Snow Mass

Snow and snow, and more snow.

Wraps wisps around obliques, thick leggings around verticals, and re-shelves narrow latitudes until they become fortress walls. Superimposes every inanimate representation till the essence within becomes a ‘higher form’ through the magnification of obesity.

Mortal man stumbles about inelegantly in multi-layered muffs and earthly frame. Up to the hips in a stupefying and terrifying abundance of snow.

Warm the air by sucking it in. Let imagination run wild. Mentally paint the landscape green and yellow. And even then, you will find no flavor of August in this day. Only a random arrangement of winter matter.

More, and more—tumbling, drifting, floating, and falling, into covers of instability. Snow-weaves of batting that like memory-foam-mattresses leave only imaginative outlines of what lies beneath.

‘Higher forms’ of a spiritual nature of what once was. Icons of holiness. With the crystal whiteness of altar cloths, lace, and silver chalices in place.

Listen. Do you not hear it? The Hymn of wintry solitude sung earnestly and soundlessly?
That song of consequent stillness, that sanctifies January. Its remembrance, and longer endurance.
Repeated utterance of the refrain and second verse, same as the first.

This is a January celebration of Vigil Mass on a white altar.
Vigil, as in waiting, and expecting more, and still more.

Politically Incorrect Fockers

In this oh-so-politically-correct society, ethnic slurs must be guarded against.

And so, even those books that make us weep with empathy and understanding of the mistreatment of others like “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, and some of Mark Twain’s writings, have to be either pulled from library shelves or rewritten.

I’m not saying this to judge whether that is a good, or a bad thing. But what is bad is the media portrayal of babes and young children. They are not misbehaving, noisy little brats.

They are a race of little people, deserving of all respectful consideration. They are, so much more so than wee baby puppies, cute, funny, darling, and the joy of life.

I say this because recently a new show has aired called “The Little Fockers”. I have never watched it and don’t intend to, but I’m assuming it is about children.

The name of the show, of course, has led me to believe that. And I don’t care if the show is witty, funny, or even complementary in every respect towards the tiniest individuals in our society. The name speaks differently. And such labelling should be considered a crime.

But when I expressed my concern about the name of the show, Youngest Daughter, simply said, “Oh, for crying out loud, Mom. It’s just the surname of the family.”

That doesn’t do anything towards excusing it, because as a TV show, that particular family could have any name they wish to have. And obviously there is a meaning intended that is not so nice. And so, if this show is about family, with children, this is an inexcusable slur against children.

And so are so many other shows (and commercials), that concentrate on children being sassy, forever whining, and disruptive, rather than the sweet and precious individuals that they are.

Politically correct is meant to eliminate the unfair judgement and detriment of others. At least, I think that is the case. So let’s have more of it.

Home Free! - Part IV (conclusion)

The Worth of This Spiritual Exercise

This story has been one about trying to find resolve for extreme sadness. Sadness wedged solidly in my soul.

And so, with no place else to turn, I have been reviewing my past to see how such problems had been solved in my earlier years. And as I told you, being a tattle tale worked for a time. But eventually one becomes a teen, a mature woman, a mother, a fully fledged adult and then what does one do?

Not much of a solution to be found in my teen years. It was over-dramatization that helped me through that segment of life. Flung on the bed in a puddle of tears is where solace was found when I was a teen. But, as an adult that all seemed such foolishness.

So as a young mother and a mature individual I could no longer tattle tales, or swim in tearful wails, so that is when I slammed doors and went to my therapist.

My therapist had pale blue eyes tinted with a wash of extreme kindness. My therapist was rather plump, with gray hair pulled back tightly in a tidy bun. She always wore cotton flowered dresses that had the appeal of gaiety. And an apron that gave her the appeal of complete devotion to her designated tasks.

And so I went in to my ‘therapist’s office’ and flopped on her couch. And immediately the healing began. Did we talk? No we didn’t? Did I tell her what was breaking my heart? No I didn’t.

I simply flopped on my therapist’s couch and the healing began while she went on doing whatever it was she was doing—as if I wasn’t even there.

She went right on whistling, and bustling, and sewing, cooking, or washing dishes. And my healing raced along. Swiftness encouraged by water running, dishes clanking, a sewing machine humming, knitting needles clicking, the smell of cooking, or by nothing more that the soft rustle of her apron against her skirt or her shoes against the floor.

The mend was not the result of any discussion or great wordy interchange. It was in the aura of home, being home, the safety of home. A grand feeling of security that erases sorrow like a fine bottle of White-Out.

Reminding me with such intensity, how I used to feel when playing ball and racing, amidst such risk and danger, full-tilt for home-plate. And then, the grand moment of majestic glory, when my foot safely touched the home-plate. Dancing, prancing.

“I’m Home Free! I’m Home Free!” (nothing can harm me now).

Like home-plate, home was just a place free from harm, fear, care, or any kind of inharmonious interface. That’s all. Nothing more.

So obviously, in my present distress, that is where I must go. But it’s a bit too late for that.

I look for a place to run, the plate to touch so I can yell, “Home Free”, but I can’t find it. Like some old ball diamond, fallen into disuse, the home-free-plate is covered with leaves and turf and can no longer be found.

Yeh, it’s really a bit of a shake-up when there is no place of true comfort where one can run to and skid in there yelling, “I’m Home Free!”

Of course I no longer have a therapist, and it’s bloody ridiculous that I should be whining about this so long after the fact. But this whole rant has been a rigorous spiritual exercise that has been comforting.

