Tag Archives: emotions

I was just on the verge …

of a meltdown.

I had already picked out the breakable missile to be thrown at, well, something breakable.

My inner voice was saying, rather loudly, that there was nothing to break that could be salvaged and that I should put down the weapon.

I’m not certain when my inner voice became a hostage negotiator, but she has, and with obvious authority, decided that she’s the boss of me.

My meltdown voice, not to be silenced by a newbie, was saying “I don’t care, something has to give.”

Then the inner voice then said, in a still, soft tone, “who are you mad at and why do you want to break things?”

I replied, in my loud, hateful voice,” what do you care?  Leave me alone”.

That soft voice spoke again and said, simply, “Why do you work so hard to destroy yourself?”

It stopped me in my tracks.

I realized at that moment that I was mad at someone.

I was furious that I was, once again, left feeling like I had done something wrong.

I was angry that I felt alone, insecure and abandoned by someone who would, if the world turned on its axis as it is supposed to, mean nothing to me.

I realized that I was disappointed in myself for being gullible, fallible, ignorant and needy and yes, I was intent on destroying myself because of it.

I was angry that I could put so much of my self-worth into someone  that found no worth in a friendship I was  willing to give.

I was angry because I felt I needed someone to find worth in me.

I was angry because, for a span of time, I could find no worth in myself.

That newbie voice just kept on jabbering until I was forced to either listen or throw myself into an active volcano.

Since burning every inch of skin off of my body was the lesser of the choices, I decided to stop being a self-centered, belligerent jerk and listen.

So I listened and in doing so, decided that the newbie voice was likely getting some coaching from a veteran.

I’m worthy without validation, for many reasons, the least not being that I am a child of Christ.

When I went down the reasons that I should feel OK about myself, that one reason, the most important one, didn’t immediately enter my mind.

Yes, there are people I want to like me.

They chip away at my self-esteem and make me feel that I will be less of a person if they don’t interact with me.

They, at some point, gained control over my self worth and whittled it down to next to nothing,

But if they don’t see it, my world will unfold just as it would have anyway.

There came the WOW moment that made me think twice about where I was, where I’d come from and to where I was going.

I found myself very disappointed in myself because I had, yet again, lost my way.

But, if the voice is accurate, which at this point, I’ve no reason to suspect otherwise, the way will be made clear if I stop feeling sorry for myself and ask for directions.

Yes,  folks have hurt me more than I ever knew I could be hurt, on a level that I didn’t even realize existed.

But they can continue to hurt me only if I continue to let them … if I give them the power to make me feel inadequate, insecure and unworthy.

There is only one person who dictates my worth and HE has found me worthy.

I question that.

Daily.

Hourly.

But HE is in a position of omnipotent power and if HE says HE likes being around me, then everything and everyone I have felt inferior to become irrelevant in my world.

I’ve cried way more tears over things I can’t change than over the blessings I had before I tried to change anything.

My meltdown lost merit after that.

I didn’t feel the need to shatter physical things.

Instead, I felt the desire to lift myself higher than I had deemed myself worthy to be because ONE well more worthy than myself found me worthy.

I felt compelled to love and to pray for the ones who challenged my worth.

I am thankful for a Saviour who sees the weapon in my hand and understands that I really want to throw it; who sees my tears and feels my pain, who knows my broken heart and comes running.

I have been looking in the wrong place for a long time.

It doesn’t mean that I won’t want to throw things again, as that is part of the imaginative nature I have been given; but I won’t want to throw them in hurtful indignation.

I will throw them simply for the fun of it.

And then I can sing joyously while I dance in the rain because I am worthy of the raindrops from Heaven.

Life isn’t easy, it’s not a cake-walk or a bed of roses, at least not all the time.

At other times, it is rainbows, daisies, trees in winter and fairies in springtime.

It is, essentially, what it is, and I’m worthy, so says my Lord, to enjoy the best and endure the worst and still be who I was destined to me.

Myself.

In His image and under the magnificent umbrella of His faith in me.

I am, in this moment, OK with that.

http://www.gcuniverse.com/throughtheeyesofthespirit

 

Vacation is over …

and tomorrow, it is back to business as usual.

