************
Reflections and Letting Go
The end of the year is always a reflective time, a time when we look back once more – taking inventory of not just the passing year’s events and accomplishments, but also your life up to this point. This seems to be a sociological imperative, drummed into us from an early age: Look back at the mistakes you made, make resolutions to correct those errors, part party party and start the cycle all over again, breaking resolutions one by one as life happens.
But, I don’t really wanna talk about all that. Everyone else always does and after a while, the “advice” or “life lessons” that come from these reflections start to sound really sanctimonious and heaven knows I have nothing to feel superior about for last year!!
Soooo, instead, I want to tell you about a couple of really remarkable adventures I had saving wild birds, caring for them and finally letting them go. I know that I have written a condensed version of this story before, but here it is in all its lurid detail. OK, not so lurid. But a little messy - we are talking about birds here!
Jack
A many years ago – maybe 20ish - when I lived in Thousand Oaks, I hopped into my blue VW Vanagon to dash to the store for some much needed groceries. As I approached the corner, I happened to see what appeared to be a fat really ugly baby bird in the gutter on the corner, looking up at me with bright eyes.
In retrospect, I have no idea how I could have possibly seen it so clearly as I was on the driver’s side (duh!) and the gutter was on the right, but something compelled me to stop. I pulled over, got out and discovered that I was not seeing things, there really was a fat REALLY ugly baby bird sitting unmoving in the gutter, many many yards from the nearest tree.
He was in that bizarre wrinkled pin-cushion only-a-mother-could-love-him stage of development. His oddly bright yellow beak barely protruded in a slightly rounded orangy pointed bump, and slashed halfway around his head underscoring two bright black bead eyes that regarded me with no fear. His little head cocked ever so slightly to look up at me. I ran back to the car to get something to put him in and came out with a towel.
Upon my second approach, he did not move, but continued to regard me with oddly peaceful wild indifference. I gingerly reached down to pick him up and he fluttered slightly, but settled into the towel with the air of the very young who can only weakly accept whatever happens. The towel formed a kind of nest in the front seat and this small critter just stared at me as I got in and started the car.
I turned around (illegal U-turn be damned, groceries forgotten) and drove the block back to my house. I wondered as I tried to keep my eyes on the road... had a cat caught him and let him go for some reason? Had he tumbled out of a tree and rolled across the lawn into the gutter?
Upon my arrival home, I shooed my kids back while placing the toweled nest on the kitchen counter and raced around, finally settling on a shoe box to keep him in temporarily. Hmm. He was pretty darn big – his little head could peak up over the side, especially with all the shredded paper towels I put in there, and searched for something more “permanent”. I finally came up with an old laundry basket – plenty of room, high sides and slits to observe his new home. He settled in, scrabbling slightly to find a purchase through all the paper towel shred, and looked up at me again. I put the basket on the raised hearth of the fireplace in the living room and blocked my two youngest (both under 2 years old) in the family room, just in case.
Dawn (my oldest) was about 12 or so at the time and watched all my preparations with interest. She started making all kinds of cooing and “awwwwwwwww” noises at the little pin-cushion and eagerly asked if we could name him Jack, after a starling bird raised by a family in a book I had just read to her a few months before.
Now I HAD to save the little bird… my daughter was watching me, expected miracles just like in the book!
Soooo, shelter, check. Next step… what do you feed a baby bird??? Mommy birds eat bugs and then regurgitate them right into the little darling’s mouths, right? Hmm. I went out in the backyard scouring for little bugs for the better part of a half an hour… rolly pollies, gnats, ants, even worms, and mashed them all up into a paste since there was NO WAY I was gonna chew on bug guts and spit ‘em out, no matter how much I wanted to save the little birdy! I put a drop of the paste onto the tip of a spoon and offered it to the bird.
His little/huge beak stayed closed and he regarded me implacably.
