Tag Archives: Gina Minton Kearns Photography

When time is irrelevant …

Posted on July 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

it is just that.

Irrelevant.

It has no meaning whatsoever.

It can be a burden and at the same time, a solace; like a balm to a burn.

Time has a way of dragging out, sneaking up and streaking past.

It is unpredictable that way.

It has no sense of self nor does it care about anything that may come into its path.

It is quite the ego it sports and for whatever reason, I think it enjoys that egotistical status that it has.

It can do what it wants when it wants and however it wants.  That is the beauty and disillusionment of time.  It is there and then it is gone and once it’s gone, it never, ever comes back.

No second guessing, no doubts, no regrets.

Time is like a mist on a summer morning that burns away under the sun.  Once it is gone, it isn’t even a memory.

It is simply gone.

Try to hang on to it if you must, but know that doing so will be like grasping at the wind.  Your hands will be empty even though, for a moment, they felt full.

Time is futile, is is fickle, it is precious …

but it is elusive and thrives in being so.

raindrop_leafA single drop of rain often goes unnoticed, and yet it’s beauty is profound.  Time.  A thing of beauty.

Leave a comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, blog, blogger, bloggess, Photography, Time, words

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

what is it about dreams …

Posted on July 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

that seem to plot the course of the day ahead.

I have always, nearly without fail, remembered in detail and almost painful clarity, my dreams.

Sometimes they are of strangers and other times, erotic and provocative images and happenings of and including  people I am acquainted with.

Images that have no business being in my head are there and they tempt me to try to relive them in reality as well as in the dreams, of which I have no control, in which they were born.

I don’t make a secret of them.  I share them with the cohabitants of my dreams, often to my regret afterward, but nonetheless, I find that the ability to lie escapes me.

It doesn’t help matters that I, on occasion, am a blabbermouth and just blurt things out at random.  A curse and one of the things that, were I able, would immediately change about myself.

Those, I think, are more disturbing than the bloody, murderous ones for they are more realistic and leave me feeling vulnerable and exposed.

And then there are the non-dreams that are climatic in their own weird and distorted way.

I am certain, given facts that I am sure of, that I sleepwalked last night.

Things that were present when I went to bed were missing and no evidence, anywhere, of their disappearance, could be found.

I looked.

In the trash.

Under the couch cushions.

Under my mattress.

I know what was there and what is now missing so either I walked (and ate chocolate Nekot cookies) in my sleep, or there was an intruder who only wanted my cookies.

And who, pray tell,  breaks into a house leaving a priceless collection of vintage vinyl and takes only chocolate-peanut butter cookies.

Especially if they know me and know that I sleep with a very large cast-iron skillet capable of causing a serious brain hemorrhage or, if aimed just right, instant death

Nobody, that’s who.

So since the latter is improbable, I have only left to assume that I am, once again, up to my old tricks.

Walking and performing tasks, like eating, cooking and cleaning, in my sleep.

It disturbs me on some level that I do things in the night that I don’t remember.  It should disturb me.  It should disturb anyone.

But I know the cause, or at least I think I do.

For several weeks, as anyone who knows anything about me knows, I was manic to the point of being carted off by the men in white coats.

I thought it would never end and once it did, I missed it immediately.  That rush of feeling, the power of confidence that, in a normal state, I lack.

But one phase which lasts so long does not go without the alter-ego phase coming in to claim their share of the  psychosis.

I call it psychosis because what else is one going to call it … hyper to the point of explosion one moment and despondent to the point of mediocrity the next.

I live this every day, every week, every month.  One would think that by now, I would know what was coming next.

I don’t.  And people who try to pinhole me into their idea of normalcy don’t either and end up doing nothing more than pissing me off.

As do those who lie to me. Or make excuses instead of just being up front.

An omission or generated excuse is no better or worse than a lie and I put them all in the same bag.

I expect people to be straight with me no matter what and if they aren’t then they immediately lose their credibility and, as far as I am concerned are no longer relevant in my life.

I no longer listen to their words for they are, from that moment, nothing more than blather.  Filler because they can’t think of anything useful to say and therefore are useless to me on any conceivable level.

It is disappointing to me to think that I have friends who pretend to understand me only to find out that not only do they not understand me, they have no intention to.

