Why Do I Cry?

Sunday 21May06 10:43pm
Why do I cry when I see others do well? It's about a person living
their purpose.

I can watch a singer perform and get all teary eyed. I can watch the
Olympics and ball my eyes out as an athlete wins a medal. Sometimes
it's only a bronze but knowing the back story that got that athlete to
the bronze over takes my emotions.

It's about purpose. There's something about watching a person and
knowing, witnessing them living their purpose that affects me. It
inspires me. It makes me wonder what the world would be like if we all
lived our purpose, if I truly lived my purpose. All anyone really has
to do is persist through all the odds. Just because we know our purpose
doesn't mean we'll be without obstacles.

I cry because these people have persisted through some obstacles that
other people couldn't live through, they've persisted and I'm watching
the culmination of that persistence. It's beautiful and inspiring and
it makes me weep...

EY
Living an Inspired Life.

Inspired by Animals

I Protect Animals
Sunday 21May06 9:01pm

When I was growing up I never spoke up for myself. For one, I was too
scared to. But mostly I tried to be the perfect child to balance off
all the trouble my brother got into. And when my step-sisters were in
my life I felt that I was considered the inferior child by my step
father and my mother. I coped by thinking, writing and spending my
time with my animals. We always had an assortment of animals in our
house.

My dog Smokey was part Collie and part German Shepherd. He was born on
my fifth birthday.

He was my best companion for 16 years. When I was little and scared of
the dark I awoke many a night to find him checking on me just as I
stirred and his presence always made me feel protected. He would climb
into bed with me if I asked him to.

We left him behind with friends when we left for British Columbia for
part of the year when I was in grade three. When we came back to
Montreal we saw him scratching at our front door as my mother paid the
cab fare. He turned and looked at the cab and came running over wagging
his tail and talking. He went from whining to howling as he ran around
us telling us he missed us or he was glad we were back or better yet
giving us shit for leaving him.

When we moved above a pizza place that year and things had turned
violent with my mother's boyfriend Frank, I hugged Smokey daily.
Sometimes for hours I'd put my arms around him and he would rest his
head on my chest, never moving away until I did. I was calmed by his
heartbeat. Sometimes I felt that he was the only way I received love.

As a teenager when the rules of the house got particularly strict
because in my step father's humble opinion, they had to make sure I
didn't come home pregnant, Smokey was my get out of jail free card. I
would take him out on walks for hours. I would go to the park where my
friends hung out or show up at a friends house and people who didn't
like dogs loved Smokey.

I may never have spoken up for myself but because of Smokey I spoke up
for my animals. My step father would tease or kick the cats when ever
he was mad at my mother. I would find this anger inside of me that knew
no bounds and feared no one and I would speak up. I told him that the
animals didn't deserve that treatment. They didn't know that they
should hide because he was mad. They were defenseless and what kind of
person picked on a defenseless animal.

I knew the gift that animals gave us.

It didn't really stop my step father but something shifted inside me.
It made me a little braver to speak my mind once in awhile and it
brought me to 16 years old and a readiness to go toe to toe in battle
with him. For two years my stepfather and I fought and I won the
ultimate battle. I knew I'd never let a bully of a man beat me like the
men that beat my mother.

As an adult in my own apartment I adopted Saki, my black cat from the
Humane Society. She hated being in a cage so much that she pulled her
hair out from her backside and her tail. For her whole life I vowed
that I would never leave her in a cage for more than a night. I always
said, "See you later," when I left the house so that she would learn
that it meant that I was coming back.

Saki was my companion who loved our evening ritual of chasing my hand
under the pillow before we went to sleep. I swear that cat understood
what laughter was and deliberately did things to make me laugh. She
was grateful for being rescued from the Humane Society and was super
affectionate. If I asked her for a kiss she'd press her lips on mine.
She placed her paw on my hand and looked at me when she wanted me to
pat her. She sat on my desk when I was writing.

She knew my schedule and if I pressed the snooze one time too many and
fell back into a deep sleep she would meow into my face until I woke
up. When I was suffering from depression she cared for me. She never
let me sleep alone and always had a paw touching me.

When I had Saki for a year my boyfriend Jeff and I were discussing
moving in together. We discussed what our expectations were so we had
an idea of what the other one was thinking. At one point he said
flippantly, "You'll have to get rid of that cat. I don't like cats."
It took me days before I blurted out, "If I have to choose between you
and my cat, I don't know who I'd choose."
"You'd choose the cat," Jeff said.
"Well yeah, I was just trying to be nice about it."

I kept my sweet Saki who was to become the cat I described and Jeff and
I never moved in together although we didn't break up. He came over
one time and pushed Saki the ever friendly personable cat away roughly.
To his surprise, I said, "Be nice to her. This is her house not yours."
He was never mean to her again.

I got 17 years of love from Saki. My relationship with Jeff wasn't half
that.

When she got ill I took her to the vet and discussed my options. If it
was just a mild illness I would do all that was possible. If it was
something major, I would put her down because staying caged at the vet
would be too stressful for her and like being back at the Humane
Society. Obviously there was no way to communicate to her that she was
only in the cage to get better I would never be selfish enough to do
that for a few more months with my beloved cat. But I'd cross that
bridge when I found out the results.

Of course it was serious. She had kidney failure. The vet that called
me with news was different from the one I'd left Saki with. She gave me
the news while I sat at work and promptly talked over me about the
treatment that she was going to start Saki on: forced feedings,
intravenous fluids. Saki would have to stay at the vet for at least a
week... blah blah blah.

