welcome to the next chapter...

once a long time ago, i read on a blog, "i am a lesbian but thats not all i am". i was then just teetering on the edge coming out as a lesbian. back then, although i understood what she was saying, i was completely drowning in that one dimension of my identity. i knew then i was more than also but such turmoil tends to shrink your field of vision. it is scary and exciting and anticipatory and it is exhausting.

i am almost 5 years out now. some things look differently in my life. some things are the same. but i revel in the knowledge that i am a lesbian and in the knowledge that i really am more than just... my field of vision has grown to include the wide open spaces of life's endless possibilies.

for those of you who know me, you will be able to find the familiar places of my old writings which i will have on the sidebar. for those who stumble upon me and find yourself confused by fragmented references or are struggling to come out later in life, you will find the Closer to Fine link most helpful. I recommend reading it from the beginning, it makes more sense.

one more thing, blame my lack of capital letters on e.e. cummings...

Saturday, October 29, 2011

retribution on the other hand sally....

The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery. It is to be contrasted with the law of compensation, which is the law of loss-based recovery. Obligations to make restitution and obligations to pay compensation are each a type of legal response to events in the real world. When a court orders restitution it orders the defendant to give up his gains to the claimant. When a court orders compensation it orders the defendant to compensate the claimant for his or her loss.


no matter how much i sympathize with Sally, i don't think the law supports her cry for restitution.




however, its  not the first time a boy has tried to over compensate with a sincere pumpkin patch just to try to catch a girl.  




Wednesday, October 26, 2011

cruelty...

it is the one emotion/action i do not understand.   i do not know where to place it in the closet of hanging emotions i have waiting for me to pull out and wear for the day.  it has no hanger, drawer and i haven't been able to figure out how to fold it (sorta like fitted sheets)  i look at it in my hands wringing it and rolling it into a ball and throwing it in a lump in the far top shelf in the corner. its real and i see it everyday but it is not worth display.

i have no label for it.  no compassion for it.  no justification for it. no intellectual understanding of it.  it just makes me shake my head.  i saw a man walk passed a man standing outside the grocery store the other day as i was driving into the driveway.  the man standing was asking for a job, money or a prayer.  the other man  clipped him with his shoulder and called him "a piece of shit".    i don't understand it.  i didn't have a job or money for that man but i always have a prayer.  but in my opinion the cruel jerk needed the prayer more than the soul holding the sign.   i prayed separate and sincerely compassionate prayers for both of them.  

unprovoked cruelty,  cruelty meant to provoke...  i have resolved on a personal level, with the personal cruelty i deal with that retaliation of any kind is just cruelty dressed in justification clothes.  still cruelty but with an excuse.  its still cruelty even if you dress it up.    some feel provocation is all they need, in fact, they wait in hope for it  but it really isn't a "get out of jail free card".  cruelty stands alone and we decide what we will do with it once it is fired at us.   i have chosen what i want to do with it.  it takes practice, perhaps indefinitely, perhaps forever.   i cannot give my energy to cruelty in my life.   i choose to recognize it and to let it go.

what will happen when/if i am presented with it on a grander scale that has nothing to do my interpersonal relationships?  i don't know.   i put my faith in God that he will guide me to the best outcome.
~nina~



Cruelty is, perhaps, the worst kid of sin. Intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.
Gilbert K. Chesterton

Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable.
Jodie Foster


Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves. Paul Tillich

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn't really hurt. George Bernard Shaw

My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt. Anna Sewell

Now I say that with cruelty and oppression it is everybody's business to interfere when they see it. Anna Sewell

The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love - almost as violent and much more mischievous. Aldous Huxley

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell. Bertrand Russell

The truth doesn't have to do with cruelty, the truth has to do with mercy. Ken Kesey

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. Martin Luther King, Jr.

To insult someone we call him "bestial." For deliberate cruelty and nature, "human" might be the greater insult. Isaac Asimov

Where does discipline end? Where does cruelty begin? Somewhere between these, thousands of children inhabit a voiceless hell. Francois Mauriac

Thursday, October 20, 2011

first, i want the edited words back into the song. then....


then i want to get off my ass and out of my fears and start up my photography business.   not to make millions but to do it because it brings me joy.   i want to become the eclectic old woman who you are not sure is 40 or 60 years old.   i want my fair share of my body back.   no one took it from me mind you,  i just let it walk out the door and blamed it on everyone and everything else but me.  i don't need rib removal or liposuction.  i don't want a partner less than 10 years younger than me.  so there is no need to go all "Cher" on the single ladies.   Besides that i don't think i have the energy.

when i was younger i dreamed of being 40.   of how powerful and successful i would be.  it passed me by in a blink of an eye.  but there is no reason why 50 can't be the new 40.  so now i just need to get off my ass and out of my fears....  

ps.  does it count if you join the mile high club by yourself?  (i'm just askin')

Monday, October 17, 2011

the problem with thinking you know everything...


we rage against the machines in the beginning of our age
we writhe in pain, we take the stage or put our pen to the page
new ideals, new beliefs in our inevitable naivite'
we strike out on our journey as if our footsteps lead the way.

surprised now as we sit here looking back
we ponder all our seeking and how much more now we lack
we speak of "when", we pour the wine and raise our aging cups
but i wonder friends, the wisdom we sought will let us soon grow up.

