Nap Time

Violet has been doing a lot of talking about these cooties lately. Her sweetie got em, she got em, I got em.

So here I am in bed with a hot water bottle at my feet wondering how long before I declare it nap time. Oh, and the next time I start bragging about my superior immune system and how I never succumb to the germ of the day, kick me.

I’m reeling with the knowledge that there are people who love me so much that they brought me food, knowing I am sick in bed.

Speaking of being able to ask for help or accept help, during the short period when I felt like propping myself up on my pillows to check email and read blogs, I found this radio interview with Carla Blazek. She is the author of two of the blogs on my blogroll, Women at Rest and Zena Musings. She is also the maker of some very special candles. If you listen to the interview, you can hear all about how those candles came to Oprah’s attention. Carla is also the future author of a book called Women at Rest, as well as the facilitator of a Women at Rest and Play retreat in the Pacific Northwest this spring. Oh, and last but not least, she is an angel who delivered magic healing words from Rumi when I was down.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. What does this have to do with being able to ask for help? Jane and Carla talk about that, among many other things, during the interview. For me, it was 45 minutes well spent.

I also found you something yummy to look at. Check out Cindyloo’s blog. This is the artist whose amazing hats and clocks make me giddy.

Have fun. I think it’s nap time.

Whoosh

I’m coming back among the living now. I’m on my way.

Sometimes you just have to hit rock bottom before you can marshall the energy or motivation to say to yourself, “ENOUGH.” This has to stop and it’s stopping right now.

Had it been just about me, I’d probably still be in the middle of the quicksand. But it became about the welfare of animals in my care. When I am low, I stop taking care of myself. And I stop taking proper care of my pets. I don’t worry all that much about the former, though I should.

But not caring for my pets? That’s unacceptable. The worst part is that the longer I procrastinated taking wheezy Vern to Dr. G. for an exam and a prescription for Baytril, the worse I felt about myself as a person and guardian. And the worse I felt, the more I dreaded the vet visit.

Plus there’s the problem of logistics. I have to schedule time off from work, call a taxi or ask a friend for a ride.

When I’m depressed, I don’t sleep.

Last night way past midnight I finally had sunk as low as I go. The thoughts of self-loathing were spinning, spinning, spinning around in my sick head. I felt like a big piece of shit who needed to surrender my pets to the Humane Society and accept a provincial and national file naming me as someone who can never have animals in my care again. This is how my mind warps reality when I’m depressed. I do what my friend Chris calls “running the bad movie.” Yeah, I play out scenes in my head and I believe them. I lose touch with reality just enough. I worm my way into these dead ends and don’t see a way out.

I had myself convinced that when Dr. G saw how I’d let Vern’s infection progress, he might report me. I could lose Stella. Stella is my best friend. I can’t live without her. Never mind the fact that she’ll likely be gone from old age within a year. I’ll cross that bridge when mother nature gives me no choice. But the thought of having Stella removed from my home? I couldn’t deal with that.

And so I just failed to act while each added day of inaction made action that much harder.

This morning I woke up coughing and hacking. I wanted to call in sick, but I had left an important job exactly half done on Friday and so had emailed all the people waiting for that job the half-finished product with a promise to finish it off on Monday morning. The ONLY thing that got me out of bed was my “can’t let them down” drive.

Once I was at work with my hot mug of coffee and my project moving along nicely, somehow things shifted in my head just enough that I was able to reach a turning point and call on my dear friend Violet for help.

I still regard it as a miracle …the advent of loving friends in my life…people who have poured so much energy and effort into convincing me they really love me and truly are there for me that I have begun to believe them. Asking for help is    SO      NOT      ME.

But it wasn’t for me. It was for Vern and also for Stella, who has the sniffles, too.

Domestic rats have weak respiratory  systems. Except for the ones bred in labs and delivered by C section, they all have mycoplasma in their little lungs. If you don’t get them on Baytril at the first sign of a secondary infection or myco flare-up, then prepare to watch them go downhill and die. It’s not a fun way to die, either…gasping for air.

All I had to do was ask. Dammit. Why couldn’t I have done that two weeks ago? All I had to do was ask Violet to give us a ride and there she was. She took us and she soothed frightened Vern through the whole thing while I cuddled Stella in my coat.

Why did I have to let that spiral so out of control in my head until I felt like dying? How could I let myself get so out of touch with reality, let something as simple as a veterinary visit loom over me like an insurmountable undertaking?

Thank God for friends. Thank God for K, who offered to come sit in the dark with me and hold me, let me cry.

Now I don’t need that. I’ve got the meds and now I can look at myself in the mirror again. I can spend the evening packing up more stuff for Freecycle and for moving.

Moving. I’m moving again. I was a stagnant, stinking cesspool.  My friends helped me remove a blockage, a clump of dead limbs and rotting leaves and detritus in the bottleneck. Whooosh, and the water flows again.

I still feel tender. I’m fatigued from no sleep and lots of crying. But I’m back. I think I’m back.

Hermitage

Most of the time I am in love with life and everything and everyone in this miraculous Universe.

But sometimes…

Sometimes I’m not.

Sometimes something else happens inside me. Sometimes I don’t want to see anyone and I don’t want anyone to see me. It feels like that now.

I dreamed I was buying a car…no, wait. I think I was going to lease a car. Seems I already had a car, so I’m not sure why I was talking to this flashy salesman about leasing one, but I was. It was a nice car with all the trimmings, bells and whistles. And when I’d decided on that car, the salesman told me that it came with a weekend car for no extra charge, so I should pick that out now, too. What? I don’t need another car, just one. But there were voices behind and around me that ridiculed me for not accepting something that was no extra charge. Get the Mustang! No, go for the Porsche convertible!

I awoke and something felt ugly about that dream. That’s not me. I think there had been a similar house dream right before the car dream.

Yeah, I’ve crashed. I’m here in my dark house, having stayed up too late and then slept through the entire morning. The phone rings and I ignore it. I just don’t have what it takes to act human right now. I want to be left alone.

My body is mirroring my mood, or who knows which came first. In any case, I seem to have some sort of cold or upper respiratory infection.

Oddly, the prospect of talking to someone who is also friends with darkness and is genuine, not afraid to let that show and talk about it… that notion is fine. Though I’d prefer to be entirely alone, I would put a kettle on for such a visitor. But I don’t want to see the faces of any smiling people today. I don’t want to see or talk to anyone who would offer help or try to cheer me. If you want to help, just honour this darkness. It too needs its space.