I finally got my bearings and said that I would pick up my cat that
evening after work and keep her for a day or so to say my good byes and
I'd bring her back to put her down as discussed with Justin, the
original vet. This woman basically called me cruel and how dare I give
up on my cat the moment she got a little sick. I told her that I
rescued this cat from the Humane Society and I vowed I'd never let her
spend more than a night in a cage. Since she was a cat and not a human
I had no way of communicating with her why she was in a cage. How could
having her feel like I've abandoned her be beneficial to her health?

"Well it's like giving a baby a needle you can't tell the baby what's
going to happen,"she said.

"You're comparing my cat to a baby? When's the last time you stuck your
baby in a cage?"

I was crying by the time I said, "If you can guarantee that my cat will
live for 10 years I'll do it. I want her to live to be 27."
"Oh I'm sorry I can't even guarantee a year."
"And you want me to cause her undue suffering, put myself thousands of
dollars in debt and you can't even guarantee me a year? How can I say I
love my cat and put her through that?"

I sobbed so much at my desk that my boss called the vet back and gave
her shit.

When I picked Saki up the paper work had in large block letters,
"CLIENT HAS DENIED PATIENT TREATMENT. THIS CAT WILL DIE WITHOUT
TREATMENT."

I brought Saki home and after she paced and chatted for a half hour,
she spent a sleepless night as she roamed around the house aimlessly. I
called in sick to work the next day and spent the day with my girl. I
tried everything to get her to eat. I gave her a raw egg. I gave her a
cooked egg. I gave her the juice from canned Salmon; baby food; fried
garlic, butter and Parmesan cheese (one of her favorites). She didn't
eat. At 3pm that afternoon she climbed back into her carry case and
went to sleep for the first time since I'd brought her home. I stared
at her and felt that she was telling me that she was ready to go.

I brought her back to the vet. Justin came out from behind the counter
and asked, "What's wrong?"
"She's ready," I said.

He brought me into the room and explained that he'd take her away to
give her medication to calm her before the process would begin as most
pets seem to sense that they are going down and freak out. He told me
about all the needles that she would get and that when he got to the
blue liquid, that was the one that would end her life. He took her away
and came back almost immediately saying that she was so calm he decided
not to give her the meds.
"I've never seen a cat so calm before during this," he said.
"I know, I told you, she's ready."

As Justin started the process I told Saki over and over again, "See you
later. See you later."

I held her after she died. I held her and touched her and talked to
her. I said, "See you later," one more time and I left.
I will never respect people who hurt animals. They give us a silent
unconditional love and all we have to do is be nice to them. They help
sick people feel a little less pain and care for us when we are
depressed.

I don't care for the cliche about the single woman with her cats as a
pathetic image. Our animals have been more dependable than any human
being in our lives.

EY
Living an Inspired Life

Inspired to Leave

Thursday 18May06 7:47pm
I've got to work this weekend and next weekend at my part time gig and
then I'm giving it up. After 10 years it's time to walk away.

I've always been the more than one job kinda person but it's grown
tired. It's time to use my free time for writing plus the extra pay
cheque isn't all that extra, if you know what I mean.

I'm grateful for that job. It bailed me out of many a mess but now I
can barely find the motivation to show up. The environment isn't
conducive to any kind of joy. There is a palpable tension that I'm
always waiting to jump out and engulf us all. Everybody is nice but
it's the scared nice, no one wants to say what they really think about
the bullshit that's going on.

In the good old days, I saw shows from around the world that I would
have no other means of seeing. In the good old days, shows cut their
teeth there before they went to larger venues, we had Stomp first and
the Tap Dogs first. Staff stayed for opening night and closing night
parties. We met awesome talents in shows and on staff.

You didn't need a social life, this job was your social life.
But all that has changed. The bulk of the people don't know what the
job used to be like because they haven't been there that long. They
haven't suffered through some of the crazy festivals - 8 hour operas.
They don't miss Robert LePage and his shows that were larger than life.
They haven't lived the excitement of a World Stage that was sold out
before it even started. And I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry that
I've come to despise my part time job. I feel sorry that no one seems
to push the limits in arts programming that kept people talking for
years.

But I'll have my memories... Today's Japan; The Three Lives of Lucie
Cabrol; The Trick is to Keep Breathing; DV8; Robert LePage; Caroline
O'Connor (who made me cry, told me that she saw me in the front row and
did the show for me, made me laugh while we sucked back some beer);
Yimimangaliso; Tap Dogs (Ben Mayne where are you?); Carbone 14; Que
Circe; Yousou N'Dour; Cassandra Wilson; the old African man that
performed at the Bamboo in his language and despite not understanding a
word he had the audience silenced by his beauty; Bill T Jones; Learie
McNicholl ; the tents in the parking lot; and so much more.

EY

Miscellaneous

Thursday 18May06 6:56pm
It's interesting how stuff from my childhood can just crop up out of
nowhere. Sometimes the same shit crops up over and over.

Today the guys were teasing me that the boss was going to order lunch
for every one tomorrow, my day off. It's happened three times already.
Three times that lunch was ordered on my vacation day. I try not to get
upset about it but it bugs the shit out of me. Why is it that he
chooses those days as if it's some sort of punishment for me taking
days off that I'm rightfully entitled to? It's not that I need to have
the food anyway. I need to lose weight. Most of the time it's junk like
Pizza or Veal sandwiches. But it still hurts to be left out.

I think back to my mom. I think back to the days when I had to
understand why she put my step sisters needs ahead of mine. She said
she didn't want them to feel like they were missing out on anything
because I lived with their father and they didn't. It was no picnic
living with their father. I tried to understand but something deep
inside of me told me that my mother should want to put me first. She
never really did.

I can remember offering to buy my step sister a treat when she
inadvertently told me that my mom had given her extra money, over and
above her allowance from her father. It turned out that she had way
more money than I had and she was at least four years younger than me.
I was pissed and hurt and felt somehow that even my mother thought I
was somehow inferior or undeserving.

