Last Day of 2009

There's a song by Harry Nilson called Mr. Richland's Favorite Song. Some lyric:


The calendar changed
The pages fell off
But the singer remained the same


It's new years eve. Last day of calendar year 2009. It's not the only thing different between today and tomorrow, interdependence and all that. 2009 was a difficult year for me. Difficult decisions, difficult acceptances, difficult loss, difficult emotions, thoughts, and bodily pain. NONE of that will change because the calendar changed. None of it. I have no illusion of the changing of the year. No illusion that next year will be better, or worse, for that matter. I guess Buddhism ruins that. I understand that things will always change -- EVERYTHING will change, from better to worse and back again.

The Face of Christmas 2009

I can't say anymore than this.

December 8th

"Humans are the only creatures who comprehend that we are going to die...the only creatures who can imagine living forever. It's that combo that drives us crazy," Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein.

Richard

Having a tough time grieving Richard. Some days are better than others. These last few days have been tough. I can't stop crying. Some days, no tears. Other days, nothing but tears.

I'm so sad for my sister and brother-in-law and for Joseph. I want to protect them from the dysfunction of our family, so they can mourn in peace.

Richard is at peace.

Some day we will be at peace with the loss of Richard.

Richard Bulzomi

May 6, 1979 ~ October 18, 2009

Beloved Nephew ~ A Favorite Person

Lives in My Heart Eternally

Sun-day

The sun is out and it's hot already. I've had an ok weekend so far. Good sangha yesterday, lunch with our Lama and fellow sangha members. A quiet day at home which included a nap. It's always a good day if you can have a nap.

I was surprised that Obama won the Noble Peace Prize. I hoped that one day he would win it, that he would accomplish enough to earn consideration for the prize. But he won it after 9 months in office, chosen for it after 1 month in office. Aside from a few speeches, his "actions" were that of a campaigner with a gift for inspirational rhetoric.

My initial reaction to the announcement of the award was, "whoa, way too soon--makes a mockery of it--and where does he go if he actually accomplishes something besides getting elected!" Then a friend sent a you-tube of Rachel Maddow's commentary on the award to Obama. She focused on how many recipients were awarded the award prior to having achieved what they hoped and verbalized they would work to accomplish. These are remarkably respectable, and accomplished people, who were not necessaarily so accomplished at the time of the award: Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984)and
Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) to name two in recent history.

Maddow points out that encouraging global hope is reason enough for the Nobel Peace Prize, and in that sense, Barak Obama has earned the title Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

I believe that at least part of the hope that Barak Obama has given birth to is partially (or wholly) attributable to the depth of despair that Bush/Chaney fostered. And while that may be true it doesn't change the fact that Barak Obama said the right things at the right time, so much so that the almost unthinkable occured: a black man was elected President of the United States. I think the world's hope lies not only in a new positive leader of the free world, but in the renewed hope that Americans are all that the world hopes they are.

My so-called life

It's been awhile since I have posted. It's all the things I can't say outloud to the world that keeps me from writing. That was a bullshit line. My life is about a whole lot more than what I choose not to talk about.

The photo is a Coleman Kenai tent I recently purchased. I recently went on my first camping trip in 25 years. I went alone, meeting friends at the campground. It was a hot rainy weekend and LOVED it anyway. There were two great parts to the trip: the time I spent alone in and around my tent, and the time I spent with my friends, MLA, and their friends. I enjoyed being outdoors more than being indoors. I spent a sweet evening alone in my tent reading and listening to the sound of the rain on my tent. I was bone dry inside. I even enjoyed the 3 hour drive there and back. All around, what a great trip!!! Loved it, can't wait to do it again.

The rest of my life is in transition. Transition without movement -- YET. My office is moving Oct 30th. But it hasn't happened yet. I had to move out of my cubby and move into temporary quarters which is basically a closet at this point. Things have been very trying at work. Stressful for me, and then the ultimate: my hard drive crashed yesterday and I lost EVERYTHING. Two years of work. My bad that I had not backed up to the server. Oy! BTW, Oy! is my clean version of shitfuckpiss, my favorite expletive.

