Caring

I remember when I was a kid and my parent's were watching the show, 60 Minutes.  I don't remember exactly what they were reporting on, as in which plant or where it was, but it drew me in (the ticking of that stop watch to this day gets to me).  As I watched about something horrible, something so incredibly mind-blowing (well at least to a child) it had something to do with nuclear power, and how this specific thing that a certain plant was doing was going to make people sick, in fact, it already had, and that nothing had been done to stop it,  I was blown away.  And then I thought, well, phew, at least now that is out in the open, it can be fixed and all will be well.

I was amazed that there was no further reporting on it, and that was a time well before google, and local newspapers didn't carry all that much in the way of national news, so I was always left with this nagging wonder.  What happened?  Did anyone follow up?  Clearly something SO AWFUL and now something that had been brought into the light, would end.

It was a disconcerting feeling, and to channel all of that angst, I began to chronicle certain news events that I found fascinating.  The impeachment of Richard Nixon -- Watergate -- I was so blown away by that, I can't even tell you.  I have scrap books filled with clippings, pictures torn out of Time and Newsweek Magazines, even big glossy photos from Life magazine ... I was obsessed, and read everything I could about it, listened to the evening news with a passion, and queried any adults I thought might be able to answer my questions.  I learned at a very young age that most people don't care.  They don't care about these monumental events, things that affect them because the President of the United States is kind of a big deal, right?  I was foreign to the concept of being sarcastic and cynical, but I suspect I cultivated those in spades by discovering that I lived in a world of people who really didn't care about stuff I personally felt that they should care about.

If I brought up nuclear power, there would be some that would say so what, we're going to have to do something.  (Okay, but did they happen to catch that segment on 60 Minutes where people were DYING???)  There were some who agreed that yes, it was a scary thing, but what were you going to do?  I followed the Clamshell Alliance when the nuclear power plant that now exists on the seacoast of New Hampshire had yet to be built, and I was frightened that when people talked about the evacuation routes that they had established would be parking lots and everyone would die, I wondered, really?  No one is going to stop this?

To this day, I read the news, I am up-to-date on current events (not bullshit, like sports figures that kill people or depressed mothers who kill their children or what particular housewife of whatever city is doing to whom or marrying whom.)  No, I have always read the news, and to this day, I find it very, very scary.  And you can't really talk to anyone about it, first because for the most part, people are more interested in all the stuff in parenthesis, but secondly because I don't think anything is reported with any integrity, so it all just leaves me wondering.  In addition, there are SO many outlets where you can read about things, it is borderline overwhelming, and my obsessive self can spend hours trying to put together snippets of information from various sources to try to piece together a coherent understanding of what may or may not be taking place.  Diane Sawyer is a huge disappointment to me, and I think partially the reason that ABC trains all of their anchors through Good Morning America these days is because they want them to be familiar and comfortable with reporting bullshit news.  They don't want real newspeople -- certainly not someone who questions authority and goes for the story regardless.  No, the only reason Diane Sawyer and any of the network news anchors have jobs is because they do what they are told.  That isn't reporting, it is faction-based news reciting.

I don't watch any of that.

Instead of just saying I am against war and I don't think that the U.S. should bomb the hell out of Syria, I am really trying to grasp the subtle reasons why it should (or shouldn't) take place.  Why don't we have access to the "classified" information that would prove that chemical attacks have taken place?  Obama is slated to be on all of the major news networks, but again, I won't be watching those, so I find it very confusing.  According to an AP report,  in the U.S., the case for military action has evoked comparisons to false data used by the Bush administration about weapons of mass destruction to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  That concerns me big time, and seeking out possible "proof" of these attacks on youtube.com only bewilders me.  I found so many compelling videos on the Boston bombing that disproved pretty much the entire story that was being fed through mainstream media outlets, and once again, no one cares, and no one wants to listen.

Yeah. It's hard to be me!  And I can be wrong, I am sure, in some (I won't say many!) instances, but I will never believe that, mostly because I research and poke around and question EVERYTHING I have been told, and am always, always, always amazed that very few other people (that I know, I am certainly not saying the entire population) do not.

Which really brings me to the reason for this post, and it's the FACT that the NSA has been spying on us through illegal means, and no one seems to care.  NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE.  I don't get this.  Are there other little girls watching the news and thinking OH MY GOD?  I sure as hell hope so.  I sure as hell hope that there are enough people out there just as horrified as I am that we are being spied on my our own government and that our own government has its own liberties in place via the Patriot Act to do whatever the hell they want with us, whenever the hell they want.  There is a whole new generation being brought up to obey, and they are being fed genetically engineered food that makes them lazy and easy to manage.

Even as I write this, and I don't use keywords so that I don't get recognized right off the bat, I wonder why I live in fear of a technological BIG BROTHER while so few others think it's okay.  Or don't care.  Or whatever.  There are no cries of a miscarriage of justice ringing across the land, because it all just seems so ... so normal?  Same thing with the bogus facts that were engineered to shut down the city of Boston under martial law ... no one really cares.  They were put in harm's way, and everyone felt much better having the goverment's army take over their city.  I tell you right now, if I had been in that neighborhood, I would NOT have stayed behind closed doors, I would NOT have let anyone in to my home with a huge gun without a warrant, and it is quite possible that to this very day I would be rotting in some jail cell under the auspices of the Patriot Act, and Diane Sawyer would not report on it because she would be told that under no circumstances if she wanted to keep her job, should she ever utter the words Lisa Madden.

These are not paranoid or fantasy statements ... how often do you read about Jack Carter in the news?  How often did Diane Sawyer visit his jail cell?  Who is he?  He made a post on Facebook ...

“Someone had said something to the effect of 'Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head,’” he called, “to which he replied 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts.’”

According to Carter, he ended the quip with “LOL” and “JK”— Internet shorthand for “laugh out loud” and “just kidding,” respectively. A witness to the conversation in Canada became worried nonetheless and alerted the authorities, who then arrested Carter and charged him with making a terroristic threat.  For the full story, please read this:  http://www.globalresearch.ca/justin-carter-criminalizing-free-speech-facebook-terrorism-in-texas/5342614

So I'm not really kidding.  You can go to jail for being a stupid kid and making a ridiculous remark.  I hesitate to write this, and hopefully no one reading this blog will report me, but when I was in Kindergarten at a school run by nuns, I was sent to the bathroom (this was the school jail) for opening a drawer that I was told not to open.  Joining me in jail were several other boys, not really sure what their crimes were, but while in there we emptied the toilet paper dispensers of every scrap of toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet, and we left the water running (hoping that it would run out at some point and the school would have to close) and we also devised ways of how we would kill the nuns.  One of my suggestions was that I would get Bat Man's car, and when the class went out for it's daily walk up the hill to some statue of something I never did understand what it was, I would "accidentally" hit the nun in the Batman Car.

If you google Jack Carter's name, you get next to nothing.  Because a kid going to jail for making a remark on Facebook isn't really that big of a deal, right?  The best thing to do is to tell your kids not to make such remarks on Facebook or anywhere else, and they will be fine.  That entire mentality is chilling beyond compare.  This is a scary world we live in, and it's only going to get worse.  Much, much worse.

