Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”

—H. L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

I’ll not do one of those traditional end of the year, end of the decade round ups, if that's all right with you. (I hear sighs of relief.)

The last decade has been challenging, both good and bad. I seem to have spent much of it worrying. There were some positive accomplishments, a bunch of negative lack-of-accomplishment, there were losses, and there were gains—sometimes hiding inside of losses. Still, I’m a hell of a lot better off than many people so it’s churlish to complain.

I’ll not say good riddance to the teens. Mostly because all those years went into making me who I am today. They are a part of my life, good and ill, and although I have moments where I’m not at all happy with who I am, I’d say I have more good days than bad. I’m rediscovering parts of myself that had been on hold for a very long time. That includes exploring the shadow domains, a necessary step in any journey of self-discovery.

But there was joy, too, bright bubbles strung on gossamer, rainbow-shining for moments before popping in effervescent bursts that smell surprisingly of roses.

Oh, sorry. There were also bursts of bad poetry that showed up at random moments.

I’m grateful, is what I’m trying to say. Thank you (You, whoever You are) for my life, whether it’s in tatters or shining cloth. I try to remember every day to be grateful for the blessings I’ve had. Not to minimize the bad stuff or to say to myself I shouldn’t feel sadness—that, too, has to be felt and explored fully—but to acknowledge it’s all a part of any life, the turning of the Wheel.

So goodbye to all those I’ve loved and left behind in the teens. I’ll see you again someday—but not too soon, I hope, if you don’t mind me saying so. I still have a few things left I’d like to accomplish. I hope I’m not presuming too much. There are still ten hours left until midnight as I write this. I’m not out of the woods—the teens—yet.

But I’m hopeful I’ll make it. And even if I don’t, I’m grateful for the time I’ve had.

Happy New Decade, everyone.

Random quote of the day:

“Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

—Oliver Sacks, “My Own Life: Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer,” New York Times, February 19, 2015



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“The comedy of grace is that it must so often come to us as loss and failure because if it came as success and gain we wouldn’t be grateful. We would, as we are wont to do, take personal credit for what is an unwarranted gift of God. But for grace to be grace, it must take us places we didn’t imagine we could go, and give us things we didn’t know we needed.”

—Kathleen Norris, “The Grace of Aridity and Other Comedies”

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“The best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful.”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From the Underground

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

 

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

—Meister Eckhart

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE! 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Mom's okay. Thank God and all the angels and thanks to everyone who thought good thoughts, sent prayers, white lighted.

Yesterday was a loooooong, stressful day, complicated by a machine breaking down and having to wait an extra three hours because of the delay that caused a back up in the angio surgery, but she came through the procedure like a champ (thank you!) and is back to kicking butt this morning.

And both of us feel like kicking some butt this morning. You see, when they got in there, it turned out the artery wasn't clogged after all. Yes, that's right, she went through the angioplasty FOR NOTHING. That's the second time in two years! Different doctor, different hospital, but they told her the MRI showed that the carotid artery on the left side was 50% blocked. And when they found nothing, the tech said the same thing the other tech said two years ago when they said her renal artery was blocked, "Well, sometimes the MRI is set too high and reads stronger than it should."

(Funny ol' iTunes. Ring of Fire just came on.)

Excuse me??? She's eighty-freaking-seven years old!! Why is she being put through this at that age for no damned reason?

That's it. I'm not going to give it any more energy and I'm really so grateful she's okay. But we've both agreed that if they try this again, we're getting a second (or third or fourth) opinion.

Don't dwell on what is passed away or what is yet to be... as Leonard Cohen just sang to me just now. Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

Not about my mom, but it'll do.

Whenever I listen to this piece of music it puts me in a reflective mood. If you aren't familiar with it, you may know it as the piece that Billy played for Mel Gibson's character in The Year of Living Dangerously. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf has been dead for decades, but what a voice! She was also the soprano used in the movie. How ironic that I remember the name of the character Billy but not the name of Mel's character's name. He was just the pretty boy male lead, though, so why should I remember him? Billy was a brilliant creation.

Then the shuffle moves on to Doris Day singing, "Secret Love." Another incredible voice, though she's often viewed as corny from those goofy movies from the sixties. And it moves on again to Dolly singing "Jolene" and Buffalo Springfield doing "Expecting to Fly" and before you know it, the reflective mood is gone. That's the problem with shuffle. So hard to maintain a mood. But maybe that's a good thing, too.

Johnny Cash comes on singing, "If You Could Read My Mind," and the feeling isn't gone, and I have gotten it back. Then Dave Brubeck takes five and Smokey sings 'bout her having a hold on him...and I'm rolling again. Such is life.

So, Happy New Year to everyone! May the New Year bring you good moods, good health, good dreams, and the fulfillment of those dreams. Stay safe if you're partying--unless you don't want to stay safe, then just please stay alive. If you're not partying, hope your jammies are comfy.

( My modest year end lists. )

Writing: I dreamed Friday night that I was having a conversation with another writer and talking about how in my first drafts I have the bad habit of beginning sentences with "And." I way overuse it, and it's one of those things I'm constantly hacking out of second drafts. I woke up Saturday morning and logged on to the Online Writing Workshop to find I had a review of Charged with Folly which told me I began too many sentences with "And," and I should really work on that. I had to laugh. It must have bugged her so much she tunneled into my dreams. And I agree with her. ☺

Families: Technically speaking, I misspoke yesterday in my gratitude post when I said my mom was about the only family I have left. I should have said significant family, because I've got gallons and gallons of cousins out there. Almost all are strangers to me who live in other states (my mom and Aunt Maxine were the rebels who moved from the encrusted enclave in Utah to California). Of the two cousins I was ever close to, I'm only still in touch with one, and even she lives quite a ways away. With her mom, Maxine, gone, we hardly ever see each other.

I also have some nieces and a nephew out there somewhere. All but one of them were older than me (my half-brother was only two years younger than my mother) and their mother didn't approve of my family—we were the poor relations she didn't wish to expose her children to. I saw them semi-frequently when I was a kid, at my brother Jack's insistence, but once he and his wife divorced in my early teens, the kids and wife disappeared from my life (and, I suspect, largely from Jack's). He's passed on now. I have no idea where any of them are. I didn't even know Jack had died until years after the fact.

Families. Messy.

Fortunately, I have good "family of choice," some of whom have been my friends three-quarters of my life.

Vacation: I finally feel like I've gotten my energy back. The first couple of days, even before I'd eaten turkey, I sat down in the chair to read and promptly fell asleep—in the middle of the day, something that's extremely atypical of me. It reaffirmed my decision to take some serious downtime this weekend. I've gotten some things done, but mostly I've perfected the art of sloth.

And I hope you all had the weekends you wished for!

ETA: For those of you who love the Geico Cavemen as much as I do, something more on vacations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j9U0qP7H3g

And this one, my favorite in the series. The expression on the actor's face at the end is just priceless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZrjr4A-ASQ