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Gambler, hot head, hot shot who destroyed 3 planes prior to finally being shot down. I knew men who flew hundreds of the same missions without such drama. He keeps showing us that he only knows how to fight. He is old, he is unwise; he is always, was always, will always be about the show. The bravado. Which is why he picked Palin. No substance.
Vs.
Cool, perfectionist, highly intelligent, excellent manager who has executed at a high level his entire life. He will continue to do so.
No Drama/Vote Obama!
Hillary’s Wall Street Journal piece does justice to her intelligence and compassion. Stop the usurous rise in interest rates, and this will help save homes. She will be well used in Apricot’s cabinet.

Back from Alaska. Pretty sites, not beautiful; except for the glaciers. Topaz blue, and a wonder to behold. Cruise food becomes dull. I need to be able to cook for myself.
Since home, I’ve begun to feel once again, an ever so slight shift in my perspective regarding my emotional self.
I am bearing the losses better, without as much depression. Lexi is with me daily, helping me realize that I must keep on dancing.

I wrote this sometime in July 2008, about 1 month before Callie died.

You are 13.5 years old this month. “Old as dust” as you were recently called by the young man leaving for work in his Hummer. (Oh his carbon footprint.)
The sighs you emit sound as old as dust.
Sighs of contentment began emanating from you at about 5 or 6 years old. At least that’s what I took them to be. You would heave a lengthy sigh when we snuggled in for sleep, or when I’d pick you up in my arms, bring my face close to yours and kiss you.
You are sighing now; or is it purring? Like a cat; each breath in and out contains a sound that can only bespeak utter contentment.
Your sighs, these sounds are purposeful; as if you want me to know that you know you are loved.
Your sighs contain the collective love, affection, holding, feeding, daily walks, running away explorations, racoon adventures, even deer attacks of your 13.5 dog years.

I am so very grateful (KOSZONOM) that you grace my life.

Another loss. I put Callie down on the 26th. She’d been vomiting for the previous 24 hours. The nite of the 24th the bed was vomit soaked. Washed all bedding and put it back together on the 25th. Then on the 26th, at 4AM, I awoke to more vomiting. Bed was a mess again.
I held her, she was weak, listless. She was suffering.

I found a vet in Kingman, AZ; got to vet at 6AM and by 8AM I had her put down. X-rays & ultrasound visualized a large abdominal mass which had finally grown so that it blocked her small intestine, thus the vomiting.

She was a trooper to the end. On the 24th, we’d walked approximately three miles together, from Grand Canyon’s “Trailer Village” to the El Tovar hotel and back.
She kept up with Reilley and I as usual. Reilley in the lead, me in the middle and Callie trudging behind, but always keeping up. Was it the altitude (7k feet) that finally kicked the ab mass? I’ll never know.

She was so incredibly special. And I’m eternally grateful that she did not pass sooner. I could not have taken it last year. Not at all, after Lexi’s & Gan’s passing.
Koszonom.

I am at a Marion Rosen Workshop, February 2008, in Berkeley, on the table taking my turn as one of the class “guinea pigs”. There are six or seven “work stations” in the room, each with a willing subject on the table, and an experienced Rosen Method practitioner demonstrating the power of this work to the others in the subject’s group.

I’m crying softly as the practitioner is touching me. Rosen work asks the practitioner to use simple touch, unadorned, without expectation of eliciting a response. It is not massage or bodywork meant to “do something” to the receiver. It is just simple human touch, meant to help the receiver feel what is stored in their deepest cellular memory. It is this touch, hand to skin, given without ego, without oils or flourish or expectation, which unlocks feelings which have remained hidden for years, nay lifetimes. The miracle of Rosen work is truly the miracle of Life itself. The ability to store, and when the ground is ready, to release.

Still crying softly, the practitioner attempts to elicit the cause of my tears. She gently asks general questions. I don’t respond, and just continue my soft crying. I don’t respond partly because I can’t talk, I’m overwhelmed with feeling; and partly because I truly don’t know, in that moment, exactly why I’m crying. I am flooded by an overwhelming gratitude to be there, on the table, being touched.

The loss of one’s soul mate, life partner is devastating on so many levels.For me, the loss of daily physical touch, given and received with love, was one of the most difficult adjustments to make. Even if Margaret and I were upset with one another, we would always take time to sit and talk, her feet in my lap, and my touching, stroking those precious feet and toes. Her reaching her hand out to me, touching. Flesh to flesh, human contact, touch.

I’m asked to turn on my back, which I do, and she ever so gently touches my right thigh. I suddenly feel as if I’ve been jolted back into the deep pit of grief. This pit which enveloped me for the first 18 months after Margaret died. The pit of Hell. The gentle hand on my thigh, and suddenly I am again being dragged through Hell, inch by painful inch, and I let out an ear piercing howl which quieted the room.
Then I heard a distinct, other-worldly voice from above, clearly state, just one word: ACCEPT. Then I shook with heavy sobs.

I heard Marion say to the hushed room, “Go on, go on, with your work.”

The skilled practitioner came to the side of my head, speaking softly yet clearly, telling me that I was alright. I was alright. She caught and held my gaze, no fear in her eyes, only a clear signal to come back to the present. To be here now. I did, and my sobbing slowly subsided into tearful whimpers, then just gulping in air.

I slowly got dressed while the other women in my group huddled around me, protective, loving, concerned. I never spoke a word. I never told them what had gone on internally for me. But I knew, clearly, as clearly as I know anything, that I still hadn’t Accepted Margaret’s death. Nor my sister’s death. My dearest sister who died less than six months prior to Margaret’s sudden passing. I knew I still had work to do. The Universe had spoken unequivocally.

On the flight home, after the workshop, I pondered: what does it mean to Accept? I thought I had. I thought I was done with that portion of grieving. Thought I was well on my way to the creation of my new life. But I was wrong.

I came home to a broken, leaking hot water heater which was beginning to wreck havoc in the closet which housed Margaret’s sympathy box. The two hundred or more cards, letters, and expressions of sincere sympathy from our friends and family. The water was just beginning to seep into this cardboard box.
I grabbed its bottom, pulling it towards me, getting it out of the closet. As I hurriedly pulled the box to the safety of dry carpet, out rolled two polished rose quartz stones.
These beautiful stones had been given to me by a wise Mendocino County therapist, Mohasabe Shalom, after Margaret died. I had tossed these stones into the box while packing for my move to Southern California.
“Comfort” was carved into the smaller stone.
“Acceptance” was carved into the larger, two inch stone.

ACCEPTANCE was the stone which popped out of the box and landed literally at my feet.
If I had any doubt at all about what the Universe wanted me to work on, this rose quartz stone clearly shouted Her intent.

In the next few months, I daily pondered: What does it mean to Accept?
Why haven’t I yet accepted their deaths?

Now, almost six months after that fateful weekend, I am still “in process” of Acceptance and coming to comprehend what this means.
And I am filled with eternal Gratitude for my life. I am humbled by The Power which has ALWAYS shown Herself to me. Which has always instructed me in my life’s lessons.

Koszonom.

The above question is rhetorical. We all know why. Sadly.

Today I assured two dear friends of their intrinsic worth; regardless of the amount of money they are able to bring to their lives, the talents they utilize to garner this money, the size of their body, their education level, their appearance, their genetic background. Just the fact of their being a living soul makes them worthy of unconditional love. Simple.
Difficult to believe. But one must.

Molly Ivins had it right. He is Shrub boy. He is an unrepentant addict and plays the role of the clown. He dances, shuffles with affectation when lined up to be photographed, he plays the Saudi princes’ clown and pet. He proclaims the fight for Freedom and Democracy, yet he begs oil from a nation where women are nearly enslaved and cannot vote. And sells them 20 billion dollars of arms.

He is incapable of being a man, incapable of making decisions because of his dearth of knowledge. He needs to be liked, if not loved; but the ones who love him, do so for his cuteness, his boyishness. They love him as we love children. For he is useless as a man. He is not a leader and he got to where he is on the coattails of his narrow, bureaucratic father and his family’s wealth. A father who helped create an anti-American rebel movement in Central America. By giving away guns and money. The same way we helped create the monster middle eastern terrorists. They began with our guns and money. They grow with our guns and money and their hatred for us.
He will always be a shrub because he has never done his work. Crass religion without self knowledge or awareness was his cheap avenue to end his drug abuse. He made no amends. Has never examined anything to its depth; has never admitted being wrong. Has the arrogance and narcissism of the unrecovered addict.