Proof of the worth of self-reflection. It has softened the rawness. Eased the pain. And although I’m not “Home Free” …— going back to the analogy of softball, I’m not in a hot box between second and third either.

Home Free! - part III

"Tattle-Tale! Tattle-Tale! Hanging on a bull's tail..."

And so, when I was a small child, telling on the perpetrator was what comforted a dismayed spirit. Particularly because I was the child, that wanted to do the caring and admirable thing.

I did nothing to become this wanna-be-good, self-sacrificing individual. I did nothing for the care and grooming of it. Rather, it came upon me insidiously (something modern society will most certainly fail to understand), through a religious upbringing that made the worth of a righteous character so much greater than my competitive spirit.

And fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whether one is the aggressor or the aggressee, from a child perspective, it seemed to me that God wanted most of all, remorseful and truthful confessions from evildoers.

And if they were not willing to do that, I was. And of course, all my tattle-taling was wholly and holy truth. I’m prett-ty sure.

And so, was it not like a ‘blessing’ for me to bring evildoers, through my well-articulated, third-person confessionals-on-their-behalf, into a state of guilty pondering? Perhaps even remission? Seemed like the righteous thing for me to do.

And so, I’ve said quite enough about tattles. Or have I?

Have I told you that because I was ‘a good little girl’, my parents and teachers were the backers of my tattles and so, as a result, it was rather serious when I told a sneering school-mate that I if they didn’t back off, I would tell on them?

Well your know now, and right about now, you’re probably saying that ‘this is the longest rant about tattle-tales that I have ever heard in one lifetime’.

Sorry about that, but you really must realize, if you haven’t already, that this kind of telling is at the very heart and nature of the DNA of a tattle-tale. The need to tell and tell and tell again.

But to bring this to a summation, ‘tis true, tattle-taling worked well for me in primary school but eventually that kind of juvenile reaction had to be discarded. And so with adolescence and eventually adult maturity, I moved on.

NEXT POST: Therapy and my oh-so-lovely Therapist

Home Free! (part II)

Now some might wonder why I continue this whine. In seems quite unnecessary in the midst of a modern and sophisticated world with the fullness of understanding how to have and maintain ruddiness of body, soul, and oh yes, spirit as well.

Don’t we just hear it all the time? That if we eat the right foods, drink the right amount of water, run the right number of miles per day, stretch before exercising, love ourselves, and take time for ourselves, our spirit will be right on the blue dot. Exactly where our spirit is supposed to be.

Excuse me, but that is a lie. Though my body feels better after this kind of ritual, my spirit does not. My spirit does not thrive on nutritious food and a quota of exercise, and furthermore, my spirit is not insulated from woe by any watershed effect of these disciplined physical routines.

And the difference between my physical body requirements, and my emotional spirit requirements, is this. My body thrives on healthy nutrients without junk food. My spirit thrives on harmonious environments without junk conflict.

Now I’m not going to tell too much. Dumping it all will have me watering down this keyboard to the extent it most certainly will short out and permanently crater. I can only tell you that I have been separated from a precious someone I love, not by fate, but by stupid stuff that I fail to understand.

And no it is not Hub. Hub is still here.

Now in my search for some kind of comforting heal, I have thought of past states of crisis that were heartbreaking and how I fared through those trying times.

It was great when I was a child. If anything or anyone was not harmonious in their dealings with me, what did I do? I told on them. I told my mom, or dad, or the teacher. That fixed them. (smugness here)

And so I’m telling. I’m telling the one, possibly two, readers of this rant. But I know and they know that tattle-taling isn’t going to help me one iota. And so, the quest begins to find a new and better soul-salve for the rawness of my spirit.

NEXT POST: The search for healing.

Home Free! - (part I)

You can’t describe this kind of Christmas. You can’t because there are no words to describe it.

Now I know my Old Dad used to say, and I’ve never forgotten it....”Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” And maybe feeling sorry for myself is what I’m doing, but how do I stop?

Truth is even long-standing addictions are easier to halt than emotions. Emotions are slithery and slippery things that can even crawl through blind-openings.

I mean…Think about it. There are other emotions that are not good, that should, and need to be stopped, but how do we fare with them? You can’t halt worry, or guilt, or regret, or sorrow.

And so, likewise, in an analysis of joy, can we neutralize joy so long as we remain in the midst of a joyful environment. Is it possible to say, “I’m not going to let myself feel good.” and succeed at that endeavor? Perhaps it can be done if one removes themselves from that joyful place and at the same time forces their mind to concentrate with hardened intensity on some negative situation as well.

But of course this is wholly speculative. There are no sample groups to study. So how can anyone know anything about the viscosity of joy or its dilution? Or the indices, weights, and balances of big joy, less joy, no joy, or slight joy?

Cause quite honestly, though the world be flooded with fools, what fool would ever attempt to eliminate joy when it pours down in a grandiose flood?

Now if I might deviate for just a moment, I remember when I was a child coming into my elder sister’s bedroom and discovering her sitting on her bed, her cheeks bathed in tears. I was shocked. Of course kids cry – they’re supposed to, aren’t they? But adults? What’s with that? When there are no visible signs of cuts or abrasions?

I asked her where it hurt and to this she replied.

“You won’t understand this now but someday you will. My feelings have been hurt and when feelings are hurt, it is way more painful than a bump on the head or a skinned knee.”

I thought that bloody stupid. If it don’t bleed, if it don’t smart, if it don’t need a band-aid, it don’t hurt.

Of course, I now know better. It was so solidly reaffirmed this Christmas.

NEXT POST: My sorrows diplomatically revealed.