Still Beautiful

When Wes and Sanja visited almost 3 weeks ago, Sanja brought me flowers. They still looked so beautiful 2 weeks later that I had to take some pics on Monday.  The roses are all dead now, but the lilies and the other flowers (tried to find them in my flower book so I would know their names but didn't see them in there) lasted a long time.  I still have them!

Picture Day

I'm tired today and a little sore.  It's overcast and cold.  Not sure if I will go walking today, but it's okay if I don't. My goal was 2-3 days this first week for 20 minutes. I have been 2 days and plan to go again tomorrow.  I don't think I'll be as sore then.  I can't remember my dreams from last night.  I woke up around 4 and felt uneasy and remembered the dream then, but I have forgotten it now.  I'll just post some pictures I have taken in the last week.  The daffodils and helleborus are in my yard. The other pics are from the cemetery. 

1.334

I pushed myself to 25 minutes today, but I was tired and walked slower than yesterday, but again, my goal is minutes at this point--not speed. I hope to build up to that. I did 29 laps. 23 laps is a mile, so my calculations (steps per mile) tell me I walked 1.334 miles today.  I'm hot and sweaty.  I have so much admiration for those folks on FB (Terezka and Anne who post that they frequently walk 20,000 steps or more or walk 10 miles or more).  They are thin.  I wonder if they could do it with nine 10-pound bowling balls attached to them. I feel certain that would get them near my weight or even under my weight. Yikes!  I would sure be in good shape if I did that, but I am trying to just think about me right now and my goals, and if I can start getting 30 minutes in 3 times a week and then 5 times a week, I will feel good about that.  The important thing is this: I did it! I walked again today!

Keeping It Real

I was sore last night.  My calves and my upper thighs, especially where the thigh meets the arse.  Sore from a 20 minute moderately-paced walk yesterday.  I couldn't believe it.  But, I am so large and so out of shape that it should not surprise me.  I made a concerted effort yesterday to be engaged in life.  I joined a gym and walked for 20 minutes, ate proteins and drank some pomegranate juice, took Molly for a walk and took some pictures, spent time planning how I'm going to arrange the art on my bedroom walls, drank less alcohol and ate fewer chips, felt more optimistic, and went to bed early (though it took hours to fall asleep).  I woke up this morning (early, the first time) and felt immersed in a sense of joy. My mind felt clear and my sense of satisfaction with myself was in a healthy zone.  I was dreaming about a man I know but have not seen in a long time.  He was taking care of a friend's child, and my young children and my in-laws were with me on a vacation.  We were preparing to leave when I went to clean up items we had left from our visit.  I remember picking things up from the sand and brushing chairs off, but I don't recall the ocean or a lake or beachfront anywhere around. He sat down in one of the chairs I had cleaned off, and I sat down in the sand in front of him.  We were laughing and sharing some thoughts about something.  My daughter (adult in this part of the dream) came and told me it was time to leave. She said, "You two look mighty cozy." I laughed, and he told her he always sat like that in any chair (slumped back, legs apart, his toes in the sand).  I got up from the sand, and he handed me my friend's child.  The child wanted to show me something, so in the next scene, I am with the child near a pier, holding her in my arms. She squeezes out of my arms like a slippery fish and lands in the brackish water. I reach down and pull her out, and she spurts out water like one of those little boy water fountains. I laugh and tell her she is a silly goose and to not try that one again.  We then are joining the family again, but this time my daughter is a child, again, and we all climb aboard a trolley.  We wave goodbye to my male friend, and I tell him I will contact him soon.  I woke up at that time, but I fell back asleep and dreamed my mother-in-law was driving a large car (old model Cadillac).  In the car were my young children, my sister-in-law, and my father-in-law.  We arrive at a rather nondescript building on the coast. My mother-in-law is dressed fashionably in late 60s couture. She has on a pillbox hat, fitted jacket, and knee-length skirt in a wedgewood blue color with small silver flecks. She looks troubled and says she can't remember what we are supposed to do next. I tell her that we need to go to the gift shop and get our tickets for the train. I reassure her that if we miss the train this day, we'll just get a hotel room. I reassure her that we'll have fun.  I feel calm, happy, and free from fear of plans going awry and missing trains and connecting cars.  My father-in-law says the silverware is almost too heavy to hold. I agree with him and tell him we are going to go to the lobby with the fireplace so he can warm up.  I am such a calming presence and so helpful and understanding of everyone's concerns and needs.  It appears to help them all feel calmer.  I look out from the lobby and see a large vessel on the water and wonder if that is the ship from which we just disembarked.  I am thinking of the train ride and how we had forgotten that we would be on the train all night long and that my mother-in-law's car would be parked here.  But, I wasn't troubled.  I was just living each moment and felt free and happy. And, I woke up wondering where I was and what time it was! It was almost 9:30, so here I am now at 11:27 having just finished breakfast 30 minutes ago and wondering if I should try to walk again today or have a day of rest and go tomorrow.  I am feeling that if I don't go daily, I may not stay committed to this, but I set a goal so I wouldn't feel pressure but would feel motivated.  I'll give it another hour and then decide if I want to go try another 20 minutes.  I'm feeling like I want to be at 30 already.

I am noticing my dreams this week include sand and water.  I need to think about that.

One Mile Down, 999 to go

I joined the gym today for one month. If I go consistently, I will join again when my month is up.  My journey of a thousand miles began with my 20 minute walk today.  I walked a mile in 18 minutes (I used to walk a mile in 15.5 minutes). I was pleased to just meet my goal of walking 20 minutes. My plan is this: for two weeks, I will walk for 20 minutes, 2-3 times per week.  For the next two weeks, I will walk for 30 minutes, 2-3 times per week. That will be the end of my first month, and then I hope to pay for another month and start walking 30 minutes, 5 days per week.  In terms of miles I walk, hopefully, the more I walk, the faster I will get.  Maybe I will actually get close to 2 miles in during my 30 minutes of walking, but that is not my goal right now. Minutes are my goal. Regardless, I walked roughly 1.1 mile today, so I have 998.9 miles left to reach my long-term goal of "my journey of a thousand miles." I don't have a date in mind as I am just going to try to do what I outlined with the minutes per week, but I'll keep up with the miles, too. By the end of this month, at my current pace, I will have walked the following: (1st week: 2.2, 2nd week: 2.2, 3rd week:3.3, and 4th week:3.3), and if I walk the maximum of three days per week, it will be (1st week:3.3, 2nd week:3.3, 3rd week:4.95, 4th week:4.95), so that equals a minimum of 11 for the month and a maximum of 16.5 for the month. If I walk the minimum, I will only have 989 miles left, and if I walk the maximum, I'll have 983.5 left. If I continue walking at the current pace but increase my days to 5 per week, that will be 8.30 per week and 33.2 for the month. It will only take me almost 3 years.  That's fun! It's good to have goals. I'll be almost 63 by then and hopefully in better shape and hopefully much thinner.  I don't aspire to be skinny.  I aspire to be a healthy weight for my age and height--about 150-160.  That's doable.

Snappy New Day

All night long, I was singing, "It's such a good feeling to know you're alive./It's such a happy feeling that's growing inside/And when you wake up ready to say/I think I'll make a snappy new day/It's such a good feeling, a very good feeling, the feeling to know you're alive." I don't remember exactly how the words go.  This was a song Mr Rodgers sang on his show.  I also kept saying, "And I'll be back, in a day or two, and I'll have more ideas for you/And you'll have things you want to talk about/I will, too."  Again, I am not exactly sure what the words are, but these are close.  Having these refrains run through my mind for several sleepless hours during the middle of the night is likely connected with the fact that I watched the Mr Rodgers documentary last week. It was an interesting look at his life.  My youngest texted me a few days ago and asked if I had watched it. He said it made him cry.  He said kindness like that is something people don't show in this day and age.  Either they don't feel it or they get ridiculed for sharing it. He said it hurt him to think of how some people viewed Mr Rodgers in a negative light and ridiculed him when he was a genuine man.  To read my son's words that he cried touched my heart.  To picture him being that moved by a film about a man who set out to make the world feel a little safer and more gentle for all children allowed this mom to see the kindness inside his heart and his genuine concern for how cold and unfeeling so many people have become. He allowed himself to feel vulnerability, which is so incredibly important as Brene Brown points out in one of her books (Daring Greatly, I think).  But, I digress.  I didn't come here to write about the songs stuck in my head last night.  I came here to write down an axiom/adage/saw/old saying--whatever you call those motivational quotes or little tidbits of wisdom.  I came to say that I am going to Fitness Formula today to get a month's membership so I can start walking at their indoor track.  No one but me understands that this is my Everest today.  This is that incredibly daunting task of climbing a mountain with absolutely zero training, no natural aptitude, no real understanding of why I'm going to climb the mountain other than the fact that it is there, and I will feel a sense of accomplishment and the desire to climb more mountains when I complete this one. And, then there is the view of the world from the top. The astounding beauty of the world.  Though I do exaggerate here, the analogy is fitting.  I am terrified.  I am embarrassed for others to see my fat person walking in there. I am sure someone will be snickering and talking about "the fat woman thinks she can walk her way thin" kind of thing, but I must make a change. And, that's where that old adage comes in, and I can't remember exactly how it goes, but it's something like this: The journey of a lifetime begins with a single step. Now, I am going to look up the lyrics to the Mr Rodgers songs, type in "adage" and see what comes up and type in the adage I wrote down to see exactly what it says.  As a matter of fact, I'll do that now and add the responses I find right here before I post this.  Here I go: 