I have always had a lot of trouble dealing with the transition space between decision and actualization. It is very uncomfortable for me. I am tedious in my decision making when it comes to big things in my life, but then once I make the decision I want and am ready mentally and emotionally for it to happen now. Never have I been able to make that happen quicker than it can happen, and that's a good thing, because I can then do it properly.

I hope to get back into a mindset of writing more. Let this be the first of many.

"To have been distracted to such a degree that one no longer notices that one's mind has strayed from what once was. By then, perhaps, life has become only what one has been distracted by, only to be distracted again. Life?" ~ Marion S. Turner

Loving Kindness And BuddhaNature

It's Fryday!

I love Frydays. The end of the work week, and the weekend poised to begin. It's 7 a.m. and the work day is still ahead of me, but it will be a good day. Today at work we are having a 2:00 PM dessert party. Everyone is to bring their favorite dessert and the recipe for how to make it. Should be fun. I will not bring anything.

I slept well, though I woke a number of times during the night. I took an aleve before bed and I woke feeling good. F was still up when I got up, and she will probably sleep all day. Not sure what we will do for tonight. Well, actually, I do know -- we will have dinner and then talk, play with the animals, and watch TV. The unknown is what we will have for dinner. Life has to have some mystery.

10 Questions a Buddhist Asks Everyday

1) Did I protect life today?
2) Did I honor other people’s property?
3) Did I adhere to my vow of sexual purity?
4) Did I try to be totally truthful all day long?
5) Do I speak in ways that tried to bring people together?
6) Did I speak gently to other people?
7) Did I try to speak meaningfully?
8) When I saw someone else get something nice, was I happy for them?
9) Did I feel for other people who have a misfortune?
10) Did I maintain a Buddhist World View?

Practice Saturday

Practice with sangha is on the agenda for today. Afterwards F and I will have lots of errands to do.

Yesterday my sole (soul) practice was being a slug. I feel mentally and emotionally refreshed. More rested than I have felt in months. It amazes me how a day alone can feed me and rejuvenate me. I got what I needed yesterday - from me.

F and I had an enjoyable evening. I would say that it was very relaxed, but not all of it was. Between F and I it was great. She joined me in the den at 6:30. I made her eggs & cheese with multi-grain toast and a cup of tea for her 6:30 PM breakfast. I had egg noodle with butter and locatelli romano cheese - the ultimate comfort food!

What was unsettling was a dvd we watched called "An American Crime." It was a brutal movie based on a true story that took place in Indiana in the 1960's. A woman and her children scapegoat a 16 year old girl boarding with them while her parents are traveling with a carnival. The child is imprisoned in the basement of the house and repeatedly tortured, burned, and branded not only by the mother and her children, but by neighborhood teenagers who hang out in the house. The girl dies as a result of the abuse and all people, even the youngest child who participated, are charged with various crimes related to the murder. It was such an unsettling movie. Painful to watch and true which made it even more horrifying.

Fryday afternoon

I have had exactly the day I needed to have. Quiet. Alone. F is sleeping in and enjoying alone time in the back of the house.

I did some web searching. Listened to the news. Watched Sarah Palin resign her governorship without giving a reason (in no less than about 10,000 words). Did some reading. Listened to my on-the-go playlist and Jakob Dylan's solo album on my iPod. Cut the dog's nails. Ate breakfast and lunch, drank a pot of coffee and am thinking about having another pot. Watched reruns of Bones and NCIS. Painted some pages in my moleskine journal. I prepaint the pages. I hate writing on a blank page.

