Nothing is lost that cannot be found, if sought

Love has been lost to me for so many years.  I thought my heart was dessicated and beyond resurrection.  I believed that I would die without ever knowing or feeling love again.  Today, I think that just perhaps, I could be wrong.

Stringing a ukulele

Odd subject you may think.  It is a lesson in both character and patience.  Forty years ago I could string and tune a twelve string guitar.  Eighteen years ago I bought a baritone ukulele.  It was smaller, easier to carry and it was like playing just the bottom four pairs of strings.  Fifteen years ago I broke a string and simply never replaced it.  My mother died in August and in going through everything, we found the ukulele.  I have recently been encouraged by my best friend to resurrect my interest in music.  As a result, I ordered new strings.  They came yesterday.  I have not played for fifteen years and I have not re-strung anything in thirty years.  As I said to my friend, " It's only four strings, how hard could it be?"  As Robert laughed, he said, "Never ask that question."  I came to understand what he meant.  It is absolutely tempting fate to show you exactly how hard it can be.  Yesterday I spent several hours putting strings on, anchoring them incorrectly, putting them in incorrect order and trying to tune each string to a note it was never designed to reach.  Last night I put it all aside because I seemed unable to achieve my objective.  Today when I went to resume this now complex project, I discovered that I had to remove all of the strings and re-sequence and re-tune them.  It is done now, but had I simply done a little research yesterday, I could have saved a lot of time.  I once worked in an accounting office with a boss whose favorite question was, "Why is there never enough time to do it right the first time, but always enough to do it over?"  It was a good question, Harry.  I am still asking that one.  I did, however, learn some  important things about myself.  First, I am stubborn and persistent.  Not bad qualities, but they can cost you time, so whatever it is, needs to be worth it.  Second, I am patient.  Patience somehow imbues the time spent with a special quality of understanding and appreciation.  All in all, re-stringing a ukelele is not a bad Saturday afternoon project.

Brightest and best

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning..........captor of sun and moon, light and dark..........of jeweled visions.......of all that is beautiful.  This son of light, a pantheistic worshiper,  holds in his heart the desire to understand the universe.  I am a daughter of the night and wonder if there is a place in the cosmos where we might co-exist.

Eastern Standard Time

I really dislike Eastern Standard Time.  It is mid-November at  5:40 p.m. (that's 1740 H) to you guys on the military clock) and it is DARK.........as in night time.......I don't mean dusk or twilight........I mean night.  I don't have a problem getting up in the dark.  I like taking my walk before the world starts buzzing around in the full light of day.  But I start my day in the dark and it gets dark again long before I end it.  To me it would make far more sense to just keep Eastern Daylight Time all year round.  We can save a bit on the electric bill in the summer and reduce the amount of anti-depressant medication  needed in the winter due to shorter daylight exposure.  Seems like a win-win situation to me.

Once in a Blue Moon

Occasionally we get two full moons in a single month.......like next month.  The Cold Moon is on December 1st and the Blue Moon is on December 31st.  It is not a frequent phenomenon, hence the comment about things happening "once in a blue moon."

I am an observer of the full moon, the new moon, the quarter moons, the dark of the moon....waxing or waning, it makes no difference.  However, I only sing to the full moon.  Mostly they are wordless songs, although I have been known to sing a tune with a lyric now and then.  The lyrics always have to contain the word moon or refer to her in some way.

This observation of the moon has been a lifelong habit.  It is a wonderful way to spend time alone or with someone.  There is nothing like the magic of her influence.

I Sing Because I Can....

I love singing.  I am no Streisand.  I am a journeyman vocalist........not brilliant, but competent.  I started out singing in church and studied with Norma Tina Russo of the San Carlo Opera Company as a mezzo-soprano.  Things progressed and I wound up with gigs in saloons and stage productions.  Forty years later I am back in church.  Now I am a contralto with a second soprano stretch and I am singing alto, second soprano AND tenor, depending on the piece.  I have also done some acting in my time and although I liked it a lot, I am actually an interpreter of songs.  I like that best of all.  There is more power in words and music than words alone.  Perhaps that is why Saint Augustine said, "...to sing once is to pray twice."   I can get lost in a song and take an audience with me.  It doesn't get any better than that.

