AWW ~ 10/31/12
non-subject: turning point
************
"The Scrambler."
It is, or as least was, a ride at the fair. Like a giant steel spider with bent legs extending from a central pole with a short metal bench seat at the end of each leg, the contraption whirled round and round. I have no idea why I liked "The Scrambler."
I liked "The Zipper" too.
Cages, in which we sat in an almost standing position, were attached somehow to the part of the ride that took us up and around like a ferris wheel. As two of us stood-sat in the cage our hands held to some bars in front of us and we would rock the cage so that we were spinning upside down while the ferris wheel-like contraption took us around and around.
In September, 1974, I went to the Catawba County Fair with Ron and Beth and Mike. Ron and I were not dating at the time; we were pot-smoking buddies.
Ron was overweight and his nickname was Fatman. But he didn't mind; he seemed to like the nickname. He had straight jet black hair that almost reached his shoulders. His eyes were brown and he had high cheek bones, like an American Indian.
Ron was from the rougher side of town, Longview. His grandparents had raised he and his brother after their parents were killed in an auto accident. Ron called his Grandma "Mom" and his grandpa "Pop." "Mom" dipped snuff and always had her spitoon handy. Ron's family raised rabbits and we'd often have a meal with rabbit meat.
I was from the side of town that had more money, Hillcrest area, near The Pines. I was petite and athletic. I could turn the eyes of most guys. My legs were one of my sexiest qualities...and my belly button, so I was told.
In September, 1974, I was 15 years old; Ron was at least 16.
As Mike and Beth and Ron and I walked the hard-packed dirt fairway filled with people between the various rides and side shows and food tents, I thought, "I could make myself fall in love with Ron. I bet he hasn't had many girlfriends." And that night, I decided that I would drop hints. I'm not sure what and how I dropped hints, but Ron got the message.
We became an item, Fatman and Carol. With Fatman, I fully entered the realm of psychedelic drugs.
In September, 1974, we were at the Catawba County Fairgrounds. The lights and smells and sounds were real.
In October, 1974, I lay in Catawba Memorial Hospital. The Intensive Care Unit was real. The three pods of jimson seeds I had ingested were real.
The aquarium and the royal king and the rape and the stadium and the witch doctors and the flesh-eating roaches - they weren't real, except in my psyche.
Today is Halloween, 2012. Those images from that October, 1974, four-day dance with the devil's weed are still vivid. I can almost smell them.
**********
October 31, 2012
October 27, 2012
Turning Points
AWW
non-subject: a breakdown
***************
I am not a good business owner.
By that I mean, I don't handle ownership stress well.
Hubby says my standards are too high and I take on responsibility (or blame) for things for which I am not responsible.
For me, business ownership has been like having a baby. It's been a 24/7 challenge. Not that I work 24/7, but I am attached to it 24/7.
This isn't a complaint, but rather a reality that I am dealing with and learning to manage. Recently, I haven't done well at managing it.
Currently, in addition to my business, I am working at my previous job as a miniature-art studio manager while the current manager and help are out of the country for a month. It's me and the owner and I've recruited both my adult children to help out too.
Recently I have had a flare-up of serum sickness causing weakness and tenderness in my hands and feet and causing fatigue. I wouldn't be surprised if the flare-up is simply from stressors. I know I somaticize and my current vulnerable point is this cursed serum sickness.
In mid-November I travel one day to New York for the hearing in regard to my ex-therapist. Gawd; that has me in knots. I'll be glad when that is done, done, done. I may and probably will still write about the god-awful experience that has been ongoing for the last two years. But, at least the fiasco will be done...unless the ex-therapist chooses to (again) retaliate in some fashion. If that were to happen, I think I'd just call my lawyer and see what I could/should do. My lawyer is also an ex-SBI undercover agent and works in law enforcement...so he knows options.
The next three weeks I simply need to pace myself each day.
I am so looking forward toward the latter part of November when all this is finished. Probably then, I'll find something else to worry over. Ha!
But, I have told myself that the latter part of November may never come.
Tomorrow may never come.
Today, to live in the present, is the important thing.
To live today, to know gratitude, to help a fellow traveler, to breathe and move and know life...that is.