I tried watering down the paste, slurped it up in an eye dropper and dribbled it on his beak, but all that happened was that he got even more pathetic looking with bug gut soup dribbling all around his yellow beak/mouth and ugly little fuzzy bald head.
He kept right on looking at me, beak firmly shut.
I tried all kinds of variations (no rolly pollies, no ants – this was gonna take FOREVER if I had to go searching for bugs every hour!!!) but nothing I offered was the right choice, so eventually I gave up and went to bed. I figured if he was still alive in the morning I would try again.
With morning came frustration, because the little bird was still alive and still looking at me. Trust? Indifference? There was no crying or the little screechy noises and wide open FEED ME NOW beaks that you see on TV with baby birds. This little guy seemed to just be patiently waiting for me to figure it all out.
Now remember, this was BEFORE the internet, so I couldn’t just google Care and Feeding of Ugly Baby Birds You Find in the Gutter for 4,536,021 bird soup recipe suggestions.
Suddenly I remembered my neighbor across the street had a virtual menagerie of animals and kids and (well, that is another story) so I trotted across the street to ask for her advice.
Her suggestion: rice cereal in an eye dropper.
Hmm. Never would have thought of that one, but heck, what did I have to lose? I mixed up a little rice cereal, slupped some up in an eye dropper and offered it to little Jack.
Success!! His eyes got very bright and he immediately opened his mouth, taking in the dropper halfway down his throat with strange choking gulps and demanding more. It was all I could do to keep shoveling rice cereal in his little greedy gut. He got rice cereal all over his little face as his head wobbled a bit while choking it all down, but he didn’t care in the slightest.
Jack was saved!
The next few weeks were a routine of feeding, changing the paper towels and a mayo jar lid full of water in his cage and watching him hunker down for bird naps.
He slowly transformed… looking more and more like a bird and less like he had been shot with hundreds of tiny arrows: his feathers came in, his weird yellow slashed pointy mouth retreated to the front of his face and condensed into an actual beak, and he started hopping around and making little cheep-y noises when he was hungry. I added another laundry basket inverted on top of the original one so he couldn’t fly/hop out.
Jack was no Pavlov, but every time I brought that eye dropper out and said “Cheep Cheep!” his mouth opened and he eagerly ate until he was bursting, closing his mouth firmly when he had had enough.
He grew into what I guess would be an adolescent grey and black bird with white patches, long tail feathers, sleek wings with perfect feathers that stayed tucked. To this day I am not exactly sure what kind of bird he was – I am thinking something like a mockingbird… but I digress.
Eventually I realized this little guy needed to learn to fly and since I had no experience in spreading my own featherless wings, I took him outside in the back yard and let him hop around a little, hoping maybe he would have enough natural instinct to take wing with practice.
We repeated the “getting used to the outdoors” game a few times a day over a week, with Jack’s courage and hopping gaining strength every day. When he hopped up on the chain link fence through one of the openings close to the ground, teetering rather precariously while finding his balance on the wire for several seconds, I nearly applauded! My little baby Jack was growing up! What a proud moment…
After a few days he wanted to stay out all the time, but as I was a very busy mom with not only a growing bird with an eagerness to explore the wide outdoor environs of the backyard, but also had to deal with a near-teen, curious toddler and a cooing baby, I would have to lure him back to me with the eyedropper and “cheep cheep” call.
Every trip he ventured out a little farther; his hops became short flights. I could now see the bright white spot beneath each of his spread wings as he grew stronger. One day he flew to the top of the brick wall in the back and looked beyond his rather confined home… He took off for a short flight, but I was able to call him back immediately with the eye dropper.
This scenario was the beginning of the end. Each flight was a little longer and it took a little longer for him to fly home to the eyedropper and my out-stretched hand.
And finally, one day he did not come back.
I knew that it was bound to happen. Jack was a wild bird who needed to live his life in the fast lane of the sky, full of joyful flying and meeting girly birds in out of the way deeply foliaged trees for privacy (*wink wink*), eating gnats and bugs and perhaps even raising his own family.
I was very sad and a little nervous. What if he got a cramp? What if some cat jumped out of a tree and gobbled him up?? What if some birdie-slut broke his little heart and left him crying into his bug-beer???
Trying to quell my natural protective mom-instincts, I nevertheless went out every hour and held my arm up until it ached and “Cheeped” until I was hoarse for several days, but Jack had found his freedom and didn’t need me anymore.
*sigh* Sometimes motherhood just really sucks.
Now, even years later, whenever I see one of those grey birds with the long tail and the white flashes beneath their wings, I remember Jack and how I had a most remarkable experience raising that trusting ugly little ball of fuzz and sticks into a creature of grace and lithe beauty and can only smile.
Just Musing,
Susan
NEXT: Flit, rescued hummingbird!
************************
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Christmas Crass and Christmas Heart
********
There is something slightly crass about the Holiday… oh hell. Let’s call it what it really is: the Christmas Season.
Retailers are desperate to make sure Black Friday puts them solidly in the Black and gives them enough revenue to make it through the next year. Commercialism runs rampant, but is pretty much understandable because livelihoods – staving off foreclosure, repossession and starvation - depend on sales at this time of year.
Advertising is the vehicle by which these retailers get their message to the buying public, and many times the result is heartwarming and kinda fun (think big red bows and just in the nick of time snowfall saving the day and inducing spontaneous song singing). Other times it is just tawdry, screaming in your face, even guilt-inducing (YOU MUST BUY THIS OR YOU ARE A BAAAAD HUSBAND, PARENT, FRIEND, etc.). Either way – and all the ways in between – again, it is still pretty understandable.
Christmas movies… now there is another story.
Some movies are wonderful and stand the test of time, and others can, and do, disappear into the ethereal if slightly stale celluloid misty void where they belong amidst dusty distintegrating costumes and old chipped and cracked props.
Every year, movie makers attempt to reinvent the classics, with remakes and “re-imaginings”. Some brave souls even try new stories. For some reason beyond my real understanding, many of these seem hastily made and a rather desperate attempt to “cash in” rather than making an honest living selling stuff to people who are desperate to buy that same stuff.
Maybe if the quality of these “re-imaginings”, remakes and even some new stories were able to truly capture even the tiniest modicum of the magic we are all searching for this time of year, we could embrace their stories and add them to our DVD shelves for yearly watching huddled around the TV flickering like a cold fire, fighting over the popcorn and arguing over who has to go get the paper towels because SOMEone spilled their soda.
*sigh* Good times.
Anyway, I could probably forgive their attempts if they had some “heart”, that indefinable something that gives a film that special extra push that resonates long after the credits roll.
Take "A Christmas Carol", a novel that has been remade in film and on stage soooo many times that a true aficionado would have a hard time getting through all of them without either a boxful of Kleenex or a very large glass of wine and a steady hand on the mute button.
For those who have actually READ the classic book by Charles Dickens, you all know the story is not only about personal redemption via ghost dreams, but it is filled with humor, pathos, social commentary and an interesting history lesson on how people dealt with death of a hated colleague or beloved family member in an era where death was a sad but very frequent personal visitor.
So why is it that so many remakes fail to get past the ghosts and at least give a nod in the general direction of some of these underlying themes in this very slim volume? A clever writer would be able to interject the requisite pathos, a layered cast would play it just so and a competent director and editor would work it to allow the seasoning of the story to come through to elevate it beyond the obvious.
Alastair Sim, Albert Finney, Bill Murray, Fred Flintstone, Mr. Magoo, George C. Scott, Uncle Scrooge, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, Jim Carrey… so many Scrooges, so little time…
And we all have our favorite; for whatever reason, the one single version that sings to us; that one translation that tugs at our heartstrings year after year. Upon expanding these favorite versions, you can dig beneath the layers and find… more layers; layers that touch on or deeply explore one or more of the underlying themes laid out so carefully by the inestimable Mr. Dickens.
Whether the emphasis on the sub-themes is on the pathos or the social commentary or even the humor (gallows though it often is), there is something for all of us in this deceptively simple story.
Personally, even though a couple of very significant sub-stories are missing (like Scrooge's beloved sister, who emotionally ties him to his oft-maligned nephew), my favorite is … "The Muppet Christmas Carol".
Really. I am completely serious here.
Pathos, humor, social commentary, dealing with death… it is all touched on there, brilliantly executed by the Muppet cast and Michael Cain and a slew of other real live actors mingling seamlessly in with the legless puppets.
Only the dramatic reading by Patrick Stewart (not his film version...but the far superior stage reading – which I have seen in person TWICE!!! - also out on CD, available at Amazon.com…) even comes close.
Muppet Christmas Carol (also available at Amazon.com... hmmmmm starting to sound like a commercial here) is more than just fun, and the throw away lines and visual jokes really are hilarious, but the heart is deep, the layers complex and the simple felt Muppet puppets portray the cast that surrounds Michael Cain with a depth that is simply amazing.
Muppets and Charles Dickens… whoda thunk it??
Just Musing,
Susan
*********************
.
There is something slightly crass about the Holiday… oh hell. Let’s call it what it really is: the Christmas Season.
Retailers are desperate to make sure Black Friday puts them solidly in the Black and gives them enough revenue to make it through the next year. Commercialism runs rampant, but is pretty much understandable because livelihoods – staving off foreclosure, repossession and starvation - depend on sales at this time of year.
Advertising is the vehicle by which these retailers get their message to the buying public, and many times the result is heartwarming and kinda fun (think big red bows and just in the nick of time snowfall saving the day and inducing spontaneous song singing). Other times it is just tawdry, screaming in your face, even guilt-inducing (YOU MUST BUY THIS OR YOU ARE A BAAAAD HUSBAND, PARENT, FRIEND, etc.). Either way – and all the ways in between – again, it is still pretty understandable.
Christmas movies… now there is another story.
Some movies are wonderful and stand the test of time, and others can, and do, disappear into the ethereal if slightly stale celluloid misty void where they belong amidst dusty distintegrating costumes and old chipped and cracked props.
Every year, movie makers attempt to reinvent the classics, with remakes and “re-imaginings”. Some brave souls even try new stories. For some reason beyond my real understanding, many of these seem hastily made and a rather desperate attempt to “cash in” rather than making an honest living selling stuff to people who are desperate to buy that same stuff.
Maybe if the quality of these “re-imaginings”, remakes and even some new stories were able to truly capture even the tiniest modicum of the magic we are all searching for this time of year, we could embrace their stories and add them to our DVD shelves for yearly watching huddled around the TV flickering like a cold fire, fighting over the popcorn and arguing over who has to go get the paper towels because SOMEone spilled their soda.
*sigh* Good times.
Anyway, I could probably forgive their attempts if they had some “heart”, that indefinable something that gives a film that special extra push that resonates long after the credits roll.
Take "A Christmas Carol", a novel that has been remade in film and on stage soooo many times that a true aficionado would have a hard time getting through all of them without either a boxful of Kleenex or a very large glass of wine and a steady hand on the mute button.
For those who have actually READ the classic book by Charles Dickens, you all know the story is not only about personal redemption via ghost dreams, but it is filled with humor, pathos, social commentary and an interesting history lesson on how people dealt with death of a hated colleague or beloved family member in an era where death was a sad but very frequent personal visitor.
So why is it that so many remakes fail to get past the ghosts and at least give a nod in the general direction of some of these underlying themes in this very slim volume? A clever writer would be able to interject the requisite pathos, a layered cast would play it just so and a competent director and editor would work it to allow the seasoning of the story to come through to elevate it beyond the obvious.
