Quitting nicotine and hiring yourself for the feature role in your life

With humor as a backdrop, the “memoir” style narrative will feel familiar to those that have read contemporary writers in search of self and soul. What we leave behind in the dark of our minds and histories can boomerang back through our psyches. All you need is a catalyst, or a home made bomb. That’s what happened when the narrator quit smoking and the persona Nic was born.

That was the start of these conversations, a serio-comic and spirited journey that has Nic chasing the narrator throughout the tale. Once she turns the chase around a full passion for life and creative expression blossoms. The desire that pulls the narrator forward through the land of withdrawal addressed her entire being. She discovered a strong identification with Odysseus, the original journey man. And she also learns to appreciate the role that his wife Penelope had in his world.

Forced on a journey through the virtual and subjective realms that she had only given marginal validity in the past, this move also put Nic on notice. She was no longer fighting him head on, but using all the tricks in the book to counter his wicked, insidious ways. This included comic monologues and giving voice to the “Goddamned right I am” woman who had something to say about the entire mythical history of the western world.


Check out the Kindle version of Conversations with Nic at

http://amzn.to/14jUNUs

Bridges and paradox

     It seems like a paradox exists between hope and change.  Actually, it appears more like a rope bridge between the two - linked by cross pieces and knotted ropes holding it all together.  The connection strong but over a tenuous territory. Maybe it’s about hope and chance and luck has everything to do with it.  This is what an old friend told me once.  She is my mentor too.  So I listen. 
     I imagine walking across this bridge as I would an Adirondack path.  Danger in each vibration and all that holds me to the world is a tenuous connection between rope and rock. Now I’m thinking, “What is a paradox after all?  A dock on either side of the abyss.”  Nothing in the middle making sense but when you come from one side to the other, how right, if unconsidered before.  What is a paradox?  A new partner, an unexpected guest, a friend's revelation, a new friend after a personal holocaust when a moment before, it would seem, nothing would grow, as if salt on the ground at Nineveh? For all I know Nineveh is now an orchard where oranges bright as dice pulse pectin through their thick skin.  Oranges turn their colors in the night.  Imagine the desert illuminated by these juicy globes.  Who would have thought such sweet light would cast shadows on these wretched plains?
      In the crevasse between left brain and right you’ll find the jump, the spilt milk of synapses, the positive charge of hope connecting through the gray matter, the knotted rope bridges within our skulls, to the other side, where the negatively charged chance waits; pausing at the edge, a hopeful caesura, which is the poet's way of saying, "Stop - but don't, stop." 
     When Lynn was little, she was certain, as she came upon an abandoned lot surrounded by a metal fence in the Bronx, that she had discovered the Iron Curtain.  She also moved towards the wall when in bed to leave room for God, who was probably very tired and needed a place to rest his head.  And, she once told me about the time she ran home from school to check the oven to make sure God wasn't dead because she was told that day that God was everywhere. Decades later, her stories give me hope in innocence; faith in what freedom from prejudice can bring - compassion, caring, simple worries about mighty beings.  Hope often seems tenuous when we ache for the tangible. The other night I felt my mother's hands in mine.  It was completely unexpected.

Begin the begin

It’s still spring and still difficult to know it as such. The good thing about today though is that it’s that kind of rainy day not yet raining day and Sunday to boot that allows one the luxury to stay inside and enjoy the comfort that these days can bring.  I am listening to my own advice. 

Someone wrote that they’re not enjoying their birthdays as they did when they were young.  In truth, I really don’t remember too many celebrations of my birthday. I don’t think it was a focus for attention when I was growing up. But as I’ve gotten older I have loved these days because I use them to allow myself the meandering kind of soul filled time that is unstructured.  It feels like the same ideas as the labyrinth walk that is designed to lead you to a more inward space.  But there is no deliberate design that I follow. It is a time when I am safe and have the good fortune to be able to do the spiritual schmooze.

My birthday is also meant to be a spiritual schmooze day. But I seem to have the expectation and desire to have some intent then to have it be more like a labyrinth.  My hope is that I will get to the essence of what I want to focus on in the coming year. I want to feel closer to that purpose which seems crowded out of my life because of the tyranny that the week can hold over me. 

Yet once my birthday begins I noticed that I am always open to being moved off that course as well.  It is setting aside the time that seems essential.  Cole Porter’s song ‘Begin the beguine’ comes to mind only because from being a kid on I hear the title as ‘Begin the begin’, only with an accent.  I find it silly to begin the begin because it’s punny and I’m sure that was deliberate. By the way,  the “beguine” is a dance from Martinique.  I’m also sure most people get it wrong and think it’s begin the begin. So I’m not alone in that. That’s okay. When it comes to soul filled days, whether rainy days, birthdays or New Year’s Day for some, it is about begin the begin.  It’s about renewal and creating a fresh focus. I hope you have already started and that it feels like you did just begin. 

Backyard yin, backyard yang

Every day I walk around the property I'm moved by something I see or experience. I want to share it with my partner. But something happens between the time I get from the outside to the inside that just pushes whatever it was right out of my head.  Now I'm usually walking around the front or back yard because I have Molly with me. She's on a leash that allows her to run.  It took a week of using the new leash before she figured out she could run away from me, at least for a short distance, but now that she knows she goes and frolics and cuts corners all the time.  This brings fresh views of the property that I might not normally have in my ambling, knees sore and aching making my way around here.  Usually there's a delight in store for me because of her running or short of that, a feeling of being replenished just from being outside with her.

We're growing moss here. The slow growth of moss keeps me at the weeds because they're faster and I'm rooting for the moss to keep on keeping on. It's soft to walk on and feels as if you're sinking into the earth. I don't think Molly notices this or even cares for the moss but when she whips me past the garage and the gap in the fence I'm onto moss land and it's really sweet.  I know I'm low maintenance and I know most people hear about or read about or even live simply - Molly and I get right down to that on these walks. I get the sweet green enveloping me and chasing away work and my to do lists and Molly gets to roll in the dirt patches.  That's her thing. Frankly, I can't figure that one out because I thought cats liked to be clean.

Last week we had more morning glories growing in the front and on the back trellis than we had all summer. The woman at the local produce stand told me that growing just stops in the high heat.  We had enough of that this summer to ruin a lot of crops and put a halt to a lot of growing. Now, even though we're into October the petunias in the back have returned in two beds. Trust me when I tell you these were emergency beds made on the run when I ran out of space on the front porch and the window boxes put a halt to any more plants.  Quicks settlements of petunias were made wherever I saw a depression in the soil near the back trellis. The trellis cuts our yard in half but pretty much at an angle that gives us a yin/yang division.  The garage, painted milk chocolate, captures beautiful shadows cast by the trellis and trees. The trellis nearly reaches the garage on one side and on the other it is shy of the oak tree in front of the compost bins. That's the set up. Molly has learned that I can't fly under the trellis the way she can and obliges my inability by careening around the garage corner when she wants to get on the other side of the yin/yang.

I was wondering which side of the back yard is yin and which is yang. But it seems like that might change from the beginning of the day toward the end. Right now the far side of the trellis hardly has any dappled light and the close side by the screen house does. I'm in the screen house right now which makes me sitting on the yang side. Molly is here with me and wants to get out. She's yearning for the yin because everything that's calling to her is on the other side of the yard. That's where the squirrels are right now, rumbling about, scrambling and digging at the ground burying acorns.  From where I'm at I can see the petunia that's white with a little purple between the petals. All summer these flowers were purple whirly whigs with just a little white between the petals. It's fall now and everything is changing.  Molly's coat is thickening.  I hope I can remember how this wind feels right now. It's so beautiful. The wooden wind chimes agree. The jays are calling from one yard to the next; I think there's actually three yards involved. It feels a little like summer just now. Summer away from the beach or just home after swimming in the ocean. Molly is settling into a nap even though it's late afternoon.  What a good idea.

Feathers and carrots

Back to the beginning is sometimes hitting against the wall to gain strength and accuracy but also to remember the movement. Remembering the feeling is more than halfway there to hitting the ball right.  The physical ability sure.  The strength, accuracy, the feeling from the deep roots of your heels up through your arms. But the real journey of a good connection is from the feeling of the ground running through your legs and arms and into your imagination. That’s where you can really lay into the ball and move it wherever you want. It’s also true whether it takes place on the court, against the wall, or behind your closed eyelids; or whether it’s a soft hit, seriously strong and powered or the surprising fluency from timing. 

When the fear comes or the darkness, it is like a cloud of sand that moves like a wave between the horizon and the plain. If only it were like a water spout, magical and from a distance, astonishing. Crowded by thoughts, by weights not entered on the periodic table core iron is pulled from your blood sending you into a sea darker than any ocean shadow. 

You forget who you are and why. You forgot what makes you smile. How this weight can come between you and what is joyful, that is the puzzle.  There is no set itinerary for the road back. Compasses are not helpful.  Yes it is possible to survive this time and enter your home or go to work. But the going and the coming are empty. In the rush rush world nobody notices. You try to engage. You pump the clutch; pull the gear into position and nothing. You look around for hills to gain momentum and trick the engine. 

Sometimes the carrot is a feather. A gift blessed by ceremony and connection; by meaning drawn from the shared experience of people holding the dream of our world in their songs and visions. You had to pick up the feather. Even as you accept such a gift, the feather always was on the wings of your soul. The light was always the night’s partner. The day is yours to remember who you are and what makes you smile.

