SCA

The field across from the girls' school, because it's technically part of the Fairgrounds property, is often the venue for things like dog shoes and smaller circuses that come to town. But yesterday, when I was picking up R from school, and I saw the field of tents that had sprung up like some sort of slap-dash medieval village, I immediately thought, "It must be the SCA."

SCA, for those of you who don't know it, stands for "The Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc." In case you don't want to go to their web site and therefore be either completely converted and HAVE TO JOIN NOW! or be completely dismayed at how people can get TOTALLY LOST IN A FANTASY WORLD, here's the blurb about SCA from their home page:

"The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. Our "Known World" consists of 18 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world. Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which may feature tournaments, arts exhibits, classes, workshops, dancing, feasts, and more. Our "royalty" hold courts at which they recognize and honor members for their contributions to the group."

The short-hand version of this is that there are over 30,000 people in the world playing dress up who aren't afraid to admit it. These same people are also, many of them, avid history buffs and craftsmen. Some of them couldn't hold down a steady job if their lives depended on it, and others are probably doctors and lawyers and auto mechanics and physicists in their spare time. It's probably not much different from the rest of society as a whole, except for their collective capacity for make-believe.

This is another "road not taken" for me. I could be part of the West Kingdom! I could be participating in the Crown Event this weekend, a tournament to decide the next King and Queen! I'm not being sarcastic. I'm serious, here.

Does this scare you? Or, like me, are you sighing, "Ah! I too, have felt that longing to be fully part of a subculture that lets you talk funny, play a role, sleep outside, and partake of interpersonal melodramas that no one else could possibly understand?"

Yes, I'm completely generalizing and probably missing parts of the big pictures. Still, I wonder how many people work in professions with mysterious work-related vocabulary, or pretend to be what they're not in life, or go camping, or suffer from complicated flawed relationships simply because they're fulfilling the need for Drama in their lives. Ok, maybe not the camping part. But the rest? It could be SCA or it could be life. Or, for 30,000 people at least, it could be both.

A much better day

Today I felt like I was able to work through so much - not only to shake the shame and patch up things at work, even improve the situation there (with only one or two other minor flare ups) - and the rest of the taking-care-of-the-kids afternoon, evening & night has gone fairly smoothly too.

D. is at the girls' school again tonight, finishing the texture on the walls for the Kindergarten classroom's bathrooms. He's worked I don't know how many full days at the machine shop followed by hours and hours at the school, now. Poor broken man. (He also picked the wrong week to stop drinking beer.)

R turns 11 on Saturday & will have a party Sunday. On less than a week's notice, all but two or three of her classmates will be attending her party. Sure, it's a small class, but I told R that I thought that spoke of how well she is liked in the class. I didn't say, "Good for you, you're popular!" but I did point out that they're looking forward to celebrating her special day. Considering she's more than once given the exact same, "I don't have any friends at all, no one likes me," speech that I gave at her age (and maybe still give in a slightly modified form - or live trying to avoid having to give), I figured it wouldn't hurt for her to see that she's not the pariah that on bad days she feels she must be.

And because R loves her teacher ("Miss J"), she invited her as well. And just to encourage the instructress to join in the festivities, R apparently told her, "Miss J, If you don't come to my party, I won't pay attention in class."

As you can imagine, when I heard this story from R (later corroborated by Miss J), startling visions of R's entire future academic career (or lack thereof) flashed before my eyes.

But the flip side is that she not only threatened her teacher, she also bribed her. "Don't worry, Mom," I was told, "I also said, 'If you do go to my party, I'll give you a shoulder massage.'"

So she's got that going for her.

For shame...

Shame defined by Dictionary.com:

A painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace.
Capacity for such a feeling: Have you no shame?
One that brings dishonor, disgrace, or condemnation.
A condition of disgrace or dishonor; ignominy.
A great disappointment.

Even though a few of my co-workers have once or twice read SetDownThis, I'm going to throw caution to the nor' easterly and mention something happened at work today that's had more of an impact on me than I want it to. In a day already peppered with challenges (good for personal growth, sure), I completely inadvertently made a co-worker feel betrayed and put on the spot and accused of something he didn't do. And he took great umbrage to it.

Usually, when someone tells me directly, "I'm really angry," I don't expect him or her to mean, "I'm really angry at you." I think he eventually understood that my comment (a note in a service record) was never meant to cause problems, but he was thorough in expressing his feelings of betrayal.

I can understand where he is coming from, and on the surface of it, there was nothing wrong with what he was saying. In fact, it can be a refreshing change when someone tells you how they feel immediately, rather than complaining behind your back or harboring smoldering resentment or (my own undesirable gig) doing the passive aggressive thing. But even though I never meant any harm, and even though I apologized for my part of the misunderstanding, and even though I now know how to avoid such error in the future with him, I'm still feeling such a sense of *shame*. Unwarranted, unwelcome, and certainly unnecessary. All I can surmise is that it's leftover from some other time - times - in my past when I was made to feel, or allowed myself to feel, that I had let someone down. Had terribly, horribly, acted to reveal them in a position of culpability - false or true, deserved or not. What a worthless emotion shame is! And what purpose does it serve here, except to widen the already significantly yawning pit between my inaccurate, defeating self-image and my truer (dare I say "worthier") self?

Stoopid shame. Ptooey!! This is me spitting it out. Guilt? Not so bad a thing.

Dictionary.com suggests:
Remorseful awareness of having done something wrong.
Self-reproach for supposed inadequacy or wrongdoing.

Okay, give me guilt over shame, then. I think guilt is better, insofar as it can lead to self-reflection, correction, compassion and change. But shame? Blech! Ptooey!!

Sorry if I got your monitor wet.

Warm buzz

I don't mind telling you that this yoga thing is addictive.
I'm so spaced-out sleepy and peaceful after class, I probably am not safe to drive home. I can imagine nothing better than going straight from an hour of conscious breathing, stretching, grounding, centering to sleep. Sleep! Before my mind kicks in and tells me everything that's "wrong" or that I didn't "fix" today. Off to that place where we are completely vulnerable but should be completely free.

All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.
Change it to the present tense, and that's Julian of Norwich + Ekhart Tolle, thank you very much. Works for me.

Monterey

We're members of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and yet we didn't go there at all last year, and didn't make it this year until now. But as though to make up for lost time, we spent all of Sunday taking in as much marine life as we could stand before having a giggly dinner at the surreal Monterey Carrows and heading home.


Actually, R and I snuck away for a bit in the early afternoon, so she could get her feet (read: legs) wet in the Pacific and hunt for seashells. I'd also enjoyed a morning jog down along the beach and to the wharf while the family slept in. It somehow felt exotic to run to the sound of seals barking about their breakfast.

Back Chez Nous & Archive Meme

We just pulled into the driveway about 20 minutes ago, and even though I slept practically the whole way home, I'm not up to staying up to detail the weekend or otherwise write a meaningful blog. Pictures and something of more substance tomorrow, then!

But Wait! There is more tonight, thanks to Julia tagging me with this Meme:

1. Go into your archive.

2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).

3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).

4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.


Here's what I got:

"You don’t have to tell me they were taller once."

This makes little sense out of context, even if I tell you it's a line from a poem. But there it is. Maybe it's a suggestion from the universe that I work on that rewrite, though. Hmmm.

Monterey Bound

We're off for a very short stay in Monterey, and I don't know that I'll have internet access while there, so am posting this brief mid-day post now.

It's beautiful outside, and we're all so looking forward to the getaway. I hope everyone else is also having a very, very pleasant weekend.

Sept. 23, 2005

This title is what happens to you when you run out of titles. The date. This date in history.

I watched Donnie Darko tonight. While alone. At night. After a glass of wine (which always makes me paranoid). After telling myself I wouldn't. And the dog isn't even here (at the kennel while we head out of town for a day).

The film is...unsettling. But also it's a film that makes you think. Mostly, it makes you think that you'd better not watch that kind of thing alone at night after a glass of wine.

But I'm ok now, thanks to the Bach I listened to to take off the edge.

Warning: political in nature

I try to stay away from politics in this blog, if only because I know that the four or so people who might read it have a wide range of political leanings, and I'm not interested in ruffling feathers.

For those of you who have not figured it out yet through knowing me, reading this, or other inference, I did not vote for George Bush. Either time. I respect the office of the President, and I am trying to teach my children to respect our country's leaders. Also, I would like to believe that Mr. Bush sincerely thinks he is doing what is best for this country.

However.

I am angry and bitter and ashamed about where he has lead the U.S., and I do not hold him in high regard. To say the least. He is not invited to Thanksgiving at our house. And I will not be sending him a Christmas card. Praying for him, yes. Sending him a Christmas card, no.

I just got an email that began "Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington" and linked to this article from The Nation. Keep in mind that I don't read The Nation, and don't even know where in the Moveon.org<-->American Enterprise Institute spectrum it falls. However, if I were First Lady Bush, I'd be feeling the sting of Ms. Old's open letter. Especially the last four paragraphs.

Happy First Day of Autumn, Washington D.C. and everyone else.

Giving Blood

Just one of the things I did today was give blood. I imagined myself writing a list of the many other things I did today, but then wondered why? To record only? So that when I read this later I can look back with admiration or regret, pride or dismay? To impress or depress other people?

Let's just say that it's the close of the day, and now:
the girls are asleep, both having had a good solid evening cry for different reasons
D is in the garage, building walls for the Kindergarten bathroom
My left arm is bandaged with a green bandage
the dog is sleeping off vaccines

All is as right with the world as I can, at the moment, make it.

Second Yoga Class and Marine Animals

Just home from the second yoga class. I don't think I was snoring during the last pose ("corpse"), but it's hard to say. Ian said he thinks there was someone snoring, but on the other side of the room from where I was.






So I understand that a giant leatherback turtle was just sighted off the coast of Wales. Very cool - but what's even cooler & more critical is the story I'd missed from last month. Apparently mid-August, a super-pod of dolphins was seen off the coast of Wales. Not a dozen dolphins, not a hundred dolphins, but something like two thousand dolphins, including mothers nursing calves, all headed out somewhere together. I'm not sure whether to be flip and say they're probably saying "So long and thanks for all the fish," or to seriously wonder if they know something we don't. Hmmm...

Itty Bitty Kitty has a home

Hmmm...sounds a bit like "fuzzy wuzzy was a bear"

It could be:

Itty Bitty is a cat
Itty bitty is quite fat
Itty bitty itn't very bitty, itty?

but the kitten we took to her new family today is not fat - although she is faring much better than when we first brought her home. She's probably gained several ounces. And when you weigh 1.3 lbs, every ounce counts.

If we lived in Canada, it might go:

Strayeh had a chez
Strayeh had a place to stay
Strayeh wasn't very stray, eh?

You can all stop groaning and go about your regular business now. This was all I was good for tonight.

Petaluma Poetry Walk

Here's to the 10th year of the Petaluma Poetry Walk!

It only took me 7 or so of those years to get someone to join me on the trip. The PWG (Petaluma Writers Group) gals and I saw a few of the poets:
Maria M. Benet, Claudia Chapline, Gerald Fleming, Dorianne Laux, Sharon Doubiago, and Maria Mazziotti Gillan. We took a break while Diana di Prima and Geri Digiorno, Sonoma County's new Poet Laureate, read. Then the other gals called it a day, but I went home very briefly, said hello to my mother-in-law who was visiting, and turned around and went back out to hear David Bromige and Kate Braverman at Copperfields. (As much as I might honor my mother-in-law's ability to hold forth for extended periods of time, these particular poets were more inspiring.)

Also a treat today was getting a ride from one venue to another in a poet acquaintances' KMZ sidecar, a 1980's Kiev Motor Works vehicle. And yes, it was as fun as it looks.

So now? Now it's nearly 10:30 and I have a mountain of clean laundry on the bed to fold (or, more likely, shift), and a barely-written ghost story with the prospect of little free time tomorrow to write further. Ah well. These things happen, don't they? Yes, they do.

The Neighbors Leave

Our next door neighbors are moving. I pulled up to the driveway today and the moving van was finally there.

