How I Became U2's Marketing Guru

Last night, I went to a small, dark bar, very intimate, and U2 was playing.  The place was only sparsely filled.  After the concert, I was speaking to Bono and The Edge, telling them about how they needed to do some marketing.  They asked what to do.  I told them that the way we built our massage practice was to do door-to-door flyers and it worked well.  They thought it sounded like a good idea and decided that they would do that.  I told them that it's not easy.  It's a lot of walking - not easy walking when you have to go up and down driveways.  They were very impressed that I was so wise about marketing. 

Then I realized that, hey, they can fill stadiums for goodness sake! What's the deal with only drawing a very small crowd in a bar and the need for marketing?  Their reply:  Yeah, they could fill stadiums, but the small venues were harder. 

I started having a "thing" with Bono.  The last time I remember having sex with him, we were in some closed small space.  We knew his wife was outside the door.  That was somewhat uncomfortable.

Later that day, I needed to make an appointment with a woman who was connected to the band somehow. While we were doing our transaction, Bono's wife walked past me and into the reception area.  I felt really bad and asked the receptionist if people looked down on me for having an affair with Bono.  She told me there was no judgment.  Whew!

I wonder how many women have had dream sex with Bono!

(Disclaimer - I have never had CONSCIOUS fantasies about sex with Bono, and even though he's a famous rock star - and kind of sexy - he's not my type.)   ;-)

Wilderness Quest 2011 - Part 2

The desert is moody.  Cold and indifferent one day, hot and intense the next.

Our base camp was set up before we arrived the first morning.  Water in the smaller containers was still frozen from the night before.  Wind drove the cold air into my bones.  And it was too late to head back to my warm house.  I was committed to being on this exposed land for the next eight days.

Forget about warm housing, I didn't even have a tent!  It is suggested that no tent be used on a quest, allowing us to be less separated from the land and life of which we are a part.  There are many things that would give me great comfort in the desert, and a tent is at the top of the list.  During the upcoming nights, my home would be made of a ground cloth below me, a sleeping bag around me, and another tarp above to keep out any rain.  No protective walls to keep out any boogeymen or four-leggeds that may find me out there in the middle of nowhere.  Even though I always approach quests with fears of tentlessness, I usually end up sleeping without the top tarp some of the time because I find that it separates me from the AMAZING, gargantuan night skies that reach into infinity.

The first night out this time around, dressed in long underwear, fleece shirt and pants, and my down coat, I snuggled into my blue down sleeping bag, and by the light of my headlamp, I began to journal.  (Yes, with all of that insulation, I was pretty darn comfortable.)  Grief about my dad's dementia and physical deterioration, along with confusion about how his care was being handled leaked out through ink onto paper, through tears onto cheeks, and through cries into the night.  As I was indulging quite nicely, a scorpion crawled from under my ground cloth.  Hadn't he ever heard the sound of a wailing woman before???)  He was about four inches from my writing hand.  Yikes.

Did you know that during the day, scorpions find shelter from the hot sun by hiding under rocks, but you can't fool a scorpion into thinking a headlamp is the sun, so you can't make him hide - or go away?  What to do, what to do?  He moseyed on around so that he was about a foot away from where my head would lie - if I had the nerve to go to sleep knowing that there was a scorpion hovering nearby.  I watched him as he would walk a short distance, then hang out for a while - getting nowhere slowly.  I watched to be sure that he was going to go THAT way, not THIS way, toward me.

After about a half hour, when I realized that the scorpion had more staying power than I did, I just decided to quit my supervising and hope that if that little stinger guy came any closer, he would choose to go underneath my ground cloth again instead of joining me on top of it.  Sometimes, you just can't worry about what might happen, so I cocooned myself into my bag and slept like a baby.


To See the First Wilderness Quest Post:   1  

Yesterday's Hike

Ground accepts bare feet

offerings on a fall hike

earth, friend, mother, life

No, it wasn't snowy all the way.  Most places along the trail were warm (somewhat) from the sun. 

What the heck???  A pink plastic spoon taped to a tree with black tape.  There must be some kind of cosmic significance here!

Wilderness Quest 2011 - Part 1

On the second to last day of April, I traveled in a yacht-sized black SUV from Denver to Moab, Utah with a complete stranger/new friend. .  Terry is a friend of a friend - a wild man who is unafraid of challenging himself in the physical world.  While I am more reserved when it comes to bodily challenges and feel more at home challenging my inner life, we still had fun getting to know each other as we rode through rain and snow, finally landing in the sunshine of Moab seven hours later. I was not only entering the stunning canyon areas of Utah, I was walking into the unknown territories of my third wilderness quest.