And now he is tired of playing the king. All of our natural disasters have made him weary, and shed light on the fragility of a system, an infrastructure which has not been given even bare maintenance. Despite hundreds of cries for repair. No, the shrub wishes to hide in Texas and cut and hack livings shrubs down to nothing. He’s had enough of this game which he never prepared for, always skipped out, had no history of fortitude and completion; and he never developed the basic curiosity about others, other cultures, other people, to be even a mediocre player.
I’m thinking of shrub as the financial markets unwind from their gorging of greed. Is it no coincidence that these past 8 to 10 years have spawned legions of the super rich, the wealthy and the wealthiest. The pigs have been gorging at the trough of unfettered creation and sale of new “financial instruments”; new things to purchase for investment. Intricate creations whose only value derived from the minds of math wizards; bought and sold, given Moody’s Best Ratings; valued by the hedge funds which made money from air. And the ultimate Ponzi scheme played out; with the boys at the top who were selling in hedge funds getting fattest.
Didn’t we learn our lesson with the Savings & Loan bailout, with Enron, with Tobacco, with Haliburton, with Blackhawk, and now with Bear Stearns and an entire financial industry complicit in destroying people’s lives. But always getting bailed out with our tax payer dollars. Boys who squander our money, making their money on ours. The money business, industry, has its own codes, language, expectations, privileges and discriminations. Oh, we were fooled once again into thinking that they would behave. That they would be happy with the large salaries society bestows upon them in exchange for trusting that they will take care of our money, our future, our children’s future. That they wouldn’t do it again. That they would behave. That their codes and our expectations would keep them honest. But it hasn’t and it never will. And this time it’s huge.

So I’ve been thinking of shrub’s ineptitude all day long. Do we have a Franklin Delano Roosevelt in our midst? Will Apricot (Barack in Magyar means apricot) Man pull it out?

I held my newborn grand nephew this afternoon. It was an amazing feeling. Looking at him, holding him created a bond that I couldn’t have had without this physical touch. He is perfect. And his fingers are long, as are mine, his father’s, and my father’s. His fingers, his fingernails, his lips, ears, nose, whorl of his hair, even his hairline are all perfect. I am grateful that he is in the world, safely. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, and he came 2 weeks early. He was only 5#1 oz. Tiny. But perfect.
Tanks God. (My mother’s Hungarian accent created her own unique pronunciation of the English language. And my family continues her mispronunciation, purposely.)

I got home and dropped into what is becoming an all too familiar depression. It was triggered this afternoon while purchasing groceries. And buying the dried sweet ginger that Margaret loved. And nectarines. I learned to love both from her. And loved to buy them for her. Now just for me.

My friend Laura tells me that my grieving is now only 2 years old, not the 2.5 years I’d believed.
I was too busy moving, buying a new home, selling my old, selling and giving away the stuff of 2200 sq. feet to move into 900 sq. feet. Dealing with the nuts and bolts of ending one life and starting another.
But the ending, the loss, the suddenness of death clouds the ability to create the new.
Of course. As it should be.
One expects to grieve. One expects the clouds, the pain, the utter emptiness. But it has gone on now for so long, that I’m beginning to fear that it will permanently change my brain’s chemistry. Sadness, grief, loss, emotional pain begets chemical changes which in turn beget more of the same. Vicious cycle. And I still haven’t regained my taste for living. Even holding Grady Donal doesn’t create a lasting desire, a lasting joy, a taste for life. I’m sorry to say this.

But I will not take my life. I will wait for the slow imperceptible shifts to occur.
I must wait for the Universe, my universe, to unfold as it is meant to.

And I do best when I’m occupied with chores, things to do, traveling, purposeful activities which take my mind away from the loss.
I heard a NPR interview with Elizabeth Edwards and one other cancer survivor this afternoon. They spoke of the “cloud of cancer” and the relief they feel when people or activities allow them to forget that this cloud is always there.
I could relate.

So I have filled my July, August, and September with a birthday party, with travel, with civic activity, to help lift the cloud. I have historically always been an optimist at heart; I have lived through deep emotional pain before. I will live through this; despite the loss of the two women who I have loved fiercely.

One other thought before I end this. I was thinking about the importance of touch, and the lack of it after Margaret’s death. The familiarity of skin which almost feels like my own. Yet it isn’t; but it soothes BOTH of us when I touch her. The magic of touch; the magic of getting while giving.
The deep comfort of skin and smell which belong to the other who is adored. I would love to have this again in my life.

Today the Mandalas are added.
The artist is Paul Heussenstamm, see: http://www.mandalas.com/ for a complete description of who he is, what he does, how he thinks and feels.
He came into my life via GAN, an amazing human being who was always larger than life. GAN’s mandala is: Eyes of Wisdom. My mandala is: Homage To Chagall.
Paul views people via their soul.
The soul does not differentiate.
We are truly all ONE PEOPLE.
A person wearing purple, or red, for example, exudes the essence
of that color and another person’s soul will respond to the color.
Paul believes this, as do I.

An attempt to learn to accept.

I have been given this task by the Universe and must learn
what it means for me.

So I create this “blog” to help unfetter my heart.