Happy Birthday!

There I am in May 2008 at Q's wedding with no idea of how my life was about to change come August.
And here I am today, in love and post surgery at my computer.




Happy Birthday to me! Wow what a year! I am in a completely different world than where I was last year, both physically and emotionally.

Last year I was living in Morocco, quite happily, working on my book, and taking myself to Paris for my 58th birthday; all while keeping in touch with my daughter and her plans for her upcoming wedding in May 2008. I was alone, but by no means lonely. I had a plan, and a back-up plan and I had Paris. I had a little house in the Oudayas with tourists walking past my door daily and the sounds of the mosque ringing in the early morning chill and the mid- afternoon heat. My ears were filled daily with the sounds of French and Arabic. My eyes were filled with the 11th century brushing up against the 21st as I walked the streets of Rabat.

Today – I am in Houston, Texas usa (I know!), fingers poised to finish one book and begin another, readying for a big writer’s conference in July, and planning (here it comes) my wedding for 7 June 2009 to the love of my youth – all while looking for a house to buy for us. My days are filled with the sounds of the Texas twang and the singing of birds in the tree outside my window. The 21st century rubs up against the 22nd all around me, and my eyes are filled with the sight of the man I love coming up the stairs, grinning ear to ear, arms loaded with flowers and gifts (amongst which were five new books, and a gift certificate to Anne Fontaine – the man knows me), saying “Happy Birthday my love!”.

That’s right lovely readers (ladies may sigh and swoon, Ian will grin, the rest do as you will) he wrote me a note on my blog last August after thirty-three years, we ran his mobile phone bill up to five thousand dollars, and wrote daily reams of post.

He wrote me poetry ladies, good poetry. Yes, sigh indeed. I told him, “If you want me, you have to come and get me” And so he did. We met in Paris for a week in October 2008. He said, “I love you. Please don’t go back to Africa or on to India. Come home with me.” And so I did. That is the really, really short form.

There will be more for you later. There will be a book – oh yes. I am not a silly person.

And so as I sit here in my little tree house apartment in Houston, Texas watching the mourning doves fetch new twigs for their nests and waiting for the temperature and humidity to rise (oh dear) I am well and truly happy. It is not that there are no problems (oh no, there is “our” ex-wife and two teenage children that are his, but becoming mine as well), and my child, and the daily travails of life as a human, but mine are minor and doable.

I am back at work writing after a six-month lay off to be romanced, move, fit in a new life, have a cancer scare, and then have happy-surgery and recovery. My fingers are itchy to get at the keys. The conference in July gives me a definite deadline. I am tomorrow six weeks post op, which for me the big to-do is the return to as much intimate physical interaction as I want (and trust me after a lay off of more years than I’m willing to tell you, the resumption of a sex life is very, very, very …(you get the idea) welcome!), and back to the gym – I’m terrified my body will turn to Jell-O!

I will say this about the plastic surgery. I had planned on this for years and saved for it from when I was in my thirties. I am very happy with the result – I guess it’s a good thing that we really can’t see a difference in the face, but oh baby! had I known the joy of a breasts lift – I would have had this done five years ago! Oh happy day! No bigger, no smaller (I told him, I have a couple of drawers of expensive French underwear I have to be able to fit into) just higher and so happy – days without any support makes me feel very sassy and naughty.

And so here I am – 59 years old. Wow. It’s been quite a trip. I can tell you I have never been bored. And now I am renewed in so many ways - I have so much love (and lust, such a good thing) in my life, and I’m looking forward to the next thirty or more years. I have to tell you I feel quite fortunate, or in the vernacular of the populace here – ‘pretty damn lucky’.

I had no idea that romance, in the form of true love, would ever enter my life again except on the written page. I have been so blessed in the past, and there has not been a shortage of men available and willing even through my fifties, but…never the one, never even close enough that I wanted to change my day, let alone my life. But then J. wrote, and called, and wrote, and called – and we were like a couple of twenty-year olds in Paris, but better, as we have both known enough pain to really appreciate the uniqueness of our love affair that has spanned our lives from young adults whose brains were not yet fully formed (“Why did you tell me to go away?” I asked. “Because at the time I thought there was one of you on every corner. I found that was not true. I was an idiot,” he said. “You were very young,” I said) to two people in their late fifties grateful beyond words for a second chance.

We spoke, at first haltingly, and then in a torrent as we stepped back into each other as though it had been yesterday that we parted, and not decades ago. Every day is now filled with romance (ladies trust me on this one, eat your hearts out – I’m talking flowers, unexpected gifts, those small touching things like leaving out a band aid because he noticed I had a blister on my foot… the constant and oh so welcome barrage of words and physical display of love and lust) and more laughter than I can ever communicate on a page. Leave it to say that my dimples are constantly sore, and I have trouble breathing at least twice a day.

My mind is still working, my imagination is enhanced with experience, and I am in love – deeply, peacefully, but with great excitement every day, in love. I am for the most part; a couple of notable hiccups for sure, healthy. I am so grateful that I am grateful – an odd sentence for sure but true in sentiment. Every day remains a day of discovery. I remain insatiably curious about everything. Years ago my best friend showed me a card we both thought brilliant that stated, “how old would you be if you were as old as you felt?”. For me that age is 34, I don’t know why other than it was a good year in a tumultuous decade, but I feel 34. So I choose to be 34 for a while longer. Enough said.

I remind myself (from my note board) to “step out of line”:
“For every nine people who denounce innovation, only one will encourage it… For every nine people who do things the way they have always been done, only one will ever wonder if there is a better way. For every nine people who stand in the line in front of a locked building, only one will ever come around and check the back door.
Our progress, as a species rests squarely on the shoulders of that tenth person. The nine are satisfied with things they are told are valuable. Person 10 determines for himself what has value.”
Za Rinpoche and Ashley Nebelsieck, In The Backdoor to Enlightenment

I try every day to be the 10th person.

MY Happy Day to you all!

uh oh

MIgraine day yesterday, recovering... back tomorrow.

I love presents!

Ian sent me these lovely awards and I placed a short list of deserving nominees below - all my lovely readers are deserving. On the right, the Premio Sardos Award. It is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing.

On the left ( just directions nothing political) the Must Read Award: "some blogs that I just have to read each day or at least each day that I log on; like a morning coffee they have become part of my morning ritual." That quote from the giver of the award.


my James
my friend jmb
for laughs and the "aw" factor Sparks
for downhome love and truths Mountain Mama
For the upscale view Dulwichmum
to make your mouth water and the view from Italy - Sicily Scene
and for the dark side with a laugh, Darth
and for things we need to know PJ

I have no explanation for this..do you?

ARCH
Corrective Rape

The use of sexual assault to “cure” lesbians in South Africa.

In a disturbing report entitled “Hate Crimes: the rise of corrective rape in South Africa,” the NGO Action Aid said:

In South Africa, no woman is safe from violence. The country’s war against its women continues unabated, with an estimated 500,000 rapes, hundreds of murders and countless beatings inflicted every year. For every 25 men accused of rape in South Africa, 24 walk free.

This shameful record has resulted in an increasingly brutal and oppressive culture of male violence, in which women are forced to conform or suffer the consequences.

As part of this oppression, the country is now witnessing a backlash of crimes targeted specifically at lesbian women, who are perceived as representing a direct threat to a male-dominated society.

… Support groups say that rape is fast becoming the most widespread hate crime targeted against gay women in townships across South Africa. One lesbian and gay support group says it is dealing with 10 new cases of lesbian women being targeted for “corrective” rape every week in Cape Town alone.

I've been thinking - again...