It is autumn. The leaves are turning....and they are golden.
*************
non-subject: a breakdown
***************
I am not a good business owner.
By that I mean, I don't handle ownership stress well.
Hubby says my standards are too high and I take on responsibility (or blame) for things for which I am not responsible.
For me, business ownership has been like having a baby. It's been a 24/7 challenge. Not that I work 24/7, but I am attached to it 24/7.
This isn't a complaint, but rather a reality that I am dealing with and learning to manage. Recently, I haven't done well at managing it.
Currently, in addition to my business, I am working at my previous job as a miniature-art studio manager while the current manager and help are out of the country for a month. It's me and the owner and I've recruited both my adult children to help out too.
Recently I have had a flare-up of serum sickness causing weakness and tenderness in my hands and feet and causing fatigue. I wouldn't be surprised if the flare-up is simply from stressors. I know I somaticize and my current vulnerable point is this cursed serum sickness.
In mid-November I travel one day to New York for the hearing in regard to my ex-therapist. Gawd; that has me in knots. I'll be glad when that is done, done, done. I may and probably will still write about the god-awful experience that has been ongoing for the last two years. But, at least the fiasco will be done...unless the ex-therapist chooses to (again) retaliate in some fashion. If that were to happen, I think I'd just call my lawyer and see what I could/should do. My lawyer is also an ex-SBI undercover agent and works in law enforcement...so he knows options.
The next three weeks I simply need to pace myself each day.
I am so looking forward toward the latter part of November when all this is finished. Probably then, I'll find something else to worry over. Ha!
But, I have told myself that the latter part of November may never come.
Tomorrow may never come.
Today, to live in the present, is the important thing.
To live today, to know gratitude, to help a fellow traveler, to breathe and move and know life...that is.
It is autumn. The leaves are turning....and they are golden.
*************
October 22, 2012
Disjointed
I would never have survived a concentration camp; I don't have the stamina.
I would have worked my swollen fingers to the bone.
I would have struggled for breath.
I would have collapsed during work detail.
I would have been executed for being lazy and not strong enough.
I live a 'soft' life, so to speak.
I have work, clothing, food and drink.
I have a TV and a car.
I have air conditioning and heat.
I have a bed.
I have my health.
For food, all I do is open a cabinet or refrigerator door.
Or, I walk through a door and up to a counter. I speak my wish, hand a person a card or some pale green paper...and my gluttony is satisfied.
This past weekend, my husband met two young women who approached him while he worked in our yard. The young ladies introduced themselves.
A conversation ensued for at least an hour.
Both women were African American.
Both women were endeavoring to make their lives better through the PSI Transitioning Youth/Young Adults Program.
One woman was 19 years old.
She told Hubby that she wants to have a baby when she is 20.
Hubby said to her, "Don't do that. Wait. Wait until your 24 or 25."
When my husband stated to the 19-year old, "Wait..." the 27-year old's heart opened and she began to share her story.
She echoed my husband's words of advice to the 19-year old.
The 27-year old had gotten pregnant at 12 years of age.
Her father threw her out when he discovered she was pregnant.
So she went to live with her mother. Her mother was a crack addict.
The 27-year old birthed her first child at 13 years old while living with her crack-addict mother.
The 27-year old cared for her mother's other children and for her own baby.
She birthed her second child when she was 18 years old.
She said to my husband, "If I had had a father like you, my life would have turned out differently."
She asked him jokingly, "Would you like to adopt me? You'd have a couple of instant chocolate grand children."
They all laughed.
Hubby contributed to their sponsorship and ordered three magazines for donation and three to come to our home.
The 19 year old asked him, "Have you ever held a thousand dollars in your hand?"
He chuckled and answered, "Yes. But I wasn't 19; I was in my 40s before I ever held $1000.00 in my hand."
A couple nights prior to that Saturday afternoon fellowship between my husband and the two young ladies whom he invited inside, I bought a meal for a young homeless man. I would have liked to brought him home, but the last homeless person I brought to live with us...well, it didn't end well. Nothing horrific, but I keep my distance now from bringing in folks I don't know.
