Tag Archives: family

The Coming of Time

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I am feeling like I am running out of time, that time is passing, running very quickly, away.  I have been facing this situation for more than half my life now.  I have been watching time leave me, quickly, without apology or recourse since I successfully graduated high school.  As all my friends and even a boyfriend of mine, and I, went our different ways, to grow  into adults, so that we could build our careers, we accepted the nature of the situation.  It was a serious reason that made it seem justly logical despite the sadness of a world forcibly ending.

I am thinking of all the things I neglected, as if I made decisions only for something that would make me shiny and acceptable.  That if I could put all the grades I made and the high marks I received  to some sort of justified means and end.  This, I believed, could make me happy with myself.  That if I was acceptable to society, being an owner of a real estate and a vehicle, and even having relationships with people who would be inside the house I would live in and own, then, I would be happy.  So, now, what is the situation?  What is the verdict?  Still, all the things I have neglected are things that are still being neglected now.  However, I do miss those things, like I miss those high school friends, and that high school boyfriend, because I left them behind.  I wonder, sometimes, in that big “IF” question way: “What if we had been able to keep in touch, would I now be married to a doctor, instead of an engineer?”  Would I be happier that way?  Or, would the very psychiatric-bent of my husband drive me crazy?  His ability to needle and manipulate my emotions, becoming the bane of my existence?  Or, would this be one of the smarter things that I would value in my husband?

The actual situation is that I have married an engineer, who, I do not understand.  At any time we have our argument, we each take out our secret weapons.  He, his very mind-boggling understanding of the world as the size of a dice cube, and me, my very touchy-feely, sense that disproves his mathematically-cubist world.  At these times, I do not miss the neglect.  I am engaged and nothing else really is wrong.  Nothing else matters.

So, why is it that when I look at the clock, I miss more than just time slipping by?  Why is it that my mind wanders, and I start to wish about having other things, things that for some reason, I imagine are better?  Better than what I have, which I have earned justifiably and with justifiably hard work?

I feel that if I don’t have the time to participate in things I once cared about, then, I will be a part of the world that neglects and leaves those things that matter.  That there will a be worse world in the future than in the present.  And, I fear, then, that the world will become worse, because I participate in those things that are worse.  This is world that will grow, whenever people support those things that help it become real.  These things, like almost all things, take time, take investment, and take space….  The willingness to go there, with ingenuity and belief, and love.

So, I am running out of time, and I am calculating the time as it flits away.  I fear for my children’s world.  I fear that we will neglect things too much, beyond repair, beyond recompense.  That it will take double the time and effort to just restore goodness when the bad and evil has taken it over, filling all knowledge and sense.

The logical thing to do, is to find time to start.  And knowing this, it is like I am my own creator of stress.  How many books will I have time to read on top of the life I have now?  How much will I gain from reading books, from watching movies, and from taking care of things I neglect, even though I will not worry about all of it any more?  I am running out of time.  There will always be things I will never experience.  I wonder and I worry if this will make me less than an acceptable human being.  That I will be a loser and an unpopular person for all of my life.  But, from reality, every single person has a life that is limited, beyond their control.  Some people, grow up quickly, and choose the limits, the neglect, but most people, live with the limits imposed on them.  And, even I, so gallantly writing this essay, feel that I am missing things that would make me better. I wish often, for things that money cannot even buy.  I look at the clock again, and again, it is fast, and I am left behind, with what happens outside of time–nothing.

So, I will try to remember my own advice.  When I think that nothing matters, I will remember that I have worked, earned, and lived, my life.  Everything that I have is because of me, and is honorable.  As my Grandmother says, “When you have all the time in the world, you cannot be worth it, until you are running out of it, and it leaves you for dead.”  Thank you, Grandma.

The Perfect Dream

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One of the few things in life that are perfect, are dreams.  Another thing that is so, are fantasies, but these things are truly perfect and exciting only because they have a seedy temptation to them.  So, being pure of mind, body, and spirit, I turned to thinking about the perfection of dreams.  I found only one commonality to each and all, and that is that no answer can be made to the question of a dream.  They are perfect and the only answer is, “yes.”

Often, the best dreams don’t even need to come true to be valued and honored, and cherished for life.  They exist in a constant state of excitement, never becoming sullied, or soiled, or destroyed, or replaced (unless to great reason).  They will often also morph with time, keeping pace with our growing age.  I have often labelled my dreams, calling them code words or names, like love, honey, home, friend, trust, fun, and remember.  I know what I mean, and if I am speaking with someone, perhaps a friend, and I talk about these, the greatest things in my life, I will very willingly, describe to great detail what it is all about.

So, today, a day like most other days in my life, I had time to be inside of a coffee shop, with all the bustling business and the coming and going of clientel.  I had time to myself and started to make notes about a discussion that had gone on earlier in the week.  We were trying to create  something of perfection inside the home, specifically the living room.  And, the key word that came up was dream.  All things led to this central word: “home, perfection, marriage, love, longevity, money, children, history, war and peace, and care.”  Why this list of ten words?  It was the most inclusive way to explain how each and every single person can look at their living room, in their home, and understand, just by the central code word, “dream.”

A place to live in, a place to sleep in, a place to fall in love in, a place to have fun in.  These are easily the things that happen in this hallowed room of ages and ages.  People take care of their living rooms, knowing that strangers and lovers and everyone else in between show up here, to meet, to greet, to discuss, and to arrange and to make deals.  Everything from life to death is discussed here, and if someone were to try to destroy or sully the sanctity of this room, with, say, a mention of the cost of money, then may they be banished, permanently, from this hallowed place.

Children are easily welcomed here, on condition that they behave.  If someone under the age of eighteen wants to lounge on the furniture, or jump on it, say, then, these children will have to either choose the family room of the basement, where the rec room is.  It is from these strange and foreign rules that the first idea of the dream of the living room is born.  “What is it that happens in such a forbidden place?”

Sometimes, the living room is almost like a “hallowed” place.  There sometimes are strict unspoken rules about entering and using it.  All a mother has to say is, “Don’t go in,” and any son and any daughter will not venture in, until, say, they have proof that they are smart enough to enter.  A graduation of some sort, or the purchase of that first real coffee table book of some real, serious, substance, even though it is a coffee table book.  Sometimes, turning eighteen is all a son or daughter needs to enter the barred place.  They move out and when they come to visit, they will walk into the living room, to peer at the glass cabinet, the “corner filler” of the three panel screen filled with family photos, or plunk a few keys on the upright piano.  They become automatically allowed to walk in and sit on the furniture, until mom invites them to eat something and drink something for afternoon snack and tea.  And, in this way, the sanctity, the dream, is not demolished.

The living room is misnamed by most people.  “Sitting room, the guest room, the front room.”  In the past, it had the best fireplace that could warm the room quickly and keep it at a comfortable temperature.  It held things of importance and value.  It was the right size, the best size, to be of the most comfort.  The rest of the house was not built with these specifications, where the need for room and space for use were the only determinants of size and comfort.  Even in this day, often the “living room,” is just one of those less used rooms.  Perhaps for the location of the room.  Perhaps it is just that one additional room that no one really has a use for.  Perhaps it is because mother has put so much China and figurines and silver plated finery into the room that it is dangerous to even turn around.  Even the basement has more use.  Although it is cold, even freezing, for most of the year, the size of the basement makes it a fun, dark, and imaginative place.  If anything could get broken down there, it wouldn’t matter.

Now, I remember shopping for the first house I could own.  We attended all the new house developments first, which allowed us to see new designs in the reality of walking into model homes.  The houses were gorgeous.  Often, the architects moved the rooms around, into different places, sometimes in a very imaginative way.  I felt like I was walking into a life-size dollhouse.  Sometimes, I was able to be appreciative of these innovative changes, but most times, I felt like I was inside those games where blocks are moved randomly around until a picture emerges.

We ended up buying a sixty-year-old house that we renovated, updating the wiring, the plumbing, and removing some of the walls.  It was expensive, but it was worth the cost and the incredible  way it was comfortable.  Even though it was built more than half-a-century before, the time-tested, the first, the intuitive way, seemed much more likeable than the fancy sizes and innovative placement of any of the new living rooms we saw.

The next change is coming.  And, like a busy ant or busy bee, I am already thinking ten to twenty years ahead.  We will have to down-size.  My criteria?  That the apartment have a living room.  I dream about this perfect apartment, as I am excited by change and look forward to being in the next place.  I actually have very few of the details understood, but I am finding that I am attracted by the idea of retirement.  I feel that being in a bright, roomy, place with complete access to all areas of home is how I imagine retirement.  Perhaps this home will be one large, enormous, living room.  Now, that would be quite the golden gem, quite the perfect dream, to own!

Castle

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Just the other day, I was walking back to around my old stomping grounds, where, finally having only four years between me and a real life, a real career, and owning some real estate, was very imminent.  I could spend those four years partying and celebrating my imminent status, or, I could spend my time, studying, and eventually, buying my way into some status.

The truth is, no student is every the “perfect student.”  As soon as you get the letter in the mail, you immediately start ranking the courses, and the classes.  There will be those that I will spend an hour a week on, outside of the three hour lecture, and there are those, where, I will go to every lecture, do every essay, write every exam, and even send my Professor email about.  Which is of course the equivalent to waiting, preying, and pouncing on the poor Professor at the end of lecture.

