Unconscious Mutterings Week 140

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Quirk:: everyone has one or more
   
2. Crystal:: minerals... I am fond of crystal prisms that cast rainbows in the sunlight
   
3. Pet Peeve:: snooty folks, too hip for the room
   
4. Cuban:: dancing, cigar
   
5. Breasts:: have a pair
   
6. Whispers:: in the dark
   
7. Complicated:: no, yes, sometimes
   
8. Promise me:: no, don't promise... just be
   
9. Murder:: violence
   
10. Filament:: wispy thin, line, wire, thread

Weekly word list at Unconscious Mutterings

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not according to plan

"You've done it before and you can do it now. See the positive possibilities. Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination." ~Ralph Marston

Today was supposed to be a play day- a day off free of any obligations except a little errand running and mountain wandering.

A few months ago, I had a weird episode with my vision that scared me, but went away. Today when I woke the symptoms had returned, and as I was instructed to do if it happened again, I went to the ER. It took hours just to get to a room, then it took hours to see a doc and work through some of the tests. I kept feeling more and more emotional, tired, hungry (they did eventually feed me), and finally after an abnormal brain catscan, but ruling out tumor or stroke and admitting to the likelihood of the diagnosis I suspected when I walked in- I walked out, removing my own IV line and driving home (not sure how I am supposed to dispose of that now!!). I was tired of everything taking too long and just too frazzled physically and emotionally to deal with anything more. Home is where the lights don't flicker, the sound is soothing if I need or choose it to be and the people at least know me well enough on the surface.

I am a great advocate- y'all should want me on your side if you are in various situations including dealing with medical practitioners. I have a great deal of medical knowledge about basic anatomy and processes, biochemistry, diseases and conditions.

As an advocate, I am the calm questioner and interpreter, service seeker, supporter, cajoler, soother, feather smoother, mama lion, whatever is needed- but I am a terrible, terrible patient when I am alone. Emotionally, I felt better as soon as I came home and took charge of my own things (which is probably a clue to a great deal!). Anyway, I have an appointment now to see my own doc next week. The vision in that eye is better too (though still blurry). I even took some pictures right after sunset, though I had to use the LCD viewfinder alone.

Here is a peek at what I saw tonight. Watching the sunset and looking at the moon if it is around, has become important to me. I'd watch the sunrise too, but I am always up too late or go to sleep too early.





Last night's moon and star was better aligned, and I was able to get a closer pic of the two of them. I will put one of the shots on Flickr later.

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Searching for the midpoint

"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafairing soul, if either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction."
~Kahlil Gibran

I've been just sort of drifting the past while or so, and in the past week, trying to regain my sense of balance and the right feeling rhythm for this next section of time. There are a lot of things jumbled around, but I have some sense of the linear framework that needs adjusting.

At any rate, here are a couple of photos from campus Wednesday afternoon- absolutely nothing to do with drifting or feeling out of balance, but they were good moments.


This is only a tiny portion of this tree, but it is difficult not to notice with its bright pink and yellow flowers. Most of the younger students were walking about seemingly oblivious to the tree. Only one professor (my age and gender) took notice of me taking photos and remarked how beautiful that tree is.


This afternoon the tree was filled with hummingbirds (and their singing), which I tried and tried to capture in a photo but only managed one.


I needed to move way back to frame all of this tree (obviously, I didn't). I still don't have a clue about what kind it is. Naming things, knowing the names of them is something that is often too important to me. So for now, I will resist researching that aspect. Despite the photos that don't do it justice, it is beautiful and that's enough.

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On Being 53

In the early years of adulthood, more often than not a birthday was joy filled and forward looking. At some point during the last two decades, it also became a point to look back, sometimes just reviewing the year behind, and other times to look over the decades past.

What does it mean to be fifty three years old? First is the obvious, only the facts sort of notation -- that I have lived fifty-three years, or five decades plus three, or two score and thirteen, or simply more than half a century with thirty-five of those years as an adult on my own terms. It is a marker, a touch point of linear time; otherwise I don't really know what it means.

The number (every one of these past age forty-nine) continues to amaze me for various reasons, most of which I won't touch on here, but mixed in there are some typical 'how did I get here' and 'where am I going now' things.

I know more than I knew in my early adulthood and less than I knew then. The amount of things that I might never have a chance to know increases every year. I am comfortable in my own skin most of the time, while being less sure just exactly who this is in my own skin. The 'me that is' grows, expands; pieces drop off and are sometimes collected and sometimes left by the roadside. I feel as if I remain elusive as a fixed entity, yet I can sometimes see glimpses of this person who has been here all along. I trust in my ability to draw from whatever aspects of me are needed in any moment including drawing on many- as opposed to just the 'pleasing to others' ones. I trust in my ability to know. I am less concerned with being right in other's eyes, and more concerned with living my truths as I find them- however contradictory they might seem from outside.

