With the recent drop in temps, I asked my son if he is working outside this week. “Outside what? My comfort zone?” “Comfort zone? What’s a comfort zone?” I replied. When was the last time you felt comfortable? I don’t mean in your clothes or bed, of course…I mean with your life. To quote one of my favorite artists, life is so life-y right now. We are reminded not to let our guard down daily, at least in these here United States. We know we are teetering on the precipice of hell; too many are already living in it daily. Don’t look down.
My personal hell revolves around my personal grief right now. I must do the last few chores to prepare the house and yard for winter. Everything was put on hold when the cat became ill. The deck still has its’ outdoor rugs and umbrella. The outdoor iron furniture scoots around in the wind like plastic toys. As the leaves fall the wind becomes a screaming locomotive on top of this sand dune. Bring it on. I’m so angry. I just want to scream back.
For over a decade now I have harped on about how it will ultimately be the artists who save us. They warn us, then they fight for us, then they lead us through our redemption. That’s their job. That and creating beauty from nothing. In case you thought they had a comfort zone, think again.
Unknowingly, but not coincidentally, Florence Welsh wrote me a song. She is the voice of our times. Comfort zone this.
“Here I don’t have to be quiet. Here I don’t have to be kind, extraordinary and normal all at the same time.” – Florence Welsh
Please bear with me; I can’t talk right now. I’m silenced by grief. But I can listen to the mystic Carolyn Myss, because she speaks truth. Truth to power: meaning, to you and me. I’ve had some extraordinary awarenesses come to me as I sit vigil with my dying cat. I cannot articulate them yet.
I cannot yet explain what a powerful influence this little being has bought to my life. It would not make sense to you. None of this makes sense. But my animal body knows the truth of it. I know what I know. I know the enormous, unlimited love he has served my life with, the truth he carried here to bless me with. The healing he facilitated daily. When he could not protect me he called a black bear to patrol in his stead. We have lost his body and by no means his spirit.
What I can share at this time is the truth school of Carolyn Myss. Carolyn Myss is The Hanged Man. The Hanged Man archetype is the embodiment of God knowledge, to the degree that the human body can tolerate it’s force without dis-integrating. Think Dr. Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact – she did not disintegrate traveling through space and time. She returned changed, with knowledge that would serve all of mankind. No one believes her. She must find a way to communicate her knowing. Carolyn Myss is that person – she found a way to get the information across to us “mere mortals.” I don’t where I would be without her, or without the feline revolutionary I knew as Chewy.
Today, because there isn’t much else I can do, I am going to keep listening to this on a loop, praying to God that I just might grok some of it. That maybe, just maybe, I can become better at distinguishing between the lies of tribal conditioning and the Truth of God, of Life. Join me, and just for today, let your credibility be stretched beyond belief. Be honest about what you know, even if you sound crazy to most. Because you can no longer deny truth. Your body recognizes it. And turning honest limits your choices.
Bitch, please…I grew up in Detroit. For those of you who are not familiar, or accept the cultural collective’s jokes and voodoo euphemisms of Detroit, you’re missing out. Detroit is the heart and soul of America. It is fu@king awesome. Go. Stay in the New Center area and spend a couple days at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Drive around and take in some of the most spectacular historical architecture in the United States. You won’t see it all in that time, but enough to enjoy yourself enormously and appreciate it’s beauty and world-class culture.
Then take yourself “up north.” This is where I have lived the past 40 years. Let me tell you a bit about how I came here, and why I stay.
My father grew up on a farm outside of Traverse City, where my Irish ancestors had immigrated and settled during the potato famine. About to enter high school, his father moved the family to Detroit during the automobile boom. And so I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and often visited my great-grandparents and aunts and uncles on Long Lake, west of Traverse City, in the summer months. By the time I was in my early twenties I would spend as much time as possible here, staying with my great Aunt Edith, my grandfather’s sister, in the old farmhouse out on Cedar Run Road. My young son had baths in the big iron sink after I pumped water from the well and heated it – on the stove I’d built a fire in. I would put on one of my great grandmother’s old house dresses, crank up the Victrola, and dance around the living room…romantically imagining I lived in a simpler time…way back when. Until Aunt Edith became impatient with my immature fantasies and reminded me that we had no trash pick up or mail delivery – and I needed to get my arse in gear. Those errands were not going to do themselves.
I have about a million and thirty stories I could tell that depend on the geography of both places, and all around the Great Lakes. There is nowhere else like Michigan on earth. And while it is great, not all of my childhood was great. I came from a big dysfunctional family that often settled differences with fist fights and spent years stubbornly not speaking to one another, depending on the current offensive issue. This blog is full of many – by no means all, of those stories, from day one, back in 2012. That was when I began to write as though my life depended on it, not knowing how true that was.
The move from Detroit to Traverse City was purposefully to get my child away from my family, and their drug and alcohol-induced violence. To be safe. To start over. It was the naive plan of a young woman suffering from PTSD, not yet aware of her ADHD, her mental and emotional limitations. It didn’t work. Not only did I not escape my own demons, but my family members were inspired by my new life and followed me. Over the course of the next few years they all moved north, too.
We live here now. Now I actually live about 50 miles west of Traverse, near the shore of Lake Michigan. My son grew up here. We have both traveled some; enough to know this is home. But home has come to mean an internal space for me as I age. It’s funny, the name of this blog…a painterly home. I thought it would be about interior design. Little did I know it would be about interior design – as in, my spiritual interior. There are so many more stories to unpack and share. I’m grateful beyond words for this journal and your readership. It continues to save my life on a weekly basis.
Today I am grieving as my sweet familiar, Chewy, is dying. I’m not ready to lose him. Many of you know that I had two elderly dogs I cherished when Chewbacca the cat came to live with us. I was asked if I could please help out a friend and foster him for a couple of months about 8 years ago. What a blessing he has been. He fit right in with the dogs, becoming immediately inseparable from my little beagle, Odie. I’ve written other posts about them, of course (see Sept. 9, 2025, Chew de Monk). I never would have chosen these silly names for these magnificent beings. But they were already displaced and going through enough adjustment to impose any others unnecessarily. For starters, Chewy became known as a catdog. He did not know that he wasn’t a dog. Since we lost Odie in 2020, Chewy has seldom left my side. Like the dogs, he feels it is his duty to be constantly underfoot. He follows me from room to room. He insists on touching while we sleep, just as he did with Odie; he extends one of his back legs and pushes it against my thigh. I will aver that he understands English perfectly. All of it. Only an hour or so ago I mentioned out loud that I would give him a bit more liquid and medicine in the syringe again, hoping he can rally. He begrudgingly pulled himself up and walked the few steps to his water fountain and took the first drink he has had in two or three days.
Yesterday doesn’t count. We spent the day at the emergency clinic while he got IV liquids, a warm enema, pain and diabetes meds, in an attempt to save him. We came home last night exhausted. He has barely moved and still isn’t eating. I haven’t given up. I keep telling him that I won’t ever give up on him, and that if he can pull through this I will do everything in my power to improve the quality of his life. I’ve promised new toys. I also told him that if he is too tired he is free to go. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life, and I will remember daily all the joy he brought. Rejoice at the thought of he and Odie together again. Still in a magnificently beautiful place, with all the loves that I don’t know how to live without.
Oh my goodness, it is the perfect fall morning. The sun is just beginning to dissipate the fog and whiffs of smoke-like dew slide across the valley to my east. Everything glistens. I love this time of year. I’ve taken a little break from writing because I’ve had a friend visiting from out of town. She usually spends much of the summer here, just a mile down the road from me, in her little cottage on the lake. But this year she has not been able to come all summer. Because life has been hard. We are at a certain age. We lose our parents and their siblings, the aunts and uncles of our childhood. We lose siblings. We lose friends. We have health challenges.
I myself am going through another health challenge – physical and mental. As part of a routine check-up my doctor noticed I was a little out of breath. Well, I flunked the pulmonary function test she ordered. Now I will go through pulmonary rehab, which is a good thing. I will gladly work for any improvement in lung capacity I can get.
Louise Hay, who wrote You Can Heal Your Body decades ago and provided a list of all the emotional causes behind common physical symptoms, tells me that lung issues are grief. Yeah yeah yeah…I’ve had asthma and lung problems much of my life, almost as long as I’ve lived with my invisible friend Grief.
And for a combination of reasons, I am conscious of the grief I am feeling now, again. It isn’t new; we’re familiar. We know how to be sad. In fact, I welcome sadness these days. It seems an appropriate response to much of what is going on around and within me. And it means that I am feeling (and not repressing) the truth I am acutely aware of. I don’t want to live with any denial if I can help it; that leads to depression. And depression is harder to manage in winter. The light of summer is fading fast. Hello darkness, my old friend…
…I’ve come to talk with you again. I told my friend that I look forward to winter, and I do, increasingly as I age. I love the quiet. The complete and enveloping quiet you can only know in the middle of a dark, snowy afternoon. With my friend I have talked and cried and laughed and cried some more this week. We have covered a lot of ground. She will leave in a few days. Hopefully life will be a bit kinder to her and we can meet again next summer. It triggers a lot of fear – will life be kinder again? Is that realistic as we get older?
The summer residents and tourists crowd my area – the trails, the beaches, the roads, from May through October. They come from all around the world. We will wait in line at every restaurant and at the post office, the library and the gas station. Life is less convenient six months of the year, but I won’t complain. They’re the reason we have our choice of good restaurants in a rural village. Strangers often share a table in a restaurant during the crowded months, and that is how I met my friend. She and her daughter, visiting from their home in Kansas, were waiting in line in a tiny restaurant.
I was out for breakfast that morning with a family member, and invited the two women to sit with us. We briefly introduced ourselves and slightly scooted away, not wanting to be intrusive. But these friendly people started a conversation. They had flown in the night before and come to the little obscure restaurant for coffee and warmth, as they hadn’t time to grocery shop yet and were quite cold. I asked them if they needed anything (blankets? hats and gloves?) and my new acquaintance, obviously around my age, answered, “just emotional support.” Instant new best friend! Upon leaving I handed her a piece of scrap paper with my phone number, address, and an invitation to lunch at my home the next day, quipping, “and here’s hoping none of us are ax murderers!” Her daughter shot back, “we’re about to find out.” Invitation accepted.
This morning she and I went back to that little restaurant. Meandering across the narrows we saw a pair of great blue herons wading. Two sandhill cranes flew overhead and called out to let us know…to let us know…we are here…we are alive. We see you. I sent them silent prayers for a safe journey . After breakfast we went to a gorgeous show of local art and photographs at Oliver Art Center. I needed that little shot of inspiration to remind me to make some art. Lack of creativity is surely part of why I’m sad….maybe a big part. Could my lack of inspire-ation have something to do with pulmonary stress? Breathe out…breathe in…
“Some people don’t get to live soft lives. We get handed chaos, grief, betrayal, and we have to learn how to bloom anyway. We become the ones who know how to carry others when their world falls apart because we remember what it was like when no one showed up for us. We’re not here because it was easy. We’re here because we didn’t give up.” – unknown
Chewy, aka Catlips, woke me with a loud howl at 4am, as he often does these days. And seemingly for no apparent reason. But once I had visited the loo and made sure the cat was alright, I sat to drink some water. You know that’s a medical thing, right? Always drink water when you wake. Neurologists tell us that trick would prevent many strokes, which occur most of the time during the night and upon waking, and are directly linked to dehydration. So, water upon waking is an easy habit to adopt.
Waking in the middle of the night is my normal anyway, and that’s not a new phenomena; it’s been lifelong. Probably a genetic thing from centuries of ancestors who would naturally have had the biphasic sleep patterns of farmers. Sleeping eight consecutive hours was unthinkable before the industrial revolution, when the factory shift workers needed to train their bodies to work under artificial lighting. It’s a conditioned pattern that served the wealthy white industrial magnates, and there is nothing natural about it. It was designed to keep you enslaved, and it works efficiently.
That established, when I wake I am not necessarily anxious to get back to sleep – now that I don’t work early in the morning. Nor do I make early plans or appointments if I can help it. I usually fall back to sleep and wake – still early, but again, shortly after daylight. Last night as I did some breathing exercises and then picked up the novel I was reading, I felt an ominous presence lurking around my bedroom door. I asked it to leave (in my mind), and felt confusion. So I did some healing rituals, such as lighting a sage candle, and snapping my fingers rhythmically while chanting. I stated adamantly that “if you are not of the light of Christ, be gone.” Learned that in childhood, too, and it works. The energy dissipated and I relaxed. So did the cat.
The cat and I have been together nigh on 7 or 8 years now. He did not come to me as a kitten, but already several years old. He’d been born of a feral cat a friend took in. He was stillborn and she peeled him from the sack, gave him CPR and mouth to mouth and revived him. According to his original vet he incurred some brain damage, a twisted colon and breathing difficulties. I had two elderly dogs when I agreed to foster him temporarily from his second owner, and the rest, as they say…
So he came already sporting the name Chewbacca, presumably because he didn’t meow so much as stutter. I certainly was not going to change his name. He had already been displaced twice. That, in and of itself, is enough trauma for any small creature, I think. I also think the name Chewy does not suit him at all, but names are assigned before we know someone well in the best of circumstances. So no blame, just observation. My darling Chewy is a regal character. And to my mind, angelic. He deserves a sophisticated nomer. His nickname is Catlips when he is being silly, and Chew de Monk when he is being zen.
Upon introducing him to my dogs, I explained to them that he was a) a guest who temporarily needed our kind assistance, and b) to be respected as such. Both of my dogs were rescue dogs, both sweet natured and well behaved. Hariat had come from a Pembroke Welsh Corgi rescue organization. All we knew of her was that she was 5 years old, certified purebred by the AKA, that she had been a working dog on a farm, and that her owner had entered hospice. She came with the name Ariat, named after a line of equestrian gear. At the time we got her my husband and elderly father were struggling to understand or pronounce her name. They were utterly confounded. I asked her how she would feel if I added an H to her name, and henceforth she became Hariat. Hariat was one of the dear canine loves of my life. She immediately had bonded with my older corgi, Oliver, as if they’d always been friends.
After losing Oliver only a few years later, we grieved together for about a year. And then Odie came into our lives. Also not a suitable name for such an extraordinary dog, but we kept it. Odie was an old miniature beagle at the county animal shelter who needed medical care and love. We went to meet him. Hariat nodded her approval. They were fast friends, though not like she and Oliver. Grief had changed her. When Hariat and Odie and I accepted Chewy into our home I wasn’t sure what to expect. For starters, I did not know if either of my dogs had ever known or lived with a cat. Fortunately, Chewy did not know he was a cat. He fit right in as if he’d always been here. He and Odie had some kind of instant bond and were inseparable from day one. Seems obvious they spoke a common language I am not smart enough to understand.
We lost Hariat and Odie about seven months apart during the pandemic. Hariat had brain lesions that were causing frequent seizures. Odie stopped eating one day and the x-rays showed his colon full of cancer. They were each about 15 years old, to the best of my knowledge. I was devastated. So was Chewy. To this day Chewy sleeps on Odie’s blanket, sits on his bed steps, and drinks from the large water bowl they used to put their faces in together. Whenever I take the bowl to the sink for washing and refreshing Chewy follows, anxious, and makes certain I put it right back where it came from. He doesn’t do that with his other bowl or his fountain.
I won’t be adopting another animal any time soon for a number of reasons. But mostly it’s because Chewy is an old man now and deserves devotion and showered attention. He gives far more than he gets. Only since we have been here alone has it become apparent that he watches over me at night. Once in awhile a wayward spirit wanders in and he howls to alert me.
Animals are so much more than we have ever given them credit for in our lives, let alone our culture. My goodness they are intelligent, sentient and worthy of the best care we can possibly provide. What a magnificent blessing they gift us with in so many ways.
Sound asleep, my sister would rock back and forth on her hands and knees and bang her forehead against the wall. It would wake me, and I would get up and go into her room and softly coax her back to laying down, tuck her in again, and go back to bed. My brother would regularly sleep walk while talking out loud. He would pace through the entire second floor where all of us five kids slept. It would wake me, and I would get up and gently walk him back to his bed and tuck him in. I was scared he would fall down the long staircase some night without my hearing him, but fortunately that never happened.
My parents bedroom was on the first floor at the opposite end of the house. They were either at a party, the bar, or passed out drunk. They never heard a thing. None of my four siblings ever remembered any of these instances that so terrified me. Did they think I made it up?
My brother died two years ago of an apparent heart attack in his sleep, at the age of 62. He had overcome alcoholism, drug addiction, and quit smoking – all cold turkey with no support. He was a remarkable person, but he was never able to quit a gambling addiction. And so he lived in abject poverty, working right up to his death and living in a rented room in the home of a coworker.
My sister knows for certain that his heart attack was caused by the Covid vaccine. She blames those good-for-nothing evil Democrats. Thank god we have RFK now to save us all, and a president who knows what is truly going on here – the spiritual war we are fighting for the redemption of mankind’s soul. In case you don’t know me, yes – I am being irreverently facetious. Also believe me when I say I really don’t get it.