This blog will one hundred million percent be catalogued in one of the multitude of data centers that have been built by taxpayer dollars.  There is no shred of anything out there that isn't sifted through, and if you write things against the state, then you sure as hell are probably assigned to a specific person who monitors your every move.  All of this, one hundred percent illegal, and all of it not being corrected by a population who ... oh, whatever.

This is why I don't write these posts ... because it is just a huge waste of time and all it does is stack the decks against my getting through this lifetime without a bulging folder on all of my thoughts, opinions and possible arrest comments.  It was actually prompted by the show, The Newsroom, which is fabulous in that it is about exactly what I am talking about ... not reporting bullshit, but reporting actual news, and how that is really almost impossible in this day and age.

I thought for a while there that the way I was going to handle all of it was to shut up, grow my own food, tend my own chickens, live far away from any metropolitan city (that will be swarming with soldiers and police) and pretend none of it was really happening.

I don't think that is in my DNA.  That little girl is really screaming now, she's been biting her tongue for a long, long time, but now is the time to figure out how to get people to care.  There has to be a way.  There just has to.

The Empty Nest

First off, the best way to delay the consideration of what an empty nest means is to go on vacation once you drop off your child at college!  I highly recommend this, because much as a honeymoon is an opportunity to chill after many weeks of stressful anticipation of the big event, a get-away provides the same venue -- different scenery, different routine, etc.  But, you do have to go home again!

The way I seem to be handling this almighty event is by being exhausted.  I have not cried, I do not feel morose, I do not miss him desperately, but I am bone tired, no matter how much sleep I get.  this morning, after a good 12 hours of sleep, I realized I was still riddled with exhaustion, which makes no sense because while we were away we got loads of sleep and hiked and had a great time ... unless of course you realize that no matter what type of super woman you think you are, you are STILL going to feel it in one form or another!

So I surrender, and am owning it, feeling it, trying it all on for size.  Maddie is still here, but she just finished work after a long summer of very little time off, so she is decompressing via a puzzle.  The weather is perfect ... gray and intermittent rain.  Perfect, you might ask?!!  Yeah, it just feels right.  I am not in the mood for a bright, sunshiny day that makes me feel as though I need to be doing something other than what I am doing.  I am honoring the transition, if you will.  Understanding that my body is aching and tired because it has concluded an amazing journey, and now it seeks rest.  Or maybe just affirmation, a pat on the back, if you will, for a job well done.  I don't know ... my outlet, which is writing, is where I turn, and here I am.  Just spitting out words and seeing what sentences they form!

Charlie is on Regimental Preparatory Training, which is yet another layer of the onion, in terms of one, you drop off your kid at school, that is big, you wave goodbye, and then you text and call.  But in this case, all forms of communication (cell phones, laptops) were put into storage as of Sunday evening, and he is radio silent until next Sunday, when his RPT is celebrated with a jump off the ship.  When you have a child who is resistant to authority (a DNA trait apparently, because I have that in spades) and who bristles at first, then grows angrier by the moment when someone tells him to DO something, it is a bit nerve wracking thinking of him being in this position for a solid week.  And then the ensuing six weeks are more of the same, though we will be able to contact him, and vice versa.  He didn't go into this blind; he knew what was in store for him, and he will come out of it with a newfound sense of confidence, of this I have no doubt.

I know how to let go, and I want to.  I foresee his future to be amazing.  He will travel the world, he will make amazing connections and friends, and I am happy for him.  But I am, alas, far more human than I thought I was, or at the very least mature enough to recognize that we don't get through anything without a little pain if we are actually listening.  And that is what I am doing ... I am listening to my heart, which is heavy, but my mind jumps from the gaping holes of no children around, to when they will be around.  I jumped right into planning our Hawaii trip yesterday, as soon as we got home, because that is a concrete placeholder of pure family.  A trip like nothing we have ever done before, over Christmas, in a tropical and beautiful setting.

As I sat on the balcony at the Bar Harbor Inn overlooking the ocean the past few days, there was a path that meandered the rocky shore right below me.  All day long people would walk by, it was a cornucopia of different groups -- parents and young children, parents and slightly older children, parents with babies strapped to them, parents with teenagers, families with grandparents, couples of all ages, teenagers, old people ... all of humankind walked by and it felt, at times, like a trip through Vacation's Past.  There we were, walking by, an older daughter, walking behind her younger siblings, vastly different in age, yet she somehow found joy in them.  There we were, just two children, the oldest already gone ... and so on.  I reflected on each stage, I remembered how hard it was to vacation with small children, the logistics, the equipment, the exhaustion.  Maybe that is what I am experiencing!  All that I held in all of those years is leaking out, bit by bit, shedding itself from my psyche ... at last, free to go jump on someone else! 

I have no desire to go back, but my perspective has changed in that as I watched families go by with the grandparents in tow, I thought, yeah, that will be fun!  And there is a good chance that I will have the opportunity to see what type of grandparent I will be in my 50's and then again in my 60s, as there is such a span between Hallie and Charlie (Maddie says she doesn't want kids.  I tell her I used to say the same thing!) So I do look forward to a future with small children, but on a different playing field. And I look forward to seeing what type of parents my own kids become, and also, how will they treat their parents as we grow older?  I keep telling them, as I have just spent a summer tending parents in the true spirit of the sandwich generation, that I am MODELING for them!

Let's hope they were watching!

Early summer ruminations

As I sit here on the porch of the cottage, draped not in sweat as I have been for the past weeks, due to the humidity, but sheer gratitude for its absence, I watched a woman drive by in her great big Suburban, brushing hair out of her face, looking in her rear view mirror at the kids in the back seat and saying something to them, and I thought, that is me.

Or was me, but I felt that part of me drive by with her -- that harried woman on "vacation," with her children, husband to join at a later date or a weekend, and I ask myself, why did I bother?  I truly don't know, perhaps we women are just hopeful that changing geography, adding a lake (or in my case an ocean) to the mix will some how change the fact that we are in charge of these willful, energetic, non-stopping, chattering small humans.  But of course it does not!

I remember one year on Martha's Vineyard, Hallie was nine or ten, Charlie was three I guess, Maddie five, and we were staying at this crazy hotel in Vineyard Haven, right on the beach.  The beach being the harbor of course, but it was easy for me not having to pack them into a car on a daily basis.  The hotel room was dark and uninviting, so we mostly spent our days on the beach.  Charlie, always a handful, downgraded day by day, until he was launching into full blown temper tantrums throughout the day.  The Suburban was packed to the gills for the house that we were renting later in the week, and I had it shoe-horned into a parking space in the small lot, so just packing them into the car and driving was more or less out of the question.  We just had to deal.  And then it started to rain.  And rain.  And rain.  Now the four of us were crammed into this small, dark (and dank at this point) room, and I was pretty much at the end of my rope.  We were going to go out to dinner, but then Charlie went into overdrive, and through the maze of Lego's being hurled around the room, I lost it.  I screamed and yelled and cried and wished that I was anywhere else but there.

Hallie took over, somehow placated the tyrant toddler, and then walked across the street to a pizza place and carried back a big box of dinner.  We survived that night, as we did many after, but the woman in the Suburban triggered that memory hard for me!

