Tag: pandemic

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January 4, 2022 People are Stupid AKA It’s a Mad, Mad World

I had some errands to run and I got them all done. For reasons some of you know, I deal with anxiety related to driving (sometimes) and at times it’s just anxiety over leaving the house. But I got them all done and back home again in my comfy bubble.

I heard about the recent slap-fest on an airplane and my heart sank a little more. We are so passionate in our points of view these days, and ever-so stressed out. Maybe along with a sky ranger on the plane, we need a secret psychiatrist. Nobody knows who he or she is but they pop out when needed. Armed with comfort, kind words, appropriate meds. And once again the airline ticket costs jump up cuz they have to pay these people. What a world. I honestly don’t know if I will ever choose to fly again.

But for all the madness in our mad, mad world, I am actually doing pretty well. Watching the latest Coben marvel Stay Close on Netflix. I have a handful of shows (always) that help to occupy my mind and keep me busy. I live and thrive in the world of fiction and fantasy, and ain’t it a good thing these days? I often prefer fiction to reality. I art journal, I draw, I read, I fill notebook after notebook and write blog after blog. We all have our coping mechanisms, eh? And occasionally I foray out into the real world.

I texted a friend today and said, “Just checking in to see how your holidays were, cuz you’re one of the few humans I like.” It is, sadly, true. I try not to be too harshly judgmental of others, but often, for one reason or another, I just don’t like everyone and I guard my time and energy too much to waste it these days. If a hermit such as myself chooses to leave my home and venture out for you, you are special indeed to me. (You’re looking at a woman whose life motto has always been “People are stupid.”) I know, I know, you think I’m too negative. But I’m not wrong.

I’ve been finding a lot of traits in myself that I’ve seen in my late father, and it makes me say, “Oh! Genetics are real!” but also “Yikes,” cuz I have to make sure I don’t push everyone in my life away from me. I guess being aware of potential negative behavior is a good first place to start. I’m also a lovie, though, I truly am. If I don’t frighten people away and if I genuinely connect with or like someone, they’d find me to be a true, loving, forever friend. I have a huge heart. Perhaps that is why I protect it so very well.

In parting I will add, don’t always fall back on thinking people are stupid, try to understand. Try to be open to connection and friendship. I’m talking to myself here, too, of course. In such times we need extra super-human patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Whatever you get up to this January, be kind, even it’s it difficult. We need more of this.

Peace Out, my friends!

 

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How I feel TODAY (September 10) and also, coping with fear and crisis

The world cracks and I end up in my bubble, cocooning, then watch so much crime TV that I’m stressed out all over again. Why do I do it? I do so love my detective stories. Most recently a lot of Brit Box and Acorn TV stuff.

I was thinking earlier today about how we all respond so differently to crisis. Fight or Flight broken down into many subcategories. Some run away, some fight by angry posts and fear-mongering, themselves overwhelmed by their own fear and confusion, up to and including violent outbursts. Some need to figure out and fall back and study everything, trying to find answers, weed through the crap-ton of crap and wheedle out a bit of truth. Some hide away completely. Some lose their ability to cope entirely. Some fear the end of all things and give in to the “The Sky is Falling” mentality.

Soooo much change these days. Look at just the change of going from a society without internet to a society WITH it. MAJOR change. We are bombarded with information day & night, and unfortunately, we have as much constant access to BS and conspiracy theories and extremist rants as to anything resembling reality. And it’s blasted hard for most to tell the difference. Our fears are played on, we’re manipulated and dance to tunes we never should be listening to. The only way I cope is by Zooming Out.

It’s good to step back, get away from all the noise and get your own senses in order again. It’s also good to protect yourself from the madness all around us.

I think planet Earth has been around a very long time and will be here long after this current crisis has come and gone, and may indeed still be around after we humans kill ourselves off. Civilizations rise and fall, it has always been thus. I think if planet Earth feels like we’re warring against her, she may very well win the battle in the end. We’re a plague of locusts to her.

I’ve come to believe that most truth is to be found in scientific provable fact. It gets difficult when fact is hard to winnow out and we begin to mistrust everything and everyone. Many fall back on their faith systems because, well, they’ve been taught to for one, and also they have no utter idea how else to cope but to hope and pray that something or someone somewhere (ie their God) is on top of things and in control. Cuz dammit someone needs to be. We don’t like it when we feel that things are out of control; never have, never will.

When I began to deconstruct out of my earlier faith system and worldview, it was scary, as HELL. I used to believe that I was super-protected by an invisible force. As I began to disbelieve that, it rocked my world. It’s the easiest thing in the world to run and hide and be afraid of everyone and everything, (and I was going through all of this way before we ever heard of Covid-19, a whole other reason to be shaken or frightened.) It started as much as twelve or fifteen years ago.

