Archives for category: Healthy Living
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

X Marks the Spot

August 22, 2015 //
1

I am sipping my coffee. It is a quiet Saturday morning, far earlier than I have any need to be up and about, but consciousness is what it is, and sometime around 5:00 am, mine shifted gears from sleeping to waking, largely without any obvious inputs from me. Coffee comes first this morning, and I run my fingers through my unbrushed hair, laughing at the ‘lack of order’ in my morning, and the seeming urgency to have that first sip of coffee. I feel both quite awake, and also not so very awake at all. I made my coffee quite strong.

My thoughts light gently on one thing and then another, like a butterfly. I notice a cluster of closely grouped small insect bites near my left elbow. The adult self residing in this fragile vessel part-time suggests that I do not scratch there. Minutes later I find myself scratching that spot, anyway, without realizing I had started to do so. I find myself struggling to stop, and change the motion – which is easier for me – to a soft light stroking, less likely to tear my skin. I am not yet fully awake, and I have learned to understand it is at these critical points of consciousness – not fully awake, or when deeply fatigued – when I am less able to self-regulate behavior. I find myself wondering how ‘different life might have been if’ I had at least known about my injury much sooner; I have no specific actual recollection of it in my memory that I can be sure of. I lose interest in the bug bite as my attention wanders; I return to simply writing and sipping my coffee.

I consider the wanderer. As wanderers sometimes do, he stood me up this week, likely not out of malice, and our plans were not firm in the first place, but discourteous lack of communication or lack of expectation setting is not a comfortable fit for me in relationships; I made a point of setting very clear expectations about requiring clear, explicit communication, as a reciprocal courtesy. Days later, seeing him active elsewhere and having still heard nothing from him by way of regret for the discourtesy, I reached out and received a predictable pro forma apology, but missing the point – and the lack of openness doesn’t work for me, even a little bit. So. There’s that.

The goddess of Love within the Temple of My Heart; she only asks everything of me, and I only have everything to give.

Love demands that I tend the temple of my heart with great care.

I found myself thinking about it yesterday, too, after the brief text exchange. Thinking about what constitutes an ‘ex’ in my own experience, from my own perspective – because if you asked me, I’d say I have only 3 exes. From my view, an ex is not someone who is defined as ‘no longer my lover’ – an X is a very big deal. An X is someone I am so incredibly done with, and depart from feeling so badly injured (emotionally, physically, or financially) that I do not want any further contact with that person, ever, under any circumstances. An X is someone I don’t even want to continue thinking about, let alone interacting with. I have only 3. Lovers who become friends, but are no longer lovers? Those are not Xs. They’re my friends – there’s nothing diminishing or discontinued about that.  People who were once more than casual lovers, something deeper but not lasting? Most of them go on to become friends as well (some of them just go on to other things). Some of my dearest friends were once my lovers. Casual hook ups don’t become Xs – they’d have to become more than something casual for that to be an option at all. Becoming an X of mine requires a level of damage, destruction, or disregard that results in enough pain that seeing signs of that experience later on causes new stress.  I do what I can to make them an X in my recollection, as well as in my present experience, and even in my writing; they are no part of my life beyond the legacy of the damage that needs to be repaired, and they are surely not involved in that!

Lust

Lust makes her own demands, and does not always play nicely. “Face of Gods: Lust” 12″ x 12″ acrylic on canvas with ceramic, gold leaf, and broken glass. 2009

The wanderer isn’t an X anything – he’s a human being, with free will, and character flaws, and baggage, and a life built on the consequences of his actions. (We all are.) Sure, I’m irked by the mistreatment, but I also recognize that his perspective is his own, and likely quite different. I’m even sure he found adequate rationalization for his discourtesy.  There’s no real damage done – I’m learning to make better choices, myself, and take care of me, and I set clear boundaries. He’s charming, funny, listens well, and every minute of time we spent together was worth it for me. That we’ve moved on to other things isn’t relevant to that experience, it’s just the period at the end of a sentence.

Fond memories are worth the investment in time.

Fond memories are worth the investment in time.

