not a hero

Wow. My son came home from college last night and this is what he learned from his Chinese professor: Mao Zedong is a hero and China is not a communist country! When two out of the fifty students objected to this propaganda (lie), he told them that most people think Mao's a hero but some think he's a bad man (the families of the 70+ million Chinese people who died on his watch perhaps?) In whose world is a murderer of 70 million people considered a hero? And what on earth is wrong with those people?

Three out of four of my son's professors are foreigners (not that there's anything wrong with that). Last semester he had a Canadian professor telling the class how much better Canadian's healthcare is than ours. Honestly, if these people love their home countries so much, why don't they stay there and teach? It was an anthropology class so the professor really had no business giving lectures on our healthcare system. It's not enough that American radicals have infiltrated our educational systems to rewrite history, erase history, distort the truth and outright lie. We are now employing foreigners to help us along in our destruction. Wonderful!

(For the record, I don't support Obama's healthcare takeover. It's a tax and nothing more. No healthcare services will be implemented until 2013--that means we pay for at least 4-5 years BEFORE anyone gets anything out of it--at which time they'll cry in their soup that costs have risen and they will tax us even more--for LESS service! They simply want to steal more of our money and spend it foolishly. Perhaps more alcohol is needed for Nancy Pelosi's plane as she jetsets around the country with her family on MY DIME!!! WHERE ARE THE JOBS??????????????????????????????) People want JOBS!!!

I'm really sick of what's going on in our world. I'm sick of the right and the left and everyone in between. They are civil servants but they rule as though they are kings and queens. My children know real history because I took the time to teach them, but many, many others sit inside classrooms and listen to these communist pukes teach them lies so that lies become the truth in their minds. The White House had a Mao ornament adorning its Christmas tree this past year. Huh? This is unconscionable. How do we fight that? How do we recover from the calculated deceptions which lead to someone thinking it is a great idea to put a Mao ornament on a Christmas tree?

I try to remain hopeful but it's difficult. I wish for a world away from this world where me and my family could go to get away from this madness. People think communism is great because they do not know what the word means. Go live in China then come back and give us a report on how wonderful it is to have to get a permit to have your one allotted child. I am so sick of stupid people. Stupid people are dangerous and I am telling you right now that stupid people had best stay far away from me because I am liable to slap them upside the head with reality should they start spouting the propaganda taught in schools and disseminated on the news.

Stop poisoning the people with lies, especially our children who are our future.

who i am, who i'm not, who i want to be

My summer has been a whirlwind of activity and now we're getting ready for our youngest to go off to college. It's such an exciting time for her and I'm so happy to be a part of it. I'm not sad in the least--I'm thrilled for her. It is not enough to say I wish the world for her. My dreams for her are limitless. I forget about being negative when I'm around my children. They have always been my hope for bigger and better things. In my deepest heart, I know that what I get from them is more than what I have given to them. The list is endless. Not surprisingly, the list begins and ends with love.

One of the pleasures of running every day is that I turn a glorious shade of bronze just by trekking through my neighborhood. I think exposure to the sun has been demonized by medical professionals to the point of ridiculousness and I'm sure that's mostly because sunshine cannot be bottled and sold at exorbitant prices to the masses. The sun has always felt so healing to me and maybe that's because my body instinctively knows how good it is for me. My blistered, aching feet are wounds I curse and cherish simultaneously. They remind me I am alive. They keep me in the moment.

I am not sure why I haven't been writing as much lately. Partly it has to do with me trying to come to terms with this life of mine. I've been on a quest for truth in everything and have found that you cannot find the truth if truth is not inside you. This has proved difficult because I'm a keeper of secrets. I can bury secrets deep inside the vault of my soul and forget about them. Occasionally, I will take them out in the dead of the night but never long enough to sort anything out. I ask myself what it is that I am afraid of and I answer that I am afraid I will fall apart if I dare to stare down the secrets/truths about myself that feel impossible to come to terms with. I think I do not have the time to fall apart when I've got real life to deal with and so I keep putting this showdown off till another day. I think the sun will continue to shine and time will continue to march on, but there are days I'm not convinced of it. There is truth inside me that I need to set free, that I need to face without fear so that I can find the truth in everything.