Valuable time wasted if you ask me.

I try to conserve the space in my mind for those who actively want to be a part of my life.  I realize that I try too hard to make friendships sometimes.  I find people who pretend to understand me but have no real inkling as to who I am or what makes me tick.

It is a disappointment to realize that I have been, for lack of a better term, led on by their pretense.

But in time, all is revealed and life goes on.

I don’t hold it against the pretenders because in all essence, I have better things to do than hold a grudge.

But I will be more cautious in the future.  Once a manipulator, always one.

Funny, isn’t it, how they don’t see themselves that way.

Life. Goes. On.  and that is just the way of it.

I may be hanging, at times, by a thread, but in my mind, I am happy simply to be hanging.

Until next time, be well, be yourself and know that whatever you learn today will be most useful at some point (unless is is geometry and the jury is still out on that one)

in reality, what dreams are made of ...

in reality, what dreams are made of …

Leave a comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, alone, bipolar, blog, blogger, depression, dreams, erotic dreams, hypomania, knowledge, Life, life experiences, lightning, Nature Photographer, Pentaxian, photographer, Photography, Storms, through the eyes of the spirit, Thunderstorms, Time, weird stuff, weirdness, words

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

James Taylor sang …

Posted on July 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain …” he saw sunny days that he thought would never end.

I feel that way sometimes.

Like the sun will last forever and the foreboding darkness of an impending storm will elude me and deprive me of the comfort that only such an awe-inspiring event of God-created nature can bring.

I found myself today in the company of a family who was waiting for their mother to die.

I have spent an hour or so with them every day for the past couple of weeks and have come to know them, to care about them, to love them.

I’ve seen photographs of their children and grandchildren, of weddings and birthday parties.

I’ve seen faces with smiles that don’t quite reach the eyes because there was worry there.

A sadness.

A knowing.

A sorrow for what was to come.

I didn’t want to go into that room today.  I wanted to be a coward and take the coward’s way out and simply say that they were unavailable.

It would have been a lie, though, even if only to myself.

One that would settle smoothly at the time and then plague me in the wee hours as I remembered the fear, sorrow and sense of hopelessness on the faces that I was trying so hard to comfort.

So I went into the room I didn’t want to go in, sat with people I had come to know and love and waited with them while their mother took her last breath.

It was humbling to be accepted into this place of sorrow and grief as though I was one of them.

I have sat with them, held their hands, cried with them, prayed with them and now, I mourn for them.

It was obvious, when I went to visit them today, that the time was limited.  While I didn’t want to bring negative connotations to an already tense situation, I advised them to call any other family members who should be there to come to be with them.

Maybe I overstepped my bounds.  No, there is no maybe about it, I did overstep them.  But in my nearly thirty years as a nurse, I haven’t always played by the rules.

Sometimes I play by the heart, which often breaks the rules.

But over the years, I have seen death enough to know what it looks like.

I couldn’t live with the knowledge that there were ones that I had met and bonded with before that weren’t there now when the moment they had been dreading, avoiding, rationalizing, but knew was impending, had come.

I felt like a traitor.  Like someone who had come only to say that this is it.

The last hoorah.

The final moments of a life well lived.

I stood in the corner while the family stood around the bed, each one with their hand on the one they loved so dearly, as she took her last breath and left this world.

Before she did, she opened her eyes, something she hadn’t done in days, and looked directly at each one present; saying goodbye, farewell, move on, don’t cry.

Silent tears ran down my face as I watched them watch her as her soul departed from her ravaged body.

I remembered thinking how I wish my Jim had someone with him when he died.  And then I remember how much of a loner he was.  Even with me, he was alone.  I wonder now if he was glad that he was alone when he died.  Glad that he didn’t have to see the fear and sorrow on a face that would wish him to go on when he couldn’t, or maybe simply didn’t want to.

I don’t mourn him anymore.  I think of him and of the life we shared, but I have let him go.  He is a dear and well-loved memory, but not an anchor to weigh me down.  That can bring good to no-one.  And I believe it would sadden him if he thought that his death had broken my spirit.

I slipped out of the room, unnoticed, by the family.  There was nothing else I do, nothing else I could offer; no words I could say to comfort them in that moment.

