Ghosts

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Ghosts are kind of a cool concept. They give us the opportunity to believe that life goes on FOR US after someone's death; that the person who has passed on still cares enough about us, about this tenuous life, to hang around even though there ust be some sort of imperative to move onto the next plane.

We are missed. Missed and the object of such strong focus that the departed feels the deep need to communicate with us, to say something so important that the laws of physics and metaphysics are twisted, torn, circumvented and otherwise ignored.

All because of us. We want so much to believe that we are that important.

Either that or we just need to have that person in our lives, even if just on the periphery... something for us, as the ones left behind, to hang onto.

Flitting about like shadows just on the edge of consciousness, these ghosts are obviously the product of our own desire for closure we never got in this world.

By the same token, ghosts do not have to be dead, they can just as easily refer to people who have departed from our lives. Lovers, parents, children, friends…

So, in thinking of them as ghosts we can conjure them us whenever we want and finally can say what we never got the opportunity or did not have the nerve to say. These things can be positive or negative, but we wish we could have had the time or the guts to spill when we had the opportunity.

So the Ghosts of Relationships past can have an effect on our current life, depending on how hard we hang on to the unsaid words hanging on the air like wraiths.

I wonder how many times we see someone talking to themselves as they walk down the hall, or while in their car… how many of those people are having the conversations they wish they could have had, keeping their past alive and encroaching on their current life digging in with little sharp hooks, hanging like curtain climbing kittens.

So, my question for the universe is this: do we hang onto our old relationship ghosts, talking to ourselves in the car and letting them go gradually as we convince ourselves that our lives have branched out far enough for us to stop looking in the rear view mirror? Or, do we cut them off and pretend that we never knew the person?

I suspect that the very human truth is somewhere in the middle.


Just Musing,
Susan



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Talking with My Hands

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It was brought to my attention a few days ago that I use my hands a lot when I am talking. Excitement, anxiety, playfulness, candor, persuasion... all seem to bring it out even more than "normal" and my hands become as birds flittering in a high wind.

Apparently I do this a lot, and just don't notice until someone points it out.

I wonder why this is, this talking with my hands. Certain stereotypes are depicted on small and large screens as having this same affliction. Hands become part of the vocalization to the point that if you were to tie someone's hands together, they would become dumbfounded and lose a certain about of loquaciousness until untied.

At least I think I have seen a movie where something like that has happened.

Anyway, I often wonder where I got it. I don’t remember my parents using their hands that much, or my grandparents, or other members of my family, I am nearly 100% Irish, not a drop of Italian, so it isn’t genetic as far as I know (there's that stereotype!). Again, as far as I know, the Irish are known mostly for their singing and pubs and seemingly personal knowledge of the mystical.

My hands move of their own volition; I do not consciously control their movements and they will not be tied. Why is this? Why do I - or anyone else for that matter – use hand gestures when we speak? Emphasis? Persuasion? Illustration? Animation? Theatrics? Diversion? Comedy? Prevarication?

All of the above?


I know that some people laugh good naturedly at this little habit of mine and others - the less imaginative ones, I imagine - are annoyed at what they perceive to be an attempt at distraction, actively sneer and ultimately laugh at me… not so good naturedly as others.

Eh. So what? Let them laugh.

As the great Charles Dickens wrote, “…he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.”

My hands are birds… watch them giggle and flutter and fly!



Just Musing,
Susan

* This one’s for you, Chuck! :)


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Some Days You're the Windshield...

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Today I'm the bug.

Bad, bad day.

Sometimes it is so hard to maintain the facade of happy happy, putting on the cheerful patient face when all around me people are throwing sharp objects and fresh doggy doo straight at my head.

And sometimes I can’t duck fast enough.

*splat*

So after washing my face and spending a few eons feeling sorry for myself, I have to wonder, how is it possible that I am solely responsible for every single thing that has gone wrong since the beginning of time? I am only 52, so does all that blame only take effect during my singularly unspectacular lifetime, or does it stretch backwards into perpetuity? And if I am not directly responsible, I must most certainly be the cause… I’m the odds on favorite BLAME candidate (except for Presidents, of course).

Hell, if it weren't for me God probably could have had the whole thing done in five days.

I am interrupted at the beginning of a conversation with a joke or another story, so I don’t get heard. I may as well slap some duck tape on my mouth after the first couple of words.

And in public, hey, just put an apple in my mouth, for I will be spitted and barbequed for all to see.

(Hmm. Better wait on the duck tape until AFTER the apple thing…)

It doesn’t seem to matter that no one could answer those questions fired at me with such rapidity… it is I on the hotseat, I am the target.

Sooooo, apple in my mouth, check. Duck tape across my face, holding apple in, check. Wooden chair on fire to simulate hot seat, check. Target bullseye painted with bright red paint on my chest (touched up daily to keep it fresh!), check.

Am I missing anything?

Of course, I realize that all this makes me sound like I think I really AM all that important, that everyone blames me because I really do have that much power… bwaaaa ha ha ha hahahahahahahah!!!

Nah. That’s the irony of it all. I am really nothing more than a mass of unrealized potential who has made scads of mistakes compounding over the years with bad hair, a weakness for chocolate and a big butt.

So stop blaming me for stuff, please. My plate is all full and I am out of red paint.


Just Musing,
Susan


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Happiness is a warm puppy... waiting to greet the morning

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As my puppy, a rather large beautiful Golden Retriever lays on my feet (not AT, but ON, making my feet rather too warm most of the time) this evening, I think about all the joy and entertainment this one creature has given me since we were introduced the day after Christmas last year... and I am completely overwhelmed.

