prompt or not: it was tenuous
aww 1/28/15
***
I've started writing three different times now during this thirty-minute writing break.
I'm tempted to say that I'm breaking the rules by starting over, and over, and over.
My next thought is, "There are no rules Carol. You can start over as many times as you want."
I can leave this computer screen blank, no words at all, if I choose.
I get tired of these glass screens that give us humans instant and constant access to knowledge, history, videos, news, the arts, music, pornography, revealed secrets, chat rooms, and whatever one can imagine.
It's something I think about regularly. Snippets of my life displayed on a screen in a box that I carry in my hand, or in my hip pack, and sometimes in my bra.
I'm not sure what to make of it. How much have I allowed "it" to change me? "It" being online life.
I wonder if these screens will ever go the way of the dinosaur?
January 28, 2015
Worth Less Keys
Am I done yet?
That question prompts the thought of cooking meat.
For some meat-eaters, "done" is pink and tender; for others, "done" is pinkless and tough.
I eat meat. I usually order my beef medium well, somewhere between slightly pink and pinkless. All other meat, I eat pinkless, except for sushi.
I've been through these phases before when I feel I have nothing to write, nothing of value to share, wondering if I am "done" writing.
Why do I feel I need to share what I write?
"Need"? Is it a "need" for me to share these scribblings from my noggin?
The Way taught about "needs" and that, to receive anything from God, there are five keys a believer needs to know and apply.
I once endeavored to believe these keys and act accordingly. If I wasn't getting an answer to prayer, and I knew God's will in the situation, then I must not be applying one of the five keys. I then needed to take a "check up from the neck up" and believe for God to show me where I was "missing it." Was I applying the five keys properly?
For at least 28 years, that was my mindset, or a mindset I would try to attain and maintain.
I no longer strive to live those five keys, and I seem to get more so-called "answered pray" now in my agnosticism than when I was that five-key believer.
I guess I'm not "done" yet.
That question prompts the thought of cooking meat.
For some meat-eaters, "done" is pink and tender; for others, "done" is pinkless and tough.
I eat meat. I usually order my beef medium well, somewhere between slightly pink and pinkless. All other meat, I eat pinkless, except for sushi.
I've been through these phases before when I feel I have nothing to write, nothing of value to share, wondering if I am "done" writing.
Why do I feel I need to share what I write?
"Need"? Is it a "need" for me to share these scribblings from my noggin?
The Way taught about "needs" and that, to receive anything from God, there are five keys a believer needs to know and apply.
- Key number 1: What is available
- Key number 2: How to receive it
- Key number 3: What to do with it after I've got it
- Key number 4: Have my need and want parallel
- Key number 5: God's willingness always equals God's ability
I once endeavored to believe these keys and act accordingly. If I wasn't getting an answer to prayer, and I knew God's will in the situation, then I must not be applying one of the five keys. I then needed to take a "check up from the neck up" and believe for God to show me where I was "missing it." Was I applying the five keys properly?
- Key number 1: I know what is available by studying God's Word which is God's will. All God's promises are "yea" and "amen."
- Key number 2: I receive by believing. To believe requires that I take action on God's promises and that I "confess" the Word. Doctor continually taught us that "confession of belief yields receipt of confession."
- Key number 3: If I'm going to receive, I need to know how to properly utilize whatever it is that I receive from God. God won't give me something if I won't properly steward it.
- Key number 4: To get my need and want parallel, I determine my need and then bring my desire to that same level. I always had a hard time understanding this key. How do I know if my "need" isn't actually "greed?" The majority of the world lives with much less than what I've been granted.
- Key number 5: God won't promise anything he can't deliver; His ability is always there to bring to pass His promises.
For at least 28 years, that was my mindset, or a mindset I would try to attain and maintain.
I no longer strive to live those five keys, and I seem to get more so-called "answered pray" now in my agnosticism than when I was that five-key believer.
I guess I'm not "done" yet.
January 19, 2015
Affinity for blackbirds
I've told it before.
Here it is again.
Probably won't be the last time.
***
"What did I look like?" I asked Mom referring to when I ate the jimson seeds some five years prior.
"Your eyes were big and wide...and scared," she responded.
I'm sure they were.
Ron and I each ate three podfuls of seeds on a Tuesday afternoon in the fall of 1974. I was 15 years old; Ron was 16 or 17. I weighed in at a whopping 95 pounds; Ron weighed over 200.