My Xs are few in number, but they are orders of magnitude more damaging than a change in relationship dynamic; in some cases I continue to work to repair that damage years later (decades later), and to restore order to the resulting chaos. One X was horrifically violent – there’s not much else I can say about that without my PTSD starting to flare up. One X was enough less violent that I overlooked it to my detriment; the relationship was characterized by day-to-day controlling and manipulative behavior (even gas lighting me) and financially exploiting me near to the point of total ruin. One X was distressingly mentally ill perhaps, but often seemed to me merely entitled and narcissistic, shifty, and an unexpectedly destructive force willfully breaking objects and damaging things (even other people’s things) with a frequency that can only be described as ‘routine’. My Xs are each and every one an individual who managed to inflict so much damage that I have lasting scars – in some cases physical – and did so without also investing in the relationship in any positive way that had the potential to make the damage ‘worth it’. 3 may not sound like many Xs by count, (only 30 years of my life!) but it definitely shows my lack of skill at selecting long-term partners; 3 out of 4 long-term partnerships I have invested my heart in were incredibly toxic and damaging. I’m not bitching, I’m just saying it’s hard to make the list. Certainly I  have learned a lot about what human beings are capable of, and how little it may mean when one of them says “I love you”; I am changed by that knowledge.

Relationships of all sorts come and go. Most of them are lovely moments along life’s journey, and I have very few regrets – surely no regrets about love and loving! One key difference between other relationships that have ended and one I consider to have ended with an X, is that I look back fondly on all those others – and endeavor not to look back on an X at all – not even the good moments. Even relationships that didn’t end on the best of terms, those former lovers can expect a warm greeting from me when we run into each other. Every experience ending with an X seems tainted with the pain of being hurt, willfully, continuously, and egregiously; ‘running into’ any one of them would feel traumatic, undesirable, and I actively take steps to prevent it occurring. I’m glad that I have very few Xs. I am grateful to have so many excellent friends.

Worth more than antiques, diamonds, or a fat bank account: friendship is a treasure beyond measurable worth.

Worth more than antiques, diamonds, or a fat bank account: friendship is a treasure beyond measurable worth.

It’s an amazing journey, isn’t it? I find it so. I enjoy the opportunities to share some portion of it. My traveling partner and I share something profound, deep, remarkable – and still we’re human. There may come a day when what we share now is no longer our experience together – I don’t see him ever being an X, however long our shared journey lasts – or doesn’t. He’s more than a partner, or a lover – he’s a very dear trusted friend, too. That’s where we started. I’ve learned, over time, that in fact that’s precisely where love does start, for me… with a friendship. Friends are precious threads of gold woven into life’s tapestry. However intense or magical some love game might feel to me in the moment, I can be fairly certain that if it didn’t begin with a friendship, it isn’t actually love. [Your results may vary.]

My coffee has grown cold. I’ve written more words about Xs than they deserve of my attention – yeah, I’m that serious when I say that I make an attempt to mark those places in life with an X – a big, black, bold, dark, fully obliterating X, as with a sharpie on the page of a journal, and walk on. Doing so, they have no lasting power over me, and the scars heal more easily over time.

So much of life is about love and loving.

So much of life is about love and loving. It’s an important area in which to become skilled.

Today is a good day to breathe deeply, and savor life’s riches, and love’s joys. Today is a good day to enjoy the woman in the mirror, and celebrate the incremental changes over time that result in better choices about life and love, and more skillfully taking care of my heart. Today is a good day to live beautifully, and to tend the garden of my heart with the same devotion as I tend the garden that puts food on my table. Good choices about love may not change the world – but they do change my experience.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Asking For It

August 21, 2015 //
0

It’s a lovely morning, cool, and quiet. My coffee is hot, and smooth, and somehow a much larger cup of coffee than I generally make – I’m sure that’s my doing, but it wasn’t quite a deliberate well-thought out thing. I used more water than usual, in some moment lost in thought when I might have benefited from paying more attention. 🙂

This morning I am thinking about the power of questions. All sorts of questions, really, but most particularly the sort of questions where I take a moment to ask (of myself, or of someone else) for something I want, or something I need – but in any case, the questions used to ask for something. Not the underhanded sort where a leading question is used to attempt to nudge someone into delivering on a need or desire – rather the honest, open, vulnerable simple questions that honor my heart, and respect the boundaries and resources of that other person. Straight up asking for what I want, no bullshit, no games, doesn’t feel very natural to me and it isn’t encouraged in all circumstances. There seem to be quite a few rules about asking for what we want, but they are rules we have built ourselves, and often on a fragile foundation of assumptions and expectations, criticism and judgement.