Well, this is how it starts, and it is, I guess, a plan that should work, but then, facing reality, I never really attended every lecture, I only listened to what I wanted to listen to, and I only wrote what I thought was the truth, or, should be the truth.  Why?  Because I was “partying for four years” my just accepted, imminent status.  To this day, I am unsure what it is that should come from a four-year-degree.  I am appreciative of my status, as it is a sieve and a sorting machine to everyone, including those who do not attend college and university.  How true?  Maybe true.

As long as I am not dependent on the public to garnish my wages, which is dependant on my ability to look beautiful to the general public, then , I consider myself lucky.  Having people who are the educated, the qualified, to hire and fire me, makes me assured, and confident, that “yes” I do have a job, I do, have talent and enough brains, and smarts, to be worthy of it all.

So, back to the other day.  I just happened to have to meet a client near the University, just off-campus.  As I was leaving and walking back to my car, I happened to notice a new cafe lounge. I was in the place where a cheap dive was.  This place used to attract students in the area almost every night of the week.  Lots of bands, and sometimes just a DJ, so, Rave-like, anyone could spend $5 and dance the entire night.  Well, now, there was a place called “Castle.”  On the sign, was the “subtitle,” Board Game Cafe and Lounge.  It seemed to me that some student, like me, who used to hang out at the students’ lounge on campus, like me, thought it would be cooler to walk off the grounds and visit a place that could offer board games.  My question, immediately, is … “I can play a board game while drunk?”

As I was in a hurry that day, I did not open the door and walk in.  But, in my imagination, is that two possible things can happen…..  The interior could be completely quiet, much like a library, where gamers will play with each other on the board games, whispering all their moves, muffling their cries of victory, or there could be nice “lounge music,” a darkened interior, and a sea of voices, a clink of glasses, and the sounds of gamers playing with each other at a board game.  Both can fact the same result: not enough of either type of student.  I am not sure I can make it off-campus in, let’s say, the extra two or three hours I have between classes.  And Saturdays, back in my day, were the best day to rush my homework, so that I could drink myself drunk that evening and sleep in the next day.  There were times I even consistently invested in Sunday Brunch for a semester with one of my other classmates. So, in any case, I feel “Castle” is caught in between two groups of students.  Those who are quiet and those who want to get drunk doing something different, like cow-tipping while drunk, if you’re in the country.  The people who truly have the time and money to just “drop by” Castle, are those who are newly graduated.  Those, perhaps, not quite into the starter-job, yet, but still have some money, and time, and are sill keen on that student-single-fun lifestyle.

As for myself, I saw this store front, and felt nostalgia for that two-storey dance pad.  I loved leaving all the books, all the paper, the computer, and the laptop at home, in my rented room.  The thing I would love to go to Castle for, is any drink I can’t have at home.  But, nowadays, this place has come too late for me.  I am owning a car that I cart my kids and husband around in.  All those extra hundreds that could be spent if I were more frugal?  I buy trinkets–jewellery, cute-toy hangars, a chocolate bar, appetizers, desert, and the prettier body wash and body lotion.

I wonder, when there will be no more babies born, what will happen to these “Board Game Cafe and Lounges?”  I have curiosity to go in, but i also have the experiences to know that these novelty, niche, experiences, tend to disappear.  It is too quiet or too much activity.  I move slowly now, and even in my middle age, I will only move at any speed, if I am not distracted by silence.  It’s funny.  I have yelled at my kids so often, to be quiet, and here I am admitting that I don’t work, that I don’t do anything, if all I have is silence.  The radio will always be on.  The typing from the next cubicle keeps up pace.  The phone rings.  And what I call silence falls in between.  This is a world I work in, and I have found, it is a world that I love.  So, kids and husband!  Keep it down!!

Is the Beginning of the End Too Late?

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Is the beginning of the end too late?  I know I have already asked this question, at least once this year, but it is rearing its enormous head, yet again, begging my attention.  I feel that everything that is happening, with my job, with my family, and with my interests and pastimes, are all coming to some sort of end.  The thing?  Well, a simple, “What is going to happen next week?”

It is easy for me to be a coward, until, that is, I realize that if I choose to not do something, that I will literally end up with nothing.

The next step?  I need to be clear that I want my job, that I want to be with my family, and that I value my lesser talents in my hobbies.  Yes, an enormous and ugly head is rearing itself up, right now.

So, in this end, I ask, “Let’s do something!”