I have three siblings still living. We barely keep in touch; we’re about down to reporting the obituaries of our mutual friends and relatives. We exchange emojis on holidays…you know, Happy 4th of July and all. As if we didn’t share the first 20 years of our daily lives. Suffice it to say we have nothing in common. Oh, we all five grew up in the same house. We all five had the same two parents. We went to the same schools, had many of the same teachers. We shared every holiday, the same music, all the vacations, the same four grandparents, we ate the same food. But we had very different childhoods. How does this happen?
Seriously, can someone please explain this to me?! Gabor Mate can theorize about it and I understand what he is saying, but my own experience just doesn’t jive. Hard as I try, I cannot reconcile our continued disparate realities.
I miss my family. I still miss us. I have no one to share the stories and the memories with. Meanwhile, my cells don’t seem to run dry of the endless tears. I’m old enough now to know they will come forever. And just wise enough to welcome them. Some days my grief will not be consoled, and still I am nothing but grateful for it all.
From their point of view, this separation in our worlds is entirely down to me. I’m the different one; the one who questions everything. The one who needs answers when obviously, there is no problem except my mental illness. This is on me; they do not suffer these imaginary indulgences. They figured it out long ago. They found Jesus. They are healed. How I envy them their conviction.
On the rare occasion when we do talk, I am guarded. If I slip and say the wrong thing I will be corrected, maybe even ghosted for a time. I am too much for them. Given time to reflect on the error of my ways, I realize I am wrong. To them. They love me, but they do not like me. They have no desire to connect, to understand me, to know me. And I have finally given up the need to be understood and accepted by them; I’m sure they’d say the same. That only took way too long.
Of us five children I am the eldest by 3 years. The four of them were born in close succession, four within six years. I was the first child, the first grandchild on both sides, and for over 3 years I enjoyed being the center of their attention and the apple of their eye. My siblings, like my father before them, will tell you that is why I am a narcissist.
Not in any effort to defend myself here (it’s my platform, after all…) I would aver that I prefer an evidence based model of reality. Or as I say to them, I choose my crazy. I value science and therefore neuroscience and psychology; I see no discrepancy between science and religion. My God is a quantum physicist and still, miraculously, maintains a sense of humor. My siblings refer to this rebellious misguidance as my “Jesus is just alright with me” spirituality, referring to the days when we all enjoyed a good spliff and some Doobie Brothers on Dad’s dime.
Here’s the thing, I guess…the evidence says to me that they live in vapid denial. There is no worse thief on the earth plane than denial. It has stolen our lives. It has taken everything from us. Everything except my hard-earned sanity.
Of the 7 of us in my family of origin, I am the only one who has not suffered the ravages of chemical addiction. Since my early 20’s I have not drank or smoked or used drugs. I tried them. You were a square and no fun and a snob in my family if you wouldn’t partake. I’d resist, hence my nickname, Little Goody Two Shoes. I remember a Sunday night during high school when my father ordered me to do a line and fill in at the Euchre table as they were down a player. I protested, explaining that I had a History final the next day, and he gave me his I’ll-knock-you-into-next-week look. “You can make it up!” Yes, sir.
Pardon me if I call that evidence. There are more stories like that than I will ever have time to tell. None of them were living their best life, but not for me to say. They all six struggled with homelessness, depression, addiction, all of their lives. A couple of them were grifters, committing fraud, and somehow narrowly dodging the law. I was called to provide bail and an alibi more than once. I learned to hide my valuable possessions. I wish I’d learned sooner to hide my heart.
The other side of this insane equation is that I also got so so so much from them. Each and every one of them were extraordinary people. They all were born with high IQ’s, enormous creative talent. Funny! Wow, I wish I had the quick wit of my mom, my brother, and my son. How does anyone think that fast?! They’d have gotten on well with Robin Williams! Had they been any less intelligent and charming they might have ended up in prison, but in fact they all had so much going for them. Yet they lived in poverty and pain. Denial does that, theirs or yours. Makes you a refugee in your own life.
My physician asked me to take the A.C.E. test a few years ago. You can take it here and compile your own evidence. I scored an 8.