There are times when the gritty moods have to run their course and not be truncated or headed off at the pass.

I do have some friends who understand this, who do not make me feel like a bad person for having a dark mood now and then, who do not put pressure on me to ’snap out of it.’ Even if when a friend doesn’t say that in so many words, you can feel the expectation.

Maybe they themselves feel bad and feel like failures if they can’t cheer you or help you or FIX whatever is bothering you.

Don’t know.

Movie Review: Snow Cake

I liked it. My friend Kaki liked it too.

Sigourney Weaver plays the part of Linda, an adult with autism. The whole time I was watching Linda on the screen, I was thinking back to the talk I heard earlier this month by Jackie McMillan, an adult with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Not until I heard Jackie speak did I realize that things I’d always thought of as separate disorders, like OCD and Tourette’s Syndrome, are on the autistic spectrum.

I enjoyed watching this woman go about life her way. She made no apologies for her many, many quirks and different ways of dealing. She has cordoned off a portion of the world inside her house, and that is where everything is done by HER rules. You take off your shoes and add them to the line; do NOT move the other shoes. Her kitchen is OFF LIMITS to you, dear visitor. Do not hug her. (She lets her mom and dad put one cheek against her cheek.)

Watching this made me happy in a way. I like that Linda accepts herself the way she is. That is something I’m learning to do. It’s not an easy road, you know. I’ve had many long conversations deep into the night with fellow misfits. We were bullied in school. We were tormented and teased for sticking out.

At first we tried to conform or hide our differences. We tried chopping off, like an extra appendage, the part of ourselves the world couldn’t seem to love. We squashed it down and hid it from view. We learned to do our compulsive rituals, our counting and touching and check, check, checking in private. My grandfather learned to cover up his Tourettey barking with a nervous cough or by bursting out in hum. I sat in the back of the classroom hoping nobody would see me as I sat and plucked out eyelashes.

When I turned forty I began my current journey of self-acceptance. I’m feeling at home in my body for the first time ever. I’m really loving being me. Deep breath. Exhale. Whhhhhew.

The movie made me sad at times, too. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of Michael. I miss him. In so many ways he and I were a good fit. He’s so brilliant, he’s tender, he’s fun. But there it is: the Asperger’s Syndrome. I simply didn’t know how to cope with that. I watched Linda on the screen freaking right out about germs in her house–oblivious or indifferent to the effect her outburst had on the friend who had not meant to hurt her by letting this substance touch that room. My mind flashed back to remarkably similar scenes between me and Michael… when I had accidentally broken one of the rules of his house that didn’t make sense to me.

Yes, this movie passed all my movie tests: I cried and I laughed. And afterward there was plenty of fodder for talk over a pot of herb tea at the Princess Cafe. Oh, and it was filmed on location in Wawa. What more can you want?

DO NOT Think of a Blue Elephant

The book I’m reading–Ishmael by Daniel Quinn–is proving to be the kind of book every human on this planet should read. I find myself wanting to buy copies of it for friends. I’m not quite halfway through it, but so far it has a lot to do with captivity. It has to do with getting yourself stuck inside a mythology; you can’t get out because you can’t see the bars of your own cage.

We all have blind spots. We all sometimes get stuck in an unhealthy pattern and have difficulty getting out.

I’ve told you that very recently my dear friend S returned to my life after over 2 years of silence between us. We have a pattern, she and I. We love each other and want nothing but well being for one another. Yet…

Somehow when we are interacting over a period of weeks or months, we manage to slip into behaviours that are mutually toxic. I’ve tried various analogies to describe to Anna or to other friends just what transpires between us. I’ve wanted to break it down so …well, so we can cut that crap out. We end up returning to our friendship the way moths return to a candle flame, always to get burned again. Why can’t we stop? Why can’t we see where we start to go wrong and stop ourselves in that moment, say WHOA…HERE is what we have to look at.

Instead we trigger each other’s complexes and watch helplessly as our next meltdown comes. Then we are left scorched and have no choice but to back off and say, “I love you, but I cannot have contact with you. I hurt you and you hurt me.”

So we’ve had a couple of good conversations this time. These conversations felt clean and good. I’m in a solid space now with a healthy life. I’ve been in Jungian analysis all this time, working very hard on learning to be conscious. I’ve identified my Shadows, know how to name and contain them when they pop up. I was feeling a tad confident that this time…just MAYBE…it will be better.

So a few nights ago S and I were talking. Yes, it was the night I’d intended to be drifting off to sleep shortly after eight. But I came to life when I heard her voice. I sat down on the kitchen floor and gave myself to the conversation.

S said something I’ve heard her say to me before. “You sound good, Kelly. I can hear in your voice that you are very grounded right now.”

S is a highly sensitive person. She’s intuitive and is very vulnerable to the slightest variances in energy from others.

S said she was happy for me. She could tell I really had grown and made some changes, really was centred. She could hear peace in my voice. My voice had changed, deepened a bit. Was calmer.

S wanted me to know that the same shift has not happened for her since we last spoke regularly over 2 years ago. But talking to me inspired her, because she knows many people who are stuck, yet almost none who ever become unstuck. Did I agree? Yes, I agreed. The people I know who are stuck are still stuck five years later and when you check in with them ten years later. Stuck people rarely get unstuck.

She wanted to know how I did it. I told her I’d taken to heart some things SHE had told me about. It had been S who gave me Pema Chodron’s little phrase, “do not ponder others.” This one had proved to be miraculous medicine for me. The other great teaching–also from Pema–was ’start where you are.’

I told my friend, “it’s all about taking the teeniest, tiniest baby step. Just push out gently on your incapacities, just stretch that skin a little bit every day. Think it, journal it, sing it, joke it. Make it your entire focus, and also forget about it. One day, I promise you, that one little thing you wanted to change about yourself will…like a little beebee… PLINK into place. It will be you. You will have changed.

Then you can look for the next little baby step.

S sighed deeply. She said she could hear the truth of what I was saying in my voice. And thank God I hadn’t said it with a hint of condescension. (That’s a big one from our past.) No, there had been no condescension in my voice at all. She needed that.

After we hung up the phone, I was left with a funny feeling. Something wasn’t right. I thought about it that night, I thought about it the next day. What was wrong? Mmm. Yes. I know.