With some disposable money, a short trip outside of this one horse town is possible.  Then again, visiting friends or throwing a big party and inviting some out of town guests is always fun too… and probably something worthwhile if I can promise some fun and a magical tour of the city’s bars in the trendy and bar part of town.

About time….  My children are going to be hanging around the house for the whole summer!  Should I promise them another Camp  Summer?  Or, should I home school for two months and have themselves teach themselves a new skill?  And to practice on it?  I had perspicacious parents who did this to me every summer.  I would get home from summer school, which was filling half the day, and i would have to read books, practice piano, or do a chore like bake muffins or cookies.  Having responsibilities like these made me aware that I was more privileged than other children.  It made me aware that I had a lot more to do, than just come home and watch television.  I actually loved a lot of the things that happened to me in childhood, and I valued the things I could do, and having control over these talents, tasks, and knowing things when I heard other people talk, helped to keep me interested in school, life, and other people.  I accredit my parents for being the smart and cool parents for doing so.

So, this end that I see approaching, very quickly, is it for real?  Is it too early for everything to end?  or is it in fact too late?  Am I now too old to start a second career?  Am I too bored with my job to be able to do another similar job?  Do I have time to go back to school and find that magical, hoped for, favorite second job?  all these things are true, which makes me ask myself, “Am I filled with enough energy to handle two lives happening to just one person?”  Can I be a student and still be a parent to a family and a wife to a husband?  While I go to school, will I have time and money to cope with all of it?  I really cannot take out a second mortgage for myself, while I also envision taking out a mortgage for my children’s education.

With responsibilities pressuring me in a way that I could’ve never understood before, I feel as if I am giving up on myself in order that I am responsible for my children.  As well as for my husband.  Being a wife and mother changes priorities.  Men will always win, as men are.  And I am willing to put my education somewhere at the back, where perhaps, when all monetary responsibility for my children and also my physical responsibility for providing a home to them, is past.  It is not as if I have lost hope in myself.  It is at this fork in the road that I yet again, take the right hand fork.  I can’t see how far it leads, or, where it will begin again, but I am confident in being here.

If I can convince my children to fend for themselves a few days in the week, with promises to pay for visits to the theme park or the water park, and maybe a ten day trip family camping or going to rented cottage, this summer, I think I can still live with myself.  I will have the time to indulge, in secret, my interest in art.  As I fumble with the pencil in my hand, and play with the color of paint.  This looks as if it will become a satisfying two months, before the next time  I will have to yet, again, make the THE decision.  I will have to decide whether to be more of a mom, more of a wife, or more of me.  So, for now, it is done.

I Think Therefore I Am

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I am wondering what sense it is making when you say, “I think, therefore I am.”  I am not sure if it is as much as a definition of being human as much as it is a definition of life.  If you watch your dog sniffing, scratching, digging, and, of course, excitedly greeting you with licks from his tongue, violently-wagging tail, and even barking to get your un-divided attention, there is no other explanation other than that he is thinking.  Cats are even more complex.  They are cats when they leave you at any time, going to find someplace to sleep, or, when they are loose, they become like wild animals, running from sounds and other people–frightened, of who knows what.  Then, as they like, they will seek your attention, and purr, satisfied, when it is given to them.

And, I continue to think.  Even plants–unable to move or make sound–almost seem to have the ability to think.  All plants and trees grow upwards, towards the sun.  So, if they are nearby a window, in the house, they will lean, from the pot, towards the sunlight.  If you play the plants music, or even talk to the plant, they will flourish, and grow with amazing, miracle-like, speed and health.  The thing with plants and trees is that they have no real ability to defend themselves.  So, unable to cling to life, they are at the mercy of the more able.

So, is being smarter, a more accurate definition of being human?

Really, is being smarter only useful in taking tests and trying to get the score of 100%?  Is happiness made of brains?  I can  only guess that cat and dog are both happy animals.  And that human beings, being more dominant, and smarter, perhaps the word is complex–Are we smarter or dumber?  The thing with us is that we both create happiness and sorrow, both from being smarter and dumber too.

Is there any such thing as living a perfect life?  Like a pitcher in baseball, who can pitch a full game, without one hit nor base run, can we also live a perfect life?  Perfect, being 100%.  Perfect, being happy with whatever it is you have, even if it is not perfect.  Have any of us ever seen an unhappy dog?  An unhappy cat?  Do all we do, with a dying and dead plant, is put it into the recycling–the green compost?  Are we happier, because we know what to do?

As summer vacation is coming to being half over, I think of the plans that I had at the beginning, and how everything happened differently.  Even I, cannot predict, with all my thought and experience, the things I plan for.  Things start somewhere, and I remember these starts again, and again, and I tell myself and my kids that soon, yes, we will do everything soon.

