Category: Life Lessons

What Owns You?

Today’s writing prompt: What would you do if you lost all your possessions?

I have gone through that experience a few times in my life, literally and figuratively. Sometimes by choice. Other times by loss. theft, or my own omissions. I forgot stuff in various places occasionally. So annoying.

In the absence of solid social and family support, possessions became my anchor.

It wasn’t a rational substitute. But the mental and emotional preoccupation of “taking care of” stuff gave me the illusion of self-care and control over my personal domain.

Going through a lifetime of possessions over this past month drove home the lesson of how deep an illusion it was.

Life would be much tidier if we just came preprogrammed with all the requisite skills we need to succeed in life. But we don’t. Growing and growing up involves time and the mysterious alchemy of nurture and nature.

We can take inventory of all the qualities we inherit from our parents and extended family and environment. In to that mix comes the special sauce of our own character and personality that we bring to the table.

Our personal taste seems internally determined but is undoubtedly overlaid with the influences of our childhood home or homes. It is why we often see gaucherie or insecurity in the decorating tastes of the nouveau riche.

It is said that the middle class have things, and the rich have money. If you were raised in poverty or the middle class and come into money, that background is often manifested in excess. If you haven’t learned healthy boundaries or money management rules growing up, you may go off the rails quickly if sudden wealth comes your way.

On one of those fascinating, if squirm inducing, “I Won The Lottery!” shows, a middle-aged redneck took inordinate pride in the original Italian marble statues (imported directly from Italy!) that surrounded his oversize backyard pool.

He made a point of explaining why he didn’t give his teenage daughter an allowance. “She has to learn she will have to earn her own money,” he said, disingenuously. “Just like I did.”

Hanging out with people who have or come from money, you see how taken for granted or comfortable they are with wealth and comfort. Want something? Get it. Lose or break something? Replace it. Don’t have any at the moment? But I will.

There was no gnashing of teeth or wailing about how to get what they wanted or getting their needs met. When I was about 14, I tentatively asked my Dad for $5. “I already gave you $5 last week. What do you need more money for? “Tampons,” I almost whispered, writhing in shame and humiliation.

Our emotional relationship with things develop much like as our relationships with human beings develop. When attentive human beings are not consistently available to meet our multiple needs as we grow up, we compensate. We may then learn to divert our attention and seek satisfaction from things instead of getting our legitimate human needs met.

It’s a pervasive compensatory tactic.

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.”
― Will Rogers

Today’s writing prompt asked, what would you do if you lost all your possessions? I might throw a party. I might pack a napsack and head for parts unknown. I might go to a meditation retreat center to think about what my life was before and after possessions held me in thrall.

If/when that day comes. I hope I will treat myself with the requisite level of empathy and compassion for doing what I did and felt I had to do to make up for emotional deficits in my life.

Until I finally learned to meet my normal human needs and find satisfaction in healthier, people focussed ways.

Real World Test

Airline travel. Used to be a fan. Now not so much.

I am writing from the belly of the beast. Newark airport.

As I posted, I was looking forward to flying back to my new home base in Florida.

For one reason or another, I ended up going today instead of yesterday. No biggie.

I needed the extra rest.

Got my bags and cat all on board safely to fly southward and arrived. In Newark.

Getting out of Newark appears to be more of a problem.

On the spot, a flight attendant proclaimed the “airline approved” hard-sided carrier “unsuitable.”

Me and carrier and cat within it were all escorted off our flight.

Now what?

Go to Newark Airport baggage and buy a soft-sided carrier, I’m told. Where is that? How do I get there? How long does it take to get there and back?

In the old days, airport personnel just “knew.” They were familiar enough with their environment and what was needed and where to find it. These days, if it can’t be looked up on the internet, it can’t be found. Not easily at any rate. And absolutely not quickly.

Another flight leaves in 40 minutes. Will I get on it? Highly unlikely.

There is a shocking degree of “not my problem” among airline and airport personnel these days. We seem to have lost any sense of shock or outrage about treating people without even the basics of care, courtesy and dignity.

The gate agents who were there to “help” me disappeared. Literally left their posts and went elsewhere.

I suppose my biggest concern is that this type of shoddy service is so common these days, it’s hardly worth mentioning. Because it seems to happen to everyone at one time or the other all of the time.

The foundations of civil society will not end with a bang but with a whimper. It is the daily erosion of common courtesy and decency that are eroding our social structure.

Much more even than the flashy, big-mouthed politicians who push “solutions” to our social ills that not even they can take seriously in their private domain.