Ron ate the seeds that were black; I ate the brown seeds.
I can almost taste and smell them....as I type at this moment, in 2015. They had an earthy taste, those raw tiny seeds concealed by nature in their spiky pods that screamed, "Danger! Danger! Do not touch!"
Danger. That was our lifestyle. We were invincible. We would always get high, forever. We were the "freaks." Our motto was, "Never go straight; always go forward." At that time, "straight" did not refer to sexual orientation. "Straight" meant you didn't do drugs. We'd never go straight. When we would be 60, we'd still be getting high.
The black birds must have been the first hallucination, though at the time I thought the birds were real as I squatted and peed in the woods. Hundreds of blackbirds, maybe thousands, everywhere scratching and hopping along the pine needle carpet that covered the forest floor.
Perhaps the birds were an omen from Edgar Allan Poe warning of the next three days. Daddy used to read Poe to us kids at bedtime. Or perhaps those real, but not real, blackbirds were my guardians and somehow helped bring me back to reality four days later.
Would I have come back without the so-called "antidote?" I didn't receive the antidote until Friday evening. I've been told I was awake that whole time from Tuesday morning until Friday night. Jimson weed aside, being awake for four days in itself could cause hallucinations.
I have no recollection of walking back to Ron's green AMC Hornet after I peed. Ron later told me what happened. After I staggered back to the car, he drove us to my home. It was around 4:00 in the afternoon. Dad was home, but we didn't see him nor he us when we entered the house. Ron and I sat down on the couch in the living room in the front of the house; Dad was in the family room in the back of the house.
We didn't lock our doors in those days.
I looked at Ron and spoke in a slow slur. "i. feel. tired. i'm. going. upstairs."
I stood up, staggered into the dining room, took a left turn, then a right turn. I steadied myself and pulled my body partway up the old hardwood stairs. Then...kerplunk, tumble, thud. I lie at the bottom of the stairs. Nothing broken, except my psyche.
Upon the noise, Dad came running to the front of the house from the back. He could see me to his right on the floor as he stood in the dining room.
Then his gaze turned to Ron.
Ron thought Dad was going to kill him.
So Ron stood up and stumbled out the front door. And that's all Ron remembered.
Somehow Ron drove to his home where his brother Skeeter got him to Hickory Memorial Hospital. The nurses and doctors had to put Ron in a straight jacket; he was trying to attack the female nurses. Ron's stomach was pumped.
At some point Dad got me to Catawba Memorial Hospital; I think he called an ambulance. At the hospital, I was strapped to a bed in ICU. Unlike Ron, my stomach was not pumped. I later learned that the staff didn't pump my stomach because the doctors weren't sure what I had ingested and were concerned pumping might cause further harm. Apparently the two hospitals didn't communicate.
That same night, Mom brought the doctors some cut plants that I had in my bedroom at home. A couple weeks prior, I had cut and gathered some jimson weed stems with their seed pods from the pasture behind our home. I had put them in a vase without water and placed the vase on my bedroom dresser. Those plants were sent to Chicago where Mom had connections with folks who had connections with a lab. An antidote was made from studying the plants, so I've been told. I have no reason to doubt it.
Between Tuesday afternoon and Friday night, hallucinations were as real as any life event.
I was back at high school a week later. I stuck by my motto, "Never straight," for another nine months.
~~~
Some other pieces about my jimson weed experience:
Part 1: A Green Hornet and Blackbirds
Part 2: Witch Doctors and Roller Coasters
Poem: Datura Stramonium: To Dance with the Devil
~~~
This post was inspired by Crazy Cat.
Here it is again.
Probably won't be the last time.
***
"What did I look like?" I asked Mom referring to when I ate the jimson seeds some five years prior.
"Your eyes were big and wide...and scared," she responded.
I'm sure they were.
Ron ate the seeds that were black; I ate the brown seeds.
I can almost taste and smell them....as I type at this moment, in 2015. They had an earthy taste, those raw tiny seeds concealed by nature in their spiky pods that screamed, "Danger! Danger! Do not touch!"
Danger. That was our lifestyle. We were invincible. We would always get high, forever. We were the "freaks." Our motto was, "Never go straight; always go forward." At that time, "straight" did not refer to sexual orientation. "Straight" meant you didn't do drugs. We'd never go straight. When we would be 60, we'd still be getting high.