At my part - time job I watched for 2 years how my boss, who was one of
my best friends, bought a birthday cake for each staff member and then
just before my birthday she announced to me that she was no longer
buying birthday cakes because no one appreciated it. Two years in a
row.
She bought cake for people she said she hated and couldn't fork out a
little more for my birthday. It just reminded me of being a kid.

I wonder how old we get before we stop being haunted by our childhood.
Is there ever a time when you look at an incident as just the incident
and not as a series of repeated stories? Who really knows.

How do I contend with feeling like I'm always the one left out? Friends
that come into town but forget to call me. Work situations where the
treat is divvied out when I'm not around.

Or better yet, when will I stop caring?

It feels like I'm continually chasing after being included. I think I'm
viewed with some sort of respect and admiration and then I live a
repeat of some childhood shit. Dammit I'm an outsider, I get that, but
sometimes can't the people closest to me just give me a fucking break?

EY

I Am a Fool

Too funny! I decided to have another card picked for me only for Shelley as opposed to my full name... It turns out I really am the Fool!

You Are The Fool

You are a fascinating person who is way beyond the concerns of this world. Young at heart, you are blissfully unaware of any dangers ahead. You are a true wanderer - it has be difficult finding your place in this world. Full of confidence, you are likely to take a leap of faith. Your fortune: You are about to embark on a new phase in your life. This may mean changing locations, jobs, friends, or love status. You are open about what the future will bring, and free of worry. You have made your peace with fate, and you're ready to start down your new path.

What Tarot Card Are You?

Links

Sunday 7May06 3pm

If you can read my thoughts about God and Dreams, you can read some of this stuff. Or better yet, understand why I do!

Quado is my favorite of all of them.

Click here for Quado: Read or Subscribe

Heavenletters

Click here for Heaven Letters

Daily Positive Thought

Click here Positive Thought


What Tarot Card Am I? Shelley-Lynne Domingue
An appropriate Tarot card for exactly how I am feeling. Interesting!

You Are Death

You symbolize the end, which can be frightening. But you also symbolize the immortality of the soul. You represent transformation, rebirth of a new life. Sweeping away the past is part of this card, as painful as it may be. Your fortune: Don't worry, this card does not predict death itself. Instead it foreshadows the ending of an era of your life, one that is hard to let go of. But with the future great new things will come, and it's time to embrace them. Mourn for a while, but then face the future with humility and courage.

Click here and Tell me, What Tarot Card Are You?

Life is Magic

7May06 Sunday 3:40pm

I believe in God (a higher power) and dreams. I believe that God is
energy neither male nor female or both male and female. I can remember
being 4 years old and lying in my bed in the morning, forced to stay
there because my mother, father and brother were still sleeping. I
remember being surrounded with white light. The light was warm and
comforting. I was safe.

I'm not positive if it was a voice in my head or just a belief but
something told me that I was special. It wasn't a conceited kind of
special as I look on it now, it was more about being unique (which we
all are) and feeling that inner love for my specialness or uniqueness.
Of course we've all traveled through the years of attempting to be less
unique and more clone like trying to emulate whatever clique or peer
group we believed would serve us in the moment but I still remember
myself from before that time.

What I like to believe now is that it was God communicating with me.
If God communicated with Moses, I ask myself, why wouldn't or couldn't
God energy communicate with me?

All through my childhood and into my early adult years I suffered from
nightmares and night terrors. I had horrifying dreams almost nightly. I
walked and talked and screamed in my sleep. I realize now that my night
terrors were a symptom of the scary awake life that I often lived in.
There was the violence suffered at the hands of my alcoholic father,
the fear that my mother didn't or couldn't love me as much as my
brother and subsequently my step sisters. There was a fine melange that
fed into my inner turmoil and haunted me in my sleep.

It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I'd heard of keeping dream
journals. I heard of at least one person curing her nightmares and
hoped the process would alleviate mine since I was on my own. I didn't
want to live with the fear that one night I might walk out of my
apartment and Lord knows what kind of real terror I could have sleep
walked in to. I didn't want to have to live with others just because I
walked in my sleep. I didn't want that kind of dependency.

I can't pinpoint exactly when the night terrors stopped, I know it was
a gradual process and I can say that I haven't had regular nightmares
in close to twenty years. I've had other dreams that have impacted me.

In my late twenties, I started to have dreams that took place in the
same diner that I ultimately called the Spiritual diner. It was
spiritual because I met dead people there. I met Marvin Gaye in my
first dream there and had a conversation about singing. Something I
don't do enough of now. Marvin had been dead at least eight years.

It's ironic, years later because of my spiritual diner dreams, when my
mother passed I was told by a psychic that when my mother came to me in
my dreams, "Ask her what she's come to tell you." I was able to hear
what the psychic told me and not just laugh it off. I believed that I
could have a conversation with my dead mother in my dreams.

Around 1990 or 1991, I had my first real bout of depression that lasted
over two weeks. I was depressed about a boyfriend who was 14 years my
senior and lacking in real intimacy. I was depressed because my mother
and I were at odds with each other because I was rolling around in
childhood memories and having difficulties with reconciling my mother's
love with these images.

I hardly slept. I was distraught with fatigue because if I was sad I
normally could at least sleep. I've read or heard that we need three
worries or stresses to cause us to be depressed. My third worry was
that I had lost one of my part-time jobs and the other one was barely
covering my weekly expenses.

In that sleepless two week period I cried, I paced and I contemplated
suicide. Maybe this was it for me. Maybe this was all I could ever hope
for - fights with my mom, a boyfriend with intimacy issues and no job
prospects. I accidentally started a fire in my apartment by keeping the
gas stove on to generate some heat because the Super hadn't turned the
heat up enough. I'd fallen asleep for about an hour or so and woke up
moments after my bottle of oil fell from the back ledge of the stove
into the flame and created a raging inferno.