The Outer Banks is a fond memory, both recent and distant.

It seems that, while I know I was there, I wasn’t there at all.

A week isn’t enough time to find everything I left there the year before, or the year before that or the one before that.

I feel, while I am there, as though I am as much a part of that world as the marshes and gnarled, wind-withered trees.

Yet now that I am back in the world I know, I wonder if I were ever there at all.

Will it remember me?

The sea, the sand, the wind, the beauty, the essence?

Will it long for me as I do for it?

I think not.

I am an outsider, a passerby, an intruder.

I am a stranger.

It doesn’t make it any less compelling or beautiful.

It simply makes me sad to know that there was nothing of myself I could leave behind to remind that place who I am so it will recognize me when I return.

 

Sunrise in an orange sky

Sunrise in an orange sky

Sun melting into the Sound

Sun melting into the Sound

Sunset fisherman

Sunset fisherman

Currituck light

Currituck light

Bridge at Whalehead, near Currituck light

Bridge at Whalehead, near Currituck light

Tears …

have their place.

For the most part, they are useless and do little more than induce a headache.  They can quickly escalate from simple tears to uncontrollable sobbing.

While sobbing uncontrollably  can be purging and purifying, it is one of those things that lands you in the back of a police car in the wee hours of the morning for a personal escort to the nuthouse.

I’m not guessing here, I’m telling it straight.

Tears sometimes come unbidden, unexpected and inexplicable.

No reason.

No provocation.

They come as they like because tears have that kind of power.

The power to overwhelm, discombobulate and wreak havok.   They lie and pretend and make merry of themselves without any indication to their derivation.

I have plenty of things I could, were I so inclined, to cry over, but I choose not to because crying doesn’t change anything.    And yet tonight, I find tears that I cannot define and have no understanding of running down my face.

I cry over many things, that is true, and sometimes, I cry just to be crying.  But I know when I’m crying that it is for a specific reason or, as is sometimes the case, just to be crying.

I am not, as I am tonight, stymied by the origin of the tears or their purpose.

So I came up with the only explanation I could think of …

these tears aren’t mine.

I don’t know who they belong to, but I am rejecting ownership.

I cry when I need to cry; when the wind is right, when the clouds are perfect, when lightning finds its way into the lens of my camera, when someone close to me is gone, when my friends are hurting, when I miss someone, when I realize that I am an idiot, when leaves change in Autumn, when I’m mad (mad tears being the ones that get everyone in trouble), when I’m happy … well, this could go on for days, so lets just say, I know when I cry even if I don’t know precisely why I cry.

I’m not the one crying.

Not this time.

These are not my tears, but because someone is crying them, I will endure them for their sake and hope that the morning brings them solace.

I like to imagine that I live in a world where the few people close to me  know me unconditionally.  I realize that while they  know me, they, in every likelihood, will never really understand me.

That is a constant that I have learned to live with over the years.

I can’t keep up with my own madness so how, pray tell, could anyone else.

There is no fault, no blame, no accusations.

Just the smack in the face of reality and reality, make no mistake, can pack a serious punch.

My drummer plays a tune that is out of sync with the real world.  That’s how it is and I live with it.

But … since these are not my tears, I simply say wth, wipe them away and move on.

Or try to.

They are persistent, these tears that are not my own.

I have a life to live, photographs to take, places to see, dreams to dream, music to learn, piano to play and I don’t have time to play emotional games with players that apparently, since they can sic their tears on me, outrank me by a considerable margin.

It would be more conducive to rational behavior were the tear-sharer to make themselves known to me.

If I sound nuts, then all is right with the world at this moment, because I am, even on a good day, teetering precariously on that fine line between reality and insanity.

I don’t deny that.

But dammit, I know when I’m crying tears that belong to me.

I am what you see, what you see is what you get, what you get is what you see and there aren’t any games.

So … somebody claim these damn tears and face your own demons because my schedule is already full.

my depiction of an eye ... a pencil sketch.

my depiction of an eye … a pencil sketch.

I had every intention …

of blogging about driving around today with the convertible top down, the music loud and the wind in my face; of blooming trees and budding flowers, puffy clouds in a blue, sun-drenched sky and the perfectness of a warm April day.