Relationships

I know very little about the relationships between men and women.  I know about sex, but it isn't the same.  I am trying to learn, but I am lost and have no idea where to go to understand.  When I was very yong, I thought you just had to give love in order to get love back.  What a fairy tale that is.  It seems to be mostly about manipulation that occurs between the two people involved.........relationship politics.  It is a complex thing and I am too simple to grasp it concepts, much less exercise them.   It seems so easy for most people.  Why is it such a disaster for me?

A Mighty Wind

They talk about highs and lows and pressure gradients.  All I know is that the wind is amazing.  I was walking at 5:30 this morning.  It was cool, but not cold.  The waning moon was shining high overhead and the wind whipped the trees into a frenzy as I walked my 1.2 miles around the blocks in my neighborhood.  The wind was fierce and invigorating.  I breathed deeper and lifted my face boldly as I moved against its force.   I finished my walk with regret.  I was not afraid of all that power.  For that brief space of time, I was part of it.

Oh, world, I cannot hold thee close enough.....

I feel more joyful each and every day.  I am contented, in love with life, and fit comfortably inside my skin.  I am constantly growing intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and changing moment to moment.  I embrace life and love and laughter.  I await the future in anticipation, secure in the belief that life is good, souls are beautiful, and all things are possible. I am filled with a cornucopia of feelings and can hardly find expression for them.  Be patient with me, O World, I am a work in process.

Free to see and feel and be...........

Today was an extraordinary day.  It was so special because I was able to put down a burden I have carried for a lifetime.  With help, I put it down and walked on.  I was able to examine it, pack it up and place it out of the way.  I will not forget it.  I will not suppress it.  The really important thing is that it no longer has the power to hurt me.  For that gift, I am more grateful than I can say.  I see more sharply, hear more clearly, feel more intensely, and have slowed my continuous run to an appropriate walk.  This way I will not miss the important things in my life or the lives of those I love.  There is no overwhelming sense of urgency, no sense that time is running away from me.  I am in the here and now and tomorrow will have to take care of itself.

Dream a little dream.......

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. again this morning.  The cause was a living color, more real than real, flash back forty years in the past.  I could hear the sounds and feel the pain and fear as I experienced it.......... survived it, all those years ago.  I started to remember the details I had blocked out for so long.  I had to take Ativan just to face getting dressed and driving to the doctor's office.  All of the missing pieces began falling into place.  However, it isn't over yet.  I told them I was afraid to go to sleep.  They ordered a really strong sleeping medication and increased the amount of Ativan I have to take for the next thirty-six hours.  Thursday morning I will undergo a therapy that should resolve the emotional trauma and resulting complications.  As I take my sleeping pill, I lift my water glass in a toast and pray for no dreams tonight.

Escape into sleep..........

Tonight I am incredibly tired.  I woke up this morning at 3:30 and just could not go back to sleep no matter how hard I tried.  I am, what my mother used to call, "bone weary".  Such major fatigue magnifies, many times, the severity of the angst I feel and I am experiencing anxiety on several levels.  There is anxiety related to job responsibility......some about financial things.........about the lawn getting mowed........more anxieties about the difficulties of my friends........and a whole lot that has to do with remembering the past.  Normally, I am better at managing my emotional response to circumstances.  However, if you throw in the fact that the moon is full and we just went back to EST, I should probably just get in the bed and pull the covers over my head.

When the saints go marching in.....

Today was All Saints Day.  Believe it or not, we opened with a really jazzed up version of "When the Saints Go Marchin' In".  I couldn't believe it, but we sounded really hot.  We were so good, we got applause.   I felt great about it even though I was a little unsure of myself with all of the new music.   Everyone was friendly.  I had been asked to stay for the noon mass.  It turned out there were only six of us, including the pianist and the director.  The director, Marianne, gave me a music stand and my own microphone.  It made me very self-conscious.  I was praised over and over again and I, who can talk about anything without becoming embarrassed, was so embarrassed, it made me cry.  Thus was my debut in the choir.