Be the change you want to see.

I'm up visiting Mom and the family for the memorial Day weekend.

Mom and I spent the entirety of Friday talking and cooking together watching a little political TV, and we probably literally talked for about 8 hours and now I've got like a sore throat?

Probably because on top of Friday, I had the *most social* day yesterday which was Saturday then I've had since before the pandemic.

Started the morning having coffee with Mom and checking in, then I went to Estelle's bakery and had brunch with Janice, and we talked for almost 4 hours. A girl at the bakery had the cutest halter top, and I stumbled over my words to try to tell her so. And then just later We stepped in to help a younger woman feel empowered to move seats when a homeless man was yelling angrily at/near her.

Then I went to the Bennett's, and Tina and me and a little bit Jeff talked for another 3 hours! Oh that was lovely.

After that I moved over to what I initially thought were going to be small plans with the Wilson family. It was a shockingly nice surprise, when not only Sarah and Ian, but Christyn and Brian, Headra and her boyfriend (his name I forgot), Kat in from Boise, Mario and Anne, and finally Janise and Jeff! Again! So there was like 14 people at dinner. Oh my heart. Wow. Also, really good indian food: I should get the name for my sister Jen, that's in her neighborhood.

And now here it is today, Sunday, excessive heat warning in Sacramento, and Mom and I are scheduled to go out and visit my sister and my niblings and spend time there and check in! I might get to swim in My sister's pool!

I'm sleeping on Mom's dusty guest bed, my dust allergies and I're probably going to suffer a little bit for that, hahaha.

And it is quarter to 8:00 in the morning because Mom has got this ridiculous singing clock that starts singing music on the hour every hour as soon as the sun comes out enough to trigger its light meter. There's no escaping it, I had forgotten that honestly! So maybe I might need a nap today, though I'll probably power through.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to try and fit more people visiting in on Monday on my way home. Gretl suggested I hit up the Pedrick Road fruit market, and if I do I'll ask if she and or Casey want to come have a hug and hangout in the parking lot.

Or I might go over to visit Lefty and Shade, who are Burner friends who own a house a mile from Mom's. Excellent hugs there!

People who want to see me! People who are happy to see me! Such a delight! Such a joy!

Princess Peach gazed out across the landscape, her keen eyesight picking out Mario's progress through the mazes that, taken altogether in their many levels, comprised her father's kingdom.

Gold coins sparkled as Mario collected them, and the red flashes of moving mushrooms or green slides of skittering tortoise shells indicated his path as he approached another goal.

Even from her distant perch in the highest tower of the home she'd been raised in, she could see the speech bubble that emerged at the entrance to that worthless pile of rocks, one of countless decoys scattered throughout her father's domain. "Sorry, Mario, our princess is in another castle!"

Peach snorted in disgust as she finished packing her camping backpack, and pulled the last of her camouflage gear over her head.

Unrolling the rope ladder that would take her down the far side of the tower, away from the guards and toward the misty hills that meant freedom, she strapped the pack more securely on her back and muttered,

"To hell with being a prize at the end of someone else's adventures!"

She swung her leg over the windowsill and was gone.




This has been my Week Three entry for therealljidol, and the prompt was "In Another Castle".

Beta-readings done by wrenb, and chipchat !

Please go read and enjoy my colleagues' entries here. To vote for my entry, link will be *here* once it's posted.

Thank you for reading!

I'm consuming too much media.
It interferes with my capacity for independent thought, interrupts ideas-in-progress.

YMMV, of course, but it's notable in my case.

Was thinking earlier today about what does it really mean to be grown up?
Adult?
A "Woman"?
A "Man"?

To put a different spin on it, when exactly do us Walking Wounded finally come to own our own souls?
Our bodies, our health, our own opinions and reality?


I had no concept of myself as lovable for the first 18 years of my life. I had no idea of myself as attractive, gorgeous, loved, until I was 20 (thanks, gorgeous and loved Irishman...) I had no idea of myself as a dancer till I joined Travellers' Union at age 22 and started to learn English Country Dance and Ballroom (Thanks, all you former Travellers!) I had no idea I could be athletic until I started taking TaeKwonDo (thanks, Master Rankins!) at age 26.

Of course, I didn't realize I could be broken, either. I challenged myself to try new things, always proceeding with caution, hesitantly. But I could feel my self stretching, growing, filling out, and dimly sensing that the possibility of *flowering* was there, even if I wasn't robust and juicy enough yet.

