Paradigm shifts

He began but I waved him off. "I understand anomalies."  He lectured anyway.
I touched his shoulder, "I understand anomalies; really." He continued.
I smiled and paraphrased Kuhn. He stopped.

I like these guys. They reason, think, and read. They also share, care, and look for the higher good. And they stop talking when asked.

You have to be kidding me.

Talk about self absorbed!  She's offering a free book to people who guess what she had and has not read. Sweet Mudah 'ah Gawd.

Unsewn fabric

I am not a joiner.  My dad and the two outhouse Johns have pretty much ruined that option...Family beaten to death, the Church of Christ burnt to the ground by the flames of a philandering preacher, and the temple of Mental Health toppled by the Narcissism of a self serving egoist.  I know, these guys are not to blame.  Just ask them. They did nothing wrong. They just followed their own agenda and had no obligation to do anything for anyone else: To thine own endless, senseless passions be true.  Children and the needy are disposable , shoveled into the blast-furnace of personal need.  Their private lives are what matter... just ask them.

So I was wrong for needing them, trusting them, joining them.  My fault. They offered something I was buying...a simple exchange of goods for services. They did nothing egregious or duplicitous, they sold, I bought. No guarantees either stated nor implied.   It is my fault for choosing faulty mentors. For needing. For trusting. For forgetting, or never knowing, that other people, at least to these guys, are just that, other people. I was one of those others. I expected different. My bad for not seeing what I was before learning what I am. An other.  I accept responsibility for my actions.  I will be the only one in the foursome taking responsibility, that is for absolute certain.

So now, in typical ab-reactive fashion,  I don't join.  "I'm not a joiner" I say to whomever is unfortunate enough to hear. To those who have joined, who never knew there was an option to disengage, who are stitched together with the sinew of loving community and healthy mentors, I come across as a lonely, deluded outsider.  Pitiable.

But all is not lost.  I am not alone. I have the rest of the "others." But I find I don't fit there either. To those who are completely disenfranchised,  my concerns about disconnectedness are ludicrous, over simplifying the obvious. The poor souls who are both wholly alone and have always known it, dismiss the idea of connectedness as fantasy: Unicorn fantasy.  Illusion.

So I stand in the emptiness between both camps. I know it.  I wish it were not so.  I wish my life was more stitched together; that I could thread the needle with the thread of trust, pull the torn fabric of my life together, and knit myself into the soft, warm fabric of the communities around me.  But, "I'm not a joiner." Like Estragon, even though I feel myself ready to join, wanting to join, preparing to join, when I am ready to resign myself to the group I remind myself, "I am not a joiner." In a moment the threads falls out of the needle, the fabric falls away from the rest of the garment,  and I remain limp, still unjoined.

Bummer

Fading Lilies

“Lying on my patio!”  Edith said into the phone, shaking at the memory. “I made my coffee like usual and it was raining so hard I thought about not driving to church.”

“Not go to church?” her mother asked suspiciously.  

"Mother," she paused, "I said, not drive to church.  I thought Howard could pick me up so I wouldn’t have to drive in the rain. But church isn’t important right now.  What’s important is a big black man knocked over my flowers and was lying face down in the rain on my patio. I thought he was dead.”

“Church isn’t important?”

“Well of course church is important. I went to church right after the policeman left. He was a very nice Christian man too, he said he was taking the black man to church with him and buckled his hands together so he could pray.”  

“That was nice of him,” Hattie said, picturing a very wet man singing from the Hymnal.  “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? sounding injured.

“Mom, you just got out of the hospital yesterday. Howard and I drove you home and I told you I'd call you today.  I wrote Call Mom in big red letters on the calendar so I wouldn't forget; my memory is getting so terrible bad if i don't write things down I forget about them.  I would have called sooner but I got up late," making her way across the tiny kitchen, clock reading 5:12.

The shame of being in the hospital on the Sabbath wounded the old women. “Please don't miss church again. If you need a ride call Howard. He'll drive you.”

“Did Howard get his license back?"

“Well no. They won't give it back because of his stroke but he only drives to church so it’s OK. And he stops at Meijer’s now and then when he visits me.  And he drives to his exercise class on Tuesday.  “I think it's on Tuesday.   I’ll ask him.” The phone went dead.

Edith looked at the silent phone in her hand then gently tapped it on the counter trying to jump-start it back to life.

It rang.

“Hello?” she answered cautiously.

“Oh, that’s right,” Hattie continued in mid sentence, “today’s Friday, he drives Sheila to lunch on Friday, so he didn’t answer the phone because he's at lunch” Hattie said, oblivious to the time.

“Who?” Edith asked, as if recognizing her mother’s voice for the first time.

“Howard drives Sheila to lunch every Friday. That's why he didn't answer the phone.”