But I just hung up the phone after talking to my mom and the things I previously held up in importance faded into the background.

She is a rock, a beacon, a lighthouse, a safe haven.

She knows everything about me, the things that shamed me and, at one time or another, shamed her.

In my youth, I hurt her deeply and couldn’t find within myself the knowledge or ability to make it right.

She knows of my dreams and aspirations and is always the first one to encourage me even as she puts her own dreams and aspirations on hold.

It isn’t easy to explain to someone that thoughts, images, words, experiences, memories and a myriad of other flotsam runs through my head, in a constant stream, even when I’m sleeping.

And that is when I am at my baseline and not in manic mode.

She takes it in stride without judgement or condemnation and, I have come to realize, did so even when I felt I was being judged and condemned.

Nobody can condemn me any more than I condemn myself.  It is the nature of my world and I live with it.

She knows, though, simply by looking at my face or hearing my voice ,when I am in the throes of mania or, thankfully more rarely, the despondency of a depressive crash.

She understands that sometimes, I have to go away; from her, from myself, from everyone and just be dormant.

She knows these things and doesn’t hold them against me.

There is no “well, you did this or that or the other thing”.

She isn’t like that.

She is patient and kind.

She is, without doubt, the Proverbs 31 woman.

I would like to be like her, but that is an aspiration that will never come.  It isn’t that my cup is half empty, but that I live, as much as I can, in a reality-based existence.

She is a light in a dark place and I migrate to her when I need simply to know that someone loves me unconditionally.

I tell her I love her, but how do you describe to someone that  you cannot imagine a life without them.

Unless I die first by some freak event, by the natural order of things, I will lose her at some point in my life.

I cannot imagine a world without my mom.

So I will put that with other things I cannot imagine into a box that lives in the outer-regions of my heart.

When I am manic, the box will break open and I will have to face the possibility, but for now, when I am am simply on overdrive, it is secure in the  little locked box.

She inspires me with her acceptance and encouragement and that, without doubt or reservation, beats blooming trees in springtime seen from a back road drive with the convertible top down.

I love you, Mom .

A houseguest

 

My Mother's Mother's bleeding hearts

My Mother’s Mother’s bleeding hearts

 

This is how she makes me feel ... cherished

This is how she makes me feel … cherished

All of that being said about my mom, I want to extrapolate to another area and  extend prayers and encouragement to a friend that I have long lost touch with.  She lost her son, the light of her world and is now lying among the shattered pieces of her world.  Keep Pam Begley in your prayers when you pray.  I cannot fathom losing a child.

 

Life is precious …

although sometimes, until it is compromised, we can forget that simple fact and take for granted that we will just wake up every morning.

We forget that no-one is promised another day, another hour, another minute.

I did.

Took it for granted, that is.

I set my alarm each night in a way that is likely odd to most.  I set it for 1:00 am, then hit the three hour snooze which takes me to 4:00 am, then hit the preset alarm for 5:15.  And when it goes off that last time, I spring up and begin my routine which is exactly the same every morning.

No deviation.

Ever.

This past Friday, I followed the same pattern.  I woke up, started the coffee, brushed my teeth, drank half my coffee and took the rest into a scalding hot shower for 20 minutes, started my car (it’s pitch dark here at that hour, so clothes are optional), fed the cat, dressed and went to work.

I arrived without incident, but while walking into the building, I passed out.

A friend I walk into work with most mornings was with me and kept me from busting my head on the concrete, for which I am grateful, and got me to the ER.

I was found to be profoundly anemic and the plans to administer a transfusion were quickly underway.

But in the meantime, life interfered.

My heart stopped.

I don’t recollect that as it was for less than two minutes before the adept ER staff had me back up and running, but it doesn’t change the fact that, for a period of 96 seconds, my heart did not beat.

I left that part out when I told my family about my transfusion because, well, I suppose I don’t have a good reason except that they would have made a big deal about it and worried unnecessarily about the whole thing.

I didn’t see any lights or hear voices nor did I venture into the afterlife.

I have no stories to tell or visions to embellish.

What I do know is that each moment, even the boring and insubstantial ones, carry some importance.