My iPod on-the-go playlist:
Streets of Philadelphia - Springsteen
Lady In Red - Chris De Burg
Levon - Elton John
Faithfully - Journey
Hallelluah (live) - k.d. lang
Close My Eyes Forever - Lita Ford/Ozzie Osbourne
Ohio - Crosby Stills Nash & Young
Love Hurts - Cher
Unbreak My Heart - Toni Braxton
One - U2
Pipes of Peace - Paul McCartney
Knocking on Heaven's Door (live) Bob Dylan & the Band
Coming Home - Delaney & Bonnie with Eric Clapton

I change it about every 4 or 5 days. Some of the tunes stay longer. Sometimes I change the sequence but keep the same songs longer.

Fryday

I slept in this morning - til 7:15. I'm sure it was due to very late night efforts by F, letting the dogs out late and feeding them snacks. I'm grateful, I needed the sleep.

I'm having a nice quiet morning. I watched a few brief art videos on youtube posted by the Tate Gallery in London. I saw a couple of interesting ones, David Hockney answering questions sent via twitter, Damien Hirst on Francis Bacon, critic review of Rothko exhibit, a view of the Tate Klimt exhibit, an excellent review of the Tate Cy Twombly exhibit.

One of the things I jotted in my journal was the critic's comment about a huge Klimt mural; he described one section as depicting "the enemies of humanity: sickness, madness, and death." The Buddha, as well as hindu vedic scripture, talks about the realities (four noble truths) of man being birth, sickness, old age and death. I think madness would come under the category of sickness, but hearing it singled out rang loud to me.

Madness. The world is overcome with the sufferers of madness, in varying degrees. There's the madness of those who hallucinate and hear voices, and live painful, tortured lives in solitude and despair. There's the madness of serial killers and mass murderers who strike out their mad rage at others. There's the madness of Hitler, Kim Jong Il, Stalin, Idi Amin, and way too many others throughout human history, who instigate and commit genocide. There's the madness of Dick Cheney and G.W. Bush and the havoc they wreaked on our country, Iraq, and the exacerbation of the problems in the middle east. There's the madness of ideas, like: who ever has the most nuclear bombs is the safest, or the strongest are the most moral, or war is worth the sacrifices of others. War is never worth it. You can't fight violence with violence, or hatred with hatred, or madness with madness. Of all the "enemies of humanity" madness is certainly the most lethal. It is more than sickness or disease. It is in a separate category. Klimt was very right about that.

My plan for the rest of the day is - no plan. I want a day with nothing but tasks necessary to the sustenance of my life and the life of my animals. That's it! NOTHING ELSE. The rest will be open to impulse or lack thereof, if that is my state.

Friday on Thursday

Today is my Friday, even though it's Thursday. What a mind f**k we have been programmed into us. I was just going to write that I hate time, but time is not anything, it is nothing, there is nothing to hate. What I hate is the regimentation. The living on a schedule EVERY F**KING DAY of my life. Every day, day after day. What is a day? Is it only the time between sleeps? Is it daylight time? Is it a fraction of a life?

Oy, I'm in one of those moods. Time for an attitude adjustment. The positive. The positive is that over the next 3 days, I have only one commitment: going to sangha on Saturday. That's it. My work week has been exhausting. partly because I have been so busy I can barely breathe; partly because I am still tired from my trip to S.FL. Boy, that wore me out. If Brenda hadn't been there it would have been even worse. Sharing a room with her again after 40+ years was fun and comforting through the storm. My mother seems to be healing well. Glad things are better down there for them both.

July 4th weekend coming. I hope it will be quiet. It doesn't bother me much but it does freak the dogs. They will be on edge all day. Kohl has not yet experienced fireworks noise. It will be interesting to see how he reacts. He is one fun cat. Lots of personality, lots of energy, (except when napping between my legs on my recliner - like right now), lots of piss and vinegar!

I'm reading Seeking Peace by Mary Pipher. It's quite good. I see myself, I see Frankye, some of Lori. It's interesting and often quite witty. I've also just begun West With The Night by Beryl Markham, a book I have wanted to read for some time. On my iPod I just put And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, a murder mystery based on a true story, co-written in alternating chapters. I'm looking forward to listening to that.