In addition, as I was laying in bed this morning with the cottage windows open, I could hear children screaming out on the public dock.  I checked my watch and smiled, remembering many mornings when I had to get up super early with small kids and sort of follow behind them in a semi-daze from drinking far too many cocktails the night before to drown out the sorrows of a day with small children, and as I lay there reading my book, I thought, ahhhhh, I am so glad that isn't me!

And I recalled when we were staying at the community of gingerbread houses in Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard, where houses were much like here on Blodgetts Landing, only feet apart, and Maddie and Charlie would wake up at the crack of dawn, get on their bikes, and ride around the circle.  Laying in my small bed in the teeny tiny house, I would hear their voices the entire loop, and then cringe when Maddie would do something to get Charlie to yell or cry.  I would go down and stop them, tell them to come inside and have breakfast, do anything I could to keep them somewhat quiet, and feel the stress just dripping off me in waves.  Ahhh, vacation.   That year the owner of the cottage called me and yelled at me, literally, saying that he had received phone calls from other cottage owners saying that my kids were being loud.  I see.  There was a grumpy old man in the Pepto Bismol cottage (the one in the brochure that the tour groups would stand and gape at on a daily basis) who clearly hated renters.  Both of the kids said that he yelled at them every time they went by. Coming from a small community myself, I was somewhat sickened by their sense of entitlement overall (many of the owners would ignore you when walking by), while renter's would happily greet you and their children played with mine.  So as I listened to those children early, early this morning, I was glad that my response was to just be glad it wasn't me, as opposed to following them back to whatever cottage they are renting and then calling the owner and telling them that the renter's children were loud. Good lord.  I will never understand people who immerse themselves in a sea of people, then get mad that those people breathe.

Right now there are two fathers with their sons on the public dock, fishing.  The dynamic is interesting, in that one father is all about taking pictures of his son, with the fishing pole, casting the line, reeling it in, and the other is clearly afraid of getting hooked by his son's pole while he casts, and keeps running away .  Interestingly enough, all this boy seems to want to do is cast!  He reels it in, the father helps him hold the pole behind his shoulder, then he runs, he casts, reels it in, and repeat.  The picture taking duo caught a rock bass, which initiated a long round of photos, with the fish on the pole, with the fish off the pole and the father holding the fish and taking a picture of it while the little boy screamed EWWW. Interspersed with the other set doing their casting, reeling, running away dance.  Quite fascinating.

I call it dock TV.

Perhaps I am innoculated from years of listening to small children yell, laugh, fight, scream, bang and crash, but community noise doesn't bother me.  With one exception.  There is an autistic boy who stands at the end of the dock and fishes, who makes this humming noise, which gets louder and louder and louder, and then abates a bit, then revs back up, and when he catches a fish, he gets very, very excited and screams and yells and jumps up and down.  That part doesn't bother me, but that humming noise makes me bonkers.  When he was little he used to stand close by where I was sitting, and push a boat in a circle, in the water, around and around accompanied by that humming noise.  For hours.   The good news is that he was never up for the entire summer, so it wasn't a constant.  The bad news is that at 29, he still does it, but the boat has been replaced by his fishing ritual. (The humming gets louder and louder when he reels in the line) and then re-starts after he casts and begins reeling.  I hyper-focus on it, I realize that, but like all of the triggers, the woman in the Suburban, small children yelling at dawn, it appears to be a part of my DNA to feel that way!

Hahaha, now the fathers are fishing and the two boys are sitting on the dock side by side, their legs swinging, completely oblivious to the fact that they are having quality father-son time!  And now the dynamic has totally switched.  The photo-taking duo had to return to cottage for potty break, and the other set were joined by wife and daughter.  Daughter wants to fish, little boy (who had zero interest 3 seconds ago) also wants to fish.  A little yelling, a little stomping by the boy, father running away when daughter casts, mother comforting boy.  Every action of that little boy is Charlie.  He may be all grown up now and headed to college, but his spirit lives on in every little boy to come.

Isn't turning fifty nifty!

May 28

 With the milestone of Charlie's graduation a distant memory (just kidding, it was a wonderful weekend of family, food, drink, talk, laughter, togetherness ... and a lot of rain!) now it is time to get to the business of turning 50.  When I turned 30 I was pregnant with Maddie, and well, turning 30 is the first big number because you WANT to turn 20, though really you want to turn 21, and there is some cultural yard stick that we have set up that turns the new decade numbers into Over The Hill, and all that stuff.  I was attending 30-year birthday parties where there were black balloons and Depends being given as gifts.  But that wasn't the 30th birthday party that I wanted!  I wanted a big party, I wanted to celebrate.   But I was hugely pregnant and really, in no mood.  At all.  So I said that 30 was just going to be passed by, but that was fine, because when I turned 40 it was going to be a HUGE deal.  Enormous.  Big.

And so it was.  A trip to Puerto Rico, a huge party complete with big tent and a band ... good times.  But I started the path to 50 right there and then ... and said that while 40 was all well and fine, 50 was going to be HUGE!  Not just a day, but an ENTIRE YEAR.  The turning-50th year was going to be a blow-out celebration from January 2013 to January 2014.

And so it has!  A trip to Sedona, one of my favorite places on the planet, was the kick-off trip in February, followed by a surprise gathering of close friends on the Cape in April, complete with Lisa requisites -- on the water and with a sunset!  In early May, a trip to Mexico and traipsing around the Mayan ruins -- all before my actual birthday.  Which is tomorrow.  And I have no plans, because really, the actual day is pretty trivial as I've clearly already embraced the concept.  To me, it happens to fall at a time in my life where I am completely ready for it.  I don't look at aging as losing something, but as gaining everything.  With each passing year I become the person I am meant to be ... and that could never be accomplished if I stayed a certain age, or within a time frame of my life that seemed especially worth holding on to.

There have been many stages of my life that have been challenging -- I am not alone in this, of course -- but I have steadfastly carried on, always knowing that things would get better, easier, more fulfilling, and with so much more peace.  And they have, and I am appreciative of all of the years behind me, for bringing me to all of the years ahead of me.  I feel poised for greatness, as I have always felt, but with the knowledge that I am not any more special than anyone else.  And what a relief that is!  All those years wondering why this greatness wasn't manifesting itself ... and being frustrated by that, but having faith that it would happen.

It's a process, to have that AHA moment, as Oprah would say, when you finally realize that the waiting for the greatness to happen is kind of a waste.  The greatness is what has already happened, and whatever that was --  it was your greatness, it was your life.  The cliche "living in the moment" means enjoy your life, stupid, because you ain't getting another one! 

I used to wake up in the morning wondering what I was going to do that would be meaningful.  This was important to me, at one time, because I wanted to lead a meaningful life.  As I rushed the kids to get them ready for school, as I threw some breakfast together so we could continue to rush to that magic moment in the day when I would know for sure that I had spent that day well, the hours were filled with so much, a general rushing that makes me wince now, but that I remember oh so very well.