Alastair Sim, Albert Finney, Bill Murray, Fred Flintstone, Mr. Magoo, George C. Scott, Uncle Scrooge, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, Jim Carrey… so many Scrooges, so little time…
And we all have our favorite; for whatever reason, the one single version that sings to us; that one translation that tugs at our heartstrings year after year. Upon expanding these favorite versions, you can dig beneath the layers and find… more layers; layers that touch on or deeply explore one or more of the underlying themes laid out so carefully by the inestimable Mr. Dickens.
Whether the emphasis on the sub-themes is on the pathos or the social commentary or even the humor (gallows though it often is), there is something for all of us in this deceptively simple story.
Personally, even though a couple of very significant sub-stories are missing (like Scrooge's beloved sister, who emotionally ties him to his oft-maligned nephew), my favorite is … "The Muppet Christmas Carol".
Really. I am completely serious here.
Pathos, humor, social commentary, dealing with death… it is all touched on there, brilliantly executed by the Muppet cast and Michael Cain and a slew of other real live actors mingling seamlessly in with the legless puppets.
Only the dramatic reading by Patrick Stewart (not his film version...but the far superior stage reading – which I have seen in person TWICE!!! - also out on CD, available at Amazon.com…) even comes close.
Muppet Christmas Carol (also available at Amazon.com... hmmmmm starting to sound like a commercial here) is more than just fun, and the throw away lines and visual jokes really are hilarious, but the heart is deep, the layers complex and the simple felt Muppet puppets portray the cast that surrounds Michael Cain with a depth that is simply amazing.
Muppets and Charles Dickens… whoda thunk it??
Just Musing,
Susan
*********************
.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Memory - or Lack Thereof
*********
I keep thinking I am still a young woman... but then things keep cropping up: grey hair (only at the roots!), weird pains, the look on my mother's face in the mirror, my inability to recognise any current music or artists or actors, and now the most dreaded of all aging un-fair-ables: Memory Loss.
I have been trying to get back into this blog post to write for more than two weeks. I simply could not remember my log in and password. I naturally assumed it was the email address with the extension The Powers That Be requested and spent hours, days, weeks, decades, eons, for EVER trying to figure out what the *$(%@ was wrong. In the end, I created another account, but it still wouldn't let me into my own blog...
Frustration, thy name is Technology.
It got me thinking about other recent bouts of forgetfulness. Where I left my keys. Where the heck is my credit card?? Why did I come into this room?? What in tarnation is the name of my BFF????? HOW do I open an escrow?? My phone number? Ummmmmm.....
I figure there has to be an explanation for this seemingly random series of brain fades since other times I am sharp and quick and witty. I can even do the word puzzles in the paper every morning in my head.
Obviously I am either a target of a Forget Me Now Ray gun (scary to think I might know something so terrible that the Super Secret Arm of the US Gvm'nt would use this buggy and dangerous techonology in a metro area!!! *gasp*) or, and this is a far more likely scenario, I am beset by Forgettery Fairies.
I have been whacked over the head by these Forgetteries more and more often in recent months... So often in fact, that I have acquired my own personal one who follows me around all day. I shall call her Frosince. I can't see Frosince except out of the corner of my eye, but I picture this fairy as being kinda scrunchy looking, green leafy dress all wrinkled because she forgot to take it out of the dryer, a perpetual slightly puzzled scowl on her little face from constant concentration and frustration, cold toes because she forgot to put on her tiny little shoes (from the hundreds she steals from little girl's Barbies), and her teeth are all fuzzy because, well, you get the idea.
Frosince is not a happy camper. My theory is that in addition to forgetting to brush her teeth yesterday, she also forgot where she left her car (a Beetle, of course) on the three hundred and forty-seventh level of the parking structure at Disneyland when she was on a pilgrimage to pay homage to the epitome of achievable fairy success, Tink, and had to hitchhike back home on the luggage rack of a Kia. (BTW, anyone who would even SUGGEST that she use her wings to fly nearly 100 miles is a cad.)
