Being who we are, even if FOO is different and doesn't like it

[New Leaf]

We were taught that we didn't matter.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

We do matter, Leafy. Every smallest part of everything matters very much to the whole, to the tapestry being woven.

"At the touch of Eternity, we will know."

I am not sure who's words those were. A nun who was a mystic spoke them I think. In the Middle Ages. Julian of Norwich, maybe?

We are meant to be whole, Leafy.

We are doing good, good work here together.

Thank you.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar, I started reading that book I posted about by the psychiatrist Peter Breggins I heard on NPR and found so, so kind. Guilt, Shame and Anxiety. While I cannot comment on more than the first 10 pages, it is fascinating. It ties in completely with what we have been working on with respect to the emotions of a child.

He calls these emotions the legacy emotions from like half a million years ago, when they were indispensable to making humans human and talks about how they go haywire in abused and neglected children.

I hated sleeping in the master bedroom and hated the bed. I did not sleep. And now my beloved bed and haven no longer exist.

This is day 2 of agony. I did sleep better I think because M moved the dogs' kennels and I knew my baby Dolly was there with me. Romy, too. Poor Romy.

I am in such pain I did not get up until 11:30. And that was after another codeine.

While I was sleeping M put back together our old bed, now in what used to be the dogs' room (because I was saying that it was the other bed's fault.) I was so happy.

In time, could M's den become an office for you both?

There is a table where both of us could work, if we want.

The idea was to get his Spanish TV out of the center of the house. The only thing I can stand is the futball (soccer). So, now he has a getaway (not yet, because the TV is not set up.)

Right next to that room will be my study/studio-type room, where M set up our old bed. It was not my fervent hope that a double bed be in there but I am so happy it is there...it may have to stay. I hope I do not retreat again.

Then there is a third room which is off the dining room/foyer area which will be the sewing room/library/movie room with the projector. It has french doors to the great room area. We will have 3 rooms for work. One mainly his. One mainly mine. One for joint use.

The master bedroom is apart on the other side of the great room.

There is room-aplenty.

I tried the baking soda/vinegar on the scum build up on my kitchen sink. It worked great but seems to have taken off the porcelain's shine. It was fun.

Somehow though, we are (I am) still curving the hurt of it back onto myself for the empowerment in taking that kind of control rather than just sitting with what it feels like.

I will think about this, Cedar. I do not think you seek empowerment.

I think we take responsibility for having caused it all habitually in the same manner we did insulate ourselves from the horrors of our childhood and the fear of abandonment.

The thing is: If you were to let go of the fiction that you are responsible, you would step into the wonderful reality of yourself and your life. It is not 55 years ago. It is now. With yourself and your D H and Paco and Sarah and us and everybody else that forms your world now.

Everything bad that happened you have already faced. You have just been carrying it over your head like that Goddess figure that holds the globe in her arms over her own head. I do not remember her name.

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That is the message he is sending.

T.N.H.

I agree. But the help he needs is in himself, for him to seek from others, not his mother. There are so many parallels to my own son who has treated me badly out of his own pain. To our sons, we remain part of them. We can never be the solution. Not any longer.

Our sons have to decide to help themselves. For some reason, still, my son feels there is no remedy for him. No matter how many times I have suggested therapy or the Zen Buddhist Center or college or any other thing....he negates it. It has to come from him, if at all. That is why this is so hard. As long as we stay focused upon them, we are both helpless and responsible. Just like we were as children. What a setup.

Without the capacity of listening deeply, we cannot understand, and without understanding, love is not real; love is not possible.

T.N.H.

As long as we blame ourselves, and continue believing this is about us we cannot be present to them. We make it about ourselves. I think your son sees this. He needs you to let go in yourself of your culpability.

We keep yelling me, me, it's me, I am the guilty one...blame me, let me solve it. It's my fault. Please. Please. We get in the way.

And from that may come the contempt. We are almost groveling. I mean, think about how sloppy it is.

Like the time I went with my son to the Big City to make sure he got to the Doctor's appointment, and became so stressed out I was physically ill and ended up having to stay at Peet's Coffee, which is like Starbucks. And the whole day was wrecked because the train was late. Or when I signed up for the college courses to make sure he did his homework.

I mean how disgusting can one mother get? How debased. Groveling would be a kind word. Of course my son was contemptuous of me. I am too. Except I forgive myself.