They put their house on the market about a month ago, around the same time that they bought the new place. They’ve been working on changing a few things in the new home, such as pulling out all carpeting and installing hard wood floors to help them in their battle against some fairly significant allergies. These changes have taken time, so as weekend after weekend went by and I saw no evidence of packing or pickups, I’d been able to fool myself into thinking that they weren’t really leaving. And so seeing that moving van today, and seeing all their friends and family like worker ants carrying things out of their house hit me really hard. Harder than I thought it would.

In particular, I’ll miss my friend Mary. Mary’s been a good sounding board, someone with whom I can talk about science or religion or politics, someone with whom I can laugh at the struggles inherent in being a mother while trying to be an independent adult as well. She has three children 6 and under. She has a PhD in molecular biology that she finished while she was pregnant with her oldest child. She’s active, fit, slender, and good-natured. And a month ago, just as she & her husband were signing papers for their new house, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

It happened fast. Within a week, she went from having a cyst removed & checked (it was benign) and having a mammogram done, to surgery because of something the mammogram picked up, to the surgeon testing tissue during the procedure and then performing a mastectomy. She has started chemotherapy, and her mother is staying to help her, but she’s going to be fine. She’ll survive this.

What’s amazes me is not just the speed of the diagnosis and sudden thoroughness of the surgery—she said she was not going to mess around, she wanted to take care of it completely—what really amazes me is that it’s really the mammogram that her doctor recommended that has saved her life. Neither she nor her doctor would have found this cancer otherwise. Apparently, the first thing the surgeon did after surgery was ask Mary’s husband for her doctor’s name and call the doctor to say, “Hey, this? This was a good catch. A good one.”

Tomorrow is Mary’s birthday. She’ll be forty.

Next month, I’ve got an appointment for my bi-annual checkup – and even though I’m too young for them to “require” it, I’ll be getting a mammogram. Just, well, you know. Because.

The lights are off in Mary’s house and I think they’re all spending the first night in the new place, a couple of miles away: Mary, her husband, her three children, and her mother. I know I'll still be seeing them around, and we'll probably arrange playdates--and Mary knows that I want to help while she's recovering from treatments, in whatever way I can--but I'll miss having them as neighbors. I hope they’re all sleeping well.

Resolve

Happy Birthday D!!!

If he had a web site, I'd send you there to see it. But he does not.

Okay, I do recall having said that posting this late at night doesn't work for me.
Here's a note for myself for future reference:

POSTING THIS LATE AT NIGHT doesn't do anyone any good.

For example, I have typed the above sentences about 4 times. I keep falling asleep mid-word & typing nonsense each time. I am not making this up. I can't type more than 3 words without literally falling asleep with my fingers poised over the keyboard.

So that's all for tonight.

Thursday as Friday

Since I have tomorrow off, I'm up late. D & I watched I Heart Hucklebees (an existential comedy). A good flick if you're philosophically minded and can stand some irreverence.

That's all. Except to say that the kitten *may* have a home by Monday. We hope.

Calm, calm

Tonight, I went to a lecture at the girls' school about values, Waldorf education in general and our charter school in particular. The speaker is both experienced and insightful, and I've learned a lot from hearing her in the past. She talked about how telling a story in a CALM, SOOTHING way is so much better for small kids than teling it with wild hand gestures and over-the-top yelling or whining. She talked about how there is a link between memory ability in children and limiting media exposure, having good nutrition, and getting lots of sleep. I'll write more about it tomorrow - including the hipocampus stuff! If I remember to. If I get enough sleep.

Kitty is still here, but still only as a foster child, and we're just trying to find a good home for him. Apparently, it's the tail end of kitten season and all the shelters are either full up or have outbreaks of one disease or another. I spoke to one woman on a farm (our best lead so far) who said that she's been helping with strays for 50 years (she started bottle feeding kittens when she was four)and is a third generation animal advocate, and this has been the worst year for deaths from upper respiratory illnesses that she's seen. Swell.

We'll take the kitten to the vet tomorrow, I guess. I'd avoided it because I'd been told by one friend that shelters sometimes cover those expenses. And he's been eating and drinking fine and doesn't act sick. But at this point, since a private "adoption" is looking more likely than a shelter, but isn't in the immediate future, we need to get him officially checked out. The farmer might take him Monday if he is well enough according to the vet.