Close your eyes and sleep to dream

I've been reading a lot of political blogs lately and what I've found is that they tend to depress me and make me lose hope in everything and I think hope is important to have. It makes getting up in the morning worthwhile if you believe that there are positives to counter all the negatives, that there is light somewhere within the darkness. So I decided to stop obsessing over wanting to read everything and know everything because what can one person do with all that knowledge anyway? I want to know what is going on, but I need to continue to have hope that things will be ok. I'm not sure if I'm just fooling myself or what. I've become somewhat jaded about everything and I am not exaggerating when I write this. I'm like the dark cloud over Eyeore's head threatening to rain at any moment and spoil everyone's day. Tell me something wonderful and I'll be able to root out the evil that's lurking beneath the all the wonderfulness. I've turned into quite the killjoy for sure.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and we were both lamenting about how our lives did not turn out the way we had dreamed they would--how things happened that we had no control over and how we had to adapt to a different life plan. There isn't a place to go where we can just cry about the losses that probably aren't significant to most of the outside world but still feel huge to us. There's this fear of expressing dissatisfaction when you know that mostly your life is blessed, because the rule is that you count your blessings and you do not ask for more than enough when you have enough. And so we discuss this with each other and tell each other that we're lucky because we are. And the speaking of the words that feel like a betrayal helps for a while. We hang up our phones and get on with the lives we have and we feel less alone knowing there is at least one person walking the earth who feels the same things.

I'm on one of my cleaning binges again. It's always all or nothing with me and I tend to disrespect housecleaning now that I have been doing it more than half of my life. There's nothing rewarding about it but I get to the point where I feel like I need control of something, anything, and so I clean. Even when I know that tomorrow at this time everything I've done will be undone there are at least a few moments when things are in order and that gives me a little peace. My gravestone will probably read something like, She lived, She cleaned, She saw her cleaning come undone, She died.

I'm almost done the Bible and know that I will have to go back and read it all again because there is just so much to take in after just one reading. My mind is filled with all the stories and all the questions I have that I am afraid I will never get the answers to--at least not in this life. I've found some of the most beautiful prose inside the Bible and I wasn't expecting that. And I've also found that while there were things I did not understand, I did get the messages of love that were preached throughout, and the messages of forgiveness. Life is so complicated, and people make it more complicated than it needs to be. The message of loving one another is such a simple thing, yet most of us can't sustain that sort of love long enough to make a difference. There are too many outside annoyances calling our attention away from what is most important and we simply allow those distractions to steal the gift of love away and put it on a back burner. I start off each day swearing to do better and by noon I'm off track. I'm not sure good intentions count for anything when good intentions are all I ever end up having.

Watermelon is great this time of the year...and air conditioning is the greatest invention of all time when it is 100 degrees outside. I feel alive when I go outside and within a minute am covered in sweat. I feel alive when I come inside and am met with a wall of cool air. I am here in this corner of the world struggling to make sense of everything that doesn't make sense. I turn the page and think about all the things I need to put down in words so that I will not be forgotten. I scream inside my head, don't forget me.

I never wanted to fit in any place except your heart

I went with my youngest daughter to her college orientation this week. She was accepted at a top 10 university and the place is enormous but she's coming from a one of the largest high schools in the nation so it shouldn't be too big of an adjustment--just lots of walking to classes and whatnot. I spent a lot of time riding around the campus trying to find all the different places so I could get a feel for where she'll be, and for the first time in a long time I really started to feel old--like more of my life is behind me than in front of me now. I don't know if that's true--it's just how I felt at the time.

There was so much young life all around me, and feverish activity, and I remembered how it felt to be in that place feeling those things. For a moment or two, or three, I wished I could go back. I don't know if that's a horrible thing to feel or not, but I wished it with my heart. Not that I would undo anything that's happened since I've been to college, it's just that feeling I would like to get back, of the world being this wide open place filled with nothing but hope (not Barack Obama socialist hope--REAL HOPE). And I miss having dreams for myself, because most of my dreams are now for my children, and it's been this way for as long as I've had them (many, many years). I think I need to find a way to change all that and get out of this funk.

I was walking the other day and passed by this gorgeous magnolia tree. Have you ever seen one with your own eyes? They are staggeringly beautiful. The flower is like some sort of sculpture it is so exquisite. They make you want to stop and stare at them, and in this world of "hurry up and get there yesterday" that's saying something. It was the scent, though, that felt most like heaven. It's a scent you wish you could drink so you could get filled up with it. I think I will always want to live in a place where magnolia trees grow.

There you go with hope again

I spent the last week sitting on a beach staring out at this awe-inspiring ocean.

I keep this memory close and take it out when I need to remember just how beautiful life can be.