I could have simply slipped away.  That would have been ok as I know who I am, to whom I belong and where I well be when my time is up.

I’m thankful, however, that I have more time to love those who touch my heart, to offer encouragement and to continue to walk the path I have been given.

I am, yet again, blessed … and I am thankful.

Each moment unfolds when it is meant ...

Each moment unfolds when it is meant …

There is nothing like a meltdown …

to put things in perspective.

And I had one.

A good, old-fashioned meltdown complete with crying, sobbing, pacing, stomping, ranting, raving and, to make it an official meltdown not just just a casual break in stride, ended with the impressive sound of breaking glass.

What is it about breaking things that culminates  the entire process to tie it all nicely into a neat little package that leads, oddly enough, to the return of sanity.

I didn’t actually intend, when the meltdown started, to break anything, but throwing that heavy candle-holder dead on into my bathroom mirror and watching the shatter … well, that pretty much made my day.

That sounds nutty, right?

Of course it does.

At this point, you are doing one of two things:  nodding your head in agreement or shaking it in disbelief.

Those are the two choices.

There are no gray areas when it comes to the breaking point.  You either do, you don’t; you are glad you did or you wish you hadn ‘t.

I’m glad I did.

My mind is as clear as a bell.

The photographic celibacy I’ve been in for the past few weeks has passed, the writer’s block has been shattered just like that bathroom mirror.

I don’t use the mirror anyway.

My hair is too short to do anything but mousse it to stand up and I haven ‘t worn make-up in years.

I did have to buy a new toothbrush, however, as I wasn’t certain I got all of the glass shards out of it and dentists and coroners alike frown on putting glass in your mouth.

People who don’t know me personally are thinking right now that they are better off, people who do know me are singing the hallelujah chorus.

There is nothing wrong with going, once in a while, off the deep end … as long as nobody gets hurt.

This is a big reason why I don’t date.  Can you imagine it?  I’d  have a restraining order against me after the first week … unless, of course, I could find a nice Irishman who liked a donnybrook now and then as much as I did.

But that is neither here nor there.

Be who you are, even when you are throwing things.  That’s my motto.

Even Jesus threw things … remember the tantrum in the temple?    He is as much a part of me when I’m throwing things as when I’m in His woods or writing His words.

I’m His either way and there is magnificent peace in simply knowing that single fact.  I, like the sun, the stars, the moon, the earth, the grass the trees … have a purpose.

And He helps me find it, sometimes by throwing things.

How very cool is that?

Like a moth to a flame, so the fireflies are drawn to the moon of summer.

Like a moth to a flames, so the fireflies are drawn to the moon of summer.

What is it about music …

that has the ability to soothe the soul while it simultaneously sends it reeling in turmoil and heartache, joy and sadness; reminiscing and rebelling even as it brings us back, unto ourselves, full circle?

That is is the beauty of it, is it not, to touch the untouchable space in the soul and spark the imagination? To make us think beyond what we know so that we try to touch on that which we weren’t even aware we wanted to know?

Part of the mystery?  The enigma?  The fascination?

I listen to music for hours every day, various genres ranging from hard, head-banging rock, to soothing  yet heartbreaking cello, to piano concertos. There are soaring arias, operatic manifestations that vary widely from my beloved Bryn to local, struggling, yet resilient talent, all of which move me on one one level or another.

Move me to seek, to find, to think, to imagine, to embrace and learn what I’ve always wanted to know.  It, music, is a kind of courage that makes one feel worthy to not only want to know, but to feel that they have right to discover.

It is empowering, this music of which I speak and it belongs to all of us.

Listening to music and interpreting it is no different really, than developing the photographs I take and finding in each one something magnificent or a flaw that makes it unintelligible and useless on every level.

Music is the same.

There are pieces that I listen to daily because I cannot help myself.  I love them, the sound of them, the places they take my mind whether I want to go or not and that is part of its power.

The power to take one on a journey, maybe pleasurable, possibly painful, but a journey that will leave the listener feeling more than they felt before and less because now, they realize that they were, prior to this moment, incomplete.

It is a humbling experience, understanding music and feeling a connection.