As soon as S had said something to me about my new deep, calm voice, I became aware of my voice. And as I became aware of my voice, I actually noticed it shift the slightest bit… AWAY from grounded.

And when S had praised me for having no hint of condescension in my voice as I shared with her some of the secrets to my becoming unstuck and growing… well, … I suddenly became aware of that facet of my talking…the presence of a condescending tone or the absence of it. And five minutes later I was struggling to find my way back to that clean voice, that clean intention. I was slip sliding toward feeling / being/ sounding condescending.

The more I’ve looked at that whole conversation and how it went down, the clearer it becomes for me what was happening. It was as if S were saying to me, “Oh, Kelly. Thank you SO MUCH for not thinking of a blue elephant. I mean, you are very obviously NOT thinking of a blue elephant while we talk, and that is so important to me. You KNOW how much it bothers me… you know I can’t even be around people who think of blue elephants while they speak to me.”

Yeah.

We cannot see how we create and draw to ourselves those things we most fear. But we do. ANYTHING to which we give mental energy, we give an inroad.

The little child who sets off for the playground thinking, “I hope nobody bullies me today…”

Me when I set off into the world thinking, “I hope I don’t have a bad Monday.”

Even though she was putting a positive spin on it (I’m SO happy you are NOT being condescending), she was still conjuring my condescension, flirting with it, asking it, “Where are you? Want to come out and play?”

I can’t tell you how freeing it feels to me finally to see this. I guess seeing it is the first step.

===

I dreamed last night that I quit my job. I was not at work when I told my (former) manager I quit. She and several other individuals, including the CEO, were in a non-business setting. I think we were all at my mom’s house. After I quit I was sad. I wished I had not done so. And then I wanted to cut my hair all off. I wanted to do it myself and then shave my pate bald when I was done hacking with the scissors.

Anna claims that hair represents ideas.

Hopping Like a Rabbit

I met my next door neighbour tonight for the first time. See, I came home to find a friendly warning from the city letting me know I had 24 hours to clear the snow off the sidewalk in front of my house. Sigh. I HAD passed through there with my shovel a couple of times this week, but I had not chopped away to get down to bare sidewalk. No, I’d done a slacker’s job.

For those of you in warmer climes, I’ll explain what can happen if you don’t heed your warning citation. They can send a crew out to clear your snow for you. They’ll not only charge you for that service, but they’ll stick on a whopping administrative fee to boot. Ouch.

Sigh. Having no choice in the matter, I spent about an hour outside trying to tell the caked on layers of ice and snow who was boss. The snow was definitely winning the battle. I was earning sore muscles, blisters, lower back trouble and a sweaty brow, but the sidewalk was still nowhere to be seen.

Finally I did manage to break through and lift a whole slab of snow-ice out of the pedestrian passageway. Once you’ve gotten down to the pavement, the next piece is easier to remove. Still, it was slow going.

Suddenly an angel appeared from behind me. He said he was my next door neighbour Dave and told me, “this works a lot better than a snow shovel.” He was referring to the long-handled garden implement in his hands. I shook his hand and gave my name, the followed behind him scooping into my big plastic shovel all the iceberg pieces his spade-like tool was peeling up off the ground. In five more minutes, the job that would have taken me another half hour was done. I thanked my rescuer. And thanked him. Then I thanked him again.

I was soaking in the tub on the second floor when again I heard the scraping sound of metal on concrete. Dave was back, putting the finishing touches on the driveway job. Wow.

====

Tonight was good. My friend K and I decided to go to the weekly supper that W and A host at their house for GRIC members. She and I were both tired and didn’t want to stay long, but we were there long enough to get good, long, tight hugs all around. I needed that. K is an amazing friend. It still makes us shake our heads when we think about how we met, and marvel that we met at all.

crane mobile

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This week I’m hopping. I don’t normally have an engagement every single day, but this week that is the case. Tomorrow K and I are going to see Snow Cake. Friday is dinner and shooting some pool with a friend. Saturday is games night at M & A’s house (GRIC), and Sunday I believe Andrew is coming for a couple of pieces of furniture that I don’t need anymore.

Hop, hop.

Jewels

This morning I’m finding jewels. On Zena Moon’s wonderful blog, I found this quote:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman

On Juju Loves Polkadots, I found a photograph that made my heart sing.

Jen Lemen’s Sunday Linklove was full of treasures, as usual. This one made me tear up and face the day a different way.

Last week was officially SLOW DOWN WEEK. Jen Lemen has some beautiful exercises to help us get into the spirit of slow. Don’t worry that it was last week. It’s never too late to learn the fine art of slowing down.

I hear snow being moved by heavy machines in the street outside.

watercolour by dottie morrissey

—–

Last night the painter came to look at the room in question and give me a quote. He didn’t seem daunted by the half-stripped wallpaper or deep purple wall. Hopefully he’ll come back with a reasonable estimate.

Meeting Ryan

As I was striding up King Street, I was approached by a man so clean cut and so polite that there was only one thing he could be after. Did I have time for him to tell me about our saviour Jesus Christ, he asked me.

“I’m Kelly. Nice to meet you,” I said, extending my hand before resuming my strident walk toward the Princess Cafe.

He told me his name was Elder Pinshaw. I almost called him Elder before I realized that was a church title, not his first name. I asked him again, “what’s your name name?” Ryan. His name was Ryan. Young Ryan buckled easily.

I told Ryan I was on my way to a cafe, but he was welcome to come along and tell me all about Jesus over a pot of tea.

“I don’t drink tea,” he said.

“Not tea tea! Herbal. It’s okay, it doesn’t have caffeine,” I said between breaths. It’s not that easy to carry on a theological conversation while walking really fast. And I do walk fast, especially since giving up the vehicle.

Ryan didn’t really have time even for herbal tea, and he and his buddy up the street had to get back to the mission in half an hour. But Ryan wanted to give me his card and make an appointment to talk to me soon.

“I think that would be a waste of our time, Ryan,” I told him.

He wanted to know why.

The last dozen or more evangelists and street missionaries to corner me didn’t even get this far…except for Sara in the cemetery. I guess I was in a patient mood. And so I told him.

“I’ve found a spiritual path I feel very sure about, Ryan. I’m not searching.”

Ryan asked me to explain my belief system.

“Well,” I said, slowing my pace just a bit, “I believe that I should strive to be the best human being I can be every hour of every day. I believe I should love this earth and the creatures on it. I believe in kindness.”

“Do you believe the Bible?”

I hesitated, wondering how much semantics mattered. Leaving out the word metaphorically, I said, “Yes, it’s all true.”

He started to tell me about the Book of Mormon and what he believes…on top of the Bible. I didn’t tell Ryan he wasn’t the first Mormon ever to try to save my soul.

“Ryan,” I said, now standing in the middle of the sidewalk outside my cafe, “it’s like this. I feel as if my belief system is a big circle.” I made a big circle with my arms. “My big circle INCLUDES everything you believe, but it goes farther than that.”

“It feels to me,” I continued, “like you are inviting me to step from my big circle into your little box. I’ve been in your box before. I like it better out here in my big circle.”

Young, young Ryan gave me his card and asked me to get in touch if I changed my mind.

I tucked the card in my pocket and headed inside to read another chapter of Ishmael over piping hot green tea. I watched through the plate glass window as Elder Pinshaw made his way back to the white mission van.

Ishmael

I lost sleep last night. Woke up at 2:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep till 3:30. Came home tonight and–after a nice, long bath–managed to get the lights out and earplugs in by 8 pm. That was my goal. I’d made it.

(((Ring)))

Had I not sensed it was my good friend Suzanne, I would not have answered it. As I sat my bare bum on the cold kitchen linoleum, I woke up. Amazing how that works. We had a good talk, a long talk. So here I am, awake.

I have lost interest in the Celestine Prophecy. I should have borrowed it from the library instead of buying it. When Annie recommended Ishmael, I got it out of the library and now am wishing that had been the volume I’d paid for rather than Celestine.

I’m not very far into it, but boy–it’s compelling. I love it. Thank you, Annie.

Mom and Dad and Ralph Ginzburg (a Thank You)

My father plodded through the years of schooling and dissertation it took to earn the right to put D.S.W. after his surname and taught in the graduate school of social work first at Chapel Hill–where I was born, later at Smith–where my brother was born, and was teaching at Fresno State when he died in 1969 from cancer. I was about to turn six.

I remember his books; gosh that man owned a lot of books. After my father’s death, mom donated the vast majority of these books to the university, who then named a reading room after him…a room filled by his collection. Or something like that. After this many years, what I’m telling you might be 70% fantasy and 30% truth.

A few very special books came with us from Fresno to Little Rock when we moved. There were the complete writings of Sigmund Freud. Symbolic Logic came with us, though I’m not sure why. With Hemingway he had shared a passion for bullfighting. I remember the beautiful big coffee table book–Aficionado it was called–full of photographs of the fights, reproductions of the posters. I learned the difference between picador and matador. He had taken my mom to Mexico more than once before I was born. I can still smell the misty blue velvet inside of her jewel box when I picture the delicate silver brooches and bracelets he bought her on those trips.

I remember four slender hardbound magazines entitled Eros. In the 1960s, my father–along with a chosen few Americans of higher than average income and intelligence–received a letter inviting them to become charter subscribers to this new quarterly. My father didn’t flinch at the subscription price which made Eros ‘the most expensive magazine in the world.’ He knew this was going to be important. He told my mom never to get rid of them, they would be highly collectible and valuable one day.

When I was ten and eleven and twelve years old, I pulled these notebook-thin treasures carefully from their place on the bottom shelf of a white built-in bookcase. I would sit right there on the shag carpet and slowly drink in the pictures, read the articles, turn the luxurious thick pages.

Though all four issues fascinated me (all that Ginzburg managed to publish before he was jailed), the article that captured me most powerfully was a photo layout, a series of photographs of two nude bodies pressed together. You couldn’t see the two people’s heads and you couldn’t see their feet. You couldn’t see much of anything but their skin in close up (goosebumps), an arm, a hip, a hand. Tenderness. Intimacy. Love.

The thing that made these photographs so powerful was the fact that the man’s skin was the deepest, darkest roasted coffee bean colour I’ve ever seen. Shiny. The woman’s skin was pale and pinkish like mine. His ebony bicep pressed against her alabaster ribcage was striking.

I’m so lucky.

I am so fortunate to have had him for a father and to still have his widow for a mom. They raised me right, you know? They gave me gifts that keep giving, that carry me through the world and serve me well.

One of the best things about my mother is the way she makes everyone feel at home and comfortable. I always knew (and I was only wrong once!) that no matter how crazy my choices appeared to the rest of the world, my mom would be supportive. Had I turned out to be gay, she would have welcomed my partner into our fold just as warmly as she would have a male partner. And when I did bring home Tavi, who was so very homesick for his hot Latin homeland he’d left behind when Castro opened the gates in 1980, she set a place for him at the dinner table right away. She soon found out who her friends were over that one! He’s … is he? Well, look at his nose, his hair. But his skin isn’t really that dark. He looks Spanish, doesn’t he? No, he’s… you know.

This was Arkansas, remember.

Octavio, if he groomed his hair a certain way, could pass for generic Latino. But when his brother got out of Fort Chaffee and joined him, there was no longer any doubt in the minds of my mother’s friends. While Tavi looked like his Spanish-Cuban mother, Tavi’s brother had their father’s Afro-Cuban complexion.

I have to chuckle now when I think back on how mom fielded the questions, how certain neighbours (Hi, Andrea!) stood by her side and spoke up to the ones who thought miscegenation, as they called it, was some sort of affront to God and Country.

Sweet Sunday

Most of the Kijiji shoppers and Freecyclers did show up as promised today. I think I only had one no-show, and amazingly it was for the most coveted item I’ve ever posted. Wow, I got like 25 eager takers in the first 10 minutes after advertising my WonderWash hand-cranked camper’s washer. The winning bid didn’t show. How strange people are.

So today the house is a wreck from all the rearranging, but an old hand-me-down loveseat is gone, a card table, the microwave and the stereo, which was one of the items I sold rather than Freecycling.

The energy in this house is changing. I can feel it able to swirl about more freely and can feel the effect that has on me. I like it.

There’s a craft project I’ve had “in progress” for months and months. In order to pack up my craft supplies, I needed to finish it, and so I did. When I get the finished job up on the wall, I’ll photograph it and show it to you all. I’m pretty pleased.

Now once again it’s time for me to venture out into the loving world, probably see a film and sit for a while with a pot of tea. I’m changing haunts, though. Going to Princess Cafe now instead of 1842. That is so I can avoid triggering the button that got nailed last night. What can I say? He looks just like my animus as said animus appears in my dreams these days. That’s just more than I can handle. LOL.

Later!

Homeland Security

Well, America was fun. Nobody was rude. Everyone was very pleasant, even the Homeland Security crew. Even had I been pulled out for fingerprinting, it would have been okay. My fingerprints have been recorded ever since I applied for a Japanese visa back in the mid 80s. The Japanese have always taken their homeland security VERY seriously. I remember watching as every single blooming suit case was opened. Efficient, poker-faced officers with white gloves inspected everything. They came along with sniffing dogs as we stood in this line or that line.

I’m getting way off track here, but want to hear my Tokyo airport story? Through a chain of bizarre twists of fate, I ended up stranded on the outskirts of Tokyo with no money whatsoever. It’s a long story. It’s not that I was broke; I’d saved $100 for this particular leg of my journey back to the states. But I’d accidentally gone off and left said hundred dollar bill in the sutra booklet drawer of my butsudan (cabinet that holds your object of worship).

I had some Yen in my pockets and was able to pay for 2 nights at a traditional inn out in the countryside near the airport. But I had no money for food and not enough for a third night in the inn. The family who ran the inn figured out that I was out of cash. They figured this out because I didn’t come down for meals, would not accept even a bowl of soup or rice or even a cracker. I knew I couldn’t pay for it, so I just went hungry.

I had planned the 3 days in Tokyo because I’d promised my close friend Shailesh that I would try to find an old friend of his. Shailesh said the monestery where he’d been a monk would take me in. It’s one of their purposes…to take in wandring strangers. Or so he believed. I guess a lot had changed in the 20 years since he’d lived there. I had managed to find the right zen monastery and had rung at the big iron gate. A monk came to the gate and I gave him the name of the man I was seeking. No, he’s not here, the very young, robed bald man told me. Not sure how long he’s been gone. Only out of sheer desperation had I hinted that I needed a place to sleep for 3 days until my flight to the states. I would spend those 3 days searching for Shailesh’s friend.

Well, this monk indicated that yes, TECHNICALLY they have to find a way to put me up if I absolutely have no place else to go, but it would be difficult. There were only men inside and I was female. He make the air sucking sound that Japanese use to mean “no way in hell.” But they are too polite to come out and say no. No is forbidden. So they suck air in between clenched teeth. I got the picture. I turned to go and he closed the gate.

And so I managed, with my pocket change, to lodge myself at an inn near the airport for 2 nights. The family offered to let me stay the third night for free. “The room is empty anyway,” they said. It was no skin off their nose. Gosh, I look back on the person I was then and almost don’t recognize her as having inhabited this same skin. I was so … timid, rigid, insistent on total self-sufficiency. I had such painful difficulty accepting favours. No, the weather was fine and I would just pack up my rucksack and move on… I’d be fine for 24 hours in the open. I did, however, finally accept one bowl of rice with the condition that they let me send them money when I got back to Arkansas. I was famished. My boyfriend Xavier’s well-meaning brother had sent me off with a backpack full of sandwiches. Unfortunately, he slathered them all in mayonnaise, which caused them all to go bad in the heat of my backpack very quickly. Eight sandwiches became two rapidly consumed sandwiches and six baggies of garbage. Chunk. What a pity. If only he’d made them plain bread and hard cheese, they’d have lasted a week. Or just packed me apples. My convict husband number one had an favourite expression that still pops into my mind at times like those: “hindsight’s a motherfucker.”

Night number three I wandered the subway station, weary, wishing for a place to rest. I was so hungry I was searching the ditches and gutters for refundable pop bottles. I gazed through noodle shop windows at the wax mock-ups of menu items. I am a smart person, I thought to myself. Surely I can come up with a way to get a meal. Surely.

I came up with some very creative fantasies. I imagined getting a piece of cardboard and borrowing a black magic marker so I could make a sign that said, “English lessons XXX yen per half hour.” The Japanese are so hungry to practice their text book English. But the location? The setting? It was all just too awkward. Japanese would sense I’d lost face and it would repel them.

And so after night fell, I laid my rucksack down against the outside wall of the subway station and sat my butt down on the sidewalk. I laid my head down, closed my eyes and tried to get some rest. I was a walking zombie.

I hadn’t been on the ground five minutes, maybe ten, before a taxi driver asked me what was up. Foreigners with yellow hair didn’t just camp out on the ground at metro stations outside Tokyo. You MIGHT see one or two homeless Japanese during an entire year-long visit in Japan, but what I was doing couldn’t go unnoticed.

It was the end of my year in Japan and my language skills were damned good. I explained easily that I had a ticket to leave the country the next day, but no money left for a room tonight. The taxi driver said, “Why don’t you sleep inside the airport? It’s going to get colder as the night wears on.” His speaking to me so intimately was very out of the norm, but I supppose my unusual circumstance called for his unusual conduct. Also people farther down the social ladder are not as bound by the complex system of social rules. I suppose they have less to lose by being a bit sloppy.

I told the taxi driver that was a great idea, but I didn’t even have 200 yen for the subway trip to the airport. “If I had a few yen, I would have spent them on something to eat.”

“I will take you there,” he said.

“No,” I said, “I can’t let you do that. I can’t pay you.” Gosh, I used to be so stubborn, so glued to my principles.

“No charge,” he said. “I will take you there.”

I hesitated. A voice in my head said, KELLY, you big idiot, don’t be a hero. Accept the nice man’s offer and get in out of this godforsaken cold night air and off the nasty sidewalk.

It was, if I remember right, at least a 20-minute drive. When we got there, we found the airport complex surrounded by fences. A patrol of men in uniforms and white gloves, equipped with walkie talkies, guarded all the entrances and exits. The place was locked down for the night.

My driver rolled down his window and asked permission to pass. He was told no. While I sat silently in the dark back seat, my driver had a long chat with one of these guards. The guard got on his walkie talkie and spoke to someone else at length. Finally he walked over to my window. I rolled it down. Stone-faced, he shined his flashlight in my eyes and told me it was against policy for him to allow me on the grounds unless I had a ticket for a flight that same day.

“I have a ticket, but my departure is tomorrow,” I said, passing him the ticket through the window.

The in his white helmet and gloves took my ticket and walked back to confer with his fellow guards. He spoke again on his walkie talkie and to my driver in rapidfire male Japanese I didn’t understand. (All my friends had been female, so I never got very good at understanding male dialect).

Finally he handed me back my ticket and waved my driver through.

People. This was 1984. I’m sure it had been that way for many years before. What do you call that, proactive? I mean, Japan had never had a 9/11. This is just how they were.

==
I want to tell you all about my day trip to America, but that will have to wait. Now it’s sleep time.

Burning Houses and Midget Cars

What dreams! I was in this high rise; I had an apartment on one of the floors about halfway up. My rats were there with me. The place was cluttered and junky, even in the main living area. I had some fireworks sitting around in the middle of the floor. I looked down and a girl rat…not Stella but one that has already gone from my life, a butterscotch coloured one like Bella or Princess or Ernie… this girl rat went to take a nibble out of one of the things on the floor. Grind, grind…there was the typical sound of rodent teeth scraping across something. Well, the nibble acted like the striking of a match. That bit of friction ignited the pyrotechnic device.

Before I could even move one step or make a plan for how to extinguish that item, I realized the flame was going to spread to the next firework and the next and the next. I realized the situation was already beyond my control. The whole apartment would soon be in flames AND the entire building was at risk, along with everyone in it.

I stood there paralyzed by my decisions. Call 911? Grab a rat and go outside to call 911 from there? Yes, ok, rescue that rat (the others would die, there wasn’t time to find and scoop them all up). Was there anything else I had time to snatch up on my way out without causing a life-threatening delay? No, I’d already increased the risk to myself and the rest of the building just by stopping to ponder that question for half a second. The fire was spreading like mad.

In the next dream (Anna says all the dreams from the same night are part of the same message from our psyche) I watched as a woman I know was mugged or something to that effect. Or I came upon her corpse and had to report back to the room full of people who loved her. Somehow I felt responsible, or knew that just because I was the first witness on the scene, I would be blamed for her death.

Hmmmmm.

Often fire is good, a symbol of transformation. Sometimes you WANT certain parts of you to die because that makes room for new birth.

Hmmmm. I was in a high rise. Maybe that represents living up in my head instead of down on the ground. My instincts started the fire.

I’ve had many house dreams, but never about my own house. I’m in my mother’s house or my step-dad’s house, or my house is being built. Now my highrise apartment was burning. Am I going to move into my own psychic space soon? A house all my own in my dreams?

The same happens with cars in my dreams. I’m always the passenger in someone else’s car or truck. Or I’m on a public bus. Oh, I dream of lots and lots of buses. Or if I dream of a neutral car that MIGHT be mine, someone else is driving it! Darn it. Anna says, “We have to get you into the driver’s seat.”

Finally the other night  I dreamed I was in my own car and I was driving it. But it was a tiny little amusement park car with a small, grimy window. I could barely see out and I was causing traffic jams because of that. Ok, so not onlydo we need to get me in the driver’s seat of my own car, but into a larger car with a clean window so I can see where I’m headed and not crash into everyone else.

Oddly, I also dreamed of a very small man last night, a man with dwarfism. My poor positive animus tries so hard  to be born, to come and take his rightful place in my psyche. He’s getting there.

A lot is happening.

I Wanna Go to America

I’m going to the United States of America tomorrow. Melle and Violet and someone named Lena whom I’ve not met yet go periodically across the border for some serious shopping. This time they invited me along. We’re going to Target and to some stores I’ve never heard of.

This is what you do for fun and excitement after becoming Canadian. You sneak back across the border to go to Target.

It will be my first time to use my Canadian passport. It will be my first trip across the border in …well…how long HAS it been? I’m not sure. A couple of years, I suppose.

I feel vaguely guilty about the trip because in the time since I booked the day off, my workload has changed… I am needed there tomorrow. But do you think I’m going to volunteer to cancel my participation in this pilgrimage and offer to stick around? No. I’m going shopping.

As I drift off tonight, there is a song I can’t get out of my head. It’s from West Side Story: I like to be in America! O.K. by me in America! Ev’rything free in America. For a small fee in America!

Elspeth’s Right…Now Really Is Wow.

It’s that time of the month. I left work feeling cranky, impatient, lethargic. Spent a big chunk of the day in training on our new system. I felt guilty sitting there with nothing more to do than learn what was being presented on the big screen at the front of the room while my (urgent) jobs waited back at my desk.

Supply room guy let me pick through broken down corrugated cardboard boxes. I took five.

Passing through the mall to buy a package of rice crackers on my way to King Street, I saw a large woman and a man sitting on a bench in the interior corridor of the little mall talking. Unwillingly, I stereotyped them: janitorial workers, perhaps? She had on one lime green and one tangerine orange rubber clog. As I passed by, I pointed to her feet and said loudly, “I LOVE YOUR SHOES!!!”

She looked up at me. “Thanks, Kelly!” she said.

Huh? How did she… oh yeah. Name tag.

Today was haircut day. Holly asked me, “so what are we doing today?”

“I don’t care,” I told her. “I’m going through some major life changes right now. Some physical moves, some spiritual shifting. I want something I don’t have to think about. No trouble. I don’t care if you shave it all off, so long as it’s easy. I don’t care if it’s attractive or not. Attractive is not my focus right now.”

Holly convinced me that the monk look was not carefree. I’d have to maintain it by shaving or buzzing it, and if I didn’t, I’d have something hard to deal with in a few weeks. She started messing my hair up, giving me her proposal for the cut.

“Whatever. I trust you,” I said. So she cut while I nearly nodded off. I often get in a relaxed state while being shorn, but never close to napping. It’s the PMS, I concluded. Cramps make me want to curl up in a ball and go to sleep. Too bad about that too, because tonight is potluck night at Wendy and Al’s place. I was looking forward to the beans and rice, looking forward to seeing everyone. But no. Not in this state of mind.

What this state of mind requires is a carton of wine. Yes, I’ve taken to buying my wine–when I do partake–in cartons rather than in the traditional glass bottles with corks. Not only do cartons preclude the possibility of getting a “corked” bottle, but they are lighter in my backpack! I like that. Vintners are touting this as a way for them to put more money into the wine itself, since they save so much on bottles. You just have to get over the stigma, which is fading even among wine snobs. I got a Spanish Shiraz Tempranillo.

I got home and immediately drew a bath. Squirted in some apricot kernel oil and a few drops of bergamot oil. Poured myself a fat hand-thrown mug of shiraz and settled into the steamy water. I love baths. Baths make me happy.

So, the plans are coming together nicely. Violet loaned me her book on house staging. I read that last night. Home staging involves emptying your home of all the crap and chochkes, extra furniture and so forth. Staging means cleaning from top to bottom, repairing that cabinet door, painting any room that is a bizarre colour. The goal is to create a space the potential buyer can walk into and imagine as her own. To maximize this potential, you have to remove everything that personalizes the space for you, makes it YOURS. Things like family photos and queer art make it harder for the potential buyer to visualize herself in the space.

So you want to turn your home into one of those model homes. I’ve broken my chores down and put them on a do to list.

((Ring))

Oh! That was Suzanne! We have been friends since we were in our mid-teens, but tonight was my first time to hear her voice in over 2 years. We had a very good talk.

Where was I? Well, it doesn’t seem as important now. After an exchange of snail mail recently, I’m back on loving speaking terms with my Suzanne. All is right with the world. :)

Talking to her helps me see how far I’ve come…how much I’m changing. Things don’t get to me. Nothing ruffles my feathers. I don’t take anything personally. I let things come and let them go like little summer breezes. I’m in the moment.

Ah. This feels gooooooood.

===

My supper is tasty. I put some wild rice in the little cooker and some adzuki beans on the stove (soaked since Monday), my first time to cook either of those things. The rice cooker went DING while I was talking to Suzanne (she lives in Fayetteville, AR and is a massage therapist). The adzuki beans remind me of Japan…remind me of the glutinous rice balls with sweet adzuki bean paste in the middle. Yummers.

I think I’ll go share some with the ratties.

favourite hat

Do You Already Have a…

Before Freecycling and Craigslisting everything in the house that won’t fit in my soon to be (9 by 11) home, I decided to give my future landlords first shot on a lot of my stuff. I emailed Violet.

Do you already have a toaster oven?

Mortar and pestle?

Nutmeg rasp?

Gnomes wassail bowl?

Ladder?

Squirrel feeder?

Mission style torchiere lamp?

Black leather corset with metal studs with attached garters, comes with fishnets and a cat-o-nine-tails?

“This might be the best e-mail I’ve ever gotten,” Violet wrote back. They came right over.

====

I’m going to like living under the same roof as Violet and her husband, whom Andrew refers to as “Alpha Geek.” He is a network administrator for one of the ISPs in this town. He uses Linux. He knows how to set up a dry copper loop. Enough said.

====

I’ve been wanting to show off an example of my sewing. This is a traditional Mennonite dress I made 18 years ago or so…long before I knew I would ever see a Mennonite in this lifetime. I ordered the pattern from a specialty catalog out of Florida. Amish Patterns or something like that.

And here is my favourite piece of jewelry I said I would photograph. The couple who made it live in Ithaca. She does the reverse glass painting and he is a metalsmith. The cat looks like my late cat Zelus, a big squishy boy who loved to be carried around like a baby over my shoulder while he made biscuits in the air and purred like a maniac.

The Sleep Store

I dreamed my mom and I had a sleep store. We sold everything to do with sleep, from books to bedding to eye masks. It was all on the floor. Vague and hazy remnant of another dream in which I noticed that a child I was looking after (or was it my brother) and I made a mess and I needed to clean it up. Little game parts or something colourful and small was all over the floor. Yeah, I should be responsible and pick all that up. I was momentarily alarmed that it had taken a while for me to realize it was my doing and so my job.

That dream has me a bit worried. Makes me think there is a new area of my life where I’m not being very conscious. I’m deluded…hiding stuff in my blind spot.

===

These days it’s all about getting the house ready. I’ve gotten rid of some furniture that made the place look small and cramped. More will leave soon. I have to haul a bunch of junk out to the dumpster that the super of the building behind me said I could use on Wednesdays. Yes, I can dump stuff in there on Wednesdays, Nadica said. Have to box up all the craft room supplies that I’ll be relocating to Violet’s craft room. It’s going to be fun pooling our crafting tools and books.

I’ve contacted a painter to finish stripping the ugly peach wallpaper off the livingroom wall, primer over the dark purple wall and paint the whole room one marketable colour. My realtor gave me a home enhancement guide, which I read carefully last night. Clean the windows inside and out, it said. The bathroom should be spotless. Take the garbage out. If you have an unattractive old car, consider parking it down the street. Turn on all the lights. Well lit rooms sell, dark ones don’t.

Well, I’m not to the part yet where I get to fill vases with fresh flowers for every room. I’m still on packing and decluttering.

I managed to stop the window shopping frenzy that was going on in my head, the manic high fuelled by obsessive planning of the decor for my new digs. I recognized it as addiction manifesting and reined it in.

See, unlike some people who numb their feelings with drugs or drink or food, I cycle through a variety of pet novocains. Impulse buying is one of them. Eating is one. Yes, drinking can be one. I don’t engage in more than one addiction at a time, thank goodness. But gosh, it’s hard to keep up with your gremlins when they keep shape shifting like that!

My eczema is back worse than ever. I can’t figure that out. I have not had any of the foods Dr. Margaret recommended I avoid. No gluten, no sugar, no cow products. None. I don’t feel stressed and my behaviour is suggesting I’m not. Dr. Margaret said that things like skin inflammation are an outward sign of inner anger. She might have been onto something, because that day when she looked straight at me and asked, “what are you angry about?” I cried. She had hit a nerve.

But now? Now I don’t feel anger under the surface. Nope. I feel as if I’m moving freely and rather quickly toward something I’ve been needing for a while. So the psycho-soma connection isn’t making sense to me. What used to work (the bag balm, the flax seed oil) isn’t working anymore. The skin on my inner arms, left shoulder and creeping up the left side of my next is hideous, dry, rough, red, cracking. Yuck. The worst part is that it’s very itchy and I have never had any capacity for impulse control.

That’s what trichotillomania is…an impulse control disorder. I’ve spent a lifetime scratching and peeling and plucking and tweezing, never able to leave my skin and hair in peace. My brother is the same. My cousin Mark was diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome when he was a teenager. I guess that’s an impulse control problem too, in a way.

I’m rambling. Time to get ready for work.

Upcoming Talk: The Politics of Food Aid

Engineers Without Borders presents The Politics of Food Aid
Jennifer Clapp, Chair in International Governance Innovation, CIGI Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo

Where: Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), corner of Erb and Caroline Streets, Waterloo, ON
When: January 24th, 7 to 8 pm

Food aid has resurfaced as a hot political issue in recent years. This talk will address the new politics of food aid, looking in particular at current proposals for reform of food aid, as well as the various forces that are working both for and against food aid reform.

This talk will introduce you to the issues related to food aid and international development. The presentation is aimed at the general public and no background knowledge is assumed or required.

Do You Hear It Yet?

I’ve been missing my blog visiting time lately. A few minutes on Jen Lemen’s site this morning and suddenly I want to visit every single one of her commenters. Alas, that will have to wait, as it is Monday and I’m due at a desk soon. But thank you, Jen, for leading me to this post about coffee art. When I saw the transient works of art, I thought of sand mandalas.

Her post this morning (Jen’s) prompted me to go look up that quote from the Gospels attributed to Jesus: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Another of Jen’s readers had a medical scare recently to do with her throat. She has never felt empowered or able to speak her truth. This scare may turn her life around, help her see that she has no choice. Bring forth your truth or let it kill you. Hold it inside, and it turns to venom, poisons you.

I used to think that when I betrayed myself and didn’t put everything I have into nurturing myself, into freeing myself from fear of judgment, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment …that I was only betraying myself. And that let me treat it as less urgent.

This morning I realize that when we postpone our dreams or stifle our voice or in any way whatsoever betray ourselves, we betray all our fellow travelers on this earth. We betray the whole Universe.

We were put here to flourish and bloom, just as every plant and every creature was. Humans appear to me to be unique in their capacity for self loathing. How vulnerable our little souls are to discouragement and damage! How easily are we trampled into the ground as children, to spend the next decades trying to recover.

Aaarrrrghhhh.

I look around and see so many toxic idiots spreading their poison around the world like the Terminax guy with his tank on his back, hose in hand. I look around and I see that the beautiful people far, far outnumber those messed up clowns.

Why are we permitting it? Do we not trust our power? Are we so afraid to go first, speak up, speak out, step up?

Jen is starting to hear a calling to something bigger. Oh, we are ALL being called. Some of us will hear it earlier than others. Be you a leader or a follower or one of the ones from whom we are going to take away the tank and hose, sooner or later you will join the swell.

Something is afoot.

Wise Words from a Dying Man

Thank you to Marilyn for leading me to this blog. As he faces the fact that one week from now his funeral might already be over, he sees so clearly what the great teachers have been trying to tell us for so long. Here is an excerpt from today’s post:

I have come to realize there is one person in this world that has cause me all of my problems. That’s is me, myself . I think we all do and that we are our own worst enemy.

To often I let other people and their actions or words control how I felt. Now I realize, I am the only one that creates or causes my actions, reactions, thoughts or feelings. Example, I worked at one particular branch of the bank, in which I had a particular coworker. She was always upset, miserable and generally seemed to take delight in spoiling everyones day. I avoided her as much as possible but it got to the point where I hated going to work, my life became miserable. I was allowing her mood to change mine, why? If someone else is having a bad day that is their problem and not mine unless I allow it to become mine.

I look back now with my different eyes and I feel so sorry for that poor lady. Her life must have been terrible, for her to be in such moods all the time. On any given day I could have just accepted she is having a bad day. I feel sorry for her, but I am not going to let her bad mood spoil my mood. Now I regret I avoided her, instead of at least trying to help her.

No one can cause my mood to change, I allow my mood to change. No one can cause me to become angry, I allow myself to become angry. No one can cause my frustration, I allow myself to become frustrated. I am my own worst enemy. I can see that so clearly now, if only.

Can you hear what Bill is saying to us?

Can you stop right now, whatever mood you are in, whatever thoughts clog your mind, and imagine that one week from today, your funeral will already be over? What would you do differently for the next hour if you knew that were true? It might be true, after all. Bill has been blessed by an opportunity to prepare himself for death. You or I might be hit by a truck or slip in the shower or have a brain aneurism tonight or tomorrow or the next day. You do not know and I do not know.

“When the Buddha said that ‘we are our own master, we are our own enemy’, he was telling us that our destiny lies in our own hands.” –The Dalai Lama.

====

Today I was expecting someone at 11:15 to get some house plants that I posted on Freecycle. I am keeping a few for my new digs, but really need to give some of them new homes. Right at eleven fifteen, a car pulled into my driveway and out of the passenger side appeared my dear friend Linda! I stuck my head out the door to ask whoever was driving please to pull up and make room for a second car, as I was expecting a Freecycler. The driver got out; it was Linda’s friend J. She called out, “got any plants you’re looking to get rid of?”

Small world. J had answered my add and then started to put 2 and 2 together. She asked Linda, “where does your friend Kelly live?”

They’d stopped at Tim’s and picked up a chai for me. The two of them came inside and we sat around talking for a while. J asked me what all I was getting rid of. I told her which pieces I’d be trying to sell, which things I would just Freecycle. She is just now furnishing a place, so I’ll be sure to give her a chance to buy some of the things she needs after the house sells.

“I read your blog,” she told me. From reading it, she’d learned of something we have in common, something that bonds us.

I felt very good sitting there in the sunny living room while J tested the cushiness of the sofa. She has kind, soulful eyes and calm energy. When I’m around calm people, I become calm or am able to remain calm. I like that.

Much later that night, I got a response to my Freecycle offer of two books, one about animal communication and the other about animals and the afterlife. When I emailed the eager person from St. Agatha to tell her where to come to get the books on Tuesday evening, she said, “Ohh, I have read your blog many times, didn’t know it was you! Very interesting life you’ve had. I really relate with some of your stuff you go through.”

Wow. That kind of trips me out… people I barely know yet and people I’ve never met right here in town and over in a neighbouring town are reading Kikipotamus. I mean, I LIKE it. It tickles me to know it. But it stuns me. It makes me wish I could be a fly on the wall and observe how the person found my site, what they read and what went through their minds, …why they came back to read more.

For a day that was to be nothing more than the big trip to the laundromat, it’s been…well,…another constellation of coincidences we all know are not coincidences in this magic carpet ride we call life.