Friday

A recent conversation reminded me of my mom and my mom's room. My mom had her own room, separate from my dad. My mom hoarded mail and magazines. There would be stacks of mail and magazines everywhere. Her bed would be covered with opened letters and letters she was in the process of writing. She loved to have candles burning too. It drove us crazy with worry, the fire risk.

She was interested in so many issues, and she was always writing to congressmen and to organizations and to all kinds of advocates. She got herself on many mailing lists and newsletter subscriptions. My mom's internet was all paper. She never got on a computer, she distrusted them (she hated TV too).

After I was old enough to drive, she would often send me out the door with hands full of responses she had written to all of these organizations and officials. Sometimes I would forget to mail them, or I would get lazy about it. Then, we would decide to go somewhere, to eat or something, and she the letters still in the car, and she ...would be a little disappointed. We would drive straight to a mailbox (this was back when it was actually easy to find a mailbox somewhere).

My mom had beautiful handwriting. I love it when I find something she had written among the stuff from the old house. I actually have a bag full of correspondence that my mom and her sister were sending back and forth. I've never opened it though. My mom and her sister were in a major feud for years and years...too many years...and I'm not sure what is being written about in those letters.

Thursday

The humans continue to confuse me.

Saturday

Proof that I'm Not Crazy (almost)



I used to hear bagpipe music at lunch time somewhere in the neighborhood around work. This is the kind of thing that could make somebody wonder whether they're going crazy. I don't really care whether I'm crazy or not. But, when I finally actually saw this person playing bagpipes, it kind of solidified my sense of reality. And it's pretty cool other than that too. Too bad I didn't get a closer shot. She really is there, playing the bagpipe, I swear!
I read and hear a lot of advice about letting go of the stories of the mind, letting go of of this bundle of history we see as our identity. I love my stories a lot though! I used to tell em on this blog all the friggin time. I love my identity way less...but I still cling to it, with a cold dead kryptonite lock. But I guess it's all gotta go, the wise men and wise WOmen say so. This clinging to stories and the clinging to these dopey ideas of self should probably go too, that clinging - it's gotta go. What exactly should stay? Nothing? All of it - let it go - let it flow. I don't know if I'll ever get this spirit thing right or if I should even keep trying. Trying and clinging are the same kind of clinging maybe. I get snagged in a lot of these word tangles. Every thought has a counter thought. Every thought is its own counter thought, because if you let it wind out long enough, it circles back around and bites its own butt like some dumb snake. It's fun trying to figure it out though - finding my balance, my particular blend - it's fun watching what my mind does. Or am I still deriving 'fun' from some kind of struggle. Questioning everything. Until my mind puts the toys down and gets still. Some say a still mind is IT:

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. Lao Tzu

This guy says it's just another state



Lots of word tangles. Lots of thinkers thinking or trying not to think.

It's really easy to get carried away with all this stuff.

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

Friday

I returned from my trip to Virginia and found out my neighbor had been evicted. He is the friendliest and most generous person I've met in Florida. He and I went out and got rip-snorting drunk one night, no lie. We were trashed. His ex-wife had taken the kids that night for the first time in forever, so he was really wanting to whoop it up. So we did.

Anyway, his wife really did him wrong and continues to do him wrong. She cheated on him and left him -- with two little kids. She barely ever takes them when it's her turn. She sends him hateful text messages. She tried (apparently successfully) to sabotage a thing he was trying to develop with a new love interest. She cornered his love interest in a bar and told her all this hateful horrible crap. I would say that the ex-wife is a total freakin loser, but she's a fireman (fire(wo)man), so I guess she pumps some good kharma into the economy.

So his luck wasn't bad enough, so now's he's evicted. He moved into these crummy apartments because he couldn't hold down his house due to the mortgage/real estate bust. He was in construction. The work dried up. His mortgage payment probably adjusted north in a big bad way, so income definitely fell away from the outlay.

How many people are there out there like this? The economy is pinching hard. When will it turn around? A year? Two? I think it'll come back piece by piece. Education, then jobs, then housing, then global. What do I know? Ask an economist. Ask a futurist.