It took me a lot of years to relax, and I know that I am fortunate to have the opportunity to have done so (and continue to do so!) because I have a husband who doesn't care to remind me on a regular basis that when I quit work (ten years? ago) it was only for THE SUMMER.  I filled those working hour holes with anything I could for probably at least five years, which is why, if you think that you HAVE to work, because you would go crazy "sitting" at home, you really should realize that you have to re-program yourself.  The one thing that I have never concerned myself with, was worrying about being bored.  I am never bored -- ever.  The one thing I love more than anything is freedom -- the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want.  When I was a kid, I did not have the freedom that I craved because of school, which I hated more than anything.  In fact, the only time in my life that I have ever had headaches, was then.  Remove the problem ...

I loved to work, I loved my job, I loved how I worked at every job at the newspaper and I loved having kids.  But the combining of those two things was one hell of a loss of freedom!  That many years of no hours to call your own turns you into a bit of a thief -- for the only way to find the time to do something you love (for me it was writing) was to steal from someone else.  I shortchanged my kids, but I always felt that I made up for it in the times that I was relaxed from doing my own thing and would sing silly songs and be in a lighthearted, teasing mood.  Who knows, they are all great kids, I didn't damage them too much!

June 3

This is always such a busy time of year, and I left this blog as a draft with the intent of getting back to it that day.  Ahhh, but such a great example of what it is to be okay with such things ... so what if you don't finish something right there and then?  You can always do it later.  As someone who had to adhere to publishing deadlines, this is a sheer and total luxury, this laissez faire attitude.  I even actually learned that drop dead deadlines in publishing can be stretched, a little secret I stumbled upon far too late in my career, but probably just as well.  I am a born procrastinator.  Hence the reason my garden is still not planted.  Again, another example ... whatever.  It will get planted and it will grow.  Of this I am sure.

What I really wanted to write about was this morning.  We woke up at the cottage after a crazy evening last night, when the sky turned colors none of us had ever seen (green and the darkest, scariest black) and then we had a lot of wind and rain, and surrounding thunderstorms.  We didn't really seem to get a lot of thunder and lightening right over us, but it was pretty crazy.  We were on the dock, looking up at the little circle of blue sky and sunlight that was literally surrounded by storm clouds, all wearing wet bathing suits as it was deathly hot and muggy as it had been for days, and the only relief could be found by swimming, when the wind picked up.  And up ... and then the temperature just completely changed ... so startling and sudden that Peter remarked that it was like an evil presence had infiltrated our space.  We went from sweating to cold enough to have to change into sweatshirts!  Very wild.  But oh so welcome.  70 degrees never felt so good.

Oh yeah, back to this morning.  Oh how the mind wanders.  So it is Maddie's birthday this morning, and I was trying to decide what we could do to make it special, when Charlie came out to the porch excited that he had received notification that he had to build his schedule for school at Maine Maritime this fall.  Maddie told him that there was a way to do it that she had perfected, and she told him to get pen and paper.  For the next hour at least, I sat beside them and watched as they worked together to build his perfect schedule.  Maddie insisted that he have as few afternoon classes as could be engineered, and then she tried to have no morning classes on Monday, she told me to go to some website to see if there were any comments on professors to try to narrow down which classes to take in what time slots, and Charlie literally squealed in delight at some of his course names (extreme sea survival) while Maddie kept saying 8 classes was a lot, but he insisted he didn't care because they were going to be SO MUCH FUN!

After the perfect schedule was obtained, he tried to send it in, but he had to have lectures matched with certain labs, so that created a whole scheduling snafu and they had to go back to the drawing board.  At this point I decided to make breakfast, and Maddie had grown weary of the whole thing, and then Charlie was begging her to keep helping, telling her that she was so amazing at it, and I just had to laugh ... I love how they get along and I completely treasured every moment of the morning ... despite the fact that there were so many things to get done.  But this won't happen next year as Charlie won't even be home until sometime in July, and if I've learned anything, it's just to go with the flow.  How great is that?!

Like this post:  It began with the intent of talking about my birthday, and alas, that has come and gone!   The day that is, not the year!  (Friends surprised me at a local restaurant, it was great) and oh so many days ago I know that I wanted to impart that ultimately, I have no problem turning 50 and that all I want to do is celebrate it.  But I can't seem to stay on track.  It's as though I want to discuss how focused I am, and present and all of those buzz words now that I have reached a time in my life where that is all possible, but all I can think about is the fact that the garden needs to be planted, the cottage needs to be thoroughly cleaned before Peter's mom arrives and if I am going to juice, I should probably do it!  It is as though all the things I want to talk about, aren't even really true!  And yet ... they are, because while I am trying to be all Zen, I am really just trying to rush through this and get to the next thing ... and yet ... the KNOWING of this is what makes the difference, if that makes any sense.    I am zen, but I'm really not because I've never really been zen, and I've never met anyone who is, but ... wait a minute, what does zen even mean?  (Japanese school, of 12th-century Chinese origin, teaching that contemplation of one's essential nature to the exclusion of all else is the only way of achieving pure enlightenment).

EXACTLY!  That is exactly what I am not, but what I am totally doing (so therefore, I am always in a state of trying to reach zen.)  I guess.  Does it really matter?  Does age?  Okay, gotta go, Charlie is ready to help me in the garden.  And that truly does matter!

 

 

Graduation ...

Unrolling your "Santa Ball" but really watching to see what Maddie is getting!

I dropped Charlie off at school early this morning as he was heading out on his senior trip -- a whitewater rafting adventure in Maine.  Over the past two years I have not driven Charlie to school, because as soon as he got his license he was on his own.  But I thought it was very fitting that we should end his high school years as we began them .. in the car for our half hour trek to school.

You were so fashionable back in the day!

As I drove there and back, I realized it seemed utterly incomprehensible that I drove him to school, every day, back and forth both morning and night, for two and a half years.  Somehow in the last few years it has become such a distant memory that it feels as though it never happened.

My children, they can walk on water!

It is interesting that all three of my children are photographers!

In fact, all of it, the nine years of sheer and torturous hell we went through until he finally ended up at a school where he at last flourished, doesn't seem real.  I can still vividly recall his toxic fifth grade teacher who gave me a pit in my stomach the size of Montana the day I went into the classroom with Charlie to get homework as he had stayed home sick, and she talked about him like he was that nasty piece of chewing gum that someone sticks on the underside of the desk, seeming to think that I would agree with her that he did EVERYTHING wrong, and was just impossible, while I watched him wince at her every word.  That was my last day in that school, as it was Charlie's.  While the teacher carried on about his every negative quality, I quietly went through his desk and cubby and gathered all of his personal items, then took his hand and dragged him out of there, and straight to the office, my face red with pure anger and disbelief that any child would be treated so horrifically, and told the principal why Charlie was no longer able to attend school under the tutelage of such pure, hot hate.

Charlie captained boats from a very young age, and decided to turn it into a career when a Newbury policeman said he was the best "docker" he had ever seen.  Positive feedback is an amazing thing.  It can be life changing.

Those five years he attended public school needed to be undone in the next two years, and we threw massive amounts of money at the cause, looking for any solutions, while all the while he just wanted to go back to school with his friends.  I made a terrible error and let him return to the same school system that had abused him (I don't use that word lightly either, that is exactly what happened) and he eked through 7th and 8th grade and ran into yet another toxic teacher (or maybe there were two, I don't remember) who was always more than happy to give me a long list of her grievances about Charlie but never had a solution up her sleeve, ever.  When he didn't get into Proctor (because of toxic teachers?) we thought that was the end of the world, but boy were we wrong.  I'd already begun to see the changes the school had undergone under a new headmaster and wasn't happy during Maddie's last two years, so it was nice of the universe to intervene and put up a roadblock towards that mistake!