After I left the young man to his meal and drove home in the dark I thought, It would have been nice to have bought him a hotel room for the night. I'll have to remember that for one of my next deeds. But I wouldn't want to have a stranger in my car. These days, I'd have to have a very clear intuitive direction to do such a thing, to allow a stranger in my car alone with me.
I used to pick up strangers, in my younger days.
There are stories there too...
...like the guy who I dropped off at the edge of some woods where he said he lived...
...or the hitch hiker dude I picked up on Interstate 40 near Morganton and then immediately two unmarked police cars appear, one car pulls in front of me and one behind me, and then an officer knocks on my driver's window frantically shaking his head "NO!" with his eyes just as frantically talking to me without his voice ever muttering a word while the stranger in the passenger's seat beside me having locked his door verbally and frantically whispers for me to "GO. GO. GO."
I unlock the passenger's door and the officer at his door opens it and the stranger exits the car and I wonder later if I did the right thing by letting him go, that maybe he needed help more than he needed officers taking him in.
We all have stories.
I am not a good story teller.
Maybe I'll want to detail stories (again) when I have more time and energy.
My inclination and creativity for writing details has (again) waned.
The details tire me instead of inspire me.
The serum sickness recently reared its ugly symptoms again. I wore my compression gloves today to help the weakness and tenderness in my hands.
My feet are tender too. I may wear the compression socks again this week but I don't want to.
Still, I live on easy avenue.
I wonder where the strangers from past stories are now?
I wonder where the strangers from the current stories will be in the future?
I would have worked my swollen fingers to the bone.
I would have struggled for breath.
I would have collapsed during work detail.
I would have been executed for being lazy and not strong enough.
I live a 'soft' life, so to speak.
I have work, clothing, food and drink.
I have a TV and a car.
I have air conditioning and heat.
I have a bed.
I have my health.
For food, all I do is open a cabinet or refrigerator door.
Or, I walk through a door and up to a counter. I speak my wish, hand a person a card or some pale green paper...and my gluttony is satisfied.
This past weekend, my husband met two young women who approached him while he worked in our yard. The young ladies introduced themselves.
A conversation ensued for at least an hour.
Both women were African American.
Both women were endeavoring to make their lives better through the PSI Transitioning Youth/Young Adults Program.
One woman was 19 years old.
She told Hubby that she wants to have a baby when she is 20.
Hubby said to her, "Don't do that. Wait. Wait until your 24 or 25."
When my husband stated to the 19-year old, "Wait..." the 27-year old's heart opened and she began to share her story.
She echoed my husband's words of advice to the 19-year old.
The 27-year old had gotten pregnant at 12 years of age.
Her father threw her out when he discovered she was pregnant.
So she went to live with her mother. Her mother was a crack addict.
The 27-year old birthed her first child at 13 years old while living with her crack-addict mother.
The 27-year old cared for her mother's other children and for her own baby.
She birthed her second child when she was 18 years old.
She said to my husband, "If I had had a father like you, my life would have turned out differently."
She asked him jokingly, "Would you like to adopt me? You'd have a couple of instant chocolate grand children."
They all laughed.
Hubby contributed to their sponsorship and ordered three magazines for donation and three to come to our home.
The 19 year old asked him, "Have you ever held a thousand dollars in your hand?"
He chuckled and answered, "Yes. But I wasn't 19; I was in my 40s before I ever held $1000.00 in my hand."
A couple nights prior to that Saturday afternoon fellowship between my husband and the two young ladies whom he invited inside, I bought a meal for a young homeless man. I would have liked to brought him home, but the last homeless person I brought to live with us...well, it didn't end well. Nothing horrific, but I keep my distance now from bringing in folks I don't know.
After I left the young man to his meal and drove home in the dark I thought, It would have been nice to have bought him a hotel room for the night. I'll have to remember that for one of my next deeds. But I wouldn't want to have a stranger in my car. These days, I'd have to have a very clear intuitive direction to do such a thing, to allow a stranger in my car alone with me.
I used to pick up strangers, in my younger days.
There are stories there too...
...like the guy who I dropped off at the edge of some woods where he said he lived...