Bacon on my brain - again

One of the many recent news articles about bacon noted that it may cause an addiction like response that people have to cocaine.  “Really?” you might say in total disbelief.  But just try not to want it when you smell it cooking.  Just try to resist.   Apparently the feel good hormone, dopamine, rises in rats gorged on bacon.  If you’re sitting there, stunned as I am, read on.

From rats to theories about how to deal with human obesity, that’s the story of this sizzle. It’s true, fatty foods might well be addictive.  They might even taste so good that you’d want them again, and yop, again.

Well then, now is the time to open up a Bacon Den of Iniquity. Don't you think?  Let's advertise the dark, sinister, sexy side of bacon and lure in people with deep fried cheese cake squares whilst our clients are treated to the sound of bacon sizzling as a teaser (and in the back room we're actually shredding paper - it makes the same sound) and then whilst they think they're about to indulge in a sinister delight, we serve them tofu strips, with all the markings of marbled bacon on it and create a sensuous fury and flurry of

Well I cannot continue in this vein. I took a break, sat back, a sip of tea and looked on my desk. Staring me square in the face is a big brown floppy teddy bear. Why is it there on my desk?  Because I was, hopelessly as it turned out, trying to figure out how to use the one size fits all cat harness on it - so that I didn't have to put Molly and myself through the torture of a live fitting. This bear does not bear any resemblance to a cat or Molly, but it was the closest stuffed animal I could find. I'm afraid to say that it wasn't the bear's fault that I couldn't succeed with the harness. It was as complicated to me as imagining a bacon/opium den of iniquity that was made out of tofu. 

My life is either getting more complicated or my brain has been reduced to its lowest level of simplicity. 

Message to self- write

Writing is an interior act and behavior. Anyone that engages in this activity understands this. You enter a world of your own and begin whatever it is that you or others might call writing. It is an inside job. Its such an inside job that it’s strange for me to think of it as a right. It can be interpreted as a human right. It is a human right.
Although we also think that it is what sets us apart from other creatures, it may be what brings us into closer understanding of them rather than distancing them from us in a hierarchical fashion as has often been the distinction.

We know that the octopus and other animals may use ink as a defense mechanism or a way to express something. I was going to write that it might be a way to express an emotional state but it could be possible that the octopus, able to withstand the enormous pressure of the deeps, does not have the enormous array of emotions or the need to express an array of emotions. Perhaps all the output from an octopus’ ink is about more cerebral affairs than it is anything else.

There are bugs that work on tree limbs and leave hieroglyphics. They form their expressions by eating the soft wood once the bark is gone. They leave a path or channel that appears like a glyph. I am not a naturalist but if I were I might be drawn to use language other than this sort. I clearly wrestle with the issue of anthropomorphizing. Or maybe it is more certain that I don’t wrestle enough. In my own fashion I am not trying to ignore the world of science but to see what I see, hieroglyphics on branches as a form of writing. This should not be understood to mean that I suggest there is content or messaging or any sort of deliberate attempt at communication through these writings. It is what it is. Just as my journal writing might be. Please don’t ever find a journal, by anyone, and assume that to be writing that was meant for communication. It is communion if the writer was fortunate to have that relationship with themselves and the method of writing; but it is not meant, unless it is meant, as communication. So I see the writings of creatures in the world. Not as communion but as an act of something that left these marks.

I was told that it is a beetle leaving the hieroglyphics on the branches. These beetles do not go up and down in neat little rows as they eats their way through to the markings that appear like an ancient language. They do not do spirals or circles or any sort of recognizable alphabet. I do not see anything but very small segments of shapes that any random gnawing might produce. Their glyphs speak to me in the way that many things do which are not tied to specific meanings but could be called recognition, or beauty of just the old fashioned sort of being with speaking to that comes when we are quiet inside.
The same could be said about the path of the slugs on the flagstones. Or birds leaving tracks in the sand. It could all be writing. It so happens then that I live in a writing community. It is something I always wanted. Language or a communication or an act of leaving a mark takes physical form, just like the cat paws in the snow. I know that everything a cat does is deliberate. They might be journal writing or sharing their news or just making marks in the snow. As for cats, I would have sworn that Stoner was leaving messages with her nose prints on my windows. All of this could be an interior act pushed to the most convenient surface.

Whatever it might be that you need to write, for yourself or for sharing with others, I hope your find your medium and leave your message. If there’s no message and you are writing to commune with yourself, that is also good. It is the time and the focus that you take to do this which is the gift and the needed communication with yourself or with others. The act of changing your focus from one thing to another as many do today doesn’t generate the kind of compassion toward yourself that you might need from a quiet moment with your journal or another writing project. Peace of mind is also a human right and it goes nicely with writing.