Charlie was my travel buddy between the south and the north every spring. Here we are at Monticello.

Charlie did well at Tilton, and during his freshman year there were under 20 kids in the class, so there was no getting lost in the crowd!  Don't get me wrong, the years were not without mishap -- though to be perfectly honest they weren't that serious, usually just comments about immaturity and peer issues -- and we were thrilled from year one that his grades were consistent, his teachers spoke highly of him and the only negative thing that was ever said was that he could try harder, or live up to his potential.  All of his teachers saw the smart kid that he was, but I don't think one of them ever succeeded in getting him to go the extra mile!  But from where I sat, the extra mile didn't need to be taken if the kid was happy, doing well in school, and was happy!  You live with an unhappy child who struggles with school ... you learn to stop caring about things like potential when there could have been potentially any number of OTHER outcomes.

Here is the boat you will be living on in the fall!

Today I dropped off a mature, confident and happy young man, who was joking with his other senior peers as they walked into the building holding their sleeping bags and backpacks, ready for their last adventure together.  He graduates on Saturday, and then in the fall he goes off to Maine Maritime Academy, where he will fulfill his most recent dream of being a ship captain.

Charlie receives a plus-five award at Tilton.

 I know that people say that it goes so fast ... and it does ... but it also goes slow.  There are countless nights of sleep lost over this child, days I wanted to just give up and hand him over to someone else!  But he repaid me in spades by being a "good" kid in high school, and there is a lot to be said for that.  I've never had to worry about him with drinking and driving or doing drugs, and I thank him from the bottom of my heart for that, because I am not sure I could have taken it!  His allotment of angst was used up in the earlier years, and truly, I've forgotten most of it, unless, like today, I think back and realize it's been a long, slow road!  And yet, like I said, it seems impossible that I ever drove back and forth to Tilton two times a day, and yet I did, and I did everything else that I did to get that kid to where he is today ... so we both graduate on Saturday!  He from high school, and me from active parenting.

For me it has been 27 years, over half my life with children in my house with their wants and needs (and yes, I know I ignored you all plenty sitting at my computer writing for days on end, but still, I am sure I fed you more often than not!) and while this big old house will be empty, I know without a doubt that he is ready, the last to fly the nest, and of course, the best (sorry Maddie, that one is for you!)  But all kidding aside, Hallie, Maddie and Charlie, you are the three accomplishments I look upon with pride and amazement ... three incredible individuals, with your own talents and desires, all of you confident and strong, hard working and compassionate.  I am immensely proud to be your mother!

Little chicks are flying the coop!

Where do you want to be?

This morning I woke up in the cottage, at the lake (BRRRRR) and looked out at the calm water and just took a deep breath.  Ahhhhhhh.  For a long while I just stood on the porch and drank it all in ... the serenity of a beautiful, sunny morning, no one around ... a small gift before the summer crowds move in.  I'll take it!

I drove home in order to deal with all things chicken, and set myself up on the front porch with some breakfast and a new cookbook that had just come in the mail.  AHHHHHHHHHHH.

 

As the breeze kept any potential black fly nuisances away, and the sun began to warm my toes, I looked around and saw my chickens wandering about doing their thing.

 Over here we had the Goldie's dust bathing, perfectly content to soak up the rays.

 Goldie takes her downtime seriously, as you can see!  You could all but hear her sighs of contentment, a truly happy chicken.

This is where I was sitting, AHHHHH, and all the while I was thinking, I have to blog about this!  My first thought was, you always think where would you want to be right now?  On a beach?  I often want to be on a beach, but at this moment in time I didn't want to be anywhere else.  I had already found my slice of heaven, and I was more than happy to soak it all in, chicken style!

There is a full day ahead, we have to build a coop for the four not so little chicks, we have to get the boat in because the kids are being quite pushy about it (and we want to go out in it ourselves tonight!) and there is an overall feeling of trying to get so many things done, because it just feels like summer has arrived.  We stayed at the cottage last night, because we all have that feeling that we want it to be here ... despite the fact that we basically slept outside last night!  I woke up somewhat freezing, as the heavier blankets had fallen off during the night, and I didn't care at all, because it's fun to do silly things!  We are leaving for Mexico on Thursday for a wedding, so there is that underlying urgent feeling in the pit of my stomach, that feeling that I have so many things to do before I leave (don't forget chicken food, don't forget to tell Charlie that it is IMPERATIVE that he water the seedling under the lights in the basement, don't forget that all the animals need to be fed and watered...will he remember, it would kill me to lose ... and so it goes.)  But that all went away for a brief while this morning as I just sat there and was.  I breathed in, I relaxed, I took it all in, and then I got all frantic about getting it blogged.

Geesh.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Master marketer of his time

As I posted earlier, I am reading all things Fitzgerald, combining the faction novel of Zelda Fitzgerald with all of the works that F. Scott wrote as well.  (And, in horror, discovered that Zelda was advised to send in her own writing using Scott's name so they could get more money for them.) 

Like any narcissist or ego-maniac, Scott doesn't do well if he's not wildly popular and well loved by the masses.  What struck me, as I have been delving into this project, is he isn't so much an amazing writer as he is a great marketer.

I am struggling to get through his first novel, I really am.  It is like a bunch of things strung together with no real story, more thoughts and events, but no real meat.  I have also read that that is exactly what the book is -- and that he did just that, put together journal entries and new writing to create a book as quickly as he could so he could win his bride.  Hey, one of my biggest criticisms in school was spending time talking about what the author MEANT when he wrote the book.  Drove me crazy, I felt it was a true waste of time, and while I am doing that to a certain level here, it is different in that I am taking many different pieces and drawing a conclusion based on those.  Obviously the majority of his work is based on his life or how he perceived his life to be or how he WANTED his life to be.  Nothing out of the ordinary there, no, but weave in the time period (the roaring twenties) and also the roles that were defined for women and men which wouldn't and couldn't work in this new flapper world, and what you get are a lot of though-provoking situations.

So here is my premature analysis, as I have only just begun to read all of the material (but I have read a lot of magazine and newspaper articles of the time) and what I have concluded at this juncture is that the Fitzgerald's were reality TV stars of their time.  They would have LOVED to have cameras follow them around and report their everyday lives.  They thought they were great, they sold that to their friends and acquaintances, they had no idea what they were doing but they didn't care because they found themselves on magazine covers, and that just felt right.  They were a product of a society in the midst of change -- and to those housewives stuck at home, their scandalous world was titillating and exciting, and to those men, home from war,  starting their new lives and jobs and feeling the weight of all of those responsibilities, it might have given them pause .... ahh, if only I was a creative and able to live off my art and be irresponsible and gay ... all the while knowing that they were in a better place, for parties always end.  They just do.

Here is a husband, in the public eye, encouraging his wife, a mere 20-year-old southern girl, to be crazy.  They liquored themselves up, they adorned luxurious outfits, and they went out into New York City and traipsed around in public fountains, or made public nuisances of themselves, in reality, but no one cared!  Just like that Jersey Shore crew ... it's all pretty disgusting, but it sure makes good TV!  And the press followed them because, well, I think we all know by now that that is what the press does!  And Scott capitalized on that, and while he may not have been the greatest writer of all time (my opinion of course) he sure as hell was the greatest manipulator of those forces that could be combined to make he and his wife more than.  More than they really were, for in the end they were just a man and a woman in a union for better or worse.  Not a new story, not a story of the ages, just one that we know about because it was important for HIM to be known.

It would be interesting what he would have done in this time to make a name for himself -- this time being a world flooded with gifted authors, publishers who only care about making a ton of money and could care less about literary achievement, and a world where acting crazy isn't going to make you stand out.  At all.

 I suspect he would be a nobody, just like you and me.  Though I don't consider myself a nobody -- so I've already got that going for me, whereas he did not.  He was one of a million regular fellas who figured out how to market himself.  Kudos for him.  Not sure it worked out all that well, for really he was probably just an alcoholic.  But he wrote novels that our parents have read, that we have read, and our children have read, and that is really something, even if that wasn't the reason he wrote at all.

To be continued ...!

The right to my own opinion

I was just outside, an event that is always met with a flock of chickens hurling towards me in great glee in anticipation of any treats I might have for them.  They crack me up, and lately I have been using this to get them into their pen when I leave in the evening, so I don't have to concern myself with them being out after dark.

They follow me quite willingly, and only a few chickens will realize that they are penned in, while the rest are happy to gorge on the treats, oblivious of their surroundings.  Those few get irate, they begin to pace around, dart into the coop to see if there is an escape there, and so on, but of course they are safer in their pen and I leave them out all day long, so too bad chickens.

As I walked down there with them all behind me, they followed me into the coop, but this time I didn't lock them in.  I was collecting eggs, so they grew bored with the treatless me, and all started running across the yard, busy to get back to whatever they had been doing earlier, and I thought to myself, they really do exhibit happiness when they run in their freedom.  The very act of being free to do whatever they want is a part of them.

Over the events of the past week, I wasn't buying into the fear factor that the media loves to build up, I didn't believe after the initial blasts that there would be anything else, only based on common sense.  If this was a terrorist act, and by that I mean a non-domestic infiltration of crazy-assed extremists blowing themselves up, then they wouldn't have been happy with a few booms that killed three people and wounded a hundred or so other.  I am NOT minimizing this event, let me be clear.  I felt the same horror as everyone else did when it happened, only magnified when I received a phone call from my daughter saying she was within a block of the blast and that she was okay (I had no idea that she was there).  For a few minutes I let all the could haves wash over me, I panicked a bit at the thought that there were more bombs in the vicinity and that she was in serious danger, and then I realized that the greater threat would be the cops and homeland security, so I told her not to get on a train (it would not surprise me in the least if they shut down trains with hundreds of people trapped in them in the tunnels for hours, weeks, days) and to get out of there as fast as she could, again, not because I thought that she was in any more danger from bombs, but from our own protection services, who would think nothing of trapping people in place for hours.  (And this did happen, but she managed to escape it and get out of town, though it took a long time.)  But my gut told me the worst had taken place, and I knew also that they would identify them with all of the cameras that are available in this crazy world we live in today.  My daughter's college had a bomb threat, I heard of other bomb threats ... but once nothing came to pass, it became clear the fear mongers were at work ... let's get the people in a frenzy, scare the shit out of them and then ...

And then close the whole damn city down and not let people out of their houses and flood the streets with cops and soldiers.

Did you see that coming?

And all for a 19-year-old boy?  I mean, the term over-kill doesn't even being to encompass this situation, and while I can certainly get that people were scared at the possibility that they could be shot or blown up, again, King Kong hadn't come to town.  It was a 19-year-old boy.  Yes, not a very good one, not a very smart one (since he didn't leave town after he killed people) but there are so many things that don't ring true for me.  How did this army of cops let this boy get away to begin with?  How did they miss him in the boat, that was "beyond the perimeter," when after they had searched all of the buildings within the perimeter, why didn't they go another block, or two or three or four?  Was it really worth keeping everyone behind closed doors, when in the end it was a person behind a closed door who discovered the kid?

The news doesn't have a clue ... I get that ... and I am sure all of the "facts" that we know today will be different tomorrow, but the one thing that blows my mind was the willingness of what they are saying was close to a million people to just stop their lives and obey the police.  It makes sense, to a certain degree, but a very small one.  We have had horrific acts in this country take place before, and we will again, but this new measure of total military/police occupation is scary as shit.  Even on the news today there were soldiers standing on the streets.  Why?  They need to go now, thank you very much, the child has been taken into custody, there is no further indication of any crazies on the loose with pressure cooker bombs, time to pack it in. 

Following the arrest was a photograph of a skinny kid, handcuffed and with a bloody face, no explosives strapped around him, and while I have heard reports of gunfire in that vicinity, it seems odd that they wouldn't have killed him once gunfire opened up.  Were they shots to create more fear?  To underscore the danger of this person, who spent the day in a boat, probably quite oblivious to the fact that the ENTIRE city and surrounding towns had been shut down due to him?

Listen, I am not defending this kid; I just want questions answered, facts proven, motives explained; and that doesn't seem to be a priority -- especially with our news organizations, who will report for as many consecutive hours as they possibly can saying absolutely nothing.  But who am I to pick on them, because my ideas and opinions are just as plausible as theirs!  We all got them out of the thin air, more or less, it would be possible to string together that tape that PROVES they carried the bombs ... I guess a picture paints a thousand words but these days a picture can be contrived with very little skill.  None of us should forget that.

None of us should forget that.

I repeat, none of us should forget that.  Whatever you are taking as solid proof is not necessarily so.  Here are the facts:

There were two explosions at the Boston Marathon.  Three people were killed, many injured.

In the end, that's all we really know.  The rest of it ... the rest of it played out like a bad movie, and the pictures of empty Boston streets gave me the chills ... because we're supposed to get the chills .... it feels like ... it just all feels wrong.  And while I understand that people stayed in their homes because it was "good for them," I still think our freedom is worth fighting for, no matter how many dangerous 19-year-olds there are running about out there.

And I think the chickens would agree.

What to read?

I read a lot.  A lot, a lot. I always have, and probably always will.  I also read like I do most everything -- with single-mindedness.  Meaning?  I will finish a book that I love as quickly as I can.  If it means staying up all night, then so be it.   I have a tendency to read "thick" books, because they last longer and I hate to finish a good book.  What looks daunting to one reader is a dream come true to me -- the longer the better!

But this voracious appetite for books has cost me.  I can't even begin to fathom how much I have spent on books over the course of my lifetime.  At one point, it was a given that if I went into a bookstore (and I went in frequently) it would cost me $60.  And that sum seemed to hold for years, and that was an armful of books, which was my rule.  I never took a basket because I could only buy what I could carry!  Otherwise, I wouldn't have ever stopped.  I love books that much.

Then of course the e-books came along, and suddenly I didn't have to go to the bookstore anymore.  This is like a junky getting an instant fix without ever leaving the confines of their lairs (or where ever they are appeasing their addictions) and well, that sum of $60 went through the roof.  There were suddenly NO limitations on the number of books I could purchase, and it is oh so easy, just push a button, and I did.  I pushed and I pushed and I pushed.  A credit card statement with a long line of AMAZON purchases ... I was out of control.

And I was also disgusted that publishers were charging the same for digital editions of books as they were for hard copies.  This is absolutely, over-the-top unreasonable, and well, a perfect thing for them to do because it made building a dam around this addiction much easier.  So for a long time (maybe a year?) I have been primarily reading garbage.  By that, I mean all the free crap that you can get, and while you will come across a gem or two, for the most part it is pap.  It fed me, it appeased my need, but it left me feeling empty.  A bad book, even a semi-bad book, is a disappointment, but to keep feeding myself the same stuff?   It had to stop.  I was gorging on junk food books, and it was starting to affect my complexion (with scowls!)

So I recently began reading Zelda, a novel about Zelda Fitzgerald -- http://www.amazon.com/Novel-Fitzgerald-Therese-Anne-Fowler/dp/1250028655/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366039344&sr=1-1&keywords=zelda -- and became irritated because it is faction -- not a true biography, but a story based on fact.  That is a bit annoying too, and got me all mad, so when in the book when I read that Scott Fitzgerald had his first book published,  This Side of Paradise, http://www.amazon.com/This-Paradise-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486289990/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366039473&sr=1-3&keywords=f+scott+fitzgerald -- I thought I would read that.  And it was only .99 cents!

Honestly, I am not sure how stringing together a bunch of thoughts and chapters turns into a novel, but it's not very good.  But because I am weird, I have decided that I am going to read all of his novels (there are not as many novels as you would think), while simultaneously reading Zelda, and creating this whole new experience for myself!  Yeah, straight booking is no longer doing it for me ... I am looking for hard stuff!  I have read them all, but years ago when the purpose of reading them was to get through them and remember enough to pass tests.  That's no way to read a book, and I was hoping for a more satisfactory experience....but thus far I am reading the book to get through it!  Geesh.

Perhaps I am hoping that the fact he was considered one of the top American novelists of his time will rub off on me?  I am not sure, but I find it an intriguing endeavor (perhaps fueled by the fact I could download his complete works for ninety nine CENTS.  Which basically means I learned nothing about cheap books!)

It must be nice to just pick up a book, read it, and move on.  Yeah, I appear to have all of these emotions tied into the deal ... fury over pricing, disbelief at content, inability to NOT finish a book which then fuels frustration ... it's quite the journey.

But when you are immersed in a great book ... oh .... oh.....oh......OH!  (I'll have what she's having)

Confessions of a second-time-around chick mom

They arrived in their small box, peeping away, and I was already in a different place than I had been a year ago, when I had anticipated the arrival of my first-ever 15 baby chicks with much excitement.  This time, instead of having their brooder prepared and set up, and all of the accoutrements that they would need in place, I had done nothing!  I knew, at the back of my mind that they were coming the first week of April, but it had never actually registered that it WAS the first week of April until I received the email that they were on their way.

Oh shit.  I tracked them and realized that they very well could arrive THAT day, and I had done nothing in preparation.  I ran around looking for a box to put them in, because of course I did not neatly stow away all chick-shit in an easy and convenient place.  The feeders were mired deep in frozen mud in the run because you know, I should have picked them up months earlier, but never got around to it, then snow buried them ... there was always time.  So there I was kicking at them to loosen them from their deep earth home, wondering how I was so irresponsible!  Then I went to every place, high and low in this rather large house and garage and cellars, looking for the dog cages.  Where did they go?  Did Peter get rid of them?  I jumped into the car to go to Concord to get food, because the food that I had stored away in the green house had been chomped by mice over the winter.  Bag was empty.  I mean, really?

Several hours later I had a temporary set-up in place, as the dog cages were still hiding and Peter said he wasn't sure where they were, and the call came shortly thereafter that they were on their way.  This time the post office delivered them to my door, how nice!  I opened the box and quickly saw one was not in a good way, and while I attempted to show the more livelier ones how to drink water, I picked up the limp form and realized that its eyes weren't open.  I put them in their small box under a heat lamp and ran to the computer to see what to do.  The information I was reading didn't look promising, and within several hours the little thing went through death throes, literally, started rolling around and gasping, and then it died.  Well, that was pleasant, I thought to myself, as I scooped it out of the box and wondered what the heck to do with it.

I didn't want to handle the surviving four chicks much, as who knew if they were all going to die as well, and so I just listened to them peeping loudly for hours and asked myself more than once WHAT WAS I THINKING?!!!

Okay, here is what I was thinking.  Last year I did loads and tons of research on chickens.  I am a bit of a chicken expert at this point, like it or not, and the best way to keep a flock laying is to constantly add to it every year.  I had ordered the five new chicks in the winter, because I wanted the easter eggers, which are wildly popular and sell out immediately because they have a wonderful temperament and they lay green and blue eggs.  Who wouldn't want such variety in their flock!  But after I put in the order, sometime in December, I pretty much forgot about them as I had crucial matters such as keeping the water from freezing in the coop for the existing flock.  What I failed to do is come to the realization that you can't take a bunch of baby chickens and throw them in with an existing adult flock.  It seems so obvious, and yet, no, I did not take that into consideration when ordering them.  Thank heavens they aren't elephants!  And having four baby chicks versus 16 is like night and day, and I will always keep new additions to a minimum because it is so much easier.

But I just don't have the time for them, poor second child chicks!  I was hell bent on socializing my first flock, and I was wildly successful.  When I go outside they come running for me with utter joy!  MOM!  But this morning I tried to "play" with one of them, and the bunch scurried to the back of the cage and clearly felt in danger.  No MOM! here, but danger danger Will Robinson.  I grasped one gently and attempted to pet her, but she wanted OUT and was screeching and struggling in my hold.  Geesh.  I put her back and closed the cage door and told them fine, you know what?  I don't care if you are socialized.  There is no way I was handling 16 chicks on a daily basis, and they turned out all right, and I walked away.  To the computer, to tell on them!

 

If I am a failure as a second-time-around chicken mother, then so be it!  The little problem I created by ordering chicks without a plan?  We need ANOTHER COOP!  There is no way these little guys will be the same size as the adult chickens for months!  And there is no way they are staying in the house for months, because they are already starting to smell.  (Another thing I forgot ... farm animals in your dining room is a temporary measure!)  They have already begun flying, with their teeny little wings, and another time when I opened up the door to change their water, one saw the opening and flew right at my face.  Yikes.  It will be interesting to see whether these new guys will come running to me, instead of cowering in the corner ... but the truth of the matter is, I don't care and will not take it personally, for they are, after all, BIRDS!

Here chicky chicky!!!!!  

The moon

I have always been drawn to the moon .. and have literally felt its pull when it rises up out of the sky, so close you feel that you could reach out and touch it.  Most nights I fall into bed and sleep until morning.  But every once in a while I will go into my bedroom and it will be so light that I don't have to feel my way around in the darkness.  And then I think, uh oh, getting close to a full moon, I hope that I sleep.

