An Invincible Summer - A Woman's Journey

There are those days, there are those people where nothing is easy. Nothing fits right. It’s exhausting and frustrating that I become engaged, even if only in my head. I want to remain above the fray, be an observer, not a participant. I want to keep my peace.  I’m tired today, got a head cold. Tomorrow will be better. 

We had a house full. The other day we had an unexpected guest. Invited in by my youngest who assumed he was a neighbor (which he kind of is but one of those you steer clear of), she let him in and sat him in the living room.  She comes to my bedroom door and lets me know we have a guest and that he may or may not be drunk. I hesitantly go into the room. Look at the man on the couch and, with reluctance, say “Hi Jeff, what’s up with you?”  He lives a few streets over, has addiction and mental illness problems, and is getting up there in age. He doesn’t actually know me but inferred to my girl that he did.  He starts talking a little disjointed, a little offensive. He asked my girl to help him find someone on his phone. He couldn’t remember her name but he knows she’s homeless. He tells us that he wants to meet up with her so he can give her the spanking her daddy never gave her. 😳 What he wants is for my girl to go on his TINDER account and find the gal he’s been “talking...

 Good morning, The other morning, while spending time with my sleeping soldiers, I had a surprise. It was a rare clear day which, since I am in Portland, was unusual. The sun was still behind the mountains and the sky was the beautiful inky blue that is tinged with the subtle pink found in pale roses. My favorite time of day. Around 7:15am a worker passed by in a truck, later a small fork lift followed. A few minutes after that, a small white car passed and went down the hill. My spot at the apex of the cemetery was solitary again. I sat and listened to a workshop put on by Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer call The Importance of Being Extraordinary. In contemplation, I watched the sky lighten as the little white car drove past me slowly about 20 minutes after the first pass. I noticed a red light in my rear view mirror and watched as the white car backed up….back, back, back, until her window aligned with mine. Braving the cold, I watched as she rolled her window down. A small white ha...

As the auditory world becomes less accessible, I find I have to make a choice to take part even when I don’t know what is being said, even when I know I won’t be able to hear.  Connection is so important. I figured that out late in life and now that I know what it is, and how much it enriches life, I don’t want to do without it.  The ACA meetings I attend are vital to my growth, understanding and connection but I have to admit that I am only hearing about a quarter of what takes place. I do my best, sit in a central, unimpeded location, watch faces, turn up those tiny contraptions that make life hearable and still I miss so much BUT I have a lovely weapon that helps me connect. Wherever I go, if the Boy Scout is with me, I have a veritable tape recorder. Boy Scout has a great memory so after each meeting, we go down the list and he gives me a summary of what each person has shared. I get the opportunity to connect even though it may be second hand. I am grateful for that becau...

I must be perfectly honest. I have to admit that growing up and all the way through to the time that I left my home in Southern California, I could not imagine why anyone would want to live anywhere else. Statistically many others seem to agree with me. While California is the third largest state in this crazy country, it it by far the most populated (although, admittedly, it is not the most densely populated). Where I grew up, the climate is lovely most of the time, it is close to the mountains, close to the beach, close to the high desert. We had Disneyland, Knot's Berry Farm, and Magic Mountain, incredible shopping, great art, the music was incredible, etc etc etc. Ok, ok, I know there are earthquakes but, to be quite honest, the bulk of us are not too fussed about it. You’ve gone through enough of them and you grow accustomed to the idea. Really it was more about the weather than anything else. Warm weather went from about April to October. Some of the warmest days I remember w...

The other day I shared this quote with the Boy Scout. When I read it, it was almost with a little sigh, like “of course we have.” It is a given. He looked at me in surprise and asked, “you’ve done that?” Many, many times, especially when I was younger and more apt to put myself in a position to need to use those survival mechanisms. I wasn’t being foolish, I was living life.  Somewhere around the age of 30, when I was in my peak physical form and feeling strong and vital, there came the realization that no matter how hard I worked, even the average man could easily over power me. There was a nugget of anger that came with that knowledge. And also, a tiny nudge of fragility. The beginning of a feeling that would slowly grow over the years, getting bigger with a health set back, or when I could no longer do something on my own or when a nervousness sets in where there once was none. It just is.  I’m currently reading American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. Beautifully written with a c...