I’m bringing out the bleach and cleaning up these irritants…

1. Texting while doing anything else in public. Driving, walking, shopping, coaching a football game, partying, and my personal favorite – at a concert, about the…yes, concert.
2. Talking with the phone in your hand while driving.
3. “Please.” Gone.
4. “Thank you.” Hanging out in the dark, nether regions with “Please.”
5. General lack of courtesy for fellow human beings, especially in parking lots and on streets.
6. Retail clerks not counting back change.
7. People whose sole source of news is Yahoo!
8. Expressions of Entitlement.
9. Seriousness. All. The. Time.
10. The death of the Turn Signal.

Here’s to letting go of the irritants, doing my best to not be irritating myself, and moving on. Here’s to cleaning out my house, inside and out, and a fresh new start.

What will I fill my house with now? I propose the following:

1. More time with the people I love.
2. Cooking at home with said people.
3. Nature. Lots of it.
4. Laughter. Lots of it.
5. Hugging my husband.
6. Hugging my cats.
7. Being in the world, not plugged into it.
8. Sunrises and sunsets.
9. Chocolate.
10. Sense of exploration and freedom.

For all my friends, loves, family, and co-workers in life – I wish you the best of all things in the coming year. Every year we feel that itch of potentiality, that whiff of Spring-to-come, of life dormant and yet somehow vibrant. Seize your moment, hold your will, employ your wisdom, and bring your beauty to the world in whatever shape it may take. You and I can do this. I thank all of you for being in my life and living the dream of human with me.

-TDD

Each December I am reminded to look backward, for a little while. I struggle with that. Yet, it’s necessary to understand how we got to where we are, and where we are going next. Looking back at the path well-worn tells us that we have come far and provides that small chuck of satisfaction to fuel the oncoming work of the next year. Some might even call it “hope.” For me, I think I’ll call it strength. The reminder that I can accomplish something, have accomplished something, and that life is something more than a series of days, tasks, strung together like popcorn strings. It’s seeing the forest AND the trees.

I flew back from Kansas yesterday; Thirty-six thousand feet above snow-covered wonderfulness and open plains. It was a beautiful flight, with fluffy clouds dotting the horizon, cirrus clouds above my head. It puts one in perspective, being that small, that high, with a world to view. I broke out pen and paper and began writing down all the things to look at in the next year. Once started, the flood of longing to create – the oldest of human motivations – could not be stopped. Some was mundane, some not so. I think of the fifty-two weeks in a year, as many weekends, knowing that some are already booked through the year – I wonder – where does the time go? How do we sift out what is important to us and not?

I hear often about people who say “I don’t have the time for that.” What they are really saying is that “I won’t make the time for that because it’s not as important as this, over here.” There is nothing wrong with that – in fact, I rather wish people would say the latter rather than the former. It’s a more accurate picture of their world and it implies a sense of self-understanding that I can respect. Someone who has weighed their options and chosen one over another is mature enough to say “I choose this” and stand by it. It show courage to stand up for what you choose. It shows integrity. Why does it take courage? Because it involves sacrifice and making a statement to people who you think might judge you.

It takes sacrifice because we may want all the prizes but we aren’t going to get them. Selecting your path means that you focus on that path, not on all the others you could have chosen. Belonging to a volunteer organization, I hear all the time from people who are disappointed that they didn’t get this prize task or that special job. Yet, those same people aren’t able to be there when needed most – when those special jobs would require the most of them. How can they want to get the prize without being there to do the job? It’s like wanting to make more money at your job without being able to do the work. The key that’s missing is that they don’t realize that their choices are okay – they can choose not to be there. They can choose the vacation over that volunteer work – no one will give them any grief about it. But they can’t have their cake and eat it, too. Discrimination is the art of choosing what we want to do, doing it, and accepting the rewards (and consequences) of doing that. For me, discrimination with my time is extremely important.

Dealing with the judgment can be even more difficult. We all carry the baggage of our youth – it’s just that some have learned to work through the process faster than others. Some have never worked through it at all. I still hear in my head about how I needed to have this job or that job because I needed to make money to be successful. Making money was success. An “A” is success – anything less than a lot of money or an “A” is not success. It is a funny thing, learning to overcome baggage. You never quite do it but you learn to recognize it and process it a lot faster. Yet, there are some things which judgment finds me. Discrimination tests your ability to deal with judgment. The first step is courage to choose – the next is living with all the rest.