But life is scary, WAS scary even before the pandemic. It always will be. It takes courage indeed to press on when all you’ve ever thought to be real, comes crashing down around you. I know I’m not the only one who has experienced this in one way or another. Maybe your faith system hasn’t changed but your world has been rocked by things happening we all never believed could happen. By our constant access to negativity, fear-mongering, and way too much information coming at us all at once. In some way, we’ve all been shaken.

But. Strangely, I have found peace. I find peace in art. In the ocean. In the eyes and faces and hearts of some truly beautiful people. I find it by turning OFF the noise and social media (for the most part) and hearing from individuals. By people helping people to cope and get through. There are still so many good folks in this world. Hurting, confused, but good. We have to help each other through this, but with love, compassion and a listening ear. Put away the biased rants, the blame-game, and just hug someone, just love someone.

I was once so afraid to let anyone IN. I still kinda can be. But if we ever needed each other, it’s now.

Hope floats. Love heals. Peace wins.

Peace Out.

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August 2021

It’s the end of August and I haven’t blogged for a bit. Upgraded my phone and laptop this year and we bought a new (to us) home, so we have been busy.

It seems like the last few years have been about new beginnings, but like over and over. I am so ready to SETTLE in for a bit. We love our area and the friends we’ve made in Central Florida. We adore our new place and the neighborhood seems to be very amenable to walking and being outdoors and making friends. If I can get some cooler temps coming in (which should be soon) I want to start walking outside instead of just doing my bike in the house. I have been enjoying the pool though during this summer heat.

Now if we can just get Covid and its many mutations to Go the F Away and stay away. If only. My hopes are that the world (and our state) will be far more clear of this mess by Christmas.

What a couple years, eh? Batshit. The fear, the Unknown, the lack of control we all felt (that some handled better than others) and the complete inability for some to accept what was happening… (all totally normal, I suppose, under the circumstances). We all have had such different experiences and backgrounds, our personalities can be so utterly different, different ages, all sorts of things, so, of course, we respond uniquely. If there is anything we humans (maybe especially Americans) love, it’s control. It’s being in the know. We want the skinny and we want it NOW.

But I wonder how we will recover in the long-term. How can we ever go back to who we once were? Maybe the answer is that we cannot. I truly hope we can be smarter, more compassionate, more willing to share with one another in an atmosphere of love and acceptance… but I don’t see evidence of it. Our world, our nation has been rocked and it has changed, I’m not sure for the better. A lot of people, myself included, are more afraid to fly than ever before. (And I’m not even talking about the risk of the virus, but how people have been behaving.) There are more (or at least more obvious) mental health issues than ever before. We’ve all been traumatized. Some folks just don’t seem well, not at all. Kindness and compassion go out the window and full-on meltdowns are the go-to response to, well, anything. It’s like we’ve had ENOUGH and cannot take any more.

Where in the world will we end up?? Heaven only knows.

Early on in the pandemic, I found some ways for me to cope. 1) I take one day and one decision at a time. It helps me NOT to feel overwhelmed. 2) I had my “F U” moment. I think everyone needs this, the moment where you scream at the top of your lungs “F you and F that and F Covid!” Etc, etc. Mine lasted a bit. I had some old stuff to get out, and this helped me more than anything I’ve tried, to destress, let go of old anger and old stuffed trauma and memories. Anger and hurt that is stuffed down will find its way out, be it days, weeks, or years later. It comes out physically and emotionally and can and does make us sick. The Only Way Out is Through. I learned to stop stuffing. 3) similar to 2, and this began even well before the pandemic, I take care of myself and have gotten a little therapy, learned to be fully myself, have my opinions and independence, and without beating up others in the process.

I’ve learned that I’m not just okay, I’m more than okay. I love and I am loved. I love and care for myself and my uniqueness and I value it. All those old messages of Not being quite good enough have been kicked to the curb and have no power over me now. I don’t feel the same pressures I used to, to fit in or make others happy. I am me, come along for the ride or get away, I really don’t care anymore. (Some of this freedom comes with age!) As we get older, and also having been through times of crisis, we can more clearly see the ridiculousness of some of the things we used to fret about. Ideally, old falsehoods and bad habits and attitudes burn away. I focus on health, in every area.

I’m a recovering perfectionist, still working on it. I believe it goes along with trying too hard for too many years to please everyone around me. It made me critical. I still struggle with this every day, but I have my head on straight finally.

I take responsibility (and this is a biggie) for me. For all I do or say. I don’t do the blame game or gaslight or manipulate others in order to make myself feel better. I see way too much of this behavior in the world today, and I refuse to participate. But neither do I apologize too frequently, or if I genuinely have no reason to; I live an unapologetic real life.

