Sundays: Bloody? No, thank you.

I almost didn't post this one at all. But, what is this site I've created for, if not for expressing the gritty along with the lighthearted aspects of what I see and think. These entries are an attempt to reflect all the contrasting strokes of what compose a finished, glorious piece of art. The art being life. Life also demands dark moments & thoughts or we would not see the brighter, vivid ones. They would fade and blend into a dull, drab blob of boring.

Here's to the meat of the mind... cheers!

Yesterday:
I've come to the computer to unload a heavy subject. I was in the middle of brewing my French Roast coffee when dialogue pounced on me. It was a frenzy. I meandered down the galley to my salad mixing bowl to dump a heap of walnuts on top of my greens and blue cheese and the banter was still there, working me up inside and I just couldn't get it to go away. So, voila. I'm here. Facing the page where I get to vent my internal feud or ramble on about everyday marvels. This page is my way to usher these emotions out and to a new place.

I have a serene environment here in my casa. It is as usual for a Sunday. Lazy pups lounging around; mug of warm coffee to enjoy regardless of the hour; David Gray, the amazing artist that amplifies the soul's otherwise mute cries with such emotional precision, echoing between brick walls; books in small piles waiting to be read, a candle or two lit and infusing a very faint scent into the room. That's a wonderful scene. I am so proud of this scene I sit in and call my life. That's why when turbulent thoughts rumble through my brain, it disturbs me and I have to put them to rest for this moment.

It pertains to the pile of books, I think. There are three comprising this pile. They are 1917, Russia's Year of Revolution by Roy Bainton; The Russian Century, A Brief History of the Last Hundred Years by Brian Moynahan; and the one I have been itching to read since I picked it up, Night of Stone, Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia by Catherine Merridale. I picked this last book up, read the back, immediately flipped it open and read the first 7 or 8 pages until I had to leave the store and haven't stopped thinking about it. The subject matter is serious and tragic and true- and it is somehow written with beauty. I have read the back to at least three friends over the telephone. I'm telling you, this book is going to be like a slap across the face. These Russians, do you know what they have endured? I will tell you. "During the twentieth century, Russia, Ukraine, and the other territories of the former Soviet Union experienced more bloodshed and violent death than anywhere else on earth: fifty million dead in an epic of destruction that encompassed war, revolution, famine, epidemic, and political purges." Seriously?! How can one not be compelled to at least learn of what has surely taken the Russian spirit and wrangled it, defeated it, and left it for dead. Much like our rodeo, right? But, my love for bulls will surface at another time. This is insane and I must know what leads a society to get victimized like this. This is not ancient history. This is relevant. These people are dealing with this today, in personal ways. This is not just politics. This is infringement.

To give you a fair understanding of why this rattles me intensely, I'll clarify my point of view. What do I hate more than anything else? Someone telling me what to do. I hate it. I'll fight it fiercely. The moment someone tells me what to do when they have zilch, nada, no supremely valid reason, I think "Who are you to tell me what to do? Who gives you the authority to inject yourself into my life?" I think "My soul did not come into this body to live your version of my life!" I am having to hold my written tongue from using nasty language as I write this. I mean, I get irate. Do you know what I think a progressive thought is? "Mind your own business." Yeh, it's that simple. "Don't try and control me. Get a hold of your ego and leave me out of your dictation."

Wow. Heavy stuff. It's just that this controlling, the rules, the conforming; it has always blown my mind. "I should do that and I should do it this particular way... Says who??? Who gets to be appointed so important that they get to make the rules for my life?" This is my thought regarding the Neo-Conservatives I watch with all their so-called wisdom and justifications on all the contradictions they pose. And also toward their counterpart, the Liberals who are basically communists. Radical. It amuses me that neither of these groups are actually liberal thinkers by definition, they are highly intolerant and control freaks. I can pretty much spell my own political beliefs by saying that with everything that I've read so far, Thomas Jefferson displays the most modern mind of all. That is what I see as progressive. So many are trying to march backward in time toward things that have already proven to be devastating and nicknaming this, falsely, progressive. These are all simply my thoughts, my opinions. It is a volatile subject, one that offends others too easily. But, why not speak of it, while we still can anyway? Why not learn about it and talk about it and leave American Idol for the brain dead zombies.