So I sit and wait as I have been instructed to do. My options are limited. They run the airlines after all.

I am in a state of mild shock and disbelief. Not so much because I have been personally mistreated and disregarded by hired professionals who are mandated to have your best interests at heart. But because everyone is being treated like this lately.

If you subscribe to the notions of “the golden rule” and “what goes around, comes around” as foundational tenets of the social contract, it is not surprising why our society’s well-being seems fundamentally frayed and flawed.

Am I attributing too much meaning to a service slip from a major airline? Sadly, I think not.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I’d like to say all my bags are packed and I’m ready to go. I’m not. That is what I will do today.

I used to love travel. I remember the excitement in getting ready for a big trip. And there were some very big trips in my life.

From my home base in Canada, I flew to Sri Lanka for a three month walking trek and sojourn through India and Nepal. On another occasion, I flew to Seoul Korea to connect with my family on tiny and dazzling beautiful black sand Jeju Island off South Korea’s coast.

Then there was the southern sojourn to Argentina to take a ten day horse trek across the Andes. And I once flew due North and landed in Iqaluit, Nunavut for several frost filled days to attend the Arctic Winter Games.

Many writers laud the benefits of travel. I do. It changes you. It broadens your perspective on so many things. It can shatter the illusion of cultural superiority that some secretly harbor if they have not travelled very far from their home base.

One look at a carved monument in almost any country should knock that out of your system pretty quickly. Not always, of course. But often.

Travel is a kind of education that you cannot replicate by reading books. Books stimulate the imagination. Travel stimulates the senses. Nothing could replace the overwhelming sights and sounds of a spice market in New Delhi, India.

Celebrating Holi, the festival of colors, is one of the most unique occasions I’ve ever taken part in. In under an hour, me and my traveling companions were physically drenched in a dozen colors from handfuls of special chalk thrown at us. Deliberately!

As you wander the streets of New Delhi (or anywhere in India on that unique, special holiday), everyone is equally streaked with multiple colors of dust.

Indians generally have a great sense of occasion. Nothing can match the style and splendor of an Indian wedding drenched in rich fabrics, brilliant colors and enticing smells.

When most of my college buddies were working at traditional summer jobs after the term was over, I spent every summer traveling on some pretense or another. Europe. First as a waitress in a massive tourist hotel and the following summer as a student. Then Egypt as a student after my third year.

After graduation, I spent several months traipsing through Asia. So many indelible memories. So much experience and learning – mostly good.

I am leaving my country again. This time, on a more permanent basis. We cannot predict the future with flawless accuracy but we can make some educated guesses.

For me that means the next few years will be spent among my continent mates directly to our South. Living in the USA at this juncture in history is an ongoing daily education. I won’t make a qualitative call on what I’m learning there.

Travel brings you home with new eyes. You see everything that was familiar and there before but differently somehow.

It is easy for me to appreciate the old song, “How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Pa-ree?” Travel was like an addiction where the more I did it, the more I craved. I deemed it a healthy addiction and only now see the cravings diminishing somewhat.

Hours from now, I’ll be winging my way South to rejoin my husband and put this country in the rearview mirror for awhile.

When the jet place departs, I fully expect my bags to be packed and ready to go.

As ready as I’ll ever be at any rate.

House Keeping

I am enticed by and enjoy fine TV British dramas such as Downton Abbey and the older, but venerable PBS stalwart, Upstairs, Downstairs.

Prominent in every cast of characters is the terse and tight-lipped housekeeper who reigns over the various house servants in her domain with an implacable and impeccable air of quiet authority. She perpetually carried a faint air of disapproval and danger. Cross her at your peril.

The skill of keeping a house used to be a marketable trade. Right up there with plumber and electrician and carpenter. Mind you, when English country manor houses were roughly the same square footage as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, considerable management skill was required.

Keeping an English manor house would have been the origin of the modern day skillset of project management and logistics. Admission to the hallowed halls of keeping a great house usually started with apprenticeship.

Emerging housekeepers started their careers at a young age starting out with ignominious job titles in ignominious jobs: scullery maid, house servant, kitchenmaid, chamber attendant, scullion.

You worked up to the post of housekeeper, if you ever did, and were not waylaid by marriage and babies. I can only imagine the degree of skullduggery and political finesse required to succeed in that post. Part military strategist and part politician. The rules of conduct and the standards were much higher and more inflexible than they are generally today.

But a young man or woman who “went into service” could comfortably rely on – if they obeyed the rules of conduct and consistently met the required standards – a “career for life.”