So, he is writing about the self, here.

Well, I guess I missed the point. And made another one.

We are that important, that valuable, that alive and aware, too. It isn't about the other guy. This is about us.

Yes. That is right. I am thinking Margaret Thatcher here: Don't get wobbly George. (in the lead up to the Gulf War.) Why I am going there, I do not know.

Speaking of which, it was the baking soda, and not the vinegar

Now you tell me. I created a chemical reaction in my kitchen, having a great deal of fun eliminating the shine off the porcelain of my sink.

You are cold turkeying it, Copa. I am so pleased for you. I am sure it is hard to do this. Claim it. Claim all of it Copa and M and your life, too.

M was so content last night when I sat on the sofa at his side, as he watched his "futball." I tried on all my new earrings for him so he could decide which ones looked good. I told him, I'm sorry, with me here you can't lie down. That's OK, he said.

I am in so much pain.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

He calls these emotions the legacy emotions from like half a million years ago, when they were indispensable to making humans human and talks about how they go haywire in abused and neglected children.

I will order the book, Copa.

Thank you.

:O)

While I was sleeping M put back together our old bed, now in what used to be the dogs' room (because I was saying that it was the other bed's fault.) I was so happy.

I am glad, Copa. I hope you are so much better tomorrow, after sleeping in your own bed again.

M is good to you.

I tried the baking soda/vinegar on the scum build up on my kitchen sink. It worked great but seems to have taken off the porcelain's shine. It was fun.

I fill a spray bottle with a mix of 1/3 rubbing alcohol to 2/3 water. Add a drop of Dawn. This is the best window /mirror / stove / countertop / porcelain shining / faucets shiny cleaner ever. Or, use an alcohol wipe on the faucets. They will sparkle and have no streaks. Use a squeegee when washing windows or large mirrors. No streaks with the alcohol solution. Cleans and shines anything.

It turned out to be the baking soda that took the film off. Today, I finished the floors without any vinegar. It worked beautifully. It must be that the soda breaks some chemical bond or something. I have tried everything to clean those floors.

Now, they are so clean it's like a blessing.

I think we take responsibility for having caused it all habitually in the same manner we did insulate ourselves from the horrors of our childhood and the fear of abandonment.

I think so too, Copa.

To our sons, we remain part of them. We can never be the solution. Not any longer.

Our sons have to decide to help themselves. For some reason, still, my son feels there is no remedy for him. No matter how many times I have suggested therapy or the Zen Buddhist Center or college or any other thing....he negates it. It has to come from him, if at all. That is why this is so hard. As long as we stay focused upon them, we are both helpless and responsible. Just like we were as children. What a setup.

Both helpless and responsible....

I will think about this, Copa.

Or when I signed up for the college courses to make sure he did his homework.

Ha! Copa, even I have never done that.

:O)

I mean how disgusting can one mother get? How debased. Groveling would be a kind word. Of course my son was contemptuous of me. I am too. Except I forgive myself.

Good.

I will forgive myself, too.

M was so content last night when I sat on the sofa at his side, as he watched his "futball." I tried on all my new earrings for him so he could decide which ones looked good.

That's so nice, Copa. I am happy for you, and for M.

Feel better, Copa.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

How are you doing New Leaf? I hope you check in tonight.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

Or, use an alcohol wipe on the faucets.

Cedar, the kind of alcohol wipe to clean a wound, that you would find by the bandaid's or is this a cleaning product?

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Hi Copa and Cedar checking in but I am headed out to pick up my boy for paddling practice. Will check back after.
I am excited to read about Taoism and Winnie the Pooh.
Hope your back is better Copa. Ouch.
Cedar I hope Tai Chi was relaxing.
Feeling, I hope the flu bug doesn't stay too long with you.
Ok sisters time to go. By the time I get home, you may all be in bed.
Sweet dreams and clean houses!
leafy
Ps I use vinegar and baking soda in my oven and greasy pans. Also dawn and vinegar in my tubs- shiny house, shiny life!
Malama pono!

 

[Copabanana]

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. I debated whether to send her an email wishing her a happy birthday.

It entered my mind in a new way. Even when things were on the surface OK I did not send cards or call.

I told myself I was not the sort to send cards or call. What does that mean? Indifferent? Callous? Selfish? Or wounded? I would call my mother and give her late presents, if at all. My sister, not at all.