I have looked for the owner's manual, the rule book, the guideposts, the signs that I was on some "right path", while becoming more convinced I am the only one who knows this particular right path and convinced that the only right path for me is the one that feels right this moment. I know with a certainty that I am and things are-whatever I perceive and believe them to be-- and none of that is written in any stone I have found.

I believe this to be autumn, my favorite season. I hope to linger here a while.

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phoenix

I started celebrating my 53rd birthday (it's today) a little early by ordering a few things for myself including some books which I mentioned, and this silver necklace and earrings with the stylized phoenix.



Some material on the phoenix:

Wikipedia - Phoenix

Answers.com - Phoenix

Japanese or Chinese phoenix

Chinese or Japanese - fenghuang or houou

Somewhere there are Native American stories and meanings connected to the phoenix, but I can't find a reasonable source.

And which version, myth, association or symbolism do I like best? Why, all of them, of course.

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Unconscious Mutterings Week 139

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Quaint:: old fashioned, often delightful
   
2. Rind:: lemon
   
3. Disease:: germs, viruses, bacteria
   
4. Queer:: evolution of the word
   
5. Pork:: fat in spending bills
   
6. Soaked:: rain
   
7. Skeleton:: shell
   
8. Mold:: form, give shape, direction
   
9. Finished:: not yet
   
10. Buffalo:: White Buffalo

Weekly word list at Unconscious Mutterings

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Balanced Brain ?

I was going through the   SoulCollage   book and thinking about the different parts that might belong in the Committee suit. That led to thinking about the analytical/logical/rational part- and how I might represent that. That part sometimes stops me from feeling in depth, but also is the source of my (often, not always) ability to react quickly and decisively in an emergency, rather than being taken over by grief, panic, anxiety or fear in the moment.

More later - First I will be clipping some images, and setting up some place to store them and the supplies. I am so disorganized at home these days that I resolved some time ago not to start anything else without a place and way to organize it- there are probably a couple of cards dealing with those aspects of me, too. ;-)

At any rate, googling first logic, then rational, then analytical, looking not for images specifically, but things to stir thought, somehow I stumbled on the   Tickle test for left/right brain  use - a tangent, but not so far removed. ;-)

My results:








On an entirely different note, this year in my life is coming to a close. Two wake-ups and I will be in a new one.

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If you need to breathe, Los Angeles isn't the place to be this weekend. I haven't anything clever to say or much to stir thought... just some photos from the day. I took some yesterday of the smoke from the Topanga/Chatsworth fires, but today the Burbank fire was the one that concerned me as it includes an area that is directly south of me about three miles or so as the crow flies. It was raining ash all day and that combined with the view of the smoke made it seem much closer than it was. Still, 3 or 4 miles is too close had the wind continued. The fire area continues to grow according to the latest teaser for the 11 pm news, but it hasn't crossed the 210 freeway.


11 am in Sunland 


12:23 pm 


12:29 pm 


Foothill Blvd. looking east 3:36 pm coming back from a meeting 


Sunset 

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more on fire...

Franklin Avenue: The Valley! The Valley! The Valley's On Fire

pointed me in this direction: Koganuts: Chatsworth Fire: Day One, Part II

who has several pics of the fires in Chatsworth (also see his "Day 1") and westward. It is eating up thousands of acres now.

All the various aircraft are now working on this, thank goodness- the airspace is getting crowded, but the 7000 acre figure doesn't seem to be growing larger... of course, it doesn't seem to be getting smaller either which might mean they are just barely keeping up with the rapid growth. Maybe the winds will stay low enough that they can get larger containment...

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Fires, first day of classes

Classes started again for me tonight. I will be required to drive to campus two days a week- which is about $12.00 (U.S. of course) worth of gasoline! Plus it means that Thursdays will be 13-14 hour days with an hour or so break between clients and a late evening class meeting. It is a good thing I didn't take on more clients. I can already hear an inner voice starting to whine. But there is an ultimate goal, it is only for ten weeks and as Nietzsche said, "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger", right?

From the east, coming over the top of the last of the hills just before Sunland after class, I could see the Chatsworth fires burning in the distance. From my view it looked as if there were multiple fires burning on either side of the 118. We sure did go to extremes- from rain on Monday to humidity levels below 25% today, Santa Ana winds and the reminder that no matter that it rained twice in two weeks, we are in fire season.


This is a view in July of an area near that which appears to be burning tonight in Chatsworth. The Simi Valley (118) Freeway is in the background.

Off to vegetate a bit and sleep now- it will be a very long day on Thursday.

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