I know the name of the woman of the house. I don’t remember the names of the man or the children. They were all very nice neighbors..down-the-block neighbors.

The real friends were the kitties. Estella, a tiny calico  who fearlessly killed birds out of trees. Pip, whom we called Orange cat because he was. Merlin, a gray kitty who succumbed to coyotes. RIP Merlin. And the replacement for Merlin–Biscuit. We saw the muted orange shorthair Biscuit go from gangly youth to mature adult. They grow up so fast!

This set of three cats lived outside, and they were very friendly. They came up to be admired and petted, even to a limited extent with the dog.

They have been part of Veronica’s life, and have often been used to manipulate her to take a walk. There are many good reasons to take a walk. The dog requires it, we will all sleep better because of it, etc. She might refuse, but we would remind her that there were kitties to see, and she would soften. So many pictures of the baby and now kid Veronica petting these friendly cats.

Our neighbors moved.

No more cats.

I am broken hearted.

Cats don’t write letters. And even if they could, it wouldn’t be the same.

Thank you, kitties, for enriching my life with your soft fur and friendliness.

I’ve wanted acceptance and therefore peace

I have attained peace without the acceptance.

some acceptance came. And more peace came than acceptance.

I don’t quite know how to function in peace.

It’s  been a while

I’d really like everyone to love me all of the time. Is that too much to ask?

It’s not working out that way. Last week I had a whole bunch of criticism–even repeated gossip–thrust at me. It threw me into a storm of upset.

I called all my friends to find someone to tell me I was still okay. One friend said, “You are really identifying with this.”

Bingo. My identity was at stake. I had taken this criticism–It wasn’t even fair, by the way! –and internalized it as the truth.

I know that mistakes get made. I even know I make them sometimes.

Mistakes are learning opportunities. I know that. I know that. Maybe if I say it a third time I can believe it.

Why do I have to go through this hurricane of emotions when I find out someone disapproves of something I did?

Mistakes, made in the company of friends, are no big deal.

Not everyone is my friend. Some people are kind of mean.

I’m not good with mean. I turn into an armadillo, curling up into a protective ball of armor. I shrink and fester around the injury. My instinct is to run away from the person who hurt me and only be around friends.

You ever hear of fight or flight? I do not like to fight. Fly, armadillo, fly!

There’s another kind of instinct, one felt by females. Tend and befriend. We’ve developed a way of coping that helps with our biological childbearing. We go around and make sure everyone is okay and everyone is our friend so that we will have a group of people to help. The little ones as well as us are going to need a posse.

It is instinct; it is biology to want everyone to like me. It is natural.

And it is not going to happen all of the time. Especially not in the kind of life I want to lead.

I want to lead a life of creativity and discovery. I want to change the status quo. More than that, it is part of who I am to change the status quo.

And here we have it. I want to change what many people work hard to protect. Those people are not going to like what I am doing, or who I am for that matter.

This badly conflicts with my desire to have everyone love me all the time.

What on earth can I do about that?

I wish I could not let it bother me. I wish I could find a way to approve of myself and let that be enough.

Somehow, someway, I will find out how to lower the value of other people’s opinions and inflate my own assessment of myself. I know what I do, and I know when I’ve done it wrong and been shameful. I also know when I have done it right.

I really need my approval, and my approval of myself has been dependent on others. I’ll have to stop that.

When I was younger I had a friend confess to me that he had taken the old song “Kisses sweeter than wine” literally, and thought people had flavors to them. That when people kissed there was a taste that was sweet, and that people were all different varieties.

He was quite disappointed to discover it was not at all like that.

Life does that a lot. We think that some desired thing…a trip, a promotion a life-long love…will be this one way. And we don’t know at all what we are thinking of.

Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s spends her life wanting a certain thing. It’s captured perfectly when she lets her cat go. She’d always told herself that she and the cat meant nothing to each other, they just happened to be together. Then she kicks the cat out because she has to get out of town, and realizes that she really DID have a connection. Only after she lost it was it clear to her.

The reverse is true all the time. I spend time protecting and caring for things that really are not at all what I imagine them to be.  All these things that I attributed value to? Not. In fact, the opposite of value sometimes.

Did they fill a need once, and then that need got filled from a different direction, but I still have the first vestigial thing?

Did I think this thing had potential, and envision something? Over time, that potential was not realized and still is this thing.

Things, habits, goals, relationships and beliefs can outlive their usefulness.

The New Year, clean slate and I want to reassess. I think shedding feels right.

The thing is I wouldn’t want to spend a bunch of time thinking about the nature of the outgrown stuff. I want to look at new things, think of an ideal and a possibility that will delight.

Some things are light, to begin each day convinced of its promise.

Other things are harder, like learning a new habit of accepting that annoying co-worker instead of being (JUSTIFIABLY!) irritated. Nope, that takes persistence and determination.

Then there are heavy things, beliefs and truths that are waiting to be understood and require big life course changes.