I jumped out of bed and called 911 as I grabbed the box of salt and
poured the whole box into the fire. I stopped the fire before the
sirens screamed their announcement to my neighbours down our quiet
street. The huge rubber booted fire men complimented me on my calm and
smarts to have used salt instead of water as I apologized for calling
them for nothing since there was no fire when they got there.

After they left I decided that wanting to die was out of the question
since the thought of dying in a fire scared the shit out of me. I felt
like that fire was a response by God for my suicidal thoughts, to show
me that I didn't want to die. The depression, however, did not subside.
I endured another week of 2 to 3 hours sleep or none at all. I was
fatigued, emotional, and sure I was going insane.

I've heard stories about people surrendering their lives to God. Quite
frankly, I never believed them. I didn't believe in surrendering. I
didn't believe that it did any good or gave any substantial peace. I
didn't believe enough in believing.

I sat on my bed sobbing my soul out. Deep inside me I felt that
presence/voice/belief from way back when I was four years old - the one
that affirmed that I was special. I heard/felt/inhabited the word,
"surrender." I got down on my knees beside my bed and begged, "Please
just give me some peace." I do not remember getting off my knees and
getting into bed and falling asleep. I do remember the dream that I
had:

In my dream, I was waitressing at the spiritual diner. It was a super
busy night and I was frustrated because I knew I didn't waitress
anymore (in my awake life) and I hadn't had a break. I gave one table
of customers their order of four plates of food and saw Mahatma Gandhi
under another table in the seated meditative position (lotus?)
I could hear him chanting. I told myself that as soon as I had a moment
I would go and join him, "he can help me."

I rushed through the double doors towards the kitchen to retrieve the
next order and Pope John Paul II came out of a side hallway and made
the sign of the cross blessing me as I walked toward him. I could see
the intricate detail of the gold embroidery on the wrists of his white
robe.

I went through another set of double doors and stopped abruptly inside
the candlelit incense filled room. There was a man in each corner of
the silent room and a Holy book was leaned against the center column. I
bowed my body and head down in silent apology for disturbing their
ritual and backed out of the room.

When I woke up moments later, I lay enjoying this calming electric
energy that flowed through my whole body. The sensation was something
like what I feel after I meditate or get a massage only a hundred times
stronger. My depression had faded and I subsequently believed that life
has magic.

I see the connections through my past that leads me to believe in an
energy larger than myself that is also within me (within all of us). I
believe that my life holds so much more than I've often allowed myself
to visit. Lately I'm feeling ready to start that journey like The Fool
of the Tarot.

My interpretation of the Fool is that the being (male or female as the
case may be) doesn't see the cliff she's about to fall off in order to
start her journey. The cliff is a leap of faith. The leap of faith is
trusting that your journey is your uniquely special path. The fool is
optimistic, she hasn't thought of all the challenges she's going to
have to face on her journey - the injuries of the initial fall and the
pain that comes with experience. She is optimistic because she does
know whatever path she takes will bring joy and pain in equal measure
just as her past has brought her. No matter which way she turns is the
way she is meant to go.

Today I'm declaring that I'm a Fool. I'm traveling my path with a
little more optimism and the expectation of the unknown challenges that
will teach me inspiring lessons.

I'm here! You can love me or not love me; laugh at me or not laugh at
me; believe in me or not believe in me. God gave us choice and this is
what I choose until I choose something else.

Great Astrology Links

Astrology
Good in depth monthly forecasts by Susan Miller

Astrology Zone link

New Millenium Being
Astrology and Meditation
At the site click on Astro Ezine

New Millenium Being link

Numerology
At the site scroll down to Monthly Numerology Forecast
In depth Numerology link

Buddy the Donkey

His real name is Dusty but I call him Buddy

When I worked at the Ontario Science Centre I used to get to see Buddy twice a day. I'd sneak him carrots and apples and we became good friends. So much so that when ever I called his name, he would come running.
I wonder if I'll ever have a pet donkey?

EY

Finding Myself

4:41am Friday 5May06
I can remember that at ten years old I genuinely liked myself as I was.
I knew that I was a caring person. I liked that I could stick up for
myself and I knew that I had every right to be upset when I was put
second or third. It was the beginning of my dismissive years for sure.

I liked that I could out run most of the boys and I knew that I was
good enough to have the boy that I liked like me in return. And he did
too. His name was Dennis and he was Greek. When all of us neighbourhood
kids played hide and seek, Dennis and I always chose places to hide
together. If I said that I couldn't find my way in the dark, Dennis
would always say, "my hand is out, reach for my hand." I would touch
his hand and we would hide pressed close together. It was the closest
thing a boy and a girl would get to any kind of intimacy at 10 years
old. Dennis was sweet and comforting and reassurring.

At 10 years old, I was sure of myself and my abilities. I loved to draw
cartoons but my brother was such a superior artist that I decided to
make drawing my secondary talent. I decided that I would be a writer
instead and I started to write. Back then I wasn't overly critical of
my writing. I somehow instinctively knew that with time and practice my
writing ability would improve. Writing was a game of finding the right
words like rolling doubles while playing monopoly. Writing occupied my
mind and if I wasn't that quick with mathematics when quizzed in class
at least I knew deep inside me that I had something that I was quick
and smart at even if nobody else knew. I knew that I had my own special
something within me.

I feel myself slowly moving through the tail end of my latest
transition. I'm getting through and out of the repressed anger of the
emotional hardships of the last few years - jobs that I hated but had
no choice but to stay at for survival purposes, mistreatment of people
that didn't turn out to be friends, the death of my mother and feeling
like my whole sense of family died with her.

I'm feeling inspired. I'm focusing less on annoying incompetent people
and more on my individual path, who is going to travel with me, who
I'll have no sadness in leaving behind. I'm starting to genuinely like
myself like that ten year old - good parts and not so good. I feel less
of that need to be perfect and then beat myself down because I'm not.
I feel less of a need to control the outcome of every situation and yet
understand that I will have times when I backslide. That's human
nature.

I want to be more of that person who is passionate about things like
writing and music, enjoying nature and laughing at my favorite donkey
buddy. I'm finding more inspiration and am coming up to the ability to
see something loving in people that I don't particularly care for.

I had a conversation with Cinnabon on Sunday that what I love about
doing body work (she is a massage therapist and I do Reiki) is that
whoever gets on my massage table and allows me to put my hands on them
I fall in love with. It's something about how all the daily masks and
walls fall away when a person is on the table with their eyes closed
and I can almost see what that person looked like as a child. I can
feel the sensitivity and need for approval that every human being had
at one time before they found the need to disguise their truth.

What a great gift to be able to see in to someone's soul. To cut
through the disguises and find that under all the layers that we're all
the same. To find some sort of connection to humanity. It makes life a
little less solitary.

I don't know how I'm going to fit it in but I'm going to start offering
my Reiki services again. Whether it's for free or I offer my services
at a community centre or for fundraisers. That ten year old who I liked
being had pursuits that she enjoyed. She got some of this living thing
right. To start, Cinnabon and I are going to swap services with each
other. Reiki for swedish massage.

Living an inspired life.
EY

Favorites and Ramblings

30April06 Sunday 5:15pm

Favorite Theatre Company

I've seen all but maybe two productions. My all time favorite
production is The Stronger which inspired my idea for a novel in
research mode titled The Fold (3019)

Theatre Rusticle link
See a show and then consider donating money for more brilliantly
inspiring thought provoking productions. I do!

Favorite Yearly Event
The International Festival of Authors
I'm buying a patron membership this year in order to be able to attend every possible interview, and round table discussion I can get myself to. And I'm taking the week off work.
International Festival of Authors link

My Obsessions
Books
Music
The Olympics

Most People Think
I'm extroverted when I'm really introverted. I'm only extroverted when
I'm comfortable with the people I'm with.

Most People Don't Realize
I don't take or ask for advice. I just want someone to listen but many people think that is a cue to tell me what they think I should do. They also don't know that I will always do what I want to do not what they think I should do.

My Prince Quirk
I only ever listen to his newest album once. I play his older stuff more frequently and save his newer music for when I feel a need for new Prince music. I always want to feel like I have something new of his to listen to.

My Take on Christmas

I was like most children that always looked forward to Christmas. Each
year after all the hyped up excitement something inevitably went wrong.
If it wasn't my alcoholic father destroying the Christmas tree and
smashing all the presents it was my step father flipping out for some
imagined wrong doing. Of course not every single Christmas was shitty
but enough of them were to cause me anxious misgivings. If I could I
would go to a tropical island and drink some fruity drinks and work on
a tan that I don't need.

For most of my adult years I've spent Christmas as the add on at
someone's house. I was the orphan that had to be grateful for being
included in on the festivities when all I wanted to do was stay home
and bury my head until the 26th of December. People don't want to hear
about you being alone on Christmas. They think it's depressing and if
they had the guts to say it out loud, pathetic. So for years I was
someones guest. I had to sit through the torture of watching them open
all the presents they received and worse would have to feign happiness
and excitement I didn't feel. It was like being the only kid who didn't
get cake in a classroom of kids who did. No body is interested in
seeing that. Yeah sure, the spirit of Christmas isn't about getting
presents until you have to watch your friends opening three hundred of
them. Ask me if I feel like a loser?

Then something changed.

One year on my walk home from work, I went to the dollar store and
bought a 12 inch Christmas Tree and gold decorations of angels and
stars. Then I bought some wrapping paper, a red stocking and went home.
Every day for the next two weeks, I went and bought myself some little
presents, went home, wrapped them and stuck them around the tree or in
the red stocking. I bought Prince's latest CD at the time, the Rainbow
Children, and wrapped it. Every single person that knows I love Prince
asked me, "How's Prince's new album?"

I had to say that I didn't know because I bought it as a Christmas
present and couldn't unwrap it until Christmas. As I explained that in
my quest to enjoy Christmas that I bought myself presents and wrapped
them most of my friends looked at me like I was nuts.

"Why bother?" they asked, "You already know what you're getting since
you bought them."

I explained that I was even more excited because I knew what I got and
I had to wait to enjoy them. I had never been this excited about
Christmas when I was a kid.

On Christmas day I cooked my own turkey with italian sausage stuffing,
mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce (homemade). I also made a prime rib
roast, rice and veggies. For dinner I had two plates of food: One with
the turkey and the fixin's and the other with the roast beef and mashed
potatoes. Two types of gravy equals two different plates of food. And
wine! I had such a wonderful time that it has become my Christmas
ritual.
People still try to insist that I can't spend Christmas alone and I
say, "I learned to love Christmas by spending it alone!"

Okay off to do some rollerblading. Been invited for a BBQ at Hugs and
Cinnabon's house. Two of the nicest people I know. I decided to
nickname them Hugs and Cinnabon...
EY

Living an Inspired Life 2

Sunday 3:27pm 30Apr06

I watched Wayne Dyer's latest PBS special recently. It was part of his
new book Inspiration - Your Ultimate Calling. I got into him two years
ago when he did the Power of Intention. I ultimately bought the book
and all the Cd packages that went with it.

The viewing of his chat on inspiration reminded me about how I used to
look for and find inspiration everywhere. Back in the days when I liked
myself more and was more emotionally heallthy. ha ha. But seriously I
used to have a more upbeat look on life and then it plummeted for a
very long time. Part of the subsequent plummeting was that I started
focusing on the wrong things, for my sanity anyway.