The black birds must have been the first hallucination, though at the time I thought the birds were real as I squatted and peed in the woods. Hundreds of blackbirds, maybe thousands, everywhere scratching and hopping along the pine needle carpet that covered the forest floor.
Perhaps the birds were an omen from Edgar Allan Poe warning of the next three days. Daddy used to read Poe to us kids at bedtime. Or perhaps those real, but not real, blackbirds were my guardians and somehow helped bring me back to reality four days later.
Would I have come back without the so-called "antidote?" I didn't receive the antidote until Friday evening. I've been told I was awake that whole time from Tuesday morning until Friday night. Jimson weed aside, being awake for four days in itself could cause hallucinations.
I have no recollection of walking back to Ron's green AMC Hornet after I peed. Ron later told me what happened. After I staggered back to the car, he drove us to my home. It was around 4:00 in the afternoon. Dad was home, but we didn't see him nor he us when we entered the house. Ron and I sat down on the couch in the living room in the front of the house; Dad was in the family room in the back of the house.
We didn't lock our doors in those days.
I looked at Ron and spoke in a slow slur. "i. feel. tired. i'm. going. upstairs."
I stood up, staggered into the dining room, took a left turn, then a right turn. I steadied myself and pulled my body partway up the old hardwood stairs. Then...kerplunk, tumble, thud. I lie at the bottom of the stairs. Nothing broken, except my psyche.
Upon the noise, Dad came running to the front of the house from the back. He could see me to his right on the floor as he stood in the dining room.
Then his gaze turned to Ron.
Ron thought Dad was going to kill him.
So Ron stood up and stumbled out the front door. And that's all Ron remembered.
Somehow Ron drove to his home where his brother Skeeter got him to Hickory Memorial Hospital. The nurses and doctors had to put Ron in a straight jacket; he was trying to attack the female nurses. Ron's stomach was pumped.
At some point Dad got me to Catawba Memorial Hospital; I think he called an ambulance. At the hospital, I was strapped to a bed in ICU. Unlike Ron, my stomach was not pumped. I later learned that the staff didn't pump my stomach because the doctors weren't sure what I had ingested and were concerned pumping might cause further harm. Apparently the two hospitals didn't communicate.
That same night, Mom brought the doctors some cut plants that I had in my bedroom at home. A couple weeks prior, I had cut and gathered some jimson weed stems with their seed pods from the pasture behind our home. I had put them in a vase without water and placed the vase on my bedroom dresser. Those plants were sent to Chicago where Mom had connections with folks who had connections with a lab. An antidote was made from studying the plants, so I've been told. I have no reason to doubt it.
Between Tuesday afternoon and Friday night, hallucinations were as real as any life event.
- I was raped on a bed of steel springs. The bed was in the middle of a football field surrounded by a stadium of bleachers.
- I lived at a castle, where I rode horses. I was part of the royal family. Maybe not a family member, but I was like family. I broke my arm while riding horses.
- I spent what seemed months at an insane asylum, which was a giant, circular aquarium with winding sidewalks. Witch doctors visited me and the man in the bed beside me, who was as crazy as I was. The witch doctors wore masks and lots of color and danced around and between our beds ridding the room of evil spirits.
- Every day in the aquarium asylum, a visitor would come from the outside world. I would scold him demanding he give me my supplies.
- My Aunt Flossie visited me while I smoked a joint which I tried to pass to my friends Beth and Tricia when they visited. The joint had been toked down to a roach and it was burning my fingers.
- I got eaten by a multitude of black cock roaches.
- I died and on my way to heaven as I floated upward, Crosby-Stills-Nash-and-Young played for me.
I was back at high school a week later. I stuck by my motto, "Never straight," for another nine months.
~~~
Some other pieces about my jimson weed experience:
Part 1: A Green Hornet and Blackbirds
Part 2: Witch Doctors and Roller Coasters
Poem: Datura Stramonium: To Dance with the Devil
~~~
This post was inspired by Crazy Cat.
January 14, 2015
Views
Prompt or not: a journey back
AWW ~ 1/14/15
~~~
Tuesday, January 13, 2015.
I open my eyes to greet the day. I am lying on my back in my king-size bed, alone. Hubby has already left for work.
As my eyes open, they see the ceiling. It hasn't changed since last night. Have I?
I breathe in deeply, then exhale.
I can breathe. That's good. There were years when drawing breath was an exploit.
