path lays before us each morning, not just once a year, but every day…all white and pure and uncluttered and full of opportunity. Some days will seem better than others. If one day is less than perfect, there’s always the hope that accompanies each new day…

(Click here to see the White Christmas in South Carolina 2010 gallery!)

Thoughts on duality, oneness, identity, and other random weirdnesses.

It’s difficult going through life as a split personality…Piscean curse I suppose. Of course, both blessings AND curses are double-edged swords anyway…you have the blessing on one side and the curse on the other. The trick is in learning how to effectively WIELD the darn things. This split personality thing tends to lead some people to believe that I’m just nutty as a fruitcake…others think it makes me ‘interesting.’ Most EVERYone will find that maintaining a relationship with me (no matter the level of intimacy) will be absurdly challenging.

On the one hand, I have a deeply spiritual, benevolent, altruistic side, capable of the most admirable self-sacrifice and charity. On the other, I’m equally capable of being an unbearably boorish, solipsistic old bag.

In the face of challenge, I’m capable of unwavering determination and perseverance, tempered with an equal tendency to bolt and run like a wild prey animal at the slightest hint of anything out of the ordinary.

I have an innate aversion to being controlled by anyone or anything – a sometimes unruly tendency toward rebellion against BOUNDARIES. In other words, I will often allow myself to be controlled, but ONLY if I CHOOSE to be, and ONLY for as long as I WISH to be. And there must ALWAYS be an escape route in CLEAR view, and just as easily accessible, just in case (aka HORRIBLY claustrophobic). Some people call this a ‘free spirit.’ I think this is just a KIND of way of saying ‘you’re WILD.’

I am capable of exercising the tenaciousness of a pit bull, while still often finding it difficult to finish many things I start. I think part of this is my short attention span (though never officially diagnosed as such, there is no doubt in either my own mind nor that of anyone who knows me well, that I am CHRONICALLY afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder), and part is that I tend to become bored quite easily. Which is just one of many reasons I now tend to shy from relationships with the opposite sex…what I want in a mate today, could be completely different from what I may want next week. What turns me on one day, may utterly turn me off down the road. Worse yet, what may today be a desire to have someone compatible with whom to share my life with, may tomorrow be “Get outta my face and go find something to DO with your annoying self!” It would simply not be fair to expect ANY man to be able to play the many different roles that would be required to hold my interest indefinitely. Fortunately for mankind, now that I’m no longer the hot little thing I once was, there’s not really a long line of men convinced I would be worth taking on the challenge to conquer my peculiarities anyway. In fact, there is no line at ALL. Pfffffft….

I can often find enough middle ground to enable me to get along well with most anyone, even those who dislike me, or those whom I dislike. I may often come across as clueless, and as though I have no idea what’s going on around me. I find this technique to be invaluable, particularly in associations with deceitful and treacherous individuals. When you allow someone to believe you’re clueless, and that they can easily pull one over on you, they tend to become rather careless, thereby exposing their own treacheries all the more clearly…not only to you, but everyone else. It gives me a smug sense of control, knowing that I KNOW the truth about what they are, and that THEY are really the ones that have no clue. (Nor are they aware of the subtle subversities that I will often exercise to undermine those who treat me badly.) I have no issues with someone disliking me…it could very well be that I don’t like them either. Just don’t TREAT me as if you dislike me. Do not lie to me and do not lie about me (if you do, I will know, but YOU will likely never KNOW that I know), do not use me (excessively…MODERATELY is often okay), do not arrogantly mock me unjustly. JUSTIFIED mockery is sometimes acceptable, but only from those who have the self-awareness to acknowledge that THEY are equally as imperfect – most such folk HAVE no such self-awareness…if they did, they would not be arrogant.

I have a relatively high tolerance for pain, whether physical or emotional. It’s not that I don’t FEEL it, it’s just that I’m too stubborn and proud to let on like I do. I wasn’t always like that…when I was young, I wore my heart on my sleeve. After a few decades of adult life, one learns that is not a wise practice. The other extreme – encasing said heart within a thick, multi-layered stone wall is probably equally as unwise – yet another area in which I am constantly struggling to find balance. As  impenetrable as my walls may appear to be, the observant person will notice that the ‘innocents’ (children, animals, the elderly, the generally abused, helpless and downtrodden) have free access to move in and out of said walls at will. Please note, if you are ever granted access to said heart, and you VIOLATE that privilege in any way, you will be permanently expelled. When I’m done with someone emotionally, I’m done…there is no going back. I can be civil, sometimes even ‘nice’ to you, but you will never again be allowed even within shouting distance, of the deepest places. When I’m done, I’m DONE.

