but frankly, sleeping from midnight to five is pretty much awesome. It reminds me of when we first had babies and if you slept for four hours you felt amazing. Perspective indeed. And I have an elderly friend, my mum’s best friend but mum is not up to communicating in this modern world and I am her proxy, who emails me on occasion and the other day I was replying and noticed that she had emailed me around 2 a.m. and I was responding around 4 a.m. When I mentioned to her that no one had told me I wouldn’t be able to sleep once I was older, she simple replied, “now you know” but then went on to add that she had come to enjoy her “midnight sojourns”.
I remember when my mum stopped being able to use her computer. She would deny it, and claim she had checked her email, etc., and I remember the frustration we felt and trying to show her … but now I realise she was telling us what she wanted to be true but just like getting into the rowboat, she could no longer visualize how to achieve her goals. It wasn’t lying, it was impossible for her to know that her brain was unable to get her limbs to move or her fingers to push the right buttons, so she found other reasons. But one day she did tell me that she couldn’t tell her legs what to do …
What am I on about? Perspective and then moralizing because I am watching the elderly perform a morality play and I would rather give advice than take it.
Mum wasn’t lying is the first perspective moment. Wondering how better we could have helped her is another. I learned about prompting as a tool a bit late in life [you would think a mum would have figured this out, ed! Hey, don’t be so judgmental, ghost of dad] but she took her widowing extremely hard and self-destructed so that is mostly idle speculation but helps me with her now and helps me understand manipulating people with objects, a subject for another time.
My mother-in-law, who graduated top of her class from the same high school that my mum graduated top of her class
[if you look closely you can find them separated by a year and it is almost as if she is pointing right at mum’s name, because who wouldn’t]
remembered to bring all of her digital versions of her paintings to me on memory sticks because I have promised to build her a website [as in WordPress forced to pretend it is a website] and she is probably wondering what is taking me so long. She is off to the Bahamas soon … [I still can’t quite believe that the offspring of those two top girls met and spawned …]
Sorry mum, but I must go on … these three lovely women, and mum’s best friend would certainly have given her a run for her top girl money, but went to a different school and they only met in first year university when they were 19, are very much peers. They had similar advantages, not equally wealthy but ended up with access to the same world. Two widowed, one not. What was different? Genetics, diet, exercise and attitude. And alcohol consumption. I understand my mum’s sadness, but when I see what it let happen to her I am shocked into some sort of action. Frequently inappropriate action, but that is also a subject for another time. I used to argue with her about happiness and whether it was strictly relative, her opinion, or not, mine. I would claim that I could know I was happier than if my children had died in infancy and I had had all my teeth pulled by twenty, as happened to her father [the teeth not the dying in infancy!] living in say Yorkshire in the late 1800’s. And then I would really irritate her by saying I hoped my children would be happier than me. Not sure why this got her goat so much, but it did.
I am lecturing myself here, slapping me back into happiness, but also hoping to take others along for the ride hence the public laundering. I don’t drink like mum did, just to lay her Scotch bottle on the table, but I like to avoid reality like a champ. And how can I let mum be right about happiness and look at these surroundings and be a chump about it? Especially when one of those three girls, the baby of the group at a sprightly 82, visiting at Christmas left the number of a local yoga studio that she found through her yoga instructor, where they practice Restorative Yoga. And wouldn’t they have a class tomorrow.
And I’ll bet it will help me enjoy my midnight sojourns, or any time I am awake, finally, superlatively, awake. As I heard someone say the other day, any day this side of the grass, son, any day above it.
And so we rise above it … and try to remember to be both loving and lovely as we enjoy any sojourns that we are so lucky to have. Sorry to be all soupy, it must be the turkey stock talking. Have a Tuesday!
you make your points in a round about way. i tend to be much more direct, but we have a different style, not necessarily radically different perspectives. but i get the gist of your message, and it is all good by me. so thank you for your efforts here. it is appreciated by me, and i am sure by many others.
i may be posting less going forward, but i will check in here often. heck, i am not even sure, maybe i will post more. it depends on how things flow.
fwiw and to whom it may concern… i want to be able to link any articles i want without fear of reprisal. that is where i hope we can start 2015. if you don’t like the author, keep your criticism to yourself, especially if you are going to refuse to read. it is perhaps a different version of “not shooting the messenger”. let’s call it “even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while”. so please don’t shoot me, or the author, unless in self defense.
Xty, i think it is good to take a break from the novel. you can not be creative unless you got the juice. the last few chapters of the novel seemed forced to me. wait until it starts writing itself again. when i get on a roll my fingers cannot keep up with my brain. also with my goofy computer art, the best ones were always the ones that i did not preconceive too much. sometimes even complete accidents work out well!
as my favorite brother likes to text, it’s “ctawtiabb” here. (colder than a… we both have kept our juvenile sense of humor). so in the spirit of Xty’s post, consider for a moment all the homeless members of the “free shit army” today. and to any of you heartless wing-nuts reading this, admittedly doubtful, but who think that people descend into poverty intentionally, or even willingly, let me tell you from first hand experience, that you are dead wrong. you have been sold a bill of goods. for your own sakes, i hope that you wake up before it is too late, because karma is a bitch. well i can’t prove that, but i’m taking no chances!
so the sun is out, and so am i. tschüß!
I am obviously engaging in non confrontational behaviour – of course we should be able to post things that we agree with and disagree with and anywhere in between without fear of reprisal. Keeping a civil tongue is very important to me.
The loathsome Duggars of 19 kids and counting and believing ludicrous things about evolution apparently attempt to praise their kids ten times for every criticism and those kids are very good to one another.
I haven’t finished listening to this, but it is very interesting:
Joshua Greene on Moral Tribes, Moral Dilemmas, and Utilitarianism
We are definitely freezing the balls off the brass monkeys here, but I cannot figure out the rest of your anagram except the wt which I think must be a witch’s tit, notorious for being cold. Which usually men think is a good thing in a tit.
my only defense of my style is that boundaries get pushed when they are not defended. if i have to admit a fault, it is that i let things go to far, and then react to the events leading up to, and to the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, all at once, rather than nipping things in the bud. so neither way is completely right i suppose, as i segue into the trolley example…
i consider utilitarian ideas useful. the trolley dilemma though is a tough one. i will read that transcript if i find the time. i am not doing what i should be doing right now, as it is.
you are correct about the copper and zinc alloy, while the other “b” refers to the woman’s undergarment that normally would keep those “t”s supported as well as at least a little warmer. 🙂
I was not trying to single you out. All is understood, as much as all can be!
Post away, DP. It’s a new year, the usual time for turning a new leaf, and all that jazz.
old Van, and bass.
I should hope so: