Alive

Healing that heals

simply cannot be

assigned to a chair

on the periphery. 

No, no -- front and center

it must be free

to assume upon

necessity

when thoughts must be spoken

or actions taken,

when others exclaim,

"That's not you!"  (They're mistaken.) 

Healing that heals

will insert itself

into life's open spaces --

it won't hide on a shelf. 

For healing that heals

is a live thing, not dead;

no more huddles and tunnels --

shine the light, instead!

Just This

There are millions who'll say it
better than I
Discouraged, I wonder
why I try
Unique is prized --
fiction, preferred
So where can a simple heart
go to be heard?

Nowhere

Truth stammered

at great cost,

sweat and sorrow mingling,

yet so often

lost

to that place where words

are meaningless --

where hearts have turned

to frost. 

The Subtle Saga of Susan

Part One

Conversation, for Susan, revolved around "the real."  If a friend, in a fickle mood, happened to depart from "the real," conversation was neither desirable nor possible for Susan.  She saw no point in remaining physically available for discourse, as only pretense would result.  Pretense repelled her at the most fundamental level of her being.

What, exactly, was "the real?"  "The real" was the true essence of the person.  Susan knew "the real" of a person by the way the person's features relaxed deeply into his face, making way for the soul to come forth; by the fluidity and pace of his speech; by the absence of darting eyes and nervous or pointless gestures; by the way the person "sat" habitually in his own body.

A person, after all, could visibly remove "the real," temporarily wishing it away and adopting a new persona for purposes of social melding.  This practice was routine, Susan could not help but notice, to social butterflies, manipulators, and the more insecure types.  The minute the telltale signs of "persona change" emerged in group scenarios, Susan no longer bothered feeling dismayed.  She accepted the loss instantly, moving on to someone more genuine or -- ignorance being bliss -- to someone she did not yet know. This worked well for pain control.

(Reprinted from "Turquoise" post dated 7-17-11)

Part Two

Pain.  What kinds of things caused Susan pain?

The onset of another's socially tailored "approach" to herself, for example, caused Susan the pain of silent outrage.  The "tailored approach" was a person's contrived "gearing up" of face and voice to pose a "sensitive" question ("sensitive," most likely, to the other person) to Susan about herself as though she were an alien creature.  This was always the "Here comes the face" moment, when the other's face would lean in toward Susan with exaggerated intent . . . betraying the poorest acting abilities imaginable, along with rattled nerves.

Susan thought of this as the "kid gloves" approach, the utterly transparent social method of "handling" a presumably "fragile" person.  More often than not, such an approach was actually "the velvet glove that hides the fist," and the "kid gloves" would have been better applied to the emotionally unstable questioner.  Such questioners usually believed they were successfully masking some degree of their own unvented spleen, personal axes to grind lurking beneath the surface.

Picture, for a moment, the camera honing in on an aging female psychotherapist with numerous small facial tics and twitches due to unacknowledged, unmitigated resentment.  Imagine the camera moving closer and closer as the therapist's face grows larger and larger, the lens exposing each twitch of the ever-tightening lips which, themselves, compress the existence of sheer rage, lips which open only against the most extreme inner tension to form the words, "Tell me, dear, why duplicitous people upset you."

This is how the approach of "handling people" appeared to Susan.

Invariably, in such cases, the "ax" floating beneath the surface was not Susan's "ax," but rather the dissatisfaction and bitterness of another who would have done better to mind his own business with discretion and dignity. 

(Reprinted from "Turquoise" post dated 7-19-11)

Part Three (new)

Games and angles -- how they put "white noise" into the air, wasting time, wasting space, leading people hither and thither when a single genuine word would have summarized things nicely!  Perhaps the people who choreographed these stilted interactions were bored.  A poor excuse, however, to play with other people's minds and time.

How such individuals hurt and distanced others -- how they fomented discord and mistrust!  And to what purpose?  Truth was always faster, simpler, cleaner.  Were such game players holding themselves "above" truth?  Did they feel too superior to stoop to its simplicity?  Perhaps unvarnished truth did not appear intellectual enough or complex enough to bolster their own pride.  Perhaps. 

But enough.  Enough time had already been handed over to game players in this crooked world.  Susan would hand over no more.

(To be continued . . . . . )

Still Standing

In the end,
the sincere will remain
tall and strong as girders,
each honest soul bearing up
another.
The insincere
will fall away --
flaccid,
unsupported,
buckling and
dissolving into
themselves.

(Speaking Colloquially) 1st Step: "Yo"

Yo . . . . .

or

Hey . . . . .

Yes, that would work. 

I mean it very nicely, not intending to be rude or disrespectful at all.  I have trouble, in certain cases which remain mysterious even to me, uttering first names.  This difficulty, when it arises, also carries over into email -- email being a parallel genre.

I've tried writing, "Hello, So-and-So [first name]."  This, however, doesn't fit because, due to my difficulty, I don't habitually greet people by their first names.  I've then tried writing plain old "Hello."   But that just hangs there. 

Of course, I can always resort to my no-fail tactic of simply launching into dialogue.  But this has its drawbacks, such as when my intended recipient occasionally must ask (when I do this in person), "Are you talking to me?"  And, in email -- well, I don't know how this tactic comes across in email.  I probably don't want to know.

Now, "Yo" -- humble, perhaps even despised, monosyllable of slang though it may be -- would really help to ease me through this challenge.  Sometimes I can even manage a first name after the "Yo."  (Fringe benefit:  The "Yo" helps you slide right into the first name painlessly.  Like anesthesia.  You don't even know you've done it, but there you are.)  

Of course, there are those who simply will not tolerate "Yo" or "Hey," or whose age or status clearly forbids such relaxation of expression.  In similar category are those with whom we are newly or more professionally acquainted, either in person or in writing. One must obviously retain common sense in such circumstances and obey the higher standards -- no matter what.  However, there are other, more fluid circumstances which might actually permit one some degree of slow, steady progress from the bottom up.  

It's not "new" for me, this "Yo."  It's old.  I eased out of it over time, thinking that age, alone, had conferred the readiness to give it up.  But, honestly, the freedom to slip into "Yo" or "Hey" with forbearing others, when needed, would make speech and emails so much easier.  After all, I can't expect to move upward on this ladder of difficulty unless I first meet myself where I really am.  And, as you can see, I'm at "Yo."

~ Turquoise

Thoughts During an October Illness

In the breathtaking 

sunlight

(so beautiful!)

approaching noon,

eyes cringing from the

brightness,

ears buzzing softly,

head in a misty daze . . .

I had the fervent desire

to cry.

********************************************************

 

Sometimes,

it's just games.

Even a smile 

can lie,

when there is no 

real warmth

behind it.

Sometimes,

for the sake of honesty,

we would do much better

to frown.

*********************************************************

If you have one person

who really cares about you,

consider yourself

rich,

because many people find

caring

to be a burden.

I don't know why.

*****************************************************************

Eyes stiff,
vision wobbly,
inflamed brain nearly pounding out of my skull,
I finally gave up writing
to watch an idiosyncratic romance,
laughing my head off
like a crazy person . . . . .
Maybe tonight I'll watch
the Weather Channel.

Jewel Underfoot

Discomfort takes its stand,

crying out to complain,

but not from pain.

Pain knows better than to

shake its fist and sulk --

as do those whose noses

have never scraped the ground.

If pain should resort to such trifles,

they would be base imitations,

the weight of such lies

casting it down once again.

And how tragic to stamp one's feet

in a pretender's rebellion,

only to realize later

that pain, humbling and true,

had left a precious jewel in its wake,

now crushed

underfoot.