So this is me…the two fishes swimming in opposite directions. Sometimes, one may be swimming a bit more vigorously than the other, but more often than not, it’s a constant contest. You can never be quite sure as to which you will be dealing with – good luck with that one. The majority of my life journey has been spent desperately seeking a comfortable place of BALANCE between these 2 inherent extremes. This has proven to be an awkward undertaking unsuited for the faint of heart. Fortunately, I have a pretty STRONG heart…God KNEW someone like me would NEED said endurance to tackle these ‘blessings’ he has bestowed upon me. Perhaps the first day of a new year is as good a time as any to do an introspective evaluation of oneself – figure out who you are, as opposed to what you SHOULD be – get your bearings and figure out WHERE you are, as opposed to where you SHOULD be, or WANT to be. I’m not really sure I’ve accomplished either in this treatise (or would this be a manifesto? or is it just bullshit?), but at least I put forth the effort. And have hereby had enough COFFEE to now greet the world with at least some semblance of awareness…

(Then again, perhaps this enlightened state of AtOneness is not all it’s cracked up to be…it looks a bit SCARY TO ME…)

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CHRISTMAS SONG EVER!

One of my all-time favorite Christmas carols is O Holy Night…has been for as far back as I can remember. This song effects me like no other. Though I know all the words, I’ve NEVER been able to sing it all the way through, not even an entire stanza, because I get so choked up that I can’t make a sound…all I can produce is TEARS. For some reason, this song transports me into what feels like the very Presence of God…and I just CRUMBLE into NOTHING. Why? I think I know…

My parents said my obsession with horses began while I was still an infant. I was only a few months old when I pitched a fit to ride a mechanical horse in front of the grocery store. My dad put in his change, held me atop the ‘horsie’ and said it was almost like I went into a trance, for the duration of the ride. When the ride stopped, I began screaming again, “Horsie! HORRRRRRSIEEEEEE!” So he put me back on, I went into that ‘trance,’ and the whole process was repeated…until my dad ran out of change…the consequential separation between me and ‘horsie,’ of which led to a VERY unpleasant trip to the grocery store following. And my subsequent obsession with horses was very similar to that for the rest of my childhood. Though I’ve learned to control my emotional responses much better with age, separation from horses still causes me similar anxiety and distress.

I was 5 years old when I had my first Christmas without my dad. He was in the Air Force and was stationed in Korea for about a year and a half while my mom and I stayed home in Florida. When my dad left us, I was DEVASTATED, as he was my most FAVORITE person in the whole wide world. Christmas without him, was harder still. His Christmas present to us that year was, in part, an audio tape which he said he wanted us to keep and not play until Christmas Eve. But BEFORE I knew that there WAS a recording…

It was Christmas Eve. My favorite Aunt and Uncle (Aunt Bunch and Uncle Harry) and my grandmother had come to spend Christmas with us. Considering that this might be a difficult Christmas for me, my family determined to get me a Christmas gift that would be very special. Though I’m sure I got lots of other presents that year, the only one I remember now, was the rocking horse…my very own. His name was…what ELSE?!…TRIGGER. We set him out on the front porch with the door open, so I could ride my horse and still hear the family festivities and Christmas music from inside. (It was FLORIDA. Christmas in Orlando is like a spring day in SC.) I was HEARTBROKEN that my dad wasn’t there with us. I sat on my new horse on our front porch and rode and rode and rode in that familiar trance-like state…just feeling the rhythmic movement of my horse and listening to Christmas songs from in the house. I wanted to feel excited about Christmas, but it was so hard without my dad there. So I prayed for a Christmas miracle…that Santa would bring my dad HOME to ME for Christmas. The song, O Holy Night, was playing on a record from inside the house as I prayed that prayer. Partly because I wanted my Dad so desperately, and partly because of the sheer beauty of the song, I started sobbing quietly to myself as I bobbed up and down, back and forth, on my new equine friend. When the song ended, my uncle told me to come in the house for a few minutes…he had a very special present to share with us. I remember thinking, “if it’s not my dad, I don’t really CARE.” (I might have even said that out loud), but I dried my eyes and dismounted my horse and went inside.

