Rant-o-rama fest, 2004

1. It’s probably pretty damned odd how many times I’ve been told "You know, everybody can’t like you, Sam..."
I’m usually told this when I am telling someone that I was hurt because I was treated badly by another person, and it was only this last time that some helpful soul said this to me that I realized cohesively - and was able to explain coherently - that I really don’t care if people like me or not – AS LONG AS THEY STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY FACE. I mean, if I don’t know, I can’t care. And if I am forced – by work or association (friend of a friend, etc…) – to be around that person, then why can’t they be civilized (like me, of course :) and just be civil and/or ignore me until our necessary transactions are finished. This can go for the smartarses who give me that b.s. about "Everybody can’t like you, Sam..." Gimme some !@#$ credit here, people. I started out my life with my own MOTHER not liking me, everything and everybody after that is just coffee stains on the old sweatshirt of life.

2. Perfume in public... PEOPLE, if it makes YOUR OWN EYES WATER, then you probably shouldn’t wear it around OTHER INNOCENT BY-SMELLERS!
(sorry, this is a very current - as of RIGHT THIS SMELLY MOMENT - rant. RAAR! *snork!kerchoo!*)

3. Floods. *sigh* My washer did it again last night. I’d repaired the busted pipe (how smart is X?* to bugger off to work while I’m doing these projects, anyway? ;) but then the damned run-off pipe busted, too. Raar. Well, not much more was ruined, as that pipe was in the bathroom – and I got my bathroom clean.
I’ve lost a lot of stuff in all of this - books, mags photos, art and art supplies, etc., and the deeper issue is raised now, that I need to get rid of the things that are holding me back emotionally and physically. It feels cathartic to even think about this – to even try... more about this in a bit.

Here’s something else I wonder. A lot of you read my page, and I am grateful. As I said before, it’s nice to think that someone thinks I have something word spending a few minutes considering, or is at least amused by me. But do y’all also think I am just sad? Do y’all read this stuff and think, "Man, she is just pathetic!" I hope not, but there are definitely some days when I couldn’t blame anyone for thinking that. As I said earlier, it doesn’t matter if people like me, or like my words, but it DOES matter if I do, and the world is a mirror.

On that note - and this ties in to my issues of loss and acceptance - "Amama", thank you. It is an honor to be loved and heard by you. Your attention and consideration of my words and beliefs as wisdom is an astounding honor.

You see, "Amama" was having a mother's very natural fears - especially at a time when the world seems to be a powder keg - about something happening to her beloved girl. I told her what I'd discovered through my own personal 'Iditarod' of loss and grief that began a couple of years before (and led up to) my moving here. What I am learning is that if you love someone or something so much that you fear losing it or them, then you will cling too tightly (which is a crushing, suffocating thing) and you will live in fear and dread. That automatically diminishes your ability to love, because so much of your energy is taken up with this bad stuff. Coming to the realization that life is really all about loss, that eventually you will absolutely lose everything is actually a good thing, because once you realize it, then you can accept it, get past it, and then you can love without any reservation. This is a basic zen principle, I believe, but it was the wonderful writer, Marge Piercy who first opened my eyes, in her poem:

To Have Without Holding

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

-MP

The greatest gift that I can be given is to be told that I have made a significant and positive difference in someone else's life. This little webspot may be pathetic sometimes. It may be shallow (01/31/03) or sad and hurt (12/03/03) or just plain mad and silly (11/12/03), but it is ME, nonetheless. I told Chris last night that I might be a "motor mouth"**, but I honestly feel that I don't say anything that I don't mean, and that I don't think is important. He said that he agreed - and he listens to me a lot.

"Amama", for you to say what you did in my guestbook is worth all the sparkly shiny things, all the trips to Tristan de Cunha, all the be-wife-beatered bohunks and all the Godiva truffles in the world, and THEN some. To think that I may have helped you and your little Ama (and of course my Bribro too) to have a closer bond, to have a bigger love, to have more peaceful days - there is NO greater joy. None***. You have honored me beyond the possibilities of even my preposterous imagination****. My prayer to our Big Mama in the Sky is that I just be worthy of such honor, and that I be given the grace and strength to keep trying.

Wishing you all Grace and Strength, folks - not to mention Hope and Honor,
-s

*and how CUTE, too. He cut his hair all off, and it is GORGEOUS. He was pretty damned nice to look at before, but he is just... phwoa! with this new short, messy, fancy rock-star do. It’s like having a brand-new boyfriend (in more ways than one, he looks younger, too) without having to go to all the trouble of GETTING one. This morning he went to the Bakery to get me a cuppa (decaf, of !@#$ course) and before he got back, my friend that works there called me and said "This REALLY cute guy came in to get coffee, and I was just talking to him (she was FLIRTIN’, y’all KNOW it! :) and then he said ‘Sam said to put this on her tab.’, and I thought ‘Oh yeah, I KNEW I’d seen him somewhere before!’ Man! (etc.)" Yeah, I gotta cute beau... who gets me coffee (and does a million other nice things too). YAY, ME!

**yet another $#*!!% thing my mother used to call me...

***I also believe with all my heart that your little girl will grow up and be a force for change and peace and inspiration, too. She already is, but I believe that she will be a right active little "Sunshine Soldier" all of her life. She will take all that rich unlimited love that you (and every single person that meets her) give her, that joy of being alive that shines out of her sweet little face (man, I wish I could post one of those new pics of her here!), and turn it into the energy that will hopefully help to keep this big old creaky machine-planet going. I HAVE to believe that (to stay sane), and I am doubly (ok, quadzooply) honored to think that I might be one of the tiny quantum forces that will inspire her. moo.

****this from the person who is still hoping for a spot in People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful" issue someday... :D