I was thinking about people who cut (hurt themselves) or have other methods of what I believe to be Release. For me, writing is a release, even if I repeat myself or vent or make no sense at all. Drawing, painting, and being creative helps me, too. I was thinking about how we can learn more positive forms of “pressure release” so that so many people don’t have to go through life self-medicating or self-harming, just to get by. We’ve got to get better. We have to do BETTER.

I truly hope and pray we humans grow from these past months and years. That we learn to cope without hurting ourselves or others. I truly hope for healing.

Peace Out for now my friends-

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Deconstruction or Annihilation

One of the first “Jenga bricks” to be pulled out for me, was realizing that I had no special protection for being a Christian. I’d heard and read this theology of “umbrella of protection” that basically teaches that if I’m really good and behave myself I will be protected from all harm. Once that brick was pulled the rest of the demolition was easy. It all fell apart.

The 2nd biggie was realizing that I really, deep down, once I really stepped back and examined things, canNOT in good conscience believe that the bible is literal. There’s just too much batshit stuff in there. Zooming out helped me come to the conclusion that a lot of it was the time/culture/ignorance they were living in combined with patriarchal beliefs and that need for control that men have had from the beginning. I believe there is a lot of good stuff in there, but also a lot of nonsense, capped off with what is basically a voodoo curse in the back. (Even though we also should not suffer a witch to live.) So use magics when and how I say, is what they were thinking. Patriarchy. Control. The boot on the neck. Yeah.

Ya wanna talk magics? Raising the dead is dark magic according to anyone who says anything about magic, so… that’s weird. Healing, walking on water, all magic.

So, for me, there are such things as miracles and gifts, but they are not intrinsically good or evil. Just like a gun or knife or fork or ax isn’t good or evil, it’s about who wields the power and how they use it. Many of the recorded “miracles” happened to people who were not even people of faith, so that was telling. Many so-called angelic sightings or NDE’s, same. (Near-death Experiences)

My conclusions then, (and I am not totally done concluding and never will be) is that there is a TON of crap none of us really understand or are even really capable of understanding. Which can be disconcerting and feel like annihilation. The earth moves under our feet. Plagues and pandemics are real. I believe there is life on other planets and we have likely already made first contact, only the powers that be feel we are not able to handle it yet, and they would be right.

I mean FFS. Look at how we have just been behaving about science and medicine and fact.

So. What does this mean for the person who feels the way I do? How do we cope? We learn One Day at a Time. We struggle, we enjoy every moment we possibly can. We accept that there is much we cannot understand or control. We fight to survive.

Peace Out, peeps!

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My POV aka Don’t be Too Crunchy

I like my blog. It’s my POV. I don’t have to argue with people about why I do the things I do or explain or justify, I can just say what I wanna say. Done and done.

I will never get this particular brand of Trump-mania. The blind-following. Crying “censorship” when anyone disagrees with your rhetoric. When people try to stop the flow of nonsense.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good conspiracy theory, I have several of my own, but also I am smart enough to understand that they are just that, and as such, it would not be prudent for me to fling them all around the world claiming them to be fact. I reserve those discussions for those I sit and chat with and hang out with, and hey maybe that’s another negative to this pandemic thing… we can’t just sit and have coffee with our buds and spout out our wild conspiracy theories. in a safe environment, safe in knowing that my bud knows when I’m on the edge of koo-koo but we both know it and it won’t leave the room. I like spouting the crazy, but not publicly. Just for fun, just to vent. But in this environment it has become just a bit too easy for people to latch on and start claiming things as fact that are indeed, just theory.

I think the pandemic is making us all a bit too crunchy, too on the edge…. we are not all behaving rationally. We latch on to something just to feel like we have something to latch onto. Pausing long enough to really think has gone out the window, and heaven forbid any of us might be seen to admit that we may have been wrong about something or someone. Our egos won’t allow that. So we hang on for dear life to that which is ugly and wrong and destructive.

If I rant a lot about anything these days, it is to Think for Yourself. Slow down. Zoom out. Find your logic and common sense. Stop getting caught up in the nonsense. (And know you will be embraced and loved, by those that matter, if you find yourself in a position to have to say “Hey maybe I was wrong.”) Give peace a chance. And common sense. And love for your fellow humans. Calm. Logic. Thoughtfulness. It may be harder to find these days, but it can indeed be found and embraced.

Be good to someone today. It’s the right thing to do. Defeat all that darkness with your light. Be the voice of reason in the midst of chaos.

and Peace Out!

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Nov 8 Life Continued

Of course, as often happens with me, my brain was abuzz with words for a blog in the wee hours of the morning, I had plans, I had goals for a new YouTube vid about writing. As the day began to progress, my excitement and inspiration began to wane.

I needed to do my nails so I did that, did the dishes and put some laundry in the washer and bye-bye to more inspiration. Then I cleaned out closets. And so it goes.

My better writing angels that were perched with glee on my shoulders seem to have vanished, giving up on me getting in front of the computer. Come back! I scream. I’m here finally! **Looks under the bed and all around but they are playing hide and seek.

Oh well. I’ll sit anyway because discipline is a thing. Sometimes we writers just have to show up when we can and hope for the best.

Been spending some time thinking about where to go next with my current novel project. I’ve set it up for some romance and a bit of thriller action, but I’ve got to get to the nitty-gritty of it. What specifically do I want to happen with this antagonist? Will work on that some today.

I’m getting used to a new computer, so that’s fun, learning which keys stick and what-not.

My art room is a hot mess. I dug out every painting I had stored anywhere in the house and they are laying about higgledy-piggledy. My “Lovely Lady” drawings are strewn everywhere. I’ve been working on updating my store here on the site and making sure it’s accurate.

I’ve all but given up on Facebook entirely. Social media all together, really. though I do enjoy browsing through the lovely poems and paintings on my Instagram feed.

I really hope our country can begin to heal now that the election is behind us. Politicians have gone a long way towards dividing us, egging us on against one another. It’s time to set aside differences and find humanity again. To focus on getting through this pandemic to the end of it, which I hope and pray will be sooner rather than later.

Once the virus is gone maybe we can get back to sitting down with one another and talking about things. I find when you do that, you often find that we are not nearly as far apart on how we think and feel than the politicians would have us believe. They thrive on creating discord between us and we need to wake up to their plots and refuse to be their puppets any longer. Life could be so good for us if we could just get back to love and care and stop listening to the talking heads. Let’s reach out, talk, love, heal, show compassion.

Next up, a little art, a little more writing, a bit more organization and cleaning. Whatever you get up to today, I hope it’s something that brings you peace. We are all overdue for some.

Peace Out, peeps!

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October Something

My God it has been so long since I blogged. What in hell have I been doing? I guess reading a ton, a little writing, a little arting, some game-playing and a lot of just trying to survive day to day.

I can feel it burbling and boiling and roiling (I was awake at 4 a.m. and the most provocative, insightful and genius thoughts and ideas were running through my head but I had NOT the ability to arouse out of the bed and jot them down, and so, as they tend to do, the little bastards flew away at the light of day.) But it is well past time.

I title this October Something because in reality I don’t know what day it is. (I rarely do.) I know it’s Thursday, that’s the best I can do. I haven’t the motivation to look it up. Who cares in the end?

I am trying to coax all of my wanderings and thoughts and rambles to come back out of hiding and come to rest on my shoulders again so I can get them down, blast it. Listening to a podcast (involving Russel Brand and Gabor Mate) which is firing up my little gray cells. The deep thoughts are lurking, waiting to pounce.

I just heard that even rats (they’ve done experiments) are known to have compassion. If you hurt them, they have a certain level of stress hormone. If you hurt the rat next to them, their stress is higher. They feel compassion and empathy. One could conclude it is something we mammals are born with. Then what the hell have us humans done to ourselves that so many have lost this ability? It boggles the mind.

We have lived within our narrow confining cocoons for so long, being told how to feel, what to feel, how to behave, and we’ve grown so comfortable with it. Such good little sheep we are. And now, in the age of the internet, we’re so hyper-aware of others’ thoughts and opinions, and we are freaking out and melting down. But still most people will tell you that THEIR ideology or worldview is the only one that is true and real and right. It makes me laugh.

All the many things that are so very unimportant is all that our world has chosen to focus on. We buy and buy, we hide and cry, our purchases not fulfilling us for long. We’ve gotten so very off course. 

Try to imagine what an enlightened race from another planet would think if they were observing us right now. The brainwashed far right spouting what they’ve always been taught (and are still being taught) is the absolute truth and right as rain (because, of course, what else would they spout when they’ve locked themselves away for decades, refusing to see anything else, anything new or different, any new thought or idea that may (heaven forbid) show us we’ve drifted far off course?) Cuz who wants to admit that may have been or may be wrong about anything? Certainly not a human American in 2020.

Or the far left or the far any-direction extremist of any background, who cannot, no, WILL not see anything that doesn’t fit their box? Willful ignorance, it’s a thing. Naivete’, simple ignorance (just not knowing, not having information) is one thing, but willfully refusing to learn, grow, study, THINK for ourselves is the true pandemic. Heaven help us all.