Since watching his program, I've been doing a few little things for
inspirations sake. One of the things is getting up when I wake up way
too early and writing down random thoughts in my journal. Enjoying the
silent peace of 4am in my apartment building when my downstairs
neighbours aren't banging their renovation and my upstairs neighbour Mr
Heavyfoot AKA Fe Fi Fo Fum isn't stomping around like he weighs two
tons when he is actually quite small. Why is it that some people walk
so damn hard when they live in apartments? Do you really think you are
the only one in the world? Do I really have to go up and knock on your
apartment and show you how to walk lightly? The thing is I've already
spoken to him about it and he apologized all shamefaced and has since
continued to walk like he's the Giant after Jack in the beanstalk. But
I digress...

Inspiration? What has inspired me lately? There was an article in the
Toronto Star recently about a man that rented out Roy Thomson Hall
after re-mortgaging his house. He rented it because he's always wanted
to get on stage and sing in front of an audience. The guy did it and
sold it out too. It was his lifelong dream. He put his money where his
mouth was and did it.

My second piece of inspiration came from the documentary that was on
A&E last night called The man who predicted 9/11. Rick was the head of
security for Morgan Stanley and got out all of the Morgan Stanley
employees safely except for 6 people. He also died in the tragedy. Now
dying in a tragedy isn't necessarily inspiring but this guy was the
type of person whose calling was to save people. In the documentary his
biographer said that when Rick was in the vietnam war he was the head
of his platoon ( I don't really know what it's called but you get the
message.) In the majority of the other platoons the survival rate was
approximately 50%. 50% of the people died. In Rick's, 6-8 people died
only. And the thing about this guy was that it tormented him his whole
life that he lost those 6-8 men. Come on buddy you did a hell of a
job. But each person was important to him.

As an aside, he met and married the woman of his dreams 3 years before
he died in the World Trade Centre attacks.

From the get go, he was looking for ways that the centres could be
attacked. he brought in his army buddies and asked for their advice.
One friend said that the best way to attack was with a bomb in a van.
Rick tried to forewarn the Port Authority, the people that owned/ran
the buildings and they nodded their heads, smiled and waved him away.
They believed in him more after the 1993 bombing attack that went
exactly as his friend predicted.

After that, he brought the same friend back and the friend said that
the next time could only be from the air. Rick, believing that there
would be another attack first tried to convince the Morgan Stanley
people to move to another building. When that didn't work, he started
regular evacuation alerts. Every three months whether you were in a
meeting, in the bathroom, on a long distance phone call, you had to
drop what you were doing and leave the building on Rick's say so. The
employees now say that that vigilance was what ultimately got them out
alive. Of 2700 employees, 6 people didn't make it out alive.

One of the big executives saw Rick before he left the building and told
him, "You need to get out too Rick."
But Rick stayed in to help the EMS workers rescue the other people in
the building. An impossible feat as we all know. As a character that
would be what would drive the story that this man cannot bear to lose
people in his care.

Every one who spoke about him said, "He would have been a hero if he'd
left the building after he got the Morgan Stanley employees out."
He would have been a hero but he still would have been tormented by the
lives lost. He died doing what he believed in. An inspiring man...

Living an Inspired Life

Sunday 12:40pm 30Apr06

If every single person spent time only where he accomplished the
greatest good for himself and the person he was with, the world would
change in a day. It is important to spend time in ways that promote
your highest good. If something is not for your highest good, I can
guarantee that it is not for the highest good of the planet or others
either.
You may ask, what am I here to do that will bring me joy? Each one of
you has things that you love to do. There is not one person alive who
does not have something he loves to do. Pg.21 Living with Joy - Keys
to Personal Power & Spiritual Transformation by Sanaya Roman

Imagine what we would all be like if we were doing things that were for
our highest good? What kind of attitude would I have?

When my writing was my number one priority, not too many things could
get me down. I can remember when I didn't get involved with petty
gossip and didn't care about work politics. Even nasty customers
couldn't affect me.

My saying years ago was, "If I'm noticing all the crap that's going on
then I've taken my eyes off the goal." That saying really worked for
me. I knew where I wanted to be. I'm not really sure where that all
went. I guess I lost trust in the process. I started to worry about
money. I tried to maintain many friendships and relationships like
normal people. I wanted to feel more included. I wanted to be an
insider.

I realize that I have always been an outsider, an observer. It's what
made me want to write. I've always been the one that hears information
of a too personal nature. I knew stuff about the grown ups when I was
little that no other child knew. I witnessed inappropriate and
traumatic things.
I always thought, "that's an interesting story."
I always wanted to write about it.

When I was 7 and 8 years old, my mother used to tell her guests,"I
watch how Shelley reacts to you. If there is ever a person in my house
that Shelley doesn't talk to then I just know that person isn't
trustworthy. "
I truly was an observer.

Maybe writing is indeed my higher purpose. Maybe I'm not meant to be an
insider surrounded by many friends living the overly sociable life.
It's not like trying to be an insider ever did anything for me. In my
quest to maintain friendships I made my writing secondary. I woke up to
find out that their lives kept moving forward and mine kinda stood
still. They became "busy" and I became the loser that still called
regularly living a rather ordinary existence. What the hell was I
thinking?

With my depression diagnosis I had to face that my thoughts put me
there and my thoughts would also get me out. I had to make time to
focus on what I wanted and come to terms with myself as an outsider.
I'll probably always be on the fringes, some one that doesn't totally
fit in. I am the product of that little girl that went to a new school
every year. Although I have lifelong friends, there is most likely
going to be a revolving door of acquaintances. Is that bad? Do I really
need to feel like I'm in the center of some great big community that I
can turn to? How much of this living have I done by myself anyway?