So, happily, I am going to try to get out into the sun, with sunscreen, and try to just soak up the warmth that doesn’t happen in the winter.  I cherish such beautiful days.  And I remember that happiness sometimes is just the sun rising and setting and the moon at night.

Working Hard To Make Things Work

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I try to get to the  gym when I can.  It is one of those things that reaps rewards, but before getting there, I often prefer to sit at home and eat an ice cream sandwich.  Basically, it defeats the point of  going to the gym on the other days, as well.  It is only guild that gets me to pack my gym bag, get a good and clean sports bra, sport socks, and the parking pass.  As time has passed, this routine has almost become practice, as now, I associate both doing the laundry, as well as staining all my gym clothes, to be part of the life of visiting gyms.  The workout, if I can get to that point, is definitely, something I look forward to too.

I miss the days when I was in school when it was so easy to put on a pair of runners and just go out to the field and spend time throwing a Frisbee. Often, we would also toss with each other.  A football I once tried, and I can’t do it, but I’ve been able to put on a glove and toss a baseball.  On sunny days, I would run the track around the field, and if I felt daring, I would hit the sidewalk pavement and run a few kilometers in the neighborhood.

Those days are past and gone now.  My time is not a lot of time any more.  I am stretched very thin between kids, husband, work, and any time for myself.  Yes…  I often lose count of how many times I’ve given over my own personal time to all those other people who need me.  It is almost like I purposely martyr myself.   But I also know that they wouldn’t ask me to spend some of my time with them.  I am the all-knowing, all-capable, mother of all things, and they rely on me in this role I have.  I did not choose to take this job, but, as part of my life, I have this role….  Unpaid.

The reward is truly great.  When I get angry and start to yell at these people, for, they got me angry, I will come again, and again, across the fact that no payment, and no money, is involved.  It works both ways… and the bottom line is that we are stuck together, and it will take much more than a cheque to separate us.

So, as I sit here, composing this particular letter to no one in particular, I have already made a list of things I have to do–for next week, Monday to Sunday, and there is no room to change any of this schedule, unless some of the people I martyr for, are willing to change the schedule.  I am lucky, this week.  I may be able to get to the gym.

Time keeps going even if I stop.  I am afraid that if I stop, I will become a very large mountain of fat and flesh.  And even if time continues to march, I will be a putrid, heavy, smelly, mountain.  There is nothing that can stop time, just as there is nothing that can change time.  We must keep our eyes and senses open, and look to the things that are ours to have and to keep.  And thus, we would have power to change.  when I get stuck, and unsure, I remind myself of this essential fact of life.  And I approach the problem, the issue, the opportunity, with my mind clear and sure.  Sometimes I have to sleep on these things, until I find the answer that works.  And, I remind myself, that no matter how large and difficult a problem is, there is some way to work on it….

Have I given enough time to a problem?  It’s something I’m never sure of, until the problem doesn’t come back.  And when this happens, I celebrate, like a cancer patient becoming cured, declared cancer-free, because it is in remission.  Each time, I hope, I pray, for the miraculous, even while I do everything in my power, knowing that it is truly luck, serendipity, and prayer, that work to change life, after you have given everything and all that you are.

It is frightening to contemplate why we have life or why we even have consciousness.  But, life, is int he details, as much as the devil is too.

Her Fearful Symmetry

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The first time I saw beauty in the most fearful place, I held my gaze and could only turn away when I started to breathe again, my shallow breath only allowed in when my muscles around my chest and neck could work once again.  I took a deep swallow, and asked an odd question, “Why is there two of that girl?”

Identical people puzzle me.  They look like each other, and often tail each other closely, starting and finishing each other’s word to the complete agreement of each other.  They dress in the same dress, and for some reason become completely lost and awol when the other disappears.  They tail each other from the time they are born to the time they pass on.  They are completely famous without the fame.  In public, people recognize their existence, albeit, only from the point of view of being in the presence of two beautiful and exceptional people, but they are recognized.  It seems, twins, and being a twin, makes for interesting gossip and talk and fulfills the need in some people to have confirmation of the extra-ordinariness of life. The very bodily existence of twins is very strong and loud evidence of life.  It is confirmation without true proof as to what life is.  Is it a brain?  Is it the beauty of models’ bodies?  Is it the strength and accuracy of athlete’s muscles?  Is it our ability to talk?  Our ability to create fictions, and stories and plan for the future? Is it our ability to create and rate and fall in love?  Do we create love?  And if so, do we create life?  Is life and love a very spontaneous accident?  Or is there a scientific method and law as to how it all happens?

