I'd Like To Take This Opportunity

My friend, Otowi, passed on an award to me.  The award asks us to answer the five questions below.  I'd like to take this humbling opportunity to make an important (to me) announcement.  (Thank you, Otowi!)


1) When did you start your blog?

My previous blog, Carol For Peace, was born in August of 2005, but I started to feel like I was outgrowing it, so I deserted it for this one in January of 2009.  

2) What do you write about?

I have no idea.  Stuff...  Nuthin'.

3) What makes your blog special?

Nuthin'.

(I'm starting to feel like the kid who, when she comes home from school answers, "Nothin'" to every question from her mom.)

4) What made you want to start writing a blog?

Mr. CfP made me do it!  I started my Carol For Peace blog at the urging of Mr. CfP after I, and thousands of others, had gone to Crawford, Texas to visit our last president.  We were wondering about these wars - you know, the ones that we are, to this day, still involved with.  We wanted to tell Mr. GWB that we wanted him to put an end to the carnage.  Obviously, our words fell on deaf ears.

Since that time I have changed from an ego-based activist (not saying that all activists are ego-based, but I was) to a whatever-I-am-today type of person, so I thought that this A Peace Carol blog would give me a new canvass where I could express myself.


5) What would you like to change in your blog?

This is where it gets good.  This is what I want to change about my blog:  I want to put it to rest.  I want to say how grateful I am for this blogging experience, for the people I've met, the support I've received, the things I've learned. 

I have been noticing a loss of creativity.  Maybe it's because I have been having intense experiences and yet I don't feel free to write about them in this arena. Am I stifling myself?  (Stifle...  Hmmmm... Images of Archie Bunker arise in my head.)  I don't know.

In order to find out how long this blog has been alive, I had to look at my archives.  I read the first few posts on this blog and I thought, "I am not writing like that any longer.  I'm not feeling as alive in my writing as I once did."  

So it's time to ride off into the sunset - at least as far as APeaceCarolLand is concerned.  

Me and Buddha riding off into the sunset - without our horse.  Okay, we're walking into the sunset.

I completely expect to visit y'all a lot as I mosey around these here intertubes.  

Thank you for reading my writings and for being the awesome people that you are!
 

Goodbye, Adios, Auf Wiedersehen, Ciao!

xo 

Unshocked

This is what it feels like:

I'm holding it together (whatever "it" is) and then a big bird flies overhead and shits - right on my noggin.

Have you ever had a bird shit on your head?  I have.  On my wedding day.  After I had already showered, but not yet dressed myself in the off-white-with-roses-patterned dress I had made for the occasion.  I was out under the trees in our backyard when I felt something hit me.  When I asked my daughter if there was something in my hair, I knew the answer by the way she almost rolled on the lawn, howling.  As I went inside to re-wash my hair, I told my rude daughter not to tell anyone what happened - especially the soon-to-be Mr. CfP - until after the wedding.  So what did she do?  Oh, you must know my daughter...

I swear that the universe waited for that perfect time to shit on me. I had owed it a debt for about 35 years.  You see, I had once laughed until I couldn't breathe after watching my little brother, about three years old at the time, get splattered from head to shoulder with bird poop.  Yes, I was an innocent five year old, but the stars keep score, I swear.

So when I talk about getting shit (shitted?) on, I know what I'm talking about.  You may, too.

Which takes me back to my unshocked title.  Even though it takes a lot of fortitude to get through this parent thing right now, it isn't more than I can handle.  But I'm walking the edge enough that things, like that near miss a short while back and then another little family trauma which occurred a couple of days ago, feel like the little bird dropping that can be enough to knock me over the edge.  A certain shock sets in and I get all into myself and my story.

And a story with one character is usually boring - for the character and for the reader.

I would like to say that I recover within minutes, but the truth is that it takes a couple of days before I start to feel the ick of it all and to again hear Don Juan's words to Carlos Castaneda: "You indulge like a son of a bitch." That knocks the shock off of me and I remember that there is more happening here than the little world which I seem to have created.


Thank you for all of your support.  I'm truly getting that this is a very supportive world.  We are all held up - I just forget sometimes.

I Didn't Go

Yesterday my friends (most of whom I'd never met before today) left for Crestone without me. I went to the Conoco station where we always rendezvous on the way out of town and I got to see them off.  (Hey Dancing, one couple was from England - delightful people.)

There is some sadness here, but I'm mostly over that.  I feel like I grew up a little.  My decision was a 100% selfless, going against what I wanted for me.

There will be other times that I can do what I want.  This is the one time that I can be here for my parents as my dad is born into his next stage.