We had this gigantic reel to reel tape player that belonged to my dad (he loved to fidget with electronic gadgets) and my uncle had us all sit down and he started the tape. It was my DAD. I don’t even remember much of what he said on that tape, except that he missed us more than we missed him (HOW could THAT be?!). I just remember being mesmerized and oh so comforted, by the mere sound of his voice. It was ALMOST as if God HAD heard and answered my prayer…ALMOST…and I started crying again. I cried through the whole thing. My mom was concerned about me crying and asked me afterward why I was crying. I told her that all I really wanted for Christmas was my daddy. I remember her holding me and rocking me as I cried, and assuring me that she missed him too, and that he missed us as well. But because he was in the service, he had to go to such far-away places so he could help protect our home here in America, because he not only loved his family but his country too. She assured me that God HAD answered my prayer…as best He could under the circumstances…with the blessing of being able to hear my dad’s voice on that tape. I made my mom PROMISE me he would come home when his job there was done, and she did. And we listened to the tape again. And we ALL cried.

Of course, way back then, at 5 years old, I had no concept of my MOM’S pain at being without my dad, much less whatever fears and concerns that SHE may have been quietly dealing with in her own heart (knowing full well that SOME soldiers who served in the service overseas did NOT come home). In spite of her own feelings, she did her best to comfort me and assure me that all would be well in the end. So I did understand that indeed, listening to my Dad’s voice on that tape WAS God’s answer to my prayer, and God’s way of offering me comfort, in my dad’s absence. With my mom’s and God’s assurances on that very special Christmas Eve, I was able to enjoy the remainder of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my family without sadness and fear.

That turned out to be one of the most memorable Christmases of my childhood. There would be others, for sure, but this was the FIRST…and the first time I remember having a genuine personal experience with a PERSONAL God. Now I understand as an adult, why, whenever I hear that song, the overwhelming emotion of that special Christmas Eve comes flooding back into my psyche, and I am as overwhelmed with emotion every time I hear it today, as I was that first night so many years ago.

I still often think about so many other military families who’ve had to spend Christmas without their loved ones…sadly, many of which may have lost their loved ones forever, while they served in far away lands to protect their homeland and families. I think of them every Christmas Eve, and utter prayers for them and their families, and thank God for all they do on our behalf here at home. And I thank God for having had such a wonderful dad, myself, who gave me so much throughout the course of my life. Later in my life, he went on to be a father to my fatherless daughter, who sadly, I don’t think, ever really fully appreciated the blessing she had in having my father so deeply involved in her life.

December 21 was my dad’s birthday. He would have been 93 years old. He had more impact on me than probably any other person in my life. And in that first reluctant absence from his beloved family at Christmas so long ago, the emotion stirred within me by my passionate love for him, pointed me toward the beginning of a relationship with ANOTHER very special Father…as he would many, many more times throughout my life).

So, why does the familiar Christmas carol, O Holy Night, reduce me…in a matter of mere moments…into a blubbering baby? Now you know. O Holy Night will FOREVER be the most special Christmas carol ever sung…to ME. What’s YOUR favorite Christmas song, and why?

May each and every one who reads this today (and even those who don’t!) have a very special and wonderful Christmas, in 2010.

For those who are not familiar with the title, The Screwtape Letters is a Christian apologetics novel written by C.S. Lewis, first published in 1942. The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon named Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man, known only as “the Patient.”

In the words of uncle Screwtape:
“I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme Patriot or an extreme Pacifist. All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy (God), are to be encouraged. Not always, of course, but at this period. Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep.

Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the “Cause,” in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favor of the war effort or of Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and Faith as a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful – down here. ”

Your affectionate uncle.
SCREWTAPE”

In the words of another noteworthy, famous Man comes this sage advice: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

And they marvelled at him. (Mark 12:17 ~ King James Version)

Click here to view the entire 2010 Great Pumpkin album, to be in progress until after Halloween!

Does it seem to you that time is passing by unusually slow on this blog?