I continue to lie on my back, arms by my side. Breathing in and out.
I lift my arms.
I can lift my arms. That's good. I'm not having to struggle. But Carol, you know that in five weeks, that will change. That is how life is now. You have six weeks of freedom, so to speak. Then, as the medicine wears off from the quarterly injections, your limbs will begin to wilt.
"Wilt." I haven't used that word before to describe my symptoms.
Remember the Saturday before your injections this round? As you walked in your slow, deliberate, careful gait along the sidewalk on Marshall Street there at the New Winston Museum, around the corner from Old Salem, your nerves felt so deadened. Your self said to your self, "I feel like I have a corpse tied to my body. Like in ancient times when, for punishment, a corpse would be tied to a prisoner. Except this corpse is mine."
It sounds so depressing. And it is. But it wasn't really a depressing thought at the time. It was descript, this "corpse." The description gave life to these deadened, blunted, yet sensitive-when-moved-or-touched-just-right nerves that help move me, as best they can, physically from one spot to another. How many miles of nerves are in the human body? I'll have to look it up sometime. The past three times I've received injections, I'm 3 to 4 pounds lighter within a day. I can feel the lightness. It's like my arms can float.
I breathe in again, as I lie in bed. Tuesday morning still awaits me.
I lift my arms; they glide upward exciting molecules unseen to my eyes.
I observe my arms as I stretch them perpendicular to my body and rotate my wrists round and round in the air above me.
I feel trepidation as my mind momentarily thinks about my limbs and hands and feet five weeks from now.
But today isn't five weeks from now.
Today, I can lift my arms...
~~~
Note: The poem was written in 2007 and is entitled Child's View.
AWW ~ 1/14/15
~~~
Tuesday, January 13, 2015.
I open my eyes to greet the day. I am lying on my back in my king-size bed, alone. Hubby has already left for work.
As my eyes open, they see the ceiling. It hasn't changed since last night. Have I?
I breathe in deeply, then exhale.
I can breathe. That's good. There were years when drawing breath was an exploit.
I continue to lie on my back, arms by my side. Breathing in and out.
I lift my arms.
I can lift my arms. That's good. I'm not having to struggle. But Carol, you know that in five weeks, that will change. That is how life is now. You have six weeks of freedom, so to speak. Then, as the medicine wears off from the quarterly injections, your limbs will begin to wilt.
"Wilt." I haven't used that word before to describe my symptoms.
Remember the Saturday before your injections this round? As you walked in your slow, deliberate, careful gait along the sidewalk on Marshall Street there at the New Winston Museum, around the corner from Old Salem, your nerves felt so deadened. Your self said to your self, "I feel like I have a corpse tied to my body. Like in ancient times when, for punishment, a corpse would be tied to a prisoner. Except this corpse is mine."
It sounds so depressing. And it is. But it wasn't really a depressing thought at the time. It was descript, this "corpse." The description gave life to these deadened, blunted, yet sensitive-when-moved-or-touched-just-right nerves that help move me, as best they can, physically from one spot to another. How many miles of nerves are in the human body? I'll have to look it up sometime. The past three times I've received injections, I'm 3 to 4 pounds lighter within a day. I can feel the lightness. It's like my arms can float.
I breathe in again, as I lie in bed. Tuesday morning still awaits me.
I lift my arms; they glide upward exciting molecules unseen to my eyes.
I observe my arms as I stretch them perpendicular to my body and rotate my wrists round and round in the air above me.
I feel trepidation as my mind momentarily thinks about my limbs and hands and feet five weeks from now.
But today isn't five weeks from now.
Today, I can lift my arms...
"O child in me
awaken
Remember to
recall
The joy of virgin
witness
First time my eyes
saw
Thrill to spy the ocean spray
moon dictate the tide each day
Dig my toes in seashore surf
drip sand castles along her turf
Watch the dolphin sail up high
smile and sparkle in her eye
Heart's delight as snowflakes fall
excitement hearing coyote's call
In wonderment watch the butterfly
unfurl her wings at first flight
Hold tight a kite on a string
feel the pull of wind unseen
O God I pray
I never lose
Eyes to behold
each day as new"~~~
Note: The poem was written in 2007 and is entitled Child's View.
January 1, 2015
"...magic and dreams and good madness..."
Happy New Year...with ripples of hope and peace....
Music Auld Lang Syne ~ Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
Music Auld Lang Syne ~ Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
