Hello. Thanks for dropping by. This is mostly a Friends Only Journal, but drop me a note and let me know if you want to be added. I believe journal friends begin somewhat like a feather floating in the air. If it comes your way, you're bound to notice it for awhile. You don't know where it came from, but it gets your attention and often makes you feel that ticklish inner smile. 

I don't offend easily. Differ with me if you want. Drop me like a hot potato if you want. 

I thrive on differing perspectives. I'm a junkie for learning new things and new ways of looking at things. 

I respect my friends. Assume that I respect you. I don't package things in fluff as a general rule. 

With gratitude - always - to my flist. 

Life is hard, but I've got a basic trust for it, an understanding that leads to acceptance. Nevertheless, I realize that I don't understand LJ. People have been here for all lengths of times and have all sorts of experiences that elude me. Several on my flist have referred to how the content of their posts have changed implying that they are much less personal than they used to be. People go to other journals for specific topics. 

There's dreamwidth and blogger and histories of drama and people who report "this happened then that" while others talk about their experience of their lives in specific or general ways. 

Seems everyone is here for a different reason and has their own reason for staying. That, to me, mimics life. We are all here for a different reason and have our own reason for doing what we do. 

So -- if you want to share, I'd like to know. 

Why are you here? What part of yourself do you bring to LJ? And, what do you want from it? Do you get that? Is it to explore your authenticity or just to have fun?

Looks as though I'm going to be spending a heckuva lot of time in Austin, Texas. 

Born in Houston, but haven't been there since 1963. 

Information and opinions of Austin invited and welcome.

In reading the posts of the last several days, it seems obvious. 

It is a time of letting go of things that don't belong.

Mostly this is material possessions, but it is also relationships.  

Parents dying. Lost connection within old friendships. 

LJ cuts, threadbare socks, being careful not to use too much toilet paper. 

Little things set us off. We cry without knowing why. We get angry over little things. 

Life forces us to get down to the core. We can do it kicking and screaming, or we can do it with awareness. 

The Buddhists say we die a thousand deaths every day. Learning the impermanence of all things. 

Allowing things to have a life of their own. Believing they exist when we can't see them. Believing they exist within their own rhythm and time. Even this keyboard is disintegrating as I peck its keys. Nothing is permanent. 

Let go. Everything that belongs to us is with us. Longing for something that you don't have or need is a thought, is a belief. 

Real problems. Real life. Real integrity. 

def_fr0g_42 posted a link today about the economic downturn affecting the business of divorce attorneys. Evidently, fewer people get divorced during repressions / depressions. 

Appreciate what you have. Hold onto tenderly. It doesn't really belong to you. Yet, you belong to the world, which is abundant with everything that you need. 

For me, this is how it is. 
At least it is how it is right now. 
Thoughts, also, seem to be impermanent, a step along the path, to whatever is next. 

It is a good day for a random act of kindness. Not because I should, but because I want to. To give something spontaneously out of what feels like not enough. This generates abundance. 

I did a fairly drastic friends list cut because I won't have much computer time over the next couple of months.

The choices were difficult.

No doubt, I'll be missing something wonderful.

Thank you for understanding.

Until our paths cross again, ta ta for now.

On introvert/extrovert gauges, I almost always fall smack darn in the middle. 

Gratefully snatched from popfiend 

 Christmas has come and gone. It was a special day for each of us. We were snowed in and it ended up being the first time in my mom's 84 years that she has not made it to church. She had many offers, but she was afraid of falling and has a little virus in her lungs. One person at a time presented their chosen gift to another with an opportunity to say something about why it was chosen. My 21 year old son made an eloquent presentation of Studs Turkel's "Working" to my husband about how my husband has taught him about getting up every morning and going to work. And, on it went. A meal followed, and all raved. This was our final gift to one another. After a couple hours of playing Apples to Apples, drinking spirits, and different family members playing guitar or piano, we had apple pie and the day was complete. 

My gift to my mom was a photo of her when she was 2 years old in a frame together with a beautiful photo of her mother in her late 20's. I wrote a piece to go with it about the lineage of women in our lives, the value of the feminine, how it is to be carried on, and expressing gratitude for her passing this on. This gift was totally lost on her. To her, it is two pictures in a frame. 

My husband's la-z boy is in our living room where we have been spending a good deal of time. When my husband is not around, she cuddles up in the la-z boy, all cozy and warm, but she jumps out and takes a "lesser" seat as soon as my husband enters the room as if there were an eject button that he pushed to get her out. Her father was, as she describes him, a strict Catholic German son-of-a-bitch. Every Sunday she was allowed to throw away any unused switches that she had collected during the week and stored under her bed. Yet, she refuses to say a bad word about him. She has habituated pushing against the patriarch as a way of define herself, her feminine. 