Trying to do so would be futile and would, I feared, break the trust that they had placed in me to understand them in their moment of weakness.

I had given them my heart, which was now breaking for each one of them.  My tears won’t help them anymore than their own will.

I hope for them, this night, peace in the knowledge that they not only loved, with such passion, their mother, sister, grandmother, wife … but that she knew, with every ounce of her being, that they did.

I like to think that knowing that you gave everything you had to someone you loved is enough to sustain them at their last moments.

I will cry myself to sleep tonight for a family I didn’t know just two weeks ago, a family now broken and irrevocably changed.

I will photograph the living and mourn the dead.  This is the life, while I may not have chosen willingly, was given to me to live.

If my heart shatters a bit in order to bring comfort to another, then it was pain well spent.

I will live it the best I am able, deal with it when I can, falter when I can’t and then remember, while trying to remind others, that even when it doesn’t seem so, life goes on.

There isn’t, really, any more anyone can do other than the best they can.

And then, you move on, for if you don’t move forward, there isn’t any hope and hope is, and will always be, one of the most wonderful things life has to offer.

Without hope, there isn’t anything left.  So hope.  Seek happiness in the face of sorrow.  Find beauty in the midst of sorrow and disaster and know, beyond all else that hope is a good thing … and no good thing, as long as there are people who remember what was, never really dies.

Love is the most powerful of emotions

Love is the most powerful of emotions

soulful eyes

soulful eyes

Leave a comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, alone, blog, blogger, bloggess, broken, compassion, death, death of a loved one, emotions, empathy, feelings, from my heart, Life, life experiences, nurse, Photography, prayer, Sorrow and loss, Storms, through the eyes of the spirit, words

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday, a particularly difficult patient said …

Posted on July 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

you are acting odd; what is wrong with you?

I, with considerable effort, put my overloaded, hyper-extended, full-to-overflowing brain pan into “be nice” mode, rolled my eyes (of this I am certain) and said “I’m sorry, I was momentarily distracted by a conversation I had with your doctor about your condition”.

An over-the-top, bar none, bald-faced lie.

I was stalling until I could catch up to their hatefulness with a smile I didn’t feel and control of a finger I was having trouble restraining.

I was, instead, desperately trying to listen to what they said, their concerns, fears and complaints.

It was a strenuous effort to hold on to their words, to hear their voice.  I was elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere.

It is where I have been for the past few weeks and quite frankly, I was exhausted by trying to be here when I am there and there when I am here and somewhere when I am everywhere.

It is not polite to tell patients to shut the hell up … that all they do is moan and complain about things that are mundane on any ordinary day.

Never mind that, in this establishment, such activity is frowned upon.

Severely frowned upon.

I want to tell them this; listen … I got up this morning with a thousand random thoughts running through my head, barely remembered to wash my hair while I was in the shower (my legs remain unshaven because, dammit, I forgot while I was thinking about the sunrise over the desert west of Las Vegas, a sight I have never seen but hope to and the thought of shaving my legs never entered my mind during the sunrise scene.)

I washed my body simply because there was an escape clause somewhere in my brain that says you must take a shower daily, wash your hair and wash your body (with soap, not just water), but there is nothing that says “you know, you really should shave your legs”.

I suppose I realize that is a necessity once the hair starts being evident through my clothes.  Do people notice?  Probably.  Do I?  Not until I cause myself hair-inflicted injury during a nightmare (or on a good, though extremely rare night), an erotic,  racy dream of some sort.

Talk about a downer, when in the midst of a truly wonderful dream full of potential, my unshaven legs decide to speak up and thus take precedence over more pleasurable endeavors.

Even then, there is no guarantee that it will be done because my brain is on overdrive and going a thousand places at once.

I would love to be able to write a manual on how to talk and deal with a person when I (or a billion other people) are in the throes of a manic episode.

It would be short and to the point.

Shut the hell up unless the building is on fire and then, only tell me if I, personally, am on fire.

Otherwise, it likely won’t register.

In my head, I told that patient, a rude and hateful individual (and would be so even if I weren’t in my current state of mind) in the most placating, compassionate  tone I could muster that I was doing my best and was hoping to meet their needs.

It didn’t go down exactly like that and it is possible that somebody will be getting a phone call.  So be it.

