Get Thee to a Nunn'ry

I’m a Shakespeare nut. I like to read it, I love to watch it…some parts I understand very little…others strike quite a chord. One quote, taken from Act III, Scene 1 of Hamlet, I’m sure we’re all familiar with came rushing to me today as I sat in church, of all places. Pastor was talking about finding contentment…casting off things that cause us to sin. Are we content with our lives and how we live them? Hamlet, breaking from his act of insanity, instructs Ophelia, “Get thee to a nunnery, why woulds't thou be a breeder of sinners?” She betters him. Rather than rushing off to the church we later find her floating peacefully below the water devoid of breath.

Why did this thought come to me? I’m weary. Society tells us we need more…we need something new…we need to keep up…if it feels good, just do it! Why?! Why do I need more? The more I have, the more shackled I am to it…hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me give you a point of reference.

Yesterday, I sat down at my computer and pulled up my new companion, Facebook. What was everyone up to today? The familiar “blip” sounded indicating someone wanted to chat. Ahhhhh, the new Fremont “friend” I’d accepted last weekend because we had a few mutual friends. From looking at his page and reading his posts (which NEVER have any form of punctuation whatsoever…something that makes me want to beat people with a hammer. That‘s fodder for another blog.) I've gathered this guy isn’t completely with it. So, I’ve cut him some slack and chatted with him for short periods in the past. This is how the chat session played out…

“R u dun cleaning yet” I’d mentioned in my status update that I was cleaning my house. Please note the lack of punctuation….AGAIN.

“No, just taking a break and making supper”

“Do you have kids”

“Yes, two.”

“How old” Geez! Twenty questions!

I hesitate and respond, “4 and 11”

“R they with u” What the hell?!

“Yes, almost always”

“R they in the house” This is getting personal….and bizarre. Why? Are you waiting outside to whisk them away? If so, let me pack them some bags.

After what seemed to me like a long pause I responded, “Why?”

Long pause on his part… “Do you flirt” What, what? Oh, I get it now. I see where this is taking the conversation. My cheeks are burning…not out of embarrassment…out of anger.

“No. I’ve made a rule as of late” That should confuse him. Had I not become so angry so quickly I’m sure I could have come up with a much more witty response….like, “Kiss my ass, jerk!” Wait, that’s not witty. How about “Find someone else to join you and your hand tonight.” Yeah, that would have been good.

“What rule” See, I told you, I confused him with all those extra words after “No”.

“I don’t flirt anymore…with anyone.”

“Can I tell you what I would say if you did” OMG! Persistent little jerk!

“I was recently hurt. My heart’s all boarded up.”

“I bet I could get in” Ugh! Go away!

“Nope. No one’s getting in.”

“Let me tell you what I would say if I did.” At this point I’m ready to hunt the guy down, feeble minded or not, and knee him!

“No thanks.” And I shut down the chat and marked myself as offline long enough to remove him from my friends list.

What compels people to act like this….to a stranger? Are we all just objects…pawns…to each other? When did we, as humans, forget that people have feelings? I spent almost 10 years being an object to my husband. Nothing short of being a piece of meat; a walking, talking parking garage. Damn it! I have feelings; though I have no visual proof, I do have a brain in my head and a rather advanced one I‘d like to think. I’m not to be used and cast aside. We all have feelings. Each and every person we meet on the street, in the coffee shop, at the store has feelings that can be broken, mangled, damaged sometimes beyond repair. We’ve turned our eyes from our future goal and settled for what makes us feel good now…no matter who we hurt in the process. I’m no less guilty myself. There are no stones that I can cast. But I can REFUSE to allow someone to make me feel that way again and I can do my utter best to not do it to other people. Hamlet may have been on to something. If I could, I would get myself to a nunnery.

Minutia...It's all in the Detail

I’m a detail girl. I can be a bit anal about it too. While making up a real estate flyer I’ll move photos around, resize them, crop them, un crop them, change fonts, change font colors, then I’ll scrap the whole dang thing and start again. It all has to fit together somehow! It’s just a matter of finding the right layout that is just right for the house in question.

I can dwell on the minutia (trivial details) of my life too…and I tend to blow them out of proportion turning them into hindrances. Things like the weeds growing in my flowerbeds, the leaves and helicopter seeds dropped by my ever-giving maple trees filling my gutters, my son not listening in preschool or my daughter not picking up her shoes. Lots of you will say, “Geez, who cares about that stuff…move on girl!” But all these little details….joined with things like “how am I going to pay that bill” or “when is that check going to come” or “good God, I’m only one person, how am I going to get this child here while the other one needs to be here” all builds up into this monster that breathes and feeds on each little issue that crops up…growing ever larger…feeding even more!

I’ve been a slacker this summer…in so many ways. Those minute details, drastically enlarged and the accompanying worry and dread, have taken up the time normally devoted to some of my more relaxing and artistic endeavors I typically enjoy. A number of times since Spring’s arrival I’ve noticed the thickening layer of dust on my Sony camera. The camera was a gift from my father the Christmas before my son was born. I guess it was a hint he’d be expecting photos of his new grandchild on a regular basis. I’m not one for reading electronics manuals…I figure, point and click, right. Wrong. It wasn’t until Spring 2008 that I really started to realize the potential this thing had. It started with a trip to the Fremont “Lakes”. Now, if you’re used to Angostura Lake outside Hot Springs or Pactola in Rapid City…these bodies of water are more accurately described as ponds. But ducks LOVE them. There are even pelicans that pass through. One Saturday the kids and I ventured to the ponds to try and photograph the pelicans and I was bitten by the photo bug. It runs in my genes, really, it was just a matter of time.

Before long, I was rushing to drop the kids off at their dad’s so I could go on a photographic excursion with my new friend Sony. I’d snap pictures during my lunch hour because the light on the flowers was just right or because a new rose was beginning to open. Rain, glorious rain! Have you ever seen the beauty of a string of rain drops clinging to a spider’s web…like a string of diamonds glistening in the light. I found delight in the minute details….extreme close-ups that revealed slightly darker veins running through a petal. I was moved by a branch in the foreground while I focused on a coot bobbing on the waves. I was surrounded by nature and was mesmerized by the intricacies that I’d never taken the time to appreciate. On a trip back from South Dakota with my Aunt we took the less traveled route through the Nebraska Sand Hills. We were armed with our cameras and not afraid to make abrupt stops when we spotted a wild flower on the side of the road. Yeah, did you know that? There are flowers over there…not just grass. We buzz through life trying to get from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time and we lose sight of the beauty right outside our windows because it becomes a blur.

Photography was like a gateway drug for me that year. Soon I was sitting one the back steps reading a book and enjoying the warmth of the sun on my skin and the breeze as it gently caressed my skin and tousled my hair. I took notice of so many other things that I hadn’t before. I spend so much of my time with my head down trudging through the mire of life that I never looked up…there’s a whole other world up there! Really there is! Give it a try! Lay down in the grass and look up! The light filters through the leaves changing them from green to brilliant jewel-like emerald. Birds soar, flutter, swoop through the air; insects zoom by with determination…probably trying to avoid those birds. Now close your eyes and use your ears. Listen past the roar of the cars driving down your street…listen to the details. Crickets chirping, rainbirds buzzing their autumnal drone, cardinals calling, house sparrows bright little song, robins announcing their arrival. The air even has a voice as it rustles the leaves or it shushes through pine needles. Now keep your eyes closed and breathe. Smell the heady sweetness of the flocks flowers on the air; smell the earthy warmth of the soil as the morning’s dew evaporates with the increasing intensity of the mid-day sun; smell the bright green scent of the neighbor’s fresh cut grass as flows on the breeze.

Details! Details can be great therapy. There is so much beauty around us! We just never take the time to appreciate it. Look for the details, seek them out! Next time you are irritated by the woman in front of you at the check out stand that has to price compare everything in her cart…listen for the giggle of a child. When you’re stuck in construction on the highway don’t focus on the car in front of you or watch longingly for the other lane of traffic to come through….turn your head and watch the many-colored wild flowers bob in the breeze. Turn from the details that bring you down to the details that lift you up. Their out there, just waiting to be noticed.

The Dying of the Light

Tonight after posting my status, “Hate that fading feeling” on Facebook, I started to contemplate the thought a little deeper. Since I haven’t posted a note in eons I felt compelled to sit down and write. Finally, something that compelled me to write! Something I felt everyone could relate to; something that I felt strongly enough about to push back my son’s bath time so I could sit down and record my thoughts before they slipped from my mind; something that I felt I could share with my Facebook family.

Fade, per the American Heritage Dictionary permanently housed on my computer desk, has several meanings; 1. To lose or cause to lose brightness or brilliance, to dim; 2. To lose strength or freshness, to wither; 3. To disappear gradually, vanish.

Things fade in our lives hourly, daily, seasonally. The darkness of night and the brilliance of the stars gradually disappears with the rising of the sun. Likewise, the colors of our world dim into black and white as twilight hastens upon our corner of the planet. But what beauty can be found in watching pinks, purples oranges of a dazzling sunset stretch across the horizon with the fading of the light. Fading can be a wonder to behold in some cases. The gradual lessening of pain, anger, fear, anxiety can be a blessing as well. The slow relief and sense of well being that comes with the disappearance of a headache; the joy in forgiveness that comes as anger from a fight fades.

In autumn we watch the bold reds, oranges and greens in nature fade to brown with approaching winter. Plants wither and fade as colder nights encroach and frost lays waste to the final strong holds of fall. Slowly the splashes of color rinse from our canvas cleansed by the snow that will surround us for all too long. In the winter, daylight fades all too quickly. We wake in the dark, go to work or school in the dark, go home in the dark. Sometimes hope seems to dim those long winter months. But gradually longer days bring us warmer breezes, piles of the vile white affliction that have plagued us for months vanish and life springs from the ground once again. The sense of helplessness fades as we rush out to once again enjoy the air, the trees, the bird song!

Friendships and relationships are not immune to this verb, “fade“, either. Friends we pledged life-long adoration to, our BFFs, sometimes gradually disappear as our lives change. We move in different directions vowing to stay in touch…and slowly life in our new world replaces the life that we once had. The strength of the bond loosens…maybe never lost completely…but the intensity is merely transferred to a new bond.

Love, un-nurtured, can fade too. The burning, intense, fiery passion can slowly burn down to a low flicker, then glowing coals and eventually be reduced to a pile of ash. Though it fades, it’s loss isn’t unfelt. It can be palpable. We can feel the force draining from it. We can feel it escaping us like water through our fingers. Sometimes we have to choose to fight the dimming light, to throw on kindling and fan the coals. Sometimes we count it as a loss and sit back and watch the last tongues of fire lick at the few remaining shards of fuel. It’s absence can leave us feeling as though we are in a darkened room groping for something familiar…something to cling to. It can leave us breathless, weighed down, crushed. Odd how the absence of something can feel like a weight on our chests forcing life’s breath from our lungs and unable to bring in more air. But, like everything else…the freshness of the loss diminishes, the weight lightens and we slowly take breath in again. The pain fades. We move on, hopefully wiser…stronger.

However, there are other things in life that leave a proverbial hole in our lives as they fade. I have witnessed the life of a dear loved one disappear gradually. Watching a once bright light, not unlike the sun which our lives revolve around, dim and vanish leaves an indelible void….a void so real that it leaves a raw, jagged hole in our very souls that never fully heals. It renders a wound, never fading to a scar, that can be ripped open when we are least ready for it. Something as seemingly trivial as a picture, a sound, a place, a mere thought can send us into convulsions of tears and sobs. Though the freshness and intensity of the initial grief loses strength and we go about our lives, the hole never completely fills.

Most of us will slowly fade too, leaving a void in someone else’s life. Some of us will be ripped quickly from the earthly bonds but the majority of us will fade as our health weakens. It’s natural….eventual physical death is the only thing we’re guaranteed in life. How it will happen, when it will happen is unknown; but someday the brilliant light will dim and gradually fade to black…

….darkness will fade…and our next journey will depend on where your belief takes you…to Allah, to your next life, to God. For me, I hope the darkness fades to a warm little kitchen, with black and white checkered tiles, white cabinets and yellow walls. There will be a cup of hot coffee waiting for me and the din of silence will be broken by the laughter of my loved ones sharing stories and greeting my arrival followed by the warmth of my mother’s embrace once again. The fear, anxiety, pain, anger of the life I just left fading…