That's it for now. I hope to write more this weekend.

P.S. That's a photo of our old gal, Mittens, with her "huh?" expression.

Home Again

I got home Wed eve at about 6:30 p.m. I knew I was tired but I had no idea how tired I was until after dinner. I brought home Panera salads, so neither I nor F had to prepare a meal. Afterwards I found myself closing my eyes and listening to the news. My mind kept going, but my body was really tired. Before long I fell into a deep sleep and slept for almost 3 hours. F was very kind in allowing me to stay a sleep even though she hates when I do that, especially after I have been away for a week. I woke up and stayed up about 1 1/2 hours and then fell into bed and immediately went into a deep sleep again until 7 a.m.!!! That is a lot of sleep for me. About 10 hours. A rare occurrence.

Yesterday I was in a fog for most of my day at work. It wasn't until after lunch that I actually got a real boost of energy and went through my backed-up work like crazy. I went shopping afterwards and F did meal prep. Lovely. We had a quiet evening and I went to bed at 11. Again I slept well. Woke up at 5:30, back in the groove. And now, it's Friday!

Michael Jackson. How many blogs will have that name on it. It's sad that he died so young. But what is more sad is that he lived in so much pain - all his life, I think. In a sense, it is a good thing for him that it is over. I think he has been a defeated man for quite a while. Sad for his children, his family. He was a very, very talented entertainer. Brilliant. I think the news will be filled with the same Elvis story. Self destruction, enabled and encourage by those closest to him. Sad, sad...

Another sad story, but not unexpected, was Farrah Fawcett passing. She is not a celebrity that loomed large in my life at all. Actually, the role I remember her most for is the pretty girl she played in Myra Breckinridge with Raquel Welch. They actually had a love scene together. I remember her on Charlie's Angels, but vaguely. I saw the documentary that she made about her battle with cancer. It aired a couple of months ago. It was very honest and she was open. I left that feeling a lot of empathy for her and tremendous respect for her courage in allowing herself to be seen dealing with such an awful disease. I thought she would die sooner than she did. In fact, I thought it was unfortunate that she did, she was clearly in so much pain. She is out of that body now.

Time for me to go to work. Latah!

Neda Agha-Soltan

Savannah

This past weekend Frankye, her sister, Barbara, and I went to Savannah. Barbara and I had never been there before. It was hot and humid, and drizzled a few times. I've always thought of the deep south as the cradle of the civil war. Savannah is an exception. Not much of the war was fought there. That surprised me. I'm not a civil war buff but I am a colonial-revolutionary war period buff. I had no idea that Savannah had such a rich history from that time period and had spent a good part of the past century preserving many of the buildings and original squares that dot the historic district in the city.

We took a trolly tour of the city and I saw at least a dozen places I would like to visit close up. The old homes, live oaks, city parks, and even the colonial park cemetery, were all beautiful with a southern quietness to them. Many tourists around. Lots of girl scout troops visiting the home of the founder of the GSA. It was a fun visit. Good food. Good company. Exercize.

My brother is better, back to his life. Taking it slow. Sunday my mother fell and broke her shoulder. She is suffering. Very painful. My father is a saint. Burning karma at a rapid pace, he is. I will be going down next Friday, earlier if my mother needs surgery. We will know on Monday.

Onward and upward...

fryday

Finally made it to Fryday, and it's past 5 pm. Still at work but getting ready to leave soon. This week feels as though it has been packed with stuff:

• work as always. And that was ok
• Tot's accident and all the emotion of that
• Barbara arrived for her much anticipated visit and that has been very, very nice
• my brother's emergency hospitalization, and he is doing better tho still in the hospital
• came to work today and found that I had received a bonus, and I thought we weren't getting one this year - a nice surprise.
• heard that a co-worker who had been having complications gave birth to a healthy preemie last night - all is well with both

Other stuff is:

• a planned trip to Savannah for this weekend, that we can now afford to enjoy what the city has to offer a little more.
• re-exploring and rediscovering Bob Dylan's music, after reading his book Chronicles 1 and loving it.
• reading The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet and wishing I could sit in a chair and read it through in one sitting. (An aside to my friend josh - I think you would love this book - it's about a very smart 12 year old boy - kinda like somone I know).
• having it be Friday evening and Barb and Frankye are coming home from St. Augustine with dinner take out
• reconnecting with Mo on-line through facebook, and missing her and her family very much
• having Richard back home and talking on the phone with him and doing email together

So it has been a week of weeks rolled into one week. I am ready:

• to go home
• to rest and relax
• to enjoy the sound of the rain
• to sleep well tonight
• to have my feet up
• to play word whomp on my computer
• to chat with Barb and Frankye
• to watch the telly
• to have dinner
• to smile and feel good about my friends, even though they are not with me
• to forget that my parents are nuts and love them anyway (oy!)
• to start all over tomorrow!

Oh yeah...I forgot...I have a 4 day weekend!

Smooth

I wish my life would go smoothly sometimes. I would like to have a period of time in my life where there was no ripples in the water. I’d love a long (not eons…weeks would be nice) period of no outside interruptions, or near misses for people I care about, no trauma, drama, or adversity. Just quiet. I crave quiet.

My life is too busy. Busy and chaotic. Chaotic because I am not deaf and I hear sounds and talking all day, every day, and I can’t get away from it. Living things in the world are constantly communicating with one another, or with no one in particular.

I often wonder what it would be to live in a little cabin in the woods, ala Thoreau or Merton. Getting up, doing chores, cooking, eating, reading, writing, watching, walking, sleeping; all the basic tasks of life without all the noise of the contemporary world. No tv, radio, phones, computers; news from newspapers, family news from letters. I feel a silent retreat at Marywood coming on!

The biggest intrusion of them all: the telephone. The telephone rings and I, or someone else in the house answers, and you never know if it is going to be idle chatter, pleasant news, or news that strikes fear into the very depths of your heart. Last night we received the latter.

A little after 7 pm last night, someone we know and love, someone often referred to as “Tots,” was driving his motorcycle over 100 MPH on I-95 north and hit a car. I could write a long description of the accident and damage that ensued, but I don’t want to remember it to even retell it. What is the most horrendous part of this story is the knowledge that if just one thing did not go in his favor, I would not be writing this right now. I’d be too distraught and caring for someone who was even more distraught than I.

Tots is alive, with no broken bones, no head or spine injury and no organ damage. Because of the quick thinking and unselfish bravery of the car he hit, he was spared being run over after he catapulted into the lane in front of the car he hit. The driver veered his own car into the median divider, rather than hit Tots’ body lying in the lane ahead of him. The driver and his passenger are unhurt.

Because of the unselfish bravery of another driver, coming behind, who stopped his car before he got to Tots, and jumped up on the hood of his car and directed traffic out of the lane so Tots could be brought to safety to the side of the road, he was not hit by many cars that would have not seen him lying in the road in time to swerve or stop. Because of the many cars that stopped to attend to him, and called for help, Tots was safely brought to the side of the road, removed from harm’s way, and attended to by EMT, who arrived within 2 ½ minutes.

Tots spent hours in the ER getting CT scans, x-rays, IV morphine, antibiotics, and wound cleaning and dressing. Then he went home to his apt with his gf to rest. I was told the bike was cut in two and so mangled that his brother broke down when he saw it. Tots is suffering today. He has massive and extreme road rash over many parts of his body. Today he feels like he was run over by a truck. I think he does not understand yet how close he came to that being his reality. Why is he alive after such a horrendous accident? Who knows. I just know that every thing that needed to go right for him to survive without life debilitating injury did go right. I am so grateful (to what, I wonder?). And I am exhausted from it. I’m not even his mother, or brother, or father, or grandmother. I can only imagine how they feel.