Always with the questions...

Always with the questions…

I am taking time to learn to ask the simple questions, whether it is ‘will you make me a latte?’ or ‘do you want to have sex with me?’ and to take care of me by avoiding the emotional trap of waiting around for needs to be met, or desires to be magically fulfilled by wondrous mind-reading beings who always know just what I want. Sometimes it is enough to make my needs – and my willingness – clear, sometimes it is important to be quite frank and direct (because assumptions suck, and cornering someone else into having to take action based on assumptions about what I may want isn’t as effective as using my words). I spent a lot of years living with people who invested heavily in coercive or manipulative use of language, and I didn’t realize how much of the simple power of directness I had lost over time. I do like language, and am prone to poetry and obscure vocabulary – and playful misuse of words – and those things can also be an impediment to clear communication. That’s a bigger deal when it comes time to meet real needs. It adds up to time to rethink how I communicate my needs, and how I ask for what I want in life.

My efforts to change how I ask for help, or ask for companionship, or ask for emotional support, or ask for a latte, are far more effective when they are specific, simple, and without pressure. The most effective requests are those when I am able to clearly state the outcome I am seeking, without putting pressure on an individual to provide fulfillment – and still make the request clear and uncomplicated. This does require a follow-up action from me, regardless of outcome; graciousness. Gracious and appreciative acceptance that honors and values the person coming through for me on my request if they say yes. Gracious acceptance and respect for boundaries and limitations that nurtures and supports the person who declines, simply and without bullshit or games. No tantrums. No manipulation. No ‘you owe me’ games. No ‘but I deserve this’ games. Getting the gentle dynamic of effective requests and gracious reception of answers quite the way feels best to me is a balance of emotional self-sufficiency (most things I might ask of someone are things I could legitimately do for myself, much of the time, or do without) and considerate openness (understanding that anything someone takes time to do for me subtracts from the time they have to do for themselves). There’s another balancing act involved here, too: reciprocity. If we’re hanging out at your place, for example, and I ask you to make me a latte (knowing how awesomely well you make them, perhaps), then the principle of reciprocity as a relationship value requires that when we are hanging out at my place I will be prepared – and willing – to reciprocate and make you a cup of tea when you ask (or politely offer you a beverage). It’s not a firmly required exchange, and it’s not a debt or obligation…it’s something more than that; a shared experience of openness, an exchange of emotional support, a connection, a willingness to be vulnerable enough to ask, and strong enough to answer honestly. There’s a lot of power to connect people in asking for what we want in simple and honest terms, and being open to hear the answer without being invested in a specific outcome. I’m finding it very freeing…sometimes frustrating. (Learning to comfortably decline when asked, when that is what best meets my own needs, is a challenging related bit of life’s curriculum.)

Feeling my way in the dark on something that has direct effect on the shared experience with others can feel stressful. It’s worth getting past that to be more aware of myself, my core needs, and what’s really going on with me – the process of asking for something I want forces me to be more mindful of what it is I do want, and why, and whether it really has potential to meet my needs over time. Straight up asking tends to find me looking at the content of the question more closely; is the request truly worthy? If I am going to be vulnerable, and ask in the first place, it makes sense that the question be refined and clarified in my own thinking before it becomes words at all – why waste time on confusion, if that can be avoided? Do I really want a latte? Or do I want to hold hands and yearn for that brief moment of contact between fingertips as I accept the warm mug? A latte doesn’t actually meet the need for hand holding, does it? It matters to ask the most relevant question. So much to learn.

Children seem to get asking questions, more or less, but their undeveloped narcissistic and demanding approach is a poor fit for adulthood; they lack awareness that others have no obligation to serve. It’s a free will thing. 🙂 Still, not a bad start for asking…and I have been studying how it’s done by these wee experts. “Can I have a glass of water, please?” from a being too short to reach the faucet seems simple enough. As an adult, I’d likely want to be more specific and personal, “Would you get me a glass of water?” – acknowledging I could reasonably do it for myself. How often have I heard myself say, to a partner in motion, “Are you going to the kitchen?” – when what I truly intend is to ask, at some point, for a glass of water? Where did I learn to be vague, leading, and manipulative? I guess that question isn’t really important to answer. The more useful question is “what can I do to be more clear, more direct, and more specific, without conveying a sense of obligation, sounding demanding, or being misleading?”

I am a work in progress, and life’s curriculum develops in a very personal way. I’m already more about questions than answers… Perhaps it is time to also become quite skilled at asking for things, not merely about them. How much harder is it for loved ones to provide support, encouragement, or to meet needs, if they have to continuously guess what those might be? It was something my traveling partner said to me on a recent visit that got my attention on this. “Relax. If I need something I’ll ask for it.” He said, after several attempts on my part to offer hospitality of a variety of sorts. We had a much better time hanging out when I stopped trying so hard to guess what he might need to offer it to him before he asked. It got me thinking about that whole thing, though, and I recognize the potential pitfall of setting up an expectation within my own thinking that others would be behaving similarly, trying always to anticipate my needs – that’s not only unrealistic, it doesn’t respect them as individuals with needs of their own, and the power to ask.

Today is a good day to be open, vulnerable, and self-aware – and a good day to ask for what I need. Today is a good day to be gracious, whether supported or not, and understand that we are each having our own experience, with our own needs, our own desires, and our own finite resources. It’s a good day for kindness, and learning to say ‘no’ when I must, and to do so gently and without harm. It’s a good day to be appreciative when someone says ‘yes’, and not take ‘no’ personally. Will it change the world?

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words

Taking Great Care With Each Practice

August 18, 2015 //
0

This morning I woke gently, and rose with a smile already tugging at the corners of my lips. I went to bed last night in a lot of pain, and on waking this morning I notice it has not diminished much. I am very stiff. I treat myself with care this morning, taking my time, and since I give myself so much of that in the mornings, there is no need to rush through any of the morning tasks or practices. Since I slowed myself down a few days ago (weeks?), my quality of life has improved.

I linger in the shower until I feel the stiffness of my arthritic spine ease. I make a point of relaxing and really enjoying the fish as I feed them, and watching them live their fishy lives. I breath deeply. I allow myself to listen deeply to the woman in the mirror, this morning – how is she doing? What can I do to make her more comfortable? What are her priorities as the day begins? I let in the fresh morning air,  opening the patio door and taking a moment to look out across the lawn; at this hour there are rarely any lights on elsewhere, aside from the walkway lights. I enjoy the pre-dawn quiet and the scents of morning, before making my coffee.

I have noticed that when my practices become ‘routines’ over time, they sometimes lose their ‘magic powers’. It’s not that they don’t really work, or that they have failed…It’s something simpler; I’m failing myself by doing them ‘mindlessly’. It’s easy-ish to fix. I have to slow down, begin again, and approach each such task or practice with a beginner’s mind, with willful mindfulness, and yes – a bit of discipline now and then, taking the time to fully embrace the task, the practice, the moment, engaged and present. I don’t berate myself over it when I drift off course – there’s no productive point in doing so. I don’t feel I have ‘failed myself’ grievously – I’m human, and these are practices for a reason; they require practicing. Going through the motions doesn’t count as ‘practice’ – or as living.

I am not a machine. I don’t actually benefit, long-term, from rigid habit, and life planned out thoroughly moment-to-moment, beyond the value toward simply getting shit done. Even for me, rigid habits and a strictly enforced disciplined approach to daily task completion are not something I thrive on – it’s just one method of coping with my injury, my poor memory, my challenges with maintaining a comfortable lifestyle over time. It’s not an ideal way to live. Living alone I can more comfortably explore life on a less habitual, less routine basis; moments of chaos and confusion are less likely to affect others, and any time I need to I can slow things way down, and be patient with myself; I don’t get stalled having to explain it to someone else. I am learning to live without the crippling burden of the [perception of the] expectations of others weighing me down.

