Been a long time,Been a long Time, Been a long Lonely, Lonely, Loney.....

...Lonely Time...

This blog is not for the faint of heart or for those who have no time on their hands.... Just so's ye know...

So. Long time no speak, which has become a Plus ca change, plus c'ect le meme chose moment. I've kept a lot in, so I have a lot to say now..... Brace yourselves, this post may take some time to read.... Pour yourself a glass of vinto tinto, or tea, or whatever your pleasure requires. Settle in and prepare yourselves for a long read. Or change the channel right now......

Here's me in this moment, no holds barred:

Lately I've become shy. Partly due to a recent flirt with Facebook in which many of my classmates from high school seem to have converged, rendering me bemused, and a bit horrified. I never wanted to do Facebook but was invited, and now that I've joined, I feel chagrin and regret, a bit of a happy "well met old friend', but also a weird sense of 'Yo, Toto, I dont think we're in Kansas anymore..."

I hated high school. I just plain hated school. Period. I didn't hate my classmates, necessarily, but I hated how they saw me, and I knew how they saw me because of how they treated me ( I hated me then, loathed the me they thought they saw which I believed....which is the salient point, isnt it?) and I feel suddenly put in a box I thought I was out of for the last 20 something (who's counting?!) years. It feels weird, and I am not sure I like it.

How strange is it that I feel more authentic and more genuinely 'safe' with my blog and fellow blogsters on this space?!

Think about this: I've known these people since long before high school, you should know, some of them since third grade, where we studied, among other incongruous things like knitting, J.R.R Tolkien's "The Hobbit". LITERATURE! Which is what sparked in me my life-long love of Fantasy, sci-fi, and the place where myth meets consensus reality; where we shape our reality by what we believe, where the possible meets the impossible, and where alternate realities simply wait a 'hello' to become as real as the so-called here-and-now. ....which as we all know is a very flexible membrane.

Suffice it to say that at the age of eight when I began to read Joan Grant's 'Far memory" books, I was set on my path as a quester. Seeing colours around people was simply part of the usual day (didnt every one see that?). 'Remembering' past lives, or 'dreams about other people' in those strange cultures which a child of that age couldnt possibly know about, was 'normal' to me....Reading about others who understood made me feel like I wasnt absolutely and utterly beyond hope, made me feel like I wasnt a complete freak and strange.

In French, the word strange "Etranger" means stranger. That is how I felt. Always. Still do most of the time....

Its not all bad. But often I felt like the class scape-goat . We sang songs sometimes...a song about a fox and the light of the moon. The last line being 'and the little ones chewed on the bones-oh, bones-oh, bones-oh...' Everyone pointed at me and laughed as they chanted "Bones-Oh" and I laid my head on my desk, buried in my arms, and cried. I was skinny. Very small and thin. This was apparently a source of of humor and a chance to taunt someone smaller and therefore not invited to be part of the collective mob. So I guess I was "bones-oh".... Children can be so cruel. These are things one doesnt forget. Especially, that the teacher did nothing to stop it. I learned that I had no defender. That the small ones were meant to be picked on. It was a long road until I got strong.... I went to a school where adult domination of small children was the norm and child-mob domination of the sensitive and small was not considered something to address. But rather something to observe with amusement.

Can I just say 'yuk' please, and that that is NOT okay!?

What doesnt kill you will make you strong. I'm strong now. I AM STRONG NOW. These things made me a person who defends the weak and fragile, who champions the under-privileged, and the downtrodden, who doesnt forgive bigotry, who has no room for intolerance, and for that I am thankful. I'm strong now, and if I see someone making a small person into a scapegoat, I'll rip their bloody face off, let me tell you!

There are other memories. The good memories with that childhood crowd include climbing up the very tallest, and most impressive of trees in the forest that surrounded our school with one of my favorite people on this earth (then and to this very day, 30 something years later) and reciting Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar' from beginning to end. This was grade six, when we were still small enough, and intrepid enough, and felt immortal enough to climb the tallest cedar in the forest. I prided myself, being the 'bones-oh' little person that I was, to be able to climb to the highest tippy-top of the biggest tree - easily 150 feet high - and put my small hand above the top most branch, as though I had bested the tree, my classmates, and the challenges of Life itself, all in one effortless and graceful moment. I was finally better at something than anyone. I was finally good at something. The tree was my friend. I was one with Nature and could do this. I was 'different' and I was welcomed by the forces of the Forest with whom I could communicate. I knew this. And it gave me strength.