I started this blog by complaining about the intrusion of life. Life can only intrude in such a way when you care for others. I have for so long wished I didn’t give a shit about anyone. It would make it easier to be aloof, unimpassioned, quietly sympathetic but unaffected. It is so not my nature, I would be fighting against myself always to accomplish that.

When I was a child I use to swim in the ocean in the summers. I would spend long periods of time riding the waves, or sitting on the beach watching the gulls go up and down on the waves, steady, always afloat, not getting dunked. The Buddhist goal is to sit on the waves, be they tidal waves or ripples, just as a gull would sit on the water. Smooth. Steady. Undisturbed. I am so not there yet.

Is it time?

I'm thinking it's time to start blogging again. I got out of writing anywhere on anything for a period of time. I even stopped writing in my journal. I just shut it all down. It coincided with not reading, or more accurately, not being able to read. In the past week I have begun writing more than the date and time I woke up in my journal, and I am currently back to reading - my minimum of 3 books - simultaneously.

I am reading Amrita of Eloquence, a biography of Khenpo Kathar Rinpoche; In the Land of No Right Angles. by Daphne Beal; and The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. I am enjoying them all. They are each wonderful reads.

The bio of Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche is very moving. It is a simple book, with little stories of Rinpoche's life, but so revealing of his compassionate spirit. I have not had the priviledge of reading a biography of a great master, that I actually know, have met, and have had teachings from. He is gentle, patient, loving.

In the Land of No Rght Angles is about a woman's last days in Nepal. She meets a young Nepalese woman as a result of a favor for a western man she knows in Kathmandu. This woman challenges her and forces her to question her assumptions about herself , others, and her future.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is about a young cartographer, about 12 years old at the start of the book. His mother is a Ph.D, his father a cowboy in modern day Wyoming. He gets invited to the Smithsonian, as a result of an illustration of the Bombardier Beetle that he submitted and had forgotten about. It's a terrific read, epic in many ways, with sidebar illustrations and notes, and destined to become a classic. Just terrific!

What else? Well, I've been working my ass off. What else is new. I'm so grateful to actually love my job. If I had to work this hard and hated what I was doing, I think I would just drop out of mainstream life. Actually, that's something I can't wait to do when it is my time to retire. Another 10 years? If I'm lucky!

Next up, still missing family in a big way. Here are some new photos of the littlest in our family:

Conner will be 2 in August, and Kayla is 5 months on Tuesday. She looks much older. She is very physically adept at her young age and was so from the beginning. The other family news is that my nephew was released from prison the other day. Halleluah! with apprehension. He didn't belong in jail, though he did break the law and was not there by accident. He belongs in court mandated rehab, ergo, the apprehension. He did not get help while in jail, so as far as I'm concerned, nothing in his life has changed except it will now be harder for him to enter the world of mainstream society. I worried while he was in jail, I worry more now that he is home.

Recently had a very nice visit from my good friend, josh. We hadn't seen each other in 6 months, and she came to Jax for a family event. I think she was here all of 48 hours, but we got to see each 3 times. I also got to spend some time with her family, most of whom I know and enjoy the company of.

There's more I could write, but it will have to be at another time. Real life calls.

Missing the family

My trip to NY last month to visit my sister was really wonderful. I've been home now for 3 weeks and it lingers in my heart and mind. I can honestly say this is the first visit to NY that has stayed this long and has been filled with this much sadness about not living closer to her and my family. I miss her and my nephews and niece terribly. It's gotten worse since I went, and I want to go back soon. It had been 15 months since I saw Brenda,and that's way too long. I saw my nephew, neice and 2 grand nephews more recently in the past year because they all travelled to FL. Bren will come and visit later this year, and I hope to travel to NY again within the next 12 months. Until then, I have photos!



Zak, Conner and Kayla

Zachary, age 6

Zachary and Conner

Conner, 18 months

Kayla Rose at 6 weeks

no is a BIG word