In a similar vein, I once met a bright and lively thirteen year old German girl aiming for a career as a waitress. I was her colleague for a summer in a massive German resort hotel in the middle of the Rhine River Valley’s wine country.

I was amazed that the German school system had young people choose and start planning for a lifelong career at such a tender age. It seemed to me that she was going to miss out on a lot of life adventures by tying herself into a career path.

My attitude, I now realize, was the perspective of an entitled young North American woman who was reaping the rich rewards of a generous post-feminist establishment. I was a young woman living through the age of affirmative action.

As society was test driving the radical notion that women could, indeed, perform tasks equal to their male counterparts, you saw the rise of courses like “powder puff” mechanics (in large bright pink lettering on every poster) aimed at teaching women to keep their car in top fit condition. Imagine.

What I came to realize was that I took for granted the career opportunities I had with seemingly boundless economic rewards that were specifically tied to the early 70s and the Zeitgeist of that particular juncture in history.

So when I hired young people recently to “deep clean” my house, I got a first hand look at how sad and low the general standards of housekeeping have fallen. Deep cleaning now may mean wiping down counters but not taking toothpicks into greasy nooks and crannies.

Fridge handles get wiped down but if the greasy residue remains, no one hauls out a Magic Eraser. I saw no one using hydrogen peroxide to bubble away food crud.

Houses need love as much, if not more, than other inanimate objects. Like your car. If you ignore these objects and cease giving them love (which is generally called “maintenance”), it doesn’t take long for a house to start complaining. And eventually, to start failing and then falling apart.

Having the required skills to identify problems in a house is training that usually only comes with experience. If your parents haven’t engaged you in the basics of how to fix a leaky drain or clean out air ducts, you are likely to bump into some unpleasantness when you first start managing your own house. The learning curve can be mighty steep and ruthless.

I sometimes feel I’ve had it all thrown at me in my “house keeping” journey. The foundation that cracked mid-winter and flooded the basement bedrooms. The toilet flapper that stuck in the up position and occasioned at $1500 water bill.

The ongoing battle with critters who feel completely entitled to settling into my lodgings. They burrow through walls and wires and appliances in their ceaseless quest to find a safe and happy home for their young’uns. Not unlike us, if I can see past my anger to admit that.

So I am not exactly advocating that “housekeeping” be brought back as a laudable ambition for young women today. But I am saying they should at least deliberately arm themselves with the skills to keep a house in top working condition.

There is no guarantee that Prince Charming is going to know what to do when a breaker blows. You had best make sure that you do.

Decisive Element

Haim G. Ginott says what I believe to the absolute core of my being. We are the decisive element in our lives. We often play with that power like children handling dynamite. Often for years. Often for our whole lives.

Recognizing and harnessing our personal power can push us to stand down from our automatic reactions and nurture an internal shift in perspective. It can require some years to begin to consistently see “ordinary” things as miraculous.

To watch a brilliant red cardinal frolic on a tree branch with its devoted and dowdy mate.

To watch my adult son – as I did last night – feed mushrooms to his pet tortoise, Sheldon.

The birth of anything. And sunsets. OMG sunsets that take my breath away and overwhelm with a sense of awe over their dazzling and transient beauty.

That said, owning that we are the decisive element in our lives and in the lives of others is a lot of responsibility to put in the hands of one puny, little human. We all have that power, if only we choose to recognize and own it.

Some days are easier than others to appreciate the impact we have on others and in our own lives. The state of our inner state and how that manifests in the world can be the truest litmus test of health and a balanced state of well-being.

There is a synchronicity that seems to follow me when I am feeling settled and at peace inside. It can manifest as simply as it did for me driving home last night. All of the traffic lights – and there were many – turned green one after the other on my drive home in what felt like a kind of choreographed ballet.

It is easy to dismiss that sort of thing as a non-event or coincidental or meaningless. You might more readily appreciate its’ miraculousness when you have had the opposite happen and one traffic light after the other ominously and consistently turns yellow or red just a few yards away from the crosswalk. So we sit. And sit.

We can choose to see something like choreographed traffic lights as mini-manifestations of miracles in the way Albert Einstein identified:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

I struggle with that truism and strive to see the miracles in my daily life. And when I do, it is noteworthy how often traffic lights progressively go green one after the other as if I have personally orchestrated it.

Not saying precisely that manifesting miracles is a true superpower we all have if we but recognize it. Not saying it isn’t neither.

But when such mini-miracles happen in my own life, I am happy to be open and accepting enough of these “free gifts from the Universe,” to note them and to appreciate them. Whatever the source and wherever they come from.

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.

If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming. ~ Haim G. Ginott

(Book: Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers https://amzn.to/44hmeSt)

Curt Kurt

The world needs more Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007). Or more accurately perhaps, Kurt Vonnegut’s perspective.

I’ve been an avid fan for decades. I was hooked by his novel Slaughterhouse-Five where he pulls no punches whatsoever in his depiction of the brutality and inanity of war.

Vonnegut is the consummate truth teller. The scales were dropped from his eyes at his birth, I believe. I have read much of his literary output with a deep sense of irony and gratitude. Vonnegut has a gift for belaboring the obvious – in the best possible way.

I recently came across this snippet of an interview with him. I want to share it as it speaks to a current preoccupation of mine: how the glue of social cohesion is rapidly ebbing away, if not indeed, already fully ebbed. We are on a runaway roller coaster with an uncertain endpoint.

Younger people especially (by whom I mean anyone under 50) are consumed daily with a wildly out of balance need to simply keep body and soul together. It is no longer a matter of a “decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work.” It is the two to three jobs and income producing projects they juggle just to keep the wolf from the door.

It is a dehumanizing and soul destroying way to live. My current preoccupation is how to bring society back into balance.

I’m not thinking even for a moment that I have answers to solve this present dilemma of whacked out values, intolerance, billionaires’ greed, and wildly disaffected and unmoored teenagers.

But I will contribute to the conversation whenever and wherever I have the opportunity. Like now.

Vonnegut generally makes an important contribution. He is making an important point here specifically. I am reminded of the powers that be at a bank who were intensely lobbied to keep a modestly profitable branch open just because the daily interactions of local seniors with the tellers were so vital and life affirming.

Technology overload is starting to take over at the top of my shit list. Read a book, people. Dammit.

See if you don’t see the wisdom in what Vonnegut sees. I do.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: There’s a little sweet moment, I’ve got to say, in a very intense book– your latest– in which you’re heading out the door and your wife says what are you doing? I think you say– I’m getting– I’m going to buy an envelope.

KURT VONNEGUT: Yeah.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: What happens then?

KURT VONNEGUT: Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore. ~Kurt Vonnegut

(Source: NOW on PBS, David Brancaccio interviews Kurt Vonnegut discussing his then newly published Book: A Man Without a Country https://amzn.to/3PUGWTT)

Keep Going

The halfway point in any project, plan, a life is usually a time for stocktaking and reflection.

I remember getting halfway through my last degree and I really wanted to throw in the towel. I didn’t in the end, but I wanted to. So why didn’t I?

Self-respect was a factor. I am not a quitter and it is both a strength and a weakness that once I commit to something, I stay the course. In this example, quite literally and figuratively.

Sometimes backtracking is as unattractive an option as going forward. Imagine being on Mt. Everest halfway to the summit. You have planned that trip for months, maybe years.

And when you find yourself in a whiteout blizzard at one of the most treacherous junctions on the mountain, your choices are pretty much prescribed.

This is a challenge you are unlikely to tackle again (though astonishingly, many do). There has been a huge investment of time, energy, hope and money in thrashing out the logistics. For mountain climbers, I gather the inherent danger and many uncertainties in scaling mountains are what make the attempt appealing.

So you’re in. It is only when that blizzard comes up and your toes or fingers or tip of your nose are starting to turn into that ominous shade of opaque white that signals frostbite that mild panic may set in.

Well, it would for me anyway. I am sure there are lots of mountain climbers out there for whom missing digits and raggedy nostrils or earlobes are marks of triumph. They are if you are in a room talking to them. That means they didn’t lose the major bits at a punishing altitude in the Himalayas.

I dabbled in adventure but was never all all-in. I trekked in the Himalayas when Nepal was still quite closed off to the rest of the world. My trek took me through some of the most visually stunning landscapes I’d ever seen. Snow-capped mountains highlighted against a bright blue sky under the midday sun.

Rhododendron forests as high as our North American maple trees and gushing with blooms of bright red, dark pink and light pink. I remember stopping at a rock rest cairn along that stretch and just sitting for an hour taking it all in.

On that trek, I was headed for a temple at Jomson but eventually did quit at about the halfway mark. I was physically done and saw only days of more exertion ahead and moving farther away from civilization. In a profoundly city folk act, I was able to hire a mule train to ride back to Pokhara where the trek had begun. I’d had enough. And riding the mules was pretty cool.

I crossed the Andes from Argentina to Chile on horseback. That was a little different where there were gauchos to guide and cook for us so we were a little more pampered and protected. Which is not to say that there weren’t plenty of petrifying moments. I trusted that the horse did not want to die and had done this trip many times before. Happily, my trust paid off. Else I wouldn’t be writing this post.

So my offloading and decluttering project is at about the halfway mark. I would love nothing more than to collect my gear, pack up my tent and walk away leaving behind the mountain of tasks yet to do.

But I won’t. That self-respect thing has kicked in again. I have started something and I will damn well finish it come hell or high water. Just need to find me a metaphorical stone rest cairn to lean on for awhile to catch my breath.

Then I will lift up my pack and head off down the trail again. All the while scanning the horizon for a metaphorical mule train to scoop me up and make this journey home much more enjoyable.

Winston Churchill famously said: “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” Noted.

After Midnight

Can’t sleep. Or, more accurately, woke up from a sound sleep to face the mid-morning dark and stillness.

I am not afraid of the dark. In fact, I rather enjoy it. That wasn’t always so.

I was afraid of the dark when I did not understand my own inner demons.

Pesky buggers, demons. For a long time, I didn’t understand them but I acknowledged them.

Acknowledging them, it turns out, was the most effective way to deal with them. By seeing them and calling them out for what they were, I was already on a healing path. But overcoming and actual healing from the damage they did took years. Still a work in progress, if I’m honest.

I had no healthy outlets for addressing my pain for many years. Society permits us to express and manage our pain only in prescribed and “socially acceptable” ways. Drinking is one of them. As are many other addictions: shopaholism, workaholism, workout-aholism. Not that that last one is even a word but you get what I mean.

I am intrigued by people who reportedly struggle with inner demons but claim to have no idea what those demons are or where they came from.

I never had that problem. My demons had human faces and clear memories of their inhuman acts. Still, it is common for the abused to not vividly remember the face of their abuser. It’s a protective device, denial.

That memory and the identity of their demons may be well hidden from the abuser’s consciousness until the psyche can handle and fully process what it knows. It is why that people who seem to have finally arrived at a safe place in life feel their difficult memories most vividly.

I have been fascinated all my life by what society determines right and wrong or good and evil. Those designations can vary from culture to culture.

The taboo against murder is pretty universal but there was a time when human sacrifice was the prescribed method for “appeasing the gods.”

Almost unimaginable in most of our cultures today, but once upon a time, the practice was common.

All to say, it is not past demons that woke me up in the middle of the night. Not scary and threatening ones at any rate. I was awakened by task overwhelm. I am juggling too many responsibilities and activities in a limited timeframe. I sometimes forget to remind myself that the pressure I am feeling, I am creating.

Guess my psyche decided to wake me up at 3 o’clock in the morning to deal with all of it. Silly psyche. I don’t want to be the one to tell it there is precious little that can be done about any of what I need to deal with at an ungodly hour.

For one thing, the tasks I am facing require people’s help. And oddly, I cannot count on them at 3 o’clock in the morning.

I have few other options at this point but to try and return fitfully to sleep. I can add to my “to do” list, so I do. I can imagine the ideal outcome I am striving for, which is, I realize, unrealistic. I can imagine a better night’s sleep eventually. But at the moment, I am stuck.

So I’ll hang on until morning. The perseverance strategy got me through many sleepless nights when the demons were very real and had real human faces. Blessedly, most of the worst of them are well behind me.

Whatever else it was that has decided to wake me up in the middle of the morning, I know I can at least stare it down and deal with it. Eventually.

Dr. Doolittle, You Say?

WordPress offered this writing prompt this morning.

“List three jobs you would consider doing if money didn’t matter.”

I’d be a zookeeper. Or work in an elephant sanctuary. Or any type of animal rescue really.

All of them are selfish choices.

As a former dog owner, I have learned a few thing about animals that often makes their company preferable to the company of humans.

For one thing, they are unfailingly authentic. If they feel good, they show it. They feel bad and their discomfort is hard to miss. As companions, they are the best.

People love dogs because dogs love people. It is a mysterious bond. I read many dog obituaries on Facebook and elsewhere. I can feel and relate to the deep distress of the bereaved owner who tries to explain why Bailey, or Duke or Charlie was the best friend they have ever had.

I sometimes detect a faint undertone of embarrassment in the depth of pain and loss they express. Dogs aren’t people, after all. Or are they? In many ways, they are much better and more loyal friends than people. There are no machinations in a dog’s affections for its’ master or masters. They are pure, unadulterated, love machines.