My new friends are taking a piece of me with them.  I am so very lucky to be so loved and supported.

Amazing.

Retreating

I will be off of the intertubes for awhile.

Never have I left for Crestone with such a wiggly mind and body.

A bird is singing outside my window.  I don't recognize the song.  A toot-toot... toot-toot sound.

Yesterday when I went to visit my dad at the skilled nursing facility that is his new home for the moment, I saw a beautiful dog sitting next to the long front desk.  As I asked the man behind the desk how to find my dad's room, I felt something nudging the back of my leg.  I knew what it was.  I turned to see that sweet dog, who looks like the Buddha dog but heftier, smelling every dog-nose-height wrinkle and fold of my pants.  Awwwww... you don't know what that did to my heart.  Or maybe you do.

The dog at the skilled nursing center looks a lot like Buddha.

 
I used to give massage to people in hospice.  I loved that work.  Now that I'm no longer able to do that, I have often thought that I would like to be a person who brings visiting dogs into hospitals and hospices.  Our Buddha dog has never been the visiting kind.  He's somewhere on the Asperger's continuum and I know that he would rather duck a hand reaching out to him than to be loved up by anyone.  He's just that way.

Maybe someday a dog of the right temperament will find its way into my life and heart, and together we will be able to play with strangers while they find acceptance and love from a four-legged kind of friend.

Now, though, I'm just looking forward to listening to the coyotes punctuate the silence while I sit and do nothing.  Maybe that will happen and maybe it won't.  Maybe the trip will be shortened by events, but maybe I'll sit in the sun for days with no cares.

We never know what the next second will bring, let alone the next ten days.  I like to pretend that I know, but right now, pretending isn't even possible.  I'm aware of the "best laid plans..." and "If you want to see God laugh, make a plan" lines of wisdom.  I can't "not plan", but I guess I might as well have a little sense of humor about having my best laid plans come crashing down.

Thinking about it, just what's so bad about hearing God laugh anyway?


Goodbye for awhile!

The Amusement Park

It took me until I was fourteen to begin to LOVE riding roller coasters.  My friends and I would go to the old Elitch Amusement Park or to Lakeside Amusement Park (which still exists, I think) and roller coaster until we were sick of it.

These days, I don't need to go to an amusement park in order to ride a roller coaster.  Roller Coasters R Us (how do you make a backwards "R" on this thing?)  I am Roller Coaster.

It's been a little over a week now and my dad has been on a roller coaster whose high points have gotten lower and lower and whose low points have done the same.  I'm pretty much okay with that - it's what happens under these circumstances - but it's my mom's emotions which get to me as they go along on the ride.   I mean, think of it - over 60 years of never being apart.  She was just a baby (not yet 21) when this story began.

Wednesday:

On the way to qigong class, I made a left turn onto a side street.  A big, dark truck was coming from the opposite direction and was turning west like me.  It turned first and I followed.  I don't really know how it happened. All I know is that suddenly a man about 60 years old with a long beard and a skateboard (yes, that's what I remember) was right in front of my car.  I slammed on my brakes; he stopped in his tracks.  I mouthed, "I'm sorry."  He motioned for me to go on.

That was my last straw.  I parked and sat in the car and bawled.  And even though I didn't want to, I had to go to qigong because Mr. CfP would be there and would wonder if something happened to me.

Something DID happen to me.

For two days, I was a little girl.  Previously, I had been trying to hold everything up, but I now could no longer do that.  That is, I could no longer even try.  The truth is, it's impossible to hold things up anyway.  It's all bigger than me.

In many ways, it was a relief.  And in some ways, it felt like grief.  And it was about time.

Sometimes I wonder if that man was really an angel sent to help me become more real.  I had been trying to be the one in control of herself.  What a crazy act!


Today:

Months ago, I signed up to do my 4th retreat in Crestone.  If I could only do one nice thing for myself each year, it would be to go to Crestone and spend a week mostly in solitude and silence.  This Thursday is the day we retreatants are scheduled to head south to the San Luis Valley and the tiny village of Crestone.  Over the last week, the roller coaster has given me views where I saw myself going, but it has also gone so low that I couldn't see anything - there was no view.  Today I will clean my house (I have a guest coming before the retreat) and pack - after all, I only have four days until I leave.  If I leave.