Not simply another perfect family dog, Sarah is MY dog in every way. She follows me about from room to room - so much that I sometimes just want to tell her to stay, I will be right back, but it doesn't matter, she will follow and just lay down by the door and wait.

It seems as though her life is full of waiting...

First, waiting for me to wake up. When she hears me stir, she leaps off her Mickey Mouse dog bed (thanks, Judy!) in the corner of my bedroom, bounds over to my side of the bed and places her head on the mattress scant inches from mine, looks at me, tail wagging, until I open my eyes and look into her shining brown ones.

Indeed, hers is the very first face I see, not that of my husband, who sleeps beside me every single night, but my pretty Golden.

My acknowledgement of her presence sends her into barely contained excitement: her tail wags so hard her backside violently sways back and forth in a frenzied undulation of joy... and she waits for me to arise. I finally get up and head for the bathroom and she collapses heavily at the door - fooooom - her entire body weight leaning against the door so that when I open it, she halfway falls into the bathroom, unabashedly leaps up and her tail and body wags all over again in pure and simple joy that I have reappeared.

I head downstairs to make coffee, and Sarah's enthusiastic appreciation for the morning compels her to madly gallop down stairs just ahead of me. She dashes to the back door and looks back at me, hoping I am going to run and play outside with her.

Capricious and unfeeling non-morning person that I am, I head directly to the coffeemaker, measure out aromatic grounds, turn on the machine and wait rather impatiently for the brew to descend into the carafe.

And so she waits, too, sitting down next to the back door, patiently watching my every move.

Finally, hot cup of coffee sweetened with sugar, half and half and a touch of chocolate warming my hands, I unlock and open the back door, and she slithers out the dog door next to me, pranching across the dewy lawn, looking back with her Golden "smile", so very happy to greet the day with me.

It is a lovely way to start the day, caffeine slowing singing through my system, walking barefoot across the grass to sit in the swing under three very large Mulberry trees, with Sarah sitting on my feet (too hot, but awfully sweet) and gazing up at me with loving brown eyes.

Life is good!

Just Musing,
Susan



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Melancholy Autumn

I am not sure why it is that Autumn brings on the melancholy. I love the crispness of the air, the bite of the wind, the leaves as they turn colors (green, yellow, fall off tree... almost that fast in the High Desert of California!). I also love how our impossibly clear blue sky suddenly acquires friends: all kinds of clouds visit along the outskirts of the vast Antelope Valley and sit at the base of the mountains as if waiting to be invited in.

The wind, capricious as she is, will sometimes do the honors and drag the clouds across the sky, stretching and puffing them, depending on her mood. And other times she will leave them sit there like overdressed bespeckled girls at a party clutching paper cups of weak fruit punch who wait to be asked to dance and know they never will... until she tires of their presence and whisks them back over the mountains so they never get to play in our huge empty skies.

My trees, hardy and full, will take a few months to be complete free of foilage. Last year they didn't transform completely until a surprising and magical snowfall in mid December. Then... FOOM... a layer of green leaves in perfect circles on top of the snow under each tree!

And yet, it saddens me to think of my wonderful Mulberries bare and shivering, bereft of their lush clothes and the myriad birds that make their branches sing.

Autumn also portends the coming of winter with its attendant freeze and cocooning and planning for the all the holidays that seem to be squeezed together into about two weeks beginning with Halloween and racing to New Years.

So for now, I will go outside and enjoy the taste of the breeze and catch the first faintest whisp of fireplace smoke, cradling a cup of hot chocolat... nah, wine, and watch the stars come out.

Feeling melancholy at this time of year just feels...right somehow, as if it is the natural order of things. Slowing down and taking stock and shoring up for the coming winter.

Me, I will still have my evening glass of wine and go outside to say goodnight to the sky... but the goodnights may become a bit rushed as the mercury drops!

Just Musing,
Susan


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The Glowing Inconstant Moon

Have you ever noticed that when the moon is waxing (getting bigger) or full, that the light that it casts on the ground is not only the usual adjectives (eerie, glowing, soft, etc.), and seems to emanate not from the orb in the sky, but from the ground below?

The sky is dark, but the buildings, trees, plants, grass, the pool, even the dog seem to glow from within. Details are oddly visible against a darkened backdrop... it is almost as if we are simply wearing dark glasses, but the object of our focus is still illuminated...

So odd.

But, on further reflection, that isn't strictly true. Some things remain deep in darkness, rising like barely discernable wraiths gracefully dancing in and out of our vision, implying secret worlds and hidden realms just barely glimpsed but not... quite... able to be seen.

How often have you been outside in the evening and spent several moments trying to make out a shape deep in the shadows? You almost recognise it and even attempt to trangulate its position with the objects that you CAN see. And you still can't quite make it out.

It is as if the object is giggling in and out of our reality, amused at our sudden puzzled attention... And we get up and walk over, squinting in the distance, toward its inevitable discovery looming with increasing importance until it suddenly snaps into focus and... wow. *mental head slap* Some innocuous object that you actually forgot was in your yard.

Maybe the moon is in collusion with the inanimate objects in your yard: your lawn chairs, bikes, kids' toys, shed, each calmoring for their turn to fool you at the next waxing moon... And to order, the moon selectively illuminates, and hides, random things to force us to notice the ordinary, the things that we take for granted that surround us and are acually part of our world.

Wow.

That was random.

Sooooooo... let's recap:

The moon makes things look all glowy and that is pretty cool.


Just Musing,
Susan

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