I am certain that she has weilded her Wand of Formatible Forgetty-fulness, all 2 inches and 37 grams of it, repeatedly at my head and THAT is the reason I have been waking up with little headaches and odd lumps on my head in the morning. That is certainly a more logical explanation than rolling over too close ot the edge of the bed and ker-bonging my head on the nightstand!
Ouch.
Fairy clobbering notwithstanding, I am back, and expect to get back on some sort of writing schedule.
Just... watch out for fairies with bad breath. It could be Frosince or one of her BFF Forgettery Friends like Freida or Frescura, coming to visit YOU... ker-BONNNNG!!!!
Just Musing,
Susan
************************
I keep thinking I am still a young woman... but then things keep cropping up: grey hair (only at the roots!), weird pains, the look on my mother's face in the mirror, my inability to recognise any current music or artists or actors, and now the most dreaded of all aging un-fair-ables: Memory Loss.
I have been trying to get back into this blog post to write for more than two weeks. I simply could not remember my log in and password. I naturally assumed it was the email address with the extension The Powers That Be requested and spent hours, days, weeks, decades, eons, for EVER trying to figure out what the *$(%@ was wrong. In the end, I created another account, but it still wouldn't let me into my own blog...
Frustration, thy name is Technology.
It got me thinking about other recent bouts of forgetfulness. Where I left my keys. Where the heck is my credit card?? Why did I come into this room?? What in tarnation is the name of my BFF????? HOW do I open an escrow?? My phone number? Ummmmmm.....
I figure there has to be an explanation for this seemingly random series of brain fades since other times I am sharp and quick and witty. I can even do the word puzzles in the paper every morning in my head.
Obviously I am either a target of a Forget Me Now Ray gun (scary to think I might know something so terrible that the Super Secret Arm of the US Gvm'nt would use this buggy and dangerous techonology in a metro area!!! *gasp*) or, and this is a far more likely scenario, I am beset by Forgettery Fairies.
I have been whacked over the head by these Forgetteries more and more often in recent months... So often in fact, that I have acquired my own personal one who follows me around all day. I shall call her Frosince. I can't see Frosince except out of the corner of my eye, but I picture this fairy as being kinda scrunchy looking, green leafy dress all wrinkled because she forgot to take it out of the dryer, a perpetual slightly puzzled scowl on her little face from constant concentration and frustration, cold toes because she forgot to put on her tiny little shoes (from the hundreds she steals from little girl's Barbies), and her teeth are all fuzzy because, well, you get the idea.
Frosince is not a happy camper. My theory is that in addition to forgetting to brush her teeth yesterday, she also forgot where she left her car (a Beetle, of course) on the three hundred and forty-seventh level of the parking structure at Disneyland when she was on a pilgrimage to pay homage to the epitome of achievable fairy success, Tink, and had to hitchhike back home on the luggage rack of a Kia. (BTW, anyone who would even SUGGEST that she use her wings to fly nearly 100 miles is a cad.)
I am certain that she has weilded her Wand of Formatible Forgetty-fulness, all 2 inches and 37 grams of it, repeatedly at my head and THAT is the reason I have been waking up with little headaches and odd lumps on my head in the morning. That is certainly a more logical explanation than rolling over too close ot the edge of the bed and ker-bonging my head on the nightstand!
Ouch.
Fairy clobbering notwithstanding, I am back, and expect to get back on some sort of writing schedule.
Just... watch out for fairies with bad breath. It could be Frosince or one of her BFF Forgettery Friends like Freida or Frescura, coming to visit YOU... ker-BONNNNG!!!!
Just Musing,
Susan
************************
Monday, October 19, 2009
Ghosts
****************************************
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
***********************************************
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
***********************************************
Friday, October 16, 2009
Talking with My Hands
**********************
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! :)
***************************************
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! :)
***************************************
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Some Days You're the Windshield...
*******************************
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
********************************************************
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
********************************************************
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Happiness is a warm puppy... waiting to greet the morning
******************************************************************
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
******************************************************************
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
******************************************************************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)