So it was unusual to say the least that I remembered my sister on her birthday, and thought of acknowledging it.

All the reasons to not do it came to my mind.

And I decided to not do it because: I do not much like her. She has treated me very badly. She will use it as an opportunity to hurt me if she responds. (Like: I cannot forget how you forced our mother to decide who to take care of her, and she chose you--a fiction.) Or to hurt me by not responding.

So, I decided to not write the email.

M had said if you do it, do it for yourself. Not for anything she does or does not do. For how you want to be and feel about yourself.

So all of a sudden, I did not care how she responded. It didn't matter one way or another. It was not about her. It was only about me.

At 11pm I sent the email. Just like that. It entered my head to do it and I did it: I am thinking of you on your birthday and hope you had a good one.

Not asking for anything at all. Because there is nothing I want or need from her. It is not about her. That is what had changed.

So M just now asked me if my sister had responded. I had forgotten all about it. I didn't even remember. A big ho hum. After I did it it seemed like such a big nothing.

But I checked my email, and she had not responded. Still, ho hum. Kind of.

I want to write here why I did it. Why I sent the email.

Like M said, I did it for me. I knew I had changed a great deal vis a vis my sister. She, who used to loom so large, had shrunk so small in my psyche. I was no longer afraid of her. The physical person or the intra-psychic one.

As I read this through again I think about, is it the 3 little pigs, with the straw, wood and then stone house? I am now a stone house. (I hope that makes sense in the story.)

I guess I needed to show myself, in a manner that was concrete and demonstrable, how strong I have become.

In a way, it was one more step to pushing her back into her cave. Where she belongs. I showed myself. I may even have done it to show her.

She has come to be somebody for whom I feel mild compassion, and about whom I have become close to indifferent. The mean things she has done to me seem so infantile, rude and unimportant.

Really, she is boorish and inconsequential. Maybe I doth protest too much, here. So will only add, my mother's attorney thought she was kind of wacky. And I am seeing that too.

Sometimes, I miss her somewhat, because she is the only one left of my family of birth. But nothing more than that. I recognize I do not really miss her. I miss my family. She cannot bring them back. And really she is not a link to what is gone. only to the pain of it.

With you guys I have worked very, very hard in these months, just 6 and a half.

Today M looked at the number of posts in this time: close to 2k and he acted surprised. In maybe 180 or 190 days that is 10 a day. A lot of changing in 10 posts a day.

Thank you all.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

In a way, it was one more step to pushing her back into her cave. Where she belongs. I showed myself. I may even have done it to show her.

When I was thinking of whether or not to write her, I thought: She will think I am missing her. She will think of it as a surrender, and that I now realize I was wrong. She will think I am capitulating. She will think of it as an opportunity to humiliate me.

If I look at those things that I imagined in her: humiliate, capitulate, lack, surrender, were ideas in me.

All of those thoughts in me were giving her the win I believe she needs and has sought over me. My prostration before her. In my own head.

And in each and every thought I was doing it to myself.

I see now that what she wants does not matter to me one iota. Everything she ever did was about her: Not about me. I do not have to accept it.

I am thinking of Cedar's D H here with respect to his own siblings. He could care less their machinations. He does not permit it to touch him. He could care less. Unless it does. I forget the exact words of the Michael Corleone 3. My circle is small. Show me respect. Don't Fxxk me over.

I am thinking back these 3 years: I have turned into Michael Corleone.

COPA

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Cedar, the kind of alcohol wipe to clean a wound, that you would find by the bandaid's or is this a cleaning product?

The kind to clean a wound. It cuts through grease without leaving a soapy residue. Or, just keep a bottle of rubbing alcohol under the kitchen sink to clean the faucet and handles with. Use a dry cloth and polish other shiny surfaces, as well. Like the microwave, inside and out, or all the dials and things on the stove. Rubbing alcohol will make them all shine with no streaks or prints.

I use the 1/3 rubbing alcohol, 2/3 water, drop of Dawn in a spray bottle to clean everything but wood. D H and I think you need to rinse the sink with lots of water Copa to being the shine back to the porcelain.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

We do matter, Leafy. Every smallest part of everything matters very much to the whole, to the tapestry being woven.

