Alone And In Love

    We all enter this world alone and leave alone. What we do in the time in between depends on the humans and animals who enter our lives,the choices we make and ultimately being able to rest solo in our own human skin. If you are like me, you feel the presence of love in others,in nature and from "above." How is it then we can feel so achingly alone in a room full of people? We peer over the edge,just beyond the bend,where togetherness and completeness seems to abound? I believe this is just the human condition.
    Tonight I was overtaken by an extreme sense of loneliness and almost bitterness over the fact that I am alone in a society full of couples. I long for and deserve happiness like everyone else,I thought as I negatively drove my car home to an empty house. Then I reminded myself that some of the loneliest times of my life were when I was in serious relationships, enveloped in the arms of past boyfriends,  who were only able to love me on their terms. How I recall the freedom I felt,the safety I felt,the wholeness I felt,as I was finally free of my last unhealthy long term relationship. I told myself I am alone. I am alone and I am more than enough. For the past two years I have turned care toward myself and worked diligently on trying to talk to myself the way I would to a best friend. I have had some interesting,painful and hilarious dating experiences along the way, but I have learned how to let go.
   I know I will go through this cycle again and likely have to remind myself that I am more than enough.  In these dark moments I reach out,if only with a status update on Facebook or a phone call, and am overwhelmed and shocked by the basic kindness of my friends and family. There is no greater accomplishment in life than to love and be loved.  I take this ineffable energy we call love and store it deep in my heart.
    Wholeness and love,especially love of one's own self, provide a center of balance that help us remain together in times of strife. Alone,yes,we all are.We are alone together.We are more than enough together. I will continue to reach out to life as much as I can and I must have faith that it will reach out to me.

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My home is within my heart. My home is in my beautiful house with my furry dog babies.

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A Bad Hair Day

      
    Today I trudged into the Hair Cuttery in the Publix plaza.I almost went to my usual stomping ground,but I didn't think I could take the drama of Supercuts today.Any other day I could deal with stories of the hair stylist's mentally disabled mother and listen to snippets of  phone conversations followed by explicit details of the stylist's current and past relationships. Any other day I could relive the experience of having the hair dresser burst into tears and then run to the back room. Nevermind my that my hair was only half highlighted. I am a patient kind of gal. Any other day I could tolerate the ignorant comments such as "where do you elementary school teachers' find those (dumpy) denim dresses with school buses?" Normally,I would delight in being a passive participant in such dramatic escapades.Who needs fiction when you can have reality? But today I needed a calm reality.
      I opened the door to Hair Cuttery, a cheap walk in salon similar to Supercuts.I hoped that perhaps it would be an alternate universe. I asked if someone could trim "this", pointing to my tangled,dry, in desperate need of a trim, head of hair. A lady,let's call her Monique, didn't seemed perturbed by my Bob Marleyesque hair.
"Follow me," she ordered.
    That is about the extent of our conversation. She sighed and favored one leg as she walked. Monique informed me her shift would end in thirty five minutes.She had  the energy of a sack of potatoes. I began to feel like I was in the drive through at McDonalds.My hair was being twisted into little ringlets and snipped at with a pair of scissors that looked a lot like a comb. Great.I remember receiving a cut with that particular type of cutting device.I recall how my hair grew back even more frizzy and unruly with my ends uneven.Too late. I just sat there and hummed "que sera sera,whatever will be will be" Occassionally Monique would see a coworker and begin to squeal with delight as they talked about the all the fun they would soon have.I presume this would be after their shifts ended. I was beginning to long for the the excitement of my usual wacky walk in salon. At least there I was enterained and occassionally acknowledged.
   I watched the fragments of my hair fall to the ground as the scissors snipped,snipped.Today was a rough day for me. I felt weighed down my responibilites and by my tendency to become stuck in my head. I realized I needed to refresh and renew in some way,even if it meant literally getting rid of dead ends. My hair my grow back unevenly, and I may end up looking a little like a poodle as the new growth emerges. I can not control the direction my hair grows or the direction that my life unfurls. Que Sera,Sera, whatever will be will be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc

To blog: A lot of rambling..I know you are just dying to read more..