When things like control is what we are debating , fifty million dead is at stake.

It goes beyond conforming of course. But, I would like to take a moment and post this observation. If you consider yourself an individual, of a truly independent mind... Think about if you live that way. Do you call yourself part of this group or that because it's a trend? Do you want to fit in, or save yourself from ridicule by your look-a-like friends? Do you call yourself a free-spirit hippie and dress up to look the part because that's what all your hippie friends do too? Do you live your life one way and then wish to be part of a bigger, cooler crowd, and quote talking points? What do you really think? Most people that protest conformity do their best to project it loud and clear. They pierce every abstract part of their body, tattoo themselves, whatever... you know the exact look I'm talking about. Isn't it funny that they are striving to fit into their non-conformist crowd? They are trying to fit in. Hmmm... isn't that strange, considering that. is. conforming. It's disgusting to observe.

I hope I don't sound judgmental, even though, I know that is exactly how this is coming off, but I hope to God above I don't fit in a group, a stupid cliche'. Get me out of a clique. Let me stand alone on the thought foundations I've spent a lifetime accumulating. I think of what attracted me to my husband. Well, at first, it was because he was magnetically attractive, (hubba hubba) but then, the most important part that grabbed me is that he is a leader. He leads his own life. He does not follow anyone. He thinks and stands on his own ground and he's brilliant about the way he does that. We are highly compatible on our political, spiritual, cultural beliefs; and it is so refreshing to hear new perspectives that are relevant and matter in the world. To ignore any system put in place that dictates how you get to live your life is idiotic. The cheese in the trap? Stupid reality shows, coke, "gladiator sports events",... These appease the masses. Legislation is passed while the public has a big coca-cola pacifier in their mouths. Not saying sports is bad. I love sports. Truly. I love the competition and the devotion it teaches one. I love that it serves as a tool to show someone their own strength, to be a member of a team, and that losing is as valuable as winning; but not at the expense of more important topics on which to be educated. Who's stealing your crumbs off the floor? Who is snatching your rights away?

When artistic, inventive, freely expressive people preach about communism I want to barf. I want to say, all that you are is deleted the moment you create a system like that. Do they actually think they will get to paint all day? Do they think the world will become a utopia? People are not designed to be the same. It goes against the core of the spirit. It is like hammering down your soul. Why does everyone want to be the same these days? Why are some glorifying or even defending this idea of being valued only on one's worth to a particular nation's government?

I am looking forward to reading this Night of Stone, where the author reads actual KGB documents and discusses at length the ideas of communism with those who have lived it. This is valuable to me as opposed to theories written on a page and sold as propaganda to eager college students hoping to impress others as intellectuals. Maybe they are intellectual, these radical lefters and radical righters, but really when it comes down to it... whatever they think is their own right... but don't let it affect me. Don't control me. Stick your nose in that manifesto and paint about it, or squawk on TV about how morally superior and untouchable you are... but harness your "power" to your own life.

Nick is going to read 1917 and I of course, Night of Stone. This Russian history is, after all, woven into Nick's own family. His father was born in Sevastopol and his family left their country during this Revolution. I read his great grandfather's essay on what we all know as Bloody Sunday. It's hard for me to imagine, this kind of family history. But, it is important for me now to absorb what all of this was about and not just the packaged, branded version of it all. It is part of his heritage and that makes it part of me.

I will find that article of his grandfather's and post this entry when I do.
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Cass1905.html
Arthur Paul Nicholas Cassini, Marquis de Capuzzuchi di Bologna, Count Cassini; Russian Ambassedor to the USA (last of the old Tsarist regime).