Meanwhile, on that special day, that Shakespeare-in-the-tree-day, a wind storm raged and we, Lisa and I, were tossed back and forth, to and fro like a ship on the high seas. You would have cringed to see two little girls up in the very top of the highest branches on this tree in this fierce and deadly wind. What did we know of danger? All we knew was that we were happily hidden from the powers that be, playing truant where NO one could or would ever find us, and that the tree was our friend...

Our big tree was rooted at the edge of a ravine. Right on the precipice. So that when the wind blew and we sailed from east to west, on the one side we had our 'normal world' of school, and the delight of being 'out of bounds', whilst still feeling relatively safe in being able to see the school and its lands and all that was familiar. It was a thrill that no one could see us, but as the wind blew the tree over the ravine, all became strange. All became unfamiliar and exciting and dangerous. We were suddenly leaning over a drop that was twice as far as the height of the tree when it swung to the other side. It was like black and white. The familiar and the strange. The safe and the dangerous. And all the while we recited Julius Caesar.

We felt alive. The tree-top must have swung thirty feet, back and forth, from one gust to another, bending gracefully, but FAST; bowing to the pressure and swinging back, as only a cedar can do, east to west, wind blowing like stink, and we sailing on her boughs, oblivious to any danger and utterly delighted, enchanted, thrilled even, to realize that we are riding wild wind horses; we are pirates on the high seas; we are riding Gandalf's horse, Shadowfax, lent to us by his grace because we are 'special' and our need for him has brought him to us, and granted us this gift; we are being taken by Poseidon's very own mermaids into the storm; We are riding on the back of the North Wind, being offered views and visions that no one else can see; we are pounding the sand of the Sahara with our camels, miles upon waves upon endless waves of dunes before us; we have been invited by Pegasus himself to join with his herd, to be FRIENDS with mythical beings, and FLY above the clouds... tomorrow we will each wake with a feather from that herd of hypogryphs, those magical beings , those who might even be Gryphons!

Can you imagine! ? Can you even imagine? Can you believe what we had, what we felt, what we were given, what we knew?

It was magick on that day.

I thought about it. A feather. A small thing. I imagined us discovering them , one each, silver grey with a sheen that was almost phosphorescent, that cast a glow even when the lights were out, we'd look at them in the dark when we were supposed to be going to sleep, each in our own homes, our own bedrooms, knowing that we were both thinking the same thing,imagining the same thing....and those feathers, those magical feathers would be casting such a strange light in our respective rooms that we couldnt possibly , could not at all possibly sleep, not at all... because something very special was going to happen as a result of those feathers (if only in our dreams)

These singular feathers which only we had......... we'd discover them under our pillows. Something to remind us of what happened, like a gift from the tooth faerie which no one really believes in, anyway, I mean seriously, nobody does, but this was different. Something real. Something magically manifested to mark our special communion with the worlds 'between' ; the place that 'normal' people could never go. Because they werent invited. Because, most significantly, and crucially, and here's the really important thing: because they didnt BELIEVE.... They didnt believe. That's WHY they werent invited....Unlike like us, of course..... Because we did. Because we really, and really and truly DID.

We were fearless, high spirited, and fierce wee Sweet little girls, exultant and triumphant, vulnerable, susceptible, and tough as nails, ....Kicking hard ( with hobnailed boots) at the the shins of life and the stories that didnt suit us, and sponging up all that did. We wore little china doll shoes and proudly jumped in puddles so often that our shoes became universally (in our universe) known as 'puddle jumpers'. We were the hot shit, I tell you. In those moments we made history (if only for ourselves) and we were immortal. We were cool. And we were invited to special places , if only in our own world, that no one else could venture to. Because we were invited. Because we loved enough, we believed enough, we trusted enough, that there was more to to the world that the naked eye can see.... and we 'Saw' plenty....

Through the windstorm, back and forth as we sailed on our imaginary dreams, we recited Shakespeare, from beginning to end, without one single mistake, ALL the parts, and Julius Caesar said, "Et tu, Brutus!?"

We were 11 years old. 11 years old. So little.... And yet SO big. We were huge.

Some things you dont forget. Such as: The Ides of March are coming ( and they are) . That kind of memory is one of those things.

I went to a weird school. Weird and wonderful and terrible. Probably why I like the Harry Potter stories, why I read J.R.R. Tolkien again and again, and felt that I belonged in those worlds more that I did in my own 'real' life. Why I read C. S. Lewis. And was reminded that I was practically weaned on Heinlein. Those stories, and Narnia. Later, I learned to live in other worlds. The lands of Charles de Lint. And most importantly, even before I met Charles and his worlds, the Keltiad series, (which if you havent read and you have ANY leanings towards sensing that there is more 'out there' you MUST READ!!!) I tell you three times.

Keltia is a place I shall go to in my next life. I am determined about that.

Backtacking again to the age of 8, with 'Stranger in a Strange land', by Heinlein (one of my step-father's books, and an author who became a favorite), I was convinced that there was more to this life than met the eye. More to this Universe, in point of fact, and surely we werent 'alone' here....It wasnt until Shakespeare and I became a friends and I read that 'There is more in Heaven and Earth " etc Horatio, that I realized that there were more 'strangers', or 'Etrangers', on this journey that I thought.

I saw a funny cartoon many (many) years ago which said, "Forget the Ides of March, Beware the march if Ids!" At 16 I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever heard. Funny enough that after 30 something years it still makes me chuckle. ( Almost 40 years now, but who's counting?!) Okay, both my parents are therapists. You do the math.

Changing the topic 180 degrees, I have a yam (which I have always though was a sweet potato, but apparently I am wrong) in the oven, roasting. Fibre. Beta Keratin. Vitamins and minerals, along with the cruciferous darling in the form of a green young organic broccoli, supplemented by one crowning glory of a broc, from my own garden which weathered storms, snow and wind this past winter to stand proud and be counted for tonight's supper (thank you garden); beets steamed to perfection and a side salad from the garden which has over-wintered with such an adamant determination that I honour them by writing about them today. My 'home-made' salad greens ROCK!

Meanwhile, I am out of cigarettes. You might scoff, ( oh yeah, you who live by the adage that "my body is a temple" cling to your perfection, you over-achieving, sodding, over-weaning health- hounds) but I am in the throes of withdrawal which aint pretty. Especially since I have done so well these last months. I'm down to between one and two packs a week. Here me now Gods, I thank you for your help, couldnt have done it without you, but some days we need to just let loose and be BAD. Tonight is one of those nights.

Drinking is also no longer a thing which I engage with on a regular basis. I'm getting too old for it and I dont like it anymore. At least not the way things were. I' m too European still to give it up entirely, however, things are changing. I am changing. Juicing every other day or so, eating only whole grains and multiplying my veg and fruit intake (hey the first 40 years are free and then you gotta work for it) . Am contemplating the correctness of eating mammals (I am still in that place which suggests that if you dont give them a name or make them a friend, it isnt murder. I mean seriously. Take Sir Loin par example. He thought he was a member of the family and was treated as such until he became dinner. I dont think that's fair......) I dont like that my neighbour is making more and more bunny hutches, playing with the rabbits and then selling them as meat. Draw a line. Either they are food or they are friends. Would you eat your cat? Would you make your dog a member of your family and then serve him up for dinner in a stew? Eeugh. No.

I'm a hypocrite, I know it. As far as I'm concerned, meat comes from the supermarket and is wrapped in plastic. Divorced from the process of life and death. I dont believe in hunting and yet I eat beef. I dont eat moose (which B has some cuts in the freezer of from a friend. Yuk! Bambie with a very big head, that's what that is. )

And yet still, on the other hand, conformed, or reformed vegetarian ( for nearly 15 years) that I am, I have been more recently, a punch drunk love-happy carnivore (even voracious. Give me a steak, the bloodier the better! Ugh! The Guilt, the guilt!). I am a hypocrite. And as much as I do not believe in hunting ( in my world, for others, the rule does not apply.... ) And yet, I like fishing. How schitzoid is that? Mostly I do catch and release, BUT, I do remember that we ate a Barracuda once which we caught as a family off the coast of Mexico. It was really good. And really very ugly. Ugh. Hunting.... I'm just one confused person full of contradictions. And hypocrisy. HOW can I have convictions of any kind when I contradict myself all the TIME!?

Give me strength.

So get this: I am eating PORK! I am a pig-eater. I HAVE BECOME A BACON FREAK, after 27 years of abstinence (truly) ... I feel like a priestess who has discovered the joys of the flesh. She abstained until she simply couldn't any longer deny her body's yearnings, and finally gave in to that heavenly and primal satisfaction, that God-given pleasure. Bacon. Yegads. I comfort myself with the rumour, which I am totally on board with, that Bacon isnt actually Pork OR even meat, but is, instead, a preservative, so it doesnt count. Huh. Except that today I bought ORGANIC bacon ( which could never be viewed as a preservative) so I have to get over my denial here. In a big way, since said bacon is slated for tomorrow's breakfast.

These are the things that have been on my mind the last few (many ) months since I havent written. Life just has so many issue it throws at one, and there is so much to deal with. Its a balancing act. Justifying ones convictions with one's actual practice in life. Par example: we all believe in recycling, but do we all recycle?! We all agree that fair trade is vitally important but do we all put that into practice when we buy our coffee beans?! We agree that plastic bags are the devil but do we remember to bring our fabric bags with us to the grocery st0re?! I punish myself by choosing to buy new fabric bags every time I forget to bring the ones I already have to the supermarket. I have about 57 of them kicking around my house. Will I ever get serious and disciplined about it? I try....

Something to think about and it matters to me. It matters to the world. It matters to me to be as minimally hypocritical as I am able to be. I know I am a BIG HUGE hypocrite in a lot of ways. I'm glad that at least I know it and that I dont pretend otherwise.

My car is 25 years old and I am desperately afraid to think about its carbon emissions..... Moreover I am desperately afraid that I cant afford to have the repairs done to it that it needs (its name is' The Shithawk', dont laugh, it is actually famous, I kid you not. I may live in a small community but my vehicle is a big fish in a small pond). It is otherwise known as 'the dog mobile'.... our 4 hounds (each of whom has a feline , and yes they all get along most lovingly) need the Shithawk to get to the local ravine for their runs.

The most recent vehicular crisis is that The SHithawk's muffler fell off, or at least disengaged with the undercarriage ( Dont ask me for details, okay?) It is now too loud for sensitive dog ears. What I know from cars is that it is the long peddle that makes it go and that's about it! We tied up the pipe, and muffler ... Oh, who am I kidding?! B got down onto the swampy ground and made a silk purse out of a sow's ear with my scant contribution, offered in the form of speaker wire, (redundant earphones which had lived in the back of the Shithawk for two years... hey-ho recycling!) which he used to attached the blah blah to the the blah blah blah. Cars are not my strong point. I may be of German descent, which makes me a good driver (despite the qualifications and yet the lack of paperwork to the contrary... this is strictly among friends and hugely confidential. You must swear on your mother's eyes to keep schtum!) Having stated all that, it still doesnt mean I understand (or care) how cars work. I dont, in point of fact. Suffice it to say, the muffler is being held on by virtue of a very precarious situation, defying the laws of physics - and my Life is all about that! - exemplifying the adage that the mother of invention is born out out of necessity. Speaker wire. Seriously. Dont laugh.

I cant afford a hybrid car. Who the hell do you think I am, Julia Roberts?! I cant even afford another OLD car. I love the Shithawk. Despite her flaws. Even though Teddy pulled all the inside door panels off in a fit of separation anxiety-induced pique, and she STINKS - poor thing, its not her fault - like the dogmobile she is. Point is I put the key in and she starts up. Pretty much always. Unless she's sick. That's something. So what if she's a rust-bucket about to be condemned by the very eco-saviour groups I am trying to emulate and join?! They are gonna get me and her one of these days, I know it. At the very least I can say that I am opting out off the consumer- driven mania of buying into commercialism and feeding new oil consumptive vehicles by driving a VINTAGE car. Its almost like recycling, isnt it?

Meanwhile, I do try hard, and I cant afford to do this stuff on a large scale, but I can do ''me wee little bit'. "Bones-oh". That's me. I guess. Little old me. Not so little anymore, decades later, but that's another rant for another day. I'm trying to do my little scrawny bit. If each of us does our little teeny tiny personal bit, it will make a MASSIVE AND HUGE DIFFERENCE. Think about that. ... Please, please, it might be a very small thing, but I want to try. I want you all to try to do one little teeny, tiny, eensy-weeny very little thing, every day . Dont use plastic bags. At least cut down on them.

Doing our best....That may be all I can do... I want to be authentic. I want to be honest with my mother, the Earth. I want to be respectful of the Goddess, Mother of all manifested Life. I want to be in alignment with the Creator who knows the ways of living that honor this planet......and the Universe...

All of this has been on my mind.... I want to do right by the World and by my community, by my man and my beasties, (count em, ) four leggeds in canine and feline form. Four of each. Is that crazy or what?! Full house. We all love each other and have no conflict, which is a lucky state of affairs and I count my fortuitous stars every day.

I want to do right by me, too. I want to start letting the me that wants to animate and direct my life have a voice.

Bringing things back to the here and right NOW....There has been a lot going on, as you now know. Besides the fact that I've been sick. Not deadly sick as in a life threatening thing, but sick for two whole months with a hideous winter lurgy which wouldnt go away. Lodged in the sinus, in the ears, in the throat and in the lungs, making me feel every heart-beat as though the congestion I felt was actually in every beating arterial pulse. Horrible. I was in hospital to get oxygen inhalations and bronchial dilators, anti-inflammatories, steroids and other horrible non-mentionables. Yuk. Two months. High fever, chills, joint pain. My hair bloody hurt and that is ridiculous. I thought I had SARS, bird flu or worse. Two rounds of antibiotics which I totally dont believe in, but which Dr. Wonderful assured me was necessary when things are dire, and he stressed that things were. Dire.

Now that you've been bored by the long drawn-out version, I'll give you the nut-shell:
Incommunicado due to illness, (utterly rancid, horrible and depressing). Better now. Things are looking UP! Studio is clean and waiting for me. Am thinking of paintings to work on (dreaming of painting which I think is a good sign) sculptures to create (mosaic with mirror... figurative work which reflects the environment. Feels very very exciting!) and theories to explore. Glad to be among the living again. Hope all you out there are well. Thanks for dropping by. And I mean that. Hope the long drawn out blah blah blah didnt bore you utterly and completely to tears.

Good news is that kittens, Basil and Jasmin, otherwise known as Baz and Jaz, not quite one year old, are screamingly hilarious, healthy and very smart. Though they came from a wild (feral ) colony, they are very very tame with B and me, but no one (of two legged persuasion) else. Dogs are cool , and so are their other feline housemates. They think that climbing curtains, finally, is what babies do, and therefore restrain themselves most of the time, thank all stars; and they have pretty much moved through the monster stage, being almost one year of age, and so the evil behaviour ( like shitting and pissing in my potted plants) is therefore beneath them. HOWEVER... leaping onto shelves and pitching things onto the floor just for the fun of it, is still an activity which is highly droll to them. An all time special thrill is t0 watch mum, moving from living room into office,or bathroom, to bedroom, whilst she gathers, in her unique and elegant way, stuff' that has been rendered 'floor worthy' and make sure they are 'underfoot' for the entire process. Sweeping is all time top-ten the biggest thrill especially with the Swiffer. Grab at it, play with the enormous dust bunnies made from dog fur which builds up and collects in every corner and sometimes just straight out in the middle of everything, and play, play, play with it. Disburse it evenly throughout the house whilst mum tries in vain to corral the bunnies and put them in a bag! Bless them!

How cute they are. Catchin' little garter snakes (Wait until summer, they get a lot bigger) and putting them in mama's shoes is out (Seasonal availability),but bringing in mice, and 'playing' with them until they are dead of either a heart attack or asphixiation , is in. Charming, no? Pissing in mama's plants (thank all Gods) is out, and bringing in worms as an offering is totally in. Eeugh. But it could be worse. I love them fiercely. They can do no wrong. Especially since they are such voracious and rabid hunters, AND they deal with the R.O.U.S.'S. (What?! You havent seen the princess Bride? Watch it! See it. Better yet, read it. It's good. It is more than good. ) Unfortunately, rodents are found in any, and every community. Even in this idyllic and gentle place. But I have hunters to help with the problem. Serial rodent murderers!

Kill them I say. Get them! Those bastards!

So, Here's me now, having blathered on and on, in not quite a nutshell....

I've missed my fellow blogsters. Didnt mean to abandon you. I'm back now.... I think ..... More or less....

Love and light,
:) Bird. xoxoxox