The loss of so many small routines and habits sometimes catches me by surprise. This morning my cell phone wasn’t charged. I had remembered to put it on the charger; I had forgotten that the other end wasn’t plugged in. I changed my habit from leaving all the cables of all the kinds just plugged in and dangling all over the place to a much tidier practice of carefully putting away cables not in use . My environment is lovelier, tidier, and still quite convenient – since all the cables of all the kinds for all the chargers, devices, etc are conveniently in one location, together. It’s still a change. I forgot about the need to plug in both ends. 🙂 Surprise! I don’t take it personally, and I’m grateful for the quiet amusement, and practical perspective on the small inconvenience; there was a time it would have been enough to blow my morning, possibly causing some nasty pointless tantrum – I suck at frustration, even now. (It has been easier to learn not to be frustrated by certain kinds of things, that to learn to deal with the experience of frustration, itself. I don’t know whether that will be the wiser choice over time, but it does offer some relief now.)

Letting go of rigid fixed habits tied to time and timing, and all the expectations and assumptions those tend to support, has been a big change. The need to take great care with each task and practice, invested, engaged, aware, and fully living each moment becomes quite profound, lacking the foundation of rigid habit. Rituals exist because, perhaps, it is not so easy to approach every desirable practice in an utterly mindful way. I do like ‘easy’… but… I also really like living, eyes wide to life’s wonders, attentive, aware, savoring my experience, learning to thrive, and becoming emotionally self-sufficient. So many verbs involved. It’s scary sometimes. What if I forget my morning medication? What if I suddenly just stop doing things? What if I discover my values or preferences are at odds with the expectations of my loved ones? What if I’m not who I think I am? Well…I guess I’d begin again. 🙂

The sun is up now. I take a moment to make my bed, and tidy my bedroom. I finally feel ‘moved in’, in a very complete way. I think it is a combination of the love seat, and the wee trash cans which arrived over the weekend. I find myself wondering if the story of human progress can be told in the improvements in waste management over the course of history… I definitely feel the improvement in my own quality of life having a small trash receptacle in the bathroom, in my bedroom, and by my desk – I’d been having to walk every used tissue, bit of string, or piece of waste paper all the way to the covered kitchen trash, or recycling bin, and while it is a very small apartment and no real inconvenience to do so, nonetheless – I feel more ‘moved in’ having what seems the ‘proper’ number and placement of small trash baskets around the place. Funny which details matter to me. It’s exciting learning what matters most to me, myself.

I have time for another coffee, and some household chores that will ensure I come home to a lovely place – built for me, by me, based on what matters most to me. It’s a  nice feeling. Enjoying the moment seems to cause my brain to attempt a sneak attack, coming at me from behind with dire warnings and launching a salvo of ‘what if’ scenarios filled with house fires, burglars, unknown assailants, and all manner of extraordinarily negative [and incredibly unlikely] circumstances…I assure myself I’ll remember to turn off the stove, lock the doors, and be aware of my surroundings. My demons slink off into the darkness grumbling quietly.

Going my own way, having my own experience.

Going my own way, having my own experience, and feeling prepared to face the world.

Today is a good day to take great care with each task I face, with each practice I practice, and to face life with a beginner’s mind. I am a student of life and love. I am my own cartographer. The way I face the journey – and the direction I take – are mine to choose. It’s a very good day to set down some baggage and walk on.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women

Source Material

August 17, 2015 //
0

This morning I made a very nearly perfect cup of coffee. It’s not really remarkable; my coffees are generally quite consistently very good. I have practiced this particular method of brewing, now, for 89 days, amounting to a minimum of 178 coffees, adequate practice to reliably make a good coffee. I’ve made a couple of really terrible coffees along the way – usually because I stopped paying attention at some point during the process, having gotten distracted by something else. I enjoy my morning coffee greatly, and I enjoy the practical self-sufficiency of making my own, precisely the way I prefer it, without any imposition on someone else in the moment. I enjoy being able to fully rely on myself to take care of my needs in this small way. I enjoy feeling knowledgeable, and competent.

My thoughts followed the feelings of ‘being knowledgeable’ and ‘being competent’ along other tangents while I sipped my coffee. I start wondering how much those feelings are actually tied to subjective experiences of knowing more, or having more skills, and how much they merely reflect my perspective how being able to apply the things I do know to my circumstances to achieve a desired outcome… without any particular connection of some noteworthy portion of knowledge of all the things possible to know. There are a lot of things to know…even about coffee. I don’t claim extraordinary knowledge of coffee… I know enough to make a good cup of coffee in the morning, one that satisfies my own expectations of ‘a good cup of coffee’. It’s enough… but there is more to know, and I could choose to pursue that knowledge, or not.