Those heavy things are often what keep me from starting at all. Fear of the heavy thing, to be more precise. I CAN’T examine what might need changing because it could be EVERYTHING!

When it comes to what I don’t know, I have learned to take this advice. I was talking to a computer engineer, back when I was still learning what I do, and all the things I don’t know terrified me. He seemed to know everything, and I figured I better know everything as soon as possible. I asked him question after question.

He told me this, “Start with the low hanging fruit. Do the first thing that you know how to do. Start with that, and that might fix it. Then do the next thing that you can see needs to be done, and keep going until it’s fixed or done. ”

So as I look over all the things I’d like this year to have, and things I’d like this year not to have, I have to start with the stuff that’s within reach. Then I have to keep reaching.

That song that has become the New Year’s song:

Auld Lang Syne–Should old acquaintance be forgot

Happy New Year!

I’m still stuck on Christmas. Last week I talked about Mary, gifts, and the singing of the Magnificat.

Do you know the Magnificat? That is fancy Latin for the song of what Mary said.

Here is the short story. Angel tells Mary she is going to have a baby, no need for any help, God will make it happen. Mary has just this to say:

 Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.

It is not until Mary goes to see her cousin Elizabeth that she has more to say and speaks out the words we know as the Magnificat:

 My soul doth magnify the Lord,

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.

And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;

As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.

This is sweet, and then read it again, and it is powerful. Scattering the proud and putting down the mighty? and what about exalting the lowly and feeding the hungry? Remembering Mercy.

This is Mary talking. She’s a celebrity now, but she wasn’t then.

You know what she was then? A young girl visiting her cousin and friend. A friend, who knew her, loved her and recognized her for what she was. Elizabeth’s greeting to her unlocked her throat and that was when she spoke those words, her dream for herself and the world.

The Guatemalan Mothers of the disappeared marched holding those words until Mary’s dream words were banned. The British Empire forbade singing them in India. These words rang so strong through the centuries.

Do you see? The angel did not inspire them. Her friend inspired them.

That is what we can do for each other. That is how friends and family can be.

So go! Be with your loved ones! Greet each 0ther with joy and appreciation. We can create the safe place to speak our dreams and start making them come true.

It is a new year. For God’s sake, let us not let old acquaintance be forgot.

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Do I have the courage to Finish the book the way that I know it needs to be written?

Last night, I found myself off balance and worried and critical or myself. I thought, “I need to be grounded! How do I do that again?”
So…I listened to some of  recordings for grounding  and heard Jessica  say, “For the duration of this session, be present.”
How was I being present and grounded? I had headphones on as I was doing dishes. DISHES! I didn’t want to be doing dishes. But I thought, well, be present. I took the phones off and tried to be mindful…as I did the dishes and cleaned the bathroom.
I came up with this mantra…”Every day in every way my life is about me.”
I had been going around in the holidays thinking I needed to be considerate of everyone else and listen to everyone else…and it had put me off balance and made me CRITICAL of other people AND myself.

as I was putting away dishes and cleaning the counters, I thought…I can trust myself to be considerate of other people. The people who love me WANT me to have what I want. And I want good things for them.
I won’t be mean, but if i don’t put things where I want them and do the things I like and choose the things that give me pleasure, no one will know (including myself!) what I want.
Every day in every way my life is about me.

Self-centered is just an acceptance of what is. Of COURSE my life is all about me. That’s why it’s my life.

She asked me to read her Stone Soup as her first story before bed. She gets three stories, two we read on the floor and one in bed. But before we start the stories, she crosses off the day. Daddy bought her a whiteboard calendar, and she takes the marker to cross off today and puts the magnet on tomorrow.

“What’s tomorrow?” she usually asks. Yesterday we told her, “Tomorrow is Christmas!” She jumped up and down waving her tight fists for joy. This is her frequent happy flappy dance. She had done this her whole life. It is always charming.

Today the magnet marker is on the triangular drawing of a christmas tree. She must take the marker off and put an X on this long-anticipated day.

She woke after I did, but before her daddy. He’d said he wanted to videotape her seeing her new bicycle. He had done a lot of work to secure one for her. I had to block her from going into the living room while he made himself decent and secured the video camera.

Mornings are not his thing. I thought Christmas might be different. Maybe it is and he would have been way slower any other morning.

“Mommy!I want to see what Santa brought! I want to see my presents!”

“Tell daddy to hurry.”

“Daddy hurry! Stop blocking me mommy!”

“I am trying to get ready!!”

at last he appears and we can see what santa has brought.

She is thrilled and climbs on, It is nearly too big for her, but it fits, and she loves it.

And look, Veronica! Remember the cookie you left for Santa? It’s gone! He ate it!

Her mouth drops open in surprise. Oh, yes he was here!

The presents are very exciting. She wants more and more presents. We do not take turns. She loves everything she gets, and is confused and disappointed when the flow of presents it diverted to Daddy and me. She over comes it, though, and helps us open ours with good will.

Then we open the stockings, we are also exciting. Lucy Dog has a stocking too!

