Saturday, September 20, 2008
Just a dumb question but
How do you get spaces after periods to display? My editor's eye is pained when reading my own posts because the text isn't displaying proper spacing. Even editing the html doesn't work. Argh, I know it's an odvious thing, but what am I missing here?
one of those weeks
You know the kind, so this is a "connecting with the audience by sharing universal experiences" post. End of last week, over the weekend, I logged onto the blog and stared at the screen - nothing comes. Work week starts, every day driving to work I think of things to write about, get to the office and all creativity disappears in the storm surge of email. My inbox has over 500 messages now, too many for me to even sort out the now meaningless ones from those I need to address. Friday evening I finally have moments to think and remember ideas to write about, and I cannot for the life of me remember my password.
Yeah, one of those weeks.
Yeah, one of those weeks.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
September 11, 2008
Seven years after. . .something. Would it be better if you didn't know what I referred to?
I have nothing to add to what the world has already seen and sees today. So instead:
Sometime later, in 2003 or 2004. Maybe later, let me think. Youngest kids able to appreciate music and song, aware of the Bible, before The Passion was released. When would that be? 2003?
2004 sounds better. Wounds healing but still sensitive.
I bought and we all watched Godspell: a musical based on the Gospel of Mathew, immortalized when it was filmed in New York City. At a point the scene shifts and they are singing on the top of a building, and the cameral pulls back and we see the scene at the top of the World Trade Center.
I gasp.
You watch it someday. Do you?
I have nothing to add to what the world has already seen and sees today. So instead:
Sometime later, in 2003 or 2004. Maybe later, let me think. Youngest kids able to appreciate music and song, aware of the Bible, before The Passion was released. When would that be? 2003?
2004 sounds better. Wounds healing but still sensitive.
I bought and we all watched Godspell: a musical based on the Gospel of Mathew, immortalized when it was filmed in New York City. At a point the scene shifts and they are singing on the top of a building, and the cameral pulls back and we see the scene at the top of the World Trade Center.
I gasp.
You watch it someday. Do you?
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Momma
Today is September 9. It is my late mother-in-law's birthday, she would be. . .laughing with me about it if she hadn't passed away in 2000. She was a wise woman with a sense of humor, all tied together with tremendous charity: the selfless love for others. That made for some memorable exchanges that will always color my view of events and make me laugh when I should cry.
One simple example: We were sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea with Tang and sugar in it, talking about this and that. I remember she turned to me, her eyes wide with the urgency of the message, and said, "Marry the faults you can live with." It seemed such a timeless piece of wisdom I thought it ought to be delivered in Spanish instead of English, like an Old World proverb. Such a simple thing but really, it's as good a beginning for a happy lifetime together as anything else. The man leaves his socks on the floor - messy but you don't mind so much? Ok. Messy socks on the floor cause you impossible stress at the disruption of order and the proper place of things in the world? Very bad. Such simple, good advise, I will do it in needlepoint some day.
The humor? She said this to me after I was married to her son. Timing, Momma, always timing.
She left us in May, not exactly a month from my oldest daughter's birthday, not when anything important was happening, no special event that would be colored forever by our loss. The disconnection to special events instead ties my memory of her death to jokes and laughter so strong we cried with laughter:
It was spring, sometime in the mid to late 1990's. She was telling me about a time when she looked out her back window one night and saw a horrible, ugly, huge, rat-like thing, clumbering along the back yard fence.
"Oh, that sounds like a possum," I said. She looked at me with eyes wide and eyebrows raised.
"I feel sorry for possoms," I continued. "They hybernate all winter, then in spring they come wake up and come out all groggy, and all they want to do is find a member of the opposite sex and, you know... and they stagger out into the street and WHAM get hit by a car."
She dissolved in laughter, tears and all, for minutes.
Finally, she lifted her head up and said, gasping, "If..... you ever hear that I died.... and it was because I was hit by a car..... You'll know what happened..."
And we both exploded, laughing so hard tears came down our faces.
Another time, we were sitting there again, and my father-in-law went by off to his office or somewhere. She tossed a nod at him to make sure I knew who she meant, and said: "I'm just leading him on." I said, "Oh?"
"Yeah. As soon as I find Mr. Right, I'm out of here."
Me, too, Momma, right behind you.
One simple example: We were sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea with Tang and sugar in it, talking about this and that. I remember she turned to me, her eyes wide with the urgency of the message, and said, "Marry the faults you can live with." It seemed such a timeless piece of wisdom I thought it ought to be delivered in Spanish instead of English, like an Old World proverb. Such a simple thing but really, it's as good a beginning for a happy lifetime together as anything else. The man leaves his socks on the floor - messy but you don't mind so much? Ok. Messy socks on the floor cause you impossible stress at the disruption of order and the proper place of things in the world? Very bad. Such simple, good advise, I will do it in needlepoint some day.
The humor? She said this to me after I was married to her son. Timing, Momma, always timing.
She left us in May, not exactly a month from my oldest daughter's birthday, not when anything important was happening, no special event that would be colored forever by our loss. The disconnection to special events instead ties my memory of her death to jokes and laughter so strong we cried with laughter:
It was spring, sometime in the mid to late 1990's. She was telling me about a time when she looked out her back window one night and saw a horrible, ugly, huge, rat-like thing, clumbering along the back yard fence.
"Oh, that sounds like a possum," I said. She looked at me with eyes wide and eyebrows raised.
"I feel sorry for possoms," I continued. "They hybernate all winter, then in spring they come wake up and come out all groggy, and all they want to do is find a member of the opposite sex and, you know... and they stagger out into the street and WHAM get hit by a car."
She dissolved in laughter, tears and all, for minutes.
Finally, she lifted her head up and said, gasping, "If..... you ever hear that I died.... and it was because I was hit by a car..... You'll know what happened..."
And we both exploded, laughing so hard tears came down our faces.
Another time, we were sitting there again, and my father-in-law went by off to his office or somewhere. She tossed a nod at him to make sure I knew who she meant, and said: "I'm just leading him on." I said, "Oh?"
"Yeah. As soon as I find Mr. Right, I'm out of here."
Me, too, Momma, right behind you.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Introduction: What Am I?
I am an empathic metamorph - a description given to a charactor in an episode of Star Trek Next Generation. Who I am and how I feel varies depending on who I am with. I get along with just about anyone.
I also somehow recognize, respond to, and reflect back to a person their own good traits. I used to think of this as an ability to see the truth about people, but modified that when I came into contact with some truly evil people - I found myself shutting down emotionally, and somehow to them I became invisible.
Hence my description of myself as a mirror. Mirrors reflect light. Darkness is the absence of light, so I can't reflect that, though I can show it by virue of a lack of reflection.
Also, we can only see our own faces as reflections - we can never look directly into our own eyes, we can only see our faces as reflections from another object separate from us.
It's interesting to be a mirror interacting with people. One person looks directly at me and I respond to them - they see something of themselves. Two people can see each other indirectly in my presence: I show them each something of the other.
But it is also a lonely thing. Is there a 'me' in the mirror when no one else is there?
I also somehow recognize, respond to, and reflect back to a person their own good traits. I used to think of this as an ability to see the truth about people, but modified that when I came into contact with some truly evil people - I found myself shutting down emotionally, and somehow to them I became invisible.
Hence my description of myself as a mirror. Mirrors reflect light. Darkness is the absence of light, so I can't reflect that, though I can show it by virue of a lack of reflection.
Also, we can only see our own faces as reflections - we can never look directly into our own eyes, we can only see our faces as reflections from another object separate from us.
It's interesting to be a mirror interacting with people. One person looks directly at me and I respond to them - they see something of themselves. Two people can see each other indirectly in my presence: I show them each something of the other.
But it is also a lonely thing. Is there a 'me' in the mirror when no one else is there?
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