With the wrong friends comes the influence that makes me want to keep
up with the Joneses when that's not even my personality type. I don't
want to live in a condo. I've never been interested in owning a house.
As long as I have the things that I need, I could care less where I
live. Being an insider puts me in line for the lectures on why I should
want more of what they have. Why I shouldn't be single. Why I should
feel inferior because I'm not pretty enough, rich enough, quiet enough,
loved enough and all the judgements that I never paid attention to when
I kept my eyes on the goal -- being a writer. Plus my real friends
would never make me feel like that.

My higher purpose is my writing. My gift is my writing. It's a gift to
people who want to escape. People who want to survive. People who want
to be inspired. People who want to learn something about how others
live, love and whatever else I want to make it. My writing has to be my
priority, my focus, taking me step by step by step to my highest good.
It's the only time I've ever truly been happy within my life.

Wayne Dyer calls it living an inspired life. I want to feel good. I
want to live an inspired life and dammit I'm going to do that starting
today. ha ha

Well my above thoughts are more than a little rambling but a start on
the focus of what I want for the EY Page. Writing2live. Living an
inspired life. Living my dreams. My mistakes in the process and past
failures in my mind. What I've learned and what works for me now. Who
says I know anything anyway?

Oma's Advice

Monday 24Apr06 10pm

I always believed I would marry. My dream was to have three children -
two boys because I really like boys and a daughter as a middle child
because every woman should have a daughter. I wanted her as the middle
child so she wouldn't really suffer from middle child syndrome
sandwiched between two boys. The older boy would be special because he
was the first boy and the youngest boy would be special because he was
the baby. I had it all figured out.

Now at 42 years old and no biological clock to speak of, I believe I
may eventually live with someone and children are not in the cards
unless I adopt. I still wish I made enough money to adopt Justin ( a
child I worked with when I was a Child and Youth Worker) 13 years ago.
Justin is 25 years old now and I've lost track of him.

As a child when I said I wanted to be a writer my family told me that
it was a nice hobby but I needed to choose a career. I've wandered
aimlessly trying to find a career that could support my writing hobby.
Through the stress of dysfunctional co-workers and often borderline
abusive bosses I'd nearly given up on my dream. People, friends, family
members, will tell you things to help you to avoid the pain they've
lived through. They tell you things because they love you. Most times
they are best to follow their own advice and stay the heck out of your
dreams.

My mother always wanted to be a country singer like Charley Pride
(first African American to play the Grand Ole Opry). I know she wanted
me to be financially secure. She couldn't have known that I would feel
broken, not knowing what I wanted to do other than writing of course.

My Oma (Dutch for Grand mother) was the only adult that liked that I
wanted to be a writer and she encouraged my dream. She gave me my first
writing magazine at the time called, "Canadian, Author and Bookman."
She told me that she had to give up her dream to be a housewife and
care for her husband and children. There was a sigh that said that
despite the joy her children and grandchildren gave her , if things
were different, things would be different.

With her biological grand children she always encouraged marriage. The
discussions were about what jewelery would be passed down to them prior
to their weddings. She encouraged me, on the other hand, to wait until
later in life before I got married. There was more than enough time.
"You don't want to give up your dreams because of a man."

Considering how old fashioned her beliefs were her advice to me was
like she could see into my future. I was going to be a late bloomer or
better yet I was going to follow my own self imposed norm. I never
could understand the expectation that a woman should be a constant
follower to her husband's every whim. I couldn't understand how a woman
had to subtly manipulate a man into believing that he had come up with
an idea that she had actually come up with. All those games were tiring
to me. I couldn't stand that my brother got special privileges because
he was a boy there was no way that I was going to live with a man who
made all the decisions.

Had I married young I probably would have given up on writing
altogether. Had I started out as a writer without the multitude of jobs
and experiences I've had I definitely wouldn't have the ideas I have
now.

Favorite Books

Monday 24April06 9:12pm

Favourite Books to Re-read:
The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker

Five Smooth Stones by Ann Fairbairn

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Favourite Writing Handbooks
Writing the Natural Way by Gabrielle Lusser Rico

Writing Down the Bones by Nathalie Goldberg

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray

30 Ways to Help You Write by Fran Weber Shaw (out of print but can buy it through
Abe Books link

Wild Mind by Nathalie Goldberg

Favourite Inspirational Books

Creating Money by Sanaya Roman
Living with Joy by Sanaya Roman
Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
Sanaya Roman link

The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer

Ask and It is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks
Esther and Jerry Hicks link

Seth Book 1,2 & 3 by Esther and Jerry Hicks

Conversation with God Books by Neale Donald Walsch

Books - What I'm Reading

Sunday 23April06 10:17pm

Personal
The Circle - How the power of a single wish can change your life - By
Laura Day

Research
On The Breath Of The Gods by Ariel Tomioka
- research for novel in progress tentatively titled The Fold (3019)

The Uses of Enchantment - The meaning and importance of Fairy Tales -
by Bruno Bettelheim
Dreamways of the Iroquois - honoring the secret wishes of the soul - by
Robert Moss
- both books - research for novel in progress tentatively titled
Dreamweaver (Life's Miracles)

For General Writing
Writing Fiction - A guide to Narrative Craft - by Janet Burroway
Setting by Jack M. Bickham

I always have a few books on the go.

Disappearing Acts

Sunday 23April06 9:28pm
I feel restless. I feel like I could pick up and leave without a word.
I've been sleeping too much and my energy level is just above zero. If
I could, I'd sleep until this malaise went away. It could be a low
grade depression or just a throw back.