...or the hitch hiker dude I picked up on Interstate 40 near Morganton and then immediately two unmarked police cars appear, one car pulls in front of me and one behind me, and then an officer knocks on my driver's window frantically shaking his head "NO!" with his eyes just as frantically talking to me without his voice ever muttering a word while the stranger in the passenger's seat beside me having locked his door verbally and frantically whispers for me to "GO. GO. GO."
I unlock the passenger's door and the officer at his door opens it and the stranger exits the car and I wonder later if I did the right thing by letting him go, that maybe he needed help more than he needed officers taking him in.
We all have stories.
I am not a good story teller.
Maybe I'll want to detail stories (again) when I have more time and energy.
My inclination and creativity for writing details has (again) waned.
The details tire me instead of inspire me.
The serum sickness recently reared its ugly symptoms again. I wore my compression gloves today to help the weakness and tenderness in my hands.
My feet are tender too. I may wear the compression socks again this week but I don't want to.
Still, I live on easy avenue.
I wonder where the strangers from past stories are now?
I wonder where the strangers from the current stories will be in the future?
October 17, 2012
Momentoes
Life is a series of moments.
We collect momentoes.
Then in a moment, life ends.
Our momentoes are left behind.
I began a tradition when our children were young.
While on vacations, we would buy post cards. Each child would write something on the post card and then we would mail the cards home, to ourselves. Later I would have the post cards laminated, punch a hole in the top of the card, put a colored ribbon or a ornament hanger through the hole, and then I'd hang the card on the Christmas tree or on the greenery along the staircase at Christmas time.
Some day in the not-too-distant future, I'll pass the post cards along to my children; momentoes to recall each year as the Christmas decorations come out of hiding.
The Way avoided using the word "Christmas." We were taught it stood for "Christ" "Mass." We were taught "masses" represented death and dying.
In The Way we said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." What was "merry" about death? The devil was the author of death.
While in The Way, I never put up a manger scene that depicted angels with wings. Angels didn't have wings; that was fantasy. Angels appeared as men. I never had angels with wings in my home. If I wasn't careful, such trinkets could invite devil spirits into my home. Doctor always taught that everything puts off something.
In The Way, we sang "holiday" songs instead of "Christmas" songs. We would change the words to some of the songs.
Angels didn't "sing," they "spoke." So more accurately the well know Christmas song should be sung as "Hark the herald angels speak, glory to the newborn king."
And Mary was not a "virgin" when she gave birth to Jesus. Silent Night was more accurately sung as "round yon maiden mother and child."
But there were so many inaccuracies in holiday songs and festivals; we couldn't change them all.
But we knew the truth, and we would recall the truth regarding the holiday season.
Anymore I'd prefer skipping the holidays if I could. It seems since Mom died and my children are grown that I don't see the point of the holidays. Maybe I'll enjoy them again when and if I become a grandmother.
Dad died back in 1996.
Mom died in 2009.
All my aunts and uncles are deceased.
I never knew any of my grandparents.
But I have momentoes...somewhere.
We collect momentoes.
Then in a moment, life ends.
Our momentoes are left behind.
I began a tradition when our children were young.
While on vacations, we would buy post cards. Each child would write something on the post card and then we would mail the cards home, to ourselves. Later I would have the post cards laminated, punch a hole in the top of the card, put a colored ribbon or a ornament hanger through the hole, and then I'd hang the card on the Christmas tree or on the greenery along the staircase at Christmas time.
Some day in the not-too-distant future, I'll pass the post cards along to my children; momentoes to recall each year as the Christmas decorations come out of hiding.
The Way avoided using the word "Christmas." We were taught it stood for "Christ" "Mass." We were taught "masses" represented death and dying.
In The Way we said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." What was "merry" about death? The devil was the author of death.
While in The Way, I never put up a manger scene that depicted angels with wings. Angels didn't have wings; that was fantasy. Angels appeared as men. I never had angels with wings in my home. If I wasn't careful, such trinkets could invite devil spirits into my home. Doctor always taught that everything puts off something.
In The Way, we sang "holiday" songs instead of "Christmas" songs. We would change the words to some of the songs.
Angels didn't "sing," they "spoke." So more accurately the well know Christmas song should be sung as "Hark the herald angels speak, glory to the newborn king."
And Mary was not a "virgin" when she gave birth to Jesus. Silent Night was more accurately sung as "round yon maiden mother and child."
But there were so many inaccuracies in holiday songs and festivals; we couldn't change them all.
But we knew the truth, and we would recall the truth regarding the holiday season.
Anymore I'd prefer skipping the holidays if I could. It seems since Mom died and my children are grown that I don't see the point of the holidays. Maybe I'll enjoy them again when and if I become a grandmother.
Dad died back in 1996.
Mom died in 2009.
All my aunts and uncles are deceased.
I never knew any of my grandparents.
But I have momentoes...somewhere.
Twisted Ties
Journal entry...adapted
October 17, 2012
Starbucks on Oakwood
______________
I feel so much better today; I didn't wake up depressed.
"Stale" is how I have felt the past week or so.
That is how I have felt after learning about Karen's hypocrisy.
"Stale" reminds me of bread.
Bread gets stale, hard, crusty after it has been exposed to the elements.
Bread remains moist, tender, yummily devourable when kept enclosed - like in a bread bag swirled closed with a twist tie.
I no longer live in a twisted, enclosed belief system.
I no longer live in a twisted, enclosed organization; or as some prefer to call it, a cult.
Cult.
Cult.
Cult.
Change one letter and the word "cult" becomes "cunt;" another moist, tender, yummy morsel to those with a sexual appetite for such.
Martindale, The Way's second president, was a sexual predator guised as the man of God preying upon certain female followers.
Martindale learned his craft from The Way's founder and first president, Wierwille.
Certain spiritually mature believers were taught that to meet the man of God's sexual needs was a blessing. In return he could meet the female's needs, teaching her more fully about the deep connective bonds between a man and woman, maybe even healing past hurts from sexual abuse.
After all, believers were free in Christ and the spiritually mature could handle sexual exploits outside their marriages; it was another lesson about God's abundant grace and mercy.
After all, "adultery" and "fornication" in the Bible really referred to idolatry, that is spiritual adultery, not physical.
After all, it was the spiritual that took precedence over the physical. We were one body, the body of Christ, the Household of the one true God.
I no longer live in a twisted, enclosed belief system.
I no longer live in a twisted, enclosed organization; or as some prefer to call it, a cult.
I've become a bit stale and crusty and hardened and less tasty to predators.
At least, I hope so.
______________
October 17, 2012
Starbucks on Oakwood
______________
I feel so much better today; I didn't wake up depressed.
"Stale" is how I have felt the past week or so.
That is how I have felt after learning about Karen's hypocrisy.
"Stale" reminds me of bread.
Bread gets stale, hard, crusty after it has been exposed to the elements.
Bread remains moist, tender, yummily devourable when kept enclosed - like in a bread bag swirled closed with a twist tie.
I no longer live in a twisted, enclosed belief system.
I no longer live in a twisted, enclosed organization; or as some prefer to call it, a cult.
Cult.
Cult.
Cult.
Change one letter and the word "cult" becomes "cunt;" another moist, tender, yummy morsel to those with a sexual appetite for such.
Martindale, The Way's second president, was a sexual predator guised as the man of God preying upon certain female followers.
Martindale learned his craft from The Way's founder and first president, Wierwille.
Certain spiritually mature believers were taught that to meet the man of God's sexual needs was a blessing. In return he could meet the female's needs, teaching her more fully about the deep connective bonds between a man and woman, maybe even healing past hurts from sexual abuse.
After all, believers were free in Christ and the spiritually mature could handle sexual exploits outside their marriages; it was another lesson about God's abundant grace and mercy.
After all, "adultery" and "fornication" in the Bible really referred to idolatry, that is spiritual adultery, not physical.
After all, it was the spiritual that took precedence over the physical. We were one body, the body of Christ, the Household of the one true God.
I no longer live in a twisted, enclosed belief system.
I no longer live in a twisted, enclosed organization; or as some prefer to call it, a cult.
I've become a bit stale and crusty and hardened and less tasty to predators.
At least, I hope so.
______________