“That’s nice,” Edith affirmed, opening the blinds to her tiny porch. "It’s nice to hear he got his license back,” Edith said nonchalantly, looking across the tiny deck towards the missing flowers box.

 “I am too,” Hattie agreed, sounding suddenly very sad. “I wish I could drive you when you need a ride but I can't even drive myself.  I want so badly to die but then who would take care of you and Howard? What is God thinking letting me live to 98? Why won't he just let me die?”

Edith ignored her mother as the image of the missing flowers began to emboss itself onto the melting wax of her 79 year old mind. “Mom, I think something happened to the flowers. You know those nice flowers Sheila and Howard brought over?  We planted them in the flower box on the porch then sang hymns at the organ.  She plays the organ so nice. They’re gone.”

“Sheila and Howard are gone?” terror sprang from Hattie.

“Where are they?” Edith echoed her fear.

“I don’t know,” on the verge of tears.  “I hope they’re OK!  They’re probably driving somewhere. It’s Friday and I have no idea where they could be.  I told Howard a thousand times to never drive that car. He’ll go to jail if they catch him, but he never listens to me. He drives his daughter all over town at a drop of a hat but he never visits his mother...”

“Mom, I think something happened to the flowers” Edith told her mom, searching the thicket of her mind for a trail to the missing flowers.  “I could have sworn I watered them yesterday,” struggling to remember.  But the flower box demanded concentration beyond her shrinking capacity and in moments she called off the search, turning away from the window, closing the blinds to the patio behind her.

“So, have you heard from Howard lately?” she asked, sipping coffee.

say good-bye to the buzz

Not exactly what I expected.  The day was going so well.  Four hours in the office, lots of good work, and a by line from Janet Reid.  In fact, actually better than one by line, she gave me three name references, one fully printed text message, and a lot of good buzz. Why does this matter? Because prior to the reference I sent Reid a query.  This buzz, plus great reviews from the writing group last night, created a bit of writing euphoria.

Feeling (a little) more confident I allowed myself to imagine that something good might come of this writing thing.

What the heck?  I thought, let's take another look at my query.  After reading the query I remained hopeful.  The hook was barbed. The synopsis was specific enough to suggest the end without revealing too much. The writing was pretty good.  So far, so (so) good?

Then disaster.

I read the attached first five pages.  To be blunt, they are a wreck. What happened?  I posted the pages from an unedited copy of the book.  I called the company and the very, very nice women who answered the phone (did I mention she was nice?) said something along the line of "don't worry, when you get your rejection just resubmit it and tell her you are resubmitting.  It will be OK."

OK?????????...

Although she was very nice I hung up thinking, "say good-bye to an acceptance letter or even a request for more pages.  Say good-bye to the buzz. Say good-bye to Reid."  *waves good-bye*

I'm an idiot child.

Drowned in the Reed Sea.  oh well, party over.  Back to work.   8  )

liars

Caught another one today.  Don't they get it? Don't they understand there are no lies, just liars who tell lies.  Everything is revealed.  Everything.

The universe doesn't keep secrets Strictly catch and release;.  Both the fish and the barb are returned to sender. Every time. No exceptions. 

Bill Clinton, John Vriend, Alan Boesak, all of them.  Every single one of them.  Every single secret is, over time, revealed...

SOP for the universe.  Just another day int he office. The universe is not responsible for the damage the lies create.  Why should it be?  The policy is clearly stated..  Lie and you die.  Everyone knows it but no one, not a single human follows the rule.

The ubiquity of the problem might explain the policy. There is simply not enough warehouse space to hold all the lies, deception, deceit, and secrets humans create.  The Universal dung fields are filled to over flowing and are now officially out of business  The surplus has become unmanageable.  It has to go somewhere.

The Universe has had it. It hung a "gone fishing" sign up eons ago as if to say sorry, Not My Problem. You make the mess, you clean it up.. Take your secret and go.  And don't come back."

But we do.  We always do.

Maybe we expect it will be different next time.  Maybe we think the universe will change it's policy and keep the shit we create.  .Maybe we expect it to love and care for us like an enmeshed mother.  Sorry, the Universe is weird not crazy but no where near as insane as an enmeshed parent.

. It has rules.  It has guidelines.  Ask anyone who is hungry.  No food.  Ask the poor.  No money.  Ask the lazy. No rest. Ask some poor son of a bitch dying in a snow storm of hypothermia.  You get yourself into this mess, you either get the hell out or die.  Not my problem the Universe says, as it goes about its ageless, timeless business of focusing on the bigger picture.

You get what you earn: follow the rules and you suffer less.  Break the rules and get exactly what you create.

Blind justice from an ageless master that has heard it all before and don't take no shit.  

she said brilliant...

One of three posts printed in full.
Very happy with the review and by line.

OK, party's over. 


Back to work.