For those of you who are concerned, we have kept him quarantined in one part of one room away from other pets and have been washing hands thoroughly after every time we handle him. Just in case.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLARE! I think everyone should visit her blog and wish her a happy birthday.

First night of yoga

Those of you who do not live in California can go ahead and chuckle as I live out the Left Coast stereotype and take a yoga class. I expect, however, that this is going to do me a world of good. Especially since I'm so unaware of my body and my breathing most of the time - too much in my HEAD, too much thinking, figuring, fretting and second guessing. (Take the first sentence of this blog as an example.)

The kitty still does not have a home. But there are a half dozen new shelter names I've been given in the Bay Area, so I can try those. In the meantime, we're all just enjoying his company without becoming *too* attached to him. As a consolation prize (diversion), the girls are switching rooms in the next few days.

And this just in...

For those of you who have been to Wales and are desperately missing the air there, try this. That's right, Wales in a bottle. A breath of air from Cymru proper, sealed for your convenience. The site says you can even specially request the Welsh smell/air that you want to purchase. What will they think of next?!

Finding a Home

Itty-bitty kitty, the kitten that R has dubbed "Yoda" because of its large ears and the shape of its eyes, does not yet have a home. But we're working every angle we can, from vets to shelters to foster homes and rescue programs, and something should pan out by this time tomorrow, I hope. Here's what s/he looks like, for the record.


What's not to love? Unless, like us, "love" is not the issue, but having reached our maximum-amount-of-pets-deemed-reasonable is.

Come on...don't you want a kitten?

Home from Camping

It was a great camping trip - possibly the best I've ever been on, and certainly the best that the girls have experienced. This was in spite of (not because of) the fact that D stayed home. He says he'll join us for the next one, and that's good enough for me.



More details tomorrow, including The Kitten's Tale, or How Bringing Home a Stray is Not Always the Best Idea, Even if it is Deemed Necessary.
PS - Does anyone reading this want a 3-to-4 week old cat?

Pre-emptive Post

Here it is again, folks. Tomorrow’s news, today.

Because we’ll be in the great off-line outdoors all day tomorrow, I won’t be able to blog tomorrow.

Let’s just say we’re having a great time, camping. The weather isn’t as cold as I’d been afraid it would be. The girls are having a blast. Everyone we’re meeting is soooo nice.

And I’m terribly inspired to write and write. The poems are just coming out of my ears.

Yeah.

Let’s just say that.

Making Each Day Count

Yesterday's blog post started out with a title like this one (or maybe it was this one, I just deleted it and am not too worried about figuring it out).

This is because yesterday I was going to write about the "gymnastics mom" who underwent chemotherapy in the Spring for breast cancer. And my neighbor, who is about to undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer. And D's friend Jane, who died after a long denial followed by a bitter fight with cancer a few years ago.

But then I realized I wasn't going to be able to do justice as a witness late last night. I need time to compose what I want to say.

This weekend, we're off camping, and I'm bringing paper and the hope that I can think things through, write things through, make the days count, and come back with something worth setting down here.

Sometimes We don't want to Jump on the Trampoline

(post renamed 9/9/05)

Today S fell apart into little sniffly crocodile tear pieces when it was time to join her gymnastics class, and no amount of tender loving persuasion, firm parenting, positive discipline, bribes or threats could entice her to either explain what was wrong, or join the group--even late, even with me walking her to the floor and sitting with her while the instructor and other kids encouraged her to play with them. Of course I didn't really bribe or threaten her. Don't be silly. I wanted to. But I resisted.

No, the closest I came to poor parental choices, once I gently, lovingly took her away from the building, was that I refused to let her listen to The Vile Village CD in the car because she (and R & I) are enjoying it so much, it felt like it would be rewarding her behavior. Not that her behavior was bad - no, of course it wasn't. Did I say it was bad? No. Rationally, I can see that she was just tired, and/or feeling overwhelmed by the large group of mostly older kids, and/or upset that her favorite teacher didn't happen to be there today. But I was also, myself (around whom my world turns) feeling frustrated and embarrassed and like an utter failure as a human being for not being able to coerce her into acting like a cheerful little group participant. That's all. No baggage, here. Maybe the teeniest overnight bag of spite, but no real
Samsonite.