It is possible that many others can think of these topics and not care so much. I am very Aquarius, so I can not, and do not want to be oblivious or content living in the realm of someone else's rules, or even mentally sedated by pop culture. Is this threat of suffocating control not possible? Well, just make sure the next time you take your car to Jiffy Lube, they look under the vehicle for suspicious tracking devices, smile when you stand on the street corner, because someone is watching, and the next time you check your bank account or send an email, already you are not doing so privately... the instances go on and on. Is this all for our own good, for our protection? Or is it a matter of control? Just a question.

The next time you hear someone say, "I'm not doing anything wrong. They can look through my emails, go through my accounts, perform a cavity search all they want. Fine with me." think to yourself about what that really means. Suppose the people searching for bad guys, over time, change what constitutes suspicious behavior. Soon everyone could become suspicious. No one has come up with clear, definitive guidelines on what makes one a target or not. Who is it deciding these things? Who are we giving these powers to? These are people, after all; not a perfect, purely ethical force of nature that will always stay fair and just and resist the power of control. And when one becomes trapped, controlled and has no voice to dispute- it is too late. And be certain, in photographs taken of people who are at mercy to others- they aren't smiling, they look miserable... and there is a distinct absence of piercings if you know what I mean.

p.s. Anybody want to read Night of Stone with me? Probably not. But, if so, let me know. That could be fun.

Dream Weaver

I conclude that there are many different levels of dreams. Some are wacky insights to the inner self, some are reflections of one's recent experiences or thought topics, and some aren't dreams so much as they are experiences beyond what we have given readily accepted labels. The latter are my favorite and I have a few that are as precious to me as any waking moment I've experienced.

I just spent the last twenty minutes researching the meaning of my dream from last night. That doesn't seem to work- ever, but I continue to try and match up my dreams to professional interpretation. Never can I find a specific match between my dream and the one-word examples I find online. Car. And then the site lists what it means when you see a street car in a dream. What I fail to find is what it indicates when I am in the back of a navy SUV that is soaring off a pier and into the turquoise, clear water on a sunny afternoon complete with blue skies and cumulus clouds. I shouldn't expect to have some outside source tell me about my subconscious. I have a better chance of doing that myself, with just a little introspection.

Last night's dream wasn't close to being the wildest. I remember being one of four girls in the back of the SUV. We were all brunette, if that matters at all. And the other three were taller than me, which simply shows that my sleeping projections are realistic. We have left a place of business, or shopping/dining experience and the driver says she's going to pick up some fish from the fisherman by the pier. The girl who is familiar with the area keeps saying, "They won't be open. Don't bother going. He won't be there." The driver rebuts, "Well, he told me he would be, so I'm going to see anyway." She doesn't understand why she can't go try to pick up her fish without permission or even resistance. I am observing from the back right side of the vehicle. I sort of think this back and forth is amusing and completely normal for these two and their relationship. I don't know who the third girl is either, the one beside me, but I keep trying to insert my sister into the back seat with me, and my brain corrects this by telling me this is impossible, she doesn't live near me. All of a sudden, the car accelerates, we zoom past the fisherman's hut, which is on the left, near the end of a pier. It looked to be closed, but I kept that to myself. I remember that the pier was nice; it had recently poured concrete that led to sturdy wooden planks. We were going so fast and I thought this was actually quite fun. It was thrilling, except we all realized the brakes weren't going to have time to slow our car down before the last wooden plank. The driver tried. It was as if she had accelerated only out of frustration in the first place. We went flying off the pier and I vaguely remember having a smile on my face. I remember being watched from land. We went flying and landed, boom! We went down quickly, too quickly, and this is when I thought, oh, I can't open the door and I didn't have time to put down the window in mid air. Never did it even occur to me in this dream that I wouldn't find a way out. So, I woke, of course. I needed a solution for this timing issue, so I tried to go back to sleep and force a new ending. Ha! That never works either.