The song:

(Song)
It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up ready to say
"I'll make a snappy new day."

It's such a good feeling
A very good feeling
The feeling you know
That I'll be back when the day is new
And I'll have more ideas for you
And you'll have things you'll want to talk about
I will, too

The definition of adage (incidentally, my sentence is not an adage nor an axiom):

Definition of adage

: a saying often in metaphorical form that typically embodies a common observationShe reminded him of the adage: "A penny saved is a penny earned." 
The actual saying:"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" (Chinese: 千里之行，始於足下; pinyin: Qiānlǐ zhī xíng, shǐyú zú xià; literally: 'A journey of a thousand Chinese miles (li) starts beneath one's feet") is a common saying that originated from a famous Chinese proverb.

The Gun and A Boat

Last night's dreams were far from pleasant. I woke up with my heart pounding. I was dreaming about a young man who was going to shoot me with his rifle.  I was sitting in a beach chair with my feet in the sand though I did not see nor hear the ocean anywhere around me.  I saw buildings and concrete.  To my left, one of my former supervisors and her husband were also sitting in beach chairs though it seems they were also in a boat, but, again, there was no water anywhere that I could detect. I had noticed the young man off to my right. He was bothering a man and child who were sitting on a blanket in the grass. The man looked like someone I went to high school with.  The man grew tired of the annoyance, and he and the child left.  The young man, who appeared to be about 16, and a younger child who appeared to be about 8, came up to me. The young man pointed his rifle at me and said, "I'm going to shoot you." He had the rifle pointed low and to the left part of my lower body near my hip. He tried to fire, but the gun jammed. He tried again and again and kept saying he was going to shoot me.  He tossed that rifle down, and started to take a bag off his right arm to get another weapon out.  I grabbed the rifle and said, "You aren't going to shoot me! What in the effing hell do you think you're doing!" I then started swinging the rifle at him in an attempt to hit him in the head and knock him out or disable him from getting another gun.  I remember swinging the rifle wildly but I couldn't hit him.  He was loading another gun when I finally struck him on top of the head with the rifle. I hit him several times, and then he fell to his knees with head lowered. I saw a target of some type at the base of his neck and hit him there, too.  He was then passed out.  I remember yelling for someone to call 911, but the child who was with him seemed completely unfazed and mute, and my former supervisor and her husband were still sitting in their chairs as if they could not see nor hear any of the commotion. It was as if they were enclosed in a protective barrier which only allowed in sunlight, pleasant sounds, and calm. I woke up with my heart pounding.  Earlier in the night, I was dreaming that I walked into a church and saw an old friend who said he was getting ready to do a reading. I thought he meant a poetry reading, but then a man entered the church and got his Bible out. My friend repeated that he was getting ready to do a reading.  This time, he sounded like he was uncomfortable, and I realized he was meeting with someone in AA to spend time reading the Bible. I excused myself and said I would come back later. I then remember standing over a garbage can and peeing everywhere. I could not stop peeing, and for some reason, I did not go to the bathroom but chose the trash can.  My friend came into the room as I was trying to clean up my mess and told me the toilet was a mess and he didn't know what to do about it. I looked in the toilet and saw books, cigarette butts, lots of toilet paper, and long black bugs. That dream segued into another in which I was in that same room with two attorneys--a man and a woman. Both were very attractive, intelligent, witty, and charming.  It was obvious to me that the man was very interested in that woman, but she wasn't showing the same level of interest in him.  They were laughing hysterically at something, and then we were on a boat in a swimming pool. The boat was taking on water, and they were still laughing. The boat then entered a large body of water--a lake or an ocean.  It was no longer taking on water, and they were still laughing.  The sun was so bright, it was as if I were seeing them in negative mode. I can still see their laughing faces--beautiful faces with the whitest teeth.  Dreamland is a strange place.  I can't wrap my head around writing poetry right now, so I may as well write about my dreams.

Every Day

I woke up many times in the night. I ate way too much food yesterday, and I ate foods which cause intestinal distress, and I paid for it, but I didn't sit down here this morning to write about that.  When I woke this morning, I was dreaming about a man I have never met but knew quite well in my dream and with whom I was in love.  In a room reminiscent of an old, plush movie theatre with muted red draperies and velvety seats, several people had congregated. They were there for me and for him. He was supposed to have met me there, and when he didn't show up, everyone in the room became concerned. I was near the stage, pacing, with the other people congregated in small groups, their worried faces speaking words I could not hear.  I turned around, and he was coming toward me. His hair was black and cut fashionably though it looked unkempt. He had on khaki pants, a white shirt, and a black jacket. He said, "I'm so sorry, Margaret. I..." At that point, I put my arms around him and just held him. He embraced me, and then I held him tighter. He responded likewise. We started moving, rocking at first and then slow dancing.  We did not talk.  I finally looked at him and said, "Baby, I love you. We all love you. You see everyone here? They love you. We can get all of this sorted out. This with your father.  You'll see."  He started crying, and then reached inside an inner pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a white envelope with my name written on it. He then ripped open the envelope which contained a letter and a small baggie with white pills.  The letter was a suicide note outlining his plans and telling me goodbye and explaining why he felt he had to take his life.  I could see the writing and a few words. "I'm sorry.  Digitalis. My father. I'm done. I want you to be okay."  We were both crying then, and he said, "I couldn't do it. I was ready, and I heard your voice calling out to me, and I stopped. I've already told my father I'm done with the business. I'm done with it." As I was waking, I just kept seeing his grateful face.  I thought to myself: " This is what love is. Maybe I have never known how to love before." There was a sense of hopefulness in my body as I roused myself awake and headed to the bathroom.  The man in the dream was attractive, but he wasn't someone I think I would be interested in. He was slightly overweight and younger than me.  He was like someone walking out of a foggy forest canopy into the blinding light of an unknown place.  He knew I loved him, and he knew I saved his life.  I wonder, sitting here this morning, if he was me. I read somewhere once that we are the characters we dream about, and perhaps, he was some part of me.  God knows what he said, how he looked at me, how he'd had an epiphany about his life and its value all spoke to me. The part that was not me was the suicide part.  I have never wanted to take my life.  Of course, I spent 10 years of my life working with individuals who had attempted suicide or were contemplating it, so I think that factors in. I think it is representative of the career part of me.  Perhaps I am wanting to return to work, but I am not sure. I want to get better.  That I know.  Maybe that was the hurting me (him) facing the me (the actual me) who wants to help me work through all of these issues that still haunt me at age 60.  I don't have much time left on Earth--at least not as much as I had when I arrived here 60 years ago unless changes in technology still find me here at age 120, but that is not likely.  As Andy says in The Shawshank Redemption: Get busy living, or get busy dying.

My Grandmother's Love Letters by Hart Crane

My Grandmother’s Love Letters

Hart Crane, 1899 - 1932

There are no stars tonight 
But those of memory. 
Yet how much room for memory there is 
In the loose girdle of soft rain. 

There is even room enough 
For the letters of my mother’s mother, 
Elizabeth, 
That have been pressed so long 
Into a corner of the roof 
That they are brown and soft, 
And liable to melt as snow. 

Over the greatness of such space 
Steps must be gentle. 
It is all hung by an invisible white hair. 
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air. 

And I ask myself: 

“Are your fingers long enough to play 
Old keys that are but echoes: 
Is the silence strong enough 
To carry back the music to its source 
And back to you again 
As though to her?”

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand 
Through much of what she would not understand; 
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof 
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

 

Carry

I watched a little of the Free Minds Book Club tonight. The book they chose to discuss was The Things They Carried.  I want to write about it. I felt such deep conviction and emotion as I watched even though the comments and thoughts did not seem to reflect the book. At least these incarcerated men chose to read this book and to openly share their thoughts.  I had so much I wanted to say, but I am wiped out now. Cried too much.  Only 55 degrees in here. Wanted to go to a hotel. Husband said no reason for that. Stayed here.  Pissed off and cold.