Yes we do matter Cedar, and we always did.
I didn't know it so much back then, or even in the recent past.
As I am examining it, I am learning to step away from it, to grow more from it. Although the lessons were painful, they did make me, me. Giving meaning to the pain of it.

Like the butterfly story, struggling out of the cocoon.
The butterfly, must struggle, to strengthen the wings to fly.

If I look at my past experiences as lessons that bring me to where I am today, it opens up a whole new world for me.
I can accept, even, what my d cs are going through, in hopes that they will learn and grow from it.
I don't like it, but it is what it is.

I can understand that I have no control over it.
I can separate myself from it.

I can control what I allow in my household, and how I view myself, through my eyes.

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Also dawn and vinegar in my tubs- shiny house, shiny life!

Dawn and vinegar?

I have not done this, Leafy. I am thinking it would work beautifully. Do you use just a few drops of Dawn? I can't believe I never thought of this.

Shiny house, shiny life is perfectly right, Leafy. I love it when things are in order and shiny clean and everything smells good. Here is an interesting thing. A lady attorney got married, and they bought a house. And when she realized how complex, and how much there was to do to keep a home (and our lives) running smoothly, she wrote a book on homemaking.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/79388.Home_Comforts

Here is a free, online homemaking site:

http://www.flylady.net/

I love flylady.

And a site having to do with any question regarding home or garden or decorating or building or selling or landscaping a home. Or with leaky basements or electrical problems or pretty much, anything you can think of. Needlework, travel, packing luggage, even. There are reams of pictures having to do with decorating and paint colors and dream bathrooms and kitchens and entryways. One of my favorite sites until Houz or someone took it over, but still a very nice site. The site is free. If you have questions, post and you will be amazed at the helpful advice you will receive about anything in the world, at all.

In fact, that site is where I learned about Conduct Disorders.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Although the lessons were painful, they did make me, me. Giving meaning to the pain of it.

I agree with that but I think the meaning of the hurt of it might be to learn which part of our experiences is us. I wish better words would come. I mean to say that: When we are blasted right out of our socks by unbelievable things we cannot encompass, we grow to envelope and encompass and the entity doing the encompassing is us, is who we are, is that part of us that can come present when distractions recede.

Okay.

So I used more words, but I still don't know whether those were helpful words, or just more words.

It's like...it's getting very roomy in here, now that it is quiet. It does seem that suffering is a choice determined by our thinking. It does seem that we cannot know anything about anything, at all.

So we just show up.

Okay.

So, that's more words.

When I am suffering, I know only that I suffer.

Like the butterfly story, struggling out of the cocoon.
The butterfly, must struggle, to strengthen the wings to fly.

Maybe I am being contrary this morning, Leafy. But you know what imagery came for me from your words? The hushed time between leaving the cocoon and the wings becoming dry and serviceable and breathtakingly perfect.
A time of hushed silence, the butterfly dazzled, maybe. (Or the dragonfly, which is somehow my imagery, darting and flashing iridescent to the butterfly's graceful, fluttering ascent.)

Like the quiet between words or the space between stars, that time between times.

Hushed, and expectant.

I imagine that is what it would be like, for the butterfly, or the dragon fly, in between times. Did you know Leafy that the dragonfly lives under the water for a number of years in the form of something that looks like a spider? When it is time, the spidery looking thing crawls out of the water, its skin drying and cracking a little more with each step until, hardly able to move now, the newt attaches to something. The wind dries the covering more and it breaks and the dragonfly pulls itself free.

And waits for the wind and sun to dry its wings.

And before all of that happens? The mosquitoes the dragonfly feeds on will have hatched, and will be numerous. And isn't that something, how complex everything really is. When I think about these things, I realize I know nothing, at all.

They say that is when we can see. Because we don't think we already know what we are looking at.

Okay.

So, that's more words.

:O)

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. I debated whether to send her an email wishing her a happy birthday.

It is the pebble in the still pond, the thought.
You thought of her birthday Copa.
When was the last time you thought of sisters birthday, and sent a note?

She has come to be somebody for whom I feel mild compassion, and about whom I have become close to indifferent. The mean things she has done to me seem so infantile, rude and unimportant.