We’d much prefer to fit in with the Joneses of the Republican party or the Smiths of the Democratic, than to confront our own selves. To confront our own prejudices, biases, the WRONGness that surrounds us and is threatening to swallow us whole. (One might think that coming out of something very narrow and limited, I’d be more sympathetic, but I’m not.) Again of genuine ignorance I can be somewhat sympathetic, but a refusal to listen, to see, to seek, to grow, to ZOOM out and see the whole world as one large human family…. It’s at minimum, a pet peeve.

I never dreamed the world, humans, would behave in the ways I have witnessed in the last decade, hell, even the last year. I sometimes wonder if I might not jostle and stir and awake from a deep sleep and a bad nightmare. Awake to find people who genuinely reason out and think while loving their neighbors and friends. Who understand that we are all one (it isn’t us vs them, America vs every other country, white vs black, Christian vs Jew or more likely everyone else). We’ve lost it. Entirely. We’ve lost love.

If you’ve been raised to believe the sky is purple and made of marshmallow cream, you’ll grow up believing that with a religious fervor. No-one will be able to talk you out of it. And oh how the world would tilt on its axis if someone tried to tell you that there is actually oxygen in the air and the sky is more often blue than purple. And yes, much of what is going on these days is just this ridiculous.

We have a leader that openly bad-mouths women and minorities, talks and tweets continually in the most horrible and hateful (and ignorant) of ways, and many on the far right call him the second coming of Jesus. I literally have become convinced that there is nothing that man could do that would cause his followers to stop following him. He is untouchable. He is the King. They will literally follow him off a cliff. It’s Hitler-ish in its blind intensity. Yeah, so he can make your 401K gain more interest than ever before. Does this mean I would follow him? Praise him? Or even put up with him? People have lost all of their sense. 

One thing I believe Christianity teaches (wrongly) is that we must follow blindly whatever leader happens to be in office. I do not believe this is something God would want us to do, not any God I could follow. “Just put up with abuse, with wrong, bad leaders,” yeah like he told the people it would be better to wander desperate in the desert than to be under pharoah? One of many, many discrepancies in the bible as we know it. I don’t buy it, never will.

I’ve been reading a story about a family in Poland during the Nazi occupation, and any time I read about Hitler, I am reminded of just how easy it is to be blinded, to close our eyes to the tyranny in front of us. To blindly follow. It makes me want to vomit. Truly. It is the observing of blind-followers that makes me refuse to follow man-made religion ever again. It is just too easy to Jim Jones it, to frack it all up. There are far too many sheep on planet earth.

I won’t be a sheep, not ever. No matter how hard it will be or how many friends I lose, I will always follow my heart and conscience and science and fact. It’s lonely out here, but here I will stay.

I don’t hate, (not people anyway). I hate evil. I hate ignorance and darkness. I hate that there is such pain and abuse and hatred and bigotry on our planet, amongst our people. I hate (currently) that I have to be lumped into this thing called “humanity” alongside those who seem so inhuman, inhumane. 

Perhaps this is all growing pains, maybe since the internet age began we are just going through so many changes, too quickly and it is hard and maybe a certain amount of this BS is unavoidable, I do not know, but I fear the world my grandkids will deal with. Maybe every generation says the same.

The indomitable human spirit, though… Those who gave their lives to bring some information to the British government about the Nazi occupation. Those who risked their lives and often gave them, to hide people that were being murdered for no other reason than their country or religion of birth. (Do any of us have this kind of spirit, this kind of strength nowadays? I often wonder. I wonder if I do.)

If nothing else, this time in history is giving us a chance to stop and think and ponder about the nature of mankind, about our predicament, our circumstance. We are being given a chance to rediscover our empathy, our hearts, to keep our minds and our wits about us. I truly hope we don’t blow it.

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True, Big Love

I just saw a true portrayal of love… it was a show about a woman who’s nine-year-old son had been murdered by a very broken, distraught teenager. Towards the end of the show, she is confronting the killer (many years later). He’s telling the mother what happened, crying, apologizing, and another man, a friend of the mother’s, shows up with a knife and starts towards the killer. He intends to take his life. The mother steps in front of the killer, the one who had killed her son. She steps up, steps in. 

She knows he deserves it, has it coming, but she still stands between the man with the knife and the one who killed her son.

It kinda broke me.

What a portrait of love, big love, forgiveness, sacrifice. She was willing to take the knife into her own body for the guilty one. So very Christ-like, so very full of true, actual love.

Though I am not much into religion in an organized way these days, I do very strongly believe in the principles of love, forgiveness, sacrifice. I believe in big love, all encompassing love. The kind of love that says, “No more. Enough is enough.”

In a time when compassion and empathy can literally save the lives of our fellow humans, (but many can’t be bothered to care), it is a powerful and compelling story.

This is the kind of love I seek to always have. Sacrificial, big love that says, it’s not just about me.

Something to ponder.

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Almost Normal

A good Saturday.

There’s a line in the movie Beverly Hills Ninja where Chris Rock’s character says something like, “Man, every time I leave my house, everywhere I go, there’s someone waiting there to kick my ass.” I haven’t watched that movie in years but apparently that line stuck with me. Cuz I do feel like that sometimes. Metaphorically speaking.

Definitely social media feels like that. Many of us have become careful about what we say, because no matter what it is, there’s someone out there that not only disagrees with you, but wants to kick your ass about it. It’s so tiring. And it happens now more than ever before as we have become so divided. That’s one reason why I’ve started blogging here more rather than saying all my “word vomit” right there on Facebook. I figure the amount of people who will actually care what I have to say enough to click through is small and even the ones who do, rarely want to leave a comment. Hey, cool with me, cuz –if ya can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all–works for me.

Me and hubs spent a lot of time outside earlier and even went for a ride in the car, windows down and music blaring. It felt almost, dare I say it, normal. We went over and looked at the ocean but didn’t get out of the car, just drove around a bit. Things are really starting to open up over at the beach area, more and more people are going to the beaches even though they still have the boardwalk and the parking areas blocked off, which makes no sense to me, but there ya go. Seems to me that if ya can plop your chair down and sit on the beach, that’s no worse by parking your car nearby or being able to walk the boardwalk, but I guess they don’t agree.

We’re thinking and hoping to go to the beach in a couple weeks time (we saw some areas that were completely deserted where we could go and still be away from everyone.) It will be nice to do that again. We still plan to avoid restaurants (except take-out) for a bit longer and are staying away from everyone for a while yet. To each their own, I suppose, but we will make our own decisions on where to go and when. (We should live in the ‘show me” state cuz we are big on waiting and watching.) We seem to be down to one new case a day in our county, so I hope the low numbers continue to go down.

Meanwhile, as I said, today has felt nearly normal and we have been needing some of that. The emotional wear and tear on people can be so devastating, but I know people have different thoughts on when and where they go. We’re just taking it slow and easy. It helps me so much mentally just to get outside and get some sun. Hubby will be good once he can start on an outdoor project he has been wanting to get started on, which should happen soon. I think I worry about him more than me (as far as how we’re coping.) I guess because I am so much more used to being at home a lot and not seeing other people for days or weeks at a time. My social butterfly is struggling. Not sleeping well, etc. He’s good, I mean I really think he is, but it’s just so new and different for him. And in the midst of it all, we both realize how incredibly fortunate we are compared to some who have lost jobs, loved ones, etc.

Gratitude helps.

I guess Almost Normal will have to suffice for this weekend, and oh yeah, Happy Mother’s Day  to any Moms out there. I hope you are being loved on. 

Love and safe hugs to all my buds out there! Hang in there.

Peace Out

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Pammy’s Blog/Ramble 1,254 April 23 20

Talk about having a lot of time to rant and ramble and navel gaze. Introspection has been my jam largely over the last 15 years and most especially the last four or five and now from the middle of a global pandemic. The following will be an amalgamation of my current thoughts, musings, and my overall health and well-being.

I’ve had lung mess off and on a lot, and was sick in the lungs and coughing for a full 2 years. Yes, literally. This 2 year time frame began to come to an end and I began to feel better around summer 2019. Since then my lungs had been amazing, super well, almost healthier than ever as I’d tightened down my already tight eating habits and had indeed dedicated my entire year 2019 to getting well and healthy. It had begun to work and I turned a corner.

Now, since February or so of this year, (when our allergy season begins here in Central Florida) I’ve had throat and lung mess off and on continually. I get super phlegmy, sometimes a sore throat, and then it will start to move into my lungs. Then it goes away and gets better. (I take some amazing immune support products and I know that I know that these have saved my life many times) but recently it just keeps coming and going repeatedly. I’ve not run a high fever and rarely a low grade one. May be related to EBV issues I’ve had, but whatever it is, it distresses me even more NOW because, of course, when you’re in the midst of a pandemic, every time you get sick you are faced with your own mortality and the possibility that this could be “it” and maybe I’ll die and maybe not and maybe I’ll get really, really sick and then get well, or maybe not.

That’s what I’m dealing with physically. Last 2 nights breathing a bit rough. No fever. Productive cough. Using inhaler.

On top of the physical, of course, I, like everyone, have been trying to deal with the mental, emotional, psychological distress, keep an eye on my spirit and soul and look after me.

Over the last several years, I’ve changed, a lot. I know that deep down I am more genuinely ME than I have ever been, but I have learned and am learning to have strong boundaries, and to say what I think and feel. I’ve done and am doing a lot of healing. I know that this looks like a hot mess to those around me, but I can’t care about that. I am getting really good at monitoring my emotional energy levels and protecting my empathic self. Protecting my soul, protecting me. It finally occurred to me after many years that I am the only one who truly can and should do this. I have to establish boundaries, I have to know and love me, and I don’t have to care what that looks like to anyone else.

I know that those few people that were a part of my life 20 years ago that still follow me in any way, are confused about who I am and what’s going on. Again, I can’t waste energy on that. I have a limited supply. For the most part I say and write things for my own “processing”. But if anyone who really knows, loves, and cares about me, maybe that small percentage of those who follow me that do–that follow me for more than pure entertainment value–will get something out of reading this junk I write. Ultimately, I do it for me, though.

I have been seeking my new “tribe” for a while now. I have to surround myself only with those who truly have my interest and my back, those that I truly connect with in some way NOW today, the person I am and am becoming. I have lost many friends, some who genuinely were friends and some that were acquaintances, but I have NEEDED to let them go and in some cases actually push them away. I am doing this for my own good and my own health.

I finally feel like I am beginning to find a new tribe. I have found that writers and artists, most especially those who are not overly religiously zealous, are making up a large part of it. But it is not mandatory that someone NOT be a religious person in order to be my friend, in fact, I have two particularly close friends that are still very into their Christian faith, but I find it harder and harder to relate to them or connect because that’s not where I’m at these days, and actually find a lot of “religiosity” and Christianeze to be highly annoying, (to be honest) but I always try to see a person’s heart and motivation. I understand the viewpoint of being deeply embedded in right-wing Christianity because I was there for many years of my life. 

But my life, my worldview, my belief systems have dramatically changed over fifteen or twenty years, and I fully understand that in a Christian perspective, this makes me lost, backslidden, and plain wrong. I do not believe that, not in any way or form. I am stronger, healthier (mentally and emotionally and spiritually) than I have ever been, regardless of how it looks to others. And no, I don’t need to explain it or justify it.

I am walking my own path and journey of growth, it’s nobody else’s. Don’t get it? Too bad. (Boundaries! Yay!)

I do not like to cut people out of my life but have done so and will continue to if I need to to protect myself from toxicity or even just to STOP feeling like people need me to stop and explain myself at every turn. I don’t need to.

I have a global worldview. I have friends that I chat with all over the world. Kind, loving, genuine people with large hearts and tons of love for others. When you open your heart to those that are different, you begin to grow and see things differently. I now know more about what I look for in a friend than I ever have. It’s not a common belief system or ideology always, but it is people who are real, vulnerable and genuine. I tend to have instant connections with such folk. It’s what I have always strived to be.

I thought it’d be fun to share some things about me, so you can know if we have points of connection or not, and if you want to move on, you can, or if I don’t connect with you, I can move on.

All the stuff I shared above (already revealed a lot about me)!

Also, I have been endeavoring to remove all masks and fakery from my life. I want you to see and know the real me. I’ve always strived for this but I’m getting better at it.

If you don’t know already, I’m a writer, poet, retired indie publisher and editor, philosopher of sorts, and very deep thinker. I’m a “wordy”. Only in recent years I’ve found a love for art, painting, art journaling and the like.

I love people. I also can’t tolerate being around many of them for very long. If I don’t connect on some sort of deep level, I move on.

I don’t like to lump people into “I hate this person, they’re the devil” kind of categories. That’s anger and hatred and I don’t need blind hatred in my life. I believe everyone (almost everyone) has some good in them and aren’t awful all the time. Me or you can be a jerk one day and do something wonderful the next. I do believe there is evil in the world but I think very few people are truly completely evil. (And many of them are sociopaths with psychological problems or brain malfunction, which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stay away from them.) Noting of course that some people are so broken and damaged that they break and damage others.

So I’m drawn to people who are more sensible in this area.

I’m drawn to practicality, scientific fact, and a lack of deceit or true malice.

I’m very discerning and (usually) can spot a fraud a mile away. I remember even as a teen, laughing in people’s faces at some of the mess they would say to try to manipulate me. Not saying I cannot be manipulated but it would be harder with me than the average Jane.

I don’t have many friends because I don’t put up with crap. Period.

If I am your friend, like truly and deeply, I will become like an octopus on your face (hard to get rid of). Just joking, not at all stalkery but very loyal. I will defend you at every turn.

The opposite of stalkery, I will disappear for weeks or months at a time, but that’s because I am, at my heart, an introvert that enjoys my own company. (Except I’m getting sick of me during this pandemic.) I NEED downtime. I live largely in my head. The things I am most passionate about are the things I do alone, like write, paint, or draw.

If you are dishonest in the way of lying, cheating, stealing, stay far from me for both our sakes.

I will never intentionally hurt you (unless you draw first blood. Then look out.) I will defend my family like a fierce lion. (And sometimes my opinion.)

Okay, that’s enough about me. Tell me about you! (Something deep and real.)


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Blog from the Belly of the Beast

“If the world was ending you’d come over, right?” sings Julia Michaels. The song has deeper meaning than ever. I don’t personally believe the world is ending but it most definitely is changing. Mother Earth is catching a break and a breath in the middle of all of this.

I believe  that God or Spirit or the Universe (whatever you choose to call it) tries to speak to us. We’re continually being stretched, there are lessons we are supposed to learn. For a while I’ve been banging the drum about walking away from dogma, from man-made boxes and labels. The most glaring examples are found in religion and politics. You MUST pick a box, we are told, then sign your life away to everything that box stands for. Everyone outside this box and those in other boxes are the enemy. We must stay away, lest we “catch” what they have. And ultimately, name-calling, villifying, and eventually murder and war. What little predictable ants we are.

I will never go back to that way of thinking. I get called all sorts of things, and sometimes on social media, I feel as though I look behind me as I run and I am being chased by throngs of people carrying labels and boxes. They fling them at me. “Liberal! Socialist! Hippie! Right-wing nut-job!” All depending on what I’ve said that has set them off.

I used to (and sometimes still) try to explain my mindset to others, but it always, every time, leads to the labeling and name-calling, judging, writing me off. There are a precious few who seem to love me in spite of who I am, not sure anyone loves me for exactly who I am. Maybe God and my hubs. Maybe a precious few. So for this “hippie” who has learned many tough lessons on how to be fiercely independent and deal with being, at times, all alone with myself and my thoughts, it’s just one more thing. One more thing that labels me “different”.

This pandemic is forcing others to sit still, to think, to ponder, maybe go inside and ponder deeper things (which is what I spend most of my time doing.) Fear becomes a monstrous beast, and even those claiming to be the most faithful are running scared. Hoarding. Taking care of “Number One” and not thinking about the needs of others. If you do voice concern for others, out come those label-makers… Look out!

We have the people who are doomsday preppers, totally in their element right now, driven by the beast of fear. Many in denial, can’t possibly be true, can’t possibly affect ME, can’t be happening, I’ll ignore it and it’ll go away. Then there are the young or just plain frightened, the broken, completely confused, curled up in a fetal position, waiting for the next shoe or belt to fall. They’ve always believed the world a harsh and scarey place and this latest madness only confirms it.

I’ve seen them, though. The calm, the peaceful, the ones who see what’s happening full well, and rise to the occasion. Those who reach out, no matter the cost. If I have to shelter at this time in a box, I’ll move in with these people. They’re out there helping people online, or working as nurses or doctors. Driving across the country or filling shelves for us. Checking out groceries when they’d rather be anywhere else. They write things about how to calm ourselves, give Yoga and meditation lessons, art lessons, do live online meet-ups so we can still find some way to huddle together. They’re not being positive because they’re in denial, they see the bigger picture. That people need people right now. They need the voices of calm reason and hope and love. I’ll be in that number, I’ll be a helper in any way I can.

As soon as I realized that going about my business could mean that I was spreading the virus, even if I had no symptoms, I began to re-organize my life. I learned the phrase “Flatten the Curve” and I know that the faster we isolate ourselves, the faster we will all be over this. Other countries have been overwhelmed and doctors have had to sit and watch patients die because their resources were stretched too thin.

It’s a surreal time to be alive on planet earth.

But there have been many such times in history, times of crisis. Times when those around you get to see who you really are. Each morning we choose fear or hope. We choose who and what we will be, not just for ourselves but to the world at large.

And finally, here are some Introverting tips from a Pro:

* Make lists. Chore lists, and fun stuff lists.

*Read. You no longer have an excuse not to.

*Stretch, Meditate and/or pray, exercise

*If you can get sun while isolating, do so. It helps everything.

*Grab some paper and write or draw or journal. It can be very helpful to put pen in hand and just let it rip. Intuitively creating is at its best when you’re alone.

*Listen to your favorite music. (Dance. Yes, dance.)

*Netflix and chill (or whatever you have to watch.)

*One Day at a Time (Don’t get caught up in what-ifs and tomorrows, take care of right now, today.)

*Choose Love. Choose Hope. (Oh and please, put away the label-maker.)