I am looking at a conversation that two people are having.  One of them keeps insisting that twins are better off than all other kinds of human beings.  To have a bond that never breaks because there is nothing that is the match of that bond….  no words, no actions, no ideas, no love…  This is a very deep thing to say and think!  That being a twin for life literally means neither will ever be alone, even if one passes on, or if they find someone to marry, the twins to each other are never truly alone.  They would share that love as well!

I imagine this situation, the one in the overheard conversation….  To say that if I am in trouble, that there will be someone who will be there to save me…..  This, too, is very deep…  Any girl would like to be in this situation!  To have security forever!  I imagine this situation, and I think, I would be very satisfied!  Perhaps, twins are better off than any other type of human being!

Unfortunately, I was not born a twin.  I am single, and I am this way for my entire life.  I have learned to live with this “difficulty” in a way that makes me more willing to try my luck and to try to make friends, even in an unlikely situation.  I am often in a lonely job, as writers tend to have to do their work in isolation, and in quiet, and in full concentration of brain work  so that they can hear their own thoughts.  Writing is messy, and if you don’t catch your thoughts and ideas quickly… they will fly off and disappear!  So, this is how I feel secure….  Hearing myself and editing myself and creating word-filled pages that work and feel like magic!

So, am I resigned to this life?  Well, of course.  There is nothing that  I would wish undone.  There is nothing that I would wish redone….  (Sometimes when I am angry, or feeling jealous, I do wish that my entire life were redone… but that is a situation that even twins cannot outwit.  Being angry and /or jealous is natural even if your twin is perfect evidence of what the situation is.)

So, here is my life.  Summer is just starting, and I am becoming very busy with all the plans that are floating around the house.  My husband wants this….  My kids want that….  And then, do we have time to visit grandma?  Will there be time enough to buy a season’s pass to the theme park?  And, are the kids ready to take on over night camp?

These are not necessarily easy decisions to make.  Being bad and getting slightly poor grades are not conducive to going out to play at the waterpark…  It is more likely that summer school will be the result and consequence of that!

Life is not easy….  As the anthem of my generation states, “Life is a mystery, and we must stand alone.”  It is tragically beautiful, and, I bet, this is one thing that twins do not understand!

The Reality of Mother’s Day

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We always hope things are real.  We tell ourselves that things are real.  That we wouldn’t be here if the things that happen are not real.

It is surreal that bodies are left here when a person dies and passes on.  It is surreal that people will use a gun to kill.  It is surreal that guns are manufactured when it is obvious people do not treat them as toys, but as a real way to kill people.

Why is life like this?  What do we consider is alive and what do we consider is worth living for?

From a scientist’s point of view, things that rely on each other, as in being in an eco-system, are things (organisms) that are alive.  As for the polar opposite, the solar system, not one thing in it (except earth) is actually alive.  It exists in a rhythmic, inanimate, and up to mathematical accuracy like many cogs working in a beautiful machine.

It seems the reality is that we do not only live for the best things in life.  Things  get in the way, and immediately, we return the supposed blow to our ego and esteem with an equal and greater blow.  What starts this continuous cycle?  And why do we rely on each other like this?

I was at a lunch meeting the other day, and even in the civilized and sophisticated office that I work in, we were all together eating lunch and uninhibitedly trading bits of gossip.  I mean, I can only brag about my children only oh so much before I look like I’m obsessed with them.

We had booked the day to both eat and also make use of our time to plan and discuss the issues for our next project.  Several times through the meeting, opinions of the ideas and possible creations that we wanted to make and deal with were brought up, and also, summarily batted down.  I do not doubt that some of the members of our team, had worked hard to try to make their ideas and plans the one that would fly.

I am not saying that this hasn’t happened to me, but it seems to just be the smaller version of the large-eco-system reality that we are surrounded by and live in.  Where some people will use threat and force to deal with a negative reception, others will keep a careful  diary of a “track record” and use this as leverage for job loss or being looked over for a promotion.  And, of course, there is just plain blows to the ego.  And how long and how many times can someone just sit through peers’ negative comments and bullying?

So, why is this reality? Are we helping to shape the world as it will be?  A century from now?  Are we encouraging merit?  Or, are we just encouraging the same old Earth that has been here millions of years, because, quite frankly, it just won’t change?

I am hoping there is something called “Evolution.”  It sounds to me like the answer to Earth’s burgeoning problems.  Charles Darwin studied animals, and found that they, even with their limited brain size, were capable of change and gain. Sure, they were nothing like human beings, but because they responded to changes in their environment, slowly, they were changing the next generation, if not changing their own very entrenched behaviors, at the moment they responded.  Soon, species of animals were created, and new breeds were found and the animal kingdom grew and flourished.

Human beings, being capable of planned thought, unfortunately, are not responding as positively to pressures and change.  We keep doing and keep thinking like all the generations previous to ours….  Well, why?  Because nothing at all has actually changed!

So, we, reading that our ancestors used swords to settle problems, we will us knives and guns to allay ours.  We will bully, because reading how well it works, we know how to do it and make it work ourselves.  Have you thought of a better way of doing things?  Even if I wanted to be a one-woman-band, and declare a brand new way of living, clean of blood, sweat and death, no one would actually listen.  I would be ostracized as a problem, and considered dealt with.

Mother’s Day is this weekend, and like everyone else, I love Mother’s Day, because I have a mother I love.  I would never bully my mother.  I would never call her bad names.  I will never stick her in a god-forsaken hole when she grows old and feeble, as I want to take care of her.  At least this is something that exists in a very real way.  We are all children, and therefore we all have mothers and fathers.  There reality of life is that we get tired of loving.  And the reality is that we become embroiled in wars instead.  It is a quick way to make life work and a quick way to make some money on it, without ties that bind in forever bondage.

The World of Paul Frank and Hamsters

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My mom likes my Paul Frank PJ’s.

My hamster is awake all night.  It bit me at the pet store before I decided to buy it–then I bought it.  Even though the teeth are sharp, the size of the tooth cause more pain than a needle at the doctor’s office.  The blood quickly beaded and I had to hold the bit incision, covering myself in blood.

My mom claims there were no cute things when she was a child, and she always say how lucky we are that there is so much softness and fun, as if childhood never ends.

Paul Frank is a monkey–mostly he is all head and mouth.  He is always laughing, sometimes eyes closed, sometimes eyes open.  His image is printed always or embroidered on something soft–Pajamas, backpacks, sweatshirts.  I always see Paul Frank on the adults who never grow up.

I am fully, tragically, in love with Paul Frank–I have no picture for you, but if you see him, by yourself–you’ll know it is him.  Mostly, I think  I laugh at the people who wear Paul Frank.  It is daring–and if you are a grandmother, then I think only your grandkids take you seriously.

Now, in our house, I am surrounded by monkeys and hamsters.  Even if I didn’t want Nibbles and Paul Frank here, my kids would’ve found some way to bring it all into the house.  I sometimes think my kids and their friends hanging out at our house, love the things they trade and share more than their parents.  They clean up after themselves very well when it is they are having a good day trading secrets and just looking cool in each other’s eyes.

I worry about situations like these.  I lose track what it is they are doing, and what it is that they own.  They have some money to spend now, and if my son doesn’t come and show me his convenience store purchases, I worry.  I still dress him….  He will be in the “perfect” store, and we will try on sizes until we get it right.

Surprisingly, I overheard my daughter talking with her friends in the backyard.  I just happened to walk by the open back door and heard her say that she thought I was cool.  It was one of the most gratifying days of my life.  She is still young, but she is very well-versed in things cool.  I will always think that she is cool.

Even when I begin to imagine all the things that could be made in my children’s lives, filling it all with fun, learning, and life, I sometimes scare myself.  What if they contract an incurable disease?  What if an accident were to happen, and they end up paralyzed for life?  They look so perfect now…  the things that they grow through are nothing like the disasters I have foreseen in others….  I’d be overjoyed if they could make it to adulthood without the most frightening failures of life happening to them.

So, now, back to the issues of monkeys and hamsters.  We share everything.  Everything in the house belongs to “our family.”  We try not to be strict and draconian.  They will grow into the stage where they will try to hide things….  and I do not encourage that age.  I want them to feel free enough to bring up those things that kids will sometimes hide.  So, yes, “our pet hamster,” named “Nibbles” in a communal naming spree, is shared.  We all take care of Nibbles, which allows me, my daughter, and their father into my son’s room to take care of Nibbles.  We ask permission, to “take Nibbles for a walk” and we will take turns cleaning the cage and refilling the food.

I get to look cool on my weekends with the kids.  My t-shirt with Paul Frank’s happy face recognizable instantly by my children, my mother, and, of course, my husband, who thinks it is just juvenile of me to keep Paul Frank around the house.

Right now, my daughter just finished planning a birthday party for Nibbles.  She drew a picture of it and showed it to me. It immediately went up on the fridge.  She has asked me, since then, when a good day is to have the party?  I don’t really know, but I do keep telling her, tomorrow.  She thinks I delay too long, and I think that the days pass by so quickly, that I’m afraid that I will forget them.

I don’t think there will ever be a day when we will take Paul Frank, or, hamsters, out of the house.  They have come in, and I think that they are staying for life.  For now, if the Dollar Store is not selling hamster-sized tea cups and balloons, we will have to keep delaying the birthday party.