It is what it is.

A typical day for me where I was up until this morning consists of waking up and immediately starting the internal argument of whether to shower first or brush my teeth; is the towel warmer on and did I take off my paper bracelet.  Oh no, is  there a clean towel to dry off with and is it in the towel warmer that I may have forgotten to turn on; damn this water is hot.  Damn, this water is cold.  I have soap in my eyes and while rinsing it out, don’t want to aspirate.  Lord this water is going to burn my eyes out of my head.  It just blasted in my ear.  How much do I need my eardrums.  Did I rinse the shampoo out of my hair.  What is that sound?  Oh, I remember, I started Mahler’s First on my Jawbone speaker but now wish I had put Chopin on because he does piano so well, but then Brian Crain is my now favorite, aside from my friend who plays my favorite song, one he wrote and played at my late husband’s funeral, on piano or my other friend, who plays piano and guitar, or at least, though little proof has been provided, I have heard tales.  He played for me once, at least I think he did, but that was a hundred years ago  and I may have imagined it… well not a hundred, but, at any rate, a long time; anyway,  maybe Brian would be best because he is predictable and while that can become tedious, it is, at times, soothing to know that what I hear will be similar and nearly indistinguishable from the last thirty things I  heard him play.

I love Brian, but  he has a one track mind and little imagination.  That is, of course, only my opinion and even though I am only now learning to play piano, I know what it should sound like.

If anyone sees a run-on sentence, feel free to comment to yourself because if you tell me, that restrained finger may very well break free.  Take no offense, however, because you have been warned.

I proclaim the fifth and refuse to incriminate myself even as I am incriminating myself.

Thank God I have some Barry and Sir Elton mixed in with it, otherwise, I would be imagining my myself in a mysterious musical Brigadoon where everything sounded the same and I would relive the same moment over and over.

God forbid.

I need to get dressed but the clothes I washed three days ago are in the dryer; if, however, I turn the dryer on refresh, they will be as good as new unless I left lipstick (which I rarely wear but for some stupid reason carry in my pocket) or one of my much beloved, blue ink, sharpie retractable pens.  They can make a mess on a uniform top that even a Tide Pen can’t fix and ruin a perfectly good pen at the same time.

My notes are extensive and must, without fail, be written in blue ink in the form of a retractable sharpie pen.  Anything else leaves me bewildered because, for no other reason, it just isn’t right.  Not now.  Now while my brain is on a vacation to Uranus, which has recently been deemed as nothing in particular which means, in essence, that my brain is just hanging out on the outskirts of the universe with the outcasts.

Perfect.

And now back to the patient who wants to know what is wrong with me … In the end, I think I will introduce him to the finger after all.  I think he could use it and since I have a stellar record as a nurse, I feel it is time to shake things up a bit.

So, in my mind, I give the patient the finger, tell hem to go jump in a lake and walk out of the room whistling.

I will know Monday if I actually did that or simply fantasized about it.

Secretly?  I’m hoping I did it.  I am feeling reckless and rebellious and find that my “give a damn” has a dead battery.

It is what it is and life, be it good, bad or indifferent, goes on.

As mamaw Daphne said, this too shall pass but when it does, it will leave a mark.

Thankfully, when this morning dawned, I found myself to be on the north side of sanity.

It’s all going to be ok.

So I am back to me until I find myself not myself the next time.

I am always thankful that Jesus loves me even when I am in a most unlovable state.  He is my rock and I have complete faith in Him that He will keep me no matter where my mind has gone.  He blesses me most often, it seems, when I am least deserving.

My life … it is always an adventure and (for the most part, except when it isn’t) a fun one.

Frenetic in China Town, NY … I can relate to thatNYCchinatown

Leave a comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, being myself, believer, bipolar, blog, blogger, bloggess, emotions, erotic dreams, faith, faith in myself, fear, feelings, Jesus, laughing at myself, Life, life experiences, mental illness, nurse, Photography, piano, through the eyes of the spirit, Time, weirdness, words

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am not a fan …

Posted on July 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

of Mother Nature’s pranks … her dark clouds, whipping wind and errant bands of rain should not be allowed to play with my emotions.

It is, on many levels, unfair, to anticipate the power, brilliance and soothing qualities of a wild summer thunderstorm only to find the clouds whisked away; the sunlight filtering through, laughing and dancing as though it were there all along.

Dark clouds, upturned leaves in the wind, the enticing smell of rain in the air … these things tell me a storm is imminent.

I quiver in anticipation as I prepare to absorb the extravagant power of it.

The mood of it.

The overwhelming presence of it.

And then …

As though it never was, it is gone.

I hear many folks complaining about the rain.  I don’t complain about it, even when it threatens to wash me out of my valley.

I love the sound of it, the feel of it, the thought of it.

Add some thunder, lightning and wind and I am in my own personal Heaven.

Nothing, at least to my way of thinking, is quite so soothing as the sky split open by slashes of lightning while the rain falls; big, fat drops that soak the earth and water the trees all the way to their roots.  The sound of thunder, bellowing, rolling, rumbling is a beautiful thing.

It reminds me that I am alive.

That I am a part of, however insignificant, the whole of the world.

The sky, the grass, the mountains, the trees, the wind, the rain, the clouds … I am part of each of them and they of me.

For a space of time, we are one with one another and I am as free as the birds that inhabit the space between earth and sky.

It is hard to feel insignificant when surrounded by such incredulous power and energy that beats within my heart and soul and takes me into itself.

I am the storm.

I am the lightning.

I am the thunder.

For those moments when I am standing in the midst of the chaos, I am one with nature.

If there is a greater feeling than embracing the full fury and magnificence  of an awesome storm, I fear it; I’m not certain that I could bare the emotional and physical magnitude of it.

I’m content with the storm.  Nothing else is required.

lightning

Leave a comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, blog, blogger, bloggess, emotions, Life, life experiences, lightning, Mother Nature, nature, Photography, Storms, Thunderstorms

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am starting to wonder …

Posted on July 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

if this manic phase will ever end.

There was a time in my life when I embraced such moments, likening them to a double ride on the tilt-a-whirl, with the screams and laughter that made me feel invincible.

As I get older, however, I find that they are less like the tilt-a-whirl and more like the crooked carnies that tried so desperately to take my last dollar to win an unwinnable game.

They promised prizes beyond what I could imagine but ultimately, I went home with a stuffed snail or some other hideous thing.

I did once, with awe and childlike levity, win a Loverboy mirror and figured that my life, at that moment, was complete.

Being fifteen, however, has its limitations.

As it turns out, the junk I brought home seemed a pretty steep price to pay for a piece of  “Made-in-China” crap.

Today, I found myself re-reading a lovely piece of work from a friend.  If re-reading was all I was doing, then there would have been no wrong, but I wasn’t just reading.

I was counting.

Words.

Syllables.

Lines.

How messed up, I ask, is that?

Beautiful words written that I counted simply to find a piece of sanity, and, as if counting weren’t bad enough, found fault with.

A line missing.

Who am I to tell the immensely creative people in my life that they have left a line out?

What if it were intentional?

What if it is part of the creative genius?

What if they think I am a jerk at the most basic of levels?

What if they decide that, after all, I am not worth the trouble they take to try to understand me?

Who, beginning with myself, could blame them?

They wouldn’t be the first to give up on me, but, nonetheless, it hurts to think of it.

It is a wonder of wonders that all of my friends don’t simply forsake me when I get like this.

In this I-can’t-hold-a-thought-in-my-head-and-I-think-I’m-going-bats this.

It is a testament to their faithfulness that they ride out the storm with me, knowing that they may, at any moment, be struck by lightning.

I am thankful for them. I pray for them.  I curse them with words that would make a sailor proud.

They know this and like me anyway; the why of that I cannot fathom.

Who are these people?

Oh yes … i remember … they are the ones who understand me even when I find it nearly impossible to understand myself.

They are my friends.  They. Are. My. Friends.

I will be myself again soon.  Surely this is a true statement for there is only so much a person can endure before they are taken, under police custody, to the nearest psychiatric hospital.

I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell and there is a song by one of my favorite groups, “Matchbox Twenty”, that says that very thing.

So it must be true.  It must be.

Just give me some time … a bit of time.

And some patience, some latitude, some longitude and some leeway.