So, choosing the year’s path is a weighty business for me. I go inward quite a bit and wonder what I have the strength to accomplish, to do, to enjoy. I remind myself often that it’s not the destination – it’s the journey. It’s the moments of enjoying the process, of learning the path’s windings. I am reminded of Nature and its lessons, and remembering that as I grow older, so do my own choices. I hope. I hope that I have the courage of standing up for my choices, for defending what is important to me – without the voices of my past whispering in my mind, causing my resolve to waver, harming my own self-worth. I hope that I learn from experience, value my own knowledge and intelligence, and select those things which help me become an even better person.

I love the mirror of Winter and the lessons that hibernation provides. I love the cold slowness of thought, the rustle of life in my heart, and the promise of a new year. Maybe this year, writing will be more important to me, and when I write, I do it here, and track the footprints of the next year from beginning to end. Not, like the impatient reader, merely just jump to the end. I must remember… the Journey.

-TDD

Each day is composed of the moments like these, moments that string together like popcorn garlands. Each small kernel a host for something similar to that which we all share, yet it pops with delicious differences, coated in some facet of our own making. Our own spice. A little sugar, perhaps. We wash it down with the sleep between, soft moments of space for thinking, for dreaming. Today the sun is full on, blinking brightly in a blue sky, while fog teases the edges of light. Cool and crisp, it’s a Sunday in Autumn in San Francisco – a day for which my heart beats love and joy.

Construction work continues in the other room; woodworking the walls into some semblance of “home.” It’s punctuated by the sounds of radio and laughter at some song or saying. To say that Sunday is lazy is not to be in my house. Dishes done, clean and put away, laundry complete, cat content. Work has continued though the time when rest reigns. The time for completing that which matters seems to only be the weekend. Do we all cherish the weekend so much because we feel it’s the only time we really accomplish?

I tend to explore life’s journeys, not the results of the specie that I receive in exchange for my time, my knowledge. I’m rarely concerned with the past, sometimes worried about the future, and usually lost in the moment – for good or bad. Every once in a while, I have that flash of insight that it’s all just a silly game. None of this really matters, not in the end. So why not play? Why not live in color and error and mystery? Why not live in joy or sadness or love? Even hate is worthwhile if it teaches you something, if it teaches you to move beyond. Having that moment to just cut loose, play like a child with the abandon of a free mind. Perhaps it is in those moments that we find out who we really are.

I am what I am, as are we all. Something so simple seems so hard for all to accept. If we could be different, we would be. Brian Greene, in a recent interview, said (and I’m paraphrasing, so forgive me), that matter is made of particles that have a constant state. They are what they are, and they cannot be other than they are, at least in this universe. They have consistent and constant properties and act in consistent ways. They have a range of parameters and ways of being – they do not extend beyond those parameters, whether we can predict it or not. We don’t have ways to measure it all, not scientifically – not yet.

We think that because we have “choice,” that we are all living with freewill. We make decisions based on our own input. We control our own reactions. But do we? If we, humans and all other life in the universe, are made up of those same particles, then we cannot be other than what we are. We have a range of predictable behaviors, based on our own configuration. Psychology – isn’t that just the science of predicting what the human mind might do? How it reacts? It’s an attempt to quantify the parameters of how the brain, made in a certain configuration, will act. But, we cannot be other than what we are. We can understand and perhaps test the limits of our own “parameters” but sometimes, we cannot. We are what we are. My body is not built for ice skating or gymnastics. Through no fault of my own, I am limited by the particles which make up my being.

They say that acceptance is the first step. Laughter coats my throat.

It’s Sunday. In San Francisco. The sun is lightly dancing across the damp sidewalks. The radio laughs. I write. It’s my life and a journey. Pain, pleasure, and all – I couldn’t be happier.