“Well, well, well…if it isn’t the consequences of mah own actions.” – Beverly Leslie, Will and Grace
In keeping with the “it’s always something” theme, the latest ultrasound shows that I have severe pancreatitis. There will be more tests now before a definitive diagnosis and treatment are discussed. The doctor’s office says I’ll have to stop drinking! That’s easy; I haven’t had an alcoholic drink now in several years. That would have been a glass of wine with dinner in a restaurant, and maybe once or twice a year – if that. The last time I was drunk was at a New Year’s Eve party the year I was 21. Over fifty years ago. And only because my husband and “friends” kept secretly spiking my Coke, because, well, that would be fun, eh?!
Anyone close to me will tell you that I have an aversion to alcohol. I think it’s evil. No, that’s not true. I know it is. I’ve certainly seen it play out that way among my family and friends. From a physiological perspective, I know it causes horrible consequences in the body – never mind wreaking havoc on the mind and the spirit. It burns holes in your astral body like flame to cellophane. It’s effects are far more harmful and long lasting than any study in our culture will ever admit; that industry is too big to fail.
It has ruined the physical and mental health of almost every single person I have ever loved. And that’s a lot of persons. Either directly or indirectly, it has cost me dearly. Never having been a drinker, I have been dealing with the effects of other people’s alcoholism since around the age of ten. That’s the earliest I can remember being the adult in my household.
My parents out to dinner, my four younger siblings in bed, I would set up the coffee percolator ready to go, make a plate of cheese and meats, cover it with Saran wrap and put it in the refrigerator before I went to bed. When the garage door opened around two-thirty a.m. I would immediately wake up, run down to the kitchen and plug in the percolator. I’d take the tray of snacks out of the refrigerator. I’d greet them as they stumbled into the house and begin triage, insisting they ate protein and drank coffee before tucking them into bed and loosening their clothes. I was my own kind of pusher.
I hated alcohol before I had graduated high school. I already hated what it was doing to everyone I loved. I desperately tried to save each of my younger siblings from it’s harm for decades. I’m still intervening. The addiction has now been passed down to the third generation, to my son and my niece and nephews. I’ve divorced two abusive alcoholic husbands, but not for lack of trying everything in my power to save those marriages. I’ve lost several friends to the disease, some to death and some to severe injury and jail. It has broken my heart over and over and over again all of my life. There isn’t a day I don’t feel loss and grief because of alcohol. The people I know who don’t drink are few and far between. There is no good that is ever going to come from a drinking habit.
Suffice it to say that my inflamed pancreas is not caused by alcohol. I’ve adjusted my diet for years without knowing exactly what I was dealing with. I’ve quit eating sweets or anything rich or spicy. There isn’t much I digest well anymore. As of today my diet will become even blander. Am I a lot of fun, or what?!
No, my illness is caused by anger and grief. No two ways about it. I may never understand the direct link between the pancreas and it’s psychic or emotional counterparts. In You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, she says pancreatitis is manifest rejection. Anger and frustration because life seems to have lost it’s sweetness. Well…that would certainly make sense. I’ve craved sweets all my life, trying to fill that void.
It is no coincidence this symptom flared up now. I have talked about just finishing a 6 week in-depth conversation with a group of extraordinary women, the Wayfinding Road. I’m learning to love myself – in fact, I’ve never understood what that meant. I’m discovering it now. And so what is not love must surface to be seen, and felt, and released. That is how healing works. Yes, I will do anything and everything the doctors advise. And I will spend time each day in meditation. I will pay particulate attention to the sweetness of life. I will open my heart and I will soften. And soften. And soften.
And in case I haven’t said this yet today – thank you for being here. You are precious beyond measure.
“I am not knowing,” my southern grandmother Mimi used to respond when she didn’t know the answer to our constant inquiries. You or I would say, “I don’t know.” Or more likely, “dunno.” Mimi was effortlessly – even accidentally, elegant. So she was not knowing.
Needing to know is a scam. Needing to know what’s next, what to be when we grow up, what to do with our life…our “purpose”……ONE BIG SCAM. It’s the invisible CULT mentality of BELONGING scam. It is the insidious, evil programming of the hustle culture; meant to keep us enslaved. It’s grooming us to identify ourselves with a job, a career, a political party, or even a marriage. To whittle ourselves down to fit. To value ourselves for what we do. If, in your infinite failure to be enough, you become an alcoholic or an addict, well…bonus for the cult.