The Rolling Stones are playing in my head:

Time waits for no one, no favours has he
Time waits for no one, and he won't wait for me

Men, they build towers to their passing yes, to their fame everlasting
Here he comes chopping and reaping, hear him laugh at their cheating

And time waits for no man, and it won't wait for me
Yes, time waits for no one, and it won't wait for me

Drink in your summer, gather your corn
The dreams of the night time will vanish by dawn

And time waits for no one, and it won't wait for me
And time waits for no one, and it won't wait for me

One reason I love Crestone

Beauty #8

This gave me goosebumps when I watched it on Facebook this morning.  


One of my wishes for all of us:  That we could be so uninhibited and ALIVE.  That we will not, as Thoreau said, "go to the grave with the song still in them [us]."

Have Fun!

As I was growing up, the last words I would usually hear from my mom as I was about to head out were:  "Be careful." 

Those words wore a deep groove into my brain.

A few years ago, to counteract that message that life is something to be afraid of, to be careful of, I painted these words above my front door:  "Have Fun!"  They were a reminder, as one crossed over the threshold into the world, to forget "careful" and instead to be aware of joy and wonder, to play in this play we call life.

As my dad's dementia has progressed, he has begun a ritual of  always thanking us for our visits and then as we prepare to leave, he tells us to "Have fun!". 

Yesterday, as my dad lay in his hospital bed, unable to keep his eyes open, my mom loudly told him that my brother and I were leaving.  Dad opened his eyes and said, "Have fun!"

There were many times that I resisted minding my dad.  I'm sure that I often had an attitude about doing what he said to do.  But now I'm going to make him proud by doing my very best to Have fun!

Ever notice how, when you learn a new word, all of a sudden you see or hear that word everywhere?  Or you hear a song and then that song seems to haunt you every place you go?

That is how it is with me and purple now.  Ever since Goodnight Gram posted about purple, purple has been following me like a dust cloud around Charlie Brown's Pig-Pen.

Yesterday, in honor of Goodnight Gram, I put on a purple sweater.  I thought that a couple of sweaters were all the purple that I owned nowadays, but when I went to put on a light jacket for our spring-like day, I saw my PURPLE silk jacket. Oh yeah!  I had forgotten!

So, of course, I put it on!

Feeling rather purplish - and proud of it - I walked into the hospital only to see that the volunteers at the front desk all had on purple vests!  I visit this hospital so often they have almost named a room after me.  They will soon give me and my family frequent patient discounts.  And I have never before registered the fact that the volunteers wear purple!

Soon, I was noticing purple people all over the place.  If someone volunteers in a different part of the hospital - not at the front desk - he/she gets to wear a purple shirt rather than a vest. In the halls, in my dad's room - purple people everywhere.

I felt like a member of some exclusive club.  It was great!

Maybe I've been around sick people too long...

Couldn't resist.

Beauty #7

There is so much beauty in the world.  Everyone could post about it and never run out of its proof. 


We had to call an ambulance (again) for my dad Sunday morning.  He is still in the hospital, but they will probably release him today, even though he may not be able to ambulate.  I feel like we are walking on the razor's edge of a cliff.  And we may or may not fall off. Well, of course we'll fall off.  It's a matter of when.


Anyway, that is not the point of this post.  The point of this post is 1) to talk about people in elevators, and 2) to share the last rhododendron photo of this series. 


First, the elevators.  You may already know this:  People in hospital elevators are some of the nicest people in the world.  A thirty second hospital elevator ride and ta-daaaaa!  Instant connection.  Talking, joking and "Have a Nice Day!"-ing.  We are family, united by the illness of someone we care for.  It could make one think that the world is a very friendly place!  (Well, I already knew that, but some people just want, through their behavior, to try to prove otherwise.)  I bet even those people would be friendly and sweet if we were to meet them on the hospital elevator. 


Maybe hospitals spray Nice Juice in their elevators. Maybe we could find their source and spray it all over the world...


Below is the last rhodie that I'm going to post.  I love the drops of water on the stems and petals.

The beauty of the heart

is the lasting beauty:

its lips give to drink

of the water of life.

 -Rumi

Beauty #6

This one (the last rhodie I'll share) is for GoodnightGram.  (She'll know why.)  My purple rhodie photos didn't come out so well, so I played with Photoshop on this one.  I didn't do it justice, but it's kind of fun. 

"A flower's fragrance declares to all the world that it is fertile, available, and desirable, its sex organs oozing with nectar.  Its smell reminds us in vestigial ways of fertility, vigor, life-force, all the optimism, expectancy, and passionate bloom of youth.  We inhale its ardent aroma and, no matter what our ages, we feel young and nubile in a world aflame with desire."
 
-   Diane Ackerman,  A Natural History of the Senses


G.G., check this out:  The Purple Store  I think I could have fun there - how about you?