I keep following my thoughts down this particular rabbit hole and find myself wondering about this ‘body of knowledge’ that is my own…all the things I have learned in a life time, all the things I “know” (whether facts or opinions), all of the information and experience on which my understanding of the world – and myself – is built… Isn’t the ‘source material’ pretty critically important? I find myself reconsidering all the books on all the shelves; I have a lot of books and I make a point of keeping only those that seem to represent important pieces of who I have become over time… I find myself wondering, this morning, if I am perhaps hanging on to some of my chaos and damage in the form of “knowledge” – fundamentals in my thinking that are not just erroneous, but built specifically on concepts or information that tend to prevent forward progress, or foster ongoing negative self-talk; it seems more likely than not, and I support that suspicion with the many volumes of “The Great Books of the Western World“, a product developed and marketed by the intellectually mighty Encyclopedia Britannica, whose online presence is rather costly, compared to the vastness of the internet itself, at one’s fingertips with a Google search.

I bought “The Great Books” when I was not quite 21, and eager to advance my knowledge of the world, and to become ‘educated’. A smooth talking encyclopedia salesman skillfully persuaded me that all the knowledge I could ever desire was within those pages. It was an expensive purchase – and my first payment plan. When they arrived, I marveled at their weight, and beauty…and I read them all over the years (or at least began them – I’ll admit Fourier kicked my ass, and a couple of the philosophers just irritated me well beyond wanting to read another word). Had I attended most of the liberal arts colleges of the time, my education would have been based largely on the works included in “The Great Books”…but the controversy over the collection existed as soon as the collection was published, and the 2nd edition, published in 1990, would have been a better fit for my own tastes. Neither collection represents the voices of women with any vigor or thoroughness (or, let’s be honest here, at all)…and sitting here in the cool of morning, it hits me that there is a fairly direct connection to the cultural thinking that fuels so much of my own very personal anger about how society treats women, and the willingness to slap a label like “The Great Books of the Western World” on a collection of work that largely just ignores women, even in the 2nd edition. I mean…seriously? It’s not even “Some Great Books…”, it’s held up as “The Great books…” Giving readers the impression that all the world’s vast knowledge and progress has been the knowledge of men, the progress of men, the thinking of men – and it’s not actually true.

Why wouldn't about half these books be written by women?

Why wouldn’t about half these books be written by women?

I look again my bookshelf for the voices of women… for the voices of my own experience… I feel a certain strange heartsick feeling that I, too, neglect the voices of women in my library. It feels like a great wrong, that urgently needs to be made right – and for me, making that right starts with a question. “Do I actually find that these volumes are “The” great books of western thinking? Truly? Who says? Based on what, exactly? Is Descartes more worthy, from my own perspective, than Simone de Beauvoir? Is Fourier more relevant than Marie Curie? What about William James? Has his work provided me more value and perspective on my own thinking than Gloria Steinem? I find myself feeling fussy – and ignorant. My education is lopsided, heavily weighted in favor of the thinking of men, the voices of men, the experiences of men… and it isn’t limited to dusty books on untouched shelves; this is a deeper issue that affects how children are educated, and what we see on television, and in theaters. This lack of women’s voices, this disinterest in giving us a seat at the grown-up’s table, or making our presence an everyday part of significant historical discourse is a disservice to human progress, and our sense of who we are – and it fuels the quiet seething anger that is so often a part of my experience; the lack of feeling heard begins with these books. Or so it seems over my morning coffee.

There’s something beautiful about choice, and perspective, and new understandings; taken all together, they make great things happen, they create an opportunity for change. There are verbs involved, of course, and I expect my results may vary. I have spent my life listening to the voices of men, and mostly being a pretty good sport about having my own voice silenced to allow some man to speak, erupting in uncontainable rage only now and then. It’s no wonder my anger has taken so many men I have loved by surprise; based on the books in our hands, surely their expectation has been that it is always ‘their turn to talk’!

It’s an uncommonly pleasant Monday morning. I am eager to make some changes in my library…if “The Great Books of the Western World” were all the voices of women, what books would I see there on the shelf? It’s time I include them. It’s time to change the world.

Tags , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Metaphors, Perspective, The Art of Being, women, Words
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »