Dirt and destiny
It smells of dirt outside. Fresh garden dirt. The kind of dirt you don’t mind having under your fingernails as you straighten from a new bed of plants and feel your back begin to ache. But it’s not my dirt, and my back is fine. I can’t think where I’m picking up the scent as only desert dirt surrounds me.
One smell though – and my thoughts go into overdrive. The same with songs. Names. Colors.
I love my imagination. I embrace it. But the last few days I’m had to tamp it down – like the dirt I imagined only moments ago from my porch.
The week began with wonderment and excitement and hope. It declined to heart problems and doctors and needles and tests and tears. And just when I thought the week couldn’t slip any further, it did.
Someone I care deeply about had some unexpected sad news.
When someone I love worries, I worry. When someone I love is happy, I’m happy for them. I’m a very intuitive, sensitive, feeling person. Not to be confused with co-dependent. Because I’m perfectly capable of finding my own happiness. It is not contingent on others.
But I digress, as usual.
I’m finding myself in suspended animation – swiping the screen of my ipad to check for news – messages. My heart, dropping into my stomach when my email advises me that yes, it has updated and no, there is nothing new to show me.
I’ve been feeling selfish too. Selfish because this recent event could mean that all the wonderment and excitement I felt at the beginning of the week could be delayed, or perhaps, never be.
And that is when I have to tamp down my imagination.
You let me sit and think without information and I’ll create either the best or worst scenario my mind can come up with. It’s terrible. Terrible and wonderful at the same time.
I’ve dismissed the worry I had for myself and the hug I shared with my doctor, while tears streamed down my cheeks is a fading memory.
But the love and fear I feel for someone else remains.
I will pray to whatever God will listen to me – and use my imagination to send love and light to the family that needs it.
I have to decide, again, to let go. Give another thing I have no control of over to the universe.
Fairy tales will have to wait, even destiny gets interrupted sometimes.
Playing with the moon – and cherishing my son
A beautiful moment at close to four o’clock in the morning.
I had let Butters outside, and returned to my room. As I went back to retrieve my cream colored, insomniac manatee/sharpei/shepherd – I bumped into my son coming inside.
We had both remembered the moon.
We sat outside together, listening to the birds – in the dark, and staring up at that gorgeous huge moon. As dark as it was outside, the moon shone like the sun. We spoke of how the sky must have looked before electricity. We spoke of stars and places available to see them in total darkness.
And as we spoke, and sat in awe of that moon, I was filled with such gratitude and love for the relationship I have with my son.
When we both went in, he was wide awake – I got back under my sheets and he came into my room and sat on my bed beside me … “It’s like Christmas …” he said. And it did have that feel to it.
That up-too-early, but full of wonder and leisure feeling.
We parted, but that moment didn’t go unwritten in my memory bank. I love that he chose those words. I love that his memories of being up early and excited and us being together brought that comparison to his lips.
I awoke again at 5:30 and managed to capture the moon on my ‘real’ camera. Then I played with it a little. 😉
Embracing fear
I’m finding my fears are directly proportional to how much I am capable of loving. The more I grow, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, the more I fear. And I wonder how that can be?
I know that the opposite of fear is faith – I know that fear is unhealthy. I know this, and yet I am scared.
For me, this is also growth. When for years (other than my son) I didn’t fear losing something, not caring enough to be afraid – this is growth.
Faith I can work on.
The ordinary seems more ordinary to me lately. All the childhood dreams and hopes I had for myself are keeping me up at night. I want the fantastic. The magical. The fairy tale.
For years I did not believe anymore. Like a wide-eyed audience member discovering the secret behind a magicians trick – such disappointment.
The past few years I have been finding my own magic. Slowly. And finding myself open to believing again. Then out of nowhere, as if a reward for opening my eyes, destiny put more in my path.
I think my fear stems from not wanting to suddenly see another trick revealed.
No, I do not want to sit in naivety. But to have wonderment at what life can bring – to be surprised and to feel anything is again possible – I want more than anything.