Besides, after about two minutes, I turned on the CD.

But only once I had a better understanding of why she wouldn't go to class, and had her reassurance that if I let her (read: me) listen to the completely delightful Tim Curry narrated Limony Snicket book, she would not make her six-year-old face dissolve into a dramatic Mask of Tragedy next week just so she could skip gymnastics (which I have PAID FOR) to listen to more of the recording.

Someone else's poem

Today, another poem. Someone else's. I've floundered for something of my own to write, here, but find nothing nada zip zero goose egg. (And it took 1.5 hrs to post *this*, thanks to lack of inspiration and flakey DSL connections. Grr. Grrr grrr grrr.)


You can read more about Jane Hirshfield here, or check out this interview.

Optimism

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.

-Jane Hirshfield

Making ratatouille

I had some solid ideas for a story I'm writing while making ratatouille this evening. The kids (mine and 3 others that had wandered into our house) were playing in the next room while listening to a book on CD. It was a picture of domestic bliss to an casual observer, but those with keen eyes would recognize that an Artist was at work at the same time.

Ha!

(And I am NOT talking about my cooking. Anyone who has ever had my cooking knows I'm not.)

I figure if I can master this art of chopping onions or eggplant while plotting a story or coming up with a good line for a poem, my work as a writer will have a strong backing.

And as an added bonus, my family will eat a lot more vegetables.

End of the long weekend

It's sad enough when Sunday night rolls around, but holiday night blues can be even worse.

D was at his gaming friend's house, because it's Monday.

The girls are sacked out, after a day spent cleaning (mostly R's room), playing and riding bikes to the local pizza place for dinner and then home again (they rode, I walked).

D's mother dropped by mid-afternoon, and the girls and I stopped our work for a couple of hours while she sat at the table and drank green tea and told me stories, and while I reminded myself that there is a reason for everything, even (maybe especially) those things which frustrate me.

She also gave me a wonderful birthday gift. She was raised in France by a Corsican mother and a Russian father. Every year for her birthday, her father (who had been in the Czar's cavalry) would give her a gold French coin which had been made into a pendant. Today she gave me on of the oldest ones she had, from 1862. It's beautiful, and I feel so honored that she would pass it on to me. Since D's sister and his mother have been estranged for something like 17 years, I may be the closest thing to a daughter she has now, and maybe that has something to do with it.

At any rate, I'm grateful for the gift, and for the gift of time that this whole 3-day weekend has been.

Currently listening to

A while back, before I went out and saw Patty Griffins with Dar Williams, Mary Chafin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin, I decided to buy a CD or two so I could be more "informed" at the show.

Unfortunately, I went out without a list of all their names & by mistake, instead of getting myself a Patty Griffin CD, got Nanci Griffith, Other Voices, Other Rooms.

It was a fortuitous mistake. I'd never heard of her, but the album includes covers of songs by Kate Wolf, Vince Bell, Townes Van Zandt, Frank Christian, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Ralph McTell, Tom Paxton, Woody Guthrie, Janis Ian, Jon Vezner, Buddy Mondlock, Gordon Lightfoot, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Harry Belafonte, among others. It's about the writing. And it's all excellent.

Paperwork

Cutting losses, letting go. I fed to the shredder a stack of rejection letters for poems from 1989-1997 a couple of days ago. After logging when they'd been sent, to whom they'd been sent, what the response had been, etc. Other writers might have had a bonfire and called it done, but I had to record, archive, make one more note before disposing of the artifacts themselves. Typical. I seem to let go in stages. Unlike D, who I've watched cold turkey it with cigarettes, motorcycles, scraps of plastic, and even (upon occasion) people.

Tonight, he and I are cleaning up the garage, closets. We're reveling in tidying up the chaos. It's a Virgo thing.