I've always had this element of my character, a need to run away,
disappear. It's something that comes up periodically whether I have
problems, conflicts or not. It's a throwback to my childhood, the
running away from my father. The only consistency was the knowledge
that my mother, brother and I would be moving soon - no matter where we
lived. We never stayed in one place for too long after we left my
violent father.

I went to three different elementary schools when I was in grade three
because we moved three times not including the times we moved outside
of the school year. In one of the schools I even told my teacher and
classmates that they could call me Lynne because there were two other
Shelley's in my class.

My mother was pissed that I would volunteer to be the one that changed.
I didn't understand her anger. It wasn't like I could describe what
home was since it changed so frequently and with almost clock like
regularity. What difference did it make if people called me Shelley or
Lynne?

I went from a personable outgoing little girl who had the same friends
in Kindergarten, Grade One, and Grade Two to an introverted person just
shy of developing a stutter. I couldn't make eye contact with anyone. I
was the turtle sticking its soft fleshy head into its hard shell at the
first sign of danger. I knew it was dangerous to answer personal
questions. It was dangerous to get too comfortable or too close because
in time I would disappear forever from their lives. I discovered early
that solitaire was the game I'd have to play.

The benefit of the constant moves was the guarantee that should a
problem arise with a classmate I wouldn't have to worry about making
amends or worse tolerate a mean child who punished me for some imagined
wrong doing.

In my third school in grade three, I had a crush on Andy, the cutest
boy in the class. he was always friendly and sometimes walked part of
the way home with me because we walked in the same direction.

Sunita, another classmate, called me at home one evening to tell me
that she believed that Andy had a crush on me too. I couldn't believe
it. Sunita convinced me that, "he always talks to you, he walks home
with you after school."

She had me. She added a few more juvenile instances of why I should
believe. She promised me that she would talk to him, tell him that I
liked him and from here on in I'd be the envy of all the girls in our
class.

The next day I walked into the school yard giddy with anticipation. I
waved to Sunita. She elbowed Andy and pointed my way. Andy looked at me
and made a face as if just by looking at me he could smell shit. The
anticipation changed to a need to flee. I think I went home sick that
day. When I found the courage days later I told Sunita that it didn't
matter what Andy thought of me because I was moving anyway.

That lie circulated my class before the day was out and even made it
back to my mother as a note from my teacher in my report card, two
months later, at the end of the school year. My teacher wrote about how
much she enjoyed having me in her class and knew I would be well liked
at my new school where ever I moved to.

"Why did you tell them we're moving when we're not?" My mother asked.

I shrugged my shoulders too embarrassed to say. By the beginning of
grade four we lived in a new apartment and I started yet another new
school.

I notice that today both my brother and I have a shared rootlessness
and lack of commitment. I've improved, mind you. I've lived in the same
apartment now for 15 years. But every so often I'm overwhelmingly
restless and if I didn't have quite as large a collection of books and
music I'd slip away, disappear out of people's lives and call myself
Lynne.

Late Bloomers

23April06
A woman I've worked with for ten years at my part-time job has handed
in her resignation. She was called a lifer by many because no one
could ever foresee her leaving her position. In a week she'll be
walking off into the sunshine of the possibilities of a newer and
better job with better pay and opportunities to travel.

It's funny how life works sometimes. People see someone in a job for a
long time and they can't see the possibility of that person leaving.
People see someone as being consistently single and they see that
person with pity and that ever unspoken question of, "what's wrong with
her that she can't get a man?"

It's hard to be a late bloomer, you know, one of those people that
doesn't get married young or never moves in with her first serious
boyfriend. Most people can't see past what your life looks like right
now. Is it a lack of imagination or belief? I don't know how many times
I've endured that question, "Have you met anyone yet?"

And if the answer is no, there is that pitying silence, that
implication that there is something wrong with me because I haven't
walked down the street and run into the one like some kind of freak
accident.

It's interesting because often the people that are asking the same old
tired question are in unhappy relationships. After they've let me stew
in the uncomfortable silence of almost making me feel obligated to
justify my singleness they'll turn around and say, "Sometimes it's
better not being in a relationship."

If you really believe that then why do you keep asking me if I've met
someone yet? I meet lots of someone's but it doesn't mean i want to
take it much further than that.

Of all the men I've dated through out my dateable years I couldn't see
myself with all that I know today, remaining with any of them. Should I
really have stayed with one of them so I wouldn't have to be single? I
honestly don't think so. I'd either have an ulcer or a rash all over my
body. If I have too many sleepless nights, develop a mysterious rash or
can't keep my food down repeatedly I look for what in my life is
causing my psychosomatic sickness. And dump the guy. But that's just
me.

I had a chat recently with a friend who has basically left his marriage
except he's forgotten to tell his wife. He's afraid to say that he
wants to break up because of the possibility of a messy divorce. I
would hate to be in that relationship. I would hate to think that the
man lying beside me doesn't want to be lying beside me but is too
scared to leave because he doesn't want the messyness that can come
with endings. But with endings comes the inevitable beginning.

He's a gorgeous guy too fully trained by his wife to be sensitive to
women's needs. ha ha! I'd date him if he was single.

Maybe the man I'm supposed to meet is still shaking like a fraidy cat
too scared to leave what he's got. How many people do you know that are
in relationships that they should have left eons ago?

Maybe the so-called single problem is like the economy. The more people
spend the better the economy is. The more people get out of stale
relationships and take the chance on being single the better the
options. You never know.

In the meantime, my work friend starts her new job in just over a week.
I told her, "you're life is going to change drastically and for the
better." In a few years all the naysayers will forget that they called
her a lifer and they'll still be sitting at that same job talking about
someone else. I cheer her with happy envy knowing that another late
bloomer has proven them all wrong.

National Novel Writing Month in November of each year

13April06
I just realized that I finally had a use for this image. If you are a writer and you have balls of steel check out http://www.nanowrimo.org
before November.