In Moab, we met up with the people with whom we would be spending the next eight days - three days together, three days on solo, and then another two days together.  With a history of shy introversion (painfully tongue-tied in the past, but getting somewhat better with age), the days of togetherness with strangers was more challenging for me than the hot days I sat alone with only this crazy mind for companionship.

After dinner out with the fourteen other beautiful people from the U.S. and Germany who, along with the desert creatures, would be my companions for the next few days, I went to my motel room with my two room-mates - a couple from California that I knew from some workshops we had taken together.  And do you know what we did that night in preparation for our great spiritual adventure into the desert???  We laughed and laughed, and we watched television!  I, a non-television viewer, watched TV as I entered into the abyss of the wilderness quest.  My companions' choice?  A "re-run" of the day's most televised event - the beautiful, proper, glamorous wedding of Prince William & Catherine Middleton!  Can you believe it?  What an archway into the austerity of the desert!

Pondering the "F" Word

I stood on the sidewalk holding my "Peace" sign and watching the young man at the bus stop while he danced pirouettes to keep his hacky sack in the air.  Sitting on the stone bus stop bench, a woman who appeared to be in her early twenties read a book as she drank her Starbuck's from a paper cup.

The bus pulled up and a car across the way stopped for the red light, its windows down and Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" pouring into the air.


Hold me closer, tiny dancer...

How can anyone ever say that life is boring with all of this entertainment?

After a while, someone hurled the words, "Freedom isn't free!" across five lanes of traffic and into the ears of our group of Women in Black vigilers (and anyone else within a two-block radius).  I always ponder such outbursts, unoriginal as they may be.  I probably spend much more time pondering such phrases yelled at us than does the person pronouncing such profundities.  But I could be wrong about that.

Below is how my imaginary dialog with Yelling Man (YM) could go:

(Since I don't know what YM would say to my inquiries, I can't put words in his mouth.)

YM:  Freedom isn't free!

Me:  What do you mean by that?  Do you mean that freedom costs money?  Do you mean that freedom costs lives? The lives of our citizens who are sent to war and the lives of citizens of other countries?  Are you talking about money or lives or both?

YM:  Freedom isn't free!

Me:  Do you feel free now, knowing that people are dying all over the world while we spend trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on war?

YM:  Freedom isn't free!

Me:  I experience freedom whether or not we have people fighting in other countries.  Is freedom truly freedom if it's based on conditions?  Conditions that could change in an instant?  That doesn't sound very free to me.  I experience freedom while you yell at me, I experience freedom while our government watches me on cameras.  I experience freedom while I pay taxes.  On my best days, freedom isn't contingent on circumstances outside myself.  On my worst days, I suffer and think that my suffering is caused by others.  At some point, though, I usually wake up and remember the source of true freedom (or, sometimes, I have to ask for help in order to get my head on straight again). Then, I am no longer a victim.  Maybe when you yell that freedom isn't free, maybe you're forgetting and not having one of your best days?

Everything can be taken from a man but...the last of the human freedoms - to choose
one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl

True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, handcuffed, or put into a jail.  - OSHO, Freedom: The Courage to Be Yourself

The truth shall make you free. - Jesus, John 8:31

I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it. 

– Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

My Boyfriend

I'm in love with this guy. 

I guess that you could call me a two-timer - or maybe a three-timer - because I was seeing this guy while Buddha was still here and, well, I AM married, you know.

I'm usually attracted to big men with dark hair, so this is quite the deviation from my normal attractions.

But there is just something special about this guy.  I think he feels the same about me.

We get to spend some quality time every once in awhile.  His woman isn't even jealous.

Neither is Mr. CFP.

Something about him makes my heart melt.

Oh, Chipper, if you didn't already have a woman and some prissy, little female four-leggeds to live with, I'd bring you home in a second!

Kneel

My favorite Dilbert cartoon.  I must have pulled this off of my Dilbert calendar in the late 80s or early 90s.  I don't know where it's been all of these years, but I ran across it the other day. 

(Click to embiggen)

Still cracks me up.

Maybe I'm just easily entertained.

Love Means...