Then I backslid. I married the wrong guy (or, the right guy, because I did need the "another opportunity for growth" because I was STUCK and needed to be jarred loose). I fucked up my knee from trusting that my teachers knew my body and abilities better than I did (dumb, dumb, blind, thoughtless and dumb), and I coped with the first disease/problem that was the brush with death. That's when I discovered that doctors are not omniscient, they are human, and make mistakes. I worked on healing myself and in the time I thought I was face-to-face with my own ceasing-to-be, I looked at my blind spots and my dead spots and my not-broken-but-grew-crooked spots. And I started trying to remove the dead spots and enlivening the dead spots and retraining the grew-crooked spots.

Then I made progress. I worked with the Thiasos, a group of Hellenic Pagans based in Sacramento and the Bay area, and I started to learn what mattered. That *I* mattered. That *I* was a child of god, same as the trees and the stars (thanks, Desiderata!) That I was worthy. That I could be strong, but that I would have to work on it, since I had a habit of thinking of myself as weak. I learned that I was *beautiful* (Thanks, Adelphai! *wipes tears from eyes*) though it had to come to me as a surprise and after a lot of time working on my headspace. After that, I joined a learning coven, a Wicca 101 group, and started to work on becoming strong and principled.

Still I referred to myself as a "girl". A "girl" of thirty-something, because "woman" was ... fraught. Being "a woman" felt like more than I could claim for myself. I mostly referred to myself as a "person". "Woman" still is complicated (political, and with lots of connotations), but at 41 with the life experience I have? I'm finally referring to myself as a woman, because somewhere between 30 and 40 I actually DID "grow up:"

I did start taking responsibility for my own health and my own happiness.
I did start taking responsibility for my own life and my part in building or destroying my own relationships.
I did start making the conscious decision to strive to be kind and compassionate and truthful. To live my sense of what is right and true and ethical.

Whenever I start to feel like I'm treading water instead of making forward progress, I look at what I'm saying, and what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking. I look at where my relationships are, and if there is any place I have enough resources to help someone else - time, attention, energy, and sometimes money or goods.

One of the Christian philosophical systems has a saying: Lord, let me be an instrument of your peace. I add:
Lord, let me be an instrument of joy.
Lord, let me be an instrument of healing,
Lord, let me be an instrument of hope and compassion.

I am a grown up now. In my way of thinking, that entails a number of responsibilities.

If you have strengths, you use them in the service of weakness, and helping others become stronger.
If you have learning, you use it in the service of educating ignorance into knowledge.
If you have passion, you work to fan the flames of passion in the world: passion for justice, for truth, for beauty, for fairness.
If you have health, you use it to help others heal themselves.
If you have traveled from brokenness to wholeness? You work on helping others see and fix the broken wherever it is to be found.

And you know what? None of this is *easy*.
None of this Living on Planet Earth is easy. We get sick, we suffer. We hurt each other, intentionally and un.
We lose possessions we value. Maybe we learn something.
People we love die. We suffer. Maybe we learn something.
People around us suffer. Maybe today we have enough to share, a hand to stretch out in comfort. Maybe we are the ones suffering, and hoping to have the comfort of another's hand. And maybe we learn something.

and maybe? maybe what we learn? is that's what Love is.
maybe once we stop being afraid, we can put Love to work in our lives.
For real.
And maybe that is all the Change we need.



If Love drives out Fear, how do we make sure everyone has enough Love? How do we help people Not be Afraid?

It starts with me. It starts with one word, one hug, one (dumb) little post on the internet.



And the courage to make it public.

It's easy to write for people I've chosen, people I know I can trust. I'm going to stretch my trusting muscle farther today.


Remember. Love. Learn. Hope.

Was feeling pretty crappy yesterday, a combination of physical and mental effects (primarily that my "period" was more like an "!") but am feeling better today, reasonably well grounded, able to stay focused, and sending loving energy to the parts of me that are working hard to do their job.

(I'm envisioning a teeny tiny person wearing overalls who's part of a team shoveling a mudslide out of a roadway in order to allow the flow of normal traffic to commence. I'm sending warm dry socks, solid stompy boots, good grippy gloves and strong quality tools to my teeny tiny team, and I'm getting ready to send the tea-cart around and invite them to take a rest before going back to work again.)

It's amazing, though, the toxic-feeling images that were the first-ideas behind this visualization. I had to consciously pick and choose positive images, changing mental associations. This is a natural process. Not a nasty toxic clean-up, not a job whose attendants are shamed to complete it or looked on as less-than. It is something that must be done as part of the natural cycle of life, as regularly as day follows night follows day.

Framing it positively took some effort. That tells me both that I have problems and that the culture I live in has problems, with this process being a natural, "normal" part of human health.

I'm working to be more conscious of the messages I've internalized from the larger society, and to take care about which ones I now choose to consume, which ones I choose to remain part of my internal landscape.

I like the Road Crew metaphor. I think I'm keeping it.