The Lumber City House

She walked by this house as a child and dreamed of living there. Today, she bought it. See? Dreams do come true.

It's Scary Here

Do you know the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy wakes up, points to all of those around her and telling them about her dream, she says, “And you were there, and you and you”? I saw this movie when I was 9 or 10 years old, which was 2 or 3 years after my grandfather died. I remember wondering if when I woke up in the afterlife, I would find all of those I had loved and known who had died before me gathered around my bed, nodding indulgently while I told them that I remembered them from before. I found this image oddly comforting: Being able to say to those whom I had lost, “I know you! You were in my life. You, and you” and of meeting again others whom I hadn’t thought much about since they left, of saying to them, “I remember you. I see now that I have missed you and didn’t know it.” I would feel the sudden population of a void I had sensed and been unable to fill until that moment.

It’s an image of a life being chipped away, one living piece at a time, to be reassembled, rebuilt again that fits my idea of everything being, eventually as it should be. It isn’t that I have ever thought that when a person dies, they ‘go’ to another place, though I am sure that someone at some point explained death to me that way and not really accepting it. I remember well wondering, if my grandfather had “gone to heaven” why was his truck still parked outside?

Today I am remembering a beautiful, sweet, bright and talented little girl, whose parents loved her well, took care, great care with the nurturing of her body and spirit, and whose life was taken from her by the offspring of other parents who inculcated the worst rather than nurtured the good in their own. This is a scary place. I don’t want to admit that I wonder what if about my own child, but how can I not, when more than twice now, in the last 2 months, I have had this possibility thrust before me in the form of news of such violence? They say that the Czechs have an enduring faith that things will eventually be as they should be, and a feeling that they may not know what ‘should be’ is. It is something that I admire about Czech character. It is something about them which makes them both more substantive and stronger to me. But today, I am having a hard time, a very hard time, in seeing how the taking of the the life of someone who was good and decent and headed for a lifetime of healing others could have anything to do with what should be, or with accepting that I can’t say what ‘should be’ is. Something evil has destroyed something good. Surely, this is not part of what should be.

Pretty Good Day

Movie with Thomas, two new books (Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun and The Cloud of Unknowing) in the mail, and I started another good one (Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling) last night. Got another postcard today, this time from Finland and am reminded that I need to do another blogpost. Talked to friends online and on the phone, and started making plans with some of them for the summer. A good apple and a little silly TV, a nice bottle of cider with lunch, and a glass of wine before dinner. I wasn't completely lazy otherwise: I added more books to half.com, organised a few hundred photos into folders and transfered them to the portable drive, bought airline tickets, washed a few clothes, wrote a few letters, planned dinner (easy--ribs, potatoes and beans) and listened to some new music at jamendo.com. Looking forward to a movie with Bram later.

He Made Her a Valentine

She adores my son and he's made her this Valentine and bought her a dinosaur to go with it. Is there anything more romantic than sharing your passions with your sweetheart?

New Work

I have about four projects in the works (cliche!). I found a solution to the problem I was having with a story, and can look forward to reworking it for the PF Competition. I already have some poems to send if I get strapped. Radek asked me today if I would consider writing lyrics for his music, and I managed to write a draft of a whole song. I found inspiration for a new painting I've been thinking about and wanting to do for more than a year. I still have some mistakes in the recent nude I started, but the preliminary sketching is going okay, so maybe I will eventually get that worked out. It's nice when these things go well.

It's Empty

I have made the decision to stop reading a couple of blogs because I find them and their writers (and I use that term very loosely here) so annoyingly dull. It really isn't that I mind that they write about what they did today, but that their writing is so filled with cliches and the hip catchphrases of the month that the hollowness of thought positively echoes. It reminds me of why I have never been very popular: I've never been like the other girls, and I have never wanted to be. Apparently, I don't have a lot in common with the average person. With few exceptions, the interests and entertainments of the masses offer me nothing and I am not the least bit motivated to strive for much more than being happy and making the effort to make the lives of those around me better. Being kind for no reason has always had more appeal to me than having something to lord over someone who doesn't have it. I really don't mind if these women continue to record their minutae and do it badly; I'm just not going to read it anymore.

Talking About a Resolution

It's New Year's Eve, and though I am usually scrambling to think of resolutions I need to make, I ought to make for the new year, this year I will have only one, and it is one that I have put a lot of thought into for once: to lose the habit of casting pearls before swine. Everything else will proceed from that. I will not offer my help, and instead will wait to be asked. This will be the hardest resolution for me to keep because I like to help others. The gifts I have I will use for my own gain and where they will be most appreciated. I will make a list of my 'marketable' skills and match them up first with my family's needs, my own, and then those of deserving persons and organizations who have asked for them. As for friendships, well, I have always had the most luck with waiting for them to happen rather than trying to make friends, though more often than not, offers of friendship from others have turned out to be thinly veiled demands for incorporation: attend a shower, buy a gift, help with childcare, shop for someone, provide free writing instruction and language practice. I think that being so generous is a character flaw, as is being too forgiving. I have always thought the question, "what's in it for me?" a selfish one, and it is one which it goes against my nature to ask, but now I am thinking that maybe I would be happier if I asked it more often. I am too often disappointed to find that I was being used, and I am too old to care to deal with that disappointment. And honestly, I'm weary of, well, casting my pearls before swine, then picking them, cleaning them off and apologizing to the pigs for troubling them.