The Pursuit of Happiness

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Aged cheese and aged wine.  Grapes and cake.  Sometimes people just need some time and a good way to forget.  There is so much in life, and to think that the majority of the good things are bad is depressing in itself, without some devastation to make it all the blackest of sin to be living.  The question I am thinking of, because I was just thinking about my life in terms of life-changing events, is:  “Is the beginning of the end already too late….  Or is there just more to work with?”  Immediately, I started having berating thoughts:  “What if I was just plain lazy?  What if I always did the easy thing, chose the easy way, and made anything difficult to do something I couldn’t have in my life, even in the sense of the difficult as something to contemplate?”  What if I don’t know how to do anything worth while?  Will I die a horrible death?  Will I suffer until I die the horrible death?  I started on this road of thought because I started comparing my life with, obviously enough, my sister’s life.

She started fast out of the gate….  Always the straight A child, the one who won more than the “Participant” award.  She would win first place, she wuld win the cool prizes with $100 or a new wardrobe, and she had the cool friends, who, for some reason were in Indie bands who played in the bard around town.  She got into the best schools, and had the vest and coolest hobbies.  She could talk on the phone half a school night and still get the straight A’s again.  She could always choose the winners of the year before they were announced on Oscar night.  She used cool words, even the Professors thought were cool.  And, to end off the comparison with her graduation from a Masters Program, she took a two month trip through Europe.

In comparison, I did the things that were less.  How do I come to this conclusion?  Easy….  I do the easy jobs that pay less.  I married a man that drives a Honda instead of an Audi with leather seats that even looks sleek and sporty in grey metallic and four doors.  I have thought about having a big family, with three children and an option to have four or even five…  but I just can’t afford it.  Children require a two-income family.  And on two incomes, if I consider the need of a private school education, my husband and I can only afford to have one of each… a boy and a girl.  And lucky us, it just did happen in this million dollar way….  One for me and one for who I married.

In a sense, when the first child was born, it definitely marked the end of my life in some sort of big way.  Everything I started doing, and that I keep doing, now, is look after the life of my children.  Their schedule comes first, and lucky me, I have a job that is flexible with me to run to the aid of my children when it is necessary.  I was of the generation of feminists who demanded equality with men in every way, but, surprise, when a woman falls in love with a man… the man always comes first.  They are chivalrous because we love them that way, and we let them come first, because they like us this way.

So, I ask again, is the beginning of the end too late….  to have the things that you always wanted?  Or is the compromise…., always necessary?  Will I never have the chance, ever again, to experience the things that I thought I would have the chance to experience…  Sometime?  I don’t have to think about now…  Now, my children know what it is that takes to raise them, already, and I will not disappoint them.  In some way, it is an investment, after 65 I will not work any more, and somehow, I would like a home to live in for as long as possible….  And in this way, I invest in my children.  I am looking at least thirty years into the future.  So, with this mark as the beginning of the end, have I missed out on a life of glamour, the one I envision where I get to fly the world, taking photographs of famous people, famous models, and creating great artistic works that people will hunt for?

All of a sudden my teenaged dream of this life of glamour was replaced, even before I knew it.  I did marry an artist, and in some ways, I live vicariously through him, often, but, even he, doesn’t have the glamorous life I dream about.  It’s a lot of nine to five work.  We are mutually looking at our lives, feeling that it has been replaced with domesticity.  Our children now walk us.  We daily rate what is most important, and yes, our children take top place.  I revel in their victories and cry with them in their sorrows and failures, as does my husband.  We laugh, now in a way we never thought we would laugh.  Laughter used to mean something coll and funny, now, it’s love that comes tumbling out of our mouths. We cherish those moments.

Until we are able to have more time for ourselves, we will continue to sell our souls for the money that keeps our family together, in our home.  So, is it beyond possible to change our lives and have those things we have dreamt of?  Is it too late?  I hope that it isn’t true.  I watch as younger artists gain so much more with half the time that I have.  I watch as young graduates take those enviable jobs that I have secretly wanted, with half the experience I have.  As these opportunities are “taken away” from me, I ask again….  Have I been too lazy and only settled on the easy things?

Let us hope, then, that this is not the truth.  I hate the idea of compromise, but I am not completely sure that I understand the concept of compromise.  I look at the time ahead of me, and I am now beginning to think, “things never really change.”  I consider myself as someone who is born to be an artist.  It matters that I hold onto this part.  It keeps me occupied, and I know that I will be occupied, and I know I will be occupied beyond the years that my children need me.  I would be pleased to be an older artist…  So, is the beginning of the end too late?  I don’t think so.