I won’t be this way forever and for that simple fact, I am thankful to a God who understands the way my mind works mostly because He created it.

I won’t back down.  I will get by.  I am unwell.  I will survive.

I think that covers most of the song titles in my head … now, for some serious Wagner time  because He makes me remember that being different isn’t such a very bad thing.

Until I am back to me, adios and God bless.

and the music shall set me free … clarinethands

Leave a comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, being myself, blessings, blog, blogger, bloggess, hands, manic, music, Photography, words

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today, I got lost …

Posted on July 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

in the hospital where I have been working for weeks.

It doesn’t matter why, really, though there are reasons; personal ones, and yet the simple fact that I got lost is paramount.

These last couple of weeks, I am more distractable (is that even a real word?) than usual … so much so  that I got off the elevator on the wrong floor and proceeded to wonder aimlessnessly (again … is that a real word)  until I realized that I was well and truly lost.

I focus.

Then re-focus.

Then re-focus again.

I find that I would have much more time to do my work if I wasn’t constantly re-focusing to  bring myself back into the moment that is before me.

How many times must a person focus to get off the elevator on the right floor?  I guess, all things considered, that is is good thing I am covering in a position that doesn’t require giving injections or starting IV’s.

I try to reign my thoughts in and find it is taking much longer than usual to move past this obstacle.

I wonder, credibly, if I will be able to find my way to work tomorrow.

Sometimes, and there is no way to say this other than to just say it … then apologize to God for thinking such …

Sometimes, life really is a bitch.

Damn her.

Old man smoking his cigarette … wagontrain_bw (5)

Sometimes the light really is just a train …octobersaturday-151

Leave a comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, being myself, blessings, blog, blogger, bloggess, manic, nurse, photographer, words

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

It is official …

Posted on July 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

I am out there swinging.   For those who suffer from manic episodes, no explanation is necessary, for the rest of you, all I can offer is a pathetic, well meant yet mostly misunderstood, “I’m sorry”.

What am I sorry for?  Ummm, where should I start?

I can’t explain it.  I don’t even try anymore.  It makes less sense to me when I try to make it make sense to someone else.

So I don’t because that in itself is an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a riddle.

I’ll be back, though, at some point, as my old “weirdly abnormal” self.

Lucid and in total (okay, yes, a stretch even on a good day) control.

Until then … well, just go with it because ultimately, it is what it is.

And I take it as it comes, deal with it however I can and sometimes ignore those who are most important to me.  I, most times, inadvertently, end up hurting somebody’s feelings.

It isn’t always pretty but neither is reality; that’s just the way I roll if I want to survive the storm.

And I do.  Want to survive, that is.

Words of wisdom … BodieIslandLight

Really?  Get a grip already. madmaggie

Leave a comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, bipolar, It is what it is, life experiences, Lighthouse, Live as it happens, manic, Photography, weirdness, words

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When the Halloween episode of Little House on the Prairie …

Posted on July 4, 2013 | 1 comment

makes you hide under the covers and sleep with the lights on for a month, it sticks with you for a long, long time.  We’re working on what, now?  Thirty years?  Thirty five? More?

It sticks.  Trust me.

Ok, so maybe I am the only person, other than Laura Ingalls, who was terrified, freaked out and mentally assaulted at the thought of good-natured, sweet, gentile, patient, unassuming Mr. Olsen taking Mrs. Olsen’s head off with a sword and then answering the knock at the front door with an apron covered in blood.

Maybe I am.

It wouldn’t be the first thing, nor I regrettably admit, will it be the last, that freaked me out while having little or no effect on those around me.

No effect other than making them roll their eyes and mutter comments under their breath that they didn’t think I could hear.

I heard them.

All of them.

Well, most of them anyway.

Or I imagined them which, in my world, amounts to pretty much the same thing.

(For those who are unsure as to whom I speak, Laura was not a real person … well, she was, as she was an actress, but her character was just that … a character … made up by the ever talented, though now dead, Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I have read ALL of the Little  House books, unashamedly, multiple times over and do not  remember this particular scene in any of them.  I could have blocked it out, though, because that is what I do with disturbing images that terrify me and make me wet the bed because I am too afraid to put my feet on the floor, opening them to whatever may be underneath it, to walk to the bathroom.)