This worries me –
From the New York Times; “The Art of Political Distraction” by SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

“It was a sliver of news, seemingly a side issue, run amok. In the grand scheme of today’s taxpayer expenditures — $787 billion for economic recovery; another $700 billion to shore up shaky financial institutions; who knows how many more billions tomorrow — the A.I.G. bonuses amount to small change. But the small change became a big deal in an instant, dominating the talk shows and threatening to undermine Mr. Obama’s domestic agenda.

…by tapping into some larger fear or existing perception — “a proxy for a bigger concern,” in the words of Ed Gillespie, former counselor to Mr. Bush. If that concern runs deep enough, the side issue becomes the main issue.

The tail begins to wag the dog!

Thus did the A.I.G. bonuses become a symbol of long-simmering taxpayer resentment over Wall Street bailouts, and economic inequity in general, raising essential questions about fairness and personal responsibility —

“There has to be a sense of good and evil, a dramatic arc to it that makes some intuitive sense, so it can’t be terribly complex.”

…what the public wants in these situations “is closure,” Mr. Gillespie said.

“Under these circumstances, you have victims and you need to find a villain,” Ms. Jamieson said. “We need a narrative explanation that tells us how we got here, and attaches blame.”

Yet by week’s end, it was clear that the furor had exacted a price. As the House passed legislation imposing a 90 percent tax on bonuses after bailout, the White House ducked questions about whether Mr. Obama would sign such a bill. Mr. Geithner’s credibility was badly damaged, in part because of his shifting explanations of how he learned of the bonuses. Mr. Dodd suffered as well, for his role in writing legislation that, in the end, allowed the bonuses to be paid.”



This worries me because we, the voters/public/citizens of the world, must be smarter than this. The easy issue, the quick answer seldom is the right way to go. We have to be willing to READ more than one newspaper, LISTEN to more than one viewpoint (CNN and FOX), and then form an opinion of our OWN. I think this economic mess is dangerous in more ways than money – it can distract the world from evil being pursued right under our noses (Darfur is still there, the Congo is still going up in flames, the trafficking in sex slaves, both boys and girls – most of them CHLDREN, continues to grow ("When it comes to statistics, trafficking of girls and women is one of several highly emotive issues which seem to overwhelm critical faculties. Numbers take on a life of their own, gaining acceptance through repetition, often with little inquiry into their derivations. … the UNESCO project illustrates the wildly varying data on human trafficking produced by government organizations and NGOs (non-governmental organizations). For example, in 2001, the FBI estimated 700,000 women and children were trafficked worldwide, UNICEF estimated 1.75 million, and the International Organization on Migration (IOM) merely 400,000.”), the gun runners of the world are reaping the benefits of violence from the Kush to the Mexican-U.S. border, AIDS is on the rise in Washington D.C. of all places (3 percent of D.C. residents have HIV or AIDS — a 22-percent increase since 2006; statistically that is epidemic proportions), young men and women are still dying and being wounded every day in a war that is not - in Iraq and Afghanistan, the planet is crumbling underneath us from global warming and the sheer number of humans, and waste, we drill for and fight over the last of the earth’s petroleum instead of developing alternate sources of energy. Eventually, we will run out of oil. It takes at least 10 million years, specific geological processes and a mass extinction of dinosaurs and other ancient creatures to create crude oil -- making it the definition of a nonrenewable resource.

I’m not saying we should not vent some anger over the AIG bastards but in proper perspective.

I hate to give you two gloomy posts in a row but that’s what’s going on in my head today. We can’t do hands on saving the world on the majority of these issues as we have to go to work, cook dinner, worry about tuition for our children, make time (please!!!) to give and receive affection (sex for those who can:-), look at what exhibit is showing at the museum, and go see Julia Roberts and gorgeous Clive at the cinema (no I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m going to for sure).

We have to pray and meditate. We have to do the laundry. We have to go to the gym, hug our children, check the homework, pay the electric bill, and unclog the drain.

What I AM saying is that I want us to be AWARE of the big picture. We need to be aware of what is going on in Dubai, Washington D.C., Moscow, Beirut, Rabat, Jerusalem, and Riyadh – then do whatever we can. Educate our children in tolerance and compassion, refuse to be lazy and allow someone else to make up our minds on complicated issues, make time to CARE. Vote. Give when and what we can. Write our opinions – I love bloggers.

I do think it makes a difference. I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong before, I didn’t like it but there it is eh? I know my own child gives me grief about the Tibetan monks (present and past) who sit for years in a cave and meditate on compassion. “What possible good can that do?” But I think it can! Prayer, meditation, just being fucking NICE makes a difference in the greater Universe. We are in the Universe, that’s a fact, but how we affect the Universe, because we do (that is also a fact) is a CHOICE.

I think intention in whatever form or title we give it is the most powerful force in the Universe. I do. But intention requires persistence to be truly effective.

I love this quote from one of the American presidents, "Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
Calvin Coolidge

Seven years after the death of his son Daniel, his father Judea Pearl said, “Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of "resistance," has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words "war on terror" cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.”

I realize I’m really taking you on a stream of consciousness here but that’s where my head is today – so let’s hear YOUR thoughts eh?

Ciao.

what's on my mind today

I believe grief is as individual as fingerprints or DNA. I know, I know, there are the “five stages of grief” – and when you do not follow them and end your grief in what your friends, family, and society in general consider a timely manner – you must be “depressed” in a clinical sense or “holding onto your grief to keep them here”, or “holding on to your grief so that you do not have to move on”. One’s extended grief can actually become annoying to those close to them. “ You need to see a psychiatrist”; you need to “get some help”. Sometimes a person in grief is not crazy or depressed – they are in grief and it last until it’s done or they are dead.

“Why haven’t you married again?” “Why don’t you date?” “You should have a relationship and then you will forget.” Well I don’t bloody well want to forget! I have “moved on”. I have a happy life.

It’s not a timetable that works. There are always extenuating circumstances – for some it’s the last straw on a lifetime of loss, for others it is just too overwhelming to consider life without those lost, some have never had such a loss and have no tools with which to deal with such an all consuming emotional state. Some take their own lives because they cannot face a future without those whom they loved so completely; and then there are those like me, who find we have no ability to commit suicide and it’s fucking annoying at the time I can tell you – pissed me off. So I spent a year trying to die in some very creative and noble pursuits – you note that I remain.

I suffered such a loss over twenty-five years ago that still makes me bleed through my skin. At this time every year, some years less and some years more, I walk, talk, eat, sleep (not very well), and function as best I can while all the while my life’s blood is oozing out my pores and dripping on the floor, the keyboard, the book I’m reading, the kitchen counter, into the sink while I wash my face. I watch it swirl down the shower drain in a whirling circle of red.

And grief is fucking sneaky! It gets you when you are watching mourning doves build a nest outside your window and you burst into tears; when you see a child whose face snatches you back in time as surely as any mechanical time machine and your heart aches to the point you can feel the pieces falling off; when you make the mistake of watching the latest Kira Knightly movie because you think it will be just another light costume drama and instead it leaves you feeling like a rag that has been used too long, wrung out one time too many times; a song plays, or a smell – like a curl of smoke – drifts slowly up your nostrils and sends you body and soul back to the that day; a touch on my face, just so, can put me back on the walk along the Seine on a Spring day in Paris…

You can be just fine and then suddenly you can’t see through the blackness that has descended, you are trying to communicate with the world through a fog so thick it’s like cotton candy, and so dark that it could be midnight inside a singularity, and there is a one hundred pound anvil on your chest so that breathing is an effort. Your hearing is impaired – you hear the sounds from that day, those years ago, instead of now – the bells of Notre Dame, the ragged chugging of the motorboats taking the tourists back and forth along the Seine, the barking of the small Paris dogs that are ubiquitous, the sound of my love speaking to me of nothing of any great import – all sounds of a Tuesday morning, any Tuesday morning, like so many Tuesday mornings that had come before, and like no other Tuesday morning ever to come.