About two hours ago, I found a box of some cards & letters I'd kept for years. I mean, these things (just a small percentage of my excess paperwork) dated as far back as 1979 or so. Many of them seem to have been important to me to keep because they reminded me of missed potential, of things I should have done, connections I should have made. It's like a friggin' Box Of Guilt, for goodness' sake. Very healthy. Cards and letters from people saying wildly generous, loving, kind, flattering things about me and how important my friendship is to them, and I hardly remember caring about them at all. I must have done a good job *acting* like a good friend for these people without ever *feeling* like one.

I've gone through much of my life careful not to establish any real emotional connection with anyone, for fear that it would either bite me in the end, or cause grief to those around me, who as a result of my happy relationship missed out on some connection of their own. It's a long story, but at least I'm aware of it now. As are you, whether you wanted to be or not.

So I'm getting rid of much (but not all) of the correspondence in this particular box. Rest assured that if you're reading this, I didn't throw away your letters. I did, however toss cards I got for my 16th birthday, congratulations on my college graduation from friends of my grandmother. There are even love letters I'd forgotten I'd received from someone I spoke to maybe twice, in 1987. I don't even remember how I met him or where, (I hardly remembered his name), but apparently, our meeting prompted long emotional missives stating that he hoped I'd always be part of his life, even if as only a friend.

How soon they forget.

I mean, apparently, I also had a pen-pal in Goteborg, Sweden. Do I remember this? Not in the slightest. Yet, I have these letters here, in slightly amusing English. She wrote me at least three times, thanking me for my letters and answering questions I'd apparently asked. This was in 1979. I mean, I have never done drugs, but even if I did, I should have still had a pretty sharp mind in 1979, don't you think?

So what else have I forgotten? I used to be able to label the parts of the heart. I'm sure of that. And I think I used to be able to write pi to the 4th or 5th place. But the tricky thing about this sort of memory loss is that you can't be at all sure of what's missing. It's not like there's a blank place in my brain the shape of Annelie Olsson in Goteborg. What else is gone? Have I ever spoken formally at the White House? Was I, in fact, once an exotic dancer in Newark, NJ? I don't think so, but you can't be too sure. Maybe I did once complete a paint-by-number picture of Citation the racehorse. Perhaps I have driven a Peterbilt truck and just don't recall.

Maybe these things are only temporarily gone, though. Maybe they're what I will re-live during the long solitary confinement hours of my prison stay (when I'm convicted for crimes I've forgotten I committed). Or maybe they'll be the stories I tell my great-grandchildren when they visit me in the Home.

For all the things I once knew and have forgotten, though, there are some things that I never learned at all until now. Those are the lessons I hope stick.

What Will the Neighbors Say?

How does our country's poor response to our own disaster look to the rest of the world? I've actually been avoiding reading the international press coverage of Katrina. I'd hate to think of how amused by this Osama bin Laden must be. My only hope is that the current administration is learning something from all this.

Actually, right now I'm so angry at the President, I can't even write about it. I suspect a lot of that is me wanting to blame someone and him being an easy target for my frustration. I don't anger easily. And usually, I don't stay angry more than a few minutes, at the very most. But what I'm feeling now is a low-level smoldering ire that isn't doing anyone - me or Katrina's victims or the rest of the US - any good.

This weekend, D and I are going to go over our own home's emergency supplies to make sure they're adequate. We're going to do fire and earthquake drills with the girls. We're going to donate to the relief fund.

And I'll continue to pray for the victims of the hurricane: those affected directly, and the rest of us. Because none of us are free of the consequences.

But more importantly

As Julia reminds, me, those of us not in Louisiana or Missouri or Iraq, or Beslan or Kashmir or Gaza - those of us who just by quirky circumstance are, at the moment, safe - must not be immune to empathy, or succumb either to taking for granted the temporarily good conditions of our lives, or to letting petty annoyances become more significant than the true losses that are being suffered.

I pray that I don't find myself thinking that compassion is just too inconvenient, something better left by the wayside than carried on the journey.

Compassion is the journey.

Crabby

Whose idea was it to blog every day, again?
The same genius who agreed to work 5am-1pm, I guess.
Grrrrr.
I do like sleep so very much. And judging by my mood, I need to get a bit more of it.
Nightly.
Like, bedtime at 8:30 instead of 9:30, probably.
For a start.

I can be taught.
No.
Really.
I can.
Stop laughing.