It took this experience to understand that my mother has never embraced her feminine side. She has held a masculine energy within the structure of our lives. Women are supposed to be strong, independent beings. At this time in my 50's, I am fully embracing my feminine side and integrating it with the strong, independent woman that I am. We have both masculine and feminine within us, and to be wholly present, we get to know these parts. It does not take a man to complete a woman or a woman to complete a man. We are whole and offer ourselves wholly in order to create a third quality. This, to me, is love. 

Voices of the past have dissolved as I sit now with my mom. I see a woman who has decades of experience and who is mystified by me, her third daughter, who doesn't follow any formula she recognizes. The buttons that she created in me -- the ones she continually is trying to push -- seem to be "out of order." I am not reactive to her. Instead, my heart is open and I offer her love with no expectation in return. We experience this love in different ways. This love, triangulated into creating a third entity between us,  is the real gift that we are sharing. 

Namaste. 

 
Crazy. 
I think I'm crazy. 
$300 in the bank, when it used to be 5 digits. 
No jobs to be found. I keep trying. 
Selling books on Amazon barely pays for the gas. 

AND..........I am truly happy -- inside where it counts. 

I'm anxious. I'm used to bringing home lots of money and doing things differently, especially at Christmastime. 

I'm also excited. 

We've been living outside our means since the '80s. At least that's where I begin with it. When stockholders became the gods of the economy. Corporations wanted to show a profit so that they could give dividend to their stockholders so that they could sell more stock. 

Or was it the '60s when Nixon got rid of the gold standard? 

Anyhow, we've been living outside of our means. It's been a great ride. GW's solution to the terrorist attacks was to ask everyone to go shopping. The then-mayor of our City took a plane-load of Portlanders to the big Apple to shop. 

It worked for awhile. 

Now, imagine the apocalypse. Markets crash. Everyone around you, maybe even you, loses their job. You have to make due with what you have. And, when you make due with what you have, you are grateful for what you have. 

It started with going through my books. Literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books. I started putting them on Amazon.com for resale. Letting go of my books is an extremely difficult thing to do. I don't know what words to use to make that point, but take my word for it. 

Then, going through the clothes and digging to the bottom of the clothes and making old pieces feel new while giving many items away to others. Finding clothes with price tags still on them on the bottom of my closet is humbling, but not my most humbling moment. 

Getting rid of stuff is wonderful. How much stuff do I really need? Remember the George Carlin skit about my shit being stuff and your stuff being shit? Well, it is about attachment. It is about that little word "my" in front of the stuff. There is always more stuff!! 

Imagine now that it is after the apocalypse. What do you really value? It is a George Bailey moment and his angel Clarence comes and tries to earn his wings. 

It is a moment to value what I already have. And, honestly, truly, I have plenty. 

It is the new happy. I like it a lot. 

My comments are delayed, so I went to view comments from my journal page instead of waiting for the notice and found that I'm only getting notices of SOME of the comments on my posts. Sometimes I am notified immediately, sometimes it takes up to 45 minutes, and sometimes it appears not at all. 

I looked deeper and something is weird about posts. I did my morning reading, but when I went back through a read again, there seemed to be posts there that weren't there the first time.

LJ, I want to be in real time with my posts and my friends' posts. Please fix it. . . . now. 

This is a very interesting question for me as I was in the lively discussion about the Giving Tree earlier this year. I loved the book when I read it. But, looking back, it looks different. 

The book enshrines the theory that if you love something, you will sacrifice yourself, damage yourself, give yourself for them. It implies that there are no boundaries in giving. Yes, this is the reality of some forms of love, but not all. Real, selfless love does have boundaries. I do not even see this as a good example of parental love as it would teach the children to take, take, take. 

I still love this book, but see it differently than I did when I read it to my kids. Selfless love has boundaries or the well runs dry. 

Post 8 things about yourself and paste them in your journal, then tag 8 people to do the same. 

1. I'm politically liberal, but was born in Houston, Texas with the maiden name Bush. (Don't tell anyone. :))

2. My very first job was in a public library at age 15. To do this, I surround myself with books, books and more books. I kid that it's my retirement plan. 

3. I love to color mandalas with high-quality colored pencils. 

4. I'm a certified minister through the mail. I'm a certified hypnotherapist. . . . and many other things, too. 

5. I want to live at the ocean.....SOON! And, love the Oregon weather, rain and sun included. 

6. I used to be a political lobbyist. 

7. I am not afraid of death. I can communicate with some people when they pass over. I believe in karma, in reincarnation, that all time happens at once and in free will. And, I believe that is not a contradiction. 

8. I have no upper molars. After spending 20 years and $50K on my teeth, everything failed, then my dentist got cancer. So, today, a friend gave me a used VitaMix. Maybe I wasn't meant to eat. Lately, I wonder why I'm eating much anyway. :) 

Tag! You're it. Share a little about yourself. Or, make something interesting up! :)


dsignrmom 
astrelsa 
grain_damaged 
jackiejj 
jrittenhouse 
britalone 
carocrow 
mountain_girl