~nina~


Sunday, October 16, 2011

authentic self


 the authentic self is really our only path we have to find salvation... so many of us are desperately trying to find ourselves... without being whole we can never be a part of a half...

each time i hear this song it brings me another "gift".  thoughts of how singular our lives are.  how connected we all can be.   how important that odd connection is.   

 singular, we want to be complete. we want to be good company to ourselves.  we want to amuse ourselves in our own heads and experiences.  we want memories to be like a warm dip into the hot springs.   acceptance and happiness instead of regrets or loneliness for what is gone or greediness because it didn't last as long as we wanted it to.  or sadness because in the singularity we find ourselves, we feel an empty instead of a blessing.

we get so tied up in day to day "have to's" that we lose pieces of ourselves.  or we forget them, thinking that we can find them again when and if we have the time.  every now and then we think back and wonder where did i go?   i really liked me then.  now i don't even know me. sometimes it takes so long to remember, that we are not even sure it is really us we are remembering.  perhaps it was a dream of what we needed to be exactly how we wanted to be but knew we couldn't really be.

family and friends.  i grew up in the LDS church and had the "families are forever" mantra drilled into my head from the moment i walked through the threshold of  the 5th ward.  i never learned to think of forever.   life changes too much, too fast. how could anything last forever? i never could wrap my head around that belief.   friends disappear, die,  lovers dissolve, seasons betray me.  i am 50 next year,  do you know i still naively believe  in the endless summer?   i am  so stunned as i look out the window and see the trees changing colors and settling down for the winter to come.  i am doing that as i speak, beautiful yellow with a back drop of still green trees.  I sip my wine in disbelief. and ponder things i can't express.

children.  they are the most wonderful experiences i have or will ever have in my life.  yet with every day you teach them to learn to live without you, away from you, singular and hopefully whole in their singularity.  when i think about them, i miss every single day of their lives.  every laugh, every tear and i pray.  i pray that they are on their own journey of self.  i pray that there will be more times that i share with them to add to my book of memories.  but forever just doesn't fit inside the cover of the book of my life.   even the bible has a back cover.


Monday, October 10, 2011

i think i have a dress designer on my hands...


she disappeared into the craft room and came out with a styled dress with back buttons down the back and just needing a few extra things to finish it.   she made her own party dress.   tell me what can i expect next?


Bannock Long House ala Emma


We gathered sticks from around the pond and spent 2 hours building the long house in the craft room.  we also took two pretend flickering candles and glued kindling around them so you can see the flickering when the lights are down....    tonight we do the poster board and a Bannock Indian legend.  

Friday, October 7, 2011

bits and pieces...

when i first moved out of my parents home my mother put a radio in my old room and cranked it all day and closed the door.   she told me one day when i came to visit,  "i have missed the music blaring  from your room for 15 years that made it  impossible for your father and i to watch tv".    i laughed and thought her just a silly woman.... cute but weird.

i walked passed the girls room tonight and they had turned on the radio and promptly left the room to do something else.  i usually call after them and make them come back and turn it off but i had a flash of my cute but weird mother and suddenly understood the "empty" that suddenly wasn't there after a long 2 week stretch from my time with my babies.  i get it.  i think i might just leave that radio on next tuesday morning... 

what a cute and weird mother they have...

Sunday, October 2, 2011

reach with all your might... your hand hold will be there....

Jesus told his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake as he dismissed the crowd.   then afterward he went to the hills to pray.   during this time his disciples became  embroiled by a high sea and it frightened them as they were tossed about by the wind in the waves.  they cried out in fear "Jesus! Save Us!"      in the distance they saw a figure walking toward them above the waves.  They cried out "its a ghost!"    Jesus voice rang out above the wind wailing and the sound of the waves pounding against the boat.   "it is I, Jesus... do not be afraid"    Peter speaks, my Lord if you are there walking above the water and are safe,  lord if its you, tell me to meet you in the water and Jesus said come.... peter walked upon the water until he was overcome by the fear of the weather. and the wind buffting him and he broke his gaze with Jesus and  began to sink.    Peter cried out!   Save me my Lord!   and Jesus reached out to Peter  and he was saved.   "Yea of little faith. why did you doubt me?    they climbed into the boat the winds died down and all the disciples praised him as the true Messiah

anchors

anchors are not always heavy iron weights that one uses to stop movement.

sometimes they are like branches waiting in the distance. you leap from one branch and with faith you reach out and believe that the next hand hold will be there when you close your hand to grab it.