–TDD

The aged brow, the fading eyelashes (there is a product for that…) and the waning virility, one learns to be afraid. Of? Everything. Listen to the media for the signs. As if life wasn’t difficult enough, with the raging Cadillac mastodons, we have to worry about age, gun control, terrorists, our water, our food, and even our schools. Beware of public transport and public toilets. The weary and quite extinct mastodon is replaced by mutated staph and Twinkie cakes. An immediate terror for a festering one. You may never look at a Twinkie the same way again.

It was that awesome feeling of impending doom that was so unshakeable. When they tell you as a teenager that you feel immortal, you never really believe it. You think that they are crazy, or how could they feel any different from you do now. Little do they know that now, I am them, with that same sort of odd feeling that I am going to die someday. Instead of a saber-tooth tiger, it could just be the raging idiocy of some Fiat driver, hell-bent on making his way to the exit before me. If you think about it, sometimes it’s extremely hard to stay alive.

Which leads me to think about the people who have a life far more difficult than my own. I am blessed with intelligence, a modicum of wisdom, good skin, a good job with people who have integrity, friends that I adore, a fabulous husband, an actual “profession.” In short, I have a great deal for which I am thankful. It makes it all the more difficult to look beyond my own security to the people who struggle day-to-day, with work, car, food, spouses, family. It’s easy to say that one makes it or loses it of their own choosing. What is fate anyway? Still, being conscious, I hope that I pay attention to the benefit of the riches in my life.

And yet, I do think of what happens if I lose it all. Perhaps that is the gift of age – the ability to see beyond oneself into the greater beyond. The world does not circle around me any longer – that it ever did was of my own design. No, it’s the moment when I realize that it could all be gone – in a single heartbeat, the flash of a thunderbolt, or yes, the side-swipe of a raging Cadillac Escalade, bearing down in my rear view mirror. Life is short. Too short when you’re older, and far too long when you are young. In this moment, I hope to savor it all. Time to grab a spear and guard against the mastodons. And tar pits. And wrinkles. To battle!

-TDD

Facebook, scion of Memory, has created a whole new high school perspective for me. Over the course of years, I’ve always wondered what happened to all those people from high school and poof! There’s an application that allows you a view into their very NOW lives. The one or two people from school that I regularly talk with were amongst my first “friends” on FB. Then, the wondrous idea hit me – what about all those people who I spent years beside in school rooms – formidable, painful adolescent years? What about high school – that quintessential experience of moving from youth to adulthood with all the grace of a wildebeest in heat? Oh yes! Let’s friend THEM!

I thought feverishly of all the people’s names who came to me easily – the crushes, the swim team, the Honors classes, the geeks (before computers), and my confidants. What happened to them all? Somehow, like solving the great mystery of life, I had to know.

I started with a few “sure shots” – the people from my elementary school at progressed with me through high school. Scott, Ted, Dean, Emil, James. I always got along better with the boys than the girls. I was a tomboy though and through and never found time for makeup and shoes. Well, things do change…but then, it was about sports and writing and science fiction books. To my surprise, I found these guys easily and even friended them. How odd it was to see how they had changed, and not changed at the same time. They are the fully mature versions of the little boys I knew so long ago. Over the course of months, we evolved a weird FB existence where we might send things to each other but never speak about school outright, and certainly not about reliving the old days. That was okay with me – as I’ve said, I never wanted to go back.

A few girls, the close friends, were already on Facebook. They were a no-brainer. They are still part of, and even more significant, never left my life after school. The Roma’s and the Bev’s of the world – they rule. Sista!

But…oddly enough, none of the mass of girls friended me. Ever. Annette, Janeen, Linda, Colleen, Maureen, Gina – not a one. It didn’t surprise me. I was always the odd one out – non conformist in the oddest of ways – I didn’t really care about what they cared about. I felt like an odd mixture of naive and mental, rolled into the girl that was slightly fat and laughed too loud. I fit in everywhere and nowhere. I never went to a football game in high school, never dated a jock, and liked to write. I was a young Jane Austin (if I can be that presumptuous) in the 20th century. But still, I wondered what happened to them. So, I started stalking.

