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*

Extremities

Extremities

Beneath the ice, seeds sleep,
buds await--

Morning finds me searching
for warmth and some semblance

of spring. Flashlights line the bedside
table, replace moisturizer and books.

You lie next to me. Steady snores
comfort me as sleet meets pain.

Fear wants to make its claim
in these moments between bitter

cold and desired warmth. I pull
another afghan around my shoulders,

think of my grandmother's hands,
my grandfather's death, pray

in the quiet gathering of ice on limbs.
How frail the hours that support

the expected worry of one more season,
low-laden and fraught with winter's weight.

*******************************************

This is updated from 2005

Blue snake

A blue snake was chasing me in one of my dreams last night. In the dream, Robin was going to someone's house to get tomatoes. It was dark out, and even though I was across the highway from the road that led to the house, I could see a blue snake behind him. I ran across the road to tell him to be on the lookout for the snake before he started walking home. I could see the snake winding its way around a screen door which had been left ajar. I was still trying to call out to Robin, who was nowhere in sight and not answering, when the snake noticed the flashlight from my phone. It slithered off the screen and started coming toward me. I started running and trying to remember what I had been told about snakes. I ran straight ahead and then turned around in an attempt to confuse the snake, but it just kept following me. When I woke up, I was breathless from running. I have never seen a blue snake, so I looked up snakes this morning. There is a beautiful blue snake known as a racer snake. They are non-venomous and largely stay far away from people. I also looked up what it means when a blue snake appears in your dream and I looked up the animal spirit meaning of snake. It's actually quite positive to dream of one--especially a blue one. I don't fear snakes, but I respect them and don't want to come across a rattlesnake nor a water moccasin/cottonmouth.

"But then the color blue is indicative of the conscience and evolution in somebody. So perhaps the dream is hinting at a new found consciousness that is deploying this energy in a positive way, because the snake in and of itself is a ‘’cold’’ energy that requires to be warmed up in a loving context, to be chanelled and transformed this way."

Dreams

I also dreamed I had signed up to take 4 classes and couldn't remember if I had been attending class. As it was already October when I started questioning whether I had attended class that semester, I went to ask one of my professors. His eyes looked like fried eggs with yolks the color of his irises (hazel). He had on glasses twice the size of his eyes. I had a copy of my schedule and my classes were: OB/GYN, Philosophy, English, and a 4th I can't recall. I was so worried that drop/add had already passed and I was going to get a fail in every class. I knew I could not get caught up if I started attending classes, and old egg eyes was no help. He never spoke. He just handed me my schedule back and walked away into the glaring sunlight, and I stopped worrying about me and wondering if his eyes were going to start sizzling.

Raking (revised)

Raking

Soon, the neighborhood boys will knock
on my door, ask if today is the day.
For three weeks now, I've put them off,
ignored their knocks, hidden
behind doors so they couldn't see me,

held my breath so even I would stop
believing I existed. Because they wish
to rake my leaves, earn some money,
speak the way excited children do
when someone takes a chance on them,

make my world a bit tidier, I cower? Perhaps
because their eyes belie the facade, my own
cannot rise to meet theirs, to see yesterday
looking back at me, to stare into memory
until she becomes incarnate in her plaid

shirt and worn jeans, and her reluctance
to go home will surround me like the fine
webs which clung to her face as she bedded
down in the leaf piles, no mother calling
her in for dinner from the chilled house.

So, they frighten me, these boys, for all
they are or could be or may possess.
But today I'll answer. I'll go to the potting
shed and dig out two rakes and the leaf
bags from last year. I'll give them an hour

or so of good raking time before I start
the milk for some hot cocoa, watch them
through the back window, allow myself
to disappear into the shadows of a childhood
never fully realized and only partially true.

The Art of Filling In The Hours

The Art Of Filling In The Hours

They would come out of the dryer
wrinkle-free, their blossoms and stripes

asking to be tended. My grandmother took
them from the heat, and gently placed

her loving hands into corners as she taught
me the nuances of sheet-folding--this a message

of certitude in the midst of the storm. I watched
those hands work their magic, those same

loving hands that patted my back when pain
would find me seeking my own refuge and she

would whisper, "There, there now, little
one. It will be alright." She taught me the nuances

of how it was done, this folding of linens, this
unselfish extension of time. I tried to do

what she showed me tonight, folding the gold
800 count Egyptian sheets, but I was all thumbs

and failed miserably in my attempt. Maybe
the trick only works on 200 count Sears

or JC Penney's sheets. Of course, I make
the numbers up. Based on conversations

and memories. I guess it all counts, no matter
the type of fiber, no matter the number of years

that have passed since she and I stood there
by her dryer in the late afternoon light, the smell

of clean linens and roast in the oven. I think
of her this night as I try once more to get a firm

grasp on what matters, whether it be the thread
count or the methodology of folding. I revel

in the message that reveals itself: there is a way,
and there are many ways, and that's what speaks

to me tonight, awake and alone, trying to make
sense out of the things I do to fill in the sleepless hours.

Sunday in Macon (revised)

Sunday in Macon

My mother, nearly blind
from cataracts, follows me
through the courtyard. The pool
is covered in its winter black tarp.

Though I assume she cannot see
this closure of a season, she finds
a reason to remark: "How many
little feet must have trod this path

all summer." And I think, "People
see what they want to see even when
they cannot see." But I only follow
her comment with some helpful

advice. This way, Mom. Step up
here, turn right there, the coffee's
over here, the doughnuts are old,
the milk outdated at the Deluxe Buffett.

And she just follows me, listens to my
advice like I'm a sage or a saint. Gives
herself in her stockinged feet to my
every suggestion. I even tell her

which container is the strawberry
jelly, which button is caffeinated coffee,
which chair is clear of crumbs
and relatively safe to sit in. I almost

unwrap the jelly and start spreading
it on her toast before the oddity of this new
role halts my hand as quickly as a hand-
smack for disobeying, whose phantom sting
haunts the skin's surface long after childhood ends.