By their breed, a dog makes its needs known and those needs are unequivocal. All of them need exercise. Some breeds more than others. Some breeds love water. Other breeds see water’s value exclusively for drinking. Some are sweet and fussy. Others are earthy and extremely low maintenance.

A dog’s love and temperament can be twisted by abuse or neglect. In this way, they are more like humans than humans. But unlike abused humans, abused dogs who receive warm and consistent loving care often bounce back to being loyal and loving companions. Humans can get there but the process is usually more complicated and takers longer.

Let’s not be naive. Dogs are also a lot of work. They require a level of care similar to that of a small child. You can leave a cat alone for a day or two with a fresh bowl of food and water. You can’t do that with a dog.

I’ve resisted getting another dog (except for a short failed stint with a rescue last spring) since we lost our Bailey in 2011. He had to be euthanized and it was possibly the worst day ever. I made both of my children come to the vet with me to say goodbye.

Holding Bailey in my arms, I was deeply upset. He was licking my face and all I could think was that moments away, that sweet and loving little spirit would be taken from us forever. Yet it was the humane thing to do. He had lost his hearing, his eyesight was dimming, he had advanced kidney disease and his heart was failing. It was a kindness to let him go I was assured.

When I told the face-licking story to my daughter Katie later, she softly said: “Mom, he was licking away your tears.” My tears for Bailey started afresh.

Since then, we’ve not had another dog. I often say cavalierly that I will get a puppy when I am 92. I will not deliberately go through the anguish of lost love again over a dog when I can elect not to.

Now that is naive. There are people who are going to leave my life in years to come and I will be devastated. I am working to – as advised in the poem Desiderata – “Nurture strength of spirit to shield yourself in times of sudden misfortune.”

We now have a cat. Sweet and affectionate. She has also inveigled her way into our hearts. But our relationship is different. She is more standoffish. She is infinitely more self-contained. That is what cats are. Not trivializing their loss when it comes, but it is different somehow. For me anyway.

I cannot begin to fully understand the bond and complexity that exists between humans and animals except to acknowledge that it is real and deeply meaningful to millions. And I am just like all of them. A cat mom. A grateful former dog owner. An animal lover. A wannabe zookeeper.

And who knows? Life ain’t over yet. One day up the road, maybe I could happily spend a chunk of my time bottle feeding orphaned baby elephants or tossing heads of lettuce to manatees. Animals are a vital part of the phantasmagoria that is life.

If you don’t know that intimately, you are poorer for the absence of that knowledge.

Found Them

I am beyond relieved to have found the forty or so old journals that I feared were gone forever.

Decades worth of pages and pages worth of writing. Those journals were my ballast and my mast. I clung to them for the life-sustaining exercise they rendered. They have my deepest gratitude.

They weren’t stored in the “usual places.” Given their importance to me, I was pretty sure I’d tucked them comfortably away in a nice dry spot where I could put my finger on them any time I wanted. Wrong.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit I found them in the back of the shipping container I just recently offloaded. I have no idea how that happened. It was a very careless way to handle something so important. Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Trauma dulls discernment. I used to write about the aftereffects of trauma as having “broken antennae.” All of the natural instincts about sensing evil and avoiding danger get crushed and messed up in the aftermath of trauma.

I think that is some type of exaggerated survival instinct. Even when you are undergoing the worst trauma imaginable, there is a part of you – a very large part – that wants to survive. And is usually determined to survive. Sometimes that survival instinct is all that is left after serious insult or injury.

Trauma survivors become like something similar to a vase with a beautiful external presentation, but its’ insides are empty and hollow. I lived like that for most of my adult life.

Writing was my salvation. I felt almost nothing but fear for many years but I wrote up a storm. I was a casual and frequent observer of the turmoil I was going through externally and internally.

Writing was a lifeline. I couldn’t control anything or anyone around me but I could control my thoughts and put them down in nice, neat lines. I am grateful for that.

Now will I ever read said journals? Heaven only knows. I fear them a bit if I’m honest. There are bits of me and my fragmented life in there that I’m not crazy about revisiting. So I’ll pick my way through them and ingest them bit by bit. On an as-needed basis.

This house purge is the bigger healing focus in my life at the minute. I am beginning to feel what every single person who has ever gone through downsizing says: “I feel so much lighter.”

If, as some authors claim, I will let go of unwanted pounds along with letting go of unwanted clutter, I am going to be rail thin by them time this purging exercise is over.

That’s not a terrible prospect to look forward to.