     The word blog has such an unpleasant sound.Almost like an involuntary moan or a swear word. It sounds much like a combination between blather and "ugh" Apparently,the term blog is a nickname for the orignal term "weblog". I can deal with an log,or a narrative, of my my experiences, much better than I can with a BLOG! ugh. Anyway,I digress. I have so much I would like to write about,but I am feeling a bit worried about sharing an online diary. I think I will start with something from the past rather than the actual source of distress in my life at the moment.Soon.

Insomnia

       My body and mind is ready to be soothed,but something within me won't let me rest. I forced myself to turn everything off and to try to go to sleep at 11:30. I tossed and turned and tried every kind of meditation technique I know off. My thoughts floated on leaves down the river and everytime another one arrived I sent it on its way. After about twenty minutes of this I tried the more severe and often more effective way of placing a big red stop sign in front of my mind's eye. BAM! Eventually I fell asleep,but my little furry angel dog, Seven, must have had a halting dream around 2 A.M.  He woke himself with a loud bark. Well,when you are a single woman living alone a bark in the middle of the night is terrifying. I sat upright in bed only to discover that Seven looked more startled than I felt. I rubbed his little noggin and laid back down thinking I still have four hours until I wake up. That was an hour ago. I have laid in my bed trying to go to back to sleep for one hour.
  So here are the mental images that shall lull me back to sleep for 2 hours and 52 minutes.

Grass

     About a month and a half ago I purchased a riding lawn mower. I had never mowed a lawn in any capacity,but I was tired of paying someone to tend to my one acre lot. I felt exhilirated,enpowered and and a bit uncertain about tackling the seemingly never ending tufts of grass. I joked about becoming Hank Hill from the animated sitcom King of the Hill .He finds such delight in mowing his yard,among other things, and I wanted to find that Zen like state of mowing.
  Well what I found was it is hot, dirty, and try as I may I can't seem to get rid of the little mohawks I create as slice through the grass. I go back over the spunky patches so as to create a perfect lawn. Even more frustrating than the mohawks are the slopes and unpredictable dips in the hills that line my yard. After I mowed the first time ,I asked my dear friends, Sue and Phil, if there is a mechanism to keep me from toppling over when I mow paralell to the ground. Phil dryly told me that no such mechanism exist and I could be chopped up. Sue sweetly told me to be careful that her father lost a toe on a mower. Gulp. Good to know. So the next time I mowed I tried to take their advice to mow up the hill,back and forth. Or something like that.I wasn't  listening so well after I imagined a maimed extremity. As I moved up and down the hills I was terrified.I kept my foot affixed to the brake and created choppy patches. I gave up on perfection; fear had taken over.
  A couple weeks ago my neighbor across the street,a Cop who I have named in my head as Hank Hill based on his meticulous and skillful mowing skills, and his grandson assisted me with a  mechanical problem I had with my lawn mower. Okay,yes, I had something to do with the mechanical problem. Okay, I caused it.When my mower wouldn't start I went into panic mode and added oil. That should fix it,right? Well, as you may have guessed it only added to the problem. As soon as I saw the "magic oil trick" didn't work I told myself to calm down and think. I checked to make sure everything was as it should be,and sure enough I had neglected to put everything into the  proper mode the last time I mowed. I had absentmindly left the blade open,therefore the mower wouldn't start. I was elated to realize that I could still mow my lawn before dusk. 
      For twenty glorious feet my mower purred along. I dawned a big goofy grin on my face until the oil began to flood the engine. There was so much smoke I expected to see a genie appear. I turned the mower off  as smoke billowed from the engine in large gray heaps. I jumped far away from the smoky mess. No lucky three wishes.And apparently no common sense on my end. After about thirty minutes of reading the owner's manual and trying to find the proper tools for the square nut/bolt thingamagigees,I sat down in my yard in tears. How could I maintain my lawn, maintain my house,maintain all aspects of my life if I couldn't stop myself from panicing? On top of it all, I had moved my car into the backyard so I could mow my front yard perfectly. The mower was broken down in front entrance of the gate,thereby blocking my car.I called my dad for advice and he told me to put the mower in neutral and push. Once I did this I threw in the towel,or rather the cover of the mower, when the neighbor and his grandson emerged very calmly,almost as if they were approaching a crazed ,rabid animal, to offer assistance.Well  I gladly accepted the oil change and talked Hank's ear off. "How can I get rid of the mohawks?" "How can I mow the hills? " I talked a mile a minute, overjoyed and embararrassed at the same time.  He graciously answered my questions, divulged that he truly loves working with anything mechanical, and encouraged me to come ask him for help anytime. In other words,ask before doing something daft. He offered to mow the hills from now on. I eagerly accepted. He and his grandson,who continued to  look at me like I was some kind of rabbit on speed, went home and I was able to mow my yard for about fifteen minutes before darkness fell.
    I finished mowing the lawn the following day. I was relieved to have the help and still felt empowered that I was taking control of my lawn. Hank said it may take years for me to get into the flow of the lawn, but that one day I may be able to go to the zone. Today as I mowed I tried not to perseverate on the little patches of grass I missed. I did find myself in a kind of happy place. However, I did notice that my foot was still on the brake. I  tapped it frequently as I was losing control or gaining too much speed.
    I wonder what would happen if I could let my leg hang loose. I wonder if I could have enough faith in life that I could let go,if even during my mundane mowing adventures. Well, for a start I have let go of the idea of perfection. I have accepted help when others offered it. I have continued to trudge forward. I think I am beginning to feel comfortable in my beautiful imperfection. Maybe one day I will take my foot off the brake.