The sacred is in the ordinary

"The great lesson is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbours, friends, and family, in one's backyard." - Abraham Maslow

I was going to write about the reply I got from my daughter's teacher today but I've allowed that woman to take up too much of my time today and so I will write about that another time.

Instead, I will talk about dribbling brightly colored lights among the bushes out front. I love Christmas lights--colored, preferably, but white will do in a pinch and on a mantel decorated with my favorite Christmas things.

I found the star for the top my tree and the tree skirt so I did not have to go out and purchase new ones. The old me would rush out and buy new things without thinking, but the new me wants to live a simpler life--and what could be more simple than taking the time to find things you know you have but can't find because you have so much stuff? I could seriously open some sort of store with all the stuff I've accumulated over the course of my life. I wish I knew then what I know now--that things are just things and the only importance they hold is the importance you assign them yourself.

My son is on his way home from college and we're thinking of decorating his room with Christmas lights to welcome him. I'm so excited to see him again. It feels like years and like just yesterday that he went away...if that makes sense--long and short at the same time.

There are days when it seems the fates are conspiring to drive me crazy and I fight to keep positive. On those days I look for the little things to bring me happiness--like a strand of colored lights, or the thought of my son coming back home to us.

Ice cream lifts a heavy heart

"I promise you not a moment will be lost as long as I have heart & voice to speak & we will walk again together with a thousand others & a thousand more & on & on until there is no one among us who does not know the truth: there is no future without love." Storypeople

So my heart has been a little heavy lately with all this election business. I cracked open a beer the night of the election. I cannot remember the last time I've had alcohol. I couldn't take watching it anymore so I caught up on some shows I had taped. When I finally switched back to election coverage, McCain had conceded. That's when my heart grew heavy. All that talk about hope and I couldn't find it anywhere.

The next day I was still feeling bad, and so I decided that maybe a Dairy Queen vanilla cone dipped in chocolate would aid in the mourning process. It did. I highly recommend Dairy Queen when you're feeling down. The sugar high lifted me up. I remembered that hope isn't something I should seek outside of myself--and the same goes for change. I can't control the world around me, but I can control how I react and how I go about living in the wake of disappointment. My father always told me that life is filled with disappointments and the sooner you get used to it, the better off you'll be. I've always found this to be something that is easier said than done.

Lately I've been struggling with intolerance for people who voted for Obama. I know I risk pissing people off but if I click onto one more blog that mentions HOPE with regards to Obama, I feel I might explode. I'm not really the intolerant type so I don't know what's come over me. I think if I could read some specifics as to why he is such a game changer (for the positive) I might feel less angry. I'm getting worked up all over again. I think it's time for another DQ run...

That mum up above? A couple of years ago I bought a tiny mum at Walmart and planted it in the ground and every year it comes back bigger and bigger. It's the highlight of my fall, watching that mum come back to life and bloom so beautifully. I feel so proud of it even though I don't do a thing to help it grow except watch it, anticipating it's loveliness.

My sister sent me a card last week, and when I opened it up a photo tumbled out. It was a picture of her and me when we were 6 and 8 years old. We wore matching coats. Our hair was cut very short and on top of our heads we had big bows. We looked so innocent and precious and even though I do not remember standing beside her the day that picture was taken, I know without question that we were happy.

When it feels like my dreams are so far, sing to me of the plans that you have for me over again

I'm on the lookout for hope. I look for it every morning when I wake up. I look for it when I am working out. I look for it when I am driving down the same road for the fiftieth time and I am bored out of my mind with the mediocrity of my life. I look for it in flowers and cherry trees. I look for it when I feel defeated. I look for it in the eyes of children. I look for it in words that break my heart. I look for it in sunrises. I look for it inside fortune cookies. I look for it in phone calls from people I am too far away to see regularly anymore. I look for it in songs that stick in my head and play over and over. I look for it in heads up pennies I find on the ground.

I think if I have hope then I can do anything, live through anything, and so that is why I am always on the lookout for it.

My secret is that hope keeps me going.

I try to find hope everywhere.

Taking the long way home

"My life is my message." - Mahatma Ghandi


My husband wanted to go for a ride today again, so I set up a few rules for our "little drive up the road." The rules were as follows:

1.) No turning the heat to 85 degrees inside the car when it is a delightfully beautiful day like today (mid 60's). My husband is always saying he's cold and I'll be sitting in the car with the vents blowing that hot air in my face and that's supposed to be enjoyable? I don't think so. He promised to abide by this rule since it makes perfect sense however I ended up turning the temperature down no less than 5 times during our ride. It's a habit that will be hard to break, I think.