I’m not talking the creepy dude in a car stalking… No, I’m talking about Facebook stalking. It’s where you look at your friends page and then look at their friends. You start clicking on the people you know and see what they have chosen to share with the world at large. Photos are the easiest things because many friends share their photos with each other, especially if it includes them. You click on where they’ve been, what concerts they’ve seen, books they’ve read, and their likes. A picture begins to develop of then – mingled with what you knew, you form an idea of what it would be like in their presence now.

My naivete has faded more than just a little since high school and realize that Facebook is simply the Wikipedia of social world – lives posted there, including mine, are only what we wish the world to see. They are not the true pieces of the puzzle that make up the complex beings behind the masks. Or, perhaps in some cases, not so complex. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The facade of high school has, in some cases, simply migrated to the digital world.

After a recent evening of social surfing, I had a far greater insight into my own psyche than I cared to have at that moment. I realized at when I looked at most of the pictures of these people from high school, I was sad. I found that I didn’t like how it made me feel…the loneliness of being that “freak” and the loathing of being the “cow.” It reminded me of the self-deprication I succumbed to in order to survive and be “funny.” It reminded me of…well, being seventeen again, and all the pain and desperation that all seventeen year olds feel, whether it shows in the facade or not.

I never want to be seventeen again. God no! I think I realize it more than ever. The people surrounding me, in the real world, are the fruit of my life’s true work – my discovering and loving the real me. Their presence transcends any desire for less wrinkles or youthful innocence. But I know, and remember, that who I am now needed the emotional poverty of that youth to be who I am today. So, in some odd way, I have to thank them for their, well, their “seventeen-year-oldness” that remains. It reminds me that the road from there to here is long, difficult, fraught with strangeness, and one which not many are fearless enough to take.

Every once in a while, I wonder if they think of me, too. I wonder about the odd, weird impression that I might have left on their psyche, on their shadowy memories. That no one from school has ever written to me speaks volumes.

I am guessing we don’t really miss each other all that much.

Thirty years have passed since cap and gown. At least two lifetimes ago for me. I am excited to see where the next thirty years will take me. And I promise you, it won’t be spent stalking youth. It will be spent embracing life and the joyousness of age and wisdom, sprinkled with the laughter of knowing my true self.

-TDD

-TDD

Pain in the butt.

Uppity.

I’ve always been the leading edge of the storm, no matter what place, no matter what time. The wind blows, the skies threaten, and then the clouds open up and dump. Seems I have that effect on people. Or places. Or situations. I’ve learned to live with the fact that I can’t keep my mouth shut – it’s a failure of honesty and character. I work toward balance, really I do ; but, I think where truth goes, so goes a modicum of chaos – most humans aren’t wired for brutal truth. Well, most Americans. We would rather cling to our rigid, self-fulfilling facades rather than know what it’s really like when someone views us.

Yet.

Even the most enlightened creatures have a veil between themselves and the truth. My version of events is only that – my version – and it isn’t the truth, either. I think given enough “truths” we may actually find some picture that is close to reality. Hubris haunts our every action. Cloaks our every decision. A thoughtful woman may falter at the the thought that nothing is true. I do. I marvel at the fact that I can only experience the world through my own senses and I can approximate no where near the truth. Hubris is in the forgetting.

Honesty is in the silence. And memory of fallibility.

Sometimes there are quiet storms. They never find their way to my shores, though. I am accustomed to ripping off Band-Aids and silence. Sometimes, it is just tiring. Sometimes, there is fire. Today there are only more clouds. As someone of good heart once said, “can we never catch a break?”

Another week of work awaits, it’s amazing what you get paid to do and what your real Work becomes. In one, there usually lies the other. Time to grab some more adhesive and yank.

-TDD

However inane the article, it got me thinking about the 40-something woman, myself included, and what were the 10 things we should have. At this point in my life, I look around and ask myself – what should that be?

10. A good hair cutter and/or hairdresser. By this time, I’ve figured out what I like in the people who take care of me – an attitude that is like mine. The main thing my hairdresser should have is the goal of helping me look good. That’s why I keep going back.

9. A method to their closet. I know what I like in clothes now, although I’m willing to have a “fad” section. But in the end, if I can’t find it, I’ve lost it. So, I actually separate my clothes by color and type, so I can find them. No, I haven’t alphabetized them. That’s next.