Why is focus such an elusive thing to me? Why do I find it so difficult to concentrate on just one thing at a time, and finish everything that I start. It seems my whole life is just one long series of starts and stops and turns. I am so pitifully, miserably, easily distracted. I have a gluttonous mind. I get bored very easily. What I want two weeks from today may be totally opposite of what I want today. Sometimes I feel like a feather in the wind…no definitive direction, no control, no purpose. A feather’s purpose is to protect a bird from the elements and to enable flight and controlled landings. But once separated from the bird, it’s just a pretty, wispy thing floating around in the air.

I remember when I was visiting Spring Mill State Park with a friend earlier this year, at times the air was so filled with wispy, feathery white seeds that it almost looked like snow. It was almost as if the air was charged with a sort of magical quality. But though they looked like feathers, and were carried about like feathers, they weren’t really feathers, but seeds.

I hate stagnation. Give me a babbling brook or a roaring waterfall any day, over a placid lake. The glassy top of a peaceful lake is a beautiful thing to behold, I just don’t feel like I have a lot in common with it…I feel much more attuned to water that is in constant motion. FRESH water. The ocean is okay, but I need more trees and grass and hills…and LIGHT, CLEAN air. The ocean’s salt is too heavy. I’m drawn to green, misty mountains, not flat, sandy, salty beaches and expansive horizons of sameness.

I hate day in and day out SAMEness. There is a part of me I think, that actually longs for the stability of sameness, while at the same time is bored to tears with it…resulting in an almost constant state of restlessness. I’m a walking, talking in-the-flesh paradox…a constant contradiction. So much so that at times, I often find it quite difficult to live with myself.

So am I a seed or a disconnected feather? Actually, the seed is disconnected too, the major difference being that the disconnectedness of the seed has a purpose and the disconnectedness of the feather does not. I guess I’m neither a seed nor a feather…just an old lady who needs to go to bed…

It’s been one of ‘those’ weekends…I feel like crap on a stick. Still, it WAS a WEEKEND, and those are sacred under any and all circumstances.

“I always loved running… it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power.  You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.”  ~Jesse Owens

“Jogging is very beneficial.  It’s good for your legs and your feet.  It’s also very good for the ground.  It makes it feel needed.”  ~Charles Schulz, Peanuts

I don’t know what brings such things on…these weird, unpredictable, creepy moods that seem to strike from out of nowhere for no logical reason whatsoever. Yesterday wasn’t a bad day in any way, shape or form. But suddenly, around 8 or 9 pm, I was just overwhelmed with a weird, extremely discomforting restless mood.

Sometimes, I feel like a hamster in a wheel. So many things I want to see, to learn, to experience. So many things I want to be. But only one short lifetime, most of which is spent doing all the things that grownups HAVE to do and so FEW of the things I really WANT to do.

I think Randi’s right…it’s the Mercury Retrograde.

As Sunday comes to a close, I’m feeling only slightly better. Perhaps because I ate a scrumptious homemade cheeseburger for supper. I sat around like a slug a good part of the day feeling sorry for myself because I missed an invitation to go trail riding in the forest, because I have a crappy $20 phone that doesn’t work half the time. I COULD have saddled up my mares and gone trail riding by myself in the weeds near our home where I USUALLY go trail riding, but it seemed more fulfilling to just stay indoors, do laundry and feel sorry for myself. Besides, it was hot outside. I didn’t even lay in the sun. I just didn’t feel like going to the effort of laying in the water. Damn Mercury.

Atticus is most assuredly the slowest learner I’ve ever rehabilitated. He has spent a good part of the last couple of days hanging in his cage on the bird feeder station pole. Today he enjoyed the company of a large clan of young robins. I wish I could have figured out how to incorporate the assistance of the group leader in teaching Atticus to hunt worms and grasshoppers for himself. He’s finally beginning to show just a hint of hunting inclinations. Today, he actually caught and ate 3 worms all by himself! It may have been more than that. I can’t be sure if he caught and ate more or if they just made a getaway and crawled out of the cage. I removed the paper towel from the bottom of his cage and replaced it with grass, and threw the worms in the grass, along with some corn. Have I mentioned that Atticus loves grass? And apparently, the Sports page of the Herald-Journal…