2.) No NHL Home Ice on XM radio and no 60's music for longer than 10 minutes because he won't compromise on the music with me and will yell at me for liking music made in this decade. I told him that if he broke this rule, then I'd put my IPOD in my ears and ignore him. I didn't have to do this until we were on the way home (we started off at noon time and never got home until 7:30 PM.) I know.

3.) No talking about bills. This is one of his favorite topics. No matter how many times I tell him all the bills are paid (because we sit and pay them TOGETHER, mind you), he continues to ask me if they're all paid. He slipped up once which was pretty good for him considering on a bad day he'll ask me hourly (and surprisingly, the answer never changes!) I know!

Anyway, those were the basics because I didn't want to completely lose my sanity during an afternoon drive. We're scouting out land in the mountains to build a house in another year or so. Up until just recently I have fought going anywhere that felt too isolated and peaceful. I like being where the action and noise is. I like accessible shopping. But this place we've found feels a little like heaven and when I stand outside and look around I think that I could be happy there. It's the kind of place where I will be forced to be alone with my thoughts and deal with them head on instead of pushing them away until another day and I think that might be good for me. I hate moving with a passion but my husband loves moving especially if there is money is to be made. We are so totally opposite of one another it's not funny.

We had a great afternoon except for me getting a little car sick when we were whipping up and down roads in a neighborhood nestled deep in the mountains. I had to ask him to stop at a Rite Aid to get a package of Rolaids to settle my stomach. I hate being caught without Rolaids because you never know when you might need them.

I think I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving even though I didn't realize it's next week. I guess that means I need to get a turkey. It's just me, my husband and two of my kids because everyone else lives out of state. I cook all day then we sit down and in approximately 7 minutes everyone is finished and they up leave me with the mess.

I can hardly wait.

Think of me...

"...there will never be a day when I won't think of you..."-Andrew Lloyd Webber

I haven't seen or spoken to one of my brothers in more than 20 years. The reason why is as big a mystery to me as to anyone who might read this. I think he got furious with me that I upset our parents over something that had nothing whatsoever to do with him, and so he decided not to speak to me ever again. I have three children he has never met. When he had his first child, I decided to offer up an olive branch even though I knew I had done nothing wrong to deserve his treatment of me, and put together a package of things for his new baby daughter and mailed it off to him. I knew how much I had changed just from having my children and thought perhaps his heart might have melted, too. I never heard back from him, not a thank you, nothing.

I have another brother who cut ties with everyone in the family when my parents disapproved of an older woman he was involved with. This was approximately 15 years ago. I had moved away with my own family at the time and so my connection to him was always through them and when he cut them off I guess he threw me in there as well because in my world that's just the way it goes. I guess we're considered a package deal and so we were all severed together.

I spend a lot of time trying not to think about this, and about what it means to me because it's very difficult to accept, at least for me, that I could be so easily erased from the lives of my brothers. I never tell anyone about them either because how do I explain the reasons why when I don't know them myself? It's this secret sorrow of mine that the world knows nothing about, but I might feel better if I write it down, if I try to let it go. I grew up in a family of people who never discussed difficult things, so that was the norm for me. My parents must know how awful I feel knowing that both of my brothers live their lives as though I do not exist and yet they say nothing. It just never gets mentioned because it's the appearance of happiness that's most important in our world. Nobody does surface-level-living like we do.

Here's something you should know about me: I am good at learning to live without people that I love because I think of it in terms of completing a task. I set my emotions aside and do the work involved in meeting the goal. It's only in the quiet of the night or on holidays or when I know it's their birthdays that I allow myself to feel the loss I know I've learned to live with so well. I wonder how they are. I wonder if they ever think of me.

Today I was wasting time on FACEBOOK and decided to type in my brothers names to see if I could find them. I don't know why it hasn't occurred to me to do this before, but it hasn't. I could not find the brother who cut ties with everyone, but I did find a picture of my other brother. He looks nothing like I remember and yet I see my mother's face in him. I felt a mean little thought about how time has been kinder to me than it has been to him and then I stopped thinking that because I should know better by now than to be so spiteful.

It does feel better writing this all down. It doesn't change anything, but it does feel freeing to some degree.

Here's something else you should know: My brothers missed out on knowing and loving someone fabulous.

Me.