I forget almost nothing, especially the Bible stories that my babysitter Betsy told me. She'd read to me, my sister, and my friend K, mostly the words of Christ in red. There is something violent and understated about the Bible, something that scares you and comforts you all at the same time. So much dark and so much light trapped in the same people. And you had to forgive from what I could tell even as a child, which, let's face it, is so hard under the best of circumstances. How many times do we believe we have let go of something only to be laid low by the pain again? How many bodies do we insist on carrying around, their rotting carcasses killing our own souls? I once knew a child who died by suffocating to death in an abandoned refrigerator. I think of him often, that lack of air in such a small space, waiting to be found before it was too late. And so it is with our own minds, trying hard to find our way out.
The best advice I ever got about love was from a teeny-tiny professor (speciality -- the Victorians) who reminded me of my mother in her physical appearance and energy. "You've got to give people the vices of their virtues," she said. This seemed an incredibly compassionate and wise statement from a woman who normally said things like, Get tough or get out. This is not an office for wuss babies! Even though she was barely five feet tall, her words packed a punch. Damn, I didn't want to be a wuss baby! No sir. But I think of her words often, and I try to be more understanding. It's better than being trapped. Still, sometimes I can't help it and I crawl somewhere I shouldn't, somewhere dangerous and best left alone and pray that I can find my way out before it kills me.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people." Annie Leibovitz
Cocktail Hour
Here's my Sunday suggestion -- a beautiful Bloody Mary with a little beer friend! Baby Grouchie drank some of this beer, just so you know.
Benedictions and MaledictionsHappy Sunday!
7 comments:
how do you write next to a picture?
Hey there Ropinator,
I'm not entirely sure! Whatever happens with computer placement is a mystery. I think it helps if you go into the html code. Thanks so much for all the kind comments!
My Friend, my compassionate, open, unguarded, sweet friend, if we were only fortunate enough to have USB ports in our heads where we could transfers life's files through a simple cable hook up.
All of the sacred texts that I have ever read are both dark and light. That is the nature of man created in God's image so anything written would of necessity reflect that Spirit. The One who created mortal life also created mortal death.
But we only need to let go of something that hurts us once, and if we truly let it go then it is become a memory, albeit some of them make us sad; but they can no longer harm us. Drag us down to despair, but the letting go to some feels like throwing something precious on the trash heap and even though we think we have done that every time we look in our back pocket, they are still there.
Similar to Bilbo Baggins and the ring of power...so hard to let go, but eventually he did it and went on and lived his life out with the memories of it but was able to finish his book, with the ring as an integral part of it.
Every living person has death touch them some more than others but the suffocating nature of it is different for everyone.
Myself I remember all I have ever known who have died and at my age it's more than a few as well. Yet I only remember them, I don't try to keep them alive in my mind or heart. I leave them to sleep, to be in their rest and am grateful for that rest for them.
That place you speak of that you sometimes can't help yourself from crawling into, is a place you do not belong. It is a place you can be, but still not belong sort of like me being at an alcohol only party. I simply don't belong there because it could cause me great upheaval.
It will not kill you in anyway it is a place you should not be.
For the dead who sleep wish to be left to sleep and when you go there to visit their soul you wake them and that is the unnaturally overpowering sadness that makes one of your greatest virtues, the capacity to love, into a vice.
One by one kiss each of them you do not let sleep good-bye a last time and let them go where they can be at peace.
Give them the respect of your good memories of them and leave that place of your hunger for them to itself. You will be there when it is time for you to be there as will I and all humans.
Peace Great Peace upon you.
So true, about the corpses we carry with us. Sometimes a memory of past pain will strike me so hard that I gasp out loud, and most often it is not my pain but the pain of another that causes this. The pain of my child has the strongest chance of doing this, but other pains can as well. I think about Jon Benet Ramsey's last moments, for example, or many others.
If only one day I could be as talented (and dedicated) as you, Michelle!
I was reading Joyce Carol Oates biography online and thought wow, what a seriously brilliant and dedicated fucking person. She's beyond amazing, cranking out books like she does and stories and totally off the wall shit sometimes too.
Thanks for giving me insight into the world.
Did Grouchie fall off the wagon again?
Wasn't he was going to court ordered AA meetings??
:-/
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