The Beatles [Live]:

There are so many ways a person is controlled, as a child, we were very restricted in many ways, music was one of them. I listen in awe as I hear songs for the first time that was from the era we grew up in. The sixties was a transitional time, with many changes.. Music comes with a diverse ability to stir emotion, from laughter to romance, to memories...and best yet the ability to create a new moment.
It was the times, girls didn't wear jeans, the beatles music was off limits, you could open a bottle of pop on a telephone pole and street cars took you into town for ten cents. A friend his favorte quote use to be "ignorance is bliss" he used to say knowing and not able to make a difference is worse then not knowing anything..... hmm.. When you let go of the child in you, you have surely died.... smiles, laughs and dances to the beatles..Sings...all my loving!

Life

Sometimes it is out of the "mouth of babes". We are driving down the road and a commercial is on the radio, a fundraiser for the communities poor. Going through our own down spiraling financial problems, my daughter was very aware of economics. She blurted out" I hate the words poor people.. it should be, low on cash" as we are far from poor. "
I thought about all the trials in life, death and illness and a score of negativity that surfaces throughout our life, we are indeed wealthy. Wealthy beyond a financial scope. Looking at the choices that need be made in life... I said to my daughter," every alternate path we travel comes with a wealth of information."

Life the treasure, each person we meet a precious gem.

Death

Death the most complicated of all issues in our life to deal with. I looked on as my father will be celebrating his 80th birthday. Many of years filled with the violent attempts upon his life and yet with all the violence, here he is soon to be 80 yrs old. I find myself trying to understand as I thought back to a phone call with my son. Three young men 20 and 21 yrs old chilling out , celebrating in life and looking ahead to the future. I had met each of the boys several times, and the one I am not using his real name, I called him Brandon.... he called me, wanted me to find work in the fashion industry for him, we talked almost four hours on that phone that night, his father wanted him to be a brick layer and a brick layer he became. He was gorgeous in todays standards, tall, youthful with that chiseled look to his face. He said I like to sketch clothing, I would model for you in a heart beat. At the time I was neither looking to branch out into mens clothing nor in need for a male model. That evening I learned allot about him, his passion and all that was hidden deep inside. A rural area pretty much set in their ways, didn't allow for growth and passion to find a place to flourish. This town has heavy walls that only those that dare to dream hit into.
My son seemed upset on the phone, what's wrong I said? Brandon is dead. At first I felt a little guilt maybe I didn't reach out enough to help or maybe I could have made a difference in his life. Brandon had a back injury, didn't have medical insurance and was taking pain medication prescribed for someone else. He died quickly without a second chance from the mixture of alcohol and morphine. Twenty two years old and his life is ended... my son continues to visit his grave, as the guilt of not making a difference in a friends life is overwhelming at times.
We talked about life and I noticed his attitude changing, his views on God and death. When we are dead we are dead he said, like a cat or a dog. He said Brandon is gone, like shooting a deer for dinner, it's over. He questioned his faith and God. Where was God to intervene and give him a second chance? I had no real answers for his questions, it was his time son, I said.
There is a saying that we use an awful lot when we are caught in the middle of an unjust situation. "what goes around comes around" Sooner or later everyone gets their turn......

Doris Day, Donald O'Connor -

Know two people have ever been so in love...... >smiling.

I Was Born Under a Wandering Star

I was born under a wandering star , I was born under a wandering star. Do I know where hell is, hell is in hello, and heaven

life

I blamed the isolation for my loneliness and yet it had as much do with my view on life as the emptiness that had its hold me. I don't believe anyone really understands even to this day few would recognize the path. Most compare one situation to another, and label and condemn. The average response is they must have been weak, unintelligent and so on. When I look back at the years of childhood, I see my parents as neither weak nor unintelligent.

I was thirteen when I held my first job, it took two trolley buses to get to work and two on the return. Childhood was stripped from us early,I think many of us grow up quickly. I always felt like a little girl in a grown up world. I worked with elderly people, I didn't have problems with it. I learned a lot from them, as I look back I can see each person who crossed my path and what they brought to my life.
I had held several jobs as a teenager, I worked as a waitress in a dept. store and I was still dealing with my mother and fathers violence. I had been crying before I made it to work and the policy is you don't take your problems to work, I forced a smile, wiped the tears from my eyes and proceeded as if nothing had happen. Of all the people to come into the restaurant was my art teacher, he slipped a note into my hand with his phone number and a message if you need to talk call me. I never called and yes I needed to talk. I kept so much inside for so long,
I never looked at my parents as bad people, to this day I still don't . What I see was two people of different walks of life, who could not come together on the same stage.
My mother cried almost everyday of her life, I can remember few days when she was happy, surely the sad ones outweighed them. My sister said that after I was born my mother suffered depression , there was no doubt with four children, she needed some help.
My eldest sister took full responsibility she washed the clothes by hand, ironed each piece, bathed and dressed and then set off to school. She was only nine years old when I was born, by eleven she was like the only mother I would know. She became very protective of us, to this day she has this hard shell that she likes to portray, but I know the warmth from inside of her. I understand a film that she surrounds herself with. It is her form of survival, her strength that continues to get her through each day.
We talk more then we ever did, about dreams, the past, her fears and passion for life as well as her regrets. Growing up down by the river, we became strong swimmers, if ever there were guardian angels, we surely had them, as we did every thing little girls shouldn't. Racing the trains, swimming the river, and wandering distances amongst the trees with out supervision.
I was born the tag along, I don't remember to often playing with children my age, as wherever my eldest sister went she had me right beside her.
If people knew about our plight, they never led on, or maybe it was because at that time,everyone was dealing with something. The ideal " leave it to beaver family or father knows best " just didn't exist. We had the images of a white picket fence and happily ever after. I always call it the party face, when you meet people and they put on a smile and pretend that their world is perfect. The more you see them, the more they enter your life, the more the party face fades.

Isolation is built of individual barriers built one at a time, so that the adage " alone in a crowded room", becomes a reality. We find ourselves separated by lack of understanding , to only realize when we come together on the same stage we all are dealing with the struggles of life all in just a little bit different way.

I am tired and it's only 7:03, it's cool and dark, the rain has places a dampness in the air and the hollow is draped in silence........

Isolation .....the walls of the mind.

Look Beyond the Bars Of The Mind

What did I expect would happen if I came out with the stories from childhood? Could something be learned from it? My dearest friend said to me, that there is not a family out there that doesn't have a " skeleton in the closet." He said we all are dysfunctional at something, some of us have more resources, some more intelligence and still others more means to cope.
We are on a journey of experience, where it leads and when, is in some way in the hands of fate. Both good and bad things will happen, people close to us will die, have a car accident, have social issues, drugs, alcohol, mental health.So numerous are our experiences that it would be impossible to list them for every bad one we could list a good one , a child is born , a couple becomes married, a teenager starts their journey and the list goes on.
On this journey we know but one thing, we are born to experience and as we continue on the journey we will build a library of knowledge for the next generation. If we fail to share in this knowledge, then the answers will go unheard and again people will continue to point fingers and blame rather then seek the alternative behavior.
My intent was never on a path of revenge or to place blame. No one is ever sure how they would respond to another crisis, because no matter how similar every situation is , each is just a little bit different. Then how do we learn? We learn that there is opportunity, outreach and self responsibility and most of all we remember that no one is capable of holding the spirit down, for we are free to change the path and to build a better future.
If it were all so black and white, everyone would look the same, react the same and character would no longer exist. But we are different, our thoughts different, our response different with the thread of humanity tying us together. Some of us more emotional others less. Find your strength and build on it, for each of us is just that filled weaknesses and strengths.
I read this article where researchers have found they can use drugs to wipe away single, specific memories while leaving other memories intact. By injecting an amnesia drug at the right time, when a subject was recalling a particular thought, neuro-scientists discovered they could disrupt the way the memory is stored and even make it disappear.
I thought what one memory would I want to erase, I couldn't think of one. The worst thing that could happen to a person is to forget a pain physical or emotional. It made me laugh as I remember my first gall bladder attack, rolling around in pain. I quickly learned what not to eat so not to have it reoccur. If we removed memories would we remove the self discipline that comes with memories. My mind was bouncing around as I thought of soldiers and the memories from war that haunted them, yet still I think to forget erases our response to find the answers.
We should forget what our individual hell is , maybe we should try to prevent or learn to deal with it.
I have a few dreams that are recurrent, one is this little girl in a aged old train station, I see her behind the barred windows, I want to let her free. I try to get close to her and the closer I get the quicker she fades away. When I peer into the window, I see a little girls bedroom, perfect and orderly, nothing out of place. Each time I have the dream it happens exactly the same way.When I moved from the city to the rural area, I felt again a closeness to her, like the building now had a location, I looked out where a old foundation had once stood and I could visualize her standing their behind the bars of the window. I have had the same dream since I can remember.