It wasn’t a scary show, but then neither was The Waltons and the episode when Elizabeth (whom I disliked a great deal anyway)  was becoming a teenager, made me feel the need for serious, long-term, ongoing therapy.

Knowing these things and, knowing as I do what a fraidy-cat, chicken-hearted, scare-baby (thanks Pollyanna, for scare-baby) I am, it is with horrified trepidation that I await the soon-to-be-received Netflix selection of True Blood that is even now on its way to my terrified-by-association mailbox.

The very thought of blood in my mouth makes my usually absent gag reflex perk up and sing the hallelujah chorus.

And still yet.

I can’t imagine what I was thinking.

Yes I can.  Peer pressure.  I succumbed to it.  Pure and simple.

I was recently introduced, by a friend, at least she was disguised as a friend, to Joe Manganiello, aka Alcide.  Well, not personally introduced for if I had met him in person, I would be bragging daily in that “I’m better than you can ever hope to be because I have met Alcide in person” tone.

I don’t know exactly how to brag efficiently because I don’t have much to brag about, but were I to meet that man in person, I would learn quickly.

Or at least fake it persuasively.

And I would become adept at lying, which is pretty much the same as faking it persuasively, but oh dear me …  the stories I would tell.

But all of that hinges on the the possibility that I had been introduced to him in person, when in reality, I wasn’t.

I had not heard of him before.  I don’t watch TV, watch the news, read the newspaper or otherwise partake in life as it happens outside my own definition of reality.

Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just strap a backpack filled with toast-chee crackers and hot mama sausages to my back and live my life in the mountains in a way that would closely resemble Grizzly Adams … or, more aptly, Mad Jack and Old Number Seven.

So anyway, after a brief diversion, I get back to the point; this video, filled with vampires, blood, gore, blood, violence, blood, sex, blood and a gruesomeness that I cannot even imagine … oh, and blood, in the mouth no less …  is on its way to my home.

I was told that this Alcide character didn’t show up until the third season, but to have a single solitary clue what was happening, I had to watch it from the beginning.  I have doubts, however, given my reaction after five minutes subjected to “The Living Dead”, which is not an HBO production, that I will make it through the first episode.

That statement is notwithstanding to the fact that the email from  Netflix with the photo associated with the show nearly made we wretch.

I have striven to be tough, more immune to outside influences, harder of heart and body and more like a living, breathing human being.

I really have.

But I’m not sure I accomplished what I set out to accomplish.

I wanted to be popular.

Like my sister.

I wanted to be good at sports.

Like my sister.

I wanted to have the ability to watch horror movies in the eighties with MY boyfriend instead of running out of the theater crying inconsolably.

Like my sister.

Just ask her.  It was a proud moment in her life.  Actually proud moments because she went on nearly every date I ever had.

But that is neither here nor there.  Actually it is or I wouldn’t have brought it up, but it shouldn’t be.  I’ll just say it that way.

And she, the sister I wanted to be like, watched “The Exorcist” with her friends while I cowered in my room with a thin wall between me and the TV and belted out show-tunes to keep the sound of the movie from my ears.  It was pathetic and likely still the topic of dinner table conversations of those who partook in that particular episode of my life.

And people wonder why I am warped.

I suppose, too, that they will be wondering why I am in the hospital on an overdose on stolen Xanax after only a few minutes of watching the pilot episode of True Blood.

Then they will remember this post and say “Oh …  yeah … well, I’m not all that surprised” as they bite into their warm, six inch, flatbread, tuna with provolone, spinach, avocado, red onion, black olive sandwich with jalapeno on the side from Subway.

Then they will go on with their lives while I gulp down Thorazine and fight off night terrors.

Peer pressure.

Do as I say, not as I do and avoid it at all costs.

I’ve got one hand in my pocket and the other one on an ancient typewritertypewriter

Abby, howling with ecstasy or insanity … either one workslaughingAbby

1 Comment

Posted in a photographer's heart, afraid, being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, childhood, good grief, Horror, hot men, peer pressure, Photography, therapy, true blood, what was I thinking

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s funny how it’s funny …

Posted on July 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

later.

I am a facebook junkie. I admit it.  No reason not to really, since people I have never laid eyes on see the things I say.  I post random thoughts at random times and forget, more often than not, to change the filter that goes from my brain to my mouth; or in this case, my fingers.