Anyone can hear music, but only some can comprehend it understand it and seek it because the choice, once they have experienced it, is no longer their own.

They are a slave to the sound, the vibrations, the magic that music has to offer.

There are composers who enamor me more than others, some very well known, some known not at all.

It makes little difference, at the end of the day.

There are composers I love to hear and conductors I love to watch. Some, at their very core, are nothing less than brilliant.

There are songs that are sappy and sentimental that pull at me just as there are instrumentals that draw from the depths of my inner being and make me feel things that I had either forgotten or purposely hidden away.

I’m still not sure how I feel about those except they evoke emotions that I’m not fully prepared to embrace.

It is during these indecisive moments that I throw things at mirrors, shattering them and feeling perfectly fine about it.

Whether it soothes my spirit, fries my brain or breaks my heart, I need music; it is the language, fourth to words, shadow and light, of my blood.

I can’t play a note of it, but I have an innate understanding of it.

It moves me like the river flowing over the rocks that I so dearly love.

Without music, everything else in my life would go on as it always has, but all of the emotions would be diluted. That, to me, is a sobering thought.

ClevelandOH-34Severance Hall … Cleveland Orchestra … Mahler’s First.

tay_musicMy favorite trumpeter …

Lightning over Big MoccasinProof that nature is full of music and miraculous things…

powelvalley_windsofmtnempire-301The joy of simply knowing what music is about …

clarinethandsA clarinetists’ hands … music and beauty and awesomeness lives therein …

Ignorance is bliss …

but unfortunately for most of us, ignorance is a luxury.

I have found myself spellbound by the idea of someone.

The thought that they were what I might, had I actually been looking for someone, have been looking for is like a siren’s song.

It is easy to become sidetracked by the fantasies we weave in our own minds when we aren’t paying close attention.

I did that.

I wove fantasies, thought thoughts, dreamed dreams and built castles in the air when there were no fantasies to be fantasized about, no pertinent thoughts to think and no castles to build.

It is the downside of an active imagination.

Reality takes a back seat and the fantastical takes on a life of its own.

There is no shame in that; the imagining, wishing, dreaming.

No shame at all, however, it is important to know where dreams end and reality begins.

Otherwise, you are left scratching your head and wondering where you went wrong.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent way too much time becoming whole and confident in my own thoughts and abilities to throw it away by putting all of my eggs in one basket.

If you put all your eggs in one basket and then  drop that basket, all of the eggs are ruined and you are back where you started when you didn’t have any eggs at all.

I, for one, want to have at least some whole, unbroken eggs in my basket.

I have, up until my husband passed a few years ago, never lived on my own.

Never experienced the pure joy of doing what I want, when I want, the way I want or not doing it, whatever it may be, at all.

I came very close to throwing all of that away by thinking I needed validation for this or the other thing.

I don’t.

Need validation, that is.

I am happy being by myself.

Alone, I am not lonely.

Instead, I am free in a way I never imagined.

I find myself pulling back from what I once longed for and realizing that I am perfectly content as I am.

I don’t know how I would react to a relationship, but the past few months have taught me that I do not need anyone to complete me.

I always thought I did, but I don’t.

I can ‘t remember a time when I felt so content.

Yes, sometimes my brain overtakes my soul and I’m manic to the point of madness.

But that, as it always has, passes and I am left, once again, serene in my solitude.

I have my thoughts, my words, my music and the magnificent creation of my Father to sustain me.

It makes me want to encourage others who feel they are not whole unless they are paired with someone to rethink their priorities.

I don’t know what I would, at this juncture in my life, do in a relationship, but I feel, at this point, that I have become too self-sufficient to rely on anyone to complete me.

When I need completion, I grab my camera and head to the mountains.

Companionship comes to me in the form of moon, sky, trees, water, light and shadow.

Seek what you will, but know, before you seek, that even if you don’t find, you are, as you are, enough.

Everything else is simply icing.

The magnificent song of Winter silence

The magnificent song of Winter silence

My Orchard Awaits …

a visit from me.

Or maybe it doesn’t.

It isn’t really my orchard, but my father’s, and his father’s before him.

Maybe it doesn’t need me nearly as much as I need it.