And the smell of the fresh grass of spring, the flowers that the old woman on the corner is selling from her stall (I remember the cart was blood red with a fleur-de-lys stamped in gold in the centre, and the flecks of gold paint had fallen off over the years giving it the appearance of standing history); the flowers in the Tuileries peeking out from the winter thaw, the smell of fresh bread baking, drifting out from the many café’s along the way, and the clean man smell of the tall chap rubbing my huge belly with his long fingered hands, my belly which was filled with life that we had created together – and he laughed, and then I laughed to see the joy in his eyes that I had put there.

And then in a single moment that lasted for an eon they were both gone. And I should “get over it”? I don’t’ think so. I can live with it. I have done so, I continue to do so, but “let them go”? Why would I want to do that? The guilt yes, I’m working on that; I’ve been working on that for almost thirty years but guilt so deep as to be felt every time you breathe is not so easily expunged.

First the Universe gave me Q to ease my heart and give me joy, and now a love from thirty-three years ago has come back into my life and has filled it with so much love that I wake every day with gratitude. So yes, this year is different. This year is much more difficult. This year I must let go some of the past so that there is room for my present, for him. This is no easy thing. Some emotions, experiences that change us fundamentally, lie buried so deep that there are endless reservoirs of grief to replace – indeed to displace a new love.

Oddly enough I feel almost adulterous, an unpleasant feeling being the loyal soul that I am. He feels it, he sees it when my eyes go ‘dark’ and I’m no longer here. It hurts him. It makes him feel I leave him, and at such times I indeed do just that. It makes him jealous of a dead man, and that does not make him feel honourable no matter how much I say it is normal and that I understand. He has been tender, loving, patient, but the pain in his eyes is growing; and he wants an answer. He wants the pain to end because he loves me; but he is after all a human, and he wants my pain to end so that I am here, in present time, with him.

I am trying – yes Yoda I hear you, “Do or do not… there is no try”. I am meditating. I am constructing a room for them in my mind. A place my memories can stay and be out of the present; and yet a room I can visit. I know that to not have love in my life, to not have the best existence I can is to fail to honour them. I know this. I do not disparage psychiatry, I think it works for some, and is needed for many people; it’s not where I go for help – for a list of reasons it is not an option for me. I can do this. I know I can. I just have to convince myself that I want to do so. I do. I am not someone who is willing to throw away happiness. I have seen much of the world and there is so much misery that to give your happiness away is not logical. I will not do that. And yet I know I cannot pretend. I cannot push the feelings down lest they attack me at some crucial moment when not expected. I have to bring it all, including the guilt, most especially the guilt, and expose it in the clear and merciless light of day. I know that they, the one who could not yet speak and the one who loved me completely, would want me to do this. For me, it is time. Now is the time. I know that their souls are out there, that I will meet them again in the next turn of the Wheel. I know this.

Today is a better day. Yesterday was a very bad day. Tomorrow is another day. I can do this.

death in my little part of the Universe..

My MacBook Pro has died, sigh. I do believe it was a year of ingesting Moroccan electrical power - yes, trust me, different. It's very, very dead. I did all the jiggling and taking apart I could but alas - no joy.

I am leaving a'traveling this afternoon and will be gone for about a week or so. I had planned to take you all along, like I do - but I fear I must needs wait upon my return to give you the news. I hold out hope still that a new battery may be the simple and not so awful solution to the ails of my laptop but there is no time for the Apple store as we are leaving presently.

THere is much concern amongst those traveling with me as to my sanity during a week without touching fingers to keypads. A valid concern I feel.
Be nice to yourselves and each other until I see you in a week then eh?

Ciao