Below is a prelude to grass

A Child said, What is the grass by Walt Whitman

 
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.

So much to say,where do I begin?

   I finally decided to begin a blog so I can stop misusing facebook. I do not know where to begin.

     First, let me explain the title of my blog. I truly feel there is no greater love than the love we can experience in  the natural beauty of this world we live in. As humans we experience an array of emotions and tend to look to the future rather than enjoying the very smallest and most beautiful of pleasures in life.
Embrace the Breeze:
        As I drive to work each day I am struck and almost overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the sunrise. Wispy magenta clouds stretch before me like my the gates of heaven. This vision of ethereal beauty is set against crude, red and yellow gas stations and faded, listless industrial parks. I often have to remind myself to watch the road as I am so taken by this slice of life. I often roll down the windows and embrace the breeze.
Kiss the Moon:
     Reason 1: My sister-in-law and dear friend Tee'ha recently told me she tells her son she loves him to the moon and back. She has read the children's book Guess How Much I Love You  to him many times since his birth and the now she relates the saying from the book to her fourteen month old,Ryan. Now when she asks him how much she loves him he stretches his arms towards the sky. Love can not be measured,only expressed and experienced. 
 Reason 2: The moon is a constant in the cycle of our lives.  No matter what events occur in our lives we can count on the phases of the moon to guide us forward.
Reason 3:  Rumi is one of my favorite poets. I draw inspiration from this poem:

There is Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want with

our whole lives,the touch of

spirit on the body.Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily,how passionately

it needs some wild darling!At

night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its

face against mine.Breathe into

me.Close the language door and

open the love-window.The moon

won't use the door,only the window.

-Rumi

How we all long to be loved and seen and heard. This blog will give me the oppurtunity to express myself.Sometimes it will be poetic and other times it will be a sounding board for life's ups and downs.

We all want to break the barriers.We all deserve to embrace the breeze and kiss the moon.