Home

The word home takes on many meanings in our lives and it seems, the older we get, the complications of modern life makes it all the more difficult to find the comfort and respite we need to rejuvenate.  I've moved back to my home in Cleveland.  This is a place with great beauty and comfort, yet it still has the roughness of city living and reminders of difficult times now more than 5 years past.

There are many things I would be involved with had I not had a history here and I find myself wishing for the lack of memories ... of my being fired,  of the death of my husband, of being stalked, of the more recent robbery ... I would find myself volunteering for the local chapter of the Green Building Council, sponsoring and working with environmental groups and maybe even renting a plot in Kentucky gardens.

Still the lingering history breathes gently like a fire burning somewhere needs that needs to be extinguished or used for the greater good.  As I contemplate how to turn it in to the seeds for growth, I just ask that I be let be... that the obsessions and wounds of the past allow to be in the past.

Allow the past to provide nourishment for the future.
Allow the possible future to inspire the present.

Live with joy in the present.

Be home.

"This..."

"This odyssey is..."

[fill in the blank]

Solitary

Snowfall in Victorian Village, 2010
my turn to shovel our walks 

This morning, I watched a National Geographic program on the effects of solitary confinement on inmates.  In particular the program focused on a penitentiary in Pennsylvania that houses only inmates in solitary confinement.  In the case of this prison, the inmates are kept in solitary for a minimum of 18 months, average of two years, and five years is not atypical. Medical and biological tests are conclusive: this type of inhumane treatment produces exactly the opposite as to what is intended -- inmates who are less capable of dealing with other people and the psychological tests of this life.

Included in the major impacts are:

• A visceral need to be hyper-diligent in awareness of surroundings
• An inability to build or sense community
• A lack of impulse control and tendency toward compulsive behavior

What is interesting to me, is that this happens to us all.  

As we become more isolated by our neighbors, we become more fearful of them and increase our isolation from them.  It becomes impossible to build community where thriving communities once stood.  Take for example, neighborhoods and kids.  Where kids are isolated from their neighborhoods to go to school (through bussing, etc), the neighbors can no longer effectively care for the kids.  Distance grows and people become afraid of each other.  Kids are increasingly isolated and become more afraid of strangers in their daily travels.  Kids become connected to kids with the same fears (no families; no community) and create their own through mechanisms like gangs. Remember, that the part of our brains that develops and controls discernment doesn't begin to be engaged until late teenage or early adulthood.  

Then, think about the people you know who are addicts.  Substance abuse often emanates from the loneliness of isolation (whatever type of isolation that may be).  

At my home in Columbus' Victorian Village, I knew all of my neighbors.  We sat on our front porches.  We supported and looked out for one another.  We knew that if there were problems we were not alone.  Not so much here in Cleveland.  I, for one, am without a job and feeling professionally isolated. My neighborhood has become rougher around the edges and people are more personally isolated.  I have been not feeling like walking the neighborhood and I've been drinking too much.  Too much. 

But all of that is about to change.  It is spring and a time for renewal.  I have been outside, raking the leaves, tending my garden, and walking the neighborhood.  I have reached out to area non-profits and offered my services.  I am still not feeling very well, but I am feeling better.  

So, when you see that neighbor who is alone or that kid walking home from school, engage them.  Look them in the eye and notice they are there.  Say, "hello."  Every time.  Until they hear you.  

This is how we may begin to regain our neighborhoods and our selves.  It may help people and communities who were thought to be unreachable regain a sense of peace. 

Friends...and Facebook

Facebook is has been an interesting journey for me.  Immediately upon joining I reconnected literally with hundreds of people with whom I spent my childhood -- their children were on FB and so were they.  It was nothing but shear pleasure to see pictures of their children, communicate about life as it is and share in the sorrows and joys of our lives now reconnected.

I have made friends on FB....probably dozens of people who were connected to me through friends that have now become real and sometimes just virtual parts of my daily support system. I have seen relationships rise and fall and rise again.  I have seen people find jobs, love, work... I have learned and taught; loved, laughed, angered and been provoked to action because of Facebook.  I have traveled, donated, purchased items when people were in need because of what I read.  I have been moved to fit of giggle and tears.

A very sad thing happened, though.  In part, because of Facebook, I have lost a friend.  A friend who is really struggling with the transitions and ironies in life about whom I have come to deeply care.  I offended her in ways completely unintended.  My opinions and means of voicing them struck a chord in her that was so unpleasant that she chose to end the relationship.  And so it goes.

Who knows what the future may bring?

In the loss of interaction with a friend, and in the spirit of all of the friendships that brighten my day, I am brought back to the word of Ruiz and his "Four Agreements."

1. Be impeccable with your word
2. Don't take anything personally
3. Don't make assumptions
4. Always do your best

Yes.  I will continue to live by these words.

The "Decider"

It's not so much that I'm the decider, but maybe it's more that I am action oriented.

On October 1st, I found out that my tenants in my Cleveland home were moving to South Carolina.  The house is in a neighborhood that needs attention all of the time and I basically stationed myself there for the remainder of 2010 to "sit with it"  -- to get a feel for the house; to deal with Michael's death and the remnants of his life; to fix the house and most importantly to decide which house I would live in.  I'm not interested in being a landlord.  I just want a peaceful life without worrying about how someone is treating my $300K investment. 

So, I decided I wasn't going to decide...at least not until the end of the year.  But in my way of thinking, by some miracle of life, I should have gained clarity on which decision was the right one during my self-imposed indecisive/nonaction purgatory. 

And purgatory it was.  It nearly put me out of my mind.  I became bitter, neurotic, absent-minded, grouchy, sad and self-pitying.  All behaviors and feelings that cycled back on themselves and resonated with the ugliness of having no plan of action is for me.

And, then, like the miracle itself, the new year came.  2011.  Not only a new year; but, a new decade. If there is a God, he or she or it shone its light on me and said, "There are decisions to be made from a series of good choices."  For the first time in years I had the opportunity to make a decision about where and how I would live -- and completely without external factors forcing a quick decision.

And I decided.  And it is good.

Mea Culpa/Grato

Well, you know... sometimes even I can behave like a beast.  Sometimes I become overwhelmed by that sharp lonelyache that takes over any sense or reason.  It is a hazard of a life well-lived and a life well-lived on the edge.

I haven't followed a traditional path.  I am not moved by the mores or expectations of others.  I am moved by my conscience; by what feels to me the right thing to do at the time.  I am moved by truth and honesty and a visceral need to live within my own truth.

And sometimes I allow that truth to open wide and flood my space with the whole of its existence as if my life depends on it.  Sometimes at the detriment of others. Sometimes utterances unforgettable; perhaps unforgivable.

So, on this Thanksgiving Day, I offer gratitude for friends and family; colleagues and community who continually offer safe respite for this heart living on the edge of what others may consider the line where white lies are appropriate.  If not for those people who love me and support me in spite of myself, my life would not have the joy it does. 

A Turning Point

I haven't posted here for a while; I haven't had the urge to do it.

If you come here to this small place looking for me, you know where to find me.  I am looking for civil (and sometimes less civil) passionate discourse about to make our communities a better place through our individual actions.

If you like, come by, sit for a spell.  Talk about your world, your vision, your concern, your life.

As I figure it out, I will certainly post where my writing will be.

Namaste