One dream that is more interesting came a few weeks ago. It was quite violent. It packed a punch and swirled around in my mind for a couple of days, so I sent it to mom in an email, just to give it an exit. Here's that email:
My dream the other night- crazy.
I was an observer only, but we were in a futuristic building that was large and white and it was clear research was going on in the center and it was open floor to ceiling. The staircases were concrete, but they led to balconies with clear Plexiglas walls and so everyone and everything was exposed. My point of view was here, on one of the many floor's balconies with three people. We watched as this crazy man somehow dangled himself from one of the floors and kept stabbing himself to throw off the 'enemy' that was capturing all these people. Blood was everywhere. It seemed he was fighting his own demons completely, because he kept hurting himself with an odd satisfaction and then surviving and so he was doing it over and over for show. Then, two of the three people who were seeing all that this man was doing; and they seemed like okay, decent people; began racing up and down flights of stairs looking for their little boy. They couldn't find him no matter what and it was like they were captured and had to leave the building and if they didn't the walls would fall in, but they couldn't leave without their boy. The other girl who was with them tried to help, but was not able to. At the very end when they realized the child was not at the top nor the bottom, they froze on the staircase and one said, panting, "Is this hell, and we just keep trying to get out?" It was a realization that all of the panic was invented and continuing, never ending, but not a reality. That's when I woke up.
Pretty nuts right?
I'm sure my mom appreciated the transference of that ugliness.

I've always had dreams like this; it's nothing new. When I was young I dreamed Adolf Hitler came to our neighborhood and we all had to line up in two parallel, single file lines that led toward the stop sign at the end of my street. We had to go either right or left depending on the line we were in and do forward rolls on a curved, balloon type surface. If we fell off we had to gather in one crowd and if we made it we were gathered behind him in a crowd, presumably the safe one. This dream, no doubt, came from my attempt to read Mein Kampf in seventh grade.

I have been abducted and escaped from a white van by unhinging the floor panels. The kidnappers were men dressed and masked in head to toe black. I ran back to a palace that was set in a long ago time, holding a long ago political and cultural ball, but I was still present time and knew my way around the palace easily. I ran up the grand staircase to the right. It was a wooden staircase and there were lots of red upholstered walls. I got to the second floor, ran right to the second door on the left, turned in it and ran around the four poster bed. Everything was extravagantly decorated. This bad man in black came in and faced me and we had a moment of a stand off. I had nowhere to go. Trapped. So, I grabbed a bedpost, pulled it up out of the foot board and speared him with it! Nice job, huh? That was survival instinct, I guess. I never go down in the dream. That's good to know. But, that dream was as real as they get when I was dreaming it and I remember it in vivid detail to this day. I must have been 18 when I had that dream.

Once, Joey from NKOTB died my hair lime green. He tricked me.
I dreamed Nick and Obama were on the floor doing crunches and discussing their very strong political views, which is probably the most far fetched of all these scenarios.
I've had butterflies squeeze my finger so hard it has woken me up.
These are all funny and colorful. I find relief in knowing I dream in color.

The ones that intrigue me most are the ones that I don't fit in the category of dream. I break them up in two ways. The images I have before I fall to sleep, when I'm floating in a sleepy limbo. I see faces mostly, only long enough for me to think "who the hell is that?" And I've seen a whole scene unravel once. It involved this girl that I assume was from the 1970's based on apparel. That one is rather interesting. I may write about that one later. Then, there are the dreams that are not dreams and instead, soulful moments taking place in a realm that connects those that are physically here and those who have left us already. Say bogus. I care not. I feel what I feel. Today's worldly logic plays a minor role. That's the best part about dreaming. One of the most meaningful of these was back in 2006 when Nick's uncle died. It was magnificent and I'll tell of it later I suppose. Too much to say. And the communication that goes on in these sleeping sequences is beyond words on a page anyway.

But, I guess my point is, writing dreams down or thinking about them at length is gratifying. Who knows what you may find. Looking back at them can be startling sometimes. They are as much a part of us as what we do while awake. The subconscious and the magic of the brain is surely overwhelming. It is endless. It belongs solely to us. It is our ticket for instant escape. It is worth a waking moment. I think so anyway.

