Day 1 of # 10 Challenge- Secrets.

Mindy had this great idea and doing it over the course of 10 weeks is even cooler.  This weeks topic is secrets.  And as I'm walking on the beach a little while ago getting rained on, trying to think, exactly what secrets do I have?  And does half knowledge count... then I'm thinking well, this is more like self disclosure.  Which I have huge issues with.  So accordingly, I'll make that secret #1.

1.  Self disclosure-  while I am absolutely very verbal, I am also very touchy about self disclosure  and protecting my privacy.  I will tell what I want you to know.  Which to leads to #2.

2.  I am sicker than I tell people.  There are people, yes even friends  and family,  that are clueless about what is going on with me.  I do this for several reasons.  I never ever want to be seen as a "sick" person.  I am healthy person who has a life threatening and life limiting illness.  Period.  I am not my disease.

3.  Last year someone I know and cared deeply about physically assaulted me.  No one else knows except my clergy and the psychologist I went to after the fact.  It happened  right around the time I started my treatment.  This round of chemo caused me to be depressed.  So the Dr.  put me on Prozac.  That's how I ended up at the psychologist.  She never really addressed the issue.  I am (was) a nurse, I have a BA in psych and an MA in Theology.  Nothing prepares you for something like that.  It's freaking humiliating.

4.  I ran off and got married after I graduated from high school.  My parents had the marriage annulled by the family lawyer.  I was 17,  just turned, and on my way to college.  So was he, we thought it was practical.

5.  Food stamps?  Yup.  Bankruptcy?  That too.  Live on 180.00 a month?  uh-huh.  Friends put roof over head so I can live?  Yep.  My husbands illness and death devastated us.  I was sick too, and unable to take care of myself.  That whole experience taught my independent little ass, that was always giving and doing for others how to receive and do it graciously.

6.  I tell people I am fine when I am not.  My Dad loved to point that one out.  And I say I don't care when I do.  Although, sometimes I actually don't care.  That confuses people.

7.  My mother was a drunk.  I come from a family (on her side) of drunks.  And I hate dealing with drunks.  I can co dependent bull shit and mile and run like a maniac, because I hate it that much.

8.  For as flip as I am and as bad as my mouth can get (it's better than it was), I am deeply rooted spiritually.  I am not religious.  I am spiritual.  I am deeply connected to God and he is the only thing that matters truly in my life.  And I don't believe in the triune.  As it stands.  And I'm not even going to qualify it.

9.  Relating to the above, I am a first class introvert, all the way.  I do alone extremely.  I am happy alone.  I love being alone.  Enough said.

10.  I really wasn't wearing underwear when I was sitting in the bar at Breakers talking to Dave Matthews.... I simply forgot to put them on.  Yes I was wearing a dress.  Yes he really does have the softest hands.  (And the sweetest face)

Wordless Wednesday

Not Annie Dillard

In many Eastern traditions, the world of nature is considered to be maya, or illusion, while in other Eastern and Global South traditions, nature is mother. Western tradition has often teetered between the assertion that nature is God’s good creation and that it has been “frustrated” by human sin. In more recent times, the world around us has been regarded as the expression of random selection and chance. Explore some aspect of nature (as in the non-human world) and write a short piece (fiction, poem, mini-essay) in which your descriptions reflect and reveal your philosophical understanding of nature..."without actually stating directly what your philosophical position is."


Yeah....... I must have written about this topic a million times, although not in this manner... well, perhaps yes.




I wait for that moment when my toes will meet
the waters edge, waiting just for me,
it is there that I know who I am


I look up and speak words out into the air 
sometimes silently, some times aloud
I can feel my body shift as it becomes
a part of the water, before I enter I am there


Walking along, I glimpse signs of life and death, 
shells that once held something living, now vomited up
as a gift to that one and one alone who will find it lovely
and gather it to keep


Visible signs of life, baby sea turtles, urchins and crabs
all there before me and as I look I see myself in them
I am part of this too, it is in me and of me
there are dangers here coral rock and sea life
unable to identify me - seeing me as a source of food
biting, scraping, rashing.... smiling I think much like life
on the other side of the dune
a different world?  No it is the the same.  All things come of beauty, 
it is for me to see with new eyes, to watch, to become.

His Eyes

This was half a prompt in a way by Lois.... wanting me to expound on something I had written on the men topic.  I wrote the following maybe two years or so ago... when my life started to change, I started to change and maybe that's enough said for now.


He watches her
the child
playing in the hose
eyes fixed on her wanting
to be with her there
playing

His eyes close as the hose rises
to her head
as it tilts back into the sun
golden shimmers sparkle
in his eyes
he sees what he sees
that in his mind
the child
playing in the hose

The beads run down her back
he looks
closer
wanting to be that water
the bead
that slowly runs along the curve
staring
He moves toward her
the child

She smiles
as she moves
within the water
laughing
she remembers
how it feels on her skin
the trickle

He moves close to her
to reach
to touch
wanting what he sees
that golden sparkle
Her eyes fixed on him
say
come
come to me
come play with me
the child

What Are You Missing?

“Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.” — C.S. Lewis

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday