ni idea

Sitting here at my desk, after a long day, nursing a Heineken (my fave summer beer since it seems to be nearly summer already -- until the next snow storm, that is). My dinner is eaten, groceries put away -- dishes not done, however, -- and wishing. Wishing that life were sometimes easier. Pollyannas step aside, sometimes life just sucks. Purely sucks.

I hate sin. I hate mental illness. I hate disease. I hate having to work through crap. I hate having weaknesses. I hate sore feet. I admit it. I feel overwhelmed in the crapness of it all. I want to bury my head in a cryogenic freezer and not surface for another 100 or more years until a time when it's "all better."

Of course, I know this panacea doesn't ever materialize. I got it right there in the Book. Don't get any better. Not till you make it all the way up to St Teresa de Avila's or San Juan's place. (They have a sign out front, you can't miss it.) Now there, there, all is well (guess I gotta include St Julian of Norwich, too in that case). For now I get to kill time drinking beer, making myself a salmon dinner, writing a blaaahg out into lah lah land hoping a few friends will hear me, and dreaming about doing the Colorado Trail this summer. Is there anything in between the sublime and the, well, I am not going to call eating salmon or drinking beer ridiculous or banal, but, you know what I mean....? Bliss or ....? I don't know how to fill that in.

I am tired of things being a slog, hard. I am tired of seeing people I love suffer things like MS and mental illness. I am heartbroken that my nephews have no father who can show them how to be good men in this world....that they have to go it on their own. I am tired of being single. Tired of men who are well past the age of oughting to know who can't get their shit together and make a decision about how to take a wife. (I guess I better start referring them to Shakespeare for life direction: see Taming of the Shrew. Decide to marry. Then, do so. -- of course there was a bit of coercion that had to go take place in this particular example :-) ) But hey, this is MY blog, so I can say whatever I want!

Okay, so you get the punto. I am struggling. I need to see a way through all this -- somehow.

Got any ideas?

as it happens

Do you like chaos theory? If so, watch Happenstance (with Audrey Tautou of Amelie -- in French with English subtitles). If you don't like intuitive, non-action packed films that don't explain themselves entirely, don't watch it. If you like things that are abstract, that ask the viewer to make possible connections in the film's plotline, minimal but meaningful dialogue -- go for it. I found myself laughing through most of the film (which is a comedy) and was practically rolling around, gripping my sides in one scene where the main character gets locked out of her apartment and her Tarot card reading neighbour offers to have her in for a cup of tea while she waits for her roomate to arrive with the key.

I haven't blogged much lately. You may have noticed. I find it hard to get here more often, especially when life feels like a slog. And it does lately. I am tired. I took three days off (in a row! lovely miracle!) and all I want to do is what I describe to my roomate as "draw in"...for weeks. Months.

Quiet is something I crave. Not just an external quiet, but the inner one, where voices die out and I can hear my own heartbeat, where I can hear God breathing, present with me. How do I find this in my circumstance as it is just now? I must find out or even my own heartbeat and its sound will die out -- or be drowned out by the violence of Noise and Busyness -- two things we seem to enshrine here in the US.

Maybe that's what happens when I don't get to this space more often: the sound of my inner life is distant and rings dull, and I feel it hasn't any meaning for anyone else....why put it into a public forum, I ask? But I know this is not true. I read the thoughts and experiences of others I know who write frequently on their blogs, and I love sharing in their lives. Mind you, I tend to read blogs where others are looking for insight, attempting the "examined life" via their everyday experience.

Am not certain what I am trying to say except: I want to find a way to reclaim creativity in times of duress, so that I do not "go fah fah away" from my Me-self that needs the creative process on a daily basis. Pain and doubt tend to paralyse and yet I think they are given as a means to something greater....something to tap into, that if held tenderly, can lead me to insight and joy and meaning.

Guess I don't know what else to say besides that today. I showed up today because I still have hope that I am one of the chief agents in this reclamation project....and that my words are perhaps the toes in the water to get me there.