It is what I have gone through with Attilla too, Copa.
To understand her as my antagonist in many things, but again, to feel a compassion for her, as my sister, my family.
If I see her as she has done to me, I am not really seeing the full picture.
I have come to learn that I have an empathy for her, that her actions have come from an emptiness inside of her.
It wasn't that I didn't matter, it was her feelings about herself, all along.
"She doth protest too much, me thinks."
How sad, to live ones life, thinking to have the upper hand, control, dominance as all important.
Yet there are endearing qualities to her.
I shall focus on this.The good I see in her. But, I shan't forget to guard myself as well.

Sometimes, I miss her somewhat, because she is the only one left of my family of birth. But nothing more than that. I recognize I do not really miss her. I miss my family. She cannot bring them back. And really she is not a link to what is gone. only to the pain of it.

Perhaps she has changed? Perhaps not. But you have changed, Copa, you have grown from this.

At 11pm I sent the email. Just like that. It entered my head to do it and I did it: I am thinking of you on your birthday and hope you had a good one.

It was a beautiful thought Copa.

So all of a sudden, I did not care how she responded. It didn't matter one way or another. It was not about her. It was only about me.

You thought of her birthday and you sent a loving note. That is what counts. Your actions, from you.

All of those thoughts in me were giving her the win I believe she needs and has sought over me. My prostration before her. In my own head.

And in each and every thought I was doing it to myself.

I wonder too, if sister has come from and empty place, as Attilla has? The need to have the upper hand, to have control. What did she walk away with? It is sad.
That you came back and cared for your mother as a loving daughter, that is a memory you can hold dear.
This is why I do not need to ask my mom for anything. My sister has the need for this, and that. I do not. It would be nice, but I do not need things as Attilla feels she does. It is not a contest to me, or a reflection of my moms love.
It is sad to me that there is an emptiness needed to be filled in such a way.

I am thinking of Cedar's D H here with respect to his own siblings. He could care less their machinations. He does not permit it to touch him. He could care less. Unless it does. I forget the exact words of the Michael Corleone 3. My circle is small. Show me respect. Don't Fxxk me over.

I am thinking back these 3 years: I have turned into Michael Corleone.

Good for you Copa. Simply marvelous.

leafy

 

[New Leaf]

Dawn and vinegar?
I have not done this, Leafy. I am thinking it would work beautifully. Do you use just a few drops of Dawn? I can't believe I never thought of this.

Yes dawn and vinegar, it's kind of messy, in a spray bottle, warm 1 cup of vinegar in the microwave, add 1/4 cup of dawn, put mixture in spray bottle and gently shake to mix (it will fizz a bit) Spray on tub and let it sit for up to two hours. Scrub. Rinse. It gets my shower sparkly clean and actually, it stays clean longer. I got the recipe on www.pinterest.com, I love Pinterest, it has all kinds of ideas. I actually modified the recipe, it called for way more Dawn than it needed (maybe Dawn did that? Clever Dawn people).

One of my favorite sites until Houz or someone took it over, but still a very nice site. The site is free. If you have questions, post and you will be amazed at the helpful advice you will receive about anything in the world, at all.

Thank you for sharing Cedar, I will look at the site.
leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

If I look at my past experiences as lessons that bring me to where I am today, it opens up a whole new world for me.
I can accept, even, what my d cs are going through, in hopes that they will learn and grow from it.
I don't like it, but it is what it is.

It does for me too, but I don't know what the Hell "it is" is. I am like former president Clinton in that way.

Ha!

Now, that was funny, you guys.

But I do mean it when I post that I don't know what any of this is or what it means or why it happens as it does. I see that each person suffers the, okay ~ the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, right? Each person seems almost to have tailor made experience, to lose that thing that means everything to them.

I do see that.

If we talk to enough people, we do see that.

It is complex, like the dragonfly and the mosquitoes, both beginning their lives in the same waters, prey for the same enemies, becoming the one who devours and one who provides, and in the end, both breeding before they die.

How could this be?

But it is.

Huh.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

Maybe I am being contrary this morning, Leafy. But you know what imagery came for me from your words? The hushed time between leaving the cocoon and the wings becoming dry and serviceable and breathtakingly perfect.
A time of hushed silence, the butterfly dazzled, maybe. (Or the dragonfly, which is somehow my imagery, darting and flashing iridescent to the butterfly's graceful, fluttering ascent.)

I see this too, Cedar. Actually, I was referring to a post, that referenced the butterfly emerging from the cocoon and someone trying to help the butterfly- with enabling. The person saw the butterfly struggling and helped to tear the cocoon open. The wings were not ripped, but did not develop well, because butterflies need to struggle to break out of the cocoon for the wings to develop properly for flight.