8. A good ear for what your body is saying. There comes some point, about now, where you realize that you are not all that. And you’re not 20 any longer. But you’re not dead yet, either. Movement is good. Healthy food is good. Laughter and sleep – way good. Push a little sometimes, back off others. We know when too far is, well, too far. And being women of body intelligence, we listen.

7. An amazing chiropractor and an equally amazing massage therapist. Remember that whole body thing? Well these guys are there for when we forget to listen.

6. A favorite chocolate. Lindt 85% Chocolate. Enough said.

5. A few good recipes. Whether you’re a light cook or a die-hard, there’s something we should all know how to pull out of the drawer, once in a while, and make off the top of our head, whether it’s S’mores or Beef Wellington.

4. Our own style. By this time, we’ve figured out our likes, dislikes, and never like it again things – whether it’s sports, clothing, food, makeup, hobby, etc. We know what drives the passion, fuels the fire, and gets us creative, the true reason for being. What do we create? It doesn’t matter, as long as it has the stamp of “us” on it.

3. A passion. Not only do we have a sense of style but we’ve discovered the source – our passion, a reason for getting up in the morning and greeting the day. Writing, children, painting, music, partner, garden, school – whatever it is, every woman needs her passion.

2. Perspective. Not only do we know that we are pretty powerful, we also know our limitations. We should have the ability to step back and get the entire picture, the whole enchilada. We have been there and in many case, done that. We can speak from experience. All experience? Hell no! That’s perspective, too.

1. And yes, the number one thing every woman my age should have is: A sense of humor. Come on! If we can’t laugh at ourselves now, it’s just going to get really ugly later. Life is not to be endured but enjoyed. We’re going to sag, bag, and lag. We’re going to get gray, well, most of us will. We’re going to want to take naps. Yes, we will age. We will require moisturizer. Let’s laugh along the way. We never know how long we’re going to get so let’s just enjoy what we have right now.

And look, there’s not a purse amongst the things I need. Take that, Michael Kors!

-TDD

I do not like to cry and yet, there are moments of clarity where it seems so necessary. So rain-like. The quality of washing a city’s worth of grime from my thoughts and heart. My eyes become clear, lines and emotions become crisp. The depth of feeling swims in leaps and bounds only for a moment, then is gone. An eddy that held my fingers and thoughts, fleeting tidal wash.

Life continues. The sun slowly rises in its late-Winter ennui, stabbing at the morning with faint will. The wind is cool and stark, the city more so. It feels so, inside me. The struggle with human nature – the loneliness we seek to evade – haunts the backs of all our minds. Primate behavior drives it from the day-to-day but we all realize that it is there, lurking. We are singularly alone in our thoughts. All of them, dark and light, take only the inward path – like the oft-walked dirt short cut, where vegetation has pulled back and refuses to grow, like the hard cracked earth that allows nothing in, nothing out. We let our thoughts run those paths over and over until they become chariot ruts in the road of our lives. Time creates the lock: it’s hard to break out of the ruts without… without…

Direction. Will. Power. A destination. Vision.

What I thought would be my struggle is not. What I thought would be my nemesis is merely a shadow on a hazy morning, begging me to look at it while my real destruction lies elsewhere. It is not how I thought it would be, this life. Perhaps I’ve tricked myself before. Who hasn’t?

Now I wonder. Recently asked, “how have you chosen your course in life?” Answer, deciding upon the choices offered to me at the time. Perhaps its time to step up once more and make my own decisions, without the obvious question in front of me. I have so rarely done that. I’ve followed the rut until there was a fork in the road then made my decision then. Perhaps it’s time to look out beyond the road, beyond the sheets of dark clouds and rain.

I’m looking for a light in the darkness, a path I can follow. I’m looking for the right light broadcast from some dizzying place that reminds me of my true self. Is the lesson that I am the light, that the path lies of my own choosing, my own thoughts. Creation in the palm of my hand, in the slant of my thought, in the weave of my own imagination. What can my life be if not my own perfect creation? It’s time to let go of all the fetters, of all the illusions of safe. It’s time to close my eyes and imagine more than a road, more that the well-worn ruts of others. It’s time to dream. What world can my mind grow?

–TDD

-TDD