Drop your beliefs. They’re chains. Find your true value within yourself. Value yourself as a verb, and trust your becoming. YOUR true value is in being you, right here, right now. You LITERALLY ARE a work in progress. That is your purpose, P E R I O D. Breathe. God does not make mistakes. You were born. You have every right to be you. End of story. Figure yourself out, don’t figure yourself out…all within your right. I’ve been saying this all my adult life – but not living the truth of it. Still trying to fit in. Still trying to figure out what to do with myself. Still trying.
And until I feel like I want to whisper “YES!” to something, I will practice saying NO to what I don’t want. “No” is a complete sentence. I am so over explaining myself. Find your own why; I am not knowing. I am, however, infinitely curious. Aren’t you? I’ve gone from the immaturity of wondering why I am here to asking better questions, like, what do I really want? I’m trusting God knows why I’m here and therefore I don’t need to know. I don’t owe anyone a version of myself that makes them comfortable. The only person I owe anything is myself. All my debts are paid, seen and unseen.
My darling, sweet Mother used to say to me, “Do something, Susan, even if it’s wrong.” She meant help with the housework, of course! That was her conditioning speaking. In truth, she would never feel like she was enough. She would busy herself to death. What I wouldn’t give for one more conversation, but how would I ever manage to convince her that she was so much more than enough?
Also when I was a bratty teenager, same said darling Mother used to say, “Learn how to spell GURU and you’ll never need one.” G-U-R-U.
“I am restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again…” – Anais Nin
This morning I told a friend that I must have accidentally opened some energy portal – and it has mistakenly been taken as availability by several needy people in my life. Perhaps you have experienced this phenomena. After weeks or months of silence people are all calling all at once, wanting time, attention, and even money. You sent out a psychic signal and they got the message that you might be hangin’ around waiting to hear from them…or some cosmic signal telepathically invited them all to call the same day. Weird.
According to Melody Beattie (Codependent No More) who I respect immeasurably, I am categorically a master codependent. In recovery now! In recovery! Agggghhhhhhhh….a lifelong practice, I’m sure. It was not until I finally – and painstakingly – extricated myself from narcissistic abuse at the age of 60 that I even began to have any appreciation for solitude. Oh, I had been pursuing it all of my life. Literally since childhood. But I would not achieve it until I lived alone, for the very first time, in my 60’s. And now it is precious. In fact, required.
And I am still naive about protecting my solitude. About keeping the demons of narcissism and codependency (yes, they are psychic siblings) at bay. IF there is any smidgen of hope to live a creative life, I must defend my boundaries and channel my inner Hushpuppy. I must face the mythic Aurochs. I gotta take care of mine.
This week was my brother Ward’s birthday. He would have turned 64. That same day my neighbor and friend Hal died; he was my age, 71. He reminded me of my brother. They both understood animals better than people. Soft spoken and kind, in many ways they were too good for this world. I am grieving and sad. I miss my brother. Maybe that was the psychic memo I sent out. But I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am strong and infinitely guided; “blessed and highly favored.”
And so I will keep to myself for now. I apologize that I don’t respond quickly; I am currently unavailable. I will read and draw and “potter” about the garden and hang with my cat. Heal. And carry on.
Petrichor and lilacs…and smoke. The rain let up yesterday evening, and today we have had to close up the house. Despite delightfully cool temperatures, the air is thick with the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I have gone from loving the smell of the rain and blooming lilacs to an air quality advisory. Now the weather report includes the “smoke map.” The stars are no longer visible in the night sky.
“Sensitive groups, such as those with respiratory issues, are advised to take precautions.” Like what?! Stop breathing?! Suddenly (or not) the world has become a scary place. I don’t say that lightly; it is not lost on me that it long has been for many people. Let alone nature. God help us.
It is five a.m. as I write this. Later this morning my air conditioners will be installed and run – not to cool the house (the current outside temperature is fifty degrees) – but to filter the air. Many people here live without air conditioning as it isn’t frequently needed. Or, I should say, wasn’t. Again, the privilege not being lost on me. It’s the wildlife I’m most concerned with. Especially the birds. Especially the migrating birds, heading north this time of year to summer in Canada. Where do they go now? I fear that I sound ridiculously naive, and perhaps I am…perhaps I am…
And so, fear triggers in me a reminder to pull back. Pull my energy back into my body and focus on the present moment. Remember that each breath is a sacred gift. If again I sound naive, so be it. I am reminded by Tiokisin Ghosthorse that it is not so much my lungs that I should be concerned with. It’s my heart. My heart hurts.
A Painterly Home 