Caution: The Twitter twit is tweeting
I have not had the slightest desire to ‘tweet’. But, I have been coveting the little Twitter boxes I see here and there. I wanted one.
I also knew for sure I was not going to add a Facebook box to my blog.
I’m old school. If you’re my friend on Facebook, either
a) We’re related.
b) I have spent actual time with you and like you
c) I have seen you naked
or
d) You were deemed worthy of reading my unedited status updates and are among the few, the proud, ‘the trusted’.
I do not accept every friend request I get. I see some and think “who the hell IS that??” Then I see some and think “I know who you are … and, no thank you.”
It’s not mean! I am selective!
We know by now that I speak first and think later. My friends understand this.
Although – of late – I am having to keep my mouth shut about some wonderful things, and it’s killing me softly.
Anyway, there is some anonymity here – and I can be just as random and silly and anonymous on Twitter.
Bottom line, (see, I still reign as Tangent Queen) – I wasn’t about to set up another Facebook account just for my blog.
I succumbed to peer pressure and figured a Twitter account would be a great addition to the blog.
I could have the cool ‘follow me’ box and another venue to show off a naked mole rat. Only … my naked mole rat wouldn’t fit in my damn profile box.
Just the first of many Twitter obstacles in Debauchery Soup’s path.
I think I’ve mentioned I research. I research the hell out of things. I wasn’t about to just start Tweeting away without knowing what things do and why they do them.
My first google search?
No, seriously. I had to google when and how to hashtag!
And much to my surprise, you can’t just go hash-tagging randomly!
You can’t.
It’s sort of like tagging on here.
God forbid I #debauchery and end up in some category with wild orgies and girls gone wild!!
Did not know that about the #. Now I do.
Followers … I only have two so far. One is one of my favorite bloggers on WordPress, and the other is one of my favorite people. So, I’m good with that.
This is not about numbers – this is about having that little box on the right hand side of this page you’re reading – let’s not forget.
I wanted the little box. I now have one. 🙂
I figured out how to ‘@’ ! My Twitter feathers ruffled with pride.
Now if I could only figure out how to fit my Mole Rat into my profile, I’d be golden.
Musings from the laundromat – Fathers Day edition
There are more men here today than usual. I look at them, and wonder – ‘are you a father?’.
One man in particular was checking his phone as I stood next to him at the washing machines, my overactive imagination had him being disappointed that he had not received a text from his children.
Probably he was just checking the time. But, not in my mind.
We have a couple of patrons that I would love to talk to – first, The Man Under the Rainbow Umbrella.
In person, he looks the sort to still use a cloth handkerchief. I imagine him refolding the newspaper he’s reading before he leaves. Taking it home and placing it in the same spot his Sunday newspaper has been set down for years.
Then he’ll carry his freshly cleaned items to his bedroom, sparsely decorated, and proceed to put them away.
He’s tidy. Efficient. Probably has his Sunday dinner decided upon when he shops for his weeks groceries.
Of course, now I’m noticing the small pink and white slippers on the table next to him and wondering, does he have an ill wife at home?
If so, I love him more. He’s doing the laundry and including her slippers. Bless his heart.
Our next patron is the mysterious Man of Mystery and Adventure.
He’s sporting an Indian Jones hat. And, no, that is NOT a purse hanging from his laundry cart. It’s his dusty satchel! Probably has a map in it. Yes it does. He feels safe carrying his documents with him into a small town laundromat. Of course, the jig is up, as I have spotted him. He doesn’t know how MUCH I know, but he knows I know.
There really are so very many men here today. Only 2 women … strange. Shouldn’t it have been that ratio on Mothers Day??
If you’re a dad, happy Fathers Day.
If you’re the father of daughters, treat women the way you would want your little girl to be treated – we notice that more. Be the man who takes the pink and white slippers to the laundromat.
Wishing you a day of love and appreciation.
Debauchery Soup 