Often, things that other people say or do remind me of events of my own life.  Tonight was one of those times.  As it happened this time, it was something I said that brought the old-but-not-forgotten memory into focus and I was taken back, decades, to a time in my childhood.

I was six years old.  Ok, maybe I was five or even seven; it has been so long ago that the age has escaped me, but the clarity of the memory has not.  I write this, not to remind my beautiful, wonderful Aunt Nell of the error of her ways (though to a kid, the error was heinous), but to relive a priceless, however painful, moment in time.

She was like a mystery wrapped in an enigma, was my Aunt Nell.  She was beautiful, knew famous people and likely, most importantly even, owned a portable tape recorder and brought presents in her multi-colored bag.  She and my Uncle Ford lived in Pennsylvania which, to a kid growing up in the back country, tobacco-farming, cow-milking, chicken-raising, hog-slopping, corn-hoeing, bean-picking, mule-plowing area of Southwest Virginia, could just have well been Ireland or Italy or France.

Or Gate City.

All I knew for certain was that it was hours away and trips there, with Grandaddy in the back seat with me and later, my little sister, was never a joy.

And yet, I digress.

As I said, I was a kid, the age remaining undetermined, and was on the cusp of pulling  a tooth.  Even as a little girl, the very thought of blood in my mouth made me sick to my stomach.  So obviously, pulling a tooth was right up there with being staked to an anthill.

They, she and Uncle Ford, came to visit, along with the snazzy clothes, tape recorder and gifts that I could never resist hinting about.

That drove my mother crazy … the hinting, not the presents … but I knew she would bring me something and the suspense nearly gave me a coronary.

How embarrassing  that would have been at five, or six or whatever.

And so, I digress again.  This was supposed to be a story about an event that has, for obvious reasons, stuck with me for nearly forty years.

The loose tooth.

So, Aunt Nell, or as we in the family call her, Aunt Neldie, had the bright idea that she could pluck that tooth right out of my mouth, painlessly and with little to no bloodshed.

I, being a gullible child, went along with it.

She was, after all, the well-respected, visit-anticipated, living in another country, Aunt Nell.

I let her, against my inner voice’s urging, tie a string to my tooth.

Then I watched in barely contained horror as she tied the other end of the string to a doorknob.

Then I stood, idly by, as she proceeded to slam the door with the strength of a Sumo wrestler.

Or Batman, even.

This being the same door holding the string tied to my tooth.

It should have worked, she said.

I don’t understand it, she said.

Don’t cry (as if!), she said.

Come back, she said.

At least I think she said these things.

I had disentangled myself from the doorknob at this point and was stalking up the hill towards the smokehouse.

I’ll explain a smokehouse some other time, but it isn’t where you go to smoke, unless you were my cousin.  It’s where he went to smoke unless he wanted to be skinned by my mamaw.

As I was stalking off, I was crying.  I hadn’t yet learned to say curse words or I would have been cursing, which would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap.  For real.  I made it to the top of the hill, the house still in view when I stopped.

There at the top of the hill was the mule that everyone called Old Beck.  She was a gentle creature, but I, as a child (and even into my teens and twenties – and let’s just be truthful here, my thirties) was an avowed chicken.

I was afraid of everything.  Bugs, airplanes, grass, bees, water, dark, oxygen.

Even sweet-natured-if-stubborn-to-a-fault Old Beck.

It would be much simpler to say what I wasn’t afraid of.

Dirt.

I wasn’t afraid of dirt.

Unless there were bugs or worms in it.

At any rate, I found myself too chicken to actually run away as I had originally planned and went back to the house where the offense had occurred.

While it wasn’t funny at the time, it has been a constant source of amusement over the years.

I forgave Aunt Neldie, because otherwise, she wouldn’t have given me the present she brought or let me play with her tape recorder.

But I didn’t forget it.

Some things just stick with you, ya know?

I. Was. Running.flolicking

Don’t panic .. and wear your sunglasses.Beemer, a sweet Great Pyrenees, shows his Hollywood

Leave a comment

Posted in being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, family, memories, Pentax, Pentaxian, photographer, Photography, story, weird stuff, words

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,