It is lying, quiet and serene beneath the mountain peak, on a little flat on top of a rise.  It is perfectly happy to be there, in the cold, soaking up the rain and snow that will make for succulent, sweet, juicy red apples in the summer.

The gnarled trees will stand, stalwart and solemn through the worst that Winter can bring without ever missing my presence or needing me among their barren branches.

They take no glory for the music the wind makes as it weaves and wanders through their wonderfully crooked branches.

They accept no praise for the beauty they exude as they stand firm against a gray, snow-laden sky.

They refuse thanks for the fragile seeds of  the fruits they protect through the bitterness of cold nights so that when the times comes, they can say come, eat of me, for I am sweeter than nectar.

They entice the bees and butterflies from their hiding places so that they, too, can partake of the bounty.

I imagine if God had a taste, He would taste like the sweet apples born from the mountain orchard that waited silently through the harsh winter.

They stand and they wait and they will live.

They have no idea how much I need them.

My orchard.

My solitude.

Laying on the brown grass of winter looking up through their branches and knowing that I, for this moment, am part of what grows beneath the earth.

No, it has no need for me or anything that I can offer, but part of my sanity, my strength, my well-being comes from what the orchard gets from God and passes on, without ever being aware, to me.

I suppose, because I love it so, it is my orchard, after all.

redbuds-49

I wish I could promise to lie in the night
And think of an orchard’s arboreal plight
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
Its heart sinks lower under the sod.
But something has to be left to God.
~ Robert Frost

Politics, Religion and Coffee …

are the three things you don’t argue with anyone about as it is an argument you can never, ever, win.

I could tell you in less than five seconds what I know about politics.

Religion?  I’m not a fan.

That may be misleading to my Christian friends, but it is true.  I have little use for “religion” as the world sees it.   I tend to lean more toward the teachings of Jesus than what “religion” has to offer.

But this post isn’t about politics or religion so those of you who just bristled at my comments are off the hook.

It is about coffee.

I love coffee.  I drink it several times a day and, contrary to the popular consensus, I use it at night to help me sleep.

Mayhaps it is because I have drank it for so long and have such an affection for it, it soothes me into dreamland.

On more than one occasion when I have been sleepwalking, the evidence of coffee brewing is strewn about the next morning.

If it keeps me in the house on bitter winter  nights, I’m all for it.  Duct tape doesn’t always work.

And yet, I digress.

I like my coffee strong; strong enough to eat the end of a stainless steel spoon, but I like it light.

Extra light, with real cream.

Milk will do when there isn’t anything else, but real, honest-to-goodness cream is how I prefer it.

A friend told me that I should be ashamed for using cream in my coffee.

I’m not sure if he was offended that the cream came from a cow or that I put calories in a zero calorie drink.

I don’t really care either way.

I can’t drink black coffee.

Ok, I suppose if I were stranded on a desert island with nothing but coffee and water, I would, without doubt, learn to adapt.

But I’m not on a desert island and Food City is on my way home, so you can bet your bottom dollar that there is, at this precise moment, cream in my fridge.

I eat healthy three times a day with at least one healthy snack somewhere between lunch and dinner or dinner and bedtime.

I exercise every day and me and my Pentax hike difficult mountain trails nearly every weekend.

I will put cream in my coffee, dammit.

Real cream.

The hard stuff.

And I will close my eyes and smile like the cat which ate the canary while I do.

Challenge my politics and you will find me a poor opponent … my eyes will roll back in my head and I will retain less than zero percent of the words that come out of your mouth.

I know who the President is and I feel pretty good about that.

Challenge me about religion and I will let you talk until you are blue … it won’t change my belief that I am saved by Grace, have my name written in The Book and religion has little to do with Jesus.

Challenge me about coffee and you will find yourself in a shallow grave covered in decaying leaves while I sit nearby, drinking a stellar cup of java lightened just right with real cream.

That’s just how I roll.

Bring it on.reallly?  REALLY?

Were you talking to ME?spring_042012-29

Music to be buried by …  the clarinet is a fine choice.  Just sayin’.clarinethands

In everything you do, be yourself; nobody else on earth can accomplish that.