While we sort it out, I bake our specially chosen Christmas breakfast: Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. It’s just as well that we chose something so easy, I am still sick and tired with a cold.

One of the gifts for Veronica is a set of three clearance sale halloween constumes. She has Spiderman Dress, Captain America dress, and snowhite dress. Spider man is tried on first. Then Captain America.

CAPTAIN AMERICA! She looks incredible. She has stars and a cape and is empowered to SAVE THE DAY.

Daddy is a fantastic bad guy. I am princess mommy, and she is going to protect me. This allows me full immunity to hide under the covers with a Kindle.

Eventually we take the new bike to the park to practice riding. She does great and daddy is very protective. The dog wishes she could be more involved but technically she is breaking the rules by being in the park at all. Everyone brings their dogs, just this is the first time we have broken the rules. It’s christmas though.

She is not allowed to run alongside the bicycle as the new cyclist is getting the hang of everything.

I sit and wilt with virus on the sidelines, also the keeper of the camera.

The day progresses through lunch and nap. Then it is time for the second round of presents at grandma’s house. She dons her captain america costume again and we get ready to do it again.

She takes turns this time. We all get to open presents in turns. Of course she has the most of everyone. As it should be, since she’s the least expensive to buy for. We are all thankful and pleased with our many gifts.

Now Judy turns to finishing her dinner preparation.

Uncle Bryan is now the one to be jailed and arrested as bad guy. He is an even better supervillain than daddy, because he has less experience in defending and deflecting. He is totally in her power! She likes that a lot. She jails him in the shower stall.

Dinner is ready, and for the first holiday dinner in her life she stays for the whole meal.  We have a break to run around (Uncle Bryan is once again arrested for being a back guy) and then pie.

Since Grandmother passed away a few years ago, and even before when her eyesight got really bad, we had stopped the after-dinner tradition of playing games. Grandmother was a champion at card shuffling and complacently enjoyed the games with everyone. Back when Chris and I were dating, I made a coup by presenting her with a new game that was adopted into the canon: triominoes. He later objected because the game lacked strategy. I liked it for that very reason. Judy seemed to like it because it required arithmetic.

This year Veronica got Hungry Hungry hippos as a present. She was able to play this game with enthusiasm, and we revived the game tradition with everyone taking part.

And now I read her Stone Soup. Why does she like this book? I don’t know why I picked it up in the goodwill. She likes it though. The Soldiers put one over on the french villagers, and I read the long paragraphs out loud, quietly as I can to spare my rasping throat. As usual, she has her Panda, Doggie and now Dragon on her lap, and blanky covers the all.

She takes the binding of blanky-quilt in both her hands, passing the edges along from left to right. She has done this with this same blanky since she was barely born. It’s been an exciting day and she is quite tired; this is why she is doing this again. She doesn’t do it every night.

I wonder if she will do this her whole life. If she does, I will be one of the few–the only?–who recognize this hand habit for what it is.

This is her last Christmas before she goes to school. Does everything change next year? Or only a few things as we are all basically the same? We are basically happy, and it’s been a good day.

Merry Christmas dear readers! I hope you got the gifts you were hoping for, and the ones you found for your favorite people surprised and delighted them.

This is also a time of year for singing. Last Sunday I got to hear an amazing rendition of Bach’s Magnificat. A live orchestra sat in the front and a choir was behind. The program listed the soloists, and as I read ahead I noticed three people with the same last name. How sweet! A musical family, each singing a different part in this performance.

I have never been part of an official choir. I have a good voice, but I wouldn’t know what part I sang. Once I found myself at a public event and we were supposed to act like a choir.  The director asked people to group themselves according to their voice.

On the break I went up to ask him what my category was. He had me sing along to a few notes and declared me a second soprano.

I was offended. Why couldn’t I be first soprano? Why should I be second best?

A few years later I had a chance to get a little more in depth with a voice teacher. She took the time to really let me sing, and said I had a good range. I asked her if I could work on making my voice lower, because by then I thought deep was sexy.

She said there were things one could do, but it would probably mean losing my ability on the high notes.

The mother of the musical family sang her solo first, a clear resonant second soprano. A bit later, the daughter took her place and sang the Latin in a luminous first soprano.

I remembered my absurd struggle to find my place in the structure of a choir. These people obviously had developed what they were given, but they were all working with what they had. It is way past time for me to wish I were other than exactly what I am.

They were singing the song of Mary. She was a young teenage girl, didn’t have much to offer. She wasn’t powerful or experienced. But when the Angel Gabriel said she would get pregnant, she said “Let it be with me as God wills.” She had a fertile body, if nothing else. And she let that be used. Jesus was born and the world was changed.

We’ve all got to use what we’ve got. I don’t know the depth and breadth of my own vocal range but I can open my mouth and sing Joy to the World. I can be surprised over and over again at who I can be and what I can do. I am as God made me, and that is the best gift I will ever receive.

This is how I plan to change the world.