As autumn approached, we spent a few days in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Dogs are not allowed to hike within a National Park, and since Buddha was no longer in our life, we were now free to hike many trails during our time there.

Real LOVE is when we can't stand to leave our best dog behind, so we don't hike a close national park for years and years - and we don't feel like we're missing out on anything, because having a best dog friend is way more valuable.

Elk above timberline

(I love all of the colors in the hills.)

Before Mr. Boodie left us, he was getting weak in his hind legs, so in order to give the guy some more traction, we bought rugs for areas of our home that have wood floors.  The rug in the bedroom is a plain, light color.  Buddha hairs showed on it like iron filings on a magnet, like the gray hairs popping up all over my head.  

When Mr. CFP did the first post-Buddha vacuuming (which didn't take place until more than a week after Buddha died, because knowing that I'd never have Buddha hairs on my rug again, I forbade the cleaning of that rug), the first thought that came to my mind after entering the room was, "I love the look of a clean floor!"  But real LOVE allows for hairy rugs, because having a dog buddy who thinks we're a god is way more valuable than a clean rug.

Today at the nursing home where my dad lives, I got to give Todd (the resident dog) a morning neck massage.  We both loved it.  A lot.  Maybe sometime, a different four-legged best buddy will find its way to this home and this heart.  I don't need national parks and clean carpets anyway.

Whispering

breathing as I stand on the corner, “Imagine Peace On Earth” sign in hand.

breathing it ALL in, breathing it ALL out.

breathing in the love of family that motivates a man to work a job building these passing cars
breathing in the greed that causes another to pay low wages and charge too much for the cars
breathing out the love within me that motivates me to stand here for peace
breathing out the greed within me that wants more than enough for me before I give to others

breathing in the same air that has been breathed by millions before me
breathing in the hatred of Hitler, the nonviolence of Gandhi, the clarity of Martin Luther King, Jr.
breathing in the realization that, no matter who we are or what we believe, we share the same air

breathing in germs, dirt, exhaust, love, fear, worry, lust, caring, hurry
breathing in the used oxygen of someone with cancer
breathing in the oxygen that a new baby just breathed out

Every cell of every body is given life by the ancient air that we share.
We are all whispers of the one breath

© 2011 Carol Barrow

Back again?

Wow!  What happened while I was away?  Everything looks different on Blogger's "Compose" page.

I'm playing around with the idea of blogging again.  The important words here are "playing around".  Since I don't know where this will go, I am not announcing my return to anyone.  Shussshhhh... it's a secret!

Blogger is not the only thing that has changed since the last time I posted.  I have changed and so has my family.

I have less parts.

In June, I went to the ER at 4:00 in the morning.  I had awakened at 3:00 for a bathroom break, and by the time I got back to bed, I knew something was really wrong.  Over the course of about two minutes, I went from sleeping like a baby to flailing all over the house like a wild animal.  It was amazing!  I felt like I was a bull snake who had, somehow, swallowed a coyote.  A big, whole coyote.  And I needed to get that coyote out NOW!  We live pretty close to a hospital, so Mr. Carol For Peace drove me over there in the dark of the night and after a few writhing hours and many cries for my mommy, I finally got some pain meds.  It ended up that a part of my large intestine had flipped and twisted.  Two days later, about 18 inches of my intestine was taken out.

Now I am a new woman.  I am better than I've been in decades.  That surgery needed to happen and no one knew it.  I didn't know that I could be so grateful for a coyote-bulging gut and a resulting vertical scar down the middle of my belly!


I don't have a Buddha buddy.

A little over two months after the coyote extraction, my sweet, sweet, bestest buddy, Buddha died at the ripe old age of nearly 15.  It's been less than three months and my heart still hurts.  I still cry at everything sweet or sad or loving or anything.  I am still a wet noodle.  I can't believe he's gone.  WHERE DID HE GO???

Buddha was the best.

I have a button that sits at the base of my monitor.  A friend gave it to me a couple of years ago.  It says, "What Would Buddha Do?"  It probably isn't referring to a beloved dog.  But every time I see it, I remember what Buddha (the dog) would do.  He would be loyal.  He would be happy and enthusiastic and patient and flexible and accepting.  He would jump up and down with excitement when someone came to the door.  He would like everyone.

And he would love to hike.


I have been able to nurture some of those qualities within myself.  Still working on the art of jumping up and down when someone appears at the door, though.

Dear Buddha - I will always love you.