I don't know what it is about the full moon and sleeping, but it greatly affects me, but this months' moon has been crazy!  For the past three nights it has been shining into my room.  I woke up at 3:00 a.m. with the moon in my face, literally.  I could feel it, hanging out there, chuckling to itself that it had managed to work its way through the sky directly in front of the doors and on me.  There was no more sleep that night.  Damn moon.  And even worse, I could see that it wasn't completely full.  It was certainly as bright as a full moon, but not full nonetheless.

Last night driving home, it appeared below the trees and I gasped in wonder.  So low, so bright, so big and round, I was sure it was full.  I stopped and took a few pictures, full well knowing that my phone/camera wouldn't capture its wonder, but needing to do it all the same.

Today I realized that this round and amazingly bright orb WAS STILL NOT FULL.  Oye.  I woke up around 3:00 a.m. once again and groaned.  But at least, I told myself, it would start waning and I'd go back to sleeping.  Then I checked the calendar and realized that bright ball was going to get brighter tonight!  Moon woes, I tell ya!

The cool thing about having four seasons is that entering each one has its own initiation.  When going from summer to fall, that harvest moon hangs in the sky in all of its orange splendor, and like the leaves on the trees turning color, I lament the fact that we are headed toward winter.  The grayness, the cold, the endless dark nights and shortened days ... the harvest moon is never welcome, despite its majesty.  Because I know what it is telling me, and I don't want to hear the whisper of winter in my ear.  When the season changes from fall to winter, I hardly notice, because the moon doesn't reach out to me.  Perhaps it knows that I get it ... winter is here, and it's time for us all to settle down for a long winter's nap.  But this moon, this moon in Libra (which essentially means nothing to me, but that is what it is called) is slapping me in the face, night after night.  Wake up, Lisa!  WAKE UP, LISA.  It is literally waking me up, and by googling this moon, I found this:

***

Full Moon in Libra March 27, 2013

The full Moon on March 27th will fall in the sign of Libra. It is the sign that rules relationships, partnerships, marriage, collaboration with others, doctors, therapists, employee and employer's. The next couple weeks should bring about a great sense of compromise and harmony in relationships, partnerships and even working alongside others. You would think the way others think  for you to be open to compromise especially if there are any issues or concerns that need to be dealt with and worked out. If you're having any problems in a marriage or relationship this would be a great time to work out the issues and problems and come to a compromise a resolution. It also works great if you are having any problems with a friend or family member. You will feel a greater sense of peace and harmony and equality. You will be very much open to getting things out in the open and be willing to get along with others. Venus, Uranus and Mars all oppose the full moon in this can be a time of setting changes, beginnings and endings. It could bring schedule changes or disruptions. There may be some issues or problems to resolve and to work out especially in relation to other people. Jupiter supports the full moon so opportunities may come knocking on your door. You may gain through others or collaborate or work with others to further your career, education, finances or personal relationships. Pluto squares the full moon in this can bring a time of power struggles and control issues. You may want to have it your way and no other way. You could also be battling it out with a female and may struggled through some power issues.


The full Moon will affect everyone that was born around the 23rd through the 31st of in a month from any Sun sign. I feel that the Sun signs that will be affected by this full Moon on a personal level would be Aries, Libra, Sagittarius and Geminis. These Sun signs may be affected through personal relationships and friendships. Everyone will feel the effects of this full moon so no one will be left out.
Cynthia  http://www.keen.com/CommunityServer/UserBlogPosts/the_psychic_one/Full-Moon-in-Libra-March-27--2013/564024.aspx

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I have a 29th birthday and I am a Gemini.  I don't actually have any background in astrology, but the fact of the matter is, this moon is affecting me!  Big time.  My creative juices are bubbling, my ideas are all over the place, I have that can't quite fit in my skin feeling, where I just feel as though I might burst for no other reason than I can't contain myself.  It's not a bad way to feel, but it is very real.  And then, I feel this way on top of no sleep!  Quite a combination, let me tell you...the excitement of spring, the moon paving the way, it's all about growth, and that energy is literally in the air.

Next is the change of seasons period ... oh, I can't wait.  I am sure it will be epic!

 

The past is always there

Been a long, long time.  For months now I have had ideas of things to write swirling in my head, but since before Christmas it has been one thing or another that has disrupted my writing life -- be it the holidays, kids home on break, kids home on weekends to ski, kids ... they've always been so good at getting in the way (in a good way, of course!) Then we had trying to get my parent's condo ready, in the form of sorting through piles, then all of a sudden that was halted when there was a fire in their building, and then six weeks later all of those piles were transferred to their new home and required going through once again!  It's been an odd winter, when for the past four I was always somewhere down south with them, but this year it has been about getting them set up in their new digs.  Oh well.  Keeps life interesting I suppose.

But the biggest loser in this has been my writing, and oh how I have missed it.  Yesterday the kids and I were over at my parent's house and my father was showing us some old pictures.  My grandfather was an excellent archivist, and made sure the majority of pictures that he had were labeled.  For example, there is a picture of "Lisa Madden's great, great grandmother" that hangs in my living room.  Years ago, when Peter and I were cleaning out my grandfather's house to be sold, we came across two pictures in the attic that were in decent shape.  Peter asked me who they were, but of course I had no idea.  He carried them downstairs, and that was when we saw what my grandfather had written on the back of them.  How cool is that?  I still have yet to find out what her name is, though her daughter was Florence, who was my grandfather's mother, and she is shown in this fabulous picture, on the left, then her mother (Lisa Madden's great, great grandmother) is in the middle, but the picture is labeled "grammy!"  Oh, so close and yet so far to obtaining the woman's name!  On the right is Florence's sister, Antoinette, which is also labeled on the picture as never having been married.  Oh, the story a simple (and labeled) photograph can show.

The house is in Antrim, and I have countless memories of the house and grounds as my grandfather lived there the majority of his life.  Apparently Lisa Madden's great, great grandfather loved to build birdhouses, and I can remember much smaller versions in the back field when I was younger.  Or maybe it was my grandfather's father Tom who liked to build bird houses?  I get confused, and I would like to thank you, Grandpa, for labeling these photos, and I am sure you are seeing the fruits of your labor being appreciated.

This one is fun because of the story on the back: "Tom Madden (my father's grandfather) and my father, went in the ice business. Bought ice in Peterboro and delivered in Antrim during WW2.  Often the truck sat here with ice melting while he (my father) played baseball across the road and made the family furious."

Love it!

In this final photo, my great-grandmother Florence is at the top.  The photo is labeled "Ma at the top," and that is it.  So we can only use our imaginations as to why there were dressed so!

I have always felt a strong kinship to my Madden side, and this picture hangs in my dining room, and when I look at her (oh how I wish I knew her name!) I think we have similar features.

 

I apologize for the poor picture (with all of the reflections) but I took it off the wall and tried to picture it without light and it was too dark.  As you can see, as written on the back, she is ...

And all of the above is why it is so important to label photographs (though in this day and age they are put into a folder with the person's name on them I suppose).

One last aside, another picture that I looked at said that Florence (my father's grandmother) died at the age of 55.  My father doesn't remember how, and I was struck at how young that was.  And what about her mother?  Are there pictures of her grown old?  Makes me want to look through even more pictures!