Home From Nashville. No heat in the house.

Just a few pics of my sweet grandbabies. It is 50 degrees in here. Too cold to do much.

Life Without Facebook, cont.

I had all of the pictures from my phone transferred to discs (or is that disks? I'm going with disks). Now, I can start deleting photos from my phone to free up some space for--guess?--more photos! My phone is very old (Samsung S3), and it is out of storage, so I can't put any apps on it, but when I delete these 3,880 photos off, I will probably have some room. What I am trying to figure out now is how to transfer them directly to my blog and how to delete them. So far, I have only learned how to transfer them to my desktop and then to my blog. I am not completely computer illiterate, but I am always fearful to try something thinking I may lose my pictures or delete my blog or something, so I am apprehensive to try to do things I have not been shown how to do and have never learned how to do. So, I'll share some pics today.

It's been a low-key morning. I didn't sleep well last night and have been very tired all day. I have been reading more of The Naked and The Dead, playing Solitaire on my phone, and I cooked a nice lunch--baked lemon pepper cod, herbed rice, and a stir fry medley of veggies (yellow squash, onion, red pepper, broccoli, sliced green onion, and cilantro). I'm still really bummed that I can't taste much, and what I can taste, does not taste like it once did. More about that at another time. I don't feel like getting into it today.

Flowers

Trying to figure out how to post on my blog again. It's been a long time. Sanja and Wes came to visit this past weekend, and Sanja brought me flowers. She gave me some for my birthday, and I told her how much I love getting flowers and how infrequently I get them. I think she was listening. It was sweet of her to remember and to bring me a bouquet of flowers.

This is my second day of no FB. It's been raining all day, and normally there is nothing I like much better than an all day rain, but today, it is just enhancing the loneliness and low mood. I don't feel very inspired to do anything. I don't want to read, and I don't want to clean anything up, and I don't want to make anything, and I don't want to call anyone, and I don't want to watch a movie. I guess I will just go get in bed. Too early to drink. I did figure out that I can email myself a picture from my phone and then save it to my computer. I can then upload the picture from my computer to my blog. I couldn't figure out how to load to my blog directly from my phone.

Snagging an aeon

Deactivate, deactivate, deactivate

I decided to deactivate my Facebook account today.  There are several reasons why I chose to do that. I'll make a list in order of priority:

1. I do not want some of my family members to know anything about me (this does not apply to my children).  I would unfriend them and leave it at that, but that would cause more emotional turmoil, and I have so much of that going on right now that I am not sure I could take much more.

2. I spend too much time on there or too much time thinking about what someone on there is going to think about what I post. I also spend too much time thinking of their posts particularly if they have said something to me that makes me feel defensive or slighted in any way.

3. I need to know if any of the people I know in "real" life would and will actually contact me if I am not on Facebook. There are times I run into people I actually know, and they act as if they don't know me or they feel uncomfortable talking to me when I see them, but on FB, they gush or easily share their feelings. Is it because they feel safer without face-to-face contact? Do I feel safer with F-to-F contact? Do I know how to be comfortable just being myself with others? The answer to that question is a resounding no. I have terribly social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. It has been hard for me to ever be with people unless I am drinking. FB has made it easier for me to reach out, just as going online years ago to workshop my poetry was far easier than being around poets. I need time to consider if I can change that aspect of my personality. At 60, I would say that is going to be difficult.

4. I need to engage in more meaningful and worthy activities. I need to volunteer somewhere in the community. I need to start exercising. I need to get back to reading. I need to start writing poetry again. I need to have a hobby--knitting, needlepoint, painting, learning to play the piano, gardening, etc.  FB holds me back because I am only thinking that I need some immediate feedback in order to feel good about some aspect of myself.

5. Facebook has provided personal information to people without my permission. I am not comfortable with that and think it's not wise to put myself out there like that.


That's all I can think of right now.  I feel sad about this.  I liked sharing my pictures, and, as a matter of fact, I don't know what I am going to do with all of my pictures now because I don't know how to share them from my phone to this blog. I do know how to share from my phone to FB and Instagram, but if I am going to try to stay off social media sites, I need to stay away from Instagram, too.

*sigh*