Procrastination

I'm supposed to be running out the door right now. I need more paint and rollers to finish my bedroom painting project. It is becoming the color I've missed since we moved to Edenton: a mixture between a stormy Atlantic Sea blue and pewter gray. It may seem insignificant, but waking in the morning to this color as a backdrop to my belongings is like a whisper as opposed to that intrusive whine of an alarm. It really does make me smile right after I crack my lids. And when I lay me down to sleep... there it is again, soothing me like a lullaby. You may think I'm silly about it, but color means so very much in my world. I mean, thank God the grass is green and the sky is blue, ya know! Thank God for the clouds being powder white and not a murky, dusty hue.
When I was young-er I pondered this color concept quite a bit. I wondered if we all saw the exact same color, or if we simply identified them as the same color by label only. All someone had to do when we were growing up is point to a color and say "blue" and that's what we have known as blue. What if it looks different to someone else's eyes? Is the color the same? Or, is our label the same? Then came the question of beauty. Do we see blue as beautiful and green as refreshing because we live amongst these colors and they represent clear skies and spring's renewal? I mean, is it truly beautiful in its own right, alone from our attachments to what it represents? This is like the question of beauty being innate or learned. Symmetry seems to be attractive to everyone world wide, but it is obvious that versions of beauty vary between times and cultures. I'm sure there are extensive studies regarding these topics.
It is interesting, no?
Nick looked at me last night as he hurdled a mountain of my clothes (and other stuff) and hopped into our bed that sits between still-wet walls and remarked "The house is a wreck and you've lost 2 million brain cells in these fumes... but the walls are gray!" That was funny. So, I couldn't even get mad at him for mumbling about my piles, because from his point of view that is exactly what the situation looks like. I've made him move furniture the size of elephants. Not only are they heavy enough to make professional movers cuss, but the drawers in them were full, and Nick was standing there looking at them all by his lonesome. But, he did it. I couldn't believe it; but he actually moved that furniture all alone and then kissed me bye. I felt that surely he'd at least skip the kiss. Love. It not only moves mountains, it moves two-ton armoirs too. I think he has a different take on what the color of our walls is worth, but deep down he appreciates living in a cared for, personalized, soothing space. Who wouldn't prefer that? Ugly bedroom doesn't equal macho.
Not only do I need more paint supplies, I need Benedryl tablets for my poor, poor Selma Lu Mela. She has turned into an itchy mess here in North Carolina. Apparently many doggies are allergic to this region. It breaks my heart. She is constantly fighting the urge to scratch her little ear flaps and eyes raw. Now her lips are itching. Nothing the vet has suggested works so far, so I'm going the people route. The pharmacist recommended a certain amount of Benedryl for a 50 pound dog and I'm going with it. I hate giving her drugs, but her quality of life is suffering. She, sweet thing, actually stops scratching her ears when I tell her to stop. How incredibly mindful. I say "Quit scratching those pretty ears Selma Lu!" and she stops and I can tell it's killing her. But, if I don't watch her, she'll tear her ears to pieces. She rests in her room in a cone hat right now. Miserable, I tell you. It makes me miserable anyway. She sticks her cute face through the cone without hesitation to get a kiss on the other side. So, I'm out to find another solution in hopes it will be the ticket to happy, itch-free puppy days. Any suggestions welcome. I honestly don't know what else to try if this doesn't work. I have exhausted most options.
What inspired me to communicate all of this, I'm not sure. One minute I'm walking toward the door and the next thing I know my hiney is parked here in this chair and I'm writing about what I should be doing instead of doing what I should be doing. The urge overcame me. Which makes me somewhat of a dork considering that I succumb to writing and others have much cooler vices like booze. Maybe it is knowing that I should be doing something else besides writing that makes me drawn to the action of writing. It is, after all, not what I should be doing and I have always hated doing things I should do over what I want to do. Should. What an awful word. Could. Want to. How amazing is it that the difference in a word or two can change one's entire attitude toward a subject/task? But, that's a whole other thought voyage. It is also quite possible that I am sitting here plucking my keyboard because I simply like it and have missed doing it.
Enough for today though, if there is anything I like more than writing, and the list is slim, it is my little Lu Bear's ear flaps. Crossing fingers it works.