I was seeing it in that sense. That what ever we have gone through, painful or pleasant, is a part of our lives, a part of what shapes us. We do not have control over what happens to us, but we do have control of how we choose to view it.
Perhaps, when we were younger, it made us feel lesser, than, that we didn't matter, it restricted our growth? Like a cocoon?

In the struggle to break free from the cocoon, looking back at the remnants of it, we can choose how we see those pieces.

We can't change what happened to us. We can change how we see it.

The past, a lesson. The present, a gift. The future unknown.

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

M had said if you do it, do it for yourself. Not for anything she does or does not do. For how you want to be and feel about yourself.

So all of a sudden, I did not care how she responded. It didn't matter one way or another. It was not about her. It was only about me.

At 11pm I sent the email. Just like that. It entered my head to do it and I did it: I am thinking of you on your birthday and hope you had a good one.

This is like fireworks in the night sky, Copa.

Growth.

BOOM

:O)

As I read this through again I think about, is it the 3 little pigs, with the straw, wood and then stone house? I am now a stone house. (I hope that makes sense in the story.)

You are not only the house of stone Copa, but the person who conceived of its necessity and saw it through to completion and created safe harbor. In the fairy tale, the other little pigs come to the house of stone, and find shelter, there.

I guess I needed to show myself, in a manner that was concrete and demonstrable, how strong I have become.

You know what I think? I think that when we make it through, there is Nietzsche's love ~ what came first, what we really are beneath it all.

There was no longer reason not to extend great good will. Without fear, without angst, there seems only to be great good will.

Maybe this is true.

In a way, it was one more step to pushing her back into her cave. Where she belongs. I showed myself. I may even have done it to show her.

Yes, I agree. A way of pronouncing your own name.

Right out loud, with clarity and perfect diction.

She has come to be somebody for whom I feel mild compassion, and about whom I have become close to indifferent. The mean things she has done to me seem so infantile, rude and unimportant.

They do now Copa because you are different. You are whole and strong again in a way you may not have been, before. Remember when I used to post that once D H and I had become vulnerable because our family was falling apart, that it seemed my family of origin went on the attack? This is the same thing, in a way. The attacks were always happening, but we were immune. When we became vulnerable, when you lost your mother and your son became sick...the attacks that were happening all along became blatant, the weapons used less knives and teeth than like, bulldozers.

No subtlety, because our vulnerability sets them almost into blood frenzy.

But the attacks were conceived and launched out of their shortcomings and our vulnerability. All it ever took to unravel the hurt and betrayal was becoming stronger, ourselves.

Take shunning.

Here is the answer: "My circle is small."

Answer #2: "Loyalty matters."

Answer #3: "Never f*** me over."

That's the answer.

Centered; coming back to center.

No longer enmeshed, we see which behaviors are ours and which, theirs. We see that enmeshment place, and unravel it, simple and clean.

Interesting that we are discussing natural cleaning products, today.

There's that dragonfly / mosquito circle, again.

Really, she is boorish and inconsequential. Maybe I doth protest too much, here. So will only add, my mother's attorney thought she was kind of wacky. And I am seeing that too.

You are still coming through I think, Copa.

Like me.

Sometimes, I miss her somewhat, because she is the only one left of my family of birth. But nothing more than that. I recognize I do not really miss her. I miss my family. She cannot bring them back. And really she is not a link to what is gone. only to the pain of it.

I think it is Nietzsche's love theory again. There becomes less and less reason not to love. The thing to remember is that we are the only ones who have changed. I don't know whether we would be vulnerable to them still, or whether we would see so clearly the motivation that we would feel compassion for us all.

I think those we love are simply those we love. (Anne Rice said that.)

They will always elicit response.

They are our witnesses, as we are theirs.

Cedar

This is all theoretic, you guys. In real life, there is pain and confusion and struggle to place ourselves, and to stay upright before letting the wind take us.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

The person saw the butterfly struggling and helped to tear the cocoon open. The wings were not ripped, but did not develop well, because butterflies need to struggle to break out of the cocoon for the wings to develop properly for flight.

I love this.

Cedar

 

[New Leaf]

I love this.

Cedar

me too.

leafy